In the house, Finn trotted kind of sideways toward me and sat down, cocking his head to one side. I knelt and scratched behind both his ears. Chyrel was at the table in front of her computer, Chrissy next to her, with Pat looking over their shoulders, waiting.
“Are you sure you want to hear what he says?” Chyrel asked the young girl. “We got him dead to rights. He’s already been charged and will be going to prison for a long time.”
Chrissy nodded as the five of us approached the table. “Yes, I need to hear it with my own ears.”
The image on the screen was frozen. Nick Cross and Tony were facing one another, both in profile. Tony was holding the briefcase. Chyrel looked up at Pat, who nodded. Then she moved the cursor to the play button and clicked it.
Tony began speaking first, his voice sounding tinny over the computer’s speakers. “I and I can make it real slow, if yuh want, mon. Or, jest a fahty-five to di heads and toss dem in di ocean.”
Nick’s head turned slowly, as if checking to see if anyone could hear. “I don’t give a rat’s ass how you do it,” he said, turning back to face Tony. “Just kill them both and make sure they stay dead this time.”
Chyrel clicked the stop button as Pat put a gentle hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder. At first I thought the girl was going to cry. Her eyes moistened a little, but she appeared to suck it up as she looked up at her grandmother.
“What’s going to happen to me?” Chrissy asked.
Pat bent and hugged the girl. “You’ll come and live with me.”
“But where?” Chrissy asked. “You said he could get to us from wherever they take him.”
“Prison,” Pat said. “They’re taking him to prison. Where I hope he rots. I hear inmates don’t take much of a liking to people who hurt kids. Did you like that little lagoon we were at in the Bahamas? Where Mister Patterson lives? He said we were welcome to come back and stay there.”
This surprised me, but when I thought about it, the idea didn’t seem so ridiculous after all. Henry had spent his whole lifetime helping others.
“Yeah,” Chrissy replied. “Can we go there?”
Pat looked up at me expectantly. I looked over at Andrew, who nodded. “If you fly, you’ll leave a paper trail,” I said. “Give Chyrel the rest of the day and she’ll have new identities for both of you. We’ll leave first thing in the morning and be there by noon the next day.”
Cross’s briefcase lay open on the table, the money he’d paid to have his family murdered stacked neatly inside it. “That will give you a start,” I said to Pat. “More than enough to last you until you can move your money through an offshore account and hide it.”
“The bulk of it’s already in accounts in Zurich and Nassau,” she replied. “We don’t want anything to do with his money. Can you take it?”
“I know a trust it can be donated to,” I replied. “It’s set up to help underprivileged kids.”
“That’d be nice,” Chrissy said. “Is it okay if I go down to the boat and take a nap? I’m really tired.”
“We have to do some maintenance on the boat before we leave,” I said. “Why don’t you grab your and Pat’s things and bring them up to the house, while she helps Chyrel. Y’all can take the master bedroom.”
Andrew stayed at the house with the girls. It’d been a long day already and he wanted to cook. That’s how the big man liked to unwind. He said he’d call us when supper was ready. We planned to eat early and turn in, so everyone would be fresh for the long run back down to Andros Island.
For the next several hours, with Manny, Tony and Art helping, we cleaned strainers, replaced filters, and filled the water tank from a garden hose, and I took the time to change the oil in both engines. Tony got on my laptop and started checking the weather between South Carolina and the Bahamas. He reported that although there would be some wind off the coast of Jacksonville, there weren’t any storms mentioned.
Manny and I talked about old times while we worked in the engine room. He filled me in on who’d retired and who’d transferred to where.
“Tank finally retired,” Manny said.
Master Gunnery Sergeant Owen Tankersley had been a legend in the Marine Corps for four decades. He’d earned the Medal of Honor in Vietnam and was there for my retirement ceremony nine years ago. At the time, he was the only active-duty Medal of Honor recipient in the Corps. I did the numbers in my head—he had to be sixty years old now.
“About time,” I said. “I guess even Tank couldn’t stop the march of time.”
It was nearly dark when we finished. I told Tony and Art to cast off the lines and we’d run down the creek to the commercial docks to restock supplies for the crossing and get some beer. It’d give me a chance to check the oil pressures and temperatures too. We were back tied up at the dock thirty minutes later.
“You guys go ahead up to the house,” I said. “I’m gonna get cleaned up, then we can drink a couple beers before turning in.”
Once they left, I went down to my stateroom, stripped down, and got in the shower. I’d barely had time to soap up when I heard running footsteps out on the dock and someone jumped down into the cockpit.
“Jesse!” Tony shouted. “We got trouble!”
I shut off the water and grabbed my clean clothes from the bunk. I was still struggling into my shirt, not bothering to dry off first, when Tony burst through the hatch.
“The girls are gone! Andrew’s out cold, man.”
Together, we sprinted up to the house. Tony handed me an earwig and I turned it on while running, shoving it into my ear and pulling the bone mic around the top of my ear.
I could hear Deuce’s voice calmly giving orders. The man was at his best in dicey situations. “Deuce, it’s Jesse,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“Piecing things together now,” Deuce replied.
Tony and I rushed through the back door. Art was helping Andrew to his feet. There was blood on the floor and all down the front of Andrew’s shirt. He’d taken a pretty good beating.
Art picked Andrew’s earwig up from the floor and handed it to him. He groggily put it in his ear and adjusted the bone mic.
“There were six of them,” Andrew said. “Broke down the door and grabbed me, before I could get my weapon out.”
“Travis will be on in a few minutes, Jesse,” Deuce said. “He’s on Capitol Hill. Are you alright, Andrew?”
“Beat up a little,” Andrew grunted. “That weasel Jesse took out was one of them.”
“What?” I roared. “How the hell could he have gotten loose from the sheriff’s deputies?”
“Julie’s here with me,” Deuce said. “She’s working on it. Did they say anything, Andrew?”
Art and Tony helped Andrew to a chair at the dining room table. Chyrel’s computer was still sitting there, but Cross’s briefcase of money was gone.
“The one who seemed to be the leader,” Andrew began. “Really big guy. The others called him Shrimp. He kept asking where the Jamaicans were. I told him I didn’t know anything about any Jamaicans. One of them went out back, and when he returned he told the big guy the boat was gone. I don’t remember much of anything after that.”
“Rafe Moss,” I said. “The bridgetender said his nickname was Swimp. See if you can get an address, Deuce.”
“On it,” he replied. “DMV and land records show his address is over on Saint Helena Island. A big piece of property far off the main road. Julie’s getting directions.”
“We can take my car,” Manny offered. “But it’s twenty or thirty minutes, depending on traffic.”
“He has a pretty big boat, Deuce,” I said. “Is his property on deep water?”
“On Capers Creek, where it flows into Cowen Creek,” Deuce replied. “Not sure about how deep it is, though.”
“It’ll be faster by water,” Manny said. “Only ten minutes or so. Cowen Creek is deep, but Capers gets shallow really fast.”
“Andrew, you stay here,” I said, heading to the back door.
“Like hell,” he answered, getting to his feet and wiping blood from his face with a towel that Art had handed him. “Let’s roll.”
Finn barked as we headed through the door, and I looked back at him. I couldn’t leave him there alone. I went back and opened the door. “Go get on the boat, boy.”
Minutes later, I had the engines started and the guys tossed off the lines. Andrew was busy on the GPS, punching in the numbers that Deuce had given him for Rafe Ross’s address.
“Like Manny said,” Andrew explained, “Capers is only navigable for about two hundred meters.”
“Satellite image shows his house close to the creek, with a long dock,” Deuce said. “The creek’s split in two parts by an island at the mouth. He’s on the north side of the north fork. The dock is about five hundred meters from the mouth.”
“Is that live satellite you’re looking at?” I asked.
“Yeah, but we can’t see much, even on thermal. There’s a very dense tree canopy and a hot spot near the foot of the pier. Probably a fire pit. The dock’s clear, but his boat’s not there.”
“Dammit,” I yelled at nobody in particular. “Wait, Chyrel said he used some kind of cell phone application to navigate with. Can Julie locate his phone?”
“I’ll try, Jesse,” Julie’s voice came over the comm. “Give me just a minute.”
“Find him, Jules,” I said. “We’re leaving the dock now.”
I pushed both throttles to the stops and the Revenge lifted up on plane, sending a huge wave astern, washing up into the general’s backyard. Andrew turned on the forward scanning sonar and the big spotlight on the roof.
“Tony, take the wheel,” I said once we’d cleared the bridge and were headed toward the commercial docks again. “Art, come with me.”
We went down to my stateroom and I punched in the code on the digital pad under my bunk. When I pulled the release handle, the bunk raised up, hydraulic assists hissing. I quickly located five pairs of night vision goggles and handed them to Art. Then I took out three short fly rod cases and a reel box before we returned to the bridge.
When I passed the fly rod cases to Tony, Art, and Andrew, they each opened them and removed the MP5 machine pistols hidden inside. They each inspected their weapons and checked the action. Manny asked where his was.
“Sorry, brother. You’re active-duty military. You’re with me and only as a spotter.”
“Since when do you follow rules?” Manny asked.
I handed him a Penn Reel case and said, “This is only so you can cover my six, alright?”
Manny opened the box and took out one of my 9mm Sig Sauer semi-autos. He ratcheted the slide, checked the chamber and released it before inserting a magazine and racking a round into the chamber.
“Found him!” Julie said. “The boat’s headed up Cowen Creek now. Moving about seven knots.”
“Roger that,” I said as we rocketed past the markers for Battery Creek and entered Beaufort River. A moment later, I picked up the channel markers in the river and adjusted our course.
“What’s your draft on plane?” Manny asked.
“Four feet,” I replied.
“It’s past low tide now. You won’t have enough water to cut across the shallows before Cowen Spit. You’ll have to go way down around it.”
Art passed out the night vision goggles. I put mine on and was momentarily blinded by the spotlight shining ahead of us. “Going dark,” Andrew said as he switched off all the lights and turned on the tiny infrared light mounted in the pulpit.
“Whoa,” Manny said. “You guys thought of everything. Where’s that IR mounted? Up on the roof?”
Andrew was bent over the camera display on his side of the helm, using the zoom function to look further down the river than I could see. “It’s in the combing of the pulpit,” he replied. “Can’t see it unless you look really close.”
“The boat just reached the dock,” Julie said over the comm. “I can’t see any faces, though. Looks like six men and three women walking toward shore on the pier. One of them is carrying something large over his shoulder.”
“Didn’t you say you saw a woman get on the boat, just before they tried to blow up the Revenge, Deuce?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “If one of the women is her, then one of the men is carrying either Chyrel, Pat, or Chrissy.”
“What do you think they want with them?” Julie asked.
“I’m afraid to guess,” I replied. “Coming up on the turn, everyone hang on.”
On the plotter, the turn appeared to be almost a hundred and eighty degrees and no more than a half mile wide. While that might not be a sharp turn while driving a car, in a boat that weighs eighteen tons, skimming the water at fifty knots, that’s a very tight turn. I turned the wheel to port, increasing the turn as the Revenge slowed, her port chine digging deep. I straightened the wheel, and the Revenge surged forward.
“I know it’s kind of late to ask,” Deuce said, “but do you have a plan, Jesse?”
“I don’t know about him,” Andrew mumbled, “but I was thinking of just walking ashore and shooting everyone I see that I don’t know.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” I replied. “There’s five of us and seven of them. How hard can it be?”
“Um, there’s more than seven,” Julie said. “Five more just came out of the tree line onto the pier.”
I saw Tony turn and look back at me. “How do you wanna play it, Skipper?”
“Are there any other docks close by?” I asked as we roared past a number of high-end motor yachts and sailboats tied up at expensive-looking docks to port. The GPS showed we were less than a mile from the turn into Capers Creek. I reached up and pulled back on the throttles, slowly bringing the Revenge down off plane. At a high idle, I continued up Cowen Creek another half mile, then dropped down to idle speed.
“None,” Julie replied.
“We run the Revenge up onto the mud,” I said, looking at the banks on either side. From the water’s edge to dry land looked like a good fifty feet. “I’ll get us as close to dry ground as I can, but we’re gonna be stuck there until the tide comes back up. You guys will have to get dirty. Manny and I can cover your insertion from up on the bow.”
“That sounds like a little better plan,” Deuce said. “All of you charging down a two-hundred-foot pier, you’d be sitting ducks if they’re armed.”
“Julie,” I said, “you’ll need to guide me. Scan the creek bank west of the dock and find me the narrowest mud bank.”
“On it,” she replied. There was silence for a long minute. Just as we were approaching the south fork of Capers Creek, Julie said, “After you make the turn, about a hundred yards further, you’ll see a marsh extending north, with trees on either side. On the east side of that marsh, the mud flat is only twenty feet wide.”
“How far is that from the house?” I asked.
“Less than three hundred yards across what looks like cultivated land. There are low trees before you reach the field. Not sure if you can see over them, though.”
“Tony, you and Art get up on the bow,” I ordered. “Hang on to the rails near the pulpit. When we hit the mud, I’ll try to create a water bulge to ride up on. Andrew, are you up for it?”
“My left eye’s a little swollen,” he replied. “But I can shoot and move okay.”
“You’re with them, then,” I said. “Manny, be ready. As soon as the boat stops, I want you prone on the roof with the spotting scope. If you can’t see over those trees, let me know and then meet me at the pulpit.”
Everyone scrambled to their positions. I noticed that Andrew had moved all the way out onto the pulpit, kneeling with his MP5 slung on his back and both hands on the rail. Tony and Art took up positions on either side and behind him.
“Be ready,” I said. “If they don’t hear us idling, they’re sure to hear us when I run it up on the mud.”
“Tell me again how the ape kicked you outta your own boat,” Swimp said to
Damien.
“Fuck you, man. He got lucky is all. I’m just glad those ambulance guys cut the ropes offa me while I played possum.”
Swimp turned the wheel slightly, aiming the boat up Cowen Creek. They hadn’t found the Jamaicans, but they did find the money. Two hundred thousand dollars, and with Cross out of the picture it was his. He’d told his cousins that if they found the money, he’d split half of it with them. Rosses crawled out of the woodwork, like so many cockroaches, once word got around.
Finding the boat had been easy. Swimp’s family numbered in the hundreds, and most could be found on the water on any given day. One of Swimp’s cousins was fishing Archer Creek when the calls started going out. Luke had called Swimp directly to confirm that the boat named Gaspar’s Revenge had gone up Battery Creek, then he followed it at a discreet distance until it tied up at a dock.
Swimp wanted to wait until it was good and dark, but his cousins convinced him to move early and go in by car. Swimp and five of his kin arrived at the house within two hours in two pickup trucks, just as the sun was going down. The Jamaicans had left and only one man was there. He hadn’t been much of a deterrent for Swimp and his five cousins. There was a bonus third woman, to go along with the briefcase full of cash. Swimp was pretty sure he’d beaten the guy to death before they left with the money and women. The older woman had put up a fight, kicking and scratching like a wildcat. She looked to be close to sixty, but was strong for a woman and didn’t look half-bad. When they got to Swimp’s house, she’d be the first, and he’d force the other two to watch as his cousins gang-raped the older woman.
The bonus woman was pretty hot, and Swimp wanted her first. Maybe second, too. The others could have the kid—she was too skinny for his liking.
Once they’d tied off at the dock, the older one began kicking and scratching again. She yelled obscenities at them as the three women were forced up to the dock, hands pawing them all over and pulling at their clothes. Damien stopped the old cougar with a right cross to the chin.
Fallen Angel: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 9) Page 20
