Fallen Mangrove (Jesse McDermitt Series Book 5)

by Wayne Stinnett

  Sabina climbed down the ladder and entered the cabin. She was amazed at how beautiful it was inside. It was a shame they’d have to abandon it in Miami. She didn’t find any champagne, but there was a nice bottle of white wine. She took it and two wine glasses back up to the bridge. Sitting next to Elana she poured a glass and handed it to her before pouring one for herself.

  “I had no idea this boat would be so fast,” Elana said, pointing at the digital speedometer. “We’re going over forty knots. That’s seventy-five kilometers per hour.”

  “It doesn’t seem so fast up here,” Sabina said, stretching her legs out and placing them on the console while taking a sip of her wine. “How much do you think those emeralds are worth?”

  “Probably more than a million American dollars. But a fence is only going to pay half of that, at best.”

  “Well,” Sabina said with a wicked smile, “we won’t have to split it with anyone and the two of us could retire in Mexico and live quite well with that much.”

  Gently placing her hand on Sabina’s inner thigh, Elana smiled and said, “I do like the way you think, my love.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  By the time we made it to shore, a whole hour had passed. The current was pulling us north so hard that we had to swim at an angle or risk drifting out to sea, north of the island.

  We finally found a house where someone was home and called Cleary. He agreed to send one of his men to pick us up and call Deuce to meet us in town.

  “They have an hour-and-a-half head start,” I said once we were all together in Cleary’s office. “What do you mean you can’t get a chopper in the air?”

  “We don’t have a helicopter here, Captain McDermitt, and we’re already spread very thin, thanks to all the trouble you and your people have brought to my island. The nearest helicopter is in Nassau and I already checked. It’s out on a hunt for a missing boat. It will be hours before it’s available.”

  “What about Maggio’s chopper over at the airport?” Deuce asked. “Have you confiscated it yet?”

  “I’ve contacted the airport and instructed the people at Cherokee Air to make sure it stays there. But, as far as actually confiscating it, no. We really have no need.”

  “The people on that chopper fired on American government officials,” Rosales said. “That’s more than enough reason in Florida.”

  “This isn’t Florida, Agent Rosales. Besides, we have nobody to fly it.”

  “I can fly it,” I said. “I’m a pilot.”

  “Then feel free, Captain,” Cleary shouted. “And when you run low on fuel, keep going all the way to Miami and never come back here again.”

  “Wait, Sergeant,” Deuce said, in a calm voice. “Are you saying you’ll release custody of Maggio’s helicopter to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement?”

  Picking up the phone on his desk, he said, “Yes, I’ll call them now, if it will get you people out of here. While the Bahamian government appreciates you finding that treasure and turning it over, you and your people have caused more than enough trouble here.”

  In minutes, the deed was done and we left his office, heading straight to the ferry dock. Deuce was on the phone with Rusty as we got there and the ferry was just boarding.

  “The four of you stay put,” he told Rusty. “The chopper can only carry six passengers. We’ll let you know if we find them.”

  I got a sudden idea and stopped dead in my tracks. “What’s wrong?” Deuce asked.

  “Tony, please tell me you remember the frequency of that tracking device Horvac put on my boat.”

  Tony smiled and we ran the last few steps to the ferry, climbing aboard just as they cast off.

  Half an hour later, we arrived at Cherokee Air Services and I walked in with Rosales as the others waited outside.

  “Mister Madic,” Clifford said. Then, smiling at a confused Rosales, he added, “I see you found your friends.”

  “Hi, Clifford. Did you get a call from Sergeant Cleary?”

  “Yes,” he replied, looking confused himself. “He said to fuel up your friend’s Bell and that an Agent Rosales was going to be taking it.”

  Rosales produced her identification and badge and showed it to the stunned man. “I’m Agent Rosales. Mister Madic is going to take me and my friends up.”

  As I did a quick preflight, Deuce asked, “Are you sure you know how to fly this thing? It’s not a Huey.”

  When I was in the Corps, I got about eighty hours of seat time in a UH-1 helicopter. Not really as part of any training, like the air crew—just some overly friendly chopper jocks I was able to con into letting me fly. Also not enough to get a civilian pilot’s license, either, but enough that I was comfortable at the stick.

  “A chopper’s a chopper,” I said. “This one’s just got a few more bells and whistles.”

  Tony knelt between the front seats, dialing in the frequency of the tracking device on the chopper’s secondary UHF receiver. “The antenna’s on the tail. When we’re pointed directly at the boat is when the signal will be weakest, because of the interference from the airframe. But it can’t tell us which way to go.”

  “I know which way they went,” I said. “South.”

  “That tracker only has a thirty-mile range and they have almost a two-hour head start.”

  “I know, I know,” I mumbled as I started the turbine.

  “That means they’re nearly ninety miles away,” Deuce said, strapping in. “At this thing’s top speed, it’ll take close to an hour to catch them.”

  “That’s if we follow the same course they took,” I said, increasing the throttle and pulling up on the collective a little too much, causing the bird to jump into the air and wobble. Getting control, I said, “We’re headed straight for the Northwest Channel. They’ll have to go almost due south to Hole in the Wall before turning west.”

  “You’re assuming they’ll head for Florida?”

  “They can’t stay here,” I replied as we gained altitude and I pointed the nose of the chopper to the southwest.

  Deuce’s phone chirped and after checking to see who it was, he answered it. He listened for a few minutes and said, “Okay, Chyrel. I’ll tell him.” Deuce ended the call and looked over at me.

  “Tell who what?” I asked, glancing at him and seeing the distress in his eyes.

  “That was Chyrel,” he began. “She kept digging into the connections of both Madic and the Maggio law firm.”

  “Kind of a waste of time with Madic,” I said, grinning.

  “Jesse, Alfredo Maggio’s son’s name is Nicholas Maggio, married, with a child due in one month.”

  “So? I don’t give a shit if he has ten kids and an orphanage he supports. His ass is going to prison.”

  Deuce didn’t say anything for a moment. When I glanced over at him, he was still staring at me.

  “Give it,” I said. “What else?”

  “Nick Maggio’s wife is Eve Marie McDermitt Maggio.”

  “What?” I yelled.

  “Your daughter, Eve, is married to Alfredo Maggio’s son,” Deuce said.

  We flew on while I considered this. I remembered Kim telling me that Eve’s husband’s name was Nick and he was a lawyer. I remembered thinking at the time that it was a good thing she’d married a successful young man. And now that successful young man was responsible for the deaths of a lot of people. Almost forty minutes later, a faint ping started coming from my headset, pulling me out of my thoughts.

  “That’s it!” Tony said, kneeling and adjusting the radio. “Yaw left, then right.”

  I pushed on the left pedal, causing the helicopter to crab a little sideways and slow down. The sound of the pinging became fainter.

  “They’re at about eleven o’clock from our course,” Tony said. “You timed it perfect! We’ll catch them just as they pass Chub Cay and enter Bahama Banks.”

  “There’s Chub Cay five miles dead ahead,” Deuce said. “Looks like a couple of fun-seekers heading out.” Sure enoug
h, I could just make out two go-fast boats coming out of the marina on the west side of the island.

  “There!” I shouted. “There’s those two bitches with my boat!”

  “Okay, what do we do now?” Deuce asked.

  Pushing forward on the stick, I dropped the nose, sending the chopper into a dive. “We can’t shoot them,” I said. “Might hit a fuel tank. We still have plenty of fuel, so we’ll get low and slow and follow them in. If they see us on radar, they’ll think we’re just another boat.”

  I leveled off just thirty feet from the wave tops and dropped the airspeed to forty knots. My boat was just threading the needle in the underwater canyon and heading onto the Bahama Banks a few miles ahead. Deuce watched through a pair of binoculars. I saw the two Cigarette center consoles that we’d seen leaving the marina on Chub Cay turn, following the wake of my boat a mile ahead of us. It looked like each boat had only two people aboard, all four of them looking forward. They both increased speed and began to veer away from one another, accelerating to overtake the boat thieves.

  “Oh my God,” Deuce mumbled.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The guys in those two Cigarettes have RPGs!”

  I watched in horror as the two boats quickly overtook my boat and trails of white smoke emanated from the bow of each one. The rockets streaked toward my boat, both of them reaching it about the same time. The explosion was horrific, as a giant fireball erupted and rolled up toward the sky. The Revenge was lifted from the water and thrown over on her side, breaking into thousands of pieces, as the orange and black cloud spat what was left of it out the side.

  I instinctively pulled back on the cyclic and raised the collective, slowing and gaining altitude as the main part of the fire quickly burned itself out. What was left of Gaspar’s Revenge quickly sank below the surface.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Amazingly, the two goody bags were thrown clear of the wreck. Art Newman, another of Deuce’s team members and previously part of his SEAL team, found one and Julie found the other one.

  It’d been two days since the sinking of my boat. We’d called Cleary and given him the GPS coordinates of the wreck and a description of the two Cigarettes, which had immediately turned and headed west as we hovered over what was left of my boat.

  Cleary said he’d advise the Coast Guard since it was outside his jurisdiction. Since we were low on fuel, we flew directly to Homestead, where Deuce’s team was headquartered, arriving there ninety minutes later. By then, the Coast Guard had arrived on scene and reported there was little left of the bodies of the two boat thieves.

  Chyrel had contacted Colonel Stockwell and he’d pulled some strings and arranged for us to salvage the Revenge, explaining to the Coast Guard that it was a DHS vessel and contained sensitive documents. The Coasties remained on station to keep anyone from diving on the boat until we got there.

  Art was visiting the island when Deuce called Chyrel. He quickly provisioned El Cazador and headed to Miami, arriving there late that night.

  The following morning, we loaded up dive gear and equipment and six of us headed to the scene of the wreck, arriving before noon. Besides me and Deuce, we had Art, Tony, and Julie with us, being the best divers on the team. Bourke piloted the boat and acted as liaison to the Coasties. They agreed to pull off a mile away and stay on station as we worked through the day. By nightfall, we hadn’t recovered very much and put into Chub Cay for the night.

  We were back on station early the next morning and resumed diving to recover what we could. Art and Julie were working the perimeter when they found the two goody bags. Miraculously, although the chests were destroyed by the blast, the bags held and the gemstones were still inside.

  Tony and I were working the bow section, trying to get to the bunk in the forward stateroom. After two dives in the very shallow water, we finally were able to get inside. The bunk itself was ripped from its mounts and laid on the port bulkhead. One by one, we removed the dozens of fly rod cases and reel cases, passing them to Bourke on El Cazador.

  Deuce was working solo on what was left of the cockpit. The boat was basically broken in two pieces just forward of the engine room. The bow section lay on its port side and the stern lay upright on the sandy bottom just a few feet away.

  By noon, we’d recovered everything from under the forward bunk and although the mount for the machine gun was twisted by the force of the blast, the M-2 machine gun itself was completely intact, although one of the barrels was obviously bent.

  Sitting on the gunwale of El Cazador dripping wet, Bourke looked over at me. “Doc just called,” he said. “They arrived at Marathon Airport an hour ago.”

  “How’s he feeling?” Deuce asked.

  “Said he’d seen better days but was going to be fine,” he replied, glancing at Deuce. Then to me he said, “Doc said to tell you Pescador didn’t much like riding in cargo, but he’s okay. Outside playing with the Trents’ kids.”

  “Is there anything else you think we should try to salvage?” Deuce asked me.

  I looked up from where I was sitting. “Electronics are all toast. Engines, too.”

  “I got a couple of things,” Tony said, pulling a bag over to where he sat. “They’re wet, but I think you can dry them out and they’ll be okay.” He opened the bag at his feet and I looked inside.

  I’m not much of a sentimentalist and didn’t have many things I really cherished. But in his bag were several framed pictures of me with different people, the President among them. Also, my collection of challenge coins and a few other mementos that once decorated the bulkhead of my stateroom. I picked up the newest one, a picture of Kim and me taken just last week. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “Let’s shove off,” I said. “There’s nothing left down there that’s worth anything.”

  “Doc said to tell you one more thing, after I’d told him what we’d recovered,” Bourke said.

  “What’s that?”

  “He said he was advancing you one chest full of emeralds to replace your boat.” We all began laughing. It seemed to be the first time in a long time.

  Bourke started the engine and as he turned east, brought the big boat with its wide Carolina bow flares up onto plane. He picked up the mic and told the Coasties that recovery was complete.

  Four hours later, we tied up at the slip Deuce had arranged at the marina on Rickenbacker Causeway. There was a government van there to pick us up and we loaded the equipment and what we’d salvaged into it and went directly to Deuce’s headquarters. We parked in a secure garage and left everything in the van for the trip down to Marathon tomorrow.

  I showered and put on fresh clothes, using an empty dorm room. It was still early, not even supper time. When I got to the van, Deuce was there waiting.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

  “I have to go see a lawyer,” I replied. I opened the back door of the van, removed one of the waterproof Penn Senator reel cases, and opened it.

  As I reached inside and removed one of my Sigs, Deuce said, “Not alone, you’re not.” He reached into the case and removed the other one.

  “This doesn’t involve you,” I said.

  Racking the slide a couple of times to check the action, he inserted a fresh magazine and turned to me.

  “Jesse, I’ve known you almost my whole life. As a kid, I thought you were bigger than life. I knew Eve and Kim when they were little, too. I also know what you’re going to do.”

  “You do, huh?”

  “Yeah, you’re going to make your son-in-law wet his pants,” he said with a grin. “Then you’re going to point out how you’ll be watching his every move for the rest of his life and how he should stop taking on cases involving low-life scum.”

  Inserting a magazine into my own Sig, I holstered it and leaned on the bumper of the van and looked up at him. He was right and we both knew it.

  Ten minutes later, we were in a black Ford Crown Vic, headed to South Beach. We found the bu
ilding where Maggio’s law firm was located and took the elevator up to the top floor.

  Stepping out of the elevator, a pretty receptionist looked up from her desk. I looked left and right and saw that there was one closed office door across from a glassed-in meeting room down each corridor.

  “May I help you, gentlemen?” the receptionist asked.

  Deuce pulled out his wallet and flashed his badge and identification. Glancing down at the nameplate on her desk he said, “Take a coffee break, Gina. A long one. Downstairs. In fact, why don’t you just call it a day?”

  She started to reach for the phone and I put my hand on top of hers. “You might also look into finding another job, Gina,” I growled. “They guys you work for are dirty.” She looked at me, then got up from her desk and quickly stepped into the elevator.

  “You take the left and I’ll take the right?” Deuce asked.

  “If you find Junior, bring him to Daddy’s office. I’ll do the same.”

  I headed down the corridor on the left and stopped in front of the office door. Looking down the hall, I saw Deuce was at the other door. I opened it and stepped inside.

  The man at the desk was surprised. He looked up and said, “What’s the meaning of this?” Then he called over my shoulder, “Gina! Get in here.”

  “Your receptionist took a coffee break, son,” I said as I walked over to Nick’s desk. “Get on your feet.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are, mister?”

  I slowly reached behind me and drew the Sig Sauer from the holster at my back. “My name is Jesse McDermitt. Now get on your feet, dammit!”

  He stammered for a moment, trying to say something as the realization dawned on him. He started to reach for a desk drawer, but I moved quickly around the desk and put the barrel of the Sig against his temple.

  Reaching past him, I opened the drawer and took out a Smith and Wesson .38. “A little advice from a professional? Mount a holster under your desk.” I grabbed him by the collar of his expensive coat and yanked him to his feet. “There’s a meeting in Daddy’s office. I don’t think we should keep them waiting.”