“Right. We need to account for declination,” Mac said, starting to understand that the information she had uncovered was useful, but the search area was still close to ten square miles. Too large for an effective operation. It was discovered early on in China, and then later in Europe, that the magnetic pole moved over time, but calculating it was more of an art than a science. These charts had no reference to declination or even the date they were drawn. He leaned over and typed, Any ideas?
She shook her head. “There has to be a key to tell us the year this was drawn. Without that, we’re lost.”
“What’s the range?” he asked.
“Somewhere between two and two and a half degrees every hundred years,” she said.
Mac did some quick math in his head. Averaging the distance of a degree at sixty miles, that could mean over a hundred miles a century, and they had no idea how old the map was. “So what is the missing link?” Mac wondered aloud.
Hawk came up behind them. “Missing link? It looks like you’re making progress.”
Mac looked at the screen, but Alicia had already entered the sequence of keys and it was dark. “Yeah. We’re getting there,” he said.
“Two hours,” Hawk grunted and walked away. Mac got up and looked out the port window. There was nothing but water. He figured they had cleared the Northwest Passage and were now cruising east toward Marathon. He had only a few hours to figure a way out.
***
TJ had been waiting long enough. His work was complete, and he banged on the cabin door. Several minutes later he heard movement, and a shirtless Trufante emerged, squinting in the morning sun.
“Top of the morning to ya.” He smiled, showing off his thousand-dollar grin.
“Come on, man. We gotta go,” TJ said.
“You been busy,” Trufante said.
On the deck were a dozen beer bottles of different varieties that TJ had scrounged this morning from the trash cans around the parking lot. “Had to fight some bums for the bottles,” he said.
“Molotov freakin’ cocktails,” Trufante said. “What’s your recipe?”
“Fuel and oil for the contents. Some torn clothes soaked in alcohol for the wick. Sealed it up with some candle wax I found in the emergency kit.”
“Right on,” Trufante said. “What’s our plan?”
Pamela appeared, shaking her hair out but ignoring them.
“We gotta get Mac and Alicia.”
“Right!” Trufante said. “Fire ’em up and let’s go.”
“How about some breakfast first?” Pamela asked.
TJ was prepared. “Danish in the bag there.”
She brushed past him, took one, and sat on the transom, picking pieces off and eating it, oblivious to what was going on around her. Trufante went to the helm and fired the engines while TJ packed the bottles in an empty beer case he had found. He stashed it in the cabin and released the dock lines. Seconds later they were in the channel, heading toward open water. Once clear of the last marker, Trufante turned to port, and they followed the coastline around Mallory Pier, staying between the markers of the deep channel leading to the entrance of the bight.
“Shit. She’s gone,” he said after they reached the inside marker and had a clear view of the harbor.
TJ looked around, his head falling to his chest. They were too late.
“Not to worry, dude. Mac found them on the radar before. We can do it again.”
“Head offshore toward Sand Key, and we can lose some of this traffic,” TJ said, sliding next to Trufante and pressing the power switch for the electronics. Seconds later, the screen populated, and he studied the boats. He had an idea what he was looking for, but he had to be patient. Soon, several miles from land, the clutter started to clear. The screen showed mostly boats now, and they saw a small blip, moving slowly east on the Gulf side.
“That’s them,” TJ said.
Trufante pushed the throttles down, letting out a whoop as he cut the wheel. The boat pivoted and sped toward the Gulf. They were on plane in seconds, cruising at fifty knots into a light chop. TJ studied the blip. It was at the edge of the third ring, fifteen miles ahead. At their current speed, they would be on them in an hour.
“What we gonna do when we catch ’em?” Trufante yelled over the engines.
“Pirates of the Caribbean,” Pamela said, smiling.
***
The closer they got to Marathon, the more distracted Mac became. Somehow he needed to give Hawk enough of the puzzle to buy some time. He briefly wondered what had happened to Trufante and TJ, but from his experience with the Cajun, he’d show up when you least expected or needed him. TJ might have a plan, but Mac couldn’t wait. He would have to act on his own.
Mac typed, Transpose the lines onto a chart and give him something.
Alicia looked at him and nodded, then closed the window. She was working in one window with all the data in what appeared to be layers. Hiding the tattoos and land features from the screen, she left the grid. Next, she opened the NOAA chart labeled 11453 and placed it in the background. Manipulating the size of the grid she estimated the scale.
“There are no landmarks on the tattoos. Where do we put the compass roses?” she asked.
Mac rubbed the stubble on his face. That was one of the parts he could never figure out, but now with her computer wizardry, it became clear. “There are three, right?”
She nodded and looked at him, her fingers poised on the keyboard.
“Indian Key, Marathon and Key West. See if they’ll line up with Boot Key Harbor and the bight in Key West,” he said, tapping the locations on the screen with his finger, hoping at least the two roses would fall on the two natural harbors. He watched, nervously tapping his foot. Almost forgetting about Hawk and their circumstances, he was excited—after all these years, he sensed they were on the verge of solving the mystery. Anxiously he watched while she moved the grid to the two points he indicated. They fell into place, and he studied the chart.
The two roses fell directly in the center of the harbors, the third near Indian Key, an old wreckers’ port near Islamorada. Those would have been the three best landmarks in the early 1700s, and he sat back, wondering if he had been wrong all along.
“Give me the coordinates of these points.” He tapped the screen with a pen to show her three spots offshore of Marathon where all three sets of lines intersected. Hopefully this would buy some time.
Chapter Eighteen
Mac handed the coordinates to Hawk, who took them to the chart table. “You’re sure about this?”
“You know as well as I do that this is not an exact science,” Mac said.
“You lead me on some kind of wild goose chase, and this partnership is not going to end well,” Hawk said.
Frustrated, Mac got up, but Ironhead moved toward him, a pained look on his face. “We’ve been at this a long time. Mind if we go out on the deck and get some air?”
Hawk looked up from the chart where he was plotting the coordinates and nodded. “Looks like deep water,” he said.
“If it wasn’t, whatever it is would have been found already,” Mac said, pushing the door open.
He stood on the deck with Alicia. Looking out at the small puffy clouds and the light chop on the water, he shook his head. “What’s missing?”
Alicia was sitting on a small built-in bench backed up to the cabin. Mac motioned her toward the transom where they were less likely to be heard. “A key—there’s got to be one thing that will align everything.”
Mac stared at the wake of the boat, thinking of how, if it was him, he would have hidden a reference for the chart. Before electronics, mariners relied on sun and star sightings using sextants and backstaffs to estimate their position. The chronometer and then the GPS came along later, adding accuracy, but ancient mariners, no matter their origin or technology, all had one thing in common. “Stars,” he said.
“Maybe. That would date it, clarifying the declination,” she said. “Let me go have anoth
er look.”
“No,” Mac said. “He’s happy for now. Let him be.” Mac could see Hawk through the tinted windows, bent over the table studying the chart. The northern tip of Big Pine Key had just come into view, and they sat in the sun, watching the small islands pass by on the starboard side. “That’s it,” Mac said, studying the island. “Cheqea is the only one I don’t have pictures of.”
“Cheqea?” Alicia asked.
“Teqea’s twin sister. She’s a bit of a recluse. Lives out there somewhere on state land.”
She followed his gaze to Big Pine. The key was considerably larger than most, famous as the last refuge of the protected Key deer. The undersized deer were given thousands of acres of government land to roam. Somewhere in the scrub that comprised the landscape of the key, Cheqea could be found. The twins had a unique relationship, never understanding that their parents had put them, and their cousin Diego, in a position to find the treasure—whatever it was. If they could have worked together, they had the clues, but they hated each other. It must not have been the first time. The tribal elders had accounted for this, passing the tattoos down for generations without the treasure being found. But now two of the three were gone and the tattoos with them. Teqea and Diego’s tattoos were on the disk—Cheqea’s were missing. It had to be the answer.
***
“Dead ahead,” TJ said, looking up from the radar.
The boat was a thin line on the horizon, growing quickly as they closed the gap. They had just passed the Content Keys. The music blared through the sound system, rivaling the roar of the four engines on the transom. Trufante was still at the helm, and Pamela, who had figured out how to run the sound system, swayed to some Jimmy Buffett.
Trufante looked up from the gauges and saw it too, slowly growing, the tower of the trawler barely visible on the horizon. “Content Keys are coming up. We better make our move soon,” he said. Civilization would soon encroach on their efforts. This far out, the backcountry was the domain of smugglers, drug runners, and a few fishermen; another five miles would bring boat traffic and witnesses. He pushed the throttles forward, redlining the engines. They wailed in protest, but he ignored it and sped after Hawk’s boat. They were close enough to make out the details of the trawler, and he backed down the rpms before they were spotted.
“What’s the plan, man?” he asked TJ.
“Run ’em aground and then firebomb them.”
Trufante looked at him. “Dude, they’re going to have weapons. We need to figure this shit out.”
“Look.” TJ pointed to the trawler, its distinctive shape now clearly visible. “They’re turning.”
Trufante put his hand to his brow, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Wood’s old place.”
“Out here?” TJ asked.
Trufante ignored him, trying to think how they could parlay this development into a plan. “Not sure what the buggers are up to, but we can anchor off the back side, and they’ll never see us. Take ’em on land.”
“You sure that’s a good idea? That water looks pretty skinny.”
Trufante stared at the turquoise water, the color lightening the closer it got to shore until it was almost clear. Ignoring TJ’s concerns, he steered toward it. Hawk’s ship was around the corner now, needing the deeper water of the channel, but with their own outboards tilted up, he figured they only needed a few feet of water.
With a loud thud, all three passengers were thrown forward. They had bumped bottom before he expected. The engines screamed in agony as their water intakes, covered in the sand, were unable to suck the water needed to cool them. Alarms sounded, but Trufante reacted quickly and hit the tilt. All four engines lifted, and the change in weight distribution allowed the hull to float. He looked back at the array, letting the outside two down just enough for water to cover the propellers and submerge the intakes. Leaving the two longer-shaft inside engines in the air, he started the short-shaft pair mounted on the outside and backed off the shallow flat.
“That was freakin’ close,” he said, exhaling and smiling. “Maybe we need to reconsider our attack plan. It’d be a bad thing wrecking Celia’s babies.”
***
Hawk came on deck just as they turned toward Wood’s place. He looked at Mac. “We’re going to stop so you can get your gear. That’s it. No screwing around.” He took Alicia’s arm and dragged her toward the cabin door. “Don’t forget about this,” he said, holding the controller in his free hand.
Mac saw the fear in her eyes before Hawk pushed her inside. He tried to put it out of his mind, focusing his attention on Ironhead, watching him as he picked his way through the shallows, easily finding the cut channel. They coasted up to the piling, and Mac jumped off. He splashed through the waist-deep water and started toward the shore, but his foot caught something, causing him to fall. It was the old cable from the boom. Pushing forward, now totally wet, he gained the small beach and followed the trail to the clearing. Ignoring Ironhead, who was about ten feet behind him, he entered the shed and started tossing gear on the floor.
“Come on. Just grab it all,” Ironhead said, standing in the doorway.
Mac found a mesh bag and started stuffing the dive gear into it. He looked around as he packed, trying to find anything he could include that could later be used as a weapon, but there was nothing that wouldn’t be obvious. He knew Ironhead was a skilled diver and would catch anything at all out of place.
“What are we diving?” he asked, picking up an old dive computer.
“You won’t be needing that. We’ll be using rebreathers with side-mount tanks for decompression and backup,” he said.
Mac set down the computer but picked up a compass attached to a retractable lanyard that sat next to it. Ironhead watched but didn’t say anything as he tossed it into the bag.
With no reason to delay and an idea forming in his head, he closed the zipper and rose, slinging the heavy bag over his shoulder. He left the shed and started down the trail.
“Here, take this,” he said, handing the bag to Ironhead. “I’ve got something over here.” Without giving him a chance to react, he took a small path to the right and found himself in a clearing. He went right for the winch, hoping the years of neglect had not frozen the mechanism. The last time he knew it had been used was a dozen years ago, during a chase, when Wood had used it to disable the boat of a crazy German couple colluding with a high-ranking government official to find oil out in the backcountry. Mac almost laughed remembering when some had thought the Keys were the next great American oil field. Now, with the production in the Dakotas, that was a distant memory. A quick look back confirmed he was alone, and he released the latch, allowing the cable to free-spool. The clicking sound would alert Ironhead if he used the ratchet to maintain the tension.
Initially he was discouraged when the cable didn’t move, but the handle broke free, and the slack started coming in. Increasing the speed, he cranked for all he was worth, trying to keep the line taut, but it was coming in too easily now and a frayed end appeared. Discouraged, he rose and went back to the main trail.
“What the hell are you up to?” Ironhead asked.
Mac looked at him and shrugged his shoulders. “Call of nature,” he said, taking the bag back. Together they walked to the beach and waded to the trawler.
With both men and the gear back on board, Ironhead went to the wheelhouse and started the engine. Mac peered into the clear water, cursing under his breath. Slowly the boat backed out of the canal, and he let out a sigh of anguish as he stared at the open water. If the cable had been intact, the propeller and shaft would be disabled now. Ironhead expertly negotiated the channel, turned into the deep pass, and accelerated.
Mac was out of ideas, but he hadn’t raised any red flags either. There would be another chance. He would just have to be ready. He looked back at Wood’s island, hoping he would see it again under better circumstances, when he noticed a large boat cut the edge of the channel, heading toward them. Not many would be brave or dum
b enough to cut the channel like that unless they knew it well. The boat was closing on them, and he recognized the four rooster tails coming from behind it. He tried to see who was aboard, but the only thing recognizable was Trufante’s smile.
There was no reaction from Hawk or his men. The boat meant nothing to them, just another charter coming back from a day out in the Gulf. Mac slid over to the port side. From their current course, Mac guessed that they would pass on the starboard side, and he wanted to be downrange of whatever they had planned. The boat was within a hundred feet, and he could clearly see Trufante, TJ, and Pamela. As he suspected, Trufante was at the wheel and TJ was huddled by the transom. Slowly he rose, and Mac could see the lit rag sticking out of the bottle.
With a roar, the boat was past them. Mac ducked behind the crane, knowing what was coming. Just as the bottle smashed against the deck, Ironhead and Hawk emerged from the cabin, their pistols already extended. They aimed and fired at the speeding boat, stopping when the glass bottle shattered. Fire spread across the deck.
“Get a fire extinguisher,” Hawk yelled at Ironhead, then laughed when he saw the small pool of flames on the steel deck. There was nothing flammable, and the fire was too small and not nearly hot enough to do any damage. “And bring the big gun,” he called after him.
Ironhead appeared a minute later with a white fire extinguisher in one hand and what looked like a bazooka in the other. The fire was gone with one quick squirt. He handed the extinguisher to Hawk and raised the gun to his shoulder. The boat had turned and was coming back at them now, preparing to pass on the port side. Ironhead lined up the shot, but at the last minute, Trufante cut the wheel, changing their trajectory to pass on their starboard. Mac grinned at the subterfuge and moved across to the port side, when another flaming bottle came toward them. Again, it landed but did no damage.
Mac knew it was only a matter of time before either Trufante made a mistake or Ironhead got a lucky shot off. He had to do something to increase the odds. They were coming back for another pass. This time, both boats would be facing in the same direction. The ruse Trufante had employed last time would not work. Ironhead would have a clear shot toward the boat’s stern as they passed.
Wood's Reach Page 12
