Choking back the taste of the cheap beer, as well as the mental image of what he was talking about, I forced a grin and lifted my beer can. “Same goes with me.”
Navigating the channel wasn’t difficult. The engineers who’d dredged and drained the Everglades, straightened the Miami river and made it deep enough for small island freighters, and created waterfront property on a myriad of canals far inland, are the same ones who developed the waterfront. They drew a straight line on a chart from where they wanted to build to the nearest deep water, then dynamited the limestone bottom and brought in big dredging machines to dig the channel. In this case, it ran southeast in a perfectly straight line.
“What do you make of those clouds?” I asked, pointing toward the towering dark mass that was probably over Key Largo.
“Storms move west this time of year,” he said. “By the time we get down to where we’ll leave the bay those clouds will have rained out in the Everglades.”
I wasn’t so sure he knew the weather here as well as he thought. He was right about storms usually moving west this time of year, but they also tended to sprout up more storms around them, usually building to the north in the afternoon, each one marching ashore, creating a line of storms moving diagonally to the coast. Right now, the sky was clear and blue to the east; experience told me that could change quickly.
The old trawler took the wake from the Revenge while still several hundred yards from the last channel marker. The huge bow wave she creates had dissipated quite a bit, but the rollers still rocked the larger boat, splashing water from the port bow.
Reaching deep water at the end of the channel, Carmichael continued southeast, then made a wide turn into the main shipping channel, lining the slow-moving boat up with the red and green markers to stay in deeper water.
A sailboat passed, heading north under power. The three men in the cockpit stared, but I had no doubt that if they were asked five minutes later what color Carmichael’s boat was, they wouldn’t be able to say.
For the next half hour, we moved slowly south at six knots. Carmichael droned on monotonously about his boat, interjecting an occasional comment about the women.
The clouds ahead had darkened, and sheets of rain could be seen in two places slightly west of our course. I wasn’t concerned with that storm; it was at least over Card Sound and moving west, well past where Carmichael had said he intended to cross into the Atlantic. But the wind was increasing, and far to the east, puffy white clouds had formed where earlier it had been clear blue sky.
The central bay was very wide, nearly eight miles. From our vantage point ten feet above the water, the shore was nearly out of sight. Staying to the shipping channel didn’t really matter for a boat the size of Carmichael’s trawler. Throughout most of the central bay, the water was at least ten feet, yet the man maintained the center line of the deeper shipping channel. Maybe an over-abundance of caution, but I was beginning to have serious doubts about the man’s abilities outside of protected waters.
The Revenge had slowed, nearly a mile ahead of us. After a few minutes, I could tell by the absence of a bow wave that they had dropped to about the same speed we were going. I knew Andrew was at the helm and trusted him completely. After a few minutes, they turned southeast and disappeared through Biscayne Channel.
As we neared the channel, the wind was a steady fifteen knots, gusting to twenty or more. A small island freighter heading north out of the same channel had nearly all hands on the rail as we slowly cruised by. Again, I doubted if any of the men would remember seeing anything on this trip besides the five women stretched out side by side on the foredeck. That would be something they’d talk about for years.
I suddenly had a new-found respect for the man if, in fact, Carmichael had intentionally sent them up to the bow as a diversionary tactic, so people wouldn’t remember any details about the boat.
Idling out of the marina, Andrew slowly brought Gaspar’s Revenge up to her cruising speed of twenty-eight knots. He turned the expensive fishing machine into the main shipping channel, heading south into Biscayne Bay.
Back in the van with Julie, Paul had activated the first of four listening devices under the collar of Jesse’s polo shirt, allowing Andrew, Tony, and Deuce to hear the conversation taking place on the fly bridge of Carmichael’s boat.
After putting away the fenders and dock lines, Tony climbed up to the bridge deck, leaving Jesse’s dog alone in the cockpit. He’d taken Finn for a long run around the marina, not just so the dog could relieve himself, but also to burn off energy for what could be a long boring day for him.
“He gonna be okay in the cockpit?” Deuce asked.
“Should be,” Andrew replied. “He seems to prefer it.”
“There they are,” Tony said, pointing ahead and to starboard.
Carmichael’s converted salvage vessel was in the middle of a side channel, moving slowly toward open water.
Deuce raised a pair of binoculars and studied the boat. He could see Jesse and Carmichael on the fly bridge. Both men were looking down at the foredeck. Moving the glasses lower, he saw Chyrel and Charity, along with Cruz and the two girls. Cruz was pulling her cutoffs down, and the other four women were getting comfortable on a wide bench on the front of the cabin roof.
“Do you suppose Carmichael has all of them up there for a reason?” Tony asked, also studying the other boat through binoculars.
Andrew looked toward the trawler. Even without binoculars, it was easy to spot the five women stretched out in the bright sunshine on the foredeck. “One thing’s for sure,” he said. “Any man who sees them probably won’t remember any details about the boat.”
“What’s going on?” Julie’s voice asked over Andrew’s earwig.
Deuce lowered his binoculars. “All five women on board are sunning themselves on the foredeck,” he told his wife. “Jesse and Carmichael are on the fly bridge.”
“Sunning themselves?” she asked.
“In bikinis,” Tony replied, still looking.
“Why?”
“That’s what we were trying to figure out,” Andrew said. “My guess is that it’s an intentional move on Carmichael’s part to divert any attention away from the boat and what it looks like.”
“Activating the rooftop camera,” Paul said. “I can control it from here so you guys can see it on the display there. Which direction is Carmichael’s boat?”
“Three o’clock,” Tony replied. “And falling astern.”
Looking up, Andrew saw the closed-circuit monitor come to life. It began panning, moving from the scene directly in front of the Revenge, to what could be seen to starboard.
Finally, the trawler moved into the center of the picture, and Paul slowly zoomed in, as the Revenge powered through the light chop. The women were all seated now, legs stretched out on the deck and the backs of their chairs reclined.
Chyrel was on the port end of the bench, Charity right next to her. In the middle was the dark-haired Jenna, then Cruz, with Penny on the starboard end. Cruz was talking to Jenna, her hand on the younger woman’s thigh.
Pulling back on the throttles, Andrew slowed the Revenge. “I don’t want to get out of sight of them for any longer than we have to.”
“The camera has image stabilization,” Paul said. “I have it locked onto the trawler now. I sure wish I could hear what they’re talking about up there on the front of the boat.”
“Tom texted me just before we left,” Deuce said, checking the radar. “I told him to go to where you are. But we’ll be turning out of the bay shortly.”
Andrew slowed the Revenge further, bringing it down off plane and matching the speed of the much slower trawler, which was nearly a mile behind them now.
They continued south, Deuce monitoring the camera feed as well as the radar. Biscayne Channel was a busy waterway, with commercial boats and yachts coming and going.
“A boat is coming into the channel,” Deuce said to Andrew. “And there’s a much larger one appro
aching the outer markers.”
A moment later, a private sailing yacht could be seen beyond the tip of Cape Florida, moving toward the channel. Under power, it moved slowly through the deep channel and turned north toward the Revenge. A few minutes later, it passed by silently, one of the three men lounging in the cockpit raising a hand in a half-hearted wave.
“Tom’s here, Andrew,” Julie said. “Paul’s showing him how to control the camera. Keep the Revenge as steady as possible, they’re pretty far behind you guys.”
Andrew glanced up at the TV monitor as the camera zoomed in on the five women.
“Chyrel and Charity are on the port side, right?” the new guy’s voice asked over the comm.
“Yes,” Paul replied. “Cruz is this one. She’s one of the targets.”
“She’s telling the other dark-haired woman not to worry about something,” Tom said. “She says that it will just be the two of them to start off, if that’s what she wants.”
“The other dark-haired girl we only know as Jenna,” Julie said. “No hits on Chyrel’s facial recognition program so far.”
“Jenna is telling Cruz that she’s fine with the others, but just isn’t interested in the two men—um, is there something I don’t know about here?”
“Jenna and Cruz are lesbian,” Paul said. “Cruz tolerates men if she has to, but prefers sex with other women.”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “I guess that explains why Miss Cruz is massaging Jenna’s thigh.”
Julie went on to explain to Tom everything that was going on, and what they’d learned since yesterday. Tom interrupted on occasion, relaying what the women were talking about on the bow of the trawler, or asking pointed questions.
When the Revenge reached Biscayne Channel, Andrew bumped the throttles up and turned into it. Jesse and Carmichael were mostly talking about his boat, with Carmichael doing most of the talking. Occasionally, Tom interrupted the feed from the bug with something that Cruz was saying.
“Freighter inbound,” Deuce warned, unnecessarily. Though much smaller than the big ocean crossing freighters, the island freighter still dwarfed the Revenge, and Andrew gave the larger ship a wide berth.
The freighter’s crewmen must have all been in the pilothouse or below deck, because there wasn’t a soul to be seen as the ship passed.
Andrew turned the Revenge into the ship’s approaching wake. Though it was only moving at about four knots, the wake was large, nearly three feet. Whipped-up wind waves in the ocean were breaking across the shoals on either side, and the rushing tide coming in through the narrow channel made the whole area like the water in a washing machine, churning in many directions at once.
Confidently, Andrew turned back into the center of the channel and pushed the throttles up, bringing the boat up on plane to meet the churning water. He was confident not only in his own ability, but also in the boat he was handling. The Revenge knifed through it all with the ease of a much larger boat.
“Wind’s increasing,” Andrew said. “Looks like a storm is forming offshore.”
“It’s gonna be a rock and roll wait,” Tony said, moving to the front of the cockpit, with a pair of binoculars. “Wind waves are building near shore, but the rollers don’t look bad outside.”
Pushing the throttles forward, Andrew said, “We’ll get out beyond the chop, but I doubt we’ll have a steady enough platform for Tom to see what’s being discussed on the bow.”
“It looks pretty rough in the bay south of here, too,” Tony said. He sat at the starboard end of the forward bench, and looked out over Biscayne Bay. “High tide’s in less than an hour, and waves are continuing into the bay after breaking over Safety Valve.”
The skies to the east darkened quickly, as Gaspar’s Revenge moved past the outer markers. Other cloud formations to the north and south looked like they could develop into storms as well. Andrew steered due east into the wind and oncoming waves, and straight toward the rising storm.
Occasionally, a wave would hit just as the bow was coming down off the last one, and the wide Carolina bow flares would shoot giant plumes of spray horizontally for ten yards or more. Andrew was always impressed with the dry ride of the boat, even in rough seas. With its modified vee hull and sharp entry, and having the bridge set well aft of amidships, the rough water was no match for the brute, and Andrew barely felt the impact of the waves.
On the sonar, the bottom slowly fell away past twenty feet, lessening the size and increasing the interval of the waves. Checking the chart plotter, Andrew saw that they were well out of the channel and nearing the three-mile limit. Pulling back on the throttles, he slowed the big boat until it dropped down into the choppy water.
“We’ll hang out here,” he said, keeping the bow into the wind and engaging the autopilot to maintain station.
The autopilot, using information from the GPS, sensed the push from the strong current and adjusted the heading. The boat turned slightly off the wind, which was doing a good job of holding their forward progress in check at idle and trying to push the boat back toward Biscayne Bay.
“That’s them,” Deuce said, pointing at an echo on the radar.
Tony stood up as the big boat wallowed slightly in the swells, and moved to the rail at the aft of the bridge deck. “Can’t see them over the waves breaking on the shoal.”
“We can on the camera feed,” Julie said from inside the van. “It’s on your roof, a couple of feet higher than you. But we’re still losing it on occasion. Can you move closer?”
“Negative,” Andrew replied, as a low rumble of thunder reached his ears. “We’d be too close to the shipping channel.”
“I’m sure you already see them, Deuce,” Paul said, “but I’m watching the weather radar forecast, and it’s showing those storms east of you are going to intensify over the next hour and move into Biscayne Bay.”
“Yeah,” Deuce replied, watching the slow trawler on the radar. “The weather’s gonna turn to shit out here, before they even get close to Soldier Key. Hopefully, Jesse can see this. That trawler’s big and sturdy, but it’s not built for a smooth ride in rough seas. They’ll get hammered if they head out here.”
Over the next thirty minutes, Andrew watched the radar and TV monitor, as the trawler continued south, and the autopilot did all it could to maintain the same position. Jesse had again asked Carmichael about the weather and he’d told Jesse not to worry about it, that his boat could handle anything.
“The boat might be able to handle it,” Julie said, “but it just wouldn’t be smart for him to continue with what he believes to be a novice crew.”
“Looks like the women are moving off the bow,” Tom said, just as a wall of light rain passed over the Revenge.
Over the bug on Jesse’s collar, they all heard Carmichael shouting orders. Jesse asked him what he could do to help, and the man told him to check the straps on the dinghy. There was some scuffling and grunts, then Carmichael shouting to Cruz to take the lower helm, once she had everything secured. After a couple of seconds of silence, there were more scuffling noises, followed by a slight splashing sound.
Tony went quickly to the ladder, practically sliding down it on the handrails, as the rain began to pick up. Finn was jumping around on the deck, ready to play. The rain didn’t seem to bother him, but Tony opened the door to the salon and put him inside anyway.
“Visual is gone,” Deuce said, adjusting the rain clutter setting on the radar. “It’s raining buckets out here.”
Climbing back up to the bridge, Tony took his seat again on the port bench. Within minutes, all three men were drenched. Breaking out foul weather gear would just be a waste of time.
In the more than twenty years Andrew had served in the Coast Guard, he’d experienced a lot of rainy weather on the water, and more than his fair share of storms. To him and the two former SEALs, this was nothing. The bridge deck had side curtains, but the rain would probably be over before they could get the bridge buttoned up.
Then the rain b
egan to fall harder.
“Losing them on radar,” Deuce said, as the rain pounded on the fiberglass roof.
Everything on the bridge was waterproof, so the rain was little more than a minor distraction. Switching off the autopilot, Andrew turned the boat broadside to the five-foot swells and pushed the throttles forward. “Right before the rain hit us, it looked like it was a little clearer down to the south. I’m sure we’ll pick them up again past Stiltsville.”
“Stiltsville?” Paul asked over the comm.
“A bunch of stilt houses built out on Biscayne Flats during and after Prohibition,” Julie said. “Some are in ruins, but I think one or two are still habitable.”
Andrew pushed the throttles a little more, to reduce the roll. “We should punch out of this before we reach Safety Valve.”
Visibility was nearly zero, and Andrew was steering the boat southward at ten knots, primarily using the chart plotter. Unable to get up on top of the water at that speed, the Revenge wallowed between the big, wind-drive rollers. The poor visibility prevented him from going any faster.
It took several minutes, but finally the downpour began to subside and then suddenly stopped altogether. They’d traveled nearly two miles since the last time they’d seen the trawler. Andrew had a good idea where Carmichael was going, though the radar currently showed the part of the bay where they’d last seen them was completely enveloped in the heavy rain they’d just come out of.
“Look here, Deuce,” Andrew said, pointing to a spot on the chart plotter, just a little farther south. “Just this side of Soldier Key, see this shallow pass? The chart plotter shows five feet mean low water through the first part, but deepens after just a few yards. Remember Carmichael had insisted on riding through on a high tide, and he mentioned Soldier Key?”
Rising Storm: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 11) Page 22