A Ryan Weller Box Set Books 1 - 3

by Evan Graver

  The caller ID read: Jennifer Hulsey. Emily’s stomach tightened as she answered the phone.

  “The tracker isn’t working,” Jennifer blurted.

  “I know. I’m trying to reach Greg or Shelly.” Emily tapped the button to join Jennifer into the call she was making to Shelly.

  “Greg isn’t answering his cell or office number. I’m scared, Emily.”

  “Me too, Jenn, but we have to stay calm. Maybe the transmitter stopped working.”

  The ringing stopped, and the phone picked up. Shelly must have heard the last statement because she asked, “What transmitter stopped working?”

  Emily explained the transmitter issue to Shelly.

  “Did you try the sat phone?”

  “No,” Emily admitted, feeling sheepish for not thinking of such a simple solution.

  “I tried and there was no answer.” Jennifer’s voice trembled.

  Shelly’s words were calm. “Okay, maybe they’re having some electrical problems or there’s an issue with the satellites. We deal with stuff like this all the time. Sometimes it’s operator error, or they don’t want to talk to us.”

  The disbelief was evident in Jennifer’s voice. “But Mango wouldn’t just shut off the tracker and not tell us.”

  “Maybe the situation changed and has gone, as Ryan likes to say, ‘pear-shaped,’” Emily offered.

  “Either way, we need to find Mango and Ryan,” Jennifer said, her voice carrying the distress the other two women felt.

  “OK, ladies, sit tight,” Shelly said. “I’ll find Greg. We’ll straighten this out.”

  Emily and Jennifer hung up their phones after promising to stay calm. Rational minds were better than panicked ones.

  Shelly dialed Greg’s office and cell numbers. Both were busy. She got up from her desk and, a few steps later, was standing in front of Muriel Johnson.

  “Did Greg leave?”

  “I haven’t seen him. I believe he’s still in his office.”

  Shelly walked to his office and pressed her ear to the door. She could hear Greg speaking animatedly, his voice rising and falling in pitch to get his point across. “I don’t give a damn about schedules. Those boys are lost at sea and we need to mount a rescue op.”

  Shelly felt her flesh goose pimple with fear as she took a seat across from him. He waved at her and leaned his elbows on the desk blotter. One hand pressed a phone to his ear and the other rubbed his forehead. He was listening intently to the conversation on the other end. Shelly noticed his cell phone was vibrating and the other landline phone receiver was lying off its cradle.

  “We sent them out there and now we need to go look for them,” Greg barked, then listened. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He slammed the receiver down in the cradle so hard it bounced out and skittered across the desk.

  He rubbed both temples with his fingertips.

  “What’s going on? I just got off the phone with Emily and Jennifer.”

  “That was Landis and he can’t do anything. All the resources are tasked, and nobody’s close to our boys. They’re in Mexican waters, and getting those idiots to do anything is like pulling teeth.”

  “Did they actually wreck?”

  “I don’t know what happened,” Greg admitted. He leaned back in his chair. “I received an alert that the tracker went offline and immediately called the company. It’s not a satellite issue and there hasn’t been an EPIRB signal meaning the boat sank. We honestly don’t know what’s going on.”

  “But they’re sending someone to check, right?”

  “No, not right now. Since they haven’t received an emergency signal, they’re considering it a software glitch, which is bullshit.”

  “I agree,” Shelly concurred. She hopped off the chair and paced in front of the desk.

  “Stop it, woman, you’re driving me crazy.”

  She plopped back into the chair. “How far offshore are they?”

  “Two days. Two hard days in the Hatteras.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Can you drop everything?”

  “We don’t have a choice. You can’t go by yourself.”

  “I can take Chuck.”

  “He’s flying Dash’s crew to the rigs in Louisiana.”

  Greg smacked the desk with both hands. “Let’s go.”

  “What can we do?”

  “We can go find them. If the tracker comes back on, we turn around. I can’t leave him out there, Shelly. He saved my life and I’m going to save his.” He pushed away from the desk. “I need to get a few things from our DHS workshop. Meet me at the boat.” He glanced at his watch. “In an hour.”

  She stood. “I need to pack some clothes and make arrangements for work.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  As Greg rolled through the DWR facility, he saw Jerry DiMarco standing by the dive tank. He stopped beside the burly black man. “Jerry, we’ve got an issue with Ryan and Mango. Can you run offshore with us?”

  “Sure thing. I’ve got a go-bag in the office. Just need to phone the wife.”

  “Grab it and meet us at the Hatteras in an hour.”

  “Roger that.”

  Greg drove to Ryan’s office. He grabbed his go-bag, a large backpack equipped with everything from a multi-tool to a week’s worth of medical supplies needed to deal with his paralysis. He hung it on the backrest of his chair. In a cross-draw holster, he stuffed a Sig Sauer P226 MK25 nine-millimeter pistol. Two spare magazines slid into a mag holder. A second bag contained several changes of clothes and a shaving kit. He piled these in the car and went back for two more bags Ryan had packed earlier. He also tucked a Walther PPQ M2 into a holster. From the gun vault, he grabbed two Mossberg 500 marine shotguns and a Springfield M1A Socom rifle. Then he raced through town to the boat.

  DiMarco met him at the Hatteras. They loaded the gear and pulled the boat tight against the dock. Greg transferred over, rode up to the bridge and fired up the diesel engines.

  “What else do you need?” DiMarco asked.

  Greg pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to DiMarco. “These are the last known coordinates for Ryan’s boat. Use the computer in the salon to figure out what the currents are like. There should be software to model their movements if the boat’s floating or if they’re in a life raft.”

  DiMarco nodded and went below. Greg looked at his watch and then called Shelly to tell her to hurry. Fifteen minutes later, she walked out of the building, pulling a large suitcase on rollers. She stowed her luggage in the V-berth stateroom, gave DiMarco several pointers on the use of the software, and then stepped onto the dock. She cast off the ropes and climbed aboard as Greg backed out of the slip. They idled down Industrial Canal, and as they came alongside the Texas City Dike, he threw the throttles forward and the boat leaped up on plane. They turned south and raced through Bolivar Roads and out into the perpetually brown water surrounding Galveston Island. Clear of the channel, Greg turned the wheel, guiding the boat toward Sweet T’s last known coordinates. The seas were building, and the sky was turning the color of lead in the southeast.

  Shelly yelled in Greg’s ear, “I’m going below to call Jennifer and Emily. I’ll be right back.”

  The boat’s wide bow flares pushed most of the waves away, as she plunged through them, yet water still swept over the front deck, ran through the scuppers and out the back of the boat.

  When Shelly returned from her phone calls, she closed the rain curtains around the open bridge. She stood beside Greg with her legs spread and her knees bent to take the pounding of the waves.

  “I have to run into the waves and it’s taking us off course,” Greg shouted. “The radar shows it’s just a passing thunderstorm and should be over in an hour or so.”

  Shelly glanced at her watch. They were racing against time, the elements, and their dwindling supply of fuel. She leaned closer to Greg’s ear. “NOAA radio says squalls will continue all night and tomorrow.”

  Greg’s face was grim when h
e said, “That blows our timeline.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The storm Greg was watching was about to fall on Mango and Ryan. Darkness crept across the horizon and lightning streaked the sky. Already, the seawater had built into three-foot waves and the wind gusted hard enough to send cascades of foam into the air.

  The rain came in droves, slamming down so hard it hurt the tops of Ryan and Mango’s heads. The drops ricocheted off the water and pelted their skin. When they weren’t dodging raindrops, the waves raised them six feet into the air, dropped them into the troughs, and washed over them.

  Ryan tried tilting his head back to catch rain water in his mouth. He ended up gargling saltwater. He gave up trying to slake his parched throat. It felt like he was swallowing sandpaper and his tongue ached. Mango felt the same because he’d expounded on it in the last hour as they watched the storm barrel down on them.

  Closing his eyes, Ryan tried to relax. After the RIB had driven away, he and Mango had looked for flotsam from the sunken sailboat. They came across a life jacket which Ryan had insisted Mango put on because he only had one leg to kick with. Close to the life jacket, they’d found a water jug Ryan used to keep on deck. It had a length of rope attached to it, and they used the rope to lash themselves together, back to back.

  There was no telling how long they could hold out floating in the open ocean. Between their ravenous thirst, inclement weather, and hungry sharks, their chances were slim. Houston was two days away, and the stranded sailors were in Mexican waters below the normal operations of the Coast Guard; not that the Coast Guard would refuse to come down. The Mexican Navy, however, wasn’t going to make an appearance because someone might be missing.

  These thoughts swirled in Ryan’s head as he swallowed dryly and stared at millions of gallons of water that would kill him if he dipped his mouth in to quench his palate. The paraphrased line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” came to mind: “Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” His stomach clenched, and his body tried to curl into a ball as it shook with cold.

  If Ryan listened hard, he could hear his old Navy dive instructor, Senior Chief Baker, screaming at the dive candidates from the edge of the pool, “Kick those legs, recruits. This ain’t no game! If you want to pass this evolution, you need to stop thinking and just do it. It’s mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”

  Ryan’s mind switched off as his body became numb. Behind him, Mango was also shaking from the cold. His eyes were closed, and his arms sculled the water. Ryan shut his eyes against the storm.

  Throughout the night, they floated in and out of squalls, suffering through the blasts of thunder, hammering rains, and relentless waves, which swamped their bodies and turned their stomachs. They both inhaled seawater and vomited it out. The storm moved on in early morning.

  With the clearing clouds came the sun and its glaring intensity. It helped to cure the shivering and the shakes. Ryan knew hypothermia was a real threat if they stayed in the water much longer. They held Mango’s T-shirt over their heads as a sunshade. It ended up draped over their eyes and blocked their view.

  There was nothing to look at, anyway.

  Neither had the energy to speak. Their thoughts centered on survival and home. Ryan’s lips cracked and split. He kept running his tongue over them to keep them moisturized, but it was of little use. Dipping them in the water only made them burn from the salt. Mango complained about blisters.

  Ryan rested his chin on his chest. He was responsible for this situation. It had been his idea to hunt for the pirates on his sailboat. Backup was a long way away, and he had no way of knowing if they even knew he and Mango were in trouble.

  Late in the evening, the clouds built again, and both men prayed they would not bring more rain and storm-tossed seas. Fortunately, the storms stayed to the south, but they still sent ravenous waves to devour them on their march across the ocean. Mother Nature put on a spectacular light show as lightning danced across the horizon. Above them stretched the brightest patch of Milky Way they’d ever seen.

  Exhausted, Ryan drifted off to sleep and had strange, vivid dreams. Toward morning, he dreamed of Emily. He was holding her close, one hand around her waist, the other entwined in her thick, blonde mane. She tilted her head back to expose her delicate throat. Ryan gently kissed her neck. She bent her lips to his ear. He shivered as her breath whispered across his skin. “Wake up.”

  Ryan kissed her neck, working his way from her collarbone to her ear. She pressed her cheek against his, and her lips brushed against his ear.

  This time, her words thundered out in Mango’s voice. “Wake up!”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Ryan’s head snapped up off his chest, and brilliant sunlight assaulted his eyes. He squeezed them shut and gradually worked them back open until they’d become accustomed to the glare. When he finally looked around, he saw a fishing boat on the horizon.

  “Untie me,” Mango demanded.

  With swollen fingers, Ryan struggled with the knot and failed to untie it. They slipped off again and again. “I can’t get it.”

  Mango sliced through the line with his knife. “There are drift net floats about fifty yards away from us.”

  “Let’s go hang on to the net.”

  “We don’t want to get too close. We could get entangled in the ropes or impaled by the hooks. And there’s always sharks looking for an easy meal.”

  “All right, Captain Cautious.”

  “I’ve seen it happen. We’ll stay close to them and swim toward the boat.”

  “Let’s go.” Ryan held on to Mango and began kicking.

  On the horizon, the boat turned and worked toward them. The nets were being drawn in and the buoys created little wakes. If the boat drew the nets in before the captain saw them, they would miss their chance at rescue. Mango found a whistle in a pocket of the life jacket and he began to blow it.

  The boat changed directions to come straight at them. It slowed as it approached.

  Two weathered men and a preteen boy leaned over the rail. The oldest man gave a broad smile, which creased and wrinkled his skin. He called to them in Spanish. “Son demasiado feos para ser sirenas.” You’re too ugly to be mermaids.

  Ryan laughed with relief at being rescued, and at the old man’s joke. He replied, “Las mujeres en un barco son mala suerte. Permiso para venir a bordo?” Women are bad luck on a boat. Permission to come aboard?

  The man took a cigarette from his mouth and made a motion for the boy to throw a rope to the waterlogged men. As the young boy helped Mango over the rail, he gaped in astonishment at the stump of Mango’s leg.

  He cried out, “Your leg, señor!”

  Mango gave him a devilish grin. “A shark ate it.”

  “No!” the boy cried and clamped both hands over his mouth. His wide-eyed stare swept up to meet the old man’s. The boy dropped his hands and pointed at Mango’s leg while shouting a rapid stream of Spanish.

  The old man laughed, as did the mate and Ryan. Mango just grinned.

  Ryan translated for his non-Spanish-speaking friend. “The boy believes your story about the shark. His grandfather, not so much. He pointed out the leg was healed, and no blood was coming out. Plus, there were no sharks chasing us.”

  Mango laughed.

  “Not a good joke, mister,” the boy muttered.

  “What happened to your leg?” Ryan remembered seeing Mango’s prosthesis jammed into the straps of his life vest. He hadn’t thought about it since.

  “I had to take it off. It was weighing me down and my stump swelled in the cup, making it hurt. I tried to keep it, but it got washed away last night when I fell asleep.”

  “I’ll get you a new one when we get back.”

  “You better, I don’t think the VA will buy my story.”

  Joyfully, the rescued men wrapped themselves in worn blankets provided by the mate. The boy brought chipped mugs full of steaming cof
fee.

  Ryan took a minute to examine his body. His toes and fingers were white and swollen from being in the water. His skin was red and blistered from both the sun and the chafing of the rope across his waist and underarms. When he tried to drink the coffee, the liquid stung the splits in his lips. Even though the coffee was some of the best he’d ever tasted, he knew it would only dehydrate him more. After the coffee, Ryan would drink the cold bottle of water the boy had also brought before returning to the business of retrieving the nets.

  “We need to call home,” Mango urged. “We haven’t checked in, and Jennifer will be worried.”

  “I’ll find out if the captain has a phone.” Ryan finished the coffee before standing.

  The man shook his head when asked about a phone and pointed to a VHF marine radio.

  Ryan switched the radio to channel thirty-eight, DWR’s preferred channel for radio communication. He pressed the send button on the microphone. “Hailing any DWR vessel in hearing range. Hailing any DWR vessel.”

  His repeated calls went unanswered for the next two hours. The captain gave a shrug of his shoulders.

  Ryan asked, “¿Tienes un una carta marina?” Do you have a chart?

  “Si.” The man nodded and motioned for Ryan to follow him to the other side of the pilothouse.

  He pulled out a dog-eared chart and unrolled it on a small table. Using a coffee cup and an ashtray, he anchored two corners of the map. He lit a cigarette and held the pack out. Ryan took the proffered cigarette and stuck it between his lips. The old man lit his and handed the lighter over before pinning down a third corner of the curling chart with his right hand and pointing to a spot in the Gulf of Mexico with his left.

  The Yucatán Channel connected the Yucatán Basin of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico between the Yucatán Peninsula and Cuba. Three currents moved north through this natural funnel and spread out into the Gulf. The Florida Current flowed east between Cuba and Florida. The Yucatán Current wrapped around the horn of the Yucatán Peninsula and swept west then north along the eastern coast of Mexico. The third, Loop Current, rose straight north toward the boot of Louisiana before bending east and south to rush headlong into the Florida Current. In the middle of the Gulf, between the Loop Current and Mexico to the west, the waters swirled in a clockwise eddy. It was in this giant whirlpool Ryan and Mango had found themselves trapped as it pushed them south and west, many miles from the final resting place of Sweet T.