Rising Force

by Wayne Stinnett

  The woman on the radio was giving the sea conditions off the lee side of Cat Island. I’d listened in on SSB nets on occasion. They had a set time and frequency to broadcast the news of the day from wherever the net was located. People who were planning to visit the area, had friends there, or, like me, were just bored for something to do, could listen in.

  Cory reached over and switched the radio off. “That’s it for now, I guess. No news is good news, right?”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “That was the morning net from Cat Island,” Brayden said. “Some mates have disappeared over there. Someone bloody boat-jacked them last weekend.”

  The couple that the Pences and Haywood stole the boat from, I thought, while trying not to let on that I knew something. I didn’t know why I wanted to keep that information to myself, but I did.

  “Still no word?” Kat asked, concern evident in her voice.

  Cory shook his head. “Mark and Cindy, nor their boat, have turned up anywhere. Jenny said there was an unconfirmed report to the Defence Force that a boat matching their description was spotted the day after the abduction, heading north toward Spanish Wells.”

  “These people are friends?” I asked.

  “Mark and Cindy Mathis,” Macie replied. “He was a software developer and she, a teacher. They took early retirement three years ago and bought a Hatteras, up in Galveston. It was an old yacht but had been completely refitted and modernized. I doubt they’ve spent more than a month ashore since then. They were here for six weeks last fall and decided to visit the BVI. Sweet people.”

  “I’ll catch up with all of you later,” Cory said, standing. “Today’s what? Hogfish day?”

  Brayden nodded toward me. “You up for some spearfishing, mate?”

  “Sure,” I replied. “But I don’t have a sling.”

  “Gotcha covered,” Brayden said.

  Cory started off and called over his shoulder as he wound through the small palms and buttonwood bordering the back of the marina. “Lea caught several conchs and is going to bring fritters.”

  “I gotta jet, too,” Brayden said, following Cory. “David and I are cleaning his bottom.”

  “Jesse said he’d help with the loft,” Kat offered, as she rose and started for the back entrance.

  I jumped up from my bucket and grabbed the door.

  “Good,” Macie said, following Kat. “There’s some heavy boxes up there.”

  Once inside, the two women turned down a narrow hallway behind the marina office. There were two doors on the left, marked for men and women. At the end of the hall, stairs turned back the opposite way, above a closet marked with a sign saying Parts.

  Macie flicked on a switch at the bottom of the stairs. Up above, a flickering light came on in a loft area above the little office. The stairs themselves were shadowed and quite steep.

  “If you have some receptacles, wire, and switches,” I said, “I might be able to rig up lighting in the stairwell and a separate switch up there for the loft.”

  “There’s lots of scrap wire and electrical parts in a parts bin downstairs,” Macie said. “Not house wiring, just individual strands for boats. People leave what they don’t need and take what they can find. Everything’s solar and batteries here.”

  “That’d work,” I said. “If the wires are long enough.”

  The loft was a mess. It looked like it had been used for a catch-all since the arrival of the Spanish armada. There were boxes of all sizes, most of them stacked along two walls. Several were open, out in the middle of the small space, revealing nothing but junk and papers. As if someone pulled a box from the stack to find something and never put it back. Even the open boxes were dust-covered. The labels on some of the boxes dated back to the seventies. Boat parts, ripped fenders, tangled dock lines, and torn sails were strewn everywhere like flotsam after a sinking. I stripped off my shirt, and we got to work.

  Macie went over to the boxes. “Anything marked two-thousand-three and older, we can toss.”

  “You sort, and I’ll carry,” I said. “Where do you want them?”

  “Just downstairs for now,” Macie replied. “We can carry them out to the fire pit later.”

  The loft was hot, with bare walls and rafters, but it would be cool at night. The boxes weighed thirty pounds or so, and after the fourth trip downstairs, I’d built up a sweat and could feel the burn in my calves.

  I found the parts bins, and each time I went down, I came back up with anything I could find to hodge-podge together another light.

  When the boxes were either gone or stashed in the corner, the women turned to cleaning, and I started in on the lights. I mounted a boat’s live-well switch to the bare planked wall. It’s a three-way switch where the middle position is off and the other two either fill or drain the tank. In this case, one would turn on the stairwell light, the other would turn on the overhead light in the loft, and the off position turned everything off.

  The light receptacle was the challenge. There were a few to choose from, but no matching bulbs. I looked all through the shelves downstairs in the store and then went out to Salty Dog and started rummaging through the work area aft the engine room. I found exactly what I was looking for: a pair of LED lights, complete with bulbs. The fluorescent light in the loft would have to go. One of the tubes was burned out anyway.

  “Take a break, big guy,” Kat said when I returned. She patted the floor beside where she and Macie were sitting, their backs against the bare wall.

  Moving the bucket that I’d planned to use as a step-stool closer, I accepted a bottle of water from Macie and sat down across from them—not in a shooting stance this time.

  I drained half the bottle and held it against the back of my neck. “I found a couple lights just sitting around on the boat, collecting dust. They use a lot less electricity, but the bulbs are more expensive to replace.”

  “LEDs?” Macie asked.

  I nodded. “They last a helluva lot longer than regular bulbs or fluorescents and use a lot less energy.”

  Kat pulled her dugout from her pocket and twisted the little bat into the main part of the wooden box. She passed the tube to Macie, who lit it, inhaling deeply. When she loaded it again and offered it to me, I held my hand up, palm out.

  “Not if I’m gonna be working with electricity.”

  Kat shrugged and lit the little tube, exhaling a small blue-gray cloud of smoke that hung in the air with Macie’s.

  “So, you’re going after her?” Macie asked me.

  “Who?”

  “The lady who came through here last week with her daughter.”

  “Well, thanks to you, I know where she’s going and when she’ll get there. I thought I might hang around here another day or so.”

  “The poachers?”

  I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “That’s part of it. But, to be honest, I haven’t sailed in decades. Crossing from Nassau was the first time in a long time.”

  “Really?” Kat asked. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. And if I’d known, I probably woulda second-guessed my decision to accept the ride.”

  “What can you do about the poachers?” Macie asked.

  I glanced at Kat, then back to Macie. “Probably nothing,” I said honestly. “Those turtles are so rare, the people who killed them have likely moved on.”

  “Brayden thinks it’s the same people tearing up the reefs.”

  I took another swallow from the water bottle. “There aren’t a lot of anchorages around here that could hide a boat big enough to remove tons of reef material. They’d be hiding in plain sight.”

  “Plenty of coves all through the Berries,” Macie said.

  True, I thought, thinking how close Andros Island was. “Anyone around here have a fast boat that can make Andros?”

  “Not really,” she replied. “Sometime
s Brayden and I will take the mailboat to Nassau. It stops in Fresh Creek on the way.”

  “When does it arrive here?”

  “Fridays, about nine,” Macie said. “It does a hundred-mile loop out of Nassau, getting to Fresh Creek a couple of hours after leaving here. From there, it returns to Nassau. Why do you want to go there?”

  “Just an idea,” I replied.

  Getting back to work, I soon had the lights installed and the switches working. The tiny LED bulb in the loft didn’t provide as much light as the old fluorescent tube, but for a living space it was more than adequate. The added light in the stairwell made visiting the restroom at night a lot safer.

  By early in the afternoon, we’d moved a vinyl-covered bench seat from someone’s boat into the loft. It was in good shape, clean, and would double as a sort of foot locker. For a bed, Kat planned to use just a simple hammock someone had made from a jib. But then Lea McKay called out from downstairs and brought up a brand new, queen-sized inflatable mattress, still in the box.

  “We’ve had this laying around forever,” she said. “I thought it’d make a nice sun pad for the boat, but we just never used it.”

  Kat was pleased and very appreciative. It suddenly dawned on me that she and several of the others probably couldn’t rub a pair of quarters together. Yet, others in the community, like the McKays, were obviously of greater means, and everyone lived together in harmony. The world, as a whole, could benefit from the example.

  After Lea left, I went back to work, securing the wires to the exposed timbers using bent nails. It would never pass a fire-marshal’s inspection, but unless someone yanked on the wires, there was no danger.

  When we finally finished, the tiny loft looked livable. Kat hung the jib by three corners to create a hanging chair and we unstacked the boxes in the corner and arranged them on the floor, so the air mattress could sit on top of them. With a cotton sheet over it, it looked like a regular bed.

  There was a vent up high at the gable end, and I pointed to it. “If you can scrounge up a fan and mount it to blow the air out, it’d be cooler during the day.”

  “It’s a bedroom,” Kat said, then grinned wickedly. “Mostly for sleeping. I doubt I’ll be up here during the day at all.”

  “Hey, Jesse!” Brayden called out from below. “Time to go catch dinner, mate.”

  Saying goodbye to the women, I started down the stairs. “Where are we going?” I asked Brayden.

  “A great little reef I know, not far from here. I’ve always been able to spear a few hogfish there. You know hogfish?”

  “Best tasting fish in the sea,” I replied.

  Brayden had his boat tied up at the end of Salty Dog’s dock. As we approached, another boat came through the cut into the little marina. I recognized Detective Bingham’s patrol boat instantly. It turned and came straight towards the Salty Dog.

  “Bloody wallopers are never around when needed, and always late for appointments.”

  I’d heard the derisive Aussie term for a police officer before. Australian cops don’t carry guns, but they do carry a truncheon, or baton, which were sometimes wielded excessively.

  We walked to the end of the pier, where the uniformed officer at the helm expertly brought the stern of the boat sideways to the pier.

  “Why is it dat I am not surprised to see yuh still here, Cap’n?” Bingham said as he stepped off the boat, leaving the lines to his subordinate.

  I didn’t fail to notice that he hadn’t used my name. It was obvious he still thought I was something I wasn’t, and maybe didn’t want to blow my cover if I was, and working at whatever he thought I did.

  “You two know each other, Jesse?” Brayden asked.

  “We’ve met,” I replied. “Detective Bingham, this is Brayden, the guy who called in the report on the dead hawksbills.”

  Stepping forward, Brayden extended his hand. “Brayden Walker, mate.”

  “Australian?” Bingham asked.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Brayden said with a half-grin. “An Aussie couldn’t sail this far from home in two boats. I’m Kiwi.”

  “Who was with you when you found the dead turtles?”

  “Captain McDermitt here,” Brayden said, jerking a thumb toward me. “We were diving for prawns about this time yesterday.”

  Wiping at his brow, Bingham looked toward the marina building. The hottest part of the day had passed, but it was still in the eighties. And he’d probably been on the boat most of the day.

  “We can go inside my boat to get out of the sun,” I offered.

  Inside, I waved a hand at the dinette. “Have a seat, Detective. Want something to drink?”

  “Watuh, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Beer for me,” Brayden said.

  I took two cold Kaliks and a bottle of water from the fridge, and placed them on the table. Sliding a chair over, I joined Brayden and Bingham.

  Bingham produced his notepad and dug into his pockets until he found a pencil. “Yuh are certain dese dead turtles were hawksbills?”

  “They didn’t have a top shell anymore,” Brayden said. “I was pretty certain of what they were at the time I reported it. One was tagged, and I called a mate in Florida who works with turtles and he ran the number and confirmed it. Definitely hawksbills. I found three more last week. Same thing.”

  “Could it have been a boat accident?” Bingham asked. “A big ship maybe?”

  “Not a chance,” I said. “Their entire shells had been removed, and there didn’t seem to be any other injuries.”

  “I see,” the detective said, looking at me. “Is dis why yuh are here?”

  I was beginning to get a little irritated. I had no idea who he, or his cousin, the Foreign Affairs Minister, had talked to, but somebody had stepped off the pier and no boat was there.

  “Like I told you before, Detective. I’m here on personal business and have no ties to any agency other than my own private business.”

  Bingham nodded. “Livingston and McDermitt Security. I know.”

  “So, you blokes know each other pretty well then?”

  I turned to Brayden. “This guy’s got it in his head that I’m some kind of secret agent or something.” Then I turned back and glared at Bingham. “If I was, would I be telling that to a civilian?”

  Bingham asked a few more questions. It was obvious he was only here because nobody else was available. But I guess to a cop who has gangs running wild in his own town, a few dead turtles would seem like a waste of time. Fortunately, there were people in the world who saw value in all life. I felt that those here on Chub Cay were among them.

  Once he’d finished asking his questions, Bingham rose and went to the companionway, stopping to face me. “How much longer are yuh planning to stay here, Cap’n?”

  “I’ll be in the Virgin Islands before this month ends, Detective. Other than that, I go where the wind blows and lay where the sand’s warm. Why do you want me out of here so bad?”

  The detective looked me straight in the eye. “Every time I see you, dere is a dead body involved.”

  Tromping up the steps, Bingham exited the boat. Brayden and I went up after him and stood on the pier. He signaled the uniformed officer on the patrol boat, who immediately started the engines.

  “I’m beginning to think there’s a little truth in what you said last night, mate.”

  “I was drunk,” I said.

  “You were more than that. My crop frees the mind. Kat said that was only your second time?”

  The patrol boat roared off, and the two of us walked toward Brayden’s skiff. I untied the lines, while he pumped the ball on the fuel line to start the outboard.

  “Third, actually. But the first time wasn’t of my own accord.”

  “Some of what I grow isn’t really for first timers, mate.”

  Tossing the
bow line into the front of the boat, I stepped down, and took the middle seat facing Brayden. “What exactly did I say, anyway?”

  Idling away from the dock, Brayden pointed the little boat toward the open sea. “After the Frenchmen left, and it was just the eight of us, I brought out my good stuff and you passed that fifteen-year-old rum around several more times. Since there was an empty chair, you sort of staggered over to it, and then Kat joined you.”

  “Huh?”

  He grinned at my discomfort. “I think she’s hot for you, cobber.”

  I was completely bewildered. Kat hadn’t mentioned any of that. And what did that have to do with something I might have said?

  “Whoa, back it up,” I said. “Kat’s younger than one of my kids. No way I’d do anything like that.”

  Brayden laughed heartily. “Oh, you were the perfect gentleman, mate. You fell asleep.”

  “Wait—what? Back up and tell me everything that happened after the brothers left.”

  “You talk in your sleep, Jesse,” he said, leaning forward for emphasis. “The combination of rum and weed opened your mind up and what was in there just spilled out of your mouth.”

  That was very troublesome. There are things I know that nobody else in the world knows. Places where bodies could be found, and the names of those who put them there. Several weren’t very far from here, at the bottom of a blue hole.

  “What exactly did I say in my sleep, Brayden?”

  “It was hard to make out,” he replied. “Kat was on your lap and repeated what she could make out. You mumbled on and on about how you and some others worked for the government. Someone named Deuce and Charity. We just sort of figured those were code names or the like.”

  “Code names?” I had to think fast. Adding mostly truth to a lie is the best way to diffuse a situation. “I was a marksmanship instructor in the Marine Corps, but retired almost ten years ago. Deuce is the son of my old platoon sergeant of the same name, Russell Livingston, Junior, or Deuce. I helped finance his security business. You know, installing alarms and escorting celebrities in Miami.”