‘Dive,’ she screamed to her son. ‘Dive deep, Nicky, now!’
Nikos was gunning the trawler towards the shore with a speed he’d never pushed it to before. He was yelling uselessly into the radio.
His men were out from their cover, yelling towards the speedboat.
Running down the cliff face, along the beach.
Too late. Too late.
And then the boat was spinning, making a one hundred and eighty degree turn almost on its own axis, and where there’d been woman and child there was nothing.
He was so close…So close…
The wash of the speedboat as it turned had churned the waves, making it impossible to see. It must have hit them square on. There was no sign of them, nothing…
The boat was screaming back past him. One of the hooded figures in the boat had a gun. Nikos saw it, he jerked sideways and felt the zing of a bullet, just touching his cheek.
The other figure grabbed his companion, gesticulating back at the water where they’d come from. Deciding whether to sweep in again.
There was still no sign of them…Dear God, there was no sign.
Nikos was where he’d last seen them now, searching the water. Men were still yelling from the beach. Yelling at him. Yelling at the speedboat. He glanced aside, half expecting it to scream in once more.
Men were wading into the shallows. His men were armed. He saw Zeb raise his rifle and fire.
It was enough. The speedboat’s motor screamed to full throttle and it blasted its way out of the cove and around the headland and away.
He didn’t see it go. He wasn’t looking for the boat.
He was looking for his Thena and he was looking for his son.
Nicky was better than she was at this game. They’d played it over and over-who could go furthest underwater. For the last six months he’d been able to go almost a quarter length of the pool further than she could.
He was one bright kid and he’d caught the urgency. He was pushing himself through the water beside her, at right angles to the boat, towards the rocks.
She’d go as far as he would. She’d go…
Not as far.
She shoved him away from her, gesticulated for him to keep going, and she burst upward.
Into sunlight.
Into air.
The noise of the boat was receding. Instead she heard the heavy thrum of a bigger engine.
She wouldn’t go down again. Nicky would surface in seconds-dear God, please let him get far enough away so she could distract whoever it was…the maniac…
A boat was coming nearer. Not a speedboat. Something much bigger. Much more solid.
A fishing boat.
Nikos.
She was there. He saw her surface, glance at his trawler, look frantically around, searching for the threat, searching for her son.
Hell, where was Nicky? The propeller…He cut the motor to silence.
The men on the beach were still shouting.
‘Thena,’ he called, and she swung round to face him.
‘Nicky,’ she screamed, and her voice was filled with terror.
But thirty yards away the surface of the water broke. A child’s face popped up.
‘Miles further,’ he yelled to his mother.
And then he burst into tears.
It took him seconds to haul them up, Nicky first, hugging him hard and fast, and Thena after. He hauled her on board, she slithered out of his arms and grabbed Nicky and she held him as if she’d never let go. He looked at them both-Thena and his son-and his world changed.
His trawler was wallowing in the swell close to shore. It’d be grounded if he let it drift any further. It didn’t matter-who cared about a boat? He crouched on the deck with them. He put his arms around them and held.
And he knew…
Whatever else happened, whatever Thena decided, whatever course things took from this day, this was his family.
A month ago he’d had his mother and he had Christa.
Now he had Thena and Nicky to love and to cherish as well, and he’d never let them go again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS impossible to downplay the seriousness of what had just happened. Or how miserably his measures to keep them safe had failed.
Men were waiting for him on the shore-grim-faced men whose instructions had been to protect this pair and they’d missed an obvious threat.
But it hadn’t been an obvious threat. This could never be traced to Demos, he thought. This boat had come from nowhere and had gone to nowhere. It could be traced to no one. Even if Thena and Nicky had died today, it would have been written off as a tragedy. A fool in a fast boat…
A fool who’d gone to lengths not to be recognised. A fool with a lethal boat and a gun…
They’d been lucky. So lucky. That these two could swim like fish and that he’d been there…
There was a jetty by the headland at the side of the cove. He took the boat in and the men were ready to catch his mooring lines, to tell him they’d seen the boat coming and tried to radio him but it had been too late, too late.
They were appalled.
He’d thought Demos was capable of anything to get the Crown. No one had really believed him.
Thena hadn’t believed him.
She believed him now. Her face said she knew exactly how close she’d come.
‘We’ll get you up to the palace,’ he said gruffly. He put out a hand to help her to her feet.
She didn’t take it.
She was trembling. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her for ever. But she was backing away.
‘We’re okay,’ she said stiffly. ‘Nicky, are you okay? Can you walk?’
‘Of course I can.’ Nicky was recovering more quickly than his mother. Maybe because he hadn’t seen the threat for what it really was. ‘They were fools,’ he said now, indignant. ‘They should know not to go so fast near a beach. Can you have them arrested?’
‘If they’re found,’ Nikos said. ‘Though I don’t have the power to arrest anyone on this island. Your mother can, though.’
She flashed him a look containing a mixture of fear and anger.
‘Don’t you dare say that. This is it, Nikos. We’re going home.’
‘The threat will follow you.’
‘It won’t. We have police in Manhattan.’
‘Demos is rich. He can pay…’
‘I don’t care. I’m not listening. I won’t listen.’
‘Thena, we’ll leave this,’ he said softly and he took her hands whether she liked it or not. ‘You can’t take this in now. Let my men take you up to the palace. I’ll meet you there.’
