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

by Jack Hardin

  Stakeout was one of those words that struck a chord of intrigue through the average person’s mind, along with words like asset, mole, or spy. Over the course of her past career, Ellie had been involved in many stakeouts in various cities across Europe. This would be only her third sitting in a vehicle. In Stuttgart she had positioned herself on a church roof top; Prague, atop a pallet rack in a canning warehouse; Antwerp, and her least favorite, the limb of a chestnut tree. Each time, she was looking through the scope of a long range rifle, waiting for her target to appear. Working for the DEA was keeping her busy, but it wouldn’t compare to the adrenaline, the sense of imminence and danger, that came in the role she played with Langley. Stakeouts behind the wheel of a car or truck simply for the purpose of gathering information could be among the most boring and mind-numbing experiences available to man. Pushed too late into the evening and yawns had to be stifled, bladders held, and stiff legs stretched.

  Ellie played with the switch that controlled her side mirrors. In a stakeout you were always checking your mirrors, making sure no one came up on you unnoticed. She grabbed a metal clipboard from her backpack and set it on her lap. A white construction hard hat sat in the seat next to her. Clipboards and hard hats were a stakeout’s best friend. If someone noticed you at any point, you could look down at your paper, pull up the first page and make notes on the second. This gave the appearance of being busy with some kind of official work. If someone approached your vehicle, the hat would provide substance to a quick alias.

  Ellie punched the stereo knob and pressed the CD button. Jack Johnson’s soft and humble voice hummed through the speakers, singing a chorus about banana pancakes. She turned the volume knob to low and kept her eyes on the mobile home in question. Further down the street, four small children were riding their bikes and kicking a worn soccer ball around a cardboard box that had been repurposed for a goal.

  An hour elapsed before Ellie received her first dose of external stimulation. An older lady wearing a pink robe and slippers emerged from the mobile home Ellie was parked in front of. She walked down the steps and approached Ellie’s truck. Ellie grabbed a pen, raised the clipboard higher so the top half rested on the steering wheel and the bottom half rested on the top of her thighs. She rolled down the window.

  The lady’s face was old and seamed with deep furrows created by thin and aged skin. The jowls on either side sagged liked they were about to drip off her face. Her shoulders hunched, and her eyes were set deep underneath thick and scowling brows. She maneuvered up to the open window, her voice hoarse from years of cigarette tar coating her lungs. “Are you looking for something?” she asked.

  Ellie’s smile was that of a professional arborist. “No, ma’am. I’m surveying the neighborhood for these saplings we put in a little while back. As you can see they’re all dying out. I had to go around and count which ones aren’t making it. I’m filling out my notes before I leave.”

  The lady snorted. “They didn’t put in any damn soaker hoses. That was the problem. You need to put in soaker hoses. No one around here is going to water them.”

  “Yes, ma'am. We’re trying to get the city to pick up the tab on the irrigation. That seems to have been an oversight that we’re trying to correct.”

  The lady knitted her brow then stepped back and took another look down the length of Ellie’s truck. “Okay. As long as everything is all right.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Sure is.”

  “All right then. Have a good evening.”

  “Thank you. You too.” Ellie rolled her window back up as the lady walked away still mumbling to herself about soaker hoses.

  Ellie fixed her eyes back on the mobile home: 2797 Rickshaw. A powder blue double-wide with wooden steps that led up to a tiny porch holding a plastic chair. A ceramic ashtray straddled the railing. A Chevy Cobalt and a Lincoln Town Car were parked bumper-to-bumper in the driveway. The door opened, and a man stepped out wearing black jeans and a pink polo shirt two sizes too large that hung down to his knees. Whatever hair he had was buzzed close to the scalp. A gold chain hung around his neck. Ellie lifted the field glasses to her eyes and focused in on him. The hue of his skin hinted of Spanish descent. He set a cigarette to his mouth and lit it up then leaned against the wood railing and stared down at the yard below. The door opened again, and another man came out. His skin was dark, and he wore a Jamaican rasta beanie and sported a long goat patch on his chin. Neither of the men resembled the image in Jorge's file. The second man borrowed a cigarette from the first and lit up. Neither spoke; both stared at the large patch of dirt below them.

  Ellie’s passenger seat buzzed, and she reached over and picked up her phone. The call was from Mark. She answered. “Hey, how’s it going out there?” she asked.

  “Ellie,” Mark’s tone was a mixture of excitement and concern. “You need to come over here.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. But you need to see what I’m seeing.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just come over. I think it’s someone of interest.”

  “Jorge?” she asked.

  “No. There’s this guy and...well, I feel like an idiot because I’ve seen him before, but I can’t place where. I don’t have a surveillance camera, and my phone can’t get a good picture from that far away.”

  Ellie looked back at the two men on the small deck. She studied their faces and memorized their features. “There’s a parking lot across from the subdivision entrance,” Mark said. “I’ll meet you there and ride back in with you.”

  Ellie slipped the clipboard into the side pocket on her door. “I’ll leave now.” She put the truck in gear and drove up the street past the blue mobile home, keeping her eyes on the road as if she was as indifferent to the men on the deck as a Lee County arborist might be.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  SEVEN MINUTES later Ellie pulled into a newly paved parking lot and navigated her truck into the space next to Mark’s Accord. Mark got in and shut the door. Sliding the seatbelt across his chest, he said, “Sorry, Ellie,” he said, “It’s driving me nuts. I can’t place the guy. I swear I’ve seen him before.”

  “No worries. Just show me where to go.”

  Two minutes later they were parked on the curb of a corner lot where they could get a good view of the house in question. The truck faced east, the house, the second on the street to their right, on the opposite side of the street. The neighborhood was lower-middle class, not as run down as the mobile home park from which Ellie had just come. The houses appeared no older than twenty years, were small with some of the porches featuring a porch swing or room for a set of chairs. The house in question was a one-story, brown-painted brick with a framed awning over the porch. The yard was perfectly cut and, from what Ellie could see through the growing haze of dusk, was a deep green only made possible by fertilizer and regular watering. “Someone is taking care of the place,” she said. “The yard is nicer than mine.”

  “Nicer than mine too,” Mark said.

  “Don’t you live in an apartment?”

  “Yep. That’s why this one is nicer.”

  “So who are we looking for?”

  Mark kept his eyes on the front of the house. “A guy wearing cargo shorts and a white t-shirt comes out every few minutes, paces, then goes back inside. He’ll look at his phone like he’s waiting for a call.”

  “Does he look nervous?” she asked.

  “No. I wouldn’t say nervous. More...anxious. Expectant.”

  “Have the curtains been drawn the whole time?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I was parked down that part of the street earlier. I couldn’t see in when the door opened.”

  The porch light flicked on, and the door opened. Someone stepped out and shut the door. “There,” Mark tensed. “That’s him.”

  He looked young - maybe mid-twenties - had short dark hair, and a cell phone planted on his ear. He walked down the concrete walkway leading from the house and out to the sidewa
lk. He kept his head down as he spoke and paced back-and-forth every few yards.

  “Can you tell?” Mark asked.

  “Not yet. He hasn’t looked up.” She grabbed the field glasses and set them to her eyes. He completed a few more circuits and started shaking his head, keeping his eyes on his feet.

  “Looks like he’s having the call he was expecting,” Mark noticed out loud.

  The man walked back, stopped, and looked up. Forgetting a face was outside Ellie’s repertoire. Her years of experience meant that she recognized and remembered things most people didn’t. Mark was a good agent, but the man he had seen for just a few seconds a few days prior had escaped him. It had probably slipped Mark’s attention that the front door swung open toward the street. That it had been reframed and the hinges switched, making it difficult for the door to be kicked or rammed in during a raid. He may not have picked up on that fact that the large, dark peephole on the front door was a camera lens. Thankfully, they were out of its line of sight.

  Ellie brought the field glasses down. “Smith,” she said.

  “What? You know him?”

  “Mondongo. He was the guy sitting behind the security desk when we walked into the staff quarters. The Hispanic man with the long scar on his face.”

  “Oh yeah…” Mark snapped his fingers. “I knew I’d seen him before. How do you know his name? He had a name badge?”

  “No. Do you remember seeing the lockers in the corner next to the little counter and coffee pot? In that living room where we spoke with Arnold? There were five of them.”

  “I must’ve missed that.”

  “The front of each locker door had a small placard holder with a name and thick lines embossed in it. Thick lines like a rank of sorts. One card was blank, two of them had three tick marks, and the other had two.”

  “And the guy at front desk only had two dashes on his shirt or something?

  “Yeah, on his shoulder. That locker card said ‘Smith.’”

  “Geez,” Mark huffed, impressed. “What were the names of the other two?”

  “Ingles and Vargas. Arnold wasn’t wearing a uniform so I assumed the blank one belonged to him, or he doesn’t have a locker or rank for whatever reason. From what he said some of the security don’t live in staff house. Hence the lockers.”

  Mark kept his gaze out the window and shook his head. “Unbelievable. Did you count all the floor tiles too?”

  “No, just the boards on the dock,” she joked. They watched, and the man outside kept pacing, clearly growing more agitated. His free hand was animated, waving wildly beyond his body.

  “How do you want to play this?” Mark asked.

  Ellie slowly rubbed her hands together and stared at the dash, thinking. “We need to keep a tail on this guy. I’ll bet you a salt-rimmed margarita that his connections run into places we weren't prepared for.”

  “How do you mean? You think all those guards on the island are in on it?”

  “No, no. Think. Who does he work for?”

  Mark pondered the question. “Uh, Hawkwing.”

  “Right. And their employees are vetted up to the eyeballs. Even Arnold Niebuhr said as much. Companies like Hawkwing are leaders in an industry composed of billion-dollar corporations and deep geopolitical connections.”

  “Okay…”

  “So they aren’t going to just hire some street pusher by accident. That wouldn’t just slip through the cracks. All of Hawkwing's clients are big money. You saw the setup at Mondongo Key Island. Their clients have their own jets and buy islands for crying out loud.”

  “So, what’s your point?”

  “That if they hire a bad apple and that bad apple negatively steals from or negatively affects their clients, then Hawkwing's brand suffers. Image is everything in that industry. Especially on the domestic side. On the international front you can get away with just about anything. Over there it’s basically murder for hire. Contract armies.”

  “This guy could have gotten in wrong after he started working with them,” Mark offered.

  “Doubtful. They’ll keep an eye on everyone on their payroll. Anything less would be incompetent.” Ellie looked over at her co-worker. “In my past life I rubbed elbows with international security firms. A lot. Even Hawkwing has a division that extends to global clients. Anybody working for the company will be highly trained, deeply scrutinized, and well paid.”

  “You’re suggesting this goes higher up in the company?”

  “Mark. I knew you’d come around.”

  “Quit it,” he grinned. “I‘m with you now.”

  “I want us to go dig around and see if anything surfaces. Let’s start by finding out this guy’s real name. I’m starting to think ‘Smith’ isn’t the name he got from his father.”

  “If he’s out there to keep an eye on the comings and goings of that little key that they stash the gas at, don’t you think he would have seen us that night we went out there?”

  “He could have. It’s unlikely, but he could have been off that night or may not have been able to inform the crew in time that someone was out there. Who knows?”

  The door to the house opened again and a bald white man of average height wearing jeans and a white v-neck t-shirt walked out toward Smith. Smith held a finger up to him and leaned in like he was struggling to hear the voice on the other end of the line. Then his back straightened, and, even from their distance of twenty yards, Mark and Ellie could hear him yelling into the phone. He hung up and started talking to the other man who had just come out, arms flailing while he screamed. The bald man put a calm hand on Smith’s shoulder and nodded across the street. Smith nodded and followed.

  They crossed the road and started walking toward the truck. Mark tensed, “If they come over here knocking on the glass, Smith is going to recognize us when he sees us,” he whispered.

  “It’s too dark outside for them to see through the tint,” Ellie said. “If he knocks we bail. They’ll get creeped out that they’re being watched, but we won’t have given our faces away. Look.”

  The two men stopped at the corner of the driveway and resumed their conversation, still oblivious to the two DEA agents sitting a few yards from them. Ellie slipped a hand onto her door and tapped down on the button that controlled her passenger window. It came down an inch. She repeated the motion, faster this time, and it came down another inch.

  “What are you doing?” Mark whispered frantically.

  She whispered through clenched teeth. “Do you want to hear what they’re saying or not?”

  The bald guy was talking quietly, trying to calm his partner. Smith interrupted, spoke quietly, but just loud enough for Mark and Ellie to pick it up. “I don’t know what to tell them. We’re screwed.”

  “Did he know who it was?”

  Smith’s voice carried higher in his anger. “It’s that Ringo guy….whoever he is. He snuck in somehow, and they gave the order to him...again.”

  “Ringo?” The white man’s voice was louder now, charged with panic. “You’re kidding?”

  “I’m telling you, he’s eating up everything now,” Smith said. He looked out toward the truck, but his thoughts were elsewhere.

  “What are we gonna do?” the other guy asked.

  Smith shrugged. “For me, for you, business as usual. This is above our pay grade. We just won’t be getting paid if this keeps up.” Silence ensued as they both stared at their feet. As they imagined the money flowing a little less freely. Smith closed his eyes, made two fists, and cursed. “I can’t believe this!” he yelled. “You’re killing me, Ringo!” The men stood there silently for another half minute then walked back across the street, into the house, and shut the door behind them. Then the porch light blinked off.

  Mark sighed, relieved they were gone. He turned and looked quizzically at Ellie. “Ringo?” he said. “Who’s Ringo?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  OF THE VERY FEW who personally knew Ringo, all but two were scared of him. And not a generic
fear of spiders kind of scared. More like a shark swimming past your kneecaps scared.

  Ringo sat on a long white couch with an arm resting across the back, a leg crossed over another, puffing on a cigar, thick gray smoke enveloping him like steam shower. White cotton pants covered his thick legs, and a burgundy, short-sleeved button down blotted with prints of cream colored seashells covered his widening midsection. A white fedora sporting a black band sat on his head. He looked across his living room, out the floor-to-ceiling windows and onto his magnificent green lawn, gardens, and pool which was surrounded by a flagstone path and Cuban palms.

  Chewy stood stationary against a sidewall, his large hands crossed in front of his waist, statuesque and looking past his boss as he stared far ahead into the opulent kitchen beyond. A single white earbud hung from his right ear, ascending from an iPod resting in the outer pocket of his wool trench coat. He was listening to Burkis’s most recent rally, recorded at the Rex Theater in Pittsburgh and downloaded from the guru’s website just last night for the exclusive member price of $149.49. Chewy stood there listening, pondering, actualizing; his face calm and indifferent, almost droopy but not. Chewy never smiled. It wasn’t that he was unhappy. He was very happy. He just never smiled.

  The doorbell rang across the front portion of the house. Footsteps traversed the tile and stopped at the door. It opened, and Andrés greeted Ringo’s guest with a nod. “Come in,” he said. “He’s expecting you.”

  “Gracias.” The visitor - Hector Lomas - wore black ostrich skin boots that created an echo as their heels struck the Spanish terracotta floor. His dress slacks were a couple inches too long at the ankle, gathering at his feet, and his pudgy stomach pushed at the lower buttons of his light blue dress shirt. His long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail that swayed on his back as he made his way into the living room. Ringo stood to greet him.