“That’s where I am too. We need to get someone to look at the fish,” he said, sitting down and pulling the computer closer. A grid of rows and columns filled the screen. He knew the basics of spreadsheets, at least enough to navigate around one. Before GPS and memory chips, he had stored his Loran numbers in one. Using the touch pad, he scrolled around the cells trying to make sense of the data. Across the top were listed several species of fish: snook, redfish, sea trout, snapper, barracuda, bonefish, and cobia. Down the side, in the first column were dates. It was certainly a compilation of the quantity of a species of fish on a specific day, but he didn’t know what it represented.

  “Can you show me how to move the screen?” he asked.

  She laughed and came to his side, reaching over and using two fingers to slide the data to the left.

  “Stop,” he said. They were in the current month and he saw the numbers jump. “That’s the two days of the king tide when the fish washed up here.” The numbers showed a huge increase in all species. Where the entries had been in the low single digits, often with zeros for many days, double digits were entered during the high tide.

  Mel leaned in and scrolled lower, but the screen was blank. “It stops three days ago.”

  Mac thought for a second, looking at the blank cells and putting together the timeline in his head. “Trufante was out there the day before yesterday. So it looks like the boat went down in the storm.”

  “From everything we’ve seen, it wasn’t the storm,” Mel said.

  Jane sipped from her water bottle, took a deep breath, and checked her heart rate. It had taken longer than she wanted for it to drop, and she shook her head, angry with herself for slipping. With a determined look she set down the bottle and went back to her workout. After going through several martial arts forms, she did three violent sets of pull ups, pushups, and squats, then collapsed on the floor. It took a minute to catch her breath, and after checking the monitor on her watch again, she smiled.

  She lay down and stretched for a few minutes, working through the muscles she had just taxed. With her workout complete, she grabbed her water bottle and towel and went back into the house. At her desk, she checked her email. There was no message from the men she had hired—not that she thought they would complete the task so quickly. It was not her first experience subcontracting work in the Keys, and all had the same result—slower and sloppier than she would have liked. The only way to get this done right was to get down there and handle it herself.

  After showering, she changed into yoga pants and a formfitting top—both in black. She brewed a pot of coffee, ate an energy bar, and moved to a closed door that looked like a closet. The difference between this door and a standard closet door was evident after she placed her eye close to a woman’s eye in a picture just down the hall, and it swung open on four heavy-duty hinges. Faced with wood to match the rest of the house, the door was actually solid steel. An electromagnetic lock triggered by a retinal scanner, concealed in the eye in the photograph, insured she was the only one to gain entry. Once inside, she turned on the lights and smiled as she surveyed her weapons collection. Passing by the antique swords, she removed an AK-47 and a twelve-gauge shotgun from their clips on the wall and placed them in a long black bag. After loading the ammunition, she scanned the handguns, settling on a pair of Glock 43 9m and two extra six-round magazines. Placing the handguns in a smaller bag, she moved to a workbench. Homeland Security would have been on high alert if they could see the contents of the bins and cases stored under the bench. Pulling out a steel case, she opened it and removed several small containers marked C4, which she set on the counter. Next to them she placed several cell phone detonators, and, picking one up, pressed the two detonator barbs into the clay-like explosive. She placed the rigged charge in a small insulated cooler and the rest of the material in the smaller bag with the pistol. After loading several boxes of ammunition, she took one last look at her collection, locked the room, and left the house.

  She loaded the trunk of her black Audi R8 with an overnight bag, the long satchel filled with her weapons of choice, and the small cooler with the detonators. Taking her coffee, she settled into the luxurious interior and pushed the garage door opener. The roar of the ten-cylinder, six-hundred horsepower engine put a smile on her face. There were no regrets spending the extra money on upgrading from the standard engine. Her life was all about power. Always vigilant of reporters stalking her for a story about Dusharde Sugar, the quick acceleration and extra speed had paid off more than once. Checking her mirrors before pulling out, she backed into the street and pressed hard on the gas pedal, smiling when the engine responded to her demand.

  There were a lot of drawbacks about her main residence in Clewiston. Mainly the lack of a life, social or otherwise, but this was her weekday residence. Although most of her job could be done electronically, Philip insisted she be close by. The weekends were another matter, and the R8 made short work of the hour-and-a-half drive to her condo on South Beach in Miami.

  At close to a hundred miles per hour, the broken yellow line looked almost solid as she accelerated onto Highway 27. The headlights of the R8 illuminated the road, penetrating the blackness surrounding her. Once in a while another pair of lights appeared in the distance. If they were red, she made it a contest to see how quickly she could overtake the vehicle. If they were white and coming head-on, they would quickly turn into a blur and disappear. Pressing lightly on the brakes, the hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar car slowed, hovering near eighty. Unfortunately, this was as fast as she would let it go, with the contents in the trunk likely to be a problem if she was pulled over by the Highway Patrol.

  Several times before, she had been stopped at close to a hundred, but her charms quickly pacified the officers. But the last had been a woman, not so easily swayed by her talents, and that ticket clung to her record like a dirty sock to a clean towel. Around her the Everglades passed silently, their enveloping darkness soon broken by the lights of Fort Lauderdale in the distance. The highway was more crowded now, forcing her to slow as the road, a barrier between the Everglades on her right and development on her left, approached civilization. Traffic slowed even more as she approached Miami, where rush hour often extended into the night. The road turned toward the east and now the lights of the city surrounded her. She merged onto the Florida Turnpike, still heading south. She flashed a tight grin when she continued straight instead of turning onto Highway 836, which would take her to her condo—what lay ahead could prove to be more fun than anything South Beach had to offer.

  Trufante sat at the bar with his last twenty on the worn counter. Pamela was next to him, singing along with some lame Jimmy Buffet song the guy in the corner was playing on an acoustic guitar. His patience was thin, and he was ready for sleep. The party, spanning twenty-four nonstop hours, had been an exhausting jaunt from Marathon to Key West and back. But for whatever it had cost, Pamela was back to normal, and he knew this would settle her for a while, though the thought had crossed his mind that he was getting too old for this.

  He nursed his beer trying to hold his head straight while waiting for Jeff to show up with his five hundred dollars for the net. It might have been a better idea to go home and get some rest rather than meet him tonight, but the pile of hundreds hadn’t lasted long, and he needed to hold onto this payoff and not stuff it up his already sore and swollen nose.

  “Come on, babe. Let’s blow this place,” he said, leaning toward Pamela.

  “I like this song,” she said, resuming the lyrics to another stupid sailor song.

  “It’s last call for this dude,” he said. “We gotta hit it after this.” He drank the last of the beer, continuing to stare at the door and hoping the song would be over soon. This was way out of character for the guy legendary for his ability to rock it for days, not just a single night. “Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

  The song ended and he was about to snatch the lone bill on the bar when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Immediately he knew it was not Pamela.

  “Buy you and the lady a drink, mate?” a voice behind him said with a fake British accent that did nothing to conceal his Cuban heritage.

  Trufante turned to see a cartoonish character looking back at him. The man was a rail thin five foot four, with a large head and oily dark hair capped with an old captain’s hat. Beneath the brim, ink-black eyes looked about twice the size they should be. “Hector, what do you want?” Trufante asked.

  “Let’s take a walk, mate,” he said.

  “What’s with the stupid accent and the hat?” Trufante asked, suspicious of why he was here. Hector and his brother Edgar, who had cut the tip off his finger in a bait grinder several years ago, were the dregs of Monster Bait.

  “It’s a disguise, you idiot. The boss wants a word,” he said.

  “What for?” Trufante asked, trying to figure out what had gone wrong now.

  “Seems your mate ratted you out,” he said. “Now, let’s go.”

  Trufante winced as he felt the tip of a knife in his side. “This doesn’t affect the lady. I’ll go, but she stays.”

  “He said nothing about a broad.”

  Now he was trying to sound like Bogart. Trufante leaned over to Pamela. “Go find Mac. Tell him I’m at Monster Bait.” He felt the knife jab him again. “Please.”

  Edgar was waiting outside smoking a cigarette. The exact opposite of his brother—short, fat, and round, he reeked of something Trufante couldn’t put his finger on, but it wasn’t good. “Come on, loser,” he said.

  Trufante stood between the two brothers. Towering close to a foot above them, he looked around for anything he could do to change the situation. Hector prodded him with the blade again, removing any chance for running. They stuffed him in the jump seat in back of their worn-out Mitsubishi pickup, rusted through from neglect and the harsh climate. He tried to turn sideways to get his knees out of his chest, but most of the seat was already taken by the large gill net. Even in the low light, it looked like the net he and Jeff had used the other day.

  The brothers got in. The engine coughed several times before starting, and Trufante gagged on the exhaust seeping through the floorboard. Both front windows were rolled down, but they provided little relief in the backseat. The ride was short and bumpy, and as soon as they pulled off the main road into the driveway for Monster Bait, he was jarred by the neglected gravel surface. His head smacked the low interior several times as Edgar plowed through the rain-filled potholes. Thankfully, they stopped in a large parking area surrounded by piles of lobster and crab traps.

  “Come on, mate,” Hector said, brandishing the knife in plain sight now. He motioned toward the small shack.

  Trufante winced, his stub burning as he walked toward the building where Edgar had mangled him. He could still remember that night, when a deal on a square grouper had gone south. Thankfully, they walked past the shack, continuing toward a larger structure.

  “In there, matey,” Hector said, pushing him forward.

  “You sorry ass Cajun. Landed in a whole new mess of shit now,” Edgar said, tossing the cigarette butt toward Trufante and opening the door. The smell of rotten fish wafted into the night. “Come on in, Cajun,” he said, motioning with a pistol he had withdrawn from his waistband.

  There was no chance of escape now, and Trufante walked in front of Edgar, who he swore was giggling behind him as they entered the building. A half dozen bare incandescent bulbs hung from the ceiling casting just enough light so he could see the large white bins filled with fish and ice. He recognized their haul from the other day.

  “Look at this shit. I don’t think even Manuel could sell this,” Edgar said, pointing the gun at one of the bins.

  “It was Jeff’s deal. I’m just the help,” Trufante said, choking on the stench. Quality fish were often iced for up to a week before sale. These were only two days old and clearly rotten.

  “The boss wants a refund and this shit disposed of,” Hector said.

  “But Jeff . . .”

  “Over there, Cajun,” he said, waving the gun across the room at a figure tied up in the corner.

  He saw the shadows behind him, but Trufante was too slow to act. Hector and Edgar were on him, quickly tying his hands and feet. They pushed him into the corner with Jeff.

  “I know you two white trash pieces of crap burnt through all your money already, so tomorrow morning you are going fishing. Except you are going to put the fish back and make this like it never happened.”

  8

  Once again, sleep eluded Mac, and he was up before dawn. There were too many coincidences for this not to bring trouble, and he wanted the salvaged boat on the other side of the island. It would be less visible there, and he planned on leaving it in a way that if it were found, he could claim ignorance. Working alone, he used the center-console to pull the boat off the beach. Without power to the hydraulic lift motors, he had to leave the heavy engines down, causing the boat to draw close to three feet of water. This forced him into a circuitous route that took far longer than the quarter mile around the island.

  Leaving the navigation lights off, to avoid being seen by the handful of fishermen already running out to the Gulf, he worked a large circle into deeper water, cutting back in when he passed the shallowest flat. A few minutes later, he dropped anchor, released the tow line and pushed the salvage boat toward the beach. Fortunately, it was close to the bottom of the tide, making it easier to lodge the lower units and propellers in the sandy bottom. A standard anchor in this type of bottom would require an eight-to-one scope, or, in this case, with three feet of water and another three-foot rise to the bow, almost fifty feet of line in the water. Wanting to keep the boat close to the beach and out of sight, that amount of line would create a hundred-foot swing when the tide changed.

  Instead, he chose a pole system. Mounted on the transom, the pole dropped straight down into the bottom, securing the boat exactly where the fisherman wanted it. In some cases they used two poles in tandem to eliminate the swing of the boat. His choice was a much simpler length of PVC pipe left over from the remodel of the house. Taking the ten-foot-long, two-inch diameter pipe, he used a small sledgehammer to drive it deep into the sandy bottom directly between the twin outboards where it would be hard to see. He was covered in sweat when he finished, but the pipe was only two feet above the water level. At high tide, only a few inches would show. With a piece of line he tied the boat off, grabbed the anchor as a decoy, and slid over the side. He dropped it about twenty feet from the bow and continued to wade back to his center-console. Looking back at his work, he was satisfied—unless someone boarded the boat, they would never see the ruse.

  When he returned, Mel was waiting on the small beach with a determined look on her face and a messenger bag slung over her shoulder. It was a look he hadn’t seen in a long time, and he wasn’t sure if this was a good or a bad thing. They had decided to take the trawler to Marathon. There was no guarantee this would be a quick trip, and he wanted to be prepared.

  After packing the snook he had examined earlier in a cooler, he stashed it aboard and started the engines. Nudging the starboard throttle just enough to push the boat forward to the pile, he waited for Mel to pull the line off. Once they were free, he used both controls—port in reverse and starboard forward to spin the boat—and then he pushed them both together, steering a heading out the channel and toward Marathon. It was a beautiful morning, the start of a day he would rather be out fishing. His mind churned as he steered, his hand worked the wheel, knowing the course and how to avoid the sandbars.

  “I’m going to take her around and tie up at the Anchor.” Rusty’s place had plenty of room in the turning basin, and if the old man was around he could likely borrow a car. Half an hour later, the smell of Rufus’s fish sandwiches had his mouth watering as they turned into the canal leading to the dock. There were two sailboats in residence, leaving plenty of room to tie off.

  Rusty appeared just as Mac positioned the boat. He went back and grabbed the stern line, tossing it across to Rusty to help stop the forward momentum of the boat. The tide was coming in fast now, and Mac waited for Rusty to secure the line before he backed the stern to the dock. Mel hopped over the gunwale and tied the bow line to a cleat.

  “Might want to put a spring on her too,” Rusty said, his eyes looking at the sailboat in front of the trawler.

  “I got it, old man,” Mac joked. Rusty was a retired marine and diver who had probably forgotten more than most men would ever learn. He might have put on a few pounds over the years, but underneath lay dormant the Marine he had been. “Maybe you could tell Rufus we’d love a few sandwiches.”

  “Come on up to the bar when you get squared away,” he said, looking over at Mel, who was already on the dock with her messenger bag. “If you’re thinking of staying, there’s a power hookup on the piling there.”

  “Thanks. We might take you up on that,” Mac said, hopping onto the dock with the cooler in hand. Together the three of them made their way to the bar. “I’m serious about the sandwiches.”

  “Thought you brought your own,” Rusty said, gesturing to the cooler, and walked over to the outdoor kitchen. Mac looked over and waved to the old Rastafarian cook.

  Inside, the bar was quiet. The Rusty Anchor was a locals’ spot, a little off the beaten path for the tourists cruising US 1 looking for action. If the wind were up, there would be several fishermen hanging around, and later the locals would fill the place. This early on a pristine day, the bar was empty.

  “Okay to use the Wi-Fi?” Mel asked.

  “You’d know better than me. Julie set it up the last time she was through here,” he said.

  Mel and Rusty’s daughter had grown up together. “How is she?”

 

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