For the People Chapter 80

"Your spot on 'Too Early New York' this morning was good," Kate offers, dipping a triangle of pita into a generous bowl of hummus.

Rick immerses the tip of a celery stick in the savory dip. "I just wonder if anyone who I needed to see it was watching. People who are up that early in the morning often have the kind of jobs that make them more than aware of their inability to afford a decent place to live in the city. Either that or they work on Wall Street and have already left for the day to catch the goings-on on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. I don't know if I woke anyone worth waking."

"You never know. The first couple of months of Lily's life we were always up that early and look where we live. And Dad's always been an early riser. It's one of the things that makes him a good fisherman. And doesn't Martha get up early to do her yoga?"

"She does. But more to the point, some of the upper-income crowd likes to hit the gym before the formal workday begins. It's a bit like being regulars on the golf course A lot of business gets done that way. And the gyms have big screens to distract the clients from their pain. It's possible one or two of those folks preferred to concentrate on someone else's. But speaking of pain. How did court go?"

"About the way I expected. I finished with my last witness, the captain of the boat transporting Yesenia. He testified that she'd engaged him to get her and her things down the coast, at which point she'd told him she'd pick a destination in the Caribbean. Evidence of her intention to flee won't stand on its own. However, Bingham will eventually instruct the jury that they can choose to consider it. But I suspect she might postpone continuing the case tomorrow. Her voice sounded rough this morning, and by this afternoon she was coughing her head off. She also paused the proceedings for more recesses than usual."

"How will you know if the judge calls in sick?"

"I'll get a text from her clerk." Kate's phone dings.

"Speak of the devil?" Rick inquires.

"Uh-huh. Bingham ended up in the emergency room with that respiratory virus that's going around. Chances are, she'll be down for at least two days."

"You know, I don't have any obligations in the city for the next couple of days, and I can write anywhere. We can use a break and your father certainly can. Why not take the family to the house in the Hamptons to kick back for a while? Your dad can fish. There are plenty of boats for rent or charter. And Alexis loved going to the beach when she was a baby. I'm guessing little sister Lily will also chill out to the sound of the waves. The sight and smell of the ocean will also be a source of baby wonderment. We'll just have to make sure she doesn't get too much sun. But then we've had to keep that beauteous Beckett skin of yours from absorbing too many rays as well. We can be doubly careful. What do you say, Kate? Family road trip?"

"I don't know if my dad will go along with that. Sometimes it's hard to drag him away from his work."

"Like father, like daughter. But as far as I know, he doesn't have anything new to file against Brown Rock right now. And he said he has a couple of other cases still waiting for docketing. So we shouldn't have to drag too hard. He's always a sucker for spending time with Lily."

Kate chuckles. "You've got that right."


Hunt gingerly stretches his long limbs. He's getting a little old for making transoceanic flights with his ass supported only by netting. But he made it to the officially non-existent Duchess Field. While only 40 minutes by car from Manhattan, it's not on any satellite map available without top-secret clearance. It's also away from normal air lanes and surrounded by thick woods. Hunt has little trouble finding the vehicle allotted to him, mercifully one with decent leg and headroom. He'll stow his gear in one of the Company's safe if unimpressive apartments, then get to work tracking Roord.


Hendrik Roord could never be accused of shirking his homework. He rapidly learns how and where to locate his targets. He can't watch them all at once, but before settling into a stakeout of the Castle loft, he managed to shoot a bug into an outside wall of James Beckett's law office. Its recording capacity is limited, but he programmed it to broadcast almost undetectable bursts to his phone at hourly intervals. He can speed through them for anything useful. He feels like he scored at the tables in Monaco when he picks up a phone conversation between James Beckett and Castle. "A family trip and a fishing boat," he murmurs to himself. Could his job be as easy as staging a boating accident? Roord never assumes he'll be that lucky, but he makes a beeline for the Hamptons to begin preparations.


Rick smiles back at Alexis, who's planted herself next to Lily's safety seat in his SUV. "I'm so glad you could come along. I was afraid that you'd be nose to the grindstone on your dissertation."

"I finished writing it and submitted it to my advisor for notes. She said she'd have it back to me in a few days, which times out perfectly for this trip. And now I'll get to spend more than a couple of hours at a stretch with Lily."

"You may have to fight my dad for that," Kate chimes in. "He had a last-minute meeting with a client, so he'll be driving out by himself and meeting us at the house. He's really excited about the boat your father chartered."

"And he's determined to feed everyone except Lily fresh-caught fish," Rick adds. "But until that should come to pass, we can feast on land-based proteins. As soon as we get to the house, I'll fire up the barbecue."


"From 4,000 meters away, Roord studies the boat the Castles and Becketts will be boarding for their little trip to sea. It's obviously designed for fishing, with all the appropriate spots to secure gear, but also a well-built vessel. What interests him most is the fuel tank. If he's going to take out the craft and all aboard, he'll need a sizable explosion. From what he can tell, the boat easily holds enough fuel for multi-day trips. So if it blows after being out for only an hour, the force of the blast should be more than sufficient. Causing an explosion that will look like an accident, however, will require careful consideration. He can't allow a trigger mechanism to be discovered in the wreckage. He needs something that will self-destruct on contact with the fuel. With a slight smile, he remembers a massive explosion in a storage facility in Beirut. Setting it off required no complicated technology, just ammonium nitrate, fuel, and metal to catalyze the reaction. Fuel and metal will already be aboard the boat. In a village full of mansions with well-fertilized lawns, locating ammonium nitrate will be no problem. He can buy it at any garden store or even steal it from a groundkeeper's shed. He can find tools in one as well. Even cash purchases leave a trail. He prefers the second option. Time to get to work.