Fallen Mangrove (Jesse McDermitt Series Book 5) (10 page)

I woke just before dawn, the smell of coffee from the galley drawing me from my single bunk in the guest stateroom like a moth to a flame. It can sleep three people, with a Pullman-type folding bunk above the two side-by-side bunks. The inboard bunk can slide over to make a cozy double bed for couples.

I was pulling on a tee
shirt as I stepped up into the galley. Kim was already there, eating a bowl of corn flakes with a cup of coffee. “Hope you don’t mind,” she said. I nodded and went for the coffeemaker. After I’d poured a cup and drank about half, Tony came up the steps.

“You can’t talk to him until he’s had coffee,” Tony said.

“Come on, I’m not that grumpy.”

“I was hungry,” Kim said, “so I just made myself at home.”

“Mi casa es tu casa,” I said. “Or barco, as the case may be. But you should have waited. Rufus makes the best Jamaican omelet you’ll ever eat.”

“Oh, I can always eat more,” she said. “I’m still growing.” I noticed she was wearing a bathing suit top and cut-off jeans.

“I have some shirts that’ll fit you,” I said. “The sun on the water can burn you fast.”

“Are you being a prudish father?” she asked.

“Maybe,” I said with a grin. “But it’s true about the sun. Look in the hanging closet in your stateroom.”

“We’re going out on the water?” she asked as she went forward to her stateroom. “I thought we were going to a shooting range.”

“We’re going shooting,” Tony said, “but not at a range, although I did set one up the other day on the island.”

“You did?” I asked. “I didn’t see it.”

“That little mangrove-covered sandbar on the north side, west of the dock,” he said. “Nothing much, just some target stands.”

“I thought you meant one of your shirts,” Kim said, stepping back up to the galley and pulling on a long-sleeved woman’s shirt. It had belonged to Alex.

“I figured you were about the same size,” I said. “Come on, let’s go eat.”

We walked up the dock to the bar and went inside, the smell of fresh herbs and spices, along with frying bacon and sausage, filling our nostrils.

An hour later, our appetites sated, we boarded the
Revenge
and took a thermos of coffee up to the bridge as the sun climbed above the horizon across the yard to the east. I showed Kim the controls and where everything was located and asked if she did a lot of boating.

“A little,” she replied. “But never on a boat this big.”

“It’s really calm and where we’re going it’ll be calmer, but there’s some motion sickness pills down in the galley if you think you need them.”

She laughed. “The few times I’ve been out on the ocean, everyone else got seasick, but not me. I’ll be fine, Dad.”

A moment later Deuce, Julie, and Charity joined us, having had breakfast aboard the
James Caird
. I started the engines while Tony untied the lines, then shoved the bow away from the dock and jumped aboard. Kim sat next to me in the second chair, while Julie and Charity sat on the bench in front of the helm. Tony climbed up and sat next to Deuce on the port-side bench and we idled down the long canal toward the open ocean.

“Push the throttles about halfway forward,” I said to Kim when we cleared the breakwater.

She grinned, reached over, and shoved the throttles forward. The response from the twin 1015 horsepower engines was immediate, lifting the bow and dropping the stern as the big boat surged forward and came up on plane. I kept us heading due south until we were a mile offshore, then turned west, passing to the north of East Washerwoman Shoal. A few minutes later, I turned north into Moser Channel and sailed under the Seven Mile Bridge, nudging the throttles a bit more to twenty-five knots.

“Where are we going?” Kim asked.

“We’re leaving the state,” I replied. Grinning, I added, “We’ll go about five miles north, into the Gulf. That’s outside state-controlled waters.”

“What exactly are we going to shoot at in the middle of nowhere?”

“First, I want to see how you handle a gun. Have you ever shot a semi auto?”

“A few times. I’ll buy one when I’m old enough. My Colt was given to me a couple of years ago.”

Who would give a gun to a fifteen-year-old girl?
I wondered, but I let it go. If she wanted to tell me, she would.

“Anyone want more coffee?” I asked, shaking the empty thermos.

“Want me to go down and refill it?” Kim asked.

“No, I’ll get it. Take the helm,” I said as I stood up.

Kim looked up at me with her eyes wide. “You want me to drive your boat?”

“You drive a car,” I replied. “I want you to pilot my boat. Just keep it at a heading of three hundred and twenty degrees. If the water starts to change to green ahead and sort of flattens out, that’ll be Horseshoe Bank. Turn due north when you see it.”

She moved over to the first chair and I let go of the helm. She looked at the compass directly in front of her and made a small adjustment. “What if I hit something?”

“You’ll do fine,” I replied. “There’s nothing out here to hit except Horseshoe, and you’ll know it when you see it. Just pick out a cloud on the horizon and steer toward it. If you concentrate on the compass, you might miss something in the water.”

I went below and refilled the thermos, then climbed back up to the bridge. Kim started to get up and I put a hand on her shoulder and took the second seat, noticing that she’d already turned due north. I glanced to port and saw the shallows of Horseshoe Bank about a quarter mile away. She was dead center in the natural channel and we had over ten feet under the keel.

“From here, we’re just a few minutes until we’re outside state waters. Want to try her at full speed?”

“It goes faster than this?” Kim asked. “We’re already going almost thirty miles per hour.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of throttle left. She’ll do forty-five knots if the conditions are right.”

A second later she smiled and said, “That’s just a little over fifty miles per hour. Can I?”

I nodded and she pushed both throttles to the stops, the big boat surging ahead, as Kim grinned broadly over at me.

“As a friend once said to me,” I quipped. ‘The worm done turned.’”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “It surely has.”

Five minutes later, we crossed into federal waters. “We better switch places now,” I said. “We’re going to anchor up in a few more miles.”

“Hey, where is your island, anyway?” Kim asked as she got up from the helm and I slid over.

I pointed southwest and said, “About ten miles that way. We can stop by for lunch after we’re done shooting out here.”

“That’s still puzzling me. Why did we come way out here in the ocean, er, I mean Gulf, to shoot?”

Deuce chuckled and said, “Because your dad had some harebrained idea about mounting a machine gun in the cockpit.”

“A machine gun?”

“They’re not exactly legal,” I replied.

“Where is it?”

“Stored in the engine room,” I explained. “Tony and I figured we’d run some timed tests to see how long it takes to mount it and get it ready to fire.”

A few minutes later, I pulled back on the throttle and slowed to twenty-five knots again. I looked at the GPS and sonar until I found the waypoint I’d marked some years ago. It was a shoal about eight feet deep. I turned and lined up on it, then dropped the throttles further until we came off plane. I’d dived this spot a couple times and knew there was a wide patch of sandy bottom to the south of the shoal, which was mostly a coral-encrusted limestone rock formation.

Tony was on the bow and had unchocked the anchor chain. When we were over the center of the sandy patch, he gave me the signal, and I released the clutch on the windlass and reversed the engines. I paid out about thirty feet, then reengaged the clutch to set the anchor. Once I was satisfied we were stationary, I shut down the engines.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go down to the galley, so I can get a few things and you can get your purse. I want to check you out on your wheel gun, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem, Dad,” she replied as she climbed down the ladder to the cockpit.

I spread a large cloth I use for gun cleaning on the settee table and went forward to the stateroom, with Kim following me. Kneeling, I keyed in the code that releases the lock on the bunk and raised it up. Inside were several long fly rod cases, half a dozen small chests, and one large chest. I picked up one of the small chests, then lowered the bunk.

“What’s in all the boxes?” Kim asked.

“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” She slugged me in the shoulder and laughed. She had a nice laugh. “Come on up to the salon,” I said. “I want to look at your gun.” The others had come into the salon and were sitting on the sofa, Deuce was in the galley making another pot of coffee.

“Take your Colt and set it on the table,” I said, opening the chest and removing one of my Sig Saur handguns. I checked the grip and locked the slide back, then set it on the table. Kim opened her purse and unzipped a side compartment. Reaching in, she pulled out a snub-nosed Colt. Releasing the cylinder, she opened it and pushed the ejector rod, dropping six .38 Special cartridges onto the table, before handing it to me.

“You don’t leave the chamber under the hammer empty?” I asked.

“No need to,” Kim replied, grinning. “That’s a Colt Detective Special. They were mostly used by undercover cops. It has a hammer block that prevents the firing pin from striking the primer unless the trigger is pulled. You can throw it at the ground and it won’t go off.”

I looked at Deuce and caught his almost imperceptible nod of appreciation as he poured two cups of coffee and handed me one. He and I had grown close this past year, and we seemed to be able to communicate a lot just through a nod or expression. His dad and I had been the same way.

“Really? I’m not real well versed in revolvers,” I lied. “How accurate is it?”

“Pretty accurate at close range,” she replied, taking the gun back from my hand and reloading it. “I really don’t have a lot of experience, though. Yours is a Sig Sauer?”

“Yeah, it’s a P229, a smaller version of the P226 I usually carry. Thought you’d like to try it out.”

“It’s the same gun the Coast Guard issues us,” Julie said.

“You were in the Coast Guard?” Kim asked.

“I still am. Temporarily assigned to my husband’s team so I can keep an eye on him,” she replied, nudging Deuce with her elbow.

The six of us went out into the cockpit. Tony had rigged one of my casting rods with a two-liter plastic bottle tied to the line. He pulled it from the rod holder and, stepping to the transom, cast it about twenty-five feet astern.

“You do have targets,” Kim said, smiling.

“A little different than shooting at static targets,” I said. “It’s bobbing in the water and we’re standing on a moving deck. Go ahead.”

She had her purse hanging from her left shoulder and reached in and pulled out the Colt. Aiming, she fired three quick shots, hitting the bottle once and coming very close with the other two shots.

Tony stood up from where he’d been lounging on the gunwale, his back against the bulkhead. “Pretty good shooting. All three would be center mass on a target. Where’d you learn to shoot?”

“Mom dated a cop for a while. He took us all to a shooting range one time. Eve and Mom hated it, but I had a blast. He and I went back a few times and he taught me to shoot. That’s who gave me the gun.”

Tony pointed aft and said, “It’s gonna sink—get it.”

Kim turned and aimed the Colt again. She took her time and fired three more rounds. The first two hit the water very close to the top of the bottle, the only part sticking up. The third round hit the cap and sent it flying off, just as the bottle sank.

Tony reeled the line in and pulled the bottle out of the water. He cut the line with a pocket knife, removing the bottle, and tied a new one to it before casting it out to about the same spot.

I handed her the Sig and a loaded magazine. “You said you shot an auto a few times. Try it out.”

She slid the magazine in, racked the slide, and aimed at the bottle bobbing in the water. I could see her finger slowly taking the slack up from the trigger until it fired. She fired two more in quick succession and the bottle disappeared under the surface.

When Tony reeled it in, it had three holes through the big Pepsi logo. Tony whistled softly. “All three could fit under a quarter,” he said. “Very impressive. How often do you shoot?”

“I go to an indoor range every Monday and Thursday,” Kim replied. “One of the guys that works there lets me shoot anything in the case. I shoot my own gun every time and something else after that.” Turning to me, she said, “Last week, he let me shoot a Desert Eagle.”

“That’s overkill,” I said, laughing as she extended the Sig to me. “No, you keep it. You seem to be a pretty good match.”

“Really?” she asked. “You’re giving it to me?”

I nodded, and she removed the magazine, ejected the chambered round, and set the gun on the fighting chair, then threw her arms around my neck. “Thanks, Dad.”