by Jon Coon
The conflict grew to a not-so-civil war in 1994 when Zapatista troops were severely defeated, suffering high casualties. The remnant retreated into the remains of the deep jungle they had recently been so anxious to burn and cultivate.
However, once in the shelter of the jungle, the Zapatistas were supported by other libertarian socialist/communist groups from Cuba and Central America and were able to hold off the Mexican government troops. It was money from the cartels that funded much of that resistance. Money Caldera was happy to provide in return for protection of his international operations. He hated capitalism, capitalists, and anything that threatened his ability to provide for his family or his cadre of workers.
That threat now had a face: Captain Tom Bright, head of the anti-drug task force and tenacious leader of the strike team that was costing Caldera millions. But Caldera had a plan, and it started with kidnapping Bright’s grandson as well as the three girls he already held: Bobby Benson’s daughters, the granddaughters of Texas senator Bob Benson, oil tycoon and driving force of the anti-drug war.
Gabe awoke as the Cessna banked into its turn on approach to the grass landing strip at the ranch. The touchdown was smooth, and they taxied to the first of four steel hangars. Carol cut the engines, which spun down, and then she got up and stretched. “Have a nice nap, you two?”
“Nice landing, Mom. I hardly felt it when you mowed down that cow.” Emily giggled.
“Then it’s fresh steaks tonight,” her grandfather retorted. “Let’s get unloaded and have some lunch.”
A white Ford King Ranch F-350 was waiting by the hangar. A deeply tanned and weathered ranch hand named Tony drove it to the plane and helped with the unloading. They piled into the truck.
“Gabe, leave your dive gear in the plane. Are you up for some diving tomorrow morning?”
“Of course. What’s the project?”
“Carol told me you have some pretty special abilities when it comes to interviewing victims,” the captain began. “Some friends of mine were killed in a plane crash yesterday. The plane went down on approach to Scholes International in Galveston. Sonar boat’s out looking now.”
Gabe gave a side glance back at Carol, who was in the back seat with Emily. She smiled back and said nothing.
“Oh, she didn’t tell you I knew? Well you may as well get used to it. There are no secrets in this family. But don’t worry. I’m as far as that went, and that’s as far as it will ever go.”
“No problem,” Gabe answered. That was not what he was thinking. He hesitated before asking, “What do you think caused the accident?”
“Well, that’s the thing. I don’t reckon it was an accident. I’m not sure how, but I think it was murder.”
“And do you know why?”
“Yep. At least I think so. Bobby Benson is the son of Senator Bob Benson, who has been the lead wrangler on the task force I’m on. He got us the federal funding and is pushing hard to shut down this big Mexican cartel. So there have been threats. Bobby and Susan were coming back from Cancun. It’s just a little too convenient.”
“And the threats, you think they are the reason Paul was taken?”
“I do. So if we can learn what happened to the Bensons, that might give us a lead to finding Paul.”
“When do we start?”
“First thing in the morning, or as soon as we hear from the sonar boat. Now let’s get some steak and eggs. This old cowboy is starving.”
The white frame ranch had a large wraparound porch, eight bedrooms, a modern kitchen, a formal dining room full of antiques, and a den/office with walls covered in University of Texas and Texas Ranger memorabilia. There were several framed photos of Carol with horses and a cabinet full of trophies and ribbons, mostly blue. There were also photos of antique military aircraft and citations from the Confederate Air Force recognizing Tom for his many years of outstanding service. A bronze plaque commemorated his years as commandant, and above it was a photo of him in classic WWII pilot garb complete with leather bomber jacket and traditional long white scarf standing in front of a twin-engine bomber.
“That’s really something,” Gabe said.
“Just a bunch of old farts who love the old planes. That’s a B-25 and there aren’t many of them left. They had quite a history in their day. Carol has flown left seat in that one. Not many women have done that.” He stood reverently enjoying the memories before saying, “I think the girls are in the den. Let’s go see what they’re up to.”
A music room with a well preserved Steinway and sheet music going back to the turn of the prior century was separated from the living room by beveled glass French doors. The furniture in most rooms was antique, with the exception of a large family room with leather couches and a massive big-screen TV. That room had football photos and jerseys. It was obvious Tom had played and played hard. There were newspaper clippings with his photos and post-victory interviews.
“Scholarship,” Tom said as Gabe admired the collection. “My dad played there too. Like the Rangers, it’s a family tradition.”
“If Dad had had his way, I’d have been the first female quarterback in UT history.” Carol stepped in and hugged her dad. “But he had to settle for a cowgirl and a cutting horse rider.”
“Excuse me,” Tom interjected. “That’s state champion girl rider.”
“I’m impressed,” Gabe said. And he was. With all of it.
A short Hispanic woman in her sixties and a starched white linen apron came in and announced lunch was ready. Steaks, eggs, and ranch-style potatoes waited on the dining room table. As they were about to sit down, Tom’s cell phone played “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” and he stepped out of the room to take the call.
Carol realized Gabe was feeling uncomfortable with the setting and the wealth that surrounded her family. She hugged him and said quietly, “Relax, pal. It’s just me. It’s still us. Nothing has changed.”
“It’s a lot.”
“It’s okay. We’re not taking any of it home with us. Except a couple horses. That’s all.”
Before Gabe could answer, Tom was back. “They found the plane. If you’re up for it, we can knock this out before dark. Consuela will make sandwiches. We need to go.”
“Fine with me. Let’s do it.”
“Be careful. Come home safe, you two,” Carol said and kissed her dad. Emily bounced in from wherever she had been and hugged Gabe. They drove back out to the hangar where the Cessna had been refueled and turned back toward the runway. Tom did a preflight, and they were back in the air for the hour-and-fifteen-minute flight to Galveston.
Chapter 10
“THIS THING WITH THE GHOSTS, how did that start?”
They’d been quietly enjoying the view from 15,000 feet before Tom opened up.
“It was after Katrina. I was helping with the diving part of the cleanup. A lot of body recovery work. We found a school bus with a bunch of kids in fifteen feet of water. It was so bad you could taste death in the water. I picked up a backpack that had a name on it. I must have read the name aloud, because as soon as I did, a little girl started screaming at me to help her. Then the rest of the kids started—”
“Good Lord, man, that’s awful.”
“It could have been a hallucination, but I swear, it was the most real, most terrifying thing I’ve experienced. I ended up in the hospital. Everyone in the hospital thought I was nuts. But then Alethea, my mother’s cousin, found me. She believed, and gently pulled me back. It wasn’t easy.”
“Was that Alethea, the professor from Tulane? Carol told me about her.”
“Yes, Marie Laveau’s great-great-granddaughter, Alethea. Because of the traditions she was raised with, she believed what happened to me was certainly possible, if not reality. She said I might have discovered a wonderful gift if I could learn how to use it. Control it. With her help, I learned, but I’m not sure it’s a gift.”
“That’s an amazing story. And you used that gift to save Emily?”
“I suspect Ale
thea had more to do with saving Emily than I did.”
“Carol told me about that part too. Do you really think she traded her life for Emily’s?”
“I did. She was pretty sick right after that, but she’s doing well enough now to be on a book tour. However, she said Marie lived exactly a year after she made the deal with the baron. It hasn’t been a year yet so . . .”
“So we wait. Partner, I must say, life is a little different on your planet.”
“Yes. I’m afraid it was too much for Carol.”
“I wouldn’t go to that pasture too soon, son. I think she’s still very much in love with you. But after losing Charlie and nearly losing Emily, it’s been a rough six months. Give her some time. I’m pretty sure she’ll end up in your corral.”
“Yeah, not to mention this business with Paul.”
“Right.”
As Tom brought them down through the clouds, Scholes International Airport appeared dead ahead. After a brief conversation with the tower, Tom landed and taxied to a waiting Texas Ranger truck. They were quickly loaded and underway to the dock at the Texas A&M marine station. The boat was a sturdy, steel-hulled, aluminum superstructure hundred-footer. Tom introduced the boat captain and then Gabe went to check the dive tanks.
The sonar boat reported the plane to be in 110 feet of water, so Gabe had asked for nitrox to cut down on decompression time and pure oxygen to decompress with. From his kit, he set up his oxygen analyzer, used an air tank to check the calibration, and then checked the nitrox tanks. Satisfied that the label taped to the tank matched the actual percentage, he put regulators on two nitrox tanks and one oxygen tank and then laid out his harness, backplate, and wing. As he finished, one of the Rangers came to the deck and introduced himself.
“You’re Gabe Jones, right? I’m Brad Hendricks. I’ll be your safety diver. Just tell me where you want me and what you need me to do.”
“Great. Appreciate your being here. Guess the first thing is to get a buoy on the plane or as close to it as possible. Then if you want to dive, why don’t we put you on the buoy line at about eighty feet with extra gas just in case. We’ll hang the deco oxygen at twenty feet, and we should be good to go.”
“Sure. You don’t want me at the plane with you?”
“Not as long as I know where you are. I’ll set the slings and we should be good to go. Do you know when the barge and crane are supposed to get here?”
“Shouldn’t be too long, but we can let their divers do the hookup once you’ve cleared the plane. You’ve got your cameras and lights?”
“Yeah, GoPros and Ocean Reef lights. They do a great job.”
“Cool. Well, I’ll give you a heads-up when they get closer. You might as well get some chow and rest till they get here.”
“Roger that. I’ll be in the galley.” Gabe nodded and entered the small galley through the center hatch on the rear of the two-story cabin and wheelhouse. Tom was drinking coffee with the other two Rangers.
“Damn shame about the Bensons,” the lieutenant was saying. “I heard their kids are on board.”
“Guess we’ll know before long,” Tom answered. He introduced Gabe and pointed to the coffee urn near the stove. Gabe nodded and went for a cup. They heard the boat’s diesels fire up and felt the boat jar to life.
Hendricks stuck his head in the door and said, “Showtime. We’re going to meet the crane barge on the site. It will only take an hour or so to get out there.”
The boat idled away from the dock and past the research vessels tied up there. Once in the channel, the big Detroit twins roared to life and pushed the boat to a speedy thirty knots. The flared hull cut smoothly through the water, and before long they were on the fringe of the Baytown oil field.
“How do you want this to work?” Tom asked. They had abandoned the little galley and crew’s quarters and were sitting alone on the main deck.
“I’ll have enough gas for about thirty minutes. That should be plenty of time. What specifically do you want me to ask him?”
Tom went over his list of questions and Gabe made notes on a pocket slate.
“Our forensics team will tear the plane apart until we know exactly what happened, but if Bobby can help us, that might save a lot of time. There should be three kids with them. Nothing to be done for them, but we want to confirm they are on board. That should be it. Gabe, I know this is a terrible dive and I feel really bad asking you to do it. But these folks were like family. Carol and Bobby went to UT together and dated some. If this was murder … well, I don’t have to explain it to you.”
“Got it. I’ll take good care of them. No worries.”
Chapter 11
GABE AND BRAD HENDRICKS STOOD on deck and waited as the boat, with the captain at the stern controls, moved into position next to the buoy. Geared up and ready, when the captain hit the horn, they both did giant stride entries into the brown Gulf water. After a quick gear check on the surface, they began dropping down the line. Gabe wore a 100-cubic-foot tank with a 32-percent-oxygen nitrox tank on his back and another slung under his right arm.
Brad wore a single 100-cubic-foot nitrox tank, also with 32-percent-oxygen, with an attached pony bottle and carried an oxygen tank he would hang from the buoy line at twenty feet for decompression. Brad would have forty-eight minutes at eighty feet without needing more deco than a five-minute safety stop. Depending on how long Gabe stayed on the bottom, he might require a much longer deco hang time.
Brad hung the O2 tank and dropped with Gabe to eighty feet. He gave a salute as Gabe passed him and descended into the void twenty feet below. At a hundred feet, Gabe paused, cleared his mask, and checked his gauges. He took two deep breaths and exhaled slowly to help relax and focus. He prayed his dive prayer, adjusted his buoyancy to compensate for the compression of the air in his back-mounted wing and the compression of his wet suit. Comfortable and neutrally buoyant, he continued his descent.
He hit bottom at 122 feet. There was about fifteen feet of visibility, but no plane. Frustrated but not perturbed, he unclipped a cave reel from his harness and attached the snap shackle to the buoy line. He checked his computer for time and compass direction and then headed into the current. As the line from the reel played out with no sign of the plane, he began to worry. Just as he came to the end of the line, he saw a dark shadow ahead. He raised his hand and called out loudly, “Bobby Benson, awake!”
Light flashed like a lightning bolt, giving him a clear view of the plane. The light lingered. Gabe hesitated, and then to reduce the drag as he swam, he unhooked his spare tank and secured the cave reel line to it.
He stood the tank up and shot a compass heading to the plane with his digital compass on the computer. The plane was about thirty feet away, but he knew when his light faded that his dive light would only punch through the haze about ten feet at most, and if he didn’t recover the cave line, the odds of finding the buoy line were not in his favor. It was a risk, but there was a job to do and he wasn’t about to give it less than his best.
He swam more easily to the plane without the extra tank, a twin-engine Beechcraft, smaller than Tom’s Cessna. It was nose down in the hard clay bottom and the tail was broken. As he approached, the ghastly apparition of Bobby Benson emerged from the plane.
“What …? Who …?”
“It’s all right, Bobby. None of that is important. We only have a little while. Captain Bright sent me, and we need to know what happened.”
“Tom sent you?”
“That’s right. Now please tell me, how did this happen?”
“When we were in the hangar at Porta Aventura, two men with guns took the girls and told us the only way we’d get them back was to fly their drugs back to the states. There was nothing I could do. They said when we delivered the drugs they would let us know how to find the girls.”
“So you were on the way back. Then what?”
“We ran out of gas. But that’s impossible. I checked the fuel, and the gauges said we still had eighty gall
ons. At least enough for two more hours. I radioed our position to Scholes tower and told them we were going down. That was it. I tried to get us out when we first hit the water, but we sank too fast and I couldn’t get the doors opened. Do you know if my daughters are all right?”
“Sorry, we thought they were with you. I’ll do my best to find them and bring them home. What can you tell me about the men who took them?”
“Both were Hispanic. One had a coiled snake tattoo coming down his arm. They were both young. Not thirty.”
Gabe saw bright light coming down toward them. “We’re out of time, but I promise you we’ll do everything we can to find your girls. In that light are angels and they are here for you. There’s nothing to fear. Go with them and be blessed.”
“What about Susan?”
“She’ll be right behind you. Not to worry.”
“Find our girls please and tell them we love them. I never dreamed our trip would put them in harm’s way. We’ll be praying for them. Thank you, and thanks to Tom. He’s been a great friend.”
The six-winged angels hovered over Bobby, who was wrapped in such brilliant light, Gabe had to shield his own eyes. And then they were gone. Gabe checked his computer and then the submersible pressure gauge on his tank. It was down to a third. Still safe, but no time to waste.
“Susan Benson, awake!” he shouted, and her spirit began to form. “Susan, come quickly. We haven’t much time.”
“What’s happening?” she asked. “Who are you?”
“Susan, you were killed in the plane crash. Angels are coming for you, and you will be safe with Bobby forever.”