crunch, and suddenly the barrel lid flew away.
Cluzet’s smiling, farm-boy face peered down at Jack, the harsh sodium mast light forming a filthy halo around his head.
“Get him out,” Cluzet said to someone out of sight.
Moments later, rough hands seized him by the arms, nearly dislocating his shoulders as he was heaved up with cursing grunts. The weighted barrel hardly budged as Jack’s limp legs slammed against the rim; he was too tall to lift out completely. They dropped his feet to the steel plating, but his numbed legs gave way. Jack crashed to the deck.
“Help him up!” Cluzet shouted.
Jack shook his head, trying to clear it, but that was a mistake. He swore he felt his brain rattle against his skull as the Spaniard and the German hauled him upright and held him in place. Jack felt the cool sea breeze on his skin and smelled the tang of salt air. His numb legs suddenly ached and tingled as blood flowed back into them, but he could hardly open his eyes for the light.
“Jack? Can you hear me?” Cluzet asked.
A hand seized Jack by the hair on the crown of his head and jerked his face upward. “Jefe is talking to you,” the Spaniard said.
“Who the hell is Jack?” the younger Ryan asked as he forced his eyes open.
As near as Jack could tell, they stood on the stern of a ship—the Baltic Princess, he assumed. A cloudless sky shone with a million bright stars, and the gleaming half-moon fluoresced the dark ocean. But it was the other barrel with air holes next to Cluzet that Jack’s eyes focused on. It stood on the edge of the deck, where there wasn’t any rail.
Cluzet grinned. He held a small pry bar in one hand and scratched his beardless face with the claw, as if thinking. Jack saw the tattoo on the Frenchman’s forearm. A wing with an arm and a sword. The man was a Foreign Legion paratrooper. Or used to be.
A rough customer.
“Jack? Jack!” Liliana’s muffled voice echoed in the barrel, the steel thudding with her impotent punches.
“You see? She keeps calling for Jack. But you? You registered under the name of Paul Gray at the hotel, and your passport photo matches your face. I’m so confused.”
“Don’t worry about me. Do you know who she is?”
“Ah, oui, certainement. Her name is Liliana Pilecki and she’s with the Polish ABW. Correct?”
Jack didn’t bother to answer. His blurry eyes caught sight of a big, bearded man standing off to the side. He wore beige maritime coveralls with captain’s epaulets on the shoulders of his jacket.
Cluzet grinned like a horse. “And she is your woman, yes, Jack? A very beautiful woman.”
The German and the Spaniard chuckled.
“So who are you, Jack?”
“What the fuck do you want?”
Cluzet smashed the pry bar into the barrel lid, his eyes raging.
“I ask the questions here, friendo. Not you.”
The strong fingers meshed in Jack’s hair tightened, almost ripping it out.
“Tell me she’s safe, and I’ll tell you who I am.”
Cluzet dropped the pry bar. It clattered to the deck as he whipped around and put both hands on the top of the barrel and began tipping it over the side.
Liliana screamed.
“ALL RIGHT! I’LL TELL YOU WHO I AM!”
Cluzet let the barrel fall back into place with a clang and snatched up the pry bar again.
“Tell me your name, Jack. Your full name. And don’t lie. I’ll know it.”
“My name is John Patrick Ryan . . . Junior. Jack is short for John.”
Cluzet shrugged slightly. “See, Jack? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“And who are you?”
“Oh, there you go, asking questions again.” Cluzet turned toward Liliana’s barrel.
“Stop! Please. Won’t happen again.”
Cluzet grinned. “I’m just playing with you, John Patrick Ryan, Jr. But what am I to do with her? Or with you?”
“She’s a federal agent of the Polish government. If you kill her, they will hunt you down.”
Cluzet turned to the captain, still standing in the back, and said to him, “You see? Now, that’s impressive!”
Captain Voroshilov answered with a smiling nod.
The ex-paratrooper whipped back around and pointed at Jack.
“Any other man in your position would have said anything to save themselves. But not you. You could have said you are an American citizen or that you have powerful friends like Senator Hendley to protect you. But you didn’t. Why not, I wonder?”
Another binary grin flashed across the boyish face. “CIA, perhaps? Or DEA?”
Jack didn’t bother to answer.
“No, I think not, Jack. Security types work in teams. But you