The other screen showed the face of a man. It was a stark drawing, with heavy brows and a large nose. “Who’s that?” Mel asked.
TJ looked down at a file. “Moses Henriques. Seems he was a pirate who captured the 1628 fleet. That treasure was supposedly taken to an island in Brazil.”
“Was it ever found?” Mac asked.
“Doesn’t look like it, but that’s way out of Gross’s wheelhouse.”
Mac agreed. “This is all research. Are there any logs or anything that shows if he dove it?”
“There’s enough on here to keep me busy for several months. I’ll keep going on it,” TJ said.
“Can I get a copy?” Mel asked.
“Sure thing. I’ll copy the files onto my server and give you the originals back,” TJ said.
“Might ought to burn it to a flash drive or something we can easily access,” Mac said. “I’d also like to get the original back to Kurt before someone finds out it’s missing.”
“Roger that,” TJ said. He got up and walked back to the shelves, where he pulled a flash drive from one of his bins. After inserting it into a port in the chair, he hit some keys and, a few minutes later, pulled it out. “You need to check anything out, let me know. Business is good, but getting spotty during the week.”
“Cool,” Mac said, and took the offered flash drive and the original hard drive back. “Appreciate you doing this.”
“We just wrapped up a contract. It’d be fun to get into something for someone without an alphabet soup name.”
Mac knew he was referring to the CIA. He looked over at Mel. “We ought to get going. Long ride back.”
“And we’ve done it in the dark before,” Mel replied. “Be a little social, Mac. Bad enough you’re like a hermit out there. Scary how similar you are to my dad.” She turned to Alicia. “Where can we take you to dinner?”
To say he suffered through the meal was not exactly accurate, as Mac enjoyed another bite of his ribeye. Most tourists sought out fresh Keys seafood, but with residents’ freezers generally loaded with it, they were often the opposite, getting their meat fixes from the restaurants. He liked the couple and could tell that Mel needed this. Still, he was worried, and his mind wandered from Bugarra being in Marathon to the almost threatening email the guy had written to Mel. He would be careful not to let her out of his sight until he knew the salvor was out of Monroe County.
Sharing a dessert four ways was as domesticated as he cared to get, and he tapped his foot, waiting for the server to bring the bill. A blow to his shin stopped his foot from tapping, and he looked at Mel, who shot him a “don’t mess with my party” look. He smiled an apology. Finally, her social needs were satisfied, and they left the restaurant. They hadn’t spoken about Gross or the hard drive in the restaurant. The Keys had a coconut telegraph, which was several times faster than the best internet connection. With everyone always wanting to know where the bite was, eavesdropping could be a professional sport here.
They said their goodbyes, and Mac started toward the car. Mel headed him off at the driver’s-side door and held her hand out. He dutifully dropped the keys into it and went to the passenger side. Even without the drinks, he would have surrendered them. After two trips to Homestead this week to dive with Kurt, he had exceeded his driving quota for the year.
He must have nodded off, as he woke with a start as they reached the dock. They left the car and walked to the boat. It was instantly apparent to Mac that it had been moved. Good habits made for good boaters, something Wood had beaten into both Mac and his daughter. This covered everything from maintenance to the way a line was tied to a cleat. Where many boaters simply crisscrossed the lines and finished with a half hitch, Mac had learned to place a full circle around the cleat first.
Looking around the lot, he saw Trufante’s motorcycle parked near the bar. He started for the entrance, but decided there would be no point in interrogating a drunk Cajun. Tomorrow would be soon enough. Mel was already aboard and had the engine running when he hopped down from the dock. The unauthorized use of the boat only added to his premonition that something was wrong.
Six
“Find me something I can work with,” Bugarra yelled into the phone, then calmed himself. Even with the company plane, it had been early in the morning when he arrived back from Marathon, and on only a few hours’ sleep, he knew his fuse was short—shorter than normal. The minute he set foot on dry land, he had emailed the Rat the pictures he had taken from Woodson’s computer. He’d suspected there was nothing there, but that was no reason to back off the pressure on his minions. He hung up, sat back, sipped his coffee, and took several measured breaths to bring his blood pressure back to earth. The deep breathing didn’t seem to work, and he wondered if it was too early to dump a shot of rum into the coffee. He went to the sideboard and opened the bottle, hesitating. After finding nothing at the island and without a response to his email, before actually confronting the woman, there was one play left, and due to the location, he put the rum aside. He was going to prison.
Raiford Prison was a long way from Sebastian on the Treasure Coast. He would have preferred to live elsewhere. He spent a good deal of time raising money in Miami, where he had a condo, but the resting spot of the 1715 fleet was where the treasure-hunting community lived—all except Gross, that was. Maybe he was smarter to stay away and take his chances finding hit-or-miss wrecks that might or might not pay off. But the remains of the fleet resting in the shallow waters outside of the Sebastian Inlet had the potential to be the next Atocha. Before finding the famous wreck, Mel Fisher had cut his teeth here.
He got up from the table and dumped the remaining coffee in the sink, then went upstairs and showered. Bypassing his normal dress, he chose something simple: khaki slacks and a plain button-down shirt. There was no need to taint his linen and silk in the prison.
The three-and-a-half-hour drive passed quietly. Too quietly for Bugarra. He scanned the talk radio shows, stopping to listen several times when he heard the news of a large hurricane heading toward Haiti. Though it was a long way away, Florida was in its sights. Without a weather system to shift it farther out to sea, it would be here in days. He remembered Hurricane Andrew, as it had made a dead-straight beeline toward Miami in ’92, going from nothing to a devastating hurricane in four days. Unlike most people who relied on the water for their living, Bugarra welcomed a storm and the insurance money that followed.
After turning inland at St. Augustine, he followed the dead-straight road toward Green Cove Springs and the prison. When he saw the high-voltage electric lines that supplied power to the prison’s infamous electric chair start to parallel the road, he knew he was close. The chair was now just one of several modes of death presented to the inmates like a death menu.
Several small green signs directed him to the visitors’ entrance, where he parked and walked to the door. After almost an hour of screenings and waiting, he was finally buzzed through a solid steel door with a small safety-glass window and led to a room, where the guard entered a code. The electromagnetic lock buzzed open, and he saw the wreck of a man sitting nervously in the chair.
Slipstream had always looked like he was ridden hard and put up wet. The deck hand had been around since Bugarra had first begun his business. Now, after a record-setting plea deal, he would be the guest of the state for at least a few years. How he had finagled a manslaughter conviction out of the murders of Gross, his backer, Morehead, and the attempted murder of Gross’s daughter, Maria, Bugarra had no idea. Maybe only by rolling over on Jim DeWitt, the state archeologist who had been his accomplice. DeWitt was a high-profile takedown for both the state, looking to incarcerate him on criminal charges, and the feds, who wanted him on tax evasion for taking his own share of the state’s cut of the treasures found each year by salvors.
Bugarra had an axe to grind with DeWitt, but that would wait. Since his shell corporation had been listed on the Treasure Hunters payroll as “research” for the last decade, the former s
tate archeologist would tell him everything he wanted to know. The problem with DeWitt was that he didn’t know much beyond the information listed on the permit applications he processed. That in itself often led to gold for Bugarra, but the treasure-hunting community was at odds with the state, and unless a salvor had already found something, DeWitt, as their representative, would be left out of the loop. Slipstream had been at the finds when they took place.
“Nice of you to visit,” Slipstream sneered, clearly enjoying Bugarra’s discomfort, who was examining the plain metal chair before sitting in it.
Bugarra finally decided to burn the clothes he wore, and then sat. “How’re the accommodations?”
“Fair to middling. You going to pull some strings and get me out of here?” Slipstream leaned across the table.
“If only I could, my friend. If only I could.” There was no way, even if Bugarra did have the influence, that he would help Slipstream get released even a day early. In fact, he already had a plan in place to sabotage the parole hearings. Bugarra was quiet for second, imagining Maria Gross’s dramatic appearance before the board.
“Well, what do you want, then?” Slipstream asked.
“I want to help you, of course. Maybe a deposit in your scrip account, or a donation to the warden’s favorite charity in exchange for some conjugal visits.” Bugarra wondered how much it would cost to pay someone to come up here and actually have sex with the man.
“Hard times.” Slipstream smiled.
Bugarra knew he had to play it carefully here. Slipstream might be the only man alive that knew what Gross had been working on before his death. “I’ll do what I can for you.” He rose as if to leave.
“Wait.”
He heard the waver in Slipstream’s voice.
“You didn’t come all the way here to buy me some cigarettes and get me laid.”
“Of course not, but I will.”
“I want something in writing,” Slipstream started, and paused, as if trying to figure out how to outwit Bugarra. “In a safe deposit box.”
Bugarra knew Slipstream was grasping for anything he could get. Having dealt in high-level negotiations for years, he knew Slipstream was shooting from the hip. The best thing to do was be patient and let him finish.
“And fifty thousand cash. And a cut.”
“You want a cut, you produce.” Bugarra watched as the broken man smiled, thinking he had outwitted him. He eased off. “Any information will help your cause here.”
“You know Gross found the Sumnter. Got some gold and silver off her too, before—”
He paused. Bugarra watched as the gears tried to turn in Slipstream’s head. While he waited, he wondered how you talked about someone you killed as if you hadn’t. “And what might that be? There were rumors that Gross had been looking near the Dry Tortugas.”
“Shit, he’d just disappear for a few days.”
“Didn’t take the boat?”
“Nope. Only found out because I followed him to the airport one time.”
“And what was he doing?”
“Took one of those little puddle jumper things to Key West. That’s as far as I was able to track him down. Maybe flying all that money to the Caymans or something.”
Bugarra would be able to check Gross’s passport, but doubted the man had left the U.S. In the salvage business, there were the dreamers and the pragmatists. Gross was definitely one of the former. He would hide his finds under his bed before he even thought to fly them out of the county.
“Why do you think he was looking around the Dry Tortugas?”
“Heard him talking to some dude. Sounded like they were doing some air recon. So, about that scrip and all?”
Bugarra knew, at least for now, this was all Slipstream had. If he did know something else, he wasn’t aware he knew it, or his alcohol-pickled brain had forgotten it. In all likelihood, he had told Bugarra everything he knew. “I’ll make a deposit on my way out.” Bugarra could see the relief spread across Slipstream’s face as he said goodbye and called for the guard.
“Someone was here,” Mac said.
“Yup, I didn’t leave the computer on this program,” Mel said.
“At least three beers missing from the refrigerator.”
“Trufante,” they both said at once.
“He’d take the beer, but the computer’s not his thing,” Mac said.
“Never know what that meathead is up to. I don’t know why you put up with him.”
“It was your dad who said, when trying to find help down here, that it was better to deal with the devil you knew than the one you didn’t.”
This was not the first time they’d had this conversation. In recent years, the lack of affordable housing had made finding good help even tougher. Now, many of the low- and mid-income earners lived on rundown boats, anchored anywhere they could set a hook and still commute to shore for work. One hurricane was going to shut off the mostly unskilled help market.
Thinking about the oncoming storm, he looked outside. There was no sign of anything yet, but that meant little.
“You hear anything?” Mac asked.
Mel clicked the hurricane symbol on the favorites bar and waited for Mike’s Weather Page to load. “Looks like it’s going to pass the Dominican Republic today. Still shows it coming this way. Upgraded to a category five.”
He felt bad for the people in Ruth’s path, but knew that living here, for all its benefits, also came with a large degree of chance. Mac stood behind Mel, studying the screen. He put his hands on her shoulders.
“It’s coming,” Mac said. He’d been watching storms a long time, and it didn’t look like there was anything going to steer this one somewhere else. Beside that, the hurricane was huge—he imagined that if overlaid on the state of Florida, it would cover most of the peninsula. He’d been through enough storms to know exactly what to do and when to do it. His decision to pull the traps earlier looked like the right one after seeing the marine forecast.
“Two to fours building to three to fives tomorrow. We’ll get the lobster traps in the morning and be done with it.”
She nodded. “I’ve got some emails to deal with, and then I can take a look at the drive that TJ copied.”
“Can you stick the drive in? I’ll have a look at it on the boat,” he said, having planned on going down to the trawler to check on some things. He wanted to look at the areas from the aerial pictures on the chartplotter, and see if there was any evidence of what Trufante had been up to. Calling him was an option, but it was too late in the day-after-getting- paid Cajun time for that. With his girlfriend, Pamela gone, the balance that had once countered each of their mercurial behaviors was missing, probably in both their lives.
After a quick inspection, Mac determined that Trufante had not been aboard, and he went to the wheelhouse. Mac was old school, still remembering the Loran time-difference numbers from the pre-GPS era. He had adopted the technology slowly, but finally had been convinced to upgrade the electronics to the twin-screen units in front of him when the boat was refitted last year. He had wavered at the cost, which was almost as much as the rebuilt Cummins that he’d put in. The large screens were identical, synced to display two different views. The satellite internet he had installed for Mel came in handy as he connected to the Wi-Fi extender in the house. In seconds, he had one of the aerial pictures from Gross’s drive on the left screen, and on the right, he used the touchscreen to pan the chart to the same area. Once they were sized correctly, he could imagine the bottom below the water.
Finding wrecks was part divination, part research, and a good dose of luck. You could study logs all day and know where the ships might have gone down, but the ever-changing sands and waters of the ocean were not compliant, and wrecks were often found a dozen miles from where they were recorded to have sunk. As Mac looked at the screens, he focused on an area called the Quicksands. It wasn’t hard to imagine how easily a billion-dollar wreck could be hidden beneath the shifting sands.
&
nbsp; Seven
Feeling as if his office walls were closing in on him, Bugarra had gone home. Sitting by the pool, he opened his laptop, checked the news, and saw the headlines completely dominated by the approaching storm. It had a name and likely a killer now: Ruth. Having wreaked havoc on the Dominican Republic, the hurricane was still a category five with no expectation of weakening in the next twenty-four hours, when it would give Cuba a glancing blow. The models differed from there, but Florida was definitely in the cone of possibility.
His response, unlike most people who protected their property, was to email his insurance agent and increase his coverage. After grabbing a cup of coffee from the machine, he sat back down and started making a mental list of the things that insurance or the government couldn’t fix. The fate of the handful of wreck sites in different stages of salvage was mostly out of his control. He would have his captains and divemasters take one more shot at the sites today, then allow his employees to take care of themselves. His benevolence would, of course, be misinterpreted as caring about them.
There was no controlling the storm, not that he really cared to. By late today, Florida would be a disaster area before Ruth even hit. A mass exodus of evacuees would be underway, and he found it slightly amusing that the state magnanimously waived the tolls on the highways allowing those faced with losing everything the opportunity to save ten bucks. Stores would be cleaned out, and by tomorrow the fighting would begin over what was left. He didn’t really need a plan. With the company jet at his disposal, he could decide when and where to go at the last minute.
He started to think about how Ruth could be the perfect cover to deal with Woodson and Travis. With the residents out for themselves and law enforcement agencies either checking evacuation zones or heading for points north themselves, he could make his move without anyone noticing—or caring. He knew Travis by reputation and expected, with Wood as his mentor, that the apple wouldn’t fall far from the tree. If Bugarra evacuated at all, it would be at the last minute.
Wood's Tempest Page 4
