Broken Stern: An Ellie O'Conner Novel (Pine Island Coast Florida Suspense Series) Book 1

by Jack Hardin

  Ellie ran to the corner and cautiously turned. A man was running furiously back toward the Charger with every intention of getting away.

  Ellie wasn’t about to let that happen. She ran the length of the barn and quickened her pace as she watched him get to the car, open the door, and get inside. As he cleared the barn, Ellie glanced to her right to make sure the man she had shot first was still clear of his submachine gun. He was, and as the Charger roared to life Ellie put a slug in the rear driver’s side tire.

  That didn’t stop him. The man, desperate for an escape, put it in gear and started to pull away. Ellie fired two more slugs, one right after the other, the first one missing the front tire, but the second plowing through the driver’s side window and out through the windshield.

  The car stopped. Ellie ran up to it and, keeping her gun trained on the driver, yelled at him to get his hands up. He did. She opened the door and ordered him out. His hands were shaking. “On the ground!” she said.

  Sirens drifted through the open fields from police coming in for backup.

  Five minutes later the area around the barn was filled with Sheriff's cruisers and county ambulances. More ambulances had been called in. All told, there were four injured and two clean arrests.

  Garrett had received the news and called Ellie, telling her that he and Mark were on their way. Following procedure, she turned her handgun and the shotgun over to the Sheriff's deputy. She saw Ben leaning against his cruiser and walked over to him. He looked stunned. “Hey,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so. I just can’t believe it.”

  She knew that all Ben had probably expected from this job was to be nothing more than a glorified taxi driver. He had been trained for times like this, but they occurred so frequently most transport officers never saw more action than a bad attitude. “You did really great,” she said.

  He looked at her. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

  She smiled. “It’s a long story. Open the doors for me?”

  Ben unlocked the cruiser, and Ellie opened the rear door. She returned to her seat. “Hello, Victor.”

  “Hey,” he mumbled.

  “I assume you knew some of those men. They were friends?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m sorry for how that went down.”

  His voice was flat, quiet. “I didn’t know about it.”

  Her ears were still ringing from a firefight with no ear protection. “I believe you. Last night, when you went to dinner in the mess hall I know you didn’t expect it to end with a night off premises. Look Victor, I’m going to honor my agreement. If this Mondongo angle amounts to anything, I’ll make sure that Boosie Maine is out of your life.”

  He looked out the window at one of his friends being loaded into an ambulance. He nodded.

  Ellie got out and shut the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE AGENCY-ISSUE LAPTOP WAS SLOW. It froze up intermittently, and the internet connection came and went, making the simple task of logging a report through the secured intranet an education in patience. Ellie tapped her pen on the desk and waited for the hourglass to disappear.

  All four men who had been shot trying to break out Victor Calderón were still in the hospital, and all were expected to make a full recovery. The other two still had ink wearing off their fingertips and were being held without bail. The first man she had shot had his left leg amputated below the knee after the slug shattered his femur. One of the men had just been moved from ICU into a regular recovery room. Another remained in ICU having lost five feet of his intestines. None of the men were talking. Mateo Nunez ran a tight ship. The men knew that if they gave up anything they would be killed, even if they were inside a hospital or a prison. Nunez had a history of eliminating problematic persons regardless of where they were.

  “You daydreaming again?”

  Ellie swiveled her chair around and found Garrett leaning over her cubicle. “We can spend billions fighting the war on drugs, but I can’t get a computer that can outrun a turtle?”

  “I’ll have Glitch look at it. Leave it here when you’re done, and I’ll see if we can’t get it working a little faster for you.” Glitch was the office’s IT gopher. “Everything set for tonight?”

  “Yes,” she said. Mark, Ellie, and Major would be going out into the Sound later this evening to take a look at the drop spot Victor had given to her. Her team wasn’t overjoyed that she was taking a civilian, but she had convinced them that no one knew the waters of the Sound better than her uncle, and there was no sense in bringing the Coast Guard in on this yet. All they needed to do was get in quickly, survey the boat, and get out of there. Ellie needed that first assessment before she could request a wireless camera that would notify them when someone was present on the tiny key.

  Garrett reached over the cubicle and set a folder on her desk. “I want you to take a look at this today.”

  Ellie set her pen down and picked up the paperwork. She opened it and scanned the contents. “Jorge Changa?”

  “Miami just sent it up. Their intel thinks he’s working out of our area now. They’ve tracked a series of credit card transactions to an alias. Process mandates that we have this and know what’s in it, but they aren’t expecting us to do anything unless it can lead to our agents smiling for the camera over a pile of drugs. Look it over. See if you can make anything of it. He’s not top shelf, but he’s not small beans either. If he’s here I want to at least know where he is and what he’s up to.”

  “I’ll see what I can make of it,” she replied.

  “Call me as soon as you’re back at dock tonight,” Garrett said. “I’ll be up.”

  “I honestly don’t expect to find anything more than a half-rotten boat, but, yeah, I’ll call you.”

  “Good luck,” he said. “I’m glad you’re a part of my team.”

  Ellie looked up from the paperwork. “Me too,” she smiled. Garrett walked back to his office, and Ellie checked her screen. The hourglass was still performing half turns, taunting her with its very presence. She sighed and started familiarizing herself with Mr. Changa. She quickly learned that he had five arrests and two prison stints that kept him behind bars for a combined six years. He’d been out for three years and maintained associations with known criminal networks in places as far away as New Orleans, Houston, and Jacksonville.

  Her laptop gave off a muted beep, and Ellie noticed the hourglass had been replaced by the mouse’s cursor. “Finally,” she muttered. She logged in and searched the database for any additional information relating to Changa, comparing it against what Miami had just sent up. Then a name crossed her field of vision and gave her pause.

  Jimmy Joe Claude. He and Changa had been arrested together six years ago for possession, but any intent to distribute was absent from the record. Whatever his business up here, Jimmy might know of his usual haunts. It looked like Ellie would have to return to the home of the man with three first names.

  But not before she secured a set of hazmat-grade nose plugs.

  LATER THAT EVENING, a couple hours after dark, Ellie, Major, and Mark were on the water, slowly making their way out to the Mondongos. Instead of putting out from Major’s marina in St. James City, they had opted to start out from Pineland Marina which was ten miles further up the western side of the island and would save them time not having to cross as much water. It also meant they had only a few miles to their destination. Once they arrived, the plan was for Ellie to quickly check things out herself. In and out. If this drop-off was legitimate, then the less they disturbed the area the better.

  The old wooden fishing boat in question sat on a tiny key that was more like a glorified sandbar just to the west of Patrico Island. They dipped south around East Part Island and made their way north to the Mondongos. Half a mile from their destination, Major switched off all the lights: courtesy, cockpit, docking lights, and the few ambients. Ellie turned off the chart plotter, and the bright screen went gray and slow
ly faded to black. Major was on his own now and had the challenge of keeping the 24' Stingray in deep enough water. In this area of the Sound, the bottom was only a few feet below the waterline, but the tide was slack, and that meant he had a little more water to work with. A small skiff would have been ideal to take out, but Mark had thought it prudent to bring something with a little more horsepower in the event that they ran into anything suspicious. The odds were against it. These drug runners were like ghosts: they came and went, and no one ever seemed to notice. At some point, somewhere, they would leave a footprint behind, and Ellie and her team would be there to track it to its source. Then she would find the people responsible for killing Adam Stark. Then she would make them pay.

  Major cautiously and slowly drew the boat near their destination, and Ellie walked to the bow and removed a small LED flashlight from her pocket. She had fitted it with a red lens earlier in the day to minimize the effect and carry of the light. Their goal was to assess the spot and try to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Ellie was hopeful that they might at least find something that would clue them into the location being what Victor said it was. If the boat was truly utilized for storing gas used to get back to Mexico, then they had a strong lead. They would have the evidence they needed for the cartels squatting in their pristine backyard.

  Major idled the Stingray closer to the sandbar and then turned off the engine. The boat swayed gently in the calm waters. “I’m not going to drop the hook,” he said. “Just be quick.” Their position left Ellie about forty feet from the boat once she got onto the sand. “I would have gotten you closer, but the sandbar extends further out on the lower western side. I’d rather you not have to push us off.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. Ellie slipped her backside onto the gunwale and sat down. Mark put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Be quick,” he said. “We’ll keep an eye out.” She nodded and, letting her feet dangle, eased her body into the warm water. Her sneakers hit the bottom, and the water stopped just below her breasts. She waded through, and water eased off her the closer she got to the key. Ten yards in, when the water was at her ankles she stopped moving toward the key and kept wading through the water. She didn’t want to walk on the dry sand if she didn’t have to. Tourists sometimes visited the key and took pictures with the boat, but Major had said that such occasions were rare. Minimizing human footmarks through the sand would keep any suspicions low. If, that is, she wasn't being duped. There was no moon to speak of, and only the stars speckled a tiny fraction of light into the darkness around her.

  The little key was no more than three acres and protruded up from the water in the shape of a slightly curved finger: long, not wide; moving east to west. The old boat sat alone, stranded and forgotten, the bottom edge of its stern partially submerged in the tide. It was one of the few boats that hadn’t been burned out when the commercial fishermen set fire to their boats as a result of the law banning gill nets. That was over twenty-five years ago now, and, not long after, a tropical storm had torn it from its loose moorings and landed it here. The eternal slap and rhythm of the tide had forced its hull deeper into the sand until the small key became a permanent resting place of sorts. In the daylight, it was both intriguing and ominous and hinted at a corpse still waiting for its funeral. In the pure darkness of the night, it looked more like the sun-bleached carcass of a whale’s skeleton, with a few extra bones tacked on.

  Ellie approached the boat’s broken stern and set her sneakered foot into a rotten space where a thick plank used to reside. She tested her weight then reached up and, using her hands, pulled her head over the edge. She could see that the back half of the old deck was rotted out, leaving a large, dark cavity beneath her. She leaned in and dipped her hand down then mashed her thumb into the end of the flashlight. Red light flooded the cavity, and her heart thumped in relief at what she saw. Five-gallon gas cans - all spray painted black - were stacked two deep and trickled back into the dark space. There had to be fifteen or twenty of them. Flecks of black paint had been struck or rubbed off in some places showing the original red plastic beneath. Ellie smiled.

  Victor Calderón was about to get a new cellmate.

  She shined the light deeper into the boat, beaming it toward the bow, but the meek red light wasn’t powerful enough to reveal anything else. She brought the light back to the cans and inspected them again. She couldn’t believe it. For who knew how long, this had been a little storage unit for the Mexican cartels. And it was literally right under their noses. It also meant that whoever placed them here would return for them soon. She remembered Victor's words: half a day at the most. Always done at night. They needed to get surveillance out here quickly. Whoever would come to retrieve the gas would be small minnows. But they could lead them to bigger fish.

  Ellie clicked the light off, and her feet splashed back into the water as she climbed back down. She sloshed through and walked around to the port side, shining the light across the hull. No other cavities on this side. They could place cameras and infrared in the sand. They could position one of Jet’s teams in wait on the key just east of here to intercept them when they returned for their fuel. She took a couple steps away from the boat and froze. She heard something. It was a drone. The deep drone of large, powerful engines. Ellie’s adrenaline kicked in, and she quickly moved west and around a small cluster of mangroves. She craned her neck and saw what she expected, not what she wanted: a silvery glint of light bouncing off a stainless steel window frame. She squinted and could make out the faint outline of a speedboat moving slowly toward her. “Oh, no,” she muttered. Her heart thudded in her chest and, ducking low, Ellie retraced some of her steps. She stopped with the mangroves at her back and pointed her light toward Major’s boat. She mashed the button: two dashes and a dot, then three dashes. Morse code for ‘go.’ She repeated this three times. “Go...” she said under her breath. “Go.” She tried again and heard the Stingray’s engine come to life. As it backed away from the sandbar, Ellie caught herself holding her breath. She hoped they understood not to come to her and added the longer code for “away.” She relaxed only slightly when she watched them moved east and out of sight behind the high fringe vegetation on the other side of the key.

  The muffled drone of the speedboat’s engines grew louder, and Ellie turned and dashed into the cover of the coastal shrubs. She slipped in between their branches and moved into them until she was satisfied that they provided enough cover. She could see only a slight trace of the small wake from Major’s exit, and she prayed the incoming boat wouldn’t notice where the water had clearly been disturbed.

  She waited another minute, and the boat eased around her hiding place and up to the broken stern of the old fishing boat. She could make out the profile of a man standing behind the wheel. He killed the engines, and Ellie heard whispers in Spanish, a language she knew almost as well as her own.

  “Go!” someone whispered, as the boat’s hull slid into the sand and came to a stop. “Two minutes, no more.” Three figures jumped off and headed toward the old boat.

  Ellie remained where she was. If they saw her, this whole expedition was for naught. The cartels wouldn’t use the boat for fuel storage again if they knew it was being watched. The whole ordeal with Victor Calderón and the trip out here tonight would be in vain. She would also have to find a way to make a hasty retreat to save her life.

  The figures worked quickly, silently, with one inside the rotting cavity of the old boat retrieving the gas cans and two taking them and securing them in the speedboat. They repeated this several times, receiving a can of gas from over the wooden gunwale and wading into the water with it before handing it off to the man in their boat. They didn’t know Ellie was here, that they had company. She could sneak out from her cover and slip up the thirty yards to the north side of the key and walk aft. Then, when the burden-bearers were walking back to the boat with their load, she could jump up into the cavity and take out the man inside. After that, she could take out each man
as he came back. By then they would know something was amiss. Taking four men under the cover of darkness wasn’t anything she hadn’t done before. Part of her ached to do it. Even now, her adrenaline was primed, ready to shoot a cocaine-like rush of energy and clarity into her blood. But she couldn't, she knew. As long as they left unaware that they were under watch, the odds were strong that at some point they would be back. Ellie could get surveillance on the island to find out when they came back and how often.

  The men were done in a couple minutes, and all but one figure got back into the boat they came in on. He said something to his driver that Ellie couldn’t hear. He stopped at the waterline and slowly looked toward the mangroves. He leaned in and looked like he was straining his eyes. Then he started walking across the sand toward Ellie. She froze. Surely he hadn’t seen her. There was no way they could have seen her. She wore dark clothes and her hair was fastened up underneath a black ball cap. Still, he maintained a course in her direction. He grabbed something from his front waistband. It glinted in the starlight. A long knife, just shorter than a Bowie. She shrank back as far as she could without moving her feet off the slippery roots or her hands from the branches. The man came to a stop and placed the back side of the knife’s blade in his teeth. She heard the metallic sound of a zipper followed by the stream of his urine hitting the sand just a few feet from her position. He hummed, and his head bobbed to the rhythm. Ellie’s muscles relaxed, and she almost laughed out loud as she waited for him to finish. He zipped back up. He removed the knife from his teeth and stuck it back in his waistband before retracing his steps back to his ride. The engine started, and Ellie could hear Mr. Pee-body being chastened for not holding it until they were clear of the coast. Within two minutes the drug dealers had disappeared around the west side of the key, and Ellie came out of hiding. She walked twenty feet further up and watched the boat head northwest toward Boca Grande Pass, most likely on its way back to Mexico’s cocaine-dusted shores to pick up a new load of drugs. Its drone finally disappeared completely into the night, and Ellie retraced her path past the groves and back out into the shallow water. She jammed her fingers into her teeth and whistled hard. A shrill note pierced the air and carried across the water. After waiting patiently the low muffle of an outboard caught her ears just before she saw the outline of her ride. Major brought the Stingray in as close as he could, and Mark helped her back on board.