"That's Vengeance telling us that if the wind picks up any more, we should reduce sail," Liz explained.
"But we're going over 10 knots, sometimes. I don't want to reduce sail," Connie protested. "Is it dangerous?"
Liz laughed. "No, just tiring. But we don't have much farther to go on this tack. When Dani gets off the phone, we'll come about onto the starboard tack. That will put us on a course about a hundred degrees to the port, aiming almost straight for Forchue. We'll get into the lee of St. Barth's pretty quickly, and lose some of the wind and the chop, so enjoy the wild ride while it lasts."
As if on cue, Dani put the phone in her pocket and got to her feet in a crouch, her left hand gripping the rail on the side of the coach roof and her right sliding along the lifeline as she made her way back to the cockpit. She stepped over the coaming and dropped onto the seat next to Liz.
"How's your father?" Liz asked.
"Oh, he's fine. He was calling to tell me he heard from Mario; something about a guy in Miami asking questions about Vengeance. Let's come about; we should be able to lay a course to Forchue from here, even if the wind clocks a little. I'll tell you Papa's news over lunch; we should be on a mooring in no time. You up for some short tacks, Connie?"
"Sure, I guess. You'll tell me what to do?"
"Nothing complicated, just a lot of activity. There aren't any other boats in there, so there's plenty of room; I thought we'd pick up the mooring under sail. Good practice, and we'll get a little exercise, coming about every few hundred yards. You guys want to do it?"
Liz and Connie both nodded.
"Well, what are you waiting for? You've got the helm, Connie. You call it when you're ready."
Connie swallowed hard and studied the sails and their destination in the near distance. "Ready about," she yelled. She watched as Liz took up the slack in the lazy jib sheet and engaged it in the self-tailing clutch on top of the portside primary winch. Liz moved the winch handle from the opposite winch on the starboard side, looked at Connie, and nodded. Dani, meanwhile, had gone through the same routine with the staysail sheets.
When Connie saw that they were both ready, she turned the helm in a counterclockwise direction, calling out, "Helm's alee!" as the bow swung through the wind and the sails began to shudder and flap. As she straightened the helm to put them on their new course, she was aware of the flurry of activity as Dani and Liz cast off the old working sheets on the starboard side and cranked in on the new working sheets with the port side winches. There was a loud crack as all four sails filled, and Vengeance heeled to the port side and surged forward, steady on her new course.
"Well done!" Dani cheered. "Keep an eye on the course and the wind, and call the next one when you're ready."
Chapter 19
Pietro had just escorted a badly shaken Willie Davis from Wallace's office. Wallace and Sam sat in uncomfortable silence, both staring morosely at the chamois pouch with its spill of green glass chips from Heineken beer bottles. Artisans all through the islands made jewelry with the so-called Heineken emeralds, but they were nothing more than broken glass. Sam finally broke the silence.
"Neither one of the dumb bastards even looked in that bag," he grumbled. "What made Willie think the diamonds were in there?"
Wallace shrugged. "He told Toby that he found them before the women came back. Maybe the son of a bitch is too blind to see the difference in the dark. Who knows?"
Sam shook his head.
"I hate to bring it up, knowing how you feel about Toby, but…" Wallace paused, noticing that Sam had a faraway look on his face.
Sam was indeed lost in thought, remembering how things had been between him and Toby over the years. He wasn't paying attention to Wallace; he was too conflicted in his own emotions. Toby was like a younger brother; he hadn't exaggerated their relationship earlier when he was defending him to Wallace. But the seed of distrust had been planted and Sam could feel the first tendrils of doubt creeping through his thoughts. Toby was the only person besides Wallace who could connect Sam Alfieri to his previous life in the states. He hadn't always been Sam Alfieri, but only Wallace and Toby knew his whole story. Wallace and Sam were bound by common interests, but it was suddenly clear that Toby had conflicting loyalties. Sam was reluctant to make the decision that he knew was necessary.
"Sam?" Wallace ventured in a slightly raised voice.
"Sorry," Sam said. "Just thinking. You started to ask me something about Toby a minute ago."
"Yes. Now don't take this wrong, but do you think he and Willie could be trying to steal the diamonds?"
"Hmm," Sam said, temporizing. He was sure that Toby wouldn't have been so clumsy about it if he had decided to steal from them. On the other hand, he saw an opportunity to let Wallace make a decision that he was unwilling to make himself. "Possible, I suppose. Pietro will probably find out from Willie, I guess. You think they were up to something?"
"Well, even if they didn't take the diamonds, I can't believe they didn't look in the pouch. So, yes, I think they were up to something."
"What else could it be?" Sam asked.
"They both know all the details of this situation. That's a huge liability to us. They could sell us out to any number of people. You know where I stand on Willie; he's family, but…"
"But you've turned him over to Pietro," Sam finished. "Go on, Wallace. What are you trying to say?"
"I think Toby's a hell of a lot smarter than poor Willie. That makes him that much more dangerous than Willie, and he's shown us that he's got some loyalties that are stronger than his ties to you, Sam. I…"
"Yeah. I hate it, but I can't really argue with you." Sam bent over, elbows on his knees, face in his hands.
"I'll send Pietro and Davey to Miami tonight, then. I'm sorry, Sam."
****
Vengeance bobbed gently in the protected harbor at Île de la Forchue. It was the middle of the afternoon, and there were no other boats there. The rocky island was uninhabited; the gin-clear water around it afforded a clear view of the rocky bottom 30 feet below Vengeance's keel. Connie was snorkeling along the shoreline a few yards off their bow, admiring the fish and the pristine coral of several small patch reefs.
"Did your father have any suggestions as to what we should do?" Liz asked Dani as they watched their guest drifting nearby.
"Not really. The guy who was asking about us was some small time operator in south Florida – Toby Rodriguez; Mario warned him to steer clear of us."
"Was he part of this diamond thing, do you think?" Liz asked.
"Hard to say. Mario didn't know why he was interested; he just didn't like the guy's reputation," Dani smiled. "Mario still thinks I'm ten. So does Papa, a lot of the time."
"Did you tell your father about Connie and the diamonds?"
"Yes; the coincidence factor is too high to suit me. I told him about our visit from Willie, too. He's going to call Mario back and ask him to find out if Rodriguez knows anything about the diamonds."
"So Mario just warned him off because he didn't think he was a suitable charter customer for us?" Liz raised her eyebrows.
Dani chuckled. "Yes. Well, he wouldn't have had any way of knowing about Willie's visit when he talked to Rodriguez. Like I said, they think I'm still a child sometimes."
Connie climbed aboard, interrupting their conversation. Liz handed her a towel as she stepped into the cockpit.
"These reefs are much more interesting than the ones in the Bahamas," Connie said, as she dried herself off.
"Because of the volcanic origins of these islands," Dani offered. "The water is deeper and colder close to shore, so the marine life is different. More varied, especially the big fish."
"Will there be more boats here today?" Connie asked.
"Probably. There are usually a few bareboat charters here every night. People leave St. Martin through the 4:30 bridge opening and spend the night here; it's a good spot for an early start to Antigua or St. Kitts and Nevis," Dani said. "Are you sorry we won't hav
e it all to ourselves?"
"No. Actually just the opposite. It feels a little spooky to be sitting out here in the middle of nowhere all alone." Connie shivered at the thought. "We're kind of exposed, aren't we?"
"Well, in a way," Dani agreed. "But we were right in the middle of a whole pack of boats last night, and look what happened. I'd rather be here if somebody decides to come after us."
"Why?" Connie's brow was furrowed as she turned to look at Dani. "I don't understand."
"More options for dealing with visitors," Liz said.
"I still don't get it," Connie said, shaking her head.
"Well, we were lucky last night," Dani said. "If things had turned out differently…"
"We could have had help from the police right away," Connie interrupted.
"That's not what I was thinking. Suppose there had been two men instead of one wimp. I might have had to kill one of them," Dani explained.
Connie's face went pale. "So why would we be better off here, then?"
"You can't ditch a body in the lagoon. We would have been in real trouble if I had been forced to kill Willie."
"But it would have been self-defense," Connie protested.
"This isn't the U.S., Connie. For sure, if the police had come last night, Willie and I would have both been locked up. If I had killed him, I might not ever have gotten out of jail."
Connie shook her head. "That's not right."
"It's not a question of 'right.' In some ways, the U.S. is remarkably primitive. The rest of the world has a different perception as to how far you can go to defend yourself, let alone your property," Liz explained.
"Best to handle things without troubling the authorities," Dani added. "Don't worry about being out here by ourselves; we're about to get company."
They turned to watch three bareboat charter catamarans coming in, each seeming to have a dozen sunburned people milling about on the foredeck. One of the boats swung perilously close to Vengeance as the inexperienced helmsman focused on positioning the catamaran so that the woman on the bow could pick up the line attached to the mooring buoy that was about 25 yards to the east of Vengeance.
"Got it!" the woman yelled as she snagged the floating line with the 12-foot-long boathook she was holding.
"Did you get it?" the helmsman yelled back, unable to hear the woman on the bow over the roar of the engines as he threw them into reverse to stop the boat, which responded much more quickly than the woman on the bow. As the boat began backing rapidly toward Vengeance, the woman held onto the boathook for dear life and soon found herself pulled into the water as the boat backed out from under her. The catamaran was gaining speed by the second as all aboard focused on the woman splashing and cursing in the water off their bow.
Dani watched the panicked helmsman as she picked up an air horn from the rack at Vengeance's helm. Deciding that the man had forgotten that Vengeance was behind the catamaran, she triggered five deafening short blasts from the horn, the international signal for danger. All eyes on the catamaran swiveled toward Vengeance. The helmsman looked startled for a moment, and shifted his engines back into forward just in time to avoid backing into Vengeance. The catamaran lurched forward, threatening to run over the woman who had fallen off moments before.
"Throttle back! Out of gear," Dani bellowed at the frozen helmsman. He shook his head sharply and complied with her directive.
"We know what we're doing. Stay out of our way," he yelled.
"You've got one of your crew overboard, off your bow, Captain. Try not to hit her," Dani said, with emphasis on the word 'captain.'
She turned her back on the disaster and convulsed with laughter as she put the air horn back in its place. "Not just safety in numbers, but entertainment in the bargain," she said softly to Liz and Connie.
"Do the bareboat charter companies just rent those things to anybody?" Connie asked, wide-eyed.
"No, not just anybody," Liz responded. "You have to have a credit card with a high enough limit to handle the deposit."
Connie went below to rinse off the salt from her swim as Liz started preparations for dinner. Dani busied herself cleaning the ten-pound mahi-mahi they had caught en route from St. Martin. She kept an amused eye on the antics of the people from the three catamarans as she filleted the fish. All of them seemed to know one another; they were swimming from boat to boat, drinking and carousing. As Dani finished with the fish and passed it through the open porthole to Liz in the galley, Connie appeared at the top of the companionway ladder. Her hair still wet, she wore a dark brown, gauze-like bathing suit cover-up and clutched two cold beers in her left hand.
"What a rowdy bunch," she remarked, handing Dani a beer.
"Bet you feel safer already," Dani said.
"Worried about whether we'll be able to sleep with the racket from our neighbors," Connie said, taking a sip of her beer.
"Don't worry," Dani said. They'll all crash and burn by sunset or soon after. Never fails. The sun and the sea exacerbate the effects of all that booze they're putting away."
"Dinner's on the table," Liz called from below.
****
The satellite phone chirped as they were enjoying the last of their wine. Dani picked it up and glanced at the caller i.d. screen before she lifted the phone to her ear and pressed the connect button.
"Hello, Papa," she said. "No, you're not interrupting dinner. We just finished." She paused, listening. "Sure. We're all in this together; just a second." She put her hand over the mouthpiece. "He wants me to turn on the speakerphone," she explained, placing the phone in the middle of the table as she pressed the speaker button. "We're all here, Papa. You haven't met Connie Barrera; she's our charter guest for the next two months, but she's already one of the family."
"So you told me this morning." Jean-Pierre Berger's rich baritone filled the small space. Dani reached out and adjusted the volume slightly. "Welcome, Connie," he said.
"Thank you, Mr. Berger," Connie replied.
"You must call me J.-P., please. Everyone does, especially beautiful women."
"Thank you, J.-P," Connie said, unable to hold back a smile at his happy tone.
"Liz, how are you? Are you keeping your partner in line?"
"With a little difficulty from time to time, but yes. Nice to hear your voice again."
"Yes, and yours. Now, to this business of the diamonds."
"Mario didn't lose any time," Dani remarked.
"You know Mario. This Rodriguez, he was in St. Martin last night, with the man who had the misfortune to scratch your varnish, Dani. Once Mario asked, Rodriguez was quite happy to explain all that he knew. It seems that he was just helping some friend of his who wished to locate Vengeance. This friend and his partner, they, as it is called, 'launder' money for some of the drug cartels, and so they trade in high quality stones for this reason. A shipment of their stones from Miami to Nassau has been stolen, they say. Perhaps by one of their couriers, a Joseph Nelson, or perhaps only with his assistance. This Nelson claimed his boat was hijacked by some Puerto Ricans, and the diamonds were in his briefcase on the boat. The wreck of the boat was found almost on the beach on the west end of Paradise Island, and the empty briefcase was found at the nearby resort, in a room that had been occupied by a Maria Velasquez. You are with me, still?"
Dani glanced at Liz and Connie, who both nodded. "Yes, Papa. Please continue."
"Okay. So a maid from the hotel, she thought she saw Ms. Velasquez aboard Vengeance at the Yacht Haven, in Nassau. One of the two men who are the money cleaners, he is a friend of this Rodriguez, so when he learned that your charter broker was in Miami, he phoned Rodriguez, who also lives in Miami, yes?"
"Yes," Dani said.
"This man, Willie, who came to visit you, he works for one of the men in Nassau, a Wallace Rolle. Rolle's partner is an expatriate American. He is called Sam Alfieri. Alfieri, he is the man who phoned Rodriguez. Do you know any of these men?"
Dani glanced at her companions again. They both
shook their heads. "No. Only Willie," Dani replied.
"Yes. Willie Davis, he is. And this is all that Rodriguez knew. As soon as he learned of Mario's interest, of course, he withdrew and returned to Miami. He was very apologetic and repentant for his mistakes, I hear. We will be learning more about these other two men in the fullness of time, I think. Until then, you must be careful. You will call me if anything else happens, yes?"
"Yes, of course I will. Papa?"
"Yes?"
"Did Rodriguez say how they tracked us to St. Martin?"
"Rolle has some associates who fly light planes for charter; he had several of them looking for Vengeance. One of them spotted you off the Turks and Caicos. They figured you were headed for the Virgins."
"Yes," Dani said. "We were, and that must have been the plane that buzzed us. Remember, Connie?"
Connie nodded. "Yes," she said.
"But we had a wind shift, and changed course after that. How'd they track us to St. Martin?" Dani asked.
"Rodriguez had somebody hack into Elaine Whelan's email. You apparently emailed her when you got to St. Martin, and they picked you up that way."
"I see. Food for thought," Dani said.
"One more thing; for Connie, do you still have the papers for this Maria Velasquez?"
Connie smacked her forehead with the heel of her hand. "Yes. I meant to throw them overboard, but I forgot."
"I think that you should keep them safe. One never knows when such things might be useful."
"Uh, okay," Connie agreed.
"Well, then, have a good evening in Forchue; I wish that I could be sailing with you."
"Thanks, Papa. Good evening to you, too. I love you, and give my love to Anne."
"Yes, I will. Goodbye, ladies." Dani turned the satellite phone off and put it away.
"I have a question or two," Connie said.
Dani nodded.
"Who is this Mario person?"
"He's been in a number of businesses with Papa over the years; when I was baptized, he was my godfather. We're very close; he's like a favorite uncle, maybe. Or even closer."
Connie still looked puzzled. "And he lives in Miami? What does he do?"
Bluewater Ice: The Fourth Novel in the Caribbean Mystery and Adventure Series (Bluewater Thrillers Book 4) Page 11