Donna Andrews - Chesapeake Crimes - This Job Is Murder!

Motherships can carry over a hundred tons of drugs and typically linger fifty to a hundred miles out in international waters. Small ships then ferry the drugs closer in where they rendezvous with go-fast boats that can outrun most Coast Guard cutters.

Denise met me at the Piney Point Market the next day to brief me on the plan.

She told me the DEA was pressuring area law-enforcement agencies to prove their drug interdiction efforts are worth the millions in taxpayer money they’ve gotten over the years. “They say if we don’t make a major bust soon, our funding might get cut,” she said. “Hell, federal money’s the only thing that keeps cops on the streets in communities all along the bay.”

With information from the DEA and about my earlier dry run for Whitey, Denise said the HIDU team planned to nab the smugglers as they moved the drugs up the bay to the floating duck blind. The Coast Guard would seal off the bay along the Maryland-Virginia boundary after the smugglers’ boat began its northward trek. A small flotilla of patrol boats would lie in ambush as the drug runners made their way to Taylor Cove. Crucial to the plan’s success, all agreed, was that the best time to pounce would be while the drugs were being off-loaded onto the duck blind. The patrol boats would then close in, giving the smugglers no chance to get away.

After Denise left the market, I was putting groceries in my car when Whitey’s shiny, clean convertible pulled up. “Time to go to work,” he said and followed me home.

The drop was to be that night. Whitey’s plan was for the Lady J to stand off, with no lights showing, to act as the smugglers’ lookout. If anything went wrong, I was to warn them with four long blasts on my horn then make my getaway. If the drop went all right, though, I would pick up the drugs as before and head home. Whitey swore he’d be waiting at the dock behind my cottage.

Only this time a HIDU team would be there when he arrived.

As the Lady J took her lookout station that dark, drizzly night, I switched off her running lights, eased her engine into neutral, and waited. Denise in a dark green tactical uniform was out of sight in the tiny cabin, armed and ready. I pulled my knit cap tighter on my head and hunched deeper into my waterproof coat, ears straining for the sound of the speedboat’s engines.

I heard Denise check her pistol. It felt strange having a woman carrying a.40-caliber Smith & Wesson scrunched up at waist level. I hoped her gun was pointing up and well to the side.

After what seemed like hours, the night air vibrated as the smugglers’ powerful craft approached, its low, black silhouette barely visible in the gloom. I gave the pre-arranged all-clear signal of two long flashes from a red-lensed lantern. Their answer came a few seconds later. The boat continued past our position in a slow, wide turn, its wake slapping against the Lady J ’s sides. I figured they were making their own security sweep and held my breath, hoping they wouldn’t spot the ambush.

Apparently satisfied they were in the clear, the smugglers headed back toward us. Fifteen minutes at most, I thought, and the authorities would have the drug runners and their poisonous cargo in custody, and I could go back to being…what?

I barely had time to ponder my uncertain future when a blinding light swept over my boat. The smugglers were taking a closer look, and Denise made herself even smaller at my side. I shielded my eyes against the glare and gave a half-hearted wave in response to the unwelcome scrutiny. As the sleek craft circled, a shark eying its next meal, I prayed that denizen of darkness would soon be on its way to the drop point.

Before I could say amen, though, the entire area erupted in a cacophony of light and noise: the wail of police-boat sirens mixed with an amplified voice ordering the smugglers to heave to and drop their weapons. High-wattage search beams crisscrossed the misty darkness, and the flashing patrol lights gave the scene a nightmarish quality. Someone on the ambush team had jumped the gun, and Denise and I were caught in a dangeous crossfire as the smugglers tried to shoot it out in a high-speed getaway. It was just what their muscle boat was designed for.

A burst of machine gun fire splintered wood all around me. “Down!” Denise yelled and sprang at me. We tumbled to the deck, and she rolled into position to return fire. She got off three or four shots then dove for cover, unleashing a stream of curses as the smugglers swung around, dousing us with their wake.

Neither Denise nor I dared rise up to see what was going on, but we heard and felt enough to understand a little of what it must have been like for the allied forces hitting the beach at Normandy on D-Day. The Lady J rolled and wallowed in the water churned up by the police in pursuit of the smugglers high-tailing it south.

With the running gun battle receding into the distance, I risked a peek over the gunwales. Cold and wet from the rain and spray, I slumped down against the side, shaking. Denise, probably because her hand still gripped a loaded weapon, rose up with more courage to survey our surroundings. She gave a sharp yelp and dived back down as a glaring cone of light stabbed across my boat. Back to holding my breath and praying, I shuddered, huddling Denise to reassure her-and myself.

I started breathing again when a voice called, “Ahoy, the deadrise. Are you all right?”

I left it up to Denise to answer the hail. My vocal cords refused to work.

The patrol craft came alongside the Lady J , and I pulled it close with my boathook, passing a line to a deckhand. “Lieutenant Cliff Thompson,” an officer said, stepping aboard. “Is anyone injured?”

I accompanied the lieutenant to the cabin and turned on the work lights. Denise’s left leg was bleeding, and a thick splinter protruded from the wound. I saw, too, that her jacket had two ragged holes in the back, the armored vest showing through.

“This job is murder on my clothing budget,” Denise hissed through clenched teeth as an EMT with a bright yellow aid box scrambled aboard to tend to her injuries.

Just then, an insistent radio operator yelled for the lieutenant. An urgent message from the chase boat. The smugglers had eluded their pursuers and were headed back north. Thompson ordered Denise and me to board his forty-foot Boston Whaler, which was armed and considerably faster than the Lady J .

I switched off the engine and work lights on my battered, aging craft and took the Thermos of bourbon-laced coffee I’d prepared earlier from my cabin. Something to ward off the chill and steady the nerves.

As Denise boarded the patrol boat, I heard the speedboat’s rumbling engines in the distance, followed by what looked and sounded like giant, demonic lighting bugs hurtling toward us.

The smugglers traveling at breakneck speed were rounding a spit of land at the entrance to Taylor Cove. They must have seen the patrol boat because they veered to port, trying to pass it on the side away from shore.

With one foot on the patrol boat, I hesitated a moment then passed the coffee to Denise and stepped back onto the Lady J . After all, I had made a promise to her namesake.

The reliable little engine caught with the first turn of my key. I spun the wheel, throttling to full power, and switched on all the lights. I made a quick mental calculation and set a course. Bearing down on the smugglers’ boat, I hoped to force it back toward shore. Instead, the Lady J and I were in a deadly game of chicken. One of the thugs opened fire with a machine gun that ripped up still more chunks of her wood. Reluctantly, I figured the safest place for me would be in the water. So I set the wheel and bolted toward the stern. My escape was anything but graceful, and I swallowed a lot of water coming up for air in time to watch the Lady J close in fast on her target.