James Hall - Off the Chart

‘Clandestine,’ Lawton said. ‘Covert operations.’

Jimmy Lee looked at Lawton.

‘This your father?’ Webster said.

‘Practically.’

‘You came to the right place, Webster,’ Lawton said, ‘because it just so happens I did a bit of undercover work myself at one time. Miami PD. Several high-profile sting operations. Stolen merchandise, cocaine. So I know how it’s done. We took down some pretty rotten apples.’

Jimmy Lee nodded uncertainly at the old man.

‘Forget about Thorn,’ Lawton said. ‘He’s the shy, retiring type. The guy you want to talk to is standing right here.’

Thorn rested a hand on Webster’s shoulder and eased him firmly toward his car.

‘I just want to pick your brain about Anne Joy.’

‘You already picked it clean, partner. Time you hit the highway.’

‘You didn’t even ask him what he wanted?’ Alex said. Lawton was stretched out in his cot, the full moon had risen above the trees, and Blackwater Sound was frosted with gold.

‘I ushered him to his car and sent him on his way.’

‘Jeez, Thorn. Jimmy Lee Webster.’

‘Big shot, huh?’

‘Was for a while.’

‘He claimed he was controversial.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Alex said. ‘He’s the guy who gave the go-ahead for a navy destroyer to fire on some commercial ship in Malaysia, somewhere over there.’

‘Why?’

‘Something about pirates. Problem was, he got the wrong boat. Bad intelligence. I forget the details. Bunch of civilians got killed, ship sank. That’s how I remember it. Major international incident. A lot of saber rattling afterward. There was a Senate hearing on TV for a week or two. Haven’t heard much about him lately.’

‘Pirates?’

‘I think what it was, navy intelligence thought an American oil tanker had been taken over by thugs and they were sailing off somewhere after murdering the crew. They had that part right. There was an oil tanker that got pirated; our folks just got the wrong ship. A US destroyer tried to get this other tanker to stop; when they didn’t respond, our guys opened fire. A dozen men killed, that’s what I recall. Maybe more. Big oil spill.’

‘Well, he’s doing something else now. CIA maybe. Who knows?’

Alex leaned against his shoulder. They were standing at the rail looking out at the darkness.

‘Your name came up?’

‘That’s what he said.’

Thorn considered for a half-second telling her about the Anne Joy connection but decided to pass. No need to stir that up again.

‘It might’ve been interesting just to hear his pitch.’

‘No way. I’m on vacation.’

‘Oh, yeah? For how long?’

‘Rest of my natural life.’

‘Well, that’s fine. But me, I’d want to know what the deal was.’

‘Whatever it was, I’ve got my hands full already,’ Thorn said, nudging her hip with his. ‘My cup is overflowing.’

‘Hey, I know what it was,’ Alexandra said. ‘Your name came up in an investigation of international Lotharios.’

‘Funny,’ he said. ‘Hilarious.’

He poked his elbow lightly in her ribs.

‘They wanted to know what makes you so irresistible to women. Start distilling it. Put it in bottles, lob it at the enemy. A weapon of mass seduction.’

Thorn laughed. He lifted his glass and clinked it to hers and had another sip of wine. She gave his cheek a peck, then drew away and looked back at the dark view.

‘Irresistible?’ he said. ‘How irresistible?’

‘Mesmerizing.’ Alexandra finished the last swallow of her cabernet and set the glass on the table behind them. ‘An overpowering magnetism.’

In the thick mangroves that bordered his land, a bird keened. A warning screech or maybe a late-night mating call. He wasn’t sure what kind of bird it was. Didn’t sound like an osprey or the red-shouldered hawk, not the screech owl, either. Sugarman or Janey would know.

‘Well, it’s nice to know,’ Thorn said, ‘I’m such hot shit.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You are. You most certainly are.’

She laced her fingers in his and drew him away from the water a quarter-turn and into her strong arms. And there he stayed until they were breathless and dizzy with their mutual heat. Then she stepped out of his embrace, took his hand, and led him quietly past Lawton’s cot into the bedroom they shared.

For the next few weeks, Anne Bonny lived the life she’d been named for. They didn’t roam the open seas with a lookout clinging high to the mast, peering through a spyglass, searching for a ship to take. Daniel’s operation used a simple scheme that relied on the shipping industry’s antipirate tracking system, FROM. Fleet Remote Monitoring units were installed aboard security-conscious transport ships and relayed an automated signal six times a day that informed corporate headquarters of their ships’ exact position, speed, and direction. A seagoing LoJack. The system was designed to give the owners an early warning if one of their ships made a drastic change in course and allowed them to track it once it left its charted route and send assistance.

Sal Gardino, Daniel’s young computer guy, had penetrated the system’s security firewall – a worm, a backdoor; Anne Bonny could never keep the hacker jargon straight. But now with a few minutes of work on his laptop, Daniel could enter the site and prowl through the code to determine the exact positions of thousands of different vessels at sea. Freighters, tankers, container ships. Maersk, Hanjin, TransAsia, Global Transport, the entire fleets of dozens of shipping companies were open books to him. Daniel relished the irony of it, using their system against them.

They stayed at sea for four weeks straight. Two boats. The sleek forty-five-foot Hatteras sportfishing yacht that had picked them up from the Cheeca Lodge. High-performance diesels below its decks. Anne and Daniel, Sal and Marty lived aboard that one. And the Nicaraguans and the rest of the crew manned a second vessel, a shrimp trawler that had been outfitted with enough horsepower to stay up with the Hatteras. Both boats were equipped with seven-man inflatables powered by four-stroke Yamahas. These they used as boarding craft. While they were under way, they kept a two- or three-mile cushion between the two boats, moving from location to location through the West Indies, off the South American coast, and through the islands. The Hatteras carried a cache of automatic weapons, the satellite communications system, and the computer that Sal used to crack the FROM site.

With all that shipping data arrayed before them, selecting a new target was a little like going to the track. You studied the program, checked the stats, figured the odds, one ship against another based on what else was racing that day, considered the value of the cargo, the difficulty of disposing of it, and above all you didn’t bet more than you could afford to lose.

Early in April, after hitting four ships in as many weeks, they bivouacked at the Gray Ghost Lodge, a fishing camp Daniel owned. Thirty acres in the Barra de Colorado, on the Costa Rican – Nicaraguan border.

Ten primitive wood cabins, a small dining hall, a marina big enough for half a dozen open fishing boats. Daniel stored his Donzi there, the Black Swan , that playboy speedboat he’d used so successfully to court Anne Bonny.

The fishing camp was bordered on the west and south by dense rain forest, a roadless nature preserve that was well off the tourist track. To the north and east were a labyrinth of estuaries and lagoons and a system of shallow, nearly impenetrable bays that led to the Caribbean Sea.

Partly for appearances, partly for his own amusement, Daniel kept the fishing lodge open during the winter season, hiring guides, cooks, and service help, operating it as a legit business. From November to February, rich anglers paid five hundred dollars a day to stay in the shacks and fish with guides for the giant bonefish and tarpon that streaked across the sand flats.