by Matthew Rief
Looking back over his shoulder, he added, “They’ll be here soon.”
TWENTY
For three hours, we trudged through thick mangroves, sawgrass, and water. The Watson River broke off many times, forcing us to slog our way through deep channels, some of which reached our shoulders, making us hold our gear up over our heads as we kept a watchful eye out for gators and pythons.
We’d spotted over ten of the nonindigenous snakes since we’d started out the previous morning. The invasive species had been introduced to the area through a combination of storms destroying reptile zoos and negligent owners who didn’t realize their little snakes would grow to be over ten feet long when their children had brought them home from the local pet store. If it were any other trip to the Glades, I’d kill each and every one I saw. But the last thing we wanted was to announce our location to the Harlan brothers. The remaining Harlan brothers, that was.
During the difficult morning trek, I’d told Billy a bit about me, starting with my years living in the Keys back when I was a kid in the ’80s. He seemed particularly interested in the circumstances that had brought me back to the island chain nearly twenty years after my dad had moved us away.
“I read about that Aztec treasure found near the Marquesas Keys,” he said. “Didn’t know you played a part in it, though.”
“It was a group effort,” I said. “And it was my friend Scott who initiated the whole thing.”
“The senator,” Billy said. “He’s helped out the tribe a great deal. I hope you will give him my thanks when you see him again.”
“Consider it done,” I said.
“So, you’ve been living off the money from the treasure, then?”
“I got part of the finder’s fee, which allowed me to buy a house in Key West,” I said. “The money won’t last forever, but we’ll take life as it comes.”
Billy fell silent for a moment, then said, “Pete said you knew the people killed last week.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The Shepherds. They were good friends of mine.”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry for your loss. My uncle was killed here just last year. It’s why Pete called me. He knew I was looking for these murderers.”
I paused a moment, thinking over his words.
“Well, their killing days are coming to an end.”
I glanced down at my GPS.
“Less than half a mile now,” I said.
We reached a stretch of water roughly fifty feet wide.
“Too deep to wade,” Billy said. “Looks like we’re going swimming.”
We stood for five minutes, examining the shore and making sure no gators were nearby before climbing down a small bank to the murky water below. We reached the other side and hauled our dripping bodies up onto the opposite shore. Half an hour of trekking later, we reached the upper part of the Watson River. It cut westward, creating an L shape, and was much wider than any section we’d reached so far. After a few minutes of walking along the thick shoreline, we spotted the island we were looking for.
“You sure that’s the spot?” Billy asked.
He was peering through his binoculars at a muddy shoreline a quarter of a mile away from us. It was a valid question. The island showed no sign of any human ever even stepping foot on it, let alone living there. It covered a decent amount of ground and looked to be roughly the size of a football field. The edges were covered in mangroves, the center with high-rising oak and cypress trees. It looked like any of the thousands of uncharted islands littering the Glades.
I stared down at the GPS one more time, just to be sure.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s it alright.” I reached into my backpack and added, “Keep eyes on it. I’m gonna call Ange with an update.”
After Ange picked up, I told her that we’d reached the island. She replied, letting me know that they had the airboat up Watson and were idling about a mile south of us.
“You find anything?” she asked.
“There’s no sign of life yet,” I said. “We’re gonna do a little recon, see what we can find. I think holding tight there for now is the best play. If we accidentally spook them, they might scatter like roaches.”
“I’ve got my sniper locked and loaded,” she replied confidently. “There’s a quarter mile of straight unobstructed river north of us. If they try and come this way, I’ll take them out before they even know we’re here.”
I nodded, told her to expect another call within the next hour or so, and hung up.
We looked over the southern part of the island for a few more minutes, then Billy suggested we walk around to the other side.
“I don’t see anything here,” he said. “Even the branches along the shore look undisturbed.”
I agreed, and we moved slowly, concealing ourselves from view as best we could while hoping to catch a glimpse of movement on the island. If it wasn’t their place, then I was confident that it was at least somewhere nearby.
“Holy hell,” Billy said, freezing in his tracks.
He was staring at the western shore of the island, near the place where Ange said the drone had spotted someone. I blocked the sun from my eyes with a hand and focused on the shoreline. It wasn’t a person, but rather a massive alligator sunbathing on the mud.
“That thing’s gotta be over twelve feet long,” Billy said. “Wait a second,” he added, holding up a finger. “There’s something off about it.” He lifted his binos to get a better view. After a few seconds, he let out a breath and sighed.
“What is it?” I said.
I was about to grab my monocular out of my backpack when he said, “We found their place alright. That gator’s got a metal collar around its neck. It’s chained to the base of that cypress.”
He handed me the binos and I focused in for a better look. He was right. The massive gator clearly had something around his neck. The chain was rusted but had a decent amount of slack.
“Quite the watchdog,” I said.
Billy nodded, and as we continued, we realized that there was more than one. After an hour of recon, we counted three of the beasts in all, and that was just on the half of the island we were able to see without crossing the river. We also saw what looked like boot prints in the mud halfway up the western shore, though they were too far away to be certain that was what they were.
At 1000, after just over an hour of looking over the island, I gave Ange another call. It was time for us to meet up and formulate an attack plan.
After giving me their current coordinates, I said, “Just stay there. We’ll come to you.”
The last thing I wanted was for their motor to give us away. Plugging in their location, I saw that they were about three-quarters of a mile south of us.
“We’ve got a pole aboard,” she said. “And this river moves about as fast as cold molasses. We’ll head upriver to shorten the distance.”
“Alright,” I said. “Oh, you mind getting ahold of Mitch for me? I want to see if he has anything that can quietly and efficiently take down alligators.”
Ange paused a moment.
“Something I should know about?” she said.
“These killers have got at least three of them chained up around the island.”
“Great,” she said, “guess that means we’ve for sure got the right place. I’ll call him right away.”
I thanked her, then trekked alongside Billy toward Watson. We moved low and out of sight from the island as best we could, keeping our eyes peeled for any movement and our ears alert for any unusual sounds. We soon reached the main section of the river, and within the hour, we saw the airboat moving briskly toward us, hugging the western shore.
We waved to get their attention, then hiked along the shore and stepped down the bank to the waterline. Ange was standing at the bow alongside Pete, while Jack sat on the bench seat, looking through a pair of binoculars. Just as we reached the water, Atticus vaulted from the airboat and ran through the mud toward us. By the time he reached me,
he was covered in muck, but I didn’t care. I dropped down to a knee and greeted my happy Lab, petting his thin yellow coat, and introduced him to Billy.
“Well, if it isn’t the lost boys,” Pete said. He stepped to the port gunwale and offered a hand. “You two look like a couple of bona fide swamp rats.”
I let Billy climb aboard first. Pete was right. We were both covered in dirt, mud, sweat, and smelly clothes from being drenched and baked under the summer Florida sun.
“It sure helped having an expert by my side,” I said. “Would have been a much longer twenty-four hours had he not been with me.”
“I think you would have carried yourself just fine by yourself,” Billy said.
I shrugged and climbed up onto the bow behind him with Atticus jumping up right on my heels. Ange stepped over, eyed me up and down, then grinned before we embraced in a big hug.
“You smell terrible,” she said.
I cracked a smile. “Nice to see you too, Ange.”
She laughed and kissed me by way of making amends.
She had her hair tied back and was wearing a Florida Marlins ball cap, jeans, and a thin long-sleeved tee shirt. She smelled like she had about a gallon of bug spray covering her body. Her smooth, tanned skin was a delicacy among the mosquito community, so she always needed to use extra to fend them off.
After we let go of each other, I turned toward Jack. He started to rise from the bench seat, but I waved him off.
“I’m not crippled, bro,” he jabbed.
I laughed, patted him on the shoulder, and asked how he was healing. By way of an answer, he lifted up his tee shirt and shifted his body so I could see the wound. The small gash to his side was covered with a white bandage.
“Martha at Flamingo stitched me up nicely,” he said. “Didn’t even need to see a doctor. Man, it’s quite the badass experience to add to the old resume. ‘You ever been shot by a forty-five?’ Well, yeah, bro, I have and it barely fazed me. Might even impress a few girls now and then.”
I laughed and we spent ten minutes catching up before getting down to business.
Ten minutes after arriving, we received a call from Mitch, letting us know that he was almost there. He’d tied off his airboat downriver and was paddling up on a kayak.
While Mitch made his way toward us, Billy and I told the others everything we knew, though it wasn’t much. We told them the size of the island, its distance from shorelines, and about the alligator sentries.
“No sign of the two remaining brothers?” Jack said.
I shook my head.
“Only signs of life we could see were the chained-up gators,” I said.
“The island was too overgrown to see more than just a short ways into it,” Billy added.
We all paused a moment, thinking everything over.
“So let’s go over the timeline,” Pete said. “These brothers rob a bank, fake their deaths, then build a sanctuary in the Glades, far away from where anyone could find them, concealing it from outsiders by making sure it’s surrounded by trees and whatnot.”
“Then they start offing people,” Jack said. “Seemingly at will.”
“But not quite at will,” Ange said. “Seems like they only killed people who came near their home.”
“Ange is right,” I said. “My guess is they’ve got some kind of partnership. Those drugs Ange found? I’m sure that wasn’t all of it. I’d wager these guys have been selling coke for years, or more than likely just trading it for what things they needed. Fuel, necessities, food other than what you can find in the Glades, maybe.”
“And whenever someone threatens their operation, they off them,” Jack said.
I nodded. “That’s the conclusion I’ve come to.”
I spotted Mitch paddling toward us and raised a hand to silence our conversation. I wasn’t sure that we could trust Mitch. After all, he’d been the one who’d vouched for Eli Hutt. For all we knew, Mitch was in on the entire operation. If that were the case, he could serve the other Harlan brothers intel from our circle. Hell, he could try and off us himself.
“Okay,” I said, eyeing Pete and Billy with a serious gaze. “You both know Mitch and I need you to tell me if you trust him.” I sighed and added, “Would you trust him with your life?”
“I’ve known him for five years,” Pete said.
“He’s a close family friend,” Billy added. “We know him and his wife well.”
“Neither of you answered my question,” I said.
Billy and Pete both looked at each other, then nodded.
“Yes,” Pete said. “I’d trust him with my life.”
Billy said he would as well. I nodded. I’d gotten a good vibe from Mitch from the beginning, but the entire Eli Hutt incident had caused me to question whose side he was on.
“Alright,” I said.
Mitch reached us a few minutes later. He tied his kayak to the bow of the airboat and climbed aboard. He was wearing his usual park ranger uniform and carried a black duffle bag in his right hand.
After a quick greeting, we continued with our discussion right where we’d left off.
“So, we barge onto the island and take them out?” Jack said. “I’m hoping there’s some kind of plan here.”
“I’ve got a few ideas,” I said. “But I was counting on you guys to help me out with that.”
“What are you thinking, Logan?” Pete asked.
“Well, for starters I’ll swim onto the island quietly and take a look around. Then I’ll give the all clear and call you guys in on the boat. My guess is they’ll probably try and run for it, so you can cut off their escape.”
“What about those gators?” Billy said.
Ange and I looked over at Mitch. He nodded, grabbed his duffle bag, and pulled out a black plastic hardcase.
“You’ll put them to bed,” he said to me confidently. Unclasping the hinges, he opened the case and pulled out a short narrow rifle and a clear case of darts.
“Tranquilizer gun?” Jack said.
Mitch nodded.
I’d seen many different types of tranquilizer guns before. The one he showed us was typically used by environmentalists looking to subdue animals in order to better track and care for them. It looked more like a paintball gun than a firearm, with a long narrow barrel connected to a simple body, scope, and stock. It had a small canister of CO2 attached right in front of the trigger, which was used to propel the darts.
“It’s a little worse for wear,” he said. “I’ve had it for years now. But it’s never let me down.”
“You’ve put down gators with this thing?” Ange asked.
“Yep. The big ones sometimes take two shots.” He opened the small case of darts and grabbed one. It was long and skinny, with a hypodermic needle on one end and a pink fuzzy tail on the other to stabilize it. “It’s a special blend of immobilizing agents. I won’t bore you with the chemistry, but it’s designed especially for thick-skinned carnivores.” He put the dart back in its case alongside the others and grabbed the rifle. “This gun has an effective range of fifty yards and is very accurate.”
I thanked him for bringing it to us, letting him know that it would be nice to have during my infiltration of the island.
He paused a moment, thinking it over.
“So, you’re not gonna call the police, then?” he asked.
Pete laughed. “Calling the police isn’t exactly their style.”
Mitch nodded. “I’m okay with that. The last thing I want is for these guys to get attention and fame while the judicial system runs its long, winding course.”
“I say we call them just as the engagement ends,” I said. “It would be nice to give tourists a little peace of mind.”
There was a short pause as we thought over everything.
“Plan seems pretty straight forward,” Jack said.
“It is in theory,” I said. “But I’m sure these guys will have more than one trick up their sleeves. They’ve got alligators chained to their beach, afte
r all. Pete, you were right when you said not to underestimate these guys. They’re a rough, skillful, and sadistic bunch. We need to be ready for the worst.”
“Can’t be harder than infiltrating an oil rig overrun by a private army, can it?” Jack said.
He was referring to an incident that had taken place earlier that year. A Zhao Petroleum drilling rig had been taken over by Carson Richmond and her Darkwater thugs. Thankfully, she’d met a quick and fiery end when her helicopter had blown to pieces while she was trying to make an escape.
“Wait,” Mitch said, “you were involved in that—”
“Don’t listen to Jack,” I said, shooting him a look. “He speaks without thinking sometimes.”
“Say, you could always parachute in like you did on the rig,” Jack continued, seemingly oblivious to the fact that our participation in the events on the oil rig had been kept secret.
“The canopy is too thick to drop in,” I said. “I’d get tangled and hang high up. A sitting duck.”
I thought about my idea of swimming to the island and knew that it would be anything but easy. First, the water was so murky that it would be difficult to see my hand in front of my face. Next, I didn’t know how deep it was. We were literally in uncharted territory. The upper portions of the Watson were barely marked on the charts we had, and no depths were given. Then there were also the gators to worry about.
We talked for a few more hours while eating sandwiches and drinking coconut water under the shade of the small pop-up canopy. We took intermittent glances both up and downriver and around the surrounding prairie swamps to ensure that no one was trying to sneak up on us.
“I like your plan, but I’m making a few minor changes,” Ange said. “For starters, I’m coming with you. And second, we’re gonna take a more stealthy approach.”
She opened a large compartment, reached inside, and pulled up two Draeger rebreathers.
“You brought the rebreathers?” I said with a smile.
“Of course I did. I know how much you love sneaking up on bad guys.”
TWENTY-ONE