Rising Storm: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 11)

by Wayne Stinnett

  Using my teeth, I got the knots loose and freed my hands. I’d been so busy just trying to stay alive, I hadn’t noticed the storm raging all around me. Lightning flashed across the sky and the wind was driving the rain and salt spray nearly horizontal, when it gusted. The crashing of thunder was constant. I was standing on a small sandbar, a mile from any land, in the middle of a raging thunderstorm.

  The anchor had a good ten feet of line attached to a short piece of chain. Not the sort of anchor one would use on Carmichael’s big trawler. The chain had been wrapped around the anchor’s flukes and was lashed in place with the braided rope, to ensure that there wasn’t enough play to allow me to surface.

  Then I remembered. The anchor had been lying in the bottom of the dinghy Carmichael had told me to check on. I hadn’t been expecting him to try so soon, but he’d clubbed me with something. Gingerly, I touched the back of my head and winced. My hand came away bloody. I was soaked from the rain and seawater, so there was no way to tell how bad the bleeding was. But I knew scalp wounds bled profusely.

  I peeled off my polo shirt, gently pulling it over my head. Taking a sleeve in one hand, and the tail from the opposite side in the other, I twirled it into a long bandage, and tied it tightly around my head. The pain sent flashes of electricity searing through my brain, and I dropped to one knee.

  Finally, the pain subsided and I stood. We’d been about half a mile from reaching Biscayne Channel when the rain had hit and Carmichael jumped me. Looking south, I could just make out some of the stilt houses built along both banks of the channel. Others had been built farther to the south, but those were mostly destroyed over the years by either neglect or storms.

  I was a quarter mile from the nearest of the houses that make up Stiltsville. Looking north, I could see the flash from the lighthouse, but couldn’t make anything else out. That way, it was almost a mile to land.

  We’d left the dock at noon, and the sun was now low in the western sky. I didn’t relish the idea of being stuck on a sandbar at night. The house was the better choice.

  High tide would come soon, and with it a short slack period where the current would be calm even if the sea wasn’t. After that, it would change direction, pulling water out of the bay. I’d have to wait until slack tide, or risk being caught up in the current. And I’d have to swim the quarter mile before the flow changed and sucked me out to sea.

  Although the lightning and thunder was almost constant, I heard the distinct sound of two gunshots, too close together to be a single gun. I knew it for what it was instantly and crouched behind the huge outcropping of coquina, getting low in the water.

  The gunshots came from a distance. Sound travels better over water, even in a rainstorm. The shots came from beyond the stilt houses standing along the sides of the channel. I needed to get to one of those houses fast, and hope someone was there, or that there was a radio I could use to call for help.

  The waves were still big but had begun to decrease in size since the heart of the storm had washed over the bay. Discounting the surge from the waves, I could tell the current was beginning to lessen. Just as I was about to dive in and swim to the nearest stilt house, I heard the sound of twin diesel engines approaching.

  Out of the mist, I saw my boat heading into the channel from offshore. It slowed at the outer markers for a moment, then I saw the bow rise, as the Revenge accelerated up on plane and into the channel.

  Standing and waving wildly with both arms over my head, I tried to signal one of the men on the boat. But the Revenge continued past the last of the stilt houses and turned south in the bay.

  “Dammit,” I yelled.

  Half a mile south of me, the Revenge slowed again, then suddenly turned and came back toward me. It was obvious they were searching for Carmichael’s boat. I stepped away from the rock and the surf splashing around and over it, and moved west, toward the open bay, again waving both arms over my head.

  The red and green navigation lights on the bow flashed on and off twice. They’d seen me.

  Diving headlong into the water, I began to swim out to deeper water as the Revenge slowed and settled into the chop just a hundred feet away. A few minutes later, Tony reached down and helped me onto the swim platform.

  “What happened?” he asked. “We lost the trawler in the storm. Did it sink?”

  “Carmichael surprised me,” I said, loud enough for Deuce to hear on the bridge. I opened a small cabinet, and dried myself with one of the towels I keep there. “Tossed me overboard with an anchor tied to my wrists.”

  Finn was going nuts in the salon, so I opened the door. He nearly knocked my legs from under me, bowling sideways into my knees and sitting on my feet, his great tail thumping the deck. I bent down and gave him a belly rub, telling him to stay in the cockpit.

  Tony and I climbed quickly to the bridge. “Any sign of them?” I asked, as Andrew rose and moved over to the bench seat.

  “We lost them completely on radar,” Deuce said. “Did he give you any idea where he was headed?”

  “No,” I replied, studying the radar. The seven fixed echoes from the remaining houses were clearly visible, as well as the four towers marking the entrances to Biscayne Channel, though none but the nearest were visible through the light rain. The echo from a fifth tower wasn’t visible on the screen, due to rain scatter. It was nearly a mile to the south, marking the shallow entrance to a deeper, natural channel that was rarely used.

  “All he ever said was Soldier Key,” I said, looking all around. “There’s no way that Carmichael’s boat could get more than a couple of miles from here.”

  “Where?” Deuce asked, touching a finger to his ear and studying the radar image.

  Realizing that he was listening to someone on his comm, I opened a cabinet in the overhead and grabbed one of the spare earwigs we’d put there.

  I switched it on, stuck it in my ear, and said, “Repeat your last.”

  “Thank God you’re safe,” I heard Julie say. “We found their boat using the infrared setting on the rooftop camera.”

  The closed-circuit TV monitor switched to infrared, clearly showing a bright hot spot about a mile to the south.

  “Zoom in,” I said, leaning closer.

  As the image became larger the one big hot spot seemed to grow tentacles out of the top. They moved back and forth across the large white spot, which I recognized as the heat signature from a boat’s engines. Suddenly, the tentacles moved away from the big white spot and it became clear that it was five people, walking on a pier.

  “There should be six,” Deuce said.

  “That’s gotta be them,” I said. “Tied up close to one of the houses, so the boat looked like part of the house on radar.” I turned and faced Deuce. “Just before you guys came through the channel, I heard two gunshots.”

  Deuce looked out over the water. The nearer houses were barely visible, but the ones down on the shallower channel were still shrouded in misty rain.

  “The sky’s clearing,” Deuce said. “There’s no way we can get anywhere near there, without being seen.”

  “Not on top of the water,” Tony interjected.

  “Break out the scooters, Tony,” I said. “Andrew, grab two sets of rebreather equipment from under the aft couch in the salon.”

  “You’re not going,” Deuce said. “That shirt wrapped around your head is soaked with blood.”

  “I’m going,” Andrew said, his voice determined and menacing, as he moved toward the ladder.

  “You and Tony,” I said, sitting down at the helm. “You’ll need to hurry. It’ll be dark in an hour.”

  The sun was nearly touching the distant treetops on the far side of the bay when Tony stepped off the swim platform. Reluctantly, I’d moved the Revenge away from the house, further into the bay to the northwest.

  Stiltsville was fully inside Biscayne National Park, and Carmichael might find a fishing boat inside the park boundaries suspicious. And we didn’t want him to see divers with underwater sco
oters getting into the water.

  Andrew and Deuce moved the scooters through the transom door, handing one down to Tony in the water. Deuce had rigged two dock lines from the bow; Tony quickly swam the scooter to the starboard side, away from the house, and attached it to one of the lines.

  “Be careful,” Deuce said, “but do what you have to do to get Charity and Chyrel back.”

  Andrew nodded somberly then slipped quietly into the water. Deuce handed the other scooter down to him, and Andrew swam it around to join Tony.

  When they were ready, Deuce standing by the rail just above them, I engaged the transmissions and started idling to the south. This was a dangerous way to make an insertion. If either diver let go of their scooter, they might be sucked under by the boat’s huge propellers.

  Deuce signaled me to increase speed, and I bumped the throttles up slightly. Night had fallen and the storm had passed, but the waves out on the ocean were still too big for a slow-moving trawler. It appeared as if Carmichael was staying put until morning.

  Passing the last of the stilt houses, still half a mile away in the bay, I saw the trawler tied up to one of the docks. The engines were cooling, giving them more definition on the IR feed. This house had a long pier out to deep water on the south side, and a smaller one with finger docks for bay boats, to the north. Carmichael was tied up close to the house itself.

  When we were parallel to the shallower channel, I shifted the engines to neutral for a moment, as Deuce untied the lines, freeing the two divers.

  A moment later, Andrew’s voice came over the comm. “We’re clear.” Both he and Tony were wearing full-face scuba masks, which enabled them to talk.

  Checking the compass and radar, I said, “Make your heading zero-nine-five degrees, Andrew. Range is about eight-hundred yards.”

  “Roger that.”

  Tony and Andrew were both accomplished divers; it sort of goes with the territory of being a Navy SEAL and Coast Guard Maritime Enforcement. Each scooter was equipped with a compass and knot meter. All they had to do was calculate how long it would take to cover the distance at whatever speed the scooters would go. The streamlined rebreathers didn’t have the added drag of a scuba tank, so they could probably cover the half-mile in six or seven minutes.

  “I don’t know how we could have missed it,” Deuce said, climbing up to the bridge as I engaged the transmissions again.

  “Rain blocked the radar,” I said. “And breaking waves prevented you seeing them from offshore, even with the camera.”

  Studying the infrared image on the monitor, I could tell there were people inside the house. Body heat doesn’t take long to change the surface temperature of windows, which are usually cooler than the walls of an unoccupied building because they allow light to go through, where the walls absorb it. The windows were noticeably warmer than the walls.

  We idled south for about half a mile, then turned around. It wasn’t uncommon for night fishermen to go back and forth over known hot spots, trolling bait behind the boat.

  When I started the second turn, Andrew’s voice came over the comm again. “We’re at the boat. Tony’s going aboard to check it out.”

  The minutes turned into hours as Deuce and I waited on the bridge, watching the house slip by again.

  “He’s not going anywhere.” Andrew’s voice seemed to boom in my ear. “Keel’s buried several inches into the sand already.”

  “There’s a body in the forward cabin,” Tony whispered. “It’s Cruz, shot once in the face.”

  A moment later, Tony said, “Blood on the bed in the lower cabin. Nobody else on board.”

  “One of the others must be injured,” I said. “The hatch to that cabin can be locked from the outside. They must have herded the women in there, after he clobbered me. Do you see a cigar box?”

  “Yeah, cigars are laying all over the place,” Tony whispered.

  “Any sign of my gun?” I asked. “It was in the cigar box.”

  “You mean besides the hole in Cruz’s face?” Tony replied. “Brass on the bed, a single nine-millimeter casing.”

  “Charity shot Cruz,” I mumbled.

  “There’s a bullet hole in the mattress,” Tony said. “Near vertical entry.”

  “Get back in the water,” Deuce ordered. “See if there’s a way inside without walking that long pier.”

  Turning around once more, we moved slowly toward the house again. Then Tony’s voice came over the comm. “There’s a ladder mounted on one of the stilts.”

  The minutes ticked past slowly. I knew what they were doing. If the ladder led to the deck around the house, or to a trap door inside, they’d have to remove their gear to get up it. They each had the dock lines from the scooters, so they could tie it and their gear to one of the pilings.

  “Going covert,” Tony said. The two men were probably underwater, taking one last breath before ascending the ladder. From there, they’d limit any talking.

  Turning the wheel, I aimed the bow of the Revenge toward the shallow channel. Carmichael’s boat probably cleared the sand bar at the western approach to the house by inches. The Revenge would have a couple of feet. Using the forward-scanning sonar, I followed the deeper water toward the house. If Carmichael saw us now, all the better.

  Tony’s voice was barely audible. “Trap door to the inside of the house. Not locked. Can you give us a diversion?”

  “Hit the spotlight,” I told Deuce.

  Reaching up, Deuce turned the handle of the roof mounted spotlight, aiming it directly at the house. When he switched it on, the whole house was caught in the powerful beam. We could clearly see Tony and Andrew hanging on a ladder just below the middle of the house.

  Over the comm, we heard Tony and Andrew slam the trap door open, climbing quickly and shouting. A single shot rang out.

  “What’s going on?” Deuce asked, leaning on the rail.

  “Carmichael’s down,” Andrew said. “Still breathing, but I can fix that. Charity’s been shot, but seems okay.”

  “Tie him up,” Deuce said. “We’ll be at the dock for extraction in just a minute.”

  The bottom fell away to deeper water in the natural channel that ran past the house. I bumped the throttles up and maneuvered toward it as Deuce quickly climbed down the ladder. Over the comm, I heard Andrew asking each woman if she was okay.

  I kept the light on the house as Deuce jumped onto the dock with both the bow and stern lines in hand. Once the boat was secure, we both raced toward the house. The door opened, and Tony stepped out, grinning.

  “Chyrel has a cool idea,” he said, leading the two younger women out of the house.

  Chyrel helped Charity out onto the deck as Deuce and I approached. Charity’s upper arm was wrapped tightly with gauze, but a spot of blood seeped through.

  “How bad?” I asked Charity when she looked up at me.

  “I won’t be playing tennis for a while,” she replied. “The bullet went through, but I don’t think it hit the bone.”

  “Get her aboard,” Deuce told Chyrel, and turned to the two younger women. “Are you two all right?”

  “Who are you people?” Jenna asked.

  “The less you know right now, the better,” I said. “For now, just rest assured that you’re safe. We’ll make sure you get home that way.”

  “Go with Tony,” Deuce said, then disappeared through the door.

  The two girls followed the others and I went inside the house. Andrew was standing over Carmichael, whose eyes went wide when he saw me.

  “Will he live?” Deuce asked Andrew.

  “He’ll survive the gunshot wound,” Andrew replied. “Or was that a rhetorical question?”

  “Don’t kill him,” Chyrel’s voice said over my earwig. “I have a better idea.”

  “Who the hell are you, Stretch?” Carmichael asked. “If you’re a cop or something, I got rights.”

  “You have the right to shut the fuck up,” Andrew growled, his voice low and uncharacteristically menacing. �
��If you give up that right and say another word, I’ll break your scrawny neck.”

  “Just give me a few minutes, big guy,” Chyrel said. “We almost got it.” When she returned, she placed a sheet of paper on a table, and handed Andrew a length of boat line. “Tie him up so he won’t get loose,” she said.

  “What’s your idea?” Deuce asked.

  Chyrel grinned and held up what I recognized as a small computer flash drive. “Everything we dug up on the two of them is saved on this.”

  I picked up the sheet of paper and read the computer-printed note.

  This guy is wanted by the United States Army in connection with multiple unsolved murder cases.

  It was late before we got back to the hotel. We’d waited until we were in the middle of the bay before Chyrel called 911 and reported someone trespassing in one of the stilt houses. She’d also told the dispatcher that she’d heard gunshots.

  Then she tossed her cellphone in the water.

  “I’m flying back tonight,” I told Andrew, after we’d packed everything up in the room and were ready to leave. “You and Tony can rest up on the boat and head back in the morning.”

  “I’m going with you,” Charity said. “I don’t like being away from the boat for so long.”

  Chyrel had rechecked and rebandaged Charity’s wound. The bullet had gone through the meaty part of her upper arm, leaving a slightly larger exit wound. Both would heal, but it would take time. She didn’t need any stitches, and she refused any kind of medication. We said our goodbyes to the others, then drove to the airport, taking Finn along. He didn’t like flying, but I didn’t want to be away from him any longer.

  Less than an hour later, we were winging over Florida Bay, heading back to my island and normalcy. Landing on the water at night was a little trickier than in daylight, but the shallow water of the flats north of my island was smooth and calm, with a bright moon overhead. As I circled around, I noticed a light on in my little house. I was certain I’d turned everything off before leaving, but maybe Tony or Andrew had left a light on.