by Josh Karnes
Chapter 16
Isla de Vieques, Puerto Rico
As they were walking back, James began to realize just how little he knew about the situation that he found himself in, beginning with the place where they were. It had been such a blur, this being their first full day of vacation and everything blew up, he had nearly forgotten why they were there. He chose Vieques for their vacation because it was an idyllic place with a fantastic resort. He thought that would be the perfect environment for them to begin putting their family back together; to stop the decline they had been in for the past two years. But besides the natural beauty, what else was here? Mark had found the world’s deepest ocean sinkhole just a boat ride away with only a few minutes searching on his phone. There must be other information available.
“Hey Mark, where did you hear about ‘the crease’, anyway?”
“Oh, that was easy. I just did a search, ‘what to do in Vieques’, on my phone. It was mostly beaches, surfing and eco-tours, like the bioluminescent bay stuff. But there were several diving tours and this one was tops on the list. Looked like a cool thing to do. We’ve been wanting to do something like this ever since Joey and I got certified.”
“Was there any other information about ‘the crease’? It’s by Culebra, right? Anything about that?”
“Not really. Actually it’s closer to Culebra than it is to Vieques, but it’s really close to a little private island that is supposed to be uninhabited. Remember those guys I told you about that were in a raft-looking boat, messing with the buoys?”
“The Zodiac.”
“Right. The Zodiac. They looked like they probably came from that private island. Who knows what they were up to.”
“Is that island swimming-distance from ‘the crease’?”
“Maybe for a really strong swimmer. Joey’s a really good swimmer but remember, we had been diving for over an hour. I’m not sure he’d make it all the way to the island. And what would be the point? There’s nobody there.”
“Yeah. OK. Maybe he hitched a ride with the Zodiac guys. We need to find them in the morning and ask. Maybe the police know something about that and can get in touch with them. Also we will have to check Culebra. That island is a lot smaller, right?”
“I guess. Looks small on the map. We didn’t see it.”
“We have some research to do,” James said to his son as they came upon the entrance to the Ensenada del Mar. “Let’s find Eli and your mom, get something to eat, and then see if this place has some kind of business center with computers with internet access.”
When James and Mark arrived at their room, Eli and Melissa were already there. Melissa was practically pacing a hole in the rug. She was clearly not happy to leave tonight’s search completely in the hands of the police. When James walked into the room, she began. “James, what are we doing to find Joey right now? He might be out in the ocean stranded, clinging to some buoy, about to drown. He may have been kidnapped by some… some… some bad people, and he might be who knows where. He might—”
“Mom,” Eli said. “Hold on. First of all, those buoys that are out there, they are a lot bigger than you think. He could climb up on one and go to sleep if he wanted to. Secondly, if he’s gone with anyone, including ‘bad people’, then it is going to take a deliberate search by people who know where he might be, and who the bad guys are, here in Vieques. That’s not us. We don’t know where to look. The police are doing everything that can be done.”
“I think there’s plenty we can do tonight,” James said. “Eli is right. We don’t know enough about this place or what typically happens with lost people here. We need to get educated and begin to formulate a plan.”
Melissa was a little more calm. “The FBI are likely to be here in the morning. They will certainly have a plan.”
“That’s a good point. In the meantime, we can become more educated. Here’s what I suggest. Let’s head downstairs and get something to eat, to go, and convene in the business center of the hotel. We’ll spread out on computers and do some research, take notes, figure out the lay of the land here. We need to nail down where Joey could be so we can know where to look. So far we’ve been flying totally blind. This was clear to me and Mark when we were asking around down at the marina—”
“Had anyone seen Joey?” Melissa asked.
“No. Not that they would say. We think the police will get better information. But really, we didn’t know who to ask, or where to look. We need to find out where we need to be looking. Tomorrow we are going to have to go back to ‘the crease’ and follow whatever trails that Joey may have taken, which includes hitching rides on boats and we don’t know where those would go, finding a place to stay overnight, we don’t know where that could be, that kind of thing. The FBI will have some ideas but we may be able to help more if we get educated first. What do you think?”
Melissa wanted to blame someone for this. She wanted to blame James most of all, but she could see now that it was not fair. James brought them here to try and fix things, because he loved his family and wanted it to work. Melissa was going to have to consider taking the chip off of her shoulder when it came to James. He is smart, and more than her, he was thinking clearly and rationally. She could tell that she was too emotional, too frazzled, to really make the right choices. James was always very well grounded. This was infuriating sometimes, but right now it was what they needed. What she needed. She needed to convince herself to trust him, starting now.
“Okay, James. Let’s go. Why don’t we go to the business center and order room service there. Then we can spend all of our time working on this problem,” Melissa said. She was trying to be a team player, even though nearly everything inside her was screaming for her to steal a boat if she had to and head out to ‘the crease’ in the dark to go get her boy. She knew that was ridiculous and probably also impossible. James’s idea would have to do. It wasn’t a bad one.
“Good idea. Let’s go.”
The staff of the Ensenada del Mar reluctantly delivered the Grady’s room service order to the business center where the family was found working on four of the six computers hosted in the enclosed space. This resort was clearly not tailored to the business traveler, and most guests who wanted to use a computer brought their own laptops and took advantage of the hotel’s wifi. The Gradys had intentionally left Houston with nothing more than their smartphones in order to “get away”. Now they were close to claiming Ensenada del Mar’s business center as their search headquarters. They had not informed the hotel of the situation, in hopes that it was just a temporary scare. Surely Joseph would be back here shortly, what with the police combing the marina area and the FBI on the way.
James had given orders and the family was following them to maximize their search efforts. James was searching for possible landing places where Joseph may have wound up had he caught a ride on another boat, along the Puerto Rico coastline and among the numerous tiny islands in the area where he was last seen. Eli was researching possible boat rentals and private SCUBA guide services so they could mount their search immediately in the morning. Melissa was busily combing the various other police stations, hospitals and hostels web sites for any indication that Joseph had been found or had found help. She also posted their contact information anywhere she could. Mark, the most internet-savvy of the bunch, suggested to his dad that he should try and figure out who the guys in the Zodiac were, and what was happening on that private island, just in case that’s where Joseph had ended up. James thought that was a brilliant plan.
After a couple of hours of heads-down studying of maps and web sites, James announced, “Well there are dozens of tiny islands, too many to make a list. I think our best bet is to just print the map and have a guide take us by boat first to Fajardo, where we can hit the Villa Marina after we troll along the coastline looking for less formal docks, and then we can just go to each of the tiny islands one by one. Most of them are around Culebra so we can then circle Culebra and check it out as well.
That will definitely take all day. If we strike out on all of that, then we’ll have to consider whether we head over to St. Thomas. It’s just as close to ‘the crease’ as Vieques is. Eli, did you find us a ride?”
“Yeah, I have a couple of options, so we’ll see who is available in the morning. I think I should go with you tomorrow to search in case we need someone with a lot of diving experience,” Eli said.
“Well, we have to hope it doesn’t come to that. But that sounds like a good plan anyway. Mark, you can stay here with your mom and deal with the FBI.”
“James, I can handle the police and the FBI on my own tomorrow. They will have plenty of people to help me here. I think Mark and Eli both should go with you, especially since Mark can speak Spanish pretty well and that might come in handy,” Melissa said, knowing that Mark would go nuts stuck in some police station or their hotel all day while his brother was out there looking where they had last seen Joseph.
“Plus, I think I have figured out who the Zodiac guys were. We definitely need to talk to them.”
“Really? What’s the scoop?”
Mark explained, “That little private island closest to ‘the crease’ doesn’t have a name on the map, but I found some people online calling it ‘Isla Roca’, means ‘rock island’, which sounds like the right place. According to the information I could dig up, it looks like it belongs to the U.S. government. A bunch of other divers and people on fishing tours also have noticed activity on this island, apparently it’s mysterious and out of place. Rumors are that the US military is doing weapons research there, or some kind of weird experiments, something like that. Anyway, since it’s U.S. property you would think that the FBI would be able to find out if they picked up a lost diver, and also that they probably are taking care of him if they did. I think we need to look there for sure. It was probably their buoys anyway, so maybe they found Joey hanging onto one of them, or they will in the morning when they go back to check them like they did today.”
“That’s great information, Mark. We’ll hit that right after Fajardo and the nearest coastline of Culebra,” James said as he noticed Melissa’s downcast look. “Honey, any luck with your search?”
“No. There’s just no way to get the information we need from other police stations and hospitals. It doesn’t look like they post that kind of stuff. I don’t know how anyone ever finds someone who is lost around here.”
“They look,” Eli assured. “Just like we are doing.”