Fallen Hunter (Jesse McDermitt Series) (27 page)

“Let’s get everyone up,” I said. “While they’re gearing up, the girls can slice
up some fruit up and let them get a bite to eat, before they get in the water.”

Deuce nodded and I reached over and switched the stereo over to boat wide. I put a CD into the stereo and
Wagner’s
Ride of the Valkyries
began to fill the cabin and bridge with the powerful music.

Deuce looked over at me and said, “A bit overly dramatic, maybe?”

“No,” I said. “Not at all. Overly dramatic would be if I also sent it out over the UHF to those waiting and watching on the island. Like this.” Then I flipped another switch and did just that.

Deuce laughed and said, “You are a piece of work.”

Deuce climbed down and went into the salon to tell the girls what to do, as Tony and Art came out into the cockpit. They already had their wetsuits on. Tony looked up at me and tapped his watch. I shouted down, “Fifteen minutes to the turn, thirty minutes till feet wet.”

He gave me a thumbs up and started going over his gear probably for the fourth time. Deuce came out with a long black case, opened it and helped the men check their weapons and communication equipment.

A few minutes later, Julie and Tina came out with several bowls full of sliced fruit. Tina brought one up to the bridge, set it on the console in front of the second seat and then said, “I’ll take over, so you can get a bite to eat, too.”

I slid over to the second seat and let her have the helm, while I ate the fruit. We were now five miles from the turn, so I hurried. Tina took the bowl when I was finished and went back down below. She gathered up the rest and disappeared into the salon as Julie came up to the bridge. She sat down on the bench seat and said, “How far?”

“Coming up on the turn in about five minutes,” I said.

Julie looked down at the three men checking and rechecking every piece of gear. “They’re good at what they do,” she said.

“Maybe the best in the world,” I said.

“I know Deuce wishes he was going, but I’m glad he’s not,” she said.

“There will be times when he does, Julie,” I said. “You have to be ready for those times. It’s a tougher job you’ll have than his.”

Tina came back up to the bridge and took the second seat. I switched off the stereo
and switched the radio so it would broadcast both PA and UHF, picked up the mic and said, “Going dark.” Then I switched off the running lights, interior lights, gauge lights, even the overhead red lights. I switched the GPS to daytime mode, so the light would go off. Then I put on my Pulsar Edge night vision optics and switched it on. I looked over at Julie, then over at Tina. Both looked scared in a grainy green haze.

Chyrel’s voice came over the speakers, “Roger Alpha Team, God speed.”

“Don’t worry,” I said to Julie and Tina. “Your eyes will adjust in a minute.”

I looked down into the cockpit and saw that Deuce, Tony and Art had done the same. Deuce looked up and I gave him the OK sign, which he returned. Tony and Art were sitting on the port side of the bench seat with their gear strapped on, waiting.

I checked the GPS and we were less than a tenth of a mile from the way point for the turn. I picked up the mic and said, “Hold on. Turning in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.” Then I spun the wheel hard to port and pushed both throttles to the stops. The big boat responded instantly, turning sharply and leaping forward. Checking the GPS, I saw that in seconds we were going forty-six knots. The tail wind must have been stronger than I figured, then I remembered Williams saying he’d tweaked the injectors to get a couple more knots out of the engines. I glanced down as I straightened the wheel on a heading of 110 degrees and the GPS read forty-eight knots at 2400 rpm, wide open throttle.

I picked up the mic and said
, “Forty-eight knots, full stop in twenty minutes.”

Chyrel had installed an encryption system on the UHF, so I wasn’t worried about anyone listening in. We rode on in silence. I occasionally looked down into the cockpit. Deuce had filled a rinse bucket and placed it on the deck between the two men. They were busy rinsing their masks and doing a last minute check of equipment by feel. The moon was long set, in the cockpit there was very little starlight and the two divers didn’t have night vision. They relied on years of experience
and training, plus a fine Officer watching out for them.

I kept my eyes on the sonar screen through the night vision goggles, glancing occasionally at the GPS.
We were inside the bay, streaking toward shore, with thirty feet of water under us and ten miles away from the point. We were well inside Cuban territorial waters.

I picked up the mic and said, “Eight minutes.”

Time seemed to move slowly. It felt like forever before we reached the spot three miles from shore, where I needed to start slowing down. I pulled back slowly on the throttles. I didn’t want our stern wave to overtake us and swamp the cockpit, since Deuce already had the door open. Once we were off plane and idling, I reversed the port engine and brought it up to 1200 rpm, spinning the
Revenge
. Then I brought it back to forward idle for a second, checked the GPS and saw that we were at exactly the spot I wanted to be and headed away from shore at a reverse course of 290 degrees.

I brought both engines to neutral, picked up the mic and said, “All stop, depth is twenty feet. Go!”

Deuce already had the divers on their feet, had stepped out onto the dive platform and unstrapped the scooters. He shoved one into the water and slapped one of the divers on the shoulder as he stepped onto the platform. When he surfaced, Deuce said, “To your ten o’clock, three meters.” The diver struck out and grabbed the scooter in seconds, while Deuce shoved the second one in and slapped the second diver on the shoulder. When he surfaced Deuce said, “At your one o’clock, arm’s length.”

The diver reached out, grabbed it and I heard Tony’s voice over the speaker, “Clear. Submerging.”

As soon as Deuce stepped back up into the cockpit and closed the walk through, I jammed both throttles to the stops, knowing that Deuce would be expecting it. Seconds later we were up on plane and Deuce was climbing the ladder. Both men had full face masks with communications, but we’d agreed to keep talk to a minimum. Still Deuce reached for the mic and said, “Com check.”

“Alpha Two,” came Tony’s voice.

“Alpha Three,” said Art. “All systems good.”

“Check in from shore,” Deuce said. “Be careful. Alpha One out.”

I saw Deuce look at Julie and could tell she was still scared. He took her hand and said, “We’ll be safe in just a few minutes.” He looked at me and I gave him a thumbs up. “I’m going back down and fill the tanks from the bladders. We must be low on fuel.”

“Yeah,” I said. “About a quarter tank.”

Five minutes later, he was back on the bridge.

We rode in silence. I kept an eye on the GPS and finally, twenty minutes later, I pulled back on the throttles to 1700 rpm and the big boat slowed to twenty-six knots
. I turned to a heading of 225 degrees, straight for Cozumel and engaged the autopilot.

I took off my
night vision goggles, then reached up and turned on the low, red overhead lights, the running lights, the radar and the bright spot light. Checking the radar, I saw nothing in front of us. More importantly, I saw nothing behind us. “We’re clear,” I said into the mic.

Deuce removed his night vision goggles as we heard Chyrel’s voice over the radio, “Good job, Alpha Team. I have
twenty people in your living room breathing again.”

I keyed the mic and said, “Tell Dave thanks. Forty-eight knots.”

Williams’s voice came over the radio saying, “Give me three days and a few thousand and I can get that up to sixty.”

“Might take you up on that,” I said. “Alpha One out.”

Tina grabbed my hand and said, “That was scary. How did you ever do that for a living?”

“What living,” Deuce and I said at the same time. That broke the tension and I added, “At least the money’s better now.”

“Speak for yourself,” Deuce said. “I’m a lowly GS-11. You just made what it’ll take me two months to earn.”

“Once this is over,” I said. “I might have something you can help me with to supplement that government income.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Remember that first night in Key West when I asked you about that French name?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But it wasn’t a name.”

“Your dad was looking for the wreck of a Confederate blockade runner called the Lynx,” I said. “I think that’s what got him killed. He found it. Or at least part of it.”

“You’re telling me…” he started to say.

“Yeah,” I interrupted. “He found one of a dozen gold bars. Lester was diving with him, took advantage of the find and killed him. The GPS coordinates are still on his GPS
, saved on the day he drowned. I found that the same time I found his doubloon.”

“If it’s still there, how much do you think each bar would weigh?” he asked.

“I did a little research,” I said. “Or actually Chyrel did it for me. It seems that on September 25
th
, 1864, the Lynx was sunk outside of Riviera Beach Inlet. A VIP passenger was aboard, a man by the name of Lieutenant Colonel Abner McCormick, of the Second Florida Cavalry. The Lynx came under fire from three Union vessels and sank. Colonel McCormick drowned, but the rest of the crew made it to shore. That’s all in the history books and is what Chyrel found out for me. What wasn’t known, except by McCormick himself, was that he was carrying twelve gold bars, each weighing ten pounds. Probably why he drowned and the others didn’t. It was supposed to be going to a Colonel Harrison, with the First Florida Battalion to fund the Confederate cause. At the time, it was worth $16 an ounce, or about $31,000 for the 120 pounds. At today’s rate, it would be worth $2.5 million.”

“Wait,” he said. “How do you know, or how did my dad know, that the gold was on board?”

“Colonel McCormick wrote to his wife and family before they sailed,” I said, “saying that he had a Frenchman aboard by the name of Douzaine Lingots Dior. Your dad found one of McCormick’s descendants, who had his great grandfather’s letters to his wife and the guy let him read them. Your dad spoke French and immediately figured out that it wasn’t a Frenchman, but twelve gold bars.”

“And you know where they are?” Julie asked.

“I know where Russ last dived,” I replied. “When I went through his things up in Fort Pierce, both of his metal detectors were missing, along with those pieces of treasure you had mentioned. When I found Lester, I also found his GPS and journal. It’s there. We just have to go find it.”

“Who is this Lester?” Tina asked.

Before I could say anything, Deuce said, “He was the man that killed my father.”

“Julie, is Rusty’s salvage license still good?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied. “He always keeps it current.”

“We have the license,” I said. “And the manpower and location. Once this is done, I think a few of us should go treasure hunting.”

“I’m in,” Deuce said. Julie smiled and he added, “But I won’t be quitting my day job.”

We rode on in silence for another twenty minutes, then Tony’s voice came over the speaker, “Alpha One?”

Deuce grabbed the mic and said, “Go ahead.”

“First objective secured,” Tony said. “Moving overland. Will call when feet dry.”

“Roger,” Deuce said. “Alpha One out.”

A second later Chyrel’s voice came over the speaker, “
Alpha Base has eyes, clear ahead.”

“Roger, Base,” Tony said. “Alpha Two out.”

“How long will it take them to get where they’re going now?” Tina asked.

“Maybe forty minutes over land,” Deuce said. “Then another half hour under water and a slow thirty minute crawl to cover the last hundred yards to their objective.” Checking his watch, he said, “Probably won’t hear from them again until 0245 or 0300.”

We rode on in silence for another ten minutes, then Tina said, “You guys go get some rest. I can keep watch for a while.”

“I’ll come up and relieve you in two hours,” Julie said.

I gave Tina a kiss, then the three of us climbed down the ladder and into the salon. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep,” Deuce said.

“At least lay down and rest,” I said. “Julie, wake me at 0500 or earlier, if you need to.”

I went forward and crawled into the bunk and was soon fast asleep.

I felt Tina crawl into bed beside me, but didn’t hear her. I rolled over and said, “Everything okay?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I tried not to wake you. Everything’s fine. Julies at the helm and the guys are and I quote, ‘hunkered down’.”

I kissed her and went back to sleep. It felt like ten minutes later, when I heard a light tapping on the hatch. I quietly got out of bed and opened the door. I nodded at Julie who turned and slipped
quietly into the crew quarters as I slipped on my Topsiders. There was coffee in the pot and the timer was set for ten minutes ago. My guess is that Tina set it, before coming to bed. I poured a cup, filled a thermos, set it up to brew another pot and then went up to the bridge. I checked the GPS and saw that we were only sixty miles from Cozumel. I opened the cabinet and pulled out a book on Mexican ports of entry. I’d already gathered everyone’s passports. I found the listing for the main commercial port docks on the west side of the island. I’d had Chyrel call there to let them know of our arrival. I entered the precise coordinates for the dock into the GPS and returned it to autopilot. Mexican Immigration and Customs was at the end of the cruise ship pier and I knew from past experience that I could be there a while.

Just before sunrise, Tina joined me on the bridge.
The clouds to the west were starting to be colored by the sun in pastel pink hues. They spanned the horizon, north to south in an unbroken line. She stretched her legs out in front of her and arched her back. Then leaning forward, she checked the GPS which showed we were twenty-five miles from the Mexican island.

“
I thought we would be there by seven o’clock,” she said. “Have you heard anything more from Tony and Art?”

“They’re probably still asleep,” I said.
“Doubt we’ll hear from them for a while. The GPS displays our time. Cozumel is an hour different from Florida. It’s 0600 local time.”

An hour later, with our quarantine
and courtesy flags flying, we tied off at the commercial dock, next to the immigration and customs building. I took the boats paperwork and all four of our passports into the building, hoping that since there wasn’t a cruise ship currently at the dock I might get lucky and be in and out quickly. It wasn’t record pace, but faster than usual. The customs officer walked with me back to the dock. Deuce and Julie had joined Tina on the bridge. We stepped aboard and I noticed that Deuce had dutifully opened all the fish boxes, hatches and drawers in the cockpit.

The customs officer made a cursory inspection of the cockpit, then dropped down into the engine room. He was back out in a minute and we proceeded into the salon.

“What is the nature of your visit, Captain?” he asked as he looked slowly around.

“B
uceo sus hermosos arrecifes, como de costumbre, Senor,” I responded.

“They are quite beautiful, si,” he said. “
Our records show you are a frequent visitor here. Your friends know not to touch the reefs?”

“
My charter,” I said. “I never even allow divers to wear gloves. Makes them less apt to do any damage.”

“It is just the four of you?” he asked looking toward the cabins.

“Yes,” I said. “Feel free to look around. I’ll be topside tending to my charter. Those three are a handful.”

I left the salon and called
up to the bridge. “Can I get you some fresh fruit? Or perhaps a bagel?

“We’re fine, Captain,” Deuce said. “When can we go ashore? I understand there are some fine
shops and stores here in San Miguel. The ladies would like to do some shopping.”

A few seconds later the customs officer stepped down from the salon and said, “Everything’s in order, Capitan. Yours is a beautiful vessel. Here are your visas. We hope you and your guests will enjoy your stay on Isla Cozumel.”

“Gracias, senor,” I said, taking the visas and passports from him. Then I quietly added, “Si estos esnobs ricos no volverme loco, lo hare.”

He looked up at Deuce, J
ulie, and Tina on the bridge, smiled at them and said, “Enjoy your stay.” Then quietly to me as he stepped toward the gunwale, he added “Si gastan un monton de dinero ambos seremos felices, senor.”

I climbed up to the bridge and Julie said, “Rich snobs, huh?”

“Nothing moves a customs officer quicker than the knowledge that someone is waiting to spend lots of money in his country,” I said. “Let’s go ashore and do just that. It’s a safe bet that Santiago has someone here that’s going to report back to him. I want it to look like you three are wealthy charter customers.”

“I
need to check in with Tony and Art before we do that,” Deuce said.

We went down to the salon and I powered up the laptop. Deuce first checked in with Chyrel, via video. She looked like she hadn’t had a lot of sleep. “How much sleep did you get last night?” he asked her.

“I got a couple of power naps in,” she said a little defensively. “Charity’s been monitoring the com with me.”

“Any word from our boys?” Deuce asked.

“They checked in at 0600,” she said. “They’re on a small knoll about two hundred meters from the Hezbollah camp, in a thick tangle of underbrush. Tony sent an audio file of a conversation they picked up with the parabolic mic. Nothing much on it, just a couple guards grumbling.”

“Can you patch me through to him on video?” Deuce asked.

“Just a sec,” Chyrel said. A few seconds later a smaller picture appeared in the corner. Tony’s face was covered with flat green and tan markings behind the hood of his ghillie suit. I could barely see that he had a headset, with a boom mic on.

“Everything
alright?” Deuce asked.

“Shoulda brought a stronger bug repellant,” Tony whispered. “These Cuban mosquitoes are the size of crows. We have line of sight with the camp, but there’s no way they can see us, even if they walked by right in front of us.
Art’s set up a little north of me, in a similar blind. We’re west of the camp, so we’ll get better visual in a couple of hours.”

The sun’s in their eyes, I thought. They were probably loading up on energy bars and napping until the sun got higher.

“Send any audio or video you pick up to Chyrel,” Deuce said. “And keep your ass down.”

“Roger that,” Tony said and the screen went blank.

“Chyrel,” he said. “Anything they send you, have it translated and send it to me in a text. Just the good stuff, you know what I want.”

“Will do, boss,” she said and the whole screen went blank.

Deuce turned to me and said, “I just don’t feel right being down here, while they’re out in the bush.”

“Hazard of command, brother,” I said. “You’re not a field operative anymore. Get used to it. I can see you in Smith’s immaculate suit on day.”

“Never gonna happen, man,” he said.

We
left the boat and strolled the streets of San Miguel, visiting the many shops. I gave Tina, Julie, and Deuce each a wad of cash. In two hours, we’d spent over a thousand dollars, including a stop at Aqua Safari Dive Shop, where I bought the latest dive computer.

We
shopped some more and ate lunch at Senor Frog’s across from the docks. After lunch we took a cab to El Cid Resort and booked two suites at $300 a night each and dock space. We carried our purchases to the suites and stopped in the Babieca Dive Shop on the premises and arranged to rent four tanks to be delivered to the
Revenge
at the commercial dock. I tipped the clerk generously and asked if he could have someone place them aboard, so we could do a dive before coming back to the hotel. He said that wouldn’t be a problem and I told him the boats name, where we were docked and to just strap them in place on the dive bench. We went to their private beach and relaxed a little and then we caught another cab back to the boat.

“We can do a shallow dive just a little ways north of here,” I said.
“There’s a nice little patch reef across from the Coral Princess Hotel, where the wall is further out.”

“Wall?” asked Tina.

“Most of the dive sites here are wall dives,” Deuce said. “The bottom drops vertically to over two hundred feet in some places, very near shore.”

“I can’t go that deep,” she said.

“Neither can we,” I said. “Not without different equipment. We’ll stick to shallow dives, until I think you’re ready. Then we can drop over the wall a little deeper.”

We cast off and headed north along the shoreline about two miles. While the girls were down below getting their swimsuits on, Deuce said, “Did you see her?”

“See who?” I asked.

“The woman from Santiago’s boat
,” he said. “She was across the street at an outdoor café when we came out of the motel.”

“No,” I said. “
I must be slipping.”

“Guess he thought yo
u could use some female company,” he said with a grin.

“Well I don’t,” I said. “
I think you’re enjoying this maybe a little too much. Maybe she’s just here to keep tabs on me.”

“You heard the recording,” he said. “Guess you could play it like Tina seduced you on the trip down.
She’ll probably check the front desk to see how many rooms we booked and what kind. But, it’s a pretty safe bet that she’s going to make a play at some point while we’re here.”

Julie and Tina came back up to the bridge just as I dropped the anchor in the gin clear water. I’d dropped the anchor about ten feet off a large reef in twelve feet of water and powered back until the anchor caught hold in the sand.

“Y’all take your time getting ready,” I said. I’m going to dive down and make sure the anchors good and solid.”

While they were gearing up, I grabbed a
pair of goggles and a tag line, walked to the bow and dove in. I tied the tag line to the anchor line at water level and threw the coil out to the port side as far as I could. The water was warm, about eighty degrees. I pulled myself, hand over hand, along the anchor line to the chain, then swam across the bottom to the anchor. It was jammed deep into the sand, no way would it come out. I swam back up at an angle and reached the surface about twenty feet from the bow. I swam to the stern, checking the tag line to make sure that it had drifted to the stern on the port side and climbed out.

“The water’s great,” I said.

We geared up and got ready to get in the water. Tina insisted on wearing her wetsuit, worried she’d get cold. “There’s a line floating behind the boat,” I said. “Once we’re in the water, grab it and pull yourself to the anchor line, up at the bow. When we’re all there, we’ll follow the anchor line to the bottom and fin over to the reef.”

“Is there a current?” Tina asked.

“Yeah, but not much of one,” I said. “The tag line is more to save air. No sense going down here and finning to the reef. There’s nothing to see under us, but sand.”

We entered the water one at a time and this time Tina was able to hold her head above water on entry. We swam and pulled ourselves to the anchor line. “It’s about twenty feet at the anchor,” I said. “You’ll probably have to clear your ears a few times going down. Just don’t be in a hurry about doing it. If it hurts come back up the anchor line a bit and try again. A lot of people have trouble doing this and some have to be in an upright position, so try it that way by dumping almost all your air and hanging on
the anchor line.”

Tina nodded her head and said, “I’m ready.”

We slowly descended down the line. Tina hung on, while the three of us slowly finned into the current staying all around her. She didn’t have any trouble clearing her ears, but I noticed she was having to hold onto the line tighter. I realized I hadn’t told her about the affect water pressure would have on the air in her BC. I stopped her, pointed to the air bladders in her BC and made a constricting motion with my hands, then pointing down. She must have understood, because she immediately added just a little air to her BC until she was neutrally buoyant.

We continued to the bottom with no more problems and Tina actually controlled her buoyancy using her BC without any further instruction. We finned over to the little reef, where I motioned her to stop. I pointed to the reef, then to her hands and shook my head. She gave me the OK sign and I pointed to the reef
, at her gauge cluster and shook my head again. She understood and put her gauge cluster in the pocket of her BC.

We continued to the reef and the first thing we saw was a spotted moray, tuck
ed into a crevice with only his head sticking out, opening and closing his mouth. This time I remembered to bring a small slate and pencil, so I could write the names of the fish down for her. I did so and showed it to her. We continued along the edge of the reef and saw a number of young angel fish and butterfly fish. Each time Tina would point and wait for me to identify it. At one point we saw a splendid toadfish, very rare in shallow water, which I also wrote. By the end of the dive, I’d filled the front and back and was having to erase names. We saw several kinds of parrotfish, angels and butterflies all over the reef. All very young. It seemed the reef was a nursery for hundreds of species. By the end of the dive, Tina was pointing at certain fish, then pointing to its corresponding name on my slate.