“You sure? His face is only partly in the picture and a little out of focus.”
“It’s him,” I replied.
“And he’s in Key West, too?”
“No, I don’t think so. But if I can swing it, it’d sure be nice to find out exactly where he is.”
Travis looked straight ahead, glancing at the photo to commit it to memory and thinking while I continued to read the dossier. Chyrel was good. The background included all kinds of made-up details, with just enough truth to make it easy to remember. The physical description was excellent, down to the location and types of tattoos and scars.
Finally, Travis broke the silence. “I still don’t understand why you wanted me along.”
He’d finished stewing, time to just let him have it and gauge his reaction. “My relationship with Deuce goes back a long way. I’ve known the guy since he was a kid. His dad and I were friends.”
Stockwell glanced over at me, holding my gaze. At first his eyes were intense, as if I’d struck a nerve. Then they went calm again. “You’ve totally lost me now, Jesse.”
Yeah, right.
“Deuce was raised by a Marine, and he’s a SEAL. There’s more honor in that man than anyone else I know, Colonel.”
I hadn’t called him that since he’d stepped down from his position with the DHS—if indeed he ever had. It had the desired effect. His jaw muscles contracted as he stared straight ahead.
“What exactly did you and Miss Koshinski talk about last night?”
The bait’s been taken, time to set the hook.
“Her orders were clear,” I replied. “You don’t have to worry, she’s a team player all the way. But I don’t like being lied to, especially by people I consider a friend.”
His voice took on a serious tone, not that of the Travis Stockwell I’d hired as a casual first mate, but that of the former Army Airborne Colonel, assigned to Homeland Security to try to clean up a growing terrorist threat in the Caribbean.
“Above your paygrade, Jesse.”
“Switch seats,” I said as I stood up and put the file in one of the upper cabinets.
He obliged and once I was back at the helm, I slowly pulled back on the throttles, bringing the Revenge down to idle speed. We were still inside the reef line, just west of American Shoal, but a good three miles from shore.
Turning to Travis, I studied the side of his face. “Bullshit, Colonel. I haven’t had a paygrade in over eight years now. I don’t give a hairy rat’s ass whose idea it was, but making Deuce lie to his friends goes completely contrary to his sense of honor. You can spout national security all you want, but I know it’s about control, and you’re not the controlling type. However, Deuce would never jeopardize the security of this country, and if he were ordered not to divulge something, he wouldn’t. That forces him to lie, which is so against his nature, he’d alienate himself from his friends, pretty much like he’s doing now. Tell me I’m off base.”
Travis looked starboard, toward the distant shore. “Chyrel’s good. No doubt she picked up some intel she wasn’t supposed to and passed it on to you. That’s not good.”
So, it wasn’t her, I thought, very much relieved. “Chyrel’s one of the good ones. If it’s even implied that something should be kept secret, she wouldn’t spill. She told me straight up she wasn’t allowed to talk to me about anything job related. Just because I’m a grunt doesn’t mean I can’t add two and two, Colonel. You’ve been lying to me all along. And spying on me. I never mentioned Bradley’s first name.”
He turned back to me quickly and started to say something, but I interrupted him. “Please don’t compound that lie with a lie of denial. There’s no investigation going on into Charity’s disappearance. That means she’s on the company clock. If you even attempt to deny it, you’ll swim to shore from here.”
His hands tightened on the armrests of the chair. Colonel Travis Stockwell wasn’t a man accustomed to being dressed down, and I was uncomfortable doing it.
After a moment, his posture relaxed and he sighed. “It was just a matter of time until you and the other team members put it together.”
“She’s doing wet work for the DHS and you’re her handler?”
“No, not DHS,” he replied vaguely.
“You’re shittin’ me! The CIA?”
“You didn’t hear it from me,” he replied with another sigh.
“And Deuce knows, but was ordered to keep it under his hat?”
Lowering his head, he replied, “Even his wife doesn’t know.”
That would explain a lot, I thought. And what a strain it must be putting on their new marriage. Carl had once told me the secret to his and Charlie’s happiness was that they kept no secrets from one another. Deuce was in a situation where his duty had to be placed above his honor. Lying just wasn’t in his nature.
I looked out over the calm water as the Revenge gently rocked in the small, slow-moving swells. The sun was now high above the eastern horizon and gulls wheeled and cried above the boat, expecting a handout. Pushing the throttles to the stops, the Revenge nearly leaped up on plane, sending the gulls careening toward shore.
“Sometimes, Colonel, a man’s honor has to be placed above his duty. Maybe not with everyone. There are plenty out there whose sense of duty easily outweighs their sense of honor. Not with a man like Deuce, though. This has to be tearing at the very fabric of his being.”
“You have to keep what you know to yourself, Jesse.”
Turning in my seat, I stared hard into his eyes. “Like hell I do, Director. Don’t worry, I won’t be shouting it from the rooftops, but there are people in the man’s life that have a right to know. People in Charity’s life too. Their friends and family. Deuce can’t function at a hundred percent with a lie to his wife hanging over his head.”
“This is why you brought me along? So you could threaten to feed me to the sharks if I didn’t divulge a matter of national security? What Charity’s doing down there is important and she’s good at it.”
Down there? In the Caribbean or South America?
My mind drifted back to Deuce and Julie’s wedding and the explosion that had killed Jared Williams. In the short time they’d known one another, Jared and Charity had become close. A few weeks after his funeral, Charity and I had crisscrossed the Caribbean, tracking the man responsible for Jared’s death. Jason Smith, the former deputy director.
“I’ve no doubt she is. I’ve seen her work up close. With your predecessor.” I relaxed after a moment and pulled back on the throttles to forty knots. “Truth is, I do need you, Travis. These guys in Key West are dangerous.”
Stockwell knows the kind of man I am and I hoped he knew that he could trust my judgement. He grinned. “Then let’s go see the fortuneteller. We can figure the other problem out later, alright?”
That was as good as I was going to get for now and I knew it.
Erik arrived back at GT’s hotel room early, as he’d promised. It hadn’t been easy to tear himself away from Karly and he was dragging from the physical abuse she’d put him through. He found his boss waiting. The little man was still there, sitting in a corner of the room. Byers had quite a few bruises on his face and his left eye was swollen nearly shut.
“Our friend Byers had another little tidbit of information that he finally gave up. He’s going back to Pittsburgh with us after we find Grabowski. I fucking saw him twice last night and didn’t even know it.”
Erik pulled out a chair across from his boss and sat down. “Coming back to Pittsburgh with us?”
GT looked at the man slumped in the corner. “Yeah, I offered him a job and he accepted it. I always wanted to have my own ferret.”
“What’d he tell you?”
“Grabowski was with a woman last night, right here in Key West. A local, from the sound of it. Short and pretty, with blond dreadlocks.”
“If she’s a local, we should be able to find her easy enough.”
Nodding his head toward Byers, GT said, “H
e saw the two of them coming out of a place called Irish Kevin’s yesterday evening. We’ll start there. I saw her and him out on the pier at sunset and again later, just before we ran into this guy. Guess the little blond bitch distracted me.”
Looking over at the troll-looking heap in the corner, Erik just knew they wouldn’t be able to remain inconspicuous with him tagging along. “What are we gonna do with him while we go look for Grabowski and the girl?”
“He’ll only draw attention we don’t want,” GT replied. “I told him he’s free to go and to keep his eyes open.” Then GT looked at Byers and laughed. “Well, one eye anyway. He’ll meet us back here this afternoon. Give him your key card.”
Digging the card from his pocket, Erik flung it at the guy, hitting him in the leg. “You sure he can be trusted?”
“Course not. But he knows I can find him again. Let’s go.”
A short five-minute drive later, GT and Erik arrived at Irish Kevin’s bar, but it wasn’t open. The sun was barely up and it was already past ninety degrees. The sign on the door of the bar said they didn’t open until eleven.
“Head back to that restaurant,” GT said, already feeling irritable from the heat. “When I saw Grabowski and the girl there, they were crossing the street into a neighborhood.”
As the Escalade approached the Half Shell Raw Bar, GT pointed to a side street. “Turn down there. That’s where they were going when I saw them. You have any trouble finding a place to stay last night?”
Erik grinned at his boss. “Remember that waitress? I stayed with her.”
The big SUV idled slowly down Margaret Street, both men looking out the windows at the rows of old Conch houses shaded by tall trees, people going about their morning routine in the heat of the day.
Not seeing Grabowski or the blonde, and it being a crapshoot at best finding them on the many narrow streets of Old Town, GT told Erik to just keep circling through the neighborhood. There was little else they could do.
Eventually, the big car turned onto Eaton Street and they made their way east. It was nearing eleven o’clock and GT wanted to be at the bar when it opened.
Waiting to turn right at the corner of Duval Street, GT looked ahead, down the next block of Eaton. “There they are! Grabowski and the blonde in the green dress.”
Leaning forward in his seat, GT looked both ways on Duval Street, instinctively looking for cops. When he looked back, Grabowski and the blonde were gone. “Damn! Where’d they go?”
“They went into a place on the right, boss. I got my eye on it.”
Finally, the light on the pole across the street changed and the big SUV roared through the intersection. “Which place did they go into?” GT smelled blood in the water.
Slowing the car, Erik pointed. “They went in there. Madam Dawn’s Psychic Readings. Think Madam Dawn’s gonna be able to tell them two what’s about to happen to them, boss?”
“Pull over to the curb, a little past it.”
Just as GT was about to get out, Erik put a hand on his arm while looking in the mirror. “Wait, boss.”
GT looked in the side mirror and behind them, a black Ford sedan had come to a stop in front of the psychic’s shop. “Is it a fucking cop?”
“No, boss. It’s a taxicab. But take a look at the two guys that just got out and are going into the same place.”
“Can’t be!” GT yelled, banging on the dash. “That’s the tall guy from that fisherman’s bar yesterday!”
Watching in the mirror, he saw the man who seemed to be the leader of the locals who had disarmed them. He was with another man about the same build but a little shorter. They opened the door of the psychic’s place and disappeared inside. A moment later, someone turned the sign over to Closed and pulled the shades down.
GT’s hand moved automatically to where his shoulder holster should have been. He felt naked and vulnerable when he realized nothing was there. “We’ll wait here till they come out.”
Arriving at the little marina by the Hyatt an hour later, I left the air conditioner and generator running, with plenty of water in Pescador’s bowl. He was already snoozing in the salon. Pescador’s only four or five years old, but already slowing down and showing signs of age, as big dogs do at that age.
Tying off to the dock, Travis and I went up to the parking lot and met my old friend Lawrence at the foot of the pier. Travis had called ahead to the marina to get a slip and I’d called Lawrence for a ride.
“Good ta see yuh again, Cap’n,” the old Bahamian said, pumping my hand. Lawrence had been invaluable some time ago, providing plenty of information about a Miami drug trafficker in Key West who was attempting to smuggle arms and terrorists into the country by boat. I always found cab drivers and bartenders to be very reliable about information.
I leaned in close and whispered, “From now on, Lawrence, I want you to call me Stretch Buchannan and treat me like a big-time cocaine importer from up island. I’ll explain it all when we get in the car.”
Travis put both our go-bags in the backseat and climbed in. I sat up front with Lawrence. “If yuh want me to treat yuh like a druggy, Cap’n, thata mean I treat ya mighty scornful. You be knowing dat, mon.”
I turned sideways in my seat and nodded back toward Travis in back. “Lawrence, this is my friend Travis Stockwell.”
The gray-haired islander turned in his seat and reached a big hand back. “Any friend of Cap’n Jesse’s is a friend to Lawrence. I tink I see you heah in Key West before, Mistuh Travis.”
Stockwell looked at Lawrence a moment then snapped his fingers. “You have a good eye for faces, Lawrence. About a year ago, I was here in town and you took me to a restaurant for dinner.”
Lawrence grinned, showing perfectly straight, big white teeth. “Di Blue Heaven, mon.”
“Yeah, that was the place. Good memory, too.”
Turning back to me, Lawrence said, “Whut dis business about yuh bein’ a druggy, Cap’n?”
“We’re looking for someone. Two big black guys, well dressed, shaved heads.”
Lawrence thought for a moment and said, “Not seen two big black mons togedda, Cap’n, but I seen a mon look jes like dat last night on Duval.”
“Odds are they’d be together, but if you see anyone that looks like that, will you call me? They’re drug dealers from way up north.”
“Miami?”
I chuckled. “Way norther than that. They’re down here from Pittsburgh and have an associate there I’d like to get my hands on. That’s why Travis and I are pretending to be bigshot coke importers from Key Largo, to try to smoke these men out.”
“Ahh, I see, Cap’n. Somebody is movin’ into yuh territory and yuh be here to show dem di error in dere ways?”
“Exactly. You know where Dawn McKenna’s shop, or store, or whatever she calls it is?”
“Yah, mon! But, no way she’s involved wit di druggies. Mizz McKenna a good woman, mon.”
“No, she’s not involved,” I said. “She called me to see if I could help her niece’s boyfriend. The Pittsburgh dealer is looking for him.”
Lawrence put the car in gear and drove out of the hotel parking lot. “Her place is just over on Eaton Street. Be dere in jest two minutes, mon.”
A few minutes later, Lawrence pulled the cab to the curb in front of a small storefront with the name Madam Dawn’s Psychic Readings hand-painted on the door’s window.
“Yuh want me ta wait, Cap’n?”
Handing him a twenty, I said, “No, that’s okay. If we need you, I’ll call. But let me know the minute you see these guys.”
Lawrence nodded and pressed the button to put the window up as he pulled away from the curb, maneuvering the big sedan around a Cadillac SUV parked in front of him with dark windows.
When I pulled open the door to Madam Dawn’s, a little bell mounted on it jingled and a blast of cold air hit me in the face. I stepped inside, with Travis right behind me. Dawn was sitting at a table in the corner with an ordinary-looking younger man and a you
ng woman with blond dreadlocks.
Dawn got up and met us at the door, taking my hand. “Thanks for coming, Jesse. I wasn’t sure you would.”
She reached behind me and flipped the sign in the window over to Closed and pulled the shades. Then she led us into the small side room, decorated with the usual accoutrements of a psychic reader.
Heavy burgundy drapes over the windows blocked the outside light. A small lamp with a mosaic glass shade provided the only light in the room.
“You’re a psychic and didn’t know if I’d come or not?”
She laughed. Dawn McKenna was a tiny little woman in her late thirties, maybe. Dark hair and dark tan, she could easily pass for a gypsy, though I knew she was of north European descent.
“Being a psychic is more about observing than predicting the future,” she said and waved an arm to the other two. “This is my niece, Coral, and her friend Michal. That’s with no E, isn’t it Michal?”
The young man stood up. “Yeah, but how’d you know that?” Extending his hand to me, I took it and noted dozens of small burn scars on his forearm.
“You’re Polish,” I said. “And you work with steel.”
“Now who’s the psychic?” Dawn asked, smiling. “That’s very good, Jesse. The same way I guessed it, but I had the advantage of knowing his last name.”
“You guys lost me,” Michal said.
“The burn marks on your forearms,” I said. “I figured you to be a welder. Knowing you’re out of Pittsburgh and Dawn saying there was no E in Michal, I guessed at the Polish part.”
“Please, everyone sit down,” Dawn said, dragging two extra chairs to the large table. It had a dark red cover, with a gilded fringe, and a large crystal ball mounted on a base in the middle.
Once we were all seated, Dawn said, “We each choose our destiny, so predicting what a person may or may not do depends on the situation and the person. I thought you might not come because of the nature of the problem. You’re known to be sort of a Dudley Do-Right man. Knowing that, there must be some other reason for your coming.”
Fallen Honor: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 7) Page 13