I followed his gaze. “Pretty much my first impression. Pap would have called her a stalwart lady.”
“Whatcha need from me, then?”
“We need a place to hide out for a day or so, till we sort this out,” I replied. “When we do take them back to the States, we’ll need to leave them here for a few hours so we can clear customs out of the Bahamas in Nicholls Town, since they never cleared in.”
“No problem,” he replied. “I have a string of guest cottages, nearly all of ’em empty.”
Peeling off thirty hundred-dollar bills from a roll in my pocket, I handed them to Henry. “We’ll take all of them for two days. Will that cover it?”
Shoving the bills in his pocket, he extended his hand. “Mi casa es tu casa, hijo.”
I took his hand and felt the dry, firm grip of a man I’ve known and trusted my whole life. “They have nothing but what they’re wearing.”
“There’s a colored girl lives in number two,” Henry said. “She does the housekeeping for me and works the computer stuff. I’ll send her to town and get them some clothes and anything else they need.”
Just then, the door to the second cottage opened and a woman stepped out onto the gaudily painted porch. She had a watering can in one hand and pruning shears in the other. When she saw me and Henry talking, she put both down and walked toward us.
“Jesse, this is Angelique,” Henry said. “Angelique, this is Jesse McDermitt. Me and his grandpa served in the Marines together.”
The woman extended her hand and I took it. She was very light-skinned, with pale blue eyes and long black hair past her shoulders. Colored is the accepted island expression, meaning a person of mixed race. She looked to be in her early to mid-twenties, but as I said, I’m a terrible judge of such things.
“Pleased to meet yuh, Cap’n,” she said in a beautiful singsong island voice, typical of the people of Andros.
“Jesse and his friends will be staying for a coupla days,” Henry said. “They rented all the remaining cottages and nobody’s to know they’re here.” Nodding toward the Revenge, he added, “Those two women need a stake.”
“Yuh privacy will be honored, Cap’n,” Angelique said. “I be happy to go inna town and get anyting dey need. Long as yuh heah, I or me usband will take care of all dat yuh need.”
With that, Angelique started walking toward the boat.
“Her common law husband’s an ex-pat like me,” Henry said. “He came here about six years back and lived on his boat, before he met her. Good kid, I took to him right off and gave him a job. He’d been making his way from port to port, cleaning boat bottoms in the water. He and Angelique pretty much run things for me now. They’re honest, loyal, and very trustworthy. You came to just the right place at just the right time, son.”
A moment later, Angelique led Pat and her granddaughter, along with Tony and Art, toward the small cottages that lined the lagoon, chattering away and describing all the wonders that their little lagoon held.
Bourke hung up the fuel nozzle and walked toward where Henry and I stood. After introducing him to Henry, Bourke said, “There’s a video call on the laptop for you from Deuce and Director Stockwell.”
“You have Internet?” Henry asked. “How?”
“Come on,” I replied. “I’ll show you. And I might have an answer to your problem as well.”
The three of us stepped down into the cockpit, then up into the salon, Henry moving better than most men his age. “This is quite a boat,” he said, looking over the salon.
Gaspar’s Revenge turns heads in any port. With a fully-equipped cockpit that’s roomy and all business, her salon is appointed for easy relaxation. Surrounded by dark tinted windows, charter guests can kick back in air-conditioned comfort on the L-shaped couch to port or the forward L-shaped settee to starboard.
“Thanks,” I replied. “Come over here.”
I led him to the settee, where my laptop sat. “We’re connected to the web through a satellite, using a little dome antenna on the roof. If the computer you use has a wireless modem, you can connect to it also.”
“Satellite? Like up in space?”
“It’s a government system, but there are civilian providers, too.”
I sat down at the settee and opened the laptop. When the screen came on, I saw Deuce sitting at one of the large tables near the two bunkhouses on my island. He was eating what appeared to be a fish sandwich. The other half of the screen showed Travis Stockwell at his desk, reading glasses in place, while he studied some documents.
“Find out something?” I asked.
Setting his plate aside, Deuce turned toward the camera on his laptop. “Chyrel blocked communication from the kidnappers, until we get this sorted out. They’d made one call to the congressman’s cell phone, but it went to voicemail. Chyrel managed to save it and then deleted it from his phone before it was delivered. The Jamaicans didn’t sound happy.”
“I apologize for what happened on Cat,” Travis said. “We would have liked to have had more time for recon, but the situation was urgent.”
“No sweat, Colonel,” I told the Associate Director of Homeland Security, Deuce’s boss.
Motioning Henry to sit beside me, I introduced him to the two men, explaining that Henry was a Marine veteran who had fought alongside my grandfather on Iwo Jima, and that I’d known and trusted him all my life.
“So right now,” I said, “the Jamaicans can’t contact the father, and as far as he knows they still have the girl?”
“As far as he knows, yes.” I could tell by the look in Deuce’s eyes that he was thinking pretty much the same thing I was. “I didn’t like this mission from the start,” he continued. “It’s not in our purview. And a hurricane out there didn’t help much. But it is what it is, right?”
“And preventing a father from having his very own daughter murdered?” I asked.
“Also not what we’re trained for,” Travis said. “But I’ll be damned if we’re going to turn them over to him so he can try again. Give me the day to contact the Secretary—he’s on Capitol Hill this morning. What do you have in mind?”
I laid out my plan to them in just a couple of minutes. The twinkle returned to Deuce’s eyes and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “I like it,” he said when I’d finished. “You’ll have to stop in Nassau to pick it up, though. Anything else?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Henry here has a really nice deepwater lagoon, north of Nicholls Town, at the northern tip of Andros Island. It’s isolated and hard to find, and he’s got a couple of big fuel tanks.”
“How big and how’s his deliveries set up?” Travis asked, already on the same page I was. Stockwell is a retired Army paratrooper and always looking ahead toward logistical support.
I nodded to Henry, who shrugged. “I have ten thousand gallons of diesel and five thousand gallons of regular gas. I get deliveries every week, or whenever I call. It’s all cash on the barrelhead.”
Deuce’s smile broadened. Having an alternative place to get fuel when in the Bahamas, especially one that didn’t keep sales records, could be very useful.
“There’s only one catch,” I said, knowing both men were thinking the same thing I was. “He’s reliant on 1980s technology. His computer’s hooked up to a phone line, and out here, that’s not a whole lot better than smoke signals.”
One thing I’ve learned about Stockwell in the short time that I’ve known him is his quick decisiveness. He knew his operational limitations and didn’t need to check with anyone to confirm his decisions within those limitations.
“I’ll have Miss Koshinski on the next flight to Andros with the equipment,” Travis said. “She can get him all hooked up and explain how it operates.”
“Equipment for what?” Henry asked, puzzled.
I turned to Henry and explained the future needs of Deuce’s two teams and how he’d need to keep it completely under his hat. If and when his services were ever needed, those needing them would appear to
be just as we did now, sportfishermen needing fuel and maybe a place to rest up. In exchange, he’d get a good price for the fuel and free satellite Internet to run his charter business.
“You can do all that?” Henry asked with a wry grin.
“He can’t,” Travis said, also grinning. “He’s just a boat bum. My IT person will have you up and running by end of business tomorrow.” He then told me he’d have Deuce call my sat phone as soon as he was able to talk to the Secretary, but go ahead and prepare to move forward with my plan.
Back on the dock, Henry cautioned me, “Watch your six with those Jamaicans. They’re a ruthless bunch, but for a price they’ll do just about anything.”
Andrew, Tony, and Art each had their own cottage, and Pat and Chrissy had a fourth. Even with two more empty cottages, I chose to stay aboard the Revenge. It’d been a long couple of days. I was able to perform some much-needed maintenance on the Revenge, cleaning the water filter strainers and the whole boat in general.
Several hours later, with the sun slipping closer to the treetops on the west side of the lagoon, Henry came down to the dock and told me that dinner would be at the outdoor table in an hour. Conch fritters and snapper, fried light.
“Angelique brought your guests plenty of new clothes and stuff,” he said. “They’re resting up in their cottage. I got a chance to sit down and talk with the woman for a bit. Seems like a really nice lady.”
We talked about what might become of the granddaughter for a while, before he had to go tend to one of the Bertrams that had an electrical issue.
After he left, I showered and changed into clean clothes. Standing in front of the mirror, I debated shaving. The stubble on my face was more beard than stubble, and it was beginning to itch my neck. I’d shaved every day since I was seventeen and had never seen what I looked like with facial hair. I decided I kind of liked the look, even if there were more grays on my face than in my hair.
When I stepped up to the dock, a flats skiff was idling into the lagoon. The man aboard it quickly tied off with the other smaller boats and killed the engine. This skiff was a little different than the others. It looked like a solid little boat, big casting deck forward and a smaller one aft the dual console cockpit. The lines of the boat were close to my own Maverick Mirage, but this one was hand-built. The man tying her off straightened and looked first at the Revenge and then at me, before walking toward me.
Angelique’s husband introduced himself as Rene Cook. Nearly as tall as my six-three, broad-shouldered, and dark-tanned, his smile was quick and genuine. I took the offered hand and introduced myself.
“That’s a beautiful vessel, Jesse.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “That your own personal skiff?”
He turned to the skiff and crossed his arms, obviously proud of the little boat. “Yeah, I built her myself, when things got slow here.”
I immediately liked the younger man. He was probably in his late twenties, a few years older than his wife, and seemed to have a quiet, confident way of carrying himself. The fact that he once lived aboard and made his living from the sea was a plus.
We talked about boat building and I looked closer at his skiff, telling him about the barrel-back runabout my friend Carl and I had built. He told me his skiff was twenty feet, stem to stern, which is a couple feet longer than my Maverick. With a wide beam and plenty of deck space between the two consoles, it was perfectly suited for the shallows.
Later, at dinner, my sat phone chirped. It was an incoming text message from Deuce with only one word, “Go.” When I looked up, Bourke was watching me. I gave him a nod, then turned to Pat, across the table from me.
“Pat,” I said, getting her attention. “We’re returning to Cat Island in the morning. You and Chrissy will stay here until we get back, probably about dark.”
“Going back?” she asked. “What for?”
I glanced at Henry, sitting at the head of the table. His nod told me all I needed to know, though I was already sure of it anyway. While I might not be good at guessing a woman’s age, I had an uncanny sense at picking up a man’s morality. With only a nod, old Henry told me that Rene and Angelique could be trusted.
Turning back to Pat, I said, “We’ve disabled the Jamaicans’ ability to contact your son-in-law.” I watched Chrissy carefully to judge her reaction. “When we get to Cat Island, we’re going to convince them to tell the congressman that the rescue was unsuccessful and if he doesn’t pay double what they agreed on within twenty-four hours, they’ll turn you and Chrissy over to the FBI and spill the beans on the whole thing.”
Chrissy stared at me. “It’s not true,” she said, but her statement lacked any real conviction. I truly felt sorry for this girl. She was only two years younger than my youngest daughter, Kim. Chrissy had lost her mother in a terrible accident when she was thirteen, a very formative age for girls. Or so my friend Rusty tells me. My wife left with our daughters when they were little and I’d only reunited with them recently. Chrissy’s father seemed to be one of those kinds of dads who was there, but only in a physical sense. I’d learned from Pat that Chrissy was attending boarding school in South Carolina and only saw her father once a month, if he wasn’t too busy.
Bourke put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and spoke soothingly. “I’m sorry, Chrissy. I truly am. But everything Jesse and our boss has found out indicates that it is true. I wouldn’t lie to you. I know that’s a lot to swallow on top of all you’ve been through. We’ll afford your dad every opportunity to back out and deny these accusations, and we’ll record everything he says.”
Looking up at Bourke, Chrissy nodded. “I want to hear it.”
Bourke nodded back and pulled her head to his forehead in a short hug, tousling her hair. “We’ll keep you in the loop the whole way, kiddo. That’s a promise.”
Continuing, I said to Pat, “We’re going to offer the Jamaicans a large sum of money to play along and convince them to tell your son-in-law that the payment will have to be made in person. We’ll have one of our people standing in to take the payment.”
“What happens then?” Pat asked. “The man’s not without power, or you wouldn’t be here in the first place. He has a lot of people in his pocket, too.”
“The exchange will be one-on-one and face-to-face. It’ll be recorded on video and audio. When he makes the money exchange, he’ll go away for a long time.”
“Even in prison, we wouldn’t be out of his reach,” Pat said.
Nodding toward the Revenge, I stood up and Pat followed me out of earshot of the girl. “Everything my boss has learned screams that this man’s doing exactly as you said, Pat. I have two girls myself, not much older than Chrissy. There’s got to be more to it than getting people to feel sorry for him and reelect him. What have you not told us?” I know only one way to ask a question.
She studied my eyes carefully, as if trying to read my thoughts. Then she turned and looked over at the Revenge. “That boat of yours is really something. How much do you still owe on it?”
Owe, I thought. “I don’t borrow,” I said by way of a reply, not seeing where she was going.
“And your house?”
“Built it myself on a tiny island I also paid cash for,” I replied, irritably. “What the hell’s my finances have to do with your son-in-law?”
She turned back toward me and looked me over once more, as if appraising me again. “You can’t judge a book by its cover. What if I told you I could buy your boat and your island?”
“They’re not for sale.”
She smiled. “Everyone has a price, Jesse. If I were so inclined, I could make you an offer that would change your mind. Henry too. Along with every bar in Key West.”
It was my turn to appraise her. A long line of single heirs, I thought, remembering what she’d said earlier.
“Chrissy is your only heir?” I asked.
“Her mother would have been. Now, when I’m gone, Chrissy will receive a trust that would last a hundred lifetimes. With
her father as trustee until she’s twenty-one.”
“So, Chrissy wasn’t the only target?”
“No,” she simply replied.
“And if you and she were both victims?”
“I only learned of his plot two days ago. Had he been successful, Chrissy and I would both be dead in some random kidnap and murder, then my estate would be in the hands of the trust. With no one to disburse the trust to, probate court would award him everything.”
Money, I thought. A friend of mine, also a member of Deuce’s counterterrorist team, has a PhD in criminal psychology. Paul Bender told me quite a bit about what motivates evil people. At the top of his list was money.
I thought of my own daughters and my grandson, Fred. His first name’s Alfredo, but he has my first name for his middle name. Eve asked me not to call him little Jesse, so I compromised with Fred. There’s just no way I’m calling my grandson Alfie. Though I’d only been recently reunited with Eve and Kim, and little Fred was less than a year old, I just couldn’t comprehend life without them in it.
“Prison’s too easy,” I mumbled, gazing out over the lagoon with Pat.
“I’m inclined to agree,” she replied under her breath.
Looking at the side of her face, I saw a steely resolve there. This was a woman who would do anything for her granddaughter, including sacrificing her own life.
“Do you really think he can reach out from inside a prison?”
Pat continued to stare out over the water. “I’m certain of it, Jesse. Not all his dealings before getting into politics have been aboveboard. He knows people in the criminal world.”
I considered that and immediately knew what had to be done. “If you can’t raise the bridge,” I said.
Looking at me, she grinned. “Lower the river? Chrissy and I could disappear?”
I grinned back. I liked this woman. She had a quick mind. “With a little help from your uncle, you can turn into vapor. How big is your business?”
“There isn’t one,” she replied as we turned to go back to the others. “I’m an investor, as was my father and his father before him. Our family’s entire wealth is mostly in old stocks and land. I only have one full-time employee, a personal secretary.”
Fallen Angel: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 9) Page 4