"Hold that thought for a minute," Phillip said. "I think you're right about them, Dani, but they may not know where Lucie and Rachel are. And we don't know that they went back to the park. Even if they did, that's a lot of territory for us to search. They didn't have time to take Max and Nick and the girls back to Trois Îlets, and they weren't aboard the Cigarette boat when those two returned it to the jetty at Anse Bécune."

  "Okay," Dani said. "I agree with that, but those guys must know something. What do you think happened after they dragged Rachel and Lucie to the Cigarette boat and they all headed out to the west?"

  "There has to be another boat involved," Phillip said.

  Dani nodded. "Right. That's the only way the time window works."

  "The Cigarette boat headed out to the west, and the jet skis took off in two different directions, right?" Phillip asked. "That's what the crew of the patrol boat learned from the people at Grande Anse d'Arlet."

  "Yes," Dani said, her brow furrowed. "And less than an hour later, the two men who left the beach on the jet skis showed up at Anse Bécune with the Cigarette boat, towing the jet skis — no girls, and no Max and Nick. So the jet skis and the Cigarette boat must have met up not too long after they left the beach. Say twenty minutes offshore… "

  "At the kind of speed they're capable of, twenty minutes could put them out of sight, over the horizon," Liz said, picking up on Dani's thought. "They had another boat out there, waiting. Max and Nick took Rachel and Lucie aboard, and the two crewmen from Aquila towed the jet skis back to Anse Bécune with the Cigarette boat."

  "I agree," Dani said. "And if you believe that, then the two crewmen who took the tender to the park and rented the Cigarette boat saw the vessel that picked up Rachel and Lucie and Max and Nick. They can identify it. We have to go get them and interrogate them. That's the only way to find Rachel and Lucie."

  "But wait," Liz said. "Why are they still hanging out in the park? Why didn't they go straight back to Aquila? There's something off, here… Those two guys could be somewhere else besides the park and Anse Bécune."

  "Where?" Dani asked. "Doing what?"

  "Don't know, but Liz has a point, Dani," Phillip said.

  "Okay." Dani chewed on her lower lip for a second. "I'll buy that. They could be somewhere else in St. Lucia," Dani said. "It's a fifteen-minute walk from the park dock to Anse Bécune, and I doubt they're the type to be amused by a hike in the park. They're up to something. Can you get their names and maybe passport photos from Cedric? Those guys are our best shot at finding Rachel and Lucie. I'll go find them while you all try to locate this hypothetical boat."

  "Hypothetical?" Sandrine asked. "If they're not on a boat, then where did they go? Back to Trois Îlets?"

  "Maybe," Marie said. "They could have transferred to a different go-fast boat and come ashore anywhere in Martinique. Or they could be on a motor yacht or a freighter with the six captives, bound for who knows where?" Marie shrugged, raising her hands and turning her palms up, fingers spread. "Everybody's zeroed in on Trois Îlets, but we don't know for sure that they were ever there. We only know that the men who boarded the decoy called a cellphone that was there. The same cellphone that we assumed Max was using was on the Cigarette boat — or some boat — that was out in the Baie de Fort-de-France, paralleling the route that Lucie and Rachel drove in the Jeep. But we don't know for sure that Max was the one using that cellphone."

  "Another boat," Sandrine said. "That would … " She stared off into space for several seconds.

  "What?" Phillip asked, looking at her and frowning.

  "When I arranged to have Aquila searched in St. Pierre after those two men boarded Vengeance, we expected to find Max and Nick and the six girls aboard. They were there when the two crewmen left to attack Vengeance early that morning. Remember?"

  "Yes," Dani said. "Our guess was that Max and company slipped ashore in St. Pierre when they realized the attack failed."

  "That is right," Sandrine said. "Our guess. But suppose they transferred to another boat instead of going ashore?"

  "Yes!" Liz said. "It could have happened right there in St. Pierre. They could have been on a neighboring boat watching customs boarding Aquila, for all we know."

  "That could have been their plan all along," Phillip said. "It may not have had anything to do with the failure of their attack. Can you find out what other vessels were in St. Pierre that night?"

  "Maybe," Sandrine said. "Certainly, I can find out if there were any that cleared in with customs there. The local office is supposed to patrol for vessels that are flying the quarantine flag — the ones in transit who don't clear in to go ashore. They photograph them and maintain a log. I will call the office and have someone check." Sandrine moved to Phillip's desk and picked up the telephone.

  "While she does that," Marie said, "I will ask Clarence if he can spare two helicopters to fly expanding search patterns to the north and south of the area where the Cigarette boat may have met with another vessel. If there was a rendezvous, it has not been so long ago that we won't be able to spot possible targets."

  "Good," Phillip said. "I'll call Angie. It's possible that Interpol may have satellite surveillance data that would show recent vessel traffic in the area."

  "What about the two men who were on the jet skis?" Dani asked. "Let's not forget them. Anybody want to join me and help interrogate them?"

  "I have a team of operatives in the Rodney Bay area working on a project for a different client," Marie said. "It will be faster to have them pick up the two men. They already have access to St. Lucia's immigration database to get passport pictures from Aquila's crew list, and they have a network of local contacts. Plus, they have a van they are using for a command post. They will be more efficient at finding those two, and anyway, it is better if you stay with us, Dani. Remember, we need you as part of the recovery team once we find the girls."

  "Oh, all right," Dani said, grimacing. "Have it your way."

  "Come with me, Dani," Liz said. "Let's go make coffee while they're making their calls."

  Dani scowled, grumbling under her breath, but she followed Liz out of the office.

  20

  When Dani and Liz returned with a freshly filled coffee urn and a tray with mugs, cream, and sugar, they found Marie sitting at the table studying a chart of Martinique's coastal waters. Phillip and Sandrine were wrapping up their phone calls.

  "Clarence agreed to the use of the helicopters, and he offered us Midnight Thunder, too," Marie said. "She's just back from a mission off the coast of Venezuela. Jaques has not had time to re-provision her, but he has already restocked all the ordnance."

  "Great," Dani said. "We're not likely to need her long enough for the provisions to matter. Lucky for us that she's available."

  Midnight Thunder was the ultimate evolution of the ocean racing designs that had been favored by drug runners for the last 30 years. But Midnight Thunder bore as much resemblance to a Donzi or a Cigarette boat as an F-35 did to a Piper Cub. She was larger, and hand-built of space-age composites. Two enormous, turbocharged diesels would push her to a top speed in moderate seas of well over 100 knots. With a range of 2,000 miles at cruising speed, she carried a complement of state-of-the-art weapons and military-grade electronics.

  Her composite construction made her virtually invisible to radar, and her low, sleek hull was patterned with a strange bronze/silver/gray color mix that played tricks on the eye. The shape of the hull itself defied description. There were no flat panels and no hard corners; it was an amorphous shape of smoothly blended curves. Staring at it for too long made it appear to change shape before an observer's eyes.

  "He will send the two helicopters out as quickly as they can be refueled," Marie said. "They may already be en route to the search area."

  "That's good news," Phillip said, disconnecting from his call and helping himself to coffee. "Did I hear you say Midnight Thunder's available?"

  "Yes," Marie said. "With her whole crew. They're on standby. All we have to do is find the target."

  Disconnecting from her call, Sandrine turned to the others and said, "Angie's checking on satellite surveillance data. She doubts they have anything as recent as today, but it might still be useful if we can spot vessels that have been close to Aquila since she left St. Martin. Also, my office is sending those photographs of the vessels that were flying quarantine flags in St. Pierre."

  Sandrine filled a mug with coffee and sat down at the table. "Plus, I asked for the details of several that cleared in and out during the last few days. There are also three that cleared in before Aquila arrived that are still in St. Pierre, but I think we can disregard those, at least as far as finding Rachel and Lucie. The Cigarette boat might have had just enough time for a round trip to St. Pierre, but someone would have noticed if it transferred passengers to one of the visiting yachts in the middle of the day. The marine police are checking with the boat vendors to see if one of them witnessed a transfer. Those people watch the harbor like hawks for any newcomers who might be prospects for whatever they're selling. I've also ordered customs to board and inspect the three vessels in case the captive girls are aboard."

  "This is the worst part," Dani said, her jaws clenched.

  "What, Dani?" Phillip asked.

  "The waiting. I know better, but still. We should be doing something."

  "We will be, Dani," Phillip said. "We're about to be flooded with data, and a lot of it will be irrelevant. We need to figure out how we're going to cull the wheat from the chaff. We can't afford to screw around with busy work just because we're anxious. There's no time for wasted motion. It'll just distract us. We need to zero in on what's most important and move fast. They've had Lucie way too long."

  Dani's face flushed and she sat up straight, her clenched fists on the table in front of her. Before she could say anything, Marie spoke up.

  "Phillip is right. We need a plan to find which vessel is the most likely target. It may not be as clear as we wish, and time favors our enemy, so it is best if we make the right choice the first time."

  "The information from the customs database will be here in a few minutes," Sandrine said. "I should be watching the email already." She put her mug on the table and stood up.

  "And get the printer warmed up, while you're at it," Phillip said. "I'll get the white board set up. As the photos of the vessels flying the quarantine flag come in, we'll post them, along with sheets with the names and clearance dates for the ones that cleared in and out."

  "And the same for any that the helicopters spot," Marie said. "Along with their course and speed. Those will come in as they're found, not all at once."

  "Angie's satellite data may not be timely," Dani said. "But it could still help us spot a pattern of movement if it includes some of the same vessels as the other sources. It'll be a text file with vessel IDs, locations, and time stamps, right? Liz and I can plot everything on an electronic chart on your computer, Phillip."

  "Then I will get my laptop for the email," Sandrine said. "We can use the larger screen of Phillip's desktop machine for the chart with the locations."

  "Sounds good," Phillip said. "Let's get everything set up and then come up with a list of criteria to weed out the least likely vessels."

  "So far, our best candidates are La Reina, Big Win, and Hedged Bet," Phillip said, rubbing a hand over his face and blinking to clear his vision as he stared at the white board.

  For the past two and a half hours, they had been combing through the data, looking for the vessels that ticked the most boxes on the list that they had drawn up. The scope of their list narrowed quickly with the passing of time as the helicopters expanded their search pattern. They ruled out vessels that were not within a reasonable distance of the estimated rendezvous point with the Cigarette boat to the west of the entrance to the Baie de Fort-de-France.

  "My money's on La Reina," Liz said. "She was in St. Pierre at the right time, she was flying the Q flag while she was there, and she left yesterday morning before the customs patrol boat made the rounds to check on the vessels that were supposedly in transit."

  "I agree," Marie said. "There was nothing else suspicious about her until the chopper spotted her sixty miles southwest of the rendezvous area at two o'clock this afternoon. Based on her course and speed at the time they saw her and the time she left St. Pierre, she should have been a lot farther along, unless she moved slowly for the first part of her trip. And if you estimate where she was at the time of the rendezvous based on her current course and speed, she would have been close to where we think the Cigarette boat made the transfer. Given her early departure from St. Pierre and her current course and speed, she was killing time until the rendezvous."

  "I like that logic," Phillip said. "Anybody want to argue for Big Win or Hedged Bet as a more likely target?" He made eye contact with each of the others, who shook their heads.

  "I will check the CCLEC database," Sandrine said.

  The Caribbean Customs Law Enforcement Council, commonly called CCLEC, is a cooperative effort of the governments of most of the countries in the Caribbean basin. Among its other activities, CCLEC operates a system known as SailClear. SailClear allows vessels to apply online for advance customs clearance into member countries. It does not eliminate the need for a physical appearance at the customs office, but it does expedite the paperwork.

  "Let's see what we can learn about La Reina." As Sandrine turned her attention to her laptop computer, Marie's cellphone rang.

  Marie glanced at the caller ID and answered, "Oui?" She listened intently for several minutes, making notes on a piece of scratch paper. "C'est tout bon. Merci."

  She disconnected the call and scribbled a few more notes. Looking up as she finished writing, Marie realized everyone was watching her, waiting for her news.

  "Liz is right," she said. "La Reina is our target. Our operatives in St. Lucia found the two crewmen from Aquila in that little bar near the park dock, trying to pick up women.

  "Fortunately, the operatives are female, so they had no problem persuading the fools to leave the bar with them. They drugged them and took them to the van their team was using for a command post. After they questioned the men, they dumped them in a wooded area near the park's border. They should be waking up now, with no recollection of what happened."

  "Tell us everything," Dani said.

  Marie nodded. "There is not much. As we suspected, they delivered Rachel and Lucie to La Reina along with Max and Nick, but that's all the men really knew. They thought the six other girls might be aboard La Reina, based on something they overheard yesterday when Brett Masters took a phone call in their presence, but they couldn't confirm that.

  "They were recruited in Miami by a man they met in a strip club where they spent a lot of time. That was a couple of weeks ago. He arranged for them to join the crew of Aquila in St. Lucia, and he gave them plane tickets. They were waiting at a guest house near Rodney Bay for several days before Aquila arrived. Based on that, I think that they weren't hired as direct replacements for the two who attacked Vengeance, but that is likely not relevant to us. Shall I alert Jaques to warm up the engines on Midnight Thunder?"

  "Yes," Phillip said. "Is she in her usual spot up in the mangroves?"

  Marie nodded. "We can take my car and Sandrine's SUV. I think your Jeep must still be parked at Grande Anse d'Arlet, yes? I didn't see it when I arrived here."

  "Yes, that's right," Phillip said. "Have you found anything in the CCLEC database, Sandrine?"

  "Yes. La Reina is owned by a Florida company named Island Dreams, LLC, and she's registered in the Cayman Islands."

  "Another Florida LLC," Liz said. "Island Dreams sounds familiar. Why?"

  "Because that's the name Billy gave us for the company that owns Aquila, back when we questioned him after he and Mike attacked us," Dani said.

  "Ha," Liz said. "He had the ownership of Aquila and La Reina confused. And we thought he just garbled the name of Island Fantasy, LLC. Maybe he wasn't as dumb as we thought."

  "Anything else in the database about La Reina, Sandrine?" Dani asked.

  "La Reina is 55.2 meters in length, displaces 499 gross tons, and has a beam of 8.3 meters. She has accommodations for a crew of 12, plus 12 guests. Her last outbound clearance was from Marigot, bound for St. Vincent and the Grenadines. There were eleven people on the crew list: the captain, first mate, chief engineer, engineer's mate, cook, two stewards, and four deckhands. If the captive girls are aboard, there is no mention of them on the paperwork, so there may be a hidden compartment."

  "There could easily be one on a vessel that big," Phillip said.

  Sandrine nodded. "She has two guests aboard — a woman named Andrea Jeanne Wilcox and a man named Thomas Francis Sanders. Both have U.S. passports. I have sent orders to my office for someone to retrieve the images of the passports and compare them to the ones Angie sent us for Juliette Margaret Avila and Nicholas Armand Hager. They are most likely Max and her friend, yes?"

  "Probably," Liz said. "That's a lot of crew. Especially the four deckhands. Maybe some are along for muscle, to keep the captives in line."

  "Possibly," Sandrine said.

  "That's a huge boat," Dani said. "Aquila's not even in the same league. Are we going to scuttle her after we rescue the girls?"

  Sandrine pursed her lips and shook her head. "I think we should plan to free the captives and secure the vessel. She was involved in the commission of several crimes in Martinique, so I can arrange to have the French Coast Guard bring her back here. We should put Angie to work in advance to notify the U.S. Coast Guard as well, since at least Lucie and Rachel are U.S. citizens. Maybe some of the other girls are, as well."

  "No way I'm waiting on the bureaucrats," Phillip said. "We'll secure the vessel if it's convenient, or leave it adrift. If any of the scumbags that did this survive our boarding, the authorities can fight over who gets to prosecute them. Let's get moving. We should catch them about sundown."

 

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