The Catalina Cabal Read online

  Books by Bill Thesken

  The Lords of Xibalba

  The Oil Eater

  Blocking Paris

  Edge of the Pit

  The

  Catalina

  Cabal

  Bill Thesken

  Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  25.

  Copyright © 2017 Bill Thesken

  First Edition Published 2017

  Koloa Publishing, LLC

  P.O. Box 1609

  Koloa, HI 96756

  www.koloapublishing.com

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the names,

  characters, events, places, organizations are

  either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, organizations or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Book cover designed by Deranged Doctor Design

  Edited by Jilly Pretzel

  ISBN 978-0-9903519-7-9

  E-Book ISBN 978-0-9903519-8-6

  “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light”

  (Luke 8:17)

  “His eyes are on the ways of mortals; he sees their every step.

  There is no deep shadow, no utter darkness, where evildoers can hide.”

  (Job 34:21-22)

  Cabal:

  A group of people working

  together in a secret plot.

  1.

  The trip to the island was mostly uneventful, the winds in the middle of the channel just as I predicted were gusting twenty knots, the seas running eight feet, breaking over the bow like angry white haystacks, and Cody Markender only got swept overboard twice.

  The first time was his fault, as he got blindsided by a haystack crashing over the bow while he was tightening up the deck line to the jib sail. I warned him before we got under way: keep one eye on the bow and brace yourself hard when a big one breaks over it. Don’t lose focus, I warned him, it’s dangerous on deck when we’re at sea.

  Being a tough, smart kid who knew it all, he just nodded his head with a bit of a smirk and said something like, ‘I got this’.

  What he got was a butt whupping over the side, nearly conking his head on the deck as he went over, and then dragged by his safety line like shark bait in the wake of the sailboat until I could set the bow into the wind and slow the boat down enough so we could pull him in.

  The second time was mostly my fault, and I did it on purpose.

  We were pinched hard into the wind, taking a steady northwest tack towards Catalina, looming in the distance two miles away and closing. Six of us on board the ‘Sugar’: myself and my fiancé Amber, Gale and Cody and their two friends Garrett and Rhonda. I told Cody to go forward on the deck and winch the jib tighter. We were flying over the water but I wanted to go faster.

  Since he’d already been swept overboard once just over an hour ago, and nearly died, Cody was a little more cautious this time. But not cautious enough for me.

  Not by a long shot.

  I told myself at the beginning of this sailing trip to Catalina that I’d teach him how to be on his toes for the unexpected. Train him to be alert and ready for anything. He was one of the main guys that was going to be taking care of Gale after all, and he had to be ready for anything. Her bodyguards weren’t always going be nearby and he had to be sharp and on the ball. This was a team effort.

  My old man used to rough me up all the time, said it was good for a boy to get jostled around, that it gave him some character and got him ready for the real world. So he started wrestling me from an early age, in fact I couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t wrestle me, he probably wrestled me out of the womb on the day I was born. And as I got older the roughing up got rougher. He never really hurt me too bad, he’d just jump out at me from odd places, pin me to the ground until I could barely breathe and my bones felt like they were about to break in half, then he’d hug me and set me free and I’d scamper away. I learned to approach doorways and bushes with caution, and to this day even with him long gone I can see him leaping out of the dark at me and pinning my arms behind my head.

  I would complain and tell him it wasn’t fair.

  “Look how big you are, and how small I am.”

  He’d just laugh and bellow out. “Get big, get strong!” And then tackle me again and pin me on the ground.

  One time when I was about eight years old I was taking out the garbage at night, and as a precaution I double checked, peering around the corner from the kitchen. I saw him sitting on a chair, quietly reading a book by a light in the living room. I assumed that it was safe so I took my time meandering out to the side of the yard, petted our cat, watched a moth fly around the lamp-post at the street corner, looked up at the night sky and the stars. When I finally got to the bin he jumped right out of the trash can, the metal lid flew up suddenly and split my upper lip, drops of blood flying in the air, and he still came at me and pinned me on the cement with the garbage bag on my head. I thought it was a normal way for a father to treat his son.

  Cody wasn’t a small boy, he wasn’t my son, and I had only just met him that morning before setting sail, but I still felt responsible for him mostly because he was Gale’s boyfriend.

  Boyfriend.

  I gritted my teeth as I looked at him. Surely she could have picked someone tougher than this guy. What was she thinking? I narrowed my eyes as I watched him walk casually forward towards the winch. Single digit body fat, rail thin, wispy little peach fuzz beard on the tip of his chin. I bet a gust of wind could knock him off the deck as sure as a frothy wave over the bow.

  He was getting soft again, losing focus. I could tell by his body language, the lazy languid way his arms and legs flopped at odd angles like limp spaghetti noodles keeping him in balance on the deck as he shuffled forward with a silly grin on his face.

  Being on a sailboat can lull you to sleep with the steady rocking and rolling of the hull, the sound of the ocean spray all around you while keeping your eyes on the sails and the ever-moving water. The horizon is mesmerizing and can put you in a trance.

  Kind of like life in a way. You get lulled by the ambiance of your surroundings and that’s when you let your guard down and put yourself and those around you in danger. My motto is never assume anything, and above all never ever assume that everything is going to be ‘A-Okay’.

  Now he was bracing himself nicely on the deck, keeping one eye on his footing and the other on the bow heading into the swells. I nodded in approval, he was learning.

  And then as he crouched down to winch the sail tighter, he took his eye off the bow for a split second to concentrate on the winch that seemed to be stuck. Exactly what I told him not to do. Don’t take your eyes off the bow.

  Bad move.

  I cranked the wheel just a bit to the left. The hull groaned as the bow lurched sideways into a frothing haystack that crashed sideways over the front of the boat and swept him overboard again. Only this time the safety harness line snapped with a loud crack and flew back onto the boat.

  Big trouble. Lucky thing I’d trained for this.

  “Man overboard!” I yelled, and looked back at Cody flailing his ar
ms to keep his head above the churning water.

  I reached to the side, yanked the round orange float from the railing, flew it into the wake behind the boat, and prepared to turn around. You can get lost pretty quick out on the open ocean, there’s no landmarks, nothing stable to fix your position on, just endless blue water and whitecaps, and it would take a big round turn to get back to where he fell in. If we lost track of where he was, we’d never find him, he’d be lost for good. The float was as much to mark the spot for us to see, as it was for him to climb into, if he could.

  “Hold on!” I yelled at the others, who were stunned to silence, their faces whiter than the sails, as I cranked the wheel and pulled the boat into a jibe stop, which is like a big round circle, first going straight downwind and then heading back upwind to our man overboard.

  Maneuvering a sailboat is a lot harder than a power boat, you can’t just slow down or stop the engine, back up and circle at will when you’re at full sail. You have to use the wind and the jibe would be at least two hundred yards wide, the length of two football fields by the time it was finished. The jib would have to stay winched tight and I loosened the mainsail as we came about to swing our backside around.

  “Keep your eyes on him!” I yelled to the others. I concentrated on the wind in the sail, and the open ocean swells barreling down on us, and I turned hard right before a big one that was feathering on the top and rode down into the valley in front of the crest. We were going straight downwind and down swell and the sail would have to flip to the other side.

  “Watch your heads!” I yelled at my crew. “Duck down, now!” When I could see they were clear I completed the quarter turn and cranked hard on the wheel. The sail snapped as it caught the wind again from the opposite side, bringing it tight, and we were headed back the way we had come.

  I’d have to pass below the spot where he was and then continue the turn and use the boat’s momentum to glide to where we could get him on board again. I could see him hanging onto the round orange float about a hundred yards to the right, starboard side. I completed the turn leaning hard on the wheel, we were heading dead into the wind going about two knots with the sails fluttering softly. I brought the bow of the boat just downwind of Cody and as he slid by the side of the boat, I reached down and grabbed tight on both his hands and pulled him up onto the rail.

  He sat there gasping for air, still hanging tight to the float, with his legs dangling over the side. His girlfriend Gale Nighting threw her arms around him, she was nearly in tears, hugging and kissing him all over his head and cheeks.

  That’s when we saw the ten foot long grey shark pass underneath the boat, swimming slow and methodical, heading on the same track as us and just beneath the surface, the tip of its fin tracking through the water. It turned slightly on its side and we could see its shiny black eye look up at us, then swam down and away into the azure blue ocean and disappeared into the depths.

  My whole crew was leaning over the side looking at the shark and I didn’t want Garrett to miss out on the fun, so I reached over behind his back, grabbed his shoulder and gave him a little shove while grunting in a low voice, “Uhhggg.”

  He nearly jumped out his skin backwards into the boat, then whispered hoarsely since his voice had disappeared. “Dude, what the heck is wrong with you?” His eyes were the size of dinner plates.

  I just chuckled and shook my head. “You city folks are funny, you need to lighten up a little bit. It’s just a little shark. Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to let go of you.” These two tough guys wouldn’t last five seconds with my Dad. He’d have them bawling their eyes out in no time. I was being easy on them.

  “Did you see the size of that thing?” asked Amber. “It was as long as a car.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to jump in the water anymore Cody,” I said. “Maybe you better stay on the boat until we get to Catalina, what do you say?”

  He looked at me with his wisecracker eyes back in full force, and retorted. “Really? Ya think so?”

  Then he started coughing again and got slowly to his knees and moved into the interior of the yacht, holding on with both hands and both feet like a crab on the rocks the whole time watching me in the corner of his eyes. With each movement at least three appendages were in direct contact with a solid surface. It looked like he was trying to dig each finger and toe into the fiberglass deck.

  It brought a smile to my face. Now you’re getting it, I thought.

  “You don’t have to worry about the deck winch anymore,” I said. “It’s got an electric drive and I can control it from here.”

  I pointed to a bank of switches on the side of the wheel housing. His face went blank for a moment and turned bright red, his jaw went slack, and it looked like he wanted to take a swing at me. I got ready to block a punch and then as he saw that everyone was quietly laughing. He shrugged his shoulders in resignation and began to laugh with them.

  I felt bad, so I sat next to him and told him a story. “My Dad brought me on a sailboat when I was a kid, and rolled me off a couple of times too, so you’re not alone. You either get used to it and take it in the chops, or make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  “So that explains it.”

  “And I did it for your own good, just like he did for me. I’ll tell you a story my Dad told me after pulling me out of the water one day. He said, life is kind of like a sailboat, son. It’s a whole lot easier when your feet are set firmly on the deck. People and events, like the wind and the waves are going to jostle you around and try to knock you off your boat, and strive as you might to keep your feet set firm, they might succeed from time to time and knock you overboard. That’s life. But it’s always nice to get back on your ship and set your feet solid again and sail on to a new adventure. And, having a helping hand to get you back on board is always a good thing.”

  I reached my hand out and Cody nodded and shook it.

  “Thanks.” He said and hesitated for a moment, then added. “Dad.” And we all laughed again, satisfied that all was well, I set the sail into the wind.

  It took a total of five hours and fifteen minutes to sail from Dana Point to Catalina. The chart showed that it was twenty three miles from port to port so we’d averaged a little more than four knots per hour. Soon, the forty-five foot ketch was settled nicely at her mooring in the middle of the bay and we were safe on land at a noisy bar in the middle of town.

  I took a sip of the club soda with lime and took in the view. The back of my chair was set against a stucco wall on the veranda of the bar with a wide view of the bay which was near capacity, the water a hard cobalt blue. Boats of every size and shape were spread out evenly in concentric circles with the largest boats towards the open ocean and the smallest near the beach.

  The Sugar was nestled in the third row from the exit to the ocean, next to a fifty-foot ketch on her right and a sixty-foot power boat on her left. In the next row out towards the ocean was an eighty-five-foot black catamaran that looked like it could do some serious knots on the water.

  The mast looked like it was nearly a hundred feet tall. Set on top the mast was a giant black pirate flag, the skull and crossbones waving in the on-shore breeze.

  Some rich guy’s fun toy.

  It was a busy day on the island, bustling even some might say for the usually placid town. It was a weekend and there was a huge party that night, a wedding for one the big shots who had a house on the island, a movie producer in Hollywood. Three hundred people were invited, and the event was at the old Zane Grey estate on top of a knoll that looked out over the crystal blue water bay.

  Zane Grey’s old estate was the perfect place for the party, it was large enough to accommodate a good sized crowd, had a pool, and a nice view of the Avalon harbor. Plus, it had a bit of history with the island.

  Zane’s first occupation was as a dentist, but he had a passion for writing, and became one of the best-selling authors of the late nineteen twenties, best known for his westerns, and the bo
ok Riders of the Purple Sage. He was also a Hollywood player as well, and wrote a couple screenplays for the big screen. Zane’s parties were known to rage through the night and the owners of the island, the Wrigley’s, were not too pleased. They were not big partiers but were nevertheless impacted by the noise. They eventually placed large wind chimes around the property next door, which would awaken the hungover Zane.

  The house had twenty bedrooms and twenty bathrooms and for a period of time was utilized as a hotel, but in later years was abandoned and fell into disrepair until it was sold.

  I was there in an official capacity as the perimeter security for Gale Nighting, the one and only Nightingale, top of the pop charts singer and survivor of kidnapping by her wanna-be rap star billionaire boyfriend a year ago. She had recovered nicely from the trauma of being held and nearly killed by that maniac, and since I was the one who lost her, and then saved her, she was doing me the honor of protecting her again. It was a feather in my cap so to speak. It was more of a ceremonial gig since Catalina was known as a safe enclave, far from the blistering asphalt and crime of Los Angeles. Still, anytime you advertised to the world that you would be in a certain place at a certain time, it was a good idea to put out a perimeter. She had two full time bodyguards who had taken a small private helicopter flight over from L.A. and met us on the island.

  Kali Moniz, who was with Gale, Rhonda, and Amber, were in the hotel room as Gale got ready for her gig. Tony Piper was sitting with me and Cody and Parker at the bar.

  Tony was a tough guy: smart, quick on his feet, ex-Army Ranger and military security in his younger days.

  Now, military security can mean a lot of different things, you could be the guy with a rifle standing guard at a door, or the guy making sure that a computer wasn’t being getting hacked, or phone lines weren’t being bugged. Tony was the guy with the gun.