A Fortune in Blood: A Florida Action Adventure Novel (Scott Jarvis Private Investigator Book 7)

by Scott Cook

“Don’t move!” I roared. “Drop your weapon and put your hands on the hood! You, get out and do the same… now!”

  This last I accentuated with another shot just over the rag top of the Jeep. The passenger immediately let his weapon fall to the watery ground and placed his hands on the hood. The driver cursed and threw his door open. I trained my weapon on him but he only stepped out with his hands raised over his head.

  “Place your weapon on the seat,” I told him. After he did it, I waved the barrel of my pistol at him to indicate he should join his friend.

  Clay bounded out of the woods and trotted over to join me. He went around the back of the Jeep and retrieved the driver’s weapon and began rummaging around in the cab for clues. I felt a little irked at that. After all, I was the detective. If he broke out a magnifying glass we were gonna have words.

  “Who are you?” I asked. I didn’t use Spanish, as I didn’t want them to know I could understand them.

  “Nobody,” the passenger said.

  “It is none of your business,” the driver said a little more firmly.

  Clay appeared from inside the Jeep, “Two assault rifles in the back. Look like AR-15s. An ammo box, some other supplies. Oh, and this.”

  Clay held up a banner that would probably have been fastened to the antenna of the jeep. It read: El Ejército Popular de Liberación. The People’s Army of Liberation.

  I chuckled, “Uh-huh. You guys are nobody, right? Heavily armed in a military looking Jeep with this flag? What are you, some kind of rebels or something? In Costa Rica?”

  The driver spat disdainfully, “No! We are not Costa Rican!”

  He said it as if being Costa Rican was some form of communicable disease. I shrugged and waited but nothing more was forthcoming.

  “Why were you following us?” Clay asked.

  The two men only stared, their hard, young faces set in rigid defiance. Clay emptied the pistol’s magazine into the engine compartment of the Jeep and it soon sputtered and died. The two men had yelped and backed away but I waved them back with my weapon.

  “You’d better talk or it’s going to be a long wet walk,” I chided.

  “Pinche gringo pendejos!” the driver said in barely contained fury.

  “I think that means he thinks were’ a couple of bad hombres,” I said to Clay.

  “It certainly sounded unflattering,” Clay agreed. “Well, fuck sticks, I guess you’re shit out of luck. Let either one of us see you again and my friend and I will simply put a bullet in your brains. Comprende?”

  “Si,” The passenger said coldly.

  The driver’s ire was as electric as the bolts of lightning that were drawing closer. He met my eyes and said through clenched teeth, “Ju made a big mistake today.”

  “Dun, dun dunnnn…” Clay muttered as we got back into our van.

  “Shit man,” I said as Clay started the vehicle and put it into reverse, “I hope we’re not stuck.”

  We almost were, too. That would’ve been embarrassing. However, the Honda’s wheels bit after a rather uncomfortable spin out and we plowed ahead through the three inch deep mud and water, spraying both men in the process.

  “Well,” I observed as we turned back onto the highway, “you sure do know how to show a girl a good time.”

  “So does this mean we ain’t gonna rub wieners?” Clay whined.

  I scoffed, “You’re lucky to get a good night kiss after this disgrace.”

  Chapter 5

  It was still coming down in sheets when Clay and I pulled into the driveway of his temporary home. The house, a three bedroom, three bath ranch sat on a full acre of land entirely surrounded by a high rough stone wall. The rear of the house commanded a spectacular view of the huge Lake Arenal in spite of the wall. This was due to the property’s noticeable decline as it followed a hill that descended to the lake.

  “I’m kinda glad Missy and the kids are gone,” Clay said. “That little run in earlier has me a bit worried.”

  “Clay,” I said as we grabbed my bags out of the van’s cargo area and went inside the house, “do you have any idea who those guys might have been?”

  “Yeah… The People’s Liberation Army.”

  “Right… but why would whoever they are be interested in you?”

  He turned and gave me a bewildered look, “Me? What makes you think they were after me?”

  “Really man? I just got here like two hours ago,” I said with a half-hearted smile. “Even I don’t get into trouble that fast. And you’re meeting with this Palmer guy tomorrow….”

  “You think he’s got something to do with this?”

  “Don’t you?” I asked, sitting on a comfortable beige sofa. “You asked me down here, after all. Got a beer or something?”

  Clay shrugged, “I beg your pardon. How gauche of me not to offer you a libation.”

  He went into the spacious kitchen and rummaged in the refrigerator for a moment. He came back out into the cozy living room and handed me a Coors Light, “Sorry, I haven’t had time to stock the place yet.”

  I huffed, “Geez, McFly… I have your car towed all the way to your house and all you got for me is light beer?”

  He laughed and cracked open his silver bullet. I did likewise, we clunked cans and took long pulls.

  “Ah!” I enthused, “just like the good old days in Juarez, huh? Donkey piss and bad water.”

  Clay guffawed, “You’re drinking a beer in a Costa Rican house on a huge lake in the mountains, y’know.”

  “Right,” I said, gulping down a quarter of the beer like substance, “and it’s being desecrated by this stuff. Deadliest Catch my ass… like any of those dudes would drink this tinkle.”

  Clay shrugged and drank off half his can. He settled back in his easy chair and eyed me with a frown, “So what’s your theory, Sherlock?”

  I shrugged, “Really? I don’t know what the Christ is going on around here. All I know is that I get a call from you while I’m living it up at the Busch Gardens saying I need to fly to Central America to meet a buddy of yours. Next thing I know, I’m being assaulted by a platoon of guerillas with fifty cals.”

  ‘It was two dudes in a Jeep,” Clay corrected.

  “Same difference,” I quipped. “Then I find out that this buddy of yours owns a big time eco-design-construction thingy. Small coinky-dink, but still intriguing… Dunno, Clay Stones… I believe the killer is Frank.”

  “I guess we’ll have to find out more from Miles when he gets here,” Clay said. “It’s probably something to do with Cuidad Verde.”

  “Are you coming on to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gross… what’s for dinner?”

  “Roasted Chupicabra,” Clay chuckled.

  “Aww… I had that last night.”

  Although he didn’t have good beer yet, Clay had managed to lay in a supply of excellent Costa Rican coffee. I rolled out of my guest bed around dawn and padded into the kitchen to set the coffee maker a’brwein’. While it percolated, I stepped out into the back yard and took in the scene.

  The property was large and mostly back yard. A few Cedars were strewn about and would provide ample shade on hot afternoons. Through these I could see the silvery surface of the lake just a few hundred yards away, its mirror-like surface just lighting up with impending sunrise.

  I took in a long deep breath and smiled. This was very pleasant to see. Not only because I was in a new country, a place I’d never been, but because the world finally seemed to be levelling out after the chaos and stress of the spring. COVID-19 had blazed across the globe, rapidly expanding and dramatically altering everyone’s lives in what seemed like a matter of weeks. Yet the social distancing and the precautions seemed to have paid off.

  Although things weren’t exactly as they’d been before the pandemic, people were beginning to revert to age-old habits again, if a bit slowly. There were still some interesting side-effects of course. People weren’t shaking hands much and the fist bump had soared in popul
arity. People carried around hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes and even a strange variety of face masks when they went into public areas. Some cities still insisted on masks, yet that seemed to be diminishing as well. Even that soon after what had ridiculously been labelled “the new normal,” human beings were finding it hard not to gather and be social. We were social animals, after all.

  “Mornin’ Jarvecito,” Clay said jovially as he stepped out onto his deck and handed me a cup of coffee. “Not a bad view, huh?”

  We clinked cups and I took a long sip, “Gorgeous.”

  “No, I was asking about the view.”

  “Oh! It’s nice, too.”

  We stood and drank our coffees in companionable silence for several minutes. As we watched, the sun peeked over the crest of a ridge between two of the mountains, turning the silvery surface of what I could see of the lake into a fiery gold.

  “We’re not the only early risers,” Clay noted, indicating the lake with his mug.

  As we watched, a small boat drifted into view. On it were two men. One was holding a fishing rod over the side and the other held a pair of binoculars. We watched as the man with the field glasses, who was standing in the bow, slowly rotated, as if searching for something. When he settled with the glasses pointed in our general direction, I cocked an eyebrow at Clay.

  “Let me guess,” Clay said with a wry grin. “You think we’re being scoped.”

  “Why would you say that? Certainly not because there’s a man out there who literally has a scope on us.”

  Clay sighed, “And you don’t think you’re being at all paranoid?”

  I turned to him, “You’re kidding, right?”

  Clay shrugged, “People do fish and bird watch around here, y’know.”

  “Yeah, and they also follow innocent young men and point bang-bangs at them. Let’s take a walk. Can you get to the shore line easily from the house?”

  “Sure. It’s only a few hundred yards down to a brand new community dock and kayak launch.”

  “Then, Watson,” I Holmesed, “let us away and see if we can’t come upon these villains unaware.”

  “Okay, but can I pee first?”

  “Indeed not, Watson,” I continued in my flawless Sherlock. “We must circle about and attempt to determine both the nature and intent of these gentlemen. Time is of the essence and we must lose not a moment… so tie a knot’n it.”

  I did allow Clay to top off our coffee mugs. I’m not totally heartless. Then again, the more coffee he drank, the more he’d have to piddle, so maybe I was being a bad friend.

  We strolled down the street and ended up in an open park-like area complete with picnic tables and a long wide pier that stretched out at least a hundred yards over the huge lake. Off to either side were smaller docks with boat slips, half of which were empty. The ones with water craft ranged from center console fishing boats to pontoon party barges to the ubiquitous football-shaped cabin cruiser to jet skis and kayaks.

  Clay explained that this was a new development. Up until recently, in spite of its size, Lake Arenal was hardly ever used for recreation, with the exception of wind surfers. Apparently, though, some of the local ex-patriots in the area had recently combined financial resources and built this small park and dock and the American habit of recreational lake boating was beginning to take a toehold in the province.

  “See?” Clay said as we strolled out onto the dock. “The boat is farther away and the binoc dude isn’t even looking over here.”

  “Okay,” I admitted. “I could just be suspicious… but you can hardly blame me after yesterday.”

  “Hell,” Clay breezed, “that could’ve been nothing. Those guys might just be a couple of assholes who wanted to see if we had any goodies they could snatch. Probably a random thing. They weren’t Costa Rican. Could’ve been from Nicaragua or Panama for that matter.”

  “Just a couple of goofy kids having fun, huh?” I asked and then shrugged. “I suppose…”

  “There isn’t any guerrilla activity in this country anyway,” Clay continued. “Those guys probably come down here from Nicaragua, which isn’t far from us, and try to score supplies or whatever.”

  “Yeah… maybe. Still… my gut isn’t convinced.”

  “I told you not to have that third helping of chili,” Clay needled, elbowing me in the arm. “But oh no, ole Scotty and his hollow leg just couldn’t resist… sure, Clay, I’ll have some more… sure, Clay, I’d looooove more hot sauce…”

  “You’re a meanie.”

  His boisterous laugh and smile suddenly vanished. The change was so profound and so fast I had to blink two or three times to convince myself I’d actually seen it.

  “What?” I prodded.

  “I hate it when you’re right…” He said, indicating the small boat a quarter mile away on the lake with his coffee mug. “I think things are gonna get interesting again.”

  For a brief moment, I almost believed in Clay’s theory. I wanted to, of course. Yet when I turned and saw that the fisherman had stowed his rod and was sitting at the wheel, and the man in the bow had traded in his binocs for something long and black, I had to let go of the sliver of hope.

  Then we saw white water boil from behind the boat and the small craft was halfway into a turn before the sound of the outboard revving to full power drifted across the water to us.

  “Shit,” I cursed. “I don’t suppose any of these boats are yours?”

  “Nope,” Clay said, actually taking a moment to drain his cup and setting it on a bench along the railing, “but my neighbor has a nice Parker 185 right over here. The keys are in it and he said I was welcome to use it. Why, you wanna try and catch a bass or something?”

  “Christ… let’s move!” I exclaimed, setting my cup down and starting to run in the direction he’d indicated.

  From the corner of my eye, I could see the small boat racing toward us from my right. The man in the bow was kneeling now and aiming what was obviously a rifle at us. There were a series of muzzle flashes and half a dozen pop, pop, pops crackled across the water. Clay and I both had ducked down instinctively, low-running toward the second to the last set of slips.

  “He didn’t hit anything!” Clay said, hunching and scrabbling onto the left-hand dock. “Either those were warning shots or he’s a shitty aim.”

  “He’s in a moving boat,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, on a flat lake,” Clay observed, jumping into the eighteen and a half foot center console fishing boat.

  I followed him and started untying lines, “I don’t’ suppose your neighbor keeps a weapon on board?”

  Clay shrugged as he opened the small compartment under the console and switched on the batteries, “No idea. What’s your plan, anyway? High speed chase or retreat?”

  “Let’s see what our buddies think,” I said. “And I thought Marines didn’t retreat.”

  “Of course not!” Clay said as he depressed the tilt button and turned the key, “we tactically withdraw.”

  Another series of three-round bursts crackled not far away. The Yamaha one-fifteen clicked and whirred, not catching. Clay tried again and then again.

  “You need a hand there, pal?” I asked casually. “I mean there’s no hurry or anything. There’s only a cat shooting at us with an automatic weapon… but you take your time.”

  “I got it, I got it!” Clay grumped.

  Finally, the four-stroke outboard roared to life and he put the boat in reverse. As we backed out of the slip, I caught sight of the other boat slowing down just ahead of the end of the main pier.

  Clay straightened the wheel and put the boat in forward, intending to ease out of the fairway and onto the lake proper.

  “For cryin’…” I said, pushing him to one side. “Hold on!”

  I shoved the throttle all the way to the stops and the new boat with its new engine almost leapt out of the water. The bow rose steeply and as the prop bit, the vessel shot forward and almost immediately began to plane off.

&
nbsp; “Jesus!” Clay said, slamming back onto the bench seat beside me.

  “Hold on to ya’ butts!” I said and turned the wheel sharply to starboard as we passed the end of our dock.

  “What’s your plan here, big feller?” Clay inquired over the roar of the outboard.

  “Intimidation and destabilization,” I said, “and if that doesn’t work… I’ll do something unfriendly.

  As we rounded the pier and rocketed out onto the wide open lake, I saw that our adversaries were only a hundred feet or so away. I could see the kneeling man in the bow training his weapon on us. I waved at him and smiled and turned us quickly to port. I swear I felt the rush of air behind my head from multiple rounds.

  “Keep an eye on him!” I shouted, turning the wheel back to starboard again in a slow arc that would bring us back toward the other boat. By now we were moving close to forty knots and throwing a decent eighteen inch high wake.

  “Ha, ha, haaaa!” Clay roared with exuberant mirth. “Went right on his ass!”

  I looked over my shoulder to see the smaller boat, not much more than a fourteen foot skiff, pitching and rolling as my wake plowed under it. The man at the small console was clutching the wheel and the guy in the bow had disappeared below the gunwale. All I could see was a pair of legs sticking straight up into the bright blue morning sky.

  By now, my turn had brought my bow nearly in line with the other vessel. The man at the wheel saw this. Even from fifty yards away, I saw his eyes grow huge and his right hand reflexively mash the throttle down. The small skiff shot forward, its bow coming nearly vertical as it rose up and hit my last wave.

  “I think he’s planning to tactically withdraw!” Clay guffawed.

  “Somehow I doubt he’s got the horsepower to do so,” I said, a little angry now. I turned the wheel harder to starboard and aimed for the skiff.

  “You’re not gonna do what I think you’re gonna do…” Clay groaned.

  “Certainly not!” I said with a laugh that was only a smidge evil… on account of the fact I was getting pissed off at the audacity of these assholes.

  Although the other boat, an aluminum skiff, was smaller, it had a pretty decent sized outboard on it. I could see as we got closer that my opponent’s speed was beginning to increase and that I wouldn’t quite reach him in time. With both his and my throttles wide open, it looked like we were running at the same speed, only thirty feet apart. He was a little forward and to my left when our speeds matched up.