Wood's Reach (12 page)

Several large blips showed on the screen, and he looked out to sea trying to get a visual on the closest. It was a tanker, moving west, probably motoring just inside the Gulf Stream to save fuel. Using the size of the ship and relating it to the mark on the screen, he was able to narrow the search to boats the size of Hawk’s. There were several, and he studied their courses, trying to guess which one held Alicia.

Three were headed toward Key West, and unable to make any further distinctions, he took a wild guess and headed after them. Two were in Hawks Channel, the inside passage, and the third was working at an oblique angle that looked like it was heading to the Cay Sal Banks, a shallow area in Bahamian waters that was coveted by fishermen. The only way to get confirmation was to follow them.

The blips on the screen became closer every minute. He soon ruled one out as probably a sailboat, and minutes later his guess was confirmed as he passed a ketch rig moving west. That left only one boat underway, and he pushed the throttles to their limits. At over sixty knots, he was moving about four times faster than the boat on the screen, and he soon saw a dot on the horizon that turned into a thin line and then took on the shape of a ship. He didn’t need to get any closer to confirm it was Hawk.

Chapter Fourteen

Mac knew he was outnumbered and outgunned. In his rush to escape the deputy, he had left the Glock aboard the center-console. The only weapon he had was speed. There was no way he could rescue Alicia by himself, and he didn’t want to let Hawk know he had been discovered. Turning back, he pushed the boat to its limits, not surprised when the speed hit sixty-five knots. The faster he met TJ and Tru, the sooner they could be in pursuit. He locked onto the radar signature of Hawk’s ship and set the most direct course for Boot Key Harbor.

Less than a half hour later, he entered the channel. Passing the gas docks on his port side, he idled past City Marina and turned left into one of the side canals. TJ’s sportfisher was already docked, blocking the view of his old house—one that he didn’t want to see anyway. The dock was too short for both boats, and not wanting to use his neighbor’s empty section, he called to the men and pulled up alongside the larger boat. He eyed the house next door, wanting to get out of here before he was seen. Mac was responsible for the loss of his sailboat—the reason his dock was empty.

“Hot damn, Mac, nice wheels,” Trufante said.

“We can thank Celia,” he said. “I just spotted Hawk’s boat heading toward Key West. Hop in, we can catch them.”

TJ looked warily at him. “I don’t know, Mac, better to have my own boat.”

Mac understood and explained, “We got to head them off. With the radar, we can race offshore, beat them down there, and get Alicia back.”

“Take ’em by surprise,” Trufante chimed in. “Come on, I gotta see how fast that sucker’ll run.”

Pamela appeared from the cabin and followed Trufante, both their faces lit up by the four engines on the transom like this was some kind of pleasure cruise. TJ nodded, locked the cabin behind her, and reluctantly stepped aboard. Mac gave orders to the men and tried not to frown at Pamela. He had no qualms taking a woman along; she was just unproven. He knew what he could expect from the two men, but so far she had a stronger magnet than Trufante for attracting trouble.

“Long, strange trip, Mac Travis,” she said as she passed him, moving to the padded seat by the transom.

He ignored her and signaled to Trufante to release the lines, and minutes later they were past the last marker, picking up speed and heading southwest. The afternoon was beautiful. Under other circumstances, he would have enjoyed the light catching the ripples on the calm water and the feel of a well-built boat below him, cutting through the water. But his teeth ground together, and he was focused on only one thing.

“I think that’s them,” Mac said, pointing to a blip on the screen. It had been less than an hour since he’d had eyes on it, and he was glad the signal was still there. The boat should have made another fifteen miles, putting them off Sugarloaf Key.

All three men were leaning against the rocket launcher, hands firmly clenching the grab bars as they started at the electronic display. They watched as the range narrowed; Hawk’s ship was now inside the ten-mile ring. At this rate they would catch him soon. Mac needed a plan.

“He’s got to be heading for Key West. We can cut outside and beat him there, then anchor in the channel behind old Tank Island. They’ll have to run past us to reach one of the marinas.”

Both men nodded. He fine-tuned the throttles, synchronizing the engines at 4400 rpm, and watched the GPS. They were going over fifty knots now, and he looked over at the men. Trufante had a huge smile on his face. TJ was the opposite, clearly worried about Alicia. A glance back at Pamela confirmed that she was out in her own world. He added another 400 rpm, and the boat jumped forward and hit sixty knots.

Mac was used to navigating IFR, or “instrument flying required,” as pilots called it. He’d been setting lobster pots and diving in all kinds of sketchy conditions for years. Though unable to work a smartphone, he was at home with the electronics on a boat. With one eye on the chart plotter and the other on the radar, he changed course slightly to the south. It wasn’t the most direct line for Key West, but would put them offshore of Hawk’s trawler when they passed. At their current speed, even with the course change, they would be in Key West at least an hour before Hawk. Fuel was a concern, though. Not knowing where this adventure was leading, he was worried at the rate of consumption. TJ might have a credit card, but he and Trufante did not have the means to fuel the boat. As soon as they cleared Hawk’s boat, he backed off the throttles, dropping the fuel consumption into a more palatable range.

***

Alicia was so engrossed in her work that she didn’t notice Hawk looking over her shoulder.

“I knew the tattoos were some kind of map,” he said.

“Duh. But that’s too wide a subject,” she said. Then, realizing he was standing behind her, she hit the hot key combination and the screen went dark. Her fingers were poised to enter the last keystroke that would wipe the drive, but she waited.

“That kind of behavior is not going to help you,” he said.

“And you are not going to get any more information. I think we are at a standstill,” she said, not really sure she had any leverage.

“And there’s no guarantee that what you find will be the answer, either. I’ve been around this game long enough to know things are not always the way they seem. People will go through such extreme lengths to hide treasure that they forget their own clues.”

She nodded, acknowledging he was right. It was the same in data analysis. The high-end encryptions had dead ends and false trails laced throughout the code. She knew more than one programmer who had forgotten his key, making the data worthless. “What about a deal?”

“I’m listening,” he said.

“You need me, or you would have found this already. What if we work together and split the find?”

He paused. “If you come up with the answer, we can work out a deal,” he said.

She couldn’t help but notice the smirk on his face. There was no way she could trust him, but she was obsessing about the riddle now. “Okay, but I need more power than this.” She lifted her fingers from the keys.

“We’ll be in Key West in a couple of hours. I’ll see what we can do for you.” He turned to walk away.

“What’s in Key West?” she asked.

“Just work on the data. And I’ll need some insurance.” He called to Wallace, who set what looked like a shock collar for a large dog and several tools on the desk.

“That’s not necessary,” she pleaded.

“Like I said. Just insurance,” Hawk said and nodded to Wallace, who placed the collar around her neck, adjusted it, and fastened the two bolts with a wrench.

She wiggled, trying to get as much space between the rough material and her skin, but as he tightened the bolts, she felt the two probes touch her skin. With a glare in Hawk’s direction, she went back to work. He was right, the tattoos were a map, but that was the easy part. Assuming this was several hundred years old, she had her work cut out for her. Charts from that era were often more artistic than accurate. The cartographers took liberties where things were unknown and often hid ciphers in their drawings, creating a code within the chart. She entered another sequence and the screen lit up again. Studying the chart, she noticed the landforms resembled their present-day representations, but the accuracy was nowhere close to what they needed to even start a search pattern.

Splitting the window, she started to scroll through maps of the Keys. They were all similar, but none matched the patterns so carefully etched on Diego and Teqea’s bodies. She got up and stood by the chart table next to the desk. She stared at a large-scale NOAA chart of the Lower Keys that was open on the table. Pattern recognition, whether in lines of code or in visual objects, was her specialty, but she knew it was her subconscious that solved the riddles, so she just stared at the chart, letting her inner processor work.

It was the grid lines drawn over the features and soundings that caught her attention. She studied the key with the help of a small magnifying glass she found in the drawer and was able to see that the lines indicated latitude and longitude. That all made sense. They were the means of locating a position, but in antiquity they were “undiscovered.” Ancient mariners had a more instinctual method for navigation, using stars, swells, and experience to estimate their positions. Their GPS units were built into their heads.

She went back to the laptop and looked at the two tattoos side by side. Though the artwork was different, they too showed an underlying grid, but it didn’t match the lines on the present-day chart. She closed the windows and opened the Internet browser, entering “ancient mariners charts” into the search window. The results were far-reaching, but slowly she narrowed down the results chronologically. Charts from the 1970s and 1980s were cluttered, not only with the latitude and longitude lines but also with Loran lines. This was closer to the patterns she was trying to match, but she knew they were too recent to be utilized in the tattoos, their lines based on signals from land-based radio towers.

The vibration of the engines changed and she went to the window, realizing it was almost dark. Land was ahead, and they passed a marker with a red triangle on top. The boat turned and slowed before heading into a harbor. The men were moving about the boat now, readying it for port. The collar bothered her, but it did have a benefit; she was deemed safe now and was given more freedom. Unwatched, she opened the cabin door and looked out at the harbor, trying to think of a way out.

***

“There he goes,” Mac said as they watched the boat move past the former fuel depot, now a resort island, blocking their view for a minute before the boat reappeared and turned into the channel to the Key West Bight.

“What we gonna do now?” Trufante asked. “I’m getting hungry.”

Pamela came by his side and slipped an arm around him. “Happy hour in Margaritaville!”

Mac expected he was thirstier than hungry, the lure of Duval Street so close whetting his appetite, and she was not exactly a good influence. “Let’s make sure they get a slip here before we make any moves.” The boat was out of sight now, but the radar showed it moving directly toward land. Soon it stopped, and Mac waited, assuming they had found a slip.

“Come on, Mac. It’s almost dark. They’re parked for the night,” Trufante said.

“It’d be nice to have a closer look,” TJ said.

Mac could tell Trufante was amped up and ready for a party, but his mind was made up by TJ’s plea.

“You’re right. But I’m thinking we ought to go around to Garrison Bight. They won’t know the boat, but they know us.” Mac started the engines and hit the switch for the windlass to raise the anchor.

Trufante was clearly pleased and went forward to knock the mud from the hook before securing it in place. Mac zoomed in the chart plotter, checking the best route to the marina. He could have felt his way around the island, but he didn’t get down here often enough to know it by heart. Actually, he avoided the place like the plague.

Twenty minutes later he called the harbormaster at Garrison Bight and arranged for a slip. They entered the harbor and docked. Trufante jumped out of the boat, gallantly extended a hand to Pamela, and helped her ashore. Hand in hand, they headed toward the restaurant at the end of the dock.

“What the…?”

Mac could tell TJ was getting anxious. “Let ’em go. He’s a handful by himself. With the girl along, it only complicates things more.”

“You’re right. I’m just worried about Alicia,” he said, checking his phone like there would be a miraculous message from her.

“I got a little cash. Let’s grab a cab and do some surveillance.” Mac fiddled with the electronics, shutting down the systems one at a time. He accidentally hit an unmarked switch and jumped when blue LED lights started flashing under the transom. Both men laughed at the display obviously intended to attract attention to the boat when it was tied up at the marina, spotlighting Celia’s kids on her transom. He shut off the lights and the rest of the systems, then went below and turned off the battery switch just in case he had missed something.

Together they walked down the dock and passed the oyster bar. Mac was hungry, but it would wait. He wanted to make sure that Hawk was here for the night. A pink cab pulled to the curb, answering his signal, and they got in. Mac gave instructions to the driver, and ten minutes later they were standing at the end of Simonton Street, looking into the harbor. Mac paid the driver, noting his dwindling cash, and together he and TJ surveyed the harbor, looking for Hawk’s boat. He breathed a sigh of relief when they saw it docked by the far corner of the marina.

“Come on. As long as we stay in the shadows, we should be okay,” Mac said, leading the way around the first pile. Most of the boats had lights on, making it difficult to stay out of sight, but they reached the slip just before Hawk’s, apparently unobserved. Mac pulled TJ into the shadows when he heard a loud conversation on the deck of the trawler.