Coastal Fury Boxset (1-3)

by Matt Lincoln

  “If they’re in drums,” Diane said with a steely tone. “They might be in smaller packages to make distribution easier.”

  I tried to remember if I’d seen any traces of shielded containers other than the drums. It’d been so fast that I couldn’t say either way. It did, however, make sense.

  “Either way, they had to get it from the plane to a boat.” I paced while thinking. “Kelley has to have onshore contacts. We catch him, we catch his boat, and we just might be able to trace that back to the people supporting his crusade.”

  “Go get your sleep,” Diane said in a weary tone. “Be back at o’six hundred. Wheels up at nine. The drop off is at sunset, so you have most of the day to get ready. We have agents in our Charleston field office getting a plan together, and your team will finalize everything when you get there.”

  “Sleep sounds good,” Tessa admitted. “I’m exhausted, and my arms are killing me.”

  “I’m going to the hotel for the night,” Farr told Tessa. “I can get you a room if you’d like.”

  She shook her head. “Thank you, but no.” She looked up at me with a smile. “I’m going back to the houseboat with Ethan.”

  Farr nodded. “I thought you might, but it’s my prerogative to make the offer.” He lowered his thick brows at me. “Try not to let anyone shoot at her tonight, Marston.”

  “Copy that, sir.”

  Tessa and I left Farr and Diane to talk in her office. On the way down to the garage, Tessa wrapped her arms around me in a quick hug.

  “What was that for?” I asked. “Not that I mind or anything.”

  She pushed her forehead into my chest. “For being you. For being here. I don’t know. I feel safe right now.”

  I hugged her back and kissed the top of her head. After all that had happened since the beginning of the case, I didn’t know how she could feel safe around me. Hell, I didn’t feel safe around me half the time. I felt like I was a magnet for danger in all its forms.

  The elevator dinged at the garage level. Rudy’s office door was closed, and the window was dark. I led Tessa to where the department cars were kept and handed her the key fob.

  “I don’t know which one is mine,” I told her. “Wanna do the honors?”

  She rolled her eyes but took the keys and held them out. A click on the fob flashed the car’s lights, and we went on over. Another click confirmed we had the right one.

  This Charger was red, and it had black accents the other cars didn’t.

  “This is more like it,” I said with a grin. We got in, and I found an inventory note signed by the dealership and Rudy. “Oh, wow.”

  “What?” Tessa leaned over to see the note. “Seriously?”

  “‘Ready for D. Ramsey.’” I laughed. “Well, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Besides, they’ll get her a new one like it. I just need it sooner.”

  “You have that backward,” Tessa said with a smirk. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt you.”

  36

  The Legion of Patriots owned, through a private trust, a sizable estate on one of South Carolina’s sea islands south of Charleston. The area was forested on land, and saltwater marshes ran between inlet rivers and the shores. Many residents kept long docks that took them over the marshy areas to their boats. The Legion estate was one such place. Gathering clouds muted the greenery in the trees, across the lawn, and out through the oddly still marshy area.

  My team and I hunkered down on our bellies in the woods we’d infiltrated at the outside edges of this particular estate. Stark was on one side of me, Holm on the other. Muñoz, Birn, and a couple more agents were hidden on the other side of the lawn. A handful of MBLIS agents waited in unmarked vehicles at various points in the neighborhood.

  Tessa and Farr were on a Coast Guard cutter out on open water, past the salt marshes. This time, she hadn’t argued about staying back. Even had she tried, Farr would have pulled strings to keep her safely away.

  We’d been in place since mid-afternoon. Several men had arrived, and they lingered out back while they cleaned guns and barbecued. Fragments of their conversations were audible as their voices rose in excitement and laughter. None of it was intel. The men talked about everything from NASCAR to fishing to beer, but not about their militia activities. Not outdoors where neighbors could potentially overhear. Some wandered inside as the humidity intensified and the sky darkened.

  “Boat approaching,” a voice said over the radio. “Positive IDs on Kelley and Wilson.”

  They approached on a flat-bottomed skiff. A black tarp was secured over what looked like stacks of boxes. Their boat skimmed along the length of the dock across the marshy area until they reached the shore. Wilson jumped out to meet a trio of men who approached from the back of the house. Kelley remained on the boat with his hand on the console.

  “Mobile teams, get in place.”

  That was the cue for the vans and trucks we’d parked through the neighborhood to park in front of the house. There was a risk the men inside the house would notice, but with the windows all blacked out, we might have a chance. No cameras had been observed, but they were likely hidden or small like those new Ring cameras.

  The discussion between Wilson and the Legion men was jovial, although the men at the back of the house were casually assembling their cleaned weapons. I didn’t dare wait too long.

  “Wait for my mark,” I said into my throat mic.

  I wanted to wait for Kelley to get off the boat so he couldn’t jet, but he didn’t look to be moving anywhere. We had an inconspicuous boat docked nearby in case he spooked, but it’d be best to get him on the ground.

  “Fishing boat on approach,” a spotter warned. “Blond female at the helm.”

  “Is it Anderson?” I whispered.

  “We can’t tell. Trying to get positive… Wait. Yes, it’s her. Positive ID on Charity Anderson. She’s stopped the boat.”

  “What is she doing?” Holm asked.

  At the same time, Stark hissed, “She’s his ride.”

  A stocky man brought a duffle bag out from the house and took it to Wilson, who, in turn, walked it over to the boat. Kelley took his hand off the console and checked the bag. He picked up a phone, tapped at it, and then stuffed it in a cargo pocket on his pants.

  “Anderson moving in,” the spotter reported.

  I raised my head enough to get a look at the end of the long dock. Sure enough, a blue and white fishing boat approached. She swung around to face the ocean before aligning with the end of the dock. Kelley and Wilson hopped up to the dock from the skiff.

  “Go,” I told everyone over the mic. “Go, go, go!”

  Agents flooded the house and backyard from every side but the shore. Holm and I sprinted in Kelley’s direction. He laughed, walked backward, and gave us the bird with his free hand. Wilson grabbed at Kelley’s arm to get him to move faster, and Kelley whipped around, clocked Wilson on the temple, and then jumped into the boat with Charity. Wilson staggered and fell into the water.

  Charity opened the throttle and set the fishing boat chugging into the channel before we could get to it. They were almost out of firing range by the time we reached the dock.

  “You’ll never catch me!” Kelley laughed as we raised our weapons.

  We fired at the boat. Charity screamed, and Kelley dropped to the deck. He rose with a surprise of his own, marched up to the rear deck of the fishing boat, and aimed for us.

  “Run,” I yelled at Holm.

  He saw the RPG launcher at the same time, and we busted ass to get out of the way. The grenade hit the side of the dock feet from where Wilson was struggling to get out of the water. The concussion blasted half the dock and sent a wave down the rest that threw Holm and me headlong onto the shore.

  “Get the cutter going, and I need the chase boat, now,” I ordered over the radio. I ran over to the skiff as gunfire was traded up by the house. Birn had command over that part of the raid should we have to go to water. Bullets plinked into the soft grou
nd as Holm and I flew toward Kelley’s delivery boat.

  “What are you doing?” he yelled.

  “We gotta get out to the chase boat.” I looked over and saw help. “Stark, get over here.”

  She ducked and sprinted toward us. “Sir?”

  “You’re driving the skiff to get us to our boat,” I shouted over the noise. “Bring it back in one piece. It’s full of evidence.”

  She stared at the tarp-covered boxes and got aboard. Holm and I shoved it into the water and jumped in. The outboard-engine boat we were using waited at the edge of the floating timber shards. A Coast Guard officer was at the helm and waved to acknowledge he saw us. Stark maneuvered the skiff to bump softly against the chase boat. Holm got aboard, and I leaned over to Stark.

  “Wait until the shootout is over before you take that shit ashore,” I warned her. “You do not want those boxes breached.”

  “I understand, sir. Good hunting.” She gave a salute and gunned the motor as soon as I was clear.

  Holm and I reloaded our weapons as the chase boat surged forward in the direction of Kelley and Charity’s flight. They were headed toward open water, which wasn’t good news. The wind had picked up to create chop through the inlet. It was going to be worse once we were past the islands. Not only that, but there were resorts up and down the way, including Hilton Head to the north. Already, people were running out onto their docks and yards to see what the explosion had been about.

  “There they are, sir,” the captain alerted me. “They’re going out to sea like you said. Cutter is launching LRI now.”

  Long-Range Interceptors were the Coast Guard’s armed chase boats deployed from the rear of specially designed cutters. Kelley was between our boat coming out from the islands and the LRI in open water. Our outboard motors gave us a speed advantage, and we started catching up.

  Kelley’s boat cut hard to the south after he cleared the shallows. I saw the Coast Guard’s cutter on the horizon, and a tiny speck that had to be the LRI angled toward the target.

  “We need Kelley and Anderson alive if at all possible,” I reminded them over the radio. “The rest of their weapons have to be located.”

  “Aye-aye. Doing what we can, sir.”

  Our boat gained enough so that I saw Kelley stripping down, and he seemed to be shouting at Charity. By her body language, she wasn’t having whatever he was saying, but he didn’t seem to care as he pulled up a wetsuit.

  “He’s gonna dive,” I yelled to Holm as I stripped down to my undershirt and cargo pants. “We’re not going to get there in time.”

  The boat we were on was used as a dive boat, and we’d made sure it had fresh equipment, just in case. As I got my gear on, Holm took shots at Kelley’s boat to try to slow them down.

  “He’s holding a gun on the girl,” Holm shouted.

  I stood in time to see her jerk back and drop, another victim of Kelley’s blood thirst. Still, I had a hard time feeling sorry for her after she buried that knife into Greer’s back, but that was one less witness to where Kelley stashed his weapons. He pointed the handgun at us, and we ducked. At this distance, effective aim was out the window, but a guy could get a lucky shot.

  Holm was pulling fins on, and I was ready with my tanks when Kelley stepped to the platform at the back of his boat with his duffle in hand. He waved and then leapt into the water. I guessed that he planned to lose us by swimming to shore. He knew his boat couldn’t get away.

  The LRI was almost caught up as we pulled along the escape boat. I was almost ready to dive when I heard crying.

  “She’s alive,” our captain called out.

  “That’s something.” I looked at Holm. He was ready to go. “Let’s do this, partner.”

  “Hoo-yah!” we yelled together.

  Due to incoming weather, the water wasn’t as bright as I’d have liked. I scanned the area as I equalized. We were near one of the artificial reefs South Carolina had gained attention for creating. I didn’t see Kelley in any other direction, so I pointed toward the reef.

  We kicked toward the edge of a concrete art installation that had coral polyps growing all over it. Kelley wasn’t on the other side. I saw a glint a long way ahead. When the glint faded, I saw Kelley’s silhouette. Holm saw it too and waved for me to go with him.

  For being in his late fifties, Kelley was damned fit. He swam better than most people half his age, even with towing the duffle. I saw a hint of neon yellow and saw that he’d affixed a lift bag to make it easier, but that didn’t make it a cakewalk. Holm and I gained slowly at first, but we crept up after a minor drop-off.

  That’s when it hit me. Kelley had slowed too fast.

  I grabbed at Holm’s ankle, but he jerked away as Kelley lunged at him. In a flurry of bubbles, Kelley and Holm grappled against each other. I pulled my Ka-Bar and went behind to go for Kelley’s hoses, but he twisted out of reach. He broke cleanly from Holm and stopped kicking to let himself sink into the darkness. The lift bag faded with him.

  Holm and I descended after him and managed to hit Kelley with our dive lights. He hit the bottom, kicked up a sand cloud for cover, and vanished. I traced as much of the cloud as I could with my light, and Holm got the other half. Kelley was gone when the sand settled enough to see, but his duffle was left with its tow line dropped on the floor, the lift bag bobbing in the current.

  I scanned as much of the surroundings as I could, and I saw Holm’s light beam doing the same… until it dropped toward the bottom in lazy arcs. I spun around and found Kelley all over Holm. Both men had their combat knives out and struggled to disable the other through injury or cut hoses. I kept my light on them and kicked as hard as I had in years. How had Holm gotten that far from me already?

  A blood cloud erupted between them. For a second, both continued to battle, but then Kelley drove his arm into Holm’s gut, and my partner doubled up with his arms around his middle. Blood billowed into the water worse than I’d ever seen, but Kelley wasn’t done. I was less than an arm’s reach away when Kelley sliced through Holm’s hoses.

  Kelley disappeared into the dark as I grabbed Holm and traded out his regulator for my octopus. The hose was long to allow free movement of the diver in trouble, but Holm wasn’t in any shape to move on his own. We had to be at least twenty-five feet down, and he was losing blood fast. I adjusted his buoyancy to help him ascend faster.

  I broke the surface first. The LRI was nearest, and I shined my emergency strobe at them. They gunned the motor to get over to us, and I saw the clipper was nearly on the scene.

  “Holm’s hurt,” I shouted to the guys on the LRI. “It’s bad. Get a chopper out ASAP.”

  I helped them load him into the LRI with no small amount of swearing on my part. Kelley was going to get away again, but there was no way I was letting my partner die without a fight to get him help.

  Before going back under, I got the captain’s attention. “I’m gonna take a look a—”

  Something locked around my neck and dragged me under. I drove my elbow back into Kelley’s side, but his iron grip didn’t loosen against my carotid. My vision dimmed from the blood flow being cut off. I grabbed my Ka-Bar and slammed it into Kelley’s leg. That got him loose enough for me to break his hold. I kicked up to the surface and got a lungful of air.

  “Need more divers,” I shouted, but they were already on it with guys in wetsuits getting their gear on.

  By dumb luck, Kelley hadn’t cut my hoses, and I dropped under the surface to find him. This time, I had a blood trail to follow. Holm’s cloud had dissipated enough that I knew this was Kelley. I was not letting the bastard escape this time. As I searched, I noticed a small pack of lemon sharks roaming about. They wouldn’t be attracted to human blood, but I had to watch out. Even the normally chill lemon sharks could be attracted to all the commotion.

  I refocused on Kelley. He was angling for his duffle bag. At least he was consistent about the money. Too bad for him that I caught up barely ten feet below the surface. I caught the mo
tion of other divers leaping in, but they weren’t close yet. Kelley must have caught my movement out of the corner of his eye as he spun around to face me. He went for a feint at me, but I saw right through it. I blocked his actual attack with my off hand and struck at his middle with my knife. Even so, Kelley twisted aside so that my blade only slid along his belly with no more than a scratch, and his counter-slash made fire lance up my exposed side. God, the man was fast, but he hadn’t cut me deep.

  Kelley must have wanted to drag this out because he backed off for a moment. Through his mask, his eyes flashed with hatred, and his legendary calmness was anything but.

  Kelley charged, but as I braced for the attack, one of the yellow-gray sharks zeroed in on him and slammed into him from the side. It whisked off in another direction, clearly finding the madman unappetizing, and bubbles swirled everywhere as the water turned scarlet. I swam under the cloud and found Kelley sinking and trailing more blood than Holm had earlier.

  I did not want to save Kelley’s life, but I also wasn’t a cold-blooded killer like him. I sheathed my knife and grabbed his arm to haul him toward the surface. The other divers were only then arriving. They took over and got Kelley to the top quicker than I could’ve at that point. A diver paced me to the surface while giving me the space I needed to shake off the battle fury and adrenaline drop.

  One of the Coast Guard’s huge orange choppers took off into the angry sky as I broke the surface this time. God, I hoped Holm was alive in that bird.

  Someone screamed my name. It took a few seconds to recognize that it was Tessa from aboard the cutter which had gotten closer in the past few minutes. She was looking at the mess that was Kelley being lifted into the LRI.

  “Tessa,” I bellowed. She stopped screaming as I flashed my strobe in her direction. “Tessa, I’m over here!”

  She saw me and put a hand to her mouth as her loose hair whipped around in the growing wind. I waved to her and then swam for the LRI. They’d loaded Kelley, and I needed a look. The captain gave me an arm up and spoke in my ear.