Fallen Hunter (Jesse McDermitt Series)

by Wayne Stinnett

  “Jesse,” Julie said. “I need to talk to you for a minute. Can we go outside?”

  I went back into the stateroom and put on a tee-shirt and the two of us took our coffee up to the bridge. I sat down at the helm and she sat on the bench seat on the port side. I could tell something was bothering her. At first I thought it might be Tina. It had only been over four months since Alex died. But, I was way off base.

  “I joined the Coast Guard,” she blurted out. “I know I’ve never been a fan, but after what happened and I saw how professional they were and well, I was impressed. I guess I wanted to do something to make a difference.”

  I looked at her and tried to act surprised. “So, hassling fishermen and divers is how you plan to make a difference?”

  “No,” she said. “My MOS will be Maritime Enforcement. At least it will be if I graduate the school. I’m the only woman to apply for it so far.”

  I pretended to think hard about it and finally smiled and said, “You’ll set the bar for the male swabs to try to reach. I’m proud of you, Jules.”

  Her face lit up. “Really, Jesse? That means a lot to me. I’ve always thought of you as my second dad.”

  “What did Rusty have to say about it?” I asked.

  “He wasn’t very thrilled,” she said. “I had to go all the way to New Jersey for basic training. That was scary. You know I’ve never been further north than Palm Beach. I never realized it could be so cold. He hasn’t said so, but I think he’s kind of proud of me for doing it.”

  “I know he is,” I said. “So, tell me about Maritime Enforcement.”

  She talked excitedly about what the school was going to be like and how she’d train to board ships and boats, from a small, fast moving boat. I could tell it was something she was really excited about and knowing her as well as I did, there was no doubt in my mind that she’d do well. Finally, she proudly said, “I graduated as the honor recruit and was promoted to Seaman Apprentice.”

  “You’ll be a Master Chief in no time, kiddo,” I said and gave her a big hug. “Now, let’s go blow some bubbles. Tina’s sort of worried about this.”

  “She’s nice,” Julie said. “You kind of fit together in a ying yang sort of way.”

  I clicked on the intercom and said, “Y’all ready to get this show on the road? It’s nearly an hour to Alligator Reef.”

  Tina joined us on the bridge as I started the engines and Deuce cast off the lines. He climbed back up to the bridge and joined Julie on the bench seat. Putting the port engine in reverse and the starboard in forward, the Revenge pushed her stern against the fender and swung her bow away from the barge. Then I shifted the port engine to forward and we idled down the long canal to open water. Once we were in deep water I pushed both throttles half way and the bow rose up and the big 1015 horsepower engines brought her up on plane with ease.

  Tina smiled and said, “I love when it does that. It’s almost like taking off in a plane.”

  Julie looked at me and said, “Well, maybe not so ying and yang.”

  It was nearly 0800 and I wanted to be early, so I pushed the throttles a little more and brought her up above cruising speed to thirty-five knots. The ocean was very flat and the sun was just above the horizon. The steady hum of the engines and swish of the bow wave continued as we enjoyed the morning drinking coffee.

  Forty minutes later we were about a half mile south of the Alligator Reef light and I brought the big boat down off plane, then turned into the wind, reversed the engines and brought her to a full stop. I dropped the anchor in about forty feet of water and reversed the engines, paying out about a hundred feet of anchor line, before I felt the anchor grab.

  “We might be here a while,” I said as I switched on the radar. There were a few boats anchored on the reef line and a couple of freighters out in the straits. Then I noticed a boat moving pretty fast but still ten miles away. “Or maybe not,” I said.

  Deuce came over next to me and we watched the blip on the screen. It was moving at about thirty or thirty-five knots and was a mile off the reef. “You carrying?” I asked Deuce.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You expecting trouble?”

  “No, but I like to be prepared.”

  “Be back in a minute,” he said and climbed down the ladder.

  “What do you want us to do?” Tina asked. “And before you ask, yes, I’m carrying, too.”

  “You are?” I asked. “Where?”

  She opened her purse and took a small .38 service revolver part way out.

  “Good for you,” I said. “If you want to upgrade, I have an extra Sig in the cabin.”

  “This’ll do fine,” she said.

  Deuce came back up on the bridge and we watched the blip on the radar screen getting closer, still holding at thirty-two knots now, about three miles away. I looked up from the screen and out over the port side toward the northeast. I opened the small cabinet below the helm and took out my binoculars and scanned the horizon. Finally I saw it, a beautiful wooden boat. I handed the binoculars to Deuce and asked, “What do you make it to be?”

  He looked through the binoculars as I studied the radar. The approaching boats speed suddenly increased to forty-one knots as Deuce said, “Man, that’s a lot of money heading this way. It’s a thirty-three foot Riva, I think.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “Half a million bucks, easy. He just increased speed to forty-one knots.”

  “Who in their right mind would spend that kind of money on a boat?” Tina asked.

  “A drug and arms smuggler,” Deuce said.

  “He’ll probably speak only in Spanish,” I said. “Pretend like you don’t understand.”

  Minutes later the sleek boat came down off plane as it neared us. It was Santiago. In the cockpit with him was a beautiful Hispanic woman in sunglasses. Both of them were dressed like they were going out on the town, not out on the water.

  “Buenos dias,” Santiago said as he piloted the boat up close to the side of the Revenge.

  I climbed down from the bridge and looked the boat over. It was a breathtaking piece of nautical art. Its elegant, flowing lines reflected its owners taste for money. The decks were beautifully carved mahogany, inlaid with maple. The cockpit and dash were trimmed with real leather and the console looked state of the art.

  I whistled a low appreciation and in a low voice I said, “I have a boat, he says. That’s not a boat, Santiago. This is a boat. That’s a piece of art.”

  “Gracias, Capitan,” he said. “Por favor venga a bordo.”

  “What’d he say, Skipper?” Deuce asked.

  “Que quieres?” I asked Santiago somewhat louder.

  “Parecemos estar perdido,” he said.

  I looked up at Deuce and said, “They seem to be lost. I’ll be right back.” Then I stepped carefully across and down into the small cockpit of the Riva.

  “Capitan McDermitt, this is Isabella Espinosa,” Santiago said in a low voice. “Isabella, esto es Capitan Jesse McDermitt.”

  “Encantado,” she said.

  I looked at Santiago and said, “What did you want to talk about that couldn’t be done over the phone. And make it fast, before my clients suspect something.” Then I leaned over his console and pretended to be examining his GPS.

  “The nature of your business with me,” he said as he leaned over and also pretended to fuss with the equipment. “In one week, I’ll have a shipment to move out of western Cuba, to Key West. On Sunday night. I will pay you as we agreed, $40,000. This will be the same every month, if you accept.”

  “I agree on one condition,” I said. “I want to be your only carrier. If I find out you’re using anyone else, I quit.”

  “Most agreeable,” he said. “I’ve been hoping to consolidate. Using shrimp boats has been a problem. They don’t always return on the day they say.”

  “What’s the weight of the shipment?” I asked.

  “One thousand kilos,” he said. “It could be more, but I don’t want to overload
your boat.”

  “She can be adapted to move twice that,” I said thinking it over. “But that would take some time. One thousand kilos she can do as is.”

  “Is your boat fast enough?” he asked.

  “Faster than this one,” I replied.

  The smug look on his face said it all. “I doubt that, senor. You have no idea how fast this boat is.”

  “Cruising speed of about thirty-five knots and a top speed of forty-one,” I said. “Watched you approach on radar, then speed up when you saw us.”

  The smug look left his face. “Your boat is faster?”

  “Twin one thousand horsepower engines,” I said. “Top speed is forty-five knots on calm seas.”

  I could see that he was impressed. “Perhaps I could use you and your boat for another enterprise,” he said.

  He took the bait, time to set the hook. “No gun running,” I said.

  Again, his face showed his thoughts. The man would make a poor poker player. He recovered quickly and said, “You’ve done your homework, Capitan. I can make it worth your while.”

  I pretended to think it over for a minute then said, “Maybe. Think it over and you can give me a number next Sunday when I come to Cuba. Do you still plan to ride back with me?”

  “Si,” he said. “I will call you on Friday to give you the exact location. And I’ll give you your number at that time also. Perhaps if you like the number, you can move things for me both ways.”

  “Better make it a good number,” I said. “It’d be nice if I didn’t have to lug divers and fishermen around on my boat. I’m taking these three to Cozumel from here.” I leaned on the console and using my left hand, hidden from his view, I quickly pulled the tab off one of the little resin drop looking bugs and stuck it to the underside of the dash, as I pressed a few buttons on the GPS. “That should do it,” I said loudly as I straightened up. Then turning to the woman I said, “El placer es mio.” Before he could say anything more, I stepped up on the leather edged gunwale and back over to the Revenge. Then turning I said, “Buena suerte, senor.”

  Santiago waved then jammed the throttle, launching the sleek boat forward and turning east. I climbed back up to the bridge where I found Deuce smiling. “You’re good,” he said. “He was almost begging you to take a shipment of guns down. Too bad you couldn’t have dropped one of those bugs while you were onboard.”

  I smiled and said, “I did.”

  He looked at me surprised. “I was watching your every move,” he said.

  “Hopefully he didn’t catch it either,” I said.

  “Every sound on board his boat is being recorded,” he said. “We can call Chyrel later and see if anything good is picked up. We’ll have to start making plans once we get the intel about the camp. It won’t leave us much time, though. I’m betting he’ll ride down with you too.”

  “No,” I said, “I’d bet he has his new hired muscle ride down with me and the two of them ride back.”

  “It’d be better if he rode down with you,” he said. “Then we could take him down at sea. On Cuban soil would bring all kinds of problems.”

  “You want the terrorists too, right?”

  “That’d be a bonus,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said, “Let’s go diving.”

  I started the engines and engaged the windlass to pull up the anchor. Minutes later, we were up on plane heading west. Twenty minutes later, we were anchored a few yards off of Conrad and climbed down to suit up.

  I’d removed the fighting chair from the cockpit and put a four seat, back to back bench in its place before leaving the island. Deuce and I brought four tanks up from the engine room, squeezing between the two stacked crates and the generator. I showed Tina how to attach her new buoyancy compensator and the first stage of her new regulator to one of the tanks, then attach the low pressure hose to the BC. I helped her get into her wetsuit, then helped her with the weight belt and fins. I didn’t think she’d need much weight on the belt, but added two extra pounds just in case. When she was all set, I had her sit on the bench and we adjusted the straps on the BC.

  “Now, when you stand up you’ll have to lean forward. It’s a lot of weight and bulky, but once you’re in the water you’ll be weightless.” I inflated the BC for her and showed her how to dump air from it so she could descend. “It’s only fifteen feet here so getting neutrally buoyant will take a little practice.” I went on to explain the Valsalva maneuver, to equalize the air in her inner ear and she’d probably only have to do it once as she went down.

  “You’re sure I don’t need to take a class?” she asked. “That’s an awful lot to remember for just a shallow dive.”

  Julie was sitting behind her and said, “I’ve never taken a class. Dad and Jesse taught me to dive when I was a kid. We’ll be right with you the whole time. Just remember to breathe.”

  “And don’t breathe the water,” she said.

  Julie laughed and said, “Yeah, that’s exactly what they said to me, when I was ten.”

  “You did this at ten years old?” Julie asked.

  “Yep,” she replied. “Used a little tiny air bottle that’s normally used as a backup. What you’re about to see is breathtaking so remembering to breathe really is important.”

  I put a backpack on my tank and attached my first stage to it. Then I put on my weight belt and fins and lifted the rig over my head and slid it down onto my back. Grabbing my mask, I shuffled over to the transom door, opened it and stepped down onto the swim platform. “Shuffle your feet like that and take tiny steps.”

  “You’re not wearing a wetsuit or one of these vest things?” she asked.

  Deuce and I laughed and he said, “We’ll stay down until the first person’s air reaches 800 pounds. With a new diver, that’s usually about fifteen minutes. He won’t get cold that fast.”

  “I rarely use a BC,” I added. “After a few dives, you’ll know exactly how much weight to use and won’t need one either.”

  Deuce stood up, ready to go and helped Julie up, then shuffled around and helped Tina to her feet. By then, Julie had stepped down onto the platform, put her mask on and said, “Watch how Deuce and I enter the water and do the same thing.”

  When Tina had made her way to the transom door, Julie took a long stride, while holding one hand over her mask. Her head barely went under. Once she was clear of the platform Deuce did the same thing, but since he wasn’t wearing a BC either he went under for a second.

  “Okay,” I said. “You see how they did that? It’s called a giant stride entry. Step way out and keep your legs apart like you’re trying to do a split. Once you’re in the water, scissor your legs together. Keep one hand on your mask and regulator and the other extended out to the side. I’ll be in the water before you know it. You ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” she said somewhat hesitantly.

  “Good girl,” I said. “Whenever you’re ready.” I pulled my mask on and put my regulator in my mouth and waited. First timers are always hesitant, but she stepped right off, with Deuce on one side and Julie on the other. I fell backwards off the side of the platform, then kicked over and surfaced right in front of her as she came up.

  Taking my regulator out I said, “Now just let a little air out of your BC, like I showed you until you feel like you’re starting to descend.” She did so and we started down to the sandy bottom together.

  At first she tried to use her fins like she was walking, pushing with the bottom of them. I stopped her and pointed two fingers at my eyes, then pointed to Julie and Deuce ahead of us, finning toward the reef. She watched them for a second, then nodded her head and started finning after them. She was a bit too heavy, so I came up beside her and pushed the auto-inflator on her BC, putting a small charge of air into it. The sudden sound startled her, but she came up off the bottom a little. I gave her the okay sign and she nodded.

  I held her hand as we finned toward the reef. Deuce and Julie had already reached the outer fringe and w
ere looking back, waiting. Just ahead of us, a pair of porgies swam past, followed by a large French angle fish. I felt the excitement in the squeeze of Tina’s hand. As we approached the edge of the reef more and more fish became visible against the multicolored reef. There were several blue striped grunts and yellow tail snappers hanging above the reef. A queen angle fish swam out of a crevice and disappeared into another. Dozens of tiny damselfish of several kinds darted in and out of holes and cracks and a pair of spotfin butterfly fish cruised along the sandy bottom at the edge of the reef.

  I looked at Tina and her eyes were wide behind her mask, and a near constant stream of bubbles coming out of her regulator. We followed Deuce and Julie as they finned around the right side of the reef. Conrad only covers a little over a quarter acre maybe, but there’s more life in that one quarter acre than about any reef I’ve ever seen. Deuce had a catch bag and was looking for lobster for lunch. This reef usually has quite a few, so I knew lunch was virtually in the bag. We came to a narrow cut in the reef and let Julie and Deuce go on ahead, while we turned into the cut staying close to the sandy bottom. Under one ledge we found a nurse shark about four feet long, just resting. Tina was startled at first, but followed my lead as we slowly approached the docile fish. Near its tail I reached out and gently stroked its skin, then pointed to Tina to do the same. She tentatively reached out and ran her fingertips over the coarse skin. A shark’s skin is full of denticles giving it the feel of rough sandpaper.

  We continued further into the cut to the end and then went up and over the top where some beautiful staghorn coral was growing along with barrel sponges, brain coral, gorgonian, and purple sea fans. The gorgonian and sea fans gently swayed in the light surge, performing a seductive and suggestive dance. A large barracuda hung motionless just off the edge of the reef as we finned back down to the bottom. Near the sand we spotted a juvenile French angle fish, dark black with bright yellow stripes and two rock beauties, bright orange and black, dancing in and out of the light filtering through a narrow gap in the surrounding coral.