A Ryan Weller Box Set Books 1 - 3

by Evan Graver

  “Yeah,” Ryan agreed half-heartedly.

  “Look, don’t do anything hasty. Stay dead for a while and we’ll see how things shake out.”

  “I can do that. What are you going to do? You’ll have to hire a new goon for your ops.”

  “Well,” said Landis. “Since you went off the reservation, the DHS has put a damper on DWR’s operations.”

  “It’s probably for the best. I think the hurricane cleanup is going to keep them busy. I’ve heard Greg on the sat phone talking to Shelly and Admiral Chatel about it.”

  “What about you, any plans?”

  “Put some distance between myself and DWR. Jennifer is meeting Dark Water in the Gulf, so she and Mango can start their cruise together. I hear you’re working on new passports and paperwork for them.”

  “Yes, I’m also trying to arrange asylum paperwork for Joulie. It’s a difficult road with the current political climate, especially with the president considering deporting Haitians.” He sighed. “That’s my problem, not yours, and you haven’t told me what you’re planning.”

  “I’m going to hang out in the Keys and spend some time with Emily.”

  “Uhm … she’s … uhm,” Landis stammered.

  “What?”

  “She gave me a message for to you.”

  “She did?” Ryan sat up, eager to hear news of his girlfriend.

  “I can’t repeat half of what she said because it was pretty foul, but the gist of it is that she’s done with your relationship, and she doesn’t want you to call her, or to go see her. I’m sorry, man.”

  The news stunned Ryan. He’d survived multiple hits on his life, stopped a tyrant from starting a war, and swam out of a sunken ship, only to be blindsided. No wonder she hasn’t returned my phone calls.

  “I’m sorry, Ryan,” Landis repeated to fill the dead air.

  “I know. I’ll call you later.” He hung up the phone in a daze. Why doesn’t she want to see me?

  Two hours later, Greg found Ryan at the outdoor bar, chain smoking and drinking straight tequila.

  “This can’t be good,” Greg said, motioning for the bartender to pour him a shot. “You okay?”

  “I’ll be all right,” Ryan said. They clinked shots and kicked them back. “Emily broke up with me.”

  “You sure you’re okay? I mean, she was the one, right?”

  “Yeah.” Ryan shrugged. “I thought she was.”

  “We’re pulling anchor tomorrow. The hurricane is crossing into Georgia and we’ve got a clear window to get gone.”

  “Cool.” Ryan threw back another shot.

  Greg started to turn away.

  “Is everything good with you?” Ryan asked. “I mean, you about got plugged by that Russian bastard.”

  “He’s feeding fish now. I’m good.” Greg rubbed the side of his face where Volk had slapped him. Most of the bruising had disappeared.

  “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

  “Don’t be an asshole. You didn’t get me into anything I couldn’t handle. Besides, we’ve been through worse.”

  Ryan nodded and took a pull on his cigarette.

  “That shit will kill you, bro,” Mango said, walking up with Joulie. The two had become fast friends.

  Ryan flipped him the bird.

  Ryan knelt in the sand, staring up the knifing edge of the USS Spiegel Grove’s bow. Named for President Rutherford B. Hayes’s estate in Fremont, Ohio, the vessel had served with distinction for thirty-four years before being sunk as an artificial reef. Coral grew all long the five-hundred-and-ten-foot length of dock landing ship thirty-two (LSD-32). At its sinking, the LSD had been the largest artificial reef in the world. The USNS Vandenberg, off Key West, and the aircraft carrier, USS Oriskany, twenty-two miles off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, now placed the Spiegel Grove in third, but it was still one of the most visited wrecks in the Florida Keys, and one of Ryan’s favorites.

  He rose slowly along the bow. A goliath grouper eyeballed him as Ryan came to foredeck. He swam leisurely toward the stern and turned on his dive light. He kept his arms close to his body as he entered the upper superstructure. Much of the interior had been removed before sinking, but the crewmen had left strange things, like a row of urinals. His light played across the painted image of Charles Schulz’s cartoon dog, Snoopy, wearing a sailor’s cap and riding an alligator under the words “Top Dog.” The image lent the ship the nickname, Spiegel Beagle.

  For the last six months, Ryan had lived in the Florida Keys. He’d hired himself out to work cleanup from Hurricane Irma, demolishing the interiors of water-damaged homes, cutting up downed trees, and recovering sunken boats. He worked for cash and room and board while making his way north from Marathon to Key Largo, where he took a job as a dive instructor.

  He’d called Emily, despite Landis’s message. When she finally answered, she’d told Ryan she wasn’t happy with their relationship and the danger his job had placed her in. He tried to see things from her point of view. His job was dangerous, and it had dragged her in both times. The first by her choice and the second unwillingly. He enjoyed the thrill and the challenge. It was addicting, and anyone not used to the danger would want off the ride. Emily elected to exit the carousel, and he was okay with that. He had to be okay with it. He was still trying to see it from her point of view.

  As he came out of the Spiegel Grove’s superstructure, Ryan looked up at the American flag, hanging limp in the calm water. Four, five and six-foot-long great barracudas hovered at the base of the flagpole.

  He checked his computer and finned toward the ascent line.

  A shadow flashed over him. He glanced up to see a hammerhead shark swim past and disappear into the gloom.

  Ryan grinned into the mouthpiece of his rebreather; glad he’d rescued it from under the dock before casting off Dark Water’s lines. Seeing an elusive hammerhead made this dive even more special. But what kept crowding into his mind was the sight of two pallets lying in the hold of the Santo Domingo. Just over a half-a-ton of gold bullion in twenty-seven-pound bars. He thought about them every day. They were calling his name.

  Acknowledgments

  I had several terrific alpha and beta readers who critiqued this novel and helped shape it into what it is now. Thanks for your help and comments. It’s hard to take sometimes, but it really helps, and it keeps me down to earth.

  George Schlub is one of my best friends. He’s an actual detective sergeant. We started diving together more years ago than I want to think about, and we’ve had many wild adventures, both diving and traveling together. George is also an accomplished musician and trumpet maker for Schlub Brass.

  Dark Horse

  © 2018, 2019 Evan Graver

  www.evangraver.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any forms or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic, or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover: Wicked Good Book Covers

  Editing: Larks and Katydids

  Proofreading: Gerald Shaw

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, business, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Third Reef Publishing, LLC

  Hollywood, Florida

  www.thirdreefpublishing.com

  Chapter One

  Ryan Weller climbed out of the water and stood on the deck of the Newton 46 dive boat. He was one of twenty other divers on the cattle run to the wreck of the USS Spiegel Grove. He walked forward to the small cabin, unclipped the two forty cubic inch bailout bottles, set them in the tank rack, and finally slipped the rebreather off his shoulders. He eased the device to the deck and checked it over before stowing it under the boat’s built-in bench seat.

  Next, Ryan peeled off his thr
ee-millimeter thick wetsuit. He wore compression shorts underneath and pulled gray boardshorts over them. After he shoved his wetsuit, mask, gloves, fins, boots, computers, and compass into his dive bag, he climbed up to the bridge with a cold bottle of water and stood beside the captain. Stacey Coleman was a short girl with wide hips, small breasts, purple hair, and several piercings in her ears, nose, and lip.

  “Have a good dive?”

  “Terrific, Stacey. How can they be bad on a day like this?” He spread his hands to encompass what they referred to as Lake Atlantic on days when the ocean was mirror flat, the current nonexistent, and visibility exceeded seventy-five feet.

  “Days like this make me wish I was diving instead of driving the boat.”

  “You driving this afternoon?”

  Stacey stuck her lip out in a pout. “Yes, I’m taking forty-five snorkelers to the Christ of the Abyss statue.”

  “That doesn’t sound like fun.” He took a long drink of water.

  “It’s better than sitting in the office. Why aren’t you teaching today?”

  “I took the day off. Speaking of which, can I borrow your car to run down to Stock Island?”

  “You can’t borrow Mark’s?” Stacey asked, referring to Mark Lester, Ryan’s roommate and fellow instructor at the dive facility.

  “He’s using it today.”

  Stacey turned up the stereo. Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” reverberated off the water. She cocked a hip and grinned lasciviously at Ryan.

  He gave a half smile and shook his head. It was a game they played. Neither of them took it seriously enough to move past the overt flirting.

  Sweat trickled down Ryan’s back as the sun bore down on them. He adjusted his sunglasses, took a swig of water, and absently watched the other divers climb back on the boat. They’d done a double dip, two dives on the Spiegel instead of a single dive before moving to another location. The double dip had allowed him to do a longer, forty-minute decompression dive instead of the normal twin twenty-minute dives. He’d entered the water with the other divers on their first dip and surfaced before they’d completed their second.

  Ryan had also surfaced because his mind wasn’t on the dive. When his mind wandered to other pursuits while he was underwater, it was time to head back to the boat. He had no desire to die from complacency. His thoughts were filled with memories of twenty-five million dollars in gold bars in a sunken ship off the coast of Haiti. Even sitting beside Stacey, he could see in his mind the gleaming gold bricks in the ship’s hold.

  Queen morphed into Zac Brown. Two or three people began singing along with “Toes.” Ryan tapped his foot and hummed the “I got my toes in the water …” lyrics.

  Stacey grabbed a clipboard and headed down the ladder. She began calling names of the divers to ensure everyone was back on the boat. With the roll call complete, she returned to the bridge and cranked up the diesel engine. It snorted eagerly to life. She edged the boat forward, allowing the crewman to release the boat’s bridle from the mooring ball.

  Ryan finished the water and crushed the bottle flat before screwing the cap back on. He watched Stacey spin the boat’s wheel, swinging the bow around to face Key Largo. She shoved the throttle forward and the big boat came up on plane.

  Thirty minutes later, Ryan watched the multi-million-dollar houses slide past while they idled up Port Largo channel. Most of the homes were empty this time of year. Some still had hurricane shutters bolted in place, and others had obvious storm damage yet to be repaired. Occasionally, maintenance workers could be seen mowing lawns, trimming bushes, or making improvements.

  The boat made the blind left-hand turn, known as “Crash Corner,” and continued past marinas, more homes, hotels, and other dive charter services. Stacey spun the Newton one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and eased it alongside the dive shop’s dock. Crewmen tied the lines fast. She cut off the motors, climbed down to the main deck, made a speech to the divers about tipping their guides, and invited them back to dive again.

  Ryan carried his gear off the boat and set it on a picnic table. He turned back to the Newton. Stacey and her crew were busy refilling scuba tanks and preparing the boat for the afternoon run.

  “Hey, Stacey,” Ryan called.

  “Yeah?” She glanced up.

  “Can I borrow your car?”

  She laughed. “You really need to get a life, Ryan.”

  The tide was out, and the boat was much lower than the dock. He placed his hands on the bridge deck and leaned under it to see her adjusting the fill whip on a tank near the boat’s cabin door. “You’re right, but I still need to run down to Stock Island.”

  Stacey climbed the steps off the boat and stopped in front of Ryan. He was six-feet tall and she barely came up to his chest. “You might be all sexy with your sun-bleached brown hair and your green eyes, but this beach bum thing you got going is kind of a turn off.”

  He grinned. “Thanks.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment.”

  “I’ll take you out to dinner,” he offered.

  “Are you asking me on a date?”

  “No, just to thank you for borrowing the car.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Most of the time.” Ryan shrugged. “Stacey, do you want to go on a date?” He’d avoided getting involved with anyone because the job was only temporary until he figured out how to remove the bounty a Mexican drug lord had put on him, or he decided it was time to go for the gold. The bounty wasn’t going away, and it was time to nurse the gold fever.

  She rolled her eyes before handing him her car keys. With a smile, she said, “Make sure you fill the tank up.”

  Ryan took the keys and shoved them in his pocket. “Thanks, Stace.”

  “Call me if you’re going to be too late.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He snapped to attention and rendered a hand salute.

  “Asshole,” Stacey muttered, stepping down into the boat.

  Ryan gathered his gear, rinsed it in the freshwater buckets, and crammed it into the back of Stacey’s Kia Rio. He drove south on Highway 1 to a small apartment complex, parked the car, and carried his equipment inside. After a quick shower, he pulled on cargo shorts, a polo shirt, and deck shoes. He grabbed a sandwich and a Mountain Dew and shoehorned himself back in the car.

  Chapter Two

  The Overseas Highway had been rated as one of the best drives in North America by multiple bloggers and National Geographic. What had once been the Overseas Railroad, built by Henry Flagler, and operated from 1912 to its partial destruction by the Labor Day Hurricane in 1935, had now become a four-lane highway to bring tourists, industry, and trade to the Florida Keys. Routes had changed and new bridges constructed to handle the increasing traffic traveling through the jewels of the American Caribbean, but the beauty, mystery, and adventure remained.

  Ryan always enjoyed the drive. It put him in a tropical frame of mind. Everything from scuba diving to skydiving were at his fingertips. He couldn’t help but smile as he passed sunburned tourists, swaying palms, and run-down T-shirt shacks. Old Florida mixing with the new. But today, twenty-five million other things occupied his mind.

  Over the last three months, he’d thought a lot about the gold. It called to him. He now understood why thousands of miners braved the frontier and crossed oceans in search of the precious metal, and the opportunities it brought. But it was more than the prospect of striking it rich; it was the excitement of the hunt. Adventure called. He’d spent enough time being idle. He needed to go get it, or someone else would.

  As far as Ryan knew, besides himself, there were only a handful of people in the world who knew there was gold on the Santo Domingo. Chief among them was Jim Kilroy, the international arms dealer who had agreed to supply Haitian warlord Toussaint Bajeux with a shipload of weapons in exchange for the two pallets of gold.

  After Kilroy’s deliveryman was killed at a resort in Belize during a raid by Russian hitmen trying to capture Ryan and has partner, Mango, Kilroy had o
ffered the men sanctuary on the Santo Domingo in exchange for delivering the weapons. He had also promised to get the two-million-dollar bounty lifted by negotiating with José Luis Orozco, leader of the Aztlán cartel. The bounty was Orozco’s retribution for Ryan killing the former cartel leader, Arturo Guerrero.

  During the delivery of the weapons, a rival warlord had attacked the Santo Domingo with RPGs. The weapons, vehicles, and gold payment had all sunk with the ship. Ryan and Mango had donned rebreathers and sat inside a Humvee until the ship had sunk to the seabed and then swam to shore. They then rescued Greg Olsen, from the hands of a Russian bounty hunter. The trio, along with Toussaint’s mistress, Joulie Lafitte, used DWR’s Hatteras GT63 sportfisher, Dark Water, to escape to the Bahamas to avoid Hurricane Irma.

  DWR had declared Ryan and Mango lost at sea, but even with their supposed deaths, Orozco hadn’t lifted the bounty. Mango and his wife, Jennifer, had sailed away on their Amazon 44 sailboat, Alamo, and Ryan had chosen to hide out in the Florida Keys like many outlaws and pirates before him. He’d worked various jobs to help clean up after Hurricane Irma had destroyed much of the Lower Keys. He’d gutted houses, salvaged boats, and helped remove debris, scraps, abandoned shacks, and rusted appliances. Eventually, he made his way to Key Largo, where he spent most of his time teaching scuba diving and thinking about the gold.

  But, like many people who hide in the American Caribbean, Ryan found the pace of life could be just as hectic as living on the mainland with schedules, bills, stop-and-go traffic, and high rent.

  Ryan groaned as he slammed on the brakes for the lengthy line of cars that had stopped for a camper turning into Bahia Honda State Park. Several car horns blared to express the displeasure of the waiting drivers. Ryan felt the frustration himself but didn’t let it boil over. He took a deep breath and watched the vehicles whiz by in the opposite direction. To his right, a couple rode on bicycles on the repurposed railroad bed known as the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail.