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  One of the officers, a redheaded woman named Fuller, waved. “Hey, Clinton,” she said. “How’s it going?”

  Newberry sputtered, trying to jerk away. “This son of a bitch tried to drown me!”

  Officer Fuller smiled. “Looked to us like you pushed him in the water but he saved your ass anyway.” She turned to Cutter. “I assume you’re the marshal.”

  Newberry clamored into the shallow end, coughing. A string of snot hung from the end of his nose. “Marshal? My charges ain’t federal.”

  “I happened to be in the area,” Cutter said. “You guys need anything from me?”

  Fuller spoke over her shoulder as she directed a sputtering Newberry to kneel on the tiled pool deck while she cuffed him. “Nope.”

  Cutter took the drowned cell phone from the pocket of his shorts and handed it up to Fuller. “Would you mind putting that on the bench there,” he said. “I still have some laps to do.”

  Fuller took the phone. Water drained from it onto the pale blue tile. “You know this is toast, right?”

  Cutter looked at Noose Neck Newberry and shook his head. “I know, right? I’m one lucky SOB. One less bad guy on the street and one less phone I have to worry about. Fifteen minutes in the sauna and this day will be just about perfect.”

  CHAPTER 8

  CARMEN DELGADO BRACED HERSELF AGAINST THE SIDE OF THE ALUMINUM skiff and set her lips in a tight line. She would have crossed her arms but she had to hold her video camera. The blocky housing of the Canon C300 muffled her voice. “I wasn’t happy about this yesterday,” she said. “And I absolutely hate it today.”

  The bottom of the little boat crunched against the gravel, forcing Delgado to grab a handful of gunnel. It ruined her shot, but she had to prepare herself for the approaching jolt that she knew would come when they ran aground. The sea was calm but even the small amount of wave action caused the skiff to rock, scraping against the shoreline.

  They’d spent the last two hours scouting locations on their way to this protected bay on the remote southeast side of the island. Greg Conner should have been shooting video. He was a much better cinematographer. But if Carmen had been at the tiller, she would have turned them around at the entrance. This place gave her the creeps.

  The prop burbled in the shallow surf like a child blowing bubbles in a milkshake as Greg gunned the thirty-horse motor to drive them farther onto the shore. He was eight years her junior—a mere twenty-one, barely old enough to buy beer for crying out loud. A constant flirt, his eyes held a mischievous sparkle, like Peter Pan with an overactive libido. The thick mop of dirty blond dreadlocks framed his face so that he looked like a young lion. He was cute and talented—a deadly combination in this business.

  “You worry too much,” he said for the fifth time in as many minutes. “Especially for someone who wears pajamas when we’re out on an important shoot.” He nodded at the checkered flannel pants Delgado had tucked into the top of her rubber boots.

  “Hey.” She smiled, flirting back in spite of her misgivings. “I told you, if I’m wearing my bra, these aren’t pajamas anymore.”

  Greg gave a husky chuckle. He was already looking through the viewfinder of a Canon C300 identical to Delgado’s, the instrument with which he did his magic. “Wear a bra . . . don’t wear a bra,” he said. “Those are still flannel jammies—and you still worry too much.”

  “So says the hardened criminal,” Carmen said. “I put my pajama-clad butt on the line to get you on this gig. You know how the network feels about people with felony records.”

  “That’s rich.” Conner smirked. “The network couldn’t give two shits about my record as long as we give them the footage they want.” He panned the Canon toward a tiny log cabin high above the gravel beach. The dark forest of loppy-topped hemlock trees provided a perfect backdrop. A low sun sent a jeweled trail across the surface, bathing the beach grass and the little cabin in glowing light. It was the golden hour—the scant few moments each day when otherwise ho-hum footage turned into solid . . . well, gold. And as field producer, Carmen Delgado knew the money people at the network who backed her reality show, FISHWIVES!, would love this shot.

  FISHWIVES! Carmen still found it difficult to believe this was the show her brainchild had morphed into. She’d pitched a number of ideas over the course of her career—a fish-out-of-water docu-follow about earnest young teachers facing the rigors of bush Alaska, an adventure series about young people working the many harsh and varied jobs the wilds of Alaska offered, and a half dozen other smart concepts. Beginning as Homeport, a show about the intertwined drama in the lives of fishing families in Southeast Alaska, the network had turned her idea into the grotesquely popular FISHWIVES! The title from the pejorative term for a loud and foul-mouthed woman—and Carmen Delgado was given the task of finding a cast that fit the description.

  In order to help her fall into line with their vision of the concept, the network uppity ups gave her creative credit along with the title of executive producer. As much as the particulars disgusted her, a show like this could make her career, so she made it her personal mission to keep things on track—and if not exactly legal, then at least defendable in court.

  She got a shot up the bank through the beach grass and brought the sod roof of the cabin into focus. Her camera may have been identical to Greg’s but she would get nowhere near the same quality of footage. It was a mystery how this kid who lived on a diet of nothing but alcohol, Red Bull, and Snickers bars—and shot by some sort of gut instinct over technical know-how—hit it out of the park every single time. If Greg Conner hadn’t been so hell-bent on flushing his personal life down the toilet, he would have been her boss by the time he was twenty-five.

  “Kenny’s going to kill us when he finds out we came all the way down here,” Delgado said.

  “Kenny is otherwise engaged, if you know what I mean.” Greg spoke without lowering his camera.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Delgado said, knowing full well what Kenny was doing, but not wanting to discuss it.

  “Never mind.” Greg kept his camera rolling but looked sideways at her. “Anyway, he’s not going to find out we’re here—unless you plan to tell him.”

  Network insurance required the production have a safety officer on site to guard against the various bugbears and dangers of any rural shoot. For FISHWIVES! Carmen had hired Kenny Douglas, an out-of-work commercial fisherman from Ketchikan who had landed a couple of jobs as security on other shows. Kenny wasn’t a tall man but he made up for it in rawboned muscle. It was his job to keep them from doing anything stupid—which included boating out to the middle of nowhere without him. He carried a .44 Magnum revolver in a holster across his chest and a knife as big as a sword on his belt. He smiled often, but most of the crew was of the consensus that this was because he’d just eaten a particularly tasty kitten. Delgado was scared to death of him.

  She looked through her viewfinder, scanning the perfect layers of gray gravel, green beach grass, and the black line of woods beyond. “I have to admit,” she said, “this place does look good in this light. I’m still not happy about us being on CCC property though.”

  “We’re not on mine property,” Greg mumbled.

  “The map says different,” Carmen said, rolling her eyes. This kid just wouldn’t stop.

  “Private land doesn’t start until you get above the tide line,” Greg said. He did a slow pan with the Canon. “It’s a law. No one can own the ocean. As long as we stay below that line of driftwood and other debris the tide has pushed up, we get the footage the network wants of a quaint little cabin in the woods, and nobody at the mine can say shit to us.”

  Carmen decided to stop talking and film since they were already here. A network exec had seen some early footage of Fitz and Bright Jonas, arguably the star couple on FISHWIVES! Fitz, a professional gillnetter, trawler, and long-liner, had the requisite scruffy foot-of-facial-hair, and crazy eyes to make him a much-loved reality television star. His
wife, Bright, possessed the flower-child look and sailor’s mouth to make her the quintessential Fishwife. There had been a frightening moment early in the casting process when Carmen discovered that Fitz was actually a gentle soul, despite his looks. Thankfully, Bright knew how to spin him up and they fought all the time on camera, making for just the sort of television the network and viewers craved. To top it off, Bright caused endless small-town drama with her neighbors—a recipe for pure television gold.

  There was, however, a very big problem. Fitz and Bright Jonas looked like Alaska fishermen, and they acted like the viewing public believed Alaska fishermen should act—but they lived in a sweet little white frame house in downtown Craig with a picket fence and a basketball hoop at the end of their driveway. The network insisted that they live in a cabin—and not just any cabin. More specifically a tiny, dilapidated log cabin somewhere secluded so that Bright could pitch a fit about her rustic accommodations—all to add to their origin story and give them a better arc. A successful fishing couple that continues to be successful didn’t make for good television, no matter how much Bright pissed off her neighbors. She needed to live in a house that looked like it was in the wilds of Alaska, not suburban Omaha.

  It was Greg’s idea to shoot the exterior of the dinky little cabin that sat on CCC Mine property. He suggested they even get a few shots of Fitz Jonas approaching in a skiff or Bright Jonas standing at the water’s edge—below the tide line of course—and cursing at her husband for leaving her home alone in their shack to go off to sea and fish. There was another cabin on the west side of the island, nearer to town, with a killer interior that they could use for the inside shots of Bright Jonas throwing down ultimatums at her poor husband. Once the footage was properly edited, the viewing public would have no idea that the interior and exterior were, in fact, nearly thirty miles apart by boat. By the second episode, the show runner would have Fitz Jonas working hard to appease his warring Fishwife with a new home, the quaint little white house with the picket fence and basketball hoop—where they’d actually lived all along.

  Most of the show was shot onboard fishing boats and in town between the arguing Fishwives, who, if the story arcs were to be believed, were a catty bunch of hateful women who were constantly at odds with each other and mistrustful of their husbands. Reality it was not, but it was sickeningly brilliant TV. The pilot episode had garnered a 1 rating. A million viewers was peanuts for the major networks, but for the niche markets of cable, it was enough for the network to order thirteen half-hour episodes.

  “This is money right here.” Greg set the Canon gently on a padded case in the floor of the boat long enough to step over the side. They were close enough to shore that the water came to mid-calf on his brown Xtratuf rubber boots.

  Carmen shook her head. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  He leaned in to retrieve the camera. “Calm down, Miss Jammie Pants. I promise not to go above the tide line.” He threw the camera to his eye as he turned toward the ocean. “We just need to get some footage as if Bright is looking out from her shitty cabin at the lonely-ass sea. . . . Dammit!”

  Carmen looked up to see Greg fiddling with the zoom on his lens.

  “What?”

  “I need a shot of the deserted bay from Bright Jonas’s lonesome point of view—and now we got another boat in the picture.”

  Delgado twisted in her seat, rocking the boat with her sudden movement. She caught herself, terrified for a split second that she would dump the twenty thousand dollars’ worth of gear. They were aground enough on the gravel that her movements didn’t matter. Calming herself, she used the zoom on her own camera to bring the image of the boat into better view—shooting all the while. It was better to waste a few megabytes of storage than miss something good. The light was right and there were ways they could always rub out the boat if they had to.

  “Is it one of ours?” Delgado’s voice buzzed against her hands as she watched the gleaming white vessel round the point at the east end of the bay. “Because we could totally make it work if it is.” It was less than a quarter mile away. By “one of ours” she meant any of the vessels featured in FISHWIVES!

  “I don’t recognize it,” Greg said. “Looks too big.”

  “Anyone we know?” Carmen zoomed in as close as she could, counting at least three men. “They look dark. Maybe they’re Tlingit or Haida.”

  “Beats me,” Greg said. “They don’t look very happy for having such a fancy yacht.”

  A glint of sunlight reflected off something in one of the men’s hands as the boat rounded up and put the sun behind it. Carmen steadied herself against the side of the rocking skiff and adjusted the focus until she saw one of the men held a pair of binoculars.

  He appeared to be looking directly at her.

  Gravel scraped aluminum and Carmen was thrown violently sideways as Greg shoved the little skiff back into deeper water and jumped aboard. She clutched her camera with one hand and the side of the boat with the other.

  “What the hell!” she said. “Sink us, why don’t you. These cameras are ten grand apiece.”

  Greg pulled the starter rope and brought the little thirty-horse to burbling life. “It might actually be time for you to worry,” he said. “The mine HQ is only a couple of miles around the corner. There’s a good chance the guys on the boat are coming from there.”

  “So?” Carmen said. “I thought you said we’re good as long as we stay below the tide line.”

  “We are good,” Greg said, using the tiller to steer the skiff toward the western side of the entrance, away from the yacht and back toward town. “I’m just not sure they know the law as well as I do.” Silver spray shot past the gunnels and the skiff began to bounce over the waves as they came up on step, gaining speed. Greg threw a nervous glance over his shoulder. “It’s something like sixteen miles back to town. I’m not a hundred percent sure we can outrun them.”

  Carmen tried to steady the camera but her shaking hands combined with the pitching of the skiff to make it almost impossible to get a clear picture. What she did see sent a cold chill down her back. “One of them has a rifle!” She had to shout over the roar of the outboard.

  “Hunters maybe.” Greg shot another look over his shoulder.

  “I don’t think so,” Carmen said. “Looks like they’re getting ready to launch a smaller boat from the back of the yacht.” She lowered the camera and turned to look at Greg. “I think they’re coming after us.”

  CHAPTER 9

  A BOARD PILAR, MANUEL ALVAREZ-GARZA GRABBED THE RAIL WITH both hands, gripping so hard his knuckles turned white. He could hardly keep his head from shaking. It was even worse than he had predicted. Less than two hours after landing in Alaska his fears had come to fruition. Not only had Camacho, one of the most wanted drug lords in the world, been seen, he’d been captured on video. For all Garza knew the people on the small boat were in the process of uploading this video via satellite at that very moment and streaming it across the World Wide Web.

  “Cut them off!” Camacho screamed, standing beside Garza at the rail. The lunatic waved his pistol in every direction, threatening to sink the vessel if it went off. He cursed and screamed at the sicarios as they prepared the small aluminum skiff that was tied to the stern of the larger vessel.

  “Bring them!” Camacho shouted, spitting as much as he talked. “Bring the sons of bitches to me! I will look into their miserable eyes and watch them die!”

  Beti stuck her head out of the wheelhouse door, looking bewildered at all the noise. A smile perked her lips.

  “Mi amor,” she trilled. “Are you sending for the awful woman who wore my things?”

  “You stupid whore!” Camacho threw his cigar, narrowly missing her face. “Get your ass back inside!”

  Her head vanished like a startled ground squirrel.

  “Ernesto,” Garza said. “Perhaps—”

  “Perhaps what, Manolo?” Camacho wheeled to face him, challenging. His neck was swollen, t
he veins mapping his crimson forehead pulsing with the anger of a man who’d been undone by his own stupidity. “You are so very smart. Perhaps you think now is the time for one of your lectures?” He thrust his pistol at Garza’s face, stabbing the air to make his point. “You would be wise, Manolo, to keep your lectures in your own throat.”

  He glared for a long moment, then lowered the pistol to his side before turning his wrath back on the sicarios.

  Garza drew his own pistol and shot Camacho above his left ear before he could say another word.

  “And you would be wise not to point a gun at the man you pay to protect you,” Garza said.

  He glanced up at the wheelhouse and the sicario who was driving the boat. Fausto was loyal to him, but even he stared through the window with his mouth agape.

  The other two men had already climbed into the skiff. The nearest let his hand drop toward his sidearm at the sound of the shot. None of the three men seemed to be able to make sense of what had just happened.

  Garza raised both arms, though he retained the pistol in his right hand. He raised his voice to address all of them. “You men know me,” he said above a stiffening breeze. “And you knew our patrón, Ernesto Camacho. Now know this: I will never point a gun at you unless I intend to pull the trigger.”

  The men stared at him, dumbfounded.

  Garza shrugged. “Are we good?”

  Fausto looked out the wheelhouse window, down at the shattered head of the man who had been his boss just seconds before, then gave Garza a nod. “Yes, Patrón,” he said. “We are good.”

  The other two nodded in quick agreement.

  “Camacho killed often and thought seldom,” Garza said. “You men know I have no problem with killing. But Los Leónes is larger than Ernesto Camacho. He was wanted by law enforcement officials in countless countries, and the discovery that he has a connection to the mine would have proved devastating. The American DEA has a price of half a million dollars on his head. He has now been seen. This not only endangers us, it endangers the shell company that owns the mine and the entire organization that provides us our livelihoods. Go now and take care of the people who have seen him.”