To Honor We Call You: A Florida Action Adventure Novel (Scott Jarvis Private Investigator Book 9)

by Scott Cook

  When we made it back into the wardroom, the sight that greeted me was not reassuring.

  Juan had managed to secure Jaime. He was holding the hand-held VHF that I’d dropped when I’d crouched to fire at Luis. Nikki had been picked up and placed on top of the conference table with several blankets beneath her and another on top of her. All of them were already heavily soaked in her blood. One of the ship’s crew, possibly a doctor or medic, was hooking up an I.V. bag. Nikki’s face was already frightfully pale. All of these were very dire signs indeed.

  I rushed over to her. Her sky-blue eyes were open and they focused on me. A pain-filled smile crossed her full lips.

  “Hey… get him?” She asked weakly.

  I quickly looked at Sharon who wore a severe frown on her face. Juan came to stand beside her and put an arm around her. He held the radio up. The tape had been removed but he was holding the talk button down. No doubt so Lisa could hear.

  “We got him,” I said softly. “Just lie easy, now. Save your strength.”

  She smiled again, “Did you… you really think I had gone bad? Come on… Scott.”

  I brushed a loose lock of her blonde hair from her face. Both her hair and her face shone with sweat, “I should’ve known all the time.”

  “Scott… please… kiss me and… and tell me that you still love me,” Nikki said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

  “Nikki… you need to lie quiet.”

  She shook her head, “Getting cold… I’m… I’m not gonna make it. Please, Scott… I know what I did three years ago was terrible… but I still love you and… and maybe a part of you still…”

  “Pulse is thready,” The crewman… no, crewwoman… said and looked at me and shook her head no.

  I felt my stomach heave. I took in a breath and bent down, pressing my lips to Nikki’s. They were oddly cool in spite of her sweating. Our lips joined together for a long moment before I pulled away and whispered, “Of course I do.”

  Nikki Sloane smiled, drew in a breath and then another ragged one and exhaled slowly, almost peacefully. It would be her last.

  I heard a crackling and a tiny voice. An arm snaked around my waist and held me as Juan pushed the VHF into my hand.

  “Baby… I can’t hear… what’s going on? Did you get Garcia?”

  It was Lisa down in the Maestro Pescador. I looked at the pale and beautiful woman lying before me. There was no faking this time. No second chance.

  “No, Lisa… I didn’t get him. Garcia got away and… and Nikki Sloane… she didn’t’ make it.”

  Juan must have filled Lisa in a little before Sharon and I came back in. There was a long pause.

  “What do we do now?”

  I drew in a breath and let it flutter away again, distantly aware of how eerily it mimicked Nikki’s last, “We go home… we leave this Godforsaken place…”

  Lisa had the forethought to cast off just after Sharon had started up the hull ladder. Now she was piloting the sporty fifty yards off the freighter’s port bow as both vessels exited Havana harbor at ten knots, escorted by the Cuban patrol boat. In another hour or two, we’d transfer back to the fishing boat and the cargo ship would proceed to Miami. With all of the evidence removed, if there had actually been any drugs on board, there was nothing for the crew to worry about.

  Angela Gomez, the ship’s medic, re-dressed and re-stitched part of my wound for me. We also helped to load Nikki’s body into an unused portion of the ship’s storage freezer. It was a sad business, seeing that body bag closed behind a heavy freezer door. In it was the lifeless body of a once vibrant young woman. A woman who cared deeply for her work.

  And I’d doubted her. In spite of the convincing way she’d wormed her way in with Garcia, I felt I should have known.

  “You gonna be okay?” Sharon asked me as we sipped coffee in the ship’s galley.

  “Oh, just peachy,” I said. “Christ, Sharon…”

  “Don’t let it eat you up,” She said kindly, standing next to me and putting an arm over my shoulders. “Nikki made her own decisions and did what she felt was best.”

  I frowned, “I can’t help but think that I let her down, though. Twice she arranged things so that she could get me involved… to help I guess… and I blew it.”

  Sharon shook her head, “Scott, it wasn’t like she could explain things to you. Events just went down. If you want my honest opinion, she fucked up by trying to arrest Garcia under those conditions. Maybe she saw an opening and took it… but it was sloppy.”

  Part of me had to admit she was right. Yet saying so now that Nikki was dead seemed somehow disrespectful.

  Sharon chuckled humorlessly, “I’m not being intentionally disrespectful of the dead. Yet on the other hand, I always kind of thought that was stupid. If somebody was an asshole in life, their death certainly doesn’t make them a good person. But for some reason, it’s wrong to say it after they died. Bullshit. That’s just superstitious human beings trying to hedge their bets and say nice things about the dead so they don’t get haunted.”

  I had to laugh, “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  Sharon sighed, “So when do we get off this tub, anyway?”

  “Pretty soon,” I said. “It’s pretty calm. I’ll have the captain come to a stop so we can climb down to the sporty. First, though, I want to have a little talk with him.”

  While the ship’s captain wouldn’t outright admit that they’d been running drugs, he did allow that there had been some offshore rendezvous and that he and his crew had been paid large sums of money. Garcia had explained to him that there had been a secret stash of contraband on one of their runs a few months back unbeknownst to the crew… or at least most of them.

  Clearly somebody had to slip the stuff aboard. The point, however, was that there was documented evidence of it. Through his connections, Garcia had said, he could release the evidence to the DEA or FBI. No matter what the captain could say, Garcia had proof that drugs were shipped to the U.S. and received there all on the captain’s watch.

  So he and the crew had been blackmailed. At first they didn’t like it but after a while, with good money being put into their pockets, they simply shrugged it off. Some of Garcia and his brother’s men would meet them at sea, come aboard with cocaine shipments and then rendezvous with Cooper Trent in the Florida Straits. The men would then hide aboard the ship in a specially designed cargo container rigged as a habitat. Then they’d go back to Central America on the next run.

  It was fairly simple and a bit too convenient for my liking. The way the captain told it, he and his crew were just innocent hardworking mariners who were forced into doing bad business. Maybe that was somewhat true, but I didn’t completely buy it. At any time they could’ve warned someone. It wasn’t until they started spending some of that cash in an obvious and flashy way that Ramon Tavares got suspicious. No less than eight deaths had come about as a result, at the very least. Four of which couldn’t be seen as anything less than murders as well. Nikki Sloane, Diego and the Morris brothers.

  The sea was calm enough to make the transfer. I was glad to be away from the freighter and back on the flying bridge of the Maestro Pescador. I’d contact Ray Tavares as well as Colonel Grayson on the way in. The Colonel already had assets in play to make certain that the cargo vessel reached port this time.

  Lisa held me close as I sat behind the wheel and watched the ship rev up its engine and turn Noreasterly. I was glad to see it go.

  “I’m so sorry, baby,” Lisa commiserated. “That really sucks about Nikki.”

  I sighed, “She died with her boots on, at least. Of course… I feel super guilty over it…”

  “I thought you didn’t do guilt.”

  I scoffed, “I do when it’s about something I did… or didn’t. Or… or if I lied.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I drew in a steadying breath, “She asked me… to kiss her and tell her I still loved her. She said she still loved me… and I said I
did.”

  Lisa was silent for a time, “I’m not surprised she still had feelings for you. But you think you lied about yours?”

  “I’m in love with you,” I said.

  Lisa looked up at me and smiled, “I know. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have some feelings for another woman you’ve known. There are degrees of love, after all.”

  I grunted something non-committal, “I guess… knowing that she hadn’t turned to the dark side, as it were, was a relief. It did restore some of my faith in her at least. It’s just a shame.”

  “Yes… but at least it’s over,” Lisa sighed. “Garcia is gone and he and his brother have their map. Now that the lid has been blown off the whole drug thing as well, Ray Tavares won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

  I nodded and disengaged myself. I pushed the throttles forward and got the big boat on plane. Then I pushed them nearly to the stops. The chart plotter indicated a speed of forty-three knots. That was fine. I had an urge to get back to Florida and put this behind me.

  I knew that was a fantasy though. I looked over at Lisa and said: “I wish it were over. Something tells me that what Garcia said in the hold was true. It’s just begun. Now he and Bolivar have their land claim and they have a load of deadly germs. There’s still another shoe, and it’s gonna drop. Just when and how is the question. No… I’m afraid this is just intermission.”

  Sharon and Juan appeared at the head of the ladder and came forward with four beers in their hands. They passed these out and Sharon raised hers high.

  “To Nikki Sloane,” She said. “A brave and strong woman who gave her life in the service of her country.”

  We all clinked and I drained half the bottle.

  “You know, Scott,” Juan said, settling onto the portside bench beside Sharon, “It’s only about one-thirty. We do have a well-provisioned fishing boat here…”

  I grinned at Juan and was secretly thankful for his attempt to lighten the mood, “You sayin’ we should rig out some skirts and see if we can’t snag a box full of dolphin?”

  Juan grinned broadly.

  Sharon’s eyes went wide in mock horror. She knew that I was referring to the fish, also known as Mahi-mahi, “Dolphin! Oh my God, that’s awful!”

  “He means the fish, you crazy bitch,” Lisa replied with a laugh.

  “No, I meant Flipper,” I said airily. “You ain’t lived till you’ve had fried blowhole.”

  Juan guffawed and Sharon chortled, “You’re a jerk, you know that?”

  “You’re a jerk,” I rejoined.

  “You’re mom’s a jerk.”

  “Your butt’s a jerk.”

  The ribbing and laughter was a much needed balm for my soul. Juan was right, though. Seeing as how we had the gear, I made an effort to find a spot to fish.

  About fifteen miles from Marathon, I saw a two or three mile long slick on the blue water. I slowed to an idle and also saw that there were several patches of Sargassum weed floating on the surface. Although we didn’t have any live bait, we did have a variety of frozen ballyhoo and sardines. There were also plenty of artificial lures aboard. Juan and I rigged out four rods with a sort of squid-looking lure about four inches long. The many rubbery hairs that trailed from the head were chartreuse and yellow. From the center protruded a short length of steel leader with a hook on which we threaded ballyhoo. With the four rods rigged out, two of which were set up to the now extended outriggers, I began a leisurely four knot run along the edge of the slick. It only took about twenty minutes before I spotted what appeared to be a door or maybe a long boat cushion floating on the surface. As we motored past, all four lines were hit and I put the boat in neutral and slid down the ladder to the cockpit to grab a rod.

  “Damn, this one’s strong…”

  “Watch my line!”

  “Get the gaff… for Christ’s sake…”

  That’s fishing for you. One moment you’re puttering along and getting bored and the next its total pandemonium. People shouting, rods bending, reels squealing as line was peeled off and whoops of delight as four big bull dolphin were slid in through the transom door.

  The biggest of which was Lisa’s.

  “Hey, Quint, let it go,” I said with a crooked grin.

  “May be a big Wahoo in the lab, Mr. Hooper,” Lisa did a pretty good Quint. “Out here it’s nothin’ but supercargo…”

  “It’s not a shark…” I mumbled. “Stingray or a marlin…”

  It took her almost ten minutes to wrestle the fish inboard. When she did, we measured and weighed it up. Thirty-eight inches and thirty-four pounds.

  “Stingray… marlin… bit right through that piano wire,” Lisa did her Quint again. “Don’t you tell me my business again.”

  When we arrived back in Boot Key just before sunset, we drew quite a crowd as Juan and I began to filet our catch of sixteen quality fish. We earned more than a few beers by giving out free filets to spectators.

  Although it didn’t make up for the tragedy of earlier, this afternoon of successful Keys fishing and a little filet party at the dock was a great way to move on. I think Nikki would have approved.

  31

  It was the Monday after Thanksgiving and the late morning sky over Orlando was an unbroken dome of cobalt. A perfect day for a newbie pilot to bring his four seat Cessna in for a landing all by himself.

  I was somewhere over the Waterford Lakes area, a large housing and shopping section of Orlando just south of UCF when I turned from my course of about three-one-five and headed west for downtown. I received the Orlando Executive automatic traffic information with wind speed, direction and pattern altimeter. I adjusted my altitude for one thousand feet, being sure to mind the warning about the big boys flying into Orlando International over my head as I crossed the intersection of Semoran and Colonial.

  The big airport was about eight miles southeast of downtown and OX was located along Colonial just outside the main section of downtown on the south side of State Road Fifty, or Colonial Drive. The wind was currently out of the south at ten knots, which meant I had to join the pattern to the northeast and come around and land with a cross wind. It gave me a little thrill in my belly to think about it. Although I’d done this procedure many times during flight training, this would be my first attempt all by myself… and in a borrowed plane to boot.

  I followed approach instructions, provided my ident and was transferred to the tower. They reiterated landing instructions and when they found out I was a newb, the tower chief busted my balls.

  “That’s a nice little Cessna you’re flyin’ there, pilot,” He jibed. “Sure hate to see the paint scraped… on my runway, I mean. Try not to crab her, huh?”

  “Executive tower, Cessna One six Charlie tango niner, you know what ATC’s use for birth control?” I asked.

  There was a hearty laugh over the headset, “Their personalities… and that’s pilots by the way. Good luck, Mr. Jarvis. Just take er’ easy and you’ll be fine.”

  The trick to landing an airplane, as I’ve been ribbed about for several months now, is to put it down in the same direction as the runway and not sideways. When you had a wind blowing perpendicular to the direction of the runway, as I did now, you had to perform what was called cross control. A little finesse with the control surfaces. As a seasoned sailor, I was intimately familiar with wind and how it worked, which I think helped me in my flight training.

  As I reduced my power, set my flaps and tweaked in my angle of attack, I also had to dip my right wing slightly into the wind while at the same time applying a touch of left rudder pedal. This forced the plane to bank a little into the wind and keep the nose straight so that when I did finally touch down, I wouldn’t slide or run off the strip at an angle. I’d done it plenty of times, but now I had no backup pilot to save my ass should I screw the pooch.

  I didn’t, however, and got my bird to within a few feet of the runway. I set my power to idle and pitched up just a bit to shed airspeed and actually stall the aircr
aft. We touched down gently, with the barest hint of a bounce and I eased the nose down and applied breaking.

  “Nicely done, One six charlie tango niner,” The controller said in my ears. “Just like a pro. Contact ground at point eight for taxiing. Welcome to the City Beautiful.”

  “Roger that, Control,” I said with a chuckle and switched frequencies on my radio.

  I was directed to the transient parking area, found my spot and shut down the engine. I sat in the cockpit for a minute and breathed in deeply. I’d just completed my first solo flight… a real flight and not just a solo training hop. From Patrick Air Force Base to Orlando. A trip that took about an hour and was over eighty miles.

  I got out, tied the plane down and grabbed my duffel from the small luggage bin behind the cabin. I strode across the sun-drenched tarmac and into the small terminal where a petite, lusciously figured and stunningly beautiful brunette met me with a big smile.

  “How’s it feel to be on the ground, Commander Rabb?” Lisa asked as she hugged me tight.

  “Great, especially in one piece,“I joked, kissing her for a long and passionate moment.

  “Mmmm… miss me?” She asked huskily when we pulled apart.

  “Like the flowers miss the rain,” I said, putting an arm across her shoulders and leading her back out to the parking lot. “How was your weekend? Probably a living hell without me around, huh?”

  She smiled up at me, “Were you gone? I’ve been so busy I didn’t notice.”

  I hung my head, “Darn it…”

  Lisa laughed, “Pretty routine. Played with the boys, had dinner with Wayne, Sharon and Juan on Saturday and Virginia and I took our bikes out and did the West Orange trail yesterday.”

  “Virginia Chandler?” I asked. “Nice. How is she?”

  We chitchatted as Lisa drove us downtown proper and to the office. We rode the elevator to the fourth floor of the Richardson Building and took our customary places in my inner conceptatorium. Naturally I went over to Ferny the fern and patted her on her… head…? Before assuming my command position in Swivatola.