“They don’t know anything. The Cubans can pull their fingernails out and they can’t tell them anything.”
“But what about Triggerfish?”
“Operation Triggerfish is a go.”
“It’s a go? They’re in jail. In Havana! What do we do now?”
“Shit happens. Good operations have contingency plans. We’re using their capture to our advantage.”
“How?”
“You should know better than to even ask me that. All you need to know is that Operation Triggerfish is on. We’re proceeding to phase two.”
“Now?” Ruben asked.
“Yes. Now,” the Deputy Director of the CIA insisted. “Contact your brother. Tell him to get ready. He flies tomorrow.”
34.
LAS OLAS, FLORIDA
THURSDAY, 8:14 P.M.
Jessica raced down the river, the rumble of the Cobalt’s engine filling her ears. Her dress clung tightly to her body and the warm wind rushed through her hair.
The sun had long set and the Intracoastal was now quieter. Most of the boat traffic was gone, just a few monstrous cabin cruisers returning from the Atlantic. Lights of extravagant homes along both banks pierced the blackness, casting spotlights on the waterway.
Jessica held the boat’s wheel with one hand, her eyes darting across the water, searching ahead. Off the main river were narrower side channels, lined with more homes and moored luxury boats. Where are you, Ricky Green?
She pulled back on the throttle, easing off the gas just in front of a sign warning MANATEE ZONE / NO WAKE. The motor gurgled and spat in low gear. Should she stop and search the side canals or continue ahead? So many places to hide. If Ricky didn’t know he was being followed, he’d probably continued downriver, toward Port Everglades, she decided. She stole one last glance down a channel and then nudged the accelerator stick with the base of her palm and the bow of the boat rose up into the air, the engine whirring back to life.
As Jessica veered around a bend in the river at full speed, the waterway widened dramatically. She could see open water ahead, the Christmas lights of gigantic cruise ships and the colossal merchant vessels of Port Everglades stacked high with steel containers.
She yanked the throttle backward, killing the engine, and the boat leveled off and sunk low into the water. Jessica cursed herself for losing him.
She found a pair of binoculars underneath the cockpit seat and searched across the open bay to the south. Plenty of boats puttering around, but nothing that resembled Ricky’s flashy cigarette boat. Then she spun and checked north, back up the river. Nothing behind her either, just a large New Orleans–style paddleboat lit up like a carnival and heading straight for her position.
She turned eastward, squinting through the binoculars into the darkness, hunting for any signs of movement along the mangroves on the banks or down a slender residential canal that ran perpendicular to the river. The sounds of the crowded tourist boat, a mix of dance music and drunken hollering, got louder.
Jessica dropped the binoculars into the seat and restarted the engine. She carefully maneuvered the bowrider westward, heading toward the last of the residential channels she had yet to search. If Ricky wasn’t north, south, or east, then he had to be down that last canal to the west.
As she came around behind the stern of The Jungle Queen, the sounds of the party were punctured by a loud crack. Jessica instinctively ducked low in the cockpit. Fireworks? Or a gunshot? She unconsciously reached for her inner thigh, but no holster was there tonight. Unarmed and cursing herself for the second time in the past few minutes, she peered cautiously over the side of the boat. Another three shots—crack-crack-crack—and she felt the rush of a bullet near her ear. Someone is shooting at me! Then her ears filled with a new sound, the deafening thunder of the cigarette emerging from behind the paddleboat.
Ricky Green was gripping the wheel of the racing boat with one hand and a handgun with the other. As he steadied his arm for another shot, Jessica stayed low and punched the boat’s throttle forward.
The Cobalt popped up out of the water. She circled the paddleboat, using it to block Ricky’s sight line and give herself a head start. Jessica then pointed her boat straight toward a marina about five hundred yards to the west, between two thick stands of mangroves. Jessica crouched down, pushing the accelerator stick as far forward as possible, blindly racing toward the marina.
Come on! Come on! she urged the engines. Behind her, she could hear screams from the tourist boat and the growls of the cigarette’s motor.
She peered forward—marina dead ahead, now three hundred yards. Behind her, Ricky, in the bigger and faster cigarette boat, was gaining ground. More shots—crack-crack-crack . . . whizz-whizz-whizz!