Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
More from Wayne Stinnett
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Read More Charity
Afterword
Copyright © 2016
Published by DOWN ISLAND PRESS, LLC, 2016
Saint Helena Island, SC
Copyright © 2016 by Wayne Stinnett
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Cover Photo by D’July
Graphics by Wicked Good Book Covers
Edited by Tammi at Larks & Katydids
Final Proofreading by Donna Rich
Interior Design by Colleen Sheehan, WDR Book Designs
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Most of the locations herein are also fictional, or are used fictitiously.
Dedicated to my sister, Vickie Sicilia and her husband Fred. As the oldest of four kids, the rest of us being boys, she had a tough go of it at times. As we grew older, she included me in her circle of friends, though she was in high school and I in junior high. About then, Fred and I became friends. Later as adults, she became the anchor, the one whose home we went to for Thanksgiving dinner. She took care of my youngest brother, through several bouts of cancer and has always been there for all of us. There’s a little of Vickie in Charity. Thanks, Sis.
“The moment we believe that success is determined by an ingrained level of ability as opposed to resilience and hard work, we will be brittle in the face of adversity.”
- Joshua Waitzkin
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Jesse McDermitt Series
Fallen Out
Fallen Palm
Fallen Hunter
Fallen Pride
Fallen Mangrove
Fallen King
Fallen Honor
Fallen Tide
Fallen Angel
Fallen Hero (Fall 2016)
Charity Styles Series
Merciless Charity
Ruthless Charity
Heartless Charity (Winter, 2017)
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Looking up at the night sky, one couldn’t help but imagine it being a vast sheet of black velvet with a billion tiny diamonds cast across it. Each star sparkled with its own brilliance and hue. To the south, the long cloudy band of faint stars that made up the Milky Way stretched along the horizon, just a few degrees above it, like a great serpent rising out of the water.
Low on the western horizon, the full moon was just beginning to fall into the sea, seeming larger than usual in the refracted light of the atmosphere. The reflection of the tropical moon stretched to the horizon, shimmering on the calm surface of the sea. Closer, the reflection fragmented and broadened, each ripple in the water nearer the boat creating multiple many-faceted reflections.
A light breeze played across the water from the east-northeast, as it did pretty much year-round in these tropical latitudes. The dry wispy palm fronds rustling against one another in the light air sounded like a mouse scurrying through dry autumn leaves.
Slowly, a classic old wooden sailing sloop motored out of the protected waters of tiny Puerto de Abrigo Marina on the west coast of Isla de Cozumel, Mexico. The boat’s lines were simple, yet elegant, its massive wooden mast rising more than forty-four feet above the water, its sails still furled.
In a matter of minutes, the moon would slip into the sea, and soon the sun would take its place. But not before Charity Styles and Wind Dancer were many miles from the tourist diving mecca. And not before Charity could enjoy the night sky once more.
With the flip of a switch mounted inside the wheel pedestal, an electric motor whined, driving a hydraulic system which began winching the mainsail from its boom furler, the ticking of the winch drum and gentle luffing of the rising sail making the only sound. The Dancer knifed quietly through the still water, her tiny diesel engine adding only a faint burbling sound to the still morning. Once the weight of the boom was lifted, Charity turned around at the helm, and lowered the boom crutch to the aft deck.
Close to shore, the water on the west side of Cozumel was deep—more than deep enough for the Dancer, but Charity steered directly away from shore to avoid any chance of colliding with a coral head. Less than a mile out, the bottom dropped precipitously at the edge of the wall, which was the main attraction for thousands of scuba divers. Charity started a slow sweeping turn that would carry the boat further away from shore.
The month before, Charity had spent three days in the little fishing town of Progresso on the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. She’d then come to Cozumel to recuperate from her injuries, swim in the sea, and relax. Yesterday marked four weeks since she’d left the Mexican mainland after the eruption of the San Martin Tuxtla volcano.
She had managed to convince Juan Ignacio to take a few days off from fishing and accompany her to Cozumel. When she’d first arrived back in Progresso, he’d treated and redressed her wounds, not asking any questions. A bullet had grazed the cheek of her ass, and she had a number of scrapes and bruises from a quick descent off the steep mountain peak.
After Juan left, Charity spent the next four days alone on the Dancer. She’d come to grips with her actions that night on the mountain, blaming it on her inner demons. Her boss had reprimanded her for being overzealous. He’d sent her to Mexico to track down and kill just one man, the leader of a terrorist cell planning an attack against innocent civilians.
Charity got carried away.
In the end, probably a dozen men met the fate they deserved when the volcano erupted and lava consumed everything in its path—a taste of the perpetual flames she hoped they were now experiencing in Hell.
Late the night before, she’d been instructed to get underway for the island of Trinidad, off the coast of Venezuela. The communication, the first she had rece
ived in two weeks, said that more details would come later, but to get underway as soon as possible. She responded in the usual way, giving her approximate date of arrival and saving the email as a draft. Communications from her handler were never sent, just saved in the draft folder of the email server, where only she and her handler had access.
Charity’s handler was none other than the Associate Deputy Director for Homeland Security’s Caribbean Counterterrorism Command, Colonel Travis Stockwell. He’d devised the simple method of communicating, and rarely resorted to encrypted satellite phones or text messages. It was supposed to prevent any paper or electronic trail, to give his bosses plausible deniability—his bosses being the Secretary of Homeland Security and the President of the United States.
The Dancer was equipped with the latest in satellite communication technology, and Charity could access the Internet from just about anywhere in the western hemisphere. Almost immediately, another draft message had been saved, asking if she could speed up the arrival time.
She’d double-checked her calculations at the navigation desk. The distance was about seventeen hundred nautical miles and would have to be made in short hops, island to island, to give her some downtime to rest along the way. The Dancer was fast—at least, she was fast for a seventy-two-year-old sailing vessel. Her hull was gel-coated to an ultra-smooth finish, and she slipped through the water with almost no friction. But her top speed in perfect conditions was less than ten knots, meaning sailing time alone would be at least eight to ten days, even with ideal conditions.
Each of the short hops were over two hundred miles. This meant she’d spend at least a full twenty-four hours at the helm, cat-napping through the night, as she’d done to get from Miami to Mexico. Each leg would require a layover to rest. The longest leg would be from Jamaica to Aruba, six hundred miles of non-stop sailing which would take more than three whole days. She’d need plenty of rest before starting that part of the journey and would be worthless on arrival without another day of rest.
She’d replied that her estimate was probably the fastest route to Trinidad, and reminded the director that they’d both agreed this was the most inconspicuous manner to move around the Caribbean Basin. She even challenged him to come to the marina on Grand Cayman in two days and try to find her, knowing that the places she was planning to stop were full of cruisers.
Stockwell had reluctantly approved the arrival time of seventeen to twenty days, telling her that they were still working out the logistics, but she should expect a delivery somewhere along the route she’d outlined.
Charity then spent an hour checking the weather forecasts for her route, something she should have done before giving the director an ETA. The long range forecast for the whole Caribbean, as she’d be crossing it from northwest to southeast, mentioned nothing more than the occasional storms that popped up and disappeared. It was only a month before the start of hurricane season, but when she checked the local forecast between Cozumel and Grand Cayman, she found conditions ideal for a fast passage. She’d decided to start early and be out of the diving areas before the sun came up.
The light breeze filled the sails as they unfurled and Charity killed the engine. Turning southwest, she toggled the winches again, swinging the boom and foresail out to a broad reach, as she angled away from the coast and into deeper water, nearly running before the wind at five knots. Not exactly the Dancer’s best point of sail.
Sitting in the cockpit, she watched as the last of the moon slipped below the horizon. Its disappearing brilliance allowed the twinkling light from the stars to the west to reach her eye, and soon the whole sky was ablaze with light.
More than an hour later, about two miles off Yucab Reef, Charity turned due south and trimmed the sails once more, to take her past the southern tip of the island. She knew that once she cleared land, the wind would pick up—and when the sun rose and heated the mainland, it would increase even more. She’d be turning east then, and have the wind off her port bow, the Dancer’s fastest point of sail.
Switching the autopilot on, Charity engaged the computer program that would control sail arrangement and was satisfied that not a single whisper came from the hydraulic winches. The computer confirmed that she’d chosen the most efficient arrangement. A quick look at the radar told her she was alone on the sea for the time being.
As the Dancer sailed herself southward, Charity went forward on the port side, checking equipment and rigging all the way to the bow. She double-checked the straps that held her new dinghy in place on the foredeck, thankful that she’d been able to find one while in Progresso.
At the bow, she paused. The sun was only minutes from breaching the horizon, and Charity’s shadow was just visible against the foresail behind her. Ahead, the sea looked tranquil. Long rollers no more than a foot high were spaced out ahead, paralleling her direction of travel. The angle of the light from the eastern sky created a shadow below each roller’s crest. As they moved beneath the hull she barely noticed, but for the subtle change in the sound of the bow wave slicing through them.
Charity found that she enjoyed letting the computer sail the Dancer, and often paused with one foot on the bowsprit. She did so now; gripping the luff of the foresail and leaning forward, she let the wind lift the hair off her shoulders and looked out ahead and all around. Standing there for a moment, she got a rush of freedom unlike anything she’d ever known.
Satisfied that all was well, Charity went down the ladder to the salon to get another bottle of water and slice some fruit to snack on while underway. It would be two long days and two even longer nights, but she’d arrive at Georgetown near sunrise to clear customs in the Caymans.
Back at the helm, Charity left the autopilot on and reclined on the aft port bench, propping a pillow against the wood combing behind her back. Taking a sip from the water bottle, she leaned her head back and looked up again at the stars still visible to the west.
It had been over a month since she’d stolen away before dawn, flying the DHS helicopter to Miami and boarding the Dancer for the first time. The experience had been akin to going back to one’s childhood home; her uncle had once owned a sailboat almost identical to Wind Dancer.
Charity had grown up sailing with her uncle and father nearly every weekend and sometimes all summer long. Uncle Bill had been in the Navy. Her father, Mike Styles, had been a sergeant in the Army. The brothers had served at nearly the same time in Vietnam; both were dead now. Her mother was also dead, for all Charity knew.
Uncle Bill’s boat had been laid out slightly different, though it was the same hull design. His had only a single quarter berth under the starboard bench, but it was a double berth laid out cross-hull, with only a couple feet of room at the foot of the bunk, under the cockpit deck, and room enough to sit up at the head, under the cockpit’s starboard bench seat. As a child, Charity had loved crawling back into the corner, where only she could fit. There, she could imagine herself to be anything she wanted.
“I wonder,” she said aloud, “if I ever imagined myself becoming a government assassin.”
There was not another soul on the ocean within miles to hear her words.
One by one, the last of the stars winked out as the sun quickly brightened the sky to the east. Glancing over her shoulder, Charity watched as the dome of the sun began to rise out of the water and suddenly it was nearly full daylight. It took a few more minutes for the bright yellow sun to extract itself from the sea’s grasp and begin its daily march across the Caribbean sky.
As the sun climbed higher and the Dancer came out of the lee of the island, the wind increased. Charity entered the GPS coordinates for Grand Cayman and, once set, the computer turned the Dancer to the new heading, trimming the sails as the boat turned.
The Dancer heeled slightly and accelerated, the wind now coming around closer to the bow on the port side. After a moment, Charity checked the knot-meter, smiling to see that they were making an easy nine knots.
The day wore on, uneventfu
l. By mid-morning, the coast of Cozumel had fallen off the radar screen, replaced by a vast empty sea. At noon, Charity went down to the galley to make a sandwich and check the laptop. There was a saved email with an attachment, but no message.
She opened the attachment and saw that it was a short dossier. She skimmed over it quickly, then sent the file to the printer. While it printed, she took the sandwich to her cabin to change into a bathing suit.
Spending an hour each day in the sun was something she’d always tried to do most of her life. For the past month, she’d barely missed a single day. With her hair dyed black, her tan deep and nearly all-over, and her Spanish fluent, she could easily pass for Hispanic. She doubted that even Juan had suspected.
Taking a towel and a pillow, she returned to the cockpit with the printout. She checked the tiny radar display for probably the hundredth time, unsurprised to see an empty screen.
Charity made her way forward and spread the towel on the foredeck next to the mast, propping the pillow against the cabin roof. The wind and hot tropical sun felt good against her skin, as she stretched her legs out and leaned back against the bulkhead. Taking her time, she read through the five-page report twice, enjoying the feel of the boat as the Dancer marched steadily onward.
There wasn’t much in the report. Her target was an unknown man in Venezuela. There were no pictures or description of him. Nothing much really to go on, other than the fact that the local indigenous people were afraid of him.
There was a list of several men, some with poor quality photos, who were known associates of her target. Surprisingly, they were all white—fair-haired white men, most with European names.
After about an hour, Charity went below and dressed in regular sailing attire: long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, boat shoes and a long-billed cap. It would be very easy to get too much sun at these latitudes.
Pulling her hair back into a loose ponytail, she took the ladder up to the cockpit and checked the radar again. This time she saw another boat, ahead of her. Instinctively, Charity stood on her toes and looked in the direction the radar indicated. Seeing nothing on the horizon, she sat down and studied the image on the screen. It definitely wasn’t a ship. The echo was too small. It seemed to be moving in the same direction as the Dancer, but at a slightly slower speed.
Ruthless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 2) Page 1
