I looked across at her. “I thought you checked people out that you’re assigned to work with.”
“I tend to gloss over personal data,” she said. “The only information I’m really interested in is the agent’s background, intelligence, and experience.”
“I turned forty-seven a few months back.”
“That’s not old at all,” she said with a smile. “You’re not even ten years older than me. I know a lot of field agents much older than that, and I don’t plan to leave the field for quite a while. You’re obviously fit, and I know from your file that you’re a very intelligent and resourceful man.”
“This team is made up of highly skilled warriors, for the most part,” I explained. “Not investigators, or more precisely, not primarily investigatory. They go where others won’t go, where others can’t go. They go where only the highly trained can possibly go and where only the strongest have any chance of coming back. They go right into the mouth of the beast. Snake eaters is what we called them when I was in the Corps. I used to be one of them.” I looked out across the salt marsh to the west, where the sun was now slowly sinking toward the horizon. The sky was bright blue, not a cloud in sight. I knew the sunset would be spectacular, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Linda was watching it as well. “Seems like a really long time ago to me.”
Changing the subject, I pointed at the half-eaten fillet on her plate. “You gonna finish that?”
Finn’s head came up from where he’d been napping in the corner as Sheena pushed her plate toward me. “No, go ahead. It was delicious.”
I picked up her plate and placed it on the deck. Finn rose and came over. Looking from the fish to Sheena, and then to me, he finally sat down.
“Oh, good grief,” I muttered. “You too?”
Finn cocked his head, his droopy ears up as high as they’d go and those amber eyes catching the angled rays of the sun.
“Go ahead,” I told him, and then he stretched his front legs out on either side of the plate and began wolfing down the rest of Sheena’s food.
We both laughed. “Okay, so you know all about me,” I said. “What’s Sheena Mason all about? Married? Kids?”
“Almost married once,” she replied. “No kids. Not that I don’t like kids. I just don’t want to have my own. I’d rather spoil someone else’s kids and send them home.”
“Career law enforcement?”
“Not the career I would have chosen,” she said. “But it suits me.”
“Hey,” Tony called from the gate. “You guys want any of this Chinese?” Finn barked once at him as he came down the ramp to the dock.
“He might,” I replied. “If it’s not anything spicy. He doesn’t seem to like dog food very much. We had fish on the grill.”
The others streamed down the ramp after Tony, two black men with long dreadlocks among them. I assumed they were the two undercover DEA guys. Tony introduced them as Agents Dannell Burton and Keenan Ray.
“Come aboard,” I said.
Tony stepped down and dumped the contents of two partial baskets of Chinese food into Finn’s bowl as the others took up places all around the cockpit. My boat suddenly felt very crowded with nine aboard.
“Good to meet you, finally,” the taller Keenan said.
“Oh?”
“Your name keeps popping up down in Miami,” Dannell said.
“Not sure if that’s a good thing or not,” I said.
“Rumor has it that you’re the guy ultimately responsible for the breakup of the Zoe Pound gang.”
“More these guys than me,” I said. Turning to Tony, I asked, “Where’s Pat and Chrissy?”
“Chrissy’s doing the dishes and Pat’s taking care of our laundry,” Andrew replied. “She said it was the least she could do. We have a bit of a problem. There’s eleven of us and I don’t think Burton and Ray should stay in town. Too much of a chance they could be seen.” Turning to the two DEA men, he added, “No offense, guys, but you stick out like a sore thumb here.”
“None taken, mon,” Keenan said, slipping into his cover. “I and I agree wit yuh.”
“So, that means eleven people and beds that’ll sleep eleven,” Andrew concluded.
“Okay, what’s the problem, then?”
“Pat and Chrissy would like to stay aboard,” Andrew said. “Since most of their stuff is already in your stateroom, I figured that’d be the place for them. Tony, Art, and I will take the guest cabin on board, with Keenan and Dannell crashing in the salon. Would you mind sleeping in one of the kids’ rooms? Craig can take the other one, then Chyrel and Sheena can have the master bedroom.”
“Thought you said there was a problem,” I said with a grin. “Sounds like you already got it figured out.”
“Apparently your friend only has granddaughters,” Craig said.
I shrugged. “A bed’s a bed.”
“In that case,” Craig said, “you get the My Little Pony room and I’ll take the Dora the Explorer room.”
At this, everyone laughed, including the two DEA guys.
“Look,” Sheena said. “This is probably going to be a really easy arrest. It’s just one man and I don’t see him as the type to resist. But, due to his position, it’s smart to do this one hundred percent by the book. We have a good location, where there shouldn’t be any innocent bystanders, it’ll be broad daylight, and we have much greater numbers. Is there anything we haven’t thought of?”
There were head shakes and negative responses all around. Andrew said, “Then we should get some rest. I’d like to move the boat to the marina at nine hundred. That way Chyrel can start monitoring anyone in the area.”
“Y’all go ahead,” I said. “I’ll be up in a little while.”
As the others started to leave, Sheena picked the plate up from the deck, along with Finn’s bowl. “You caught dinner, I’ll get the dishes.”
“You won’t get any argument from me,” I said. “I’m gonna take Finn up to the foredeck and see what he thinks about sunsets.”
Sheena went into the salon, and I got a cold Red Stripe from the mini-fridge and called Finn to follow me. When we reached the bow, I sat down with my feet hanging over the starboard side and Finn sat down next to me. I took a long pull from my beer and looked off to the west, where the sun was just about to touch the salt marsh.
“You like sunsets, boy?”
Slowly, he walked his front legs out till he was lying on the deck. With his paws stretched out in front of him and his head up and alert, he reminded me of that Sphinx statue.
Slowly, the sun began to slide down into the marsh, and again I wondered if Linda was watching it as well. Her last trip to Tallahassee had been more than two months ago. When she’d returned a week later, she’d told me about her promotion and transfer. That’s when she dropped the bombshell that we should see others. I wasn’t looking for anyone when I found her and definitely wasn’t looking for anyone now. Since the death of my wife almost three years ago, I’d had three women pass through my life. One was too fragile to deal with the dangerous situations I sometimes found myself in and the other two had sailed on, following their careers.
“Here’s to love lost,” I said to Finn and lifted my bottle. He barked once and laid his head between his legs, staring out over the water. “I agree, brother. Give me a setting sun over open water anytime. The sea’s a much more patient mistress.”
“Is this strictly a guy thing?” Sheena asked as she came up the starboard-side deck, carrying two beers.
“Sol has no preference who he shows off for,” I replied. “Pull up some deck.”
I heard voices below as Pat and Chrissy got ready to turn in. Sheena came around and sat down next to me. “A man who’s on a first-name basis with the sun? Quite unusual.”
“The sun, the moon, the stars, and the sea,” I said, holding up my nearly empty bottle theatrically.
Sheena clinked hers to mine. “I brought you another one,” she said, passing over the other beer.
&n
bsp; “Thanks. Mind if I ask you something?”
“Fire away,” she replied.
“I’m not even planning on being part of this tomorrow. You and Andrew are calling the shots.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So, why do I get the impression that you’re on a stakeout and I’m the subject?” I asked.
“You are direct and to the point, aren’t you?”
“I find it moves things along faster.”
“Okay, me too,” she said. “I’m sort of a by-the-pants kind of girl. I’ve been in on enough of these things to know that no matter how well planned it is, as soon as there’s interaction with the suspect, the playing field changes and you have to change with it. So, all I really need to know is where all the players are to be located when things get started. After that, it’s a crapshoot.”
“What’s that got to do with you going with me to pick him up?” I asked, nodding toward Finn. “And hanging out here now?”
Sheena looked toward the setting sun and said, “Maybe I just like what I see. Ever think of that?”
Arriving at a sprawling estate outside of Bluffton, South Carolina, the limousine slowed, waiting for the gates to swing open. Nick Cross’s home was large, to say the least. Nearly twenty thousand square feet on ten prime acres along the Colleton River, it had been in his family for years. However, it was Nick’s father who was still the legal owner. Depending on the day, he might or might not remember that fact. Nicholas Cross Senior hadn’t been in the ancestral home since Nick’s election. He’d been living in an upscale assisted living facility for the last two years, suffering Alzheimer’s.
The huge stone structure, with several guest cottages, was originally built by Nick’s second great-grandfather during Reconstruction. It had been remodeled and expanded many times, until it had reached its current palatial state.
Two of the home’s live-in staff were waiting at the massive stone entry, with its castle-like spired roof, as Nick got out of the car. “Good evening, Mister Nick,” the tall butler said as Nick approached.
The maid waiting with him was a new girl, and Nick couldn’t remember her name. “Is there any word from the authorities?” she asked. “We’ve all been so worried.”
“Nothing yet,” Nick replied to the woman before nodding at the butler and saying, “I’m flying down there tomorrow afternoon, Raymond. Please arrange for my baggage. Enough for a week.”
“Very good, sir,” Raymond said. “Shall I have dinner prepared?”
“Brandy in my study for now,” Nick replied, entering the two-story-high foyer, with its wide curved staircase to the second floor. “I’ll have dinner in an hour. Anything fresh.”
“Yes, sir,” Raymond responded, swinging open the large door. “I’ll send William to the fish market right away.”
Cross hurried through the foyer to the spacious main living room, its reddish paneling a throwback to another place and another time. Turning into a hallway to the right, he then entered his study. The rear-facing windows went from floor to ceiling, with French doors that opened onto a terrace overlooking the river on the back of the property. He closed the door behind him and strode to the French doors. Pushing them both open, he stepped out onto the patio and took a deep breath. The crickets and frogs had already begun their symphony, and the smell of the pluff mud told him he was home once more.
Turning, Nick went back inside and placed his briefcase on his desk. He then went to a small closet, where he hung up his coat and slid a panel in the wall to the side. Spinning the dial on the large safe, he opened it, a small light coming on inside.
Nick took several bundles of cash from the safe and went back to his desk, counting them as he placed each neatly inside the briefcase before going back for more. With twenty bundles in the briefcase, he closed and locked it, then put it inside the safe and locked it as well.
There was a knock on the door, and Nick said, “Enter.”
The door swung open and the maid, whose name he still couldn’t remember, entered the study carrying a tray, on which was a single snifter and a bottle of brandy. The maid was a pretty black girl, in her early twenties. She had the high cheekbones, light brown eyes, and smooth caramel complexion typical of many Gullah people who have lived in the area for hundreds of years.
They were descended from slaves brought to the Lowcountry, mostly from Sierra Leone, the first to be freed by Union forces at the onset of the Civil War. The Sea Islands, where most of the Gullah now lived, were rice-growing areas for a time, and many of the slaves brought from West Africa were rice growers.
“You’re new, aren’t you?” Nick asked the woman as she poured his brandy.
“I worked here a yeah, Mister Nick,” the woman replied bashfully. “My name is Rebekah.”
Nick studied her closely, her back to him. Tall and athletically built, she had a slim waist, wide hips, and long tapered legs. His mind drifted to the dungeon he was planning to build for Mistress Chela and he imagined this woman manacled there.
Keep your wits, Nick said to himself. This isn’t the time for frivolity.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” Rebekah asked, turning around and catching her employer looking at her ass.
“That’s all, Rebekah,” Nick replied. “I have some things to do. Please see that I’m not disturbed until dinner.”
Once the maid left, Nick sat down at his desk and picked up the phone, tapping in a number he knew from memory. When the man answered, Nick said, “Swimp, this is Nick. Are you busy? Can I meet with you tonight? I may have some work for you.”
He listened a moment and glanced at the tide clock on his desk. “Okay, low tide’s about midnight. Meet me at the sandbar.”
He hung up the phone, then picked up the receiver again and dialed another number. When the connection was made, he said, “Have the boat ready, I’m going out tonight before midnight.”
His request wasn’t unusual. Growing up here, Cross was intimately familiar with the local waters that wound and twisted around the many Sea Islands. As a younger man, he’d spent many days, and nearly as many nights, cruising up and down the Colleton, Broad, Beaufort, and Coosaw Rivers. Not to mention the many shallow creeks that drain the hundreds of square miles of salt marsh into Port Royal Sound with each falling tide.
After eating a grilled seatrout sandwich, which Cross failed to even taste, his mind being occupied by other things, he went back to the closet, where he removed his tie and hung it on a rack. He then opened the safe and removed one more bundle of hundred-dollar bills, stuffing it in the pocket of his trousers. Looking into the safe, Cross eyed the now-smaller stack of cash.
Still over a million dollars, he thought. Enough to live like a king in many parts of the world. His offshore accounts would double that. Then he imagined the safe stuffed with ten times that amount.
I should have used Swimp to start with, Cross thought as he closed the safe and spun the dial.
Rafe “Swimp” Ross was bigger than most men and had little in the way of moral convictions. His family had settled on Parris Island in the late 1700s, as British expansion in the area took hold. Nearly a hundred years and several generations later, the descendants of those early colonists had already become known up and down the coast for their rum distilling. When the military arrived at the beginning of the War Between the States, they met little opposition and soon occupied many of the homes in Beaufort, which kept them from being torched by the Union soldiers. Later, the Marines built a training facility on the island, and the Ross family, not wanting to continue their illegal rum manufacturing so close to a military fort, sold their land cheap and bought a larger parcel on nearby Saint Helena Island.
As a child, Rafe Ross was much smaller than the other kids on the surrounding islands where he grew up. The other kids poked fun at him and called him Swimp, which was the Gullah word for shrimp. As the small child grew into a large man, Swimp kept the nickname.
An hour before his scheduled meeting time, Cross put on
his jacket against the chilly night air on the water and went out the back of the house and down to the dock. One of the staff, a burly dark-skinned black man with a bald head and crooked nose, was there waiting to help him with the dock lines.
“We’re all real worried about Miss Chrissy,” Jacob said as Cross approached. “Some salty night air will do you good before you go over there, sir. Help calm and focus your mind.”
“Thanks, Jacob,” Cross said and stepped over the gunwale into the cockpit of his custom-built thirty-four-foot fishing boat. Its powerful twin outboards idled at a low burble. “The night air always gets my thoughts straight. I’ll only be out an hour or two. Don’t bother waiting up, I’ll secure everything when I return.”
Unlike many docks in the Port Royal Sound area, some of which stretched the length of a football field or more to reach deep water, the Cross dock was quite short. The property was on a bend in the Colleton River, and the twice-daily rise and fall of the tides carved the outside of the curve deeper. It was on this bluff that the Cross home sat.
Jacob cast off the lines, flinging each expertly onto the deck, fore and aft, before shoving the big boat away from the floating dock. Once clear, the boat became caught up in the current of the falling tide, and Cross pushed the two throttles forward. The boat slowly idled away from shore, slipping quietly into the darkness. There were only a handful of homes on this part of the mainland, which wrapped around Spring Island on the other side of the river. There, also, waterfront homes were few.
At the mouth of the river, where the waters of the Colleton drained into Broad River, lay the uninhabited Daws Island. Mostly submerged at high tide, there were a couple of places with ground high enough for trees to grow. Cross steered south into the much wider and deeper Broad River, pushing the throttles forward. The big three-hundred-and-fifty-horsepower outboards lifted the boat up on plane with ease, and Cross navigated the treacherous channels and shoals by memory.
Crossing Broad River at an angle, Nick steered the boat southeast, toward the southern tip of Parris Island. He swung wide to avoid the shallows that stretched a couple hundred yards into the confluence of the two rivers. Proceeding northeast into Beaufort River, Nick angled toward the far shore on Saint Helena Island, pointing the bow toward where he knew the sandbar was located. It was just a little north of Fort Fremont, the old Spanish-American War outpost. Boat traffic on the sound and rivers wasn’t unusual late at night. In the summer, weekend nights could be very busy. On those nights, the sandbar would be crowded with boats, some fishing the creek beyond and some just partying on the sand.
Fallen Angel: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 9) Page 12