“Who am I going to tell? Besides, where I’m going, I won’t have much contact with the outside world.”
Tired and sweaty, we twisted the tops off bottles of water and guzzled them down. Rehydrated, we grabbed the gear and made our way back to the boat. We tossed everything aboard, climbed over the gunwale, and weighed anchor. Jack took the helm and fired up the engines. He navigated us out of the bay, and we circled the island once again to make sure no one else had made their way out here during ouroperation.
Satisfied no one had seen us, we headed back to Coconut Key feeling somewhat accomplished. I figured the case was safe. It would buy us a little time to figure out who Nathan Mercer was and why he was killed.
Flynn sparked up a joint on the ride back.
I gave him a sour look. "Flynn! You can't do that."
He dismissed the notion. "Come on, live a little, brother. Where I'm going, I'm not going to be able to indulge in any sensory delights for 21 days.”
"Are you sure this is an adventure you really want to go on?" I asked.
Flynn looked at me like I was crazy. "Hell yes! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Plus, you’ve seen what kind of publicity this has already generated." Flynn took another drag, and the cherry glowed. He exhaled the smoke, and it drifted away with the breeze as we bounced across the water.
He leaned in with a grin, those mischievous eyes cooking up all kinds of plans. "Think of the possibilities. There is a story in this training mission. There is a story in the actual mission. Everywhere I look, there's a story. And together, we’re going to produce them all. I'm talking blockbusters."
Flynn loved to dream, and dream big. Nothing wrong with that.
"By the time I get back to the surface, I'll expect you to have finished the first draft of the Mickey Malibu story. We gotta stay on schedule."
“I’ll have it done,” I assured. At the time, I couldn’t have imagined how the next few weeks would unfold.
We returned to the marina, grabbed our gear, and transferred to theAvventura. Buddy greeted us with excitement as we boarded the boat. I knelt down and petted the little Jack Russell, then grabbed his leash and took him out for a short walk.
Isabella called me back when I reached the parking lot. "I've got some information on Nathan Mercer. I don't know if it helps you figure out what's in that case, but it's a start."
9
“Nathan is an interesting cat," Isabella said. "Graduate of MIT, bounced around a few different technology companies, then worked as a defense contractor at Ravenwerks Industries. Got fired for insubordination, safety violations, and generally poor disposition. Didn’t get along well with others. Not a team player. Disappeared, went off grid, and built his own lab. He filed for bankruptcy 10 years ago and has been a rather eccentric recluse ever since. No presence on social media. Has shunned a lot of modern technology and demonized social media.”
"Obviously, the guy’s extremely paranoid, traveling under an alias," I said.
"10 years ago, he was talking about people trying to kill him and said they would do anything to destroy and discredit his work. I think he may not have been far off the mark.”
"You have any idea what he's been working on for the last decade?"
"No,” Isabella said. “I can't find anything, and trust me, I've looked.”
"What was he doing in Coconut Key?”
"He didn't have a phone in his name, and he never used a burner from his off-grid compound. If he was communicating with someone in Coconut Key, he was very clever about it. He could have been using a remote terminal, an encrypted email, a burner phone away from his compound, who knows?”
“I found a phone on him. It’s at the department. The IT guys are trying to get into it. They’ve made a clone of the device.”
“If you give me the IMEI number, I can link it to a cell number and check the history. Should be able to get that information from the SIM card or it could be printed on the battery compartment or the battery itself.”
“I’m on it.”
“I'll keep digging into this. I'm intrigued."
"Thank you. I appreciate that.”
"I take it you didn't get into the case yet?”
"No, but I stashed it someplace safe for the time being."
"Be careful. Nathan Mercer was a brilliant man by all accounts. Judging by the heat around this thing, he was onto something game-changing.”
