“Are you local?” I asked.
“Born and raised in the Keys, then spent thirty years with the bureau. I retired two years ago and came back home.”
I knew the score. Generally, FBI special agents had to go when they turned fifty-seven or completed twenty years, whichever came later. Extensions could be granted, but they were rare.
“You a conch, through and through?” I asked, making sure I pronounced the ch with a heavy k.
“Absolutely. We have a lot of freshwater varieties, transplants from every place you can name. But the hardcore saltwater species, the true locals, we’re getting rarer and rarer. Take the wheel.”
I grabbed hold as Jansen found a map, unfolded it, and laid it across the instrument panel. The rain kept slapping like pellets, splattering the windshield in drenching waves.
“Time for you to know some things,” he said. “We’re headed for the Dry Tortugas. Ever heard of them?”
“A little bit. Didn’t Billy Bones mention them in Treasure Island?”
He pointed a stubby finger at the chart. “It’s a cluster of seven tiny islands, not much more than sandbars with some trees and bushes, set among a slew of coral reefs. It’s the end of the line for the Florida Keys and the last speck of the United States. Less than a hundred acres of dry, uninviting, featureless land at the edge of the main shipping channel from the Gulf to the Atlantic. Ponce de León himself discovered them. He called them the Tortugas for all the turtles.”
“And the ‘dry’ part?”
“That came later to let sailors know there’s not a drop of fresh water anywhere. But the islands offered great anchorage from the weather and a perfect resupply and refit stop.”
“Why are we out here in the middle of a storm, headed for them?”
“Stephanie a little tight-lipped?”
“More like lockjaw.”
He chuckled. “Don’t take it personal.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Just met the other day.”
Which told me nothing, so I asked, “Tell me about the boat that sank.”
“It was a dump. Looked like the Orca from Jaws, after the shark got hold of it. I don’t know how the thing even made it here from Cuba.”
I heard the magic word and tossed Jansen a hard look. “You’re kidding?”
“Makes it all the more interesting, doesn’t it?”
That it did. Cuba lay only ninety miles away, and as far as I knew it was illegal for any boat from there to be in American waters. No exceptions. Ever. Stephanie had not mentioned a word of this detail, saying only the craft had come north from the Caribbean.
“Two days ago the boat was docked off Garden Cay in the Dry Tortugas. I was there, watching. The wind was howling like today and it was raining hard. The tidal currents are real bad there, they flow against the prevailing winds. The harbor has long been a sanctuary, a safe haven from enemies and weather, but you have to know what you’re doing. This captain didn’t. The boat broke anchor, drifted west, and hit a reef. Gone.” Jansen snapped his fingers. “Like that.”
I kept a stranglehold on the bucking wheel. “I’m not an expert on driving a boat. You want to take this back?”
“Nah. You’re doing fine. The boat went down here.” Another stab at the chart, just west of a small, slender island. “Just off Loggerhead Cay. The guy who brought it north was held up at the campsites on Garden Cay, at Fort Jefferson. Here. Which is a few miles to the east.”
The fort I knew about.
Built in the mid-1800s to defend what was at the time the world’s busiest shipping lanes, it eventually evolved into a jail for Union deserters during the Civil War. After, it continued to serve as a prison. Dr. Samuel Mudd, convicted in Lincoln’s assassination, was its most famous inmate. Disease and hurricanes forced its abandonment, and it eventually morphed into a late-19th-century coaling station for Navy steamers. The Maine left from there for Havana and history. Now it was a national park, showcasing the largest masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere. I’d seen pictures. A massive brick hexagon, hundreds of feet long, walls fifty feet tall and eight feet thick that consumed nearly the entire high ground of a featureless cay, making it appear to float atop the surrounding turquoise water. Its massive gun batteries, mounted in multiple-tiered brick casements, had been meant to hold their own against an entire enemy fleet. A perfect example of the old adage that forts were built not where convenient, but where needed.
“It’s got to be remote as hell out there,” I said to Jansen.
“It ain’t the Four Seasons. But there’ll be few people to get in our way.”
“You said the guy who brought the boat was on Garden Cay. Where is he now?”
“In custody. Good for us it’s illegal for someone from Cuba to be here.”
Yeah, good for us. “Am I going down to the wreck in this storm?”
“We have no choice. The boat’s owner is on the way, and we have to get that waterproof case before he does.”
“Where’s he coming from?”
“Cuba. Where else?”
Of course. How silly of me to ask.
A wave pounded the port side and the boat reeled. I compensated and brought the bow back on its previous heading. I then caught Jansen’s eyes with my own. His were deep-socketed, with a nervous blink, and I wondered what this man knew that I didn’t.
A blast of air slapped more rain against the windscreen.
“This is nuts,” I said.
“It’s the smart play. Nobody will be out in this mess. Especially the park rangers. We should have an open-field run.”
A mass of black clouds, loaded with thunder and lightning, swirled overhead. The entire ocean seemed to be boiling.
“If you were there when it sank, why didn’t you make the dive?”
“Do I look like Lloyd Bridges? It’s not in my skill set. So Stephanie went out and got herself a young buck.”
“You don’t approve?”
“Not my call. I’m just a volunteer.”
“How much do you know about her?” I tried again.
“I guess you deserve a little info.”
That was the way I viewed it, too.
“She was State Department, then moved over to Justice. I remember that she worked close with the FBI when I was with the bureau. Still does, I’m told. A lawyer, but government through and through.”
I heard his unspoken praise.
A prosecutor. Good people. On the right team.
As long as the man was talking, I tried, “She told me about the 1933 Double Eagle. Seems like one special coin.”
“It could be the last of a species.”
Valuable enough that we were out in the middle of a storm trying to retrieve it. But nothing about any of this rang right. A coin that shouldn’t exist. A boat from Cuba suddenly sinking. The owner, from Cuba, too, on his way. The Justice Department allowing all of that to happen. And all for a waterproof case that had to be retrieved intact.
Unopened.
I’d tried enough court-martials at JAG to be able to read juries and witnesses, and though I might be the designated young buck I was no fool.
Something stunk.
Bad.
Chapter Five
I spotted Fort Jefferson through the rain.
The trip from Key West had taken nearly three hours, the going slow thanks to the storm. Jansen was back at the helm, navigating us beyond Garden Cay and the fort, heading toward Loggerhead, the largest of the seven islands, which accommodated a lighthouse whose piercing beam could be seen through the storm.
“The boat broke anchor just over there, then drifted off the south point of Loggerhead,” Jansen said. “That’s where the reefs on the other side got it.”
The squall had eased, but the rain continued. A couple of catamarans, sailboats, and a few power cruisers sat at anchor five hundred yards to our left. We passed the south tip of Loggerhead and I spotted something bobbing in the water. A plastic milk jug with a piece of yellow rope attached to its neck.
“I tied it off to a coral head below,” Jansen said. “The reef is shallow here so I could snorkel. The wreck is fifty yards west of the marker, in a little deeper water.”