Showdown in the Keys

by Matthew Rief

  She’d taken a page right out of Jack’s distraction handbook.

  Let’s just hope they don’t welcome me with a volley of automatic gunfire, she thought, recalling the cold hospitality Jack had received back in Roatán.

  The first guard, a wide-shouldered, snub-nosed guy, held a hand in the air. His eyes noticed the name of the sandwich shop printed on her shirt and hat, then they noticed her figure. He looked her up and down as if examining a piece of meat.

  “You here to get my number, sweetheart?” he said.

  Inside, Ange fumed. She hated when strangers called her sweetheart. But she didn’t show it. Her only reaction was to smile playfully.

  “I’ve got a delivery for Mike in the accounting department,” she said. “Apparently it’s somebody’s birthday or something.”

  The guy shrugged as if he didn’t hear her or care to. He motioned for her to step forward, then scanned the wand up and down her body.

  If this asshole makes a real pass at me, it’s going to take all of my self-control to keep from knocking him out.

  Thankfully for both of them, he didn’t touch her. He also didn’t check the bag of food containers. He just shot her a mirror-cracking smile as he motioned for her to pass around the metal detector.

  With light steps, she headed out of the back entrance area and down a side hallway. After less than a minute, she turned down another hallway then stopped in front of a gray door. Above it, she saw a placard that read Janitorial Room.

  Ange glanced both ways, then opened the door, stepped through, and locked it behind her. She flicked a nearby switch, and the fluorescent lighting buzzed to life. It was the cleanest janitor room she’d ever seen. Metal shelves lined the sides, fully stocked with everything from paper towels to gallons of all-purpose cleaner. At the back were buffing machines, mops, brooms, and every other cleaning tool imaginable. Everything was labeled and looked spotless.

  Amazing the quality of janitors that dirty money can buy.

  She found a few stacked boxes marked “uniforms” and riffled through the piles of gray coveralls. They were unisex sizes, but the medium was too baggy, and the small was too short for her to stand up in. She grabbed the medium, closed the box, and slid it back where it’d been. She stepped in and zipped the janitor’s uniform over her clothes. Using a thin length of nylon rope, she folded it over and tied it off to make the uniform more formfitting.

  Grabbing the plastic bag she’d brought, she opened the bottom Styrofoam box and pulled out a small black device that was hidden beneath a pile of French fries. She slid it between the flap in her coveralls and hooked it to her actual belt, then set the bag of food down behind a row of cleaning supplies on a nearby shelf.

  She exchanged her Ms. Cheezious ball cap for one that matched the coveralls, then pulled the brim down and grabbed one of the three cleaning carts. Its wheels barely squeaked as she pushed it across the room, then unlocked and opened the door.

  Her destination was on the same level, but near the center of the building. She kept her head down and pushed the cart at a normal pace down the hall, passing the occasional well-dressed worker.

  She did her best to look invisible. It wasn’t difficult. People who work every day in office buildings rarely notice janitors; they generally just scan over them and seldom offer a second glance. Ange’s only concern was a fellow member of the janitorial staff. She had an alibi in place but hoped that she wouldn’t have to use it.

  Scanning the doors as she passed, she stopped in front of one with a plate that read Security Room.

  Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

  She glanced left, then right. When no one was nearby, she stopped the cart, stepped over, and tried the door. It was locked. Hovering an ear close to the door, she rapped her knuckles against it. There was no answer, and no sounds coming from inside. Murph had told her that since it was a small satellite security room, it was unlikely that anyone would be inside. But it had been worth a shot.

  She’d brought tools to pick the lock, but it was a last resort. Not ideal. As she ran through other possible means of entry, she spotted movement in her peripherals. A guy wearing a suit with an earpiece in his right ear strode toward her from the opposite end of the hall. He was obviously a member of the security team.

  Ange debated her two go-to options. She could flirt with him to get what she wanted, or she could just knock him out. Flirting, given her new janitorial occupation, would look suspicious. And the coveralls and ball cap weren’t exactly an ideal look for seduction.

  As she tried to decide, her eyes trained downward and focused on a full jug of Simple Green industrial cleaner.

  That’ll work.

  She grabbed the container, untwisted the cap, and dropped it onto the marble floor. The bright green liquid gushed out, splashing around her feet and spreading rapidly in all directions.

  Acting clumsy and scared, she quickly crouched down and tried to recover the emptying jug. After intentionally letting it slip and spill even more, she took control of it, screwed the cap back on and placed it shakily back onto her cart.

  “Oh crap,” she exclaimed. “Oh crap. No.”

  Ange grabbed a roll of paper towels, tore off a handful of sheets, and dropped them onto the mess. She fell to her knees and continued to chastise herself as she ripped free more paper towels and soaked them onto the large puddle of industrial cleaner.

  Seeing what had happened, the security guard picked up his pace and bent down to offer help.

  “Is everything okay?” the guy said.

  Ange glanced up at him with distressed eyes. The guy looked young. Maybe mid-twenties. Still wet behind the ears. Probably one of the newest guys on the team.

  He’ll do perfectly.

  “No, no,” Ange gasped. “I… it slipped and I—”

  “Don’t worry,” the guy said, waving a hand at her.

  He grabbed another roll of paper towels, tore off a few sheets, and dropped down to dry up the edges of the puddle so his nice shoes wouldn’t get ruined.

  “The floors were looking pretty dirty anyway,” the guy said, trying to find a silver lining. “Might do them some good.”

  Ange gave a quick laugh between her hysterical breaths. He helped Ange clean up the mess; then, she thanked him. Glancing toward the edge of the hallway, Ange pointed out that some of the Simple Green had spilled under the doorway.

  “I need to get inside and clean the rest,” she said. “I don’t want to get fired. I need this job.”

  “You don’t have keys?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “To some rooms, yes,” she replied. “But not this one.” She gasped and added, “Please, I need to clean it up. It’s only my second day.”

  The guy paused a moment. He looked up and down the hall, then shrugged. He grabbed a ring of keys from his pocket, picked out a brass one, then stepped beside Ange and the door.

  “Just don’t touch anything, alright?” he said as he inserted the key and twisted. “It’s highly technical stuff in here.”

  Wouldn’t dream of it, Ange thought.

  He pushed the door open, keeping his lower body back and away from the mess. A good amount of the green liquid had spread into the small dark room.

  “The light switch is on the right side.”

  Ange stepped in and flicked it on. The room was tiny. About the size of an average walk-in closet. And it was covered floor to ceiling with various electronic equipment. Large black processing units, clusters of cables, and two powered-off display monitors. There were a few blinking LEDs, and the only sounds came from the soft humming of cooling fans.

  Ange looked down. The green cleaning agent covered nearly half of the floor. She turned to look back at the security guard who, upon seeing the extent of the mess, was glancing at his wristwatch.

  “Look, I gotta go,” he said. “Again, don’t touch anything in here. And try and be quick, alright?”

  “Of course,” Ange said, dropping to her knees and starting on t
he mess. “I’ll clean this up as fast as possible.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, apologized again, and thanked him.

  “Well, it’s alright,” he said. “Everybody makes mistakes sometimes.”

  He smiled, winked at her, then stepped out of view. She kept up her act until the guard turned a corner down the hallway, then rose to her feet. Collecting herself, she shut the door and slid the deadbolt to lock it. Turning around, she glanced over the security equipment.

  She unzipped her coveralls and grabbed her phone as well as the small gadget. She quickly dialed a number.

  “Alright, Murph,” she said when he picked up right away. “I’m in.”

  The expert hacker wasted no time on pleasantries. He dove right into the mission, telling Ange where and how to hook up the device. Ange had worked intel-gathering jobs a handful of times before. She knew the basics but was far from being a whiz.

  Following Murph’s instructions, it took all of thirty seconds for Ange to attach the device to the back of a CPU that connected straight to the building’s security mainframe. After another thirty seconds, Murph gave her the thumbs-up.

  “I’m in,” he said, then chuckled. “Oh, baby, I’m in.”

  He gave Ange the all clear to get out of there. She quickly cleaned up the rest of the Simple Green then stepped toward the door with a garbage bag full of soaked paper towels.

  “Wait,” Murph said.

  Ange lifted the phone to her ear.

  “What is it?”

  “Security guy walking right past the door,” he said. A few seconds later, he added, “Alright, good to go.”

  She thanked him, and they ended the call.

  Damn, that guy’s good.

  Ange stepped out into the hallway, shut the door behind her, then set the half-filled trash bag on the cart. She whistled “Twisted Nerve” faintly as she pushed it back toward the janitorial room. It was one of her favorite tunes, the same one whistled by Elle Driver in Kill Bill when she impersonates a nurse.

  Ange quickly made it back to the janitorial room, then changed back into her grilled cheese delivery girl attire. She threw the bag of food into the garbage bag with the soaked paper towels, and tossed it all into a big trash can.

  Confidently, she strode out the back entrance with a smile on her face. She made sure to have a wad of cash in her hand so the guard by the entrance could see it.

  It’s all in the details.

  “I hope they left you a big tip, miss,” the guard said, checking her out again.

  He didn’t even make an attempt at discretion the second go-around.

  “Oh, yes,” Ange beamed. “I hope to be back here soon.”

  She slipped outside into the late-afternoon sun. Two blocks away, she tossed her shirt and hat into a dumpster and slid on a pair of sunglasses.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Biscayne Bay

  Later That Afternoon

  Scott Cooper stood on the bow of a sixty-foot trawler and looked out over the water. Far up ahead, the congested Miami skyline reached up into the early evening air. Off the port bow, the sun sank into the Florida mainland, radiating its final beams of light over the sprawling metropolis. The light shone brilliant colors and sparkled over the surface of the bay.

  They rumbled at a leisurely fifteen knots, well under their max speed. The trawler was an eyesore, a rusted hunk of metal with chipped paint, cracked windows, and worn fishing gear stored on the main deck. But appearances can be deceiving. The boat had been custom-built by a powerful private military group called Darkwater. It had been designed from the keel up to look harmless and unassuming. But beneath its dilapidated exterior, it was fully loaded with two 800-hp Mercruiser engines, equipped with added fuel tanks that gave it a range of over five hundred miles and the best marine electronics that money could buy.

  Scott took a sip of coffee. He glanced over his shoulder at Jack, who was standing in the pilothouse with his hands on the helm. The conch charter captain hadn’t needed much convincing to jump on board with the plan. He’d known Gus Henderson since before he could walk. The well-liked marina owner had been one of his best friends. His family had run the finest marina in town for three generations, going back to before the Florida Overseas Railroad had reached Key West.

  Not that he’d needed it, but additional motivation had stemmed from seeing Atticus hurt, seeing the state of Logan’s boat, and learning that Logan had been taken. Needless to say, the fourth-generation conch was royally pissed off. They all were.

  As Scott nursed his black coffee and focused his eyes on their destination, footsteps approached from behind him.

  “Ten klicks out,” Kyle Quinn said.

  Klick is a term often used in the military and is equal to one kilometer. So they were just over six miles from their destination.

  “Jack’s bringing us into the South Channel along Virginia Key for a view of the container ship,” Kyle added.

  Kyle was just taller than Scott’s six feet, with a lean muscular build and black skin. He looked a lot like Allen Iverson and talked like the famous NBA star as well, and he’d been part of Scott and Logan’s SEAL team years earlier.

  Scott nodded and said, “Thanks for coming, Kyle. I need you on this one.”

  “After what you and Logan did for me and my family? Turning you down never crossed my mind.”

  Scott patted him on the back.

  “We’ve got the perfect ride for this op,” Scott said, tapping his mug against the railing. “Thanks to you and Dodge.”

  Kyle smiled. Back in March of ’09, he and Logan had brought down a Russian assassin and taken possession of the unique craft. They’d kept it stored at Queen Anne’s Boatyard in Marathon, and Logan had taken it out on the water a handful of times, when the situation had called for its unique blend of discretion and efficiency.

  “We need to have a little reunion,” Kyle said. “What with you, me, Dodge, and Brier all in town.” He laughed and shook his head. “Oh, how I’d love to see Brier again. Though I doubt he’d have the balls to face me.”

  Just before Brier had been dishonorably discharged from the Navy, he’d been involved in a corrupt dealing that had resulted in Kyle being accused of treason. It had taken many years and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears for Kyle to clear his name. He vowed that if he ever saw Brier again, he’d bring a swift end to the traitor’s life.

  As the sky grew dark, Jack piloted the trawler into the northern tip of Biscayne Bay. He brought them between Key Biscayne off the starboard side and the Miami neighborhood of Coconut Grove off port, then under the William M. Powell Bridge. Even at that hour, there was a good amount of boat traffic, mainly day-trippers coming back from an afternoon out under the sun.

  Jack kept them parallel to the coastline, then eased around Brickell Key. The heavily congested man-made island sat right off the mainland. It was triangular, and much of its forty acres was littered with tall buildings. The island had been created in 1896, using the excess dirt from when Henry Flagler had dredged a channel at the mouth of the Miami River.

  From the northeastern tip of the island, they had a clear view of the ASC Josephine, which was moored just half a mile across the channel from where they idled. Jack dropped the anchor in a dark, relatively quiet section of water just fifty yards from the rocky shoreline and the Centinela del Rio, a thirty-foot bronze statue of a Tequesta Indian blowing a conch shell.

  Jack stepped up onto the bow alongside the others, then took a look around.

  The sounds of the city blended in a constant stream of car horns, revving engines, and distant police sirens. With the sun gone, the city grew louder and louder with every passing second. Like many Florida cities, Miami came alive at night, the cooler evening air a welcomed relief from the tropical heat.

  The three of them peered through binoculars at the Josephine. It was tied down on the southwestern side of the island, between the endless throngs of stacked shipping containers along the shore to the east and a moored Carib
bean cruise ship just to the west. The main cruise ship hub was on the opposite side of the island. Every year, millions of Americans flocked to the bustling location for a relaxing and adventurous escape from their normal lives.

  “Isn’t that Dodge Island?” Kyle said, motioning toward the artificial stretch of land that contained the port.

  “Yeah. A little ironic, isn’t it?” Jack said. He shifted his gaze toward the mainland coastline in front of him. “Crap, that’s one fancy-looking yacht.”

  Scott looked toward the yacht. It was fancy. A two-hundred-foot white-hulled floating luxurious mansion. And he’d seen it before.

  “That’s Wake’s yacht.” Scott’s lips formed a smile. “One more indication that the guy’s here to watch his work unfold tonight.”

  “Well, he’s gonna be devastated when the Josephine pulls out tomorrow,” Kyle said. “On schedule and perfectly intact.”

  They looked over every inch of the container ship. The twelve-hundred-foot monstrosity was nearly filled with containers, though they were clearly empty given the ship’s high position in the water. Like most container ships, it came into countries like the United States full and left empty, a testament to the state of American import and export.

  “That’s one big ship,” Jack said.

  “A hundred and forty thousand gross tons,” Scott said. “One of the largest in the world.” He focused the lenses of his binos. “Looks like they have quite the security detail. I count at least three guys making the rounds on the starboard-side deck alone.”

  “That’ll make an ocean approach more interesting,” Jack said.

  The original plan had called for Scott and Kyle to cut the distance between themselves and the ship utilizing rebreathers and sea scooters. Once at the ship, they’d use high-powered mechanical ascenders to reach the deck in under a minute. But with that many guards keeping watch, the plan was too risky to be a reasonable approach option.