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Chapters (32)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Epigraph
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE

A second later, he was facedown on the deck, with one goon sitting on his back while the second gorilla pinned his legs. The purser was holding the Glock like a tarantula in one hand and had Cabrillo’s cell in the other. Juan hadn’t bothered putting up a fight. He could have taken out all three, but he had Max to consider.

He just wished Overholt had answered him, otherwise this was going to be a long night.

EIGHTEEN

EIGHTEEN

IN TOTAL, THEY LOST EIGHTEEN PRECIOUS HOURS. MAX spent most of these under guard at the River Region Medical Center, where his head was scanned and stitched up. Juan was the guest of the Warren County Sheriff’s Department. They kept him up all night in a windowless interrogation room, where detectives and uniformed cops grilled him relentlessly.

It took them two hours to determine that his identification was bogus. Had Cabrillo expected any kind of background check, he could have brought papers that would prove legit no matter how hard the authorities studied them. But he hadn’t expected this kind of trouble, so his identity was breachable. Once they learned he wasn’t William Duffy of Englewood, California—the name on his second set of papers—the questions came harder and faster.

And while his story about a woman being abducted off the Natchez Belle had been confirmed by other passengers and the crew, the police seemed more interested in the hows and whys of his and Max’s presence to try to thwart the attack.

There was nothing Juan could say to convince them that he wasn’t part of the plot. And when the rushed ballistic report came back proving that the dead John Doe wearing a ski mask who’d been fished from the river had been killed by the gun the crew took from him, murder-one charges were threatened. They delighted in pointing out that Mississippi was a death-penalty state.

The FBI arrived at around nine the following morning, and for an hour, while jurisdiction was established, Cabrillo was left alone. Just for the fun of it, he pretended to pass out. Four cops, who’d been watching through the two-way mirror, rushed in. The last thing they wanted was for their prisoner to escape justice by dying on them.

It was around two-thirty, by his estimate—his watch had been taken upon his arrest—when two gray men in matching gray suits showed up. The cops and FBI agents, who were arrayed against Cabrillo like a pack of dogs slobbering over a fresh bone, looked nervous. They were told by the gray men that this was a matter for the Department of Homeland Security.

The salivating looks evaporated. Their bone was being taken by an even bigger dog.