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Back Loitering With Intent Save as PDF
Chapters (64)
  1. Stuart Woods
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  64. AUTHOR’ S NOTE

“Stone,” Dino said, “here’s a thought: You’ve got the guy’s cell phone number; why don’t you just call him up and talk to him?”

“I thought of that; he’d just hang up in my face, and he might stop using the cell phone or change his number, and we’d have no way at all to trace him.”

“Okay, it was just a thought.”

They finished breakfast and headed for the Key West Yacht Club.

ROSIE TURNED OUT to be just as Tommy had described her: a fat, 30-foot fiberglass bathtub, with engines, a cabin and a fl ying bridge up top.

Tommy welcomed them aboard; the engines were already running.

“Tell me something,” Stone said. “If we all went up to the fl y-bridge, would this thing turn upside down?”

Tommy laughed. “It looks that way, but she’s well ballasted.”

He edged out of the boat’s berth and began running along the east side of Garrison Bight, not far off the Roosevelt Boulevard sidewalk.

“There’s a little channel here with six feet or so,” Tommy said. “All that open water to starboard is not navigable by anything more boisterous than a kayak; too shallow.”

They picked up some channel markers and headed out of the bight, then under the bridge and into more open water. Five minutes later they were running at 25 knots, and Tommy pointed to their destination on his electronic chart plotter. “Keating’s phone was right about there,” he said.

They ran on for another twenty minutes, then Tommy began to slow down. “See those boats out there?” he asked, pointing.

“Yep,” Stone replied.

“That’s roughly where we got the location of the phone.” He slowed down further as they approached the moored boats. There were a dozen or so, all but one powerboats.

“Let’s get a close look,” Stone said.

“Okay, we’ll check every boat.”

Tommy’s cell phone rang. “Yeah? You’re sure? Where? Thanks, keep me posted.” He hung up. “We’re wasting our time out here.”

Tommy turned back toward Key West and pushed the throttle forward.

“Why?” Stone asked.

“Because they just got another beep about a minute long from back behind us. Looks like Keating’s boat is heading back to Key West. It also looks like Keating is using his cell phone only to make calls. When he finishes, he turns it off.”

“Shit,” Stone said. “You think he’s on to us?”

“Nah, but he’s sure being careful. If he was on to us he’d just buy a throwaway phone at the supermarket.”

“Okay.”