"Yeah, that's right. And what was Strong's story?"
"At first, he said Berger did it."
"Did what? Screwed Chernov?"
"No. He said she knocked Chernov unconscious just as he got there."
"That's bullshit. Chernov? He had the hardest head I ever saw. I'm surprised that even Strong could hit him hard enough to do damage, let alone some girl. Why would he try to claim she did it?"
"Scared we'd be angry with him, I guess," Greg said. "He claimed he saw her kick Chernov's knee out, and while Chernov was screaming, she did something Strong couldn't see, and Chernov stopped in mid-scream. Then he knocked the shit out of her and picked her up by her hair. He drew back to hit her a good one, and she brained him with the wine bottle."
"He said that? No shit? What a dumbass. Nobody ever took Chernov down unless he let them. What, did Strong hit him from behind, or something?"
"Yeah. That's what he finally admitted. He said he thought Chernov was going to kill her."
"Could be. Especially if she was putting up a fight. He was crazy, sometimes. What happened after? We clean?"
"Yeah. I told you about the body."
"Right. That sounds good. What about the woman in Costa Rica?"
"We've got her. She's on her way here."
"Good. She didn't have anybody who'd come looking for her, then?"
"Nobody."
"That's great. How'd you get her?"
"Sent her an email from Chernov's account telling her there was a change of plans and that she should come to Antigua. She thinks she and Chernov are going to play on Platinum Odyssey while you aren't around."
Danilov laughed. "That's good. She'll make up for one of the ones the fucking Colombians ruined. That only leaves us one short for the delivery. Think we can get her ready in time?"
"Shouldn't be a problem," Greg said.
"Where are they with the chambermaid?"
Greg shook his head. "We're pretty sure she doesn't know who she was working for. She was recruited by a woman in Marseilles who doesn't exist."
"That's a bad sign," Danilov said. "They're real professionals, then. Who the fuck could it be?"
"I don't know, Andrei. The boys and Angelika are going to try once more before they give up on her."
"Really? After the way we worked on her, you think they're going to get any more out of her?"
"Probably not," Greg said, "but you know Angelika." He grinned.
"Make sure they don't leave any marks that won't heal before we have to turn her over to Veronica. We don't have much time to find another one as is. Fucking Colombians. Animals." Danilov shook his head, pausing. "How did Strong leave it with Berger? Is she going to be in the movie?"
"He thinks so. He's sending her the script today. After she gets a look at it, he's going to push her to come aboard for a reading or whatever they call it. That's when he figures he'll set the hook, once she sees how the other half lives."
"Yeah, well, kick him into high gear. All he's doing so far is burning money. I want to see something that looks like movie-making. Does he understand that?"
"Yes. Once he's got enough of the cast signed on, we'll move them to the villa we've got picked out."
"Good. The idea of having all those actors on the boat makes me nervous. We've got the women to offload, and then there's the other thing. We can maybe finesse delivering the women, but not the other."
"Got it, Andrei. We still have a few months, right?"
"Unless they decide to strike before the election. Just keep the pressure on Strong."
"Will do. Speaking of that, I need to finalize the arrangements for the villa, if you'll excuse me."
Danilov nodded and waved Greg away.
****
"Uh-oh," Blaine said, as he watched the screen on the iPad that was attached to the controller for the drone.
"What?" Mindy asked, stepping behind him so that she could see the screen.
Blaine pointed at the screen. "I think that guy just spotted the drone."
"Shouldn't you get it back here, then?"
"I want close-ups of those girls around the pool, first; there's no telling who they might be. We could be looking at a breakthrough, here." He pushed one of the joysticks and the image on the screen expanded as the drone swooped in for a closer look at the pool deck.
"Holy shit!" Mindy yelled, as the screen went blank.
"Damn it!" Blaine said. "I lost video; I can't — " He was interrupted by a loud smacking sound that rolled across the water from the yacht.
"They just shot it down, Blaine," Mindy said.
"What? How do you — "
"There was a man on the edge of the screen with what looked like a shotgun, pointed right at it."
"Shit! I didn't see that. Now what?"
"Let's get out of here," Mindy said. She held a pair of binoculars trained on the yacht. "They're launching a boat."
"Haul ass, Simon!" Blaine said.
The two big outboards roared and the boat lurched forward. Simon cranked the helm around, pointing their bow toward Antigua as the 36-foot open boat came up on a plane.
"Can we outrun them?" Mindy asked, her knuckles white as she gripped the handrail on the center console.
"Mebbe. Depends on what they got," Simon said. "Hold on tight. Gonna be a rough ride. Who these people, anyhow?"
"They're making a movie," Mindy said, watching as the speed readout on the chartplotter screen scrolled past 65 knots and kept going.
The boat was pounding as it leapt from wave to wave. "Is this safe?" Mindy asked.
Simon looked at her and grinned. He shook his head. "Mebbe safer than gettin' caught by people that shot at your drone. What kind of movie they makin'?"
"We aren't sure," Blaine said. "Why?"
"I jus' wondered. These the same people Liz asked me 'bout a few days ago? The man at the resort?"
"Yes. Why?"
"'Cause, he workin' with the government, the lady from the Prime Minister's office. Not the kind of man I t'ink would be shootin' at people. He own that yacht?"
"No. A rich Russian owns it. He's the investor backing the movie," Mindy said.
"Russian?" Simon asked.
"That's what we heard," Blaine said.
"Not so many Russians 'round here. But all of a sudden, they startin' to show up a lot."
"Really?" Mindy asked. "Where else have you run into them?"
"Not me. My cousin. He lives over south of Parham, near Nonesuch Bay. He fishin' there yesterday afternoon, an' this boat show up. Big RIB, like a megayacht tender. Several men, they all speakin' in Russian, he t'ink."
"Your cousin speaks Russian?" Mindy's surprise was evident in the inflection of her voice.
Simon grinned. "He study in Cuba, some years ago. Dentistry. Some of his lady friends back then, I t'ink they speak Russian. He know it when he hear it. But we don' see many Russians here."
"What were these men doing?" Mindy asked.
"They run the bow of the RIB up into the mangroves near where a road go by. Two policemen, they drag a man up to the boat. He face all bloody. The men take him in the boat an' leave, go back out past Green Island into the sea."
"We're losing them, big-time," Blaine said. "I can barely see them back there."
"I thought we might," Simon said. "This boat, she ver' fas'."
"Why do you have a fishing boat that will go over 70 knots?" Blaine asked.
Simon chuckled. "B'long to my other cousin. Sometime when the fish don' bite, I t'ink mebbe he use it to haul packages to an' from other countries. I don' know much 'bout his bidness; bes' not to ask."
"I'd worry that those people might recognize this boat; is there some way you can hide it for a while?" Blaine asked.
"Mm-hmm," Simon said. "We take it into the mangroves near Parham, way up in the swamp. He keep it there, an' I got another boat there we gonna use to take you back to Liz and Dani. Don' worry; no problem, mon."
"Simon," Mindy said, catching Blaine's eye
, "can you drop us off in English Harbour instead of taking us back to Vengeance?"
"Yes, ma'am. No problem."
"I want to do a little shopping, and maybe have lunch. We'll just catch a taxi back over to Nonesuch Bay. We can call Dani and Liz and they can pick us up at that restaurant when we're ready. Okay with you, Blaine?"
"Sure. Whatever you want."
Chapter 17
"A drone?" Danilov asked. "What kind of drone?"
"As best we can tell, it's a relatively high-end commercial one, but — "
"As best you can tell?"
"Yes," Greg said. "From what was left. The shotgun blast didn't leave much but the battery and the motors; the heavy stuff dropped on deck, but the rest blew over the side. I think it was one of those that people use for photography, but not a toy. The kind a professional photographer might use."
"Not military, then? Or some government agency?"
"Well, not the drone, anyway. But we have no clue who they were."
"How long was it overhead?"
"That's hard to say. Anton saw it when it swooped down over the pool deck. He grabbed one of the skeet guns and blew it away."
"Good for him. Give him a bonus for quick thinking. Was there a camera on it?"
"Almost certainly. He's downloading instruction manuals from the Internet to see if he can identify what kind it was. But there was no sign that it was carrying any explosive, if that's what you're thinking."
"Well, I have to wonder."
"It was too small to carry enough to do much damage," Greg said.
"What could they have seen?"
"The women were on the pool deck, sunbathing."
"Any of them look like they were signaling the drone?"
Greg shook his head. "They've all been programmed; they're docile. Oblivious, even."
Danilov nodded. "The foredeck was closed?"
"Yes. There's no sign of the launcher. They finished the maintenance routines on the missiles yesterday while Strong was ashore. Nothing about it is visible on the foredeck now."
"What about the boat they launched the drone from?"
"It was an open fishing boat with two big outboards. They were trolling, maybe a mile away. Not close enough to worry us, until Anton spotted the drone."
"You sure it came from them?"
"They were the only thing on the horizon, and within seconds after he shot down the drone, they took off at full throttle."
"And our fast RIB couldn't catch them?"
"No. They had a head start of maybe 45 seconds before we got the RIB in the water. The RIB crew estimated their speed at well over 70 knots."
"Not a regular fishing boat, then," Danilov said.
"Well, it was fast, but there are lots of fast boats around these days. The Cigarette would have probably caught them, but it would have taken far too long to launch."
"We need to change that," Danilov said.
"I've already done it. It's out of the garage and on the davits on the starboard quarter. We can have it in the water in under thirty seconds."
"What about weapons?" Danilov asked.
"In duffel bags at the davit controls. Thirty seconds covers having it manned, armed, and free of the hoisting cables."
"Which way did the boat go when it took off?"
"Toward Antigua," Greg said.
"Any chance we could find it? You send the crew to look for it?"
"Yes, we sent the crew after it; they're making the rounds, but it was a generic, white, open fishing boat, 35 to 40 feet long, with two big black outboards. Nobody got close enough to pick up any registration numbers, or even to see how many people were aboard."
"Is there any way to tell from the wreckage whether they might have been streaming video from the drone to a remote?"
"Not yet, but it's most likely they were. It looked like a pretty new piece of equipment. We'll have a better idea after Anton compares the pieces to the instruction manuals."
"Okay, let me know. But double the watch on deck, and keep those women out of sight from now on. I know we want them to have all-over tans before Veronica checks them out, but run them through the spa. They can use the tanning beds. And we should change our location."
"How about off the east coast of Montserrat? If we go down toward the southern end, there's nothing ashore but the lava flows. No reason for anybody to hang out in that area offshore, either; it's pretty rough water for anything much smaller than we are."
"How far is that from Antigua?" Danilov asked.
"Still around 20 miles," Greg said.
"Good. Make it so."
****
"What's on your mind?" Blaine asked. He and Mindy stood on the seawall in English Harbour, watching as Simon threaded his way through the anchored yachts back out to open water.
"I thought we needed to get our story straight without Simon listening in."
Blaine nodded. "You mean before we talk to Dani and Liz?"
"Right."
"You don't think we should just tell them that Danilov's people shot down the drone?" he asked.
"There's that to consider, but I was more worried about what Simon told us about the Russians."
"You think there's a connection?"
"Get real, Blaine. Two cops drag a bloody, unconscious man to a boat full of men speaking Russian, and you don't think he's the one who attacked Dani?"
"I see your point, but that doesn't mean Danilov's involved."
"How could he not be?"
"Well, just because he's Russian ... maybe ... there could be other Russians around."
"What do you think the odds are, Blaine?"
"Well, there could be. You're jumping to a conclusion."
"Remember the old saying? When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras."
"Yeah, I guess."
"Simon thought the presence of Russians was unusual enough to remark on it. And given what we suspect about Danilov, it makes it even more likely."
"Whoa, Mindy! You think that guy was supposed to snatch Dani?"
"I hadn't gone that far, but I suppose it could be. I wouldn't think they'd use a high profile person like Kev Strong as bait, though. And she doesn't seem like the kind of woman they prey on."
"Yeah, that's for sure," Blaine said. "So what do you think was going on?"
"I haven't a clue."
"So what's the downside in telling her and Liz about the Russians hauling away the guy who attacked her?"
"It might spook her."
"Now you've lost me," Blaine said, frowning. "What do you mean, 'spook her?'"
"Strong wants her to go out to Platinum Odyssey with him for an audition, remember?"
"Yeah. You think she's going to go? She's got a charter to run."
"That's one problem. I've been trying to figure out how to encourage her to go."
"You think she might see something on the yacht?"
"They're definitely hiding something, or they wouldn't have shot down our drone."
"Yeah, but they're not going to let her see anything."
"What could it hurt, Blaine? If nothing else, she could tell us what it's like. We've basically got no hard evidence right now."
"We've got the video of the girls around the pool."
"Yeah, but the resolution on the streamed video stinks. We can't i.d. any of the girls with that. We'd need the HD stuff from the SD card in the drone for that."
"Good point," Blaine said. "So let's say Strong asks her to go, and she's willing. She's still got us to entertain. I don't see her leaving Liz to fend for herself with us, even if she's not spooked."
"That's where I was earlier. Now that you've caught up with me, do you have any ideas on how we could encourage her to go?"
"What if we just came clean with her? Told both of them the whole story about why we're here?"
"Uh-uh," Mindy said. "There are all kinds of problems with that. We don't know enough about either of them to make a decision like that. They might tell the local c
ops, and we know somebody there's on Danilov's payroll. That could get somebody killed."
"Well, what are you thinking?"
"What if we told her that we'd take on the work of sailing Vengeance? We could position it as an opportunity for Liz to teach us to sail and let us work for our keep while we taped the whole thing and made it part of the show."
"That might work," Blaine said. "I guess it would depend on how badly she wanted to go off with Strong."
"I think that's our best shot, at least right now. We'll just have to wait until the time's right to encourage her. I think it would be a mistake for us to initiate that conversation," Mindy said.
"I'll trust your judgment on that one — sounds like a woman thing. But back to what Simon told us about the cops handing over her attacker to those Russians. What are we going to do with that?"
"I'm drawing a blank," Mindy said. "I've been too focused on the other problem. Do you have any thoughts?"
"Yeah. If we tell them, it could spook Dani, like you said. If we don't tell them and they hear it from Simon, they'll wonder why the hell we didn't say anything."
"That's a succinct way of putting it. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't, aren't we?"
"Possibly," Blaine said, "but I lean toward playing it straight."
"You mean, tell them what Simon said about the Russians?"
"Yes. Remember, this is a woman who kicked the shit out of a man twice her size and didn't seem to think anything of it. I don't think she'll spook that easily."
"I like it, Blaine. It's the right thing to do, anyway. But what if the man who attacked her is on Danilov's yacht?"
"Unless they're planning to snatch her, and we don't think that's likely, then they'll keep him out of sight."
"I knew I married a smart man. Should we get some lunch as long as we're here?"
"Sure. We can polish up our story while we eat and then call them when we catch a taxi."
****
"Welcome back," Liz said, as she took the dinghy's painter from Dani. She cleated it amidships and reached down to help Mindy aboard Vengeance. "Did you get the shots you wanted of Platinum Odyssey?"
"Not exactly," Blaine said, as he set his camera case on Vengeance's side deck and clambered aboard behind his wife.
"What happened?" Dani asked, as she followed the others back to the cockpit. "Couldn't Simon find Platinum Odyssey?"
Bluewater Drone: The Eleventh Novel in the Caribbean Mystery and Adventure Series (Bluewater Thrillers Book 11) Page 12