Matt Royal Mystery - 03 - Blood Island

by H. Terrell Griffin

  "Did they hurt you?"

  "No. They just gave me more drugs, which I didn't take because I didn't eat the food."

  "We're going to get you out of this, Peggy."

  "Please hurry. I'm either going to end up drugged again or starved to death."

  "I have to go. The guard will be coming back soon. Stay put, and I'll be back tomorrow night to get you."

  She kissed me on the cheek. "Laura always said you were one hell of a guy."

  "She said the same about you," I said, turning for the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I had been aware of a low hum since I came onto the island. I assumed it was from the generator that powered the lights, but I wasn't sure.

  As I left the building in which I'd found Peggy, I tried to follow the sound. Thinking that any generator facilities would be behind the main house, I headed there. As I rounded the back of the house, the noise became louder. It was still faint, but I could tell the direction from which it came.

  I followed the sound, careful not to alert any guards in the vicinity. I saw no one. In about a hundred yards, I came to a concrete-block house. The hum came from inside. Large-gauge wires ran from the small building toward the house and cabins. This had to be the generator shed.

  I'd been on the island for more than an hour and didn't want to stretch my luck. I turned and moved toward the trail that led to the beach, stopping every few feet to listen for any movement.

  As I approached the beginning of the path, a man with a rifle slung over his shoulder appeared out of the night. He was standing right where I needed to go. My watch told me it was almost two. If I was right about the guard schedule, there would be a new guard shift coming on in a few minutes.

  I dropped to the ground and crawled silently along the edge of the jungle-like growth, creeping slowly toward the guard. Hopefully, he would be distracted while the new guard took his place, and I could slip by and be on my way.

  I crawled to within ten feet of the guard, controlling my breathing, staying calm; using skills taught me long ago by an Army Special Forces instructor. I waited.

  Minutes passed, and I heard a door slam. Voices came from the vicinity of the guardhouse. A man carrying a rifle slung over his shoulder approached and called out, "Al, I've got it."

  "I'm on my way," said the guard named Al, and he started walking toward the approaching man. That gave me a split second's opportunity to move quickly onto the path. I took it, crawling on my stomach, propelling myself with my elbows, slithering as fast as I could without making a lot of noise. I made it into the cover alongside the trail, and as soon as I was out of sight of the guards, I began to walk toward the lagoon.

  I got back to the beach to find that my equipment had not been disturbed. I quickly put it on and moved into the water, took a compass bearing on the opening to the sea and submerged.

  I made it back to my boat without incident. I surfaced behind the boat, intending to put my gear on the small swim platform and climb up the ladder that hung into the water.

  I undid the waterproof bag holding the nine millimeter and threw it into the boat. I didn't want to lose it or get it wet. My tanks, fins, and mask were on the platform when I noticed a small craft moving on the surface, just to the right side of my boat. I was still in the water, and my gun was on the floor of the boat.

  I reached for the dive knife that was in the scabbard fastened around my ankle. If I could get into the boat, I'd use my pistol. If not, maybe I could take out the occupant of the boat coming at me. The knife wouldn't be a whole lot of protection, unless my assailant was in the water.

  The craft materialized out of the darkness, like a ghost. It was a kayak. A black man was paddling toward the stern of my boat, where I hung impotently in the water. I had been discovered. I wondered why they didn't use one of the go-fast boats, but maybe they wanted to do this quietly.

  The kayak came abreast of me, inertia pushing it forward. The black man was looking directly at me. His raised hand was holding the twobladed paddle over his head. He was going to bash me with it, and I couldn't possibly get to him with the knife. Crap.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I started to submerge, thinking I might be able to swim away from my attacker. He held the paddle out toward me, and said, "Give me a hand. The current is strong."

  "Who are you?"

  "I'm Abraham Osceola. I can help you."

  I had no choice. If he had a gun, he would have shot me by now. If I pulled him closer, at least I'd have a better chance to knife him if he proved to be hostile.

  I grabbed the paddle with one hand, holding on to the swim platform with the other. I pulled him over until he reached out and grabbed the stainless-steel handhold on the back of my boat.

  "Thanks," he said.

  "What do you want?"

  "Let's get into your boat, and I'll tell you a story." He grinned.

  His voice carried die lilt of the Bahamas, a pleasing dialect of English that reminded me of clear water and gentle breezes. I pulled up on the ladder and took the painter from the bow of his kayak, tying it to the cleat on the stern of my boat. He climbed up after me.

  I had the knife in my hand as I backed up to give him room to get into the boat's cockpit. He was wearing only a loincloth. He looked at the blade, grinned again, and said, "Not to worry. I'm a Seminole:'

  Crap, I thought. Those guys from Florida State never give it a rest. "I'm a Gator," I said.

  He looked at me, puzzled. Then he laughed. "Ali," he said, barely able to contain his mirth. "The University of Florida. No, no. I'm a Seminole Indian. Part Tequesta, too. Let's get out of here."

  Feeling a bit foolish, I cranked the engine and idled away from Blood Island, the kayak rolling in the little wake left by my boat's movement.

  "I don't understand," I said. "You're a black Bahamian."

  "I'm black, all right, but I'm a Seminole. And a Tequesta. Let me tell you my story." And he did.

  Back in the dim reaches of history, probably about the time of Christ, the Tequesta Indians moved into South Florida and settled in present-day Miami-Dade and Broward Counties and in the Keys. They were likely subservient to the more numerous Calusa who dominated the Lower Peninsula for hundreds of years. Historians think their language was a Muscogean dialect spoken by the other tribes in the area. The Creeks of Georgia and Alabama also spoke a language related to Muscogean.

  When the Spanish came to Florida in the early sixteenth century, the Tequesta welcomed them to their villages along Biscayne Bay. For more than two centuries, the Spanish and Tequesta maintained a tenuous, but mostly peaceful, relationship. Then, in 1763, the Spanish ceded Florida to the British. Most of the remaining Tequesta asked for, and were given, transport to Havana.

  A small number of the Indians fled to the Everglades and sustained themselves as hunter-gatherers. Over the next sixty years, their numbers dwindled until there were only a few Tequesta left, eking out a subsistence living in the swamps where no white man ventured.

  During the latter half of the eighteenth century, before the British assumed control of Florida, a group of Creek Indians from Georgia and Alabama began to drift south. They allied themselves with the local tribes of North Florida, intermarried, and soon separated from the Creek Nation and became known as the Seminoles.

  Beginning in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Spanish encouraged slaves from the southern states to flee to Florida. Those who were successful were considered free, and they set up their own communities. The Seminoles became their protectors, and there was intermarriage between the two groups.

  The black former slaves, and a number of blacks that had been living in Florida as free people for generations, known as Maroons, began to think of themselves as Seminoles, and, indeed, many of them had Seminole blood.

  History records few of the black Seminoles, but one who rose to prominence was named Abraham. He was probably an escaped slave from Pensacola, who had joined the Seminoles in North Florida in
the early nineteenth century. He married the part-black ex-wife of Billy Bowlegs, the hereditary Seminole chief, and they had a daughter.

  Abraham became the chief negotiator for the Seminoles in their dealings with the United States. When the Second Seminole War broke out in 1835, Abraham was found fighting with the band of Chief Osceola. Most of the warriors in this famous force were black, and they were among the fighters most feared by American soldiers.

  Osceola himself was not a Seminole, but the son of an English trader and a Red Stick Creek woman. History does not record how he came to fight with the Seminoles, nor does it mention that Osceola took Abraham's daughter as his mistress. A son was born of that union, and he was named Abraham Osceola.

  My companion had finished his history lesson. We were now far enough from Blood Island that no one would hear or see us.

  Abraham had been reciting as if he were in a trance. Now, his regular tone of voice returned. "I am descended from that son," he said, and the Tequesta woman he married after the Seminoles retreated to the Everglades and absorbed the remaining Tequesta. Her father was the hereditary chief of the tribe. Later, at the end of the Second Seminole War, my ancestors and many other black Seminoles fled to the Bahamas. They did not want to be transported to Oklahoma. Who would?" He grinned.

  "I'm happy to have learned something tonight," I said, "but how does this help me?"

  "I grew up on the stories that form the oral traditions of my people, the Seminoles and the Tequesta. When I came to the States, I brought those traditions with me. I worked the fishing boats for many years, and now I'm retired. I'm almost eighty years old."

  That was a shock. He could have passed for fifty. He was a powerful man, with no flab about his body. He was paddling a kayak on the open sea at midnight. I nodded my head, signaling him to continue.

  He said, "What you call Blood Island was once a sacred place for die Tequesta. We called it by a different name, but even the name is sacred and can only be spoken to others of the tribe. They buried their caciques, or chiefs, there, and the warriors would often visit to commune with the spirits of those gone before. When I retired, I searched the islands of the Marquesas and Mule Keys. One day I found the burial grounds of my ancestors on Blood Island.

  "I visited regularly, to pray with my ancestors, and to feel their spirits. One day, about three years ago, some rough men with rifles escorted me off the island and told me I'd be shot if I returned.

  "I had to find a way on and off the island that would not alert the owners that I was there. The burial mound is on the northwest corner of the island, and there is a way to get in there by boat if you know how. I can show you."

  "Why would you do this?"

  "I heard you talking to the girl, Peggy."

  "How?"

  "I often wander the island in the night. I feel the spirits of the Tequesta there and I know I'm among my kinsmen. Tonight, I saw you sneaking around and followed. I couldn't imagine what a guy in a wet suit was after. I was at the open window of the bathroom when you were talking to the girl. I've been suspicious for a long time that something bad goes on there, but I've never been able to prove it. I would have gone to the authorities if I had any proof. I think you are the man to get that proof."

  "Why do you care?"

  "Those are bad men, and they desecrate a land my people think of as holy. Do you have a chart?"

  I spread out the nautical chart of the area, and in the glow of a flashlight, Abraham showed me the exact spot where I could land my boat.

  "See," lie said, pointing to the chart, "this shows very shallow water all around this area. But, there's a tall Australian pine here at the tip of die island. It stands above the others, so you should be able to spot it even at night. From the Boca Grande Channel, you want to line up at exactly eighty degrees true to the tall tree. Head straight in. There's a deep-water channel right up to the tree, but it's narrow. When you get close, you'll see a cut in the undergrowth. There's a path that leads toward the houses, but it peters out before it gets there. You'll be able to get far enough in to see the generator building, and you can take it from there. I don't think they know about that trail, because it's never guarded."

  I penciled in the information I needed and charted an exact latitudelongitude position in die Boca Grande Channel from which I'd start my approach to the island. I rolled up the chart.

  "Thanks, Abraham. Where can I reach you?"

  "You can't, my friend."

  With that, he pulled his kayak to the boat, slipped into it, and paddled into the night. He never looked back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I motored back to the Key West Bight in a drizzling rain. I'd changed into my street clothes and put on a windbreaker I'd carried to the boat earlier. I belted the dive knife and scabbard to my arm under the jacket, and put the pistol in the pocket. I stowed the dive gear under the tarp in the bow. By the time I docked the boat, I was soaked, and it was nearing three a.m. I'd call the kid from the dive shop in the morning and ask him to retrieve my equipment and store it. I started walking toward my rooming house.

  The light rain continued, leaving a thin sheen of water on the pavement. The streets were empty, the rain dampening the usual carousing on Duval Street. The colored lights that adorned the windows of the bars reflected off the wet streets, giving the appearance of many small rainbows. The smell of the sea tickled my nose.

  I stopped at the corner, two doors down from where my rooming house loomed out of the darkness. I wanted to make sure there were no bad guys watching for me. The street was quiet and deserted.

  I climbed the stairs to my room, key in hand. I saw light coming from under the door. I was sure I'd turned the lights off before I left that morning.

  I pulled the nine millimeter from the pocket of my windbreaker. I eased up to the door, listening for any sound. I heard a thud, as if someone had kicked the wall, then quiet again. I tried the doorknob. It turned, and I pushed quickly into the room, my Glock held in front of me.

  "Don't shoot, podner," said a familiar voice. "I'm a friendly."

  Jock Algren was splayed out on my bed. A muscle-bound man was trussed up in the corner, a gag in his mouth. He kicked the wall with his bound knees, making the thud I'd heard from the hall.

  "Who's your friend?" I said, lowering the gun.

  "Says his name is Martin Holcomb."

  "Is he telling the truth?"

  "I think so. He wouldn't tell me at first, but with a little encouragement he fessed up."

  Holcombe's little finger on his right hand was pointing at an odd angle. "What happened to his finger?"

  "I broke it."

  "Ali, a little encouragement."

  "Yeah. He's a sissy."

  "Who is he?"

  "He works for an outfit called The Circle. Told me he lives in a place named Blood Island. I found him in your room when I came to visit."

  I had met Jock Algren on the first day of eighth grade, and he became my best friend. We'd stayed close during the intervening years. Jock was an oil company executive, but unknown to most anybody, he moonlighted as an operative of our country's most secretive spy agency.

  "What're you doing here?" I said.

  "Logan called me this afternoon. I was in Miami and caught a commuter flight down."

  I was glad to see jock, but a little surprised that Logan had called him. "What did Logan have to say?"

  "He said you'd called and wanted him to bring your boat down and to bring some weapons. He told me you were looking for Laura's stepdaughter. He wasn't sure what was going on, but asked if I could get out of Houston in time to come with him. I told him I was in Miami and that I'd check things out and get back to him."

  I pointed to the man on the floor. "What're you going to do about him?"

  Jock winked at me. "I thought I'd kill him."

  The man squirmed and mumbled something from behind the gag.

  "What did he say?" I asked.

  "It's not important,"Jock said.
"Do you want to kill him here or wait until we get outside?"

  The mumbles became louder, the squirming more intense.

  "Let's see what he has to say," I said, walking toward the trussed up man.

  I leaned down, holding my knife so that he could see it, and whispered into his ear. "If you do anything more than talk to us, I'm going to gut you like a fish. Understand?"

  The man nodded, and I removed the gag. I recognized him as the man I'd seen drive Simmermon's boat away from the restaurant earlier in the day.

  He licked his lips and worked his jaw, tried to speak, and tried again. This time a raspy voice came through. "Don't kill me."

  "I can't see much reason for keeping you alive," I said. "Besides, you were going to kill me."

  "No, I wasn't. I was just going to take you back to the island. The Rev wants to see you."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know He just does."

  "How did you know where to find me?"

  "I showed your picture around, and the old lady who runs this place told me you were here."

  "Okay. Give me a good reason not to kill you and the old lady too."

  "I don't care about the old lady, but I can give you some information about what the Rev plans."

  "Tell me."

  "You won't get out of Key West alive. The Rev has people watching the airport and car and boat rental places. U.S. One is the only road out, and they've got men watching that."

  "Okay, but that's not much. What kind of plans does Simmermon have?"

  "You won't kill me?"

  "If you lie to me, and I'll know if you do, you're dead. Understood?"

  "Yes," lie said. "The Rev is going to blow something up."

  "What?"

  "I don't know. He keeps talking about the big bang, and laughing. Says it'll change the world."

  "Why do you think that means he's going to blow something up?"

  "He's been bringing a lot of explosives to the island. C-4 and some dynamite. I've seen it, but I don't know what his plans are."