Free Smugglers 3 Accidental Kingpin by Gerald McCallum Page A

meal together. When we got back to the hotel, I called the marina and decorator and was told it would be closer to three months not weeks to complete repairs.
    Angel and I agreed that we didn’t want to stick around. We might run into someone who would recognize us from our past life.
    “Let’s pack up anything we can’t replace, just take clothes for a couple of days. We’ll buy new wherever we land. That way everything can fit in the Escalade,” I told her. “We’ll leave tomorrow, early.”
    In the morning we said goodbye to Bob and Karen. We arranged to meet them at the Key West Hilton Marina come August first or so. I was sad to part with them, as we’d been through some harrowing times together.
    We drove to Jackson, Mississippi, making one stop for new ID’s for the entire family.
    Once again, we had to come up with new names, ones we could remember. Our cover had been blown under two identities, and I’m sure the Mexicans would be looking for me under both aliases.
    So we were now Mr. and Mrs. Hernando Cruz. I wasn’t sure if Angel, now Ana, knew that Hernando meant journey prepared, which pretty much summed up my life these days. Maria became Ria and Teo turned into Ted.
    We went into Texas where we traded the Escalade for an RV, a top of the line Prevost forty-footer with all the trimmings topping in at one and a half million dollars.  I even took a class to learn how to drive and park it, always keeping safety in mind.
    After a week of getting the forty foot diesel pusher, tow bar and a new RX-7 set up, we headed out for parts unknown. The family liked the gypsy part of this adventure, and I was relaxed, happy not to have somebody trying to kill me twenty four/seven.
    We decided to head to Las Vegas where I knew we could blend in with the other millions of RVs on the road.
    On the way to Vegas we took our time and spent the nights here and there so we could sight see. In Vegas there were things to do for the kids and for us that were beyond belief, from carnival stuff to Broadway style productions.
    We were having so much fun we stayed two weeks and then headed to Lake Mead where we rented a house boat. We’d been missing the water and all the sports that it offered. As usual, we paid cash, not wanting to leave a paper trail.
    In Brownsville, Texas we found an RV park for the Prevost, and I started looking for a one hundred foot boat with a captain and crew.
    It took longer than I thought to settle on a boat. I finally bought a fairly new Hargreaves one hundred and one footer and had to find a captain, cook and crew of two for it. I couldn’t use my old captain, because he was probably being followed on the outside chance that I contacted him. Even though we have been through so much together I dare not try it because my kids’ lives depend on it.
    Ana and I redecorated our suite on the boat with new carpet and furniture. We hired a captain and his wife and gave them cash to decorate the yacht as they wanted with a boat credit card that had a two hundred fifty thousand dollar limit. We then headed off to Six Flags with the kids who were looking forward to scaring me to death riding roller coasters.
    While Ana and the kids had fun, I had to find guns and ammo. I wanted six AR-16s with four thirty round clips each and six big clip 9-mm pistols with two seventeen round clips each, all new of course with lots of shells. We spent the next month around Six Flags, and I got everything I needed, and the kids went to every park there was.
    Finally we headed back to the new yacht. When everyone got settled, I met with the captain and went over the boat and the changes he’d made while we were gone, about three hundred grand in total .

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 8
     
    We pulled out in the morning and headed for Key West for our rendezvous with Bob and Karen. This one hundred one Hargreaves was only twelve feet longer than my last boat but had a lot more room, and the new Hargreaves only drew three