The Water Keeper(57)
My friend the mechanic was asleep on a cot in his office. When I walked in, he sat up and wiped his eyes. His hands were paws with layers of muscle. He stood, and I followed him to an enclosed boathouse. Gone Fiction sat floating beautifully. An aqua teal color. He had yet to wrap the T-top and motor, but he was close. He’d be finished by morning.
I pointed at his truck. “I need another lift.”
He tossed me the keys to his Tacoma. “It’s yours. Take it.”
“Not sure when I’m getting back. And I don’t want to hold you up. You mind chauffeuring? I’ll pay.”
He laid down a box cutter he’d been using to cut the wrap around the motor housing, rubbed his eyes, and smiled. “You’ve paid me enough. I’ll drive.”
He drove us five miles and dropped us off at a secure storage building. The kind where you plug in your code to get in, another to get through a second door, and a third to ride the elevator. Summer watched me punch in the numbers at three different points of entry, and then a fourth as I entered the combination to my climate-controlled unit. I swung the door open, she walked inside, and I clicked on the light, locking the door behind me.
Summer stared at the contents with an open mouth.
Scuba gear, clothing, costumes, weapons, ammunition, fishing gear, medical and trauma supplies, a couple paddle boards, two motorcycles, a Toyota truck, a mountain of tools, and a small skiff called a Hell’s Bay. I also kept a cot. Having a safe place to sleep could be a comfort sometimes.
She slowly scanned the inside. When her eyes came to rest on the weapons hanging on the wall, she asked, “What are you doing with all this?”
“For a multitude of reasons, South Florida is a launching point for both human and sex trafficking. Water ports, international airports, density of population, and otherworldly wealth are just a few. Because of this, I’ve worked a lot down here. Hence the storage unit.” I paused. “I have five others scattered up the East Coast. A couple more dotted around the country.”
She turned in a circle and said nothing.
The BMW 1250 GS is an adventure bike, made famous in several extreme documentaries for its abilities under any condition. Bikes such as this one have crossed continents, mountains, deserts, and rivers—all under the worst conditions possible. A chameleon on two wheels, it’s meant for both highway and off-road use—which I had a feeling would come in handy. Truth be told, I’m not a big fan of motorcycles, but they do serve a purpose. If we found Angel, we would need the truck, but I had a feeling that to get where we might need to get, we’d need the motorcycle.
I rolled the bike outside and gave her a helmet. She pointed at my phone. “What about . . . ?”
“You should probably listen to him.”
She strapped on the helmet and swung a leg over. “Not likely.”
Five minutes later we were rolling west on 98 to the southern tip of Lake Okeechobee. Just south of the lake, we turned due south on 27 to the Miccosukee Casino and then west on 41. The road is bordered on either side by canals, which are part of the intricate network of the more than eight hundred square miles called the Everglades.
Had it not been so dark, Summer would have seen some of the thousands of alligators floating at surface level, or possibly a few of the hundreds of thousands of pythons and boa constrictors that now fill the Glades. The alligators are native; the snakes not so much. In the last few decades, a couple of hurricanes have leveled parts of Miami and the surrounding areas. Including pet shops. When rising storm waters filled the shops, the snakes slithered out and found a natural home in the Glades’ eternal sea of grass, where they have repopulated with a vengeance. Some are now large enough to eat an entire deer. Whole.
We passed Everglades Safari Park, and then the somber reminder of the ValuJet Flight 592 Memorial. We passed through the Miccosukee Indian Village and then north onto the limestone road paralleling the L-28 Canal Eden Station. We traveled on the limestone-dusted road for nearly thirty minutes when both the road and the canal abruptly ended. A thin trail with fresh four-wheel drive tracks continued northeast. In winter, the Glades are a markedly different place than spring or summer. The normally wet ground dries up to a hardpack surface. Much of the actual surface is limestone. It’s tough, unforgiving, and will cut right through a shoe or a motorcycle tire. Winter also means the mosquitoes have taken a nap. Albeit brief. They don’t really go anywhere; they’re just not as angry as in the summer months when it is literally impossible to stand outside at sundown.
We followed the trail as indicated by my GPS and the coordinates of Angel’s phone. It ended on a dirt road with no name. This area of South Florida forms the northern boundary of the Everglades, and it does so through a series of hundreds of man-made canals that literally drain the state. On a map, it looks like a sheet of graph paper with the lines being the canals. That allows it to drain effectively but makes it tough to navigate if you don’t know which roads cross which canals via bridges and which roads end in cul-de-sacs. It’s like one giant corn maze.
And I didn’t know the secret.
Which meant I had wasted a lot of time trying to figure it out.
I cut the engine and the lights and allowed my eyes and ears to adjust. In the distance, maybe a mile away, I saw lights flickering. I motioned and Summer and I advanced at an idle up the limestone path, making me thankful for the motorcycle. Canals lined both sides, teeming with reptiles of every shape and size. I was careful to keep my light shining downward and not let it venture toward the water’s edge. The moment it lit on the eyes staring back at us—there were probably a hundred pairs watching our approach—I knew I’d be wearing Summer like a backpack. Some things are better left unknown.