Starfish Prime (Blackfox Chronicles Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

“He’s got an eide tic, or photographic, memory. Trust me, Eddie never forgets anything,” said Carla dryly.
    “Oh, right, you're Eidetic Eddie. I've heard of you from Glenn McGregor, a Tampa cop I golf with on MacDill,” said Gunny Rob. 
    “Yeah, I know Glenn. He was the patrolman that responded after I shot Sally Boots. Good guy―horrible golfer!” 
    “That’s him,” replied Rob with a laugh. 
    Carla continued, “Char is the father of the guy you’re looking for. He was in with a pretty bad crowd back then, a couple of small-time Irish hoods and a crooked cop named Guy Handley who was on the take of a local Mafia captain by the name of
    Sally Boots.”
    Both Marines were enraptured by the tale being spun, but Rob snapped out of it long enough to address the obvious. “
    E xcuse me, Detective Doyle, but what does this have to do with Michael Blackfox?”
    “Fair enough, Gunny, he replied, and call me Eddie. I’m retired.” Gunny Rob nodded and Eddie continued. “The gang escaped. The rogue wave was actually the leading edge of a hurricane that hit the Tampa Bay area on Halloween night.”
    Eddie turned the page of the album and displayed several news articles preserved behind the acetate pages containing d etails of the surprise tropical depression that struck the coastline around St. Petersburg during the evening on October 31st. On the facing page was another article with a photo of the Star of Tampa and a headline that read ‘All Aboard Feared Lost.’ 
    The next page contained photos of damage from the storm, including several photos of a beached Hatteras yacht lying der elict on its side with the name Bull Market clearly visible on the stern. 
    “The high seas breached the boat that the gang was using to escape on Fort Desoto. Heard of it?” asked Eddie. 
    “Yeah, I take the family there for picnics. It’s beautiful,” replied Gunny Rob.
    Eddie nodded. “One of the gang hid the gold looted from the Star of Tampa’s casino before being captured.  Buford took a sip from the tall cool glass of ice tea and lemonade and interjected,
    “Gold?” 
    Carla answered. “Simon Block, the owner of the Star, was trying to lure in gamblers with a promotion of a one-armed bandit with a million-dollar payoff in gold coins, which was a lot more money back then.”
    Buford nodded and caught himself looking at her breasts. God, she is a really sexy older woman . 
    “The guy that we caught leaving the fort was a fugitive orig inally charged with a bank robbery in Louisiana. We think he hid the gold before his capture, then escaped from prison in 2004 and teamed up with Char and his son…”—he paused a moment and made eye contact with Gunny Rob—“…to recover the gold. They waited for the park to be closed due to a tropical storm, stole an amphibious vehicle called a Duck,”— both Marines nodded in acknowledgement—“and with the help of what was later determined to be a copious amount of C4, recovered the gold and faded into the night.” 
    “And that’s the last anyone has ever seen of them?” Gunny Rob asked. 
    Eddie thought for a moment and said, “I traced them to a marina in Marco Island where they changed the name of the boat to Good as Gold .” 
    “Very ironic,” commented Buford. 
    “Yeah, you don’t know the half of it―they paid the painter to write ‘Tampa Star’ as the name of the boat on the receipt. Here is a picture of the boat that I got from Tampa PD’s gang unit. It seems that yacht was part of a gambling debt collected by Sally Boots, the Mafia capo who was thought to have planned the robbery of the Star of Tampa.” 
    “What happened to him?” asked Buford. 
    “Eddie shot him dead,” said Carla with an air of satisfaction. 
    Eddie nodded. “The first and only time I used my weapon in the line of duty.” 
    “Thanks for ridding the earth of another dirt bag,” said Gunny Rob. 
    “Can we have this print? Because if we can blow it up, we should