by Matthew Rief
Her eyes grew big, then she nodded and looked forward. “Damn.”
We both opened our doors simultaneously, dropped down, and searched the undercarriage of my truck from front to back.
Rashad rolled down his window and poked his head out.
“Hoodie Guy?” he asked.
Neither of us answered him. We spent a few minutes searching but found nothing out of the ordinary. Looking over my truck, I was able to see the extent of the beating I’d just put it through. The paint was scratched up to hell and there were branches caught in just about every nook and cranny. I pulled a few of them loose, then met Ange beside the smooshed-in tailgate.
“We gotta have someone look it over,” I said.
She nodded. We both knew just the guy to go to. We hopped back inside, slammed the doors, and cruised back onto Shrimp Road. On the ride over, I called Charles and gave him a quick rundown of what had happened on Cow Key. We kept a sharp eye out for any more bad guys, and after just a few minutes of driving, we reached our destination. After hanging up, I turned my phone off again just in case.
I pulled us into the dirt driveway of a rundown auto shop. Old cars were lined up around us and ahead of us was a metal building with a row of three closed garage doors. There was a sign out front with faded green letters that read “Carl’s Automotive.” It was owned by Carl Miller, a former Army mechanic who’d worked primarily on Humvees in Iraq. I’d met him a handful of times, mostly when he and Pete hung out at the restaurant. I’d learned that he’d been the head mechanic of his unit before finishing his second tour. He’d also mentioned that he’d been the final eyes to look over a vehicle before VIPs rode in them. If there was a guy in the Keys who could find a bug on my truck, it was him.
Upon seeing me pull up, Carl stepped out from a door in the garage. He was a big guy who liked to wear cutoff shirts that showed off his numerous tattoos. I rarely saw him without a cigarette, and he walked with a slight limp as a result of getting hit by a piece of shrapnel from an IED.
“Hey, Carl,” I said, rolling down my window and shaking his hand. “I need you to check every inch of her,” I added, getting straight to the point.
“Jeez, Logan,” he said in his low voice. “She looks like hell. What, did you pick a fight with an island and lose?”
“Something like that. But disregard the cosmetics for now. I think it may be compromised.”
He waved a hand at me. “Say no more, brother. Just roll her into that empty spot on the right.”
I did as he said, then killed the engine. One of his assistants came over and slammed the garage door shut behind us. I stepped out, wanting to learn a thing or two from someone who knew more than I ever could about cars. He put on his glasses, bent down, and took all of about six seconds to find what he was looking for.
“Not bad,” he said. “I’d give it about a four out of ten. Whoever did this knew what he was doing, but I’ve seen much better.”
I knelt down beside him and he pointed to a tiny black rectangle that was almost perfectly flat and blended in with the undercarriage.
“It’s magnetized,” he said, reaching under and gripping it with his dirty fingers.
He pulled it free and held it out to me. I grabbed it and looked it over. There were no markings except a small groove at one end, where I suspected it could be pried open with a flathead screwdriver.
“You know, Dodge,” Carl said, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow and rising to his feet, “you get into this much trouble as a civvy, I can’t imagine what your tours were like.”
I smiled, then stood up beside him and shook his hand.
“Thanks, Carl,” I said. “Drinks are on me next time I see you at Pete’s.”
He grinned. “Sounds fair.”
I headed for the driver’s-side door and hopped in as he reopened the garage door. He walked over and leaned in my window just before I pulled out.
“I’d try and find a good home for that little guy,” he said with a wink. “Sucker’s still kicking.” He tapped my door and added, “Come on by when you want to do something about the body.”
As I pulled out of the garage, I grabbed my phone and saw that Scott had replied to my earlier message. He said that he’d be able to meet me that evening and that we should meet up at the Golden Anchor.
I pulled up near a bus stop on the way back to Key West. There was an eastbound bus with its doors open, letting a few people off and then a few people on. I strolled over to its side, knelt down, and attached the tracker.
“Good riddance,” I said, turning back to my Tacoma.
The bus groaned as the hydraulics raised it up from the curb, then it took off down US-1.
“You need a ride to the airport, Rashad?” I asked as we drove back over to Key West.
“Airport?”
I shrugged. “Figured you’d be heading back up north.” He paused a moment, so I continued, “Look, I appreciate you coming down here and your information. I’m just not sure there’s anything else you can help us with.”
Ange turned around to look at him.
“And the longer you stay here,” she said, “the greater the chances are that you’ll get yourself killed.”
He sat quietly for a few seconds.
“I was planning to talk to Wilkes as well,” he said. “He’s a smart guy, and it would help the situation if I told him everything I’ve told you guys.”
“You know the sheriff?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeah. He was my boss’s boss when I was first hired at the Bureau. It surprised everyone when he up and retired. He was great at his job.”
Small world, I thought.
“We can talk to Charles,” I said. “But trust me, you don’t want to be down here any longer than necessary. In fact, you should probably lie low for a while. It’s only a matter of time before the wrong people find out that you helped us, if they don’t know already.”
He went silent and looked out his window. I could tell that he wanted to do more, but he’d helped enough already.
“I’m staying at the Slice of Paradise Motel,” he said. “I have things there.”
“You rent a car?” I asked.
“No. I just took a taxi from the airport and walked to where we ran into each other in front of that restaurant.”
“How’d you know we’d be there?” I said.
“Your phone. You’d be surprised how easy those things are to track if you know what you’re doing. That’s why I keep pestering you about it. If I figured out your number, those rich, powerful assholes have as well.”
We kept our eyes peeled, making sure that no one was following us as we drove back into Key West. We headed south and pulled into the Slice of Paradise Motel, a slightly rundown four-story establishment just a short walk down the waterfront from Smathers Beach. It had a modest pool and a small dock with a dinghy tied off. A couple of kids were fishing at the end.
“Be careful,” I said as he opened the back door. “And thanks for the intel.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Thanks for taking care of those bad guys. I just wish I could do more.”
“You’ve done enough,” Ange said.
He nodded and stepped out.
“I’ll book a flight out of here as soon as possible.”
He slammed the door shut, then walked over and disappeared through the side door of the motel.
“So?” Ange said, focusing her gaze on me. “I know Scott messaged you. What’s the plan now?”
He wanted to meet with us that evening in Miami, and the last thing I wanted to do was deal with US-1 traffic all the way up the Keys.
“Your Cessna’s at Tarpon, right?”
She smiled, and I drove us out of the parking lot.
SEVENTEEN
It was 1500 by the time we pulled into Tarpon Cove Marina, a small privately owned marina that’s only about a mile northeast of my house. Ange’s white-and-blue Cessna 182 Skylane was tied off at the end of a narrow dock, flanked
on either side by small boats.
I’d shot a text to Jack on the drive over and he’d agreed to watch Atticus for us until we got back. Stepping out onto the pavement, I grabbed my backpack along with the plastic bag of food we’d bought a few hours earlier at Salty Pete’s. We’d managed to eat a few fish tacos on the drive over but were both looking forward to scarfing down the rest of the food midflight.
We strode down the dock, did a quick external inspection of the plane, then climbed aboard. I was a decent pilot, but Ange had way more flight hours than I did, so I plopped down onto the copilot seat. We each donned a headset and she ran through the preflight checklist with practiced precision. Once ready, she called into the air traffic control tower at Key West International to request takeoff. Ange gave him our flight plan, then he went over current conditions as well as flight limitations. Once finished, he cleared us for takeoff.
I removed the headset, climbed out and untied the lines, then Ange roared the 230-hp engine to life. Once back inside, I slid the headset on as Ange eased us away from the dock. We both did a final check of our surroundings, making sure we had enough room for takeoff. Within minutes she had us up, climbing quickly in elevation and banking right for a northeasterly heading. It had a cruising speed of a hundred and fifty knots, meaning that we’d reach Miami in just under an hour weather permitting.
It was a clear day with a five-knot crosswind blowing in from the east. I took in the incredible view, peering through the glass at the islands and turquoise waters below. She steadily brought us up to our cruising altitude of ten thousand feet, then switched on the autopilot. I handed her a Styrofoam container of food and we both dug in. We hadn’t eaten much since early that morning, so the food quickly disappeared.
“So where we heading to in Miami?” Ange asked, finishing up a few final bites. We had to raise our voices to hear each other, even with the headsets on. “And what’s the Golden Anchor anyway?”
I swallowed my final bite of fish taco. I’d shown Ange the message from Scott, not that it would do her any good. My messages with Scott wouldn’t make sense to anyone but us, and we preferred it that way.
“It’s a Chinese seafood restaurant. I think.”
“You think?”
“Well, I’ve never actually eaten there.”
She eyed me skeptically and I smiled at her confusion.
“You guys have a strange way of doing things,” she said.
I laughed as a memory came back to me in my mind.
“Back in ‘97 Scott and I had both been temporarily assigned to Dam Neck, Virginia. We’d been given a rare long weekend and decided to fly down to the Keys. It was Scott’s first time to the islands, and we spent two full days diving and fishing with Jack from sunup to sundown. That was actually the same weekend I found the Aztec coin. Crazy to think about.”
I shook my head and smiled, remembering the good times.
“And this has something to do with a Chinese restaurant in Miami?” Ange asked, looking at me like I had a few loose screws.
I chuckled.
“Yeah. Well, it was January and Atlanta was hit with a bad snowstorm that grounded our connecting flight, along with about a thousand other flights. There were no direct flights to Norfolk, so we ended up renting a car and driving the whole way. Jack’s dad had told us we had to check out a place called the Golden Anchor. The funny thing is we never actually found the place, but we did stumble upon a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint.”
“And that’s where we’re heading?”
I nodded.
After a moment she said, “Wait a second. You guys drove from Key West to Virginia Beach straight through?”
“Yep. Took us just over twenty hours and a couple gallons of coffee, but we arrived a whole thirty minutes before morning muster. PT that morning was hell, I’ll tell you.” I grabbed my water bottle from my backpack, took a few swigs, then handed it to Ange. “Anyway, I’d recommend dropping down just south of the city. The water in front of Kennedy Park is usually pretty sparse, and we could tie off at the Coral Yacht Club for a few hours. The spot we’re meeting him at is just a few blocks inland from there.”
I punched the location into the GPS. Thirty minutes later, Ange took control and began the slow, steady descent over the northern section of Biscayne Bay. Clusters of skyscrapers loomed in the distance, surrounded by seemingly never-ending blocks of buildings and housing communities.
She brought us down easy between Key Biscayne and Coconut Grove, flying right over our prospected landing zone to check that the area was clear of boats before sweeping back around. With the grace and composure of a professional pilot, she splashed us down softly just offshore from the lush green vegetation of Kennedy Park. Slowly, she maneuvered us into an empty slot along one of the docks in front of the yacht club.
I opened my door, stepped down from the starboard pontoon onto the dock, and tied us off. Ange shut down the engine, then grabbed my bag and locked the plane. Grabbing her by the hips, I lifted her over onto the dock and pressed my lips to hers.
“Hell of a landing, Captain,” I said.
She blushed. “I’m glad you enjoyed the free ride because you’re the captain on the way back.”
“So, you trust me with your plane now?”
She brought her hand up and pinched her chin playfully.
“On second thought, you make an awfully good copilot.”
We headed down the dock, paid the attendant for a day’s moorage, then traversed a couple of blocks to the pizza joint. On the walk over, I glanced across the street and smiled when I saw that Piper’s Pawn Shop was still in business. It was the same place where Scott and I had sold the Aztec coin twelve years earlier. I could almost see myself, barely twenty years old, walking out with a handful of cash and a big smile on my face.
Heading around the corner, we reached our destination. Luigi’s Kitchen was still exactly how I remembered it. Not only did the place not have a sign displaying its name, it didn’t even have an open sign or anything else that would indicate that it was a restaurant. From outward appearances, the old, raggedy corner space looked like a foreclosed tattoo parlor. How we’d managed to stumble into it years ago was beyond me. Hell, how anyone found it was a mystery.
“We flew all the way from Key West for this?” Ange said as I stepped toward the wooden door. She stopped, eyed the place up and down, then looked back at me. “You know, we’re not married yet, Dodge. I can still back out of this thing if I see you’ve given up trying.”
I grinned and laughed for a few seconds.
“First of all,” I said, “we already ate. And second, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”
She smiled, shrugged, and entered when I opened the door for her. The place didn’t look much better on the inside. It was worn down, in need of a paint job, decorating, and just about every other project you could imagine. There were only a handful of scattered tables and chairs, and two booths along the back wall. Scott was sitting in one of the booths, chowing down on a slice as we walked in. It was one of the last places in the world you’d expect to find a senator, but Scott wasn’t like most career politicians. Though he did usually wear a suit, he was sporting jeans and a navy-blue long-sleeved shirt. He was a good-looking guy. Clean-cut with short black hair, a good build, and a ready smile.
We made eye contact, walked over, and slid onto the torn-up bench seat across from him.
“Sorry, I was starving,” he said, wiping the grease from his hands with a napkin. “You guys hungry?”
I waved him off. If I wasn’t so full I would’ve taken him up on the offer for sure. It smelled and looked amazing.
“Ate on the flight over—”
“I’ll take a slice of supreme,” Ange said to the skinny freckle-faced kid wearing a red apron and standing idly beside the table. She glanced over at me and added, “I’ve worked up quite the appetite today.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the kid said. “Anything to drink?”
“
Just waters for the table,” she replied.
He smiled, then scurried back into the kitchen.
“You sure changed your mind quick,” I said.
Scott looked us both over for a few seconds, then finished chewing a bite of crust and swallowed.
“Why don’t we ever see each other under normal circumstances anymore?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“My guess is that one of us has a career that keeps him chained to a desk all day.”
“Yeah. Well, next chance I get to take a vacation, I’m flying south. I could use some diving in my life.” He paused a moment, took a sip of water, and cleared his throat. “So, you’ve both been busy down there. What can you tell me about all of this?”
The kid returned with two glasses of ice water and one of the biggest slices of cheesy, New York style supreme pizza you’ve ever seen in your life. Ange dug right in, giving me the floor. I didn’t want to waste time, so I went straight to the point.
“Well, the short version is that Zhao Petroleum is working with the Wake Corporation. But Wake is planning to throw Zhao under the bus at the expense of an entire ecosystem. And he’s hired Carson and her Darkwater posse to make sure everything goes according to his plan.”
Scott paused a moment, confused by my words.
“At the expense of an entire ecosystem?” he asked, his eyebrows raised. “What are you talking about?”
“They plan to cause a massive oil spill,” Ange said.
Scott’s mouth dropped open. His entire persona shifted in an instant. His face tightened, his eyes narrowed. He looked over at me and I nodded.
“Yeah. It’s bad, Scott. Much worse than we thought.”
He took in a deep breath and sighed.
“An oil spill that close to land would quickly become an environmental catastrophe,” he said. “The Gulf would never be the same again, especially the Florida coast.” He looked out through the far window that displayed a dirty image of the street corner. Clearing his throat, he added, “How in the hell did you guys find out about all this anyway?”
“An agent came to us in Key West,” I said. “Told us he was an FBI analyst and that the Bureau didn’t know he was there. His name’s Rashad Nadar.”