Killers and Keepers by Charles Dougherty

Author:Charles Dougherty
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2020-06-18T04:00:00+00:00

Late in the afternoon, we reached Pointe-à-Pitre. We anchored Island Dream in the bight of Îlet à Cochons, directly across the entrance channel from Bas-du-Fort. The anchorage was crowded, but we found room near the back of the pack of anchored boats.

"Are we far enough from the other boats to call Aaron on the speakerphone?" Mary asked, as she shut down the diesel.

I glanced around, checking on our neighbors. "Let's go below to make our call. We might be okay up here, but sound carries over the water, especially downwind." I tipped my head toward the two boats anchored about a hundred feet off our stern.

Mary nodded and followed me below. "I'll open a bottle of wine," she said, turning into the galley. "White or red?"

"White," I said. "There's a bottle open in the fridge. I used some to marinate the mahi-mahi after I cleaned it."

I retrieved our burner cellphone from the top drawer in the nav station while Mary filled two glasses with chilled Sancerre. We sat down at the table in the main saloon, and I made the call.

"Finn?"

"Yes."

"Hi, Aaron, I'm here too."

"Hi, Mary. What's new with you two? I thought you would have called earlier."

"We had a change of plans. This is the first chance we've had." I gave Aaron a short version of our run-in with the traffickers.

"Wow. Lucky girls. You say that her father's in the drug business in St. Vincent? Anybody we've heard of?"

When I first met Mary a few months ago, I was working with Aaron on an assignment for the 'department.' I sailed to St. Vincent to kill a drug dealer who was actually a Russian agent. He was using his drug trading as a cover to smuggle cash into the southeastern U.S., paying off corrupt politicians to secure favors for his motherland. But that's another story.

"We took care of the only one we were interested in, didn't we?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I never pass up a chance to collect information," Aaron said. "Especially on someone in that business. He might be able to do us a favor someday."

"He won't know he owes us a favor. We took pains to keep our involvement anonymous, and we didn't get a name, except the girl's first name."

"Margie," Mary said. "Her father's Michael Kent, if that means anything to you." She caught my eye. "Sorry, Finn. I didn't mention it earlier; it didn't seem important."

"That's okay. Have you heard of him, Aaron?"

"No, but I'll do a little checking. You never know what might be useful. Or who."

"We were hoping for news on whoever hacked the broker's blind drop," Mary said.

"We've made some progress. Whoever left those messages was down in the islands. That's all I have so far, but he sent another message today, and we're hot on his trail. You'll want to read that recent message. My people are worried that if you don't keep him engaged, he may disappear before we close in on him."

"Isn't it risky for me to log in to that email account?" Mary asked.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.