Operation Caribe (6 page)

There was murmured agreement around the table.

“Plus, technically, there are some sticky questions about the jurisdiction of these matters. Bahamian waters. International waters. U.S. waters. Who knows? And with no bodies, there’s no way anyone can really take the lead in going after these killers, again not without making headlines. So, along with our friends in the Organization of American States, we’ve managed to assure a lot of the parties concerned that
we
will take care of the problem for them. That
we
will provide the solution. And that solution, gentlemen, is
you
.”

She took a plain white envelope from her breast pocket. “We are prepared to pay you five million dollars to find these pirate people and eliminate them, quickly and quietly.”

Jennessa motioned to the older black man sitting nearby.

“Our friend, Mr. Jobo here, is a member of the Organization of American States’s law enforcement division. He has special arrest powers in the Bahamas and as a formality he will make you his deputies. But again, the only thing we ask is that you do this job quickly and quietly, as one of our biggest times of year—college Spring Break—is coming up.”

Mr. Jobo stood up.

“I would never suggest to you how to do your job,” he began in a thick Caribbean accent. “But be aware these Muy Capaz people are brutal murderers that the world would be better off without. So, if you find yourself up against them, take the steps necessary to protect yourselves at all costs, and I mean preemptively if you have to. Your rule of thumb should be: ‘gloves off.’ ”

Then Mr. Jobo read a prepared statement, swearing in Team Whiskey as deputies of the OAS. It was more than a little awkward.

When he was done, he passed them a small leather case. Nolan opened it to find five police badges.

“These are for you,” Jobo said. “Just to make it legal. We also have uniforms.”

He passed them a duffle bag. Batman reached inside and took out the shirt and pants of an OAS deputy—they were ugly brown, with red piping. The bag also contained five nightsticks.

“Wear all that in good health and with good luck,” the OAS man concluded. Then he sat down again.

Jennessa walked around to the team’s side of the table and gave Nolan an envelope containing a bundle of documents and a half dozen DVDs.

“You will find a lot of information on the Muy Capaz in there,” she told him directly, brushing up against him on purpose. “Some of it comes from Bahamian law enforcement sources, which won’t be much help, and some of it we generated on our own. The gang’s leader is a man named Charles Black. He’s a descendant of authentic Bahamian pirates and he displays a lot of the same characteristics. Ruthless, bloodthirsty, perverted. We believe he’s also involved in moving large quantities of drugs. In fact, we believe these pirate attacks are simply ways to get money to finance his drug operations.

“The Muy Capaz are also heavily armed, thanks to Cuban weapons dealers. They have a hideout somewhere in the islands that no Bahamian law enforcement agency has been able or willing to find. I think your main goal should be to find this hideout and nip the problem in the bud.”

Jennessa smiled sweetly.

“Any questions?” she asked the team.

Twitch raised his hand. He was usually the least talkative member of Whiskey.

“Can you repeat those slides that were marked ‘ES?’ ” he asked her.

Jennessa did as requested.

“They seem different from the rest,” Twitch said. “The others show disarray—obvious signs of a struggle. If not blood, then at least evidence that the boat’s occupants met with a bad end. Yet, these three vessels don’t have any of that. They’re neat as pins. Any idea why?”

Jennessa shook her head no. “Actually, those slides show the most recent attacks, the ones from Easter Sunday, thus the ‘ES’ tag. It was because of them that we finally decided to contact you. We believe this is proof the Muy Capaz have become more emboldened with this last wave. Three pleasure boats were found drifting on Easter morning, no sign of their passengers, absolutely wiped clean and nothing out of place. Then, a police boat that had investigated all three was later found washed up near Palm Beach—its officers long gone. Now, with these three deputies still officially listed as missing, this hasn’t become a ‘cop-killer thing’ yet, if you know what I mean. But again, in our opinion, these last few slides are telling us that the Muy Capaz is becoming more able, and more efficient in leaving no clues behind.”

Twitch just stared at the slides as they slowly passed across the screen again.

“Or maybe,” he said under his breath, “they’re telling us something else.”

5

IT WAS AN unusual airplane, a leftover from World War II, rebuilt and customized.

It started its life as an Arado Ar-95W, an amphibious biplane designed in the mid-1930s by the German military and sold to the Chilean Air Force just before the war. It had an art deco look to it, lots of curved surfaces and stainless steel accents. The large, front-mounted engine spun a huge wooden propeller. Below its bi-wings was a large floatplane.

At some point, the plane’s original thirty-five-foot fuselage had been stretched to forty-four feet and expanded to accommodate a six-person passenger compartment. The addition of an enclosed cockpit provided side-by-side seats for a pilot and copilot. Four Plexiglas observation bubbles were installed along both sides of the fuselage, making it perfect for aerial sightseeing, and retractable landing gear was added. The interior of the plane featured highly polished wood and gleaming aluminum, and was now equipped with a quadraphonic sound system. The result was a seventy-year-old hot rod that flew.

But the airplane’s uniqueness didn’t end there. The Ar-95W was also foldable. Its wings, slightly swept back in the original design, hung on hinges that allowed them to be folded back and down. The rear third of the fuselage was also hinged and could be folded forward. The struts that held the pontoons folded upward. Even the propeller was hinged to be folded backward.

The odd, flexible design came from the notion that, had the Ar-95W gone into mass production, it would have been an ideal recon aircraft for German U-boats, because in its folded-up position, it could be carried inside the submarine itself.

So, the plane was very unusual.

But not any more unusual than its owner.

*   *   *

COLONEL CAT WAS in his middle forties, though his long ZZ Top beard made him look older. He always wore the same clothes: tattered island shirt, ragged shorts, dirty sneakers and a long-sleeve denim jacket. He was well known around the Fort Lauderdale airfield where he housed the Ar-95W and all over the Bahamas. He had the Caribe look and the demeanor down pat. If you wanted to go, he was the man who’d fly you to Margaritaville.

Colonel Cat hired out his unusual seaplane for a number of functions. He gave sightseeing tours of weird Bahamian locations, like the Stairs of Atlantis, the Tongue of the Ocean and the islands’ mysterious Blue Holes. He would take people deep-sea fishing, flying out to an ocean location to fish right from the cabin of the plane. He also flew scuba enthusiasts to hard-to-reach dive sites.

A lot of his business, though, involved transporting people who had chartered yachts waiting for them in the Bahamas. Many of these customers were novice sailors not experienced enough to handle what could be a rough crossing over from Florida, a transit that involved fighting the fast-moving and unpredictable Gulf Stream. Other charter customers were people who might be carrying items they did not want airport security to see, or for whatever reason didn’t have a valid passport. Some were just out-and-out criminals. Most wanted to travel without leaving a paper trail.

These special clients usually had money and weren’t afraid to spend it, allowing Cat to charge premium prices for his shuttle service. In most cases the flight from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas took under an hour, and as an extra bonus Cat could land the customer right next to his chartered boat. He even helped with their luggage, whatever it might contain.

As Cat liked to say: “Discretion is my middle name.”

*   *   *

HE HAD TWO customers this morning; they were typical in just about every way.

He was a sixty-ish married, wealthy banking executive from Ohio. She was a “hostess” at a bar on Miami’s South Beach. She was one-third his age and stunning.

They had met only recently and were in a whirlwind romance of sorts. The executive had quietly chartered a yacht for three days out of Alice Town in North Bimini, intent on getting some alone time with his new paramour.

He’d seen Colonel Cat’s ad in the local
Beach Scene Magazine
and called. Cat got the banker to agree to pay $1,000—cash—for a private flight over to Bimini and back.

*   *   *

CAT FUELED HIS plane and was ready to go from the Fort Lauderdale airport by 9
A.M.
The happy couple arrived by limo a short time later.

He loaded their luggage. The banker was clearly drunk with lust. Cat couldn’t blame him; the hostess
was
gorgeous.

They took off at nine-fifteen and were soon heading east. The hostess sat up front; the banker was behind her, massaging her bare shoulders as they flew. After a lot of small talk, Cat went into his pitch.

“If you have a few extra minutes, I can show you some interesting sights,” he began. “Lots of strange things out here. Some people don’t realize it, but the Bahamas are right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.”

The couple agreed, and once over North Bimini, Cat began pointing out various places of curiosity. The Stairs of Atlantis. The area of ocean where the famous “Flight 19” was thought to have gone down. An oval reef formation called UFO Rock. And finally, an isolated island the locals called “Via-grass Cay.”

The banker asked Cat the meaning of its name.

Cat explained the people who lived on the island had cultivated a strain of marijuana that, in addition to providing a long-lasting high, also was an herbal Viagra.

This was a full-blown symphony to the banker’s ears. He quickly asked Cat how he could buy some of the weed.

Cat remained coy. He’d done this before.

“It’s impossible to get,” he replied. “The people who live down there are very picky who they share it with.”

By this time, Cat had turned the plane back to the southwest and was heading for Alice Town, where the couple’s chartered yacht awaited.

But the banker was insistent.

“There must be a way,” he said, slipping five hundred-dollar bills into Cat’s shirt pocket. “Am I right?”

*   *   *

THEY LANDED TWO minutes later. Cat taxied up to the waiting yacht and helped the pair unload their luggage, including the girl’s sizable jewelry case.

As she climbed aboard the yacht, Cat pulled the banker aside.

Cat asked him: “Where will you be tonight?”

“We’ll be moored near an island called Thomas Cay,” the banker replied. “Do you know it? Real isolated. No one around to interfere.”

Cat nodded. “I know the place. If I can snag a bag for you, I’ll fly it in after dark. If I can’t, I’ll return this five spot when I fly you folks home in three days. Deal?”

“Deal.”

They shook hands and Cat returned to the floatplane.

Waving merrily to the couple, he took off, circled the yacht once, then headed back to Fort Lauderdale.

*   *   *

HE MET HIS next two customers at 11
A.M.

They were a middle-aged couple from Arizona. He was an author; she was his research assistant. He wrote books on the Bermuda Triangle and its alleged UFO connection—but his latest book was in trouble. Because he had nothing really new to say on the topic and no photos of any consequence, he’d written the book at home in Tucson, fabricating all of it. His publisher had caught a whiff of the hoax and demanded an authentic book or a return of the hefty advance.

Desperate, the pair had hired a small research vessel to cruise around the Bahamas in an effort to find something—
anything—
to write about, all without wanting their publisher to know. They were especially looking for photographs of UFOs, which as hard as they might be to provide, were by now being demanded by the publisher.

The flight over to the Bahamas was a bit tense, though Cat gradually filled it with small talk about seeing strange lights in the skies over the Bahamas for years. In fact, he said, he’d taken many pictures of them himself.

By the time they touched down near the Great Harbour Cays, the author was begging to buy Cat’s UFO photos at $250 an image.

“Tell me where you’ll be tonight,” Cat suggested, helping unload the couple’s luggage onto their leased yacht. “I’ll fly back with the photos. If you like them, then we can talk.”

*   *   *

CAT’S NEXT CUSTOMER flew out of Fort Lauderdale at 2
P.M.

He was a professional sports fisherman from Alabama. A lucrative tournament was being held in the Bahamas in two weeks. It was going to be televised and would award large cash prizes. The fisherman wanted to get to the islands early and relax before the tourney.

Or at least that was his story. A few minutes after taking off, the fisherman admitted the contest was to be held at a yet-to-be-disclosed location somewhere off South Bimini. His plan was to go around the South Bimini islands in his rented boat looking for likely places and trying his best to get a feel for them. It was a violation of the contest rules—which was why he’d hired Cat to fly him over. Again, no paper trail.

“I might know a better way,” Cat told him.

“Which is?” the man asked.

“I’m flying a couple of that tourney’s judges out here in a few days,” he said. “And they’ve already faxed me a list of their destinations. One of them
must
be where the tourney is being held, right?”

The fishermen couldn’t believe his luck.

“How much?” he asked.

“I couldn’t take anything,” Cat protested weakly.

“Consider it a tip, a bonus,” the fisherman said.

“Tell me where you’re going to be tonight,” Cat said. “I’ll fly out with the maps. You look at them, figure out the sweet spot—and then we can talk about a tip. Deal?”