by Evan Graver
“Shit, mon,” Damian moaned, rolling onto his back. He sat up and laboriously scooted back against the truck’s rear tire. His face was ashen, and his pupils were dilated.
Ryan took the Taser from Stacey and squatted beside Damian. “Who do you work for?”
“I don’t have to tell you nothing, mon.”
“You’re right. You don’t.” Ryan hit the button on the Taser while holding it so Damian could see the blue tongues of electricity arcing between contacts. “Three times in one day might damage your brain. Then again, I doubt if you have that much to start with.”
“Yeah, okay, mon.” Damian leaned away from the Taser. “I work for Jim Kilroy.”
Ryan nodded. “When did you talk to him last?”
“This morning, after you killed Jorge.”
Stacey gasped, but Ryan moved past it without blinking. He’d killed men before, and Jorge was in self-defense. “Did you leave him in the breezeway at the apartment?”
“Yeah, mon, some old lady came out and began screaming at me.”
Again, Ryan nodded. If Mrs. Hillsborough had seen Damian run away from the crime scene, it would put suspicion on him and not Ryan, even though Ryan had also disappeared at the same time. If Ryan wasn’t wanted by the cops for questioning, he would be surprised.
“You got a phone number for Killer Roy?” Ryan asked, using a nickname Greg Olsen had come up with during a conversation with the gun dealer.
Damian tried to laugh. It came out in a hoarse cough. “It’s in the truck. I have a sat phone.”
Stacey rummaged through the cab and came back with an Iridium Extreme. Ryan recognized it as the same model he’d used when on the EOD teams. She handed it to him, and he scrolled through the call log to find Kilroy’s number. “Tell Kilroy you’ve been made and ask him if he wants you to go to Haiti with us.”
Damian stared up at him with a questioning look.
“You told him we were working on the boat, right?”
“Yeah.”
Ryan closed his eyes for a brief second. He was trying to remain calm. All hope of getting out of town unnoticed was now gone. “He knows we’re going to Haiti, and he knows why.”
“He’s going there too, mon.”
“Yeah, I bet he is.” Ryan finished thumbing Kilroy’s number into his smart phone and then tossed the sat phone in the dirt beside Damian’s leg.
Chapter Ten
Greg Olsen slid down the stairs of the Beechcraft King Air B200C on his butt and hands while Chuck Newland held Greg’s legs up. At the bottom of the steps, Greg transferred into his wheelchair.
“That wore me out just watching,” Chuck said, pushing his white Stetson back on his head.
“I’m wore out from doing it,” Greg complained.
“Well, boss, you’re an inspiration.”
Hostility tinged Greg’s voice. “Don’t ever say that again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ryan should be here any minute.” Greg looked at his watch.
“If I know your boy, he’ll be late.”
Greg put his hands on his wheels and lifted his butt off the cushion to readjust his weight. “He’s probably on island time after living in the Keys.”
A third man came down the steps and sat on the bottom one. He was tall and rangy with a mop of brown hair under a faded, burnt orange University of Texas Longhorns ballcap. He wore blue coveralls with the name Don stenciled over the left breast pocket and on the back the red DWR with a white slash ran through the letters from the top left to the bottom right to simulate a diver down flag. In his early twenties, Don Williams was one of the finest mechanics in DWR’s stable. His IQ had tested near genius level and he had a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas. He and Greg often argued about who had the better football program, Texas or Greg’s alma mater, Texas A&M.
“Ryan’s always on island time.” Chuck grinned, remembering the last time he was in Key West with Ryan Weller. They were investigating stolen sailboats with Ryan’s ex-girlfriend and insurance investigator, Emily Hunt. Ryan had decided to use scuba gear to look at two of the deliberately sunken boats. It was two fun-filled days of beautiful women, fast boats, and pub crawling on Duval Street. Chuck was hoping to squeeze in a little romancing on this trip as well because the last woman he’d met on Duval had invited him to call whenever he was back on the island. He touched the phone in his breast pocket.
“Forget it, Chuck,” Greg said, as if reading the pilot’s mind.
“Not even a parting gift?” Chuck whined.
“Just a paycheck,” Greg said.
A brown, jacked-up GMC pickup slid to a stop beside the airplane. The passenger door opened, and Ryan hopped out. “Hey, bros!” He buddy-hugged Chuck and Greg. Introductions of Travis, Stacey, and Don were made before they began transferring gear from the Beechcraft to the GMC.
When they were done, the back of the truck was piled high. Travis and Stacey headed for the docks while Greg wheeled himself with Ryan and Don to the airport parking lot where the Kia was parked. They wedged themselves and the wheelchair into the tiny car and headed for the boat. As they rounded the north end of the island on Roosevelt Boulevard, the Beechcraft roared overhead on its way back to Texas City.
Greg shook his head. “You corrupted that man, Ryan. He heard he was coming to Key West to drop off some gear and all he could talk about was the fun he’d had here with you.”
“You should have let him stay. We could have had a party. Besides, how’s the crooner getting home?”
“Crooner?” Greg asked.
“Yeah, the Gentle Giant.” Ryan motioned to the mechanic in the backseat beside the wheelchair. Don had a grin on his face.
Greg turned to look at Ryan and then back at Don. “What are you talking about?”
Ryan asked, “You’ve never heard of Don Williams before?”
Greg said, “Just the one in the backseat.”
“‘I Believe in You.’ ‘Tulsa Time.’ ‘Good Ole Boys Like Me.’ Any of them ring a bell?”
Stupefied, Greg asked, “What genre is that?”
With a snort, Ryan said, “Those are the real country-western songs.”
Don began to hum a few bars of “Tulsa Time.”
“I thought that was Eric Clapton,” said Greg.
“Heck no,” Ryan said. “Come on, bro, Eric Clapton did a cover.”
“What’s with the bro?” Greg asked. “You’ve been hanging around Mango too long.”
Ryan laughed. “Wait until you hear Travis start talking like a Canadian, eh?”
“He’s from Michigan,” Greg said. “I did his background check.” He grabbed the door handle to keep himself from sliding around when Ryan made the turn off A1A and entered the industrial side of paradise.
Ryan smirked. “The UP, man, he’s practically Canadian.”
“He would have been if we hadn’t won the War of 1812,” Don pointed out.
“A music and a history lesson in one car ride,” Ryan said gleefully.
“Shut up,” Greg moaned. “Next you’ll be spouting some Travis McGeeism.”
Ryan held up a finger, as if to pontificate. “We are in the Keys.”
Greg rolled his eyes and truly hoped his friend didn’t start quoting from one of the twenty-one novels written about the fictional character who’d lived on a barge-type houseboat at slip F18 Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Ryan had toted the dogeared paperbacks around the world. Greg had read a few of them, but they weren’t his cup of coffee. He mentally chastised himself for knowing as much about Travis McGee as he did, and that was Ryan’s fault.
“Anyway,” asked Ryan, “how’s Don getting back home?”
Greg smiled with relief when Ryan slowed the car. Both were highly trained drivers and had been to several schools to hone their skills, but he felt more in control when he was behind the wheel. “I was going to have Chuck come get us when we’re done. Have a sendoff party for you.”
“Mighty nice of y
ou,” Ryan said, pulling into the marina parking lot. He stopped beside the GMC, which Travis had backed up to the gangway. Travis, Dennis, Stacey, and Emery were forming a bucket brigade to get the gear onto the boat. Ryan sent Don to help while he assembled Greg’s wheelchair and got his boss out of the car.
After the gear was aboard, Dennis swung the crane boom over the side and rigged a sling under Greg’s wheelchair to lift him onto the boat. Greg could only move around the stern area where the original deck opened to allow access to the fish storage lockers. Dennis had modified the locker doors to make them smaller and installed short benches for gearing up divers in the center of the vessel between the recompression chamber and the diesel-driven Bauer surface supply air compressor. Aft of that was the open stern where Greg was free to roam. When Emery lifted one of the cargo doors, his free real estate became much smaller. Emery and Dennis rigged a canvas tarp over the crane boom to provide shade for the workers.
Don immediately began examining the boat’s twin-diesel drive engines. He found one to be in serviceable condition. The second required the replacement of several injectors, and a bad alternator. Don climbed out of the engine bay and went aft to where Greg sat. “Boss, the whole shootin’ match ought to be hauled out and junked. Them diesels are old enough to have great- grandbabies.”
“Can you get them up and running? We don’t have time to do a complete refit.”
Don nodded, wiping his clean hands on a white rag. “Yeah, I’ll make them work.” With Emery’s help, Don changed the oils, filters, and drive belts, cleaned the separators, checked thru-hull fittings, and installed a backup bilge pump. Don had brought many of the parts with him on the airplane after Ryan had called Greg and told him what engines were in Peggy Lynn.
Greg helped Travis take the Bauer apart, clean, and service it before hooking it to his Kirby Morgan SuperLite and testing it. After Travis had stowed his helmet, Greg pointed to a trio of matching helmets in yellow plastic cases. “Grab one of those and check it out.”
Travis hoisted a helmet from its box and examined it. It looked like the standard SuperLite 37 except for a small pair of glasses mounted against the inside of the face plate. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Something new DWR, the Navy, and a few other companies are experimenting with. They call it Diver Augmented Visual Display. The DAVD is basically a virtual reality program that can be seen through the glasses. It allows the diver to see blueprint diagrams, exploded parts views, and 3D terrain maps.”
“Holy cow, that’s awesome!” Travis exclaimed. “That will make diving in zero viz even easier if you have an idea of what you’re looking at and where you’re going.”
“Our thoughts exactly,” Greg said. “I’ve got a software program for you guys to install in the new computer system. I also brought three new sets of hoses and dive lines with integrated fiber optics for communications, camera, and DAVD display feeds.”
“When Ryan said you were going to hook him up, I had no idea how cool it would be.”
“I brought a few other goodies.” Greg pointed to a rectangular wooden crate. Over his shoulder he yelled, “Hey, Ryan, come here.”
Ryan climbed out of the hold where he’d been working on the second Bauer compressor used to fill scuba tanks with compressed air, nitrox, and trimix needed for diving and working in deep water. “What’s up?”
“I was just telling Travis about the DAVD in the SuperLite. I showed the system to you before you started your hunt for Kilroy.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ryan said. “Putting the research into Dark Water Research.”
“I brought some other toys.” He wheeled to the wooden crate and motioned for them to remove the top. Ryan grabbed a crowbar and popped off the lid. Nestled in foam were several odd-looking firearms. Greg explained, “Back in the 1990s, the Russians built a gun to fire bolts underwater. It was a little unwieldy. I put some of our engineers on it and we came up with a better design.”
Travis lifted one of the rifles out of the crate. Greg took it from him. “This shoots a six-inch-long by 5.56-millimeter bolt. The bolt has retractable fletches to help guide it both under and above water. We rifled the barrel where the Russians used a smooth bore. Theirs wouldn’t shoot below a hundred and thirty feet. Ours will fire up to seven hundred feet underwater.”
“What do we need this for?” Travis asked, shouldering another one of the bolt guns.
Greg shrugged. “Just following the Boy Scout motto.”
“Always be prepared.” Ryan said. He knelt by the box and lifted out a bang stick, a fiberglass pole with a small head that held a .357 cartridge and discharged when it was shoved against a fish, normally a shark. There were also Hawaiian sling spearguns and small pneumatic pistol spearguns. “What do you think we’re going to be doing, having an underwater battle like Thunderball?
Greg shrugged. “You never know what tool you’ll need until you’re on the X.”
They repacked the crate and stored it below. Greg had also brought Ryan one of his favorite Walther PPQ nine-millimeter pistols and two H&K MP5s with suppressors. Ryan stowed the Walther in his personal kit and Dennis hid the machine pistols in one of several smuggler’s holds he’d built throughout the ship.
While they worked on the ship’s systems, they kept Stacey busy running errands. She was thankful to get back to the boat after her last trip to purchase new Furuno radar, sonar, GPS, and autopilot systems. The sun was beginning to set. From the bridge, she saw Ryan and Greg smoking cigarettes on the stern. Ryan was talking animatedly with his hands, describing something to his friend. She crept out of the wheelhouse to eavesdrop. Ryan was telling about her tasering Damian Reid on Key Largo.
“And Stacey just shoots the dude like it’s an everyday thing,” Ryan said, mimicking her holding the gun.
“It is an everyday thing,” she said with a grin. “I have to keep you in line.”
Greg burst out laughing. “I like this girl.”
Ryan stuck his lower lip out in a fake pout. “Don’t get too attached. She dropped me like a bad habit when she saw Travis.”
“I don’t blame her,” Greg said. “I’ve seen you in action.”
Ryan held up a fist and used his other hand to mimic turning a crank. The fake crank slowly raised his middle finger.
“Let’s go get some supper at the Hogfish,” Dennis said, coming out of the crew area in a fresh pair of khakis and a clean T-shirt. “I hear the boss is buying.”
Greg shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s got their hand out.”
Stacey held up the company credit card she’d been using on her errands. “Don’t worry, I’ll pay.”
Chapter Eleven
Ryan spent most of the next morning scraping barnacles off the salvage boat’s hull to save fuel and reduce drag. While he was underwater, he checked the propellers and prop shafts.
Emery, Travis, and Dennis continued to work on the engines and systems while Stacey helped Don integrate the new Furuno electronics into Peggy Lynn’s console. He also connected the towed side scan sonar array to a new computer hard drive and flat screen monitors.
In the afternoon, Ryan and Travis mounted the sonar array cable reel to the rear of the vessel and designed an extension to the crane boom to keep the cable from drooping and wrapping around the props. Ryan enjoyed the work and collaboration. It was something he missed from the EOD teams. Pressure situations brought out the best in the men, and they became highly innovative at solving crisis situations.
Greg spent his time on the phone or working on his computer under the satinleaf tree. Ryan took a break and walked over to talk to him.
“I called Billy Parker, my contact in Haiti,” Greg said. “He’s keeping an eye out for Northwest Passage.”
“Remind me who he is again,” Ryan said, squatting beside the tree with a cigarette in one hand and a sweating bottle of Stella Artois in the other.
“He’s the guy who runs a marina in Cap-Haïtien.”
“I never me
t him,” Ryan said.
“He said the place didn’t fair too bad during the hurricane. He also said a friend of yours showed back up.”
Ryan looked up. “A friend?”
“Joulie Lafitte.”
“What’s she doing back in Haiti? I thought she was getting asylum here.”
Greg shrugged. “Billy said she’s running Toussaint’s old gang and took over the crew who blew up the Domingo. They were a little light on leadership after you machine-gunned their boat.”
Ryan and Mango had manned the fifty-caliber machine gun mounted near the bow of the sinking Santo Domingo and used it to shoot and sink the attacking fishing vessel. Ryan had also tried to kill Toussaint Bajeux with it.
Ryan put his cigarette to his lips and took a long drag. Joulie was back in Haiti. Did that mean she was going to want a cut of the gold if she found out they were salvaging it?
“You got Landis on speed dial?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah, I do.” Greg hit the button to call Floyd Landis at the Houston branch office of the Department of Homeland Security.
The older man growled into the phone, “What do you want, Greg?”
“Why is Joulie Lafitte back in Haiti?” Ryan asked.
“She chose to go back on her own.”
Ryan and Greg glanced at each other before Ryan asked, “Why’d she do that?”
Landis let out a long sigh. “In this current political climate, it has become inappropriate to extend asylum to Haitian citizens. Those who are in the US are afraid they’ll be sent back and are fleeing to Canada. Rather than go to Canada, she chose to go back to Haiti.”
“Did your intelligence tell you that she’s picked up where Toussaint left off?” asked Greg.
Ryan lit another cigarette while Landis pondered this question.
Instead of answering, Landis asked one of his own. “What are you two doing together?”
Ryan said, “We’re working a business deal.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?”
“Better you don’t know,” Ryan said.