Crystal Blue (Buck Reilly Adventure Series Book 3) by John Cunningham (novels for beginners txt) 📕

use floats. Old Grumman amphibians like the Goose were called flying boats because their fuselages were actual hulls that sliced through the water at up to a hundred miles an hour before the physics of flight launched them aloft. It was a much more intimate relationship with the water, which I loved.

I glanced at my phone and found the same texts from Ray and Crystal: Call me.

It took one-third of the 7,000-foot runaway before the Beast was airborne and we lit out over Brewer’s Bay. With my cell phone connected to my headset, I called Ray first.

He went off about the celebrities he’d met. I banked to the northeast and flew at an angle so I could view St. Thomas’s mountainous region to try and find Boom-Boom’s place and Hellfire’s church. Ray had nothing else for me, so we signed off.

I cracked my knuckles and dialed Crystal’s number.

“There you are,” she said. “Have people started arriving—NO, put that over there!” Her voice boomed, but away from the phone.

It sounded like pandemonium in the background. When I told her Avery Rose declined a ride, she asked me to retrieve her from Peter Island and bring her to Jost for rehearsal. She also repeated Ray’s news about demands made by Stud’s kidnappers. I had trouble concentrating—the five million dollar insurance policy and her silence about her relationship with Stud were bugging the hell out of me.

There weren’t many dwellings in the mountainous area, but I flew with purpose until I found the old stone house where I’d been delivered to Boom-Boom. It was bigger than I thought, with two wings—a fortress surrounded by sheer rock cliffs and dense jungle. Several people emerged from the woods to peer up at me. The black SUV was parked next to the house.

I banked to follow the road down and spotted Hellfire’s church. Behind the woods at its back, I was surprised to see three other buildings.

Could John or Stud be in one of them?

Below all that was a path that led down to a dock. No boat, but direct water access. Boom-Boom said the red Cigarette rendezvoused with another boat in Pillsbury Sound to transfer Thedford. Could that boat have come to this dock?

I vectored west and dialed Harry.

“I thought you’d forgotten about me,” he said.

“Sorry, Harry. I guess it seems like I only call you when I need information these days. But with those, ah, sixty three companies—”

“Back to sixty four. In fact, your being in the Virgin Islands inspired me to acquire a telecommunications firm based in Roadtown, Tortola. And I much prefer your calling for knowledge than money, dear boy. But we are overdue for a social evening.”

Got to love Harry.

“So when I called you a few days ago, I know it was a really broad question, but did you have any luck?”

He chuckled. “Yes, well, I did query Percy’s accuracy in noting your inquiry. What he relayed to me was that you wanted to know if there were any radical groups so opposed to the adoption of children that they’d go to any length to prevent its becoming more commonplace.”

“I’d say Percy nailed it.”

“I was able to research through G&M, our security consultancy in Manhattan, and they did produce a list of rather disjointed possibilities, several pages in fact—”

“Tell you what, Harry, I’m in a major hurry here, so why don’t I mention a few things and see if any match what your group discovered?”

“Spot on,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“The obvious ones would be radical pro-life or pro-choice elements,” I said. “But rogue abortion clinic bombers and in-your-face reproductive rights groups? Abduction, blackmail, and torture don’t seem to fit their platitudes.”

The sound of paper rustling came through the phone.

“Hmmm…it says here…yes, G&M concurs with that line of thought.”

“So another one I’ve come across is a religious zealot who calls himself Reverend Hellfire. Anything on him?”

A brief rustling this time. “I’m afraid not, but if he’s a lone wolf, it’s unlikely we would have found him.”

“How about international opposition. Anything on that?”

More crackling of pages. “You can find opposition to nearly anything, but groups targeting adoption don’t come up specifically. However, when you factor in religion—”

“Stud Mahoney’s kidnappers have demanded that prisoners be released from Guantanamo,” I said.

“So there you are. An obvious connection. Muslims oppose adoption.”

“Could it really be Muslim extremists? They get blamed for everything these days.” I sighed. “Anything else on the international front?”

“You also have the overseas export of children, a.k.a. adoption, recently virtually outlawed by the Russians. But unfortunately the picture becomes quite muddled when you examine the broader perspective.”

With Tortola now close, I asked Harry to keep digging and promised to call again later.

Muddled indeed.

THE FLIGHT FROM ST. THOMAS to Beef Island, the spit of land connected to Tortola where the international airport is situated, would be over in moments, but I had a few things I wanted to check first. At an altitude of 3,000 feet I could see every island in the BVI, big and small. The sky was partially clear, but the large cumulous clouds that had been building all day rocked the Beast with serious turbulence.

Somewhere down there were John Thedford and Stud Mahoney. I hoped they were still alive—and that I’d find them before it was too late. Or before Boom-Boom’s threats to bring trouble to Adoption AID came true, which amounted to the same thing.

As Tortola grew larger ahead of me I added flaps and pointed the nose of the Beast toward its west end. The harbor there was where the ferries docked and boaters passed through Customs, but across the harbor was an island officially named Frenchman’s Cay but known as Soper’s Hole.

I buzzed over Soper’s and focused on the boatyard and marina where Pusser’s and the Blue Parrot bars were located. I saw several large catamarans but no red-hulled Cigarette. I circled south, over Pillsbury Sound, and scanned the harbor again—nothing aside from some damn nice cruising ships.

With Tortola