Nora hurried through the building with Deek on her heels. Jeffries lagged behind as he called the air traffic control tower on his cell phone and spoke with someone as requested. Bursting through the offices, Nora shoved open the door leading outside, and ran down a roadway to the apron. As Deek followed, his own cell phone rang and he looked at the caller ID.
“Oh boy,” he muttered, and answered. “Hello, sir.”
“How’s the show, Morrison?” his boss asked.
“Crazy, sir. Very busy.”
“You sound like you’re running, Morrison?”
“No, no, sir. Just handing out flyers like candy, sir.”
“Really? Do we need to send more down?” his boss said, sounding pleasantly surprised.
“I have someone with questions, sir, may I call you later?” Deek asked, cringing at his own lies.
“Yes, yes, of course. Good work, Morrison, I’m glad you’re finally seeing sense and taking the show seriously.”
“Thank you, sir, gotta go.”
Deek ended the call as he caught up to Nora. She’d stopped to survey the tarmac, and he tried his best to shake off the blatant deception he’d just played on his boss and do the same. Aircraft of varying sizes, shapes and purposes were parked all around the tarmac, but none of them appeared to be in motion. To their left, the rear half of a commercial jet with a Cayman Airways logo on the tail stuck out of a hangar. Farther left was a cluster of charter jets outside the Island Air FBO building.
At first, all Deek could hear was road traffic noise, but then a change in pitch made him search the tarmac once more.
“Hear that?” he asked.
Nora nodded, but neither of them could see the plane whose motor and propeller they could barely hear above the cars.
“There’s been nothing this evening,” Jeffries said, catching his breath as he hurried up behind them. “Until two minutes ago. But that’s Jack Haley taking a tour up, no doubt.”
“A tour?” Nora snapped. “Going where?”
Jeffries shrugged his shoulders. “Sunset tour, most likely. He’ll fly around the island, watch the sunset from up there, then come back. Sometimes he does a longer tour over to the Sister Islands, ninety miles away. Jack’s a good guy. He calls himself GCM Charters & Tours.”
Deek and Nora looked at each other. “We need to stop him taking off!” Nora ordered.
“What for?” Jeffries retorted. “Jack’s not about to fly his Cessna 172 to Florida in the dark. He’d have to stop twice, or even more if he flew around Cuba.”
Nora was already jogging out onto the tarmac to get a better view.
“He could be dropping our guy on one of the smaller islands, or more likely, Daniels will do what he did to the last pilot that flew him,” Deek babbled.
“What was that?” Jeffries inquired.
“Killed him and threw him out midair.”
“Holy mother of…” Jeffries trailed off as he dialed a number on his phone.
Deek ran to catch up with Nora.
“There!” she growled, pointing to the other side of the apron where a small plane was now taxiing toward the runway.
She looked around for a better form of transport, and seeing nothing, took off at a sprint. Deek gave chase, but the Norwegian’s long legs propelled her much faster than his office bound, out-of-shape muscles could match. He also wondered what on earth she planned on doing if she reached the airplane.
Fifty yards away, Deek could see there were two people in the cockpit, and the man sitting right seat was looking their way. It was hard to make out details as the low sun glinted off the plane’s windows and both men wore headsets, but Deek knew it had to be Wayne Daniels. And if that Cessna took off, he’d have lost his trail once more.
Up ahead, Nora drew alongside the taxiing plane and kept running until she was slightly ahead. Turning, she slowed and franticly waved her arms.
“No!” Deek yelled, terrified they’d steer the plane and its thrashing propeller straight at the policewoman.
Nora stood her ground and the pilot suddenly stomped on the brakes and brought the Cessna to a halt a few feet from her. She made the cut-throat sign and the motor slowed until it spluttered to a stop, the pilot’s door flying open and a man leaping to the tarmac.
“Are you freakin’ crazy, lady?” the pilot yelled. “I looked up and there you were right in front of me! I could have killed you.”
“Stand clear of the plane,” Nora ordered, her eyes locked on the passenger and her hand resting on her Taser.
Jack Haley took a few steps away from his precious plane, looking back and forth between the policewomen and his client. “What the hell’s going on?”
Nora ignored Haley and stayed focused on the passenger as Deek arrived heaving and wheezing. He stood well clear and watched as the passenger door opened.
“Come out! Slowly!” Nora commanded, moving closer.
The man extricated himself from the snug airplane and stood on the tarmac with his hands in the air. Deek’s first thought was that Daniels would certainly have a gun, but then he wondered if the man could have hung on to a firearm while escaping the downed plane. He looked more closely at Daniels.
“He looks different,” Deek said, glancing over at Nora then back to the man before him.
“What’s your name?” Nora asked.
“I’m Trent Mayfield,” he replied in an American accent. “You wanna tell me what the hell this all about?”
“Fy faen,” Nora swore and took the Cayman Islands driver’s license the man offered her, verifying his name.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I was taking my client up for a sunset tour,” Haley said, coming around the nose of the plane.
“Did anyone else approach you today about taking them anywhere?”
“No,” Haley replied, shaking his head. “Just this guy’s people.”
“His people?” Nora questioned.
“Sure. He had someone call and make the booking this afternoon,” Haley explained. “Was that your office who called me, Trent?”
His client smiled. “Yeah.”
Deek was ready to walk away, but Nora didn’t move.
“They call you on your mobile?” she asked, looking at the pilot.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“Let me see the number,” she ordered and held out her hand.
“Ma’am, clearly you have the wrong people here,” Trent said. “How about you let us go so I can get my sunset flight while the sun’s still setting?”
“Fly west, it’ll still be there,” Nora snapped back, and took the pilot’s cell phone from him.
Deek stepped over and she showed him the number.
“You live here?” she asked Trent.
“I do,” he replied.
“But your office is in Florida?”
“No, but I have friends all over the place.”
“Can we go now?” Haley asked impatiently.
She handed the phone and license back. “Sorry,” she said, sounding more disappointed than apologetic, which Deek guessed to be the truth. It was how he felt. “I’ll let air traffic control know you can go on your tour,” Nora added.
They began walking away, then Nora stopped and spun around. “Hey, one more thing,” she said and the two men who were about to get back in the plane paused. “How did you pay for this tour, Mr. Mayfield?”
“He paid me in cash. Hundred-dollar bills,” Haley answered for him, patting his pocket.
Nora turned to Deek and whispered. “Give me a hundred dollars.”
Deek frowned. “Uh… I kinda need the little I have left for a hotel.”
“Hey lady, we need to go,” Mayfield insisted, but Nora ignored him.
Instead, she growled at Deek. “You can sleep on AJ’s sofa. Now give me a hundred dollars.”
Deek dug into his pocket and peeled five twenty-dollar bills from his shrinking watch money, handing it to Nora.
“Mr. Haley,” she said. “Exchange one of those hundred-dollar bills with me.”
The pilot shrugged his shoulders. “Sure. If it means you’ll let us be on our way.”
He handed Nora a hundred-dollar bill and received the twenties in return.
“Enjoy your flight,” Nora said, then turned and walked away with Deek in tow.
“What was that about?” he asked, but she didn’t answer as a security vehicle sped toward them. When it stopped, Officer Jeffries and an airport security man in uniform stepped out.
“Wasn’t your guy?”
“No,” Deek said.
“Control can clear them,” Nora added, looking back at the Cessna.
An SUV appeared from behind the buildings, and drove over, joining them on the tarmac. Detective Whittaker got out.
“False alarm?” he asked, and Nora shook her head.
“Maybe not,” she replied, and Deek looked at her, puzzled.
“Do you remember that phone number?” she asked Deek.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah. Numbers are kinda my thing.”
“I figured that much,” she said. “Let’s track this number, sir,” she explained. “It’s a Florida 305 area code. And I suggest we detain the passenger, a Trent Mayfield, when they land.”
“He’s not Wayne Daniels, Nora,” Deek said. “He’s similar build and age, but it’s not him.”
“I know,” she told Deek, then turned back to her boss, holding up the money she’d exchanged. “I think you’ll find this is one of the hundred-dollar bills which will match the cash paid out from the bank today.”
“Damn it,” Deek cursed, realizing what she’d concluded. “He was a decoy.”
Nora nodded. “I think so, but we won’t be able to confirm that until the morning when the bank opens.”
“And we get a warrant from a judge,” Whittaker pointed out.
“That’ll be too late,” Deek blurted. “Daniels will have found another way off the island by then.”
“Sorry, Deek,” Nora said. “But I’m sure he already has.”
“Boat?” Whittaker queried.
“Almost certainly,” Nora replied.
“To another island,” Deek added, feeling desperate once again. “How will we know which one?”
“We won’t,” Nora replied. “But it doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters,” Deek moaned. “I’ve lost him again.”
“No you haven’t,” Nora contradicted. “You know exactly where he’s going.”
Deek looked up. “Oh yeah. I guess I do.”
* * *
The horizon blazed an array of orange and yellow hues as the sun dipped below the ocean off the stern. Between the low drone of the diesel engine, the swaying of the boat, and the beer he was drinking, Angler was beginning to feel exhausted. He’d had an eventful day, even by his standards. He looked at his phone. It was down to one bar of reception. Quickly, he went through the critical protocols of connecting to the blog site via a secure VPN, and typed a message.
“Fair winds and following seas. Back on course tomorrow.”
Hitting send on the message, he moved on to a text, updating Grady Foster on his adjusted schedule. Thirty seconds after he hit send, “no service” flashed on the screen. With a smile, Angler took another swig of beer, and tossed the cell phone over the side.
The wheelhouse door slid open behind him and he turned to face the captain.
“You said I was to let you know,” the man said in a thick Jamaican accent. “We just past da twelve-mile mark. We in international waters now.”
Angler tipped his beer bottle the man’s way in thanks, and the captain went back to the helm.