The Smuggler's Chase: A Chase Fulton Novel (Chase Fulton Novels Book 16) by Cap Daniels

Author:Cap Daniels [Daniels, Cap]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Anchor Watch Publishing, L.L.C.
Published: 2022-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Summa Cum Baseball

Clark disconnected the line and spun in his chair. “Well, College Boy, it looks like this hands-on circus just turned academic. You should feel right at home. What’s going on in that summa cum laude brain of yours?”

“You’ve clearly not seen my transcripts. I graduated summa cum baseball.”

“That may be so, but you did graduate, so that makes you the smart one.”

I turned to find the real brain on our island of misfit toys. “Mongo, what do you think?”

He scratched his chin where a week’s worth of stubble had piled itself. “I think there’s no such thing as summa cum baseball, but I also think our brains are headed down the same alleyway. The money is clearly the real play. The trap was a test, and we failed. I don’t think we’re going to settle this one with bullets and blades. If we’re still in the game . . . We are still in the game, right?”

I nodded. “Oh, yeah. We’re neck-deep in the game.”

Mongo continued. “I hate to agree with Clark, but I think he’s right this time. We’re going to solve this one with our brains and some good old-fashioned detective work.”

The look on Hunter’s face grew sourer by the minute until he couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. “You big-brained people may find these guys, but somebody still has to kick down their door, and that’s my favorite part. I, for one, am not going to miss it.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “When it’s time to bust some heads, we’ll all be there, but we have to figure out which door we need to kick. We are not walking into another trap.”

Mongo said, “Let’s walk through the players. First contact came from Ambassador Woodford in the form of insistence that you return to The Bahamas to solve this thing, right?”

I replayed the events of the past few days. “Yes, but apparently, Woodford had spoken with the president before he called me because Clark got the tasking nearly simultaneously with Woodford’s call to me.”

Clark jumped in. “Yeah, that’s right. But now that I think about it, what makes us believe any of this has anything to do with The Bahamas other than Woodford’s call?”

“The exploding house, for one thing,” Hunter belted out.

Clark raised a finger. “Yes, that sounds damning from the outside, but think about it. We would’ve never searched in The Bahamas without Woodford’s call.”

My sat-phone rang, and I tapped the speaker button. “Go ahead, Skipper.”

Her tone said nothing good was coming next. “You’re still at Clark’s, right?”

“We are.”

“I’m sending you a video, but I’m warning you, it’s not easy to watch.”

“Okay, we’re standing by,” I said.

Clark pulled up his secure email account and downloaded the video. The image that filled the screen was gruesome, disturbing, and depraved. Text-like rolling credits passed above the image of Congressman James Paige’s decapitated body. The text read: Please don’t make us do this again.

We sat in utter silence before Clark said, “We knew this was coming, but it still sucks.

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