A Blast to Sail - A Connie Barrera Thriller: The 3rd Novel in the Caribbean Mystery and Adventure Series (Connie Barrera Thrillers)

by Charles Dougherty

  "All right, I'm sold," Connie said. She turned to Paul and smiled. "Ready?"

  "Yes. See you guys after lunch. Call us if you need us. You still have the cell number, right?"

  "Yes, sir," Jim said, as Paul and Connie stepped onto the dock.

  Once they were out of earshot, Paul asked, "Are we walking or riding?"

  "Oh," Connie said. "I'd forgotten we could take the dinghy around to town. You have a preference?"

  "Let's walk," Paul said. "It's nice this morning. Might as well enjoy it."

  "Okay. Fine with me. You want to call O'Brien before we get wrapped up in our day?"

  "Yeah," Paul said. "I think he ought to know about this carpet guy — especially after hearing about the mysterious phone call."

  "Let's step over there into the shade, then. There's nobody around; it's more private than the boat while they're working."

  Paul nodded. Once they were leaning against a sawhorse in the shade of one of the boats that was stored on jack stands, he took his phone from his pocket. He scrolled through the directory, hitting O'Brien's entry and switching on the speaker. He adjusted the volume to a low level as the phone rang, and he and Connie put their heads close together.

  "O'Brien," they heard.

  "Bill, it's Paul and Connie," Paul said.

  '"Good morning. I was just about to call you. You got a minute?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "Connie with you?"

  "Hi, Bill," she said.

  "Hi. You in a private place?"

  "Yes," Paul said. "What's up?"

  "Those two kids are dead. Suicides."

  "What?" Paul asked. "How can that be? You said they were locked up tight somewhere."

  "Yeah. Somewhere. I don't even know where. They were about to be questioned 'intensely,' as the saying goes. They'd been threatened with some pretty ugly stuff, I imagine. That's all part of the game to soften 'em up, you know. Anyway, they were both found dead in their cells this morning."

  "I don't understand how — "

  "Straight out of a World War II spy novel; they each had a fake molar. We don't know what the poison was, yet."

  "Damn," Paul said. "This is sounding pretty serious."

  "Yep. And we're feeling like we're at a pretty serious dead end."

  "Well," Paul said, "here's something to lift your spirits."

  He recounted the story of the carpet guy's boarding of Diamantista II.

  "I'm going to send a local agent out to sit down with the installers and work up a facial composite," O'Brien said. "How long will they be at your boat?"

  "Until after lunch, at least," Connie said. "And don't forget the phone call, Paul."

  "Right," Paul said, and told O'Brien about the strange call Jim's wife had received at their office.

  "That might have promise," O'Brien said. "I'll have somebody interview her, too. What's their office number?"

  Paul extracted a business card from his wallet and gave O'Brien the details. "Should we go back to the boat and hang around?"

  "No need, if you've got something to do. We'll just tell them we're investigating some interstate fraud involving this guy who poses as a marine interior decorator. Maybe make him out to be a drug smuggler or something. Just act surprised when they tell you about all the excitement, okay? It'll be better if you're not there, I think."

  Rashid sat at the small, scarred table, his elbows resting to either side of his laptop. He watched the screen, waiting for a Wi-Fi connection from the motel's network. The air in the room was rank with the smell of stale cigarette smoke and rancid beer. This was a non-smoking room; he shuddered at the thought of what the smoking rooms must be like. He took a sip of water from the plastic glass that had been beside the sink in the bathroom and sighed.

  The connection was finally established and he logged in to the email account that he and Kareem Abdullah shared. They didn't actually send messages to each other. Instead, the sender would save an encrypted message as a draft. Once the recipient had opened the draft and copied the encrypted text, he would erase the draft, so there was no practical way for anyone to track the source or the destination addresses. He logged off the server and disconnected from the Wi-Fi network before he decrypted the message from Kareem.

  As he read it, he became angry. Kareem knew nothing of the United States, neither its culture nor its geography. In spite of his ignorance, he presumed to tell Rashid how to accomplish his mission. He shook his head; he could go his own way and tell Kareem Abdullah that he was following his instructions to the letter. The problem with that was that the Caliph had spies everywhere. It was possible that Kareem would hear something of such deception from the Caliph. He knew well the penalty that he would face. He would do as the fool ordered; there was an element of logic behind the man's paranoia, in any case.

  Kareem expressed fear that the infidels had found the weapon when they captured Abe and Mo. He acknowledged that Rashid had determined that the weapon was still functional, but he worried that at some point before it was used, it might be tampered with to render it harmless. He knew of the massive military presence in Norfolk, at the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay; technicians could be dispatched from there to disarm the weapon in some out-of-the-way place, he wrote. Therefore, he ordered Rashid to maintain a watch on the weapon until the person who would arm it joined the yacht.

  The fool had no idea what such surveillance would involve. Rashid had been living on the East Coast for several years and he was still in awe of the size of the country. Seeing it on a map didn't convey a sense of the enormity of the U.S. The Chesapeake Bay had almost 12,000 miles of shoreline, and it covered about 4,500 square miles. For one man on a motorcycle to keep his eyes on a boat that was traversing the Bay from Annapolis to Norfolk would be impossible.

  Kareem Abdullah, no doubt anticipating this reaction, had pointed out that the distance between the two cities was only about 150 miles. From a quick look at his maps, Rashid knew that it was farther by land, and that the boat could be out of sight of land on the southern part of the trip.

  He remembered from Abe's descriptions of yachting on the Bay that it might take the vessel 24 hours to make the trip. There was no reason for the owners to do it that way, though. They had time to spare before they had to be in Norfolk, and there were many places where they could stop for a night's rest.

  Unlike a man on a motorcycle, they wouldn't be constrained by roads, either. They could cross from one side of the Bay to the other in a few hours, but he could only cross in three places. The bridge at Chesapeake City was well to the north, on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. His other options were the Bay Bridge, here at Annapolis, and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel near where the Bay met the Atlantic Ocean, a few miles east of Norfolk. If they decided to sail across the Bay, he would be hard-pressed to react quickly enough. To guard against being stuck on the wrong side of the Bay, he would arrange for Amal's brother to wait in Annapolis with his own motorcycle. If Rashid miscalculated, a phone call would send Boutros to intercept their quarry.

  A part of him relished the opportunity to ride his big BMW road bike through the countryside; the early summer weather was balmy, and the route was scenic. By logging on to the website for the satellite tracking device, he could make a reasonable guess at the boat's destination each day and be there to keep an eye on it in the evening. He didn't think they would attempt to remove the weapon while the boat was underway, so he could at least make a good-faith effort to comply with Kareem's orders by observing the boat while it was stopped overnight.

  He was insulted by the man's demand for daily photographs of the boat with the time and date showing, but he could deal with that using photo editing software if he needed to.

  16

  “I wanted to bring you up to date," O'Brien said, his voice distorted by the iPhone's tiny speaker. "Your tip on the carpet guy was golden."

  Paul and Connie were alone on Diamantista II, having signed off on the installation of the satel
lite communications system an hour earlier. When O'Brien's call came in, Connie had been making some notes on their tourist experience. She planned to use her observations on the towns they visited in trifold brochures that she could give to their guests. She had gotten the idea from Liz Chirac during her time on Vengeance. Paul had been assembling a plate of hors d'oeuvres for the two of them, as cocktail hour was upon them.

  "Really?" Paul asked O'Brien. "That good?"

  "Yeah. When we're done, I'll email the facial composite, just so you know who to watch out for."

  "How'd the phone thing work out?" Connie asked.

  "Great. I was expecting to have to pull records for their business number and work backwards, but the woman that runs the office had the caller's number."

  "What?" Paul's voice betrayed his surprise. "He gave her the number? It's probably bogus, then."

  "He didn't give it to her," O'Brien said. "Not knowingly, anyhow. She makes a practice of logging the incoming calls with the number from caller i.d. when she gets a sales inquiry. She was some kind of marketing guru before she and her husband started the business. Super organized."

  "So did it lead anywhere?" Connie asked.

  "Well, we're still working on that; we've got several angles to work on the phone. We've initiated a search to see if we can find other calls from that number."

  "Can you really do that?" Connie asked, her eyebrows raised as she looked at Paul over the rim of her wineglass.

  "Yes. It's not perfect; we may or may not find call records. There are lots of variables. It's a little iffy, unless we set something up in advance."

  "Which I'm guessing you've done at this point," Paul said.

  Connie looked puzzled.

  "Yes," O'Brien said. "If he makes more calls from that phone, we'll have it all."

  Connie nodded. "So now we just wait?"

  "Well, yes," O'Brien said. "But keep an eye out for the guy in the sketch I'm sending. If you spot him, call me right away, and stay away from him. Assume he's dangerous, okay?"

  "Got it," Paul said. "Anything else?"

  "Yes. Don't rush off; we got more from one of the installers, a guy named Tommy Thompson. He was up the mast in a bosun's chair, running a fish-tape for the cabling when the visitor was there. He watched him leave, and he had kind of a bird's-eye view."

  "He get a plate number?" Paul asked.

  "Not that much of a bird's-eye view, but he saw the guy get on a big, fancy black motorcycle and ride away. He commented on how quiet the bike was, too. So keep your eyes peeled, okay? If he doesn't know we made him, the guy may still be in the neighborhood."

  "I wish we had some idea why he wanted to board Diamantista II," Connie said. "That's creeping me out."

  "I can understand that, Connie," O'Brien said, "but your guess is as good as mine, right now."

  "What else have you got?" Paul asked.

  "That's it for now. There's one other personal thing, though."

  "What's that?" Connie asked.

  "I'm violating all kinds of unwritten protocols keeping you two in the loop. I'm okay with it, because of your background, Paul. I need you guys to be part of the team on this, but the rest of the players would shit flashlight batteries if they knew I was giving out so much information. Please keep it to yourselves, especially if somebody with credentials shows up and starts asking questions, okay?"

  "No problem," Paul said. "Been there."

  "I'm sure you have; that's why I'm okay with it. You two stay safe; I'll be in touch. And grab that email with the sketch."

  "Okay," Paul said. "Good night."

  "Night, folks," O'Brien said, and disconnected.

  O'Brien, feet on his desk, munched on the slice of cold pizza that would be his dinner. He pictured Paul and Connie relaxing aboard their yacht, enjoying life, and shook his head. He knew from checking Paul's background that he had earned the right to a cushy retirement, but he couldn't help feeling the least bit of envy. It wasn't just the boat, either; it was clear that Connie was his soulmate.

  He finished the pizza and washed it down with the last of his watery fountain drink. Sitting up, he tossed the cup in the wastebasket by his desk. He felt a grin spread over his face and realized that what he was feeling wasn't just envy; seeing those two together fanned the flames of hope. His dedication to his job had cost him his marriage; that wasn't unusual for someone in law enforcement. According to Luke Pantene, Paul's former partner, Paul had gone through a messy divorce several years ago, and look at him now. O'Brien thought maybe his Irish luck would see him right one of these days; he could hope so, anyway.

  Meanwhile, he turned his attention to the emails that had come in while he was talking to Paul and Connie. The first one made his pulse race; the number of the cellphone that the mystery man in Annapolis had used was from the same batch of prepaid, throwaway cellphones as the one the bogus charterers had given the booking agent. By narrowing the geography to the northeast corridor, the technocrats had managed to speed up the search for call records, too.

  Unlike the other one, this phone had been used. There were several calls to the landline number in the house trailer in Maine which had been home to Mohammed Ramiz and Abubakar Shahir. The calls to that number were spread out over a period of several months, along with calls to other numbers that had no connection to the case as yet. The report went on to explain that the geographic area of the search would be expanded in methodical stages, and the other called numbers would be investigated as well, unless O'Brien gave orders to stop the process.

  O'Brien picked up a felt-tip pen and began doodling on a legal pad, sketching the connections between events, people, and locations. It struck him soon after he started that they needed to revisit Mo's and Abe's coworkers at the boatyard. He turned back to the computer on his desk and pulled up the interview records from a few days earlier.

  He saw that the two had stopped off at a bar near the boatyard for an after-work beer with the other workers from time to time. He wondered if Mo and Abe used alcohol; that didn't square with their presumed fundamentalist Islamic beliefs. Drinking was a sin, but one that he supposed might be overlooked in the interests of concealing their fanaticism. There had been no mention of their religion in the interview records, so they must have hidden their religious affiliation from their coworkers. Given what he knew of the attitudes of blue-collar workers in rural areas, he thought at least one of their coworkers would have remarked on their religion if they had known about it.

  He composed an email to the SAC in the Boston field office asking him to arrange for someone from the resident agency in Bangor to make a follow-up visit to the boatyard. He attached the facial composite of the man from Annapolis, explaining that the man in the sketch was suspected of conspiring with Mohammed Ramiz and Abubakar Shahir to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction into Manhattan.

  He was specifically interested in any contact that the two had with unknown subjects, including but not limited to the man in the sketch. He also included the description of the man's motorcycle. He reviewed his request, thought for a moment, and then sent it. He would follow up with a phone call in the morning to emphasize that it was time-sensitive.

  Rashid led Amal's brother, Boutros, through the crowded bar and out onto the dock. He chose an outdoor table that afforded them a view across Back Creek so he could point out the yacht to Boutros. He was annoyed with the young man already, and Boutros had only arrived in Annapolis an hour earlier. He thought Boutros was far too comfortable in the raucous, crowded bar, rubbing shoulders with the infidels, ogling the women. He tried to convince himself that this would make him less noticeable, but he wasn't sure that Amal's younger brother wouldn't give in to temptation. He supposed this was to be expected from a boy who had come to America when he was a child, but it still displeased him. Boutros was nothing like Amal; Rashid would not trust him to carry out any mission more important than simple surveillance.

  When they were seated, a waitress clad in ragged cut-off denim
jeans and a string bikini top brought two glasses of ice water to their table. Rashid watched in disgust as Boutros ran his eyes over her all-too-visible curves. The whore's tiny denim shorts gaped at the waist, unbuttoned, the zipper down far enough to make one wonder if she wore anything under them. A tattoo of a serpent slithered up from inside the too-small shorts, appearing to writhe over her belly and turning its fanged mouth to face anyone who looked that way. The forked tongue seemed to flicker with the movement of her flesh as she spoke.

  "What can I getcha to start with, boys?"

  Rashid waited to see if Boutros would order alcohol. The girl stood, moving to the beat of some song about cheeseburgers in paradise that blared from outdoor speakers. She was grinning at the look on Boutros's face, watching his eyes as he studied the area where the serpent emerged.

  "We want to order food," Rashid said, hoping to break the spell that held his companion.

  She laughed. "Sure, lover. We got burgers, soft crab sandwiches, and ribs. They all come with fries and slaw. You fellows want to think about it for a minute and let me get your drinks?"

  "Buddy?" Rashid said, his voice harsh.

  "What?" Boutros asked, his eyes frozen on the waitress's lower abdomen.

  At least the moron had responded to the alias, Rashid thought.

  The girl laughed again. "You like my snake?"

  "What do you want to drink, Buddy?" Rashid asked.

  "Milk," Boutros said, finally, looking at Rashid for approval.

  "One glass of milk," the girl said. "And how about for you, big boy?"

  "I'll stay with the water for now," Rashid said. "And a cheeseburger."

  "You boys sure I can't tempt you? It's happy hour; beers are two for one, and we got some killer rum punch."

  "Um," Boutros said, staring at her cleavage as she bent over and put her tray down on their table. She smiled at him, thinking about her tip, watching his gaze as she reached back and pulled a pad from the back pocket of the shorts. She licked her pencil slowly and scribbled something on the pad.