Heron's Cove

Colin rubbed a bruise on his forearm where he had blocked Boris’s first hit. “Your buyer’s impatient.”

“Everyone is impatient,” Boris said with a short, disgusted laugh.

Horner shrugged. “You and Yuri have a point but your way, we know we get nothing. My way, we have a chance.”

From the boat, Yuri pointed a thick finger at Colin. “And if our deep-cover agent here leads us straight to the FBI instead of to weapons? What chance do we have then?”

Horner didn’t answer. He motioned with his gun for Colin to climb into the boat. “Let’s go.”

As Colin got in the boat, pretending to be in more pain than he was, he noticed the light from the patio catch Horner’s face, and he knew. The Russians had finally persuaded him that the risk of walking into an FBI trap was too great. The promise of fast, easy weapons was a mirage. They would have to find another source.

Kill the FBI agent now. Move on.

Only Horner wouldn’t kill Colin here by his pool. He would get out to the ocean first, then kill him and throw his body overboard.

Colin had expected that resurfacing as his undercover alter ego would be tricky, suspicious, but sometimes it just wasn’t any fun to be right.

Faking a limp, he sat in a corner of the aft deck. Horner and his two Russian thugs had no respect for a turncoat FBI agent; even one they had hoped would lead them to an easy cache of orphaned illicit arms and their start as arms merchants. They knew Colin was an undercover federal agent because he had told them so, just before they shoved him into the back of Horner’s Mercedes and drove to Horner’s rented Fort Lauderdale house. Colin had offered them a reasonable explanation for what he had been up to the past few months and what he wanted now, and he had set conditions for his continued cooperation.

He hadn’t bought himself as much time as he’d hoped but he wasn’t dead yet, either.

Yuri and Boris went inside, up to the helm to pilot the boat.

Colin breathed in the thick, stifling air. He didn’t like hot weather, but he was a former Maine lobsterman and Maine state marine patrol officer and knew his way around boats and the water.

It was something his captors didn’t know about him.

The boat cruised up the narrow canal toward the main Intracoastal Waterway. Horner was watching a party aboard a luxury yacht, lit up against the black night. Boris and Yuri were navigating the turn out of the canal into the main Intracoastal.

Without a second thought, Colin eased himself over the side and dropped into the dark water.

He didn’t make a sound.

The water was warm, certainly by Maine standards, but he figured it had snakes. Maybe an alligator. It’d be a hell of a thing to escape armed thugs only to be bitten by a poisonous snake or eaten by an alligator.

He liked Florida well enough but really wasn’t one for the subtropics.

He swam back to the rented house and climbed up onto the dock, then ducked onto the patio, the pool still glistening in the light through the French doors. Once Horner and his Russian friends realized he was gone, they would come straight back and kill him on the spot. No waiting this time.

Colin planned to be gone by then.

Then he would find them, and he would find their buyer.

“Scary bastards,” he said under his breath.

The warm canal water dripped off him. His head pounded. His bruises ached. Dehydration blurred his vision.

He wanted to be back on the rocky coast of Maine.

Back with Emma.

He noticed a movement by the far corner of the pool.

He saw two black-clad figures by some tropical shrub.

Not the bad guys. Not this time. Colin grinned, and he felt the tension ease out of him.

The cavalry was here.

* * *

Two hours later, Matt Yankowski was frowning at a large painting of black, red and white splotches on a stark white wall of the rented house. He had on a medium gray suit that looked crisp despite the South Florida heat. Colin watched the senior FBI agent from his position on a soft, white leather couch. He had changed into fresh clothes from his pack, still in the back of Horner’s Mercedes. The tactical team had almost finished going through the car, the house, the three-car garage, the yard and patio.

So far, they hadn’t found the name of Pete Horner’s buyer or a little note saying where he, Boris and Yuri would be if the FBI swarmed the house.

Yank moved to another painting, almost identical to the first one. “I don’t like them,” he said. “Emma knows art. Do you think she’d like them?”

Colin hid his impatience. “I don’t know, Yank. I’m not thinking about art right now.”

“If I ever buy a house down here, I’d want flamingos on the walls. Not splotches. Looks like somebody got shot.” Yank turned and took in the large, airy room. “This place is sterile. More like a hotel than a home. How long were you here?”

“Minutes. I was staying at a fleabag hotel a few blocks off the beach. Horner, Boris and Yuri met me at a marina where I had a boat rented. The plan was for me to take them to weapons. Instead they tossed me in the Mercedes at gunpoint and drove here. We parked, walked through the house out to the pool, got in the boat and left. I waited until they were distracted and went overboard. For all I know, they still don’t miss me.”

“Unlikely.”

Colin agreed. “Any sign of them?”

“Not yet.”

“How did you find me?” Then he saw Yank’s grimace and knew. “Emma.”

“She got a tip and gave us this address. I alerted the team and flew straight down here.”

“Where is she?”

“Heron’s Cove. She went up there to bake pies and drink whiskey with Father Bracken and your brothers.”

“My family?”

“She’ll get them word you’re safe.”

“No more lying to them, Yank.”

He nodded. “They’ve guessed what you do, anyway. I should have known telling them you worked in D.C. wouldn’t fly.”

Colin looked out through the tall windows at the patio and the canal, quiet in the morning haze. He volunteered for his first undercover mission four years ago. Matt Yankowski had ventured up to the Maine coast to talk to him about the mission and being his contact agent. As of a month ago, Colin was technically the newest member of Yank’s Boston-based team and Yank was his contact agent on this mission.

“I had to go dark,” Colin said. “It still didn’t work. I don’t have Horner’s buyer. I don’t know who’s bankrolling him. He and Boris and Yuri are in the wind. This stinks, Yank.”