“So where you guys takin’ her?” one of the troopers asked, his right cheek full of chewing tobacco.
“We’re going fishing in the Keys,” Del answered.
“Man it must be nice. I’ve got me a Ranger bass boat myself. I’ve never thought about taking it to the Keys though.”
“That’s nice,” Del patronized.
Julio was the first aboard. As the boat’s builder, he thought it was his responsibility to check the mechanical systems. Everything checked out and with the turn of a single switch the twelve-cylinder diesel under her deck came to life for the first time. A cloud of gray smoke filled the slip as Julio watched the gauges to make sure the engine was maintaining its oil pressure and the cooling systems were keeping up with the massive amount of generating heat. At 1:23 p.m. the Heads Up was seen idling down the Miami River bound for the open water and her berth at the Miami Marina.
Gordo stepped onto the gunwale, balancing his weight with the filled bags of groceries in each hand. His rubber soled Top-Siders squeaked on the clean deck as he stowed the bags under the hard top. Gordo was sure to check the newly installed refrigerator-freezer, his ten boxes of microwavable pizzas and egg rolls consumed most of the frozen space.
The cabin on Andros was equipped with the bare essentials. All of the cooking would be done aboard the boat which could be docked conveniently in a snug cove that abutted the front yard of the cabin. Baths were taken in the enclave, a ritual that survived from the days of pirates and explorers. Fresh water was a commodity cherished by many in the islands. Gordo’s cabin was equipped with a cistern that was connected to a series of gutters that wrapped around the perimeter of the roof. Fresh rainwater was collected and funneled into the concrete holding tank. From there it went through a sand filtration system and then a more sophisticated charcoal one. Gordo thought it tasted better than Miami’s water though the water was mostly used for the single toilet and cleaning. Gordo was proud of his home away from home. He had spent many nights on this end of the island. Locked in a tin shack behind the cabin was a rusty Honda 250cc motorcycle. Gordo tried to make as few trips to town as possible but if he had to make the three-hour jaunt, it was usually to necessitate parts for one of his boats or to get an emergency ration of food. Fresh Creek was the closest town and was more than sixty miles away, but the roads were so treacherous and laden with sand, most of the trip was made at twenty miles per hour. On the western side of the island, the U.S. Navy had positioned one of its torpedo testing facilities. AUTEC stood for the Atlantic Underwater Testing and Evaluation Center, a base that housed almost two hundred men and women, mostly contract engineers, who worked and lived on the base developing underwater demolition systems for some of the most advanced nuclear submarines in the world. Despite its importance, the base was isolated from the rest of the island. Fresh Creek catered to the Americans who occasionally passed through, but most of the personnel simply flew in on Monday and flew out on Friday. Most maintained homes on the mainland some hundred miles away. Despite the few that liked to explore the island, the north side was considered off-limits. Gordo’s camp was one of only twenty such outposts manned year round. Most of the other camps concealed operations more lethal than the Alazars’. AUTEC policy precluded anyone from venturing to this side of the island. Navy pilots flying in and out of the installation even avoided the north side airspace for fear of a mid-air collision with an unlit smuggler.
With the lines cast and the boat underway, the three plotted their course for the tiny island cabin. With Gordo at the helm, Julio climbed through the engine room, checking all of the fittings for leaks. As planned, the Heads Up cruised at an impressive pace of seventeen knots.
“What’s our temperature looking like?” Julio asked.
“140 degrees and holding strong,” Gordo replied.
“Let me check on our cargo,” Julio said.
“I’ll give you a hand,” Del offered.
The two went below to the cabin portion of the boat. Unlike the finer luxury yachts, the Heads Up had a commercial utility finish. In the bow area, Julio had loaded some Fiberglas resin, a roll of cloth fiber, hardener, some acetone, and a gallon of white gelcoat for finishing the job. When on the island, Julio had two tasks. The first was to fix the damage to the bow of Gordo’s 38-foot Stiletto Black Duck. The next would be to conceal the secondary load of Gus Greico’s located deep in the hull of the new Heads Up.
* * * * *
Intrinsic
The Plantation Key Colony Villas were an enormously popular place for singles and older retired couples to live, mainly because of the affordable purchase prices, reasonable rents for those who couldn’t buy, and the close proximity to the local hospital that was next door. The complex’s tenants were made up of senior citizens who had moved south from the northeast in search of warmer weather and they represented almost all walks of life.
Joel Kenyon walked out of his apartment and across the hall to the small laundry room that was assigned to his apartment and his immediate neighbors on the second floor. In his left hand was a pillowcase that was filled with soiled clothes, the other, a box of detergent laced with bleach. Joel was not used to doing his laundry the way most did. He didn’t separate colors and everything was washed with scalding hot water and dried as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Tessa had been on his mind since he awoke and he was certain his feelings for her were a lot deeper than he wanted to admit. It was even more of a shock to him as he rounded the corner entrance to the stuffy laundry room to find her there, folding clothes.
“Hey you…” she said.
“Tessa, what are you doing here?” he asked.
“I had to help my grandmother with some housework, and the washing machine at my dad’s is acting up.”
“Where’s Monica?”
“In there with grandma, they are baking cookies. You ought to see her - she’s got flour everywhere, including Gram.”
Joel stood next to her for a second and then, without thinking, bent over and gave her a kiss. Her lips were smooth and she returned the kiss with just as much affection.
“I missed you,” she said.
Without answering, Joel looked down at the laundry she was folding noticing a pair of lacy black panties that were at the top of the pile. He picked them up, crumpled them into his hands, and then held the black cloth to his face. The smell of scented laundry detergent filled his nose as he looked down at Tessa.
“Stop that you idiot,” she laughed.
He dropped the panties on the table with a smile.
“Joel, I really wish you’d act like yourself. You really do not have to impress me. Besides, I don’t think my grandmother would appreciate you manhandling her underwear,” she said with a serious face, enjoying Kenyon’s grin that turned straight.
Tessa did his laundry while they talked. She had noticed most of his clothes were made up of bright colors and thought it a shame to wash them all together.
“It occurred to me that the last few times we’ve talked, I did most of the talking. So tell me about your parents,” she inquired.
“Well, my mother left us when I was pretty young and I lived with my dad until I left to go to college.”
“What’s he like?” she asked.
“He was a great dad - someone who always took the time to let you know how important you were. It didn’t matter how busy he was...”
“What’s he do?”
“He was a lawyer, a prosecutor actually, and I loved everything he stood for. He was a real Elliot Ness type. He died during my first year at the Citadel,” he said in a more solemn tone.
“Now I feel like a real prude. We have had some deep conversations and this is the first time I find out that you lost your father.”
“It’s okay. We were talking about some painful stuff. I didn’t want to drag you down any further.”
“You don’t have to explain, I lost my mother too, remember? My father, as good as he was, couldn’t handle it, his heart was broken an
d the only thing he knew to do was make the pain go away. I forgive him in a way for drinking the way he did, but sometimes it’s hard. There are a lot of memories I’d just as soon forget.”
“I was away at school when my father died. My sister Jhenna and brother-in-law Pat were with him. I don’t know if I was more upset about not being there for him, or not being there for her. She was devastated.”
“So do you see your sister much?”
“When I can. She’s in Atlanta.”
“Atlanta? That’s strange.”
“What?”
“Oh nothing.”
“No, what?” he asked with a smile.
“Really, it’s nothing. You were saying?”
“Right…Atlanta. They live in a small suburb called Buckhead.”
“What does she do?” Tessa asked.
“She’s a lawyer. Works in a private firm, mostly corporate litigation, that kind of stuff.”
“It must be nice to have someone looking over you. When I left my family, that was it buddy. It was me against the world and then I married Bobby. It wasn’t very different from being alone. He really wasn’t around much and when he was, well, we had our good times but they were outweighed by the bad ones. He could be so hateful when he wanted to be, like someone threw a switch. I was planning for a divorce just before he died,” she explained.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Joel said.
“Don’t be, I’m a big girl.”
“And that you are.”
* * * * *
Feather
The small dirt strip hidden on the north side of Andros didn’t appear on any FAA chart. There was no aeronautical Unicom frequency assigned to it for ascents or departures, no ground crew and no landing lights. For those approaching, the greatest hazard was that of loose animals crossing the paths of landing planes. From the air it hardly looked like an airstrip at all. It was nearly twenty-three hundred feet long, short by most opinions. The land was leased and the strip ran from one end of the property to the other, and, as Gordo would often say, it was what it was. DEA, Customs and the Coast Guard were familiar with most of the clandestine runways in the area. Surveillance flights were common, though this strip was unique. The property on which it sat once belonged to a pineapple grower who heavily fertilized the area with raw fish and livestock manure from a small head of cattle that once grazed on the land. Fifty years later the property was overgrown with trees, mostly hardwoods, oaks and pines that were once seedlings, imported by the previous owner to spice up his end of an otherwise flat, barren island. The tall trees that concealed the strip, or most of it, created a partial canopy over two-thirds of the runway. This provided a suitable amount of privacy for the smugglers flying into the property but also presented some challenges. Only the best attempted.
Ralph Linez made his approach with full flaps, guaranteeing him the maximum amount of lift with the least amount of speed. The plane’s gear was down as the twin-engine turbo prop descended just feet over the tops of the swaying trees that guarded the strip’s threshold. Linez, despite his years of experience, was taken aback by this challenge. There were no second chances here. He would have to land in the window of the canopy and hope the strip was long enough to slow him down. If it wasn’t, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it. The canopy prevented him from retaking to the air. He would simply run headlong into the hard-woods at the end of the strip. Sweat dripped down the twin throttle levers from his wrists as Linez adjusted the engine’s power. Then he feathered the props into a position so they could be reversed quickly. The key was to not rely on the brakes but to reverse the thrust of the turbo props as soon as possible.
This plane was responsive, he thought to himself. Not like the heavy Beechcraft he lost in the Keys. The wreckage of a plane on the beach below, left strewn around the north side of the island, reminded him of the night he crashed into the shallow water off the Upper Keys; a night that changed his life and his upgraded status as a fugitive after jumping his bail on the trafficking charges.
Gordo, Del, and Julio waited by the cabin as the high-pitched whisper of the high-winged Turbo Commander blew over their heads. Gordo kept his fingers crossed. This was a new pilot to his strip and, despite the wreckage on the beach, the Alazars had a perfect safety record. The only aircraft that had crashed did so before they obtained the property. The incidents usually occurred after leaving the strip, usually striking the tips of the tall hardwoods after becoming airborne. No one had actually crashed on the strip itself though, and Gordo was happy of that, being the one who would have to clean it up if they did. Within a three-mile radius Gordo had counted twelve planes or piece of planes, not all from his strip, but most a casualty of poor planning combined with an overloaded aircraft. All the crashes were in various stages of decomposition with twisted metal, some pieces no bigger than a common Frisbee. Some had barnacles affixed to the fuselage while others were pitted and rusting. All were a constant reminder of the dangers of clandestine aviation.
The Turbo Commander dropped into the threshold, descending just past the first line of trees and coming down close to the grassy surface. Linez, just before touching down, reversed the pitch of the dueling three-bladed propellers, shifting the thrust ahead of the plane instead of toward the aft. The stall warning alarm activated immediately sending a shrieking tone throughout the cabin before the plane fell the remaining few feet coming down hard on the grass strip with pieces of debris and sand flying up and behind the plane. The craft rolled to a stop just three hundred feet short of the wall of trees at the end of the runway. Linez braked the rear main gear and throttled up the left engine, this time with the prop pitch aiming aft. The plane turned a sharp one hundred and eighty degree turn and headed for the waiting men at the cabin.
* * * * *
Rainbow
When Tessa had asked Joel for a favor, he didn’t know what to expect, although he knew he would have done just about anything she asked. The request was simple. Drive her to the apartment on Miami Beach to get some more of her things before putting the place on the market. Since she drove a small sports car, the room of Joel’s larger BMW was an added benefit.
What was happening? he asked himself. This felt good to him, especially at Owen’s when he would sit on the couch and Monica would climb into his lap and rest her tiny head on his chest, a first for a man who didn’t spend a lot of time around small children. The next day he went to a drugstore to buy her a toy and presented a small stuffed rabbit to her in front of Tessa.
“Joel, I know you meant well, but you bought my kid a dog toy,” she said, squeezing the thing until it squeaked.
“It was in the toy section…” he defended, as Monica snatched the toy out of her mother’s hand.
“Safe for puppies of all ages,” Tessa read from the toy’s packaging.
Then the two of them looked down at Monica who didn’t care. She owned it. Still, it felt right, and as Tessa noticed, that despite his clumsy learning curve, Joel Kenyon was a natural who operated from the heart. Not a replacement, she continually told herself, but an evolution in her life and the product of some good decision making and a little bit of luck.
Kenyon’s feelings for Tessa surprised him. He hadn’t expected to find love on this assignment but it was his sister Jhenna who used to say: “Love is where you find it.” Still, Tessa Sands Alazar was not the safest person to fall in love with. She was the widow of one of the biggest smuggling families in the Keys, but then, she was also the daughter of his partner. The collateral damage to his career alone could prove devastating setting him back ten years. But this, for some reason, didn’t seem too important. Growing up, his life had been ruled by so many others. He had subscribed to the ideals and goals of so many others, so much so that Joel had neglected the needs of his own soul. Tessa was a radiant vision that greeted him every morning in his mind as he awoke. The mere whisper of her voice over the phone made him melt, an emotion he had never experienced before. The political climate
in South Florida and the Second Federal District, as enforced by Patrick Stephens, didn’t seem to matter anymore.
Joel’s BMW continued north on the eighteen mile stretch with their destination being the Alazar condo at Haulover, Miami Beach. Tessa continued to caress the back of his hand that rested on the car’s console-mounted shifter. The condo had been her home for the last three years. Although it represented more than that, it stood for everything she wanted corrected in her life. For days, she imagined the blackness she would encounter when she finally returned to open the front door and view everything Bobby Alazar had provided for her. That life was in the past and for the benefit of the elder Alazars, the marriage had not ended in the disgrace and failure of a messy divorce.
The day was hot and humid. Boils of hot air rose from the black pavement ascending skyward. Joel felt the car’s air conditioning system trying to keep up with the tepid air outside the car. Despite the allure of his imported car, the air conditioning system was less than desired.
While driving through Homestead, a small farming community, Joel pulled down a paved road that was adjacent to a thirty-acre field of cultivating green beans. Scores of Mexican migrant workers labored, bent over wooden baskets, picking the crop clean from the vine-like bushes that stood a foot above the rich black soil. The BMW stopped just short of a white deluge of water that was being projected from an agricultural irrigation truck, a machine that looked more like an oversized lawn sprinkler but produced ten times the water flow of a standard fire hose. The stream, which shot over a hundred feet into the air, formed a rainbow as rays of sunlight pierced it.
Mid Ocean Page 29
