18. Chapter 18
Chapter 18
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger—except gators. Gators will definitely kill you.
Chance tried not to watch Berlin as they unloaded everything from the two SUVs. He’d wanted to talk to her this morning, though he’d had no idea what to say. But there’d never been an opportunity. Maybe she was glad for it, considering she thought their kiss was a mistake. He couldn’t get her words out of his head even though he wanted nothing more than to pretend she’d never said them.
“Here.” Tiago tossed Chance a heavy bag, grinning as he caught it midair.
He grunted under the impact and weight, but hefted it up on one shoulder then snagged another bag for good measure.
Which made Tiago smile even wider as he picked up a small bag.
Berlin raced into the cabin ahead of them, then ran out a second later making a whooping sound. “We have working plumbing!”
“Just don’t let Bradford anywhere near it after that chili he ate last night,” Tiago grumbled.
“I’ll make sure to go before your shower tonight.” Bradford took one of the bags from Chance. “And don’t let Tiago trick you into carrying everything. He’s really good at that.”
“Work smarter, not harder,” the other man said with a grin as he hurried past them.
Inside, the cabin was about what he’d expected. It looked like an old hunting or fishing cabin. Maybe both. There were two couches, a seventies-era coffee table reminiscent of what his grandmother had owned, and a chunky television with a VCR player next to it. Considering that there wasn’t even a DVD player, he assumed streaming was out. The TV was so old he doubted it even had the capability. Not that it mattered—they had too much shit to do today. But it said a lot for how off the grid this place was.
When Tiago set one of the bags on the longer couch, dust puffed out in a thick cloud.
“Ugh, this place blows.” Berlin was back inside, coughing a little as she glanced around.
“At least we’ve got electricity,” Chance murmured, because he’d stayed in true hovels before. The worst place he’d ever had to hunker down was somewhere in Venezuela—he still wasn’t sure exactly where—for a week while he and his unit waited on orders. They weren’t supposed to even be there, so they’d had to go under the radar of literally everyone, which meant they’d had to camp out in the triple canopy jungle with animals that looked like they belonged in sci-fi movies.
“True.” She smiled up at him and for a moment it was like last night hadn’t happened. Then she clearly remembered, her bright gaze skittering away before she headed for what had to be the bedroom.
Sighing to himself, he dumped his bag next to Tiago’s, then headed back outside to help bring in the rest.
Once they were done, Rowan nodded at him. “You come with me.”
Surprised, he simply followed the other man into the cool, fresh air and jumped in the front seat when Rowan motioned for him to get in the SUV. “You want me to go with you?” The plan was to rent an airboat, then do recon on the surrounding river system. Which was, unfortunately, complex.
Rowan shrugged. “Why not?”
“Okay, then.” He was game, wanted to get out there and be doing something, but was still surprised Rowan wanted him along. He’d expected to be sidelined.
“So how long have you known Berlin?” Rowan asked as he headed back up the dirt path they’d come.
And there was the question he’d been waiting on. Or one of them. He’d expected something on the ride here, but they’d mostly just talked shit to each other and asked him a few questions about the army. But nothing too personal and they hadn’t pushed much. He wouldn’t have told them anything regardless, which they’d probably known. But the ride had been almost too casual, and he’d been waiting for the anvil to drop.
“Couple years.” Something the man already knew. Or Chance assumed he did. He wasn’t sure how much Berlin had told him and the others.
Rowan just made a humming sound as he pulled out onto a paved, two-lane road. Everything here was flat, with brush and trees surrounding them. The scent of fresh water was heavy in the air, which made sense since they were surrounded by rivers and lakes. He knew there was something close to five thousand navigable miles of rivers, creeks, canals and other bodies of water in Louisiana. At least they wouldn’t have to navigate all of that, but it was still a lot of unexplored terrain to deal with while they tried to find the exact path that the Backwater Bayou Boys used to run their drugs.
“She’s like family to us,” Rowan continued, as if there hadn’t been a giant lull in their conversation.
But Chance had known more was coming. “I’m aware.” Even if she hadn’t told him about the people she worked with being like family, he’d have been able to tell simply from the protective way everyone was with each other. They all cared about each other in a kind of way that you couldn’t fake.
“Figured you did. But I wanted to spell it out.”
“Is this the part where you threaten to kill me if I hurt her?”
“If I thought you were here to hurt her, you’d be dead already.”
“I respect that. And for the record, I didn’t even want her involved in any of this. She was very forceful.” The woman was a total bulldozer taking over and…fine, he didn’t hate it. He did hate the thought of her in any sort of danger, but with her crew here, at least she wouldn’t be near any action. As long as she stayed behind, giving them valuable backup, he could deal with her being involved.
Rowan snorted softly as he pulled off onto another dirt path. “Yeah, she has a habit of doing what she wants, when she wants.” To Chance’s surprise, he put the SUV in park in the middle of the path, then opened the door.
“What are you doing?” Because they were absolutely nowhere right now. He looked out the windows at the surrounding cypress trees in the shallow water on either side of them. Spanish moss draped the branches, giving shade to any gators lurking beyond the shores.
“Airboat rental place is at the end of this road. I don’t want our vehicle on any cameras,” he tossed over his shoulder as he headed to the back hatch. “You’re gonna drive back down the road, make a left, then another left on that turnoff about a mile back. You remember it?”
“Yeah.” Chance was already unbuckling and getting out as Rowan grabbed a ball cap and thicker than normal sunglasses.
“Good. Drive to the end of that turnoff. There’s a little riverbank where you can park. I’ll pick you up, then we’re heading out for that recon.”
“All right.” Chance still wasn’t sure why Rowan had asked him instead of one of his teammates, but he was glad to be doing something active.
Maybe that was the reason… Or more likely he’d just wanted to keep an eye on Chance. Whatever it was, he had to believe they were closer to finding Enzo.
***
Sure enough, ten minutes later, Rowan pulled up in a rush of manmade wind, the airboat gliding up onto the sandy shore. He had a couple fishing poles he must have rented, plus a bucket of bait—all part of their cover in case they ran into any trouble.
Chance jumped onto the front, found his footing as Rowan reversed and took off. He’d been on airboats before and the sensation was always like flying. He tucked his ball cap in his back pocket so it wouldn’t fly off but kept his sunglasses on.
Wordlessly Rowan handed him the GPS, so Chance took over as Rowan steered away from the shore. On the drive over, despite the trash talk and other nonsense, they’d gone over the plan to scour for any signs of drug running.
As they flew down the river, Berlin called, and just like that his heart skipped a beat.
“Hey, can you hear me?” Chance shouted over the noise.
“Yeah, but it’s noisy. Put your earbuds in. They should cancel some of the noise.”
He slid them both in. “How about now?”
“Much better. I’m monitoring your trackers as they move. See anything good yet?”
“No, but we just left. How are you settling in?” It was a lot easier to talk to her over the phone. It had barely been a few hours since they’d truly talked and he’d been sleeping for most of them, but he still missed her voice.
“Ugh. Fine. But this place is gross.”
“So you’re not into camping, I take it?”
“Double gross. Why would I make the conscious choice to sleep on the ground in a bag? Just why?”
He laughed at her description, even though he loved disconnecting out in the wild. “It’s not all bad. So what do you see on your end?” She was keeping track of them and would be giving them intel on the drive.
“Hold on…” She was quiet for a long few moments, but he was just glad they were talking normally again.
“What’s Berlin say?” Rowan asked as he neared a split in the river. He slowed down, and the water rippled out in both directions.
The water rocked them gently as Chance held up a finger. “She’s working.”
“Okay, if you head to the right,” she finally said, “You’ll end up in a lake that looks as if it gets fished a lot. I’m going back through past satellite images, various social media feeds and other stuff, and it seems as if not only is it a good fishing spot, but people boat and party that way as well. I can’t imagine anyone runs drugs through there. So take the left bend. It stretches for about ten miles north.”
He motioned for Rowan to head that way and he did without another word. She’d already looked up some of this stuff last night and he imagined she had as well on the drive here, but knew she was still working on piecing together an accurate picture of the places they should check out and the ones that weren’t worth their time. Thanks to her mystery contact, they already had a pretty good idea of who the Boys delivered to, but there was too much open water to the east for them to nail down the drop-off location.
That meant they had to figure out at least part of the path the gang took beforehand in the twine of rivers and bayou. So they were looking for a needle in a stack of needles.
About twenty minutes later, a text popped up with an image of where he and Rowan were and a red line showing exactly which direction they should take. “If I was going to run drugs,” Berlin said, “and was coming in from the west, this is the path I’d take. It’s pretty rough and there are some areas that I can’t quite see from satellite images to know enough if they’re open to boaters. So you’ll have to check it in person. This could be a bust,” she added. “Just want to make that clear. There’s a lot of terrain to travel and I’m trying to think like a criminal.”
He held it out to Rowan so he could see the GPS. “We have enough gas to make it?”
“Yeah, we’re good.”
“Thanks Berlin, this is great.”
“Like I said—”
“Even if it doesn’t work out, this is incredible and we’re closer than we were. Just…thank you.” He wanted to tell her exactly how incredible she was, but not with an audience and not shouting it over the rush of the wind and engine.
“If anything looks different on your end from these images let me know and I’ll work on mapping out another path.”
“Will do.”
Once they disconnected, it was quiet save for the boat as they rushed over the water. The wind and sun beat against his face, but he’d worn a long-sleeved shirt to stave off most of the heat.
An hour later, Rowan slowed as they reached a narrowing in one of the river branches they’d taken. At this point they’d traveled through almost two dozen river branches that ended up being dead ends. There was simply too much terrain for them to manage.
But as Rowan slowed along another branch of water, he frowned as he took in their surroundings, shallow waters below them and mangrove and cypress trees on either side of them.
The engine idled as they drifted closer to a blockage in the path. A cluster of mangrove trees looked as if they’d been ripped up, maybe from a storm. But they were more or less neatly stacked on each other, blocking an upcoming path that their boat could just get through if it was clear.
Rowan crouched down to look in the bucket of bait, kept his voice pitched so low that Chance barely heard it over the engine. “Play along with what I say.”
And that was when Chance saw the cameras in the trees. Not the cheap kind hunters left to check later for signs of wildlife, but the kind that were actively monitored.
“That asshole lied to us,” Rowan snarled as he glanced at the trees blocking their way. “This isn’t a secret fishing hole.”
Chance cursed in agreement as he slid his ball cap on. “Man, he saw us coming.”
The two of them grumbled a bit more before Rowan reversed out of the shallow waters and headed back down the waterway.
As they cruised, Chance clocked two more high-end cameras, but didn’t look directly at them. Only once they were about three miles out did they slow again, then park on one of the sandy banks.
There was a camera about fifty yards to the north of them so Chance figured he knew what Rowan was doing. Sure enough, he started baiting the fishing poles for the two of them before they waded into a little channel carved out by another river branch or maybe past flooding. Now it was a pool of largemouth bass ripe for picking.
For the next hour they talked sports, about the fictional women in their lives, drank beers, and fished. Chance kept his ball cap and sunglasses on just as Rowan did, and they mostly angled their faces away from the direction of the cameras.
But they had to maintain the cover of two guys fishing for the rest of the afternoon. Eventually Rowan said, “Let’s see if we can find another spot.”
Then they headed out, but not before marking the location. Even then, they took their time heading back to where Rowan had originally picked up Chance.
“So?” Chance said once Rowan had pulled up onto the sand, the engine of the airboat quiet.
“That was some serious, waterproof hardware. Not the kind hobby fishermen or hunters use.”
“Yeah, someone’s watching that area. So we can’t hit any potential runners there.”
“Nope. But we can keep an eye on it aerially and set up about five miles south.”
Chance nodded. “The cameras start to thin about that mark. If anything, we could knock one out if necessary, but I think we’ve got a good enough stretch where we can set up an ambush.” He looked down at the map of where they’d been, zoomed in, pointed. “Right here.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. And if they’re making a run tomorrow, I say we head back out here tonight and just wait.”
Chance nodded again, because it was better to set up and be ready than to head out tomorrow and be too late.