Fallen Palm (Jesse McDermitt Series)

by Wayne Stinnett

  “Take us to the Anchor,” I said. Julie got in the middle of the bench seat and I got in the passenger seat beside her, as Deuce and his three men climbed in the back.

  “What’re you going to do, Jesse,” Julie asked.

  I stared straight ahead and didn’t answer. Rusty started the truck and took off down Sombrero Boulevard. Deuce tapped on the glass between the cab and the bed and I slid it open. “Mind if Alberts here hangs on to your fly rod,” he asked.

  “No problem,” I replied. “I have another just like it on board. And a few other things.”

  Minutes later, we were boarding the Revenge, while Rusty and Julie cast off the lines. Rusty stepped down into the cockpit, looked up to me on the bridge and said simply, “I’m going.”

  “Then come up and take the helm,” I said. “Deuce, you and them door kickers come with me.” Deuce and I went forward as Rusty got the engines fired up and started down the canal. The three men from the take down team joined us in the salon.

  Deuce looked around the salon at his team and said, “Rather than use names on the comm, I’m Alpha One, Jesse’s Alpha Two and Rusty, up on the bridge, is Alpha Three.” He went on around the salon, assigning numbers to the others. The shooter with the fly rod case was four and the other two were five and six. I’m sure he did this for my benefit, rather than try to remember names.

  “What’re your orders?” I asked Deuce.

  “Seems like this is your ball game, Jesse,” Deuce replied as he handed me two earwigs. “One’s for Rusty.”

  “No,” I said. “I meant what orders did Smith give you?”

  “The rest of our team is standing by in Miami, along with our surveillance team. Our plan was to take them all down simultaneously, when they brought the terrorists ashore. But, like all plans, that’s out the window now. I’m superseding his order and we’ll attempt to take down the Carver at sea.”

  “Run that past him,” I said. “I don’t want you to get in trouble. But make no mistake, Deuce. This is my vessel and I give the orders. When we catch that Carver, I intend to get my wife off by any means necessary. If she’s been hurt, I intend to send it and the crew to the bottom.” Then I looked at each of the men in turn and said, “If that bothers anyone, we’re still in the canal and it’s a short swim to shore, because if anyone gets in my way, I’ll put you off the boat, then and there.” To a man, they all nodded.

  Rusty’s voice came over the intercom, “Jesse, get up here.”

  Deuce and I climbed up to the bridge, just as we were clearing the channel. Rusty moved over to the second seat and I took over the helm. Rusty said, “Art found the Carver. They have it stopped and the patrol boats are closing in.”

  I brought the Revenge up on plane, then pushed the throttles to the stops and headed south-southeast toward the deep cut through the reef, just east of Delta Shoal. I slowed to twenty knots as we neared the cut, checking the forward sonar for any obstruction. Not seeing anything, I nailed the throttles and shot through the cut at forty knots, turning east-northeast, toward Tennessee Reef.

  I handed the earwig to Rusty and said, “You’re Alpha Three. Dial the radio to the choppers freq.” Rusty made the channel adjustments and handed me the mic, “MV Gaspar’s Revenge to Sheriff’s helo, do you copy?”

  Art’s voice came over the headset saying, “Loud and clear, Jesse. We have the Carver heaved to and the patrol boats are about three miles out. ETA to boarding is five minutes.”

  I checked the radar and found the chopper easy enough. “I have you about a mile south of Alligator Reef,” I said.

  “That’s affirmative,” Art replied.

  “I’ll be there in forty-five minutes,” I said. Then to Deuce I said, “How the hell you turn these things on?” pointing to my ear.

  Deuce nodded to one of his men who opened a small black tactical computer case and punched in a few keys. Then he nodded to Deuce and I heard him over the headset, saying, “Comm check, Alpha One.”

  I nodded and said, “Alpha Two.” Then Rusty responded, followed by the three men on the deck.

  I said, “Alpha Four, leave the case on one of the seats in the salon and take what’s in it up on the foredeck and keep your eyes peeled.”

  “Roger,” he said.

  “And never mind the dog, that’s his usual position,” I added. “Alpha Five, take the starboard rail, Alpha Six, the port rail.”

  “They have them, Jesse,” Deuce said. “Alex will be safe in just a few minutes.”

  “I’ll relax when she’s aboard the Revenge,” I said.

  A couple minutes later, Art’s voice came over the loudspeaker on the boats radio, “Jesse, they’re boarding the Carver now.”

  “Let me know when Alex is aboard the patrol boat,” I said. The next few minutes ticked by, seeming like hours. I nudged the throttles again, but they were already wide open.

  “Jesse, it’s the wrong boat. Repeat, it’s the wrong boat!”

  “Damn,” I said, to nobody in particular and again pushed the throttles harder.

  Deuce’s phone rang and when he looked at it, he said, “It’s the ADD.” He answered it, listened for a minute and then disconnected and closed the phone.

  “He said they just got the okay an hour ago for a phone tap on Beech’s phone,” Deuce said. “O’Hara just called Beech to say they were changing their plan and heading straight out to Brown’s Cay. Beech is going to meet them in open water to take Alex, before they get to Brown’s Cay.”

  “He has another boat?” I asked.

  “That’s the bad news. His other boat is a Cigarette 42x,” Deuce said. “Top speed is in excess of ninety knots. Registered as Beeches, Knot Cream.”

  Rusty had been studying the radar screen and had pushed the setting to its max range of ninety-six nautical miles. “Jesse,” he said, “take a look at this. I been watching the screen since we left the channel. See this blip here,” he said, pointing to the screen. “It left the line of boats heading along the reef about twenty minutes ago. Its course looks to be about zero five five degree’s. Lemme see your big chart.”

  I pulled a chart out of the chart cabinet switched on the autopilot and unrolled it over the wheel. Rusty pulled a compass from the door of the cabinet. “Here,” he said, pointing at Alligator Reef. “This is about where that boat deviated from the others. On a heading of zero five five, it’s headed straight for Brown’s Cay.”

  Deuce said, “They have about ninety minute’s head start on us. The chopper will be running low on fuel and the patrol boats don’t have the range to make Brown’s Cay. The cutter out of Windley will be able to catch it before it makes Brown’s, but if they make the exchange at sea, she’ll never catch a Cigarette.”

  “We need to know where that Cigarette goes after they make the exchange,” Rusty said. “Probably back to the coast, but where? Miami? West Palm? A go-fast boat like that probably only has a range of a couple hundred miles.”

  “They don’t know we’re onto them,” Deuce said. “They have to know we’re searching, though. They don’t seem to be real boat savvy. If the cutter continues toward Brown’s Cay, they can keep track of them and the go-fast boat at the same time. We can refuel in Biscayne Bay, put back out to sea and use the radar to locate a fast mover, as it comes back closer to shore. With a little luck, we can take him down as he comes back in.”

  “Make the call,” I said. “Make it happen. But I have a call to make, too. And a slight change in that plan. Rusty, can I talk to you in the salon?”

  38

  Sunday night, October 30, 2005

  Julie was beside herself, waiting at Dockside. Aaron had brought food and drinks out to the cops and everyone else involved in the search, but she couldn’t eat anything. She felt responsible, because she’d brought Alex to the docks and didn’t do anything to stop the guy from taking her. At just after eight o’clock, her phone rang and when she looked at the caller ID, she saw it was her dad.

  “Dad, what’s going on? Nobody here wil
l tell me anything.”

  “Is Tony close by?” Rusty asked.

  “Yeah, he’s talking to the FBI guy.”

  “Get him. We need both of you. Don’t let the FBI guy know. My keys are in the truck. Get Tony in it, so we can tell both of you what to do.”

  “Okay,” Julie said. She was already sitting in the truck, so she tapped the horn and when Tony looked her way, she waved him over. Once he’d climbed in the passenger side, she said, “Okay, dad, he’s here. I’ll put the phone on speaker.”

  Deuce’s voice came over the speaker saying, “Tony, you’re on speaker here with Rusty and Jesse. Did the ADD clue you in about Alex being transferred to a second boat?”

  “Yeah, I was just telling Special Agent Binkowski about it.”

  Rusty broke in, “Julie, do you have Alex’s purse?”

  “Yeah,” she replied, “it’s right here on the seat, where she left it.”

  “Look in it,” I said. “Are the keys to her skiff in it?”

  “Yeah, they’re here.”

  “Good,” I said. “We need you and Tony to take Alex’s skiff and cut across the flats as fast as you can. We need you in Biscayne Bay in less than two hours. Tide’s nearly peaking in the bay; you can run flat out, the whole way. Her boat’ll do almost sixty-five knots. Keep it under sixty and you’ll get there in plenty of time. There’s two full gas tanks in your dad’s skiff. Take them and you won’t have to stop for gas until you get there.”

  “Got it, Jesse,” Tony said. “What do you want us to do when we get there?”

  Deuce answered for me, “You’re going to be our eyes. We’ll track the Cigarette with radar and let you know where she’s going to make landfall. Once it’s inside the intracoastal, you’ll have to visually follow her. Find out where it docks and we’ll arrive within thirty minutes, if all goes well.”

  “It’s gonna be just us?” Tony asked. “No Coasties or FBI?”

  “Just us,” Deuce said. “But, we have no idea where Beech will head after the exchange. If he heads to Palm Beach, you’ll have to move fast to get up the coast, before he gets there. Get gas in Key Biscayne and be ready.”

  Art pointed ahead of the truck and Julie started it up and kicked up gravel, as she headed to the Anchor. “Okay,” Tony said, “we’re on the way. I’ll check in with you in an hour.”

  They were in Alex’s skiff within five minutes, speeding down the canal to open water. Once clear of the canal, Julie turned sharply left and headed through Vaca Cut, into Florida Bay, with Tony hanging on to his seat.

  “You sure you know where you’re going?” he shouted.

  “I grew up fishing these flats,” she said. “I know every hole and sandbar in the bay. I’ve been dying to get involved in this, somehow. It’s my fault Alex was taken. I‘m not gonna let her down.”

  She switched on the bright spotlights mounted on either side of the bow, below the gunwale, illuminating a heron wading in the water, just ahead and to the right.

  “What the hell’s that bird standing on?” Tony asked.

  “The bottom,” Julie replied.

  “The bottom?” Tony exclaimed.

  “Don’t worry, we’re in a natural cut called Smuggler’s Run. It’ll take us out to deeper water. We’ll have to run through a few other cuts up near Key Largo. But mostly, we’ll be running about sixty knots, in six or seven feet of water.”

  Tony looked at the digital dash and was amazed at how fast they were going already. Julie weaved now and then, as she made her way to deeper water north of Grassy Key. Then she pushed the throttle further and the little skiff responded like a rocket sled on rails. The knot meter pushed up above sixy and she backed it down a little. Julie was behind the windscreen, but Tony was in open air. He bent down a little and was able to get into the slipstream created by the bow.

  Forty minutes later, Julie slowed the skiff, as the spotlights illuminated a seemingly unbroken line of mangroves. “There’s a handheld spotlight under your seat, Tony.” Tony stood up and got the big light out. Plugging it into an outlet on the dash, he turned it towards the mangroves in front of them and switched it on.

  “Shine it northward,” Julie said. “Look for two red milk jugs, near the waterline.”

  He swept the light back and forth, along the shore, and then saw them. “Over there,” he said, pointing slightly north of where they were heading.

  Julie spun the wheel and headed due north for a hundred yards then spun it back toward where the milk jugs were, heading southeast. Tony kept the spotlight on the jugs and then he saw the opening between them. The lights from Key Largo were glowing through the trees and reflecting off the water beyond. The cut through the mangroves was not much wider than the skiff, with branches hanging down to within five feet of the water.

  “You do know these waters,” he said. “If they allowed women, you’d make a good SEAL. No wonder Deuce likes you so much.”

  “He say that?” she asked.

  “Well, no, not exactly. I’ve served with Deuce and Art for over six years now. We can almost read one another’s minds.”

  Once clear of the narrow, winding cut, Julie said, “This is Blackwater Sound.” She pushed the throttle and brought the skiff back up on plane, heading due east toward the city. She turned the skiff to the left, near a small point of land and threaded through a slightly wider cut, going under a low bridge. “And that’s US-1,” she added.

  She accelerated across Barnes Sound, keeping the skiff at forty knots and passed under the high arch of the Card Sound bridge, into Card Sound. “If you ever get a chance, that place over there has the best blackened grouper sandwich in the Keys. Well, maybe second best, next to Rufus’s. It’s called Alabama Jack’s. They filmed part of the movie ‘Drop Zone’ there.”

  Pushing the throttles further, they rocketed across Card Sound and into Biscayne Bay, when the engine started to sputter. Julie pulled back on the throttle and said, “Time to switch tanks. We’re outa gas.”

  Tony already had the gas line from the first spare tank threaded between them and turning around, disconnected the main gas line and connected the spare tank to the engine, then primed the line with the squeeze pump. The engine settled into a steady hum and Julie pushed the throttles forward and headed straight for the Cape Florida Lighthouse and the Key Biscayne Yacht Club.

  Once they’d tied up to the gas dock, Tony called Deuce on his cell phone. When Deuce answered, he said, “We’re getting gas at the Key Biscayne Yacht Club now. Damn, this girl can drive a boat.”

  Julie smiled at the compliment as she filled the main gas tank of Alex’s skiff to the brim, and then topped off both spares, too. She paid the dock attendant, as Tony disconnected and closed his phone.

  When she stepped back into the skiff and untied from the dock, Tony said, “Deuce said that the cutter is only about twenty miles from the Carver and the Cigarette boat is closing on them, now. The Coasties are going to keep both boats on radar until they transfer Alex to the Cigarette. The Revenge is only a few miles behind us and they’ll refuel here and be back out on the water, heading up the coast on the outside, within twenty minutes. With luck, they can be off Miami Beach in plenty of time to pick up the Cigarette coming back in and let us know if it’s headed to Miami or Palm Beach.”

  “God, I hope Alex is alright,” Julie said.

  “Me too,” Tony said. “I’d sure hate to be those guys if she has even one hair out of place. Deuce said for us to go up to Rickenbacker and wait for their call.”

  Julie started the big outboard and motored back out to the channel at a much slower pace. There were a number of boats out on the bay, even at this late hour. Once they passed under the Rickenbacker Causeway, she headed toward the Miami Beach skyline and beached the skiff on a small sandbar near the northern tip of Virginia Key.

  They didn’t have to wait long. Thirty minutes later, Tony’s phone chirped and he put it on speaker. “Yeah, Deuce,” he said. “We’re at the northern tip of Virginia Key.”
<
br />   “The Coasties said the Cigarette is headed straight toward Miami,” Deuce said. “He should be there in thirty minutes. He’s moving at nearly 80 knots right now, but he’ll have to slow down once he comes through the inlet. We’re drifting about a mile off Miami Beach. We’ll follow him through the inlet about two or three miles behind.”

  “Roger that,” Tony said and clicked off.

  “You really like Deuce, huh?” he asked, in the darkness.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I think Russell’s a really special guy.”

  “Russell?” he asked. “Oh yeah, never mind. His first name slipped my mind. He’s always been Lieutenant, Commander or just Deuce, to me.”

  “Is it normal for Enlisted men to call an Officer by their first name?” she asked.

  “Not in the regular Navy,” he said. “We get to be really close in the SEAL’s and unless we’re around other officers, he prefers Deuce.”

  “I’m not real big on nicknames,” she said.

  They sat in silence for a few more minutes, and then Tony’s phone chirped again. Once more, he put it on speaker and said, “Go.”

  Jesse’s voice came over the speaker. “He’s headed to Government Cut. That’s just north of where you are. He’s only about fifteen miles out. You need to move due north to the northwest corner of Fisher Island, because once he comes through the Cut, he can go three different directions and you can only see one, from where you are.”

  “Roger that,” Tony said. “I’ll call you when we spot him.”

  Julie was already backing off the sandbar. She spun the little skiff around and idled due north for about half a mile until they were across the shipping channel from the Port of Miami docks. She beached the skiff on another sand bar, west of Fisher Island. From there they could see Government Cut, which was the channel to the intracoastal going north, the entrance to the shipping port, and the ship channel directly in front of them.

  Minutes later not one, but two, Cigarette boats came through the Government Cut. One turned and headed north, toward Star Island, and the other continued straight ahead, into the shipping channel.