What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(42)

“Don’t answer that,” Gordon said.

Tracy got another hunch and, again, she played it. “The night of November 18, 1995, your crew was thrown overboard by the men who raided your boat so they could not support your story to your employers that the boat had been raided, though the authorities did not detain you, and the Egregious was not impounded; isn’t that true?”

“Don’t answer that,” Gordon said.

“They wore masks,” Flynt said. Gordon grabbed Flynt’s forearm.

Flynt pulled his arm away. “So, I couldn’t identify them even if I had wanted to.”

“Jack. Do not answer the question,” Gordon said.

Flynt stared at Tracy, but his eyes softened. Then he grinned.

“She’s not interested in me, Kell. I’m just a cog in the wheel she’s trying to spin. Isn’t that right? You’re not interested in the drug deals at all, are you?”

“Jack,” Gordon said.

“No. I’m not,” Tracy said. “I’m a cold case detective. I’m trying to find out who killed David Slocum, the harbormaster at the marina the night the Egregious was raided.”

“Jack, as your attorney I advise you that you are breaching provisions of the confidentiality agreement and if you do so . . .”

“I know, Kell. I may have to serve the rest of my suspended sentence. But I’m not about to tell the authorities.” He looked at Tracy. “And you aren’t either, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” Tracy said.

“I’m just here to translate,” Gillies said.

Flynt turned to his lawyer. “So that would leave just you, Kell.”

Gordon shook his head.

“Then we’re good,” Flynt said. He looked at Tracy and she read the expression on his face. After all these years, Flynt finally had a chance to even a score, one he had been forced into keeping secret by a confidentiality agreement he’d signed in exchange for a shorter sentence.

“Off the record,” Flynt said.

“Jack,” Gordon pleaded.

“Sure.” Tracy set her pen on her notepad.

“Jack, I cannot protect you if you violate the confidentiality agreement . . .”

“I told you. She doesn’t care about the confidentiality agreement, and she isn’t here to pinch me for what happened in 1995 or 2002. And I’m not going to say a word to anyone else but her.” He stared at Tracy. “You just want to know if I know who raided the Egregious that night.”

“Do you know?”

“I wish I did, Detective. But like you said, they wore masks.

They weren’t in uniforms, and I saw no markings on their clothing to let me know who they worked for. But I can tell you they weren’t another drug ring or a bunch of punks. They were military or police.”

“How do you know that?”

“One, because they went to the trouble of making sure I couldn’t identify them by their clothes. Two, it was a well-oiled hit-and-run.

They came in fast and heavily armed, and we departed the marina just as fast. And three, something I overheard.”

“What did you hear?”

“One of the men turned to the guy who was in charge and called him ‘sergeant’ before he caught himself.”

“What happened to your crew?”

“They thought they were going to kill us and dump our bodies someplace where the tide would take us out to sea. They panicked and jumped overboard.”

“Did the men who raided the ship make any effort to rescue them?” Tracy asked.

“None,” Flynt said. “Maybe they assumed they could swim. I remember one of the guys who raided the ship saying something like they couldn’t say anything anyway, and they’d be happy to just go back to Mexico.”

“Where did they take the boat?” Tracy asked.

“Back through the locks to the Shilshole Marina. They had vans waiting and offloaded the drugs in minutes.”

Flynt told her the cocaine was wrapped in plastic bricks that weighed one kilogram or roughly 2.2 pounds. “The bricks were then wrapped in paper with a dragon logo.”

“How much is a kilogram of cocaine worth?”

“In 1995, upwards of $75,000. But the street value was somewhere between $160,000 to $240,000.”

“How many kilograms were you transporting?”

“Fifty.”

“How much was that worth, total?”

“Street value? Roughly eight to twelve million dollars.”

“The men who raided your boat let you go?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Flynt asked. “I was like the two crew members. Who was I going to tell? Plus, without the crew, I had my own problems. I had to answer to my bosses in Vancouver alone, and they were prepared to kill me.”

“What did you do? How did you convince them you were telling the truth?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “The harbormaster did.” Flynt proceeded to tell them what David Slocum had told his bosses. “They came down a few nights after the raid and the harbormaster told them what happened. He told them about the raid, that they took me and the boat—that I hadn’t made it up.”

“The harbormaster saved your life,” Tracy said.