Brett nodded. “Based on the description given to us by Mortensen, we believe the craft is an AgustaWestland AW101. Once we knew the manufacturer and—”
“Wait a minute,” Zane said. “The AW101 is a military craft.” A pilot himself, Zane was a walking encyclopedia of knowledge about aircraft, including helicopters. While he was familiar with the luxury lines manufactured by AgustaWestland, he had thought the massive AW101 was used only by the military.
“Most are used by the military, but the company also offers a line used for civil applications,” Ross said.
“They call it the VVIP model,” Brett added. “Which means very, very important person.”
“You learn something new every day.”
“We assumed Brehmer wouldn’t have flown into a major airport, so we used the flight path given to us by Mortensen to focus on private airfields within a hundred-mile radius,” Brett said. “With the help of some of our government contacts, we were able to obtain thousands of satellite images, which we then went through using software Keiko developed for this type of thing.”
“We asked the program to single out any photograph with helicopters,” Keiko said. “Fortunately, that shaved the number down to three dozen images, which we then went through manually.”
“How do you know this is the bird we’re looking for?” Zane asked her.
“The color and model match the AW101 that Mortensen saw take off at Brehmer’s estate. In order to be one hundred percent certain, we’d have to see the craft’s side, which obviously isn’t possible.”
“Is it still there?”
“It’s probably still there, but Brehmer’s group is long gone,” Brett replied. “We believe they boarded another plane that took off an hour later.”
“You believe they boarded a plane?” Zane asked.
“Watson, as you know, we are only able to receive periodic images as our satellites sweep the globe,” Ross said. “In critical parts of the world, particularly large cities, we can often track vehicles or light aircraft by simply examining a series of images taken over time. Unfortunately, a rural area outside of Milan isn’t critical to US national interests, so there weren’t many images to pull from. That being the case, we needed to use some other means to find out where they went. As you might guess, private facilities don’t release their manifests, which meant for a while we were stuck. That is, until Foster provided a workaround.” He nodded at Brett to explain.
“I was able to hack into the airfield’s system, and within minutes, I was able to find their arrival and departure logs. Interestingly, a private plane took off fifty-seven minutes after Brehmer’s chopper set down.”
“Who’s the owner of the plane?” Zane asked.
“It’s owned by a limited liability company, which in turn is owned by another company, and so on,” Brett replied. “You get the picture.”
Zane nodded but said nothing.
“There was an unbelievably long web of ownership that would likely take a week to sort through,” Ross noted.
“So you’re saying you aren’t sure if Brehmer owned the craft?”
“Hang on,” Brett said. “Since I was already in their system, I was able to locate the destination filed with the airport.” He hit the remote, and another image appeared. It was a map of southwestern Europe. “The destination of our target plane was another small airfield, this one outside Coimbra, Portugal.”
Zane studied the map. “Brehmer has a place in Portugal?”
“No, that wasn’t their final destination. Fortunately, I was also able to get into that airport’s system as well, and I learned that the plane took off after a quick refuel. Their final destination was the Caribbean.”
“Well, I must say that’s not what I expected to hear,” Zane admitted.
“It’s not what we expected either,” Ross said. “But we also discovered something else that’s even more surprising. Jonas Brehmer doesn’t just own a house down there — he owns his own island just across the bay from Terre-de-Haut.”
Zane had never been to Terre-de-Haut, but he did know it was a small municipality located in the southern part of the French-owned group of islands known as Guadeloupe. He also knew it was a popular tourist destination for the French, who flocked there to enjoy its beaches, cafés, bars, and water activities.
“What makes it doubly odd is that most of his homes are sprinkled across Europe,” Zane said. “Why the Caribbean?”
“Why not?” Ross asked. “He probably gets tired of the cold.”
“The island he owns is shrouded in mystery,” Brett said. “From what I read online, locals won’t even set foot on the beach because of all the rumors of bad things happening there.”
“What sort of bad things?”
“Everything under the sun,” Brett replied. “There are reports of strange creatures, missing persons. Some of the stories sound crazy, but the locals believe them.”
Ross shook his head. “It’s all BS if you ask me. It may be why Brehmer bought it in the first place. He knows the locals won’t be poking around and stumble across whatever he’s up to out there.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t say it’s all BS,” Brett said. “There have been at least seven disappearances that I could find… people who went out there who never came back.”
Ross smiled. “They’ve even sucked you in. They were probably killed by Brehmer’s security team.”
“Maybe one or two, but some of the disappearances took place before he purchased it.”
As he took another sip of coffee, Zane thought back on their experience at Brehmer’s estate outside Lugano. The man obviously kept a large security presence around him, but would he really instruct them to kill trespassers? He had to assume it was possible.
“If you want to believe the ghost stories, be my guest,” Ross said. “Let’s stay focused on the facts.”
Brett’s face reddened, but he said nothing.
“So what is out there?” Zane asked.
“That’s the real mystery,” Brett said. “Every satellite image we found online shows a complete lack of structures anywhere.” He paused for a moment. “Let me correct that. There is a large dock area, including a few buildings, and behind it is a road that leads into the jungle. Other than that… nothing.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Zane said. “Brehmer takes two captives to an island that has no buildings?”
“No visible buildings,” Ross said. “In truth, we believe there’s more there than meets the eye. In fact, Brett believes some of the online images have been doctored.”
“So what do you think is going on down there?” Zane asked.
Ross took a sip of water then shrugged. “We don’t know, but you’re going to find out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THEY FINISHED A little after eleven. Zane had expected the logistical planning to go well past midnight, but Brett had already made most of the arrangements.
The plan was for Zane to lead a team of six to the Caribbean. He, Brett Foster, and Amanda Higgs would take a chartered flight to Terre-de-Haut’s Les Saintes Airport. Mortensen and Pratt would fly in from Europe, and operative Cleavon Skinner would be pulled off of an ongoing assignment in Morocco.
Once on the ground, the group would set up in a rental house that Brett had leased under a fictitious name. The house would be used as a base of operations. Brett and Amanda would coordinate communications from there, while Zane and the other operatives would travel to the island at night to poke around. If there was light security, they would go in immediately and attempt to extract both captives. If the island was well secured, they would perform due diligence then return to Terre-de-Haut to plan a way to breach the security in place. If necessary, they would bring in more operatives, although both Ross and Zane felt a team of four would give them a better chance of evading detection while at the same time providing enough firepower to engage and win any fights that might arise.