Deadly Stillwater (44 page)

“We’re flying over Bayport now and the river. The wind is from the west so the pilot thinks we can mask our approach if we come from the east, at least to start.”

“Copy that,” Mac answered as he was breaking free from the clogged area around Stillwater. Lich and the Stillwater police chief were downstairs in the cabin, scrutinizing boat traffic through binoculars. “Dick, what can you see?” Mac asked.

“I’ve got four or five still heading north,” Lich answered. “They’re pretty far in the distance. We need to get up there.”

“I can take care of that,” Mac answered, pushing the throttle down, opening up the horses on the powerful inboard motor. To his left stood Jackie Fornier, a Stillwater cop who changed from her uniform into a tight white T-shirt and pair of khaki shorts. She’d let down her shoulder-length brown hair and looked, for all intents and purposes, like the woman out for a little holiday boat ride – except, of course, for the Glock-17 on the floor between her feet. Next to it was a duffel bag that contained vests, Mac’s Sig-Sauer, extra clips, and two Remington twelve-gauge shotguns.

“You’ll look strange using the hand-held radio,” Fornier said as she handed Mac the earpiece for his radio.

“Thanks,” Mac answered as he put it in and checked it. It was working. Mac put his hand back on the throttle and eased it down just a bit more. His father bought the boat, aptly named
Simon Says
, nearly twenty years ago at an estate sale for a young couple who died without any family. For years, Mac mockingly called the powerful, white-and-teal-painted craft the
Miami Vice
boat. It wasn’t a practical boat, it was a cigarette boat. The compartment below the cabin was small and cramped, and the seating area up top seated only six people. But Simon McRyan was not always a practical man. He liked toys and speed. Right now, Mac was glad of it.

Well north of the city, Mac settled in a hundred yards behind a houseboat with five people on the top deck. “How about this one?” Mac asked, pretty much knowing the answer.

“Negative,” Lich yelled. “Nobody fits.”

Mac passed to the left of the houseboat at a moderate speed. He kept a close eye on his depth finder. The St. Croix north of Stillwater has an uneven bottom, and one could easily beach a boat on a sand bar. He had done it once many years ago, paying more attention to the girls in their bikinis on the back bench of the boat rather than to where he was going.

A larger river cruiser was next, up another two hundred yards. As he approached from the starboard side, he could see a man and a woman up top. Mac eased up on the throttle some, trying to get a better view. Burton said that Smith had a large cruiser, although he was short on details. However, the man was short and stocky, almost round with thinning gray hair, which didn’t fit any of the descriptions. The woman was taller and blonde, and when she gazed back in Mac’s direction he saw that she was young and didn’t look anything like Monica Reynolds. The vessel’s name was
Bull Market
, and Mac suspected that she was either the man’s daughter or trophy wife. In either case, it wasn’t the vessel they were looking for. Mac checked the depth finder and blew on by.

There were two more boats in the distance. The next was a cigarette boat with two large men at the wheel. “Dicky Boy, what do you make of the next one?”

“Maybe. Get me a little closer.”

Mac leaned into the throttle and began to close the gap, but it soon didn’t matter. Their target slowed and turned right into a cluster of cruisers and pontoons beached along a sandy island in the river. The island was full of tents and campers setting off their own fireworks. Brown wouldn’t be going there.

* * * * *

Smith came back up to find no river traffic ahead of them and little traffic behind. A cigarette boat was in the distance, perhaps three or four hundred yards back. Smith put the glasses on them. A man in a golf shirt and baseball cap and a brunette in a tight shirt were cruising north, a couple looking for open water and maybe a secluded place to celebrate.

They were approaching a left turning bend in the river, and Smith turned to check their path. The steel-arched train bridge appeared a half mile in the distance, towering two hundred feet in the air over the river.

“Dean, let me take over, will you,” Smith said. “I’d like to drive the last leg.”

Dean stepped back and Smith took control, his left hand on the wheel, his right resting on the throttle.

It was 9:17 PM and the sun was getting low. To the east, the darkness was moving in and the cliff walls soon blocked the remaining sunlight. It would be completely dark in twenty minutes.

* * * * *

There was one more target ahead of them, well in the distance. “Express cruiser ahead,” Fornier said. “It’s a big one, at least a thirty-footer. Nice boat.”

“Burton said a large boat,” Mac added as he once again pushed down on the throttle, up to twenty-five miles per hour now, gradually closing the gap to about two hundred yards.

“Dick?”

“Get me a little closer,” Lich replied.

Mac closed the gap a bit more. He could see one man and now another.

“That’s our boat, Mac,” Lich bellowed. “There are two men up top.”

“I see them.”

“One is large, muscular, dark hair. I’m only seeing him from the back, but a big guy,” Lich reported. “If we assume that’s a Mueller, the other man may be Brown. Mueller is six three. Brown is six foot, and I’d say there’s maybe a three-inch height difference between the two. Wait… He’s got the glasses on us here, be cool.”

It was getting darker, but Mac saw the man looking their way in the dimming light, binoculars up. He eased back just slightly on the throttle and turned to Fornier and smiled, “come close to me.”

She did and Mac put his arm around her, pulling her close, kissing her on the head. “Does this mean we’re going steady?” The female cop asked, putting her arms around Mac’s waist and laughing.

“My girlfriend might object. But I’ll definitely buy you a beer for being a good sport,” Mac answered, putting on a smile. But his gaze remained straight ahead on the man looking in his direction. After a minute the binoculars came down, and a moment later the man turned away.

“Mac, that’s Brown,” Lich yelled excitedly.

“You’re sure?”

“Hell yes. I had a good look at the face for a few seconds when he took the binoculars down. I know it’s getting dark, but that’s him.”

Brown was now steering to the left around a bend in the river and disappearing from their view. Boat traffic was only allowed to go north maybe another mile before they reached a sign that prohibited motored boats from going further upriver. Mac dialed Riley. “We’ve got them, Pat. They’re in a large express cruiser. They are about a half mile south of the train bridge. What’s your position?”

“We’re a half mile or so east of the river, about a mile southeast of you. Where do you think he’s going?”

That was a good question. He looked to Fornier. “What do you think?”

She bit her bottom lip, kneeled down, and pulled a map out of her backpack on the floor. She looked at the detailed layout of the river and then looked up at the shoreline. She pointed back down the east side of the river. “He can’t go much farther north, and there’s no place to beach on the west side. The cliffs go right into the water, no beach, no privacy. He’ll need those things.”

“Same on the east side,” Mac answered.

“True, except for here,” Fornier pointed to a small patch on the east side, just south of the train bridge. “The cliffs are still there, but there’s a beach back there, completely surrounded by trees. Coming in from the south, you have to wind your way in a little to get back there. He’ll have to be careful, and he’ll never get completely to shore, but heck, he wouldn’t want to. He’ll have to moor that sucker in the water, which will take him some time. But if you can get back there, there’s a place to camp. I did it once a few years ago.”

“How far back in on that little channel?” Mac said, pointing down to the map.

“A couple hundred yards,” Fornier answered. “But it’s isolated, away from the crowds, so if you think their intent is to….”

“Kill them,” Mac finished for her.

“Right. It would be a good spot. If anyone heard gunfire, they’d just assume it was fireworks, especially on the Fourth of July.”

“Of course, if we come from the same direction, we’ll be sitting ducks.”

“Maybe,” Fornier answered, looking at the map. “But if you come from the north instead….”

“You mean go past their position, up to the rail bridge….”

“Right,” Fornier nodded. “You have more of a straight show from there. You have to plane it out, trim it up pretty high, but this kind of boat….”

“Could do it,” Mac nodded, a plan coming together in his mind. He dialed Riley. “Pat, here’s what I need you to do.”

39

“
Now! Now! Now!”

The chief felt the boat make a slow turn to the right, the throttle easing back and then into neutral before once again easing forward very slowly. The chief and Lyman both looked at their watches. They’d been traveling for maybe forty-five minutes to an hour.

“When they open that door, do we come charging out?” Hisle asked. “It might be our only shot.”

Flanagan held up his bound hands. “It’s our two to their four, and they all have guns. If we rush them, they’ll just shoot us.”

“So we just let them kill us?”

“I don’t know,” the chief replied. “I don’t like sitting back, going down without a fight. But there’s one thing to keep in mind. If we try something, they might not release Shannon and Carrie.”

“You think they will release them?”

“I have my doubts. But that’s our only play at this point.”

Hisle snorted and shook his head. “So to save the girls, we bite the bullet.”

“You lawyers are always good for the gallows humor,” the chief replied.

The boat came to a stop, and the two men shared a look. Whatever was to happen was going to happen soon.

“Well then,” Hisle said, “I guess this is the end of the line. A hell of a way to go, eh Charlie?” Lyman stuck out his hand, a wry smile on his face.

The chief grasped his hand and shook it. “It’s always been a pleasure, Lyman.”

* * * * *

Smith picked his way through the channel, but it was harder to maneuver in the dimming light. He beached prematurely, approximately one hundred feet from the shoreline. “Shit,” he said.

“Ah don’t worry about it, we just gotta walk a little farther,” Dean said. The Muellers both climbed over the sides to secure the boat and then sloshed to the shore. They started a fire on the beach to help create the camping illusion. The fire started and the boat secure, Dean and David climbed back aboard, and joined Smith and Monica down in the cabin.

Smith took his .45 off the table and nodded for Dean and David to do the same. “They might try to rush us,” Smith whispered and then nodded to Monica.

She undid the lock to the bathroom and yanked the door open. Flanagan and Hisle remained seated in the bathroom. Smith waved them out with the .45. Flanagan exited first, grimacing as he slid off the vanity. Hisle followed, lifting himself off the toilet seat. Neither man said a word. The lead kidnapper looked to David, who started up the companionway steps. “Follow him up the steps,” Smith ordered.

* * * * *

Mac stayed as far to the west side of the river as he could and cruised past the mouth of the cove that Brown’s boat had entered. He could see the large boat slowly working its way into the channel. Not wanting to draw attention, at least not yet, Mac continued a half mile farther north, passing beneath the hulking steel train bridge. Then he turned around and idled a few minutes in the river. Mac, Lich, Fornier, and the Stillwater chief all slipped on their vests and checked their weapons. Mac had his Sig-Sauer, Lich his Smith. Fornier and the Stillwater chief each had their sidearm. Fornier slid a new clip into hers.

“You always like a big gun?” Lich asked, cracking jokes even now.

“Yours isn’t big enough for me, I’m sure,” was the tart reply, and only Mac saw her smile. “You think these guys will throw down?” she asked Mac.

“I can’t believe they wouldn’t,” Mac answered. “They’ve come this far. They’re not going to stop without a fight.”

Everyone was locked and loaded. Mac started south, “Riles, are you in position?”

“Copy, Mac, we’re just west of you.”

Mac slammed down the throttle and raced back under the bridge, angling the bow to the left, toward the river’s east side. Everyone crouched down behind him and braced themselves. Five hundred yards from the mouth of the channel into the little bay, Mac gave the order.

“
Now! Now! Now!
”

* * * * *

Struggling through the knee-deep water, Smith pushed toward the shoreline with Flanagan in tow, followed by Monica and Hisle. The two Muellers were further back, still in waist-high water. The kidnappers each had a gun in hand and a nylon bag of ransom money over their shoulders.