Coincidence - Alan May [70]
“So many victims!” he crowed. “So many kind volunteers, I mean. I cannot decide from among them all. I shall turn the decision over to my lovely assistant here.”
He clapped his hands, and a statuesque young lady emerged from behind a screen, her bare arms undulating, snakelike, to the strains of the eerie Middle Eastern refrain from Evan’s harmonica. She was clad in what had not long before been a sweat suit, transformed now, by a bit of cropping and the application of dangly strips of tin foil, into a harem outfit. Her face was veiled with the head of a mop.
“What do you say, Mademoiselle Melissa? Whom do you choose?”
27
Rob Montgomery kept his eye on his boss as Coast Guard representative Alasdair “Flipper” Markman outlined his assessment of their options on a flip chart, his pet visual aid. Elizabeth, Rob knew, was not a fan of Markman’s charts at the best of times, and this time none of the options looked good.
The first priority of all three agencies present at this initial meeting—the DEA, the Coast Guard, and the State Department—was, of course, the survival of the students and crew aboard the Inspiration. Second was apprehending the hijackers before the drugs could be distributed on U.S. soil.
Two basic strategies were possible, Markman said, flipping to page two of his color-coded chart.
“Number 1 is to simply maintain full surveillance of the two ships,” he said, using his ruler as a pointer. “We have contacted the Air Force,” he continued, flipping to page three, where number 1 was subdivided, in blue marker, into A and B. “They are en route to the area now to do a high-altitude flyover to ascertain the existence and position of the Inspiration and the Coincidence—or Two Wise as it is more properly called. They will take photos,” he said, pointing to 1B, which indicated just that, “so we can more effectively analyze the situation.”
Elizabeth’s right foot, toes down, tapped the carpet. Not a good sign.
Markman flipped to page four and took a sip of water.
“To recap, under number 1, we would keep the ships under surveillance and wait until the drugs leave the vessel, presumably at Easter Island, to apprehend the hijackers.”
Elizabeth’s foot tapping doubled in pace.
“Strategy number 2, on the other hand,” Markman went on, as he turned over another page, “calls for deploying a Coast Guard cutter to the area, and, as soon as we have analyzed the flyover photos, approaching the Inspiration, boarding, and apprehending the hijackers before the drugs can be distributed.
“There are three options under strategy 2.”
Markman was hitting his stride now, and Rob winced to see that page six was subdivided into three levels, with green ink joining the red and blue. He pushed his glasses up and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“As you can see in 2A, the first is to have the bosun, in hiding on the Coincidence, drop the towline during the night and escape. Then our cutter, the Serendipity, currently about a thousand nautical miles east of the hijacked Blue Water Academy vessel, approaches and challenges. A launch party boards and apprehends the hijackers.
“Alternatively—shown here in 2B—if the bosun drops the towline at dawn, the hijackers will see their boat, with a fortune in drugs aboard, floating away. One or more of the hijackers might well attempt to reach the boat in the Inspiration’s dinghy to recover the cocaine.
“If we assume, as in 2B:1, that the most likely scenario would be for three of the hijackers to attempt to recover the boat, and three to remain behind—the wounded man, another man to guard him, and a third to keep watch on the bridge—then the doctor could sedate the man with the gunshot wound, and the crew could possibly overpower the other two.
“Now, looking at 2B:2—”
Much more of this and Elizabeth would tap a hole right through the carpet, Rob thought. Maybe he ought to try to—but all at once his cell phone began to vibrate in his pocket, distracting him from plotting ways to derail Markman’s presentation.
Oh, damn, he thought. If there was anything the Dragon Lady