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  “If they surprise us and veer off to Siesta or Casey Keys, we’ll make adjustments.”

  The platform he was referring to was a sixty-foot sport fisherman confiscated a couple of years before in a drug bust. It bristled with radar and other electronic gadgets, and was used by the authorities when they didn’t have the P-3. This time, it would be back-up.

  McClintoc continued. “We’re pretty sure the go-fast boats will have outboards. If they’re going up a canal at night, those big inboards with the thru-hull exhausts would make too much noise.”

  The Customs agent turned to the wall behind him. He pointed to a large scale chart of Sarasota Bay and the adjacent coastal waters. “We think they’ll have several boats and they’ll come in different passes. One will come in here, at Passage Key Inlet.”

  He pointed to the area just north of Bean Point, the northern-most end of Anna Maria Island. “He’ll have to come into the channel to get across the Bulkhead. That’s a very shallow sandbar across the mouth of Anna Maria Sound. He can then turn in short and run into Bimini Bay.

  “If he doesn’t do that, he’ll have to cross underneath the Manatee Avenue Bridge. He pointed to a bit of land known to the locals as Gilligan’s Island, that hunkered just above the water near the eastern side of the narrow channel over the Bulkhead. “We’ll station a fully equipped Customs boat there. They’ll let us know if he veers off before getting to the bridge.”

  “We’ll have a man in the bridge tenders’ shacks on both the Manatee and Cortez bridges. If the go-fast bears off to his left into Palma Sola Bay, we’ll know it when he doesn’t get to the Cortez Bridge. If he goes under Cortez, he’ll have to follow the channel south, inside of Jewfish Key.

  “We’ll have another boat tied up at Moore’s restaurant to let us know where he heads after he clears Jewfish. This boat will also keep tabs on anybody coming in Longboat Pass. And we’ll have a man in the tender’s shack on that bridge. Any questions, so far?”

  The Longboat marine cop stirred. “Just to make sure, we’re not to follow them or make any approach to them,” he said.

  “No,” said McClintoc. “It’s impossible to follow somebody on the water without being seen. The Customs boats all have radar and can track them without moving.”

  “Why doesn’t the P-3 just keep tabs on them?” asked one of the Sarasota officers.

  “Ground clutter,” answered the Customs agent. “The P-3 will probably be able to keep tabs on the boats, but this other is all just back-up in case there’s a problem.”

  “What about the other passes?” Bill Lester asked.

  McClintoc took a sip of his coffee. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll have a boat in Big Pass. I’ll be on that one, and Jock and Matt will ride with me. We’ll have to be very careful not to be found out.

  “If the boat comes in the channel he’ll either have to pass under the Ringling Causeway Bridge, or he can cut off into that little channel that runs between St. Armands and Bird Key over by the Sarasota Yacht Club. We can put a man on the Ringling Bridge, but the little bridge just past the Yacht Club has ‘no fishing’ signs posted on it. We don’t want them getting suspicious.

  “We’ll have to keep tabs on that boat with our radar and heat detecting gear. If one of them goes up the little channel, we’ll move out into Sarasota Bay. He’ll be visible to us when he comes back out into New Pass.

  “We’ll have a man on the New Pass Bridge, and the Longboat police boat anchored close into the mainland at mid-bay to keep anything moving that way on radar.”

  Bill Lester stood up. “Sounds like a plan. Any questions?”

  There was silence.

  “Okay,” said Bill, “We’ll see you guys tonight.”

  37

  Murder Key

  THIRTY-ONE

  Low clouds scudded across the dark sky, their passing evidenced only by the winking on and off of stars. The new moon hung between the earth and sun, its orb dark without the sun’s reflection. The tide was ebbing, and the water flowed languidly toward the Gulf. Black water lapped gently against the boat’s hull, the only sound in the enveloping quietness of the wee hours.

  Jock and I were passengers on a Customs Service boat, a 32- foot Intrepid powered by twin 250 horsepower outboards. The boat was equipped with a gyro stabilized heat detecting night vision array that could detect something as small as a crab trap float a mile away. The radios had frequencies that connected us with all the other partners in the Blue Lightning Strike Force. Our radar would pick up any boats within a fifteen-mile radius.

  We were anchored close in to shore on the Lido Key side of Big Sarasota Pass. Large sandbars had crept into the inlet over the years, blocking much of it. The boat channel ran from the south along the beach on the northern edge of Siesta Key before turning east into the pass itself. It then hugged the shore of Siesta Key on the south side of the inlet before easing into mid-pass as it made its way into Sarasota Bay. We were nestled on the northern side of the waterway, far enough west so that a boat turning into the channel running to the Sarasota Yacht Club wouldn’t see us. Our boat was painted black, and if the bad guys had radar, we’d be lost in the clutter of the Australian pines that lined the beach. Our job was just to observe and let the other agencies know if any of the boats came our way.

  Two Customs agents wearing military fatigues and carrying M-16s rested on the pull-down seats in the stern. McClintoc was at the helm. Another agent manned the radios, earphones strapped to his head so that no noise escaped. The engines were shut down, and conversations were carried on in whispers.

  Sixteen thousand feet above us, the Customs Service’s P-3 aircraft circled, its radar tuned to the trawler and its pups. The aircrew could search a 200,000 square mile area every eight seconds. Tonight, it was centered on the action off Longboat Key.

  The Blue Lightning Operations Center in Miami, or BLOC as it was known to the law enforcement community, advised that the target trawler had gone stationary about twenty miles offshore of Longboat’s mid-key area. The P-3 added that five small boats had been waiting in the area for an hour or so.

  The radioman coughed quietly. “He’s dropped anchor. They’ll begin off-loading soon.”

  We waited. I could feel the tension radiating from the agents. Jock seemed unconcerned. He and I were both armed with our nine millimeters. I didn’t think we’d need them, but they gave me a sense of security.

  Time crawled, the minutes creeping by in slow motion, tension building in my chest. I was ready for action, any action, but we sat silently as my mind wandered over the landscape of the last few days. I thought about Anne, wishing she were home waiting for me, and imagining her in the arms of somebody else. I thought I had prepared myself for the end of the relationship, but I was surprised at how much it hurt. I had the fleeting thought that her life was moving on, and would be peopled with a husband, children and friends I’d never know, while my life stood still, a lonely man swirling in the eddies of years dwindling down toward oblivion.

  And the dead came to visit, as they often do in the night. Ghosts of lost soldiers danced around the edges of my consciousness, reminding me that I lived and they didn’t. My grandmother’s frying chicken crackled in my memory banks as she stood at the ancient stove in the small house where I grew up, her dark hair tied in a tight bun at the base of her neck. I thought of other friends, too; gone now into the unknowable world of death, my memory of their sojourn in life receding like the wake of a passing boat.

  The radioman’s whisper broke the silence. “They’re moving in every direction. Three are coming this way. They’ll be fast with the flat sea tonight.”

  Silence again, then from the radioman, “The P-3 advises the ones coming this way are hitting fifty knots. They’ll be here in about twenty minutes. The heat signatures say outboards, so we might not hear them until they’re on top of us. Those new four stroke engines are quiet.”

  The silence gathered again. We sat, each man lost in his own thoughts. I looked over at
Jock. He smiled, and whispered, “We’re back in action, podna.”

  More minutes passed. The radioman spoke, “P-3 says one of the boats is headed for New Pass. The other two are coming this way.”

  Adrenalin, my old friend, began to leak into my tissue. My heart rate went up. The night seemed even quieter, more intense. My ears took on an acuity I had not known since the war. I could hear birds rustling in the bushes that lined the beach just behind us. An owl cried nearby, its mournful sound signaling doom for some unsuspecting rodent. Then, far out, I heard the faint sound of powerful outboard engines.

  “They’re coming,” I said.

  “Heads up,” said McClintoc. “Turn on your night vision equipment.”

  The radar screen on the dash showed blips racing down the Gulf, heading south to pick up the Big Pass sea bouy and the channel. The heat detecting equipment was lit up by the outboards churning away at top speed.

  The blips made a sharp turn into the channel, hugging the Siesta Key shore, running northeast into Big Pass. As they came onto a more easterly course toward the bay, we could see them in the night vision goggles.

  I said, “I see a lot of people in the second boat.”

  “Got ‘em,” said McClintoc. “There’s only the driver and a rifleman in the lead boat.”

  The boats were on plane, running at top speed, the whine of their big outboards now buzzing in my ear, drowning out the sounds of the night birds. They were dark, no running lights visible. The vessels were identical, about thirty feet in length, center consoles, with big twins hanging off their transoms. No T-tops or Biminis. These were stripped down boats.

  As they came abreast of us, I could see about a dozen people sitting on the deck of the trailing boat, their heads poking above the port gunwale. A rifleman stood in the stern behind the pilot, the stock of his M-16 resting on his hip, the barrel pointing toward the sky.

  Their wakes rolled under us, tossing us a bit and straining our anchor line. The second boat peeled off, crossing the wake of the lead vessel, running on a diagonal toward the entrance to the Yacht Club channel. The first go-fast maintained a heading for Sarasota Bay.

  McClintoc put his hand on the radioman’s shoulder. “Tell Chief Lester that we’re moving into the bay, and to watch out for two coming his way from the south.”

  The big Mercs on our boat came to life, and we eased quietly out into the main channel. We could still see the lead boat heading east into the bay. His running lights popped on.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  McClintoc shrugged. “He’ll draw less attention to himself with his lights on.”

  We eased slowly into the bay itself just as the lead boat ran under the Ringling Causeway Bridge at full speed. The radioman spoke up. “Chief Lester has them both on radar and the P-3 is still tracking. The boat with the people slowed at the yacht club to clear that low bridge. Now, he’s around the City Island point and turning in tight on the channel that runs close in on the bay side of Longboat Key.”

  “Good,” said McClintoc, as he pulled the throttles back to idle position. “Let’s sit for a spell.”

  I turned to the boss. “What do you think?” I asked.

  McClintoc ignored me. Speaking to the radioman, he said, “What about the other boats?”

  “The Passage Key and Longboat Pass boats are in the main channel coming south. They just passed Sister Keys and are turning east across the top of the bay.”

  McClintoc turned to me. “I think we have four decoys. The one with the people in it is probably the one we want. Looks like he’s headed for one of the canals on Longboat. We’ll know soon.”

  McClintoc put the boat in gear, and we headed slowly under the Ringling Bridge, making our way to the intersection of New Pass and the Intracoastal channel.

  The radioman said, “Boss, the boat with the people turned into a canal in Country Club Shores. The other four boats are sitting idle at marker 15 in mid-bay. The P-3 still has the boat in the canal.”

  “Okay,” said McClintoc. “Let me know when it stops.”

  A minute of silence, two, then, “Boss, the P-3 says the boat is docked at the third house in on the south side of the canal.”

  “Are the police moving in?”

  “A Longboat officer is on routine patrol in the area. He’ll drive down the street and report back.”

  More silence. The two agents in fatigues hadn’t said a word since we boarded the boat.

  The radioman pumped his arm once in a victory salute. “Yeah! The patrolman says it’s a pretty big house with almost no lights showing. No cars in the driveway, but there’s a twenty-foot boat on a trailer parked in front of the garage. As he was leaving, a white van turned off Gulf of Mexico Drive into the neighborhood. We got ‘em.”

  “That we do,” said McClintoc, with the first smile I’d seen. “Let’s head in. Tell the chief to round up those boats at marker 15.”

  37

  THIRTY-TWO

  We pulled into Marina Jack on the Sarasota waterfront, moored the Customs boat in its slip, and climbed into a black Chevy Tahoe. The radioman and the two fatigue-clad Customs agents stayed with the boat.

  I was in the front passenger seat, and Jock sat in the back. McClintoc drove.

  I asked, “What now?”

  “We wait,” said McClintoc.

  He drove over the Ringling Bridge, cut down North Washington Drive and crossed the New Pass Bridge. “We’ll park in the Chart House’s lot and see what happens,” he said.

  The Tahoe was equipped with several radios, and I could hear the chatter from all the units involved in the operation. The P-3 reported that its infrared scanners were picking up bodies moving about the yard of the house where the go-fast was moored. The van was in the driveway, parked next to the boat resting on its trailer.

  I heard Bill Lester check in with his dispatcher. They had taken custody of the decoy boats and were taking them into the Holiday Inn Marina in Sarasota.

  A Customs Service Blackhawk helicopter had been positioned at the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport just across Highway 41 from the bay. It would be only minutes from Marker 15 and the assembled boats. Bill later told me that he’d alerted the chopper as he and two Sarasota police boats started moving toward the idling go-fasts.

  The Blackhawk was on the decoy boats before they knew what was happening. A strong spotlight beam illuminated all four craft. An air crewman used a loudspeaker to tell them not to move, or he’d blow them out of the water.

  One, perhaps a little braver or stupider than the others, shot the juice to his engines and was starting to come on plane when the door gunner on the chopper cut loose with his M-60 machine gun. Tracers pinged into the water just off the bow of the bad guy, and he immediately cut his engines and raised his hands.

  When the chief and the Sarasota boats got to the runners a couple of minutes later, the crews were all standing in their vessels with their hands raised. Bill put a cop in each boat, and had the bad guys, eight in all, handcuffed, placed in life jackets and stashed on the sole of his boat. They started the short trip to the Holiday Inn Marina.

  We sat in the Tahoe, waiting. Jock coughed, and the silence settled on us again, the only sound the low murmur of far-off voices slipping from the radio receivers.

  The radio came alive with a transmission from the P-3. “The van is loaded with people and moving. The beacon’s been activated, and we have a fix on it.”

  We watched for a minute, and then saw the van coming south on Gulf of Mexico Drive. As it passed under a street light, I could see the drivers head, framed by long blonde hair. We let it go.

  “Emilio must be all right,” Jock said. “He activated the tracking beacon.”

  I was surprised. “How did you get a tracking beacon to Emilio? Wouldn’t the immigrants have been searched?” I asked.

  “It’s about the size of a penny,” said Jock. “Very powerful, but the battery is only good for six hours or so. It was taped to the back of Emilio’s scrotum. Doub
tful anybody would look there. All he had to do to activate it was to pinch the sides of the transmitter.”

  “He’s probably damn glad to get off that trawler,” said McClintoc.

  “He’s been on the boat for a week,” said Jock. “That beacon is probably uncomfortable as hell by now. He’s supposed to stick the bug to the underside of a seat in the van.”

  We sat silently again, waiting for something to happen. Then, the disembodied voice of the P-3's radioman filled the Tahoe. “A vehicle from inside the garage is moving. We think he’s hooked up to the boat trailer in the driveway. Turning south on Gulf of Mexico Drive.”

  McClintoc stirred. “He’s coming our way,” he said. “What the hell is that all about?”

  He picked up the radio microphone and called the Sarasota PD liaison. “Can you get an unmarked to follow a vehicle pulling a boat and trailer that’ll be crossing the New Pass Bridge in about two minutes?” he asked.

  The reply came immediately. “No problem. I’ve got a car stationed on St. Armands Circle.”

  McClintoc keyed the mic again. “He’s just passing us now, headed for the New Pass Bridge. It’s an older model Ford pickup towing a twenty-foot aluminum Jon boat with a small outboard. He’s got fishing rods in the holders on the gunwales. I don’t know what this is all about, maybe nothing. Don’t stop him, but don’t let him get loose.”

  The radio crackled. “Ten-four,” the Sarasota cop said. “We’ll follow, but won’t intercept without your word.”

  Such a boat would not draw much attention after it left Longboat Key. There were thousands just like it all over the west coast of Florida. They were cheap, and workingmen who liked to fish could afford them.

  Jock said, “I wonder if they’re using the boat to haul the drugs. Diaz said they used the illegals as cover on the trawler. Maybe they’re keeping the drugs and the illegals separate now.”