“Oh, we’re not going to fuck with the Oyebanjos. We want to do a very good job to please them so we get future business. But we don’t have to tell them what happened down here in the Keys.”
“No, we don’t want them to know about any of this.”
“We want no one to know about this. Now let’s get to the airport and take that chopper back to Miami.”
* * *
About the time Vlad and Derek landed in a helicopter at Mobile Marine Helipad in Bayside Marketplace in downtown Miami, Jack’s Learjet touched down at Opa-locka Executive Airport northwest of Miami.
The plane taxied to the squat terminal building and the steward lowered the gangway.
“Have a good day, Ms. Fuentes, Mr. St. Clair.”
“Thanks very much.”
Jack shook hands with the pilot and co-pilot and thanked them before following Babe down the gangway.
Getting off the plane into a brilliantly clear and sunny December day, they saw Gargrave waiting for them with Rafael and Antonia, all of them standing in front of Jack’s Bell 206L-4 LongRanger. The steward aboard the Learjet brought their bags down and took them over to the chopper.
“Hello, Gargrave,” said Babe.
“Miss Fuentes,” he replied.
“Hi, Antonia,” Babe said, kissing her sister on the cheek. She quickly gave Rafael a kiss as well. “Hello, stud.”
“Welcome to the family,” said Jack, kissing Antonia on the cheek.
Rafael laughed as he shook hands with Jack.
“Just following in my brother’s footsteps,” said Rafael.
“Too bad you couldn’t have been at that party last night in Washington,” said Babe.
“I wanted to come up, but Rafael was at sea,” said Antonia.
“Yeah, we just pulled in this morning,” said Rafael.
“You guys missed some kind of party, didn’t they, Jack?”
Jack thought about everything that had happened last night at Patricia Vaughan’s party.
President Norwalk’s aide for congressional liaison, Phil Slanetti, had told him that Congressman-elect Matt Hawkins of Wyoming was looking like he might be one of the crucial votes Jack’s dad needed to win the vote in the House of Representatives to be the next President when the new Congress convened in January. Slanetti wanted Jack to use “whatever influence” he could to bring Matt over, as he now supported the Democratic candidate, Senator Frederick Thurston, over Jack’s dad. All this because Jack had befriended the newly arrived congressman-elect and played handball with him.
Quite by accident, he’d also found out that Matt was sleeping with their hostess, Patricia Vaughan, and that Matt’s wife Sue knew nothing about it.
Before he knew that Matt was sleeping with Patricia, Jack had nonchalantly invited Matt to visit Flagler Hall sometime in what he thought would be the far-distant future. But when Bedelia Vaughan, Patricia’s mother-in-law, had said she wanted to visit Jack’s step-mother, Sofia, ill with cancer, Jack offered to give her a ride to Miami in his dad’s plane, Matt had suggested that would be a good time for him to take up Jack’s offer to visit St. Clair Island as well. So it looked like all roads were leading to Miami.
He wondered what else had happened at the party that he didn’t know about. It was scary to contemplate.
“Yeah, they missed quite a party, all right.”
“Let’s get going,” said Babe. “I want to go for a swim.”
“I’ll ride in the front with Gargrave. Got a couple of things to go over with him.”
Jack was glad Rafael and Antonia had come out. They would keep Babe diverted so he could talk to Gargrave.
It had only been yesterday morning when he and Gargrave had been in the Keys following Derek Gilbertson and Vlad Kucherov as they tailed the ill-fated Omer Flores and Laurencio Duarte down to the site of the sunken Mirta off Fort Jefferson and waited for them to leave the scene before moving in with three fishing boats to haul up the money before the bad guys came back the next day.
Jack climbed into the front seat and put on his headset. He caught Gargrave’s eye as Gargrave powered up the chopper. He nodded to the rear cabin and pointed to his headset. Gargrave flipped a switch and then spoke into his headset as the whirring blade made anything they said inaudible except through the headsets.
“They can’t hear us, but I can here them if they use their headsets,” said Gargrave.
“Good. Give me a full report.”
“After you left to go to Washington for the party, we got most of the money and made it back to Big Pine Key a little after sunset. Everything went like clockwork. Camilo will oversee a team that will inventory the money and have his men guard it till you decide what to do with it. It takes up a lot of space.”
“Yeah. I’m not even sure who owns the money, legally, I mean.”
“I’ll do the research. I suppose the government has some kind of claim.”
“I’m not recognizing the Federal government’s claim to this money. It’s illegal drug money. They don’t have any more right to it than we do.”
“Part of the money was Derek’s.”
“Yeah—$20 million, either drug money or Medicare money or whatever the hell. I don’t recognize his claim, either.”
“What do you want to do with it, sir?”
“I don’t want Camilo to be stuck with it.”
“No, sir.”
“What about that safe room below my house?”
“Nobody ever goes there, and it does have four large rooms.”
“Yeah. You change the canned food every couple of years, right?”
“Yes, sir, and make sure the batteries and water supplies haven’t expired.”
“Why don’t we put it there?”
“That would work.”
“Tell Camilo that we’ll make one trip a week up in one my boats so the Secret Service won’t stop it for anything.”
“And we can off-load the bundles quietly, a
