Redemption in the Keys

by Matthew Rief

  He nodded. “Alright. The shop’s open till seven. If you’re later than that, we’ll have to charge you for a full day.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  Once he started up his diesel engine and cruised south back toward the center of the island, we donned our disguises, then grabbed the rest of the gear from the Tacoma. We each had a long-sleeved shirt with a windbreaker over it. We each wore a hat, me sporting the Miami Marlins ballcap and Kyle the round-rimmed hiker hat. We both put our dark sunglasses on and dabbed a generous amount of sunscreen onto our faces. Along with the binos around my neck and a digital camera around Kyle’s, we looked like a couple of tourists who dressed by the book and did everything possible to prevent the harsh tropical sun from doing damage to their skin. I even put a glob of sunscreen on my nose.

  Once we were dressed the part, we each strapped on a lifejacket, then grabbed paddles and slid our kayaks forward a few more feet. Climbing inside, we adjusted our weapons so that they were readily accessible but out of sight. We each had a Sig with an extra mag, and I had my M4 to boot and Kyle had my MP5N. I’d also grabbed an M67 frag grenade that I’d swiped off a Black Venom cartel member on Lignumvitae Key and kept stowed away in my safe ever since, just in case. I handed it over to Kyle, and he stashed it in his lap. Holding our paddles in front of us, we shifted our bodies forward and back, sliding the plastic hulls over the old gravel-covered slab of rock and into the water.

  The sun was beating down on us, but a slight breeze over the water made our attire bearable. We moved quickly, cutting through the water, weaving our way around various islands then paddling between Little Knockemdown Key and Toptree Hammock Key. This part of the Lower Keys is a maze of scattered islands both big and small, interwoven with waterways, narrow channels, and man-made cuts. A pretty good place to hide out and wait for a good moment to strike. We were only about ten miles southwest of Blackett Key, the small island, owned by movie star Tom Steel, that had been taken over by the drug-running Campos brothers.

  We hugged our way north along the eastern shore of Knockemdown Key, keeping to a smooth and strong rhythm. Had I been there for any other reason, I would have enjoyed the peaceful scene around me. The gulls flying and landing on nearby shores, the water gently lapping against the hulls, and the mangrove-riddled plots of land surrounding me. But we had business to attend to, and my mind was focused on playing over scenarios in my head, as I always did before a coming engagement.

  Forty-five minutes after pushing off at the tip of Summerland, we slowly rounded the northern edge of Knockemdown and caught our first glimpse of the trawler. It was only about a quarter of a mile away and was anchored down in a small channel, surrounded by patches of mangroves. I grabbed my binos from around my neck and took a look. The bow was facing us, into a strong current, so I couldn’t see much. But I could see the dark outline of bodies inside, and there was a guy with his back up against the windscreen, facing forward as he puffed on a cigarette.

  We paddled across a narrow cut and used the cover of overgrown mangroves to move up close to the trawler without them spotting us. Grabbing my sat phone, I made quick calls to Jack and Wilson, letting them know we were about to move in. Jack told me that he was watching the trawler from the edge of Budd Key. He had a line of poles in their holders at the stern for an alibi and said he could reach the boat in just a few minutes once shit hit the fan. Wilson informed me that the Coast Guard was also nearby and ready to spring into action at the sound of gunshots.

  Kyle and I glanced at each other.

  “Alright,” I said. “Time to take these assholes down.”

  We both loosened our lifejackets and unclipped all but one of the buckles so we could remove them easily. I moved my Sig into my lap, then grabbed my paddle and rounded the mangroves, bringing the trawler into view. It was only a few hundred feet away, and we paddled towards it as nonchalantly as possible. We weren’t exactly professional actors, but we’d both worked undercover before and looked convincing enough. Perception is crucial if you want to take your enemy by surprise. To anyone aboard the trawler, we looked like nothing more than a pair of wandering tourists out for a day of bird-watching.

  We paddled close enough to make out the features of the guy on the bow. He looked young, with tanned skin and a lean, athletic body. I didn’t recognize him from our previous encounter with Drago. As soon as he noticed us, he pushed his back off from the windscreen and stepped towards the bow. I grabbed my binos from around my neck and looked innocently off towards a nearby flock of cormorants.

  He stood at the bow a moment as if he were wondering what to do. I lowered my binos, glanced his way as if I’d just realized he was there, and was the first to speak.

  “Hello there,” I said in a friendly tone. “Would you happen to know if those are double-crested cormorants or greats? I checked my bird-watching manual, but I still can’t tell.”

  The young man looked at me in bewilderment. He glanced over at the birds for only a second and shook his head.

  “I don’t know shit about birds,” he said. “Now, piss off!”

  His accent wasn’t Russian. It sounded American, though he was clearly of Hispanic descent. Probably from Miami. I lifted my paddle slowly out of the water but continued to drift closer and closer to the trawler.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, in a passive and nonthreatening tone. “This is my first time in the Keys and I’m just very excited. I’m from—”

  “I don’t care where you’re from,” he said, getting irritated. “Now get the fuck out of here. Go look at birds somewhere else.”

  Kyle’s kayak moved ahead of mine about a boat length. The front of his kayak was just about to make contact with the trawler. The young guy flicked his cigarette and hovered his hand over his waistband. I couldn’t see what was there beneath his shirt, but I didn’t have to.

  “Hey, leave now!” he said, raising his voice. “I’m not gonna say it again.”

  I raised my hands in the air. “I’m sorry, I’m very sorry,” I said frantically. “We’re leaving. Come on, Curtis, let’s leave these people be.”

  I could see a few guys moving about inside the trawler. They were looking and pointing towards us.

  Here we go, I thought.

  The exact moment the front of Kyle’s kayak made contact with the metal hull, I reached my right hand under the plastic coaming and into my lap. Without taking my eyes off the guy, my fingers gripped the cool metal of my Sig like they had thousands of times before. With no wasted movement, my hand sprang into action, raising my Sig up out of the cockpit, and I quickly lined the sights up on the guy’s chest. All he had time to do was drop his jaw in surprise as I pulled the trigger, sending a round into his abdomen and another into his upper chest. The sounds of the powder exploding and the subsequent sonic booms as the bullets broke the sound barrier echoed across the water. The guy let out a muffled grunt as his body fell backward against a spray of his own blood on the windscreen behind him. Then he fell forward, and gravity slammed his lifeless face into the metal deck.

  In my peripheral vision, I could see Kyle climbing up out of his kayak and grabbing the port bow handrail. Keeping my gaze drawn towards the pilothouse, I raised my Sig towards the windscreen and fired off four rounds that shattered the glass and caused the guys inside to drop down for cover.

  Just as we’d planned, Kyle pulled his upper body up onto the handrail far enough for him to plant his left knee onto the deck. Rearing back his right arm, he hurled the frag grenade as hard as he could into the partly shattered windscreen. The heavy grenade broke through the remaining glass with ease, and I could hear it thump against the deck inside the pilothouse. Kyle leaned over the edge so that the hull could provide cover as the grenade exploded, sending a swarm of metal fragments shooting through the air in all directions at lethal speeds.

  What remained of the windscreen shattered from the explosion, and I could hear the loud screeching of metal rattling against metal. A few men yelled out from
inside as the mayhem went quiet. With the guy on the bow down and the guys inside either taking cover, dead, or sprawling on the deck in pain, it was time to move in. Kyle had already ripped the lifejacket from his body and snatched the Sig from under his windbreaker. He pulled himself up and over the railing, planted his feet, and took an athletic stance on the bow with his Sig raised.

  It only took a few seconds for the current to push my kayak into the hull. I quickly switched my half-empty mag for a full one, pulled off my lifejacket, and rose to my feet. The railing at the bow was about seven feet above the surface of the water. I balanced myself, then grabbed hold of the handrail high over my head and pulled my body up, ignoring the pain in my shoulder as I maneuvered over the edge and landed softly on the deck beside Kyle.

  Side by side and with our weapons raised, we moved in. The scene was still and perfectly quiet aside from the occasional groans of the unfortunate thug who hadn’t managed to escape the blasting shards of metal. We stepped over the guy who lay flat in a pool of his own blood and peeked in through the shattered glass. The pilothouse was empty aside from two dead guys on the deck. Their bodies were mangled, but it was clear that neither of them was Drago. Looking around, I saw a streak of blood on the deck that went around the corner and down a set of stairs.

  I motioned to Kyle, then moved down the port side, keeping my eyes drawn into the pilothouse all the way until I reached the stern of the trawler. We turned and stepped towards a wooden door, and I grabbed the brass handle as Kyle hovered behind to cover me. After a quiet count of three, I ripped it open and we both stormed inside like a SWAT team. The smell of warm, coppery blood filled my nostrils as we glanced around the pilothouse, which looked like a tornado had blown through it. The electronics near the helm had shattered screens and sparking wires. The cushioned seats were full of pieces of shrapnel and had cotton padding exposed. We listened and heard nothing.

  For a moment, I thought about whether the whole thing was a trap, an intricate plan to lure us in, then blow us sky-high once we’d boarded the trawler. I felt a sudden urge to disembark, to hop back onto my kayak before it drifted too far away and wait for backup to arrive. By the look in Kyle’s eyes, I could tell that he was thinking the same thing.

  We turned back towards the door, but before we’d taken a single step, we heard shuffling feet and guys talking quietly to each other down below. A loud hissing sound suddenly ruptured the stillness, and my eyes grew wide as thick white gas burst forth from various corners of the room. The faint smell of the gas had just managed to reach my nose when my legs instinctively bolted the rest of my body for the door. But the small pilothouse quickly turned into a thick cloud. I held my breath, not wanting to let the teargas into my lungs as Kyle and I bolted out the door. My eyes quickly welled up and my nostrils burned. It was a painful, miserable, and all-too-familiar sensation. I’d first been teargassed years ago during Navy Basic Training and had been exposed to the stuff again a few times during SEAL training. It wasn’t something I ever wanted to experience again, and I felt a surge of relief as we sprang out into the fresh sea air.

  My eyes watery, I turned and saw two dark and blurry figures appear out of the white veil of gas. Both were tall guys, and they each wore black gas masks as they stepped out. The guy on the left held a blacked-out pump-action KS-23 Russian shotgun, the guy on the right a classic TEC-9 complete with extended mag.

  Grabbing hold of the shotgun, I forced it up away from me by the barrel with my left hand, then aimed my Sig to fill his body with lead. But as I pulled the trigger, he jerked his body sideways, causing my rounds to soar past his body and pound against the metal door frame behind him. With the skill of a trained martial artist, he shifted his weight, then brought his left leg up and slammed the heel of his boot into my right hand, causing my Sig to break free of my grasp and rattle up against the transom.

  Still gripping tightly to the barrel of his shotgun, I bent down and threw him over the top of me, slamming his back into the hard metal at our feet. We rolled a few times, each struggling for the upper hand, then crashed into the corner where the port gunwale met the transom. I felt like I was experiencing déjà vu. I’d just fought this guy in this exact same place the previous night. This time, I resolved, he wouldn’t get away.

  In the corner of my eye, I saw Kyle fighting the other guy. I knew Kyle had landed one round into his enemy’s body, but it was clear that he was a highly trained killer, just like Drago. Men who knew what it was to feel extreme pain, push through it, and take life without batting an eye.

  We struggled back and forth, fighting for control over the shotgun between us while each landing a few punches. The gas bled out from the pilothouse, and though much of it was carried away with the ocean breeze, I felt the burn within my lungs as I gagged a few times.

  “You’re a bloody fool for intervening!” Drago barked from behind his mask. “I always kill my target!” The gas seeped its way into my breaths, making it difficult for me to speak.

  “Not… this… time… dirtbag!” I said.

  Using all of my strength, I held the shotgun in place with my left hand, and reached with my right for my dive knife sheathed to the back of my waistband. Pulling the titanium blade free, I stabbed it towards Drago’s masked face. He snapped sideways and the blade cut through the side of the mask, cutting a large hole that allowed the gas to crawl its way inside.

  As I brought my knife back for another blow, he coughed, then slammed my hand into the deck. With my body pinned against the gunwale, he reached behind his leather jacket and pulled out his own knife. Its sharp, narrow blade glistened in the afternoon sun. With a loud grunt, he jabbed it towards my chest. I let go of the shotgun, let it fall lifelessly to the deck beside us, then jammed my hands around his wrists. The long blade stopped just a few inches from my heart. Drago shifted his body, put all of his weight into the hilt, and slowly the blade came closer.

  My mind struggled to think of a way out as my lungs burned and my eyes watered so bad I could barely see. Drago’s eyes were wild as he stared back at me. They seemed to pop out of his face like the veins in his forehead. Again I felt a surge of recognition burst forth from within me. My eyes grew wide as, at that moment, I remembered where I’d seen him before.

  He shot me a sinister smile as he continued to force the blade towards me with all of his strength.

  “Now that you are going to die, there’s something I’d like you to know,” he said. “You recognize me, don’t you? We’ve seen each other before.” He laughed sadistically and added, “You spotted me through your scope in Colombia years ago.” Anger surged forth from deep within me. I could still see him through my scope, standing there over a village of massacred innocent people. “Now, you will die knowing that it was me and Carson’s men who killed those people in the village. That she was the one who ordered the trap.”

  I breathed heavily. I fought with every ounce of my strength to keep him off me. Just as the blade was about to meet my flesh, a loud boom resonated across the air, and Drago’s face exploded. Blood sprayed out the back of his head, along with a handful of brain and half of his skull. His body lurched back violently, then hit the deck hard and went motionless.

  As a seemingly never-ending supply of blood flowed out and puddled on the deck beside me, I jumped to my feet just in time to see Kyle finish his man. They too were caught in a rolling scuffle, and Kyle ended the fight by reaching out, grabbing hold of the guy’s TEC-9, and turning his torso into a cheese grater. Pushing the dead guy off him, he labored to his feet as well and we moved together towards the bow, into the wind and away from the cloudy nightmare of gas.

  Once there, I rubbed my eyes and gagged until the gas was clear from my lungs.

  “Fuck that,” Kyle said, leaning over as he spat and cleared his sinuses.

  It was as good of a reaction as any to being exposed to excessive amounts of teargas. The stuff is just plain nasty. As you try to breathe in air, your lungs instead get suffocated by burni
ng, toxic fumes.

  Once I could see relatively well, I looked around, searching for the source of the shot that had taken down Drago. He’d been hit by a high-caliber rifle, no doubt about that. And I knew it must have been someone that was very confident in their aim. After just a few seconds of peering over the bright horizon, I smiled as I saw the Calypso cruising quickly straight toward us from the northwest. Angelina Fox, my mercenary warrior woman girlfriend, was standing on the bow, holding her Lapua sniper rifle in her hands.

  TWENTY-TWO

  By the time the Calypso pulled up to the trawler, the teargas had stopped billowing out of the pilothouse. With the cloudy layer of white gone, I could easily see Drago’s body twisted up in a pool of blood that was dripping through the holes in the transom and splashing into the water below.

  The Calypso eased up along the port side. Jack was at the helm, looking over at Kyle and me. Ange had moved down into the cockpit and was staring at me with her hands on her hips.

  Hell hath no fury, I thought.

  Not keeping her in the loop the past few days was about to come back to bite me.

  I smiled towards her. “Talk about cutting it close,” I said as playfully as I could.

  “I think what you mean to say is thank you,” she said.

  Her tone was stern, her voice raised. I was pretty sure that she was more angry at the fact that I’d lied to her than anything else.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And I’m sorry.”

  She was a sight for sore eyes. She was wearing a black tank top and a pair of athletic shorts that adequately showed off her lean figure, and her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her skin was even more tanned than usual from her backpacking trip to California.

  She stepped against the edge of the stairs that led up to the Calypso’s pilothouse. Taking in a deep breath, she let it all out and her shoulders dropped a few inches.