Mac travis adventures bo.., p.32
Mac Travis Adventures BoxSet, page 32
part #4 of Mac Travis Series
“Gonna need another round of brews, and then why don’t we—” Pamela started.
Trufante put a hand on her knee, stopping her. Jimmy appeared in the doorway of the cabin, and he needed to decide what to do—follow him or stay with Hawk. Deciding that whatever worth Jimmy had, he had just traded or sold, he decided to stay with the boat.
“Right on, babe. I’m in for that,” he said, gathering their empties and leading her away from the dock. He paused to see which direction Jimmy was going and took her hand, leading her in the opposite direction. They found a bar a few blocks away, refilled the drinks, and started back to the dock when she pulled her hand out of his.
“This is getting boring,” she said, raising her hands over her head and shaking her hips. “Let’s go dancing.” She put her arms around his neck.
His train of thought jumped the rails and headed for a deep ravine. It didn’t take him long to rationalize the change of plans. The boat was obviously in Key West for the night. Why watch it? Maybe after a few dances, and a couple more shots, they could head back to Garrison Bight and check out the cabin on the boat. If the sucker had four engines, he could only imagine what the berths looked like.
“Right on,” he said.
“Then show me the way to the next whiskey bar,” she said, following him towards Duval Street.
TJ sat in the bushes feeling helpless. He knew Mac and probably Alicia were aboard the steel trawler, but he was at a loss as to what to do about it. To make matters worse, Trufante was missing, and now he was here alone.
Closing his eyes, he tried to envision the scene in front of him as if it were a challenge in a video game. Something he was good at—very good. In a hostage situation, the best plan of attack would be a diversion. His brain was clicking now, and he thought through his options and available resources, trying to decide if it should come from land or sea. Running both scenarios through his head, he thought about the pros and cons of each, deciding on a water-based attack. Anything emanating from land would have the chance of a random person interfering with his plan, and the increased chance of police intervention. An attack from the water, although harder to execute, would have a better likelihood of success.
Taking one last look at the trawler, he moved away from the cover of the bushes and headed back toward town. With his phone held in front of him, he followed the map. Staying on Front, he skirted Whitehead and Duval and then followed side streets. A half hour later, he reached the marina and paused for a minute before heading onto the dock. The boat looked like it was rocking. Studying it, he disregarded the action, possibly the result of an unseen wake, bouncing back off the seawall.
He approached the boat and heard an unmistakable sound coming from the partially open hatch in the forward berth. Hoping they wouldn’t last long, he walked back to the main pier and started to work on his plan of attack. Taking a docked boat in the middle of a busy harbor was not the easiest of problems, but after a few minutes several options came to mind. He looked back over at the boat, now settled and swaying in rhythm with the other craft, and approached, making enough noise to rouse the occupants.
Trufante popped his head out of the cabin. “Yo, TJ, what’s shakin’?”
“Just you, my friend,” he said, hopping over the gunwale and going to the helm. “Get your act together. We’re going on a sortie.”
“What’s that, Tru?” Pamela asked from below. “Another adventure?” She appeared behind the Cajun, buttoning her blouse. “Can we get another drink first?”
“Excellent idea.” Trufante dug in his pocket and pulled out a handful of bills. “Why don’t you procure us some cocktails?” He looked at TJ. “You in?”
“I’d go for a bottle or two,” TJ said. Alcohol was part of his plan.
17
Mac was already awake when the door opened. He had been for hours, trying to figure some way out of this mess. There was always a chance to make a break for it when they went ashore to file the paperwork, but Alicia would pay for any actions he took—Hawk had made that clear. One thing he had decided, after thinking about it, was that having his license on the paperwork was not a bad idea.
Ironhead led him back up the short flight of stairs leading to the main cabin. Hawk was already sitting at the table eating breakfast. Another place was set, and he motioned for Mac to sit.
“Go ahead and eat,” he said.
Mac sat, but pushed away the food. He wanted no part of this attempt to ally with him. “There’s no Department of Historical Resources office here,” Mac said. He had always had to deal with the bureaucracy in Tallahassee whenever he had obtained exploration or salvage permits before.
“Been a while, I’m guessing,” Hawk said. “The code is so comprehensive and ridiculous now, you need a lawyer to file. You’ll be visiting an associate of mine. He’s got connections there. Once you sign, we should be up and running in a few days—provided your friend here closes in on the location.”
“How can you file for the permit without the coordinates?” Mac asked.
“It’s an exploration permit. The exploration area is quite a bit broader than an actual salvage permit.”
“And you won’t be getting one of those, I expect,” Mac said. The exploration permit would allow them to search, unrestricted and unregulated, as long as they didn’t disturb anything; a salvage permit would require inspectors and archaeologists.
For now, he would cooperate. After breakfast, Wallace escorted him off the boat, leaving Ironhead to watch Alicia. She was already working; two computers now sat in front of her, doubling her resources overnight. They had exchanged a look of mutual reassurance before he had left. He knew her well enough that she would hide whatever she discovered until he returned.
Everything in Key West was more colorful than you would expect in the rest of the world, and Hawk’s lawyer was no different. Located on the first floor of a brightly painted, meticulously restored Victorian home were the law offices of Wallace and Wagner, LLC. Mac looked at the sign and back at his escort, wondering what the relationship was. He soon found out when they entered the foyer of the house and were greeted by a flamboyant man who bore a strong resemblance to the man standing next to him, the one he called the weasel. They were so close, in fact, that he suspected the only difference might be their sexual preference.
Their reunion was curt, merely a nod to each other.
“I have the papers drawn up in the office,” Wagner said.
Mac followed the men across the freshly oiled Southern yellow pine floor into a tastefully decorated, paneled study.
“Please,” Wagner said, indicating the two chairs in front of his desk.
The men sat, and the attorney pushed a sheaf of bound papers across the large desk to Mac. He started reading.
“Standard filing,” the lawyer said. “The yellow tabs are where to sign, and I’ll need a current address.”
Mac took the papers and started signing. He paused when he came to the address, then entered Trufante’s. Finished, he slid them across the desk to the lawyer, who scanned them to make sure the fifteen signatures required were completed, and smiled.
“Very good, then,” he said, rising from his chair to dismiss them.
Before they left, he handed a copy to Wallace.
Alicia didn’t turn when they entered the cabin, but Mac saw one of the screens change.
“Here’s your copy.” Wallace handed the manila envelope to Hawk.
Without looking at it, he opened a drawer in the cabinet behind him and dropped it in. “Let’s go. Nothing else to be gained hanging around here.”
The two men nodded and went to work, both knowing their duties. Wallace went into the wheelhouse and Mac felt the deck vibrate when the engines started. Ironhead had already released the stern lines and was standing on the bow, waiting for Wallace to pull up next to the piling that the fore and spring lines were hooked over. Alicia shot Mac a panicked look, but there was nothing he could do.
“Where are we headed?”
“Not your concern, Travis. It’s up to your friend there, and I’m giving her four hours to figure it out.”
Mac got the threat. He looked at Alicia, but she was staring at the data scrolling down the screen.
“At least let me help her, then. No harm in that, is there? I’ve been staring at those pictures for years,” Mac said.
“Suit yourself,” Hawk said and went to the wheelhouse.
Mac moved a captain’s chair next to Alicia and looked at the display. He was about to say something when she tapped his hand and pointed at the screen closest to her.
“Type it, if you don’t want them to hear,” she whispered.
She had opened a small window in the corner of the display. “Any luck?” he said, wanting at least some conversation to appear normal.
“I’ve got some of the patterns translated into a chart of sorts,” she said, then typed, But there’s something missing.
“Show me what you have,” Mac said.
She changed the display of the screen to show a chart of the Middle Keys with lines crisscrossing from all angles. Next to it, she opened another window showing the tattoos. The lines matched.
“What am I looking at?” he asked.
“It’s a portolan chart. The lines emanate from several compass roses set at specific locations. Each one has thirty-two lines showing what they called the wind points, but they’re really just degrees or bearings on the circle.” She started to eliminate lines. “Just offshore of Marathon is where I expect the location is, based on the center of the pattern on the tattoos.”
He slid closer and typed, Too much information.
She continued, “It would appear you could locate whatever we are looking for by just transposing the lines onto a current chart, but it’s not quite so easy. There is no projection—you know, the true shape of the Earth’s surface—represented here. These lines assume that the planet is flat. We also don’t know what year this was drawn in. The lines are all based on magnetic north, which is the point a compass shows.”
“Right. We need to account for declination,” Mac said, starting to understand that the information she had uncovered was useful, but the search area was still close to ten square miles. Too large for an effective operation. It was discovered early on in China, and then later in Europe, that the magnetic pole moved over time, but calculating it was more of an art than a science. These charts had no reference to declination or even the date they were drawn. He leaned over and typed, Any ideas?
She shook her head. “There has to be a key to tell us the year this was drawn. Without that, we’re lost.”
“What’s the range?” he asked.
“Somewhere between two and two and a half degrees every hundred years,” she said.
Mac did some quick math in his head. Averaging the distance of a degree at sixty miles, that could mean over a hundred miles a century, and they had no idea how old the map was. “So what is the missing link?” Mac wondered aloud.
Hawk came up behind them. “Missing link? It looks like you’re making progress.”
Mac looked at the screen, but Alicia had already entered the sequence of keys and it was dark. “Yeah. We’re getting there,” he said.
“Two hours,” Hawk grunted and walked away. Mac got up and looked out the port window. There was nothing but water. He figured they had cleared the Northwest Passage and were now cruising east toward Marathon. He had only a few hours to figure a way out.
TJ had been waiting long enough. His work was complete, and he banged on the cabin door. Several minutes later he heard movement, and a shirtless Trufante emerged, squinting in the morning sun.
“Top of the morning to ya.” He smiled, showing off his thousand-dollar grin.
“Come on, man. We gotta go,” TJ said.
“You been busy,” Trufante said.
On the deck were a dozen beer bottles of different varieties that TJ had scrounged this morning from the trash cans around the parking lot. “Had to fight some bums for the bottles,” he said.
“Molotov freakin’ cocktails,” Trufante said. “What’s your recipe?”
“Fuel and oil for the contents. Some torn clothes soaked in alcohol for the wick. Sealed it up with some candle wax I found in the emergency kit.”
“Right on,” Trufante said. “What’s our plan?”
Pamela appeared, shaking her hair out but ignoring them.
“We gotta get Mac and Alicia.”
“Right!” Trufante said. “Fire ’em up and let’s go.”
“How about some breakfast first?” Pamela asked.
TJ was prepared. “Danish in the bag there.”
She brushed past him, took one, and sat on the transom, picking pieces off and eating it, oblivious to what was going on around her. Trufante went to the helm and fired the engines while TJ packed the bottles in an empty beer case he had found. He stashed it in the cabin and released the dock lines. Seconds later they were in the channel, heading toward open water. Once clear of the last marker, Trufante turned to port, and they followed the coastline around Mallory Pier, staying between the markers of the deep channel leading to the entrance of the bight.
“Shit. She’s gone,” he said after they reached the inside marker and had a clear view of the harbor.
TJ looked around, his head falling to his chest. They were too late.
“Not to worry, dude. Mac found them on the radar before. We can do it again.”
“Head offshore toward Sand Key, and we can lose some of this traffic,” TJ said, sliding next to Trufante and pressing the power switch for the electronics. Seconds later, the screen populated, and he studied the boats. He had an idea what he was looking for, but he had to be patient. Soon, several miles from land, the clutter started to clear. The screen showed mostly boats now, and they saw a small blip, moving slowly east on the Gulf side.
“That’s them,” TJ said.
Trufante pushed the throttles down, letting out a whoop as he cut the wheel. The boat pivoted and sped toward the Gulf. They were on plane in seconds, cruising at fifty knots into a light chop. TJ studied the blip. It was at the edge of the third ring, fifteen miles ahead. At their current speed, they would be on them in an hour.
“What we gonna do when we catch ’em?” Trufante yelled over the engines.
“Pirates of the Caribbean,” Pamela said, smiling.
The closer they got to Marathon, the more distracted Mac became. Somehow he needed to give Hawk enough of the puzzle to buy some time. He briefly wondered what had happened to Trufante and TJ, but from his experience with the Cajun, he’d show up when you least expected or needed him. TJ might have a plan, but Mac couldn’t wait. He would have to act on his own.
Mac typed, Transpose the lines onto a chart and give him something.
Alicia looked at him and nodded, then closed the window. She was working in one window with all the data in what appeared to be layers. Hiding the tattoos and land features from the screen, she left the grid. Next, she opened the NOAA chart labeled 11453 and placed it in the background. Manipulating the size of the grid she estimated the scale.
“There are no landmarks on the tattoos. Where do we put the compass roses?” she asked.
Mac rubbed the stubble on his face. That was one of the parts he could never figure out, but now with her computer wizardry, it became clear. “There are three, right?”
She nodded and looked at him, her fingers poised on the keyboard.
“Indian Key, Marathon and Key West. See if they’ll line up with Boot Key Harbor and the bight in Key West,” he said, tapping the locations on the screen with his finger, hoping at least the two roses would fall on the two natural harbors. He watched, nervously tapping his foot. Almost forgetting about Hawk and their circumstances, he was excited—after all these years, he sensed they were on the verge of solving the mystery. Anxiously he watched while she moved the grid to the two points he indicated. They fell into place, and he studied the chart.
The two roses fell directly in the center of the harbors, the third near Indian Key, an old wreckers’ port near Islamorada. Those would have been the three best landmarks in the early 1700s, and he sat back, wondering if he had been wrong all along.
“Give me the coordinates of these points.” He tapped the screen with a pen to show her three spots offshore of Marathon where all three sets of lines intersected. Hopefully this would buy some time.
18
Mac handed the coordinates to Hawk, who took them to the chart table. “You’re sure about this?”
“You know as well as I do that this is not an exact science,” Mac said.
“You lead me on some kind of wild goose chase, and this partnership is not going to end well,” Hawk said.
Frustrated, Mac got up, but Ironhead moved toward him, a pained look on his face. “We’ve been at this a long time. Mind if we go out on the deck and get some air?”
Hawk looked up from the chart where he was plotting the coordinates and nodded. “Looks like deep water,” he said.
“If it wasn’t, whatever it is would have been found already,” Mac said, pushing the door open.
He stood on the deck with Alicia. Looking out at the small puffy clouds and the light chop on the water, he shook his head. “What’s missing?”
Alicia was sitting on a small built-in bench backed up to the cabin. Mac motioned her toward the transom where they were less likely to be heard. “A key—there’s got to be one thing that will align everything.”
Mac stared at the wake of the boat, thinking of how, if it was him, he would have hidden a reference for the chart. Before electronics, mariners relied on sun and star sightings using sextants and backstaffs to estimate their position. The chronometer and then the GPS came along later, adding accuracy, but ancient mariners, no matter their origin or technology, all had one thing in common. “Stars,” he said.
