Long Overdue Time Away Ch. 09

The reception was still going strong when Karen and I returned to the house. The plan had been to leave in the morning and we wanted to get a good nights rest before leaving.

"Hey Babe, lets sit for a minute, there are a few things we need to talk about before morning."

Karen knew my serious tone, and she was searching my eyes for a clue as she was walking into the front room to sit with me.

"What's going on? I saw you and Chris talking and judging from the look you had something is wrong. What is it?"

"After the thing we had happen at the airport I put some feelers out to find out about the shooter. I needed to know if it was a lone wolf or part of a bigger network. Chris was helping me on it, his contacts are a little more current than mine. We didn't get anything back until yesterday. It seems our guy attended a mosque that is on the terror watch list."

"But San Diego PD said it was a suicide thing." They didn't say anything about it being terror related."

"They wouldn't, they never made the suicide note public. They might not have even gone that far with their investigation. Even if they had it would be out of their hands now. Chris says the FBI is on it. And that the State debt. is even reviewing it. He had traveled to Syria, more than once. If it has the attention of the State Dept. the CIA is going to be all over it.

"But he didn't look Middle Eastern, he was white, I think, wasn't he? Gosh its all a blur now, it happened so fast. Even after you shot him I didn't look at him again. You shielded me from him. I barely even noticed him before. All of a sudden he had me by the neck, and all I saw was his gun and everyone panicking."

I don't think I have ever seen Karen like this before. She had the saddest expression I have ever seen on her face. This was clearly pulling up emotions she had buried. I was starting to see another side of this, one I always separated myself from. That's how we operated, it was business. As soon as we left the scene I put the wheels in motion checking on this guy, gathering intel. That's what we did in the security force. We didn't have time for emotion, it wasn't an asset to us. It only clouded things. Even the day it happened... it's strange, I separated my self from it somehow and looked for the angle. Its how we were trained. Slow it down, look for the angle, then hit the gas with overwhelming force. It's how we solved things.

"You ok?" Karen could see I was lost in my thoughts. Suddenly snapping me back to right now.

"Yah...I guess all of a sudden this got personal. I have stuffed the emotions of this. Until right now...I'm sorry, this is strange territory for me, I thought I could handle it like I always have. Treat it like an op. But its not an op. This is our lives. Its your life...

So, I think we need to delay leaving in the morning."

"Ok for how long, it's our honeymoon!" Karen looked disappointed.

"Here are my thoughts, we don't know enough about the captain the boat dealer is sending with us. I think what we do is Chris and I go on a training ride with our captain tomorrow morning. It will give us a chance to check him out some, while he is training me on the boat Chris will look through his belongings and see what this guy is about. It will delay us at least a day. Chris wants to be on the boat with us, I know its something Al would normally do, you had brought that up and I should have paid more attention. And if you want it to be him, I'm ok with that, just know Chris is willing."

"That sounds ok, I'm disappointed but it does sound smart given what we learned about the airport guy." Karen exhaled like she was reaching a resolve. I could see the wheels turning in her head. Being in business had taught her to process things and she has a good brain. While her disappointment is understandable I knew all this made sense to her.

"Really we will be safer on the boat than we would be, provided this captain is nothing to worry about. We will have less exposure to the public being on the water in a boat than we have had. Since the airport, nothing else has happened and chances are, all of this is only a precaution. It's likely you were a target of opportunity and not part of a larger plan. But I think we do our diligence on this guy."

"I guess I'm used to all of this going on without my involvement. All this security stuff. Without me knowing." Karen was looking at me a little puzzled.

"You have never had anything like this happen before...have you?" Karen knew what I meant by the question, there have been a few surprises along the way.

"No". She looked at me like, really! "I should be aware. I guess I just tried to put the airport thing behind me. I guess we just categorized it as a opportunistic attack. And now with this new information we need to find more out."

"My disappointment isn't with you, or anyone for that matter. It's just...my honeymoon! You know, I wanted to just have that time with you, have fun, take our new boat out! The timing of it sucks. It's not anyone's fault. Its just a little disconcerting That's all."

"And we will. Hold on to all of that. We are going to do all of it. Give me a day. It's likely a quick background is all we need on this guy. We can have someone do that while we are on the water. I'll get Al involved in the morning. I'm sure we can do this quickly."

We went to bed. And while it would have in other circumstances been a memorable romp in the sack. I mean it was our wedding night. We just went to sleep. Or at least I did. I think Karen tossed and turned. I had developed a discipline of being satisfied with a plan and putting my mind to sleep. I went to sleep with her in my arms and was content with that.

**********************************

Karen did go to sleep. She was sleeping soundly when I got up to meet Chris and Al.

It was 6:30, the diner opens at 6:00 and we wanted to get a jump on our day. Karen and I were regulars here and the morning staff recognized me. Jennifer, our waitress greeted me with her usual smile and a good morning. Al had met Chris at the engagement party and again at the wedding so they had a little familiarity. I jumped ahead on this and took the lead, it seemed natural. It would seem natural for all of us. But with my interest in it no one challenged it. We decided it made sense for Al to spearhead the investigation into the captain, check his employment history, send a private investigator to talk to other employees at the boat yard, talk to neighbors, at least hit the high spots with the limited scope we had at this time. If something came up we would expand from there and re evaluate our departure.

Chris would handle the boat. Check the captains belongings scan the boat for surveillance equipment and look for obvious signs of malfeasance.

All this would be happening while I was learning about the boat and profiling our captain.

"I haven't alerted the boat yard of our delay. I want to see how our captain reacts to a change of plans." The waitress came by and asked how we were doing? When she did there was a pause in our conversation. I could tell it perked a curiosity. I was usually here with Karen or on occasion by my self. After she left our table I went on, "I want to see if he makes a call. If he does to who? Can we trace his calls?"

Al piped in "we need a number ahead for that."

"Even if we had one, in this short of time, not likely." Chris shook his head.

"Either way, I think there could be something to learn just from how he handles himself." I looked at them and they nodded in agreement.

We were finishing our breakfasts and decided Chris and I should head to the boat. Our guess is that the captain would want to be there early to get things warmed up before he expected us at 9:00. And it was 7:30 now.

************************************************

"Good morning." I shook the captain's hand as he came aboard. "This is Chris, he is security." After making the introductions I let Greg know we were going to be delaying our departure, We had something come up. We can still spend what ever time we need to this morning on getting us up to speed on the boat. "We'll get you a room in town so you wont have to drive tomorrow." I told him.

"I can stay on board, I'll be here for the duration of the trip anyways."

"The hotel room is no problem, don't worry you're on the clock. It's not your fault we had something come up and delay us. We will be bringing suitcases and what not aboard later and this way we wont disturb you."

"Well thats very generous, thank you. Let's get this thing warmed up and get ready to push off."

"Tell you what, tell me what to do and let me do it so I can learn what the procedures are." He agreed that was the best way and proceeded to run me through the startup process.

"Don't be shy, tell us what you want us to do, you wont be stepping on any toes, we are going to need to learn how to do this without you." Chris told him.

"Go ahead and untie us then , there are places for the fenders next to the cabin. By the time you are done with that we'll be ready." He told Chris over his shoulder as he was looking the instruments over and telling me what each one was for. I could see Chris untie, coil the ropes and put the fenders up as I looked through the windows. He paused long enough to send a text before coming back into the wheel house. "Everything about the engines is easy. The most complex system on the boat is the fresh water making system. Being a passage maker it'll desalinate water, but its not automatic. You have to keep track of water levels and usage. As long as you understand how it operates you'll get the hang of it."

Greg gave me the run down on getting underway and once we were out of the harbor he put us on a heading he switched on the auto pilot. And said he had to go to the head. I took the opportunity to check my phone and could see Chris had included me on a text to Al letting him know what car in the lot was Gregs. I sent a quick good morning text off to Karen. It was 10:00 and she would be up by now.

The Oregon coast is beautiful seen from a boat. I could see how relaxing this would be if my thoughts weren't preoccupied by the recent news of who the shooter at the airport was. We drove the boat for a couple of hours, Greg helped with the auto pilot, GPS, and the radar and the interface between them. Really everything is very intuitive. It was past noon and I still hadn't received a text back from Karen, it was a little out of character to not get anything back but I wasn't worried sometimes she got busy.

I shot a text to Al to see if he had heard from her.

"Hey Jim, lets go down to the the engine room, I want to go over some maintenance things with you. Climbing down the stairs Greg was going on about maintenance schedules and that most owners just let someone else do it. In fact many of them just hire captains. "You would be surprised at how many of these just sit in the slip and rarely move. It's shame really. With the options you ordered on this, I doubt thats the case with you."

We came back up and Greg went back to the wheel house and Chris and I stayed back outside. I wanted to compare notes.

"Hey buddy, I just talked to Al and he's not able to find Karen. She's not at your house. No one that is staying there have seen her. Her phone is there, car and keys are there, but she isn't."

"Ok, we cant do anything from here. Why don't you go up to the wheel house and lets get the boat headed for the harbor. I'm going to call Al and find out what he knows. I don't want to panic. But lets get ahead of it if she's missing."

My conversation with Al didn't offer anything to ease my anxiety, it seemed like Karen just disappeared. Especially coming from a guy trained to look objectively at this kind of stuff.

"Jim, I wish I had more to tell You. No one in the house heard anything, no struggle, no doors opening and closing nothing. They got up and she wasn't here. Her phone is here, her keys, car, every thing except her."

Al had talked to everyone she would likely be with. They were all in town still. No one had heard from her. As far as anyone knew she was going to spend the morning at home.

The motors were at full throttle and I estimated we would be back to the marina forty five minutes. I knew Chris would be pushing Greg, plying him to see what was there. As much as I wanted to go up there and take over, I knew it wouldn't help. I had to let others play their role. Chris was good at this.

I called Al and and rattled off what I wanted to happen. "Al, first. Is there any chance she is out on a run or something! That doesn't seem right to me. One of us would know. Has she ever done this before? Under any kind of stress? Where does she go? What does she do? "

Al knew I hated to say these things. I should know all these things, and I thought I did. But the fact remained, AL had worked for her a long time. Much longer than I had been around. This wasn't a time for pride.

"Jim, you know Karen, stress isn't an issue for her . Look at what she manages. She attacks things head on. Sure she needs down time. But I always know about it. This isn't her needing some time away. I talk to her every day, I know when she is getting stressed. This is not that. The wedding wasn't a source of stress. She was looking forward to it. I'm concerned, this is way outside of what I would expect."

"Ok, strap in then, we have to go fast. I want a situation room up and people in play faster than anyone thinks we can. If She has been taken someone will make a contact, whether its to us or the media. I want to be ahead of them when they do. Let's get a drone and chopper on standby. I need you to be talking to Chris, he can get resources. Let's put a detract team together. If we haven't already we need to get Jeff the Sheriff involved. You know the drill, we'll do the heavy lifting they'll get the credit, but we need him on board. I'm going to want him to detain and question our boat captain, I want it recorded. Let's open a line of communication with your contacts at the FBI, they wont touch this until its established its in their jurisdiction, but I want to be talking to them. Mention my name. It's been several years since I worked with them, but someone will know someone. We want them on our side."

"A lot of this is happening now. Let me know when you are in, we'll touch bases and decide where we are. I'm in my office, I have eyes at your house. Whoever has Karen knew where she would be. No one who just got married spends the first night at home. They got to someone. I want to give them some room to make a mistake. It's key we know who that is." Al was on this, he knew what hung in the balance.

I went up to the wheel house to join Chris and Greg, we would be coming through the break water soon and I wanted some time in there to find out what I could. Greg was nervous when I walked into the wheelhouse. He tried to just watch where the boat was going. As we turned to go through the break waters Greg was sweating. I was studying him and he knew it. I didn't say anything. Sometimes silence spoke volumes and was a great communicator. I was content to let that work for a few minutes. It wasn't until we turned the corner to our row of slips that I spoke to him.

"You know you are going to be detained, when we get in right?" He exhaled and his shoulders dropped. I could see he was searching for the right words. I'm sure Chris made it was clear this was big, and he would feel the gravity of it. I never broke my stare as I waited for an answer.

"How long will this take? I mean I have nothing to hide here." He would briefly glance over at me before looking straight forward again. "I'm really sorry your wife is missing, but man, I don't know anything about that. I'm going to need to make a call, my boss will want to know there is a problem, I need to let him know." He was visibly nervous. It didn't necessarily mean anything. If a client gets kidnaped and you know you are a suspect it will do that to you.

I looked at Chris, I wanted to know if he had this guys cell number and we had a trace set up. Chris gave me a nod. "Why don't you do that as soon as you pull into the slip. You are going to be pretty busy after we are tied up."

Chris and I walked out of the wheel house and went to opposite sides of the boat to get ready to put the fenders out and tie up. Greg was using the bow thruster to line us up with the slip and eased the boat in. Despite his nerves this guy was a good captain, he was flawless getting into the slip. As soon as he was in he was on his phone.

Jeff was in uniform dockside flanked by two of his Deputies. I could see Al up in the parking lot in his suit. He was always well dressed, he's tall and in shape and with his shaved head is an imposing presence. Even from a hundred yards away you can't help but notice him. As soon as we were tied up the deputy's were on board and talking to Greg. I could see them search him. So far no cuffs were used but they flanked him on each side.

Jeff met me dockside and shook my hand and placed his other hand on my shoulder in comfort. "Jim, I want you to know we will do what ever we can. Karen is a personal friend of mine as well as a pillar to the community. We want her back as bad as you do."

Jeff is a big man in his fifties, barrel chested with a booming voice and a kind demeanor. I know Karen liked him.

"I appreciate that Jeff."

"Ok, Jim" he put his hand on my shoulder again. "Lets get to it then." We were walking up the ramp from the docks up to the parking lot while we talked. "Al told me everything you are doing. We appreciate all thats being done on your end, and I have no problem with it. We investigate boats being broken into, an occasional car theft and write tickets. You guys are better suited for it and I know that. But you have to let me in, I need to know what you are doing. We don't want to be stepping on each other and I don't want surprises."

"We'll make sure there is a liaison between us, I'm going to point you to Al on that one. You two can figure out if it's going to be your guy, or our guy. Honestly I just got my feet on the ground and being as close to this as I am Its going to take a minute to figure out where I fit here." Chris was catching up to us and made a point walk next to us. I introduced him to Jeff.

Just then Nancy ran up to me and hugged me she was shaking and I could tell she had been crying. "I'm so sorry! We didn't hear anything. I don't know how this could have happened. I'm so worried." I could see her start to tear up.

"Nancy, we cant...I cant, I don't have time to cry. I'm sorry. I have too much to do. The best thing is for you to go back to the house and think if there is anything you can think of that might help find Karen. Anything the last few days that was unusual, write it down. Anyone thats there the same thing. I'll be up later. This is the best thing you can do right now. Ok?" I hugged her again and started to walk towards Al. I turned to her and said "I'll be up later."

"Al where are at? Catch me up." I asked.

"I have an investigator in Seattle I use. He is coming down tonight and is putting together a team of analysts now. Some are local some are in So Cal. He's trying to get as many as he can in the same room. We're operational now but its with a skeleton crew. We'll be in better shape the first thing in the morning. Several are flying in on red eye's tonight. Most of these guys are retired intelligence from various agencies. They work as consultants now, their contacts are fresh and are some of the best minds in the business. I think you know some of them. There hasn't been any attempt to contact you or us, so at this point we are looking backwards to try and find out who's responsible for Karens disappearance . There isn't any chatter coming out of that mosque that our shooter was affiliated with. So far no link there. We are all ears at this point. I've been in contact with Chris and he is putting together a detract team here locally. She hasn't been on an airplane. If she had we would know about it. The best thing to do at this point is what we are doing. Assemble a team so we are ready."