Havana Hustle (Coastal Fury Book 6) Read online

  PROLOGUE

  “I don’t like it.”

  I crossed my arms and fumed, but Rhoda, Rolling Thunder’s manager, chuckled. She pointed to the brand new jukebox in the corner of my bar. The old box gave out a week earlier, and she’d brought in this little surprise.

  “Come on, boss,” she said. “There’s a phone app that’ll make it easy for patrons to pay for songs even when they’re out of cash.”

  “We’re doing fine,” I insisted. It was true. Ever since we reopened my old friend’s bar under a new look and name, we had a steady flow of business. “Besides, it’ll change the feel if kids can play bubblegum pop from their damn phones.”

  “Huh-uh.” Rhoda’s Cheshire grin told me I’d already lost the battle. She held up her tablet and showed me the owner settings. “You choose the genre, and that’s why they pick from.” She raised an eyebrow. “You can even make it so that nobody plays the same song over and over.”

  I frowned at the screen and then glared at the slick new machine. If my old jukebox hadn’t kicked the bucket, I would’ve kept it until, well, until it did. I uncrossed my arms with a sigh and eye roll.

  “Fine. You can try it. But so help me, it better be my music.”

  “Classic rock with a heavy dose of Mellencamp and Jovi, check.” Rhoda grinned. “You won’t regret it.”

  I waved her off and went to unlock the doors for the day’s opening. When I turned on the sign, a few familiar faces came in.

  “Hey, sailors,” I called out. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  My little fan club of sailors stationed just close enough for day trips surrounded me. Their ringleader, Charlie, held up an envelope.

  “I bet you didn’t think we knew,” he said with a wicked grin.

  “Oh, no.” I turned toward the bar. “Rhoda, what did you do?”

  “Not a thing, boss.” The glint in her eye belied that denial. “I am completely innocent.”

  The door opened again, and a good friend joined the collaborators.

  “You kids didn’t wait for me?” Mike Birch complained. He held a navy-blue gift bag with a curly, golden ribbon.

  “You set this up, Mike?” I didn’t know whether to growl or laugh.

  “Happy birthday, you sumbitch,” Mike said with a cheesy grin. He kept away when I reached for it. “Uh-uh. Not yet.” He turned to Rhoda. “You ready?”

  She laughed. “Of course. I roped off a section of the patio, and your special is in the back room.”

  “You told me someone reserved it for a party… Oh.” I grinned. “You all are something.”

  I let them lead me out to where a table was set up in a quiet corner of the patio that was shielded from traffic noise. The outdoor speakers crackled to life and piped out one of my favorite Springsteen songs. I had to give Rhoda credit. The new jukebox sounded good over our system.

  Mike set the mystery bag at the end of the table, and one of my other employees, Nadia, brought out snacks. The sailors brought out pitchers of beer and plopped onto the bench as Mike disappeared inside.

  “We wanted to do jump-out-and-yell-‘surprise’ party, but Mike said you wouldn’t like that,” Charlie said. “Mack suggested a low-key drop-in thing instead, so here we are.”

  I rubbed the back of my head and grinned. “You kids think of everything, don’t you?”

  “They sure do.”

  I turned and laughed. “Bill! It’s been a while. Where’d these youngsters dig you up?”

  “I’m in town to check up on the shop, and it worked out. I couldn’t say no to a bunch of determined sailors.”

  The aforementioned sailors had wide grins. I’d mentioned Bill and his shop Coins and Things when telling them about some of my old adventures. He’d since retired, but we’d kept in touch. Bill was good people, and his daughter, Emily, now an esteemed professor out of state, was an old flame.

  “Time to close your eyes, Marston,” Mike called out from the inside of the building. “Ty, Jeff, make sure he doesn’t cheat.”

  “Yes, sir!” Jeff answered as he and Ty flanked me.

  Jeff had his usual serious expression, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward. They steered me to the next table over, and I complied. I couldn’t imagine what kind of surprise they cobbled together, but I was game.

  People shuffled around and whispered. Something gently thumped onto the table.

  “Open your eyes,” Mike called out.

  A simple-looking guitar case sat atop the table. I blinked and took in everyone’s excited faces. The guitar was one of those things I’d always wanted to learn, but I didn’t have a musical bone in my body.

  “Take a look,” Mack urged. She was damn near bouncing on her toes, which was enough to get me moving.

  I unlatched the case and opened it. My jaw dropped, and I stared. The guitar was a Fender Telecaster, and it was signed by none other than the Boss. A certificate of authenticity lay on the pickguard. It said this had been one of his road guitars, actually played in concert. I’d looked into these for the bar, and they were expensive and hard to find.

  “How the hell did you do this?” I whispered in a choked voice.

  Bill chuckled. “I have connections, son. It took a while, but I found her for you.”

  “We all chipped in, sir,” Charlie told me. “You’ve treated us like family, and we wanted to do something special.”

  “I tell you stories once in a while…”

  “You’ve given us advice when shit hit the fan,” Ty said. This was true, and when shit hit the fan, he tended to be in the middle of it. When he got FUBARed during a drill, I was the first person he’d called. That straightened him up.

  “And dating advice,” Jeff said with a bashful grin. He’d called when he got it bad for a sweet girl in town. They’d just gotten engaged.

  “You’ve been more than a storyteller, sir,” Mack added in a quiet voice. Hell yes. She’d contacted me when a peer was harassing her and going by the book failed. I might’ve been out of the Navy by more than a few years, but I still had influence. Nobody messed with “my” kids.

  “Aw hell, guys.” I swallowed and rubbed my hands through my hair. “This is the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a long time.”

  By then, other patrons had drifted in, and a few regulars stopped over to wish me a happy birthday. Mike whisked the guitar to the back room so it would be safe and then sat with me at the food table. We enjoyed burgers, snacks, and beer, just how I liked.

  “I have another gift for you,” Mike said after a while. He gestured to the gift bag. “But you have to earn it.”

  Everyone at the table looked as mystified as I did. What could eclipse what they’d all done already?

  “That guitar is hard to beat,” I said with a laugh. “So, what am I supposed to do to earn this mystery bag?”

  Mike grinned. He pointed into the bar where a chrome bumper was just barely visible on the wall inside.

  “The kids need a story,” he informed me. “I think it’s time you told them about the hustle in Havana.”

  “They won’t look at you the same after that one,” I warned him.

  Mike shrugged. “They’d figure it out, eventually. It’s not top-secret anymore.”

  Four young sailors leaned toward us as word spread around the bar that I was about to tell a story. By then, my tales were a bit of a legend among locals, and people started pulling up chairs. I shook my head and chuckled.

  “Okay, Mike, have it your way.”

  I cleared my throat and looked around. I’d never intended to out my friend’s past, but if he was good with it, so was I.

  “This case started with a missing man who got caught up in a hell o
f a hustle.”

  CHAPTER 1

  It was his second trip to Cuba that month, and Mike still had nothing to show for his efforts.

  He leaned against the Malecón seawall in Old Havana and stared out over the water. People around him had cameras out to photograph the blazing orange and pink clouds as dusk fell, but he found no joy in the beauty. He had until morning to uncover a clue, any clue, as to his old buddy’s whereabouts.

  Howie’s cryptic voicemail almost a month ago had led Mike to the island with little to go on.

  “Hey man, I messed up again. Big time.” Howie’s voice had always been smooth and charismatic, but not that day. “These dudes are gonna kill me if I don’t get…”

  That was it. No background voices or sounds of struggle, just a line gone dead. Thanks to a quiet contact, Mike got the call traced to a burner phone in La Habana Vieja. He worked another contact and booked a flight the next day.

  “Dammit, Howie, where you’d get to?” he murmured.

  Mike left the seawall and found a small bar where he nursed a beer and watched people walk past the window next to the open door. It was ridiculous, he knew, but he felt like he could miss Howie walk past if he so much as turned away from the Malecón.

  As was his habit, Mike kept an eye on who came and went in the unfamiliar surroundings. Anyone could be from the government or ready to turn a guy in for acting suspiciously. When he decided the guy a few tables away snuck a look too many in his direction, Mike plucked down a few pesos next to his empty beer bottle. His observer got up from his table a little too fast and hustled over to Mike. The man, a deeply wrinkled fellow not much older than Mike, planted himself at the seat across from him. Aw hell.

  “Can I help you?” Mike asked in a casual tone as he tensed his muscles to handle whatever the man brought.

  “I can help you,” the man countered. He looked around and turned the chair so that his back faced the window. “I heard you’re looking for someone.”

  Mike’s breath caught. This was either a warning or a lead. Either required caution.

  “Maybe.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Talk.”

  “I hear things,” the man said. “A Cubano and American took a boat to Florida. It sank off Andros, maybe near Williams Island.”

  Mike let out a relieved sigh. “The Bahamas are way off course from Florida. It had to be someone else.”

  The man shrugged. “I heard what I heard. They called the American ‘Howard.’”

  Mike’s gut tightened. Please tell me you didn’t get wrapped up in people smuggling, Howie, he thought.

  “Did you happen to hear why these men were boating in that direction?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  The man shook his head. “No.” He looked over his shoulder. “You need to go home, Señor. People know you’re looking for this Howie. They don’t like that.”

  Mike clutched the beer bottle rather than grab the man by the collar.

  “I suppose you want me to pay you for telling me this,” he growled.

  The man shrank back. “I thought…” he trailed off and swallowed. “It would help.”

  Mike took a long breath and let it out. It was only fair. He’d dropped a hint or three saying that he’d pay for news. He pulled out a fistful of pesos and slid the bills across the table.

  “If I find out you’re bullshitting me, I’ll find you,” Mike warned even as he hoped the information was all lies.

  “It’s real, I swear.” The man scooped the money into his pocket and stood. “I’m sorry. It sounds like he was a good friend to you.”

  “You have no idea.”

  The man nodded and left. Mike left an extra peso for the worried bartender. He understood. At his bar back home, he could smell trouble as it walked in, and like this guy, Mike couldn’t do more than keep an eye until said trouble exploded.

  Mike made his way back to the tiny apartment he’d rented for the two nights of his stay. As much as he prayed that the squirrelly old fart was wrong, a feeling in his gut said it was true.

  The next morning, he hopped the short flight to Miami. As soon as he touched down, he went straight to his open-water fishing boat. It was a longshot, but there was only so much area near Williams Island that a boat on the way to Florida might go down.

  Mike slowed the boat as he passed Gold Cay, which was just west of Williams. One of his splurges on the boat was forward sonar that mapped ahead in 3D. It helped him avoid shoals and other obstacles on regular days. Today, he hoped to find something else.

  He searched in a rough approximation of a grid. As the day wore on, he felt a glimmer of hope that the guy in the bar had heard wrong, that Howie wasn’t down there. The sonar showed smooth ocean floor and a school of small fish in a tedious trawl. Mike’s attention drifted, and he almost missed it.

  The sunken boat’s debris just entered the last line he’d decided to run before turning to home. He swung his fishing boat around to line up the sonar to the wreckage. It looked like a small wheelhouse was intact.

  Mike swore and set anchor. He said a little prayer that it wasn’t Howie down there, but his gut told him otherwise. Within minutes of finding the wreck, Mike had on diving gear and grabbed a waterproof camera. At least it was only twenty-odd feet down.

  He usually relished the warm Caribbean water, but a chill set in as he descended. That shiver had nothing to do with the water temp as he approached a shattered hull that had landed on its side. Jagged fragments littered the sand all around a rusty shrimp or fishing boat. He snapped a few photos and kicked closer. It was a miracle that the wheelhouse was intact. Whatever took that boat down seemed to have struck from beneath and tore the damn thing apart. The only thing holding the fore and aft halves together was a thin section of decking and rail.

  Mike shined his dive light along the boat. If the rust was anything to go on, the beast had seen more than a few crossings. There wasn’t anything visible to identify the vessel. The back was embedded in a sand drift, and the prow looked like it had been scraped clean.

  After taking closer photos of the wreckage, Mike resigned himself to the hard part. He swam to the port window which faced upward, and wiped sand and other crud off to clear it. Then he took a long, hard look inside.

  A bloated body with skin darkened by exposure to seawater had floated into the windshield. Mike swam around to the front and cleared off enough to get a good look. A bare arm was right against the window. Even with bloat and exposure, Mike recognized a tattoo.

  It was Howie.

  CHAPTER 2

  Joint operations with the Coast Guard were one of our duties in MBLIS. Most missions went according to detailed plans.

  Not this one, though. It went south when the smugglers brought in a gunboat to chase our Long-Range Interceptor.

  “Where the hell did that come from?” I yelled over return fire.

  My partner, Robbie Holm, shook his head. “Must’ve been hiding in the Glades.”

  A second LRI was on the far side of an overpowered speedboat that we believed to be carrying cocaine and a person of interest. Lots of interest, if our intel was right. Alejandro Gomez was one of the few remaining fugitives who had worked under Cobra Jon, a syndicate boss we took down almost a year earlier.

  The gunboat was a hell of a surprise, but Gomez wasn’t wrong to be worried about capture. Lucky for us, we were more than capable of handling his extra security.

  Holm and a couple of Coasties had high-powered rifles, and I manned the LRI’s forward-mounted fifty-cal machine gun. I’d kept my certifications up for moments like this.

  The gunboat spat dozens of rounds that barely missed us. Lucky for us, our weapons had better range. I poured lead at those bastards. Sparks flared where the bullets hit metal. Through the fifty cal’s sights, I saw their gunner duck, so I sent more love their way. I eased off the trigger to see what they’d do, and lo and behold, their guy popped back up to their gun, right in my sights. I nailed him with my next few rounds a
nd then raked bullets across the bow. The boat slowed for a minute but came charging back. Its occupants must have been getting paid a lot to deal with us.

  “They’re catching up,” Holm yelled.

  He turned to a guy behind him and said something. When he returned to the rail, he had a big toy. Not every LRI carried a grenade launcher. Ours did. When Gomez’s flunkies got close enough to send bullets pinging off our boat, Holm let that baby rip. Whether it was luck or impeccable aim, he hit the engines at the back of the gunboat. It dropped away like nobody’s business, and we pushed hard toward the speedboat.

  “They’re gonna intercept the gunners from the cutter,” one of the Coasties reported. “We’re almost on our target.”

  The speedboat’s paint job made it blend in with the blue-grey water, but the powerful motors churned up enough wake for the Coasties in the helo to spot it long before we would have from the boats. Our LRI powered through with the tenaciousness of a rabid dog until we were abreast of the runners.

  “Stop the boat!”

  We yelled at them in English and Spanish, but the two goons ducked as we closed in. One popped up with a machine gun and started firing on us to provide cover for his buddy, who started dumping cocaine bales. Bullets and bales hit the sides of our boat as I got back behind the fifty-cal.

  I took a cue from Holm’s spectacular grenade hit and hit the boat’s engines. The one on the left blew its top, which knocked the gunner on his ass. A white cloud erupted around the other goon as debris busted a bale open.

  By the time the speedboat came to a stop, the gunner had put his bleeding head in his hands, and his partner had collapsed under a fine powder layer. Coasties got both men onto the LRIs. Neither one was Alejandro Gomez, which meant he had to be in the cabin… or we had bad intel.

  I drew my handgun and motioned to Holm. He nodded and followed my lead. We aimed down into the cabin.

  “Come out, Gomez,” I called. “There’s no way you’re getting out of this.”

  No answer. I tried twice more, but all we got was silence. I said a little prayer for my body armor to protect me and then moved down into the cabin. Nobody shot at me, which I appreciated. When my eyes adjusted, I saw why.