The scant sunlight had failed to burn the heavy fog off Mobile Bay by late morning. Although sixty degrees, the day remained too blustery and generally dismal for most pool or waterfront activities. A few joggers and bicyclists used the trails through the Grand Hotel’s lush grounds. The G-20 security teams couldn’t have been more conspicuous. Many of the agents wore shiny black coats emblazoned with SECRET SERVICE and HAZMAT and COUNTERSNIPERS. The conference wouldn’t kick off until evening, but guard stations already formed a wall around the hotel’s main lodge and surrounding buildings. Still more security types swarmed the grounds.
In hope of passing for one of the joggers, Charlie donned the running suit and Nikes he’d purchased at a strip mall on the way out of Hattiesburg. As he loped away from the hotel, he heard high-pitched squeals and giggles. A hedgerow parted, revealing children on a playground, well within the blast range of the plastic explosive in the ADM he suspected was at the Mobile Bay Marina.
He continued toward the marina. To someone on the lookout for him now, any of the wigs would be a giveaway. So he had also bought a battery-powered hair clipper and, standing at the mirror of the mall’s deserted men’s room, shaved back most of his hairline. The rest he trimmed into a buzz cut. Gel slathered over his newly bald areas made it appear that years had passed since he’d had any hair there. He added wraparound sunglasses whose “fire-iridium”-the manufacturer’s term for “red”-lenses would divert attention from his features.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t much of a jogger. And propelling himself forward now proved an even greater struggle than usual due to the bullet wound in his shoulder as well as the two layers of long underwear he wore beneath his running suit, intended to make him look stocky.
A few yards shy of the marina’s side entrance, he dropped his hands onto his knees as if catching his breath. No pretense necessary. A shiny white power boat that looked like a miniature cruise ship now occupied the Campodonico slip by the end of the dock. Reclining in a canvas chair on the stern deck was a man of between thirty and forty, face buried in a magazine. He wore dark glasses, a Grand Hotel golf windbreaker, and a pair of Bermuda shorts. He had dark brown hair and a goatee. The Bermuda shorts alone-really, the bronzed, muscular legs the shorts revealed-were enough for Charlie to recognize the glasses, brown wig, and glue-on goatee for what they were. Ever the peacock: Bream should have worn long pants.
Instead of feeling the thrill of being right, Charlie was stumped. He had no idea how to stop Bream. He could alert the Secret Service, but they’d probably just throw him back in the local drunk tank, and then, worse, alert Bream. The CIA might help, but not before cables for authorizations ate up the remainder of the day. Or Eskridge might have Charlie thrown back in the drunk tank.
Charlie weighed contending with Bream himself. The pilot had probably deemed it too great a risk to entrust his cargo to anyone but himself, meaning his plan was to charm Captain Glenny, then hang out on the yacht until he made the transaction. Or possibly he was waiting for all of the G-20 leaders to arrive, at which time he would switch to a car and drive beyond the blast radius. Thirty miles on the interstate ought to do it. There he would detonate the bomb by pressing a button on a remote control, or, if he had adapted the detonator, by dialing a cell phone.
Charlie wished he had a gun. He reeled from flashbacks of the pawn shops he’d blown past. With all of his damned preparation, how had he gotten to this point without even a penknife?
He considered luring Bream away from the yacht, then somehow getting aboard himself. Once he found the washer, he could permanently disable the detonator by dialing an incorrect code three times, activating its safeguard, a capacitor that would essentially fry the system. It would take him two minutes, tops.
But how could he get Bream out of the way, even for one minute?
Charlie looked around for a fire alarm to pull, then realized that Bream would just stay by his yacht. A boat surrounded by water wasn’t a bad place to be during a fire. At best, the alarm would clear the marina, making Charlie’s approach as conspicuous as if he’d set himself on fire.
What about a pizza delivery?
Less stupid, the more Charlie thought about it. As on several of the boats docked here, a few of the Campodonico yacht’s windows were opened a crack to keep the cabin from getting stuffy. While Bream and the Domino’s guy stood in the parking lot trying to get to the bottom of the delivery error, Charlie could squeeze through a window and into the cabin. Unless the Domino’s guy brought the pie right to Bream’s yacht. Either way, Bream might notice. As would Glenny-Charlie detected movement behind the frosted glass window of the harbormaster’s office.
He was mulling a more discreet approach via the bay, capitalizing on the kayaks sitting on the beach at the hotel, when Bream stood up and locked the door to the cabin from outside.
Crouching behind a bush, Charlie watched the pilot straddle the starboard rail, thump onto the dock, and walk with purpose toward the parking lot. Possibly he was going to the little village to get lunch. Whatever he was doing, if it involved leaving the marina, he ought to be gone long enough for Charlie to gain access to the yacht. And it might be Charlie’s only chance.