Page 35 of Fearless
“Hopefully, they are the positive kind.” I hit the end call button on the phone and turn toward what’s left of the team. “With a man down and Harper getting shot with a tranquilizer dart, we need to be extremely cautious moving forward.”
“What do you want us to do now, Roger?” Jessie asks. “With the FBI crawling around, it’s highly unlikely that the crew on the charter boat will be making any pickups anytime soon. If they’re smart, they’ll lay low until all this blows over.”
Elijah rubs his chin, pondering his wife’s statement. “I don’t know. If I had a timeline I needed to keep, I may be willing to take additional risks. However, it’s not as if one can just go down the street and get 40 or so pounds of weapons-grade uranium. Here’s what I can’t figure out. Whitman sent down agents to arrest the crew and confiscate the uranium. They let the kids go because they didn’t have any proof, yet not a single agent thought to bring radiation detection equipment or even protective clothing or gloves.”
Harper cocks her head and then defends Whitman’s actions. “There wasn’t time. As it was, if the kids hadn’t been knocked out and taken hours to recover, the boat would have docked before the agents arrived. The time it would have taken to check out special equipment like that would have negated any chance of catching the crew in the act. They were already on their way here when the uranium was being stolen.”
Jessie heads toward our kitchen and starts rifling through cabinets. “Back to my question. What’s the game plan fortonight? I vote for pulling up the cameras and watching the video feeds. Until Carlos gives us something to go on, there’s not much else we can do.”
“We can go and question the crew,” I suggest.
Elijah waggles his eyebrows. “Or we can take out that sweet boat you have moored out back.”
“Yes! You have microwave popcorn!” Jessie shouts. She holds up two cellophane-wrapped packages and waves them around. “The crew should be out on a charter right now, so movie time it is! Cue up the cameras, Roger!”
Harper grins and shakes her head at Jessie’s antics. Giving in, I open the laptop and mirror the screen on the television. As appealing as going for a boat ride is, the idea of Harper out in the open and being a target makes my insides quiver. One of the best ways to keep her safe is to stay inside. I won’t be able to keep her sequestered for long, but I can get away with it for tonight.
I have nine camera feeds up in a grid: the seven from the boat and each one from the shuttle buses. The two buses running have tourists on board and are operating normally, so I make their frames smaller than the ones from the charter.
Leaning back and getting comfortable, I place my arm on the back of the couch, hoping that Harper will take it as an invitation to nestle herself against my side. She does, and I hide my smile when she makes herself comfortable and props her feet up on the coffee table.
“Aww. You guys are so cute getting all cozy,” Jessie says, handing Harper a bowl of popcorn. Jessie plops down at the other end of the sofa and props her feet on Elijah’s lap. He happens to be sitting in a chair, automatically making him Jessie’spersonal footstool.
We watch the crew as they go about their day, helping tourists with their snorkel gear and passing out rum punch to those who chose to stay aboard. I turn up the volume, but not much can be heard over the music playing through the speakers.
It’s half an hour later when the crew begins the return to shore, and Jessie points to the smaller screen with footage from the shuttle bus. “Isn’t that the resort owner riding in the front seat? Mr. uh…uh…Mr. Hagan.” She reaches for the resort booklet inside the end table drawer. Finding what she’s looking for, she shows us his picture and says, “I was close. His name is Thomas Hogan. Hmm, I wonder why he’s heading toward the excursion center.”
“He warned the crew that he would be keeping an eye on them. Maybe he’s keeping his promise,” Harper replies.
The four of us watch Thomas exit the shuttle bus, but we don’t see him again until the charter pulls up to the dock. I switch the camera feed to bring up the one that faces the deck of the boat and turn up the volume.
Thomas waits at the end of the pier until all the tourists have disembarked. Then, he makes his way onto the boat, struggling to keep his balance as it rocks back and forth. He waves over the captain of the vessel and then glances around to ensure no one is within listening distance. “Jordan, we have a change in plans,” he says in a tone low enough that our device barely picks it up. Thomas hands Jordan a slip of paper. “I need you and your crew to go to the resort at Big Pine Key tomorrow night. I have a boat there that just finished getting repairs that you can use to go to those coordinates.”
Jordan shakes his head. “We almost got caught last night, Mr. Hogan. If the package hadn’t been stolen, we would all be sitting in a jail cell right now. The FBI was here! The Feds!”
“Keep your voice down,” Thomas chastises. “The Feds are crawling all over this resort, but I have seven more resorts between here and Miami, along with numerous charter businesses. I need you for this job, Jordan. You know how to keep a level head.”
“I’m out. You didn’t tell me we were picking up a box of uranium. I looked it up on the internet when I got home and found out it’s used for nuclear bombs. I didn’t sign up for that.”
“I didn’t know, Jordan. I swear. But I’ve been informed that the theft was planned because the buyer knew that the FBI was on the way. We’re cleared to pick up one last package and ten more people, and then we’ll be done,” Thomas says.
Jordan paces around the deck, and the rest of his crew waits for him at the bow of the boat. They appear to be nervous but are waiting patiently for any news. “It’s just not worth it, Mr. Hogan.”
“I’ll pay you triple for this last job. You and your entire crew. This is important, and if it doesn’t happen, we’re as good as dead.”
Jordan’s face drains of color, and he instantly looks like a walking corpse. “One more, and then my crew and I are done. Can we expect to be robbed again?”
Thomas frowns. “I don’t know, but if it happens, just go with the flow. Don’t fight them.”
Thomas leaves, and Jordan’s shoulders sag under the weight of the task placed upon him. He opens up the sheet of paperwith the coordinates written on it.
“Zoom in and freeze the frame!” Jessie shouts, retrieving the phone from her pocket and opening the “notes” application on her phone. Read me the coordinates!”
I enhance the image and read the numbers out loud, “24.0001770, -82.7364630. The time reads 2330. I guess we know when and where we’ll be tomorrow night.”
Chapter nineteen
Harper
