Inside, Pasquale’s Marine Supply retained the funky flea market ambiance that I remembered. The establishment was a one-off, growing over many decades to fill its evolving niche. It was also one of the last big marine outlets which were not connected to the major national chains. Hence, its security cameras were less likely to be connected into the national law enforcement web.
A spry white-haired fellow in a Pasquale’s T-shirt approached and asked if we needed help finding anything. Indeed we did. I guessed he was an old sailor on leave from the sea. Or maybe he had swallowed the anchor and moved permanently ashore for his declining years. His deeply tanned skin and facial creases bespoke many years spent on the ocean.
I said, “We need a lot of things, but mainly we need an inflatable dinghy. Ten or eleven feet should be good. The problem is we’re driving a little hatchback, so we’ll need something that breaks all the way down and rolls up small. And we’ll need an outboard to push it, with the gas tanks, the fuel lines and everything else. We even need the gas. Can you do all of that right here, today, from what you have in stock?”
He smiled, unfazed. “Sure thing, skipper. We can set you up with any size of boat and motor you want. New or used.” He adopted a conspiratorial tone and said, “We even have a few old two-strokes lying around.” Smoky two-strokes hadn’t been manufactured in decades, replaced by cleaner-burning four-strokes at nearly double the weight for the same power. The Evinrude 75 on my Avon was an old two-stroke.
“What’s the company policy on accepting cash?”
“Cash is king. Cash makes us very happy. There might even be a discount when we ring you up.”
“I need some snorkeling gear too.”
“Shop around, find me when you have a question.”
I handed the Orbcom into Kelly’s custody while we checked out various inflatables and outboards. Everything marine from trash to treasure was spread over a few acres, both inside the warehouse and on the back and side lots. At one o’clock I was duly informed by my attractive young commo tech that the tracker beacon was currently sending its signal from the end of Hibiscus Isle. Presumably pinging away from inside the waverunner, which by then should have been put away inside Topaz.
Nick and Kelly showed relief at this report; I could tell that they also had been worrying about the ability of the signal to penetrate both hulls and still reach the sky. I cheerfully high-fived and fist-bumped and generally saluted both of my partners-in-crime for their utter sneakiness in successfully implanting the tracker beacon within the target vessel, in spite of the worries and protestations of their less imaginative nominal leader.
We spent the next hour assembling and inflating a variety of used rubber boats and testing outboards in drums full of water. When we were paid up, the GTI was tightly packed below the hatch. The big load blocked Nick’s escape route, but none of us mentioned it. He climbed into his half of the rear seat after a deep breath and only a slight hesitation.
Rolled up, the used gray Zodiac was the size of a misshapen beer keg on the half-deck to Nick’s left. A canvas bag containing the disassembled floor boards was beneath the boat. The outboard motor, fuel can and other gear bags were behind him. I supposed Nick was getting used to city traffic again. Hopefully this morning’s indications of claustrophobia were a one-time event. But you had to respect people’s phobias, and plan around them. Ignoring them could lead to absolute disaster. Just put somebody with acrophobia near the edge of a cliff and see what happens.
We left Pasquale’s after two p.m. Kelly said, “Now what? Find a place to launch the boat?”
“Not yet. The party on Sunset Isle isn’t till eight. There’s no rush. What I’d really like to do is kick back and eat a nice juicy steak. Something that didn’t come out of the ocean. Someplace comfortable where they won’t mind if we want to spend a few hours chilling out. You’re our local guide, Kelly. Where should we go?”
“Around here? I don’t know where there’s a good steak house, but I know a decent Mexican place not far from here. Good food, and fairly cheap. I was there once, about a year ago.”
“Mexican food, not Cuban?”
“Yeah, real Mexican.”
“Sounds good, let’s go.”
It was near the downtown Miami bus station. Tio Pepe’s occupied part of the second floor of a Holiday Inn, above the lobby and offices. It had its own exterior staircase up to the restaurant level. The steps were around the side of the lobby and out of sight from the street. The place was about as low key and private as I could hope to find just a few city blocks from Miami’s main Federal Building in one direction and the Miami-Dade Police Department’s HQ in another. Kelly was able to park inside the security fence behind the motel. Of course, we still left the GTI locked up tight.
We were greeted effusively by an attractive middle-aged Latina. No surprise there, because there were few other customers. She enjoyed my Spanish banter; it’s one of my most useful tricks. Español rapido is not expected from a tall, blue-eyed gringo. I explained what we wanted. Because it was the slack period between lunch and dinner, we snagged a circular booth in the narrow rear of the establishment, past the wait station and set in its own alcove. It was upholstered in red imitation leather around 270 degrees of a round table. It was as close to a private room as the place offered.
Our waiter came, a gen-yoo-wine Mexican in Miami. He wanted to take our drink orders, and my cohorts looked to me for guidance. “Iced tea for me,” I said. Kelly wanted the same, Nick ordered a cola. Neither of them bitched or moaned or begged for a beer or a mixed drink. I was gratified that I didn’t need to explain why alcohol, a depressant, was a bad idea before going into a mission. We could drink ourselves stupid when this was all done.
Tio Pepe’s was just what I wanted: a dark, air-conditioned restaurant without one single nautical reference in sight. There might have been shrimp nachos on the menu, but nothing else from the sea. No lobster pots, boat oars or fishermen’s nets adorned the ceiling or walls. We could have been in Denver, Dallas or Durango.
This respite afforded us time to relax and decompress while formulating our mission plans for the night. At Pasquale’s we had bought paper nautical charts covering lower Biscayne Bay. After cutting them down to just the sections we needed, we marked them with rally points, objective points and brevity codes, listed from Alpha to Zulu. It was a violation of standard security protocols to mark up operational maps with coded reference points, but there was no time to memorize them.
Kelly examined my party invitation closely. I had told them about my encounter with Brooke, Prechter and Senator. Sanchez. She said, “So why go to the party at all? Why not sneak aboard Topaz while you know Prechter will be away?”
“Because Cori might not be on Topaz. If we pull an op on Topaz and she’s not there, then they’ll go on high alert and we’ll never find her. Richard Prechter is the key. If we can snatch Prechter, it won’t matter where Cori is. He’ll make the right calls, and she’ll be released.”
Nick said, “But what if you can’t grab Prechter? Just saying, boss.”
“Then we’ll roll into Plan B and do the waterborne sneak attack on Topaz.”
The men’s room at Tio Pepe’s wasn’t in the Fontainebleau’s league, but it was clean and functional. I did my final changing for the GORP party in the handicapped stall. It even had its own sink and changing table for Mr. Moms with diaper babies. The fold-down table was perfect for packing and sorting my clothes and mission gear. When I walked out of the bathroom, my face was washed and my scar-hiding makeup was reapplied. My newly styled hair was combed up and back. I was wearing one of my favorite shirts, a blue silk short-sleeve guayabera from Venezuela, the same khaki slacks from the conference, and my best Docksider boat moccasins.
I thought I looked pretty damn good in the mirror, to be honest. Then I noticed the tan paracord bracelet on my right wrist. It was so easy to forget it was there. Was it too shabby for crashing a party at a celebrity’s mansion? A defect in my camo
uflage? I considered cutting it off, but it did sort of match the sports watch on my other hand, if anybody noticed it at all. I rolled it around to expose the seam where thread joined the two ends. I could probably just tear it off and sew it back on later. Or maybe just leave it off. I’m not a man with a fetish for sentimental knickknacks and keepsakes. No lucky rabbit’s foot, no special blanket.
But this was Marian’s bracelet, so I left it on.
17
The Cori Vargas rescue mission was officially launched when our Zodiac went into the water. This was a little after seven p.m., after we made a final Orbcom check on the tracker’s location. As long as the waverunner was inside Topaz, then Topaz had not moved since noon.
We had decided to launch the boat at the Miamarina, only a mile east of the Mexican restaurant. By confining our travels to the secure heart of Miami, we were minimizing our chances of being trapped in another police checkpoint. At least that was the theory.
The marina was located a few blocks south of the high concrete bridge over to Dodge Island, the site of the Port of Miami. Dodge Island was the mother of all dredged manmade creations in Biscayne Bay. It ran parallel to the MacArthur Causeway for two miles, with ample space for the biggest cruise ships on one side, the biggest container ships on the other, and all the necessary port facilities in between.
It turned out that Kelly and I were both passingly familiar with the Miamarina. A few years apart, we had each visited people on boats there. Kelly had occasionally shopped at the adjoining Bayside Mall after attending festivals at Bayside Park, so she knew her way around the complex and back to the marina docks and parking lots.
There were plenty of well-dressed shoppers on the sidewalks and footpaths between the mall’s various structures. It wasn’t Miami Beach but it was nice, about like I remembered it. There was a heavy police presence in patrol cars, on foot and on mountain bikes. All the cops were doubled up in two-man elements. They wore tan ball caps instead of gold helmets, and carried holstered pistols instead of carbines. We didn’t get a second glance from any of them as we drove around to the marina parking lot. We were obviously harmless. Just happy shoppers, already cleared to be inside downtown Miami’s security cordon.
The three main finger piers of the Miamarina were secured from public access behind chain-link gates surrounded by concentric rings of razor wire to prevent climb-arounds. Each locked gate had a keypad entry for the boat owners. Besides the private locked piers, there were also floating docks for the charter boats and rental concessions. These were either closed or in the process of closing for the evening as dusk began to fall. We parked next to a shuttered business that promised to take up to twenty happy tourists out for an unforgettable snorkeling experience on their thirty-foot custom power cat. There was no sign of said power cat at the empty floating dock.
Nobody objected to our unloading, unrolling, assembling and inflating a Zodiac on the vacant dock, or sliding it into the water and installing a small outboard motor. And why would anyone object? Marinas are transient places. Half the people here would never see the others more than once.
The three of us were the right age and demographic, and people putting a rubber boat together is a normal part of any marina. The main activity this evening seemed to be carrying bags of ice and cases of beer down to boats, both power and sail. If we had been able to hang around for half an hour, we could have wangled invitations to a couple of cockpit parties, easily.
Looking around, I could see that it was a friendly place, a live-aboard sailor’s refuge right alongside downtown Miami. I allowed myself a momentary fantasy. Rebel Yell would fit neatly at one of the pier ends and Cori could live aboard while exploring her Miami options. That bubble almost immediately popped when I considered the cost of monthly dockage at the upscale city marina. It would never happen on my budget, not unless I found and salvaged the next Atocha. Not to mention that my boat would be confiscated by the IRS before I could even tie up at the Miamarina.
Nick and I took turns stomping on the foot bellows air pump. The used Zodiac pumped up nice and tight, with hard tubes and a fitted plywood deck locked tightly below them. On a test run outside the marina Nick easily got it up on a plane with the old fifteen-horse Johnson. He would have a top speed of maybe twenty miles an hour when he was alone in the boat.
It was two miles from the Miamarina to Topaz on Hibiscus Isle, and another mile to the Sunset Isles on the Miami Beach side of Biscayne Bay. At full throttle it would take Nick only minutes to transit between our primary objective areas. Much faster than a car could do it on land, which meant covering three times the miles, in traffic. All of the gear in the Zodiac was innocuous except for Nick’s .357 Smith and Wesson, concealed within a fishing tackle box purchased at Pasquale’s for camouflage, along with a fishing rod.
We went over our plan one last time. Comms were a critical part of the operation. We would turn our phones on for three minutes at the turn of each quarter hour, removing the batteries between those times for added security. At nine p.m. we would turn them on continuously until the three of us were reunited.
Nick took off north under the high Dodge Island bridge and was quickly gone from our sight. I knew from watching him handle his own dinghy back in George Town that he could operate the eleven-foot inflatable under all conceivable circumstances. According to the plan, he would continue under the MacArthur Causeway Bridge and loiter on the north side of Watson Island, which had public boat-launching ramps. He would blend in with the waverunners and ski boats and await communications from us. A tiny Danforth anchor would allow him to stay put in the shallows.
After watching Nick disappear, Kelly and I climbed back into her GTI to cross over to Miami Beach and get the party started. A few quick turns and we jumped from Biscayne Boulevard onto the MacArthur Causeway. Kelly turned on the SunPass and we breezed through security on Watson Island in the Ultra lane. We rolled across the causeway with the heat of the day finally fading as the sun dropped behind us. The low rays reflected off the dozens of mirror-clad towers of Miami Beach, turning the skyline into a gleaming fantasy confection of upright molten gold and silver.
To our right across Government Cut at the Dodge Island cruise ship terminals, twenty-decked monsters processed their cash crop of safety-minded seafaring tourists. To our left was the private bridge to Palm Isle, beyond which was Hibiscus, where I hoped Cori Vargas was. At the closest point we were less than half a mile apart, but I received no jolt of ESP or telepathic cry for help.
Two minutes later we were back in Miami Beach.
****
I said, “Look, it’s only seven-twenty. Do you know a restaurant called Vendettas?”
“Sure,” said Kelly. “It’s practically on our way. It’s on Washington, a block this side of Collins. That’s the heart of South Beach and parking is terrible. After ten—that’s when the SoBe action really starts—it’s totally insane until dawn.”
“Can you double-park if I run inside for a minute or two?”
“What’s going on?”
“Remember that girl I met at the convention, when Prechter came over?”
“The blond volleyball chick from UM. The one who gave you the invitation.”
“Right. I want to ask her something.” If Prechter had come back around to ask her again, she might have heard when Topaz was getting under way. She might have seen or heard something else of importance during the afternoon, from her position directly across from GORP.
Vendettas was in the middle of a block between a nightclub and an art gallery. Kelly slid into an open space directly in front and I hopped out, ignoring the approach of a parking valet. After what I’d seen and heard that day, I knew the valet wouldn’t stand a chance of budging the GTI. Instead, Kelly would have him eating out of her hand.
The South Beach sidewalks were already starting to fill with young partiers. Vendettas’ atmosphere wasn’t Sicilian; it was more like Jersey Shore meets Las Vegas. Groups of people clustered outside the doubl
e glass doors, studying the posted menu. I slipped inside between arriving and departing parties. The dining areas that I could see were nearly full, as were the bar and a small waiting area. I headed to the reservation desk. A harried-looking guy about my age was giving marching orders to waitresses in skimpy black cocktail dresses while studying a table map on his rostrum. He had dark well-styled hair and almost no tan, definitely a night owl.
As soon as I could get close to him I said, “Hey, I’m a friend of Brooke Tierstadt. Can I see her when she has a moment? Just for a minute, no more.”
The young maitre d’ looked at me carefully. I was someone who did not fit into any of his expected behavioral patterns. I wasn’t asking for a table, and I knew one of his employees. He said, “Sure, you could see her if she was here. But she didn’t show up tonight.” I detected irritation in his voice. “She should have been here by seven. Now I have to do her job too, until she shows up or I get one of the other girls up to speed.”
“Is she late often?”
“Never. But why should you care? What’s it to you?” He was a few inches shorter than me and wiry. The intense kind of guy who often whips my ass at racquet sports. Who probably won high school wrestling matches in his weight class. The gold name tag on his black jacket read Alonzo Marchetti, and below that it said Manager. His accent was New Jersey, or maybe Philadelphia.
“I met Brooke today at the convention center, and I told her I might drop by.”
“I hope she wasn’t in an accident. I’ve called her a couple of times, but I just get her voice mail. This isn’t like her. No greeter on Friday night is terrible.”
“Is her car here?”
“Is her what?”
“She drives here, right? So, where does she park? I could check for her car. You know, a girl got attacked in one of those public lots a couple of weeks ago.” I didn’t know if that was true, but the odds were good that it was.
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