Mid Ocean

by T Rafael Cimino

  The car’s brakes squeaked to a stop as Joel and Tessa grabbed each other in what was a passionate high watermark for both.

  “Ah, Joel? I think we’ve got an audience,” Tessa said, pointing to the migrant workers who were now standing tall in the field, staring at them.

  “Hold on. I’ve got an idea,” he offered, shifting the car back into gear and rolling slowly under the deluge. As the car disappeared into the wall of falling water, Tessa smiled as she watched the pounding stream hit the car’s clear sunroof. As the sun set, the orange rays that illuminated the spray filled the car with warm light that flickered with the different colors of the rainbow, looking more like the Northern Lights of Alaska than a South Florida evening.

  “This is amazing,” she said. “How did you know to do this?”

  “Well, you know…”

  “You didn’t have a clue, did you?”

  “Nope, none whatsoever…” he replied as the two giggled like school kids in love.

  * * * * *

  Blue

  With the nine hundred and twenty kilo load of cocaine transferred from Linez’s plane to the Heads Up, Julio spent the better part of the day fiber-glassing the stash into the inner hull, making a compartment that was segregated from the rest of the boat with a plywood and Fiberglas bulkhead. After that, he did some much-needed post-collision repair work to Gordo’s 38-foot Stiletto Black Duck. While he was completing that, Del and Gordo loaded eighty bales of sensimilla marijuana into the large holds below the main deck.

  The plan was simple. Julio would run the Heads Up to the Keys. A few hours later, Del and Gordo would catch up in the Stiletto. When both boats hit the reef line, Gordo would speed up the faster boat and head into Tavernier Creek where he would draw the attention of anyone who had been tracking them, leaving the Heads Up to cruise north to Rock Harbor, a popular anchorage where he would lay until some of the crew’s smaller inflatable boats could take the load to shore. From there, Julio would head to the Miami River where they would cut out the second secret load belonging to Gus Greico.

  Julio took his position behind the helm of the new Indian. With a turn of the key the single twelve-cylinder diesel came to life, rumbling beneath the insulated deck. He loved the feel of a new boat, from the smell of fresh Fiberglas that lingered in every compartment to the sawdust that lingered in the cracks and crevasses. This boat was fresh in every respect. A commercial hull by design, it hadn’t yet been christened with a load of fish that would have surely marked it as a worker.

  The only residue the Heads Up would be bathed in was that of the sensimilla marijuana, laden with THC-rich tar, a potent mixture for a drug that would bring over thirteen hundred dollars a pound on the streets of Gainesville, Tallahassee, or Pensacola. For this, Julio made sure to pack a case of bleach to wash the decks down after the first load was gone. The bleach, along with several buckets of seawater, would do the trick, leaving the decks clean and odor free.

  Alazar’s take was sixty points to cross from Andros to the reef and another seventy-five to go from the reef to the clavo. By using the Heads Up, they could reap one hundred and thirty-five thousand per pound and only have to pay one captain. After expenses, Alazar’s take was going to be close to five hundred and forty thousand dollars. After paying the captain and setting aside a sizable amount for the new boat’s maintenance fund, his net was closer to three hundred and eighty-five thousand, of which Gordo and Del each received twenty-five percent. The load belonging to Gus Greico was a different story. Sal Alcone was paying eighteen hundred per kilo to get his load from Andros to the safehouse in Miami. The only expense they had to pay out was to Julio who, spellbound by the amount, agreed to do everything for twenty thousand. There was no counter-surveillance, no chase boats, no clavo and the best part - only a tight group of people who even knew the plan was in motion. If everything went as planned, both would split the lion’s share of over 1.5 million dollars.

  Julio eased the boat out of the small cove and headed through a series of crude wooden channel markers that led the boat into deeper water. Like the first time, he checked the boat’s gauges and all the other functions to make sure that they were performing according to the vessel’s specifications. He was using extreme caution since the boat was still undergoing the break-in phase and the engine’s oil pressure and temperature readings along with the transmission’s drive pressure needed to be constantly checked. The depth sounder started sending radio signals to the sandy bottom below. The amount of time necessary to receive the signal back would be interpolated into a reading which would flash on the liquid crystal display showing the depth. Julio was cautious. He didn’t want to take any chances with his precious cargo.

  •

  Six hours later the Heads Up was sitting at Crocker Reef. Julio had a yo-yo in his hand and was bringing in a small fish when the boat’s Icom 28 radio blared.

  “Slingshot to Bow and Arrow, come in over,” Gordo said.

  “Bow and Arrow here. All clear,” Julio answered.

  Julio retrieved the large steel anchor, restarted the diesel engine, and headed towards Tavernier Creek. Behind him followed Del and Gordo in the all-white Black Duck. Halfway to shore, Gordo hit the throttles as the boat bucked like a wild horse over the larger boat’s wake. Julio watched as the faster boat passed his transom, crossing the final wave of his wake as it jumped completely out of the water.

  •

  Florida Marine Patrol Officer David Fisher was ready to call it a day. The seventeen-year veteran had been on the water since 8:00 a.m. Fisher and his 24-foot boat were feeling the fatigue after the long day. What was this place coming to? he thought. He had patrolled these waters for most of his career, cherishing the isolated beauty that was the Florida Keys, better known by some as “the wild life and reef life.” The Keys were changing though and there was nothing neither he nor the FMP could do to change it. The tiny string of islands at the south end of the United States was no longer a secret, gaining popularity on their own thanks to an active public relations campaign put on by the Monroe County Chamber of Commerce and the Tourist Development Council. The Keys rapidly became the poor man’s Hawaii. What once resembled a quiet seascape lingering over a living reef now looked like a scene from Walt Disney’s The Boatniks, a comical spoof about boating portraying it as a national free-for-all, a fiasco on the high seas. With the holidays approaching there were more tourists, all vying for their bid to dive, snorkel or fish the reef. The FMP office in Marathon had mandated five twelve-hour days a week to its already overworked patrolmen who had to put all their duties aside and concentrate on the most frustrating task of their job: controlling the homegrown makeshift captains who had little regard for their safety and even less for the safety of the other boaters on the water with them.

  Fisher took a second to wipe the buildup of salty grime from his forehead. He was so tired that when he saw the breaking white water of an unfamiliar 42-foot commercial hull headed for Tavernier Creek, his first instinct was to ignore it and wrap up his day with a few jots in his logbook and a quick signoff over the radio. Something about the boat was different to him though. It was clean and new for one thing. Did one of the commercial guys get a new ride and not tell me? he thought. Something else was wrong; the way the boat rode through the water. It almost seemed like it was bow heavy, but having seen what looked like a Customs intercept boat pass by it, he ruled the large craft out as a smuggler. But then he saw it. The commercial boat was not displaying its required state fishing permit numbers. Besides boating safety and marine law enforcement, the FMP regulated saltwater fishing and conservation. This was a new boat and as it came closer he could see that the captain did not look familiar either. Fisher prided himself on knowing all the commercial operators in the area on a first name basis. They even socialized together on occasion. This guy wasn’t from around here and it wasn’t fair to the honest hard-working fishermen of the Upper Keys for an outsider to come in, unlicensed, and fish their grounds, he thought
.

  •

  Julio passed the flock of boats anchored at the Middle Grounds, an area just off the coast of Tavernier. The Heads Up didn’t miss a beat and was making great time. Two dive boats had already pulled up anchor and were headed for the docks. Julio followed suit, pulling back on the throttle and decreasing the boat’s speed so he wouldn’t overtake the others. He never saw the gray 24-footer with the prominent black bow stripe until a blue flash from its forward mounted beacon caressed the interior of the Heads Up wheelhouse. Julio’s heart started to beat rapidly as he was starting to realize his worst nightmare. Then he rationalized that he had two options. One, stop and risk that the officer would board his boat and find the load, a probability since all the cop would have to do is open the deck hatch. Or, he could run for it and save his own ass, thinking he could dump enough of the load to make the cop lose him and then head back to Andros.

  More black smoke poured from the exhaust as Julio gave the twelve-cylinder diesel every bit of fuel its injectors could handle. Despite the marine patrolman’s faster and more maneuverable boat, the Heads Up had a distinct advantage. The choppy seas made the smaller boat have to drop back.

  “FMP 126 Marathon, I have a vessel I’m trying to stop. Request Coast Guard Islamorada assist,” Fisher said into the radio’s microphone.

  With the marine patrolman slipping into his own wake and making much better speed, Julio started to panic. He opened the door and started to pitch the load overboard, one bale at a time. After twelve it was evident that there was no way he was going to get the other seventy-seven pieces off without the officer noticing. To make matters worse, the last bale he grabbed slipped out of his trembling hands and fell to the deck, breaking into pieces. The boat was now tainted with an indelible residue. There was no turning back. Julio realized that his entire fantasy about smuggling and bringing home the big bacon, like a rock star, within his own family were just that - a fantasy. During his short life, reality was a cruel partner for Julio Martinez. His only option was to ditch the boat and run. He headed for the closest group of lights he could see which were on the shore and to the south. Another blue flashing beacon appeared moving rapidly towards his position.

  “FMP 126 Marathon, we have contraband in the water. He’s dumping…he’s dumping…Please notify air support and U. S. Customs.”

  Julio entered the channel to Tavernier Creek wide open as the twelve-cylinder diesel pounded beneath the deck. White frothing water spewed from the transom, culminating into a five-foot-high wake. The town of Tavernier was densely populated enough that if he made it to the beach, he could hide without much of a problem. With the approach to the land, the seas calmed down considerably. As Julio neared the mouth of the creek, red and blue flashing lights caught his eye as two speeding sheriff’s cruisers topped the bridge headed south. He wouldn’t have much time. The 24-foot marine patrol boat was joined with another boat, a smaller Boston Whaler utility boat from the Coast Guard. Julio swayed the massive craft back and forth using the boat’s immense wake to bounce his pursuers off the stern. The tactic worked as each of the smaller boats took a position nearly one hundred yards back. As he went under the bridge, the roar of the diesel engine, amplified by the tunnel of the bridge, was interrupted by the crunching noise of the three Fiberglas whip antennas that splintered to pieces as they struck the relatively low bridge overhead. The fuel dock of the Tavernier Creek Marina lay just beyond the bridge and Julio watched as his five-foot wake engulfed the small concrete pier and immersed it and the fuel pumps in saltwater. Julio continued down the creek, looking for a place to ditch the boat. As he made the first turn he noticed a tributary to his left. With a quick spin of the tall, vertically mounted wheel, the boat banked sharply entering the small notch in the mangroves. Julio maintained his speed, wondering when the bottom would become too shallow to support the boat’s massive draft. Then suddenly, the bow buried into a clump of trees and the keel nestled against the muddy bottom. The boat stopped immediately. Julio was thrown against the stainless wheel with his torso flying over the top, his head smashing the compass and instruments, cutting a gash over his left eye. Blood immediately flowed down the side of his face filling his eye, further hampering his escape. With the two patrol boats closing in, the terrified Cuban climbed onto the bow and jumped forward to dry ground where he fled on foot. He could hear the outboard motors power down as they reached the stern. They were close. Unbeknownst to him, he had landed in an area called Tavern-Aero, an aviation community that was built on a two thousand foot runway. Most of the homes built on the Tavern-Aero strip were weekend getaways. Executives from Miami would fly down for the weekend and then return Monday morning. The development was a virtual ghost town during the week and Julio had no problem disappearing into the woods.

  * * * * *

  Incentive

  Sal Alcone sat silently in his office at International Farms while Del and Gus Greico sat across from him in an oversized couch.

  “Get it back,” Sal said.

  “You know the risks Sal,” Del reasoned.

  “Get it back.”

  “I don’t think it’s that easy,” Greico added.

  “Look, you assured me that these people were good. This is going to be two loads in a row that are gone. Poof! Into thin air! Do you know how much goes into an operation like this? Get it back!”

  “Let me work on it Sal. I have some ideas but it’s going to take a few days,” Del said.

  “Sal - Del’s got something else he thinks you should know.”

  “What else could go wrong?” Sal asked.

  “How much have you done with Aaron Donaldson?” Del asked.

  “Not a lot. We were friends. Over the years, he’s built a lot of boats for us,” Sal answered.

  “Well you know Scott Roberts?”

  “Yeah, he left Stiletto to form Indian Powerboats. You got a piece of that, I hear.”

  “Yeah, Indian. Scott says that with this big government contract, Aaron has been getting cozy with the Feds. Word is he’s turning everyone in to save his ass,” Del explained.

  “Great,” Sal said sarcastically.

  “When I bought into Indian, I paid for the land on 188th Street and the building. We got the land from Aaron. We paid that motherfucker two hundred grand in cash. Because we couldn’t report it, he set it up as a fake mortgage to Scott.”

  “But Del, Aaron would be stupid to roll over on you for that. He’s just as guilty,” Greico rationalized.

  “Unless they found out already and offered him a deal. Shit man, the guy is worth millions. He could lose everything, his government contract, and he could go to jail,” Del said.

  “You’re paranoid Del. You’re a little fish. Relax and get my stuff back and I’ll see what I can find out on this end,” Sal counseled.

  After Del and Greico left the office, Sal had some time to think. This new situation was a potential problem. Aaron Donaldson was a dabbler. He had his hand in everything, including a small bit of International Farms. Several years before, Donaldson had been the architect for a deal between the firm and the Guatemalan Beef Consortium. Donaldson was paid a commission and knew every detail of the deal. Over the years, Donaldson made a lot of money with International Farms. This coincided with rumors that he had heard that a special grand jury had been convened, the same grand jury that indicted Guerillmo Morales and were targeting unnamed, high-level drug targets.

  It was time to act. Sal thought as he spun his chair to face an opened bay window. He looked over the courtyard just in time to see a Ford pickup truck pull down the long driveway towing a tarp-covered car on a tandem axle trailer. A new addition to my secret collection, he thought to himself as the rig passed by his window, headed to the warehouse. “Hartford Connecticut Police Department,” he said aloud, like a kid thumbing through a stack of baseball cards.

  * * * * *

  Scavenger

  The Monroe County Sheriff’s Department was always the first to know when the mosqu
ito commission’s main asset, an old DC-3 cargo plane, was out doing its job, ridding the Keys of unwanted bugs. The process was unorthodox with the oversized plane flying at tree level spewing a liquid larvicide and diesel fuel mixture from its two large exhaust pipes mounted on each wing. The sight looked more like a WWII bomber going down in flames than a simple insect eradication, which is why most tourists who had not seen the spectacle before were alarmed, many to the point of calling 9-1-1.

  Did you actually see the plane hit the ground? was the standard reply, keeping the door open for the eventual possibility that the aircraft could actually crash one day.

  The mission was going as planned with one exception, the guest in the left hand seat of the plane’s complex cockpit. There was an arrangement though between the guest and the pilot who usually flew alone. The guest would pay one gold doubloon for each trip and in exchange, the pilot would fly in the areas the guest requested, low and close to the water, repeating patterns as necessary, and he would exercise extreme discretion. If they found a smuggler’s discarded load floating adrift, a casualty of a boat chase the night before, the guest would radio his waiting crew below to go and retrieve the load for themselves. On moonlit nights, when the bales of marijuana looked like ice floating in a glass of Coca-Cola, the guest would discard a phosphorescent glow stick, the kind used by night divers and found at every scuba shop in South Florida, to aid the ground crew in their recovery.