While relieving himself, he swatted away the mosquitoes. For four days he’d been at their mercy, doing his best to stay hidden and survive in the unforgiving landscape. Part of him didn’t care anymore whether he got captured by the police or not. At least in a jail cell, he’d be away from the bugs, and he’d get three square meals a day.
Deke better think up something soon, he thought. I can’t do this shit forever.
A chilling thought crawled up his spine. Maybe Deke wasn’t coming. Maybe Deke didn’t care about him, and therefore could care less if the man lived or died. Maybe he’d been deserted by his own people.
He finished up, then zipped his pants. Just as the thought began to burrow into his psyche, the sound of a boat engine woke him from his thoughts. Casper knew boats. It sounded like a small outboard. And it sounded like it was coming from inside the lagoon. It would be the first motorized craft he’d seen in the body of water since arriving. Every visitor had anchored down in the deeper water surrounding the islands.
He stumbled through the thickets, then climbed up onto a thick branch for a better view. Shielding his eyes, he spotted a skiff enter the lagoon from the western opening in the mangroves. At first, he suspected that it was a tour guide as well. Or a fisherman looking to take advantage of the lagoon’s isolation. But as the boat motored closer into view, it was clear that it wasn’t a tour, or a fisherman.
He ran back to his camp, grabbed a small pair of binoculars from his sack, then returned to the vantage point in the tree. Focusing through blurry lenses, he saw three people. They were preparing to deploy a bright yellow device that he’d recognize from a mile away.
As one of the men turned to look in his direction, Casper got a good look at his face and gasped.
It’s the asshole.
His left hand instinctively brushed his injured thigh as he focused in on the man who’d inflicted the wound. Despite the fatigue, the pain, the lack of nutrition, and the itchy skin from a thousand bug bites, a surging anger overtook him that transcended everything else.
This local should’ve finished me off when he had the chance.
He took one more sinister look at the man and his companions, then staggered back to his camp. Reaching back into his sack, he traded the binos for a handgun.
Nothing made him happier than the prospect of sneaking over to their boat and filling the guy with lead. But as he’d snatched his weapon, his phone had fallen out onto the dirt. The screen was blank. He kept it powered off to conserve the battery, turning it on just once a day to see if he’d received any word from Deke. It had been three days since he’d heard his leader’s voice.
But this…this changes things.
A prospect more enticing than just revenge crept into his mind. He could kill their enemy and become filthy rich at the same time.
If they had a magnetometer, it meant that they were looking for the gold. And they were doing so on the opposite side of the lagoon from where Jake and Tuck had been looking.
They know something we don’t.
He smiled for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. There hadn’t been anything to be happy about for a while. Not for him. But this wiped the slate clean.
He set his gun back in the sack and grabbed the phone. After powering it on and seeing that he still hadn’t received any word, he made a call of his own.
~ ~ ~
Deacon Lynch walked along the edge of a murky pond filled with alligators. The white supremacist leader had just finished checking the back of their new compound’s perimeter, making sure that the chain-link fence was intact. His boots were muddy from the trek, his Confederate flag shirt drenched in sweat.
He stopped, removed his ballcap, and wiped his brow. The swastika tattoo at the base of his neck was just visible above his collar. He looked terrible. Unkempt and exhausted. It had been a long and eventful couple of days scrambling to pick up the pieces after everything that had happened.
He gazed upon the nearest gators sunbathing on the muddy shore, then put his hat back on and continued forward. Just as he took his second step, his phone vibrated in the front pocket of his tattered jeans.
He slid it out, focused on the caller ID, then sighed.
“What?” Lynch said in an agitated tone.
“Is that any way to talk to one of your followers?” Casper said in a joking tone.
“I’m hanging up.”
“You don’t want to do that,” Casper said, his tone shifting to serious. “Trust me.”
Lynch paused. “Talk, Casper.”
“I just wanted to call and wish you a merry fucking Christmas, Deke.”
This guy’s been spending way too much time out in the sun.
“What the hell are you saying?”
“I said, merry Christmas.”
Lynch shook his head and rolled his eyes.
This guy’s officially gone off the deep end. Too much sun and isolation.
“I don’t have time for games, Casper. I’m trying to figure a way out of this mess.”
The white supremacist leader was just about to hang up the phone when Casper spoke again.
“I’ve got our way out of this,” he said. “I’ve got a way for us to make out like bandits out of this mess, Deke.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the local guy who killed Jake and beat me to hell. He’s here, Deke. He’s back at the lagoon. And he’s got more friends and they’re looking for the gold.”
Lynch leaned against the base of a tree. “You sure it’s him?”
“Positive.”
Lynch took a moment to wrap his head around what he was hearing.
Who in the hell does this man think he is? First he takes down some of my most devout followers, and then he goes after the gold for himself? Our gold.
It was like the stranger was rubbing it in his face. Pouring salt in his deep open wounds. It also sent another loud and clear message: that this man and his friends weren’t afraid of Lynch, or any of the Aryan Order’s members for that matter.
Well, he will be afraid. Very soon, he will be afraid.
“Keep a sharp eye on these people, Casper,” Lynch ordered. “If they find the gold, call me. I’ll be ready. I’ll be ready with a powerful force, and together we’ll all take back what’s rightfully ours. The Key West Avengers’ mission will be complete. And the Aryan Order will be more powerful than ever before.”
Casper agreed to do as his leader instructed. Feeling reinvigorated, Lynch ended the call and stared off over the swamps.
In the bog beside him, Lynch observed an alligator as it swam stealthily along the shore. When its prey of choice crept close to the bank, the prehistoric predator would jolt from the water in a rapid pounce, snap its powerful jaws, then drag its meal back into the murky water in the blink of an eye. He took a lesson from the vicious reptile. He too would lurk in the shadows, pounce quickly, attack relentlessly, then vanish. An idea came to him, and the inner workings of a plan formed around the idea.
Lynch bobbed his chin.
This local won’t know what hit him.
THIRTY-ONE
Gripping tight to a branch, I held myself in place underwater while scanning the metal detector over the bottom. Forcing the device through the thick grass and into every nook and cranny, I paid close attention to the unlit LED lights. None of them illuminated.
Finishing up the section, I pressed my knees into the sand and rose up just enough to clear the water from my snorkel with a powerful exhalation. With the airway open, I breathed calmly, pushed away from the tangles of branches, and shifted down.
After another fifteen minutes of searching, I rose to my feet to stretch and get my bearings.
Jack was on the skiff, which was tied off fifty yards down the shoreline, and Ange was searching in the water, about to reach my position.
She rose up from the water, peered at me through her mask, then slid it down to rest around her neck. Her hair was tied b
ack, and she was wearing a skintight long-sleeved shirt and blue bikini bottoms. With the water so shallow and warm, we hadn’t bothered with the wetsuits. The refreshing ocean felt good on such a hot day.
“Anything?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“You?”
“No metal. But I spotted a stingray.”
We sloshed back to Jack, who was sitting on the deck with his feet propped up on the console. He’d strapped an umbrella in place for shade and was staring at the charts while humming a song.
He handed us cold refreshments, then marked off the area we’d both just searched. We’d been at it for hours, taking intermittent breaks back at the Calypso throughout the day.
“We’re nearing the edge of the new grid,” he said. “Just under a hundred yards left.”
Ange and I climbed aboard, then toweled off and set our detectors, masks, and snorkels aside. Plopping down in the bow, we both downed our drinks quickly.
Jack set the papers aside, then rose to his feet and stretched. He brushed his curly blond hair from his face, then stretched his neck.
“It’ll be dark soon,” he said, gazing to the west. The sun had already dropped down behind the mangroves. The western sky was a glowing ember that dimmed with every passing second.
After emptying her bottle, Ange let out a breath and wiped her lips. “What do you boys say? Knock out this final stretch, then call it a night?”
Jack laughed. “It’ll take at least another hour. You’ll be swimming around in total darkness by the time we’re done.”
“Good thing I brought these,” Ange said, leaning forward and grabbing two dive flashlights from her backpack.
Despite our lack of success, there were far worse places to spend a day. We had sufficient pure DEET bug spray to keep Florida’s most detested residents at bay, we had a fully stocked cooler, and we had our boats moored nearby whenever we needed some cold air and a bite to eat.
“Nice to see someone’s enthusiasm hasn’t waned,” I said. “But I don’t know, Ange—more of Pete’s catch of the day sounds awful good right about now. Why don’t we get a good night’s sleep, then pick up where we left off here in the morning?”
“I hate to be the party pooper here,” Jack said, “but I think that if this treasure chest were here, we would’ve found it by now.”
“You guys,” Ange said, shaking her head. “Where’s your sense of adventure and excitement? And possibility? Honestly, I had no idea I was surrounded by such pessimists.”
Jack and I both laughed. Though my mouth was watering just thinking about more of the snapper, I guessed another hour wouldn’t hurt.
“All right,” I said, raising my hands in the air in resignation. I’d learned that most times it was futile to argue with Ange. And, over the years, I’d also learned that nine times out of ten, she was right. “We’ll finish up the last stretch. And, Jack, you can hum a few more Buffett albums.”
Ange smiled triumphantly, and we waded back to the shoreline and continued our search. After ten minutes, the dying light made it too difficult to see, so we both powered on waterproof flashlights.
Just a short distance into my new trajectory, I spotted something unusual on the bottom. It was a deep pool by the looks of it, and it was located ten yards to the west, nestled between thick encroaching branches on both sides. As I splashed closer and shined the beam of my flashlight, my eyes widened as I realized what it was. It looked like the entrance into a narrow cave.
My heart rate picked up as I cut the rest of the distance. It was roughly six feet deep to the bottom, then the opening cut inland through the limestone. Shining the light down, I sucked in a breath, then submerged. The opening was small, just big enough for me to fit through. I carefully pulled my way inside. The view was covered by tangles of roots, and I couldn’t even see the end of it.
Curious, I pulled myself farther and farther into the cave, then noticed it cut skyward up ahead, ending in the middle of the thick groves. Somewhat dejected, I managed to turn around and make my way back out without getting caught on anything.
I swam out from the opening, then broke through the surface and caught my breath.
“You all good, bro?” Jack called out from over on the skiff.
I gave him a thumbs-up, then climbed up onto the shallows and continued with my search, scanning the detector from side to side.
“I stumbled into a cool cave back there,” I said. “But it just dead-ends in the groves, and I didn’t get any hits inside.”
“You found a cave here?” Jack said. He stood and slid off his T-shirt. “I’ve gotta check this out.”
He grabbed his mask and was just about to leap overboard when a high-pitched beep froze him in his tracks. Both of us snapped our heads toward the sound. Ange stood in the knee-deep water just down the shoreline. She had her detector in the water, and she was frozen in place. Slowly, she slid the coil back a foot.
The beep blared again. She looked up at us with wide eyes and the biggest smile plastered across her face.
“Please don’t tell me you dropped a ring or something?” Jack said.
Ange chuckled.
“I do believe we’ve got ourselves a hit, boys.”
Rejuvenated by the simple electronic sound, I sprang to the skiff and grabbed the metal mesh scoop. Jack snatched a portable shovel and we both slogged over to Ange, who was kneeling down and digging through the sand and muck. Feeling the excitement, I patted Ange on the back, then Jack and I went to work, digging away as best we could. The top layer came easy, but once we hit just a few inches down, the going slowed. Every time we pulled out a pile, sand and silt tumbled back into the hole, countering our progress.
“How deep, Ange?” I asked, taking a break from the seemingly futile effort.
She hovered the metal detector over the spot again, and again the speaker beeped.
“Three feet,” she said, reading the small LCD screen.
Jack stopped digging, then brushed aside his curly hair from his face and sighed.
“Three feet?” he said. “We’ve barely made it six inches and this ground’s getting harder and harder. We’ll be at this all night at this rate.”
I looked over my left shoulder. The sun was gone, completely swallowed up by the horizon and leaving the landscape shrouded in darkness. We were tired and hungry, and the skeeters were really starting to make their presence known.
“How about we come back in the morning, Ange?” I said.
She was curious about what we’d found, we all were, but she relented.
“Fine,” she said. “But we come back bright and early, understood?”
Jack and I both grinned and agreed. We sloshed back to the skiff, loaded up our stuff, then untied the line. I memorized the spot where we’d dug, then scanned over the lagoon. It was a peaceful and serene place. We could’ve been in the middle of the Amazon, it was so quiet.
As I climbed onto the boat, my phone vibrated to life in my backpack. I grabbed it and checked the screen. It was Pete.
“What are you crazy kids up to?” he said after I picked up. “It’s after ten. Grub’s getting cold.”
“Ange got a hit,” I said. I paused, letting the revelation simmer.
Pete laughed. “Of course she did. You guys didn’t dig it up without me, did you?”
“We saved it for tomorrow,” I said. “And we’re gonna need bigger shovels. Whatever it is, it’s deep. Real deep.”
THIRTY-TWO
Deacon Lynch sat in the passenger seat of the old diesel Ford F-350 pickup truck. At just past midnight, the driver pulled into a sleepy parking lot, then chugged around to the back side of a white building with big glass windows up front and garage doors in the back.
Peering through the windshield, Lynch read a neon sign that said “South Florida Motorsports.”
“Pull up to the door on the left,” Lynch ordered.
Titus nodded, put the truck in reverse, and did as he was told. Once the truck was
idling, Lynch pointed through the glass toward a chain-link fence enclosing an area filled with boats and trailers.
“You know what to do, Titus,” Lynch said.
The young man nodded. They’d gone over the plan again and again.
Lynch creaked the passenger-side door open, then hopped out. He strode to the tailgate and took a look around. The place was quiet and empty. Even on the main drag on the other side of the building, there were no cars on the road.
He turned around, then slapped the side of the truck. The moment his hand hit metal, the tarp covering the bed of the truck was shoved aside, and three of Lynch’s men hopped out. Like Titus, they were mostly young and had shaved heads.
One of the guys handed Lynch a crowbar, and the group shuffled up to the back door. They waited a moment, then Titus killed the power to the building by cutting into the circuit breaker box and opening all of the breakers. Even with the power out and the alarm system disabled, Lynch still wanted to move quickly. In and out as fast as possible.
He slammed the straighter end of the crowbar under the handle’s faceplate and pried. After two blows, the leverage was too much. The handle gave way and they pulled the door open.
Lynch led them inside. It was dark and eerie. A small back room that opened up to a massive wide-open space filled with every motorized toy a kid-at-heart adrenaline junkie could ever want. Rows of brand-new top-of-the-line motorcycles, ATVs, speedboats, and go-karts.
Lynch took three steps down the center aisle before the beam of a blinding flashlight flicked on and shined into him, stopping him in his tracks.
“Hold it right there!” a voice called out.
A middle-aged security guard stepped out from the shadows. He was short and slightly overweight. He had curly hair and a thick mustache.
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