Ocean Prey (A Prey Novel #31) - John Sandford Page 0,101
you at the boat.”
* * *
A half hour before Regio was to pick them up, Virgil helped Rae fix her Sig 928 to her leg, just above the anklebone, with a piece of black gaffer tape. He first folded a piece of the tape back on itself, as a handle, that Rae could jerk free of her leg with her left hand, while she pulled the gun with her right. The first time out, they’d fixed the gun to her leg with an ankle compression wrap, but Rae said it hadn’t been secure enough, and she’d had to sneak quick readjustments on the boat.
With the gun firmly in place, she jogged up and down the apartment a few times and said, “Much better.”
Regio showed up at 3:30, and the three of them carried the scuba gear to the Lexus, did the back-street crawl to check for tails. When he was satisfied, Regio took them to the boat, where Cattaneo and Lange were ready to cast off. Both Cattaneo and Lange were wearing light foul-weather suits. The sky was mostly cloudy, the leftovers from the cold front.
“We need rain suits?” Virgil asked. “If it’s that rough . . .”
“Just in case,” Cattaneo said. “If we really need them, you won’t be diving.”
“Not much air,” Virgil said, putting a hand up into the breeze, and looking up into the sky.
“We’ll see when we get outside,” Cattaneo said.
* * *
They made the run to the Port Everglades cut, went through, past a rusting inbound Panamanian freighter, and out on the ocean. When they turned north, into the wind, they got some rock and roll, but nothing serious.
“What do you think?” Cattaneo shouted down the hatch.
“If it doesn’t get any worse than this, I’m okay with it!” Virgil shouted back.
“Good man!”
* * *
As darkness fell over the boat, Virgil suited up, checked and rechecked all the gear, went topside to look at the water. The rollers were perhaps two feet high, but showing no foam. “Looks okay, but I’m still worried about getting hit . . .”
“We’ll do it a little different this time,” Cattaneo said. “There’s nobody out here, so when I’m coming up to your light, I’ll stay well off to your left as you’re looking at me. I’ll kill the engine a couple of boat lengths farther out. By the time I get to you, we ought to be dead in the water.”
“But still riding up and down,” Virgil said.
“Yeah, but you won’t have any momentum to deal with. Shed your gear, stay well back, and we’ll pull it over the side. Then we’ll take the lift bags and you can stay off to the side, finning, until you’re ready to grab the boarding ladder. We’ll take the fins when you’re ready, and once you get your feet on the ladder, you’re good. We’ll help you up.”
Virgil nodded: “That should work. I mean, this really isn’t much, the rollers.”
Cattaneo said, “Better get your tanks on; we’re ten minutes out.”
Nine minutes and forty seconds later, Virgil took the big step into the water, got oriented as the sound of the boat faded away, and started toward the line of heroin cans.
* * *
Rae watched Virgil disappear over the side, then said to Cattaneo, “I’m gonna go lay down. Call me when you turn around.”
“You want somebody to lay down with?” Regio asked, showing some teeth.
“Okay, you win the day’s lame asshole award,” Rae said. “I don’t need some wannabe Tony Soprano climbing on me. I could use a little sniff of cocaine, if you happen to have some in your pocket.”
Cattaneo: “We don’t carry drugs. Or even use them, really.”
Made Rae laugh: “You don’t carry drugs? You mean, except for a hundred kilos of pure white boy?”
“Pure white boy. Sounds like a right-wing campaign slogan,” Lange said.
“Get your sleep,” Cattaneo said. “Gonna roll some. If you think you’re gonna hurl, try not to do it on the bed.”
* * *
Rae stretched out in the middle berth, tried to ignore the boat’s motion, and dozed; at some point, she woke, and felt somebody had peeked through the door, checking on her, but the door was closed and the cabin dark when she sat up. The Sig was cold against her leg, and might have been visible while she was asleep, but the room was dark, gun was dark, her leg was dark, and the gaffer tape was black, so, she thought, she was okay.
She straightened herself up, checked the gun, which was solid,