A Deeper Blue

Chapter Six

“WOOO-HOO!” Katya hooted, taking a swig from the bottle of tequila.

She wasn’t the only girl on the yacht but she was, without question, the center of attention. Which had the other six girls somewhat pissed. And she was definitely the center of attention for the target.

The gathering could not be called a party simply because it was more or less continuous. Juan Gonzales was well-known as a center for partying, even in the fun-loving Bahamas. Wherever he went, his boat was filled with casual “company,” most of the company young, good-looking females.

But except for during spring-break — when things got wild enough to make any of the various “party” shows would it be possible to smuggle a video camera on-board — the girls were rarely so… exuberant.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Juan said, raising a glass towards the new girl.

“I LOVE the Bahamas!” Katya shouted, taking another swig.

Jay had given her a drug that counteracted the effect of alcohol but she hardly needed it. She wasn’t taking nearly as big slugs as it appeared for one thing. For another, she had a fairly high tolerance for alcohol. Despite that, she’d taken one of the pills, which were tucked in a special pouch under her left arm, before she came back on deck.

There were more devices secreted around her body. Under her right armpit there had been four bugs, newest generation “brilliant” monitoring devices. The bugs recorded conversation, screening for background noise and nonconversational sounds, then, when their memory was full, dumped a short directional squeal towards a central receiver.

One of the bugs, and the central recorder, Katya had placed in the bathroom. It was amazing what people, especially females, would talk about in the bathroom. And she’d wanted to get rid of the receiver as soon as possible. While it would normally require a body cavity search to find it, Juan might just be into backdoor.

The bug, which looked like a small wad of chewing gum, went under the sink. There was enough detritus under there it was clear that it was rarely, if ever, cleaned. The receiver went inside the holding tank of the toilet. It looked fairly natural there even if anyone bothered to lift the lid.

But she still had three more to plant, not to mention anything she could pick up.

Getting the data out, though, that was another problem. She could leave the boat freely, small dinghies regularly ran back and forth to the nearby town, but she couldn’t off-load any of the data loaded in her head as she was used to. However, Jay had given her a number of drop points if she had anything to report. “The old-fashioned way” as he put it.

Juan Gonzales was a known cocaine trafficker. Convicting him, ah, that was the rub. As was getting anyone to extradite him given that the few witnesses willing to testify against him had all ended up dead. And he had very advanced measures to prevent exactly what Katya was, in fact, doing. While Juan was fully immersed in the partying, the several “security” men in the area were carefully watching most of the guests. Most. They had clearly been well-trained to ignore the girls. Otherwise one could be used as a distraction, right?

The one guy that had Katya nervous was the security chief. Michael Ritter was an Australian, a medium-height blond guy with a hearty laugh and long wavy hair. Pretty good looking if you ignored the broken nose that had been inadequately set. An Australian SAS veteran, he now did “international security contracting.” He’d been hired by Gonzales after a serious attack that had nearly captured the drug trafficker while in transit in Colombia. It still wasn’t clear if the attack had been by the Colombian government, American special forces or competitors.

Gonzales had escaped but only barely. And his bodyguards had performed less than ably. He’d come to the conclusion that he needed a professional, versed in all the modern methods of security and countermeasures and Ritter was highly recommended. Despite being formerly on the side of Light in most people’s eyes, he had worked in enough shady places it was clear he’d gone over to the Dark side. What the heck, with rare exceptions the money was much better.

The rest of the security, though, were Colombians. They’d been spiffed up and given new shoes but they were still boys right out of the jungle. Big and probably capable in a firefight but they weren’t expert watchers. Ritter had the eyes. He saw everything and he saw through many things. He was the one to convince.

“So where are you from?” Gonzales said, waving for the girl to sit in his lap.

“North Carolina,” Katya said, dropping lightly into the lap and then giving a little wiggle. “I go to ASU, you know? And I just figured why hang around for winter quarter? There’s hardly anything going on. So I caught a bus down to Miami and a guy gave me a ride over here on his boat. But it wasn’t nothing like this! This is just fine.”

She was aware that the southern accent needed some work but she’d watched all the episodes of Dukes of Hazzard she could stand.

“I’m glad you like it,” Gonzales said, grinning. “I keep it just for ladies like you.”

“Well, thankee,” Katya said. “But you know the one thing here that’s wrong?”

“What?” Gonzales said, furrowing his brow. “Simply ask and it shall be yours.”

“You’re not having any fun!” Katya said, squeezing her tits together and pouring some of the tequila into the skin-lined cup. “Body shots!”

Gonzales grinned and leaned forward, sucking the raw tequila out of the crevice.

“WHOO-HOO!” Katya hooted, pouring in another shot.

This was a lot better than getting beat up.

Lilia frowned at the beeping. There were so many systems in the room and one of them was always beeping. But she couldn’t figure out which one it was this time.

She spun back and forth in her station chair, looking for the source then, when it wasn’t apparent, started hunting around the compartment.

“What?” Greznya said. She was compiling a report on known smuggling methods. Most of them related to drug smuggling, but people quite often tried the same methods without realizing they were reinventing the wheel.

“You hear that?” Lilia asked, turning her head from side to side.

“No,” Greznya said, looking around. But Lilia was a top voice analyst for a reason; she had phenomenal ears.

Lilia finally tracked the sound to a case, one of the many they’d used to bring the gear over. It was third down in a stack. After she’d gotten to it she popped the latches and looked at the laptop sized device. A blue light was flashing on the edge and every few seconds it let out a “beep.”

“Low battery?” Lilia asked, lifting the box out of the foam cocoon. The fact that she’d been able to detect the beeping through the foam was testament to her hearing.

“No,” Greznya said, coming over and taking it from her. “You weren’t on the Balkans op.”

“That’s Katya’s box,” Julia said from across the room. “What the hell is it doing?”

“I don’t know,” Greznya said, sliding a USB cable between the box and her computer. She brought up the communications software, then punched in her security code. Immediately, the data screen started to scroll.

“The reason it was beeping was that its memory was getting full,” Greznya said.

“We dumped it after the last mission,” Julia pointed out.

“Yes, but it’s been receiving for the last two days.”

“Katya’s here?” Mike asked.

“Yes, sir,” Greznya replied. “She is currently a guest of a man with a boat not far from us. Close enough that we’ve been getting her take for the last two days. We didn’t know that. Sorry.”

“Who?” Mike said, frowning.

“Juan Gonzales,” Greznya said, sliding over a folder. “Suspected cocaine smuggler. Known for all practical purposes, but nobody will arrest him due to lack of evidence.”

“Interesting,” Mike said.

“We’ve been worried about drug smugglers hooking up with Al Qaeda for a while,” Britney said. “One of the reasons we’ve got the Narc Shop. But if he’s actually working with them, well, that’s a first.”

“And one that we’re going to discourage,” Mike said. “Very directly. We know anything about his methods?”

“Various,” Greznya said. “Sometimes he’ll send shipments hidden in containers. Some have been caught, others… presumably not. He’s used planes in the past. A current method involves fast boats. They come in from offshore and drop bundles off. They’ve been caught with the bundles but Coast Guard and DEA have never figured out how they make rendezvous. And they don’t know where the cocaine comes from. The boats don’t have the range to make it all the way from Colombia.”

“Lots of islands around,” Mike said. “Famously. Lots of ways to transfer it, too. But transferring in closer… They probably rendezvous with boats offshore.”

“Won’t work,” Britney said, walking across the office. “Greznya asked me to sit in on this one.”

“Lieutenant Harder has experience in this area,” Greznya said.

“I thought you were Army?” Mike said.

“South American desk of SOCOM,” Britney replied, sitting down and crossing her legs. “We do a lot of counter drug ops. I spend more time in the DEA database than in Harmony.”

“So why won’t rendezvousing offshore work?” Mike asked, leaning back.

“You said you’d lived down here,” Britney said. “You’ve seen those big balloons they have a couple of places in the keys and such?”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “They’re radar balloons, I know that. But one boat… There are a lot of boats around here, Britney.”

“Sure are,” Britney said. “The daily take is over forty thousand tracks including all flights. But the tracks are all dumped to a supercomputer, continuously, that has pattern recognition software. If a boat that heads inshore to the U.S. waters meets a boat that is from outside territorial waters or just coming out of Bimini or the Cut or whatever, that incoming boat is tagged. And the Coast Guard, nine times out of ten, does a ‘safety inspection.’ Boats running down the coast, outside territorial waters, have a lower tag rate. They could be going anywhere. Boats going out and coming in, lower still. Fishermen go out and come in every day, thousands and thousands of them. No way you can stop them all.”

“So what’s going on?” Mike asked. “Any theories?”

“Sure, lots,” Britney said. “Some of Gonzales’ boats have been stopped and found to contain illicit substances. Those are seized. There’s some of his and a bunch more of other cartels’ sitting in the Hollywood boat yard awaiting auction. Others were empty. They might have already gotten rid of their cargo; they might have just been testing the system. The Colombians do that, too. It’s a real cat and mouse game. If you want the number one theory, they’re dumping them, somewhere, and then other people pick them up.”

“Run a boat out,” Mike said, musingly. “Do a dive. Hey, it’s in the middle of nowhere, but maybe the guy found a new reef to spearfish…”

“Exactly,” Britney said.

“Hard as hell to figure out,” Mike said. “Even with the radar and supercomputer. Boats have got to cross tracks all the damned time. If you’re smart you drop a small buoy and the diver on the spot. The diver goes down, does his thing, comes back up, signals the boat. The current has already carried him away from the track. The boat comes back, picks him up, moves on. There’s a bunch of problems, though.”

“There are?” Britney asked, raising an eyebrow.

“They’re going to need to follow a general track,” Mike said, still looking at the ceiling. “So they’re going to have to have orders on what track to follow. And they’re going to need to know approximately where to drop on the track. Last, they’re going to have to tell somebody where, exactly, they dropped. And that information is going to have to be passed to whoever is fishing the shit out of the water. That’s bi-directional information flow. And you’re not going to be able to do much of it via straight transfer. That is, if somebody picks up a phone and says ‘The cookies are at x coordinates,’ eventually somebody is going to pick that up in an intercept. Then your shit gets fished up by a sheriff’s dive team.”

“Congratulations,” Britney said, chuckling. “You figured out what it took DEA about six months to do. They’re looking for the information exchange method and trying to write an update for the coding but they’re having a hard time.”

“Yes, I think I understand,” Greznya said, her eyes distant. “Yes, that would be very hard coding. And you would have many many false positives.”

“Because boats turn like that all the time,” Mike said. “You get a hit on the sonar. You see a school of tuna and go chase it. Your divers are doing a drift dive. Hell, you lose your damned hat! The weak point is the information transfer. There’s some part of that that will tell us where the motherlode is.”

He sat back and looked at the ceiling for a moment.

“Any way we can get intel on suspect tracks?” Mike asked, picking up his tea without looking and taking a sip. “Especially ones coming in from north of the Bahamas?”

“The data stream we’re on has them all the time,” Britney said, frowning. “Why?”

“We need some equipment and I think it’s training time,” Mike said. “I’ll consider the conundrum of Katya at another time. In the meantime… Greznya, get me… Vil and the pilots. Britney, want to take a trip to the Keys?”

“New girl,” Ritter said, sitting down next to the computer console.

“Pretty,” Suarez said. “But aren’t they all?”

Enrico Suarez was a graduate of the University of California, San Diego. He’d gotten a bachelors in computer programming, then gone to Stanford for his masters. However, as much as he could have made in Silicon Valley, he knew he could make more working for the cartels. A few friends had gotten him introduced to other friends until he found someone who was willing to meet his, very high, price.

The nice thing about working for the cartels was that they didn’t care exactly how you got information, they just wanted to make sure they had it and nobody had theirs.

Suarez did various jobs for Gonzales, but one of them was “vetting” the various visitors that came on his boat. Frankly, it was easy.

He keyed in the name Alicia Patterson and let the computer search. Quickly enough it came back with the information that Alicia Patterson was a sophomore at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Her home address was listed in Highlands, North Carolina. She was listed as a former student at Highlands High School. Her grades at Highlands had been much better than those at ASU. She was not attending this quarter but was shown as permitted for qualified admission the next; she was right on the edge of academic suspension. There were four photos. One was a very old security photo from a company that maintained a database for parents who were afraid their children might be kidnapped. The second was from her driver’s license. She had had three speeding tickets in the last year and was right on the edge of suspension for that, too. The third was from her ASU student identity card. The fourth was a very old and grainy photo of her in a local newspaper database. She was one of six winners of her elementary school spelling bee.

“That her?” Suarez said, smirking.

“That’s her,” Ritter said, nodding.

“Her grades are taking a nose-dive,” Suarez said. “Did she say how she got down here?”

“Something about a bus,” Ritter said. “I guess she boat-bunnied from there.”

“Bet she doesn’t go back,” Suarez said. “Fins and all that. Small town girl. Hits college, gets into partying. Takes off… Boat-bunny material par excellence.”

“Good,” Ritter said, standing up. “I felt it was convenient her showing up right now.”

“She’s for real,” Suarez said. “No question. It all checks.”

“Ali’s Bargain Palace!”

Jay listened to the scratchy connection for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes, Hamid! I need the T-shirts very much! I must have by Tuesday! Yes. Good. In’shallah!”

He turned back to the two tourists from Dubuque who were looking over the selection of cheap T-shirts and even cheaper, if very overpriced, souvenirs.

“All very good, mon!” Jay said in an Arabic imitation of an islands accent. “Very good. You look good in this one,” he said, pulling down a shirt with a large shark surfacing and handing it to the very large woman.

Katya was in, they’d checked her CV and apparently hadn’t had any questions since the hacks had only gone to that point and then stopped. If they’d had any questions they would have searched deeper. Finding Robert’s trojans in the NC DOT database, the ASU student database and the Highlands Courier would have been hard, but the search would have been obvious.

Robert was expensive but, like Jay, a patriot and very good. The NSA had been idiots to let him go over one little unauthorized hack. Especially since the take had proven him right.

God damn the Clinton administration.

“Very good!” Ali Hamedi said as the couple walked away. The Midwesterners looked as if they didn’t care much for Islamics.

Good for them. Neither did “Ali Hamedi.”

“What is this place?” Britney asked as the white Lynx settled onto the helipad.

“Islamorada Harbor,” Mike said, nostalgically. Things had been… simpler once upon a time.

The harbor was tucked inland about a quarter mile from the water, the only access a half natural, half man-made cut. For Mike, it was one definition of home.

“Thanks, Kacey,” Mike said over the intercom. “You good on the way home?”

“We’ll have to tank again,” Kacey replied. They’d had to stop in Bimini as it was. “And again on the way back. No externals on this bird. But we’re good.”

Mike waved and climbed out of the helicopter, followed by Britney. The weather was still cool so they were both wearing windbreakers and jeans. Mike’s had a snarling tiger face on the breast pocket and the name “Kildar” embroidered on the back over a much larger embroidered tiger.

So somebody was after him. That was just fine by Mike. Next time let them shoot the right target.

He made his way to the marina’s offices, sniffing the air. It was a good day to go fishing; the recently passed cold front would bring the fish up a treat. And it was perfect sailfish conditions. Unfortunately, he just didn’t have the fucking time.

He opened up the door to the grimy interior and grinned. “Hey, Sol.”

“Mike!” the man said, standing up and coming around the corner. He shook Mike’s hand, then gave him a bear hug. “Man, where you been?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Mike said.

“You disappear and then some DEA guys bring your boat back,” Shatalin said, shaking his head. Sol Shatalin was a short-coupled, barrel-chested man, a former Navy bosun who had a part interest in the marina. The money was a guy in Michigan who’d made his fortune in bio-tech, then settled back to enjoy it. Part of that was buying a marina, partially because they were pretty good moneymakers but more so that he had an in on the Florida boat and fishing trade.

Sol ran the place, working his ass off most of the time but loving every minute of it. However, he’d worried about his friend, the former SEAL who had disappeared.

“Christ, they actually used DEA?” Mike said, shaking his head. “Great.”

“Oh, they didn’t wear the jacket or anything,” Sol said. “But after you’ve been down here for a while you know. They were dressed like gang-bangers, you know? But they were… too straight. And bangers wouldn’t be returning your boat; they’d be selling it.”

“Captain Don’s been running it, though?” Mike asked.

“Yeah,” Sol said, shrugging. “Keeps it in good shape.”

“Don’s a good man,” Mike said. “But I’m here about the Late.”

“Tied up on D-43,” Sol said. “Don’s used that for a few charters, too. I’ve made sure it’s up. Just put in a new fuel injection system, bottom’s recently painted. You got the bill.”

“I’m sure,” Mike said, smiling. “I spend most of my time lately signing checks.”

“Hey, where were you for that nuke that went off?” Sol asked. “You remember, about a week or so after you left? And where’d those two chicks with you go?”

“Uh, they caught a ride home,” Mike said. “You know boat bunnies. And I was… Hell, Abacos I think. Yeah. Abacos. That day. I got the news a few days later in Nassau.”

“Okay,” Sol said, nodding slowly. “Just asking. ’Cause, you know the newsies. They get everything wrong. There was one news report said that the FAST that was supposed to have been the ones that found it got there… too late. That it was actually a one-man operation, a CIA agent. And the fucking terrorists were using cigarettes. Then, well, there’s this cigarette turns up, two more DEA guys, by the way, say that it belongs to my old SEAL buddy. And guess what its name is? Too Late.”

“Coincidences are hell, aren’t they?” Mike said. “But unfortunately, we’ve got a date to make.”

“We?” Sol asked, looking out the window. “Another hottie. You go, dude.”

“Britney,” Mike said, walking outside. “This is Sol Shatalin. Great guy. Sol, Britney Harder.”

Shatalin didn’t comment on the name, he just nodded.

“Army?” he asked.

“I was,” Britney said, shrugging. “Just got out. Shows, huh?”

“Right, pull the other one,” Shatalin said, shaking his head. “MP or intel?”

“Intel,” Britney said, frowning.

Mike shrugged. “Sol’s got an eye.”

“Sollie’s got eyes, Sollie’s got ears, Sollie ain’t got a mouth,” Shatalin said, smiling. “I think Sollie’s even got a current TS, for that matter. Not that I give a shit down here. People want to run drugs, that’s their business.”

“A lot of people die because of those drugs,” Britney said, her face tight. “Not just cops and gang-bangers and innocents on the streets, here, but innocents in Colombia and Venezuela and all over South America. And American troops I might add.”

“Then legalize them,” Sol said, shrugging. “We’ve got enough problems as it is. In case you’ve got your nose stuck too far into the drug trade… Ensign.”

“Army, Sol, Army,” Mike chided.

“Sorry. Lieutenant,” Sol said. “I thought you didn’t give a rat about drugs, either, Mike. Shame on you.”

“Inside,” Mike said, gesturing with his chin.

“Okay, Sol, what do you hear?” Mike said. “Because, you’re right, I don’t. War on Drugs is stupid. Prohibition proved that. But this isn’t drugs. So… What do you hear?”

Sol went behind the counter and picked up the stub of a stogie and lit it slowly.

“What is it?” Sol asked when the foul thing was finally smoking up the room.

“That’s not for dissemination,” Britney snapped.

“Fuck you, LT,” Sol said, looking at Mike.

“Sol, first, Britney’s not a meat,” Mike said. “Yeah, she’s an LT. A cherry LT. But I knew her… Way back, Sollie, way back. I covered her back, she covered mine. So treat her with respect. And the answer is more fucking WMD. What type is not for dissemination. And, yeah, the Andros job? That was a one-man operation. Want to see the fucking spare assholes?”

The scars from bullet marks make a puckered spot on the skin. They look very much like a small anus.

“You sure about this?” Sol asked through the cloud of smoke.

“Very,” Mike said. “We don’t know how it’s coming in. But we’re very sure.”

“New boats,” Sol said. “Up in Tavernier Creek. Two of them. Scarabs. The kicker is… Well, usually when you see Middle Eastern types with those, it’s a Saudi prince or something. They’ve got a captain, in other words. What the fuck do most Ay-rabs know about fishing? These are a few guys staying at the Hampton Inn. Bought the boats from Hanson’s up in Largo. Cash. They only go out at night. Say that they like sword-fishing. Never have much luck, though. Like… none.”

“What’s a Scarab?” Britney asked. “Sorry.”

“Big two- or three-engine fast fishing boat.” Mike shook his head. “You don’t use a Scarab for night sword-fishing. They’re run and gun boats. They rock like a son of a bitch, there’s no amenities… If you’ve got that kind of money you get a yacht like mine. If you don’t… Hell, you get an older one or a supply boat. Something with a stand-up head, a galley, bunks.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Sol said, setting down the stogie. “And that’s all I’ve got. And you didn’t hear it from me.”

“Never,” Mike said. “But thanks. I guess I better go get the Late. See you ’round, Sol.”

“You too,” Sol said, pulling out a set of keys and handing them to Mike. “And keep your head down. You SEALs never learned the Navy rule about firefights.”

Britney followed Mike down through the docks until they got to the boat, then shook her head.

“How long has this just been sitting here?” she asked.

The Too Late was a recent model Cigarette. Although “Cigarette” had become so generic that, like Kleenex, it was used as a general term, it was also a brand. And in the case of the Too Late it was actually a Cigarette as opposed to one of the company’s many competitors. At only thirty-two feet long it was smaller than some of the newer speed boats but it was still a monster. Painted black and silver, it looked as if it was straining away from the dock, ready to run.

Most high-performance vehicles had their origins in smuggling: NASCAR was derived from bootleggers, and WWII PT boats were built by a company that had supplied booze smugglers during Prohibition. Cigarette boats were no exception. In the late 1940s the taxes on cigarettes, the things people smoked, were so extreme in Europe that it made it economically feasible to smuggle them. Fast boats crossed the Mediterranean from Algeria and Malta, dropping cigarette loads mostly on the Italian and French coast. Later, similar boats were used for the increasingly popular sport of offshore racing. But their origins remained in a moderate sized cabin forward. Originally designed for small, valuable cargo, in most modern boats it had been converted into underway quarters ranging from spartan to, in the case of Fountain high-speed boats, almost ridiculously luxurious.

“It hasn’t just been sitting,” Mike said, stepping off the dock onto the gunnel, then taking off his shoes. “A friend charters it sometimes. Shoes off when you board.”

“Why?” Britney asked, but she took her running shoes off, holding them in her hands as she boarded.

“They track up the deck,” Mike said, pointing to the spotless white interior. “Don Jackson’s a captain down here. Used to be in the tobacco trade, still dabbles in it. He’s got two or three boats himself but he also knows all the local captains. A lot of good guys don’t have the money for a boat. So he sort of brokers a group of them with guys who don’t use their boats all the time. Like, for example, me. He manages the upkeep, sets up charters and banks the money. Some of it goes to keeping up the boat. I think I’m actually in the hole on the deal, but you’d have to ask my accountant. Hell, I could be making money.”

Mike got the lines untied, the door to the front cabin unlocked and started the Cigarette, backing it out of the slot and turning to make his way out of the maze of the harbor. His previous slots, C-19 and C-20, had been right by the turning pool that led to the cut. D-43 was way back.

He had lost some of his skills but he kept the first rule of close-approach navigation in mind; there is no such thing as too slow.

Once out in the turning pool he started turning on electronics. There was no other traffic to worry about so he could handle the distraction. There was quite a bit of it. Don had upgraded the GPS and autopilot with a new, fully integrated system that put all the sensors, GPS, radar, three-D depthfinder, even satellite weather on a single display. The old one had been pretty good so Mike was looking forward to trying out this one.

Three-D depthfinder, trim tabs, oil and fuel pressure: Mike ran through the whole checklist. He had to stop to make the turns out of the cut and watch for other traffic. There were far too many assholes in the Keys with boats bigger than either their dicks or brains. He’d nearly been run down several times by cigs similar to his going like a bat out of hell down narrow cuts, barely making the turns and swinging wide as they did. Bigger boats than dicks or brains.

He was trying to figure out the new GPS, which was cool as shit but also complicated as a motherfucker, when he cleared the cut. He kept the speed down until he hit the edge of the no-wake zone, then cranked it up a tad, getting up on plane and swinging into the channel that led out past the reef.

“This is nice,” Britney yelled, shucking her windbreaker. The shout was more necessary for the engine noise than the wind; this version of Cigarette’s line had a large windscreen and a nice profile that spread that away from the front seats. In fact, it was a tad warm even with the slight chill; with no wind the area was heating up from the bright sun.

Mike pulled his off and opened up a dry box.

“In there,” Mike said. “We might need them later.”

Once they cleared the first reef Mike punched coordinates to the autonav and dug deeper into the GPS. The two systems were connected but as long as he didn’t give commands he was fine checking it out. Finally, he found some of Don’s waypoints and tracks. He picked out a better one for crossing the outer reef and then found some for the Bahamas. Don had been taking his little baby far. But, hell, the Bahamas were better fishing and less than an hour away in the Cig.

“Can this thing go all the way back to Nassau?” Britney asked.

“On one tank,” Mike said. “It’s got extended range tanks. We may tank along the way, just to be safe.” He thought about that and shook his head. “Big fast boats have more range than this one, but they’re gonna have to tank somewhere. I mean, if they’re running down from north of the Bahamas to here, dropping something, then… I doubt they’re going to run right back. Too obvious. They’ll swing around, maybe through the Cut. They’ve got to tank and they’ve got to drop off their waypoints. They’ve got to pick up their next track, probably, as well.”

“So… where?” Britney asked. “And should we be talking about this?”

“Well, the boat hasn’t been swept,” Mike said. “And my name is affiliated with it.” He paused. “Hell, there could be a bomb on board for all I know.”

“That’s a great thing to say right now!” Britney snapped.

“Unlikely,” Mike added. “Sol’s pretty good in case you hadn’t noticed. But, yeah, we should be able to talk fine. There’s no way to remote listen on one of these things short of a bug; too much secondaries. Not the engine and stuff; that can be screened out. But the wind going by? That makes it impossible. Anyway, they’ve got to tank.”

Mike pulled up the GPS map, which was on a screen the size of a medium laptop, and pulled up an overview of the Bahamas.

“You’ve got the north Bahamas up here,” Mike said, pointing. “Grand Island. That’s where Freeport is. Then you’ve got this big area of open water, the Providence Channel. But here’s the kicker.”

“Most of the stuff comes in through the Keys,” Britney said, nodding. “Which is south of Providence Channel.”

“Right,” Mike said, zooming in. “So, we’re making one hell of a lot of assumptions, but… They have to run south of Bimini. If they’re picking up north of the Grands and Abacos, they’re going to have to use the Cut. It’s the only way across the Banks. Really fucking narrow at the entrance, but easy enough for a speed boat. But…”

“Where do they tank?” Britney said. “I’ve been over this before.”

“DEA?” Mike asked.

“Yep,” Britney said. “They asked the same questions. Took a month, but they asked them. I figure some of the agents were going as fast as you, but the stuff only gets distributed once somebody high enough is willing to put it out. Otherwise, if it turns out to be stupid, they get egg on their face.”

“I can give a shit about egg,” Mike said, pointing to the Cut. “What’s their answer?”

“Different situation,” Britney said. “The boats are going the opposite direction. They’re coming up from the south, they’re not sure where they’re getting the drugs as I said, then swinging into Providence and tanking in Nassau or one of the harbors in the Andros area. Then south again. They get in the islands and disappear as a hard track. Then they appear again. DEA is sniffing around for their drop points. They figure that the drugs and the waypoints never cross paths, too.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “The tracks might, but not the waypoints.”

They crossed over the outer reef and the waves started to chop up, the big rollers from offshore peaking into near breakers as they crossed the reef. Mike gestured at Britney’s seatbelt pointedly.

“You’re going to want to put that on,” he said, reaching down and sliding the four-point restraint on. It was much like a military helicopter’s straps so Britney had no problems.

Then he kicked it.

The boat rose nose up for a moment, then settled back down, hit the first wave and went momentarily airborne, the engine screaming. Mike didn’t bother to throttle down, though, since when it hit it stayed mostly down, jumping from wave-crest to wave-crest in a continuous series, the props rarely leaving the water.

“Where were we?” he yelled over the engine noise.

“Tracks and waypoints,” Britney yelled back.

Mike keyed in the opening to the Bahamas Banks Cut and leaned back in his seat. The motion was much like the FAST boats he’d ridden in as a SEAL but the seats were much more comfortable. And he wasn’t wearing a hundred pounds of gear. The day was clear and the sun was warm. He’d made sure they both put on sunblock before they even boarded the helo so they were good. He checked the estimated time. Fifty-three minutes to the next waypoint. Not too shabby.

“They’re going to need another tank point,” Mike said, bringing up the measuring system. He created an imaginary track, running a notional boat through the Cut, then having them refuel at Crossing Rocks. He ran them back around the Grand Islands then down the Florida Straits and shook his head. “They have a bunch of range, but not that much.”

“So where?” Britney asked.

Mike fiddled with the system, checking ranges from various fuel points.

“Nothing,” Mike said. “Unless they’re tanking at Bimini just before their speed run.”

“No way in hell,” Britney said. “Bimini’s DEA central. One boat and crew, once, maybe. Over and over? It’s a small harbor. And they’d have the materials already onboard. All it takes is the most cursory customs check.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, nodding. “That’s the kicker. Once they’ve picked up or are even near their pickup, they’re not going to hit land to tank. Unrep.”

“Okay, that one’s got me,” Britney admitted. “What is…”

“Underway replenishment,” Mike said. “They’re tanking from somebody at sea. Probably a bigger ship to the north of the Grands. That’s if we’re not totally off base.”

“But you don’t think we are,” Britney said.

“No, I don’t,” Mike replied. “And I don’t think they’re tanking in the Abacos. Or picking up their tracks, either.”

“Where then?” Britney said.

“Nassau,” Mike replied. “It’s not that far out of their way. There’s range for them to stop there then make a speed run up to the tanker up north. From there they go to pick up the materials. Then they do another speed run down south, drop the materials, come back through the Cut and head back down to Nassau.”

“Why Nassau?”

“Katya’s there,” Mike said. “And if she’s there, Jay’s not far away.”

“Who’s Jay?”

“Who knows?” Mike said, grinning. “He’s a freelance humint guy I hired. A spy in other words. Former CIA, got riffed during the Clinton administration. Very good. He’s been training Katya. If he’s sniffing around Gonzales, he has a reason. And Nassau’s big. Offshore speed boats come and go all the time. There are lots of ways to do a drop there that would just disappear in the noise. You can’t say the same about the Abacos; those towns are all tiny. They could be picking them up at a rendezvous at sea but even then. No, Nassau makes too much sense. Maybe too much sense but that’s what my gut is telling me.”

“Is that why you chose it?” Britney asked.

“No,” Mike admitted. “I chose it because it was central in the Bahamas and there was a really fucking big yacht for rent. I needed a really fucking big yacht.”

“Why?” Britney asked, chuckling.

“Because I’ve got nearly two hundred people packed in it belowdecks,” Mike said. “Getting them all there, quietly, was hell. They flew in through Miami, then out to every damned airport in the Bahamas. Most of them came in through Nassau but others came in through everywhere from Andros to Freeport. Then we went out where we were reasonably out of sight and the Lynx went out to pick them up. That, by the way, was while I was getting established. Getting their gear in place is even harder. Most of it isn’t here, yet.”

“That was a big movement,” Britney said, her eyes wide.

“Yep,” Mike said. “And we did it in less than twenty hours from the go word. I’ve got good people.”

“Like Gretchen?” Britney asked.

Mike hit the throttle and dropped the boat to a sudden stop, water splashing up over the bow as it slammed into a wave.

“Who the fuck told you about Gretchen?” Mike snarled.

“Friends of yours,” Britney said. “People who care about you.”

“If they care about me, they need to get their God-damned nose out of my private business,” Mike snapped. “Jesus, I’m sick of this. I live under a fucking microscope.”

“For living under a microscope, you don’t talk about things much,” Britney said. “Not important things.”

“I talk about important things all the time,” Mike replied, starting the boat back up. But he kept the speed down to idle. “Stopping a shipment of VX is very God-damned important.”

“Yeah, but not about things that hurt you,” Britney said. “Big boys don’t cry, do they?”

“You’d be surprised,” Mike said, his jaw flexing. “And who the hell am I going to talk to about it? Anastasia? Adams? Nielson? One of the damned harem girls?”

“The commander can’t show his weakness,” Britney said, nodding. “But from what I heard, he showed his ass instead.”

“Yes, he did,” Mike admitted. “But he’s over it, thank you.”

“Bullshit,” Britney snapped. “I’m not ‘over’ Syria. I live with it every damned night. It’s not as bad as it was, but it’s still pretty damned bad. Not the bodies, not scavenging the ammo, not turning the fuckers over to pull the grenades off their belts. No, I just sit in that damned chair and one of them comes over, key in hand. I’m next.”

“I can believe it,” Mike said, looking over at her.

“I’ve had hours and hours of counseling,” Britney said, undoing the straps and turning on the seat. “I took your advice. Now take mine. Talk. Now. Here. Talk to me, Bambi. Start at the beginning. Go to the end. Don’t leave anything out.”

Mike undid his own straps and went below. The ice machine was working and the small bar was, per his orders, stocked. He pulled out an untouched bottle of Elijah Craig, filled two glasses with ice and went back up on deck.

“Here,” he said, pouring two drinks and handing Britney one.

“I’m not a straight whiskey drinker,” Britney said.

“I quit drinking alone three days ago,” Mike said, raising his glass. “Salut.”

“Blood in your eye,” Britney said, sipping the whiskey. “This is good. Smooth.”

“Yes, it is,” Mike said, taking a large gulp. “I’ve got twenty-three empty bottles to prove how smooth.” He looked at the glass, then sighed. “Gretchen.”

It took a while, about half the bottle.

“I wasn’t there,” Mike finished. He’d refilled his glass with ice twice and now the second reload was about gone. “I didn’t see it. I couldn’t do anything about it. But I had to look under the God-damned sheet. I had to see her one more time. She’d been cut in fucking half. Her spine was sticking out. Ribs. I remember thinking ‘that’s a spleen, right?’ ” He closed his eyes, his jaw working, and shook his head.

“She was just a Kardane girl,” Mike said, grimacing, his eyes tight. “Just another duty of the fucking Kildar. Be a good stud. Do the mares and go on.” He lowered his head and his body shook. “And then she was just fucking gone. I’m never going to see her again!”

Britney took the man in her arms and laid his head on her breast, stroking the back of his head as he cried.

“I mean she was going to marry Kiril,” Mike said, sobbing. “I knew I couldn’t have her. She wasn’t mine. She never would be. But she’d be around, you know? I’d see her. And then Kiril gets wasted. It was all my fault! All of it…”

“Shhhh,” Britney said. “You couldn’t have done anything…”

“Bullshit,” Mike said, sitting up and turning away. “I was the fucking commander. I’m the God-damned Kildar! It is, de facto, my responsibility. And, what’s worse, I knew the mission was fucked from the word go. I knew we were screwed. We had so many stupid fucking conditions put on us there was no way we were just going to ghost out. I should have thrown a shit fit when the Georgians refused us helo support. Let Markov take the fucking casualties! They’re fucking mercenaries, that’s what they’re there for! And then the fucking Russians! Oh, did you hear about that BASTARD, Chechnik?”

“No,” Britney said to the clearly enraged former SEAL.

“They knew,” Mike said, snarling. “I can’t prove it but they had to fucking know. If it had just been Bukara, well, that would have been one thing. We could have smoked him then smoked the defenses in the pass, somehow. Do what the girls did and bring up the mortars. Something. But Sadim? He was their fucking varsity! Nielson told the Russians we were picking up signals that looked like a moving unit. The Russians are masters of humint. There was no fucking way that they couldn’t know Sadim was moving! That he was moving into the sector where the op was going down. Nielson and the girls had the intel way in advance, but they didn’t know who was moving. They didn’t know it was a fucking brigade. They didn’t know it was Sadim! That was what fucked us. If I ever see Chechnik again, the motherfucker, I’m going to sit him on a short stake and eat my lunch in front of him! And fucking Vladimir had better watch out, too.”

“I don’t get it,” Britney said, blanching at the very direct threat to the president of Russia. “Why didn’t they tell you?”

“Because then I’d have aborted the op,” Mike said, his face hard. “We had ghosted into deepest darkest Injun country. The intel was building when we were still in movement, we hadn’t launched the op. We could’ve aborted and ghosted out. But that meant somebody else would have had to stop the… package. And we had a deal. I did the mission, I didn’t tell the U.S. what the package was. If ANV or Delta did an op in, say, Azerbaijan, then the U.S. would know what the deal was. They’d know what the Russians had really lost. They wanted me to stop the transfer even if it meant hanging us out to dry. Maybe especially if it meant I got smoked. Dead men tell no tales. The motherfuckers.”

“What was the package?” Britney asked. “Shit, that’s well above my clearance… Forget I asked.”

“It’s okay,” Mike said, taking another sip. “I’m not going to tell you anyway. Funny. They go and royally butt-fuck us and I’m still holding up my end of the fucking deal. Go figure.”

“You’re a good man,” Britney said. “And I think I really don’t want to know.”

“I’m a very bad man,” Mike said. “I will tell you this, though. Feel free to pass it on to anyone you can who has National Security Counsel clearance. Please fucking feel free to pass it on. The Russians told the U.S. it was nukes. Three of them. That was what I was getting paid to recover. Three nukes.”

“That’s serious enough,” Britney said, her eyes wide.

“Nothing compared to the real package,” Mike said, his jaw working. “The real package was Armageddon on a fucking platter. But here’s the kicker. I told the fucking Russians if I was going to keep their secret I wanted the deal sweetened. Four nukes. Five mil apiece was the vig. Twenty if I recovered all three. Hell, I turn up with four, that’s another five, minimum, right? Enough to keep my mouth shut.”

“Yes,” Britney said, shaking her head. “That must have been an interesting negotiation.”

“If I’d known they were going to fuck me as hard as they did, I’d have either told them to piss up a rope or told them ten,” Mike said. “Then I’d have sent them back, VPP. But here’s the real kicker. Guess how many I gave the U.S.?”

“Huh?” Britney said then her eyes widened. “Oh… shit.”

“Three,” Mike confirmed. “Hey, that was all they were expecting.”

“You have a nuclear weapon in your possession?” Britney said carefully.

“Yep,” Mike said. “About ten kilotons. In the basement of my castle. Partially disassembled I might add, thanks to the WMD expert I picked up on the same op. Something about retaining the quality of the tritium. But it can be assembled in about three minutes. And one of these days, oh let that day be soon, I’m going to take it and shove it up Vladimir’s ass, then blow the son-of-a-bitch.”

“I so didn’t want to know any of this,” Britney said, shaking her head. “I’m not even sure who I can tell.”

“I can put you on the phone to the President if you’d like,” Mike said, putting the boat back up on plane. “And you’d be surprised the shit you don’t want to know about what’s in the basement of my castle. Belts.”

“We were talking about Gretchen,” Britney said, strapping in.

“Yeah, we were,” Mike said, powering up. “And now we’re not. Thanks, though. I appreciate it.”

“We’re not done,” Britney said as the boat started hopping waves again.

“No, we’re not,” Mike admitted. “And, yeah, we’ll talk again. But it was a good start.” He tossed the remains of his drink over the side and looked over at her. “Think you can survive making it down to the cabin and getting me a Coke?”

“Can I ask you one thing first,” Britney said, undoing the straps while bracing herself.

“What?”

“What is the Navy’s first rule about a fire fight?”

“Send the Marines.”