Chapter 31

Aboard The Sure Shot, Narragansett Bay, RI

The waters of Narragansett Bay were choppy, and getting more so, as the afternoon progressed. John Worth and his son were on the bridge and Worth was getting annoyed.

The Sure Shot shuddered as he increased the speed. He pushed the throttles to the half-way mark of about twelve knots. It wouldn't do to have an accident now, with his escape so close.

"No sense getting angry, father," the younger Worth said, in soothing tones. "This is the way to freedom."

Freedom. That was the key, thought Worth. I've been cooped up for months while the Marshals dictated every move. Intolerable ... I'd give an arm to see their faces when they found I slipped my ankle surveillance device. They'd shit themselves. Why in another age, I would have been a Chase or Vanderbilt ... and two hundred years ago I'd have been a fucking Lord. Lords had privileges. Privileges that included access to women and girls of the lower classes His mind drifted for a moment, reliving his 'access' to such girls. And that included disposing of them when you're done with them. Hell's bells, I even got that little tart, Kelsey, pregnant. What more could she have asked for – the child of a man like me! She should have been grateful, not claiming that she was abused.

If he overstepped the bounds of normal society merely by getting a fifteen year old pregnant, perhaps his money would have been enough to turn aside the ire of the authorities. Perhaps it was the way he kept her, naked, in a twelve by twelve foot cell, that fueled their hatred. Perhaps it was the three years of almost daily rapes, often strapped down in uncomfortable positions. Perhaps it was the four abortions she had undergone, at his instance. Perhaps it was the steel collar that she wore 24/7. Perhaps it was the criss-cross of scars on her back that told tales of her sessions with his whip. But the authorities were angry.

U.S. Marshal's office, Hartford, CT

U.S. Marshal Robert Lonzo was updating his laptop and smart phone with the latest feeds from the surveillance device for several people, one of which was John Worth. He and his partner were closing the office in anticipation of the impending hurricane. Lonzo was a slightly overweight, fifty-two year old with piercing gray eyes, peering out through Ben Franklin style bifocals, and a receding hairline; he needed just nineteen months to his retirement date.

His partner was Lacy Murphy, a large boned woman of thirty-five, standing 5'10", with mousy blonde hair, who favored jeans and mid-calf boots that gave her another two inches of height. She was a life-long resident of Connecticut who had gone to Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, on a scholarship. She had graduated in the top ten percent of her class and taken her degree in Law Enforcement to the Marshal Service. She didn't like John Worth, for several reasons. At the top of her list was the horrible treatment his slaves had to endure. Second, and of much lower importance, was the fact that he was a Richie Rich who had gone to Yale on his family's influence.

"Lace," said Lonzo, "fire up the big monitor and get schematics of Worth's mansion. I don't think he's moved in hours."

"Maybe he's dead," she said hopefully.

"Maybe he's not there!" He checked the log of the ankle bracelet. "It's been in the same position since 10:03 last night."

"I think we have a problem," said Murphy. "It seems to be on the kitchen counter." She looked at the clock. 1352. "If he's slipped it, it's been almost fourteen hours."

"Looks like we're taking a trip out to West Simsbury." In the local argot, it came out as 'Sims-bree, ' usually said with almost a clenched jaw.

The twenty mile drive to the high-end suburb took almost forty minutes in the stormy weather.

"Doesn't look good. No lights on, despite the ominous, dark gloom of the hurricane," said Lonzo.

"You still taking that creative writing course, Bob?" Murphy kidded.

"Doesn't take much effort to use adjectives. The nuns beat that into me a long time ago," Lonzo smiled back.

He tested the door: locked.

"I don't think it's going to surrender to your Kung Fu attacks, Lace. I noticed the door when we set him up here. It's steel with an oak veneer."

She slid over to a window behind the foundation plantings. Peering into the dark interior led to no new information. Lacy Murphy put her elbow through a pane of glass.

"The rain is going to make a mess of the carpet," she said.

She snaked an arm through the broken glass and turned the window lock. It opened easily. The large woman crawled in and a few seconds later, the door was unlocked.

"If we're lucky, the security firm will be out to investigate a break in," said Lonzo. "They can cover the window."

Weapons drawn, the two Marshals carefully went through the large house, finally finding themselves in the kitchen. They saw the ankle bracelet merrily blinking green on the counter, not having been outside the specified perimeter. Its mechanism was open and was mated to an electronic device.

"Looks like a homemade bracelet popper. Don't touch it, maybe we can get some prints," Lonzo said.

"How long have we been partners, now? Five years? I know enough not to touch stuff."

This was a recurring theme for them. Lonzo liked to 'mentor' the younger woman. She chafed under his constant application of the bridle. It came from the first weekend she was on the job. A watchee had slipped the leash and left his wristwatch on the table; she'd picked it up.

"Well, when you've got..."

"Yeah, I know. 18 years and 5 months of experience. I know, I know."

He pulled out his cell phone and called the always-manned main office in New Haven. It was picked up by a voice in Washington; apparently the Connecticut town on the coast was closed. It was going to be an iron clad bitch to track Worth in the middle of a hurricane. He reported the watchee's disappearance. A picture and descriptions of his cars would be on the nationwide wires within minutes.

They went through the rest of the house. "Looks like he packed for a long trip. The safe's empty too," Murphy said. "Anything in the garage?"

"Cars are still here."

It took almost two hours to track down the owner of Simsbury Limos; the limo service was shut down, too. Damn hurricane. It was a one-man car service. Sure he remembered: he took five men to Albany, last night. A long trip. Dropped them off at the airport.

"With a sixteen hour head start, he could be in Venezuela by now," grumbled Murphy.

The Albany, New York, police department was NOT closed due to the storm. It was just a rainy day in upstate New York. A brief check showed that no party of men got on any plane last night, not that there were so many flights out of Albany in the overnight period. Only two this morning, since the New York City airports were shut down: one going to Montreal, one to Buffalo and Cincinnati.

Another half hour passed until the Albany police turned up a car rental, paid for in cash. Other officers were able to track the rental agent's home address, and he identified one of the men on the fugitive warrant. The rented Lincoln Navigator had GPS tracking and LoJack. The agent thought they had mentioned going to Montreal, they had gotten maps for that.

The LoJack information said that the car was in Bristol, Rhode Island, but a phone call to the Bristol police led only to the expected result: nobody was going to look for a fugitive with Frankenstorm due, and conditions getting worse by the minute. There was a report that two dead bodies were at a local motel. That might be a connection. Their necks had been broken. Very military in style, very professional.

Lonzo and Murphy looked at each other amid the team of techs that were now going through the West Simsbury home.

"Road trip!" said the younger woman.

"Wasn't that your stomping grounds, when you were in college?"

"I didn't go partying at the Yacht Club, if that's what you mean."

"Yeah, well. Looks like we're going to see Bristol's hurricane readiness ... firsthand," he said.

Aboard The Sure Shot, south of Narragansett Bay

If Worth thought the waters of Narragansett Bay were choppy, he was increasingly alarmed at the state of the Atlantic. The ocean was angry, and each second of travel put the 'small' ninety-two foot yacht into waves that were getting larger and more dangerous.

He turned the wheel over to his son and began looking at charts.

"Okay, here's what we'll do," he said, almost to himself. "Instead of taking the direct path out, between Block Island and Martha's Vineyard, we'll head north of the Vineyard. We'll go out through Vineyard Sound." He traced the line of travel, almost due east then a little north of east. "When we get out to Nantucket Sound, south of Hyannis, we'll turn east-southeast. Then we can head out to the Atlantic, north of Nantucket.

"It'll be several hours of tough going, with the waves coming on our beam. We'll survive. We can travel faster than the storm. And it's going in the other direction, so every minute will be to our advantage. It'll get easier as we go along.