COLLATERAL CASUALTIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series) (37 page)

            “The embassy is Colombian territory. We will not allow Americans to examine our ambassador.”

            “Then Rob will never be convicted of killing him,” Kate said.

            “I don’t care if the American legal system believes me. All that matters is that the Colombian people believe me. If
Señor
Franklin is allowed to go free, that will just inflame them more.”

            “The truth will still come out,” Kate said. “Too many people know about your husband’s past now.”

            The white teeth flashed again in the moonlight. “Ah, but you see,
Señora
Huntington,
you
are the only person who can link my husband to
Señor
Dawson. And you will be dead, killed while fleeing the country with your fugitive husband. My people will view the claims of these others as a vicious rumor. Yet another strike against the Americans. Not only do they murder our ambassador, they then spread lies about him.”

            Raul came out of the cabin and spoke to his lover in Spanish.

            “What does he mean?” Skip said. “What automatic starter?”

            Kate was not reassured by his tone.

            “You will be having an unfortunate accident,
Señor
Canfield. The boat was rented in your name. A typed letter has been sent to your business partner confessing that you did kill
el negre
and you and your wife are leaving the country to escape punishment. You plead with your partner to care for your young children. The note is quite touching.”

            Above the woman’s head, Kate caught the glint of moonlight reflecting off a familiar silky black bun. She could just make out the silhouette of a compact female figure climbing over the railing of the flying bridge.

            Kate quickly dropped her gaze and schooled her face into a neutral expression.

            “But you are amateur sailors,”
Señora
Garcia said, as Raul started up the ladder again to the bridge. “You do not realize that gas fumes can build up in the bilge. So when you start the engine...”

            The woman let out an exaggerated sigh. “A pity, people will say. Such a shame that
Señor
Canfield lost his temper and it led to the destruction of himself and his wife.”

            Kate grit her teeth.
The bitch is enjoying herself!

            “Once Raul has set up the starter so that it can be activated by radio signal, we will be departing in the dingy.”

            “What about Lilly?” Skip pointed his chin toward the immobile body on the deck.

           
Señora
Garcia waved a hand in the air. “I don’t care what the authorities conclude when they find her body,
if
they find it. We will be long gone by then.”

            The boat swayed again and she clutched for the ladder rail.

            Skip wiggled against Kate’s shoulder. “Please, let us have a last kiss,
Señora, por favor.
”

           
What? He wants to kiss? Now?

            “Of course.” The woman gestured with the gun.

            Skip turned to Kate. As his lips touched hers, he whispered against them, “When I make a move, hit the deck. If you understand, pull back and say my name.”

            She froze for a second. Rose’s words echoed in her head,
There won’t be time to convene a committee meeting.
She broke the kiss and gasped, “Oh, Skip.”

            Bright lights flashed across the water. A voice boomed through a megaphone. “Police. Drop the gun!”

            The woman raised the pistol instead and pointed it at Kate’s head. “Leave us alone or she dies!”

            Skip sprang up between them and Kate dove for the deck, twisting and ducking her shoulder as she’d been taught in
aikido
. The gun roared over her head. She fell on top of Lilly and felt the air whoosh out of the young woman’s lungs. Kate’s body continued in its roll. She landed on her back, as helpless as an overturned turtle, the Kevlar vest crushing her tied hands against the deck.

            Above her,
Señora
Garcia was backing away, her gun pointed at Skip’s chest as he lunged across the cockpit toward her.

            Kate planted a foot on the edge of the bench and shoved, scissoring her body around. She aimed a kick at the woman’s knee and felt a satisfying pop.

           
Señora
Garcia screamed. Her hands flew up in the air. The gun roared again. Arms flailing, the woman fell backward and disappeared.

            Skip teetered off balance, his momentum still carrying him forward, no way to grab for support. Kate watched in horror as he followed their would-be killer over the railing.

            “Help!” she screamed. “Somebody help him! His hands are tied.”

            She heard several splashes.

            Her mind went numb.

            Men and women in uniform were pouring onboard from the Coast Guard cutter and the police boat now flanking the cabin cruiser. A Coast Guard officer lifted Kate to her feet.

            She scrambled toward the side of the boat, but the young man grabbed her arm. “Whoa, we don’t need you in the drink too. Hold still, please, and I’ll get your hands free.” He started working on the knots at her wrists.

            Holding still was easier said than done. She was shivering uncontrollably and gasping for air. It took her a moment to realize she was sobbing.

            She didn’t know if the bullets had hit her husband but she did know that people who fell into the Chesapeake’s deep shipping channel, even in broad daylight, were sometimes not found again. Not until their bodies washed ashore.

CHAPTER THIRTY

            Skip kicked with all his might. The vest that had saved his life just seconds ago was now dragging him to his death. He tried again and again to yank his hands apart, hoping the water would make the ropes slippery. A part of his mind registered the sting of brackish water soaking through to where he’d ripped the skin off his wrists.

           
Blood is even better.

            He yanked again and felt something give. One hand pulled loose.

            He tore open the front of his jacket and struggled to get out of it as his lungs threatened to explode. He fumbled with the straps on the sides of the vest, his fingers numb from poor circulation and the cold water. He desperately wanted to open his mouth, to breathe.

            He needed to breathe.

~~~~~~~

            The same young man who had untied her had lifted Kate over the railing and handed her off to another officer on the Coast Guard cutter. She was huddled in a blanket on a bench, shivering and praying.
Please, God! Please, God!

            As if she were viewing a movie from a great distance, she watched Garcia’s dripping wife being helped on board by the diver who had rescued her.

           
Please, God! Please, God!

            The woman’s feet no sooner hit the deck than Judith Anderson spun her around and cuffed her. Blatantly ignoring the woman’s bleating about diplomatic immunity, Judith started reciting the Miranda warning.

           
Please, God! Please, God!

            A shout came from the water. Kate jumped up and raced to the railing. The dark water was crisscrossed with spotlights.

            “We’ve got him,” Dolph’s voice floated up from below, accompanied by coughing and retching sounds. One of the spotlights veered in that direction, lighting up the water’s surface. Sandwiched between Dolph and Rose, both treading water, was Skip’s pale face, dark hair plastered across his forehead. His mouth moved but Kate couldn’t hear him.

            “He’s okay,” Rose’s voice conveyed the message.

            Kate hung onto the railing as her knees gave out.

~~~~~~~

            A young Guardsman reached down to help Skip up the last few steps of the ladder. He stood on the deck, wobbling a bit. Kate threw her arms around him, almost knocking him over. He held her tight against his heaving chest and closed his eyes.

            Gentle hands guided them to a bench. Skip pulled Kate onto his lap. They clung to each other. Someone draped a blanket over his shoulders and tuck it around both of them.

            A female voice said, “Please, sir, let me examine you.”

            Skip raised his head slightly and shook it. The raw wounds on his wrists stung like hell. His throat ached from swallowing and then coughing up the brackish water. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off he could feel the pain in his chest where at least one of the bullets had hit the vest. It hurt every time he dragged in a breath. He suspected he had a broken rib or two.

            But he croaked out, “I’m okay.”

            He buried his face in his wife’s curls.

~~~~~~~

            Kate heard footsteps and felt a presence standing over them. She looked up. Detective Anderson was accompanied by a uniformed Baltimore City officer.

            “We have some questions.” Judith’s voice was gentle.

            Kate slid off Skip’s lap to sit beside him on the bench. The Coast Guard medic hurried over with another blanket and her first aid kit. Kate gratefully took the blanket.

            Again Skip said, “I’m okay. Thanks.” His voice sounded like a file against metal.

            Judith introduced her companion as Sergeant Armstrong. The sergeant stood at parade rest. Judith crouched down in front of them. “Dolph filled us in. What happened on the boat?”

            Skip started to answer but Kate put a finger against his still blue-tinged lips. “Garcia’s wife shot him,” she said. “She and the driver, Raul What’s-His-Name, are lovers.”

            “Raul’s the guy we found knocked out up on the bridge?” Judith asked.

            “Yeah. Rose got him,” Skip whispered.

            “Dear God!” Kate jumped up. “Tell them not to start the boat’s engine. They were letting fumes build up in–”

            Judith held up her hand. “The Coast Guard turned on the bilge fan, but to be on the safe side, they’re towing the boat in. Is this Raul the guy the FBI’s been looking for, Delgado?”

            “No.” Kate sank back down next to Skip. “Delgado’s a cousin or something to Mrs. Garcia. He was part of their original plan, to assassinate the Colombian president during his state visit. The revised plan was to take the ambassador’s body back to the embassy and blame his death on Rob Franklin, so anything he said would be discredited. Then Mrs. Garcia was going to use the murder of her husband to rally Colombians against America and the current regime, and get herself elected president. They set it up to look like we were fleeing the country. They were going to blow up the boat, with us on it.”

            The City officer spoke for the first time. “They’re both claiming diplomatic immunity.”

            Horrified, Kate stared up at him. “You can’t just let them go.”

            Judith shook her head. “No, but we’ll have to turn them over to their government. We won’t be able to try them for their crimes here.”

            “The Colombian government will probably treat them worse than we would,” Skip rasped out. “Is Lilly okay?”

            “Unconscious, but stable. The Coast Guard medic thinks she was drugged. The police boat’s taking her ashore.” Judith stood up and put a hand on Skip’s shoulder. “I’ve radioed ahead, cancelled the BOLO on you.”

            “What about the other charges?” Kate asked.

            “What other charges?” Judith said with a small grin.

            “Against Lilly too?” Skip rasped.

            Judith looked at the City cop. He took the hint and walked away. “Charges against her may be tougher to make go away, but I’ll talk to Dan.”

            She paused, then added, “There’s another piece to the puzzle you may not know about. Did you hear that Senator Robinson was killed during an apparent robbery in his home in Reisterstown?”

            Skip had a stunned look on his face. “When?”

            “Last Wednesday evening. In his study.”

            Kate was confused. She looked from one to the other of them.

            “Janice sent me to Robinson’s house,” Skip started to explain, then paused to clear his throat. “To get something. When I brought it back to her, that’s when I saw the newspaper on her desk, with the picture of the ambassador and his wife.”

            “What was the something you got from the senator?” Judith asked.

            Skip shook his head. “Confidential. Not related.”

            Judith gave him a hard stare. He shook his head again.

            She shrugged. “Set up at the senator’s house smelled. There was a note pad on his desk. Lab determined that a page had been torn off. Impressions on the page below it indicated it had ‘Janice Browning’ and ‘Colombian ambassador, Garcia’ written on it. None of that made sense until after my talk with Dolph the other day.”

            “That’s why you were willing to go along with this craziness tonight,” Skip said in a raspy whisper. “You’d put two and two together.”

            Kate was still totally lost. “Excuse me. The cold must be numbing my brain.”

            “They didn’t go after Janice just because she was staying with us...” Skip’s voice gave out completely.

            “She’d probably asked the senator to check out the ambassador,” Judith said, “and Mrs. Garcia’s men had her phone bugged.”

            Kate digested that for a moment. “So they might have just been watching us up to that point, but then they figured we were telling people–”

            She felt a bump. The boat had docked at the marina. She looked over the railing behind their bench. Rob and Sue were on the pier below, waiting for them.

            It dawned on Kate that they could go home, that she would be sleeping in her own bed tonight. And tomorrow Mac would bring the kids home. She almost burst into tears.