by Evan Graver
He snatched her around the waist and hauled her toward the cabin door. The engine was between the forward and aft cabin hatches, and the surrounding walls blazed brightly. His skin felt like it would peel off him. The cops were shouting for them to come out, but Emily struggled to keep fighting the fire.
“We gotta go, babe!” he shouted. He shoved her up the ladder, and together they tumbled onto the deck.
Ryan pushed Emily over the lifeline into the water between Windseeker and a Viking sportfisher and fell in beside her. Together, they swam across the channel to the next set of docks. Two men helped them onto the dock, and the couple stood dripping wet, watching their home burn to the waterline.
Heat shimmered off the boat in waves, blistering the fiberglass of the surrounding boats. The wood interior was ready fuel for the fire and fiberglass burned quick and hot, meaning whatever efforts they made to extinguish the flames would be pointless, other than to save the nearby boats from damage. The boat was a total loss, along with everything in it.
People rushed from the nearby marina office and restaurants to fight the fire and cut loose the boats docked beside Windseeker.
Emily threw her arms around Ryan and buried her head into his bare shoulder. She shook as she cried, and an anger burned deep inside of him at the vile evil of the men who had so little regard for either life or property that they were willing to destroy everything to keep a few dollars in their pockets.
“Are you hurt?” he asked as he gripped her tightly.
“I don’t think so,” Emily replied.
“You didn’t get shot?”
“No. Whoever shot Oscar caught him just as he came down the ladder from the cockpit. I was in the galley and ran to the V-berth. When the shooting stopped, the engine was smoking. I went to help Oscar, but he was already dead, so I tried to put out the fire. A bullet must have cut through the propane line.” She pressed her forehead to Ryan’s chest and hugged him tight.
Ryan’s heart still ached. Not only had his boat burned, but his girlfriend had witnessed a brutal execution. Although his boat was a total loss, it didn’t matter to him. Emily was safe. Everything else was replaceable.
As he held her close, he glanced up the dock to where the cops had congregated around Joseph’s body and had cordoned off the area with caution tape. Mango was speaking to a short, black woman in a uniform who was taking notes in a spiral-bound pad.
Jennifer came down the dock and wrapped her arms around Emily and Ryan. Gently, she said, “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Emily peeled herself away from her boyfriend, and he followed the two women up the dock to the shore. Before they could continue to Jennifer and Mango’s catamaran, the female cop stopped them by saying, “I need to speak to you.”
Ryan stopped, swatted a mosquito that landed on his bare chest, and said, “Give her a minute to clean up, will you?”
The police officer nodded, and Emily and Jennifer continued to Margarita.
“Can I go in the bathhouse and get my shaving kit and clothes?” Ryan asked.
The detective nodded to another cop who stood by the bathhouse door, and Ryan went inside to collect his kit. He pulled on his T-shirt and remembered the cable-knit sweater his mother had made for him. When he was chilly, it was nice to pull it on and think about her at home in North Carolina. He should call her. He hadn’t talked to her in a while, and he usually tried to call her at least once every two weeks.
With the boat gone, maybe it was time to go home. Emily wanted to meet his family. He wondered if Oscar’s violent death and the fire aboard his boat would make news Stateside.
Ryan had his answer when he stepped out of the bathhouse, holding his shaving kit and towel. At least three people were photographing his burning boat and Joseph’s body with long lens cameras while the coroner did his work.
A woman rushed over, pushed a digital recorder under Ryan’s chin, and demanded, “Sir, what happened? How did the boat catch on fire?”
He wanted to brush past her but paused to make a statement. “Two men died because of senseless violence, and I lost my sailboat. Terrence Joseph was a thug and a drug dealer who was recently released from prison, where he should have been rotting forever. I feel no remorse for him.”
Ryan turned to walk away, but the reporter grabbed his arm. “How do you know Joseph?”
“He’s just a local thug who got what was coming to him. You live by the sword; you die by the sword.”
With that, he walked over to where Mango stood with the police officer, who introduced herself as Detective Johanna Smith. Ryan flicked his damp towel over his shoulder and shook her hand.
“I hate to see a man’s home burn down,” Smith said. “My condolences.”
“Thanks.” He turned to look at his boat. The volunteer firefighters had extinguished the flames and were using water hoses to cool the hulls of the neighboring boats. They’d pushed some away from the docks closest to Windseeker and had tethered them on long lines.
“Do you have a place to stay?” the detective asked.
“With me,” Mango said. “My wife and I live on that Lagoon 52 over there.” He pointed to the catamaran tied to the end of a pier.
“I need you to come down to the station so I can get statements from each of you,” Smith said.
“Are we under arrest or just persons of interest?” Ryan asked.
“Witnesses,” Smith replied. “And you are the owner of the boat that burned, yes?”
“Yeah.” Ryan nodded.
“Come tomorrow morning.” She handed a business card to both him and Mango. “Nine a.m.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ryan said.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Smith said.
Tapping the card against his leg, Ryan watched the detective squat beside the coroner. He grabbed Mango by the arm and headed for the Lagoon. “You need to scrub that GSR off your hands.”
Once they were aboard Margarita, Mango went straight to the sink and scrubbed his hands with soap and water to remove the gunshot residue and unburned powder that had blown onto his hands when he’d fired his pistol. Then he threw his clothes in the washer with white vinegar and detergent and took a shower to cleanse the rest of his body.
Jennifer was in the salon and Emily had just come up from showering in a head of the aft stateroom in the starboard hull. She wore a pair of Jennifer’s pajama pants and a T-shirt that read MJ Charters over a stylized picture of the catamaran under full sail. It reminded Ryan of the T-shirts and polos he’d collected while he bounced around the Caribbean. They were all gone. At least Emily had most of her clothes and possessions in her apartment in Tampa.
Ryan walked back to his smoldering boat and spoke with the volunteers who had put out the fire. He thanked them and helped pull the other boats back to their slips. The boats closest to Windseeker had blistered fiberglass and smoke damage. He gave his insurance information and his phone number to their owners. His insurance company would not be happy with him.
When he returned to Margarita, he retrieved a beer from the fridge and went out to the aft deck. Taking a seat in a chair, he lit a cigar from Mango’s collection. As he held the lighter to the tobacco, he remembered the Zippo inscribed with the U.S. Navy EOD logo that Greg had given him after pirates had shot his other sailboat out from under him. Every item was replaceable, but each held sentimental value beyond its dollar amount. He and Emily had escaped without major burns, although the heat had singed his eyebrows and hair. Sniffing, he caught a whiff of acrid fiberglass smoke clinging to him.
He needed a shower and, more than anything, he needed to find out who had paid Terrence Joseph to perform the hit on him and Oscar. That bastard had made it personal now, and Ryan was gunning for him like a laser-guided missile.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Before meeting Barry at his home, Ryan took Emily shopping. They both needed new clothes, and he picked up two new cell phones. He quickly filled a bag with shorts, T-shirts, and un
derwear. He realized he needed to put together a go-bag, because, like everything else, it had burned up on the boat. While there were several stores that would have what he needed on St. Thomas, replacing his guns would have to wait until he returned to the U.S.
He had to go to Barry’s house, and he had promised to stop by the police station. Ryan left Emily and Jennifer to continue their shopping while he went into a discount store, where he bought a roll of duct tape and a paring knife. He used the tape and cardboard from the knife’s blister pack to make a sheath and tucked the knife into his waistband. At least he had a weapon if things got out of hand.
After hailing a taxi, he rode across the island and got out at a crossroads near Barry’s home. When the taxi disappeared around the bend, he set out on foot. He was sweating heavily in the humid heat by the time he had walked the mile to the hacker’s house.
The metal detector tripped when it sensed the knife, but Barry let him through the gate regardless, and Ryan went up the back steps to the office. Carmen opened the door for Ryan and gave him a hug.
“I’m sorry to hear about Oscar,” she said. “The news said it was a drug thing.”
“The shooter was a local thug. Mango took him out before he could kill anyone else.”
“Forget about that,” Barry said. “I’ve got good news.”
“I could use some,” Ryan remarked, walking over to where the hacker stood beside his glass-topped computer table.
Barry tapped the touch screen, and a grainy video began playing. A man appeared on screen at a convenience store counter and paid cash for a stack of prepaid cards.
“That’s Webster Griffin, but he’s known on the street as Pops,” Barry said. “He’s got a rap sheet but hasn’t been arrested since he got out of prison about fifteen years ago after doing a stint for armed robbery. He’s been a bit of a ghost ever since.”
“What about his parole officer?” Ryan asked.
“He did two years of parole. After that, it’s anyone’s guess, but you know how these things go.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Prison is a criminal college. Any idea who Pops is affiliated with?”
“He’s a low-level errand runner for anyone willing to pay him,” Barry said. “Anyway, he buys two hundred prepaid cards a week. He spreads them out across three different stores, but this one seems to be his favorite.”
“What does he do with the cards?” Ryan asked.
“Unfortunately, I don’t know yet. I’ve had a tough time cracking the Miami-Dade traffic cam system. For some reason, our Internet has been spotty and, for the last week, we’ve had rolling blackouts, even though I have a generator. If the substations and Internet relays aren’t powered, I have to rely on satellite Internet, and it can be slow.”
“Have you had these problems before?” Ryan asked.
“Once in the past two years since Carmen and I moved in here.”
Ryan’s hackles rose. Barry had told him that whoever was behind the money had set on him like a pack of wolves when they’d started investigating Valdez. Maybe The Armorer had discovered Barry’s location and was actively working to subvert the investigation.
The computer screen went black, and Barry tapped it. “Dammit! Not again.”
Glancing around the room, Ryan saw the lights had also gone out. “How long does it take for the generator to kick in?”
“Less than two minutes,” Carmen said.
Ryan moved to the window and pulled back the shade just enough for him to peek out. He saw a man dressed all in black hop over the garden wall and drop into a crouch, swinging an MP5 submachine gun around to shoulder it.
“You got any guns around here?” Ryan asked.
“Just Carmen’s, and its downstairs. Why?” Barry asked, stepping over to join him.
Ryan jerked the hacker out of the shooter’s line of sight and turned to see Carmen reaching for the doorknob.
“Don’t!” Ryan ordered.
Before she could ask why, a bomb went off outside.
Ryan shoved Barry to the floor and dove on top of him. They landed beside Carmen, who had fallen as the house shook.
“Is there another way out of here?” Ryan barked.
Barry grabbed Carmen’s hand, and they scrambled toward the desk. Ryan hoped they had a plan other than to cower under the desk as armed men assaulted the house.
The hacker shoved the office chair out of the way and lifted a trapdoor. He helped Carmen down the ladder and went down after her. Ryan was about to descend when the office door flew open. Drawing his paring knife, he stabbed the breacher in the shoulder, and a flashbang grenade fell to the floor. For half a second, Ryan stared at the pin in the man’s hand before diving headfirst through the trapdoor.
He grabbed the ladder rung to arrest his fall, but his legs were still above the lip of the hole when the grenade detonated, and the flash singed the remaining hair from his legs as he tumbled down the ladder, landing on Barry and Carmen. All three of them fell to the tiled floor in what Ryan recognized as a bedroom before his head struck the ground and he saw stars.
Barry and Carmen wiggled out from under the salvage consultant and grabbed him by the wrists, dragging him into the darkness.
Ryan came to several moments later, with Barry patting him on the cheek and telling him to get up.
Rolling onto all fours, Ryan shook his head. He ran a hand over his temple and felt a lump forming there. He drew in a long breath and opened his eyes as wide as he could to focus them, but all he saw was black. Then the ground shook again, and dust rained down from the ceiling.
Still on all fours, Ryan put his head in his hands. “What was that?”
“I just blew the charges I’d set to destroy my equipment. I may have been overzealous with the C-4.”
“I told you it was too much,” Carmen hissed.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re safe, aren’t we?”
“Where are we?” Ryan asked.
“This is an old wine cellar that I had dug out to make into a panic room.”
“How do we get out?” Ryan asked.
“No worries,” Barry replied. “During the excavation, we found an old sea cave. We’ll go out that way, but you’ll have to do some climbing.”
Carmen kneeled beside Ryan and gently touched his head. “Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
She hooked her hands under his armpit. “Grab the other side, Barry.”
After a moment of fumbling in the darkness and kicking Ryan in the shoulder, Barry did as she instructed, and they helped Ryan to his feet. The larger man swayed, and Carmen took a firm grip on his arm.
“Am I blind” Ryan asked. He didn’t think he was, but he couldn’t see a damned thing.
“No,” Carmen said with exasperation. “Barry didn’t charge the emergency batteries, again.”
“Hey! In my defense, we never come down here.”
“But you’re supposed to check them once a month,” Carmen shouted.
“Be quiet,” Ryan hissed. He had heard something.
In a quieter voice, Carmen said, “It’s probably the rats.”
“Oh, great,” Ryan moaned.
“Or the snakes,” Barry said. “They like to hide in here because it’s cool.”
“Just shoot me now,” Ryan moaned.
“Come on, lean on me,” Carmen said. “Barry, you go first.”
Barry moved forward, but Ryan couldn’t see anything, so he held on tightly to Carmen with one arm and kept the other out in front of him. About fifty feet later, they came to a corner, and light spilled through the tunnel. When they rounded the bend, Ryan saw a tangle of vines covering a small entrance. Coiled up in a crook of the rock, just as Barry had said, was a snake.
“Don’t worry.” Barry reached down and picked up the two-foot-long reptile. “It’s just a garden snake. It’s not poisonous.”
No matter what type of snake it was, Ryan hated them. The only good snake, in his opinion, was a dead one. He felt the adrenaline r
ush through him at the mere sight of the reptile in Barry’s hand. While he wasn’t afraid of much, snakes were at the top of the list. When he was young, he’d gone fishing with a friend, and they’d come across a cottonmouth with a frog wedged in its throat. His buddy had poked the snake with a stick, laughing that it couldn’t do them any harm because it had a mouthful already, but when the snake lashed out at the stick, Ryan had taken off running.
Now, he wanted to run again as Barry held the snake out with both hands.
“Get that thing away from me,” Ryan growled, leaning back far enough that Carmen had to struggle to keep him upright.
The hacker took a step closer to Ryan, who drew back.
“Barry!” Carmen hissed. “This is not the time to be fooling around.”
Barry tossed the writhing snake behind them and pushed through the vines. Ryan followed him onto a ledge about twenty feet above the ocean, which crashed in waves onto the massive boulders below. They walked along the ledge until it ended, then scaled the last five feet to level ground.
The three of them sat and listened to the crackle of the fire Barry had sparked with his explosives. Far in the distance was the sound of sirens.
“How far are we from the house?” Ryan asked.
Barry pointed to their left. “It’s about thirty yards that way.”
They couldn’t see it through the thick underbrush and trees, but they could hear running vehicles and shouting men.
“Do you have transportation?” Ryan asked.
Barry stood and brushed the dirt from his bottom. “Come on.”
They trudged along a faint path to another property, pushing aside branches and bushes. At a garage door, Barry keyed in a number on a security pad, and the door lifted silently along its tracks. Inside sat a two-door Jeep Wrangler. When they were all in, Barry started the engine.
“What’s your plan?” Barry asked. “Carmen and I have our own way off the island.”
“Take me to where I can grab a cab and then email me all the data on that Griffin guy.”
“I already sent it,” Carmen said.