Fallen Angel: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 9)

by Wayne Stinnett

  “There’s that, too,” the old man said, nodding his head. “And the loss of his first marriage to the Corps. Deployments into hostile areas. Serving in the nasty places of the world that you won’t ever find on any tourist brochure. Somalia, Panama, Lebanon. I followed his career, mostly through Frank, until he passed away about twelve years ago. Kept in touch with Jesse by letters since then. Yeah, all those events in his life is what made him the man you know today.”

  Somalia, Chyrel thought. “Others have mentioned a few times about something that happened in Mogadishu.”

  Standing and walking to the kitchen, Henry returned with two bottles of water and handed one to Chyrel. “What happened in that hellhole woulda broke most men,” Henry said. “But, that there is something you’ll have to ask Jesse about yourself, Miss Chyrel. And don’t be surprised if he changes the subject to fishing. It’s kinda touchy.”

  Just then, Rene Cook opened the door and came in. The front two rooms of Henry’s house facing the lagoon were the business offices, opened up in the middle to make one big room. A small eat-in kitchen was off one side, and a hallway leading off the other side went back to two bedrooms and the single bathroom.

  “Hi, Rene,” Henry said, standing to greet the man. “How’d your client make out?”

  “Went well,” Rene said, dropping a small duffle in the corner. “I got him on some bones and he boated three. The other two tossed the hooks. He managed to catch two nice snapper for his supper, too. Said he’d like to go out again in a couple of days.”

  Chyrel stood up, and Henry introduced them. “Chyrel’s hooking us up to the Internet through a satellite. We ought to be back in the charter business real soon.”

  Chyrel studied the man’s face for a moment as they shook hands, then returned to her work. She was sure she’d seen him somewhere, but she’d never been to Andros Island before today.

  “What about you, Henry?” Chyrel asked. “You said you and your wife never had kids?”

  “Nope. My wife took sick not long after we were married, just after the war. Left her barren. She passed away twenty years ago.”

  “And you never remarried?” Chyrel asked, connecting the last cable to the new computer tower.

  “A man’s lucky to find the kind of love we had, just once in a lifetime,” Henry said with a sigh. “My Betsy was a strong-willed woman. Don’t think there’s another like her in the world.”

  Chyrel stood up from where she’d been sitting on the floor and pushed the tower into position under the desk. “You should be all set,” she said. “The computer is programmed to locate and move the dish to lock onto the satellite automatically. That’ll take a few minutes.”

  Rene had been sitting in a chair in the corner watching her. “How does it do that?” he asked.

  Again, she studied his face. She was sure they’d met before. “The computer itself is equipped with GPS. It’ll use those satellites to locate itself, then turn the dish toward the general area of the satellite we use in geosynchronous orbit. Once it locates it, the computer will make fine adjustments to the dish to get the strongest signal.”

  “A government satellite?”

  “Yeah,” Chyrel replied, suddenly remembering where she’d seen the man’s face before. “But once it’s locked on, the GPS will turn off automatically, unless the signal weakens. Like if a storm moves the dish or something.”

  Rene picked up on the subtle change in Chyrel’s facial expression. He’d already figured out that she had once worked at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. “Can I speak with you outside a moment?” he asked her.

  Once the two of them were out on the dock in front of the little house, Rene turned and said, “Captain McDermitt already knows who I am. Now it appears that you do, too.”

  It was a statement, delivered flat and without emotion. “No, Victor,” Chyrel said, using the man’s real name. “I have no idea who you are.”

  “McDermitt pretty much said that I was safe here, even with his knowing. I don’t suppose I can count on your discretion as well.”

  Chyrel stared into the man’s eyes. She knew he was a field agent and his whereabouts were unknown to the Agency. She also knew him to be a very dangerous man.

  “I’m not with the Company anymore,” Chyrel lied. The truth was, her paychecks still came from Langley and she was only considered to be temporarily assigned to Homeland Security. “I work for the Caribbean Counterterrorism Command now. Jesse doesn’t, but he’s very close to my boss and is a contractor for us. I respect him. If he says your secret is safe, it is. With him and anyone he associates with.”

  Rene stared into her eyes, as if he could see right into her mind. Finally, he turned and just walked away, heading toward the row of cabins beyond Henry’s house.

  “It’s working!” Henry shouted from inside. Chyrel watched Rene’s retreating form for a moment. Then, pushing a windblown strand of hair behind her ear, she went back into the house.

  “How do you like that?” Henry said, bouncing in his chair like a kid with a shiny new toy. “We have a ton of emails requesting charter dates. Some of ’em have already passed.”

  He reached for the phone on the desk and picked up the receiver, holding it to his ear. “Still no phone, but we got Internet.”

  Putting her thoughts aside for the moment, Chyrel sat down next to the old man. “I can fix that for you, too, if you like.”

  “The telephone? How?”

  “There’s a phone port on the back of the tower. Just unplug your phone from the wall and plug it in there,” she said, his excitement becoming contagious. “The computer will automatically take you through several prompts to set up the program for the phone. Once that’s done, you can cancel your landline.”

  Moving faster than Chyrel thought a man his age could, Henry rose from the chair and dragged a corner of the desk away from the wall. A moment later, he had the phone line plugged into the computer, and a few minutes after that, the computer told him that his telephone was now connected through the satellite service and activated.

  Henry picked up the phone’s receiver and heard a dial tone. “I’ll be damned. It works!”

  “Did you know Jesse’s first wife?” Chyrel asked after Henry put the receiver back in the cradle.

  “Sandy? Oh, sure. I was there the day they got married and the day their first baby was born. Woulda been there for the birth of their second daughter, but it was just after Betsy died and I was in kind of a piss-poor attitude. Came here instead.”

  “What was she like?” Chyrel asked. “Sandy, I mean.”

  “Nice girl, I guess,” he replied. “Pretty, but she had a bit different attitude about the world than what Jesse did. An attitude born of living a sheltered life. I didn’t think their marriage would last long. He met her up in Jacksonville, near Camp Lejeune. You’re not setting your sights on Jesse, are you?”

  “Me?” Chyrel asked, laughing. “No, he’s more like an uncle. A mysterious uncle, with deep dark secrets.”

  “Best you just stay away from those secrets,” Henry said, his features taking on a serious quality. “Nothing good’s ever gonna come from digging up bones.”

  Nick Cross sat at his desk, trying to figure out what to do. The previous morning, without his knowledge, Dennis had called his uncle at the Pentagon. When Dennis had told him about it, he’d said that his uncle had contacts in the Caribbean and might be able to look into what was going on. As it turned out, his aide’s uncle was the head of an elite counterterrorist group that covered the whole Caribbean Basin.

  Within hours, they’d not only located where Pat and Chrissy were being held, but had launched a rescue effort. The rescue had been planned to take place nearly twenty-four hours ago, but so far there hadn’t been any word from them. And Cross still hadn’t been able to reach the Jamaican.

  His plan was starting to unravel. If Dennis’s uncle was able to rescue his family, if they were even alive to be rescued, evidence was bound to point toward him sooner
or later. Cross wasn’t under any illusions as to what those in the Pentagon were capable of.

  Maybe it’s time to cut my losses, he thought. I could take the million I have squirreled away and live large in Colombia. But not as large as he could with more than ten times that.

  Just as he was reaching for the keyboard to make airline reservations, his cell phone buzzed. He picked it up, looking at the caller ID. The number wasn’t one he recognized, but he could tell that the call was coming from Cat Island. He hit the accept button.

  “Claude?”

  The voice on the other end faded in and out with static, but it was clearly the Jamaican, and he sounded very upset. “I and I have a idea,” he finally said, calming down from his lengthy static-filled tirade. “I tink I come up dere and cut yuh blood clot haht right outta yuh chest. Wha yuh tink bout dat, mon?”

  “Calm down, Claude. What happened? Did you drop the two packages in the middle of the Out Islands, like I paid you to do? If you did, there’s no problem and you’ll get the rest of your money.”

  “No, mon! I decide dey wort more alive. Den yuh send dem blood clot mercenaries down heah. Dey all dead, mon. Jes like yuh gwon be, if I and I don’t get di rest of di money, times two.”

  “The rescuers are dead? Good. You must believe me, I had nothing to do with that. What about the packages?”

  “Dey right heah, mon. Yuh want dem dead, it gwon cost yuh two hunder more. Yuh unnahstan me, mon?”

  “Shit,” Cross said. “They have to disappear, Claude.”

  “Dey will, mon. But not till we meet an yuh gimme di money. It two hunder now. I and I meet yuh in two days. On di docks at Watahfront Pahk in yuh hometown. Yuh unnerstand me, mon?”

  “Beaufort?” Cross asked. “Why there?”

  “I not be flyin,’ mon. I come dere by boat. Two days, at di docks, at noon. If yuh not dere wit di two hunder tousan, I turn di women loose right dere on di dock.”

  The phone went dead and Cross stared at the receiver for a moment before gently placing it in the cradle. Beaufort? Cross asked himself. Waterfront Park? How the fuck did this go so wrong? Turning back to his computer, he stared at the screen a moment. He could just say he was going out for some air and be on a flight to Bogota within a couple of hours. Or, he could pay the Jamaican the two hundred thousand and make it all go away. It was less than one percent of what he’d gain. Then again, the Jamaican hadn’t killed them like he was supposed to. He’d hung on to them to get more money. What would stop him from doing the same thing again in two days?

  Apparently, Dennis’s uncle didn’t yet know that the rescue had failed. Surely, Claude would move Pat and Chrissy. He quickly pulled up a distance calculator on his computer. It showed that Cat Island was over six hundred miles from Beaufort. Resetting it, he calculated the distance to Washington. That was over a thousand miles. If he was coming by water, it’d take at least a day to get to Beaufort, even in a go-fast.

  I should have arranged to fly to the Bahamas for the exchange, Cross thought. But I’d have to go to Beaufort first to get the money anyway. Better to do this on his own turf, where he knew the lay of the land. Or in this case, the water. Waterfront Park is several miles up the Beaufort River, with lots of creeks, channels and shallow sandbars all around the dozens of Sea Islands that were part of Port Royal Sound.

  Cross didn’t hesitate. He picked up the phone and called the livery service to have a car ready to go to the airport first thing in the morning. At the same time, he was entering his information on the computer to reserve a flight home and then on to Nassau. He’d fly to Beaufort and be there a day ahead of time. He’d tell Dennis he was going there in preparation to going to Nassau to take hold of the investigation himself. That’s exactly what a concerned father would do, anyway. Once the deed was done in Beaufort, he would fly on to the Bahamas anyway.

  The press will have a field day with that, he thought. Congressman Abandons Campaign to Search for Missing Daughter, the headlines would read. It would almost guarantee a win.

  The Jamaican closed the phone and slid it back across the table to me. I picked it up, scrolled through the recent calls and hit the send button. When Chyrel answered, I said, “Play it back.”

  Listening to both sides of the conversation, I realized that Cross was smart. He never mentioned Pat or Chrissy’s names, only referring to them as packages. Still, I knew what he was talking about. But I doubted it could be used as evidence, considering it wasn’t a legal wiretap.

  “Watch his phone and computer activities and let me know what the first thing he does is,” I told Chyrel, then closed the phone.

  “Sounds pretty convincing,” I heard Deuce say in my right ear. “The static was a nice touch, Chyrel.”

  “Thanks, boss,” her voice said over the earwig.

  “Di rest of di money?” Claude asked, just as our lunch arrived.

  I picked up what appeared to be a grilled snapper sandwich and bit into it, confirming my guess. “Relax, mon,” I told the Jamaican, savoring the explosion of spices and flavors in my mouth. “I want to see what he does next.”

  The Jamaican started to say something, but putting a hand to my ear, as Chyrel started to speak, I held one finger up to him. “He just called the car service, Deuce. To arrange a limo to the airport in the morning. Now he’s making airline reservations. Looks like… round-trip to Nassau, open-ended, with a one-day layover in Beaufort, South Carolina, on the way down there.”

  Pushing the second box across the table, I pointed with my chin. “Get lost, Claude. And cut a wide berth if you ever see me or my boat again.”

  The man’s eyes flashed with anger momentarily. Then he seemed to realize what was going on and slowly stood up, gathering the second box of cash under his arm. “Who di fuck ah yuh peoples?”

  “Somebody you don’t ever want to see again, Claude. Now beat it.”

  His men rose with him and they slowly backed away from the table, nearly bumping into Tony, who now stood behind them. When they were gone from the deck, Tony sat down.

  “We really should get out of here,” Andrew said.

  Standing up and dropping a crisp hundred-dollar bill on the table, I picked up my sandwich. “Exactly what I was thinking.”

  Within minutes, I had the Revenge turned around and was heading back out of the marina. Andrew was on the bridge with me, standing forward the helm, scanning the canal that intersected the marina entrance. Tony and Art were standing on the side decks, watching aft, alert for threats.

  “Why do you think Cross is flying on to Nassau from Beaufort?” Andrew asked.

  “That’s simple,” I heard a familiar voice over my earwig say. It was Paul Bender, a former Secret Service agent tasked with protecting the president. When Deuce had learned he had a PhD in forensic psychology, he’d recruited him. “It’s called deflection,” Paul continued. “What would you do if your daughter were kidnapped in the Bahamas?”

  “Hey, Bender,” I said, bringing the Revenge up on plane at the mouth of the canal. “I’d leave a trail of bodies until I found her. So, you think he’s just going through the motions of a concerned father? To deflect guilt?”

  “Oh, he’s guilty, no doubt about that,” Paul replied. “But you’re spot-on, Jesse. His actions, in his mind, are to deflect the appearance of guilt. This is one sharp cookie. I checked into his background. Before being elected to Congress, he was a real estate developer. Some of his projects seemed to move along way too easy when there should have been some resistance. Particularly when environmental concerns were present. He wasn’t known back then as a man that’s above skirting the law, or even downright violating it. Call him a type A personality, with narcissistic tendencies bordering on psychopathy. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t developed some sort of paraphilia or even hybristophilic tendencies.”

  “I was with you right up until the end,” I said.

  “Sexual depravation, Jesse,” Bender replied. “The first includes your pedophiles, rapists, submis
sive and dominative role players, even bestiality. The second is actually a part of the first, where a person becomes sexually aroused by or attracted to someone who has committed a violent crime.”

  “Freaks,” Tony said.

  “For lack of a better word, yes. I also looked over his telephone and Internet activity before and since the kidnapping. He was a bit sloppy before the abduction, but nothing that can’t be easily explained. Since then, there’s nothing to tie him to it, except this call.”

  “Which wouldn’t be admissible,” Deuce added.

  “You have someone that can stand in for Whyte?” Tony asked.

  “How’s your Jamaican patois, Tony?”

  I looked over at Tony on the port bench and he grinned. “Bumbaclot, mon! I and I be Claude, not dis Tony yuh talk ’bout.”

  “What’s your plan, Deuce?” I asked.

  “If you refuel at Henry’s place, can you make it to South Carolina with the extra fuel cells?”

  “Barely,” I replied. “A stop in West End to clear out of Bahamian customs would ensure it.”

  “Can’t,” Deuce replied. “Clear customs out of Nicholls Town and pick up Missus DeGroodt and Miss Cross, then head straight for the South Carolina coast. If you don’t think you can make it, stop for refueling somewhere in north Florida.”

  “That’s over five hundred miles,” Andrew said, laying in the course on the chart plotter. “At cruising speed, we won’t be there until midnight tomorrow.”

  “I’d suggest a little faster than cruising speed, then,” another voice said. I recognized it immediately as Travis Stockwell’s, Deuce’s boss.

  “Any faster than cruising speed,” I said, “will definitely mean a fuel stop, Colonel. The woman and the girl don’t need to come. They’ll just get in the way.”

  “They need to be there,” Travis said. “If for no other reason than to bring closure for the girl. What’s the nearest place on the Florida coast that you can get in and out of quickly and won’t take you far off a rhumb line?”