The King Air touched down on a quiet runway at Port Charlotte Airport before it taxied to a dark unmarked hanger on the periphery of the airport. Madison and Logan got out of the plane into the stifling hot night air, both holding their luggage bags, where they were greeted by a very overweight, older but friendly FBI agent wearing big round glasses with thick lenses.
"Madison, Logan? My name is Ryan Dempsey. I’m with the FBI here in Florida. Real nice to meet you both” he said offering a strong handshake to both.
"I've gotta car for you - hey let me help you with those bags!"
Dempsey willingly picked up the bags and loaded them into the car before wiping sweat from his face and forehead with a handkerchief.
"Hey Logan, are you a ball fan?" asked Dempsey as they walked over to the car.
"I sure am" said Watson. "I try and get to see the Yankees when I am in New York - I've always followed them since my dad took me there when I was about eight."
"I'm a Marlins fan" replied Dempsey. "I just got tickets for next week's game against the Rays and then tonite my wife goes and tells me that she has arranged a surprise birthday party for her folks. Can you believe that?!! If you are still down here you are welcome to have the tickets".
A friendly Fed? Things are looking up thought Logan.
"I sure would like to go Ryan and thanks!"
A black Chrysler Town Country with blacked out windows was parked just outside the hanger and the three agents climbed in. Hayes and Watson gave Dempsey the news about El Alcatraz's position as he drove them out of the airport complex.
"We'll get a Nightstalker up tonight over that area. With the night imaging cameras and 3D capability we might get some clue as to how many are people on board or if there are any touchdown boats ready for launch" said Dempsey who came across as very competent.
"Madison I've got those maps of the coast roads around Charlotte Harbor you asked for earlier and I've got you rooms at the Palm Beach motel on Bayshore Road. I reckon you should get a few hours rest tonight and I'll pick you both up at 7am tomorrow. Then I can show you our observation point, have a recap and plan-on."
Ryan gave out a lot of confidence and Hayes felt a whole lot better now.
Chapter 4
Friday 13th August 2012 06:00am Gulf of Mexico El Alcatraz
Miguel Perez was showered, shaved and dressed in a red Ralph Lauren polo shirt, blue Levi jeans, Nike sneakers and a Rolex Oyster. He had doused himself in his favourite aftershave, Amouage Die Pour Homme, a present from Maria and costing $300 a bottle.
He had his gold plated AR-15 automatic tucked into his belt - a trusty piece that had served him well on many previous occasions. He, Sanchez and Vakha, the Chetnan, broke open the wooden cases below deck and carefully carried the plastic bags of cocaine onto deck. A motorboat was lowered into the sea and Maria got in with her husband.
The bags of coke were then handed overboard by Sanchez, Vakha and Javier to be stored and organized by Perez into durable plastic suitcases in the front of the motor boat. Perez fired the engine into life and the boat raced off in the direction of the American coast, slicing across the sea at high speed. Twenty minutes later a Motion 35 powerboat pulled alongside and Perez high-fived with his best pal Luis Delgado, before transferring the illicit cargo to the Motion.
Once the Motion was fully loaded, Delgado took out an Ousi machine gun from under his seat and in a deafening and juvenile performance, he and Perez triggered out the fiberglass bottom of the other boat. Within minutes, the craft slowly sank to its grave deep at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico - taking with it any fingerprints or evidence of their presence and activities. They laughed out loud like kids at their destructive handiwork.
Delgado started up the Motion, throttled back and the three of them headed back towards Florida at something close to top speed. The boat sliced through the waves like a knife, skimming the water like a pebble. With the sun beating down, the sea breeze in their faces, hair flying and adrenalin pumping, they all felt both untouchable and invincible.
In a few hours time they would be even wealthier.
Shortly before 07:00am, the Motion glided quietly into the quiet and inconspicuous boathouse Delgado had hired long term for cash several months before. He moored up alongside a speedboat that would be used by Maria to return to El Alcatraz later that evening.
"I need a cup of coffee now, that boat journey has made me thirsty!" said Maria smiling.
"It is a very fast boat for sure" said Delgado "It stalled on me before but now it is going fine".
"Amigo, let's hope it is OK for the next few hours and then we can buy ten new ones if we want!" joked Perez.
The boathouse was locked up and the trio headed off to a local cafe-bar for a coffee and cigarette and then onto motel rooms Delgado had scouted out for a few hours peace and rest. Perez carried both suitcases and had no intention of letting them out of his sight at any time. They got to the motel and checked-in looking just like tourists. They now had a few hours to kill before the transfer took place.
For Delgado, that time would be spent having a hot shower and a nap after an uncomfortable night's sleep in the boathouse guarding the Motion.
For the Perez's, it would be an hour of frantic, passionate love-making.
Friday 13 August 2012 07:00am, Palm Beach Motel, Bayshore Road, Port Charlotte, Florida
Hayes and Watson stood outside the motel waiting for Dempsey. Hayes hadn't slept that well whilst Watson had slept solidly.
Both agents were wearing lightweight jackets to conceal shoulder holsters carrying their weapons of choice. Hayes carried a standard FBI issue Glock 17 revolver whilst Watson had qualified to be issued with a DEA Glock 27 automatic due to his top marksmanship. He also had a large Bowie knife in a leather sleeve strapped around his calf - a throwback to his Navy pilot days.
Both had combat pants on and heavy boots. They were dressed and ready for action - which they fully expected was coming their way tonite.
Hayes had her field iPad with her, which had secure VPN satellite phone and video conferencing capacities built in. She had been checking intelligence reports since 5.30am before taking a long hot shower in an attempt to relax her tenseness.
Ryan pulled up at just after 7am wearing a big smile and armed with take-away cups of latte for all.
"Thought you guys might need a morning boost" he said handing out the drinks as they climbed into the big Chrysler.
"I've gotten these pictures in from the Nightstalker." he said passing a file over to Watson who was in the front passenger seat. Watson looked closely at the pictures which showed no signs of a speedboat on deck ready for lowering. The 3D pictures showed that the El Alcatraz was riding high in the water suggesting her hold was empty. He passed the file into the back for Hayes to study, then looked out of the window and started to turn some theories over in his mind.
"We reckon on two, maybe three, on board from body heat imaging but we can't tell if Perez is one of them." said Dempsey.
"I'm gonna take you to our observation tower up on the road to Alligator Bay now" said Dempsey "We get a great view up there of all the coast road and miles out to sea, so we can see what is coming in from the Gulf of Mexico and we can communicate with anybody in the World."
Dempsey headed along out along Burnt Store Road leaving Port Charlotte a couple of miles behind. He pulled off onto a quiet boulevard and came to a tall, four storey non-descript white house that looked a bit run down on the outside. The kitchen and diner were on the ground floor and they were visible to anybody. All the windows on the other floors were tinted and had the blinds pulled down.
The car pulled onto the forecourt, all three got out and Dempsey unlocked the front door with a swipe card. He opened up and led them through the sparsely decorated hall and then up the stairs to a room on the fourth floor. Hayes and Watson were astonished to see what looked like a Command and Control centre packed with radar, computers, plasma TV screens, eavesdropping kit and monitoring equipment.
There were two massive, powerful telescopes sited by the windows, one pointing out to sea and the other up the coast road. On a clear day like today Ryan was right - you really could see for miles.
"Wow!" said Watson, "this is some place you guys have built here!”
"Yep it sure is!" said Dempsey. "We have had this place since the 60s when it was used to monitor tobacco and whisky smugglers coming up the coast. It's been upgraded quite a bit since then though. Its quiet and inconspicuous - we don't get any visitors! We can listen in on any radio frequency to conversations, intercept cell phone calls or messages and monitor any suspicious craft particularly at night with the infra-red lenses".
As they talked they heard the noise of a speedboat coming up the channel.
"Hey quick! Take a look at that boat through the scopes" said Dempsey to the agents.
They both moved a scope each towards the estuary and zoomed in on the boat, which they could see in great detail. A young couple were laughing on board and looked like they had been night fishing. They had no idea that there every movement was under intense scrutiny.
Just then a beep came from one of the many monitoring devices. Ryan looked at the message on the screen and said
"Hey it's from our friends over at the US Coastguard. They gotta update." He read the communication out.
"No movement from El Alcatraz. Large vessel has appeared 5 nautical miles north. Vessel is Panamax tanker."
Everybody was suspicious.
"What’s the tanker's name and where is it from?" said Hayes quickly.
Dempsey tapped away at a message on his keyboard and a few minutes later got a reply.
"She is called the MV Shanghai registered in Panama, weighing 60,000 tonnes with a cargo of premium Vodka and Dutch cheese".
"Which port has she sailed from and how many crew on board?" asked Watson curiously.
Dempsey tapped away again and pinged the message.
"Last port call was Rotterdam, Holland. 16 crew reported." was the reply.
"And the port before then?" queried Watson. The tension in the room rose noticeably.
Another pause - then the reply came back.
"Yuzhne. It is near Odessa - in the Ukraine".
Hayes and Watson exchanged glances. "Well that sure looks like our bomb ship" said Watson starkly.
Chapter 5
Friday 13 August 2012 08:00 am, FBI Safe House outside Port Charlotte, Florida.
Dempsey made some coffees and then the three agents sat around a small table to review and brainstorm their next actions, using a discretely hidden interactive whiteboard that Dempsey opened up. Madison quickly took up the marker pen and scribed in her ultra neat college-like assignment handwriting.
"We're gonna need the cavalry to deal with that tanker - we three can't do anything about that" said Watson bluntly. "We need to focus all our efforts on Perez." The others agreed and that became the first point on the action plan on the interactive board.
"We'll need the Coastguard or Navy to deal with a vessel and crew that big - or some Jedi warriors!" suggested Dempsey
Backup to deal with tanker MV Shanghai. Ship weighs 60,000 tonnes with 16 crew possibly armed. Last co-ordinates 27.392 N 75.341 W - Coastguard/Navy? AD Konchesky
"I wanna see the Lombardis taken down too." added Watson.
"My bosses in Arlington would love to see them nailed. But we're gonna struggle to know where exactly along on the Port Charlotte coastline the drop is though.
"We can get some of our agents from Tampa and Florida up and down that coast road in unmarked vehicles. Just how long is that road Ryan?" asked Hayes.
"About ten miles for the stretches where you could sneak out to a boat" replied Dempsey.
"I reckon we would need at least four unmarked cars up and down that road and some support in the sky."
Another action point went up on the board.
4 FBI/DEA unmarked vehicles on coastal road for observation and rapid air support- Hayes.
"Yeah and I'll get one of our Nightstalkers up from Tampa. With all that smart night-targeting kit you can pick up loads of movement at sea which can be analyzed back here." added Dempsey.
"I'll liaise with the local sheriff’s office too and also the Port Charlotte harbor authority."
Two more points joined the increasing list.
Inform Sherriff McCluskey's office and PC Harbor Authority - Dempsey
Scramble Tampa Nightstalker from 21:00 - Dempsey
"OK that’s cool. The DEA have some pretty fast stuff too. But I really wanna know where Perez is like right now. If there ain't a fast boat on the El Alcatraz's deck, where is it and is Perez still on-board?" said Watson thinking out loud. He stayed quiet for a minute or so lost in his own thoughts before speaking again.
"Ryan, can you check with the sheriff's office and see whether they have had any reports thefts of big speedboats in say, the past six weeks from any of the harbors around here?" he added
"Sure can" said Dempsey.
Check local police for speedboat thefts past 2 months - Dempsey
Watson studied the local geo-maps whilst the other two were on the phones and computers.
About 15 minutes later, a lengthy fax came out of the machine and Dempsey read it excitedly.
"Hey Logan! It looks like you were right man - we might have something here. There is a report of the theft of a new Azure Blue Motion 35 from a private mooring up in Miami three weeks ago. It’s got a top speed of 120 knots and cost about $150,000. Local cops have had no joy finding it and they said it’s just disappeared into thin air. The guy who owns it is puzzled as he said it had started to stall regularly and he was gonna getting it fixed."
Watson looked up straight away and Hayes turned away from her iPad screen.
"Motion 35s are popular rum-runners as we DEA geeks call them" Watson said in a self mocking way. He stared at the whiteboard and went into deep thought again as his brain approved and rejected various thought choices. When his thoughts were formed to a conclusion he spoke out loudly again causing Hayes and Dempsey to turn around and pay attention.
"Listen up - this is what I think. I reckon Perez wanted a local fast boat and had that Motion stolen to order. I don’t think he is on the trawler - he is already up the Florida coast somewhere just waiting for nighttime to do the drop off. Once he has passed the coke to Lombardi he'll head back to El Alcatraz with the money, probably torch the Motion and then head off to meet the Shanghai to pick up the explosives."
The other two nodded and both secretly admired his logical thinking around the Motion theft.
"We are gonna need to be in the water near El Alcatraz and take Perez out there - when he is back on-board" said Watson. "Trying to find him near the coast is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Let’s not look for him on land - let him come back to us."
Watson already realized he would need one of the other agents to be in the boat with him. Dempsey did not strike him as fit enough and Logan wondered just how good his eyesight was - particularly be at night. He had also noticed how Madison had perked up and seemed much more confident now than she had been on the way down to Florida. He also guessed she would have insisted on being in the boat anyway. That in mind, he diplomatically made a suggestion to suit everybody's needs.
"Ryan, you've got all the local knowledge and contacts. How about you track stuff here, scan radio talk and see if you might pick up anything?