“Seriously, she can swim, right?” Dwayne said and crossed the deck to peer over the side toward the water.
“Your friend from the Peace Corps?” Boats said as he dug through the ice for a tallboy.
“He just has a soft spot in his heart for the ladies.” Jimbo caught a thrown bottle.
“That’s my problem. I got nothing but hard spots for the ladies.” Boats grinned and popped his beer with a church-key slung around his neck on a chain along with a tiny gold crucifix.
Dwayne helped the drenched Latina up onto the poop. She shoved him aside. She gave Boats the finger and stormed off the boat and down the dock, unerringly aiming a middle finger back at them the whole way.
“Well, adios,” Boats said. “Babe.”
Beers were popped and introductions made. Dwayne made the pitch, and Boats leaned back on the rail and listened.
“A scientific experiment? Like a Jack Costello kind of thing?” Boats said.
Dwayne was at a loss.
“That French dude who sailed around looking at fish and shit,” Boats said.
“Jacques Cousteau.”
“Yeah, something like that,” Jimbo put in. “We need to keep it quiet. The research is kind of sensitive.” Boats came off the rail to look from one Ranger to the other with sudden gravity.
“Don’t bullshit me. It’s not drugs, is it?” They assured him it wasn’t.
“’Cause I charge double for that!” Boats said and broke up laughing at himself.
“We’re going to need more than just a captain,” Dwayne said. “We’re just paying passengers here. We need a full crew. One that can keep quiet for the right pay.”
“You want a crew that doesn’t speak English. Better than a crew that can keep a secret is one that doesn’t know what the fuck’s going on in the first place,” Boats said.
“You can make the hires?” Dwayne said.
“The ship’s berthed at Alexandria?”
“Yes. And the owners are anxious to get it out of there.”
“Yeah. They would be, huh. We’ll need about a dozen hands. I can scrounge them up and have them meet us there. No problem.”
“Any welders in the bunch?” Dwayne said.
“If you need them, I can make a few ironworkers part of the crew. That’s no problem.” Boats nodded. His mind was already in motion. “You have modifications in mind?”
“Most of it is work that can be done once we’re at sea,” Dwayne said.
“Away from prying eyes,” Boats said.
“You see any problems with departing Alexandria in two weeks?”
“This is strictly an expedition, so the paperwork is cut way down. If you were sailing from port to port with goods, we’d have a shitload of compliance on our hands.”
“We have a container en route to be loaded aboard, but it’s staying on board for the duration of the trip.”
“What’s the cargo?”
“This is where you stop asking questions,” Jimbo said.
Boats pressed a finger to his pursed lips and rolled his eyes heavenward.
“Can I ask about passengers?”
“Six unless someone changes their mind,” Dwayne said.
“Any females?” Boats said with a boozy leer. “One,” Dwayne said after a beat.
“Oh,” Boats intoned. “Somebody you have a soft spot for.”
“And at least one hard one.” Jimbo smiled.
“All’s I need is an advance then, to clear up a few debts here,” Boats said.
“Ten grand okay?” Jimbo asked, and tugged an envelope from his inside jacket pocket.
“Shit the bed,” Boats said. “Nothing like cash, is there?” He riffled the bills in the envelope.
“We’ll be taking off from Tampa,” Dwayne said.
“First class? I like to fly with my legs straight,” Boats said.
“Charter jet. You’ll have all the room you need.”
“Better yet. I’ll get to work building a crew and update you as I go along.”
“Contact us on this,” Dwayne said and handed over a cell phone. “It’s a throwaway. Our numbers are already on it.”
“Real James Bond shit, huh?”
As Dwayne and Jimbo returned to their rental, an SUV pulled to a dusty stop in the lot. Two husky Hispanic dudes climbed out. Boat’s still-dripping bikinied passenger clambered from the rear seat. She led them down the dock toward the Wotta Peach, waving her arms and squeaking a stream of rapido Español the whole way.
“Is this something we should step into?” Dwayne said from behind the wheel.
“It’ll give Boats something to talk about on the long voyage,” Jimbo said.
They drove away from the marina back to the county airport.
17
Money Trouble
“Lee Edward Hammond?” asked the larger of the two Armani-clad stiffs standing in front of the silver S600 blocking Lee’s pickup in his own damned driveway.
“He’s in the house,” Lee lied and jerked a thumb at the modest tract hacienda he was calling home these days.
The pair went to move past him. “You boys cops?” Lee said.
“FBI,” said the smaller one in Ray-Ban aviators.
“You know Tim Farrell at the Boise office?”
“I’ll bet you just made that name up,” Ray-Bans said. “That some trick to see if we’re who we say we–”
Lee snake-punched him in the throat and shouldered him back into his pal. The bigger guy was stepping back, clawing for his gun. Lee jerked the stainless Sig from the pancake holster in Ray-Ban’s waistband and held it on the big man. The big man showed hands, palms open. His eyes were hard. He started to speak. Lee slammed the butt of the Sig square between his eyes. Big man dropped.
Lee turned to Ray-Bans, who was wheezing on all fours in his driveway. A stroke at the base of the neck, and he was down. The shades skittered across the driveway. “Shit,” Lee said, standing over the Faux-bee-eye agents lying on his asphalt. “What am I supposed to do with you two?”
“How many feds can afford Italian-tailored suits?” Lee said to Ray-Bans, now duct-taped into a folding chair in his garage.
Lee tore away the tape covering the man’s mouth. There were fingers of dried blood on his scalp where his head had struck the driveway.
“And real feds would have had a picture of me.”
“Where’s my partner?” Ray-Bans said. His eyes were still hard although they went out of
