Fallen Angel: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 9) (28 page)

“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.”

“T
ell 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.

Swimp lifted the older woman onto his shoulder and climbed the ladder ahead of his wife. “What you gonna do with them women?” she asked.

“Prolly gonna screw ’em to death,” Swimp replied. “And ole Damien prolly won’t even stop then.”

“Man, can’t you let that go?” Damien whined.

“What the fuck do you care?” Swimp asked his wife. “You just do as you’re told. Go ahead of us and get some food on. It’s gonna be a long night.”

As the procession moved toward the foot of the long pier, several more cousins came out of the darkness to greet them. More hands grabbed at the two younger women, and they both screamed in terror.

“This un’s first, boys,” Swimp shouted as his wife ran ahead, pushing through the crowd of men. “Take them two over by the fire, where they can have a front-row seat. Nobody touch that blonde, though. She’s mine.”

Tossing the older woman onto an old smelly sofa that had been dragged out of the house a year ago, Swimp lit a joint. “She ain’t a whole lot to look at,” he said, inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs. “But, soon as she wakes up, you’ll see we got us a wildcat here tonight.”

“I want the little one,” one of the men said, moving toward the dark-haired girl.

“I said this one’s first, Bobby!” Swimp roared. “You just set that little one down in a chair so she can watch.”

Bobby Ross looked at Swimp through dark, hooded eyes, his stringy black hair hanging down across his face. “Who the fuck made you king?” he snarled.

Swimp took one quick stride, leaving his right hand behind him. When he brought it forward in a powerful swing, he caught his cousin flush in the side of the head with his open hand. The Rosses had a rule. No closed fists when fighting kin. The resounding smack could probably be heard half a mile away, and the smaller man went down sideways, knocked out before he even knew what happened.

“Anyone else wanna challenge me?” Swimp bellowed.

“Damn, cuz,” Damien said, bending over and lifting one of Bobby’s hands and releasing it. The hand fell right back to the ground. “You knocked ole Bobby out with a single slap. Guess he ain’t gonna partake of any a the festivities.”

Swimp sat down in an old torn-up leather Barcalounger that had been brought outside about the same time as the sofa. “Bring Blondie over here to me,” he said, taking another long hit from the joint. “Me and her gonna party while you boys enjoy yourselves. Damien, you sit over here with the little one. Now, you girls watch careful now, see how a real woman does it.”