Page 85 of The Atlas Maneuver

A woman from his past.

She still wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

She considered herself lucky to have found someone like Cotton. He was a few years older, tall, broad-shouldered, sandy-blond hair, blessed with a handsome face full of character. His green eyes seemed to always captivate her, as did his fight to keep the depth of his feelings to himself, which had clearly become harder and harder for them both to achieve. Once there’d been a time when she’d wanted no one to invade her world. When she became angry at her own weaknesses and her heart rebelled. They’d even broken up for a while. But she’d decided not to make the mistake again of thinking she could live without him. She could not. She loved him.

And he her.

He would not be happy with what she was about to do. But as he’d said on more than one occasion,Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.At the moment dealing with the two men in the boat was the priority. Where things led from there was anybody’s guess. But that was the great thing about an adventure. Whether it be in life or love.

You simply never knew how it would end.

Another deep breath and she submerged.

She wielded the speargun with her right hand. With her left she released the weight belt at her waist, which made her much more buoyant. She turned, facing the boat, which floated about ten meters away, and pointed the speargun. Fear played havoc with her mind, but she’d learned over the years how to control it. Using the fins she kicked hard and powered upward, breaking the surface, her upper body momentarily freeing the gun from the water.

“Hey,” she yelled.

Both Citrone and the man with the gun turned.

She pulled the trigger and the spear zipped through the air and impaled the man with the gun. She tossed her weapon aside as she slipped back into the water and dove, swimming hard back under the two boats to the far side of the other one.

She heard shots.

Rounds ripped into the water behind her.

Damn. Citrone was firing at her.

He’d regret that.

She swam hard, fighting to keep panic down and maintain a smooth steady stroke. Her lungs burned and she barely felt the cold as she made her way back to the other boat, freed the fins from her feet, and surfaced where Citrone could not see her. The two boats blocked his field of vision. She carefully made her way to the stern and climbed aboard, slipping the mask from her face. Citrone was in his boat, his back to her, studying the water where she was last seen. This guy may know a lot about stolen gold and the Bank of St. George, but he was a lousy field operative.

She straightened her legs and felt the solid deck beneath her feet, making her way across the one rocking boat and onto Citrone’s.

The big man was still oblivious to her presence. The wet suit minimized any dripping and the weather added additional coverage for sound. She came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

He whirled around and she planted a fist into his face.

Citrone released his grip on the gun, which clattered to the deck, shrieking in pain as blood gushed from his nostrils.

She retrieved the weapon and asked, “Where’s Koger?”

CHAPTER 47

KELLY STEPPED FROM THE CAR.

They’d driven straight to the EuroAirport, which lay north of Basel, across the Rhine River into France. The woman who’d retrieved her had said little after revealing a few tidbits about her daughter, surely more bait designed to keep her on the hook.

The whole thing about everything being her choice?

She could walk away?

Just more enticement.

She had to wonder if what she’d been told about her daughter’s physical appearance was true or false. But she had no choice. That mistake, made so long ago, had to be rectified. She’d been told at the time that there were positive feelings that came from giving a child up for adoption—relief, gratitude, acceptance—but none of that held a candle to the grief.

There was a definite loss.

She read once that feelings of grief were activated in the same areas of the brain associated with pain. And that was right. For her the loss began with the unplanned pregnancy, which came out of nowhere. She’d thought an IUD enough protection, but she’d been wrong. She’d had such plans for her life, none of which involved a child. An abortion had been considered but by the time she’dlearned of the baby many weeks had passed, making it no longer a viable option. So she rationalized things by convincing herself that an adoption would result in a better life for the baby. Unfortunately her parents were both dead and she had no siblings. She’d been alone with both the decision and its aftermath.