The End of a Lie (The Amy Mohr Chronicles Book 1)

by M A Moore

  Amy retrieved her purple backpack from under the table. It seemed lighter than she remembered. She pushed aside the remains of their dinner and unpacked it, placing each item on the table for inspection. She took out the binocular case first. They would have suffered most from the fall. Removing the glasses from the case, she focused them on an abstract picture on the far side of the living room. They still functioned. As a constant companion for several years their loss would have upset her. Next was a tattered and well-thumbed Birds of Africa guide book -with her name written in black marker along the spine.

  She found her toothbrush and the spare tee shirt she had wrapped the two clay samples in, but the packets were gone. Amy took the towel from her ice pack and wiped the inside of her sack. A smear of red proved to her that it had once contained the missing samples.

  Mike watched in interest, but didn’t ask any questions -at least not yet.

  The last item Amy pulled from the bag was a cell phone. She had two when Robert and his associates took her. She brought it out and showed it to Mike.

  Handing it to him she said, “I don’t know if this is one of the originals, but I had two.”

  Mike turned it on. He had no way of telling either. Handing it back to her, he asked, “Do you think you should keep it?”

  Amy shrugged, and turned it off before returning it to the backpack. She dropped the pack to the floor and went back to the conversation they had started before the contents of her purple sack distracted her.

  “Groton was a strange duck. He was really nervous that evening when we met for dinner. He didn’t seem that way in the morning.” Amy paused to recollect her date with Groton. “He led me right into Robert’s hands. I don’t think he has anything to do with the arms exchange, but the lithium scam is another matter.”

  Amy considered what her cousin said to her on Table Mountain before he left her there to die of exposure. “Robert said that he was expecting a shipment of arms down around the coast within a few days. What coast do you think he might have meant?”

  Mike thought about it. “The storm last night was really rough. No ship captain in his right mind would take his boat out of a safe harbor on the Atlantic side until it was over and the seas had calmed down.”

  Amy considered, “What if the shipment was already here, and Robert was talking about delivering those arms to his client? What's the Indian Ocean side of the Cape Peninsula like?”

  Cape Peninsula is the mountainous spine of land that reaches from Table Mountain on the south to the Cape of Good Hope, or Cape of Storms as some refer to it. Cape Point, at the tip of the peninsula is where the warm waters of the Indian Ocean meet the cold of the Atlantic. Depending on weather conditions it can promise either the hope of a nearby port to pick up fresh food supplies, or destructive seas that can tear a ship apart.

  “What do you need to know?”

  Amy cleared the table of the rest of the meal’s trash, and started pacing the room. “I think we are looking for a marina that services yachts. Some place close to here where a large pleasure craft would be commonplace.”

  “Just about anywhere along False Bay would do,” Mike answered. “It’s a large expanse of water on the Indian Ocean side of Cape Point. Before there was decent GPS, East Indian merchant ships often confused the eastern tip of False Bay with Cape Point. That error added days to an already long and dangerous voyage.”

  “Something one of Robert’s thugs said while they had me locked up in that warehouse by the harbor. I don’t think they realized I could hear them through the door. They would have been a little more careful with their conversations if they knew. But then again,” Amy shrugged, “they thought I’d be dead the next day.”

  Mike pulled up a map of False Bay on his smart phone.

  Amy looked over his shoulder. She could make out the general outline of the bay, but the place names were too small for her to read. “Any harbors on False Bay near Cape Town that could service yachts?"

  Mike expanded a section of the screen, but decided a Google search of marinas in the area be a more efficient way to find what she was looking for.

  “Gordon’s Bay Yacht Club, Hottentot Holland Beach Sailing Club, Marina da Gama….

  Amy stopped him. “Did you say Marina da Gama? Is there a cave nearby?”

  After a few more seconds of chasing web links, he said, “Yes, Muizenberg Cave is a popular hike in the area, but there are a lot of sea caverns along the coast.”

  “I think that’s it, and I want to get there before Bonner or Brown.” Amy stopped pacing and stood behind Mike who still sat at the table. She placed her hands on his shoulders. “So how do we get there without either Brown or Bonner knowing about it?”

  Mike didn’t take long to come up with a plan. “We’ll borrow my neighbor’s car. He’s gone on a safari job for a few weeks. He never locks it and the key is under the floor mat. We’ll leave my phone here too. They can’t track us if we aren’t carrying it. Who would we call in an emergency anyway?”

  “Give it to me for a moment.” Amy fiddled with the phone for a minute or two and handed it back to him. “As far as anyone tracing our position by this phone, they’ll think we haven’t left the house here.”

  “How about the one in your back pack?” Mike asked as he pocketed the one Amy handed back to him. Amy retrieved the phone from her bag.

  She turned it on, and looked at it. “I don’t know. What do you think?” she asked him.

  “Back up is always a good idea.”

  “It depends on who the backup is.” Amy removed the battery and put it in her back pocket. The phone she stuck in her bag.

  They packed light. Once the storm had blown through, the temperatures moderated but they would drop as the night progressed. Amy rifled the closet in the nursery looking for something warmer to wear. Francoise must have stored her wardrobe here. Amy didn’t find any baby clothes hidden away. While Mike was elsewhere in the house, Amy took her backpack and opened a well-hidden compartment along one of the seams. She removed a thin polycarbonate knife and its sheath that was well-shielded from any airport security scan. She proceeded to strap it along the inside of her right calf. She had not lied to Mike when she said she was not fond of guns. Her skills in that regard were adequate. She was, however, very good with knives.

  Amy took a denim jacket from Francoise’s closet and went back into the kitchen. Mike wore a blue fleece pullover. He handed her the pistol on the counter. “Take this. I have another.” Amy handled it reluctantly. She checked that the safety was on, and that there was no cartridge in the chamber. She put it in her back pack. She wouldn’t use it if she had another option, but sometimes one had no choices.

  Chapter 32

  The name "False Bay" was applied at least three hundred years ago by sailors who confused the bay with Table Bay to the north. The confusion arose because sailors of the Dutch East India Company confused Cape Point and Cape Hangklip when returning from the East. They look quite the same. Hangklip was known to the early Portuguese seafarers as Cabo Falso, or False Cape, and the name of the bay may be derived from the cape.

  It was close to midnight when they left. Mike got his neighbor’s beat up blue Volkswagen to start after only two tries and he was grateful to see it still had a half tank of gas in it. He wound his way out of the neighborhood toward Da Gama Park and the marina. During rush hour this route would have been a nightmare, but it was late enough that there was little traffic to impede their way. Amy could see the lights of the Cape Ferris Wheel at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront off to the west. The wheel didn't run after dark, but the pattern of white bulbs along its radii stood out like a glowing snowflake marking the center of the city’s night life.

  They arrived at the marina in less than thirty minutes. Mike parked away from the street lamps that illuminated the area near the office. Amy hoisted her backpack on her shoulder and they worked their way down to the moorings, sticking to the shadows whenever possible. It was relatively quiet at that h
our. The night watchman who took care of late arrivals was at his desk. His feet were up and his chin down on his chest -napping.

  After consulting the map of Marina Da Gama on Mike’s computer, Amy understood why boaters on False Bay chose to dock there. A narrow three-quarter mile long inlet connected the maze of boat moorings to the rougher waters of the bay. Once past the sleeping night guard, Mike and Amy found an inconspicuous spot to scout out the yachts docked. Boats of all sizes and states of repair filled the slips. The storm from the day before drew more craft than usual here, and there were only a few empty moorings. Bigger vessels attached to buoys anchored out in the deeper waters of the center channel.

  Amy scanned their sterns looking at names and hoping one of them would feel familiar in some way. Her subconscious mind could often take in information that only came to the surface when a sound or a sight triggered it. She read the names of a few of the larger boats, South African Adventure, Cape Dream, Fred’s Folly…. None of them meant anything to her.

  Small boats putted through the channels. A few restaurants on the pier were still open for business. Late night diners made their way back home in them instead of walking the roundabout path dictated by the pattern of docks. Even this activity stopped as the evening progressed. Stakeouts were always tedious. They required a patience that Amy did not possess by nature. The stars brightened behind the thinning clouds and Amy began to doubt herself. Maybe she had misheard Robert's thugs at the warehouse.

  Mike and Amy shared use of her binoculars to scan for signs of movement near the large yachts. The air was cold, and the patches of clear sky broadened between the clouds. The first quarter moon was just above the horizon, and only peeked through occasionally. It wouldn’t set for quite a while.

  After another hour Mike spotted activity on a dock far away from the more central core of the marina. He handed the binoculars over to Amy. “I only see three people,” Mike said.

  Amy looked for herself. “It might be Robert and his men,” she told him. “It’s dark and they're too far away for me to be sure.” Sticking again to the shadows, and willing the moon to stay behind a cloud, Amy and Mike made their way to a better vantage point.

  Amy clearly identified her cousin Robert, but she wasn’t sure that the man next to him was one of the thugs that had been at Table Mountain. The clouds parted for a few seconds, and a ray of moonlight illuminated the face of Stanley Bonner. Amy handed the binoculars over to Mike.

  “It's Bonner," he replied, nostrils flared. “What do you want to do?”

  Amy considered. She took the mystery phone out of her bag. “If I turn this on we can hope the right people will track our position.”

  Mike nodded. He had no better idea at the moment. She replaced the battery, and turned it on. A text message glowed dimly: Text here for help. Amy showed Mike the screen.

  “Reply,” he said.

  “What should I tell them? The name of the boat?”

  Mike looked at the stern. In the moonlight he read aloud, African Peace. Mike estimated that the yacht was at least sixty feet long. A flying bridge stood above the main deck and three doors were visible to him on the port side. The stern was easily accessible by ladder to an open sitting area.

  Amy started texting.

  While Mike watched a dark figure stepped over the deck rail and began untying the yacht from its mooring. Mike turned to Amy, “They’re moving the boat. We’ll lose them if they get to open water.”

  Amy hit ‘send’ and headed towards the yacht. Mike grabbed her arm, “And where do you think you’re going?”

  “I’ll toss this phone into the boat. At least they should be able track it, whoever they are. I got part of a message off.”

  Mike couldn’t come up with a better alternative. “Give me the phone, I’ll do it.”

  She slipped out of his hold with a twist of her wrist, and was on the move before he could stop her. Mike cursed under his breath and followed her progress with the binoculars once she was in the maze of docks that connected to African Peace. She stayed low and moved catlike along the slips as she neared her target. She was close. She hid herself alongside the adjacent yacht, African Dream, waiting for an opportunity to accomplish her goal.

  A man came out of the shadows and grabbed her arm. She didn’t struggle, and it was then Mike saw the outline of the gun reflected in the moonlight sticking in her ribs.

  Mike exhaled sharply and prepared to go after her. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. "Who is this?" was all he said.

  “Ed Brown here. What’s your status?”

  Mike didn’t bother to ask how Brown got his number.

  “Bonner and Widdon have a load of arms on Africa Peace. They have Amy, too.” He wasn't positive about the weapons, but he was sure they had Amy.

  “Stay where you are. We're less than ten minutes from your location.”

  Back up seemed like a good idea. Mike looked down and saw that Amy had left her pack at his feet. He continued surveillance and watched as one of Robert’s thugs led Amy aboard her cousin’s yacht and up the gangway to the flying bridge. Ten minutes was a long time. He wasn’t sure she had that much.

  ------------------------------------------------------

  Robert Widdon held his gun on Amy while his associate searched her pockets. He handed his boss her cell phone. Robert looked exasperated as he swiveled the captain’s chair in her direction.

  Robert’s nostrils flared in temper as he spit out, “Oh Cousin, you are like a bad penny that will just not go away.”

  Amy didn’t bother to answer.

  Stanley Bonner entered the helm and asked, “What are we going to do with her?”

  “We’ll dump her body overboard somewhere out in the bay after we deliver the arms. For now just tie her up and put her down below in one of the cabins.”

  Robert dropped the cell phone on the deck and smashed it with his heel. Bonner tied her hands behind her with a piece of line. He shoved her down the gangway to the main deck and pushed her into the first unlocked cabin he found on the starboard side.

  “This area is famous for sharks, so just stay put,” he said as he left and locked her in. She heard the engines start, and soon African Peace was motoring its way out towards the inlet that led to False Bay.

  Amy felt no fear, only cool determination. The transom over the cabin door let in a bit of moonlight so Amy didn’t need to work by feel alone. Her yoga training over the last many years paid off in the flexibility it gave her to reach the thin knife she had strapped to her leg. She managed to cut the rope tying her hands with minimal bloodshed. Removing the tool she had hidden in the in the hem of her jeans while still at Mike’s place, she made short work of picking the lock. Cracking the cabin door open she checked for a posted guard. The starboard deck was empty.

  If she counted right, only Robert, his two associates and Stanley Bonner were onboard. She headed aft when she heard Bonner and Widdon arguing overhead. She ducked through the next unlocked door and listened. Someone was not happy. It sounded like Bonner.

  Turning around in the tiny stateroom she discovered two crates sitting on the floor. One of them was pried open already. She lifted the cover and saw C4 explosives and small arms. She didn’t bother to find out what was in the other.

  She considered blowing up the boat, but without a detonator the C4 was stable and wouldn't be of much use. She didn't have a death wish either. She would wait until an opportunity presented itself. Locking the door, she passed the time searching the cabin for something else to use as a weapon.

  Meanwhile Mike waited impatiently for Brown and his men. When it was clear that African Peace was moving out of the marina, Mike couldn’t wait any longer. He tossed Amy’s pack in the bottom of one of the bait boats tied up along the main dock and rowed it towards the passage to the bay. Clouds hid the moon and he prayed no one on African Peace kept careful watch. As the yacht entered the inlet, he slipped in behind her sure the engines of the vessel would cover the soft swish
of his oars in the water. The yacht still had a half mile before she reached the bay. Seals and pelicans were common here. A serious concern was the shark population that infested these waters. Mike wanted to get on board African Peace before the rough waves of the bay could overturn his dinghy and turn him into shark food.

  The passage narrowed with Mike no more than a foot behind. He stowed the oars, tied the dinghy to the aft ladder, and climbed in. No one kept watch back here. How very careless and very fortunate, Mike thought as he eased his way over the rail.

  Mike crept along the starboard deck, checking cabins as he went. The first one was empty, the next in line locked. A sharp jab with his shoulder broke the flimsy deadbolt. The engines of the yacht were loud even at this slow speed, but he still paused a moment, listening for any sign that they heard him on the flying bridge. He opened the door just an inch. A shadow alerted him to something above his head. He grabbed the towel bar aimed for his skull and yanked Amy off her perch. She had been standing on a crate to give her better leverage.

  “At least you’re not dead,” he whispered angrily as he reached his hand out to help her up.

  “They destroyed the cell phone. They won’t be able to track the yacht.”

  “I still have mine.”

  He handed it over and she proceeded to remove the app supplying the false GPS signal. Mike put the phone under the mattress in the cabin. “Let’s get out of here. I have a boat tied to the stern.”

  As they made their way aft, the yacht lurched forward at high speed. African Peace had cleared the channel and they now traveled in False Bay proper. When they reached the stern, Mike looked out and saw the dinghy floating away. His knot had come untied when the yacht jerked ahead.

  Amy looked at him. “It’s not that far. We can swim to it.”

  Mike shook his head. “Not in these waters,” he said. “Sharks. Lots of sharks.”