Bluewater Quest

by Charles Dougherty

  "Are you where you can talk?"

  "Yes. I'm outside, on my way back from the ladies' room. I left Ashley watching them. Sorry I didn't call earlier, but I couldn't manage it. The three women hit almost every shop in the town, and then headed back here. They got a big table, and the one we don't know made a phone call. Pretty soon, the two guys we saw yesterday showed up with Rick Everett and Dani and another woman. They're all at the same table, having a grand old time."

  "So that woman goes with the two guys, huh?"

  "Yeah, my guess is she's the white one's wife, from the way they acted."

  "Okay. What about the other woman?"

  "Oh, no doubt there. She's clearly married to that giant with the dreadlocks."

  "So, let's see. We have four locals here linked to either Everett or the women from Vengeance. What do you think? Which is it?"

  "It may not be either/or. The four locals seem to know one another, but the woman we saw shopping?"

  "Yeah, what about her?"

  "She and Dani excused themselves and went in the customs office. It was busy enough so that I could follow them in. Dani's clearing out, but she — "

  "What about the other woman?" Ed asked.

  "That's what I was going to tell you. She runs the customs office."

  "Runs it? How do you know?"

  "It was obvious; the people working there were all over her, getting her to sign stuff, asking her questions, you know. She handled it all like it was nothing unusual, and she and Dani went into her private office. Her name's Sandrine Davis; I got it from one of the notices on the bulletin board out front. Had her picture on it and everything."

  "Interesting. So Vengeance is leaving?"

  "Yeah. Dani got VIP treatment. Sandrine called one of the agents back to her office, and he came out with a handful of papers and passports and did his thing for a few minutes at his computer. Then he took it all back to the office and Dani and Sandrine left and went back to the restaurant."

  "Good work. I'm not sure what to make of it, though."

  "I don't know either, except somebody's connected. You know how the French are about their paperwork. The police barely gave us the time of day."

  "Think it's Dani? Or Everett? Maybe that foundation's pulling some strings. You sure they're leaving, and this wasn't some other kind of permit, or something?"

  "We overheard enough to know they're going somewhere this afternoon, but I hadn't really thought about that. I jumped to the conclusion that they were handling clearance paperwork, because we knew they were leaving. What are you thinking, Ed?"

  "Maybe they're moving to somewhere else in Martinique and the paperwork was some kind of work permit. I don't know. It seems odd that French customs would roll out the red carpet for a charter boat skipper."

  "Yes, but they're socializing — the whole crowd of them."

  "It'll be interesting to see where they go this afternoon," Ed said. "That may give us a clue. But I wonder about the other couple."

  "The giant and his wife?" Leila asked.

  "Yeah. We're going to be stuck here for another day, at least. Maybe we can do a little digging on the Davis woman and the others. If nothing else, it'll make the time pass."

  "Unless Vengeance stays in Martinique," Leila said. "Then we can follow them."

  "Yes. Or split up and do both. It's closing in on time for you and Ash to get a taxi and come downtown, speaking of splitting up."

  "It's only a few miles," Leila said. "We've got time."

  "It's only a few miles, but the traffic is a mess. It took us 45 minutes, and the driver said the later it is, the heavier the traffic. We should hit the consulate as early as we can; maybe it'll get us out of here sooner."

  "All right. I'll settle our check and get Ashley. See you in a bit. Want to just meet at the consulate?"

  "Yeah. If we're early, we can hang out until they open. Bye."

  "Bye," Leila said. She slipped the phone back in her pocket and walked into the restaurant, stopping at the cash register to ask for their check before she joined Ashley at their table.

  "Ready?" Leila asked.

  Ashley nodded. "If the waitress will just bring — "

  "I took care of it. Let's go."

  24

  "This is fantastic!" Shellie said. "What do you call it? Sailing like this?"

  "This point of sail is called a broad reach," Dani said. "That's because the wind is 'broad', or well behind the beam."

  "It feels like we're flying."

  Dani reached up to the touch screen above the helm. "Ten knots," she said. "Close enough to flying, at least for Vengeance."

  "Is Vengeance a fast boat?" Shellie asked.

  "Yes. On a short race course where you're changing direction often, a lighter boat may be a bit faster, because it accelerates more easily, but on most points of sail in open water, they're not as fast as traditional designs like Vengeance. Nor as comfortable."

  "Interesting. You've used the term 'point of sail,' often when we're talking about sailing. Is that the direction of the boat relative to the direction of the wind?"

  "Yes," Dani said. "Good for you for picking that up."

  "I really want to learn to do this. It's like magic, the way we glide along with nothing but the wind."

  "Yes. Magic, for sure," Dani said, leaning back against the windward cockpit coaming and stretching her arms out. "And you're learning quickly."

  "You're teaching my wife magic?" Rick said, coming into the cockpit from below.

  "Sailing, Rick," Shellie said. "Sailing's magic."

  "Hey, everybody," Liz said, poking her head up through the companionway. "I just got off the phone with Marie."

  "What's new with her?" Dani asked.

  "The two women who were following us left the restaurant before we did," Liz said.

  "I guessed those two were probably your tail when I saw them leave," Dani said. "They don't look much like their passport photos, do they?"

  "I did, too," Liz said. "And no, they don't look anything like their passport pictures. But who does?"

  "How did you spot them?" Rick asked. "I never saw anybody watching us, even after Dani told us they had followed you while you were shopping."

  "Practice," Liz said. "Their behavior was just a little off for two women out for a ladies' lunch."

  "What else?" Dani asked. "Any word on the Interpol query?"

  "No, not yet. But she did have something else. While the women were following us, the men took a taxi into Fort-de-France and went to a shady little back-alley electronics store. They were in there for quite a while, and it wasn't the kind of place her people could follow them into. They came out carrying a laptop bag and a shopping bag. When they stopped for lunch, they unboxed a satellite phone and transferred it to the laptop bag after they made a call on it."

  "Did they ditch the shopping bag, then?" Dani asked.

  "No, but they ate at a place in the market, and after lunch, they bought a duffle bag from one of the stands and put the shopping bag in it. Marie said they acted like whatever was in the bag was valuable — kept it close, never really set it down."

  "Odd that they'd go to a hole-in-the-wall place to buy a computer and a sat phone," Dani said. "There are all kinds of shops closer than Fort-de-France that sell that kind of stuff.

  Liz grinned. "That's what Marie thought, too. She had somebody check up on the shop with the police. They know the place. They're pretty sure the man who runs it deals in contraband from time to time, but they've never managed to catch him at it."

  "What kind of contraband?" Rick asked. "Like stolen goods? Or maybe valuable antiquities? People that deal in stuff like that are often back-alley operations."

  "If they knew for sure what he was dealing in, they'd bust him," Dani said. "But I suspect it's more along the lines of stolen stuff. It still seems odd that they'd go somewhere like that to replace the things I took."

  "Marie agreed," Liz said. "After the women left the marina, they took a taxi
to the U.S. Consulate and met the men there. They found a bar nearby and killed an hour and a half, then went to the consulate. They're back aboard Aquila, now."

  "Anything else?" Dani asked.

  "She thinks she may have some preliminary information from Interpol later this evening. She'll call us."

  "Shellie," Dani said.

  "Yes?"

  "It's time to put a little more south in our course, now. We're far enough past the north end of St. Lucia so that we can start to head for Soufrière."

  "Okay. Is there a compass course I should steer to get there?"

  "Not just yet. What we're going to do is swoop around kind of gradually. We'll go several miles out to the west before we take up a course directly to Soufrière. That way, the hills won't block our wind, at least until we get a lot closer to where were going."

  "So what do I need to do, then?" Shellie asked.

  "Liz and I will sheet the sails in a little. You'll feel the pressure through the helm as Vengeance tries to come around so that the wind's a bit closer to the beam. Just let her go. Pay attention to how the helm feels, and she'll tell you what to do. If you let her come around too far, the sails will begin to flutter along their front edges. That's called luffing. If that happens, turn her back away from the wind until it stops. You'll be able to tell. Okay?"

  Shellie nodded, and Dani moved to the headsail sheet winches and cranked them a few turns, first trimming the Genoa sheet, and then the staysail sheet. Liz watched the main and mizzen and trimmed them slightly as they began to luff.

  "Looking good," Dani said. "How's the helm feel, Shellie?"

  "About the same as before you trimmed the sails, I think."

  "Good. That's as it should be," Liz said.

  "You could almost steer that way," Rick said.

  "You can steer that way," Dani said. "We just did. No almost about it."

  Rick studied the sails for a moment and then put a hand on the helm. "May I? I just want to feel it, Shellie — I'm not trying to take over."

  She smiled and dropped her hands to her lap, letting Rick swing the helm back and forth a few degrees as he kept an eye on the sails.

  "Amazing," he said, gesturing for Shellie to take over. "I see what they mean about 'balancing the helm.' I never understood what that meant."

  "You've done some sailing?" Liz asked.

  "Oh, once or twice, with friends. But I never really understood how it all worked. I see how you could get wrapped up in this."

  "That's a good thing," Shellie said. "Keep that in mind."

  "Yes, ma'am," he said.

  "Now, Dani," she said, "when you touched the screen to see how fast we were going a few minutes ago, did I see something that said ETA on the screen?"

  "Yes," Dani chuckled. "Did you catch what it said?"

  "I thought it said 16:23. Could that be right?"

  "That's what I saw, too," Dani said.

  "But I thought you said it was a four-hour trip," Shellie said. "We didn't leave until a little after one. That would put us in after five."

  "Yes," Dani said. "But we're going faster than I expected. And we're not there yet. A lot can happen in the next few hours. Wind shifts, a thunderstorm, or … maybe we'll keep flying at 10 knots. That's part of the magic, too."

  "What have you found out about Soufrière?" Ed asked, looking over Leila's shoulder as she scanned the screen of their laptop.

  She had tracked Vengeance using the tablet after they got back from the consulate. Watching over a period of about an hour as they gradually settled onto a course that pointed straight toward the westernmost point on the island of St. Lucia, she had zoomed in to see more detail. There was a natural harbor on the south side of the point, and a town called Soufrière.

  Meanwhile, Ed had downloaded their files onto the new laptop from a cloud backup and was reviewing them. She had asked if there were any references to Soufrière, and he had shrugged and given her the laptop, saying, "I don't know. I was just making sure we had everything. Help yourself; I'm cross-eyed from staring at the screen."

  She had gone online to see what she could learn about Vengeance's destination. Then she had scanned the files they had, looking for an indication that Soufrière might be significant to Everett's quest.

  "Think that might be the place?" Ed asked, when she didn't answer after several seconds.

  "Sorry," she said. "I was lost for a minute, there. It could be. It's hard to make sense of that scrappy little piece of map in the file. The photocopy of it's lousy. But it kind of fits. The harbor's there. The two mountains, definitely. And there's a cave, called Brigands' Cave. Plus, there's one right in the harbor, called the Bat Cave. But it looks like it's only accessible by boat. I doubt that's the one, but maybe Brigands' Cave is. There's not much real information about it, though."

  "This is the first time they've gone somewhere that looks like it could be the place," Ed said.

  "Wonder why they swung so far out to the west, instead of going straight?" she asked.

  "Who knows?" Ed asked. "But Soufrière might be a match, huh?"

  "Yeah, but I'm not so sure, Ed. The cave's a tourist attraction. They're not going to find anything there; it's bound to have been picked over. Did you get Rahimi on the phone earlier?"

  "I did. I didn't want to say anything while Bert was around. I've spoken to him a couple of times."

  "Is that why you put Ashley up to uh … whatever?"

  He chuckled. "Yeah. What a dumb bastard. Did you see how easy he was? She should be ashamed of herself, hustling the poor fool."

  "Ashley's good at that, Ed. It's what she's trained for. And a guy like Bert? He probably doesn't get many offers. How long did you tell her we needed?"

  "She's got a room at that hotel on the beach south of Ste. Anne. She's going to keep him occupied until sometime in the morning."

  "All night? Poor Ashley; she'll be bored silly."

  "Hey, like you said, it's what she's good at."

  "Better her than me, I guess."

  "Don't speak too soon," Ed said, grinning as she turned to look at him. "Depending on how well she does with him, you may be next."

  "Don't even joke about that."

  "I'm not," he said, suppressing laughter.

  "That's not what I do, Ed. I'd just kill him and be done with it."

  "Exactly."

  "What?" Leila's eyebrows rose. "Are you serious? Then there'd only be the three of us."

  "Yeah. Depending on what Ash gets out of him. Rahimi thinks he's a plant."

  "A plant? She's going to question him? Who does Rahimi think he's working for?"

  "Yes. Distracting him while we work this out is just an added benefit. Rahimi thinks he's working for some U.S. agency. Probably the CIA."

  Leila shook her head. "I don't know. You'd think the CIA could have found somebody with a brain if they were going to the trouble."

  "That could be part of his cover, playing dumb."

  "How's Ashley supposed to decide? Any guidance from Rahimi on that?"

  "As you said, it's what she does. Drugs, maybe? I don't want to know."

  "Did Rahimi have anything else? You said you talked to him a couple of times."

  "Yes. They got some more info from Riyadh. They think whatever Everett's looking for will put an end to Shia Islam."

  "What could it be? It would almost have to be … "

  "Ancient documents. Written by the Prophet's own hand."

  "So has our mission changed?"

  "Yes and no. It's no longer vague, now. We're to stay on Everett until he finds whatever it is. That much hasn't changed. Once he finds it, our job is to eliminate everybody and destroy it."

  "Destroy the prize? We're not even supposed to see what's in it?"

  "It's too dangerous, according to Rahimi. There have been rumors about the existence of something like this for a thousand years, he said. The mullahs and the Ayatollah don't want it around."

  "Okay. If that's our mission, it would be nice
if we had weapons to work with. Something besides knives and fists."

  Ed grinned again. "Would a MAC-11 do it for you?"

  "Better than nothing, but not my first choice. Do you have one?"

  "Not yet. But the guy in Fort-de-France is getting them. He should have them tomorrow."

  "Does Bert know about any of this?"

  "No. I kept it from him."

  "That must have been a challenge, with him in that shop with you."

  "Not really. He got wrapped up in some video game. You don't like MAC-11s?"

  "No. Those .380 rounds don't have much stopping power."

  "Oh," Ed said. "There may be a MAC-10 or two in the lot, but he's trying for the MAC-11s. He says they're more popular with his regular clients."

  "His regular clients?"

  "Drug runners. He says they favor the MAC-11."

  "That figures. They're easy to conceal, but I'm not sure a whole magazine of .380s would stop that big man with the dreadlocks. A MAC-10 in .45 caliber would give us a better chance. Can you call him back?"

  "No. He has to take what he gets from his supplier."

  "We'll work with that, then. Maybe we'll get lucky."

  "Speaking of getting lucky, how are you feeling about good old Bert?" Ed asked.

  "I don't understand what you're asking. I told you — "

  "No, hang on. I'm not comfortable with him, no matter what Ashley finds out."

  "Are you suggesting that we make our own decision on him?"

  "We could. Even if Ashley says he's clean, we could still take him out, make it look like an accident. If you and I decide, she'll go along with it, don't you think?"

  She locked eyes with Ed until he looked away. "Is this personal, Ed?"

  His face flushed, a scowl spreading over it. "What the hell kind of question is that? Neither one of us trusts him, Leila. I thought we could — "

  "I know the two of you have a … let's just call it a history, of sorts."

  "It's not what you think, Leila," Ed said, still red in the face.

  "You have no idea what I think. We'll see what Ashley learns from him. Then I'll make the decision. Remember what you explained to Bert? Violence is my specialty, and my call. That's why I'm along on this mission. Now leave me alone. I want to finish reading these files."