by JC Simmons
Dave laughed. "Good guess. It would take an expert to tell the difference." He paused, rubbed both hands around the steering wheel of the cigarette. "There is something else you should know. I got word Sanchez plans to take back the Snowpowder he sold me. I would have been disappointed if he hadn't. He'll probably try tonight, after delivering the last ten kilos."
"I'm here to help."
"Nice of you."
"You want to tell me the plan?"
"There is only one way to end this." There was neither cruelty nor animosity in his face, only justice.
"Yes."
He meant taking out Sanchez and his crew. Suddenly we were about to become judge, jury, and executioner. This is a dangerous world. Sometimes one has to do desperate things to survive desperate situations.
"We can take it down there, on the Sun Dog, or we can do it on board my sailboat when they come to take back the cocaine. The problem with my boat is that Sanchez might not show up. Someone will come; it's too easy a target. I vote for the Sun Dog. What do you think?"
He watched my eyes, looking for some sign of disapproval, some weakness in his plan. He knew I would stay with him in the fight. We had been in some rough places together. We trusted each other.
"It's your show. I'll go along with whatever you decide. The Sun Dog is a good choice. Everybody's in one place and we know the layout of the boat."
"It's settled, then."
"What's our firepower?"
"Two full auto Israel machine pistols and two forty-four magnum revolvers with six inch barrels, like the one I killed you with. There's plenty of ammo."
"So how do we go about this war? We will be outnumbered and out gunned."
He explained what he had in mind. It seemed workable, but dangerous. We sat in the small boat fanning mosquitoes, sweat running down my back, waiting for the time to approach the Sun Dog.
"Tell me about Kathy? She seems like a nice person."
"I did her a favor about six years ago. We met on a flight to Chicago, ended up going out to dinner. Strictly platonic. You know I don't fool around on Sally."
It was true, he didn't.
"She asked for advice on divorcing her flyboy. We've kept in touch."
"How did you connect her to Abaco?"
"She mentioned going to an island in the Bahamas to get away. Turned out it was here and, of course, I knew B.J., so that was that. She'd call every time she started down, see if we might be headed this way. That's how I knew she was going to be here this morning."
"Makes sense, but don't you think leaving a written message for her was dangerous?"
"You remember Mike Albury, the man who runs the ferry? Gave it to him and asked that he make sure no one but Kathy got it. That's as safe as you can get. Didn't want her to show up at the house and find you there."
"It was a good find."
He looked at the luminous dial on his watch. "It's time."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dave was so sure Sanchez was going to attempt to steal back the cocaine that the whole plan depended on it. He always had a sixth sense about things like this, so I decided to rely on his instincts. He'd been wrong before, but not often.
We planned to pick up the ten kilos of Snowpowder from Sanchez, and take it back to the sailboat anchored in American Harbor at Man-O-War Cay. After stowing it aboard, we'd run back down to where we could watch the Sun Dog. Traveling under cover of darkness was extremely dangerous as the boats running to Treasure Cay would be without lights and the closure rate is almost a hundred miles an hour.
If Dave was right, someone from the Sun Dog would leave around two or three a.m. and head for his sailboat. Rip-offs like this occur all too often. A lot of good undercover cops are killed as a result of this each year.
Undercover narcotics agents have my utmost respect. It takes a brave and dedicated person to do what they do for the money they are paid.
Our plan was to stay hidden behind Bridges Cay until we saw a boat leave the Sun Dog, then we would follow them to see if they were heading to Dave's sailboat. If they boarded the boat, we'd take them down. After that, we'd return and do what had to be done with Sanchez and his crew.
There was no way to know how many people would be aboard the Sun Dog on this night. If two or three went to steal the cocaine, and we took them out, then it would improve our odds.
The reality of the world is that there are evil people living in it. Tonight we planned to battle some of that evil.
When it was time for us to pick up the ten kilos from the Sun Dog, Dave asked me if I was ready. I nodded, not knowing if it was the truth. Sweat poured down my face, and the mosquitoes were driving me insane.
We eased down toward the Sun Dog. As we drew up to the stern, two men emerged armed with AR-15s. One I recognized as Barrel-chest. Keeping my head bowed, I stayed seated in the cigarette.
Barrel-chest pointed his rifle at me. "Who's he?"
"He works for me."
"The boss didn't say anything about another person coming with you. Wait until I check."
Sweat ran down my forearms. We were unprepared for a confrontation, and would be at a great disadvantage if there were a problem now. Our weapons were stored out of sight.
Barrel-chest returned and motioned Dave aboard. He kept his eyes glued to me. Dave tried to distract him, but it didn't work.
When Dave entered the salon, Barrel-chest motioned with his head for the other man to cover me, and followed him inside. The man stood over me with the rifle pointed at my head. Having a lot of experience with this weapon, I knew that firing on full automatic, it would disintegrate my head in a split second.
After what seemed an eternity, Dave returned to the cockpit and started handing me the ten kilos of individually wrapped packages of cocaine.
Leaping aboard the cigarette, Dave started the engine and ran north for Man-O-War Cay. It was only then that I was able to breathe again.
"There were eight on board. Six men and the two women you saw in Nassau. It's too bad about the women."
They would complicate things. We did not want to harm innocent women, but in trying not to, we could give away the edge to Sanchez and his scumbags.
It was too noisy with the roaring of the engine and wind blowing to talk. The tide was high, and we were able to take a shortcut across the shallows. At low tide there is less than a foot of water on the lee side of the cays. We ran in calm water so clear that the white bottom glowed in the dark.
Passing abeam Hope Town, we could see the candy-stripped lighthouse looming out of the night like some phallic symbol. Rounding into the narrow entryway of Man-O-War Cay, Dave made a hard right and entered into American Harbor, a protected safe mooring on the south end of this idyllic cay.
We tied the cigarette to the stern of the sailboat and off-loaded the cocaine, stowing it in empty spaces beside the engine. We wanted them to find it, but didn't want to make it too easy.
When asked about the other forty kilos, Dave said he turned them over to the local doctor who he knew to be above reproach.
"What about the Police Chief, Robert Sweeting?"
"Bob resigned. Most of his men were on the take as were other local government officials. He was the last bastion of law enforcement on Abaco. Maybe the bad guys are winning after all?"
"So what about the women on board the Sun Dog?"
"Play it by ear, but remember, they can get you killed, and dead is dead." His face was cut by prominent cheekbones and by a few sharp lines, but it was not cruel, though it was unyielding and expressionless.
We headed back down to the Bight of Old Robinson and Bridges Cay to begin our surveillance of the Sun Dog. The peacoat felt good, now, running in the cool night air. Stars shined brilliant and we could see the outline of the cays off to our left, the mainland to the right. Passing the cuts to the open ocean, swells caused the cigarette to become airborne for seconds at a time. The sense of speed was exhilarating.
Nearing Pelican Point, we could see light
s on in B.J.'s house. I thought of Kathy. Dave backed down on the power, and we idled along, hugging the shore of the mainland north of Bridges Cay. Easing by North Robinson's creek, we dropped anchor behind Riding Cay, which offered a good view of Sanchez's boat.
With binoculars Dave was able to see into the salon. We settled in for a long wait. At least the mosquitoes were gone. The hours passed slowly. We remained silent, drawn into ourselves, waiting for what was to come.
Watching the constellations make their way across the sky, I wondered at the imagination of the ancients who named them. My thoughts turned to Rene Renoir, seeing her face in the hospital, swollen and bruised, then in that cold, compassionless, steel-tabled morgue.
Dave lay half-stretched across his seat, his fingers drumming silently to an unheard tune on the steering wheel of the boat. His head was thrown back, his eyes closed, body relaxed and still, but tension stretched the shape of his mouth on the motionless face, a deadly shape drawn in lines of anticipation for things to come.
"You want to tell me why?"
"Why what?"
"Why you sent Lynn Renoir to me?"
"You needed the work."
"You had people in your office who could have handled a missing girl."
He did not move, sat there staring at for a long time. His face had the quiet earnest look of a man staring at a question.
"I sent her to you because I knew about Glossman's company handling Max Renoir's estate, and the terms of the Will. It was going to be a complicated case that needed someone with experience. You were the only one I could trust not to screw it up. But look where you are."
Shooting straight up in my seat like a spring uncoiling, I said, "How did you get access to Renoir's Will? I was only allowed excerpts."
There was a tense, cautious quality in the way he watched me. He made a single, brusque movement, and gripped the wheel of the boat tightly with both fists, like the gesture of some solemn pledge.
"I was still with the Bureau when the crash occurred. Max was involved with some top-secret work for the CIA in Central America. The NTSB asked us to investigate at the request of the CIA. That's when I got to see the Will. I thought it strange at the time, however we were looking for reasons an airplane crashed, not what a father left to his daughters. When the Renoir woman came to my office, I remembered the Will."
"You could have saved me a lot of work if you'd just told me all this up front."
His expression had a cracked hint of a smile, set and faintly suggested, but both veiled and purposeful. "No. It was better you dig it out for yourself. That way you might uncover something maybe overlooked if you had all the information to start with."
"Did you find anything unusual about the crash? Gene Arnold was a friend. I'd like to know if something happened he couldn't control."
"We didn't find anything. It appeared to be an accident. Look …" He pointed at the Sun Dog. "They're boarding the runabout. Two a.m., right on the money. We'll give them five minutes. Odds are they go straight for the sailboat."
We watched as two men boarded the small boat. As late as it was, there was no doubt what they were up to; the delivery operations at Treasure Cay had ended hours ago. Two people were silhouetted in the door of the Sun Dog. The curtains were partly closed, and there was no way of knowing how many people were left aboard. At least one person stood in the cockpit and watched the boat roar away in the dark.
We idled back out of the Bight of Old Robinson and followed, hugging the shore of the mainland until safe from being heard or spotted. Once north of Bridges Cay, Dave opened up the engine to full throttle. Ahead, maybe a mile, we could see the phosphorescent wake of the other boat. It would be a thirty-minute run to Man-O-War Cay. I got everything ready.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There were two entrances to the harbor at Man-O-War Cay and we stayed close enough behind the men to see which way they approached. We wanted to give them time to board the sailboat and also to lessen the possibility of being spotted.
Once passing Pelican Cay, they took a heading straight for Man-O-War Cay. This was good, as we could run close to the mainland, hugging the shore. Dave decided to go around the north end of Dickie's Cay and come down through the north entrance to the harbor. It would bring us past the main part of the settlement, and out of sight of the men we were tailing.
Man-O-War Cay could be summed up in one word, paradise. A mere two miles in length and a quarter mile wide, it is oriented in a northwest-southeast direction. It lay like a sleeping goddess. The Atlantic Ocean washes her north shore and the Sea of Abaco her south side.
Idling through the harbor, we could see the outline of Albury's boat yard where the seventy-foot wooden schooner, William Albury, was docked at the pier. We passed Government Dock, Edwin's Boat yard, and Norman Albury's sail loft.
Ghosting by the main entrance to the harbor, Dave pointed out his sailboat. We could see the men's cigarette tied to the stern. There were only four other boats anchored in American Harbor, and all were dark and quiet. Dave cut the engine and we drifted silently up next to the hull. Easing into the cockpit, careful not to make noise or cause motion, we could see the two men through the open hatch. They would never be accused of being overly smart. Having found the cocaine, they were helping themselves to big snorts of the white crystal powder, forgetting all else. Their weapons lay on the cabin sole out of reach even if they had wanted to make a play.
The expression on their face made me feel sad. Maybe they were the two who sat on the overturned dinghy and drank rum on Family Beach. The men were frightened of Dave, had seen him kill before, or so they thought. The white powder caked around their nose and mouth appeared comical.
Dave went forward, rummaged around in the Vee-birth, and returned with two pair of handcuffs. It struck me as funny that he could produce handcuffs out of nowhere at three o'clock in the morning on board a sailboat anchored in a small harbor two hundred miles out in the Atlantic Ocean. He looked at me with dark, deadly eyes. Not given to frivolity, the humor escaped him. He could see further into the night than I. The present was hard for me to comprehend, much less the future.
We cuffed the two men together around the mainmast, where it runs through the cabin and down into the keel. It was the most secure place and there was no way they could get loose. We would leave them until the business was finished back at the Sun Dog. If for some reason we didn't make it back, then someone would find them, eventually.
It was now after three a.m., and we had to hurry to beat daylight. We retraced our route back to Sanchez. The plan was risky, but it was the only way.
As we approached the Sun Dog, two men stood in the cockpit. Since they were expecting a cigarette boat to return, they weren't alarmed when we idled up beside the sportfisherman.
We brought the two automatic weapons confiscated from the men on the sailboat along with the guns Dave furnished. We were ready.
Easing the cigarette around so that my side would pass close to the stern of the Sun Dog, Dave maneuvered to within a few feet of the two men. When one knows death is close it heightens awareness and the usual facts do not make sense.
There was a look of surprise and fear on the face of the man closest to me when he realized who we were. He snarled like an angry wolf as he raised his rifle to fire. Spraying both men with a full clip from the AR-15, I saw one fall overboard, and the other slump into the cockpit. Dave opened the throttle and we started a circle around the Sun Dog. The two women bolted from the salon door, one running around the portside, the other the starboard. Both were heading for the bow and carrying automatic weapons as if they were trained to use them. They were kittens at play, but tigers in battle.
Dave abruptly closed the throttle causing the cigarette to slow suddenly, settling bow first. We both fired at the two women. One of them got off a burst, hitting inches in front of the windscreen where I stood. If Dave had not shut the throttle off when he did…
The two women were dead before they hit the de
ck. Dave throttled up again, and we started another circle, expecting Barrel-chest and Sanchez to come out firing. Instead, to our amazement, someone waved a white cloth out the salon door. Emerging slowly, with arms raised, Barrel-chest threw his weapon into the water. I had expected more from the man.
"Careful, Dave."
"Damn cowards."
Most of the people behind these kinds of operations hire someone to do the dangerous and messy work. Sanchez was proving not to be the exception. We were still wary, though. My ears were ringing, my heart was pounding, and I could feel the adrenaline flowing into my bloodstream. Any movement, a blink of an eye, and I would cut Barrel-chest in half.
Dave yelled, "Get Sanchez out here. Do it now, or you're a dead man."
Barrel-chest turned, said something to someone inside the salon. Sanchez appeared in the door and threw his rifle overboard. I boarded the boat while Dave kept me covered. There was no one else on board. Dave tied the cigarette off and climbed into the cockpit.
"So it was you," Sanchez snarled. "I should never have trusted you. Very clever, pretending to kill your friend, here. Smart, extremely smart."
He appeared to be in his early sixties. The structure of his bones and the looseness of his clothes suggested that he had once been muscular. The lifeless indifference of his eyes hid the fact that some degree of intelligence resided somewhere in his brain. The overall appearance was one of a wasted man who'd been sampling his own product.
"What is it we can do? You want part of my action? Together we could make plenty of money. I'll cut you in for fifty percent. What you think? We work together, yeah?"
Dave looked hard at him. He was edgy, angry, and I had no idea what he might do. "We want no part of your filthy operation."
Sanchez shrugged, the movement running through his body like a shudder. "Then what? I can get you anything. I have millions. What you want, Mon? Money, women, dope? What?"
Dave's finger tightened on the trigger, so I eased up and looked Sanchez in the eyes. "You want to save your life, tell me what the Renoir girl was doing aboard this boat? Who pumped her full of dope? And why?"