Kona Waters: A Rick Waters Novel, page 17
“Ready to do some fishin’, eh?”
“Where are you from?” asked Rick.
“Greely. Greely, Ontario.”
“What the hell is a Canuck doing in Ecuador?”
“Well, as they say in Ecuador, you’re either wanted or not wanted. In my case, I was both. I was no longer wanted by my wife, now ex-wife, and I’m also wanted in Greely—at least until the statute of limitations runs out. Ha-ha. I’m Capt. Ron. Ron Rico.”
No fucking way!
“We’re gonna get along just fine,” said Rick.
Rick figured his name wasn’t really Ron Rico, but that their illustrious captain was also a big fan of the movie, “Captain Ron”.
“I’m Rick, and this is Jules. Let’s light the fires and kick the tires,” said Rick, hoping he’d respond with another movie quote.
“If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there,” said the captain in a perfect Captain Ron imitation.
Rick released the lines from the dock, and they were off. The water in the marina and the river that led out to the Pacific was greenish-brown until they got offshore; then, it turned blue and dark. As soon as the watercolor changed, the first mate put some fresh ballyhoo and trolling rigs on two rod and reels on the stern. He had good gear on the boat. Both Okuma trolling rods were paired with Shimano TIAGRA TI130A reels and had been impeccably maintained. The lines weren’t in the water five minutes when one of the reels started to sizzle.
“Fish on!” yelled first mate Jaco.
Rick strapped into the fighting chair and he saw the great fish jump.
“It’s a blue marlin!” yelled the captain.
Rick worked the fish in and out, trying to get it to the boat. Every time he’d get it close, it would run and take damn near all the line off the reel. It was classic man against fish. Rick’s arms were beginning to feel like jello.
“Rick, if you land it, and let me keep it, the trip is free. I’ll even give you some fresh wahoo we caught this morning for dinner,” said the captain.
“Deal!”
Rick knew the captain was getting the best part of the deal since that impressive fish would sell for several thousand dollars at the market. He didn’t care. He was having too much fun and loved the taste of wahoo. He’d only paid $400 for the trip, so he accepted the offer. It took another forty minutes to get his fish close enough to gaff. Jaco got it on the first try, and together they pulled the big fish onto the deck.
“Woohoo!” yelled Rick.
Jaco hooked the marlin up to the crane scale and weighed it.
“560 kilos, boss,” said Jaco.
“How much is that in pounds?” asked Rick.
Captain Ron crooked his mouth doing math in his head.
“About 1,235 pounds, Rick. A keeper. Ha-ha!”
Rick took several photos with the great fish, and they put it into the cooler built underneath the deck. Jaco rebaited the lines and let them out to the length he wanted. As soon as he turned around, the port line took off.
“Fish on! Your turn darlin’” said Jaco.
Jules strapped into the fighting chair and Jaco handed her the rod.
“Wait, wait…now!” exclaimed Jaco.
Jules pulled hard on the rod, and the reel smoked.
“It’s a tuna,” yelled the captain.
Jules reeled quickly and furiously as the fish swam side to side behind the boat. Then it leapt and swung its head from side to side, trying to spit out the hook. Jules never let any slack out and used the drag like Rick had shown her before. It took her close to twenty minutes to get the fish beside the boat. Jaco once again nailed it with the gaff on the first try.
“It’s a bluefin. Mucho dinero,” said Jaco.
“I’ll make you a deal, old cappy. Give us the wahoo filets and half the money from the bluefin, and we’ll call it even.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Rick. I’ll take it.” said the captain with a huge smile.
He was joking, of course, because with the prices at the market for marlin and bluefin tuna, it would be thousands. The bluefin alone would sell for seventy or eighty dollars a pound. They weighed the fish, and it totaled 90 kilos, close to 200 pounds. They were estimating around eighteen to nineteen thousand dollars for the two fish.
They trolled for a couple more hours and caught several mahi-mahis and two yellowfin tuna. Rick wanted to keep those. He loved the versatile yellowfin meat, which didn’t sell for huge money at market but was perfect for grilling.
“What a day, captain,” said Rick as he patted him on the back.
Captain Ron didn’t respond and was focused on the radar.
“What is it?” asked Rick.
“We got pirates.”
“Pirates of the Caribbean?” asked Rick jokingly.
“I’m afraid not. More like pirates of the murderous kind. We are in some dangerous waters here. They have drug runners and bad fucking men down here. Can you handle yourself with a gun? Get your girl down below. There are weapons under the mattress under the port side quarter berth,” said the captain in a dead serious tone.
Rick knew from Captain Ron’s demeanor that he was not playing.
“Jules, we have trouble. Get down below.”
Rick grabbed Jules’ arm and pulled her quickly down the steps into the main salon. He found the guns, chambered a live round into the AK-47, and handed it to Jules.
“If anyone but me, Captain, or Jaco opens that door, unload on them,” said Rick.
Jules stepped into the forward cabin and shut the door. She sat on the edge of the bed with the automatic weapon pointed waist-high at the door. Her hands were shaking. She hadn’t seen Rick that nervous in a long time.
Rick grabbed all the rifles and handguns and carried them up to the flybridge. He pulled his stabilizing binoculars out of his backpack and saw a fast boat approaching. As he looked closer, he realized it was an ex-military fast boat with a Mk 38 25mm Chain Gun mounted on a turret. He counted the men on the boat: a driver and three armed men. The man behind the turret started firing. Water splashed in a long straight line alongside the hull, and the captain shut down the outboards and slowed down. They were outgunned. Rick knew those Mk 38s were incredibly accurate, and if they had wanted to hit them, they would have. The boat pulled up to their starboard hull. One of the armed men threw a line to Jaco.
“Nosotros queremos todo el dinero,” said a big tattooed guy with an Uzi pointed at them.
Jaco pulled his pocket out, and some coins fell out. The man stepped on board and hit Jaco across the face with the butt of his rifle, knocking him to the deck. His face was bleeding badly.
“There’s no need for violence. We have two big money fish in the hold. You can have them,” said the captain.
The big man looked Rick up and down with hate in his eyes.
“Dinero, hombre?”
Rick carefully and slowly pulled out his wallet from the front pocket of his shorts and handed it to him. He pulled all the cash out and tossed the wallet on the deck.
“Captain?” asked the man.
“Nada,” replied Captain Ron as he shrugged.
“Dónde está la niña?”
Rick knew what he said.
“There’s no girl. Just us.”
“Estás mintiendo. Ella está aquí. Where is she?!”
Rick glanced down below out of instinct and then grimaced. He wanted to grab the .45 behind the small of his back and blast the bastard straight to hell, but there were too many guns pointed at him. The big man walked up to Rick and slapped him across the face with the back of his hand. His ring cut Rick’s face, and blood dripped down his neck. They stepped onto the boat and down the stairs. Rick squared off against the port rail.
“¡Encuéntrala! Find her!” yelled the man.
The two men searched the quarter berths, then walked back toward the forward cabin. Rick held his breath. The shorter man walked past the taller, thin man and opened the door. Jules started firing and emptied her magazine into the men's bodies before they knew what hit them. The big man spun around, and Rick pulled out his .45 and cocked it as he spun around, sinking a bullet into the back of his skull before he could turn back around. The captain fired at the driver, and he slumped over the wheel.
“Holy shit. Are you okay, Rick? Did your girl fire that AK?”
“She sure did.”
Rick bent down and helped Jaco stand up.
“You okay, buddy?” asked Rick.
He walked past the big dead guy on the deck. His face was hanging over the side of the fighting chair. Rick couldn’t help himself and reached back, jack-slapping the dead man across the face with the back of his hand. He fell off the chair, and his face hit the deck.
“Bitch!”
Rick ran down the stairs and Jules was poking the men in the back with the barrel of her AK-47 to make sure they were dead.
“I’m pretty sure they are dead, Jules. I can see light through the taller one. There’s a two-foot hole in him,” said Rick.
Jules dropped the rifle, ran up to Rick, and started crying.
“It’s okay, baby. You saved us.”
“I know. It just brought back memories of when I was carjacked. I’ll be okay.”
Rick hugged her tightly. The captain came down, looked inside the boat at the dead guys, shook his head, then grinned.
“We need some firecrackers. Gotta sink that boat,” said the captain as he pulled three sticks of dynamite out of a cabinet beside the stairs.
Rick took Jules up to the flybridge so she wouldn’t have to see them disposing of the bodies. They quickly dragged the dead men over to their boat and hid them below deck. Jaco unrolled a long fuse and ran it into the storage area beside the port side hull, where the ammo was kept. He attached the fuse to the dynamite sticks and shoved them inside a large box of live rounds. When he returned to the top, he jumped onto the fishing boat, and Captain Ron lit a nice Cuban cigar, smirked, then lit the fuse. He slowly moved back up to the flybridge and pushed the throttles forward. He spun the boat around and headed toward the mainland. Like a scene from an action movie, he didn’t even look back when the ship exploded. A fireball shot into the sky at least a hundred feet, and the boat sank like a stone.
Jules was looking at the explosion with her jaw hanging open. Like it was meant to be, the captain piped up and said,
“I crossed these guys once before. Things can get a bit messy.”
It was the exact line Captain Ron used when they ran into pirates in the movie. Only this time it was real.
“Who are you guys? Some kinda commandos or something?” asked the captain.
“Nope. Just Rick and Jules. I’m a private detective and she’s a bounty hunter and my wife,” said Rick proudly as he put his arm around Jules. “We should get Jaco an MRI. He got hit pretty hard.”
“He’ll be alright. I’ve seen a mackerel hit him harder than that. If he starts feeling nauseous, I’ll take him to the clinic,” said Captain Ron.
“You need to wipe your face, Rick. There’s some peroxide and clean rags in the head.”
Rick glanced in the mirror and saw a line of dried blood down the side of his face and neck. He washed his shirt and face with soap and water, then applied some peroxide to his cut. It wasn’t deep, but about three inches long. He hung the shirt in the wind, tied to the radio antenna, to dry. Jaco poured bleach all over the sole and deck of the boat to clean up the blood from the shootings. He mopped it all up, making it look like it never happened. Fish blood on the boat was common, so the captain wasn’t worried. The local police were all on the take anyway. They routinely gave out tickets for speeding and running non-existent stop signs. As for detective work, they were useless. It reminded Rick of the police in Mexico. There was a word for police taking bribes and cash to walk away from writing a ticket called mordida, which literally translated to little bites, as in the police take little bites of your money instead of arresting you. It was also referred to as death by a thousand cuts.
Chapter
Fifteen
Rick texted Clay to heat up the grill. Clay had been slicing and dicing vegetables to make a nice salad. He picked up some roasted corn and llapingachos, which were cheesy potato patties, from the street vendor on the corner of the road, half a block from the Airbnb.
“Holy shit, Rick! Your face! Did you get in a fight with a fish and lose?” asked Clay.
“Not exactly. You won’t believe this shit. Grab a beer, and I’ll tell you while I grill this wahoo and tuna. Better yet, grab two beers for yourself and a near beer for me,” said Rick as he pulled the BuzzDrops out of his backpack.
Rick told the whole story about the pirate attack to Clay while the fish was being grilled to a golden brown. Jules added her own details, and Clay sipped his beer silently, taking it all in. When they finished, he shook his head in disbelief.
“Man, Ecuador can be a dangerous place. I hope we can get out of here sooner rather than later,” said Clay.
“We will. Hopefully in a couple of days,” said Rick as he opened his Find My app. “It looks like the ETA of Keifer’s boat is around 2:00ish tomorrow. We will be ready. I think I’m gonna see if Captain Ron wants to join in for some backup. He’s a capitalist, and money motivates him. Plus, he’s armed like a small militia.”
“Good idea,” replied Clay.
They all sat inside for dinner, where it was cooler with the air conditioning. Rick loved the roasted corn and llapingachos. It was the perfect side to the grilled fish. Jules placed some of her fish on a big salad. She made Rick eat some salad too against his wishes, although he appreciated Clay putting it all together. After dinner, Rick couldn’t get Captain Ron out of his head, so he downloaded the movie, and they all watched it for the hundredth time. He never grew tired of it. It was still early when the movie finished, but it was a long day, and the adrenaline had long worn off, so Rick and Jules went to bed before ten.
“Good night, baby. Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,” said Rick.
Jules kissed him goodnight, and they both drifted off rather quickly.
Rick woke up to the sound of gunfire at around 3:00 a.m. It turned out to be a car backfiring, and he was dreaming. Jules woke up from Rick jerking awake in bed.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, just a bad dream.”
Rick tried to go back to sleep but gave up at 6:30 a.m. He quietly slipped out of bed and went to the kitchen to make some coffee. He checked his phone and saw he had missed a text from Carson.
Definitive match of Kiefer’s toothbrush to DNA found at the crime scene. We got him!
Rick wasn’t sure what time it was in DC but texted back anyway.
Kickass!
He took his coffee out on the back deck and listened to the birds. Today was the big day. Keifer had no idea what was waiting for him when he pulled into the marina. According to the Find My app, they would be arriving a bit sooner, sometime around noon. Rick would be waiting. He called Captain Ron.
“Hey, buddy. You sure you still wanna be involved in this? It could be dangerous.”
“Hell yeah, Rick. After what you told me, I wanna take that guy down just as much as you do. Plus, the money won’t hurt. How much will I get?” he asked.
“If you don't mind waiting for the reward to be paid to me, I can guarantee 250k and have it wired from the victim's father.”
“That’s fine. I don’t know you that well, Rick, but I trust you. By the way, I took your advice and brought Jaco to the clinic. They said he has a slight concussion but nothing serious. He’s gonna be on point, and I’ll pay him out of my cut,” said the captain.
“He’s a good man. Listen, they are arriving a little earlier than expected. Jules is going to greet them around noon with a gift basket. They’ll think it’s a welcome basket from the marina. She knows how to schmooze. They’ll be tired from their trip, so maybe we can get the jump on them. Jules will have a handgun hidden in the gift basket. If everything goes well, we can take them down without a shot being fired. Clay has the jet on standby to fly him out of the country to face the music in Hawaii. I don’t want the police involved. We’ll take his yacht back to San Diego and turn it over to the FBI.”
“Sounds like a solid plan, Rick. That’s some woman you got there.”
“I know. Jules is one of a kind. See ya soon.”
Jules came outside with a cup of coffee a few minutes after Rick finished his call with Captain Ron. They relaxed by the pool, enjoying the calm together, knowing that soon enough all hell was gonna break loose.
Possum woke up early at the ranch with Malia by his side. She was still asleep, so he decided to get up and edit some of the photos he had taken since they arrived in Hawaii. He scrolled through the pictures, admiring the horses and the stunning vistas down near the cove. When he reached the photos he’d taken of Keifer’s yacht off Molokai, he zoomed in out of curiosity. The redhead on the boat was quite a looker, but she didn’t compare to Malia in Possum’s mind. She was in several pictures he had snapped quickly, and in one, she was pushing her hair out of her face, and Possum noticed she had a tattoo. He zoomed in, and it appeared to be a yellow butterfly. He zoomed in, but when he did, it just became pixilated. He thought maybe it might help identify her, as she obviously didn’t mind breaking the law and may be in a criminal database somewhere. He forwarded it to Carson. The FBI had ways of enhancing photos that he couldn’t do with his MacBook. He texted Carson.
Can you enhance the tattoo in this photo and check it against police arrest records?
Sure, I’m going down there soon. I’ll take it to the lab and let you know.
Thanks, Carson.
10-4
Given Keifer’s reputation as an abusive man, Possum wasn’t sure if the woman on his boat was a willing participant or just going along with him out of fear. He intended to find out. He called Rick and let him know his concerns.
“Rick, I was going through the photos to do some editing and scrolled to those photos I snapped in Molokai that ended up being Keifer’s boat. We don’t know anything about that redhead on board. Do you think it’s possible she’s being forced to come along with Keifer?”
