by Matthew Rief
With our spirits high and our excitement rivaling that of a child’s the night before Christmas, we rattled up the anchor chain and set off for Key West. Neither Jack or Pete would be working the following day, and Frank had already called the college in order to arrange for a substitute for the next few days. None of them would ever pass up the chance to further explore what could potentially be a Golden Age pirate shipwreck.
FIFTEEN
At just after midnight, a white van with tinted windows pulled off North Roosevelt Boulevard and into the parking lot of the Key West Police Department. The lot was empty aside from a row of parked police vehicles, and the van drove around to the back side of the building and pulled up alongside a lone streetlight flickering lazily overhead. Just as the tires came to a stop on the blacktop, the side door slid open and four guys dressed in black and wearing ski masks hopped out.
They moved quickly for the back door, carrying flashlights, various styles of handguns and a large crowbar. The area was quiet and seemingly devoid of people as one of the guys lodged the tip of the crowbar under different sections of the metal door and soon forced it loose.
With the door open and hanging lifelessly against the side of the concrete wall, the four guys swarmed into the station like an onrushing flood. The inside of the station was dimly lit only by occasional overhead lights, so the guys switched on their flashlights without breaking stride. Their boots stomped against the linoleum floor as they moved across the back of the station, heading for a set of stairs.
When they reached the bottom level, the on-duty police officer stepped out from a door across the room. He was wearing only his police-issued pants, a white tee shirt, and a skintight bulletproof vest. Upon seeing the intruders and the weapons they each carried, he raised his standard-issue Glock 17 and fired without hesitation.
Through the darkness, noise, and chaos, it was difficult to tell if he’d hit any of them. But before he could take cover, the four intruders fired back, sending a barrage of bullets his way. One managed to hit him square in the chest, causing the air to blow out from his lungs and his body to fall backward.
Before the officer could retaliate, the four men pounced on him, relieved him of his weapon and used his own handcuffs to restrain him to a nearby metal door handle.
Leaving the officer dazed and sitting on the floor with the bullet lodged into his vest, they moved down a short hallway towards a small jail cell with a bunk bed on one side. Having heard the commotion, the captured member of Black Venom was on his feet with his hands wrapped around the metal bars and his eyes gazing towards the approaching men.
Without so much as a word, the four men stopped just a few feet away from the prisoner. With his right hand clutching a Colt Python revolver, one of the intruders raised it until the barrel was aimed straight into the prisoner’s chest and shot an evil smile. The guy had failed in his mission. He needed to be punished, and Black Venom never left loose ends.
“What the hell are you doing, Cesar?” the prisoner said with fear in his eyes.
“By order of Felix,” he fired back. “You are no longer needed in this organization. You have become a liability.”
Just as Cesar’s finger began to flex on the metal trigger, Luis’s eyes grew wide and he said, “Wait! There is another treasure.”
His voice was frantic, his breathing shallow and erratic. Cesar’s finger moved away from the trigger momentarily.
“What do you mean, there is another treasure?” he said, his voice hard but slightly less menacing than before.
Luis’s eyes darted back and forth among the four guys. A thin layer of sweat had formed on his brow.
“I heard them talking,” he said. “Logan Dodge and the others. They have found a sunken pirate ship. They pulled up artifacts from underwater.”
“Gold?” Cesar asked, listening intently to Luis’s frantic plea for life.
Luis shrugged. “A legendary pirate ship is bound to have gold. Maybe even more than they found from the Spanish galleon Intrepid.”
Cesar slowly lowered the revolver to his side and turned to look at the three men beside him. There was no need to speak; he could see their thoughts in their eyes. Maybe Luis was lying to save his own life—maybe there was no wreck. But all of them knew the repercussions of lying, and not a man in Black Venom would choose those repercussions over a bullet to the head.
Cesar glanced down at his wristwatch. They’d already taken too much time. The longer they were inside the police station, the greater the chances that they wouldn’t make it out of there.
Looking up at the tall thug beside him, Cesar said, “Go and get the keys, Antonio.”
The large man ran out of sight, searched the shackled officer’s clothes, and found a set of keys in the front right pocket of his pants.
As the big guy returned into view, Cesar looked back at Luis. “If you are lying, you will wish I’d put an end to you here and now.”
“I know,” Luis replied. “I’m not lying. The ship is real.”
Antonio handed Cesar the keys, and he inserted them one by one until the correct key clicked, turned, and allowed the cell door to slide open. Luis stepped out, and the five of them ran along the narrow hallway, up the stairs, and out into the night air. Within seconds, they climbed into the nearby idling van and slammed the door shut. The driver put the vehicle in gear and hit the gas, cruising back onto Roosevelt, heading east.
SIXTEEN
The next morning, Ange and I awoke with the sun. Having decided we wanted to get in an early workout with a few laps around Archer Key, we took off in the Baia and anchored down on the northern side of the small uninhabited island roughly nine miles west of Key West. The wind was calm, and there were only a few clouds dotting the sky overhead, making for a relatively flat surface all the way around the island.
I changed into a pair of just-over-the-knee swim trunks while Ange slid out of her denim shorts, revealing a dark blue bikini. After locking up the main door, I sat beside Ange on the swim platform, and we stared off at the mangrove-covered island and the bright sky to the east.
“How about a little wager?” Ange said, grinning as she dripped a few globs of shampoo onto her swim goggles, handed the bottle to me, then rinsed it out in the ocean.
I laughed, then set the bottle aside and used my saliva instead, swirling it around the lenses and rinsing it off in the ocean to prevent them from fogging up during our swim.
“What kind of wager?”
Ange thought it over for a moment. She’d been a competitive swimmer when she was young, and wherever she was working around the world, she almost always made time to get her laps in every week. She was fast, a natural in the water. But, being a former Navy SEAL and the son of a Navy diver, I was confident I could take her. We’d raced before, of course, and though I usually came out on top, she oftentimes surprised me.
“One lap,” she said. “Winner gets bragging rights. And the loser has to pay for dinner at Latitudes.”
I chuckled, not bothering to bring up the fact that I almost always paid when we went to Latitudes anyway. The truth was, she had me at bragging rights.
“You’re on,” I said, sliding my goggles into position.
We stood toe to toe on the swim platform, facing into a slow current that was flowing east to west. On Ange’s mark, I leapt through the air beside her and splashed softly into the water in a swan dive. Slicing through the water deep enough to almost touch the bottom, I kicked and pulled hard, keeping myself under for a few strong strokes before softly breaking through the surface and beginning my freestyle stroke.
Ange, who’d dived in just a few arm lengths away from me, swam ferociously, staying right beside me before passing me as we made the first turn around the western side of the island. I tried my best to stay with her while also conserving my energy. One lap in an Olympic-sized swimming pool would be a sprint, but the route around Archer Key covers a distance of approximately two miles. Archer Key is roughly two-thirds of a mile
long at high tide and half a mile wide, but the waters surrounding the island are shallow, forcing us to swim far enough away from the island to be in the deeper channels.
I kept myself to a breath every three strokes and, glancing up at Ange, realized that she’d increased her lead to a full body length. I picked up my pace slightly, but the last thing I wanted was to gas out on the final stretch. I’d swum with Ange many times and knew that she couldn’t keep up her current pace the entire race.
I glanced at the occasional flounder and a large school of herring as we swam ferociously around the island. During most of our morning swims, I was able to observe the marine life more closely and enjoy the wonders of the underwater world, but not this morning. This morning, Ange had me chasing her heels, my heart pounding as I took in big gulps of air and made stroke after powerful stroke.
When we made our last turn and swam into the final quarter-mile straightaway on the northern side of the island, I forced myself into a higher gear. Kicking as hard as I could and pulling myself through the water, I was forced to take a breath every two strokes and quickly caught up to Ange. We swam neck and neck for a few hundred feet, and I glanced at her, in awe of how she’d managed to keep up such an exhausting pace for so long.
With the Baia in sight, I gave everything I had and managed to pull a half-body length ahead of her. My body exhausted, my muscles screaming in pain, and my heart pounding, I willed myself to keep swimming. When we were within a few hundred feet of the Baia, I spotted Ange’s blurry tan-and-dark-blue figure approaching closer and closer on my right side.
I had nothing left but kept going anyway, pushing past the walls of exhaustion. I forced myself to complete a series of powerful strokes, but still, Ange managed to continue to cut my lead. Soon we were side by side, freestyling as fast as we could towards the finish line. With my lungs screaming and my body giving out, I noticed Ange as she splashed through the water and passed me by a single stroke at the final few feet before the Baia.
I passed the stern of my boat just a fraction of a second behind her. After pressing a button on my watch, I turned sharply to the left and rose up alongside her with my hands against the swim platform. We both breathed heavily for a few seconds, catching our breath and unable to speak. I’d always been competitive since I was young, but Ange was the same, and we had a way of raising each other to a whole other level.
“Holy crap,” I said, panting as I reached up and ripped the goggles off my face. I glanced down at my watch with wide eyes. “That’s a new record for Archer.”
Ange looked tired as hell with her hair tied back, revealing her reddened face. But even exhausted, I noticed a grin materialize on her face as she removed her goggles as well.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She laughed, shook her head and athletically pulled herself up out of the water.
“I think you should ask yourself that, Dodge,” she said. “You look like you’re about to have a heart attack.”
I smiled and pulled myself up and sat on the transom as Ange grabbed two towels, handing me one of them.
“I’m never gonna hear the end of this, am I?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
She chuckled and sat down beside me. “Maybe the day the Keys freeze over.”
We both toweled off, then rattled up the anchor, started up the engines, and headed back towards Conch Harbor Marina. It was still pretty early, but the workout had given us both a hearty appetite, and my supplies aboard the Baia were getting low, so we decided we’d head over to the Greasy Pelican for breakfast.
“You’ve got a few missed calls,” Ange said as she stepped out of the salon, wearing a faded Florida Marlins baseball cap and one of my thin flannel shirts.
I was just easing the Baia into slip twenty-four when she handed me my iPhone, and after tying her off, I glanced down at the screen. I had two missed calls, both from Sheriff Wilkes, along with a voicemail in which he informed me that he needed to speak with me as soon as possible.
I called him back as Ange and I walked down the dock towards the Pelican, and he picked up on the first ring.
“Logan,” he said, his voice booming through the speaker.
“Yeah, what’s going on, Charles?” I said, suspecting from his tone that something serious had happened.
He sighed. “I’d like to meet with you this morning. It’s important. Where are you?”
“Ange and I are on our way to the Greasy Pelican.”
He paused a moment, then said, “Okay. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.”
As he was about to hang up, I said, “Wait, what happened?”
I could tell that Charles was walking, able to hear his footsteps and breathing through the microphone.
“It’s that thug you guys brought in yesterday,” he said. “A group of guys came into the station last night and broke him out.”
SEVENTEEN
Not only does the Greasy Pelican have some of the best seafood in town, it’s also one of our favorite breakfast spots. I ordered a warm pile of cinnamon French toast covered in sliced strawberries, sprinkled with a layer of powdered sugar, and doused in their specialty maple syrup. Ange ordered the American breakfast, with eggs over easy, bacon, hash browns and toast, though she kept taking bites of mine as I sipped from my mug of coffee.
Charles walked in through the front door just a few minutes after our food arrived. He was wearing his police uniform and moved with his head on a swivel, as if danger could be lurking around every corner of the restaurant.
“Good to see you, Charles,” I said, then offered him a seat. He sat reluctantly, and I added in a more serious tone, “Any of your boys hurt last night?”
He nodded gravely, and when the waitress approached, he told her he’d just have a coffee.
“So what happened?” Ange said.
Looking up at both of us, Charles said, “Around midnight, a van pulled into the station. Four guys popped out wearing ski masks. They broke into the station, shot the night watch in the chest, and grabbed the prisoner.”
I sighed. “I’m sorry, Charles. Is he gonna be okay?”
Charles nodded. “He was wearing a vest, and it was a 9mm. Lucky, too, because based on the other bullet casings, one of the guys shooting had a .357. But he’ll be fine. I’m having a few squads come down from Homestead to help out. We run a pretty small operation here in Key West, and the last thing I want is to be overpowered again. I’ve also contacted the Navy and Coast Guard, and they’re on full alert.”
“Good,” I said, listening intently to his words.
“Did your security cameras catch anything useful?” Ange asked. “Any distinguishable markings on the thugs? Or the license plate of the vehicle?”
Charles shook his head. “They managed to disable the security system as they broke in. And we haven’t seen any sign of them since. How about you guys out on the water? Any more interactions or sightings?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Okay,” Charles said, rising to his feet. “Well, I’ve got to go. I just wanted to make sure you two were in the loop as to what’s been happening. I’ll call you if we obtain any new information.”
“Likewise,” I said.
As Charles turned to head for the door, Ange said, “Who was the officer that was shot?”
Charles glanced down at his phone, then looked up at Ange. “It was Officer Ben Kincaid. But he’s already been released from the hospital. Just a nasty bruise and whiplash, nothing serious.”
As Charles left, I drew my attention back to my food, which had been neglected during our conversation. I went quiet for a moment. I wasn’t close to Ben, but we’d hung out often over the past few months and I couldn’t help but feel a mean swell of anger. As I finished my plate, I thought about Black Venom and how they had a knack for pissing me off.
After breakfast, we met up with Jack, Pete, and Frank at the Calypso and headed back out to the wreck site. We spent the entire day in the water, diving along th
e seabed, scanning with our metal detectors, and sifting through mountains of sand to find various artifacts. On our way to the spot, we stopped at Blackbeard Salvagers in Marathon, the same company I’d worked with during our exploration of the German U-boat and while searching for the Aztec treasure. Pete was good friends with the owner, who gave us a good discount on a pair of mailboxes and helped us attach them to the stern of the Calypso. If we hadn’t looked like a full-fledged salvage operation before, we sure as hell looked like one now. The two large metal cylinders were a dead giveaway.
We spent an entire week searching, and though we’d found hundreds of artifacts from the wreck and hadn’t had any trouble with Black Venom, we also hadn’t found any gold or silver. Based on a few items we’d recovered, including a cannon that Frank said was English and dated it back to the seventeenth century, we were confident we’d found the Crescent. But the major question lingered in the air: if we’d in fact found the famous pirate’s shipwreck, where was his treasure?
As we were sitting up on the bridge eating lunch one afternoon, Frank glanced up from his laptop, his face covered with excitement.
“I think I may have something here,” he said.
Frank had spent much of his time over the past week researching anything he could find about John Taylor and the Crescent.
Looking up from the screen and seeing all of our expectant faces, he added, “While I was in London, I saved many of the archived files I thought might be useful on a thumb drive. I didn’t have time to look all of them over, so I figured I could read them later.” He took a sip of coconut water and continued, “Well, I’ve been reading more about the crew, and I’ve found something interesting.”
Frank rotated the laptop, allowing all of us to see the screen, and pointed to a few lines of highlighted text. “This is Edmond Graham. He was part of the Crescent’s crew when it set sail on its voyage that eventually ended in mutiny. He was never seen or heard from again after the incident and was believed to be killed.”