by Andrew Mayne
Defiantly, the motor keeps humming. Two muscle-bound men in cut-off shorts and tank tops flip-flop over to check out the crazy bitch with the gun. I flash them my badge, about to tell them to step back, and get an idea.
“Help me turn this over,” I command as I holster my weapon. “Grab the trailer hitch.”
“Whatever you say, darling. You’re the one with the gun,” replies the tanner of the two.
Together we lift the metal hitch and tilt the entire generator backwards. The weight from the light mast, thirty feet in the air, begins to work in our favor. With one last shove, the entire tower topples, crashing into the trunk of a blue Hyundai.
“Stand back!” I yell. I don’t know if the thing will explode into flames from the spilled fuel. I grab the cable that runs along the mast and yank it free from its connection inside the housing, realizing too late the smart thing would have been to use my jacket as an insulator to avoid electrocution. Thankfully, I’m not shocked.
“This is Blackwood. Copy?” I call into my radio. The warbling sound is gone.
“Blackwood, this is Knoll. We were having a comm problem.”
Thank God it worked. I give a thumbs-up to my muscular helpers, who probably have no idea what our act of vandalism accomplished.
“I think I fixed it. I spotted Rodriguez. She was heading east on 122nd Street with four Hispanic males. I think she’s headed toward a vehicle. Copy?”
“Affirmative.”
The news helicopter still hovers overhead. “I’m going to try to make visual contact. Copy?”
“Roger that.”
I run back toward the Escalade and flag down the pilot, who had clearly been watching the whole thing. He swings the door open and once more brings the chopper down as close to the top of the vehicle as he can. I grip the inside handle and place a foot on the skid, then pull myself inside.
“Head due east!” I tell him. “We’re to pursue at a safe distance until Miami-Dade can get a copter here. Understood?”
“Affirmative,” replies the pilot as he guns the craft in the direction I’d last seen Marta heading.
A sea of people below us floods through the parking lot and into the auxiliary lots. The lines of departing vehicles stretch half a mile into the stadium parking area. I can’t see Marta letting herself get stuck in that.
“Head toward there!” I point toward a residential area on the other side of the highway. One of my working theories is that she has a car waiting there so she can avoid the packed onramp and get on the freeway somewhere else.
We fly over the highway, above the hordes filtering through the traffic jams toward the neighborhoods where they parked.
“Keep a lookout for anyone driving across medians or going the wrong way to get out of here,” I say over the intercom to the cameraman and pilot.
Row after row of houses roll past underneath us. I search the streets for some sign of Marta and her protectors. If they made it to a car already, she’ll be almost impossible to find.
“There!” shouts the pilot. He’s clearly been involved in enough high-speed pursuits to know what we’re looking for.
A black BMW has just blown through a stop sign and is now racing down the opposite side of the street to get past a line of cars waiting their turn at an exit. It could be some random asshole, but it’s the only lead I’ve got.
“Black BMW heading east toward Hyacinth,” I report into the radio.
“Roger. What is your position?” asks Knoll.
“In pursuit in the Channel 8 chopper.”
“Of course.” I can imagine Knoll shaking his head on the other end.
“BMW just made a left turn onto 42nd Avenue. Heading north now,” I update.
“North?”
“Affirmative.” The nearest turnpike onramp is in the other direction. So are the main arterial roads that will take her into Miami. Where the hell is she headed?
“We’ve got ground units in pursuit,” Knoll explains.
I look below, but don’t see any police cars on the road. “Keep following. Not too close,” I tell the pilot.
“Roger.”
The BMW turns into an industrial area. I flip through my pocket map, trying to see where she might be going. I’d circled down a number of contingent situations.
One pops out. “This is Blackwood. Set up a roadblock at Exeter Executive Airport. I think that’s her destination.”
“Roger that.”
“Can you get a phone line here?” I ask the pilot.
He points to an iPhone connected to the console. “Just dial in there.”
I pull up the FAA direct number for the airport control tower on my phone, then dial it in on his.
“Exeter operations.”
“This is Agent Blackwood with the FBI. What craft do you presently have cleared for takeoff?”
“We have a Cessna trainer taxiing and a private jet prepping now.”
“Is the hatch still open on the jet?”
“Affirmative. They radioed in and said they’re waiting for a crew member before departing.”
“Tower, do not let them leave! Ground all craft. We’re going to be making a landing.”
“Who is this again?”
“I’ll tell you in person,” I respond, and end the call. Then I turn to the pilot. “You mind going the extra mile?”
He flashes me an adventurous grin. “What do you need?”
65
MARTA’S CAR CONTINUES toward the airport. Police units appear in the distance, but are at least a mile back. I tell myself that at least they have her retreat blocked, for what it’s worth. But I know this will not go down without bloodshed.
In the air we’ve been tailing her from a distance, trying not to alert her, but the whoop of the sirens has probably spoiled that.
I make a gut decision. I can’t just be a passive observer. Out here, at least, we’re away from the crowds at the stadium. I point out the airfield to the pilot. “We need to keep her jet from taking off. I need you to land me as close as you feel is safe.”
There’s a nod and another flash of that grin. “We’ll put you on top of the wing if you like.” I get the sense he’s down for anything. It’s not a joke that pilots have the highest testosterone levels of any professionals. Right now, that’s a good thing.
The engine roars and we shoot forward. I glance back at the cameraman. He’s shooting through the closed window, to reduce our drag, but not missing a thing.
The runway comes into view as we pass over a line of warehouses, a long gray stripe of concrete that stands out from the surrounding dull green grass and shiny black plastic rooftops. The pilot aims us down the center and we race toward the cluster of hangars at its far end.
A gleaming white G5 jet sits at the edge of the tarmac, waiting for its last passenger. Two SUVs are parked on the hatch side. This isn’t good. She could have armed men waiting to protect her escape.
“Come down near the cockpit!”
He banks the chopper to the side then lines us up nose-to-nose with the jet. Our skids are just a few inches off the ground.
“Check that out,” urgently shouts the cameraman from the back.
I look to where he’s pointing. Marta’s BMW slams through a chain-link fence between hangars and skids onto the tarmac. The driver spins the car into a drift, then pulls up between the two SUVs so they flank her exit. It’s a precision move, the kind of thing they teach you in the Academy. Damn it, we’re dealing with professionals.
I pull my gun free. Seconds are going to matter.
“Closer?” I don’t want to push the pilot more than I have to.
Without hesitating, he brings us a hundred feet from the front of the plane. I can see the pilot flipping switches in its cockpit. There’s a man standing behind him with a gun tucked into his belt.
> The jet lurches forward to begin a high-stakes game of chicken.
This is no time to screw around.
I kick my door open and fire into the spinning turbine of the right-side tail-mounted engine. There’s an awful sound, like the tines of a giant fork catching in the blades of a blender, then billowing black smoke.
“There’s a two-million-dollar rebuild,” the awestruck helicopter pilot remarks.
I get a sick feeling in my stomach.
A fleet of squad cars pour onto the airfield. We pull up and away so they can surround the plane. “Get some distance,” I warn him. “This could get ugly.”
Drawing their weapons, uniformed officers leap out of their vehicles, pistols and shotguns cover the SUV windows and the open hatch of the jet.
Two of Marta’s bodyguards pop up from behind the hood of an SUV and open fire with AR-15s. Bullets punch through the cars in front of the jet, the officers barely able to duck down in time.
“Where the hell do they think they’re going to go?” My pilot nods to the tall cloud of smoke still spewing from the plane’s right engine.
“I don’t know.” The whole situation seems a little odd. I can see bank robbers ending up in a full-blown shoot-out. I expected a smarter escape route from Marta.
She certainly slipped through our fingers at the stadium. And she almost made it this far without us realizing she’d evaded our airport screening.
She’s several steps ahead.
Shit! This is her fucking plan!
“Pull back!” I shout to the pilot. I get on my radio. “Tell the units to pull back!” I scream.
“They’re already under fire.”
“I know. Tell them to clear the area! Now!”
Boom!
Ripping apart in the middle, the jet buckles into the air before a ball of fire consumes it. The shockwave sends us spinning. We dive to the side and almost wedge the rotors into the ground. At the last second our pilot gains control and drops us hard onto the tarmac.
A second fireball erupts when the jet’s fuel tanks ignite. Two men, probably Marta’s bodyguards, come running from the inferno, clothes ablaze. The police officers, fortunately shielded by their own vehicles, look shell-shocked as they retreat from the fuel fire. A twisted column of oily smoke rises into the air.
More squad cars come racing into the airport to provide backup. Somewhere, a fire engine siren wails as emergency crews hurtle down the highway toward the small airport.
I watch the jet disintegrate before my eyes. Stunned, I have to push my own reaction away and focus on the present.
No. It’s not ending like this.
No fucking chance in hell.
I call into the radio. “Suspect may still be at large. Keep coverage of other critical points. I repeat, suspect may still be at large.”
“What was that sound?” someone asks.
“Her plane. She must have had a bomb ready,” I reply as I leap out of our helicopter to assist the men on the ground.
A police officer, bleeding from his soot-covered cheek, is kneeled over by the edge of the conflagration. I run over to drag him clear of the smoke.
He struggles to his feet and coughs. “What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” I set him down gently by the bumper of a backup patrol car. Other responders have cleared the men closest to the explosion. I survey the wreckage and try to wrap my head around what just happened. “Ratner, are you there? Over.”
“Ratner, here. What the fuck is going on over there?”
I ignore his question. “We didn’t have any marked cars here. What happened to the security point we requested at all airports?”
There’s a guilty pause. “I’ll check on that. Is she dead?”
Damn it! I want to rip into him on the radio for everyone to hear, but now is not the time so I fight back my raging urge to cuss him out. “We don’t know. What about the harbors? Did we track down her vessel?”
“Negative.”
His one word answer hardly explains anything. “What do you mean? Did we do a search of area harbors for any vessels that matched the description of her craft?”
“There are a lot of boats in Miami,” replies Ratner defensively.
Jesus Christ. My chest is seizing up. I need to gasp for air and scream at him at the same time. Instead, I try to respond as calmly as possible. “Lock down all the harbors.”
“What?”
Calm time over. “I said lock them down! Call the harbor masters and the Coast Guard!”
“Why? Didn’t she just blow herself up?”
“No!” My eyes water from the stinging smoke. “No, she didn’t. She found the hole in our net and may be getting through it right now.” Thanks to you¸ although I use every ounce of willpower to avoid saying this over the open radio.
66
THE OCEAN SONG, a two-hundred-foot yacht made in southern Italy, has a curious title history. First purchased by a Dubai real estate mogul before completion, the vessel was bought at a discount by a Chinese billionaire when the man from Dubai saw his property values evaporate overnight. The Chinese billionaire in turn sold the yacht to a newly minted Russian petrol magnate when he decided to go with something larger and Chinese-built.
Sergei Olanoff, current title owner of the Ocean Song, hasn’t been seen since one of his business partners accused him of embezzling company funds. After it was discovered the Dubai mogul’s final payment hadn’t been made within the terms of the contract, the Ocean Song itself, only ever taken out for one voyage after delivery, idles in a harbor in Greece while a legal battle over ownership wrangles its way through the courtrooms of four different countries. All of this means the one-hundred-and-ninety-foot yacht named Ocean Song, currently sitting in the harbor of Biscayne Bay, is an impostor.
Twenty minutes of background-checking all the boats that met the Marty’s description would have revealed that no boat of that size titled Ocean Song ever left Nassau, or sailed from any of the other ports in her logs.
This revelation took just one phone call to the right person at the Coast Guard.
Ratner blew this one big time. He’s been trying to compensate for his screwup by getting on the phone with every contact we have that’s so much as looked at an ocean. I sit shotgun in an FBI car racing toward the hotel harbor where the “Ocean Song” is docked while he pieces together the puzzle for me over the phone.
“We got a Coast Guard vessel into the harbor,” he says. “They’re making the boat return now.”
“Do we have ground units waiting?” I ask.
“I’ll check on it.”
I don’t have to point out the pile of shit that’s about to fall on him. If he thinks a list of phone calls is going to save his ass, he’s mistaken.
I glance anxiously at the field agent driving the car. George Aguilera, a bald, mustachioed Miami native, can’t go any faster. He nods to let me know he understands my frustration. We’re already full throttle with a Miami-Dade marked car leading the way at one hundred miles per hour.
Knoll calls me from another car. “What’s the latest?”
I’d requested him and his team down as support for the festival operation. It felt like overkill at first. Now I realize it wasn’t enough. “The jet is still too hot to search. They’ve visually ID’d several bodies. Potentially a female that could be Marta.”
“What do you think?”
I don’t know Marta, but I get her scent, if that’s any way to explain it. “I think any woman that would put a bomb in a crowded apartment complex wouldn’t think twice about killing her own double if it covered her tracks. The bomb was remotely triggered, I’m sure. We’re tracking down cell phone-tower data. Most likely someone told her they were under fire and she detonated remotely.”
“That’s evil. Is this your own guess?�
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“Yeah. It’s what I’d probably do.”
“You’ve got to stop saying that. You have no idea how much it scares people.”
The uncomfortable truth is that I find myself thinking more and more how evil minds work. “Then don’t forget me at Christmas.”
Aguilera squeals into the harbor parking lot, already full with squad cars and federal agents. I work my way through the blocked-off area toward the long pier where the fake Ocean Song is moored. Seventeen pissed-off-looking crew members are sitting on the dock with their hands zip-tied behind their backs. The captain is the only one not bound, and he’s in a heated exchange with a Coast Guard lieutenant.
The lieutenant, an African American in his early thirties, turns to me. “You Blackwood?”
“Yes.” I scan the crew on the dock. “Is this everyone?”
The captain shakes his head, realizing the severity of the situation. “We had some crew take a launch out.”
“After you were told to return to harbor?” I snap.
He’s not sure who I am, but can tell by the tone of my voice that I must belong here. “I didn’t see it happening.”
“Are you the usual captain?”
He shakes his head. “I came on in the Bahamas.”
“Was it still the Ocean Song then?”
He gives a nervous glance at the Coast Guard lieutenant then stares at the planks of the dock. “I just drive the boat,” he says weakly. The records are his responsibility. Signing off on forgeries is a crime. It doesn’t matter what he does and doesn’t know. He’ll lose his captain’s license at the very least.
The lieutenant turns to me. “His logs are a mess. We can hold him on that.”
I flash my badge and come face-to-face with the captain. “Who was your passenger?”