Fallen Mangrove (Jesse McDermitt Series Book 5)

by Wayne Stinnett

  Sabina was an inch or two shorter than Elana’s five foot four, and both women combined probably didn’t equal Borislav’s two hundred and forty pounds. Sabina had dark brown hair, emerald-green eyes, and a lighter complexion than Elana. She had a small scar, barely noticeable, just above her right eye and wore her hair short, barely to her collar, with bangs cut straight to hide the scar. Her tiny physique and agile body allowed her to get in close to her unsuspecting target. She preferred quieter weapons, like a knife or garrote.

  “Please, sit,” Madic said, sweeping his hand to the four seats in back of the main cabin, facing inboard. Beyond that was his private office. Borislav joined Ivo on the flight deck. Though not a flyer, he was very adept with electronics and acted as Ivo’s navigator.

  The two women sat down in adjacent seats and Madic sat across from them. “Tena tells me that she chose the two of you for both your ability and your adaptability. She has given you both the basic itinerary, yes?”

  The two women nodded in unison. “The two of you, along with Ivo and Borislav as backup, will be following a group of people who are looking for something of great value. I plan to have it when it’s found. Originally, we’d hoped to locate it and beat them to it, but that would involve more people than I wish. When these people find what they are looking for, we will simply take it from them. If they offer resistance, we will kill them all.”

  “What do you know about the targets?” Sabina asked without a trace of accent.

  “They are four men. Two of them are about my age and single. The other two are about your age and married. All of them were formerly with the U.S. military.”

  Again, the two women nodded in unison, their expressions neutral. “Borislav and Ivo are known to them,” Madic said, “so they will stay in the background until needed. I want the two of you to infiltrate their group. By whatever means necessary.”

  The two women glanced at one another. Though they’d never met, each knew of the other’s ability and background. Both had used sex to get close to their targets in the past. It was just another tool in their belts. One that worked very well.

  “You understand what I mean when I say whatever means necessary?”

  “Yes,” replied Elana, who also had no detectable accent. “We are to seduce two of them. Or all four at once, if need be. It is not a problem.”

  “No problem at all,” echoed Sabina with a seductive smile.

  Madic smiled. As an organizer, Tena was far above anyone else he’d ever known. The subtle nuances of their business dealings, fitting the right people to the right task and overseeing everything from a distance, were what made her so valuable to him.

  “Mister Madic,” came Ivo’s voice over the intercom. “We’ve been cleared for takeoff.”

  Madic flipped a switch on the bulkhead between the cabin and his private office and asked, “How long before we arrive?”

  “Just under an hour, sir.”

  “You may take off, Ivo,” he replied as he switched off the intercom. “Why don’t we go into my office for the flight over,” he said to the two women with a hungry leer.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The crossing to Great Abaco took less than two hours at twenty-five knots. I ran with the bridge lights doused, relying on the night vision goggles.

  Rusty piloted the Cigarette and stayed in my wake a hundred feet back, completely blacked out except his stern light. Wearing the goggles and communicating with the earwigs, he could stay close enough that we only presented a single radar image to anyone watching.

  Arriving at Hole in the Wall just before midnight, I dropped down to idle and passed just west of the long, narrow peninsula. Rusty held off until I was anchored in ten feet of water about thirty feet from shore. Anchored fore and aft, Rusty came alongside and tied off. The earlier haze had disappeared and the moon was rising over Hole in the Wall, which has been a landmark for mariners for centuries. This rock ridge, extending several hundred feet south of the eastern shore of Great Abaco, has a hole cut through it by wave action and a natural arch spanning the opening. It’s been recorded on maps dating back three hundred years.

  With the additional light, the night vision goggles weren’t needed. Using just the moonlight and the red overhead light on the bridge, we quickly transferred bottled water and food for four days over to the Cigarette. Rusty, Deuce, and I would take the four captives to the beach while the others waited on the Revenge.

  Once the supplies were on board, we shoved off and idled over toward the powdery white sand beach. Rusty nudged the Cigarette forward until the bow made contact with the bottom. He revved the engines quickly, lifting the bow and driving us another three feet onto the soft sand. The stern still had five feet to the bottom, the dropoff was so steep.

  One by one, we moved our prisoners to the beach. The women were easy. Still bound, Deuce had them sit on the gunwale with their legs hanging overboard. I stood alongside in waist-deep water and carried the redhead over my shoulder first. I set her on her feet in knee-deep water where she could stand up by herself.

  The dark-haired woman, Faye Raminez, struggled a little as I lifted her off the gunwale and onto my shoulder. As I trudged toward shore, she twisted her body around and angrily whispered in my other ear, “Who the hell are you people?”

  “Shut up and wait here,” I said, depositing her on her feet in the water.

  The two men were even easier. Deuce just rolled them each off the gunwale, where they struggled to get their feet under them, gasping for air and spitting water. I dragged each by his shirt collar to shore, where Rusty waited.

  Though the water was very calm, he insisted on setting an anchor in the soft sand. Pescador jumped down from the bow of the boat and nuzzled my hand for an ear scratch. I looked up to the cliff as the bright beam from the lighthouse now concealed beyond it swept over us, shining its warning out over the water.

  I scanned the whole area in the moonlight. Standing on the beach, with the moon a few degrees above the peninsula, Hole in the Wall was clearly visible. The crashing of water surging through the narrow arch was loud, even though it was almost half a mile away. The reflection of the moon visible under its arch.

  “It ain’t gonna be easy,” Rusty said, leading the way up a steep trail from the beach, as Pescador scrambled ahead of him. “Once we’re on top, be real careful. The rocks along the trail are jagged.”

  It took fifteen minutes just to reach the top of the cliff, where Pescador waited. There was a narrow, rock strewn ribbon of a trail leading from there to the lighthouse and the keeper’s quarters. The light loomed eighty feet above the surrounding land, its rotating beacon revolving once every minute. Rusty hadn’t been exaggerating. There were a few scraggly bushes and patches of grass here and there, but it was mostly rock and looked very much like a different world in the moonlight.

  As we approached the lighthouse itself, something got Pescador’s attention off to the right side of the trail and he froze, staring that way. “That’s far enough,” I heard a voice call out, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

  “King Charles,” Rusty called out. “Is that you?”

  “Who is dat?” the voice responded.

  “Rusty Thurman,” he called back. “From Florida.”

  “How many are ye?”

  “Dammit, Charles, I know you can see there’s seven of us.”

  “Come on up di trail, Rusty,” Charles finally called out. “Just you, by yaself.”

  Rusty left us standing there in the open and proceeded up the rocky trail to explain to his friend why he was here in the middle of the night. I’d seen movement about thirty feet to the right, where Pescador was looking, but saw nothing other than rocks and brush. Suddenly, someone stood up directly in front of Rusty, now twenty feet ahead of the captives. He was nowhere near where I thought I’d seen movement. Either King Charles wasn’t alone, or he was able to move across these rocks without being seen, like some kind of apparition.

  Bot
h Rusty and I were still wearing earwigs. “Rusty,” I whispered. “Charles isn’t alone. Tango at your four o’clock.”

  “This isn’t Charles,” Rusty whispered back. “Fall back.”

  I sensed more than saw movement ahead and to the left of where Rusty stood, and I slowly reached behind my back and pulled out my Sig, holding it close to my leg. Deuce, who was directly ahead of me, behind the prisoners, had heard my whispered warning to Rusty and slowly drew his weapon also.

  The man in front of Rusty moved suddenly, crouching and raising a rifle that had been concealed behind his leg. As Rusty dove to the left for the cover of a small rock outcropping, Deuce stepped to the right, fired once around the captives, and then dove to the left.

  As me and Pescador took cover behind a long-dead tree trunk also on the left side of the trail, I caught a glimpse of the man with the rifle as he suddenly jerked upright and fell backwards. Deuce had scored the first hit with a single shot.

  Small-arms fire erupted from three locations. Knowing Deuce had heard me warn Rusty about the guy on the right, I searched out the muzzle flash on the left and opened fire. Deuce began laying down suppressing fire to the right as Rusty scrambled to get back to us.

  The two women screamed and knelt down, getting as low as they could. I heard a sickening thud and Lopez moaned, then fell sideways, hitting his head on a jagged rock. Reynolds scrambled for what cover he could find, hampered somewhat by having his hands restrained behind his back.

  “Rusty,” I whispered loud enough for Deuce to hear. “Where’s the fourth guy?”

  “Top of the light,” Rusty replied. “Not a rifle, though.”

  I fired four more shots where I thought the guy to the left was, then five quick rounds at the catwalk below the light at the top of the tower. Rusty was up and moving fast. He dove for cover next to Deuce and began firing at the man in the tower.

  Engaging all three of the men left standing at once, we quickly worked our way back down the trail toward the cliff. Cut and bleeding from several places, I made it to the cliff first just as I heard the engines on the Revenge start up. A second later, Deuce and Rusty joined me.

  “Let’s get down this cliff quick!” Rusty said. “If they catch us going down, we’re dead.”

  “You first!” I shouted as I scanned the trail behind us. “Go with Rusty,” I shouted at Pescador. He and Rusty started down as Deuce and I laid down cover fire at anything that looked out of place, concentrating on the trail. My Sig locked to the rear and I quickly dropped the magazine out of it, inserted a fresh one, and began firing again.

  “Go, Deuce!” I shouted.

  I fired blindly, aiming to the left and right of the trail just a few degrees. When I was out of ammo again, I holstered the Sig and started down the steep path as quickly as possible. Rusty and Pescador were already on the sand, firing up at the top of the trail. Seconds later, Deuce joined him as bullets began to ping off the rocks around me.

  Suddenly, I heard a familiar sound over the small-arms fire. A sound that can instill either terror or relief, depending on whether the guy making the sound is friend or foe. I immediately felt relieved, knowing that Tony and Bourke had mounted the .50 caliber machine gun and chambered a round. Ma Deuce began singing.

  Either Tony or Bourke was opening up on the top of the cliff, chewing it up and sending rocks tumbling down the face. I scrambled down the rest of the trail under their covering fire and we all hit the water. The Revenge was slowly backing towards us, just thirty feet away, and for the moment there was no return fire from the cliff.

  It only took a few seconds to reach the swim platform. Tony was at the fifty, firing three-and four-round bursts all along the top of the cliff near the path. Bourke was backing him up, making sure the belt feed from the ammo can didn’t snag as it fed into the hungry machine gun. Doc and Julie were on the bridge, Doc at the helm, while Charity and Nikki crouched on the dive platform to help each of us up onto it. Staying low, we scrambled aboard, and Doc hit the throttles, bringing the Revenge quickly up on plane, powering away from the beach as Tony continued firing at the top of the cliff.

  “Take out the Cigarette!” Deuce shouted.

  Tony lowered the barrel and opened up on the boat resting on the beach. It only took him a couple seconds to move the rounds onto target. Suddenly the Cigarette erupted in a fireball that illuminated the cliff face as it rolled upwards in a billowing mushroom of orange and black above the spot where the expensive boat had once rested. Pieces of fiberglass floated back down to splash into the water all around the beach. We were well out of range of their small arms, but Tony fired another couple of quick bursts at the top of the cliff.

  “What the hell just happened?” Bourke shouted.

  “We were ambushed,” Deuce replied. “Four people, not very well trained.”

  A moment later, we were all gathered on the bridge. I took the helm and jammed the throttles, turning the wheel toward the deep water I knew to be at the south end of the point. I rounded the promontory and turned north just a half mile off the coast. I stayed close to shore for a mile and then turned due east for five more minutes, putting us a good three miles offshore. I slowly brought the boat down to an idle and then shut the engines, drifting in the eerie silence.

  “You’re sure there’s no other bugs anywhere on this boat?” I asked Bourke. “How’d you think to look for one in the first place?”

  “He’s paranoid like that,” Charity said. “He occasionally sweeps for bugs, wherever he’s at.”

  Bourke just shrugged. “Paranoia is an irrational fear that someone’s out to get you. Doesn’t mean there isn‘t sometimes.”

  “They knew we were coming. Make a lot of noise and sweep it again.” Deuce said.

  Bourke climbed down the ladder to the cockpit, loudly reciting King Henry’s Saint Crispin’s Day speech, assuming that any more might be the same voice-activated type. Tony pulled a small device from his cargo pocket and switched it on. Three green lights lit up on the front of it. He began sweeping it back and forth, starting at the windshield in front of the second chair. As he did, he carried on a loud argument with himself about the pros and cons of American-made cars over European. When he finished, he shook his head at Deuce and started down the ladder.

  “Here’s a thought,” Nikki said. “What if the rental boat had one of those Lojack things?”

  Pescador barked from down in the cockpit. Looking down, I saw him standing with his front paws on the gunwale, looking toward the lighthouse.

  A flash of light from the coast, which was out of synch with the sweep of the lighthouse, caught my attention. “Damn! Just what we don’t need.”

  Deuce looked toward the island. “A chopper?”

  Sure enough, a corporate-type helicopter with a bright spotlight was flying out over the point. I reached for the ignition but Deuce stopped me.

  “Wait,” he said. “He’s turning north along the coast.”

  “If he turns that light off he’s sure to see our wake in all this phytoplankton,” Tony said, as he climbed back up the ladder. “The boat’s all clear, Deuce. There aren’t any more bugs.”

  As we watched, the chopper moved out over the water about a half mile, sweeping the water with its spotlight.

  “You might be right, Nikki,” I said. “Renting out a high-dollar boat like that, I’m sure the owner has some way to track it.”

  “Okay,” Deuce said, “someone bugged the Revenge. Maybe the Cigarette, too. Who? My gut tells me Lopez was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know anything about a bug. I’d also bet either the guy who hired him also hired another contractor to do it, or the guy that bugged you is somehow associated with that guy. But how?”

  “I check the bright work on the hatch just about every day I’m aboard,” I said. “Even the most careful locksmith is going to leave scratches. Nobody picked the lock and besides, I check the alarm system’s history at the same time and it’s always set when I’m away. Nothing. It had to be
someone that was invited aboard.”

  “And that someone has to be connected to the Maggio law firm in Miami,” Julie said. “That chopper didn’t come out here for the view. Not with guns.”

  “That pretty much rules out those Secret Service guys,” Deuce said. “Nobody’s been aboard since then?”

  “Nobody that’s not here right now,” I replied. “Except my daughter.”

  “I think we can rule Kim out,” Charity said. “We talked quite a bit those two nights we bunked together. All she wanted to know about was what kind of man her dad was. I told her what I could and I felt she was genuinely proud of you, Jesse.”

  “What about before the fishing trip?” Doc asked.

  The chopper had disappeared into a cove three or four miles up the coast. I thought about Doc’s question while I started the engines, turned east-northeast, and brought her up to cruising speed. I wanted to head even further out to sea before turning in to Elbow Cay. It would mean a later arrival but I didn’t want to get there before sunrise now, anyway. I figured whoever it was in the chopper was poorly trained at best and thought like a landlubber. Using the light, they were target fixated and couldn’t see outside of its cone, where we would have been visible by the light of the moon. Landlubbers only expect to see people, and therefore boats, near the coast and that was where they were concentrating their search.

  Suddenly, it hit me. “The day we sold the Confederate gold!”

  “Conner!” Deuce said, snapping his fingers. “He was the IRS guy. What was that other guy’s name?”

  “Bradbury!” I exclaimed. “With the Florida Historical Society.”

  “How are a tax guy and a history nerd connected to either an escort service or this Maggio guy?” Bourke asked in his deep baritone as he climbed up the ladder. Then to Deuce he said, “I even swept the foredeck, Boss. Nothing.”

  “Conner didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would utilize an escort service,” Deuce said. “Not in his hometown, anyway. Did any part of that treasure discovery find its way into the courts?”