The suit jacket and thin tie were of good quality and brand new, from the way he carried himself it was obvious that he wasn’t used to wearing one. He had a thin sheen of perspiration on his forehead but hadn’t sweated through his jacket yet. The color choice, kind of muted greenish gold color, made me think he could be Puerto Rican but more likely he bought the suit in Miami from a tailor who was Puerto Rican. He had a small tattoo of a teardrop on his right hand between thumb and forefinger on his right hand. It wasn’t neat, professional ink, it was sloppy, more like a prison tat.
“Let me guess,” I said from the top of the steps. “Insurance investigator.” The go-to cover for anyone who wanted to ask questions but didn’t have a badge.
That put him out of sorts and it was mostly certainly not his real job anyway. Most insurance companies didn’t allow investigators to carry guns like the long slide .45 this guy had in a shoulder holster making an obvious bulge in his jacket. Not a practical weapon which means it was a statement at least partially fueled by testosterone. I tried to remember what I was like in my 20s but that memory had faded long ago.
“Come on up,” I sighed. Let the bullshit fest begin.
“Manuel Ortiz,” he said handing me a business card. “Colombia Investigations.”
The card read Colombia Investigaciones and underneath Investigaciones y Consultoría, it listed an address in Bogota, Colombia. On the back was a local phone number.
“I can’t tell you anything more than I told the cops,” I informed him, not offering him a seat. “Right now we know exactly dick.” It was so much easier to tell the truth when it was a convenient truth.
“I understand you do...recovery work,” he searched for the polite way to phrase it.
“You heard right,” I confirmed.
“Our client is offering a substantial reward for the return of their product,” he volunteered.
“You mean the bonds,” I corrected. He shifted and looked even more uncomfortable.
“Yes, the bonds,” he admitted.
“I’m going to guess that reward is somewhat below our usual fee?”
“Half? Quite impossible,” he assured me.
“That’s what I figured,” I conceded.
“I understand you have been retained by the wife of the chief suspect,” he pressed.
Now he was getting annoying. “We don’t discuss our clients or the terms of recoveries,” I said automatically.
“Of course,” he backpedaled, “all my client cares about is the product.”
“The bonds,” I needled.
“Yes, the bonds,” he said with a slight edge of annoyance creeping into his voice. Like our friends at the FBI he was obviously someone not used to being challenged and yet he wasn’t a cop. “Our client would be most grateful if we did not have to recover the bonds from your law enforcement agencies.”
Finally we were getting to it. “Now you’re making sense,” I said with a sense of relief. “You can tell your client we will do right by our client, regardless of the interests of the other parties involved.”
I loved phrases like that because it was a truth like a canvas and the listener could paint on it whatever they wanted to hear.
“I’m not sure what that means,” he said tentatively, “but I understand that you also do not always appreciate the involvement of law enforcement.”
Now it was my turn to chuckle. “Believe me...Mr. Ortiz,” I squinted at the card, “if there’s a way to settle this quietly we will do what’s in the best interest of our client.”
He finally realized that was the best vague bullshit he was going to get and decided to call it for the day.
“I very much appreciate your time,” he said shaking hands. That meant he didn’t like my attitude, either, but was smart enough not say anything.
He made his way down the back steps of the MP and strolled back down the dock, less impressed by the scenery this time. He was an odd duck. Definitely linked to the money somehow but not a banker and definitely not an insurance investigator. Of all the people I’d seen so far he was the one I was absolutely certain I’d be seeing again. My phone nagged at me.
V WHEELS UP the first message announced. Q ON THE HUNT said the second. Good news all around.
NAP I texted back. Leadership has privileges and, in our business, you grab rack time when you can.
CAFFEINE came the reply, reminding me some of the team still had work to do. I called up to the bridge and told Captain Mackey to be ready to depart on short notice. He assured me we could be haze gray and underway in ten minutes.
I my way below decks to find the stateroom bed already turned down and the day shades in place. I love working with professionals.
3
MY PHONE CHIRPED. I couldn’t tell how long I’d been asleep, with the blackout curtains down light and night looked pretty much the same. There was a gentle, almost butterfly knock on the door.
“I’m up, Jen.” I said out loud. Soft footsteps faded down the hall. “Fuck,” I said to myself, rolling upright and checking my phone which said it was 10:19 pm. I had slept right through.
Q HAS PACKAGE the message informed me. ETA 12 MIN.
Outstanding. I fumbled for the light switch next to the bed and the LEDs in the bed frame obediently snapped to life. I stabbed the intercom button on the wall.
“Be ready to cast off in 15 minutes,” I ordered the bridge.
“Affirmative. I’ll inform the captain,” the mate responded. Mack must have been anticipating a long night and grabbed some rack time himself.
I made my way to main passageway. “Jennifer! I need cof-”
Before I could finish a tall cup of coffee with a travel lid appeared out of the galley door.
“Two creams, no sugar,” she announced. I love that girl, gratefully accepting the steaming hot cup.
“I need another favor,” I began. Her eyebrows went up as I slurped my coffee appreciatively.
“Sure,” she said brightly. “What do you need?”
“We have a special guest coming aboard tonight, he’ll be with us a few days. I need to know where he’s at,” I explained.
“You don’t mean where he’s at on the boat,” she clarified.
“Right. I need to know where he’s at mentally. Can you handle that?” I asked.
“You mean like relationship wise?” she asked, perceptive as ever and never missing a beat, even though psychological analysis of our guests was a bit outside her experience. “You want me to call one of the girls?”
“Won’t be necessary, I just need to know how he’s handling it all.”
“Sure,” she said, matter of factly. “Not a problem.”
“You’re a doll,” I reminded her.
“I know!” She said brightly. “And I have nice tits.”
“Yes, you do,” I said honestly, exercising almost superhuman control to look her in the eye. “They’re lovely and this coffee is delicious.”
I was glad at moments like that we had managed to forge a corporate environment free of the petty constraints of workplace rules like sexual harassment. Instead of having our female employees run to HR, we turned them into killers and showed them how to hide the bodies. It saved us from dealing with a lot of high school level bullshit.
“There are sandwiches and a fruit tray in the salon,” she informed me over her shoulder, turning back to her duties in the galley. “In case anyone’s hungry.”
My contemplation of the rear view was interrupted by Captain Mackey making his way down the passage, running a hand through his bedhead hair.
“Any idea where we’re going?” he asked.
“Slot up in one of the Bimini cays,” I told him. “Avoid contact with other ships, but try not to look like you’re avoiding them. Monitor the sat comm but stay off the grid otherwise.”
“Not a problem,” he said with a half salute, pushing his way down the passageway and heading for the bridge to oversee departure preparations.
If the Coast G
uard tried to look up Mission Parameters registration they’d get a “no board” order, so I wasn’t worried about them getting searched. Hiding a felon was a risk but a calculated one and no real option. If our passenger stayed on the mainland the FBI would find him. Unlike the public perception of their ability to catch fugitives, the Feds were extremely good at hunting people down. We got a break that Q and Deek found him first. I put my ear-piece back in.
“Where’s V?” I asked the air, making my way top side. “ETA five-zero minutes,” Deek announced. “They had to divert around some weather over the islands.”
“Alright, send a car out to the airport to meet her and get her up on comm as soon as she lands,” I instructed. “Q, how we doing?”
“Six zero,” he said cryptically. One minute out. Even though we had the best military grade encryption money could buy, there were still government agencies out there specializing in cracking those cyphers. We always assumed our comm could be intercepted and Q was playing it by the book.
As promised there were finger sandwiches and a fruit tray on the salon table. One of the sandwiches was made with some kind of cheese spread, smoked turkey and cucumber. They were delicious.
“Deek?” I asked with my mouth still half full.
“Normal traffic on police bands,” he began. “Can’t listen in on the Feds anymore but there’s no broadcast source nearby. Only two people in the parking lot: the live-aboard from C-12, talking to some gal in a car giving him a ride. Judging by the body language I’m going out on a limb and say he’s not getting laid tonight.”
“What about the sheriff’s boats?”
“Two on station tonight,” Deek offered. “One on a call, the other over with a wake zone violation.”
Q pulled into the parking lot, killed the lights and waited. I called up to the bridge, which had a better view, and once Mackey was certain everything was ready to go he blinked the navigation lights twice.
Q stepped out for a look around, doing his own survey of the parking lot and waved his companion out of the car. A figure slightly taller than Q emerged from the passenger side of the vehicle. He kept his head down and the pair walked quickly down the pier but not so fast they would draw attention to themselves. When they got into the shadow of the MP, Mackey hit the spots which would blind anyone looking our way.
The shades in the salon we’re drawn and Donald Meadows, formerly Sgt. Meadows, made his way into the light. He was drawn and haggard; obviously wherever he had been staying wasn’t equipped with a shower. He was wearing dirty, oil-stained jeans that were too big and a grubby t-shirt that was too small for the knotted muscles in his shoulders. As he got closer the smell was one part body odor mixed with another part swamp water. His eyes flitted around the well-appointed salon.
“Have a seat, Mr. Meadows,” I invited. “I assure you you’re safe here.”
He still looked apprehensive but hunger and fatigue are a powerful combination. He sat down heavily on the comfortable couch.
“Something to eat,” I offered. “I’d recommend those light colored little sandwiches. They’re quite good.”
Though it was obvious he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in days, he eyed me through days of beard growth. His eyes tracked over to Q, just joining us.
“Your friend here said you wanted to help. Why?”
“Because we can,” I said bluntly. “Your wife made a very impassioned plea on your behalf. We wanted to help.”
He blanched at the mention of his wife. Apparently all was not well in the Meadows household or maybe he had vague suspicions of his own.
“I didn’t steal that money, those bonds,” he said flatly. “Well, I took ‘em, but I-I didn’t steal them,” he stammered.
“I know, Mr. Meadows,” I assured him. At that moment Jennifer wheeled in with a tray of cold beers. “Oh, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes! Come to papa,” I said, plucking one of the beers off the tray.
“Sweet,” Q agreed, grabbing a beer and one of the finger sandwiches. She turned to Don Meadows. He hesitated.
“It’s not drugged,” she assured him. “Look.” She took a long pull off the bottle, followed by a satisfied, “Ahhhh!” She held the bottle out to him again. “I’m not going to force you to drink it. Yes or no?” she prompted. He meekly accepted. She set three more unopened bottles, all sweating with condensation, in front of us and bopped out with a toss of her ponytail waving a happy see ya later.
Don Meadows took his own long pull off the bottle. We all sat in silence for a moment enjoying our ice cold beer. After a tough day there wasn’t anything that tasted so good or moment that was quite as perfect as a cold beer at just the right time.
“I can’t remember anything tasting that good,” he said looking at the label.
“You’ve had a rough few days,” I observed. “Where’d you find him?” I asked Q.
“He was sleeping in the garage of one of his former enlisted in Delray,” Q explained. “Just like you guessed. He had this on him.” Q produced a cleared and locked 9mm Beretta from his jacket pocket and set it on the table. Out of the other pocket he produced two mags, one full, one less than half full.
“Thanks for not shooting my associate,” I said, “I was just starting to like him.”
“Just?” Q snuffed.
“I could change my mind,” I warned. “I’m sorry, we’re getting off the trail here,” I said, turning back to Donnie Meadows. “You were in your friend’s garage.”
“I didn’t want him to be charged as an accessory. If I was in the house….” he let the explanation trail off.
“Very considerate,” I agreed. “I’m surprised you didn’t run.”
“He said he wasn’t a cop and I couldn’t run any further either way.”
“We’re not law enforcement,” I assured him.
“You’re something,” he insisted. “I’ve seen those earpieces before. That’s some high end shit there, like the Feds. You...you could be military,” pointing at me. “He definitely is,” pointing at Q. “And this boat,” he made a sweeping gesture with his beer bottle. “This is some agency level hardware you got here.”
“We’re not with the agency, either,” I explained. “We were...um, contractors...of a sort.”
“Contractors,” he spat the word out. “You mean like those Black Lake douchebags?”
“Please, don’t lump us in those hacks,” I begged. “It’s a rather long story.”
“What makes you so sure I didn’t steal those bonds?” he asked with a suspicious edge.
“If you did steal them,” I observed, “you would have thought up a better exit strategy. One that didn’t involve crawling through the airport drainage canals. You were lucky you didn’t get eaten.”
“How the hell did you know that?”
“The scratches on your arms and scabs on your elbows. You’re still walking stiff-legged and have dried blood on one knee from crawling a long distance, probably a storm sewer. It’s the only way you could get across an airport tarmac swarming with cops.”
“What else do you know?” he prompted, squirming slightly with the discomfort of his appearance and the absurdity of the situation.
“Oh, that you probably came back from a break or rounds early and found your partner and a stranger in the secure storage room, pulling a package that was about...oh...yay thick.” I held my fingers about an inch apart. It was amazing how thin $65 million in bonds really was.
“How the fuck could you know that? That wasn’t in any of the news reports.” He looked at Q. “How are you doing this?”
“You’re asking the wrong guy,” Q assured him with a shake of his head. “It creeps me out.”
“You questioned them about what they were doing there,” I went on. “The stranger identified himself as cop and blubbered some lame excuse about why he was there --probably something about drugs. You asked to see a warrant, which they obviously didn’t have, and then said something about the whole thing being unusual as hell and you were
going to have to call someone.”
Our guest had moved from surprise to shock. I pressed on. “That’s when they said you should just calm down, you said, ‘Don’t tell me to calm down’, one of them, probably your partner, went for his gun, you went for yours. There was a struggle, a lot of shots being fired in a confined space. You took at least three in the vest...that had to hurt like hell, probably still does.”
“You’re not shittin’,” our guest added, absently rubbing his chest.
“Your partner got one in the throat and went down, the other guy went for cover. You grabbed the package, not knowing what was inside and tried to hide, planning on just holding out until the cops got there. Only you heard the other guy calling for backup and realized--”
“He really was a cop,” Meadows finished tiredly. “So I ran. There’s a storm drain in back of the main hangar, behind the break room.”
“Storm drain, drainage canal, snakes, snapping turtles...the bloody spot on your ankle that made the v-shaped tear in your sock...gators, bugs. Every nasty thing that crawls in Florida, followed by two sweaty days in your friend’s garage. And then we show up. Some of the details might be off but that’s gist of it.”
“That’s freaking unreal,” Meadows observed. “So...what now? We go to the cops and you tell them the story?”
“Oh, no,” I said quickly. “You wouldn’t last the night at the police station.”
“But you already know what happened.”
“Knowing it and proving it are two different things,” I reminded him. “We need to gather some evidence and find out who all is involved, so you don’t disappear. I need to ask you one question: Are the bonds safe?”
He had the “here it comes” look. “Yeah, they’re safe.”
“Are you sure?” I pressed.
“Yeah, you’re going to tell me we should go and get them for safekeeping, right?”
The Rogue Horse Recovery: Book One of the Recovery and Marine Salvage Inc Series (Recovery and Marine Salvage, Inc.) Page 3