Off Course (25 page)

Western Caribbean Sea, 2 miles north-northwest of Providencia Island

June 15, 10:39 p.m. Caribbean Time

The rippling white nylon sail enveloped Collin’s upper body as it dragged him toward the sea floor. Instinctively, he swung his elbows out to create a cocoon of space around his torso. This was a natural, life-saving reaction. His survival instincts were firing on all synapses. The next thought that flashed across his mind was the Captain’s dive knife strapped to his leg. Kicking and flailing, he unsheathed it and began to rip and tear at the fabric that threatened to entomb him. After several desperate swipes, he cleared a hole big enough to fit through. He struggled to break free of the sails, frantically beating his legs and thrashing with his arms. The problem, he discovered, was that one of the ropes had twisted around his ankle.

Collin forced himself to calm down and think. With his lungs burning, he was in full panic mode, so it required every ounce of energy and discipline he had to fight it off. He knew he had only seconds to act or he would be dragged to his death. He bent down, pushing away a sheet of nylon from his face, and held the rope with his left hand. Sliding the knife between his leg and the rope, sharp side up, he sawed twice. The rope fell away from the razor sharp blade, allowing Collin to free himself. With a few kicks of his legs, he broke away from the last entanglements and continued his ascent to the surface. But his breath was gone. Blackness encroached from all sides of his vision and he felt himself slipping into oblivion.

Seconds later, Collin’s limp body, pulled upward by the air in the buoyancy compensator, breached the surface like a shot. The jolt and the night air reawakened him, causing him to spit seawater and gasp for the sweet humid oxygen. A few breaths and a shake of his head revived him physically and mentally. Collin leaned his head back and panted, clutching the gym bag around his neck with one hand, the serrated dive knife in the other. A sense of accomplishment and relief took hold and he let out an emotionally charged laugh.

In the distance, Collin heard the plane’s engine start up and watched it taxi toward him before he had fully regained his bearings. Dazed and panting, Collin instinctively swam in the direction of the plane. He and the pilot nodded at each other as the pilot’s door swung open. They repeated the same drill they had done just a few minutes before. Piece by piece, Collin handed up his gear, starting with the loaded gym bag.

When Collin climbed in the passenger’s seat the second time, dripping and out of breath, he was spent. Exhaustion, mental and physical, overpowered him and he closed his eyes.

“Don’t go to sleep just yet. Billy Bob’s on the line again and wants to talk with you,” said the pilot.

Collin wrangled the headset over his head and ears clumsily. “I’m here,” he said, still breathing hard. “And I’ve got the laptop.”

Lukas’s voice was again reassuring, but focused on the business at hand. “Good. Just in time, too. The Colombians should arrive onsite in less than ten minutes. Take a look at it and make sure both hard drives are still in it.”

“Now?” asked Collin. “You want me to check it now?”

“Why not?” said Lukas. “What else are you going to do between here and Honduras?”

“Honduras?”

“Yeah, we have a safe house near Puerto Lampira, on the southeastern coast.”

“Safe house? Am I in the witness protection program now?” Collin could feel himself recovering. Oxygen was flowing, restoring normalcy to some extent—at least enough to restore his wry sense of irony.

“Not quite, but close,” said Lukas.

“Ha ha, very funny. What’s really going on?”

“You’re going to a safe house on the beach in Honduras. You’ll like it. Trust me. Right on the beach. Fabulous view.”

“When can I call my mom? I need to talk to her. And Emily, too,” said Collin.

“Soon, but not yet,” said Lukas. “Let’s check that laptop and make sure the hard drives have not been tampered with.”

Collin reached into the back seat and pulled the gym bag close. He removed the rubbery sea bag, then raked his hand through the bottom of it, rummaging through cables and smaller components that looked like external drives, modems, or routers. After checking through the contents a second time, exploring every inch of the bag and its contents, he stopped and uttered, “Oh, crap.”

“What, Collin? What’s wrong?” asked Lukas.

“The computer is not in the bag.”

*              *              *              *

Scripps Cancer Research Patient Clinic, La Jolla, California

June 15, 8:44 p.m. Pacific Time

An authoritative knock on the door announced the arrival of Special Agents Reggie Crabtree and Spinner McCoy, who didn’t wait for a response before entering the crowded hospital room. Two nurses had joined the Cook family and were busily attending to Sarah and Emily. The older one, an African-American in her forties, turned toward the entering visitors and said, “Visiting hours are long over. You’ll have to come back tomorrow. All of you. These two lovely ladies need time to rest and recover.”

Reggie flashed his badge and said, “We need to ask them each a few questions, then we’ll let them rest.”

The wise and experienced nurse, who looked as if she had seen and heard it all before, put her hands on her ample hips, tipped her head, and arched an eyebrow. “Visiting hours are over. You’ll have to come back in the morning.”

“I don’t think you understand,” started Reggie.

“Oh, I understand all right. It’s you who’s not understanding.” Her arms were out wide as if to herd and corral the whole group out of the room.

“We will be providing protective detail for these two lovely ladies,” said Crabtree matter-of-factly. “They’ve been through a lot already. We don’t want anything more to happen, now do we?”

The nurse wasn’t backing down. She continued to round up the visitors and move toward the exit with them in front of her.

Reggie side-stepped her outstretched arms and added. “You don’t want the bad guys to get in here, do you?”

The nurse just stared at him, her expressionless countenance giving way to exasperation. “You have five minutes. After that, you can do your protecting out here in the hallway. Understood?”

Over the Western Caribbean Sea en route to Puerto Lampira, Honduras

June 15, 10:55 p.m. Caribbean Time

Collin spent the few moments of quiet time after his initial conversation with Lukas staring out the window to his right, taking in the vast pool of dark water only fifty feet below him. The single engine prop plane droned along at top airspeed of ninety miles per hour on a bearing of 290 degrees. The pilot explained that he needed to conserve fuel, so he was going to keep the speed down a bit.

Collin was spent. He tried not to think about what he had seen, the things he had done, or what might happen next. Guilt worked its way to the surface of his consciousness, but he continually batted it away. The terror of almost being dragged to the ocean floor swept in, replacing the guilt. Images of his mother crossed his mind and a new kind of angst took over. Seeing her so weak and frail, bound to a chair, stirred a deep, foreboding wrath that threatened to consume him. Evil thoughts of revenge and how he might exact it spun in his mind like the stout, sticky strands of a spider’s web.

Worries about her well-being and safety were dispelled by his belief in Lukas’s words that his mother was safe and in good hands.

Thoughts of his mom tied up brought with them images of that pierced and malevolent degenerate licking Emily’s cheek. This brought his blood to a boil and increased the speed and noise level of his breathing. His whole body tensed. His fists balled up and he leaned forward. Even the pilot noticed his anxiety, giving him a long sideways look. Collin just waved him off and turned his face toward the side window as he forced himself to think about something else.

The only other image to cross his mind was that of Stinky’s distended gray face. The ghastly, haunting figure floated through his mind the same way it floated through the boat’s cabin—aimless and unfettered. Guilt and remorse flooded in and out of his weary mind, like the tidal surge—alternately pushing him against the rocks, then threatening to drag his soul to the bottom of the sea.

Again, the dark desire to do the same thing to Pho Nam Penh as he had done to Stinky swelled like thunder clouds in the mountains, black and ominous.

In the midst of these mental convulsions, the pilot smacked Collin on the arm. “Hey, man, your friend’s on the line again.”

“Collin? This is Billy Bob. Do you read me?”

“Yeah, I read you loud and clear.” After a brief hesitation, he added, “Billy Bob?”

“Yes, that’s my handle for this mission. We don’t use real names,” said Lukas.

“Got it, uh, Billy Bob.”

“Okay, here’s the new plan,” said Lukas. “We’re going to drop you off at the beach house in Honduras where you’re going to get some much needed rest. Then, as soon as we can get them there, we’re sending a dive team down to the wreckage to retrieve the laptop.”

Collin shook the sinister thoughts out of his head and said, “You’ve got a dive team in the area?”

“No. They’ll be coming out of Houston, through Guadalajara. Should be there within twenty-four hours, if all goes well,” said Lukas.

Collin contemplated this for a moment. “Do you know for certain the laptop is still on the boat?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing the last few minutes. I pinged the locator beacon and retrieved the coordinates. It’s either on the boat or somewhere near where the boat sank. The coordinates are within two hundred feet of the boat’s last known location,” said Lukas. “That means that it is still operable and has not been severely damaged.”

Collin asked, “What do you think Penh will do in the meantime? Wouldn’t you think that he’s found where it is using the locator, too?”

“Yes. That would be my guess. I would also guess that Penh is amassing a team to go in as we speak.”

“Then why wait for your dive team to show up?”

“Because it’s a risky operation, my friend,” said Lukas warily. “Don’t get any ideas in your head now. That boat is in at least one hundred feet of water. It may be as deep as one hundred twenty-five feet. We don’t know what kind of shape that wreck is in. Plus, we’re going to need to go in under cover of darkness. That’s a very technical dive, so I want a trained team going in there.”

“But wouldn’t it be really bad if Penh got ahold of that computer?”

“Extraordinarily bad. With the codes and protocols I have built into that hard drive, he could worm his way into the NSA’s network and access all sorts of top secret information,” said Lukas.

“So we’ve got to retrieve it before he does. Waiting twenty-four hours is practically like inviting him to a veritable feast of national security secrets. Why wait for these guys out of Houston? I’m right here. All I need is a refill on my air tank and I’m good to go,” said Collin.

“Too dangerous,” said Lukas. “You’ve put yourself in harm’s way enough already.”

“Come on, Lu―Billy Bob. You know it only makes sense, given the timeline. I can do it. Won’t be that hard.”

“Won’t be that hard? Who are you trying to kid? You won’t have a dive partner, you’re not in top shape because you’ve been through hell the past two days, and I’m willing to bet you don’t have that much deep-water wreck-diving experience.”

“I realize this is not a perfect scenario, but it’s the best and only option at this point,” said Collin.

“If something happened to you, I couldn’t live with myself,” said Lukas.

“If something happened to our country because Penh got that laptop, I couldn’t live with myself. So let’s put a plan together.”

Reluctantly, Lukas agreed and signed off with the promise to call back with a plan.

Collin closed his eyes and tried to picture himself diving a hundred feet down in the dark to the wreck, encountering Stinky’s corpse once again, and rummaging for the lost computer. It seemed overwhelmingly hopeless. He sucked in a long breath through his teeth and tried to push away the fear and dread.

*              *              *              *

Puerto Lampira, Honduras

June 16, 5:49 a.m. Caribbean Time

The slowing of the plane’s engine roused Collin from a deep sleep and brought his conscious back from a dark place. The pilot, noticing his stirring, bumped Collin’s shoulder with the back of his hand and pointed straight ahead toward an empty golden-sand beach nestled between two rocky outcroppings and bordered by dense green jungle. Collin strained to focus in the pale pinkish light of dawn. As he did, a tiny wooden hut appeared. Two men flanked the small building; one held binoculars in one hand and a cell phone to his ear in the other. The second man held a rifle to his shoulder with its long scope near one of the man’s eyes, the end of the rifle following the path of the plane as it swooped in for a watery landing.

“Welcome to Puerto Lampira,” said the pilot. “I hope, for your sake, your stay is short and pleasant.”

Collin climbed out of the door and stood on the pontoon until the plane had completely stopped. When he hopped down, he landed on luxuriously soft sand in waist deep water. The man with the binoculars had moved to the edge of the water, still on the phone. Collin approached him cautiously, sensing the man’s ill temper and feeling like an intruder.

“There’s breakfast in there waiting for you and a shower in the back of the hut. Keep it short. There ain’t a lot of hot water.”

“Thanks,” said Collin, still unsure just how welcome he was.

“If you’re tired, there’s a cot in the back bedroom. It’s got a net around it. Be sure to zip it up if you don’t want to be eaten alive by the bugs.”

Collin looked for the man with the rifle, but he was nowhere to be found.

Inside the hut, he found a small round table with two mismatching, brightly painted, heavily chipped wooden chairs. A sturdy table ran the length of the wall under a window overlooking the beach and the cove. There were storage bins stacked underneath one side and a fat round propane tank on the other. In the middle, a black plastic pipe jutted down and stopped inches above a floor drain.

The propane tank connected to a two-burner, portable stove standing on the table. A large frying pan contained a substantial amount of scrambled eggs, mixed with some sort of red and green vegetables, cheese, and a brown meat that smelled like sausage. Two plates on the counter looked to contain the remains of the same egg concoction, so he assumed it to be safe to eat. Until he smelled the sausage, Collin hadn’t stopped to consider how hungry he was. He found a plate and a fork and scooped the rest of the egg onto the plate.

So engrossed in the food was he that Collin didn’t notice the man with the rifle enter the room until he placed a tall glass of orange juice next to Collin’s plate. “Fresh squeezed it myself just this morning. Help yourself.”

Thirst had also been pushed out of his mind until the orange juice appeared. “Thank you. I appreciate it. It’s very kind of you guys to let me hole up here for a while.”

“Don’t get too comfortable. Our contact tells us you’ll be back out of here as soon as that plane returns with fresh air tanks for you,” said the man as he folded his large frame into the seat across from Collin.

“Yeah, that’s my understanding,” nodded Collin. He finished the last of his food and drained the orange juice. Looking at the glass, he said, “That’s good stuff. Thanks again.” Collin pushed back from the table and rose from his chair.

The man with the rifle watched him carefully. He stood and took a step toward Collin.

As he stood, Collin felt dizzy and swooned, but just managed to catch himself on the table, using both hands to steady his balance. “Whoa,” he said as his eyes rolled back in his head.

That was the last thing he remembered.