by Matthew Rief
As far as honey holes went, it didn’t get much better than the little lagoon on Monte Cristo. The water dropped to over twenty feet deep on the far end, and the edge was riddled with jutting coral and limestone. If the Keys were like a first world country for lobsters, the lagoon was an upper-class superb.
I was barely in the water for five minutes when I had four large ones. I grabbed them with gloved hands and kept them in a mesh bag in the shallows while I dove back down. I finned out through the narrow opening in the rocks, looked around the horizon, then swam back.
The water felt good. And I took in the incredible colors of the various marine life surrounding me.
I finned back into the lagoon and carried my haul up the hill to our camp. Ange called me over to the ledge as I hung the dripping net onto a branch beside the grill.
“They motored in closer,” Ange said. “I was going to whistle to you, but then they turned and headed back out. Not sure what they’re doing. Caught my first glimpse of someone on board. A guy. He looked vaguely familiar, but I can’t place him.”
“Brier?”
She shook her head. “This guy had dark skin. Not black, but Latino maybe. I didn’t get a good look. They were still pretty far away.”
She kept watch while I cleaned and cooked the lobsters. Once ready, I plated them along with some grilled potatoes and a mug of melted garlic butter. We ate while looking out over the big, mostly empty ocean. We’d even brought coconut waters to wash it all down.
“Sure beats the frozen meat we brought,” Ange said.
It was the understatement of the year. I loved the savory flavor of lobster, and there was no topping the freshness of a bug that had been scrounging the ocean floor an hour earlier.
After finishing, Ange looked through her binos at the distant boat. It had moved north into the Gulf and was just barely visible from our position. We’d have to climb around the nearby jutting rockfaces soon for a better look.
“How long you think they’ll wait?” she asked.
“I’d say nightfall. They’ll probably want the cover of darkness.”
Little did they know that darkness was our ally. I preferred to engage at night. In my career I’d learned to be optimal in everything from pitch dark, heavy rains, relenting snowdrifts, and freezing temperatures or blistering heat. The worse the conditions, the better.
We talked through our strategy while watching the sunset. It wasn’t complicated. If they did come to us, there was only one way they could do it. And once they were funneled into the channel, it would be easy to lock onto their positions and hunt them down.
Once darkness fell over the island and surrounding ocean, I switched from my binos to my night vision monocular. Ange had the night vision scope from her sniper rifle. We watched patiently as the boat held its position.
I rose to my feet and stretched after a few hours of sitting. Moving over to our camp, I grabbed our small steel firepit and the bushel of firewood.
“You really think this is the best time for a campfire?” Ange said.
I smiled. “Yes. I think this is the perfect time.”
I set the fire ring down on a spot with open space overhead just ten feet from the edge of the rock.
Ange nodded, catching on to my reasoning. “Not a bad idea, Dodge.”
People who are trying to hide don’t make fires. People who are confident that there aren’t any enemies nearby do. I wanted whoever these guys were to think we were oblivious to their presence. That way they could move in, believing that they had the upper hand and expecting to catch their desired quarries off guard.
I lit a pile of dry kindling first, then gradually added thicker pieces and watched as the flames grew bigger, rising up into the night air. It was like a signal, telling our pursuers to close in.
The plan was to take turns keeping watch so we could both get some rest, but neither of us felt like sleeping. We weren’t tired and we were enjoying each other’s company.
Just before midnight, we heard a distant mechanical humming sound. We looked toward it with our night vision scopes and saw the boat puttering toward our island.
TWENTY
I grabbed my radio and slid the earpiece into my left ear. Ange did the same. I also holstered my Sig and made sure that my dive knife was secure at the back of my belt. Ange grabbed her Glock, her sniper rifle, and a sheath of three throwing knives.
We’d covered our faces in dark paint and dressed in all black.
I stepped over to our campsite and made sure that our bait was ready. Both of our sleeping bags were unrolled in the tent, and we’d stuffed each with a blanket to make them appear occupied from the outside. The setup wouldn’t have impressed Ferris Bueller, but it sufficed for us. Just enough to draw their attention and make them believe that we were asleep. At least for a few seconds.
Once satisfied with the setup, I stepped over to Ange.
“Alright,” I said. “Once they make landfall, we’ll keep the radio chatter minimal and on the lowest volume.”
Ange nodded.
“Two nights in a row of this,” she said. “Feels like old times.”
I kissed her for good luck, then we went our separate ways—me down toward the lagoon, her up to the cliffside to keep an eye and rifle barrel on our self-invited guests.
I dropped behind a thick cluster of cocoplum bushes beside the lagoon. I had a clear view of the opening and the small stretch of beach. I waited, letting my body get in tune with the natural sounds around me, and the darkness. It wasn’t long before I heard the sound of an outboard motor.
“Ange, visual?” I said.
“Affirmative. They just motored past the Baia on a RIB. They’re heading toward us. Four guys. Each well-armed.”
A RIB, or rigid-hulled inflatable boat, has a shallow draft, so I knew they’d have no problem approaching the island.
I listened as the sound of the engine grew louder, then stopped suddenly.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“They killed the engine. Looks like they’re gonna paddle the rest of the way.”
I nodded. These guys weren’t amateurs. They’d clearly stalked and killed before.
I waited in the darkness. I was calm, my heart rate steady. I was ready to take these guys down and send a message. I was ready to rectify the previous evening’s mistake and track down Wake, putting an end to his corruption for good.
“Logan,” Ange said, “I’ve got a visual confirmation of the lead guy. The one I thought I recognized earlier.”
Her tone had shifted. Her words were more rushed than usual.
“Who is it?”
“Hell, you’re not going to believe it.” She paused a moment, then added, “It’s Dante Salazar.”
What the…? That’s impossible.
My mouth dropped open, and I shook my head, unable to make sense of her words.
The last time I’d seen Dante, he had been bleeding, broken, and lying motionless on a doomed airplane. I’d watched the plane go down. I’d seen it crash into pieces on the surface of the ocean. It’d been in a free fall. Smashed mercilessly at near terminal velocity. No one could’ve possibly survived.
She was right. I didn’t believe it.
“You certain, Ange?”
“Positive,” she said without hesitating. “Unless the guy had a twin brother with identical mannerisms.”
I knelt in the shadows and waited in disbelief. I soon heard the soft sloshing of paddles through the water. They’d found the opening. Thirty seconds later, the dark outline of the RIB peeked out from the corner of rock and eased into the lagoon.
I watched the four guys carefully. They were quiet and stoic. All business. And none more so than the guy up front.
I watched as the boat paddled slowly into the center of the lagoon. The guy standing at the bow had his weapon raised. He traced the shoreline with his rifle barrel, then pointed toward the beach. The fiberglass hull scraped softly onto the sand. The four guys quickly and quie
tly disembarked.
I gasped.
I didn’t need light to verify that it was Salazar. I watched him take a few steps up the beach. His left leg gave him trouble. His slight limp was just barely noticeable, but it was a red flag solidifying his identity without question. I’d given him that limp. With my old Sig and a 9mm round.
The words jumped into my mind again: No one could’ve possibly survived the crash.
But somebody had. Dante had.
The Cuban gang leader was seemingly back from the dead, and he was clearly looking for vengeance.
Dante was just a few inches shorter than me, and had a lean, muscular build. He’d been trained to fight and strategize since he was young. He hadn’t been easy to take down back in Cuba, and I knew that he wouldn’t make it any easier the second time around.
The four guys scanned the beach, then moved into the dense foliage. They weren’t dressed for the job at hand. They wore jeans, T-shirts, tennis shoes. They’d expected a confrontation back in town. Maybe a dark alley. Or maybe even my house while I slept. Not on some middle-of-nowhere tiny island.
Ange and I were covered from head to toe in black. We knew the land and, most importantly, we knew where they were. Knowing where your enemy is while they don’t know where you are is the best tactical advantage there is—like being dealt a pair of aces right off the bat in a game of poker.
They headed up toward the glow of the crackling fire. I followed, keeping my distance and watching my step. They dispersed when they reached the clearing. They walked in slowly, two guys up front flanking Dante and one in the back providing cover. They moved straight for our camp and the tent.
Dante raised a hand to halt his little posse. He was eyeing the tent. By the flickering light of the fire, he could see the two sleeping bags inside. I couldn’t see his face from my angle, but I knew that he was smiling. He was about to get his payback. To kill Logan Dodge and his wife while they slept.
No. They wouldn’t try and kill me. They’d injure us, then kill us slowly.
“Ange,” I whispered. “I got the guy by the barbecue.”
I didn’t need to ask if she’d moved positions for a better angle. I already knew that she had.
“Roger that,” she whispered back. “I got the guy by the cliff.”
“Roger.”
I raised my Sig, putting the thug by the barbecue right in my sights.
“On you, Ange.”
In my peripherals, I saw Dante step closer to the tent and raise his AK-47.
“Wakey, wakey, Dodge!” he yelled out while kicking the edge of the tent.
He had his finger on the trigger. He was ready to put a round in my leg if I reached for a weapon. But neither of the blankets stuffing the sleeping bags reached for weapons.
Dante stood motionless for a moment, so I glanced his way. His confused look was priceless. Just as he opened his mouth to yell something to his guys, his words were interrupted by the sound of gunfire.
Ange fired first, taking down the thug on the other side of the clearing just as she’d said she would. I pulled the trigger a fraction of a second later, sending the guy closest to me down with a well-placed round to his head.
Before my target hit the ground, I had my sights on the third guy. He managed to get a word out and turn around before my 9mm round struck his chest. Ange engaged him as well. The rapid shots from two different directions spun his body in a full 360 before he collapsed.
Dante took cover, yelled, and fired chaotically into the jungle. One of his bullets zipped over my head as I dropped instinctively to my chest. He still didn’t know where we were. Our rounds had echoed through the air, bouncing across the rocks around us and masking our locations.
I popped up for a better look. Dante was still firing as he moved behind a large jutting rockface. I raised my Sig and moved in. We wanted him dead, sure, but not before getting what we could out of him.
To my left, I saw Ange’s dark outline as she moved stealthily down from her hiding place.
“Drop the gun, Salazar!” I shouted. “You’ve got two barrels staring you down and nowhere to run.”
The Cuban gangster let out a loud, frustrated yell. He pounded a fist against the rock resting between him and us. He was a cornered rabid animal.
“Make your move, Dodge,” he fired back.
“Tell us where Wake is,” I said as I moved even closer, “and we might let you walk.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” He grunted and added, “Face me one on one, Dodge. No weapons. You win, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
I froze a moment. Thought over the proposition. Usually, I didn’t like negotiating with guys like Dante, but Wake was really starting to piss me off. The sooner we could track him down and deal with him, the better.
I glanced at Ange. Her face was in the shadows and too dark to make out her expression, but her shaking head sent a clear message.
I motioned for her to hold her position, then moved in.
“Throw your weapon out first, Salazar,” I ordered.
To my surprise, he did. The rifle hit the grass just a few strides from our tent.
“And your side piece,” I added.
He stepped slowly into view. The flickering firelight illuminated his face. It was wild, his brow furrowed, his breathing erratic. I kept my Sig aimed and stepped closer.
“I said drop it,” I ordered again.
We were within ten feet of each other. The edge of the clearing and the cliff were just to our left, the campsite to our right.
“Don’t have one,” Dante offered, his palms up to face me.
“That’s crap, Dante.”
He smiled again. He took another step toward me and reached for his waistband. I had my finger on the trigger as he grabbed a silver handgun with only his thumb and index finger. If he so much as twitched, I’d take him out.
He extended the piece out like a soiled shirt and tossed it into the bushes. “Your turn, Dodge.”
He didn’t even wait for an answer. It was clear that his anger was calling the shots.
Before I could open my mouth or loosen my grip, he lunged at me. I got off a single round. It was slightly off target from his movements, the bullet exploding through the left corner of his chest. It didn’t slow him. He yelled and tackled me hard. My back slammed against the jagged limestone, and he forced my Sig out of my hands.
He was fast and well trained. We traded blows as we tussled closer and closer to the edge. He wrapped his hands around my neck and yelled violently. I felt my trachea crunch. I needed to get him off me by whatever means necessary.
Forcing my right hand free, I jammed my thumb deep into his right eyeball. He screamed and loosened his grip just enough for me to throw his lean body off me and slam him onto the rock. I jumped on top of him, jerked him up and down until the back of his head bled, then punched him twice across the face.
He struggled for air and shook from the pain. He couldn’t see anything out of his left eye.
“Where’s Wake?” I said, pressing my knee hard into his chest.
He coughed and wheezed. His only good eye closed as he clenched his jaw, trying to mask his extreme pain. I was just about to press harder and ask the question again, but to my surprise, he caught his breath and forced words out.
“He’s… at… his tower,” Dante grumbled. “In Miami.” His lips shifted to form a psychotic, satisfied smile. “Not that the info will do you any good.”
In an instant, he elbowed me in the face and reached for something at his side. It was a knife. He stabbed the blade straight toward my neck. I sprang to divert it but knew that the sharpened edge would at least graze the vulnerable flesh.
Suddenly, the report of a rifle shattered the evening air. Dante dropped the knife and gave out a shrill cry as a high-caliber round struck his left leg. This one did far more damage than the 9mm I’d hit him with six months earlier. This round completely severed his left leg at the knee.
He screamed and
shook as blood flowed out from his damaged leg. I grabbed him by his shirt collar and slammed his upper body hard into the rock. He yelled out maniacally, then shook and squirmed and freed himself from my grasp. He shot me a final enraged look, then jerked his body right over the edge of the cliff. I reached to grab him, but was too late. I could only watch as the suicidal act unfolded.
His terror-filled screams shook the evening air as he plummeted. He was silenced in an instant as his body smashed headfirst into the jagged rocks twenty feet below. I focused through the darkness, gazing upon his body which was sprawled out facedown in the lapping surf, motionless.
TWENTY-ONE
I kept my gaze locked on Salazar’s dead body for a few seconds. The moonlight illuminated the grim scene, and I watched as a large wave splashed over, shifting his corpse on the rocks.
I turned as Ange stepped out from the shadows. With her sniper gripped in both hands, her face covered in dark paint, and her lean figure appearing out of nowhere, she looked like the most badass woman on the planet. She was.
“Nice shot, Annie Oakley,” I said. “You sure cut it close, though.”
I adjusted my battered jaw and rubbed my nearly strangled neck.
“You’re in no position to be picky,” she said.
She stepped over the edge and looked down toward Dante’s body.
“Guess we don’t have to worry about him coming back this time,” she said. “You at least get something useful out of him for all of your reckless effort?”
She offered me a hand, which I took. Her eyes scanned me up and down as I came to my feet.
“Yeah. He told me Wake’s in Miami.”
“Great,” Ange said, shaking her head. “Cause there’s no better source than Dante Salazar.”
“It’s something, Ange.”
She was more right than I was. Dante was probably lying, but something told me that it was the truth. He’d expected his blade to be buried deep into my neck. He hadn’t expected to be stopped by Ange and her Lapua.