Odessa Sea (Dirk Pitt 24)

Mansfield stood at the wheel with an anxious look. “Well?”

Martina pointed up the river. “They’re on the tour boat.”

45

The Sir Francis Drake was one of the larger boats to ply the Thames River tourist trade, covering the waterway from Kew Gardens in west London to Greenwich in the east. Featuring an indoor café and a topside bar, the triple-deck tour boat could seat a thousand sightseers. But on this cloudy summer weekday, she carried fewer than three hundred passengers.

An inebriated holidaymaker from Yorkshire helped pull Summer onto the open stern deck.

“Welcome aboard, love,” he said, giving her a lecherous gaze. “Join me for a drink?”

Dirk was quick to intervene. “Come along, dear.” He took her by the arm that still clutched the blue binder and pulled her forward.

Summer feigned disappointment for the drunk’s benefit. “Perhaps another time.”

She followed her brother through a swinging door that led into the lower deck’s enclosed salon. They ignored a Private—Reserved for the McIntyre Company placard at the entrance and stepped down the main aisle. The bay was filled with workers from a local high-tech firm enjoying an excursion on the founder’s birthday. Well-dressed employees ate cake and drank beer and wine while looking out the window as the Palace of Westminster came into view. A hired photographer snapped a flash photo of Dirk and Summer as they tried to pass a standing throng and make for the forward stairwell.

While everyone was looking forward out the portside window toward Big Ben, Dirk peered upriver. The First Attempt still drifted in the center of the river. But the speedboat was accelerating past her bow toward the tour boat.

Summer hailed a passing busboy. “Can you tell me when the boat will stop next?”

The busboy glanced out the window. “We should tie up to the London Bridge City Pier in about five minutes.”

“And where will we exit the boat?”

“The Lido, or second-deck level. I think it will be the portside gangway.”

Summer considered the corporate group, then turned to her brother. “I have an idea. Get up to the top deck and make yourself seen by the speedboat. Then slip down to the Lido deck and meet me at the gangway when we dock.”

Dirk nodded. “Save me a piece of cake.”

“I had a beer in mind.”

He ran up the forward staircase to the open top deck, then worked his way to the aft rail and watched the speedboat approach the side of the Drake.

Martina made eye contact with him as she stood on the speedboat’s passenger seat. Mansfield bumped the boat against the Drake, and Martina leaped for its side rail.

The drunken Yorkshireman was still there to grab her arm a

nd help her across the rail. “My heavens, a second angel from the deep. What’s your name, my lovely?”

Martina’s answer was a knee to the groin that sent the man and his beer sprawling across the deck. By the time he regained his feet, Martina was scampering up the external stairwell. She stepped onto the upper level as the Drake sounded its horn.

The deck vibrated beneath her feet as the tour boat briefly reversed power, slowing its approach to a wooden dock that extended into the river. Half of the seated tourists rose to their feet and crowded toward the stairs as a loudspeaker announced their arrival at London Bridge City Pier.

Martina filtered her way through the crowd, searching for the tall dark-haired man, but Dirk was nowhere to be seen.

She descended the forward stairwell and met a mob of tourists and McIntyre employees who crowded against the portside rail, waiting for the boat to dock. Near the front of the line, she spotted Dirk and Summer, both standing nearly a head taller than the elderly passengers around them. She retrieved her handheld radio and pressed it to her lips. “They are exiting the boat. Get to shore.”

Mansfield was already scouring the pier for a place to tie up. He found an open berth and drove the speedboat alongside.

A dockworker in a blue jumpsuit saw him approach and ran to the water’s edge. “I’m sorry, sir, but no private mooring is allowed. This pier is for licensed tourist boats only.”

Mansfield ignored the man’s comments as he tied up the boat and climbed onto the dock.

“I’m with Scotland Yard on a security matter,” he said. He reached into his pocket and extended to the man a hundred-pound note. “Can you watch my boat for a few minutes?”

The dockworker looked up and down the pier to make sure he wasn’t being observed, then snatched the bill. “Glad to, sir. She’ll be waiting right here for you when you return.”