Fallen Angel: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 9) (19 page)

“Tell me about your surveillance team,” I said to Craig once everyone was assembled in the living room. Tony had stayed aboard the
Revenge
. There wasn’t any need to tell Pat my suspicions yet. When he’d asked why, I told him to just light the citronella candle in the top drawer of the bridge to keep the bugs at bay, and keep an eye out. He needed no more information than that, and his attitude changed—he became the sharp tip of the spear that I knew all of them to be.

“Two teams,” Craig replied. “Two completely different vans, changing out every four hours. There are a pair of vacation rentals across the street from Cross’s house. They both have a fairly clear view of the whole property and an unobstructed view of the gate.” Scrolling through his Blackberry, he continued. “Cross arrived at seven sixteen. Ten minutes later, a black man in a pickup left. The same man returned less than thirty minutes later, carrying grocery bags. No activity since then.”

“What are we missing?” Sheena asked. She’d changed into jeans and a blue blouse, which only added to the sparkle of her eyes.

I paced the room, thinking. “Craig says you’re the go-to person on criminal thinking. Our own forensic psychologist said Cross has a narcissistic personality, maybe worse, and probably has some sexual deviancy problems that he hides in his public persona. Assume he’s a longtime criminal for a second. What would he do to someone who double-crossed him?”

Sheena thought about it for a moment. “If this were his first offense, he’d probably go along, spend the extra money to get the job done. It wouldn’t occur to most normal people that the criminal they’re dealing with would do the same thing over and over until they were bled dry. If he’s got a long history of unknown crimes, he might not arrive at that conclusion and fully expect another betrayal.”

“That’d be reactive,” I said. “What if he went proactive?”

“Double-cross the double-crosser?” Andrew asked. “On the extreme end, seeking retribution and killing those who betrayed him?”

“He never asked for proof of life,” Craig said. “It would go without saying that the Jamaicans would bring the captives along, and Cross will want to see them.”

“At which time,” I said, thinking out loud, “he might have something prearranged to kill not only Pat and Chrissy, but the Jamaicans, too.”

“I’ve been monitoring his phones and online activities,” Chyrel said. “I have Jim Franklin’s phone tracer connected, in case he has a burner. The only call, outside of his ordinary political contacts, was one he made at eight o’clock, to a local cell number. The tower it pinged was located over on Saint Helena Island. That call lasted only two minutes.”

I continued pacing the floor as the others questioned Chyrel about Jim’s tracker device. Jim Franklin is a retired FBI agent and an expert in surveillance. He’d invented a device utilizing a computer’s hard drive that was programmed to pick up other active cell phones located within a small area near a target phone. It would then search phone records to see if the nearby phone had been used in the vicinity of the target phone in the past. He’d explained that the odds of random people making calls at near the same time in near the same location were pretty low. So, if someone had two phones and one was known, he could find the burner really easy.

I stopped pacing. “He set up a meeting.”

“For tomorrow?” Art asked. “Before he makes the exchange? Not enough time for whoever he’s meeting to set anything up.”

“He’s meeting someone tonight,” I said.

Craig picked up his Blackberry and tapped a few buttons. “Nobody’s left since the cook returned with the groceries,” he said, waiting for the call to connect. Then, into the phone, he said, “Still no activity?” Looking at me, Craig shook his head.

“Can one of them get around to the back of the property?” I asked him.

He repeated my question into the phone. “He says probably—the house next door appears empty. What should he look for?”

“A boat!” Sheena said.

Snapping my fingers, I pointed at her. “Or, more precisely, an empty boat dock.”

Craig repeated the information to the surveillance team and ended the call. “He’ll call me right back.”

“We should have anticipated this,” Sheena said.

A few minutes later, Craig’s phone rang and he clicked the speaker function, setting the phone in front of him. “What’d ya find out, Oscar?”

“Just missed him,” the man on the phone replied, sounding out of breath. “When I got back there, he was just idling away from the dock. Saw his face clearly in the glow from the boat’s instruments. It’s definitely Cross, and he appeared to be alone. A big fishing boat, maybe thirty feet long. The kind you can walk all the way around in, and it has a roof over the middle part of it. Dark-colored hull, white roof. Two outboard motors.”

“I hate to ask,” Craig said, “but someone needs to be out there when he comes back.”

“No problem,” Oscar replied. “I have some pretty strong bug spray.”

Craig ended the call as I walked over to Chyrel and leaned to look at her computer. “Can you pull up boat registrations?”

Her fingers flew across the keyboard, and within seconds she pointed to the screen. “Custom-built thirty-four-foot center-console. Black with white topsides. Two years old, with twin three-fifties.”

“Can you track his phone’s location?”

“No,” Chyrel replied. “He doesn’t have GPS enabled.”

“Okay,” I said, picking up my pacing again. “So, now we wait. A boat like that can go just about anywhere around here and probably cruises at thirty knots. What time he gets back will give us some idea of where he went. That phone number he called—can you tell where it is?”

“Not specifically,” Chyrel replied. “A general area if he makes another call. Both Cross’s phone and the phone he called have GPS disabled for exact positioning.”

“What about the boat’s GPS?” Art asked.

“Think he’ll have one?” Chyrel asked, her fingers already dancing on the keyboard.

“I didn’t have one when I was stationed here,” I said. “They weren’t available then, and I ran up on quite a few sandbars. For what one costs today, I wouldn’t imagine many boaters around here not having one.”

“What if Cross is meeting the guy at his house and not on his boat?” Keenan said. “Boats are a common way of going from place to place in South Florida.”

“If he’s meeting hired muscle,” Andrew began, “he probably wouldn’t go to the guy’s house. It’d be beneath his stature. They’ll meet on the water, or at the very least, someplace both would be familiar with.”

“I got him!” Chyrel shouted. “He doesn’t have GPS on his boat—he uses a chart plotter app on his phone.”

“What’s an app?” I asked without thinking.

Everyone looked at me like I had three eyes. Except Chyrel. She knew I was a hermit, technologically speaking. “Short for application,” Chyrel said without looking up. “A small subprogram you can download on a mobile device, like his phone, that does one specific thing. In this case, a really accurate chart plotter. Take a look.”

On her screen was pretty much the same typical nautical chart that’s downloaded on my Garmin plotter. I could tell by the movement of the boat icon on the screen that she’d hacked into his application.

“This is real time?” I asked.

“Yep. The guy Cross called is on the water, going south on Beaufort River. I hacked into his GPS. No, wait,” she said, studying the screen again. “Looks like he’s slowing down and turning east.”

“Zoom out so I can see more of the shoreline. And can you change the display to north at the top?”

Within seconds the image rotated almost ninety degrees, showing the boat moving east-northeast. It zoomed out, showing Hilton Head at the south and downtown Beaufort to the north. The boat was just north of the tip of Parris Island.

“Land’s End,” I said. “He’s anchoring up. Do we have satellite imagery?”

“Only an oblique angle,” Chyrel replied. “The bird’s somewhere over Bimini right now.”

“How are you guys doing this?” Sheena asked. “Do you have a warrant?”

“Not exactly,” Andrew said. “Nothing we learn can be used in court. I think Jesse just wants to know what the new player looks like.”

“Not admissible, and also not legal. Passive satellite surveillance, sure, but hacking into his phone’s GPS to know where to look? You’re violating these people’s civil rights.”

“Get me something, Chyrel,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder and turning to Sheena. “Can I talk with you privately, Sheena?”

Without waiting for a response, I turned and went down the hall. Instead of going into my room, I opened the garage door, the light coming on automatically.

A few seconds later, Sheena stepped through, obviously upset. “You can’t be doing these things,” she hissed as I closed the door.

“Can’t or shouldn’t? As in shouldn’t, according to the FBI’s rules of engagement?”

“What are yours?”

“Currently, it’s fire only when fired on. That’s the extent of our limits, and even that’s waived under certain circumstances.”

“So, you’re authorized to do warrantless wiretaps to locate people for satellite surveillance?”

“Yes,” I replied frankly.

“That’s a complete and utter violation of the National Security Act,” Sheena said, practically stomping her foot.

“We’re authorized beyond the scope of that,” I said, becoming irritated. “I think we need to make a conference call, your boss and mine. How will you play it, if ordered to?”

“I won’t like it, but my ass will be covered.”

We returned to the group in the dining room. Chyrel already had the satellite’s camera aimed at the target boat, a big ugly trawler that looked like it had been outfitted for recovery work. A man was on the bow, dropping the anchor. A really big man. I didn’t see anyone else on the boat.

“Chyrel, get Travis on, and have him wake up the Homeland Secretary and the Director of the FBI.” Glancing over at the two DEA guys, I asked, “Do we need to get your boss on here, too?”

Keenan shrugged. “She’ll just say to do whatever the Secretary says.”

Chyrel quickly typed in a long message to Travis and sent it. It only took a few minutes, with Sheena stewing the whole time, before Chyrel’s computer pinged and a window opened. Travis was at his desk at home, wearing a tee shirt. Chyrel got up and I sat down as the screen split and Deuce’s face appeared in another window.

“Sorry to wake you guys,” I said. “There’s been a development and we need to clarify something.”

“The other two will be on in a second, Jesse,” Deuce said. “What’s going on?”

“Cross is meeting someone out on the river in a boat. We don’t have any evidence, but my gut tells me that Cross isn’t planning to react like a statesman, and he’s meeting this other guy to arrange something to take out his family and the Jamaicans. Special Agent Mason is reluctant to proceed using our methods. Specifically, the phone taps to locate the target with the satellite.”

“Got it,” Stockwell said. “Deuce, send a message to both the Homeland Secretary and FBI Director, so they’ll have Jesse’s suspicions and the interagency problem on their screen when they sign on.”

Deuce bent over the keyboard and began typing. A few minutes later, he looked up and said the message had been sent. A moment later, there was another ping and two more windows opened, splitting the screen into quarters. One window was blank for a second before a fourth man’s face appeared.

“I knew I’d be seeing your face when Director Stockwell texted me,” Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

“Sorry to wake you, sir,” I said. “We have a bit of a conflict.”

I went on to explain in detail what my suspicions were and what I perceived as a possible threat during or after the exchange and arrest. Both Andrew and Sheena agreed it was a highly probable scenario, based on the background we had on Cross.

“My apologies for the lateness of the hour, Director Mueller,” Sheena said, having quickly put on her blazer, though it didn’t go well with the jeans. “Special Agent Allen and I are bound by certain regulations that the agents we’re assisting apparently aren’t. Specifically, the warrantless wiretap of American citizens.”

Chertoff frowned and tented his fingers, his elbows resting on his desk. “When the Caribbean Counterterrorism Command was created, we’d not expected there to be joint investigations with other agencies so soon. Mike, can your agents be ordered to overlook certain things, when working with Colonel Stockwell’s agency?”

“I’ve read the scope of this investigation, Mister Secretary. Unless there is some proof that we can submit to a federal judge for a warrant, I’d have to say no. I can pull my agents off, if that will eliminate the conflict.”

Before Chertoff could reply, I said, “No need for that, Director. We can scale back our investigation to satisfy the responsibilities and commitments of your agents.”

“It’s settled, then” Chertoff said, briskly. “Travis, have your people follow the National Security Act of 1947 to the letter for this particular op. I’ll schedule a meeting with the agency heads under DHS and sort this out to avoid possible future conflict.”

Chertoff’s screen blinked, leaving Mueller, Travis, and Deuce looking befuddled. “Are you sure, Jesse?” Travis asked. “You lose a bit of advantage.”

“Not a problem, Colonel,” I replied. “You’ll just have to swear me in.”