by Scott Cook
“Oh, what, me worry?” I jested. “Flying through the night in a rocket ship to rescue my boyfriend who’s being taken out to sea and with whom we no longer have contact? What’s to worry about?”
Jackie reached out and took my hand. She gave it a squeeze before letting me put it back on the wheel.
It wasn’t that long after when we got a blip on the radar screen. Just about ten miles distance and it looked to be a surface contact about forty feet long or so. Not long after that, another small contact appeared.
“What’s that one?” I asked.
“Don’t know…” Jackie commented. “Coming in from the south. Small boat, maybe twenty feet. And the temp is over two-twenty and pressure is dropping a bit.”
“Fuckin’ cock!” I grumbled as I slowed the boat down to about half throttle.
We went from over eighty knots down to about thirty-five. At that speed, it’d be almost five minutes before we caught up with the other two boats.
Jackie was looking at me and I think we had the same thought at the same time, because she said: “When we get there… then what?”
I scoffed, “Hey, you’re the army girl, you tell me.”
That got me a middle finger. I’d learned that from Scott. Apparently it was fun to tease Marines.
“Shit…” Jackie said more seriously. “I don’t know the sitch over there. How many people on board, what weapons… who that other boat is and what they’re packin’… We’re going in blind and we sure as shit can’t sneak up on them.”
“Okay…” I said, thinking hard and coming up with nada. “We’re six miles off…”
I throttled back and put the boat in neutral. I then turned the engines off. The sudden silence that fell was so different from the roar of the big turbos, even at idle, that it seemed thick and heavy. We bobbed gently in the small waves and sat quietly for a long moment.
“I’m gonna scope it,” Jackie said softly, standing up and raising her NVG’s again. “The small boat looks like an inflatable. It’s alongside the other boat now… a sport fisherman, I think they’re called. That kind with the long bow and low aft fishing area. With the big cabin in the middle and a tuna tower?”
“Yeah…” I whispered back.
I knew that sound traveled far over water. They probably couldn’t hear us talking from six miles off, but we were up wind a little.
“See anything else?” I asked.
Jackie sighed and clenched a fist, “Even at full mag, we’re still pretty far for detail. And anyway, everybody is inside. We’re gonna need to get closer. It’d be nice if we weren’t upwind, too.”
I started the engines again. I put the boat in gear but instead of running straight at the other boats, I turned northwest and brought us up to about sixty knots. I made a wide arc that carried us around to the west and about three miles away. I slowed down and headed for the two boats.
“Forget stealth,” I said, feeling angry. Now that we were actually going into action, I could stop feeling worried about Scott and instead get pissed off that these people had taken him against his will. “We’re going in hot!”
“Hoo-rah!” Jackie whooped, diving into the low cabin and coming back with Scott’s assault rifle.
She cleared the weapon, charged it and shouldered it, “When you’re about fifty yards off, slow to an idle. There’s no fuckin’ way they don’t know we’re here now!”
She was right. As we got closer, I saw two men on the flying bridge and another two come out into the sporty’s cockpit. There were bright flashes in the darkness.
“They’re shooting at us!” I exclaimed, fighting the urge to turn.
“Small flashes,” Jackie said. “Pistols… no worries. Slow down now.”
As the boat eased off plane, the Marine beside me sent a series of three three-round bursts toward the big fishing boat. The clatter of the high-powered rifle and the sound of spent brass shell casings tinkling to the deck was very reassuring. It gave me a sense of power and confidence. Instantly, the four men I’d seen vanished below the gunwales and bridge fairing.
“Got em!” I shouted in glee.
“Nah… just sent a few rounds over their heads,” Jackie said. “Give them something to think about. Attention! We have you in our sights! Bring Scott Jarvis out on deck immediately or we will fire for effect! This is the United States Navy!”
I looked at her, “I thought your thing was called ICE?”
Jackie smiled, “It is… but not many people know about it yet. It’s a young organization. Since we’re at sea, we invoke the name of one they’ll definitely recognize.”
“We’re in international waters!” Somebody called out from the bridge. “We’re fishermen!”
I thought I recognized that voice. I couldn’t be sure, but it sounded familiar.
“Bring Commander Jarvis on deck immediately or I’ll fire into you!” Jackie roared out in a voice so powerful and full of authority it made me jump.
We were maybe a hundred feet away now. Now that we were downwind, I could hear conversation coming from the fishing boat. There seemed to be several arguments going on. I even recognized some Spanish.
“Ten-seconds!” Jackie said and fired off another three round burst.
“Hold your fire!” A woman shouted from somewhere on board. She might have been in the darkness by where the door to the cabin was.
I suddenly realized I did recognize that voice, “Nikki!?”
A long pause and then: “Lisa?”
“What the hell’s going on?” I asked. “Is Scott all right?”
An even longer pause before a man’s voice, one with a Spanish accent that also sounded familiar to me replied instead: “For now, Ms. Gonzalez. Yet that condition might not last unless you stand down, comprende?”
“The fuck is this guy?” Jackie muttered.
“Who are you?” I shouted.
“How sad that you don’t remember me,” The man said. He spoke good but accented English. “Granted, we never met in person… but you did visit my camp back in June.”
I felt a cold wave shoot through my body. I tried to shout the name, but it only came out as a whisper.
“Garcia…”
19
For the hour that we plowed through the almost dead calm sea, there was little conversation. Paulo and Cooper never came down from the bridge and Diego stretched out on the sofa and looked half asleep. It would’ve been the perfect time for a daring escape but for two small details.
First, I was still tied to a heavy armchair by both wrists. My feet were free but bound together. It seemed to me that these minor impediments would make swimming twenty or thirty sea miles to shore a bit of a bother.
Second, there was a treacherous bitch of an FBI agent sitting close by with a rather lethal looking Colt 1911 .45 semi-automatic within easy reach. My own damned gun, as it turned out. I wondered why I’d even brought the damned thing, it hadn’t done me much good.
For what must have been the twentieth time that early morning, I mentally kicked myself in the ass. I had been careless. I should’ve checked the boat more thoroughly and secured each section before going forward. Instead, I’d completely overlooked the engine compartment and didn’t think of it until it was too late. So much for investigator’s intuition…
On the other hand, I had learned a few things, so it was really more of a lemonade than a lemon situation, right? Unless I were murdered, I suppose… then it’d just be sour grapes, wouldn’t it?
“How’s your nose?” Nikki suddenly asked, getting up and bending down close to my face.
“Sore,” I said. “The mean man gave me an ouchy.”
Nikki gently dabbed at my face with a moist cloth again, “I don’t’ think it’s broken. Does it hurt when I—“
I flinched when she gently touched and wiggled the tip of my nose a bit. She smiled and then suddenly, without any warning, fell into my lap and began to kiss me. Her kiss was aggressive and heated, as if I had been holding back preci
ous oxygen and she was finally able to breathe again. Her tongue probed my mouth, her hands gripped my shoulder and right bicep and her breath came in short eager gasps. Finally she pulled back and looked into my eyes.
“That an apology?” I asked.
She smirked, “Call it… seizing an opportunity.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Scott…”
“Nicole,” I said stiffly. “Let’s not play games. Your friends here are going to try to get something out of me and then, whether or not I tell them what they want to know, kill me and dump me into the ocean. And you’re okay with that.”
She scowled but said nothing.
I harrumphed, “Yeah… a going away present, that’s what that kiss was.”
“I’d give you more if I could,” she said huskily.
I scoffed, “Yeah, great. Fuck me before you fuck me. Sounds dandy. How about untying me, giving me back my gun and helping me arrest these people. What the Christ?”
“I’m sorry about Cooper,” Was her only response after a moment of silence.
“Cooper…” I mocked. “What the hell kind of name is that for a bad guy?”
The pitch of the boat’s engines suddenly began to wind down. Nikki got to her feet and snatched my gun off the table. Diego was alert now, and the three of us waited in silence as the big fishing boat came down off plane and settled into the water. The engines were shut down and the sudden silence had an ominous feel to it.
It didn’t last long, though. Outside, I heard the distinct sound of a large outboard motor slowing. Another boat bumped alongside and I heard voices coming from above me. Nikki went out through the saloon door and I stared at Diego.
“Friends of yours?” I asked.
“Why do you say that, meng?”
“Because we’re a good part of the way to Cuba, that’s why,” I commented.
Diego only shrugged, “I just do what the boss tells me, Chico.”
“It’s not too late,” I told him. “Untie me, give me a gun and lets you and me take these pricks down. I’ll make it worth your while.”
Diego grinned and winked at me, “I’d like to, chico. I like you, but…”
The saloon door opening cut off anything I might have said to that. Nikki came in leading a lean man of medium height. The man had thick curly brown hair shot through with gray. His beard was trimmed and the smile he wore was pearly white.
“Oh, isn’t this just fantastic…” I cranked.
“I see you remember me, senor,” Manuel Garcia said. His smile was almost unbearably self-amused.
Manuel Garcia had been responsible for kidnapping Missy Delaney and her three children while they and Clay were in Costa Rica early in the summer. Garcia was using them as leverage to get Clay to help organize his rebel army. An army being funded and supported by Miles Palmer, an old acquaintance of Clay’s and the co-owner of EcoLife, a large and growing green engineering company based in Saint Louis.
“Of course I do… aren’t you the guy who takes his burro out and picks the coffee each morning?”
“Amusing,” Garcia replied, not sounding the least bit amused.
“You survived,” I said. “Too bad.”
“Too bad for you, amigo,” Garcia said cheerfully as he sat next to Diego on the sofa. The two men didn’t seem to recognize each other.
“Okay,” I began wearily. I knew the plot and what was to happen and didn’t want to belay it. “What is it you want, Garcia? Are you responsible for the safe crackings and other shit that’s happened over the past few days? Are you the one who’s smuggling dope into the country using Ramon Tavares cargo ship?”
Garcia chuckled, “I have to admit, Jarvis, you are a clever man. Very little gets by you, eh? Well… some things do, obviously. However, we’re not here to answer your questions. You’re here to answer mine. Where is the map?”
“What map?” I asked dully.
“Come, come,” Garcia said pleasantly. “Let us not play games, eh? Let’s not allow things to get… unpleasant. You know full well that I’m referring to the map to the location of El Dorado and the land claim that has been in your family for over two hundred years.”
I laughed, “That? It’s just a dusty old legend. It’s not even true, Garcia! And how the hell do you even know about it? I just found out a couple of days ago that this ancestor of mine even existed.”
Garcia only shrugged elaborately. He withdrew a pack of cigarettes and sparked one to life. After taking a long drag and leaning back he said: “It’s good to know there’s something you don’t know. How I know is not important, amigo. I know, and that’s all that matters. Where is it?”
I eyed him coolly for a long moment, “And if I tell you? What’s in it for me?”
“Your life, for one.”
I made a rude noise, “I need more than that, Garcia. I’d need assurances that my family would be left alone. I’d need to know the names, places and the how to’s of the smuggling ring. You give me all that and you can have the ridiculous El Dorado papers. What the Christ do I care?”
He laughed out loud, “Oh, is that all? I tell you everything you want to know so you can put a stop to my business?”
“You want to dance, you pay the band,” I said. “You stop using Tavares and you get the map. I’ve no doubt that somebody, either you or an as yet unknown party, will profit far more from the land claim.”
Garcia laughed. He looked over at Diego seemingly in commiseration. The Cuban smiled but said nothing. Garcia finally looked back at me.
“You’re hardly in a position to negotiate, amigo,” He observed.
“You’ve said that before,” I replied coldly. “And look what happened. How did you get away from the army, by the way?”
Garcia scoffed, “Much easier than you’d think, Jarvis. Lucky for you they showed up when they did.”
I scoffed right back at him, “We were already on our way out, Garcia. I was honestly as surprised as you, though. That wasn’t my doing.”
“This is beside the point,” he said with a bit less joviality now. “You give me the map and I may consider allowing you, your friends and your family to live.”
I laughed, “Garcia, we’re not in your little shithole of a country now. You’re in my house, cabron. I run the show here. You have no idea of the resources at my command. Even more now than just a few months back. Do you honestly think you’re getting off this boat in one piece? Do you really think I’m helpless right now?”
He laughed right back, “I know how formidable you are, Jarvis. But you can take things too far. We’re thirty miles from shore. You’re tied to a chair and surrounded by enemies. Enemies you thought were your friends?”
He looked at Nikki and grinned. She only leaned against the bulkhead and watched.
“You’ve been betrayed because you don’t have a handle on things, pendejo,” Garcia mocked. “So why don’t you make it easy on yourself and—“
He was interrupted by the distinctive clatter of a heavy caliber assault rifle being fired somewhere off to starboard. Nikki cursed and slid the hatch open and looked outside. Garcia cursed under his breath and followed her.
“See?” I told Diego. “I’m never helpless.”
I heard Cooper shouting something from overhead. It was muffled, but it was followed up by the clatter of several rounds being fired. The sound of the gun, although from a bit of a distance and through the bulkheads sounded heavy. Not an M4 or M16… maybe an AK?
I then heard Nikki’s voice shout something and then in surprise she seemed to say Lisa’s name. Could I have heard that right?
It was confirmed a moment later when Garcia called her Miss Gonzalez. He made some threat about me and then an ominous silence fell.
The chair I was sitting in was made of wood. An armchair with a padded seat and back, but still made from wood. Based on what I could see of the other one, it was teak. Teak is a very attractive light brown wood used generously in boat décor. It stands up against weather and
wearing. It is not, however, as dense or hard as other hardwoods used on boats like mahogany or oak. With this in mind, I decided that the time for sitting on my keister and doing nothing had passed. Diego would either stop me or not, but I wasn’t going to sit idle any longer.
I pushed up with my feet and wrists, planting my feet on the seat of the chair. I then lurched backward, toppling back and tucking my knees up to my chest and shoving the chair in front of me. I was standing now, holding the chair up over my head with my forearms. I had little mobility still, as my ankles were lashed tightly together.
However, I was only a few feet from the closed hatch to the cockpit. I swung the chair as hard as I could, bashing it against the fiberglass and glass door. Boat hatches, even vertical doors on a boat are called hatches, are made to be very sturdy. The fiberglass sliding door was three inches thick and the glass in it that went from just above the handle to the top was probably very thick tempered safety glass or Lexan. Either way, the door was not damaged in any way as I beat the wooden chair on it repeatedly. After only the third try, the chair seemed to come apart at its joints and dissolved into its component pieces of wood.
This still left the two arms lashed to my wrists, but I could now move them freely. It suddenly occurred to me as I freed myself that I hadn’t been shot nor beaten with anything. I looked over at Diego who was grinning from ear to ear. He held a pistol in his right hand and a knife in his left.
I reached out and locked the saloon door just as Garcia was reaching to open it and no doubt discover what the fuss was all about in there. I stared at Diego who only stared back.
“So…” I inquired. “You gonna shoot me or stab me?”
“Neither, amigo,” He said. He moved over to me and began cutting the knot that secured my ankles.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I started untying my wrists. Soon I was free and Diego and I faced each other as Garcia pounded on the door. Several shots rang out and the outer fiberglass of the hatch splintered. The bullets hadn’t come through, though.