Crystal Blue (Buck Reilly Adventure Series Book 3), John Cunningham [top fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

“We get ‘em, brudda!” Boom-Boom said.

“The only thing we’re getting off that yacht is John Thedford, and we’ll be damned lucky if we get that far,” I said. “Boat that big will have a big crew.”

Now down near the water, I could see the Customs building up ahead. Valentine parked the Crown Vic and we piled out. I checked my watch: nearly ten o’clock. It had been over five hours since the finger arrived in a hamburger carton on Jost Van Dyke. Urgency built up inside me like a bicycle tire pumped to its breaking point.

“You guys wait here,” I said. “I’m going to look around.”

The moon provided plenty of light. But if there was a lookout on the yacht, this was one of the places they’d be watching, so I crept around the building. The ferryboat and the red Cigarette were there, a few pleasure craft, dinghies—what’s that? Two down was a 30-foot cabin cruiser with a stripe on its hull, a flag billowing in the light breeze, and VISAR painted on the wheelhouse. Virgin Islands Search and Rescue.

A glance in both directions—what did I expect? Nobody’s here but Reilly’s Renegades.

I climbed over the gunwale. There were no keys in the ignition and the cabin was locked. Damn. There were a couple unlocked drawers in the cockpit. Inside were charts, a radio, and binoculars. I scanned the yacht end to end with the binoculars. Low light on the rear deck—red light. It would allow those on board to see out while making it hard for anyone to see on board.

The only person I could spot was on the fantail, holding what looked like a machine pistol.

“THE HELL TOOK YOU so long?” Diego said.

“See anything?” Valentine said.

“There are dinghies with motors and oars.”

“What’s wrong with that speedboat we came here on?” Diego said.

“Too risky,” I said. “They’d recognize it from when Baldy dropped Thedford.”

“You know how much shit I could transport on that yacht, brudda?” Boom-Boom rubbed his palms together. “Paybacks are a motherfucka.”

“What can I do?” Valentine said.

I handed him the binoculars.

“Keep an eye out. If you lose us, just watch the back end of the yacht. If you see anything happen or hear shooting, call in the cavalry.”

“What cavalry?” he said.

“Ray, Lenny, the Virgin Islands police—here, let me give you this one too.” He entered the numbers I recited into his phone’s contact list.

“What’s the name?” he said.

“T. Edward Booth. Special Agent in Charge of Florida and the Caribbean Basin for the FBI—”

“What the fuck?” Diego said. “You got his number memorized, man?”

“Long story, trust me—”

“I don’t trust nobody—why you think I’m still alive?”

I drew in a long slow breath. My recon of the yacht’s silhouette had also revealed the shape of a helicopter—the same one that buzzed me and Crystal yesterday in Cruz Bay. If we were detected, our getaway would be… tough.

Boom-Boom lit a blunt, and ganja smoke burned my eyes.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We walked down the dock toward a dinghy. My idea for a cover, if questioned, was that we were sailors heading back to our boat. There was one near the Shaska that was dark.

Diego had his Kimber .45 in hand. That and Boom-Boom’s knife were our only weapons.

“Let’s roll,” Boom-Boom said.

I pulled the handle on the engine and it fired right up. Boom-Boom untied us and we idled out into the black abyss of the harbor.

“If it looks hopeless we won’t try it,” I said.

“Shut up and drive,” Diego said.

I turned my eyes toward the ship. The moon lit the harbor with a wide, brilliant silver splash across the black water.

The smell of gasoline made me sit up straight.

I glanced around and hoped it was in the water—no, a thin spray of gas was spewing from the fuel line where it connected to the engine and had made a puddle in the bottom of the dinghy by the transom.

Shit.

“Lose the doobie, Boom-Boom, we got a gas leak back here.”

The only response was a flash of sparks off the joint’s tip when he flicked it.

All eyes were on the massive yacht that grew larger every minute we drew closer. She was huge, one of the biggest I’d ever seen. In the daytime she was midnight blue, sleek, wide and long. By night, she eclipsed everything behind her.

How many people would it take to crew that ship? Would they all be armed? Maybe some were real sailors, unaware they were in the employ of the Russian mob.

Yeah, right.

A sudden dizziness made me drop the motor’s handle and put my hands on the gunwale. The dinghy slowed. Boom-Boom and Diego turned back to me with eyebrows raised. I grabbed the handle again and the dinghy jerked forward. Our lack of plan, frontal assault, and limited armaments had me unconsciously holding my breath.

What the hell was the plan?

Maybe it was the smell of gas, or the disorientation caused by driving in the near darkness, or our steering straight toward a no doubt heavily armed billion-dollar yacht with an unknown number of hardened criminals aboard, but… When the odds are so stacked against you, ignoring that reality can sometimes provide the boldness to try for a miracle. Not the kind of odds I wanted to risk my life on, but as we closed in on the yacht, the question became moot.

A man appeared on the bow of the Shashka, the black shape of an assault rifle in his arms. I tried to swallow, but the cottonmouth and stench of gasoline caused instant reflux. Diego nodded toward the guard on the bow.

I raised a casual wave and never looked up, continuing down the length of the ship about 75 feet off its port side, headed toward its stern. Sailors returning from a night at the Bomba Shack, that’s what we were. Certainly not three fools plotting to board the monster ship in an attempt to attack the Russian mob and free the captive