Seminole Bend

by Tom Hansen

  “Ain’t got none of that, but I got some first aid spray in a can. Stings a bit, that’s all.” Phil winked and smiled as Lew shifted into position, facing backwards on the bow. Lew grabbed the edge of the patio glass with both hands and ducked his head down the best he could.

  “Okay, I’m as ready as ready gets,” said Lew tentatively. “Onward, Captain!”

  Phil lowered his body and gripped the controls, then gave the aircraft engine just enough gas to penetrate the thick foliage. Branches scraped across Lew’s back, but he held firmly onto the glass. A tree limb struck the spotlight, causing it to turn sideways. Seconds later the airboat emerged blindly onto the irrigation canal. Lew dropped his hands down from the glass and rubbed the myriad of abrasions on his arms. His Penn State Polo shirt was torn in multiple places on his back and blood was soaking into the cotton fabric. But the glass was intact and that’s all that mattered.

  “Perhaps a first aid spray break is suitable and proper at this time. What do you think, Phil?” Lew was applying a layer of humor to his pain. “Drop anchor here, okay?”

  “What do you mean, drop anchor here?” asked Phil with a puzzled look. “I can spray your back without dropping anchor!”

  “I’m kidding about spraying me. I’ll live without antiseptic. Remember earlier today when I told you about the underground storage compartment in the driveway of that mansion across the street from Brett’s house? There was some sort of rails that guided the chamber along the waterway.”

  “Yep, I remember. But what does that have to do with dropping anchor here?”

  “Yesterday you said the depth of this canal was twenty to thirty feet, which seemed bizarre considering it’s supposed to be used for irrigation. And why anyone would feel the need to irrigate a swamp is beyond me. I just want to check and see if there are rails on the bottom of the canal right here. If there are, then that canal goes under the mansion and all the way to the Kissimmee River.”

  “But why would anyone want to transport something under water to some guy’s driveway?” inquired Phil while Lew dropped the anchor off the bow of the airboat. “Wouldn’t it be much easier to drive the truck from the factory or warehouse instead of dragging it through the bottom of an irrigation ditch?”

  “I’m guessing that’s a rhetorical question, Phil?”

  “Don’t know what kind of question it is, but if this here canal is being used as an underwater transport system, something illegal is going on.” Phil straightened out the spotlight and then surveyed the area. The swamp was an eerie place at night. “How are you planning on finding out if there are rails in this canal?”

  “Thought I’d dive down to the bottom and check it out,” replied Lew as he lifted off his bloodstained shirt, then stood up and dropped his shorts to the boat’s deck. Phil stared at him a moment inquisitively, then began to chuckle. Lew was standing in his royal blue and white checked boxers with an image of a lion climbing a mountain with the number 1855 etched below it. A Penn State fan to the bitter bare necessities!

  “You can’t be serious, my friend? You’d be gator bait this time of night if the water moccasins didn’t get you first! Do you even know how to swim?”

  Lew looked sadly at Phil and nodded. He was about to speak, then held back a moment, obviously trying to gain some composure. He squatted, turned his head and focused on a ripple in the canal. Then Lew said quietly, “Navy. World War Two. I was stationed on the USS Vestal in Pearl Harbor on December seventh of forty-one. We were moored with the Arizona when the Japs bombed it and the explosion blew our commander, Captain Young, right off our deck into the water. A couple of my comrades tossed a life ring buoy, but the captain began to sink. We were in about forty feet of water, so I dove down to try and save him, but instead of returning with our captain, I returned with the body of a dead sailor. No head. Just the body.”

  Phil sat cross-legged on the floorboard, dumbfounded as he listened to Lew. Neither man spoke, nor did they look at each other. Phil’s cousin was killed aboard the USS West Virginia when an explosion ripped a three-inch, fifty-caliber gun barrel from its turret, flung it across the deck and slammed into his cousin’s chest, crushing every rib and shredding the heart chambers. Memories of the Pearl Harbor tragedy consumed their thoughts as both men silently reflected on the massive loss of lives that day. Then Lew stood back up and dove into the canal before Phil could stop him.

  “Wait!” screamed Phil as he tried in vain to grab for any of Lew’s limbs he could latch on to. He crawled back to the spotlight and swiftly irradiated the water where Lew had entered. The muddy water and dark of night made it impossible for Phil to see Lew, but the beam of light illuminated the canal just enough for Lew to see a few feet ahead of him. He descended rapidly and within seconds came face to face with the whiskers of a freshwater channel catfish. The catfish had no fear and if you could read his mind he was thinking that Lew might pose major competition to his bottom feeding efforts. But Lew found what he was looking for: iron railings used to guide a small craft through the canal. With his lungs beginning to burn, Lew surfaced quickly. Phil reached his arm over the side of the airboat and supported Lew as he climbed aboard. A fourteen-foot confused alligator watched nearby with glowing green eyes perched above his snout. If only he hadn’t just filled himself up on a wonderful egret dinner. Hmmm.

  “Rails are down there,” said Lew as he wiped himself off on his bloody Polo shirt. Phil had no idea this trip would involve swimming and diving, thus he left towels back at the shop. “I’m guessing this irrigation canal runs from the Kissimmee River all the way to the driveway next to the mansion. It must have been dug deep to get that cargo hauler back and forth under water. But why? The only possible answer is whatever is being hauled is a secret for somebody. Who lives in that mansion up in the Estates anyway, Phil?”

  “His name’s Oliver Harfield, that’s all I know,” replied Phil. “And the only reason I know that is Governor Daughtry had his picture taken with Harfield at his mansion a month or so ago and it was plastered all over the Seminole Bend Journal.”

  “But how do you know that it’s the same mansion we were at yesterday?”

  “Cuz the picture was taken down by the street at the end of the driveway and the photo was aimed opposite the mansion.”

  “What the heck does that mean, Phil?”

  “In the background you can see the archway that marks the entrance to your son Brett’s house.”

  “Come on, Phil, those types of entryways can be found in a bunch of places,” declared a frustrated Lew as he shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. “I need more evidence than that!”

  Phil hesitated for a moment or two, opened his mouth to say something and decided against it.

  “What is it?” asked Lew. “What were you going to say?”

  “Aw, it’s nothing,” replied Phil. “It’s just that, well, aw, nothing. It’s best we get moving on, what d’ya say?”

  “Tell me, Phil. What aren’t you telling me?”

  Phil looked at his friend, paused and shook his head, then said, “Oliver Harfield is on one side of the governor, and, well, Brett is on the other side. Caption read, ‘Governor visits with millionaire Oliver Harfield and Brett Berry in Seminole Bend Golf Course Estates’. Caused quite a ruckus in town, especially during morning coffee time with the old retired folks who knew Brett was the basketball coach. They assumed their taxpayer dollars had made him a millionaire.”

  “How could anyone believe that, Phil? Coach’s salaries are public knowledge, right?”

  “Yep, that’s right, Lew. And that’s what calmed things down in town. Several of the old fogies marched down to the school board office and they were proven wrong.”

  Lew mulled over what Phil had told him, but he was still befuddled. “So the question is, how DID Brett afford that house in the Estates? It sure wasn’t on his teaching and coaching salary.” Phil nodded and shrugged. Lew continued, “Any idea what Oliver Harfield does for
a living?”

  “Can’t say. Like I said, the first I ever heard of him was that picture with Brett and the governor.”

  “Well, he knows the sheriff pretty good, too. He greeted him at the door to his mansion after the sheriff got out of that fancy car. Remember me telling you that when the sheriff left he spent an hour in the Estate’s security hut?”

  “Yeah, that’s awfully strange, it is. You said you think this here irrigation canal ends at Harfield’s driveway? What d’ya suppose is being hauled through this here water?”

  “All I can tell you right now is this ain’t no damn irrigation canal. I figured that out yesterday when we saw the depth, and the fact that a swamp needs no irrigation! Let’s get this glass up to Brett’s place while it’s still dark. Maybe Miguel could shed some light on who his boss Oliver Harfield really is.”

  Phil crawled under the glass canopy back to the airboat’s controls while Lew positioned himself at the bow and yanked on the anchor, trying to free it from the bottom of the canal. The spotlight was fixed straight ahead as Phil patiently waited for his buddy to loosen the submerged mooring hook. It was lodged on something and it wouldn’t budge.

  “It’s caught on something,” shouted Lew. “Can you reverse backwards to try and unhook it?”

  “This here’s an airboat, Lew. They don’t do backwards. Let me try a hard forward throttle and see if that does the trick. I’m planning on driving right smack dab over the anchor chain so this could get rough. Lay down and hold on tight to one of them bed frames.”

  Lew grabbed the nearest post and gripped mightily. He thought he saw the glass slide a bit on the support, but he wasn’t sure. Phil throttled down, the propellers vigorously churning inside the cage, but the boat wasn’t moving forward one bit. Instead, the stern was oscillating left and right while Phil tried to maintain control. But then the anchor rope and eye bolt it was attached to snapped viciously off the floorboard and into the water. The airboat jolted forward with tremendous thrust, causing the patio glass to slip backwards under the ratchet straps and launch into the canal behind the craft. Within seconds it sank to the bottom of the canal.

  Phil shut down the engine and both men looked dejectedly at one another.

  “I need to go down there and get that glass, you know,” said Lew matter-of-factly. “Now don’t try and talk me out of it, you got that?”

  “There ain’t a fiber of buoyancy in that thing! How do you think you’ll get it back to the surface?” It was too dark for Lew to see how red Phil’s face had turned.

  “I’ll get the anchor first. It was probably hitched onto one of those rails. Then I’ll come up for some air, then go back down and see if I can hook the anchor to the side of the glass. We might be able to pull it up using the rope. You can pull while I guide it through the water from down below.”

  “You are absolutely crazy, Lew, you know that? Oh what the hell, you’re more dang stubborn than my ex-wife, so just do your thing and be careful. Let me swing the boat around.”

  This time Lew eased himself into the water, hoping to locate the anchor before he needed to resurface for air. Phil once again shined the spotlight in the canal where Lew was descending, but the murky water prevented him from seeing clearly. Directly below the boat, Lew found the iron rails that lay on the bottom of the canal and only a few feet away he noticed the end of the anchor rope, still attached to the eye bolt. He reached for the rope and guided himself towards the anchor. Lew was almost out of breath when he came upon the grapnel and discovered the source of its impasse. It was wedged firmly under the base of the same container he saw at the Harfield mansion yesterday. The rope had snagged onto a propeller sticking out of the submerged vessel.

  Lew hastily surfaced and gasped for air as soon as his head popped out of the canal. He treaded water and turned until he noticed the airboat about fifteen feet away. Phil was moving the spotlight in all directions on the surface trying to locate Lew.

  “Hey, over here!” shouted Lew. Phil swung the light to his right and shined it on his buddy. Lew swam to the boat, grabbed the aluminum siding and looked up at Phil. “I found the anchor. It’s stuck under a steel box container that’s sitting on the rails. Phil, it’s the same damn container I saw under the driveway in the Estates! I’m going back down to see what’s in it.”

  “Going back down to see what’s in it? Are you nuts? Forget about the anchor and that dang container. Did you find the patio glass?”

  “Nope, but this is more important.”

  “I’m sure it’s bolted shut. How you planning on getting inside?”

  “I remember from seeing it yesterday that the container isn’t secured. The top opens up with two flaps. But is must be sealed somehow to keep the water out.”

  “So how did that truck driver open it up under water without getting everything all wet?”

  “I noticed the container has some sort of buoyancy compensator device that is imbedded into its walls. It probably was floating on the surface while the truck driver was loading or unloading it, then became negatively buoyant so it would sink to the bottom. The container could then be propelled and guided along the rails.”

  “You’re sounding like James Bond,” said Phil sarcastically. “Well, it obviously can’t be opened underwater, so how do you plan to get it to the surface?”

  “The buoyancy compensator must have an external switch, or how else could the truck driver make it rise and sink?” pondered Lew.

  Just then, the five by eight-foot container emerged and bobbed on the surface of the canal. Phil saw it first and pointed. “What the hell?”

  Lew released his grip on the side of the airboat and spun around in the water to see what Phil was pointing at. His feet were kicking, his arms were splashing and his heart was beating madly! Then the flaps of the container opened and a shadowy figure of a man appeared. He was waving his hands back and forth in the direction of Lew and Phil.

  “Look out! Look out behind you!”

  Phil turned and saw what the mystery man was indicating, but Lew was obstructed by the airboat. Phil dove to the floorboard, reached over the side and clamped on to Lew underneath his armpits. With pure adrenaline giving him a mighty boost, Phil scrambled to his knees and then to his feet, all the while with Lew’s backbone braced to Phil’s chest. One final, fierce yank later and both men stumbled backwards, Lew pinning Phil to the deck. Both men stretched their necks and glanced overboard in time to see the giant, formerly confused gator kick his tail and dive under the boat. Surely frustrated to have just missed out on Lew à la mode, he would have to find a new dessert to compliment his egret dinner.

  Lew and Phil sat up to see who had warned them about the gator. The skinny figure was standing in the container looking back with both hands nervously grasping the hair on his head. He had watched intensely as the gator lunged for Lew’s foot, and was frightened by the near miss.

  Phil reached for the oar and paddled slowly to the floating container. It was submerged about six feet, while two feet of its sides rose forth from the surface of the water. From close up, both men noticed an inflatable bladder attached to all four sides of the container’s walls and a sealed, watertight air hose running from the bladders to the interior of the vessel. The unknown man was holding a remote control device in his left hand that was attached to two waterproof electric wires. One was affixed to a gas cylinder tank and the other to a small motor. The gas cylinder was connected to the hoses running from the bladders, while the motor was used to engage the propeller. But the most amazing contraptions were two large video cameras tightly secured to the front and rear walls. They were each aimed at a two-inch convex lens imbedded into both ends of the metal box. A small screen was attached to the cameras that displayed a wide-angle view of the canal. The hungry alligator could be seen on one camera, apparently circling the container hoping to find some careless human appetizers out for another swim. It was now clear how the vessel was navigated and how the navigator saw the gator moving towards Ph
il’s airboat.

  Lew grabbed the side of the container with his left hand while extending his right arm to shake hands with the pilot of the floating box.

  “Thank you, sir, you may have saved my life,” said Lew, staring directly in the man’s eyes with a most appreciative look. “What is your name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  The brown skinned man with a weather-beaten face clutched Lew’s hand, then smiled and replied, “Pancho. My name is Pancho.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Wednesday, March 10, 1982

  8:00 p.m.

  “P ancho?” inquired Lew and Phil at the same time as they shot a stupefied glance at each other.

  “Are you by any chance the same Pancho who has a friend named Miguel?” asked Lew. Miguel looked at Lew, then to Phil, and then back to Lew.

  “Yes sir, Miguel is my best friend. But how do you know Miguel?” Pancho took a step back in his vessel and had a guarded look on his face.

  “Please don’t worry,” said Phil as he waved his hand to indicate he wasn’t going to hurt Pancho. “Take a look. Do you remember me?”

  Phil ducked and turned his head so the spotlight would remove the silhouetted mug that Pancho was trying to decipher.

  “Hey, you the man who runs that airboat store,” declared Pancho as he pointed his finger at Phil. “You took Miguel and me out fishing in your boat, right?”

  “Yep, that’s right. I’m the same guy. And this here’s my friend Lew. But Miguel said that you are an orange picker. What are you doing in this contraption?”

  Pancho stayed silent, so Lew asked, “Pancho, are you the man who saved the life of a deputy sheriff named Willy Banks?”

  Pancho’s eyes opened almost as wide as his mouth. He glanced again at Lew and Phil, but remained mute.

  “I know you’re wondering how we know about this and why we’re asking,” said Lew. “I understand you may be confused, but we believe there’s some evil things happening in Seminole Bend. What is this submarine container and why are you in it?”