Wood's Tempest

by Steven Becker

On first appraisal, Garden Key, where the fort was eventually built, had been deemed both insignificant and inadequate—add to that the lack of fresh water, and the Navy had decided to leave it a barren rock. Later on, because of its location that decision was reversed in the interest of protecting trade with the Gulf Coast. In the 1840s, the fort was started, but never used as intended, nor was it completed.

  Mac heard Ned explain the complicated cisterns located below the fort used to collect fresh water. Sand-filled columns built into the structure were intended to act as filters for rainwater, but had failed, leaving the cisterns under the parade ground and two steam-powered desalinators as the only sources of freshwater.

  “Are these windows lined up for the stars?” Pamela asked.

  Mac heard Ned grumble, and the lesson ended.

  The pair moved on, and Mac looked back toward the building. Kurt was coming toward him with Justine and a girl carrying snorkeling gear. Mac nodded at Justine, unsure what the social protocol was. She solved his quandary by hugging him tightly.

  “Mac, my daughter, Allie. Allie, this is Mac,” Kurt said.

  “Hey,” she said to Mac and turned back to her dad. “Can we go snorkeling now?”

  “Sure. One of the rangers said that the old steel pilings were pretty cool,” Kurt said. “I’ve got to help Mac out for a few minutes. You guys go have fun.”

  After Allie and Justine walked away, Kurt led Mac into the building. “Justine figured out there’s a landline and also a cellular connection here. As long as Mel’s not in the Keys or South Florida, you should be able to reach her.” He opened a door, and they entered a small room that had a table holding what looked more like a ham-radio outfit rather than a surveillance setup run by the CIA he had expected. That wasn’t his concern, though, and he thanked Kurt when he pointed toward a phone on a desk. “I used it a few minutes ago to check in with Allie’s mom,” Kurt said.

  Mac picked up the receiver. It had been so long since he had held a landline-type phone in his hand that it felt odd. He punched in Mel’s number from memory and waited for the call to connect.

  Kurt had given him some space and was across the room filling out a form that looked like an incident report. With his back to the door, Mac couldn’t see the hallway, but did see when a shadow cast across the doorway and cleared his throat, hoping that Kurt would hear.

  Kurt looked up, and they made eye contact. Mac put two fingers to his eyes and pointed to the hallway. Kurt was halfway out the door when Mel answered. Mac paused for a second, not sure if he should reveal himself.

  “Hello,” he heard Mel’s voice through the receiver.

  In the hallway, a door slammed and he heard voices. One was Kurt’s, but he couldn’t make out the other.

  “Hello?” she said again.

  “Hey,” he whispered into the phone.

  “Are you okay?” Mel asked.

  He listened for a second and heard more voices outside the room.

  “Yeah, but I gotta go.”

  Twenty-Four

  The man introduced to Bugarra as Special Agent Hunter seemed familiar, but he’d met a lot of people and shaken a lot of hands in the past few weeks, let alone the dozen interviews for the cable networks trying to capitalize on Gross’s murder.

  He’d carefully woven his current story of how Travis had pirated his boat and left him stranded. Farnsworth, the director, seemed to believe the story, and with a little encouragement was solidly in his corner. The other man, Agent Hunter, appeared skeptical, but it wasn’t his call to make. The director had allowed Bugarra use of their satellite phone system to contact his attorneys. For the first time since he’d found out Travis had Gross’s research, he had leverage on the man. Now, he sat in the small room in the park service living quarters where he’d been temporarily assigned, waiting for his chance to pry the location of Gross’s last find from Travis—however he had to.

  Looking out the window, Bugarra stared at the water through the openings in the fort. Aside from the phone call the director had let him make from their communications room, he was isolated from the world. It didn’t really matter that there was no cell service on the island; the entire state of Florida was on lockdown. The state would stand still until tomorrow morning, making it the perfect time to make his move.

  His eyes instinctively moved to the parade ground. On a normal day here, he suspected that, with the ferry and seaplanes running tourists in and out, there were probably over a hundred people on the island. Today it was vacant, except for the park service employees, his men, and Travis’s group. This made the two women walking across the parade ground holding snorkeling gear and a beach bag seem out of place.

  On closer inspection, one was older, maybe mid-thirties, and the other a teenager. He watched as they walked toward the fort’s entrance, and leaned forward when he saw them stop by Travis and Hunter. He couldn’t hear the conversation, but he could tell from their body language that they were more than friendly, especially Hunter and the women. A minute later, they separated. The women continued toward the entrance; Hunter and Travis walked toward the living quarters.

  Wondering if this was his chance, Bugarra got up and left his room. Knocking on the closed door of the next room, he waited until one of his men answered, then instructed them to follow the women. Continuing down the hallway, Bugarra carefully stopped near a corner, and listened.

  The sound of a door being opened caught his attention, and he tried to place himself in the building. From what he recalled, the hallway off to the right led to the communications room. If Hunter was taking Travis there, Bugarra would lose his advantage.

  He waited several seconds until he was sure that was where the men had gone, then, with his back to the wall, he slid around the corner. At the partially opened door, he could hear the two men talking. It sounded like Travis was about to make a call. That call, Bugarra suspected, would go to Melanie Woodson, something he could not afford.

  He’d dealt with Wood, her father, over the years. There’d been some good deals in the beginning. Bugarra’s company, Treasure Hunters, had just started to flourish, but the bills quickly mounted. Learning how expensive search and salvage could be when you only had centuries-old information, he’d burned through most of his reserves before unleashing his current business model. Back in the day, he thought the money was in actually finding the treasure, not in recruiting backers. When he made the switch, Wood couldn’t stomach it, and they had fallen out several times. Like her father, Melanie Woodson had the reputation of being a crusader. She was just the type of person who could bring down his empire.

  Travis knew Bugarra was on the island and would be naturally suspicious. He decided to use that to his advantage, and took several steps toward the door, making sure his footfalls were heard. Hunter was wearing a sidearm now, and Bugarra would have to be careful—step loud enough to make Travis suspicious, but quiet enough that neither man would do anything rash.

  He didn’t have enough time to see if his ploy worked. Travis said something barely audible, then he must have heard Bugarra, and disconnected the call. Taking another step past the door, Bugarra started walking faster toward a glass exit door at the end of the hallway. Though constructed to look like a residence, the building was a commercial structure, with exit signs and crash bars on the doors.

  Just before pushing through the door, he paused to look back and saw Hunter coming toward him—alone. Spinning, as if he had forgotten something, Bugarra crashed into the special agent.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, loud enough, he hoped, for Travis to hear his voice. He had to play his hand and let Travis know he was here.

  “Something I can help you with?”

  “Just taking a walk and forgot something. Your boss said that my boat would be returned this afternoon. Thought I’d go have a look.”

  Just before Hunter stepped aside, Bugarra saw Travis in the doorway. Turning away quickly to avoid eye contact, he started to push the crash bar to open the door.
Travis would have seen him, and that was okay—what he couldn’t afford was confrontation. The agent was clearly on Travis’s side, and his own men were following the women. It suddenly dawned on Bugarra that the women were the key.

  Moving quickly now, he exited the building. Hunter, obviously not sure if he had reason to follow, held back a few seconds. Looking back over his shoulder, Bugarra saw the two men talking. He picked up his pace to a fast walk in the direction of the fort’s entrance.

  Mac watched as Bugarra walked quickly toward the sally port. There was something about his look that Mac didn’t like, and when Kurt came up beside him, Mac guessed that he had seen it, too.

  With just a look between them, Mac and Kurt followed, increasing their pace when they saw Bugarra walk up to one of the men who was looking at the water. They saw Bugarra point at something near the fort’s crumbling walls: the tips of two yellow snorkels sticking out of the water, and start running toward the dock.

  “That your girls out there?” Mac asked Kurt.

  Before Kurt could answer, Bugarra and the man moved toward the ferry and walked across the gangplank connecting it to the dock. A minute later, the two men emerged with snorkeling gear. At the side of the boat, they removed their shirts and put on the gear.

  “We have to get out there,” Kurt said.

  The two men slid off the side of the ferry. Mac took off at a run, with Kurt right behind. He would have preferred his own gear, especially his long freediving fins, but his boat was too far away. They needed to be in the water now. Together they ran through the small picnic area and crossed the dunes to the beach.

  The sun reflecting off the water temporarily blinded Mac as he searched for the pair of yellow snorkels. After scanning the fort’s walls, where he had seen the women earlier, he moved his gaze to the open water, remembering that Kurt had recommended snorkeling near the steel pilings. Mac spotted Justine and Allie halfway between the fort and the old dock, swimming directly toward Bugarra and his man.

  “Come on,” Kurt said, pulling off his deck shoes and shirt.

  Mac followed suit. Kurt headed straight for the water, a shorter distance, but Mac chose to run across the beach, realizing that crossing the sand was faster than swimming. When he reached the end of the beach, he stopped to locate the snorkels again. They were just past the point and turning toward the old steel piles. The only problem was that Bugarra was waiting aboard the Yellowfin.

  Kurt was swimming toward his family, stroking quickly through the light chop. Mac gauged Kurt’s speed and knew right away he’d never make it in time. It would be up to him to save the women. Looking around one more time to get his bearings just before he dove in, he saw Pamela and Ned coming toward him.

  “Get the director,” Mac called. “Bugarra’s after Kurt’s wife and daughter.”

  He didn’t wait for a response; he dove in head first and pulled hard with his arms. He saw the snorkels at the first piling and knew he wasn’t going to get there in time. Treading water for a second, he watched Bugarra in the Yellowfin idling toward the group. The two men in the water noticed it as well and made their move on Justine and Allie.

  Before Kurt could reach them, the women were subdued and hauled aboard the boat. Kurt swam up beside him in time to see Justine putting up a good fight until one of the men slammed a fist into her chin. She crumpled onto the deck, and Mac felt Kurt’s anger. He sensed Kurt was about to scream and start after the boat, and put a comforting hand on his shoulder to stop him. It wouldn’t benefit anyone to have Bugarra see them in the water. They turned and swam back toward shore.

  Mac followed. Though Mac was a stronger swimmer, Kurt, fueled by fury, reached the beach first.

  “Wait. We need a plan,” Mac called after him. Before he could see what Kurt was doing, he heard a familiar sound and turned to see his trawler heading directly toward them. “Over here,” he yelled to Kurt, and jumped back in the water. He didn’t wait to see if Kurt would follow—Mac knew he would.

  The bow wake hit them, causing them to duck under the waves and time their ascent to not hit the hull. Trufante had slowed to an idle, but momentum was pushing the boat toward them. Signaling to Kurt to stay where he was, Mac surfaced and saw Trufante above the gunwale at the wheel. The trawler was circling them like they were trap buoys. Trufante was playing it right. Mac again motioned to Kurt to stay put and wait for Trufante to pick them up. The steel hull slid alongside him, and Mac heard the click of the transmission when Trufante dropped it into neutral. Safe from the deadly propeller, Mac stroked to the dive platform and climbed aboard, Kurt right behind him.

  Trufante didn’t wait until they were situated. He understood the urgency of the situation and spun the boat in the direction of the fading wake of the kidnappers’ twin engines. Mac moved toward the helm and turned on the radar. They had little chance of catching the faster boat, but dialing in the boat’s profile while it was still in sight made tracking easier once it disappeared over the horizon.

  “Thanks, man,” Mac said to Trufante, slicking his hair back and wiping the seawater from his face. “We got ’em. Just have to hang on until the engine blows.” That funny look was back on Trufante’s face, and this time Mac was done guessing. “Spit it out.”

  “I only had time to crimp the fuel line to the starboard engine. If I could have yanked wires, it would have been easy, but …”

  “Just keep an eye on them.” Mac couldn’t fault the Cajun for doing—or not doing—as asked.

  Trufante nodded, and Mac went back to the starboard bench, where Kurt was sitting with an arm over the gunwale, staring ahead at the boat that held his wife and daughter.

  “We’ll get ’em. I have the radar signature dialed in, and Trufante did a little work on the engines.” But it was hard to reassure the agent as Bugarra’s boat disappeared over the horizon. “Ned and Pamela are back at the fort. They’re going to find Farnsworth and get help.”

  Kurt seemed to snap out of it now that there was something he could do. Pushing past Mac, he reached the helm and grabbed the VHF microphone. Mac watched as Kurt switched to channel nineteen and hailed the fort. Mac and Kurt huddled around Trufante, straining to hear over the speaker what the director would do.

  The answer came quickly: “Stand down.”

  With two words, the wind had been spilled from their sails.

  Twenty-Five

  Trufante didn’t waver. He kept a firm grip on the throttle. No one said a word; they were all stunned by the director’s response. Mac broke the spell. “Shut it down,” he said. It took a while for Trufante to process the command, which was contrary to what he expected Mac to do. Normally averse to orders, especially from an office man, Tru expected his boss to do the opposite.

  “Our goal is not to catch them,” he said. Kurt and Trufante turned to face Mac, shock on their faces. “Our goal is to save Allie and Justine.” Mac looked at Kurt. He could tell Kurt was nervous, but was being patient. Though he might not agree, his direct supervisor had ordered him to stand down, and unless a better option presented itself, he would comply.

  “We’ve got them locked on the radar. The range is good for a hundred miles. It shouldn’t be any problem to track where he’s headed. Besides, Bugarra didn’t take them to kill them, or we would have picked up their bodies outside the harbor. He intends to use them to leverage us.” Mac saw that everyone agreed. Trufante bumped the throttle forward to just over an idle, keeping his course the same as the boat moving ahead on the radar screen.

  Mac leaned over him and tapped the red icon. A small cursor appeared over the boat, and he selected “track” from a pop-up menu. A circle appeared around Bugarra’s boat. “That way we can keep an eye on him.” He turned to Kurt. “I expect once he reaches Key West he’ll send over his demands.”

  “Should we call the FBI? This is a kidnapping.”

  “Any other day, maybe, but every office in the state is shut down now. Ruth’s had its way with the Keys, but the rest of the state is not going
to be free of it until tomorrow. It’s up to us for now.”

  “I should call in to headquarters and see if he relayed a message.”

  “He knows how to find us. We have a single-sideband radio that should cover Key West to the Dry Tortugas,” Mac said,

  “If it’s all the same, I’d rather be closer than further away,” Kurt said.

  Trufante had been listening to the exchange, and looked at Mac. He nodded, and the Cajun pressed down the throttles. It took a long moment for the boat to get up on plane, but soon enough, they were traveling at twenty-five knots. Trufante checked his course against the icon on the screen representing Bugarra’s boat and adjusted slightly to match it. Mac zoomed out the screen. About thirty miles ahead of Bugarra’s boat was Key West. Mac had guessed that was where Bugarra was going; now he knew for sure. If it wasn’t Key West itself, Bugarra was clearly heading for the chain of islands.

  Mac adjusted the volume and squelch on the SSB and VHF radios. Even though there was still no signal, he had Kurt turn up the volume on his cell phone.

  “Dial her back to eighteen hundred,” Mac told Trufante. He complied, easing the throttles down while watching the tachometer. When the diesel settled into the range he wanted, there was an audible drop in the volume. It was just barely enough power to keep the steel hull on plane and was more fuel efficient. Checking the fuel levels, Mac saw the tanks had a solid half in the port side and about a third in the starboard. He switched over to the port tank; he would allow the tank to go down to a quarter before resetting the switch. The difference in weight between the tanks was hard to detect from the decks, but Mac saw how Trufante was having to goose the starboard trim tab to lift the hull slightly. Once the weight of the fuel in the tanks was equal, the boat would ride better.

  Mac didn’t need a calculator to tell him they had enough fuel to reach Key West. With the Marquesas appearing on the horizon, they were already halfway back. Again, he checked the radar screen. Bugarra’s boat appeared to have slowed, but he was a captain as well and knew that his boat was faster than the trawler. As they moved through the storm-churned water, Mac had to keep reminding himself that this was not a race. They had to be smart. Even if they could overtake the faster boat, it might panic Bugarra into doing something that nobody aboard the trawler wanted.