The Pirate

By Malcolm Torres

Jack Turner is The Pirate. He's a former LA skate punk turned Coast Guard deckhand. He's a loveable knucklehead with a sordid past, but he's trying to get on the straight and narrow.

As a teenager growing up in Los Angeles, he was arrested for stealing a car, but a lenient judge allowed him to avoid probation if he agreed to join the Coast Guard.

On his first assignment after boot camp, Jack is aboard a ship patrolling the Caribbean for smugglers. He knows he has an opportunity to turn his life around. But, when he discovers easy access to large quantities of seized contraband, Jack starts playing a dangerous game on both sides of the law. Quickly he finds himself torn between easy illegal money and a new found loyalty to his ship, her crew and their captain. Oh, and his girlfriend Wendy from back in LA -- she has news for Jack that he is struggling to believe.

"This story turns everything you ever thought about law enforcement upside down and inside out. It's totally believable but probably not for those who like their good guys good and their bad guys bad. At one point or another I was either hating or loving the main character but it didn't really matter because I was reading as fast as I could to find out what would happen next." Amazon Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Malcolm Torres
• Release date: Mar 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9780986022937

Malcolm Torres

If you like adventure, crime, science fiction and horror set aboard ships at sea and in ports of call, then you'll like Malcolm Torres.After serving in the Navy he went to college in Boulder, Colorado where he read novels and wrote stories. Over the years he's paid the bills by working as a cook, a teacher and a project manager.Malcolm's writing has appeared in the Viking Monthly, the Colorado Daily and High Times. He is a scuba diver, a sailor of small boats, a mountain bike rider, a downhill skier and a golf addict. He lives in the forest outside Portland, Oregon.Connect with Malcolm on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogger @seastoriesandsciencefiction.For old time and original stories, try the Sea Stories and Science Fiction Podcast available on all podcast apps and websites.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Six months after joining the Coast Guard, Jack Turner is standing lookout with a pair of binoculars on the bow of the cutter Allmayer. They are 45 nautical miles south of Key West, Florida. He scans the sea slowly as he was trained to do during his recent boot camp and seamanship course. He is looking for boats and ships or rafts. His position on the ship's bow affords him a circular view to all points on the compass. They’ve been at sea for three days and all they’ve seen are cruise ships, oil drilling platforms and a few deep-sea fishing charter boats.

The cutter’s bow rises out of the water. The humid breeze blows in Jack Turner’s face. Then the cutter crashes down between the swells and salty water blasts up around him.

The watch leader had stuck Jack Turner out on the bow because Jack didn’t get sea sick when the ship left port and began tossing about on rough blue water. And Jack already had a deep tan, so there was no risk of sunburn. During his four-hour watches, Jack put his ball cap over his crewcut, clamped the headset over his ears and braced the steel toes of his boots against the scuppers. He rode the bow up and down, scanning the open sea, and checking in via radio every few minutes with the watch leader on the bridge.

He hadn't seen any rafts even though the watch leader had made a big deal about keeping a sharp eye out for rafts. The watch leader said he had seen many rafts over the years. They were loaded with Cuban or Haitian refugees. He’d said it was the Coast Guard’s job to turn them back. The watch leader also stressed that Jack should look out for speedboats and low flying planes because they might be drug runners. They'd call in a low flying plane and let the DEA go after them, but speedboats they'd intercept and do a board and search. The watch leader said DEA stood for Drug Enforcement Administration.

With fifteen minutes until his watch is over, Jack wonders what they are serving in the kitchen for dinner. Then he remembers he isn’t supposed to say, ‘in the kitchen for dinner.’ He reminds himself that he’s supposed to be wondering, ‘What kind of chow are they serving in the galley?’

Jack lowers his binoculars and looks down at the sea sweeping past below the ship's railing. He sees his boots wedged against the scupper. He has to admit he doesn’t mind being in the Coast Guard even though he'd never considered military service, not until the police arrested him for stealing a car in Los Angeles, that is. The judge offered him military service instead of probation. His court appointed lawyer called it the jailbird program and encouraged him to take it. Get out of LA, the lawyer said. You're only eighteen years old. Do something with your life, the lawyer said. Wouldn't you rather be in the Army or the Navy than on probation?

Jack wasn't sure at first. He was such a knucklehead. He had laid in bed in his aunt’s basement, where he’d lived since he was twelve years old, and he thought being on probation would give him street cred'. Being on probation would make him look tough among his friends who were a bunch of knuckleheads just like him. Looking back, Jack realized all they did was peer-pressured each other into petty crime and drugs, that is when they weren't riding skateboards or windsurfing or playing X-Box.

Jack looks down at his black boots and his blue uniform. He sees his name, TURNER, embroidered over the Coast Guard logo on his right breast pocket. He feels, ever so tentatively, that he is starting to belong to something. He belongs to the US government, that’s for certain, but he belongs to something else. He belongs to the ship's crew of men and women. They are from all over the US and most of them are from a similar background—divorced or no parents. Most have a high school diploma or a GED. The smart ones have a few college credits. Prior to signing up and swearing in most of them had no prospects, no plans at all. Back in California, living in his aunt’s basement, under her dilapidated ranch house in Carson, a Los Angeles suburb, Jack never thought beyond the next weekend. He was making a thousand dollars here and there stealing cars and SUVs, selling them to a chop shop in Compton. He thought he had it made. Then he fell for a glossy green Honda Civic that turned out to be a bait car. He remembered popping the driver’s side door with his Slim-Jim and going to work on the ignition. Suddenly two LAPD cops and a Channel-7 news crew surrounded the car. Guns drawn. Cameras rolling. After they put the cuffs on him, the girl who had been holding the pole with the microphone on the end told him, See yourself on TV this Thursday night at 6 and 10.

He focuses the binoculars on the horizon, zooms in on a faint white contrail at one o'clock. A couple miles away. He stares for a moment, but it’s gone. Maybe it’s nothing. Probably just the wind blowing the top off a big wave.

He lowers the binoculars and looks down just as two dolphins break the surface and leap through the air together before plunging back beneath the waves.

He remembers seeing dolphins a few times when he was learning to windsurf back in California before he joined the Coast Guard.

Again, the dolphins shoot from the water racing just ahead of the ship. Their dark skin, sleek fins and tails. They are leaping out of the sea right before his eyes. He knows, but isn't sure how he knows, seeing dolphins jumping ahead of the ship is good luck. He thinks maybe he’s channeling some ancient mariner energy there on the bow of the ship. He wonders what good fortune lays ahead for him.

And that's when he looks thorough the binoculars and sees the white spray on the horizon again. It’s a speedboat. Moving fast.

Mashing the transmit button on his radio, Jack says, Watch leader, bow watch, I have a bogie at one o'clock.

Roger, bow watch, keep 'em in sight.

A few seconds later the ship's public address system, with speakers in every compartment and on all the exterior decks, announces, Launch the alert helo'. Now launch the alert helo'.

Jack knows the pilot and the aircrew are already sitting in the helicopter on the small flight deck on the Allmayer's aft end because he immediately hears it firing up its engines. A low whirr grows louder and louder and the thwock, thwock, thwock sound of its rotating blades echoes off the ship’s metal decks. Jack smiles at the realization that he has kicked off a board and search mission. The metal deck begins to vibrate because down below they’ve fired up the engines and put the ship in high gear. In the blue sky, the helicopter shoots past. Jack sees the pilot's helmet as he speaks into a mic wrapped in front of his mouth. And to his surprise, Jack hears the pilot say, I've got a visual on the speeder at twelve o'clock, over. Two aircrew crouch in the helicopter’s open side door as it takes off across the blue sky growing smaller each second.

Bow watch, keep an eye on that speeder, the bridge watch's voice crackles in his headset.

Roger, he's at twelve o'clock, dead ahead, Jack reports and sees that the ship and the helicopter are both making a beeline straight for the speedboat.

We've got a runner, the pilot's voice in Jack’s headset, followed by several verbal interactions between the bridge watch and the helicopter pilot. Being new to the Coast Guard, on his first actual deployment at sea, Jack doesn’t understand it all exactly. Between bursts of static there are short terse statements between men and women. Jack listens and understands that the speedboat is trying to run away and the helicopter is now authorized by the captain to go after it. The Allmayer is speeding up as fast as it can and something else about how far they are from Key West. Jack is surprised to hear that a DEA helicopter might be scrambled to help intercept. There is also something about a Navy ship somewhere nearby that can join the chase if requested.

But it doesn’t take long. Jack watches through his binoculars and sees the helicopter bank around. It’s going straight at the speedboat.

It hovers for a few seconds.

Shots fired, the helicopter pilot's voice again.

Jack watches the helicopter pitch and weave in what looks like an evasive maneuver.

The Allmayer's captain tells them to fire back.

The Allmayer is crashing across the waves for real now. Jack’s pulse ratchets up like it did when he'd broken into a car and was scrambling to hotwire the ignition. He sees smoke rising from the speedboat.

The pilot’s voice again: Shooter is down. We've taken out one outboard engine and the shooter. The shooter is down.

Have you taken any fire? the Allmayer's captain asks.

The pilot's voice comes into Jack's headset, All flight control systems are operating within normal limits.

They are close enough now for Jack to see a tall lean guy with black hair, sort of Latin looking, standing in the speedboat with his hands raised above his head. The helicopter hovers a little way off with both aircrew leaning out the side door, their rifles pointing at the guy on the speedboat. The Allmayer circles but doesn’t get too close. A team on deck lowers a Zodiac raft and a minute later they are motoring across the water. Jack looks around. There are at least a dozen guns pointed at the speedboat.

Jack wonders what is on the speedboat. What made the Latin guy try to run away? Why did they shoot at the helicopter? He figures it has to be drugs. Could be anything, marijuana maybe, but more likely cocaine, meth or heroin. He’d heard that decriminalizing marijuana in the US has been driving smugglers to harder more expensive drugs. The sleek green fiberglass hull bobs on the water. It’s designed for a driver, maybe two passengers at most with its long, pointy bow and small cockpit. A pretty woman in a black bikini appears on deck from down below. Jack raises his binoculars and ogles her body. After all, he’s a sailor and he’s been at sea for several days. There are women on the Allmayer crew, but they aren’t bouncing around in bikinis.

The team boards the speedboat cautiously, pointing their handguns and rifles at the Latin guy and the woman in the bikini and what Jack figures is a wounded or dead guy on the deck. All three are quickly handcuffed. With the speedboat secured, the boarding party climbs back into the Zodiac and tows it back to the Allmayer.

As soon as the Latin guy, the wounded guy and the chick in the bikini are brought on board, Jack is amazed to see his fellow crewmembers descend on the speedboat with chainsaws and pry-bars. They quickly tear up the boat's decks and uncover plastic sealed packages of white powder. Jack wonders if it’s coke, speed or heroine.

The watch officer tells Jack to leave his post and go aft to help offload the speedboat. He hustles back there. A senior officer tells him and a few other deckhands to go below and get some large plastic evidence tubs. They bring the tubs up from below and toss them to a few other deckhands who are down on the speedboat. A work crew forms and they set up a metal arm with a pulley on it, then feed a rope through and lower a cargo net to the speedboat. They fall into a steady rhythm of hauling tubs filled with packages of drugs up from the speedboat to the deck. Then they pass the tubs down the ladder into a compartment that has EVIDENCE in black stencil on the watertight door. This is way more dope than Jack has ever seen. He thinks it would be cool to take a selfie with a fat package of dope in each hand and the shimmering blue sea in the background. He’d post it on Facebook and Instagram for all his friends to like and comment and share. But he knows taking such a picture is totally unauthorized. Besides, he’s well aware that he’s kept his phone shut off and hasn’t been on social media since joining the Coast Guard eight months ago.

The growl of a chainsaw and the smell of burned gasoline fills the air as the boarding party cuts into the speedboat’s deck. The crew hauls up dozens of big plastic tubs filled with packages of white powder. Several tubs come up full of fat vacuum-sealed packages of green weed. Through the clear plastic, Jack sees marijuana covered with gold hairs. It’s so weird because he knows it has a pungent odor, but since it’s sealed inside plastic there is no smell at all. He wonders if the smugglers had sanitized the packages to outsmart drug-sniffing dogs that might come aboard at sea or upon arrival in Florida.

Jack takes turns with the other deckhands, hoisting the tubs up from the speedboat. When his arms get tired of pulling, he takes a turn lugging tubs below. They go through a watertight door on the main deck and climb down a ladder to the evidence room below. He can’t believe all this dope. It must be a million bucks worth on the street. Just being around it gives him a crazy contact high. He imagines having all these drugs and weed in his basement room, back at his aunt’s house in Carson, California. That would mean parties and cash. Lots of parties and lots and lots of cash.

After all the contraband is unloaded and taken below, a couple mechanics climb down to the speedboat. They unbolt the twin outboard Mercury engines and those are hoisted aboard the Allmayer. Next, they lower a hose and siphon the gasoline from the speedboat's tanks. Jack wonders what they'll do with the gutted craft, certain they aren’t going to tow it all the way back to Key West. That doesn’t make any sense because they are supposed to stay at sea for another three days.

Jack thinks it’s cool when the Allmayer's captain appears on deck. They are lugging the last few tubs of weed below. Jack is helping fasten cargo nets over the outboard Mercury engines. One of the engines is leaking oil from where the helicopter’s machinegun shot holes in it.

The captain is a short man and lean with a strong look like Teflon about him. He wears the same dark blue pants and shirt as Jack and the other crew working on deck. The captain’s last name, HALL, is stitched above his right breast pocket. Of course,