Troubled Sea

by Jinx Schwartz

  Nicole continued, highlighting suspected drug delivery sites near San Felipe. Dragging her pointer towards Mexicali she said, “This is called the Cocaine Corridor and is under the control of the Tijuana Cartel, or cartels, as may be the case. But lately,” she aimed her laser pointer at the other side of the Sea, “we’ve noted an increase in activity here...in the State of Sonora.”

  Someone asked, “Does that mean the drogistas’ focus has shifted to the Arizona border?”

  “Yep. And so has ours. Our's and the border patrol’s—” A beep drew Nicole’s attention to another monitor. “Okay, gang, let’s go live and in living color to the Sea of Cortez where, according to the weather boys, the wind has up and died.”

  Jerry watched his attractive, efficient assistant captivate her new class of trainees. The leggy, mid-thirties Nicole, with her mane of shiny hair, reminded him of a colt—a thoroughbred colt. And she was as tough as she was sleek. Agent Kristin went after criminals with a vengeance born of just that: vengeance. She hated drugs and drug dealers with a passion not uncommon in those who have suffered a loss as a result of the drug trade. In Nicole’s case, it was the death of her kid brother from an overdose when he was barely thirteen. Nicole, still in college at the time, changed her major from English Lit to Law Enforcement.

  Nicole and Jerry, although diametric opposites physically, were ideological twins. Jerry, a mid-fifties slogger compared to the kick-ass-and-take-names-later-Nicole, was nonetheless her intellectual and philosophical counterpart. Neither agent had a personal life to speak of. Jerry suspected Nikki held a romanticized view on the subject, and both were obsessed with halting the increasing drug trade in Baja California and the Sea of Cortez. They had identified those areas as narco hot spots and focused their attention there long before aired footage of a recent drug related massacre.

  One morning the world woke to vivid images of nineteen bodies—men, women and children from the same family—sprawled in blackening pools of blood. The victims were dragged from their beds, lined up against a wall, and murdered, execution-style, with automatic weapons. Not in Beirut. Not in Iraq. In Mexico, outside of Ensenada, only eighty miles south of Jerry’s headquarters in San Diego. A rival cartel was strongly suspected. By noon on the day of the murders, Jerry had Washington’s support to do everything he could to avert another disaster so close to home. It would not be easy.

  Chapter 13

  Double, double toil and trouble...

  —Shakespeare

  Washington was officially awake for an hour when Jerry Fisher entered DEA headquarters in San Diego. He was not due in for another two hours but, an early riser, he liked to attend the night shift’s final briefing, check his messages, and drink a few cups of coffee before the daily bureaucratic crap hit at eight. Some might consider him a workaholic, but he preferred to think himself dedicated.

  Grabbing a red folder marked URGENT from the pile in his in-basket, Jerry poured himself a cup of coffee and plopped down into a rump-sprung chair. He was reading what was deemed so urgent when he heard a tap on his office door.

  “Come on in, Nikki,” he called.

  Nicole entered, smiling. “How do you do that?” she asked, heading for the coffeepot.

  “Clairvoyant. Besides, who else would it be at six o’clock in the morning?”

  “Right. Other folks have lives.”

  Even though Nikki was still facing the coffeepot, Jerry caught an unusual timbre in her voice and asked, “Everything all right?”

  Nicole sighed and sat down across the desk from him. “Sure. I have a job I love, one really good friend, a great condo, and a paid-for car. What more could a girl want?”

  “Wanna talk?”

  “Not really. Well, just a question. Do you ever regret not marrying? Or at least having a warm body to come home to?”

  “Nope. Nikki, get yourself a golden retriever.”

  Nicole snickered. “Mayhaps I need another friend. A female one.” She eyed the red folder. “Anything good?”

  “A little excitement in paradise. The Coast Guard received a report of an explosion off the central Baja coast, in the Sea of Cortez.”

  “Yeah? What was it?”

  “They don’t know. It was seen by an airliner crew en route to Los Angeles. Happened right at dusk and there was a dense fogbank nearby. We have a satellite shot not long after, so I’d like you to take a look, Miss Eagle Eye.”

  “I will go and work my magic. A little computer enhancement can do wondrous things,” Nicole told him. She took the report and her coffee and left for Star Wars Central. An hour later, she was back.

  “Not much there, Jerry. A little debris that I’d classify as scorched fiberglass from a crudely built vessel. Certainly not production model quality. Wish we had a piece of it for the lab. If pinned down, I’d venture a guess that a panga blew up. Happens, you know. Most pangas would never pass a U.S. Coast Guard safety inspection. One thing though, it looks like another vessel left the area. A wake pattern still existed when the satellite passed over. We’ll probably never know what happened unless we get a missing persons report.”

  Jerry chuckled. “Fat froggin’ chance.”

  “Language, kind sir, language."

  Chapter 14

  If one wished to design a secret personal bay, one would probably build something very like this little harbor.—John Steinbeck, describing Puerto Escondido in The Log from the Sea of Cortez.

  Hetta heard the helicopter coming, but couldn't move. Paralyzed by fear, she felt as if she were suffocating. “Jenks!” she screamed, leaping from the bed and throwing a pillow from her face. The pillow hit a fishing pole rack above the bed and snagged on a hook.

  Jerking upright from his own nap, Jenks whacked his head on a mahogany overhang above his side of the bed, then bumped into the dangling pillow. A myopic search for his glasses proved fruitless, but he saw the fuzzy outline of Hetta peering out the aft cabin hatch. Rubbing his forehead, he heard the deep thrum of diesel engines.

  “Who you gotta screw to get a drink ‘round here?” a deep voice drawled over a loud hailer.

  Hetta unsnapped the nylon mesh hatch screen and yelled back, “Not me, you cowboy reprobate. Drop that hook and come on over.” Turning to Jenks she beamed. “False alarm. It’s just the Texas Ranger.”

  “Bud’s here?” Jenks asked, gingerly probing his scalp for lacerations. “Christ, I thought we were under attack.”

  Hetta looked sheepish and leaned over to rummage through his straight, graying hair. “Sorry. I was dead to the world and All Bidness’s engines turned my dream into a nightmare. There’s nothing seriously wrong with your head aside from a little balding spot.”

  Jenks snapped his head up, looking concerned.

  “Just kidding, Honey. You’re not bleeding, but looks like you’re gonna have an oowie on your forehead. Luckily, you dinged the toughest part of that Scandahoovian body.” She handed him his glasses.

  “Just more scar tissue,” groused Jenks, who, because of his height, managed to whack his head at least once a week. He pulled on a pair of canvas shorts and looked out over Hetta’s shoulder. “I wonder what Bud’s doing up here? I thought he was going to stay down in La Paz for the winter.”

  “Don’t know, but we’re about to find out. Batten down the hatches, matey, here he comes, ready or not.”

  While Jenks went on deck to help Bud Killebrew tie his twenty-thousand dollar dinghy alongside HiJenks, Hetta did a quick scan of the main cabin to see if anything gave a hint of what happened the night before. Not, she thought, that Bud would notice. Ever since he met Pam, he’s been suffering from testosterone and alcohol poisoning.

  Hetta and Jenks met the big Texan back in the Bay Area the day he narrowly missed their boat and rammed the guest dock at their yacht club. After helping him tie up his boat and survey the damage, they accepted his invitation for a drink aboard. Hetta immediately warmed to Bud’s folksy homilies and un-California-like directness; he was the first to admit his
shortcomings, and to point out anyone else’s who cared to listen. Hetta, raised in the judgmental world of Texans, found Bud a refreshing change to the West Coast “I’m okay, you’re okay” attitude.

  Aboard All Bidness that day, Bud poured generous drinks, then poured out his life story.

  Newly widowed and grieving, he sold his drilling company in the Texas oilbelt, flew to the West Coast, and bought a new fifty-eight foot motor yacht in hopes of launching a new life.

  He stayed in the Bay Area almost a year, mostly in HiJenks’s wake, while he learned rudimentary boating skills from Jenks. Then on a typical Bud whim, he cruised to Mexico a year ahead of HiJenks.

  Bud made it to San Diego with the help of two crew members and a heap of tax dollars. After being towed into three west coast ports by the United States Coast Guard, he heeded their strongly worded suggestion, and hired a captain for the voyage to Mexico.

  During their first two years in the Sea of Cortez, the Jenkins joined Bud in his adopted homeport of La Paz. They cruised the southernmost islands and sometimes Bud went with them, but he preferred spending most of his time dockside at Marina del Cortez, which offered cable television, a restaurant, and a steady stream of company for a lonely, rich man with an open bar and a generous nature. Not to mention a fifty-eight foot yacht.

  Hetta loved Bud Killebrew like the big brother she never had. Even though he was loud and brash, he was also kind and generous. He reminded Hetta of a big old shaggy mutt who does not always behave, but tugs at your heartstrings nonetheless.

  In his mid-sixties, Bud’s six-foot four-inch, former-varsity quarterback frame was succumbing to the relentless ravages of too much alcohol, rich food, and a leggy, much younger, blonde.

  Bud and former President Bush shared an aversion to broccoli, but Bud’s dislike encompassed all green food except avocados. Although painfully aware of Bud’s chronic bad habits, past bypass surgery. and refusal to recognize the existence of cholesterol, Hetta laid partial blame for Bud’s steady deterioration at Pam Gibbs’s scarlet toenails.

  Hetta well remembered the arrival of Pam and Buzz “Gibby” Gibbs on their thirty-two foot sailboat, Water Witch, because HiJenks was, unfortunately, berthed next to them. Gibbs, reputed to be a former yacht salesman, and Pam, an ex-aerobics instructor, were heavy drinkers who argued loudly into the wee hours of the night.

  Hetta and Jenks were literally run out of port, fleeing to the islands to escape the Water Bitch as Hetta dubbed the Gibbs’s boat. Returning to port after a month, Hetta was appalled to find Pam living aboard All Bidness, and Bud in the throws of stupefied lust.

  Gibby, the cuckold, moved Water Witch out to the anchorage where, broke and brokenhearted, he could lick his wounds along with the salt accompanying his cheap tequila.

  And now, two years later, Pam was a permanent fixture on All Bidness, so Hetta was happily surprised to see Bud in Puerto Escondido without her.

  “Howdy, Bud. Come on in and set a spell,” Hetta invited, turning on the drawl she dusted off when speaking to her countrymen.

  “Don’t mind if I do, little lady.” Bud squeezed his bulk through the door, juggling a bottle in one hand and holding a mop of fur against his Texas Ex’s tee shirt with the other. Tossing a 750ml bottle of Wild Turkey to Jenks, he underhanded his squirming dog to Hetta, then plopped down into a director’s chair. Hetta winced as the chair threatened to implode on impact.

  Jenks packed three glasses with ice, then filled one with Wild Turkey while Hetta snuggled and sweet-talked the wiggling, grunting Cairn terrier who was so delighted to see her. Putting the dog down, she reached into their liquor storage locker and pulled out a bottle of Las Palmas rum, and one of Early Times bourbon.

  “Put that Early Times away, Miz Hetta. I brung the Turkey for a present. Pammy got some of her friends in low places to smuggle me in ten cases from the States.”

  Hetta rolled her eyes and refrained from calling Pam a pusher. Shrugging, she put Jenks’s last bottle of bourbon back into the cabinet. There was no use trying to override Bud’s generosity. On their budget, the only way the Jenkins could repay Bud’s largess was by helping him with his electronics and boat repairs. Jenks had installed icemakers, watermakers, an inverter, and several other toys on All Bidness over the years.

  The trio took their drinks outside where Hetta and Jenks had rigged their “African Queen” bimini, a homemade affair Hetta stitched together from a painter's drop cloth and lightweight nylon screen. Jenks handed out chairs and they settled in to watch the fiercely protective Sam Houston race around the decks barking at a sea gull that had the nerve to land on his people’s radar mast.

  Hetta glanced over the side into Jenkzy and noticed the Splash Zone filled holes were slightly whiter than the rest of the dinghy but, what with all the other dings, scuffs and patches on the pangita, hardly noticeable. She longed to tell Bud of their near disaster the night before, but she and Jenks had agreed to tell absolutely no one.

  “What in hey-all are you two doin’ in Puerto Escondido? Coulda knocked me over with a feather when we came in and saw y’all here,” Bud drawled, polishing off his drink before Hetta and Jenks took a first sip of theirs.

  “Shoot, if I’da knowed you was here, I’da brought your mail that came in at the marina a few days ago. I gave the letters to Hot Idea ‘cause they was headed for San Carlos, and that’s where you said you’d be.”

  “We’re on our way. We’ll catch up to them. You on your way to Caracol?”

  “Yep. I left Miz Pam up there last week and I’m going back to get her. I looked for y’all both ways, even called you a couple of times on the radio, but you must’a been hiding out at one of your islands. Anyhow, I gotta get up there and back to La Paz in three days.”

  Jenks and Hetta exchanged a glance. Had Pam seen them at Caracol?

  “What’s the big hurry, Bud?” Jenks asked.

  “Oh, just some crap I gotta take care of. Bidness.”

  “Well, you’ve got the boat for tearing up the seaways. How long did it take you to get here today?”

  “We left early. About five this morning. You figger it out.”

  Jenks suppressed a smile. For a University of Texas grad who made, lost, and made again, millions in the oil business, Bud treated small-time mathematics and correct grammar with the cavalier insouciance of many a Texan good ole boy.

  Quickly calculating the time and distance in his head, Jenks teased, “Thirteen, fourteen knots is a little slow for you, isn’t it, Bud?”

  “Damned new fuel tank slowed me down.”

  “New tank?” Hetta asked.

  “The one I added to All Bidness since I saw you last time. A thousand gallons.”

  “A thousand gallons? Why?” Jenks asked, looking perplexed. Bud had a habit of buying anything for his boat that someone even hinted he might need. Hetta once said she could most likely sell Bud an altimeter for All Bidness if she tried.

  “Pam wants me to take her down to Ecuador next year, so we need more fuel.”

  “Ecuador?” Hetta gasped. “Please, oh, please, tell me John is going to take you down.” Bud sometimes used their friend from La Paz, John Colt, to captain All Bidness. Bud was spectacularly unqualified to navigate his luxury yacht.

  Not that All Bidness didn't have every possible navigational tool money could buy. In theory, Bud could get up one morning in San Diego, program his integrated systems, and cruise to Cabo San Lucas. Alone. By preprogramming waypoints into the GPS receiver, the boat could navigate on cruise control for hundreds of miles. In experienced hands, these systems were a joy, making long voyages much easier on a boat’s crew. In Bud’s hands, though, an automated boat would be a floating disaster in the making. Luckily for the boating world of the entire West Coast of Mexico and the United States, Bud knew it. He never learned to read a chart, nor had a clue how to load waypoints into his GPS receiver. His grasp of the new electronic blitz of the universe ended when he learned PLAY and REWIND on his VCR. RECORD was beyond him. Bu
d was not stupid, he just had no interest in participating in the cyber-electronic world.

  In addition to enough contrivances to get her to the moon, All Bidness boasted three staterooms, crew’s quarters, a pilothouse and, of all things, a two-person hot tub on the aft deck. Two, unless Bud was in it.

  Hetta envied All Bidness’s “verandah” as she called the spacious covered aft deck, and Jenks practically salivated over the walk-through engine room. But neither would trade places with the man sitting in front of them.

  “Naw, we won’t need John to drive All Bidness no more. Pammy’s got us a whole new crew of young fellas that take real good care of that. Don’t know what I ever did without that little filly.”

  “You did fine. And you had more money,” Hetta drawled sarcastically, thinking, I wonder what else those hot and cold running boat boys are taking care of?

  Bud laughed and rattled his melting naked ice cubes, letting Hetta’s barb roll off him like water off All Bidness’s sleek hull. “Ain’t that the truth? But I didn’t have near as much fun.”

  Jenks took Bud’s glass and went into the cabin for more ice. When he returned Hetta and Bud were rehashing THE WAR—not World War One, World War Two, or even the Civil War, but the Texas Revolution.

  Bud was a seventh-generation Texan compared to Hetta’s ninth-generation status, and both had ancestors who fought for Texas, most of the time on opposite sides. The two had diametrically opposing opinions as to the “hows and whys” of the Texian revolt against Mexico in 1836. The Brooklyn-born Jenks had learned more than he ever wanted to know about that piece of history.

  Bud had the soapbox. “Dammit, Hetta, Bowie was already in Texas. He was even married to a Mexican gal whose pappy was a government honcho...didn’t just come in like those land grabbin’ Yankees.” He stopped and looked apologetically at Jenks. “No offense intended.”