Gold in the Keys

by Matthew Rief

  I fired off a few more rounds into the windscreen, shattering the glass. Unable to hit the engines at that angle, I took aim at the hull, piercing a few holes in the fiberglass, hoping to slow the boat down. It didn’t. I didn’t know if the boat was armor-plated, but they kept gaining on us regardless. I rose from my position, switched on the safety on the rifle and set it on the half-moon bench. I’d been in many boat chases before, and there’s always only two ways to come out of the situation on top. You either outgun your opponent or you outmaneuver them. Fortunately, in the Navy, I’d been sent to small boat school and was frequently appointed to the helm when we needed to get our team out of a dangerous place in a hurry.

  “Where are we?” I asked Jack while looking at the digital map beside him.

  “Approaching the Southern Reef,” he said, his eyes staring forward. He pointed ahead of us, then motioned to the screen. “You can see it on the map. The reef stretches across a few miles here.”

  I examined the reef on the map, which was indicated by shallower water. I noticed an abnormality in the reef and, looking closer, realized that I recognized it.

  “Is that Sierra Reef?” I asked.

  Jack didn’t have to look at the map. He’d spent his whole life on that water and knew every reef, island and sandbar like the back of his hand.

  “That’s her alright.”

  Sierra Reef was named after its shape, clearly forming the shape of the letter S from overhead. I glanced at my watch. It was just after 1400, which meant that low tide had been only thirty minutes earlier.

  “Here, let me take the helm.”

  As soon as I had control, he let go and shifted over, allowing me to step in and take over. I immediately turned us slightly starboard, then looked at the map and turned a little more, positioning us on a straight-shot course for the uniquely shaped reef.

  “What are you doing?” Jack looked at me and then the digital map, then shook his head violently. “Are you crazy?”

  “That reefs gotta be only a foot or so beneath the surface,” I said, then pointed forward. “Look, you can even see a few whitecaps.”

  “Hell yeah, it’s only a foot, probably less. We gotta turn this thing before our hull gets torn to shreds!”

  “Oh, I’ll turn,” I said with a confident grin. “But not yet.”

  Jack kept looking at me like I was insane, then, catching onto my plan, said, “You can’t hit Sierra at this speed and expect to make it through, Logan. It’s not possible.”

  “We used to do it all the time in my dad’s boat,” I said, remembering the days Jack and I would spend out on the water together, maneuvering in and out of shallow reefs for the thrill of it.

  “That was years ago, and that was a twenty-four-foot navigator, not a damn yacht. Also, I’m pretty sure we never hit it at fifty knots!”

  Jack was right both about the speed and size difference, but we had no other choice. We were too far to make a break for Key West, and I didn’t like the idea of facing those guys head-on, given the fact they had high-powered automatic rifles and all we had were semiautomatics. Even amateurs can hit a target with a spray of bullets, and I doubted the guys after us were amateurs.

  “I’m serious, Logan, there’s gotta be another way out of this.”

  “There’s no other way! Look, I’ll slow down right before we reach the reef. Just enough to hit the turns.”

  Jack went silent. He looked back at the boat behind us, which was still moving closer and closer with every passing second. I looked down at the map that showed our position as we inched closer to the reef. On the same screen, I looked at our depth along with the front- and side-scan sonar. Using all of the boat’s equipment, I eased on the throttles slightly as we were almost over the reef, bringing our speed down to just over forty knots.

  “That’s still too fast, bro!”

  There was no time to debate with him.

  “Hold on!” I yelled at the top of my lungs over the roar of the engines so the others in the lounge could hear.

  As the boat behind us maintained its speed, cruising to within two hundred feet of us, I entered the opening between the reef, then rolled the helm sharply to the right. The boat jerked hard, and the starboard side lifted out of the water. I grabbed onto the shade cover supports with my left hand and kept the wheel turned with my right. Keeping my eyes glued to the screen, I let off the turn slightly, and the Baia leveled as I kept it in the narrow gap between the reefs. The side-scan sonar and depth finder allowed me to see exactly where the reefs were. It was close, so close that even the slightest mistake on my part would ruin part of the hull. I turned hard to port, then eased back to starboard, maintaining thirty-five knots throughout the turns until I reached open ocean, then pushed the throttles forward. Gunshots echoed across the water from behind us, and I watched water splash up around us as bullets hit the surface.

  I turned around and saw that our pursuers were less than a hundred feet behind us and were about to reach the reef at full speed. They tried to turn sharply at the last second, but it was too late. Their boat smashed into the shallow reef, splintering their hull into pieces before the weight and velocity of the boat caused it to flip over and tumble wildly. Pieces of the boat flew out in all directions, and the prop roared as it flew out of the water. We heard faint screams as the boat tumbled over and over again before finally coming to a stop. It was totaled, completely smashed to pieces, and Jack and I both knew there was no way anyone on board could have survived. The gas tanks must have been punctured, meaning that if by some miracle, one of them had survived, they would be gone in a matter of minutes when the wreck blew sky-high.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  Jack patted me on the back as I kept the throttles full, putting distance between us and the two wrecked boats.

  “Hell of a maneuver, man.” He looked over the horizon to make sure there weren’t any other boats following us, then stepped down to the lounge to let the others know that the coast was clear.

  Sam rose up from the lounge first. I could tell she was about to ask what had happened, but she paused as she stared at the crashed boat behind us. Claire and Tony appeared, followed closely by Isaac. The three stood in awe as they gazed back at the wreckage. A few moments later, Sam turned to me.

  “Who were they?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. All we know is they killed everyone on that other boat and tried to kill us too.”

  I stepped aft and grabbed my rifle, which was still resting on the half-moon bench. Removing the magazine and ensuring the chamber was clear, I carried it back into my stateroom, locked it up, then stepped back up to the cockpit.

  “Aren’t you gonna call the police?” she asked.

  “We’ll wait until we’re closer to the marina. Then we’ll give an anonymous tip. I personally try to deal with law enforcement as little as possible.” I looked at Claire and Tony, who were both still standing in shock after what had happened. “Look, but that’s just me,” I continued. “You are Jack’s and my guests. If you want to speak to police about this, then I’ll respect that decision.”

  Sam thought it over for a moment. “You’re the locals, and we’ll trust your judgment. I don’t have a lot of time to spend down here in the Keys, so every hour counts for our research.”

  Jack nodded. “Sheriff Wilkes is a good man, but trust me, if we tell him exactly what happened, we’ll be wrapped up in this mess for a week. Best to leave it all to them.”

  Jack was almost interrupted by the sound of a loud explosion that came from about a quarter of a mile behind us. We all turned back in unison and watched as a black cloud fumed up over the crashed boat, which was now engulfed in flames.

  “It’s not every day you see that,” Claire said. Needless to say, she wasn’t staring at her phone anymore.

  Cruising through the water at forty knots, it didn’t take long for the Baia to reach Key West. We arrived just before fifteen hundred, and I eased on the throttles and pulled us into the
marina. We called the local authorities via channel sixteen on the radio and gave a detailed emergency report, then hung up before giving away any information about ourselves.

  “You weren’t kidding about not liking to deal with authorities,” Sam said with a grin. “You spat those words out so fast I could barely understand them.”

  “I worked for the government for six years while in the Navy. There’s little that’s simple or logical about how they go about their business when it comes to dealing with people.”

  We cruised through the no-wake zone and into Conch Marina. Slowly but efficiently, I brought the Baia right into slip twenty-four, then killed the engine and tied her off. We spent the next half hour rinsing off all of the scuba gear and cleaning up the boat. We loaded everything onto one of the marina’s carts and rolled it back over to the Calypso. Once all the scuba gear was in its rightful place, we helped carry their gear to the parking lot and loaded all of it into the back of a silver Pathfinder.

  “Is there any chance either of you would be willing to take us out to that third site tomorrow morning?” Sam asked as we finished loading her SUV and shut the back door. She had changed into a pair of short shorts and a flannel shirt with her sleeves rolled up and the top buttons undone, revealing part of her bikini top underneath.

  “Are you serious?” Tony asked in amazement. I was surprised to hear him talk. He hadn’t said much since we’d been chased across the Caribbean. The whole thing had shocked him pretty bad, something that’s common when people who aren’t accustomed to violence experience something like that. “You want to stay here and keep going out after what happened today?”

  “Of course. It’s our job, isn’t it?”

  “Getting chased by a bunch of bad guys with guns isn’t my job. I’m a geologist, not a warrior.”

  “All great intellectuals took risks for their discoveries,” Sam said enthusiastically. “Besides, thanks to Logan, there are less bad guys out on the water than there were before.”

  “I have to agree with Tony,” I said. “I think it’s too much of a risk to take you all anywhere on a boat right now, especially where we ran into those guys today.”

  Agitated, Sam opened the driver door and hopped inside. Claire got in the passenger side and Tony sat in the back. Before Sam pulled away, she rolled down her window.

  “Let me know if you change your mind,” she said, handing me a ripped piece of paper. I grabbed it and saw that it had a phone number written on it. “Or if you just want to have drinks sometime,” she added with a smile.

  I returned her smile and told her to be expecting my call, then waved as she started the engine and pulled out of the lot. She waved back as Jack and I turned to head back towards the dock.

  I kept my head on a swivel as Jack and I walked back towards the Baia. After giving her one final clean, I grabbed the laptop bag along with my duffle, then activated the security system and locked her up. We headed over to the Calypso and did the same, deciding it best that we both stay at Jack’s house tonight. We couldn’t be certain that no one was following us, and we wanted to stick together. Jack started up his twenty and piloted us out of the marina and over to his house. Isaac was spending the night at a friend’s house, having ridden his bike there after we’d arrived back at the marina, so we spent the evening cooking up food and trying to figure out what our next course of action would be.

  I called Sam the following evening, and we listened to live music at the Pelican while enjoying some of the best cocktails in the Keys. But she ended up cutting the evening short in order to get back to her work.

  “Are you always such a workaholic?” I asked as I walked her out of the restaurant.

  She smiled and told me that mixing work and play didn’t usually go well for her. I drove her home, then made my way back to Jack’s place.

  A small storm blew up from the south for the next couple of days, turning the sky black and blowing winds in excess of sixty miles per hour. It made the seas too rough to do much of anything, so Jack and I spent most of our time looking at what footage and sonar scans we had of the ocean floor over and around the ledge.

  One night, the day after the storm passed, I had dinner with Jack and Gus at Pete’s place. Afterward, we were pulling into the parking lot at the marina when I received an alert on my phone. It was my boat’s security system informing me that there was someone on my boat. I looked through the windshield, trying to catch a glimpse of the Baia, but I couldn’t see it beyond the other boats in the dim dock lighting.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

  I grabbed the Sig from my hip and checked to make sure that the magazine was full, even though I already knew that it was.

  “There’s somebody on my boat.”

  I stepped out of the truck and shut the door quietly. Jack and Gus got out just behind me.

  Gus held his hands in the air. “Look, I don’t want any trouble here.”

  “Me neither. That’s why I’m packing.”

  I kept my head on a swivel as the three of us headed towards the docks. Jack had also grabbed the Desert Eagle from his hip, and we moved in slower as we hit the stairs and reached the dock where the Baia was moored.

  “I’m gonna call the sheriff,” Gus said as he turned and ran for the marina office.

  The marina was usually quiet at night, a contrast to the loud nightlife of downtown Key West. Tonight it was silent aside from the shifting docks, occasional conversations of night owls, and the distant sound of a radio playing. A few people sat on their boats, lounging and enjoying each other’s company as we walked by. The few who noticed the pistols in our hands sat frozen in shock with wide eyes and open jaws. As we moved in closer to slip twenty-four, I noticed that my boat wasn’t there.

  “What the hell?” I said as I picked up my pace, nearly coming to a sprint as I raced toward the empty slip where my boat had been moored just a few hours earlier.

  I stopped and took a quick scan of the marina.

  “There, bro,” Jack said, pointing towards the end of the dock we were standing on.

  I looked down the dock and saw movement in the water that was only illuminated by the distant glow of the marina. It was my boat, and it was rounding the narrow opening at the end of the dock I was standing on, heading out towards the open ocean.

  I sprinted to the end of the dock, then took two steps on a small Catalina moored at the end and jumped as far as I could, launching my body towards the moving Baia. I landed softly on the sunbed, rolled into a somersault and rose into a crouching position with my Sig aimed straight at the guy manning the helm.

  “Cut the engine and put your hands up!” I gritted my teeth and kept a close eye on the stranger, watchful for any sudden movements. He was wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood covering the back of his head. Slowly, he eased the throttles back and turned the key in the ignition, killing the engine. “I’m not gonna say it again. Get your hands in the air!” I clicked up the safety, revealing the red dot indicating that it was ready to fire.

  Slowly, the man lifted his hands into the air and turned around. My jaw dropped to the deck as their face touched the light from the dock.

  “Holy shit, Sam?” I said, staring at her blankly. Slowly, she slid the hood of her sweatshirt off her head. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Her eyes were staring straight at the Sig in my hands, and I noticed her relax a little as I lowered it.

  “I have to go to that site,” she said. “I told you my research is important to me. I figured I could take it out and return it before sunrise without anyone noticing.”

  “You mean steal it?” I said.

  “Borrow it.” She sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to take it, but you didn’t want to go out and I didn’t know what else to do. Every charter in town is fully booked.”

  I paused for a moment, then heard the sounds of footsteps coming from the nearby dock. Looking over toward the sounds, I saw Jack running to the end. He froze when
he saw us both standing in the cockpit and gave a confused look, followed by a grin.

  “I guess you don’t need backup.” He slid his Desert Eagle back into his waistband at his lower back.

  I stepped over to the wheel, started the engine and brought the Baia in a slow circle back towards my slip. When I reached the dock, I threw the lines for Jack to tie her off.

  “So let me get this straight,” I said, stepping towards Sam, who was standing aft of the cockpit. “You planned to steal my boat, cruise over an hour from here and scuba alone and in the dark at a site you’ve never been to before? And you’re a professor?”

  “I’m an experienced diver,” she replied, “and boater. I’ve gone out many times before, and I’m successful at what I do because of my drive and my willingness to take risks in order to find answers.”

  “Why do I get the feeling this isn’t the first time Miss Flores here has borrowed someone’s boat without asking?” Jack said, grinning from ear to ear.

  “This is the only time, I swear,” she said. “Hell, I can’t swear to that, but it’s the only time in the Keys, and I promise I won’t come near your boat again.”

  I tried not to smile, but damn it was hard. Truth is, I would have been mad as hell if she hadn’t been so damn sexy. She was wearing a sweater that was big enough to cover the end of her shorts, but small enough for her long, toned legs to be visible in the moonlight. Her hair was a mess over her face from the evening breeze and she occasionally brushed it back, revealing her soft brown eyes.