Crystal Blue (Buck Reilly Adventure Series Book 3), John Cunningham [top fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

I shoved the wheel forward and added 20 degrees of flap. The Beast nose-dived toward the thin strip of land below.

“What the hell’re you doing, Reilly? We’re going down—”

I flicked off the intercom.

Halfway up Marathon Key was the small airport where I set the Beast down hard on the tarmac, military style, which bounced Goodspeed in his seat. His arms were crossed now, his mouth a thin line. We taxied to the small terminal, a hundred miles from his destination, where I reduced the RPMs and pulled off my headset. He stared at me, squint-eyed.

“This is your stop, Mr. Goodspeed.”

“I paid for a round-trip flight—”

“You should have read the fine print in the contract.”

He just stared at me. I took off my sunglasses and quoted from it word for word. “‘The pilot has the authority to deviate from, or alter the flight plan at any time, for any reason, if in his sole judgment the aircraft is in danger, in which case the pilot can terminate the charter.’”

I unclipped his seatbelt, pulled him up, and all but tossed him out of the hatch.

“This charter’s terminated.”

Once he had both feet on the ground, he scurried to the wing tip, turned and shook a fist at me. “You’ll regret this, Buck Reilly!” Something else about how he had a contract this time and he’d have my ass, but I didn’t hear the next threat because I’d slammed the hatch shut.

Airborne and headed south, I envisioned the deserted island out in the Marquesas. I’d be there tomorrow, alone, camping for as many days as my water would last, or at least until Lenny Jackson’s first political debate next week.

I was done with charters. Time for some snorkeling, spear fishing, and solitude under the starry skies above the little no-name Key out in the Marquesas.

As I flew over the old Bahia Honda bridge, I remembered jumping off the lower section as a teenager when my family vacationed here. We’d rent old conch houses in Key West and drive the thirty-odd miles north to picnic at Bahia Honda. Legend had it that a fifteen-foot hammerhead shark cruised the channel. My brother and I would walk out along the bridge’s old rusted spans, twenty feet above the waterline, and jump in. We convinced ourselves there was safety in numbers. Until the time, a couple hundred yards from shore, when we counted to three and jumped into the gin-clear waters and I surfaced to find myself alone. I searched a terrified few seconds before Ben’s laughter sounded above me.

“Better get your ass moving before that hammerhead eats you!”

I swam as hard as I could, convinced the shark would rise from the depths and rip me in half. With what strength I had left I chased Ben down the shore and throughout the campsites until I caught and pinned him in a patch of briars. He was still laughing, and before long I was too. But I never again trusted him to jump with me below that bridge.

A noise my engine shouldn’t have been making brought me back to Goodspeed’s bad-mouthing my old amphibious Grumman. Yes, this 1946 era Goose was a work in progress, and no, maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to the roundtrip flight—the first since the Beast was deemed airworthy—but dammit, I needed the money. It didn’t happen often, but every now and then a former investor in e-Antiquity, my bankrupt former treasure hunting business, showed up and dug at my scar tissue.

Nearly back to Key West, a familiar voice sounded in my headset and called out my N-number.

“What are you doing in the tower?” I said.

“Got an important message for you,” Ray Floyd said. As the head mechanic at Key West International Airport, he was usually banished from Air Traffic Control, but Donny the controller was a friend known to bend a rule.

“Such as?”

“How does your customer like the Beauty?” Ray said.

“He didn’t.“

“Didn’t? You can’t even be to Miami yet—”

“Let’s just say he was a little too critical of the Beast’s comforts. I dropped him at Marathon.”

I imagined Ray’s shoulders sagging. He’d worked hard to get the Goose back into condition, and even with the new seats, the in-depth aesthetical renovation had yet to commence, thanks largely to the fact that I was broke.

“There goes the money for the paint job,” Ray said. “How’s Last Resort Charter and Salvage ever supposed to be profitable if you leave customers stranded?”

“I’m done with charters, Ray. Pompous assholes like Goodspeed are too hard to swallow. I just want to go—”

“Done with charters? What, you’re now just Last Resort Salvage? How will you afford—”

“What’s so important, Ray?”

He was silent a moment, then cleared his throat.

“There was a beautiful woman here just now, looking for a multi-day charter to the Virgin Islands.”

“The only reason I’ll end my camping trip will be to witness the release of Lenny Jackson’s political aspirations on his unwitting competitors in next week’s debate.” The thought made me smile. Conch Man was primed to give them hell. “When I get back, I’m heading to the La Concha to get my stuff together. I’ll be back at the airport bright and early tomorrow, just like we agreed.”

“She was sexy.”

“I don’t care—”

“Even her name’s sexy—Crystal. Said a famous musician referred her to you and that it was for a charity—”

“No charters and no charities!”

Mechanical genius, social philosopher, and video game ace, Ray had become a close friend in the time I’d been living in Key West. Eccentricities aside, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about my past, and he provided ballast to my occasional overly aggressive endeavors. But he could also be a pain.

I’d made a plan and I was sticking to it, even if I couldn’t afford to blow off a call for a multi-day charter. I deserved a break. The stress of pouring my energies into fixing up the Beast had taken its toll. I needed a deserted island—alone with my snorkel gear, a Hawaiian