Vanessa liked big men, but she’d never been with a man of Willy’s proportions.
“Mind if I take my shoes off?” she asked. “Heels look good, but they’re awful for riding in a car.”
Willy looked over at her, pushed the hair away from his face, then glanced down at her feet. “Do what you like.”
Reaching down, she slipped her heels off, then turned sideways in the seat and looked at him again.
“How tall are you?” she asked. “I’m five-one.”
He looked over at her again, his eyes partially hidden behind the long, graying hair that she was sure hadn’t been combed in a year.
“Six-eight,” he said. “And before you ask—380 pounds.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s almost four of me.”
“Scared?”
Vanessa smiled at him. He wasn’t really all that ugly, just unkempt. He had dark, piercing eyes, and beneath his beard, she could tell he had a strong jawline. His shoulders were impossibly wide and he had arms as big as her thighs. She wondered decadently if the rest of his anatomy was proportionate.
“Not really,” she said. “You look tough, but I like tough guys.”
Vanessa had worked for Benny for nearly a year, though he barely knew her name. She often went with friends and clients of his, where no money ever changed hands. At least not with her. But Benny paid her well, and he’d promised her a thousand dollars for spending the night with Willy.
They were only a few miles down the interstate when he got into the lane for I-595 going west.
“I thought we were going back to Miami.” she said.
“Naw,” the big man growled. “I have a place just outside of town where I usually lay low the night after a delivery.”
“Do you have any blow?”
Willy reached under his seat, pulled out a tightly wrapped kilo and placed it on the seat between them. “Knock yourself out, baby. But we’ll be at my safe house in fifteen minutes.”
Vanessa eyed the brick hungrily. But she was worried that she might come across as a common coke whore if she tore into it. “I can wait till we get there.”
After about fifteen miles, the truck slowed, and Willy turned off at the exit for US-27. They were farther from the city than Vanessa had ever been, with nothing around but water and swamp.
“Is it much longer?” Vanessa asked.
“No,” he grunted.
A few miles down the road, he slowed the truck, then turned onto a side road. There was a rickety bridge over the canal that ran along the highway. From there the road turned to dirt. After a few minutes, he turned right onto another dirt road, which was in even worse condition. Before long, sawgrass and tree branches grew in so close they were slapping the sides and roof of the truck.
Willy turned left through an opening in the foliage. It wasn’t a road at all, just an overgrown, elevated dike that divided the swamp. A few minutes later, they entered a stand of cypress trees, where a small shack sat perched on stilts over the water. A wobbly-looking foot bridge connected the shack to the high ground, where he finally stopped the truck and turned off the engine.
It was deathly quiet; the only sound was that of the truck’s engine ticking as it cooled.
“Well, this is really well hidden,” Vanessa said, as the man turned toward her in his seat.
Without warning, he grabbed her throat with a big left hand, pinning her hard against the seat as he squeezed.
She tried to cry out, but her windpipe was blocked. She struggled, grabbing at the man’s big, hairy forearm, her nails digging into his flesh. It had no effect on him at all.
After just a few seconds, she felt light-headed and the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees began to fade.
Then everything went black.
Flying out over Big Cypress National Preserve, I explained to Tank how large the Glades were, stretching away to the south, and how much bigger it had once been, before men arrived with machines to dredge, levy, and drain the land.
Then, as we flew out over the coast, just south of Marco Island, I showed him what most of the Florida coast had once looked like—wild and untamed.
I turned toward the south, flying just off the broken coastline.
“The area below us is called Ten Thousand Islands,” I said.
“This is where that Quick character lives?” he asked, looking out at the uninhabited landscape.
“Farther inland,” I said. “But yeah, the Blanc family is all over this part of Florida.”
“I don’t see a single house or building anywhere. Just a boat way up there at that point.”
“That’s Cape Sable,” I said. “One of my favorite places on Earth.”
Just then, my phone chirped. It was Chyrel again.
“Quick stopped,” she said, after I answered. “He’s parked in the middle of nowhere, about seventeen miles west of the city and a few miles north of Alligator Alley. He hasn’t moved for twenty minutes. Sorry, I was called away to do some research for Jack.”
“No problem,” I said. “Maybe he stopped for lunch.”
“You don’t take a hooker to lunch,” Chyrel said. “My guess is he took her there to—”
“We get the picture,” I said. “And you’re probably right. We’re over Cape Sable now.”
“I’ll text you the location, but as far as I can see, there’s just nothing there. And I’ll keep an eye on him and let you know when he leaves.”
“Roger that,” I said, then ended the call.
“She’s a Bama girl, huh?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “But don’t let the down-home accent fool you. She’s smarter than any two people I know.”
“And Jack is another of your operatives?”
“You might say that,” I replied. “Jack Armstrong is the CEO of Armstrong Research.”
“What kind of research?”
“Primarily oceanographic,” I said. “Oil exploration. But he has a few others like me who go out and fix things.”
“Fix things, huh?”
“Dig around,” I elaborated. “Solve problems.”
“By gun, by sword, or by bare hand.”
“If necessary,” I replied. “But he prefers wits and technology.”
As we skirted the cape, I pointed out the small town of Flamingo in the distance. “It’s about eighty miles from Everglades City to the Keys, and Flamingo is the only settlement between them.”
“It’s beautiful,” Tank said, in uncharacteristic reverence.
I banked right, to a heading of 240 degrees, and climbed to 2500 feet. From there, we could see the Keys stretching out to the horizon.
“Next stop’s Fort Jefferson,” I said. “At the real end of the Florida Keys.”
“I thought Key West was the end.”
“It is if you’re in a car,” I said. “Fort Jefferson is in the Dry Tortugas, about seventy miles west of Key West. A lot of people think the Florida Keys and Key West are synonymous, but it’s just one island in a long archipelago that stretches from Biscayne Bay to the Dry Tortugas, about two hundred miles. The island of Key West is barely five miles long.”
“Is that the Seven Mile Bridge?” he asked, pointing to the high arch.
“Yeah, and about halfway between here and there, do you see that dark blue finger of water extending into the shallows to the southwest? My island’s at the far end of it.”
“Is that right? And you got all of this for your backyard.”
“See those islands to the west of mine? We call that the backcountry. In many places you can walk from one island to another and barely get your knees wet.”
“What good is that?”
“Sight fishing,” I said. “The water’s as clear and flat as glass. It’s the habitat of bonefish, pompano, permit, snook, redfish, tarpon…all kinds of gamefish are caught back in the shallows, where you need a special boat to get to.”
“That low one under your house?” he asked. “The one with the platform over the engine
?”
“Yeah, it’s called a flats skiff. You raise the engine and stand on the platform with a long push-pole, while your partner or client stands on the foredeck with a fly rod.”
“I’d like to try that,” Tank said, wistfully. “I used to do some fly fishing up in Montana when I was a kid.”
I looked over at him and suddenly saw an old man wearing a Tank suit—the same on the outside, but old and withered within. As a Marine master gunnery sergeant, he’d been a very imposing figure, a larger-than-life hero, who’d risked it all for his brothers several times over. There were more than a dozen men who came home from Vietnam alive, thanks to Tank. And hundreds, maybe thousands more, since then, who’d survived the horrors of armed conflict due to his guidance and the lessons those under him learned and passed on to younger Marines.
But now, looking at him beside me, I saw a withered version of the man he once was.
“Is something wrong, Tank?”
He looked over at me, a forlorn expression on his face.
“I’m dying, Jesse.”
“What?”
“Stage four pancreatic cancer,” he said. “It’s almost impossible to catch early, because of where the pancreas is located. It’s usually only found when it spreads to other parts of the body and almost always diagnosed as stage four. Mine has spread to my liver, abdominal walls, and lungs. The doctors say I have just a few months.”
I was dumbstruck. “Months?”
“Maybe a year if I undergo treatment.”
“I don’t know what to say, Tank. What treatment?”
“There isn’t anything you or anyone else can say or do, Gunny. The treatment only extends life a few more months and eases the pain somewhat. There’s no cure. I’m just going to die and that’s the end of it.”
I suddenly realized why Tank had wanted to come. He was childless, had no family left after his brothers died, and he’d never remarried after his divorce. All he had left were his brothers-in-arms.
“Why me?” I asked. “Of all your friends over the years?”
He looked me in the eye. “That’s easy. You stood up beside me on that wall in Beirut.”
“Yeah, well, it scared the living shit out of me.”
He laughed. “Me too. My legs still get wobbly when I think about it. Look, I don’t want to burden you, Jesse. While I’m still able, I just want to enjoy being alive, with someone who has a real zest for life. Maybe do some things I’ve never done before. I just thought you ought to know.”
“Things like fly fishing for bonefish?”
He nodded. “That was what drew me to this place at first. But now, I think I’d be happier if you’d let me help find this girl and punish whoever took her.”
“We’ll do both,” I said, staring through the windshield with sweaty eyeballs. “And a bunch of other stuff, too.”
We flew low and slow over Fort Jefferson. It was already getting close to the time Savannah said she’d be back from shopping. But that hardly mattered now.
There were a few boats at the fort’s dock, and I could see a couple of people in the interior courtyard, and several more lying on the sand on the narrow strip that joined Garden Key to Bush Key.
A dark-haired woman, bare from the waist up, stood and waved, so I waggled the wings back at her.
“Everyone’s so friendly down here,” Tank said with a grin.
The flag at the fort hung limp, and the channel between Garden Key, where the fort was located, and Loggerhead Key to the west, had only a light chop. I circled to the north and lined up with the channel, reducing power as I lowered the flaps.
“We’re landing?” Tank asked.
“You can’t come to the Keys and not see the fort,” I said. “While Captain Tony’s and Sloppy Joe’s might get a thousand tourists a day through their doors, Fort Jefferson has many days when the handful of park rangers are there alone.”
“That sounds like the best job in the world. Do we have time? I thought you had to get back.”
“I’ll call Savannah on my satellite phone and let her know we’ll be a little late.”
Minutes later, we were idling toward the sandbar joining Garden Key and Bush Key to the east.
I could see the park ranger already heading our way on the path from the southeast corner of the fort. Private seaplanes had to have a special permit to visit the park. When the pontoons touched the sandy bottom, I killed the engine and pulled my flight bag out of a pouch behind my seat.
Tank spotted the ranger heading our way. “Kid looks a little hot under the collar. Are planes allowed to be here?”
I pulled my permit out and held it up. “With one of these, yeah.”
Climbing down to the port pontoon, I waved the laminated permit at the ranger, then opened the storage compartment in the pontoon.
Inside was a bucket containing a small, ten-pound anchor and a hundred feet of line. I pulled it out and stepped down into the clear, knee-deep water.
“Good afternoon, sir,” the ranger said, as Tank and I sloshed ashore.
“We won’t be here long,” I said, handing him my permit.
As he checked it over, I went back to the plane and easily pushed it off the beach a little to spin her around. Then, grabbing the rear crossmember, I dragged her back until I felt the pontoons touch the sand again. After that, I clipped the carabiner, attached to the bitter end of the anchor line, to an eyebolt in the sturdy crossmember between the pontoons and carried the bucket up onto the sandy beach. With all the line paid out, I pushed the flukes of the anchor into the powdery white sand, setting it deep. With no wind and little current to speak of, there was little chance Island Hopper would drift.
“Looks like everything’s in order here, sir,” the ranger said, handing the permit back to me. “Just a reminder: the park closes at sunset. That’ll be at—”
“Seventeen-fifty,” I interrupted. “Like I said, we’ll only be here a short while.”
He left and I turned to Tank. “Wanna see the fort?”
He looked off to the east, where the sandbar widened to become Bush Key. The little island was empty; the sunbathers were in the opposite direction. “Maybe later. I get the sense you want to talk, but don’t know what to say.”
We started walking then, crossing the sandbar to the north side of Bush, and heading away from the fort. Tank had always been good at reading his Marines’ wants and needs, even when they didn’t know what they wanted or needed. He’d dropped a MOAB right on my head. And he was right—I didn’t know where to start.
“There’s a lot of guys I could have gone to see,” Tank said, walking barefoot with his hands behind his back. “I have to admit something to you here. I already knew a lot about how you’ve been spending these last twenty years since you left the Corps.”
“What do you mean?”
“You cut a wide swath, Gunny. Always have. Stories of your exploits in and out of the Corps get around in certain circles. I know about the terrorist cell in Cuba who planned an attack in Miami.”
We walked and I kept quiet, waiting. Only a handful of people knew about that. And if he knew that, he knew I’d lost my wife Alex in that same op.
“I know your determination to not leave a man behind,” he continued. “And the extraordinary measures taken to bring him home. I know how and why you stuck your neck out for that Williams kid and then hunted down his murderer. By the way, his brother picked up master sergeant last month.”
“Oohrah,” I grunted. “Proud to know the man.”
“I know about the treasure in the Bahamas,” he said. “And the shootout there, I know all about the evildoers you’ve stopped, almost single-handedly; the sex traffickers, drug smugglers, terrorists, organ smugglers… Pretty much all of your adventures are known to a few. And I already knew about your inheritance. It’s all these things and more that brought me here to have this talk with you today.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. Not so much that he knew or how he learned these thing
s, but I didn’t see how any of that had to do with his being sick. “What’s all that got to do with your… cancer?”
“Nothing,” he replied, and kept walking, hands folded sedately at the small of his back.
He was in teacher mode. I’d been on the receiving end of a few folded-hands lessons before, and I’d seen a few field-grade officers receiving the same wise counsel. We walked on in silence for a while.
“Know how much the pension is for an E-9 over fifty years of service?”
“I know it’s a hundred percent of base pay,” I replied.
“I was a master gunny longer than most Marines serve—thirty-one years. During that time, my base salary almost tripled. I lived on base most of the time—ever since I was a gunny.”
I remembered he’d moved from base housing to bachelor enlisted quarters after he and his wife split up. I’d lived in the BEQ for most of my career, also.
“That was what—’82?”
“Yeah, about then,” he said. “I don’t have a good memory for dates anymore. After that, I socked away ninety percent of my paycheck for thirty-six years.”
“I still don’t get how any of this involves me.”
“It doesn’t,” Tank said. “Not directly, anyway. In no time at all, I’ll be gone. I have no kids and over ten million dollars in investments.”
I stopped in my tracks. “Whoa, Tank. I don’t need or want—”
“And I wouldn’t insult you by offering,” he said, turning to face me. “You’re doing something vital. I know all about your philanthropy, too—the funds you have set up to help others. And the occasional emerald you sell for your friend who works for Thurman.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, becoming flustered. “How can you possibly know this?”
He grinned, squinting up at me. “I told you. I’ve been reading.”
I sat down in the sand and Tank sat beside me. I felt a light gust move the hair off my forehead as I stared out over the water. It was a long moment before he spoke again.
“I want you to administer my estate, Jesse. I want what I’ve earned and saved to go to good use. I want it to help others.”
Rising Moon: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 19) Page 10