It seems that all the TV and newspaper talk about my son and daughter’s deaths caused me to be recognized by members of the cartel. When I entered the house, I found several heavily armed men there with my wife who was wire-tied and sitting on a sofa, running her mouth nonsensically and constantly as drunks do.
They wire-tied me and sat me next to my drunk wife and soon brought Bob in and did the same to him. There the three of us sat, side by side, with my wife still screaming and talking.
Their leader made several phone calls to the boss and told him what had transpired so far. Then in an effort to save his own skin, Bob turned on me, telling them about the machete, the boat and the sharks. He said I did it all and told them everything. His eyes were wild with fear.
With that they made another phone call to relate this new information to the boss. He instructed them to take us all to the sport fisher where they locked us in one of the staterooms.
I knew what they were doing and where we were going, but I didn’t say a word in fear that my wife would hear and freak out. I was sick of her voice.
In about an hour we were far out to sea when the engines shut off. The silence was deafening. Three or four of the men came down and got us.
On the afterdeck they said, “We are going to do to you what you did to the others.”
With that, my wife turned to me and asked, “What did you do?” Her eyes were filled with hatred.
Captain Bob told her, and as her face turned to horror, she begged for her life, saying she had nothing to do with any of this, that she had no knowledge of it at all.
They didn’t care. They simply cuffed us hand-to-hand, making a chain of three joined by either the right or left hand with Lucia in the middle.
“Get me out of this, Geraldo!. Tell them!” she screamed. “Tell them I don’t deserve to die! I had nothing to do with any of the murders.. You did it all from beginning to end.” Her eyes were wide with terror. “I have lost my son and my daughter because I knew you. Now I’m going to be killed because I knew you.” She started to cry then sob uncontrollably.
I said to what appeared to be the boss, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Talk right there,” he said. “Let all hear what you have to say.”
“OK,” I said. “Here it is. I have over one hundred million dollars in banks around the world. If you let me live, I will split it with you.”
“There’s one problem with that,” he said, “First there are four of us here, and second, the cartel would never stop looking for us. They will kidnap our families and force them to tell where we are. Third, I’m not you. I would not sell my people out for millions or hundreds of millions, so get in the water, all of you.”
“Give him all the money to let me go!” Lucia cried out. “The least you can do is save me! My children died because of you, so for once in your life, do something good!”
God, she’s selling me out. She doesn’t love me and probably never has.
An incredible sadness caught hold of me as I got in the ocean, pulling Lucia and Bob in behind me. The boss threw one of the floating filet knives in as the boat drifted off.
I retrieved the knife first and looked at the other two. They knew exactly what I was thinking: Life has come full circle. The wheel is complete. The sharks will end this.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gerald "Mack" McCallum is an entrepreneur with the spirit of a true adventurer. He started out as a 15-year-old runaway who ended up on a Mexican beach where he and all the other Americans there were arrested. After 11 days in a Mexican prison, his aunt bought his freedom for $1000. Mack soon joined the Navy where he flew off an aircraft carrier to patch planes in war zones. Later, he became a successful sales executive for a national company, his work taking him from Las Vegas to Tucson and on to Florida where he lived on a houseboat in the Keys.
Mack was an avid bodybuilder and is trained in "close combat" with edge weapons. He has scuba dived all over the world and is skilled as a skeet and trap shooter. He is now living out his dream of being a writer of novels filled with graphic violence based on people he's met over his years of travel and observation. His favorite author is John D. MacDonald. His favorite books are Dirty White Boys and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. He also loves watching shows like Breaking Bad and Deadwood.
Mack is the author of the three Smugglers novels and The Pocket Guide for Surviving Doomsday Or Double Your Money Back, all available at Amazon.com.
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