Caribbean Capers

by Dan Kelly

  “Succinctly, we are planning to raid their shipments, leaving a subtle trail of evidence that will cause the members of the consortium to believe that one of their own is at fault. Your knowledge of the Caribbean, your contacts in the area, and the cover your work as a yachting captain for hire would provide, make you ideally suited for gathering the kind of intelligence we’ll need to be successful in our mission.”

  “Succinctly, you want me to be a spy. How long would I be signing up for and how am I going to pay my bills while I’m playing James Bond?”

  “For as long as you want as long as when you quit it doesn’t put anyone’s life in jeopardy. As for compensation, all of your monthly bills will be paid by Uncle Sam and an additional five figure amount will be deposited in your account on a monthly basis. The exact amount will be determined by my superior once I have your commitment to the cause. Do I have it?”

  “Thunk! You have arrived Brody. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

  Shaking his head he answered, “Okay, you’ve done it again, but on one condition. On my last cruise, my client, Bob Trumball, was kidnapped during a piracy attempt off the coast of Barcelona, Venezuela that my crew and I managed to foil. You’ve got to help me find him and bring him back home. I don’t know if the people who took him know who he is, how wealthy he is, but from the yacht he was on they have to assume he’s not a pauper. I’m thinking that they will try for a ransom once they get him to tell them who to contact. I somehow feel responsible for what happened to him because it happened on my watch and it would ease my conscience considerably if I could play a part in getting him back. It’s been over three weeks since the kidnapping took place and so far no ransom demands have been made. I haven’t a clue as to why no contact has been made.”

  “We’ll spread the word throughout our network in the region to keep their eyes and ears open for anything that might lead us to his whereabouts and the people who kidnapped him. Anything that’s picked up will be relayed back to me and I’ll keep you in the loop. Any action taken resulting from these leads will include you. That’s the best I can offer.”

  “Fair enough. When do I start and how?”

  “Tomorrow morning at 0600 hours Abby will pick you up at your home and take you to the marina and the yacht you will be using for this operation. This yacht has some features you won’t find on any other and you will be briefed on their functions and how to employ them. All of the necessary paperwork has been prepared showing Abby as the owner. You will be using your real name and your cover will be what you’ve been doing for years, providing captain services to the wealthy. Abby will be your wealthy widow client. Dave will meet you two on the yacht and give you a complete briefing on the special equipment I just referred to as well as the details of what we expect from you. We could start the briefing now, but I want to hold off until I have the latest intelligence reports from my people in the region which won’t be until later tonight.”

  “Scrounger, from my past experience with the types of people we’re going after, they play very rough and very dirty. I’m concerned about our ability to deal with that kind of action. I’m more than a little rusty on the rough stuff and I haven’t had any physical altercations since I left the Coast Guard.”

  “I won’t lie to you. There’s an element of danger associated with your mission, but if I remember correctly you handled yourself quite well on the raids we participated in together. It’s like riding a bike. You never forget how to do it. Besides, Abby is a master in all kinds of martial arts. She can help you hone the rough edges.”

  As he turned to look at her with new respect she said, “What can I say, Wonder Woman and Super Girl were my idols.”

  Glancing at Dave who has moved over by Polly Phil said, “Dave will be your liaison to me. Anyone who might get curious about you will find it normal for someone who loves the sea as much as you do to be talking with someone like Dave whose shops have a lot to offer an oceanographer and yacht captain.”

  “What about my folks and brother, Scrounger? What am I to tell them? I’ve got to tell them something or my brother will be pulling out all the stops to find out what I’m doing. We’re a close family and don’t keep things from each other. He’s a real bulldog when he smells something fishy.”

  “Tell them the truth, but not all of it. Say you’ve been hired by the government to do some oceanography research but you can’t talk about it and they should not tell anyone what you are doing. They can tell people if the subject comes up that you’ve got a long term gig chauffeuring some lady all over the Caribbean. This will also leave the door open for you to approach your father or brother if you have need for any of their particular knowledge or skills without having to answer any questions as to why you need their input.”

  “Okay, that works for me.” Abby drove him back to Pasqual’s Pantry and his car. As she drives away he’s thinking, “Paul is never going to believe that I agreed to sign on for this just because I wanted to help catch some bad guys. I can hear him now. ‘You are a sucker for a pretty face. What the hell’s the matter with you? I told you she was trouble with a capital T.’ I’ll never hear the end of it. But now that I think about it, I could get use to that kind of trouble. She sure is drop dead gorgeous.”

  Chapter 5

  -Miami, FL-

  At 0620, Pete and Abby are climbing on board what could pass for the Blissful Times’ big sister. It’s a 300 footer with three decks above the water line and two below, it has all the amenities anyone could possibly think of and it has the same blue and white color scheme. It bears the name Vuelta de Lujo (Lap of Luxury) and its true owner is a Spanish billionaire who is a friend and former college roommate of Phil Desoto. When Pete heard this he burst out laughing and said, “Desoto hasn’t lost his touch. This has got to set some kind of world record for scrounging.”

  Dave and Abby also laughed and Dave said, “We needed a yacht and we needed something special but not from anyone in the Caribbean region that might be known to the people we’re after. That might have made the bad guys suspicious and destroyed your cover. Phil thought of his old roommate and the man was glad to be able to help and gave his permission for us to install some high tech equipment that isn’t available for civilian vessels.

  “Come on, let’s go have some breakfast and I’ll give you two a full briefing on what the game plan is today and what we want you to do to get the ball rolling. The game plan is always in a state of flux, adjusting to the latest data that comes in from our sources throughout the Caribbean. After breakfast, I’ll give you a tour of the Vuelta de Lujo and show you the special equipment we have installed. Pete, it’ll take most of the day for me to check you out on it. Some of it will be familiar to you from your Coast Guard days, but with a lot of enhancements and some of it will be new to you.”

  Over breakfast they learned that every member of the crew was a Navy Seal with considerable civilian experience in the job he would be performing on the yacht. Their leader is a man named Emanuel Rodriguez and from Dave’s description of him a man you’d definitely want on your side if things got ugly.

  “Pete, you are the captain of this ship. These men will report to you and follow your orders. Their training, their skills, are at your disposal.”

  Pete had some reservations about this, but he kept his mouth shut.

  “One of the many reasons you two were selected for this mission was that you both speak Spanish fluently. This ability will make it a lot easier for you to gather information from the locals, either directly or through eavesdropping. Abby, with Pete as your escort, you will mingle with the people in the ports you visit. You will let it be known that you are cruising around the Caribbean to learn more about the people and cultures of the countries surrounding the Caribbean and will be for at least a year. You can tell anyone who will listen that you are doing research for a book that you want to write and therefore are talking with as many people as possible to learn what daily life is like in all of these countries.

 
“Your primary role in Sea Wasp’s mission is to be additional yet special sets of eyes and ears for us. Special because Abby’s apparent wealth will give you access to the higher societal ranks in these countries that most of our operatives don’t have and that’s where our kingpin targets dwell. Also, this apparent wealth will make you ideal prey for the pirates in the area. The Vuelta de Lujo will be the lure, the bait, to get these creeps to pounce and then the pouncers will become the pouncees when 27 Navy Seals do their thing.

  “Remember, our goal is to surround this consortium in turmoil, to disrupt their operations in any way we can and put the blame on one of their own to generate so much mutual distrust that the consortium will fall apart before it really gets up and running. If arrests can be made that will end up in just punishment for these lowlifes, that’s the road we’ll take. If not, they will be dealt with in other ways. We’re not playing patty cake here. We would like to erase this blight from the face of the earth forever if at all possible, but we’re realists and know that people being people will always present opportunity for exploitation by those always ready and willing to do so. The financial rewards from smuggling drugs and contraband of all kinds and those derived from acts of piracy are just too damn tempting.”

  Pete asked, “Have you selected target ports or are we on our own in that regard?”

  “You’re on your own as far as the ports go because any or all of them could generate useful intelligence. If something comes up where we want you to go to a specific location, I will let you know during your daily debriefings. There will be no set time for these, but one of you must touch base with me every 24 hours or I will assume you are in some kind of trouble and come looking for you. I don’t want to do this needlessly, so don’t miss a debriefing. All of your communication gear is encrypted as is mine, so our conversations will be secure.

  “In addition to gathering information in these port cities, you will be cruising around the open sea looking for submarines that these people use for smuggling as well as monitoring non-commercial air traffic in the area. The special equipment we’ve installed will enable you to do that very effectively. Abby has special training in analyzing most of the data generated by this equipment and she will train you to do this as well. There are some areas where you’ll be able to help her figure out what she’s trying to evaluate. The operation of this equipment will be your bailiwick and you will train her on it. We want to get the two of you out of here as soon as possible and figure you can bring each other up to snuff when you’re at sea. Any questions?”

  Abby asked, “If we deem it necessary, can we bring some seals with us on shore?”

  “That’s your call, but Manny as their leader will have the final say on anything like that.

  “If there are no other questions, let’s take a tour of the yacht. I’ll show you the equipment we installed and introduce you to your crew. After that, I’ll brief Pete on the operation of the equipment and, Abby, you can convert any area that suits you into an office for you and Pete to work out of. Make a list of everything you think you’ll need and I’ll see that you have it before you leave port tomorrow at 2300 hours.”

  At a little after five, Pete and Abby are sitting on the upper deck nursing some margaritas and watching the sun start to set on the horizon. Dave has just left after giving them a phone number to commit to memory and they are reviewing everything that has happened during the day.

  Pete asked, “What did you think of Manny? He looks like a one man assault force.”

  “At six-six and 300 pounds, he definitely gets your attention. He makes someone like Schwarzenegger look like a 90 pound weakling. He seems like a nice guy though. You definitely scored some points with him as well as the rest of the crew when you said that even if you were the captain and they had orders to follow yours you would defer to him if the yacht came under attack.”

  “Abby, I haven’t been in the military for almost thirteen years. To say my skills as a leader in that arena were a little rusty would be the understatement of the year.”

  “You have to do what your gut tells you to do, but I agree with Desoto. It’s like riding a bike. You never forget how to do it and it doesn’t take long to hone the old skills. If the situation arises where those skills are needed, you may surprise yourself.”

  “Let’s hope things don’t get so bad that we’ll have to put that to the test.”

  Chapter 6

  -Somewhere in the Caribbean between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica-

  Pete and Abby have been at sea for about twelve days, using the time to make themselves comfortable with the new equipment and identifying the ports they think will have the most potential as sources of information for the higher ups of Sea Wasp. Abby has also been beating the crap out of Pete, helping him to sharpen his martial arts skills. He’s sore all over, but his male ego won’t let him tell her to lighten up. He’s not fooling her though. Most 39 year olds don’t wince when they cross their legs or scratch their head. She finds his attempts at hiding his discomfort amusing and in some small way appealing. “Whoa girl, don’t go there. You don’t need that kind of entanglement.”

  They’ve decided that Kingston, Jamaica will be their first port-of-call because of the recent reports of piracy near there. They’ve been discussing the best places to hit for their purposes and have concluded that initially they should look for places where the well-to-do folks gather to have fun and where the alcohol will loosen lips; night clubs, hotel bars, etc. and hopefully the bartenders will be the talkative type. They can probe for information while at the same time there presence is letting interested parties know that there is a new target in town. Newspapers, police reports, marine insurance companies and the local eateries nearby the marinas are other sources they are considering that might generate some useful leads.

  Abby will do most of the talking and ask all of the questions. Pete will be the escort/bodyguard to keep the riffraff at bay.

  They spent three days in Kingston and managed to rattle a couple of cages. A surly seaman at one of the bars near the marina where they docked didn’t like the kinds of questions Abby was asking and issued a warning suggesting that she should mind her own business before she stepped in something that could hurt her. She tried to get him to tell her why he was warning her off, after all she’s only doing research for a book, but he just gave her a dirty look and left the bar.

  The other incident involved the police. The inspector they talked to told them that the recent piracies were under active investigation and she could be arrested for interfering with them if she persisted in making her inquiries. His reaction to what Abby told him she was doing was way out of line and put the idea in their heads that maybe corrupt policemen were playing an active role in the recent piracies.

  Just after sunrise on the fourth day they left Kingston and headed south for Santo Domingo. Pete’s been thinking about how things went in Kingston and he has some reservations about how aggressive they should be in asking questions and getting themselves noticed. He decides to voice them to Abby.

  “Abby, you’re the pro when it comes to working undercover and being a snoop, but perhaps it would be a good idea if we were to cool it a little when we’re poking around. I think it’s a good idea to use the cover story of you doing research for a book when we’re talking with cops or newspaper people. They are probably used to getting those kinds of inquiries, so there’s no reason for them to be suspicious of ulterior motives. When we’re dealing with just about anyone else though, it might be better if we did more looking and listening and less talking. Tell anybody else who gets curious about us that your just enjoying yourself cruising around and seeing the world and I’m your guide.”

  “In other words, appear curious but not suspiciously nosy? Play the rich girl with the wanderlust who likes people and having fun? The world is my oyster kind of attitude?”

  “Yeah, we want to be conspicuous but for the right reason. We’re trying to entice the pirate types to make a move
on us at sea, but we don’t want folks to start wondering if we’re something other than what we purport to be.”