by Matthew Rief
“I have,” Jack said. No longer leaning over to look at the laptop, he was now lounging on the seat opposite the table. “Spent my whole life on these waters, taking people out fishing and diving. And my father before me.” Jack motioned to me. “But Logan here isn’t in the charter business. It’s much too safe for him.”
“Too safe?” Sam asked, raising her eyebrows.
I looked over at Jack and grinned. “I think what Jack means to say is that while he possesses customer service skills, I possess—well… a different set of skills.”
All three of them were now looking up at me, intrigued.
“Don’t let him beat around the bush with you,” Jack said. “Logan here was Naval Special Forces. He’s one of the best-trained warriors on the planet.”
“You were a SEAL?” Sam asked, and I nodded in reply.
“But you’re not a SEAL anymore?” Claire said.
“That’s right,” I said. “I guess you could say I’m in the business of trying to make the world a better place, one bad guy at a time.”
That piqued their interest even more. They threw more and more questions my way, but I deflected all of them with ease. I’d gotten pretty good at keeping what I do a secret. I usually never even mentioned to anyone that I was a SEAL. I liked to let people figure it out on their own after I whooped their ass or beat down some bad guys in front of them. I’d always had a distaste for the guys that went around bragging to everyone and their mother that they were a SEAL. But that’s just me.
After finishing the snacks Jack had brought in the cooler and downing a few cans of coconut water to stay hydrated, we decided to head to the second site. It was now eleven in the morning, and we were nearing the peak heat of the day. I climbed up onto the bow with my binoculars and had another look around. When I was confident that there were no boats following us or heading in our direction, I raised the anchor and climbed back down to the cockpit. Jack had already grabbed the dive flag, along with the line, which he coiled and set on the swim platform. I turned the key, started the massive engines, and punched in the coordinates. It would only take fifteen minutes at cruising speed to reach the second dive site, which would allow the four divers to get rid of the remaining nitrogen buildup in their lungs prior to the next dive.
The next site was just north of the Marquesas Keys. Sam and Tony spent the majority of the ride hunched over their laptop and tinkering with their equipment in preparation for the next dive. Claire helped out but seemed more interested in working on her tan and staring at her phone. Jack stood by me and kept a lookout while I cruised through Boca Grande Channel and then piloted us straight to the dive site. In just over twenty minutes, I slowed to a stop, then dropped anchor. Looking at the depth finder, I saw that we were floating on a little over sixty feet of water, meaning the divers would have less bottom time here than at the previous site. They donned all of their gear and dropped down below the surface, their survey equipment in hand. Jack told me they’d be down about forty minutes, and again I stepped up to the bow, had a quick look around, then plopped down into the half-moon seat with a cold beer in my hand. Soon they were rising back to the surface and climbing back onto the swim platform.
“That was even better than the last site,” Sam said as I grabbed the sonar scanner in her hand and set it on the deck. I held out my hand and helped her climb up the ladder in the heavy scuba gear and tank.
After I helped everyone aboard, they removed their gear and set it aside, and we lounged for a quick lunch before heading to the third and final site of the day. Anxious to get started on analyzing the data they’d gotten, Sam and Claire went fast to work uploading to their laptop while Tony took apart and dried off their underwater camera. Sam stepped over to her BCD to retrieve a sample she’d left in the front pocket and slipped on the wet deck. Bending her knees, she reached out her hands and grabbed onto the transom to stabilize herself but accidentally knocked off her mask. It tumbled over the swim platform and into the water, quickly disappearing beneath the surface.
“Shit,” she said as she regained her balance and watched as her mask sank to the bottom.
“Are you alright?” Jack said, rushing over to help her.
When it was clear that she wasn’t injured, she shook her head and reached for her BCD.
“Mind if I borrow your mask?” she asked, looking at Jack.
“You can’t go down yet,” he said. “You need to bleed off the nitrogen in your lungs.”
Before Sam could reply, I was on my feet. I quickly slid my shirt over the top of my head, tossed it aside, handed Jack my Sig and grabbed my mask from the nearby storage space in the outboard.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
“That’s over sixty, bro,” Jack said but I didn’t reply.
Moving aft, I leapt over the transom, flying high into the air and splashing down into the water headfirst. The warm, refreshing Caribbean water felt good on my sweating body as I dove down towards the seafloor. I kept calm and swam with slow and deliberate strokes, using as little oxygen as possible. Holding my nose and trying to force air out of my ears, I equalized the pressure a few times before reaching the bottom. Sam’s mask was resting on a piece of elkhorn coral beside an anemone and a small patch of seagrass. As I grabbed it, I realized how familiar the ocean floor looked. Right below me, under the coral, was a large ledge eerily familiar to the one where we’d been looking for the treasure. Holding Sam’s mask in my hand, I swam over the top of the ledge, examining the cracks and the intricacies of its edges. After looking it over for a minute, I looked up towards the bright surface and slowly started my ascent.
Free diving always reminded me of my time at Basic Underwater Demolition School. It’s six months of physically rigorous training that every SEAL undergoes prior to receiving their gold trident, which is the symbol for the SEALs. In BUDS, we’d spent weeks in the water, swimming with our hands tied behind our backs and our masks flooded with water for hours on end while instructors yelled at us and called us every name in the book. After going through BUDS, everything suddenly becomes incredibly easy, especially everything to do with the water. I slowly broke the surface while I was letting out the rest of the air from my lungs, then took a slow breath to recover while I treaded water aft of the boat.
“He got it!” Claire said enthusiastically. She, Sam, and Tony were leaning over the transom when I rose up.
I slid my mask down, then grinned as I swam over and handed Sam her mask.
“How did you do that?” Sam asked, astonished. “That’s over sixty feet down. You were under for at least three minutes.”
“’Bout time you came up,” Jack said. I climbed up onto the swim platform and saw that he was lounging casually in the shade with a beer in his hand, grinning from ear to ear. “And what did I tell you about Logan? He probably did that dive without even trying. The man’s a fish.”
Sam handed me a towel, and I thanked her, then dried off.
“I was intrigued by the formations down there,” I said.
“That’s what we’re studying,” Tony said. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”
I nodded and opened the cooler. “Who’s ready for lunch?”
We ate some sandwiches Jack had ordered from the Pelican before we’d left the marina and talked more about what they were studying and how each of them had realized their desire to study geology. I was intrigued to learn that Sam was a first-generation American and had moved to San Antonio, Texas, from Mexico with her family when she was twelve.
After eating, I grabbed a beer, spread a towel on the bow and relaxed in the sun before taking them to their third and final dive site for the day. We had some time to kill in order to bleed the nitrogen from their bodies before they could take another dive. I was surprised when I heard footsteps and saw Sam approach. She spread out her own towel and sat down beside me.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all.” I smiled and put my right arm under my head. I was wearing my aviator
sunglasses, allowing me to look at her without having to squint too much under the tropical sun.
We sat in silence for a moment, then she said, “I’m sorry that I was rude earlier.” She took in a deep breath, then sighed. “It’s just, it had been a rough trip up to this morning and I was worried we’d end up wasting all of our time here.” Her tanned, smooth skin sparkled in the sun and her long, dark hair swayed gently in the breeze.
“Don’t worry about it,” I replied, smiling at her. “I hope today has made your trip a little better.”
She nodded. “Infinitely so. We’ve gotten a lot of great research in and I know the third site will yield even more than the others.”
“What makes you think that?”
“It’s by far the most active site in all of the Keys,” she said. “The seismic activity there is unlike any place I’ve ever seen in the world.”
Hearing Sam say that piqued my interest as well.
“When are you gonna use that drone?” I asked, trying to subdue my desire to take out her toy and take it for a test drive. I’d seen UUVs, or unmanned underwater vehicles, before while I was in the Navy, but I’d never been given the opportunity to operate one.
She laughed. “Planning to at the next site.”
We spent a few more minutes relaxing on the bow, enjoying each other’s company, before I stood up and folded my towel.
“Well, now you’ve got me interested,” I said. “I guess your passion’s contagious.”
We climbed down to the cockpit, and after Sam gave me the coordinates for the third site, I punched them into the GPS. A moment later, the location appeared on the digital map, and after looking it over briefly, I motioned to Jack. He looked at me with a confused face as I pointed at the screen. Looking where I was pointing, he froze, then looked up at me with wide eyes.
“What do you think?” he said quietly.
I shrugged. “Maybe they can help our search.”
The coordinates Sam had given me were the exact location of the ledge where Jack and I had been looking for the Aztec treasure for the past week. I handed Jack the binoculars and told him to keep a lookout for anything suspicious and to make sure we weren’t being followed. It was just after thirteen hundred when we lifted anchor and cruised towards the third site. The sun was now right overhead, warming the air around us into the upper eighties. The sky was still clear and the sea as calm as I’d ever seen it. I brought the Baia up on plane, then kept her steady at thirty knots. I cruised past the Marquesas Keys, and when we were only a few minutes away from Neptune’s Table, Jack tapped me on the shoulder.
“Ease off a bit,” he said while staring into the binoculars.
“What’s wrong?”
“Not sure, but bring her to a stop.”
I slowed the Baia to a stop, then kept her idling. Jack handed me the binoculars.
“There’s a boat anchored right where we’re heading,” he said.
Looking through the binoculars, I saw that it was a center-console, probably thirty feet long, and had two guys walking about the deck. There were no fishing rods, so they weren’t a fishing charter. Could be a dive charter though or just a few locals out catching lobster. Jack had told me that although it wasn’t a well-known site, the few who did know about it liked to take advantage of the abundance of bugs. Suddenly, a diver appeared on the surface. He climbed up the ladder onto the boat, wearing full scuba gear.
I handed the binoculars back to Jack. “What do you think?”
He shrugged. “I don’t recognize the boat or anyone aboard.”
“What’s going on?” Sam asked. She stepped over beside Jack and me, her gaze drawn forward.
I didn’t know how to respond. I looked at Jack, but he also looked tongue-tied.
“Just another boat at the site we’re heading to,” I said. “Couple guys diving.”
“What’s wrong with that? Lots of people dive all over the Keys. I’m sure you both know that as well as anybody.”
“Yeah, but Jack doesn’t recognize the boat or anyone aboard. We’re trying to figure out if they’re friendly or not, but it’s hard to tell.”
Sam shook her head in frustration. “I don’t understand.” She snatched the binoculars from Jack’s hand and took a quick look at the distant boat. “What is it you two are so worried about? It’s just a couple of guys out enjoying the water. We could pull up fifty yards from them, anchor down and share the site.”
“What are we worried about?” I said. “First of all, Jack’s been living down here his whole life. He’s seen all sorts of things and knows just how dangerous this part of the country can be if you’re not cautious. There are drug-running pirates all over the Caribbean that would love a boat like this. And I’m sure they’d try to take you and Claire as well.” The mention of her name caused Claire to look up from her phone and stare at us with a worried gaze. “Second, you hired Jack to take you out on the water today, which means you’re in his care. If Jack decides it’s too dangerous to approach this unknown boat, then we don’t do it. End of story.”
“We’re in the Florida Keys!” Sam exclaimed. “US soil. There’s nothing dangerous about this place.”
Just as she said those words, I heard the unmistakable roar of a loud diesel engine far off in the distance. I grabbed the binoculars, stepped to the edge of the bow and searched in the direction the sound was coming from. Looking out to the west, to the right of the anchored boat, I saw another boat flying across the water. This one was larger, and it was fast, probably going at least forty knots—heading straight for the boat anchored above the site.
“I’m guessing you don’t recognize that boat either?” I said, handing Jack the binoculars.
He gave a quick look, then shook his head. “I don’t like the look of this, bro.”
Suddenly, the loud reports of automatic gunfire echoed across the water. I quickly dropped to a crouch on the bow and yelled for everyone to get down, telling Sam to climb back down to the cockpit and drop to the deck.
“Came from that one,” Jack said. He was kneeling beside me and pointing at the boat cruising full speed over the water.
I stared at the boat and saw three men standing in the cockpit. One was driving the boat and the other two were holding rifles against their shoulders, their barrels leveled at the anchored boat they had almost reached. More shots filled the air, and we watched the men on the anchored boat take cover as bullets rattled against their hull. They tried to fight back, firing off a few rounds, but were quickly overtaken by the speeding boat. The attacking boat pulled up alongside the smaller boat, and the guys holding rifles sent their victims to the deck, shooting them in the chest multiple times. A few men aboard the larger boat jumped over to the other one. I tried to get a good look at the attackers. One of the men wore a white tank top and had a bald, shiny head. Another guy was big and muscular and wore camo cargo shorts. After looking the guys over as best as I could from such a long distance, I looked at Jack.
“We need to leave. Now!”
He nodded as I hit the throttles slowly and turned her sharply to port. A moment later, the men climbed back over to their boat and a loud explosion filled the air as the anchored boat blew up from the inside. Flames shot out from all openings. Glass shattered and metal shards, plastic and various parts of the cockpit flew out from the boat in all directions. Black smoke rose up in a cloud through the clear tropical sky. Just as I was completing my turn and about to put the explosion behind us, I watched the guys aboard the attacking boat look in our direction. They pointed and yelled out, though they were much too far away to hear what they were saying. One of the men jumped in front of the wheel, and a moment later the boat was turning in our direction.
I pushed the throttles forward as far as they could go. The Baia accelerated like a rocket, shooting us over the waves and spraying water over the bow. I turned around and saw that the boat was now following us and quickly coming up on plane. I watched as the speedometer inched higher and higher until
we were cruising at fifty knots. Turning back to look at our pursuers, I saw that they were still far off but were gaining on us. There was no doubt in my mind that whoever these guys were, they’d do the same thing to my boat as they’d done to the other one. I opened the small locker beside the wheel and handed Jack his Desert Eagle, which he shoved behind the waist of his shorts.
“Take the wheel,” I said, stepping aside. Jack grabbed the handwheel with a firm grip. “Keep us straight as you can.”
He asked me something, but I couldn’t hear what over the roar of the engines as I climbed down into the lounge. Sam was standing by the steps, holding on to a support brace, and the two others were sitting nervously around the table, holding on to anything they could get their hands on.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked. “Who are those guys?”
I walked right past her, heading for the main cabin. “Drug-running pirates,” I said as I walked out of her view. I headed straight for the small closet adjacent to my bed, pushed aside the hanging clothes and made quick work of the combination lock. It clicked open and I pulled the door, revealing my stash of rifles, handguns and other assorted weapons I’d purchased since arriving in the Keys. I grabbed my 338 Lapua, which had a Nightforce NXS scope attached to it, and two magazines, then shut the door to the safe and spun the combination lock. Carrying the rifle and ammo, I moved back into the lounge.
Sam looked shocked when I appeared. “What are you gonna do?”
I loaded one of the magazines into the bottom of the rifle in one clean, smooth motion. “I’m gonna try to get them off our backs,” I said as I took the steps, the final words coming out of my mouth as I reached the cockpit.
Looking over the aft end of the boat, I saw that the boat was even closer now. Soon we would be within range of their rifles. Jack looked back at me as I climbed over the seats and sprawled on my stomach over the sunbed. I unclipped the bipod legs and extended them down to support the barrel of my rifle as it aimed toward our attackers. Looking through the scope, I put the boat right in my crosshairs, then chambered a round and clicked up the safety. I calmed my breathing and took aim at one of the guys, whose head just peeked over the cockpit through the windscreen. The wind had picked up a little, and both of our boats were bouncing slightly over the waves, making it difficult to get a clear shot. I held my breath and steadied. Predicting when their boat would rise up, I pulled the trigger just as the guy appeared in the crosshairs. The rifle boomed to life, and I watched as the round hit the guy right in the head, exploding in a splatter of blood. He instantly disappeared from view along with the driver of the boat, who, having seen his buddy get sent to Davy Jones’ locker, decided it was best to stay low in the cockpit.