Enduring Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 4)

by Wayne Stinnett

  She passed over the speeding boat at double their speed, while scanning the water ahead. Seeing nothing, she flipped the monocular up and looked at her phone. She didn’t recognize the number the text message had come from, but the area code was southeast Florida and the Keys. She opened the message, which read, On loc, 4 mls off M.

  It had to be from Tony or Andrew, letting her know they were off the coast of Miami. She quickly typed a short reply telling them that she was one hundred miles away and no sign. Digging out her phone’s cord, she patched it into her headset. When she found the boat, she didn’t want to be texting. She alternated with the monocular, scanning the water ahead for a few minutes, then flipping it up to look all around with both eyes. Dripping Wet was out there somewhere.

  After another twenty minutes of searching, she saw another boat in the distance. Angling toward it, she could see quickly that it wasn’t the Cigarette, but a charter fishing boat.

  As she resumed course, her phone beeped again. Another text message from Tony, she assumed. Now 8 nm off M. Inbnd bogey, 13 nm, closing at 40 knts.

  Checking her position, she estimated the Florida coast lay just fifty miles ahead, meaning the boat they had on radar was twenty-six miles in front of her.

  Charity cursed softly and pushed the Huey to its maximum speed of one hundred and thirty-five miles per hour. She’d reach Tony’s and Andrew’s position in eighteen minutes. About one minute ahead of the Cigarette, if that was even what they were tracking.

  A ringing in her headset told her she had an incoming call on her sat-phone. The display indicated that it was the same number that was texting. She answered it.

  “Déjà vu,” she heard Tony say. “Didn’t we do something like this a couple years ago?”

  He was talking about the time she’d flown Andrew and two other men out to where Tony was piloting Jesse’s own Cigarette boat, and the three men had jumped into it at sixty knots. It was the same night that Charity had disappeared.

  “Thanks for doing this, Tony. I really don’t have a plan, though.”

  “How soon are you going to get here?” he asked. “That boat’s coming straight toward us.”

  “I’m at full speed,” Charity said. “I’ll reach your position ahead of the boat, but not by more than a minute or so.”

  “Take her right down on the deck,” Tony said. “Does that thing still have the spotlight and PA?” He meant the public-address loudspeaker mounted next to the spotlight on the helicopter’s belly.

  “Yeah,” she replied, wondering how he knew it was the same bird.

  “Get right up behind the boat. You should be able to ID it before it reaches us. Tell them to heave to and prepare to be—wait one. It’s slowing down.”

  Putting the nose down, Charity dove the helicopter to just two hundred feet. The dive increased her forward speed for a few precious seconds.

  “The boat’s stopped,” Tony whispered. “About five miles east of us. You should be able to see it in a few seconds. We’re heading that way.”

  Flipping the night vision scope back over her eye, Charity studied the water ahead. “I’m going to come in hot and flare right behind them.”

  “Roger that,” Tony said. “That should hold their attention long enough for us to get close.”

  Spotting the boat, Charity adjusted course and put the Huey into a shallow dive. She wanted to be no more than fifty feet off the wavetops when she got to the vessel. Through the low-power scope, she could now see that it was Chapman’s boat, Dripping Wet.

  Almost on top of the boat, Charity saw a long, sleek center-console in the distance, and guessed that it was Tony and Andrew. She pulled the cyclic to her lap and hauled the collective up fully. Being nearly empty, the chopper was light and agile. She knew from experience the sound such a maneuver created. The heavy whumping of the main rotor, beating the air hard to bring the big chopper to a stop from a hundred and thirty-five miles per hour, could certainly rattle a person’s cage.

  Just as she started the maneuver, she saw one of the people on the boat swing a high right fist at another person, who fell to the deck instantly.

  Bringing his brand-new Yellowfin down off plane in the calm Atlantic water, Andrew Bourke studied the radar. The screen was empty, and they were a good four miles from shore.

  “Think this is far enough?” he asked his partner, Tony Jacobs.

  Tony came around the console and looked at the screen. “I’ll text her our position,” he said, “but maybe we should keep heading out.”

  “Any guess what this is all about?” the burly former Coast Guard senior chief asked.

  “No idea,” Tony said, tapping away at his satellite phone, “but she’s one of us and needs our help. That’s good enough for me.”

  Putting the boat in gear, Andrew brought it up on plane again, heading east. Somewhere ahead, on the ocean’s dark, glassy surface, a flashy Cigarette boat was heading toward them, with a helicopter trying to catch it.

  Andrew wasn’t concerned about the production racing boat outrunning his new offshore tournament boat. A new company would be starting production next year of the world’s most powerful outboards, and Andrew was close friends with one of the design engineers. He had a pair of five hundred and seventy-seven horsepower prototypes hanging on the transom that could push the boat to an easy seventy knots.

  “I don’t know, man,” Tony said glancing back. “They just don’t sound like outboards.”

  “You’re just a purist,” Andrew replied, his deep baritone sounding like a rumbling freight train. “My buddy on the design team says that once they introduce these babies at the Miami boat show in a year or two, they’re gonna fly off the shelves.”

  They continued east, barely on plane, while they both watched the radar screen. With the range of the Furuno unit, any boat coming toward Miami from Bimini would show up on the radar screen.

  “There,” Tony said, pointing at an echo that had just appeared on the unit’s peripheral. “Twelve miles and coming pretty fast.”

  Tony quickly sent another message to Charity, as Andrew brought the boat down to idle speed. They watched the other boat’s echo on the screen, as it approached the mainland. It was going fast, but not full throttle, and was still a good fifteen minutes away.

  “You better call her,” Andrew said. “Screw all that texting.”

  Tony nodded and made the call. As he updated Charity on the approaching boat’s direction and speed, Andrew noticed that the target boat was decelerating.

  “They’re slowing,” Andrew said.

  Tony relayed the news to Charity, then turned to his partner. “What the heck are they doing?”

  “I’m gonna head towards them,” Andrew said, pushing the throttles forward.

  The twin supercharged vee-eight outboards whined like banshees as the boat accelerated. Tony was somewhat correct: the engineers would have to do something about the high-pitched whine of the superchargers. More soundproofing or something. And the truth was, the shape of the engine’s covers was odd, kind of futuristic-looking, to enclose the closed-loop cooling system.

  Tony looked at the screen and said into the phone, “Roger that. That should hold their attention long enough for us to get close.”

  He ended the call and put the phone on the console. “She said she’s gonna create a diversion by coming in fast and loud, flaring at the last second.”

  “Get up on the bow,” Andrew said. “Have your Tavor at the ready.”

  When they were within a quarter mile, Andrew began to slow his boat. Snatching up a pair of binoculars, he studied the other vessel carefully. The moon was bright enough that he could see the people on board. It didn’t look like they’d heard or seen them yet, and he didn’t see any weapons.

  Three people were aboard. Two of them, standing in the front of the cockpit, were obviously a man and a woman. The woma
n seemed to be talking to the man standing at the helm.

  A second man stood in back, behind the couple.

  Suddenly, the man in the back swung something white at the other man. The helmsman went down instantly. Andrew watched for a moment longer, as the woman bounced up and down, shouting at the man who’d just cold-cocked the helmsman.

  “That’s not good,” rumbled Andrew.

  “What’s going on?” the former SEAL on the bow asked.

  “One of the people on that boat just clobbered one of the others.”

  Andrew watched as the attacker, with help from the woman, heaved the other man overboard, just as the beating sound of Charity’s rotor reached Andrew’s ears.

  He put down the binos and mashed the throttles. In seconds they were alongside the Cigarette, Tony shouting orders at the confused man and woman still in the boat. Shifting to neutral, Andrew quickly moved to the port gunwale, as the two boats began to drift closer together.

  The helicopter hovered about fifty feet above the water and slightly astern the racing boat. A bright spotlight came on, aimed at the couple in the boat.

  “Hands on the back of your head!” an amplified voice boomed from above. “Prepare to be boarded!”

  The man dropped something white on the deck, as he pulled up his shirt front with his left hand.

  “Gun!” Andrew shouted, as he aimed at the man and squeezed off two quick shots.

  At the same instant, Andrew heard two more popping sounds from Tony’s suppressed bullpup. The two men had trained together for more than three years in Homeland Security’s Caribbean Counterterrorism Command. One of their group was a former Marine sniper who always chided the CCC’s field operatives about superior firepower.

  “Anytime you have to shoot at someone, shoot twice,” Jesse McDermitt often said. “And when in doubt, empty the magazine.”

  Andrew had no doubt about his or Tony’s marksmanship, but a double tap was less expensive than their lives.

  The woman, no bigger than a twelve-year-old girl, screamed as the man in the back of the boat went down.

  “Don’t move!” Tony shouted at her. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  The woman put her hands behind her head, her face blank, as she stared at Tony in the bow.

  “Stand between the seats,” Tony ordered, “hands on your head, and face forward!”

  As she complied, the boats drifted close enough together that Andrew could reach out and grab a cleat on the other boat’s port side. He trained his own Israeli-made machine pistol at the woman, who was now staring at him. Something about the woman’s expression bothered him. It wasn’t fear, and her scream had been more one of surprise than anything.

  “Go,” Andrew shouted over the noise from Charity’s helicopter.

  Instantly, Tony vaulted the gunwale, landing lightly in the cockpit of the other boat. He moved forward, pushing the woman against the boat’s dashboard and windshield to control her.

  Andrew slung his weapon over his shoulder, then swiftly lashed the two boats together. He turned and waved both hands over his head at the helicopter.

  Charity backed off a hundred yards, keeping the bright spotlight on the Cigarette’s stern.

  Taking the woman’s right hand, Tony pulled it down behind her. He had two interlocked flex cuffs looped on his arm, and slid the first one over her hand as he held it firmly. Then he did the same with her other hand, cinching the interlocking loops tight and depositing her in the passenger seat.

  “What the hell?” Tony asked, reaching down to the deck, and picking up what the man had dropped. “It’s a sock.” Grabbing the toe of the sock, he dumped a yellow ball into his palm. “With a pool ball in it.”

  Moving forward, Andrew stepped over to the other boat. He picked up the gun lying on the deck next to the dead man.

  “It’s a Kimber 1911,” Andrew said, securing the weapon and thrusting it into his pocket.

  Tony took his phone out and stabbed the screen. After a moment he said, “Couldn’t be helped. He started to draw a gun on us.” Pausing to listen, he added, “A Kimber 1911. What do you want to do with the woman?”

  Watching the activity on the two boats below her, Charity gasped as the man in the back moved suddenly. She saw Andrew and Tony fire at the same time, and the man went down.

  Tony stepped over to the boat to restrain the woman. The second man was nowhere to be seen. When Andrew waved Charity off, she moved the helo fifty yards away, adjusting the powerful spotlight to keep the two boats in its circle of illumination.

  A moment later, Tony took something from his pocket and held it to the side of his head. Her sat-phone rang through her headset, startling her. This wasn’t the outcome she’d envisioned.

  She touched the Accept button. “Why did you shoot him?”

  “Couldn’t be helped,” Tony replied urgently, shouting to be heard over the buffeting wind the chopper was making. “He started to draw a gun on us.”

  “What kind of gun? One of Victor’s was missing.”

  “A Kimber 1911. What do you want to do with the woman?”

  “They stole it from Victor,” Charity replied. What do we do with her? she thought.

  “Another boat is approaching, Charity,” Tony said. “Coming out of Biscayne Bay and headed this way very fast.”

  Charity looked to the west but could only see the glow of lights from the city. She shook off what had just happened. “Feel like going for a ride, Tony?”

  “Bring her down,” he replied. “I’ll move the woman to the casting deck of Andrew’s boat.”

  She ended the call and moved the bird into position just in front of the sleek-looking center-console. The Huey’s rotors were more than fourteen feet above its skids, so there was no real danger in the maneuver; the trick was in the weight transfer. When someone steps off the boat onto the skids, the boat will rise slightly and the helo will drop, due to the extra weight. It was something she’d done many times before, though.

  Standing on the raised foredeck, Tony waited, letting his knees absorb the up-and-down movement of the boat while his torso remained motionless. Andrew stood on the lower part of the deck, guiding Charity closer with hand signals. When she was in position, Tony timed the rise and fall of the boat then stepped up onto the skid and slid the big cargo door open.

  Charity adjusted for the additional weight and kept her bird in position, as Andrew lifted the small woman bodily and held her up for Tony to drag inside. Then she moved the chopper away from the two boats.

  Andrew spent less than a minute looking through the Cigarette’s cabin. When he returned to the foredeck, he had the suitcase Charity had seen the man carrying when he and the woman went to Chapman’s dock.

  Charity eased the helo back into position and Andrew handed the luggage up to Tony. She could barely hear the exchange of shouted words between the two, then the cargo door closed.

  A moment later, Tony stepped into the cockpit and removed her bags from the right seat, taking their place. He quickly donned the headphones hanging on the dash, adjusting the mic boom.

  “She’s strapped in,” he said in a low voice. “No headphones.”

  Charity understood. If they talked low over the intercom, the woman in back wouldn’t overhear anything, due to the noise from the turbine.

  “What happened to the boat’s owner?” she asked.

  “Andrew said the guy they threw overboard is nowhere to be seen. He must have gone under.”

  “I didn’t see him go overboard,” she said. “But I saw the other guy punch him.”

  Below, Andrew had the boats untied and was at the helm. In just a few seconds he had his boat up on the step and was headed south at a very high rate of speed.

  Tony held up a yellow sphere in his gloved hand. “It wasn’t a punch,” he said, turning it to show her a small white c
ircle with the number one on it. “The dude used a homemade sap — a sock with a billiard ball in the toe.”

  Pulling the collective up, Charity turned back toward the islands, though she had no idea where to go. “Did the woman say anything?”

  “Not a word,” Tony replied. “Maybe she’s in shock. She was just staring blankly at us the whole time. Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “Jesse is following the cruise ship that this woman’s partners are on. It’s headed for Half Moon Cay, between the northern tip of Cat Island and the southern tip of Eleuthera.”

  “Head that way,” Tony said. “There’s a little rock of an island about two miles off the eastern end of Little San Salvador. It’s smaller than Jesse’s island, not much bigger than a football field and completely barren.”

  Charity glanced at her fuel gauge, which was down to nearly half a tank. The standard tanks on a Huey gave it a range of just over three hundred miles. Her former boss had added auxiliary fuel cells giving her bird a range of almost five hundred miles.

  “I’ll be on reserves when we get there,” Charity said, the dissipating adrenaline apparent in her voice.

  Tony took his phone out and pulled up a map, typing on the little keyboard and moving the map around on the screen.

  “Arthur’s Town Airport is fourteen miles from the rock. When’s the ship supposed to dock at Half Moon?”

  “They left Nassau late,” she replied, putting the information into the GPS. “At full speed, they could be there now.”

  “Cruise ships never run full speed.” Tony said, closing the app on his phone and opening another one. “All they have to do is get there before the tourist shops open in the morning What’s the ship’s name?”

  “Delta Star,” she replied.

  Working with his phone for a moment, Tony finally looked over at her. “Got it. Departed Nassau just after fourteen-hundred. Currently about halfway to Half Moon Cay, and cruising at a sedate seven knots. Scheduled to arrive at oh-seven-hundred.”