“Should we leave?”
“Let’s stay put, and see what they want.”
A truck backed into the lot and parked next to the restaurant. It was painted blue and said, CRYSTAL ICE, SERVING PINELLAS COUNTY FOR 50 YEARS. Two uniformed men worked with admirable efficiency unloading and transferring bags of ice by dollies to a large ice machine on the side of the building. One of the men opened the padlock on the machine with a combination, then relocked it when they were done.
His partner came over to Daniels’s vehicle holding a receipt in his hand.
“He must think we’re the owners,” she said.
“Let’s not disappoint him,” he said.
He hopped out and engaged the man. He was handed a pen, and scribbled his name on the line acknowledging the order of ice had been received. The truck left, and he got back into the passenger seat and handed Daniels the receipt.
“Two hundred pounds of ice,” he said. “Looks like they’re having a party.”
Daniels burned down RichJo Lane and crossed the road to where her team was parked. They huddled up, and she explained to them what needed to be done. They were going to set up a surveillance of the area that would allow them to monitor every vehicle that went into, and pulled out of, RichJo Lane. This would include surveillance equipment mounted on vehicles and parked in strategic locations, plus satellite monitoring of the neighborhood. Then, she placed a call into the FBI’s Tampa office, and requested a team of additional agents to help with the bust.
Lancaster stayed in the car, content to be a fly on the wall. This was Beth’s show, and he did not want to give the perception of interfering. Beth’s team didn’t trust him, and the best thing he could do was keep a low profile.
He decided to open Gar’s app to see if the blinking purple dot had returned. To his surprise, the dot was there, blinking away. It appeared to be fairly close. Was Dexter right around the corner, and they’d somehow missed him?
Staring at the cell phone’s screen, he saw what the problem was. The dot was in the ocean, moving away from land.
Chapter 36
Holding his cell phone, he managed to pull Beth away from her team. The purple dot was continuing to cross the water, and she stared at it, then at him.
“He’s in a boat,” she said.
“If we’re lucky, we might be able to spot him.”
“I’ll drive.”
He used his cell phone to find the nearest marina. It was in a town due south of Palm Harbor called Ozona, and Beth ran two red lights getting there. The marina shared parking with a popular restaurant, and the lot was overflowing with vehicles. She parked on the shoulder of the road, and they got out.
“Let’s find the manager,” she said. “Maybe he has a boat we can use.”
The ponytailed hippie who ran the marina was named Chuck. Chuck looked like he smoked his breakfast and drank his lunch. Seeing Daniels’s badge, he sobered up in a hurry. “Sorry, but all of our rental boats are out right now,” he said. “If you like, I can take you out on my fishing boat. I know the waters around here pretty well.”
They accepted his offer and soon were racing across Saint Joseph Sound in a thirty-foot Boston Whaler. A mile from shore, the waters became crowded, with dozens of pleasure boats out for an enjoyable excursion. The purple dot on Lancaster’s phone had stopped moving, and he realized that one of these rigs contained Dexter and his broker friend.
“Is it always this crowded?” Daniels shouted.
“This is nothing. You should see the weekends,” Chuck shouted back.
“What happens on the weekends?”
Chuck killed the engine so they could talk. He came to the front of the boat, where Daniels was sitting, and pointed at the body of land to the west. It looked like a tropical paradise with sandy white beaches and towering palm trees. It appeared big enough to accommodate people, yet had only a handful of structures.
“See that little piece of heaven over there?” Chuck said. “It’s called Honeymoon Island, and it’s rated one of the top beaches in the world. Mankind hasn’t ruined it yet, which is why tourists are so eager to see it.”
Lancaster continued to stare at his phone. The dot was close to the shore of Honeymoon Island, but so were a lot of vessels, and it made him wonder if Dexter had brought his guest here to do some sightseeing.
Daniels was also studying Gar’s app on her cell phone. Lancaster joined her at the front of the boat and said, “This is strange, don’t you think?”
“They’re doing business,” she said.
“You think so? They could be fishing, for all we know.”
“I’ve dealt with slave brokers before, and they’re all business. They show up, pay for the merchandise, and leave. Dexter must be keeping the victims somewhere nearby.” She called to Chuck, who stood on the other side of the boat. “Does Honeymoon Island have houses for rent?”
“Afraid not,” Chuck replied. “It’s a state park, and stuff like that isn’t allowed. The only buildings are the gift shop and a snack bar.”
“So much for that idea,” she said.
She had Chuck drive the boat around, hoping to get lucky. They made visual contact with people in several boats, but none of them resembled Dexter.
“We’re just getting a sunburn,” Beth said. “Let’s go back to the marina. I need to coordinate with the FBI agents that are being sent by the Tampa office.”
It wasn’t Lancaster’s show, so he said nothing. Chuck pulled the boat into the marina twenty minutes later and tied up. When Daniels offered to compensate him for his time, the marine manager politely declined.
“I don’t know what this is all about, but I’m sure it’s for a good cause,” he said. “Good luck with whomever you’re trying to find.”
There was a science to conducting a surveillance operation that required law enforcement to keep its presence a secret or risk having the operation blow up in its face. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms had found this out the hard way after a resident in the town of Waco had alerted the leader of the Branch Davidians that their compound was about to be raided. This had resulted in the deaths of four government agents, and the eventual deaths of eighty-two members of the cult.
The director of the FBI’s Tampa office did not want something similar happening to his agents when they raided the Outlaws’ hideout, so he had set up headquarters in a spacious suite at the Beso Del Sol Resort in Dunedin, a ten-minute drive away.
Lancaster counted twelve agents as he entered the suite. Daniels’s entire team was present, the rest Tampa based. An aerial map of Palm Harbor was pinned to the wall, and they were deciding the best way to conduct their raid.
The Tampa director stood by the window on his cell phone. His name was Special Agent Christopher Baldini, and he had ex-military written all over him: short haircut, ramrod-straight posture, steely gaze. He folded his phone and came toward them.
“Special Agent Daniels,” he said. “Chris Baldini.”
They briskly shook hands. As Daniels started to introduce Lancaster, Baldini cut her short. “I know who your friend is,” he said.
“You know each other?” Daniels said.
“I didn’t say that.” He shot Lancaster a disapproving look. “You’re the crazy bastard that likes to shoot out motorcycle tires and cause accidents.”
“Jon Lancaster. Nice to meet you,” he said.
“Are you trying to be funny? Because you’re not. It’s people like you that give law enforcement a bad name,” Baldini said, seething.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re not the guy in the YouTube video that was posted last night?”