A Deeper Blue

Chapter Twelve

“I should have charged you through the nose for this,” Don said, gruffly, shaking Mike’s hand. “Long time.”

Don Jackson was a tall man, heavy of body with white hair, and skin that was bright red from the sun. He never seemed to really tan but he never seemed to really burn, either.

Besides running a charter business, and a tobacco distribution system and a few condos and rental boats — the guy was just a compulsive businessman — Don ran some special shipping interests. Oh, not smuggling, just niche shipping. Don ran landing craft.

Landing craft were, in general, a horrible way to ship cargo. They were capable of sailing in almost any sea but their engines drank fuel and they couldn’t carry all that much compared to their fuel costs.

However, landing craft had one great benefit; they could take the cargo anywhere there was a beach and roll it right out.

Don’s landing craft had done various jobs over the years, generally for the very rich. You wanted a party for a hundred on an otherwise inaccessible tropical island? Don could roll off a container containing, literally, everything from soup to nuts. Bring your own cooks, though.

He’d participated in multiple movie shoots as well. Movie makers generally wanted somewhere “unspoiled” for shoots. Unspoiled just as often meant inaccessible. Don had developed a reputation among the guys who arranged things like that for being there on time, guaranteed. In the islands, that was pretty unusual. The Bahamas ran on “Bahamas Time,” which was less precise than “In’shallah,” which was orders of magnitude worse than “mañaña.” There was no time on earth less precise than “Bahamas Time.”

Don didn’t work on Bahamas Time. A New Yorker who had been south long enough that the accent was barely noticeable, he still ran on New York time. If he said he’d be there at ten am you could set your watch by it.

“That’s one heavy ass container, Mike,” Don continued, as the mover, basically a small tracked bulldozer converted to pull containers, started pulling the containerized cargo off the landing craft’s ramp and up the white sand beach. “And you know what?” he added. “When we checked in with Bimini customs, they looked at the manifest and just waved us through. It wasn’t sealed or bonded but, you know, they just didn’t seem to care. That’s lax even by Bimini standards, Mike. I could have been carrying a container packed with coke for all they knew.”

“Going the wrong way to be coke,” Mike pointed out. “How you been?”

“The arthritis is starting to kill me,” Don admitted.

“Too many fast women,” Mike said, drawing a snort. Don had been married for damned near fifty years.

“So what’s in the container?” Don asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Mike said. “You’re not even asking about my associates.”

The Keldara were scattered around the estate getting it in gear but many of them had stopped to see the arrival of the container. Even the boat class had stopped to watch it being rolled up the sand. If Mike were to put one word on their expressions, that word would be “avid.”

“They look like a bunch of extras,” Don said. “You doing movies these days?”

“Nope,” Mike said. “Well, not often. I collect a few.”

“Was talking to Sol after you up and disappeared,” Don added. “Interesting coincidence you going and disappearing, then that nuke going up in Andros.”

“I swear you guys are like a couple of old women,” Mike said, shaking his head. “Next you’ll be accusing me of being the guy who killed Osama.”

“Well, let’s see,” Don said, rubbing his chin. “Osama gets killed in October. You show up in December in a brand new boat and immediately spend the next couple of months basically out of sight. And I’ve seen you with your shirt off, buddy.”

“Dangerous ground, Don,” Mike said seriously. “The guy who did that has every jihadist on the planet looking for him.”

“Which is why I’d only mention it to an old friend,” Don said. “But you were the one who brought it up. So what’s in the container?”

“You really want to know, ‘old friend’?”

“Holy fucking Jesus,” Don whispered.

The container had been rolled to a concrete pad in an interior courtyard, then the mover pulled away. The Keldara had immediately gathered around and on Mike’s nod, opened it and started unloading.

Cases of ammunition. Rocket launchers. Body armor. Cases of Semtek plastique. Guns. More guns. Sniper rifles in cases. MP-5s and M4s and SPRs. M-60E4 machine guns capable of delivering 2500 rounds in three minutes of continuous fire.

Then the big stuff started coming off. Miniguns. Pallets of ammunition, multiple each. Fifty-seven-millimeter rocket launchers. A pallet of rockets. The container had been stuffed to the ceiling.

“I had all that on my boat?” Don said, his eyes wide. “Jesus Christ if customs had even suspected…”

“Why do you think they didn’t open it, Don?” Mike asked. “The guys who were there when you arrived were hand-picked.”

Don looked up at the sound of rotors and blanched as a black Hind helicopter flared out for a landing. It had come in at nearly water level and was out of sight from the launch. The pilot, a female, grinned at the sight of the rocket launchers, gave Mike a salute and started getting out of the cockpit.

“I so didn’t want to know this,” Don said.

“Yeah, but I figured you should,” Mike said. “I’m going to need you to pick it up in a couple of weeks. Well, except for the ammo.”

“And I’m supposed to just float this back to Miami?” Don said, shaking his head. “You think that the U.S. government isn’t going to ask a few questions?”

“Who do you think arranged to pass it through Bahamanian customs?”

“How’s it going?” Mike said, sitting down on the dock next to Randy.

“Pretty good, actually,” Randy admitted. “These guys are soaking it up like a sponge and you can’t beat sitting in the Bahamas sunshine.”

“Mike Jenkins,” Mike said, sticking out his hand. “We haven’t met.”

Mike had been very careful about that. Over time he’d dealt with a lot of FAST boat drivers on both coasts. Finding a combination of one who a.) was available and b.) he’d never met had been hard. And he’d had to do it on the plane over since it wasn’t something he could delegate.

“Randy Holterman,” Randy said, shaking Mike’s hand and watching as the speed boat made a hard turn around a buoy. “You’re the one they call the Kildar.”

“That would be me,” Mike said. The Nordic was headed back in, slowing and backing as it approached the pier, then backing one engine to swing around and pull in backwards. The Keldara at the helm, Sergejus Makanee, did the maneuver as if he’d been born on a boat.

“They’re very good,” Randy said.

“Yes, they are,” Mike replied.

“I don’t know that they can win any races…”

“Among other things, the boats need work, right?” Mike asked.

“And if you’re going to be doing long runs,” Randy said, “and I somehow suspect you are, they’re going to need bigger tanks.”

“That’s being worked on.”

“Okay, this is a ‘what the fuck’ moment, sir.”

Senior Chief Edward Marrow had been in the Navy seventeen years. As a young recruit, fresh out of machinist mate’s A school, he had been transferred to the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy sure in the knowledge that he’d be working on the massive engines, the arresting gear, all the parts that made a carrier work.

Instead, he’d been placed in the tiny unit that maintained the carrier’s many small boats. It was a proverbial Siberia, the place where the more senior machinist mates who were unfit to work on “important” systems were shipped. But the unit was short a slot, he was a machinist’s mate and thus he’d ended up there.

However, he’d quickly come to love it, despite the company. The boats were just fun. He’d become a specialist in making sure that small engines ran to the very top of their performance. He even extended his knowledge — despite superiors who barely knew which end of the wrench was which — to hull design, tankage and all the small bits that made a boat work. Whereas if he’d been in one of the bigger sections he’d have worked on just one small part of a complex system called a carrier, here he could do it all.

He’d reenlisted, made PO2 and eventually ended up on shore duty, doing the same thing with small boats at Norfolk Naval Base. There he had come to the attention of people who really cared about small boats, via a brief conversation in the Norfolk enlisted-men’s bar. Shortly afterwards he was asked if he’d like a transfer. The unit was small and it only did small boats. And it still counted for sea duty. There might be some travel involved.

The NCOIC of the Little Creek shipyard had been fixing FAST boats, and various other small, fast, lethal vessels for the last twelve years. There wasn’t a thing he didn’t know about high-performance engines and how to coax every last bit of energy out of them. And he’d done some travel, oh, yeah. FAST boats were complex machines and where the FAST boats went, there went their maintenance crews. A shipping container and a dock was all they needed. And the shipping container was a type that would fit on an aircraft.

The Team didn’t just work FASTs, either. They supported not just the FAST unit but every other spec ops group on the East Coast. Delta, for example, wanted a lower profile than FASTs. They tended to train and operate in cigarettes almost purely but Ed had ended up working on just about every civilian boat on the market. Hell, he’d flown out to Rota one time to fix a sailboat’s engine for some guys who sure didn’t look military. He wasn’t as good with diesel but he could hum the tune and once he got to fumbling around in the guts of a machine he could generally make it purr.

But the travel orders on the latest job were pretty worrying. NCOIC, team of five technicians, one container with assorted materials, specifically long-range tanks. Civilian clothes only. No mention of rank. Commercial bird to Nassau. Transportation from there to be arranged by a contact to meet at airport.

“Agreed, Senior Chief,” the lieutenant commander said. “Delta probably. Maybe some of the CIA operations guys. But, hey, it’s the Bahamas. Get moving. They want you in the air in six hours.”

Allen Barksdale, a brown-haired, brown-eyed slightly overweight dentist from Cleveland on his first island adventure, sat down on one of the benches that lined Nassau Harbor and pulled out a package of Ritz crackers. He bit into one, then threw the remainder into the air.

Seagulls poured from everywhere, filling the air with their raucous cries. One swooped down ahead of the others, plucking the morsel out of the water and flying off. It was attacked by a dozen others but they banked away as another cracker flew through the air.

The man tossed two more crackers in the air, then slid his right hand down onto the seat to lean forward, watching the loathsome birds. He could feel the package. A handful of crackers and the birds were now swirling all around him. Another lean and the GPS was in hand, slid into the pocket. Another handful.

The dentist leaned back, setting the Ritz box down and pulling another package out of his pocket. He opened the container of Alka Seltzer and tossed one in the air. A seagull immediately caught it, midair, and quickly swallowed the small morsel. Kurt tracked it through the throng until the bird suddenly staggered in midair and then fell to the water, shrieking piteously for a moment then going still to lie, wings spread, on the surface of the bright green waters.

Kurt Schwenke grinned and stood up, wandering through the cloud of birds towards his hotel.

“I want to buy some candy, Ali!” the boy said, grinning, the white teeth standing out against his black skin.

“You are a thief, Robert,” Ali said, waving him away.

“I want a candy bar,” the boy said, holding out his hand. “I have money this time. Really!” The money was a small bill and some change. There was a suspicious bulge under the bill.

“Okay,” Ali said, taking the money from the boy’s hand and giving him a Snickers Bar. “But you must have the money, yes?” He handed back change. In fact he handed back more money than he’d been given.

“I will, Ali,” the boy said, grinning as he bit the Snickers.

“Now get out of here you thief! I have real customers to attend to!”

“He could kill us for this,” Katya moaned as Suarez stroked her belly.

“Ritter and Juan are both gone,” Suarez said, dropping his pants. “The boat is nearly empty. And what is life without a little danger?”

It had taken Katya two days to arrange the assignation in the computer room. She wasn’t sure if the bug would even be able to pierce the walls but it was worth a shot. Besides, at this point she’d bugged the main bathroom, the main salon and Juan’s bedroom. This was the only place left worth dropping one of the transmitters.

She leaned back in the reclining computer chair, stretching her arms over her head and moaning as the Mexican went down on her. The bug slid under the console and stuck with barely a flick of the finger. It was away from Suarez’s main station, just in case he was a nose picker. The little rotter probably was. He’d clearly been watching the video of her fight with that American bitch; God knows he’d mentioned it often enough.

“Oh, yeah, baby,” she moaned, glancing at the computer. Stuck on the underside of the keyboard was a strip of tape with a long series of numbers and letters on it. She looked at it in astonishment for a moment then remembered to moan. “Oh! Oh!”

She looked at the numbers and letters, trying to burn them into her memory. Oh, hell, she didn’t need to.

“Oh, my,” Julia said, watching the take from Katya. “Would you look at this?”

“That is interesting,” Lilia said, holding her finger up to her lips.

“The internet is a wonderful thing,” Julia nodded. There was no way to ensure that the room was secure. The windows, alone, guaranteed that. The computer was, however, a secure console. Surrounded by a metal cage, nothing could be remotely detected from it. Words were something else.

“I didn’t even know you could do that with a donkey,” Lilia said, batting her eyes.

“I’m sure you’ve tried,” Julia shot back, writing down what was obviously a password. She wasn’t sure what they could do with it, but it was interesting.

The inshore waters of the Abacos chain are renowned among boaters. With strong offshore breezes from the Atlantic, but protected from the swells, they are perfect for sailing. By the same token, they are perfect for all sorts of boating and had, literally, thousands of miles of beaches and coves, a lover’s paradise.

They also had thousands of rocks and shoals, which was today’s lesson.

“Watch the water,” Randy shouted, pointing to a disturbance up ahead and to the right. “You can see where the rocks are jutting up. Not always, but usually even if they’re slightly submerged. And if you hit one going this speed…”

“Airborne,” Vil shouted back, grinning. He knew the thrill of battle and the thrill of doing really well in a video game or the Ondah contest. None of them really matched the thrill of taking a fast boat and cranking it up to max power.

“Okay,” Randy shouted. “There’s a series of them up here. Wide spread. You figure them out.”

Vil knew the instructor wasn’t going to let him slam into one of the rocks. Among other things, they’d both probably be killed. But he still knew he had to get this right. He could see the first one, almost straight ahead. He banked left then saw another that way. To the right looked clearer but he wasn’t sure he could turn back fast enough.

He realized that was the reason for the hours they had spent turning around the buoys back at the base. He knew, instinctively, that he didn’t have the turn radius to make it back to the right but he could slalom through the two rocks successfully.

He continued the left turn for a moment then banked hard right, the boat skipping across the water, dangerously close to the second set of rocks, then banked back hard left to line up again.

Movement on the water like a shoal. No, a skein of fish jumped out of the water ahead of the fast-moving craft, some of them clearing the nose and slamming into the low windshields, splatting like overlarge bugs.

Vil ignored the distraction, continuing to weave. He’d learned that distractions were death. Learned the hard way.

The guy was doing good. Before he’d set up this test, Randy had carefully navigated the same course, years of experience filing away all the functional routes through the jutting reefs. Vil was taking the simplest, admittedly, but he was proving he could spot the rocks and shoals.

Rocks and shoals were the proverbial bane of the Navy. The very term was used for any sort of trouble and had been the nickname of the long defunct Navy Manual For Court-martial. If you got into trouble with your NCOIC, you’d hit “rocks and shoals.” Same for wife or girlfriend. Actual rocks and shoals had ended more than one promising Navy career.

If the guys all passed this test they’d made it through the very basics. This was the easy stuff. Doing the same thing at night? That was another thing. Doing it at full speed would be suicidal, but even at any sort of high speed it would be tough. But they’d do the run tonight if everyone passed. Slowly.

Tomorrow, they’d be back on the ocean. Randy had kept their crossing slow and easy. But the Atlantic beckoned just beyond the nearby islands to the east. Let them face the monster at full speed. If they could cross the rollers as well as Vil was doing in the shallows, ah, then glasshoppah…

Randy looked up, briefly, as a shadow passed overhead. It was a small business jet. Nothing that had anything to do with him. He went back to making sure they both didn’t die.

Mike watched as the golf carts pulled up to the main entrance of the estate. Besides the four pilots, there was a woman with them. Maybe in her fifties but looking younger. Brunette and busty although there had to be some modern medicine involved.

It was getting on towards evening and Mike was glad the plane had made it in. The strip had lights but there was no way to do traffic control. Day landings were much safer under those conditions. Especially since the strip was a bit short for a Gulfstream. Putting it down at the very beginning of the strip was more or less a necessity. Doing that at night was… tricky.

“Thomas Chatham,” the first pilot said. Also older, perhaps older than the female, big and beefy with a florid expression but very sharp eyes. “Chatham Aviation.”

“Pleasure to finally meet you,” Mike said. “Mike Jenkins.”

“The way it usually goes with customers as good as you is that I host,” Chatham said, grinning. “But I thought I’d pop by. If that’s okay.”

“Not a problem,” Mike said, as the lady walked up. “Lots of room.”

“And my lady wife,” Chatham said. “I believe you’ve spoken on the phone.”

“Gloria?” Mike asked. “Glad to finally be able to put a face to the name.”

“Same here,” Gloria said, shaking his hand. “But the one I really would like to meet, sorry, is…”

“Daria’s inside,” Mike said, gesturing to the entrance. “Let’s get out of the wind.”

“Winds were a bit tricky coming in,” Chatham said as they walked in the entrance. The main living quarters of the old lighthouse had been gutted more than once and were now the front entrance, a vast room filled with comfortable furniture and bric-a-brac, the back wall being mostly one large, heavily constructed, window.

“He’s going to start doing the thing with the hands again,” Gloria said, holding up both of hers palms down and twisting them back and forth. “The Zero was right on my tail—”

“It was a Mirage,” Thomas said, smiling.

“You were in the Falklands,” Mike said.

“Just before I got out,” Chatham admitted. “Harriers, of course. Went to BOAC just before it went tits up. But even for as short as I’d been there, there was a nice severance package. I’d set a bit of money aside so I bought an airplane. Well, the bank and I bought it.”

“And here you are on an estate in the Bahamas,” Mike said, smiling. “What would you like?” he added, waving to the bar on one side of the room. “Daria’s around here somewhere…”

Mike paused as Tinata, wearing only a purple and green string bikini, walked into the room.

“Tina, darling, could you ask Daria to step over here?” Mike said.

“Yes, Kildar,” the busty redhead said, dimpling prettily. “And if you want to join us, some of us were going down to the beach.”

“Love to,” Mike said. “But if you could hold off and get a couple of the girls in here for a bit, I’d appreciate it. Company.”

“Of course, Kildar,” the girl said, smiling. “We love company.”

“Nice,” Chatham said, whistling. “She looked—”

“Young,” Mike said. “Just about seventeen, she thinks. I hope that doesn’t shock you, Gloria.”

“In fact, I am unsurprised,” Gloria said with a wry smile. “Sorry.”

“The story of why I have a harem of teenaged girls, some of whom are too young for even me to bed, is a long one,” Mike said, stepping behind the bar. “And it will be shorter for some Mountain Tiger. Who’s not on call?”