The Dragon Delasangre by Alan F. Troop Page B

touching the ceiling. There’s no light here and, with only one direction to travel, no need for it. After forty paces I feel the corridor widen, the ceiling rise above me. Running my fingers over the wall to my right, I find the switch and flick it on.
    The light illuminates a round chamber, no more than ten paces in circumference, leading to another dark corridor on the other side and flanked by two, steel-plated wood doors, each chained shut and padlocked.
    As always I feel uneasy here, knowing that every man who worked on these rooms was slaughtered as soon as they were completed. I turn to the door on my right and dial the lock’s combination. Years ago, after Father ceased to visit this floor, I removed the ancient locks Don Henri had installed and replaced them with modern, stainless-steel combination padlocks, both to forgo the need for keys and to save me from any further time wasted on struggling to unlock the aged and rusted devices.
    The door swings open and I can’t help but gawk at the riches inside, chest after chest brimming with gold and silver jewelry. Boxes containing Rolexs, Cartiers, Omegas and Ebals. Ancient gold and silver ingots stacked knee-high near the far wall. Piles of twenty-dollar bills taken from drug runners who’d suffered a fate far worse from us than they would ever have encountered from the DEA.
    Maria’s few pieces of jewelry look paltry and cheap alongside the wealth they join. Still I drop all of it in a chest, the gold four-leaf clover resting on the top and proceed on,locking the door, extinguishing the light and entering the other narrow, dark corridor.
    Stumbling occasionally over the rough stones lining the floor, I follow the passageway’s contours as it curves, then dips, then rises, then ends—another wooden door blocking any further progress. I listen to the wind and the rain outside and I smile, knowing I’ll soon be out in it.
    It takes only a few moments of fumbling in the dark to pull on the yellow slicker and matching yellow overalls of my foul-weather gear. I throw the ancient bolt on the door, push it open and, leaving Don Henri’s escape tunnel, I breathe in the clean cool night’s air. I revel in the beauty of the storm as rain beats in my face and lightning illuminates the heavens.
    The tunnel opens in the bushes just a few yards from the dock and I pause to add some large rocks to the bones inside the burlap bag, then I sprint to the dock where my Grady White tosses and pitches. Thunder cracks somewhere in the night and I laugh. The seas will be furious and dangerous in their anger. No right-minded person will be out in such weather.
    I throw the burlap bag into the cockpit of the Grady White, then make my way to the Chris Craft and release its dock lines, tying its bowline to the Grady White’s stern cleat.
    Taking my boat’s wheel, I fire up the Yamahas and head out the channel, towing the Chris Craft behind me. I gasp when I clear the protection of the island and the full force of the wind hits me. The Grady White’s wheel fights my control. Waves crash over the bow. Salt spray and driving rain hammer my face and eyes.
    I push the throttle forward even more and concentrate on guiding the boat through the twists and turns of the channel. The Chris Craft follows, fighting its towline, crashing into waves, skittering sideways from their impact.
    Taking the last turn of the channel at full speed, turning the wheel hard to the right, I yank the Chris Craft out of the channel, take it over the coral rocks lurking just under the surface. The Grady White quivers when the other boat hits rock, then slows, motors whining, as it pulls the Chris Craft across the coral, ripping and splintering the wooden boat’s bottom.
    The rain is so dense that I can barely make out the Fowey Rock lighthouse’s beacon a few miles away. I pray that the Chris Craft doesn’t sink until I’m well past it, out in the deep water