Fallen Angel: A Jesse McDermitt Novel

Book 9: Caribbean Adventure Series

by Wayne Stinnett

Genres: Action & Adventure; Sea Adventures

Synopsis

A rushed rescue mission doesn’t go as planned for retired Marine Jesse McDermitt and the crew of Gaspar's Revenge. The two kidnap victims are rescued, but they’d rather be taken back to the Jamaican drug runners who were hired to kill them than return home to laid-back Beaufort, South Carolina, and give the man who wants them dead the chance to hire someone more competent. Crisscrossing hundreds of miles of open Atlantic Ocean, with a weather eye on a powerful hurricane, Jesse and his crew come up with a plan to lure out the man behind the double murder plot. A high speed run from the Out Islands to the South Carolina coast is fraught with peril. However, Jesse knows that the real danger lies in the sleepy little coastal town not far from where he was once stationed. When southern politics, power, and money collide, double crosses are the name of the game. Guns blaze and big diesel engines roar, in the spooky marshes of the Lowcountry, as an innocent child's life hangs in the balance.

Release date: April 27, 2016

Publisher: Down Island Press, LLC

Print pages: 285

Sample

Chapter One

“What the hell do you mean, you can’t reach him?” Nick Cross sneered at his young aide. He’d been in a foul mood for more than a day and the aide was becoming concerned.

“I’m sorry, Congressman,” Dennis replied. “Communication in the islands is still somewhat hit or miss at times. Even without the hurricane. Repeated phone calls get only a busy signal and emails have so far been returned as undeliverable.”

“Fucking great,” the representative from South Carolina’s First Congressional District grumbled. “I thought that hurricane wasn’t going to be anything more than a fish storm.”

“Yes, sir,” Dennis replied. “It pretty much is. It’s not predicted to come anywhere close to the islands, but it slowed way down yesterday, then this morning it was upgraded to a category three. It’s likely kicking up some pretty big waves, way out there. Maybe enough to cause some problems in the Out Islands. Some minor flooding and erosion could cause some telephone poles to come down. You know how things are there.”

“Keep trying,” Congressman Cross said. “And patch him through as soon as you reach him.”

“Are you planning a vacation to Cat Island, sir? I’m sure I can find someone to arrange it.”

So far, nobody knows what happened, Cross thought. But it was just a matter of time. He needed to perfect his shocked and grieving father image before it came out. And he needed to appear as a concerned and caring father now.

“Not exactly a vacation,” he lied. “This guy owes me a fishing trip and with the recess coming up, I thought I might take Chrissy somewhere for a weekend away. Kind of a father-daughter weekend to kick off the summer.”

“I’ll keep trying, Congressman,” Dennis said as he quietly turned and left the inner office. Dennis Tigner had joined Nick Cross’s staff as an intern over a year ago, having come aboard just after the election. In his late twenties, he hoped to have a career in politics himself one day. Those early days as an intern to a grieving newly-elected congressman were tough. But Cross had seemed to push through the pain and anguish of losing his wife, throwing himself into his new job.

Cross turned back to his computer and started a Google search for damage in the Bahamas from Hurricane Bertha. Knowing that his computer might be subject to a coming investigation, he refrained from searching for news of what he really wanted to know about, and it was making him more and more anxious.

Reports from the National Hurricane Center showed that the hurricane was over a thousand miles from Cat Island and the other Out Islands. Just like Dennis had said, its forward progress had slowed to a crawl and the storm had intensified to category three status, as if it were waiting to build strength before attacking the islands.

Shit, Cross thought, I’ve lived through worse storms.

He couldn’t find anything on damage reports, though most of the Out Islands were either uninhabited or sparsely populated. He knew the infrastructure in the islands was mediocre at best. All it would take was a few big waves washing over the coastline to undermine the poorly installed power and telephone lines on the low-lying islands. He still thought it strange that there weren’t any reports of damage or outages, which would interrupt phone service.

Maybe the Jamaican’s boat went down, he thought. That would solve the problem and save me a boatload of cash. He grinned at his own joke.

Cross knew the abduction had gone off without a hitch. The Jamaican had called yesterday to report that they had the pair aboard their boat and were headed back to Cat Island. Somewhere along the way, they were to throw them overboard. Miles from any shoreline. In the middle of the mostly deserted Out Islands. Cross expected the call from the cruise line anytime now. They’d want to ask if his meddling mother-in-law had changed their itinerary and stayed over in Nassau.

Cross had known exactly what to do when the call finally came. He’d been planning it for months. His mother-in-law’s sudden decision to take the brat on a cruise just made it easier, so he’d moved up the timetable.

When the time came, he’d be seen as trying to reach both his mother-in-law and his daughter and would mobilize whatever assets he could to find them. He was certain their bodies would never be found, though. And if they were, he’d have no problem in subtly placing the blame on the late Pat DeGroodt, his impulsive and eccentric mother-in-law, for the death of his daughter at the hands of Jamaican drug smugglers. It happened often enough at random, he was certain it would work. Then he could be seen as throwing himself into his work once more, concentrating on legislation to halt the illegal drug trade.

Hell, he thought, if I play this right, I can guarantee reelections for the next decade. And be filthy rich, to boot. Knowing his Colombian mistress’s penchant for shiny things, she’d be very excited about that. This brought a slow smile to the congressman’s face.

He’d met Chela Madeira on a trip to South America seven years ago. It was before he had begun exploring a life in politics and long before his wife had died. With some time off before a meeting with real estate developers in Bogota, Cross had found himself in the hotel’s very elegant lounge. Chela had been performing there as a singer. Cross had found himself mesmerized by her voice, enthralled by her petite body, long black hair, and smoky brown eyes. Though she was sixteen years younger than his thirty-six at the time, he’d actively pursued her affections. Sensing he was a very successful hombre de negocios Americano, she’d returned those affections.

Within two years, and many extended trips to Colombia later, each one full of more inventive and adventurous sex, Cross’s project had been completed. Chela had become his mistress and he’d put her up in the penthouse suite of the hotel he and the other developers had built, with him as controlling partner.

Since then, he’d made numerous trips to the Colombian capital, on the pretense of business, and they’d met several other times in exotic places all around the Caribbean. He’d even flown her to the Lowcountry of South Carolina a number of times for a booty call.

For the last few months, Chela had talked more and more openly about him bringing her to Washington, even hinting at marriage. With his wife dead for a year now, it wouldn’t be quite so scandalous for him to start seeing someone. However, Chela would probably never be that someone. Sixteen years younger than him would be bad enough, though she was a hard-bodied twenty-seven-year-old legal adult. But the tiny little woman projected an intense sexuality that just couldn’t be hidden or contained.

For a sitting congressman, that just wouldn’t work. And he just wasn’t sure if he was willing to give up the power his position gave him to have this sexually adventurous and voracious little minx with him full-time. Even when the inheritance and life insurance came in. Besides, it would complicate things with his other mistress in Charleston.

For a moment, Cross contemplated that. Why not give up both the job and the other mistress? There were a lot of bedroom adventures with Chela that he hadn’t explored, and she rarely let him get any rest. Sometimes for days. No, he decided, I could never be just a one-woman man.

From the research he’d done on his mother-in-law, he knew that his daughter stood to inherit at least eight figures, with him in full control of the trust until she turned twenty-one. With both of them dying in a tragic mishap in another country, the wealth would come to him. Plus over one million dollars in insurance, a policy his late wife had taken out on their daughter. Cross smiled again, knowing that none of this pointed toward him. Nobody would ever suspect that he’d hired someone to murder his own daughter. His mind drifted to how he could live life with that kind of money on top of what he’d already squirreled away. Hell, I can build a complete dungeon for Mistress Chela, he thought. Maybe even introduce her to Connie in Charleston. The thought of having them both at once was very intriguing.

The intercom on Nick Cross’s desk buzzed, interrupting his lecherous thoughts. He pushed a button on it. “Did you reach Claude?”

“Still trying, sir,” Dennis replied. “There’s a call for you on line three. It’s a Miss Pritchard with Regency Cruises.”

“Thanks, Dennis,” Cross said, with faked concern in his voice. He’d expected the call earlier in the day. He’d also expected Claude to call, telling him the deed was done and demanding the balance of the payment.

Picking up the receiver, Nick punched the flashing button. “Congressman Nick Cross.”

“Congressman Cross,” a woman’s voice said over the phone. “My name is Natalie Pritchard. I’m the ship’s steward aboard Regency Star. Your mother-in-law and your daughter are booked on a seven-day cruise aboard.”

“Yes, Miss Pritchard. Is there a problem?”

“They failed to return to the ship last night, sir. Has Missus DeGroodt changed their travel plans?”

“Not that I’m aware of. My mother-in-law is impulsive, though. Is there a number I can reach you at? I’ll give her a call to see what is going on and if they plan to fly ahead and rejoin the ship.”

“Yes,” the woman replied and gave him a number to their home office switchboard. “They can connect you to the ship via satellite,” she explained. “But I’ve tried the number Missus DeGroodt gave us several times this morning, and it goes straight to voicemail.”

“Thanks, Miss Pritchard. I’ll try my daughter’s cell phone, then. Maybe Pat’s phone is dead.” Cross grinned again at his own joke.

Hanging up the phone, he found it hard to suppress the grin. Knowing that his phone records might be checked during the coming investigation, he quickly scrolled through his cell phone’s contact list and found his daughter’s number, knowing even before he hit send that this call too would go straight to voicemail.

When it did, he went through the same thing with his mother-in-law. That call went to voicemail as well, and he left a message for her to call him as soon as she got it. Cross then pushed the intercom button again. “Dennis, come in here right away.”

 

* * * * *

 

The following morning, the investigation was already in full swing. In Dennis’s eyes, Congressman Cross had seemed to be beside himself. Together, they’d tried calling both the congressman’s mother-in-law and his daughter. Both phones had seemed to be turned off. The congressman instructed Dennis to start contacting the authorities in Nassau.

Near midnight, the Royal Bahamian Police had reported that someone had seen a woman and a girl matching the description of Pat DeGroodt and Chrissy Cross. The witness said it appeared as if they’d been taken aboard a speedboat near one of the docks in Nassau and the boat had then roared out of the harbor. The men with them were described as three Rastafarian types, with long dreads.

Dennis Tigner had remained in the office all night, catching a few hours of sleep on a folding cot. He didn’t think the congressman had gotten any sleep at all.

Rising from the cot, Dennis set the coffeepot up once again. They were still waiting to find out more about the boat that was seen leaving with the congressman’s family.

How much bad can one man handle? Dennis thought. It’d been just a little more than a year since his wife had been killed in a tragic and horrific car crash. It had happened near the congressman’s home. His wife was going shopping when a front tire blew out, just as she was approaching a bridge. The car careened off the road out of control, rolling twice before coming to rest in a salt marsh wetland area, upside down in five feet of water. The coroner had reported that she’d likely have died within minutes from the head injuries she’d sustained, but the actual cause of death had been drowning.

Now the congressman’s daughter and his late wife’s mother seemed to be victims of a random kidnapping. It had happened over twenty-four hours ago and there had been no ransom demand and no news since.

Dennis went quietly to his desk and wiggled the mouse to wake up his computer. He scanned his emails, and seeing nothing other than the usual correspondence from lobbyists and other legislators, he turned to Google and started checking news reports in Nassau. Stories of the abduction filled the first two pages of results, but nothing from the authorities.

Picking up the phone, he asked the switchboard operator to connect him once more with the Bahamian police officer in charge of the investigation in Nassau. By now, she probably knew the number by heart.

“Lieutenant Frank Cleary,” a slightly accented voice on the phone said in greeting.

Dennis had already spoken with the lieutenant a number of times. Seeing the light was still on under the door to the congressman’s office, Dennis wondered if the man had fallen asleep with the lights still on. He couldn’t possibly go on like this for long. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Lieutenant Cleary, this is Dennis Tigner, Congressman Cross’s aide. Do you have anything at all to report?”

“I was going to call yuh, Mister Tigner,” Cleary answered. “A security camera caught the speedboat in question, just as it passed a tiki bar. We were able to get the registration number of the boat, but it had been reported stolen three weeks ago. I’m afraid there’s just nothing else to report.”

“Well, that’s something anyway. Could you tell from the picture if the congressman’s daughter and mother-in-law were indeed aboard?”

“It is actually a video,” Cleary replied. “But I’m afraid the detail isn’t very good. It clearly shows an older white woman and a teenage white girl, hair color and length matching what you gave us. The three men on the boat with them had their backs to the camera, though.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant. Please call me directly if you hear anything further. Anything at all.”

Dennis hung up the phone and walked back across the office to the coffee machine. Pouring a cup, he suddenly had an idea. His uncle worked at the Pentagon, his work involving the Caribbean, and he had lots of contacts there. Maybe he could do something, or find out something. He went back to his desk and picked up his cell phone. Finding the name in his contact list, he tapped the screen and held the phone to his ear. Though it was still an hour before sunrise, his uncle answered after the first ring.

“Uncle Travis, this is Dennis. There’s a situation with my boss, Congressman Cross.”

Chapter Two

The wind was whipping at the plastic windscreen as I shoved both throttles to the stops, not bothering to warn anyone on board. There was neither a need to, nor the time. The urgency of the last few minutes was palpable, and everyone on board was a consummate professional. At least the rain had held off, but that was just a matter of time.

Gaspar’s Revenge leaped forward. As much as a boat her size can leap, anyway. Her stern dropped as tons of water was sucked from beneath the hull by the two massive propellers. They shoved the heavy forty-five-foot charter boat up on top of the water, and a high-pitched scream split the night air as the twin superchargers on each of the powerful eleven-hundred-horsepower engines spooled up. Small-arms fire suddenly erupted from astern.

“Lay down cover fire, Tony!” I shouted unnecessarily from the bridge as I steered the Revenge toward the mouth of the small harbor. We all wore earwigs and could hear one another in a normal speaking voice. The tumbled rock breakwater on either side appeared as irregular gray-green walls through the night vision optics I wore.

A second later, the ripping sound of the Revenge’s tail stinger brought a quick end to any return fire from shore. The tripod-mounted 7.62mm minigun fired over four thousand rounds per minute. The near-constant flame from the muzzle spat a steady stream of bullets toward the enemy, with only forty feet between each round. The shore was a good hundred yards astern, so the minigun put almost a hundred projectiles whistling through the air at the same time. On target, they could chew through just about anything in a matter of seconds. Spraying an area, as Tony was doing, created more of a shock-and-awe affect, pinning everyone down so they couldn’t return fire.

Even though I knew the throttles were wide open, I leaned on them anyway while scanning the water ahead. Channels were best navigated at an idle, but we were quickly approaching the top speed for Gaspar’s Revenge. Beside me, hunched over the glow of the infrared camera monitor and forward scanning sonar, Art quietly read off the depth to me.

Tony Jacobs and Art Newman were an unlikely pair, yet they worked together as one. Both were in their mid-thirties and both had been in their current line of work for over a decade. Tony was a wiry black man with a quick wit and ready smile, where Art was a tall white guy, always resolute and not exactly prone to excessive talk. Both were Navy SEALs and sort of on loan from the Navy to the Department of Homeland Security. The two men had been working, training, and fighting together for nearly a decade.

My old platoon sergeant in Okinawa had spoken often about men like the ones currently aboard my vessel. Beware the old warrior, Sergeant Livingston used to say. In a line of work where few are given the opportunity to become one, he will be a formidable opponent.

“Range to target is seven hundred meters,” Art said quietly.

I glanced down to the cockpit again. Tony was firing the minigun in short fifty to one-hundred-round bursts, aiming toward the island we’d just left. “Cease fire, Tony.”

He did as he was told and looked up at me. Below his own optics, his grin was ear to ear, perfect white teeth seeming to glow against his ebony face. “I bet those suckers never even heard of a minigun!”

The suckers he was referring to were a group of Jamaican smugglers and criminals, who had taken up residence on Cat Island in the central Bahamas. They’d constructed a compound of sorts, just east of Hawk’s Nest Resort on the southwestern tip of the island. The compound itself was on a small islet in the middle of the cove.

“Anyone hit?” I asked.

“Negative,” came Andrew Bourke’s voice over my earwig. “Our guests are comfortable in the salon. Nervous and full of questions, but comfortable.”

Bourke was the fourth in our little entourage. A likable man, just a year younger than me at forty-five. Unlike Tony and Art, Bourke’s background was in the Coast Guard’s Maritime Enforcement. A barrel-chested man, with a baritone voice and long mustache, his was always the calm voice in any stressful situation. The other members of this elite team seemed to look on him as a wise uncle and often turned to him for advice and guidance.

“Small craft exiting the marina to starboard,” Art warned me.

The greatest danger of running without lights in these darkest hours just before dawn wasn’t so much that you couldn’t see things. We were all equipped with night vision headsets, and the Revenge had a concealed infrared spotlight in the pulpit that illuminated the water ahead for a good distance, though the light was invisible to the naked eye. The newly installed IR camera on the roof had its own mini IR light and could be controlled with a joystick from the second seat, where the new monitor had been installed. The camera being a couple feet above our heads afforded Art a better view, and he was able to see over the rocky breakwater.

No, the greatest threat to our running blacked out was that others couldn’t see us. A forty-five-foot-long, eighteen-ton vessel moving at nearly forty knots and accelerating could put a serious hurt on any unsuspecting early-morning angler.

“Fishermen?” I asked Art as I reached to pull back the throttles.

“I don’t think so. Not unless they’re planning on shooting fish with AKs. Stay on the throttles, man. They’ll come into the channel a couple hundred feet astern.”

“Be ready, Tony,” I said in a normal tone.

“Always,” came Tony’s calm reply.

“Deuce, are you watching?” I asked. Russell ‘Deuce’ Livingston Junior is my friend, as his dad had been. Occasionally, like now, he was also my boss. He’s in charge of a counterterrorism organization that I sometimes provide covert transportation for aboard my charter boat. Right now he’s sitting comfortably in the little communications center on my island, watching from a satellite high above us.

“Yeah, I’m seeing it,” Deuce replied. “They’ll have to slow some to make the tight turn out of the marina and will likely be a bit further back than Art’s estimating. Looks to be a small center-console, maybe eighteen or twenty feet, with four men aboard. I doubt it can keep up with the Revenge.”

“Yeah, but their bullets sure as hell can.”

“You’re clear to engage only if fired upon, Jesse.”

I glanced to the right as we roared past the marina entrance, heading to the open waters of the Caribbean just a few hundred yards further. The center-console was just coming up on plane. Gaspar’s Revenge is a forty-five-foot Rampage convertible, with twin diesel engines that have been modified to punch out over eleven hundred horses each. Glancing at the knot meter, I saw that we were already nearing her top speed of forty-nine knots. The little center-console would be bucking a really huge wake in a second. I knew the shooters on board would be lucky if they could hit the broad side of a barn, so, I concentrated on keeping the barn off the rocks, knowing that Bourke would have a weapon aimed and ready, and in seconds, Tony would have the minigun on target as well.

“Open water ahead,” Art informed me. “Not a boat in sight. Turning the camera aft.”

“Roger that,” I replied, leaning forward over the wheel, as if the extra inches might give me more to see. Night vision optics take some getting used to. Everything is viewed in shades of gray-green, like an old black-and-white television that’s been dropped one too many times. You have no peripheral vision at all, seeing only what the optics are pointed directly at.

Head on a swivel, I heard Deuce’s dad say in my mind. It seemed a lifetime ago that Russ Livingston Senior had been my platoon sergeant when I was assigned to First Battalion, Eighth Marines in Okinawa, Japan. Just as with his son, we’d become very good friends and I missed him.

I couldn’t help but duck when I heard the first crack of small-arms fire, a bullet whistling past us, just above and to starboard of the bridge. I concentrated again on the water ahead, constantly moving my head right and left, looking for other approaching boats.

This mission wasn’t supposed to go down this way. It’d been hastily arranged, with almost no intel other than what we were able to garner from satellite surveillance tapes. But it is what it is. Or as Russ would have said, The first casualty of battle is always the battle plan. Recently, the satellite had been turned over to Deuce’s two teams and parked in orbit above the middle of the Caribbean. All Deuce’s tech guru needed was a location and time and she could isolate a small area from the high-definition images recorded from space. It had only taken Chyrel Koshinski thirty minutes to determine where the captives had been taken to. We’d mobilized immediately after that.

“We’re under fire,” I heard Tony say in a calm voice.

“You’re clear to engage,” came Deuce’s equally unruffled reply. “Light ’em up.”

The scream of the electrically operated six-barrel Gatling gun left little doubt as to the outcome of the firefight. Normally used on helicopters, it was a formidable weapon, and aiming wasn’t really necessary. Not in the traditional way, at least. The steady stream of projectiles from the muzzle snaked out like a flexible laser whip, and all Tony had to do was move the fiery snake of a line onto the target and it would be chewed to pieces.

Over the scream of the electric-motor-driven gun came the sickening smacks of impact on fiberglass as Tony found his target. The explosion sounded closer than two hundred feet, and the brightness reflecting off the inside of the bridge momentarily overwhelmed my optics. I leaned further forward and my vision was restored.

“Splash one tango,” Tony said, quite unnecessarily.

Clearing the south jetty, I put the Revenge over on her starboard rail, angling north and away from the mouth of the channel into deeper water. The open ocean is her domain. With a beam of sixteen feet and her wide Carolina bow flares, Gaspar’s Revenge is most at home out on the blue, and very few boats can match her speed. We started encountering small wind-driven waves almost immediately, but they were nothing compared to what lay ahead, and didn’t do anything to the attitude of the boat, aside from making slapping noises on the hull.

“Anyone hurt?” Deuce asked. “Any damage?”

Each man responded in the negative and I added, “Damage assessment will have to wait, but I don’t think so. What the hell happened?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone there. In and out, grab the hostages and come home. At least everyone’s okay.” I could hear genuine relief in his voice.

I’d known Deuce for going on three years now. Actually, I knew him when he was a kid, a constant third anytime his dad and I went fishing or diving. We’d met again in 2005, just before Hurricane Wilma tore up the Keys. He’d come there to ask my help in spreading his dad’s ashes.

Art and Tony had known Deuce for many years before that. He’d been their SEAL team leader. Tony’d told me on more than one occasion that anyone who served under Deuce’s command for any length of time would gladly step in front of a bullet for him. With each mission, I was understanding that more and more. Besides being one of my closest friends, he was a natural-born leader who listened to and was concerned for his men.

“Zooming out,” Deuce said. “There isn’t a boat on the water anywhere for miles, and that’s commercial traffic to the south. Good job, guys! Bring it on home. We’ll try to figure out what went wrong and fix it so it doesn’t happen in the future.”

“Roger that,” I replied. “Tony, don’t break it down just yet. I want ten miles of nothing before we go overt again.”

We rode in silence, each passing minute putting us nearly a mile further out to sea. The wind was coming astern from about the four o’clock position, and the chop it was kicking up was pretty nondirectional. Three- and four-foot waves collided with one another, occasionally sending water up over the bow. The Revenge took it all in stride and could easily take a whole lot more.

“Another boat coming out of the harbor,” Art said, watching the radar and IR monitor. “Three miles astern. Another center-console in the twenty-foot range. Not a thing ahead of us to the radar limits.”

“Bet he won’t come any more than a quarter mile out of that harbor,” I heard Bourke say over the earwig.

“Ten says he turns back before half that,” Tony said.

“You’re on.”

Art laughed. “Looks like you lose, Andrew. He didn’t even clear the jetty. Heading back in.”

As we continued further to the northwest, seas became less choppy, but the waves were bigger. It was a following sea and very manageable. I throttled back to the Revenge’s best cruising speed of thirty knots. The high-pitched whine of the pair of twin superchargers dropped until the sound was nearly gone, the wind and bow wave replacing it as the chief sources of noise.

“Go ahead and break it down, Tony,” I said, removing my headset and flipping on the running lights and forward spotlight. “Lights on, going overt. I didn’t hear any impacts up here. Mind checking the transom and rear bulkhead for bullet holes in my boat?”

“I didn’t hear any down here, either,” Tony replied. “But I’ll check it out once I get your toy put away.”

A few minutes later, Tony joined us on the bridge, plopping down on the port bench seat. “Checked as much as I could see, compadre. Didn’t see no holes in your boat.”

“Good,” I replied, relaxing a little. “I’d like to keep this one for a while.” About a year ago, someone stole my previous boat, unaware that their cohorts had orders to blow me out of the water. My boat and the thieves had gone up in a huge fireball.

“Why don’t you guys try to get some rest?” I said. “We’re a hundred and seventy miles from Nicholls Town and won’t get there until just after the sun comes up.”

“Already a step ahead of you,” Bourke’s deep baritone voice came over the earwig. “I reassured our guests that they’ll be home in time for supper, and they’re in the forward stateroom. I’m stretching out in the salon.”

“Go ahead, Art,” Tony said. “Blowing shit up always cranks my adrenaline into overdrive.”

After Art left the bridge, Tony maneuvered behind me and took the second seat to my right. “Think we’ll have any trouble at Nicholls Town?”

I gave the question a moment’s thought. We’d been lucky to get into the harbor on Cat Island unobserved. As far as I could tell, it was only the bad guys that had seen us leave, and it was doubtful they’d contact the authorities. We’d cleared customs in Bimini two days earlier and refueled in Nassau, before coming out to Cat Island. Knowing we’d need fuel again before leaving, I’d sent word to an old friend on Andros Island for an out-of-the-way fuel stop. As far as the Bahamian authorities knew, we were just what we looked like. Big-time sportfishermen out cruising the TOTO somewhere, looking for another trophy to mount on the wall.

An extremely deep trench in the Great Bahama Bank lies east of Andros Island. Curling in from the deep ocean just north of New Providence, it’s surrounded by banks, shoals, and islands, looking just like a deep bay. It probably was, a long time ago when sea levels were lower. It’s called the Tongue of the Ocean, or TOTO, due to its appearance, running almost north to south for a hundred and fifty miles and roughly twenty miles wide. I knew the crushing depth of the bottom was more than a mile down and seas there would likely be a lot bigger, kicked up by the outer bands of a hurricane sitting a thousand miles to the east. The TOTO was favored by rich fishermen in big expensive boats, just like the Revenge. So I wasn’t worried about the authorities.

I’ve known Henry Patterson nearly my whole life, though I’ve only seen him a handful of times in the last twenty-five years. He and Pap had fought together in the South Pacific. When he returned home, he went into public service. A mud-slinging campaign by an opponent during a Florida senate race nearly twenty years ago left him physically and emotionally drained. His wife had only recently passed away, and with no kids, there really wasn’t anything keeping him in Fort Myers. He’d bowed out of the race gracefully, though there was nothing to the allegations, got on his boat and disappeared. At eighty-four now, he ran a small fleet of fly-fishing skiffs and offshore charter boats on the north end of Andros.

Glancing at Tony, I replied, “No, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble. Henry’s place is north of town a few miles, in a secluded cove that most people couldn’t find, unless they know it’s there.”

“And you’re sure he’ll be able to refuel us?”

“He has a ten-thousand-gallon diesel tank,” I replied. “I emailed him that we’d be arriving tomorrow and would need about five or six hundred gallons. He’ll come through. We’ll hole up there for the day, leave our guests with Henry and clear out of customs in Nicholls Town. Then we can go back to his cove, pick them back up and head home.”

Waves grew in size but were less choppy as we escaped the lee of Cat Island. I nudged the throttles a little, bumping the speed up to thirty-five knots. The wind was out of the northeast, nearly matching our speed, so it was practically unnoticeable, coming abaft the starboard beam.

The big wind-driven rollers were running six to eight feet and evenly spaced. The Revenge took the slower-moving swells easily, climbing up the shoulder to the crest and surfing down the face.

“We should be nearing Eleuthera soon,” Tony said, making small talk.

I pointed to the radar, which was just beginning to show the southern tip of the island, twelve miles to the northeast. “Yeah, that’s it right there. Something on your mind?”

When I glanced over, he was pretending to study the radar image. When he sat back, he turned and started to say something, then looked out into the darkness to starboard. I just let him have his time to get the words in his head in the right order.

“I’ve been offered a job,” he finally blurted out.

“What kinda job?”

“Contract work up in Miami. Remember that CephaloTech outfit?”

“Celia Minnich wants to hire you?” I asked.

“Not directly. The offer is from their head of research and development. A guy named Leon Harvey.”

“Huh,” I grunted. “And you’re thinking of taking it?”

“Helluva lot of money, man.”

I kept silent a minute. I knew about a helluva lot of money. Over the years, I’d inherited a sizeable fortune. Twice. And added to it with a few treasure finds, until my net worth was nearly ten million dollars. Most of it was invested in different trust funds, to be used as the trustees saw fit in helping local fishermen, veterans, and the kids of both. Money didn’t mean a whole lot in the big picture, except what you could do with it to help others. Something Pap taught me.

“And there’s the fact that I’m getting older,” Tony said. “Slowing down some.”

“What are you? Thirty-five? Hell, you’re as sharp as you ever were.”

“Thirty-four. My ship-over date is coming up. Four more years until retirement.”

“And after sixteen years in the Navy, mostly as a SEAL, you don’t think you can hack another four?”

“Bite me, man!” he exclaimed with his trademark grin.

“So what is it, then? You’re uniquely qualified where you are, and you’ll probably be picking up chief soon.”

“Already selected,” he replied, sitting back and crossing his arms.

“You never struck me as the materialistic type, Tony.”

“Man’s gotta think about the future.”

I looked over at him again. His features were calm. “You’ve met someone?”

Turning his head, he looked straight at me. “That obvious?”

“What’s she like?” I asked.

“Nice lady. Professional, funny, and sexy as all hell.”

“And she disapproves of the Navy?”

“She doesn’t know yet. All she knows is my cover job as an underwater demolitions man. But I think we’re at the stage in our relationship to show my cards.”

“Have you talked to Deuce about it?” I asked.

“Not yet. The thing is, she thinks my cover job’s too dangerous. I’m pretty sure she’ll understand about the deception, but I know she’ll think what I really do is a lot more dangerous. Right now, I’m in Mississippi, blowing up an old bridge. She just wishes I had a regular nine-to-five job, that’s all. You’ve been there.”

Yeah, I’ve been there, alright, I thought. As a Marine infantryman, the constant deployments had destroyed my first marriage to my daughters’ mother after six years. She’d packed up the kids and left while I was in Panama in ’89. I hadn’t even been allowed to call her and tell her we got orders.

“You can’t live your life by what others want of it, brother,” I said. “Gotta be tough having to lie about it, too. But four years is a mighty short time. You don’t think she’ll wait once she knows?”

“Maybe, maybe not. You’ll meet her in a few days. She’s coming down for the Fourth.”

“To Homestead?” I asked.

“No, she lives in Miami Beach. She’s coming down to my new place on Grassy Key.”

“So she’ll be at the Anchor for the fireworks you’re doing?”

“Yeah,” Tony replied enthusiastically. The man did like things that went boom. “Rusty suggested using his barge instead of the big yard. Anchor it off to the side of his channel. Anyway, she wants me to quit demolition and pointed out a lot of pretty lucrative opportunities in my field that aren’t as dangerous and don’t require travel.”

Leaning over, I checked the radar screen again. It didn’t look like anyone else was out. Probably the storm, which was still a threat and only a thousand miles to the east.

“Let me ask you this,” I said as we overtook another wave and I turned slightly to port to ride over the crest at a perpendicular angle. “Would any of these lucrative opportunities be on your radar if you didn’t know this woman?”

“No, not until after retirement, at least. But, even at a chief’s pay, I really don’t have much to offer.”

I just let what he said hang there for a moment. Finally, I said, “In a good relationship, there shouldn’t be any offering but love and loyalty. Same with friendships. I can’t help but think that what she’s offering is something you’d find pretty damned boring.”