by Lincoln Matt
PROLOGUE
It’d been a slow week at Rolling Thunder, but I’d been expecting as much. It was spring break season in Miami, and my slew of young regulars were probably out on the prowl, looking for a good time with the tourists. My bar wasn’t exactly a hot spot for that kind of thing, not that I wanted it to be.
I was enjoying the quiet, to be honest. It was a nice change of pace from the usual gaggle of fans I’d become accustomed to since I took over the place, hounding me for stories from the good old days.
Or at least, that’s what I told myself as I wiped down the bar and took advantage of the peace and quiet to get a good deep clean in. Still, it felt pretty good when Ty, Jeff, and the rest came tumbling through the front doors, looking like they’d already had a few at another location, despite the fact that it was still pretty early.
“Didn’t expect to see you guys in here this week,” I said as I tossed the bar rag over my shoulder and crossed over to meet them.
Rhoda, who’d been looking even more bored than I was, jumped to get their orders as they all crowded around their usual table.
“We couldn’t go another minute without hearing what happened next,” Ty said, his words rather slurred, and his arm draped around Jeff’s shoulders as they both took their seats, closely followed by the others.
“Is that so?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow at them and sitting down across from them at the table. I cast a glance up to the long wooden plank I’d shown them the last time they’d been in, and all those memories started to flow back to me.
“What can I get you, boys?” Rhoda asked.
“How ‘bout some water, for starters,” I suggested, my eyes twinkling as Ty slumped down across from me.
“Comin’ right up,” Rhoda said, winking at me and heading back behind the bar.
“So, what happened?” Jeff asked eagerly. “Did MBLIS ever get its funding back on track?” He was talking about that time a Senator and some mob bosses decided they didn’t like us stopping criminals and tried to pull our funding. But we stopped them, too, after we went on a rogue mission of our own to New York City.
I smiled. “Sure did. Took a while, but we got up and running again.”
“And the journal?” he asked, even more eagerly now. “Did you ever get Grendel’s journal?” Now that was an even more interesting question.
“That’s quite the story,” I said with another grin.
“You said you’d tell it to us the next time we stopped by,” Jeff said, gesturing up to the plank on the wall.
“Yeah, did you see Tessa again?” Ty asked. “Was she with you when you found the Dragon’s Rogue?”
Tessa Bleu was an old friend of mine, to say the least, a photojournalist from New York who had been with me on that last mission to restore MBLIS’s funding. She’d also been with me when I’d found the remains of my ancestor Lord Jonathan Finch-Hatton in a cave off the coast of Miami. Finch-Hatton had commissioned the building of the Dragon’s Rogue before the old ship fell into the hands of the pirate Captain Guilford ‘Mad Dog’ Grendel. Finding the Dragon’s Rogue was an old passion project of my grandfather’s, a quest I’d inherited from him.
I’d managed to find some pages out of Grendel’s old journal on one of my MBLIS missions. And in New York, Tessa and I had gotten in contact with an old man named George, who knew the whereabouts of the rest of the old document. The last I’d told these kids, I was still waiting for a museum in Virginia to give me access to it.
“Now, now, don’t get ahead of yourselves. I can’t say Tessa will show up again so soon, but there’s another familiar face in this next story I have for you,” I said as Rhoda brought out tall glasses of water for our already-hammered patrons and a glass of Mango Fest rum for myself. She lingered near the table so she could hear the story, too.
Ty and Jeff exchanged an excited look as they took sips from their water glasses. It seemed to me like these Navy kids were getting younger every day.
“So?” Rhonda asked, still lingering by the table with a water pitcher. “What happened next?” I gave her a bemused look.
“Well, things were a bit slow for a while after we got back to Miami,” I continued. “I spent that time going back over everything I already knew about the Dragon’s Rogue, as well as getting some well-needed R and R. I even hung out with Tessa in New York for a little while before heading home.”
“Ah, I knew it,” Jeff grinned. “I’m rooting for you guys.”
“You and everybody else, apparently,” I laughed.
“So, did you get the journal?” Ty asked.
“Not right away,” I said. “Virginia was playing games with me for a while, but I kept at it. It was frustrating for a while, having all that extra time and not much to do it with. But then, well, let’s just say my partner and I got our most exciting—and most dangerous, and honestly weirdest—mission yet…”
The Navy kids’ eyes widened, and they all looked up to that old plank hanging on the wall almost as one.
“Weirdest?” Rhoda repeated. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” I chuckled as I took another drink. This was one hell of a story, now that I thought about it. In more ways than one. “Now, do you remember that story I told you a couple of weeks back about that Dominican President whose son got captured by that Haitian drug cartel?”
CHAPTER 1
Alejandra
Alejandra pursed her lips as the meeting droned on and on… and on. They’d been in there for hours now, and there was no sign of things getting any better. She was beginning to regret signing up for this outing in the first place.
But then she reminded herself why she was there. It was for Miguel. It was to ensure that what happened to him wouldn’t happen to anyone else ever again.
She suppressed a scowl. That brother of hers just kept getting her into trouble, didn’t he? Then again, sometimes that trouble turned out not to be such a bad thing after all…
Her mind drifted back to that handsome MBLIS agent from Miami, Ethan Marston. Meeting him had really been a happy side effect of all that messy business with the Haitian drug cartel.
She shook her head and brought herself back to reality when she heard her name.
“Ms. García?” one of the many suited men sitting around the table in the mundane hotel conference room asked. “Did you hear what I just said?”
“Oh, sorry,” she said, feeling a flush of heat in her cheeks. “Can you repeat that?”
“We’ve just received word that there’s been another suspected member of the cartel captured trying to cross the border,” the man continued. “Do you wish for him to be transferred to the capital like the others?”
“Oh yes, of course,” Alejandra said. “They’ll want to question him there, where we have more resources.”
“Of course, Ms. García,” the man said with a nod. “We’ll have that done straight away. Would you like to discuss the next steps now, or should we reconvene later today?”
“Oh, I think that’s enough for one morning,” Alejandra said, thinking that she couldn’t possibly sit there any longer for the time being. “We’ll talk again later. I’ll just confer with my father and his associates.”
Several of the men’s faces paled at the mention of the President. They were reminded once again that Alejandra wasn’t just any old diplomat from the capitol. She was the President’s daughter.
She smiled at them and left them to mull over that thought, departing to the hotel’s front lobby to grab a cup of coffee. It was lukewarm and bitter, but it did the trick.
The hotel lobby was mostly empty but for the clerks manning the front desk, and Alejandra relished in the moment of solitude. She checked her watch and realized that she hadn’t had a mom
ent to herself for several hours.
This cartel really was eating up her life, wasn’t it? She reminded herself once more that it was all for Miguel. And for the Dominicans and Haitians whose lives were being ruined by these drugs that kept funneling across the border. No matter how much her father’s government tried to make up for the damage done by past administrations to Dominican-Haitian relations on the island, things just kept seeming to get worse as of late.
Alejandra’s mind drifted back to Agent Marston as she finished off her coffee and poured herself another cup. She bet he’d have an idea of how to handle all this. He always did have a way of getting to the bottom of these things. It had been a while since they’d exchanged emails, and she thought it was probably past time to get back in touch with him. For official purposes, of course.
Just as she brought the paper cup to her lips once more, several border patrol agents came pouring through the front doors. They approached the clerk at the desk as she watched them.
“Are they still meeting back there?” one of them asked him, gesturing in the direction of the meeting room Alejandra had just managed to escape.
The hotel clerk’s eyes drifted over to Alejandra. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“I can take you back to them,” Alejandra volunteered, seeing how this was the most interesting thing to happen to her in nearly two days. “I’m part of the delegation, representing President García. May I ask what’s happened?”
The two officers at the front of the pack exchanged a look.
“Well, ma’am,” one of them said nervously. “It appears there’s been an incident.”
“An incident?” Alejandra repeated. “Of what kind?”
“Uh, well,” he mumbled. “We’ve found a body.”
The hairs on the back of Alejandra’s neck stood up.
“A body?” she asked. “On our side of the border?”
“Um, yes, ma’am,” he confirmed. She wasn’t sure whether the officers were uncomfortable because she wasn’t from around here, or because she was a woman. Either way, Alejandra wasn’t about to hand this off to someone else.
“All right, then,” she said, swallowing her apprehension. “Show me.”
“Er, ma’am, perhaps it would be better if…” the officer started, but she cut him off.
“Don’t worry, Officer, I can handle it,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “It’s why I’m here, after all. Lead the way.” She gestured toward the door.
They hesitated, but ultimately, they let her come with them. One of them held the door open for her as she climbed in the back seat of one of their Jeeps.
And with that, she looked out the window as they rolled down the dirt road toward the Dominican-Haitian border, wishing more than ever that she’d bothered to contact Ethan Marston before this all went down.
Apprehension built in the pit of her stomach as they approached their destination. She knew her father would disapprove of her getting involved with something like this, but as often happened, her curiosity got the better of her. Besides, she hadn’t left that hotel in days. It was long past time for her to see what was going on down here up close. Otherwise, why spend all this time trekking out here in the first place? There were more than enough boring meetings back home in Santo Domingo.
“Well, here we are,” the officer in the driver’s seat said about twenty minutes later, bringing the old Jeep to a screeching halt.
Alejandra ducked out of the car tentatively and followed the officers to a nearby fence. Two of them hovered near her the whole time, as if afraid she might drop dead of fright just by being near the place. She gave them each an annoyed look but was secretly glad they were there.
The area was mostly clear of people but for Alejandra, the officers with her, and a few more officers up ahead. There were no buildings in sight, just green shrubbery on the Dominican side and dirt and distant mountains on the Haitian side, an ever-present reminder of just how different their neighboring nations were, even though they shared the same island. There was an old wire fence standing in the center.
At first, Alejandra didn’t see anything wrong. But then, as they drew closer to the cluster of officers standing around a segment of the fence, she saw it. She had to step away and clutch her stomach for a moment to keep from losing her breakfast.
It was a body, and it was bloody. After everything with Miguel, Alejandra had thought she had seen it all. But apparently not.
It was a man, his torso bloody and disfigured, trapped under a mangled portion of the fence. His arm was outstretched on the Dominican side, as if reaching out to the people there. The limb was completely mangled. There were more bullet holes than she could count in his chest and abdomen.
Alejandra shook her head down at the body. She wished that this was an unusual occurrence, but poor souls were always trying to cross the border into the Dominican Republic in search of a better life. Especially since the earthquake all those years ago left what little infrastructure the Haitians did have ravaged and beyond repair.
But then she realized something. This was different. This man wasn’t Haitian, he was…
“He’s white,” she said, finishing her thought out loud. “This man isn’t from around here. Not on either side of the border.”
“No, he’s not,” one of the officers waiting at the fence said, a grim expression on his face. “He’s American, or at least that’s where the money in his pocket comes from.”
The officer held out a few crumpled dollar bills for Alejandra to examine. Sure enough, there were George Washington and Abraham Lincoln staring up at her.
“American?” she repeated. “Well, that’s interesting. Any idea who he is?”
The officer shook his head. “We’re still casing the crime scene. But there was nothing on him that we could find, other than the money. But these bullets, this wasn’t just any small-time criminal. These came from an assault rifle. Also, from the positioning, he had to have been shot from an angle.” He held up one of the stray bullets in his hand to show us.
“So you’re thinking the cartel,” Alejandra finished for him. He nodded.
“Who else,” he shrugged. “We’re honestly at a loss here, Miss. We’ve been trying to catch these guys for months, and they just keep escalating. And now there’s an American involved? I’m starting to think this is above our pay grade.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Officer,” Alejandra said. “I have an idea as to how we can handle this. You’ll have some help soon enough.” It looked like she’d be seeing Agent Marston sooner than she’d thought after all.
Alejandra stepped away from the officers and pulled out her cell phone. She’d have to update her father first, and he wouldn’t be happy.
Sure enough, as soon as she told him what she’d seen, he laid into her.
“Alejandra, you need to get out of there straight away!” he cried. “This is far too dangerous. It’s long past time for you to come back to Santo Domingo. I’ll send a car for you as we speak.”
“No, no, no,” Alejandra protested. “That is not going to happen, father. I came here for a reason. This is my fight just as much as anyone else’s. I called to tell you I’m going to call Agent Marston at MBLIS. He’ll know how to handle this. I’ll have him and his partner meet you in the Capitol, and then you can send them in a car out to the border. I’ll send you the coordinates. But I’m staying.”
There was a long period of silence as the President considered this.
“Very well, my daughter,” he said finally, though he didn’t sound happy about it. “If you insist. But you must promise me that you will stay out of trouble, go back to the hotel and run things from there.”
“Yes, Father,” Alejandra promised, rolling her eyes.
“All right, I’ll get in contact with MBLIS myself,” her father continued. “They were a great help with your brother’s case. You’re not wrong to want to get them involved. Perhaps they will be able to help us with the larger problem, as we
ll. Agent Marston does seem to have a knack for these kinds of things…”
“Yes, Father, I’ll speak with you soon,” Alejandra promised before hanging up.
Her thumb hovered over Agent Marston’s contact information on her phone. It had been such a long time since she’d seen him, heard his voice. Her heartbeat picked up just at the thought of him, and heat rushed to her cheeks again.
“Ms. García?” one of the officers asked. “Should we take you back now?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, gathering herself. “I can call Eth… I mean, Agent Marston back at the hotel.”
All the way back, she had to stop herself from smiling. It was a grim situation. There was no doubt about that. But the thought of seeing Ethan again excited her.
And maybe, just maybe, he and MBLIS would figure out a way to help their community. The drugs the cartel had funneled into the Dominican Republic had wreaked havoc on her people, not to mention the countless Haitians who were no doubt already hooked on these drugs or forced into the cartel’s employment out of their dire financial situations. If anyone could help the island of Hispaniola, it was MBLIS and Agent Marston.
CHAPTER 2
Ethan
I sat at my desk and blew a paper plane at the back of my pencil holder. It really was that slow around the office these days. Things had been picking up since MBLIS’s funding had started to come back through, but it was still slow going. At least no one had lost their jobs. We were all just being paid to sit around and do nothing all day.
Maybe some people would like that, but it wasn’t for me. I was itching to get back out there. And even more, I was itching to get my hands on that journal, the one Tessa’s contact George had told me about. Grendel’s journal. And if George was to be believed, it was the key to my finding the Dragon’s Rogue.
And all I could do was wait for that museum in Virginia to get its act together and send it to me. The ship had been commissioned for my ancestor, after all. They had to come around, eventually. But, as with most things in my life right then, all I could do was wait.