Fallen Pride (Jesse McDermitt Series)

by Wayne Stinnett

  “Mind if I get a shower?” she asked rather seductively.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  She smiled and disappeared into the head.

  Chapter 15: The Wedding Cake

  We awoke very early. Earlier than we needed to. Jackie had an idea on how to kill some time, though. An hour later we showered again and dressed. I could smell coffee coming from the galley. I poured two cups and sat down at the settee, where Jackie joined me a moment later.

  When Doc and Nikki came up to join us, I made omelets for the four of us. It was 0500 and the others should be stirring soon. Doc and I had work to do before we departed. The engines had been neglected for the last couple of weeks and we needed to replace air, oil, and fuel filters and clean the water intake screens. While we were busy the women went up to the main house to see if Julie needed anything.

  Deuce joined us, sort of. While the engine room on the Revenge is accommodating, it’s not the Queen Mary. Doc and I took up about all the available space, so Deuce crouched in the hatchway. “Anything I can help you guys with?”

  “Just about done,” Doc said.

  “Another cup of coffee wouldn’t hurt,” I said, handing my mug across the starboard engine.

  A minute later, Deuce handed me a fresh cup as I was reinstalling the now clean water intake strainer. “We should be ready to go in 20 minutes,” I said.

  “I’m still wondering if it’s a good idea to go ahead with the wedding,” Deuce finally blurted out. “If anyone got hurt, I’d never be able to live with it.”

  Doc glanced up from where he was replacing the port engine air filter, “Cancel on the day of the wedding, dude? Only if you want to stay single forever. Don’t worry about it, we got your back.”

  “What Doc said, Deuce. We know that’s when he’s going to try again, we know what he’s going to use and we know the approximate size and shape. Plus, and this is the important part, he doesn’t know we’re on to him yet.”

  “Besides,” Doc added, “Tony’s at the Anchor, knows what to look for, and will turn the whole property upside down to make sure it’s not there.”

  We finished up and joined Deuce in the cockpit. “I need another shower,” I said. “We’re going to need to take more than one boat to get everyone to Marathon. Doc, will you let Trent know to get the Grady ready?”

  “I’ll let him know,” Deuce said. “Doc looks like he needs to clean up, too.”

  While I was showering, Jackie came into the head and said, “Julie has asked me to be her maid of honor.”

  “Really?” I said, rinsing the shampoo from my hair. “I didn’t know you two were that close.”

  “We’re not, really. I mean we’re friends and we talk sometimes. I don’t think she has a lot of female friends.”

  I pondered that a second and said, “Now that you mention it, she doesn’t. Hand me a towel?”

  I dried off and got dressed again in clean jeans and a button down gray shirt. Deuce and Julie had already decided that everyone should dress Keys formal, which meant no swimwear.

  When Jackie and I climbed up to the bridge, some of the others came through the door and climbed aboard. I pushed the button on two key fobs and the doors slowly started to swing open. I started the engines and let them idle for a few minutes. Trent started the engine on the Grady and soon we had everyone aboard the two boats. Pescador sat on the dock by the cockpit looking up at me. Deuce and Julie had joined us on the bridge and I turned and asked, “Was he invited Julie?”

  She looked down at Pescador and said, “Yes, maybe his invitation got lost in the mail.” He started wagging his big tail.

  “Well,” I said, “If you were invited, it’d be rude not to attend.”

  He leaped into the cockpit then made his way along the starboard rail to the foredeck. “That’s everyone, Carl. Go ahead and take the lead.”

  I suddenly had the thought that this would be the first time the island was completely uninhabited in a few months. Deuce must have had the same thought. “You think everything will be safe with nobody here?”

  I looked over at him as I shifted the engines into forward. “I was just thinking the same thing. I’ll make sure to have the guys sweep the island when we get back just in case.”

  We idled out into Harbor Channel and turned northeast toward Harbor Key. Fifteen minutes later, we were heading south in Rocky Channel toward the Bahia Honda marker lights. Turning southeast at Teakettle Key we crossed under the Seven Mile Bridge at Moser Channel and made a slow, sweeping turn to the east, before lining up on Rusty’s channel.

  Minutes later, we were tied up at the Anchor. Rusty and Grayson came down to the dock as the whole team climbed up to meet them. “Welcome home,” Rusty said. “We got everything about set up here.”

  “Where’s Tony?” I asked.

  “Inspecting a shipment of clams that just came in,” Rusty replied. “He’s looked over my whole property, even my damn underwear drawer.”

  We all walked toward the bar. “Everything’s secure, Deuce,” Grayson said.

  “Thanks, Scott. And thanks for helping out here.”

  “Don’t mention it. Anything for that old guy’s cooking. Tony was right. Best food I ever had.”

  Jackie went with Julie to Rusty’s house and I headed toward the bar with several others. When we were inside I noticed Cindy sitting at the bar, rolling silverware in blue linen napkins. “Hi Cindy,” I said. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

  “Julie invited me a couple days ago.”

  “How’d it go at the bank?”

  “Pam’s great. In fact everyone has been so helpful. She introduced me to several local business people, who are on the board of trustees. She told me that you had everything all set up months ago.”

  “Not me, her,” I replied. “I just got the ball rolling. Were you able to find a place?”

  “Narrowed it down to two choices today. If you’re not busy tomorrow, maybe you can help me decide?”

  “No, I don’t have anything scheduled,” I said. “What’s the two places?”

  She told me about a property on Grassy Key, just east of Marathon and another property on northern Big Pine Key. I was familiar with the one on Grassy, but there’s so much vacant property on Big Pine, I wasn’t sure from her description.

  “We’ll go out and look at them both tomorrow. I’m going to stay here tonight. What’s your fiancé going to think about you splitting your time at two extreme corners of the country?”

  “Hans?” she asked. “He’s been really supportive.”

  “He’s German?”

  “His father was. His mother’s Cuban. His real name is Johannes Schmidt.”

  Johannes Schmidt? Why did the name sound familiar? “You said he worked for the government?”

  “A low level clerk at the embassy in Eritrea. It’s a tiny country in north Africa.”

  “On the southern Red Sea, south of Sudan,” I said. And north of Djibouti, I thought. Johannes Schmidt.

  “You know it?”

  “Never been there, but I’ve heard of it. Excuse me, I need to check on something.”

  I looked around the bar and didn’t see Chyrel. I walked over to where Dawson and Sherri were sitting. “Either of you see where Chyrel went?”

  “I saw her heading out to the deck with Jared and Charity,” Sherri said.

  “Thanks,” I said and headed out the back door. Chyrel, Jared, and Charity were sitting at a table talking to Dan Sullivan.

  “Hey, Jesse,” Dan said. “How ya been?”

  “Doing well, buddy. You playing the after party?”

  “Sure am,” he said. “How about a little sparring tomorrow?”

  “Sorry, I have to go look at some property. Maybe you could talk Charity here into taking you on,” I said with a grin.

  He looked at her and said, “You’re a fighter?”

  She nodded and said, “Mixed martial arts, a little Krav Maga.”

  “MMA I’ve heard of,
” he said. “What’s Krav Maga?”

  “Probably better you don’t know,” I said. “But since I know you’ll pry, it’s Hebrew. Means contact combat. You’d be wise to pad up.” I turned to Chyrel and asked, “Did you bring your laptop?”

  She rolled her eyes and I said, “Forget I asked. I need you to check something out for me. Meet me on the boat in a few minutes.” I left and went to find Deuce.

  Minutes later we entered the salon and Chyrel had her laptop powered up at the settee. “Okay, who do you want me to hack?”

  “The CIA,” I said.

  “Are you nuts?” Deuce said. “Their security is the best in the world.”

  “Not really,” Chyrel said. “I’ve hacked in before.”

  “You have? When?”

  “Just playing around to see if I could. No big deal. What do you want to know?”

  “First I want to see Smith’s unredacted file. Then check embassy employee records in Eritrea for a low level clerk by the name of Johannes Schmidt.”

  “Who’s he?” Deuce asked.

  “Let’s go outside and let Chyrel work,” I said.

  I poured two cups of coffee and the two of us climbed up to the bridge. “Okay, spill,” Deuce said. “Hacking the CIA is dangerous. Even for someone with her skills.”

  “Let me ask you something. If you married a woman knowing she was going to inherit a lot of money with the plan to murder her later and you were able to pull it off, would you stop there?”

  “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “Just a hunch. We’ve been going on the assumption that Smith is after you. Retribution for ruining his career. What if we’ve been wrong all along?”

  “Now you’ve lost me completely. Who’s this Schmidt character?”

  “Cindy’s fiancé. She just told me he’s a low level clerk in Eritrea. Know where that is?”

  “In the Horn of Africa, on the Red Sea. It’s rumored the government has ties to al-Shabab.”

  “Yeah, it borders Djibouti,” I said.

  Deuce thought for a moment then I saw the light come on. “Johannes Schmidt. Jason Smith? Man, that’s a reach.”

  “Think about it under this light, Deuce. I changed my will a few months ago, before Smith was sent to Djibouti. If anything were to happen to me, the bulk of Alex’s estate would go into the trust I set up for the fly fishing school for kids, with Cindy as the Executor.”

  “And?”

  “Assume for a minute that Schmidt is Smith. He marries Cindy and I’m suddenly dead. He’d be married to the woman who is Executor of a $7 million dollar trust. What if he pulled a ‘Downeger’?”

  “Like when he murdered his first wife? Hmm, I see where you’re going. It’s still a reach though. The money would be tied up in the trust. He couldn’t get his hands on it.”

  “No, but he could convince Cindy and the trustees to invest part of it. He could set up a shell investment company,” I said, guiding him.

  “But, how’s he know you made Cindy your Executor?”

  “He’s not without resources.”

  We heard the salon door open and Chyrel called up, “Got something.”

  We went down to the salon and sat down on either side of her as she pulled up Smith’s file. “I was able to get in and out undetected. I couldn’t download his file, but I was able to copy it and move it through several offices within the Agency, before siphoning it out through the FBI.”

  It took us twenty minutes to skim through the file. The only connection we found was that he was fluent in German and Spanish. “You didn’t find anyone named Johannes Schmidt working at the embassy in Eritrea did you?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I did. But you’re not going to like it.”

  She opened another file. It was on Johannes Schmidt, but not a low level clerk. That was just his cover. Schmidt was a deep cover operative for the CIA.

  “Shit,” said Deuce. “Got a picture?”

  “Yeah, that’s the part you’re not gonna like.” She hit a few keys and Smith’s picture came up, with Schmidt’s name under it.

  “Double shit,” I said.

  “Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a reach,” Deuce said. “But hey, let’s look at the bright side. I’m not his target.”

  “Screw you,” I said. “What do we do with this information?”

  “Chyrel,” Deuce said, “How deep is this cover?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If Johannes Schmidt were to disappear from the Eritrea embassy, would his ID be good enough to set himself up somewhere in the States, like Oregon?”

  “CIA fake ID’s are the best there are,” she said. “Yeah, he could start over in the States with it, but it’d be flagged by the Agency if he disappeared and he wouldn’t be able to enter the country with it.”

  “Getting a fake social security number using his cover ID wouldn’t be a problem for him,” Deuce said. “And getting into the country with another fake ID wouldn’t be either.”

  “Should we tell Cindy?” I asked.

  “There’s no need to right now,” Deuce replied. “If and when we catch him, maybe then. If he disappears completely, well, she wouldn’t be the first woman jilted at the altar. Better that than knowing your fiancé is a wanted murderer.”

  “No word of this leaves here,” I said.

  “Word of what?” Chyrel asked.

  We went back out to the deck and sat down with Jared and Charity. Several of the others were scattered around at the tables, along with quite a few of the local fishing crowd.

  “How long have you and Julie been dating?” Jared asked.

  “We only met about eight months ago,” Deuce replied. “But, it feels like we’ve known each other forever.” Jared and Charity looked at each other and shared a not so secret smile.

  “Only another hour of bachelorhood,” I said looking at my watch. “I’m going to go check on some things.”

  I left them there and walked around the side of the bar then down by the docks. I scanned all the boats tied up there and all but a couple of skiffs in the small boat area were familiar. The ones I didn’t recognize had a couple inches of water in the bottom, from the last rain, so they were here for a couple of days. I walked to the south end of the dock and down the crushed shell road that paralleled the canal down to the boat launch. A Marine Patrol boat was anchored at the entrance to the canal now. I recognized the young man on the boat and waved. He gave me a thumbs up that everything would be okay there.

  I walked around the east side of the property surveying everything. I know Tony and Grayson had already done this, but they aren’t familiar with the property and might have missed something. When I got to the shell driveway, I continued out to the road. Two Monroe County Sheriff squad cars were parked on either side of the entrance, facing in opposite directions so the driver’s doors were inboard.

  A FedEx truck pulled in and both Deputies got out and stopped him. I walked up to the truck as one of the Deputies asked what he was doing here.

  The driver thumbed through an electronic device and said, “I have an express delivery for an Anthony Jacobs.”

  “I’ll take it,” I said.

  “Are you Anthony Jacobs?”

  “No, but he works for me,” I lied.

  “Sorry sir, but I have to get him to sign for it.”

  “How big is it?” I asked.

  He glanced down at his device and said, “Forty-eight inches long, by six inches wide and two inches thick. Weighs eight pounds.”

  “Shipped from?”

  “Raleigh, North Carolina.”

  “It’s alright, Deputies,” I said grinning. Then to the driver, “Follow me.” I walked back down the driveway to the parking lot. I saw Tony talking to Simpson at the door to the bar and called him over.

  He trotted up as the FedEx guy parked and went into the back of the truck. “Man says he’s got a delivery for you, Tony.”

  “I thought it wasn’t going to get here in time,” he said with a huge grin
. “It’s my Winchester.”

  The driver stepped down from the truck with the package and asked for Tony’s ID, which he showed. Tony signed for the package and said, “I gotta get this wrapped.” He turned and ran toward Rufus’ little shack on the back of the property.

  I walked around to the far side of the canal. There’s a trail through the woods there and I remembered back to when Alex and I used to run together. We had a three mile loop that started and ended running through these woods. The woods were so thick it was out of the question for anyone to get through them, but the trail was a different story.

  When I reached the other side of the woods, there was another Monroe Deputy parked there at the end of Sombrero Beach Road. I smiled inwardly. Stockwell had all the bases covered. Walking back to the Anchor I thought about the size and shape of the bomb. Not very concealable and too heavy for one man to move easily.

  When I got back through the woods more people had arrived. By both car and boat. The Deputies and Marine Patrol I knew to be locals and would probably recognize everyone in attendance. I started to relax. A little. Most of the team had congregated in the parking lot and I joined them.

  “It’s almost time to start,” Grayson said. “We were discussing if maybe some of us ought to sort of stand around the fringes, instead of all sitting together.”

  “Everyone’s armed?”

  “Yeah,” replied Grayson.

  “Not me,” Chyrel said. “I’m not very good with a gun.”

  “I’ll work on that with you this week,” I said. “I think it’d be a good idea if five or six were scattered around the area. Pick the best five shooters, Scott.”

  “Well, two will be standing at the altar, you and Deuce. After y’all would be Donnie, Glenn, Germ, Sherri, and me. We’ll spread around the back of where everyone’s sitting.”

  “Everyone else,” I said, “should be on the groom’s side, toward the rear.”

  We split up then and I headed into the bar, where I’m sure Deuce and Rusty would be. Sure enough, they were at the bar with two shot glasses in front of them. Rusty produced a third and poured two fingers of Pusser’s Rum in each.