by Desiree Holt
“Did he call you?”
She smiled. “In a manner of speaking.”
Of course, he chided himself. With mental telepathy these two didn’t need normal means of communication.
“I can’t thank you enough,” he said. “I know hospital sitting can be pretty tiring.”
She smiled at Mia. “Not for this terrific lady. I’m happy to do it. Besides, if it weren’t for you guys, Mark might never have made it out of Peru alive. I owe you big-time.”
Impulsively Dan, a man not given to expressions of emotion, reached out and hugged her. “Thanks, anyway.”
When Faith left, Dan leaned down and kissed Mia very gently. “I have very good news for you.”
“Good. Could…use some.”
“Andy deciphered your visions.”
Her eyes widened.
Dan grinned at her. “The last one handed us the final clue, although I don’t think I’d want another scare like the one you gave us trying to communicate it.”
He explained to her in detail what Andy had discovered and what he was still working on.
“We couldn‘t have done it without you, Mia.”
“Maybe…give me…job when…better.” She tried to smile again.
“We might just do that.” He brushed his fingers against her cheek. “You have no idea how much I love you.”
“Love…you too.”
He had to force himself to be content with that as the medication they’d given her just before his arrival began to kick in. Her eyes closed, her eyelashes lying softly on her pale skin. He comforted himself with the knowledge that her breathing was better than the last time he’d been there. He had to trust the doctors when they said she’d passed the crisis.
She just looked so fragile lying there, dwarfed by her bandages and surrounded by all the machinery. Somewhere in the back of his mind he’d thought someday he’d fall in love and create a personal life for himself. But a someday that had always been far off in the future. He hadn’t expected it to hit him like a bolt out of the blue. First there had been his long commitment to the Marines. Then building Phoenix with his partners and trolling for private and government contracts.
There was always something, with short side trips for R&R—sex with no commitments. Now he wanted that commitment, wanted it for the rest of his life. He realized suddenly at forty-three if he turned his back on it now it might never come to him again. God or the Fates or the cosmic universe had handed him this chance and he was grabbing it as tightly as he could.
He sat holding Mia’s hand until Faith returned. Then he knew it was time to leave.
“I’ll have Mark get hold of you,” he told her.
She nodded. “Good luck.”
He kissed Mia one last time.
* * * * *
Dan called Rick on his way out of the hospital to give him a heads-up. The other man was waiting for him at the back entrance to their hotel when he got there, carrying a briefcase stuffed with papers.
“I can fill you in on the way,” he said, getting into the SUV. “Mark just called again.”
“And?”
“Someone who’s a friend of Nate Wilson’s—God, I didn’t think people like him had friends—anyway, whoever it was called the police station and got routed to the task force. He said the night before he was killed, Nate was bragging about coming into a whole lot of money. More than he’d ever seen.”
“I don’t suppose he told the cops who he might be getting it from,” Dan said, a wry note in his voice.
“Yeah, right. But he did say it was a couple. That Nate kept referring to ‘he’ and ‘she’.”
“If we’re convinced someone at the top at Carpenter is doing this, that means the lovely, angelic Joy is in it up to her rotten neck.”
“If,” Rick repeated. “We still have to prove it. And who do you think the guy would be?”
Dan snorted. “Obviously not Stan Forbush. He was a sacrificial lamb. Although they needed him for something. But what?”
“We’ll get to that. So that leaves Lucas or Ladd and Lucas is the one she has a history with.”
Dan frowned. “But why screw his own company? I mean, sure he gets a bundle free and clear but think how much more he could make through the contracts they’ll get.”
“Who knows what tempts people? We see it all the time. There’s probably a lot we still don’t know. Anyway, Adam and Holcomb are both searching records to see if any of the three owns a twenty-two. The guy with the sniper rifle might be a little harder but we’re still working on it.”
“What about the companies we targeted as most likely to make this kind of a move?”
“Three popped up with the requisite characters. Each of them has a female executive pretty high up the chain. And each is hurting for a big splash.”
“Let’s cross our fingers and hope a trace shows up somewhere. Remember, whoever owns it could very easily have acquired it illegally. Or ‘lost’ it. Or whatever. Right now we’re just digging in a very large haystack.”
“Jesus. This just gets better and better.” Dan shook his head. “Much as I hate to admit it, my gut still tells me it’s the folks at Carpenter. Too hard for someone on the outside to get in and kill Stan, dope our guys and do some of the other stuff. On the other hand, someone really, really smart could figure it out too.”
He wanted to bang his head on the steering wheel. Proof. They needed proof. With any luck, that’s what they’d find in Galveston.
* * * * *
Located three hours from San Antonio, about forty minutes south of Houston, the city of Galveston was like a diorama of a small Southern town. It had also been the site of the worst natural disaster in the country when a hurricane swept through it 1900. More than seven thousand people were killed.
But the city had picked itself up and rebuilt itself. Loaded with excellent restaurants and a variety of entertainment choices, it was one of the prime tourist attractions in a state with an abundance of them. Its thirty-two miles of beaches had sprouted marinas like a chicken laying eggs. Whether at a yacht basin, a sailing school, or just a private home for luxury boats, hundreds of vessels bobbed in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Block House Marina was located on South Shore Boulevard, not far from—what else?—the Block House Restaurant. Using the Mapquest map and directions and the GPS locater in their vehicle, Rick navigated them to the address on South Shore Boulevard. The restaurant sat almost right on the highway, the marina behind it. Judging from the fence boundaries a quick glance at the piers jutting into the Gulf of Mexico showed them more than one hundred boats of all kinds were moored in slips at four docks.
“If we’re looking for slip one fifty-seven, they must start their numbering at a hundred,” Rick guessed.
“Nothing back yet from Andy on who owns the boat that’s anchored there?”
“Nada but he’s still working on it. Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to bury the ownership.”
“All right. There’s a light on at the marina office.” Dan climbed out of the vehicle. “Let’s see whose cage we can rattle.”
The man who opened the door to their knock was long and lean, at least fifty and excessively suspicious.
“I get paid a whole lot of money to make sure nobody bothers these babies,” he told them. “Come back some other time.”
Dan pulled out his Phoenix identification and his little Get Out Of Jail Free card—the note from the president. Bob, as the man told him his name was, scrutinized the card like an IRS agent looking for hidden funds. Finally he handed it back.
“So if I get in trouble over this, the president will fix it?”
“You won’t get in trouble. I promise. We just want to see the boat. Who rents the slip, by the way?”
“Some company out of Argentina.”
“Argentina?”
Dan and Rick stared at each other.
“Yeah but believe me, the people who come here only vacation there. They’re as Spanish as
I am and I was born in Oklahoma. This way.”
He carefully locked the door to the tiny office and led them two piers over. “We start our numbering with one zero one. Had a big fight over who would get the Number One number so the owners decided to avoid that altogether.”
Rick actually gave a short laugh. “Good idea.”
“There’s someone on the boat,” Bob told them as they walked along the pier.
Dan and Rick both went on full alert.
“One of the owners?” Dan asked.
“Nah. Just some guy they pay to baby-sit it. A local.”
“Holy shit,” Rick said, when they came to a halt at their destination. Lucky, forty-six feet of luxury yacht, rocked slightly with the gentle motion of the waves. “What a sweetheart.”
“You know boats?” Bob asked.
“I grew up with a guy whose family minted money. Chad just added to it. Bought himself one of these a couple of years ago.”
“What can you tell me about it?” Dan asked.
“It’s made by Navigator. Forty-six feet long with a luxury interior. Twin Volvo engines that will run for a thousand hours. Full electronics. They can go anywhere with this and we’d have a hell of a time catching them. This particular model goes for almost half a mill.”
“Hell. Whoever’s doing this is either very well financed or has been doing this kind of stuff for a long time.” He pulled his Glock from his hip holster, chambered a cartridge and held it down at his side.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Bob protested. “I didn’t sign on for any shooting here.”
“And we hope to avoid it,” Rick told him, racking the slide on his own gun. “But it pays to be prepared. If I were you, I’d go on back to the office now.”
Bob stared at them for a long moment. Then shrugged and jogged back down the pier.
Dan and Rick nodded to each other, then quietly climbed the short ladder and hoisted themselves onto the deck. The light was on in the main salon. Through the glass doors they could see a blond-wood coffee table with a square crate in the middle. Kneeling in front of it was a dark-skinned man in work shirt and jeans, doing his best to unscrew screws that no normal screwdriver could unfasten.
He was so focused on what he was doing he didn’t hear the glass door slide open or two pairs of feet softly descend into the salon. His first clue that something was wrong was when the cold steel of the barrel of Dan’s gun pressed just behind his ear.
Jesus Obregon froze. His hands stilled on the crate.
“Very easily and slowly,” Dan said in a grim voice, “put the screwdriver on the table and stand up. Now!” he snapped, when Jesus didn’t move.
The man laid the tool down and gradually rose from his knees.
“Don’t kill me, senor,” he begged. “Please. I have a wife and children.”
“Back away from the table and don’t make any sudden moves and you might get to see your family again.”
Sweat rolled down Jesus’ face as he did what he was told, straightening his body and backing away from the table.
“Turn around,” Dan ordered.
“I will do whatever you want,” Jesus told him, slowly turning to face them. “Just please do not kill me.”
When he saw that there were not one but two men and noted the expressions on their faces, he felt the blood rush from his head and his hands began to shake.
“Madre di Dios.”
Dan nodded to Rick, who pulled a pair of handcuffs from the back of his belt and pulled Jesus’ hands behind him. With the man secured, he pushed him to a sitting position on the couch.
“I will give you one chance only to answer my questions,” Dan said. “Otherwise I will let my friend question you his way. Comprende?”
“Si! Si! I tell you anything you want. Anything.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jesus Obregon.”
“Who owns this boat?”
“La senor and la senora,” he told them. “Smith,” he added.
Rick burst out laughing but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Mr. and Mrs. Smith? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“I swear to you on my life,” Jesus told them. “I have worked for them for many months. Senor and Senora Smith.”
“Christ,” Dan said. “I can’t believe anyone uses that in this day and age. Or that someone’s stupid enough to believe it.”
“How long have you worked on this boat?” Rick asked, glaring at Jesus.
“Seven months. Since they bring it to Galveston.”
They got past the basics—what Jesus did, how much he was paid. How he was paid—always in cash. And what did he know about the crate?
Jesus gave them what little he knew, which was practically nothing. He was nearly in tears as Rick kept his gun pressed to his temple.
“They give me so much extra money,” he babbled. “It has to be worth a great deal, no? I just thought maybe I could use it to make some extra money for my wife and family.”
“When are they supposed to come back for this?” Rick asked.
“They said have the boat ready to leave on Saturday.”
“You should be glad we showed up,” Dan told him, motioning for Rick to put his gun away. “The minute they arrived on Saturday, you’d be a dead man. All right, describe these people for me.”
While words spilled out of Jesus’ mouth faster than he could control them, Rick looked around for instruments to use on the crate. He finally found a pry bar in a cupboard under the sink. In minutes he had the sides of the crate pried away and let them fall to the table. He and Dan stared at what was inside.
Finally Dan stepped forward and placed a light hand on the object.
“Hello, Oscar,” he said softly.
Chapter Seventeen
Rick and Dan stared at the small robot sitting in the middle of the opened crate.
“So what do we do now?” Rick asked at last.
“Not leave him here, that’s for sure. Or our greedy friend here, either.” He tipped his head in Jesus’ direction.
“Oh, senors, please, please, please. If you will just let me go home, I will never say a word to anyone.”
Rick snorted. “Yeah, right. That comes right after my believing in the tooth fairy.” He looked at Dan. “But what do we do with him? We sure can’t leave him here alone. And if we take him along and the ‘Smiths’ call for him and he’s not here, that could blow everything.”
“I have an idea.” He punched in numbers on his satellite phone.
“Who are you calling in the middle of the night?”
“More than one person,” Dan grinned. “Mike? Hey, buddy. How’d you like to take a little trip?”
“Sure.” He heard Mike yawn. “What hot spot are you sending me to this time?”
“How does Galveston sound? You get to spend a couple of days on a luxury yacht. Oh and bring one of the men with you.”
“What? Have you been drinking?”
“I only wish.”
Dan explained to him what he wanted. Mike chuckled and said he’d be there in an hour. Dan disconnected the call.
“I heard all that,” Rick said. “You think this will work?”
“Do we have a choice? Meanwhile, I’ll sit with our good friend, Jesus, here, if you’ll go tell suspicious Bob that a helicopter’s going to land in his parking lot in about an hour and he’s not to bother the pilot or the man who’ll be left to watch it.”
* * * * *
That part of the plan went over smoother than Dan could have hoped. Mike arrived with the chopper and brought one of the Phoenix men on the San Antonio team to guard it. At Dan’s request they were wearing black warm-up jackets that sported shoulder patches. The design consisted of an American flag in the center, an eagle below it and above it the letters NODT. Mike had designed the patch himself a long time ago for a mission when they needed something official-looking. When Dan asked him what NODT stood for, he grinned and said, “Not One Damn Thing.”
Shel Morgan, the
man he’d brought with him, lounged in a careless pose against the side of the machine but no one could mistake the assault rifle cradled in his arms.
Rick went out to the lot to meet him and they jogged back down the pier to the boat.
Mike whistled when he saw it. “Someone’s socked a bundle into this baby.”
“But not nearly as much as they’d have if the plot to steal Oscar had worked.”
“All right. Introduce me to the poor schmuck who got caught in this and you can head back to the city.” He handed Dan a large duffle bag with a special padded lining. “This what you wanted?”
“Perfect.”
With the tools Mike had brought they fastened the crate back together. But Oscar lay comfortably in the duffel bag, ready for his ride back to San Antonio. They left Jesus handcuffed on the couch in Mike’s tender care.
“Call one of us if and when he gets a call tomorrow,” Dan said. “Today,” he corrected himself, looking at his watch. “You can bet the ‘Smiths’ will be checking up on their baby.”
“Then what?”
“Then bring him back to San Antonio and stash him in a cheap motel with one of our guys until this is over.”
“But, senors.” Jesus’ voice was panicked. “My family. My wife will expect to hear from me.”
“She knows you’re staying on the boat?” Rick asked him.
He nodded. “She calls me every morning before she leaves for work.”
“Okay. Mike, he gets to talk to his wife but keep that gun in his ear so he doesn’t decide to get tricky.”
“I swear by the saints,” Jesus promised.
“Okay. That and the gun ought to keep him in line.” He turned to Rick. “Let’s haul ass.”
They managed the trip back to the city in under three hours and woke up the Hallorans.
“You could have called for a report,” Mark joked, zipping up his hastily donned jeans.
“We need to park something in your gun closet until early tomorrow morning,” Dan told him. Mark had a specially insulated closet where he kept his guns and ammunition. Oscar would be safe there from prying eyes.
“Come along. Then I expect you to tell me what you’ve found out. And I’ll give you my report from the task force. Which will take all of two minutes.”
