“Federal agents?” Otis said. “You mean like FBI? I don’t think I ever had a G-man up here.”
“Department of Homeland Security,” I said, showing the man my badge and ID. “The FBI is involved, though. Two of their agents will be assisting with the arrest.”
I looked around the inside of the room. The control board had a lot of instruments and switches, a VHF radio, and a telephone. I was surprised to feel the whole thing move as cars crossed the bridge beneath us. Otis must have sensed my uneasiness.
“You get used to the movement,” he said. “This old bridge is as solid as they come. What kind of backup?”
Nodding toward a small desk on the south side and lifting my fly rod case, I said, “Mind if I set this down?”
Otis’s eyes went to the case and smiled. “Sure, but you can’t fish from up here, young fella.”
I placed the case on the desk and opened it, Manny doing the same with the reel case. “We’ll be backing up the arresting agents by making sure the suspect doesn’t have anyone else there.”
The old man’s eyes grew wide. “You gonna shoot someone with that?”
“I sure hope not, Otis,” I replied and glanced up at Benton.
As if reading my concern, Benton said, “Otis is a retired deputy. Thirty-five years with the department. He was my supervisor when I first joined.”
“Ain’t been a deputy in a long while,” Otis said. “Been sitting up here for the last ten years, just watching the world drift on by. Anything I can do to help?”
“Those windows open?” I asked, nodding toward the tinted glass on the northwest side. “We need a view of the dock area and marina.”
“Bottom up, or top down?” the old man asked. “They’re double-hung.”
I pulled the desk away from the wall, moving it to a spot in front of the open windows and a few feet away from the wall. Moving the chair around to the side, I sat down, resting my elbows on the desk and looking out over the water toward the marina more than a quarter of a mile away. “Bottom up,” I said.
Otis went across the small room and opened one of the windows facing the marina. “What about the screens?”
“You have a problem with bugs up here?” Manny asked.
“Not this time of year,” the old man answered and removed the screen.
Manny looked toward the marina through the spotting scope. “Five hundred and twenty-two yards to the end of the pier.”
“You know what your deck level is here, Otis?” I asked.
“Forty-three feet above the water at the moment,” he replied.
“What about above the level of the seawall?” Manny asked.
“Gimme just a second,” Otis said, opening a large notebook and then running his fingers across a calculator. Reading the result from the instrument, he said, “Thirty-six feet, five inches.”
Manny continued scanning the dock area as he talked. “Range to the middle of the boardwalk where our people will be is three hundred and sixty-one yards. Plus three elevation for the desk. Minus six for the man. Declination will be about thirty-three feet.”
“Thirty-three and five inches,” Otis said with a grin. “What’d this fella do to get the attention of folks like you?”
“Put a contract on his own kid,” Benton said.
“His own kid?” Otis said, shaking his head. “Hell in a handbasket. That’s where this old world is going. Hey, we’re coming up on the top of the hour, but there ain’t no waterway traffic. How long y’all gonna be here? I might need to open the bridge.”
“The arrest will be at noon,” I replied. “Which way does the bridge swing?”
“Counterclockwise,” Otis responded.
I switched on my earwig. “Deuce, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” Deuce’s voice came over the comm. “I saw you enter the house. What’s up?”
“Should the bridgetender continue normal bridge operations?”
There was silence for a moment, then Deuce said, “Yeah, Cross would be familiar with the opening schedule. What is it?”
I repeated the question to Otis. “Every hour on the hour as needed,” he replied. “On demand for commercial traffic. I know about the big stuff well ahead of time, though. Nothing scheduled until late in the afternoon.”
“Yeah,” I replied, taking the M40 rifle from the case and placing a loaded magazine on the desk at my elbow. “If you need to open the bridge, we’ll have to open a few more windows. As it swings open, does the road block the view of those docks?”
“Nah,” Otis replied. “We’re high enough you can see water at the end of the bridge through its full swing.”
I folded the legs out and placed the rifle on the desk, looking through the scope. I slowly scanned the rooftops of the buildings along Bay Street, noting several possible places a shooter could see the Revenge from when she tied up. At this early hour, most of the businesses weren’t open yet. I scanned the length of the boardwalk, noting a few people, mostly toward the marina end. There were three people sitting on the large swings, none of them together. All three appeared to be retired folks, enjoying the sunrise and watching the boat traffic. There were already a number of boats out on the water, fishermen going to their favorite spots.
I slowly scanned the boats in the marina. There were a lot of them. More than fifty. “Otis, I bet you know the comings and goings of all the boats in the marina.”
“You asking if any of those boats are new arrivals?”
Though he looked to be in his late sixties, he was obviously still very sharp. “Yeah, anyone new show up since last night?”
“Just that big forty-five-foot Grand Banks,” he replied. “She docked about an hour ago, took on fuel and water, then moved to the west end of the pier. A Morgan sloop arrived yesterday.”
The sailboat, I wasn’t interested in. The trawler he was referring to was a beautiful older model, dark blue hull with matching canvas over the extended flybridge. The name on the transom was Idling Bye, with a home port of Jacksonville, Florida.
“Ever see the trawler before?” I asked, studying the boat closely.
“Twice that I can remember,” Otis replied. “They’re Loopers, and stop in here every year. Said they were on their fifth loop.”
“Loopers?” Manny asked.
“The Great Loop,” Otis replied. “Retired live-aboard cruisers, mostly. They run the Intracoastal Waterway up to New England. Most take the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes, then down the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers to the Gulf, go around the tip of Florida and back up the Intracoastal.”
“We’ll be here until the arrest is made at noon,” I told Benton, letting him know he could leave if he wanted.
“Good thing I brought a book, then,” he said, taking a seat in another chair and stretching his legs out.
“Whatcha reading there, Will?” Otis asked.
“New one by James Hall called Hell’s Bay. Pretty good, so far.”
I adjusted the scope for the range and declination Manny gave me for the spot where we planned to arrest Cross and suddenly realized something. Otis had said that he’d remembered the Grand Banks from other times the boat had stopped here.
“Do you know the Dockmaster?” I asked Benton.
“Michael Bradley? Sure.”
“Three of our people will be arriving by boat at the dock soon. I was there yesterday in the same boat to refuel. Can you call him and let him know not to make a scene when someone else arrives in the same boat? They’re undercover and won’t look like anyone from around here. The name on the transom is Gaspar’s Revenge.”
Benton put his book down and took his cell phone out. After a few seconds, he explained the situation to the Dockmaster I’d met yesterday. “What will they look like?” Benton asked me.
“Three black guys, Jamaicans.”
He relayed the information to the Dockmaster and ended the call. “Michael asked if your arm candy was a Fed, too.”
“She’s one of the FBI agents that
will be making the arrest,” I replied, moving the scope along the rooftops and upper decks again.
“I was about to put on another pot,” Otis said. “You guys want some coffee?”
Without taking our eyes from the scopes, both Manny and I said yes and Otis set up the coffeemaker. “How long you been with DHS?” Manny asked, standing behind my left shoulder.
“Until recently, I was just a contractor,” I replied, moving the scope along the boardwalk. For the next few hours, both of us would continue scanning the area, tracking the movement of individuals in and around the park. “I carried operatives around in my boat, disguised as fishermen.”
“And now?”
“Circumstances recently dictated that I become a sworn agent,” I replied, watching two young mothers with three small children walking past one of the old men on the swings. The old man followed them with his eyes for a moment, then turned his attention to a small flat-bottomed skiff passing the marina, heading toward the bridge.
“I’ve been approached by a security contracting firm,” Manny said. “I ship over in a year for my last tour, but what they’re offering makes the decision difficult.”
“Not really,” I replied, traversing the rifle to watch the flats skiff approach. “You’re what? Thirty-four? Does this security company have a pension after four years that will carry you for the next forty or fifty years?”
He chuckled softly. “Not even close. But the money’s four times my pay grade.”
“I’ll be honest with you, Manny. If I had to do it again, I might have chosen to stay for the full thirty-year ride. Maybe more. In ten months, it’ll be thirty years since I stood on those yellow footprints, just south of here. It’s gone by a lot faster than it’s seemed.”
The skiff went by under us, still at full speed. “Damned Rosses,” Otis muttered.
“Who?” Manny asked.
“Damien Ross,” Otis said. “That was him, just went under the bridge. His kin have lived here for over two hundred years, under four different flags. He knows it’s a no-wake zone under any moveable bridge. Whole family’s nothing but a pack of bilge rats.”
Looking east, I saw the boat come out from under the bridge, angling toward the northwest edge of a marsh and slowing. As the boat came down off plane, the man held a cell phone up to his ear.
I returned my attention to the rooftops and decks, resuming my scan. One restaurant had two people on the upper deck now, cleaning and sweeping.
“Old guy on the middle swing,” Manny said. “Something’s not right with that dude.”
I moved the scope down and watched the old man who had been watching the two young mothers. He had longer hair than was considered fashionable for a man of his age, unkempt and wild looking. I guessed him to be somewhere in his sixties. He was unshaven and his clothes weren’t the finest. Then again, I looked pretty much the same. Beside him on the bench was a small yellow pocket radio, a wire going up to an earbud in his right ear.
“What’s not right about him?” I asked.
“Not sure,” Manny said. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something about him makes him seem out of place. Not just his physical appearance.”
Manuel Ortiz had been an exceptional spotter, back in the day. He had a knack for picking up on a possible target’s subtle body language. I studied the old man again. He seemed fidgety and occasionally looked over his shoulder, as if he expected someone to come up behind him any minute.
“He’s another of them damned Rosses,” Otis said, looking through binoculars. “Got out of prison a couple years back. Did twenty-five of a thirty-year sentence. He raped a young tourist girl way back in seventy-seven. Name’s Marcel Ross. I was the one that put the cuffs on the pervert. The punk fishing the flats up there is his nephew, Damien.”
I turned around and looked to where the skiff had finally dropped anchor at the edge of the marsh. Moving the rifle around, I rested it across my arm on the back of the chair for a closer look.
“The old man seems to be arguing with someone on a cell phone,” Manny said. “I don’t read lips, but he definitely said ‘Fuck you’ to somebody.”
“The guy on the boat’s not fishing,” I said.
“What are you seeing?” I heard Deuce’s voice on my earwig. I’d forgotten it was even on.
“A guy in a boat east of the bridge, Deuce,” I replied. “Trying to look like he’s fishing, but he’s looking this way through binoculars.”
“Got him,” Deuce said. “Think he’s spotted you?”
“No, he’s not looking at us. His binos are trained lower, under the bridge, watching the park and marina. Thought you were ordered to stand the satellite down.”
“Yeah, well, you’re the only one that knows we’re watching. Travis called back and said to keep the bird deployed. Julie’s controlling it and the comm between you, Andrew, and us.”
“Old guy has binoculars, too,” Manny said. “Who listens to a radio with just one earphone?”
Just then, a voice came over the VHF on the desk, someone hailing the marina. The marina operator gave the captain a channel number, and as I watched, the guy in the skiff put down his binoculars and reached for the radio on his console.
“Found your watcher,” Manny said. “The old guy’s not listening to music—that’s a handheld VHF.”
“They’re both watching the marina,” I said, as much for Manny’s benefit as Deuce’s.
Morning wore on, the sun climbing higher in the sky. It was already hot, and the day promised to be even hotter. Manny and I continued scanning the rooftops, park, and marina, always returning to the old man sitting in the swing. Every few minutes, Manny would turn and check out the guy on the boat.
This would be a short vigil, compared to others that both Manny and I have been on. In Somalia and the first Gulf War, I’d spent days lying in the hot desert sun never moving and always watching, waiting for the chance of taking out a high-value target.
By midmorning, it was obvious to anyone paying attention that the two men were watching the marina and waiting, as we watched them and waited. Everyone else we saw at the park and marina seemed to be going about their normal day-to-day activities.
At ten hundred, the voices of the others came over my earwig, checking their communications. Andrew, Art, Sheena, and Craig were driving to the park in the FBI sedan, and Tony was shoving off with the two DEA agents, Dannell Burton and Keenan Ray.
By late morning, Travis had secured a warrant from a friendly D.C. judge to tap both Cross’s phone and the big mystery guy in the boat. Deuce was keeping an eye on the guy in the boat, as well as scanning the whole area using the sophisticated cameras onboard the satellite.
Tony’s voice came over the comm, saying that they had cleared the creek and were moving north on Beaufort River. Deuce told him about the two watchers who were listening on VHF radios.
“Is the old man in the swing the alpha dog of the pack?” I asked Otis. He seemed to know a lot more about the locals than Benton.
“No,” Otis replied. “Another of his nephews, a big old boy named Rafe, controls the family. Everyone calls him Swimp.”
“Swimp?” Manny asked. “What kinda name is that?”
“They’re a big family, scattered all over the Sea Islands. Mostly they live over on Saint Helena, where a lot of the Gullah people live. Swimp is the Gullah word for shrimp. When he was a kid, he was pretty scrawny.”
“So, this Swimp character,” I said. “Would he be the one calling the shots with his uncle and whatever relation the guy on the boat is?”
“Damien’s his second cousin,” Otis replied. “Yeah, if they’re up to no good, it’s a sure bet that Swimp’s behind it.”
There were still a couple of hours before noon, and I figured now would be as good a time as any to release Cross’s name to the sheriff and maybe Otis would be able to tell us more. I relayed that thought to Deuce and he agreed.
“You seem to know just about everyone on all of these islands, O
tis,” I began. “Think this Swimp guy might have some tie to Congressman Nick Cross?”
Benton looked up quickly from his book. “Congressman Cross?”
“The older woman you said you thought you’d seen before? She’s Cross’s mother-in-law,” I explained. “The girl is his daughter.”
“You gotta be kidding!” Benton said. “I’ve known him most of my life. Worked construction for his dad before joining the department.”
“Never been involved in anything crooked?” I asked without taking my eye from the scope. “Back when he was a developer?”
“Took some shortcuts, sure,” Benton replied. “Nothing like what you suspect him of, though. Killing his daughter? No way.”
“We have evidence to the contrary,” I said. “And in a couple of hours, right down there on the boardwalk, he’s going to give two hundred thousand dollars to one of our agents to have his daughter and mother-in-law murdered.”
“They know each other,” Otis said. “But it’s not a very big town. Lots of folks know lots of others. They’re not exactly in the same social circle.”
“I’ll have to inform the sheriff,” Benton said, taking his cell phone from his pocket. “Cross is a prominent man around here.”
“You’ll probably get a busy signal,” I told him. “My boss is informing him right now.”
Benton held his phone up to his ear for a moment anyway, then ended the call. “Went to voicemail,” he said. “He’s not gonna like it. He and Cross went to high school together.”
Tony’s voice came over my earwig and the VHF on the console at the same time. “Dis be Gaspah’s Revenge tuh di Downtown Marina.”
“That’s our people,” I said, moving the scope to Marcel Ross on the swing. “They’re arriving on my boat.”
“Your boat?” Benton said, looking out over the marsh that Beaufort River curved around to the south.
Ignoring him, I watched the old man closely as the Dockmaster gave Tony a channel. “Switch to that channel, Otis,” I instructed.
Fallen Angel: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 9) Page 17
