deal. They would pay up front, and were interested in regular large buys in the future.
It was just what Black needed.
He turned to the two senior pirates at the table, Doggie and Jacks.
“Clean up and head over the hill,” he told them. “Sniff out a deal with these guys—and don’t bitch it up. If spirits agree, tell them we can move up to a ton of stuff if they want us to.”
* * *
DOGGIE AND JACKS walked into the lounge of the Regency Casino just before 3 A.M.
They’d changed their clothes to appear a little more presentable, but at best, they still looked like part of the casino’s kitchen crew.
They spotted the contact sitting in a dark corner with three coal-black men. They were well-dressed, very refined looking, and spoke with strange accents. The pirates sat down and made small talk while an army of high-priced hookers paraded around the casino’s main floor.
Finally, they got down to business.
The contact told the pirates the three men were looking for coke, meth, pot—and weapons. These were things the pirates could get with ease. The three men were also looking for someone to attack the vessels of their business rivals at sea. Again, the Muy Capaz were the people for the job. Best of all, the three would pay in cash, up front, for everything the pirates could give them.
It was the deal that the Muy Capaz had been awaiting for a long time.
Drunk and stoned and now dreaming of riches in their heads, Doggie and Jacks shook hands with the three men, sealing the deal.
Then Jacks asked, “Where are you blokes from? Antigua? Belize?”
The three men laughed.
“No, mon,” one of them replied: “We are from Senegal.”
8
The outer islands
THE NEXT NIGHT, Doggie and Jacks left the dock at the Muy Capaz’s secret hideout and headed out to sea.
It was just past midnight. They were using Black’s own twenty-four-foot sports fishing boat for this trip. In the boat’s hold was a quarter pound of cocaine, just about all the pirate gang had left. They also had four ounces of methamphetamine, two AK-47s and a hundred rounds of ammunition. These were just teases for the three men who wanted to make the big score.
Doggie and Jacks were a bit on edge. Four of their fellow pirates had yet to return from a raid the previous night. But Doggie and Jacks weren’t feeling uneasy because they thought something bad might have befallen their comrades—there was no honor among the Muy Capaz gang. Their fear was that the four might have been nabbed by some law enforcement agency higher than the paid-off Bahamian cops—the U.S. Coast Guard, for instance—and that the Muy Capaz’s string of perfect crimes had been broken. While they were fairly sure the gang members wouldn’t fold under interrogation for fear of what Captain Black would do to them if they did, Muy Capaz’s ghostly street cred would definitely take a hit if the four missing pirates had been arrested.
The mystery of their missing colleagues was not enough to delay this deal, though. It was a rare day that the gang could find regular customers for pot, coke, meth and weapons.
This one was just too good to pass up.
* * *
THEY FOUND THE ship just where the three men said it would be.
It was anchored off a cay near one of the Bahamas’ mysterious Blue Holes. This island was a part of the outer Eleuthera chain, an area that saw few visitors—not just because of its isolation, but also because it was believed the waters in this part of the Bahamas were haunted. It was a perfect place for this type of meeting.
Doggie and Jacks were surprised by the ship itself, though. Because the three men from the casino had seemed so refined and were so well-dressed, they’d expected to be meeting on an expensive mega-yacht or even something more luxurious.
What they found instead was an enormous container ship.
They saw the prearranged signal, four flashes from a red light, and were soon up alongside the huge vessel. A rope ladder was dropped from amidships and the two pirates climbed up. Doggie was carrying the coke and meth; Jacks had the weapons and ammo.
The three well-dressed gentlemen greeted them up on the rail, embracing them with monstrous bear hugs as they came aboard. No other crew members were in sight.
The three men took them to the ship’s galley, where drinks were waiting for them.
“What is this?” Doggie asked them, looking at the amber liquid swirling