Operation Caribe

8

The outer islands

THE NEXT NIGHT, Doggie and Jacks left the dock at the Muy Capaz’s secret hideout and headed out to sea.

It was just past midnight. They were using Black’s own twenty-four-foot sports fishing boat for this trip. In the boat’s hold was a quarter pound of cocaine, just about all the pirate gang had left. They also had four ounces of methamphetamine, two AK-47s and a hundred rounds of ammunition. These were just teases for the three men who wanted to make the big score.

Doggie and Jacks were a bit on edge. Four of their fellow pirates had yet to return from a raid the previous night. But Doggie and Jacks weren’t feeling uneasy because they thought something bad might have befallen their comrades—there was no honor among the Muy Capaz gang. Their fear was that the four might have been nabbed by some law enforcement agency higher than the paid-off Bahamian cops—the U.S. Coast Guard, for instance—and that the Muy Capaz’s string of perfect crimes had been broken. While they were fairly sure the gang members wouldn’t fold under interrogation for fear of what Captain Black would do to them if they did, Muy Capaz’s ghostly street cred would definitely take a hit if the four missing pirates had been arrested.

The mystery of their missing colleagues was not enough to delay this deal, though. It was a rare day that the gang could find regular customers for pot, coke, meth and weapons.

This one was just too good to pass up.

* * *

THEY FOUND THE ship just where the three men said it would be.

It was anchored off a cay near one of the Bahamas’ mysterious Blue Holes. This island was a part of the outer Eleuthera chain, an area that saw few visitors—not just because of its isolation, but also because it was believed the waters in this part of the Bahamas were haunted. It was a perfect place for this type of meeting.

Doggie and Jacks were surprised by the ship itself, though. Because the three men from the casino had seemed so refined and were so well-dressed, they’d expected to be meeting on an expensive mega-yacht or even something more luxurious.

What they found instead was an enormous container ship.

They saw the prearranged signal, four flashes from a red light, and were soon up alongside the huge vessel. A rope ladder was dropped from amidships and the two pirates climbed up. Doggie was carrying the coke and meth; Jacks had the weapons and ammo.

The three well-dressed gentlemen greeted them up on the rail, embracing them with monstrous bear hugs as they came aboard. No other crew members were in sight.

The three men took them to the ship’s galley, where drinks were waiting for them.

“What is this?” Doggie asked them, looking at the amber liquid swirling around inside his paper cup.

“It is mooch,” one of the three men replied in his thick French-tinged accent. “Soothes the muscles and calms the nerves.”

The pirates drained their cups and accepted the offer for a refill. Then the three men suggested they take a quick tour of the ship.

Walking along the cargo hold, the three men told the pirates that they could carry anything within the huge containers—tons of drugs, weapons, stolen merchandise. Even an airplane, one bragged.

Whatever the pirates could supply to them could be moved practically anywhere in the world, without fear of being caught by law enforcement because just about anyone they would encounter at sea could be paid off or disposed of.

“More money for you,” one of the three men said. “More money for us.”

The pirates were not only taking it in, they were getting physically excited. Everything the three men were telling them made great sense. By the time the tour was over, the formerly drab ship looked bigger and more elaborate than any seagoing vessel the pirates had ever seen.

When the three men asked if the pirates had any questions, Doggie had only one: He asked if they could have another cup of mooch.

* * *

DOGGIE AND JACKS left about twenty minutes later. They had a deal in place, a half-gallon of mooch in hand, and a bag of money as payment for the guns and drugs: ten thousand dollars in all, mostly in tens and twenties.

They started their boat’s engine and headed off to the southwest.

A minute later, the helicopter known as Bad Dawg Two took off from the Dustboat, hidden on the other side of the cay, and headed in the same direction.

* * *

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Bad Dawg Two was flying at 10,000 feet, extremely high for its type of rotary aircraft.

Batman was behind the controls; Nolan rode shotgun. They were bundled up in heavy flight suits, boots and gloves, essential as the copter’s cockpit doors had been taken off, and it was extremely cold at nearly two miles up.

Gunner and Crash were shivering mightily in the passenger seats behind them. Both were wrapped in emergency blankets, but they were of little help, as each man was wearing nothing more than a wet suit and flippers.

“How did we draw the short straws again?” Crash asked, blowing on his hands, trying to keep them warm.

“I thought we lost a bet,” Gunner replied.

“You’ll be warm soon enough,” Nolan told them over his shoulder.

He was peering into an instrument called an XFLIR. An upgrade on a typical FLIR, or Forward Looking Infrared Sensor, it functioned like night-vision goggles—identifying people, places and things based on their heat signatures, but over large areas. The “X” stood for the device’s extraordinarily long range at night; at the moment, it was maxed out at three miles and change. That was the reason for their nosebleed altitude; they could cover more ground up here than flying closer to the earth.

They were passing over a string of tiny islands called the Sunset Chain. This was where they’d tracked the pirates’ fast boat after it left the Georgia June. They’d kept a visual on the vessel despite their frosty altitude until it disappeared in among the dozens of minuscule islands and reefs in the chain. Somewhere down there, Whiskey was sure lay the Muy Capaz’s hideout.

At first, what they saw was not very promising. The islands of the Sunset Chain looked practically deserted. Lots of oceanfront, lots of beaches, a few villages here and there—but nothing that would qualify as a hideout for a bunch of cutthroat pirates.

But then they flew over an island located about a mile off the northeastern edge of the archipelago, away from the others. Surrounded by thick reefs and rocky beaches, it was appropriately named Craggy Two Cay for the river that ran through it, cutting it in half. And though it was covered with heavy jungle and almost impossible to approach safely from any side by sea, the XFLIR almost immediately started picking up clusters of heat sources on it.

“We might have a bingo,” Nolan declared.

He checked the flight computer’s map and saw that this speck of land barely registered on the grid. There were a lot of boat wrecks on the reefs and rocks around it, however, some marked, some not. This alone ensured most vessels would avoid the place.

Nolan zoomed in as far as the XFLIR would go and started picking up individual heat sources. There were about three dozen in all, human figures moving about, as well as some livestock. He also saw fires burning, probably in barrels, and other unusual heat sources. Most important, though, he was getting a reading on a boat that had just pulled up to the beach near the camp. This was most likely the same boat that had carried the two pirates to the Georgia June. Its engine was still throwing off heat.

Nolan reported all this to those on board.

“Gotta be the place,” Batman said. “So hang on.”

* * *

IT TOOK THE copter just three minutes to spiral down to wave-top level.

They were soon flying off the eastern edge of Craggy Two Cay. From here, the team members used their standard night-vision goggles to peer through the sea mist and into the island’s jungle beyond.

The encampment they saw was not quite what they’d been expecting. Again, they knew the pirate gang had access to a lot of money. And though it seemed to go through their hands like water, they always had the ability to make more. But this place looked more like a city dump than a hideout. Shanty shacks were surrounded by mounds of trash and debris with empty and smashed liquor bottles everywhere. Piles of broken and rusted outboard motor parts covered the small beach that led from the camp to the river. Pigs were running free everywhere.

“Some Somalis live better than this,” Crash said.

Nolan and Batman were sweating badly now inside their flight suits in the heavy, 80-degree night air. Crash and Gunner, on the other hand, were cool and comfortable.

But not for long.

The copter came to a hover just off the island’s east-facing reef. The dividing river ran through this reef, past the pirates’ camp, and then on to the other side of the island. Called a “bight,” this was not unusual topography for the Bahamas. And it would be key for what happened next.

“Ready back there?” Nolan yelled over his shoulder to Crash and Gunner.

He heard two “Rogers,” in reply.

With that, both men jumped out, hitting the water with a great splash.

Nolan waited until he received a thumbs up from them, then gave Batman the signal to go. The copter roared straight up, soon disappearing back into the night.

Crash and Gunner swam the hundred yards in through the channel. Their intent was to observe the pirates’ hideout, SEAL-style. The mild current was going with them, so they soon reached a point about twenty-five feet off the camp’s river shoreline. With their faces blackened and their eyes aided by waterproofed night-vision goggles, they started the recon.

What they saw was more of the same: lots of junk, lots of garbage, lots of engine parts and debris. There were fifteen shacks in all, arranged in a rough semicircle around a huge bonfire. Everywhere around the shacks the ground sparkled because there was so much glass from so many smashed liquor bottles. Amid all this refuse stood a tree holding a satellite dish used for receiving TV and radio broadcasts.

Crash and Gunner counted more than thirty gunmen around the camp. These had to be the hardcore pirates, Captain Black’s senior men, the ones privileged enough to actually live, eat and breathe within sight of their bloodthirsty leader. Some were gathered near the bonfire, apparently gambling. A few were fighting each other with knives and fists. The rest were drinking by the river’s edge, not far from where Crash and Gunner were quietly treading water.

The Whiskey members could see no signs of security, no lookouts, no sentries around the camp—which was good. But there was also a lot of firepower in evidence. Most dangerous were a pair of .50-caliber chain guns, one set up at each end of the camp. These nasty weapons were connected to ammo drums containing hundreds of rounds. It was obvious they were put in place to fire at any boats approaching from either end of the bight. But set up on tripods, they could just as easily be trained upward and used against a threat from above.

The pirates also had an open-sided shack filled with AK-47s hanging on racks for easy access. A similar structure next to this armory was full of weapons still in their packing crates. Gunner figured these were arms the pirates had for sale.

There were also stacks of rifles and shotguns set up next to shacks, and many others scattered haphazardly on the ground.

“There must be five weapons for every guy here,” Gunner said to Crash.

“At least,” Crash replied.

Most important, the camp was built close to the edge of the jungle. There were dozens of places in the shadows of the flora where gunmen could hide during an attack.

“This will have to be an exercise in drawing fire,” Gunner said. “We’ll have to tease them out if we want to get them all.”

“Roger that,” Crash replied.

Gunner took a lot of pictures with the team’s waterproof digital camera and then they both resumed swimming down the bight. When they reached the far side of the island, the team’s copter was waiting for them.

As soon as the pair climbed in, Nolan asked, “Well, what’s the 411?”

Gunner replied, “Muy desorganizada.”

Then Crash added, “But still muy dangerous.”