Puller held up a finger, indicating to Carson that they would communicate solely via nonverbal signals from now on. She nodded in understanding.

Lying prone in the sand, Puller intensified the power on his night-vision goggles and pointed them at the truck, which sat about a hundred yards away from their position.

At first Puller was thinking that another vehicle would meet the truck, but that didn’t make any sense. Truck and truck at a clandestine meeting site was not logical. Moving over the road you’d get a warehouse and do your transfer in privacy.

The only reason to drive down near the water was if you were expecting a delivery from the water.

A minute later Puller’s deduction was proved correct.

The whine of the boat wasn’t much, but water was a great conductor of sound. The boat was moving fast, and within thirty seconds Puller could see the outline of what he almost immediately recognized as a RIB. It was the same type of amphibious boat the Rangers used.

As the RIB grew closer to shore, Puller could make out many people on board. Too many for the boat’s small footprint.

Carson touched his arm. He looked at her, found her pointing back toward land. Puller focused that way and saw the men from the truck coming down to the beach.

Right now he would have given anything for a night camera to record what was about to happen.

People were being pulled off the RIB. When they hit the sand, Puller could see that they were bound and their mouths taped shut.

They also wore different-colored shirts.

Puller flipped up his goggles and saw green, red, and blue.

He felt a gentle squeeze on his arm and turned to see Carson staring over his shoulder. She looked at him. He shook his head and turned back to what was happening on the beach.

The people were herded up the sand and to the truck where two men were posted there to guard them.

Puller turned his attention back to the beach, where the RIB had disappeared, but another one was now approaching the beach. The scenario that had just happened on the beach was repeated with this second group.

A third RIB beached, disgorged passengers, and left.

Then a fourth RIB came and did the same.

After the last RIB left, the truck was locked and three men climbed into the cab.

Carson said, “What do we do now?”

Puller was thinking this very same question.

What do we do?

“We need to call the police, right now,” Carson urged.

But Puller shook his head. “No,” he said.

She looked at him in bewilderment. “No? Are you crazy? Those people were prisoners, Puller.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“Then we call the cops.”

“Not yet.”

“When do you think might be a more suitable time?”

Puller looked at the truck as it started to pull away. “Let’s go,” he said.

CHAPTER

77

PULLER KEPT BACK as far as he could from the truck while still keeping it in sight.

It was tricky. Headlights back here at this time of night would no doubt make the guys in the truck dangerously suspicious.

Carson alternated between looking at the taillights of the truck and scowling at Puller.

“I’m still not getting this tactic, Puller. If you don’t call the police for something like this, what then?”

He said nothing, but kept his gaze upon the truck as it wound around the curves with thick trees on both sides. They might as well have been in a forest. There was no hint of the nearby ocean except for the occasional whiff of brine.

He finally looked at her. “Well-timed op. Secluded spot, middle of the night. Bring them in by water, truck them out.”

“Right, so?”

“How many nights you think they do this?”

“I have no way of knowing that.”

“Let’s say they do it three or four times a week. Maybe seven days a week.”

“Maybe not. Maybe we just got lucky.”

“No one is that lucky.”

“And your point?”

“Maybe this is what my aunt saw. Or what the Storrows saw.”

“Maybe it is.”

“My aunt was a good upstanding citizen. The Storrows were, by all indications, pillars of the community.”

“Granted, they probably were.”

“And you think these elderly solid citizens saw what we saw and didn’t tell the police?”

Carson started to say something and then stopped. “So your point is they did tell the police and nothing happened.”

“Oh, something happened. They ended up dead. All of them.”

“You think the police are in on what we just saw?”

“I don’t see how you can run an op like that, even once a week, and trust that the cops are not going to happen upon you. All it would take is one cop on patrol seeing a boat light, or the truck, or just happening to walk down the beach and see what we saw tonight.”

“And they couldn’t risk that?”

“We just saw four RIBs. They’re not long-distance boats. That means there’s a larger vessel out there that they launched from. I counted eighty people off the boats, and now they’re in the back of that truck. You’re talking equipment, money, and manpower. The payoff has to justify that.”

“Like you said before. Drugs, guns.”

“They were people, General. No guns, no drugs.”

“So maybe drug mules?”

“And there were young women. So prostitutes. And bigger, older men. Maybe slave laborers.”

“Slave laborers? In America?”

“Why not?”

“I thought we fought the Civil War to take care of that little bit of evil.”

“If it’s profitable, evil can come back strong, just like a cancer with fresh blood lines to feed off.”

“Damn, Puller, do you really think that’s what this is about?”

“A pipeline is a pipeline. You can run lots of different things through it.”

“And the police?”

“Part of the equation. Paradise is wealthy and a tourist destination and no one wants to rock the boat and maybe the cops are paid to look the other way. Hell, maybe the whole damn town is.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Maybe not. But if I’m those guys I’m not putting an operation like this together and risking a cop stumbling onto it and blowing it out of the water.”

“Something like that has to come from the top. So Bullock?”

“Maybe. I was surprised at how quickly he turned into my friend.”

“I wonder who’s running the op from the other end.”

“My bet is on the guy who got his Bentley blown up.”

“What? Lampert? How do you figure that?”

“I checked the guy out. Made and lost a fortune. Then made another one back, obviously. Only I can’t find out how. And he screws the hired help. And maybe they’re not hired at all. Maybe he’s got slaves on his ‘plantation.’ ”

“Okay, let’s say he is the guy. Why would someone blow up his car?”

“Maybe a guy with size sixteen shoes has a beef with the man.”

“Size sixteen shoes?”

Puller explained about the footprints outside the guesthouse window. “He’s the same guy who saved my butt the other night. I don’t think he did it out of kindness. And maybe he regrets it now. But he may be the one after Lampert. He works on a landscaping crew. Why do I want to bet he works the Lampert estate?”

“And his beef with Lampert?”

“No idea. And I may be barking up the wrong tree. But guys that big with skills like he has are rare. And I can’t believe he came here to cut grass.”

“So with the knowledge in hand, what do we do? Call in the Army? The DEA? The Border Patrol?”

“We need to know more. If we start making noises and they have moles on the inside, we’ll never get the evidence we need to put them away. They’ll be gone, never to return.”

“Well, when we find out where that truck is going we may have all the evidence we need,” she said.

Puller suddenly punched the gas and the Tahoe sped up.