Killing Dragons

Chapter 7

Seven

Thursday, February 11, 11:37 A.M. CST

Mr. Fields Bay, Roatan

Sweltering in the humidity, Ignacio García swatted a mosquito, leaving a smear of blood on his arm. He looked up at his investor from the States.

“Julian, are our fish farms safe from that monster? I heard from Víctor it just got another fisherman, and even that sexy scientist at RIMS agrees it was the Lusca. I didn’t even have to grease his hands this time to get the info or convince him I didn’t do it.”

Julian raised his eyebrows. “Lusca?”

“Jefe, that’s your dragón marino. The sea dragon. Lusca is what the locals call it.”

“Pure local superstition, Ignacio. There’s no such thing as a sea dragon. Not here at least.”

Wearing a lavender linen suit and a color-coordinated fedora, his ivory cane never touching the ground, Julian paced the docks as he inspected the crustacean farm. The man’s insistence on showing up to micromanage unnerved Ignacio, especially seeing as Julian somehow managed to do so looking like a novela star even in this humidity. Which reminded Ignacio that he had a novela to watch. He impatiently glanced at his watch.

Ignacio hoped Julian and his ninja sidekicks would leave soon and go back to their crime syndicate in Vietnam. He could run this place without them. Ignacio himself had made the crustacean farms profitable—both as a business and as a money-laundering scheme—long before the old gringo joined him and started Atlantis—that offshore city under the sea with the mutant fish.

Worse, Julian had been in the US Navy. Ignacio had hated the Navy ever since a drug interdiction long ago, in which he’d lost not only a valuable sub and its cargo but also his favorite gun, an M4 with huevos de toro.

At first, Ignacio had feared that Julian might secretly be an informant, but by now Julian had invested so much and had gotten so wrapped up in the cartels that he was beyond being a turncoat.

Julian pointed at the stocky Asian monitor that he’d given Ignacio long ago as a gift when they’d started working together and had attempted an exotic pet breeding program. She now lazed in the shade of her small land-based enclosure. “She never bred, did she?” Julian asked.

Ignacio shook his head. “No, jefe. She ate her own eggs. No matter, they would not have been huevos de amor.”

Julian’s smile froze. “Their reproduction is more complicated than that, you moron. Haven’t you heard of parthenogenesis? And don’t you understand what I’m doing out at Atlantis?” He waved his cane. “Well, we have no further use for her. She isn’t contributing to our business, and she’s most definitely devouring the shrimp. Get rid of her.”

“Yes, jefe. But… I am fond of her, and I would hate to off her. I know someone who would take good care of her…”

“Fine. I don’t care what you do with her as long as she’s gone. She’s eating our profits.”

“Speaking of profits, jefe, what should I do with income from that last deal? It’s mucha plata.”

Julian glared. “Clear more of the mangroves. Put it back into the business here.”

Ignacio nodded. “I can use some for that, but what do I do with the rest? Do you think the contractors who built the open-ocean enclosures would take cash for their remaining invoice?”

Julian took a cigar tin from the front pocket of his coat. He lit up and took a long draw. “I think not. Those contractors are legit. That much cash is suspicious. Even your crustacean project hasn’t done well enough yet for you to have that kind of money.”

Ignacio rubbed his hands together. “Pues, maybe not yet, but I can make it look so on the books.”

“I’m sure you could, but my accountant in the States knows about fish farming, and a harvest that profitable would look suspicious to her, too. She doesn’t expect a boon like that until the sharks are harvested. She’ll ask too many questions.” He exhaled smoke. “Maybe thin out some cobia hybrids to sell to locals? They’re getting rather monstrous anyway. That’ll be a cover for at least some of the money on the books.”

Ignacio nodded. “Yes, jefe. Perhaps for now we could hide the rest of the money in waterproof containers in a wreck offshore.”

“Bad idea. There are too many divers out there who could find it. The locals have been out on the reefs more than ever, and every mom-and-pop hotel on the island has a dive shop. But…” A slow grin formed on Julian’s face. “But there’s a thought.”

“You want me to open a hotel, jefe? I’m not one for hospitality.”

“No, you dimwit. We can open a dive shop. I love to dive—at least I used to love it back in my Navy days—and it’s an expensive hobby. With all the cruise ships running through, we can claim a high volume of business. That might not be enough to clean the volume of cash we have, but it’s a good start.”

Julian puffed on his cigar, warming to the idea. “How about we set up shop in the Parrot Tree resort? It’s not too far away from here, and it’s full of old expatriates who would enjoy having a dive shop close by but don’t actually dive anymore.” He grinned. “I know the owner of Parrot Tree. I’ll call her and ask to move the Tesoro over to her marina. I’ve been thinking about doing it, anyway. The water in this bay is disgusting,” he said as he flicked the ash from his cigar into the water.

Ignacio held his tongue. He didn’t want to irritate his investor by telling him the disgusting runoff was because of the wastes from the aquaculture farm and the clearing of the mangroves.

“In the meantime, talk to the realtor at Parrot Tree,” Julian continued. “See if he’ll take cash to rent out one of his ground-level storefronts. Then you’ll need to buy a compressor—make sure it can mix that nitrox everyone is doing now—and all the equipment: regulators, air tanks, BCDs, you name it. Make it look legit.”

Scuba was all well beyond the world Ignacio knew, and he said as much. “I’m afraid I don’t dive, jefe, so I don’t know about all this equipment. I do shrimp, boats, and narcos.”

“Then advertise for a divemaster who can help you figure it out.”

Ignacio frowned. “Are we opening a real dive shop, then? I thought we were just pretending.”

“We are opening a real dive shop, Ignacio. Where have you been the last five minutes? The business has to be real if we’re going to launder; we’ll just run more customers who want to try scuba through the books than we actually have.”

Ignacio nodded. “Okay, I’ll get a*****e rented, and I’ll get a divemaster. I know one who is always looking for a new job, and I’d rather him be on this end of the island anyway, away from that sexy scientist at RIMS he’s been seeing. Anything else?”

“You’ll need a dive boat. One with long benches on either side with dividers for air tanks. None of our speedboats will do. But your divemaster will tell you all this.”

“What’s my budget?”

“This business is a reflection of me, so make it look sharp. You say you know boats, so I leave that part up to you. We want to go high-end here—that way we can charge more to our customers, both real and fake. There’s another idea—buy up nice boats and start a yacht dealership. Big-ticket luxury expenses are the best way to clean money. If you’ve got money left over, have Nguyen put it into bitcoin on a ledger for safekeeping.”

“Good idea, jefe. I can handle that, no problem. We’ll run it like mi primo does his horse farm in Mexico. But what’s a ledger?”

Julian stomped his cigar stub out on the dock, then kicked it into the water. “It’s so the North Koreans can’t steal the bitcoin. Ask Tran—he’ll explain more than you’d care to know about it. Just keep the ledger somewhere safe. Somewhere nobody would guess. And remember: three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. So said the great Ben Franklin.”

Ignacio shifted his feet. “Yes, that Ben, he’s the smart gringo that invented the dollar, right?”

Julian rolled his eyes.

“How big is a ledger, jefe?”

Julian held up his thumb and pinky finger to demonstrate. “Yay big. About like a flip drive.”

“I know just the place. I’ll keep la plata con Plata,” Ignacio said. He looked over to the pen where he kept his black dragon.

“Just know, if anything happens to the money, you’ll never breed either.”

At that moment a fishing vessel pulled up to the dock, returning from inspecting the open-ocean fish farms. Julian’s bodyguard Nguyen, dressed in all black like a self-styled ninja, hopped off and bowed to Julian. “Sir, something got into one of the cobia nets.”

Julian twirled his cane. “A shark?”

Nguyen shook his head and handed Julian a large conical tooth.

Julian’s eyes widened, then he passed the tooth to Ignacio. “Ignacio, when you take your black dragon to that sexy marine biologist of yours—I presume that’s your plan—why don’t you see if she can help you figure out what creature this came from?”

Ignacio nodded. He knew the question wasn’t a request. It was a command. But a command to work with Eva suited Ignacio just fine.