Chapter 7 - The Arrest at the Marina
While Vivian was being processed in Bridgeport, Julian Whitmore was making his final, desperate move thirty miles to the south, at a private yacht basin in Stamford.
The rain was coming down in sharp, icy needles, churning the gray waters of the Long Island Sound into a chop of foam and diesel exhaust.
Julian stood beneath the canvas canopy of a sixty-foot Sunseeker yacht, the Whitmore Legacy, his trench coat soaked through, barking frantically into a disposable burner phone. Beside him on the teak deck sat three heavy, waterproof duffel bags stuffed with bearer bonds, loose diamonds from his personal safe deposit box, and two fake European passports he had purchased three days earlier through a contact in Queens.
"Where is the captain?" Julian screamed into the phone. "I told him five p.m.! The tide is turning! We have forty minutes before the Coast Guard sets the harbor picket!"
The cabin door opened, and Camille Vane stepped onto the deck, wearing an oversized yellow slicker over her clothes, her face pale, shivering uncontrollably.
"Julian... my father isn't answering," Camille stammered, clutching her designer handbag to her chest. "His office line is disconnected. The news said the Port Authority has federal marshals at every terminal! We can't take this boat to the Bahamas! They have radar!"
"Shut up and help me untie the spring lines!" Julian barked, shoving her toward the forward cleats. "The boat is registered to a Panamanian corporation they haven't flagged yet! If we clear Montauk Point by midnight, we’re in international waters!"
"He's not untying anything, Mr. Whitmore."
A powerful, five-million-candlepower spotlight suddenly ignited from the end of the fuel pier, blinding Julian and Camille in a blazing wall of white light.
The low, guttural roar of twin diesel engines surged through the rain as a forty-five-foot Coast Guard tactical response cutter rounded the jetty, its mounted machine gun manned by two operators in tactical armor.
On the wooden dock directly above the yacht’s slip, six officers from the Stamford Police Department's SWAT unit emerged from the shadows, their rifles leveled at the boat's cockpit.
At their head stood Captain Miller, holding a megaphone to his lips.
"Julian Whitmore! Step away from the helm and raise your hands! Camille Vane, drop to your knees on the deck!"
Julian looked at the water. For one insane, feral second, he considered diving into the freezing, oil-slicked harbor, as if he could swim three miles across the sound in forty-degree water.
"Julian, don't!" Camille shrieked, throwing herself flat onto the wet teak deck, her hands laced over the back of her neck. "Don't shoot! I surrender! I have information! I have the password to his offshore accounts!"
Julian turned on his mistress, his face contorting with absolute, incredulous rage. "You miserable traitor! You took eighty thousand dollars of my money last week!"
"Step away from the duffels, Whitmore!" Miller's voice boomed through the megaphone, cutting through the thunder and the howling wind. "Last warning!"
Julian slowly, agonizingly, lifted his hands into the freezing rain.
Two SWAT officers vaulted over the stainless-steel railing, driving Julian down onto the deck with brutal efficiency. The cold, wet teak bit into his cheek as his arms were wrenched behind his back, the heavy steel handcuffs biting into his wrists with a sharp, final click.
As they hauled him to his feet, water dripping from his chin, Julian looked up at the pier.
Standing beneath a large black umbrella, illuminated by the flashing blue strobe lights of three police cruisers, was Naomi Reed.
Beside her, holding an audio recording device, stood David Lin.
"Naomi!" Julian yelled, struggling against the two officers holding him. "Tell Mara this isn't what she thinks! Camille set this up! Camille told me to run! Tell Mara I want to see my daughter!"
Naomi stepped to the edge of the pier, looking down at the handcuffed heir of the ruined Whitmore dynasty with the cold, detached pity one reserves for a rabid dog that had finally been put on a leash.
May you like
"Mara doesn't care where you go, Julian," Naomi said, her voice carrying clearly over the roar of the cutter's engines. "Because for the next fifteen to twenty years, your address will be decided by the Federal Bureau of Prisons."
The officers marched him up the gangway, his soaked loafers slipping on the wet wood, his frantic curses swallowed by the howling Atlantic storm.
