by Evan Graver
Ryan climbed into his rented Jeep Wrangler four-door. He followed Greg past DWR’s entrance gate and waved to the security guard standing in the booth.
Ten minutes later, they parked outside a row of industrial office buildings. To break up the blank, gray, concrete block wall, each office had a door, a large picture window, and two tall narrow windows. Greg tossed Ryan a set of keys and motioned for him to open the door.
Ryan pulled the office door open and held it for Greg. The picture window looked in on the small reception area which contained two office cubicles divided by a low wall. Each had a desk, chair, and a computer. Ryan followed Greg into an office the size of the two cubicles. It had a small sofa against the far wall. Behind the desk were bookshelves loaded with binders, books, memorabilia, and pictures. The tall, narrow windows flanked a wall-mounted, flat-screen television.
Greg sighed. “This was Dad’s office.”
Ryan put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. He knew no words to ease the pain. He’d lost men in battle, but not parents.
“Sorry, man,” Greg said as he wiped his cheek with the back of his hand. He wheeled across the room and picked up a picture of his parents. He studied it for a minute, then set it face down on the shelf.
Ryan spied a bottle of Cazadores Blanco tequila on a shelf behind the desk. Beside it were two tumblers. He sat down at the desk and poured a finger’s worth of alcohol into each glass and handed one to Greg. “A toast to your parents.”
Greg lifted his glass and clinked it against Ryan’s. They tossed back the clear liquid and set their glasses on the desk. Greg motioned for a refill and Ryan obliged.
Ryan pulled off his tie, stuck it in the pocket of his suit jacket, and then hung the jacket on the back of the chair. He retrieved the file Landis had given him from his briefcase and flipped it open. “Have you read this?”
Greg shook his head. “No, Landis called me last week and said he had a new job for us. That’s when I sent Grandpa after you. I was hoping he’d send us after those bastards who bombed the mansion. I’d like to send a few more of them to search for their virgins.”
Ryan picked up the cover sheet. “Unless sailboat thefts are linked to a bunch of dirty terrorists, we’re looking for pirates.” He read the first line aloud. “To date, forty-three sailboats have disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Two hours later, they’d read everything in the file.
“Well?” Greg asked.
“We’ve done more with less.”
“What’s your first move?”
Ryan said, “I’d like to talk to the company who insured the majority of these boats. Have you heard of them?” He picked up a paper and read the name, “Ward and Young?”
“They’re one of the largest insurers on the Gulf Coast. We insure some of our boats through them.”
“What’s your agent’s name?”
“Call Muriel and ask her. I’m sure she knows.”
Ryan dialed Muriel’s number at DWR. He asked her for the name of their Ward and Young agent. She gave him the number with astonishing quickness. Greg chuckled at the ease with which his secretary handled her daily tasks.
After hanging up with Muriel, Ryan dialed the number she’d given him.
“Ward and Young, Harry Ball speaking.”
Ryan had to choke down the laughter welling inside him. Ball’s gravelly voice fit his name.
Greg rolled his eyes and smirked before he leaned into the speaker phone and said, “Harry, this is Greg Olsen. How are you?”
“About the same, old, fat, and bald.” Harry paused. “Sorry to hear about your folks, Greg. I really liked them.”
“Thanks, Harry. I’m working on a salvage case, and the boat belongs to you guys. Who do I need to talk to about it?”
“Was it stolen, wrecked, or swamped at the dock?”
“Stolen.”
“Do you have the hull identification number?”
“Yes.” Greg read the HIN from the sailboat the Coast Guard had confiscated in Louisiana.
Harry said it would take a minute. They could hear him typing on a computer keyboard.
Ryan took out a cigarette and stuck it between his lips but didn’t light it.
“Okay, Greg, I can’t help you with this one. You need to call corporate. A woman by the name of Emily Hunt is handling those cases. Seems like she’s got quite a workload.”
“Do you have a number for her?” asked Greg.
“Yes, I do. It is… Okay. Ready?”
Greg said, “Yes,” and Ryan wrote the name and number on a legal pad he’d found in a desk drawer.
“Where’s corporate?” Ryan asked.
“Tampa,” Harry answered.
Greg said, “Thanks, Harry.”
“Any time.”
Greg pressed the End button, and the phone went silent. “There’s your first lead.”
“I want to meet with Emily Hunt and review her files. Maybe I can spot something of value. I’ll make flight arrangements.” Ryan pulled a laptop from his briefcase and opened it up.
“You don’t need to make reservations. I’ll have Chuck fly you over.”
Ryan looked up from searching the desk drawers for an internet password. “Who’s Chuck?”
“Chuck Newland. He’s our resident pilot. We’ve got a Beechcraft King Air.”
“You must be doing well,” Ryan said, surprise in his voice. He found the password on a scrap of paper taped to the bottom of the main desk drawer and typed it into his computer.
“Dad got it from a government auction site. We were the low bidder. Surprise, we were the only bidders.” Greg glanced at his watch. “One more stop before I have to get back to the office. I didn’t realize how much work it required to run this company. Come on, one last thing to show you and I’ll leave you alone.”
They walked out of the office and turned right. A door behind the second cubicle led into a two-story-tall garage space divided by a plywood-covered wall which didn’t reach all the way to the ceiling. In the cool darkness, Ryan could smell oil, sawdust, damp concrete, and grease. To him it was a pleasant mix of odors.
Greg wheeled to the left side of the dividing wall, reached for a bank of switches, and turned on the overhead lights and an exhaust fan.
“Dad set this place up, so he could keep DHS gear separate from the other DWR assets. He spent a lot of time getting everything the way he wanted it. Matter of fact, he bought this whole office complex a few years ago. We operate it under a different name.”
“No need to pay rent.” Ryan lit a cigarette and walked to the right-hand side of the divided space. The space was open with an industrial roll-up garage door with an electric opener in the far wall. A variety of garden implements hung by hooks screwed into the plywood. Ryan wondered why Greg’s dad kept garden tools at his industrial office.
The left side of the dividing wall was where Allen Olsen had built his workshop. A seven-foot-tall set of cabinets ran the length of the plywood dividing wall. At the back of the shop, the cabinets stopped at a concrete bunker built eight feet inside the original walls of the main building. The small room had a concrete roof and inset in the block was a heavy vault door with electronic security locks.
On the left side of the workspace, a fifteen-foot-long workbench ran from the bunker back toward the office. It ended beside a long bright red-and-chrome tool chest. From there, a set of shelves ran to the office wall, turned, and stopped at the door they’d just come through.
“Wow!” Ryan finally said.
“Dad went a little overboard. Let me show you the coolest part.” He wheeled to the vault door and told Ryan what code to tap into the electronic lock.
The door swung open and they ventured inside.
Ryan’s eyes went wide as he looked around the eight-by-fifteen room. Around the bottom of three walls were cabinets equipped with either sliding drawers or doors. Above the cabinets, Allen had mounted long guns on Pegboard hooks. There wasn’t an empty slot on the wall.
Ryan tried to name all the firearms he saw: FN SCARs, Tavor SARs, Armalite M4s, Sig Sauer MPXs, Heckler & Koch MP5s, UMPs, Springfield Socom Model 16s, and two M32 six-shot grenade launchers. The ones he couldn’t name were an assortment of sniper rifles in a variety of calibers and configurations.
Greg opened a drawer to reveal neat rows of pistols. He said, “There are three more drawers of handguns. The rest is ammunition, cleaning kits, targets, and battle dress.”
Ryan shook his head in dismay. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gun locker like this anywhere, even in the military.”
Greg grinned. “We’re quite proud of our collection. Dad formed a corporation to get a Federal Firearms License so we can own full auto guns and silencers.” He opened a drawer and showed Ryan a variety of the round suppressors.
Ryan turned and pointed at the wall on his right as he entered the gun locker. “What’s behind there?” He’d noticed the gun locker wasn’t quite as large as the bunker’s outside dimensions.
“On the other side is a compressor for filling scuba tanks. It’s accessible from the other garage bay.”
Ryan nodded and stepped out of the gun locker. Greg closed the door behind him. Ryan looked at the cabinets and saw two lockers labeled Jerry and Allen. He opened both to find an assortment of diving gear and other personal items.
“What do you want me to do with your dad’s gear?”
“Keep what you want and take the rest out to their house. My sister, Anna, and I have to get rid of their stuff.” He wheeled over to the workbench where a Poseidon Se7en rebreather was awaiting assembly. He pulled a lighter from a drawer and lit the cigarette dangling from his lips.
“What are you and Anna going to do with their things?” Ryan asked.
“I think we’ll have an auction after we take what we want. Just sell everything and be done with it.”
Ryan leaned his backside against the workbench and lit his own cigarette. “I’ve never met your sister.”
“I’m keeping her as far away from you as possible.”
With mock sincerity, Ryan pointed to himself and said, “But, I’m a nice guy.”
Greg snorted. “And pigs fly.”
“Come on, buddy. Send her by, I need a secretary.”
“No,” Greg said emphatically.
Ryan laughed. “You know I’m joking, right?”
“If you were joking, you’d say, ‘A horse walked into a bar and the bartender said, why the long face.’” He was stealing a line from one of their favorite movies to watch while on deployment, Hot Shots! Part Deux.
The ringing of Greg’s cell phone interrupted their laughter. He pressed Answer and put it to his ear. Ryan listened to Greg’s side of the conversation. Finally, Greg said, “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He hung up and slipped the phone back into its holder. “I’ve got to get back to work. Call Chuck and let him know when you want to fly to Tampa. I’m sure Dad left a list of numbers in his office. If not, call Muriel and she’ll get you what you need.”
“Thanks, Greg.”
“For what?”
“For asking me to do this job.”
“No problem, buddy. You gave me a kick in the ass when I needed it and I’m doing the same for you. Anything else you need?”
A shy smile curled the left side of Ryan’s lip. “A corporate credit card?”
“You joke but see Muriel and she’ll give you one.”
“Does she run the whole company?”
“Pretty much. I gotta go. Bring your gear by the house tonight and we’ll set you up.”
Ryan watched Greg get in his car and drive away. His stomach rumbled, and he scrolled through internet listings on his phone to find a number for a sandwich shop that delivered and ordered lunch. He went back to the office, picked up the legal pad and continued to the workshop. He began inventorying all the gear in Allen’s personal locker. By the time his sandwich arrived, he’d gotten through what was there. Ryan also collected the pictures and mementos Allen had spread throughout the office and shop and put them in a cardboard box. This was his office now and he didn’t want Greg to be reminded of his parents every time he stopped by.
Between bites of his Italian sub, he turned on his office’s desktop computer. It was password-protected. He called Muriel and asked her if she knew the password. She gave the code to him, and he unlocked the screen. He was glad Allen had shared the information, and he told Muriel he would leave it as it was and got off the phone.
He swiveled around in the chair and looked at the row of notebooks on the bottom shelf. One was a three-inch thick, three-ring binder with all DWR’s personnel and vendor contact information. The others were operations manuals, warranties, and parts lists for all the equipment, guns, dive gear, and computers in the shop.
Back at the computer, Ryan found a file containing a complete inventory of all the gear in the shop. He printed it out and flipped through the ream of paper. The military had instilled in him a need to inventory his tools before and after every dive. With the inventory list for the workshop, he would know if anything was missing and exactly where everything was located.
The clock on the wall told him it was almost two in the afternoon. Time seemed to be flying by. He picked up the phone and dialed the number for Ward and Young’s corporate headquarters and asked for Emily Hunt. After answering a series of questions to get past the gatekeepers, he got her answering machine. He left a message, hung up, and took his inventory list to the garage.
Chapter Seven
Ryan had researched Ward and Young before Chuck flew him to Tampa. Ward and Young dated back to the early 1900s. They began covering automobiles, boats, yachts, and houses when rich young industrialists started making their way to Florida to escape the dreary northern winters. Their business was tied to the booms and busts of Florida’s economic cycle, and Ward and Young almost folded in the 1930s. Post-World War Two prosperity, the invention of air conditioning, and the interstate highway brought an influx of new residents to the state. Ward and Young once again flourished, quickly expanding into other Gulf and Atlantic states to become the number one boat insurer in the country.
He’d pictured the company in a downtown Tampa Bay high-rise with stale cigar smoke deeply ingrained in worn, leather sofas, dark wood paneling, and snifters of brandy on oaken sideboards. When the cab pulled up in front of Ward and Young’s corporate headquarters, Ryan saw a tall, modern, glass-and-steel building in the suburbs. Inside, minimalist styling dominated with steel-armchairs, glass tables, sculptures, art, and plants.
At the reception desk, Ryan asked for Emily Hunt. The receptionist tapped a series of buttons on the phone and spoke into her headset. He’d made this appointment three days ago when Emily had returned his phone call, telling her he was investigating the recent rash of sailboat thefts and disappearances in the Gulf of Mexico. He outlined his search parameters based on the boat the Coast Guard had found in Bayou Sale Bay.
Emily Hunt appeared as the elevator doors slid open. She was a striking figure in white slacks and a pink blouse. She wore open-toed flats, allowing him to see her toenail polish matched her fingernails. Her layered blonde hair, the color of ripe harvest wheat, fell just past her shoulders, and her eyes were cornflower blue. She extended her hand and introduced herself. Ryan reciprocated.
They rode the elevator in silence, staring straight ahead at the blinking light telling them what floor they’d passed, until the doors opened on fifteen. Ryan appraised her out of the corner of his eye. She stood just two inches under his six-foot height. Her skin had a golden glow, and her long limbs showcased athletic prowess.
She moved with the grace and ease of a model along a window-lined hallway, past rooms full of cubicles, with representatives chatting on headphones, to a conference room. On the table were two stacks of files, both about eight inches high. Some files were much thicker than others.
Emily set a hand on each pile. “These are all the files I could gather pertaining to the information you as
ked for. I’ve handled many of these cases myself.”
“Thanks for doing this.”
“I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I hope you find it. I have work to do. If you’ll excuse me.”
He nodded, and she left the conference room. After pulling out a chair, he sat down in front of the files and sorted through them. There were more than he’d expected.
Ryan had been working steadily for several hours, drinking Pepsi from a machine in the lobby and lost in concentration, when Emily came in and sat down across the table from him.
“Any luck?” she asked, taking in the neat rows of files lined up on the conference table. Each was open to a different page with a sticky note pasted on it.
“I concentrated on larger boats, thirty-five-foot and above. I’m just trying to connect the dots to see if something ties all the thefts together.” He swept his hand over the whole pile.
She shook her head. “There are thousands of boats stolen each year. Most are stripped for their gear, especially fishing boats. Generally, we never find them. Some show up when other people find them adrift or sunk.”
“What happens if you find one of the stolen boats?” He leaned back in his chair, soda can in hand.
“Usually, we’ve already paid out on the insurance claim and the boat is ours. We sell them at auction. If someone finds a boat and brings it back, we negotiate salvage rights and they can have the boat to deal with as they please. They either fix them up for resale, part them out, or demolish them for scrap. If the boat suffers loss or damage caused by theft, vandalism, or malicious act, we replace or repair the stolen or damaged items. We have separate values for hulls, motors, sails, trailers, and other items on the boat.
“In these cases,” Emily continued, pointing at the files, “we look at the police report, if there is one, and I, or one of our other investigators, take the case. Like I said, if, and I mean this is a big if, the boat shows up someplace, we own it and we can sell it for salvage, scrap, or have it demolished.”
“It says here, some of your boats have shown up—two in the Bahamas, several down in the Keys and one in Tahiti.”