Troy heard Steve click a few times. “Message from James says, I see them. Then the other guy says, take them. Then James says, 10-4. Then the other guy says, let me know when it’s done. Then there’s a few hours gap, and then, REPORT.”
“What’s the number it came from?”
“Blocked.”
“Hmmm… okay.” Joe thought for a second. “What’s the last incoming call?”
“Looks like a local number,” Steve said, “no name matched with it in his contacts.”
“Dial it,” Joe said, “and put it on speaker.”
“Okay.”
Troy heard the muffled sound of the ringing, then someone picked up.
“Who the hell is this?” the voice asked.
Troy immediately recognized the voice.
“Who the hell is this? Steve asked.
“Screw you,” the voice said and the line went dead.
“Shit,” Joe said, “get that traced. We need to know who that is.”
Troy was stunned. Random pieces came together in a way that suddenly made it clear what was happening. Vince had shot James. He was certain of that. And he’d done it after James had shot at them and sunk their boat. Troy slumped down to the cement floor of the drunk tank.
His friend, James Howard, had shot at them, sunk their boat while trying to kill them, and had sent Natasha to her death at the bottom of the ocean. And he must’ve known where to look because Vince had told him where the site was after their first trip out. Then Vince had killed James to cover up his involvement.
Troy put his hands on his temples. Vince must be after his shipwreck… he must’ve thought they’d found treasure. He’d killed James for it and was probably coming for them. Oh, my God, Troy thought. R.B. and Megan! I have to warn them!
“Hey!” he shouted through the bars as he stood, “I know whose voice that is on the phone!”
He heard the startled sounds of two police officers clipping down the hall toward the cell.
“I have to get out of here,” Troy yelled, “there are more people in danger.”
The two officers rounded the corner. “Open it,” the man named Joe called to the officer at the desk.
An electric buzz sounded and the door clicked. He opened it and motioned to Troy.
“Okay, let’s go,” he waved him out of the cell. “What have you got?”
As they walked back to the office where the two men had been going over the case, Troy urgently mapped it out for them. He told the whole story of the wreck, finding Megan Simons to help them, their excursion on Vince’s boat followed by the trip on the Wyatt Knott, his friendship with James who had apparently shot at them sinking the Wyatt Knott and Natasha’s boat killing her… he spelled it all out for them.
“Whoa,” Steve said. “Now, that’s a tangled web.”
“All comes back to Vince Pinzioni,” Joe said, “doesn’t it?”
“Where do you suppose he is now?” Steve asked.
“He’s after my brother and Megan,” Troy said, “and then probably me. He wants everyone out of the way so he can take the shipwreck for himself.”
A new voice surprised them all from the office doorway. “That’s not exactly what he wants.”
“Who the hell are you?” Steve asked.
“Steve, please,” —Joe held his hand to quiet his partner and stood— “So? Who the hell are you?”
The man smiled. He was impeccably dressed. Troy didn’t know what a thousand-dollar suit really looked like, but he thought this man was surely wearing one. His hair was close cropped, but wavy, and brushed back from slightly greying temples. His eyes were blue; not plain, like Troy’s, but crystalline looking. They almost glowed.
“My name is Chris Collins,” he said coolly, holding out a hand toward Joe, “I’m the Deputy Director of the C.I.A.”
Dangit, thought Troy, there goes my treasure.
39
Santa Maria
“Last year,” Chris Collins began, “I got a credible lead on a find in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico that could perhaps have belonged to the Santa Maria. Yes, the Santa Maria, of Christopher Columbus fame. It was a piece of the stern that gave us a very rough idea, with carbon dating and material analysis, that it might be that famous ship. Without going into too much detail, we had a great many people working on this find.”
Troy inhaled sharply. How the hell does the Deputy Director of the C.I.A. know anything about this? And, dangit, why does he care?
“You may be wondering why I care about the Santa Maria,” he continued.
Whoa, Troy thought, is this dude in my head?
Joe’s phone rang, interrupting the monologue. It was Steve Haney.
“Go ahead, Steve,” Joe said into the phone. He nodded as he listened. He did not smile. Clicking the phone to disconnect, he turned to Troy.
“They’ve scoured the island,” he said grimly, “ and there’s no sign of your brother or Ms. Simons.”
“Dangit.” Troy stood. “I gotta get out there and find them.”
“Mr. Bodean,” —Chris spoke to him directly for the first time— “you may want to hear what I’m about to say so you’ll know what you’re going up against.”
Troy eased back into his chair. “I know what I’m going up against. Vince Pinzioni has probably kidnapped and maybe murdered my brother and my friend.”
“Please,” Chris said, holding up a hand, “five minutes. Then I’ll get on the phone and get the whole of the C.I.A. down here on this case to find them. It’s very likely he hasn’t killed them yet.”
“How can you know that?” Joe piped in.
“Because he’s after me.”
“What?” Troy and Joe said in unison.
“You see, our family name has not always been Collins,” he said. “It has gone through several changes. Before Collins it was Collier. Before that it was Columa. And before that, it was Columbo or in English, Columbus.”
“So, your name should really be Chris Columbus?” Troy asked.
“Precisely.”
“As in, the Christopher Columbus who sailed the ocean blue in 1492?”
“Well, that’s the fictionalized version,” Chris nodded, “but essentially… yes.”
“Dangit,” Troy said and slapped the arm of his chair.
“What is it?” Chris Columbus asked him.
“You’re gonna take all the stuff we found,” he said, exhaling, “ain’t ya?”
He smiled and nodded yes. “But there is a considerable reward. Not the millions you were thinking, but it should ease the pain.”
“Forgive me for intruding,” Joe Bond said as he tapped a pen on his desk, “but how does Vince Pinzioni fit into all of this?”
“Well, much like my family name is not Collins,” —Chris looked out the window— “his is not Pinzioni.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Not many people would,” he said and turned back toward them. “Most of us know the story of Columbus, as flawed as our version might be, but we know almost nothing of the captains of the Niña and the Pinta. They were Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez Pinzón.”
“Okay, let me get this straight,” —Joe Bond was scribbling notes on a yellow pad— “the Columbuses and the Pinzóns have come down through history searching for this boat?”
Chris nodded.
“And Troy here found it in the gulf,” Joe said.
“Well, technically,” Chris said, “we found it last year and sent a drone to examine the site and take a satellite image for us.”
Joe scratched out the last line about Troy. Troy grimaced.
“Right,” Joe continued. “So, you found the boat with the drone.”
“Not exactly,” Chris said, “the drone was shot down. We suspect someone working with Vince brought it down. The last images sent by the drone show what appears to be a Latin man aiming a 1960s era bazooka at it. We sent Natasha Wainwright down to recover anything left of the drone last year.”
He looked over at Troy. “She h
ad no idea why it was here, only that it was top secret and should be recovered discretely.”
“She didn’t know about the shipwreck until she found us,” Troy said and looked down at his hands. He wrung them together. After a few moments of silence, he inhaled deeply. “So, I got her killed, is basically what you’re saying?”
“Mr. Bodean,” Chris said and put a hand on his shoulder, “Vince Pinzioni is a brutal man. He would’ve killed her just for getting too close to the site.”
“But I’m still lost on this whole Pinzón – Columbus feud,” Joe Bond interjected. “What’s so important about the remnants of the Santa Maria? Is it really worth killing over?”
“The part of the story that you may not know is that the Pinzóns mutinied,” Chris explained as he turned toward the detective. “They sunk the Santa Maria off the coast of Haiti, claiming it was unfit for the voyage. Because of this lost ship, they had to leave some of their crew behind.”
“Whadda ya know,” —Joe leaned back in his chair— “I had no idea.”
“Not many do,” Chris continued. “This is where we believe the true story breaks from recorded history. We believe they murdered Christopher Columbus and left his body behind. They replaced him with an imposter and returned to Spain to receive the glory.”
“Who did they replace him with?” Joe asked. “I mean, wouldn’t they realize this was a different man?”
“The voyage at sea and in the so-called new world took several years,” Chris said, shrugging. “With his clothes and mannerisms, it’s definitely possible. Take a look at the painting called The return of Christopher Columbus; his audience before King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella by Eugène Delacroix. It doesn’t look like the joyous return of Christopher Columbus. In fact, several people in the painting look confused and are whispering. Even Ferdinand and Isabella don’t look like they are welcoming the explorer back home. Check it out sometime and you’ll see what I mean.”
“Incredible,” Joe breathed.
“So, who took his place?” Troy asked.
“We believe it was Vicente,” —Chris took on a serious tone— “and they paid another sailor to stand in for him when they left so many at Hispaniola. And that’s when the Columbus name began to fall into disrepute.”
“And the wreck could provide evidence as to what really happened?” Joe asked.
“Perhaps,” Chris said, and nodded. “A remote possibility, but we will take that chance.”
“And the Pinzóns don’t want that,” Troy added.
“Exactly.”
Lisa Carlson knocked lightly on the door. Joe Bond walked over and opened it. The crime lab intern had a stack of DVDs in her hand.
“I can’t crack this,” she said as she gave the disks to Joe, “s’gotta be government encryption. Better than anything I can throw at it.”
“Thanks for trying, Lisa.” Joe took them and ushered her out.
Chris Collins held out his hand. “I believe those belong to us.”
Joe handed them to the Deputy Director of C.I.A.
“What I’m about to say is classified, and if you ever revealed it,” —Chris looked at both Joe and Troy in turn— “it would be grounds for the C.I.A. to detain you indefinitely. Am I clear?”
Joe nodded his assent.
“Oh yeah,” Troy said when Joe elbowed him, “you bet.”
“Good. Natasha had started a program on her own, designated codename: Stingray,” Chris said, tapping the case of the DVD on top, “with the help of a Cuban refugee to collect intel and deliver it to us. In return, we granted the man amnesty in the United States. Hector Martinez was his name, I believe? He would collect the intel on discs we sent him and drop them at the Wyatt 1 oil rig for her to pick up. The entire operation happened in international waters… except for the drop. She couldn’t touch the DVDs until they were passed on to a third party within the coastal United States Waters or it would be considered espionage.”
“So, that’s why Hector’s G.P.S. showed trips to the Wyatt 1.” Joe looked toward his whiteboard with all the arrows and lines connecting details from the case.
“You have his G.P.S.?” Chris asked.
Joe nodded.
“Of course, this is a federal case now so—”
“I know, I know,” —Joe held up his hand and waved toward the box of evidence— “it’s all yours.”
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
“So, now can we go find my brother and Megan?” Troy stood up and stretched.
“Let me make a call, Mr. Bodean,” said Chris Collins. “May I use your office for a moment, Joe?”
“Of course.” He stood and touched Troy’s elbow. “Let’s go get my cruiser ready.”
They left Chris talking into his cellphone in low hushed tones.
“Can you believe all that?” Troy asked Joe.
“Pretty incredible,” Joe said.
As they hurried toward the door, the woman at the front desk called to them. “Detective Bond,” she said, waving a piece of paper at him, “I have a message for you from one…” She looked down at the note, “… George Wyatt.”
They both stopped dead in their tracks.
“It came in last night, but you weren’t in yet.”
“What’s it say, Wanda?”
“Something about him seeing a strange boat out on the water last night after midnight,” she read, “heading out for Fort Jefferson.”
“Dangit,” Troy said, “that’s where he took ‘em when I was out last night.”
“Let’s go.” Joe turned and ran for the door.
“Hey, wait, Mr. Bodean!” called Wanda, “dontchu want your things?”
He looked back at her. She was holding a plastic admissions bag with his wallet, keys and watch in her left hand, and in her right she held his Outback Tea Stained straw cowboy hat.
He grabbed it and threw it on his head. “Much obliged, ma’am,” he said, and ran out the police station door.
40
Smoke Signals
Megan Simons shivered with fear and cold. She was damp from the boat ride with Vince and the musty air inside the fort. There were no windows, and now that the sun had set there was no light. R.B. was still unconscious in the darkness of the next cell. Her mind screamed with fear, but she knew if she gave into the terror she would be like all those bimbos in the horror movies. No, she would maintain her composure and think. There had to be a way to get out of here.
Her first problem was the tape binding her hands to the cell’s bars. She pulled furiously against it, but she well knew the incredible strength of the magical silver tape. Her wrists burned as she felt it cut into her skin. Okay, what now? Inventory.
She was sitting in an empty stone prison cell wearing a t-shirt and shorts. She didn’t have anything in her pockets; Vince had emptied them. Nothing. She had nothing. The fear began to creep back into her mind. Vince was going to come back and kill them and there was nothing she could do about it.
She kicked the bar and her sandal flew off and skittered across the floor. Pain flared into her toe and she wondered if she had broken it.
“Ow, shit, shit, shit,” she said, exhaling sharply.
She couldn’t even reach her hands down to rub the pain away. She gently rubbed her toes against her leg, though, and the pain eventually subsided. The toe didn’t feel broken after all, but now she had one shoe off and one shoe on. She eased her heel down against the back of the other sandal to slide it off. Might as well take it off too.
The cell was nearly pitch black, with only the glow of a distant emergency light trickling into the darkness, but she saw the glint. The clasp on her sandal caught just enough light to throw the faintest shimmer. Maybe…
She raised her foot toward her head (thank goodness for all that hot yoga) and pulled the sandal off with her mouth. She was able to tilt her head back enough so she could grasp the shoe in her hands. She unfastened the strap and felt the edge of the clasp, not very sharp, but it might do the tric
k. Though duct tape has extreme strength when pulled against, if you tear it from the side, it can rip easily.
She couldn’t see the tape well, but she guessed there were about five loops of the stuff around her wrists. Holding the shoe in her right hand and twisting her wrists allowed her to barely touch the edge of the tape between her hands. She started sawing back and forth. At first, it seemed hopeless; the clasp merely bent. But finally the edge found purchase and made a small tear in the side of one layer of the tape.
A sheen of sweat began to form as she sawed furiously back and forth with the tiny piece of metal. Her fingers became slick with sweat and just as she thought she was making good progress, the sandal jumped out of her hand and toppled end over end through the bars and landed four feet away.
“Ahhh, noooo,” she wailed.
In a fit of fear and anger, she wrenched her hands back and forth as hard as she could, but the tape didn’t budge. Tears began streaming down her face and she slumped down, realizing there was no escape. The ancient prison wing of Fort Jefferson and the wonders of modern duct tape had them trapped.
Natasha Wainwright brushed the sand from her knees as she rose from her crouching position under the small copse of trees just above the sandy beach of Fort Jefferson. The man in the boat, whoever he was, had dragged two people into the fort and had just left without them. She had recognized R.B. and the girl who’d been on Troy’s boat when they had been shot at, sinking her own boat in the process.
In the craziness of the two boats going down, she’d gotten tangled in one of the bow lines of Troy’s boat and it had dragged her down with its sinking bulk. The rope was caught hard around her ankle, and with the weight of the boat holding it steady, she couldn’t free herself. Rather than try to fight against the weight, she guessed her best bet was to hold her breath, save her energy, and wait until it hit the bottom, thus giving the rope some slack.
It took forever. The cabin of the boat was still holding some air, slowing its descent, but it was a long way down. Even with her expanded lungs from all the triathlon training, she knew she wouldn’t have enough air left to make it back to the surface. Troy’s boat, marked Wyatt Knott on the stern, settled slowly, crunching into the reef at the bottom of the gulf. The line around her ankle went slack and an idea suddenly occurred to her. The cabin of the boat had plenty of air trapped inside. She swam down under the capsized boat and made her way into the cabin in virtually one hundred percent blackness. No visibility.
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 46