“So, we’ll start here, a little ways west of where Justin thinks the Otter came across.” Kate tapped her rough drawing on the whiteboard, then nodded at Justin, who stood at the helm, his sandy dreadlocks bouncing from the wind and waves.
She had enough search and recovery successes under her belt to know that if something was there, she’d find it. It’s what she did. But two guys left Fort Myers. One guy arrived in the flats. She dreaded what she expected to find and for a split second, she wished her innate gift for finding things would fail her, just for today.
Kate had seen more dead bodies than the average divemaster, starting with her husband and ending with a crew of kidnapping Colombian gem-smugglers. But it had been a while, and if she had her choice, it’d be a while longer.
Her problem, though, was that she didn’t really have a choice today. If what Deek suspected was true, they needed to find this guy. And finding what—or whom—he’d ditched was the first step.
She turned back to her briefing. Even though Deek would be staying topside, he’d need to know their plan, follow their bubbles, and be there when they surfaced.
“We’re looking okay on viz today; divers out this morning were reporting sixty to eighty feet on the reef, which is pretty good considering how windy it’s been. So to conserve bottom time and cover the widest search area, Justin and I will level off at thirty feet and swim parallel courses about fifty feet apart, maybe a bit closer if we lose some viz. As long as we don’t have to dip deeper, we’ll go ’til we find something or when the first one of us is down to three hundred pounds. We’re both pretty competitive, so don’t freak out if we’re down there for an hour and a half. Just keep our bubbles ahead of you. When they stop moving, we’re on our way up.”
She led Deek up toward the helm, stepping over Whiskey. “He will curl up and sleep wherever it’s the most inconvenient for you, but if you stay on the wheel, he probably won’t trip you. And both of you stay in the shade so you don’t get burned. That wind might feel cold, but the sun is still a killer.”
Fifteen minutes later, Kate wriggled into a three-mil wetsuit and clipped into her faded BCD. She buddy-checked Justin, waited for him to do the same for her, then they left Deek and Whiskey on the Hopper and backrolled into the chilly Florida Strait.
She pulled a deep breath through her regulator as her body gently sank through the salty blue. When her watch showed the target depth, she popped a little burst of air into her BCD, quickly found neutral buoyancy, and then rolled onto her side to spot Justin.
He tapped his head in a giant “OK” signal, and she repeated the gesture back. At this distance, they’d have to work to keep together, but Kate had a clear view of a wide swath of the reef and the bottom forty feet below. She waved her arms ahead of her in an exaggerated “Swim” signal, and the two of them set off along the reef.
Every few minutes, Kate executed a lazy barrel roll, checking Justin’s position, then confirming that the Hopper’s hull still hung behind them. As she relaxed into her rhythm, drifting through the quiet ocean without worrying about novice divers or keeping to a timetable, she remembered why she’d taken to the water in the first place. Diving provided a deeper sense of mindfulness and focus on the now than she’d ever found in meditation or yoga. In the months after Danny’s death, the only peace she found was beneath the surface. And, in time, she’d found that peace above the water, too, thanks, in no small part, to the community of friends at Shark Key.
As she finned east, she made a mental list of the many people and things she had to be grateful for. And as she was thanking God or the Universe or whomever for the time she’d had with Danny, pledging to always love him even as she moved forward into new relationships, she spotted an unnaturally square corner of something dark flapping in the current on the south edge of the reef.
* * *
As Angler reached the end of Maloney Avenue and passed through the gate into Key Vista Resort and Yacht Club, he felt like he’d crossed from the slums of Calcutta into the fanciest neighborhood in Dubai.
He took it all in with disdain. Everything looked like a movie set, from the tidy, weedless brick pavement to the buildings freshly painted in every cliché tropical color. Key Lime Pie. Tangerine Twist. Flamingo Pink. Probably painted by the same folks living twelve to a single-wide trailer up the street where he’d abandoned the scooter between a dumpster and a minivan on blocks.
Several guests milled around a tiki bar at the end of the quay. They wore the uniforms of the elite, the women in pressed white sleeveless tennis dresses with colorful sweaters that matched the resort’s architecture tied around their shoulders. The men all wore sharply pressed khaki pants and even more sharply pressed Tommy Bahama printed shirts.
Angler looked down at his own attire, more suitable for the boatyard he’d just come from than for the yacht club he was entering. A string of boutique shops lined the path down to the charter docks, offering everything from beachwear to sailing gear. He dipped into a shop. He was ready with a story that he was a workman checking the lightbulbs along the canal, but he didn't need it. The clerk chatted on her phone while fixing a chipped nail—his stained shirt and cargo pants rendering him invisible to her. Rather than bothering to catch her attention, he slipped out with a Hawaiian shirt tucked under his T-shirt.
Ducking behind an oversized vending machine filled with slices of rainbow-colored cake, Angler tugged off the tags and slouched into the designer shirt, buttoning it halfway up to cover the spots on the gray crewneck beneath. He adjusted his sunglasses and ambled back out onto the pier, acting every bit the part.
The wide, polished-concrete dock was inlaid with pale decking, artificially aged to the color of bleached beach sand, bordered by concrete benches and planters overflowing with tropical flowers. At the end, short docks stretched into the harbor, each slip home to a luxurious yacht or ketch or sportfisher, all bobbing gently in the protected water. Gentle waves splashed against the quay, sparkling in the sunlight. But beneath it all, a hint of motor oil and the dockmaster’s cigar reminded him that this was all a manufactured paradise.
Angler ordered a grilled lionfish sandwich, then settled onto a concrete bench in the shade of the snack shop’s awning. He adjusted his cap as a man walked towards him, wearing a navy-blue blazer and crisp white trousers. Angler thought of the millionaire from Gilligan’s Island, believing his position in the posh crowd that belonged at the exclusive yacht club insulated him from danger. But anyone was just a three-hour-tour away from disaster. He stifled a derisive laugh when the man stepped a stiff new deck shoe in a pile of seagull droppings that the resort staff hadn’t been quick enough to remove.
A moment later, exactly on time, a sturdy stranger in a white visor wearing a white short-sleeved button-down shirt with epaulets on the shoulders leaned his elbows on the railing, his gaze resting on the first row of boats along the channel. Angler’s contact had vouched for the man and arranged the transaction, but nothing could be taken for granted now. He ambled up beside the captain and listened to the breeze rustling in the tall palms.
Finally, the man spoke. “I hear you need a boat.”
“Maybe. Depends on what you’ve got.”
“Whatever you need, I can get.”
“Speed. Range. Stealth.”
“You’re not asking for a lot, are you?”
Angler snorted. “Pretty standard stuff, really.”
The man nodded to a white sportfisher tied to the first slip, Beeracuda emblazoned across her stern. “She can do it. This weekend, right?”
“This weekend. Boat show. Lee County.”
“How many?”
“One. Maybe two.”
“Destination?”
“South of here.”
To Angler’s surprise, the man didn’t flinch. “Not a problem for me, but it’s not going to be cheap. The right guy gets paid to be the right guy. And I’m the right guy. Plus, I’ll need a mate.”
“Your crew, your problem.” Angler shrugged. “Money’s not an object. Just tell me where to wire it. Half up front. Half on completion.”
“Cash. All up front, or no ride.”
“Cash? No one pays cash anymore.”
“They do if they want to stay as under the radar as you want.”
“If you want that kind of cash, I need time.” The small wad of cash in Angler’s pocket was nowhere close to the price for the right guy. He held the man’s gaze in a game of financial chicken.
“Fine. Half before we leave. Half when I drop you in Cuba.” The man reached in his pocket and pulled out a business card, its edges ragged like the cheap, perforated cardstock you can get at an office supply store. The only printing on the card was an email address. “Details go there. Use a VPN.”
“Not my first rodeo.”
“Good.” The man stepped away without ever meeting Angler’s eyes. “I’ll see you in Fort Myers.”
* * *
Deek winced as Whiskey dropped the slobbery tennis ball in his lap.
For the past thirty minutes, he’d been keeping the lumbering boat’s nose into the waves, nudging it forward, and keeping the two sets of bubbles off either side of the bow. And for the past thirty minutes, this supposedly professional working dog had been dropping the ball into Deek’s lap, then pecking his hip with its wet nose until Deek tossed the ball across the deck to be fetched and the cycle started all over again.
“Whiskey, man, give me a break.” Deek checked for Kate and Justin’s bubbles, then dropped the boat into neutral. He tossed the ball toward the stern and Whiskey scrambled after it as Deek pulled a water bottle out of the big cooler and cracked it open. He turned back and squinted through the windscreen, his right hand lazily resting on the throttle. When he didn’t see bubbles ahead, he glanced at his watch. He had only taken his eyes off the surface for a few seconds. Thirty at most.
His heart raced. He promised Kate he’d keep an eye on them. Be here for them when they surfaced.
Whiskey jammed his nose against Deek’s hip.
“No, boy. Not now.”
The dog whined.
“Whiskey, sit.” Deek tried to keep the panic from his voice, and Whiskey’s tail hit the deck, his ears ticked forward and his eyes clear. At least he knew when a human meant business.
Deek scanned the water ahead of the boat three times, then expanded his search around the starboard gunwale. Finally, he spotted a concentrated spot of bubbles not far off the stern. He scrambled to the rail and peered over into the water. About halfway to the bottom, he saw his two divers, buddied up and hovering together above the reef.
Deek pushed out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, then he jogged back to the helm and brought the boat about, holding it steady about twenty yards east of Kate’s position. A minute later, a bright orange safety sausage broke through the surface.
They were coming up.
Justin’s head broke the surface first, and he swam hard for the stern. Deek killed the engine then ran back to the transom to pull Justin’s gear out as he climbed aboard. They strapped Justin’s tank into a cradle, then Justin threw a line forward to Kate, who bobbed on the surface in a fully inflated BCD, her phone already in her hand.
She tapped the screen, then let it dangle on its wrist tether. Justin reeled her in like a marlin, then grabbed her fins and BCD. As soon as she was stable on the swim platform, she whipped her phone out of the underwater housing and dialed.
“Fish? We found it. I marked the spot below, but didn’t touch anything. I’m sending you a pin. I’ll be ready to go down again as soon as you get here.”
Deek stared as Justin made for the nearest mooring ball to the east. It wasn’t that long ago that no one believed him. Hell, he almost didn’t believe him. But now, shit was about to get real.