Betrayed in the Keys

by Matthew Rief

  “That will never happen,” I said sternly, causing Jefe to turn around in surprise.

  “Oh? And why the hell is that Logan?” Jefe barked.

  “Because I killed him.”

  His eyes grew wide in anger and he moved back towards me.

  “I killed him,” I said. “And I’m going to kill you as well.”

  Jefe froze in place, his eyes staring back at mine. He controlled his anger after a few seconds, his lips contorting to form a bone-chilling smile.

  “You are exactly as I’ve heard you to be, Logan,” he said. “It’s a shame I don’t have a man like you in my ranks. It’s also a shame that your life will soon be no more.”

  He moved his face close to mine, then clenched his right hand into a fist and plowed his knuckles against the side of my face. The pain was immense, and I realized that he’d been gripping a pair of brass knuckles. I spat out a spray of blood, then looked back at him.

  “You will show me where this treasure is,” he said, “or I will kill you right here, right now. The choice is yours.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  After spending an entire day searching, calling, and brainstorming, neither Jack nor Angelina had very much to go on. The only ray of good news they’d received was from a fishing charter captain based out of Marathon who was friends with Jack. After Jack had called him, the captain had informed him that he’d spotted the Yellow Rose out in Florida Bay a few days earlier, while he was taking clients out for a trip. But neither Jack or Angelina saw any sign of it while cruising around the Gulf side of the Keys. The Yellow Rose seemed to have disappeared, and Angelina knew that it had most likely disappeared into the Gulf.

  The following morning, as the sun was rising over a distant patch of thick clouds, Frank walked down the dock towards the Baia. He’d been trying to catch up on his classes at the college after taking so much time off to travel to Switzerland and to look for the treasure, but he wanted to see how the search for Logan was going.

  Angelina spotted him while she and Jack sat around the dinette of the Baia. They’d each only had a few hours of sleep as they continued to call around and use satellite imagery to try and locate the Yellow Rose. But things were looking bleak, and Angelina was ready to get back out on the water.

  Frank was wearing khaki shorts, a Key West Community College tee shirt, and sunglasses with a red strap as he approached. After a quick greeting, Angelina and Jack gave him a rundown of what was happening. It didn’t look good. Frank wasn’t a man of action or a soldier, but he was smart and had read enough about drug operations worldwide to know that they usually handled their business brutally and hastily.

  Frank sat down beside them, eager to do whatever he could to help find his friend. Ten minutes later, Angelina reached into her pocket and grabbed her cell phone as it vibrated to life. She was expecting a call back from Charles, and when she saw that it was him, she eagerly pressed the answer button and held the speaker up to her ear.

  “Angelina, you’re not gonna believe this,” he said, his tone more energetic than usual. “The Yellow Rose is on its way to Tampico. They spoke to the Coast Guard yesterday as they were leaving US waters.”

  Angelina paused for a moment, placed a hand against her temple and shook her head.

  “You’re right, Sheriff,” she said. “I don’t believe it.”

  “What are you talking about? Why not? This report was made by them long before your interaction.”

  “And why in the hell would they tell the truth?”

  Charles paused a moment, not knowing how to answer.

  “Look, we have something,” he said. “And we need to jump on it. I have the Mexican Coast Guard on alert and they will be ready in Tampico. The US Coast Guard also sent two boats into the Gulf looking for any sign of the yacht.” When Angelina didn’t reply, he continued, “It’s all we have right now. If not in the Gulf, then where is it? If you can answer that and give me something better to go on, I’m all ears.”

  But Angelina couldn’t. She had nothing else to go on but her common sense in dealing with criminals on a daily basis for years. The good ones never did the expected, and they rarely made stupid mistakes—and Black Venom was as good as they came.

  “I’ll keep you in touch,” he said after a moment’s pause. “Just promise me you won’t do anything rash. We’re handling this the best way we know how, and we’ll do everything we can to find them.”

  “Okay,” Angelina said, calming herself and knowing that anything she said would be useless at this point. After all, Charles still thought that Ben had nothing to do with Logan’s capture, which gave Angelina the impression that either he was getting soft in his older years, or he was refusing to face the truth.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “You’re not the only one who has lost someone here.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff,” Angelina said, then they both hung up.

  Angelina was so mad that she almost threw her phone over the side. She stomped towards the stern of the Baia and stared off, her heart pounding and her breathing heavy. She didn’t know where the Yellow Rose was or where it was going, but she sure as hell knew that it wasn’t going to Tampico.

  “Ange, are you okay?” Jack asked, stepping over and placing an arm on her shoulder. He’d never seen her anything but controlled and reserved before, and he did his best to comfort her. “We’ll find him, alright?”

  She kept her eyes peeled over the water for a few seconds.

  “Why would they be in Florida Bay a day after Logan was taken?” she asked, raising her voice. “It makes no sense. Unless…”

  Jack shook his head. “Unless what? What are you talking about?”

  “Unless they know about the treasure,” Frank said, stepping over towards them.

  Angelina nodded, then grinned. “Logan’s using it as a bargaining chip. It’s textbook. Hostage situation 101. Find something your captors want more than you. And who wouldn’t get excited about one of the largest lost pirate treasures in history?”

  “We should call Charles,” Jack said, grabbing his phone from the dinette.

  “No!” Angelina said. “Not until we find the yacht. He probably wouldn’t believe us anyway. Besides, like he said, they have their protocol. If the crew of the Yellow Rose said that they were heading to Tampico, that’s where they’ve got to look for them first.”

  “Wait, until we find the yacht?” Jack said.

  “That’s right,” Angelina said, jumping onto the dock and untying the lines. “We’re gonna go find this Yellow Rose. And the first place we’ll make our heading for is the wreck site.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  When Angelina and Frank were ready, Jack started up the twin six-hundreds and eased the Baia out of Conch Harbor Marina. It was overcast but the winds were calm, creating little chop and allowing them to punch the Baia full throttle as they cruised along the Lower Keys. By the time they reached Florida Bay, it was late afternoon and they only had a few hours of daylight to search.

  “Nearing the wreck site now,” Jack said. “If the yacht is there, we should have our first visual any minute now.”

  As Jack eased back on the throttles, Angelina stepped up onto the bow with a pair of binoculars glued to her eyes. Having been boating her entire life, she kept her balance easily without swaying side to side with each slight turn or bob up and down. She was wearing a pair of black athletic shorts, and since it was colder than usual for February at sixty-three degrees, she wore a white long-sleeved tee shirt. Her feet were bare as she stepped against the railing, hoping to spot a yacht in the distance as they moved around the small island.

  “Shit,” she said to herself as she stared into the magnifying lenses.

  She didn’t see a yacht or a sign of any boat floating above the wreck site. As she continued to search, scanning around the nearby waters, she spotted only two boats, a shrimp trawler and what looked like a fishing charter. To make things worse, a thick patch of fog had rolled in, making it difficult to see more
than a mile in front of her.

  “See anything?” Jack said, peering through the windscreen.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Jack sighed. “That white curtain’s gonna make seeing anything difficult. Looks like it’s coming our way.”

  “And there’s nothing that big on radar,” Frank said, standing beside Jack and huddled over the instruments in the cockpit.

  Jack kept the Baia just below her cruising speed of thirty knots as they cruised into the open waters of Florida Bay. In what felt like only seconds, the massive wave of fog came over them, surrounding them in a haze that made it difficult to see even a few hundred feet in any direction.

  “Of course,” Angelina said, stepping down into the cockpit. “The one day we need good viz on the surface and this shit happens.”

  Frank thought about Captain Shadow. He thought about the day the pirate had been attacked and how the accounts had described it as a foggy evening, much like the one they were experiencing. It gave him an eerie feeling that was followed by a few spine-tingling chills.

  The trio was forced to rely almost solely on the radar. They cruised all around the wreck site, creating a wide arcing circle, but didn’t find anything. As the evening pressed on and the fog refused to relent, Angelina began to feel like Logan was slipping away.

  What are the chances that yacht is anywhere near the Keys still? Angelina thought. If those guys were smart, and I’m betting they are, they’d be on the other side of the Gulf by now.

  The logical part of her brain fought to convince her that the chances of her ever seeing Logan again were slim to none. She’d dealt with cartels before and if there was one thing each and every one was very good at, it was making people disappear. But still, part of her believed wholeheartedly that if Logan had told them about the treasure, they would have had a hard time turning it down.

  “We’re gonna need fuel soon,” Jack said, his voice defeated as he looked at the gauge. He glanced at the GPS monitor in front of him and added, “The Coconut Marina in Lower Matecumbe will work nicely.”

  Angelina didn’t say anything as she looked out over the white-covered horizon surrounding them in all directions.

  “How long do you think it will take to pass?” Frank said, glancing up from the radar.

  Jack looked around, then checked the temperature, humidity, and wind indications on the panel in front of him. A patch of fog is difficult to predict, but he always preferred to foresee on the side of caution. He’d known too many people who’d underestimated thick fog and had paid the ultimate price for it.

  “Nightfall’s in an hour. It’ll be here long after that,” Jack said. He glanced back down at the GPS, then planned a route in his mind. “We can head east a few miles, then turn south towards Islamorada, then circle back to the marina in Lower Matecumbe. That way we can cover as much new area as possible. We’ll reach Coconut’s pretty low on fuel, but if we need it, I know Logan’s got a spare tank down in the engine room.”

  Angelina didn’t reply again. She just looked out over the water, seemingly lost in thought.

  “That sounds good, Jack,” Frank said. “We’ve searched all of these waters enough already,” he added, pointing at the GPS, “so sweeping around to the east makes sense.”

  They both agreed verbally, but inside they felt like Angelina looked. Stunned and unsure what to do next. Finding the Yellow Rose near the wreck site was the only hope for a plan that they had. Angelina had been so confident that it would be there, and now that it wasn’t, she felt a wave of disappointment that was difficult to combat.

  “They could be mooring to get out of the open water and wait out the fog,” Angelina said after a few minutes.

  Jack and Frank were both silent, then Jack nodded and followed the course he’d laid out. As the water flapped against the bow and the thin wake trickled behind them, Angelina slumped down into the dinette and brought up the laptop. The water was eerily quiet around them. If it had been just about anyone else at the helm, both Frank and Angelina would have taken occasional glances at the GPS to make sure that they were in the right spot. But Jack knew all of the islands, cuts, and reefs in the Keys as good as anyone alive, and they trusted his sense of direction with their lives.

  At just after seven, as the white glow of the sun bleeding through the fog was starting to fade away, Jack spotted a small break ahead of them. It was faint at first, then gradually the veil of powdery white slipped away, revealing a patch of light reddish sky above.

  They were just north of Shell Key in only about seven feet of water when Angelina jumped to her feet and looked out over the starboard bow.

  “What is it, Ange?” Jack asked, focusing in the same direction but seeing only a few patches of land dotting an empty bay.

  “I don’t know,” Angelina said. Then she turned to Frank who was shuffling out of the dinette, and added, “Hand me the binoculars.”

  Once she had them, she pressed them against her eyes and focused the lenses.

  “Holy shit,” she said after a moment’s pause.

  Jack continued to look and soon spotted a large white object on the horizon. It was a few miles away and was mostly covered by a small island, but after turning and looking closer, he realized that it was a yacht.

  “It’s the Rosa Amarilla!” Angelina said, her eyes peering through the binoculars.

  She brought them down and turned to look back at Jack and Frank, her face a combination of serious and excited. She handed them to Jack, who took a look as well. Right away, he spotted the distant image of a yellow rose painted onto the hull beside the name. It was the same yacht he’d seen in the Conch Harbor Marina the previous week.

  “But why is it here and not at the wreck site?” Jack asked as he handed the binoculars to Frank.

  “I don’t know,” Frank said. A second later, he dropped the binoculars, took a look around them to get his bearings, and added, “That’s Lignumvitae, right?”

  Jack nodded. “Yep. That’s it alright. Makes no sense that they would drop anchor so close to the mainland.” He motioned towards US-1, where portions of the road peeked through the fog just two miles to the south of them, to emphasize his point.

  “There must be a reason,” Angelina said. “Regardless, we need to call Charles and get ahold of the Coast Guard. They’re looking for the yacht in the wrong place!”

  As the words left her mouth, they heard the unmistakable sound of outboard engines coming from the stern of the Baia. Jack had the Baia’s engines running at just twenty knots, making it easy for them to hear the approaching boat behind them. The three of them looked back into the thick fog, and seconds later, they saw a twenty-six-foot tan Edgewater center-console materialize as if by magic.

  It didn’t take Angelina long to realize that it was the same boat she’d seen earlier that day. It was the same make and model and had at least ten fishing rods attached to its stern and gunwales.

  “Is it just me, or is that boat heading straight for us?” Frank said, saying what all three of them were thinking.

  “Looks like a fishing charter,” Jack said. “Probably out of Lower Matecumbe. I don’t recognize the boat, though.”

  Jack and Frank glanced at Angelina, who was reaching for the loaded Glock on her hip. She didn’t grab it, however. It was just a reflexive move to make sure that her handgun was still where it should be, even though she knew that it was.

  “Wow, what the heck?” Frank said, glancing at her and wondering why she thought the approaching boat was a threat.

  But Angelina didn’t reply. She just stepped towards the stern, standing against the swim platform as the boat continued its approach. Within thirty seconds, it slowed just a few hundred feet away and Angelina could see four men standing behind the windscreen. They waved as they cruised closer and yelled towards the Baia, saying that they had an injured man aboard.

  The approaching boat turned, and Angelina saw that one of the Latino guys was helping another onto his feet. Angelina surve
yed the scene quickly, going over every inch of the boat. The four guys looked young, maybe late twenties, and they looked like they knew how to carry themselves. She saw no signs of weapons other than what appeared to be a few fishing knives.

  “Please, my friend is hurt,” one of the bigger guys said. “He was bitten by a shark as we were reeling it in. Do you have a first aid kit aboard?”

  The boat was so close to the Baia now that they were almost touching, and one of the guys was holding a coiled rope, ready to throw it over once given the word. The guy who’d been bitten sat on the gunwale with his arm wrapped in a tee shirt.

  Jack told Frank to take the wheel, then grabbed a first aid kit from inside the salon and moved beside Angelina. As he was about to throw it over to the other boat, the sound of another large engine roared to life, coming from the starboard side of the Baia. The three looked towards the sound and saw a thirty-four-foot Baja 342, with a dark hull and silver streaks, thundering full speed straight towards them.

  “Dammit!” Jack said. He threw the first aid kit to the nearby boat, then ran into the cockpit. “We need to get the hell out of here.”

  As Angelina turned, she saw something strange in the corner of her eye. The guy who sat on the gunwale on the boat beside them suddenly threw off the tee shirt covering his lower body, revealing a strange-looking rifle with a short, narrow barrel.

  Shit, she thought as she gasped, focusing her gaze on the weapon.

  She didn’t have time to think things through, didn’t have time to wonder who the hell they were. In a blur of swift movements, her right hand darted instinctively for her Glock 26. Grabbing hold of her pistol, she raised it in an instant and pulled the trigger just as the guy pulled the trigger of his rifle. The bullets exploded out of Angelina’s Glock and struck the guy in the chest, causing him to fall backward and disappear from view.