Betrayed in the Keys Read online

  Glancing to his right, Shadow spotted an English officer zeroing in on one of his men from behind. Shoving Gray aside, he grabbed his last remaining flintlock, took aim, and pulled the trigger just as the officer was about to stab his sword through the air. The bullet struck him in the chest, blood spraying out his back as he collapsed to the deck.

  Shadow had saved the man’s life, but not without cost. As he turned back to engage Gray, the Valiant’s captain swung his sword violently through the air, slicing a gash across Shadow’s chest. Shadow’s body twisted and he fell to the deck, the pain being too much to bear.

  Gray stepped towards him and, calling upon all of his remaining strength, Shadow grabbed his rapier from the deck. Slicing it as hard as he could through the air, Shadow caught Gray off guard and cut a deep gash in the captain’s left leg just below the knee. Gray let out a loud and powerful scream as he fell on top of Shadow, blood gushing out of his leg.

  Still holding tight to his sword, Gray held it up against Shadow’s neck and looked deep into his eyes.

  “You and your crew are dead,” Gray said. “You have been defeated.”

  Shadow’s face shifted away from anger in an instant, and the pirate captain laughed maniacally.

  “Even if you kill me,” Shadow said, “you will never find my treasure.”

  The English captain grunted, then reared back and swung his sword as hard as he could towards Shadow. At the last second, Shadow gripped the dagger from his waistband and blocked the blow, the two blades colliding with an ear-shattering clank. The two captains’ faces were only inches apart as they scowled at each other.

  “You could search for ten lifetimes,” Shadow said, “and you would never find it.”

  A deafening explosion rattled the air and shook the deck beneath them. Their eyes gravitated towards the Crescent, where the explosion had come from. The hundred-foot schooner had been torn to shreds by cannon fire, and the explosion had come from below its decks and nearly split the ship in two. Water flowed into its hull from all sides, and it was clear that the ocean would claim it in a matter of seconds.

  Shadow knew what had happened. With the pirates on the verge of defeat, one of his men had lit the powder kegs, creating a massive explosion that had destroyed the Crescent from the inside. It was a last-ditch effort to keep their ship out of enemy hands.

  The explosion infuriated Gray, even though the pirates were down to their last men. The battle was over, but Gray wasn’t just interested in taking them down. No, he wanted their ship, and above all else, he wanted their treasure.

  Casting his gaze back down towards a bleeding Shadow, Gray brought his sword back and swung it down as hard as he could. Shadow tried to deflect the blow again with his dagger, but the force was too great and it knocked his only weapon out of his hands. As the dagger tumbled over the gunwale and splashed into the water below, Gray yelled another curse and stabbed Shadow through the heart without a moment’s hesitation.

  Air burst from Shadow’s lungs, and his eyes grew wide. Death was upon him. He could feel the life draining from his body with every passing second. Tilting his head to the right, he watched as his ship was swallowed by the sea. He felt a stiff breeze against his face, then his head dropped and his eyes closed, never to open again.

  ONE

  Key West

  February 2009

  I spent hours examining the old dagger, admiring its craftsmanship and condition long after the orange sun sank into the Gulf of Mexico. The blade was dull, and I slid my hands over its intricate details, from its worn tip down to its golden hilt. Sitting on the sunbed of my forty-eight-foot Baia Flash, I took in a deep breath of fresh tropical air and set the dagger on the ivory-colored cushion beside me.

  The moon was nearly full, and it cast a silvery polish over the still waters of Conch Harbor Marina and the open ocean beyond. Countless questions filled my mind, the most prominent one being, who was Beatrice Taylor—the woman whose name was elegantly carved into the dagger’s hilt? I’d been told that it had been found by accident by a local shrimper, and I couldn’t help but wonder what else might be resting at the bottom at the location where it had been discovered.

  “Are you gonna stare at that all night?” Angelina said, appearing from inside the salon and snapping me from my thoughts.

  Angelina Fox was tall, athletic, and stunningly beautiful. She had long blond hair, smooth tanned skin, and blue eyes that seemed to pull you in and capture you in their spell. But despite her supermodel looks, she was also a highly trained fighter and one of the deadliest snipers in the world.

  I glanced over my shoulder and smiled at her. “I guess I have stared at it long enough, haven’t I?”

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess you were trying to summon a genie.”

  She moved alongside the sunbed, her bare feet seeming to hover over the deck as she plopped down beside me and grabbed the dagger. She was wearing a colorful sundress instead of her typical denim shorts and tee shirt.

  “Where did Chris say he found it?” she asked while looking it over.

  “He didn’t find it. It was his uncle. And he wasn’t very specific, unfortunately.”

  Chris Hale was a friend of mine who I’d met under unfortunate circumstances during Tropical Storm Fay. His family’s yacht had crashed into Loggerhead Key in Dry Tortugas, and I’d spent two days on the island, protecting his family from a Cuban gang leader hell-bent on murdering them. I hadn’t seen Chris or his wife and daughters for half a year, until they’d pulled into the marina and moored just down the dock from me earlier today. By way of thanking me for saving them, Chris had given me the dagger and told me it had been found by his uncle and given to him as part of his inheritance.

  A second later, Ange slid off the sunbed and jumped to her feet. Holding the dagger in her right hand, she swung it through the air like a buccaneer, then brought her eyes over to meet mine.

  “Don’t tell me that you’d rather sit and stare at this knife all night than take me out on the town,” she said, exaggeratedly fluttering her eyelashes at me.

  I shook my head, then slid my bare feet onto the deck, stood tall, and pulled her in close. “Wouldn’t even think about it.”

  I placed my hand against her cheek and kissed her softly. A few minutes later, I’d changed into a fresh tee shirt, along with socks and a pair of black Converse low-tops. I locked up the Baia and turned on the security system, and we headed down the dock towards the waterfront.

  I usually didn’t like to go out on the town when there was a cruise ship moored. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy good nightlife. In fact, one of the reasons I’d chosen Key West as opposed to other towns I loved in the Keys was its notorious crazy side. But when a cruise ship pulled in and thousands of tourists came ashore, they clashed with the thousands of tourists who’d driven down from the mainland and made it difficult to get a table or order a drink at many of the local joints, especially along the waterfront and on the famous Duval Street. But Ange really wanted to try out a place called Tipsy Turvy, a local bar she’d read about in some magazine that apparently had a really good vibe.

  It was a Friday night, and the wild tropical paradise was buzzing with life. Just a few blocks from the marina, we were met with crowds of tourists that filled the sidewalks and intermixed with everyone from human statues to acrobatic dancers and a few guys dressed up and walking around on stilts. Live music played from every street corner and almost every restaurant, creating a blended symphony of Buffett, the Beach Boys, and Jack Johnson.

  Most tourists come down in the winter months, primarily December through February, to escape the northern cold. While much of the country is dealing with snow-covered driveways and iced-over windshields, the Keys boast an average high of seventy-five degrees. Throw in beautiful white sandy beaches, incredible fishing, and some of the best seafood around, and you get thousands hopping on a plane or driving hours to feel the lower-latitude sunshine.

  Less than five minutes af
ter leaving the marina, we spotted a lively bar with the name Tipsy Turvy in bright red neon letters hanging over the entrance. People were overflowing out both the street entrance and the entrance along the waterfront, but that didn’t dissuade Ange in the slightest.

  “Buy me a drink, sailor?” she said, shooting me a captivating smile.

  My hand clasped hers as I smiled back, stepping up onto the old maple hardwood floor and into the cluster of people. We found a pair of open stools near the end of the bar and plopped down onto the blue cushions. The bartender, a purple-haired woman with tattoos up both arms, asked us what we’d be having, and a few minutes later, she set our drinks on the rustic counter.

  “You sure you don’t want to sit on one of those?” Ange asked, a childlike grin on her face as she nodded at a few stools down the bar from us. They were the embarrassing kind you usually see in tropical tourist destinations around the world, with plastic bikini butt cheeks sticking out the back, complete with chipped paint and all.

  “A man like me can only handle so much,” I said. I grabbed my mojito and chimed the glass against the rim of Ange’s mai tai. After we both took a long pull, my eyes focused on a shirtless beer bellied drunk guy wearing a green Dr. Seuss–style hat.

  Ange laughed when she saw my expression and said, “Well, thank you for humoring me tonight. I realize this isn’t your typical scene.”

  I kissed her on the cheek, then took a few glances around the room and spotted a dark-haired young girl with freckles sitting at a table with three preppy-looking guys wearing polo and button-up shirts. They were sitting on the far side of the room, and my view was constantly being obstructed by passing people, but something about the way that they interacted seemed off.

  “You’d better get to drinking if you’re gonna keep up with me tonight,” Ange said.

  I shook myself from my thoughts, turned to look at her and saw that her glass, which had been full only seconds earlier, was now empty. She looked at the bartender and added, “I’ll have another, please.”

  “I think I’m gonna take it easy tonight,” I said, nursing my favorite drink.

  Ange chuckled. “You? Take it easy? I’ll believe that when I see it. What’s on your mind, anyway? Thinking about that old dagger?”

  “Yeah. And what else we might find down there. I feel like there’s a whole story here just waiting to be told.”

  The waitress returned with another mai tai, and Ange wrapped her right hand around it, raised it in the air beside me, and said, “To the ocean’s booty.”

  I laughed, grabbed my mojito and chimed the glass against hers.

  “That’s not the only booty I’ll drink to.”

  I killed the rest of it with one long pull, then set it back on the counter. Uncontrollably, my eyes gravitated back towards the young woman and the three guys at the other side of the bar. I got the overwhelming sense that something wasn’t right. It came from years of working in dangerous situations around the world. Whether I wanted it to or not, every time I stepped into a public place, my mind went to work, sizing up the place and everyone in it.

  The girl, though smiling at times, had a faint look of fear in her eyes. And the three guys were so loud and obnoxious that I could hear a few of their words over the crowd between us. I glanced over a few times over the next half hour, observing them carefully. Just as I finished my second mojito, I noticed one of the guys reach into his pocket. Like the other guys, he had a clean-cut look to him. He had short brown hair and was wearing a light blue polo shirt.

  I continued to watch as the intoxicated young woman looked the other way and the guy who’d reached for his pocket snatched her drink from the table. His action was blocked by a passing group of retirees, but I knew what he did. The look on his face after he set the drink back in front of the young woman, urging her to drink, said it all.

  I turned back towards the bar, shook my head slightly and glanced at Ange, who was about to finish her fourth drink.

  “Something seems off about that group,” she said. Then she turned, looked across the room and added, “There were three girls with them when we walked in.”

  I nodded, and when our eyes met, Ange saw the fire burning within mine.

  “That guy with the polo shirt just slipped her something,” I said.

  Ange’s face went from curious to hell-hath-no-fury rage in a microsecond. Without a moment’s hesitation, her eyes narrowed like a mama bear watching some stranger mess with her cubs, and she sprang from the barstool, causing it to tilt over and rattle onto the floor.

  I stood beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. Ange had kept me in check many times before, but now it was my turn to be the reasonable one. Something about seeing a helpless young woman being taken advantage of by a group of guys tipped her off the deep end in a hurry. I felt a surge of rage burning within me as well but managed to keep my head level.

  “Wait,” I said, but she brushed it off.

  “Screw that,” she said. “Those punks will be lucky if they can still stand when I’m through with them.”

  “Not here,” I said, raising my voice. She stopped and sighed, and I continued, “One of them has a switchblade, and who knows what else they might have?” She gave me a who-the-hell-cares look, and I scanned around the bar. “We can’t risk anyone else getting hurt.”

  I knew that there was only a microscopic chance that the punks could pose even the slightest challenge for Ange and me, but we didn’t know them and, more importantly, we didn’t know if they were armed with something a little more dangerous than a knife. Killing someone with a gun from point-blank range doesn’t exactly require a lot of skill. And even though Ange and I were both armed, I didn’t want to give them any sort of fighting chance.

  She shrugged, the ripples around her eyes relaxing a little. “What do you want to do? Just take them out back and lay into them?”

  “Exactly. Just like that time in Bogotá.”

  She paused for a moment as she remembered the incident a few years back.

  “Okay,” she said. “But this time, we strike first.”

  We stared at the group intently, watching as the three guys rose to their feet. They brought the young woman up by lifting under her arms and laughed amongst themselves as they ushered her through the cluster of people, tables, and chairs.

  “Okay,” I said, moving past Ange. “Time to put an end to this.”

  TWO

  As I suspected, the group of guys were leading the intoxicated and drugged young woman to the side door. I headed for the back, moving swiftly through a sea of tables, chairs, waitresses, and people standing and watching a soccer game and golf highlights on the flat-screens. Near the back, I moved past two rows of crowded pool tables and out a pair of back doors that were propped open with a flowerpot.

  The bar had a few outdoor tables, and there was an intense game of cornhole taking place just outside the doors. Less than fifty feet from the back of the bar was the dark ocean, and I could hear the soft crashing of waves against the boardwalk. Just a short walk down the waterfront was the Mallory Square Pier, where a large cruise ship was moored.

  I hooked a sharp left, moving towards the side of the bar, where the group of guys were leading the woman. The side door led out to a small open space between the bar and the restaurant beside it, and the space was filled with dumpsters and a few chairs for people to take their smoke breaks. It was quieter over there, but I wasn’t standing for very long before the muffled sounds from inside the bar instantly grew louder as the old metal door creaked open in front of me.

  The big guy came through first, carrying a large glass of half-drunk beer in one hand, a sick smile plastered across his face. Next came the two other guys, who moved on either side of the young girl, practically carrying her as her feet dragged loosely and took the occasional struggled attempt at a step.

  The big guy’s smile vanished in an instant as he looked up and saw me standing in front of them. I stared back into his cocky, preda
torial eyes, letting him see the rage burning within me.

  “Let her go,” I said, my voice low and powerful.

  The group stopped and looked me over with their mostly intoxicated eyes.

  “Piss off,” the fat one said.

  They took a step towards me and I placed a hand in the air.

  “Look,” I said. “You three are gonna let her go one way or another. That’s a fact. The only question is how many broken bones you’re each gonna have by the time you do.”

  The guys froze for a moment, then looked at each other and laughed. Then the fat one took a step towards me and said, “Maybe you didn’t hear me, dumbass. But I told you to piss off.”

  As his blood started to boil, I kept a calm, stern voice and said, “I’m betting on close to ten broken bones between the three of you. What do you think, Ange?”

  Ange, who had exited right behind the group without the guys noticing, was standing against the wall beside the door.

  “That’s way too low,” she said loudly, causing the three guys to turn around like spooked deer. She moved away from the wall towards the group and added, “I’m gonna break over five of this little preppy punk’s alone. I’d say closer to twenty.”

  The startled guys looked back and forth between myself and Ange, the two in the back keeping the girl held up.

  “On second thought,” the tall, skinny guy said, speaking for the first time, “just you piss off, asshole.” He pointed at me, then turned back to look at Ange. “Your girlfriend can stay. In fact, I think I’d like to get her a drink.”

  I took a big stride towards the group, having had enough of their crap.

  “Alright,” I said. “This is your last chance. Either you guys let her go, or you’ll be spending the next few weeks in a hospital.”