In the
forgotten corners or Rina's mind there is a very valuable secret...one
the Chavez family will kill for.
Almost two decades
ago a car accident thrust Rina Morell's Life into darkness. Unable to
deal with the traumatic loss of her mother, Rina's young mind erected a
wall that blocked her vision and her memories of the event. Years later
Rina still suffers from psychosomatic blindness--unable to see the
danger that lies next to her. Until a series of 'accidents' restores
her physical sight, and a mysterious secondary vision...
When she discovers
that her husband is the head of the infamous Chavez family, a drug
cartel with powerful political and terrorist connections, and that he's
responsible for her mother's death, Rina is terrified. With the help of
CIA agent JT Wyatt, she escapes into the Witness Security Program. But
even anonymity can't protect her from the knowledge locked inside her
head...or the fact that her ex-husband, a cold-blooded killer, is still
on the loose.
December 1944,
Lubeck, Germany.
The steel arm of a
crane, pockmarked by rust and salt, swung across the frigid decks of the
Nordika. A heavy crate, a swastika and a number stenciled on the side,
hung suspended, straining at aging steel hawsers as the freezing
northerly wind increased in intensity.
Gaze narrowed against
the wind, Erich Reinhardt, captain of the cargo vessel, watched as the
delicate process of lowering the crate into the hold commenced. Loading
cargo under these conditions was an act of stupidity; putting out to sea
was nothing short of madness but, lately, everything about Germany was
madness. To the east Russians were massing along the border, in the
west the British and Americans had launched their offensive. There was
no heating, no food; his family was starving and they all lived in fear
that British and American bombers would kill them while they slept. For
months he had expected to die that way or, failing that, to be torpedoed
at sea, perhaps that was better than a bullet in the brain from a
cold-eyed Schutzstaffel.
“How much longer?”
The question from the
SS officer who had commandeered his ship was curt, but there was no
disguising the accent. Bremen, maybe, Hamburg at a stretch, and
straight off the docks. Himmler might be scraping the bottom of the
barrel with this one, but Reinhardt still had to be wary. Oberleutnant
Dengler might have working class roots, but he knew ships and had taken
control of the Nordika with ease. “Fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour
if the conditions become more difficult.”
And Reinhardt expected
the weather to deterioriate. A storm front had been pounding the coast
all day and conditions were worsening; a force-ten gale was predicted
before dawn. He watched as another crate was lowered into place.
Garish spotlights lit up the feverish activity in the hold and on the
dock as the final truck was offloaded, a stark contrast to the blackout
of the city behind, and all along the coast. Even the navigation lights
along the channel were turned off. Loading cargo was dangerous, but
attempting to navigate the channel in this weather, with no lights, was
tantamount to suicide.
Dengler strode to the
railing and roared an order.
The doors of a truck
were flung open. Seconds later, people poured out, passengers,
Reinhardt realized, and began to embark.
The first was a tall,
elegant woman, bent against the wind as she clutched a baby to her chest
and held the hand of a toddler. A group of older children followed,
hustled on by a straggling group of women and the tall authoritative
figure of yet another SS officer. Counting the two who held his crew at
gun-point in the dining room and the four supervising the loading of the
cargo, that brought the total number of SS officers on the Nordika to
eight; more than Reinhardt had ever seen in Lubeck at any one time, and
seven more than was needed to keep him and his aging crew in check.
A small girl, blonde
ringlets streaming from the hood of an expensive fur-trimmed coat,
stopped when she reached the top of the gangplank and stared up at
Reinhardt, her gaze expressionless, before she was hustled below.
The wind picked up,
scattering ice. Cold stung Reinhardt’s cheeks and flowed around his
neck, finding its way through cracked and thinning oilskin and the
threadbare layers of the muffler beneath. The image of the little
girl’s face stayed with him as he watched another crate swing in the
wind. She had been maybe six or seven, the same age as his
granddaughter, Bernadette, but for a fragmented moment he hadn’t been
able to see any difference between her and the SS officer who had
scooped her up and taken her below.
A gust of wind hit the
starboard side of the ship. Saltwater and ice sprayed across the
decks. A split second later, the crate slammed into the side of the
hold. Wood splintered and Reinhardt held his breath as the damaged
crate was buffeted by the wind.
The first mate joined
him on the quarterdeck, huddling in the lee of a cable housing, leathery
face reddened by wind and ice. His gaze was glued to the frayed
hawser. “What have they got in those crates?”
“I don’t want to
know.” The less they knew, the more likely they were to get out of this
alive.
A second gust sent the
crate spinning. Fatigued steel groaned, the hawser snapped and the
crate dropped like a stone, the contents exploding across the floor of
the hold, scattering the loading crew. Hidden on the quarterdeck,
Reinhardt had a moment to feel utter disbelief and fear as he stared at
the strewn contents of the crate. Seconds later, the SS officers who
were overseeing the placement of the crates stepped out of the gloom and
the flat spitting of Schmeisser machine gun pistols punctuated the
pressurized whine of the wind.
An hour later, the
hold was secured and the bodies of the loading crew were disposed of
over the side. The spotlights washing the decks of the Nordika were
extinguished and the small glow of a kerosene lamp on the bridge became
the only point of reference in pitch-blackness.
Reinhardt ducked his
head as he stepped onto the bridge, a sense of fatalism gripping him as
he saw Dengler and another SS officer, this one a full Colonel, studying
a map of the channel. He had known the three men who had been executed
in the hold most of his life. Konig and Holt had both been in their
late fifties, with large families to support. Breit had been a gunner
in the First World War. “Where is it you want to go?”
In the glare of the
lamp, Reinhardt noticed for the first time that Dengler was barely old
enough to shave. The Oberst was a different matter. His cheekbones
were high, his mouth thin, his gaze coldly amused. It was the colonel
who spoke.
“Somewhere warm. How
about Colombia?”
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