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lightly, getting pulled out. Then he made sure the gate was open as the line
of boats slowly motored out towards the intercoastal waterway.
He wasn't sure where they were going but he hoped that nobody got in their
way.
* * *
"We will go very slow," Vil said. He'd donned the standard team headset as had
the other drivers. "Very very slow."
"Where are we going?" Clarn Ferani asked.
"A bar," Vil said.
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* * *
Randy Holterman sat at the Caribbean Sports Bar and Grill and considered
whether he was making one fucking huge mistake.
The former PO had been a FAST boat driver with the Norfolk Underwater Support
Group up until about a year before. The reality was that while FAST was the
shit, the guys they were supposed to support, SEALs and very rarely Delta,
hardly ever used them anymore. Most of the ops that Norfolk supported were in
Europe and Africa. And nobody had used a FAST in operations in a couple of
years.
So when his reenlistment date came up he got out and turned his car south for
Florida.
His rep as a former FAST driver had gotten him a gig as a mate on a dive boat
which gave him time to get his civilian captain's license. The combination had
him doing gigs as a part time captain, filling in for guys who had been around
for a while. He'd figured out the deal, you worked your way up in the local
community, you learned the fishing waters and eventually made enough to get a
boat. Maybe you got picked up by some guy with money who had the sense to know
he needed a captain. You networked.
You built customers. In the meantime, you got a lot of water time which was
the name of the game.
Randy was an easy-going guy and he got along with the customers so he was
doing well there. But he was a long way from his own boat. Not a good one. He
wanted either a good solid yacht or a fast fisher.
And that was serious money. You had to show you had a business before you
could get the financing on one. Randy figured five years.
Then he got a call.
"Captain Randy, the fish are here, where are you?"
"Randall Holterman?" the woman had asked. Foreign accent, Slavic probably.
"That's me," he said, trying to figure out which payment he was behind on.
"Mr. Holterman, my employer would like to retain your services for up to two
weeks. Are you available?"
"I don't know," Randy said, thinking about his schedule. He had lots of things
going on over the next two weeks; you stayed busy or you got poor quick. But
nothing he couldn't slide to somebody else if the money was right. "That would
depend upon the nature of the job and the price. If he wants to go fishing for
a couple of weeks. . ."
"That is not the nature of the job," the woman had said. "He has some
employees who need training in handling small boats. Fast boats."
Randy's alarm bells started ringing hard at that. There was only one group in
south Florida that had multiple fast boats and people that needed to learn how
to use them. Racing teams, well, they didn't need trainers. And nobody had
multiple boats and needed a trainer except druggies. Randy didn't really give
a shit about the running, but he also didn't want to end up with a Colombian
neck-tie, also known as having your throat cut and your tongue dragged out of
the hole to hang down in front.
"Not interested," he said.
"I suspect you think we are drug runners," the girl had said. "Very far from
the case, Petty Officer. We obtained your name from your service record, not
from 'the street' as you would say. The vig, as my employer would put it, is
twenty thousand dollars. It can be in cash if you so desire. Oh, and at the
completion of our stay here, one of the boats is yours."
"What kind of boats?" Randy asked.
"I do not know," the girl said. "I am only told they are very fast 'cigarette'
type boats."
"Jesus," Randy said. Anything along the lines would set her "employer" back a
hundred and fifty, two hundred big ones. The pay was peanuts compared to
getting a boat like that as a fucking tip. "You're sure you're not drug
runners?"
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"Quite," the girl said, chuckling. "We are in, as you say, the other war."
Randy frowned at that and then nodded.
"Which side?" he asked. There had to be a catch.
"The side of the angels, Petty Officer," the girl said, placatingly. "Truly,
we need your expertise. Are you in?"
I'm going to regret this.
"I'm in."
So here he was, eating a cheeseburger and nursing an overpriced but really
fucking good Mountain Tiger beer while watching the sun slowly sinking towards
the yard arm. Two o'clock in other words. Whatever you could say about the
gig, whoever these fuckers were, sitting on a dock, eating a burger, beer in
hand, watching the intercoastal on a balmy day in a Florida winter, well, that
weren't bad.
He didn't know who, exactly, he was meeting. Not even any names. No names at
all, in fact. All he'd been told was that there would be five boats, "fast
boats". Five turning up all at once, well, he'd be able to figure out who that
was.
And sure enough, here they came, motoring along in a straggling line and
really slow. Not even idling.
Lug speed, that spot where a boat still wasn't planing but it was digging up
one monster wake, nose pointed at the sky. It was just. . . ugly.
But, Oh, My, God, the boats! A couple of them were in rough shape, one was a
Cig 36 circa 99 if he was right, and the Nordic had seen better days. But the
lead was a practically mint fucking Fountain
Lightning 42! He'd nearly fainted when he saw one at a show; the fucker
smoked. Reggie Fountain made
"the fastest, safest boats on the water." Just ask him. Not to mention some of
the most luxurious. Forget two hundred bills, the Fountain was closer to three
quarter mil and worth every penny. God, if only he got to choose. He didn't
even care if it had the full racing pack. Fuck selling it, too. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]