“Can’t swing a cat in this town…” Angler muttered under his breath as he strolled past another dive bar packed with sunburned tourists. The stench of coconut oil with an undertone of stale beer and sweat poured out onto the sidewalk with the crowd. The men all wore low-cut tanks and board shorts. The women’s string bikinis barely held in the assets they’d paid their plastic surgeons so dearly for. Everyone held their cell phones over their heads, capturing a moment they were too distracted by filming to participate in. Far cry from the yacht club crowd, yet with a common thread of excess and subtle desperation.
Angler caught himself humming along with the Jimmy Buffett cover band blaring over the din of the crowd. Sometimes a cliché is a cliché for a reason. But he was here for business, and even though his stroll through Key West’s Old Town was meant more for operational security—he needed to move around like a tourist, use the credit cards and phone attributed to his cover identity—he needed to stay focused.
He tapped the screen of his burner phone and fired up his Virtual Private Network—VPN—app. The final number was in his secure inbox. To a civilian, the number would have been eyewatering. To Angler, it confirmed he’d chosen well. He tapped again. Still no news out of Fort Myers. And to Angler, no news was good news. Plans were coming together.
He ducked into a quiet alley and made the call.
“Account numbers?” The androgynous digital voice at the other end was disconcerting. Angler had become accustomed to it, but he’d be glad when this operation was behind him.
“Risk profile?”
“Anonymous. Clear numbers, unmarked vessel. Crew of two, expendable. Cash up front.”
A rooster ambled up the alley, stopping to peck at scraps of trash dropped by the drunken passengers of the cruise ship that loomed over the town. Angler kicked at it, expecting it to scurry away. But these feral animals were almost as holy as a cow in India. The rooster didn’t just hold his ground, the little bastard attacked, pecking at Angler’s feet until he danced back to the street and ceded the alley to the foul fowl.
“It’s too much.”
“The right guy gets paid to be the right guy.” Angler repeated the captain’s line, almost regretting he wouldn’t have a chance to use it for his own benefit.
“Half up front means half price.”
Angler swore. He hadn’t really expected to get away with the final payment for himself, but it was always worth a try. “Even at full price, this op is a bargain.”
“Are you expecting a parade?”
Angler smirked. “I’d settle for a bonus.”
“Your fee has already been established. And I might add that it’s quite generous, considering the personal nature of this operation.”
“Point taken.”
Angler waited through another lengthy period of dead air, checking the screen to be sure the call hadn’t dropped. Finally, the dead voice returned.
“Cayman International Bank and Trust. Grand Cayman. Mrs. Montgomery-Trottman will expect you tomorrow.”
Angler bristled. “I need to pick it up in Miami.” But when he looked down at the screen, the call had already ended.
* * *
The shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico sparkled under the late-afternoon sun as Harold Hildebrand’s private tender glided towards the dock extending from the south end of Baskin Island, its engine’s low rumble humming beneath the calls from a colony of gulls off the starboard gunwale. The billionaire slipped his phone away and stood at the bow, anticipation racing through his veins as the coastal breeze tousled his thinning hair. The weight of the impending summit bore heavily upon his shoulders. Three steps behind him, Barbeau Roux gripped the tender’s rail while the captain tied the small craft a few yards astern from Hildebrand’s motor yacht Aeolus.
His security chief had been a reliable, steady gravitational force in his organization for years. Roux’s vigilance had saved him from threats ranging from tree-hugging green energy protestors to shopping bag-laden gold diggers. But those were nothing compared to the challenge facing them this weekend.
The two delegations had decades of mistrust between them. And if Harold Hildebrand had his way, this weekend would be remembered for decades to come.
Striding up the thick buffalo turf lawn, he surveyed the four identical houses standing side by side in a row. Directly ahead of him, the southernmost house was his friend Enoch Brookes’s personal home. It boasted the longest and deepest dock for Aeolus. Brookes had generously offered the other three houses for the weekend, and Hildebrand intended to use them to their fullest.
He’d left detailed instructions for his new assistant to prepare each of the homes. Looking up toward the second house, he spotted several new security cameras dangling like monkeys from its deep eaves. He glanced back to Roux and then pointed up to one of the offending devices.
“I’ll have it corrected immediately, sir. They’ll be hidden before the delegations arrive. You have my word.”
He swept through the French doors of the third house. He had directed that it be configured to host a welcome reception following the first day’s meetings, provided both delegations could set aside their differences and focus on their common interests.
Behind him, Roux’s quickened steps across the polished tiles stopped abruptly, followed by a thud and clatter. Hildebrand stopped short and spun around just in time to avoid crushing the cell phone sliding across the floor.
“Sir. You’ve arrived, sir.” Laura Smythe extricated herself from Roux’s grip, then scrambled to collect her phone from beneath the toe of his custom Italian shoe.
Roux glared at her with one eyebrow raised as she clambered to her feet and smoothed the fabric of her slim black skirt.
Hildebrand stepped back and summoned the patience of Job as he waited for her to collect herself before she finally spoke.
“We’re ahead of schedule and fully ready for the delegations to arrive the day after tomorrow, sir. The CCTV contractor is on the way to finish installing the housings around the exterior cameras, and the catering order is due to be delivered at ten tomorrow morning. Aeolus was catered this morning and is ready for you to board at your leisure. The captain and crew are expecting you.”
She turned to the security chief. “Monseiur Roux, after Mr. Hildebrand settles in, I’d appreciate a moment of your time to review a small concern?”
Roux glanced toward Hildebrand, his eyebrows ticked upward.
Hildebrand filled his lungs with a deep, salty breath. “Miss Smythe, this summit is of the utmost priority. If you have a security concern, I’d like to hear about it firsthand.”
Her cheeks flushed at the admonishment. “I’m sure it’s nothing, sir. Not worth your attention.”
He tightened his jaw. “No detail is beneath my attention this weekend, Laura. Please do go on.”
She waved him toward a pair of white leather couches. He remained standing. Finally, she spoke.
“We had an intruder yesterday, sir. A number of contractors had been in and out, and a young woman who works with the local sheriff was here with a federal agent. They chased him away in a small fishing boat. The alarm systems have been reset and armed, and I don’t expect any further problems, sir.”
“This intruder. He was alone?” Roux’s bicep twitched as he pulled his hand into a fist, then released it.
“He was. He—” Her head shook slightly, then she squared her shoulders and looked back to Hildebrand. “I believe he was simply a vagrant searching for an empty house, and he stumbled into more than he bargained for, sir. I just wanted to make Mr. Roux aware of the incident. That’s all, sir.”
Hildebrand nodded towards Roux, then glanced down at his watch. “I’ll be aboard Aeolus. Text me any additional updates. And Miss Smythe? No more mistakes. There’s too much at stake.”
* * *
Deek sat atop a padded locker and dangled over the transom of the Island Hopper Too, his hair flopping across his eyes. Piloting the boat, he’d been okay. Not fine, but okay. But as soon as they hooked to the mooring ball and killed the engine, Deek’s stomach started doing Olympic-level backflips. Deek’s embarrassment deepened the greener he turned.
“Maritime Administration, my ass,” Justin had joked, pointing him toward the locker and handing him a tattered bucket.
He’d chosen the most downwind spot on the craft, with a clear path over the transom for when the inevitable happened.
Over the starboard gunwale, a military rigid-hull inflatable was tied to the cleats of the larger Hopper. Fish had raced there directly from the naval base, and was in the water less than five minutes after he’d rafted up. After setting up a perimeter of buoys above their site, Fish and Kate had descended on the reef.
For the past fifteen minutes, Deek had tried to calm himself by tossing Whiskey’s ball, making small talk with Justin, and staring anywhere except the unmoving pad of bubbles in the center of the zone. If asked, he couldn’t have answered if his digestive gymnastics were a result of the choppy seas or the idea that a human being was most likely wrapped in that tarp sixty feet below.
“Probably both.”
Deek looked up and his stomach pirouetted. “Did I say that out loud?”
“Dude, you’ve been mumbling over here since they went down. I get it. Normal people don’t usually have to deal with chasing bad guys and finding what they leave behind. You’re doing great, considering the circumstances.” Justin handed Deek a soda. A single chunk of ice clung to the bright red can, slowly losing its battle with gravity. “This’ll help. The sugar will settle your stomach. And stare at the horizon line. Don’t take your eyes off it.“
Deek lifted his gaze to the sharp, straight line where blue met blue. Around the edges of his vision, waves rolled by and collided against the buoys off the Hopper’s stern. Whiskey had nudged his ball into Justin’s hand when Justin’s ringtone pulled Deek’s eyes from the horizon to the man sitting in the shade.
Deek snapped his focus back to the horizon a moment too late.
Here, fishie, fishie, fishie.
“…out on the reef right now.”
Deek looked up as Justin absently tossed the ball and continued his conversation. Even though he knew his mother would have slapped him in the back of the head and whispered, “Mind your own business, boy,” Deek needed something other than his floating breakfast to think about. And to see.
“…no, I’m free this weekend… Cash? That’s fire, dude… three o’clock. Got it. I’ll be there.” Justin stuffed his phone into his pocket as the boat rocked and Whiskey’s ball rolled. The highly trained dog scrambled back and forth after it, his long legs splayed in all directions.
Deek took a tentative sip from the soda can and was delighted to find his stomach accepting the syrupy liquid. And the more he sipped, the better he felt. Just when he thought he might be able to hold down a cracker, two heads burst through the surface just off the swim platform.
Kate tossed her fins up and started to roll out of her BCD. But Fish floated in the water a few feet away with his phone’s waterproof housing already pressed to his ear.