by Stone, M. T.
“Yeah. I was just starting to relax.” I get up on my knees and slip my shirt back on.
“Don’t worry. Once this is over, there will be plenty of time for us to relax,” she replies, leaning into me with a kiss.
“Yes. I’m going to make sure of that.”
Getting back in the car and heading toward the farm, I pull out my phone and click to call Mom back, since she never leaves a message.
“You’re in Tennessee?” she asks upon answering.
“We’re just heading out to Ray’s farm actually,” I reply, surprised that she actually mentioned the correct state instead of her usual Kentucky or wherever.
“I went over to talk to Vanessa this afternoon, but she had apparently packed up and left without saying a word to Tyler or me,” she says, sounding a bit hurt.
“Someone must have talked to her,” I reply, knowing that Crusher and Bolt were still hanging out there.
“She told Crusher that she had to leave and not to worry about her; that she would be fine on her own,” she elaborates, sounding s little irritated and perplexed. “I’ve tried to call her several times, but she won’t pick up.”
“Well, Anthony just called and told us that Tommy is headed to the airport, so…” I hesitate, leaving my thought unfinished.
“So… you think she’s leaving with him?” she asks sharply.
“Do you have a better explanation?” I ask, wanting her to come to her own conclusion. “You should grab Tyler’s key and go see if she’s there. Take Crusher with you though.”
“I’ll do that,” she replies softly, choking back her emotions. “She better not be going anywhere crazy with my grandchild.”
I hesitate for a moment, but this is definitely the right time to tell her. “Mom, the baby isn’t Tyler’s,” I say softly, trying to ease the shock. “That’s one reason why you two were supposed to talk. She promised to tell you.”
“That little cheating, conniving bitch!” she snarls. I can picture her facial expression as her concern instantly turns to rage. “I was wondering why she’s been acting so god damn weird this whole time. That little bitch,” she repeats. “Crusher and I are going over there right now!”
“All right, just be careful,” I remind her.
“I’m taking Crusher with me for Christ sake,” she scoffs. “I don’t think I’ll be getting involved in any altercations myself.”
“Okay… but still, be careful,” I repeat, feeling a weird vibe. “Who knows what you’ll run into? The Ghost is still on the loose somewhere.”
“Are you trying to scare me? Knock it off,” she retaliates. “I’ve heard enough stories about Crusher that I assure you, I have nothing to worry about.”
“I know, but we are so close to ending this whole thing,” I tell her in a calming voice. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you now.”
“Thank you, Trey,” she says, after taking a deep breath. “I’m touched that you would be so concerned. You two take care as well. Now, I’ve got to go see what that little bitch has been up to. This is going to break Nana’s heart. She was so looking forward to having a great grandbaby.”
“I know. It’s really a shitty situation, but at least this all came to light now. Before…” I find myself pausing mid-sentence once again.
“I know, I know… you don’t have to say it,” she replies, obviously on the same page as me. “I’ll let you know what I find.”
“Okay, later Mom.”
“Vanessa is gone,” I tell Mandy after hanging up. “I have a feeling she’s leaving with Tommy.”
“That’s what I gathered from listening to your side of the conversation,” she replies with a smirk. “I can’t believe you were so hung up on her for so many years.”
“Believe me, this isn’t the girl I grew up with,” I reply, completely blown away by how everything is panning out. “I don’t know what happened to her.”
“Well, no parental guidance and choosing to date a guy who didn’t treat her very well might have been part of it,” she replies bluntly.
Is it really that simple? I have to wonder if she would’ve turned out differently had she chosen me instead of Tommy and Tyler. I was so in love with her that I would’ve treated her like a princess. But, she chose that path for herself… c'est la vie.
Mandy
Trey remains quiet for the rest of the ride. Regardless of how he feels about Vanessa at this point, it’s not easy seeing someone who you once loved falling into a death spiral. I can’t help but think about whether or not Silvia felt bad when Dad lost everything. She doesn’t seem to be the sentimental type, but Trey claims that she was much different when they were young. I truly hope I never have to go through anything like that.
I glance over at Trey, sensing that he is staring at me. “I’m really glad things worked out exactly how they did,” he says, reaching over and placing his hand on mine. “Vanessa wasn’t the one. I just didn’t have any frame of reference at the time.”
“I’m glad things worked out this way, too,” I reply as we pull up to the old farmhouse. “Time to go see what these two have been up to. We must be having Dad’s favorite meal for dinner,” I deduce after detecting the lingering smell of charred beef in the air.
“It’s a good thing we never dropped off your stuff at the B&B,” Dad informs us as we join them in the kitchen. “You guys can just bunk here for the night. Anthony wants to get an early start.”
“Yeah, it’s going to be another long day,” Anthony adds. “Tommy took his personal jet and he appears to be headed for Belize. Romeo is stationed at the airport. There’s only one runway at the Belize City airport, so if he lands there he won’t be hard to detect.”
“Have you talked to Agent Mitchell?” Trey asks, still seeming a bit preoccupied.
“I did and he never got a chance to meet with Tommy this afternoon. He was already gone by the time he arrived at his office,” Anthony confirms. “Right now there isn’t any evidence they can use to pursue a case against him anyway. They have money transfers from an untraceable account in Belize, that didn’t belong to him, which were sent to another untraceable account in Eastern Europe. So even though you and I both know that account probably belongs to The Ghost, it would be a real challenge to prove it. It would take a team of lawyers endless hours to get around the international trust laws and even if they were successful, its most likely Carly’s account. And she is either dead or missing.”
“I know,” Trey replies, pushing his hand through his hair. “It all drives me nuts because he set everything up to fall on her shoulders and now she’s disappeared. It’s all too damn perfect.”
“It happens more often than you think, especially when you’re dealing with a creative mind like Tommy,” Anthony replies, slapping Trey on the shoulder. “That’s why so many people hire us to bring justice to otherwise unresolvable situations.”
“Tomorrow, will be our justice,” Trey declares, sitting down at one end of the kitchen table.
“In the meantime,” Dad interjects. “Do you like your steak medium rare or medium rare?” He laughs, holding a platter of beef in front of Trey.
“Medium rare sounds perfect,” he replies, piercing a slab of meat with his fork and hoisting it onto his plate.
“Amanda likes vegetables with her meals, so I’ve got pickles, olives and ketchup.” He laughs, setting them out on the table. “Anyone like a slice of bread?”
“Nah, why ruin perfection with unnecessary accessories,” Anthony replies with a laugh. “Let’s face it… no one goes to the steakhouse for the baked potato and steamed broccoli.”
“Exactly!” Dad concurs, pointing at me as if a higher authority has suddenly validated his lack of meal planning skills.
“Pass the pickles, please?” I ask Trey, shooting him a smile. It’s good to be back home, even if it’s only for a night.
Chapter 23
Trey
While Mandy and Ray sort through some of her mother’s things, Anthony
and I keep ourselves entertained by tracking Tommy. A few minutes past eight, he lands at the Belize City airport and unknowingly has a momentary face-to-face encounter with Romeo. In the ensuing minutes, he transfers to a helicopter and heads out into the Atlantic. Later in the evening, his jet leaves as well, presumably headed back to the states. I’m glad Mandy was able to place several tracking devices because at least one of them is working perfectly.
“It’s time for a little shuteye,” Anthony announces just after eleven. “I want to be in the air back to New York by six am.”
“Sounds good, boss,” I reply in jest. “Hopefully the couch is comfortable enough for you.”
“After all the nights I’ve spent in ditches and trenches, I’ll never be afraid of a couch,” he scoffs. “I’m more concerned about strange noises coming from next door,” he teases, nodding toward Mandy’s bedroom.
“No worries, we’re good,” I reply with a smirk, disappearing into her room without giving him a chance for further comment.
I slip into bed with Mandy and snuggle up behind her. “Good night, baby. One more day and life goes back to normal,” I whisper, but she is already sound asleep.
* * *
8:00am The Following Morning
After touching down at LaGuardia Airport and hooking up with Crusher and Bolt, we all board the Gulfstream and set our course for Roatan. Anthony called in another Alpha team member to stay at Trump Tower for the night. He’s still not comfortable with the idea that we are completely in the clear.
No one has had much sleep lately, so it is an extremely quiet flight. Mandy and I both recline and close our eyes before we even leave the ground. The two of us trying to sleep in her old full-sized bed was nothing short of futile. About three in the morning I made the decision to build a nice cabin out on Maggie’s Acres. I think both Mandy and I will enjoy visiting a few times per year, but neither Peggy’s B&B or Mandy’s old bedroom are going to make the grade.
“He’s still at the same location, so I’m assuming this is where he is settling in,” Anthony tells me, waking me to show me his position on the GPS tracker. “It’s actually a small private island, a few miles off the coast of Roatan. It only has a few buildings, but there is a quarter mile long grass landing strip on it.”
“I’ve got an SUV lined up for us in Roatan, but maybe I should see if we can get a helicopter or small plane instead. My plan will work out even better if he’s on an uninhabited island.” I chuckle. “That would be brutal after a while, regardless of how nice the views are from there.”
“I agree,” Anthony says, standing back up. “I can’t wait to see his face when he realizes what is happening. Forever is a mighty long time.”
“Are you two still gloating about your brilliant plan?” Mandy asks, opening her eyes and stretching uncomfortably.
“Yeah, we’re pretty proud of it,” I admit. “You might want to wake up the other guys,” I tell Anthony. “We’ll be on the ground in about fifteen minutes.” I stuff my belongings back into my travel bag and begin looking forward to one last confrontation with Tommy.
Mandy
I feel a flutter of excitement inside of me and I’m not sure if it’s the result of seeing light at the end of the tunnel or the fact that Tommy is about to get exactly what he deserves. It’s probably a little of both.
“There is a small plane available if we want to go that route,” Trey tells Anthony after we land on Roatan and taxi up to the hangar. “Or we can take an SUV to the other side of the island and charter this sweet boat.” He shows him a picture of it on his phone.
“Let’s go with the SUV and boat,” Anthony replies after thinking for a brief moment. “That way he won’t see or hear us coming and we can take him completely by surprise.”
“Good point,” Trey agrees, obviously liking the idea of surprising him.
“All right men, let’s roll out,” Anthony says with the voice of a drill sergeant after the ground crew moves the stairway into place. “Our ride awaits and we’re burning daylight.”
“I hope the SUV will have enough room for everything,” Trey mentions, since we both know their preference for large SUV’s.
“What? Not even a stretch Hummer?” Anthony shakes his head with a look of disgust.
“That’s what I wanted, but the biggest one on the island was a Mitsubishi Nativa,” Trey replies with a laugh.
“There probably isn’t much demand since there are only a couple gas stations and gas is about five dollars per gallon,” Bolt chimes in.
With military precision each man grabs his gear, exits the plane and stacks it into the back of the SUV. Within a couple of minutes we are on our way to the other side of the island.
“So this is it, huh?” Trey asks Anthony, hoisting a shiny black box with silver clasps onto his lap.
“That’s it, over fifteen grand of hardware in that little box.” Anthony shoots him a smirk.
“Worth every penny.” Trey nods his head and pats the lid.
Everyone grows silent once again as we drive through endless groves of trees and past small fishing villages where little colorful houses stand on stilts with large wooden shutters to protect them from the tropical storms and hurricanes. After driving through several more clusters of trees we finally come to some semblance of a small city, with a concrete building that seems to serve as a market, a smaller building with a Coca Cola sign and an outside display rack loaded with five gallon bottles of water.
On the outskirts of town there are at least a dozen fishing boats resting in the harbor. The obvious moneymakers, the boats are prettier and better kept than any of the buildings we have seen thus far. The last glimpse of the water reveals a large, rusting freighter of some type that had obviously run aground years ago and was destined to spend the rest of it’s days wasting away in it’s salt water grave. It seems strange to me that no one even bothered to give it a proper burial.
“So what do you think?” Trey asks, taking a break from looking out at the landscape rolling past the window.
“It looks interesting,” I reply. “Hey, there is actually a resort.” I point to a series of modern looking buildings situated around a huge swimming pool.
“Many resorts on the other side of island,” the driver tells us in broken English. “This side, villagers.”
“It seems that Roatan is a popular place for divers to come and vacation,” Trey says, scrolling through pictures on his phone.
“Yeah, I have friends who come down here every winter,” Crusher tells us, finally breaking his silence.
“Good thing you don’t dive,” Bolt teases him. “You’d scare away all the fish.”
Crusher turns back toward the window as we begin to wind gently back and forth through the heavy jungle, away from the shoreline.
“Our boat is waiting for us at Calabash Bight,” Trey tells the driver.
“Calabash, yes,” he replies, keeping his eyes on the winding road.
“What is a bight?” I ask, never having heard the term.
“It’s a curve in the coastline,” Bolt replies. “It’s one that’s not deep enough to be called a bay.”
“Where did you learn that? Wikipedia or something?” Crusher sneers.
“No, I just have a little brains to go along with my brawn,” Bolt quips.
The SUV slows and the ocean once again comes into view. “Is that the boat?” Anthony asks, as we pull up to a beautiful, blue and white boat.
“Yeah, it’s an Azimut or something like that,” Trey says, glancing down at his phone again. “I thought I might as well get the bigger one.”
“I think the five of us should fit,” Bolt says with a laugh. “Crusher might have to sit on the bow though.” His laugh is cut short as Crusher delivers a punch in the arm.
The three of them exit the SUV and once again methodically retrieve their gear. My pulse quickens at the thought of being involved in a mission with these highly skilled men. Anthony beckons Trey to lead the way and we all head dow
n to the beautiful boat.
Trey
The boat looks even more spectacular in person, than it did online. It’s an eighty-foot cruiser that was designed for the open water, but it’s complete with a smaller excursion boat that we will use. Even though it is only going to be a five-minute drive right now, I have more elaborate plans for it later on.
Once everyone is onboard, I go inside to talk to the captain letting him know exactly where we want to land. Anthony is convinced that we should land on the northwest tip of the island and proceed from there. The buildings, as well as the gorgeous sugar sand beaches are about a quarter mile south, so that should ensure that Tommy doesn’t spot us prematurely. The captain confirms that he will anchor offshore and use the excursion boat to take us in.
Upon returning to the main deck, I can hear Mandy quizzing the guys as they ready their guns and equipment. “How far can you shoot with that?” she asks Bolt as he assembles his sniper rifle.
“Using a spotter, about three or four times the entire length of the island that we are going to,” Anthony answers on his behalf. “Today we’ll set up only a couple hundred meters out though with the intent of providing defensive cover. Hopefully we won’t need to fire a shot.”
“You won’t,” Crusher replies, sliding a clip into his 9mm pistol and slapping it into it’s holster.
“We aren’t here to take him out,” Anthony huffs, giving him the evil eye. Crusher simply grumbles, grabbing the shiny black box from it’s resting place.
“He’s on the beach, less than a klick southeast of the main building. There’s a small grove of trees just to the northwest of them, so that’s where you and I will set up,” Anthony instructs Bolt.
As I watch them get ready, I still can’t believe that Tommy thought he could simply flee the country and not suffer any consequences for all that he has done. Did he honestly think he could get away with stealing over four hundred million dollars? He is so delusional.