“I got an idea,” Jimmy said. “How about I be out at the end of the driveway, to kinda direct folks where to park, man? As the locals come in, I can tell 'em that Jesse is Joe Smith, or whatever, if anyone asks and that Jesse isn’t here. I can also tell ’em that you three cats are Jesse’s fishing clients. Locals treat clients a whole lot different than outsiders.”
“No, not Joe Smith,” Tony said. “Our mentor was just telling us yesterday that there are surprisingly few Joe Smith’s and Bill Jones’s in the world. When creating an alias, it’s better to use uncommon names or nicknames.”
“Stretch Buchannan,” Art said with a grin.
“That’ll work,” Deuce added. “Stretch is a member of our old team. Big, lanky guy, like yourself, Jesse.”
“Jesse?” I asked. “Name’s Stretch.”
Everyone laughed, and then Rusty said, “A lot of folks will be coming by boat. I can do the same down at the docks.”
“Okay,” I said. “But where’s Jesse? His boats here, his clients are here, where’d he go?”
“I don’t know,” Deuce replied. “But, maybe Stretch can take one of them to where he is, in his little boat over there. Would it be safe to say that it’s too small for you and four people?”
I grinned at the way he was thinking. “Stretch is a bit of a cutthroat,” I said. “Why, just the other day, he tried to snake Jesse’s clients away from him. Right there in front of Aaron. And yeah, my skiff’s not big enough for three men, especially if two of them are over 225 pounds, which both Lester and I are.”
“If this works,” Deuce said, “you need to be able to bring him somewhere secluded. Somewhere that I could be waiting.”
“Jesse’s house,” Rusty said. “Up in the Content Keys. You could fire a cannon up there and nobody could hear it. Take my skiff, the GPS will take you right to it.”
We continued to discuss options and alternatives for half an hour. Russ used to tell us that just as soon as any operation started, you could pretty much throw the initial plan out the window and to always have redundancies for redundancies. Rusty’s phone rang; he looked at it and said, “It’s Aaron.”
“Put it on speaker,” I said.
Rusty punched a button and said, “Hey Aaron. I’m sitting here with Jesse, you’re on speaker.”
“Hey guys,” came the voice over the speaker. “Your buddies just left. Actually, all four came in, arranged for dock space and fuel, then left. The one guy, the body builder, came back a second later. He did just as you said he would, Rusty. Asked about your doubloon necklace. And guess what. He was wearing one exactly like it. Pulled it out and compared it to yours. Only difference was an RL inscribed on the top of the mount, on the back.”
“That ties it,” I said, looking at Deuce. “Aaron, be real careful around those guys. The one with the necklace is a killer. That necklace belonged to a friend of mine that drowned up in Palm Beach. I’m going to have a friend come over to baby-sit those guys. His name’s Art. Should be there in fifteen minutes. Where’d you dock the Carver?”
“Right now, she’s at the fuel dock. I put her in slip ten, two down from your old one. They were pissed you weren’t here. Asked a bunch of questions and made some lame story about having to rent their own boat to go fishing. I said I didn‘t know where you were mooring the Revenge, but you‘d probably be at the Rusty Anchor tomorrow for the party.”
“Jesse,” Jimmy said, “that’s right next to Angie’s slip. I’ll go talk to her, man. Art can use her houseboat.”
“Tell her she’s welcome to stay in the guest room, Jimmy,” Rusty said. “You and her both.”
“Thanks, amigo,” Jimmy said, as he and Art got up and headed toward the bar.
“You did good, Aaron. Thanks a lot. See you tomorrow. Oh yeah, until further notice, my name’s Stretch Buchannan. Keep it on the down low, but pass the word to any locals and warn them to steer clear of those guys. One more thing. Can you be here early tomorrow? I’d like to borrow Rusty’s necklace.”
“No problem, Jesse, er, I mean Stretch. See ya tomorrow.” The line clicked off and Rusty closed the phone.
I turned to Art and Jimmy, headed across the yard and said, “Art, see me before you head over there.” Then to Deuce I asked, “How are you guys armed?”
“I’m carrying,” he replied. “But Tony and Art aren’t.”
“Follow me,” I said to Tony and Deuce.
“You sure, Jesse?” Rusty asked, knowing what I was about to do.
“Dead sure,” I replied.
The three of us walked over to the dock and boarded the Revenge, with the dog trotting along beside me.
“Stay and watch,” I said to the dog. He promptly turned around and sat down on the dock. I unlocked the hatch to the salon and took them forward to my stateroom. Punching in the code on the keypad under the foot of the bunk, and then pulling the release, the bunk lifted up. I spun the combination lock on the large storage box beneath it. When I opened it, both men exhaled sharply.
“Seriously,” I said, “Us old Jarheads just have to have our toys.” Inside the storage box, which I call my war chest, was my arsenal. “I’ve always believed a man would be a fool to go out on open water in the Caribbean with no means of defending his vessel from pirates. Your dad did too, Deuce. In fact, he was the one that taught me just about everything I know. Pirates still exist, but not the swashbuckling type, from the old Errol Flynn movies. Today’s Caribbean pirates are mostly drug runners and slavers. Hundreds of boats have disappeared and their owners never seen again, taken over by pirates and used to haul drugs, the owners murdered and tossed overboard or sold as slaves in the sex trade.”
Art called out from the dock, “Permission to board?”
“Come forward,” I called back. I removed two holstered Beretta M9’s, four matching magazines and a box of nine-millimeter parabellums and handed them to Art and Tony. The M9 has been the standard issue for both the Navy and Marine Corps for twenty years, so I knew they’d be very familiar with them. The holsters could be worn inside or outside the pants, clipped onto the belt. I also removed my Night Spirit monocular and handed it to Art, who put it in a cargo pocket of his shorts. I then removed one of many long narrow fly rod cases and handed it to Deuce.
He hefted it noting that it was probably too heavy to hold a fly rod and reel. Then he opened it and removed my M-40A3 sniper rifle, with a mounted U.S. Optics MST-100 scope, designed by John Unertl. Deuce inspected the weapon and it was obvious he’d handled the M-40 before. I also handed him a small box of .308 Lapua ammo.
“What’s it zeroed at?” he asked.
“Two hundred meters and I’ve fired it accurately over nine hundred,” I replied. “The case is actually an old Sage fly rod case I gutted to install form-fitting foam pads for the rifle and scope. It won’t look a bit out of place on Rusty’s skiff or anywhere else in the Keys, for that matter. Ammo is dovetailed and moly coated Lapua. If I can get Lester to go with me to the house, you can set out just ahead of us. Rusty’s skiff will cross any skinny water between here and there and I’ll make a few turns to give you time to get up there and get set up. The deck will give you a clear view all around for nearly a mile. When I get about four hundred meters from the house, I’m going to stop and let Lester know who I am and that he’s covered, just in case he has any ideas to take the boat and come up to the house alone. To prove the point, I’ll raise an oar up in the air. Think you can put a nice round hole in it, center mass, at that distance?”
“He can,” Tony said. “Even at twice that distance.”
“Let’s keep it at four hundred,” I said. “The skiff might be rocking some and that’s the distance where you can first start to make out the house.”
I closed and locked the storage box, then closed the bunk. Tony smiled and said, “What else you got in there, Gunny?”
“Just toys, like I said,” I replied.
Tony and Art had loaded the mags, holstered the Beretta’s and stuck them under thei
r shirts at the small of their backs. Deuce put the rifle back in the case and we climbed back up to the dock, where Rusty and Jimmy were waiting. Rusty noted the case Deuce was carrying and said, “That’ll fit in the fish box up on the front of my skiff. It’s airtight and has a lock.” He handed Deuce the key ring and Deuce walked down the dock and locked the case in the fish box.
When he came back, he said, “Never heard of a locking fish box before.”
“That’s the only place to store an expensive fly rod,” Rusty said back, with a knowing grin.
Deuce said, “I need to call Director Smith to update him and see if he has any more intel on Beech and al Madani. I’d rather do a face to face, but emails will have to do.”
“Use my laptop, dude,” Jimmy said. “There’s a secure server on the Revenge and I built my own encryption into the laptop. It’ll match any encryption sent or received.”
“And you were a Machinists Mate?” Deuce asked, skeptically.
“First Class, bro,” Jimmy replied. “Angie said ‘No problemo’ for using her houseboat. Here’s the keys.”
He handed a key ring to Art, who said, “I’m going to go ahead over there. I’ll stop in the office and let your friend know who I am and where I’ll be. I’ll check in every half hour, till 2200, or sooner, if anything develops.” He then walked around the end of the turning basin and disappeared down the trail, through the woods.
“Tony,” Rusty said, “you can bunk on Jesse’s boat tonight.” Then turning to Deuce, he said, “Son, you’re welcome in my house, or join Tony if you like.” He then turned and headed over to the house. The implication was obvious. Rusty accepted the relationship.
The sun was getting low in the sky and it looked to be another beautiful sunset in paradise. What the next day was going to bring was anyone’s guess, though.
“We should all turn in and get some rest,” I said, as I saw Alex and Angie come out of the bar. “Tomorrow could be a long day.”
Deuce headed for the boat to make his video call and I went over to talk to Alex. Jimmy intercepted Angie and they headed into the bar so she could show him the decorations.
“Is Deuce planning to do some fly fishing?” Alex asked. “He has about the same build as you and could probably use a few pointers.”
“Fly fishing?” I asked.
“I saw the fly rod case he stowed on Rusty’s skiff. But something tells me there’s no rod and reel in that case. What’s going on?”
The lady was sharp as a tack, no denying that. Rather than try to lie about it, I knew the best tack for me was to give her most of the truth, so I told her about our plans for tomorrow. Then I surprised her with, “I think we should get married.”
For the first time since I’d met her, she was speechless. She looked deeply into my eyes, then wrapped her arms around my neck and held me so tightly I thought I couldn’t breathe.
“If that’s a proposal, the answer is yes,” she said.
“It was,” I said, feeling more secure. “If you want, we can go down and get the license first thing in the morning.”
“Can Rusty officiate, on board the Revenge?” she asked.
“I know he’s a notary,” I replied, “So he can do it aboard the Revenge or anywhere else. You in a big hurry?”
“No, nothing like that,” she said. “I’m not one of those girls that started looking at bridal magazines at fifteen and planning every detail of an elaborate wedding ever since. All our friends will already be here tomorrow, that’s all.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling that shanghaied feeling again. “Tomorrow it is, then.” I saw Deuce coming out of the salon and added, “Why don’t you go ask Rusty if his notary license is up to date.”
She’d seen Deuce coming too and said, “Okay, I’ll get out of the way.”
“Good news, Jesse,” Deuce said after Alex was out of earshot. “The Director has given approval for our plans. If it comes down to it, taking Lester out is sanctioned, but only as a last resort. He wants to know if he’s involved in any way with the terrorist smuggling. What’s up with you? You look pale.”
“Pale?” I asked. “Yeah, well, I think I just got shanghaied again. I asked Alex to marry me.”
“Hey, man, congratulations!” he said. “Why would you feel shanghaied if you asked her, though?”
“The wedding is tomorrow.”
I saw Rusty and Alex come out of the house and Alex ran toward the bar, while Rusty walked out to us on the dock.
“I told ya she was about ready to set the hook, brother,” Rusty said.
“It’s not like that, Rusty,” I said. “I asked her and she said yes. Plain and simple.”
“Bet you didn’t ask her to marry you tomorrow, though,” he said.
To save face, I lied and said, “Actually, I did. We’ll go get the license in the morning and you can marry us before the shindig gets started at noon.”
“Sure ya did,” he said, as he turned and walked back to the house, laughing. Then he yelled back over his shoulder, “Congrats, bro. Y’all are right for each other.”
29
Saturday afternoon, October 29, 2005
The Carver pulled into Boot Key Harbor after completely loosing sight of the big fishing boat and it wasn’t there. “Damn,” said Walt. “The Boss ain’t gonna be pleased about this. Tomas, you shoulda put the hammer down and kept up with him like I told ya.”
“No es posible, Walt,” Tomas argued. “That big boat es muy rapido. It took off at over forty miles an hour. El barco, One-Eyed Jack, not do that even if she was new.” “What we gonna do now, Walt,” Lester asked.
“Head for the fuel dock, Tomas,” Walt said. “This tubs runnin’ on fumes. Lester, me and you gonna go see that manager and get a place to dock this piece of shit and see what we can find out.”
Tomas pulled up to the fuel dock and Walt and Lester headed off to the managers office to pay for the fuel and get a docking space. “He musta picked up the rest of his fishing party somewhere else. Les, you shoulda got more information from those two fishermen.”
“I was in a hurry to get to the boat,” Lester said.
“Yeah, I guess you did right,” Walt said as the entered the Marina office.
Aaron saw the boat pull up at the fuel dock and the two men coming toward the office. Jesse had told him to make sure they knew about the party that was set to start at noon, but wouldn’t get fully underway until mid-afternoon.
When Walt and Lester walked in, Lester immediately noticed that the manager was wearing a necklace exactly like the one he’d taken from the old man. It surprised him, at first. Walt said, “We never did find our buddy, Jesse, up in Miami like that guy said. We ended up renting our own boat, as you can see. Need some gas and a place to park it, if you got room. We figured he’d come back here.”
Aaron noticed that Lester stared at the doubloon, hanging on a gold chain around his neck. “Actually, he did a couple days ago. Closed out his account and said he’d come back next week to remove his signage and gear from the dock. Sorry to see him go. He brought a lot of business to the marina.”
“Well, that sucks,” Walt said. “Did you tell him we were looking to charter with him?”
“I wasn’t here,” Aaron said. “That’s what my assistant told me, later. I can put you in slip ten, down near the end. They’re numbered on the pilings.”
“Any idea where he’s staying now?” Lester asked as he handed over a credit card that the boss had given him for expenses.
“No, he didn’t say,” Aaron replied, running the card through the machine. “I asked Robin that, specifically. But you can probably catch him at the big party tomorrow at the Rusty Anchor. All the locals’ll be there.”
“A party huh?” Walt said. “Yeah, where is this Rusty Anchor?”
“Go out to highway one,” Aaron said, “turn right and go about a half a mile. It’s the crushed shell driveway on the right. No signs or anything. Right across highway one from the U-haul place.”
> “Hey, thanks,” Walt said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and catch up to him there, before we, um, head out on our fishing trip. Let’s go, Lester.”
The two men left the office, and then Lester said, “I’ll be right back, Walt. Forgot something’.”
“Be quick about it,” Walt said.
Lester returned to the office and when he walked in, Aaron was just about to dial the phone on his desk. Lester said, “Hey, I just wanted to ask ya where ya got that necklace?” Reaching down the front of his shirt, he pulled his own necklace out and said, “I got one looks just like it.”
“Oh this,” Aaron said, lifting the necklace Rusty had given him. “My wife gave it to me for my birthday a few years ago. It’s from the Atocha.”
“The Atocha?” Lester asked. “That a store, or something?”
“No,” Aaron said laughing. “The Atocha was a Spanish shipwreck that Mel Fischer found, some years back. Had a huge fortune of treasure on board. They made a lot of them into necklaces. Can I have a closer look?”
Lester held it up so Aaron could look at it. Aaron turned it over and noticed the initials RL neatly engraved in the top of the mount. Thinking quickly and counting on the man not knowing anything about treasure ships since he’d never heard of the Atocha, he said, “No, yours must be from the Rio Lagos. They put that RL on the back of some of them. That and the chains are a little different.”
“Know how much your wife paid for yours?” Lester asked.
“No, not married to her anymore,” Aaron lied. In fact, he’d never been married. “But I had it appraised after we split up. It’s worth about three grand.” He knew this because he’d seen them for sale at the Mel Fischer museum.
“Three grand!” Lester said. “Son of a bitch!”
“Don’t tell me you got ripped off,” Aaron said, nervously.
“Um, yeah,” Lester said. “I paid over four for it, three years ago.”
“That’s too bad,” Aaron said. “It might be worth that today, been a while since I had mine appraised.”
“Thanks, man,” Lester said, walking out of the office. Damn, he thought, if Sonny lied about what this is worth, he probably lied about all of it. Son of a bitch ripped me off. He walked back to the boat, dejected. Sonny had given him the seventy thousand for everything, saying it was only gonna bring a hundred grand. Lester was thinking, if he was off by a third on the necklace, that means he ripped me off by about a hundred grand. That damn weasel.
Fallen Palm (Jesse McDermitt Series) Page 18