Public Enemy

Four vessels, one of them significantly bigger than the Trinity, loomed directly in his path. The fleet was camped out five miles to the north, with the two smallest boats on his screen closer than the others. The yacht’s radar had also detected an airborne object that wasn’t flying particularly fast, located halfway between the Trinity and the fleet.

A helicopter.

It had been five minutes since Po had spied another high-altitude speck in the brightening sky. Based on what he’d been able to see, Po had a pretty good idea what kind of plane it was, and this, in turn, gave him a pretty good idea what the fleet of boats and their helicopter escort were all about.

The “speck” was a P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft. Having detected his early morning departure from Anguilla, the plane’s occupants had tracked his subsequent route and, extrapolating, assumed the worst-as might be expected from the Coast Guard’s regional antidrug task force fleet. The fleet’s assigned duty was to intercept, impound, or destroy the seemingly endless supply of “go-fast” racing boats bound for Florida or alternate points north. On a typical day, upward of three go-fasts-super-high-speed racing machines with their cargo bays retrofitted to haul upward of two tons of coke-took their shot at the continental United States from the general vicinity of the Greater and Lesser Antilles.

On average, the Coast Guard was going two-for-three, season-to-date.

Po was well versed on how to deal with such drug-interdiction efforts, misguided though they were in coming after him. The problem-over and above the secret cargo he had agreed to cart up to Naples in the hold of the Trinity-was if you let the Coast Guard snatch you in international waters, you were pretty much doomed, since the Department of Homeland Security claimed to possess the right to impound and destroy any “suspicious” boat in such waters, whether or not such boat was shown to be holding contraband. The preference, upon seizure, was to immediately destroy the boat. By taking out vessels, the task force reduced the pool of drug-ru

Po toggled the radar display and the zoomed-in perspective on the monitor revealed that one of the smaller boats had kicked into gear and was now approaching the Trinity at speed.

He saw that the helicopter too had set its sights on him.

Gu

Sporting the benefit of a two-mile cushion between the Trinity and the chase boat, Po zipped down the middle of the Sir Francis Drake Cha

It seemed to Po that the early-to-rise local populace and overwhelming presence of tourists on the most populous island in the BVIs would at least lessen the likelihood that the Coast Guard task force would fuck with him.

When the first of a pair of 22' Coast Guard “OTH” chase boats, accompanied by the aerial support of its teammate, an MH-68A “Stingray” helicopter, met up with Po Keeler and his client’s yacht, it happened just inside the rocky spit that shielded Road Harbor from the rolling swells of the cha

The cargo was to be accompanied on the journey from Caracas to the yacht’s home port in Naples, Florida, by two men, whom Po’s secondary client referred to as “security perso

Po frequently accepted money in exchange for hauling illicit shipments during his licensed transport gigs, and in so doing stood by a strict set of rules: no drugs, no guns, and no explosives. And while he had never before agreed to cart “security perso

A squat, rubber-hulled speedboat featuring a deck-mounted turret gun and little else, the OTH, named for how fast it could get itself “over the horizon,” had four soldiers aboard for its approach. One ma

“This is the U.S. Coast Guard District Seven task force!” the agent said. The sharp treble tone of the agent’s voice over the OTH’s loudspeakers pierced Po’s ears, audible despite the roar from the Stingray helicopter hovering behind the yacht. “Request permission to board your vessel!”

The Stingray banked slightly against a gust of wind.

Po descended the steps that led from the cabin to the deck of the yacht. Keeping his arms stretched away from his body, he brought his right hand to his forehead in a salute, made a two-fisted thumbs-up gesture, and waved the task force agents aboard.

As two soldiers from the OTH prepared to board the Trinity, Po turned slightly to the side. This allowed him to see something the soldiers could not. When Po saw it, an ulcerous burn that had been coagulating in the vicinity of his heart-establishing itself the minute the “security perso

With only their jet black hair visible to begin with, the head of first one, then both of the Venezuelan skulkers emerged from the hatch Po knew to access the engine room. As the men rose from their hiding places, Po observed each to be armed with weapons appearing both bulky and slim-bulky enough to be of military grade, slim enough to have been stowed in the suitcases the fucks had toted aboard the boat.

Po made the instantaneous decision to abandon ship.

In two leaping bounds, he reached the polished chrome railing at the bow of the Trinity, planted a foot on its gleaming edge, and propelled himself outward and down.