“Burt, I’d help you out, but …” she said.
“That’s not necessary, and I wouldn’t ask you anyway. I’m going to sell the Roberta June. It ought to bring more than enough to hire an underwater salvage outfit. I found one up in Wilmington. The guy seems to know his stuff. But first I’ve got to figure out where the bomb is.”
“There are two bombs—and only one is the problem. And you’ve been looking for them with what, a fish finder?”
“It’s more elaborate than that. I bought some stuff. Magnetometer. A handheld GPS.”
“This outfit says it can recover it for you?”
“If I give them a good location. Otherwise, they’ll just wander around down there wasting my money.”
“I don’t know, Burt. Selling your boat …”
“They’ve got to know what they’re doing. The guy who runs it used to be a Navy SEAL.”
Chapter 9
Ned Gergen, better known as “Bear,” didn’t think of himself as a thief, grifter, or smuggler—not professionally anyway. His main source of livelihood was maritime salvage. He was the owner/captain of a very serviceable, nearly paid-for, and large oceangoing salvage tug and liked to think of himself as a mariner—the master of a seagoing vessel—with a certificate to prove it.
But he was not a man to pass up opportunities, whatever they were, whenever they presented themselves. He hated leaving them to the next guy in line. On the open sea, there were always opportunities. And there was always a next guy.
If he showed occasional disrespect for U.S. maritime statutes and customs laws in pursuing these opportunities, Gergen had been administered a sizable dose of disrespect himself from that body of federal law called the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
He’d been kicked out of the SEALs and dishonorably discharged from the Navy—after serving six months in Do Right City—because of a sexual assault charge that an enlisted woman had brought against him. He’d only been out for a little fun, as the woman told him she was. Consensual sex. Happened all the time. But Gergen had been a lieutenant—her superior officer. The disciplinary board had been out to get both of them for breaking the officer/enlisted taboo, and the sexual assault charge had been her out. She’d found a willing ally in an uptight commander who’d long been looking for a way to nail Gergen to the wall.
Gergen had killed for the U.S. Navy. He’d had some very bad, nasty people trying to do the same to him on a number of occasions, including one involving war with Iraq. But the Navy had done a number on him anyway, just because he’d grabbed some enlisted snatch instead of a whore while on liberty, prostitution being a practice of which the Pentagon tacitly approved. So much for gratitude and loyalty. So much for Gergen’s regard for the law.
Ned was called “Bear” Gergen because of his muscular bulk, reddish-blond beard, overlong hair, gorilla chest, and six-foot-two-inch height. His cousin, Leonard Ruger, who ran a boat and personal watercraft rental operation at Ocean City with his wife, Mary Lou, somewhat resembled Bear and had the same color hair. But no one would ever have thought to call him Bear. Maybe Snake was better.
Leonard was much shorter and rail-thin, a man to use a knife or gun instead of brute strength, a smoker who carried a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve of his T-shirt, in James Dean 1950s style. He often helped Bear on his jobs—legal and otherwise. He was with him on the water that day.
Sometimes Leonard brought his wife, Mary Lou, along. That always made Bear Gergen happy, but she was not with him this time.
Gergen and his blunt-bowed salvage tug were several miles off Fenwick Island, Delaware, heading north toward Delaware Bay and Gergen’s home port of Wilmington. They had a small coastal freighter in tow they had pulled from the wreck-strewn shoals off Assateague Island, where it had foundered in heavy weather the week before. A maritime court would decide the freighter’s disposition and the amount the insurance company would have to pay him.
It wouldn’t be enough. Never was, what with the payroll and loan payments Bear had to meet. So when they came upon a big drifting sailboat about twelve miles due east of Indian River, it struck him that maybe he’d been handed another interesting opportunity.
The stricken yacht was a motor-sailor—sloop-rigged and about sixty-five feet long. Her mainmast was knocked down, she was trailing sail and rigging, and she appeared to have taken on a lot of water, listing as she was to starboard. Not a sign of passenger or crew on board.
There was a Coast Guard station at Indian River Inlet almost due west of them. It had been two days since the storm. A distress call should have been answered long before this.
Gergen picked up the microphone of his seagoing tug’s radio. Cousin Leonard gave him a look.
“Who you callin’?”
Contrary to first impressions, Bear had all the smarts of the two. Leonard had his uses, but thinking was not one of them.
“I’m calling the Coast Guard to report that motor-sailor.”
“Why the fuck you want to do that?”
“Because I’m supposed to. This close to Indian River, I’m going to do what I’m supposed to do.”
“You think that wreck’s worth stopping for?”
“I want to find out. It’s sure as hell a rich man’s boat.”
The Coast Guardsman on duty at Indian River said there’d been no distress signal from any sailing vessel during the storm, but added, after a “Notice to Mariners” check, that a large yacht of similar description had been stolen two weeks before from a harbor in South Carolina. Gergen said he would investigate the derelict, and asked and received permission to take it under tow if circumstances permitted. All very neat and by the book. Nobody would come out to bother him. Widespread port security duties and the new terrorist alert had put a big crimp in the Coast Guard’s resources.
Using his portable two-way, Gergen radioed his man at the helm of the freighter on tow that he was going to heave to and take a look at the sailboat. Then he had his crew lower his sixteen-foot inflatable. Despite its small size, it was almost as seaworthy as his big oceangoing tug, and powered by an eighty-horsepower outboard. Though the swells were substantial, Gergen was able to get to the side of the drifting yacht in three minutes.
He made a slow circle around her first, noting the name Breezee B and the degree of list, which seemed constant. He guessed she had stopped shipping water.
Was this a legitimate wreck? The incidence of boat theft was on the increase on the Atlantic Coast, but many cases were suspect. Insurance fraud was becoming a common scam. Owners who couldn’t unload their tubs at anything like their book value often took their boats out and deliberately scuttled them or fired them, filing claims for more than they’d ever get on the market. Others would report their boats stolen, but have the hull and superstructure altered and repainted for sale in some foreign port.
The Breezee B looked a case of honest theft—as the Coast Guard had said—and the abandonment a genuine response to dangerous weather. No man could have broken the mast that way.
But why head up here from the Carolinas with a stolen vessel this distinctive? The Caribbean or Mexico was a hell of a better idea. That’s where Bear Gergen sold the boats he occasionally stole.
Coming around to the leeward side of the yacht, he found its starboard rail still a foot or two above the sea, and no dinghy or life raft visible on deck. The forward hatches were closed, but the main one was gaping open and the cockpit area was awash.
He made fast a line from his inflatable to the big boat’s rail, then, getting a knee onto its decking, heaved himself aboard, sloshing through the cockpit to the hatch and peering down inside. He called out. No response.
There didn’t seem to be enough water down there to drown in—two or three feet max. Easing his bulk down the ladder, he clicked on the flashlight he’d taken with him and held it high as he carefully waded aft.
Gergen found three staterooms back that way, the main one and two smaller. Finding no passengers in the smal
l chambers, he moved on to the main, making a discovery that explained a lot. Two drawers had come loose or been pulled out from the bulkhead storage cabinets. Inside one was a large plastic bag. Bear squeezed it, suspicious. Taking the rigging knife he wore on his belt, he cut it open.
Marijuana. He sniffed and tasted a sample. Very high grade.
Opening more bins and cupboards, he found a treasure of similar bags. Returning to the other staterooms, he found more there. This was a Florida thing—stealing yachts, taking them out to sea, loading them up with dope, then making a fast night run ashore at some isolated place and transferring the cargo to cars or trucks, leaving the boat as carcass for the DEA or local cops to pick over. Whoever had grabbed this boat in the Carolinas had probably been planning to make such a drop at some point on the Delaware or Jersey shore, but instead had gotten caught in the storm and abandoned ship. They might be drifting in a raft or dinghy now in the northerly current.
A boatload of good weed. No wonder they hadn’t radioed for help.
Making his way forward now, Gergen came upon two cabins beyond the main salon. The door to the one on the starboard side opened easily, despite the water in it. The one port side was shut fast, either locked or jammed by something.
Bracing his foot against the bulkhead, Bear heaved himself at the door. Its uppermost portion gave slightly but the latch held fast. He tried again with the same result.
The door was locked, and from the inside.
This time he kicked, directly above the latch handle. With bits and splinters of wood flying, the door edged free.
There was quiet, then a sound he couldn’t place for a moment.
It came again, familiar now. Someone vomiting.
Gergen flashed his light to the side of the chamber. Hanging over the side of the bunk was a nearly naked young woman, clutching the sodden, filth-stained sheets with both hands to keep from sliding into the water that had flooded the cabin. Even at two feet, it would mean her death if she tumbled in. She looked so weak he imagined she could drown in a washtub.
He waded to the bunk and rolled her over onto her back, shining the flashlight into her face. She was wearing a T-shirt as filthy as the sheets, but nothing else. He guessed she might be a looker, if she wasn’t such a pukey mess. She stared back at him now, her eyes showing as much madness as fear and sickness. A word burbled out of her lips.
“Carl.”
She said it angrily.
Bear brought the girl back to his salvage vessel to be cleaned up and put in his little cabin, then returned to the yacht with Leonard and two crew members. Securing a towline from the tug to the sailboat’s bow, they brought her slowly into train until she’d been pulled alongside the freighter.
“If you’re going to take the dope off the sailboat, why put it on the freighter?” Leonard said. “That’s a lot of fuckin’ work for nothin’.”
Bear replied slowly, giving Leonard time to understand each word. “I’ve got a salvage claim on the freighter and nobody’s gonna look in her until we get back to Wilmington and the court puts a seal on her. We’ll have hours and a half-dozen places along the river to unload her before that. I don’t know what the deal’s gonna be with the yacht, but she’s reported stolen and the Coast Guard has an open case on her. If there’s any trouble, we can cut the yacht loose, and not lose a fucking thing. If we can’t unload the freighter in time and law enforcement finds the dope in it, we can say we didn’t know the stuff was there. Okay?”
“But why not just scuttle the sailboat now?”
“Leonard. That boat’s worth a good hundred thousand or more repaired and refitted. Why turn our backs on a piece of that if the Coast Guard lets us? How many fucking Jet Skis you gotta rent to make the money you could get from your cut of the salvage?”
“How much we gonna get for the marijuana?”
Bear shrugged. “Depends. I don’t know. Maybe twenty, twenty-five thousand. Could be twice that. Depends on where we sell it.”
“Where you want to offload?”
“Delaware Point. Maybe stick it in that old half-sunk barge by Cedar Swamp. Don’t want to get any closer than that to the Reedy Point Patrol Station.”
“What kind of split?”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll all make some money. But you gotta do some work for it.”
Leonard looked the derelict over, bow to stern. It still seemed to be holding above water, but was making some ominous noises—creaks and some slurping and gurgling sounds coming from belowdecks.
“I think she’s okay,” Gergen said. “She’s not taking on any more water. But let’s work fast anyway, okay?”
They got all the plastic bags they could find out of the yacht and into the forward hold of the freighter. Bear had just lowered himself into the inflatable when one of his men on the salvage tug called him on the handheld two-way.
“Hey, Bear. Spotted what looks like a life raft off the port bow.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyone aboard?”
“One or two. Hard to tell. You want to check it out or should I send someone in the skiff?”
“I’ll do it.”
Bear throttled back the inflatable’s outboard as he approached. There were two men aboard the raft—one alert and looking at him, the other lolling with his head over the side. Bear steered his own craft to keep that one between him and the wide-awake guy.
“Glad to see you, man,” said the alert one. “Thought we were fuckin’ goners.”
“You off the Breezee B?”
The other hesitated. “Yeah.”
“Are you Carl?”
The man scowled. Bear had told him too much by asking that.
“She okay?”
“Why’d you leave her on the boat, Carl? You thought it was going to sink, right? That’s why you’re in this raft.”
“She didn’t want to leave. Wouldn’t come out of her cabin. Locked the fucking door. She was scared, man.”
He moved as though to come nearer Gergen’s inflatable. Gergen revved the outboard to move it out of reach.
“You could have made her come. Dragged her out. You left her to die.”
“She was stoned—crazier ’n shit.” He paused, squinting at Bear, sitting up straighter, preparing himself. “Everything okay on the sailboat?”
“You mean with all that marijuana you had aboard? It’s fine. Got it stowed safe in the hold of that freighter.”
“My marijuana?”
“Yours. Whoever’s. It’s in the freighter.”
“You can’t take anything off that boat! It belongs to me!”
“Sure it does. You got it as a present when you graduated from Yale. You better learn something about sea law, pal. When I put a line aboard a stricken vessel, she’s mine.”
Bear moved the inflatable again, standing off from the raft another six feet. He wondered if Carl had a gun. There was nothing like that visible. Neither were there life jackets on that raft. Carl and his unconscious friend must have panicked, fleeing the Breezee B without any other thought than to get the hell off before she went down.
Gergen had a gun in his belt—a big eleven-millimeter Glock automatic, one he had stolen while still in the Navy. He took it out.
“Hey, man, what’re you gonna do? Shoot us?”
“Wouldn’t do that,” Bear said. “That’d be murder.”
He aimed the automatic at the raft’s inflated rim, waited for an intervening swell to pass, then fired quickly, twice. The airtight material burst with a sharp report, opening a big hole. Carl began swearing at him. As he motored away, not looking back, Bear heard the man begin to scream.
“Please! Please!”
Gergen returned to the salvage tug at high speed, alone.
“What’re you gonna do about them?” said the member of his crew who had first sighted the raft.
“Wait a couple minutes. Then we won’t have to do anything.”
The girl was sleeping peacefull
y in his cabin, on his bunk, now completely naked but under a sheet. Bear considered keeping her. But that would be dumb, something Leonard would do. Whoever had put that dope on the yacht in Carl’s care would be looking for it. This girl might be a friend of the gentleman. Complications.
Bear carefully gathered her up in his arms. Carrying her effortlessly back to the stern of the tug, he looked at her young, sleeping face a moment. He didn’t want to do this. He wasn’t that kind of guy.
But she likely had other friends—or employers. Bear didn’t want them to know what kind of guy he was. Or who.
No. He couldn’t do this.
He’d killed people. All kinds. But on the job. Not like this. This wasn’t just killing. This really was fucking murder. Not at all the same as whacking some Commie Latin American greaser or Middle Eastern rag-head. Not like what he’d just done to those two scumbags he’d found in the inflatable. They’d left her to die.
She opened her eyes. They filled with terror as swiftly as they did with light. He began to turn back toward the deck, lifting the girl high to clear the safety line along the top of the rail, but her foot caught in it.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Be cool.”
She turned her head, looking at the ocean, then screamed. Her knee came up, hitting him under the chin. She was in his arms and then she wasn’t.
His last sight of her was as she went into the water, staring at him with widened, crazy eyes.
Then the sea folded over her and she was lost in the tug’s heavy wake.
Chapter 10
Westman awakened after less than four hours’ sleep to the insistent beeping of his alarm. Silencing it, he lay still a moment, watching the wind flutter the leaves of the tree outside his window. He tried to keep his mind from serious thoughts—especially of the work that awaited him and the reason for it.
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