Cut and Run (3 page)

“This was more of a blam, crash, traffic jam,” said Calleigh. “Fewer fireworks, but more angry commuters.”

“They'd be a lot angrier if they got home and their power was out.” Pinlon sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Anyway, seems pretty open and shut to me.”

“Looks like it, I know. But we're not so sure…”

Pinlon talked to a few more people and then supervised the loading of the balloon itself onto a truck. “We'll have to go over the whole thing inch by inch,” he told Horatio. “They may be big and slow, but they're still aircraft. The FAA won't sign off on this until I hand in a full report.”

“Let us know if you find anything unusual,” said Horatio. “We'll do the same on our end.”

“What's next?” Calleigh asked after Pinlon had left.

“We visit the launch site,” said Horatio. “Mister Greer tested negative for GSR—let's see if the rest of his story checks out.”

 

Frank Tripp knocked on Natalia's door around two. “Got a minute?”

She looked up from her monitor and giggled.

Frank looked nonplussed. “'Scuse me?”

“Sorry, Frank. But you were right—this guy's
funny.
”

“So that's what you found on the disk? More columns?”

“No, it looks like Mister Davey had higher ambitions. He was working on—”

“A book, I know. I just got back from talking to his editor at the newspaper. Apparently he just signed a pretty sweet deal for a crime novel.”

“It's called
Floridosity,
” Natalia said. “But referring to it as a work of fiction isn't exactly accurate.”

“Yeah, apparently he was basing all the characters on real people—Miami residents he'd interviewed or researched.”

“Not only that, he made extensive notes detailing his plans for each character.”

“From what his editor said, his portrayals weren't all that flattering.”

“Actually, they're
hilarious.
” She grinned and shook her head. “But yeah, he doesn't exactly show these people at their best. If he wasn't careful, he could have had a libel suit on his hands.”

“I'd say he definitely wasn't careful enough.”

“Well, he did manage to leave the disk where his attacker didn't find it—which gives us a shopping list of suspects.”

Frank nodded. “How long of a list we talking?”

“There are five main characters in the book. Any one of them could be our killer.”

“And we've got the real ID of each of 'em?”

“Right here on disk.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let's go get 'em.”

“But—don't you want to read the files, first?”

“Nah. I'm a quick study—you can fill me in as we drive. Besides,
how
bad Davey made our suspects look isn't the important part. It's what they did as a result—and who they did it to.”

Natalia took off her lab coat and hung it up. “The facts, not the fiction?”

Tripp grinned. “Couldn't have put it better myself.”

C
OLBY DIDN'T NOTICE
the yacht at first. He was using a hose to wash down the marina's ramp, where the remains of somebody's half-digested dinner was now forming a scaly puddle. “Geez,” Colby muttered to himself. “You couldn't make it six inches farther and hit the water? Maybe the seagulls appreciate it, but I sure don't.”

Then he glanced up and saw the boat heading toward one of the marina's slips. Colby wasn't exactly a seasoned mariner—he was working part-time at the marina because it paid more than a fast-food restaurant and he was saving up for his first car—but even to his inexperienced eyes there were two immediate problems that leaped out.

First, the boat was going way too fast. Second, the slip it was heading for was already occupied.

“Hey!” Colby said. He looked around wildly, but his boss was nowhere in sight.
“Hey!”
he said again, louder this time. The boat—at least a sixty-footer—continued its steady, resolute charge forward. The bow of the ship proclaimed its name as
Svetlana 2
.

The boat it was heading toward was a small sailboat called the
Feverfew
. Colby had always thought it was a dumb name, but the couple that owned it were nice enough. They weren't aboard now, which was good. Colby hoped they kept up their insurance payments.

“HEY!” Colby hollered. He was yelling at whoever was piloting the yacht now; the boat was close enough that Colby could see the figure up in the wheelhouse, behind the glass. He seemed awfully short—

Colby realized the figure was slumped forward, on top of the wheel itself. And the only glass in the window of the wheelhouse were jagged shards jutting from the edges of the frame.

The yacht slammed into the smaller ship with a sound like a dinosaur stepping on one of its own eggs. It crushed the sailboat between its own mass and the dock, wooden planks splintering and snapping. The pilings held firm, but the sailboat was scrap; it sank in less than a minute.

Colby stared at the wreckage for a full ten seconds, then pulled out his cell phone.

He made sure he took at least a dozen good photos before he called nine-one-one.

“This is obviously not a good day to travel,” Alexx said, looking at the wreckage of the yacht from the top of the ramp. She crossed her arms and glanced at Delko and Wolfe, who had just arrived. “First a balloon, then a boat. What's next, a train wreck?”

Delko grinned. “I'm just glad it made it to shore. Means I don't have to suit up and spend the day pulling bodies out of the water.”

“I don't know—nice day for a swim,” said Wolfe. “Pretty damn hot, actually.”

“Then let's get to work,” Alexx said. “From what I understand, there's plenty of it.”

They made their way down the ramp and toward the makeshift gangplank that had been set up, a long board that stretched from the damaged dock to the yacht itself. A uniformed officer helped them aboard. “It's pretty ugly,” the officer, a tall woman with a blond crewcut, said. “Only one survivor, the guy that got the ship back to shore. They took him to Dade General with multiple gunshot wounds, but the EMT's said he'd probably make it.”

Alexx sighed. “Well, we're here for all the ones that didn't.”

There was no shortage of victims. Bodies were sprawled on the upper deck, on the lower deck, and in the cabin area below. Bullet holes scarred bulkheads like the tracks in a junkie's arm, and blood was everywhere.

Alexx moved quickly and professionally from body to body, confirming death by GSW over and over again. Delko took pictures, while Wolfe collected and documented bullet casings.

“I think,” said Delko, “I'm getting a pretty good idea of what went on here.”

“Running gun battle,” said Wolfe. “Two sides, both of them heavily armed. I'd say it started on the top deck and moved indoors.”

“Yeah. Question is, why were they shooting at each other?”

“Well, let's break down the two groups. On one side we have a bunch of young guys with tattoos dressed in Modern Urban Thug; on the other, we see a lot more khaki, at least two suit-and-ties, and actual leather shoulder holsters.”

Delko nodded. “Street crew and professional security team?”

“Right. So why were they on the same boat together?”

“Maybe one of them crashed the party.”

“A hijacking?” Wolfe considered it. “Could be. Which means there was another boat involved—”

“Guys?” Alexx called out. “Come down here and take a look at this.”

They followed her voice belowdecks, through a dining room with a massive, bullet-riddled buffet laid out, and down a hall lined with cabins. She was in the first one on the right, crouched beside a bed with a male DB sprawled on it.

“This makes the fifteenth victim,” said Alexx. “But this one wasn't shot.”

“COD?” asked Wolfe.

“Skin is pallid, lips cyanotic.” She opened his mouth carefully. “Got a lot of liquid in his mouth—might be saliva. No petechia in the eyes, no bruising on the neck or any other obvious wounds. I'll have to get him on my table before I can say.”

“Did you hear that?” asked Delko. He looked around.

“Hear what?” asked Wolfe.

“A thumping noise.”

“I don't—wait. Yeah, I heard that, too.”

Delko and Wolfe drew their guns at the same moment. “Stay here,” Delko told Alexx in a low voice.

“They told me the boat had been cleared—” Alexx whispered.

“We'll check it out,” said Wolfe.

The two CSIs moved out of the cabin and back toward the dining room. The thumping grew louder.

“Miami-Dade PD!” Delko called out. “Show yourself!”

The thumping grew louder, and now muffled voices could be heard as well—it sounded like they were saying, “Let us out of here!”

“It's coming from the galley,” said Wolfe.

The galley was outfitted like an upscale restaurant, with gleaming stainless-steel appliances and marble countertops. The sound was coming from behind a wine rack against one wall.

Delko holstered his gun. “Cover me,” he said. “I'm going to try to move this thing out of the way…ah. It's on hinges.” He swung the wine rack to one side, revealing a metal door with a recessed latch. He pulled it open.

A frosty mist billowed out, obscuring their vision. As it cleared, Delko and Wolfe could see a group of people huddled together in the center of what looked like a large meat freezer. A man stood apart from them, closer to the door. He was dressed in a lightweight linen suit of pale gray, with a black silk shirt underneath. His nose was sharp, the high widow's peak of his hair black shot with silver. He was the only one who didn't look terrified or half frozen.

“At last,” he said. “I thought you'd never hear us.”

“And you are?” said Delko.

The man smiled and stepped past Delko, into the galley. He ignored Wolfe's gun. “Jovan Dragoslav. I am the owner of this craft.”

“You can come out,” Wolfe called to the others. There were six of them: four were young, beautiful women, one was a Japanese man dressed in cook's whites, and one was a woman in her fifties in a business suit.

Wolfe holstered his gun. “Why didn't you say something before this?”

Dragoslav turned his palms up in a gesture of apology. “We thought it might be a trick. The pirates, trying to get us to reveal ourselves.”

“Pirates, huh?” said Delko, giving Wolfe a look.

The women and the cook filed out, hugging themselves and looking as if they wanted nothing more than to get out into the Miami sun. “I'll take you up and out,” said Wolfe. “Follow me closely and don't touch anything.” The women nodded, but the cook looked anxious. “I don't think he speaks English,” the fiftyish woman said.

“Police,” said Wolfe, holding up his badge and letting the cook see it. It didn't seem to make him any happier. “I think he gets it,” he said, and motioned for the group to follow him. Delko brought up the rear.

“Oh my God,” one of the women gasped when they saw the bodies. Dragoslav's face was impassive.

“All clear, Alexx,” Wolfe called out.

She stepped out of the cabin with a concerned look on her face. “Anyone hurt?”

“Maybe some hypothermia. I'll let you look them over up top.”

Once Alexx and the passengers were off the ship, Delko took Dragoslav aside. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“Certainly. I and my guests were enjoying a cruise, when our ship was approached by another vessel, a speedboat. They wanted our help, but when we let them aboard, they pulled out guns and began shooting.”

“And your men shot back?”

“We defended ourselves, yes.”

Delko nodded. “Seems like you were packing an awful lot of firepower for a pleasure cruise. Were you expecting trouble?”

Dragoslav smiled. “I am by nature a cautious man.”

“Not cautious enough, though.”

“I suppose not.”

“What sort of business are you in, Mister Dragoslav?”

Dragoslav shrugged. “I dabble in the import/ export trade. I deal mainly with Eastern Europe.”

“I see. Any idea why pirates might want to hijack your yacht?”

Dragoslav looked away from Delko, at the wreck of his ship. His look darkened. “They are pirates. I have—
had
—a yacht. Would you blame a bank for being robbed?”

“No,” said Delko. “Of course not. If you'll excuse me, I have to process the crime scene. An officer will take your full statement.”

He nodded at Wolfe, who joined him as they returned to the ship.

“The ladies,” said Wolfe, “as you might have gathered by the MTCR, are professional escorts. Except the one in the suit—she says her name is Val Faustino, and she's a business associate of Mister Dragoslav.”

“MTCR?” asked Delko.

“Makeup to Clothes Ratio: high on the first, low on the second.”

“Right. Well, Mister Dragoslav claims they were out there for nothing more than a cruise, and claims he doesn't know why the hijackers targeted him.”

They went belowdecks once more. “Sure,” said Wolfe. “He just happened to have a heavily armed security force with him to make sure the
mojitos
were served on time.”

“Dragoslav says he's in the import/export business.”

“Shorthand for smuggler. Question is, what's he smuggling?”

Delko headed straight for the galley. “Something valuable, no question. Something you might want to hide in a concealed walk-in freezer.”

 

“Suspect number one,” said Natalia, “is Marssai Guardon.”

“The citrus heiress?” asked Tripp. He put on his seatbelt as Natalia started up the Hummer.

Natalia grinned. “Right. I'm sure that's the first thing that leaped to mind when you heard that name.”

Tripp grinned back. “Okay, so like everyone else in the world, I've heard of the video. But I've never seen it.”

Marssai Guardon was in line to inherit her family's citrus empire—supposedly worth billions. She was young, rich, and had grown up in Miami, a playground she rapidly became queen of. Her partying was legendary in Miami's social blender of models, rock stars, and actors—but that notoriety went from local to international when an X-rated video of her having sex in a Miami nightclub got loose on the Internet.

“If that's true, you're probably the last holdout on the planet,” said Natalia. She reached down and turned up the Hummer's air-conditioning a notch. “But there's an interesting twist to the story—according to Davey's notes, the video was a fake.”

Tripp frowned. “Hold on. If that's true, why would she kill him? Wouldn't she want the truth to come out?”