Garret found that funny. “Is there money in that?” Without waiting for an answer, he added in seriousness, “Kidnapping Nathan is something Walsh and I will handle.”
“In your dreams,” Mitch growled. “This time I’m not staying put.”
“Yeah you will.” Garret let those words fly with a stubborn bent. “You have to stay here in case something comes up with Reiner that the other crew members won’t be able to handle.”
Mitch put his hands on his hips. “It’s annoying the way you’re right most of the time.”
Patient up to a point, Anniston wasn’t having it this time. “Come on, Garret, this is crazy talk. You can plainly see right there in the photo that crewmember is armed and dangerous. He isn’t one bit happy with that asshole Nathan. Don’t do this.”
He gripped her shoulders, rested his brow on hers. “I know what I’m doing. Trust me. It’ll be okay.”
“You always say that!”
“And everything always works out, doesn’t it?”
She looked at Mitch, then at Jackson to back her up. “Do something. You aren’t just going to let him try to board the Pike by himself, are you? It’s insane. This is your brother. Think about it, long and hard.”
“Not so insane,” Jackson admitted. “But we’ll need a diversion.”
Garret picked up the logic and went on, “What’s the weather report for tonight. We could use a fog bank. That’d work enough as a diversion. And we’ll need to be able to shadow the Patagonia Pike and mirror her route, wait until she’s moored at a specific spot. We already know the crew is one diver short. And for some inexplicable reason, they like to dive at night. So we wait until two more divers go into the water and that’s when I board the ship.”
“It’s all about timing,” Anniston concluded. “Two less men to worry about.”
“You bet. I’ll need to know the precise location of the cabin where they’re holding Nathan. No guessing. So getting that will take some reconnaissance. I’ll go in there fast and silent and move out quickly before they know what hit them.”
She put her hands on her hips, beginning to get caught up in the plan. “At the risk of losing my license, if you insist on doing this, then I’m going with you this time.”
Garret’s lips curved up. He nipped her around the waist. “As much as I’d like to have you, you’re not putting your livelihood in jeopardy for me. But I appreciate the offer.”
Unmoved, she dug in. “You aren’t going without me and that’s final. Think about it. I’m a tactical asset. More than.”
“She is,” Mitch pointed out. “If I can’t go, then you should take her. She moves fast and she’s deadly with a weapon.”
“There, see?”
Walsh stepped into the galley. “We have a situation. Reiner is screaming his head off about having a belly ache.”
Mitch reached for a bottle of Pepto-Bismol and tossed it to Walsh. “Here’s a bottle of pink stuff. The man bitches about everything. The way he makes demands, you’d think he was lord and master of the universe. Unless he’s suffering from appendicitis, I don’t want to hear about it. He’s not getting off this boat.”
From the bridge, Garret heard shouting. He recognized Anniston’s raised voice as she yelled back at her brother. Sebastian’s tone was just as mulish.
“They’re talking about kidnapping a guy off a boat, Anniston. Think long and hard about the consequences of that. Do you want to lose your license? Piss everything away that you’ve worked so hard for these past few years? It’s a crazy idea. Not to mention dangerous.”
“Sheesh, you sound just like Garret. I’m more than qualified to do this.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t. But it’s risky. What if you get caught? The Patagonia crew works for a ruthless man who couldn’t care less about legalities. Dietrich is a force to be reckoned with. If you get caught who knows what he’ll demand in return, a million dollars in ransom? He’s insane enough to do it.”
“We won’t get caught.”
“You don’t know that,” Sebastian charged, throwing his arms up in the air. “You’re so wrapped up in this guy, you don’t see how harebrained this is. This isn’t like you at all. You’re normally so levelheaded.”
That brought out the fire in Anniston. “I’m wrapped up in Garret? Please. What about you? You don’t make a move without bringing Dominka along with you. So it’s okay for you to drag her everywhere you go? I don’t think so. You even brought her with you when you did the stakeout at Dietrich’s hideout. Don’t deny it. That was a stupid thing to do. You’re usually so…it’s not levelheaded. What’s the word I’m looking for? Wait for it…pigheaded is what you are!”
Garret stepped up to the railing. “You guys need a referee?”
“No, I’m done arguing,” Sebastian said as he walked off toward the stern in a huff.
“Sorry to interrupt your sibling war of words, but there’s something about me you should probably know.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “If you’ve finally decided to come clean and tell me you’ve worked for the CIA in the past…”
Garret laughed. “Nope, not my style.”
“You are a cat burglar,” Anniston guessed with wide eyes. “I knew it.”
“Jeez, will you just let me tell you.”
“I did a background check on you. No priors, never even been picked up for stealing. You have a healthy bank account, but that’s not surprising seeing as how you’re a world-class surfer with hefty sponsors and endorsements. What gives?”
“That right there tells you not to believe everything that shows up in a background check. Before I made it on the circuit, I had a job as a locksmith. You already know as a kid I used to break into stuff around town all the time. It drove my parents nuts. But as long as I didn’t steal anything, they figured it was just a weird, quirky phase that would eventually run its course.”
She stepped closer. “And?”
“For a time, I turned that eccentric little hobby into a useful way to pay the bills, especially when I was starting out and had nothing.”
“Are you telling me your sideline started to pay off in other ways? You did steal.”
“Just listen. About eight years ago I got picked up by an undercover cop in Paris.”
“You got arrested?”
“That’s another word for it. I like to call it making new friends. It was my first time in the city and I was mesmerized by the vibe of the place. As a tourist I wanted to see everything so I decided to go sightseeing on my own. I came across this little art gallery in the Le Marais district. But it was closed for the night. I was there and didn’t see the point of having to come back in the morning when I would likely run into a natty salesperson who would ruin the ambiance of the place by hitting me up with a tried and true sales pitch. So I picked the lock.”
“Garret Davis Indigo, you didn’t?”
“Now you’re sorta sounding like my mother. Anyway, this guy appears from out of nowhere. He certainly wasn’t wearing a uniform. He was dressed like me, in jeans and a T-shirt, but he came with an attitude toward Americans, exceptionally snotty. He started blathering away in French. I only caught about every other word. The gist of it seemed to be, that he had taken exception to the unconventional way I got into the building. Turns out, he was an off-duty cop trying to make a few extra bucks working as a security guard for the owner of the gallery. He took me downtown and put me in a holding cell until he ran me through Interpol. Once he realized that I hadn’t stolen anything and I wasn’t a terrorist, or a thief with priors, he let me go…with one condition.”
“That you never set foot in Paris again?”
“You’d think that would be where this story would end up. But no, he wanted me to retrieve something from his ex-brother-in-law’s house.”
“Don’t tell me he wanted you to steal back a valuable piece of jewelry.”
“That’s what I thought, too, but nothing quite so glamorous as that. It turns out all
he wanted me to take was a family photo album that the ex-brother-in-law kept telling his sister he no longer had.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. But Henri and I became lifelong friends. So you see, I’m more than capable of getting Nathan out of a locked cabin without you putting your job in jeopardy or making things bad between you and your brother.”
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him long and hard. “You might be the most fascinating guy I’ve ever met.”
“Then you’ve lived a sheltered life.”
She put her arm through his as they walked around the deck, enjoying the sunshine and the southern afternoon breeze.
“Is it true what your brother said? Are you wrapped up in this guy?” Garret asked as he looked deep into her soulful eyes.
She smiled. “You know, I think I am.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine - Heat
There was planning to be done. For that, they lounged in the galley and ate Blaine’s slow-roasted, barbecue brisket sandwiches.
To everyone’s surprise, it was Sebastian who got things rolling. “We have a minor setback. About the encrypted chat room Baskin uses. These guys have set up their own server farm with a private portal. I haven’t yet found anyone who’s been able to hack it, certainly not me. Walsh and I have discussed this and as long as they change their passwords on a regular basis, it’ll be almost impossible to monitor.”
“Sometimes that’s the way it ends up in the game,” Walsh declared. “It just means we’ll have to find another way.”
“We’re still keeping track of Baskin and Dandridge, correct?” Garret wanted to know.
“Yep. The good thing about surveillance is you can set it up from anywhere,” Sebastian assured them. “Now for reconnaissance on the Pike, why don’t we use a drone with a camera? I could disable the safety chip to get it to fly higher so the crew wouldn’t even hear it circling above.”
“I thought you were vehemently opposed to this little mission,” Anniston snarled.
“I decided if my sister is so morally flexible that she’d get involved in something this stupid, it ought to be planned in precise detail—less risk, less chance of it going south.”
Anniston glanced around the room. “Morally flexible? Nice. I’m pretty sure he just insulted all of us. It’s not like we’re running with drug dealers.”
“That’s about the only thing we haven’t encountered here,” he lobbed back. “Safety should be paramount in any operation.”
Garret picked up his iced tea. “I agree. But let me remind you that we’re taking Nathan off that boat for one big reason. He’s being held against his will. We don’t know why or how he got there. But we do know the guy holds some secrets that are probably the key to unlocking this whole thing. That’s the reason we’re going in. So how about we cut the hostility? Anniston made up her own mind to do this. I respect that. You don’t agree. Fine. But that should be off the table for discussion. So there’ll be no more arguing about it. We’re on a timetable here. Agreed?”
Sebastian bobbed his head with some reluctance. “Sure.”
“So you have access to a drone?” Mitch asked him.
“I know where I can get one.”
“Then you’d better see if your supplier is able to get it quick, like tonight, ASAP because this is coming together fast.”
Sebastian stood up. “I’ll go make the call.”
Jackson steepled his hands. “With any luck, when the crew discovers this guy’s gone, they’ll simply think he broke out of his cabin, slipped over the side, and tried to swim for shore.”
“We ought to be able to tell where they’re holding Nathan by where the guard is stationed.”
“If Sebastian comes through with the drone, I’d prefer relying on that for confirmation, otherwise, we’ll go with it.”
“We need to check the weather forecast, keep on top of any marine layer moving in. We could use a nice cloud cover tonight.”
Mitch ended the meeting with a terse directive. “So if we’re done here, y’all need to go home and get your gear. You know what you need to bring. Meet back here on the boat in two hours.” He looked at his watch. “In maritime speak, that’s thirteen hundred hours. You need to come back prepared to haul ass—because I plan to catch up to the Patagonia Pike.”
Mitch got under way an hour behind Dietrich’s ship.
Jackson sat in the command center at a laptop, tapping away at the keys. He logged into the GPS software, pulled up the data coming from the tracking device. He opened a chart and mapped the path of the other ship as it took a southern route out into the open sea. But he had to be patient while the ship decided where she wanted to drop anchor for the night. Another hour ticked by before her engines came to a complete stop.
Garret and Anniston stood behind Jackson watching the data come up on the screen.
“What we need is a place to hang out near them and be able to sneak up on the ship without being detected by their radar,” Jackson explained.
Garret studied the images of the coastline and pointed to a reef consisting of several sandbars. “There, we can come up from this direction and anchor there offshore, without being detected. Then we wait for nightfall and hope for that nice fog to roll in. It’s the season for it.”
“Looks as good a place as any,” Jackson agreed, relaying the coordinates to Mitch.
At top speed, The Black Rum had the other ship on visual within an hour of leaving port.
It didn’t appear that the Pike had spotted them. When she remained where she was without moving, Mitch maneuvered into position between the sandbar and a narrow coastal ridge, just under a quarter mile from the other boat.
“Tell Sebastian he needs to get the drone airborne,” Mitch ordered Prentiss.
On deck, Sebastian was ready. He got his Phantom 2 prepared for a flyover. The device was small but sturdy, with a range of two thousand feet. It had a speed of thirty miles per hour and a flight time of fifteen minutes. But Sebastian had jacked everything he could into this little baby. He figured he might have to invest three or four flybys to obtain enough information.
He took a couple of practice laps to make sure everything was working correctly before he sent it soaring into the sky, watching it glide toward the other ship in the distance.
Garret and Anniston joined him on deck in time to witness its takeoff.
“There she goes. Notice it’s white so it easily blends into the clouds. It’ll take the photos as it flies and store everything it sees on a SIM card. Now we wait for it to come back.”
Everyone was on deck and applauded when the drone returned.
“Let’s see what she was able to get.” Sebastian removed the SIM card and handed it off to Jackson who shoved it into his laptop.
“We have pictures from bow to stern.” He flipped through the disk. The last three frames contained images of the main deck. He zeroed in on the single crewman who stood guard in front of a cabin door.
“This is where they’re holding Nathan. If you pull alongside here and climb on board, you’re out of view of the guard. Plus, it’s the shortest distance to his cabin. The plan is to overpower the guard, pick the lock, secure Nathan, and get him back in the lifeboat. Be sure to paddle out five hundred feet or so from the ship before starting the motor. It should only take about thirty minutes to get back here.”
Garret looked at Anniston. “I think we can do better than that. What do you say?”
“Absolutely.”
They changed into their wetsuits and waited for nightfall. Mitch ordered the power cut to the boat. There could be no lights on board The Rum to give away their position.
For them, darkness came early.
But across the water, it was a different story. When the marine layer moved in and the mist brought shadows, they could tell the moment the Pike came to life. The boat was lit up like New Year’s Eve. The crew got busy on the port side, as divers dropped into the water.
By Garret�
�s count that left eight men still there. He turned to Anniston. “Are you ready?”
“You bet. I’m stoked.”
Sebastian hugged his sister, and said, “Don’t forget your night vision goggles and the two-way in case you get into trouble. You let me know, and I’ll come in hot and fast to get you.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be fine. Let’s hope we don’t need a rescue.”
She followed Garret over the side and into the raft. The navigational point wasn’t hard to determine. Even in the mist, they could still make out the lights and headed straight toward Dietrich’s pride and joy. Halfway there, Garret cut the motor. They picked up oars and paddled the rest of the way.
On the moonless night, neither one said a word on approach.
Through her binoculars, Anniston scouted the deck to see if anyone was moving around. She zeroed in on the one man stationed as lookout. They bobbed up and down, letting the motion of the current carry the raft closer to the Pike’s side.
“All clear on my point,” Anniston whispered.
“Clear on mine,” Garret replied. When he was close enough that he could touch the side, he quickly secured the lifeboat to the ship.
Garret was the first up and over the railing. Once he stood on the deck, he turned to help her as she climbed aboard. They hugged the ship’s wall, so they wouldn’t stand out, and moved swiftly to the first corner, where they stopped.
He held out a small mirror to peer around the edge. To his surprise, the guard wasn’t there. He moved quietly into the hallway and Anniston followed, taking a position across from him to keep watch.
He put his ear to the door to listen for any sounds. Maybe the guard was actually inside the cabin with Nathan. But he heard nothing coming from that side. He went to work on the simple lock while Anniston had his back. In less than a minute he had the door open. Anniston scooted in behind him as they both ducked into the cabin and shut the door.
The Indigo Brothers Trilogy Boxed Set Page 64