She considered that a moment. “Then I want to collect a couple of pieces of that coral,” she replied, putting her little computer away. “It’s ancient sea life.”
We went up to the bow and Carl pulled a cooler from under one of the bench seats and opened it. “I got conch salad sandwiches, mangos, some sliced pineapple, and grapes.”
“Pineapple?” I asked.
“I don’t think it was completely ripe, but I couldn’t wait anymore.”
Two years ago, Charlie planted a bunch of pineapple tops on the little island partially connected to the north side of my main island. They grew slowly, and this past summer and fall, they began to flower. Several of the plants had produced suckers the first year, which she cut and replanted. Now we had dozens of them growing.
“I’ll have a sandwich to start,” Kim said, pulling her wetsuit down and tying the sleeves around her waist.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I figured you ate on the way.
“I did,” she replied, taking a bite of the sandwich Carl handed her. “But that was like three or four hours ago.”
The pineapple was sweet—not quite as juicy as it would have been if Carl had left it another week or two, but it’s the best snack after a dive and we were going to be eating a lot of them soon. And maybe a few piña coladas, too.
After eating, I sat back against the combing and let my head fall back, staring up at the stars. Miles from the nearest light source, and with a sky clear of any clouds or even water vapor, there were more points of light than dark spots.
Kim leaned back next to me and gazed up at the heavens, too. “Will it always be like this, Dad?”
“Like what?”
“Quiet and peaceful.”
She’d no more than said the words when a deep reverberation reached my ears, like the sound a really big dog makes deep in his chest when he’s warning you not to come any closer. It grew louder, but way down in the lower pitch range.
“Somebody’s pulling hard,” Carl said, standing and looking off to the northeast.
I stood up too, straining my eyes to see the lights of a boat. “Big engine.”
Carl went to the helm and switched the radar back on. Joining him, we waited for the system to warm up and when the screen activated, we could clearly see the radar signature of the boat that was approaching earlier. Only it was now stationary.
“Treasure hunters using mail boxes?” Carl asked.
A mail box is nothing more than a big ninety-degree elbow mounted on the back of a large boat, which redirects the propwash straight down. They work great at blowing the sand off the bottom to uncover a wreck site or lost treasure.
I clicked the button to zoom out and took my bearings from the island cluster of the Contents and Upper Harbor Key.
“They’re on the spot where that shrimper blew up,” Carl said.
He was right. If they weren’t on top of the wreck, they were very close to it.
“I don’t think they’re using a mail box,” I said. “Look at the range. It’s slowly moving to the north. Less than a knot, but moving.”
“Less than a knot?” Kim asked. “The engine sounds like it’s at full throttle.”
Sound carries well over water, and although the boat on the radar screen was more than two miles away, we could hear it easily. Another sound reached my ear. Twin outboards, coming up from the southwest.
After a moment, I could see the green and red bow lights of a fast-moving boat coming out of Cudjoe Channel, and turning toward us.
These islands have been a waypoint and hiding place for pirates and smugglers for centuries. I didn’t like the looks of things.
Just as I reached inside the overhead box mounted above the helm and felt the familiar grip of my Sig Sauer, a blue light flashed from the top of the speeding boat.
“Everyone have their fishing licenses?” Carl asked, as I closed the box again.
The boat slowed as it grew nearer, and then dropped down off the step and idled toward us. “Is that you, Captain McDermitt?” a voice I recognized called out.
Kim stepped out from behind the helm, smiling at the approaching sheriff’s patrol boat.
A moment later, we had the two boats lashed together and Deputy Martin Phillips stepped over, in uniform.
“Working late?” I asked.
Marty gave Kim a hug, then shook my and Carl’s hands. “Sort of. I’m technically off duty in about thirty minutes. But I brought food, water, and bug spray to stay out all night. I wanted to keep an eye on….”
He stopped mid-sentence, hearing the sound of the far-off diesel.
“What the heck’s going on out there?” he asked.
“We were wondering the same thing,” I said, pointing at the radar screen. “That boat just came down from the northwest.”
“Yeah, I saw it on radar from Cudjoe Basin.”
“Think it might be aground?” Kim asked.
“Only if it draws more than twenty feet,” Carl said. “He’s out beyond the three-mile limit. Nothing shallow enough out there for a boat to ground on.”
“It’s definitely straining,” Marty said.
I looked off toward the sound. “And it’s damned near on top of that wreck from earlier this evening.”
“I’d better go check it out,” Marty said.
“You can’t, Marty,” I said, putting a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “The wreck is outside your waters.”
“Well, something’s going on out there.”
“Why don’t you drop your hook,” I offered. “You said yourself, you’re almost off-duty. I have a small night-vision spotting scope. We can get close without being seen and see what they’re up to.”
Marty agreed and stepped back over to his boat, tossing off the lines. Carl went forward, and I started the engine. Once we had the anchor pulled, I maneuvered toward Marty’s boat now anchored a few yards away. He stood on the gunwale, steadying himself with one hand on the T-top rail.
Once he was aboard, I turned toward the northeast. “That scope is in my bag,” I told him. “Under the starboard seat in the bow.”
Retrieving the small night-vision scope, he sat down on the big seat in front of the console with Kim, and I bumped the throttle up, dowsing all the lights. It’s against the law to run without lights at night, but I figured with a cop on board, it’d be okay.
I wasn’t worried the other boat would hear us. With the sound of their engine, I doubted anyone on board could hear someone talking right next to them. But I slowed when we were about a mile from it, the GPS showing that we were almost to the three-mile limit. I shifted to neutral and killed the engine.
If they had their radar unit on, they could see us. But being blacked out, they couldn’t make out anything at all.
“What do you see,” I whispered, unnecessarily.
“It’s another shrimper,” he said, looking intently through the scope from the bow. “Name on the stern is Alligator. Out of Fort Myers.” Marty lowered the scope and looked back at me, puzzled. “And he’s trawling with no lights on.”
“Trawling?” Carl asked. “That skipper’s nuts. There’s too much out here to snag on.”
Eliminator, Instigator, and Alligator, I thought.
I went forward and stared in the distance where the sound was coming from. We were close enough to see it with the naked eye if he had any lights on, but all I could make out was stars down to the horizon. “Maybe he’s not dragging for shrimp.”
Carl looked over at me. “What else would he be trawling—?”
“He’s snagged on the wreck,” Marty interrupted. “And trying to move it.”
Going back to the helm, Marty joined me, and I zoomed the radar in to a one-mile radius. The boat was just on the edge of the screen. Slowly, it moved away to the north.
“No wind,” Carl said, looking over my shoulder. “Current’s west-southwest at one knot.”
“That boat’s moving north,” Marty mumbled. “Barely moving, but definitely maki
ng some headway, and not with the current.”
I looked at Marty, still studying the screen. “Still at just one knot. For at least thirty minutes.”
“Why would he pull so hard if he was snagged?” Kim asked.
You can only protect your kids so much. “He’s not snagged. He’s trying to move the wreck.”
“Why would he want to move it?”
“To hide the evidence,” I replied, putting the boat in gear.
“Evidence?” Carl and Marty asked in unison.
“What do you know about manufacturing methamphetamine?” I asked Marty.
“It’s dangerous at best,” he replied, looking up from the screen. “We’ve busted up a lot of small-time meth labs in the county. Another one springs up the next day. Thousands are killed every year in explosions—wait, you think that boat exploded because one of the crew was cooking meth?”
“Don’t know much about it,” I replied, turning the wheel and bringing Cazador up on plane. “First I ever heard of the stuff was this evening. About all I know is that acetone is used to make it, and acetone is extremely flammable—burns white hot.”
“Where are you going?” Marty asked.
“I want to get a little closer and get the moon behind us. We can watch from a safe distance to the west and see what they do.”
“What if they see us on their radar?”
I pondered that a moment. I didn’t relish putting my daughter or Carl anywhere near danger. “Pull the rods out and put them in the stern rod holders and put the outriggers out. We’ll idle a safe distance away and look like just another fishing boat. They damned sure can’t chase us down.”
After about five minutes, steering mostly by the radar screen, I slowed the boat and shifted to neutral, shutting off the engine. We were less than half a mile off the shrimp boat’s port side.
After my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out the boat easily by the light of the moon, now halfway to the western horizon. It had both nets in the water, but the lines seemed to be hanging loose from the booms. I took the scope from Marty and looked closer.
“The nets are tied off to the stern,” I said. “They’re definitely pulling something really heavy.”
Over the sound of their engine, I could barely make out shouting voices. Not excited or angry voices, just someone yelling to be heard above the engine. However, the voices were indistinct, and I couldn’t make out anything they were saying. Two men were on the aft work deck, looking down at the water behind the boat. Another man was leaning out of the pilothouse, also looking back.
“Can you describe the explosion you saw?” Marty asked.
“There were actually three,” Carl said. “They happened fast, one on top of the other. The first one blew most of the aft deck off and yellow-white flames shot up and out of the starboard side. But the flames only lasted a second and went out, leaving a heavy black smoke cloud billowing up. That’s when the diesel tanks exploded. When the diesel flames reached the cloud above the deck, it flashed white hot, blasting the boat into so much confetti. When Jesse and I got to it, there wasn’t anything floating bigger than a life ring, except for the woman’s body. What was left of the boat had already sunk to the bottom.”
Kim glared at me. “You didn’t say anything about a body.”
“So sue me,” I said. “I’ve seen a lot of ugly that I’m never gonna tell you about.”
“An explosion like Carl described,” Marty said, “could have been acetone, but the size of the blast he described is way bigger than the small, homemade meth labs we usually encounter. Most people make meth for their own use; scrounging ingredients from drug stores and wherever, and substituting nail polish remover and brake fluid, even using plastic bottles to make it in. If they had a meth lab on board and that was the cause of the explosion he described, it would have to be a big one. Not something a crewman could hide from the captain.”
We drifted in silence, speaking occasionally. I started the engine and moved farther north a few times, staying about half a mile west of the shrimper. They didn’t seem to acknowledge we were there, so I assumed they had their radar off, not wanting even the screen’s glow to give away their position.
“How long do you want to do this?” Carl finally asked. “It’s nearly two o’clock.”
“Just a little longer,” I said.
“I really need to get back to my boat,” Marty said. “I should call this in, but I don’t have a cell signal way out here.”
Just then, everything went quiet. Relatively quiet, that is. The engine on the trawler was still running, but at an idle now. I looked through the scope and watched the men at the stern working to untie the lines to the nets. They seemed to be having a hard time with them. No doubt the heavy pull of a sunken boat had tightened the knots.
The guy in the pilothouse stepped out and I could clearly hear his voice. “Just cut the damned things loose.”
The other two men did as they were told and a few minutes later, the trawler began to move off toward the mainland at normal cruising speed.
“They just dumped the nets,” Carl said, perplexed.
Engaging the transmission, I noted our latitude and longitude and took a bearing on where they’d cut the nets loose. Slowly, we idled toward that spot, half a mile away.
“What are you doing now?” Kim asked.
“Get up on the bow,” I told her by way of reply. “If you see anything in the water, let me know. I want to have a look at whatever’s down there.”
Kim went forward, and Marty whispered, “I’m gonna have to go down there with you.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, Deputy.”
I turned the helm over to Carl, so Marty and I could swap out both Carl’s tank and mine for fresh ones. I didn’t want to anchor and take the chance of getting the ground tackle snagged on whatever was down there, so I was glad to have Carl aboard.
“My Sig’s in the overhead,” I told him. “If you need it.”
“I can take care of myself, Dad.”
“I know you can. But just help Carl out, okay?”
Truth was, Kim was very good with a pistol and Carl was a relative novice. But if it came to using it to defend the boat, I was sure Carl would have less hesitancy and less emotional baggage afterward.
When Marty and I were suited and ready, we sat on opposite sides of the boat. Carl used the forward-scanning sonar to locate the wreck and then made a turn and slowly idled past it. He shifted to neutral and gave us the go signal. Marty and I rolled backwards off opposite gunwales as the boat continued to drift forward under its own momentum.
“Clear!” I shouted, when we were a safe distance.
“We’ll be on-station down-current from the wreck,” Carl shouted back as Marty and I dumped the air in our BCs and submerged.
Using the high-powered dive lights, the wreck was easy to find. In fact, Carl had probably missed fouling the nets in the prop by only a few feet. The nets were tangled with the twisted wreck of the trawler. The vessel looked to be seventy or eighty feet in length.
The pilothouse was snarled up in one net and the pulpit and forward deck equipment were hopelessly snared in the other. The house had been practically pulled loose from the deck, or was blasted loose, and the booms and rigging were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they were blown off in the explosion, or more likely, the dead boat’s nets were tangled on the bottom and the whole rig was dragged off.
Getting Marty’s attention, I circled my hand in an arc going up-current, stopping at what was left of the aft deck. If we were going to find anything, that’d be the place to start looking.
He nodded, and we gave the nets a wide berth as we finned against the slow-moving current, then angled into it toward the stern of the wreck as we descended to the bottom.
It was a mess. Ragged beams and planking jutted out from the middle of the work deck. Knowing shrimp boats a little, I knew the engine and fuel tanks were located further forward, beneath the galley and dining ar
ea, with the living quarters below that and forward.
It looked like the holds themselves had been the source of the explosion, but how? Shrimp isn’t combustible. The deck was blown almost completely off, and there was a massive hole in the side of the hull, below the water line.
We reached the bottom, where my depth gauge showed thirty-eight feet, and approached the breach in the starboard side of the wooden trawler. In my head, I pretty much discounted the earlier dive, since I’d been out of the water for a few hours, and knew instinctively that our bottom time was limited only by our air supply on this dive.
The heavy planks that once created a fair curve along the hull were broken outward, shattered wood looking like the teeth of some giant beast. The hole extended all the way up to the gunwale where the deck was ripped back, exposing the inside of the starboard hold. Or what was left of it.
The explosion was obviously enormous. Shining our lights inside, we could see another breach in the hold on the bottom. The boat had two holds, one on each side. The one we were looking in was about twenty feet in length and half the beam width, maybe eight feet wide, with room for a man to stand inside. A serious shrimp boat. The bottom of this hold held a lot of sand and coral, which I assumed was scraped up from the seabed as the boat was dragged for two miles.
The beam from Marty’s light stopped moving, fixed on a single object inside the hold. It wasn’t anything that had been dredged up, but it definitely didn’t belong in a shrimp hold. It appeared to be a metal cylinder of some kind, either aluminum or stainless steel, about two feet in diameter, and only a portion of it was sticking out of the sand.
Marty tapped me on the shoulder. When I looked over, he pointed at himself, then at the cylinder trapped in the sand. I nodded and moved away from the opening enough to allow him to gain entry. I held my light on the object while I looked around at the rest of the hold’s interior. On the forward bulkhead, about a foot below deck level, a metal pipe was imbedded in the aluminum lining of the hold. It looked like the pipe had been broken off; the visible end was twisted and jagged, with some sort of gauge mounted on it.
Marty was struggling with the cylinder, trying to get it out of the sand, but he didn’t seem to be making a lot of headway. So I swam into the hold and approached him. Together, we started digging sand away from whatever the thing was. When we’d cleared more than a foot of it, I saw why he’d been unable to move it. The thing was mounted on a metal stand, which was in turn bolted to the bottom of the hold, its mounting brackets bent and twisted toward the stern so that the cylinder was sitting at an angle.
Rising Fury: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 12) Page 6
