by Nick Thacker
Joey was seething. I could see it in his eyes. The fear, the hatred, the acknowledgement of defeat. He knew Frey was right. He knew Shalice was gone, and there was nothing we could do about it. If we were going to get her back, it was going to be either because we lucked out or because we had a rock-solid plan. Possibly a good amount of both.
“There might be something,” Frey said.
Both Joey and I stared, waiting for him to explain. He focused on the wheel for a bit, slowing down as well, then turned to the table set up along the far wall.
“I was looking at the maps over here,” he said. “The Wassamassaw is here.” He pointed at a spot on the wall map, tracing a line with his finger. “We’re heading up toward Kiawah now.”
I watched the line he was tracing, following the coastline as well as Kiawah Island. Kiawah Island was an upside-down boot-shaped stretch of land with the toe of the boot kicking out into the Atlantic.
“That’s it over there, actually,” he said, pointing this time out the windshield. “I think we’ll be following the coastline pretty closely, since the storm’s following us all in and Elizondo’s boat eventually has to dock in Charleston. They’ll have to swing wide to miss the jetties, of course, but they’ll come in through the jetties. It’s the only way in.”
The jetties were a pair of artificial rock ledges that extended eastward from the mouth of Charleston Harbor, where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers meet. Constructed over seventeen years shortly after the end of the civil war, they served the purpose of creating a shipping lane as well as deepening the mouth of the bay for larger ships to use.
It was also a hotspot for fishing, the natural expulsion from the rivers providing a sort of nutrient gravy train throughout the miles-long chute between the jetties. All manner of fish, crustaceans, and sharks came out to feed on both sides of the north and south jetties.
“So we catch them at the jetties. See what’s up then?” Joey asked.
“No,” I said. “Too many fishermen. Even in this weather, there will be way too many people around, trying to bring in a catch before everyone hunkers down to ride it out.”
“Mason’s right,” Frey said. “Those guys up there are going to try and intercept Elizondo before he starts through the jetty, as it will give them enough time to do whatever it is they’re going to do out in open water, yet still close enough to land that they aren’t in any real danger from weather.”
He drew it all out on the map in front of us, pointing at the mouth of the harbor and the mouth of the jetties, extending it like pursed lips another few miles east and slightly south. I knew the area well, as Joey and I had fished it numerous times in the past few months, and we had also taken the shipping lane into Charleston twice for a restocking run that we had both decided would be more fun by sea than by land.
Joey was nodding, holding his chin with his right hand. “Makes sense,” he said. “So what do we do? Those guys out there aren’t going to just let us leave.”
“We’re not leaving, really,” Frey said. “We’re following them, making them think they’re dragging us along into a big skirmish, but we’ll tear off to the west at the last minute. Hang out here.” He smacked the map with an outstretched finger, landing it directly on top of the northernmost point of Morris Island.
“Morris?” I asked. Like Kiawah, and Folly Island situation between them, Morris Island was a long stretch of land that was actually a thousand smaller islands and marshy areas with rivers and streams crisscrossing and weaving together over the area. The islands were great fishing as well, both for freshwater and saltwater species. Small boats and canoes could travel around all of the interlocking rivers, effectively making them the perfect vehicle for intra-island travel, while yachts like the Wassamassaw were mostly relegated to the outskirts — the big waters of the Atlantic and some of the larger river mouths.
“Morris Island is where we set up. Wait for them to come in.”
I saw his point — Morris was a good vantage point, a great lookout if you were a lighthouse or a fort. But we were neither, and we certainly couldn’t be waiting around for them to come to us. If what Frey had just explained to both of us proved to be true, all of the action would be long over by the time anyone came down the channel.
“It’ll all be over by then, Frey,” Joey said. “If they’re heading out to intercept him, the fighting will all be at the eastern side of the jetties, not the western side. We can’t camp there and wait for them because there won’t be anything to wait for.”
Frey shook his head. “No. Trust me. There will be.”
I stepped back from the map and looked Jonathan Frey up and down. He was still staring at the map, working it all out again and again, convincing himself it was the right play.
“How do you know that?”
“Because,” he said. “They can’t win against Elizondo.”
36
“THEY CAN’T WIN AGAINST ELIZONDO?” I asked. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? There are eight of them, armed to the teeth, and —”
“Elizondo’s prepared for them,” Frey said.
I stared at him. Honestly had no idea who this guy was. When I’d met him I’d sized him up, decided he was exactly who he said he was — a man wanting some adventure in his life, ready to have a little fun. We were here to help him feel young again, or something like that. His job was terrible, he had no family or hobbies, I don’t know.
But now, I really didn’t know. He was a completely different person. Jonathan Frey wasn’t a distributor. He wasn’t a nervous wreck, shy and slightly off-kilter. He was something else entirely. I could see it in his eyes now, just like I caught a glimpse of it a minute ago when he was detailing his plan up on the wall. He had a fire in him, something raging just behind his eyes, and it was contagious. I felt puffed up by it, just watching him draw it all out for us.
“Who are you, Frey?” I asked.
His eyes widened slightly, then shrank. All of him, in fact, shrank. He just sort of melted down into himself until he was the nervous weirdo that I’d met in my bar not so long ago. I watched him do it, like it was something he’d forgotten to do and was just now realizing it.
Joey, too, seemed to notice. “Frey,” he said. “What’s up, man?”
“I — I don’t… what do you mean?” he asked. “I’m not sure what —”
“Save it, Frey,” I said, interrupting. “I get it. You’re undercover. Sent to us to figure out what game we’re into, right?”
The eyes widened again. I stared at them, boring into his soul to try to figure who had played us, and why.
“My old man send you, Frey?”
“No — he… I don’t even —”
“Frey,” I said, bringing my voice down again. “Jig’s up. You’re not leaving this boat until you give me something that actually makes sense. I’m going to ask you again, man. Did my father —”
“I’m ATF,” he said quickly.
“What?”
“Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms,” he said. “Federal Bureau.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Shit. Here we go again. “Okay. What does that mean?”
“I work for the ATF, undercover policing division. We try to find the runners, the big players, get them off the map.”
Joey was pinching the area above his nose between a thumb and a forefinger. “Shit, Dixon, I had no idea. I’m sorry. I didn’t —”
“Save it, Joey,” I said. “Let me think.”
“We don’t have time to think,” Frey replied.
“I wasn’t asking for your opinion, Jonathan. That your real name?”
He nodded. Reached into his back pocket for a wallet and pulled it out. Flipped open the folding pad of leather and flashed a badge. Metal, real, not worth faking.
“Okay, fine. Jonathan Frey, of the ATF. We in trouble?”
He shook his head. “No. Not at all. On the contrary, you’re helping out with a federal case. Rockford Elizondo has been shipping illegal wares into the U
nited States for some time now, deflecting the taxes and waving off the import fees.”
I groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Wish I were. We’ve been tracking him for some time, but he’s been smart about it. Staying offshore, usually in Cuba or the Dominican Republic. Only coming in when there’s a shipment, which is only once or twice a year.”
“So you’re trying to bust him?”
“Well yeah, but we can’t just rush up to him and ask him to come with us.”
“Why not?”
“For one, he’s better armed than we are. You think it’s cheap where you got those guns you were using, you should what they cost in Cuba. And for the same price you paid, I’d bet they throw in a guy to use it as well.”
“Wonderful,” I said.
“That’s not all,” Frey said. “This gang he’s up against — the one your dad’s fallen into favor with — they’re no joke, either. About a million bucks yearly short of being considered an ‘organized crime detail worth considering,’ as they call it in my office.”
“So we’re stuck in the middle of a massive three-way turf war,” I said. “Even better.”
“No joke,” Joey said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Frey looked genuinely concerned. “I wish I could, really. But we couldn’t take the risk. You and Dixon were already involved, and for me that was massively helpful. I no longer had to come up with something random and try to sell it, nor did I have to figure out what team to set up and how to resource us. We’re not the CIA, guys. We have a budget, but it’s laughable.”
“So you thought you’d stow away on a yacht with two psychos, hope to get lucky and get a shot at Elizondo?”
“Actually, yeah,” he said. “And you’re far from psycho. I’m connected as well, Dixon, and I’ve heard some talk that you’re the real deal. You’re the one who could get it done, they told me.”
“Who told you?”
“You know who. I believed him. I watched you work, saw how you handled yourself against the boaters from earlier, knew how well-equipped you were. I think we can do this.”
I shook my head, growing more frustrated. “Do what, exactly? Now we’re back to killing Elizondo? What about Shalice?”
He sniffed. “That’s the one part I haven’t figured out.” He turned to Joey. “I — I’m sorry, man. I still want to make sure we can —”
“We’re getting her back. Non-negotiable.”
Frey nodded. “I get it. I really do. But my job —”
“You don’t have a job on this boat unless I tell you you do,” I said. The words came out harsh, pinched and staccato. But they were true, and the two men in the bridge with me knew it.
Frey clenched his jaw, then looked at me. “Fine. I get it. Thank you, for helping me.”
“We haven’t done anything yet. And I’m not entirely sure we are going to do anything.”
“You helped me get this far, and for that I’m grateful. But I can’t do the rest alone, either. I’m understaffed and this is going to be the last time we can hope to get to Elizondo before summer of next year, so for me this is it. This is his biggest drop as well, so there may not be a next time. It’s now or never for me.”
I sighed. “What’s the plan? How do we take him out, then?”
“That’s the tricky part,” Frey said.
I looked at Joey, made a face that I knew wouldn’t take him much to decipher.
“We can’t take him out,” Frey said. “We have to bring him in.”
37
I COULDN’T BELIEVE I WAS doing this. The plan was the wildest, stupidest thing I’d ever taken part in. It didn’t even make sense, really, but it truly was the best we could do. If I was honest, I was a little excited. Scared, but excited. The best cocktail of emotions.
I had a cocktail now, actually. Joey had made up a batch of whiskey sours, fresh from some lemons I’d packed in the fridge a week or so ago. They were perfect, just tart enough to wake you up but with the sweetness that was required for it to go down smooth. I wasn’t sure what he’d used as the base, but it had to be something with a high rye bill, perhaps a Wild Turkey 101 or something a bit higher end.
I sipped it, enjoying every drop as if it was my last, because, hell, it may have been.
As of now the plan was simple. Stupid, but simple. Shalice would be somewhere in Elizondo’s fleet, perhaps by now even on the ship itself. The ship, according to Frey, was the smallest class of cargo vessel, something called a Handymax, specifically a ‘Handysize,’ and it carried up to 20,000 DWT — deadweight tonnage. Elizondo wouldn’t have a full load, but it would be close, somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 and 18,000 DWT. The ship was called the Rummer, which seemed rather fitting for a man like Elizondo and his calling in life. It had the typical raised overlook-style bridge, a slightly raised bow deck, while the main cargo deck was flat and rose only about twenty feet higher than the surface of the water.
In addition, Rockford Elizondo would be on board, as Frey’s research had determined that the man was brutally efficient, a natural control freak, and was a borderline schizophrenic. He was terribly worried about just the sort of thing we were planning to do, which only made things worse.
To get to Shalice, we had to know which boat she was on. We couldn’t know that, but we could assume that any of the boats Elizondo sent to attack us would not have her onboard. We could further assume that Elizondo would only trust her care to himself, so we’d unanimously determined that she was somewhere on Rummer itself.
Frey’s goal was to wait out the fight between the opposing forces, Elizondo’s men on one side, the gang on the other. Frey was adamant that the gang’s boats weren’t going to be enough to even slow Elizondo down, but I wasn’t so sure.
Nothing in my life had ever gone according to any plan I’d made or been given, so I had no reason to suspect things would be different now.
Joey, for his part, was even less satisfied. He’d fought Frey the entire time, wanting to rush in and get to Shalice immediately. I felt his pain, but I agreed with Frey on that one — Elizondo wouldn’t risk his only bargaining chip, so if we could sit back and let them battle it out for a bit, it would only help our case.
We’d get into position off the coast of Morris Island and from there watch the convoy come in through the jetties. Frey’s prediction was that the Rummer would be accompanied by whichever of his smaller protective boats had survived, and none of the eight gang boats we’d encountered would be afloat. So far, we would have kept up our end of the bargain to keep Elizondo alive, so Shalice would be safe. At that point, Joey would take the inflatable dinghy from the Wassamassaw and head north and duck behind the north jetty for the Rummer to pass. He’d work in near it, then swim to the side of it and hope to climb aboard undetected.
From there, it was all hands on deck. All four remaining hands, firing my guns. I had more than enough ammunition if we were careful, and we still had plenty of grenades if any of the boats got close. Frey’s idea was to lure the Rummer protector boats toward us while Joey worked his way around the ship, looking for Shalice. If things went according to plan, the bulk of Elizondo’s forces would be on boats, attacking us, and Joey would have little to no resistance.
The major problems were quite major. Nearly impossible to overcome, no matter what any of us could come up with. First, Joey would have no weapons. Even if he took a Bushmaster with him in the dinghy, it wouldn’t be reliable if he needed to take a swim to get from the dinghy to the Rummer. The pistols would fare better, but again it was a reliability issue. He planned to take one just in case.
Second, we had no idea what Elizondo’s men would do. Would Joey run into interference? Would their team, however large it was, split and move to straddle the Rummer on its way through the jetties. Or would they all throw themselves toward us and kill Frey and me, then go after Joey?
Finally, and most importantly, none of us knew Elizondo. To Frey he was a dossier, a piece of paper or
ten describing his actions over the last few years. But none of us actually knew him. Was he a loose cannon? An uptight planner? Something in-between.
There were too many variables
I wasn’t convinced that this ‘plan’ of Frey’s was anything but a harebrained suicide mission, but I had nothing better to offer. We poured drinks and headed north, hoping that for once in my life we would be able to make things work.
Then, as if the universe was answering my questions with a very definitive, ‘no, you will not make things work,’ the Wassamassaw listed sideways and righted herself, a great, giant groan emanating from belowdecks.
“The hell was that?” Joey asked.
I swallowed the sip of whiskey sour I had been rolling around in my mouth, my eyes closing and squeezing shut, trying to block out everything happening.
I had forgotten about that. I completely forgot.
“It’s the fuel tank,” I said, muttering under my breath as Frey and Joey watched on. “I didn’t check it after our first little rendezvous with those bastards.”
The Wassamassaw sputtered, stopped, and suddenly the silence of the ocean — a gentle crashing of waves that foretold the coming of a massive storm — overtook my ears.
“We’re out of gas.”
38
THERE WAS FUEL EVERYWHERE. THEY hadn’t hit a line, but the actual tank. Somehow. From some miraculous stroke of luck on their part, one of their rounds had pierced the plastic hull of the tank, and there was now diesel leaking out and filling up the entire engine compartment. I could smell it as soon as I walked in — surely not a good sign — but I could also see it — certainly not a good sign.
I looked at the reserve, two ten-gallon jugs I’d never messed with that sat full in the corner of the tiny room. It would be enough to get us into Charleston, possibly enough to get us back to the Wassamassaw’s home port at Hunting Island, but probably not near enough to mount a high-speed chase and full-on assault against faster and more agile boats.