the sand, and walked into the surf. The channel between Persia’s island and the Keys wasn’t wide, maybe a good hour’s swim was all. Might as well get it done.
Steady, measured strokes took Walker to Geiger Key. Naval Air Station Key West lay to his left, Saddlebunch and Sugarloaf Keys to his right. Highway One connected them to the mainland. He could walk that distance, but Walker had something else in mind.
Before he did anything else, he tugged another light gray, ratty Ron Jon t-shirt out of yet another plasticized compartment in his bag. This was his last decent shirt. He’d have to do some real shopping before long. To finish the look, his Ray-Bans with black reflective lenses came next. Today, he was jut another bland, nondescript tourist.
He found what he was looking for on the eastern most tip of Geiger Key, where a streamlined row of high-priced yachts bobbed in the shallows behind a long stretch of security fencing, itself topped with concertina wire to keep guys like him out. Dusting the sand off his bag, he walked the boardwalk between here and there, with the nosey confidence of a lost tourist, sizing up the multi-million-dollar babies bobbing in their bumper-lined docks. Nothing dry-docked here, not with these expensive toys. No way. Only the best for the rich set, and that meant they were all in the water, probably gassed up, and ready to go. Perfect…
A couple tough guys in muscle shirts watched. Not that Walker gave them a second look. Mall cops didn’t scare SEALs. Sure, they were packing heavy-duty holsters and over-sized pistols, and they did look big and burly. Walker just didn’t care. He wasn’t here to tangle with, or kill anyone. This was about getting away from it all, in his case, that meant America. Wasn’t that what these yachts were for, to get their wealthy owners away from all those petty problems of being obscenely rich?
He brushed a hand over his chin when he’d nearly smiled. Then, because he couldn’t be seen breaking into these secure slips, he headed back the way he’d come. Even waved at the two guys still glaring at him. Smiled like a tourist out for a stroll.
When he could manage it without being seen, Walker ducked out of sight. The beach was calling his name. Stripping off his glasses and shirt, he sealed them back in his bag, then walked into the surf, the bag over his shoulder. This next adventure wouldn’t take long.
Out beyond the breakers, he turned east, maintaining strong, slow, powerful strokes. To anyone watching, he was just another swimmer plowing through the gentle swells beneath the bright Florida sky. He was no one. Just some guy.
Until he’d breached the supposedly secure dock. There were no fences or concertina wire out here in the water.
Like one of the pesky dolphins the Keys were known for, Walker arrowed through the shallows to the first yacht. Nope. It was a charter boat. Not what he was looking for. Moving on, he swam toward the next. But the Arabic script on the bow meant trouble Walker didn’t need. The one-hundred-eighty-foot Benetti yacht at its side was too long. The next, an Oceanfast Superyacht sat too high, too visible in the water, and looked like a destroyer. Walker didn’t want anything that hinted Navy. The damned thing was even painted gunmetal gray. Oh, hell no.
The next vessels were three Cantieri di Pisa yachts, all in a row. All sleek, white, and way out of his class. Each one-hundred-fifty-three feet long. Tonnage... He guesstimated four hundred fifty, maybe more. They probably all required a twelve-man crew to operate. Not only out of his class, but too much trouble. Someone would miss any one of these babies the second it pulled away from the dock and into clear water.
Walker kept going, not sure what he was looking for, but sure he’d know when he found it. Treading water now, he kept afloat even as his bag weighed him down. There were two rows of secure berths on this narrow peninsula, one on the south side, the other north. He didn’t want to search all hundred or so slips, but he would if he had to.
Eleven yachts later, he stopped cold and swiped the water out of his eyes, not believing his good luck. A forty-five-foot Meridian Motoryacht. What was a vessel worth a measly two hundred K doing here among all these million-dollar yachts the caliber of Donald Trump’s wet dreams?
A