The bow turned into the waves when the anchor grabbed, and a horn chirped.
“That’s it. We go.” Ironhead sat on the gunwale, wincing as he tried to attach the tank to the harness on his wounded side.
“Here,” Mac said, helping him.
Ironhead nodded, pulled the mask he had placed backwards on his head around to the front, and made a few final adjustments before rolling over the side. Mac attached the two tanks to his harness and duplicated the process before dropping into the water.
It took a few minutes to adjust the equipment, but considering the two tanks plus the rebreather, he was balanced and comfortable. Ironhead gave him the okay sign and, without waiting for an answer, started a fast descent. By the time Mac had cleared his ears and made a few tweaks to the harness, they had dropped past one hundred feet. The water was getting darker, and the visibility degraded as they descended, the angle of the early-morning sun not allowing the full spectrum of light into the depths. At a hundred eighty feet, he followed Ironhead’s lead, switched on the LED light attached to a headband, and for the first time saw the bottom.
***
TJ paced the deck. “Why wait?”
“Goddamn, son,” Trufante said. “Ain’t gonna do us no good, back there during the low tide. This thing draws some serious water.”
TJ nodded. “We can at least head over there.”
“Pama Bama’s still asleep down there. Not a real morning person—if you know what I mean.”
Frustrated, TJ went below and came back with another cup of coffee. “An hour.”
“That’s all I ask,” Trufante said, sipping on his Coke.
“You think we can find her?” TJ asked.
“It’s not the finding part—it’s the her part that worries me.”
They sat in silence, each contemplating their own problems. TJ obviously worried about Alicia, and Trufante about how to handle Cheqea. There were not many people that scared him, but she was one.
They were on the flybridge of TJ’s boat, looking at the area on the chart plotter. “We draw a lot of water to be on the back side,” TJ said, pointing at the shallow water surrounding the area where Trufante expected to find Cheqea.
“I want to get close as I can,” Trufante said. “There’s snakes and shit in that scrub. Big Pine, my ass. There ain’t nothin’ taller than me on that pile of sand.”
“Well, you tell me how we’re going to get in there drawing six feet of water,” TJ said, staring at the chart plotter.
Trufante reached across and panned the chart to the northern side of the island, where he traced a line with the tip of his finger up the Bogie Channel to a point of land across from Porpoise Key. “Can you get ’er in there?” he asked, knowing there was no other option than a hike.
“Yeah, and then what?” TJ asked. “You gonna swim?”
Trufante looked over the windshield and pointed to the white container strapped to the bow. “That’ll work.”
TJ thought for a moment. “Okay. Your hour’s up.” He started the engines.
Several minutes later, with Pamela sunning herself on the back deck, they were underway. Running parallel to the Seven Mile Bridge, they followed the curving shoreline. When they passed the beach at Bahia Honda Key, TJ cut the wheel to starboard. They passed under the new bridge and then, a hundred feet later, through the open section of the old railway bridge, where they entered Bahia Honda Channel. About a mile in, with No Name Key on the port side, he kept the red 22 and 22X markers to starboard and entered Spanish Channel. A quarter mile later, with the mangrove-covered Little Pine Key off to the side, they moved to the west side of the channel and anchored.
Trufante climbed around the cabin and unhooked the straps holding the container to the deck. He dropped the container into the water. On impact, the unit separated and a large raft self-inflated. It was soon bobbing by the transom. TJ opened the transom door, and from the swim platform, he grabbed the floating line. He tied it to a cleat, then took a knife and cut away the tent-like structure. It was designed to protect the occupants from the elements, but the bright orange material would only attract the wrong kind of attention here.
Trufante stood by him, staring at the shore, still a hundred yards away. “How’m I gonna get there?”
TJ pulled two dive tanks out of a rack by the cabin. “Here you go. One for the way there and one for the way back.”
Trufante grinned at him and loaded the tanks. He waved to Pamela and released the line. With one of his long arms, he reached into the water for the valve and cracked it slightly. Nothing happened, and he opened it more. The raft started to slide across the water, emitting a trail of bubbles behind it. It was awkward holding the tank in the water, but if he stayed on his belly, he was able to hold the cylinder over the edge and manipulate it enough to steer.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mac glanced at the dive computer. They were at two hundred twenty feet. Huge schools of ten-pound yellowtails, or flags, as the locals called them, huddled together around the small coral heads rising from the sandy bottom. Otherwise they were finning over a desert, but that was what Mac had expected. The shallower, more famous reefs just inside of their position had probably taken the ship down, and either the tide or a storm had dragged it back to deeper water before it sank. Ironhead swam ahead, with Mac staying about ten feet behind. On his left arm was a dive computer, constantly updating their depth, bottom time, and anticipated decompression schedule. He glanced at it often—vigilance was needed at this depth. They had long ago passed the no-decompression limit that recreational divers were familiar with.
With his right hand, he pulled off the retractable compass clipped to his vest and held it straight out in front. The needle showed them moving in a straight line directly south. Suddenly Ironhead turned to the right, and Mac checked his computer and then his compass. They had been moving south for ten minutes and now were heading due east, which Mac expected they would continue for the same amount of time before turning north and then west—a square search pattern. Every so often, Ironhead kicked out several times with his right fin to counteract the current, but otherwise he held his course. With the LED light synchronized with his head movements, he was able to watch his gauges and search at the same time. The big question was, if Mac did see something that Ironhead missed, should he call attention to it or file it away to check later?
For now, there was no conflict. They were back at the start of the search grid, and Ironhead gave a thumbs-up sign to start the long ascent. They stayed together on the decompression stops, but rarely faced each other, the brotherhood and goodwill Mac had felt with a fellow diver already fading. He expected trouble soon.
***
Trufante hit a small section of beach, jumped out, and pulled the life raft ashore. He closed the valve on the tank and tested its weight against the other. It was considerably lighter, and he suspected TJ was right; he would need both to return to the boat. He pulled the raft above the high tide line and set the tanks in the bow to secure it, then started walking inland.
Mangroves lined the adjacent shores, but there was a narrow path leading through the massive bushes in front of him. The trail ended after a few hundred feet, with a few boulders marking the end of a road. Like most through Big Pine, the pavement ran straight as an arrow, its end invisible over the immediate horizon. Fighting the morning humidity, he started out along the shoulder, tucking his shirt in and slicking back his hair in the hopes he could hitch a ride from one of the rental cars that cruised these roads looking for Key deer.
Several couples riding bicycles passed by, obviously residents, smart enough to get in their exercise before the real heat hit. The tourists were not as savvy and would come later. He walked for what felt like an hour, passing several small neighborhoods, but for the most part, the landscape consisted only of the low scrub and stubby weatherworn pines prevalent on the key. Soon he came to a paved street, which he crossed, and saw a sign for one of the few attractions on the isl
and besides the deer. The Blue Hole was nothing but an old quarry, but it had an interesting name and a deck overlooking it. The only thing it really had going for it was the birds it attracted.
He left the road at the parking lot by the trailhead and started walking the well-trodden path. The Blue Hole was on his right, but he continued until the maintained trail became nothing more than an overgrown game path plowed by the small deer. It was somewhere in this uncharted protected area that he expected to find the old chief. Searching through this jungle of scrub and rattlesnakes was not a task he relished. Needing some kind of a vantage point, he looked around for the largest tree he could find and, ignoring the brush cutting his legs, headed straight toward the tallest one in sight.
Standing ten feet above the ground, the dead-looking trunk may have once been more substantial, its life probably taken by a hurricane, but for his purpose it would work. The slick trunk had no footholds, forcing him to jump for the lowest branch, which he reached after several misses. Hanging from the thick limb, he swung back and forth until he had enough momentum to swing a leg around it. He crawled on top and went for the next level. The branches were closer together now, but as he climbed higher, they became thinner, and he heard something crack beneath one of his feet. Until now, he had been so focused on climbing that he had ignored the landscape, but after deciding this was as high as he was going to climb, he looked around.
The few extra feet gained him what he needed. Now able to see the shore of the western end of the key, where he suspected he’d find her, he searched for signs. Just before giving up, he saw what he thought was a thin wisp of smoke being carried on the wind to the southwest. Taking a bearing on the sun, he climbed down, having to jump the last few feet. Once on the ground, he turned to the sun to reorient himself. He started moving cross-country, further cutting his legs on the sharp palmettos and hoping he would avoid the rattlesnakes he knew were hiding in the shade at their bases.
He made it to the shore, but there was no sign of life, and he sat down on a piece of driftwood to catch his breath and rest. There were no trees to climb this close to the water, and he was about out of energy, not even sure if he wanted to walk back across to the raft, when he smelled the unmistakable aroma.
“Trufaaante?”
He jumped in surprise, turning to see the woman he sought standing in front of him, smoking a long pipe. “Cheqea. What’s shaking?”
She laughed deeply and started hacking. Regaining her composure, she looked at him. “You always make me laugh, but now it hurts.” She took another pull on the pipe and handed it to him.
He took it and sucked deeply, wondering where she found weed of this quality out here in the boonies. Releasing the smoke slowly, he studied her. Although it had been at least ten years, she still looked the same, her grey hair roughly plaited, the split ends shining in the sunlight. Her face had the rutted look of someone who spent all their time outside, and she was dressed in clothes a thrift store would have passed on.
“Mac sent me to find you,” he said.
“Mac Travis?” she asked, reaching into her pouch to refill the pipe.
Under other circumstances, he would have been happy to spend the afternoon smoking and laughing with her, but he needed his head clear and declined when she passed the pipe to him. “There’s some trouble and he needs you.”
“Cheqea is not in trouble. This is federal land and I have a paper saying it is a reservation.”
“No, not you, old mother,” he said. “Mac and another woman are being held by Hawk.”
She spat at the name. “Hawk is no good man,” she said and coughed.
Trufante waited until the fit passed. “Will you come help?”
“I will help Mac Travis, but I need a favor in return.”
Here it comes, he thought. Cheqea was well known for her favors. Many had courted her to benefit from the privileges, as she called them, or entitlements, as others saw them, granted her by the government. As the last remaining member of her tribe, she held power, especially in the current political climate of appeasement.
“How ’bout you and him talk about that?” he offered, starting back along the path, hoping she would follow.
“You must make treaty now.”
He turned and smiled hoping to defuse her. “You know ol’ Tru will take care of you.”
“Trufaaante. Yes, you are my friend.”
He started back along the path, but she called to him. “I’m not walking across this island. Follow me.” She started walking along the thin strip of beach. In a hundred feet, the path cut just inshore, and they entered a well-concealed clearing screened by thick mangroves. To the side was a small structure pieced together from pallets and tarps that had floated up on the beach or were entrapped by the mangroves along the shore. She entered and came back a few minutes later with a small knapsack.
“What are you looking at?” she scolded him.
Trufante was standing by the other side of the clearing by a small still. “Got any samples?”
She spat again, “Trufaaante. Never the smoke with you, but the alcohol is your ghost,” she said and led the way to a trail he had not seen. Twenty feet later, they stood by a small wooden boat with an ancient outboard motor.
“This works?” Trufante asked, thinking his life raft with the scuba tank propulsion would be better.
“Push it in. Cheqea is losing patience with you.”
He pulled the boat to the edge of the mangroves, where he saw a gap in the brush. Moving behind the boat, he pushed it through the opening and then crawled after it, immediately sinking in the muck.
“What the—”
“Do not speak that vile language in front of me. If you would have come at high tide, we would have floated right out.”
Like it was his fault they had come at low tide. He fought through the muck, finally finding enough water for the boat to float freely. They climbed in and he primed the engine, worried about whether the sunbaked, cracked bulb would still provide enough suction to pull gas from the tank, and opened the choke. Surprised when the engine started after two pulls, he pushed the choke in and spun the motor to steer to deeper water.
***
Mac climbed aboard after Ironhead. Alicia was on the platform to help, taking first the near-empty tanks clipped to his side-mount harness, then his fins. With only the rebreather on his back, he climbed aboard and sat on the platform. Though the wetsuit was thicker than any he had used in the Keys before, he was still cold after almost two hours in the water. The search had lasted an hour, and the decompression stops had taken the balance.
Hawk came to the transom and glared at him. “I was expecting results,” he said, moving closer to Alicia than Mac liked.
“You know the odds of finding something on the first drop—zero,” Mac said.
“This leaves me to question how valuable our computer whiz is.” He grabbed the collar around Alicia’s neck and pulled her toward the gunwale. “This deep, on an outgoing tide, if the sharks don’t get her first, she’ll be dead by the time she reaches the Bahamas.” He released his hold on her and took the controller from his pocket.
“Stop the threats. If you want it, we need more information,” Mac said.
Hawk’s face turned red. “We will do another dive this afternoon and then two more tomorrow. After that I will determine if either of you has any value.”
He walked into the cabin, leaving Mac under the watchful eye of Ironhead, who was stripping out of his wetsuit. The man was larger and had already bested him once, but he was injured and Mac expected the pills would be wearing off. He would only have a few seconds while his arms were still entangled in the neoprene. Mac took the opportunity. Turning his back to the man, he grabbed a gaff from its holder under the gunwale, spun, and swung toward him, but Ironhead ducked under the hook, still struggling to free himself from the suit. Under normal circumstances, taking off a wetsuit was a strenuous process, but struggling seemed to make it worse.
&nb
sp; Mac took a step forward and jabbed the stainless steel hook at him, feinting to the left before swinging from the right. This time Ironhead was too slow, and the hook hit him in the ear. Blood streamed from the wound, but before Mac could strike again, Ironhead reacted. Like a raging bull, he managed to extract one arm from the suit and grabbed the shaft of the gaff on the next swing. Using his one free hand, he pulled the shaft, and before Mac could release the handle, Ironhead cocked his head and butted him between his eyes. Mac crumpled to the deck.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Standing in the door of the plane, Mel hesitated. It was the first time she would set foot in the Keys in almost a year—not her longest absence, but her most emotional. An anxious couple pushed behind her, ready to start their party, and she reluctantly walked down the steel stairs pulled up to the small plane at the Key West airport. The breeze whipped her short hair into her face, forcing her to shield her green eyes from it, and she smelled the humid breeze. Stepping down onto the tarmac, she knew that whenever she touched the soil of the islands, things changed for her.
She was sure that Mac had saved her life that night on the sailboat, sacrificing his safety for hers when he released the life raft just before the boat sank. Finding out he was all right had taken a weight off her, but she felt deep down that, regardless of her feelings for him, their relationship was over. Trouble followed him everywhere he went, and although he was not responsible for it, the outcome was always the same—disaster. First her father, losing his life while saving the future president’s, then a crazed drug dealer, and finally, the incident with the rogue CIA agent that had led to the wreck that had almost killed her.
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