going to be tonight,” Cat said. “I’ll fly out with the maps. You look at them, figure out the sweet spot—and then we can talk about a tip. Deal?”
The fisherman gave him an enthusiastic fist bump.
“Deal,” he said.
Off Thomas Cay
Six Hours Later
THE BANKER WAS sitting on the stern of his rented yacht. The girl was up on the bow, at the opposite end of the boat, as far away from him as possible.
Night had come. The last of the sun’s rays were disappearing over the horizon and the stars were coming out above. A half moon was rising in the east.
The banker took a long, sad sip of his scotch. “This was a big mistake,” he thought out loud. Just as he had feared, his performance so far had been underwhelming.
Then he heard a noise off in the distance. He looked up and saw a light approaching from the west.
“Damn,” he whispered. “Could this be the cavalry?”
He watched the light as it flew overhead and started a long slow turn down toward the isolated bay where the chartered yacht was anchored.
The banker was on his feet as the Ar-95W floatplane came down and skipped along the water. The girl was suddenly at his side.
The plane taxied up next to the yacht, so close the banker was concerned its long wings might actually clip the leased boat. But at that moment, he would gladly have paid for the damage. If the wacky pilot was carrying what he’d promised, it might just turn around this disaster yet.
The pilot skillfully maneuvered the plane so its rear hatch was nearly flush with the yacht’s stern. The banker threw out a short gangplank; it just reached the rear door of the odd airplane. The hatch opened and the banker expected to see the bearded pilot walking out, hopefully carrying a bag of the good stuff.
What he saw instead were four men in ragged clothes pointing assault rifles at him.
The banker froze. The girl screamed. The first two men came across the gangplank and hit the banker hard, knocking him to the deck. Terrified, the girl ran through the cabin—two of the men chased after her. The banker tried to get to his feet but was knocked down again. This time, his assailant kept his bare foot on the banker’s throat, not allowing him to move. The banker could see that, in addition to his rifle, the man was carrying a huge machete in his belt.
These guys aren’t the police, he thought.
The next thing he knew, the banker was looking up at Colonel Cat. In the panic and confusion, the banker thought that somehow these armed men had hijacked the pilot and his plane. But then he saw Cat looking down at him and grinning darkly.
“How’s your vacation so far?” Cat asked him snidely.
“I trusted you!” the banker screamed back at him.
“Sorry, dude,” Cat replied. “I really am … but I got needs.”
For the first time, the banker saw Cat was holding a small copper pipe with a silver bowl—a crack pipe.
“You’re a fucking crackhead,” the banker cursed at him. “Doesn’t that figure.”
Cat shrugged. “And I got a bad gambling habit, too. But you’re a lame dick pothead. So what’s worse?”
The banker was yanked to his feet and brought into the yacht’s cabin. By this time, the other intruders had captured the girl and were holding her on the deck face up. One was forcing her to drink saltwater.
“What are you doing to her?” the banker screamed at him. “Who are you people?”
One of the intruders hit him hard with his open hand, sending him to the deck yet again. That’s when the banker realized that all of the intruders, including the pilot, were wearing clear surgical gloves.
They don’t want to leave fingerprints, he thought.
The girl was pulled up to her knees. The saltwater caused her to vomit heavily, expelling her large diamond ring, swallowed just moments before.
Two intruders then ransacked the yacht, going through the couple’s luggage and finding money, BlackBerrys and more jewelry, all while the two others held the banker and the girl down on the deck with their bare feet.
The girl was looking over at the banker, absolutely terrified.
“Don’t worry,” he managed to tell her. “It will be OK.”
* * *
THE GUNMEN TOOK just five minutes to go through the sixty-five-foot yacht.
They not only stole all the couple’s valuables, they also took the yacht’s GPS system, its satellite radio and its flat-screen TVs.
They were incredibly efficient, despite their ragged appearance. Through it