"Sure, just say when, darlin’."
"Will do. See you around, and Troy" she said, “don’t call me darlin’.”
He tipped his hat, “Roger that.”
She turned to go. He couldn’t help but notice that she was just as fit as ever… even from behind.
As she walked away, another lumbering figure walked toward Troy. It was a figure he knew well. This park ranger had on the same uniform, but it was a bit wrinkled, buttons straining to cover a bulging belly. Thick plastic framed glasses bent outward over his temples, one of the lenses cracked in the top left corner, both lenses scratched in various places. One corner of his shirt’s front had come loose and was almost dangling free over his belt.
James Howard was the perfect park ranger for this place. He was the bohemian dropout type who was lucky enough to have a paying job with federal benefits. This fort was his little kingdom, where he ruled with a drunken fist.
"You two seem to have hit it off." He said.
"Long story, man. We have a history… an ancient history. What the hell is she doing here?"
"She’s been here for almost a year. I got a call one day from top brass in D.C. to tell me we were adding a Ranger. I wasn't aware that we needed one, nor did I ask for one. She's not too sociable, though. She stays in her room with a laptop and satellite phone she brought with her. You're the first person I've seen her say more than three words to; other than that, she seems hardworking, honest and loyal. So, I hate her already."
"She’s a bit tight, but I guess she’s pretty smart."
"Yeah, but she doesn't know dink about being a Ranger, even though her paperwork says she has been one for six years."
"Six years, you say? That's very interesting." Troy watched carefully as she marched off into the distance, seemingly oblivious to her immediate surroundings.
“Oh yeah, got something for you,” Troy reached behind his seat and pulled a brown paper bag out.
James pulled the paper back slightly to reveal the label on the bottle.
“Patron, eh?” he nodded approvingly, “What are we celebrating?”
“I’ll tell ya later.”
James broke into a grin, “Ahhhh, keeping secrets, are we?”
“Nothing like that,” Troy laughed and shook his head, “I just have a good feeling about my not too distant future.”
“Consider me intrigued,” James tucked the bottle back into the bag, “I look forward to our toasting your new good fortune soon.”
“You bet,” he clapped the big man on the shoulder.
“Ah well, I’ll let you catch some shut eye, dude,” James gave him a thumbs-up and turned toward the fort, “besides, I have to start this damn tour soon.”
“Good man.”
Troy settled back into his seat and drifted into a warm sleep, he had at least an hour before his passengers would be back.
He was just seeing visions of a sunken treasure ship when he was pulled back from sleep yet again today by the horrendous sound of his cellphone.
“Dangit, what’s a guy gotta do to get some sleep around here??? Gotta figure out how to change that ringtone,” he muttered to himself as he flipped it open, “Yep, this is Troy, go ahead.”
“Troy who?” a girl’s voice asked.
“Troy Bodean,” he sat up quick, “and who might this be.”
“You called my phone at five-thirty this morning.”
“Yes,” he said quickly, “Yes, I did.”
3
Señora De La Muerta
Megan Simons wanted desperately to be a granola munching, tree-hugging, environmentalist hippie chick, but her father had planted too many God-fearing conservative seeds in her throughout her life for her to truly feel that way. The best she could manage was a Save the Manatee sticker on the left side of her Honda civic bumper and a Vote for W on the right.
She had grown up in Boston and was now secretly glad her father had sent her to a strict private Catholic school. Actually ‘learning’ in a place like that was demanded of the students, not requested. That, and also she liked washing her hair on more than a monthly basis.
Somewhere along the way she had picked up an interest in the sea, which led her to school in south Florida. An internship had landed her a job at the Dolphin Research Center on Grassy Key, about half way down the long stretch of islands.
While she’d been feeding the resident sea life this morning she couldn’t help but notice that most of the center’s animals were restless. It had to be the impending storm.
When she got back to her office, she sat down and dialed the unknown number that had called her at five-thirty that morning. It had the local area code three zero five, but it wasn’t familiar. The research center got calls from all over the country, so she wasn’t too suspicious about it. The caller introduced himself as Troy Bodean. She didn’t know the name.
“Well, Mister Bodean,” she asked, “what can I do for you?”
There was only silence on the other end of the line, and she almost hung up… another crazy man in the Keys.
“Your card,” he finally started, sounding unsure of himself, “it says Love of Ocean Legend.”
Megan rolled her eyes. She’d had those cards printed when she was just out of grad school. The idealist in her had chosen a colorful sunset background with bright white cursive text; now her card was just white with black text, Arial font.
“Okay?” She was willing to follow this for one more line from the guy. “So—”
“So what do you know about shipwrecks?” he blurted suddenly, sensing her drifting away from the conversation.
“Well, not much,” she replied. “I’ve toured a couple, but that’s about it.”
“You’re a diver?”
“Of course.”
The man paused again. “Look,” he finally said, “could we talk about this in person?”
“Talk about what?” she demanded. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about. Listen, I don’t know you and this is all very strange. Thanks for your call, and good luck.”
With that she hung up without waiting for his reply.
Troy looked down at his phone. He pushed the button to redial her number, but his passengers were suddenly poking their heads into the door of the seaplane.
“Ah, there you are,” he boomed in his best smarmy game-show-host voice. “How was lunch?”
The vacationers all chimed in with beaming faces about how amazing the fort was and the beach was this and the water was and… blah blah blah. He’d heard all this a thousand times, but he smiled and nodded like it was the first time he’d ever been to the fort.
The plane lifted off in a rush from the water and headed back to Key West.
Megan Simons sat at her desk and stared at the phone.
“Hey, you okay?” said her assistant, who’d stuck her head into her office.
“Hmm?” Megan shook off the daze. “Oh yeah, I’m fine. Chelsea, will you call the Weather Bureau and see what the status of evacuation is currently?”
“You don’t think this thing’s gonna be big, do ya?” the girl asked.
“Nah,” she assured her, “but there’s no harm in being careful.”
Chelsea nodded. There wasn’t much on her plate today, so she decided to get out of the office for a while.
“I think I’m going to go for a run.” Megan stood up from her desk. “Can you take care of the late feeding schedule?”
“I sure can,” Chelsea said, and disappeared from the doorway.
Megan opened the locker door next to her rusting file cabinet. She pushed her wetsuit aside and brought out her workout duffle bag. Her mind drifted as she put on her running shorts and tank top.
“Shipwrecks, eh?” she mumbled to herself as she tied her shoes and turned on her iPod.
As she stepped onto US 1’s familiar pavement and turned right, she thought she might run to Marathon and back… ironically, it was about twenty-six miles round trip. The sun was hazy and she could see dens
e cloud cover rolling in far to the south. When she ran, she mostly listened to audio books. Stephen King was her favorite. Sometimes it was music, usually the Beatles or the Stones… never Jimmy Buffet, as that was just too cliché. Today, however, she was so distracted by the strange phone call that she had strapped it to her arm and put the ear buds in.
By the time she reached the island of Marathon, she had decided to call the man back this evening. The mystery… the enigma of it all… was just too much for her to ignore. She’d call, let him tell her what was sure to be his outrageous story, then tell him goodbye. At least that’s what she had thought. Much later she’d realize that was the moment that would forever change her life.
Slick with a sheen of sweat, and a pumping, healthy heart rate, she arrived back at the center near dusk. Chelsea had locked up. Megan punched in the keypad code at the back door and the lock chunked open. She walked in and grabbed the towel from her locker.
Her cellphone beeped, announcing she had a voicemail. She recognized the number from earlier; this Troy Bodean—whoever he was—had called back.
“Megan,” —the message was a bit garbled but understandable, probably the storm beginning to interfere with cellphones— “I think we got off on the wrong foot this morning. I didn’t mean to be so cryptic, but there are a lot of people who could be very dangerous regarding the information I wanted to discuss with you.”
The man paused for a second, as if deciding whether or not he should actually share his information. He seemed to have a nice voice, but it was difficult to tell with the bad reception.
“I’ve seen something in the water. Best I can tell is, it might be a cannon or something. I’ve done some checking, and based on location and what’s been found already, it’s what I think might be a Spanish Galleon, the Señora de la Muerta. I wanted to talk to you about what might be on that ship and possibly helping me dive the wreck. So… um… if you’re interested… well, we could meet at a public place, you choose when and where, and talk about it?” He paused again, apparently unsure what else to say. “Yeah, so… call me back, bye.”
Megan closed her phone. “Señora de la Muerta?” she said aloud to no one. “The Lady of the Dead?” she translated.
She wondered what sailor in his right mind would get on such a ship; hello and welcome aboard the Hindenburg Titanic. She had never heard of it, but she knew there were hundreds of ships lost in these waters… many of which were loaded with gold and treasure and headed back from the new world.
A quick internet search told her that Señora de la Muerta was thought to be an empty ship that accompanied other ships on long journeys and served as a holding tank for sailors that died at sea but who didn’t want to be dumped overboard. Usually this privilege was reserved only for ranking officials on the ship, officials who would be stored with their personal belongings… often gold and jewelry.
“Ah,” —she shook her head— “so you’re after their gold, Mr. Bodean.”
She clicked off her computer and texted Troy a message.
–Sloppy Joe’s tomorrow at noon.
A minute later she received his reply.
–You bet.
4
Sloppy Joe’s
Megan walked into Sloppy Joe’s and scanned the bar for Troy. It was one of the larger bars on Duval Street and almost always had a crowd of people sitting at the bar and the surrounding tables. A giant portrait of Ernest Hemingway hung at the back of the stage; Sloppy Joe’s claimed he liked to frequent their bar. If he witnessed the dance club atmosphere they turned on at night now, she thought, he’d never set foot in the place.
Large garage doors lined the front and side and were now opened to the street. A longhaired kid was strumming on a guitar on the stage under a sign that said, Smile, you’re on Sloppy Joe’s Web Cam. That’s when it hit her… she had no idea what he looked like. Suddenly, the bar’s open-air front seemed a little too open, and she felt very vulnerable. She turned around to leave.
“Megan?” It was a smooth voice that sounded a bit salty, but somehow sounded handsome. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but it was somewhere between Matthew McConaughey’s Texas drawl and George Clooney’s sophisticated debonair clip, something she hadn’t picked up during his phone calls with her. She took a deep breath and turned around.
He was only about five-foot-ten, but athletically built and not too broad. He looked to be around forty, and his face was deeply tanned with the raccoon-eyed sunglasses line all too common among seafarers on the island. His eyes were blue, but not piercing, or the blue described in so many novels as ocean or azure, or any cliché like that. His black, slightly salt and peppered hair looked like its only comb was attached to the ends of his hand and might not have been washed today. But he grinned, and showed that contrary to some of his outward appearance he did take some care of himself, with straight, clean teeth… something she always looked for in a man. And on top of his head, he wore a somewhat cheesy straw cowboy hat with a peacock feather stuck in the back… but it worked for him, gave him a little bit of Bret Michaels’ flair. In short, she thought he was pretty cute.
She shook her head suddenly. Looked for in a man?? Pretty cute?? What am I thinking here? This man was basically a pirate threatening to rape the shipwreck of the Señora de la Muerta. She gritted her teeth and walked toward him, determined not to like him.
He shook her hand and slid a chair back from his table for her. There were two waters, one with lemon and one with lime, and one tequila shot in front of him and a menu at each place setting.
“Well,” Troy said, “I know you’ve done some checking, and I’m sure you know what the Muerta is all about.”
Megan nodded.
“And I’m sure you think I intend to plunder the gold and leave the rest to rot away the local ecology,” he added.
She took a sip of her lemon water. “I’m sure that’s exactly what you intend to do,” she said, trying to muster some acid in her tone.
He reached into his shirt pocket, took out her business card, and flipped it onto the table in front of her. She could see the idealistic, straight out of college optimism oozing from the card.
“And you think I’d try to hire someone like you if that’s what I intended to do?” he asked.
Troy plucked the lime from the rim of his water glass, poured the tequila quickly down his throat, and hid his grimace with a quick squeeze of the lime.
“Give me twenty-four hours to convince you I’m on the level,” he said, leaning forward, “and if I don’t, you’ll never hear from me again.”
She peered into his eyes, trying to detect what crazy intentions this guy might have and whether or not he was feeding her a load of bull to get her alone with him. She stared hard, but he stayed relaxed. His smile seemed genuine, and he didn’t appear to have an unseemly bone in his body. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt strongly that he was on the up and up. She did promise herself to be cautious though.
“Fair enough,” she said. “Twenty-four-hours, and I’m done.”
“That’s what you think,” he said, and grinned, “Come on, I want to show you something.”
He stood up and ushered her toward the door. The bartender noticed him leaving and rushed out from behind the bar.
“Troy, the tequila?” He held up a receipt.
“Put it on my tab,” Troy called back as he hurried Megan out the door of Sloppy Joe’s.
The bartender crumpled the receipt and tossed it into a nearby trash can.
Megan allowed Troy to lead her down Duval Street toward the tourist district. Soon they approached a building at the corner of Whitehead and Greene that had a giant anchor outside the front door. The overhead sign declared it to be Mel Fisher’s Maritime Heritage Museum.
“No doubt you’ve been here before?” Troy said and pointed to the building.
Megan nodded.
“People died to bring up the things in that building,” he started, “and the irony is that none of it is really
worth that much… without the historical context.”
He took a step in front of her and turned to face her. “Sure, there are a couple million dollars’ worth of gold and jewels in there, but the story of raising her and the story of her demise is where the real money is... could be billions.”
She did nothing to hide her doubt. “Billions?”
“Yes, I want the money,” he said and tilted his head to the side, “but the money I want is walking in and out of that door over there.”
He pointed again to the stream of tourists exiting the museum, with shirts and books and replica coins. This was definitely sounding a little far-fetched.
“Okay, darlin’, maybe not billions, but look, I’m offering you the chance to help me bring the Muerta up right, and tell her story as faithfully as you can.”
She took a long silent look into his eyes… maybe they were a bit piercing.
“Let me show you one more thing, and then I’ll rest my case. “He took her hand and led her down Whitehead Street toward Tortuga Adventures; nothing is very far away on Key West.
Troy jerked open the door of the sales office, startling R.B., who was on the phone and busily selling tourist luncheons to Fort Jefferson. He grabbed a set of dangling keys from a pegboard just inside the door.
“Back in a bit.”
R.B. held up a finger in a wait just a second gesture. Troy ignored that and closed the door to the office. He motioned toward the yellow and white seaplane rocking gently off the dock. She was still in the water awaiting an evening tour and had more than enough fuel to get her there and back again. The FAA frowned upon such takeoffs, but Troy knew a few ex-Navy people who worked for them now, and as long as he was careful, he could get away with it.
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 31