Inherent Danger

by Matt Lincoln

  I got closer so that I could give all of us a better look at the body. I was dreading it more than I thought that I would. And I wasn’t sure why. Then, as I gently maneuvered the form for my eyes and the wet-cam to see him properly, we all got a clear view of the crewman.

  There, in the middle of his stomach, was a gaping and massive wound. “Holy…” I drifted off, not finishing my initial reaction. “He’s been shot. Just like Declan. Looks close range as well.” I tried to focus on his face so that Xavier’s equipment could get a good image and picture for verification.

  I heard the strange, computerized voice linked to Rosa’s keyboard speak to all of us. We have more bodies over here.

  I looked up and over, swimming forward to where her LEDs were. There, Rosa was surrounded by three more bodies, all with gunshot wounds to the chests. One of the men also had a yawning wound to his knee. I immediately thought of that being a warning shot to get the other men to comply. I had seen that in countless fields of fire, and I, too, had done it to keep from taking a life.

  That didn’t seem to be the case here, though. All four of these men had been shot and presumably killed down here in the cargo area. Were they hostages? Were they even the crew members that we’d been sent to find? There was no way to know until we could corroborate their identities somehow. And one way sprung to mind.

  “Xavier? I’m going to check for ID on them. We need to know if this is the crew or not. Stand by.” I nodded to Rosa, and she returned the gesture. I swam back over to the first body that we’d come across and fished my fingers into one of his shorts pockets, the only one to look like it held something inside.

  I pulled out some nicotine gum packets, a small pencil and notepad, and lastly, a laminated and sealed driver’s license. I flipped it over to see a medical card on the flip side. It was a diabetic information card in case of emergencies. The name was visible on both IDs; Salvador Turley.

  I held the card up to the wet-cam for Xavier and Doc to see clearly. “There’s one down.” I didn’t mean for that to come out as sullen as it had. I guessed it couldn’t be helped, though.

  “Yeah, Rosa found the Captain’s cards on his body, too,” Xavier confirmed. “She’s going for the others, just for confirmation. That will probably account for all of them, but now we have a bigger concern.”

  “Yeah.” I shook my head. “Who the hell killed Declan Speirs and the crew of the Hester, and why?”

  19

  Jake

  For the next few hours, Rosa, Doc, and I took turns bringing up the four bodies of the crew of the Hester. It was a small consolation that with all four of them being in one location, it made it that much simpler for us to retrieve them. And luckily, the boat wreck was still in decent enough shape to make it easy going and relatively safe as we traveled back and forth.

  But now we had the very serious matter of finding out why all four crewmen and Declan Speirs had been shot and killed before the Hester sank. I could have ignored the situation due to the fact that Claude Speirs was only paying us to recover his brother’s body and the case of inherited items, with a secondary mission to bring up the four crew members. He hadn’t asked us to pursue anything further than that. I would need to discuss this with my team, but I already knew how I felt and what direction I was leaning toward.

  I hated the idea of leaving the murder of anyone unsolved and categorically unpunished, let alone five men, all seemingly killed for no reason. I thought about their families, their futures, and even why they’d been on the boat as we carried each one back to Wraith. I wouldn’t be satisfied until I could avenge them, in even some small manner. And finding the guilty party was something my team and I could accomplish.

  Around noon, I called everyone up to take a break. We had three of the bodies up so far, but we needed to be smart about this. “I know this isn’t a very appetizing ordeal, but we do need to keep our strength up. Let’s all stop, grab a bite to eat, do the necessary things we might need to do, and chill for a while.”

  This wasn’t met with any resistance. One by one, we all settled down to eat some energy bars we’d packed, rehydrate, check cells and emails, and catch our breath. Xavier filled us in on a few of the things happening topside.

  “I’m getting some readings about debris floating nearby,” he recounted with his head still buried in his laptop. “I wanted to send a drone out, but the wind is kicking up too much. I can’t afford to lose one for what might be ocean junk.”

  “What kind of debris?” I wondered out loud. Now I was curious what would be this far out and so near to this site. It could be wreckage from the Hester, in which case, some of it might be helpful for us to examine it. It might provide some context to the wreck and, moreover, the murders.

  “That’s the point,” he lamented. “I don’t know. None of it is close enough to us yet for me to check it out. If it drifts this way, though, you better believe that I’ll pick it up and have a look.”

  As I looked out to the east, I could undoubtedly see a bitter storm headed our way. The waters were already difficult, and we felt rain each time we reached the surface when we came up. So far, we had only one body left to retrieve below us. I finished up the light lunch and got ready to go back down.

  “Rosa, I want you to stay up top this time,” I requested. “Doc and I will go back, get the last crew member, and call it a day. We’ll have to plan for another outing to search the rest of the boat, but I don’t think we should press our luck with that storm approaching.”

  She started to argue, but I stopped her short. “I need you here to helm us home quickly. If worse comes to worst, Doc and I can jump back in here, and you can have Wraith ready to get us home.” I hoped that was enough of an explanation for her to avoid any unpleasant disagreements.

  Within ten minutes of this, Doc and I were back in the water and headed for the last reclamation. I knew that we all really wanted to stay down here and look around for the kinds of clues that we’d need to understand why the Hester had sunk, but the safety of the team would always come first.

  As Doc and I pulled the last of the crew up to the deck of Wraith, the wind and rain were beating my baby up pretty fiercely. Rosa was there to operate the lift and help us up, but it was getting dangerous, even by my own standards. Once we placed the body in the bag and transported it into the holding area with the others, I told Rosa to get us out of there.

  Doc and I rushed to get our suits off and all the equipment and gear stashed before meeting Rosa and Xavier back on the bridge and taking our seats. Unbeknownst to me, though, Xavier had talked Rosa into cruising by the areas where his “debris” was and taking a quick peek.

  With Rosa helming Wraith per Xavier’s request and directions, we wound up making some odd turns and back trips. I wasn’t exactly pleased when I found out, and so I marched up on deck to rebuke Xavier for his foolish side adventures when the weather was so obviously bad.

  There he was, with a long-armed pole and net in his hands, pulling in some object from the water. I could see the rain pelting him, and still, he seemed determined to bring whatever it was in and onto Wraith.

  “Just what the hell do you---” I started.

  And then I stopped when I saw what had been captured in the net. Inside of it was a partially decomposed arm, complete with bite marks and a discolored and gruesome skin tone. I wasn’t sure that I was seeing what was before me. My mind raced back to the crew of the Hester. All known crew had been accurately accounted for, and none of them had been missing any arms.

  Apparently, Xavier hadn’t heard me over the rain and the waves because he turned abruptly and bumped into me. He fumbled in shock and almost fell into the water.

  “Whoa! I got you!” I yelled, and I quickly grabbed both him and the handhold on the deck to keep him from plummeting in.

  I pulled him in toward me, and we stepped back to safer footing. “What are you doing, Xavier? It’s too damn dangerous for any of us to be out here. You should know that!” I practica
lly flung him inside, net and all, and slammed the door behind us.

  I chanced a look down at the arm in the net again, and a little of my anger subsided. “What is this?” I knew that he was about to answer bluntly, so I corrected myself. “Where did that arm come from, and why did you risk going out there to get it?”

  This exchange had caught Doc’s attention, and soon he was among us in the small corridor. “What’s going on with you two?” Then he saw what Xavier was holding. “What the…? That’s not from one of our bodies. It can’t be.” I could see Doc’s mind working it over too. He knew as well as I did that none of the four bodies that we had brought up today was missing an arm.

  We both turned on Xavier, demanding answers.

  “This was the stuff I was talking about,” he argued. “The debris in the water. The ones I wanted to check out on the way home.” He acted more than a little upset at being yelled at and questioned so ferociously.

  “Body parts?” I started to rub the back of my neck, feeling a pressure and tension ache come on. “You said debris before. You never said anything about more dead bodies, Xavier.” I was losing my patience due to the strain of the situation, and I knew that I was going to get mean if I wasn’t careful.

  “I didn’t know there were going to be dismembered limbs, Header,” he pointed out. “I said debris because that’s all that I knew it to be: trash, junk, that sort of thing. Now, we can all see that there’s a bigger problem going on here. More than litter, anyway.” Xavier was defensive, and I didn’t blame him a bit.

  I stepped back and away and gave both of us the breathing space we needed. I took a deep breath and tried again. “Okay, I’m sorry that I overreacted. Now, let’s deal with one thing at a time. This… arm… Do you know where it came from?”

  “No. Not really. Is it not from the Hester crew?” He must have genuinely thought that this was from the bodies we’d already pulled up. He must not have been paying as close attention to the hauling up as we were. Xavier saw that both Doc and I were shaking our heads at him. “So, this is from another corpse? I thought you said that you guys pulled all of them up?”

  Doc sighed profoundly. “We did. All four crewmen were IDed prior to us bringing them up. And none of them were missing an arm. I can reassure you of that, Xavier.”

  I glanced at Doc, wondering if he was thinking the same thing. “Could this be from whoever shot them? Maybe there are more bodies somewhere on that wreck, and we just got fortunate to find all the crew in one place.”

  “That could be.” Doc was working this over hard in his mind. The brow creases showed me that. “There could be a more obvious answer. Ships go missing all the time. There’s bound to be more than a few… corpses floating around in the ocean.” He was eyeing it now as a medical man. “There’s some consumption damage present. I can see that from here. Once we get back to land, I’ll examine it under more ideal conditions.”

  We all felt a sudden lurch in the travel pattern, and I rushed up to Rosa at the helm to see what the problem was. “What’s going on? Is everything alright?” It wasn’t like her to be this rough with Wraith, even when we were traveling through a storm.

  Rosa pointed out something on the starboard side of the boat. By now, both Doc and Xavier had joined us, and we could all see what had caused the erratic course Rosa was helming. In the water, even bumping into and off of Wraith’s hull, was a distinct set of what Xavier had called “debris.”

  Cords of all different colors floated in the water, and all of them seemed tied to more ominous objects. Shoes, briefcases, clothing, and yes, even more body parts. The storm was tossing everything around, and almost as soon as we saw anything, the water swallowed it all up again.

  “Quick,” I called out, “take some pictures and video. We need proof, and it’s too hazardous to go out and retrieve any of that right now.”

  Xavier was fast, diving back into his chair and punching in the commands for the boat’s cameras to capture what we were seeing. “What is going on here, Header?”

  “I’m not sure, but I don’t think this has anything to do with the Hester.” I continued to watch the items float up and out of the water, trying to figure out what this was about. “It has to be from another boat. Xavier, check up on whether there have been any reports of lost vessels from the area that we’re in. That’s the only explanation.” Well, it was the most obvious one, anyway.

  We could all hear him typing on the keyboard, and that gave me an odd sense of calm and comfort. Then he came back with the kind of news that took all of those good feelings away.

  “Nope,” he replied flatly. “I’ve got nothing from the last six months. I mean, yeah, there are downed ships, but none of them are in this area, or they’ve been recovered, or…” Xavier stopped talking unexpectedly.

  “Or what?” I turned quickly to see what had left him speechless.

  “It could be a refugee vessel, the illegal kind,” he pointed out. “Those don’t exactly get logged when they go missing.” His voice trailed off, and we could all feel the hollow regret of what his words meant.

  “Yeah, I guess they don’t.” I looked out the window one last time before I took my seat at the helm. “Okay, Xavier, let’s record for a bit longer and then make a bunch of copies and send them out to the surrounding coastal agencies. With this kind of proof, someone, any of them, has to take this seriously and send in an investigator of some sort, right?” I glanced at my team and saw the unconvinced looks on their faces that I myself felt, too.

  “It’s worth a shot, I suppose,” Doc replied, even though he didn’t sound persuaded that anything would happen.

  Rosa was already shaking her head in dismay. We tried this before and got nowhere. I know that it’s the right thing to do, but really, Header, do you think anyone is going to do anything about this?

  “No, probably not. Rosa, go drop a buoy.” I was having a change of heart, and that led to a strategy. “We’ll contact them, give them some time to mobilize, and then, if they still don’t do anything about it, we’ll come back out here and do our own recovery.”

  Rosa jumped up and went straight for the trackers and lined buoys that we kept on board for just these weird kinds of events. I didn’t know what we could do in the long run, but I couldn’t stand to just leave this mystery out here without at least trying to find out more.

  “If one of the government agencies wants to get off their butts and figure out what all of this is about, I’m all for it. But it’s good to have a backup plan too, correct?” I just wanted them to agree with me, even a little, to let me know that this was close to being “the right thing” to do.

  “Very true,” Doc mused. “And as I understand it, we have fulfilled the objective of this latest mission, have we not? All the crew, the passenger, and the cargo are now secured, in some manner or other. That said, it is technically completed, and now we can take on other cases, should we choose to.”

  I had to grin at this. Leave it to Doc to make the worst kind of situation seem less so just by stating the facts.

  “Okay then,” I agreed. “Once we get home, let’s get the Hester’s crew cleaned up, examined, and returned to Claude Speirs. We at least know that someone else realized what they inherited was of value, and I still feel strongly about the theft angle. Now whether he wants us to do something about it, well, that’s up to him.” I already knew that this mission wasn’t over by a long shot.

  Me, too. It’s the only thing that makes any sense to this, Rosa added. It has to be about those little statues.

  Xavier nodded. “I’ll find out what I can about them and try to do some more intelligence on lost vessels in the area, but, well, I’m pretty sure we all know what that’s about.” Xavier then turned back to his self-ordained tasks.

  Doc was the only one that didn’t say too much now. I assumed that he was planning, thinking, and plotting about how to accomplish what came next. I should have been doing the same. But all I could think about was what we were going to
tell Claude once we saw him again.

  20

  Jake

  I wanted to know where we stood with and in this case. I needed specifics about everything with the victims’ bodies, like where they were being kept and if we were going to get into more trouble for doing things this way. So Doc and I planned to go with Rosa to the location where Declan Speirs’ body was being kept in cold storage. We were now adding four more bodies, and I knew that they could use the help to move them. I also wanted to know more about the place we were hiding them. Doc and Rosa had offered to pick me up at the marina and let me see this place for myself, which I was grateful for.

  All that I had been told so far was that the location was safe, secured, and accessible from the docks. I didn’t know this friend of Rosa’s that was letting us use the place, but if she trusted him, then I was more inclined to do so myself. Doc had offered to take care of the transportation, but I was more than a little surprised to see him drive up in a big, bulky vehicle to the marina that morning.

  Unbeknownst to me, Doc had bought a moving van that he’d been driving since he’d gotten back to Miami. I knew that there had to be a story there, so at the first opportunity, I was going to ask him about that. While he and Rosa loaded the bodies into the back of the truck, Xavier and I got Wraith secured, and then he headed back to his yacht while I climbed into the moving van to join the rest of the team.

  “So, what’s the deal with this?” I asked with a smile because I didn’t want that question to come off as rude. “You’re not living in this thing until you find a long-term living space, are you?”

  Doc chuckled and shook his head. “Not quite, you see, all of my belongings are in the back, here. And it’s not as if I have that much,” he said quickly, “but I found it easier to stay mobile on the off chance that I was able to find a new home rather quickly. And the storage units were ridiculously priced.”