Caspian wasn’t sure whether to feel grateful or cursed.
She’d been shot in Bordeaux and stabbed in Istanbul. Two different cities, two different operations.
And both had nearly killed her.
He sighed. Either someone upstairs had their hand on her shoulder ... or she was running out of time. Now, it was up to him to figure out who had ordered Sofie Bergmann killed, who had taken Paul Hobb, and why.
And step one was right here in Valencia. He would find out who had charteredVeloceand go from there.
Caspian adjusted his shirt as he rounded the rear of the Audi, ensuring it draped cleanly over the concealed Kydex holster at the small of his back where the Wilson Combat SFX9 was secured. Whoever had staged the Q5 for him had done it right. Not just with the pistol but with the extra magazines, the suppressor, the industrial zip ties, and a lockpick kit that had been neatly stowed into the low-profile backpack that now hung over his shoulders. He hadn’t taken a spare magazine with him because he hadn’t liked the printing through his jeans. The SFX9 held sixteen rounds—fifteen in the magazine and one in the chamber. If he needed more than that today, then this operation had already gone sideways.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t need any.
Like it had been in Port de Sóller, the streets were alive with the kind of crowd that masked threats well. There were plenty of families wandering around with strollers, tourists photographing anything and everything, and local cyclists weaving through selfie takers along the boardwalk. Caspian walked at a casual pace. His eyes, hidden behind a pair of polarized lenses, moved constantly but never paused too long on anything.
Just before he reached the Marina Beach Club Restaurant, his peripheral vision tagged a figure.
A lone man was seated on a bench beneath a palm tree that bordered the public footpath, right in front of a children’s playground. The man’ssunglasses made it impossible for Caspian to determine if the man was observing him or not. Caspian looked around, searching for anything else that would trigger his suspicion. But nothing did. The man had no obvious support, but Caspian had been in the field long enough to know that a good surveillance team was hard to spot.
He filed the man’s face, his clothes, and his posture into his mental Rolodex, and kept walking. The brokerage office was housed in a modern ground-floor space between a strip of restaurants and the towering concrete elegance of Veles e Vents, the striking architectural landmark that had been inaugurated in 2006 as the centerpiece for the thirty-second America’s Cup. To Caspian, the twenty-five-meter-high building loomed over the marina like a maritime control tower.
He didn’t walk straight to the brokerage office. Instead, he ducked into a frozen yogurt stand and ordered a small chocolate cup. He paid cash, left a small tip for the teenager behind the counter, then carried the yogurt to a tall metal table near the sidewalk.
He didn’t anticipate a trap, but that didn’t mean he was about to walk blindly into the office of the broker who had chartered outVeloceeither. Caspian gave himself five minutes to observe the restaurant terraces, the office’s door, and the decks of nearby yachts.
Satisfied his sixth sense hadn’t been tickled, he spooned the last of the yogurt into his mouth and wiped his hands with a napkin. He threw the empty cup into the bin, adjusted the pack on his shoulder, and headed toward the brokerage office.
As he reached for the door, he paused just long enough to scan his surroundings one more time, and that’s when he noticed someone he hadn’t picked up on earlier.
Chapter Forty
Valencia, Spain
From her table on the mezzanine level of the restaurant, Verena Kaine had a perfect line of sight across the promenade and the yacht brokerage firm’s entrance. She stirred a third espresso she didn’t need, her eyes hidden behind her round mirrored sunglasses. She wore a flowing linen shirt over a tank top, and a brimmed hat sat low on her forehead, its front tilted down toward her eyes. She didn’t particularly like the hat, she thought it made her look older than she was, but Mia had insisted on it. When Verena had first tried it on, she’d worn it a bit higher. Mia had shaken her head.
“You know, Vee, even the cherry on top of the fudge sundae needs to be put there with a certain flair, don’t you think?” Mia had said, adjusting the hat. “See? Now it’s better,” she’d continued. “This way, you’re wearing the hat, not the other way around. And it helps cover your face without making it obvious you’re doing so.”
Verena’s phone was on the table beside her coffee, and a fashion magazine was open next to it. To anyone watching, she looked like another tourist killing time while waiting for her overpriced tapas to arrive. The brokerage office had been mostly still for the last thirty minutes. There had been only one visitor, a man in a blue shirt, but he hadn’t stayed more than ten minutes.
She set the spoon at the center of the paper napkin, positioning it parallel to the cup. She made a quick adjustment to the napkin, then angled the cup’s handle with the edge of the table.
Perfect.
Her phone buzzed.Finally.
She read Mia’s text. Things were getting interesting, but a bit scary too. She still didn’t know what to think of Mia Hernandez. Verena adjusted her sunglasses by the bridge, not because they needed to be, but because she just needed something to do with her hands while she thought.
She was usually good at reading people. It had been one of her strengths as a detective. Whether it was nervous energy behind a fake smile, the twitch of a jaw, or the widening of pupils when one of her questions hit too close to the truth, she’d been great at picking apart a suspect. But Mia Hernandez?
That woman was a goddamn cipher.
Verena couldn’t tell if Mia trusted her, liked her, or had already decided she was disposable. And the worst part in all this was that she knew she was in too deep to walk away. Her gaze dropped to the spoon on the napkin. It was still perfectly centered, which was a relief.
Mia had done her job. The broker that Justin Burton had used to handle the charter agreement and the payment was dead. In her last text, Mia had confirmed that the broker, Francisco Morientes, had kept the original charter agreement tied toVeloceat his office. It was now up to Verena to get it and to erase all traces of its existence.
Verena got up, careful not to touch the napkin, and froze mid-movement.
A man was headed straight toward the brokerage firm. She only caught a quick glimpse of his face as he had glanced over his shoulder, but she knew him. Not by name, but from the drone footage over Port de Sóller. She remembered rewinding the video feed over and over, studying the way he moved. She was sure of it. This was the man whohad taken out her team at the restaurant. This was the man who had bested her two security officers, Pam and Oscar, at the beach.
