“I do,” Gloria said. “Captain Hardesty is on another charter at the moment, but…”
“Perhaps send crew and half,” Daria said. “Have Captain Hardesty come down later. We will pay plane fare and that. Have quarters ready. Nassau Airport, yes?”
“We can do that,” Gloria said. “I’ll send two crews and when John gets free he can come down and relieve one of the pilots.”
“Very good,” Daria said. “We pay for both ways, of course. Usual fees?”
“I don’t know,” Gloria said. “Are we going to get our plane back?”
“If you do not, Kildar will buy,” Daria said, obviously grinning. “But, yes, you get plane back. Is not problem this time. Promise.”
“I’ll get the plane rolling within the hour,” Gloria said. After she hung up the phone she raised her voice. “Thooomas!”
“Yes, dear?”
“Mr. Jenkins again,” she called. “Needs a Gulfstream in Nassau. Wants John when he can catch up. Tickets paid both ways and so forth.”
“Then send them first class,” her husband called back, somewhat angrily. “I swear, that man… I don’t think we should take any more charters from him!”
“The pilots love it and you know it,” Gloria said, getting up and walking to the door of her husband’s office. “James Bond and all that. Mister Super-Spy.”
“The man’s a menace,” Thomas Chatham said. “One of these days we’re going to lose a plane and a couple of pilots, mark my words.”
“There’s a reason you only hire fighter pilots, dear,” Gloria pointed out. “And they do get so tired of ferrying Mister ‘I made my money in stocks and bought a trophy wife’ around. Besides, it’s the Bahamas. I’d like to take off for the Bahamas myself.”
“Who’d tend the shop?” Thomas asked, waving his hands around.
“Maria, dear,” Gloria said. “Take one of the pilot slots. You’re always saying you don’t get enough stick time. And I could meet Daria. She seems like a lovely young lady.”
“You just want to meet Mr. Super-Spy,” Thomas said, grinning. “ ’My name is… Jenkins,’ ” he added, dropping his voice. “ ’Mike Jenkins.’ ”
“Actually, I think he’s just called ‘the Kildar,’ now.”
“This is the Cut,” Mike said, gesturing around.
“It doesn’t look like much,” Britney said. She could see it was shallow water in every direction, but other than that it wasn’t much to look at. There wasn’t even an island to mark it. Hell, there wasn’t even a buoy. “It’s not marked?”
“The current moves it around all the time,” Mike said. “The entrance, anyway. And the Bahamas government is not the greatest about channel markers, anyway.”
“You think this is where they’re going through?” Britney asked.
“If we’re not totally off base,” Mike replied. “And they’re going to have to tank somewhere north, before they load; there’s not many fueling facilities down here between Bimini and Nassau.”
“Do we have enough fuel?” Britney asked.
“Plenty,” Mike said. “Extended range tanks on this baby. It’s one of the cigarettes the muj were using down in the Andros.”
“You mentioned that one,” Britney said. “And to Sol.”
“He’d figured it out,” Mike said.
“We need to call in his tip on those two suspects,” Britney said. “Where were they?”
“Tavernier,” Mike said. “Between Largo and Islamorada. Got the cheapest gas in the area if you know where to look. Okay, time’s awastin’. Let’s take the cut.”
Chapter Nine
“Bal Harbor Cut,” Randy said, pointing at the entrance. The dark brown water rushing through the narrow, concrete-walled channel was humped up in head-high waves.
Bal Harbor Cut was one of the few openings in this section of the string of barrier islands that lined the Atlantic coast. About fifty yards wide it was deep enough to take a major vessel but too narrow. Not to mention the fixed bridge that crossed it. However, since it was the only way through to the ocean for miles, it was a busy place. Fishermen lined the fishing pier, a former bridge, that jutted out over it and a cluster of boats was gathered on the inshore side of the cut, where it opened out into the intercoastal waterway. The boats were mostly motoring in circles, occasionally dodging each other or backing and filling.
Randy had led the group of racers off to the south side of the entrance, grounded in shallow water. The tide was incoming so getting off shouldn’t be hard and he’d rather have to recover one of the racers than have one of the meat drivers smash one into some guy’s fishing boat. The boats had anchors out and he’d gathered all the guys on the Lightning.
“In about ten, fifteen minutes the waves will go down,” Randy said. “Then everybody and their brother will go running through. Those guys will go gunning for the exit. There’s going to be another group on the other side; they’ll be running to enter. There’s probably more people that are going to come running from around the corner. Arguably, boats like this could do the cut easy,” he said, pointing as a big Donzi came in through the cut, pitching up and down on the waves. “But until you’re a little more comfortable with the boats, I’d rather not.”
He’d spent time with each of the boats, running the group through basic maneuvers and rules of the road. Most of it was common sense and, thank God, these Mountain Tiger guys seemed to have that in spades. They also were quick studies. Most of the minor mistakes they’d made so far was just stuff he hadn’t had time to cover. And they only made the same mistake once.
The problem being, the sea was an unforgiving mistress and there were a million mistakes you could make that were fatal.
“While staying right, stay as close to the centerline as you can,” Randy continued. “Avoid the rocks along the sides. Ignore the waves from the other boats, just take them head on. I’m going to wait until the beginnings of the outflow to start. Any questions?”
“Why is that water acting like a river?” Shanar Mahona asked after a moment. “Is the ocean, yes?”
“You guys don’t know what tides are, do you?” Randy said, backing up and realizing he had a long way to go with these guys. “Oh, Jeeze. Okay, the moon pulls up a bulge of water as it circles the Earth. That means the water rises as it passes overhead. More or less. Sort of. Right now it’s rising. In a bit it will stop at what’s called high tide. Also called slack. There’s slack low, when the moon is on the other side, and slack high. When it starts to flow out it’s called ebb tide, the tide’s ‘running.’ Coming in it’s flood tide. Everybody with me so far?”
“Yes,” Vil answered but the group generally nodded.
“Okay,” Randy said, trying to think how to put the rest. “That back there,” he said, pointing toward the intercoastal, “that’s a sort of big… basin that’s cut off from the ocean by islands. When the water starts rising it rises in the ocean easily, but there are only so many places, sort of like the necks on a bottle of beer, for it to get in. This is one of them. So it rushes in, really fast. The reason for the standing waves is too complicated to get into,” he added, grinning. “But that’s why it looks like a river.”
“My boat is floating,” Clarn said, pointing to the Hustler. “Because water is rising, yes?”
“Yes. Go over and start it up,” Randy said. “Run it in a bit more and tighten up the anchor.” The boats had been arranged practically touching but the Hustler and now the smaller Cigarette were both drifting out from the formation.
“Nice boats!”
The hail had come from a small dinghy with three teenaged girls in it. Young girls. Fourteen will get you twenty girls.