Interdiction Tactical Squadron to chase down Alejandro Garcia and to arrest and detain him.
It would be a clean sweep that snared a turncoat drug dealer.
Arrest and detain.
If they did that, Max Gordon would be found and sent home. Was it better that way? From everything Riga had told him about the boy, he would keep on trying to uncover the secret of his mother’s death. He would have to be dealt with in England if he returned. A risk worth taking?
Cazamind picked up the phone. The intercept command must be changed.
Arrest and detain was insufficient.
Locate and destroy.
In Alejandro’s world, millions of dollars changed hands, and buying information was easy. There was always someone who needed a new car, a health plan for their children or a means to pay off their own bad habits. There were informers at every level, and people like Alejandro Garcia had them in his pocket.
Now one of them told him that he had been betrayed.
Alejandro braced himself against the boat’s controls, the satellite phone pressed tightly against his ear. He eased back the power, spoke quickly and turned to look behind the boat, across the plumes of water.
“Carlos!” Alejandro’s man stepped forward to take the controls.
Xavier flinched as his brother stared at him in disbelief. “
Xavier cowered into Max. Alejandro had not made a move toward him, but the man struck fear without raising a hand.
Alejandro gestured to Carlos, who eased back the throttles.
The boat slowed quickly and then settled into the ocean’s swell. The silence was frightening; the engines’ roar had at least muted Alejandro’s anger.
Xavier turned to Max and spoke rapidly in English as if the foreign language might disguise his guilt.
“They said they would take us and give us a new life!”
“Drug smuggling is a death sentence!” Alejandro yelled.
“No, no! They come for us now there is no trouble. We are going home. We have no drugs on board. You see? They cannot charge us with anything,” Xavier pleaded. “This is not a life, brother. We can live in America. They will look after us. They promised!”
The men stood silent, dumbfounded by the discovery of the traitor in their midst, but they could make no move against their leader’s brother. If the boy was to die, and surely he must, then it had to be by Alejandro’s hand.
“It
“You are wrong. Kidnapping is a life sentence,” he said. And then he gave a sorrowful smile and shook his head. “Xavier, you are a fool. You made your deal before he came aboard,” Alejandro said, pointing at Max.
Xavier looked confused.
“Do I kill him now?” Alejandro said. “Tip his body in the water? Then there is no kidnapping, eh? No evidence?”
Max was ready to jump, but knew he could never survive the gunfire that would surely follow.
“He saved my life!” Xavier cried.
“And I was in his debt. But you are no longer my brother.”
Alejandro eased a semiautomatic from his belt, pulled back and released the slide, loading a round into the chamber. It was the moment before their deaths.
“He’s still your brother,” Max said desperately. “He’s your blood. He did it because he loved you. He was trying to protect you.”
Alejandro raised the gun and gazed along its barrel.
“It’s too late,” he said.
He lowered the weapon. “They’re here.”
The Coast Guard’s Hamilton-class, high-endurance cutter lay sixty kilometers beyond the horizon, but its attack helicopter came like a low-flying vampire bat out of hell-and it was looking for blood. Precision laser-sighted, 50 caliber rifles, nestled next to M240, 7.62 mm machine guns, lethal weapons that exemplified this unit’s special status-AUF, Airborne Use of Force.
Alejandro powered the go-fast boat into a rearing surge, and like a white stallion given its freedom, the boat charged forward. Max held on to Xavier, who fell to the floor, grasping his wound as he slammed into the bulkhead. The boat slewed right, snaked and then headed due west, toward the setting sun.
“He won’t outrun a chopper!” Max yelled over the engines.
Xavier shook his head. “He’s going for land-for the inlets.”
Max squinted against the blurring light and spray. There, on the ragged horizon, was a scribbled pattern of palm trees. Alejandro was taking the straightest route while shouting instructions to his men. They opened the weapons box and armed themselves.
“He’s crazy. That’s exactly what they want him to do. That gives them an excuse to shoot back.”
Xavier’s face streamed with tears, but whether they were caused by the buffeting of the wind or by his emotions Max didn’t know.
The helicopter was less than a kilometer away now-and so was the shoreline. The waves had disguised the distance between boat and shore, and Max could see the narrow, curved beaches, the rocky outcrops and the headlands. Reefs intertwined like bracelets, settling the swells into narrow strips of calm water.
The walloping downbeat of the rotor’s blades flattened the air above their heads. The helicopter was less than a hundred meters above them. The expert pilot shadowed Alejandro’s every evasive move. But then Alejandro swung the boat in an almost suicidal maneuver. For a moment it felt as though they would all be thrown overboard. The boat nearly flipped and fell onto its side, engines screaming in the air as they sought the water that fed them. The helicopter zoomed past.
Alejandro turned to Max. “Get ready! I’m going across the reef! You take Xavier.” He paused a moment and locked on Max’s gaze. “He can’t swim. You get him ashore. You saved him once. You save him again. Yes?”
Alejandro was giving him his life. Max nodded.
“He’s a fool, but he’s my brother,” Alejandro said. “Get ready.”
A tortured, ripping sound reverberated through the boat as he ran it across the reef. The helicopter was coming in again. Max gripped Xavier’s shirt.
“We’ve gotta jump, Xavier. You stay with me.”
Xavier looked bewildered. He cried out in Spanish to his brother, who turned and answered him. Max didn’t understand what they said, but he knew that one brother was sacrificing himself for the other.
Alejandro looked at Max and nodded. The engines suddenly slowed; the boat wallowed in its own wake. Max didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Xavier and pulled him over the side. As they hit the water, the boat’s engines surged, churning the sea into a twisting confusion of foam.
Max was out of his depth but quickly hooked the struggling Xavier under his arms. “Kick your feet! I’ve got you!”
Max pulled Xavier after him, calming the boy’s panic. Beyond the reef, Max could see the boat zigzagging and the helicopter weaving to keep alongside. Alejandro had fooled the pilot, making it look as though they were running for the mangrove inlets and had caught the reef, momentarily losing control. For a few seconds the boat and the wave concealed Max and Xavier, and once Alejandro was back on the open sea, the helicopter crew was focused on him and him alone.
Dark shadows glided beneath Max’s legs. Sharks.
Max felt the sand beneath his feet and the slushy entanglement of turtle grass-soggy strips of lasagne-like kelp. “We’re there, Xavier. Come on, we’ve got to reach the trees.”
They floundered, forcing their legs to push against the weight of the water, and fell onto the hard, wet sand, which was darkened by palm-tree shadows and low, overhanging branches. Max pulled Xavier deeper into the
