Finding Harmony (Katie & Annalise Book 3) (21 page)

I knew he was only partially kidding on the demise part. I also knew that the combination of Collin and Nick could lead to dangerous results. But I’d rather make it OK for him to discuss it with Collin in front of me than have any more secrets or half-truths out of him. Just the thought of that raised my blood pressure. Last night’s apology had not helped, and I was far from over it.

We joined the others on the bridge after a quick shower in the guest head. The shower wasn’t big enough for two, but the other party to my twosome wasn’t in the mood to play anyway. While he was in the water, he muttered the whole time about people who messed with his wife and his mom, not to mention his kids. I think he threw in the dogs, too.

By the time he and Collin started talking, Nick was frothing at the mouth. I kept my distance and let him spew. Bill joined in enthusiastically, and Kurt urged them to talk where he could hear them. Soon, all four men were shouting and pounding their fists. I sat with my arms around my knees in the corner seat, half-listening and half-asleep, wholly done with stress for now, happy to pass the burden to them.

At 9:05 a.m., the satellite phone rang near my head. Where had the last two hours gone? My first impulse was to rub sleep from my eyes. Ah, a clue
.
The next was to lift my head from Nick’s warm lap. Another
.
Collin and Bill stood beside Kurt, drinking coffee. Kurt passed the helm to Bill and answered the sat phone.

After a short hello, he listened for a long moment.

“Slow down, Julie. I couldn’t understand you. Repeat that,” Kurt said.

Fast-talking calls to a satellite phone usually meant problems. More problems. Please, not the kids.

“All right. I’m going to hand the phone to Nick so Rashidi can tell him about it.”

Nick said, “Hello, Rashidi?” He listened for a few moments. “So it just flipped right in front of you and exploded?” Pause. “What did the guy look like?” Another pause. “Did you get out and take a look?” Short pause. “No? OK, what’s happening there now?” Longer pause. “You guys are all OK, right?” Barely a pause. “Well, I’m very glad you called. Good luck with the DPNR director, and thank you again.”

Nick turned off the phone and ran his hand through his hair. It stood on end. He sat motionless, staring at the tabletop for a fraction of a second, and then exploded.

“It’s on, it’s happening, it’s happening right now,” he said, jumping to his feet.

“What is?” I asked.

“The cartel. The Chihuahuas. The terrorist attack on Petro-Mex. The diversion.” He turned to his father. “How do I get hold of your Coast Guard contact, Dad?”

Oh my God.

We hit a bigger wave than normal, and everything from the table bounced onto the floor. I grabbed for coffee cups, dice, and backgammon chips as they rolled in all directions.

“Whoa, son, tell me what’s going on first,” Kurt said, a voice calling for reason in a situation rapidly developing without any.

Nick bristled, then spoke rapid-fire. “A jet fuel tanker flipped and exploded in front of the refinery, right outside the fence by their housing compound and a day care. Mom had Rashidi, Laura, Rob, and Ava with her in the car, and they had just driven past there to make their 9:30 appointment with their attorney and the DPNR. Rashidi was sitting in the front seat, turned around talking to people in the backseat, so he saw it happen. He said a man threw something in the road in front of the tanker truck, and that the truck lost control going around the corner. It flipped over and burst into flames. Then Rashidi said the same man ran back into the road and picked some things up and drove away in an unmarked police car.”

Collin broke in. “An unmarked? Sounds like he threw down road jacks to puncture the tires. A police officer. Not good.”

“So you think this is the diversion the cartel planned to stage before the real attack?” Kurt asked, still holding the satellite phone.

Nick looked ready to pounce on his father if Kurt didn’t hurry up. “Yes, Dad, and we have to report it immediately and get the right people involved. Come
on
.”

Kurt finally dialed, handed the phone to Nick, and said, “You’ll be speaking to Ralph Tate. He’s up to date on everything except the tanker flipping.”

Nick spoke rapidly into the phone. The conversation was short, and when he hung up, he said, “Good man. He’s reporting to the other authorities and mobilizing on the harbor.”

“Who else should we call?” I asked. “What about Petro-Mex?”

“Ralph said he would call them, but I don’t think it hurts for us to tell Ramirez ourselves. While I do that, Katie, can you run get me some more Gatorade? I am out of my mind thirsty again.”

I nodded and he kissed my cheek without making eye contact. I had a bad feeling he was moving me out of the way. Again.

He turned to the others. “Let me make a call, and then we need to discuss a change in plans, guys.”

Bill said, “Hey man, no problem. Flexibility is the key to air power.”

He slapped Collin on the shoulder and Kurt actually laughed. They were all pumped full of adrenaline and testosterone. Nick ignored them. Lava began to boil deep inside me.

Collin said, “I owe the Chihuahuas for my partner and his family. I’m in.”

This really didn’t bode well. I made for the galley and Gatorade as fast as I could.

I heard Nick speaking to Ramirez on the satellite phone even before I got back to the stairs. I returned, out of breath, as Nick was hanging up the phone.

“As expected, the refinery has its hands full just dealing with the explosion and the leaking jet fuel. The Coast Guard was on the other line by the time we hung up.” He turned to Bill. “Now for the change of plans.”

Bill said, “I’d expect nothing less, old buddy.”

“We need to set course for the refinery’s harbor,” Nick said.

Kurt lifted his hands in the air, ceding the helm to Bill.

“No problem, mon,” Bill said, and he whipped the wheel to the right. “Get me a map, Kurt.”

Kurt pawed through the maps and laid one out for Bill. One hand on the wheel and both eyes on the map, Bill traced his finger along it, and then tapped the spot where his finger stopped.

“How far away are we?” Nick asked.

Bill pointed to St. Marcos, which was now in sight. “We were an hour ahead of schedule already since the ocean is flat today. We would have docked on the west side of the island in about twenty-five minutes or so. With this great water, it will only take about another twenty to get all the way around and into the mouth of the harbor. Call it forty-five minutes total.”

“This may sound like a stupid question, but why are we headed to the refinery?” I asked.

“We talked about this, Katie,” Nick responded. “People’s lives are at stake.”

My line of sight narrowed and I felt my emotions creeping toward the precipice. “We talked about you needing to warn the refinery about a terrorist attack before the cartel found out you had survived. We didn’t talk about taking an unarmed pleasure boat and going up against terrorists with both parents of our children on board.” I was yelling now.

This jarred Nick, although not in the way I hoped. “Bill, what do we have in the way of weapons on board? Flare guns? Spear guns? Anything more lethal?”

Collin was all over this idea. “How about knives, sharp things, anything that will hurl projectiles, anything explosive?”

“Yeah, man, all of that, plus one big gun, too,” Bill said. “The owner keeps it in case of pirates.”

“Guys!” I yelled, louder this time. No one listened to me. Mutiny.

Bill gave Nick and Collin directions and they ran off to ransack the boat for weapons.

“Kurt, this is just not the right way to handle this. You see that, don’t you?” I pleaded. “We could sink this boat. We could get in the way of the appropriate, trained, well-armed authorities.”

“Yup, not ideal. Have to play this one out, though. We can scuttle our plan at the eleventh hour if it looks bad.”

“What plan?” I asked. “We have no plan. We’re just charging in there with no idea what we’re doing.”

“Nick and Collin both have experience with this type of thing, Katie. Everything came out all right when they rescued us from Taylor’s father, didn’t it? I have faith in them. You should, too.”

The satellite phone rang and he answered it, ending our conversation.

Without much hope, I turned to Bill. “You could get fired, you know.
Kate
could sink. We could all die.”

“We’re going to be fine. No problem, mon.” Bill’s eyes reminded me of a greyhound I had once seen right before a race. I’d hated the dog track, and I hated this. I couldn’t stop these guys any more than I could have stopped that greyhound from chasing a rabbit around the track.

Collin and Nick returned. Collin had a 12-gauge shotgun and a box of shells. They had at least brought life jackets, which assured me that they could still access some small part of their rational brains that wasn’t overrun with Fight Club mentality. Nick had stuffed an unimpressive cache of makeshift weaponry into my large overnight duffel; a couple of spear and flare guns, some fish-filleting knives, grill lighters, and heavy link chain. It looked like a Unabomber-wannabe scavenger hunt.

Great. They dumped my lady clothes on the floor to make a gun bag for the macho men.

“That’s it?” I asked.

Nick said, “Oh, no. We left the scuba tanks downstairs.”

He’d either missed or ignored the message in my tone.

“Scuba tanks?” I yelled. “What the hell do you need scuba tanks for?”

“Didn’t you see the final scene in
Jaws
?” Nick said. He took a closer look at my face and added, “Just kidding. No scuba tanks.” He turned back to the guys. “Bill, thanks, man. How far away are we?”

“Ten minutes.”

Collin motioned for us to gather near Bill. “We need a plan.”

This was the first acknowledgment that we hadn’t had one before, even though we were less than ten minutes away from real, live terrorists. Killers.

“If we didn’t have a plan, there’d be nothing to change,” Bill said, and pounded the dashboard like a bongo. Ba-dum-dum.

“Well, really, we just need to refine the one we have,” Collin amended.

I’m not seeing the funny here.

Now that we were near the island, boat traffic had increased. Each boat I saw behind us tightened the thumbscrews to my temples. Right now I had my eye on a cigarette boat coming up on us like a cheetah after a wounded wildebeest. Not good.

Kurt interrupted with a Coast Guard update before I could bring up the cheetah. “Good news, bad news. That was Ralph. All their sea power, the boats in range, are converging on the harbor. They’ve coordinated with the local FBI, and they’re mobilizing and probably already at the gates of the refinery. Petro-Mex is cooperating. But the Coasties were on the far side of the island apprehending some drug runners. They dropped what they were doing and got on their way, top speed. But we’ll still get there before them. A good five or ten minutes before them.”

Mother of God.
What a horrible idea.

“This just confirms that we’re doing the right thing,” Nick said. “Somebody has to stop these bastards. Collin, what do you think? I defer to you for the details.”

Collin took over. “Bill, do you have any handheld radios?”

Bill pointed with his toe. “In that cabinet.” Kurt retrieved them and started passing out radios. Of course, there were enough to outfit a boatload of guests. Or a small army. “Test them for charge,” Bill added.

Collin went on. “Kurt and Nick, how about one of you each take a side post. Find a way to strap in, wedge in, or hold on. We can’t stop for a man overboard. I’ll take the stern.”

“Got it,” Nick said. He scooped up a flare gun and a spear gun. Kurt handed him a radio and followed suit.

“What about me?” I asked.

“Stay out of the way,” Collin said. He sounded like Nick about the Petro-Mex job.

My ears burned and my eyes watered. I rose on my tiptoes so we were eye to eye and shouted, “You guys cannot drag me into this and then treat me like Penelope Pitstop. I won’t sit here powerless to have a role in our survival.”
You need one person in full control of her faculties.

“Fine. You’ll be our runner. If anyone needs anything, Katie will bring it to you.” He handed me one of the radios. “Let’s move everything down to deck level. Bill, enter the harbor like a bat out of hell, OK? We’re looking for anything that doesn’t belong on the dock in a refinery. Or on the water. If it runs, we chase it. If it chases us, get us in position to fight back.”

He was acting like we had AK-47s mounted on every side of the boat, but really, we were charging into this battle like Yosemite Sam.
What in tarnation is goin’ on?

I positioned myself just inside the salon’s sliding glass door, leaving it open. I was scared out of my mind—more scared than when Tutein had dragged me into the woods. We had no business doing this. It was probably even against the law. And yet, if I were forced to do so, I’d admit that I couldn’t imagine the men in my life handling it any other way. I would just have to hold the operation together.

From my post, I had an unobstructed view off the stern. The cigarette boat had cut the distance between us in half. It looked like it was only a quarter mile behind us now.

“Is anyone else worried about the boat on our butt?” I said, trying out the radio.

I took the collective lack of an answer as a no.

The guys moved into their appointed spots. I watched Collin contort himself thirty-six different ways as he tried to wedge his body in so he wouldn’t fly out of the boat. He tucked the flare gun into his waistband and held the pump-action shotgun down at his side.

“You want binoculars?” I asked, proud of myself for thinking of them.

“Yeah,” he said, and I rounded them up and passed them out.

As I slipped the strap for Nick’s over his head, he touched my cheek with his fingertips. “I love you, Katie. Everything will be fine.”

Maybe.

“Try not to get yourself killed,” I said, and I let him kiss me just in case he did, once quickly on the lips. I ran back to the galley.