Fallen Hunter (Jesse McDermitt Series) (28 page)

The dive lasted about twenty minutes
. Tina was doing that much better at controlling her breathing. Deuce and I both still had over 1000 pounds of air when we started for the surface though. We were halfway up when a large eagle ray swam by, probably eight feet across. Tina saw it first and grabbed my hand pointing. It circled around us, Tina spinning on the anchor line to watch it, then swam off toward the wall.

When her head broke the surface, she spit out her regulator, pulled her mask down around her neck and said,
“What was that?”

“An eagle ray,” Julie said.

“Are they dangerous?” Tina asked. “It was beautiful.”

“No,” I said
. “Unless they jump out of the water and land on you. That one was huge.”

“There’s so many baby fish here
,” Tina said. “It’s beautiful.”

We followed the tag line back to the stern of the boat and climbed aboard
, Deuce and I first, then Tina and Julie. We sat down on the bench and took off our dive gear, grabbed our big towels and climbed up to the bridge. I engaged the windlass to hoist the anchor and started the engines. We turned and headed out to deeper water, then went south toward the hotel.

“Do we have enough time for another dive?” Tina asked.

Julie smiled and said, “The worm has turned.”

We laughed and I said, “Let’s wait until tomorrow. You catch on fast
. We’ll go over a few things this evening and I think you’ll be ready for a wall dive in the morning.”

“Why is wall diving so special?” she asked.

“That eagle ray we saw,” Julie said. “It’s a deep water fish. All the colorful tropical we saw are reef fish. That splendid toadfish is a deep water reef fish. We were lucky to see all those on a shallow reef. On a wall it’s normal. You have the reef fish close to the wall, ocean dwelling fish, sometimes even dolphins, sharks, sea turtles, even whales, just a few feet away and deep water fish just below you. Next to drift diving, wall diving is my favorite.”

“Reef diving, wall diving and drift diving?” Tina said. “I’m going to have to get a book for this too?”

“We won’t be doing any drift diving,” Deuce said. “That involves someone staying on the boat and following the divers as they drift with the current.”

“We could do a drift if y’all want,” I said. “There’s plenty of independent six pack operators around here. I’m sure the concierge could find one for us.”

“Six pack?” Tina asked. “I’m going to guess that’s a small boat.”

“Small or big,” Deuce said. “But limited to six pass
engers.”

“Let’s do that,” I said. “Probably be cheaper than running two 1015 horse engines, anyway. Plus you get a better feel for the local islanders.”

We arrived at the hotel’s private dock and two staff members helped tie the boat off. The older one asked, “You have tanks empty, senor? Jose take to fill?”

“
Sí, cuatro, amigo,” I said. “Se les puso de vuelta en el barco tambien puede tener?”

“Sí, sen
or.” He said smiling. “Ahora mismo.”

I reached into my pocket and handed him a one hundred peso bill and said, “Gracias, no hay prisa.”

We walked up the dock to the hotel and Tina said, “I know living in Key West, I should know Spanish, but I didn’t understand any of that, except boat.”

“He asked if we had any empty tanks to refill,” I said. “I asked him to put them aboard when they were full.”

We took a cab to the Mayan ruins in the center of the island and spent the rest of the afternoon playing tourist. This time, I did notice the Cuban woman. She was sitting in the lobby of the hotel as we left, pretending to read a magazine. I held Tina’s hand as we walked through the lobby, making sure that the Cuban woman saw.

Deuce was reading several text messages during the ride to the ruins, completely absorbed in them. When we got out of the cab outside the gates to the ruins he said, “Art picked up one side of a phone call from one of the terrorists. He was talking to Santiago, wanting to know when the next shipment was coming. From the conversation, he didn’t sound very happy with the response, but finally said he’d wait a week, but wanted a reduced price. Tony sent a message saying he was able to get a count of people in the camp. Looked to be ten or eleven men and he thinks all the arms are stored in one tent. They’re going to sleep th
is afternoon and sneak into the camp about midnight to get an inventory of what arms they have on hand.”

“They can do that?” Julie asked.

Deuce chuckled and said, “Art’s okay, but Tony could sneak into Jesse’s bunk and count his pubic hairs, then sneak out again.”

“No he can’t,” I said. “I shave ‘em.”

Tina and Julie both slugged me on the shoulder. We went through the gates and hired a local guide. Tina was impressed with the ruins, asking all kinds of questions of our private guide. His name was Felipe and he spoke very good English. Julie asked him how he’d learned English so well and he said he’d once worked on a freighter for four years. The crew was from all over the world, but the Captain insisted they all learn and speak English, though he was Norwegian himself. “I also speak some German and French,” he said.

Before
sunset, we were about worn out, so we went back to the hotel. We decided to get cleaned up and meet for supper at the La Chopa, right here at the resort. Within minutes of being seated, I spotted the Cuban woman at the bar. We had a really great meal of prime rib and I laughed and made sure the Cuban woman saw that Tina and I were a couple. No doubt she could have gotten the desk clerk to give her the information that we had two rooms and two to a room. I don’t know why I thought it was important to make the woman see us as a couple, but I did. When we left to go back to our suites, I had my arm around Tina and let it slide down to her ass, as we walked past the Cuban woman.

Our suites were right next to each other. When we got off the elevator I told Deuce, “I brought the laptop up, let’s check in before we call it a night.”

“You saved me a walk,” he said. “I was going to go down to the boat.”

We went into our room and I powered up the laptop, while Tina made drinks from the bar. Charity’s face appeared on the video feed, “Hi,
Deuce,” she said. “Hey Jesse. The team just started moving an hour ago. We’re looking down from the satellite, but only for a few minutes at a time for right now. For the first half hour, they moved pretty fast. Covered just over a hundred meters. In the last half hour, they’ve only moved twenty-five meters. Tony reported in about ten minutes ago and expects he can be inside in another two hours. Art will stand by twenty meters outside. They have good cover until the last eight or ten meters.”

“Roger that,” Deuce said. “Glad to see Chyrel is getting some sleep.”

“I had to force her, Deuce,” Charity said. “She’s a very stubborn woman.”

“
Call Jesse and me both, just before they go in,” he said.

“Roger that, Alpha Base out.” The screen went blank.

“An hour to go 125 meters?” Tina asked.

“In our business that’s a sprint,” Deuce said. “To stay invisible a man in a ghillie suit has to look like a clump of grass. If someone looks at him and he’s moved more than a few inches from the last time that person looked at him, he’ll be discovered. Tony and Art are the best
at avoiding that. Tony was a cover and concealment instructor in the SEAL’s. I have a twenty minute video of him crawling toward the camera and you never see him until he stands up.”

“Let’s get some sleep,” I said. “If we’re going to be up half the night and still be able to dive tomorrow, we’ll need the rest.”

Deuce and Julie left for their room and Tina said she was exhausted and wanted to go to bed. I was restless or I would have joined her. Instead, I told her I wanted to check the boat and would be back in a few minutes. I took the elevator to the lobby, went outside and over to the private docks. I saw the Cuban woman walking toward me from the dock. I kept walking, but stopped when I was just a few feet away from her.

“I know you,” I said. “Senor
ita Espinosa?”

“Si,” she said. “You are Capitan McDermitt, yes? I thought I recognized that boat. I walked out to see the name.”

She looked even more beautiful in the light of the setting moon. She was wearing tailored black jeans, with a high waist and a long sleeved black sweater that looked like, and probably was, cashmere. With her raven hair it gave her a very seductive and sexy look. It also made her nearly invisible in the darkness. Had she been aboard the
Revenge
?

“What are you doing in Cozumel?” I asked
, smiling.

“I have a villa here,” she said.
“A, how do you say? A cold front was coming to Miami. So, I flew down here. I do not like the cold so much. You brought a charter down here?”

“
A villa, of course,” I said. “I assumed you lived in Miami. Yeah, I’m here with a charter, but it’s become a little more than that.”

“I have a home in Miami also,” she said. Then she took a step closer so that she had to tilt her head up to look at me and said, “Will you be on the island for long? Perhaps we can have dinner together?”

“Only for another day or two,” I said. “I’m sorry, I assumed you and Senor Santiago were a couple.”

“Si, but he is always so busy,” she said as she reached out and stroked her long fingernails along my arm
and the fragrance of her jasmine scented perfume filled my nostrils. “Una mujer tiene necesidades. Please, call me Isabella.”

She’d taken the bait though. “
Most women do, Senorita. But, I work for Senor Santiago now. Like him, I put a high price on loyalty.” As I stepped around her, I turned and said, “Buenos noches, Senorita Espinosa.”

I continued to the boat and
vaulted aboard. I made a show of checking the tanks, strapped to the bench and pulled a pressure gauge from a cabinet to check each one. As I connected the second one she walked up to the side of the cockpit and said, “I trust that you will not say anything about this to Carlos?”

“What and who you do is your business, Senorita,” I said. “But, if he should ask, I won’t lie. You might want to keep that in mind, should you try to take another of his employees into your bed.”

She wheeled around and stomped off toward shore. Halfway there I heard her say, “Diviertete con tu puta, culo!” I laughed loud enough for her to hear and watched as she strode across the beach.

I climbed up to the bridge and looked around. I was certain she’d been aboard, because I could faintly smell her perfume up here. The thing about bugs, as I’d recently learned, if you have enough money they can be very innocuous. This wasn’t good
. If she’d bugged my boat, we might never find it. I went back down to the cockpit, got a flashlight from one of the drawers and examined the hatch to the salon. I didn’t see anything that would indicate the lock had been picked. Even a good burglar will leave minute scratch marks on the face of a polished brass lock. Maybe I surprised her before she could finish.

I stepped over to the dock and walked back over to the hotel. When I was on the elevator, I pulled my cell phone out and called Deuce. He picked up on the third ring, meaning I was probably interrupting him. “This better be important, Jesse,” he said.

“She was on my boat,” I said.

“Who? Wait, the Cuban woman?”

“Come to my room,” I said. “We have a problem.”

“Oh great,” he said. “Please tell me you didn’t kill her, man.”

“Just come to my room,” I said as I stepped off the elevator. I swiped the card in the door and opened it. There were candles lit in the bedroom and when I walked in, Tina was sitting up seductively in the bed, wearing the sheer white nightie she’d bought in Marathon.

“Get dressed,” I said. “I appreciate it, but Deuce and Julie will be here in a second.”

She jumped out of the bed and pulled on her jeans, which were folded and sitting on a chair. “What’s wrong?” she said.

“Just get dressed,” I said. “I’ll tell you when Deuce and Julie get here.” Just then there was a knock on the door
. I closed the bedroom door and went to let Deuce and Julie in.

“Did you kill her?” Deuce asked. “Because if you did, we’re in a real jam here.”

Tina came out of the bedroom and we all walked into the living room. “I’m pretty sure she bugged the boat,” I said.

“Who?” Tina asked.

“Remember the woman on Santiago’s boat?” I said. “She’s here on Cozumel. I just met her out on the dock.”

“The woman that was going to seduce you?” she asked with a pissed look on her face.

“Yeah,” I said. “And she tried, just now. I blew her off, but when I went aboard I could smell her perfume on the bridge. I know she’s been aboard.”

“Just on the bridge?” Deuce asked.

“I think so,” I said. “I didn’t see anything to indicate she’d tried to pick the lock on the salon hatch. She probably saw me coming, while she was on the bridge.”

“That’s good,” he said. “If it’s bugged, I can find it.”

“How?” Julie asked.

“I have an
RF detector in my bag, on board,” Deuce said. “We can find it and either destroy it, or use it.”