What Lies Beneath: A Florida Action Adventure Novel (Scott Jarvis Private Investigator Book 10)

by Scott Cook

  “Scott…” Sharon urged. “Take care of Juan. I’ll be all right.”

  They met one another’s eyes and Scott’s jaw clenched. He de-cocked his pistol, shoved it into the pocket of his shorts and went to Juan, undoing his belt and yanking it off.

  “Exactly,” Nolan jeered. “The good guys are always sentimental. There’s a first aid kit in here, Jarvis. You should be able to stabilize him for the ride back to civilization. Hopefully. Remember… noon tomorrow.”

  With that, he shoved Sharon forward and out the door. I leapt to my feet, thinking to go after them.

  “No,” Scott said coldly. “Help me with Juan. Find that first aid kit.”

  I was suddenly shaky. Partly with anger and partly with fear. I think I also felt defeat as I heard another outboard starting outside. I went into the small bathroom and found a big white box with a red cross on its lid under the small sink.

  “Hang on, buddy,” Scott was saying to Juan as he cinched the belt down near Juan’s groin. “We’re gonna get you through this.”

  “Sharon…” Juan groaned.

  “It’s okay,” Scott soothed as he opened the lid and withdrew a pair of heavy-duty sheers. He began to cut Juan’s jeans off above where the bullet had gone in. “She’s okay for now. We’ll get her back, even if I have to give that bastard what he wants. Her life is more valuable than some damned treasure.”

  “Gracias, amigo…” Juan moaned. “It’s cold tonight, huh…?”

  Scott looked up at me and I knew what he wanted. I snatched a neatly folded blanket from one of the bunks and laid it over Juan, leaving his leg exposed. I slid a pillow under his head too.

  Scott and I exchanged looks again as he began to work. I bit my lip and hoped that he could do enough. His smile was thin and forced, but it was reassuring.

  40

  After the phone call, I released the poles and let the Maverick drift with the current. I used the push pole to guide us around the backside of the island and then used the hydraulic poles to anchor us again in just over a foot of water.

  “Something’s up,” I said to Juan. “I wonder if Nolen knows we’re here…”

  “Why do you say that?” Juan asked, scanning the mangroves with the night vision.

  “Not sure… but it doesn’t really matter, I guess. You see any way through?”

  He was silent for a few seconds and then said, “Yeah… about ten yards away there’s a small open beach. Probably a patch leading to the cleared part where the cabin is.”

  “Okay,” I said, removing my shoes and taking the AK out of the sea bag. “We go in and split up. I can hear a generator running. I’ll take it out and then you circle around and see what’s inside. Keep the monocular. One and Two.”

  I handed him an earwig and fitted one in for myself, “Comm check.”

  “Two,” he said.

  “Okay, let’s move…”

  As the night was relatively warm, I was wearing shorts and a light sweatshirt. Juan wore a sweatshirt as well with jeans that he’d rolled halfway up his calves after removing his own sneakers. We eased ourselves into the water and slowly shuffled toward the little patch of sand that peeked out between the dense ten-foot-high mangrove trees.

  I was pleased at Juan’s ability to be stealthy. His movements were slow and steady so as not to make a splash. The only sounds we heard were the natural sounds of this unspoiled and untamed wilderness. Whip-poor-wills, crickets, frogs and gators sang the song of timeless life around us. Over this, or maybe under it, the steady chug of a very quiet generator hardly disturbed the idyllic setting.

  Well, that would change soon enough…

  We arrived at the small beach, a patch of hard sand barely fifteen feet across and deep. There was indeed a small opening through the mangroves that led to the interior. I couldn’t see much, except for the small light on top of the cabin. Juan and I stopped for a moment and listened.

  There was the sound of a door opening and men’s feet coming down heavily on loose rock, leaves and whatever else made up the ground around the cabin. They certainly weren’t making any attempt to be quiet.

  Juan and I split up, each pressing into the mangroves to either side of the narrow gap.

  “The second we open fire, we’re given away,” Juan whispered into my left ear.

  “Roger that…” I replied softly. I held up my KA-bar in front of my face to show him. Without the monocular he probably wouldn’t even have seen the long black blade. I could barely see him in the shadows of the trees. “We’ll do this the hard way. If one comes out, you stay still. I’ll handle him. When I do, you move.”

  “Si.” Was all Juan said.

  We didn’t wait long. A man was coming through the gap, which was barely wide enough to walk through without brushing against the foliage. From the beach to the clearing was probably only ten feet, and in that time, the man must have come to the conclusion that he should be quiet. He slowed his approach and I almost lost track of him… until he emerged from the gap and made for the water, a pistol held before him.

  I leapt out and clamped my left hand on his left shoulder and jerked him back and off-balance. With my right, I made a quick up from under thrust with my blade, pushing it between his ribs just under his scapula and to the right of his spine. The angle of the blade and its razor-sharp edge carried it past the intercostal space between his ribs and into his heart.

  It wasn’t an easy way to kill a man and took some practice. I loathed this method of dealing with an enemy because it wasn’t sporting. The other person wasn’t given a chance to defend themselves. It was simply an execution and left a bad taste in my mouth as well as a lump in my guts.

  It also wasn’t always instantaneous. If you were fast enough, the person died before they could even draw a breath, or were at least too shocked to do so. Unfortunately, the man I’d grabbed, a tall lean man, was so keyed up that the moment I laid a hand on him, he screamed bloody murder. Of course, the scream was cut off by the severing of vital blood vessels and the horrific damage to his heart… but it was by no means instantaneous.

  I let the body crumple to the dirt, leaving my pig sticker buried in his back. I didn’t have the sheath and had nowhere to store it. Juan had already darted through the gap and there were shouts from more men and pistols began to bark.

  “Two men firing from the corners of the cabin in front!” Juan reported excitedly just before the M4 he carried let go with a pair of three-round bursts. “Another one by the generator shed! I don’t think I can get him from here!”

  “On my way.”

  I moved into the gap and got down on my belly. Using my elbows and legs, I inch-wormed toward the edge of the clearing and cast a quick glance around. The rear of the cabin and its surrounding deck were maybe forty feet away. On the right side from my perspective, the deck had been enlarged to accommodate a picnic table. Near the edge of the clearing, tucked partly under a small banyan tree, a chest-high shed emitted a low rumble. That would be the generator. I could just see the shoulders and a hairless white head peeking up over the roof and aiming a pistol in Juan’s direction. I couldn’t see Juan, though. He must be crouching behind one of the gumbo limbo trees on the other side of the clearing.

  I got to my knees, shouldered the AK-47 and zeroed in on my target. All I had at the moment were iron sights, but the man was no more than fifteen yards away. I flicked the selector to burst, took a breath and gently squeezed the trigger. The heavy-duty rifle kicked as three 7.62 rounds left the barrel and found their way to their target. The man’s upper chest and head burst into a fountain of gore and whatever was left of him vanished as his body fell.

  There were shouts coming from the cabin, although I couldn’t quite make them out. I waited in my kneeling position, swinging the barrel of my rifle back and forth seeking a target. None appeared, though.

  “Four people are leaving the cabin!” Juan exclaimed. “Looks like two security men, a woman and a taller older man”

  “Yeah�
�� that’ll be the senator and the congresswoman I’d bet,” I grumbled. “Let’s flank the cabin.”

  I got to my feet and made my way around the southern side of the deck. Juan emerged from his hiding spot and went to the north. We peeked out around the two front corners in time to see a pontoon boat pulling away from the dock.

  “Shoot?” he asked quietly.

  “No,” I said. “That’d be a helluva lot harder to explain… we’ll meet again, I think.”

  That’s when George Nolen began shouting at me. He ordered me inside and I told him to shove it. Then one of the front windows was shattered by a bullet. There didn’t seem to be much choice.

  “Leave the rifles,” I said, laying my Kalashnikov on the ground and removing my Colt from my waistband.

  I went in first and then Juan right after me. He held his gun on a man I didn’t recognize, although he was close in age to Nolen. Suddenly that note that Lisa had written down came to mind. She’d asked Carver who Gaspar was… yeah, nice code name… and he’d said, “No… Len Harney.”

  Nolen and Harney. If Sharon’s mother was Susanna Harney… then this other man might be her twin brother, Michael!

  The situation was precarious. For although Juan and I had weapons on the two men, Nolen had his on Sharon. When he made her come to him and used her as a shield, I knew we were fucked. When Juan and Michael Harney fired on one another, there was no longer a doubt.

  Faced with the choice of trying to stop Nolen and letting Juan bleed out, I had to let the bastard go. He took Sharon with him and made his escape. I really thought this was the end. We had everyone in one place, but I didn’t bring enough backup. We were forced to rush in and were ill-prepared. The odds were too stacked against us and Nolen was prepared. He must have known we were here, somehow.

  “Can you…” Lisa asked as I finished cutting away Juan’s jeans from around the bullet hole.

  “We’ve done some combat medical training,” I replied, surprised at how extensive the first aid kit really was. It was in fact a full field surgical kit. “On top of the first-aid training I’ve already taken over the years… can you go out and restart the genny?”

  She looked into my eyes and I regretted the fear that was evident in her sea-blue orbs. I smiled at her as I pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves, “I think it’ll be okay. There’s a lot in here. But more light would be good.”

  “Okay,” she said and kissed me quickly before running out the door.

  “Mijo…” Juan muttered. “How bad? What about Sharon…?”

  “I’ve got you, buddy,” I soothed. “Just lie easy now. Sharon’s okay, don’t worry. Thank God Rick is well prepped. How you feeling?”

  I pulled out an I.V. bag of normal saline and set it on Juan’s chest. I swabbed his elbow and inserted the intravenous needle and then withdrew it, leaving the catheter. I opened the I.V. to full-bore and used a syringe to inject some morphine and a broad-spectrum antibiotic into the port.

  “That’ll ease the pain a bit,” I told him.

  The kit also contained a professional tourniquet, so I applied this one and then removed the tightly cinched belt from the upper end of his leg. The wound didn’t flow with more arterial blood. That was good and bad. The problem with a tourniquet is that if left on too long, it would kill the limb. I needed to apply pressure directly to the femoral artery in his groin and would probably have to go in and stop the bleeder.

  I felt around beneath him and found the exit wound. The bullet had entered Juan’s thigh about halfway between his groin and knee. It had apparently passed straight through on the inside of the femur. In truth, if the wound track was straight, then it wasn’t more than two inches below the surface. If we were both lucky, the round had only nicked the big femoral artery or maybe a smaller one. Unfortunately, I had little time to figure it out. I’d either have to apply a lot of the coagulation powder and dress the wound or I’d have to open it, remove the destroyed tissue around what was known as the permanent cavity and cauterize or ligature the blood vessels.

  More light came on and a distant part of my mind registered the sound of the genny. Lisa appeared again looking worried. When she saw the amount of blood around Juan’s leg, she drew in an involuntary breath.

  “Now I need your help,” I told her. “Dig around in that kit and load a syringe with lidocaine. There should also be what kind of looks like a small soldering iron. Get that out. I’ll need some ligatures, too I think.”

  “You’re… going to do surgery on him?” Lisa gasped.

  I scoffed, “Hardly… more like crude field repair. I’ve got to stabilize him before we can even move him or call for help.”

  We worked quickly. I injected the lidocaine into the bullet wound. Juan was nearly unconscious by then and only flinched at the discomfort. Between the morphine and the local anesthetic, he wouldn’t feel what I was about to do. I used a sterilized scalpel to open the entry wound large enough for me to see what was going on. There was a little mushy tissue, which I removed. Other than that, the damage didn’t seem too bad… but then again, I can’t honestly say I’m much of a judge. There were no bullet fragments and no bone fragments, which was a good sign. There were several small bleeders, which I used the hot iron to seal. I did find a nice fat artery, I knew it was an artery because it pulsed, that wasn’t severed but deeply knicked. The thing was the size of a drink straw, so I thought it must be the femoral. With a small, curved needle and some sutures, I put two stitches in. It was hard to work in such a small space, but the sutures held and the bleeding, already considerably reduced by the tourniquet, seemed to stop. I used some sterile saline to wash the wound out and then poured in some coagulant and packed both the entry and exit wound and wrapped heavy gauze around the leg. During that time, I had Lisa check his blood pressure periodically. It was low, but not as bad as it could’ve been, thanks to the I.V. I explained to her how to swap out the I.V. bag. The first one had already emptied before I was finished with my ludicrously amateur surgery.

  I sat back and carefully pulled the bloody gloves off, “Christ… I think he’ll hold now. I’m gonna remove the tourniquet and see…”

  My handiwork seemed to be holding for the moment. Juan’s breathing seemed easy and some color had returned to his face. I couldn’t tell how much blood he’d lost, but it had to be significant. It was everywhere. All over him, the blankets, on my shorts and legs and the floor.

  I went to the galley sink and used the running water and some towels to clean myself off. Once done, Lisa rushed into my arms and held me tight as she cried. I knew exactly how she felt.

  “Now what?” She asked. “How do we get him to a hospital?”

  “I don’t know…” I said. “I don’t know if we can get a chopper in here. We may have to load him onto the Maverick and drive out of here. I don’t like that option. I know the way… but it’s gonna take at least a half hour, forty minutes…”

  “We’ve got cell service,” Lisa said.

  I bit my lip, “Yeah, my cell is on the boat… okay, I’m gonna head back to the Maverick and make a 9-1-1 call. You keep an eye on him. Keep him warm and if you can do it gently, elevate that leg. He’s already in shock, but I think he’s stable for now.”

  As it turned out, the emergency operator said that she could connect me with MedFlight, a Collier County emergency helicopter evac. I explained the situation and they said that they could land in shallow water up to two feet deep. They’d be on my location in fifteen minutes or so and asked if I could fire off a flare when I heard them coming and then direct the pilot where to land. I got the flare gun out of the Maverick and ran back to the cabin to inform Lisa. Then I ran back down to the beach and waited.

  In just over fifteen minutes after my call, I heard the distant sound of rotor blades thumping through the night air. I looked off to the northwest and could see a bright searchlight over the black trees. I waited another minute and then fired a flare straight overhead.

  The big evac helo skimmed th
e treetops and I blinked an LED flashlight in their general direction. The helo hovered close to the edge of the sand as I raised my hands up and then brought them down, crossing them in front of my body. The pilot turned his nose so that his starboard side faced me and settled into the water, the landing skids disappearing and finally settling with the belly of the helo just six inches over the water.

  The side door opened and two men jumped out and rushed toward me bearing a stretcher even before the blades had stopped spinning.

  “Can you direct us to the patient, please?” The lead medic who was in fact a tall broad-shouldered woman asked.

  I nodded and led the way into the mangrove trees and around to the front of the cabin. The woman and her partner, a slightly shorter and bulkier man laid the stretcher out beside Juan and quickly inspected my handiwork. They swapped out the nearly empty I.V. bag for a fresh one and then the woman looked closely at the wound.

  “What’ve you given him so far?” She asked.

  “Broad spec antibiotics, a dose of morphine and lidocaine as a local so that I could go in to debride and stop the bleeders,” I explained. “Cauterized some small ones and put two stitches into the femoral artery. Packed him with coagulant, too.”

  She looked up at me with large brown eyes, “Not bad. You in medicine?”

  “No, Navy,” I said. “SEALs, O4. I’ve had some combat trauma training.”

  After explaining the nature of the wound and how Juan had gotten it, the two medics carefully loaded him onto the stretcher and double-timed it down to the helicopter. The pilot gave me a card with Lee Memorial Hospital’s number on it and said that was where they were taking him. If for some reason he needed to be transferred, the intake people at Lee would be able to direct me.