Caribbean's Keeper (30 page)

Cole paused and asked, “When and where do you need me?”

“Great. Glad to hear it, my friend.” David was enthusiastic. “Tomorrow afternoon around five at the marina. Look for a red hull and center console. They’ll get you out to where you need to be. We’ll get you back to Martinique in two days.”

Cole said goodbye and hung up the phone. It didn’t sound all that bad. Two days on the water and on the other side of the Caribbean. If it got him back in the good graces of David, that was a plus as well. If things had calmed down after Panama, Cole welcomed it.

He went through his usual routine of swimming out into the anchorage and back before taking a nap that afternoon under a palm tree. By the time Isabella tracked him down around sunset, he’d worked up an appetite. They ate at the same restaurant as their first night. After eating, Cole told Isabella he’d be gone for two days. She didn’t seem too concerned at first, but she sensed something with the way Cole explained it to her.

“If you are worried Cole, then I am scared.”

He shook his head, “No, no, don’t be scared. It’s a piece of cake.”

She persisted, “I can tell you are uneasy and that scares me.”

“I’ll be fine.” He smiled at her and kissed her forehead.

They walked around the marina and to the jetty on the far side of the inlet. They joked with each other and laughed when Cole tried to say things back to her in French. When there was a break in the conversation, Isabella draped her arms over Cole’s shoulders and held just a bit tighter than she normally did. Cole knew she was doing all she could to hide her fears and he loved her for it. She was as strong as she was beautiful.

They turned in for the night early that evening. Isabella curled up against Cole as he lay on his back and ran his fingers through her curly hair, playing with each strand before tucking it behind her ear. He felt the rhythm of her breathing and realized soon that she’d fallen fast asleep, her right arm draped over his chest.

They were both up the following morning, and Isabella kissed him before heading out the door. She promised to see him at the marina before he left. With that, Cole was alone with his thoughts. After breakfast, he took a long walk out to the abandoned garrison and sat for some time by the rusting gun emplacements. In town, he bought a sandwich and tucked a second away for the trip that evening. He slept for a few hours that afternoon and woke just a bit after three. Eating again at the bar where he’d first seen Isabella, Cole drank iced water with lemons in it until he was about to burst.

Thanking the bartender, he picked up his backpack with a few necessities from his room and headed down to the marina. He was 15 minutes early, but sure enough there was a red hull with a center console tied off to the concrete bulkhead. Two men, one about Cole’s age and the other a bit older were sitting on the bow. They exchanged nods with Cole and he tossed them his bag. Just before hopping down, he heard Isabella coming up behind him.

True to her word, she’d slipped out to come say goodbye. They hugged each other and kissed for a moment.

She held onto him by his waist. “Come back soon, OK?”

There was concern in her voice and she couldn’t hide it. Cole assured her he’d be back in two days. They kissed one more time and he pulled her tight against him. Cole felt regret and he hadn’t even left the dock yet, but he told himself it would be a quick trip.

He held Isabella’s hand for one more moment, then hopped down to the boat. The two men untied her as the engine kicked and snorted to life. The driver reversed then pushed the throttle ahead and motored for the channel. Cole looked back again at Isabella. The breeze was blowing her hair to one side and he could see the outline of her body through the thin cotton shirt pressed against it. She waved and then wiped at her eye with her finger.

She cried a bit. There was no denying it. It tore at Cole’s heart, but he was already on his way. All at once he wanted to turn around and call the whole thing off, but at the same time this run was already set in motion and there would be hell to pay if Cole backed out now. He ran both his hands through his hair, looking back at Isabella. She waved one more time and Cole did the same. After that, he was through the channel and she was gone.

The driver pushed the throttles halfway as they passed the last of the buoys marking the channel. Abeam the old garrison, he turned west and pushed them up all the way. Cole felt the clean air against his face and chest. As the boat turned with the wind, it backed off and they raced westward. Running downswell, it was a rough ride and Cole steadied his feet as Martinique trailed off behind them. The driver handled the boat well, turning and reading the backs of each wave as he carved a crisscrossing path until they were well clear of land.

g

For the next two hours, they ran hard at close to 30 knots. Cole had pushed thoughts of Isabella crying from his mind and focused on his return in two days. He was on the open water once again and the late afternoon sky filled with vibrant shades of yellow and orange against the dark blue water. As the sun started its descent below the western horizon, the driver slowed to idle. He was working off of a handheld GPS, much like Cole had done so many times. They waited for a bit, cutting circles out of the rolling water surrounding them.

When the sun was finally down, the driver pushed ahead for another 20 minutes and then slowed. Both the driver and the other passenger were looking ahead. The one on the bow pointed just left of the bow, and the driver turned to follow. Cole saw a blue tarp on the water draped over something. They driver yelled something in Spanish and someone from under the tarp began pulling it back and yelling back at the driver.

Cole was amazed at the boat that had been concealed. It was a monster, easily 40 feet long with three outboard engines. The entire boat was painted dark blue to include the engines, and she had one large center console about a third of the way forward. There were three guys on it when the driver of the red hull pulled up alongside. They looked like hell. Cole had heard of this tactic before where a boat would drive all night then pull a tarp over the top of it during the day to hide from aircraft and ships. By the next nightfall, it would pull the tarp and make the rest of the trip.

The three men on board looked like they were barely holding on. They’d been under a tarp for more than 12 hours with no breeze or fresh air. The Caribbean sun had practically cooked them. As they climbed over to the red hull, Cole and the older guy from the bow hopped over onto the Go-Fast. The driver stayed on the red hull. Cole looked his crewman over and realized quickly that the guy was stoned.
Whatever
, he thought. Cole looked back a bit unsure since he’d always run with Diego and Hector, but the driver waved and pushed himself away from Cole’s new boat.

Cole turned the keys in the ignition and the engines came to life with the usual shudder. The fuel tanks were full along with two more drums behind him. Cole’s stoned crew member went about checking the lines for a minute or two before giving Cole a thumbs up and taking a seat up forward among the bales. Cole figured they must have refueled that morning before pulling over the tarp. With a deep breath, Cole worked the wheel back and forth and gave it a once over. The GPS mounted on the console had a decent display screen, far better than the handheld ones he’d used in the past. It had a course to steer and bearing already in place and, with a charge from the boat’s battery, would last as long as necessary. Between the gunwale and one of the fuel drums, Cole spied a rifle tucked away. He didn’t bother to take it out and function check it, but it looked to be some variant of an AK-47.

It seemed like the big leagues. Here he had a boat most certainly purpose-built for running drugs and a Kalashnikov rifle tucked in the corner. Behind him were the fuel drums and in front of him were close to two dozen bales, of which he was certain were full of cocaine. Cole thought for a moment that he probably could have carried even more than was onboard, but it didn’t matter either way. The driver of the red hull waved them off and with a red sky to the west, Cole spun the boat around and pointed northwest, towards Saint Croix, some 300 miles away.

Within minutes, Cole was back in his routine. The sun was gone and blackness blanketed the sky. Cole jammed the throttles up, and the boat surged up over the five-foot chop and powered through it like no other boat he’d driven. When he ran migrants, the boats were shaky at best in any sea state and rode horribly at max power. The pangas were more graceful, but still had to find a niche in any sea state to ride well, oftentimes at less power. But with this behemoth, waves didn’t matter, nor did the wind. She plowed through waves and held her course. When she surged up and over a wave, she settled back down evenly and felt solid as she dropped her deep V hull back into the water. Cole glanced down at his GPS and he was covering 40 knots over the ground. He laughed a bit as the wind blew some sea spray against his face. He knew in a few hours he’d be tired of it, but at the moment he enjoyed the ride.

Two hours went by. Already a third of the way there, he heard what sounded like a faint whining from behind him and thought something was wrong with one of the engines. Yelling at his crewman to get his attention, Cole pointed back at the engines. Reluctantly, the stoned guy made his way aft, past the console and stood there for a moment or two, bracing himself against the console and the hull.

“Well, what is it?” Cole yelled but got no reply.

Damn pothead
, Cole thought.

He yelled again, “Hey, what is it?”

Still no reply. Cole looked back at the engines then up over his shoulder. His heart sank. It was an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter, off his stern and no more than 100 feet above him. It caught up to Cole then offset to his port side and matched speed. It was HITRON, the armed Coast Guard Helicopter Interdiction Squadron that made a name for themselves employing precision marksmen from the cabin of the helicopter. The crews were trained to shoot out engines of Go-Fasts. Cole had seen them come and go from
Delaney
and they prided themselves on a nearly 100-percent success rate. Operating alone at night and in the middle of the Caribbean, they were no-nonsense pilots and crews that had, over the years, made a significant dent in the amount of narcotics traveling north.

The whining sound was the fenestron, a somewhat unique tail rotor that made a high-pitched whine. Cole was an idiot for not recognizing it when he first heard it. The stoner just stood there next to Cole looking up at the helicopter in disbelief. There was no way of knowing from where the helo had come from, how much gas he had left, or where the ship was off of which he was operating.

Cole looked around for clouds, but there were none. All that was above him were stars and the moon. He clenched his teeth and told himself to think, but he had no options. Popping open the locker under the console, Cole rummaged around as best he could, looking for a flag of any country that he could wave to delay the Coast Guard’s approval to stop him, but there were none that he could find.

He looked back up at the helicopter. With the moon more than half illuminated, he could see the gunner in the open cabin and the barrel of his rifle sticking out. He didn’t know what it was, either a 240 Golf or M-14, but either way the precision marksman was trained on Cole. Keeping the throttles jammed, Cole zigzagged a bit, but the pilots kept ahead of his evasive turns. There was no use and Cole knew it. He had nowhere to go.

Forcing himself to stay calm, Cole played scenarios out in his head.
Maybe there will be a problem with their approval process and I’d luck out?
Maybe they’ll run out of gas?
Just as the thought crossed his mind, the gunner opened up with a deafening volley of automatic fire across the bow. Cole saw the spray come up where the rounds impacted the water. Moments later a second volley crossed his bow. Cole knew it was protocol and in another minute or two, the gunner would switch to his .50-caliber rifle and take aim at the engines.

The stoner was sitting down, expressionless and staring ahead. Cole shook his head just as a single shot rang out, and Cole felt the blast against his eardrums. Following the shot, the boat swerved a bit and Cole looked back to see his port engine destroyed. The bullet had impacted the engine and shattered the cowling. It had broken the mount as well, and the remains of the engine were canted to one side. Cole’s ears were ringing when the second shot took out the center outboard with similar results.

Fuck
. Cole was down to one engine and the boat had slowed to 12 knots.

He had a hard time controlling her and thought about just shutting the last engine down to spare his ears from a third shot. Before he could finish the thought, a third and final shot rang out and the last outboard sputtered and died. Cole’s Go-Fast quickly came to a full stop and he was left dead in the water. His ears were painful and he thought perhaps he’d burst an eardrum, but that was the least of his problems. The MH-65 climbed up and into an orbit around him for some time before flying off to the west.

Cole was left alone. Without the engines, the only sound was the waves lapping up against the hull. It was peaceful and eerily quiet. Cole scanned the horizon for a C-130 or P-3, but saw nothing.
How had they tracked me down so early into this run?
On top of that, he was far to the east of the major drug corridors. It didn’t make any sense, but then again it didn’t matter. Cole sat on the railing of the boat for some time and mulled over his options. Someone was coming for him and he had to act quickly to save himself. If he tossed the bales overboard and they didn’t sink, he was screwed. Even if he ditched the drugs, the boarding team would run an Ionscan test and it would surely come up positive.

The only option was to burn it. He had enough gas left in the tanks. He just needed a match. He dug around a bit but found none. Opening up the battery compartment, he pulled the battery out and set it down on the deck then found a knife in the console storage bin. He stripped wire off of some cables coming out of the console and wrapped them in a loose coil. He then gathered a few rags and waited, scanning the horizon for a hull. It was another hour or so before he saw it, on the horizon to the west. It looked like a cutter, maybe even the Coast Guard.