Matt Royal Mystery - 03 - Blood Island (24 page)

"Actually," he said, "it does. The Tequesta ruled the Keys for many
generations, and we think they paid tribute to the Calusa, who substantially outnumbered them. The blacks who were part of the Seminole tribe
were called Seminole Negroes by the whites in the area. Abraham is a historical character, and was part of every treaty effected between the Seminoles and the American government during the years between the First
and Second Seminole Wars."

"What about the Tequesta connection?" I asked.

"Your friend has his history right. The remnants of the Tequesta intermarried with the Seminoles and became part of their tribe. The
Tequesta, as a tribe, had ceased to exist by the middle of the nineteenth
century. But their blood runs through a lot of Seminole veins today."

"The Abraham I met is a Bahamian. How did that happen?"

"Like he told you, at the end of the Second Seminole War, a large
number of the black Seminoles migrated in dugout canoes to Andros
Island in the Bahamas. Over the years, they became indistinguishable from
the islanders in speech and looks, but they maintained their Indian culture
and their Seminole names. They always, to this day, refer to themselves as
Seminoles."

Florida is full of historical oddities, I thought. Maybe I'll turn out to
be one of them.

At noon, we crossed the Seven Mile Bridge onto Vaca Key, the island that
held the town of Marathon. The bus dropped us off at the Faro Blanco
Resort. I gave Austin one of my business cards and invited him to visit
Longboat Key. He said he would.

Jock and I walked past the restaurant to the marina. I saw Logan at
the fuel dock looking out over Florida Bay as he filled my boat with gas.
The boat was a Grady-White twenty-eight foot walkaround. It was made
for fishing, with a large cockpit and wide gunwales, made so that the fisherman could easily walk around the cabin trunk to the bow if he had a fish
on the line. It sported twin 250-horsepower Yamaha outboards that would
push it through the water at almost fifty miles per hour. I had not scrimped
on electronics, and it was equipped with the latest radar, chart plotter, fish
finder, and radios. She was my love, and her name was Recess.

Jock and I walked down the dock toward the fueling point. Logan
finished the fueling just as we reached him. He put the hose away and
turned to greet us.

I stuck out my hand. "How was your trip, Captain?"

Logan grinned. "Smooth as glass. I made it in less than seven hours.
How're you doing, Jock?"

"Good, Logan. I do believe you've gotten me into a mess, though.
Did my man meet you this morning?"

"He did. I think he may have knocked over the National Guard
Armory on his way to Moore's. I've got more weapons aboard than I've
seen since I left Vietnam."

Jock laughed. "Better to be overarmed than underarmed."

I said, "Let's get some lunch and some rest before we head back to
Key West. We've got a big night ahead of us."

We ordered lunch and a bag of sandwiches to go. That would serve
as our dinner that evening before we launched onto Blood Island. It was
going to be a long day.

I brought Logan up to date over lunch, telling him everything I knew.
When we finished, I walked out onto the patio and called Jeff Timmons.

"Any news?" I asked.

"Not a word, Matt. I'm worried sick. She's been gone four days."

"I don't know what to say, Jeff. Has there been any activity on her
credit cards, bank account, anything?"

"Nothing. Have you found out anything about Peggy?"

"Maybe. I'll know a lot more tomorrow." I didn't want to give the
man any false hope. We had a dicey night ahead of us, and a lot of things
could go wrong. "I'll call you tomorrow," I said, and closed my phone.

I turned to find jock and Logan standing behind me. "Nothing on
Laura?"Jock asked.

"No. This doesn't make any sense at all. I don't think her disappearance is connected to Peggy's, but it is one odd coincidence."

"And you don't like coincidences," said Logan.

I nodded my head, and we walked to the boat. We paid the fuel bill
and boarded Recess. Logan hadn't been kidding. The cabin held three
M-16 rifles with several extra clips, three shotguns, an M60 machine gun
and tripod, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and a large box of
assorted gear.

"You expecting a war, Jock?" I asked.

"You never know."

"Damn," said Logan. "I hope not. I hadn't seen an M-16 since Vietnam. When that guy loaded them aboard, I told him I thought I'd go back
to helicopters. Damned if he didn't bring out the M60. Our door gunners
used those."

Logan had been a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, but before he went to
flight school, he'd been an infantryman, like me.

We motored out of the marina, under the Seven Mile Bridge and
around to Boot Key Harbor on the ocean side of Vaca Key. We dropped
anchor, opened the hatches and turned on the fans in the cabin.

There was just enough room in the small cabin for the three of us to
sleep. We secured the boat, and took a nap.

Hawk Channel runs in a generally westerly direction along the ocean side
of the Keys. It is well marked and bordered on one side by the Keys themselves, and on the other by reefs.

At six o'clock, we weighed anchor and headed into Hawk Channel
for the two hour run to our first destination. Sand Key lies just outside the
Key West harbor on the Atlantic side. It's a popular dive spot, and on any
given evening, there would be a number of boats anchored over the reef
that surrounds the area. We'd be able to wait there until midnight, when
we'd start our trip to Blood Island.

The run along the Hawk Channel was pleasant, the sea calm, the sunshine bright. Jock spent the trip taking the sun on the fold-down seat in the
aft cockpit. Logan helped me navigate and groused good-naturedly about
the lack of Scotch on board.

We arrived at Sand Key just as the setting sun painted the sea in red
and orange. A slight wind was blowing from the Atlantic, just enough to
cool us down without causing the sea to kick up. We spent the next three
hours checking weapons and discussing a plan of attack.

We were eating our sandwiches when my phone rang. Jeff Timmons.

"Matt, I just got a call from the police. Laura's in a hospital. I'm on
my way there now, but I wanted you to know. "

"How bad?"

"She's fine, I think. Thank God. She's been in a coma, and they
couldn't identify her. She's awake now. Turns out her fingerprints aren't on
file anywhere, and the Atlanta cops didn't make the connection between
Laura and die woman in the hospital."

I breathed a sigh of relief. I felt like I'd been holding my breath since I heard that she had disappeared. "That's great, Jeff. What happened?"

"She went out for a walk and fainted. She apparently hit her head on
a curb and was knocked unconscious. Somebody called an ambulance and
they took her in. When she came to, she told them who she was. I'm on my
way to the hospital now."

"Is she going to be all right?"

"I think so. She's awake and lucid. I'll let you know as soon as I know
something more."

"I'll be out-of-pocket tonight, Jeff. I'll call you in the morning."

A sense of relief swept through me. The dream wasn't an omen. She
was alive and well and would probably be her old self soon. I'd get Peggy
back to her, and her life would pick up where it had stopped dead with
Peggy's disappearance. I would lose Laura again, but I had no claim to
her. She had loved me, and I had driven her away. She'd found happiness
with a good man, and that was more important to me than having her back.
Hell, I'd probably just disappoint her again, and she deserved better. And
now, after all these years, we'd be friends again. She would be just a phone
call away, and I'd have to be satisfied with that. It was more than I'd had
for the past ten years, and it would have to be enough. Love, I think, the
real kind, the bone-deep, tissue-pervading emotion that perhaps only
comes along once in a lifetime, is controllable, if the object of that love is
happy. Even if her happiness includes me only on the periphery of her life.

At midnight, we were in the Boca Grande Channel, engines idling. We
were west of Blood Island, looking for the tall tree Abraham Osceola had
told me about.

Jock was rummaging around in the box of equipment brought aboard
at Moore's. He handed me a pair of night-vision goggles. "Here. Try
these."

I put them on, and the night turned green. There was no moon, but
the sky was blanketed with stars. I saw the tree, and using my handheld
compass, took a bearing. "We're not quite there," I said. "Logan, move us
a little more to the north."

In a few minutes I could see the tree Abraham had told me about.
"We should be at the entrance to the channel. Let's take her in quietly."

Logan made the turn and lined up on the tree. The depth sounder
was reading fifteen feet all the way in. As we got closer, I could see a small
opening in die dense mangroves that lined the island. I pointed it out to
Logan, and he steered for it.

"Bottoms coming up," Logan said. "Five feet."

The boat could handle two feet, so we had a little leeway.

"Tides coming in." I said, "I'd rather be a little shallow than too deep.
It'll be deeper when we come back."

The bow of the boat nosed into sand, and we stopped. The depth
sounder was on the transom, so it would give us a reading at the stern.
"What's your depth?" I asked.

"Three feet," said Logan.

"Let the anchor go."

Logan hit the switch on the console, and the electric windlass began
to drop the anchor. Once in the water, I'd secure it deep into the sand, so
the boat wouldn't float away.

We were all dressed in dark clothes provided by jock's man at
Moore's. We put camouflage paint on our faces, and black watch caps on
our heads. Jock gave Logan a pair of night-vision goggles, and lie hung
another around his own neck. He passed out grenades. We attached them
to the web belts we found in the equipment box.

I climbed over the transom, and water came up to my waist. The bottom was hard sand, and the footing was good. Jock handed over an M-16
and my nine millimeter. The grenades were attached across my chest and
still dry.

Jock and Logan slipped quietly into the water, and we made our way
to the bow of the boat. I used my feet to dig the plow anchor deeply into
the sand. We were about ten feet from the shore. I went first, feeling my way
with my feet, not wanting to fall into a hole.

The goggles provided us with a view of our surroundings, and I
could see the narrow trail leading away from the water. We started out in
single file, me in the lead and jock bringing up the rear. We'd traveled
about two hundred yards when I saw the outline of the generator shed.

The three of us had studied the schematic of the island that Debbie
had sent. We knew exactly where we were.

"I'm going to blow the generator," Jock said. "Create a diversion."

"With what?" Logan asked.

"C-4,"Jock said. "Courtesy of the guy at Moore's."

"Do you know how to use that stuff?" Logan asked.

"Oh, yeah," Jock said, and moved toward the shed.

In the green glow of the goggles, I saw something I'd missed the night
before. There was a pipe running from the shed, along the ground and
disappearing into the palmetto scrub that flanked the little building.

"What do you think this is?" I said, pointing to the pipe.

Logan looked more closely. "Gotta be the fuel supply. Probably runs
to some kind of storage tank. It'd have to be near the water, so a barge
could come in now and then to replenish the fuel."

I was concerned about starting a fire that would be between the boat
and us when we started back. "If Jock blows that thing, are we going to
have a fire on our hands?"

Logan shook his head. "I doubt it. That's diesel and it has a very
high flashpoint. We should be all right."