Corruption in the Keys

by Matthew Rief

  “Now what?” Jack said, taking a drink and wiping his lips.

  “I’m guessing they already know we’re here,” I said. “So I’m just gonna spook the nest and draw them out.”

  “I believe it’s kick the nest,” Ange said with a laugh.

  “Right. Kick the nest.”

  I reached into a locker beside the helm and pulled out an orange case. Hinging it open, I grabbed the Orion flare gun from inside and loaded up a single shell into the breech. I took aim over the starboard bow, holding it at an angle so that the flare would streak right across the sky in front of the rig.

  “What if these guys had nothing to do with the attack?” Jack said. “I mean, what if it’s just a coincidence? I’ve lived in the Keys all my life. It’s a relatively safe place, but bad things happen everywhere.”

  The word motive jumped into my mind. There was no way that it was a coincidence that two women who worked for the NOAA, and who’d secretly traveled to the Gulf of Mexico instead of Lake Superior, were taking water samples and all of a sudden were attacked randomly near a newly arrived oil rig. But I decided not to try and make my point.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” was all I said.

  I stepped back to the cockpit and turned on the VHF to channel sixteen, the emergency line. If the guys on the rig cared for our well-being, they’d try to contact us after seeing the flare. But I was betting that they’d have a different reaction.

  Taking a shooting stance, I aimed the flare and fired. The glowing orb of bright red and brilliant white rocketed high into the air with a burning hiss. The three of us watched as it soared across the sky, leaving a massive arced trail of white smoke behind it. Soon it plummeted toward the ocean, its glaring blaze vanishing in an instant, extinguished by the water.

  I grabbed my binos and zoomed in on the base of the rig. Sure enough, as I brought the view into focus, I saw a group of guys moving about near the edge of the freighter. After a few seconds, they began lowering two boats down into the water using cranes. I glanced over my shoulder at the VHF radio on the dash. It was alive and working properly, but we hadn’t received any form of comms.

  “They’re watching us,” Ange said. She was peering through the binos. “Eleven o’clock. Up near the main deck of the rig.”

  She handed them to me, and I took another look. The rig had many levels, and near the main one, I spotted two guys looking through binos right back at us.

  “Jack, let’s get you geared up—”

  “Already on it, bro,” he said, stepping up from the salon, his body already partially covered by my 3mm full-body wetsuit. He held a tank of nitrox in his left hand and one of my BCDs in the other. I stopped him as he headed past me toward the sunbed.

  “Hey, I said no bubbles,” I said, placing a hand against his shoulder. “If these guys take the bait, we can’t let them know where you are.”

  “Alright, alright,” he said, making an about-face and heading back into the salon.

  He returned a few seconds later and handed me one of my rebreathers. The beauty of rebreathers is that they’re a closed-circuit system. This means that instead of exhalations being released to the surface, they’re filtered, recycled, and used over again. Not only is this a nice benefit when you’re trying to be stealth, but rebreathers can also give you longer stay times.

  After setting the gear on the sunbed, he slid his arms into the wetsuit sleeves and zipped it up the back. As he donned his wetsuit, I went over the predive checks for the rebreather. I performed routine maintenance on all my gear and used the rebreathers frequently, so it came as no surprise to me that all aspects of the intricate piece of diving equipment came back satisfactory. The filter was good, the CO2 cartridge was fully charged, and it passed all watertight integrity checks.

  Once done with my checks, I powered it on, warming it up while gathering the rest of the gear. Reaching into the locker beside the dinette, I pulled out a pair of fins and a full-face dive mask. I also grabbed a coil of braided nylon dock line that I kept on board just in case I needed more anchor rode.

  Jack sat on the edge of the sunbed and brought the rebreather straps over his shoulders. I helped him to stabilize and tighten the straps of the bulky device, but he didn’t need it. Jack had been diving all his life and could don a set of any brand of scuba or rebreather gear faster than most avid divers, even if he was blindfolded.

  Once the rebreather was secured, he strapped one of my full-face dive masks over his head. The mask was top-of-the-line. It had a large viewing window, durable construction, and an ultrasonic transceiver which would allow us to communicate with him while he was underwater. We performed a quick check to make sure the comms were working, then he stepped down onto the swim platform.

  Jack sat on the transom as he donned his fins and strapped his dive knife to the left flap of his rebreather. Ange handed him her spare Glock 19 in a plastic waterproof holster, and he quickly tightened it around his right thigh. Once he was ready, he stood and gave me a thumbs-up. I grabbed the coil of rope and a deflated rolled-up safety sausage, handing them both to Jack.

  “I thought you didn’t want me to give away my position, bro,” he said into the radio, eyeing the safety sausage skeptically.

  I grinned.

  “Just a little something to distract them,” I said.

  He thought for a second, then held it out to me.

  “Gonna be tough to inflate with a rebreather, bro,” he said.

  “Shit,” I said.

  He was right, and I was surprised to have made such a rookie mistake. Kneeling down on the swim platform, I grabbed the sausage, inflated it, and stuck it in the water.

  “We’ll need something to weight it down,” I said, uncoiling the line.

  I turned to look back at the cockpit.

  “I got it,” Ange said.

  She reached into one of the dinette lockers and snatched something. Stepping down beside me, she held out a four-pound dive weight.

  “That’ll work,” I said, tying the weight to the end and then dropping it to dangle sixty feet down.

  The current was pretty stagnant for the time being, so I wasn’t terribly concerned about drifting. Still, I didn’t know how long it would be before anyone arrived. For the time being, I decided to pin the safety sausage onto the edge of the swim platform using another dive weight.

  “Maintain your depth in the open,” I said over the radio. “And be careful.”

  “You too,” he said, glancing at both me and Ange.

  He gave a salute with two fingers, then turned to face the ocean. The surface was relatively calm for this far out in the Gulf, but rollers still splashed up over the swim platform and over Jack’s fins. Timing the swells, he took a big step out and splashed into the water. Entering negatively buoyant, he immediately began to sink through the clear water.

  “All okay, Jack?” I asked through the com.

  “A-OK, bro,” he replied. “Aside from the bug in my mask.”

  I laughed, then turned my attention back to the oil rig. Grabbing my binos, I peered through and saw that the two boats were loaded and motoring quickly in our direction.

  Ange and I made quick preparations for what we both assumed wouldn’t be a friendly chitchat. I had my Sig, which was concealed under the right side of my waistband along with an extra magazine. I also had my dive knife strapped to the back of my belt, where it was hidden beneath my tee shirt but readily accessible. In addition, I grabbed my MP5N from my safe and stashed it under one of the white cushions surrounding my dinette.

  Ange was just as well armed, her Glock 19 and throwing knives hidden beneath her cutoff shorts. As I watched the two boats approach, I imagined that they were expecting about as much resistance as Maggie and Charlotte had offered. Needless to say, they were in for a surprise.

  Just a few minutes after Jack splashed into the water, I removed the weight holding the bright orange safety sausage in place and let it bob up and down just aft of the Baia’s stern
. The long, narrow manually inflated buoy stood out like a sore thumb among the never-ending blue surrounding it. I peered down into the clear water but couldn’t see any sign of Jack. The visibility was about eighty feet, so I knew he must have descended to at least that depth.

  “We need to keep them talking long enough for Jack to sabotage the props,” I said.

  I kept my gaze out over the starboard bow, watching as the boats approached. They’d cruised to within half a mile of our position, and it was only a matter of minutes before they’d reach us. When Ange didn’t reply, I turned around and realized that I was alone on deck.

  “Ange?” I said, raising my voice a few levels.

  She’d vanished, and I hadn’t heard so much as a soft shuffling of feet. I stepped across the cockpit and peeked down into the salon. I spotted her through the open main cabin door.

  “I’ll be right up,” she said, making brief eye contact with me.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just a little something to keep them talking,” she replied with a mischievous grin.

  I grabbed my sunglasses from the dashboard and slid them over my eyes. At the control station, I turned on the radio and was surprised to be getting a clear signal of Island Vibes, my favorite station in the Keys. I cranked it up and bobbed my head, trying to get into character. I was just a laid-back beach bum out on the water, enjoying the day with a few other defenseless friends.

  Opening my cooler beneath the dinette, I pulled out a Paradise Sunset beer and popped it open. Shuffling over to the sunbed, I lay down with my feet crossed, enjoying the sun as it kissed my exposed skin. I took a swig, then a deep breath of fresh air, and sighed.

  Nothing to worry about here. I’m about as threatening as a butterfly.

  The two boats both did a lap around the Baia, then pulled up slowly toward the stern. They were both black-hulled RHIBs, just like the one we’d seen back near Snipe. Ange still hadn’t returned from below deck, so it was all up to me to welcome our guests.

  “Ahoy!” I shouted over their grumbling engines. “Nice day to be out on the water, aye? You guys want a cold one?”

  On the surface, I probably looked about as suspicious as a sea sponge. But behind my dark-lensed sunglasses, my eyes scanned every inch of both of their boats. I was looking over all of them, taking mental notes of everything from their facial expressions to what kind of weapons they carried. There were three guys in each boat. They were big, tough-looking guys. Each appeared to have the words “No Bullshit” plastered across their foreheads.

  A big guy stood at the bow of the closest boat, and by their mannerisms, it was clear that he was the leader of this little group. He was a monster, well over my six two and probably weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. Like the other guys, he wore a black tee shirt and tactical pants. Practically all of his exposed skin was covered in cryptic-looking tattoos. He had short black hair, stern eyes, and a chiseled jaw. Judging by the shape of his nose, he’d been involved in more than his share of fistfights.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” the leader shouted at me.

  His voice was low and harsh. Atticus rose at the sound and eyed our visitors suspiciously.

  I took a good long swig of the ice-cold beer in my hand, grinned back at the guy.

  “Just out enjoying the beautiful day,” I said. “What about you guys?”

  “Why in the hell did you fire off that flare?”

  I chuckled. “Accident. Didn’t think the damn thing was loaded. Nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  He looked back at his men, then said a few words I couldn’t hear to the guy standing right behind him. Glancing back at me, he shook his head.

  “Well, get a move on,” he said. “You can’t be here.”

  I paused. Took another swig.

  “These are public waters,” I said. “Been coming here for years. We have as much a right to be here as you.”

  The guy looked agitated by my words. He grabbed a pistol from the holster on his hip. Held it at his side.

  “Not today you don’t,” he said. “And you’ve got two minutes to get this boat of yours out of my sight.”

  I held my hands in the air innocently, then set my beer on the sunbed and slid my feet over onto to the deck.

  “Alright,” I said. “Just relax, man. We’ll leave. No need to be so hostile about it.”

  The guy paused for a moment, then peered down at the water near the Baia’s stern.

  “What the fuck is that?” the guy said, pointing at the surface of the water. The orange safety sausage was moving slowly, heading southeast with the slow current.

  “You don’t dive much, do you? That’s a safety sausage.”

  “The hell’s it for?”

  “It’s used to mark a diver’s position. I don’t want to lose track of him and have the poor guy surface out of my sight. That could be a bad day for him if the current gets worse.”

  “There’s a diver down there?”

  “Of course there’s a diver down there,” I said. “That’s why we’re here. He’s down there filming hawksbill. There’s a lot of them in these waters this time of year.”

  “Get him the hell up!”

  I paused a moment, then shrugged.

  “He’s about eighty feet down.”

  “I don’t give a shit how deep he is. Tell him to come up, now!”

  I held both hands up in the air.

  “No way to communicate with him,” I said. “I could free dive down and get his attention.”

  “I don’t care how you do it,” he growled. “But like I said, if you aren’t out of my sight in two minutes, I’m blowing your head off.” Atticus jumped toward the transom and eyed the guy as he raised his voice. “And hold back that mutt of yours or he’s dead too.”

  I walked slowly toward Atticus, raised my hands in the air and tried my best to look weak.

  “Alright, man. Just chill out. We’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

  I whispered into Atticus’s ear, letting him know it was alright, then led him back toward the cockpit. I grabbed my dive mask from a nearby locker and stepped back to the swim platform.

  Just as my toes hit the wet fiberglass, Ange appeared up through the salon door behind me. I’d been wondering when she was going to make her entrance, and she hadn’t disappointed.

  “Owen, what’s going on?” she said, calling me by my middle name.

  She was using an accent I’d never heard from her before. She sounded like a sixteen-year-old Valley girl. Only her head was visible, and she was wearing a pair of big sunglasses.

  “Who are your friends, Owen?” she added.

  “Get your girl out where we can see her,” the guy barked. “You,” he added, pointing the gun at me. “In the water, now!”

  Ange stepped out onto the deck. She was still wearing her cutoff jean shorts, but she’d removed her shirt. She wore nothing else except a tiny red bikini top. Her hair was down, she’d obviously put makeup on, and her long tanned legs were recently oiled and glowed brilliantly under the early afternoon sun. She looked like a supermodel as she stepped aft toward me. All seven of us watched her for a few seconds, speechless.

  Damn, she was good at this.

  “I’m not his girl,” Ange said, giggling like a schoolgirl. “He’s my stepbrother.”

  The guy in charge ordered one of his men to bring their boat closer to the Baia. Within seconds the bow of the RHIB slid over the swim platform right beside me and the guy jumped over, throwing boating etiquette to the wind. The guy’s attention had shifted from me to Ange the moment he laid eyes on her.

  “You go and get your boy,” he said, shoving me aside. I went with it, pretending to almost fall into the drink. He slid his pistol back into its holster and added, “I’ll stay here and keep your sister company. In fact, if you feel like it, just do the world a favor and stay down there for good. We’ll take good care of her.”

  I’d fought many times over the course of my life. I�
�d fought for my country for years, and I’d stumbled into many different kinds of battles since. I’d killed men who would’ve killed me in an instant. Many were bad; some were probably very similar to me but had been manipulated by whoever was in charge of them. But this guy was a thoroughbred asshole. The kind of guy I could put down without the slightest bit of remorse.

  “One more thing,” I said, turning back to face the guy.

  He’d moved close to Ange and was eyeing her up and down.

  “What?” he said, agitated. He didn’t even bother turning his head to look at me.

  I glanced down at my dive watch. We’d managed to stall these guys for five minutes, plenty of time for Jack to finish his work.

  “We’re not actually here to look at hawksbill,” I said, my voice shifting from nervous as hell to confident in an instant.

  The guy shrugged and glanced over his shoulder at me.

  “Yeah? Then what the hell are you doing here? Bringing me this beautiful woman?”

  The guy still thought he was in control of the situation. Even the other five men with him hadn’t bothered to grab hold of their weapons, thinking that we were nothing more than a couple of harmless boaters. What they didn’t realize yet was that they were having a really bad day.

  “We’re looking for two women,” I said flatly. “One’s in her mid-twenties, the other mid-fifties. Both have red hair. Have you seen them? They’re scientists, and they were supposed to meet us out on the water today.”

  Ange and I both watched the guy carefully, observing how his expressions shifted. He tried his best to remain stoic, but I noticed his eye twitch. He also shifted his weight subtly, letting me know that he was growing uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had turned.

  He froze for a moment and stared at me. I narrowed my gaze at him and corrected my posture, standing with my chest high, and my lower body in an athletic stance.

  In an instant, his right hand sprang back for the pistol holstered to his hip. I grabbed my Sig tucked away beneath my waistband and raised it to fire. Before I could pull the trigger, a knife tore through the air and sliced into his right shoulder, causing him to loosen his grip on his pistol and let it fall lifelessly to the deck. He grunted in pain and his upper body hunched over. He reached for his weapon but never came close. I swung a hard side kick and my right foot hit him square in the face, causing his body to jolt backward and slam into the starboard gunwale.