John Avery - Black Cobra

“Was one in his mid-fifties?” Jason asked sarcastically. “The other a handsome black man around six-five? Both dressed like tourists?”

“You saw them? ” Brandy said, feeling foolish. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Jason opened the fridge again, grabbed a beer, and slammed the door. Then he went back up on deck.

Brandy looked at Aaron, but again he only shrugged.

Sailing just before nightfall, Jason found the going easy. It felt good to be out on the open water again, a warm breeze in his face, away from whoever might be looking for him. Sailing was the only thing that brought peace to his soul.

He switched the Cayman Jewel to auto pilot and joined Aaron and Brandy on the aft deck.

“We should make good time tonight,” he said. “There’s no wind to speak of and the sea is as flat as a billiard table.”

Aaron had mapped out the trip to San Diego in his head. “I assume we’re taking the Panama Canal route,” he said. “Do they even allow private yachts through there, with all of the huge cargo ships and cruise ships going in and out?”

“I can’t say it will be easy,” Jason admitted. “We’ll be like a skateboard on a freeway. But private yachtsmen do it every day. We’ll hire an agent to help us with the paperwork and navigation, and we’ll be measured and fees calculated based on our theoretical cargo capacity. As we approach the Canal Zone we’ll be in contact with traffic control at Flemenco, keeping them informed regarding our location and speed. It's a one to three day trip through the canal, depending upon how good our agent is at schmoozing the authorities.”

“The authorities can cause problems for us?” Aaron asked.

“I’m not too concerned,” Jason said. “Canal agents have a reputation for getting things done.”

Brandy was shocked. She had figured that crossing the Panama Canal would take about an hour.

“I’m especially looking forward to crossing Lake Gatun,” Jason said. “It makes up a large portion of the canal, and I should be able to relax for a while with no locks to worry about. Overall it should be a very interesting crossing.”

“How long will the whole trip take?” Brandy asked.

“Two to three weeks,” Jason said. “I’m figuring four or five days from the Caymans to Panama, another one to three days on the canal, maybe five days up to Cabo, followed by two or three days sailing to San Diego.”

“Do we have to worry about ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’?” Aaron asked, only half kidding.

Brandy looked at him, surprised. That possibility had never occurred to her.

Jason smiled. “I’d be lying if I said we didn’t. But according to the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre, the two countries to be concerned about in this region are Brazil and Peru. We’re sailing to Panama by way of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, hugging the coastline, and Central America is not on the bureau's current list.”

Brandy sat back in her seat, dazed. This adventure was turning out to be a lot more than she had bargained for.

Jason Souther had done an excellent job covering his tracks over the last two years, and for Harness and Holt, sniffing themselves all the way from their tiny East Coast precinct office to Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands had taken a considerable amount of skill, more than a little luck, and most of their strength and stamina; and although they had come up empty at the marina the first time around, the intrepid duo were confident that, at long last, they were hot on Jason’s trail.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat, they decided to stop by the Cayman Union Bank, figuring that if Jason were living on Grand Cayman he would likely have an account there. But it was no use. The island’s legendary banking system was every bit as secretive as they’d heard it would be.

With their confidence still high, the men dropped back by the marina to pay another visit to the Cayman Jewel .

But her slip was empty.

They scanned the rest of the marina, figuring they’d somehow been confused as to the yacht’s actual location, but to no avail.

They went to the marina office and questioned the manager, and he confirmed that the yacht was indeed gone — out to sea for an indeterminate amount of time, destination unknown.

Harness had lost Jason Souther again .

Tired and frustrated, Harness sat on a bench, trying to come to grips with the fact that he had failed, and that Jason’s trail and most of Holt’s savings had dried up.

He and his loyal partner would have no choice but to fly home to the States with their tails between their legs and try their best to mend their broken careers.

But before they did, Harness wanted to make one more stop.

Two years had passed since Harness helped save a young boy’s life back at Sally’s Diner, and since then, hardly a day had gone by when he hadn’t thought of him.

He had heard that after being released from the hospital, the boy had left the country, leaving a trail when he applied for a work visa in the Cayman Islands. Harness knew that this, too, was an extreme long shot, but after questioning a few Cayman locals he was told that there was a young man that fit the description living up on Cayman Brac, working at a dive shop called Earl’s Reef.

He and Holt drove straight to the airport and boarded the next plane to Cayman Brac, betting on a chance to say hello to Aaron Quinn.

“You just missed him,” the salty man behind the counter at Earl’s Reef Dive Shop told them. “Won’t be back for a month… that is if he ever does come back. Said something about sailing a motor-yacht through the Panama Canal, and in my experience, those folks, the ones that sail that far, never return. He’ll be sorely missed around here.”

Harness couldn’t believe his luck. They had actually tracked Aaron down. It was a shame that they had missed him.

“Did he say where they were headed?” he asked, figuring he might run into Aaron sometime in the future.

“I can’t recall,” the man said. “But he did mention a flaming redhead who has the hots for him.” He paused, scratching his whiskers. “There was something else… Oh, yeah, I’m pretty sure he said the boat’s captain was some guy named… Jason.”

Harness looked at Holt, unable to believe what he’d just heard. Holt couldn’t believe it either.

“Did he mention the captain’s last name?” Harness asked the man. “Or the name of the yacht?”

“Nope, only Jason.”

Harness had to take a moment. There was no way that the guy Aaron was sailing with was Jason Souther … or that the motor-yacht he and Aaron were on was the Cayman Jewel. That would be way too strange a coincidence. An impossible turn of fate.

He jotted down his number on a scrap of paper and handed it to the man. “If by some chance Aaron should happen to return, would you tell him I stopped by?”

“Yep,” the man said. He dropped the note into a jar full of business cards.

Harness thanked the man, and then he and Holt left Earl’s Reef and boarded a plane bound for Panama City.

Ekatarina Vtorakevna Pankova lived with her father in their modest home overlooking Vladivostok Harbor, along Russia’s northern coast. She was in her bedroom, seated lightly on a small chair, smiling at her reflection in the vanity mirror, brushing her long black hair with enthusiasm.