“Maybe we can make a deal,” Burton replied, on all fours on the floor, trying to play his last card. “I can help you find the girls. I don’t know where they are, but I can…”
“We have the girls,” Mac answered.
Burton’s jaw hit the floor. “How? How is that possible?”
“We’ve known since the safe house yesterday that someone was working this from the inside, you piece of shit,” Riley growled. “You have no leverage to deal.” Riley picked Burton up and threw him over to Rock.
“WHERE ARE THEY? TELL US NOW!” Rockford yelled. He grabbed the back of Burton’s pants and ran him into the adjoining bathroom. He stuffed Burton’s head in the grimy toilet. “Tell us where they are, or so help me God…” Rock pulled Burton’s head back.
“But I don’t know anything…”
“The hell you don’t,” Rock growled pushing Burton’s head back down into the water. After twenty seconds, he pulled his head up. “WHAT’S IT GONNA BE?”
“Okay! Okay! Okay!” Burton yelped.
Rockford picked him up and put him into a folding chair at the interview table. “Where? Where are they?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Burton answered. Rockford raised his hand. “I don’t know!” the agent yelped, cowering. Almost whimpering, he repeated, “I don’t know.”
“What the fuck do you know?” Rock demanded, grabbing Burton’s shirt and pulling the man’s face close to his.
“That Brown was going to drive them out to the St. Croix River, to some channel between Bayport and Stillwater, he said.”
“Then what?”
“They have a boat, a big boat. They’re going to go somewhere up the river.”
“Where?” Riles demanded, leaning on the table.
“I don’t know,” Burton answered. Rock released him, and Burton buried his face in his hands. “I just don’t know. Other than north, I don’t know. Brown had a spot that mattered to him, but I don’t know where. He didn’t tell me that part.”
“Were they planning to go ashore somewhere?” Mac asked.
“I think so. He said there was a spot important to him. A place he used to go. I can only assume that meant going ashore.”
Peters stood on the other side of the metal table, flipping through the contents from Burton’s pockets. He held a cell phone in each hand. “Odd to have two cell phones, isn’t it?” he asked, eyebrow raised. “One of these used to contact Brown?”
“Yes,” Burton replied, nodding.
“Will it be on?”
Burton nodded. “I’m not supposed to call him unless it’s an emergency, If I call him with an emergency now, he’ll likely…”
“Kill the chief and Hisle,” Riles finished for him.
“But…”
“But what?” Peters asked.
“He’s supposed to call me in about fifteen minutes.”
“We could get a fix on that phone then,” Riles said hopefully.
“I don’t think you can,” Burton answered. “He won’t call me on the phone number I have for him. I have that one for an emergency, if I needed to contact him. Otherwise, he’s contacting me with disposable cell phones. It’s a different one every time. He’s been using a phone once and then dumping it.”
“A different phone every time?” Rock asked.
“That’s right,” Burton answered. “I don’t see how you could get a real fix on it. At least not in the timeframe you need.”
“Well then,” Mac started, still listening in, “you best get him to explain to you where he is on the river, in as much detail as possible so that we can find him.”
“I’ll try.”
“You better do more than that,” Riles responded. “Do you have any idea what this boat looks like?”
Burton shook his head. “I really don’t other than it’s a pleasure boat, good size, it would have to be.”
“Why’s that?” Rock asked.
“Because he can’t have the chief and Hisle up on deck,” Mac answered. “He’ll have them down below and will only bring them up when he comes ashore. Until then, he’ll have them stuffed down below. Riles?”
“Yeah.”
“Get on a chopper and get out there,” Mac ordered. “I’m on my way.”
“To where?” Riles asked. “Here?”
“The river,” Mac answered. “My boat is docked just north of Stillwater. I’ll be on it in less than ten minutes. We need to find that boat. And Burton, you better come through if you want to get out of that room.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“That’s our boat, Mac.”
8:42 p.m.
Brown stood to the left of Dean and admired the flotilla that was now gathering around them, awaiting the start of Stillwater’s massive Fourth of July fireworks display. By the time the show started, sometime between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m., there would be hundreds of boats running from a half mile south of the famous lift bridge to another quarter-to-half a mile north of the town.
The mass of boats included a variety of sizes, from the Showboat Paddle Boats to yachts, sixty-foot cabin cruisers, houseboats, cigarette boats, speedboats, pontoons, and even a boat made out of a tiny sports car. All were full of revelers, the music roaring and alcohol flowing. In addition to the boats, the decks of the bars and restaurants that lined the river were packed to the rooftops with partiers ready for the show. The city riverfront park was covered with lawn chairs and blankets, not a patch of green to be seen.
It was a festive atmosphere and also a good one to get lost in, the congestion increasing by the minute. Most drivers were smart enough to float on either the east or west sides of the river, leaving something of a lane up the middle of the river to allow traffic to move in either direction. But it was closing, the clumps of vessels metastasizing on the north and south sides of the bridge. While it made maneuvering through the channel a slow and tedious process, it also provided camouflage as they moved north.
They approached the historic lift bridge. During some summers, a cruiser of their size might have had to wait for the lift section to open. However, the past winter as well as the summer had been unseasonably dry. Consequently, the water level was down, and Smith cruised easily underneath the steel bridge. Five minutes later, they were able to slowly accelerate as the traffic thinned.
Clear of town, Smith left Dean at the wheel and went back down the companionway to the cabin beneath. Flanagan and Hisle were locked in the bathroom. Monica sat at the small table, counting the bricks of money.
“How does it look?”
“Good,” Monica replied, thumbing through the stacks. “The bills are non-sequential, and it’s all there.” David was taking the bricks and stuffing them into separate smaller nylon shoulder bags.
They had their running money. In a little over an hour they would all be making their way to the Canadian border and toward a new life, leaving Minnesota behind forever.
Smith checked his watch and then took a cell phone out of his pocket. He dialed Burton. Burton answered on the fourth ring. “How are we doing?” the kidnapper asked.
“Fine,” the FBI agent answered quietly. “The police are running around with their heads cut off, frantic that they can’t find their chief and Hisle. It’s almost comical, really. They’re quite sheepish that you made Flanagan and Hisle disappear under their noses as you did.”
“Good,” Smith replied.
“Where are you at?”
“We’ve moved through Stillwater and past most of the traffic clogging that area. We’re clear now heading north to where the St. Croix starts to narrow.”
“How long until you get to your spot?”
“We have about fifteen to twenty minutes before we get there. It’s pretty far north. We have to get past all the campers.”
“And your cargo?”
“Hisle and Flanagan are locked up for now. We had a little fun with them already with more to come soon enough. What of you?”
“I don’t have a fan club, that�
�s for sure,” Burton answered. “No chief, no Hisle and now, no girls,” Burton replied flatly. “But this was to be expected.”
“You have more than held up your end. I will send you a package in a month or so.” Smith hung up.
• • • • •
“Does that give you an idea of where they are at?” Duffy asked over the radio. He stood next to Burton, who was now cuffed to the metal table in the basement interview room, under the watchful eyes of Double Frank and Paddy.
“Shit. They’re well north of us already,” Mac answered on his radio as he revved the engines on his boat and quickly backed out of his slip from Charlie’s Marina. He pulled out into the sea of boats congregating just north of the Stillwater lift bridge.
“Pat, what’s your position,” Mac asked into the radio.
“We’re flying over Bayport now and the river. The wind is from the west so the pilot thinks we can mask our approach if we come from the east, at least to start.”
“Copy that,” Mac answered as he was breaking free from the clogged area around Stillwater. Lich and the Stillwater police chief were downstairs in the cabin, scrutinizing boat traffic through binoculars. “Dick, what can you see?” Mac asked.
“I’ve got four or five still heading north,” Lich answered. “They’re pretty far in the distance. We need to get up there.”
“I can take care of that,” Mac answered, pushing the throttle down, opening up the horses on the powerful inboard motor. To his left stood Jackie Fornier, a Stillwater cop who changed from her uniform into a tight white T-shirt and pair of khaki shorts. She’d let down her shoulder-length brown hair and looked, for all intents and purposes, like the woman out for a little holiday boat ride—except, of course, for the Glock 17 on the floor between her feet. Next to it was a duffel bag that contained vests, Mac’s Sig-Sauer, extra clips, and two Remington twelve-gauge shotguns.
“You’ll look strange using the hand-held radio,” Fornier said as she handed Mac the earpiece for his radio.
“Thanks,” Mac answered as he put it in and checked it. It was working. Mac put his hand back on the throttle and eased it down just a bit more. His father bought the boat, aptly named Simon Says, nearly twenty years ago at an estate sale for a young couple who died without any family. For years, Mac mockingly called the powerful, white-and-teal-painted craft the Miami Vice boat. It wasn’t a practical boat, it was a cigarette boat. The compartment below the cabin was small and cramped, and the seating area up top seated only six people. But Simon McRyan was not always a practical man. He liked toys and speed. Right now, Mac was glad of it.
Well north of the city, Mac settled in a hundred yards behind a houseboat with five people on the top deck. “How about this one?” Mac asked, pretty much knowing the answer.
“Negative,” Lich yelled. “Nobody fits.”
Mac passed to the left of the houseboat at a moderate speed. He kept a close eye on his depth finder. The St. Croix north of Stillwater has an uneven bottom, and one could easily beach a boat on a sand bar. He had done it once many years ago, paying more attention to the girls in their bikinis on the back bench of the boat rather than to where he was going.
A larger river cruiser was next, up another two hundred yards. As he approached from the starboard side, he could see a man and a woman up top. Mac eased up on the throttle some, trying to get a better view. Burton said that Smith had a large cruiser, although he was short on details. However, the man was short and stocky, almost round with thinning gray hair, which didn’t fit any of the descriptions. The woman was taller and blonde, and when she gazed back in Mac’s direction he saw that she was young and didn’t look anything like Monica Reynolds. The vessel’s name was Bull Market, and Mac suspected that she was either the man’s daughter or trophy wife. In either case, it wasn’t the vessel they were looking for. Mac checked the depth finder and blew on by.
There were two more boats in the distance. The next was a cigarette boat with two large men at the wheel. “Dicky Boy, what do you make of the next one?”
“Maybe. Get me a little closer.”
Mac leaned into the throttle and began to close the gap, but it soon didn’t matter. Their target slowed and turned right into a cluster of cruisers and pontoons beached along a sandy island in the river. The island was full of tents and campers setting off their own fireworks. Brown wouldn’t be going there.
• • • • •
Smith came back up to find no river traffic ahead of them and little traffic behind. A cigarette boat was in the distance, perhaps three or four hundred yards back. Smith put the glasses on them. A man in a golf shirt and baseball cap and a brunette in a tight shirt were cruising north, a couple looking for open water and maybe a secluded place to celebrate.
They were approaching a left turning bend in the river, and Smith turned to check their path. The steel-arched train bridge appeared a half mile in the distance, towering two hundred feet in the air over the river.
“Dean, let me take over, will you,” Smith said. “I’d like to drive the last leg.”
Dean stepped back and Smith took control, his left hand on the wheel, his right resting on the throttle.
It was 9:17 p.m. and the sun was getting low. To the east, the darkness was moving in and the cliff walls soon blocked the remaining sunlight. It would be completely dark in twenty minutes.
• • • • •
There was one more target ahead of them, well in the distance. “Express cruiser ahead,” Fornier said. “It’s a big one, at least a thirty-footer. Nice boat.”
“Burton said a large boat,” Mac added as he once again pushed down on the throttle, up to twenty-five miles per hour now, gradually closing the gap to about two hundred yards.
“Dick?”
“Get me a little closer,” Lich replied.
Mac closed the gap a bit more. He could see one man and now another.
“That’s our boat, Mac,” Lich bellowed. “There are two men up top.”
“I see them.”
“One is large, muscular, dark hair. I’m only seeing him from the back, but a big guy,” Lich reported. “If we assume that’s a Mueller, the other man may be Brown. Mueller is six-three. Brown is six foot, and I’d say there’s maybe a three-inch height difference between the two. Wait… He’s got the glasses on us here, be cool.”
It was getting darker, but Mac saw the man looking their way in the dimming light, binoculars up. He eased back just slightly on the throttle and turned to Fornier and smiled, “Come close to me.”
She did and Mac put his arm around her, pulling her close, kissing her on the head. “Does this mean we’re going steady?” the female cop asked, putting her arms around Mac’s waist and laughing.
“My girlfriend might object. But I’ll definitely buy you a beer for being a good sport,” Mac answered, putting on a smile. But his gaze remained straight ahead on the man looking in his direction. After a minute the binoculars came down, and a moment later the man turned away.
“Mac, that’s Brown,” Lich yelled excitedly.
“You’re sure?”
“Hell yes. I had a good look at the face for a few seconds when he took the binoculars down. I know it’s getting dark, but that’s him.”
Brown was now steering to the left around a bend in the river and disappearing from their view. Boat traffic was only allowed to go north maybe another mile before they reached a sign that prohibited motored boats from going further upriver. Mac dialed Riley. “We’ve got them, Pat. They’re in a large express cruiser. They are about a half mile south of the train bridge. What’s your position?”
“We’re a half mile or so east of the river, about a mile southeast of you. Where do you think he’s going?”
That was a good question. He looked to Fornier. “What do you think?”
She bit her bottom lip, kneeled down, and pulled a map out of her backpack on the floor. She looked at the detailed layout of the river and then looked up at the shoreline. She pointed
back down the east side of the river. “He can’t go much farther north, and there’s no place to beach on the west side. The cliffs go right into the water, no beach, no privacy. He’ll need those things.”
“Same on the east side,” Mac answered.
“True, except for here,” Fornier pointed to a small patch on the east side, just south of the train bridge. “The cliffs are still there, but there’s a beach back there, completely surrounded by trees. Coming in from the south, you have to wind your way in a little to get back there. He’ll have to be careful, and he’ll never get completely to shore, but heck, he wouldn’t want to. He’ll have to moor that sucker in the water, which will take him some time. But if you can get back there, there’s a place to camp. I did it once a few years ago.”
“How far back in on that little channel?” Mac said, pointing down to the map.
“A couple hundred yards,” Fornier answered. “But it’s isolated, away from the crowds, so if you think their intent is to…”
“Kill them,” Mac finished for her.
“Right. It would be a good spot. If anyone heard gunfire, they’d just assume it was fireworks, especially on the Fourth of July.”
“Of course, if we come from the same direction, we’ll be sitting ducks.”
“Maybe,” Fornier answered, looking at the map. “But if you come from the north instead…”
“You mean go past their position, up to the rail bridge…”
“Right,” Fornier nodded. “You have more of a straight show from there. You have to plane it out, trim it up pretty high, but this kind of boat…”
“Could do it,” Mac nodded, a plan coming together in his mind. He dialed Riley. “Pat, here’s what I need you to do.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Now! Now! Now!”
The chief felt the boat make a slow turn to the right, the throttle easing back and then into neutral before once again easing forward very slowly. The chief and Lyman both looked at their watches. They’d been traveling for maybe forty-five minutes to an hour.
First Deadly Conspiracy Box Set Page 74
