Steady As She Goes: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 21)

by Wayne Stinnett

  Marcos looked at me, shocked. “America?” he said with a sigh. “We can go to America?”

  I nodded. “I don’t know much about the legalities,” I admitted. “You and Bud might have to get a paternity test to prove the relationship. But the child of an American citizen, born abroad, can usually claim dual citizenship.”

  Marcos’s mouth hung open for a moment. “Do you mean that I might be a citizen of America?”

  “You’ll have to check with the authorities, and maybe get a lawyer,” I said. “But if you’re granted dual citizenship, I’d bet you can all live in America.”

  “Come,” Marcos said to Bud. “We must go to my room and talk. All of us.”

  As they filed out, I tried to visualize all eight of them in one tiny cabin. It wasn’t a hard image to conjure, as close a family as they were, but Bud would likely be uncomfortable. For a while.

  I turned back to Chyrel. “Flo and David are going to stay aboard,” I told her. “Charity will fly you and Bud back to Grenada tomorrow around zero-nine-hundred.” I looked over at Charity. “Jack will have a jet standing by. He wants you to escort them to St. Thomas, U.S. soil, where a Marine officer will meet you to escort Tank’s body back to the states. Full honors.”

  By early afternoon, we were making fifty knots, heading back in the direction of Grenada, and far from land. I knew there were a lot of conversations going on below, but I needed to be on the bridge.

  I would have loved to be the one to escort Tank, but I had a job to do, and a lot of people depended on me. I only hoped I could be there for the funeral.

  So, I sent Matt to get some rest. He would relieve me at 2100 and we’d rotate every three hours through the night, along with the bridge crew.

  As the sun slipped toward the horizon off to port, Giselle entered the bridge wearing her uniform. She and Val exchanged a few words, Val smiled, handed Giselle the Metis, then left the bridge.

  “I didn’t expect you to continue,” I said quietly to Giselle.

  She smiled warmly. “Capitan, you have no idea how overjoyed my family is this day. But as my father would always tell us, a promise made is a promise kept, and a person is measured not only by their work but by their word.”

  I knew a thing or two about promises kept and a strong work ethic. I lived it as a kid under my grandparents’ roof. And I’d promised Jack Armstrong I would take care of his ship and crew.

  “Tu padre es muy inteligente,” I said. “I was raised by my grandparents and Pap often told me the same thing.”

  “With your permission, Capitan. My father would like to speak to you. He is just below, in the dining room.”

  Though only certain people were permitted on the bridge, I didn’t see the harm. I also didn’t see the need for his wanting to thank me in person. All I did was force the reality.

  “Have him come up,” I said.

  “Si, Capitan.”

  She returned a moment later with Marcos. He wore his apron and chef’s hat, cocked slightly to one side. He marveled at the instruments and controls, then at the sea ahead, rushing toward us at highway speed.

  I nodded toward the rear, and we receded to the shadows at the back of the bridge deck. Giselle went to stand between Axel and Ross as she scrolled through Val’s notes on the Metis.

  “Capitan,” Marcos began, whipping his hat off, and holding it in both hands in front of him. His face was a mix of joy and humility. “I would like to ask a favor.”

  “What is it, Marcos?”

  “I have discussed this with Mayra and our family, including my father, because I know you would have me do so before making my decision.”

  “Your decision?”

  “Si, Capitan. My family and I would like to remain part of the crew por favor.”

  “I thought you wanted to go to America?”

  “One day, perhaps,” he said, turning the hat in his hands. “But for now, we all have jobs. My father said there is no guarantee of that in America.”

  Bud was right. Sort of. It was true that unemployment was at record levels, but businesses were clamoring for employees.

  “All of you want to stay on?” I asked.

  “Si,” he replied. “My father will return to America to make… preparativos…for us to join him later.”

  I was happy for them, of course, but I also had a responsibility to my ship and crew. Heitor and Grady were both quite happy with the new arrangement. Matt had told me that Giselle was going to make an excellent yeoman.

  “How much later?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “A year perhaps. Father said he could come to Bimini sometime, or we could go to his home to visit, whenever we are not needed here.”

  “A year, huh?”

  “Si, Capitan,” he replied, extending his right hand. “One year before the mast, is what Ricardo called it.”

  I grinned at his use of the old maritime phrase used to describe the service of an ordinary seaman, who were quartered in the forward part of the ship, forward of the mast.

  I shook his hand, sealing the deal in the manner I preferred. “Es un contrato, Señor Santiago.”

  “Si, Capitan. It is a contract.”

  When I relieved Matt at 0600 the following morning, we were off the coast of Guyana, but still almost five hundred miles from Grenada. It would be another three hours before we’d be within fuel range of Charity’s helo.

  Ambrosia’s two Lycoming TF40 turboshaft engines were basically the same as those used in aircraft but were designed for marine use. Every hour, they used about as much fuel as a big chopper would use in a whole day.

  When we slowed for launch, we’d top the bird’s tank. Ambrosia kept jet fuel onboard just for that reason. Then we’d need to find fuel ourselves. Using just the slow-turning, high-torque diesel engines, we could cross the Atlantic, but the turbines sucked it up at a much higher rate.

  The morning went by quickly. People came and went on the bridge, including Savannah and Alberto. They brought me a breakfast biscuit, which, although quite good, I wasn’t much interested in.

  “You think you should go with him,” Savannah said. “That it should be you escorting Tank’s body home.”

  I put my arm around her waist and pulled her close to my side. “You think you have me all figured out, huh?”

  “Tank would understand,” she whispered. “You’ve done your part—you got him halfway home. It’s time to let others do theirs.”

  “I know,” I said, though we both knew she was right. “We all have our jobs to do.”

  Charity came up the stairs along with the deck hands, Jocko and Al. The two men continued up to the flybridge.

  Charity stepped over to the chart plotter and zoomed it out until the Lesser Antilles appeared.

  The final way point, just south of the airport, displayed 367 nautical miles in the Distance to Destination field.

  “I can go anywhere inside three-fifty,” Charity said.

  “We’ll slow and turn to windward when we’re 330 miles out,” I said. “You’ll need some reserve.” I nodded for her to accompany me.

  Leaving Savannah, Charity followed me down the passageway to my office. I opened the hatch, allowed her to go ahead of me, and then closed it behind us.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” she said. “I’ll see that he’s taken care of every step. Colonel Stockwell and his men are getting him prepared. Marcos and Ricardo are helping them.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “They’re cutting up their boat to make a casket.”

  I was speechless for a moment.

  “What I wanted to talk to you about,” I said, “was the assignment you’re going on. Jack has people right there on St. Thomas. Why you?”

  “Snyder and Martin?” She shook her head. “They wouldn’t look good tending a bar in a short skirt and heels.”

  I arched an eyebrow in question.

  “It’s just a fact-gathering missi
on,” she said. “I’ll be posing as a bartender on a rented mega yacht. The guy leasing it is an insanely wealthy businessman from the west coast, not far from my hometown. He has ties with a man suspected in underage sex trafficking and that man and a bunch of his sicko buddies are meeting ‘Ritchie Rich’ on his rental boat. I used to tend bar in college and the guy specifically requested an attractive female bartender from a local employment agency. Besides, the odd couple are already on an unrelated assignment.”

  She was referring to the way DJ Martin and Jerry Snyder had started out with Armstrong. Most operatives worked alone, like Charity. But DJ Martin’s quick temper had nearly blown a couple of solo assignments and Jerry Snyder’s steadfast, plodding methods had allowed one suspect to disappear before he made his move. Everyone in the know thought they were both on their way out when Stockwell suggested that they be put together with him as their handler. They were an unlikely pair, to say the least. It was like partnering Yosemite Sam with Dudley Do-Right. One wanted to “blast ’im to smithereens” and the other was strictly by the book, following the rules all the way. The jury was out about whether the two would ever work out their differences, but they’d been successful on several assignments.

  “Fact-finding only, huh?” I said.

  “Yeah,” she replied, sounding a bit huffy.

  “Not your thing, is it?”

  “Some of the players are way up there in the business and political world, Jesse. Men with power in high places. Armstrong wants to get names, dates, times, locations—anything he can hand over to the FBI when the time comes. Personally, I’d just as soon pull the plug on the tub and let it take them all to the darkest depths of hell.”

  “That’s what worries me,” I said. “You’ll be on your own with a lot of people who have a lot to lose, on a ship with no means of egress.”

  She stepped a little closer and smiled up at me. “You do care about me, don’t you?”

  Charity had changed over the years. Not in looks, she was still a beautiful specimen of womanhood. But in the last couple of years, she’d become more evocative. I’d grown accustomed to her new, often suggestive behavior. The woman standing in front of me—the new Charity— was flirty and wildly abandoned. Someone meeting her would never suspect she’d been a dangerous covert assassin, someone who’d endured the worst of human depravity and not only survived it but gave back a whole lot more punishment than she’d endured.

  When we’d first met, she’d been coolly professional, even analytical, completely open about what had happened to her in Afghanistan. But after getting to know her better, I’d learned that openness had just been a con, a way of concealing the real person behind the mask.

  Inside both personas, she was a dark, moody, and mysterious woman, conflicted by the hand she’d been dealt.

  The new Charity was sort of a morph between the con of openness and the woman she should have become, had fate not altered her course—a fun-loving California girl. Maybe even someone’s wife and mother. I couldn’t say which Charity I preferred.

  “Yes, I do,” I said, pulling myself from my reflections to look deep into her eyes. “I know the real Charity Styleski, and what she’s capable of.”

  The mask melted. Her face dissolved into that of the young college girl she’d once been, trying out for the Olympic swim team over twenty years earlier. For an instant, I saw Flo’s eyes looking back at me.

  “Be careful, kiddo.”

  And just like that, the mask returned. “And if I’m not?” she asked, with a coquettish grin.

  “You will be,” I said. “Keep in touch?”

  “Who knows?” she replied, with a wink. “I might show up in Florida one day—right outside your shower window.”

  I felt my face flush as she turned and left the office, closing the door behind her.

  I shook my head as I reached for the latch, muttering, “You’re gettin’ too old for this shit, McDermitt.”

  When I reached the bridge, Matt was already there. “I have the conn, Cap’n. They’ll be bringin’ him out soon. The others went topside.”

  I nodded. “Slow her down and turn us into the wind at idle speed, Matt.”

  “Aye, Cap’n.”

  I headed toward the spiral stairs, but instead of going up, I went down—all the way to the lower deck, where the galley was located.

  With the sound of the big turbines slowly winding down, I heard voices, and through the round portholes, saw a flag-draped casket with seven men standing around it.

  When I stepped inside, all activity stopped.

  “Give the captain some privacy,” Travis said, moving past me and holding one of the double doors open for the others.

  The men left, leaving me alone with Tank. All around the galley were scraps of wood, boat parts, tools, and sawdust. I stood at the head of the casket and gently folded back the flag to reveal a crude wooden box.

  “It ain’t pine, Master Guns. But I guess for a simple Montana boy, it’s appropriate, huh?”

  I pulled the flag back down, straightening it, then flicking away an errant piece of sawdust. I placed my hand on the blue field of stars. “I know how the events of an instant can change and shape our lives, brother. Had it not been for your one moment, you might have done your tour of duty and gone home to be a farmer with a houseful of kids and grandkids, and we’d never have met. Had it not been for my moment, who knows? Maybe I’d be the guy who served five decades. Then I wouldn’t have the family I have now.”

  I stepped back and looked at the box and flag. “I guess in your own way, Tank, even though you never had one of your own, you created a lot of families.”

  I knew the world was a lesser place without Owen Tankersley in it. He’d always insisted that he was no different than anyone else and that it was the circumstances of those moments that defined us. He’d said that everyone had the potential to rise to meet those defining moments and others would one day stand to take all our places.

  I turned, saw Travis through the little window and nodded. He came back in, the others following him, Marcos and Ricardo last.

  “Thank you both,” I said to them. “It’s just what a farm boy from Montana would have wanted.”

  I turned to Travis. “How are you going to do this?”

  “You’re gonna be pissed,” he said. “The aft ladders are too steep. So, we enlarged the deck hatch at the forward end of the passageway.”

  “You what?”

  “I’d told Jack several times there was a need for it,” he said. “Provisions can be directly loaded from the foredeck straight back to the galley. Same with heavy things to or from the engine room. Once we get a watertight hatch installed, it’ll be fine.”

  “You did this while we were underway?”

  “Heitor did most of it,” Travis said. “We were just the muscle. He has the original plans and there were actually supposed to be two hatches in that part of the foredeck. Nothing structural or functional was ever at risk.”

  The second deck hatch to the passageway would have been covered by the large sun pad, which was probably an afterthought.

  “Easier to ask Jack’s forgiveness for cutting up his boat?” I asked rhetorically. “Rather than to ask his permission?”

  “Something like that,” Travis replied. “We have a high-lift from the engine room in position. Then we just have to carry him up three flights of stairs and the forward ones are plenty wide enough.”

  I looked at Travis’s team. “Can the four of you handle it?”

  “If not, Capitan,” Marcos said, “Ricardo and I can help.”

  I turned to the two men. “Thank you, Marcos. But these men are military. It’s nothing personal.”

  “All six of us,” Travis said. “You and I will be at his feet.”

  “Then we’d better get a move on,” I said. “I can feel the boat starting to turn to windward.”

  With great care, we carried Tank’s casket forward. The openin
g in the overhead nearly spanned the whole passageway and was six feet in length. We placed the casket on the lift and got it centered under the opening.

  “You go ahead up,” Ricardo said to me. “Marcos and I will operate the lift, then join the others on the flybridge.”

  One by one, we climbed the rungs mounted to the bulkhead, until the six of us were standing on the foredeck. Slowly, the casket came up, fitting easily through the opening.

  The six of us stood three on a side, looking down as the lift stopped with the bottom of the casket just above the deck.

  “We didn’t have time for handles,” Travis said, looking at each of us.

  “That leaves only one option,” Oswald added. “A shoulder carry will be easier on the steps, anyway.”

  Travis nodded. “Take over, Sergeant Major Oswald.”

  “At the ready,” Oswald said, keeping his voice low.

  Each of us bent and put our hands under the casket.

  “Prepare to lift,” he ordered. “Lift!”

  As one, the six of us raised the casket to head level.

  “Aft…face!”

  Turning toward the rear of the boat, we rested the casket on our inboard shoulders.

  “At slow time,” Oswald ordered, “mark time, march!”

  I could pick out the sound of my feet from the others. They wore boots and I wore deck shoes. But I kept time with the sounds of their footfalls.

  “Forward…march!” Oswald ordered loudly. “Guide on!”

  Oswald counted a slow cadence as he guided us as one toward the side deck.

  I heard the crackle of the PA speaker, then a bosun’s whistle first sounded attention, then all hands on deck. When he finished, Peter Jarvis, who headed the deck crew as bosun, announced solemnly, “All hands, attention to the foredeck.”

  Oswald and Duster, being shorter, were at the head, with Travis and I at the foot. Being taller, it would make the steps easier. We moved along the starboard side deck, Oswald’s slow, mournful cadence keeping us steady.

  Reaching the first set of steps, Travis and I raised the foot of the casket, so that it remained level as we went up. We did the same for the next two sets of steps, until we arrived on the helipad. Axel, Ross, Matt, and Val stood as side boys, waiting to help load the casket into the helo.