Chapter 7

It took three days before we found out what happened almost twenty miles off the coast, in the Gulf of Mexico.

The US Coast Guard, with the help of the US Navy at Naval Air Station Key West and the US Army’s Special Forces Underwater Operations school in Key West, captured a Panamanian registry, one-hundred-and-seventy-foot mega yacht carrying kidnapped children for sale. It was the largest bust in decades of a sex slavery ring and probably the largest ever in US history where the potential slaves were small children. Twenty-seven children were rescued, eighteen of them pre-teen girls and nine of them pre-teen boys.

There was evidence found of prior sales of what could turn out to be hundreds of children. There was further evidence, though the details were not given to us, that as many as a dozen children never lived to be sold, their remains dumped overboard. International investigations were sure to go on for years to come.

Only nine out of the more than seventy slavers survived the early morning raid by US Navy Seals and US Army Special Operators, and those nine were being brought to Gitmo for interrogation and trial.

Jake went back to the Texas Hill Country, or wherever he hangs his hat these days, taking Dave with him, but not before Dave got me aside and chewed my ass a bit.

Dean, on the other hand, didn’t. Chew my ass, I mean. No, he found another way to make me start to regret my actions. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I shot that piece of garbage and I am not even the tiniest bit sorry, but oh my god, how can this man keep making me hurt in muscles that I didn’t know existed? I swear, if it were possible, he would be creating more muscles, just so I could be in pain longer.

Dean started a serious, no-holds-barred physical fitness and tactical training program that had me so sore that I even rode the bus one day because my arms hurt too much to shift the tranny in my car. Yes, that much.

For the first few weeks, I wanted to cry, but things slowly got better. I got stronger, faster, more able to do what he demanded. Did he give me an attaboy or a pat on the shoulder? NO!

That sadist just made things harder.

Oh, you do two hundred pushups now? Okay, do them one handed. You can do two hundred sit-ups? Do them with this fifty-pound plate on your chest. You can run a 4.5 forty? Run with this weighted vest. Make it five miles. Now swim with it.

I would probably never be a muscle man like Dave, the dude was a freakin’ Viking in another life. I would be more like Dean, maybe. He was cut, and immensely strong but his big strength was his endurance. The man would keep going and going and going and ... well, you get the picture. There was no quit in him. I could swim rings around him, but he would drown before he gave up and, eventually, I think he might even wear me down. Running? I couldn’t even keep him in sight after the first couple of miles.

We shot three nights a week and went to Miami, shot the combat course so many times that we held the first ten slots on the record board. By we, I mean him, mostly. He had one through six, I had seven through ten when he decided that it wasn’t difficult enough and started looking for another. We did paintball, airsoft, laser tag, any team based, combat inspired activity we could find. And we kicked ass.

Our Tai Chi continued, but it was followed by real training. He showed me what he was taught as a Marine, and then showed me what he was taught by instructors in several arts.

Can you believe he used that tired Mister Miyagi line about “Belts? Belt hold up pants” when I asked? I know, lame right?

Of course, I had school too. That was going pretty well, actually. Christmas came and went and mid-terms were pretty easy. I was on track to get straight A’s this year. This probably sounds weird, but I was kinda bummed I had no one to tell it to, you know? Sure, I could tell Dean, but he would just nod. He expected me to do well.

We had a weird dynamic. He was my employee. I paid him damn well to protect me and to be around if I needed him. He did a hundred small things that made my life easier, but his biggest contribution was beating the hell out of me on a regular basis, running me half to death and mocking me when I failed to live up to his astronomically high expectations.

And, though I would never actually admit it to him, I loved it. He was my best friend and confidant. He was a male role model, the one missing all my life and he was a good one.

Several weeks after the mess with the missing girls, I finally took a look at the boat info that the Judge had sent me. I loved the look and had an independent appraisal done on it. During Christmas break, Dean and I took off to go and look and see if I liked it as much in person. It was up in a place called Spanish Wells, on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. If I liked it enough, we had just enough time to motor back down to the Keys before school started again.

Living right near an airport had its perks, that’s for sure, and I got a chartered Lear in to take us up to Hilton Head airport. From there it was a thirty-minute drive to the home of Charles and Madeleine Mercier who had a home on the Harbor River.

Charles was easily in his seventies and Madelaine was a sweetheart, only a few years younger and obviously doted on her husband. They had been married for fifty-two years, they were quick to point out, and Maddy, as she liked to be called, was quite willing to tell me all about them, year by year. Thankfully Charles was aware of his wife’s love of chatter and was willing to distract her.

“Dear, could you see Maria about a snack, maybe a cocktail, while I show these young men the Maddy II?”

“Of course, darling. the temperatures are dreadful this time of year and I don’t think I want to walk all the way out to the boat. You go, dear, and have fun. I will have cocktails waiting for your return!”

The boat was just what I wanted, a smaller motor catamaran that was setup for longer periods, a couple of weeks would not be out of the question. She had only two staterooms, each with their own small baths, but an oversized water purification and desalinization plant. Her twin mercury marine diesels would let her cruise at thirty knots at only sixty-five to seventy percent power, depending on conditions. She had a twenty-five-hundred-gallon fuel tank as well, so she could go quite a distance without having to fill up.

The boat had every modern bit of electronic gear you could possibly hope for! Two radars and a proximity alarm, three radios, satellite Internet and phone and even front and rear depth finders. This particular boat had a surprise that had not been listed in the advertisement. It had aftermarket bow and stern thrusters powered by electric motors! Maneuvering this into a pier would be a snap! She was about two feet longer than the, admittedly arbitrary, length I had chosen as the upper limit, but I thought she would still fit in my protected berth at the house.

She was only two years old and meticulously maintained, Charles said he just couldn’t do it himself anymore and Maddy was just not feeling safe on a boat these days. He hated to sell her but would love for her to go to someone who enjoyed her as much as they had. The price was right, about sixty percent of new and, when I asked why, he said he just wanted it gone. He said he hated looking out the living room window at something he couldn’t have.

Well, you didn’t have to hold a gun to my head. I called up Terry and had him transfer the $430,000 to Mister Mercier right away for a boat that had run just over $700,000 new. When his banker confirmed receiving the funds, I dismissed the chartered Lear and I was able to motor away in my very own, custom designed and built, Leopard 43.

We had to make a quick trip around Bram Point to get to the Hilton Head Yacht Club, but it wasn’t long before we were filling up on food and grub. We were on our way and I laughed at Dean’s suggestion that we get a good night’s sleep and start off fresh in the morning. We were sailing, baby! Okay, not sailing, motoring, but it’s my boat so I call it what I want. It was cold out, but the inside bridge was comfy.

It was only a hundred and forty nautical miles to St. Augustine, and it was two in the afternoon when we left Hilton Head, so I figured, barring any reason to slow down, we could be tying up at a prime spring break location by, say seven this evening! I set my destination in the GPS, fired up the radar and set it at five and twenty-five, so I could see anything getting close. Then I brought both motors online and we were motoring.

The boat hit thirty knots at just under seventy percent power! Hot Diggity! I was sooo tempted to push it, see how fast she could go, but I wanted to be safe. Still, I pushed it up to thirty-five knots and right about eighty five percent power just to test her out, then backed off to the more reasonable thirty.

The weather was fantastic and the sea air made me want to dance in my seat even if it was cold sea air. I synced my phone with the Bluetooth and had some tunes on the stereo, Dean was playing waiter and brought me a drink, I was in heaven. We could feel it start to warm up the further south we went.

One thing we did do, or Dean did after discussing it with me, was to figure out a couple of easy access places for the guns we brought. I had discussed the cat in Galveston a few times and loved the hidden guns there, so we brought two AR-15s, two shotguns and four pistols for the boat along with enough ammo to fight a fairly serious engagement. There was a compartment on the flybridge big enough, and another just inside the door to the salon on the main deck, so the long guns had a place to sit for now.

I was watching a twin-masted sailing boat off the port side, just absolutely beautiful, when a red light and a buzzer sounded. The light was unlabeled and, of course, I was a little freaked. I had been taking the classes at the Coast Guard station for two months now and had spent some time under a grizzled old Chief, a real sailing master, playing around down in Key West, but this was my first real solo trip. An unknown buzzing warning light was not good.

“Jack, can you come down here?” Dean called from the salon.

“No! I have a red light and a buzzer, but there is no label. Do you see anything? Smell anything?” I answered, easing back on the throttles.

Dean’s head popped up on the ladder. “Did it just come on, about a minute ago?”

I nodded, wondering what he had done.

He just smiled. “If this rig has an autopilot, put it on and come down for just a minute.” He ducked back down and the buzzer quit, the light went out, and I was confused. I had already been running the autopilot, until I stopped it to power down, so I set it again at the current motor RPM and went down to see what Dean had found.

Just inside the salon there were two sets of seats, one on each side along the bulkhead. Dean waiting until I was watching, then reached down and felt along the front edge. There was an audible click and the seat raised up displaying a rack of rifles, a half-dozen of them! On the other side, he did the same and there were four shotguns and six handguns.

When the lids were closed, they opened normally, showing life vests and ropes, fishing gear and tackle. The lids, when open were kept open by a pneumatic strut. The strut had to make it easier to open the lid, never noticing the additional weight. Genius! Until you hit the hidden catch, you would never know the guns were there and wouldn’t be able to get to them.

The funny part? When you opened the hidden gun racks, it set off a buzzer and a light on both helms. That was what I had seen upstairs! I wondered why Charles hadn’t said anything? I also started to wonder what other surprises he had in store for us!

“Brilliantly done, Sherlock! I have no idea how you found that, but bravo! Now see what other secrets old Charles didn’t tell us about! I have to power us back up to speed again.”

We were off the coast of Jacksonville when I called ahead to the Saint Augustine Yacht Club to see if I could get a berth. After I gave the particulars for my boat, I was assured that there were plenty of open slots and, if I called when I got closer, they would light my spot with a green lantern.

St. Augustine is a bit tricky. It is not like you can just motor in off the ocean and tie up. In order to get to the yacht club, you first have to navigate an inlet into the confluence of the Tolomato and Mantanzas rivers, then hang a left into what is called the Salt Run, a sort of salt water lake. Still, while it was not exactly straight forward, it wasn’t all that difficult and, as long as we took it slow, we were able to make it without incident.

At the yacht club we found our berth easily enough and were told that there were actually no services there, that we would have to go to the Conch Marina, back towards the mouth of the Salt Run, to wash out our gray water and get fuel.

Some yacht club!

Still, we were here and safe! The trip so far, as fun as it had been, had also been tiring so we both called it quits after a good dinner ashore. We were up at dawn and pulling out shortly after. We had the needful done at the Conch Marina and were back out beyond the breakwaters by half past eight.

It was a little over four hundred nautical miles to Key West, so we figured to break it in half and do it in two days. That would be about six hours of motoring a day or one long, long day of twelve. We argued the pros and cons of both and decided to wait and see how we felt.

During the day, Dean spent almost all his time with me, learning about handling the boat. He hadn’t gone to any of the coast guard classes, not being interested. Now that we were out here though, he thought he might just take a class or two himself! By the time evening rolled around and we had to make a decision, Dean was feeling pretty confident.

We were maybe two hours out, but it was already getting dark and running around the islands at night, when you were unfamiliar with the shoals and reefs, was a recipe for disaster. Rather than tempt fate, we pulled in closer to what should be Key Largo and Sound Point, and used the depth finder to find a spot where we could drop anchor for the night. I set the warning lights, then set the radar and the proximity alarm and we shut down. I lit off the auxiliary generator so we could have air conditioning and use the electronics while Dean was whipping up some baked salmon and a garden salad with what we had picked up back at Hilton Head.

After we ate we each took a turn through the boat, poking and prodding, hoping to find even more treasure. Dean found a cool little hidden compartment tucked into a little dead space where the master stateroom head was installed. Inside was a hand-written note.

Dear sir or madam,

We at Leopard hope you are enjoying your wonderful boat as much as we enjoyed crafting it for you. We pride ourselves on engineering the finest boats and utilizing one hundred percent of the available space so that we can free up extra space for your personal needs. This space is officially designated the Soap Storage Space #1 and it is perfectly sized for three, stacked, travel sized bars of soap of the type you would find at a hotel or motel.

Enjoy!

Ha! The builders had a sense of humor, it seems! We did find the ammo storage. There were enough AR-15 magazines to hand out five with each rifle, a bandolier of slugs and one of 000 Buck for each of the stainless, Mossberg marine shotguns and five ten-round magazines for the Colt 1911 handguns. Other than that, I guess that if there were more surprises, they would be found later.

We decided on two-hour watches, not really trusting the proximity alarm quite yet. The radar was set for one mile as well, in the hopes that an alarm would give us some warning.

Forewarned is forearmed, or so they say, and setting the alarms turned out to be a good thing. When I was jolted awake, the bulkhead clock told me it was almost two in the morning. I had lain down to sleep at one when my shift ended but when the radar alarm went off, I was jumpy enough to be up in a flash.

I went to the cockpit where Dean was studying the radar. A boat, not a very big one, but definitely boat shaped, had broken that one-mile limit and the radar let us know. You could push a button and get a one minute or five-minute track on all moving objects. You could designate a track and record its movements until you ran out of memory, but you had to actively select it.

This track had been motoring along just a couple of miles out and had turned right towards us. It increased speed, or so it looked, until it was about a quarter mile away and then slowed considerably. Now it was just poking along, but still coming in.

“Now is not a good time to figure out if those guns we found are in good shape. We’ll use the ones we brought with us.” He got up and retrieved a rifle, handing me a shotgun. We were both already wearing shoulder harnesses with our G21s, something Dean had suggested and I didn’t have any reason not to do. Besides, I kinda felt like a badass with a shoulder holster on.

I went into the cockpit again and grabbed a gadget I had seen there. It was a remote control for the spotlight mounted up by the radar. I assume it was for docking at night or maybe spotting shoals or sandbars, but it would be good for lighting up a boat that got too close as well.

I handed the remote to Dean who stepped out and watched it move around a bit, pre-positioning it so he could quickly bring it on target. Meanwhile, I got on the radio.

“Boats near the eastern shore of Sound Point,” I called, giving my coordinates, “If you are approaching an anchored catamaran, state your intention and standoff.” I repeated the radio call twice before I got a response.

“Last caller, this is the US Coast Guard. We are an Island Class Patrol boat, the Key Biscayne, currently twenty-two nautical miles south of your position. There are no coast guard vessels in your vicinity, but we have had missing boat reports in your area. We are headed your way and are launching a helicopter from Smugglers Cove at this time. ETA for overflight, ten minutes.”

Dean had heard the radio and he was knelt down below the combing, waiting. We could barely hear the whine of a small motor, like a trolling motor maybe, and out of the darkness we could finally see an aluminum boat, about twenty feet or so, inching its way closer.

Dean hit the spotlight and yelled at the same time, “Stand off or we will open fire. Stand off or be fired on!”

There was an almost immediate reaction from the smaller boat. Someone in the bow opened fire towards the spot light with what sounded like a pistol. Dean’s return fire silenced a couple of them and the rest ducked for cover. The lights on the other boat came on and the motor started. The boat surged forward like they were going to ram us, or at least, get close fast enough to overwhelm us.

Not my boat! As the boat rushed near, aimed just aft of our tail, I opened fire with my shotgun just as Dean opened up again with his rifle. While he was shooting the guys behind the glass windscreen, I was shooting anything on the fore deck that was moving.

Dean must have hit something or, when he shot the pilot, the pilot hit something, because the motor cut off and the boat swung wide, wallowing now without power. It was fortunate that it did though, bringing another man into view on the rear deck and he had a handgun! Dean and I fired at the same time and there was nothing left living on the boat, at least that we could see.

The boat was only about ten feet away, slowly drifting further. I grabbed a grapple from one of the salon storage lockers and had Dean snub one end while I threw the hook over and caught the drifting boat. It only took a minute to haul it in to us.

We left the long guns on our boat and pulled our pistols instead. Hopping over the rail and down to the lower boat, we quickly checked to see if there were any survivors. Dean was flipping open storage areas and, in one, there were wallets, purses, jewelry and a couple of handguns. It looked like this boat had been preying on others for a while now.

When we were done, Dean took a walk through and looked at the weapons, nothing worth keeping, and then looked to see if we could figure out why the boat stopped. It turned out that this had been a rental at one time, and it had one of those magnetic kill switches so if whoever is piloting gets knocked out of the seat, it would cut off. Kind of like jet skis have!

When I put the magnetic key back in place, the motor started right up again. Well, it would be cool to have the boat but we were inside the fourteen-mile limit so we had to give it up to the Coast Guard instead of just dumping the bodies overboard and keeping the boat as salvage.

We had just climbed back up on to our boat when a helicopter appeared overhead, a spotlight shining down at us. I could hear them calling on the radio, so I pointed at the cabin and went in to answer.

“Unidentified Catamaran, this is the US Coast guard helicopter above your position. What is your status. Do you need immediate assistance?”

“Coast Guard, this is the Maddy 2 and we are okay, no immediate assistance needed. We have captured what appears to be a pirate vessel with evidence of multiple vessels attacked. There are six bodies on the pirate vessel, but no injuries to the Maddy 2 crew.”

“Acknowledged, Maddy 2. Please clear and safe your weapons before the Key Biscayne gets to you and stand by to be boarded. ETA fifteen minutes.”

The Island Class cutter was more than twice our length and had half again our draft, so she pulled up outside of us and dropped an inflatable over the side. A LTJG, a Chief and three enlisted men pulled up shortly and tied off to our davit in the rear before boarding.

We stood out in the open, under the lights and guns from the cutter, until they had men aboard the cat. After examining our paperwork and then taking a look at the other boat, including what was below, the Lieutenant seemed satisfied with our version of events.

“Looks like you did a good deed for the folks in the area. We have your info for down in Key West so if we need you, we know where to find you.” And that, apparently, was that. The coast guard evidently did not subscribe to the idea that pirates were actual people that had to be coddled. Good for them!

The Coast Guard took possession of the smaller boat and pulled it back over to the cutter. I watched for a bit as they stuffed the bodies in bags and pulled them aboard.

Ah well. I needed sleep!

We got on our way again at first light, after taking a look at the few bullet holes they managed to put in my boat. They all looked minor so shouldn’t be much to get fixed. I think the salon glass would be the most expensive bit.

We made it to Key West in just an hour and a half. A web search later, I made my way to Roberto’s Full Service Marine Specialists on Cow Key and they were happy to have me drop the boat with them. They would clean it up, service it, rename it, repair the bullet holes and even, for a price that only made me cringe a little bit, turn the hard top over the flying bridge into a convertible top. That would give me another eight feet of space I could raise the boat in my dock if I wanted it out of the water!

They not only sold me a Zodiac for the boat davit in the rear, for a decent price too, they gave us a ride over to the airport so we could pick up Dean’s truck from the parking lot there.

Home, sweet home.

It took almost two weeks to get the work done on the boat and Dean gave me a ride over to pick her up. I had renamed her ‘Emancipation Key’ and had Key West, Florida’ lettered under that on the stern. I figured most would figure it was a play on the Florida Keys, maybe about being free from work or something, but Dean rolled his eyes so I knew he got it.

It only took forty minutes to get the boat back to the house, most of that avoiding smaller boats and day sailors who may or may not know what the hell they are doing. Boats under sail have the right of way though, so it is bad form if you run them over.

Putting the boat into the berth at the house using those awesome bow and stern thrusters made it child’s play. Actually, it was a good thing since this thing was only eight feet narrower than the slot! That was barely room for the bumpers! Once it was safely in place and tied securely, I shut down everything and locked it up tight. The overhead cover meant it was pretty well protected so I didn’t sweat it too much.

I tell you, just sitting in the back yard and looking at that boat made me want to take her out again. Time to start planning for spring break.

We had been back a week when I walked out to my car after school, my mind on some upgrades I had ordered for the E-Key. I pulled up short when I saw someone leaning against my car. An adult, meaning anyone too old for school but, in this case, early forties, maybe? Rail thin, balding but with a bushy mustache and a cheap suit.

“You want to get off my car? I waxed it this weekend.” I growled as I got closer. The guy looked at me and shrugged, standing up. He even whipped out a handkerchief from his pocket and pretended to dust the spot where his ass had been parked on the fender, as if that would fix the damage to the wax. What? I like my car, okay?

“Is there something I can help you with or are you just hanging out in high school parking lots for fun?” There were no alarm bells with this guy, but that didn’t mean I welcomed a stranger who was violating my space. I flashed on a comment that Dean had made almost six months ago, about how training would help me be less ... wimpy. I think he said shy or something, but that is what he meant. He was right though, look at what had happened in the last month and a half!

“You are Jack McCoy?” the man asked, his hands now in his pockets. He stood there, slouched and relaxed, but I wasn’t fooled. He was watching me closely.

“I am. But you knew that. You chose my car and were watching me as I approached, knowing I was coming right here. Who are you and what do you want?” By this time. I was fingering the panic button in my belt buckle. I had never used it, except to test, but it would set off an alarm at the house, one on Dean’s phone and, if it was not shut off by Dean, it would send a message to the police department after five minutes.

“I’m ... a friend or, at least, I think of myself that way. I am also a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My name is Burt Dowdy and I work out of Miami.” He reached slowly into his wrinkled linen jacket and came out with an ID folio. One step of his long legs and he handed it to me. Not showed it, handed it to me, which I thought was odd.

I stepped back and grabbed my phone from my pocket and snapped a quick picture of the photo ID. When I looked up, he looked surprised, but he was smiling.

“That’s pretty smart, kid. Excuse me, I know that sounded condescending. It was smart, period.”

I had no idea what an FBI ID should look like, but this had a picture printed on a credit card type ID, with a holographic background and everything. It sure looked officially impressive. I handed the case back.

“So, what does the FBI want with a fifteen-year-old high school sophomore?” I asked, still wary.

“You are a very interesting young man who surrounds himself with interesting people. Your,” he made some air quotes, “Uncle, for instance. Highly decorated MARSOC Marine who gets out despite a stellar career to that point. Some say he is heartbroken over his wife, others say that they think he had a job waiting. He turns up working for you. He lives in a house that is in the name of a Limited Liability Corporation, drives a brand-new truck that, as far as I can tell, he paid half price for. The boat at the house and this car here, are all in the name of the company his paycheck comes from, McCoy Investments LLC. And you are the president and CEO of McCoy Investments Inc.”

Terry had set up a company to house the other companies and the properties I currently owned. Even my car and boat were registered to the company for insurance purposes.

“I still don’t understand why this interests the FBI. None of it is illegal.”

“Here come your friends. Take them home and then I would appreciate it if you could meet with me. I’ll come to your house or we can meet somewhere for coffee, but I need a few minutes of your time. Believe me, you don’t want to go back up to Miami to my office.”

Alan and Debbie walked up behind me, arguing about something, and when I turned back, the FBI man was gone, walking off down the row of cars.

After I dropped the two off, and after making plans for Friday when their parents would be gone again, I headed home. I got a text message from Dean, that just said ‘Visitor’, knowing I would be curious and cautions.

Sure enough, parked in front of the house was a nondescript sedan with those funny government plates, the ones with the little G numbers in the top corner? Maybe that is a Florida thing, I haven’t looked elsewhere.