by Deb Carlin
The way he said it made Maggie break out in a cold sweat. Her pulse started to race and she checked her wristwatch. They had ten to twenty minutes before they ended up like the crew of this houseboat.
“To answer your question, my kids grew up on boats. This . . .” He gestured out at the storm and for first time it appeared to be letting up. “This is a minor inconvenience because they can’t be up on deck.”
Maggie had thought – they had all believed – that George Ramos and his children had been abducted, their boat taken by force. These men certainly had a cache of serious weapons. A United States Senator’s husband and children would be a hefty ransom. Or it would exact a terrible blow of revenge. But George Ramos didn’t look like he had his boat taken or commandeered by force. Instead, he appeared to be the one in charge.
“You’re making a pickup, aren’t you?” Liz asked. “Is that what this is all about?”
That drew a smile from Felipe.
“You’ve got it all figured out,” George said, but he was focused on the panel of instruments again. He clicked buttons and twisted the steering wheel. Maggie could feel the vibration as the engine revved up a notch. They were going faster. And they were turning.
“You’re meeting a drug boat,” Liz said, not bothering to hide her anger. “That’s why you’re out here in the middle of a storm.” She shook her head, disgusted.
Maggie looked over at her. The woman was a rescue swimmer but as part of the Coast Guard she was a trained guardsman. Was there any way they could overpower all three men? Diego and Felipe hadn’t bothered to tie their hands or restrain them. Which only told Maggie that they would not hesitate at all to shoot them if they even dared to make a wrong move.
All she could think about was that her gun was clear on the other side of boat.
“How can you do this in front of your children?” Liz asked.
This time George Ramos looked at her, but he was smiling. All he said was, “Fifteen more minutes.”
Maggie thought about what Liz had said. But if they were meeting a drug boat, why was he speeding up? She could hear the engine hum, almost a groan, as it struggled to accelerate against the choppy water. Then all of a sudden the lights flickered. Not lightning but the electrical lights, even those on the instrument panel. Another flicker and everything went black.
“What the hell?”
Maggie grabbed Liz’s wrist and pulled the woman to her feet. It took no more prodding than that. George and Felipe exchanged curses as Maggie and Liz felt their way back down the wood-paneled hallway.
Chapter 13
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN you left Agent O’Dell on the houseboat?” Tully yelled into his phone. “How the hell did she get from your helicopter down onto the houseboat?”
“Oh, my God. They found the boat,” Senator Delanor-Ramos said when she overheard him. “Where are they? Are they okay?”
He waved her off. He was having a difficult enough time trying to hear what Wilson was telling him.
“A cutter is on its way,” the commander explained. “We couldn’t stay in the air or we’d be knocked out of the sky.”
“You still didn’t tell me how Agent O’Dell ended up on the boat.”
“She left the helicopter without my consent. She disregarded my order.”
Okay, Tully thought, so that did sound like Maggie, but only if she believed something serious was going down.
“What exactly do you think happened to the boat?”
“We couldn’t see anyone on board. But RS Bailey was giving us mixed signals.”
“What about George and the kids? Are they okay?” The Senator grew impatient.
“Hold on, Commander,” Tully said. To the Senator he explained, “They couldn’t see anyone on board. A cutter’s on its way.”
“Oh, my God.” Her fingers were back to twisting her wedding ring.
“Commander, won’t it take forever in this storm for a cutter to find the houseboat?”
“They’ve been tracking it on radar ever since we gave them its position. Their turbo engines should put them on location any time now.”
“Listen,” Tully said, trying to figure out if anything he could tell the Coast Guard would even make a difference. “We have reason to believe members of a drug cartel took over the boat.”
“Wait a minute, how do you know that? We haven’t received anything.”
Tully ignored the Senator’s pained look. “I have nothing official, okay? But you need to warn that cutter. There are most likely armed men aboard.”
Chapter 14
MAGGIE THOUGHT SHE COULD hear another noise. Not a helicopter but a loud hum approaching. If Liz was right about them picking up a drug delivery then there was another boat close by. Right now all she could think about was getting through the pitch-black hallway. Liz stayed quiet. She kept her hand on Maggie’s shoulder and followed. She knew exactly where Maggie was headed.
They could already hear Felipe stumbling to find them back in the steering house. George wouldn’t be able to leave as long as the boat’s engine was engaged. Though she didn’t know that for sure. Boats probably had auto-pilot, but could it be used in a storm?
Felipe was yelling to Diego in Spanish. And for a second Maggie worried that they might run right into the man. Had he finished flinging the dead crew members over the railing? Or was he back here in the laundry room retrieving the last one?
She held her breath, trying to listen. But she didn’t slow down her pace. The engine still chugged, vibrating the floorboards. Certainly Diego would be cursing in the dark if he had been in the laundry room or even the hallway when the lights went out.
Her hip ran into a kitchen counter. She bit down on her lip but felt relief more than pain. If they’d made it to the kitchen they had passed the laundry room. The only window was farther down, past the living room, past another hallway of floor to ceiling cherry wood paneling and bookcases. Not that windows mattered. It was too dark. Still, Maggie could see a flicker of lightning at the end of the tunnel.
“Two more doors,” Liz whispered and Maggie realized that the rescue swimmer had counted them when they had been hostages.
At the other end of the hallway behind them she could hear Felipe slamming through the door from the steering house. It wouldn’t take him any time at all to make his way through in the dark. Everything was bolted down. Maggie couldn’t even shove anything in his path to slow him down.
Then the engine sputtered and went silent. George had turned it off. And now there were three men to worry about.
“Just on the other side of the next bookcase,” Liz whispered again.
Maggie grabbed Liz’s arm and exchanged places with her. If she had to, she knew she could take down Felipe, especially if he didn’t see it coming. As if reading her mind, Liz kept hold of Maggie’s wrist and pulled her along.
“It’s right here,” she said and the two of them patted down the wall looking for the door latch.
Liz found it first. The blast of wind and rain hit them in the face like buckshot. Maggie had to hold her breath. She tucked her chin and grabbed onto the railing. The tackle box would be close and yet Maggie couldn’t see a foot in front of her.
Then she realized Liz was down on her hands and knees. She joined her.
“It’s not here,” Liz yelled.
“It has to be.”
Lightning flashed and Maggie saw the box clamped down. She crawled closer. She could see the bungee cord that cinched the lid. A wave washed over the deck railing, knocking both of them into the wall. Maggie swiped a hand over her face and through the blur she thought she saw a light on the water. She pointed for Liz.
“Drug boat?”
Liz shook her head. “Bigger. I think it might be the cutter.”
It was close. Minutes away. And yet, Maggie knew they might be dead in minutes.
She reached for the bungee cord and suddenly the deck lit up. A big man with a spotlight stood at the other end. Diego. He stood almost exact
ly in the same place where she had seen him with the RPG. This time he had the spotlight in one hand and an automatic rifle in the other.
Maggie continued to slide closer to the tackle box. Diego was shouting at them in Spanish. She grabbed the bungee cord and worked her hand under the lid. The box was deep. Where it had taken no time to toss her weapon down into it, it would take reaching her entire arm to find it. Before her fingers made purchase Felipe stormed out the same door.
He was angry. He was screaming at them but pointing and gesturing to Diego about the light that was approaching. Only now did Maggie realize that Liz had positioned herself, once again, in front of Maggie so that the men couldn’t see. Maggie continued to slide her hand to the other side of the tackle box. Her arm was behind her and Felipe hadn’t noticed quite yet. He still didn’t suspect that they would have access to weapons. He thought they only wanted to escape.
Felipe gestured now for Diego to hurry while he waved the automatic handgun in Liz and Maggie’s faces. He was speaking too quickly for Maggie to understand but she knew they would need to move Maggie and Liz to the other side of the boat, away from the approaching light so they could shoot them and throw them overboard.
Why couldn’t she find her gun?
That’s when George Ramos came out the door. He stood between them – Diego and Felipe on one side, legs spread and balancing themselves like experts in the wind and rain. On the other side were Liz and Maggie, still on their knees. George looked to Maggie and held something up, waving it around above his head. In the glare of the spotlight she thought it looked like a gun.
“Is this what you’re looking for, Agent O’Dell?”
Her service revolver. And she felt her stomach drop.
George Ramos brought the gun down. His arm stretched out. He fired two shots, expertly hitting both of his targets. The first caught Diego between the eyes. The second blast slammed into Felipe’s right temple.
Chapter 15
THE RAIN HAD LET UP. Even the wind seemed to be giving them a break. But Tully saw lightning brighten the horizon just over the water. It would indeed be only a break. There was definitely more to come.
Moments ago the cutter had arrived with the houseboat named Electric Blue in tow. No one was allowed to board until given permission. Senator Delanor-Ramos was not pleased, but she waited.
When he saw Maggie he hardly recognized her. She still wore the orange flight suit. Her hair was a tangled mess, her skin an almost sickly white. She and Liz Bailey stood shoulder to shoulder as the Coast Guard brass made them go through their ridiculous protocol.
Very little had been relayed back to them on shore, but they were told that George Ramos and his two children were safe and unharmed. Two men had, indeed, boarded the houseboat and attempted to take it over. Three members of Ramos’s crew had been killed. And from what Tully understood, the two gunmen were also dead.
“I knew George would never put our children in danger,” Senator Delanor-Ramos said as she stood beside Tully.
They watched from inside the air station. Tully glanced over at her. Her tote bag in his rental SUV had provided her with a change of clothing. She had reapplied makeup and fixed her hair. The façade was back in place, everything back to normal. For her sake and for her kids, he hoped that was the case. After listening to Howard about drug cartels reclaiming old routes, Tully didn’t believe that this story was that easily explained away. If it were, George’s “business associate” Ricardo wouldn’t be dead. Tully was anxious to hear George’s explanation.
Chapter 16
ON THE PIER, MAGGIE watched Liz. She was better at this than Maggie was. There would be reports to file and statements to sign. The Coast Guard and Homeland Security would make sure everything was properly handled. And at the same time, Maggie wanted to take Liz aside and ask, “What the hell happened out there?”
The cutter had overtaken the houseboat within minutes of George Ramos shooting Diego and Felipe. When he pulled Maggie and Liz inside from the bloody deck, he told them how relieved he was. That he had been frightened for his children. He handed them towels from the closest bathroom and offered them brandy. And the whole time Maggie noticed that he didn’t put down her revolver. He kept it in his hand, a reminder that he was still in charge. And it was in his hand when he stepped back out onto the lower deck, leaving them inside the cozy living room with the generator partially restoring electricity.
Maggie shouldn’t have been surprised when George Ramos explained his story to the Coast Guard crew. Both she and Liz agreed that they didn’t know what the situation was before they boarded. Drained and exhausted, Maggie realized that some things were not as they appeared. It wasn’t impossible that a father would pretend to go along with a couple of madmen if he knew it would save his children.
George claimed the men had threatened him and were forcing him to meet their drug connection somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. That scenario wasn’t far from what Liz had suspected. He made his story sound so convincing that even Maggie found herself backtracking. She tried to remember pieces of dialogue. She still couldn’t figure out how and when he had managed to get her gun out of the tackle box. Why had she been so sure that George was not only friends with Diego and Felipe, but that he was the one in charge?
“A man does whatever he needs to do to protect his children,” George Ramos kept saying, and twice he had said it while looking directly at Maggie and Liz.
Maggie wondered if the children would ever be questioned. She doubted it. Though she realized the children probably didn’t know anything more than what their father had told them. They had been stashed away in their bedrooms playing video games.
As they exited the cutter she watched George with Angelica and the boy, Daniel, as they met Senator Delanor-Ramos on the pier. George scooped up Daniel and the family huddled together, exchanging hugs and kisses.
“It’s the damnedest thing,” Liz said, walking alongside Maggie.
Now that they were finally alone, Maggie stopped and waited for Liz’s eyes. It was breezy out in the middle of the pier, but the rain was light and actually felt good. Behind them, crews were securing the cutter and the houseboat.
“Do you believe him?” she asked.
Liz glanced around. She nodded at someone and Maggie turned to see Tully making his way to them. Before Tully was in earshot, Liz answered, “Not in a million years.”
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Tully said and surprised Maggie with a bear hug.
He patted Liz on the shoulder as she left them to rejoin her aircrew, who were already yelling catcalls at her from the end of the pier.
“You okay?” he asked as they followed in Liz’s direction.
“I think I’ll leave the helicopter rides to you in the future.”
“That’s a deal.”
They were almost to the parking lot when Maggie noticed George Ramos heading back down the pier to his houseboat.
“What’s he doing?” she asked Tully.
“Maybe he wants to get it to the marina and into its slip before the next band of weather hits. It’s an expensive boat.”
She saw Senator Delanor-Ramos and the two children getting into a black Escalade. Tully was probably right.
“Lots of holes in his story,” Tully said as if reading her mind. “I doubt he’s going to be asked to fill in any of those.”
“Does his wife believe him?”
“I think she has to.”
“Maybe I can ask him just one last question,” Maggie said. She glanced over at Tully. “Care to come along?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Let the poor man board his boat first,” she told him and they took up a leisurely pace.
George Ramos waved to the cutter’s crew as he passed them on the pier. They were leaving as he went back to his boat. It had been a hell of night. Maggie could hear the men wishing him well. He didn’t even notice Tully and Maggie as he climbed onto the lower deck of Electric Blue. He didn’
t look back as he entered the same side door where he had shot Diego and Felipe. All the blood had been washed away by the waves and the rain. The cutter crew hadn’t been at all surprised when George explained how both men had fallen overboard when he shot them with Maggie’s revolver.
But Liz and Maggie knew that the men hadn’t fallen overboard. George had gone back out before the cutter arrived.
Maggie suspected he was lying about much more. Everyone presumed that the houseboat hadn’t met up with the drug boat yet. That they were headed to pick up the delivery when Liz and Maggie interrupted. But what if they were wrong? What if they were on their way back?
Maggie gestured for Tully to climb aboard behind her. She opened the door gently, quietly, and before she went inside she saw Tully had his weapon drawn. Hers was still being held by the Coast Guard.
With the dim lights, it was easy to follow the narrow hallway. She could hear George in one of the bedrooms down past the kitchen. It sounded like he was moving furniture but Maggie knew that wasn’t possible. Everything was bolted down. Before she got to the open bedroom door, she pressed her back against the paneled hallway wall and let Tully go around her.
She stayed in place and watched him step into the doorway. She watched Tully’s face and immediately knew that she was right.
Tully aimed his weapon and cleared his throat. “Stay right where you are, Mr. Ramos.”
When Maggie looked in she couldn’t believe it. The storage bins were pulled out from under the bed. A window bench was open, exposing another storage area. All of them were stacked and packed with bags of cocaine.
George Ramos smiled and shook his head like he couldn’t believe it.
“This is not what it looks like,” he said.
“Choque Azul,” Tully said suddenly. “I can’t believe I missed it, but my Spanish isn’t so great.” He glanced at Maggie but kept his Glock pointed on Ramos. “The drug cartel George used to work for. They call themselves Choque Azul now. Doesn’t that mean Blue Shock?” Then to Ramos, he said, “You named your boat after them.”