Enduring Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 4)

by Wayne Stinnett

  “Yeah,” Charity replied.

  “Call the airport and have them wheel your bird out and warm it up. I can drop you off and still beat the cruise ship to Half Moon Cay, but we’re losing daylight fast. Go get your gear.”

  “You’re serious? What about Savannah?”

  “Do you want to leave this in the hands of the Bahamian police?”

  Charity scanned the man’s eyes, seeing nothing but resolve. “No,” she replied. “I want to catch them myself.”

  “Get going then. Savannah can wait. I’ll make some calls and possibly get you some backup on the water. Don’t forget the sat-phone.”

  Leaving Jesse’s boat, Charity sprinted down the dock. When she arrived at the Dancer, she realized she’d left the hatch unsecured, and mentally slapped herself for losing focus.

  Inside, she stuffed her flight bag with some extra clothes and ammunition, then grabbed her bugout bag from its hiding place. She blocked the hurt she was feeling out of her mind, pushed it down into a little box to be opened later, in private. Right now, she had purpose. She had a mission.

  And, with Jesse’s help, maybe vengeance.

  When she returned to his boat, Jesse had the engines running and was loosing the bow line. Charity remembered how fast the big luxury fishing yacht was, and it gave her a sense of moving in the right direction. Knowing the arsenal that the man kept on his boat gave her a better sense of preparedness.

  She checked her watch as she stepped aboard. An hour to Andros, then ninety minutes to Miami. If the thieves were making a beeline for the city, she’d catch them in international waters. What she’d do then, she had no idea.

  “Get the stern line,” Jesse said, as he climbed up to the fly bridge.

  A minute later, she was on the bridge with him, as the boat idled away from the slip. Jesse turned toward the high bridge carrying traffic over to Paradise Island and pushed the twin throttles forward. The big boat effortlessly climbed over the bow wave, sending a jolt of adrenaline through Charity’s system as she was pushed back in her seat.

  “Are you sure you want to get involved in this?” Charity shouted over the engines.

  At twenty-five knots, Jesse pulled back on the throttles to maintain speed. “I talked to Deuce,” he said, steering through the wide bay toward the western entrance. “Andrew Bourke and Tony Jacobs were there in the office. Andrew has a boat and they’re heading out now. They’ll be off the Miami coast within two hours, max. What do you want to do when you catch these people?”

  Charity considered the question. “I don’t know for certain that they had anything to do with the attack on Victor,” she replied. “But I’m certain they’re the ones who ransacked Victor’s boat and took most of his money.”

  Jesse was a careful man, she knew that. He rarely spoke without giving thought to each word. “So, you want to talk to them first?” he finally asked as he turned toward open water and accelerated. “Find out if they were involved in the attack on Victor? And then get back what they stole?”

  Charity thought about his question for a moment. “It’s just a little too coincidental,” she finally admitted, practically shouting over the engines. “The attack was Wednesday night, New Year’s Eve, just before midnight. The guard at the boatyard said the man who was impersonating Victor, and the woman he was with, arrived a few hours later. They had the keys to his boat.”

  Making a wide turn out of the bay and into open water, Jesse turned toward the setting sun, pushing the throttles all the way forward. A rising high-pitched whine joined the roar of the big diesels.

  “You’re right,” Jesse said, “too coincidental. If they weren’t involved in the actual attack, they were with those who did.”

  “I don’t care about the money,” Charity said. “I just want the three men who beat Vic to death.”

  They rode on in silence for several minutes, chasing the sun. Charity looked around the immaculate fly bridge. Everything had a place, on Jesse’s boat and in his life. He’d allowed her into his life, due to circumstances, and he’d allowed her more when they’d been together chasing Smith. He was habitually neat, just like Victor.

  “I think you should have his boat.”

  “Have whose boat?” Jesse asked.

  “Salty Dog. Victor’s boat.”

  He looked over at her and pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead. The diffused light from the setting sun made the lines around his eyes more pronounced. “What the hell would I do with a sailboat? And it’s not really yours to give, is it?”

  “Look,” Charity said, turning in her seat to face him, now certain of her sudden decision. “Victor and I loved each other. And we both had a love affair with our boats. When we met up again in Tortola last summer, after I’d sailed his boat up to see you, we very nearly ran past each other to get to our own boats.”

  “Yeah,” Jesse said wistfully. “I can understand that. But it doesn’t answer either of my questions.”

  “I know you’re the same way about your boat as Victor is—was about his. And I’ve seen you at Salty Dog’s helm, she suits you. That first night back together, we couldn’t decide which boat to sleep on. We’d been apart for over a month, yet that first night, we both slept on our own boats. The next morning, we went into San Juan and met with an American ex-pat attorney. He drew up powers of attorney for each of us, just to cover the sale of our boats and everything in them, in case something happened to one of us.”

  Charity paused a moment, then let out a sigh. “At the time, I thought it was very romantic, like we were married or something, and our boats were our children. Does that make any sense?”

  Pushing his sunglasses back down, Jesse looked out over the broad foredeck at the calm water ahead. The sun was barely ten degrees above the horizon, painting the low clouds a little off to the north a burnt red. “Yeah, it does,” he said, barely loud enough for her to hear. “It makes a lot of sense. Don’t forget to call the airport and have your bird ready.”

  Jesse had to slow to pick a spot to get through the barrier reef, but they’d soon arrived at a desolate dock jutting out into the Atlantic. It was dark and the only lights at the dock were the headlights of a pickup parked at the foot of the short pier.

  It seemed like McDermitt had friends everywhere. A man who looked to be in his eighties was waiting for them at the dock. Jesse had only told her that the man was a friend of the family and his name was Henry. Which family, he didn’t say.

  Before leaving the boat, Charity gave Jesse a quick hug and whispered another thanks. He knew her better than most and knew exactly what she needed to get her mind past losing Victor.

  When she stepped up beside Henry, Jesse reached over the gunwale and shook the old man’s hand. That was it, no words were exchanged.

  “So, where do you know Jesse from?” Charity asked as the truck rattled and bounced through the streets of a small town.

  “Don’t really know the boy all that much,” Henry said. “I served with his grandpa during the war in the Pacific. Jesse’s daddy was my godson. How is it you know him?”

  There was a lot about her and Jesse’s relationship that wasn’t for public knowledge. In fact, there was more to it than anyone knew. The weeks together on his boat, crisscrossing the Caribbean. To this day, the circumstances of Jason Smith’s death were known only to the two of them. Their co-workers suspected, but never asked.

  “We worked together once,” she said. “What’s the name of this town?”

  Henry glanced over as he turned onto what looked like a main road, though it was devoid of anything but mangroves on either side for as far as the headlight beams reached.

  “Ain’t really a town,” Henry replied. “It’s called Mastic Point Settlement. So you and him worked together in the Corps? Or after that, doing that government work?”

  The last question told her that this old man was someone
she could trust. If he knew what Jesse’s job was with Homeland Security, Jesse must trust him completely, and that was good enough for Charity.

  “I was a helicopter pilot for the same agency,” she replied.

  He seemed satisfied with that answer. The ride to the airport took only a few minutes and they only passed one car on the way. Henry didn’t ask anything more or offer any further explanation of his relationship to McDermitt.

  The fixed base operator at San Andros was very small, and the airport didn’t have lights, so there were no arrivals after dark. When she called, she’d had to promise the guy an extra twenty to stick around another hour. They were about to close and go home.

  “I don’t know what you’re involved in,” Henry said, when he pulled up at the FBO and Charity started to get out. “But best of luck to you.”

  “Thanks, Henry.” She stepped out of the truck. “And thanks again for the lift.”

  “Any friend of any McDermitt,” the old man said. “No questions asked.” Then he ground the old truck into gear and drove away.

  Shouldering her flight bag, Charity picked up her other bag and turned toward the building. Henry’s last statement left her wondering. He’d said it almost reverently, like there was some sort of debt there that could never be repaid.

  When Charity pulled on the door, it was locked. She could hear a helicopter’s turbine, which she assumed was hers, out back. She rapped on the glass with her knuckles.

  After a second, more insistent knock, a woman came out of a side office, unlocked the door, and pushed it open for her. “You be Miss Fleming?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Charity replied. “I spoke with Derrick about an hour or so ago.”

  “He out back, going over your aircraft,” the short, round, black woman said. “Di moon be up soon; nice night for flying. Yuh want me to put di fuel and extras on di same card?”

  Charity had opened an account at the FBO when she’d brought the Huey there, paying for hangar space for four months. The FBO — or, more precisely, Derrick — performed some light maintenance and spooled the turbine up once a week.

  “Yes, thanks,” Charity replied, extending her hand to the woman, a twenty-dollar bill in it. “This is for waiting for me.”

  It was her helicopter that was running, all the navigation and landing lights turned on. The young man she knew only as Derrick was at the controls, going over a checklist. When she’d first met him, she’d been impressed by his knowledge of older Bell helicopters.

  The powerful landing light winked off, making the area look much darker. Leaving Derrick to finish, she walked around the helicopter checking things out. The black paint job gleamed with the reflected light from inside the building. They must have washed it recently.

  “Thanks for staying, Derrick,” Charity shouted when she reached the open door on the pilot’s side.

  “No trouble, miss,” he replied with the typical broad smile of the Bahamian people. “I like to sit in dis bird when I bring her out and start her up,” he said, stepping out. “She has many stories to tell.”

  “Hopefully, she’ll have more stories in the future,” Charity said, getting in and placing her bags on the co-pilot’s seat.

  “I’m sure dat she will, Miss.”

  “Here,” she said, handing the young man another bill. “I really appreciate everything.”

  Derrick took the twenty as Charity pulled the seatbelt harness through the bags’ straps, clicking it into place.

  “Yuh didn’t need to do dat, Miss. Me and Momma ’bout live here anyway. But we thank yuh just di same. Your aircraft is all set.”

  When Derrick closed the door and latched it, the sound of the turbine diminished slightly. Charity donned her headset and the noise was reduced to a hum. She adjusted the mic so that it was directly in front of her mouth and then looked over her instrument panel. Derrick must have taken the time to wipe things down each week, as there was no dust on the gauges. Everything was reading normal.

  After a quick pre-flight check, Charity was satisfied that the bird was just as she’d left it, full of fuel and in top shape. She reached down beside her seat to her left and twisted the throttle slightly, bringing the turbine up to flight speed. It whined louder as the rotors picked up speed.

  Turning the mic switch to voice-activated, she called out her intention on the airport’s frequency, checked all around her, and pulled up on the collective slightly, just enough to take some of the weight off the skids.

  The main rotor began beating the air heavily. Derrick was standing by the door of the FBO and gave her a thumbs-up. She returned the signal, then raised the collective slightly more. The Huey responded, lifting a few feet off the ground.

  Using the foot pedals, Charity turned the chopper until she was facing the taxiway, then raised the collective a little more, while nudging the cyclic stick forward.

  Five feet off the ground, Charity taxied her helicopter toward the long, unlit runway. The lights from the FBO barely illuminated the tarmac in front of the hangar, but the powerful spotlight under the belly of the Huey pierced the blackness easily, illuminating the length of the short runway.

  Twisting the throttle to takeoff speed, Charity raised the collective and pushed the cyclic forward, the chopper responding by dipping the nose and accelerating quickly to seventy knots. The black Huey slowly rose higher into the dark, moonless sky. At a hundred knots and a hundred feet above the runway, she added more collective, and pitched the nose up and to the left.

  The heavy whump-whump of the blades resonated through the whole aircraft as she pulled it into a climbing turn to the northwest.

  Leveling off at twenty-five hundred feet, she set a course that would take her toward a spot further north on the Florida coast. The Cigarette would probably run between the Cat Cays and the Biminis, which were straight ahead. It would be somewhere between those islands and the Florida coast that she’d catch the thieves.

  She had the sky all to herself. Ahead and below, the ocean was inky black, with just two tiny points of light in the distance ahead.

  She still had no idea what she would do if and when she found them. She couldn’t set down on the water. Even if Andrew and Tony were able to help, would their boat be fast enough to overtake a Cigarette? The boats were noted for their high speed. She couldn’t put her former work associates and friends in harm’s way, nor could she ask them to do something illegal. Maybe they could just follow the boat, while she went ahead.

  Slowly, the ocean surface began to lighten from inky black emptiness to varying shades of dark gray. It took a moment for Charity to realize that the moon was rising. She pushed on the left foot pedal, crabbing the bird slightly sideways, as she eased the stick a little to the right to compensate. Looking out the side window, she could see the moon directly behind her; a bright moon, more than half full.

  Thinking about Victor, Charity’s eyes clouded with tears again. The last few months they’d spent together had been wonderful. No pressure, no expectations, just two people enjoying life together. She wiped the tears with her shirt sleeve and tried to concentrate.

  Before arriving on Andros, Jesse had given her Tony’s and Andrew’s contact information. She reached over to get her sat-phone out of the go-bag and turned it on. She knew she wouldn’t hear anything from Jesse until he’d located the cruise ship, which wouldn’t be difficult. Commercial vessels have transponders, so they can be located by anyone. All he planned to do was get to Half Moon Cay ahead of the ship and watch the people getting off, looking for a group of two or three men together with one or two women, all in their twenties.

  As she flew on, the two lights in the distance began to break apart, and she could see the sparsely populated islands of North and South Bimini, and the Cat Cays more clearly. Farther east, a lighter patch of sky glowed on the horizon: the twenty-four-hour city of Miami. She checked her watch. It was still e
arly, barely an hour after sunset, but enough time had passed that the Cigarette would probably be beyond Bimini, unless they made an extended stop for fuel.

  Flying over North Cat Cay, with Gun Cay and its lighthouse just ahead, Charity started her turn to the east. Chapman’s boat, with the two thieves aboard, was somewhere ahead. The moon illuminated the white sand beaches of the uninhabited Gun Cay as she passed over. Two boats lay at anchor just off the northern tip, where the lighthouse and the ruins of the light keeper’s home were located.

  Straightening out on a course that would take her to Miami, Charity heard her sat-phone beep twice, signaling an incoming text message. When she looked over to grab it, a red light caught her eye down on the surface.

  Picking up the phone, she banked right slightly for a better view. A boat was just coming out of the channel between North and South Bimini. It was the boat’s red navigation light that had caught her eye, telling her it too was headed east. From the altitude and distance, she couldn’t be sure in the gray darkness of a half-moon if it was the boat she was looking for, but it did appear to have the same lines.

  Continuing her turn to the left, she circled around, crossed over the lighthouse at Gun Cay, and descended to fifteen hundred feet, as she finished a wide circle to approach the boat from the stern. When she came out of the turn, she lined up on the boat ahead of her and slowed, to just a little faster than the boat was going.

  The sound of the boat’s engines, probably at half throttle, would make it difficult to hear themselves talk, let alone hear her helicopter. When she was a mile behind the boat, she reached into her flight bag and pulled out her clip-on night vision monocular. She attached it to her headset and turned it on, adjusting it in front of her right eye.

  It took a second to find the boat through the two-power optics, but when she did, even in the gray-green display of the night vision, she saw immediately that it wasn’t the boat she was after. Pitching the nose down, she applied full power and pulled up slightly on the collective.