Ambushed

By Marc W. Garvin

The Bahamas archipelago consisting of some 690 islands and cays sprawled over a water surface area of nearly 140,000 square miles, with hundreds of hideouts, makes if difficult to be effectively patrolled. For this reason, the area has been for centuries a heaven for smugglers and illegal traders. This novel deals with some of those activities, which remnants are still present today and will continue to exist, for as long as they serve the purpose of political an social convenience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452063478

Marc W. Garvin

Mr. Garvin spent most of his early years in the Caribbean Basin and later on as an adult, he travelled extensively through the Greater and Lesser Antilles, and The Bahamas archipelago as well. His deep knowledge of the geology, geography and history of that area has motivated him to write at both, fiction and non-fiction levels, numerous articles and books dealing with travel, social and human behavioral issues.

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Contents

FOREWORD

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

FOREWORD

We all have our own share of fond memories from our childhood, and in the same way our share of regrets as well.

Although I had playing friends and school acquaintances like any other regular kid, I don’t remember having someone I could have called my best friend, in the full sense of the word that is. On the other hand, I had experiences that remain in my mind very vivid and clear, and the mental pictures are so pristine that I do not even desire to revisit, for the fear to spoil my recollection of those nearly perfect visions of the past.

There was a crowd of kids I used to hang out with and live our own world of dreams. Together we went to the movie theater and the sport games. My favorite movies were the Westerns with actors like Bob Steele (1907-1988) who reached the peak of his career in 1940, Tim McCoy (1891-1978), Tom Mix (1880-1940) and Buck Jones (1891-1942). Other movies and actors of my interest were The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid and Buster Crabbe (1908-1983) in his role as Flash Gordon flying his cardboard rockets and his eternal fiction stories of unequal confrontations against a ruthless, weir and evil looking ruler called the Planet Mongo Emperor.

At the movies, we all sat through a grueling 90 minute plot where the bad guys had the upper hand during 90% of the program while the good guy went through all kinds of misfortunes and endured adversity mostly created by the bad guys, just to end up with the good guy prevailing as a crusader of fairness and justice at the very last minute of the show. In far too many instances the show would just end up in a disarming disappointment when the acclaimed good guy did not even get to keep the pretty girl, for he rather rode into the sunset towards a new adventure. It was matter of common sense for the viewers to expect that after all that struggle, the good guy would remain with the girl and live happily ever after. Naturally, there was also a hidden dark side and agenda coming from the script writers who needed to keep their heroes free and detached, in such a way to make room for the following episode and thus continuity on the sequential shows.

The group of kids I used to hang out with was very cohesive and consistent when it came to their feelings for the prevailing of justice and winning of good over evil. All except for one of them, his name was John Paul Austell, better know as JP. He was and odd ball who cheered all the way through the movie to nearly the very end. Then, 10 minutes before the finish line he would get up and go home before the bad guys would get what they deserved.

Obviously JP in his twisted mind, was on the side of the bad guys, and in doing so, he had more fun and excitement than all of the rest of us combined.

During the years that followed, I always wondered how things had turned out for JP. Forty five years later I decided it was about time to find out the outcome, to that purpose I tracked down two of my childhood old buddies. Through them I learned that in 1955 John Paul had joined one of the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces and became a skilled and accomplished pilot. I also found that in 1998 JP had crashed his plane and perished in the high mountains of Colombia. He was transporting a cargo of narcotics on his way up to South Florida when that happened. Amazingly, he was credited with having flown a combined load in excess of twenty tons of illegal substances during his career as a pilot for one of the Colombian drug cartels.

The novel that follows consists of a layered fabric of a partly fictional story and characters woven into a sequence of historical and geographical facts known to the author, as they developed and unfolded during the period from 1995 through 2009 in the South Florida East Coast and the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

However, the names and characters as they appear on this book, are fictional and consequently, any similarities with past or present situations and conditions, as well as with any dead or living individuals are purely coincidental.

CHAPTER ONE

ON THE WAY BACK TO FLORIDA

Day One

It was an early foggy morning in late September 1995 when Ray Morrison left Orangeville, Ontario. He had spent the last two years trying to earn a living in that part of Canada with a limited degree of success. The combination of lower wages and higher taxes as compared to American standards was, to say the least discouraging. Disillusioned, he had terminated his relationship with his Canadian girlfriend and had decided to return to his familiar surroundings in South Florida.

After paying all his bills and debts, saying goodbye to his few friends and loading his old van with all his worldly possessions, he began his trip back to the United States. From Orangeville he drove South on Road 10 through the cities of Brampton and Mississauga to the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW), passing by St. Catharine and Niagara Falls to enter the U.S. by way of Buffalo, NY and continuing unto Interstate 90 bordering Lake Erie along the State of New York to the town of Erie, then switching to Interstate 79 South through the State of Pennsylvania.

His trip continued through West Virginia on Interstate 79. A few miles passed Sutton, WV, he turned over to State Road 19 South to the Town of Beckley, WV where he spent the night in a local hotel located on the windy high mountains along the expressway.

Day Two

Early next day after a hot shower and having eaten his Continental breakfast, he drove over to the South end of West Virginia, then through the State of Virginia on Interstate 77 and over to and through the State of North Carolina to Charlotte, NC. Continuing over I-77 South to Columbia, SC. He then took Interstate 26 South to Interstate 95 South through the states of South Carolina and Georgia, passing by Savannah, GA and Jacksonville, FL all the way down to the end of his trip in the City of Delray Beach, FL where he owned a vacant second floor apartment on a condominium complex in the western outskirts of the city.

After unloading all his belongings and cleaning up his dusty apartment, he went down to the grocery store and got supplied with the bare necessities of life.

He felt very tired after the long drive back home. That night, before going to bed he seriously reflected on his life: he was already in his late fifties, and although the years have gone through unaccounted for and in spite of all the roadblocks on his way, he was strongly motivated to start a new redirected life and do the best he could with the rest of his existence.

CHAPTER TWO

BETRAYAL FROM WITHIN

Day Three

The following day came and went on uneventfully, Ray spent most of the day making the necessary arrangements to reconnect utilities, paying due bills, reactivated his newspaper delivery service, bought some necessities and made a few needed small repairs here and there throughout the dwelling.

Only a handful of people knew of his return to South Florida. His daughter Verna was one of them, also was his half sister Rosie and an old girlfriend, Sondra from Lauderhill, FL. His condominium neighbors were likely made aware of his return, as result of the newly generated noises coming out of his apartment.

That night, after watching the ten o’clock television news, he felt tired again and headed to bed for a good night sleep and hopefully having an early start on the following day.

Day Four

On the second day after his arrival, Ray went out to have his van serviced, basically an oil change, lubrication and a tire rotation. Almost immediately after his return to the apartment, there was an unexpected knock on the front door. Ray