OFF THE GRID

by Alex Kava

  Instead, the houseboat thrashed around as waves pummeled against its sides. It made no attempt to escape or retreat. Maggie was definitely no expert but she couldn’t help wondering if the engines had been turned off and the steering house abandoned. Interior lights could be seen, but may have been automatically powered on by the darkening sky.

  “It’s your call, Bailey,” Wilson finally said. “What say you?”

  Chapter 3

  R.J. TULLY THOUGHT HE HAD THE EASY part of this assignment until he met Senator Ellie Delanor Ramos.

  She had asked to meet him in the parking lot under Pensacola Beach’s famous beach ball water tower. Most of the spaces were empty. Still, he chose a corner closest to the water. He had seen the junior senator from Florida in newspaper photos and on television news. She had become an outspoken proponent for immigration reform though pundits were always quick to point out that her own ancestry traced back to the Mayflower. She was hardly the poster child for such an endeavor and even her physical presence seemed to highlight that fact.

  A strikingly beautiful woman in her forties, her skin was creamy white, her eyes a bright blue. She wore her mane of caramel colored hair loose and just long enough to brush her shoulders when she walked. As Tully watched her cross the parking lot, flanked by two men, he understood immediately why this woman was regarded as one of the most powerful women in Washington, D.C. She carried herself not at all like the model or beauty queen that she looked like, but rather a Fortune 500 CEO, one capable of shoving aside or destroying anything – or anyone – who might stand in her way.

  “You must Agent Tully,” she said with her hand outstretched to him from four feet away.

  “That’s correct, Senator.” Her grip was firm, long fingers, nails painted a blood red.

  “For God’s sake, call my Ellie.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. Do you prefer R.J. or Agent Tully?”

  “Actually just Tully is fine.”

  He glanced at the two men who accompanied her. No introductions were expected. Both men stood silent and a foot behind her. Secret service? Bodyguards? They wore dark suits and sunglasses despite the gray sky. They looked more like federal agents than Tully did.

  “I missed the helicopter?” she asked an obvious question immediately betraying her cool, calm façade.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Any news?”

  It had been less than thirty minutes. And Tully was certain the senator would be alerted of any news long before he would, just like she knew the helicopter had already left.

  Instead of answering and wasting time with pleasantries, he said, “Sheriff Langley said there was someplace you wanted me to check out.”

  “Yes, but I don’t want that idiot going along.”

  So much for pleasantries. “Sheriff Langley?”

  “If I thought the locals could handle this I wouldn’t have asked Raymond for his assistance.”

  “Raymond,” Tully realized was FBI Assistant Director Kunze – his boss. It sounded odd having someone call him by his first name. A little like calling Hitler, “Adolf.” It made Tully even more uncomfortable going over the heads of local law enforcement. This was their turf, their territory. Forget about pissing contests. Usually it made sense to have them leading the way, or at least along for the ride. Local law enforcement had the contacts. They knew the players as well as the shortcuts. It saved time. Mostly, it spared Tully from a lot of headaches. But this was a United States senator. Both he and Maggie had been told to “assist her” in any way possible that would return her family safely ashore.

  “Where is it that you want me check?”

  “A friend of my husband’s.” She hesitated, looking for correct word. “Not really a friend. More of a business associate.”

  “What exactly to do you think happened here?”

  She glanced back at the two men. “Can we have some privacy, please?”

  The bigger one nodded and gestured to the other. But they didn’t go far.

  “Not my idea,” she told Tully, her eyes darting back to the men to indicate it was them she was talking about.

  “From what I understand, your husband simply took your houseboat out for ride. Your husband and your children – two, right?”

  She nodded and Tully could immediately see just the mention of the kids caused a reaction. There was a shift in her posture, her shoulders actually slumped forward if only for a moment or two, as though she had been carrying a heavy weight and just remembered it was still there. Her eye contact had been piercing but now there was a flicker in the brilliant blue that betrayed the fatigue, maybe even a hint of panic.

  “George builds boats for a living. He built our houseboat. And he can certainly handle it on stormy waters.”

  “This was supposed to be a family outing?”

  “Yes. I was meeting them but I got delayed.” Her eyes slipped past Tully and past the parking lot toward the emerald green water of the Gulf.

  Tully studied her face, thought he saw regret. He could tell it wasn’t the first time she had been late for a family outing. Maybe her husband was driving home that point. Teaching her a lesson. Tully’s ex-wife used to work late all the time. She’d cancel out on him and his daughter Emma constantly, so much so that after the divorce he and Emma hardly missed her at all.

  Pensacola Beach had quieted in the time since Tully and Maggie arrived. A few tourists were still out on the beach. Despite the red flag, a couple of daredevil surfers were riding the waves. Others had gone indoors. Tully could see a full deck at the restaurant, Crabs. The dark sky had even set off the parking lot lights.

  For as much as the senator appeared in a hurry, now she seemed contemplative, still watching the gulf as if she hoped to see the houseboat crest over the next set of waves. Tully couldn’t imagine George Ramos taking his kids out with a monster storm coming even if he thought he could teach his senator wife a lesson. But then Tully had seen people do a lot of strange things to each other. Still, he knew when to keep his mouth shut. She must have suspected what he was thinking.

  “I know something’s terribly wrong,” she said.

  Finally she looked at Tully, met his gaze. There was a firm resolve in her eyes but he caught a glint of sadness before she could stow it away. “And they wouldn’t have left without me.”

  Chapter 4

  BY MAGGIE’S CALCULATIONS Liz Bailey had been down on the houseboat for nine minutes. Shouldn’t that be enough time to know if anyone was aboard? If there were injuries? Whether or not they needed to send down the rescue basket or the medavac board?

  “Have you seen her yet?” Wilson asked Kesnick for the third time.

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Where the hell’s that cutter?”

  “They said less than an hour,” Tommy Ellis told him.

  Wilson shook his head in exaggerated frustration. But Maggie understood. An hour seemed like forever.

  To make matters worse, the rain had started. Not a few raindrops or a light shower but a torrential downpour. The helicopter rocked and jerked despite Wilson’s best efforts. Maggie’s heart thump,thumped against her ribcage with the rhythm of the rotors. Sweat trickled down her back. The helmet threatened to suffocate her. She pushed back the visor. It didn’t help.

  Fortunately, she was too concerned about Bailey to pay attention to the churning in her stomach. Each jolt of the helicopter sent new spasms of nausea. She tasted blood before she realized she was biting down on her lower lip.

  “Is she still with us?” Wilson wanted to know.

  Kesnick pulled on the cable till it was taut. He had slowly let out sections, a little at a time as Bailey moved from the top deck to the bottom and then as she disappeared inside. Now he nodded to Wilson when he seemed convinced that she was still attached.

  “Give her a tug.”

  “I have already.”

  “Visibility is turning to crap,” Tommy Ellis said. “Pretty soon we won’t be able
to see her.”

  “We can’t be out here much longer,” Wilson told them. “I’m gonna take us down closer. Kesnick keep an eye out.”

  Maggie white-knuckled the straps on the side of the helicopter. Wilson’s attempt to lower the craft met resistance. The wind gusts grabbed them, rocking and swaying every inch. Then suddenly they dropped. A freefall.

  “Son of a bitch.” Wilson wrestled them back from a roller coaster plunge.

  Maggie’s holstered revolver dug into her side and she realized how totally defenseless she felt. The void of control overwhelmed her. It wasn’t motion sickness. It was the inability to do anything but sit back.

  “I see her,” Kesnick yelled as he slid his visor up for a better look. “She’s waving from the lower deck.”

  “What does she need?”

  Maggie watched Kesnick’s face. Tanned and weathered. Crinkle lines at the eyes. Not an easy read. The man kept his expressions in tact but this time she saw his eyes go wide.

  “She’s telling us to back away.”

  “What the hell?”

  Maggie scooted along the side of the cabin as far as her seat belt would allow. She craned her neck and she could see Bailey leaning over the railing. Her right arm was raised with an open palm like she was waving at them but instead she pumped her hand back and forth.

  Just as suddenly as the downpour began, it lightened. Even the helicopter steadied to a sway. Bailey could be seen more clearly and there was no mistaking her meticulous, slow but persistent hand signals.

  “Do you see anyone else?” Wilson asked.

  Kesnick shifted and twisted. So did Maggie.

  “Could be someone inside. But I don’t see anybody.”

  And Bailey didn’t give anything away. If someone was threatening her and telling her to send her flight crew away, she wasn’t looking to him.

  “Maybe there’s something on board,” Kesnick said. “Explosives?”

  “Then she needs to get her ass back up here. Now. Pull her up.”

  Maggie noticed a new hand signal just as Kesnick grabbed at cable. He noticed, too, and stopped.

  “Wait. There’s more.”

  Bailey was grasping her clenched fist then pulling and separating.

  “She’s disconnecting from the hoist hook,” Kesnick said and Maggie heard the panic in his voice.

  “Son of a bitch.” Wilson yelled. “Don’t let her do it, Kesnick. Pull her ass up. Get her the hell out of there.”

  Kesnick scrambled to get his feet set. Then he double-fisted the cable, but Maggie could see it was too late. Bailey had already disconnected and the cable spun free.

  Kesnick fell backwards. “Damn it!”

  Wilson and Ellis both twisted around in their seats, but they wouldn’t be able to see out the cabin window or door from their seats at the controls. Still, Maggie saw the stunned looks on their faces.

  Kesnick scooted back into position.

  “She’s pushing us off again,” he told the others.

  Then Maggie saw Bailey raise her arm straight up, open palm facing forward.

  “She’s signaling that she’s alright,” Kesnick translated.

  Bailey’s arm stayed up.

  “Maybe she just wants us to get out of the weather,” Tommy Ellis said.

  Maggie didn’t think he sounded convincing though the storm was beginning to intensify again.

  The wind gusted and sent the helicopter rocking. Another layer of dark clouds rolled in over them, this time flickering with streaks of lightning. Thunder rumbled and Maggie could feel its vibration against her back.

  “Yeah, we’ve got to head back before we get knocked out of the sky.”

  “You can’t just leave her,” Maggie said.

  The men went quiet. It was her first sentence since they had left the beach. Kesnick concentrated on Bailey whose arm was still raised.

  “You know the rules, O’Dell. None of us are allowed to deploy except the rescue swimmer.”

  Yes, she did remember Wilson telling her that the last time.

  “My job is to make sure the family on that houseboat returns safely to shore,” she told them.

  “A cutter’s on its way,” Ellis repeated.

  “Something’s wrong.” It was Kesnick.

  Maggie turned to look back down at Bailey. Her right arm was still raised but now she was waving it from side to side, a brisk, forceful wave.

  “What is she telling us?” Maggie demanded when Kesnick failed to relay the message. “What does that mean?”

  “Emergency,” Kesnick said. “Needs assistance.” He turned to Wilson. “She’s in trouble.”

  “I’m going down.” Maggie had already unhooked her seat belt and was sliding over to Kesnick.

  “Like hell you are.” But Wilson was struggling to keep the helicopter steady. Rain lashed at the sides.

  Kesnick started preparing the cable. Maggie had done this before but somehow that didn’t make it easier. She relied on adrenaline to push her toward the cabin door.

  “You have no authority, O’Dell. This is my aircraft.”

  “You have no authority over me, Commander Wilson. That boat down there is the only reason I’m here. And something’s going on whether we can see it or not.”

  “No one deploys except the rescue swimmer. Those are the rules, O’Dell.”

  “I’ve never been very good at following rules.”

  Maggie yanked off her helmet to end any further discussion. Without the helmet and ICS, she wouldn’t be able to hear Wilson. It didn’t stop him from yelling at her. But Kesnick was already helping her. He handed her a Seda lightweight helmet, just like the one Bailey wore. Maggie pulled it on and didn’t bother to tuck her hair up into it.

  Kesnick reached around her, looping and securing the harness. He positioned the quick strop over her shoulders, showing her – reminding her – how to work it and where to hold on. She snapped the goggles into place. Then she tested her gloved hands on the cable and realized she must be completely out of her mind.

  She looked directly into Kesnick’s eyes and saw his intensity. He leaned into her and yelled, “Let me do all the heavy lifting. You just hang on. I’ll get you down.”

  But they both knew she wouldn’t be coming back up.

  He tapped her on the chest, two fingers right below her collarbone, just like he had with Bailey. The universal signal for “ready.” She gave him a thumbs up and slid herself out of the helicopter door.

  Almost immediately Maggie went into a spin, a dizzy, wild ride. She tucked her chin and dug her heels together so the cable wouldn’t wrap around her neck. The wind was heartless and only accelerated the spinning. Rain pelted her. The thump-thump of the rotors continued to compete with her heart. Thunder roared above. Or at least she thought it was thunder. It was difficult to distinguish.

  Her goggles clouded with the spray of rain. It didn’t matter. She had her eyes squeezed tight. She knew if she opened them it would only add to the dizziness. She waited for the spinning to stop but even as Kesnick lowered her, it continued.

  After what seemed like an eternity, her heels connected with something more solid than air. Maggie opened her eyes. Through the blur of her goggles she saw the upper deck of the houseboat. She pushed off and swung herself to the lower deck, sliding past the railing.

  She felt Bailey’s hands before she really saw the woman. Bailey pulled her down and helped disconnect her. She seemed in a hurry. The noise of the helicopter, the storm and the waves hitting the boat filled Maggie’s ears and even when Bailey’s mouth moved, Maggie couldn’t make out the words. But she looked worried and frantic.

  Maggie yanked the goggles down in time to see the cable – their only connection to the outside world – zip back up to the helicopter. Bailey was gesturing to them. The same signals, one after another. Telling them to back away, followed by “I’m alright” then immediately contradicting herself with the signal for “emergency, in trouble.”

  Maggie tried to under
stand, tried to catch Bailey’s eyes. As she glanced away for an answer she suddenly saw a man underneath the deck’s awning, hidden from view of the helicopter. He was on the far end of the houseboat but Maggie could still see what he held on his shoulder. Even in the blur of wind and rain she knew exactly what it was. He was aiming an RPG right at the helicopter.

  Chapter 5

  TULLY CHECKED HIS MESSAGES. He had texted Sheriff Langley about Maggie’s Coast Guard crew. Surely there had been some word radioed in from them. But the latest response from the sheriff was annoyingly short: NOTHING.

  How could there be nothing? That was bullshit!

  Tully waited in his rental. He sat facing the Gulf, shifting his eyes from the black rolling mass of clouds that flickered with electricity to watching in his rearview mirror as the senator talked to her personal men-in-black. The clouds had turned day into night.

  He tried calling Sheriff Langley for a second time, but the call went directly to voice mail. The sheriff would be pissed if he discovered Senator Delanor Ramos had passed on even a courtesy meeting with him. Was he pissed enough to withhold information? And why didn’t she understand this? Wouldn’t she want every possible law enforcement officer working to help? Or was it more important to keep the truth from getting out? Everything was political, either an asset or liability. Was the truth a liability in this case?

  Something had obviously happened to her family. Maybe their houseboat simply broke down along with the radio. Could that happen with a half-million dollar boat? But she didn’t believe it was that simple. She’d said as much.

  He ran a hand through his hair. Now he could see the sheet of white under the clouds. In minutes that sheet of rain would be on top of them. He sent another text to Maggie. None had been answered. He didn’t expect this one to be either, but he had to keep trying.

  The passenger door opened and Senator Delanor Ramos hopped up and into the seat. She shoved an oversized tote onto the floormat beside her feet and buckled herself in, getting comfortable like she was going to spend an afternoon sightseeing. Tully craned his neck to see what her bodyguards were doing. If he wasn’t mistaken, the black Escalade wasn’t waiting on them.