Fallen Angel: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 9) (23 page)

Inside the package was one of three throwaway phones he’d picked up at a convenience store coming from the airport yesterday. Also in the package, connected to the phone’s speaker, were two sticks of dynamite and a couple hundred finish nails.

He had faith that Swimp could do what he promised. He had a lot of cousins out on Saint Helena Island and scattered around in just about every trailer park in Beaufort County. The bomb was just in case.

If Swimp succeeded in blowing up Whyte’s boat, the worst that could happen was the dynamite went off, and Nick was out two hundred thousand, plus another hundred grand to pay Swimp. Best case, it didn’t go off and the bomb was rendered harmless in the water.

But, if Whyte were to get past Swimp and make it to open water, Nick wanted to make sure the man got his full payment at the mouth of Port Royal Sound. It’d be worth the three hundred grand to know that the bodies would be lost in the outgoing tide and probably devoured by hungry sharks that the area was noted for.

In the event that they did get past Swimp, Nick would order him to follow the boat, ready to salvage what they could and retrieve Pat and Chrissy’s bodies before anyone else arrived. Port Royal Sound is very wide, the channel at the mouth closer to barren Bay Point and almost two miles from Hilton Head. That’d be the place to blow them up, and Swimp could let him know when to do it.

Nick closed the briefcase and picked up his desk phone. His driver lived in one of the guest cottages on the back of the property. When the man answered, Nick told him to bring the car around to the front. They were going into town.

Minutes later, the gates opened and the black sedan pulled out into the street, just as a white passenger van with dark tinted windows turned into the driveway across the street.

“Are the Petersons having work done?” Nick casually asked the driver, a blocky white man of sixty, with silver hair.

“Must be,” Kyle Ashcroft replied. “That same van was there most of the day yesterday.”

“I’m meeting a friend on Bay for lunch,” Nick said. “I don’t know how long we’ll be, so I’d like you to stay with the car.”

“No problem, sir. Any word from the police in the Bahamas?”

“The man I’m meeting might be able to help,” Nick lied. Not much of a lie, though. “I’m flying down there later today.” That part was at least true. He’d head for the islands just as soon as he knew Swimp got the job done and stay there for a week before returning home. After a week, the investigation would grow cold, and he’d be told that his daughter and mother-in-law were, in all likelihood, dead. Victims of the growing drug problem in the Caribbean.

T
he sheriff’s unmarked cruiser crossed the bridge and turned into the parking lot of a boat landing. I recognized it as the one where Sheena and I had seen the crazy woman in the red racing boat yesterday. Pulling back onto Sea Island Parkway, we started across the bridge again, so as to be on the same side of the bridge as the ladder.

When the car stopped in the middle of the swing bridge, the three of us got out on the passenger side and quickly made our way up the ladder. Sergeant Benton led the way into the bridge keeper’s little glass house, built into the superstructure of the bridge.

“Morning, Will,” an older man said as we entered. “What’s got you up and about this early?”

“Morning, Otis,” Benton said. “These two men are federal agents. There’s going to be an arrest on the docks in a few hours, and they’ll be backing up the arresting agents.”

“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.