Bluewater Voodoo: Mystery and Adventure in the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 3) Read online

  She knew she was in danger, but she believed in fate; she was meant to have those diamonds. When she first arrived in the islands a few years ago with her nest-egg, she had naively thought that she was set for life. She wasn’t out of money yet, but she craved financial security. She was young and attractive, and while she had traded on her looks to get to where she was, she was too smart and had too much self-respect to be interested in continuing as a rich man’s companion, or even as a rich man’s wife. She had tasted independence, and it suited her.

  ****

  Sam Alfieri was also watching the weather as the frontal system closed in on the central Bahamas. While he wasn’t at sea at the moment, he had the weather eye of a life-long seaman. He was expecting another shipment today, and given that the last one was missing, he was anxious. His clients weren’t the most understanding of people; he could absorb the cost of the delay in the last shipment, but a second unexpected hitch in cash flow would be a problem to him. He had his people investigating that last shipment and the rotten weather would hamper their inquiries. This winter storm that just blew off the east coast could put him under.

  As it was, he would have to make an excuse for the delay, but he thought he had enough credibility to survive that problem as long as he didn’t have another one right on its heels. While his clients weren’t forgiving, they were businessmen who understood that there were risks associated with the service that Sam provided. He had a track record of trouble-free results that went back for many years, with the exception of the short disruption that resulted from his unplanned relocation to the Bahamas a few years ago.

  That had turned out much better than he had thought it would at the time. He had been forced to abandon both the smuggling business that he had inherited and his ancestral roots in Savannah. Like many who had come before him, he found the Bahamas to be a friendly business environment for a man with money and connections, and he had been able to resume his former sideline of money laundering with little difficulty. Without the day-to-day distraction of smuggling drugs, he had built his former part-time endeavor into a much bigger business than he had ever thought it could be.

  Chapter 2

  "Are we there yet?" Liz asked as Dani emerged from the companionway into the cockpit. Before she left the companionway ladder, Dani set two steaming mugs on the bridge deck, watching for a moment to be sure that they didn’t slide with the shifting of the boat. Satisfied that they were secure, she climbed out, holding on until she was settled on the low side of the cockpit and had clipped her tether to a ring bolt in the footwell. "About 80 miles to go," she reported, as she handed Liz a mug. "If we hold this speed and course, we should be in by about three this afternoon -- plenty of time to get cleared in with customs."

  "How long do you think we’ll need before we’re ready for sea again?" Liz asked, inhaling the steam from her coffee while she waited for Dani to reply.

  "Well, I’ve got everything I need to replace the bearings in the furler. Figure that’ll take me most of tomorrow. How much provisioning do you need to do?"

  Liz frowned, lost in thought for a moment. "That really depends on what our guest wants to do. If we’re going straight back to the Virgins or St. Martin, I don’t need anything. If she wants to stop and play along the way, I should do a little grocery shopping. There’s not really anywhere between Nassau and the Virgins where I can buy much in the way of fresh food. We’re good for about a week -- then it’s frozen or canned."

  Dani nodded. "There’s Exuma Markets in Georgetown." She had a teasing grin on her face.

  Liz shook her head ruefully. "I said fresh. She’s not supposed to come aboard until the day after tomorrow. Maybe I’ll give her a call tomorrow and see if she’s had time to think of where she wants to go, and when."

  "She really didn’t have any idea when you talked with her last week?" Dani asked.

  "No. I only talked with her for a few minutes, remember. She’s American; she’s been living in the out islands for a couple of years, and she’s looking for a new venue, farther south."

  "What’s she do?" Dani asked.

  "No idea. Probably not much, if she’s been in the out islands for two years. She must have some money, though."

  "Enough to book us for the best part of the high season, anyway," Dani agreed. "Probably some rich old bag. We could have a long winter ahead of us, you know?"

  "She didn’t sound old on the phone," Liz said.

  "Rich young widow, maybe?" Dani offered.

  "You’re never happy with our guests, Dani," Liz scolded. "You were wishing for hot young guys until the last charter."

  "I said ‘guys,’ Liz. Not ‘gays.’ What a waste." She shook her head and lifted the coffee mug to her lips, smiling at the recollection of their last guests.

  "Well, I thought they were fun," Liz said, grinning. "Especially David."

  Dani laughed. "You just thought it was funny that he put the moves on me when his partner wasn’t looking. You’d have felt different if he’d been after you, I’ll bet. But you’re right. They were good company."

  "Aw, give the boy a break. He told you he was bi; what do you want?"

  "Eggs and bacon with hash browns and toast. Thought you’d never ask. Dousing that jib was hungry work."

  "Coming right up, Skipper. You got the helm?" Liz scooted around to the high side of the cockpit and crawled across the heaving surface until she could drop her legs into the companionway. Settling her feet on the ladder, she unhooked her tether and disappeared below into the galley. Dani shifted her weight until she was behind the helm. She set her mug down in a safe corner and rose to her feet, gripping the leather-covered outer rim of the helm as she scanned the horizon to make sure there were no other vessels in the vicinity.

  ****

  Sam Alfieri was leaning back in his big swivel chair, feet on the massive mahogany desk in front of him, listening intently to Wallace Rolle. He had known Rolle for as long as he could remember; their fathers had been friends and business partners during the prohibition era, when Sam’s father had run whisky from Bimini into a number of hole-in-the-wall ports along the southeast coast of the U.S. mainland. Sam and Wallace had played together as children and smuggled drugs into the States when they were in their late teens.

  When Sam’s money-laundering business had blossomed in the last couple of years, Wallace had handed off his smuggling trade to some of his extended family and gone to work with Sam full-time. Moving money in the form of gemstones and other high-value, low-bulk merchandise was much less hazardous work, and with the contacts that the two of them had in the drug trade, their services were in demand. Sam had the financial skills and contacts and Wallace handled the logistics; he had ties to all the shipping-related firms in the islands, as well as a few key customs officials who could be induced to look the other way when necessary. Being part of a large Bahamian family, Wallace had plenty of blood relatives who served as impromptu couriers and enforcers when the need arose. By spreading such work around, he was able to avoid any of his minions achieving a high enough profile to attract the attention of the authorities, and besides, the casual nature of the work suited his cousins. They weren’t ambitious or greedy; one good score every few months met their needs.

  "Joseph picked up the package in Bimini, just like always. The cook on the dive excursion boat brought it from Miami," Wallace said.

  Sam puffed on his cigar gently and held it away so that he could examine the tip, making sure that it was burning evenly. He shifted his gaze to Wallace and nodded. "So when did Joseph leave Bimini with it?"

  "He was having some trouble with one of the engines on Blacksnake," Wallace said. Sam nodded again, picturing the sleek, black-hulled 40-foot go-fast boat with the three 300-horsepower outboards. Under normal conditions, Joseph could make the 100-mile run from Bimini to Nassau in a couple of hours, but he typically spent a day doing it, pausing to fish and snorkel for lobster with a friend or two to conceal his agenda. Sometimes they would stop at Fra
zier’s Hog Cay or Andros Island and spend the night. If there was a lot of patrol activity, they stopped in both places. It wasn’t unusual for the shipment to take two or even three days, depending on weather and how active the spotter planes were. Once they reached Nassau and made the delivery, Joseph and his crew would party for a day or two, enjoying the diversions of the city before going back to Bimini. "He didn’t leave Bimini for a couple of days after the pickup, and his friend couldn’t come with him; he had some fishermen show up from Miami, so Joseph was by himself, we think."

  "Exactly when did he leave?"

  "No one can say. The man who works on his engines finished up after a day, but he doesn’t know exactly when Joseph left. Neither does anybody else. You know Bimini, Sam. The days run together; people don’t use calendars and clocks. If they told you yesterday, that would probably mean yesterday, but anything farther back than that is pure guesswork."

  Sam grunted. "So let’s say it’s been ten days. We can account for maybe five days of that. Where the hell is he?"

  "We’re looking, Sam. I got boats out, checking all the islands and cays. We’ll find him. If he had engine trouble crossing the Banks, he could be anywhere. Depending on when he left and where he broke down, he could have gotten blown to the Berry’s, or Grand Bahama, or Andros. If he got blown off the Banks and back into the Gulf Stream, there’s no telling."

  "He could have called, if he made one of the big islands," Sam mused.

  "Yeah. Probably would have. He’s got to be in the middle of nowhere, or we would have heard from him, unless he didn’t make it. He was alone, remember."

  "We think," Sam added. "We don’t even know that, for sure. From now on, we need to give these guys sat phones."

  "Come on, Sam. We’ve been through all that before. It’s no good second guessing ourselves. Using sat phones out in that stretch of water would attract the attention of the NSA or whoever the DEA has listening in. Nowhere on that run is out of VHF range; their regular radios do the job, and nobody pays any attention to local fishermen chattering on the VHF, telling their wives when they’ll be home."

  "Didn’t work this time, did it?" Sam groused. He knew Wallace was right, though. He was wasting time that could be better spent looking for Joseph or figuring out how to replace that shipment. He had already shuffled funds around in a number of his offshore accounts to make it appear to his client that the transaction had gone through, but he was over-extended now. He would need to replace the value of that shipment within a couple of weeks, or his finances would collapse.

  "I’ve had two planes up since day before yesterday. They’re checking everywhere, looking for Blacksnake, or any new wrecks. I’ll let you know the minute I hear."

  "Yeah. Okay, Wallace. We just can’t absorb this one for very long. If we don’t find him, we’ll have to think about going back to the old standby."

  "That would be tough. That’s a lot of blow, even uncut, and we’re rusty."

  "We’ll be worse than rusty if we don’t cover the loss," Sam said, getting to his feet and walking his partner to the door of his office.

  ****

  Connie was savoring a final cup of coffee in the dining room of the luxury resort, idly watching a family with three young children. She was no expert, but she thought the oldest child was probably nine or ten. The parents were trying to eat breakfast and get some food into the three little ones, who were intent on exploring the aquarium that was an integral part of the complex. From where they were sitting, the children could catch glimpses of the large sharks that circled in the tanks that made up the wall of the lobby outside the restaurant.

  Finally, the parents gave up and let the children drag them out of the restaurant. Connie smiled wistfully, but she quickly reined in her well-suppressed maternal instincts. She knew she was destined for a different kind of life; a normal, middle class existence had never been an option for her. Born into a family of desperately poor, illegal migrant farm workers, she had chosen to do what she had to do to avoid hunger; only in the last few years had she managed to accumulate enough wealth to provide some comfort.

  She thought about how to spend the day; her time here in the Bahamas was growing short. If this cold front didn’t interfere, she would be leaving the day after tomorrow, sailing for the islands of the Caribbean. She was excited at the prospect of spending time on a private yacht, exploring the islands at her leisure. When she had come into a modest amount of money a few years ago, the Bahamas had seemed like paradise to her. She had only heard of them; she had never considered that she might visit them. Now she understood the truth in the old cliché, "a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there." She loved the climate and the pristine water, and the people were charming. The islands themselves were dry and desolate, though, and life was either a matter of subsistence or holiday distractions which quickly grew old. She had been researching the islands of the eastern Caribbean; she thought several of the larger islands offered the opportunity for a more balanced, productive life than she had found in the Bahamas. Certainly, they offered more varied scenery and cultural diversity, as well.

  She had considered various ways to explore the Caribbean islands, ranging from cruise ships to traveling by air and staying in resorts, but she was looking for a way to get a more intimate feel for the differences from island to island. She also didn’t have a fixed abode to use as a home base. She had been living in short-term rental properties in the various islands of the Bahamas; she was more encumbered with belongings than a typical traveler, and she wanted to take her belongings with her. She wasn’t particularly acquisitive, but she couldn’t live out of a suitcase or two, either.

  She had watched the people on small yachts come and go in the Bahamas, and she had engaged a few of the yachting couples in conversation. That mode of travel appealed to her, at least as a means of exploring the islands, but she knew nothing about boats. Eventually, someone had suggested that she could charter a small yacht with a crew to take her wherever she wished to go, and she had quickly become hooked on the idea. It was within her means, at least for a few months, and it appeared to offer everything she wanted.

  She had researched the charter yachts in her price range that were working in the islands in which she was interested and discovered a beautiful yacht owned and run by two young women. That had a special appeal to her as a single woman. She had not sworn off men forever, but she wasn’t in the market for the foreseeable future either, and the idea of being a single female guest aboard a small yacht with a male crew or even a couple just didn’t sound comfortable for an extended period. She had called the satellite phone number listed for the yacht Vengeance and had spoken at length with one of the women who owned and ran the boat. She concluded the conversation with a promise to think it over and get back to them in a day or two, being in no particular hurry at the time.

  Things had changed when she picked up the briefcase from the red-haired man. She hadn’t intended to take the diamonds for herself when she first got the briefcase; she hadn’t even known that it contained diamonds. She was just going to pass it on to the proper people, but she hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to look inside first. She forgot her intentions to do what was expected once she realized the opportunity that had befallen her.

  She had called the woman on Vengeance back immediately after she discovered the diamonds and learned that the situation aboard Vengeance had changed as well since their last conversation. They were finishing a two-week charter the next day in the Virgin Islands and had just had a cancellation that left them free for over a month. They could pick her up in Nassau within a few days. She wired a deposit for a month’s charter to their account that day, and they had settled on a date. She had been busy since then, putting her affairs in order and preparing to embark on a new adventure.

  Chapter 3

  Dani hung in her climber’s harness, her legs locked around the mast 70 feet above Vengeance’s deck. Before she removed the clevis pin holding
the jammed roller furling headstay to the masthead, she paused to take in the panoramic view of Nassau’s harbor. She inhaled the harbor’s characteristic smells, a blend of tar and the sweet aroma of over-ripe fruit leavened with the tanginess of clean, salty air. Forcing herself to get to work, she glanced down into the bucket of tools which dangled from her harness, groping for a pair of pliers.

  A flurry of activity on the dock below caught her attention, and she watched an attractive brunette strolling toward Vengeance, followed by a porter with a heavily laden dock cart. She saw Liz step onto the dock and greet the woman, shaking her hand. As Dani’s hand closed on the pliers, she looked back at the clevis pin. She removed the pin and freed the stay, but her mind was on the pile of luggage that the porter was stacking on Vengeance’s side deck. First-time sailors had no idea how little storage space there was aboard a 60-foot sailing yacht. She hoped Liz and the woman could find room for everything without cluttering their living space.

  Having freed the top end of the stay, she checked to make sure that it would clear all the obstacles when she lowered it to the deck. Satisfied, she unhooked her safety line and descended the mast, using the block and tackle that she had used to hoist herself aloft a few minutes earlier. Once her feet were on deck and she had shed the harness, she walked back to the cockpit where Liz and their new guest stood as they watched the porter move his last armload of baggage aboard.

  "Good morning. Welcome aboard Vengeance, Ms. Barrera," she said, extending her hand. "I’m Dani Berger."

  "I’m Connie, please. Vengeance is even more beautiful than the pictures; thanks for sharing her." Connie took note of how rock-hard Dani’s slim hand was compared to her own soft palm.

  "Thanks for your patronage. We’re glad to have you with us. Liz told me that you’ve been living in the Bahamas for a few years. Where’s home?"