Free Merciless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 1) by Wayne Stinnett

written on an anonymous server. The email wouldn’t be sent. Instead, it would be saved as a draft by the sender, an unknown analyst in the bowels of the Pentagon. Charity had access to the server and could then read the email in the draft file and delete it. Simple, yet this effectively left no electronic trail. She could also respond to it and ask for more information, assistance, or request additional gear, then save the request again as a draft.
    If Charity needed additional equipment, it would be supplied at sea. Director Stockwell had been adamant about this. Between all the intelligence agencies and the military, someone was flying somewhere over the Caribbean just about every day. A location for a drop would be arranged, and whatever she asked for would be dropped in a buoyant watertight package, with a UHF beacon that would bring her right to it. Charity didn’t anticipate needing anything more than her rifle on this mission.
    With no update, she plotted her course on the laptop, which would feed information to the helm, including the direction and speed of surface winds and currents, and could sail the Dancer all by itself if need be. A valuable tool to be able to sail solo through the nights ahead.
    Her destination was the Gulf Coast of Mexico, a small town called Alvarado, not far from Veracruz and west of the Yucatan Peninsula. The plotter calculated the sailing distance as just over nine hundred and seventy nautical miles. If she could maintain an eight-knot average, she’d arrive there in five days.
    Charity started the boat’s engine and, grabbing the damp towel to dry the seat at the helm, she went out into the rain and raised the Bimini top over the cockpit. It didn’t really afford much protection from a driving rain, but the wind was very light right now, and the misty rain was falling straight down. NOAA was predicting the wind would build to fifteen knots out of the east shortly after sunrise, and heavier rain would fall before the weather dissipated and she should have light to moderate seas outside the safety of Biscayne Bay.
    Stepping over to the dock, she untied the lines, standing on the dock and holding them for a moment. Sea Biscuit was dark, Savannah and her daughter still asleep. Charity looked around the small harbor and the little island. This would be her last time on dry land for nearly a week and her last time on American soil for quite some time. A feeling of uncertainty swept over her. She was a confident sailor and already knew Wind Dancer in so many ways. Yet the trepidation she felt persisted.
    Shaking it off, Charity grabbed the rail and gave the boat a slight shove away from the seawall, stepping aboard and securing the lines. She moved quickly to the helm, flipping the switch to open the doors for the bow thruster. A moment later, she had the boat aimed at the channel and engaged the transmission, while watching the sonar. It showed more than eight feet of water ahead as she steered the big sailboat into the channel.
    Clearing the point where the pavilion was located, Charity turned Wind Dancer south, following the seawall, just thirty feet to port. The VHF radio crackled, startling her. “ Sea Biscuit calling Wind Dancer .”
    “Go to channel seventy-two, Sea Biscuit ,” Charity said into the microphone.
    She switched frequencies and waited a moment, then Savannah’s voice came over the radio. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to head out in this soup, Gabby.”
    “It should clear by the time I reach Key Biscayne,” she replied. “I thought I’d go ahead and get my sea legs ready before getting there, so I’m running on the outside.”
    “How many friends are you picking up?”
    Charity wondered if she was just making idle conversation or if the question was something else. Deciding that her training had made her paranoid about anyone outside her old team, she replied, “Just three. A couple and their friend, a young man who we will be dropping off in Nassau to