The Blue Tango Salvage: Book 2 in the Recovery and Marine Salvage, Inc. Series

by Chris Poindexter

  “We need to go on a hiring binge,” I said out loud.

  “I hate new people,” Q reminded me. “They either take up a lot of time or get killed, sometimes both.”

  “If we’re going to keep doing this we can’t be operating on the fringe all the time.”

  “But there are stretches where we’re doing nothing and have to fill up their days with make work.”

  “Well, Deek can help with that,” I pointed out. “We can always schedule them for travel and training.”

  It was the necessity of busy work that prompted us to trim our roster in the first place. When someone you’re paying six figures a year is reduced to air-dropping hamburgers to a remote job site to keep them busy, you have too many people. But now we were too far the other way. The right way to handle the fish guy was to put a team and a drone on him and hang back until he gave us an opening, only we didn’t have the team or the drone.

  “That reminds me,” I said out loud and sent Deek a text to look into the drone issue.

  The drive to our accommodations for the night was a surprisingly short, just across the Venetian Causeway on San Marino Island. When we pulled up it became immediately obvious that Deek wasn’t kidding about it being a villa. Q let out a low whistle.

  “Goddamn,” he said appreciatively, “remind me I owe Deek a beer.”

  There was a BMW in the parking lot and well-dressed young man got out and opened the gate for us. We rolled down the window.

  “Hiiii,” he said with a decidedly feminine air. This guy wasn’t just gay; he was ultra-gay with fairy sprinkles. “I’m David your villa concierge,” he said unnecessarily. The nametag with DAVID stenciled on it in neat script and CONCIERGE stenciled underneath was a dead giveaway. “You must be Mr. Fatman.”

  “He is,” Q pointed.

  “And that would make you...Mr. Quail,” he said looking at his phone. Deek had a perverse sense of humor about names and picked a name for Q that was a political figure he hated. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

  “That would be me,” he said through a tight grin, probably rethinking that beer he owed Deek.

  “That’s great!” he said. “I have an envelope that was sent down by your office earlier today along with your clothing,” he passed a manila envelope to Q, which would also have our new ID’s in case the management company asked to see them. “They faxed us a copy of your ID’s earlier today so that’s all taken care of. Let’s see there’s you two gentleman and you’re expecting your niece, Ms. Amber, to join you later, right?”

  Now it was Q’s turn to smile. “That’s right,” he said, turning a sly smile my way. “Good old uncle Fatman.”

  “Oh, that’s so nice,” David said. “Well, it looks like we’re all good. Here’s your welcome packet,” he handed over a fat pocket folder. “That has your card keys that open the outside doors and a clicker for the gate and one for the garage. The kitchen’s already stocked with food and beer. And if you look right here in the front,” he reached over and opened the folder for Q, “that’s my number’s right there. Concierge service is 24 hours, 7 days a week and if I’m not available, I switch off with my partner Shawna-- she’s absolutely super-duper. Anything you need, we can arrange it. We can get you dinner reservations, a limo, even a helicopter. Whatever you need, just ask. Everything’s on your corporate credit card so you are all set!”

  “Thanks,” Q said, handing me the welcome packet.

  “Okay, then,” David beamed. “Have a great stay and don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything at all.”

  We drove around the circular driveway and David got in his Beamer and waved as he drove off, the gate closing behind him. One of the clickers opened the door of the massive three-car garage and we parked there.

  “I think I could actually feel testosterone leaving my body talking to that guy,” Q observed.

  “At least you’re not banging your niece,” I pointed out.

  “True, but I can’t spell ‘potato’,” he countered.

  “That is pretty bad,” I chuckled.

  The key cards worked just like a hotel, with the exception that these were linked to the video cameras above the door so the management company could see who was using them. The garage door opened into the kitchen, which had surprisingly modern decor.

  “Wow, this place is awesome,” Q observed and it was hard to argue with that assessment. The kitchen was sleek and modern with a low bar that lead down to a small den that opened into a spacious deck and pool. The side facing the water was all windows and the sun flickered off the placid waters of Biscayne Bay, just on the other side of some privacy hedges. There was a small bathroom with a shower off the den so people coming in from the pool didn’t have to walk through the rest of the house dripping chlorinated water. A Viking stove under a giant stainless steel vent hood sat next to a double-door refrigerator with glass doors. The beer selection was excellent and we helped ourselves to one before exploring the rest of the house.

  The rest of the villa was every bit as nice with a spacious living room, more bathrooms, four bedrooms, each themed in a different color and all with their own bathroom --apparently villas can’t have too many bathrooms. I found my clothes in the blue room, Q’s in a room trimmed in light yellow. Amber was, perhaps predictably, in the pink bedroom. There was a small workout room in the front of the house with a treadmill, orbiter and small weight set. Besides being tastefully appointed the villa also had a respectable security system with cameras around the front, back and garage. Small monitors in various parts of the house cycled through the camera views and the big one in the kitchen had split screen panels for showing all of them at the same time.

  “Deek really outdid himself this time,” I admired. Even at $5,000 a night we could live there, essentially forever. Tempting.

  “I could get used to this,” Q agreed.

  The big screen TV in the living room came to life and a puppet character from a horror movie came on the screen and asked if we’d like to play a game.

  “Knock it off, Deek,” I said to the TV.

  The image flipped to his office camera. “Hehe. I love smart TVs,” he beamed. “They have like no security in these things.”

  “I’m going for a swim,” Q announced.

  Q could swim laps with a steady rhythm for hours. I don’t know how he did it; it’s an exercise that’s mind-numbingly boring to watch so I opted for the workout center. The treadmill was one of those programmable types so I put it one of the crossfit programs that uses the incline and speed to simulate hills and valleys and cranked up the difficulty. I was surprised that it really kicked my ass and it felt good to really push to near exhaustion. At the end of 90 minutes I was soaked in sweat with an awareness that we were spending too much time in the comfortable climate of South Florida and the laid back Palm Beach lifestyle. We needed new people and we needed to challenge ourselves personally and as an organization.

  When I got out of the shower I had a message from Fred indicating they would be in late but had something we should see.

  “We can either meet them when they get in or catch them in the morning.” I had a hunch which option Q would prefer.

  “Let’s meet them tonight,” he suggested. “Then we go see Mr. Fishy in the morning.”

  “You know what?”

  “Oh, crap.”

  “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

  “I know what that means.”

  “I’m tired of being limited by circumstances.”

  “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say.”

  I flipped open my phone and called Mack. “Come pick us up and run us out to meet the Star,” I instructed, giving him the address on the south side of the island.

  “Is there a dock there?” he asked.

  “Not at this villa but there’s a breakwater. Just send the inflatable over to get us.” Mack said he’d be here in about an hour. I sent Fred a text and told him we were on our way.


  WHAT?! The answer came back.

  “You couldn’t have told me that before I spent two hours swimming?”

  “You’re young, you can handle it.”

  I called Deek and put him on speaker. “Pig Fucker doesn’t have credit cards or own a car,” he said answering the phone. “Who doesn’t have a goddamn credit card?”

  “Apparently Pig Fucker,” Q volunteered.

  “Did find someone by the same name with a connection to one of those sovereign citizen groups,” he informed us.

  “That’s him,” I guessed. “Any luck on an address?”

  “Found one on an expired car registration. It’s a dump up in Golden Glades. Same address on a summons for driving on a suspended license.”

  Saying “dump” and “Golden Glades” in the same sentence was completely unnecessary. It’s not the part of Miami where you’d find the city’s elite. Even the Tri-Rail station looked more like a minimum security prison.

  “Work up a package on that address,” I suggested. “Anita send you anything on Mendenov?”

  “It’s pretty minimal,” he informed us. “Just an outline of his facilities, which includes a strip club.”

  “Probably also where he runs his girls. Where is that?”

  “It’s on NE 5th, just off the highway.”

  “Let me guess...north end of Golden Glades.”

  “Yup.”

  Q stated the obvious for all of us. “Quite the coincidence.”

  “You figure Pig Fucker is in for a tab with Sergei?” Deek asked.

  “Maybe. Or he thought he found a way to gain more access to the inventory. Either way it doesn’t matter. So Fat Fuck--”

  “Pig Fucker,” Q corrected.

  “Pig Fucker,” I continued, “goes to Sergei telling him he’s got a sure fire way to raise a couple million in clean money.”

  “Only Sergei doesn’t know anything about salvage,” Q finished.

  “Right! But that’s a lot of fucking money and it’s easy pickings. So maybe he already knows someone in the salvage business or he asks his girls.”

  “I could see that trail leading to Pierson Brothers,” Deek agreed. “It’s taking time to dig up Sergei’s network but I’ve got a shitload on the salvage guys.”

  “Money troubles?” I asked.

  “Legal fees, a bankruptcy in the wake of the court case with Spain, liens on their ships for dockage, equipment seized by creditors, a lawsuit by employees for back wages...and that’s just what I got on the first pass. They scored a legitimate salvage on a 1920s vintage wreck out in the gulf and they’ve been mostly above water since then.”

  “We need to find out if there’s any connection between them and Sergei,” I mulled.

  “I’m looking,” Deek confirmed.

  “Concentrate on the time before their last salvage,” I suggested. “When they needed money. Maybe they hit up Sergei for a loan.”

  Deek informed us that Mack was making good time and was about 10 minutes out. It was still light and boarding the runabout in the sheltered waters of the bay would be easy. Transferring to the Star in the dark and open ocean was going to be a different story. Seas were only running 1-3 feet so it wasn’t death defying but it would still be bouncy, wet and dark.

  “Do we really have to do this?” Q asked.

  “You can stay here if you like.”

  He frowned at that idea. While Q might not like doing something he liked being stuck in the rear with the gear even less.

  “I don’t think so. Somebody has to do CPR if you drown.”

  The inflatable runabout from the Platinum Swan whined and bounced its way across the light chop in the bay and then throttled back as it approached the rocky shoreline at the back of the villa. Many of the other homes had docks and it was tempting to go knock on the neighbor’s door and ask if we could use one. We decided that was too much trouble and made our unsteady way over the large blocks of concrete.

  Even though it wasn’t rough, the waves still slapped and gurgled around rocks which were encrusted with sharp barnacles and oysters just below the tide line. Every so often a big wave would slap against the rocks and blast a small geyser of water up through one of the gaps. We finally found one big slab of concrete that gave reasonable purchase near the waterline.

  “This sucks,” Q declared, wiping bird shit off his hand.

  “Builds character,” I replied as the runabout tried to time the waves so it didn’t shred the inflatable part of the boat on the sharp shell edges.

  I managed to grab the side rope and step aboard without getting wet or looking too stupid in the process, Q wasn’t so lucky. A wave splashed up between the boat and rock and soaked his trailing shoe.

  “Goddamn it!” he swore, tumbling ungracefully into the boat.

  “Just go,” Q told the runabout driver, who was the 1rst mate, convinced he’d done something wrong.

  We roared off with a throaty 15 hp outboard pushing us toward the Swan, bouncing slightly in the light chop, just enough to send the occasional spray over the bow while Q tried to squeeze the water out of his sock.

  “You have shoes on the Swan,” I reminded him.

  “I hate wet socks!” he reminded me.

  When the team was down to complaining about wet socks, it was definitely a sign we needed to take on bigger challenges. This wasn’t the place to deal with it as we caught up to the Swan after a short run and we would have clean clothes aboard. Boarding the Swan was easier than getting off the rocks, the back step was made for swimmers and Ashley tied us off to the rail.

  As soon as we were aboard Ashley and the mate swung a small crane around and lifted the runabout up on to the swimmer’s platform and made it fast. The Swan’s big diesels came to life and we thundered off on our way to find Fred, which the mate stopped by and told us it would be a little under 2 hours. That gave us time to have dinner and catch a nap. Q was in a better mood after he changed clothes.

  “This is kinda cool,” he said between bites of a pan-fried grouper fillet, which seemed like the appropriate dinner considering where we were going.

  “Let’s go back up to Alaska before the thaw and prospect for gold in the Bering Sea, like we did the year we were testing out the sand vac,” I suggested. The sand vac was a gadget Fred and the Star’s crew developed to remove sand and silt at wreck sites where there might be small pieces in the sediment. We discovered, almost by accident, that it was an awesome prospecting tool so we ran it up to the Bering Sea and spent the spring prospecting for gold. Attached to our little ROV, Geek, we could stay on the gold for hours at a time. It was cold but fun and we made a shit load of money.

  “It’s cold up there,” he reminded me.

  “Did your vagina get drafty?” I asked sarcastically.

  Q smiled at that comment. “So, you think we’re getting soft.”

  “Maybe not soft, but comfortable,” I confirmed.

  He thought about that for a minute as he chewed through some more of the fried coconut crust on the grouper. “You might have a point,” he said after a minute of contemplation.

  “We can go drag something out of the desert to make up for it,” I offered. “Maybe we could go get that plane.”

  One year we were working in the southwestern corner of Egypt, just north of the border with Sudan and stumbled across the wreck of a 1930s vintage Lockheed Electra. Apparently it was being used to ferry supplies around northern Africa and ran into trouble in some of the most desolate terrain we had ever worked. We didn’t have time to salvage it during that mission but we put a GPS marker on it, fixed the location by satellite and vowed to come back and get it someday. The dry climate of the Sahara had kept is so well-preserved that with a couple new props and new tires it looked like it could fly again.

  “You going to donate it to a flight museum?” Q asked.

  “Fuck no, I’m keeping it,” I said defiantly. “I want to fly that bitch.”

  Q grinned. “You think the Egyptians will let you take it out
of the country?”

  “No, but the Libyans might,” I mulled, though with the recent turmoil there that might not be the dunk shot it would have been before the revolution.

  “Didn’t ISIL just kidnap some people out of Sirte?”

  “Yeah,” I smiled.

  “So, you want to smuggle an airplane out of the desert in Egypt, through Libya, without the government knowing about it while dodging terrorists.”