I hated what was happening between us.
A Navy career was not conducive to good marital relations. Its hit-and-run existence added nothing but strain. The divorce rate was sky-high, and not just with enlisted. Misery stretched all the way up the ranks. The closer you got to retirement, the greater the chance of a split. But my self-inflicted screwup had only poured salt onto that potential wound. A friend of mine liked to say that once you leave the marital bed, you never return. He might be right, because returning came with a host of heavy baggage. Truth was not a one-way street, and it really did take two to tango. For Pam and I the truth would be a long time coming between us. Many years would pass before we both learned the whole story, eventually ending our marriage first as bitter enemies, then as friends. But back then I genuinely hoped Pam and I weren’t finished.
Stephanie told me to get a good night’s sleep and be at the Key West Bight at seven. Last evening I found a nearby motel and took her advice, the same one Pam and I visited last year on a long weekend. A truly enjoyable three days for us. We’d played, talked, and there’d even been sex.
Good times.
Laid back, free-spirited, artsy, quirky, scenic, you name it, Key West definitely shifted left of center. Pirates once made it the wealthiest place in Florida, at a time when Miami remained an uninhabited swamp. The town sat at the end of a rocky chain of low-slung islands. Its tropical climate lingered year-round, along with a seemingly continuous happy hour. People came to fish, escape, carouse, and rejuvenate. Nonconformity seemed a religion. Hell, it even seceded from the Union back in the 1980s, declaring itself the Conch Republic, then promptly surrendered to the United States and requested a million dollars in foreign aid.
You had to like that spunk.
I was told to find one boat among the charters that called the historic harbor home. Today not that many people buzzed about, probably thanks to a clinging canopy of gray sky, which looked ugly and threatening. A steady breeze swept in from the sea carrying a tide of warm moisture, the air thick like being submerged. A storm was definitely coming. Not a day for deep-sea fishing.
I found the boat, the Isla Marie, at the end of a dock, a forty-footer with a wide stern, twin inboards, and an enclosed upper bridge. A sheltered rear deck offered sun protection for any fishermen, and a spacious forward cabin accommodated overnight stays.
A man emerged onto its rear deck.
Short, stout, square-shouldered, thick-necked. His tanned skin contrasted with thin, silvery hair. He was potbellied, dressed in khaki shorts, a dark Key West T-shirt, and a battered ball cap. Around his neck hung a gold doubloon on a chain. Just as with Stephanie Nelle, I knew the look.
More law enforcement.
“Trying to fit in?” I asked the guy from the dock.
“I’m retired. What do I care?”
Good point. “You Captain Nemo?”
The guy smiled. “I don’t miss all the stupid intrigue.”
Stephanie had told me to use the code name.
“And you are?” he asked.
“Cotton Malone.”
Which sounded like a code name in and of itself.
“Where’d you get a name like Cotton?”
“It’s a long story.”
He flashed me an amiable, toothy smile. “That’s good. ’Cause we have a long trip. Hop aboard.”
“Where we going?”
He pointed a finger out toward open ocean.
“Seventy miles that way.”
* * *
We stood in the enclosed bridge, the Isla Marie fighting hard against a stiff headwind, the beat of the engines steady under my feet. The farther west we cruised, the worse the rain became. Windblown spray and gusts of bright foam flew up from the bow as we knifed a choppy path through the churning water.
“Nobody will be fishing today,” my host said.
“Haven’t you forgotten something?”
No name had yet been offered. At the docks I’d understood. Loose lips sink ships. But we were long gone from Key West.
“Jim Jansen, once with the FBI.”
“Now with the Justice Department?”
“Hell, no. I was asked to help Stephanie out. A favor. Like you, I’m told.”
The entire boat shifted like a seesaw. Thank God I wasn’t prone to seasickness, otherwise I’d be tasting my breakfast twice. Jansen seemed to have a good pair of sea legs, too.
“Are you local?” I asked.
“Born and raised in the Keys, then spent thirty years with the bureau. I retired two years ago and came back home.”
I knew the score. Generally, FBI special agents had to go when they turned fifty-seven or completed twenty years, whichever came later. Extensions could be granted, but they were rare.
“You a conch, through and through?” I asked, making sure I pronounced the ch with a heavy k.
“Absolutely. We have a lot of freshwater varieties, transplants from every place you can name. But the hardcore saltwater species, the true locals, we’re getting rarer and rarer. Take the wheel.”
I grabbed hold as Jansen found a map, unfolded it, and laid it across the instrument panel. The rain kept slapping like pellets, splattering the windshield in drenching waves.
“Time for you to know some things,” he said. “We’re headed for the Dry Tortugas. Ever heard of them?”
“A little bit. Didn’t Billy Bones mention them in Treasure Island?”
He pointed a stubby finger at the chart. “It’s a cluster of seven tiny islands, not much more than sandbars with some trees and bushes, set among a slew of coral reefs. It’s the end of the line for the Florida Keys and the last speck of the United States. Less than a hundred acres of dry, uninviting, featureless land at the edge of the main shipping channel from the Gulf to the Atlantic. Ponce de León himself discovered them. He called them the Tortugas for all the turtles.”
“And the ‘dry’ part?”
“That came later to let sailors know there’s not a drop of fresh water anywhere. But the islands offered great anchorage from the weather and a perfect resupply and refit stop.”
“Why are we out here in the middle of a storm, headed for them?”
“Stephanie a little tight-lipped?”
“More like lockjaw.”
He chuckled. “Don’t take it personal.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Just met the other day.”
Which told me nothing, so I asked, “Tell me about the boat that sank.”
“It was a dump. Looked like the Orca from Jaws, after the shark got hold of it. I don’t know how the thing even made it here from Cuba.”
I heard the magic word and tossed Jansen a hard look. “You’re kidding?”
“Makes it all the more interesting, doesn’t it?”
That it did. Cuba lay only ninety miles away, and as far as I knew it was illegal for any boat from there to be in American waters. No exceptions. Ever. Stephanie had not mentioned a word of this detail, saying only the craft had come north from the Caribbean.
“Two days ago the boat was docked off Garden Cay in the Dry Tortugas. I was there, watching. The wind was howling like today and it was raining hard. The tidal currents are real bad there, they flow against the prevailing winds. The harbor has long been a sanctuary, a safe haven from enemies and weather, but you have to know what you’re doing. This captain didn’t. The boat broke anchor, drifted west, and hit a reef. Gone.” Jansen snapped his fingers. “Like that.”
I kept a stranglehold on the bucking wheel. “I’m not an expert on driving a boat. You want to take this back?”
“Nah. You’re doing fine. The boat went down here.” Another stab at the chart, just west of a small, slender island. “Just off Loggerhead Cay. The guy who brought it north was held up at the campsites on Garden Cay, at Fort Jefferson. Here. Which is a few miles to the east.”
The fort I knew about.
Built in the mid-1800s to defend what was at the time the world’s busie
st shipping lanes, it eventually evolved into a jail for Union deserters during the Civil War. After, it continued to serve as a prison. Dr. Samuel Mudd, convicted in Lincoln’s assassination, was its most famous inmate. Disease and hurricanes forced its abandonment, and it eventually morphed into a late-19th-century coaling station for Navy steamers. The Maine left from there for Havana and history. Now it was a national park, showcasing the largest masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere. I’d seen pictures. A massive brick hexagon, hundreds of feet long, walls fifty feet tall and eight feet thick that consumed nearly the entire high ground of a featureless cay, making it appear to float atop the surrounding turquoise water. Its massive gun batteries, mounted in multiple-tiered brick casements, had been meant to hold their own against an entire enemy fleet. A perfect example of the old adage that forts were built not where convenient, but where needed.
“It’s got to be remote as hell out there,” I said to Jansen.
“It ain’t the Four Seasons. But there’ll be few people to get in our way.”
“You said the guy who brought the boat was on Garden Cay. Where is he now?”
“In custody. Good for us it’s illegal for someone from Cuba to be here.”