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ABOARD THE SEAHAWK, Holmes threw his binoculars across the cabin. “Dammit! He’s got her! He saw right through us! I knew it!” He was out of his seat, raging around the cabin.

The sharpshooters were crouched on the cabin floor, but with the door angled away from the platform, they had no shot.

Edwards shouted to the pilot. “Connect me to security on the rig!”

The speaker crackled with static from Marple’s body mic. Then Paul’s raspy voice.

“Holmes! Listen to me. If I see one guard coming my way, I will end it for everybody on this platform. You misplayed your hand. You could have given me Agnes and walked away. Now you’ve given me something even better. Marple’s life for my wife, and anything else I desire. But not here. Not now. Later. At a place of my choosing.”

“If you hurt her, I’ll kill you!” Holmes shouted, as if Paul could hear him. Marple’s wire was a one-way connection.

Oliver Paul went on. “You’re not in control right now, Sherlock. I am. So, here’s what I want you to do. I know the FBI is with you. Tell them to contact the platform and roust a crane operator named Danny. Tell him to meet me on the Deck 1 crane platform. Tell them that if Danny doesn’t follow my orders to the letter, everybody dies. Starting with the love of your life.”

CHAPTER 90

MARPLE BLINKED AS she came to. Her head throbbed and she felt a sickening swell in her belly—like she was somehow swinging in midair. Impossible. For a split second, she thought it was an after-effect of the shock.

No! It was really happening.

Wind whipped her hair around her face. Lights blurred in her vision on one side. Darkness on the other. It was hauntingly quiet.

“Hold still, Margaret. It’s a long way down.” Oliver Paul’s voice.

A blast of adrenaline shot through her as she realized exactly where they were—dangling from a crane, countless stories above the water. She was seated, with a strap around her waist connected to a safety line on a minuscule open-sided lift. Paul was crouching behind her with a gun to her head.

Her stomach lurched as the tiny lift swung away from the platform until it dangled like a pendant over the water. Marple grabbed on to a side rope, her heart pounding. She looked down and saw a small supply boat floating below. Her brain was so foggy she could barely comprehend what was happening.

“Where are we?” groaned Marple. “What are we doing?”

“You’re being delivered with care,” said Paul, “like the precious cargo you are.”

Marple looked up. She saw a single cable running from the top of the lift to the boom arm of the crane fifty feet above. She felt a wash of vertigo. The cable was unspooling slowly, dropping them down past the sparkling lights of the oil platform. When she looked out in the other direction, she could see the Seahawk still hovering. She knew Holmes was out there. And Poe. And Edwards. And a pair of trained snipers. But Paul had tucked himself behind her. At the moment, she was his human shield.

Marple’s body ached. Her mind was spinning, searching for a way out. But even if she could break free, she knew she was too woozy to fight.

She looked down again. The deck of the boat was coming up fast. Paul was holding on to a side rope to keep his balance. A few seconds later, just as she pulled her knees to her chest and her feet out of the way, the lift landed with a jarring thud. Paul unclipped the safety lines and dragged Marple off the lift and into a standing position at the boat’s stern. She could see the water rippling just below the transom. Her padding was dislocated now, having shifted around beneath her prison jumpsuit. She felt for the wireless mic inside the fabric. It was gone, ripped out.

“Nobody can hear you anymore, Margaret,” said Paul. “Sorry to break up your little podcast.”

Marple ran her hands over her face. She was sweating. Her makeup came off in streaks. She tried to shake her head clear. Paul pushed the empty lift off the back of the boat and let it swing free. Marple looked forward. There were two other men onboard. One was in the open cockpit behind the wheel. The other was working a winch on the port side, hauling up the anchor chain.

“Let’s go!” shouted Paul. Still close beside Marple, he pressed the gun against her temple.

The man at the winch locked the chain in place. “Anchor away!” he called out. Russian accent.

The man in the cockpit waved his hand in the air in reply. Marple felt the boat surge forward, away from the base of the Aquila and into open water. She could hear the chopper getting closer. Suddenly she heard a hard, wet smack. The man at the winch dropped onto the deck, blood spurting from his neck. Marple’s breath caught in her throat. She glanced toward the cockpit. A loud pop. The second crewman’s head exploded all over the windscreen. The ship swerved and careened back toward the rig. Marple and Paul were jolted back against the transom. Marple looked up. The chopper was heading straight for them. Paul dropped his gun and reached for his watch. “Dammit! I warned you!” Marple grabbed his wrist. He twisted away and pressed the Home button. She elbowed him hard in the neck, knocking him over the stern into the water. The boat was only yards from one of the platform’s massive legs. As Marple lunged toward the cockpit, an explosion ripped through a rig above. Then another. Flames shot out. Oil sprayed like black mist, then ignited with a loud roar as it fell and spread across the Gulf.

Marple stepped over the dead crewman and grabbed the wheel. She cranked it hard as a sheet of flames shot over the water. In seconds, the ship was surrounded by fire. Flames rose over the bow. Marple ducked behind the cowling and covered her head. She heard the pounding of rotors overhead, louder and louder. A spotlight hit her from above and a voice from a loudspeaker shouted her name. “Margaret! Grab on!”

A sling dropped down, banging into the top of the blood-spattered cockpit. No time to step into the harness. Marple just thrust her arms through the straps. Her feet lifted off the deck as the boat drifted into the sea of flames.

As Marple swung out over the water, she could see bulbous orange lifeboats dropping from the Aquila and splashing into the fiery water. The whole rig was glowing with flames and belching black smoke. When Marple was twenty feet up, the supply boat exploded in a violent blast. As the shockwave spun her around, she felt a hard punch on her left side. She looked down and saw a jagged gash in her jumpsuit.

The rotor blast buffeted her as she rose toward the Seahawk’s open door. Two arms reached down. Poe and Holmes! They pulled her over the edge and onto the hard cabin floor. Holmes dropped and wrapped himself around her. “Margaret!” he shouted above the rotor noise. “Are you hurt?”

Another explosion rocked the chopper and lit up the inside of the cabin. Metal pinged off the skids and belly. Marple leaned her head out the opening. The snipers aimed over her shoulder. Red sighting dots danced over the water and what was left of the supply boat.

Suddenly, just at the edge of the flames, Paul’s oil-slicked head poked above the water. His pale white hands were clutching at the air. Marple shoved the rifle barrels away. “No! I want answers! Take him alive!”