Ned took the cue, assuming something was wrong, and started to ascend quickly. Mac grabbed him again, and moving his hand, palm down, side to side indicated that they were in no rush. It wasn’t the case, but Mac had no idea what awaited them on the surface, or if whoever was up there knew he and Ned were in the water. Weaponless, he would use whatever element of surprise he could.
Slowly, they rose through the water column. With an eye on how the current was running as they approached the surface, knowing it could well be different than on the bottom, he finned into the current toward the bow of the anchored trawler, trusting that the large flare of the hull above would conceal him. Then, riding the current back to the stern, he would have a chance to focus on what was happening, and who was aboard.
Just before they broke through the surface, Mac signaled to Ned to remain where he was. Ned gave him the okay sign, and Mac released the air in his BC, wanting to be under his own power as he approached the boat. Finning up slowly, he allowed his head to break the surface. All he heard was quiet. Something was definitely wrong if Mel and Trufante were not at each other’s throats.
Remaining quiet, using the current to his advantage, Mac silently floated to the stern, breathing freely without the noisy apparatus. When he reached the dive platform, he climbed aboard, startling Mel. He saw the distress on her face as it appeared above the transom.
“You okay?” He mouthed the words in case some was aboard.
“Yeah, not hurt, but we’ve got trouble,” she replied in her usual voice.
Mac stuffed the regulator back in his mouth and held up a finger. Noticing his gauge was pegged into the red, he took a breath and descended. As long as it was safe aboard, he needed to get Ned back on the boat before his air ran out. Finding Ned by the anchor line, Mac signaled for him to come forward as he kicked for the dive platform.
Mac climbed up onto the platform first and asked Mel to help Ned. Climbing over the transom, he dropped his tank and BC on the bench and started questioning her.
“Didn’t you hear the boat?” Mel asked. “I jerked the damned hose.
That explained the signal, but he knew now was not the time to tell her he hadn’t understood it. “Must have been caught up clearing the cannon.”
“It was that fisherman, Rusty I think, and some old creep. Trufante knew both of them—imagine that. They’ve got Pamela and the old man showed us a picture on his phone of her tied upside down to a piling. He’s using the tide as a ticking clock to force this.”
“What about Tru?” Mac asked.
Mel ran her hands through her hair. “Took him at gunpoint. Damned fool had to try and start something.”
“We’re making progress, but with the tools we’ve got ... It’s going to take a whole lot longer than the tide change to retrieve it.”
“I did see a marker number in the picture.”
”That’s a start. Any landmarks?” Mac asked as he walked over to the freshwater wash-down.
“Just water.”
Mac hosed himself off while he processed the information. He knew unless it was a really high number, without anything behind it, that the marker could be anywhere. “Would have been nice to see a copy,” Mac muttered as he stepped toward the electronics.
“I airdropped it to myself before I gave his cell back to him.”
Mac grabbed her phone, studied the picture, and moved to the chartplotter. Mel and Ned were on either side of him, watching as he manipulated the zoom on the chart to five miles out. A green “7” was pretty common, but out here, there were only a few marked passages.
Mac reached into the compartment above the helm and handed Mel a pair of binoculars. “Can you do a quick scan and see if any boats are in sight?” He expected JC to be shrewder than that, but it would also eliminate several possibilities.
Mel handed him back the binoculars. “Nothing besides a few sailboats in the fort’s harbor.”
Mac looked at the screen. The northern tip of White Shoal stared back at him. Just off Loggerhead Key and on the backside of the fort, it was remote enough not to attract attention from the park service, and close enough for JC to keep an eye on them. Moving the cursor from their present location to the marker, he saw that as the crow flew, it was just a mile and a half away, but that straight line crossed several dangerous shoals. Working around the hazards and staying out-of-sight of the park-service rangers would add miles to the trip.
Glancing over at the Surfari, Mac noticed the two paddleboards strapped to the roof of the cabin. It was a neat feature of the sailboat that he had admired before. The boards were just what he needed.
Mac stared at the distance between the trawler and the invisible marker. “I’m taking the boards and going after them.” He looked around. “Where’s Sloan?”
She shrugged. “That’s your plan? I think your head’s still messed up.”
“If you’ve got a better idea, let me know.” Mac started getting ready, collecting a knife, the pistol, and a waterproof, handheld VHF radio as he crossed the gunwales to the Surfari. With any luck, JC would have moved on and left them, making for an easy rescue.
Sloan had heard the conversation across the way and slipped Eleanor’s BC into a gear locker. He looked up as Mac appeared on deck. Not wanting to be seen by his father, he’d stayed in the cabin modifying the gear to bring the gold to the surface.
“Sloan,” Mac called out.
He left the cabin and walked into the cockpit.
“I need to use your boards.”
“What’s up?”
“I think we figured out where JC has Pamela and now Tru. It’s our best chance to get them.”
“What about the dinghy?”
Mac thought for a second, watching it bob in the waves behind his boat, then decided against it. Even with the skinny-water ability of the RHIB, if the engine’s lower unit grounded, he would be stranded. “Boards are better.”
Sloan fought to keep the smile off his face. Getting rid of Travis would make his plan a lot easier. “Sure thing. If you think it’ll help.” He rose and walked onto the gunwale where he could reach the buckle of the tie-down straps.
Mac climbed up the other side and the two men quickly had both boards on the deck.
“Got paddles and a leash?”
“Sure.” Sloan pulled the paddles and leash from the cavernous starboard hold that was built to house fishing rods and other long items. He handed them to Mac, who slid one paddle under the bungees of the smaller board, then connected the two SUPs together with the leash. He slid the pistol, knife, and radio under the bungee straps of the larger board.
Sloan lowered the transom and helped Mac slip the boards into the water. “Good luck. Anything else I can do?”
“Just hope they’re still alive,” Mac grunted as he took his first stroke. It had been a long time since he’d been on a board, and it took him a few minutes before he felt the familiar rhythm.
Sloan watched him paddle to the north and cross the first shoal, then looked back to the trawler when he heard the groan of the windlass pulling the anchor rode aboard. Mel and Ned were leaving, too. It couldn’t get much better than this. He waited until he was sure the trawler was not coming back before pulling out the modified BC and his own gear. He was geared up and ready to dive when he realized that it would be dark soon. Dropping the gear, he found his dive light in the storage locker.
Ghost Runner had moved off, but an unexpected wake found the Surfari, rocking it just enough to knock over Sloan’s gear. The heavy steel tank with gear and weight attached slammed into the deck. On impact, air shot from a burst hose. Before he could do anything else, Sloan needed to shut off the air. It wasn’t hard to see the problem as the high-pressure hose that fed the gauges violently whipped around. It was like fighting an angry snake and it took him several minutes to wrestle the tank into a position where he wouldn’t be struck by the hose and gauges while he turned off the air.
Sloan picked up the console and saw it was ruined, but t
his was only a minor setback. Removing the first stage, he tossed it aside, and went back to the locker to get Eleanor’s gear. What had started as a minor equipment malfunction now turned deadly when he turned around and saw a rifle pointed at his head. To make it worse, the man behind the gun was his father. The noise from the air blasting from the tank had concealed his approach.
“Thought it was you and that silly-ass boat of yours when I came by here earlier.”
“Travis went after Trufante and Pamela. He figured out where you have them tied up.”
The rub rails of the two boats touched. “They don’t concern me, now that I have you.” JC leaned over, inspecting the deck of the sailboat. “Looks like you’re going diving. Goddamned son of bitch, go to hell if Travis didn’t find something. Now maybe you ought to go fetch it up for me.”
“There’s nothing there. I was just going to get the anchor. Tried to pull it and it stuck.”
“Never could lie to me. Even when you thought you were getting away with it, I knew. It’ll take Travis damned near an hour to get there by boat if he don’t want to be seen by them rangers. Tide’ll be over their heads by then. The god’s are gonna be extra happy when they get them two fools I tied upside down on the piling. Now, looks like you’re going to get me some goodies to add to the offering.”
“You old fool. He took off on a paddleboard. Travis is probably cutting them loose as we speak.”
“Goddamned motherf’ing son of a whore,” JC steamed, then muttered what sounded like an apology under his breath. The barrel of the rifle hadn’t wavered, leaving Sloan’s best option to jump in the water. He looked over at the man by the helm. Something about his look told Sloan that he was a fisherman, not a diver. “Travis did find something.” There was no point lying.
“Damned if he didn’t,” JC said. “Now, go work for all those expensive lessons I got you and see what it is.”
Sloan played the only card he had. Under the watchful eye of the barrel of the gun, he installed Eleanor’s first stage on the tank and, wary now after the first hose had exploded, faced the gauges away from him while he turned on the air. The system held pressure, and he checked to see how much air remained. The gauge showed just less than 2,000 PSI. “Must have been your wake that knocked over the tank and burst the hose. Gotta change the tank out.” He held up the console for JC to see, like he knew what he was looking at.
“Worked out pretty well for me, ya think. Couldn’t hear me comin’ over all that racket.” JC waved the barrel of the gun at the gear. “Y’all do what you need to, but I’d be putting a little effort into it. Next high tide ain’t but six hours away.”
Sloan understood the threat. He unstrapped the last fresh tank from its holder in the locker, pulled it out, and swapped gear. A few minutes later he was ready. While he slid into the BC, he debated taking the modified BC, but decided against it. He regretted switching tanks now and, slipping out of the BC, made a quick decision.
“I ain’t playin’ with you, boy,” JC said.
“Just in case there’s something there … “ Sloan pulled out Eleanor’s BC and showed him how he had rigged it.
“Always knew you had some smarts, but I gotta keep an eye on you all the same.” Sloan flinched when JC asked Rusty to sink the inflatable. Flashing a knife over the transom, the fisherman did his bidding. Laying open each section with the knife, by the time he climbed back aboard, only the rigid floor remained above water. Several seconds later, the weight of the engine dragged the boat under.
Sloan continued to ready himself. Losing the dinghy meant little to him; in actuality, it would only slow his escape. Looking back at the gear, Sloan took the partially used tank and slid the BC over it. Tossing the rig in the water, he sat on the lowered transom and slid in after it.
Thirty-Eight
Mac set the blade and pulled back hard. With his muscle memory returning, he quickly settled into a sustainable stroke allowing him to eat up the water between him and the marker. Heading northwest, he noticed the water turned a deep, dark shade of brown, the warning sign that it was only inches deep. Several times already his paddle had sunk into the mud. Changing to more of a sweeping stroke, he paddled to the blue water ahead. Before he got there, he left the wind shadow caused by Garden Key and the old brick fort and felt the brunt of the northerly wind on his right side.
The waves weren’t big, maybe a foot, just enough to be a nuisance. Without a rudder, Mac was forced to use the paddle for steerage as well as propulsion to prevent the wind from blowing him off course. He had enough experience in man-powered crafts to alter his heading to the north-northwest, neutralizing the crabbing effect of the wind. Steering while trying to move forward required him to paddle entirely on his left side to counter the conditions. The exertion caused his muscles to burn. He knew the next stage of exhaustion would be cramps, but he put that from his mind as he continued.
Every now and then he’d take a handful of strokes on the right, but even with all his weight on the rail, he was quickly off course and had to abandon the tactic. Gutting it out on the left side, he finally saw the piling in the distance. Now that his goal was in sight, the paddling seemed to become easier, but his anxiety grew with each stroke. He knew the tide was coming up fast; what he didn’t know was if he would reach them in time.
Picking up his stroke rate while maintaining the power, he started to tire, but was within a quarter-mile now and could see the bodies hanging from the pilings. A sound startled him, and he looked to the left to see Rusty’s boat coming in fast. Between the boat approaching from downwind and his focus on paddling, he had missed the sound of the engine. Mac dug in even harder, hoping the circuitous route the boat would have to run to avoid the shallows would allow him to arrive first.
JC sat on the gunwale following Sloan’s bubble trail until it dissipated. Finding the boy here and his disclosure that Travis had actually discovered something had been a blessing from the gods. He knew they were fickle, and wondered if the human sacrifice, and acting without the blessing of his priestess, would help him or hurt him. The fog of war had encompassed him when he and Rusty had tied Pamela, and then Trufante, to the piling. Bloodlust had overcome him, and he was starting to regret it. Adding to his angst about the sacrifices, he realized that even if Sloan didn’t recover anything, he now knew where the cache lay.
“Rusty, mark the numbers. We need to go after Travis.”
Once he had marked and annotated their location, Rusty spun the wheel and reversed their route, steering through the channel on the west side of Garden Key. Once past the red “6” marker, he headed directly for the piling. Knowing it was deep water right up to it, he accelerated, but before he was halfway there, JC saw the figure of a man who seemed to be standing on the water. With a grin on his face and a touch of malice in his heart, he got Rusty’s attention, and pointed at Travis. Rusty changed course and headed directly toward him.
Mac saw the boat coming for him, but there was nothing he could do except paddle harder. While it was still a distance off, he could see that it was Rusty’s boat, which forced him to make a decision. It would take him longer to reach the piling, but his own safety was in jeopardy. He would still be exposed, but he could use the shallows of White Shoal to interfere if JC meant to take him down. Bullets, though, were another matter, and he could only hope that he was still valuable enough to keep alive.
If he wasn’t already out of breath, Mac would have let out a sigh of relief when he passed over the shallow shoal. High tide was a double-edged sword, allowing him to pass over areas that would be exposed at low tide, but it was also the detonator for the time bomb that JC had set for Trufante and Pamela. Pushing even harder, he grunted with each stroke as he fought both the wind and the pull of the shallow water against the board. The smaller board trailing behind only added resistance, and he thought about cutting it loose, but the single board wouldn’t hold the three of them. With an eye on the approaching trawler, he estimated that despite his efforts, Rust
y was going to reach him before he made it to the piling.
That revelation didn’t matter. Mac was within a few hundred feet of the piling when the trawler, which had been coming directly at him, cut hard to starboard and slowed. Mac immediately knew what he was up to. Many boaters slow for paddlers, but that’s exactly the opposite of what they should do. A boat running on plane puts out a much smaller wake than one plowing ahead at low speed.
The first wake swept under him, lifting the board several feet into the air. Mac was ready, and braced with the paddle, rode over the crest, but before he could regain his position, the second wave hit, pulling the other board under water, and forcing him to his knees. Even with the lower center of gravity, he felt the drag of the trailing board as it fought its way back to the surface. This low to the water, he lost all his leverage on the paddle and was swept away from the piling. The trawler had run its course and was in the process of turning back for a second round when Mac realized he was actually safe. If JC wanted him dead, as he was defenseless against a firearm, he’d be dead by now.
The revelation renewed his confidence, and rising to his feet, he pulled hard toward the piling before the trawler returned. Seeing his determination, the trawler passed, sending another wake. It’s force broken by the shoal, Mac took it in stride and headed for the piling. The board and boat arrived within seconds of each other.
Mac was focused on the two bodies tied to the piling and was thrown off balance by the wake of the trawler as it slowed. He had to react before he could see if Pamela and Trufante were alive. By the time he recovered, he saw JC standing at the transom of the trawler. He appeared to be looking up at the sky and talking, but Mac was unable to hear him over the rumble of the engine.
Mac approached and grabbed onto the gunwale. “Cut’em loose. I’ll give you what you want.”
Wood's Fury Page 24
