Rising Charity, page 12
part #14 of Jesse McDermitt Caribbean Adventure Series
“There’s something else out there,” Deuce said. “Very small, off to the south.”
“Heading?”
“Hang on—the echo comes and goes.”
“False echo?”
“No,” he replied. “It’s definitely there. A small boat, the size of a skiff. At first, I thought it was a channel marker or something. But as we passed, it started moving on an intercept course, overtaking us. Less than a mile away now, at eight o’clock, angling to intercept.”
Though I knew it was futile, I looked back over my shoulder. I could see nothing in the inky darkness except for the white wake we left behind.
“A thousand meters,” Deuce said. “It’s closing the distance, coming up on the port side. The other boat has also increased speed.”
“Armstrong?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.” He reached into the cargo pocket of his pants and pulled out a night-vision scope. Turning to look out over the port side behind us, he scanned the water.
“What the—? It’s a Zodiac! No lights, no markings, two people on board.”
“Pirates,” I said, pushing the intercom button. “Hang on to something!”
Jamming the throttles until I heard the superchargers engage, I turned hard to starboard, away from the Zodiac. The chines dug deep as the Revenge leaned into the turn, accelerating. I turned the wheel back slowly to the left, turning ever sharper, in a big one-eighty.
There wasn’t time for Deuce to get down and set up the 50-caliber tail stinger stored under the false bottom in the couch. With only two people aboard the Zodiac and both Deuce and I armed aboard the Revenge, I liked our odds without it. The other boat was still too far away to be of any help to the Zodiac, if indeed these people were bent on stealing the Revenge.
“Guide me!” I shouted to Deuce. “I’m going to swamp them. It’ll take the other boat three or four minutes to get here.”
Holding the scope to his eye, he tried to reacquire the Zodiac. “Dead ahead. It’s slowing.”
Piracy is common in the Caribbean, the Bahamas, and all along the coast of Florida. Been that way for centuries. Modern pirates use fast boats and they practice how to board quickly and kill everyone in sight. They don’t take captives; there’d be no ransom demand. They need boats to smuggle drugs, slaves, or any other kind of contraband. They use them up and scuttle them.
“Five hundred meters,” Deuce said. “He’s coming straight at us.”
I eased the wheel to the left, giving the guy an out if he chose. Then I mashed the throttles to the stops. The twin superchargers roared.
“Hard to port!” Deuce shouted, just as the Zodiac came into my range of vision. He was swerving away to our starboard.
I turned sharply to the left, pulling back on the throttles. The Revenge displaced eighteen tons of water when she was empty. Loaded as we were, twenty. About half of that water would cascade away to either side. Nine tons of it hit the much smaller pirate boat at nearly 70 knots, our combined closing speed. I had no doubt as to the outcome.
I turned around and started back toward the now-overturned inflatable boat. The moon and stars provided plenty of light. Seas were nearly flat. I could only see one person in the water, not far from their boat. He was moving.
“Take the helm,” I whispered to Deuce, as I stepped around the console to the forward part of the flybridge.
“Who are you?” I shouted down to the lone figure in the water just ahead of us. “What do you want?”
“What the hell, man,” a voice called back. A woman’s voice. “I was just trying to get to shore.”
“Right.” I shouted. If I pretended to be another pirate or smuggler, maybe I could throw these people off guard. The law of the sea required I assist. But if they were pirates, I could easily ignore that and sleep quite well. “You feds?” I shouted. “DEA?”
“What? No,” came the woman’s reply. I still couldn’t see the other person, as Deuce put the engines in neutral.
“Didn’t you see me?” the woman shouted, her voice somehow familiar. “You’ve flipped my boat. I’m going to need your help getting it flipped back upright.”
“Where’s your partner?”
“I don’t know what you mean. Please, throw me a line. You can’t leave me out here like this.”
I climbed quickly down the ladder, as Deuce brought the Revenge alongside, just ten yards away. “Why were you following us?”
“I told you. I wasn’t.”
I’d had about enough nonsense. “Let me make some things clear, little lady. I have the high ground and you’re in the water. Know how to tell if there’s sharks in the water? Taste it. If it tastes salty, there’s sharks in the water. So, you really need to start being a bit more forthcoming.”
“Okay,” she conceded. “Whatever you say. Just help me out of the water.”
Leaning over the gunwale, I looked down at the woman’s red hair bobbing in the moonlight around her face. “What the hell? What are you doing way out here?”
Opening the transom door, I stepped onto the swim platform. Knowing that Deuce would have his sidearm unholstered and covering me, I shouted up to the bridge, “It’s all right, Deuce. I know her.”
Now there was zero doubt in my mind that this woman had been sent to watch us. But to try and stop us way the hell out here in the ocean? A glance up at Deuce told me that he was ready for anything.
When I reached down to take Poppy’s hand and pull her onto the platform, her other hand came up and grabbed my wrist. I was surprised and off balance. She braced her feet on the edge of the platform, and I knew I was getting wet.
I went with her pull. The water was my element and I’d be more in control. Just as I hit the water, I heard the salon hatch crash open and Finn came charging out into the cockpit, snarling.
When I surfaced at the swim platform, ready to grab at her feet, the woman I now knew was Poppy was gone, and someone was laughing behind me.
“Poppy!” a strange voice called out from the overturned Zodiac. “Stop! Stand down!”
With my left arm up on the swim platform, I spun toward the new threat. My hand went quickly to the Sig still tucked securely in its holster at my back.
“Deuce!” the man in the water shouted. “What the hell, man? What are you doing in the middle of the Atlantic?”
“Dalton?” Deuce shouted, climbing down from the bridge. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Levering myself onto the platform, I stood and looked back at the man now swimming toward us. Deuce joined me and helped him aboard, shaking his hand before they slapped one another on the back. I holstered my weapon.
Finn wasn’t happy. He stood on the deck, just outside the salon hatch, the hair on his back standing up like a porcupine’s.
“Sit, Finn,” I told him. He obeyed, somewhat grudgingly.
“What’s going on?” Poppy asked, standing beside the fighting chair.
Finn had calmed now that I was out of the water. I looked inside, but Chyrel and Charity were out of sight.
“Poppy,” the stranger said, turning toward her. “This is Deuce. Formerly Lieutenant Commander Russell Livingston, Junior. He was the outgoing team leader when I first reported to Dam Neck.”
“Commander,” Deuce corrected him. “I was promoted after I left DEVGRU.” He slapped the man on the back again, then gestured toward me. “You might have heard of my partner, Jesse McDermitt, former Marine Recon sniper. This is his boat.”
“I’ve heard of you,” the man called Dalton said, extending his hand. “You’re the Jarhead who took down a warlord in the Mog with a thousand-meter shot. An honor to meet you, sir.”
“Just Jesse,” I said, shaking his hand.
His grip was firm and self-assured. It was obvious that he and Deuce had served together as SEALs. That was good enough for me. For now.
I turned to the redhead. “And who is this little spark plug? Poppy your real name?”
Dalton stepped forward. “My partner, Special Agent Poppy McVie.”
I grinned. Not what I’d expected at all. “Special Agent, indeed.”
“She’s the brains of the operation,” Dalton said. “I’m the brawn.”
I faced Dalton. “What operation would that be that you’re following us?”
“Well,” he started, almost like a school boy, kicking at rocks, “we thought you might be running drugs.”
Story of my life aboard the Revenge.
“This is Finn,” I said. Finn rose and came to stand beside me.
Poppy knelt and cooed, “Hiya, Finn.”
My dog has no fear of people. He’d never met anyone he didn’t like and who didn’t like him. He closed the distance between him and Poppy, allowing her to scratch the loose fur around his neck and ears.
Dalton studied Deuce for a moment. “Been a while.”
“Yes, it has,” Deuce replied.
“What brought you guys to Bimini?”
Deuce took a card from his pocket and handed it to Dalton, who turned it in the moonlight to get a better view.
“Livingston and McDermitt Security Consultants? You’re a private eye or something?”
“Something like that,” Deuce replied. “We’re meeting a potential client. What’s got you out here?”
Dalton said that they were working for U.S. Fish and Wildlife and gave a brief overview of what they were doing, collecting intel for other agencies and countries to use to make arrests. While he talked, Poppy made a short phone call, telling someone named Tom to head this way to pick them up.
After letting Finn back inside and closing the hatch, I leaned on the fighting chair, my arms crossed. “So, you’re flying blind.”
“Yep, that pretty much sums it up.” Dalton replied.
I sensed a dynamic between these two, something outside of just being coworkers. It was in the way they looked at each other.
“Where were you headed, anyway?” Poppy asked, a hint of suspicion in her voice. “In the middle of the night, without your running lights on?”
I’d forgotten to turn the lights back on after leaving Bimini.
I grinned at Dalton. “You were right. The brains.” I turned slowly back to Poppy. “Picking up a friend.”
“And the lights?” She wasn’t about to leave it alone.
“We were watching for dinoflagellates stirred up in this area,” I lied. “They’re bioluminescent. It’s really quite something to see.”
“Right, I’ve heard of that.” She wasn’t convinced
I nodded toward their inflatable. “Hey, let’s get that boat flipped back over and get you on your way.”
I didn’t wait for a reply but climbed up to the helm. We’d drifted a good 50 feet away from the Zodiac.
“You might want to hold up a minute,” Dalton called up to me. “I, ah, I wrapped a line around your prop.”
I looked back down at him with grudging admiration. It’s a trick I’ve used a few times, myself.
It only took a few minutes for Dalton to dive down and remove the line from the propeller. Then I maneuvered the Revenge closer to their Zodiac and together the three of us managed to right it and get the motor running.
Dalton and Poppy stepped over into their boat and waved goodbye.
Waving back, I said, “We’ll be back in Bimini for a few days. If we see anything, we’ll let you know.”
Dalton put the boat in gear and shouted back, “Appreciate it.”
A larger vessel had slowed, then stopped, holding position about a quarter mile away. The Zodiac took off, heading toward their stern. I waited until Dalton and Poppy were aboard and the boat had turned back toward Bimini. When it did, I took the night-vision scope from Deuce and looked at the retreating boat.
“Droppin’ Skirts,” I said, handing the scope back.
Deuce took it and looked toward the sport fisher. “The same boat that anchored near us last night.”
When I opened the hatch to call Chyrel and Charity out, Finn went straight over to the transom door and whined. The inside latch was bent, and the hatch wouldn’t stay closed.
“All that excitement get to you?” Deuce asked him, as he opened the transom door.
I called through the salon that the visitors were gone, while I wrestled with the latch. It would need to be replaced, but I managed to bend it back enough to keep the hatch closed. Finn relieved himself on the platform. When he re-boarded, I took the washdown hose and rinsed it off before letting him back into the salon. He looked ashamed when I struggled to get it open.
Deuce and I went up to the bridge to get underway and Charity soon joined us. “Chyrel’s working on something,” she said. “We were listening on the intercom. You buy their story? Fish and Wildlife can’t make arrests in the Bahamas, whether it’s drugs or poaching.”
“Until a few minutes ago,” I said, “I would never have thought they had undercover agents. He said they only gather evidence, anyway.”
“Dalton was with DEVGRU for a short time after I took command,” Deuce replied. “He’s a good man. Grew up in Montana, I think. A real outdoorsman. You know, hunting and fishing to survive. He could track an ant across solid rock.”
“So, Fish and Wildlife would be a calling for a guy like that,” I said.
“That and other things,” Deuce said. “We lost some good people in Afghanistan, and Dalton lost his dad while we were there. Had a heart attack trying to get a bagged moose out of the woods. Yeah, I could see Dalton moving toward a park ranger sort of life. His natural ability and talent would be quickly evident, and he’d move up.”
Bringing the Revenge back up on plane, I reengaged the autopilot. We were less than ten miles from Biscayne Bay, so Deuce and Charity both decided to just stay awake. We’d be at the dock in less than half an hour.
Still five miles out, Chyrel came up to join us. “They are exactly who they said,” she reported. “Fish and Wildlife has a special operations branch. Their undercover assets gather intelligence on illegal animal smuggling and poaching. Some of them come from military spec-ops. They operate worldwide.”
“It’s that big a problem?” I asked. “Animal smuggling?”
“Apparently so,” Chyrel replied. “I took a little stroll through Fish and Wildlife’s files. Their encryption is so nineties, by the way. Dalton and McVie have been responsible for the takedown of some major animal smugglers and poachers. She’s the daughter of a Navy admiral, a doctor. Her dad was an animal rights activist until he disappeared in Africa several years ago. In the area where he disappeared, there had been an uprising of Al-Shabaab activity.”
I glanced over at Chyrel in the subdued light. “Al-Shabaab?”
The mention of the radical Islamic terrorist group got Deuce’s attention, too. “Any connection to the father?”
“Not directly,” Chyrel said. “At least nothing official. He was looking into recent elephant poaching activity. An adult elephant’s tusks can weigh more than a hundred pounds each and both male and female African elephants have them.”
“Two hundred pounds of ivory,” I said, making the connection immediately. “What would that bring on the black market?”
“Over $1000 a pound.”
“Whoa,” Charity said softly. “A quarter million for one elephant. Was Al-Shabaab responsible for the poaching?”
“No way to tell,” Chyrel replied. “Everyone and their brother are on the take in that area.”
“What about Dalton?” Deuce asked. “I know his SEAL history, but since then?”
“Not a lot on Dalton, but being a former SEAL, that’s expected. Married and divorced. No real home.” She grinned. “I found a juicy little tidbit, though.”
I rolled my eyes. Chyrel was like a worm when she was digging for information. There was little she wouldn’t find. “Juicy, huh?”
“Dalton’s ex-wife just remarried.”
“And how’s that juicy?”
Chyrel turned to Deuce. “She married a guy named Rod Whitaker.”
Deuce looked at her and nodded. “No surprise. She always struck me as a barracks bunny.”
The term wasn’t new to me. Deployment separation took a toll on families, something I knew all too well. The months alone sometimes sent wives into a tailspin; infidelity wasn’t uncommon. Sleeping around with men in the husband’s unit didn’t happen often. But it did happen. Apparently, this Rod Whittaker guy was Dalton’s former teammate.
Chyrel turned to me. “Whitaker is—”
“Married to Dalton’s ex,” I finished for her.
Chyrel went on to tell us about a few of the projects Dalton and Poppy had been involved in, sometimes risking their lives, to protect animals. To me, that seemed a very thankless job, yet a tremendously noble one.
An hour later, we were coming back out of Biscayne Bay, after leaving Chyrel with Julie. Once clear of the busy port, Charity elected to stay on the bridge with Deuce for a while, after I turned the helm over to him and went down to my cabin for a nap.
By the time I woke up for the second time, it was late morning again. It was rare for me to sleep in, but not knowing what we were getting into, we opted to ensure that each of us got at least eight hours of rest.
The sound of the engines had awakened me when Deuce had slowed, approaching Bimini. I’d helped get the hook down and then the three of us had turned in for another nap.
Surveillance was always a boring job. Andrew and the others were ashore, working in teams. Tony and Tom circulated among the local shops and stores, while Andrew and Paul mingled with the tournament fishing crowd and tourists. Their job was to listen; to get a feel for the new shipyard, and maybe who was coming and going there. They didn’t ask any direct questions, but steered conversations to the shipyard whenever they could. It was the only lead we had.
By mid-afternoon, we decided the most likely purpose of the private facility would be as a place where boats could be refitted for speed without drawing attention. A few locals had said that was what they’d been told by people working there. It was being built as a facility to bring boats in for engine upgrades.
