Corruption in the Keys

by Matthew Rief

  He held a small case in his left hand and a syringe in his right. We were looking through the window at an angle, trying to keep ourselves out of view, but it didn’t work. His eyes met ours, and when they did, he narrowed his gaze and furrowed his brow.

  Ange stepped over and reached for the doorknob beside us, but it wouldn’t budge. The asshole had locked it from the inside. I hovered my hand over my Sig, but when I looked back up through the glass, the guy had disappeared. Instinctively, I bolted for the next door down the hall and shouldered my way in. An old guy jerked his head, staring at me wide-eyed as I raced across the room and forced my way through the side door. Instead of taking out my Sig, I forced my dive knife from its sheath strapped to the back of my belt.

  There was no time to waste as I headed for the second door, which led into Charlotte’s room. In just a few short seconds, this guy would ensure that she never woke up again. I tried the handle, but it too was locked. It was a sturdy, thick door.

  Alright, this is gonna hurt like hell.

  I stepped back, planted my left foot firmly onto the vinyl floor, and slammed my right heel into the door. It fought back painfully, but the bolt shattered loose from its frame and the door swung open. Ignoring the shockwave that burned up my leg, I stormed into the room. Mr. Wannabe Nurse was hunched over Charlotte, his left hand holding the injection port of the IV and his right clasping the syringe. Its tip was just inches away from connecting and injecting its contents when I reared my right hand back and hurled my knife through the air. It caught the guy in the side, the sharp titanium tip burrowing into his flesh just below his right armpit.

  He grunted in pain, then lurched sideways. His right hand loosened its grip on the syringe, allowing it to slip through his fingers and fall harmlessly to the floor. Blood flowed out from around the blade, soaking the light blue fabric.

  His head snapped in my direction, and his eyes shot daggers at me. Clenching his jaw, he snarled and reached for the blade with his left hand. I bolted across the center of the room, then kicked the end of the blade with my heel, causing it to stab even deeper into his side.

  The big guy staggered backward, almost tumbling over as his body balanced against the wall behind him. A normal man would be incapacitated by such a blow, but this wasn’t a normal man.

  He looked up at me and, without a moment’s hesitation, let out a loud, shrill, barbaric yell. He pulled my knife from his side with reckless abandon, then charged at me like an angry bull. I only had a split second to react and barely managed to raise my arms to lessen the blow. He lifted me clean off the floor, then slammed me into a desk that shattered to pieces under our weight. My back screamed in pain and my head snapped backward.

  He reared back his right arm, then hurled his meaty fist toward the center of my face. I twisted my head and slapped it away, barely managing to redirect the powerful blow. Instead of skin, muscle, and bone, his knuckles cracked against the hard floor.

  As he struck me in the chest with a second punch, I reached over my head and grabbed a shattered piece of the desk. Air shot from my lungs from the blow, but I ignored the pain and slammed the piece down on his head. It broke down the middle with a loud crack, and the big guy yelled again. He fell back just enough for me to tuck my bent left leg between us. With a loud grunt of my own, I straightened my left leg forcefully, launching him off me and causing him to fall onto his back.

  I rose to my feet, grabbing a ballpoint pen that had fallen out of a desk drawer. He did one of those fancy martial arts moves where he launched his body up and tucked his feet under, coming to his feet in an instant. He’d grabbed a knife of his own from his ankle while on the floor and held it confidently in his right hand. Blood continued to flow out from his side, but the big guy either didn’t notice from the adrenaline or was simply ignoring it. The guy obviously had experience doing this kind of thing. He knew how to deal with physical pain, how to block it out and keep fighting until the mission is accomplished.

  Suddenly, he charged at me, and I prepared to block his blow. When he was just a few feet in front of me, I heard the distinct, loud sound of a round being fired from a handgun just behind my right shoulder. The guy’s left knee suddenly exploded in a blur of blood and bone. He screamed as his eyes rocketed up into his skull and he fell hard, face-planting onto the floor.

  My head snapped back and I saw Ange standing just a few feet behind me in the door frame. Her hands were raised chest height, clutching her Glock 19. I gave her a slight nod, then we bent down and gagged the guy with an extra folded pillow sheet. He’d been screaming violently, and we didn’t want to scare anyone in the hospital any more than they already were. We also grabbed a sheet to tie him up, but as I moved back beside him, my eyes grew wide.

  In a flash of movement, he rolled forward, grabbed the syringe from the floor, and stabbed the needle forcefully into his right thigh. Before we could reach him, he’d already injected the contents into his bloodstream. His body seemed to go cold in an instant. He was covered in blood, both his side and his left leg, and it pooled around him. Within seconds, whatever the hell he’d injected went to work. He looked at me, his eyes dark and menacing. For a second I thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. His head just shook and fell back to the floor, and his expression went blank.

  FIVE

  The yelling, cries, and jostling of bodies and equipment had caused most everyone in the hospital to keep their distance at first. But after two security guards came over, along with Dr. Patel, the staff were assured that they were no longer in danger.

  In a matter of seconds, the small hospital room transformed into a frenzy of nurses and doctors. Despite the guy on the floor clearly being dead, they loaded him up carefully and brought him to a bed in the adjoining room. Part of me hoped they could revive him. I wanted nothing more than to beat as much information as we could out of him, but I knew it was over. I’d seen that look many times before. Whatever he’d injected himself with, it was swift and deadly. There was no coming back from it.

  As another doctor took over in the adjoining room, Dr. Patel looked around. I could tell his mind was working, trying to piece everything together.

  “He wasn’t dead from the injuries,” he said. “Why would he end his own life?”

  “Because for some people, getting captured is worse than death,” Ange said.

  Dr. Patel stared at her for a few seconds. He was trying to make sense of it, trying to justify such actions. Ange and I had worked some dangerous jobs in our lives. We’d come face-to-face with evil in its worst forms. Neither of us were near as surprised by what had just happened. We’d seen it before.

  Suddenly, I saw Charles appear on the other side of the glass window. He entered through the door and froze when he saw us. His mouth dropped open slightly as his eyes scanned the room, looking me over, then gravitating toward the puddle of dark red blood in the middle of the room.

  “What the hell happened in here?” he asked.

  “We had an attempted murder,” Dr. Patel said. “Thankfully Logan was here.”

  “Actually, it was thanks to Ange,” I corrected him. “She’s the one who took him down.”

  “Who was it?” Charles asked sternly. “Was it one of the guys from the boat earlier?”

  He was still looking around the room, making mental notes of the crime scene. I noticed that he was carrying a gray shoulder bag that was mostly hidden behind his body.

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. Those guys were too far off to tell, but if he isn’t one of them, he’s undoubtedly working with them.” I motioned toward the open door beside us and added, “He’s in there.”

  His eyes scanned toward the door, but he didn’t step toward it.

  After a few seconds’ pause, he said, “I need you both to come back to the station with me.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You want us to leave right now?” Ange asked, bewildered by the idea. “What about Charlotte? What if there are more of those assh
oles lurking around here?”

  “There’s something we need to watch,” he said, grabbing a digital camera from his shoulder bag and holding it out to me. I tilted my head and realized that it was the same camera we’d seen earlier on the wrecked boat. “I watched it already, but the LCD screen is too small and pixelated. I need to bring it up on a bigger screen. I think we might be able to see who these guys are that did this. And I’ll leave three officers here to watch over Charlotte and the rest of you. Combined with hospital security, that will suffice.”

  I wasn’t convinced. The big guy on the hospital bed in the next room was well trained. He could tear through a crowd of normal security guards like they were nothing. But I was curious as hell about what was on that camera.

  “You can watch it here, Sheriff,” Dr. Patel said. “I mean, Chief. That will take some getting used to. There’s a conference room just across the hall. It will be private, and we have a monitor in there that you can use.”

  Once two officers and a security guard were in the room, Dr. Patel led us across the hall to the conference room. A detective had also arrived, and he was working with the officers to document and photograph the scene. The conference room was a few doors from the hallway. It was smaller than I’d thought it would be. A rectangular table with ten chars, a whiteboard on the far wall, and a large flat-screen mounted to the wall closest to us.

  Dr. Patel closed the blinds over the only two windows in the room. He then picked up a remote from the table, clicked on the screen, then turned off the TVs Wi-Fi connection.

  Smart guy.

  “You can lock the door if you want,” he said. “You won’t be bothered.”

  He handed Charles the remote, then exited. Charles instantly locked the door behind him, then grabbed the camera and a cable from his shoulder bag. A few moments later, he had the camera connected and the monitor displayed a solid black image with a white-lettered time stamp in the upper left corner.

  “Today at eight thirty,” Ange said. “That’s five hours before we saw the wreck.”

  Charles pressed play and the screen came to life, displaying footage taken aboard the Sunrunner out on open water. Charles fast-forwarded for a few minutes, then pressed play once more. Charlotte was holding the camera and talking to Maggie as she leaned over the port gunwale and filled what looked like a sixteen-ounce poly bottle with seawater. Both women spoke with distinct Texan accents, though Maggie’s was stronger. They were also very articulate and stern, taking whatever work they were doing seriously.

  When Maggie brought the filled poly bottle over and into the boat, she said that it was the final sample they’d need that day.

  “Do you want to send it through the analyzer?” Charlotte asked from behind the camera’s view.

  Maggie shook her head. “There’s no need. We’ve analyzed more than enough already. Let’s get these back to the lab. If our findings can be verified, this data will prove invaluable to our hypothesis.”

  Charlotte set the camera on the cockpit dashboard and the two women went to work, gathering up their equipment and preparing to make wake. Whether intentionally or by accident, Charlotte left the camera on, so we were able to watch as they moved about the deck. They both loaded up their gear with calm and precise movements, unaware that anything unexpected was about to happen. It was like watching a horror movie and knowing that something bad was about to catch the characters by surprise.

  Sure enough, just as they were finishing up, Charlotte froze and looked out over the water.

  “Mom, it looks like we’re about to have company,” Charlotte said.

  From the angle of the camera lens, we couldn’t see who they were looking at. The two women gathered up their gear, watching attentively as the boat motored closer and finally appeared in the camera’s view.

  “That’s the same boat we saw near Snipe,” Ange said. “Those are the guys that Logan fought off.”

  I nodded. There was no doubt about it, it was the same boat we’d seen earlier. The same one that had opened fire on us without warning.

  It pulled up right along the starboard side of the Sunrunner, just out of view of the camera. We couldn’t hear most of what was said during the exchange, but it appeared to be cordial at first. However, it quickly grew heated and we listened to a chorus of angry curse words shot out from both sides.

  “Start up the engine, Charlie,” Maggie said, her tone intense and her eyes gazing out over the water.

  Charlotte did as she was told, hopping into the helm chair and rumbling the 150-hp Evinrude to life.

  “Get us out of here!” Maggie shouted as she grabbed a black duffle and jumped into the seat beside Charlotte.

  Maggie reached subtly into a small locker, grabbed an object, and slid it into the back of her waistband. We couldn’t see what it was, but we didn’t have to. This Maggie woman was smart, and she’d clearly experienced the darker side of life before.

  Before Charlotte could get them moving, one of the guys jumped from their RHIB onto the Sunrunner. He stood right in front of the camera’s view. He was an angry-looking guy, dressed out in full tactical gear and holding what looked like a baton in his right hand.

  Suddenly, Charlotte punched the throttles, causing the engine to roar and the boat to accelerate rapidly. Their unwelcomed intruder lost his balance and nearly fell over the edge. He dropped down and grabbed hold of the transom to stabilize himself as the boat quickly picked up speed.

  Struggling to his feet, the guy grabbed his baton and stepped toward Maggie. Charlotte jerked the helm, cutting a hard turn to starboard to try and get the guy to fall over the side. The camera slid across the dashboard, flipping onto its side and wedging against the port windscreen. The viewing angle had been bad before, but it instantly became even worse. All we could see was a patch of open ocean through the glass as we listened to the continued gunfire. I caught a glimpse of something dark far out over the horizon, but my attention was quickly redirected elsewhere.

  We heard Maggie scream, followed by a loud crashing sound and a hard thud. Gunshots suddenly filled the air. Clearly, Maggie had grabbed her weapon and was firing back. After a few blurry, chaotic seconds, she gave out a shrill cry.

  The Sunrunner jerked suddenly, sending the camera flying down to the deck. The screen went black in an instant, and we could only listen as the steady roar of the engine continued. I looked down and realized that my right fist was clenched hard. Anger swelled up inside of me. I wished for the ability to go back in time and be on that boat when those guys had attacked. Give me my M4, or even my Sig, and I’d have rained a hailstorm of bullets down on whoever those bastards were.

  Charles paused the footage and said, “That’s it. The rest is just the boat cruising until the battery dies.”

  “Rewind it,” I said, my mind dwelling on a brief glimpse of footage.

  I stepped over and grabbed the remote from Charles’s hand. Holding up the remote, I rewound for roughly thirty seconds, then hit play.

  “What is it?” Charles asked.

  “I saw something,” I replied.

  Less than a second after I pressed play, the camera flew across the dash again and the open ocean came into view. Once the view stabilized as best as could be expected given the speed of the Sunrunner, I pressed pause.

  “There,” I said, stepping toward the monitor and pointing to a spot in the upper left-hand corner. I pointed at the dark foreign object I’d noticed earlier. Even after pausing the footage and stepping closer, it was still difficult to see.

  “What is that?” Charles asked, stepping closer to me and putting his face right up to the screen.

  It was hard to tell from so far away, but whatever it was, it looked huge and sure as hell didn’t look like a boat. Instead of rounded, smooth lines, it had straight sides and squared edges. It looked about as aerodynamic as an English double-decker bus.

  As I looked closer and tilted my head slightly, a lightbulb suddenly went off in my head.

  “Oh my
…” I said, my words trailing off as my brain tried to rationalize what I was seeing.

  Ange and Charles both looked at me in bewilderment.

  “That’s an oil rig,” I said.

  Charles looked back at the screen again.

  “An oil rig?” he said.

  Ange slid her smartphone from her front pocket, typed in an internet search, and quickly brought up an image of an offshore oil rig. She held it out in front of us, and our eyes scanned back and forth between the image on her phone and the one on the screen.

  “Shit, that’s exactly what it is,” Ange said.

  I did a few quick calculations in my head. We’d first seen the Sunrunner appear near Snipe Point at 1345, roughly five hours after the timestamp on the recording when Charlotte had punched the throttles. I estimated that the 150-hp Evinrude would push the aluminum-hulled runabout to a top speed of a little under forty knots. That meant that the boat had traveled approximately two hundred miles before crashing. I remembered the extra gas tanks at the Sunrunner’s stern. It was a good thing they’d brought so much, or the boat never would’ve been able to travel so great a distance at its top speed.

  “An oil rig two hundred miles from the Keys?” I said. “I’ve never heard of one being so far south before.”

  “As far as I know, it’s against the law,” Charles said. “Which could explain why those guys shot at the two women.”

  Ange shook her head, unable to take in everything that was being said.

  “So you mean to tell me,” she said, “that these guys are running an entire oil-sucking operation, right under everyone’s noses? That’s impossible. What, you think they shoot at every single passing boat to keep them away?”

  “It’s the bottles,” I said. I rewound the tape back to the beginning and pointed at Maggie as she took a sample. “Maggie and Charlotte must have been doing something that could jeopardize their operation.”

  I paused for a moment, then headed for the door.

  “Thanks, Charles,” I said. “Now we at least have a trail to follow.”