“Jesus, Captain, don’t beach us,” one of his men muttered. “These guys give me the willies.”
St. Clair took the boat in until the bow kissed the ground just ten feet from the bank. He flipped the throttle to idle and nodded at his second. “Throw it over to them, Leo.”
Leo, a big man with a barrel chest, picked up the fifty-pound package and walked out onto the small bow, then knelt down and gently dropped it into the arms of two of the Dominicans. “And a very good night to you fine gentlemen,” he said pleasantly.
The two Dominicans gave him a hard look, but said nothing, then waded ashore with $13 Million of heroin and Fentanyl. On shore, the leader waved the boat away. “Go! Send the next boat. Tell them to hurry.”
______________
From the north side of the Cove, Finley and Honeycutt watched the boat off-load the drugs, while other agents took still and video pictures of the incident.
The Samantha reversed back into the channel and turned north towards Inner Harbor.
The Dominicans dragged the parcel back into the woods and stashed it, then got ready for the second boat.
______________
One hundred feet deeper in the woods, Police Chief Michael Corcoran and his crew silently watched, taking note of where the drug parcel was hidden.
Across the Cove, hidden in their sniping nests, Petty Officers First Class Josephs and Santana watched it all through their sniper scopes.
“Be nice if the rain stopped,” Josephs muttered.
“Be nice if you stopped whining, too, but I ain’t expecting either to change soon,” Santana retorted.
Chapter 56
The Second Boat
The Samantha sailed right by him. Calvin lay very still, his face turned away, most of his body underwater. Once it was past, he confirmed that the other two boats were holding their positions, about eight hundred feet away, visible only as dark shapes.
One of them was the Celeste, with his brother on board.
Calvin was suddenly struck by the realization that he had no idea how he was actually going to free Jacob. What if he was wrong and Jacob wasn’t being held captive by LeBlanc? What would happen if he somehow got on board and Jacob didn’t want to go with him? What would happen if he got on board and Jacob wasn’t there?
The Samantha chugged away, moving slowly. Calvin had no idea how deep the water was, but figured that was St. Clair’s problem, not his. He had enough problems. He smiled, remembering the phrase his grandfather liked to use: “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” or something like that. Yes, Calvin’s problems were sufficient unto the day. He sure as hell didn’t need any more of them.
Slipping again into the frigid water, Calvin let the current sweep him toward the remaining two ships. He was confident that they would not light up any search lights, even if they thought something was in the water, but just in case, he kept his head low and used a slow, steady breaststroke to guide him in the right direction.
Jacob would be there, or he wouldn’t. But he had to try.
______________
“We’ll wait until the Samantha is past us,” Jean-Philippe LeBlanc said, “then we’ll go down the channel to make the delivery.” He had thought this through. If there were DEA stormtroopers out there, they would most likely wait until all three boats had delivered their packages, which meant that he did not want to be the third boat. No, he was going to drop the goods and then run for the sea. He was pretty sure that it was too windy for a police helicopter to hunt for him. And he’d let St. Clair be the first to head down the channel to the ocean. If there was a Coast Guard cutter waiting down there, LeBlanc would have enough warning so that he could go hide in one of the dozens of little coves and cubbyholes spread throughout the Inner Harbor.
Hard on St. Clair, but that’s the way it was.
Banderas nodded. “I’ll be getting off with the package.” He gestured to the equipment shed at the stern of the boat. “What about the kid?”
LeBlanc shook his head. “He stays with me until I know we’re out of here safe and sound.”
Banderas shrugged, managing to convey both disagreement and disinterest at the same time. “Your problem, then. But remember, no loose ends.”
“No loose ends,” LeBlanc confirmed, and with that, sealed Jacob Finley’s fate.
______________
The water didn’t so much embrace Calvin as assault him. The receding tide was pulling him out in one direction while the gusting wind was pushing the top layer of water in the other, with the result that the wavetops were constantly battering him about the face and head. The rain, which had seemed to be lessening just minutes ago, suddenly renewed with an almost tropical intensity, leaving the air for several inches above the water filled with a thick, choking miasma of water vapor. Could a man drown with his head out of water? He wondered grimly if he might find out.
Then, just to complicate things, another sound added to the mix, the guttural, throbbing sound of something large bearing down on him from behind.
The Samantha was returning, and he was right in its path.
Careful not to turn his head and show his white face in the darkness, Calvin began to swim diagonally towards the nearer of the two lobster boats.
Two hundred feet, one hundred feet, then fifty, then he was alongside the bow and letting himself be pulled toward the stern. Above him he could dimly hear voices.
“Relax, Bruno. Bobby is bringing his boat back now. Should be another ten or fifteen minutes, that’s all. It’s a narrow channel in there, so he’s going slow.”
It was hard to tell whose voice it was, but it sounded like Jean-Philippe LeBlanc. As he approached the stern, Calvin flattened his gloved hands against the hull to stop his forward momentum and peered owlishly at the name painted there.
Celeste.
Calvin let out a deep, shuddering breath – the first big hurdle completed. Pulling back his arms, he let the current take him the rest of the way to the stern, where he caught one of the service ropes and used it to swing around. And there, right above him, was the equipment shed, blocking the view of anyone looking this way from the pilothouse. Sliding along the stern, he reached the edge of the shed and cautiously did a chin-up on the protruding edge of the work deck, peeking over it towards the bow. He could dimly make out people standing near and in the pilothouse, but no one else.
Point of no return, he thought. Once he climbed up on the working deck, the chances of discovery skyrocketed. He got a good grip on the protruding lip of the work deck, said a quick, urgent prayer to the God who protected fools, then, in one fluid motion, pulled himself up onto the deck and stepped behind the shed. Out of sight of any prying eyes, he dug into his swim bag and pulled out the gun. Tearing off the plastic, he worked the action and checked that the safety was still on, but then was ambushed by a gut-wrenching sense of indecision and doubt that left him sweating and nauseous.
Could he actually shoot somebody? These guys weren’t some Mexican Cartel thugs, they were fishermen from North Harbor. If one of them found him hiding, could he pull the trigger? Could he kill someone? A storm-driven wave caught the stern then, pitching Calvin forward into the back wall of the shed, smashing his head against the rough plywood. All the fear and rage that had been simmering inside him for the last hours threatened to burst forth. Calvin took a deep breath to steady himself, then tapped the butt of the pistol against the wall of the equipment shed. Just a light tap.
Trembling now with adrenalin, he shuffled to the left side of the shed and peered out at the pilothouse, but no one was looking in his direction. Sagging with relief, he crept back behind the shed, once again out of sight.
That’s when someone tapped on the shed wall.
From the inside.
“Hello?” The voice was low and desperate…and wonderfully familiar.
______________
On the Celeste, Jean-Philippe LeBlanc watched through binoculars as the Samantha laboriously made its way back out
of the Cove.
Bruno Banderas came up to stand beside him. “What’s taking so long?” he asked. He didn’t like being on the water at night, didn’t like the wind and the rain and how it made the lobster boat yaw back and forth like a child’s toy. It all felt wrong, somehow, like the ocean was trying to seize the boat, and him, and suck them under the water. Worse yet, he was pretty sure LeBlanc could sense his discomfort.
“Relax, Bruno,” LeBlanc chuckled, confirming Banderas’ suspicion. “Bobby is bringing his boat back now. Should be another ten or fifteen minutes, that’s all. It’s a narrow channel in there, so he’s going slow.”
“No problems, then?”
LeBlanc shook his head. “Nah. Looked like Bobby had to maneuver around a bit to get close enough to shore to hand over the package. We might have to do the same. Just to be expected in tight quarters like this.”
Neither man turned around to look at the stern of their boat. Had they, they might have noticed a figure in a black neoprene wetsuit pull himself out of the water and slip behind the equipment locker.
Chapter 57
Best Mom in the World
The house was empty and dark when Danielle Finley and her mother arrived home from the hospital around 8 p.m. Her father had been conscious, but fuzzy from the drugs and grumpy from the pain. Both women were exhausted and emotionally spent.
Once she had taken off her coat and put the kettle on, Danielle put in a call to her husband.
No answer.
She tried Jacob, figuring he had to be off the boat by now, given the hour and the weather.
No answer.
She tried Calvin. No luck there, either. Finally, she tried her brother, Paul Dumas. He picked up on the second ring.
“Paul, do you have any idea where Frank is?” she asked, a little snappish with fatigue and hunger.
Paul Dumas, sitting in the command trailer, surrounded by computer screens, maps, charts, people yelling into microphones, and at least three armed guards, found himself at a loss for words.
“Frank?” he repeated stupidly.
Danielle sighed. “Yes, Frank, my husband? Remember him? I can’t find him or either of the boys.”
Paul took a deep breath. Frank was out at Elm Tree Cove ready to go to war with some Mexican cartel. There was a chance – a very good chance – that Jacob was on the Celeste and about to drop off a shipment of heroin. And God only knew where Calvin was.
Standing next to him, Commander Mello bellowed into the phone: “I don’t care if the crew is at dinner, I need that chopper in the air. Rearm the bird and get it up. Right now!”
“Listen, sis,” Paul stammered. “I’m right in the middle of-”
“Paul, what the hell is all that noise? You sound like you are in the middle of a shopping mall or something.”
For a long and awkward moment, he said nothing. “Danni, where are you now?”
“I’m with Mom, at her house,” Danielle said. “We just got home from visiting Dad; who is in a lot of pain and would appreciate a visit from his son, by the way.”
Paul looked around bleakly. He couldn’t tell his sister what he and Frank were doing, that would send her up a wall, to say nothing of his mother. But there were a bunch of Cartel hitmen on the streets tonight and they might consider Danielle and his mother to be unfinished business. “Listen, Danni, I want you to turn on all of the outside lights, then lock all the doors and windows and stay there. I’ll come over as soon as I can. Whatever you do, do not answer the door or go outside for any reason. Okay?”
Danielle stared at the phone. God in heaven, was she going to have to go through this again? “Paul, you are scaring the hell out of me.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I’ll be over as soon as I can. I’ll call you when I’m in the driveway.”
“Jesus, Paul, what’s going on?”
“Hopefully only good stuff, Danni, but let’s not take any chances,” her brother told her. “Got to go.” He cut the connection.
On her end, Danielle slowly dropped her cell phone back in her pocket.
“Danni?” her mother called. “What would you like for dinner? I can offer you tuna fish on wheat with a tomato…or tuna on wheat without a tomato.” Then she walked into the kitchen and stopped when she saw the look on her daughter’s face.
“Or perhaps,” she amended, “a tall Scotch is in order. I could certainly use one.”
Danielle looked at her, then shook her head as if to clear it out. “I have five men in my life who are more important to me than anyone except you. She held up a finger. “One is in the hospital with gunshot wounds and doesn’t know yet if he’ll ever be able to hold a stone chisel in his left hand. One just told me to lock all the doors and windows and I don’t know why.” She turned to her mother with tears in her eyes. “And I can’t reach Frank or the boys and I’m getting scared, Mom, really scared that something is very, very wrong.”
Her mother reached up to cup her daughter’s face, the same gesture she had used to comfort her since Danielle was a little girl crying from a scraped knee. “When you were little, I used to be able to give you a hug and kiss the boo-boo and send you on your way with a smile, but I think this calls for a Scotch.” She busied herself at the kitchen counter, dropping ice into two glasses and pouring a generous dollop of Scotch into each.” They sat at the kitchen table, neither one saying anything for a few minutes.
“Do you think Dad will get better?” Danielle asked.
“Your father has a thoroughly mixed genetic heritage,” Céline said disapprovingly. “I’ve been with him for almost fifty years and he has a knack for getting into trouble, sometimes violent trouble, but he always pulls through.” She took an unladylike swallow of her drink. “I swear that man is half bull elephant, half mountain goat, half cockroach and half cat with a surfeit of lives. Things that would kill an ordinary man barely slow him down.”
“You shouldn’t drink, Mom,” Danielle scolded in jest. “It trashes your math ability.”
Céline put down her glass and looked her daughter full in the face. “Danielle, what’s going on? Why were those men at your house with guns? Why did they attack you?”
Danielle sat back in her chair, putting a little distance between the two of them. “I can’t tell you, Mom. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Her mother frowned, but nodded. “Okay, then, tell me this: Are those men coming back? Is that what Paul was warning you about?”
Danielle started to speak, to protest, to deny everything her mother said or implied, but in the end all she could manage was, “I don’t know, Mom. I just don’t know.”
Céline stared at her for a long time, then nodded and walked downstairs to the basement. Danielle could hear her down there, but couldn’t tell what she was doing. A few minutes went by, then she could hear Céline walking slowly up the stairs, something thumping on the stairs as she ascended. She emerged into the kitchen holding two shotguns.
“We often rely on our men to protect us,” her mother said, smiling a little mischievously, “but there is no reason why we can’t protect ourselves perfectly well.” She handed one of the shotguns to Danielle. “Always best to be prepared,” Céline told her daughter. “Just like when you were in Girl Scouts.”
Danielle felt tears prick the corners of her eyes. She smiled tremulously. “Best Mom in the world,” she said.
“No more Scotch for us, tonight,” her mother said brightly. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
Chapter 58
Brothers’ Reunion
Jean-Philippe LeBlanc started to push the throttle forward, but then thought better of it. He waited for the Samantha to pull alongside. “How did it go?” he called over to St. Clair.
“Well, the channel is pretty snarky,” his nephew answered, a sailor first and foremost. “Kind of peters out and bends to the left. “You’ll have to go in slow until you beach, then give them the package and back out until you can turn around.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“Not too bad.”
LeBlanc nodded, accepting the information. “And what about our friends on shore?” he asked, giving the word ‘friends’ a heavy dose of irony.
St. Clair wrinkled his nose ruefully. “Ah, they are very nervous and they have very big guns. Lots of them. Best to go in slow and smile a lot.” He nodded once to Bruno Banderas, standing beside LeBlanc. “No offense intended, but they seem rather touchy.”
Banderas did not laugh or smile. “You’re with me,” he told LeBlanc. “There won’t be any problems.”
St. Clair waggled his eyebrows at his uncle, as if to say, ‘What could possibly go wrong?’, then waved and sailed into the night.
______________
As soon as the Samantha was past, two things happened: LeBlanc pushed his throttle forward and Calvin emerged from behind the shed, stepped around the front and unlatched the door, then stepped inside and closed the door behind him. It took no longer than two seconds. He was inside, and so was his brother.
Jacob looked like hell.
He was lying on the floor, with his back wedged into one corner of the shed, hands bound together with plastic ties, and some food smeared on the side of his mouth. The shed stank of urine, and a quick glance showed that Jacob had pissed himself sometime during the long day. His eyes were locked on Calvin’s face.
“Cal? Jesus, Cal?” Tears streamed down Jacob’s face. He closed his eyes for several heartbeats, then opened them again, as if trying to persuade himself it was real.
Calvin knelt down beside him, and only then realized that his brother was shaking with cold. Pulling out his knife, he quickly cut the plastic ties around his wrists, then dug into his waterproof carry bag and emerged with a thermos of hot, sweet coffee. He poured some into the screw-off cup and handed it to Jacob, who just stared at it. “Here you go, Jacob,” he said softly, putting the cup into his brother’s hands and wrapping his fingers around it. “Hold that tight and take some small sips. Warm you up in no time.” He fished around in the carry bag and brought out an energy bar, tore off the wrapper and gave it to Jacob, who wolfed it down in three bites.
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