Fallen Out: Jesse McDermitt Series, The Beginning (10 page)

Another fifteen minutes went by then we heard the unmistakable sound of a chopper coming in from the north. The orange and white markings on the MH-65 Dolphin were clear against the gray morning sky. We watched as it came to a hover just ahead of the trawler’s bow about twenty feet above the water. A rescue swimmer jumped into the water and swam to the port side of the vessel, away from us as the chopper moved to hover above the aft work deck and lowered a basket.

One by one, three people were lifted up in the basket from the work deck, and finally the rescue swimmer was lifted in a harness and the chopper swooped low over the water and passed directly in front of us. As they went by the swimmer hung out the door and gave us a thumbs up, pumping his fist.

I heard the VHF radio squawk, “United States Coast Guard calling
M/V Gaspar’s Revenge
.”

I climbed quickly to the bridge and replied, “
Gaspar’s Revenge
to Coast Guard chopper, go ahead.”

“Congratulations, Captain. We have three souls aboard, hungry and slightly dehydrated, but they’ll be alright. The Marine Patrol has four men in custody. Do you need assistance?”

A cheer went up from behind me in the cockpit. “Negative, Coast Guard. We’re hunkered down for the storm. Thanks for letting us know they’re alright.”

He signed off just as the boat that had left was returning. It didn’t stop, but continued on toward the river across the bay. From my vantage point, I could see there were three men sitting on the deck
with their arms behind their backs.

A moment later, a second boat left the trawler and took off after the first, with a fourth man sitting on the deck, trussed up like Earl and his buddies. After about fifteen minutes, the Lieutenant
’s boat came over and asked to tie up alongside. Once they were aboard, I invited everyone into the salon.

“For the record, Captain, those men stranded up on the island said you shot at them. Is that true?”

“Lieutenant,” Rusty interrupted. “Are any of them dead?”

“No. Why?”

“Jesse here was a Marine sniper. If he’d shot at those men, they’d be dead. Did any of them see him shoot at them?”

The Lieutenant grinned and said, “No, they said they couldn’t see anything. One said
you shot his only flashlight right out of his hand in total darkness.”

“Well there ya go,” Rusty offered. “
There’s a storm blowing, maybe it was lightning.”

The Sergeant laughed and the Lieutenant said, “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. What made you think those women were aboard?”

I thought for a moment about how to answer that question then Savannah said, “Those same four men tried to kidnap me and my sister several days ago. Captain McDermitt and our Captain fought them off. Last night, when they entered the bay, Captain McDermitt recognized them and swam over to eavesdrop.”

“That’s a long swim in rough water,” the Sergeant said. “But, for a Recon Marine,
I guess it was like taking a Sunday stroll. Semper Fi.”

I nodded to the Sergeant and the Lieutenant asked, “Anything else you’d care to add, Captain?”

“No, that’s pretty much how it went down.”

“Well, congratulations, sir,” he said. “Mister Hendrickson, the husband and father is being flown up to Tampa from Key West to rejoin his family. You’re a hero.”

“I’m no hero, Lieutenant,” I said. “We only did what anyone else would do. Oh there is one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I guess you plan to move that trawler?”

“It will be impounded after the storm. Why?”

“You might want to put a diver in the water before moving her,” I said. “He might find the prop is fowled.”

The Lieutenant grinned, looked at the Sergeant, and said, “You Marines don’t take any chances, do you?”

“Not if we can help it,” the Sergeant replied.

The Lieutenant
said the Coast Guard would want to ask me some questions, once the storm blew over, so I gave him my address at Boot Key Harbor and they left. It’d been a long night, so I suggested everyone try to get some rest. Josh and Tonia volunteered to keep watch for a few hours and I went forward to get a shower and a nap.

I woke just before noon and went into the salon. Rusty and Savannah were watching the Weather Channel. Rusty said, “Tropical Storm Irene made landfall on Isle of Youth this morning while all the excitement was going on. She’s turned northwest and over mainland Cuba now.”

“Just like Rusty predicted,” Savannah added.
I just nodded and headed for the coffeemaker.

“He ain’t worth a plug nickel till he’s had his lifer juice.”

Savannah laughed and said, “I assume ‘lifer juice’ is a euphemism for coffee?”

“If that means does it mean coffee, yeah,” Rusty replied.

“Did you two get any sleep?” I asked.

“I’ll get all the sleep I need when they put me under the ground,” my old friend replied.

“We stayed up with the Alexander’s,” Savannah added. “Rusty regaled us with your and his exploits in the Marines.”

Sitting down next to her on the settee, I said, “You can pretty much bet that anything he told you is a sea story.” I couldn’t help but notice the warmth radiating from her bare thigh next to mine.

“Sea story? Another Marine euphemism?”

“Kinda like a tall tale,” Rusty answered. “Gets better with each retelling. But actually, I kept to the truth. Well, pretty much.”

Jimmy stumbled up the steps into the galley then. He went straight for the refrigerator and got a bottle of orange juice, opened it and drank half of it in one long pull. We talked about the pending storm and any other steps we could take to minimize damage.

“If Jimmy’s up to doing a little climbing, some of the nearer mangroves have dead branches that we could cut away,” Rusty said. “Other than that, we’re pretty much set.”

We got to work and had all the dead branches trimmed away before nightfall, working between squalls. Once finished we showered and gathered in the salon to get the latest update on the storm. It had just moved off the Cuban coastline and into the warm, shallow waters south of the Florida Straits and was upgraded to a category one hurricane, with sustained winds of 76 mph.

By sunset, it had turned north by northeast and was heading straight for Key West. The east side of
a hurricane is where the highest winds are usually located, which meant that the Middle Keys would take the brunt of the storm. We all hoped it wouldn’t intensify over the Straits.

We assigned watch again and this time Josh insisted on being part of it, so we were able to cut it to only a two hour watch for each of us. We changed the order so that I had the 0300-0500 watch and Rusty would take over after that. Knowing me as he did, he wasn’t surprised when I came back up after he took over with another thermos of coffee.

Friday dawned gray and the rain was steady now as the hurricane got closer. The wind had intensified to a steady thirty knots. All our lines to the many mangrove trees were secure and with three boats lashed securely together we were actually very stable. Looking south out through the windshield, we could see fairly large waves and whitecaps building out on the bay. Sheltered in the narrow cove as we were, with trees to the east and west, there was only a little wave action and very little wind. But, you could hear it whistling through the trees above us on either side.

Savannah came over from her boat, wearing her usual cutoff jeans, slicker, and bare feet. She brought her own thermos and offered us some of her Australian brew. We
enjoyed it as we sat listening to the NOAA weather update on the UHF radio. It originated in Flamingo, which is out of range on normal radio frequencies, but only a little static on the UHF.

“It’s headed straight to Key Weird,” Rusty told Savannah. “Probably make landfall there
in an hour or so. If it stays on that course and speed, the center’s gonna hit here this afternoon.”

“Are we prepared enough?” she asked.

Rusty looked around at the tree tops and ran his practiced eye over the many ropes holding us in place. “Yeah, I’d say we’re more than prepared. It won’t be much of a blow and it’ll probably be long gone by morning.”

As the day grew longer, the wind grew stronger. The rain came off and on, but by Friday afternoon, we’d g
rown used to being wet. At 1500 the NOAA update out of Flamingo said that the storm had made landfall on the mainland just north of Cape Sable. By then the wind was blowing steady out of the east at more than 50 knots and we’d long since cleared the bridge. The kids were trying not to be afraid, but the howl of the wind kept getting louder with every passing minute. The rain was coming down in sheets that made so much noise inside the salon, we had to shout to be heard above it.

Suddenly, all sound ceased outside just as Jimmy yelled, “I hope it doesn’t get any worse!” His last two words were yelled into total silence and he started laughing.

“What happened?” the younger girl, Vanessa said, wide eyed with bewilderment.

“Eye of the storm,” Rusty explained. “It’s about
a mile wide. If anyone wants to look outside, we have about four or five minutes before the wind starts from the opposite direction.”

I couldn’t resist and stepped out into the cockpit. The sun was shining and the sky was a deep blue directly above us. The others crowded through the hatch, everyone talking at once. I quickly climbed the ladder to the cockpit to check on everything. There was no damage. I looked quickly at our anchor lines and snub lines to the trees and everything looked good. Looking to the south, I could see across the bay and just beyond it, a wall of clouds that seemed to go all the way up into space.

“Here it comes!” I shouted. “Everyone inside.” I quickly climbed down the ladder and was the last one through the hatch. A moment later the howling wind was instantly upon us, torrents of rain beating on the starboard side portholes.

“I got an update while the eye was on us,” Jimmy said. “I
t’s increased forward speed to fifteen knots.”

“That’s good,” Rusty shouted over the noise, as we all found places to sit. The two girls sat at the settee with Jimmy
who kept them occupied with a video game on the laptop. “It’ll be off the coast way up to Fort Pierce just after midnight and by sunrise the sky here’ll be clear as it was in the eye. That was something else, wasn’t it?”

“You sound like you’d never seen it before,” I said. “I thought you’d been through dozens of these storms.”

“I have. That was just the first time I was in the eye.”

The wind on the backside of the storm died down pretty fast, as did the rain. By midnight, it was blowing about like it had been two days earlier. I suggested everyone get some rest. Since nobody would be coming into the bay to escape the storm
now that it was over, we didn’t need a watch. I was very tired and was asleep almost instantly.

It seemed like only a few minutes later, I sensed a change in the boat’s attitude and was instantly awake again. A glance at my watch told me that I’d been sleeping over three hours. As I started to get up, thinking one or more of the lines might have come loose, I heard the hatch open in the salon.

I came out of bed instantly, pulling my Sig from under the pillow and pulled back the slide, checking to see if a round was still chambered, even though I knew there was. I heard footsteps quietly crossing the deck in the salon and was about to yank open the hatch to my stateroom when I heard Savannah’s voice. “Don’t shoot me, Jesse.”

I lowered the gun and opened the hatch. She was shrugging out of her rain slicker, barefoot as usual. But this time, she had nothing on under the
slicker.

The smell of coffee roused me once more
, as sunlight filtered through the overhead hatch. I moved my arm, Savannah was curled up with her head on my shoulder. I slowly eased my arm out from under her and rose from the bed, slipped my shorts on and padded barefoot to the galley.

“Jesse!” Rusty shouted from outside. I quickly moved to the hatch and went out onto the cockpit. “Savannah’s gone!
The hatch to her cabin was open and she’s gone. Is she on board the
Revenge
?”

“Will you calm down? You’re gonna wake the dead. Yeah, she’s inside.”

His big shoulders rose as he sighed. “That’s good, I didn’t hear her get up this morning.” He walked into the salon and started pouring a cup of coffee. “She in the head?” he whispered.

“Um, not exactly. I’ll be right back.”

I went down the steps to my stateroom. Savannah was awake, her hair in complete disarray. “I didn’t think to bring any clothes,” she said smiling coyly.

I opened one of the drawers in the dresser and pulled out an old pair of cutoffs and a belt. “Try these,” I said. “We’ll obviously have to cut a hole in the belt.
” I pulled out a Dockside tee-shirt I’d bought that was too small for me and tossed it on the bed with a grin. “Rusty’s in the salon.”

“Yeah, I heard him,” she said as she shimmied the shorts up over her hips, then pulled the tee-shirt on. We walked up into the galley. Jimmy and Josh were there with Rusty, all three of them staring and grinning.

“Thanks for the loan, Jesse,” she said. “I think I’ll go get a shower before breakfast.”

The three men stepped aside to let her pass and once she closed the hatch, Rusty said, “You old dog!”

“Shut up and pour me a coffee.”

From that point on, we were inseparable, together day and night. For
seven days.