Bluewater Bullion: The Seventh Novel in the Caribbean Mystery and Adventure Series (Bluewater Thrillers Book 7)

by Charles Dougherty

  He caught a flicker of movement in the shadows near the entrance to the open-air bar and saw the two crewmen from Pisces of Atë settling themselves on bar stools. He moved to a corner table in the bar and took a well-thumbed copy of Livy's History of Early Rome from his pocket. He listened intently as the two men bemoaned their fruitless search. After she had drawn mugs of beer for the men, the bartender sauntered over to Alex's table.

  "What can I get you this evening, sir?" she asked.

  Alex ordered a rum and tonic with a twist of lime and opened his book, continuing to follow the grumbling of the two men from Bond's boat.

  ****

  Jake Meyers had made himself at home in the villa his people had been using. He was sitting at the small table in the corner of the bedroom he had appropriated, his laptop open in front of him. He finished checking his email, handling the items that required his attention.

  He was amused by an email from his telecommunications manager telling him that he had several progressively more desperate voicemails from Dix Beauregard. He sent off a message ordering her to disconnect that number with no recording. He wondered for a moment what Beauregard wanted, and then decided that it didn't matter. He had already given instructions; Beauregard would be out of the picture in another day or two.

  Satisfied that he was caught up for the moment, he turned his attention to the file containing the results of the research on the two women from Vengeance.

  Both women had graduate degrees in finance. Chirac had worked for the European Commission in Brussels for a couple of years, and Berger had worked for an investment bank in New York. Berger had spent some time as paid crew on a number of luxury yachts in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, and had apparently paid her way through school as a deck hand.

  Interestingly, Berger was independently wealthy; she had inherited a substantial portfolio from her father's mother. That piqued his curiosity, but there was little information beyond that. Her grandmother had lived and died in Martinique. Her father was French, a man named Jean-Pierre Berger. He was an import/export broker, working from an office in Paris, although he had grown up in the French West Indies. His first wife, the woman's mother, was an American. The Berger woman had dual citizenship; she was listed as an American on her captain's license, but she also had a French passport.

  Chirac's background was more straightforward. She was Belgian, an only child. Her father had been a minor bureaucrat, and her mother had died in Chirac's infancy. Her father had never remarried, and had raised her by himself. He had passed away a few years ago, leaving Chirac a modest amount of money.

  The yacht Vengeance was owned by a Delaware corporation, and Berger was listed as the president. The only other officer of record was an attorney who served as the secretary of a number of similar small corporations. All indications were that Berger and Chirac were partners in the operation of the charter business. There may have been other investors, but they weren't disclosed anywhere.

  There was nothing in either woman's background that would explain their apparent proficiency at close combat. Neither had been in the military or law enforcement. From the pictures in Alex's computer, both looked fit. They both were slight, almost diminutive, although there was a certain wiry strength evident in Berger's posture.

  Alex had gone into detail about his brief encounter with the two of them when he had attempted to bluff his way aboard the yacht. They had both come across as confident. Assured, but not cocky, was the way Alex had described them. Chirac had held her ground when he had tried to push past her up the boarding ladder, he said, and Berger had stood by, watching, with a smirk on her face.

  Meyers decided that if either of them got in the way, they should be dispatched quickly. There was no reason to think either of them knew anything of value about the gold, and they were potentially dangerous. Depending on what kind of plan he and Alex developed, they might need to take the two women out on a preemptive basis. Their focus had to be on Yates and Bond. Either of them might know where the gold was; their relationship was still a puzzle.

  ****

  Marilyn was more relaxed than she had been in several days. Gerald's reaction to her confession was far different than she had expected. Rather than being upset about her hiding her ancestry, he seemed fascinated by the notion that they were distant cousins of some sort.

  They had spent a good bit of time over dinner trying to determine exactly how to define their blood relationship, laughing the whole time. The fact that Zebulon Yates had an adulterous relationship with her unmarried great-great-great grandmother only added spice to the story, as far as Gerald was concerned. He had expressed an eagerness to incorporate Zebulon's illicit romance into his story.

  Instead of being angry that she had commissioned a competing search for the wreck of Phaedra, he had been relieved. Since they were now working together, he had said, the regrettable loss of Nick Thompson wouldn't impede his search. In fact, he was eager to share what information he and Nick had collected with Bond, hoping to shorten the search. Marilyn had thought better of telling Nick that she knew that the location that had been so carefully guarded and passed down through his branch of the family was incorrect.

  Old Zebulon had been a scoundrel in more than his philandering; he had intended to keep the wealth of the Confederate treasury for himself. The memorandum that she had shared with Bond had explicitly mentioned Zebulon's bribing the two crewmen who had survived to give an erroneous estimate of the wreck's location for the plantation records. Keeping that from Gerald didn't trouble Marilyn; it was of no consequence, now.

  She heard her cell phone ringing as she stepped out of the shower. She worried that it might be Gerald; he had taken a taxi to the villa to pick up his laptop and his files, as well as some fresh clothes. She expected him back momentarily, but perhaps he had some question. In a hurry, she wrapped herself in one of the oversized towels and stepped into the bedroom, picking the phone up and checking the caller i.d.

  She didn't recognize the number, so she let the call go to voicemail while she toweled herself dry and slipped on a shorty nightgown and a diaphanous robe. She grabbed her hairbrush and the phone and went out onto the balcony, planning to brush her hair dry in the glorious, warm breeze that was blowing in from the ocean.

  Placing her brush on the table, she dragged one of the chairs into just the right spot. She checked the voicemail and discovered it was Bond, wanting to meet her tomorrow morning at ten o'clock at the same beach bar they had used before. He promised good news; he said he had something to show her. She keyed in a text message agreeing to meet and put the phone down, picking up the hairbrush.

  Chapter 30

  "His name is Jacob Meyer," Phillip said, looking at the picture that Denardo had emailed to him. "He had a checkered career with some of those three-letter agencies, I think as a contractor most recently, although at one time he was CIA. It's always hard to know about those guys. What did you say he was calling himself now?"

  "Jones. John M. Jones," Denardo said, relieved that Phillip had recognized the man. "He was using a whole set of credentials that matched, with an address in Fairfax, Virginia."

  "Figures. Those guys all have some tie to Virginia. You check out the address yet?"

  "Yeah. It's a repo; it belongs to some bank. There's a whole neighborhood of them. Nobody knows squat about who lived there or when they left. It was a rental for a while. Cash, of course. The property manager didn't remember who paid it — too much water under the bridge. I'm glad you recognized him."

  "What's he done?" Phillip asked.

  "That's a good question, Phillip. The picture was taken at a meet with Dix Beauregard, Yates's lawyer. I rattled his cage about the gambling debt payoff, and he ran straight to this guy, Meyer."

  "What are you thinking, Joe?"

  "I don't like coincidences any more than any other cop. There were three people from Savannah killed down there in the islands right before Beauregard went running to this Meyer, or Jones.
I smell a connection."

  "You're probably right. You could pick Meyers up for a busted taillight in his rental car or something and see what you can get out of him, but he's a pro. He's not going to give anything away."

  "I can't even do that. He's gone. Flew late yesterday."

  "You know where he went?"

  "Yeah. Antigua. Surprise, surprise."

  "Damn," Phillip said.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Dani and Liz are there. Meyer's old time partner's already made an approach. He tried to bluff his way aboard their boat after their encounter with Rigo and Chen, but they blew him off."

  "Is he anybody I should know about?" Joe asked.

  "Maybe, but I doubt it. He's been in Antigua this whole time — one of those guys that's so average, he might as well be invisible."

  "Well, it sounds like whatever's happening is way outside my jurisdiction so far. I guess I'd better get to work. Call me if I can help, somehow. Or if you see any of these bastards heading my way again."

  "Yeah, I will. Thanks, Joe."

  "No problem."

  "Have a good one."

  "Thanks ... hey, Phillip?"

  "Yeah?"

  "If you talk to Paul and Connie, tell them I said hello."

  "Will do."

  ****

  Merrill Bond looked ready to bolt when he saw Gerald Yates walk up to the bar with Marilyn, but he stood his ground. "Who's your friend?" he asked.

  "Come on, Bond. It's okay. I know you know who I am. We're on the same side now. Relax," Gerald said.

  "Did Thompson tell you? That piece of ... "

  "Nick's dead, Merrill," Marilyn said.

  "He's what? You're shittin' me ... "

  "It's a long story, and it's got nothing to do with us and where we go from here."

  "Yeah? What happened to old Nick? Some irate husband finally catch up with him?"

  "No, we were boarded by a drug dealer who wanted revenge against the ladies who run Vengeance. They apparently thought Nick was dangerous, so they just shot him, first thing."

  "Jesus," Bond said, and crossed himself instinctively. "Nick was dangerous, but ... what happened?"

  "We can tell you about that later, if you want," Marilyn said. "Let's talk about Phaedra. Gerald and I have decided to work together."

  "Well, that's good, I guess," Bond said, looking uneasy. He picked up the glass of what looked like fruit juice that was on the bar in front of him and took a swallow.

  "You said you had news," Marilyn said. "Did you find something?"

  "Possibly. We've been diving on a wreck that could be Phaedra for the last couple of days. It's in the right place, and it's about the right age. We found a piece of a trailboard the other day that had the letters 'e, d, r,' carved into it."

  "That's pretty positive," Gerald said. "Any sign of cargo?"

  "Maybe. It's in shallow water, and there've been a lot of storms in the last 150 years, so it's scattered all to hell and back. I don't want to raise false hopes, but we found something yesterday that's pretty interesting. Problem is, though, it's going to take some more money to keep looking. I'll need to bring in one of my bigger boats; we're gonna have to pump an acre or two of sand up and run it through screens to even tell if this is it."

  "The money's not a big problem, Merrill," Marilyn said.

  "Well, you understand, we might still not find anything more."

  "What do you mean, 'anything more,' Bond," Gerald asked.

  Bond cast furtive looks around the bar. "Let's walk and talk," he said, turning and heading for the beach.

  Marilyn and Gerald followed him for 50 yards or so. Bond stopped and made a show of looking around again.

  "Come stand close in front of me," he said. "Don't want anybody with binoculars seeing this."

  As they drew into a tight circle, he reached into his pocket. With a final look around, he withdrew his hand and passed the gold bar to Marilyn.

  ****

  "I know the money doesn't mean anything to you, but it does to me, Marilyn," Gerald protested. He and Marilyn were lingering over the remains of a room service lunch in her suite.

  They had been discussing Bond's tantalizing find all the way back to the hotel. Marilyn had given the treasure hunter the go-ahead to bring in his larger salvage tug, promising to wire him funds as soon as he gave her an itemized proposal. Gerald wanted to pay his share of the costs.

  "Look, Gerald. We already talked about this. I've got more money than a lot of countries; it's silly for you to insist on helping fund this when you're broke."

  "It's my problem," he said. "I frittered away a fortune."

  "Yes, and you've agreed to get some help for that. Let it go."

  "I can't. I wasn't cut out to be a kept man."

  "Don't do this, Gerald, I ... "

  "I'm not without the means to contribute to this. I just need to get this matter of my advance settled. That could be seven figures, if they decide to pick up the rights to some of my future works."

  "You said you were going to call your lawyer last night about that. Did you get him?"

  "Dix Beauregard. I got him, all right, but I couldn't get him to focus on my contract problem. All he wanted to talk about were the killings. He said Mickey Semmes was dead, too. I told him that Mickey had survived, but he wasn't buying it. He said 'Jones' told him. I asked who the hell 'Jones' was, and then he started rambling about how if he'd known they were going to kill everybody, he would have never hired them. I have no idea what he was talking about; he was incoherent. I finally hung up."

  "Wow. So what are you going to do now?"

  "Call my agent and see where the negotiations stand. I don't really need Dix in this; he was just in it for old times' sake." He looked at his wrist watch. "It's after two in New York. This is probably a good time to catch her; she'll just be coming back from lunch. You mind?"

  "Of course not." She reached over and picked up the telephone from the sideboard and put it on the table in front of him. "You need some privacy?"

  He shrugged. "Not really. Suit yourself." He dialed the phone and asked for Sandra White.

  Marilyn sat across from him, holding his left hand as he told the agent about his progress on the current book. Marilyn heard her ask something about the search for Phaedra, and Gerald told her about the gold bar marked "CSA" that Bond had shown them this morning. They chatted for a few minutes about strategy for selling the idea of a series of related works to the publisher, and closed with Gerald agreeing to send her a photo of himself with the gold bar.

  ****

  Alex Hart and Jake Meyers were in the sitting room of the rented villa at Jolly Harbour listening to a recording from the bug in Marilyn Muir's suite. Meyers's eyes flashed when he heard Yates mention Dix Beauregard. His jaw clenched as Yates described Beauregard's ramblings. Meyers stopped the playback.

  "Son of a bitch," he said.

  "Should have nailed him earlier, Jake."

  "Hindsight's 20-20. He's a damned lawyer; he should have more sense than to tell anybody stuff like that."

  "Sounds like he must be round the bend. Maybe he's drinking. You said you thought he might be an alky."

  "Yeah. He'd been in the scotch the last time I saw him, and that was mid-morning. It's time to put him to sleep. Hand me the sat phone."

  Hart passed the encrypted phone to Meyer. "You'll need to take it outside. It's gotta have a clear shot at the sky."

  Meyers nodded and stepped out onto the patio. He returned 90 seconds later. "Beauregard won't be talking to anyone for much longer," he said, handing the phone to Hart as he resumed his seat. "Play the rest of that," he said.

  They listened in silence until the end of the recording.

  Meyers grinned and turned to Hart. "Gold bar from the Confederate treasury. You hear that?"

  "Yep," Hart said, grinning as well. "Sounds like they found it."

  "Yeah. We need to stop them before they get any farther along."

  "Stop them
? Why? I figured we'd let them ... "

  "The longer we let them screw around, the more people will know about it, Alex. Use your head, man."

  "I thought we were going to let them recover it and then take it. Bond's got that ship with the dredge thing sitting up there in Fort Lauderdale. He's probably gonna bring ... "

  "Yeah, he might. If he brings that thing in, the whole world will know what's happening. I think we should turn them off and recover it ourselves, but first, we need to get all the details on where the wreck is."

  "Salvage it ourselves?" Hart asked.

  "Yeah. It's in international waters. At least, that's where Bond's been looking. Yates was skirting Antigua's territorial waters. I couldn't tell from the recording which one of them found it."

  "Well maybe we'll hear more on that later," Hart said.

  "Time is precious. I'm thinking we should move things along."

  "What're you saying?"

  "Well, try this on and see how it fits. Bond's staying on that boat of his in Falmouth Harbour, right?"

  "Yeah," Hart agreed.

  "And Yates is hanging out with the woman in English Harbour; five minutes away in one of our RIBs."

  "Okay, but we don't have ... "

  "We'll have one tonight. I ordered it up while I was talking to the office a few minutes ago."

  "A military version or a CZ-7?"

  "CZ-7. I figured it would attract less attention."

  "Okay, so we've got a RIB. What're you gonna do with it?"

  "We'll send a team to board Bond's boat and get rid of his crew. Then we'll snatch Yates and take the two of them for a ride."

  "In Bond's boat? Why do that?" Hart asked.

  "First off, if we get offshore, we'll have some privacy. Second, if we go in his boat, he's got all his charts and records aboard. He's been living on the damn thing."