Coincidence - Alan May [66]
“His life is in danger in any case,” the captain reminded him, “as is the life of every student, every person, aboard this ship. Pierre is the best chance we have of getting any of us out of this alive.”
All that remained was to figure out how to divert the hijackers’ attention while Pierre, assuming he was willing, transferred to the other boat. Once again, Anika had an answer.
“We could hold a coffee night,” she said. “We can tell Phillip that the kids need something to take their minds off what’s happening. Heaven knows that’s true. We’ll invite the men to come and watch—and we’ll give Phillip the choice of where we stage it, in the mess or on the bow, so he won’t think we’re trying to pull anything over on them.”
A “coffee night” on a BWA boat was much more than just coffee. It included entertainment, usually devised by the students themselves, a sort of talent show. Dave had some reservations about how likely it was that their unwelcome visitors would want to attend a school talent night, but he had no alternative to offer. And as Anika pointed out, the “bad guys” were feeling the effects of stress, too. They had never planned to hijack a boatload of innocent kids, after all; that had been an unintended consequence of other actions. They were probably dreading what they would have to do in the end. They might welcome a distraction, too.
They knew the kids, once persuaded that the coffee night would be a good way to get through a harrowing time, would throw themselves into it. There would be much to-ing and fro-ing, giggling and rehearsing, improvised costuming, and all-in-fun subterfuge. It would be easy for Pierre, with Dave as his accomplice, to get lost in the hubbub for a while.
It was settled, then. Captain Marzynski, deciding it would be wise to fill the doctor in on the plan, while keeping everyone else aboard in the dark, strode off to the first-aid room. Dave hurried to the stern to try to get some sort of message across to Mac. It was Anika’s job to mobilize the students for the evening’s activity.
But first she’d have to clear it with Phillip.
25
After too many days of no-progress reports, Rob was eager to hear his supervisor’s reaction to what he was about to tell her.
After his conversation with Jim Oliver, Rob had immediately called his colleagues with the DEA in Cali. He had asked them to resume their moribund investigation, concentrating this time on searching every stretch of beach for traces of a stolen sixty-foot Real Ship that had put out to sea somewhere along the coast near Buenaventura, with the missing cocaine and hijackers onboard.
Agents Ramirez and Peraza had duly set out again, driving north along the route from Buenaventura. They were pessimistic at first about discovering anything new, but became excited when they turned down the lane leading to the cove and spotted tire tracks.
They had found evidence of a great deal of activity, Rob was telling Elizabeth by phone. At least three vehicles had been involved at the cove: a van, a motor scooter, and a midsize SUV about the size of a Jimmy. There were impressions above the tide line of something heavy being dragged along the sand toward the water. Following the narrow lane back up from the cove to the main road on foot, Ramirez and Peraza noticed that the underbrush had been crushed and branches broken in several places. Across the road, in a ditch near a driveway, barely covered with a layer of leaves, they followed a pile of spent cartridges and shards of broken glass.
The agents went up the driveway, their hands on their weapons, and knocked at the door of a deserted-looking house. No one answered. Circling around behind the dilapidated structure, they came to an equally ramshackle barn in the back yard, and peered through the dirt-smeared window. It