Warriors

CHAPTER 50

An hour earlier, a gleaming midnight blue Gulfstream IV, having spent a long starry night streaking a high arc across the broad Atlantic, touched down in brilliant sunshine at Key West International Airport. Aboard were the three men chosen by their respective governments to lead the rescue of William Lincoln Chase and his family.

Hawke had stopped briefly in Miami and picked up Stokely Jones and Harry Brock, who were waiting at Galaxy Aviation, Miami International. Both men were in high spirits, excited about the possibility of yet another high-stakes mission together with Alex Hawke.

After a taxi to a remote part of the field at Key West, Hawke’s pilot and copilot helped offload the pallets of spec-ops tactical assault weapons and gear he’d ferried from England. Everything was neatly loaded into the rear of the black Escalade Hawke had arranged to have waiting.

Stoke, meanwhile, had prearranged to have Sharkey’s boat, the Miss Maria, delivered to the Conch Island Marina on Key West. Miss Maria was the ideal boat for getting around in the Keys, what with all that speed and firepower. Not that Stoke thought they’d need heavy ammo down here, but you never knew, did you? The three of them had enemies just about everywhere on the planet.

Since Stoke knew the way to the marina, he climbed behind the wheel of the big SUV and they headed off to the marina.

Late last week, Sharkey, from his hospital bed at Dade Memorial, had given his personal permission for the use of the Contender 34, Miss Maria.

It was a miracle. But the little guy had survived.

And only God knew how he’d overcome a point-blank shooting at the low-life gin joint in Miami. Luis always been a tough little character. The doctors all said it was nothing but a sheer will to live that had pulled him through. One even called it un milagro, a miracle.

One of the happiest days of Stoke’s life? That would be when he had picked up Mrs. Gonzales-Gonzales and driven the GTO over the causeway to Dade Memorial to pick Sharkey up and take him home. Maria and Stoke had helped him inside the house and got him into his own bed.

“How you doing, little buddy?” Stoke said, fluffing his pillows. “You happy to be home, little brother? Got your amorcito waiting on your ass hand and foot?”

“I’m happy to be anywhere, man.”

“You just stay here and do whatever Maria tells you do. You got that? Doc said you’re going to need at least a month’s worth of bed recuperation before you get back on your feet. I got you that new flatscreen over there; Oprah and Jeopardy! will keep your sorry butt occupied.”

“I appreciate that, boss, I really do.”

“You take care of yourself, okay?”

“I’ll be back on the job, boss,” Sharkey said, safely back in the little two-bedroom stucco bungalow on Calle Ocho in Miami’s Little Havana. “Don’t you worry about that, man.”

“You better be,” Stoke said. “I’ve got a little mess to clean up over in China. Shouldn’t be gone more than a few weeks or so. Soon as the doctors say it’s okay, you get yourself back to the office and hold down the fort, all right? I’ll feel a whole lot better if you’re there.”

“You bet. You know you can count on me.”

“I sure do,” Stoke said, giving his friend’s one good arm a squeeze. “I sure do, partner.”

Ten minutes later, when they pulled into the marina parking lot, it was baking hot in the tropical sun. Conch Island Marina was a typical South Florida boat haven. Beer, bait, boats, slips for rent, charter service, guides, the whole nine yards.

Stoke had a rough idea of which dock, but he was not entirely sure, so he drove around to the harbormaster’s office, a cement block structure, to ask for directions to the slip.

Conch Island Marina was typical, but with that special Key West flavor the world knows and loves. Conchs, as the residents called themselves, had their own way of doing things. The marina was filled with colorful boats as well as colorful characters. Who, by the way, for the most part, all got along.

The temperature inside the air-conditioned office had to be below freezing, but it was cleaner and brighter than Stoke had expected. There were floor racks of fish-oriented merchandise, a display case of reels, a wall rack of rods, a couple of coolers, and along one wall a line of bait bins with a constant flow of running water, home to a lot of vaguely apprehensive shrimp.

A heavy man in a stained canvas apron was skimming off some of the dead baitfish floating on top of the water in one of the middle bins, using a small dip net and dumping them in a plastic bucket.

“Make pretty good chum,” Stoke said. So obvious the guy gave him a look.

“What they gen’rally used for. What can I do for you?”

“Looking for a Contender 34, the Miss Maria? Down from Miami?”

“Slip B-25, right out chonder. You a gummint man? DEA? Lotta damn far powr on that thang. Fifty cal? Shee-it.”

“Just a movie prop, don’t worry. Shooting a sequel of Miami Vice for Warner Brothers. I play the black guy,” Stoke said, and winked at the guy in an overtly fey way. Just messing with the cat.

When he climbed back in the car, he told Harry about what he’d said to the harbormaster, knowing it was Brock’s kind of humor.

Harry laughed.

There was a large gay population in the Conch Republic, as everyone knows, and leave it to Harry Brock to have something to say about it. He piped up from the way backseat where Hawke had stuck him with the equipment, while he rode up front with Stoke.

Brock said, “So I’m on the phone with the police chief of Key West last week, right? Giving him a heads-up that I’m going to be down here on a matter of national security, right? And that a very special government-equipped Contender 34 is going to be showing up here at the marina, right, not to get his tighty-whiteys all in an uproar about it.”

“Yeah?” Stoke said, not wanting to encourage him.

“Yeah. And the chief says to me, ‘Agent Brock, I don’t want to alarm you, but the crime rate down here on Key West has skyrocketed.’ So I say, ‘Really, Chief, I didn’t know you had a lot of crime down there.’ “

“And then what, Harry?”

“Well, then, the chief he waits a beat and then he says, ‘Oh, yeah. It’s brutal. Last six months alone, the number of drive-by spankings has gone through the roof.’ ”

Harry laughed. He always laughed at his own jokes.

Neither Stoke nor Hawke laughed, Stoke because he’d heard Harry tell that one so many times before, and Hawke because, in truth, he didn’t really get it, but didn’t want to admit it.

“What?” Harry said. “That’s not funny? Guys? Really? C’mon.”

“Shut up, Harry,” Stoke said, beating Hawke to the punch. “Look, there she is. Sharkey’s boat.”

Stoke said, “I told the guy I hired to deliver her to load her up with fuel, ice, and Cuban sandwiches. SmartWater and Diet Coke for me; Kalik, the Bahamas’ finest beer, for you two. It’s only about three hours to No Name Key from here. We should get there by five, if the weather holds.”

NOAA weather radio was reporting a low-pressure front moving up from Cuba. The leading edge wasn’t supposed to hit the Keys until around midnight, but tropical forecasts were often iffy. Navigating in an area known as the Ragged Keys was something Stoke knew a lot about, though. During his SEAL days, his squad had trained around here for a few months. “Heat ’n’ Skeet,” his knucklebusters had called the bug-infested swamps back in the day.

They hauled all their crap aboard and stowed it below. Harry cast off the lines while Stoke cranked her up and backed out of the slip. Harry felt the chilly vibe and knew enough to keep his mouth shut. He went below to properly organize and stow the equipment.

A couple of hours later, Stoke was gunning the Miss Maria across the shallow saw grass flats, grabbing a hard northeasterly angle toward No Name Key.

Hawke had taken his shirt off and was sitting on the stern in a pair of baggy khaki shorts, sipping an ice-cold bottle of Kalik and soaking up the warm Florida rays. He seemed happy to be out of cold and rainy Olde England for a while and Stoke didn’t blame him. He was glad to be back in sunny South Florida himself.

“There it is,” Stoke said, pointing over at the little bump that was No Name Key in the distance. “Scene of the crime.”

Hawke stood up and came forward to stand beside Stoke at the helm console. He remembered this place, all of it. He stared at the island, then looked at Stoke for a long moment before he spoke.

“Yeah. We saw it once before when I was down here in Islamorada, recuperating with a beautiful woman who, like that island over there, shall remain nameless.”

“I remember that. I took you to see it, remember? Little skiff I rented. You wanted to see where the man who killed your wife on the steps of the church had died.”

“Yeah. Quicksand.”

“Straight to hell, boss.”

Stoke eased the throttles back, and the bow settled down. The high-powered boat slipped through the razor-sharp saw grass and into the outskirts of the mangrove swamps that guarded the island. The swamps were full of twisty-turny channels, snaking this way and that, with no rhyme or reason, some leading to open water, some dead ends. Nothing on the charts, either. If a person didn’t know exactly where he was headed? He didn’t get there.

“Hang on, boss, here we go!” Stoke said with a smile.

Suddenly Stoke leaned on the throttles as they broke through into open water again, a broad patch, sparkling in the sunshine. Stoke remembered the little bay and hung a tight right and blasted through a fairly wide opening in the mangroves on the far side of the bay, where there was still plenty of deep water. The bow came up, and a very narrow channel loomed ahead. Stoke, full throttle. Hawke looked at the skipper with alarm.

“Do you have any idea where we’re headed?”

“Hell yeah. You choose the wrong channel back in here? You never find your way out. I’m serious. Find your bones, that’s all, picked clean by buzzards.”

“Why don’t you just use the GPS?”

“I am a GPS,” Stoke said with a laugh.