Page 138 of The 9th Man

“Is changing hair color a big decision?”

“For a southern woman, it is. Or at least it is for my mama.”

“I think I’d like your mother.”

“And the feeling would be mutual. I have to finish this. My way.”

“You sound more and more like Cotton every day.”

“Is there any reason to insult me?”

“It was a compliment. And you’re hedging, ’cause you’re unsure.”

“Maybe. But I’m going to find out. My way.”

“You let me know the second you do.”

He’d liked the fact that she was trusting him. Like Malone. To handle the situation ashesaw fit. No micromanaging. No interference. Just get the damn job done. But she had offered some relevant intel.

“Rowland’s home on Starlings Island is well guarded. But he has a second retreat, one he visits often, even at his advanced age. It’s called Compass Cay, a private island he owns in the Bahamas. He gets there on his yacht.BreakAway.It’s docked in Fort Lauderdale. On the boat and at the cay he’s vulnerable, as he purposefully does not maintain a large security presence. He feels secure there since he surely has lots of friends in the Bahamian government. With Persik and Talley both gone, and with the right pressure, he might choose its isolation for a little while, outside of the United States.”

He’d nearly smiled.

She was reading his mind.

But he took her assessment to heart and made a few calls, putting his plan into action. Now, after three days, he was ready to move.

But first he made one more call.

To James “Fancy” Detmer, an honored resident of Blount County, Tennessee, who answered with his trademarked “Yo.”

“How we lookin’?” Luke asked.

“The fish are bitin’.”

“Glad to hear it. And our target?”

“I’m starin’ right at the thing. And for a while those fellas were staring right back at me. I’m a quarter mile away and it still made ’em nervous.”

“Remember what I told you. Step carefully. These are the kind of people you don’t want interested in you. Got it?”

“I hear ya.”

“Stick to the schedule I gave you. Change boats, clothes, times you fish, never take the same route twice to the marina—”

“I ain’t stupid.”

Fancy, whom Luke had met on their first day of middle school, was one of his oldest friends. Together they’d hunted, fished, and explored every square inch of Blount County. They’d chased girls, gotten their driver’s licenses, gone to keg parties, and caused more than their fair share of general mischief. While Luke had joined the army in the hope of exploring the world, Fancy had chosen to bury his roots even deeper into the Tennessee soil. He’d married his high school sweetheart and had two kids with plans for more.

“You didn’t mention that this guy owned theTitanic?” Fancy said.

“That big, huh?”

“And fancy. Which I should know.”

Fancy’s nickname harked back to high school when someone had teased him for wearing overalls to class every day, to which he’d responded, “So what? These are my fancy overalls.”

What he was now doing came under the heading of an off-the-book exercise. Nothing official at all. So he’d turned not to a fellow Magellan Billet agent, but to the person he trusted the most in the world.

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