I was hoping for the latter, but Jan reported, when we slowed down enough for her to cut Juanita lose from the anchor and get them both to the bridge, that she saw the kidnappers swimming toward their unharmed dink, which was surrounded by floating bales of cash. Damn.
Chapter Twenty-five
Once Jan and Juanita joined me on the bridge, we steamed straight for Cannes at Odyssey’s top speed. I called Nacho on the cellphone he’d given me, told him we had an ETA of fifteen minutes so they could meet us offshore. I figured we were home free when the radar alarm went off. A small boat was rapidly closing on our tail.
“Jan, check that out, will you?”
Using night vision binoculars, she took a long look, blew her bangs off her forehead and said, “Oh, yeah, it’s them, alright.”
I looked at them on the radar screen, hit a button and got a readout. “Collision course. ETA five minutes. Well, crap.”
“Why in hell are they chasing us?”
“They want to give us our money back? Come on, Jan, we already know they’re capable of kidnapping, terrorism, and mayhem. What’s a little murder added on?”
“Murder?”
“Yep, dead women don’t tell tales. They don’t want any witnesses.”
Juanita’s eyes widened and she started to shake. Here she’d thought she was safe, and now she wasn’t. I pushed her down onto the deck and told her to stay put. Since we were on autopilot, I knelt down as well, but these guys were closing on us fast, and that little saltwater bath I gave them wasn’t going to affect their automatic weapons.
“So you figure they have a firing range of, say, a third of a mile or so?” I asked Jan.
“Not sure, but that’s probably about right. Which is way too close in my book.”
“Yabbut, there’s not much we can do about them until they pull even closer. I hate the idea of returning the prince’s boat full of bullet holes, but I guess that’s what we’ll have to do. Take cover, Chicas, it’s gonna be a wild ride.”
Jan nodded. “So, we go with Plan B?”
“Yep. Some eejits just do not know when to quit while they’re ahead.”
Jan grabbed a large canvas bag I’d placed next to the steering station, hefted it over her shoulder, and strode purposefully toward the aft sundeck.
Juanita, lying flat out on the deck asked, “What’s in the bag, and where is she going?”
“To deliver the unexpected. That’s what you gotta do when thugs just won’t learn that you don’t mess with Texas. Why do you think they’re still on our tails? Did you overhear anything that would give us a clue?”
“No. They said once they had the money, they’d let me go.”
“Gee, they lied. What a surprise. Did you ever see their faces?”
She shook her head. “They always wore those masks.”
“Balaclavas. Hell, you can buy them at Walmart back home. Matter of fact, that’s where Jan and I got ours. Pardon me, I have to make a phone call.”
When Nacho answered I said, “Houston, we have a problem.”
We lay on the deck and rode out the next five minutes in silence, my eyes glued to the outdoor camera screen and the radar painting our tormentor’s progress. When they got within range, it was a given they’d open fire, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. However, randomly firing at a large yacht was basically useless unless they got lucky and hit something that exploded. Luckily for us, the prince was a security freak, and his yacht was pretty much bulletproofed. Princes simply cannot be too careful these days, you know.
We couldn’t outrun that dinghy, and although help was on the way, the bad guys had the guns. On the bright side, these two had already proven themselves to be amateurs, and my money was on us.
I called Nacho again, he said they were just leaving the marina and I told him he’d better hold off nearby unless he was heavily armed.
We just had to be patient, something neither Jan nor I are very good at.
At the moment I thought we had the advantage, I yelled, “Hang on everybody, and Jan, keep your head down!”
Jan sprang into action, scrambling to the bow in a low crouch while dragging the heavy bag behind her. She positioned herself between two large tanning beds, pulled out a nasty-looking weapon from the bag, and gave me a thumbs-up.
I stood and took control of the boat, making a sudden turn that was probably more suited to a ski boat than a huge yacht, and from the crashes we heard, I imagined all manner of debris flying around down below. However, the wide aft end of Odyssey was too large a target, and besides, why let these guys have their way with us?
Steering us straight for the on-coming dinghy, which was just barely out of firing range, we had to plow through our own wake, making for even more mayhem below. As soon as we escaped the tumultuous water we displaced, and the boat steadied out, Jan kneeled, took aim, and pulled the trigger on her handheld grenade launcher.
The grenade exploded in the air, just short of the pursuing boat, but we certainly got their attention.
Rattled, they turned tail and now we were chasing them.
Jan continued to fire grenades at them until I called a cease fire, as we’d bought enough time for Nacho and the gang to catch up with us, and besides, the dinghy full of money was now well out of our range…and we, theirs.
I made a U-turn, more carefully this time, and met up with Nacho and our crew.
Juanita, open-mouthed with shock, asked, “Where on earth did you get those…whatever they were?”
“Grenades. This yacht belongs to a gentleman of means who is also extremely paranoid. My kinda guy, but I gotta speak to him about beefing up his arsenal a bit.”
“Yeah,” Jan said as she joined us topsides. “If we’d a had a missile launcher I’d could’ve blown them and the money to Kingdom Come. Too bad they got away, and with the loot, to boot.”
The explosions offshore couldn’t have gone unnoticed, but I guess everyone back in Cannes thought it was just a fireworks display of some kind, because after we got Nacho, Fabio, and Cholo on board, we cruised into the marina with little fanfare.
After Fabio took over the helm, I headed to the sky lounge, which looked as though a grenade might have gone off there. I did, however, locate an intact bottle of tequila and plopped down on a sofa for a quaff or three.
Jan, drenched with salt water from her bumpy ride on the bow, took Juanita downstairs for a hot shower and some clean clothes.
Martinez, who isn’t real keen on riding in dinghies, waited for us on the dock with a doctor who was brought in to check Juanita out. The doc sanitized and re-bandaged her ear and declared her fit to travel. She, Fabio, Cholo, Martinez, and Nacho shared a waiting limo for the twenty-minute ride to the airport. Chef Roberto and la dueña had gone to the plane as soon as it landed to supervise the offloading of the money, and then wait for Juanita and the rest of the crew to arrive so they could take off for Mexico immediately.
Jan and I took a cab to Jean Luc’s house, where Rhonda and Po Thang were waiting. Po Thang was ecstatic to see us, but Rhonda was confused. She started to ask how it was Jan was with me, but I held up my hand in a stop sign and said, “Later. Let us raid the wine cellar, and make our plans for flying back to the States.”
Jenks called while we were uncorking a five-hundred-dollar bottle of wine, said Nacho had clued him in on how well things went, congratulated me on a job well done, and asked me to meet him in Lille the next day.
Yes!
Back in the living area, I made a toast to our success, then said, “I’d say we did a damned good job, huh, gang?”
“Everything came out just fine,” Jan agreed. “Except for Odyssey. I certainly don’t envy the prince’s crew when they board her and find the mess Hetta left.”
“What happened?” Rhonda asked.
“Hetta happened. She drove that boat like a crazy woman. God only knows what it’ll cost to clean it up. Everything’s broken.”
“Not everything. I did find a bot
tle of tequila that survived, but I gave it to Nacho. Of course, there was about three inches missing, but it’s the thought that counts.”
Jan grinned. “You deserved a drink. We got the girl and you saved our skins, so the mission was a success.”
“No, I just drove the boat. You were the one who scared those bastards off. Here’s to Jan: Wonder Woman.”
“I did what I could. If that danged yacht had been properly equipped with a couple of SAMs instead of that measly grenade launcher, you wouldn’t have had to pull those wild wazoo-puckering stunts, n'est-ce pas?
Chapter Twenty-six
As it turned out, Rhonda had actually witnessed our little offshore fireworks show from Jean Luc’s balcony, and videoed it on her phone.
“Grenades? With a launcher? Wow, I sure wish I’d been with you. Where on earth did you get them?”
“From the grenade safe, where else?” Jan told her. “Dang thang was in a special locker under Hetta’s bed all the time. Who knew?”
Rhonda shook her head as if to clear it. “You’ll have to explain it all to me. It’s been a very long night. I couldn’t sleep, so I just sat upstairs, looking out to sea, even though I couldn’t see anything. And then, BOOM! fireworks. So, I grabbed my phone and took a video.”
“I had the combination to the arsenal locker written on the inside of my thigh, so I gave it to Jan as soon as the rest of the crew left the boat. Jenks gave me the combo, just in case, thank goodness.”
“Very impressive. Jan, you know how to use weapons like that launcher thingy? I thought, like in the movies, you pulled the pin with your teeth and threw them.”
“While I was hiding below, I studied the instructions in the bag Jenks told us about. Anyhow, the launcher was already attached to an M4 carbine, so all I had to do was load and shoot. There were a dozen forty millimeter grenades in the bag, and more below, but I figured if a dozen didn’t do the job, we were toast anyhow. One thing for sure, it beats the hell out of Hetta’s potato gun.”
“Neat. Uh, what’s an M4? And potato gun?”
This led to Jan reciting into a long discourse on various automatic weapons, 40mm grenades, and finally, the potato gun I keep on board Raymond Johnson. “Jenks once used that potato gun to launch Molotov cocktails at a panga full of dudes hell bent on killing us.”
Listening to this bit of history made me downright nostalgic.
“Gosh, you guys live such an exciting life,” Rhonda said.
“Hetta does. The rest of us just go along, kickin’ and screamin’.”
“Oh, come on, Jan, you’ve been in on the money part as well. But I have to admit, since we arrived in Mexico, our excitement factor has amped up. So many bad guys, so little time.”
“Sounds like it. And here in France, as well. It’s a shame you had to let the kidnappers get away with the money, especially since they tried to double-cross you.”
“You got that right,” I told her. “But we sure as hell weren’t going after them once they took off. I still wonder about that three-million-dollar ransom demand. It’s weird. But, oh well, we have to decide—”
My phone rang. It was Jenks again. “Hey, what’s up?” I said, walking outside to get away from prying ears.
“What did you do to Faoud’s boat?”
“Uh, we sorta had a little dust up out there, but thanks to you we prevailed.”
“You used the uh…I guess we should talk about this later, in person. Nacho told me everything went down as planned. Then the prince called and said it looks like a bomb went off inside Odyssey.”
“Please give him my sincere apologies and tell him to send the bill to Juanita’s grandfather. We sort of had to take evasive action. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Anyhow, all’s well that ends well. And, Jenks, Jan says for you to tell Prince Faoud that his boat could really, really, use a surface-to-air missile or two.”
There was a brief silence, followed by that wonderful deep laugh I love so much. “I can’t wait to hear the rest of this story. So, see you in Lille tomorrow?”
“Is there a cow in Texas?”
We drove the rental van to Paris the next day. I dropped Jan, Rhonda, and Po Thang at Jean Luc’s apartment building, then I continued on to Lille. The three of them were scheduled to fly on an Air France charter to Mexico the following morning.
We stayed in the L'Hermitage Gantois in Lille, which is now owned by Marriott and had been greatly updated since I’d visited there before. Kinda funky, but hey, how much can you do with a 15th century building?
While Jenks attended meetings during the day, and since the hotel was in the middle of everything, I went to museums and shopped. I was feeling flush, what with the money from the Baxter Brothers courier job to France I’d just completed, and then El Jefe’s generosity, so I bought as many goodies as I could cram into suitcases to take home for gifts. I wasn’t given my own charter like Jan, Rhonda, and my dog, but I did fly first class, thanks to Air France, which beat the hell out of the C-130 I’d arrived on.
Jenks and I were in Lille for two days, then he had to return to Dubai, and I headed for Texas, where my parents would pick me up in Austin on Christmas day. Loaded down with Godiva Chocolates, pâté, and the like—Jan had taken most of my loot with her to the Baja, and if I was lucky, she, Po Thang, and Rhonda wouldn’t chomp through all of it before I got back to Mexico—I said my tearful goodbyes (okay, so I managed not to cry until I got on the plane) to Jenks. Who knew when I’d see him again?
Those tears were a reminder that, as a forty-year-old woman, I’d had very few New Year’s Eve’s dates, but since meeting Jenks, that had improved greatly. I don’t know what it is about that particular evening, but I think every woman in the world wants SOMEone for company to ring in the promise of a new year. I certainly did.
I cannot count the New Year’s Eves when, if I did venture out alone, I’d see all these couples and it made me sad. Somewhere along the line, I had decided to throw New Year’s Day late brunches, with eggnog, champagne, eggs Benedict and the like, for all my friends, so the night before, I was kept busy cooking and cleaning. Jan always showed up to help the next morning, but she also had a date the night before.
Mom and Dad invited me to a local New Year’s Eve dance at a local beer hall, but I decided I’d rather be back on my boat in Mexico. Sometimes being lonesome in the company of others is worse than actually being alone.
Being single is living a life of liberation, but can also really, really, suck.
Suffering from an abundance of roasted turkey—fresh shot, my fav—along with copious amounts of Shiner Bock and brisket on white bread sandwiches, I finally made it back to La Paz airport. I took a taxi to the marina and was actually looking forward to time alone on the boat. I’d been with other people almost constantly for a couple of months, and that is not my norm.
Pushing the dock cart in front of me, I was greeting other dock dwellers—newbies and old friends—while making a mental list of stuff I had to do, when I was assaulted by a large furry critter.
I dropped to my knees and rubbed my nose in his soft ruff, which smelled of Chanel No. 5, reminding me of his arrival at the Canal du Midi a few weeks before. “Po Thang! I thought you were at the fish camp!”
He was dancing around me, then stopped to sniff packages in the dock cart, a diversion that shorted out his little doggie brain so he plumb forgot he was glad to see me.
“Merry Christmas!” Jan yelled from in front of a decorated artificial tree on my boat’s bow. “What did you buy me?”
A norther had raised its windy head during the late afternoon, so by cocktail hour, we celebrated our reunion on the aft deck of Raymond Johnson. I choose my slips according to the seasons, if possible, so as to be bow-to the prevailing winter wind. Not only does this make docking easier, it also gives me a snug place to sit most afternoons.
I can fully enclose that deck by shutting doors and zipping up canvas with see-through Eisenglass panels, but on this evening all we had to
do was close off the hatch leading to the flying bridge and shut the ones to the walk-around deck. The nice thing about La Paz is that it doesn’t get the strong winds and really chilly temps of the northern Sea, so we were comfy cozy as we ate Jan’s canapés and sipped our drinks while—a little smugly I have to admit—watching white caps build out in the bay and boats getting smacked around while kiting on their hooks.
The La Paz Waltz makes for some fairly uncomfortable times in the anchorage, what with a brisk wind holding your boat broadside to a ripping current during incoming and outgoing tides, or vice versa. While I love being anchored out, I avoid doing so in La Paz.
“I’m gonna buy a boat,” Rhonda declared. “Know any for sale?”
“Every boat in this marina and out there,” I waved my hand toward the anchorage, “is for sale. Just a matter of price.”
“Even this one?”
“Sure. Write me a check for two-hundred and fifty grand and she’s all yours.”
Jan almost snorted wine through her nose. She and I both knew my boat would sell for two-hundred, tops, on a really good day. Like April 1, for example.
“Gee, that sounds pretty cheap,” Rhonda said. She looked as though she was about to make a dash for her checkbook, but then she said, “But, I don’t know anything about boats.”
“Oh, trust me, that’s no problem. Hetta knew nada from nothin’ when she bought this one.”
“Really? How did you learn?”
“I’m really smart.”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Jan brayed. “She got immensely lucky. She met Jenks not long after getting this boat. Up until then she was about as nautically challenged as you can get.”
“Hey, I learned to dock it.”
“Yeah, at every bar’s dock on the Oakland Estuary. I gotta admit, it was fun. But it was Jenks who turned Hetta into the sea wench she is today.”
“True, so true.”
Rhonda was soaking all this in. “And then you brought the boat down here.”
Just Follow the Money Page 16