A Ryan Weller Box Set Books 1 - 3

by Evan Graver

  Dreadlocks glanced back at Stacey. Mexican started to bring his hand forward. Ryan saw the glint of a blade in the man’s closed fist. Stepping inside the arc of the knife, Ryan grasped Mexican’s wrist with his right hand. Ryan jammed his left palm hard into the man’s jaw, forcing his head up and back. Ryan spread his fingers and the tips dug into the Mexican’s eye sockets. He let out a muffled scream into Ryan’s palm as Ryan applied pressure to his eyes. At the same time, Ryan continued to push the Mexican backward. The shorter man stumbled, and Ryan ran him hard into a wall. Mexican’s head hit with a sickening thud, and he went limp.

  The knife clattered to the concrete and Ryan kicked it away during his spin to confront Dreadlocks. As he brought his fists up and crouched into a fighting stance, he saw two thin wires arc through the air. One hit the big, black man in the chest, the other in his abdomen. Suddenly, Dreadlocks began to dance and writhe. Electricity crackled in the air. His knees buckled, and he fell face down on the sidewalk.

  Stacey held an Axon Taser Pulse in both hands. The gun continued to stun the man for twenty more seconds. She grinned at Ryan. “Mom got it for me last Christmas.” She unplugged the wire pack from the front of the gun and dropped it on the ground and shoved the gun into her pocket.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “The reason I’m hiding out here instead of working in Texas.”

  “Now would be a good time to explain.”

  “It really would, but let’s get my stuff out of the apartment first.”

  They ran up the stairs and grabbed his gear. Ryan made a second trip, and when he came down the stairs, he grabbed the wire pack and jerked the plugs out the Dreadlocks’s chest. He wrapped the wires up and stuffed them into his bag while he slid into the passenger seat. Stacey put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking spot.

  “Where to?” she asked.

  “You know where Travis is staying?”

  “Yeah, it’s not too far up-island.” She turned north out of the parking lot and accelerated with traffic. “Tell me what’s going on?”

  “Those dudes were trying to collect a bounty.” He leaned forward to look out the passenger side rearview mirror.

  “Are you some kind of criminal?”

  “No. I’m wanted by a Mexican drug cartel for killing their leader.”

  “Holy shit, Ryan!” Stacey stared at him.

  “Look at the road,” he yelled.

  Stacey swerved to miss a slower car.

  Ryan glanced at the speedometer. “Slow down. I don’t want to get pulled over.”

  “Are you wanted by the cops, too?” she asked, hunched over the wheel with her hands at ten and two.

  “No, just slow down.” He kept glancing in the mirror but didn’t see anyone following them.

  Stacey complied and ten minutes later, she pulled into the crushed shell parking lot of a small hotel. Travis’s GMC was sitting near the front entrance.

  “Park around the side where the car can’t be seen from the road,” he instructed.

  She obeyed and put the car in park.

  “What’s going on, for real?” she demanded.

  “I want to talk to Travis.”

  They got out of the car and followed a winding stone path through a small pool courtyard to the back of the hotel where Ryan knocked on Travis’s room door.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Travis asked when he opened the door.

  “Can we come in?” Ryan asked.

  Travis smiled at Stacey. “Come on.”

  They crowded into the tiny room. Stacey sat down on the queen size bed and Travis leaned against the bureau doubling as a tv stand for a small flat screen. Ryan pulled the curtains back and looked out at the courtyard.

  Travis asked, “What’s this a-boot, guys?”

  Stacey screwed up her face. “What’s this a boot?”

  “A-boot.”

  “You mean, about?” Stacey corrected.

  “What I said, a-boot.”

  She shook her head. “Where are you from?”

  “Da U.P.”

  “Where the hell is the U.P.?” Stacey asked.

  It was Travis’s turn to look askance. “The Upper Peninsula.”

  Ryan laughed. “He’s a Yupper, Stacey, from Michigan.”

  When Ryan saw no one had followed them, he let the drapes fall back into place and took a seat at the little round table. Other than the flat screen, everything in the room was right out of the 1970s. The carpet looked like it could use a good raking.

  Travis asked, “Did you come about a job, eh?”

  “Yeah, Ryan, tell us what’s going on,” Stacey insisted.

  “Look, this is going to take a few minutes to explain and it will end with a job offer.”

  “Okay,” said Travis.

  Ryan asked, “Do you remember the bombings that happened in Austin, Phoenix, and Los Angeles?”

  “Yeah, some ISIS guys were behind it,” Travis said.

  Ryan shook his head. “The ISIS agents were working for Mexican drug cartel kingpin Arturo Guerrero. He wanted to start a war with the United States to take back what they call Aztlán, the desert Southwest.”

  “What?” Stacey said, confused. “The news said it was ISIS.”

  “Law enforcement initially thought it was,” Ryan confirmed. “But the real guy behind it was Guerrero. I figured it out and went into Mexico to stop him. I ended up killing him. Then their new leader, José Luis Orozco, put a two-million-dollar bounty on me and my partner, and, now, everyone is trying to collect. Until today, I’d been left alone because I’m supposed to be dead. Someone figured out I wasn’t.”

  Stacey screwed up her face. “What do you mean dead?”

  “Six months ago,” Ryan continued, “and this is where we get to the job, my partner and I were chasing an international weapons dealer. We ended up delivering a shipment of guns and Army vehicles to a Haitian warlord. Before we started unloading the goods, we took payment in the form of twenty-five million dollars in gold bars.”

  Travis whistled, and Stacey’s eyes widened.

  “We offloaded some of the gear before the ship was sunk by a rival warlord. My partner and I went down with the ship and swam out on rebreathers. We let everyone think we were dead.”

  Travis crossed his arms and legs. “Where’s your partner?”

  Ryan recognized the closed-off, defensive posture the man had adopted. “He’s with his wife on an around the world sailing expedition. Which is what I should have done.”

  “Why didn’t you?” asked Travis.

  “Because I’ve got gold fever.”

  Travis narrowed his eyes, and then his expression relaxed into a smile. “You’re going after the gold.”

  Ryan nodded.

  Stacey frowned. “So, these guys are going to keep trying to kill you to collect the bounty?”

  Ryan nodded. “Yes.”

  “Do you have a boat?” asked Travis. “What’s the plan?”

  “I have a boat in Stock Island. It needs some work, but my benefactor is going to hook us up.”

  “Who’s your benefactor?”

  “Dark Water Research.”

  Travis whistled. “Bringing the big dogs, eh?”

  Stacey looked puzzled. “What about the bounty? Are you just going to gloss over that?”

  “No,” Ryan replied. “I want to get out of here as soon as possible. That means getting to Stock Island and getting the boat ready.”

  “How are you connected to DWR?” asked Travis. His posture was beginning to relax, but Ryan could tell he wasn’t completely on board yet.

  “I used to work for the owner.”

  “Is he getting a cut of the gold?” Travis asked.

  “We haven’t discussed it.”

  Travis scratched his chin. “If he’s not getting a cut, why’s he helping?”

  Ryan leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. He could see out a slit in the curtains to observe the courtyard. “Let’s just say Greg Ol
sen and I have a mutual understanding.”

  “DWR has all kinds of divers, what do you need me for, eh?”

  “This isn’t an official DWR project.”

  Stacey got off the bed and leaned over Ryan’s shoulder. “See anything?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “How deep?” Travis asked.

  “Three hundred plus feet.”

  “On surface supply?”

  “Yes,” Ryan shrugged. “I have some rebreathers as well.”

  Travis pondered this for a minute. “What’s the pay?”

  “Five percent of the haul.”

  Travis pulled out his cell phone and used the calculator to figure out his cut. “If I’m risking my life to recover gold and have to put up with a bunch of bounty hunters, then it’d better be a bigger number.”

  Ryan stared out the window.

  Stacey asked, “Ten percent?”

  Ryan closed his eyes and pictured the gold. Ten percent wasn’t bad. It was fair, but if everyone received ten percent, then his share was getting smaller by the hire.

  “I’ll do this,” Travis said, rubbing his chin, pinching his cleft between his thumb and index finger. “Ten percent of what we haul. If we don’t haul anything, I get paid thirty dollars an hour for every hour I’m on the salvage boat.”

  “Fair enough,” Ryan said.

  Travis’s next question was one Ryan had been pondering himself. “What about line handlers?”

  Ryan turned away from his window vigil and faced Travis. “Me and the captain.”

  “What about her, eh?” Travis pointed his chin at Stacey. “She coming along?”

  Ryan said, “She drives a boat at the dive shop.”

  A look of disappointment clouded Travis’s face. “That’s a shame.”

  Stacey chirped up, “Oh, I’ll go. I can go. Can I go, Ryan?”

  “Can you tend lines?” Travis asked.

  With too much enthusiasm, and while leering at Travis, Stacey said, “I can tend anything you want.”

  Ryan shook his head. “Stacey, please, stop drooling.”

  Travis winked exaggeratedly at her and clicked his tongue.

  Stacey flushed across her neck and cheeks, turning her tan a crimson red.

  “I’ll go if the purple-haired, crazy chick comes.”

  Ryan furrowed his brow. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” Travis shrugged while grinning at Stacey. “I dig the purple hair.”

  Ryan gave Stacey a hard look. “If you want to come, you’ll be placing yourself in the same danger as everyone else.”

  Stacey nodded. “I know, Ryan. I had to Taser some guy to save your ass already.”

  Ryan started to chuckle, remembering when Mango had said something similar after he’d used a sniper rifle to kill a man about to shoot Ryan.

  Stacey crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing.” Ryan stood. “We need to get going. It’s a long drive to Key West.”

  Travis said, “I haven’t made it that far south, yet.”

  Stacey grinned and touched Travis’s arm. “I’ll take you out on Duval Street.”

  “I’m ready to give ’er tar paper.”

  Ryan and Stacey both look dubiously at their new friend.

  “So,” Stacey demanded, “what does, tar papering mean?”

  “Give ’er tar paper,” Travis corrected. “It’s like Larry the Cable Guy saying, ‘Git-R-Done.’”

  Stacey smiled seductively at Travis. “I’m ready to tar paper a few drinks in Key West with you.”

  “Easy, Stace,” Ryan said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “Let’s get started,” Travis said.

  “Do you have room to haul my gear?” Ryan asked. “I don’t have much, and I don’t have a car.”

  “I’ve got some room,” Travis said. “Let’s load it up, eh?”

  “You sure you’re not from Canada, eh?” Ryan asked with a grin.

  Travis held up his middle finger and said emphatically, “I am not from Canada.”

  Stacey ran a hand through her hair. “How soon are you leaving, Ryan? I have a bunch of stuff in my apartment and I’m not sure how long it will take me to move it, or where to move it to.”

  “You don’t have to move. This job won’t take more than a couple of weeks and you can be back here driving a boat and teaching diving in no time.”

  Stacey crossed her arms and glared at him. “What if I don’t want to come back?”

  Ryan threw her words back at her. “It’s simple, either you want to go, or you don’t. What’s it going to be?”

  “I’m going.”

  “Pack light,” Ryan told her. “There’s not much room on the boat and bring your dive gear.”

  “Give me a couple of hours,” Stacey pleaded.

  Ryan checked his watch. “We’ll put my gear in the back of Travis’s truck and he can get started to Stock Island while we load you up.”

  Travis picked up Stacey’s keys from the bed. He tossed them to Ryan. “You drive her roller skate down, and I’ll help her pack.”

  Ryan shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

  Chapter Seven

  Jim Kilroy picked up his ringing satellite phone and looked at the caller ID. It was Damian Reid, the muscular Jamaican he’d sent to Key Largo to watch Ryan Weller. “Give me some good news, Damian.”

  “He killed Jorge.”

  Kilroy’s anger boiled in his chest. Through clenched teeth, he demanded, “What do you mean he killed Jorge?”

  “We approached him at his apartment. Jorge pulled a knife, mon. Weller slammed him into da wall. Broke someting in his head.”

  “What were you doing, Damian, standing around with your thumb up your ass?”

  “No, sir,” Damian said sheepishly. “A woman shot me with da Taser.”

  Kilroy paced the length of the deck of his converted Alaskan crab boat, Northwest Passage. His voice was low and full of menace. “I told you not to approach him. I told you to observe him and tell me what he was doing. You have no idea how hard it was to find this guy. You acted like a fool and scared him off.”

  “No, suh, I know where he be goin’. I be followin’ him right now.”

  “And where pray tell is he going?” Kilroy demanded.

  “Back to da Stock Island, mon.”

  Kilroy stopped pacing and straightened up. “Why?”

  “Da boat I told you about, suh,” Damian said. “I left someone to watch it. Da captain be taking on a mate and supplies. They be readyin’ for a voyage.”

  “Where are they going?”

  “I don’t know, Mista Kilroy.”

  “Damnit, Damian, find out.” Kilroy punched the end button and very much wanted to send the phone sailing through the air and into the water. Instead, he pocketed it and slammed his palm against the hull of the Yellowfin center console nestled in blocks on Northwest Passage’s deck.

  As soon as he’d heard Toussaint Bajeux had died in a boat explosion, Kilroy knew Mango Hulsey and Ryan Weller had survived the sinking of the Santo Domingo. His hunt for them began in earnest after Hurricane Irma had subsided, and he’d called every government contact he had.

  He had men staking out the DWR compound and watching Greg Olsen’s home, hoping they would eventually show up at one of the locations. Mango Hulsey’s sailboat, Alamo, was gone from the DWR docks by the time Kilroy’s spies had arrived. Kilroy had men at his Caribbean resorts watching for either the boat, or Mango and his wife, Jennifer.

  But finding Ryan had been a complete accident. Jim’s wife, Karen, had flown to Miami to inspect their boutique hotel on South Beach. On a whim, she decided to go scuba diving in Key Largo. After her dives, she’d stopped to have dinner and spotted Ryan at a restaurant with several other people. Karen had followed one of the women from Ryan’s table into the bathroom and feigned interest in him.

  The woman had been slightly drunk and bubbled out information like she and Ka
ren were best friends. Karen learned Ryan was a dive instructor at a local facility. The woman had a crush on the handsome instructor. Karen had laughed as she told her husband about the girl’s use of air quotes around, “doesn’t sleep with his coworkers.”

  Kilroy had been ecstatic and sent Damian and Jorge to Key Largo. He wanted them to follow Ryan, who would lead them to Mango. Then he would force them to use Dark Water Research’s equipment to recover his gold. If they didn’t want to play ball with him, he could turn them over to José Luis Orozco and collect the two-million-dollar bounty.

  Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Kilroy jogged up the stairs to the bridge and used the computer to access a map of the Caribbean. Right now, they were off the coast of Colombia while he searched for a freighter to replace the Santo Domingo. He missed the loyalty of the sunken freighter’s dead captain and first mate. But money would buy more loyalty, and Jim Kilroy had plenty of money.

  After consulting the map, he called Damian back. “You told me Weller met with a boat captain, what kind of a boat is it?”

  “An old fishin’ boat. Look like it’s been converted to a salvage vessel.”

  “Who else is on the boat?”

  “Just da captain and da mate. Dey both be old men.”

  “Who else does Weller have with him? Have you seen the guy with an artificial leg?”

  “No, suh. No Mango Hulsey. He has a woman and a man. Don’t know who dey be.”

  “Okay, Damian. Stay with them.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  Kilroy hung up the phone and stepped out of the bridge. If Ryan was putting together a crew on a salvage vessel, he was going after the gold for himself. It made things much easier for Kilroy. All he had to do was sit back and wait for them to bring up the gold, then take it from them.

  He leaned against the railing and watched a rubber Zodiac approach at a high speed. The driver’s blonde hair streamed out behind her and the man in the front kept a white-knuckled grip on the boat’s lifeline as the small craft bounced and skipped across the water. At the last moment, the driver shoved the tiller over and chopped the throttle. The Zodiac dropped off plane and settled into the water right beside Northwest Passage.