Wildfire (38 page)

Thirty seconds later she was back up on deck.

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head. And then, after a moment: "You know, if you want, I could try using the ship-to-shore to call your office, see if copies were sent there too."

"No, no, that won't be necessary." Bloom shook his head quickly. "If Grynard is expecting a confirmation, and he doesn't get one, he'll just send another fax."

"Okay, if you're sure."

"It's not going to be a problem," he said reassuringly. "It's a little less than fifty miles from the Hawk's Nest marina to Rum Cay. If we get up early tomorrow, we'll get there by noon easily. Then we'll just wait for him to show."

Bloom was certain that Special Agent A1 Grynard of the FBI would not have sent a copy of the fax to his office, because Grynard
knew
that he was on the
Sea Amber.
And knowing the FBI, the wealthy industrialist thought morosely, they wouldn't care whether he acknowledged their faxed message or not, because they probably received an hourly update on the
Sea Amber's
exact position by some kind of satellite image monitoring. He'd heard that they had been actively developing that technology in conjunction with the DEA a couple of years ago.

He tapped his fingers absentmindedly against the steering wheel, knowing that he couldn't put the decision off any longer. Finding himself caught up in the exhilaration of a new boat and a new lover, he had been putting the whole thing off, hoping somehow that it would all go away. But it hadn't, and now the time had come when he had to decide . . . one way or the other.

But not right now, he told himself, caressing the hide-wrapped steering wheel with a callused hand as he allowed his tired eyes to travel down the incredibly erotic surface of the stretched bathing suit, feeling a renewed sense of lust and adrenaline surge through his deeply fatigued body.

Not until he savored two of the ultimate pleasures in life just a little bit longer.

If the FBI wanted to talk to him that badly, they would force the issue anyway, and there wouldn't be much that he could do about it. He just hoped that they'd wait until tomorrow, at Rum Cay, and not show up at the Hawk's Nest marina instead ... or at least not until much later this evening, after the ICER Committee meeting, when he returned to the
Sea Amber.

The trouble was, Bloom knew, if they could track the
Sea Amber
by satellite, then they were just as likely to have agents there at the marina too, watching his arrival. And that could mean serious trouble, even if they didn't try to contact him there. Especially if they spotted his pickup ride and followed him out to the villa. To where the ICER Committee would be meeting for the first time in six months, reasonably confident that they had managed to avoid any possible surveillance by federal law enforcement authorities.

Bloom felt his chest start to tighten in panic, knowing how much effort the committee members had put into finding a place where they could come together once again without fear of exposure. And knowing, too, how they would react when they learned that he, Alfred Bloom, had led the FBI to their island retreat.

For a brief moment the memory of his phone call to Saltmann at Whitehorse Cabin—and the mental image of Lisa Abercombie lying on her back with a .44 caliber hole through her chest—flashed through his mind.

Bloom realized now that he didn't dare dock at the marina this evening as he'd planned. He'd have to anchor the
Sea Amber
offshore near Cutlass Bay and use the rubber Zodiak to row out and back without being seen . . . which would be dangerous, because of the shallow reefs and strong currents in the area. But it was either that or skip the meeting entirely. And he didn't dare do that, because then the rest of the committee would be convinced that he was about to betray them.

And if that was the case, Bloom knew, feeling his mouth go dry, someone would make a phone call, and within the next twenty-four hours—or a week at the outside—he'd be dead. No matter where he went or what he did.

For a brief moment and for the first time in his entire life Alfred Bloom felt absolutely helpless and completely alone.

Considering the fragile state of his current mental health, it was probably just as well that Bloom had no way of knowing how far A1 Grynard and his team of FBI agents had progressed in their unrelenting investigation during the past six months.

In digging into the curious and fascinating past of Lisa Abercombie, Grynard's investigators had managed to unearth rumors of a hidden relationship with a wealthy industrialist who liked to sail in the Bahamas. Six agents had immediately descended on the islands, and had returned two weeks later with long printouts of possible subjects who had stayed in the same hotels on the same dates as Abercombie. Predictably, there had been several hundred wealthy industrialist types on the lists, but Bloom's name was one of the few that had appeared more than once. And when the agents started digging deeper, they quickly discovered that Bloom and Abercombie had checked into adjoining rooms during their last two visits to the Islands.

That had been enough to generate an early morning phone call to Grynard, who, at the time, was still working out of the Anchorage field office. Grynard had been on the next military flight out of Elmendorf with the nonstop destination of Andrews Air Force Base just outside of Washington, D.C.

Bloom had managed to avoid the pair of agents who had come calling at his corporate headquarters, but Assistant Special Agent in Charge A1 Grynard turned out to be a different kind of adversary entirely.

Grynard had listened patiently to his agent's explanations of why they hadn't been able to interview Alfred Bloom yet. Then he reached for a nearby phone and put in a direct call to Bloom's secretary. Ignoring her protests, he had advised the protective assistant that she had exactly one hour to contact her boss and have him call Special Agent A1 Grynard at the following Washington, D.C., number. And if Mr. Bloom failed to make that call within that allotted time, Grynard had gone on, continuing to ignore the woman's increasingly frantic assurances that Mr. Bloom was out of town and simply could not be reached, then a warrant would be issued for his immediate arrest.

When Bloom had called exactly fourteen minutes later from the yacht dealer's office, Grynard had been just as blunt and to the point. Bloom could either sit down and explain to the FBI, in some detail, his past relationship with a woman named Lisa Abercombie; or he could do his explaining to a federal grand jury. It was his choice, but he had to make it now.

Unable to resist the experienced agent's pressure tactics, Bloom had agreed to meet Grynard at some remote site in the Bahamas when he arrived there the following week. But that was before he had fallen in love with a new boat and a new woman who made him forget—at least temporarily—all of his pain and anger . . . and fear.

"Alfred, are you all right?" Anne-Marie whispered.

Bloom blinked and then shook his head, realizing that in his emotional turmoil he had completely lost track of where he was and what he was doing. But now, in addition to the fear and the ache of desire, he felt a familiar gnawing in the pit of his stomach.

"I'm sorry." He smiled weakly. "I guess I just realized, in the midst of everything else, that we haven't eaten anything since breakfast . . . and in addition to being tired and horny, I'm absolutely starving."

The blue-eyed and dark-haired woman who, in the brief span of a few days, had given Alfred Bloom a new lease on his deeply troubled life, blinked in momentary confusion and then burst out laughing.

"What's the matter?"

"You," she whispered in a husky voice, and was starting to reach for him again—with a mischievous expression on her face that caused Bloom to experience another surge of desire—when the wind shifted again.

This time they both had to work at the winches and the rudder, fighting the sail and the currents to maintain their approximate heading.

Finally, after several minutes of energetic tacking, they got the
Sea Amber
into a position of relative stability into the wind. A nearly exhausted Alfred Bloom glanced up at the telltales, checked the compass and his watch, and then sighed audibly as he stood with his back braced tight up against the railing and accepted another steaming cup of Navy grog from his voluptuous sailing companion.

"What's the matter?" she asked as she braced herself against the opposite side of the steering well and sipped cautiously at the hot brew.

"It looks like we're going to be dead to windward most of the way back," he replied, keeping one aching hand tight on the wheel. "And the way it's blowing right now, I don't think that's going to leave us enough time . . ."

He let the sentence hang unfinished.

"Do you really have to be there by eight-thirty?" she asked, staring at Bloom with a thoughtful expression in her deep-blue eyes.

'Yes, I'm afraid so." He nodded. "I'm really sorry."

"Don't be, I haven't given up yet," she responded in a raspy voice that was barely audible over the sharp hiss of the water against the
Sea Amber's
smooth fiberglass hull.

"Oh, really?" Alfred Bloom's tired eyes crinkled with amused interest. "And just what, exactly, did you have in mind?"

In answer, she set the steaming mug aside. Then she slowly came forward, wrapped her arms around the wealthy industrialist's neck, and pressed her thinly covered upper torso tight against his chest.

Bloom could feel her swollen nipples through his windbreaker and wished desperately that he was forty years old again. Or even fifty, he thought wistfully, aware of the fatigue that had left his arms and legs feeling numb and almost useless.

"There's a seventy-five-horse marine diesel down below that we haven't gotten around to testing yet," she whispered, her breath hot against his ear. "If we open her up to full throttle, she can do eight knots easy."

"Eight? In this weather? Are you sure?" He looked out at the choppy water skeptically.

"Uh huh." She bit softly against his ear lobe as her right hand moved down to the waistband of his shorts.

Incredibly Bloom could feel the surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins once again. For a brief moment it occurred to him to wonder if this was the way that men of his age died—out of pure exhaustion. But then he decided that he didn't care.

"At eight knots," he calculated, ignoring the purposeful actions of her hands for the moment, "that would give us—"

"Plenty of time," she murmured. "Depending on how long it takes you to set that anchor. And then after that you've got just one more important decision to make."

"Oh, yeah, and what's that?" he asked, trying not to think about important decisions that needed to be made as he felt his pulse quicken and the familiar sense of desire starting to build in his chest and groin.

"Which are you? Hungry or horny?"

Chapter Twenty-three

Less than fifty yards away from the
Lone Granger's
idling position, a creature very similar in nature to a predatory shark settled down onto the sandy bottom of Exuma Sound and maintained a still watchfulness as Dwight Stoner released the fearsome great hammerhead he had fought for an hour and had finally subdued and brought alongside the yacht.

Although, in truth, the actions of this newly arriving creature were far more tactical and instinctive than precautionary.

For example, he didn't even appear to react when the shark—in its determined effort to put depth and distance between itself and the powerful yacht that had provided such a tantalizing blood trail to follow—suddenly dove to the bottom and began a fast and visually aggressive run in his direction.

For a brief moment it appeared as though the great hammerhead were about to unleash its primitive angers and frustrations upon this new creature. But then, in a process as ageless as it was practical, one fearsome predator recognized another, and the shark turned away in search of a less dangerous source of food to satisfy its never-ending hunger.

Riser, on the other hand, continued to wait patiently on the sandy bottom until the
Lone Granger
had once again taken up her southerly course.

Then, after checking the display of the tracking device on the control panel of his underwater "scooter," to make certain that the transmitter he'd attached behind the keel of the
Lone Granger
at the Fort Lauderdale marina was still functioning, he brought the electrically powered underwater vehicle up off the bottom and once again began to follow.

Fifteen minutes later, while Mo-Jo—Bobby LaGrange's Jamaican crewman and right-hand man—maintained a leisurely course along the eastern shore of Cat Island, the five federal wildlife agents of Bravo Team settled into comfortable deck chairs and enjoyed a well-deserved break from their afternoon exertions. As they did so, Bobby LaGrange explained the setup that his son had used to lure in the huge hammerhead.

"As I understand it, the ex-owner was supposed to be some kind of avid shark fisherman, only he apparently never had much luck in hooking the big ones," LaGrange said as he sipped a glass of iced tea. "So one day I guess he must have decided that he wanted to change the odds in his favor. What he did was to have one of the boat repair yards install a little plastic tube from the engine compartment down through the hull and into the keel. Then all he had to do was attach a two-quart reservoir and a little cycling pump that puts out a drop or so every couple of minutes, fill the reservoir with diluted fish blood, and bingo, he had himself one hell of a shark lure system."

"So basically what Justin was doing was creating a very long and very dilute scent trail." Mike Takahara nodded. "That's why the shark stayed down below the surface the whole time, because he was looking for the source that should have been right under the boat. Must have been real frustrating for him, not to be able to find anything to chew on."

"Yeah, but the thing is, the big sharks around here are real patient,"

Bobby LaGrange said as he bit into one of Mo-Jo's tuna fish sandwiches. "They'll follow a trail like that for a long time, I guess figuring that eventually they'll find something good to eat at the front end."