Gold in the Keys

by Matthew Rief

  “Harper Ridley still writing for it?”

  “Yeah,” Jack replied. “In fact, she just did a story on the marina last week. Truth is it was a rather uneventful summer. I bet she’ll be happy to see a little excitement around here.”

  If we were lucky, that would be all the excitement we’d see, but I had a strong gut feeling that wouldn’t be the case. Those guys on the boat worked for somebody, whether they were drug cartel from Mexico or not. And when word got back to whomever was running the show that three of their men had been incapacitated and their boat sabotaged, they would want some answers. Another good reason for not getting involved with the authorities.

  Less than half an hour later, we reached the ledge referred to by the locals as Neptune’s Table, easing the throttles to a stop and dropping anchor less than fifty feet from where I’d found the coin years ago. Jack and I both took another look around, making sure there weren’t any suspicious-looking boats on the horizon. When we were both satisfied, we carried out a few tanks from the deck locker and Jack grabbed two BCDs, handing one of them to me. He removed a pair of first- and second-stage regulators and inspected them as I dipped both BCDs into the water before strapping a tank behind each.

  Jack opened a case and pulled out two Suunto dive computers. He handed one of them to me and told me he’d already entered me in. The water was too warm to need a wet suit, especially considering we weren’t going deep, so we each donned our gear over our board shorts. I took one more look around, making sure all was clear before putting on my fins.

  “I’ll be leaving the cabin locked,” Jack said. “And the starter switch and ignition key are both with me, so even though we shouldn’t ever be too far from the Calypso, we won’t have to worry about someone coming aboard and taking her.” Jack sat down beside me and put on his fins. “We should stick together. If one of us sees a boat approach, we’ll notify the other and head for the surface.”

  I nodded to Jack, then slid my mask and snorkel over my head.

  “Let’s go find us a treasure,” I said with a grin before splashing back into the waves.

  The clear Caribbean water felt good as we bobbed for a moment, making sure we were weighted properly, then vented the air from our BCDs and began to sink down towards the ledge. It was only twenty feet down, so we would have about an hour and a half of bottom time before we’d have to head back up to the surface. The ledge was teeming with sea life and surrounded by large masses of coral in all directions. Surveying the area, I noticed a few antennas sticking out from crevices and suppressed my desire to grab and bag a few bugs. Neptune’s Table had gotten its name due in part to its large rectangular shape, and also because it’s always loaded with seafood fit for the king of Atlantis.

  Kicking softly and keeping myself neutrally buoyant just over the ledge, I kept my eye out for anything unusual, anything foreign to the landscape, and of course anything shiny. When I reached the spot where I’d found the Aztec coin years ago, I stopped. It was easy to tell that it was the right place. The ledge met the reef at a right angle, and the narrow crevice where the coin had been lodged was still clearly visible. I followed the crevice in both directions, sliding my fingers through the cracks.

  I looked over at Jack, who was pointing at the seafloor. The ledge rose up from the bottom about five feet or so, shadowing patches of coral and white sand below. I followed him down to the sand and we searched the base of the ledge. Circling around it, I met back up with Jack, who shook his head, letting me know he hadn’t found anything either. I checked my dive computer and saw that we’d only been down about thirty minutes. We kept looking over the ledge, in the small cracks between the coral and in the sand below, but didn’t find anything. It was clear that if the rest of the treasure was there, it must have been hidden extremely well.

  After forty-five minutes passed, Jack and I met up at the base of the ledge. He grabbed a foldout bag that I hadn’t noticed had been attached to his BCD. Holding it out in front of him along with a metal tickle stick, he shrugged his shoulders, then bobbed his head. I grinned, and less than ten minutes later, we broke the surface with a bag full of lobster that were all well beyond regulation size.

  “At least we won’t go hungry,” Jack said after we climbed aboard the Calypso and removed our dive gear. One by one, he pulled each lobster out of the bag and dropped them into a holding tank he had installed at the aft end of the boat. “There’s no better place in the Keys to find a nice bug.”

  After we set our BCDs aside and strapped our tanks into the side of the boat, I stepped up onto the bridge and grabbed hold of the binoculars.

  “See anything?” Jack asked, not bothering to look up from the catch.

  I scanned the horizon all around us and was surprised by how empty it was. Aside from a few small fishing boats and a sailboat, there was nothing but blue ocean and the occasional patch of land.

  “Nothing.”

  Being unable to dive for an hour or so while we waited for the nitrogen buildup in our lungs to dissipate, we cracked open a few beers and cooked the lobster on Jack’s small outdoor gas grill. We sat, watching the ocean and relaxing on the cushioned seats. Jack set up his hammock and I swayed in the breeze while listening to Jimmy Buffett stream through the boat’s sound system. He cooked the lobster to perfection and dabbed lemon over it before handing me two tails stuck to a kabob. It was to die for.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon taking intermittent dives down to the ledge and the surrounding corals and seafloor. Using Jack’s computer and an underwater camera he had, we were able to do a basic survey of the floor over the ledge and a hundred feet radius around it. This would allow us to study the intricate details and look for any unusual formations while out of the water. We spent hours filming and uploading to Jack’s laptop, filling our bellies with succulent lobster and enjoying the Caribbean sunshine.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  By four in the afternoon, the anchor was pulled up and we were on our way back to Conch Marina. We decided to head back the way we came and check to see if there were still any patrol boats in the area, but the entire drive back to the marina, we didn’t see a single one.

  “I’m sure they took care of it,” Jack said. “Drug runners are pretty prevalent down here, compared to most places stateside, that is. These guys are usually pretty good at what they do.”

  As we pulled the Calypso into the marina, a massive sparkling yacht caught both of our attention. It was moored in a neighboring marina, one of the fancy yacht clubs, and it was hands down the largest and most extravagant-looking yacht there. It was one of the largest yachts I’d ever seen, with sleek silver trim bordering a creamy white hull.

  “Damn.” I was the first to speak. “Who owns the floating palace?”

  Jack stared at the yacht, which must have cost more than a small country’s annual budget.

  “Never seen it before. It must have just pulled in today.”

  “Another coincidence?” I asked, thinking about the guys who’d tried to take the Calypso earlier.

  “I’ve never heard of a drug runner running around in something like that,” Jack replied. “Must just be some billionaire from up north. We get a lot of big yachts around here from time to time. Everyone loves the Keys, after all.”

  “Any that big?”

  Jack shook his head. He tried to convince me that there was no way that I was the reason the yacht was there, but I still couldn’t get it out of my mind. I’d dealt with drug cartels many times before in South America, Europe and all over Africa. I knew the kind of money and power that was possible and knew that even a yacht like the one we saw could be well within the scope of a drug lord who ran a large enough operation.

  We docked the Calypso and tied her off. I helped Jack wash down our diving gear and tidied up the main deck and cabin a bit before we headed back to his house on his small center-console.

  “Where are you planning to stay, anyway?” Jack said as he piloted the boat. “I me
an, you’re more than welcome to keep staying at my place, bro, don’t get me wrong, I’m just sure you’ll want your own pad. Especially if you’re gonna be here for a while.”

  I thought it over for a moment, then said, “I’m thinking about a liveaboard. Preferably something fast and with a lot of space.”

  Jack laughed. “Hope your pockets are deep, because that’s a tall order. But if you’re looking to buy a boat down here, you should check some of the nearby marinas. All sorts of boats are for sale down here all the time.”

  On the way back to his house, we passed by a few yachts with For Sale signs. Most of them were old or were sailboats, but we drove by one that caught my attention from the moment I saw it.

  “Pull up close to that one,” I said, pointing at a long sleek boat attached to the end of one of the docks in a passing marina.

  Jack brought us right up to it, and it looked even better up close. It had a massive deck, with nice cushioned seats and a large swim platform. It looked to be at least forty feet long, and I knew that it couldn’t be much more than just a few years old.

  “That’s a Baia Flash,” Jack said. “Probably forty-eight feet. A badass boat for sure. Must have at least two cabins to go along with a gorgeous lounge, and it will probably push you through the water over forty knots. But it’s gonna set you back a fortune.”

  I leaned over the transom of Jack’s twenty to get a better look at the For Sale sign. The price was listed at four hundred thousand dollars or best offer. I grabbed a pen from a small shelf next to the wheel and wrote down the phone number on the sign.

  “You’re seriously considering it? I didn’t know mercenaries got paid so much.”

  I grinned. “If it’s still available, yeah, I am. I mean, I’m planning to be here for a while, so might as well get a nice place. And it depends on how good you are at it.”

  He threw his hands up in the air. “Well, from what I saw today, I’m sure you’re the best there is.”

  I called the number that evening, and an older man, who I later learned was a retired surgeon, answered the phone and told me the Baia was still available. I asked him if he was available the next day to meet and we agreed on ten in the morning.

  That evening, we cooked the rest of the lobster out on the grill along with a few steaks and drank beer as the sun dropped down over the water.

  “You know,” Jack said, lounging beside me, “if you’re serious about finding this treasure, we’re gonna need some specialty gear. I know a guy who lives just on the other side of the island. His name’s Pete and he’s really into treasure hunting, even owns his own antique shop. I could give him a call and let him know that we’re looking for some advice on treasure-hunting equipment.”

  Jack went on to say that Pete had been a friend of his father’s and that he knew more than anyone about the Keys and treasure hunting.

  “See if he can meet me tomorrow afternoon.”

  Jack told me that he would, then brought out his laptop, and we spent a few hours looking over the surveys of the ocean floor. Despite looking over every square foot repeatedly, we couldn’t find anything unusual. It was just the same ledge surrounded by corals.

  “If the Aztec treasure did sink, the bulk of the treasure could be anywhere,” Jack said. “I don’t know a lot about sunken treasure, man, but I know that after nearly five hundred years, the ocean could have brought that coin you found from miles away for all we know. You remember that treasure they found off Florida’s eastern coast? The remnants of the 1715 Spanish fleet? Well, those guys found coins from Jupiter all the way up north to Sebastian. That gold’s scattered all over the place, bro.”

  “Which is why your idea of getting better equipment will help us track it down.”

  After the sun fell and the bugs came out, we decided we’d had enough work and shut the laptop. Jack, who’d drunk five bottles of beer, decided it was time to call it a night and entered the house through the sliding glass door, leaving only the screen so the fresh ocean air could flow into the house at night. I had only had a few beers and decided to stay up a little longer.

  “That reminds me,” Jack said through the screen door. “Isaac told me a few packages arrived for you today. He put them in the spare bedroom.”

  I was filled with a sudden rush of excitement. I’d almost forgotten about the orders I’d made while back in Miami, and as I looked over my new arsenal, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning.

  After opening all of my new weapons, including a .338 Lapua sniper rifle, I stowed and locked them in the massive utility box in the bed of my Tacoma. Then I walked around the house, across the grass, and stood on the wood pilings that formed the edge of the channel. Walking down a short ways, I looked up at the moon through the clear night sky, then surveyed the area around me. The truth was, I didn’t feel right. I felt like something was off, and I’d felt that way since we’d arrived back at Conch Marina. After years of taking part in special operations in the Navy and years of fighting as a mercenary, I’d developed a sort of sixth sense that alerted me whenever trouble was nearby. Right now, that sense was going off like an alarm clock. I couldn’t stop thinking about the guys that had attacked us earlier and then the mysterious yacht.

  After surveying the nearby bushes and trees, I turned around and headed back towards the house. I decided, even though I hadn’t even stepped aboard it yet, that I would buy the Baia the following day. I didn’t like the idea of putting Jack and especially his nephew at risk. If I was right and Black Venom had somehow managed to track me down to the Keys, I’d want them to come for me, not the two of them.

  When I was satisfied with my survey around the outside of the house, I came in through the sliding screen door, shutting it softly behind me before heading to the guest room to crash for the night.

  The next morning, Jack and I drove the Tacoma over to the marina and met with the owner of the 48 Baia Flash that was for sale. Stepping aboard the boat was easy, as it had one of the largest swimming platforms I’d ever seen on a boat before. As I stepped up to the wheelhouse, I realized that the yacht was even more immaculate than I’d anticipated. The attention to detail was incredible, from the leather cushioned seats and freshly waxed cabinets to the shiny steel wheel and handrails. It had a dark silver hull and a brilliant white deck. Dropping down a few steps to the galley, I saw the small full kitchen in the lounge with a dining table and seating for over eight people to eat comfortably. It had two cabins. One of them was the master suite and the other the guest room. The master suite had a king-sized bed right in the middle along with a closet, which had a massive safe built in, and plenty of storage space.

  The owner of the boat, a man named George Shepherd, was a retired surgeon who loved the island lifestyle as much as any man. He gave me a tour of the boat, and I could tell by his voice that he loved the it dearly. When I asked him why he was parting with it, he told me it was because he and his wife were going to buy a sailboat and sail around the world for a few years.

  “I hate to see it go,” George said, admiring the yacht, “especially considering she’s only two years old, but if we put off this trip any longer, we won’t be able to take it.”

  George walked me through every inch of the yacht and answered all of our questions.

  “What’s she got for power?” Jack asked, motioning below us to the engine room.

  George smiled as he bent over and pulled a hatch up out of the aft deck. Below us were two massive engines that looked brand-new.

  “She’s got twin six hundreds,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “This baby gets up to fifty knots. I’ve taken day trips from here all the way up to Key Largo in under two and a half hours.”

  After explaining more about the engines and telling us how top-of-the-line they were, he shut the hatch and pointed at two cameras that were mounted sleekly to the boat.

  “It’s got a state-of-the-art security system,” George said. “Anybody comes near the boat when the system’s up and you can have it se
t to alert you anywhere on board.”

  After seeing all that the small yacht had to offer, I felt more and more like it was clearly the boat for me. It was big enough for me to live on, had plenty of speed and was easy on the eyes. Whether I ended up staying in the Keys for a few months or a few years, it would be a hell of a nice place to call home.

  We agreed on three hundred and seventy-five thousand, and later that day I wrote out the check and exchanged it for the title and registration of the boat.

  “It was a pleasure doing business with you, Captain,” George said. “Take good care of her. I’ll be around for a few more months, so if you have any problems or questions at all, just give me a call.” There was something about being called captain that caught me off guard, but boy did I like it. Wrapping an arm around my shoulder, he added, “There’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge for you to celebrate.”

  I thanked him for everything and wished him well on his trip. When he left the dock, Jack and I sat on the padded seats on the deck and broke open two bottles of beer to christen my new home, thinking it a little odd for a couple of dudes to enjoy a bottle of fine champagne together.

  “I can’t believe you bought this thing,” Jack said, shaking his head and laughing. “You must be an even better mercenary than I thought.”

  The truth was that even though I had made a lot of money as a gun for hire, most of my money came in the form of an inheritance from my dad. He had owned a house in California to go along with his condos in Mexico and Curacao. After he’d died, I’d sold everything but the condo in Curacao, not having the heart to see it go.

  Jack and I sat for a bit and drank a few beers before he got up to leave.

  “I got another charter this afternoon, man,” he said. “But, look, if you need any help finding a place to keep this baby, give Gus a call over at the Conch. I know he’s got a few slips available that are big enough. Just don’t let him charge you anything over fifteen a foot.” He jumped onto the dock, then turned back to me. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Pete said he’d be at his place all day today if you want to stop by to ask about treasure-hunting gear. I’ll text you the address.”