“Another jewelry store.”
“She’s carrying around a four-million-dollar check while she shops. It makes you wonder what she’s thinking.”
“At least it ensures she keeps her purse close to her.”
Renee’s numerous purchases were being handed off to couriers to deliver for her. Gabe had the other CIA agent trying to follow one of those deliveries to locate where Renee was staying on the island or if the packages were being delivered to the harbor.
“Gabe, the way she’s shopping—designer dresses, shoes, jewelry— I don’t think she’s been in Nassau for long. We need flight manifests and harbormaster reports for the last few days. If we find out how she arrived, maybe we can backtrack where she came from.”
“The CIA station chief is working his contacts to get the lists now. And the Department of Defense is trying to get a pickup team in place. Jerry is high on their list, not to mention Luther.” Gabe’s phone rang. “Hello.” He smiled. “Excellent. Get rooms there; sit tight. We’ll join you shortly.”
Gabe hung up the phone. “Renee sent her packages to the Pierre Hotel, a fact that suggests she’s staying local for at least one more day.”
Darcy tugged out her copy of the city map to determine where the hotel was located. If Renee was staying there, it would be in the expensive part of town. “A fact providing the one thing we need most right now: time.”
* * *
The Pierre Hotel was a vast step up from the hotel they had stayed at the night before. Darcy was grateful she didn’t have to check in, for she was woefully underdressed for such a hotel. A CIA agent had arranged a block of rooms on the seventh floor, and their team went upstairs by the back stairway, avoiding the public areas and the elevators. It was dangerous to set up surveillance in the same hotel as the target but there were no good vantage points around the hotel. And should the decision be made to act, taking Renee and Vladimir inside the hotel would at least contain the problem to a particular floor and room.
Darcy set her bag down on the bed and walked into the bathroom to wash her face. She had her choice of three different colors of plush hand towels, designer soaps, lotions, and shampoo. She hoped Renee settled in for a long visit. A few days staying here would be a vacation while at work.
Three distinctive knocks on the hotel door told her it was Gabriel. She opened without checking the security view hole. “Do we have a room number for her yet?”
Gabe pulled out the chair at the small table and glanced at the notes he had made. “Renee is four floors above us on the penthouse level. She’s traveling under the name Karen Norvost. It doesn’t look like Luther’s here. There is talk at the front desk that the entire penthouse level was booked for the next month. It contains two large suites and four luxury rooms. Vladimir took the room across from the elevators. The other rooms are unoccupied.”
Darcy finally started connecting the dots. “Her birthday.”
“What?”
“Renee’s birthday is this month, the sixteenth. She will want to celebrate it in style with a few of her friends coming to see her.”
“She has been known in the past for some lavish birthday parties,” Gabe said.
“Luther isn’t here yet, but he’s coming,” Darcy speculated. “Renee is settling in early to enjoy herself.” She added ice to her glass of water. “What do you think Renee is going to do with four million dollars?”
“You can bet she wasn’t shopping those jewelry stores for their counter display items. Do you want to set up the surveillance equipment in here?”
“Might as well. It’s a corner room; we can cover the approach to the hotel entrance from here as well as a piece of the marina. We need to arrange to have someone else at the airport watching for Luther’s arrival.”
“I’ll make sure it’s covered. Now if we can just get enough time to get a snatch team assembled,” Gabe said, getting slowly to his feet.
“It sounds like we have a few days.” The biggest problem would be Luther showing up and leaving before they were ready to execute a safe takedown. Rushing a plan in this situation meant someone could get killed. “We want him, Gabriel. This time it feels like we may have him.”
“Sergey is the big unknown.”
“Do we call him?” Darcy asked, ambivalent about it.
“If a sweep of the harbor turns up the boat, we’ll call him,” Gabe proposed.
“How hard are we going to look?”
Gabe smiled. “You know me too well.”
Twenty-Five
* * *
AUGUST 2
Friday, 11:37 p.m.
Pierre Hotel / Nassau, New Providence Island, Bahamas
Darcy shifted her stool to the side of the small table so she could reach the piece of paper she had taped to the picture frame. For a temporary place to stick important notes, it did the job.
“Darcy, can I borrow your luggage? I need to get the security monitor off the floor,” Gabe asked.
She pushed back her earphones and the muted refrains from Carmen so she could turn. “Sure.” She turned to point out where she had pushed it under the bed.
Gabriel, with the help of two technicians, was turning the room into a command center. Good video surveillance of the lobby was set up through a tap on the hotel security cameras. Views from their hotel suite windows were now appearing on monitors. The logistics for the next seventy-two hours of surveillance were a nightmare. She pulled over the blueprints to see how food and housekeeping went back and forth to the penthouse level. With Luther reserving the entire floor, Vladimir had good physical control of the layout.
She heard Gabe open the door in answer to a soft knock and invite in more guests. “Make yourselves comfortable wherever you can find room; we’re going to brief in twenty minutes. We’ve got a problem to sort out with the satellite link to get the video feed with Defense Intelligence up, but otherwise we’re ready to go.”
Darcy added a note to check on what kind of helicopter transportation the hotel arranged for its special guests. Luther would want quick ways to leave the hotel if needed.
“Guess who?” Hands slid across her eyes from behind. Darcy instinctively brought her elbow straight back, hitting solid muscle and causing her fingers to momentarily go numb from the collision. The hands across her eyes fell away.
Sam coughed. “You do have a habit of hitting the good guys in your life.”
“Sam!” She turned on the stool. “I am so sorry.” She reached toward his stomach to soothe the place she had struck, her hand covering his.
“I’ll learn not to interrupt you when you are working.” His hand turned and captured hers. “Want to try this again? Hi, beautiful.”
She surged to her feet to wrap him in a hug; his embrace felt so wonderful. She laughed. “Not that I’m not thrilled to see you, but what are you doing here?”
He chuckled. “Tracking a shipment of explosives. I hear you may know who bought it.”
“You actually saw the shipment?”
“Twenty cases of deadly explosives, enough to take out something very big.”
She winced at the image. “We’re pretty sure Luther is behind it; we saw the cash transfer. His wife, Renee, is upstairs.”
“That close?” He shook his head. “Details can wait; I don’t want to talk about work at the moment.” He picked her up a few inches and kissed her, then slowly released her. “I thought you might have a bit of a tan as you’re in the Bahamas but alas, no.”
“Gabriel isn’t letting me out of this corner room.”
He looked around the crowded room. “Captive again, huh?”
“I’m afraid so.” Privacy was virtually nonexistent in this stakeout.
“This is going to be a problem.”
Tom wrapped his arm around Sam’s shoulder and leaned around his partner. “Who’s this? Darcy—I thought I heard your voice. Small world.”
“Hi, Tom. Keeping Sam out of trouble for me?”
“I volunteered Cougar for this
briefing.”
She grinned at him. “Good job.”
“Now is it worth the lack of sleep, buddy?” Tom teased.
“Don’t tell me you knew she was here.”
Sam’s boss entered the room. Sam reluctantly released her.
Gabriel called the planning meeting to order. Sam and Tom took up station leaning against the wall on either side of her chair. Gabe began the discussion. “We’re dealing with two topics tonight: the location and capture of Luther Genault and laying plans to deal with a shipment of explosives we believe he arranged to purchase for someone else. Since the two are intricately linked in their timing, tonight we figure out how to make both operations happen successfully and safely. Let’s talk about the explosives first. Joe, you have the floor.”
Sam’s boss unrolled a large satellite photo taken hours before and taped it to the wall for all to see. “The explosives are currently being stored on Razor Reef Island, somewhere near this south inlet. There are radio burst transmissions happening at regular intervals, suggesting there is at least some real-time monitoring of the shipment.”
“We can block that monitoring and blow up the shipment,” the defense analyst suggested.
“We want the guys who plan to use those explosives; otherwise they’ll just find more to buy,” Gabriel replied.
“Which means we can’t take Luther until after we pick up the people coming for the explosives,” Darcy pointed out. “And as soon as there’s trouble with the shipment, Luther runs. We’ll have to be prepared to grab them simultaneously. Right now we don’t know where he is. If we are forced to choose, which has priority? Luther or the shipment?”
“Luther,” Joe replied. “We can track the shipment for days if necessary before we hit it.”
Darcy looked at Gabriel. “For a short window of time Vladimir, Luther, Renee, and probably Jerry are going to be inside this hotel during the days leading up to her birthday celebration on the sixteenth. We need to take Luther and the others while they’re here. Is there a way to make sure the explosives are picked up during that same time?”
“Weather may help us for a few days,” Tom suggested. “The rain front passing north of the British Virgin Islands tonight is churning up the sea, and it’s not safe for a small boat to enter that cove. It would be tossed onto those razor reefs and ripped apart. They won’t try to access the explosives for at least the next three days.”
“We could plant news of a Navy exercise in the paper, a ruse, that will let them know they don’t want to be around that island after, say, the seventeenth,” Sam said. “We can box in the dates.”
“Do one better than that,” Joe suggested. “Put a boat in distress, even sink one, and mount a rescue effort to find the survivors. Stage it right outside of Razor Reef Island and station a military cutter leading the search right there at the island. Don’t declare the search ended until we know Luther is here at the hotel. We can use that Navy exercise announcement to box in the other end of the timeline. The buyers will be so eager to collect their explosives, so relieved the stash wasn’t stumbled upon that they’ll move in to get them as soon as we move away.”
“I really like it,” Gabe agreed. “When the buyers pick up the explosives, we simultaneously take them at the island and Luther at the hotel. It just leaves the question, will Luther show up at the hotel? We’re betting he will. Let’s get down to details and figure out how many people we need where to make this happen.”
Darcy picked up her notes. It would help if they could improve the odds that Luther would be here. Sergey could get Luther to this hotel. This was a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
It was time to call Sergey.
* * *
Darcy found Sam a tube for the satellite maps. One by one those at the meeting had slipped out to make sure they were all away from the hotel before an early riser might notice them. She had a brief moment of privacy with Sam, but she wasn’t sure what to say. I’ve never said a harder good-bye.
Sam studied her as he slid the maps into the tube. “You’ll stay in this command center, Dar? You’ll let the tactical guys be the ones to go in and take Luther and the others?”
She rested her hand on his forearm. “I’ll stay on the intelligence side of this,” she promised. “I have no desire to be part of the takedown team.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
She smiled at him. “I know; I’m glad you care.”
He picked up his gear. She could read the fatigue in his deliberate movements, the huskiness now in his voice. With the preparation work SEAL Team Nine had already done to take these explosives, Sam had been awake close to forty-eight hours.
She wanted to keep him here a few more minutes, but it was best if he got going so his long day could end. She stepped forward and hugged him. “Take care of yourself.”
The map tube hit the back of her knee as his arms closed around her. He sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. “The next two weeks are going to be the longest of my life. I want to be here.”
“I know.” She tugged him down to kiss him, putting months of emotion into it. “I love you, Samuel,” she whispered. “This is my last mission. We get Luther, then I’m going home to North Dakota and work on my house. From now on, I promise I will always be very easy to find.”
His hand slid behind her head to hold her close. “Do you want to come to Thanksgiving dinner with me? I’ve got a few obligations to finish up before I can ask about dates farther out than that. So we’ll start with Thanksgiving and just kind of work out the following decades from there.”
Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. “I would be delighted to join you for Thanksgiving dinner.”
He rubbed her back. “I love you too, Dar. I didn’t come looking for you, but I never was so blessed as the day you crossed my path.”
“It’s mutual.” She rested her head against his chest, happy that the corner had been turned to this becoming something permanent. She was going to be one of the best SEAL girlfriends a guy could ever have. She stepped back. She had to let him go. He was a soldier, and he had a job to do. “Stay safe out there.”
He picked up the plans. “We both need to go to work, but when this is over . . .”
She loved that twinkle in his eyes when he smiled. “I can’t wait for those first days off.”
Twenty-Six
* * *
AUGUST 5
Monday, 2:32 a.m.
Razor Reef Island
The sailboat was a beautiful craft; it was too bad it would soon be at the bottom of the sea. As captain of the vessel, Sam leaned back against his safety line and brought the last sail down. Without the captured wind to counter the force of the waves, the sailboat turned broadside. The deck pitched thirty degrees to starboard as the boat was battered by waves. The sound of sail ripping was ugly. It was a shame to ruin a perfectly good boat. “Are we set, Wolf?”
“We’re set,” his partner hollered back.
Lord, don’t let a rogue wave hit us now. I want to live to enjoy Darcy’s company for the rest of my days. He had a ring to buy her when he was next on dry land.
Sam jammed the tiller. Adrift at sea, the sailboat would be driven relentlessly toward Razor Reef Island. He made the final radio call to the local authorities reporting a boat in trouble. They would respond as normal but would be quietly told not to risk lives during the days to follow searching for survivors.
“I’ve done a lot of crazy things in my life, but up till now blowing up a civilian boat was not one of them.” Wolf turned on the flashlight to signal the other SEALs that they were ready for the final act of this carefully scripted play.
Sam wrapped his gloved hands around the thick rope threaded through the final knapsack of explosives and struggled against the pitching deck to join his partner. “Let’s go.”
Wolf stepped off the deck into the sea. Sam followed, letting gravity win.
The water swallowed him, tugging him down. The current took them qu
ickly away from the boat and the danger of being slammed against the hull. As his final act as the boat skipper, Sam released the final satchel of explosives on their weighted line.
It wasn’t that easy to make an intentional act appear an accident. They wanted to leave behind a wreck still essentially in one piece so television pictures would make this story linger longer in the news cycle. If the small blast through the engine room didn’t bring the boat down, the final satchel of explosives was a depth charge, the concussion of the blast designed to rip enough leaks in the hull to flood the boat. They wanted the boat to go down as near to the point of the last radio call as possible.
Wolf swam over to join him and clipped his safety line to Sam’s combat vest to connect them. Wolf laughed against the force of the waves as he tried to turn away from the wind to be able to speak without getting clipped by breaking water. “You have to give Darcy credit. The name of the boat is a stroke of brilliance.”
The boat Kendra would be in news updates for days to come. Sergey’s wife was being memorialized in the mission that would capture the man who had arranged her death. “Let’s get out of here.”
With powerful kicks, they swam away from the floundering boat. They could hear the Zodiac before it appeared. The black rubber craft materialized from the darkness, slamming against the waves. The SEAL guiding it turned so they had to swim to the craft rather than have it run over them.
Sam caught hold of the netting draped over the side and pulled himself up and over the taut rubber, flopping onto the bottom of the raft. Wolf landed beside him. The boat turned and raced to the north. The sailboat was only a bobbing light against the sea as the running lights still flickered.
Wolf tugged out the remote activation pad. “You want the honors?”
“Go ahead.”
Wolf turned the key.
The explosives aboard the sailboat blew through the engine compartment, sending a huge plume of flames into the night. It was followed moments later by an underwater blast that shook the Zodiac and left it quivering in a fine vibration.