Wood's Tempest

by Steven Becker

  Under the circumstances, it was a good practice to fly over the runway before attempting to land. As the first plane in after Ruth, any debris would be the pilot’s problem. He wiggled the wings of the floatplane as he passed, indicating that all was good, and continued flying until Mac again lost sight of the small plane. As it turned, a glint of metal reflected the setting sun, and Mac was able to follow the approach. This time the pilot came straight in and landed easily. He taxied to the FBO area and cut the engines.

  A few minutes later, a shaky Ned and an excited Pamela exited the plane. The pilot followed and waved to Kurt. Ned came toward them.

  “You okay, old man?” Mac said. “I need to put you to work.”

  The hazy, airsick look in Ned’s eyes vanished, replaced by cold determination. “That won’t be a problem. Though it might be a while before I can unclench my hands.”

  They walked out to the curb and he asked Sonar to take them to Ned’s house.

  “I’ve got Justine’s car parked over there,” Kurt said, pointing at the small lot behind them. “I’ll meet you at Ned’s.”

  Mac glanced at his watch. “We have to call Bugarra about fifteen minutes ago.”

  Kurt nodded and jogged toward the car.

  As they cruised through the side streets, Mac saw that the residents were out, checking the damage to their properties. The relief on many of their faces was clear.

  The mood in the car was the opposite. They needed to get to Ned’s and make a plan.

  A few minutes later, Sonar pulled up to the curb in front of Ned’s house. Trufante, Pamela, and Ned got out of the back. Mac waited behind until the group followed Ned inside.

  “What do we owe you?” Mac asked.

  “This one’s on me. Thanks for caring.”

  Mac peeled a couple of hundreds off the soggy pile of bills in his pocket. “I have a feeling we’ll be needing you again before this is over.”

  She started to refuse, but he pushed them across the seat. After Sonar finally took them, he exited the cab and walked up the driveway. Kurt had arrived and was waiting anxiously by the door.

  “Let’s go talk to Ned and call Bugarra. We’ll get them back.” Mac checked his watch before entering Ned’s office. They were already a half-hour late, and he knew Bugarra was not going to take that well.

  “We need some information now,” he told Ned, who was already on the computer, pecking furiously at the keyboard.

  Now he stood behind Ned, frustrated as he watched him click back and forth between windows.“Dual screens would really help,” Mac said. It had taken a lot of convincing for Mac to go that route on his boat, but once he had them, he’d never go back.

  “It’s got to be something with Lafitte and Henriques. That’s where everything points.” Ned pointed to the screen, which showed the files in one of the many folders on the drive.

  “Conversos? I never heard of that. Open it up.” Instead of the boat names that he’d expected, Mac saw only people’s names. “What do you make of it?”

  “You need to learn your history of the Caribbean. Wood was too impatient to do the research, but I guess that’s why he had me,” Ned said. “Turns out the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

  Mac wanted to protest, but let him continue.

  “The history of the Jews in these waters goes all the way back to Columbus’s era, when edicts banned them from Spain and then Portugal. Many sailed as ‘Conversos,’ Jews who had converted to Catholicism. They were skilled traders, among other things, and needed in the New World. For years, the local governments went along with the ruse, but the Inquisition was like a dog with a bone. When they ran out of Jews to persecute on the Iberian Peninsula, they came here.”

  “We have to call him, even if it’s just for a history lesson,” Kurt said.

  The three men looked at each other, and Mac pulled out his phone. He pressed Bugarra’s number and waited. The call was answered almost immediately.

  “We have some leads, but are going to need until tomorrow to track them down,” Mac said, revealing nothing of what they’d learned. If at all possible, he wanted to hold his cards close.

  “By six o’clock tomorrow night, I want to see results.”

  Mac disconnected. He turned to Kurt, who was standing close enough to have heard the conversation, and told him they had twenty-four hours.

  “I think we should split up and try and find them,” Kurt said, looking stressed.

  “Probably a good idea, but that’s more your line of work than mine.”

  Kurt started toward the door.

  "Just keep in touch. We’ll keep working this end,” Mac said. He was both relieved and concerned at breaking up the group, but knew Kurt’s skill set was better geared toward finding Justine and Allie. Mac just hoped Kurt was patient enough to call for backup if he found them.

  Bugarra set the phone down on the coffee table and looked around his suite. He was used to expansive water views, so it felt like the walls of the room he had chosen because of the storm were closing in on him. The woman and the girl were in the next room being watched by one of his men. The other was on guard outside the door of the suite. They would be fine for now. What was bothering Bugarra was Travis. He knew Travis was withholding information, and he needed to find out what it was.

  He decided to leave his men to watch the women. In retrospect, it had been a rash act to take them, but Bugarra knew Travis had the information he wanted, and at the time taking them seemed the only way to get it. He’d left bodies in his wake before, but they were usually competitors or their henchmen, not someone’s wife and daughter. In a rare show of concern, Bugarra hoped Travis came through so he could release them.

  He’d been in a dangerous business for too long not to know how to mitigate risk, and the best way this time was to keep an eye on Travis. Bugarra was familiar enough with his reputation. Travis would try and get the women back and keep the treasure.

  Bugarra ordered the men to make sure that Hunter’s family was comfortable and had food and water, then left the suite.

  Hitting the streets, thinking he was probably going to have to walk, he saw a cab cruising by and whistled. The pink-haired woman driver did a quick U-turn to pick him up.

  “Can you take me to the marina?” Bugarra asked. The woman nodded, and he saw her glance at him in the mirror. He let it go, thinking that anyone out tonight might be up to no good. “And if you have a few free hours, I’ll be needing a cab for a while.”

  There were few cars on the streets, making for a fast ride across the island. Bugarra saw a few lights on, probably from people who had stayed. Most of the houses were dark. Normally the streets were alive and busy once the tropical sun set; tonight was quite the opposite. They arrived at the marina a few minutes later, and he asked the woman to wait. She nodded again and looked down at her phone.

  He didn’t think anything of it, as that was what most people did when they had more than thirty seconds with nothing to do. Leaving the cab, he walked past the closed Half Shell Oyster Bar. The docks were dark, and he guessed the management had turned the main breakers off as a precaution. Tonight had a different feel about it, like fatigue had overtaken the city. Debris from the storm surge covered the dock and sidewalks. The boats, usually lit by the pedestal lights at each slip, as well as their own spreaders, looked like shadows against the water. From the dim lights in the three or four illuminated cabins he passed, he suspected the shore power was off as well.

  The blackout forced him to survey most of the marina on foot, but he soon found Travis’s boat. Staying in the shadows of an adjacent trawler, he watched the dark boat, finally deciding that it was empty. He backtracked to the cab and found the girl still there, staring into space now. She jumped when he opened the door and he checked his phone before asking her to take him to an address on Whitehead Street. He’d thought he had startled her, but her nervous eyes kept making contact with his in the rearview mirror. With the two women hostage, his best defense mecha
nism was his paranoia, and he wondered what she knew as she drove past Duval and turned onto Whitehead.

  One phone call had gotten him the old man's address.

  Twenty-Eight

  It took all Kurt’s willpower to stop himself from blindly running after Justine and Allie. Instead, he channeled his fury into something productive. He needed information before he could act. Finding where Bugarra was staying would have been possible if the island’s law enforcement was working, but with all departments—including the police, fire, and EMS—still shut down, he had no alternatives. His contacts with the FBI would also be useless, as the closest office that might answer their phone was probably several states away. His cell was working again, and he checked the locations of Justine and Allie’s phones. Neither registered, and he assumed that Bugarra had turned them off, before remembering the phones were probably in their rooms at Fort Jefferson.

  Working for the National Park Service, Kurt had spent most of his time in wilderness areas. He’d been working in the Plumas National Forest in Northern California when he found the pot grow that had changed his life. Even at work, he liked to interact with the land and water, and often had a fishing pole in his hand or, at least, aboard the boat. An errant cast from his fly rod had led him to an irrigation pipe sucking water backward through an eddy in one of the national forest streams. Following the pipe had led him to the grow, and that had, at least temporarily, ruined his life. After losing custody of Allie when the cartel retaliated, he had been relocated to Biscayne National Park.

  Though he had been involved in several high-profile cases since arriving in Florida, his five-figure attorney, Daniel J. Viscount, had convinced his ex that his lifestyle was not a danger to Allie, and, with a big assist from Justine, Kurt had won his custody hearing. For the last year, he and Justine had been spending most weekends with his daughter. He now regretted bringing Allie along this time, though there had been no way of knowing it was going to turn out like this. Looking at his phone, he knew he should call Jane and tell her, but decided against it. Ruth was as good an excuse as any. He could easily delay the call until morning.

  He’d only been to Key West once, and Duval Street acted like a magnet on him, so it was the first place he went. Looking at the bars, now empty after the storm-fueled parties were over, he realized this was the last place Bugarra would take the women. He continued until he reached Front Street where he pulled over and opened the maps app on his phone.

  Working both the remote wilderness and expansive waters, he was used to, and comfortable with, charts and maps. Now, he studied Key West. The first thing he noticed was that the marinas were all on the north side of the island. Realizing the only lead he had was knowing Bugarra’s boat, he figured that finding it would be the logical way to start looking for Justine and Allie. Parking the car, he followed Duval to where it dead-ended and started walking along the historic boardwalk, backtracking to the cruise ship pier, then moving east.

  It looked like electricity had been restored to most of the island, but as the sunlight faded, he could see the docks were still dark. Unable to identify the boats from the boardwalk, he was forced into the time-consuming task of following every pier, and was about to give up when he reached the Key West Marina, where Mac’s boat was docked.

  He saw a single taxi idling by the entrance to the pier. The driver’s face was partially lit by a phone, and, seeing someone familiar, he approached the cab.

  “Sonar?” He tapped on the window.

  She jumped and looked up. Kurt took a step back to avoid looking intimidating, but in the process, that scared her worse. On any other night, the streetlights would have easily illuminated him, but tonight they were dark. In the long minute it took for her to recognize him, Kurt spotted someone approaching. Sonar froze, and Kurt took another step back into the darkness. He could see sudden tension in her face, and, as the man came closer to the cab, there was enough light for Kurt to see it was Bugarra. Kurt sank into the recessed entrance of a storefront and watched as Bugarra got into the cab. His hunch had been right.

  The car took off, and Kurt stepped out of the shadows. He started to follow it. There was little chance he could keep up on foot, but with no other clues, even knowing the general direction would help.

  Running along the boardwalk, he tried to keep the taillights in sight. The storm surge had come up over the walkway, and he slipped on the long strands of seaweed. As he ran, he was forced to alternate glances at the ground ahead and the taillights of the cab. Several times he lost his footing and thought he had lost the cab. When he reached the higher ground of Front Street, the footing improved, and he was able to make up some distance, but as the taillights disappeared around the corner of Whitehead Street, he stood with his hands on his hips, spent, gasping for air, and wondering where this left him.

  His only hope was that Sonar would let Mac know what happened after she dropped the kidnapper off. Kurt pulled his phone out to alert Mac.

  Mac was walking out the door when his cell rang. He answered the call, but put Kurt on hold so he could text Sonar and get her location. She texted back that she was at the house, and Mac ran toward the front window; he saw Bugarra was sitting in the backseat of the cab. Switching back to Kurt, he explained the situation.

  “I’m down the block now. I see them,” Kurt said.

  “We’re going out the back. There’s a detached garage. We’ll meet you there.” Mac disconnected and nodded to Trufante and Pamela, who had agreed to stay behind to make it look like someone was home and create a diversion. They finally had a clue, and Mac didn’t want Bugarra following him.

  “Go,” he whispered to Ned.

  Staying to the shadows, using the house as cover for as long as possible, they regrouped in the dark back corner. The garage was only ten feet away, but exposed to the street. Mac could see the back of the cab. Bugarra’s head was clearly visible in the backseat and he appeared to be looking at the front of the house. Mac tapped Ned on the shoulder and, a second later, followed him to the garage.

  Opening the garage door would attract too much attention, so they wheeled Ned’s bikes to the swing door and waited for Kurt. He appeared a minute later, and Mac directed him toward the third bike. The beach cruisers weren’t fast, but were efficient for getting around the flat island. When the three men were ready, Mac turned his back to the door to cover the light from the screen of his phone and texted Trufante.

  A second later, a loud crash came from inside the house, followed by a woman’s scream. They hoped the diversion would give them enough time to get the bikes into the neighbor’s yard. What sounded like a fight between a man and a woman started. That hadn’t been part of the plan, and Mac wondered if leaving Trufante and Pamela together had been a good idea. There was no time to think about that, though, and he was first to leave the garage.

  In single file, they walked the bikes across the grass, tripping several times on the exposed roots of a large banyan tree. The heavy beach cruisers were not made to navigate rough terrain, and Mac could hear Ned struggling behind him. He laid his bike down after clearing the root system and turned to help Ned. A minute later, the three stood in Ned’s neighbor’s driveway, looking at the back of the cab. There were no signs that they had been seen, and Mac decided to cross one more lot before hitting the street. The three rode around the block, stopping about a hundred feet short of the corner a block ahead of the cab. Mac texted Trufante. One at a time, the lights in the house were extinguished.

  A second later, he heard the garage door open and the car engine start. With most of the residents gone and the streets empty, Mac couldn’t remember a time when the island was so quiet. The silhouette of a head in the back of the cab could be seen turning toward the sound as Trufante backed the car out of the driveway. Fortunately, Bugarra had positioned himself to watch the front of the house, and the driveway was a blind spot. He would see the car, but hopefully not be able to identify the occupants. Trufante backed into the street going the
opposite direction that Bugarra was facing and took off.

  Mac’s breath quickened. Bugarra could do one of two things: He could stay in the cab and follow the car, or he could break into the house to steal the data. Mac suspected he’d pick the former. Being a salvor himself, he understood the paranoia Bugarra was feeling right now, and his sense would be to follow the pair he thought was Mac and Ned. He guessed that Bugarra was thinking: If they had found something, they would lead him to it, and they likely had Gross’s research with them anyway. Losing them would ruin any chance to take it from them.

  Mac watched as Trufante turned onto Front Street. He lost sight of him, but knew where he was going. His suspicions about Bugarra were confirmed when the cab started, backed into a neighbor’s driveway, pulled out, then disappeared around the same corner.

  Mac, Ned, and Kurt started pedaling down the street. Despite the lack of normal nightlife, they were counting on the Key West phenomenon that it was still faster to reach anywhere on the island by bicycle. Mac was surprised that Ned was appearing to effortlessly keep pace with him and Kurt, until he realized that the old man lived here, and most residents put more miles on their bikes than on their cars.

  Mac wove his way through the side streets, trying to gain an advantage and stay on a direct route to the marina. There were only a few cars out, and he feared he would be too late, but when the marina was in sight, they kicked it into high gear and coasted to a stop behind Turtle Kraals just before they saw the headlights approach.

  Twenty-Nine

  Mac and Ned got off their bikes and started to head toward the dock.

  “I’m staying,” Kurt said. “I can’t leave the island knowing Allie and Justine are here. You guys draw him out. If he follows, we’ll know if they’re with him. If he doesn’t, you can circle back.”