Chapter Twenty-Seven - Heat
For weeks, Werner Dietrich had been on Franco Duarte’s ass. The captain of the Patagonia Pike had worked for the wealthy owner for eight insufferable years. But Duarte was determined to make this particular salvage operation pay off like no other. Nearing retirement, he wanted to settle down with his wife and spend some quality time with his grandkids, far away from Dietrich’s relentless domination.
But with every resolute day, Duarte found Dietrich more intolerable. He had to admit he’d never seen the boss this involved with a hunt before, certainly not to the level he saw now.
The owner insisted on hourly updates, which Duarte resented. The constant inquiries on the crew’s progress were annoying and bothersome. It seemed to him, Dietrich’s intervening—he had to know what was happening on the ship at all times—was the main cause for delays.
Duarte had kept quiet when Dietrich insisted on handpicking the new divers himself. Even though the men had come highly recommended, Duarte hadn’t been given the opportunity for input. It didn’t matter to him that the men were good at making deep-water dives, even if each dive appeared to be getting longer in duration and more dangerous than the last.
It was the owner’s constant interference that was getting to him. Werner expected and demanded perfection. Add to that, the time crunch they were under was insane. Duarte felt a heightened sense of urgency in the air that had a hold on the ship and wouldn’t let go.
Most days, the crew rushed from one task to the next. So far, they’d tried several different locations, but each one had been nothing more than a wild goose chase. They didn’t stay in one dive spot for long. After all, Dietrich wasn’t known for his patience. Because of that, during the last few weeks, the boss had questioned Duarte’s judgment at every turn. In his communiqués to him, the owner had insisted the crew be more productive, charging his employees with wasting precious time.
Dietrich had a thing about wasting time. He didn’t like to do it. While the grains of sand dropped through the hourglass the German kept on his desk—a sand timer he claimed came from the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh—Duarte had noticed Dietrich’s agitation increase.
As the days passed and they hadn’t located what they were looking for, Duarte knew they were quickly losing their advantage. You couldn’t keep a major hunt like this secret for long. Someone, somewhere would figure out what they were doing diving off the Keys. Spies were everywhere, in every port. If their goal was to steal the prize out from under an opponent, they had to expect the same kind of attitude from other competitive salvage operations.
Fear of that was always an issue, especially on a mission this strategic, this important. Not only that, but Duarte was beginning to think he had a saboteur on board. Since the start of the operation, things seemed to go wrong for no reason. He’d even mentioned it to Dietrich. But the boss had accused him of making excuses.
Duarte had narrowed down the prospects to the three newest crewmembers he felt were responsible. It wasn’t his imagination that as soon as they’d come aboard things had started to unravel. He’d never had to deal with sabotage before now. But since Dietrich had practically forced him into hiring three strangers, he knew how to take care of it.
Duarte was no fool. Even though the boss didn’t believe him about the sabotage, he refused to trust the man he’d already tagged as the culprit.
Mistrust took over again as the captain fingered the 9mm Beretta he wore at his hip. He hadn’t caught him in the act yet, but he would. And when he did there would be no whining to the boss about it. The body would simply vanish into the ocean. He already had a believable explanation at the ready. A man going overboard happened all the time at sea. Duarte was done letting the newcomers create more havoc on his ship. He’d made up his mind. He didn’t intend to take the blame for failure any longer.
The grueling days coupled with the pressure he was under made Duarte short-tempered and a little paranoid. Losing patience with everyone, he stood on deck shouting one brusque order after another.
Duarte pivoted on his heels and headed to the bridge, where he pulled out several charts with the locations marked in red. He opened an underwater survey chart and compared the red markers to the next site. He decided that one had more potential than where they were anchored now.
The captain stepped outside the operations room and yelled toward the deck below, “Call the dive team back up and get them on board. We’re moving to another site.”
Back at the helm, he turned to his watch officer. “Sandoval, as soon as the dive team’s out of the water, weigh anchor. Chart a course for dive site F-88.”
“Aye, sir.”
Duarte turned on his heels, heading for his quarters. He needed alone time. For the next several hours, he took a nap and caught up on his emails. He did some work on his computer-generated maps, trying to commit the unfamiliar Florida coastline to memory.
He fixed himself a warm bath, finished reading Stephen King’s novel, Finders Keepers, and talked to his wife back in Buenos Aires via satellite telephone.
Several hours later, a knock on the door indicated they’d reached their destination. Seventy-five miles from the shore of Indigo Key, the ship dropped anchor again. It was getting dark. They’d already had their evening meal when Duarte ordered two divers into the water.
Braxton Evans had worked on a Dietrich operation before this one. But he had to admit this salvage operation seemed different than the others. The owner seemed determined to take what he deemed to be unnecessary risks at every turn.
The times Dietrich had shown up on board, he seemed paranoid, almost to the point of having psychotic episodes. Either that, or this hunt was indeed plagued by a series of ill-fated occurrences that were dooming them to failure.
Braxton wasn’t happy about diving in total darkness. There were always additional hazards diving at night. Anything could happen when you were a hundred and twenty feet below the surface. Torchlights could fail and cause the loss of visual positions. The ability to read instruments and gauges was vital to controlling depth and awareness of your surroundings. Any experienced diver could list a number of hazards associated with going down at night. Separation from a diving partner, equipment failure, and the inability to locate the boat were all excellent reasons to wait for daylight. But Braxton had already butted heads with Dietrich about it once before, to no avail. The owner had simply reminded him he was under contract to do a job. Pleading his case to Duarte had been just as ineffective.
Braxton thought of all these things as he dropped over the side with his partner of three weeks, a man he didn’t know all that well named Todd.
The pair reached the sandy bottom fairly quickly. All seemed routine when they signaled to each other the target was within sight and to their right. Both divers made their way over to what looked to the untrained eye like a large sand dune. But as they swam closer to the mound, they could make out twisted pieces of metal under the silt.
It was then Braxton noticed his partner began to grab at his mask, fighting for air. Todd started to panic when he checked the gauge on his air tank and realized his air supply was already way too low. He signaled to Braxton for help.
Braxton responded by swimming over, thumped the instrumentation and read the gauge himself. Shocked to see it was almost empty, he tried to get Todd to calm down. But when you were fighting for your next breath true panic brought on fear. Todd began to kick his legs wildly, as he fought to take a breath. Braxton saw him take off and head for the surface. Knowing Todd had to decompress or he’d get bubbles in his blood, Braxton tried to grab his feet, doing his best to slow Todd’s ascent.
By this time Todd was in full panic mode and hyperventilating. He was obviously scared and determined to get to the top. The fear of taking his last breath had him shooting straight upward without stopping to decompress. Braxton tried in vain to catch him. When he realized he couldn’t, he alerted the crew above to the situation through his headset. “Diver
Todd surfacing. Air tank failed. Get oxygen ready to revive!”
Standing on deck at the railing, Sandoval saw Andre Todd break the surface of the water fighting to get his dive helmet off. He watched as Todd ripped the regulator out of his mouth. The watch commander shouted orders for the crew to get him on board.
Once they hauled Todd out of the water and up on deck, Sandoval removed the diver’s helmet and heard the guy begging for help, struggling for air. “Can’t…breathe…can’t…breathe!”
Sandoval noted the diver’s condition—pale skin, blue lips, blue fingernails. “We have an emergency, Captain.”
Duarte shouted, “What the hell’s wrong with him? Didn’t he do the decompression stops before he surfaced?”
“No. Braxton’s says Todd’s tank ran out of air. Someone must’ve messed with it because Braxton’s tank is working fine.”
By this time, Braxton was about a quarter of the way up. He used the dive com on his wrist to measure his decompression stops, unwilling to take the chance of getting the bends.
But on deck, anger moved through Duarte. “Get Todd into the decompression chamber. Now!” He clicked on the dive com again, speaking to Braxton directly. “Take your time coming up. I don’t need another accident. Don’t get in a rush.”
“Checking my dive computer now, should be up in thirty, working my stops now,” Braxton responded.
Five minutes later, the crew was dealing with yet another problem.
“Captain, the decompression chamber malfunctioned.”
“What are you talking about? I checked it myself this morning. It has to be working.”
“No, sir. It won’t even come on. And Todd’s shoulder’s hurt bad. He’s coughing up blood, too. There’s liquid in his lungs.”
“Take him to sick bay. Put him on one hundred percent oxygen and keep him on it until I tell you otherwise. Check his vitals every fifteen minutes.” Duarte turned to his watch commander. “As soon as Braxton gets on deck, weigh anchor.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Radio the Coast Guard and tell them we should be back in Sugar Bay in two hours. Tell them we have a diver with DCS who needs medical assistance and the use of a decompression chamber.”
The captain tossed Sandoval his keys. “You, take the crew chief and unlock the gun cabinet in my quarters. Make sure you lock up our three newest crewmembers in the storage compartment. We’re going to get to the bottom of these mishaps before we reach port.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight - Heat
Garret had offered to take a shift at watching the cagey Reiner. When his time ended and Walsh relieved him, he headed to the bridge where Jackson and Mitch sat around the chart table listening to the Coast Guard scanner. Jackson’s software program had generated a detailed map of the Keys. He studied it, doing his best to pinpoint the exact location of the Patagonia Pike.
Jackson circled a longitude and latitude point. “Their last known position was here. If we assume a twelve-knot cruising speed per hour in calm seas, then it could be anywhere inside this circle.”
“That’s a lot of water,” Mitch groaned. “Fortunately I’m game for a winner-take-all chase.”
Garret went to the coffee pot, dumped the old grounds in the trash and put on a fresh pot of coffee. “Hugo is starting to piss me off. He complained about the food again. For a man used to fishing for his own supper, you’d think he’d be more grateful when he gets a ham and Swiss cheese on rye.”
“For a guy living off the grid I noticed he’s a fussy eater,” Jackson pointed out.
“Downright picky,” Garret added. “By the way, Anniston found a translator for that diary, a retired German history professor from Florida State. He comes highly recommended.”
“As long as he’s someone we can trust and knows German like it’s a second language, he sounds fine,” Mitch chipped in.
All of a sudden, the International Distress channel squawked to life. It was Dietrich’s ship calling the Coast Guard about a near-fatal diving accident and the victim they had on board.
Garret ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing. This is perfect. We don’t even have to go out and look for her. She’s coming into port. They’re bringing in the injured man for treatment, which means she’ll likely be here only long enough to refuel and then be gone by morning.”
“We could use a plan.”
Garret chewed his jaw, trying to think. “Do you still have those radio tracking devices on board?”
“We should. We use them all the time to track great whites whenever we dive in shark-infested waters.”
“Okay, here’s what we do. When the Pike rolls into port, I’m in my wetsuit ready to go into the water the minute that ship docks. They’ll be so busy getting the injured man seen to, I should be able to slip under the belly and attach one of those tracking units, no, two would be better, onto the hull of the ship. After that, all we have to do is ease back and follow them from afar. They’ll never know we’re tracking them.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Jackson said.
Garret went on, “We’ll need a camera with a telephoto lens to get pictures of all the crewmembers while they’re in port. Sebastian has one he used on surveillance for his last case in Daytona. We’ll borrow that. Once we get photos, we’ll know each and every man who we’re dealing with on board. We’ll email the pictures back to Anniston so she can run them through facial recognition to ID each one.”
Mitch gave his brother a man hug. “That’s brilliant. You are more than a pretty face.”
“I’m glad you like it. Once I leave the boat to fasten the tracking devices to the hull, Jackson gets out the Nikon and he locates a spot out of sight where he starts acting like the paparazzi.” Garret cautioned, “Try not to miss a man, because it’s essential we know every face on board that ship.”
“Why do you get to swim over?” Mitch asked as if he’d just realized Garret was having all the fun.
“Why do you think? I’m a better swimmer than either one of you.”
“That’s not true,” Jackson challenged.
“Wanna bet?” Garret dared. “We could hold a meet right here and now, but there’s no time. I’m offering to take the risk.”
After much discussion back and forth, Garret won out.
Over the next few hours, the brothers devised and refined the plan that would ensure they knew where Dietrich’s vessel was at all times. During the span of time it took the ship to make it into port, they assembled what they needed.
Mitch pulled out a pair of binoculars to watch from the small dock where The Rum had spent the last two days out of sight from the main docking area. He spotted the Coast Guard and EMTs waiting at the busy pier for the Patagonia Pike to bring in the injured man.
The minutes crawled by until he noticed Dietrich’s ship on the horizon. “Garret, get in the water and get ready. They should be docked within ten minutes.”
Once the Pike neared the wharf, the crew’s attention focused entirely on the injured diver and getting him to the paramedics. The captain was also stuck for at least an hour completing the report and going over the incident with the Coast Guard.
In his wetsuit, Garret adjusted his mask and slipped underwater to make the long swim over to Dietrich’s ship. He stayed close to the bottom on a straight line. As he enjoyed the glide through the water, he noted all the garbage dumped near the beach from the slips. It always infuriated him how people could be so careless as to trash their own harbor. He ought to do something about it. Maybe he’d become more vocal like his dad and hold a cleanup campaign when all this settled down. Deep in his outrage, the ship’s hull suddenly came into view.
Jackson had stationed himself near the pilings where Jimmy Don Bates rented out Jet Skis to the tourists. From a hundred yards away, Jackson turned his baseball cap around and played photographer. He clicked away each time a different crewman aboard the ship showed his face within camera range.
Through the lens he spotte
d a familiar face. He blinked several times when the man appeared on deck. Jackson took another look through the viewfinder, snapped several more frames for proof. Just when he’d decided it was a mistake, the man was jerked back into a cabin out of sight. He hoped his eyes were mistaken. Maybe he was seeing things. But when developed, the film wouldn’t lie.
While Jackson went on a photo-taking frenzy, Garret inspected the hull for the best place to attach the tracking units. He’d brought heavy-duty zip ties hoping to fasten one to a rudder hinge and the other to the propeller guard. He had to be quick, though, because if they started the engines for any reason, he’d be fish bait in about ten seconds.
He got the first unit in place on the rudder hinge in record time. Now for the tricky part, he looped the zip tie around the prop guard metal tubing, made sure it was secure, and swam the hell out of there.
It was a difficult thing for Jackson to accept, but the images didn’t lie. He slapped a series of photos down on the table in the galley, pointed to the man in the pictures. “Even with the beard, I know that man is Nathan Hollister.”
“Looks like your friend got over his fear of the water,” Garret said. “In a hurry.”
“In spades,” Mitch added.
“Look closer. That crewmember standing behind him is holding a semiautomatic weapon to Nathan’s head.”
“I can’t say I feel one bit sorry for the bastard,” Garret intoned. “But the sad fact is we need to pull that lying son of a bitch off that ship. There’s no other way. If we intend to find out the truth, he’s part of it.”
“We said we needed to figure out the weakest link.” Jackson tapped the photo. “I think we’re looking at it. In case you missed it, that’s fear on his face, in his eyes. He’s scared shitless. Nathan’s obviously not a popular man on board.”
“So now we’re talking about kidnapping Nathan?” Mitch drawled. “I like it. But we’re running out of cabins on board. I guess I could change the focus of my business to running a prison ship,” he added in jest.
The Indigo Brothers Trilogy Boxed Set Page 63