Chapter 20 #2
I push the throttle forward and slowly move away from the dock. Jessie and Elijah follow close behind me until we’re about a mile out. “Contact at one-nine-zero, approximately a mile out. Slow down and maintain a thousand meters,” I bark out.
“Roger,” Elijah says.
“Yes?” I ask and then realize too late that Elijah was simply acknowledging the order. Jessie seizes the opportunity and giggles. I brace myself for the jokes that are sure to come. They always do.
“I’m going to let that one go, but only because you made it too easy,” Jessie titters.
Harper’s voice resonates in my ear. “I want to be let in on the joke when you all return, but for now, can you identify the number of occupants, Roger?”
“Not yet. I’m about five minutes out.” I pull the throttle back, slowing my approach and taking my time to assess the situation. Once I get within 300 yards, I inform the team, “I can’t tell who the occupants are, but there are two of them, and they have rifles.”
“Proceed with cau…” Harper says but gets cut off.
“Comms check. Sound off,” I bark, only to be met with silence. I turn the boat around, and two minutes later, I encounter the team talking over one another.
“We knew that two miles would be pushing the comms envelope, Harper. Roger turned around and is fine,” Elijah tells her.
I speak up, “I’m all right. It’s not the distance that’s the issue. Comms would have come through broken and staticky the further we got from shore. No, communications are cut off because they are using a signal jammer, and I entered the bubble.”
“You need to abort,” Harper demands.
“Negative,” I reply. “Jessie and Elijah will still be in range and will have me in sight, Harper. For whatever reason, privacy is warranted. Other than you not being able to hear me, nothing changes.”
“We have your six, Roger,” Jessie adds, more for Harper’s benefit than for mine. “Go.”
I throttle up and turn the boat in the direction of the two men waiting for me. A few minutes later, I pull up next to them and pull the throttles back so that I’m idling. Ackerman has his weapon trained on me and asks, “Are you armed, Cavenaugh?”
“I am. I have a gun on my right hip,” I tell them honestly.
Ackerman moves his rifle to the low-ready position, and Zurkowski does the same.
Zurkowski motions for me to lower my hands.
“Thank you for your honesty. Finnegan speaks very highly of you, but he’s not very pleased with your actions at the moment.
Marrying his daughter and bringing her into a dangerous situation? Tsk Tsk.”
“A dangerous situation that he created,” I say, a tinge of anger lacing my tone. “Until now, I wasn’t entirely sure whether the four of you were here working for Finnegan or against him.”
Zurkowski smiles. “Oh, we’re working for Finnegan, and we’re not the only ones. Once he told us why he needed us, there was no way we could refuse him.”
“You couldn’t refuse him? It’s easy enough to say ‘No’ to stealing 40 pounds of uranium or smuggling illegal immigrants into the US. It’s really easy to refuse building a nuclear bomb.”
“You don’t understand now, but you will,” Zurkowski says cryptically.
“Finnegan planned on bringing you into the fold, but Harper took it upon herself to hire Shining Knight without having all the information. It’s created a bigger mess than we planned for, but it won’t stop us from achieving our objective. ”
“And what’s that objective?” I ask. “If you want to bring me in on your plan, then what’s stopping you?”
Ackerman allows the sling connected to the rifle to bear most of the weight as he uses a pair of high-powered binoculars to scan the open water. He turns back toward Zurkowski and says, “Make it quick; we may have company.”
Zurkowski nods brusquely. He gestures to the area behind him, and I notice a tiny dot off in the distance that’s barely discernable to the naked eye. “I’m afraid our time has been cut short, Cavenaugh. We’ll have to catch up another time.”
“What is Finnegan’s agenda? What plan does he want to share with me?” I ask impatiently. I need answers, and I need them now. “Why did he have schematics for a nuclear bomb hidden under the floor of the cabana?”
Ackerman’s and Zurkowski’s eyes widen in surprise. “You have the plans in your possession? If you do, we need you to hand them over immediately.”
“No can do. You know as well as I do that I have to turn them over to the FBI. Why did you want to meet me alone, Zurkowski?”
He holds up two fingers. “For two reasons. The first is that Finnegan wants you to convince Harper to leave this case alone and get her as far away from this as possible. If things don’t work out as we planned, she could get caught in the crossfire.”
“There’s no way she’s going to leave now,” I tell him adamantly. “I’ll have more luck breaking into Fort Knox than I would be convincing her to drop everything and hide. What’s the second reason?”
“To tell you the truth,” Zurkowski says as Ackerman fires up the engine. “Not everything is as…”
“Incoming!” Ackerman yells as a barrage of gunfire sounds off in the distance. All three of us duck even though the shooters are too far away to get a clean shot. When the noise dies down, we pop up our heads to see another boat closing in fast.
“We have to get out of here,” Zurkowski screams. “Go! Go! Go!”
I push the throttles to the max but don’t get far when I hear Ackerman shout, “RPG! Bail out!”
The two agents dive from the boat seconds before the rocket impacts the side in a fiery explosion. The concussive force of the blast knocks me off my feet, and I fall overboard into the ocean. I choke on the salt water as I’m peppered with shrapnel from their boat as it’s blown to smithereens.
The last thing I remember before my world turns black is a large piece of debris heading straight for me.