Corruption in the Keys

by Matthew Rief

A few minutes later, I pulled us slowly into my driveway. Ange and I both scanned over every inch of the yard and house. It looked undisturbed, and my security system hadn’t sent me any alerts. It would take a team of really good criminals to get past my security system, as I’d installed it personally and had added a few tricks I’d learned throughout the years. I was confident that no one had been there. I also reasoned that if what they were planning was gonna go down early the following morning, my guess was that Carson would have all of her goons back on the oil rig to protect it.

  I parked the truck and we headed inside. In the kitchen, I filled Atticus’s water bowl, then grabbed a few bottles of water and joined Ange out on the living room couch. I grabbed my laptop from the bedroom and brought up the blueprints on the USB Allen had given us. It was 1530, which meant that we had a few hours until go time. We wanted to use the time well, to plan out the infiltration as best we could.

  Jack and Pete showed up an hour later. I gave them both a quick rundown of the plan but told them that they were by no means obligated to come with us.

  “It could be dangerous, for both of you,” I said. I’d told them that Pete would be piloting the Cessna while Jack handled the boat and watched from afar. That was, if they were willing. “If you can’t I’ll understand. We can try and find somebody—”

  Pete waved his metal hook in the air. “That’ll be enough of talk like that. I’m with you. I want to get these guys the hell out of my paradise.”

  Pete had served as a pilot in Vietnam and had borrowed Ange’s Cessna a couple of times. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more comfortable with Ange in the pilot’s seat. Pete had a flair for the dramatic, and the reckless, whenever he took control of a plane. But I needed Ange with me on the rig. I hated putting her at risk, but I needed someone who could handle themselves and someone I trusted. And there was no one I trusted more than Ange.

  “I’m with you too, bro,” Jack said. “You sure you don’t want me to drop down with you? We could find someone else to handle the boat, and I’m sure Ange has more than one chute in her Cessna.”

  “One maniac parachuting down onto a working oil rig is attention-getting enough,” I said. “I don’t want to risk another jumper. Besides, we need you on the boat.”

  We continued going over the plan, discussing the various stages. It would require a team effort, and we all needed to be on the same page ahead of time because once we turned on the jammer, we’d lose all communications. I knew that it would be difficult, even with a well-thought-out plan. There were a lot of unknowns, the biggest one being we didn’t know how many members of Darkwater were going to be on the rig. Ange and I would have to be very quiet, and careful not to kick the hornet’s nest before ensuring the well was secured.

  After a few hours of looking over the rig and after numerous mugs of coffee, we felt like we were all on the same page. I stepped out onto the balcony to take a breather and to clear my head. While I looked out over my backyard and the channel beyond it, my phone vibrated to life in my pocket. I slid my hand into my pocket, pulled it out, and saw that it was a local number that I didn’t recognize. I answered and held my phone up against my right ear.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Logan, it’s Dr. Patel,” the voice on the other end said. His voice was softer than usual. Before I could ask why he’d called, he continued, “It’s about Charles.” He spoke gravely, the words slowly coming out of his mouth, and he sighed. “He… he didn’t make it, Logan.”

  I heard him, but his words were a blur to me. It felt like I was in a bad dream. I’d lost people who were close to me before, both in battle and in ordinary life. Most things you can get used to if they happen to you enough. But every time I’ve lost someone it hurt just the same, and this time was no different.

  I couldn’t place the feeling I had at that moment. It was a special blend of anger, sorrow, and resentment. If Rashad had done what I’d told him and gotten out of the Keys that morning, this wouldn’t have happened. If I’d done a better search of the hotel room after entering, I could’ve found and possibly disabled the bomb. If I’d just helped the women and left everything else to the authorities, Carson wouldn’t have come after me, and Charles would’ve never been targeted.

  Regardless of all of the what-if crap, Charles was gone and none of that would bring him back.

  I stayed silent on the phone for I don’t know how long. My mind was playing over past events, as well as the night to come.

  “Logan?” Doc said. “Did you hear me?”

  I cleared my throat, took in a deep breath of ocean air.

  “I heard you.”

  He paused a moment.

  “Alright,” he said. “Look, I’m not a violent man, Logan. And I usually don’t condone violence toward others, but—”

  “I understand, Doc,” I said, knowing exactly what he was getting at. “We’re going to take care of this.”

  We ended the call, and I realized I was squeezing my phone so hard that I was almost breaking it. I loosened my grip, slid it back into my pocket, then placed my hands on the mahogany railing and looked out over the water. I wasn’t surprised by the news. Charles had been messed up bad. He’d been restrained less than ten feet away from the explosion. My body was still sore all over from the blast, and I’d been thirty feet away with a wall to block me.

  My grip tightened on the railing and I did my best to control my breathing.

  “Everything alright?” Ange asked.

  She’d stepped out and I hadn’t even noticed. It was a rhetorical question. Ange knew me well enough to know when something was wrong.

  “It’s Charles,” I said as she walked over to the railing beside me. “He’s gone.”

  She looked out over the channel and replied, “He was a good man.”

  I nodded and my eyes narrowed.

  “I know that face,” she said sternly, “and you’d better get rid of those thoughts or I’ll beat them out of you myself.” I glanced over at her, and she added, “This wasn’t your fault. He knew the dangers.” She placed a hand on my shoulder, leaned over to look me in the eyes. “Logan, this wasn’t your fault. I’m not saying that there’s any way of making this right. But if we don’t pull this thing off tonight, his death will have been for nothing. You need to channel that anger. Take it out on the ones responsible, and that doesn’t include you.”

  I took in a few breaths, mulling over her words. She was right.

  I wrapped an arm around her, and we spent a few more minutes out on the balcony before heading inside and telling the others. The news hit Jack and Pete hard as well, especially Pete. He’d known Charles for years, long before he’d ever decided to retire from the FBI and move down to the islands. It quickly shifted the mood inside the living room, and I could see the resolve on everyone’s face.

  TWENTY-TWO

  An hour before sunset, I received a text from Scott.

  “Jellyfish Sting. Set. Hooyah.”

  To an outsider, our messages were nothing more than random nonsense. It was our own way of communicating, just in case anyone with ill intentions ever hacked into our phones.

  Scott had been stung by a jellyfish during one of our trips down to the Keys a few years back. The funny part was that I’d given him a hard time and then been stung myself just thirty minutes later. There’d been hundreds of the slimy alien-looking creatures dancing about in the water that day, and I remembered the spot well. The word set was just verifying that we were meeting the boat at sundown, and hooyah is the Navy battle cry. Combined, he was letting me know to meet the boat between Channel and Bush Key just after sunset. He didn’t say who he’d gotten to deliver the boat, but I was sure that it was someone he trusted.

  I headed for the master bedroom closet and opened up my safe using the biometric scanner and keypad. I grabbed two extra fully-loaded magazines for my Sig, and Ange grabbed two for her Glock as well. I also grabbed two bulletproof vests, one for each of us. Closing it up, I loaded mine i
nto a duffle bag along with a pair of boots, black tactical pants, a black long-sleeved shirt, and a few throwing knives. Ange loaded up her gear as well, and we headed for the door alongside Jack and Pete. After locking up the house, I grabbed a one-hundred-foot coil of nylon rock-climbing rope out of my downstairs closet along with a climbing harness and zipped both into my backpack.

  We took separate vehicles over to the marina. Ange and I rode in my Tacoma, while Jack and Pete rode in his Wrangler. Once at the marina, we unloaded everything, headed down the dock, and climbed aboard the Baia.

  I looked up and saw Gus walking down the dock, heading toward us.

  “What’s up, Gus?” Jack said as he untied one of the lines.

  “Logan,” he said, his eyes cast down at the planks. “Somebody broke into the office and stole your drone, man. I’m sorry, dude, and I’ll buy you a new one, I promise.”

  I waved him off. I didn’t have time to deal with it.

  “It’s okay, Gus,” I said. “It’s been a wild couple of days with all the celebrations going on. Probably just some drunk adolescents.”

  “Look, if you broke it, just be honest about it,” Jack joked, slapping his friend on the shoulder.

  Gus gave a sarcastic laugh, then said, “You guys going out for the sunset?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  He apologized again and helped Jack with the lines. Within minutes, we had the engines running, the lines cast off, and the propellers spinning. I eased us away from the dock and out toward the opening of the harbor. The sun was dropping down over the horizon behind patches of clouds, causing the sky to turn purple. The winds had picked up and were gusting in from the east at about ten knots. Judging by the clouds, Pete said it was likely to rain for at least an hour in the evening.

  Channel Key is only about six miles from the marina, just north of Boca Chica Key. We motored up alongside the uninhabited thirty-acre island right at 1930, just as the sun disappeared. I idled the engine off the northwest shore of the island, and we waited.

  “Wind’s gonna pick up even more,” Pete said.

  He’d climbed up onto the bow and was looking out over the basin.

  “Great,” I said, thinking I’d picked a hell of a night to parachute down onto an oil rig.

  I looked out at the approaching dark clouds, then glanced at the barometer. The air pressure was low and getting lower with each passing minute. It would allow the rising air to cool and condense into rain. Pete didn’t need instruments or a weather channel to figure that out, though. He’d lived in the islands for so long that predicting the weather was an instinct.

  Thirty minutes passed and no boats came near us. I tried to message Scott but got no reply. Then I tried calling him, but he didn’t answer.

  “Where the hell is this boat?” I said, frustrated that he wasn’t picking up.

  A dark and uncomfortable thought entered my mind. What if he was compromised? What if Carson had found out we’d met with him and had sent guys to take him out? She’d figured out my sat phone number, and she knew Scott and I were close.

  I shook my head and threw the thought from my mind. Even if she had sent guys after Scott, he was still the same guy he used to be and could take care of himself. Even if he had traded his hours in the field for hours sitting behind a desk.

  “I’m sure if Scott said the boat would be here, it’ll be here,” Ange said. “You sure this is the place he meant?”

  I nodded and pointed at a narrow cut that traversed through the heart of the little island beside us.

  “He was stung right over there,” I said.

  “Oh yeah,” Jack said. “I remember that day. At least he didn’t fall for the old whiz-on-the-sting-to-soothe-it gag.”

  Just under a minute later, I heard the sound of engines and water splashing against the hull of a boat. I directed my gaze off the stern and spotted what appeared to be an old shrimping trawler motoring into view around the southern part of the island. It looked vaguely familiar, even from a distance. The sky was already pretty dark, so I grabbed my night vision monocular for a better look.

  “Shoot,” Ange said, shaking her head. “For a second, I thought that might be our ride.”

  I focused my gaze, zoomed in slightly, then smiled.

  “It is,” I said, lowering the monocular and extending it to Ange. “Here. You might just recognize it.”

  She grabbed the monocular, took a quick look, then grinned as well.

  “You’ve got to hand it to him,” she said. “He sure knows how to deliver.”

  Jack and Pete strolled over behind us and looked out at the dark outline of the approaching boat, watching as it made a wide turn to head straight for us.

  “A shrimp trawler?” Pete said, bewildered out of his mind.

  “That monster’s gonna take half a day to reach the rig, bro,” Jack said. “What is he, cra—”

  He stopped himself midspeech after taking his turn and peering at the approaching trawler through the monocular.

  “Wait, isn’t that the same old piece of garbage that you snuck aboard last month?” Jack said.

  “That’s her alright,” I replied. “She may look like garbage, but that boat’s got a lot of secrets up her sleeves.”

  My smile broadened as the trawler motored closer and closer. It was the same boat that Drago Kozlov had used to hunt me down in Cay Sal Bank. The same one Kyle and I had subsequently taken over a few days later just a quick boat ride northeast of where we were idling. I smiled at the irony of the situation. Using the rundown-looking trawler that Carson had sent after us against her was a great idea. Poetic justice.

  By outward appearances, the sixty-foot trawler was on its last legs, and ready to sink at any moment. It was covered in rust and was in dire need of a paint job. Its windows were cracked, its railings had missing sections, and most of the equipment on the deck was broken. But beneath its decrepit exterior, the trawler was a completely different animal altogether. She had top-of-the-line electronics, a powerful radar, and in the engine room, two 800-hp Mercruiser engines that combined to push the big boat through the water at speeds of up to forty knots.

  After our engagement with Drago and his thugs, the trawler had been taken to Queen Anne’s Salvage for temporary storage. I’d expected it to be shipped off to some scrapyard up north, but apparently, I was wrong.

  We watched as it slowed up alongside us. I figured that Scott would’ve had one of the workers at Queen Anne’s deliver it, so I was caught off guard when the pilothouse door opened.

  “Ahoy, Dodging Bullets,” Scott said, stepping out into the warm evening air and striding toward the starboard gunwale. The looks on our faces were probably exactly what he was hoping for. “You didn’t think I’d let you guys have all the fun, did you?”

  I stepped down onto the swim platform and extended my hand.

  “Thanks, Scottie,” I said. “But bringing us the boat and equipment is more than enough. We can handle this.”

  “I’m sure you can. But like I said, it’s been too long since I came down here.” He looked around at the dark, cloud-covered sky. The wind had picked up even more and was blowing into the shrubs on nearby Channel Key. “Besides, it’s a beautiful night for a dive.”

  I shook my head. “You’re crazy, man.”

  He laughed. “Well, crazy loves company.”

  Jack and I threw a few fenders over the side, then we tied off to the trawler. We created an assembly line to haul the necessary gear up from the guest cabin, which included both sets of rebreather gear, two dry suits, two bulletproof vests, and both of my Aquanaut Pro sea scooters. On deck, we filled mesh bags with fins, masks, underwater compasses, dive flashlights, and extra dive knives.

  Once everything was aboard the trawler, we spent a few minutes filling Scott in on the plan. He’d really one-upped himself. There wasn’t a boat in the islands better suited for our purposes than that trawler. He’d even filled up a few extra tanks of fuel, giving the trawler a max ra
nge of over six hundred miles. Even if he gunned it full throttle all the way to the oil rig, it’d still have more than enough juice to make it back.

  Jack and Scott both climbed aboard the trawler. Ange hesitated a moment at the stern of the Baia. She turned to face me as I strode toward her, wrapped her arms around me, and squeezed tight. She fit perfectly in my arms, and after a few seconds embracing, I tilted my head down and our lips touched passionately.

  “Curaçao,” she said, moving her head back a few inches and looking up at me with her brilliant blue eyes.

  I raised my eyebrows questioningly.

  “You asked where I wanted to have the wedding,” she said. “I choose Curaçao. Can’t think of a better place than that.”

  I smiled and nodded. My dad had owned a condo on the Dutch Caribbean island before he’d passed, and I’d been there well over a dozen times in my life. It’s a tropical paradise with beautiful beaches, a picturesque downtown area, and spectacular diving. She’d joined me on the island a few times, and we had a long list of great memories there.

  “I can’t think of a better place either, Ange,” I said.

  She wrapped her arms around me even tighter.

  “Just be careful, alright?” she said.

  “You too. The rebreathers are all set. Just give them their usual checks and warmups beforehand. The sea scooters are—”

  She placed a finger to my lips.

  “I got it. I’ll see you on the rig.”

  We kissed a second time, then she turned and hopped aboard the trawler. Digging into her front pocket, she pulled out the keys to her Cessna and tossed them over to Pete.

  “Not a scratch,” she said.

  Pete threw his hands in the air.

  “I’ll fly it like it’s my own, Miss Fox.”

  “That’s what worries me,” she said. She eyed him skeptically, then turned to look at me. “Watch him,” she added with a smile.

  I waved and told her I loved her as Jack eased up on the throttles, accelerating them away from the dock. Scott was at the stern, looking over the gear.