Chapter 10 - The Boat Without a Flag
The fishing boat left the marina at 12:18 a.m. with its navigation lights on and its name concealed beneath a tarp. Gavin Voss sat at the cabin table reviewing bank transfers while his younger brother stared through the windshield.
“You should've let Mercer die,” Gavin said.
Russell's jaw tightened. “He should have been declared missing until the cleanup was complete.”
“Instead he's talking to lawyers, and your accountant is talking to investigators.”
“Simone won't have enough to convict anyone.”
“Then why are we leaving?”
Russell did not answer. He had built his career on the appearance of certainty. For years, he had described failures as misunderstandings, missing records as security necessities, and frightened witnesses as unreliable. The difference between official procedure and his personal authority had gradually disappeared in his mind. Now documents were forcing that distinction back into the open.
Two miles offshore, a warning light blinked on the engine panel. Gavin swore, opened a compartment, and pulled out a waterproof satellite phone. Before he could call anyone, Russell caught his wrist.
“Who are you contacting?”
“The man who arranged the vessel.”
“Give me the phone.”
“Don't start acting righteous now.”
Russell grabbed the device. The brothers struggled, knocking a mug across the cabin. The boat lurched as the autopilot disengaged. Gavin struck his head against the table edge and fell unconscious.
Russell stood over him, stunned by how quickly violence had replaced planning.
He called for medical assistance on the marine radio, then changed his mind and cut the transmission. For nearly a minute he did nothing. At last he used the emergency channel and gave the vessel's location. He had spent months trying to bury one injured man; now his brother's bleeding head had reduced every calculation to a simple choice.
The Coast Guard found the boat before dawn. Gavin was taken for emergency treatment, and Russell was detained under a warrant that had been issued after his departure. An officer photographed the cabin and secured the documents still scattered across the table.
On the vessel was a manifest listing names associated with Blue Harbor's altered audit records. One of them was Carter Webb. Another was Owen Pike. A third belonged to a contractor named Elias Shaw, listed as a missing civilian source on the official mission report.
The unexpected name forced Nora Chen to reconsider the entire incident. If Shaw existed, then Daniel's insistence that no protected civilian had boarded the rescue boat might be correct without proving the civilian was imaginary. The man could have been listed as rescued to conceal a different outcome.
Daniel learned about Russell's arrest during a therapy break. He sat beside the parallel bars, trying to understand why victory felt so incomplete.
“Carter's still dead,” he said.
Nora nodded.
“Owen's still missing.”
“Yes.”
“And you still don't know who put the explosives in that building.”
“No.”
Daniel rubbed his face. “Then don't call this over.”
“I wasn't going to.”
Outside, the first dry afternoon in days had brought families into the hospital courtyard. Emma was sitting under a crepe myrtle, reading an application for a community-health grant. Daniel walked out with a cane and Marcus beside him. He had reached the point where short, supervised walks were part of his treatment.
“You look like somebody fighting with a spreadsheet,” Daniel said.
Emma glanced up. “It's winning.”
He sat at the other end of the bench, leaving space between them. Marcus continued around the path.
“What's the application for?” he asked.
“A pilot program. Evening appointments, care-navigation volunteers, workshops for patients who've had traumatic medical experiences.”
“Sounds like your clinic.”
“It's not a clinic yet. It's a paragraph about a clinic.”
“A paragraph is more than nothing.”
She smiled. “You always this optimistic?”
“Only about other people's plans.”
He watched a small boy race his father toward a fountain. “They found Voss,” he said.
“I heard.”
“I imagined I'd feel better.”
“You don't have to feel what you think you're supposed to.”
He looked at her. “Sometimes I wish you weren't always right.”
“Ask Ben. I'm wrong all the time.”
Daniel laughed, and this time it didn't make him wince.
At the edge of the courtyard, Julia lifted a camera to capture her brother sitting in sunlight. She lowered it without taking the photograph. For months she had lived with the belief that an image might be the last evidence someone she loved had existed. Now she wanted to remember the moment, not turn it into proof.
That night police received a tip from a maritime mechanic who had serviced the fishing boat. He told them Gavin had asked for a second passage, one that would collect a passenger from a secluded dock on the Elizabeth River.
May you like
The passenger was described as an injured man with a beard and a tattoo of a broken compass on his forearm.
Owen Pike had that tattoo.
