“Yeah, listen, Frank,” Dumas continued. “You asked about ships coming in late from the storm. Thought you ought to know three of LeBlanc’s boats – Celeste, Samantha and Rosie’s Pride – all came in just before seven o’clock last night. Everybody else either didn’t go out ‘cause of the storm, or came in early. These guys stayed out way too late, given the weather and all. All three of them had deck equipment kicked to shit when there was no need for it.”
Finley wrestled with what to tell his brother-in-law, and when. Once he told him about it, he would not be able to get any decent information from him about what LeBlanc was up to. Feeling crappy about what he was doing, he asked: “Paul, did they go out again today?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t know for sure what time they went out, but I got in late, about 11 a.m., and all three of them were already gone.” Dumas sounded mildly apologetic.
Finley tiredly rubbed his hand over his face. “These are the guys you saw sailing in formation yesterday, right?”
“Yeah, same ships.”
“Paul, any idea where they are now?”
Dumas shook his head, even though his brother-in-law couldn’t see him. “Sorry, no. If I had to guess, I think they are still mostly in-shore. Weather report has another storm coming in tonight.”
Finley blew out his breath. “Paul, I hate to tell you this, but you’d better call your sister. Your dad had a heart attack. He’s up at Eastern Maine Medical Center.”
Long silence. “Is he going to make it?” Paul finally asked, his voice shaky.
“The doctors think so, but, Paul, we had some trouble here last night. There was some shooting. Your dad tried to help, but he ended up shot in the shoulder and hip, so it’s going to take a while before he’s himself again.”
“Jesus, Frank! Gunfight? What the fuck is going on?” Paul said angrily.
“Paul, we tried to reach you last night. I’m really sorry, but I think he’ll pull through.”
Paul Dumas took a deep, quivering breath. “Shit, I had my phone turned off. Ah, Christ…” His phone was off because he had company last night and neither one of them wanted to be interrupted. She was the wife of the pastor at the North Harbor Baptist Church. They had been seeing each other – if wild bouts of tempestuous sex in a clothes-strewn bedroom with the curtains down could be called ‘seeing each other’ – for almost a year now. If anyone found out, it would be the ruin of them both. She was married and had two teenage children. When he thought about that, he felt like shit. They both knew without a doubt that it had to end badly, but they wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.
“Go see your dad,” Finley urged kindly. “Danielle and Céline need your support, too.”
Chapter 46
Thursday Afternoon – Countermoves
Lady Luck had embraced them early in the morning, but then she took a long coffee break. As the morning dragged on, the Celeste searched around Shingle Island, Clam Island, Bold Island, The Shivers, Hells Half Acre, Coot Island and Devil Island.
Nothing. Just rocks, seaweed, mud flats, countless seagulls, cormorants, and egrets, but no parcels. They circled the two land masses called Coombs Island, then Bare Island and St. Helena Island.
The morning dragged on. LeBlanc picked up the weather report that a squall was coming in late afternoon or evening. Squalls had a nasty habit of turning into something worse on the Maine coast. He chewed his lower lip and fretted over how much more they had to search. Accelerating, they quickly did Potato Island and little Sprout Island, and then steamed north to Russ Island and Scott Island, then turned back to pick up Green Island and Flea Island. He was skipping some of the smaller islands now, watching the clouds slowly thicken in the southwest. The other boats reported in that they had finished “mapping” Swan and Marshall Islands and he ordered them west to work on the eastern-most islands in the archipelago.
And the day wore on.
______________
The meeting was at the Coast Guard Station in Rockland. Commander Mello, Ensign Kauders and Commander Diane O’Brien of the Coast Guard Cutter Vigilant, who was still wearing an arm sling from her earlier injury, were on one side of the table, and Frank Finley and Howard Honeycutt were on the other.
“We think they’re out there right now, still searching for the drug packages,” Honeycutt explained.
“You need the LUNA drone,” Commander Mello said. “We can do that, particularly since you paid to replace the one we lost chasing the go-fast boat.”
“I didn’t want to bring that up,” Honeycutt said. He wrinkled his face in a ‘this is a touchy subject’ expression. “Sort of awkward.”
Mello shrugged. “Not really. Things worked out.”
Commander O’Brien snorted. “With all respect, Commander, not that well. We lost Petty Officer First Class Sandy Elkin. He’d served with me in Miami and all through the Caribbean and was a damn good sailor. My crew and I would really appreciate the opportunity for a little payback.”
Mello pursed his lips. The Vigilant was still under repair, but she was seaworthy. He studied Commander O’Brien carefully. Her eyes bore into him without flinching and she radiated a sense of iron determination.
“How long would it take you to put to sea?” he asked her.
“Ten minutes. I had the entire crew assembled as soon as I was invited to this meeting,” she replied. “We have ammunition, the weapons are functioning, and the ship is seaworthy.”
“Ten minutes?” Finley said skeptically.
O’Brien turned to him. “Yes, Mr. Finley, ten minutes,” she said evenly. “That’s how long it will take me to walk from this conference room to the ship.” She pointed out the window, where they could see the Vigilant at the pier. “The engine is running. The crew is on board and all but the stern lines have been cast off.”
Honeycutt nodded in approval. “If we can get the drone up, we’ll be able to track the lobster boats anywhere near shore. The Vigilant will prevent them from running to sea. We should be able to intercept them regardless of the direction they go in.”
There were nods all around. As everyone got up to leave, Finley touched Commander Mello on the arm. “Commander, I want to commend Ensign Kauders for his actions yesterday. If he hadn’t acted so quickly and decisively, my family would be dead.”
Commander Mello grunted. He had been more than a little peeved at learning about the incident only after it was over, but at the same time he couldn’t fault how Kauders had carried out the mission. Part of the training program for young officers was to teach them to take initiative, but not too much initiative.
“I’m glad we were in a position to help,” he said flatly, giving Kauders a hard look.
“Commander, seriously, he saved my family.” Finley told him earnestly.
Mello softened a little. “Although I hope he will be mindful of the many benefits of keeping his superiors informed, I daresay that Ensign Kauders has a bright future with us.”
Behind the Commander, Ensign Kauders mouthed the words “Thank you” to Finley.
“Now let’s locate these wayward lobster boats and see what they are up to,” Mello said.
Chapter 47
Thursday, Late Afternoon
Lady Luck finally returned from her long coffee break. The Samantha stumbled over the second parcel in route to Spruce Island. They were less than a mile away when the transponder pinged. It had never pinged before, and the Captain stared at it in bewilderment for a moment, unsure of its meaning.
Then it pinged a second time.
“Holy shit, I think we found something!” the man at the transponder shouted.
The captain of the Samantha was Robert St. Clair, one of Jean-Philippe LeBlanc’s several nephews. A stolid man, not given to displays of emotion or flights of imagination, he powered down and listened intently as the transponder triggered several more pings.
“Note the bearing,” he told the transponder operator, then he looked carefully at the chart. Enchanted Island was about a mile to
his right, Southern Mark Island was over his right shoulder about half that distance, and No Mans Island was off his port bow. He looked at Gunning Rock and discounted it; it was too small. Having the drug parcel wash up on that would be like hitting a bullseye with a bow and arrow at a thousand yards. Not damn likely.
“Bob, if I’m reading this thing right,” the transponder operator said, “whatever it is, it’s on this course.” He pointed straight along the bow of the ship. Then he drew a pencil line on the chart, showing a course that took them just past Gunning Rock and smack into Spruce Island.
“Okay,” St. Clair said, seemingly unmoved. “How far?”
The operator shrugged eloquently. “Can’t tell. That’s what the spic was telling us yesterday, we got to get a cross bearing. You know, we have to go in a different-”
“I know what a cross bearing is,” St. Clair said. He pursed his lips. “Okay, let’s bear north forty-five degrees for a few minutes.” That course coincidently took them five hundred yards due north of Gunning Rock. St. Clair didn’t know it, but Lady Luck had just taken him in her hot embrace and was fumbling with his belt buckle.
Twelve minutes later they stopped and took another bearing on the sound.
“Which way?” St. Clair asked. For all the inflection in his voice, he could have been asking directions to the nearest church.
The operator did not point towards Spruce Island, but instead almost due south. Five hundred yards away, waves roiled over the top of Gunning Rock. St. Clair frowned. He knew he could trust the transponder and the signal strength indicator, but this somehow violated his sense of good order.
“Gunning Rock, really?” he asked doubtfully.
Another shrug. “That’s what it says.” The operator patted the top of the signal strength indicator.
St. Clair insisted on one more bearing, and turned southwest for several minutes, but the results were the same. They altered course directly for Gunning Rock, then slowed and dropped anchor about fifty feet from it. By then the signal strength indicator was jumping through the roof. They took the inflatable raft over to the rock, but there was no sign of the parcel. One of the crew had struggled into a wetsuit and he flopped overboard with a mask and snorkel and began swimming around the rock.
“Look on the north side first,” St. Clair reminded him. After just a few minutes the man stopped and waived his arms to get their attention, even though they had been following his every move like hungry cats sitting under a bird feeder.
“Right below me,” the swimmer shouted. “About fifteen feet down.”
They threw him a length of rope. He took a deep breath and jackknifed down to the parcel, tied the end of the rope to it and came back up next to the raft. First they hauled him onto the dingy, then they hauled up the parcel. It was all brisk and efficient. They were sailors; they knew how to get things done with a minimum of fuss.
Back on the Samantha, St. Clair looked at the package and shook his head. He knew how much that package was worth. Another, more venal man might have entertained thoughts of taking the heroin and running for it, but St. Clair just shook his head at how much work had gone into finding that small package, and wondered what the odds were of finding the third one.
He radioed his uncle on the Celeste and told him that they hadn’t seen anything except a broken trap. The “broken trap” was the code word for the successful recovery of a drug parcel. LeBlanc radioed back and suggested that all three boats meet off Pell Island, just north of Isle Au Haut and discuss how best to proceed from there. Three minutes later the Celeste, Samantha and Rosie’s Pride were steaming towards Pell Island, while LeBlanc glared balefully at the clouds closing in.
______________
In the aft storage cabin of the Celeste, Jacob Finley squirmed and twisted, trying to free his hands from the plastic zip ties, succeeding only in cutting his skin and bleeding all over the place. The storage area was unheated and he shivered in the damp cold. He couldn’t understand why Jean-Philippe had done this. At one point he had to use the bathroom and kept calling out for someone to let him go to the head, but the gag muffled his cries and no one came. To his embarrassment and humiliation, he finally wet himself.
To make matters worse, he was ravenous. Usually they took quick breaks to eat, so he was used to several small meals a day. Now his stomach was empty and growling. They hadn’t taken his watch, so he could tell it was approaching five o’clock in the afternoon when the door opened and Jean-Philippe LeBlanc walked in with a mug of steaming coffee and a sandwich. He yanked out the gag and handed the boy the food, which Jacob wolfed down. The coffee burned his tongue, but he hardly noticed.
“This is crazy! Why are you doing this?” he blurted to LeBlanc.
LeBlanc stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and left without a word, returning a minute later with a thick wool blanket, which he draped around Jacob’s shoulders.
“Hang in there, kid,” he said. “It won’t be too much longer.” He stood up to leave.
“I don’t understand!” Jacob cried. “What’s happening?”
“Not much longer,” LeBlanc said. “Not much longer.”
______________
“From the air, these goddamn lobster boats all look the same,” the pilot complained. Her name was Rachael Gardner. She was born and bred in Oklahoma and she knew how to make a drone do pirouettes, but didn’t know diddly-squat about lobster boats. As she put it, lobster boats were a ‘scarce commodity’ in Weleetka, Oklahoma. “Do we have anybody who is familiar with the specific lobster boats we’re searching for?” she asked for the third time. “Otherwise, we’re just playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”
Honeycutt glanced at Finley. “Your brother?” They were sitting in the Command trailer again, parked off Fire Lane 22 in North Harbor, right by the Settlement Quarry Preserve, an old, abandoned granite quarry that had provided the granite for hundreds of government buildings throughout New England.
“You mean Paul Dumas, my brother-in-law?” Finley considered it. As Harbor Master, Paul knew more about the various lobster boats in the North Harbor fleet than anyone except a lobster boat captain. He pulled out his smart phone and called him.
“Paul? Listen, we’ve got a bit of an emergency. Can you get to the Settlement Quarry Preserve right away, like now?”
“Sure, but what’s this about?” His brother-in-law’s bewilderment was obvious.
“Paul, I can’t go into it on the phone, but it’s important and we need you. Specifically, you. When you get here, you’ll see a construction trailer parked on the east side of Fire Lane 22, in under the trees. Just knock.”
“This is a cop thing, right?” Paul Dumas stated.
“We don’t have much time, Paul.” The ‘get your ass in gear’ was implied, but not spoken.
Dumas chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, but I am counting on you to have coffee and donuts.”
Chapter 48
Thursday, 5:30 p.m. Off Pell Island
Sometimes Lady Luck smiles at you, sometimes she touches your arm.
Sometimes she kisses you chastely on the cheek, and sometimes she rips off your clothes, throws you on the bed and ravishes you.
Today, she was a horny bitch.
Sunset was still more than an hour away when the Celeste, Samantha and Rosie’s Pride met on the lee side of Pell Island. Clouds were scuttling in from the southwest and a warm, damp wind was blowing across the water. They pulled up alongside each other and idled their engines.
“You got it?” LeBlanc called over to St. Clair on the Samantha.
St. Clair grinned. “I most certainly do.”
LeBlanc turned to Banderas. “You want both parcels on this boat, or keep them split up?”
Banderas scowled. It wasn’t a simple question. He weighed the risk that one of the lobstermen might try to steal the drugs against the risk that the DEA might try to intercept the delivery. If all the drugs were on one boat, it made the DEA’s job easier. If the parcels were split among two
boats – or three if they found the third parcel, God, the Virgin Mother and Lady Luck willing – one or two of the boats might get away. At $11 Million per parcel, that would be important.
“Leave it where it is,” he said. “Let’s find the last one.”
LeBlanc stepped closer, glancing up at the sky. “Sunset’s a bit after 7 p.m., but the bigger problem is a squall is moving in. Weather forecast says it should reach us in a little more than an hour. Once that hits, our chances of finding the last parcel go to hell in a handbasket.”
Banderas, also looking at the sky, nodded. “Maine has the worst fucking weather in the world,” he declared.
“Part of its charm,” LeBlanc said. “Crappy weather makes for good lobsters.” He said it lightly, but he never took his eyes off Banderas.
Banderas shrugged. “We hunt for the last parcel as long as we possibly can, then we figure out someplace sheltered on the coast to deliver whatever we’ve got.”
“I know a couple of places that should work, even if the squall is bad,” LeBlanc said, relieved. Then, unable to stop himself, his eyes drifted to the aft storage cabin where Jake Finley was locked up. Poor stupid kid. He didn’t even know why he had to die.
______________
Paul Dumas found the command trailer and stepped out of his car. As soon as he did, two very large men with assault rifles stepped from the trees, looking at him with hard eyes. Everything about them screamed ‘soldier!’, or perhaps ‘Terminator!’, and Dumas’ mouth suddenly went dry.
“Excuse me, sir, but this area is off-limits to the public today,” one of the soldiers said. The words were polite, but the rifle was held at the ready and his body language radiated threat.
Dumas took a deep breath to calm himself. “I was told to come here,” he stammered. “Frank Finley…uh…Officer Frank Finley of the North Harbor police.”
North Harbor Page 29