Copyright © 2025

Published by DOWN ISLAND PRESS, LLC, 2025

Beaufort, SC

Copyright © 2025 by Wayne Stinnett

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned,

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Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication Data

Stinnett, Wayne

Down Island/Wayne Stinnett

p. cm. - (A Jesse McDermitt Novel)

ISBN: 978-1-956026-86-3

Cover, graphics, and interior design by Aurora Publicity

Edited by Marsha Zinberg, The Write Touch

Final Proofreading by Donna Rich

Published by Down Island Press, LLC

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any

resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies,

events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Many real people are used

fictitiously in this work, with their permission. Most of the locations

herein are also fictional or are used fictitiously. However, the author

takes great pains to depict the location and description of the many

well-known islands, locales, beaches, reefs, bars, and restaurants

throughout the Florida Keys and the Caribbean to the best of his ability.

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Also by Wayne Stinnett

The Jerry Snyder Caribbean Mystery Series

Wayward Sons

Voudoo Child

Friend’s of the Devil

The Charity Styles Caribbean Thriller Series

Merciless Charity

Ruthless Charity

Reckless Charity

Enduring Charity

Vigilant Charity

Lost Charity

Elusive Charity

Liable Charity

The Young Jesse McDermitt Tropical Adventure Series

A Seller’s Market

Bad Blood

Cocaine Cowboys

The Jesse McDermitt Caribbean Adventure Series

Fallen Out

Fallen Palm

Fallen Hunter

Fallen Pride

Fallen Mangrove

Fallen King

Fallen Honor

Fallen Tide

Fallen Angel

Fallen Hero

Rising Storm

Rising Fury

Rising Force

Rising Charity

Rising Water

Rising Spirit

Rising Thunder

Rising Warrior

Rising Moon

Rising Tide

Steady As She Goes

All Ahead Full

Man Overboard

Cast Off

Fish On

Weigh Anchor

Swift and Silent

Apalach Affair

Dominica Blue

Down Island

Non Fiction

Blue Collar to No Collar

No Collar to Tank Top

Dedicated to James William Buffett.

It’s been over a year since you left us. We still follow you,

even as our own rivers grow deeper not shallow.

Rest in peace, Jimmy.

“Resilience is distinct from mere survival, and more than mere endurance. Resilience is often endurance with direction.”

– Eric Greitens

The Florida Keys

Jesse’s island in the Content Keys

Dry Tortugas, Florida

Thursday, July 31

It wasn’t unusual for two boats to tie up together near the abandoned fort. In fact, two small sailboats were rafted together inside the little lagoon, with two larger sailboats anchored separately on the north side of the massive brick structure on Garden Key.

By mid-afternoon, the ferries had already departed for the seventy-mile trip back to Key West, and the last of the seaplanes were either gone, or getting ready to fly out, leaving the tiny cluster of islands to the occasional sailboat or trawler that could carry what was needed for days or even weeks at sea.

The cruisers would have the run of the islands after that, including the old fort, for the whole evening and night, until the ferries and sea planes returned in the morning.

Santiago Corderro, in his thirty-three-foot Catalina, along with his two-man crew, was anchored on the north side of Loggerhead Key, not far from the fort. They were protected from the wind and waves out of the southeast there, and the only other boat in the anchorage, a small trawler with a flybridge, had been tied up alongside the Catalina for the last three hours.

What the two crews had come there to do had been accomplished in a matter of minutes, but Santiago knew that a quick meetup and departure looked suspicious to others, and he always planned on several hours for the rendezvous.

The last thing Santiago needed was to have some boaters thinking the two boats were doing something shady and reporting them and their location. His sailboat was small and slow, not what drug smugglers usually used, but the average person didn’t know that.

After the long, three-day passage from the Yucatan, Santiago and his men were exhausted. Once the trawler left at sunset, they’d sleep hard through the night and wait until later in the day to head back.

At least the return trip would be easier, with winds aft the beam all the way. There was always the danger of a hurricane at that time of year, but his little boat was equipped with the latest in weather and navigational software.

They were within sight of the old fort, just three miles away, and he could clearly see the two nearer boats, anchored just north of Garden Key, but not in any detail. He also knew that anyone on one of those boats could see his just as clearly, and with binoculars, they could see what he and his crew were up to.

Which was nothing.

Santiago and his two guys were just chilling in the shade of the bimini top, waiting. The two guys in the trawler were doing the same, kicked back on their flybridge.

To anyone looking closely, they were just a bunch of tired boaters, drinking and hanging out for the night.

There was a pinging sound from inside the Catalina’s cabin.

Santiago recognized it. He had an incoming message. Besides having top-shelf navigation and weather instruments, his Catalina also had satellite internet. He could access the web, send and receive emails, even look at porn, while hundreds of miles from any shoreline.

He debated ignoring the email. At least in the cockpit, there was a cool breeze coming off the water. But inside the cabin, with the sun beating down on the roof and only a small forward deck hatch open, it was brutally hot, with little air movement.

Deciding not to ignore the message, he rose slowly, then headed down below.

Sweat started rolling down his neck and face as soon as he reached the cabin floor. His laptop was closed on the tiny navigation desk, though still actively connected. He opened it and clicked on the encrypted email icon on the desktop.

There was only one message. A bounty was being offered.

Santiago wasn’t interested. He never did wet work, but he opened the attachment anyway. Perhaps he could help his employer locate the target.

The bounty was a big one, $250,000, which meant the poor sap’s days were numbered. The cartel had thousands of informants in major cities around the world, especially in South Florida, and wannabe sicarios were a dime a dozen.

There was a picture of a man and a woman in the email, obviously taken with a long lens, as the image was grainy. They were both fit-looking, probably in their forties, and they were standing just outside a restaurant, judging from the view inside.

The man, in respect to the door, was taller than average, with light hair cut short, and broad shoulders. He was clean-shaven and had some kind of tattoo on his forearm.

The woman beside him was probably taller than most women, with long, blond hair. For an older woman, she looked pretty good.

Santiago zoomed in on the man’s face, the target of the bounty.

He wasn’t young.

Not as young as at first glance, he thought, zooming back out.

The man wore shorts and a T-shirt, arms bulging at the sleeves. He zoomed back in and noted the crow’s feet around his eyes, and the forehead wrinkles partially hidden by a lock of hair.

He was much older than he appeared.

Santiago saw something else in his eyes, even though the image was a bit distorted by distance. His face registered a quiet assurance, as if whatever his eyes fell on, he didn’t consider a threat.

People didn’t live long in this business. Santiago knew that. To be old and have such a bounty meant one of two things. He was either new to the game and had screwed up royally or…

This is a very dangerous man, Santiago decided.

He read further.

Charter boat captain… lives somewhere in the Keys… well-established but secretive…. Uh-oh, former military.

Through the small window, Santiago watched as the American trawler captain climbed down from the flybridge and went inside without a word. Santiago had made the exchange with him a couple of times in the past few months and didn’t like him. He was too nervous for the business. He figured eventually the guy would get busted or piss off the wrong person, whether it was while moving product for the cartel or for someone else. The man was so arrogant that he made no secret of the fact that he worked for others, and Santiago just let it slide.

One day, the big-headed American would learn that when you work for the cartel, they owned you.

He closed the laptop and climbed back up to the cockpit, wiping his face with a damp towel, then resumed his position on the bench on the right side, out of the sun.

Morgan stepped out the side door of his trawler and looked back at him. Santiago didn’t know if Morgan was his first name or last and didn’t really care.

“How much longer?” Morgan asked.

Santiago sat up slowly, wiped the sweat from his face again, and looked at the man. “How long was it the last three times?”

“Over six hours,” he grumbled, then moved back along the rail a couple steps closer. “That’s eighteen hours of my life I’ll never get back.”

“It’s better than eighteen years, no?” Santiago replied, getting to his feet. “Look at you. You look like a smuggler, you act like a smuggler, and your boat is what a smuggler uses.”

“Watch how you talk, Pedro,” Morgan spat in egotistical derision.

Santiago ignored the taunt and stepped closer, pointing toward the two boats anchored near the fort. “Look at those people. They are relaxing and enjoying themselves. They are not smugglers.”

“I just don’t like all this sittin’ around,” Morgan responded. “I’ve half a mind to just untie and go.”

Santiago had already had enough of him after the last time.

“Go ahead, then,” he challenged the American. “Untie and be off. And when you reach your destination early, explain it yourself to Cartel de los Soles.”

August 1

Key West, Florida

It was late summer, close to noon, the temperature was already climbing up toward ninety degrees, and the hottest part of the day wouldn’t be until the afternoon. With the typical humidity pushing eighty percent, it felt hotter.

In fact, that’s what the weather guy was calling it now, the “feels like” temperature, reducing the idea to its simplest form for those who needed information spoon-fed. A combination of air temperature and the amount of moisture the air contains—the relative humidity— is used to arrive at a heat index. And today’s heat index was at least 1.1, making it “feel like” it was ninety-nine degrees in the shade.

Summertime in South Florida made the simple act of breathing a labor.

To me, it was just hot and muggy. A typical South Florida day, and nothing I’m not used to. But coupled with the fact that there wasn’t a breath of wind blowing in from the water as I walked away from Key West Bight Marina toward Duval Street, I was… uncomfortable.

I’ve also experienced extreme, bone-numbing cold temperatures, where, if you threw the contents of your coffee mug into the air, ice crystals would fall to the ground.

I’d take hot and humid every day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

The sun beat down on my shoulders until I reached a patch of shade on Greene Street. Crosswalks were for tourists. Locals crossed in the shade.

I didn’t want to be in Key West, and I wouldn’t have been, except for my curiosity. It was damned near impossible to control sometimes. I’d hear or read something, then go over the drop-off and into the abyss on the inanest subject, until I’d learned all there was to know, or more likely boredom and curiosity about something else had me chasing a different rabbit down the next interdimensional wormhole.

I could feel the air parting around me as I crossed diagonally at the corner of Greene and Simonton Street. It felt almost thick enough to need a machete to hack through. But any kind of physical exertion like that would only make things worse.

Beads of sweat rolled through five days of stubble down my cheeks and dampened the neck of my T-shirt. I could also feel it trickling down the middle of my back.

It was still nearly two hours until the sun reached its zenith. I grinned, happy that I’d remembered to bring my big hat.

One stroll around Old Town, Key West, would tell you the town had been laid out by a sailor. Or maybe an astronomer. The “east-west” streets were actually off true west by an angle slightly less than the island’s latitude, which meant even on the summer solstice, when sunrise and sunset are closest to true east and west, the sun never sets in a direct line with the streets. And the perpendicular streets were angled toward the prevailing wind.

Of course, the weather at home wasn’t any different. It was the same heat and humidity, with the same lack of wind, and the water was even hotter there, above ninety degrees in the Backcountry. The water around Key West was deeper and a few degrees cooler than where I lived, up island in the Content Keys, a few miles north of Big Pine Key.

In the Contents, we’re surrounded by clear, shallow water, except for Harbor Channel to the east, and the only way to get to my little two-acre patch of paradise was by boat. And it wasn’t easy to find.

A person would have to know the way if the boat had any sort of engine and propeller. Not knowing which cuts would lead you through the shallows and which ones dead-ended in a mangrove stand usually meant running aground, evidenced by the many scars through the turtle grass.

Kayakers sometimes found us by mistake, but a powerboat arriving at my island was by intent.

The more protected route, the one that a shallow draft skiff would take, involved navigating a series of unmarked natural cuts between Big Pine and the Water Keys. Backcountry skiffs were sort of like a bass boat for saltwater, small and fast, but they had a poling platform over the engine to push the boat over the really skinny water, and to get a better view down through it.

I’ve poled my own skiff across sandbars that were no more than eight inches deep.

The less-protected route was a direct line, north-northwest in Moser Channel from the Seven Mile Bridge for about ten miles, then out into the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, then turning hard to port and coming down Harbor Channel, a natural channel through the flats that lead directly to my island. Going that way, you were guaranteed not to run aground, even in a heavy trawler or sport-fisher. But going that way in a moderate blow from the north or south, the water gets choppy, ensuring that anyone in a flats skiff would get wet.

A couple walked past on the sidewalk, probably in their late twenties or early thirties. They looked like boat people. Key West was a major stop for cruisers, a jump-off point to Mexico for some, and to the Bahamas for others.

I’d learned early on that the waters around my chosen home required more than one kind of boat, and I had several. Many years ago, when I’d retired from the Marine Corps at thirty-seven, I’d started a charter fishing and diving operation in Marathon, and it grew, just through word of mouth.

Gaspar’s Revenge had been my primary charter vessel for a long time, a forty-five-foot Rampage convertible, which I lived on for a while, docked close to Dockside in Boot Key Harbor. When I built my house on the island, I’d kept her there. But now, she was back in Boot Key Harbor, tied up at the City Marina.

I was more of a charter business owner now, and no longer actually ran the charters myself. So it made more sense to keep her where she could be seen. The Revenge was twenty years old, but still turned heads in any marina, and that attracted business.

She’d been repowered twice since I bought her; the current engines were a pair of Rolls Royce V-10 marine units producing 1,500 horsepower each. From her slip at the marina, she could reach the edge of the Gulf Stream in less than twenty minutes, and since putting anglers on the fish was the name of the game, Gaspar’s Revenge was often the first boat out there.

El Cazador was a thirty-two-foot center console built by Winter Yachts up in North Carolina. She was kept under the house and used occasionally for anglers wanting to fish the Gulf or along Florida’s barren southwest coast. With an inboard diesel engine and a large fuel tank, she could go all day.

Under the house with Cazador was an eighteen-foot Maverick Mirage flats skiff with a 250 Evinrude, which I used for angling in the Backcountry, along with a seventeen-foot Grady-White center console, which was basically our workhorse, bringing supplies back and forth from Marathon or Big Pine. She was powered by a 140 Suzuki outboard, the second since I’d bought her.

For fishermen who wanted to visit even more remote places, I had a De Havilland Beaver floatplane, Island Hopper, that I could land in little, out-of-the-way lakes in the Everglades or fly out to the Dry Tortugas.

I owned a second airplane, a big, twin-engine Grumman Mallard flying boat. Ocean Hopper was kept in a hangar with Island Hopper at the airport in Marathon, but the bigger plane was more for personal or “business” use. With two big radial engines and needing a lot more room to land and take off, it wasn’t much use for chartering. But when it came to carrying a heavy load somewhere fast, she was my go-to machine. In the last several months, I’d flown a ton of supplies up to the Everglades, where a couple of my friends had been working for over a year to recover a wrecked German U-boat.

Last was our home away from home, Taranis, a fully autonomous sixty-six-foot custom-built trimaran. Last year, we cruised very comfortably all the way around the Caribbean Basin, spending days or even weeks in many ports of call and remote anchorages, completely off the grid.

She was powered by a pair of electric motors, one in each of the two outer hulls, or amas, as well as a big diesel main engine in the middle hull. Using just solar and battery power, she could cruise at four or five knots indefinitely, day and night, as long as there was enough sunlight to fully charge the batteries by sunset.

When there wasn’t, she had a dedicated generator to power just the two electric motors, apart from the main generator and battery system for the house loads—lights, navigation instruments, induction stove, refrigerators and freezers, and even air conditioning. But with nine hundred square feet of solar panels, producing eighteen kilowatts of electricity, the generators were rarely used. The sun provided enough energy for everything during the day, even charging the batteries, and at night, we kept electricity use to a minimum.

We’d intended to take Taranis across the Atlantic this year and spend some time in the Mediterranean but changed that plan for one that involved meeting fewer people.

It’s not that I disliked all people. It’s just the bad ones, and for whatever reason, I seemed to attract the worst of the worst.

The law of averages dictated that the more people around me, the higher the likelihood that I’d encounter those with bad intent.

It was those encounters that I didn’t like. When a collision was unavoidable, people got hurt.

Or worse.

I rounded the corner at Duval Street and entered Irish Kevin’s, a popular hangout for tourists and locals alike. As the door closed behind me, I was met with a blast of Arctic air, which caused the skin on my arms to pucker and a chill to run down my sweaty back.

Pausing for a moment to remove my sunglasses and let my eyes adjust, I looked around. The interior was well lit, but not nearly as bright as it was outside.

I hadn’t been to Irish Kevin’s in a while, but it hadn’t changed much that I could see. There were only a handful of patrons, which told me there wasn’t a cruise ship in town.

I spotted Drew waving from the end of the bar and walked toward him. Drew Murphy was once a yacht broker, but was semi-retired now, doing odd jobs and boat work. He lived on a catamaran, and I knew that when he was in town, he usually anchored over near Tank Island, which is now called Sunset Key.

Drew’s dog occupied the stool beside him, obviously lifted to that lofty perch, since she wasn’t much bigger than some wharf rats I’d seen.

When I looked down at the long-haired chihuahua, she growled at me, her eyes bulging for a second. She was a black and white furball, who sometimes thought she was Godzilla.

Drew wagged a finger at her. “None of that, Wilma.” Then he waved the bartender over. “Thanks for coming down, Jesse. Care for a beer?”

I nodded at the tall, tanned, and shapely young woman working behind the bar. “Red Stripe, please.”

My eyes scanned the people in the bar again as I sat down next to Wilma. It was an old habit. I already knew what each person in the place looked like and could describe their clothing down to choice of footwear, mostly flip-flops. I recognized a couple of locals, but the bartender was new.

She opened the cooler beside her and pulled out a stubby brown bottle. She was college-aged, with long, straight blond hair and an innocent-looking face. She reminded me of a girl I’d met in high school and dated for a while.

She quickly opened the bottle, then placed it on a napkin in front of me before turning to Drew and smiling. “Put it on your tab, Mr. Murphy?”

He nodded and winked at her. “Thanks, Tammi.”

I saluted him with the bottle. “Thanks for the beer.”

“My call must have sounded a bit cryptic,” he said, lowering his voice.

“Let’s just say you piqued my curiosity,” I replied, also keeping my tone low.

He reached into his pocket and then extended his hand below the edge of the bar, past Wilma, who sniffed it. “Here. Take a look at this.”

I accepted a folded piece of paper and looked down. It was a Bahamian $20 bill. I turned it over and looked at the back, then handed it back to him. “With that, you could buy the next round, too.”

Drew shook his head. “Some would, and obviously some have. This is counterfeit, Jesse.”

I took the bill back from him and looked at it more closely, feeling the texture with my fingers. I wasn’t an expert, but money felt different than regular paper. In the U.S., all bank notes were made of a special type of linen fabric, manufactured only for the U.S Treasury, and each bill had watermarks and imbedded strips to prevent counterfeiting.

I had no idea if The Bahamas did anything like that.

“How can you tell?” I asked. “Seems legit to me, and most stores on the island will take it, since it has a fixed one-to-one exchange rate.”

“Exactly,” he replied. “The Bahamas started using watermarks in 2005 to make it easier for the average person to spot a phony. Retailers know this and most wouldn’t have a problem accepting that one since the date on it is before ‘CRISP’, and older Bahamian currency is still in circulation.”

Governments, and especially the military, were big on acronyms, and the way he said the word “crisp,” I was sure this was going to be a new one for me.

“What does C.R.I.S.P. stand for?”

“Obviously a play on words,” Drew replied. “A crisp new one-hundred-dollar bill. More than likely, someone made up the words to match the acronym. It stands for Counterfeit-Resistant Integrated Security Product. The program began in 2005.”

I chuckled, then took another drink from my beer. “Those are some ‘high-dollar’ words.”

He laughed back. Then he got serious again. “There’s been a flood of counterfeit Bahamian currency hitting the banks recently. Some hundred-dollar notes, but mostly tens and twenties.”

That didn’t make sense. Counterfeiters usually printed larger notes, getting more bang for the buck. They could use a phony hundred-dollar bill to buy a ten-dollar burger and fries at a busy restaurant and get ninety bucks back in real money.

The problem with that was, people scrutinized larger denominations a lot closer, because it caused a bigger loss in the business’s revenue. That and the drug trade had put an end to American currency larger than $100. It made it harder for a smug druggler to carry around a million in cash.

Larger American currency is still legal tender, like the $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 notes, but they’re rarely seen, except by those who collect such things.

I studied his face for a moment. Besides having had a very successful career selling boats, Drew Murphy had once been with the Secret Service. Back in the 1990s, he was part of their counterfeit prevention team at the Department of the Treasury. If anyone knew a phony bill, he would.

“Is this an assignment?” I asked, point-blank. “I mean, is this an assignment for you? Because Jack knows I’m retired.”

Fifteen years ago, Drew was recruited away from his government job by none other than Jack Armstrong. Drew’s cover occupation as a yacht broker allowed him to move around easily in certain areas. Nobody would think a foreign yacht broker was out of place flying into a seaport, and he was actually very good at sales, and well-known in many of those ports. But he would often be investigating certain other incidents all over the world, things that didn’t always involve counterfeit money.

Drew grinned. “Jack also knows you’re bored and have an inquisitive nature—his words. Look, I’m too old for dangerous assignments, and besides, I’m more of an investigator. It’s just a little job. No danger in it at all. It might even involve a free trip to The Bahamas for you and the family.”

“I can go to there for free any time I want,” I replied.

“That’s right,” he said, still grinning. “That new electric boat you built. I understand you went all the way around the Caribbean on very little fuel.”

“Actually, over the entire five thousand miles,” I began, “we bought less than twenty gallons of fuel; around 250 miles per gallon.”

“Incredible!”

“Not really,” I replied. “We burned more, but the police in Dominica over-reimbursed us at the fuel dock for some help we gave them.”

He scooped up Wilma, holding her in one hand like a football as he stroked her head. “I’d been working this case for a month before I brought it to Jack, and now he’s invested quite a bit of resources into finding out how big the problem is and who the counterfeiters are. It’d be nice if I had some help from someone who knows the locals better. Real estate people and yacht brokers are persona non grata around here. Even if I am retired.”

“You know the bartender and I don’t,” I said. “And she seems to like you.”

“I’m a good tipper,” he offered. “But if I asked questions about a local, I’d get the silent treatment from her, just like everyone else who lives here. I’m an outsider.”

“Counterfeit Bahamian money?” I asked. “Kind of a low priority thing for Armstrong Research.”

He went on to tell me his suspicions over the next fifteen minutes and how it tied in with what he’d told me over the phone the day before.

“Why don’t you come up island for the weekend,” I said, then drained my beer. “Bring what you’ve got and lay it all out for me and Savvy.”

“To your island?” he asked. “When? How do I get there?”

“How long will it take to sail up to Harbor Key Light, north of Big Pine Key?”

“I can be there by tomorrow evening,” he replied.

“Follow your chart into Harbor Channel,” I told him, as I rose from my stool. “We’re the second island on the right.”

“Can I… bring anything?”

“Just the information you have,” I said, “plus any suspicions, well thought out. Savannah will pick it apart, and we don’t do anything unless we’re both on board.”

“Thanks,” he said, extending his empty right hand.

I watched Wilma closely as I shook his hand. “Oh, did I mention we have a dog, too?”

He lifted Wilma and allowed her to lick his chin. “Go-ood. Wilma will have someone to play with.”

I couldn’t help chuckling a little as I walked back out into the heat, thinking about the little five-pound chihuahua playing with Tank.

Once I’d retraced my steps, I climbed into The Beast and rolled down the windows before starting the engine. I let it run for a few seconds, getting oil up into the heads before I turned the AC on high and moved the lever to full fresh air.

The ninety-degree air coming in from outside was easier to cool than what was inside, which had to be near one-twenty.

The Beast was my 1973 International Travelall, a Keys car for all outward appearances. The top of the roof and hood had surface rust, with reddish-brown streaks running down the sides, especially around the mirror mounts and door hinges. Surfaces that weren’t rust had a faded light blue paint. Surface rust was the majority.

But that was as rusty as she’d get. The whole body and undercarriage had been thoroughly cleaned and sealed with ClearCoat, to keep it from rusting any further.

Old, ugly, rusted cars deterred thieves.

The first indicators that The Beast might be something other than a derelict Keys car were the wheels and tires. She had huge, off-road tires and aftermarket wheels, and sat higher off the ground than stock, thanks to an entirely modern suspension, steering, and drive train.

Only the steel body and glass were original.

The interior was likewise kitted out with a modern dash, instrumentation, upholstery, flooring, and sound system.

I pulled out of the parking lot and turned left on Greene, letting the wind suck the last of the heat out.

But I left the windows down by preference as the diesel under the hood chugged around the curve toward the bridge.

Savannah would want to know every detail about what Drew was doing, as well as his suspicions, before we’d commit to helping him with the investigation. But he was right about one thing.

I was bored.

We’d returned home several months after I’d nearly gotten my head caved in while we were in Dominica, and Savannah and I had agreed that our place was in the Keys and the Caribbean.

We still wanted to visit the South Pacific one day, but more than likely, we’d fly there and spend a season island-hopping in a rented yacht.

Several weeks ago, right after Independence Day, I was offered more for Taranis than what it cost to build her, if I was interested in selling, and I’d been tempted.

What was the point of having a world cruiser if you didn’t cruise around the world?

Finally, I turned onto US-1, the Overseas Highway, and headed back up island, driving just fast enough to keep up with the traffic. I didn’t get many chances to drive The Beast and had used Drew’s call as an excuse to do just that.

Besides, the drive gave me more time to ponder what I’d heard from Drew. From the suspicions he had laid out for me at the end of our conversation, it was clear he thought the counterfeiting was just the tip of the iceberg, and those behind it were up to something a lot more nefarious. So now I was pretty curious about the situation too.

It was only fifty miles to where I’d left my Grady-White at the Rusty Anchor in Marathon, and I was in no hurry, enjoying the shallow turquoise water and green mangroves of the Saddlebunch Keys rolling past as I drove.

The car ahead of me, a late-model Toyota, kept inching across the double line to see around a pickup towing a boat.

Ahead of the pickup was a UPS box truck and another truck and boat combination.

Behind me, I could see another car doing the same thing, a Dodge Challenger, closer than I liked.

I let up just a little, to give the guy behind me a better view of The Beast’s tubular steel bumper, which sat higher than the front of his hood. Plus, I knew what was about a mile up ahead and figured half the cars in the line of traffic were about to pull out to pass the other half, all with the hammer down, but with different size hammers.

At the first passing zone, the impatient Toyota driver pulled out, just as I expected, accelerating past the boat. In my mirror, I saw the Challenger and three more cars pull out into the passing lane.

I let up on the gas again as the passenger window came down on the Dodge and the kid in the passenger seat extended the one-finger salute.

I laughed as The Beast fell back from the truck pulling the boat just ahead of me. Living in the Keys, you got used to it.

The passing zones weren’t long, just a couple of miles, and that many cars trying to get past all those bigger and heavier vehicles was bound to cause someone to do something stupid.

A truck pulling a big boat can’t stop very fast. At least this guy had double tie-down straps holding his boat to the trailer. I’ve seen boats ride right over top of a pickup bed during a sudden stop. Even up onto the cab.

The cars behind the Challenger passed me quickly, and I slowed even more, opening up more distance since I didn’t have traffic behind me.

The guy pulling the first boat noticed this, and his brake lights came on twice, as he too opened up some room ahead.

The previous two days had been the lobster mini-season, or Sportsman’s Weekend, always the last consecutive Wednesday and Thursday in July, and there was always an influx of both cars and boats in the Keys. This year had been no exception. Next week, on the sixth, the regular season would open, along with commercial fisheries.

While not technically a “weekend,” a lot of Florida divers consider the mini-season a five-day national holiday and the Keys are flooded with divers, mostly from South and Central Florida. The Overseas Highway becomes clogged with traffic and the waterways clogged with boaters, the captains of which either don’t know the waters or don’t care.

I try to stay off the water during the mini-season, with all the Darwin award candidates around, but the guy in front of me seemed to be a far less aggressive driver.

The line of cars passed him, gaining on the Toyota, which was passing the UPS guy. I could see the discrepancy in speed, even if the driver of the Challenger couldn’t.

The last car in the line of passing vehicles hit the brakes and moved over in front of the first boat hauler. At least he could see it.

The Toyota was even with the second boat when the Challenger caught up and had to hit the brakes. That caused a chain reaction with the two cars behind it, both of which were following too close and accelerating. The second one swerved in front of the UPS truck, which slammed on the brakes.

The guy ahead of me was far enough back from the UPS driver and I was even farther back, so there was no panic braking from either of us.

The Toyota finally passed the lead truck, and rather than get in behind it, the guy in the Challenger hit the gas, just as the lane was ending.

Two oncoming cars had to swerve, but the asshole in the Challenger got ahead of the Toyota and kept accelerating, leaving everyone behind.

The car behind him swerved in front of the UPS truck, which had now backed down to the point that there was room.

I eased over in my lane a little and flashed the fog lights, a little salute to the guy for good situational awareness and being rational. Had it not been for me backing off to allow him room to slow down and open up the gaps ahead, somebody might have ended up in the water.

He flashed the running lights in return.

The vehicles ahead of him and behind me started bunching up again and I figured the guy in front of me wasn’t in any hurry either. The next passing zone was in five miles.

There were several landings that were closer to my island than the Rusty Anchor, like Old Wooden Bridge Marina on the north end of Big Pine Key. A newer concrete bridge replaced the original wooden bridge over to No Name Key, but locally, both the bridge and marina were still known by the names they’d always had been.

Old Wooden Bridge Marina was only eight miles from my island, compared to the nearly thirty miles it took to reach the Anchor.

But the Anchor was owned by my friend Rusty Thurman, and he knew just about everything going on in the Keys, so we usually went there for shore excursions, if for no other reason than to just catch up on the gossip and enjoy the best blackened hogfish sandwich in the Keys.

I slowed as the bridge to Big Pine Key came into view. The lower speed limit was very strictly enforced to protect the diminutive Key deer population on Big Pine and neighboring No Name Key.

The deer were the size of a Labrador retriever and this time of year, the bucks would have a full rack of antlers, which looked odd on a deer so small. The greatest risk they faced was cars.

Blue lights were flashing ahead. A Monroe County deputy had another speeder on the shoulder, who would soon be writing a check to the county.

As I got closer, I saw the distinctive taillights of the asshole in the Challenger, and that he had the window down. The cop was in his car with the windows up.

I reached down, flipped the switch to disengage the fuel limiter, and grinned. Just as I passed the cop car, I downshifted and floored it, knowing that the excess fuel wouldn’t burn off, and The Beast started “rolling coal.” Then I tapped the air horn twice.

Juvenile? Sure, but I’m not above a little sophomoric payback on top of karma.

I looked back in the mirror at the dense cloud of black smoke drifting over the Challenger and considered the debt paid.

Once through Big Pine and across Bahia Honda, the Seven Mile Bridge stretched out ahead of me, with the other side out of sight over the horizon, and I thought again about what Drew had told me.

He thought it was Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, that was behind the counterfeiting in both South Florida and in the tourist destinations in The Bahamas. He figured they were trying to drive out the local drug dealing competition by buying up quantities at street value using fake currency, knowing that the drug dealers would be the ones who came out on the dirty end of the stick.

When I’d pointed out to him that street-level drug dealers didn’t use banks very often, he explained that because of that, some of the counterfeit currency was ending up in legit businesses’ cash registers.

He’d gone on to explain that even if the street dealer used the fake money to buy more drugs to sell, sooner or later, someone was going to exchange the fake Bahamian currency at a bank for American money.

“And whoever that is,” he’d said, “they would know where the counterfeit bills came from, thus blackballing the street dealer from the importer.”

When I reached the leaning mailbox just past the old Kmart, which was now a surf shop, I turned in and felt the air temperature drop as The Beast was enveloped in the familiar dense tropical and sub-tropical foliage.

The smell of jasmine and frangipani filled the interior, and I remembered back to when I’d first visited the Rusty Anchor, only it was called Shorty’s Bait and Tackle at the time.

Rusty’s dad had sold the property to him so he and his wife, Dreama, could retire and see the world. Rusty and I were still in the Corps then, and he didn’t have the money to buy it when Shorty put the property on the market.

But I did.

Driving slowly under the dense canopy, leaves dripping condensation onto the windshield, I thought about how this driveway has been the only constant in all those years. Rusty had added on, turning his dad’s bait shop and bar into a restaurant, adding a marina, and even a dry-stack boat storage building where locals could keep their boats out of the weather.

But the shell driveway and surrounding jungle remained as they’d always been since before Rusty’s parents were even born. Aside from the meandering easement, most of the north side of the property was a wetland area, donated to the state by Rusty’s second or third great-grandfather. It was protected by the state so it would never be developed, and it was cared for and maintained by Rusty.

Coming out of the jungle and back into sunlight, I turned and parked The Beast in her usual spot beneath a live oak tree that was some distance from the restaurant and even farther to Rusty’s house. His old Chevy was parked on the other side of the tree, but I didn’t see his wife’s car anywhere.

Our two trucks had a combined age of nearly a hundred years, and parked under the tree in front of Rusty’s house, they looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell drawing.

As I climbed out of The Beast, I realized the long driveway wasn’t the only constant. My first car had been torched beneath this same oak tree, and I’d bought The Beast just inside, at the bar.

And I don’t think Rusty’s house had changed in over fifty years.

When I stepped into the restaurant and removed my sunglasses, I saw Bob Grant behind the bar, talking across it to Mitzi Larsson, one of the liveaboards who kept a boat at Rusty’s little marina.

“Hey, Bob,” I said, approaching the bar. “What are you doing here?”

“Rusty and Sid had to run into town,” he replied. “Sid asked me to look after things for a couple of hours.”

Bob had arrived in Marathon several years back, already a successful businessman, and had melded in with the locals. Then he lost everything he owned in a scam, arriving penniless and dazed at the Rusty Anchor one afternoon.

Rusty put him to work and got him back on his feet. I knew of dozens of locals who’d had a hand-up from Rusty over the years. And I was sure for each one I knew, there were likely five I didn’t.

“Mitzi,” I said with a nod, taking my usual stool at the far end of the bar. “How’s John?”

Johannes and Mitzi Larsson had sailed to the Keys from the Cayman Islands about four years ago and had been fairly permanent residents for the last two.

Johannes, or John, as he preferred, was born on Antigua to cruising parents who were from Norway, so he was a dual citizen of Norway and Britain, since Britain had been an overseas protectorate of both Antigua and Barbuda until 1981. Technically, I guess he’d be a citizen of all three countries, since Antigua and Barbuda had gained independence from Britain.

He was of average height and powerfully built, but had a very jovial disposition, with almost no accent.

Mitzi was off-the-wall funny at times. She was almost five feet tall, had sun-streaked, dark-blond hair, and was quite a few years younger than John, who, I guessed was in his late forties. She’d been born and raised up in Central Florida, a little town south of Melbourne called Fellsmere.

They’d met in The Bahamas while she was still in college, and she’d soon moved aboard his boat, Isbjorn, Norwegian for Ice Bear, a rugged, all wood, forty-two-foot ketch, built in his ancestral home specifically for blue-water cruising, and well adapted to northern climates.

“He’s busy with boat projects,” she replied. “Rebuilding a macerator.”

“Nasty job,” I said, as Bob lifted a Red Stripe from the cooler and gave me a questioning look. I nodded. “Thanks.”

“Are you having lunch?” he asked, as he absently wiped the clean bar top, something I’d seen Rusty do a million times. “I think there’s still some fish tacos left.”

“No thanks,” I replied. “I grabbed an early lunch down in Key Weird.”

Mitzi giggled. “Two more months and it’ll be just that. The theme this year is ‘Bedtime Stories and Magical Monsters.’”

She was referring to the annual Fantasy Fest, held in October, which drew thousands of people.

“I can only imagine what that might mean,” I said.

She smiled up at me. “I don’t think you can.”

Just then, the door opened, and Sidney walked in with Rusty right behind her.

“He’s been here,” Rusty said adamantly. “I can tell. His truck’s been moved.” Then he saw me at the bar. “And… he’s still here.”

In bare feet, Sidney was just shy of six feet tall, a little more than five inches taller than Rusty, but she rarely went barefoot, and today was no different—she was wearing three-inch heels. I confirmed the heel height when I stood and gave her a hug. We were at eye level with one another.

But with a few inches of thick auburn hair piled on top of her head, Sid made my six-three seem small.

“He was just saying that he could tell you’d been here,” she began, “on account of the tires on your truck being different.”

“Repositioned,” Rusty corrected her, going behind the bar. “Thing ain’t been moved in weeks and the letters on those big ol’ tires was in a different place.”

“Do you also know how many times they rotated?” I asked, returning to my stool.

“Har-har,” he replied, as Sid slid around the bar behind him, heading to the office.

She paused behind Rusty for a second as he bent to look in a cooler, put one hand close to his shoulder and started grinding her hips toward him, while pretending to smack his ass with her other hand.

Rusty turned and looked back at her, but she was already entering the office and closed the door behind her.

Then he turned back toward me and said, “I bet you can figure how many revolutions in your head. Where the hell ya been?”

“Key West,” I replied, trying to stifle a laugh.

“Key West?” he asked flatly.

I nodded. “I drove down there to meet someone.”

“I didn’t mean just today, ya dumb grunt,” he said. “You ain’t been by here in a long time.”

Rusty and I grumbled at each other and often resorted to name-calling, but it was only because we thought of one another as brothers and neither of us had siblings. Or even first cousins. Rusty had a few distant cousins in the Keys, descendants of his second-great-grandfather’s sister, and I had a few on my mom’s side, but hadn’t talked to or seen them in probably half a century.

I’ve known Rusty for a very long time, since before boot camp—we’d met on the bus to Parris Island. He was the reason I’d come to the Keys when I retired.

“Just laying low,” I replied, then grinned. “I didn’t know you cared.”

“Ya got an open tab, numb nuts,” he growled. “Hell yeah, I care.”

We both laughed.

“Y’all act like John and his brother, Ragnar,” Mitzi said. “Remember when he visited last year?”

Bob sat down beside her. “I don’t think anyone around here’s going to forget that for a long time.”

“What’d ya go down to Cayo Hueso for?” Rusty asked me.

“To see a guy I know,” I replied.

He gave me a quizzical look as Sid came back out of the office. “A boat deal?” he asked. “Or… somethin’ else?”

“Do you ever get Bahamian money here?” I asked. “I mean from patrons. Do people ever pay in Bahamian currency?”

Sid and Rusty looked at one another for a moment.

“That’s the reason we’ve been out,” Sid replied. “We had to go to the bank about some phony money we deposited with the night’s receipts last Tuesday.”

My expression must have tipped Rusty. “What’s goin’ on, bro? Who’d you meet in Key Weird?”

“You don’t know him,” I replied. “But he used to work for the Secret Service. At the Treasury Department.”

Sid moved closer. “It wasn’t a lot of money. But the bank manager said he’d have to turn it over to the Secret Service. Is that who your friend is?”

I shook my head. “He’s retired now.” Then I lowered my voice. “He’s an investigator for my old boss.”

“You ain’t never had a…” Rusty began, then stopped, and looked me square in the eyes. “Uh-oh, bro. They ain’t tryin’ to rope you back in, are they?”

The Catalina sloop looked out of place in the anchorage. For one thing, Pajarito was almost brand-new. And at just thirty-three feet, it was smaller than most of the boats around it, more of a day sailor or coastal cruiser, while the majority of the other boats in the anchorage were larger liveaboards or blue-water cruisers, and most were much older.

Key West was the jump-off point for cruisers heading toward Mexico for the winter. It was the last place to take on fuel, water, or provisions for more than three hundred nautical miles if going to the Yucatan Peninsula, or three times that to cross the Gulf to mainland Mexico.

Santiago Corderro was waiting in the cockpit of his Catalina 316 while one of his crew was sleeping down below. Though small, Pajarito could sleep seven people, if need be, with two in the forward V-berth, two in a cramped quarter-berth, one on the couch, and two more on the dinette, which could be lowered to a bed.

When they’d first arrived, a little before noon, he’d sent Mateo into town in the dinghy to talk to their contact there.

They hadn’t bothered to check into customs on arrival, as required, but had simply hoisted the American flag when they got near Key West.

Nobody checked day sailors. That was the main reason he’d chosen a smaller boat—it was less conspicuous, and of course, less money.

The previous night, after the trawler had left, Santiago and his crew were about to open the first beers to celebrate another completed run and were looking forward to a solid twelve hours of sleep, heat or no heat.

But then Santiago received a weather alert.

A tropical cyclone was building in the Western Caribbean and moving northward toward the western tip of Cuba. All three men on the boat had known without discussing it; their departure was delayed.

The storm was heading right where they had to go, and worse, if it turned easterly, even just a little, the Dry Tortugas wouldn’t afford a lot of protection.

They’d all simply looked toward Santiago, who’d then announced that it was time to return to America.

Though born in Venezuela, Santiago had grown up in Miami. In fact, according to his passport, down below in a watertight box, he hadn’t left the country in over two years, though he’d made more than a dozen round trips to Mexico in that time.

The same was true for his two crewmen, Mateo and Juan Gomez. As far as the American government was concerned, none of them had left the country in over a year, though they’d managed to make seven runs from the Yucatan to the Dry Tortugas and back, just since January. The current run would be number eight.

The forecast had projected the storm to pass into the Gulf of Mexico within two days, and since anchoring in a storm eighty miles from anywhere wasn’t a good idea, he’d ordered the crew to put the beers back in the little refrigerator and they’d gotten underway immediately.

They’d been sailing through the night for the last several days, so one more night wasn’t going to kill them. The passage from the Dry Tortugas had been rough, beating to windward all night, and none of them had slept much. When they’d finally sighted Key West just after sunrise, they were spent and in need of rest.

As anchorages went, the one just off Sunset Key wasn’t the best; the holding was less than ideal, and the currents were sometimes strong, giving it the nickname “Bowling Alley.” Your boat could be either the pins or the ball, depending on whose anchor started dragging.

But they were only going to be there for an hour or two while Mateo went ashore to meet their contact and see if there was a place to stay. If not, they’d continue up the island chain to Boot Key Harbor, where Santiago’s brother had a rental condo that included a boat slip.

The condo was literally just around the corner from a Publix supermarket. They could rest up and wait until the weather cleared so they could head back to Merida, on the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula.

But that wouldn’t be for at least two days with a storm out there.

Santiago heard the high whine of an outboard and looked across the channel at the busy dock area. His dinghy was zipping across the water, with Mateo at the tiller.

When his first mate pulled the little boat up to the stern, Santiago caught the line and tied it off to a deck cleat.

“I was told the house on Stock Island is full up,” Mateo said, climbing aboard. “So I checked the marinas. Many who were supposed to leave are staying, and others have reserved slips in advance of the storm.”

“I was afraid of that,” Santiago said, as he looked off toward the west.

There was good holding and protection in the Dry Tortugas from a squall or small storm, but he’d have hated to be caught way out there if the hurricane decided to turn and make a direct hit.

“What do you think?” he asked his friend. “Take our chances here to rest up or go to the condo in Marathon?”

Mateo looked out over the bow. There were dozens of boats directly ahead of them, any one of which could start dragging, and if one boat dragged into another, then both of them would likely start dragging, which could snowball and take out half the boats in the anchorage.

“This place has a terrible hold on a good day,” Mateo replied. “It is only another ten hours to sail to the protected harbor up there.”

“Are you sure you and your cousin are up for another sail?” Santiago asked with a crooked grin. “Because I’m beat.”

“We are not too tired,” Mateo said. “But it is another half day’s sail in the wrong direction to get back for the next load.”

“The loss of a few days is better than the loss of our lives out there,” Santiago said, looking west again.

“We’ve made it through the whole summer without a storm stopping us or even delaying us for long,” Mateo said. “We’ve done well, and in just six months, we’ve pocketed more than double what we used to earn in an entire year. Why push it when we don’t need to?”

Santiago nodded, then checked his watch. “It’s almost ten o’clock,” he said. “Boot Key Harbor is about eight hours from here. Let’s get the engine started and the anchor up. If we leave now, we’ll arrive before nightfall.”

I took the direct route home when I left the Rusty Anchor, and as soon as I cleared the Seven Mile Bridge, I brought the Grady up to a speed just high enough to stay on a flat plane, with only a foot of the hull and lower unit in the water.

High tide was in about an hour, so I knew there was nothing shallower than four feet between the bridge and Harbor Light.

The nimble, seventeen-foot Grady-White was solid everywhere but still light, which made it perfect for these waters, running back and forth to Marathon when needed. And it was a fun little boat to drive, which was the main reason I still had it.

With no wind, the sea state was flat calm north of the Seven Mile Bridge, the tide was flooding, and I knew the visual waypoints like the back of my hand.

Without navigational worries, the wind in my face, and a 360-degree view of glassy turquoise and gold water all around, my mind was free to wander.

Rusty had explained that since he’d remembered the guy who’d paid for his meal with the fake Bahamian bills, he’d had to meet with the bank examiner, who would pass the information on to the Secret Service.

The guy’s tab had been a little over twenty bucks and he’d paid for it with two $20 Bahamian bills. When Cindy, who was waiting tables that day, brought his change, he said he’d just returned from The Bahamas and still had three twenties, asking if she’d exchange them to save him a trip to the bank.

He'd been polite, tipped her well, and since the night’s receipts would be deposited at Rusty’s bank the next morning anyway, she didn’t see the harm.

Rusty said the guy didn’t look like a drug dealer or gang banger. But forgery being a more corporate crime, who knew? Still, Rusty was out about $120 for his trouble. Cindy had felt crushed, but Rusty had just laughed it off. He’d made more expensive bad deals in the past.

When I reached the flats to the southeast of Harbor Channel, I slowed and turned into a natural but unmarked cut that wound through the shallows toward my island.

The island was cut off from the world in almost every sense of the word. We grew or caught most of our own food, and loaded the Grady with other provisions about every two months. We made our own electricity from a large solar array that tracked the sun across the sky, got our water from a rain cistern or made it through a dedicated reverse osmosis unit, and we rarely received visitors.

Since the new cell tower was added on Big Pine, we had coverage a good mile farther to the north, and we were connected to the internet via Starlink, if we needed it. Aside from Alberto’s lessons, we didn’t use it very often. At least, not while on land.

Once clear of the cut, I powered up again and turned southwest into the channel for the short ride to my dock.

As I got closer, I saw Alberto and Tank walking out to greet me. Alberto was thirteen, a teenager now, and had gone through another growth spurt in the last year. He stood five-five now, and had lost a lot of adolescent fat.

“You’re back early,” he said, taking the bow line. “Mom said you wouldn’t be home until close to sunset.”

“It didn’t take as long as I thought in Key West,” I replied, killing the engine, then stepping off with the stern line.

“Yeah, she figured that it wouldn’t,” he said. “But she thought you’d be longer at the Rusty Anchor.”

I tied off the dock line and rubbed Tank on the shoulder and up his neck. “How you doin’, boy?”

He rolled his hip onto my feet and lifted his big head so I could rub his neck. At just over nineteen months old, Tank was physically fully grown but still retained much of the playfulness he’d had as a pup.

However, at just over 120 pounds, he was no lap dog.

“Where’s Mom?” I asked.

“She and Lauren are in the garden,” he replied, referring to one of our new caretakers.

Lauren and Larry Justice had met as teenagers at a school up on Grassy Key for troubled South Florida kids. With the help of volunteers, paid teachers, and charitable benefactors who not only gave their money, but also their time, the school had a very good success rate.

Lauren and Larry were two of the standouts. They’d turned their lives around, finished high school and then college a year ago, and then come back to the school to teach. They lived in the house where my previous caretaker had lived for many years.

Jimmy Saunders and his girlfriend, Naomi, had moved on to bigger and better things, now farming oysters up on the mainland, near Flamingo.

My friend Chyrel Tankersley had arranged for Larry and Lauren to meet us just as soon as we’d returned from the Caribbean. She’d heard there was a lot of work to do on the island and the couple had been staying with her until they could find a place of their own, but on two teachers’ salaries, there wasn’t much to pick from. Renting wasn’t as bad in Marathon as it was farther down island, and the school paid them more than public school teachers earned, but that would only get them a room in a mobile home.

By the end of dinner, I’d hired them and provided the accommodation they needed as part of the deal. And just like that, we had a parttime workforce to help tackle the chores that had been neglected.

Tank led the way to the foot of the pier, and I walked along with Alberto behind him.

“You’re not putting the boat inside?” he asked.

“We still have a little light left,” I replied. “I thought maybe you and I could check the crab traps in the basin. How long have they been soaking up there?”

North of my island was a fairly deep basin, and by deep I meant four to five feet. It was nearly a mile long and half a mile from my island to the last fringing islands of the Content Keys.

Alberto looked at his watch. “About fifty-three hours. They should have a few.”

“Let’s tell your mom first,” I suggested, as we bypassed the steps up to the deck surrounding three sides of our house.

Tank continued onto shore, and we followed him around the corner of the boathouse to the open interior of the island.

The boathouse was the area beneath the house and deck, roughly fifty by sixty-five feet and fully enclosed. While it might look like a two-story house from the outside, everything below the deck and house consisted of two large dock spaces. At one point, my forty-five-foot Rampage offshore machine had been kept down there.

“You’re back early,” Savannah said, as she and Lauren walked toward us, each carrying a basket.

We grew a lot of fruits and vegetables on the island, using an aquaculture system to also raise Louisiana crawfish and catfish to eat and sell locally. The water from the fish tanks flowed slowly through the vegetables, which absorbed the nutrients in the waste and added oxygen to the water, which was then pumped back up to the fish tanks to start the slow process again.

“I didn’t stay long at the Anchor,” I replied, taking the basket from her. “This looks good.”

“Carry that over to the tables, please,” she said, as Alberto took the other basket from Lauren and led the way to the middle of the island, where our outdoor kitchen and tables stood.

Tank parked himself in the shade from the stone grill and chimney, his legs stretched out fore and aft and his head up, alert.

Besides our house, and the one Lauren and Larry lived in, there were two more on the north side of the island, and they’d been used in the past to house everything from anglers to spec-ops troops and a communications center.

“It’s finally balanced again,” Lauren said, taking a tomato from the basket and holding it to my nose.

“Smells fresh,” I said, as I placed the basket on the table nearest the stone grill.

“And the catfish are thriving,” she continued. “They’re a lot more active than they were two weeks ago.”

“Remember what I said when you and Larry first came here,” I began, “about how I…” I glanced at Savvy. “Er, that is, how we sometimes do investigative stuff.”

“What’s going on, Jesse?” Savvy said, taking a seat.

I sat across from her and motioned Lauren and Alberto to sit also.

“I told you back then,” I said to Lauren, “that for an abundance of caution, I would bring you and Larry in if we were doing something like that. Remember?”

“Complete transparency,” Savannah said.

Lauren nodded. “Yes, I remember.”

“The guy I went to Key West to meet is investigating a counterfeiting ring he thinks might be working in the Keys and The Bahamas, and he’s asked me and Savvy for help.”

Alberto used a long hook to deftly snag the float line, and, wearing gloves to protect his hands from anything that might have attached to the rope, he quickly hauled the trap line up, announcing, “At least four more!”

I put the outboard in neutral, letting the Grady drift as I helped him pull the trap up onto the gunwale. It wasn’t that it was too heavy for him, it was more that the trap had to be held out away from the boat to keep from scratching the hull, and his arms weren’t long enough.

It’s said that if you measured across a person’s back with their arms outstretched, the distance from fingertip to outstretched fingertip would be within an inch of the person’s height. In boxing, that measurement is called a boxer’s reach, and it was accurate for Alberto and Savannah, who both had a reach within half an inch of their height, but I stand six-foot-three, or seventy-five inches tall, and my reach is slightly over seventy-eight.

Alberto calls it the “ape factor.”

“Good thing we brought a big bucket,” I said, opening the door on the side of the trap.

He was right. Four crabs were nearly plate-sized, but two more were very small. There were no size limits for blue crab, but we tended to throw the little ones back. I checked the four larger ones for eggs, and not finding any, dropped them into the bucket.

Alberto rebaited the trap as I got the little ones out, then we put it back in the water and let it sink to the bottom.

“Not a single stone crab,” Alberto said. “That’s kinda weird.”

Stone crab season was still more than two months away, but we almost always caught one or two while fishing for blues.

“Maybe they know something about the upcoming season we don’t,” I suggested.

“I hope not,” he replied, then tossed the red and blue float in after the trap. “That was the last trap.”

“How many did we get?” I asked, nudging Tank aside at the helm.

As Alberto counted, I turned the boat around and idled back toward our island.

“Twenty,” he said, coming up beside me. “Plus one slipper lobster.”

“That and half the blues will go into the freezer,” I said. “Mom wants ten for dinner this evening.”

“Yuck!”

“I thought you liked crab,” I said. “At least you did last week when you put away a dozen at Dockside.”

“I mean yuck cleaning them,” he replied. “That part’s gross.”

I conjured up my best Cajun accent. “You gotta take out de dead man, boy. Dat bad juju.”

Alberto laughed as I approached the T-head of the dock on the north side of our island. Taranis was tied off to the main part of the pier on the other side of the T as well as having her bow tied to the back of the T-dock itself.

I’d considered keeping her at the city marina, but due to her thirty-four-foot beam width, she’d take up two of their larger slips, which would cost a fortune. We were planning a trip to the Yucatan and Belize after Rusty’s birthday in November. So, we decided to keep her at the island until then.

I stepped slightly away from the helm. “Drop me and the crabs here, Son,” I said. “Then would you mind taking the boat around and put it away for me?”

He nodded and I moved over to the gunwale, as Alberto maneuvered the Grady to the dock. I didn’t bother tying it off but held the boat steady against the dock for a second, then quickly lifted the bucket up onto it.

“Coming with me, Tank?” I asked, as I stepped up onto the planks.

He sat down on the foredeck.

“I’ll be up to help you clean them in a minute,” Alberto said, as he reversed the outboard and spun the wheel away from the dock.

“Take your time,” I told him, then lifted the bucket and started toward the foot of the pier.

At thirteen, Alberto was really coming into his own, performing chores he saw needed doing without being told, driving the boats, even doing overnight watches during some of our longer crossings last year.

It’d probably take him fifteen or twenty minutes to go around the island, come up the little channel to the house, turn the boat around, and back it into its slip.

By then I hoped to be finished.

Opening the storage box at the foot of the pier, I got two smaller buckets out, one for the cleaned crabs, and another for the shells, and then I started to work.

Cleaning crabs for grilling doesn’t take long. Just remove the top shell, the lungs, and the head or mouth. I’m not really sure. The face?

After that, it’s just a matter of marinating and seasoning them, then putting them on a hot iron grate over an open fire for about five minutes on their backs and ten on the bottoms, allowing the meat to cook in the half shell.

We tended to do a lot cooking over open fires, driftwood being the most abundant fuel source on the island, and by far the cheapest. I’d tried propane many years ago, but lugging bottles around was a major chore when the place you got refills from was a thirty-minute boat ride away.

Cooking with electricity was wasteful when the energy to do it came from a solar panel or battery, which was our only source of electricity at night, and all four structures were now air-conditioned.

Sure, we had a state-of-the-art small power grid and could run everything on the island from the Tesla Power Walls and giant sunflower-type solar array. But why waste electricity when the wood was free and right there? It was ridiculous not to use it.

Besides, the colors of the flame when burning driftwood was always a show in itself.

Every morning, there was more driftwood on the southeast and east sides of the island, blown ashore by the constant easterly wind from deep in Florida Bay, the shallow body of water between the Keys and the Florida mainland.

About two weeks after a big storm hits the Everglades, our supply of driftwood goes way up. If we didn’t burn it, it’d just pile up and become an eyesore. Some days there was a lot, sometimes just a little, but over the years, I’d learned just how much we’d need for a day of cooking and bug repellant, and had created four spots just inside the treeline to stack the driftwood where it’d get maximum sunlight for four days to dry out enough to burn. It was the dissolved minerals that were left behind from the evaporated seawater that created the colorful flames.

Every evening, we moved one of the piles from the drying area to the fire pit for cooking and to keep the bugs at bay.

When I’d first bought the island, the only thing on it was mangroves, a couple of palm trees, some sea grapes, and a heavy, metal fire ring, which I’d relocated to an upwind spot close to the treeline.

The smoke from the fire ring worked as a natural mosquito repellent, and the wind coming through the mangroves dissipated a little of the smoke across much of the island. And since most bugs were attracted by body heat, they died by the thousands when they flew into the fire.

There were only two crabs left to clean when Alberto and Tank came running between the bunkhouses.

“Wow!” he exclaimed, as they came to a halt. “You’re done already?”

“Just about. Did you move the firewood yet?” I asked, knowing he probably hadn’t.

“Not yet.”

“I’ll finish up here,” I said, taking the next-to-last crab out of the bucket. “You go bring up the next stack of driftwood.”

“Sure thing,” he said, then hurried off.

Tank remained, sniffing around the discard bucket of top shells, guts, and crab faces.

“Stay outta that,” I told him. “Savvy uses the shells for stuffed crab.”

He looked up at me and chuffed a light bark.

Tank was a large, mix-breed dog. His mother was a black Lab, a working canine with the Miami-Dade Police, and his father had been a Tibetan mastiff, or mountain dog, a very large breed whose males weighed up to two hundred pounds, bigger than any wolf species, from which they were bred to protect livestock. He had all the best traits from both breeds, being highly intelligent and a good swimmer, as well as a gentle giant who didn’t feel threatened by anything or anyone.

And why should he? He weighed well over a hundred pounds and had two jaws full of “mouth knives.”

“In a little while,” I said to Tank, then picked up the three buckets and headed inland between the bunkhouses.

He understood the words. We all used the same line with him to teach him patience, and he’d become much better since he’d turned a year old. He now understood that “in a little while” didn’t mean no, only that he couldn’t have it right now but would be getting some soon.

“Alberto said you did pretty good,” Lauren said, sitting in the sun at one of the tables, snapping green beans.

“Twenty blue crabs and a lobster,” I replied, putting the three buckets on the end of the bench. “You could be doing that inside where it’s cool, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” she replied, smiling. “But I like the sunshine and it’s not that hot.”

Some people, me included, seemed better adapted to a hot and humid climate. She didn’t show a drop of perspiration on her face.

“When’s Larry getting back?” I asked, as I opened a stainless steel cabinet next to the wood stove and removed a bowl and tray, also made of stainless steel.

Our little island could act as a proving ground for metal longevity studies. Salt air permeated everything, and if there was any flaw in a stainless steel product, it’d be found.

“Before sunset,” she replied. “He’s spending a little extra time after class with this one kid.”

I sat next to her and started snapping beans. “What’s the kid’s problem?”

She shrugged. “Like most, I guess. Broken home, dysfunctional family, falling behind in school, being ignored.” She paused and looked over at me with a grave expression. “Larry thinks he was molested.”

“I see,” I replied.

Larry had been at the school for a year before he met Lauren. He came from a broken home, but from what I’d heard, both parents were good people and tried to be active in his adolescent life. It turned out that when he was a boy, before his parents divorced, he’d been sexually abused by a priest.

So it was understandable that he might take special interest in a kid that went through what he had.

But I knew it would come at a cost to Larry—having to relive the past.

Alberto returned, dumped the wheelbarrow by the fire pit, used his knife to cut the twine that bound the bundle together, then put about a fourth of the stack back in the wheelbarrow.

“How’s he dealing with it?” I asked Lauren. “I mean… what happened to him when he was a kid.”

She looked over at me with sad eyes. “He cries at night, then we talk about it.”

Larry Justice was a man’s man. He loved the outdoors, individual sports like fishing, rock climbing, sailing, diving, and adventuring. He was the same height as me and probably a few pounds over my 220, with broad shoulders, powerful arms, and a narrow waist.

I didn’t know how to respond to Lauren’s revelation. Larry and I were almost two generations apart in age, and I’d been raised by my grandparents, whose views, morals, and ideals had shaped me. So really, in some ways, there were three generations between me and Larry.

As a kid, I was told to “suck it up” and “walk it off,” neither of which helped for all things. And how does one “walk off” what he’d been through?

“Will this be enough?” Alberto asked, pushing the wheelbarrow up toward the stone fireplace.

“Looks about right,” I said, as I joined him at the stove, happy for the interruption. “What color do you think it’ll be?”

“The flames?” he asked. “Purple!”

“I’m going with blue,” I said, as I began to break up some of the smaller pieces.

Pulling my lock-blade knife from my belt, I began shaving slivers of wood from the side of one of the larger branches, letting them fall into the fire pit. Then I piled the curly pieces of dry wood in the center and covered them with broken twigs. Alberto helped me stack larger and larger pieces around and over the kindling, leaving the front exposed.

“Here’s the marinade,” Savannah called out, as she crossed the clearing. “And I have the rice and beans on the stove.”

She placed a large plastic bowl on the table, then removed the lid to reveal a brown liquid filling it less than halfway.

One by one, we placed the crabs in the bowl, allowing the marinade mixture to cover them as they sank to the bottom.

“What’s in it?” I asked her, sniffing.

“Rufus gave me the recipe and ingredients,” she replied, but didn’t elaborate.

I grinned at her. “Then I guess I don’t need to know.”

“He said it’s an island improvement over a Cajun recipe,” she said, pulling a small glass jar of chopped and dried herbs from her pocket. “He said to let them marinade for at least half an hour, then season the backs liberally with this, half an hour before putting them on the grill.”

I took the little glass jar and shook it. “Doesn’t look like his usual ‘swimmers’ seasoning.”

“It isn’t,” she replied with a smile. “Just trust me.”

I laughed. “You mean trust Rufus. You don’t know what’s in it any more than me, do you?”

Savannah smiled. The sun was at her back and her windblown hair flowed loosely over her shoulders, creating an almost halo-like effect around her face.

“No, I don’t,” she stated. “I have no idea what’s in that jar, and I didn’t recognize half the ingredients in the marinade, either. I just know it’ll be good.”

Of that, I had no doubt. Rufus was the chef at the Rusty Anchor down in Marathon and had been since about the time I’d first arrived in the Keys to stay. He was an ancient Jamaican man, who some said was over a hundred, an age which, given the content of some of his stories from childhood, was very likely. He claimed not to know his actual birthday, except that it was a long time ago. But he was fit, active, and still worked hard. His grandniece had been helping him in the kitchen for the last several years.

I placed the small jar on the stainless steel tray for later and got a lighter from the cabinet drawer. After lighting the fire, I put a few more twigs in front of the kindling.

The dried driftwood began to crackle as the fire took hold. There was no need to blow on it or use lighter fluid. The stove faced east-southeast, the direction of the prevailing wind. But today, there still wasn’t much to speak of. Just enough to bend the flames a little and carry the smoke away.

Tank rose from his shady spot and chuffed, looking off to the east. A moment later, I heard the high whine of a small outboard moving north in the main channel.

“Sounds like Larry’s back,” Alberto said. “Come on, Tank. Let’s go give him a hand.”

He ran toward our house, with Tank lumbering at a trot beside him, his big paws kicking up sand with every step.

The sound of the outboard slowed as it neared the cut through the shallows.

“So… what is it that you guys will have to do?” Lauren asked. “I mean about the counterfeiting thing.”

“I’m not sure yet,” I replied honestly. “The man conducting the investigation is coming here tomorrow evening to lay out everything he has so Savvy and I can decide if we want to help or not.”

“Larry and I can make ourselves scarce,” Lauren said. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, so maybe we’ll go do something.”

Savannah and I shared a look, and I gave her a slight nod.

She put a hand on the younger woman’s. “We’d like you to sit in.”

I nodded. “Living here means sharing everything, including knowledge of a possible threat. I’m not saying this investigation will be a threat, but we want you and Larry to be able to make informed decisions.”

She looked at me with a puzzled expression. “Decisions about what?”

“If something happens that’s outside your comfort zone,” Savannah replied, “or you think might present a danger to you, then you should know beforehand.”

Lauren looked toward our house, where Larry, Alberto, and Tank were just coming around the corner. “Is it dangerous for Alberto to be here?”

“Not in the least,” I replied. “If Savvy or I thought that he or you were in any kind of danger, we’d move you off the island temporarily.”

“You make all this sound like some kind of military exercise,” Lauren said, looking from Savannah to me.

“It’s just the way his brain works,” Savannah replied. “Jesse will do everything possible to keep everyone on the island safe and happy. That, I promise you.” She looked over at me and smiled. “We just have some innate desire to correct injustices when we see them.”

“Hiya, Jesse!” Larry called from halfway across the clearing. “Miss Savannah. I hope you both had a great day.”

To say that Larry Justice had a positive outlook would be an understatement. He seemed to always be upbeat and cheerful, and his attitude was contagious.

But it hadn’t always been that way.

He and Lauren had found one another through the school, where they’d both ended up for different reasons. They’d both been high school juniors when they’d dropped out, though Lauren was nearly a year older, and to hear each of them tell their story, the other was just as instrumental in saving them as the school itself had been.

“We certainly did!” Savannah exclaimed, matching Larry’s exuberance. “Lauren and I picked more than ten pounds from the garden and Jesse and Alberto caught a bunch of crabs.”

I glanced over at her and grinned. Larry had a way of spreading his positivity to others.

“Is that thing at the Rusty Anchor still on for tomorrow?” he asked Savannah. “I’m taking a couple of kids on a culling mission in the morning around Chyrel’s dock.”

Rusty’s latest idea to bring in more business also fit in with his being a good steward of the ocean.

One evening last spring, a group of kids from out of town had planted an idea in Rusty’s head when they’d returned to the boat ramp at the Anchor with more than two dozen lionfish, and asked if Rufus could cook a few for them and offered for him to keep the rest.

It wasn’t an unusual request. Some of the guides who worked out of the Rusty Anchor preferred to provide fresh fish to Rufus in exchange for a hot meal in the evening.

But those kids had brought back lionfish and nothing more.

Lionfish were an invasive species from the Indian Ocean and South Pacific. They had venomous spines and, in the Atlantic and Caribbean, few natural predators. But more than that, they reproduced at a truly alarming rate, far faster than the local reef fish populations.

Females produced up to a million eggs a year, and the fry hatched from the eggs with those long, venomous spines ready for action. So smaller predators on the reefs couldn’t touch them. They grew quickly, gobbling up larger and larger reef fish as they got bigger. Only very large groupers, snappers, and some sharks would go after adult lionfish, but so many were reaching adulthood the predators couldn’t keep up.

As of late, they could be found in coastal waters all up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and all over the Caribbean and much of the Gulf of Mexico.

“Lionfish Safari Saturday,” Savannah stated, nodding her head. “This will be the fourth week in a row, so I guess it’s going to be a regular thing.”

“Chyrel has a lot of lionfish around her dock?” I asked the young man.

“Some,” he replied, giving Lauren a kiss on the cheek. “There’s a long limestone ridge just thirty feet off her dock, though. It runs a good fifty yards off to the northwest, with a high relief, and it’s loaded with them.”

“Rusty mentioned that all through last week,” I began, “people kept dropping off cleaned lionfish, which Rufus kept on ice until Saturday morning. If anyone brought in two, they got a free lionfish lunch or dinner on Saturday. Local dive ops are getting in on it.”

Larry stepped over the bench and sat opposite me. “How many did they take in?”

“Several hundred,” I replied. “Rufus started cooking some in a smoker early Saturday morning, then used more for fish tacos at lunch, and even a full dinner menu, with lionfish grilled, fried, blackened… you name it. He said nearly two hundred people came just for dinner alone.”

“Eat ’em to beat ’em!” Alberto exclaimed.

As the sun got nearer the horizon, Savannah went up to the house to put the rest of dinner on the stove. We had a four-burner induction cooktop and convection oven, which used far less electricity than a conventional stove and oven. We also had the same units in Larry and Lauren’s house, as well as aboard Taranis. I got a good deal when we were fitting her out.

I carried the bucket with the remaining crabs over to the massive pantry we’d built below the western bunkhouse. Jimmy Saunders, who lived here on the island with us for many years, had enclosed the area beneath the western bunkhouse, creating a one thousand-square-foot storage space with dozens of shelves for dry and canned goods, and a large bench in the middle that had cabinets below it.

Before we’d left for the Caribbean, I’d paid a guy in advance to look after things and to enclose that area under the eastern bunkhouse while we were gone. When we’d returned from our cruise, the pile of lumber to do the job was at least stacked under it, but no sign of any work done.

So, over the last month, I’d been doing the job myself, to have a dry place to store all kinds of other stuff, not to mention a shop to work on all of that stuff. Our island’s like a huge yacht with just a handful of people to run it. More things broke here than on any of the boats.

There was a good bit of lumber and materials left over, so I’d added a slightly raised floor in one corner, and bought a huge, twenty-four-cubic-foot freezer for that area. Getting it up here from Marathon had been no easy task; it was far too big for the Grady, so we’d used El Cazador, my larger inboard center console.

Figuring that the freezer would use less energy if the storage room was insulated, but reluctant to go to that expense, I simply enclosed and insulated a closet around the freezer that was eight feet by eight feet, the size of the raised floor. I ducted the cooling air intake and hot discharge through the wall just below the steps going up to the comm shack at the west end of the building.

With nothing inside the insulated closet except the freezer, and the hot air from the compressor being dumped outside, I’d hoped to lower the freezer room’s temperature just a little.

When I opened the door and stepped inside, it was noticeably cooler. I flicked the light switch and once the single, bare LED bulb in the ceiling came on, I closed the door behind me.

The stainless steel surfaces of the freezer were cold to the touch, which cooled the room slightly, and in theory made the freezer more efficient.

I put the ten blue crabs in a basket in the freezer that already held probably forty or fifty more. I had commercial tags for ten traps and what we didn’t eat, I sold exclusively to Rufus. Or rather, I paid my bar tab with them. We did the same in lobster season, as well as with some of the fish we caught.

We were fairly self-sufficient on the island, growing or catching almost everything we ate. The addition of the monster freezer meant much more time between provisioning runs. I estimated we could support the five of us, plus Tank, for up to six months if we had to.

Even more, if need be. Besides being our floating home, Taranis added another eighteen kilowatts of power to the grid, and her water maker could produce forty-five gallons of drinking water per hour. Of course, when the reverse osmosis was running, turning seawater to freshwater, it was using some of that electricity. But with most of our water coming from the cistern above the house, making water on the island didn’t happen often.

Everyone had scattered by the time I returned to the tables, probably already out on the north pier for sunset.

I removed the cleaned crabs from the bowl and laid them out on the platter to douse with a good sprinkling of whatever Rufus put in the jar.

Opening the small fridge under the counter, I slid the tray inside, then pulled my phone out and looked at the time.

It was 1955, only fifteen minutes until the sun went down.

“Perfect timing,” I said to the wind.

Away from civilization, our lives revolved more around sunrise and sunset than a clock, with tides and current having more control over our day-to-day activities than a schedule.

In winter, we ate dinner earlier than we did in summer, went to bed earlier, and slept longer. Mammals are preconditioned to slow down and hibernate in colder months with shorter daylight periods, and we embraced that on the island.

I checked the fire, added a little driftwood, and closed the damper slightly. Alberto was right. Now that the dancing orange flames had died down, what was smoldering glowed an eerie purple.

I headed toward the house to return the bucket to the Grady-White for the next trap pull and found Savannah putting the rest of the green beans on the stove.

“It’s almost sunset,” she said, as I strode across the room to the stairwell. “These’ll just simmer for a half an hour. Did you season the crabs?”

“Just did,” I told her, heading down. “I’ll be out in a minute. Just putting the bucket away.”

I hit the switch as I descended the steps, and several LED lights came on below the house, illuminating the dock area and our boats.

Gaspar’s Revenge used to take up nearly a fourth of the space below the house and deck, but with it now docked down at Marathon City Marina, there was room to spread out, which meant not having to move one boat to get another out.

El Cazador was docked on one side of the centrally located steps, along with the Grady-White, and I walked around the narrow walkways toward it to stash the bucket.

On the other side of the steps, my Maverick skiff was tied up alongside a wooden boat I’d built years ago with the island’s first caretaker, Carl Trent.

Larry’s seventeen-foot Cape Horn was also docked there, lashed between the skiff and Knot L-8. I’d yet to ride in it, but it looked like a sturdy little boat, perhaps a little overbuilt for the conditions we usually had in the Middle Keys.

I quickly put the bucket under the Grady’s forward casting deck, then retraced my path around the walkways and back up the steps to the living room.

Since rebuilding after Hurricane Irma, there was no way to access the dock area from outside, except through the massive double doors on either side that extended beneath the surface of the water.

To reach the south pier I had to go upstairs, through the house, out onto the deck, and then down another set of steps. Inconvenient at times, but nobody was getting into the boat house easily anymore.

From the deck, sixteen feet above the water, I could see the others sitting at the end of the long pier, facing the sun. Savannah had a small cooler beside her.

There were only a handful of days a year when we couldn’t see the sun go down over water. In summer, the sunset view was from the south pier, looking between two neighboring islands. In late October, the setting sun moved far enough to the south that it was behind one of the little mangrove islands and couldn’t be seen over water from the north pier until early November. The same thing happened in reverse from late February into March. A total of twenty-eight days, one lunar month, when we couldn’t watch a salty sunset.

I’d forgotten about that.

“Lauren said we’re going to have a visitor tomorrow,” Larry said, as I sat down on the dock beside Savannah.

She opened the cooler and offered me a Red Stripe, which I accepted with a nod. Then the two of us explained to Larry the purpose of Drew Murphy’s visit and who he was, including his connection to Armstrong Research.

“I can’t tell you very much about Armstrong,” I told him. “Just imagine if the white hats had unlimited funding and no red tape to deal with to get things done.”

“Dad was the captain of Ambrosia,” Alberto said. “Mr. Armstrong’s flagship.”

“Not since their nuclear-powered research vessel went online,” Savannah said. “Our connection with the Armstrong network today is more of a social network.”

“Why would an organization as big as that be interested in someone making fake Bahama money?” Larry asked.

“That’s the big question,” I replied. “And one that I’ll know the answer to before we agree to help him.”

“What kind of help does he need from you two?” he asked.

“Remember when you first came to the school?” I asked him. “The local kids were kind of rough on y’all.”

“I wouldn’t say rough,” Lauren said. “Nobody was mean or anything, but they were very cliquish, and pretty much ignored the kids from the school.”

“And later, when you decided to live here?” I asked.

“Well, that was over a year ago,” Larry said. “But yeah, the locals as adults weren’t much different from the kids.”

“And now that you’ve been here awhile?” Savannah asked.

“It’s better,” Lauren agreed. “People became a lot more receptive when we came out here to live with you guys, though.”

“Murphy’s an outsider,” I said. “And folks here in the Keys are very tight-lipped around non-locals, as you’ve experienced. Oh, bartenders and waitresses will chat you up, but ask anything personal about them or another local, and a cold shoulder would be the best reaction you’d get.”

“He thinks since you’re a local,” Larry began, “you can get answers he can’t. Makes sense to me.”

“Jesse has lived here for a long time,” Savannah said. “But even he’s still a bit of an outsider to some.” She smiled as she looked toward the setting sun. “A few might even call him reclusive.”

“Just like that limestone ledge off Chyrel’s dock,” I said, ignoring the barb. “Local waters, local knowledge.”

Larry leaned past his wife and looked over at me. “Wild guess?”

“Murphy thinks the counterfeiting operation is just a smokescreen,” I replied. “He suspects there’s something bigger in the works and whoever is doing the counterfeiting is doing it for some reason other than financial.”

The crabs were incredibly delicious, and I made a mental note to see if I could find out from Rufus what was in the seasoning. Some things he shared freely, like the recipe for the marinade, but he could be stubborn about his spices.

We sat up for an hour by the fire, but it’d been a long day, a long week, and what looked like was going to be a long, hot August. So we all turned in early to the relative comfort of the two air-conditioned houses.

Alberto and I played chess, with Tank curled up on his bed by the door to Alberto’s room, and Savannah was reading something on her tablet.

“I’ve been thinking of remodeling,” I said to no one in particular.

“Why?” Alberto asked.

I looked over at Savvy. “Our room’s huge. And Alberto’s is the size of a closet.”

“It’s big enough,” he said, moving his queen’s knight off the back row. “All I do is sleep in there.”

“You’re a teenager,” I said, reaching for my bishop, then stopping to look closer at the board. “And you’re turning into a young man. You need more room.”

“What would you do?” Savannah asked, laying her tablet on her lap.

“Push the exterior wall of his room and the day head out five feet,” I replied. “The room’ll be sixty square feet bigger, and have a private head.”

“Three bathrooms in a 1,000-square-foot house?” she asked.

“One thousand and one hundred-square-foot house,” I corrected.

She giggled. “Oh, by all means, then.”

“Does that mean I get my own shower too?” Alberto asked, taking my bishop. “Checkmate.”

I grinned at him. “One of these days.”

He rose from the table. “Not likely,” he said, as he headed toward his room. “G’night.”

Savannah tried to muffle her laughter.

Early the next morning, I was up with the sun. There was a lot of work to do before heading to Marathon and then the Rusty Anchor for the afternoon shindig. I hadn’t donated any lionfish, so we’d have to pay full price.

I made another mental note to get more involved in that project. I considered myself to be a good steward of the ocean, as Rusty was, and killing lionfish on sight was part of that. Maybe it was time to take it up a notch.

A weekly lionfish cull dive charter, maybe? We could offer a free charter to the diver with the biggest tally. It’d probably attract a good many local divers. A friend in Key Largo was doing the same thing.

With heavy gloves, lionfish weren’t dangerous. All you had to do was use a pair of heavy scissors to cut off the spines and fins, then just clean and fillet them like any other grouper.

It was Saturday.

In the past, Saturdays were harvesting days. And the crawfish and catfish tanks had been stabilized; they were now healthy and growing.

We had deliveries to make.

Tank raised his head when I slipped quietly out of my and Savannah’s bedroom. I lightly slapped my thigh, and he rose, stretched fore and aft, then followed me out the door.

It was still dark—those darkest of hours before dawn. The sun wouldn’t be up for well over an hour, so I opened the little weatherproof receptacle at the top of the back steps and flipped the switch inside it. A string of LED lights came on around the railing that surrounded the raised deck all around the two fish tanks. Another string ran along the back of the house, just below the deck, and there were lights on the steps themselves as well.

When we reached the bottom, Tank went left to his favorite tree, and I simply unzipped at the corner of the house. A moment later, with our morning ritual out of the way, I headed for the tanks to get started, while Tank walked around the island’s perimeter, nose to the ground. He did this every morning without fail, as well as in the evening, while the rest of us sat around the fire ring.

When we’d left the island last November, I’d hired one of the fishing guides to take care of the place. Our island was fairly autonomous, and most things didn’t need maintenance.

The solar array turned itself on at the first hint of daylight, and the panels unfolded like flower petals, creating a twelve-foot round solar array that automatically tracked the sun across the sky like a sunflower, so that’s what we called it.

The electricity the sunflower created went through a power management system, which charged the two massive battery banks built into the walls of the mechanical shack. Inverters changed the battery voltage to what was needed for the different systems on the island, which likewise didn’t require much maintenance.

But the crawfish and catfish tanks needed at least weekly attention, and of course, the vegetables had to be picked.

Dominic was supposed to come out to the island every weekend, pick anything that was ripe, and donate the fresh fruits and vegetables to the school. He was also supposed to harvest the largest of the crawfish and catfish to take to Rusty.

But upon our return, the garden had rotting vegetables in it, and most of the fish and crawfish were dead, with a slick of algae floating in the water. Apparently, Dominic had disappeared two months before our return, and from the look of things, probably hadn’t been out to the island more than a few times.

It’d taken seven weeks of hard work to get things operational again, and Dominic was still nowhere to be found.

With the crawfish, harvesting was easy. The tank had baffles separating it into four equal-sized areas, with the openings in the baffles progressively smaller toward the end, where the water spilled over into the sump to gravity-flow through the garden.

We always fed the crawfish at the big end where the overflow from the garden was pumped back up to start the loop again. The plants absorbed the nutrients in the fish waste, mostly in the form of dissolved nitrogen, which made the water cleaner and more oxygenated for the fish.

As they grew, the crawfish moved toward the larger end to get more food, and the scraps went downstream for the little ones. So all I had to do was scoop them out of the big end with a net.

I got two large containers ready, filling them about halfway with water from the tank, which would be replenished with the next rain, then began dipping the net.

I quickly filled the first container with about fifty or so market-sized crawfish. In the past, it’d been easy to fill four containers with over two hundred live Louisianna crawfish and deliver them to the Rusty Anchor by midmorning on a Saturday.

The second container took a bit longer to fill, since the smarter adult crawfish hid in the corners of the tank, and occasionally juveniles came through the baffles in search of food. Then I’d had to stop and move them back to the proper section of the tank. The baffles afforded the smaller crawfish protection from the larger ones.

With the catfish, it was a bit more labor-intensive, since that tank was only divided into two parts. I used a long net to catch as many as possible, then chose only the largest to harvest. We didn’t have any more large ones, but the fingerlings in the smaller section were growing fast.

Alberto joined me as the sun started peeking through the mangroves to the east. “You must’ve gotten up really early,” he said, checking one of the containers. “They look healthy now.”

“Thanks to Lauren and Larry,” I said. “If they hadn’t come out here just before we got back, there might’ve been nothing left.”

“Except the biggest,” Alberto said.

He was right. Without being fed, the catfish had only an occasional bug to eat, should one fall into the water. They slowly starved, stopped reproducing, and most died eating the rotting remains of their own.

The crawfish lived on the bottom, so their food sources had been even more limited. They’d turned to cannibalism, killing and eating the younger ones until all four sections of the tank held nothing but large crawfish. After that… survival of the fittest.

“Want me to help you carry them to the pier?” Alberto asked.

With the addition of the crawfish, each container was nearly full and could hold the equivalent of ten gallons of water, about ninety pounds, including the containers themselves.

Each container had slots on the sides that carrying handles could slide into, so two people could carry them like a stretcher. Normally, I squatted and just got my arms under one set of handles and grabbed the other overhand, then stood and carried the load supported by my elbows close in front of my belly.

I slid the short handles through the slots and looked over at him. “It’ll be about forty pounds you’ll be lifting.”

“I can do it,” he stated. “I carried two full jerry cans to the beach on Norman Island.”

“Then let’s get this show on the road,” I told him, using Savannah’s line.

Tank chuffed in agreement.

I had to walk hunched over to keep the container level as we trudged through the sand around the house—not just to keep water from sloshing out, but to keep from putting more of the load on Alberto, who was over a foot shorter than me.

We stopped at the foot of the pier for a second and set the container on the sand, then he stepped up onto the dock, bent down, and lifted it again before we resumed carrying it to the middle of the pier, where we’d tie up the Grady in a while.

“Want to take a break before we carry the other one?” I asked him, walking back across the island.

While walking across an entire island might sound like a long journey, it wasn’t. Our island was barely two acres at low tide, and only three hundred feet from the northern tip to south and four hundred from east to west.

“I’m good,” Alberto replied, a bit cockily. “Let’s get it done before breakfast. I already made my bed.”

I laughed inwardly.

I’d probably mentioned to him a few times how getting something accomplished before breakfast, even if it was just making his rack, was an essential way to start the day. If nothing else went right after that, you’d at least have a comfortable bed that evening.

And for Alberto, that task was carrying almost half his body weight the length of a football field. Twice.

“I’m impressed,” I told him when we set the second one down on the dock beside the first. “That’s a heavy load for a little man.”

“I’m five-five now,” he said crossing his arms. “And by the end of the year I bet I’ll be over a hundred pounds.”

He probably would. Alberto had grown considerably taller over the last year. Now his weight was catching up, but he didn’t have any adolescent fat left. Savannah said he was skin and bones, although there was definitely lean muscle and sinew there too.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Savannah called from up on the deck.

We both looked up at her and Alberto replied, “We had work to do.”

She smiled down at him. “I’ll get breakfast started. Will you help me break some eggs?”

It was still pretty early when the Grady glided into Rusty’s little marina with the four of us on board. Larry had taken his Cape Horn straight to Chyrel’s house on Grassy Key, where he was going to meet four kids from the school who wanted to help out. He promised to meet us at Rusty’s at noon, hopefully with a bunch more lionfish.

The 140 Suzuki burbled quietly down the single long fairway, boats lining each side all the way to the turning basin. With only a single fairway cut into the limestone many generations ago, the basin was essential. It was far easier to go all the way in and turn around in a boat than it was to back out.

The canal and basin had originally been built by one of Rusty’s ancestors to moor a large schooner. Over the decades it’d filled in with runoff and detritus until there was almost no water left by the time it reached Rusty’s hands.

Although new permits weren’t being approved to dig canals or channels, Rusty had felt he was within his rights to maintain what’d already been built. With ancient plans and charts in hand, and citing other restoration projects, he got permission to return the little marina to what it’d been in its glory days, a schooner’s berth and turning basin.

He’d worked for months, using a big backhoe on a barge to dig a century’s worth of sediment from the bottom, deepening and widening the canal until the backhoe’s bucket met the limestone bedrock.

“And maybe a smidgen more,” he told me once.

When finished, the channel through the shallows, as well as the canal and turning basin, were over twelve feet deep, with the channel and canal being nearly eighty feet wide. The turning basin was big enough for a sixty-foot boat to turn around in, even with Rusty’s barge tied up at the end.

Lauren was sitting on the little seat in front of the console with Savannah. She turned toward her and asked, “Is anyone even up yet?”

Alberto looked up at me and grinned, already knowing the answer.

“Some of the liveaboard people might still be sleeping,” Savannah replied. “Friday nights here can run late.”

“You workin’ banker’s hours now?” Rusty asked, stepping out onto the dinghy dock. “Sun’s been up for an hour.”

“We know,” Alberto replied, beating me to the punch. “We watched it come up after we loaded the boat. Me and dad started harvesting at 0500.”

He handed Rusty the bow line, and Savannah looped a cleat with the stern line.

Rusty squatted down to cleat the line, then looked up at Alberto standing over him on the casting deck. “You’re gettin’ just as mouthy as your pop.” Then he grinned. “Up at 0500, huh?”

“Dad was already half finished.”

Rusty looked up at me and then back to the boy, grinning again. “Your pop’s the second-hardest workin’ man I know.”

“Who’s the first?” Alberto asked.

“Why, me of course,” he replied, laughing. “I was up at four, but I didn’t get to bed until midnight.”

I lifted one of the containers up onto the little finger pier. “And he has to take a nap in the middle of the day.”

The two of us had been sharing good-natured barbs for decades now.

Rusty laughed some more, obviously in a jovial mood. “True dat,” he said. “Ya finally got somethin’ Cajun to bring me?”

“About eighty or so,” I replied, helping Savannah up to the dock. “Fat, hard, and happy.”

“That’s what she said,” Savannah quipped, without missing a step.

Rusty’s eyes widened for a moment. “The way it looked… a coupla months ago,” he stammered, “I’m surprised ya had anything left.”

“It’ll be slow going for a while,” Savannah explained. “We have quite a few baby crawfish already, but the catfish are barely fingerlings. It might be after the first of the year before we can resume harvesting them at the rate we did before. But I’d say you’ll be getting the usual 200 to 250 crawfish a week… oh, I’d guess by October.”

The crawfish and catfish we raised grew quickly, which was what made them so easy to farm. Under ideal conditions, a crawfish could reach sexual maturity and start reproducing just three months after hatching, and they were already market-sized by then. At four months old, they could be up to five inches, and the females would have laid eggs at least once. And in fall they reproduced more.

Catfish, on the other hand, took anywhere from eight months to a year to begin reproduction.

“How many lionfish have been brought in?” I asked Rusty, as I lifted the second container up onto the pier.

“A lot,” he replied, taking Lauren’s hand as she stepped out of the boat. “Where’s Larry?”

“Hopefully adding some more,” she replied. “He took four boys from the school on a culling mission this morning.”

“Good on ’em,” he said, then turned to me. “Near eight hundred, I’m guessin’. Should be a good turnout all day. Rufus fired up the smoker when we closed the bar last night, and he slept beside it.”

“I thought I smelled wood smoke,” Savannah said, then hooked Lauren’s arm. “Let’s go see.”

As they walked across the yard, they passed Bob Grant and John Larsson coming down.

“Need a hand?” the big Norwegian asked, as they headed out onto the pier to join us.

“Run ahead and tell Rufus what y’all brought,” Rusty said to Alberto, as a commotion erupted inside one of the containers. “Tell him to get some ice ready. Them things’re feisty.”

As Alberto raced ahead, Bob and Rusty picked up one of the containers and John and I got the other one.

“Y’all stayin’ ’round that long?” Rusty asked me as we trudged up the slight incline toward the deck on the right side of the restaurant. “Till October?”

“Probably the end of the year, at least,” I replied. “Kim and Marty are closing on their new house just before then and are having a housewarming Christmas.”

Kim was my youngest daughter from my first marriage. She and her husband, Marty Phillips, had been married for nearly three years now and both worked for Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as sworn law-enforcement officers. Last year, they’d both been offered promotions and administrative positions, but in different parts of the state. They’d declined, preferring to stay together up in Flamingo.

Last spring, they’d started construction of their new home on Grassy Key and sold their property up on the mainland to Jimmy Saunders, contingent on the closing of their new home. Finally, just last year, the state offered them both promotions to lieutenant, but again not in the same regional office but close.

Kim worked out of the Marathon law enforcement office, and was in charge of a three-boat squadron, tasked with monitoring the waters of the Middle Keys, The Backcountry, and up to Florida Bay. Her admin duties were light enough that she spent the majority of her time on the water.

Marty had been transferred to the Miami law enforcement office, where he patrolled Key Largo down to Florida Bay.

They’d both commuted to their new jobs separately since then, him taking to the road for a long drive through the Everglades, and her taking straight to the water from their dock in Flamingo.

“Besides the housewarming,” I added, as we trudged up the yard, “somebody’s got to be there to navigate when you pull that sub out of the muck.”

Bob looked back over his shoulder at Rusty. “Is that really going to happen?”

“Looks like it might,” Rusty replied. “We jumped through all their hoops and managed to cut through some government red tape, thanks to Billy. Construction of the new locks started six months ago, in anticipation of the application for dredging going through.”

“Yeah, that’s good,” I said, following them up onto the deck, where Rufus’s semi-enclosed kitchen stood at the back. “Good thing you and Billy didn’t go through with your first plan.”

“What was that?” John asked.

“They wanted to blow up a series of dikes,” I replied, “and ride the swell out of the Glades.”

“Woulda been a helluva lot faster, bro,” Rusty said, as they put the container down.

“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast,” I reminded him.

Rusty straightened and turned to face me. “Yeah, well, sometimes a man just gets an itch to blow shit up.”

Originally, or at least since I’d arrived in Marathon, the deck at the Rusty Anchor was smaller. It’d been added to the right side of the structure by Rusty’s dad, with plans to expand the bait shop. But the canal was so shallow, few boats could get in.

Rusty had completely torn off the old deck and built a much larger one that wrapped around the front as well. The open-air kitchen was at the back of the deck, where patrons could watch their food being prepared while drinking a coffee or beer at the small bar.

A raised stage was at the right front corner, where Rusty had live music playing four days a week, with a steady stream of good talent coming through.

Savannah and Lauren were by the stage talking to two other women next to a table covered with small plates, stacks of paper napkins, and a tray of appetizers, most likely smoked lionfish. A large fan stood nearby, blasting the table to keep any bugs away.

In between the kitchen and stage were a number of umbrella-covered tables, some occupied, mostly by locals. There were more tables along the front, shaded by five colorful triangular sunshades made of lightweight material and resembling sails. Three were anchored to the side of the building with their points attached to three tall posts along the deck’s rail, and the other two were flipped the opposite way, with the points attached to the building, between the bases of the first three and their bases supported by the posts.

“What ya got dere, Cap’n?” Rufus asked, as he stepped out of the kitchen’s door, which was always propped open.

If I had to guess, the air temperature was probably over eighty-five, and inside the kitchen, I felt certain it was over a hundred. But the old Jamaican looked as fresh in his white apron and black shirt and shorts as if he’d just stepped out of the shower, showing no sign of having been up all night smoking lionfish and preparing for the big shindig.

“About eighty crawfish, sir,” Alberto announced. “And they’re healthy again.”

“Dat so?” Rufus asked him with a smile, opening the top container and reaching in.

He lifted one of the crawfish out, and the crustacean spread its legs and pinchers as wide as it could, flitting its tail.

“Ya, mon,” Rufus said, showing it to Rusty. “Look how bright and clear de eyes are. And lawd, dese must be five inches! Ya want me tuh count dem all?”

“Naw,” Rusty said, as he pulled his little notepad out of his back pocket. “Eighty’s a good round number. At two dollars a head, that’ll be a hunnert and sixty bucks. Want me to put that to your fuel tab?”

“What’s it up to?” I asked, knowing it got under his skin.

Rusty loved trading and bargaining and always preferred to have the upper hand. Many times he’s turned a junked fishing reel into a boat, just by fixing things and trading up to some other thing that needed fixing.

But it was always a direct exchange, this for that, and each walked away with what the other traded. I was buying my fuel in advance with what we grew or caught, and when it came time to fill up, I’d get a full tank and Rusty’d get nothing.

Oh, there’d been times in the past when my kitchen and bar tab were way more than what I caught, especially back when I lived on my boat in Boot Key Harbor and walked over to the Anchor just about every evening.

“Prolly enough to fill that gas-guzzlin’ Revenge,” he muttered.

Savannah glanced back at the stage for a second. “Those two seem nice,” she said to Rusty. “Are those their real names?”

“Holly and Dolly? As far as I know, yeah.” He glanced over toward the stage. “I didn’t think to ask. They’re on break from recordin’ up to Nash-Vegas. Studio musicians.”

“Heya, Jesse!” a familiar voice behind me said, as I heard footsteps on the stairs.

I turned to see Dink Wilcox striding toward me, his long, intricately carved walking stick in his left hand and Hannah Parker’s hand in the other.

Hannah was a bartender at the Brass Monkey and last winter, they’d both been with us in the Windward Islands, from St. Kitts down to Dominica.

I’d had my doubts about her during the trip. Dink had always been a good-natured guy, and he’d recently become fairly wealthy. I’d thought she’d only been after him for his money, and from the start, that seemed to be the case.

Dink didn’t care.

The woman standing beside him now, though, was a far cry from the one who’d insisted on wearing a short, clingy, nightclub dress and heels to a beach dive bar.

In my opinion, she looked a lot better without all the makeup and fancy clothes. Her hair hung loose, framing a tanned and pretty face, then cascading over a white tank top. Below that, she wore stylish but casual shorts, and no shoes.

I shook Dink’s hand and gave Hannah a brief hug. “I thought you two were still on vacation.”

“We just got back,” Hannah replied. “If you’d told me two years ago that I was going to spend a whole month in a fish camp in Honduras chasing giant tarpon, I would have said you were nuts and then asked what a tarpon was.”

“After that trip on your boat,” Dink began, “and Hannah catching her first gamefish, she’s hooked.”

“Punny,” Hannah said, smiling brightly at him, then turning toward Savannah, with a look of excitement in her eyes. “I’m saving up for a trip to Belize to go after big permit. Dink said he’d take me there, but he’s covered our last three trips, and I don’t think that’s fair.”

Dink grinned and pulled her closer to his side. “So to hurry that along, she’s moved in with me.”

It was late morning when Santiago awakened and rose stiffly from the bed. He was still groggy, and it took a moment to remember where he was.

They’d sailed through the night, again, and he’d been totally exhausted when they brought Pajarito into the harbor, then docked it behind the condo.

Fortunately, his cousin didn’t have anyone renting the place, and said he could stay as long as they needed. It had three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, and as soon as they’d gotten inside, Santiago and his men split up, showered, and fell into their respective beds.

Heading to the bathroom, Santiago used the toilet, washed his hands and then splashed cold water on his face before opening his little kit. His teeth felt nasty. A few minutes later, wearing just his boxers, he entered the living room, stretching his arms over his head.

Juan was already up, standing at the sliding glass door looking out over the docks. He, too, was shirtless.

“Anything wrong?” Santiago asked the younger man as he moved toward the kitchen.

The coffee pot was half full, so he reached for it with one hand, and an empty mug on a saucer with the other.

“Nothing, jefe,” Juan replied. “A man and woman stopped to look at your boat for a second. That was about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been standing there watching all night.”

Juan turned and smiled. “No, jefe. Just since a little after the sun came up. That was a rough two days.”

Santiago nodded, then sat in a plush white chair and picked up the TV remote to switch it on. As expected, the news of the storm was on, and the reporter was talking about what preparations people should be making.

“The storm weakened to a depression after crossing the tip of Cuba,” the reporter said, standing on a windy beach somewhere. “However, it is expected to intensify quickly as it moves across the Gulf. According to all the models, it poses no threat to South Florida, but we will likely experience rougher-than-usual sea conditions in the coming days as the storm begins to move toward the Big Bend region.”

“What’s the Big Bend?” Juan asked.

“North Florida,” Santiago replied, sipping the strong coffee. “Where the coastline curves into the panhandle.”

“How long before it’s okay to head out again?” he asked. “I don’t like being cooped up like this.”

“We don’t have to stay cooped up,” Santiago replied. “We’re just limited by how far we can walk for a day or two, until the storm passes through. My cousin said a grocery store is nearby. We’ll need to find it to get some food.”

“It’s right there,” Juan said, pointing with his coffee cup. “Just the other side of the channel.” He put his face closer to the glass, looking to the right. “A short walk, jefe. The end of this canal is just beyond the end of the building we’re in.”

“Or there’s that restaurant we passed coming into this channel,” Santiago said. “And a couple more across the harbor.”

“There’s a place here doing a big lionfish cookout,” Juan suggested.

While swimming under the boat several months earlier, cleaning the bottom, Juan had been stung by one of the venomous fish. His ankle had swollen to double its normal size, and he’d been in excruciating pain, but he’d had to just bear it, since they were illegally in a foreign country at the time. For most healthy adults, the sting wasn’t fatal.

“Lionfish, huh?” Santiago said, as Mateo entered the room.

“What’s that about lionfish?” he asked.

“Juan was saying there was a cookout nearby.”

“A lionfish cull,” Juan added. “They’re dangerous and aren’t supposed to be here.”

Mateo moved toward the coffee pot. “So are we. Sort of.”

“We are neither,” Santiago replied. “I have no doubt you can be dangerous, Mateo, but what we do requires us to be wary and never attract any attention.”

“I know, I know,” Mateo said with a sigh, sitting in the chair next to Santiago. “But we still have to eat, right?”

“What time does it start?” Santiago asked Juan. “And where exactly is this place?”

Juan looked down at his phone, tapping furiously with his thumbs.

“A place called Rusty Anchor,” he replied. “It’s a ten-minute walk from here.”

“Then let’s get dressed,” Santiago said, standing and drinking the last of the coffee. “We haven’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon, and I’m starving.”

Twenty minutes later, the three men were walking along the side of the highway with cars passing at high speed. They walked in single file, with Juan leading the way, face glued to his phone.

He paused and looked at a beat-up old mailbox on a weathered post that was leaning slightly. “This is it,” he said, walking toward an overhang of live oak branches with Spanish moss draping down.

The shell road seemed cooler as the trio entered the shade of casuarinas, oaks, and palms and continued in silence. Somewhere ahead of them, Santiago heard an amplified woman’s voice saying “test” over and over.

Finally, they emerged into a parking lot, surrounded by a large property with three buildings to the left and boats docked in a canal to the right. The shell road ended in the parking lot, and down a slightly sloped yard, Santiago saw a seawall and the ocean beyond it.

One building in back was obviously a business or something. It was a tall metal building with large rollup doors. Next to it was a two-story house with balconies on the front. The building closest to the parking lot was low, with a metal roof, and windows all along the front that had large storm shutters propped open to block the sun but still provide vision through them and allow air movement.

At the far side of the main building, beyond an outdoor dining area that was protected from the sun by colorful shades, was another deck. At the corner, two dark-haired young women stood on a small stage, setting up microphones and speakers.

“Test, one, two,” one of them said into a stage mic, as the other appeared to be adjusting a sound board.

Santiago and his men walked across the parking lot as the two women stepped off the stage and started talking to two other women, one about the same age as the two musicians, and the other a little older, but both were attractive blondes.

A giant rusty anchor lay in the middle of the front yard with a circle of mulch surrounding it.

Mateo laughed. “That anchor was probably there when they built the place.”

Somehow, Santiago sensed that the opposite was true, and the artifact in the yard represented the history of the house and those who lived in it.

They went inside and chose a table in the corner flanked by two couples enjoying a late breakfast or early lunch. None of them paid any attention to Santiago and his crew. After all, it was South Florida.

“What can I get for you fellas?” a young blonde asked, offering menus. “Today’s catch of the day is⁠—”

“Lionfish?” Juan asked.

“You guessed it,” she said with a smile. “What are your names? Are you on the list?”

“What list?” Santiago asked, a bit suspiciously.

“The list of lionfish hunters,” she replied.

“Oh, no,” he replied. “We didn’t take part in the cull. We just arrived this morning and heard about this.”

“No problem,” she said. “It’s just five dollars a plate, all you can eat. But if you leave and come back for dinner this evening, that’ll be another five dollars.”

“I can eat a lot,” Juan said. “One of those fuckers stung me once.”

“Rufus is still cooking breakfast right now,” she offered. “Lionfish burritos, blackened, grilled, fried, or smoked.”

“How long will this be going on?” Santiago asked.

“We’re expecting a few more people to bring some more in today,” she replied. “But so far, we have almost a thousand, so it’ll go until they’re gone.”

Santiago placed two Bahamian twenty-dollar bills on the table. “Will you accept this for three lionfish plates and three coffees? You can keep the change. We arrived by boat and it’s a farther walk to the bank.”

She picked the bills up and looked at them closely, and for a moment, Santiago thought she might be able to tell. But then she looked back at him and smiled. “Sure, it’s a direct exchange.” She pointed to a table in the middle of the room. “Help yourself. There’ll be more out in a few minutes, and I’ll bring your coffees.”

The three men went to the table and helped themselves, loading up their plates with several neatly rolled burritos. The waitress brought their coffee, along with a pitcher of water and three glasses before returning to the end of the bar, where she was talking to a man in a flowered shirt.

Another door opened and three people came inside with a kid and a dog. It was the two blond women he’d seen on the deck and a tall man who looked….

Santiago couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“That’s him,” he whispered to Mateo. “The man the cartel put a bounty on.”

“Who?” Mateo asked.

“The picture I showed you two nights ago,” Santiago whispered. “You remember? While we were tied up to that trawler. I told you he might be in this area, so we should keep our eyes open.”

“We should take him,” Juan said, as Santiago watched the man. “We could collect the bounty.”

The man’s eyes moved around the room, as if making mental notes of each person he looked at. Their eyes met for a brief second before the man moved toward the bar.

“I don’t think we’re up to that task,” Santiago said, immediately dismissing the idea. “That man is a stone-cold killer.”

The idea of Dink agreeing to move Hannah in with him puzzled me a little. As long as I’ve known him, he’s been singularly focused on being as frugal as possible; to save up enough money so he could buy a house.

He’d accomplished that goal and apparently had an expensive new travel partner. But I felt happy for them and was glad that Hannah seemed to have become a little less materialistic.

When we entered the Anchor’s main dining room, I noticed that there were over a dozen people in it, nearly double the number outside.

A few lived aboard their boats right there in Rusty’s marina, and most of the others were locals.

Three guys I’d never seen sat at a table in the corner, a couple at another table were also strangers, as well as one guy at the bar. Half the patrons were unknown to me.

We made our way to the long, wooden bar.

Rusty’s cousin, Maddy, was behind it, talking to the non-local at the end of the bar. If the Anchor were fifty miles down island, I’d have guessed him to be a cruise ship passenger.

“Hey, Jesse!” Maddy practically squealed from across the room, her face brightening. She turned back to the guy at the bar. “‘Scuse me just a sec.”

Next month, it will have been a year since Maddy was kidnapped and nearly killed up in Apalachicola. I knew the memory still haunted her, but she covered it well.

I took my usual stool next to the wall, then Savannah and Lauren took the next two as Maddy hurried down toward us.

“I haven’t seen you guys in forever,” she gushed. “What can I get for you?”

“I’m gonna take Tank outside,” Alberto said. “I saw some kids down by the seawall.”

“Be careful,” Savannah told him, then turned to Maddy. “So nice to see you again, Maddy. Three coffees, please.”

I smiled back at her. “I don’t suppose Rufus has lionfish breakfast burritos on the menu, does he?”

“You just ate breakfast,” Savannah said.

“That was three hours ago,” I protested. “And like Alberto said, we have to ‘eat ’em to beat ’em.’ Besides, they’re small fish.”

“Blackened, broiled, or fried?” Maddy asked, as she poured Lauren’s coffee first. “He’s been making batches of them for the last two hours.”

“Blackened,” I replied. “Have you met Lauren?”

“Just last week,” Lauren replied.

Rusty came in and went behind the bar, muttering to himself. “More cars pullin’ in.”

I glanced out the wall of windows at the front. There were more than a dozen cars parked there, two more pulling in, and several people milling around and talking. Mid-morning on a Saturday, the place was usually empty.

From his tone, and because I knew him all too well, he didn’t seem to find more patrons to be a good thing.

“Problem?” I asked him quietly. “I can put up bail money or throw hands.”

He chuckled nervously. “I don’t know, bro,” he mumbled, pretending to wipe the bar with a cloth. “I think I just miss the old days when every face that came through the door was someone I knew.”

“You don’t have anyone to blame but yourself,” I told him, just as Rufus came through the door with a small tray of neatly wrapped burritos. “And I guess him, too,” I added.

Having live music out on the deck four nights a week had been Sid’s idea. She even managed to book real stars now and then like Jesse Rice and Scott Kirby. People came to the Rusty Anchor for the music, but they came back for the food.

Rufus placed the tray on an empty table. “Blackened lionfish burritos on de black plate,” he called out to everyone in the restaurant. “And dere be Jamaican fried lionfish burritos on de green plate. Please help yuh-self and I and I will bring de grilled ones in just a moment.”

Rusty cocked his head toward the table. “On the house, bro.”

I nodded a thanks, and went to the table, which, like the one outside, had stacks of small plates, trays of silverware, and loads of napkins. I used a pair of tongs and took just two of the thick wraps, to appease Savannah.

Just then the back door burst open, and Alberto came rushing in.

“Dad! A man is trying to hurt Tank!”

He ran toward where Savannah sat, expecting me to be beside her on my usual stool as Tank skidded sideways on the deck outside the open door, then came charging through it.

I put my plate down on a nearby table as Tank wheeled around to face the door. The fur on his neck stood on end all the way down his spine as he snarled and backed away from the doorway, following Alberto’s path.

“Aus, Tank!” I ordered. “Fuss!”

Tank had learned a lot of German commands and understood that when I told him “off” and “heel” in German, he was to do those things but remain on working alert.

He immediately turned and came to stand at my right side, head up, feet set wide apart, ready for anything.

Two young men, maybe in their mid-twenties, stepped through the door, the first being my height and muscularly built. They both had long hair, beards, and wore stained jeans and leather vests.

“Is that your mutt?” the bigger man demanded in a vicious tone, as he pointed at Tank.

Neither man was from the area. I saw no waist bulges to indicate they were armed, but both had folding knives in leather pouches on their belts.

The pouches appeared to be snapped closed, so the knives wouldn’t bounce out while riding. They might as well have been unarmed.

I took one slow step forward, as did Tank, right at my heel.

“He’s actually his own dog,” I replied with a friendly smile, feeling anything but sociable. “But he lives with me and my family.” I nodded toward the bar, where Alberto stood between Savannah and Lauren. I lowered my tone threateningly. “That’s my son you just scared.”

“Your dog bit me,” the man said, obviously lying, and completely dismissing the veiled warning I’d given him as he stepped closer with a menacing expression. “What if I hit you?”

“I’ll hit you back,” I replied, being as honest as I could. “Harder.”

My dad, and then my grandfather, had always told me to never throw the first punch. If the opponent was quicker, it was better to take the first blow than to be the instigator. That was reinforced in the Corps, sometimes to the extreme, with ridiculous rules of engagement.

But once that first punch was thrown or the rules of engagement broken, the only outcome would be to overwhelm the opponent in any way possible to permanently remove his will to continue the fight.

“You’re mutt bit me, Boomer,” he repeated.

“No, he didn’t,” I replied, my tone matching his and my eyes locked intently on his. “You’re still walking. And besides, Tank doesn’t like grease.”

My mind accelerated to a state of hyper-awareness—that feeling people get in high-stress or dangerous situations that makes it seem like time has slowed to a crawl. The senses begin sending minute information to the brain at an incomprehensible speed.

Without taking my eyes off the bigger man, I saw the other guy step aside just a little, as if anticipating trouble. Unlike the big guy, he was fat around the middle, which would make him slower. He also had a look of general unintelligence about him. Not a mental disability or anything, I felt pretty sure of that. Just… slow.

He moved to his buddy’s left, exactly where I wanted him. If there was going to be an altercation, Tank would keep him occupied.

“What’d you say, old man?” the first guy snarled, taking a step closer and bowing up like a bully on a playground to make himself look bigger.

He seriously didn’t have to. My height, close to my weight and build, and at least half my age.

But did he have the skill?

I smiled again but for a different reason. “I see you’re not blind. And I hope you’re not stupid. My dog didn’t bite you, and both of us know that.”

“You callin’ me a liar?”

“Yes,” I replied.

He gave me a bewildered look. “You know I can break you in half, right, Boomer?”

“No, you can’t,” I responded quietly, my hands loose at my sides.

Everyone in the place had silenced and you could have heard a bonefish tailing out in the canal.

“Look,” I said, taking a half-step closer, almost in range. “Which do you want to be known as? The guy who goes around beating up old men? Or the guy who got beat up by an old man? Neither is good street cred.”

My late grandfather had said almost the same thing once. It was in a different bar, on a different island, and a long time ago.

“We’re gonna kick your ass, old man!” the slow one said.

I never acknowledged him, but kept my eyes on the bigger man, registering his every movement and shift of body weight. He was doing the same, trying to figure out why I wasn’t cowering, but I wasn’t giving away anything.

We’d reached the end of dialogue and I knew it. Someone was about to get hurt.

“There’s not going to be any ‘we,’” I said softly to the big guy. “It’s just you and me.”

“What’s that suppo⁠—”

“Tank,” I snarled without breaking eye contact. “Notieren!”

Before either man could move or react, Tank sprung toward the smaller guy, his muscles already tensed like tightly coiled springs. Tank was astonishingly agile for his size, and that agility came from sheer, brute power. The dog was just freakishly strong.

He took one bound, then hurled himself at the man’s chest, all 120 pounds of him, moving at the speed of a good bowler’s twelve-pounder.

The impact that was unleashed from such mass and momentum was incredible, and it was compounded by the strength in his legs at the point of impact.

I know, because I’ve been on the receiving end quite a few times while roughhousing with Tank. Each time he knocked me off my feet, I said the German word for takedown—notieren.

Tank was probably already moving at twenty feet per second, so the intervening five feet were covered in the blink of an eye, before his paws struck the man in the chest, and Tank kicked away in a perfectly timed four-footed drop kick.

The slow guy experienced something few people ever do. He had time to partially raise one feeble hand before being launched up and backward from the impact. His feet came up off the deck as his body headed toward the rafters.

The heavy Dade County pine planking of the exterior wall stopped his ascent as his head and shoulders struck it with a heavy thud. He slid down to his knees and toppled forward, breaking his fall with his face.

Tank landed on all fours right beside the unconscious man, standing over his head, lips and jowls curled back in a garish snarl like some giant, demonic gargoyle come to life.

“Like I said,” I enunciated slowly, shifting my weight ever so slightly onto my right foot in anticipation, “my dog and I don’t put up with fools and you’re still walking, which means my dog didn’t attack you, and the test results say yes, you are a liar. Now you can either drag your buddy out of here… or not.”

My adrenaline was pumping, but I didn’t let it show as my body tensed for the inevitable. I’d pushed the guy past the brink. Without conscious thought, I was aware of every movement, from fingertips to flexing leg and arm muscles.

And especially the pupils of his eyes.

They abruptly constricted, as the man screamed in rage, lunging forward on his right foot, his right arm windmilling around like a pitcher delivering a fastball.

He’d telegraphed the move a nanosecond in advance but in my hyper-aware state, he might as well have sent an email an hour ago.

My left foot flashed forward, snapping a front kick as his big right fist moved toward me in a long arc.

The kick was very swift, and well-aimed, executed precisely as I’d been instructed, and later taught others—aim for the middle of the chest when delivering a kick to the groin.

Dirty fighting?

When someone comes at me with bad intent, there are no rules. My natural reaction is to eliminate the threat by the quickest, most efficient means available. If that means excess pain, well… he shouldn’t have thrown the first punch.

The hard bones of my instep connected with the soft tissue of his groin, lifting him slightly. His reaction was instantaneous.

His fist altered its trajectory as his face contorted in agony, and every bit of air whooshed from his lungs.

He doubled over with both hands going to his groin, no longer able to continue the fight or even defend himself, completely helpless and at my mercy.

Which I had zero of at that precise moment.

I followed through, just to make sure his will was completely broken, bringing my right knee up as I grabbed his hair and yanked down, driving his face even harder against my knee.

Blood sprayed from the man’s nose and mouth as he straightened to his full height, but no longer in any sort of control of his body. A dark stain quickly spread across his crotch as his bladder released, and his lights went out one by one.

He started to fall backward, but then his knees crumpled, and he went sideways right on top of his buddy.

“Tank! Aus! Fuss!”

The giant black dog bounded over the two men and assumed the heel again as I turned to see everyone staring at me. Lauren’s face showed shock and Savannah’s concern.

Rusty had the sawed-off shotgun he kept behind the bar leveled on the two men, as he glanced over at me. “You’re gonna have to clean that mess up, bro.”

I didn’t enjoy fighting; nobody did. Except maybe professional boxers who make it big, but even with a huge cash prize, the victor still woke the next day in pain, his face cut, and ribs all black and blue.

But it is absolutely essential for a safe society to have people who know how to fight. And when trouble threatens innocent people, those who are able should stand up against it, even if it means standing alone.

The able walk among us, quiet and reserved, just going about their lives like everyone else. But the training they endured doesn’t go away, and the quiet guy sitting next to you at a bar might rise up in your defense if you’re wronged and unable to defend yourself.

I didn’t start the fight. I simply ended it in the most efficient means possible.

I also didn’t like being questioned by police for defending myself.

It happened all too often—law-abiding people being caught up in the myopic machinery of law enforcement. Just last month, a guy in New Jersey was convicted of manslaughter for shooting and killing an armed intruder who was halfway up the stairs to his kids’ bedrooms.

“You live here?” the young deputy asked again.

“No,” I replied, trying to remain calm. “I get my mail here. You asked for my address. Where I live, there is no address.”

“So… you’re homeless?”

“Oh, for the love of Mike,” Savannah said, exasperated. “Do we look homeless to you, Deputy?”

“No, ma’am. Not you,” he replied. “I just assumed⁠—”

“We live on an island that doesn’t have roads, cars, or a bridge,” Savannah said, her frustration rising. “Jesse may look unkempt, but that’s because he’s been working from sunrise to sunset for several weeks. We live on an island with no physical address. I don’t see how difficult that is to comprehend, especially here in the Keys, Deputy…” She bent forward to read his nametag. “Gordon, is it?”

“I’m not from here, ma’am,” he said, as Rusty approached, carrying a tablet. “I moved here a year ago from Ohio.”

“Here ya go, son,” Rusty said, stepping between me and the deputy, and pointing back at a camera up over the bar.

Deputy Gordon glanced up and then down at the tablet. “What’s that?”

“We stream live at rustyanchorbar.com, and this here’s the last half hour. I got it set up to start just as Alberto runs in.”

The deputy watched the video closely, backing it up a couple of times to look at it again.

The total run time from when I ordered Tank to take down the slow guy until the big guy collapsed on top of him was a little over four seconds, and most of that was me talking.

Unlike Hollywood fight scenes, where actors and stunt doubles choreograph a five-minute bar fight, with multiple blows to the face and head using everything from bare fists to chairs, real altercations usually only last a few seconds.

The deputy backed the video up and let it play through once more before looking up at me. “You both moved at the exact same time.”

“Lemme see that,” Rusty said. He tapped the screen a few times and handed it back. “Jesse ain’t never thrown no first punch. Now hit play. I slowed it down to quarter speed.”

He watched it play out again, this time in slow motion, and then backed it up and studied it one more time before looking up at me.

“Okay, that part looks like self-defense,” he concluded. “He came at you first. But you told your dog to attack the other man.”

“Notieren is German for takedown,” Savannah said. “It’s a game Jesse and Tank play, trying to knock one another off their feet.”

He looked down at the tablet and backed it up again, watching Tank in slow motion, launching the slow guy into the middle of next week.

Then he looked at Tank, sitting patiently beside me. “That’s how you play with him?”

I grinned crookedly. “It’s a, uh… different kind of game.”

“Never mind that,” Savannah said. “My husband might be a Neanderthal at times, but he’s never started a fight. Everyone could see it was imminent, and it was two against one. So he asked our dog to level the odds by taking down the second man. It wasn’t an attack, and he didn’t bite anyone.”

Savannah could be fiercely protective of those she loved. Tank once took down a man who’d bashed my skull with a fence post and was attacking Savannah. We almost lost him because of that.

“Still within the constraints of Florida Statute 776.012,” a familiar voice behind me said.

I turned to see Melody Woodson standing beside a table with Mac Travis. They lived on an island near me and were my closest neighbors.

The deputy turned to face her. “Are you a lawyer?”

“Yes, I am,” she replied with a smile. “And I will gladly represent Mr. McDermitt, pro bono. Once Judge Walker sees that video, he’ll laugh the DA out of his chambers.”

“That’s up to the courts,” he said. “My job is just to⁠—”

Mel stepped closer, putting up a hand. “You are an officer of the law, and I, an officer of the court. We are both charged with using good judgment in matters that might constitute a waste of the court’s time and the taxpayer’s money.”

Four other deputies got the two men to their feet, handcuffed, and led them staggering out of the bar.

“A word to the wise, Deputy,” Rusty said. “I was born in that house out back, and I been the proprietor of this place for more’n forty years. My pop was born in that same house, and he ran this place before me, and his pop before him, goin’ all the way back to before Florida even became a state. Jesse here’s local too, a businessman and philanthropist. Mel Woodson there is a respected environmental advocate, and like me, born a Conch.” He softened his tone, like a grandpa talking to an adolescent. “Get out and mix with folk, son. Get to know ’em, learn how to fit in here, and stop bein’ such a buckeye. It’ll go a long way to makin’ your job easier, knowin’ that certain people can be relied on above the average guy you meet on patrol.”

Gordon was about to respond, but Dink cut him off. “If it wasn’t for Jesse, I prolly wouldn’t be here two or three times over.”

“Jesse saved my life almost a year ago,” Maddy said from behind the bar. “Put him at the top of your list.”

“Have you met Warren Kennedy yet?” Savannah asked. “He trains canines for Miami-Dade and the Monroe County sheriff. He was also Tank’s trainer.”

Gordon handed Rusty the tablet, then raised his hands to his chest, palms out. “I get it, I get it. I’m young and new, but not stupid.”

He looked past me at Mel. “What you say is partly true, counselor. I’m not real sure on using a dog as a means of standing one’s ground, but it’s clear enough to me that only those two are going to be arrested today.”

He looked back up at me. “You won’t have to press charges, sir. The evidence is compelling enough. But you likely will have to testify.”

“We’ll both be there if it goes to trial,” Rusty said. “And ya can add trespass, so if they come back, it’ll give me enough reason to blast ’em both with twelve-gauge beanbags.”

The deputy grinned at Rusty. Just a little. “I left Cleveland because of the high rate of violent crimes.”

“To be a cop in South Florida?” Rusty asked in mock disbelief. “Then I reckon you’re already startin’ to fit in a little, ’cause that’s just weird.”

The three Hispanic guys who’d been sitting in the corner during the altercation had quietly slipped out before the cops had arrived. I didn’t think much of it at the time. A couple of locals left too. Not everyone wants to hang around to see what happened next. But when I’d first walked in, one of those guys had looked at me as if he’d recognized me, and I was certain I’d never seen any of them before.

Still, I was curious why they’d left. Most who witnessed what happened had stuck around, whether it was out of curiosity or civic duty, only they knew. The locals who’d left could be described as walking with one foot on one side of the law and one on the other, most of it having to do with marijuana or alcohol. And these days, lot of immigrants were nervous.

So I could understand why they might not have wanted to get involved.

Once the cops left, things returned to normal quickly, and the duo out on the little stage began playing a mix of just about everything.

“Those three guys who were sitting in the corner,” I said to Rusty, as he and Maddy worked the bar patrons. “Ever see them before?”

Rusty looked up at the same time as Maddy. “What three⁠—”

“Dang it!” she exclaimed, reaching into her apron pocket. “I forgot all about those guys. They paid with Bahamian money, and you said to watch out for that.” She handed them to Rusty. “I was going to tell you when… the trouble started.”

Rusty examined the two $20 notes, then passed them across the bar to me. “I can’t tell, bro. Whatta you think?”

“I’m no expert either,” I replied, looking at the two bills for the things Drew had mentioned.

The dates on the bills were both 2003, from before the Bahamian government started adding anti-counterfeit measures. So they wouldn’t be expected to have anything like that, and the Bahamian government hadn’t taken them out of circulation yet.

In that respect, they did look legit.

“I don’t know,” I said, passing them back. “They’re both dated 2003, so they’re pre-CRISP, which means no watermarks. I do know the older bills without them are still legal tender in The Bahamas and abroad.”

“Best guess?” he asked, looking down at them again.

I shrugged. “For bills that’ve been in circulation for twenty-two years, they feel… I don’t know. Newer? But I don’t handle a lot of Bahamian money. So what do I know?”

“It was the three Cuban fellas?” Rusty asked Maddy, as he passed her to serve a beer down at the other end of the bar.

She waited until he came back. “Hispanic, yeah. But I don’t think they were Cuban. Somewhere in South America maybe. I’m sorry, Rusty. I didn’t know they were counter⁠—”

“That’s on me,” he replied. “For not tellin’ y’all why to start with. No need for you to worry about it.”

“I have a friend coming up this evening who’s an expert,” I offered. “I was going to have him come to the island, but maybe it’d be better if he came here. He can definitely tell you if those are legit or not.”

He arched one eyebrow. “The guy you went down island to meet yesterday?”

“I doubt you could find anyone more knowledgeable.”

“That ain’t a bad idea,” Rusty said, his eyes widening. “Been a lot of local business folks bringin’ in lionfish all week, and most said they was plannin’ to come for happy hour and dinner to support the safari.”

“He’s probably already on his way,” I told Rusty, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “I’ll call and tell him to come here instead. He’s on a catamaran.”

In most places, arriving by boat would be a foreign concept, and you would assume everyone got around by car. But with the Overseas Highway at max capacity just about year round, it was often faster to just jump in a boat or dinghy. But one look at the parking lot and dinghy dock at the Rusty Anchor would tell you it wasn’t like most places.

“Ain’t got no room for anything over a sixteen-foot beam,” he replied, shaking his head. “Every slip’s full, and if the turnout’s like last week, the dinghy dock and my old barge’ll be two deep before dinner.”

“He was anchored in the Bowling Alley,” I told him, as I pulled up my past calls. “I’m sure he’ll be fine anchoring in the shallows and running a stern line to that big bollard beside the rum shack.”

Rusty nodded, and turned his attention to Cindy, who had a table order.

Cindy Lee was a long-time local, but not a Conch. She’d been born in Miami, and her dad had taken a temporary contract job with the Coast Guard in Key West when Cindy was four. Her mother, who was from the Orlando area, had fallen in love with the islands during his short job, so they’d stayed on.

I got up to go outside and call Drew.

The rum shack had been many things over the years, and at one time, one of Rusty’s ancestors really had used it as a rum distillery. Rusty had turned it into a bedroom outside the house between the time he’d finished school and when he joined the Corps, nearly three years later.

After that, it became Rusty’s outboard repair shop, then a storage building for outboard motors and parts. Rufus lived there for a long time, complete with an ocean view.

Immediately after Hurricane Irma, Rusty’d moved Rufus into the main house, and the rum shack, which had been all but destroyed in the storm, was rebuilt and now Rufus grew marijuana in it for his own use.

Drew’s phone rang three times before he answered.

“Thank you, Alexander Graham Bell and Elon Musk,” he said in greeting. “You and I are dinosaurs, Jesse. We can both remember a time when two cans tied together with a string was a technical marvel.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “We have a slight change in plans, Drew.”

He laughed heartily. “Always a plot twist with you, I’ve heard. By the way, I’m bringing a plus one. What’s the change?”

“Come to the Rusty Anchor,” I replied. “It’s on the southeast side of Key Vaca. You’ll find it on your chart plotter under marinas.”

“That’s the place owned by your friend?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I assume you’re Gulf side?”

“Affirmative.”

“Find Harbor Light on your plotter, then head south from there into Moser Channel and under the Seven Mile Bridge. The shallowest sandbar you’ll be able to find will be five feet and the bridge is sixty-five feet.”

“Both well within my tolerances,” he replied. “Why the change to there?”

“My friend’s having a big blowout this evening, and several local businesspeople will be here.”

“See?” he said, obviously to someone else. “I told you he’d be helpful.”

“Who are you with?” I asked, suddenly curious.

“Tammi has three days off and agreed to come with me as crew,” he replied. “She’s quite capable.”

“The bartender?” I asked, wondering who else he might’ve wagged his tongue at.

His voice dropped slightly. “Are you alone?”

I looked around for anyone paying attention. I’d wandered off the deck and out into the yard, away from the noise. “Yeah, I’m alone.”

“Tammi Sinclair is an Armstrong informant,” he said, his tone all business. “She’s been my contact in Key West, and she’s been very helpful, but like me, she’s also new to the area.”

“I see,” I said slowly.

And I did. Bartenders, waitstaff, and cab drivers were the invisible sectors of society. They often overheard things that shouldn’t be talked about openly.

“I just want information,” he said. “I can’t give any in return, and I’d have to know that the word of my investigation is kept quiet.”

“Rusty can arrange that,” I replied. “There’s going to be a good many businesspeople from all up and down the islands here, so maybe we can help you get a foot in the door.”

“Each time a fake bill is passed,” he said, “it costs some business-owner the face value. It’d be fiscally responsible for these people to open up to me. But I really believe that’s all secondary. I can’t explain it, Jesse. I just feel in my gut like the whole thing is a ruse or something.”

“To what end?” I asked, scanning the docks. “A full-scale invasion of Florida by The Bahamian military?”

He chuckled, and I heard a woman’s laugh as well. “I’m not sure what the end game is,” he replied. “I just know it’s not about counterfeiting. It almost seems like they want to be found. I can’t help but feel that if local people and business leaders were to just talk to me, I’d pick up a clue here and there to help connect some dots and figure out what that is.”

I looked back through the window. Rusty was laughing at something with Dink, and Savannah had a hand to her mouth trying to remain composed.

“People here are different, Drew,” I said. “Conchs and local islanders trust one another and prefer to solve their own problems.”

Drew’s first call had sounded cryptic, and that was the only reason I’d gone down island to meet with him the day before. Just the fact that he didn’t want to discuss it on the phone had meant it involved an adversary with technical ability far beyond mine.

But that took on a whole new meaning with what he went on to tell me. He said his intuition was pointing toward a plot by one of Miami’s street gangs to take out a public figure and start moving more drugs through the Keys. He also told me that Jack Armstrong believed him, and had assigned more assets to the investigation.

“I was told by our mutual friend, Mr. Stockwell,” he said, “that I should have other backup shortly after I reach Marathon.”

I knew him as Colonel Travis Stockwell, head of security for Armstrong Research.

“Did he say who it’d be?” I asked, figuring it might be one of his own team, or one of the new tech people.

“He didn’t say,” Drew replied. “We’re approaching Harbor Light, making ten knots under engine power. The chart plotter says thirty nautical miles, using the waypoints you gave me. Some of that looks like land, Jesse. Are you sure about the depth?”

“I sailed a Formosa ketch through there,” I replied. “Trust me. It’s deep enough. Use Navionics and Google Maps in satellite view to see the shoals better, and you won’t have any problem. Both are pretty recent images.”

“A Formosa?” Tammi asked in the background. “How big?”

“Sixty-three feet over the deck,” I replied. “Over six-foot draft. Give a shout for the Rusty Anchor on the pleasure channel when you get under the bridge. I’ll help you get tied off, but you’ll have to dinghy to the dock from outside the canal.”

“Par for the course driving a cat,” he replied.

“See you about 1700.”

“Adios,” Drew replied, then ended the call.

As I walked back up onto the deck, Rufus waved me over from the kitchen counter. There were a few more people at the various tables than there had been just an hour ago, and it was still early.

I recognized a lot of people as I strode across the deck, and noted those I didn’t know, then took the end stool under the shade of one of the three giant doors, each raised and supported on pier posts by simple swivels and hooks.

Rufus was smiling broadly as I approached, a pronounced gap between his upper front teeth. His great-grandniece, Kyndall, was working the big griddle, which was covered in lionfish fillets.

“I and I have somet’ing for yuh to try, Cap’n,” Rufus said, his accent more pronounced.

Rufus had once been a gourmet chef at one of Jamaica’s best resorts before retiring to the Keys, and he could speak quite eloquently if he desired, with hardly an accent. But he was comfortable with his own voice around friends.

Kyndall handed him a plate, which he placed in front of me. “Try dis.”

“What is it?” I asked, noting a small piece of fish on the plate, obviously cooked on the griddle and blackened with a lot of seasoning.

“Dis Kyndall’s own rendition of lemon-blackened hogfish. Tell ol’ Rufus whut yuh t’ink, Cap’n.”

I picked the fork up from the plate and used the tines to stab and twist a corner of the fish. The outside was slightly crusty, and dark reddish brown, like burnt copper, and the meat was whitish and flaked apart perfectly, which wasn’t a surprise. Kyndall had been working under Rufus for quite a few years.

I put the bite in my mouth and my tongue was met with an explosion of flavors. And a good bit of heat. I savored it for a moment, then began to chew, releasing the juices from the seared fish.

“Mmm…”

“She calls it mamoncillo ennegrecido,” Rufus said with a smile. “Her grandmother was Puerto Rican.”

“Blackened Spanish lime,” I said, nodding. “I tasted it in the meat.”

Spanish limes, or guineps, were a small, hard-shelled sort of citrus fruit that grew wild in South America, the Caribbean, and parts of South Florida. I remembered when I was a young teen, Billy Rainwater and I had found several growing on an island in Corkscrew Swamp. We must have sat under those trees for an hour, eating those sweet little guineps like candy.

Kyndall stepped up beside her great-granduncle. “I’ve used de mamoncillo for ceviche before,” she said. “It isn’t as acidic as lemon or lime, but for dis, I marinate de fish in de juice for just two hours, and use de shells, all ground up, along wit’ de other peppers and seasonings.”

“I bet you had a hard time finding enough,” I said. “It’d be difficult to make it a regular menu item. But I know of a few trees up in the Backcountry.”

“I am attending Florida Southern, part-time,” she said proudly. “I am majoring in horticulture. We have been growing mamoncillo trees for two years now. Dis was de first harvest.”

“Good for you,” I said, then took another bite and pointed at the plate. “And this? This is really good. Only one way you could’ve made it any better.”

Rufus scooped up my plate and turned to the griddle for a moment with his wooden spatula in his other hand. When he turned back around, the remaining fish was on a toasted bun.

I laughed and picked up the blackened fish sandwich. “Now you’re talking!”

They both smiled, and Rufus leaned across the counter. “Dem guineps is still hard to get, Cap’n,” he said with a wink. “Just for a few certain customers, yeah?”

“Mum’s the word,” I said, then took the sandwich and rose from my stool. “I have to go find Alberto.”

“He just went inside,” Kyndall said. “Just before you came up on de deck.”

I took another bite, then lifted the remaining sandwich in salute. “I probably should find some water, too.”

When I got back inside, the place was half full. Mitzi had joined Cindy waiting tables, and Savannah was helping Rusty and Maddy behind the bar.

I scanned the room, again assessing each person I didn’t know. Old habits die hard. Tank was curled up in the corner next to a water bowl, the same spot where Finn had often slept off a heavy meal.

I spotted Alberto sitting with Dink and Hannah at a table and joined them.

“It depends a lot on the latitude,” Alberto was saying. “There’s just more sun there.”

“Where?” I asked.

“He was tellin’ us the best way to reach French Polynesia,” Dink said, “and goin’ straight outta the Panama Canal wasn’t a good idea.”

I nodded. “Wind would be aft the beam for a small part of the way, but most of a straight-line course would be in the equatorial convergence zone—the doldrums.”

“We were talking about Taranis,” Alberto said.

“Yeah, being electric and solar,” Dink said, “ya don’t have to worry about wind.”

“But you do have to consider sun angle on the panels,” I replied. “If it’s summer here, the best course would be due west, to at least the halfway point, then start southing a little. If it’s winter, I’d want to go due south from Panama, maybe a little westing, until I had full sun on the panels. A lot of people think that the native Polynesian people sailed there from southern South America,”

“The Kon-Tiki proved it was possible way back in 1947,” Alberto added. “It was just a balsa raft with a small sail and rudder, and could only sail downwind, but after 101 days, the currents and winds carried the expedition all the way from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands, five thousand miles away.”

“But with electric power,” Dink replied, “even if the sun’s not perfect, couldn’t you make a straight shot and cut the distance a lot?”

“With a diesel boat, sure,” I said. “But with less sun to power the electric motors, we’d have to go slower. Sometimes, longer is faster.”

Savannah approached the table carrying a tray. “Are we staying for dinner?” she asked, as she placed a Red Stripe in front of me.

“Yeah, Drew’s coming here instead,” I replied. “I need to talk to Rusty about having him speak to some of the shop owners who are coming.”

She glanced back at the bar. “Now would be a good time. He just went into the office and Sidney’s running the bar.”

“Does he have more staff coming in?” I asked, rising from the chair and noting even more people outside.

“I think that’s why he went to the office,” she replied, holding a finger up to a young couple trying to get her attention. “I don’t mind. It’s fun.”

I walked around the bar, headed toward Rusty’s little office in back, and opened the door.

“Then forget about it,” he said coarsely, and slammed the phone down.

“Something wrong?” I asked, closing the door behind me.

“That was Carolyn, remember her?”

I sat down in the only other chair. “The short little waitress at the Brass Monkey?”

“She’s off tonight,” he replied, “and promised to help us out, but now suddenly she has other plans.”

“Savvy doesn’t mind helping out,” I offered. “She tended bar in college, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. “It just ain’t right payin’ her five bucks an hour and a cut of the tips. It’s like hirin’ Warren Buffett to do my taxes.”

“Then she’ll do it just for fun,” I told him. “I will too.”

“No offense, bro, but she’s got better legs.” He looked up from his Rolodex. “If ya could pitch in for an hour or so, I got three real pros comin’ in from happy hour till closin’ time.”

I shrugged. “Not a problem.”

“Hey, you ever get hold of Dominic?” he asked, sitting back in his chair.

“Not a word,” I replied. “It’s like he fell off the end of the earth.”

While Maddy and Savannah waited tables with the help of Cindy and Mitzi, I joined Rusty and Sid behind the bar. Beer calls were my specialty. I could handle mixing a rum and coke, but any order beyond that, I passed off to one of them.

Over the years, I’d worked behind the bar at the Anchor quite a few times, including during a couple of trips I made while on leave from the Marine Corps after Rusty got out.

As an active duty Marine, I wasn’t supposed to work a job outside the Corps, but Rusty’s dad put me up when I came to visit, and I’d always felt obliged to help him out whenever I was down.

It was totally different on that side of the bar, and every experience just reinforced my notion of the large swathe of society that remained invisible.

Two businessmen could get into a taxi just off Wall Street, and the driver would give them quick, professional transportation to their business meeting, which they discuss openly in the backseat. And why not? What’s a cab driver going to do with insider information about a Fortune 500 merger happening the next day? If he’s smart, he’ll use it to put his kids through college and start building a nice nest egg, picking up more tidbits from brokers and bankers on a weekly basis. Many a cabbie and bartender has retired faster than a lot of executives.

Just by not being noticed and listening.

When I served a couple of Buds to two guys sitting at the far end of the bar, they were deep in a discussion about falsifying a boat’s registration because there was some doubt about who legally owned it.

They were speaking in low tones, but not so quietly that I couldn’t hear without trying when I was at that end.

A tall, dark-haired man in a button-down shirt and pleated pants came through the door. Rather than head straight for the bar like most were doing, or taking a seat at a table, which wasn’t happening unless he knew the people already sitting there, he just meandered around the dining area, casually looking around.

Maybe he’s looking for someone, I thought. As crowded as it was getting, it’d be hard to spot someone across the room.

Finally, he approached the bar and asked for an Ultra, which he paid for with a five, telling me without even a glance to keep the change.

As he turned away, I grinned as I thought, I am Invisi-Man!

Then I turned and rang the Ultra up on the register and put the change in the tip jar, thinking of the old black-and-white film, The Invisible Man.

For 1930s film technology, the scene where the invisible guy took the bandages off his head and face was convincing enough for my adolescent mind to think of a million things to do if I were invisible. And now I was.

I wonder how many good tips Rusty’d picked up in all his years of bartending. Tips about fishing spots, boat deals, or investment opportunities. I glanced over at him, mentally doing the math, and realized that, not counting his time in the Corps, he’d been tending this same bar for nearly half a century, starting when he was fourteen.

Soon, it became quite crowded, as the main courses started coming out, and there wasn’t an empty chair anywhere. The deck was overflowing into the yard, and I could barely hear the music out there for the constant din of voices and laughter in the restaurant.

Which was why I was surprised to hear my full name being spoken.

I glanced up to see Dink talking to the overdressed Ultra guy with dark hair.

He had his back to me, but I could tell he was young, at least half my age. I was certain I’d never met the guy before. So why was he asking about me?

I shook my head at Dink.

“I know him,” Dink replied to the guy. “But he’s kind of a hermit, if you know what I mean.”

“How so?” the man asked,

“He doesn’t come to town much,” Dink replied.

I winced.

While that could mean a few things in other parts of the country, here in the Keys, it could give away that I lived on a remote island.

The guy shrugged. “I haven’t seen him in a while,” he said over the noise. “Is he still chartering?”

I didn’t pick up any kind of regional accent in his voice. After twenty years in the Corps, and meeting tens of thousands of Marines from all over the country, I’d become quite adept at recognizing local dialects.

Anyone I’d met in quite a while would know I chartered mostly in name only. The last time I took a bunch of yahoos out on Gaspar’s Revenge was at least four years ago. Yeah, I own the boat and pay the captain and crew, but my days of active chartering were behind me.

The business makes a good profit every year, but I only continue it to help sustain others. I have a full-time crew of three, counting my new captain, Pete Wadsworth. And my account at the local marine supply store probably paid both of Gus’s kids’ tuition over the years.

I nodded at Dink and pointed in the direction of Boot Key Harbor.

Dink gulped. “Yeah, some. Not like he used to. His boat’s over at the city marina.”

“Thanks,” the guy said, then started moving through the crowd again.

Just as he turned to look back, I opened a cooler in front of me and bent to look inside, turning my head so I could see him in the big mirror behind the bar.

When he left, Dink came up to me. “Who was that guy, Jesse?”

“No idea,” I replied. “But thanks. Everyone knows I don’t charter anymore.”

“What do you think he wants?”

“He didn’t say?” I asked.

“Just that he knew you from a long time ago,” Dink replied. “I figured that was bogus since you been here longer than that dude’s been alive and I know everyone around here.”

“Thanks, again,” I said, checking my watch.

Drew would be arriving in less than an hour, and Pete wasn’t due back until sundown from an all-day charter out in the Stream.

If I hurried and took the path through Rusty’s jungle, I could be at the dock before the guy could get there by car, if he was headed that way looking for me.

“What’s a guy have to do to get service here?” a voice asked.

When I looked over, Deuce Livingston was standing there with his hands in his pockets, grinning ear-to-ear. Julie stood next to him, smiling, and their boys, Trey and Jim, stood behind her. Trey, at fifteen, was nearly as tall as Deuce. And Jim, who was a year younger than Alberto, was already taller than Julie.

“What on earth have you been feeding those boys?” I asked her, then grinned.

“Is it weird?” she asked. “You on that side and now me over here?”

Before I could answer, Rusty was beside me. “What brings y’all down?”

“I was hoping Jesse’d know,” Deuce replied, glancing at me with a somewhat serious expression before turning back to Rusty. “But any excuse is a good one.”

I followed Rusty around the bar to greet his daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons. I hadn’t seen them since the Turks and Caicos, where all three of our boys got scuba certified.

“We haven’t seen you in almost a year,” Julie said, releasing me from a hug. “You don’t call… you don’t come around.”

I started to say something about them living all the way up in Key Largo, but realized they’d probably come down to visit Rusty at least a couple times since we got back.

“We’ve been really busy working on the island,” I said. “Can I, um… borrow your husband for a few minutes?”

Deuce and I trotted around the dock area and turning basin at the end of the canal, then I led the way through the overgrown and elevated foot path through the wetland. The distance was short, just over a hundred yards through the woods to Sombrero Beach Road.

By contrast, Rusty’s narrow, winding driveway out to US-1 was four times that far, and a car couldn’t go more than jogging speed the whole way. Once you reach the highway, there was a median, so you had to make a right, then quickly jump over to the left turn lane where you’d have to wait for an opening in the never-ending traffic to make a U-turn.

After that, a car would likely have to wait at two long traffic lights before turning south on 35th Street.

Even if a driver were in a hurry, a jog through the woods and the neighborhood around the north side of Boot Key Harbor was faster.

I’d timed both. In The Beast. Driving across the median.

So when we emerged onto Sombrero Beach Road, I knew that if Ultra guy really was headed to the marina, he’d most likely just be pulling onto the highway.

It was a leap of invisible faith that he wouldn’t recognize me at the dock, if he did come there looking.

“You want to tell me what the hell’s going on?” Deuce asked, as the two of us ran along the side of the road.

I knew of very few people who would dash out to help, no questions asked. And even fewer who would do it knowing my track record for finding trouble.

“The thing you’re here for?” I asked, as we cut across the road and behind the Publix. “Or what’s happening at the moment?”

“You pull me away from my family and what looks like a good time to run PT? We have a minute or two to kill before we get there, so give me the Reader’s Digest version of both.”

“First off,” I said, as we settled into a rhythm, running side by side, “a guy was just at the bar looking for me, and Dink sent him to the marina.”

“Who’s the guy?”

“Don’t know,” I replied. “Which is hinky as hell. So we’re going to wait at the dock… to see if he comes.”

We were both breathing harder but not labored. Neither of us ran for fun or sport, and definitely not for PT; we both got our physical training the same way—swimming. Way easier on the joints and involves the entire body.

“Sounds way more fun than music… drinks, food, and good friends.”

“Just play along if he shows,” I said. “As far as the other thing… Drew Murphy will be at the Anchor… in about an hour or so. He’ll explain it all then.”

We weaved through neighborhood streets, cut diagonally through The Home Depot’s parking lot, and then ran along US-1 for a couple hundred yards before cutting through another neighborhood and finally coming out onto 35th Street, turning south toward the marina.

I checked my watch. “One mile… five minutes, twenty-five seconds… we should be two minutes ahead of him.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Deuce huffed, “that you’ve timed the run.”

A couple of minutes later, we trotted out onto the pier, and then slowed to a walk, taking deep breaths as we headed toward the end.

The Revenge wasn’t back yet, and I didn’t see anyone hanging around the slip.

“All I know about Drew’s investigation,” I said, as we sat down on my two boat boxes, “is that it’s about counterfeiting, but not really.”

Deuce arched an eyebrow, and in that second, he was the image of his dad. I’d served with Russ, Sr. a long time ago.

“Drew thinks, and Jack agrees,” I began, as we both breathed deep to get our rate down, “ that whoever is behind the counterfeiting… is planning to off some public figure… to gain control of drug trafficking in the Keys.”

“And this guy coming to find you is part of it?”

“Two different things,” I said. “This guy was just acting squirrely… and asking too many questions about me.”

“Well, at least you don’t have to worry about locals saying anything,” he said. “You’re an integral part of this community. And I know firsthand how uncommunicative and protective locals are… especially toward outsiders.”

“If he shows, we’ll just make like we’re waiting for the Revenge to return,” I said, hearing footsteps. “She’s due back soon.”

Deuce looked past me toward the foot of the pier. “Someone’s coming. You’re Stretch again?”

I grinned, remembering the first time I’d used the Stretch Buchannan alias to lure a killer away from the Rusty Anchor—the man who’d murdered Deuce’s dad, and who set in motion the events that led to the murder of my second wife, Alex, on our wedding night.

The grin left my face. “Just like old times.”

Deuce reached into his shirt pocket, took a pair of glasses out and put them on. Then he sat back and stretched his legs out in front of him as the guy approached.

I’d never seen Deuce wearing glasses, aside from a pair of wrap-around Costas, and these were hideous. They looked like the black rimmed glasses they issued in boot camp, what we used to call BC— birth-control—glasses; a guy wasn’t going to get lucky wearing them.

“I heard he was injured in practice,” Deuce said in a conversational tone. “Might be iffy for the pre-season opener next week.”

Years ago, when Deuce was head of the Caribbean Counterterrorism Command, one of his operators was a successful part-time improv actress, and she’d instructed his team on how to just make stuff up as they went along using inane conversation. Deuce wasn’t talking about anyone in particular, and it didn’t matter.

Two guys sitting on a dock and not talking might raise suspicion.

“Torn ACL is what I heard,” I muttered, as the guy walked past, ignoring us. “Could be out half the season. Just when it looked like we might have a winning team for once.”

Ultra stopped and turned, glancing at the Gaspar’s Revenge Charter Service sign over the back of the slip.

“I wouldn’t go as far as saying it might be a winning season,” Deuce said, turning to look toward the harbor entrance. “More like⁠—”

“Excuse me,” the guy said, and we both looked up as if seeing him for the first time. “Are you waiting for the Gasper’s Revenge?”

He pronounced it like Casper, and I detected a slight roll of the R in Revenge.

I’d noticed that even third- or fourth-generation Hispanic-Americans sometimes tended to roll an R if it came right after another one, like in Gaspar’s Revenge or “far right.” Especially when stressed.

A good friend of mine from back when I was in the Corps was a native Texican by the name of Jason Montoya. He’d grown up on a large ranch outside of Fort Stockton, where his family had raised cattle since before the fort was built. He had a soft Texas drawl and spoke very little Spanish, much like his parents and grandparents before him. He told me that his third great-grandfather had been born on the same ranch, and that his parents had migrated there from San Antonio.

When Jason got edgy, he rolled second Rs, too.

“Naw,” Deuce replied to the guy. “We’re just sittin’ on McDermitt’s boxes to keep ’em from floatin’ away.”

The man smiled humorlessly. “What’s he got in there? Helium balloons?”

“He’s a puffer fish trafficker,” I replied, jokingly. “He sells ’em to Japanese tourists who think they’re better than Viagra.”

The guy chuckled, half amused. “What time is he due back?” Then he stepped forward, extending a hand. “I’m sorry, I’m Bill. Bill Anderson.”

Bill Anderson? I thought. Why not George Jones or Tom T. Hall?

Deuce and I stood and shook the man’s hand. His palm was dry, even though he was overdressed for the heat. His grip was strong, though his fingers were smooth and soft. He didn’t work with his hands.

“I’m Deuce and this is Stretch,” Deuce said. “The Revenge is headed back in, yeah, but they’re still way out in the Gulf Stream. You lookin’ for a charter?”

With his attention on Deuce, I made a quick assessment. My eye fell to a slight bulge under his shirt in front of his right hip.

He was armed.

But I was too, so he held no advantage there. He was close to my height, but probably twenty pounds lighter. That gave me a slight edge, but he was younger. So again, an even match.

Except experience. I knew what I was capable of and would meet any threat as if my opponent had equal fighting experience. Very few did.

He was tanned, or slightly dark-skinned, his hair was dark brown, and he had light brown eyes. Though he had absolutely no accent, except for that one R slip, I pegged him as being of Hispanic descent.

Having no accent was kind of strange in and of itself. Everyone’s a product of their environment to some degree or another.

It was almost as if he put forth a conscious effort to not have an easily described voice, and it was something he’d trained himself to do.

I didn’t know the guy from Adam, and he didn’t know me. I had to assume he at least had a description to come looking for me. I could also assume that was why he’d looked all through the crowd at the Anchor.

He’d been looking for someone who matched a certain description.

I hadn’t had a haircut in over six months, so my hair hung shaggy past my collar, and I hadn’t shaved or trimmed the man hair for several weeks now. So if he did know what I usually looked like, he didn’t seem to recognize it in the man standing in front of him.

I wasn’t the least bit surprised that he didn’t recognize me from behind the bar, though.

I grinned. Invisi-Man strikes again.

“Actually, we’re here to deliver a message,” I grumbled, trying to slouch a little, which isn’t easy at six-three. “So if the dude owes you money or anything like that, you’ll have to take a number and wait in line.” I grinned again. “Sorry, but you ain’t no fisherman.”

Bill Anderson’s façade slipped, and for just a second, I thought he might’ve suddenly recognized me.

Then he smiled. “I’m just an electronics salesman from Galveston,” he claimed. “And you got me. I’ve never been deep-sea fishing, but since I’m here...”

“Well, like I said, you’ll have to wait,” I said as I looked at my watch again. I already knew exactly what time it was. “Besides, he’s still two hours out. You can schedule with him online.”

“Online?”

I pointed at the logo on the box. “Just go to this website, www.gaspars-revenge.com. That’s with a hyphen between the words.”

The guy stood there looking at us for about a second longer than necessary before responding.

“Thanks,” he said slowly, sizing us up. “I’ll do just that.”

As he turned and started to walk away, I sat down again. “I still say if he hadn’t got hurt, we’d have a winning team this year.”

“You’re a dreamer, Stretch,” Deuce said, as he watched the guy over my shoulder.

As he walked away, I turned my head just enough to follow him with my eyes. He got into a newer, white Toyota sedan, probably a rental.

“He was carrying,” Deuce said. “What the hell have you gotten into now, Jesse?”

I’d seen the bulge and since I was also armed, and I felt certain Deuce was too, I discounted it. Had he pulled the weapon, I was pretty confident that both of us would’ve gotten the drop on him. One gun against two was no different than bringing a knife to a gunfight.

The guy was trouble. I could sense it, but I had no idea what his interest in me was. Most of my enemies were in jail or dead.

But one thing I knew for sure—he either didn’t have a good enough description of me, or he’d failed to consider that almost any man can change his appearance by just avoiding the razor.

“Did you get anything, Chyrel?” Deuce asked.

I looked over at him, surprised, and he tapped the corner of his glasses. “Kind of like Google glasses on steroids.”

I started to say something, but he held up a finger. “Okay, thanks. Let me know if you get a hit.”

He removed the glasses, folded them, then put them in his shirt pocket. “She’s running facial and voice recognition. The glasses connect to the METIS system as soon as they’re unfolded, then automatically loop Chyrel in. So, you really don’t know this guy?”

“Like I said back at the Anchor,” I stated, as the Toyota drove up 35th Street, “we’ve been holed up on the island since we got back. The guy I hired to look after things left it a total mess.”

“When’s the last time you came to town?” he asked, a note of doubt in his tone as we started walking toward the foot of the pier.

“We made a grocery run three weeks ago,” I replied. “Docked the Grady at the Anchor for about two hours while we drove to Publix in The Beast.”

“He didn’t strike me as being a bagboy, pissed because you didn’t tip enough.”

I looked over at him. “You know me, Deuce. I’ve never seen that guy before in my life. Not even in traffic. You can take that to the bank.”

We started through the parking lot in silence, continuing until we turned back through the neighborhood.

“I believe you,” he finally said. “I know you never forget a face. And that presents an even bigger problem.”

“What’s that?” I asked but already knew the answer.

“Some unknown third party sent that guy,” he replied. “And I got the vibe that whoever sent him wants you hurt or dead.”

“That’s a reach,” I said. “Dead?”

“You have enemies, Jesse,” he replied seriously, then looked over at me and grinned. “You never tend to piss people off just a little bit either.”

“It could just as easily be related to what happened at the Anchor earlier,” I said, as we walked toward Overseas Highway.

“Why am I not surprised?” he asked, with a touch of snark. “What happened?”

I went on to explain the incident with the two bikers as we walked back through the neighborhood.

“I would’ve liked to have seen that,” Deuce said, as we ducked under the low branches at the head of the foot path. “Tank’s such a laid-back dog, I just can’t see him acting aggressively.”

“Ask Rusty to show you the video,” I replied, already hearing the sounds of music and laughter through the thick jungle wetland.

“Do you think he’ll come back in two hours?” Deuce asked. “When your boat returns?”

“I thought about that,” I replied. “I doubt he will. If he means trouble, it’s just too public there. And if he does, he’ll likely figure out pretty quick that I’m not on the boat; Pete’s twenty years younger than me. But I’ll call and warn him.”

I took my phone out and pulled up Pete’s number. We had Starlink on the Revenge, so anglers could post directly to social media as they landed their catch, and I knew he kept his phone connected at all times when out on the water.

“Hey, Jesse,” Pete said, when he answered. “I was about to call you. We hit a big bait ball, and the anglers were hauling them in like crazy. So we’re running a little late getting back. Probably an hour. Gregor just put the rods away.”

I could hear loud, happy voices in the background. “Sounds like everyone’s having a good time. Hey, look. Keep your eyes open when you get to the marina. Tell Gregor and Reggie too, but don’t alert the passengers. There was a guy looking for me, thinking I was still actively chartering. I don’t know what he wants, but I picked up a negative feeling.”

“What’s he look like?” Pete asked, all business.

“Six-two, two hundred,” I replied. “Dark complected, brown hair and eyes, and overdressed for the dock.”

“Got it.”

“And Pete,” I said, as we walked along the foot path, “he’s armed; handgun under his shirt on the right hip.”

“You do attract ’em,” he said.

“Just be careful,” I replied. “See you at the Anchor later?”

“Probably miss most of it,” he replied. “But I’ll give the guys a hand cleaning the catch and we’ll get over there as quick as we can.”

“See you there,” I said, and ended the call.

“That’s it?” Deuce asked as we came out of the woods at the turning basin. “What if the guy comes back and doesn’t recognize he’s not you?”

“Then Pete’ll be ready for him,” I replied. “He can definitely take care of himself.”

Pete Wadsworth had been a Baltimore water cop for ten years, then turned to professional fighting—mixed martial arts. He’d retired undefeated at thirty-five and would never need a job for the rest of his life. So like many, he’d headed south, looking for something new, someplace warm, and he ran out of road south of Miami.

“You think that’s enough?” Deuce asked.

“He’s a former cop and MMA fighter,” I replied. “The guy’d never know what hit him.”

When Pete arrived in the Keys, he’d worked his way up from bait cutter to mate in quick order, working for a friend of mine in Key Largo, and within two years, he got his “six-pack” license and was running one of the guy’s boats.

A six-pack license, or Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessels license, allowed the operator to carry up to six paying passengers; hence the name six-pack.

Pete was good with people, which I wasn’t, and he was becoming quite knowledgeable of the local offshore waters and fisheries. My crew liked him and helped him learn.

Gregor Albert was in his mid-sixties now, but a tireless worker. He got the mate’s cut, since he’d been with me longest. Reggie Reed got the deckhand’s cut. Both had been working for me, under Jimmy, for several years and helped Pete navigate the new waters.

The end of another summer offshore fishing season was coming, and we were booked three days a week through the end of the month, charging premium rates, $2,000 per angler, for an all-day charter on the Gulf Stream.

We didn’t offer half-days anymore.

My arrangement with Pete and the crew was done with a handshake and very simple math. Pete received ten percent of the charter fee, but none of the tips. To earn more, he hustled to book us full for the days we did charter.

Gregor got eight percent of the charter, plus forty percent of the tips, so he hustled to keep the anglers baited and beered.

And Reggie got six percent of the charter, plus sixty percent of the tips, because he worked the hardest, cleaning the anglers’ catch when they got back in, and he was an artist with a fillet knife. The closer he carved, the more meat the anglers got, and the better their tips.

And though he didn’t get any of the tips, Pete jumped right in most of the time, helping the crew with the grunt work.

We limited chartering days to just three, but they worked five days a week for me, cleaning and maintaining the boat. For the two days of maintenance, they received an hourly wage on top of the charter split, so none of them had to work a second job, unlike most Keys residents.

Pete easily brought home two grand a week, and he did everything he could to see that my crew outearned him.

Chartering was hard work, and I wanted my crew rested, not working a second job to make ends meet.

The lion’s share of the charter fees, seventy-six percent of the total, went to me and was usually enough to cover the fuel, dockage, maintenance, repairs, payroll, insurance, and overhead.

Most months.

We did have slow periods, and like Jimmy before them, and every other person who’d worked for me, my crew had a minimum income that I made sure they never went below. Good crew was hard to find and harder to keep.

Reggie was my most recent hire. He’d been on the Revenge for three years now, and I’ve known Gregor almost as long as I’ve known Rusty, having met him when Rusty and I came to the Keys on leave after boot camp. He’d been Jimmy’s first mate for six years, before Jimmy and Naomi moved to the mainland.

I’d become involved with Gregor’s sister, Gina, for a short while, back when we were barely more than kids. He’d been estranged from her for a long time, and I hadn’t seen her since then.

Gregor never brought the situation up.

The yard was crowded and the deck overflowing as Deuce and I went up the steps. I glanced toward the kitchen and spotted Rufus, working the counter, taking orders, and serving up food, seemingly undaunted by the summer heat. He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up.

Folks were dancing to the music as we crossed the deck and entered the restaurant and bar. Rusty was probably over the Fire Marshall’s maximum capacity, according to the license displayed next to his office door.

People overload. My brain was having a hard time with so many faces.

Being tall gave me an advantage in a crowded room. Flat-footed, I could look over most of the heads in the crowd, but I didn’t see Savannah anywhere. Usually, Sid was easy to spot, due to her height and hair color, but I didn’t see her either.

So Deuce and I weaved our way through the crush of people toward the bar, where a young blond woman and two young men, both with neatly trimmed beards, were slinging drinks. The two men wore black pants and long-sleeved white shirts, open at the collar, and the woman was dressed similarly, in a black skirt and white blouse.

The professionals Rusty had mentioned.

I suddenly felt guilty that I’d cut out shortly after agreeing to help until they arrived. But it couldn’t be helped.

At least that’s what I told myself. I’ll admit, I often do suspect the worst in people, though. And for all I knew, the guy on the dock really was named Bill Anderson, and was in a hotel room somewhere right now, booking a charter online.

“Where is everyone?” Deuce asked, looking around and raising his voice almost to a yell to be heard over the noise.

I shrugged and turned toward the bar.

“What can I get for you, handsome?” the young woman asked.

She was short, probably around five-three, and stepped up onto her toes to lean over the bar to be heard, which gave me an ample view of her cleavage.

“Two Red Stripes,” I replied. “Name’s Jesse. I have a tab.”

She smiled, then quickly pulled two beers from the cooler. “I know who you are, Mr. McDermitt.”

She opened both bottles and pushed them across the bar, flexing her arms inward to push her breasts higher. “Anything else?”

I leaned toward her over the bar. “Do you know where Rusty is?”

“He, Sidney, and your wife and son went out to the backyard,” she replied, smiling again. “About ten minutes ago.”

Okay, she knows who I am and that I’m married, I thought. So what was with the “handsome” crap? She probably wasn’t much older than my youngest daughter, Florence.

Something they probably taught in bartender school.

“Thanks,” I said. “What’s your name?”

“Ginger,” she replied, picking up a notepad and making two marks on one of its pages.

“Thanks, Ginger,” I said, dropping a five in the tip jar, then turning back to Deuce and handing him a beer. “They’re outside.”

As we worked our way to the door, I glanced back over the mob of people and saw Ginger watching us. I made a mental note to ask Rusty in private who she was and how she knew me.

When we reached the deck, I scanned the yard and spotted Savannah with the others near the rum shack, and out beyond them, I could see a sleek catamaran slowly approaching, a bikini-clad woman on the bow.

“Drew’s here,” I told Deuce as we went down the steps.

He nodded. “The catamaran, I take it?”

“Yeah,” I replied, striding across the yard. “He’s wanting my help and sailed up from Key West to go over what he was investigating with me and Savvy. And now I guess you, too.”

“Help with the investigation?” Deuce asked. “You made it clear to Jack and Travis both that you were retired.”

“Not with the investigation,” I replied. “He needs help getting local businesspeople to open up and talk to him.”

Deuce looked around. “So you decided to invite everyone in the Keys to hear what he’s got to say?”

“This is your father-in-law’s doing,” I replied. “I’d just as soon⁠—”

“Stay up there on your island,” he finished for me. “Yeah, I know.”

There was only about half an hour of sunlight left, but the upper part of the yard was already shadowed, with the sun now behind the mangroves on the west side of the canal.

The rum shack was in full sun though, as was the catamaran, floating on the glassy surface about a hundred feet off the seawall.

That’s how close the Rusty Anchor was to having a year-round water view of the sunset. From down at the seawall, the sun would start to set behind the trees in mid-May, five weeks before the summer solstice, and wouldn’t be seen over water from Rusty’s property again until late July, five weeks after the solstice.

Rusty put sunset dates on his calendar every year, and threw a party on May 16, the last day the sun shone on the rum shack at sundown, and again on July 25 when it was once again lit up at the golden hour. But for the other 295 days of the year, weather permitting, you could watch the sun disappear over the water from the Rusty Anchor.

As we approached the seawall, I could see that the cat was moving slowly in about five feet of water, maneuvering carefully between limestone outcrops and coral bommies all around it.

When it reached a large, sandy spot, it stopped and slowly spun around almost within its own length.

Drew was in the wide stern cockpit, using a remote helm to control the two engines, one in forward and the other in reverse, gently nudging the cat away from the crunchy parts.

The blonde on the bow was the bartender from Irish Kevin’s, Tammi Sinclair. She stood ready with the anchor windlass control, wearing just a bikini top and tan shorts. She was athletic-looking and at least as tall as Savannah, and the light colors of her clothes made her skin appear even darker.

The anchor went down with a splash, and Drew started backing the boat toward the seawall, careful to avoid the rocks and coral.

“Fifty feet!” Tammi called out from the bow.

“Lock it in,” Drew called to her, stopping the engines. “Can you handle the bridle?”

“No problem,” she called back.

Drew put the remote in its holder, then stepped down on the port sugar scoop and threw a line to Rusty.

Tammi came aft and started down the starboard sugar scoop. I moved to my right, and she threw another line.

Rusty tied his off to a thick buttonwood that was pushing the seawall out, and I tied mine to the ancient bollard beside the rum shack. With the stern double-tied, and a ten-to-one scope on the anchor rode, Drew’s catamaran wasn’t going anywhere, and the bottom step of the port sugar scoop was only six or seven feet from the seawall.

“I got an aluminum ladder out in the shop,” Rusty announced. “It’ll span this distance easy.”

While he ran off toward the big metal building beside the house, Deuce and I moved over closer to Drew’s side of the boat.

“So you’re the one Jack sent,” he said to Deuce. “You are Deuce Livingston, right?”

A boat arriving at the Rusty Anchor wasn’t anything new, even a luxury sailboat like Drew’s. Boats came and went several times a day, so his arrival hadn’t drawn much attention.

Julie and Savannah moved over closer to where Tammi stood on the starboard side, introducing themselves, while Alberto ran along the seawall with Tank, looking for crabs.

“I am,” Deuce replied. “But I’m really short on information about just why I was sent here.”

“Probably because you were closest,” I said to Deuce. “DJ Martin’s up in Key Largo, too, but odds are he would probably just be getting moving.”

Drew looked past us. “You weren’t kidding. How many people are here?”

I looked back over my shoulder, already estimating a hundred inside, and another hundred on the deck. Sid was directing the setting up of another big table just off the front deck for the overflow. At least another fifty people were just milling around the yard.

Cars spilled over the parking area, with dozens parked on the grass all around the side and into Rusty’s front yard, and I could see headlights moving steadily along the driveway through the jungle.

Rusty quickly returned with an aluminum extension ladder, and behind him, John Larsson and Bob Grant were carrying a long timber.

“I’d bet it’s getting upward of three hundred,” I replied to Drew. “And more coming.”

“We found a big ol’ two by twelve, too,” Rusty announced, standing the ladder up on its end behind the seawall. “Careful now, while I lower this down to ya.”

With one foot on the bottom rung, Rusty tilted the ladder seaward as far as he could. I stepped up on the seawall and helped guide it down until Drew could reach it. The ladder was almost level, with Rusty’s weight keeping the other end off of the fiberglass and teak.

Drew put a cushion under the end and pulled the ladder out a little further, until Rusty’s end was only hanging over the seawall by about a foot or so.

Bob and John laid the timber on the ladder, and slid it out until Drew could reach it, then he pulled it to the end of the ladder. The timber was a good two feet longer than the ladder, and Rusty quickly carried the bitter end of the dock line he’d tied to the buttonwood over the timber, and tied it to the bollard, snugging the makeshift gangplank into place on the seawall.

“That oughta do her,” Rusty said. “It’s high tide right now, and only gonna drop about fourteen inches tonight. If ya leave your end loose on that cushion, it can slide back and forth with the tide.”

Drew looked up at the helm controls. “That’s good. I only have a foot under the keel.”

“Will she be okay restin’ on the bottom?” Rusty asked. “You’re over nothin’ but sand.”

“The rudders and props are fully protected by skegs,” he replied. “So Double Vision can be beached just fine.”

Tammi came across the cockpit, grabbing a shirt off one of the chairs there as she joined Drew, then he followed her across the makeshift gangplank, carrying Wilma in one hand.

“Welcome to the Rusty Anchor Bar and Grill,” Sid said, as Tammi stepped down. “I’m Sidney Thurman, but my friends call me Sid, and this is my husband, Rusty. We’re the owners.”

“It really is real,” Tammi said, looking around at the vast yard, marina, boat stack building, and restaurant. “This is the place Eric Stone sings about, right?”

“Sure is,” Rusty said. “Eric used to own Dockside, over on Boot Key Harbor, but sold it a long time ago. Now he mostly writes books.”

As the evening wore on, Rusty and I moved around the crowd, talking to dozens of shop owners from Key Largo to Key West, thanking them for attending, and asking them to come down to the rum shack at 2100, to meet a friend who might be able to help them with a business problem many were facing.

Some were already getting ready to leave but agreed to stick around for another hour. Rusty comped their drinks until then.

Once the heat of the sun was gone, the breeze off the water began to cool things down, lights in the marina came on, and even the sound of the waves against the seawall seemed to be less urgent.

There were blankets spread out in the yard, food was still coming out of the kitchen, the duo on stage were keeping the dancers moving, and the vibe reminded me of summer evenings back home when I was growing up.

As a teenager, I’d spent the long summer days either working with Pap on a boat, exploring Pine Island Sound and Charlotte Harbor with him in a boat we’d built, or hanging out with Billy Rainwater on the banks of the Caloosahatchee River.

In the evening, with the day’s work or adventure complete, things seemed to slow down. Songbirds quieted, the chorus of ever-present frogs and toads took over, and water sounds took on a softer note.

On weekends, big cookouts were the norm at a number of waterfront places around Fort Myers, including Pap’s VFW post. Friends and families got together in the parks, at homes, businesses, and on the water.

“A penny for your thoughts?” Savannah asked, appearing beside me.

I’d wandered off the deck, away from the lights, and was just gazing up at the stars over Vaca Key Bight.

“Half a penny, even with inflation,” I replied. “I was just thinking about summer nights back home.”

“Old girlfriends?” she asked, snuggling closer to my side.

“Billy and Pap.”

“You miss him,” she said. “His guidance and stability.”

“I never had an adult relationship with my dad,” I told her. “Pap tried his best and was a great role model. But he was from a different era.”

“And when’s the last time you saw Billy?”

“You were there,” I replied. “Over a year ago.”

“Then you should call him up,” Savannah said, as Rusty approached.

“Call who up?” he asked, as he looked back over his shoulder. “Just about everyone’s already here.”

“Billy,” I replied. “Aren’t you guys about ready to move the sub?”

“This comin’ week,” Rusty said, looking off toward where the sun had set. “I figured he’d be here by now.”

“He’s coming here?” I asked, surprised.

Billy was the acting leader of his people, the Calusa, and he had been for many years. His father was chieftain by blood and had been the Calusa representative to the Seminole Nation’s General Council for as long as I could remember, and I’d known William “Leaping Panther” Rainwater, Sr. since my birth. From what Mom had told me, he and his wife were the first to visit her on the day I was born.

For the last thirty years, since losing his wife in an accident, Leaping Panther had been in a care facility, unable or unwilling to speak. There’d been hope early on, as he lay in the hospital bed, eyes open, just staring at the ceiling. But that had faded over the years.

He’d recovered quickly from the physical injuries but was left unresponsive, locked inside his own mind, and hadn’t uttered a word since the wreck.

Leaping Panther was chieftain by blood and would be until he died, at which time, Billy would inherit the title. It was something he and I had both known about since we were kids. Though Billy had less than twenty-percent Calusa blood flowing through his veins, it was more than any other of his people.

Leaping Panther was very old now, and frail, no longer able to walk or feed himself. But every two years, the few who called themselves Calusa put his name on the ballot to be their representative in the General Council, and every year, he won by unanimous consent.

And every time since then, the Calusa elders would ask Billy to stand in for his father. Billy always accepted the appointment, graciously and with great humility.

I felt pretty certain that I was the only white person—man, or woman—who understood why Billy and the People did this.

For Billy to take time away from those responsibilities, as well as his business ventures, was a rarity. A lot of people depended on him up in Lee and Hendry Counties, and both he and his girlfriend, Trish Osceola, were members of the General Council.

“He said he was plannin’ to get here by sunset,” Rusty replied, as I began to hear a low droning sound to the east. “I reckon he got delayed by somethin’. I’ll go give him a call.”

“No need,” I said, recognizing the sound. “I think he’s about to fly over.”

I could see the red and green navigation lights flying low just off of Key Colony Beach, but the sound of the engine disappeared.

A plane slowing down.

“There he is,” I said, as a bright spotlight came on, creating a large oval of light on the water that stretched a quarter mile in front of the plane. There was still daylight left, so the light wasn’t needed, except to signal his intent.

I knew from experience that he wouldn’t need much water to land.

“He’s landin’ the wrong way,” Rusty said. “Wind’s on his tail.”

“He’s just checking the water,” I said. “But I don’t see anyone out there.”

“Me neither.”

The airplane couldn’t have been going more than seventy or eighty knots, flying low and slow, just a hundred feet above the water, giving any boaters in the area a clear understanding of his intention.

A bright, first-quarter moon was high overhead, and the bight was fully illuminated by the setting sun, and the moon’s glow, giving the water a soft, satiny appearance.

Billy had bought a slightly newer version of Island Hopper a few years ago, and though his vision was diminished from glaucoma, he still flew it every chance he got, especially at night. He’d told me that one of the effects of the disease was sensitivity to light, so he’d taken to wearing wrap-around sunglasses, even on cloudy days.

As Billy approached the shoreline, he added power and climbed quickly over the trees, banking out over the water before turning back to the right and circling out over Boot Key.

The engine sound dropped again as he bled off speed, lining up so he was nose into the wind.

We started down toward the boat ramp and, seeing that there were a few people on blankets close to where Billy was going to come ashore, we quickly helped them move everything out of the way.

I lost him as he descended lower just beyond the mangroves. Then, a moment later, the plane reappeared, barely skimming the treetops, as Billy flared it, gently increasing power as the bird settled onto the water.

It slowed quickly with the increased drag and then turned toward the boat ramp.

Rusty’s boat ramp was nothing fancy. There were no guard rails to keep people from falling into the water, just a slow sloping of concrete from the seawall out about fifty feet, with the end resting in about four feet of water.

People started coming down the yard to see what was going on. Boat arrivals were old hat, but a floatplane arriving created curiosity.

Rusty and Sidney moved toward them, keeping everyone back and enlisting help from some of the locals to make sure nobody got in the way.

I went over to the little shop set up beside the concrete pad where I used to keep Island Hopper, opened the door and switched on the lights that were flush-mounted on either side of the ramp and shining toward one another. I flicked a second switch, and an orange, low-pressure sodium light on a tall pole in the middle of the yard slowly started warming and illuminating the lawn area.

Billy’s engine roared and when I looked over, his Beaver was waddling up the ramp.

I grabbed a pair of flashlights off the shelf and checked that they worked. Then I went out to the top of the ramp to guide Billy into place just in front of the concrete pad.

He followed my arm signals toward the pad, and when the left front landing gear, a swivel wheel, reached the concrete, I pointed the light in my left hand at the ground by my feet, then started pumping the one in my right hand up and down vigorously.

Unlike many aircraft, the brakes on the Wipaire floats couldn’t be controlled individually, but from many attempts with my own plane, I knew exactly where Billy should start turning as he came up the slight incline.

He stood on the right rudder pedal, which moved the rudder hard over as he revved the engine. The prop wash pushed the tail around sharply, pivoting the plane on its four wheels, and I backed away, keeping him turning.

Finally, I crossed the lights in front of me and switched them off. Billy responded by stopping the plane and dropping the engine to an idle.

I went under the left wing, holding one finger up to Billy, sitting at the controls with Trish beside him, then grabbed the wheel chocks out of the shed.

The prop wash buffeted my clothes and hair as I put the chocks in place in front of and behind each of the main landing gear at the aft ends of the floats.

Then I stepped back out where Billy could see me and signaled that the chocks were in place.

Billy shut off the engine, then opened the door. “Hiya, Kemosabe!”

He removed his headset and jumped to the ground as I stepped forward and took his forearm in mine, shaking hands the way his people did. Then I pulled him in for a hug.

“Man, it’s good to see you again!” I said. “How’ve you been, brother?”

“Better than I deserve, old friend. It has been too long.”

The others came running up, and Savannah greeted Trish as she climbed out of the other side.

“John, jump on that float there,” Rusty directed, pointing. “And Jesse, you get on the other one. I’ll push and guide us from the front crossmembers.”

We’d done this before. Rusty was just the right height to get under the crossmembers and push on both with his shoulders.

When Billy pulled the chocks out, several others joined in and we easily pushed the plane up the slight rise and onto the concrete, where I helped him tie her down with my own straps from the shed.

“We didn’t know you were coming until just a few minutes ago,” Savannah said to Trish. “You’re welcome to stay with us on the island, if you’d like.”

“They’re bunkin’ in one of the guest rooms,” Rusty said. “We got a lot of work to do and plans to go over before we fly up to the ’Glades on Wednesday.”

“Is that when you’re moving the sub?” Dink asked, standing off to the side with Hannah.

“If all goes well,” Rusty replied. “But right now, we all got some lionfish to destroy!”

The hired muscle who’d been waiting at the dock had presented a problem and disrupted Pablo’s plans. He’d gone there after looking for his target at a place called the Rusty Anchor Bar and Grill, which was where the man was reported to live. It’d become obvious he didn’t, but Pablo had learned he’d likely be on his boat at Marathon City Marina.

His original plan was to simply wait until the target was alone, then put a bullet in his head at close range. The two men waiting for McDermitt had forced Pablo to alter his plan.

For Pablo Lopez, one man being in the way had never been a problem. His cartel bosses expected there to be collateral damage, and at times, insisted on it, but there’d been something about the way the two men at the dock had acted that had alerted Pablo that they were more dangerous than they were pretending.

So he’d gotten into his rental car and left. The target’s boat wasn’t there anyway, and if the two “debt collectors,” or whatever they were, could be believed, McDermitt wouldn’t be back until just after sundown.

He’d watched the two men in his rearview mirror as he’d driven away. He needed an inconspicuous place where he could see the marina, and kept his eyes open as he drove up 35th Street. The two guys had resumed sitting on the boxes.

When he reached the curve in the road, he’d spotted the perfect place through the fence and open area around what looked like a power plant or transfer station or something.

After he reached the highway, he’d made a right, then turned left into a library parking lot, finding a spot facing the road directly across from the power plant, which gave him a clear view of part of the marina farther down the street.

Pablo waited, watching through a pair of binoculars. He was good at waiting.

After several minutes, the two men left the dock and started walking up the street toward him. It struck him as odd that they hadn’t come there in a car. Why were two supposed hired muscles walking?

As the two men got closer, even though it was almost dusk, and the nondescript rental car’s windows were tinted, he got low in the seat.

Had they seen me turn in here? he wondered.

Pablo discounted the thought almost immediately. The marina parking lot was three hundred meters away and 35th Street had a dogleg around the power station— or whatever it was—just before it intersected the highway. He’d been completely out of sight before reaching the highway.

The two turned right onto a residential street.

He was able to follow them with the binos for almost a block, catching glimpses of them between houses, but then the angle became too great.

A moment later, the two emerged onto the sidewalk that ran along the highway, walking away from him.

Pablo studied them closely. They walked in step with one another, both their heads constantly moving, checking their surroundings or looking for something. A block down the highway, they turned into another neighborhood and disappeared.

They’d said they were there to give McDermitt a message of some kind, but Pablo had seen enough of the dark side of humanity to recognize they could and would do more, if necessary. They worked for someone McDermitt had either wronged or owed money to.

Or they might be Pablo’s competition for the bounty.

“So why did you leave?” he whispered.

He turned the binos back to the marina. Doesn’t matter.

His target was on a boat and the boat was coming to the dock. If they were debt collectors, like he figured, they were the ones who would have to “take a number.” He could see the boat’s parking spot through the binos, and easily found the two boxes the men had sat on with the logo and www.gaspars-revenge.com website on the sides.

If the two men were also there to collect the bounty and they returned and got in his way, Pablo would simply kill them as well. He had already staked his claim, and it was considered bad etiquette to jump another man’s bounty. Killing them would send a clear message.

He turned his head and glanced at the blanket lying across the backseat, covering his rifle. Like all cars in Florida, the rental had dark-tinted windows, so Pablo was unconcerned that the Belgian-made FN1930 under the blanket would draw attention.

Fabrique Nationale supplied the rifles to the Venezuelan military, which was how Cartel de los Soles came to own several thousand of them. A fairly accurate weapon right out of the box, but with a few modifications and firing the right cartridge, it was extremely consistent, if not long-ranged.

At three hundred meters, he knew he could choose which eye the bullet would enter the man’s skull through before blasting a fist-sized hole out the back of his head.

Pablo waited.

The sun was already below the trees and lights had started coming on in the shops to the left and right of the power plant. At least the open area inside its fence remained mostly dark.

Lights on the docks and some of the boats also came on, making it even easier to see the spot where the boat would soon be.

He took his phone out of his pocket and opened the photo file. It was the only one on the burner phone. Just like his rifle, it was supplied to him by the cartel and was untraceable.

The man in the photo was tall—that was apparent by the door he and the woman were in front of. He seemed sure of himself, in control. His hair was cut short, like most cops, and he was clean-shaven. City cop, or like this guy, a fed, they all seemed to have that same smug and arrogant attitude.

The woman beside him in the photo, though years older than Pablo, was shapely and attractive. It was reported that she was also to be considered dangerous. And if she became collateral damage, Pablo’s boss would be pleased.

Maybe she’d be on the boat too.

As he started to put the phone away, Pablo stopped and looked again at the photo. He recognized the door behind the couple. He’d just walked through it an hour earlier. The place where the big party was going on.

Pablo Lopez was sure of his abilities and knew he could take the shot from right there in the library parking lot. But it was wide open, and he’d have to pull the rifle out of the backseat, using the roof of the car to support the weapon. Cars were whipping past in both directions.

He remembered the long driveway through the overgrown canopy of shade he’d driven through to reach the Rusty Anchor place and wondered if an ambush there might be a better idea. He had no idea if the man would go there after work, but Pablo got the idea that he was a regular there, even if he was a hermit.

Either way, he’d still have to contend with the fact that there was only one way onto the island and one way off. But if he took the shot from cover, the almost certain roadblock the police would set up wouldn’t have a description of him or his car.

He lowered the binos and looked around the parking lot. There were only a couple of cars. He could move the rental, so it was parallel to the highway, then he could take the shot from the backseat and simply ditch the rifle and flyer, merge with the north-bound traffic and head back to Miami.

Let them set up a roadblock, Pablo thought, a sadistic smile appearing beneath the binos.

Once McDermitt was dead, he’d follow his instructions, and leave the rifle in a public place, along with a printout of the bounty.

He liked the FN and had put a lot of work into it. But there were always other guns.

Leaving the flyer would let the cops and everyone else know why the man had died and who’d paid to have him killed in such a public way.

Fear was what gave the cartel its power. Fear and more money than God.

He only needed to be patient. Parking across three spots would look suspicious, so he’d wait to do that until he saw the boat approaching.

His claim on the bounty was already written as a text on the burner phone, and as soon as he pulled the trigger, he’d send the text. Then he’d just open the back door, leave the rifle and flyer on the ground, get in the driver’s seat, and drive casually toward the inevitable roadblock.

The cartel would learn about the rifle and flyer left behind within minutes of the cops finding them, further corroboration that it was he who had killed the man.

And when he reached the roadblock, he’d complain to the cops just like everyone else was going to do, and he’d sleep without remorse, knowing that while he drove home, $250,000 would be wired to his account.

The excitement of Billy and Trish’s arrival in his Beaver died down quickly. People in the Keys are used to seeing the occasional odd occurrence.

“It’s operational?” I asked him after he’d explained about the new canals that’d been dredged.

“Not even close,” he replied. “The old diesels have been stripped down to bare blocks, and replacement parts haven’t been made for over half a century. We decided to concentrate on the electric motors.”

“Straight drive?” I asked. “With the electric motors acting as generators when the diesel’s run?”

Billy nodded. “We completely removed everything aft of the diesels, to install modern electric motors. Eventually, we’ll try to rebuild the diesels with machined parts.”

“What about the old batteries?” Alberto asked.

“Completely replaced them,” Billy replied. “The new batteries are a lot lighter and last longer. I think we might be able to make way for five hours at four knots. Almost enough time to reach the new locks, once they’re finished.”

I chuckled. “Listen to you, talking all nautical and shit.”

“Folks are startin’ to gather at the rum shack,” Rusty said, walking out onto the dock.

“What’s going on?” Billy asked, as we got to our feet.

“A friend of Jesse’s is gonna talk to local businessfolk about phony money,” Rusty replied.

There were about twenty people milling around down by the rum shack when we reached it.

“I’ll get my sample case,” Drew said, then crossed over the makeshift gangplank and went inside the catamaran’s salon.

He came back out a moment later carrying a briefcase and crossed over the gangplank.

“What’s this all about?” Gus asked me, checking his watch. “I gotta get up early.”

Gus ran a marine parts store on Big Pine Key, and I knew for a fact that they opened at 0500, so he was probably already past his usual bedtime.

“I think you’ll find what he has to say interesting,” I replied, as Drew set the case on the seawall.

When he opened it, he revealed quite a few bundles of money in what looked like several different countries’ currencies.

Picking up one of the packs, he started passing around American twenty-dollar bills. “These are all counterfeit,” he said. “I don’t have to tell any of you what happens when you accept a counterfeit note.”

“We get robbed,” a woman standing with Gus said.

“By the counterfeiter,” Drew replied with a nod, handing bills to her and Gus. “Not by the bank. They’re required to flag all attempts to pass counterfeit money and report it. And, unfortunately, your night’s deposit is reduced by the face amount of the bill.”

“Tell me about it,” a young woman I’d met a few times on Big Pine Key said. “I’m a hostess, and if one of my servers misses a bogus bill, management passes the loss on to all the girls by taking it out of their tips.”

Drew cleared his throat. “Besides it not being right, I’m pretty sure that’s illegal on his part. It’s management’s job to educate the staff so things like that don’t happen.”

Sid stepped up beside the young woman. “It isn’t hard to recognize a counterfeit if you know what to look for. Our money has a lot of safeguards.”

“Counterfeiting is a global problem,” Drew began. “Foreign invaders often did it to lower the trust in the governments of their adversaries. As I said, the bills I gave you are all counterfeit. Take a look at them and see if you can spot what makes them fakes.”

I looked at the bill in my hands, holding it up to the lights of Drew’s boat as others did the same.

“No watermark,” one woman said. “Easy-peasy.”

“And the strip isn’t even real in this one,” another man added. “At first glance, it’s there, but since you said it was a fake, I looked closer and there’s usually something written on it, real tiny-like. There’s nothing on this strip.”

“How about these?” Drew asked, passing around Bahamian money.

“No strip or watermark,” Gus said.

“It’s Bahamian,” the first woman told him. “They don’t have those.”

“Newer Bahamian currency does have counterfeit mitigation measures imbedded in the notes,” Drew said. “But the old money is still in circulation, which just makes it that much easier for counterfeiters.”

“That’s what ours was last time,” the young woman said. “Two Bahamian twenties.”

“Me too,” another woman added. “Just this past Tuesday.”

“What’s your interest in all this?” a guy I only knew as Octoman asked. “You a cop?”

Octoman owned a wholesale bait shop up in Key Largo and earned his nickname by losing the pinky finger on each hand, leaving him with only eight digits.

“I used to work for the U.S. Department of the Treasury,” Drew replied. “That is, I worked at the Treasury office, but I was a special agent with the Secret Service. I’m retired now.”

Instantly, about forty eyes were focused sharply on Drew. In Keys culture, he was a G-man, a cop for the federal government.

“What’s the friggin’ Secret Service have to do with counterfeiting?” a woman behind me asked.

I stepped forward beside Drew and turned to face everyone.

“The Secret Service was created just a few months after the Civil War ended,” I told them. “And it was originally an investigative branch of the treasury. It wasn’t until McKinley was assassinated in 1901 that they were tasked with presidential protection. But they are still the primary investigative agency for counterfeiting and other financial crimes against the government. You won’t find a more knowledgeable person on the planet than my friend, Drew.”

Suddenly, a shot rang out.

“That was from out on the highway,” Rusty said, turning instantly to face the direction the sound had come from.

“It was just a car backfire,” Gus said. “I hear it all the time when I go up to the mainland.”

“That weren’t no backfire,” Rusty said, pulling his phone out. “That was a rifle.”

He scrolled quickly, tapped the screen, then held the phone to his ear for a moment. Then he looked at it with a puzzled expression, tapped the screen again, and put it back to his ear. “Hey, Toni. I was just callin’ Gene. Did y’all hear that?”

He listened for a moment. I could hear an excited voice speaking quickly.

“Calm down, honey,” he whispered. “You said he drove away. Which direction?”

He listened for another moment as we all crowded around.

“Gene’s on the horn with 911,” Rusty said, moving the phone away from his mouth. “A shooter fired from the library parkin’ lot, tossed the gun out, and took off north in a newer-looking white Toyota.”

I looked off toward Boot Key Harbor, muscles tensing.

Toni and Gene were the local librarians and according to Rusty, had been since he was teenager.

“Tell Toni to tell the police the tag number was WPA-147,” I growled.

My own phone vibrated against my hip, charging my nervous system with electrical energy, as if it were wired directly to my spine.

I looked at the screen. It was Pete. The hair on my arms and the base of my neck came to attention.

Gregor Albert had been pronounced dead at the scene—shot in the back at long range. The scene being the flybridge of Gaspar’s Revenge, now surrounded in her slip with crime scene tape and cops.

Blood pooled in the cockpit, having dripped down from where Gregor’s body still lay on the deck above where he’d fallen.

I’d taken the threat too lightly. And because of that, a man I’d known for more than four decades was dead.

In my heart of hearts, I knew the actions of others were nobody’s fault but their own. People can be influenced but, in the end, whatever decision a person makes is their own personal choice.

Yet I still felt responsible. I should have done more, stayed there at the dock until the threat was over… something.

“They found the murder weapon,” Deuce said in a low voice.

He’d been on the phone since we’d arrived at the marina in his Suburban, shortly after the police got there.

“In the parking lot of the library,” Deuce continued, keeping his voice low. “Right where Rusty said the shot came from.”

“Yeah, he’s uncanny like that,” I mumbled without thought.

I knew, but couldn’t prove, that “Whispering Bill Anderson,” or whatever the guy’s name was who’d stood right in this same spot less than four hours earlier, was the shooter.

I knew it, and I felt Deuce knew it too.

But why? Who the hell was he? Who had it in for me that bad?

I’d never seen the guy before in my life, of that I was certain, and suddenly he shows up here to kill me? Then mistakes Pete for me, and somehow Gregor ends up the victim? It didn’t make any more sense than if Gregor had been the actual target. Sure, I’d made that kind of enemy before in the past. Most were dead, and the rest might as well be.

Gregor had been a hothead when he was young and had sown his share of wild oats. He’d been in a few fights, and I’d bailed him out of jail once. But someone mad enough to kill him? That just didn’t make sense. Especially with the stranger looking for me.

“You okay?” Deuce asked.

“I’ve known Gregor Albert a long time, Deuce,” I replied, trying to keep my voice in check as I stared out toward Party Island. “Do you remember the first time you and I met?”

“Of course not,” he replied. “I was like… three.”

“Yeah,” I replied, searching the water. “Up until two months before Rusty and I made that trip up there to visit your dad, I’d been planning to spend my leave with Gina Albert.”

His pupils narrowed for a second. “I’m assuming she was related?”

“His sister,” I replied with a nod. “It was late in the summer of ’79, and Rusty and I came here on leave after boot camp. Gregor was one of the first of his friends I met. I didn’t think much of him at the time, but he turned out alright, solid even.” I paused and looked at Deuce. “Your father-in-law and I busted up a drug ring and helped put a murderer behind bars that week.”

“Rusty told me and Julie about that a long time ago,” he said, eyes following my gaze back out to the water. “He also told me how you, he, and your grandfather rescued my mom.”

I looked over at him again. He’d been too young then to understand or remember and Russ had asked us all to simply never bring it up again.

“You think this is connected somehow?” Deuce asked.

The cops had cordoned off the foot of the pier, keeping gawkers at bay, but boat owners were allowed access. We were kept five feet away from the Revenge by yellow tape set out in the middle of the dock by a pair of orange cones. A couple scurried past the crime scene through a three-foot walkway outside the tape and cones.

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling the rage building, but still managing to keep my voice low. “That was a long time ago and everyone who was involved is dead.”

A pair of deputies were posted nearby, one in the cockpit, and the other on the finger pier, while a forensics team scoured the flybridge.

“Except you,” Deuce said.

“And Rusty and Gina,” I added. “I didn’t take the threat of this guy serious enough, Deuce.”

“Hey, look, old buddy,” he said, turning to face me with a grave expression. “Neither did I. And I’m the trained investigator.”

I knew what he was doing. Trying to point out something I already knew and accepted. But it didn’t lessen the guilt I felt.

“But you saw he was hinky?” I asked. “Right?”

“Deceptive, yeah,” Deuce replied. “The name he gave was bogus, and he wasn’t there to charter a fishing trip. But a murderer? No, I didn’t see that any more than you could’ve. A lot of people have probably come looking for you without intending to kill you.”

“Name one.”

“Well, me, for starters,” he replied. “And there was Kim, too.” He paused and turned to face me. “But then again, if you lined everyone up that you’ve ever pissed off, they’d stretch to Miami.”

“More likely to Melbourne,” I said.

“Look, none of this was your fault, Jesse.”

I heard a garbled transmission from one of the deputy’s radios, and watched as the guy beside my boat looked up, then moved toward us.

“Mr. McDermitt?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I’ve been told to bring you⁠—”

“Not likely,” I growled. “Unless you have a warrant or are charging me with a crime, I’m not going anywhere until you’re all off my boat.”

“I’ve been instructed to bring you to the secondary crime scene, sir—the library.”

“Why?” I asked, as Deuce’s phone rang.

He turned away to take the call.

“I don’t know, sir,” the deputy replied. “Detective Pine just told me to locate you and ask you to come with me to where she is.”

“Where she⁠—”

“No need, deputy,” Deuce said, turning around and pocketing his phone. “My car’s right over there. We can drive over ourselves.”

The deputy had been insistent. He’d been ordered to “bring” us there but had called and gotten the okay for us to make the hazardous quarter-mile journey on our own.

Deuce seemed nervous as we were walking back toward his Suburban, and didn’t say anything until we got in.

“There’s a quarter million-dollar bounty on your head,” he said as he started the engine. “Cartel of the Suns wants you dead.”

All the little building blocks began to fall into place. I’d caused that particular cartel some trouble more than once over the years. I’d always managed to keep a low profile, though, and had never been identified by anyone still living. So it wasn’t a question of why I was a target. But why had it taken so long?

I didn’t like running from a fight any more than I liked fighting. Part of the reason I’d built Taranis was to put distance between me and my enemies, which also put distance between them and my loved ones.

Deuce dropped the big SUV into gear and headed up 35th at a slow roll. “I remember when I came here to find you. It wasn’t easy.”

“That’s what I was just thinking,” I replied. “I like it that way.”

“And you’re a lot more of a recluse these days,” he added. “They’ve probably been hunting you for years.”

As captain of Jack Armstrong’s high-speed, floating command center, Ambrosia, we’d disrupted a human trafficking ring out of Venezuela that had proven to be connected to the Cartel of the Suns, and more recently, we’d snagged part of one of their cocaine shipments while fishing near Dominica, then helped the local police find the rest and bring it in.

I looked over at Deuce. “Any idea who it was who placed the bounty?”

“A highly placed person in the Venezuelan government,” Chyrel’s voice announced from the speakers in quadraphonic sound.

“What’s his name?” Deuce and I both asked at the same time.

It no longer surprised me that Chyrel was in constant contact with Deuce. She’d been his computer analyst since he’d recruited her away from the CIA just after 9/11 and had stayed on with him when the Caribbean Counterterrorism Command was dismantled.

“We don’t have a name just yet,” she replied, her Alabama accent more pronounced, indicating she was working on the computer and talking at the same time. “But we do know a good deal about who he might be. We know he was the money behind the human smuggling ring in Venezuela and Syria. It wasn’t officially a cartel operation, but it brought him the most notoriety. He’s called El Profanador.”

“The defiler?” I asked.

“Not all the indigenous people who were taken were transported to the Middle East,” Chyrel added. “Dozens of young women and girls are still unaccounted for.” There was silence for a moment. “And there’s more.”

I knew Chyrel was a deeply caring woman. In reality, she wore her heart on her sleeve. But in her “computer sleuth” world of deep cover espionage with the CIA, she’d become somewhat desensitized about the travesties visited on people.

“What more?” Deuce asked, as he turned onto US-1. “These cartel pukes will slit their own mothers’ throats for a dollar and Jesse’s probably cost them millions.”

“Hundreds of millions,” she replied. “El Profanador was demoted in the cartel’s hierarchy. He was put in charge of a new drug supply route through Dominica.”

“Oh, great,” I grumbled. “He probably thinks it’s personal and I’m targeting him or something.”

“That’d be for Paul to weigh in on,” she replied.

Paul Bender was a forensic criminal psychologist and had formerly been a part of the Secret Service’s presidential protection detail before Deuce had recruited him, also. The CCC had been made up of more than twenty operatives, many with specialized military units, as well as the hodge-podge of government alphabet agencies, like FBI, CIA, DEA, and ICE, as well as an equal number of support personnel like Chyrel, and when it was broken up, most went back to their parent commands, but a handful moved with Deuce into private security, which was actually a front, since Deuce and his team still worked for Jack Armstrong.

“And we don’t know his real name?” Deuce asked, as he crossed the south-bound lanes and pulled into the library parking lot. “That needs to be top priority.”

There were only seven vehicles in the parking lot, two belonging to Gene and Tony, and were parked on the side. A crime scene van and three Monroe County Sheriff’s patrol cars were parked haphazardly at odd angles with the van sitting across three parking spaces.

The seventh car was an unmarked police car with blue lights flashing in the back window. It was parked diagonally in a single parking spot, perfectly centered between the faded lines.

“I’m working on it,” Chyrel replied. “I’ve already brought David in to help, too.”

“Perfect,” I muttered, opening the door. “Now Florence will know, and within minutes, Savvy.”

“He doesn’t know why, Jesse,” Chyrel said. “He only knows it’s a priority job to identify the man. We’ll find out who he is.”

“Mr. McDermitt?” a young woman asked, striding toward us while removing a pair of latex gloves.

She was dressed stylishly in a gray pantsuit and white blouse, with shoulder-length blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had green eyes, a somewhat pale complexion for the Keys, and wore running shoes, which didn’t go with her outfit but were probably far more comfortable than any shoes that would.

When she pulled her left glove off, I noticed a paler indentation at the base of her ring finger.

I’d seen her around town a few times over the previous year but couldn’t recall the exact circumstances. Something in the news about a murder.

“I’m McDermitt,” I replied, and jerked my head toward Deuce. “My business partner, Deuce Livingston.”

She smiled. “Perfect, then; that saves me time. I’m Detective Sergeant Pine, and I’m placing you both in protective custody.”

“Like hell you are,” I said.

“You’re not even going to ask why?”

I could see the rifle lying on the ground under a bright streetlight where anyone walking past on the sidewalk would have found it. I could also see that it was covered with fingerprint powder, which, based on the rifle used, was probably a waste of time. Beyond it was the highway, the electric co-op, and the length of 35th Street to the marina.

My eyes met hers. “A Cartel of the Suns assassin, wearing gloves and leaving no prints, used a Belgium-made FN-1930 to fire a single match-grade cartridge from this location. He was shooting at my charter captain, Pete Wadsworth, thinking he was me, and my boat’s first mate, Gregor Albert, stood up in his line of fire.”

A gift or a curse, I’d always had pretty good recall and like to think I’m pretty attentive to details. And I knew exactly how to use those qualities to piss off a cop. Not that I wanted to, but I needed to make a point.

It worked.

Pine’s smile left her face. “How do you know all that? I only learned some of the details a few minutes ago.”

She held out a clear evidence bag with a piece of paper in it. “The shooter left this.”

I took the evidence bag and looked at it. There was a grainy picture of me and Savannah coming out of the Rusty Anchor. I could tell by our clothes and the cut of my hair that it was probably taken last year, before we left, and the photographer had used a telephoto lens. From the angle, they were probably in a car at the far corner of the parking lot, or maybe even on foot, inside the treeline near the driveway.

Below the picture were three paragraphs in Spanish, which I understand better when I hear it rather than read it. It looked like a list of charges, and below that, the dollar amount being offered as blood money—$250,000.

“Somebody wants you dead, Mr. McDermitt,” Pine said. “Very badly.”

“And you want to protect me?” I asked. “No offense, but it seems my partner and I are already way ahead of you, Detective Pine.”

Her face showed a slow burn, not one prone to quick anger, but since I was pushing her buttons, I continued, remembering the story I’d read.

“You and your ex-husband came here two years ago,” I began. “I’m guessing it was to put distance between you and what happened back home, and the Keys are as far as you could get without leaving the country.” Then I guessed at the next part. “He cheated, you split up, and you started trying to change yourself with a new workout routine and a switch to a vegan diet.”

Her right hand moved subconsciously to where her wedding band had once been. “I could detain you both right now, just for what you’re carrying under your shirts.”

She was becoming angry. Making empty threats.

“You also suffer with CDO,” I said. “That’s OCD in alphabetical order. Must be difficult in your profession.”

It was just a guess, based on how she’d parked her car, but her eyes widened.

Deuce pulled his wallet out and opened it, displaying his private investigator credentials. “No, Detective, you can’t. We’re both licensed by the state of Florida as private investigators, and we’re both card-carrying concealed permit holders.”

He flipped the badge up to display his Florida CWL.

“We need time to find out who’s behind this,” she said, resorting to diplomacy. Then she turned to me. “Your sharp perception aside, as long as you’re walking around, someone else could stand up in the crossfire.”

Deuce put his wallet away. “We already know who is behind it.”

“And by tomorrow we’ll have identified who placed the bounty,” I added.

“You’re just a pair of cheap private eyes with limited resources,” she said, becoming irritable. “I’m only asking that you let the police do our jobs.”

I looked over at Deuce, then back at the detective. “No offense, but I haven’t seen you around here since before last Christmas. I know my way around these islands just fine.”

“You remember every face you see?” she asked.

I gave her a half grin. “Yes, I do. I remember seeing you coming out of Keys Fitness last December and you’re thinner now. Decide to get back into your college jeans?”

“I’m impressed,” she said. “But a small PI firm just doesn’t have the same resources that⁠—”

“Actually, we have better,” I said, cutting her off as I recalled the full details of the news story. “Would you join us in Deuce’s car, Diane?”

“I’d rather you joined me in my…” she looked at me, puzzled. “How do you know my first name?”

“We have greater, more far-reaching resources than you can imagine,” I told her. “But we need to talk privately.”

She crossed her arms, and I noticed the slight bulge under her jacket at her left hip. She was a lefty.

“If you should find him, then what?” she asked. “You two cowboys go all mercenary on him?”

“If it’s not in your jurisdiction,” I said, “then what do you care?”

“Sergeant Pine!” a uniformed deputy exclaimed, trotting around a patrol car toward us. “They got him.”

Pine stepped away, but I overheard the radio chatter. A deputy on patrol up in Long Key had spotted the white Toyota, confirmed the license number, and stopped it just before the bridge. There’d been just one person in the car and the description matched the guy we’d seen on the dock earlier, right down to his clothes. His driver’s license had identified him as Pablo Lopez, a resident of Miami.

“What’s with this ‘get in the car’ crap?” Deuce whispered when Pine walked away from us.

“She survived a gang hit in Cincinnati, Deuce,” I replied, my voice also low. “Parents and younger sister both killed.”

“And you think that makes her what? A candidate?” he asked.

“She lives in a two-bedroom, off-the-beach townhouse over at Key Colony,” I replied, as she started back toward us. “Her parents were worth over eight million and she was the sole heir.”

Deuce turned to face me, a surprised look on his face. It felt good to know I could still keep him on his toes.

I shrugged. “It was in all the papers.”

“Have you ever heard of him?” she asked. “Pablo Lopez?”

“Can we talk in the Suburban?” Deuce asked, looking around. “It’s up-armored.”

She instinctively glanced around, suddenly aware. I watched her eyes and saw the realization come to her. She was standing in front of a marked man.

She turned her head and called over her shoulder, “Give me a couple of minutes, Kyle.”

One of the forensics guys was at the back of the van, apparently trying to get a print from the single cartridge case the shooter left. He waved a hand without looking up.

We walked back to Deuce’s Suburban and I opened the back door for her. “Tell Kyle to take the weapon to your armory and have it disassembled. Judging by the modifications, the shooter took great care of it and the individual parts might have a print. If your armorer is unfamiliar with that weapon, tell him to call Sherri Fallon up in Miami. She’s with the SWAT team.”

Pine stared at me a moment, then repeated what I’d said to Kyle before she climbed in.

Deuce and I got in the front and turned to face her as she examined the door and window a little closer.

“Just who the hell are you people?” she asked. “This thing must have cost a fortune.”

“First, I want to know more about you,” Deuce said. “Chyrel, meet Detective Sergeant Diane Pine with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.”

Pine jumped in her seat when Chyrel replied over the speakers, “Good evening, Detective Pine.”

I could hear the clatter of her keyboard as she spoke, already working on the name Deuce had just given her.

“There’s no way you’re just private investigators,” Pine said. “Who’s that on the cell phone?”

“It’s not a phone,” I replied. “It’s a very sophisticated, end-to-end double-encrypted, satellite communications system called METIS, and Chyrel’s our computer analyst.”

She looked from me to Deuce. “FBI?”

“We’re… not affiliated with any particular government agency,” Chyrel replied. “Deuce, both voice and facial recognition confirm, Diane Pine, born Cincinnati, Ohio, March 4th, 1994. Served three years in the Army, 2014 to 2017, twice deployed to Afghanistan, numerous commendations including the Purple Heart. Entered law enforcement in 2018 with Cincinnati PD, joined the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in 2023, promoted to detective early this year.”

Pine stared at me from the backseat, her mouth open as if she were about to say something, as Chyrel continued.

“Parents were Jack and Alice Pine, CEO and CFO of Pine Industries, in Cincinnati. Both were killed, along with their youngest daughter, in 2022, allegedly by members of MS-13, in retaliation for a heroin bust then-officer Pine made six months earlier, resulting in a seizure of four kilograms of heroin.”

Pine sat forward in the backseat. “Wait just a minute! Who the hell are you people?”

“Current net worth?” I asked.

“Slightly over nine million,” Chyrel replied.

To say that Chyrel Tankersley was good with computers was an understatement. She was also very adept at anticipating Deuce’s needs before even he did, and had understood immediately why Pine was in the car with us. There’d really be only one reason.

“Have you ever heard of Armstrong Research, Detective?” Chyrel asked.

“Armstrong Re…” her eyes widened. “That’s who you work for?”

Deuce turned more in his seat to face her. “Few people actually work for Armstrong,” he replied. “Most are independently wealthy philanthropists with backgrounds in the military or law enforcement, and who have a deep-rooted desire to see justice implemented swiftly and with surgical precision.”

“You’re… mercenaries?” she asked.

“Only if absolutely necessary to bring justice to those who need it most,” Deuce replied, then offered a wry grin. “But mostly we’re just cheap private eyes.”

Pete and Reggie had been taken to the sheriff’s substation to be interviewed before Deuce and I even got to the marina. So I hadn’t had a chance to talk to either one. And by the time we’d joined Detective Pine at the library, Gene and Toni had likewise been whisked away.

There were more cops on Key Vaca at one time than I’d ever seen, and though not commonplace, violence was no stranger to the Florida Keys. The police always took shootings seriously, but this one was different.

This one was a sniper.

Pine was never going to convince either of us that we were better off in protective custody than we’d be on our own, and we both flat out refused the suggestion.

But Deuce and I had planted a seed. If she was the person I thought she was, that seed would root and grow rapidly.

It was nearly midnight when we got back to the Rusty Anchor, and all four witnesses were there, the center of attention from the group of people still remaining after the big party, mostly locals and liveaboards.

The two elderly librarians had their backs to me when we entered.

I steered Toni aside and spoke in a whisper. “Any trouble relaying the tag number?”

“No, not at all,” she whispered back. “The parking lot’s well lit, so the officer believed me. I actually did get the first three letters. Thank you.”

“They caught the guy up island,” I said. “Thank you. It takes a gutsy gal to move toward danger.”

“That’s good they got him, then,” she replied, her face flushing a little. “I only knew Gregor as a boy. He used to come in with his mother and sisters when he was little. I’m very sorry for your loss. He seemed to have turned out to be a nice man. So, it’s all over?”

Her voice held a tinge of doubt.

“No, it’s not over,” Deuce replied, then turned to the others and raised his voice. “Gregor wasn’t the target.”

Everyone looked at him as he continued. “A Venezuelan cartel placed a bounty on Jesse’s life and the shooter thought Pete was him. Gregor simply got in the line of fire.”

“Is that true, Jesse?” Savannah asked, taking my arm.

I looked around the room. Besides my and Rusty’s family, Mitzi and John were still there, along with Dink and Hannah, and one of Dink’s guides, Marcel. Billy and Trish sat quietly, listening, as did Drew and Tammi. Even Wilma, the little chihuahua, seemed attentive.

“The shooter left a bounty flyer,” I told them. “Just like they did in the Old West.” Then I looked down at my wife. “Deuce only found out an hour ago. It’s Cartel de los Soles.”

“Why would they want to kill you?” Marcel asked.

“Duh,” Dink muttered. “Jesse’s a spy.”

I grinned at him. “I’m not a spy, Dink. You could just as easily be a target, yourself. Remember those square groupers in Dominica? They belonged to Cartel of the Suns.”

“You’re shittin’ me!”

“And a few years ago,” Deuce added, “when Jesse was the captain of that big research vessel, he disrupted a human trafficking operation, saved an untold number of lives, and cost that same cartel millions of dollars.” He looked over at me and shrugged. “Maybe it’s time to come clean.”

“Human trafficking?” Mitzi asked. “You mean like underage prostitutes?”

“If only that were all,” Billy said, quietly, the deep timbre of his voice causing all eyes to turn toward him and Trish. “For years, this particular cartel has been kidnapping innocent men, women, and children, mostly from native tribes of the rain forest, but a few tourists also ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were sold into slavery in the Middle East, never to be seen again.”

“Slavery?” Maddy asked from behind the bar, where she was gathering coffee mugs on a tray.

As she brought the tray over, I nodded. “Slaves of all kinds, all races, all ages. The men are put to work, and the women and children become sex slaves.”

Her hands began trembling as she placed the tray on a table. Maddy had herself been kidnapped last year, and had we not found her when we did, there’s no telling where she might have ended up.

“We should go far, far away,” Alberto said quietly, sitting next to Tank on the floor, with one arm draped around the big dog. “And just never come back.”

I knelt in front of him. “Running from a fight doesn’t end it, son. That only delays it and moves it to a place and time of your opponent’s choosing.”

Behind me, the door opened and closed as Alberto looked up, his dark eyes becoming moist. “How do you fight a whole cartel gang?”

“You cut off the head of the snake,” a voice behind me replied.

I turned my head to see Detective Pine standing just inside the door.

I rose and strode toward her, Savvy following me.

“Can we talk outside?” I asked her.

The three of us stepped out the door into the cool night air as the others began to pepper Deuce and Billy with questions.

“Hi,” Savannah said, extending a hand. “I’m Savannah, Jesse’s wife.”

“This is Detective Diane Pine,” I said, and they shook hands.

Pine looked at me. “Is it okay to talk?”

I nodded.

“You asked me to get into your friend’s car earlier for a specific reason,” she began, as I figured she would. “And it wasn’t because his car was bullet-proof. What was the reason for telling me what you did?”

“Very few people know they exist,” I replied. “The Armstrong network, that is. I used to captain one of their research vessels, but I’m retired now.”

She stared at me a moment, then looked at Savannah. “Men like your husband never retire, do they?”

“We’ve tried,” Savannah replied. “A couple of times. I also worked for Armstrong during our time aboard Ambrosia.”

“Doing… ocean research, huh?”

Savvy looked over at me for a second, then back at the detective. “I think we all know that Armstrong does more than research.”

Pine looked up at me. “Our armorer called Captain Fallon. You didn’t say she was the head of Miami SWAT. At the mention of your name, she dropped whatever she was doing and walked our armory through the disassembly with Kyle at his side. They lifted two good prints, which matched the suspect’s, and ballistics matched the slug from the victim’s body to the rifle.”

“GSR?” Savannah asked.

Pine smiled. “Yes, our forensics guy, Kyle, found gunshot residue on the shoulder of the suspect’s coat, as well as on the backseat upholstery of his car. Witnesses at the library described a tall, dark-haired man wearing business casual and they got the tag number. We have a solid first-degree murder case, and by leaving that stupid flyer, we added conspiracy to commit.”

“It’s not as solid as you think,” I said, just to see which direction my next revelation would take her. “I gave Toni the tag number before the first deputy arrived.”

“You gave her… How did you get it?”

“Toni did get the first three letters,” I replied, watching her eyes carefully. “But Deuce and I met the guy at the marina more than an hour before the shooting.”

She gave me a troubled expression. Definitely not a poker player.

“Why did you meet the suspect?” Pine asked.

“I’m afraid my husband, and Deuce also, have a penchant for playing games with certain types of people.”

I went on to tell her how I was working behind the bar and overheard a guy I’d never seen asking about me, how Dink had sent him on a wild goose chase, and how Deuce and I had run over to the marina on foot to pretend to be waiting for the goose to roost.

“If you thought he was dangerous,” Pine began, “why on Earth would you go to meet him? He had a picture of you.”

“That’s the ‘playing’ part I mentioned,” Savannah said. “Like a feral cat tossing an injured rat around until it quits moving.”

“This isn’t a game, Ms. McDermitt. This was an extremely dangerous man.”

“Detective Pine,” Savannah replied, taking my hand, “You’re looking at the most dangerous man in the whole state.”

I shook my head, not taking my eyes from Pine’s. “No. That’d be Deuce. He’s younger, a Navy SEAL commander, and I’ve been teaching him for two decades.”

Most people had no idea what a dangerous person looked like. They came in all shapes, sizes, ages, races, and sex. Detective Pine was herself a dangerous person. She’d gone through training to be that way. One day, she’d hang up the badge and gun and retire. But she wouldn’t be any less dangerous the next morning.

Nor years later.

Over my twenty years in the Corps, I’d learned certain skills—even taught those skills to others. It was a skill set that had no place in the civilian world.

I’d once been an instructor for both martial arts and scout/sniper school. My students had been tough-as-nails infantry Marines. Not something that looked good on a resume, but I’d never had one.

I’d seen hundreds of Marines end their enlistment after a single four-year tour and return home with all that skill and knowledge still in their brain housing group, all that training and ability still coiled in their muscle memory. But once they were back home, nobody would see them as dangerous people. Just as old friends who’d gone away for a few years.

Every now and then, they returned to active duty. Not everyone’s cut out to be a civilian.

I’d spent twenty years honing my craft—killing people from far away—and leaving the Corps didn’t mean leaving the ability behind. I could still drive a nail into a tree at three hundred yards.

If pressed, I could be an extremely dangerous man.

But most wouldn’t see that. Like the bikers earlier, all they would see was an old man who needed a shave and a haircut.

I watched Pine’s eyes and body language carefully as the realization hit her. It was subtle at first. I usually wore a baggy work shirt when I was around people and that night was no exception. But the physical clues were still there. Her pupils dilated, then her eyes slowly widened and her lips parted, but no words came.

I could even see the little hairs at her temples rise slightly as the little reptilian part of her ancestral brain began ringing an alarm.

Detective Sergeant Diane Pine was a sworn officer of the law and knew what a dangerous person looked like.

I was an absolute civilian, and she now knew or suspected things about me and Deuce that very few people were aware of. What she did with that information was just a guess on my part, but I felt pretty sure what her reaction was going to be.

“I’d heard stories,” she said softly, “whispers, mostly; conversations cut short when whoever was speaking realized I was there. Are they true?”

“Whatever you’ve overheard has been second-hand suppositions until now,” Savannah replied. “And probably embellished by the teller. Those who know don’t speak.”

“But you’re both talking to me now.” She looked from Savannah to me. “But based in fact.”

I nodded, knowing that what she was learning could put people who were on the right side behind bars.

I also knew it would be her word against ours, if she went that route, and life as a detective in the Florida Keys could become miserable for her.

“And this organization?” she asked Savannah. “If it existed, that is. It would be quite large, and would fix problems large and small, all around the world, with complete impunity from government oversight?”

She had heard a few stories. Or she’d done some research since we’d left her at the library. The internet was full of speculation about supposed “black-ops” do-gooder groups.

“We have our own rules of engagement,” I replied, then tried to steer her back where I wanted her to go with a little more information.

“Armstrong has a vast network of informants,” I continued. “I’m talking hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Some with ties to governments, military, or law enforcement. Some are just invisible people working behind a bar or driving a taxi.”

Pine turned away for a moment, looking out toward the water, where a half-moon hung low in the western sky. It was nearly 0100.

She took a step away from us as Savannah and I looked at one another.

She was intrigued, and I could tell her curiosity had nothing to do with her being a cop.

“How does it work, exactly?” Pine asked, then turned around. “How do informants contact this agency?”

I pulled my wallet from my pocket as the door opened behind me and Drew stepped outside and put Wilma down.

“Oh, here you are,” he said. “You missed her playing with your pup; it was comical. I’m turning in. I just wanted to thank you for putting this together, and of course, to offer my condolences.” He looked at the detective for a moment, then lowered his voice. “We’re leaving for Key West at first light. A former colleague from D.C. is flying in and we’re going to compare notes.”

I nodded and shook his hand. “Good to see you again. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

As he walked Wilma down the sloped yard toward the rum shack, I dug a business card from one of the recesses of my wallet and handed it to Pine. There was nothing on it except a phone number and on the back, a five-digit code—the first five numbers of the serial number for the rifle I was issued in boot camp.

“Call the number on the front,” Savannah said. “Ask for Jesse McDermitt, and when asked, give them the number on the back.”

She flipped the card over and looked up at Savannah. “That’s it?”

“You’ll be asked some questions,” I told her. “Beginning with your name and occupation. Then they’ll take your information and tell you they’ll contact you later. Be honest. Assume you’re on a digital polygraph, because they will check, and they have voice recognition software that will positively identify you before you hang up the phone.”

“When they call you back,” Savannah added, “you’ll be given your own code number for future calls, which you can change at that time to something easily remembered. Use that instead of your name for future calls. Just report what you suspect or know but can’t prove.”

“The Armstrong network is huge,” I added. “There’s a team of more than thirty full-time analysts, all compiling information from thousands of informants every day. Don’t get me started on the computer that correlates all the data. You never know if the tip you give might be exactly what’s needed for an indictment or conviction. Once the analysts compile enough evidence, they will either hand everything over to the right agency for prosecution or send an investigator if it’s warranted.”

Her eyes turned cold. “The woman on the phone or whatever,” she said, her tone icy. “She said ‘allegedly by MS-13’ when talking about my family’s murder. I know who it was, but the DA couldn’t get enough evidence for a warrant, much less an indictment.”

“That’s when people like myself, or Deuce and his team, would be brought in,” I replied. “But like I said, I’m retired.”

Pine looked up at me with blue eyes that seemed colder than solid mercury. “How does someone go from being an informant to doing what you do?”

I grinned, but not at her question. It was mostly at myself. I was well on my way to becoming one scary good judge of the coldness that dwelt in the hearts of certain people. Another thing that probably wouldn’t look good on a resume.

I gave her the same cold stare. “If you had the opportunity to do it without repercussions, would you put a gun to the forehead of the man who killed your family and press the trigger?”

Her answer was honest and without hesitation, possibly admitting it to herself for the first time. “Yes.”

Though it was late, I figured it was probably best if we went back to the island, rather than accept Rusty’s offer to spend the night up in the big house. He had the room, but out there in the Content Keys, I could hear a kayak coming a mile away.

It was extremely doubtful they would strike again so soon after murdering Gregor. The cartel might not even know yet that the shooter had failed.

Then it occurred to me that they probably did know. The same way Deuce learned about it. Chyrel had hacked into the Monroe County Sheriff’s incident report log. Why else would Lopez have left the flyer? He had to know it’d be collected and catalogued as evidence.

That flyer had been the shooter’s proof of claim on the bounty. South American cartels were sophisticated, and likely just as plugged in as Chyrel.

Tank stood alone on the forward deck, legs wide and flexed to absorb the slight chop as we skirted the Water Keys.

Alberto was sandwiched between me and Savannah at the helm.

I had the nav lights on and the plotter was in night mode, barely casting enough light to see Savannah’s face. The moon, looking larger than normal, had dipped below the horizon as we’d left the Anchor, so aside from our lights, only the stars illuminated anything.

It was actually brilliant using the police as proof of a murder. If two snipers had fired at exactly the same time, they’d only have to wait for the police to post the ballistics and ME’s reports to determine which was the fatal bullet and which assassin to pay.

Pine had said that the flyer had been lying under the rifle when the first deputy arrived. What other reason could Lopez have had to leave it?

We motored just fast enough to stay on plane as we made our way north. I knew the water, and there were so many past tracks on the plotter that I only needed to stay in the middle of them.

Deuce was sending a couple of guys out to babysit and had said they’d arrive by boat shortly after dawn. He also said that identifying and neutralizing whoever the individual was who offered the bounty was Armstrong’s number one priority.

I knew Jack Armstrong had assets in Venezuela but would rather be part of the hunt myself. Letting someone else fight my battles just didn’t sit well.

“You’re staying here, right, Dad?” Alberto asked.

Tank turned his head and looked back for a moment, his ears and jowls flapping.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Savannah replied. “Right, Jesse?”

I glanced down at the plotter, adjusted course slightly, exhaled slowly, then finally nodded, but without much resolve. “No need.”

Larry and Lauren had left the Rusty Anchor on their boat before everything happened. I debated waking them up to tell them what was going on as soon as we got home, but figured it’d be best to wait until morning. I wasn’t sure how they’d react to openly armed people walking around the island.

A mile ahead, I could see the green and red markers of a boat coming toward us and immediately tensed.

Too soon, I thought. There were lots of boats coming and going this way every day.

A light flashed and the oncoming boat turned slightly. Most likely a fisherman returning from a late night in the Gulf. I turned right also, but there were shoals ahead, so I slowed.

The other boat also slowed, and a light on the back of the cabin came on, illuminating the deck and trap-pulling hardware.

“That’s Mac’s boat,” Alberto announced.

“He’s heading this way,” Savannah added.

I dropped my speed to an idle and turned toward the approaching boat. How he knew it was us at that distance, I couldn’t guess, until I looked down at the plotter and saw his AIS signal.

I’d left the damned thing turned on.

I quickly deselected the automated identification system from the chart plotter’s systems menu.

Rule One when you know you’re being hunted: Don’t tell the enemy where the hell you are.

Brilliant, McDermitt, I chastised myself.

Mac reversed his engine about thirty feet away and I did the same, then went to neutral, letting the Grady drift toward the larger boat.

“You’re out late,” Mac said, a silhouette against the lighted cockpit behind him. “I heard what happened in town. Real sorry. Gregor was a good man.”

“Thanks,” I said, reaching out to grab his rail and hold us steady. “I could say the same about you—being out late. We just left the cops.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m picking Mel up. She had some research to do.”

“Anything going on with ‘the kids’ at our place?”

Mac had dubbed Lauren and Larry “the kids” who were alright, according to The Who.

“They got back from Rusty’s place not long after I did,” he replied. “Just after sunset. Nothing but a dock light on when I left.”

Though we lived more than a mile apart, sound traveled very well over open water. On a calm, still night, we could talk to one another. But it had to be in clipped words, like a robot voice, because the distance distorted the sound. But if anything was going on, Mac would have heard about it.

“Anyway,” he said, “saw you on AIS and just wanted to offer my condolences.”

“Tell Mel, thanks again for earlier,” I offered.

“You should retire, McDermitt,” he said, dropping his transmission into gear. “Learn how to just enjoy life.”

I put the Suzuki in forward and turned away. “Night, Mac.”

“Night, Jesse and crew.”

“See you, Mac,” Savannah called out, then turned and whispered to me, “You had the AIS turned on?”

I grinned over at her in the light of the plotter. “Some spy, huh?”

When we arrived at the island, the little solar-powered light on the end of the south pier was the only light visible. We idled quietly into my channel, and Alberto went up front to step over with the bow line.

Tank beat him to the dock though, leaping across three feet of water to stand facing the house, ears up, and his nose testing the air for anything. Maybe he’d picked up on the tension we all felt.

Or was someone hiding in the shadows?

Once I shut off the engine, it became oddly silent. I could hear nothing but a light shore break on the rocks over on the east side of the island.

Tank stood motionless, staring into the deep shadows beside the house. I watched where he did. Dogs have much better night vision than we do.

“We can just leave it outside tonight,” I said in a low voice. “No sense waking up the whole island.”

The truth was, I felt a slight apprehension. They knew my boat, Gaspar’s Revenge, was docked in town. And I had to assume they knew about Taranis from our encounter in Dominica. And Taranis was docked on the north pier. All it would take was a plane or chopper flying anywhere near the Contents.

Could they have also learned where my island was?

Tank took a few steps forward, wagging his tail, and then Larry stepped out of the shadows, striding out onto the pier.

“I thought I heard you out on the water,” he said. “It sounded like you and Mac stopped to talk for a bit.”

“Sound travels well over water,” I said, then took a deep breath. “I suppose you heard what happened in town.”

Lauren stepped out onto the pier behind Larry. “Sorry we left so early, Savvy. It was just… a lot of people.”

Savannah climbed out and smiled at the younger woman. “Believe me, Lauren, I totally understand. Crowds aren’t my thing either.”

“Run up and get ready for bed,” I said to Alberto, as I tied off the stern line. “I need to talk to Larry and Lauren.”

He stood from where he’d bent to cleat the bow line and crossed his arms defiantly over his chest. “I’m a part of this too.”

He was right, of course. He was thirteen and on his way to becoming a man. At his age, I’d traveled alone or with Billy all over a million acres of Southwest Florida woods and swamps, living off the land and water for days at a time, once for two weeks, the summer before I entered high school. And we’d encountered a number of scary animals.

Some walked on two legs.

“We were just sitting by the fire,” Lauren said. “What happened in town? Is that why you’re so late?”

“Let’s go out to the fire,” I suggested. “Tank, suchen.”

He was off like a cannonball, hurtling through the darkness like a black specter, searching for anyone that wasn’t supposed to be there.

We heard a crash over by the tree line as he charged through the brush and into the water.

“What happened?” Larry asked, as we walked around the house toward the glowing embers in the fire pit.

I could hear Tank splashing ashore near the solar sunflower and then go careening through more scrub that was finally returning after Hurricane Irma.

He became overcharged and aggressive when given the command to seek, even toppling things that a small child might hide under when playing hide-and-seek. He was big, powerful, and at times ungainly. And he made a lot of scary noises that only a rabid wolf or a well-trained 125-pound dog could make, just as I’d taught him.

He could be heard up near the north pier, once more making a great deal of noise, both in the water and along the shoreline. That was the intent of “seek,” or suchen, in German.

He grunted and growled as he made his way along the eastern shore, not being the least bit covert. The purpose was to flush out anyone or anything that might be hiding. If I wanted him to do the same thing, but quietly, I’d have given him the command “recon.”

“There was a shooting at Marathon City Marina,” I said, as we reached the fire and moved out around it to sit. “Gregor Albert was shot and killed just after sunset.”

The two looked at one another, and Lauren moaned, “Oh, God!”

“I told you that sounded like a gunshot,” Larry said.

I put a large hunk of thick driftwood on the embers, sending sparks disappearing into the night sky.

“Who shot him?” Larry asked. “And why?”

“The killer was a hired gun for a South American cartel,” I replied somberly. “He assumed Pete was me piloting the Revenge into City Marina at sunset, and Gregor must’ve stood up just as he fired. It’s my fault he’s dead.”

“It most certainly is not, Jesse McDermitt,” Savannah said vehemently. “That man might have shot⁠—”

“But he didn’t!” I snapped and immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry, Savvy. But that guy would never have been here tonight if it weren’t for me, and we both know that.”

Her features took on a sadness I rarely, if ever, saw.

It was true, though. While Lopez had been personally responsible for the action that ended the life of a friend of mine, the bullet he fired had been meant for me—retribution for what I’d unknowingly or involuntarily done, costing them a ton of money.

She stared into the fire, and the sadness in her eyes slowly transformed into resolve.

“What do we do about it?” she asked, without looking up.

I took her hand, knowing exactly what she meant. “Don’t worry,” I whispered. “Gregor will get justice.”

“I met him a few times,” Lauren said, “but didn’t really know him very well.” She looked at me as the hunk of driftwood ignited, and firelight flickered across her features. “A drug cartel is trying to kill you?”

“‘Living here means sharing everything,’” Alberto quoted in a deep voice. “‘Including knowledge of a possible threat.’” Then he shrugged and added, “Your words.”

I looked from Larry to Lauren and back again. “Cartel of the Suns, a very large and dangerous South American cartel, placed a quarter-million-dollar bounty on me.”

“A bounty?” Lauren asked. She sat forward, her face a mask of concern. “You mean they hired someone to kill you?”

“Last year,” Savannah began, still looking at the fire, “just before Christmas, we sort of stumbled onto a drug ring run by Cartel of the Suns and helped the local Dominican police, and really, the local people, take it apart.”

“And two years before that,” Alberto said, “Dad wrecked another one of their smuggling operations, but that time it was people.”

Larry and Lauren looked at Alberto for a long moment, then she glanced over at me. “People?”

I nodded solemnly.

Larry’s eyes met mine also. “What are you going to⁠—”

Grrr…

The rumble was low and malevolent, emanating from deep in Tank’s chest. It sounded almost like faraway thunder on a clear night. Thunder with two-inch “mouth knives.”

He rose to his feet, looking toward the east, and I was out of my chair instantly, straining my ears to pick up whatever sound he heard.

“A boat’s coming,” Alberto whispered. “Tank can hear it, but we can’t.”

“Do you think it’s Mac coming back?” Savannah suggested, looking in the direction Tank was alerting to.

“Not enough time,” I said softly. “He was heading to Marathon to pick up Mel.”

Savannah and Alberto stood up also, and she took my hand. “Do you think we should⁠—”

“Threat level two,” I announced clearly, releasing her hand and heading toward the house.

We only had three threat levels, and anytime we were on the island or one of our boats, we were at level three, which was just doing our best to maintain awareness of everything around us.

Head on a swivel.

Level two was when we assumed that some unknown threat might be coming, and we armed ourselves.

In the years Savannah and I had been together, we’d never reached level one on the island. Alberto and Savannah knew their roles at level two. They were backup only, and to protect themselves if I went down. I hoped for their sake, especially Alberto’s, that the level wouldn’t escalate. Living with the knowledge of having killed a man wasn’t easy at any age, even if it was in defense of himself or Savannah.

Level one meant we knew a very real danger was imminent and open targeting was called for as soon as the enemy was within range.

For me, that was when the threat was as distant as Mac and Mel’s island. And I wouldn’t be armed with a pistol.

We’d all three discussed security many times, practiced shooting, and I’d trained my family to defend against possible attack. We all knew what to do, and Savannah and Alberto ran ahead of me. They’d take preplanned positions, both armed.

I could hear the high whine of twin outboards.

“Savvy!” I shouted after them. “Get the mega-watt, too! Tank, you stay with me.”

They both ran toward our house as Larry caught my arm. “What’s going on? What do we do?”

“Follow me,” I replied, then continued walking.

Our roles for each threat level were different and fluid. Until we knew what the threat was, or if there even was a threat, we were in defensive mode, and I’d be out on the pier. If we knew it was level one, I’d be on the deck with a rifle.

Alberto sprinted up the steps and was already coming down when Savannah reached the top of the steps. Then he bolted around the other side of the house, past the garden and fish tanks, headed for the rocks.

Larry and Lauren followed me across the sandy interior of the island until we reached the equipment locker under the steps that led down to the pier.

“Level two is defensive,” I told them. “We’ll be ready, just in case.”

The gear locker was insulated and vented, and where we kept things that needed to remain dry, but were primarily used outside, like tools to work on the boats, rods and reels, or spare electronics.

Flinging it open, I moved three rods to the corner, then reached up and gripped the top of the board at the back, pulling a hidden door open. I reached in and grabbed a pair of handguns wrapped in oil cloth, along with a couple of clip-on holsters.

“Do you know how to use one of these?” I asked Larry, as I unwrapped one of them, a nine-millimeter Glock.

“We don’t know who they are,” Lauren protested. “Or if they’re even coming here.”

I looked at her in the darkness. “That’s why we’re acting defensively,” I said. “Waiting to find out if someone means to do harm puts us at a distinct disadvantage.”

The sound of the outboards was faint but getting closer. Probably two or three miles away and coming fast.

Larry heard it too and took the Glock. He removed the magazine, checked it, then racked the slide to look for a chambered round, but I knew there wouldn’t be one. Then he released the slide, which made a satisfying mechanical snap, and put the mag back in the grip.

He looked me in the eye. “What do we do?”

“I’ll find out who they are,” I told him, as I unwrapped the second gun, a Colt 1911. “They’ll probably come to the dock. You two stay back here in the shadows.” I looked into his eyes. “If everything goes sideways, you protect yourself and Lauren.”

He clamped his jaw firmly and nodded.

The boat was closing the distance quickly, turning around Mac’s island just a mile away, and heading into Harbor Channel.

“Ready!” Savannah shouted from above, unworried about being heard by the men on the boat.

“Me, too!” Alberto echoed from the rocks on the southeast side.

Anyone aboard the approaching vessel would only be able to hear their own engines and wake, so for now, we didn’t have to be quiet.

“I’ll go out and see what they want,” I told Larry as I started to turn.

He grabbed my arm again. “What they want is to kill you!” he hissed.

“I’ve survived this long,” I told him. “Just stay back under cover until we know for sure who they are and what they want.”

The Grady was just outside the dim pool of light from the end of the dock. I’d left it outside intentionally, though not for the reason I now had in mind.

I could see the boat coming fast, starlight illuminating the white water at the bow as I moved out onto the dock in a crouch, Tank staying right at my heel.

“No lights,” Savannah said, as I got out past the steps.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” I said, but not really believing it.

Sometimes people forget. But this boat was running hot and fast, and most likely blacked out intentionally.

I climbed into the Grady and moved around to the far side of the console, where it was darkest. When I crouched down beside the console, Tank moved up close behind me, his big head over my shoulder so he could see.

“You better not drool on me,” I whispered.

He chuffed softly.

The boat was still half a mile away and it was doubtful we could be seen on such a moonless night. But if they lit up the Grady with a light before they reached the mouth of my channel, I’d be visible to them.

They were obviously following GPS, staying in the middle of Harbor Channel, but my little man-made cutoff wasn’t on any charts, and it wasn’t marked. By day, it didn’t need to be, since the bottom contour was quite visible. But when darkness fell, it wasn’t so easy.

Once they entered my channel, if they could find it in the dark, they wouldn’t be able to see me even with a spotlight because the dock and channel were at an angle. Besides, the light in Savvy’s hand would be far more powerful.

The boat slowed and I could see it clearly just by starlight, idling up Harbor Channel, no lights visible at all. It was a larger center console with a hardtop.

Then it turned directly into my channel, and the driver moved the engine to neutral, the boat gliding into the narrow opening as the boat slowed.

Thirty feet from the end of the dock, he bumped it back into forward for a second and the boat moved toward the stern of the Grady.

The sights of the big cannon in my hands were on the middle of the console’s windshield. The .45-caliber Colt wasn’t the most accurate weapon, unless at close range, and they were plenty close. But what it lacked in long-range accuracy, it more than made up for in sheer knockdown power. A completely non-lethal shot in the shoulder would take a grown man down hard.

“That’s far enough!” I shouted.

Instantly, the boat was hit with a narrow beam spotlight from the deck, the most powerful handheld light I could find at eighteen-million candlepower.

I could almost see the fiberglass starting to melt.

The boat drifted, two occupants visible from the neck down under the hard bimini top. Neither moved a muscle, as if they’d expected to have guns pointing at them. Both were dressed in black tactical garb.

“Lower the gun, Jesse,” a familiar voice said in a normal tone. “It’s me, Tony.”

Like Deuce, Tony Jacobs had moved over to Homeland Security from the SEALs and he’d been one of our full-time investigators for several years, as well as performing occasional missions for Armstrong.

I stood as the bright spotlight above my head switched off.

“Tony?” I called out. “Who’s that with you?”

“Is that you up there, Savannah?” a woman’s voice asked.

I recognized the voice instantly.

“Charity?” Savannah called back. “What are you doing here?”

Charity Styles here on our island? I hadn’t seen her in a long time, but we talked on occasion—short, encrypted phone conversations once every few months or so.

I took the line she handed to me from the bow as Tony reversed the engine for a second, then shut it off and stepped up onto the dock with the stern line in hand.

He was dressed in solid black, and in the low light of the dock lamp, only the whites of his eyes and his teeth were visible against his ebony skin.

I brought Larry and Lauren out and short introductions were made there on the dock, then Larry and I helped Tony unload the gear they’d brought.

When we reached the fire pit, we just grounded their gear bags in the sand and once more, took seats around the fire.

“Man, this is familiar,” Tony said, looking at me across the fire. “Is this the same fire ring?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “It was swept away by Irma, but I found it again.”

Tank appeared out of the darkness and sniffed at the tactical bags.

“He’s not gonna pee on that, is he?” Tony asked, watching Tank warily.

“He’s just curious,” I replied.

“Is he part bear, or something?” Charity asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog that big before.”

Tank came over and sat next to Alberto, which, considering the boy’s small but growing stature, made Tank look even larger. Then he rose and lumbered toward Tony, who was sitting in one of the deck chairs. Tank stopped a foot away, his head at eye level with the man.

“Has he, uh… ever met another Black man?”

“We spent most of the last year in the islands,” I replied.

I knew Tony had a natural affinity for dogs, and he’d met Tank when he was just a puppy. Tony showed that by reaching out with both hands to rub Tank’s neck.

It was an understandable question. Often, a dog who’d never seen a Black person might act aggressively. Same for a dog that’d never seen a white person.

Dogs weren’t racist. They just didn’t understand. Tank had met kind people of all races and understood that skin color didn’t define the person.

“He’s way bigger than the last time I saw him,” Tony said. “His head’s as big as a bowling ball. What’s he weigh now?”

“A little over 125 pounds,” Alberto replied. “He put on a little weight while we were on the boat.”

More in-depth introductions were in order. I explained to Larry and Lauren that Deuce had sent Tony and Charity for added security.

“So you both work for Deuce Livingston?” Lauren asked.

Charity and Tony both looked over the fire at me and I nodded.

“He does,” Charity replied, pointing at Tony. “I’m sort of what you’d call a freelancer.”

“Charity flew helicopters in the Army,” Savannah said. “And Tony was with Deuce’s SEAL team before they all moved to Homeland Security.”

“Is it okay to talk openly?” Charity asked me.

She had an unwavering sense of duty and often ignored people who were not part of her inner circle. Those of us who knew her well saw through that, but to others, she could be standoffish or even aloof.

“Yes,” I said with a nod. “How much were you briefed? And why the hell didn’t you call? I was about half a pound of pressure away from putting a half-inch hole in you.”

Charity and Tony looked at one another, then he looked at me and replied, “Deuce said to get here PDQ, and I passed Charity on the way out. All we know is Deuce said you needed our help and not to trust anyone or anything, so we didn’t call or text. What’s going on?”

“A Venezuelan cartel wants to kill Jesse,” Savannah replied. “They shot one of his crew by mistake earlier tonight.”

Charity’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

She and Dink had flirted some, and Dink often crewed for me. Well, it was mostly Charity doing the flirting.

“Gregor Albert,” Alberto replied. “They shot him in the back.”

“Cartel de los Soles?” Charity asked. “Do you know who?”

“Chyrel knows a little, but not a name yet,” I replied. “He just happened to be the guy in charge of human trafficking to Syria a few years ago and was demoted to running cocaine through Dominica last year.”

Charity laughed. “Only you could randomly make such a powerful enemy and make it look like you have a personal vendetta against him.”

I grinned and shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Savannah agreed. “Everywhere this guy turns, Jesse’s messing with him. But how could anyone have known we were involved in both of those incidents?”

“In Venezuela, we were aboard Ambrosia, working for Armstrong,” I replied, mulling that over. “In Dominica, we were on our own, aboard Taranis.”

“You didn’t ask Jack for help with anything down there?” Charity asked, thinking the same thing I was.

“No, it was more investigative,” Savannah replied. “We found the drugs purely by acci…” She turned her eyes to mine, just as I realized the connection. “You recruited Sergeant Castillo!”

She was right. I’d given him a card just like the one I’d given to Detective Pine, along with the same instructions.

“Think Chyrel’s still up?” Charity asked. “I have some contacts down there, and she should know if there’s been a possible breach.”

I looked at my watch. It was 0200. “I doubt it,” I replied. “But you should update her so she can check in the morning. We all need to get some sleep.”

“I’ll take the comm shack and make a few inquiries,” Charity said, rising to her feet and turning to Lauren. “Can I borrow your husband to help me with these bags?”

I gave Charity a stern look, which she, of course, ignored.

“Um, sure,” Lauren replied. “I’ll show you the⁠—”

“We’ve both been here many times,” Charity said.

“We should set up a watch rotation,” Larry suggested, getting to his feet also. “I don’t think either me or Lauren would be comfortable if everyone slept.”

“Maybe you two should go to Chyrel’s,” I suggested.

Larry glanced at the tactical bags behind Tony, then looked across the fire at me. “If they have what I think they have in those bags, then this island is probably the safest place to be. We can hear trouble coming a long way off and be prepared. Just like we were when they arrived.”

Lauren looked at Savannah. “I trust you, Savvy. Are we safe here?”

“Yes,” she replied, then glanced over at Charity. “I trust these two with my life.”

“Go on to bed everyone,” Charity said, then smiled at Lauren. “I’ll send him home as soon as I’m through with him.”

Then Charity turned to me and held out her hand. “Tony will take first watch in that big yacht out back while I do some research. Then I’ll spell him until oh-seven-hundred. We can assign a better rotation in the morning.”

I rose and helped Savannah to her feet before turning to Tony. I removed a small ring with two keys from my keychain and handed them to him.

“Batteries are fully charged,” I said. “More than ten hours of available energy output in the house batteries. You know how to power up the radar and AC systems.” Then I turned to Charity. “I’ll see you before sunrise.”

Alberto and Tank walked Lauren to her and Larry’s house, so he could take Tank over to his favorite tree afterward, and Savannah and I headed toward the back steps of our house.

“You don’t think Charity would…” Savannah whispered. “You know.”

I didn’t know.

Charity wielded her looks and sensuality like weapons and I knew she’d seduced at least two men to their deaths.

“I hope not,” I replied, glancing back as we started up the steps. “But she is Charity.”

Savannah stopped me just inside the front door. “Do you know what a quarter of a million dollars is worth in South America? I’m worried, Jesse.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to⁠—”

“You can’t guarantee that,” she said. “Not this time. That much money is more than a farmer down there could earn in two lifetimes.”

I put my hands on her shoulders. “Plowshares into swords?”

“That much money makes desperate men do stupid things.”

“Nothing’s going to happen tonight,” I assured her, as the door opened behind me.

“Everybody’s where they’re supposed to be,” Alberto said. “Even Larry. Why’s Tony staying on Taranis instead of one of the bunkhouses?”

“What’s Taranis’s radar mast height?” I asked him.

“Twenty-four feet,” he replied, then his expression changed. “It’s taller than all the houses.”

“Not by much.” I said. “But yeah, any boat approaching from the south, and is more than a mile away, will appear on radar. Time for you to hit the rack, Son.”

“Yeah, I’m really tired,” he agreed, heading toward his little room.

Tank made a couple of turns around the rug in the living room, then curled up into as small a circle as he could, which was still huge.

In our bedroom, I stripped down to my boxers and Savannah to her T-shirt and just as we got under the sheet, my phone vibrated.

Pulling it out of the pocket of my shorts, I looked at the screen.

“It’s from the 512 area code,” I said. “On the charter line.”

Jimmy had set up a “cloud” phone number for the business and he and Pete had split the duties of being on call with Gregor, simply by forwarding the cloud number to a different cell phone. I’d switched it to mine after the shooting, figuring if any newspaper vultures wanted a quote, it should come from me.

Savannah quickly typed on her phone and said, “Austin, Texas. Let it go to voicemail. We probably shouldn’t take any charters for a while.”

I set the phone on the charger pad, turned off the light, then kissed my wife goodnight.

But as she rolled over to go to sleep, exhausted, I realized I did know one person who lived in Austin, or at least had moved there from here; one person who might try to contact me through the charter business.

Gina Albert.

I woke early and started getting dressed as quietly as I could, but to no avail. Savannah rolled over and looked up at me.

“Timezit?”

“Zero five hundred,” I replied. “Go back to sleep. I’m going to relieve Charity so she can get some rest.”

“Kay,” she whispered and turned back over.

Tank was already on his feet and waiting by the door when I left the bedroom. Together, we slipped out into the predawn darkness and down the steps to the pier. The Grady rested quietly against the dock, the water all around as flat and glassy as I’d ever seen. There wasn’t the slightest breath of air movement, and the smoke from the fire pit hung in the air.

At the end of the pier, the little solar-powered light was just a faint glow, its battery nearly depleted, but the sky was clear, and an abundance of stars created deep shadows in the sparse vegetation.

Tank went to his tree, and I slipped around the corner of the house, into the shadows, and out of sight from the other buildings and Taranis.

Then Tank and I walked across the sandy interior of the island and between the bunkhouses.

Taranis lay at the end of the north pier, a dim red glow emanating from the pilothouse, like the eyes of a demonic bird of prey.

When I stepped aboard, I slid the side hatch to the pilothouse open, and found Charity sitting at the navigation desk, her long legs stretched out, and bare feet up on the console.

“Does your wife know you’re here?” she asked, her lips pouting slightly.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, she’s up,” I lied, as Tank pushed past me and sat between the helm and nav desk. “Anything happen?”

“A pair of fishing boats came around Harbor Light an hour ago,” she replied. “They headed south toward Marathon. I emailed Chyrel to tell her we were here and of the possible leak.”

“You didn’t use that specific word, did you?” I asked. “She’ll obsess over it to the exclusion of everything else.”

“I only said that you’d discussed Armstrong with a possible informant from the Dominican police force. She’ll put two and two together.”

Tank kept looking from me to her as we spoke, seeming to be digesting the information, much like his namesake.

Tank Tankersley had been a listener. He paid close attention to what his troops were saying, always weighing that against what was coming down from command, as well as whatever mission statement he had at his disposal. But it was what the troops were saying that weighed heaviest.

“Did you find out anything from your South American contacts?” I asked, as I sat opposite her at the helm and looked at the radar screens.

One array was sweeping the waters around the north side of the island from southeast to southwest and was set for short range with a two-mile alert. The other was adjusted to pick up returns from no closer than a mile, to eliminate the front scatter the houses presented, and it covered the southern approaches, sweeping from southwest to southeast.

Aside from an arc of about ninety degrees extending out from the island to roughly a mile, the “shadow” of the houses, Taranis’s radar systems would show any approaching boat.

I recognized the radar returns of the nearby islands and there wasn’t an approach between them that wasn’t visible on the screen.

Charity took her feet from the dash and sat forward, elbows on her wide-spread knees. “You’re staying put?”

“Staying put,” I replied, then switched on the VHF radio and AIS.

No boats using the automatic identification system appeared on the chart plotter.

“Are you going to leave that on?” Charity asked, in a leading way.

I looked over at her and nodded. “I think I will.”

She sat up straighter, hands on her knees. “Alright then.”

“Deuce will be here soon with reinforcements.”

“Yeah…” she said, then paused and gave a wicked smile. “Not that you and I couldn’t handle it.”

“And Tony,” I added.

“Well, he’s asleep right now,” she said. “You’re not worried about Savvy and the kid? That yuppy couple?”

“They’re teachers,” I replied. “And this island is hardly urban.”

“They’re a liability.”

“Larry’s capable enough,” I replied. “They’ve both been through some hard knocks. And you know I don’t worry about Savvy; she’s as tough as they come.” I paused and looked out into the darkness. “I’d rather Alberto not have to prove himself, but if pushed, I think he’d react well.”

“Tight cluster at three hundred yards?” she asked, grinning. “Typical jarhead’s kid.” Her expression turned serious. “I did find out something and forwarded the intel to Chyrel already. The most likely guy was a General de brigada in the Venezuelan army by the name of Enrique Alvarez. Chyrel should be able to confirm it when she gets the name and digs around online.”

“You said he was a brigadier general?” I asked. “Retired?”

“He was demoted to coronel,” she replied. “Not long after your mission in Venezuela.”

“Let me guess,” I said, lifting my head to look her in the eyes. “He was transferred to some dingy fishing village on the northeast coast.”

“Close,” she replied. “Alvarez comes from old cartel money, so he was treated a little differently. He was put in charge of a battalion-sized national guard unit on Isla de Margarita.”

“Probably the shipping point for the cocaine deliveries to Dominica,” I surmised. “Cartel of the Suns has a lot of⁠—”

“High-ranking military and civilian leaders,” she finished. “He’s dirty, Jesse. That I can tell you for sure. Whether he was the one who placed the bounty or not, we’ll have to wait and see. But steps are already being taken.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Professor Mejia is enroute to the island,” she replied. “He and an associate are “studying” the Margarita Island capuchin monkey.”

“Are there jaguars on the island?” I asked, remembering how Mejia had used the large cats as weapons in his own form of jungle warfare.

“No,” she replied, “but they do have ocelots.”

Aldrick Mejia was a native of the tribal people who inhabited the rain forests of Venezuela. As an infant in the early 1960s, he’d been abandoned or lost in the jungle, and found by missionaries, who then brought him back to the States, where he’d been raised with all the opportunities and education of modern civilization. He became a professor of anthropology at Harvard, studying early indigenous peoples all over the world.

Mejia was also a deep cover operative for Armstrong Research.

“Do you know what he’s been told to do?” I asked her, point-blank.

I was no longer a part of Armstrong, except as an informant and occasional recruiter. But on this, I found myself wishing I could take Mejia’s assistant’s place on the expedition.

Charity’s phone, resting on a charger on the console, vibrated. She picked it up and looked at the screen.

It was then that I remembered the call from last night and took out my own phone. I had one voice message.

“Excuse me a second,” I said and stepped out into the darkness.

I clicked play and held the phone to my ear as I walked toward the massive foredeck.

“I’m trying to reach Jesse McDermitt,” a woman’s voice said, sounding as if she’d been crying. “This is Gina Hernand… This is Gina Albert, Gregor’s sister. Please have him call me at 512-555-2869.”

I looked at my watch. She’d called very late, and it was only 0540 now, but I made a mental note to call her back a little later. She’d probably just heard of her brother’s murder and was likely exhausted. So I pocketed my phone and returned to the wheelhouse.

“Chyrel texted me,” Charity said, showing me her screen. “Just a number. Binary code?”

The number in the email was 10.101.

“It could be an SSB frequency,” I said. “But that’s in the low end of the thirty-meter range used for data transmissions.”

I turned on the single side-band radio, which, thanks to today’s technology, was a relic and a backup system, like a sextant or paper charts.

Taranis was equipped with Starlink high-speed satellite internet, which allowed us access just about anywhere on the planet.

After adjusting the frequency to 10.101, a sound came from the speakers, similar to an old dial-up internet connection.

Without warning, my laptop came to life. It was pushed way back on the nav desk console and seldom used. Then the main video monitor in the overhead came on, and Chyrel’s face appeared.

“You can turn the SSB off, Jesse,” she said. “We’re now connected through Starlink and an encryption interface I’ve been working on for a couple of years. Hey, Charity.”

I switched off the radio and the irritating bing-bong-screech-hiss noises, then looked up at the camera, which had also turned itself on.

“How’d you do that?”

“It’s a sub-routine I installed in your laptop,” she replied. “Last time I fixed it.”

“And it turns on everything on my boat?” I asked.

“Just your router and laptop,” she replied. “Then I remotely connected to your computer via Starlink and turned on the primary monitor and camera.”

“Through Starlink?” I asked. “Is that secure?”

“Your account name isn’t your real name, remember?” she asked. “I set it up for you, using an alias because⁠—”

“I was worried about security,” I said. “Yeah, I remember. And it’s paid for on a refillable anonymous debit card.”

“Should I delete our emails?” Charity asked. “Is the system compromised?”

“It was,” Chyrel admitted, her face dropping as if it pained her to say the words. “I’m sorry, Jesse, but they got into METIS.”

The unnoticed security breach had happened a week after we’d left Dominica to cruise the ABC Islands. A third party, monitoring Castillo’s cell phone, had intercepted his first call to the Armstrong hotline, asking specifically for me. By name.

Chyrel described how they’d “piggybacked a worm” through the same connection. I assumed that meant some sort of software was sent through the cell connection and they learned who we were and had specifically navigated to the bio of Ambrosia’s captain four years ago.

The whole time we were hanging out on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao, just off the coast of Venezuela, we’d been tracked.

Then after the long passage to Rio Dulce, Guatemala, it wouldn’t have been hard for them to learn we’d checked into the country after leaving Venezuela. Surely, Alvarez would have wondered what I was doing right there in his backyard, thumbing my nose at him.

We’d spent two weeks exploring the jungles along Rio Dulce before moving north to Belize and the Mexican Yucatan, where we spent a couple of weeks in both countries, diving some of the best reefs on the planet.

The whole time, our movements were being electronically traced.

We’d changed anchorages quite a lot while in the ABC Islands, sometimes twice a day, visiting different reefs and beaches. Not out of caution. I’d been the most relaxed I’d ever felt. We moved simply because we could and were able to do it in comfort and style.

When we’d returned to the States before the hurricane season started, we checked in through Key West customs. After that, we left very little in the way of electronic footprints.

In fact, until just a little while ago, Taranis’s AIS hadn’t been turned on since we’d sailed north, then east out of Key West.

We had accounts everywhere we did business, and when we got to the island, Taranis’s bilges and lockers were half-full of low-priced Mexican provisions, so we didn’t need anything for a couple of weeks. And the only time we’d gone to Publix, I’d paid in cash from the reserves we had aboard in various hiding places.

Anyone following us electronically around the Caribbean would have lost all sign of us after Key West.

“And nobody noticed the breach?” I asked rhetorically. “I thought that was one of the hallmarks of the METIS computer.”

“A new analyst was on the call center,” Chyrel said. “He didn’t notice the firewall breach, but I should have.”

“But it’s fixed now?” I asked.

“It is,” she assured me. “Whoever it was, they were good. The breach was completely unnoticeable, but I’d gotten complacent. The exit tracks were visible.” She paused for a moment. “Jesse, Jack’s never done this before,” she continued. “But just ten minutes ago, he personally gave the professor the green light and completely dedicated the attention of half the analysts to this problem.”

Jack Armstrong had the wherewithal to build his own 300-foot, nuclear-powered research vessel, so I knew it was just a matter of time before Alvarez left an electronic footprint somewhere—a credit card, a security badge scanner, even a tollbooth.

It was a typical flaw in the criminal mind, or at least that’s what Paul Bender would say. Most criminals thought themselves smarter than everyone else and didn’t understand that others could do what they did.

And certain individuals could to it much better and faster.

Little was beyond the capabilities of the central unit of the METIS brain, a quantum computer on North Bimini Island, which I’d heard cost in excess of twenty-five million to build. Jack was currently attempting to build another one, aboard Phoenix, which would be situated in a sophisticated gyro system, in a housing that was super-cooled to almost absolute zero, or minus 460 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature at which all matter becomes solid. That kind of extreme cooling was needed for the sophisticated computer to work at maximum efficiency.

With almost unlimited energy available from the ship’s power plant, according to Jack, he was bound only by his imagination.

Jack Armstrong was doing things today that were found only in the creations of science fiction writers just a decade ago.

“I don’t think removing the head’s going to stop the snake this time,” Charity said, scrolling slowly through her phone.

I turned to face her. “What do you mean?”

When her eyes came up and met mine, they were as cold as any I’d ever seen. “The bounty’s been doubled.”

“I guess they found out the first attempt failed,” Chyrel said. “This changes things.”

Half a million dollars? I thought.

I wondered what had happened to Alvarez last fall after his second major mishap in Dominica. Failure just wasn’t an option with these people, and deep family roots in the cartel could only cover so much.

“Do we know anything at all about Alvarez’s movements after Dominica?” I asked, looking back at the camera.

“His daughter was kidnapped two days after you left the island,” Chyrel replied. “Word about it got out to the media and news reporters were in front of the residence when she was tossed out of a passing car.”

I swallowed back the bile I felt rising in my gut. Had we not decided to fish deep that morning, no harm would have come to the girl.

The unintended consequence of unplanned action.

“Was she dead?” I asked.

“Blindfolded,” Chyrel replied. “A few scrapes from the fall, but she got up and ran inside Alvarez’s house.”

“Probably gang-raped,” Charity said, her voice cold. “One of their usual tactics to keep someone in line. A normal father would want to know what they did to her and not want to know at the same time. I can’t imagine the emotional pain of trying to get that information from your daughter.”

I stared at her for a moment too long. Charity had herself been a victim of that very thing when her helicopter was shot down in enemy territory.

She shrugged one shoulder. “For a normal father. This guy has no soul. He’d be pissed, but he’d probably toe the line.”

“Within a week after the drugs were seized in Dominica,” Chyrel continued, “Alvarez was demoted a second time and assigned to a small outpost on the northeast coast.”

Charity glanced at me and laughed. “He got there eventually.”

“Financial assets?” I asked Chyrel.

She looked over at another screen for a second. “Surprisingly, his money wasn’t seized by either the government or the cartel. Over eight million—U.S. All in offshore accounts.”

Charity huffed. “He’s lucky to be alive.”

“His luck’ll run out,” Chyrel said. “The professor changed his destination just a few minutes ago, having somehow acquired an invitation from Alvarez himself to visit his compound.”

I was baffled. “Why would Alvarez invite⁠—”

“Hang on, Jesse,” Chyrel said, holding up a finger with one hand while she typed with the other. “Mr. Stockwell’s coming online.”

The image on the screen split in two, with the left side displaying the Armstrong Research logo. Then Colonel Stockwell appeared.

“Is this working?” he asked.

Someone in the background responded, “Yes, sir. You’re live with Ms. Koshin… er, Ms. Tankersley and Captain McDermitt.”

I recognized the voice. It was Chip McAllister, one of the analysts aboard Ambrosia when I was at the helm.

“Sit-rep?” Stockwell asked, almost casually.

“Charity just learned that the bounty has been doubled,” Chyrel replied. “Our assets will be meeting with the target at 1500 local time.”

“What on earth for?” Stockwell asked, his gravelly tone ratcheting up a notch in disbelief.

He was older now, his hair almost completely white. He still wore the same high and tight haircut, and his leathery, tanned skin was a stark contrast to his hair.

“They have a common interest in large cats,” Chyrel replied. “Alvarez keeps four ocelots as pets. Apparently, the professor is known for his work with jungle cats, as well as anthropology. He simply contacted Alvarez and asked to see them.” She turned her head, reading the other screen. “The professor says Alvarez was thrilled that someone of his reputation was interested in his cats.”

“Cats,” Stockwell said, as if the word left a used litterbox taste in his mouth. “So what are your plans, Jesse? You’ve got a lot more than your own life at stake here.”

“Are you suggesting I run, Colonel?”

“Not on your life, Gunny,” he replied. “But a strategic relocation might not be a bad idea.”

I sighed, audibly, and noticed his micro-expression change slightly.

Then I looked down at the deck. “It’s the same thing, Travis.”

“I’ve seen that boat of yours, Jesse,” he said. “And I read the specs on it. You and your family could easily live for a year in complete isolation anywhere in the world. Say the word, and we can have the boat’s registry changed, and create new identities for all of you.”

I looked back up at the monitor. “It’d still look the same. And so will we. If they were able to hack into METIS, then facial recognition scanning would be a piece of pie.”

“Piece of cake,” Charity said. “Or easy as pie.”

“He’s always mixing metaphors,” Savannah said, stepping through the open hatch behind me. “I got your message, Charity. Thanks.”

Within twenty minutes, Chyrel had located and hacked into Alvarez’s system and learned that four other known sicarios, or cartel assassins, had shown an interest in the bounty in just the last hour.

She also managed to make his financial assets disappear, which he’d know soon enough. She left only one dollar in each of his nearly twenty offshore accounts and shell businesses.

In addition, she confirmed that two sicarios were likely in the Miami and Palm Beach areas, not much more than an hour or two’s drive to Marathon. Then another half hour if they knew where my island was located.

Another communique hit Chyrel’s inbox, and she let everyone know that Professor Mejia was boarding the ferry.

My phone chirped in my pocket, and I pulled it out. It was Rusty. I tapped Accept and stepped back into the salon. “Kinda busy right now, brother.”

“I won’t keep ya,” Rusty said. “Just heard somethin’ on the coconut telegraph I thought you oughta know.”

“What’s that?” I asked, looking forward at Savannah, who had a curious look on her face.

“Dominic turned up,” Rusty said. “He’s dead.”

My thoughts jumped instantly to what had happened to Gregor, and the shooter mistaking Pete for me. Had someone found Dom on my island and thought he was me, also?

“How was he killed?” I asked somberly. “When?”

“Killed?” Rusty said. “I only said he was dead. Folks do die sometimes without gettin’ shot or stabbed, ya know.”

“How did he die?” I asked, exasperated.

“Maybe a heart attack,” Rusty said. “Cops found him at a hotel up in Miami. Word on the telegraph says he wasn’t alone when he died, but it happened four months ago. So who knows?”

“Four months ago? And they just found his⁠—”

“Nah, bro,” Rusty interrupted. “Dom’s been layin’ in the morgue up there since spring. He didn’t have no ID when they found him.”

Unconnected, I thought. Set it aside.

I thanked Rusty for letting me know, then returned to the wheelhouse, where Stockwell’s face stared down from the screen. Everything was happening way too fast.

“Who’s dead?” he growled.

“A friend,” I replied. “Happened four months ago up in Miami and totally unconnected.” Then I turned to Savannah. “It was Dominic.”

“Dom? Dead?”

I nodded. “Found in a hotel room.”

She looked up at me, troubled. “I was angry with him.”

I gave her a quick hug. “Me too. At least we know now why he didn’t take care of the island.”

Stockwell said he was arranging to have Deuce and three more security people join us on the island.

“Can I talk to you outside?” Savannah asked me.

I slid the hatch closed after we stepped out onto the side deck, then I followed her forward to the pulpit and we leaned on rails across from one another, our ankles touching.

We’d stood there in the pulpit like that dozens of times over the last ten months. watching the sun go down in some secluded anchorage or another.

“I know what you’re going to say,” I told her, keeping my voice low.

“I don’t think you do.”

“It’s too dangerous,” I replied. “Two more killers could be on the way right now. You think we should do what Travis said and go hide somewhere till it blows over.”

“This won’t blow over and you know it,” she replied. “What the hell are you doing? The Jesse McDermitt I married wouldn’t let Travis and Chyrel do everything. And he certainly wouldn’t let a retired anthropology professor take the trash to the curb.”

I arched my eyebrows in surprise. “I don’t happen to have an intercontinental ballistic missile on me at the moment,” I said, a bit too sarcastically. “Sorry. But Venezuela is fifteen hundred miles from here.”

“You knew the threat was from Venezuela last night,” she said. “And Ocean Hopper would have had you down on the Orinoco River to meet up with the professor about now.”

I studied her face for a moment, searching her eyes. “Is that what you want?” I asked, hearing a faraway buzz, which caused the hair on my neck to stand up. “Go chasing after bad guys, guns blazing?”

“I want you to be you!” she hissed. “Most men your age are retired, belly out, and feet up, doing nothing. But you’re still the most capable man I know, Jesse. And I don’t care if you think Deuce is. You’re just plain wrong.”

I stared at her in disbelief.

I’d slowed down, even if she hadn’t noticed. I knew it. The muscle memory was still there, and I could still keep up with Charity in a swim race, but my reflexes were slower, and I was nowhere near as agile as I’d been when I was younger.

Savannah seemed to read my mind. “Even at eighty percent, you’re miles ahead of anyone I know. And I think you know that too.”

“Even with Alvarez out of the picture,” I argued, “there are going to be men, maybe even women, coming after us.”

“Let them,” she said. “We’re ready and Deuce will be here soon with more backup.”

“I don’t want to be responsible for⁠—”

She reached her hand up and smacked the side of my head. “You’re not alone. And nobody is here against their will. Let them come singly or in a whole hoard. The Backcountry keeps her secrets.”

I looked aft, across the flats toward Racoon Key, where long ago, I’d left a man to die a slow and painful death. She was right. A month later, there was nothing left but bones, and today, long after Hurricane Irma had passed right through here, any trace of Lester Antonio had been wiped clean from the Backcountry, as if he’d never even existed.

“What about Alberto?” I asked. “And Larry and Lauren?”

“Alberto would be in as much danger anywhere else,” she replied. “They know both of us and likely know about him. They could use him to get to us. But they may not even know about the kids.”

The buzzing was getting louder. A small outboard, far to the south, was working its way slowly through the maze of cuts and sandbars.

Charity leaned out of the sliding side hatch. “Radar contact.”

“Which way’s it coming from?” I asked her, already knowing the answer. “And how fast?”

She pointed across the island toward my house. “It came out from between those two bigger islands to the south, heading slowly north, about five knots.”

I seriously doubted it was anyone other than a local fisherman. The cuts between Water Key and Big Torch Key were unmarked, and sandbars shifted and reappeared all the time. It was impossible to go that way at any kind of speed, though I’ve witnessed a few try. Running aground at high speed often results in people getting thrown from their boat, and I’d fished quite a few out of the water.

“Wake Tony,” I told Savannah. “Then go and get Alberto up. It’s probably just a fisherman, but Charity and I will go check, just in case.”

I strode back toward the wheelhouse. “You’re with me,” I told Charity, as I stepped down onto the dock.

Tank barked from the open hatch. I slapped the side of my thigh, and he instantly jumped down along with Charity.

“Are you armed?” I asked her.

“Is the Pope a trombone player?” she asked, lifting the side of her shirt over a holstered pistol, then tucking it behind the holster.

I shook my head. “Talk about mixed metaphors.”

“I don’t think those words mean what you believe,” she said, falling in step beside me as Tank lumbered ahead. “Now if I’d said, ‘Does the Pope shit in the woods?’ then that’d be a mixed metaphor. But he really did play in a jazz band in Chicago.”

I knew the new pope was an American, and that he’d been a missionary in Peru for decades, but that was about all I knew about him.

Every year, I became less interested in current events, unless they involved the tide.

I glanced over at Charity as we reached the foot of the pier. “He really is a jazz musician?”

She looked at me and grinned. “Is the Pope Catholic?”

Trouble had come to my island before. I’d once been kidnapped while my friends were gassed into unconsciousness. I’d shot and killed a woman after Hurricane Irma devasted my island, and she’d come seeking vengeance. Savannah’s sister had been killed in an explosion not more than a mile to the north.

But this was the first time I’d actively invited trouble.

Cartel de los Soles knew my boat. They’d tracked it for several months. I knew that leaving the AIS turned on would eventually bring more trouble from them, and the type of people they’d send would be very dangerous, except that they usually worked alone, which was now to our benefit.

I had enough firepower on the island to wage a small-scale war, and just with the addition of Charity and Tony, we’d be prepared.

Charity and I strode across the sandy clearing between the bunkhouses and headed toward my and Savannah’s house at the south end of the island.

The sky to the east was gray with the approaching dawn, but I didn’t see any lights on in Larry and Lauren’s house.

Savannah came trotting up beside me. “Tony’s up. Here.”

She handed me a small box and I knew she’d given Tony one too. I opened it and put the earwig in my left ear, turning it on as I did, then dropped the little charging box in my pocket.

“I switched the charter phone over to me when I woke up,” Savannah said. “That call last night was from someone named Gina Albert. A relative of Gregor’s.”

“His sister,” I replied, looking over at her for a moment. “Comm check.”

“Five by five,” Tony replied in my left ear. “Chyrel’s on too. How about Savvy and Charity?”

“Loud and clear,” Charity responded.

“I’m here,” Savannah said, after switching hers on. “I’m going up to wake Alberto. Should we get the others up?”

I glanced over at the dark windows in their house again. “Let the kids sleep,” I said. “It sounds like a very small outboard. I’m sure it’s just a fisherman.”

“The target’s moving north, very slowly,” Tony advised. “It’s now approaching the tip of Water Key. You should have visual any second.”

Savannah went up the back stairs as Charity and I continued around the house to the pier. The Grady was right where I’d left it, as was the boat Charity and Tony had arrived on the previous night.

Beyond the end of the pier, the water was calm, almost glassy, with just a few slight ripples disturbing the surface. Off to the right, the approaching boat was just coming into view.

“What in the world is that?” Charity asked, as we both stepped out onto the foot of the pier, making ourselves visible.

Charity was in no-nonsense, black tactical clothes, with her DB9 openly carried on her hip now.

I pulled up the side of my shirt, exposing my holstered 1911. I didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding, and whatever the boat was and whoever was on it, they’d see we were armed before they got within range.

I squinted my eyes at the small vessel. “It looks like one of those folding boats.”

As it drew nearer, I could tell it was a woman at the tiller of the small outboard. Her hair was very short, or tied back, but the figure’s shape was definitely all female.

“It’s that detective,” Savannah said. “Sergeant Pine.”

I looked up to see her and Alberto on the deck; she was looking out over the water with a pair of binoculars. Charity and I continued out to the end of the pier.

“Who’s Sergeant Pine?” she asked.

We stopped at the end of the dock, and I turned to face her. “She’s the Monroe County Sheriff’s detective investigating Gregor’s murder. And a possible Armstrong recruit.”

That last part caught her by surprise. She turned to look at me.

“An Armstrong informant?” she asked. “I didn’t know we had any here in the Middle Keys.”

“Not even an informant yet,” I said. “I think she might be a good operative.”

Charity turned to stare at me as Detective Pine waved and nearly swamped the little boat just by the motion.

“If she doesn’t drown,” I added. “She hasn’t been investigated by the nerds yet.”

“No first call even?”

“I just met her last night,” I replied, watching the boat approach. “Her family was murdered by gangbangers up in Cincinnati.”

“That doesn’t even begin to quali⁠—”

“She was the sole heir to an eight-million-dollar fortune,” I said, cutting her off. “And she’s managed to turn that into nine while still working.”

It was definitely a Portabote, a lightweight folding boat that could be stored just about anywhere. This one was very small, no more than eight feet long, and the outboard looked no bigger than a kid’s Superman lunchbox from the 60s. It sounded like a weed whacker, probably only two or three horsepower.

It was running wide open, but the boat was barely pushing through the water, attempting to plane but lacking that last little bit to climb over its own bow wave. My mind calculated the hull speed at four knots without my thinking about it.

But that was all the little motor had.

Pine came straight across the shallows to the west of my channel, not even trying to keep the rickety boat in deeper water. She finally let off the throttle just ten feet away and the boat almost came to a complete stop, like a tired plow horse at the end of the day.

I was surprised the little boat didn’t hit the bottom.

“You’re a long way from home, Detective,” I said, taking the line from the bow and fending the tiny boat away. “And in this?”

She climbed unsteadily to the dock and stood. “It was all I could find that I knew couldn’t be traced or followed.” She looked at Charity. “Who are you?”

“Very special agent Charity Styles,” Charity replied. “Homeland Security.”

“Homeland Sec—” she turned to me. “So it’s true. Armstrong is attached to DHS?”

“Attached is a little too strong a verb,” Charity replied. “It implies contracts and rules. Let’s just say we’re known to each other and leave it at that. And you are?”

Pine looked from her to me, then up to Savannah before focusing on me again. “I’m Diane Pine, a private citizen. I have no phone on me, nor any other electronic device. I think Cartel of the Suns hacked into the sheriff’s office’s computer system.” She turned to Charity. “I’m a deputy sergeant with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.”

Pine explained how she had come to the same conclusion about the flyer the shooter had left, that it was to signal to the cartel, who was obviously monitoring the police logs, that the deed was done.

She said she’d come out to get a little more information to continue her investigation, but quickly learned we already knew far more than she did.

By the time Larry and Lauren woke, Deuce had also arrived, bringing four people with him on Andrew Bourke’s boat, instead of three. Andrew was a burly, mustachioed, former Coast Guardsman who worked for Deuce up in Key Largo. I might have expected him, but the other three were a total surprise.

“Ambrosia’s in dry dock.” Walt Meachum said, climbing out of Andrew’s boat. He shrugged. “We didn’t have much else to do.”

My former first mate on Ambrosia, and now captain, Matt Brand, gripped my hand as he stepped up onto the dock, then pulled me in for a bearhug.

“Jesse, ya bloody pillock!” he said. “’Ow ya been?”

Matt was a Cornishman and former Royal Navy sailor and had been with Armstrong for nearly a decade.

“Val?” Savannah called out, as she came down the steps. “What are you two doing here?”

Val McLaren, or Val Brand now, had been the ship’s yeoman on Ambrosia and was now first mate to Matt, in more ways than one.

Andrew stepped back down into the boat, and he and Deuce began lifting black and green tactical bags up onto the pier, along with several large metal boxes of similar colors.

“The green bags go up to your house, Jesse,” Deuce explained. “The black ones will be for the east bunkhouse. We have work to do.”

“Larry and I will get the green ones,” I said. “The bunkhouse is open.”

Val and Savannah hugged, then the younger woman turned to Alberto with a bright smile. “You look like you’ve grown a foot!” she said, kneeling slightly to be at his level. “I don’t even have to go all the way down to a knee now.”

“Has anyone eaten?” Lauren asked. “Larry and I just woke up.”

“Let’s get everything put away first,” Walt said. “Deuce is right, we have a lot of work to do.”

I shouldered one of the green bags. It was heavy, and what was inside it was long and in pieces. By the weight of the matching metal can, I had a pretty good idea what was in both of them.

“Lauren, if you could start getting things ready,” I said, heading toward the steps, “we can eat in about thirty minutes or so. Breakfast for twelve.”

Walt pointed to the deck at the top of the stairs. “That’s a good spot right there, Jesse. I’m sure you’ll know how to put it together.”

I started up the steps, with Larry and Detective Pine following me. He also carried one of the large bags and a metal box.

“Exactly who are all these people?” Pine asked in a low voice. “Are they with Armstrong, too?”

“Matt Brand, the guy who sounds like a pirate, is captain of Ambrosia, the Armstrong Research vessel I used to skipper,” I replied. “Val is his wife and first mate on Ambrosia. You met Deuce last night.”

“And the other man? Meachum?”

“Former Delta Force staff sergeant,” I replied. “He’s part of the security team aboard Ambrosia, and the ship’s armorer.”

At the top of the steps, I set the bag and can down with a thud and heard the sound of metal pieces moving around inside the bag.

“Armorer?” she asked, looking down at the bags. “What’s in those?”

Larry joined us and placed the second bag by the first.

“My guess?” I said with a shrug. “A fifty-caliber machine gun and tripod mount with two cans of ammo.”

“A fifty-caliber—wait. You can’t have a weapon like that.”

I grinned at her as Matt and Walt Meachum started across the clearing with two black bags and ammo cans. A third Browning M-2 machine gun was stored inside Taranis’s swim platform, along with a custom-built mount that fit into the deck receiver of the outdoor dinette table.

“No,” I said, watching her eyes. “You can’t have one. But I think I now have two more.”

Her eyes opened wide. “Mr. McDermitt, that’d be a blatant violation of Florida Statute 790.221, making it a felony in the⁠—”

“Diane,” I said, holding up a finger. “If we’re to get anywhere, you have to call me Jesse. You said you were here as a private citizen. So stop being a cop.”

“How do you even buy one of those?” she asked, as I unzipped the first bag.

“By knowing the right people,” I replied. I stood and looked her in the eyes. “If you stay, you’re going to get a crash course in what the Armstrong organization is capable of. Everything you see and hear while on this island, you can’t mention to anyone at any time. Is that clear?”

Her eyes flicked back and forth from one of mine to the other, as if searching for something. “And Agent Styles?”

“Former Olympic swimmer, Army helo pilot in Desert Storm, and now a covert operative for Armstrong, working directly with DHS and the CIA.”

“CIA?” she asked, her eyes going even wider. “And you?”

I turned the handle on the front leg of the M-123 tripod, folded it out, and retightened the handle. “Marine Force Recon sniper during the First Gulf War,” I replied, unpinning the rear legs and opening them. “Private contractor for DHS, former Armstrong operative, and now retired.”

I connected the traversing bar, put the pintle in the receiver, then pinned it also before looking up at Pine. “Do you remember your answer to my question about the man who killed your family?”

She nodded, and I quickly mounted the receiver from the other bag to the pintle, then stood and stared intently into her eyes. “Would you do the same if it was a man who you knew without any doubt had killed another innocent family but had no proof? Think about it before you answer.”

I reached into the tripod bag and removed one of the barrels, inserted it into the receiver, and pressed back on the charging handle as I twisted the barrel until it made a satisfying metallic click.

Pine was looking at the activity on the island. Andrew was on the roof of the east bunkhouse, assembling another “Ma Deuce” on the low peak.

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Pine said, her back to me.

Larry had gone down and joined Lauren, leaving me alone with the detective. Alberto was walking toward them with several pans and Savannah was showing Val and Matt the garden, as if no clear and present danger was looming, and the people around them were arming for war.

Pine finally looked over at me. “You are the good guys, right?” She appeared nervous as she looked down at the .50-cal. “I mean, I’m seeing this unfold right here. You have a military compound right here in the Florida Keys.”

My island had been a lot of things over the years, and it’d been called a lot more. It wasn’t easy building a home on a little two-acre cluster of mangroves and sand.

I looked slowly around the interior of the island. There’d once been a tall palm tree in the middle, well over fifty feet just to the bottom of the fronds. My house had been the only one back then. I’d built it myself, by hand, using a generator to run a small sawmill to cut up large trees that’d fallen after Hurricane Wilma in ’05, and from dunnage I’d scrounged from a number of importing facilities up in Miami.

Once the house was finished, I’d built a small bunkhouse, to comply with the state regulations regarding the purchase of the island—that it be maintained as a fish camp for anglers.

I’d cut the palm tree down to create a landing zone for a helicopter and the bunkhouse had housed more covert operatives than fishermen.

Through all the changes, both here on the island and in my life, I’d always trusted my gut instinct.

I took my earwig out and extended it to Detective Pine. I’d muted the mic on it as we were coming up the steps.

“Put this in your ear,” I told her.

The whole time I’d been talking to Pine while assembling the machine gun, I’d been listening to updates from Chyrel, Stockwell, Chip, and Tony in an almost continuous conversation.

Pine put the device in her ear and once more her eyes flew open. For a detective, she didn’t have much of a poker face.

“The mic’s muted,” I told her. “You’re listening to Armstrong’s head of security, who’s currently somewhere in the Mediterranean and who only answers to Jack Armstrong himself. He’s the guy who sounds like a three-pack-a-day smoker. He’s the kind of badass that hardcore badasses look up to. You sort of met the woman with the Alabama accent in Deuce’s truck. Chyrel Tankersley is Armstrong’s chief computer analyst, and my good friend. She’s just up island on Grassy Key.”

“Two other men are talking,” she said. “A Black guy and a teenager.”

“That’s Tony Jacobs, former SEAL,” I said pointing northward. “He’s on Taranis. Chip McAllister is one of the senior analysts on Phoenix, also in the Med.”

“Is this like Bluetooth cellular?”

“Not even close,” I replied. “That device is connected directly to a private satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the middle of the Atlantic, and the conversation you’re hearing is end-to-end, double-encrypted through a central quantum computer on North Bimini in The Bahamas.”

“Who is Enrique Alvarez?” she asked, listening intently. “His name came up on my radar late last night and your friend Chyrel is talking about him.”

“Chyrel has confirmed the bounty originated from his computer,” I replied. “She hacked Alvarez’s computer system this morning when we learned that the bounty on me has doubled to half a million.”

“Half a mil?” she asked. “Why’s this guy got such a hard-on for you?”

“Alvarez was a general in the Venezuelan army and a lieutenant with Cartel of the Suns,” I replied. “He was behind a human trafficking ring operating between South America and Syria. They were kidnapping indigenous people from the rain forest, mostly girls, to become harem slaves. I was with Armstrong when we brought it down, and Alvarez was subsequently demoted in the cartel and in the army. He was assigned to a cocaine smuggling operation by the cartel and made a colonel in the army. We just happened to stumble onto their delivery method by accident down in Dominica last year, and now it’s gone too.”

“The name was mentioned as a possibility during our investigation,” she said. “But so far, just a name.” She removed the earwig and handed it back. “The woman said the professor would meet the target in three hours.”

“Chyrel accessed Alvarez’s offshore bank accounts this morning and drained them. He won’t be paying anyone a bounty.”

“You can do that?”

“Me? No,” I replied. “But she can hack the CIA’s mainframe if she wanted to.”

“What do you do with the money?” she asked, seeming to be weighing a question in her mind. “How much was it?”

“When you call that hotline number I gave you,” I began, “you’d usually be privy to a little information over time. What you’ve heard and what you might see today was never said and never happened. You shouldn’t be here, but you are. You don’t need to know the amount, but suffice it to say, I know it will go to good use, almost always in direct benefit of those the target hurt most.”

“A modern-day Robin Hood.”

“With greater technical assets and firepower than many small countries,” I added. “Yes, we’re the good guys, Diane. But we play by the bad guys’ rules.”

“Ha,” she huffed. “They don’t have any.”

“Exactly,” I replied. “Whether it’s financial crimes or a street brawl, we don’t have rules either.”

Pine seemed a bit uneasy as she looked out over the island again. The sun was halfway up the eastern sky and the golden hue it cast seemed at odds with the hardness of her expression.

“Why are you telling me all this?” she asked without looking in my direction. “If this is all so super-secret? Why me?”

“I’m a good judge of people,” I replied. “Most would have left the job after what happened to your family. You just relocated to get away from the pain, I’m guessing, and even with your inheritance, you’re still standing up for others. What if you could make a bigger difference?”

She turned to face me, a hard set to her features. “How certain are you that Alvarez is the one? The one in charge of the human trafficking, the one in charge of the drug smuggling, and now the one who issued the bounty and was responsible for the murder of your friend?”

“I didn’t personally do the research,” I replied. “But I know the people who did and would trust them with the lives of my family. I am one hundred percent certain Alvarez is guilty on all counts, and probably a dozen more equally heinous crimes.”

“So what happens?” Pine asked. “The term target implies⁠—”

“He’ll be dead before the sun goes down,” I replied very coldly. “It will appear as a natural death, or maybe an accident, but he’ll be just as dead. My only regret will be that I wasn’t there.”

She studied my face for a moment, then said, “Yes. To answer your question, if I was as certain as you, I’d pull the trigger even if I didn’t know the victims. And I think any cop who’s worked for more than a year would say the same thing.”

There are lines that people in a civilized, peaceful society will never cross. Most people wouldn’t ever get near them. Others step over the lines now and then in minor ways, speeding, rolling through a stop sign, maybe even petty shoplifting. A few dance a jig back and forth, appearing to be law-abiding citizens outwardly, while committing financial crimes or worse.

Then there are others who cross a line and never return.

I could be peaceful if left alone. Peaceful doesn’t always mean harmless or complacent, though.

If pushed, I could be very uncivilized.

Admitting to yourself that you’d willingly breach a societal line if it meant saving innocent lives was a step toward vigilantism and anarchy. Having an organization like Armstrong behind you eliminated the anarchy, and I was okay with being a vigilante.

I was just tired of feeling like I was the only one at times.

Pine had gone down to help out in whatever non-law enforcement capacity she could, leaving me alone on the deck with the Ma Deuce.

The tripod wouldn’t work on the deck; the rear feet had nothing to bite into. Fortunately, there were three large canvas bags with zippered sides that only needed some sand, something we had plenty of.

Within minutes, I’d filled the sandbags and placed them on the feet of the tripod, then checked to make sure my firing lanes were clear.

I could traverse the barrel not quite ninety degrees to the right, due west, before rounds would chew through the corner post of the deck rail, and about the same to the east, covering all of Harbor Channel.

The south and east were the sectors of interest, and I could move the whole gun to the far end of the deck to cover more of the east better, as well as a little to the northeast. But for now, I wanted to be able to stop anyone coming up the way Pine had, from the southwest.

The gun Meachum was setting up on the roof of the bunkhouse could cover everything from southeast, all the way around to the north and northwest, except where Taranis lay tied at the dock.

The only area the two machine guns couldn’t cover was to the west, but we could put the third M-2 on Larry and Lauren’s porch to get a full circle of heavy machine gun protection around the island.

But the only thing that could approach the island from that direction would be a kayak, paddleboard, or just a person on foot—the waters of the flats to the west were extremely skinny, less than knee-deep through much of the Backcountry. A person could wade from island to island, if they followed the right sandbars, and likely wouldn’t get their shirt wet.

When I finished, I started down to where Savannah was getting things organized for feeding the troops.

We’d had a lot of people on our island before, but not often. We had two kitchens, plus the outdoor stove, and in a pinch, the galley aboard Taranis, to prepare meals for a lot more.

There were enough groceries and frozen meat on Taranis and in the large refrigerators in both my and Larry’s houses, plus the big chest freezer under the bunkhouse, to feed all twelve of us, plus Tank, for several months.

Extend that time exponentially with what we could grow on the island and what we could catch all around us.

I had a sneaking suspicion the threat wouldn’t last anywhere near that long, since I was actively trying to draw the enemy in.

When I reached the bottom of the steps, Charity suddenly appeared beside me. “You should move the detective and the two yippies off the island.”

I grinned at her use of “young island professionals” over the typical urban yuppie.

“Pine will leave on her own accord soon enough,” I told her. “As far as Larry and Lauren, staying or leaving is up to them. I promised that I’d keep them in the loop about any sort of possible danger, and that’s what I’m doing.”

“The boat blocks the gun emplacement on the roof,” she said. “Can it be moved?”

Charity was rarely critical. She often masked her intentions, whatever they were, with subtle flirting, which could be less subtle if it suited her needs.

“It can,” I replied. “But Taranis is the bait.”

She looked up at me. “Do you really think they’ll fall for it? Coming after your AIS signal?”

“I think it’s highly likely,” I replied. “News of the shooting at City Marina has probably already gotten out, and the cartel likely has, or at least had, access to law-enforcement systems. We know for a fact that they’d been tracking our movements for months using AIS.”

Charity cast a critical eye around the island’s interior. “They’ll wait until nightfall. Too risky for a daylight raid, and they know your background, so they know it won’t be easy.”

“The first guy seemed to think it would be,” I said. “I believe they think of me as a doddering old man, meddling in their affairs.”

“Their mistake,” she replied.

“Radar contact,” Tony said in my left ear. “Coming up from the southeast, moving at fifteen knots.”

I looked in that direction but couldn’t see much of the water for the sparse mangroves that had taken root and were now nearly seven or eight feet tall.

I unmuted the mic on my earwig as I looked up to the bunkhouse roof. Walt was standing there with Deuce, both looking southeast with binoculars.

“What do you see, Deuce?” I asked.

“Strangest looking boat I’ve ever seen,” he replied. “It looks like a landing craft of some kind.”

“That’s my neighbor Mac Travis’s Munson,” I said. “He and his girlfriend live on that little island to the east.”

Savannah approached us, with Matt and Val. I could tell from her expression that she’d heard and was concerned.

“We should let them know what’s going on,” she said. “If they know where we live, they might mistake Mac and Mel’s island for ours.”

I figured now would probably be the best time to come clean.

“That’s not very likely,” I said. “If and when they come, they’ll home in on Taranis’s AIS signal.”

She stopped in her tracks. “You turned on the AIS?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “But you’re right, I should let them know.”

“No, you stay here,” she replied. “I’ll take the Grady over and talk to them.”

“Take your gun with you,” I said. “And Larry. He has my Glock. Tell Mac they’re welcome to come here.”

She nodded and headed toward the tables, where Larry was helping Lauren at the cook stove.

“What can we do?” Val asked. “Mr. Meachum didn’t bother to bring any guns for us.”

“She’s right ’andy with a long gun, mate,” Matt suggested.

“Yes, I remember,” I replied, thinking back to the numerous anti-piracy drills we’d run on Ambrosia.

Aside from Stockwell’s security people, myself, and possibly Matt, she’d done far better than any of the other crew.

I turned to Charity. “Take Val up to Taranis. You know where my rifle is hidden and how to lower the roof.”

“On it,” Charity said, then turned to Val. “I think you’ll like what Jesse did with the roof.”

“Lower the bloody roof?” Matt asked, as the two women walked toward the north pier. “You mean like a proper cabriolet?”

I shook my head, as we started back to the house. “Not like a bimini top. The whole roof lowers around the helm for low bridges. When dropped, the helm seat becomes a sniper hide. I have another rifle up at the house that’s more suited for you.”

“’Ow’s ’at?” he asked. “Mind you, I’m not over-particular, mate.”

I grinned at him. “It kicks like a Dartmoor pony.”

Even the best laid plans had flaws. It was often said that the first casualty of war was the battle plan. Everything hinged on how the enemy would react after initial contact, and whatever happened in that first moment often led to having to resort to a backup plan. More often than not, it turned into chaos.

I didn’t have a backup plan. If they wanted a fight, it’d be on my turf and by my rules.

“Multiple radar contacts!” Tony shouted. “One from the north, eleven miles out, approaching at thirty-five knots. Another to the east is fourteen miles away, coming at forty knots, and a third coming up from the southeast, at twenty-eight knots. It’s only six miles away.”

I could see Savannah and Larry headed away from Mac and Mel’s island, working slowly toward the channel to the south. Our neighbors weren’t with them.

I went inside and grabbed my binos. Scanning the horizon to the southeast, I found a boat moving up Moser Channel, heading straight for the shoals west of Horseshoe Keys, a small group of mostly desolate and sometimes submerged sandbars now. Plant life hadn’t yet returned to a lot of areas since Irma.

The boat veered suddenly, then slowed.

“We’ll call the boat that’s approaching from the southeast Tango One,” I said, “It doesn’t look like the skipper is familiar with these waters. Could just be a bunch of tourists. Too far away to make out any detail yet.”

The boat turned farther to the left, around the shoal water, then came back up on plane, but at a slower speed. I kept an eye on him for over a minute as he swerved left and right, dodging what I was pretty sure was five feet of water over a turtle grass bed. He was probably assuming anything dark underwater was rock.

“Tango One is a center console,” I said, as I began to see details of the boat. “Eighteen to twenty feet with a soft bimini. He’s having trouble getting around the shoals. Like I said, probably a rental, full of tourist fishermen.”

It was close to low tide, so if the boat actually was coming here, he’d have almost no chance of taking the shorter route over the flats through an unmarked and winding cut, and would have to go up well past Mac’s island if he wanted to get into Harbor Channel.

“Tango Two, approaching from the north,” Deuce said in his usual calm tone. “Too far away for specifics still, but it looks like a go-fast boat about thirty feet, probably not running wide open. Heading toward Harbor Light.”

“What’s going on?” Savannah asked. “I just turned my thing back on.”

“Three bogies inbound, Savvy,” Charity said, coming up the back steps. “Might be nothing. But get back as quick as you can.”

She and Larry were just off the southwest beach of Mac’s island, barely a mile away, and the incoming boats were still several minutes from even being close enough to see her.

“What did Mac say?” I asked.

“Nobody was there,” Savannah replied. “We went up to the house to see if anyone was home and heard his boat start up again. Should I go around the island and tell him what’s going on?”

Just then, I saw Mac’s boat. He was leaving his island and moving slowly, loaded down with lobster traps. The regular season wouldn’t open for three more days, but Mac always staged his traps in strategic locations down through the passes between Water Keys and Little Torch.

“No,” I replied. “Get on back here. Mac’s headed this way.” Then I turned to Charity. “Stay here and watch that boat,” I said, handing her the binos before I started down the front steps to the pier.

“I got a visual on the third one coming from the east,” Meachum broke in. “It looks like another speedboat and also appears to be just out for a cruise. Might be nothing at all.”

I could see Savannah bringing the Grady up on plane, heading toward the channel opening, with Mac following behind her.

I muted the mic on the earwig as Savannah pulled up, then helped Larry tie the Grady off, and then I told them both to head over to the tables.

“It’s probably nothing,” I said. “But I’m going to warn Mac, just in case.”

They went around the house as I walked out past Tony’s and Andrew’s boats, tied up behind the Grady, and waved to Mac.

He spotted me and turned toward my channel.

“Might be trouble brewing, Mac,” I called out, when he shifted to neutral just beyond my channel. “I don’t have time to go into detail. Are you heading to your staging spots?”

He instinctively looked back behind his boat. “Yeah,” he replied. “I’ll probably be the rest of the day. Can’t get hold of Tru.”

Trufant was Mac’s sometime first mate, whenever he could catch the Cajun in need of money.

“Where’s Mel?” I asked.

“Up in Key Largo until tomorrow,” he replied. “You need any help?”

“It’s under control,” I replied. “You have my number. Call me before you head back this way.”

He shifted to forward and turned the wheel. “Will do.”

“And Mac,” I said, waiting for him to turn around. “If you hear anything strange, it didn’t happen.”

He nodded and turned back around. As the strange-looking boat idled away to the southwest, Mac looked up to where Charity stood on the deck by the machine gun. If he noticed it, I couldn’t tell from his expression.

I unmuted my mic as I retraced my steps to the house. “Tony, what’s the radar show for time to our location for each boat?”

There was a moment of silence as everyone who’d been talking on the comms waited for Tony’s response.

“Based on speed, distance, and straight-line heading, all three could converge on Harbor Light in a little over eight minutes, pretty much all at once.”

Harbor Light was just to the north of Mac’s island, marking the entrance to Harbor Channel. The channel itself was natural, where several sandbanks drained into it to carry water in and out of the Backcountry twice a day with the tides. It’d been a safe haven for fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico for two hundred years, with consistent depths of over twenty feet.

Seeing another boat way out here in the Backcountry was fairly common these days—we saw one or two just about every day—and more on weekends. But seeing more than one boat at the same time was rare, except way over on Content Passage, where they often congregated on weekends. Seeing three boats converging on one spot way out here was extremely rare.

“Threat level one,” I ordered, running up the steps. “Consider all vessels as hostile until confirmed otherwise.”

Charity had been wrong about the next attempt coming at night; it was coming now. I could feel it in my gut. And I’d been wrong in thinking it would be a single assassin, coming ashore in the dead of night to slit my throat as I slept. Half a million, split three ways, was still a chunk of money.

When I reached the deck, Charity was loading the ammo belt into the feed, and Meachum was coming up the back steps.

“Do you think it’s a three-pronged attack?” Charity asked. “These people are more likely to send one at a time.”

“We’ll have to wait and see,” I said, checking the gun. “But it won’t be a long wait.”

Meachum joined us, kneeling by the M-2 and checking it over completely. Finally, he racked the charging handle back and let it slam home, chambering the first .50-caliber round.

“Everything’s good,” he said. “Glad to see you haven’t forgotten anything in your old age. Both guns are hot.”

“Thanks, Walt,” I said. “Hopefully we won’t need them.”

Charity was watching Tango One through the binos. “This guy’s all over the place. He definitely doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Tony broke in. “The other two boats have slowed.”

“Chyrel,” I said, realizing what was going on, “these three boats are communicating somehow. Can you find them?”

“Already working on it,” she replied. “Gimme a coupla minutes.”

“Savvy,” I continued, “I want you to take Alberto, Larry, Lauren, Detective Pine, and Tank down below our house. Start Knot L-8 and be ready for a quick evac. Two of those boats will be faster, but none of them will be able to follow you through the cuts to the southwest.”

“Val’s all set on the fly,” Matt said over the comms. “She doesn’t have one of these bloody ear-talkies. I’m headed over to the rocks to your east, yeah.”

I could see Matt, with my M-40 sniper system slung on his shoulder, taking position behind the limestone outcrop that bordered the southeast corner of the island.

“Tony, open the intercom to the flybridge,” I said. “You can relay messages and direct Val.”

“Already open,” Tony replied. “This ain’t my first rodeo, brother.”

“Tango Two to the north is heading straight for the island,” Deuce said. “About two miles beyond that ring of islands just north of here.”

I grinned. “It’s not a ring, Deuce. That’s a long, shallow sandbar with some vegetation just starting to grow back. The shallowest pass between them at high tide is only about knee-deep, and we’re almost to low tide right now.”

“Oh, he’ll definitely run aground then,” Deuce replied. “He’s headed straight toward the widest opening.”

“Same with the third one,” Tony added. “He’s turned now and making a beeline for this island. If he holds course, he’ll pass to the north of your friend’s island over there.”

“There’s an opening to the basin just north of Mac’s island,” I said. “It’s deep enough to get in, but it isn’t marked and the water around it is also shallow and covered with turtle grass.”

“Tango One seems to have gotten himself out of the maze of shallows,” Charity said. “Now heading due north at a higher speed.”

“Are the other two speeding up?” Stockwell broke in.

“Roger that,” Tony replied. “All three still have the same ETA if they come straight in, but now the convergent point is right here where I’m sitting.”

“Let’s hope they do come straight at us,” I said, as Savannah led the others up the steps. “The guy to the south didn’t know where the shoals were.”

Detective Pine remained behind on the deck as Savannah led the others into the house and down to the dock area below.

“I’m staying,” Pine declared.

I removed the holstered Colt from where it was clipped to my belt and extended it to her. “Arm yourself, Diane.”

She clipped the holster to her belt, then pulled the 1911 out and press- checked the chamber. Seeing a round there, she checked to make sure the safety was on, then re-holstered it.

“Thanks, Mist… Jesse,” she said. “I was feeling naked.”

“Seven in the mag, and one in the chamber,” I told her, then handed her a spare magazine from my pocket.

“Are you sure these approaching boats are cartel hitmen or whatever?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. “They’re acting hinky as hell though. Don’t worry, we won’t fire unless fired on.”

“You’re that sure of the outcome?”

I looked down at the fifty-cal at our feet, then over to where Deuce and Meachum were manning the other machine gun.

“Fifty-fifty,” I said with a wry grin. “Totally in our favor. Give me a hand moving this. I think we need to be down at the other end of the deck now.”

Just then I heard one of Knot L-8’s engines rumble to life, followed a moment later by the second one.

Pine looked down at the deck, listening. “What do you have down there, a couple of motorcycles?”

“Not exactly,” I replied, moving the sandbags off the tripod legs. “It’s a homemade wooden boat with a pair of inboard V-twin motorcycle engines.”

“Should I open the doors?” Savannah asked over the comms.

I unmuted my mic. “Not unless I tell you to,” I replied. “Just get the engines warmed up, everyone aboard, and the lines untied. Put Larry in the bow. My Glock’s loaded with fifteen rounds.”

“Got ’em, Jesse!” Chyrel said. “They’re using cell phones. I listened in long enough to know they’re all three definitely coming for you, but one is having trouble.”

“Jam everything within five miles,” I ordered.

“You won’t have⁠—”

“Don’t need it,” I said, then grinned at Pine. “If this turns into a shit show, Detective Pine can use mine afterward to call in a cleanup.”

“We have more bad news,” Stockwell said. “The professor just reported that his meeting has been canceled. We think Alvarez is on to us and now running.”

The seconds ticked by, slowly turning into minutes as we waited to see what was going to happen. We were as prepared as we could possibly be for a lone wolf attack at night, even for two or three intruders working together. But three boats, with who knew how many people on board?

I got the Ma Deuce situated at the other end of the deck, at the back corner of my and Savannah’s bedroom, and Pine helped me bring the sandbags over while Charity kept watch.

“At least three men on Tango One,” Charity said. “Maybe another hunkered down in back.”

“All I see are two in each of the speedboats,” Meachum added. “But they’re head on, so who knows? Both of them are getting close to the shallows you mentioned.”

“This one’s turning now,” Charity said. “Coming straight for us.”

It was painful to watch sometimes, as boaters with no local knowledge went ripping through areas best left to kayaks, their props tearing up the bottom. Flying low over the Backcountry, you could see the visible scars they left behind in the turtle grass for months or years after they’d passed.

The boat to the east was the first to run aground, hitting the sandbar not even twenty feet from the cut that would have allowed them to gain entrance to the deeper basin just to the north of my island. Twin geysers erupted from the stern when the outboards kicked up. He tried reversing off the flats, but the boat was hard aground and leaning slightly to one side.

“That one’s not going anywhere until the tide comes up,” Walt said with a chuckle.

Then the one to the north hit the shallower sandbar between two mangrove clusters. I didn’t see it happen, but the sound caught my attention, and I turned just in time to see the boat come crashing down, throwing one man straight through the windshield, ripping the aluminum frame and plexiglass out.

“Tango One’s turning away,” Charity said. “Resuming a northerly course, headed toward number three.”

“Correction,” Meachum said, “Tango Three has four men aboard, all climbing out now, and moving away from the boat toward your friend’s island and—whoa, hang on. Make that four men armed with rifles!”

“Looks like three aboard Tango Two,” Deuce said, his voice still as matter-of-fact as always. “One man is out of the game, floating face down in the water. The other two are armed and working around the sandbar to the west.”

Six armed men, flanking us from the east and west would normally be cause for concern. But they were moving slowly in knee-deep water, and though they weren’t aware of it, they were sorely outnumbered and outgunned.

I still couldn’t be sure about the center console though. They didn’t know the water, but aside from their erratic course, they hadn’t shown any bad intentions yet.

I knew one way to find out for sure and traversed the barrel, so I was aiming well ahead of the boat. It was now less than a mile away, well within the 2,200-yard-range of the Ma Deuce.

“Take out the two grounded boats, Deuce,” I ordered, as I pressed the paddle trigger down.

My short burst of fire hit the water well ahead of the center console, then arced off to the left away from it. When I released the paddle, I could hear the chug-chug from the other gun.

The center console swerved, coming into Harbor Channel, just as the sound of a massive explosion reached my ears from the north.

Two men stepped out from behind the console, firing automatic rifles wildly in the general direction of the bunkhouse, but they were way too far away for any kind of accuracy.

Not that it mattered. My short burst was a warning, and Deuce had waited for the men to get away from the boats before destroying them.

Now we’d been fired on.

I pressed the paddle down, moving the sights onto the approaching boat. The big, half-inch projectiles created geysers of water around the oncoming boat, then began chewing through fiberglass and anything else in their way as I stitched the hull from side to side.

The center console veered suddenly, just as it reached the shallows. The port chine struck the sandbar and flipped, almost rolling back onto its hull before it, too, exploded in an orange and black fireball.

Detective Pine gasped and lowered my 1911, smoke still coming from the barrel.

It’d been just over a week since the attack on the island. Three boats had been utterly destroyed, and an estimated eleven gangbangers were tried, convicted, and executed with extreme prejudice.

We couldn’t be sure of the exact number of attackers because, as Savannah had said, the Backcountry keeps her secrets.

None of the men had shown any inclination to surrender. Down to the last one, each man had been intent on getting to my island, killing me, and claiming the half-million-dollar bounty Alvarez could no longer pay.

True to her word, Detective Pine had stood at my side, and when I’d opened fire, she’d emptied the Colt’s mag at the attacking boat. She had zero chance of hitting anything at nearly half a mile away, but she’d given it her all. And she’d reloaded to help fend off the remaining attackers.

When Mac returned about nightfall, he helped Tony, Charity, and me pull what was left of the three boats off the sandbars and out into the deeper waters of the Gulf, where they’d been sent to the bottom with as many bodies strapped on board as we could find.

The Ma Deuce was an excellent chum grinder, and I promised myself not to eat any fish or shellfish from the area for at least a year.

While there was still a chance that another assassin might come for me, I’d flown Savannah, Alberto, and Tank, along with Matt and Val, to Armstrong’s boatyard on Bimini to stay aboard Ambrosia for a while, and Larry and Lauren were staying with Chyrel on Grassy Key.

Then I flew back to the island and moved Taranis to a dock at City Marina, in full view of anyone who looked.

I’d learned that for certain people, me for instance, trouble was just impossible to avoid. I often said that criminals who lived by the sword died by the sword, and I still think that’s true.

But the same thing applies to old warriors like me. Over the years, I’d survived being shot, stabbed, beaten, gassed, and blown up, and always figured there was some big reason for that, some greater good that life had in store for me.

Reflecting on my past, I couldn’t remember a year in my life, since before I turned eighteen, when someone wasn’t actively trying to kill me.

There was no greater need for people like me. No divine mission. As Pap had said, some men were just damned hard to kill.

“Land ho,” Charity said needlessly over my headset.

They were the first words either of us had said in over thirty minutes.

Though Ocean Hopper was nearing seventy-five years of age, she had a full complement of modern navigation equipment aboard, and the South American continent had appeared on my screen several minutes earlier.

“Thirty miles till our turn,” I replied.

While we were in Bimini, Jack’s crew had installed a two-hundred-gallon tank in Ocean Hopper’s passenger compartment with a hand pump to transfer extra fuel to the belly tank. It would be just enough for what I had planned.

We’d flown straight through the night, reaching Puerto Rico before Charity had to climb in back and pump the fuel out of the spare tank.

She was a helicopter pilot, but with the autopilot on, she could keep watch while I napped and vice versa, as we flew southeast, following the chain of islands that separated the North Atlantic from the Caribbean.

Fifty miles ahead, the coast of Venezuela and Guyana filled the windshield, distant mountains shrouded in afternoon mist. The dark, primordial jungle was the dominant feature of the landscape.

We rode in silence for several minutes, nearly a mile high, much like we’d done the whole trip. Once the decision was made, there just wasn’t much more to talk about.

“Time to descend,” I said, pushing the yoke forward slightly and pulling back on the throttles in the overhead.

The big radial engines responded, dropping in pitch, but still emanating that rhythmic sound of pure power.

We remained in a shallow dive until Ocean Hopper reached one thousand feet, then I leveled her off and turned west, as if entering the downwind leg for an approach to Piarco International on Trinidad, where I’d filed our flight plan to.

After a few minutes of level flight, long enough for the airport’s tower to recognize our intent, but well before we’d have to call in to them, it was time to go covert.

Not an easy thing to do in a five-ton flying boat.

I turned and looked at Charity. “Ready?”

She nodded.

I banked steeply to the right, pushing the right rudder pedal, and Ocean Hopper went into a steep, spiraling dive as I reached up and moved the throttle controls to full power.

After almost two full turns, I pulled back on the yoke and leveled off again, heading south-southeast, no more than a hundred feet above the waves, and hopefully below any land-based radar.

Charity looked over and grinned. “And people say I fly crazy.”

I descended a little more, until we were barely forty or fifty feet off the water, the engines roaring defiantly.

After several minutes, Charity said, “Come right to heading two-seven-zero, due west.”

I banked the plane slightly, making a big, sweeping turn until the compass pointed due west, and we were flying almost directly toward the setting sun.

“Remember what I said,” Charity cautioned. “Parts of the river are too narrow for this thing’s wingspan. We’ll be fine at this speed and altitude for the first twelve miles, but after that, you’ll need to get up above the jungle canopy.”

Charity had been up the Orinoco many years ago. I knew little about the operations she’d been sent on after leaving Deuce’s team but knew she had quite a few contacts in the area.

“Come left two degrees,” she said, studying the screen. “The river delta is ten minutes ahead and it’s twenty miles wide, totally uninhabited, with low vegetation that’s swept away with every flood. You should be able to stay this low all the way up the delta to the main part of the river.”

“Roger that,” I said. “Just keep us in the middle of the delta, heading toward that part.”

I eased back on the power to conserve gas and reduce sound as we approached the coast at over two hundred knots.

We had to get up the river, accomplish what we’d come to do, then get back out to the spot where we did the fake spiral as quickly as possible without being seen or heard.

The big radial engines were unmuffled, but I knew from experience that the tone was at such a low range, few people could hear them more than a couple of miles away.

Air traffic control on Trinidad might think we’d crashed, but I was counting on them not sending search planes for several hours. My flight plan didn’t have us due in for another two hours. Once this was all over, we’d fly to Trini and just explain that we had a malfunction and had to land in the open water to fix it.

The wide river delta, with hundreds of branches of water flowing between long, narrow islands and sandbars, looked like something from a prehistoric time as we flew over. I half expected a pterodactyl to fly up and join the formation.

“Four minutes,” Charity said. “Dead ahead. We should see it any second.

At just fifty feet above sea level, the horizon was fifteen miles away and at our speed, we were covering almost three miles per minute, or the length of a football field every second.

Far ahead, below a burnt-orange setting sun, the water flared out, nearly two miles wide, as the estuary waterways of the delta tightened in on us.

A few seconds later, we were over the widest part of the Orinoco River, heading almost due west. A part of my mind couldn’t help but marvel at the landscape before us, the sun nearing the distant mountain peaks, and an ancient jungle closing in all around us.

“First turn coming up,” Charity said. “When I tell you, bank hard left, toward the southwest, and prepare for a right turn just a few miles later.”

Flying at 185 knots now, just fifty feet above the river, dark green walls of vegetation began crowding in closer around us, and it looked like we were headed straight into a solid barrier of exotic South American hardwoods that towered two hundred feet above the water.

“Break left!” Charity said, in a tone that was both calm and urgent.

The wall of green turned almost sideways as I banked hard, pulling back slightly on the yoke to maintain altitude.

I felt as if the wingtip was about to touch the water, just as the river stretched out ahead of us once more, and I leveled off.

“Nicely done,” Charity said. “This slow turn to the right up ahead will end in about ten miles. From there, the river twists and turns too tightly for me to follow in a helo. You’ll have to fly above the jungle from there, but we’ll be between two mountain ranges then, and there are no land-based radar systems anywhere in this region.”

The river below narrowed, with occasional islands splitting it, and twice I had to climb to get over some trees growing on them.

“This is the end of your river cruise,” Charity said, as, once more, it looked like we were flying into a jungle bottleneck with no way out but up. “Climb to two hundred feet,” she said. “Watch out for the taller trees.”

When I pulled back on the yoke and saw the river meandering through the jungle ahead, it all looked so surreal. The jungle canopy was unbroken, except for the ribbon of dark water that was the Orinoco River, and most of the trees were of such even height, it looked like a low, rolling field of grass. Here and there, a couple of ancient, old-growth trees stood taller, like quiet green sentinels, watching over the impenetrable and unyielding jungle around them.

“Come left two degrees,” Charity said after a moment. “See where the river widens ahead?”

“Got it.”

“You’ll have almost a full mile where it’s at least two hundred feet wide,” Charity said. “Just watch for logs and crocodiles.”

“She doesn’t even need that much,” I replied, as I pulled back on the throttles again.

I lowered the flaps, slowing Ocean Hopper considerably as I steered toward the wider spot in the river.

Though she was a relatively large, twin-engine, flying boat, capable of carrying ten passengers or a ton-and-a-half of cargo, Ocean Hopper didn’t need a lot of room to land.

Especially with just two people and an empty gas can on board.

I brought the power down some more, and we started descending slowly toward the spot where the river straightened at a little under one hundred knots. Just before we made contact, I pulled back on the yoke slightly, and Ocean Hopper settled onto her stepped hull.

The smooth swish of flat water on the hull at eighty knots slowed the plane even more, and at seventy knots, the wings started to stall and lose lift, allowing the big bird to settle onto the water.

Charity pointed ahead of us. “Make for that island. There’s supposed to be a line and ball drifting in the water there that will hold us.”

She quickly unplugged her headset and reached down between her legs to open the small access hatch to the nose compartment.

A moment later, she opened the nose hatch and stood with a telescoping gaff in hand, then remembered to reach down and plug her headset into the jack there.

“Not a lot of room between the props,” she shouted over the engines just a few feet to her left and right.

“Do you see the line?”

“Yeah, stay straight ahead and we’ll cross over it,” she said. “Be ready to cut the engines on my mark.”

I could see that the current was moving pretty quickly, bending reeds toward us at the tip of the little island ahead.

“As soon as I shut off the engines,” I said, “we won’t have any steerage, so I’ll cut power to whichever side the line’s on first, just in case we miss it.”

“It’ll be on the right,” she replied, leaning slightly that way with the gaff. “Kill the starboard engine!”

When I did, I also nudged the wheel to the left to counter the pull from the other engine, just as Charity reached out with the gaff.

“Got it,” she announced.

I waited a second longer, until she had the line in her hands, then shut off the port engine as she quickly tied the line off to the cleat just in front of the hatch.

Ocean Hopper began to drift backward, turning in the eddies that came around both sides of the island. Then the line straightened and jerked the nose around into the current.

It looked pretty solid.

“I wish I could back down,” I said, as Charity crawled back through the hatch. “I hate trusting mooring balls.”

“I think it’s tied to a huge log,” she said, contorting her body through the small opening, then levering herself into the copilot’s seat.

She pointed upriver to the left of the island. “Here comes the welcoming committee.”

I unbuckled my harness and removed my headset. “Yeah, I see them.”

Charity followed me aft, and I opened the hatch on the port side, swinging it all the way out until it locked.

Two canoes were approaching from across the river, angling against the current. The boats were dugouts, hand-carved from a single tree trunk.

There were three men in each canoe. All were dark-skinned and bare-chested, with dark hair cut short over their foreheads.

I’d met a few indigenous people in South America. For the most part they lived peaceful but primitive lives in the rainforests, gathering and hunting for food. The four men paddling were young, lithe, and probably combined, didn’t weigh as much as me.

And the upper part of their faces was painted red.

I stood in the plane’s doorway, my Kimber strapped to my hip, wearing black tactical pants and a black T-shirt. We were at the right coordinates and the float ball had been where we were told it would be. So why did the “war paint” make me nervous?

The four painted men were paddling the two canoes, while another man rode in the middle of each.

One passenger was a little older than those doing the work but was dressed and wore his hair as they did, while the passenger on the second boat was many decades older than the paddlers.

He too had the same dark skin, but his hair was pulled back in a ponytail and streaked with gray.

“Professor Mejia?” I asked, as the canoes turned into the current alongside Ocean Hopper.

“It’s good to see you again, Captain McDermitt,” he said with just a hint of a Southern California accent.

Though born in the rainforest to a native Warao tribe, he’d grown up in California and I knew that besides having a PhD in anthropology, Mejia also spoke five major languages, and numerous indigenous dialects.

“Has he moved?” I asked.

“No,” the professor replied. “But he is well-guarded. Even I couldn’t get in.”

“Won’t matter,” I replied.

“Then come with us,” he said, motioning the other boat closer and speaking in a language I’d never heard, before turning back to me. “My cousin will stay with your aircraft, Captain. He wants to know if there is an emergency anchor?”

The indigenous people of the Orinoco Basin lived and worked on or near the many rivers and streams and were no strangers to anchoring in strong currents to fish. But most weren’t in five-ton boats with wings.

I pointed forward to the open nose hatch. “Up there.”

Mejia spoke to the man in what I guessed was their native language, and his cousin asked a couple of questions.

Mejia looked up at me. “Is it easy to find and ready to deploy? He’s a bit nervous.”

“Can’t miss it,” I replied. “It’s mounted on the aft bulk… the rear wall of the compartment. It has a hundred feet of line and ten feet of chain, shackled onto a ten kilo Bruce anchor. The bitter end just needs to be tied to the cleat.”

He spoke to the other man again, and then the paddlers moved over to the port wing’s float, where the man easily climbed up it and onto the wing. A moment later, he was in the nose compartment holding the bitter end of the anchor line up in the air with one hand, and the three-clawed, twenty-two-pound anchor in the other.

I turned toward Charity. “You ready?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to bring a rifle?” she asked. “Take him out from a mile away?”

I shook my head. “As dense as this jungle is, I’d have to be within spitting distance to get a clear shot.” I lowered my tone. “I want him to know who I am.”

She nodded, her expression one of grim determination. “Then let’s go,” she replied, handing me a pack while putting another over her left shoulder.

Both packs were light, and each carried the tools we’d need to get in and get out.

Thirty minutes later, we were following the professor through the jungle, swallowed by it, with massive trees blocking out the setting sun and giant ground ferns with leaves as big as a couch. The men in the canoes had a small camp set up where we’d come ashore and would be waiting when we returned.

It took over an hour, walking quietly across the damp jungle floor, to reach our next destination. I’d seen no sign of anything like a trail, more like meandering open areas, maybe made by animals, with dark, dense jungle all around. Or maybe it was made by running water; there was a lot of that.

Finally, Mejia led us into a small encampment just as twilight was setting in. I’d been in a lot of jungles, and thought I was a better-than- average tracker, but I saw nothing along the route we’d followed that indicated anything other than natural placement.

The camp was pitched back off the natural trail by twenty feet, and invisible to it. How Mejia found it was impossible for me to comprehend.

There was only a crude, handmade shelter visible, along with a small fire that was little more than glowing embers, which I’d neither seen, heard, nor smelled.

Above the embers was a makeshift spit, which held what looked like a chicken-sized bird, maybe a parrot, slowly roasting.

A man rose from a squatting position at the fire as we entered the camp, and Mejia spoke to him for a moment in quiet whispers.

Then he turned to me. “Alvarez’s camp is less than a mile from here, and this man has only just returned from there. A second man is watching now.”

“What’s the layout of the camp?” I asked. “What’s it look like at night? How close is the man watching it?”

He spoke to the other man at length, translating what he was saying bit by bit, and filling in things he himself knew, until I had a fair understanding of how the camp was laid out, how it was in relation to the spot they’d been watching from, where Alvarez was in the camp, his recent movements, the number of people there, and thankfully, that they ran a generator at night for lights and to keep jaguars away.

“Thanks,” I said. “Can he take us there?”

“You wish to go now?”

“As soon as possible,” I replied. “We disappeared from radar on approach to Trinidad. We need to get back out there before a serious search begins.” I checked my watch. “We’ll be overdue in an hour.”

Mejia spoke to the other man again, then turned to me. “He will be ready in just a moment. I would like to come also.”

“As far as their lookout spot,” I said. “From there Charity and I will go in alone.”

The other man stole a quick glance at the black-clad, blond-haired, white woman standing in his camp, as if he understood English. Or maybe he’d just never seen such a woman, especially one so tall. Charity stood at least six or eight inches over both him and the professor.

“She will go in with you?” Mejia asked.

“She’ll get close enough to guide or warn me,” I replied. “And act as backup when I exfiltrate.”

The other man quickly gathered a few things into a pouch, removed the bird from the spit and wrapped it in a leaf. He put that in the pouch, as well, then tied it around his waist.

The four of us set off through the jungle, which was now almost completely black. I knew there was a bright moon almost directly overhead, just two days past full, but little of that light filtered through the canopy.

After a few minutes, our eyes adjusted to what little light there was, enough to see the trees and the path we were on. Here, I could see disturbances on the jungle floor, most likely where these men had trekked back and forth for several days while watching Alvarez’s camp.

I kept my eyes moving, relying more on peripheral vision and looking slightly away from what I wanted to see. In very low light conditions, the pupils dilate fully to allow as much light to reach the retina as possible, which made it difficult to focus on one thing well enough to see it clearly. But by looking slightly away, peripheral vision allowed more detail to be filled in.

Though it was only a mile, it took more than an hour to reach a rocky promontory beside a small river.

I could read my watch dial without pressing the light button—2150.

In ten minutes, our flight would be overdue.

The guide moved out ahead, I assumed to let the other man know we were approaching. He didn’t carry a gun, at least not that I could see, but I didn’t feel like he was completely unarmed.

A few minutes later, we reached the post where Mejia had had people watching the intruders for the last four days.

They were Warao and the girls Alvarez had stolen several years ago were their people.

Charity and I quietly slipped out of our packs and opened them. We both had a pair of night-optic goggles, which turned night into day, and even showed some color variations, versus the older green-gray optics I’d had in the Corps.

We both moved up beside the new man, got down on our bellies, and looked out over the rock through the goggles.

I hadn’t seen any light before I put the goggles on, but now the whole camp was lit up like the Las Vegas Strip. I tapped the young man on the shoulder and jerked a thumb to the rear. He understood, and quietly slid backward, off the rock.

For a moment, the wind shifted, and I could hear the faint sound of an engine running. Across the river and beyond a wide beach, four large tents had been set up on high ground, and all but one had light emanating from the flaps.

“The dark tent is where the guards sleep,” Charity whispered so softly, I could barely hear her words.

“Smoke coming from the tent on the far right,” I said. “Must be the kitchen.”

“That leaves the two in the middle,” Charity said. “The watchers said he was in the second tent from the right.”

“Let’s watch and see for a while,” I said, looking to my right, where the river curved around a wide sandbar, littered with dead trees and tangled branches.

“We can cross from up there,” I said. “Use a deadfall with some branches sticking up for cover.”

“And make landfall before the beachhead?” she asked. “I can use that tree on the other bank.”

I looked across the river again and saw where a large tree had toppled into the water recently. It had some easily climbable branches towering high above the camp, and still had a few greenish leaves hanging on, so it wasn’t likely to be rotted.

The beach itself was undercut where it met the highwater shoreline, all the way from the tree to well past the camp.

“See that washout in the bank?” I asked. “It’s about twenty feet from the edge of the camp. I can follow the cutbank to there to gain access.”

“What time do you want to do this?” she asked. “It’s 2200 now.”

“We’ll wait an hour and watch,” I whispered. “Maybe figure out for certain which of the two tents Alvarez is in.”

“You don’t trust the natives?” she asked.

Before I could reply, a woman’s scream split the air, followed by the sound of a man laughing. The tent flap on the second tent was flung open and a man stepped out, pulling a woman along by her hair before throwing her to the ground and laughing again.

When he turned toward the kitchen, I could see his face clearly.

“Alvarez,” Charity whispered.

I watched as the woman, a girl really, slowly got to her feet and brushed herself off. I could feel the bile rising in my gut as Professor Mejia moved silently between Charity and me.

“The girls are new,” he whispered. “There are two of them; taken from a local settlement and just delivered to Alvarez. This changes things.”

“Not much,” I replied quietly, as the light in Alvarez’s tent went off, and the girl disappeared into the kitchen tent. “Only my route back out.”

The light in the third tent went off thirty minutes later, leaving only the kitchen tent illuminated. We hadn’t seen any guards moving around the camp, and I figured they’d likely grown complacent and simply stayed awake in the kitchen, where the smoke from the cook fire would keep the bugs out.

After another thirty minutes, Charity and I moved out, making our way upriver to where the other beach was. We got our fins on, then moved extremely slowly through the mud and sand on our bellies toward the river’s edge, stopping regularly to watch.

To an unaided eye, we could easily be mistaken for a couple of small crocodiles or caimans.

When we finally slipped into the water, I pulled a suitable branch free from the beach and we both clung to it, staying low as we kicked hard with our fins. When our branch grounded on the far side of the river, we drifted with it to the fallen tree where it became tangled in its submerged branches.

I nodded at Charity in the darkness, then touched the power button on my earwig and waited for her to do the same.

“Comm check,” I whispered.

“All good,” Charity whispered back, barely audible in my unaided ear.

“I don’t see any other heat sources around you,” Savannah said over the comm. “Four heat signatures in the first tent to the east. Probably three people and a stove or fire; one is very intense. Two in the tent farthest west. And one each in the two middle tents. Nobody is moving anywhere.”

Alvarez, one of his lieutenants maybe, or at least someone who didn’t rate bunking with the help, would be the two in the middle tents, then three guards probably rotating shifts with only one on duty at a time while the other two slept.

He was in the kitchen tent with the two captives.

Not that they needed guarding. This deep in the jungle, they had no place to go. The girl I’d seen was from a settlement, wore different clothes, and probably lacked the skills to survive in the jungle, unlike Mejia and his friends.

Savvy and Chyrel were both watching from Armstrong’s satellite high overhead. Savannah was aboard Ambrosia, and had insisted on being the lead, with Chyrel backing up from her home in Grassy Key. With her in Ambrosia’s control center were Stockwell, Matt, Chip, and half a dozen other analysts, providing all kinds of intel to Savvy.

“Roger that,” I whispered. “No movement.”

It was almost unfair. Sure, I would go in alone, and there were five armed men in the camp, but they were all blinded by the lights they couldn’t do without, four were asleep, and only one would be a concern.

Like our tribal friends, I was used to moving silently in the jungle, and I had eyes in the sky.

“Change of plans,” I whispered. “I’m going after two captive girls first. Once I get them out, I’ll go back after Alvarez.”

Savannah became concerned. “How will you get past⁠—”

“I won’t,” I replied. “Focus, babe. The captives are in the eastern tent with the only guard on duty.”

“We didn’t know there’d be captives,” Charity added. “I agree with Jesse.”

“That’s good,” I said. “Because as soon as I get them out, you’re taking them back across the river to the professor.”

“You can’t go in alone,” Charity protested.

I pointed skyward. “I’m not alone. Do as I say. I’m moving out.”

Following the trunk of the tree, I reached the undercut riverbank, removed my fins and stashed them right on top of the giant log, where I could easily retrieve them. Then I started along the cutbank toward the washout I’d seen. Locating it, I crept slowly up the washed-out shoreline, which led right to the east side of the kitchen tent.

Thanks to the deeply cushioned forest floor, there hadn’t been the slightest snap of a twig. I knelt at the back of the tent and listened for a long moment.

Hearing nothing, I lay flat and slowly lifted the bottom edge of the tent. A man sat in a chair, his back to the tent flap and his feet up on a table.

Slowly and quietly, I unsheathed my Ka-Bar, then moved around the side of the tent without a sound. I hadn’t seen the girls, and didn’t know where in the tent they were located, but guessed they were near the side I’d looked under.

At the tent flap I looked slowly around and whispered, “Movement?”

“None,” Savannah replied. “One is stationary very close. The other two are directly across, close together. Be careful.”

It seemed such an odd thing to say at that moment, her knowing what I was about to do. I had no intention of being careful. I was there to instill fear and chaos. But only after I left.

The girls were the problem. Would they scream when I rushed the guard? I had to take the risk that they were asleep and would stay quiet.

I looked all around the camp, seeing nothing moving, then quietly slipped the night-optic goggles off my head, and put them in a cargo pocket of my pants.

Slowly, I pulled back the tent flap and looked inside. The guard still had his back to the opening, and the two girls were huddled together on a cot directly across the tent. I’d been looking under the cot from the other side.

In one fluid motion, I pulled back the flap, stepped inside and grabbed the guard under the chin, pulling back so hard he couldn’t open his mouth. Then the Ka-Bar’s sharp blade found his throat and I sliced deep, blood pulsing out in an arc before I plunged the blade into his chest.

He never made a sound.

Nor did the two girls. They both stared at me with dark, unblinking eyes.

I motioned my hand forward, urging them to follow me.

They got up quickly, moving timidly around the dead man. I put a finger to my lips, unsure if they even knew what the gesture meant, then motioned for them to follow me again.

Outside, I slipped the goggles back on and looked around.

Nothing moved.

Over in the little gulch, Charity rose and motioned me forward. “All clear,” she whispered.

The girls followed me over to where she waited. She removed her goggles and nodded at me, then motioned the two girls to follow her, and they slipped away, moving upstream along the riverbank to cross over to the other beach.

I was alone in the jungle.

“Still no movement in the camp,” Savannah said calmly. “Continue to the target.”

“Roger that,” I whispered.

Moving quietly, as if I were the specter of death itself, I made my way to the next tent, where the former brigadier general slept.

I parted the tent flap with the bloody knife blade, ready to plunge it into Alvarez’s chest if he was standing on the other side. Through the night optics, I could see a cot, covered with mosquito netting, and a large lump on it.

Silently, I stepped into the tent toward the cot, letting the flap fall quietly behind me, then removed the night optics and dropped them to the ground.

Alvarez rose slowly, moving the net aside. “Who’s there?” he asked in Spanish. “Is something wrong?”

I waited for him to turn on the light beside his cot. When he looked up at me, he saw a disheveled man in black, twice his age, hair and beard unkempt and scraggly, holding a bloody knife.

“Who are you?” he demanded, though not very loudly.

I stepped forward, my left hand shooting out and gripping his throat to silence him and bring him to his feet.

He was a small man, probably no more than 145 pounds. Instinctively, both hands grabbed mine, trying to wrench my death grip free.

A move that only made him more vulnerable.

I thrust the blade upward, just under his ribcage, as I squeezed his throat tighter to cut off any chance of a sound escaping.

Alvarez’s eyes and mouth went wide in shock.

Leaning close to his ear, I whispered in English, “My name is Jesse McDermitt, you son-of-a-bitch.” I shoved the Ka-Bar deeper, feeling his warm blood spill down my forearm as I yanked the handle from side to side, slicing through the man’s cold, black heart. I dropped his body, still twitching, then knelt and wiped my blade on his shirt. “And you can go to Hell.”

The End

Down island—just a couple of words, but two that always bring a smile to my face and a warm place in my memory. It’s a direction, a place, and a state of mind, all rolled into one.

This book was a huge milestone for me. It marks ten times the original length envisioned for this series. From the outset, I’d planned on writing a trilogy about Jesse McDermitt with Fallen Palm, Fallen Hunter, and Fallen Pride. That was all there were supposed to be. Three books, not thirty.

Then I started getting a lot of questions about Jesse and Rusty’s backstory, so after Fallen Pride, I wrote a shorter prequel to help explain their relationship. Fallen Out has since become the first book in the series, selling more than any other in all formats.

So, Jesse had to be back home for the thirtieth book. And I wanted to bring in a bunch of past characters. Hopefully, by now you’re used to me doing that and have become more familiar with them.

The German submarine… I know, I know, it’s taking forever. But think about the logistics involved. It’s twelve miles inland, on the border of a national park, and close enough to the boundary between the Seminole Nation and state-owned wetland that both will have miles of red tape to get through. But trust me, if anyone can, it’s Rusty and Billy.

I owe my undying thanks and gratitude to my wife, Greta, and all my family, as I worked long hours, usually seven days a week, so I’d be able to take a few days off for a visit with a cousin I never knew I had but found through Ancestry DNA. Watch for the full story in the next book, coming in December 2025. I use a lot of real-life facts in my fiction. Some are such small details that nobody except close friends and family catch them. This one won’t be like that.

Thanks also to our kids, grandkids, and great-grandson. Without your continued support none of this would have happened.

I get so much great feedback from my technical advisors, it usually takes a full week just to process and address all the little details that help ensure my stories aren’t just well edited, but as factual as we can make them. Dana Vihlen, Alan Fader, Mike Ramsey, Katy McKnight, Deg Priest, Jason Hebert, Drew Mutch, and Ron Ramey help make the islands, boats, and planes seem not only real, but integral characters.

My editor, Marsha Zinberg, then takes all those words and moves or changes them around so the story flows better, which I’m slowly still learning to emulate before I pass my manuscript over to her. Still, it takes me a full five to seven days to address all the revisions she suggests.

Much appreciation to my final proofreader, Donna Rich, for finding all the screwups I made in rewriting.

And a special thanks to my audiobook narrator and good friend, Nick Sullivan. Over the past ten years of working together, hearing the characters in my head in the way he portrays them has changed how I write. If you’ve never listened to an audiobook before, one that is performed by a trained actor of both stage and screen, give one of the samples a listen. I closed the auditions for the first audiobook after he read Rusty’s first line.

Whether you’re up island or down island, as my friend Scott Kirby would say, “Thank your lucky stars, if once, you’ve slept on an island.”

Wayne