The Powers That Be

—”

“The quicker it goes to hell. I think they meant the eyes-on-the-ground kind of watching. I doubt those young men—

or that older one—have any idea who’s keeping tabs on them in America,” Judy said.

“Something’s going down,” NiteMaster interrupted, and all eyes in the room watched what unfolded next in complete silence.

JONAS FINISHED the 180-degree turn, then pulled the throttles back, dropping the diesels from a roar to a whispering idle before cutting them completely. He rose, keeping his hands at shoulder level as he turned to face the three Cubans, who’d brought their boat alongside and made it fast to his.

A flick of his eyes to the stern showed no obvious trace of Marcus’s entry into the water—the yacht’s wake had already broken up any ripples.

“Um —Buenas noches, senors. Wie sagen Sie—?Hay un problema? ” Knowing there was a good chance one of the men might speak English, Jonas mixed clumsy Spanish with his native German.

“?No muevase!” Without asking permission, the three men came aboard, the man with the rifle covering him, motioning for him to step away from the captain’s chair and sit in the passenger’s seat, which Jonas did. He eyed the distance to the hidden pistol, then calculated his odds of disarming the officer and holding him hostage. Even though the man was about six feet away, Jonas was confident he could do it in less than two seconds.

The man with the bullhorn stood in front of him, while the third one went belowdecks presumably to search the cabin.

“What are you doing in Cuban territorial waters?”

Jonas let his features go slack in bafflement. “You mean—that is not Florida?” He gestured at the island and the scant lights in the distance.

The officer frowned. “No, you are within our sovereign waters now. Let me see your passport and registration papers.”

Jonas handed over his fake German passport, listing him as one Werner Buehler. His cover for the drop was that of a businessman on vacation, and he played it to the hilt. “Ach du Lieber, my wife will be so upset that I won’t get back in time to meet her tonight. We were supposed to go to the Miami Beach for drinks, and now she will be very angry indeed.”

He kept wringing his hands and rambling like a worried husband as the third man came up from the galley and reported. “No contraband or stowaways aboard.”

“You own such a magnificent vessel?” the officer asked.

“Yes, here are my papers.” Jonas forced a smile, knowing the man’s interest was anything but recreational. “I come to the U.S. every year to fish and sail on the water.”

The officer glanced at Jonas, then around at the boat, addressing his men in rapid Spanish. “This is a wonderful powerboat—it would be very useful against the smugglers.”

One of his men smiled. “Yes, and we could trade up from that piece of shit we’re using now.”

“Then we are agreed.” The third soldier’s eyes flicked to Jonas, who kept an uncertain smile on his face as though he couldn’t understand what was being said. “The only question is what happens to him?”

The officer shrugged. “Too many questions for our leader if we bring in another foreigner to prison. Better that he just have an accident, and then we say we found the abandoned boat out here.”

The officer turned back to Jonas, papers extended. “Well, Mr. Buehler, you are free to go. However, there is the small matter of a fine for crossing into our waters—”

Jonas smiled and nodded so hard he thought his head would fall off. “Ja—si, si, I pay, I pay. One moment, please.”

He reached out for the sheaf of registration papers, taking them from the officer’s hand, but let them slip through his fingers to the deck. “Ach, I am sorry, so clumsy—”

With a thin smile, the officer leaned over to snatch the papers off the deck. As soon as he bent forward, Jonas brought up his knee, smashing it into the man’s face, feeling the man’s nose pulp under the blow and sending him reeling back, clapping his hands to his ruined features.

Jonas immediately turned to the second soldier, who had been bringing his AK-47 down from a sloppy port arms hold. He tried to bring his weapon to bear, but Jonas was already too close and grabbed the barrel, pulling it down even farther. Surprised, the soldier tightened up on the weapon, trying to pull it back to him. As soon as he did that, Jonas lunged forward, striking the bridge of the soldier’s nose with his forehead. The man doggedly clung to his weapon and squeezed the trigger, spraying a long burst of bullets into the night. Jonas butted him in the nose again, breaking it and forcing him to release the rifle. He then jabbed the butt at the soldier’s forehead, dropping him to the deck.

Jonas was about to whirl to take out the third attacker when he felt strong arms clamp around his chest, pinning his own to his sides. Still gripping the rifle, Jonas arced his head back, smashing his skull into the man’s face while kicking back with his heel into the Cuban’s left shin. The dual attack made the soldier release him, and the operative immediately spun and slammed the AK-47’s butt into the man’s solar plexus, staggering him back against the captain’s chair, howling in dismay.

The soldier clawed the Makarov 9 mm pistol out of its holster as Jonas stepped forward and lashed out again, shattering his cheekbone and rendering him unconscious.

Jonas looked around, his hands tight on the assault rifle.

His pulse pounded in his ears as adrenaline coursed through his system. Two soldiers were down and out, but the leader had recovered enough to try for his side arm, making soft, whuffling noises as he bled on the deck.

Stepping over, Jonas brought the butt of the rifle down hard on the man’s head, silencing him. He looked at all three of the Cubans bleeding on his deck and sighed, then grabbed the leader and dragged him on to the other boat, disabling its engine while he was there. He transferred the other two soldiers, then untied the boat and pushed it off.

When the watercraft had floated far enough away, he started his yacht’s engines and pushed the throttle forward until it danced across the waves.

Several miles away, he pitched the AK-47 overboard, then stopped the boat and got out the cleaning supplies.

Before he began cleaning up the mess the three men had left behind, he called in.

“It could have been worse,” he grumbled to himself as he waited for the connection. “At least there are no bullet holes to explain.”

“Wow.”

The simple exclamation, uttered by a slack-jawed El Supremo, summarized everyone’s thoughts. In mere seconds, they had all watched Jonas disable three armed men without getting a scratch. The trio of cyberjocks chattered among themselves while Kate and Judy watched in the background.

“The man certainly can get the job done,” Judy said, her tone pure admiration.

“He wouldn’t be working for us if he couldn’t.” Kate glanced at the three hackers still staring at their screens.

“Gentlemen, give me a status report on our two operatives in the next ten seconds.”

They stopped reviewing Jonas’s moves on a high-definition digital file, and each turned to their separate keyboards.

KeyWiz informed them, “Alpha is heading toward target insertion point at approximately 305 miles per hour. Estimated time of arrival fifty minutes, twenty minutes later than our original estimate, due to being dropped off farther away from destination than planned.”

NiteMaster chimed in next. “Beta has transferred hostiles to their boat and is about to leave the area. Do you wish to transmit any operational orders?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Kate replied.

NiteMaster was really asking if she had wanted to change the operation in any way, including termination of the three men. If Jonas didn’t think he needed to kill them, she wasn’t going to argue. Operatives in the field made split-second, razor’s-edge decisions all the time, and knowing a director was breathing down their neck who would second-guess their every step wouldn’t help anyone.

NiteMaster continued his report. “Beta is proceeding due north at approximately thirty knots per hour. He will