Fallen Mangrove (Jesse McDermitt Series Book 5) (16 page)

Just like that, we went from behind schedule to ahead of schedule. After passing Bimini, we headed out onto the Great Bahama Bank, a huge, sandy, shallow part of the ocean west of Andros and south of Grand Bahama. We broke out of the overcast sky and into sunshine thirty minutes later, the rolling waves falling away to nothing soon after we got out onto the vast submerged plain. The water across the bank is always crystal clear and usually very calm.

Because it was out of the currents, the water was warmer and more prone to evaporation. This caused a higher salinity, restricting growth of sea grasses and corals. We now had the sun slightly off the starboard beam, and our shadow, flying across the sandy bottom twenty feet below, was clearly visible off the port bow. Having gained back the time we’d lost, I suggested we anchor up for lunch. Nikki and Charity went below to get it ready as we dropped anchor in ten feet of water, where there was barely a ripple.

Getting underway a short time later, we soon crossed into the TOTO north of Andros via “The Pocket,” the deep-water triangular part of the Northwest Channel. The change here was even more dramatic than leaving the Intracoastal. The flats funnel through a deep chasm at the north end in a very narrow canyon that was once an ancient river. It’s always a bit disconcerting when looking at it on a chart. Even though there’s plenty of depth on either side, the dropoff from twenty feet to over six thousand feet is one of the steepest anywhere in the world.

In less than a minute, the bottom dropped far beyond the range of my sonar. This huge trench between Andros and New Providence is over a mile deep, its waters changing from the crystal clear of the bank, where minute details of the bottom can easily be seen, to the cobalt blue of the deep in just a matter of minutes as we passed the Northwest Channel light.

Just before sunrise we arrived in Nassau Harbor, which is actually a channel between New Providence Island and Paradise Island. I’d reserved a slip for the night several days earlier at Hurricane Hole Marina, a small deep-water marina on the south side of Paradise Island. I called the dockmaster at Hurricane Hole on the VHF while Doc ran up the yellow quarantine flag and informed him of our arrival. He directed me to the fuel dock and told me once I was fueled to go to slip number forty-eight, between the office and Green Parrot, on the west side of the marina. As we idled into the deep little bay, I was glad I’d reserved a slip—they were all full but one. After fueling, I backed into the slip where the dockmaster stood ready and helped tie the
Revenge
off.

After introducing himself and noticing Pescador sitting in the corner of the cockpit, he said, “You are aware that your dog cannot leave di marina.”

“He’s no problem. He won’t even leave the boat, except to pee on that tree,” I said, pointing to a tree just across the dock area. Pescador immediately vaulted the gunwale and trotted to the tree, where he hiked his leg before returning to his spot by the transom door and sitting down again.

I went with the dockmaster to the customs office to register the
Revenge
while Rusty and Bourke hosed down the boat. After I’d completed the paperwork and getting my cruising and fishing permits, the customs officer accompanied me back to the boat, where he boarded and performed a cursory inspection before stamping all our passports. Doc lowered the quarantine flag after the customs officer left and we decided to visit the Green Parrot to eat. It was literally just a few steps from the dock.

Our waitress was able to get us two adjoining tables on the deck that were large enough to seat all nine of us and we sat down to watch the sun disappear to the west. I sat where I could see both the
Revenge
and the door from the bar. Our drinks came very quickly and our food wasn’t far behind.

I’d already paid for two rooms at the Best Western for Deuce, Julie, Doc, and Nikki, just a few minutes’ walk from the marina. I’d give up my stateroom on the boat for Charity and Tony, Rusty, and Bourke could take the crew cabin while I slept in the salon.

When Charity started to object, I said flatly, “I never sleep in the stateroom when I’m in a strange port, anyway. Pescador sleeps by the door and I always sleep on the sofa right next to it.”

Alfredo Maggio met with his son, Nicholas, and the four people his son had chosen to handle a task for him at his favorite Cuban restaurant in south Miami Beach. Although Alfredo’s firm was considered one of the most reputable law firms in Miami, occasionally an opportunity presented itself that might run afoul of the law, which involved hiring people from outside the firm. People with questionable ethics and morals. The four people sitting with Alfredo and his son were these kind of people.

They were seated at a large booth in the back of the restaurant. He always insisted on meeting these kind of people in a place like this. How they reacted to dining in a five-star restaurant told him a great deal about whether they would be up to certain tasks.

Their table was the only one occupied in the back part of the restaurant. Alfredo sat at the head of the table and Nicholas at the other end, the two couples sat across from one another, the men at Alfredo’s end.

“You’re certain none of the principals has seen any of you?” Alfredo asked both men.

“Not a chance, Mister Maggio,” replied Jose Reynolds, a first-generation Marielista whose mother had once been a Havana prostitute and now ran a high-end escort service. She brought her young son to Miami during the Mariel Boatlift in late 1980.

“We talked only to acquaintances of some of the friends of the principals for a week,” added the other man, Gary Lopez. “Our probing probably wasn’t even noticed by them. We were just two tourist couples looking for a good time.”

Alfredo had utilized the services of both men on several occasions. Reynolds looked more like a surfer than a private investigator. Tall and lanky, with fair hair and blue eyes that belied his Cuban ancestry. He had no qualms about doing things outside the law—if the money was right.

Lopez was Reynolds’s business partner. He appeared to be just another of the hundreds of successful young Cuban businessmen in the area. The two men’s success in their business, both legal and illegal, was due in large part to their ability not to look like investigators or criminals.

The two women, a brunette and redhead, both of Hispanic descent, were strikingly beautiful; each looked perfectly natural on the arm of the two men. They both worked for Reynolds’s mother as high-class call girls. They would look and act correctly whether at a ballet, an opera, or a dinner party—or in bed. Such were the requirements of their employer.

Consuelo Reynolds had married an American shortly after arriving in the States, twenty-six years earlier, and her new husband had adopted her two-year-old bastard son. She went back to her old line of work after her elderly husband died suddenly of a heart attack in 1982. No longer a streetwalker, she’d used her late husband’s insurance money to become a very successful madam, picking out the most beautiful and talented of Miami’s many ladies of the evening. Her clientele demanded a certain level of confidentiality, which Madam Reynolds not only delivered but exceeded. Her business grew, her client list becoming a veritable “who’s who” among entertainment, government, and aristocracy.

“I have some limited background information on some of the people I sent you down to investigate,” Alfredo said. “What more do you have to add?”

The redhead opened a briefcase and passed two files to both Alfredo and Nicholas. The two men opened them and flipped through the pages. “The owner of the establishment is a lifelong resident of the Keys,” she said. “Fourth generation, in fact. As you already know, he served in the Marines for four years, but that was over twenty-five years ago. He’s also a licensed salvor and has recovered the contents of a number of vessels over the years. Aside from that, he appears to be a run-of-the-mill bar owner. His only child is currently in the Coast Guard Reserves. Neither of them have anything that stands out, or that could be used as leverage to persuade the others. The daughter’s husband has only been around the Keys for about a year and doesn’t seem to have a job of any kind. They live on a sailboat behind the restaurant and bar that her father owns. He doesn’t seem to be hurting for money; his share from their last find seems to be supporting them.”

Reynolds took two more files from the briefcase, handing one to each of the lawyers. “Robert Talbot came to Key West five years ago, took a job as a deckhand and later First Mate on a shrimp boat. He and his wife, Nicole, met when they were stationed together, he in the Navy and she in the Marine Corps. She works as a waitress at a number of places in Key West and he works as a mechanic at a motorcycle dealer in Key West. Her father is a recently retired Judge from up near Orlando. The shrimp boat was put up for sale last winter and he’s basically been unemployed, except for working part-time at the motorcycle dealer and an occasional charter with a number of fishing boats. Nothing we learned suggests he’s involved in any kind of criminal activity at all.”

The brunette spoke for the first time. “Actually, aside from frequenting the bar owned by Thurman, there’s no connection between any of them. All of them being former military is coincidental, with the exception of the bar owner and the boat owner. Those people seem to naturally drift together. The black man called Tony and the woman called Chyrel are unknown to anyone in the area. While talking to one man, a long-haired boat bum, I sensed he was being kind of secretive about the owner of the boat, McDermitt. Those islanders don’t gossip much about each other.”

Gomez took the final two files from the briefcase and handed them to the father and son. “McDermitt was stationed with the bar owner in the early eighties. They were close friends and when he retired, he went to the Keys, where his friend lived, to build a charter business. That was over six years ago. Aside from his owning the boat and a small island north of Big Pine Key, we learned very little. People seemed more secretive about him than any of the others. He stays to himself mostly and is thought to be honest, trustworthy, and an exceptional fisherman. In all, these people seem to be exactly as they appear. A group of people struggling to make an honest living in the islands who stumbled on information about a treasure.”

“What can you add, Nicholas?” Alfredo finally asked, lifting his gaze to his only son.

Nicholas looked up at his father, then at the two men, when his attention was diverted to the opening of the restaurant. Valentin Madic had just entered with his two bodyguards. On their way to their table, Madic looked through the glass partition. His father, Reynolds, and the woman sitting next to him followed Nick’s gaze. Madic looked from one person to another, finally nodding a salute to the elder Maggio at the head of the table.

“Keep your eye out for that man while you’re over there,” Nicholas said after Madic went on past the partition. “Let me know immediately if you see him.”

“Who is he?” Reynolds asked.

“Someone you don’t want to cross,” Alfredo said.

“You’re wrong about McDermitt,” the younger Maggio said to both Lopez and Reynolds. “He’s anything but an honest fisherman. He’s a very dangerous man who has killed a lot of people all over the world. Sometimes just for sport.”

“And just how do you know this, Mister Maggio?” asked Reynolds, skeptically.

“I’m married to his daughter,” Nick replied.

While waiting for our food, I called Kim to let her know we’d arrived in Nassau safely. After a moment of talking, I noticed one of the couples at the next table seemed to be paying a little too much attention to my conversation. I really don’t like nosy people, so I cut the call short, promising to call her from Elbow Cay tomorrow about noon.

When we’d finished our meal, we said goodnight and split up, agreeing to a 0700 departure time. I took a mug of coffee up to the bridge and sat watching the comings and goings in the marina. I would have liked a beer, but whenever I was in a place I wasn’t real familiar with, I steered clear. I watched as the two couples that had sat at the table next to us came out of the restaurant. As they began walking around the marina to the far side, following the same path Deuce and the others had taken minutes before, it struck me as odd when they seemed intentionally not to look my way. The
Revenge
is a head turner in any marina and people have nearly walked off the docks looking at her graceful lines. Something about these four just didn’t sit right with me.

I called Deuce and he answered on the first ring. “How do you make them?” he asked, as if he were sitting right next to me and making the same observations. He was a lot like his dad in that respect. Russ and I could carry on whole conversations with just a glance and a nod.

“The redhead and the guy she’s hanging all over were eavesdropping when I called Kim. Neither man looks armed. They’re taking the same path out of the marina you did, about fifty meters behind you.”

“We’ve doubled back from the far side of the office. Should pass them any second.” Then he started talking to me as though to an employee. “I’ll be there in a minute, Captain. I don’t know why you can’t seem to handle it yourself.”

Knowing they were walking past the two couples, I played with him a little. “Swabbing the deck is for squids, I have your swab and bucket ready.”

A moment later he said, “They seemed surprised and tried real hard to not look at us.”

“They did the same thing leaving the Parrot,” I said. “Something’s not right with them.”

A few minutes later, everyone was back aboard the
Revenge
, gathered in the salon. Comparing mental notes from the restaurant, it seemed the two couples came up on Doc and Tony’s radar also. This didn’t surprise me: both men had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, where every person on the street is a potential combatant.

“It wasn’t so much how they acted or what they did,” Tony said, “more like how they didn’t act and what they didn’t do.”

As the two couples approached them, Julie had pretended to take a picture of the marina with her wide-angle digital camera and managed to get all four in the shot.

Deuce was already on the phone, calling Chyrel, as I booted up my laptop. It was a gift from Deuce last year, replacing my old one. Though it looked exactly like the old one, it was packed with high-tech gadgetry. I clicked on the
Soft Jazz
icon on the desktop and a window opened for video conferencing.

“I’m sending you the picture now,” Deuce said after putting the data card from Julie’s camera into his phone. “Call Jesse’s laptop when you find anything.”

Chyrel had priority access to the FBI’s central computer and its powerful facial recognition software. Even the low-light image would be enough for her to identify the four people if they had any kind of record.

“Where is she?” I asked, meaning Chyrel.

“Her and Charlie just got back from fly fishing. She shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.” Moments later, the laptop beeped and Deuce sat down, turning it toward him and clicking the incoming call button.

Chyrel’s face filled the screen, with a smaller window showing Deuce at the bottom. “That didn’t take long,” he said.

“I got a hit right away on one person who lives in Miami, so I prompted the software to search the data base starting in Miami and the south Florida area.” Chyrel said. “It only had to go as far as Miami-Dade to get the other three.” The video screen switched to a display showing four police mug shots. It was the two couples from the restaurant, though the mug shots were far less flattering than they looked in person. The screen changed to a picture of just one of the men, the sandy haired one, with an arrest record below it.

“This is Jose Reynolds,” Chyrel said. “American citizen, born in Cuba to a Marielista mother and adopted by her American husband. He’s a private investigator, but when he was younger he had a few scrapes with the law. He was a person of interest in a number of disappearances in south Florida, some trafficking charges, but nothing stuck. His mother is Consuelo Reynolds.”

“The Consuelo Reynolds?” I asked.

“Yeah, more money than God,” Chyrel said. “If a judge isn’t one of her clients, he’s on her payroll. The Teflon Madam, they call her.”

The screen switched to the other man’s picture and arrest record. “This is Gary Lopez,” Chyrel said. “American national, parents both from Cuba. He’s Reynolds’s business partner, also a private investigator and also with a less-than-stellar record. He did two years upstate for involuntary manslaughter. Pled down from murder two. A few arrests for B and E, drugs, and soliciting.”

The screen switched to the two women, side by side. “The redhead is Bianca Garcia. Puerto Rican-born, natural citizen. More than ten arrests in Puerto Rico for prostitution, but only one in the US. Bailed out and fine paid by Consuelo Reynolds. The brunette is Faye Raminez, American national, Cuban parents, both dead under suspicious circumstances. Several arrests for prostitution in Las Vegas. Arrested for killing a john in Miami two months ago. She claimed self-defense at the arraignment through a court-appointed attorney and was held over for trial. Alfredo Maggio, senior partner of the law firm representing Consuelo Reynolds, took the case pro bono the next day, right after she was visited in jail by Consuelo Reynolds. Charges were dropped by the DA a day later.”

“I swear I’ve seen them before,” I said. “In the Keys.”

“So, we’re being followed across the ocean by an escort service?” Tony asked. “I don’t get the connection.”

“Could just be two rich guys taking a couple hookers to the islands,” Charity said.

Deuce and I looked at one another. I could tell he thought them just as hokey as I did. Reading body language when everyone around you is a possible enemy is something that’s hard to learn, but necessary in some of the places we’d both been.

Deuce shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Me either,” I said. “What do we do?”

“If we leave now, we can be on Elbow Cay before dawn,” Bourke offered.

“Run from two hookers and a couple of private dicks?” Doc asked.

“‘Live to fight another day,’” Bourke said. “Oliver Goldsmith.”

“‘But he who is battle slain, can never rise to fight again,’” Doc replied, finishing the quote. “What? You think they want to kill us?”

“It’ll be hard to follow us in the dark, whether by boat or plane,” Bourke said. “If we see them on Elbow Cay, we’ll know they’re following us.”

I glanced at Deuce, who nodded almost imperceptibly. “Cast off, Rusty. Me and you have first watch.”

It only took five minutes for Rusty and Bourke to cast off the lines. While I warmed up the engines, Doc kept an eye all around the approaches to the marina with a night vision monocular. I plotted a course using the GPS coordinates the owner of the resort on Elbow Cay had given Doc, with a waypoint at Tilloo Cut. The GPS plotter automatically plotted a course through the cut and around the shallows of Tahiti Beach to the channel that ended at the resort’s dock.
Man, I love technology
, I thought.
If only the damned thing could tell me if and why we were being followed.

The why was obvious. We’d done our best to keep the treasure a secret, but somehow it got out. That, or I’m just paranoid. I had my doubts about them not being able to follow us by air. We’d be one of a very small number of boats on the water at night and these waters are noted for phytoplankton that glow when disturbed. We’d leave a trail in the water a blind man could follow. I planned to ruin any chance of them following us on the water by making a high-speed crossing of the Northeast Providence Channel.

While Doc kept watch, I went below to my stateroom and punched in the code to raise the bunk. Among the many reel cases, I grabbed one marked “Penn heavy-duty Squall Level reel” and went back through the salon and up to the bridge. Rusty and Bourke stepped into the cockpit and I put the engines in gear, switching on the powerful spotlights.

Leaving the marina, I turned west into Nassau Harbor and brought the big boat up onto plane immediately. After we cleared the two bridges, I pushed the throttle further, increasing our speed to thirty-five knots. Moments later, we left the channel and I turned north-northeast for Elbow Cay. I opened the reel case and took out two pairs of Pulsar Edge night vision goggles and fitted one set over my head while handing the other one to Rusty.

“You remember the last time we took off in a boat wearing these things?” Rusty asked. It’d been just over six years ago, with a hurricane bearing down on us as we were holed up in Tarpon Bay, way up in the Everglades. Kidnappers, plotting to take a woman we were anchored up with and another boater’s wife and daughters, had tried to sneak up on our anchorage. They were unsuccessful.

“I remember we came out on top,” I replied vaguely.

“Wonder what ever happened to that guy,” Rusty wondered.

He died
, I thought.
And it wasn’t pretty.
I’d never told Rusty, or anyone else for that matter, what had happened.

“No idea,” I lied. “Some say he got eaten by gators.”

“Yeah, right,” Rusty said.

I switched on the intercom and grabbed the mic. “Y’all might as well try to get whatever rest you can. It’s a hundred miles of deep, open ocean to Tilloo Cut and we’ll be there in less than three hours. No guarantee of a smooth ride.”

Once clear of the outer channel markers, I keyed the mic again. “Going dark on the bridge,” I said as I switched off the spots and all the lights on the bridge. Pulling the electronics down in front of my eyes, I turned it on and the world came into focus in a grayish green light. The red and green markers just below the pulpit cast a bright green semicircle of light on the water for a good fifty yards, and the goggles easily picked up the horizon and stars, along with the lights from other boats far in the distance. Someone smoking a cigarette a mile away would be bathed in a bright green light.

I found the new toggle switch Bourke had installed for the infrared spotlight, which he’d mounted inconspicuously in the leading edge of the pulpit trim, and switched it on. Having looked at the tiny light up close, I really didn’t expect much, though Bourke swore it would make a huge difference. He was right. The tiny IR spotlight lit up the water directly ahead for almost half a mile.

I pushed the throttles to their stops and the big boat surged forward. At least the seas were calm, just low wind-driven rollers no more than two feet high and spaced so far apart they had very little effect on the boat.

Minutes later, Deuce, Tony, and Doc joined us on the bridge with mugs and thermoses, filling the mugs by feel and handing them to me and Rusty. “Where’s your monocular?” Deuce asked.

I handed it to him and he switched it on while hanging on the rail and looking aft. Tony held what looked like his cell phone in his hand. He waved it around the bridge and as he started passing it over the console I realized what he was doing.

Rusty started to say something, but I interrupted him. “You’re not gonna get a signal out here, Tony.”

Tony help up one finger then pointed below. A few minutes later he finished and put his phone away. “We found a bug in the salon,” he said. “Bridge is all clear.”

“What kind of bug?” I asked.

“Not a sophisticated one,” Deuce replied as Bourke joined us. “It’s a voice-activated recorder. Only records when someone is talking and then shuts off. It’s capable of sending a microburst of data twice a day, purging what was previously recorded.”

“The rest of the cabin’s clear,” Bourke said. “Just the one in the salon.”

“Sounds pretty damned sophisticated to me,” Rusty said. “How’d it get there? You always lock up the salon and set the alarm, right?”

I thought back over the last couple of weeks. “There’s no chance anyone planted a bug recently.”

Deuce leaned on the rail, still looking through the monocular toward the channel. “Doesn’t have to have been recently. Recording only when there’s sound, then sending it in a short burst, the battery could last for months, especially if it were quiet most of the time.”

I thought back further. The
Revenge
had been docked at the island for most of the last couple months. I hadn’t taken out a charter since midsummer. To get back and forth to Big Pine or Marathon, I usually used my skiff. If I needed to haul anything heavy or go offshore, I’d been using the
Cazador
a lot. It’s a big, diesel powered, thirty-two-foot center console built by Winter Boats up in Raleigh.

“Remember the first night we figured out what was written on the coconut?” Tony said. “Me, you, and Doc sat in the salon and talked about it.”