“Yeah right,” Troy said. “That could take hours and we’ll all be full of holes by then.”
Megan shifted and groaned.
Troy looked back at her. She rolled over and rubbed her back.
“Sorry,” she whispered, “something sharp keeps poking me in the back.”
“That’s the survival kit under there…” Troy’s voice drifted off. “… hand it to me and I’ll bandage up this should—”
His mind raced. “Quick,” he said, “give me that kit.”
R.B. arched his eyebrow.
Megan inched around and reached behind her back. She heaved the metal box out from under the seat and shoved it toward Troy. He opened it and pulled out a flare gun. A strange look crept onto R.B.’s face.
“I know what you’re thinking, Troy,” R.B. said, “but unfortunately, the aim with that thing is atrocious. You’d have to be super close to get him. And even then, it might not do very much damage.”
“It’s all we got, brother,” Troy said. He clicked the barrel back and looked inside the flare gun. “Dangit. One shot.” Closing it, he turned to R.B. “I’m goin’ out. And when I get over there, I’m gonna need a diversion of some sort.”
He tucked the gun into his waistband and took his Outback Tea Stained straw cowboy hat off his head. “Always did want to go out in a blaze of glory,” Troy said, smiling, and held out the hat to his brother. “Take care of this thing for me if I don’t come back.”
“That’s not gonna happen, bro,” R.B. said, “just aim for his head. If nothing else, you’ll blind him.”
Troy nodded and moved toward the door. In the distance, he heard a deep rumbling sound. Has the cavalry actually come through? He couldn’t tell, but they were pretty far off.
“Vince!” he called out the window, “I’m comin’ out. Don’t shoot!”
“You got it, T-Boy!” Vince answered.
Troy eased up to the door and worked the latch. He opened the door and put his hands out and up.
“Comin’ out now.”
“I gotcha covered,” Vince said.
His boat was three feet away from the pontoons on the plane. Troy hopped over onto the bow of the boat.
“No fast moves,” Vince said and sneered at him.
The rumbling sound was louder out here and Troy couldn’t help but look toward it. Running faster than he thought possible was the Wyatt Load. And it was bearing down on them fast. Hot damn, Troy thought, my message got through to Wyatt.
Unbelievably, Vince hadn’t noticed it until Troy looked in that direction. Must’ve had some ringing in his ears from all the gunfire. He jerked his head toward the boat and aimed his rifle. He fired repeatedly, bullets punching into the boat’s cabin.
Troy lifted his shirt and pulled out the flare gun. He raised it up and aimed directly at Vince’s head. He pulled the trigger. Red lightning shot out of the gun and punched Vince in the side of the head. He screamed and swung the rifle around at Troy. He jumped overboard, diving away as Vince fired over and over. He plunged down deep into the water and swam hard away from the boat. He heard the rifle’s muffle shots whizz nearby, and then it was silent.
He was out of bullets. Troy pushed hard to get to the other side of the plane and surfaced. Vince was screaming and still pulling the rifle’s trigger, but nothing was happening. His face was a shield of blood and his voice was ragged. The flare had done a number on him.
“I’m gonna frickin’ kill you!” he screamed.
And that’s when the Wyatt Load slammed into the Ocean Blue. Traveling at twenty knots, it shattered the smaller boat. Vince was thrown into the water as it nearly split his boat down the middle. The Wyatt Load never slowed, plowing through the boat and sending pieces of it flying. As it cleared through the wreckage, the hull began to list and take on water. Within seconds, the bulk of it was gone into the swirling deep.
The Wyatt Load eased to a stop. Troy swam around the plane and lifted himself up onto a pontoon. R.B. had climbed down and reached out to him, helping him up from the water. Troy held a hand over his eyes and peered out into the wreckage drifting by. No sign of Vince. He was gone. Back into the gulf with his ancestor’s boat.
“You okay?”
“Yup.”
“Good.” R.B. clapped him on the back.
Troy climbed up to look toward the Wyatt Load. It was making a long, slow turn back toward them.
“Think they’ll let us hitch a ride?” he asked R.B.
“I’m sure,” —he held out the straw cowboy hat— “but you better put this on. They won’t recognize you without it.”
Troy smiled and put the hat on his head.
He stretched out his hand and put his thumb in the air.
44
Light My Fire
“You sure about this, bro?” R.B. asked as Troy loaded his things into the back of a new pickup truck he’d bought off some tourist who’d decided to make a go at living in Key West.
“Yup,” he said, holding out his hand toward his brother, “I ain’t cut out to stay in one place very long.”
R.B. slapped his hand away and wrapped his arms around Troy. He pulled him in and gave him a bear hug. “You headin’ over to Pepe’s?” he asked.
“Yeah, gonna fill up the belly before I head out,” Troy said and got into his truck and fired it up.
R.B. tapped the top of the driver’s side door. “Okay, bro. Tell Megan I said Hi.”
“Will do.”
“And you know you can always come back.”
“I know,” Troy said as he pulled away.
“I’ll have the—”
“I know, I know,” —the waitress rolled her eyes at him— “pork chop covered steak.”
“Put it on my tab,” he said and winked at her.
“Uh huh,” she said, “you ain’t never gonna pay that tab.”
He opened his mouth, but Megan Simons interrupted him. “That’s okay. I’ll take care of it. His whole tab, that is.”
The waitress arched an eyebrow. “His whole tab?”
“Yes, the whole tab.”
“Okay, sweetie,” —the waitress walked back toward the kitchen— “but you might want to see the total first.”
Megan laughed. “How long have you been putting stuff on that check?”
“Hmmm,” Troy said, sipping a sweet tea, “maybe eight months.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh…”
“Yeah.”
“It’s okay,” she said and smiled, “with my swanky new job at the shipwreck museum down here, I should be able to handle it. I just hope they don’t count the gold bars every night.”
Troy laughed. “Director, right?”
“That’s right,” she said, nodding.
“Who’s gonna run the Dolphin place?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging, “probably Chelsea. She’d be a good choice.”
“Ahhh, gotcha,” he said.
The waitress slid two plates of food in front of them and laid a strip of paper down beside Megan’s plate. She picked it up and scrolled down to the bottom.
“Holy crap, Troy!”
“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that.”
Shaking her head, she turned the paper over and laid it aside. “So, what’s gonna happen to R.B. and the Tortuga Adventures business?” she asked him, cutting a piece of steak off and blowing on it.
“Believe it or not, he’s gonna work with Joe Bond on getting his flying license,” he said. “He’s got some kind of military experience, so he should be a good fit.”
“He doesn’t want to be a cop anymore?”
“I guess not,” Troy said, chewing a bit. “They offered him a post out at Fort Jefferson… ya know, to fill the vacancies, but he said he was ready for something new.”
“Yeah, I heard they gave that post to Natasha.”
“At least for now. Until the C.I.A. needs her for something else.”
They ate in silence for a minute.
“Where will you
go?” Megan put her fork down.
“Not too sure about that, darlin’,” Troy said. “Gonna head up the coast and see what calls out to me.”
He was surprised to see her eyes well up with tears.
“I’ll miss you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll be back someday though. And besides, you’ll have R.B. to keep you company.”
She laughed and a tear fell onto her cheek. “That I do.”
“Who knows,” —he reached up and dried the tear— “if Wyatt’s new oil reserve turns out to be as big as he says, maybe I’ll work out on his rig. He said I always had a place to land out there.”
She nodded and smiled. “As long as I’m here, you can land with me too.”
“Thank you, darlin’,” he said, pushing back from the table.
He stood up and pushed his Outback Tea Stained straw cowboy hat back on his head.
“Take care,” he said, and walked to the door.
He got into his truck and clicked on the radio. He wondered if the music was a sign of things to come, as Jim Morrison crooned out the words to Light My Fire.
He turned it up.
Epilogue
1492
Chris Collins carried the silver case into his office and shut the door behind him. He placed it carefully on his desk and undid the clasps. It hissed open as some sort of preservative gas wafted out of it.
He slipped on a pair of latex gloves and lifted the object out of the case. He turned it over and clicked on a small pen-light to examine the inside.
He could barely make out the words La Gallega and underneath that, Juan de la Cosa. It was his ancestor’s bell. The famed bell from the Santa Maria. The holes in it had a story to tell. He wasn’t sure what that story was, but someday it would come to light. The Pinzon’s treachery would be discovered and the name of Christopher Columbus would be honored once again.
He gently placed the bell back in the case. Stripping the gloves from his hands, he reached for his phone and buzzed the intercom.
“Teresa,” he said, “I have an item for storage.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
The case was loaded onto a cart and wheeled into the underground lab with the other one thousand, four-hundred and ninety-two artifacts, where it would wait for examination—buried again.
THE END
CONTINUE THE ADVENTURE
Old Ryan “R.B.” Bodean is quite the character in his own right.
So much so that he has his very own spinoff series. Pick up with R.B. in the thrilling prequel to his bestselling Ryan Bodean Tropical Thriller series called Havana Fury.
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HAVANA FURY
And what about that CIA man, Chris Collins. There’s a whole lot more to his story, too.
He seems like he’s got it all together, but it isn’t long before he’s gone rogue. Follow Chris in the thrilling prequel to his bestselling Chris Collins CIA Thriller series called Rogue Enemy.
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ROGUE ENEMY
Blood Wave
A Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller #3
Have you ever wondered what’s at the very end of the island of Key Biscayne? I’ve been there … it’s nice.
Part I
Light The Way
“When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.”
-Ursula K. Le Guin
Prologue
There’s A Light...
Being careful not to get any of the girl’s blood on him, Adrian Hull—known as Taz to his friends—broke the bones in her arms, crushed between his foot and the floor. She was petite, so they didn’t offer much resistance. Once he was through with that, he proceeded to break her femurs. Those took a bit more doing, but he was strong and they eventually gave way. After this gruesome work was done, she fit perfectly into the chest that had once held the oil for the light at the top of the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne.
It was the perfect place to hide a body, as it had been sitting empty and unused since the Miami Centennial celebration in July 1996. And, of course, it no longer ran on oil, so there was very little chance anyone would open the decorative chest anyway.
As he made his way down the spiral staircase, he noticed he’d smudged a little bit of her blood on his pristine white shoe.
“Dammit all,” he muttered, wiping the stained heel with his hand, but the blood refused to budge. Wearing all white was the standard at The Ritz-Carlton Tennis Garden, so he’d have to get the stain out, or get some new ones before he started his shift.
Linda Big Boobs Morgenstern was his first lesson of the day. He glanced down at his watch: 7:21 am. Plenty of time. She always booked him at eight and showed up at 8:15, sometimes 8:30.
He creaked open the door at the base of the lighthouse and peeked out. The beach at the south end of the island was deserted. He stepped out onto the sand, removed his shoes, and flung them as far as he could out into the surf.
Immediately after doing so, he realized it was a big mistake. The tide would surely bring them right back in to shore. He waded out in the rising tide, scrounging around for the sneakers. He found one of them, the clean one.
“Shit,” he mumbled, and threw the shoe as far as he could back into the water.
Maybe they’d disappear or maybe even get eaten by a shark. And maybe the salt water would dissolve the blood anyway. Too many maybes.
He took off his socks and started jogging back down the beach. A few early morning runners were out, but not many tourists. Most of them were looking down at Fitbits or lost in their earbuds, so they never even noticed him—he was invisible. And that invisibility was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place.
Caroline had been so cute. She’d taken tennis lessons from him since her senior year of high school, and he’d been certain she was interested in him. They had shared so much time together and she had worn more and more revealing outfits for their lessons—which, of course, meant she wanted him to look at her lithe body. Remembering the sheen of sweat on her after an intense workout sent a thrill through him, and he mildly regretted he’d had to kill her. But only mildly.
The trouble had all started last night. They’d been on the courts after nine… alone. Even Betty the desk clerk had gone home, and he’d promised he’d lock up. They played for over two hours… off the clock. Wasn’t that worth something to her? He replayed the scene in his mind, over and over, wishing he could take it all back.
The heat flush on her cheeks and her million-dollar smile had made her irresistible. Taz had read the situation wrong and leaned in and kissed her. She immediately slapped him on the cheek, and hard.
“What the hell?” she demanded, pushing back from him.
“But, I thought—” he started.
“Well you thought wrong, asshole.”
The sudden vehemence of her reaction startled him. They’d been together for so long now.
“I have a boyfriend,” she yelled as she stood up and started shoving her gear into her bag, “and you’re just a piece of shit tennis pro.”
Taz could feel the anger rising in him. It was always this way at The Ritz. He was the help, a lower class of person.
“I mean, really, Taz?” she said as she started walking away.
He fought the sudden burning hate inside him and tried desperately to rescue the situation. “Wait, Caroline. Ah was jus’ playin’ ‘round. Let’s jus’ forget the whole thing.”
She turned back toward him and thrust a finger into his chest. “Forget the whole thing? Are you frickin’ kidding me?”
Tears formed in her eyes, apparently from the sudden rage.
“No, I won’t be forgetting the whole thing,” she said, and jabbed him with each word. “First, I’m going to get you fired. Then, I’m going to tell my boyfriend—who by the way is a wrestler at the University of Miami. And last…”
Adrian Taz Hull felt his world crashing down on him. He’d worked so hard to get out of Ta
smania, and had found this amazing job at The Ritz-Carlton Tennis Garden. They’d gone to a lot of trouble to get his visa taken care of, to get him this position, and even rented a place for him to live in another employee’s name (slightly shady, but, eh, he didn’t care). He’d likely be denied any further stay in the United States; there would be no green card, and he’d likely be deported ASAP. That’s when she let the hammer fall.
“And last, I’m going to tell my father,” —she put her hands on her hips— “and when his lawyers are through with you, you’ll wish you were dead.”
His vision misted red and the next few seconds happened in super slow motion. Without thinking, he unleashed a backhand with his tennis racket. Unfortunately, his one-handed backhand had often been compared to the legends of the game—Rod Laver, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer—as being one of the hardest hit strokes… ever.
Her head snapped sideways and teeth went flying in a spray of blood.
“Fookin’ bitch,” he muttered as she slumped to the ground.
As he realized what had happened, he dropped his racket and fell to his knees beside her.
“Aw, shit, Caroline,” he said, and put his hands under her neck.
He could feel loose bones working around under her skin. She was stone-cold dead. No passing go, no collecting two-hundred dollars, straight to jail dead.
His mind raced. Call the cops? No, that was a short route to extradition to jail in Tasmania. Betty was the only person at the club who’d known he was here with her, but that wasn’t unusual. Caroline usually walked down to her lessons from the Grand Bay Resort & Residences where her father owned the entire top floor penthouse, but for some reason, she’d driven tonight. Her brand-new, fire engine red 718 Boxster S Porsche was sitting out front.
The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection Page 49