Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) (20 page)

“That’s what I’m betting on,” Nick
confirmed. “We may have a big opportunity to find out what’s really going on.”

“So, what you’ve uncovered so far with
your bugs is that Yancy Masters and Sheriff Jeff Thomas are running some kind
of illegal smuggling operation, probably drugs.”

Nick nodded. “Tonight, if we set this
up right, we might find out exactly what they’re smuggling, where it’s coming
from, and where it’s going.”

CHAPTER
14

NICK AND HANNA had the Zodiac anchored
on the south side of a finger of land that jutted into Discovery Bay, off Miller
Peninsula, a mile below Gardiner’s Corner. Sheltered from the view of any boat
coming into the bay from the Strait of San Juan de Fuca to the north, they waited
for their target, prepared for the possibility that there might be more than
one boat.

Kurt Palmer was several miles above
them, standing on the catwalk of a local lighthouse on Vancouver Point.
Sixty-three feet up in the air, he was scanning the Strait of Juan de Fuca with
a pair of high-powered, infra-red binoculars, looking for the freighter and the
speed boats that would be delivering the contraband. Once spotted, he’d alert
Nick on his SAT phone.

Earlier in the day, the two men had
decided that they were probably going to be witnessing a drug drop. While Kurt
was watching for the freighter, Nick was preparing to dive down to the bottom
of the bay to observe the drop and grab a sample. But first, he and Hanna had
to spot the mules in their boats, and then overtly follow them to the drop
point. Challenging, but not impossible with the way they were equipped.

They were both dressed in long-sleeved
black wet suits, and nothing on their Zodiac projected any light or reflected
it. Nick felt assured that they were as invisible as they could get. There was
just one more thing to do.

“Time to become invisible, Doctor.”

Hanna crawled over to him and sat back
on her haunches. Nick dipped two fingers into the jar of grease paint. She
watched him warily. “This stuff will come off, right?”

He grinned, revealing nothing but a
straight row of pearly white teeth. He had just finished painting his own face.
“After a few good scrubbings.”

Grumbling, she presented her face.
When he was done, he pulled a black knit cap over the bright halo of her hair,
tucking all stray tendrils beneath it.

“I can’t do anything about your glasses,
but since they’re black rimmed, I doubt they’ll show. I hate to have you take
them off. You’re so blind without them, and we can’t afford you losing your
contacts.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. He’d
been teasing her about being blind without her glasses for as long as she could
recall. “One of these days I’m going to have laser surgery to correct my
vision. Then, I’ll never have to wear these ugly glasses again, or worry about
losing my contacts.”

“Your glasses aren’t ugly. They’ve
always looked cute on you.”

“Yeah, right!” She rolled her eyes,
knowing he could at least see that expression on her blackened features. “I
don’t know why I’m such a chicken about eye surgery, but I am. I ought to feel
more comfortable about it, being a doctor and all. I guess I’m afraid that if
something went wrong, I could never operate again.”

“You don’t need the surgery. I like
you in your glasses. They’re part of your charm.”

“Oh boy, if that isn’t laying it on
thick, Colonel!”

Nick frowned, disturbed by her
comment. “Why do you think I’m putting you on when I tell you how pretty you
are, Hanna?”

“Because I look in the mirror every
day.” She wished they weren’t having this conversation, even though she had
started it, more or less. “I know that I am a plain woman. Like I’ve said―
just ordinary looking. Brains, not beauty.”

“Bullshit, Doctor Wallace! You’re
smart and beautiful. What do you know anyway? Let a man be the judge of your
appeal.”

“Oh, and I have so many of them
knocking on my door.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re too blind to
see them. I don’t want them knocking on your door.”

That stopped her in her tracks. Surprised
by his vehemence, as well as his words, she could only stare silently at him.
Despite how it had sounded, she really hadn’t been fishing for compliments. His
insistence that she was pretty, even beautiful, was something she hoped he
wasn’t lying about.

Dark water lapped against the black
rubber sides of the Zodiac. It was late. There was no activity on shore. In the
distance, the lights inside the sprinkling of houses along the coastline had
gone out hours ago. The bay was calm tonight; with very little wave activity.
The only thing that could be heard was the occasional call of a night bird or
the jumping of a fish in the black water. And, interestingly enough, there was
no moon out. More than likely, the smugglers had chosen such nights to deliver
their shameful goods.

Silence reigned until Nick spoke into
the tiny microphone that curved in front of his mouth. Hanna knew Kurt was on
the other end of his SAT phone. When Nick was finished, he took the headset off
and handed it to her.

“Kurt spotted the freighter. There are
a couple of speedboats coming our way,” he informed her. “Put the headset on,
and if Kurt calls or you have to contact him, respond in a whisper only. He’ll
be able to hear you.”

Fifteen minutes later, two medium
sized speedboats zoomed past, a hundred feet beyond them in the bay. They were
indeed headed toward Discovery Junction at the lower end. Nick started the
Zodiac engine, which was whisper quiet, and followed them, staying close to the
coastline of Miller Peninsula in order to remain as hidden as possible.

Interestingly enough, the speedboats
were running with a low beam lights on. It made it easier to follow them. Nick
kept a safe distance between them and the smugglers.

Once he motored past Mynard Marina
where Hanna’s sailboat was docked, he steered the Zodiac slowly across the bay,
into a tiny cove almost directly across from where the smugglers were stopping.

The two speedboats cut their lights
and their engines a hundred feet off the tip of Discovery Junction’s sandy
spit. Nick hurriedly strapped on his diving fins and his special oxygen tank.

“Time to dive,” he whispered. “If you
run into any problems, call Kurt. Stay put, stay low, and stay quiet.” He had
already given her instructions about the photographs he wanted taken. Easing
into a squat, he planted a kiss on her lips. One big gloved hand cupped the
side of her stocking-capped head. “The photos aren’t so important that I want
you putting yourself at risk for them. Remember that.”

She caught his hand and squeezed it. “Be
careful down there.”

“They won’t see me.” He sent her a
white-toothed grin, then rolled over the side of the Zodiac and slipped
silently into the inky water.

Hanna watched him dive, then he was
gone. There were no bubbles to give away his path. But she knew where he was
going and followed visually. A quarter of a mile separated them from the two
speedboats. Hanna couldn’t make them out clearly without using the camera Nick
had given her, so she moved to the edge of the Zodiac and lifted the long
telephoto lens to rest on the high rim. Looking through the infrared lens, she
aimed the camera at the spot where the speedboats had stopped. She focused for
a moment on the orange buoys that marked the location of the crab pots in the
cove. There were ten of them clustered in a large circle.

Since Nick had asked her specifically
to get pictures of the serial numbers on the boats and of the men inside them,
she turned her lens to the boats. There was activity on both so she moved back
and forth between the two.

Capturing as much as she could, she
took photo after photo. She saw one man lean over the side of his boat and pull
up the chain that connected a pot to its marker buoy. A crab was tossed aside. The
second man handed him a canister, like the ones she and Nick had found. The
first man then put it inside the cage he had pulled up. The process was
repeated on each boat— one canister for each pot, until all the crab cages were
filled. The men on board worked very quickly and deliberately. None of them
ever went into the water, thank God, since that was where Nick was conducting
his surveillance.

While she snapped her photos, Hanna
did a quick mental tabulation of the number of cylinders being put into the
traps. Once she saw that they had inserted ten cylinders into ten cages, she
knew their task was probably finished. She wondered if Nick was going to bring
one up for inspection. She was anxious to see exactly what these men were
delivering.

Twenty minutes later, the two unlit
speedboats restarted their engines and headed out of the bay, this time running
dark until they were well beyond the sand spit at the Junction. Nick surfaced just
as they turned their running lights on. He came up so close to the Zodiac,
Hanna thought he must have sonar radar imbedded somewhere inside of him. It was
pitch black out, and yet he’d managed to find his way back without a hitch
apparently. Elated with his safe return, she reached down to assist him into
the boat.

He immediately sank back on his heels
and pulled two canisters out of his belt. Then he pulled off his headgear and
mask, and unstrapped his air tank. “Let’s take a peek, shall we?”

After unscrewing the lid, he pulled a
long, zip-locked, plastic bag out of the fishing rod tube. Opening the bag, he
sniffed it, then put one of the tiny white crystal flakes on his tongue. “China
White— Heroin 4. The most powerful form of the stuff. Just as I suspected.”

Hanna stared at the water tight bag
full of white flakes. Even in the darkness, they seemed to sparkle, radiating
their own ethereal light. So beautiful and so evil. She shuddered.

“I counted ten cylinders being
delivered.”

Nick wasn’t surprised. “Once this
stuff is cut and diluted, it could be worth millions of dollars on the
streets.”

Hanna was shocked at the amount of
money. “Yancy doesn’t seem like that big of a crook.”

Nick laughed. “There’s so much money
in drugs, Hanna, little crooks become big ones fast. I don’t know what his cut
on these shipments are, but he makes enough to have lots of expensive things in
his life.”

“Where is he getting it from?”

“That’s what we find out next.” Nick
put the bags back into the tubes and resealed them. “We need to get ready for
the pickup. The mules should be along real soon.”

“How do you know that?”

“No one would leave millions of dollars’
worth of heroin sitting here long.”

Nick took the headset from Hanna and
called Kurt. When he was finished speaking to the FBI agent, he told Hanna that
the freighter and delivery boats had departed toward Vancouver Island.

“So that might be where the drugs are
coming from?”

“Possibly. Kurt’s going to look more
closely at the freighter,”

Nick settled in next to Hanna on the
floor of the Zodiac, giving her the camera again while he took a pair of night
vision binoculars for himself from his duffle bag.

“I hear marine motors,” Hanna
whispered.

“Okay, just use hand signals until
they leave.”

Nick had taught Hanna a few of the
basic hand signals he used for silent communication in the field with his
teams. She nodded and positioned her camera as they both saw three boats arrive
wakeless and nearly soundless out near the Junction sand spit. All of the boats
were running without lights. Two were sleek little speed boats, and one was a
small cabin cruiser. Through the infrared lens of her camera, Hanna saw two men
onboard the cabin cruiser. One pulled a trap up, and one retrieved the
contents.

Hanna remembered the general
description Nat Simms had given her of the cabin cruiser Dylan had intercepted.
This one looked very similar. She snapped several photos, zooming in and catching
the serial number on the hull.

Then she got several photos of the two
men leaning over the side of the boat. As she did so, she wondered if she was
looking at one or both of her brother’s murderers. Had he seen something he
shouldn’t have when he stopped that boat? Had he been killed for it? It was a
chilling supposition. But it also sent a hot surge of anger through her.

After taking several shots of the
other two boats, Hanna sat back on her heels. When all three boats were
finished with their task, they moved toward one another and headed north, out
of the bay.

With a silent signal, Nick motioned
Hanna to secure a seat. He then moved to the cockpit of the Zodiac and started
the motor. Maintaining a safe distance, he followed the boats through the
center of the bay. The boats ahead of them had finally turned on their running
lights, but Nick drove dark.

At the mouth of Discovery Bay, the
three boats veered toward the northeastern end of Shelter Island where Yancy Masters’
house stood atop a forested bluff.

The smugglers pulled up to a short
unlit dock below the bluff. Hanna and Nick had not seen this side of the island
the last time they had come out. Nick hung back far enough not to be seen, but
close enough to watch a group of men run down the wooden steps from the house
to meet the boats. Hanna retrieved her high tech camera, zoomed in again, and
shot a series of pictures that documented the unloading of the boats.

Once everyone had retreated to the
house, Nick started the Zodiac and headed home. After docking the Zodiac and
locking up their equipment, they climbed the hill to the McHenry house. Hanna
had the camera slung over her shoulder and Nick carried the two containers of
China white he’d taken out of the crab cages as they silently and tiredly
followed the path through the high grasses.