by Steve Berry
“Jansen,” I tried again.
I checked the forward cabin. Empty. I climbed to the upper bridge. Empty, too. Jansen was not on board. Had he been taken by the people in the plane? Or had he gone voluntarily?
I climbed back down to the main deck and considered my options. The waterproof case was gone. It had been here when I’d left earlier. Clearly, it had found its way onto the plane.
Then something caught my eye.
A red-and-white Igloo cooler, which hadn’t been there before.
Maybe Jansen had brought it up from below? I glanced out across the water and saw another seaplane. But instead of vectoring for Fort Jefferson it turned west and headed my way.
Then I noticed something else.
A wire leading from the Igloo, draping the port rail.
Alarm bells rang in my brain.
I rushed to the cooler and removed the top. The inside was packed with plastic-wrapped clay bricks. Metal posts were buried into the top layer. Wires led to an electronic device.
A detonator.
No timer was visible, which meant it was probably remote-controlled. The exposed wire leading out had to be an antenna.
I darted to the rail, glancing up to see the seaplane bank north and start a low sweep that would take it about a quarter mile off the stern. I caught the coloration. Blue and white. Then the ID numbers.
1180206.
The same one from before.
It had circled back.
That couldn’t be good.
I leaped from the boat into the water and powered myself deep.
Just as the Isla Marie exploded.
* * *
I surfaced.
Thankfully, I’d made it deep enough to escape the destruction. Debris floated everywhere and I felt a swift current that would take it all, including me, out to sea. Quite a mess I’d managed to get myself into and I wondered how much of it had been intentional on the players’ part.
Stephanie Nelle. Jansen. Coleen Perry.
And a guy named Valdez.
Stupid me assumed that Jansen had been either harmed or incapacitated. What was the saying? Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. And this fool had certainly done that. Had Jansen set me up for a kill?
I tried to swim back toward Loggerhead, but for every few yards gained, the current reclaimed that much and more. A piece of debris floated by and I retrieved it, using it for flotation, which allowed my arms and legs to rest. I’d swum more today than in the past two years.
I quickly drifted away from land.
Hopefully, some of the local residents beneath me weren’t out looking for an easy lunch. If so, there’d be little I could do to dissuade them.
An engine broke the silence.
Not a plane. A boat.
I’d been hoping the park service personnel at Fort Jefferson would come to investigate. After all, how many things blew up around here?
I saw a craft headed my way.
But not from the east where the fort lay. This one came from the west side of Loggerhead.
An inflatable.
Like the one from before.
Anything had to be better than wearing myself out and drowning in the open sea. Particularly considering my only exercise was jumping to conclusions. So I waved my arms and attracted attention. The buzz of an outboard came steadily nearer, then eased up toward me and I saw two men inside.
The divers from the wreck.
Nothing about this was going to be good, but what choice did I have? I took some comfort from the fact that if they wanted me dead they’d just leave me in the water.
I swam over and grabbed the inflatable.
Something hard slammed my head.
Thoughts flickered as my brain became dazed with pain.
Then the world vanished.
CHAPTER NINE
I opened my eyes.
I hadn’t taken a shot like that since some touch football that got out of hand two summers ago. My head hurt. Where was I? On a boat? Had to be considering the engine roar and a familiar shifting of up and down.
My woozy brain reverberated with all the possibilities.
Just as I’d thought back in the water, nobody here wanted me dead.
Not yet, anyway.
Slowly, the room around me began to take shape. I lay on a bunk, the smelly berth nothing fancy. I pushed myself up and sat on the edge. My first day on the job had definitely been interesting.
Footsteps bounded down a steep set of stairs and a man entered the cabin. He was dark and gaunt, narrow-hipped and rawboned, not a pinch of surplus flesh anywhere on his bones. His face was angular, deep-lined, with a hawkish nose and long black-and-silver hair slicked down close to his skull. An abundant salt-and-pepper beard concealed a thin mouth. What caught my eye were his slender fingers, the nails manicured, a gold ring set with a ruby glimmering from his left hand.
“I am Juan Lopez Valdez. Where is my 1933 Double Eagle?”
He spoke with authority, the perfect English laced with a Spanish drawl. I assumed this was the same Valdez that Coleen Perry had mentioned.
“I don’t have it.”
“Ms. Perry kept it?”
I nodded. “It was hers. Or her father’s, as she pointed out.”
He seemed to believe what I was saying. I assumed my clothes had already been searched.
He motioned.
“Let’s walk on deck. It’s stuffy down here, and you look like you need some air.”
* * *
I followed him up and saw that we were plowing through blue waves, not a speck of land in sight. The sky had totally cleared. Bright, hot, uncompromising sunshine streaked down. The rear deck was crowded with diving equipment.
“You came here to salvage the wreck?” I asked.
He propped himself against the outer rail and folded his bony arms across his chest. “That was my intention, after the storm cleared. But when we saw your boat, we moved faster. Senor Malone, we have a serious problem. I do not have my files or the coin.”
Another new tidbit.
Not documents as Coleen had described.
Files.
“How do you know my name?”
He reached into his back pocket and removed my wallet. He opened the wet leather and found my military ID. “Lieutenant Commander Harold Earl Malone, currently at Naval Station Mayport. Judge Advocate General’s corps. I’m familiar with that base. I visited there many years ago.”
I decided to go with the obvious. “Before the boat exploded, a seaplane arrived. Your files went off in it. Your coin is still on Loggerhead with Coleen Perry. Unfortunately, I’m not in the loop on either of those.”
“Except that you forcibly retrieved my files from the wreck. But for you, I would have them.”
There was that. “Where are we going?”
“South. Where it’s much safer.”
That meant Cuba.
“When I agreed to this exchange,” he said, “I made the mistake of thinking time had changed things. But I should have known better.”
The dots started to connect.
The files were to be traded to Coleen by Valdez for the coin, and all was good until the seaplane arrived. Might as well give this guy more bad news. “I think a guy named Jim Jansen has your files. And there must have been quite a few. That case was heavy.”
He shook his head. “A precaution I took, adding lead weights to the inside. If there were problems I did not want that waterproof case being taken by anyone. Better to let it sink to the bottom. But you’re right about Jansen. He’s been wanting my files for a long time. Now I seem to have provided him the perfect opportunity. With your assistance, of course.”
I didn’t like how he kept drawing me into something I knew zero about. So I pointed out, “I think Jansen wanted me dead.”
That seemed to get his attention. “Go on.”
“There were remote-controlled explosives on the boat. That seaplane came back to set them off, with me on board.”
“Do you have any idea what you are involved with?”
“Not a clue.”
He laughed.
And I didn’t appreciate it.
“I believe you, amigo,” he said. “I truly do. How would you like to redeem yourself?”
I actually would, but I didn’t think that opportunity should come from this man. “You tried to kill me, too.”
“That’s correct, especially once I realized Jansen was on that boat.”
“You were there?”
“Of course. He and I had words through the rain. When I decided to shoot him, he decided to leave.”
None of which Jansen had reported to me.
He rummaged through my wallet and found my driver’s license. Thankfully, it was from Georgia. Active-duty military personnel were not required to change their driver’s license every time they relocated. Mine did not expire for another two years. The address on it led nowhere. Nothing else in my wallet was personal. Stephanie Nelle had told me to remove anything that qualified. So Pam’s photo, which I always kept, was gone. Only my military ID, driver’s license, State Bar of Georgia membership card, a Visa card, and some cash remained.
“Are you married?” he asked.
Like I was going to admit that. “Never had the pleasure.”
“Women can be such trouble,” he said. “I’ve had three wives, and divorce can be bothersome. That’s why I killed mine.” The declaration came in a matter-of-fact voice. “So much easier.”
I tried to read his brittle eyes, but registered not a clue. He found my bar membership card. I carried it because a lot of the civilian jails required proof I was a lawyer. Many times my clients would initially be held by the locals, my first task being to secure their release back to military custody.
“I’m assuming you’re some kind of Navy attorney. But if you were working for a private firm, what do you think would be your hourly rate?”
“Four hundred fifty.”
Wishful thinking, but it sounded good.
And for some reason I wanted to impress this man.
“I can have someone killed for much less than one hour of your hypothetical time.”
Valdez’s eyes, tiny pinpricks of white surrounded by the darkest irises I’d ever seen—like black currants—told me that he was not given to exaggeration.
“Jim Jansen is a liar and a thief,” he said. “He stole from me and, as you say, tried to kill you.”
“So go find him.”
“Oh, I shall. But I cannot worry about him at the moment. What I want is the coin I was promised.”
“Coleen Perry has it.”
“And the park rangers have her. She was arrested once they came to the explosion site. She is being held at the fort, as is my coin.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Steal it back.”
“Not interested.”
He shrugged.
“Then I’ll simply dump you over the side and be done with this.”
CHAPTER TEN
I stood at the rail and stared out at the ocean.
Two days ago I was a JAG lawyer, bored to tears. Then I shot a cheating wife, got arrested, and became a Justice Department recruit, which led to divers aiming spears at me. A supposed ally tried to blow me up, and now Juan Lopez Valdez, from of all places Cuba, wanted to shove me over the side. Since I was unarmed, outmanned, and on a boat in the middle of nowhere, his threat could not be ignored.
“You do realize that I’m not all that good with this intrigue stuff,” I said. “Look where I am. Captured.”
“Ah, amigo, you sell yourself short. My men told me you handled yourself quite skillfully in the water.” He found a fresh panatela and lit it up. “And let us not forget that you are the one who took my files from the wreck. But for you, I would have them and be on my way home with the coin.”
Incredibly, there was some twisted logic to his argument, which did not make the sour taste of failure, hanging thick in my mouth, any easier to swallow. I could spar, feinting and stalling, and try to buy time. But for what?
I decided to work with this guy.
At least until something better came along.
* * *
The bricks of Fort Jefferson appeared on the horizon. Valdez had doubled back and again found the Dry Tortugas.
“We will anchor south of the fort,” he said. “You can take the inflatable to the island. Get my coin and return it to me, and our business will be concluded. Any ideas on how to make that possible?”
I actually had been thinking on just that. “I need my wallet.”
He handed it over. “By the way, you were correct. Jansen is not your friend.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Be careful who you decide to trust. You have no idea what you are involved with, so you certainly have no idea who you can depend upon. Whether you realize it or not, I am all that you have at the moment.”
Which wasn’t comforting.
“I simply want the coin. Bring it to me and we will never see each other again.”
Still not comforting.
“I realize that you could easily go ashore and escape. So let me tell you something about me. I’ve always been a collector, but not of things. I like facts, which I savor and accumulate like old men keep stamps or coins. I say this so you will know that I am a man of great patience and, I assure you, I am good at what I do. Jansen can attest to that fact. So if you double-cross me, amigo, I will first learn all about you, then I will come and kill you. The fact that I reside in Cuba is not an impediment. I say this not from braggadocio but only so that you will not make the mistake of doubting me.”
* * *
I beached the inflatable in the shadow of the fort.
Up close the red-yellow walls were massive, a formidable obstacle to any would-be attacker. Over sixteen million bricks had been used, each one shipped from the mainland. The hexagon shape ensured that every cannon had a clear field of fire. Three sides fronted the ocean, the remaining three a strip of island that eventually accommodated coaling stations. Portions of the outer walls and the corner bastions were crumbling, the effect of time, sea, and weather. It had been built to hold four hundred cannons, in three hundred open-vaulted casements, among two thousand arches. It cost a fortune and was never finished, the whole thing rendered obsolete with the invention of large-caliber rifled cannons, capable of penetrating thick masonry walls.
Two seaplanes were beached to my right. No boats rested at the main dock. Visitors were out enjoying the clear, calm water just offshore where snorkeling seemed to be allowed. I headed for the fort’s sally port entrance at the end of a wooden bridge that crossed a saltwater moat. Odd that a fort, surrounded by ocean, would need a moat, but it actually made sense since it kept attacking ships from approaching too close. A stone counterscarp, which worked like a perimeter sidewalk, acted as an additional outer barrier.
Barracks, powder magazines, officers’ quarters, and storehouses once filled the interior parade. Now only grass, a few trees, and ruins were there. A different sense of perspective came inside, where the walls, arches, and colonnades blocked the horizon, concealing the fact that there was ocean all around. I imagined a time in the 1850s when the army utilized machinists, carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, general laborers, prisoners, and slaves to construct the fort. Officers brought their families, and enlisted personnel their wives. In all close to two thousand people once lived on this barren splotch of sand, their entire existence precarious.
Like my current situation.
I was looking for the park service office. I should find someone in authority, tell them the truth, and have them contact Stephanie Nelle. Surely there were sea-to-land communications. That was definitely the smart play. But a part of me believed Valdez. He was not a man to cross. And his point about who to trust was a good one. Even more important, I wanted Jim Jansen and I wanted to find out what was going on. Coleen Perry seemed the best route to achiev
e both of those objectives.
To my left I spotted a door marked PARK HEADQUARTERS. I entered and was greeted by an eager young man in a service uniform. The Spartan office had been built right into the brick casements.
“My name is Malone. I understand you have Coleen Perry in custody.”
I’d decided on a direct approach, seeing if I could get a few minutes alone with Coleen before anyone thought things through.
“You mean the lady we found on Loggerhead? Yeah, we have her.”
“Why do you have her?”
“She was trespassing and had a gun.”
“What kind of weapon?”
“Excuse me, what’s your interest?”
I was wondering when the guy would break my momentum. “I came to meet with her and was told you’d detained her. I also happen to be a JAG lawyer.” I found my wallet and showed him my State Bar of Georgia card and military ID.
“This lady, is she in the military?”
“Active duty.” I circled back. “You said she had a gun. What kind of weapon?”
The young man looked befuddled, unsure what to do. I’d learned from dealing with countless subordinates on military bases that the easiest way to get what you wanted was to act important.
“We have a real situation,” I said. “Ms. Perry came here on a sensitive military assignment, which is why she was armed. A boat exploded off Loggerhead today, did it not?”
“We think so. That’s where everybody is. Out investigating.”
Good to know. “That boat blowing up is all part of an ongoing military investigation. Where is Ms. Perry?”
He pointed at one of two doors on the far end of the office. Each was small, with little headroom and a barred glass window. “Locked in there. We don’t have a cell, which is a little ironic since this whole place used to be a prison. I’m keeping an eye on her.”
One more time. “Where’s the supposed weapon she had?”
“You act like there wasn’t one. There was. I have it.”
“Show me.”
He acted a little indignant, as if he needed to show me that the gun existed. Which was exactly the reaction I wanted. Subordinates also liked to prove to those above them how right they could be. He walked over to a cluttered wooden desk and opened a drawer, removing the same 9mm automatic that Coleen had pointed at me earlier.