by Bobby Akart
Lacey had politely waited until after dinner so as not to offend her host. However, she was anxious to learn more about a possible hurricane to their south. Was it just a rumor, or did somebody have firsthand knowledge? Were they broadcasting the weather over the emergency stations? If a storm was brewing, should she and Tucker wait it out in Tarpon Springs?
“Do you mind telling us what you’ve heard about a storm?” Lacey asked, looking at the men, who were settled into their chairs around the large dining table.
Andino’s oldest sibling, his brother Sandros, explained, “We’ve had an agreement with our fellow sponge fishermen to share the burden of bringing food in for our families. Mostly, we focus off nearby Anclote Key, where snook and mullet are abundant. We try to conserve fuel on our fishing runs, so we bait up-current of the drop-offs near Clearwater. Rooker Island has been a great location for mackerel and snapper.
“Anyway, you have to understand that it’s hard to keep our old sea captains on dry land. They don’t care about nuclear wars or economic collapse or fuel shortages. As far as they’re concerned, they’ve got a job to do, and they’ll always find a way.
“They do, however, worry about storms. Many trust the weather reporting from NOAA and the news networks. Others trust their own instincts and years of experience to sense changes in barometric pressure, winds, and even the color of the water.”
Andino laughed. “To most of these guys, our way of relying upon meteorological reports about wind intensity, pressure, and predictive storm tracks is for the weak.”
Sandros slapped his brother on the shoulder. “They’d rather get swamped than listen to some fool on the Weather Channel, right?”
Andino winked and sipped his ouzo.
Sandros leaned back in his chair and addressed Lacey. “You grew up on the water, right?”
“Technically, an island. Driftwood Key is small, one of hundreds in Monroe County. It’s still an island.”
He continued. “You’ve probably heard some of these old sayings like red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Followed by red sky at night, sailors’ delight.”
Andino jumped in with another well-known reference about a ring around the moon. “To the old-timers, a ring around the moon was an indication that a storm could be coming. We know, of course, that a lunar corona could be caused by many factors and isn’t necessarily a harbinger of a storm.”
Lacey had become impressed with the Andino brothers as she listened to them. They were experienced and learned. Sponge fishing was their job, and their most valued asset was their boat. They’d schooled themselves in order to prevent a catastrophe while at sea.
Sandros added, “Before satellite imagery and hurricane hunter airplanes came around in the last sixty years or so, boat captains relied upon radio reports from other vessels at sea. Before that, they used barometers. The problem back in the day was that the best you could do was have a few hours’ warning that a storm was imminent. Also, you had no idea how intense it might be, which gave you little time to take action.”
Tucker, who’d been listening intently to the conversation, chimed in, “Unless something is different farther south, we can’t see signs like red skies in the morning or rings around the moon. It’s one continuous sky of gray.”
“You’re correct, which is why our friends have placed such a heavy emphasis on their barometers,” said Sandros. “I’m not talking about the electronic kind, either. Some use a single barometer that ranges from a low of twenty-eight to a high of thirty-one.”
“Twenty-eight? Millibars?” asked Lacey.
Andino explained, “There are two ways to look at atmospheric pressure. One is by measuring inches of mercury, of Hg. The lower the Hg reading, the stormier the conditions. For example, a reading between twenty-eight and twenty-nine equates to roughly nine hundred fifty to nine eighty millibars.”
“Right,” interjected Sandros. “When you see on the news that the weather guy reports the pressure is dropping to those levels, the storm is intensifying.”
“So with a barometer, you don’t really need a weather report,” Tucker opined.
“No, not necessarily,” said Andino as he shook his head. “Your barometric pressure readings are only for your particular location. You could be in the middle of a high-pressure area full of sun, you know, before all of this. Suddenly, a strong low-pressure system could build and bring a drastic change in the weather.”
Lacey pushed away from the table and walked to the front windows of the home. The house was lit up with candles. That, coupled with the heat emanating from the wood-burning stove in the kitchen, had caused her to sweat somewhat. Or perhaps it was perspiration generated as she considered the prospects of sailing into a storm.
Chapter Twenty-One
Thursday, November 7
National Guard Encampment
Homestead-Miami Speedway
Homestead, Florida
Peter wanted to take a lap around the speedway. He really, really wanted to. With the storm approaching, he doubted anyone would’ve noticed. But if they had, the two of them would be back in the substation, answering questions and facing assault charges. Instead, he followed the access through the underground tunnel at the start of Turn Three and emerged on the other side.
He slowly approached the tangerine-colored guard shack that ordinarily stopped recreational vehicles and racecar transports before allowing them into the infield. Instead of uniformed track personnel manning the exit, armed guardsmen stood in the road, dressed in rain gear, with their automatic weapons raised to low ready as Peter approached.
“Jimmy, I don’t know if I can fake this.”
Jimmy offered some words of encouragement, and then he sent a shock wave through Peter’s body. “You’ll be fine. But, um, what’s your name?”
Peter subconsciously gripped the steering wheel with both hands and let off the gas. “What?”
“Your name. The name of the soldier.”
“Shit!” Peter slowed to a stop short of the gate. It was pitch dark outside except for temporary lighting illuminating the entrance and exit on both sides of the guard shack. He pulled the fatigues away from his chest and dropped his chin to get a better angle to read it. “I don’t know! I don’t freakin’ know!”
Jimmy leaned forward in the back seat. “Peter, you gotta wing it. They’re getting antsy.”
Peter noticed the guards were looking at one another and slowly approaching the vehicle. A third guard had exited the guard shack and was resting his right hand on his holstered weapon.
Panicked, Peter began to roll forward toward the approaching guards a little faster than he, and they, expected. This set into a motion a series of events that almost resulted in them getting killed.
The guardsmen raised their rifles and pointed them directly at Peter’s side of the windshield. “Stop! Do not move forward another inch!”
Peter obliged and quickly rolled down the window. “Sorry, fellas, I had to finish up a phone call.”
He’d said the words before he realized how absurd they were.
“What?” yelled the guard approaching the driver’s side window.
“Um, I mean, sorry, I was on the, um, walkie-talkie.” Peter was failing miserably at impersonating a National Guardsman. None of the guards bought it, either.
“Out of the truck. Now!” shouted the man who’d emerged from the guard shack. He’d pulled his weapon and was walking briskly toward the driver’s side.
“Dammit! Get down!” Peter shouted to Jimmy.
He mashed the gas pedal down to the floorboard, causing the heavy Humvee to lurch forward. His tires spun slightly on the wet pavement, which startled the soldiers. It was that split second of confusion that allowed Peter to roar through the lowered gate arm, tearing it from its post.
The guardsmen opened fire, stitching the back of the enclosed Humvee while one shot obliterated the rear window. Peter never slowed down as he roared past the NASCAR credential’s trailer and whippe
d the steering wheel to the left to avoid crashing into a chain-link fence. He fishtailed as his two right tires found the soggy turf and then grabbed the pavement again.
“Which way?” Jimmy shouted his question as he leaned up in the back seat to rest his arms on the passenger’s seat.
Peter’s mind raced as he tried to recall anything he could about the speedway. He hadn’t tried to look through the small air vent of the animal control truck when they had been brought in the day before. However, he did know they were at the back side of the track.
“Right,” he responded as he whipped the steering wheel to the right, causing the back of the truck to swerve again. He floored the gas and took off down Palm Drive, which was bordered by the speedway on the right and parking lots on the left.
Peter blew through a stop sign, driving on the wrong side of the road to avoid a triangular medium. He finally exhaled after holding his breath for half a mile. Then he glanced in his rearview mirror. Two sets of headlights pulled out of the speedway exit behind him.
“We’re gonna have company.”
“Yeah, from the right, too,” added Jimmy.
Peter glanced over his right shoulder to see another set of headlights with grille-mounted red and blue lights flashing on and off. He shook his head in disbelief.
This was how it ends.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Thursday, November 7
Homestead, Florida
Peter’s eyes spent as much time looking forward as they did in the rearview mirror. The headlights of the trio of military police vehicles chasing them seemed to grow larger with each quarter mile they traveled south down the Overseas Highway.
Jimmy climbed across the console between the bucket-style seats to join Peter in the front. He immediately began to remove the gauze bandages that were wrapped around his face. He’d been scratching at his face since he’d woken up from the last beating he’d sustained during an over-the-top interrogation session conducted by a mad-at-the-world CIA agent.
He’d refused to tell the agent anything. He’d been threatened with waterboarding. At first, he’d been slapped across the face. Then he’d made the mistake of grinning at the demented agent. That had been when slaps turned to punches. The result was open cuts across his cheeks and jawline. A swollen lower lip and a bloodied nose were the least painful of the injuries.
As he gingerly removed the bandages, he asked, “Do you have a plan?”
“We gotta get to the Keys somehow. What’s your face like? Could you swim up Jewfish Creek to Largo Point?”
Jimmy laughed. “And then what? Stroll through the swamps at Crocodile Lake? I’d rather take my chances with those guys.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the pursuing guardsmen.
“How about the other direction? There’s a boat ramp near Snake Point. I doubt they stretched wire that far.”
“Probably right, but here’s the thing,” began Jimmy in response. “We’ll never make it to where the bridge was blown. Even in this crap weather, you can see there are people still walking back and forth on the side of the road. There’ll be more of them the closer we get.”
Peter glanced in the mirror for what seemed like the thousandth time. “I was thinking we could blend in with them to hide from those guys.”
Jimmy turned sideways in his seat and noticed they’d gained ground since he’d moved to the front. He had a thought.
“The Southern Glades Trail is up ahead. You could kill your lights and take the off-ramp. Instead of going under the bridge along the creek, hang a right and double back. We can hide until they give up.”
Peter grimaced and shook his head. “I thought about that, but with this rain coming down, that sandy road will become a real problem. We could get stuck. If we’re gonna bail off the highway, there’s another option we could try.”
“What?”
“The Manatee Bay Club.”
The Manatee Bay Club was a private community that offered dock and boat slip rentals. Along with the SeaHunter Marina, the small key at Manatee Bay had nearly two hundred boats docked there. In addition to the marina, there were nine slivers of fingerlike land protruding into the bay that had as many as twenty boat slips. There were also half a dozen private residences with their own docks.
“Steal a boat?”
“Yeah, or even just find a place to hide. Think about it. Their orders are to bug out of Homestead. I’m sure these guys will look for a while, but they’re not gonna go slip to slip or boat to boat.”
Jimmy laughed and then winced. Certain facial movements hurt worse than others. “Yeah, if we can hide from my old man on Driftwood Key, we can hide from a bunch of soldiers who are just gonna give it a half effort.”
“Okay,” said Peter, satisfied they had a plan, at least for now. “This is gonna be tricky, but it might throw them off and buy us some time.”
“What’re ya thinkin’?”
“Help me navigate. I’m about to kill the lights.”
Jimmy reached for the grab handle on the door and leaned forward to brace himself against the dashboard. Just as Peter arrived at the exit ramp to the Southern Glades Trail, he turned off the headlights.
They were suddenly surrounded by darkness, and as if to exacerbate their task, Mother Nature threw a feeder band across the highway as they eased over the creek. Instinctively, Peter slowed down to be more careful. He also focused a little too much on the rearview mirror to determine if his ploy worked.
“Peter! Look out!”
Peter jammed on the brakes as they reached the entrance to the sailboat and kayak rental business at South Dade Marina. A group of people had gathered at the gated entry, waiting for others who were trying to break in. They were seeking any kind of refuge from the storm. Several were milling about in the road and didn’t see Peter’s approach, nor did he see them.
The Humvee skidded to a stop on the wet pavement, and Peter inadvertently slammed on the horn to warn those in the road to move. The refugees immediately began to curse him and started toward the truck. His stealth maneuver had failed, so he turned his headlights back on and started south again, this time on the wrong side of the road.
“They’re almost up our ass,” complained Peter as he slapped the steering wheel. “Can’t this tank go any faster?” He moved up and back, rocking in his seat as if to urge the Humvee along. His foot had pressed the gas pedal to the floorboard, but the heavy vehicle needed time to get back up to speed.
“Less than a mile, Peter. Listen, I know this place. As soon as you pull in, take a hard right and crash into the gate. Then stop right away. Let’s lead them in the wrong direction to buy some time.”
“Are you sure?”
Jimmy set his jaw, and a look of intensity washed over his battered face. “Yeah, I’ve got this. Trust me.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Thursday, November 7
Manatee Bay Club
Overseas Highway
Key Largo
Peter turned off the lights again as he approached the entrance to the small marina and boating community. Without trying, his adrenaline-fueled mind caused him to overshoot the entrance slightly. He was forced to whip the steering wheel to the left to avoid crashing into the guardrail. The Humvee was in a hopping slide on the wet pavement when it struck the white, steel entry gate to the first of the fingers of sand holding boat slips.
The impact with the gate threw Jimmy hard against the passenger door, but he managed to hold his neck firm to prevent his head from smacking the glass. After the abrupt stop, he didn’t hesitate to exit the vehicle and provide Peter instructions.
“Follow me through these trees. Stay low.”
Peter pulled the keys out of the ignition and flung them into a stand of palmetto trees after he jumped out of the truck.
Jimmy had always been quicker than Peter when running on uneven surfaces or through wooded areas. He was gone in an instant, his body disappearing among the mangrove trees that separated the main entr
ance from the water.
The wind was howling at this point, and the trees were blowing unpredictably as Peter rushed to keep up. They’d made their way a hundred yards from where they’d abandoned the Humvee when the sounds of sirens and skidding tires indicated the three pursuing trucks had arrived.
Jimmy didn’t hesitate as he led the way. There was a section of clearing that he ran across without looking back toward the entrance to the marina. They had to keep going to put some distance between them and the soldiers.
Peter used the opening to catch up to his friend before they lowered their heads to enter another stretch of mangroves. He was gasping for air as he tried to speak to Jimmy.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m trying to get us to the end of the street where the houses are,” said Jimmy, who showed no signs of slowing despite his injuries.
“Why don’t we try to find a boat?”
“You can’t see it from here, but they’re all out in the open. If those guys have flashlights or lights mounted on their trucks, they’ll find us. Plus, that was your first thought. It’s probably theirs, too.”
Peter was impressed with Jimmy’s logic. He wasn’t a worldly guy, having spent his entire life on Driftwood Key. In fact, Peter wasn’t sure if Jimmy had ever been farther north than Miami. Regardless, he had common-sense street smarts, and thus far, his plan was working.
The two men were heaving for air as they rounded the bend and came to the first of several homes built on pilings at the end of the road. Homes in the Keys as well in most of Florida’s coastal communities were built on steel-reinforced concrete pilings to lift them above sea level. Along the water’s edge, it wasn’t unusual for structures to be sixteen feet off the ground to allow storm surge during hurricanes to flow underneath.