Page 9 of The Last Kingdom

God bless Pappy.

Rounds kept zipping by.

One of those stray bullets could eventually find flesh. That was the thing about automatic weapons. Aim meant nothing. Just send enough metal toward a target and some of it almost always hit the mark.

He stayed down, but kept watch on the ferry and on Christophe’s progress to get them off this damn water.

* * *

COTTON HELD TO HIS COURSE AND WAS RAPIDLY COMING BETWEENthe two boats. Luke’s was nearing the shore, and the pursuer kept firing. He’d served in the Navy for a number of years, mainly as a fighter pilot and a lawyer, but there’d been a couple of tours at sea. Never, though, had he piloted a large craft. But, thankfully, the lake was a wide-open expanse with plenty of room to maneuver without fear of hitting anything.

Except—

He spun the wheel hard left and swung the big ferry’s stern around, generating a huge wake that quickly swept toward the boat firing on Luke. In the penumbra of the ferry’s floodlights he saw the craft slow to avoid the oncoming wave. Two men stood in the small V-hull, one holding an automatic rifle. Both were trying to maintain their balance as the boat caught the swell that swept past. Cotton closed the gap and brought the ferry’s starboard side close to the bobbing craft. He then shifted the throttle to neutral and fled the bridge, scampering down the steps and back through the passenger’s compartment.

The five people there looked concerned.

“Nothing to worry about,” he told them. “The captain will be awake in a few minutes.”

He kept going, exiting out the rear door onto the open deck. He eased back toward the bow along the starboard side down a narrow walk. The ferry bobbed in the water, as did the small craft below that kept banging into the hull.

He hopped atop the gunwale.

Waited for the right moment.

Then leaped down.

Chapter 5

DERRICK KOGER LOWERED THE NIGHT VISION GOGGLES.

He’d watched with interest as Luke Daniels had made his way back to the dock and fled with his two compatriots. He stood a kilometer away on another island in the Chiemsee. And where Herreninsel Island, with its Augustinian monastery and massive royal palace, signified a male refuge, he’d established a base on the smaller Fraueninsel, the woman’s island, named after the convent that had stood there since the eighth century.

Thirty nuns still called the convent home, the abbess an old friend who’d allowed him the privilege of utilizing one of the olden building’s towers as an observation point. He’d devoted the better part of his adult life to the Central Intelligence Agency, starting as a junior field officer and working his way up to his current so-called exalted position as chief of special operations, Europe. He’d been around the intelligence business a long time. Taking chances was not something he’d ever shied away from and risk was just part of the job.

Like tonight.

Which had been all about taking chances. But he loved when things came together. It brought a measure of satisfaction to his anxious soul.

He raised the goggles back to his eyes.

And saw Cotton Malone standing on the lighted dock.

He smiled.

Captain America had done his job.

He would have expected no less.

Then he heard a distantrat-tat-tat.

Like firecrackers.

He scanned the lake and spotted a small boat with two occupants in pursuit of Luke. Back to the dock and he saw Malone leap onto the big ferry that was easing away from the dock.

Whoa. None of this was part of the plan.

Which seemed the story of his life. Wonderful highs, miserable lows. The worst coming a decade back when he’d ordered several al-Qaeda senior leaders waterboarded. Torture? Probably. Nothing about it was humane. But his orders were clear. Get information, however necessary. Per procedure the entire “interrogation” had been videotaped. But, as field supervisor, he’d ordered the tape destroyed to protect the identity of the interrogators.