by Matthew Rief
“So what’s your big plan here?” he asked. “I mean, these guys know where you live and where you moor your boat. How do you plan on getting to this sub without them following you? And how do you plan to take them out on your own?”
In an instant, the pieces of a plan coalesced in my mind. I’d been mulling it over all day, but it came together just then. It wasn’t perfect by any means, and it was risky, but it was the best I could come up with.
“I’m betting on them following me,” I said. “In fact, I want them to.” Charles and Ange both looked at me like I was crazy. I smiled and stood. “I’ve got an idea of how we can find this wreck and trap these guys at the same time, but we’re gonna need a lot of bodies.” I glanced at Charles. “We’re gonna need the Coast Guard and Navy on this.”
He thought it over a moment, then said, “I work closely with both branches. I could get their help. But the last thing I want is to put anybody in harm’s way if we can avoid it.”
“Oh, this won’t,” I assured him. “If it works, we should be able to get these guys to surrender. If not, we’ll have them severely outnumbered.” I grabbed my phone, punched in a few numbers I knew by heart, and held it up to the side of my face.
“Who are you calling?” Charles asked.
“The cavalry,” I replied with a confident smile.
CHAPTER TWELVE
By the time we finished with the police at my house, drove over to the marina and got settled into the main cabin of the Baia, it was well after midnight. The night was calm and clear, with only a few clouds covering the bright stars above and an occasional ripple against the hull. Given the long, busy day, we both fell asleep as soon as our heads smooshed into my soft feather pillows.
After spending years in the Navy, performing primarily reconnaissance missions, I’ve developed the ability to sleep anywhere and to take advantage of downtime by falling asleep instantly. In the field, you never knew for sure when your next opportunity to sleep would be so you took it whenever you could.
At zero six hundred, I woke up to the sound of rain beating against the bow hatch overhead and the rumbles of distant thunder. It was still the rainy season in the Keys, and the weather often shifted from sunny to rainy to back to sunny again in less than an hour. I felt Ange’s soft, warm body pressed against mine as I lay on my back with her draped over me. When I opened my eyes, the cabin was mainly dark, the only light radiating from the port and starboard portholes and the partly covered hatch just over our heads, displaying a grim, gray sky above.
Slowly, I slid out of bed and walked barefoot through the door and into the salon. After switching on my coffeemaker, I stepped out through the hatch and into the cockpit. The rain was heavy, but the wind wasn’t too bad, allowing me to stand at the edge of the cockpit without getting wet. I took a look around the empty, lifeless marina. The only movement was the gentle rocking of moored boats, and as I drew my gaze up towards the parking lot, I saw the interceptor police vehicle still parked in the first spot beside the stairs leading down to the dock.
Seeing that the coast was clear, I climbed back into the salon, the smell of fresh coffee wafting into my nostrils as I entered and shut the hatch behind me. I didn’t have a lot of food on the boat, but I always had fresh fruit so I proceeded to prepare my favorite breakfast: freshly sliced mango, banana and a warm cup of coffee.
When the coffeemaker finished its cycle, I grabbed my blue Rubio Charters mug and poured a cup. Just as the dark liquid reached the rim, Ange walked out from the bedroom wearing only a black bra and panties. I admired her incredible figure and must have looked like a schoolboy staring at his crush. She’d awoken and moved towards the salon with such light movements that I hadn’t even noticed she was up until the door had swung open.
“Like what you see?” she said, catching me red-handed.
I smiled. “Always.”
We sat on the soft white cushioned half-moon bench seat that wrapped around my dining table and ate the small but delicious breakfast. When we were finished, we cleaned up, took a hot shower together, then got dressed. After checking the news via our cell phones, we realized that the heavy rains were part of a small storm that had formed in the Gulf and was gliding along towards the panhandle. It wasn’t strong enough to do any serious damage, but it meant that we’d have to postpone any time out on the ocean until it subsided, which was predicted to happen later this afternoon.
We spent the day inside, taking shelter from the storm and using the time to learn everything we could about the lost U-boat and the drug runners we were dealing with. Since Charles still had contacts in the FBI, he was able to obtain and send us the profile sheets for both Campos brothers and a few of the other known members of their operation.
I’d known about their somewhat celebrity status in the States when they’d had tremendous success competing as professional MMA fighters. Both of their careers had been cut short, however, when they were both banned from MMA for fighting dirty just a few months apart.
The older brother, Pedro, had been banned first for kicking a guy in the nuts, then tackling him onto the mat and putting him in a coma for two weeks. Three months later, his younger brother, Hector, had knocked out the ref, then jumped out of the ring, grabbed a sportscaster’s microphone and knocked out his two front teeth with it. Both stories had made national headlines and had been the talk of the fighting community for over a year.
“Damn,” Ange said, reading over their profile sheets. “These guys are real psychos.”
We learned that after being banned from professional fighting in the United States, the brothers had traveled abroad, fighting everywhere from Mexico and Colombia to Russia and Ukraine, and even the Middle East. As they racked up their fight counts, their skills developed even more and their tempers grew worse, earning them worldwide reputations as guys who were too nuts to compete in organized fighting.
After a few years of traveling from country to country, the two brothers had vanished from records for five years. It wasn’t until 2004 that their rap sheets noted that they’d both been suspected of drug trafficking in Brazil, their home country of Bolivia, and the United States.
We took a break before dinner to get a quick workout in, doing a circuit of different push-up variations, body weight squats and pull-ups using the hardtop above the cockpit. I always enjoyed working out with Ange because she was in incredible shape and I had to really push myself to keep up with her. She was into triathlons, and she’d even convinced me to do one with her one time. Even though it hurt like hell, I’d enjoyed every minute of it. There’s something I’ve always enjoyed about pushing myself beyond my limits and finding out what I’m made of.
After showering and changing into a pair of tan cargo shorts, a tee shirt and Converse low-tops, I enjoyed a big meal of grilled lobster tails doused in Swamp Sauce and freshly squeezed lemon juice. We ate out in the cockpit, enjoying every bite as we watched the dark red sun slip under the distant western horizon. When we finished, it was almost eight. Ange, being so absorbed in the research, decided to stay behind, so I kissed her passionately, then headed down the dock towards the parking lot.
The rain had died off around seven, leaving the ground soaking wet and littered with small puddles. I walked up the stairs, and after telling the officer still parked in the lot that everything was fine, I climbed into my Tacoma, started the engine and pulled onto Caroline Street.
Ten minutes later, I was pulling into a large roundabout that circled a parking garage. Key West International Airport is a small two-terminal airport, and there weren’t very many vehicles. I pulled up to the curb and put the Tacoma in park along a row of glass windows and automatic sliding doors. Just beside the windows, behind a group of people standing with their roller bags, was a massive painting of a Conch Republic flag, its dark blue vibrant against the faded white backdrop of the airport building. In the middle of the flag was a conch shell with jagged yellow streaks bursting out from it.
I hadn’t been
idling for even a minute when a tall, lean man with light skin, short dark hair and a clean-shaven face walked out through the automatic doors. He was wearing jeans, a tee shirt, and dark-rimmed sunglasses, and he carried a classic-looking leather backpack strapped over his shoulders. His stride didn’t change as he moved straight towards the passenger side of my Tacoma. Keeping his eyes forward, he opened the door, climbed inside and sat down beside me, placing his backpack at his feet. He shut the door and then patted my knee as I put the truck in gear and hit the gas.
Glancing over at him, I smiled. “It’s good to see you, Scottie. Thanks for coming.”
“You pulled the best friend card.” He laughed. “I was about to hop on a flight to Paris, but you know me, I’m never one to pass up a little excitement. Now, what in the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
By way of an answer, I reached into my center console, grabbed one of my extra Sigs and handed it to him. Not only was Scott Cooper the smartest guy I had ever met, but he had also been my division officer when I’d first shown up to the SEAL team after completing the rigorous training to earn my gold trident. Before being commissioned in the Navy, he had been a Rhodes Scholar, and he was currently in the middle of a six-year term as a US senator representing Florida. As we cruised back to the marina, I gave him a brief overview of the situation and our plan for that evening.
“I’m sorry to hear about your dad, Logan,” he said solemnly.
Scott had first met my dad in San Diego while we’d carried our gear off a Boeing C-17, walking beside each other. My dad had also always been there to greet us when we got back from deployment, wrapping his arms around us and telling us how proud he was. Scott’s dad had left when he was young, and I knew those interactions meant a whole hell of a lot to him. The three of us had even taken a weeklong trip to the Galapagos back in ’99. Scott had always admired my dad, and the two had remained close throughout the years.
“You say these guys attacked you at your house last night?” he asked. “Well, they’re not popping out of thin air, so where are they at?”
“They’re in the Keys somewhere,” I said. “Hiding out. Waiting to make their move and find what they’re looking for.”
“And what exactly is that?”
I told him the story about the U-boat and what we’d learned while talking to Professor Murchison. Scott came to the same conclusion as me: that keeping the potential weapon out of their hands was the number one priority.
I pulled into one of the parking spots in the first row of the Conch Harbor Marina, just a few spaces down from the police car still staking out the place. We walked down the dock under a dark sky above that was full of bright distant stars. The marina was calm and quiet again, except for a small group gathered outside the Greasy Pelican, the marina’s restaurant. When we were halfway to my boat, my phone vibrated. Grabbing it from my pocket, I checked my new message from Sheriff Wilkes: “Standing by,” it said.
I slid my phone back into my front pocket, and when we reached slip twenty-four, we both stepped onto the swim platform, then over the transom into the cockpit. When I opened the door, I saw Ange and Jack seated around the table, drinking coffee and examining the research in front of them. After the two greeted Scott, we went into mission mode, going over every detail of the evening’s plan. I grabbed a large map of the Keys, slid it into a hard plastic cover and rested it on the television stand across from the dining area. Using fine-tipped erasable markers, I sketched out our different routes, using different colors to correspond to each of us.
“Since the Baia is being tracked, Jack will take it out and head this way,” I said, sketching a dotted line out of the marina, around the southern tip of Key West, and then wrapping around to head northeast along the Lower Keys. “Once you get to the Seven Mile Bridge, you’ll cut across to Spanish Harbor and around Big Mangrove Key. Meanwhile, the three of us will take off in Ange’s Cessna, fly north, then turn back around and land at the dive site. After dropping us off, Ange will fly back to Tarpon Cove, then pick us up two hours later.”
“And what do I do once I’ve led them to Big Mangrove?” Jack asked.
“Charles has a team of Coast Guardsmen as well as Navy patrollers standing by. Hopefully we can have them so outnumbered that these guys lay down their weapons. If they don’t—well, either way, they’re going down.”
“How deep is this wreck, supposedly?”
I glanced over at Jack, who nodded, then said, “It’s ten miles off the coast of Layton. Based on our depth charts, it’s over three hundred feet. But I did a diving charter earlier today and we took our patrons out that direction. Based on the coordinates Logan’s dad gave him, we’re looking at just over one hundred and thirty to one hundred and sixty feet down. The variation’s probably caused by underwater chasms and ridges.”
Once everyone was set with their roles, I moved into the guest cabin and came out with two sets of rebreather gear. I performed weekly and monthly maintenance on all of my equipment and was confident that both sets were functioning and ready to go, but Scott and I checked them both over anyway just to be sure. We did a full integrity check of all straps, hoses and valves, verifying that everything was snug and airtight. Then we checked the battery, verifying its ability to hold and maintain a charge.
Once those checks were complete, we checked the CO2 scrubber and verified that it didn’t need to be replaced. When we were satisfied that the gear was ready to go, we loaded them both up into a large black duffle bag and set it beside the door leading into the salon.
Out in the cockpit, I grabbed my black mesh bag and loaded it with two pairs of fins, masks, snorkels, a flare, flashlights and two large three-millimeter wetsuits. By the time all our gear was loaded up, it was just after eleven o’clock. We’d decided that the three of us would head over to Tarpon Cove at midnight, so I brewed another batch of coffee.
“I’ll have you tracked via satellite,” Scott said, motioning towards Jack. “So if these assholes try anything before you reach Spanish Harbor, the Navy and Coast Guard can close in on them. Also if any of them manage to escape, we’ll track them and hopefully find out wherever it is these guys are congregating.”
Jack nodded. “It would take more than a Cigarette to catch me in the Keys.”
I smiled and made eye contact with Scott. “Do you really think your dad stumbled upon a lost U-boat?” he said, his eyes lighting up. “I mean, this is monumental if he did. A rewrite-history-books kind of thing.”
“Yes,” I said, confidently. “But one thing’s certain: this is going to be one hell of a dive.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Just before midnight, we loaded up all of our gear into the back of my Tacoma. As we stepped off the Baia to head out, I handed Jack a small waterproof radio.
“Channel four, privacy code eighty-two,” I said. Utilizing the privacy code with the two-way radio would make it so, even if someone were listening to channel four, they wouldn’t hear anything without also having the correct corresponding code. “Ange and I will both have one as well.” Then I handed him the keys. “There’s a shotgun under the master bed in the port roll-out compartment. Are you armed?”
He lifted his tee shirt, revealing a compact Desert Eagle strapped to his waist. I had no doubt that even if he were chased by a faster boat, Jack could outrun it. I doubted there was anyone alive who knew the hundreds of islands, shoals, sandbars, reefs, and ledges in the Keys as well as he did.
Before stepping onto the dock, I threw an arm over Jack’s shoulder. “Be careful,” I said. “I doubt these guys will try anything until you stop. It’s the location of the site they’re after. But still…”
“You too,” he said. “And watch out for the current. It gets pretty bad out there well beyond the reef line.”
I nodded, hearing the wisdom in his words. “Thanks for doing this, Jack.”
“Don’t mention it, bro,” he said, waving a hand at me. “I’d walk through traffic for you. We’re family. You may no
t believe it, but I want satisfaction for what happened to your dad as well. And anyone who messes with these islands and the people here has to mess with me as well. And don’t worry about me. The day some drug-running asshole chases me down in the Keys is the day hell freezes over.”
I laughed. “I’ve got your word, then? Not a scratch on her?”
“Will you get going, you pirate?” he said, grinning as he finished the line of dialogue from one of our favorite movies.
I stepped onto the dock, joining Ange and Scott there, then the three of us moved down towards the parking lot. A soft breeze blew in from the east, causing a few small whitecaps to form out at the mouth of the bay between Wisteria and Sunset Key. It would make landing out on the open ocean in a seaplane difficult, but I knew that if there was anyone who was up to the challenge of something difficult, it was Ange.
The parking lot was less than a quarter full, and they were mostly vehicles that I recognized, owned by people who lived aboard their boats. The police vehicle was still parked near the front, and we walked right by an officer leaning back in his chair and watching a video on his phone. He had an empty box of Red Buoy Donuts resting on his dashboard, and he looked like he was about to pass out.
As we climbed into my Tacoma, I spotted a silver Kia that was parked in the back row, its sleek, short body mostly covered by an overhanging gumbo-limbo tree and flanked on both sides by palmetto bushes. It struck me as suspicious, since I hadn’t seen it before and it was the only car parked that far away from the footpath down to the dock.
I thought I saw movement inside, but it was hard to tell since all of its windows were heavily tinted. Sure enough, as I started up my Tacoma, pulled out of the parking lot and headed down Caroline Street, I saw a pair of bright red brake lights illuminate to life far behind us through my rearview mirror.