by Matthew Rief
A few turns and stops later, they were just a few hundred feet behind me. There were only a few other vehicles on the road. It would be easy to head down a quiet street, put my truck in reverse, then let them get close and plow my tailgate through their window. A car like that would crunch like an accordion and there’d barely be a scratch on my truck to show for it. But I decided on a quieter approach and turned down Duval Street.
“Where are we going?” Scott said. He was looking over his gear and hadn’t been paying much attention to our surroundings.
Ange, however, had noticed everything. She turned around from the passenger seat, staring back at the Kia. “There’s a car tailing us. What’s the plan here, Logan?”
Since I was close, I decided to do the same thing Scott and I had done while being tailed by Black Venom seven months ago. Making sure the guys in the Kia saw me, I turned sharply into a small alleyway between the Green Parrot Bar and Pirate Scooter Rentals, then cut a hard left behind the building.
I killed the engine and told the others to follow my lead and cover me. They each grabbed their pistols and climbed out alongside me. We were surrounded on all sides by brick walls, and my Tacoma was blocked from view by two massive green-and-blue dumpsters.
Reaching through the open window into the backseat, I unclipped a large black carabiner from my CamelBak and walked over behind the back wall of Green Parrot alongside the others. All four fingers of my right hand slid comfortably into the carabiner and I squeezed tightly to the metal as the Kia pulled slowly around the corner, its bright lights illuminating the alley beside us.
When it rolled into view, I stepped towards the driver’s side, reared my right arm back and slammed my fist into the window, shattering the glass as my fist continued through and made contact with the driver’s face. He grunted loudly as his head jerked sideways, wrapping around the edge of the seat.
The guy in the passenger seat gasped and reached for a pistol at his side. But before he could aim it in my direction, Ange popped up behind me with a Sig leveled at his head.
“Move another inch,” she said, her eyes intense and her breathing controlled. “See what happens.”
Seeing that the driver was out cold, I looked at the other guy and said, “Drop the gun and unlock the door.”
He looked pissed but saw that he was surrounded, so he relented, dropping the weapon to the mat at his feet and pressing the button to unlock the doors. Just as he did, the passenger door flung open and Scott reached inside, grabbed the guy by his shirt collar and hurled him out of the car. I heard a loud crack as he slammed into the pavement, which was followed by a few loud fuck yous and then silence.
Three minutes later, their unconscious bodies were zip-tied to a metal handrail behind the dumpsters. After searching them, we found a few knives, another handgun and a few wallets, but the most useful thing was a cell phone. After moving their Kia out of view and leaving a note on the dash, saying that these two assholes were criminals, we hopped back into the truck and drove towards Tarpon Cove Marina.
With Ange driving, I flipped open the cell phone and read a few of the recent text messages. Most of them were to phone sex girls, pleading for pictures without wanting to send money. But at the top of the message list was a long thread with texts sent every hour on the hour, informing someone of our positions. The most recent message was sent just before midnight and said “Targets on the move.” Since the guy was an idiot and vague as hell, I knew I could use the message to our advantage when we took off.
The parking lot at Tarpon Cove Marina was almost entirely empty, the only vehicles belonging to the few boats parked along the two docks. Unlike Conch Harbor Marina, Tarpon Cove didn’t allow liveaboards, so the only boats were temporary moorings. The three of us climbed out, grabbed our gear and headed down the dock towards Ange’s Cessna. The marina was quiet as we dropped everything on the dock beside the float and loaded it all into the backseat.
Grabbing the radio, I made sure the channel and privacy code were set correctly, then called Jack and told him T-minus three minutes. Once everything was aboard, we untied the two lines, and then they settled in while I shoved us off, forcing my weight forward into the starboard float and jumping over from the dock.
Ange made quick work of her list of preflight checks, and when she was ready to start up the engine, I called Jack, letting him know that it was game time. Then, using the cell phone I’d taken, I sent a quick text informing the thug’s contact that their target was on the move on their boat, heading out of the marina. Once the message was sent, I removed the phone’s battery, then threw it out the window into the water below with a splash.
After we donned our headsets, Ange started up the loud engine and accelerated us away from the dock. The takeoff was more bumpy than usual, but fortunately the water inside the cove was sheltered from the wind by surrounding buildings as well as palm and coconut trees, making it less choppy than the open ocean. Once in the air, Ange turned north and quickly brought us up over two thousand feet. The sky was clear aside from a few sporadic patches of clouds, a dark abyss full of bright twinkling stars and the glow of a half-moon illuminating the islands and ocean below us.
Ange leveled the aircraft at three thousand feet and maintained a cruising speed of 150 knots as we flew over the Lower and Middle Keys. Leaning over and peeking down through the glass, I could make out the solid black outline of US-1 as it traversed from island to island, heading towards the mainland of Southern Florida. Forty-five minutes later, Ange eased on the joystick, making a long, sweeping turn and putting us on a course southeast, heading straight for the coordinates I’d entered into her top-of-the-line onboard GPS system.
“Ten minutes out,” Ange said into the microphone connected to her headset.
Scott handed me my wetsuit and rebreather gear from the backseat. I did a quick calibration of the oxygen sensors, then did a final check of the battery, filter, and pressure to make sure everything was ready for the dive. Unlike scuba, rebreathers utilize a closed-circuit diving system, meaning that instead of exhalations exiting from your regulator into the water, they’re filtered and scrubbed of CO2, then returned to be inhaled as breathable oxygen.
Once I’d verified all of my gear was in order, I pulled my wetsuit up over my body, then zipped up the back. Grabbing my high-powered dive flashlight, I stowed it in the front flap of the rebreather along with an underwater video camera. I stowed my radio in a plastic waterproof case and slid it into the large pocket of my rebreather, then strapped my dive knife to my calf.
My heart raced as Ange brought us down in altitude, the silvery-tinted water below getting closer and closer in the cockpit windows. Part of me felt like I was back in the Navy, being dropped off in a part of the world we weren’t supposed to be in and performing missions that only a small handful of men ever knew about. Glancing at the GPS, I saw that we were less than a mile away from our target.
Ange eased back on the throttles and brought us to just a few hundred feet above the open ocean. Far off in the distance, beyond the faintly glowing ocean’s surface, I could see a few specks of light penetrating the darkness from the small towns in the Middle Keys.
“Hold on tight,” Ange said as she slowed even more.
A few seconds later, the floats made contact with the ocean below. We bounced a few times over the chop, but as I’d expected, Ange handled it perfectly. As she slowed the Cessna over the water, I turned on my rebreather and strapped it onto my body. Grabbing my mask, I slipped it over my head, then opened the door and gave a thumbs-up to Ange.
“Two hours if no call,” I said, reminding her of our previously discussed plan.
Just in case the radio malfunctioned, I didn’t relish the idea of having to swim ten miles through open ocean to reach the nearest land. I’d strapped my flare into my BCD, and it would allow her to see us floating on the surface if she was anywhere within a mile or so.
She gave me a thumbs-up and yelled over the engine, “Be careful.
”
Holding my fins by their straps in my left hand, I turned, stepped down onto the starboard float and jumped into the water. We’d still been moving about five knots over the light chop, so my body splashed and swirled a few times in a white, bubbly haze before I gained control.
Scott had jumped over the other side and was treading water just ten feet away from me as Ange piloted the Cessna forward. I watched as she slowly picked up speed, controlling the plane into a smooth takeoff and rising high into the night air.
One by one I strapped my fins over my booties, then Scott and I took a quick look around. After seeing that there were no boats on the water, we nodded to each other, then let a controlled amount of air out of our BCDs, causing our bodies to sink into the warm, dark water. Once fully submerged, I grabbed my flashlight and turned it on, illuminating a wide beam of crystal-clear water around me. Scott did the same with his flashlight, and we both angled our bodies downward, heading for our destination 130 feet below us in the dark abyss.
We finned methodically, our bodies shooting down through the water quickly. Glancing at my dive computer, I saw that we were sixty feet down, and just a minute after that, the distant light of our flashlights reached a dark, rocky formation below. Jack had been right about the current. I hadn’t noticed it during the descent, since there was no point of reference, but once we could see the seafloor below us, it was clear that we were drifting north at a speed of at least two knots.
As we swam closer, I realized that the rock formation was a massive, steep ledge that stretched as far as we could see in both directions. Since water distorts the size of things, it was difficult to tell how tall it was, but I estimated that it dropped down at least thirty feet.
Placing my free left hand up to my nose, I pinched and tried to breathe out of my ears, equalizing the pressure in my body to the water around me as I’d done a few times on the way down. At 130 feet, the pressure underwater is approximately five bars, or five times atmospheric pressure at sea level, meaning we would feel around seventy pounds per square inch against our bodies, as opposed to the 14.7 pounds per square inch felt at the surface.
As we moved in closer, hovering just over the ledge, the intricate details took form. The ledge was sprawling with colorful life, from hordes of sea urchins, anemones, and sponges to assortments of coral that covered practically every surface in view. We saw a few parrotfish, an angelfish, a school of yellowtail snapper, and a large loggerhead sea turtle swimming blissfully past us, heading south along the ledge. The world was quiet, calm and dark, and as we panned our flashlights over each and every surface, we saw nothing that was foreign to the marine landscape.
We finned towards the corner of the ledge, then headed for the bottom, where large rocks covered in barnacles and sediment riddled the ocean floor. I swam along a portion of the ledge that jutted out slightly and, seeing something suspicious about the rock face, I grazed my hand against it as I swam, weaving between the thick stretches of coral.
Glancing ahead, I saw that a portion of the rock stuck upwards like a chimney. Blinking my eyes a few times, I saw the ledge with new eyes and realized that we were swimming just inches over a wreck. Forming my gloved hand into a fist, I pounded against the rock and gasped as I heard the higher-pitched sound of metal rather than the low thud of rock.
Grabbing the carabiner hooked to one of my straps, I tapped it against my metal oxygen cylinder a few times, getting Scott’s attention. As he turned and glanced my direction, I shined the beam of my flashlight on the portion of the rock sticking up out of the ledge, realizing now that it was a conning tower. He eyed it skeptically for a moment, then swam in closer. After feeling it over with his hands for a few seconds, he froze, then turned to me with eyes wider than the open ocean. I smiled back at him behind my regulator, unable to contain my excitement.
After realizing what it was, I was able to see the large portion jutting out from the ledge with newly enlightened vision. The U-boat was incredibly difficult to see, even knowing that it was there. Years of fallen rocks, erosion, sediment, coral growths, barnacles and other sea life had caused its rounded metal hull to blend in perfectly with its surroundings.
I shined my flashlight from one end of the large cigar-shaped vessel to the other and estimated it at around 250 feet, which was a match to the dimensions given to us by Professor Murchison for the type XXI U-boat.
Before looking it over any more, I grabbed the advanced waterproof dive camera from my rebreather pocket, turned it on and pressed the record button. Holding the camera in my left hand and my flashlight in my right, I surveyed the entire wreck from one end to the other alongside Scott.
We moved from the two screws in the stern, which were barely visible under a shroud of thick coral, and forward along the topside of the wreck. The U-boat was wedged at a forty-five-degree angle against the ledge, with the cone facing southwest and the screws facing northeast. About a third of the way forward, there was a large crack in its hull that spread from the deck all the way down to the keel.
As we swam closer to the damaged hull, we saw that it was too small for us to fit through. But shining our lights inside, we saw a jungle of jagged metal, loose-hanging wires, broken pipes and rusted old valves, all covered in layers of grimy muck. I stared in awe at the inside of a German war vessel that no human had seen in over sixty years. A ship lost to the tides of time and forgotten by history. Whether the damage to the hull had been caused by an enemy torpedo or from when it had rammed into the ledge, it was difficult to tell. But one way or another, it was clear that the boat had lost control and hit the solid rock of a ledge at a very high speed.
We continued, finning our way past the conning tower and down along the forward cone section of the boat. The forward fifty feet or so was smooshed in like an accordion, with most of the hull bent and folded over in large ripples. Through a few cracks in the metal, we could see a swarm of mechanical and electrical equipment, hidden beyond layers of corrosion and sediment.
As I aimed my camera at the front of the boat and stared all the way down its side, Scott continued swimming without me even noticing him. A few seconds later, I heard two loud metal clinks, turned myself around and saw him hovering over a dark, foreign-looking object stuck halfway in the ledge. As I swam closer, I realized what it was. A torpedo.
As I moved alongside Scott, he paid particular attention to a portion of its side that was barely visible between the ledge and coral. Focusing my gaze closer, I looked at part of the torpedo that appeared to have less growth on it than the rest—as if someone had scraped some of it away in order to see something. Scott looked at me, then pointed at what appeared to be a marking on its side. I moved my mask within a foot of its round metal casing and saw a skull and crossbones symbol, along with the word TOXISCH carved deep into the metal.
This was it, I thought as I looked it over once more. This was what my dad had found and wanted to keep hidden from these drug runners. He had been keeping them from obtaining possibly one of the deadliest weapons in history.
After examining the torpedo thoroughly, we swam with the current back along the top of the wreck, this time focusing our attention on the starboard side of the vessel that was smashed up against the ledge. Leaning our bodies against the conning tower, we stopped for a moment and I checked my dive watch. We’d been down for an hour and a half and needed to allow time for safety stops on the way up.
Glancing at Scott, I motioned for us to head up and he gave the okay signal. Just as I reached to add some air into my BCD, I spotted a bright metallic flash reflecting back the light from my flashlight. Curious, I swam closer. It was a metal box, wedged right between the hull of the U-boat and the rocky ledge.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Less than a minute after we broke the surface, removed our mouthpieces and breathed in the fresh Caribbean air, we heard the sound of an engine cutting through the calm darkness like a knife. Looking up at the partly cloud-covered sky, we spotted Ange’s Cessna cruisin
g our direction from the north and dropping in altitude.
Reaching into my BCD, I pulled out the flare, removed it from its plastic housing and ignited the bright red flame to life. The blinding light radiated across the darkness, revealing a horizon that had become even more whitecapped since a few hours earlier.
Ange brought her small aircraft down easy, cruising into the wind, which blew in from the east and was getting stronger and stronger with every passing second. As if she’d done it a thousand times, Ange glided to less than thirty knots, then touched down, the two hollow metal floats making contact with the water’s surface at the same time. The Cessna bounced a few times as it slowed over the crests of the large open-ocean rollers.
As she pulled right alongside where Scott and I were treading water, I drowned my flare in the ocean and kicked towards the aircraft. It slowed to a stop and bobbed up and down in the waves as I made my way around to the starboard side.
Removing my fins, I reached up, wrapped my right hand around a metal handle and hoisted my body out of the water. I kept myself balanced on the shifting float as I unstrapped my rebreather and pulled it off my body, handing it to Ange through the open passenger door. A few seconds later, Scott and I were both inside, slamming the doors shut behind us and toweling off our dripping bodies as Ange executed a perfect takeoff.
Just as the Cessna transitioned from the rough, bouncy movements on the ocean’s surface to the smooth, gentle cruising through the air, I noticed something below us. Leaning over and peering down through the glass, I spotted what looked like a dark speedboat, its sleek body being propelled through the water by a row of powerful outboard engines.
It was hard to tell in the darkness. The boat was far away, and it was moving at over seventy knots in the opposite direction that we were flying. But by the light of the moon, I thought I saw the massive dark frame of one of the Campos brothers.