With the air conditioner humming quietly, she went around the salon and galley, turning on every light and appliance. She wanted to make sure the auto-switch turned on the gen-set before the batteries drained too low. The boat’s house load was on four deep-cycle marine batteries, with two separate batteries the engine, one a backup. All six batteries were charged through the gen-set, the alternator on the diesel engine, or the solar panels and wind turbine.
Going to the entertainment center on the forward bulkhead of the salon, she knelt and opened the CD cabinet. Choosing an old Coltrane CD, she inserted it into the stereo.
With the volume turned low, soft jazz emanated from half a dozen speakers located throughout the salon. Charity released the catch that allowed the slotted CD holder to swing out. Behind it was a plain black tactical rifle case. She pulled the heavy case out and placed it on the settee table, folding up both sides for additional room and support.
Opening the case, she first removed the Leupold scope and set it aside. She’d been training with this very rifle and scope for several months and knew the ATN night optics had a fresh battery installed and the Mark 4 scope was zeroed in at five hundred yards. Shorter than that, the trajectory was nearly flat, and beyond that it dropped very little to a thousand yards. The heavy weapon had an effective range of over a mile. Though she’d become very adept at employing the weapon, her skills still hadn’t matched its ability. But she was comfortable at a thousand yards.
Her rifle of choice was the new Barrett M82A1A, designed specifically to fire either a standard fifty-caliber BMG round or the Raufoss-manufactured Mk 211 incendiary round.
Director Stockwell had cautioned her that the round was intended for use against heavily-armored vehicles. She’d told him that she’d keep that in mind, but she knew that if she found an occasion with multiple terrorists grouped close together, a single round, fired into a man’s chest, could kill several others nearby.
In Charity Styles’s mind, there was only one way to deal with radical terrorists. Kill them. Better still if they became dead while vaporizing into many pieces. Gingerly, almost lovingly, she began to disassemble the rifle, knowing full well that it was already spotless.
After the training exercise that morning, Awad Qureshi joined the others as the group gathered for lunch in the shade of the large boulders. While they ate, Hussein walked among them, talking to each man in turn, dispensing advice, praise, or admonition.
Awad sat with Majdi, slightly away from the others. This was done at Hussein’s direction. He felt the three leaders had to be separate but still a part of the group of fighters.
Finally, Hussein dipped into the cauldron for his portion of the midday stew and joined Awad and Majdi. “It was a good training session this morning. I think we can cut back on shooting practice to just once a day now.”
Majdi looked up at the leader. “Do you think that wise? Some of these men still can’t even hit the target.”
Fire flickered behind Hussein’s dark eyes. He didn’t like his orders or comments to be questioned in the least. Only Majdi dared do so, and then only on the subject of marksmanship. During his years in Texas, he’d joined a hunting club and was very proficient with a rifle.
“Our targets in San Antonio will be larger and closer,” Hussein said. “And we will be firing on full automatic. But, if one or two of the men still needs training, you may work with them.”
“I will,” Majdi said and returned to eating his stew.
Hussein watched him, his eyes still smoldering slightly. Awad pretended to be engrossed in his meal, but noted Hussein’s attitude and Majdi’s indifference.
Hussein glanced quickly at Awad, catching his eye for a moment. A calmness replaced the fire in the leader’s eyes. He spoke to Majdi as he watched Awad. “We depart this mountain in ten days, Majdi. Do what you can with them.”
The leader stood quickly and tossed the remnants of his stew on the ground for the foraging night animals then disappeared up the trail to the rim of the volcano.
“You shouldn’t antagonize him,” Awad said. “He is like the lynx, very unpredictable.”
Majdi looked up at his friend and whispered, “He is a fool. His rash actions may bring failure to our mission before we kill more than a handful of the infidels. Ten more days is simply not adequate.”
Awad went back to eating his stew and thinking. Part of what Majdi said was true. In the early days of the current war with the infidels, the name Hussein Seif al Din Asfour had been known all across the northern provinces. Yes, his actions then could be seen as rash, even reckless. But he had been known as a fighter who gave no quarter, nor asked any, and always came out on top. Right up until he was wounded and captured by the American Army.
Awad prided himself on his intellect, and Majdi, though only an engine mechanic, was wiser than he. Majdi never did anything fast. Some saw him as lazy, but Awad knew that every movement the man made, no matter how insignificant, was calculated and thought out well in advance.
Majdi spoke to Awad of his engines from time to time, whenever he was bored. How simply, yet perfectly, all the parts worked together for a common purpose—but only if they were assembled correctly and meticulously, he’d said.
Awad could see in his mind exactly what his friend meant, in comparing his engines to this group. Awad knew next to nothing about machinery. He’d get into his car, turn the key, and the machinery worked or it didn’t.
Football was Awad’s passion. Not the wild and deranged sport Americans called football, but the game he’d played in college. Moving his teammates down the field, with nothing more than a glance. Passing the ball with the side of his foot to another player, while making the opposing team think he was doing something else.
Yes, football was akin to Majdi’s engines. Working together toward the goal and victorious if the right parts were assembled in the right order with precision.
Looking around at the other men in the group, Awad wondered if any played football, if they could be directed and guided with little more than a glance or nod.
He would talk to Hussein about football later tonight. He knew the man had played while in the American prison in Cuba. He’d spoken of it to Awad, when Hussein had learned that Awad had been the team’s captain at his college. Perhaps he could plant a seed in the leader’s mind—cause him to think ahead like Majdi and himself.
The soft patter of rain on the roof of the cabin roof woke Charity. She’d slept soundly, curled up in the forward vee-berth. No nightmares. As she lay on the bunk, looking at the heavy timbers in the overhead, her mind drifted back, recalling the familiar surroundings from her childhood.
She felt as if this boat could protect her from the recurring dreams, certain that these strong oak ribs and cross members, identical to those she had traced with her hands as a little girl, held some mystical and all-powerful quality that would see no harm come to her.
But it was the horrible images that came to her in the night that fueled her. The doctors had deemed her mentally unfit to return to flight duty status after her capture and two days of being raped and tortured. She’d been completely open and forthright with the Army’s shrinks. In retrospect, she probably shouldn’t have been.
Reaching a hand out, Charity touched one of the heavy timbers. In her mind’s eye, the hand was that of a ten-year-old girl, tentative and shy. A familiar shape and texture. Nearly everything about this boat—the look, the lines, the way she handled—was both intimately familiar and, at the same time, distantly strange.
Rising from the bunk, she went aft to the galley and turned the coffeemaker on. She’d set it up the night before. Quickly, she brushed her teeth at the galley sink before going forward to the head for a shower while the coffee brewed.
Space was a constant problem aboard any kind of boat. The Dancer’s head was only three feet square and included the marine toilet and shower. The only sink was in the galley. The shower had four waterproof switches, two for the seawater pumps and two m
ore for the pumps that supplied the precious fresh water. The heating elements for the hot water switches were in the pipes themselves. There was no hot water storage tank. The heating elements produced very hot water, though.
Flipping the switch for hot seawater to the on position, Charity waited until the automatic pump began to hum. When steaming hot water jetted out of the shower head mounted to the overhead, Charity sat down on the toilet and let the hot water cascade over her for a moment before picking up the soap and scrub brush. After ten minutes, she turned the seawater switch off and flicked on the cold fresh water to quickly rinse off. The fresh water tank only held a hundred gallons. There was plenty of bottled water on board, so fresh drinking water wouldn’t be a problem.
Stepping out of the shower, her skin red and raw from the stiff bristles of the brush, she opened the hanging closet directly opposite the head and chose a pair of lightweight khaki pants and a light blue long-sleeved denim shirt. She’d be in the sun all day, if the rain quit.
Toweling off and dressing in the salon, she then went forward and made the bunk, switching on the VHF weather forecast. The local frequency’s monotone electronic voice, identical to most others along the coast, told her that a passing shower would dissipate by midmorning.
At the nav station, she opened the laptop. While it was booting up, she took a banana from one of the baskets and poured a mug of steaming hot coffee. She ate quickly and sat down at the desk to drink her coffee and check her email for any change in the status of her target. It was time to begin the hunt.
Every day, sometimes several times a day, Director Stockwell had told her, an encrypted email would be written on an anonymous server. The email wouldn’t be sent. Instead, it would be saved as a draft by the sender, an unknown analyst in the bowels of the Pentagon. Charity had access to the server and could then read the email in the draft file and delete it. Simple, yet this effectively left no electronic trail. She could also respond to it and ask for more information, assistance, or request additional gear, then save the request again as a draft.
If Charity needed additional equipment, it would be supplied at sea. Director Stockwell had been adamant about this. Between all the intelligence agencies and the military, someone was flying somewhere over the Caribbean just about every day. A location for a drop would be arranged, and whatever she asked for would be dropped in a buoyant watertight package, with a UHF beacon that would bring her right to it. Charity didn’t anticipate needing anything more than her rifle on this mission.
With no update, she plotted her course on the laptop, which would feed information to the helm, including the direction and speed of surface winds and currents, and could sail the Dancer all by itself if need be. A valuable tool to be able to sail solo through the nights ahead.
Her destination was the Gulf Coast of Mexico, a small town called Alvarado, not far from Veracruz and west of the Yucatan Peninsula. The plotter calculated the sailing distance as just over nine hundred and seventy nautical miles. If she could maintain an eight-knot average, she’d arrive there in five days.
Charity started the boat’s engine and, grabbing the damp towel to dry the seat at the helm, she went out into the rain and raised the Bimini top over the cockpit. It didn’t really afford much protection from a driving rain, but the wind was very light right now, and the misty rain was falling straight down. NOAA was predicting the wind would build to fifteen knots out of the east shortly after sunrise, and heavier rain would fall before the weather dissipated and she should have light to moderate seas outside the safety of Biscayne Bay.
Stepping over to the dock, she untied the lines, standing on the dock and holding them for a moment. Sea Biscuit was dark, Savannah and her daughter still asleep. Charity looked around the small harbor and the little island. This would be her last time on dry land for nearly a week and her last time on American soil for quite some time. A feeling of uncertainty swept over her. She was a confident sailor and already knew Wind Dancer in so many ways. Yet the trepidation she felt persisted.
Shaking it off, Charity grabbed the rail and gave the boat a slight shove away from the seawall, stepping aboard and securing the lines. She moved quickly to the helm, flipping the switch to open the doors for the bow thruster. A moment later, she had the boat aimed at the channel and engaged the transmission, while watching the sonar. It showed more than eight feet of water ahead as she steered the big sailboat into the channel.
Clearing the point where the pavilion was located, Charity turned Wind Dancer south, following the seawall, just thirty feet to port. The VHF radio crackled, startling her. “Sea Biscuit calling Wind Dancer.”
“Go to channel seventy-two, Sea Biscuit,” Charity said into the microphone.
She switched frequencies and waited a moment, then Savannah’s voice came over the radio. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to head out in this soup, Gabby.”
“It should clear by the time I reach Key Biscayne,” she replied. “I thought I’d go ahead and get my sea legs ready before getting there, so I’m running on the outside.”
“How many friends are you picking up?”
Charity wondered if she was just making idle conversation or if the question was something else. Deciding that her training had made her paranoid about anyone outside her old team, she replied, “Just three. A couple and their friend, a young man who we will be dropping off in Nassau to work.”
A hearty laugh came over the speaker. “Girl, you’ve been set up. Your friends are playing matchmaker.”
Charity grinned as she turned into the cut on the south side of Boca Chita Key and glanced down at the sonar screen. Twelve feet and no obstructions. She nudged the throttle slightly, and the Dancer slowly picked up speed. She decided that she liked this independent-minded woman and pretended to play out the fantasy.
“Well, the man will be in for a rude awakening if he’s looking for any kind of commitment. A roll in a hammock, maybe, but that’s it.”
Savannah laughed again. They talked for a few minutes, as the Dancer moved through the channel and into the wide-open Atlantic Ocean, the bow cleaving the small swells with little change in the attitude of the boat. The rain continued to fall lightly on the Bimini as the first shades of purple started to brighten the eastern sky ahead.
The wind was out of the east, and the Dancer was headed straight into it. Still too light a breeze for sailing, though. Knowing that Savannah was likely on her fly bridge, Charity held the easterly course until she was three miles offshore, while they chatted about places they’d been.
“I have a feeling we’ll see one another again,” Savannah said.
“That would be nice, Savannah. Next time, the beer’s on me.”
“Fair winds and following seas, Wind Dancer. Sea Biscuit out and back to sixteen.”
Continuing due east, the rain began to fall a little harder and the wind was picking up. The Bimini covered the entire cockpit and part of the cabin roof. If the rain became too heavy, she had a clear plastic dodger that attached to the forward edge of the Bimini and the cabin roof ahead of the hatch. It extended down both sides, halfway encompassing the cockpit. The helm, however, was open aft and to the sides.
After another ten minutes, the rain just stopped. No lightening, no slowing, it just ended, as if it had never been raining. Ahead, the first faint rays of sunshine were beginning to dim the few stars she could see near the horizon. Charity looked aft and could just see the patter of rain on the surface, retreating in her wake.
Still within cell tower range, she took her phone out and pulled up the Weather Channel website. The weather radar map told her that she was clear of the rain, and from what she could tell by zooming out, the day was going to be bright and sunny.
The small surface radar image on the console showed her she was nearly alone on the ocean. Only a few ships further out and some smaller vessels closer to shore, probably fishing boats.
Charity activated the automatic winches, raising the mainsail, then unfurle
d the jib, hauling it back to the starboard side, all without having to leave the helm. The sails luffed in the light wind, the bow aimed straight into it.
She cut the engine and turned the wheel slightly to starboard. Wind Dancer responded slowly and lost a little speed. Then Charity heard and felt the familiar snap of the sails. The light wind filled them, sending a tingle through her spine and up her neck. The big boat heeled slightly, and she experienced the same rush of excitement she always felt when the wind filled her sails.
As the sun climbed higher, Charity steered more southerly, angling away from shore into deeper water. Once she was pointed due south, she activated the winch control for the forestay, adding thirty percent more canvas area to capture the wind.
Dancer responded better than Charity had hoped, heeling further and accelerating. The computer display on the console told her she had a ten-knot wind directly out of the east, and the boat was clipping along at nearly fourteen knots on the small swells, taking them on the port beam.
As the boat’s forward speed increased, the apparent direction of the wind changed, pointing higher. She activated the winches, hauling the boom and foresails in closer. Dancer quickly reached that perfect equilibrium, using forward speed to increase both the apparent wind speed and direction. Glancing at the knot meter, she was amazed that Dancer was skimming along at sixteen knots, heeled over only ten degrees.
As the day wore on, Charity began to turn more and more westerly, following the curve of the Florida Keys, staying between the chain of islands and the great Gulf Stream to the south. The Stream flowed east though the Florida Straits, then north up the Atlantic Seaboard. Sailing in its current would cut her speed drastically.
At noon, she set the autopilot and engaged the computer’s winch controls, allowing the boat to find its most optimal course and sail arrangement. The winches whined, moving the sails in and out, until the computer was satisfied.
Charity checked the knot meter and saw that the boat’s speed hadn’t changed all that much, over what she had done manually. This gave her a small sense of satisfaction. It’d been some time since she’d sailed a boat of this size. For the last few years, she’d been keeping her skills sharp, sailing a much smaller twenty-four-foot San Juan sloop.
Merciless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 1) Page 6