They called me THE PUPPETEER 2 (The Puppets of Washington Book 6)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1As Mark and I walked through the door, we saw Aziz wearing the carpet of the hotel lobby down to bare threads. “Finally! Good God, Talya, Khalid is waiting for us to disappear somehow – but how?” he blurted, handing Mark’s phone to him.

“Did he say anything else?” Mark asked.

“Just that you should call CSIS and get a rundown on a Monsieur Bourdon – apparently this guy is a new character in the play and Khalid wants to know who he’s dealing with.”

“All right, let’s get out of here. I’ll call from the launch.”

“What about...?”

“Not now, Aziz.” Mark was visibly irritated with their doctor’s inquisition.

“Did he sound all right?” I asked Aziz impatiently. “In a few words; Khalid sounded as a Prince ready to do battle would.”

I had to smile at the comparison. Because Khalid’s commanding presence and speech sometimes could be overwhelming to the unknowing interlocutor, I suspected that Aziz got an earful a few minutes earlier.

Given that we had no luggage and nothing to laden our stride, we reached the launch quickly. Aziz took the wheel while Mark and I sat facing each other. The sun was high above the horizon already and the heat was beating down on us.

As we were heading down the inlet at reasonable speed to avoid the pounding of the waves, all at once I saw the second trawler. I didn’t recognize it as such momentarily. Since there are many trawlers and boats of all kinds travelling these waters on any given day, I hadn’t paid attention to this particular vessel. Yet, there it was, coming straight at us. Aziz swerved to avoid it. The sudden jerk had been so strong that it wrenched me off my seat. I tumbled onto the floorboards just in time to hear the whizzing sound of a bullet pass near my ear. I had no time to think.

“Stay down,” I heard Mark scream at me. I flattened myself and put my hands over my head.

When I felt the boat resume a steady pace, I slowly removed my hands from atop my head and glanced furtively at Aziz. He was smiling down at me calmly. Nothing would shake this guy out of his skin. Even hearing shots being fired around him didn’t seem to faze him one bit. I returned the smile and turned to see what Mark had been up to. The reason for his silence dawned on me in an instant – he had been hit. He was slumped on the bench bleeding from his butt. I burst out in hysterical laughter. It must have been a reaction from the shock. Some of my friends would say, “Talya, you’re awful.” Aziz looked over his shoulder in Mark’s direction and realized why I was laughing.

“Take the wheel, will you? I’ve got to get him on the floor. He must have passed out... and I’ve got to stop the bleeding...”

“Go, go...,” I yelled as I stood up and took the wheel from Aziz. When I did, the first thing I noticed was the trawler coming back at us at full speed. Although the launch was much faster than the trawler was, and much more manoeuvrable, I would have had a hard time, in such a short distance, to avoid it ploughing us into smithereens, but I wasn’t going to let it pass us all guns blazing either. In a jerk, I turned the wheel 180 degrees and backtracked, leaving our pursuer at liberty to catch up to us, which I knew it couldn’t do. The only problem with this was that they were now heading in the wrong direction – north instead of south towards the St. Johns River.

I veered to the right this time and got as near to the beach as I could, knowing that a trawler’s hull sinks much deeper into the water than that of a launch, so it couldn’t come close enough for anyone aboard even to take aim at us. Now, and as I wanted, I was heading south. However, the speed at which our launch was travelling was creating a spray behind us that was showering every other craft in its wake. I was trying my best to keep from hitting anyone, but unfortunately, some of the numerous wind-surfers had to take a quick dip to avoid us, nonetheless. I heard screams from them as well as a few chosen unwelcome words. Luckily, there aren’t any bathers on that side of Amelia Island, so I was sure I hadn’t chopped anybody’s head off (yet).

Meanwhile, I resumed riding the waves, literally, at a more reasonable speed and drove the launch into quiet waters so that Aziz could attend to his new patient. The latter had regained consciousness and was swearing his head off. I didn’t think he was swearing from the pain, though, rather from the indignation he had sustained. Cats are very proud usually, and Mark was no exception. Being shot in the butt was totally undignified for an agent of Mark’s caliber.

“You could always tell anyone who asks that you were covering my butt when you got shot,” I yelled over my shoulder.

“Don’t you start...! Ouch...! Will you just get on with it and stop fondling my rear-end, you miserable butcher?” Mark shouted, while Aziz was trying to evaluate the damage as delicately as he could.

“And if you’d stopped jiggling like a bloody eel I would have done it already. Just hang on a minute, I’ve got to see if there is anything in there...”