Page 149 of The 9th Man

“That’s illegal.”

He dropped another hundred on the table. “Now?”

“What kind of gun?”

“What kind you got?”

Lionel asked, “How’d you find me?”

“Does it matter?”

“Does to me.”

“I think we have a friend in common. Stephanie.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar.”

“She’s a couple inches shorter than me, short grayish hair, and carries a really big stick.”

The face broke into a grin. “Oh, that Stephanie.”

Lionel signaled to the bartender, who retrieved a key ring from a drawer and tossed it across the room. Lionel snatched it from the air. “Follow me.”

He led Luke out the rear exit and across a dirt path to a freestanding garage. Lionel lifted the big door, revealing an interior crowded with cardboard boxes, dilapidated bikes, and a partially disassembled dune buggy. He followed him through a short maze of boxes to a paint-spattered workbench.

Lionel said, “Pistol, rifle, or shotgun?”

“Pistol, small-frame semi-automatic, 9mm.”

“That I don’t have. I can sell you a .22.”

“Show me.”

Lionel unlocked one of the workbench drawers and pulled out an older-model Taurus with half its grip missing. “Serial numbers are gone. Sixteen-round capacity, four-inch barrel. Three hundred U.S. dollars. I’ll throw in the bullets and an extra magazine for another fifty. As a favor to Stephanie.”

He handed over the cash and left.

After a brief stop at a grocery store for canned beans, bread, two gallon jugs of water, some toiletries, and a few other needed items, he returned to Pine’s Rest and mentally rehearsed things. Would Rowland stay aboard? Stephanie had told him that, of late, the old man preferred the comfort of the ship. So he needed to internalize the yacht’s layout right down to its doorknobs. In a perfect world he’d want to know where and when the crew slept, how many remained on duty at night, where they were stationed, a weapons inventory, and the location of communications devices.

But his intel was spotty.

And it was all he had to work with.

So he whittled his plan down to the essentials. What was under his control and what wasn’t. Speed and surprise would be his greatest advantages. But the crew element still troubled him. The crisp white uniforms and polished shoes were a façade. These were armed, trained soldiers. Which just might work to his advantage.

He was as ready as he was going to be.

His course set.

His plan would either work or it wouldn’t.

Shortly before 11:00A.M.,BreakAwayglided into Exuma Harbor, then turned down the mile-wide channel separating George Town and Stocking Island. The water was shallower there, the shoals more unforgiving. By the time it zigzagged its way around Crab Cay the captain slowed her to a walking pace, just enough to maintain steerageway. Finally, just before noon, the yacht made its final turn and snugged itself into Compass Cay’s horseshoe anchorage, about a hundred yards offshore. Through the binoculars Luke watched the anchor splash into the turquoise water.

He then tucked the Taurus into his belt, slid the extra magazine into the side pocket of his shorts, and set out for Jester’s Pub.

73

IT WAS A FEW HOURS BEFORE LEWIS PETERS SHOWED UP. LUKE HADtaken a stool at the bar’s center, nursing a Red Bull and gin he’d ordered upon walking into the pub. Peters, still wearing his dress white uniform, called to a few locals he apparently knew, then shook hands with the bartender and took a seat four stools away.

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