Rising Moon: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 19) Read online

  Tank sat on the gunwale and looked around the yard. I could see he was tired. “This is a fine place, Thurman,” he said. “You’re a very fortunate man to have so many in your life.”

  Rusty slipped his arm around his wife’s waist. “Don’t I know it, Master Guns.” He looked over his shoulder at the crowd of people in his bar and on the deck. “Just one big, crazy family.” When Jimmy started the outboard, Rusty tossed the bow line aboard as I got the stern line. “Y’all be careful and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The ride back up to my island took a lot longer than coming down. The water north of the Seven Mile Bridge was unusually calm and the low sun cast the islands around us in a soft, warm glow.

  Jimmy didn’t drive fast—not that he could have, with just a forty-horse pushing a boat with seven people and two large dogs. But he managed to find the sweet spot, just above planing speed, where he could slow the engine and stay on top of the water while keeping the noise level low enough for conversation.

  “You’re more than just friends down here,” Tank said, leaning close to where Savannah and I sat in the rear seat. “I can see why you wanted to come here. Everyone is so open and friendly.”

  “It’s called One Human Family,” Savannah said. “The concept that, whether you believe in creationism or evolution, we really are all the same, all related in one way or other.”

  “Be nice if the whole world thought like that,” Tank said. “It’d put people like me and Jesse out of a job. Which, by the way, I’d be highly in favor of.”

  The sun, now dark orange and enormous, was setting as we turned into Harbor Channel, painting the high, wispy clouds above my island in a pinkish-orange color.

  I could see lights through the trees coming from Mac and Mel’s place, and there were two boats I didn’t recognize tied up to the lone post sticking out of waist-deep water on the east side.

  “Did you have a good time, Mister Tank?” Flo asked, as Jimmy slowed the boat, approaching the pier.

  “Yes, I did, Miss Flo. An exceptional time. I’d say one of the best of my life. It was nice to be included.”

  “Dad says the folks at Rusty Anchor are just like family and that extends to their friends, too. He’s known most of them for years.”

  “David, would you mind staying up for a bit?” I asked, as Jimmy and I tied off the boat.

  He handed me a boxful of gifts we’d received. “Sure, what’s up?”

  “It’s work-related,” I said, getting a disapproving look from my daughter.

  I had an idea and wanted to see if it could work.

  “Not a problem,” he said.

  “We can use the computer on the Revenge.”

  We carried everything up to the deck, where Jimmy and Naomi said goodnight. They were turning in; Jimmy was taking a friend out early in the morning to fish the backcountry.

  I unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Got enough energy left to do some planning, Tank?”

  He grinned and followed Savannah and Flo inside. “Is David part of your group, too?”

  “He is,” I replied.

  “We’ll be down in a minute,” Savannah said. “I just want to arrange these under the tree and make some sundowners.”

  Flo carried a box to the tree. “I’ll help you, Mom.”

  After I’d turned on the lights for the dock area, the three of us went down the steps to the Revenge.

  I stepped over the low gunwale into the cockpit and opened the aft hatch to the salon, turning on the lights inside. “Come aboard.”

  When Tank entered, he whistled softly. “This is a yacht, not a fishing boat.”

  “Who says fishermen have to ride in a garbage scow?” I asked. “Get the laptop out, David, and get Chyrel on the horn.”

  “You don’t think that Bama girl’s got a life?” Tank asked.

  “She does,” I replied. “But she had to leave early to oversee a surveillance job a couple of Deuce’s guys are on.”

  “Related to the missing girl?”

  I shook my head. “He has two of his guys watching a warehouse in Panama.”

  “Pana—? Wait, you guys work internationally?”

  “Armstrong Research is a worldwide organization,” David said, getting the laptop out of the cabinet and taking a seat at the settee to boot it up.

  Sitting beneath the house, the Revenge’s modem connected wirelessly to another inside the house, which was hardwired to a satellite dish on the roof.

  Tank and I sat on either side of him, watching. A moment later, a window opened and Chyrel’s face appeared. She wasn’t in the office.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “At home,” she replied. “On the deck by the seawall. My neighbors are used to seeing me on the computer here late at night. They probably think I’m on a dating site or something.”

  Over her shoulder, the sky was painted dark red and amber. Swaying palms stood in silhouette at the point on the other side of her canal.

  “I wanted you both to work on something together,” I said. “I don’t even know if it’s doable, so it doesn’t have to be right now. If it is, you can set up the groundwork now and work on it tomorrow.”

  “What’s that, Boss?”

  “Remember how you tracked that email to one of three farms up in the Shenandoah Valley that time?”

  “Yeah,” she replied. “Using the IP address from the sender. Nothing hard about that.”

  “Does it work both ways?” I asked. “If you knew the physical address of a person, could you get their IP address?”

  “Maybe,” David said. “If the user doesn’t have it hidden or hasn’t rebooted their modem recently.”

  “Still,” Chyrel cautioned, “there could be quite a few IP addresses in a geographically small area. What were you thinking?”

  “We have the phone numbers of Sampson, Quick, Moreno, and dozens of others.”

  “Thousands of others by now,” Chyrel corrected me.

  “The main players are all we’re interested in. If you can pinpoint their location, is it possible to locate nearby wireless networks and access their computers?”

  “O-o-oh, you’re devious, Jesse,” Chyrel said with a grin. “I like that in a man.”

  “We can set up a data harvester,” David said, excitedly. “Given the small geographical areas, we could mine for certain keywords in emails.”

  “We could use their names,” Chyrel said. “That’d be the place to start. Every email starts with ‘Hi, So-and-so.’ You start creating the data farm, using the keywords I’ll send you, and I’ll put together a grid map to mine.”

  David nodded and opened a blank window. His fingers started flying across the keyboard, typing what looked to me like gibberish on the screen. I looked over at Tank and jerked my head aft.

  We slid out of the settee and went back to the salon just as Savannah and Flo entered.

  “He’s a computer hacker, too?” Tank asked.

  “They don’t like that description,” Flo said. “They’re IT professionals.”

  Flo carried what I assumed were two non-alcoholic versions of whatever was in Savannah’s pitcher over to where David sat.

  “How did you know that could be done?” Tank asked, sitting down on the L-shaped couch at the stern. “All that IP stuff?”

  I sat on the port side next to him as Savannah brought glasses from the galley. “I didn’t,” I replied. “And still don’t. They might not be able to do it at all. But if anyone can, it’s those two.”

  “What are they looking for?” Savannah asked, pouring a whitish frozen concoction into our glasses.

  “Information about the people we encountered yesterday,” I replied. “From their computers. Chyrel told me once that the average person is very sloppy online. Most tend to think their emails and browsing history don’t leave a trail once deleted.”

  “No,” Tank said. “You gotta empty the trash bin thing, too. That permanently deletes them.”

  “Not so,” I told him.
“What she told me is that permanently deleting a file just marks the space it takes up on the hard drive as available to save new data. But until something is saved there, the information is still available. She even showed me, using just her phone to retrieve a file I thought I’d permanently deleted from my computer.” I leaned in close to Tank. “She’s probably the best hacker in the world.”

  I took a sip of the frozen mixture, tasting coconut and banana with a good dose of rum. Probably a silver rum because I couldn’t taste anything else.

  “Do you like it?” she asked, as Tank placed his glass back down on the table.

  “Very good,” he said, and I nodded agreement.

  “It’s our own coconuts and bananas,” she said.

  “We’re in!” David shouted.

  I rose and stepped past Savannah. “In where?”

  “Moreno’s Mac,” Chyrel said. “I’m looking through his deleted emails now.”

  “Won’t he know?” Tank asked, stepping up beside me at the settee.

  “Chyrel once accessed the CIA’s main frame,” I whispered, as she and David chattered. “She said getting in was the easy part, getting out undetected was what made it a monumental hack.”

  “I thought Flo said they didn’t like that word.”

  “We’re not hackers,” came Chyrel’s voice from the speaker. “That’s a simplistic noun for simplistic people. Hack is a verb and just a small part of what we do.”

  “This is all fascinating,” Tank said, leaning in close to David and smiling at Chyrel. “I grew up with radio, way before television. You two are to be commended.”

  I could see Chyrel grin. I knew she could be wild and playful at times but like Savannah, being a Southern girl, she appreciated etiquette.

  “Why thank you, sir,” she said. “Oo, here’s something.”

  I leaned in to look over Flo’s shoulder at the screen, reading what appeared to be an email. It was just two sentences.

  She did good, but she didn’t come back last night. Will we see her tonight?

  It was unsigned, but the email address it came from was [email protected]. Benito Moreno was the recipient.

  “Who do you think the ‘she’ is?” Tank asked.

  “No idea,” I replied.

  “There’s tons more,” Chyrel said. “And we’re getting hits on the others, too.”

  “How late are you working?” I asked.

  “Margie is relieving me at midnight,” she replied. “The harvester David set up can run by itself and I can dig through the results while keeping the boys awake down in Manglares, then email you what I find before dawn.”

  “Thanks, Chyrel.”

  “G’nite,” she said, touching the shell chain around her neck. “Merry Christmas! And tell Savannah I love the necklace.”

  “Bye, Miss Chyrel,” Tank added.

  She winked and the screen went blank.

  “Anything else?” David asked.

  I shook my head. “No, that’s it. Thanks for the help. She’ll have a lot of free time to sift through what y’all found. Mostly she’s just there to make sure Jerry and DJ don’t fall asleep.”

  David closed the laptop and put it away, and then he and Flo rose and started to leave.

  “Um…” I started to say something but stopped.

  Flo turned and stood on her toes to kiss me on the cheek. “G’night, Daddy.”

  She hugged Savannah and then she and David left. I could hear their footfalls going up the steps beside the cabin. I’d wanted to say something like “be careful” but figured that might have a different connotation to them.

  “You sure have a lot of sharp knives in your drawer,” Tank said. “Just when I think I’ve seen it all, some new technology tells me I’m a dinosaur.”

  “You’re not that old,” Savannah said. “I saw how you were flirting with Chyrel at the party. Don’t deny it.”

  “She’s fun to talk to,” Tank said, his face reddening a little.

  “And very pretty,” Savannah said. “And single.”

  “And way too young,” Tank said, avoiding eye contact.

  “I wouldn’t say way too young,” she countered.

  I sipped my drink and watched Tank squirm.

  Savannah smiled. She enjoyed the role of matchmaker. “She just turned forty last week.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  “I think we’d best turn in,” I interrupted, before Savannah embarrassed him further. I moved to the sink to wash my glass and looked over at Tank. “You feel like going after some bonefish in the morning?”

  “I would,” he replied, draining his coconut concoction. “Where will we find these fish?”

  “I was talking to Dink earlier,” I said. “He was the sort of clumsy guy who kept bumping into things at the party. He said he took a client up to Cape Sable yesterday. They hooked quite a few bones and his client caught his limit in pompano.”

  He and Savannah handed me their glasses and I washed them, leaving them on the drain board to dry. Then we exited the boat and climbed up to the house. Savannah retired to the bedroom and I walked Tank out to the deck.

  “Will I need to bring a gun for these bonefish?” he asked quietly.

  I held the door to let Finn inside, then closed it.

  “That wouldn’t be a bad idea,” I said.

  “I thought as much.” His eyes sparkled in the gathering darkness. “I guess you want to rattle Sampson’s cage again, then pay that big ape in the truck a visit.”

  “Naw,” I said, with a sideways grin. “We’re just a couple of fishermen going out for a day of lip ripping.”

  He chuckled as he turned and headed for the stairs.

  I went back inside and turned off the light in the living room. The bedroom door was slightly ajar, and I could see a flickering glow through the crack. The air smelled of frangipani from one of Savannah’s favorite candles.

  Pushing the door open, I saw her lying on her side, a thin sheet pulled up to her hips. Her head was propped on an elbow and she was smiling. She wore nothing except for a red bow in her hair.

  “Are you ready for your Christmas gift, Jesse?”

  I woke well before dawn. A light breeze moved the curtains above my head, their weight directing the cool air down over my face and chest. Without moving, I let my eyes roam the darkened room. Moving would bring pain.

  Turning my head, I gazed into the face of the source of my aching muscles. Soft moonlight fell on Savannah’s face and hair. She looked so beautiful I was tempted to stay right where I was.

  From the angle of the light coming through the sheer curtains, I knew that the nearly full moon, the Cold Moon, was on the horizon. A glance at my watch confirmed it was 0400.

  Savannah stirred and stretched as I rose from the bed. “Leaving so early?” she mumbled.

  “We want to be on the flats at sunrise,” I said. “Go back to sleep. We’ll be home before dark.”

  “If you find the bastard,” she said more clearly, “kneecap him for me.”

  I grinned. There was still a lot about Savannah I didn’t know. But she could read me like a book. She knew what I had planned for today and she was okay with it. Some of what I’d learned in the last year had surprised me.

  She’d told me of encounters she and Flo had had with the dregs of society and how she’d convinced them of the mistake they’d made. She hadn’t elaborated, but having wrestled with her in bed, I knew her strength, and my friend Charity had told me that she’d taken a lot of self-defense classes. Savannah and I had talked about the evils in the world and we were on the same page about that.

  Through the window, I could see the light on in the bunkhouse and knew Tank was already up. I closed the bedroom door, went into the galley, and switched on the light, though I didn’t need it. Our house was small; there was a place for everything in it and everything was always in its place.

  As I was pouring coffee into a Thermos from a pot that had just finished brewing, Tank walked silently past the wi
ndow. I opened the door to let him in and Finn out. They both paused for just a second, so Finn could get an ear scratch.

  “All set?” Tank asked quietly, noting the closed bedroom door.

  From the fridge, I took a small cooler, already loaded with fruit, sandwiches, and water, which Savannah had put together before we left for the Anchor.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “But we’re going to make a stop on the way.”

  “You do this a lot?” he asked, as we walked down the steps to the dock area. “Make a stop on the way?”

  “Same place,” I replied. “Before we make him bug out, I want to add something to his van.”

  I stepped down into my Maverick Mirage flats skiff and started the engine. As it burbled, I clicked the fob for the big outside door, then opened the small side console. Pushing on a panel in the top of the storage area, it fell open and I retrieved a holstered Sig Sauer 9mm handgun. I checked the magazine and chamber, then clipped the holster inside my shorts, behind my back. I didn’t have to ask if Tank was armed.

  He got the lines as if he’d been working around boats all his life, and we soon idled out from under the house. I turned due east, at an angle to Harbor Channel. We talked quietly about what I wanted to do and then I switched on the powerful spotlight mounted to the bow. The water ahead was as flat as a sheet of glass and reflected the light up into the dark sky.

  “Hang on,” I warned, as I advanced the throttle.

  The little skiff launched like a rocket sled on rails, powered by a big 300-horse Mercury outboard.

  There were actually three ways to get to the other side of the wide flats to the south of the channel. I mostly used two. In the Revenge or Cazador, I’d go around the shoal water. In the Grady or Knot L-8, I’d follow a twisting, unmarked, natural cut. But in the Mirage, I could just go balls to the wall right across the skinny water.

  When we hit the shallows, a little west of the natural cut, only the transom and prop were in the water. There was a wide, sandy shelf where the water was consistent at about a foot of depth.

  The light picked up the sandy bottom and I steered toward it, flying across water that most boats couldn’t.