The Last Witness

by W. E. B. Griffin

  A moment later, its engine running and lines retrieved, the second Panga followed.

  One pickup down, one to go, Treto thought, glancing at his wristwatch.

  Should make it in under two hours.

  He sighed audibly, then stepped back inside the pilothouse and stuck the carbine in its rack by the helm.

  He put the Nuevo Día’s engines in gear, set a due north course, and gradually ramped up her speed to twenty knots.

  —

  At just shy of four A.M., right at the southern edge of the Gulf Stream, First Mate Raúl Alfonso oversaw the securing of a Bahamian-flagged forty-five-foot cabin cruiser alongside the cargo ship.

  The cabin cruiser was far more stable than the Pangas had been, and almost as soon as the boarding ladder was put over the side, someone was quickly coming up it, followed by another and another.

  Captain Miguel Treto lit a fat cigar as he again watched the boarding process from the pilothouse door.

  The cigar barely had an ash ready to fall as he smiled appreciatively at the last of ten young women stepping aboard. Then two of his crew went quickly down the ladder and reappeared minutes later, each struggling under the weight of an enormous black duffel bag on his back.

  Just as we were told to expect, he thought. Will wonders ever cease?

  [THREE]

  Off Islamorada, Florida

  Sunday, November 16, 2 P.M.

  It was a Greetings From Paradise! picture-postcard day in the Florida Keys. An occasional puffy white cloud floated in the deep blue sky. The wind and sea were calm, the temperature a comfortable 85 degrees.

  Matt Payne stood at the flybridge helm of the sixty-one-foot-long yacht. The tropical sun warmed his face as the Viking Sport Fisherman cruised right at thirty knots, the gleaming white vessel smoothly slicing through the clear blue water.

  The twenty-seven-year-old, who was six feet tall and a solidly muscled one hundred seventy-five pounds, had a chiseled face with dark, thoughtful eyes. He kept his thick dark hair clipped short. A homicide sergeant—Philadelphia Police Department Badge Number 471—he was now off duty and on holiday. Accordingly, he was barefoot, wearing only a pair of bright red surfboarding shorts, a Phillies ball cap, and Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses.

  He tilted his head back to drain his beer—then casually crunched the can and tossed it into a plastic bucket by his feet. He belched loudly.

  Ahhh! he thought, reaching down and setting the autopilot on a compass heading of 220 degrees. I can’t think of a more perfect and relaxing way to spend a day.

  He glanced down to where Amanda Law was reclined on deep cushions arranged in the middle of the yacht’s long, sleek nose.

  Especially being on the water with my angel goddess.

  Sublime . . .

  Amanda wore a black bikini and black flip-flops. A broad-brimmed straw hat, white with black piping, shielded her head. A thick, glossy copy of Modern New Mom! magazine was fanned open facedown on her lap.

  She was gesturing in an animated manner with her left hand as she spoke on her cell phone, which she held in her right.

  Matt smiled as her platinum gold engagement ring—encrusted with tiny diamonds that he’d told her reminded him irreverently of so many very shiny and very expensive barnacles—twinkled in the bright sunshine.

  Dr. Amanda Law, the chief physician at Philadelphia’s Temple University Hospital Burn Center, had recently turned twenty-nine. She was extremely intelligent, with a bright face and eyes—and an air of complete confidence. She stood five-foot-five, weighed one-ten, and had the lean, toned body of an athlete. Her thick, luxurious blonde hair she’d woven into a pair of heavy braids, each now resting on a shoulder.

  As Matt started to turn his attention back to the helm, he saw Amanda putting down her phone. She then reached over to the small control panel between the cushions and turned up the volume of the high-fidelity audio system.

  Playing throughout the boat were tunes from Matt’s portable digital music device. He had compiled more than five hours’ worth of tropics-themed tracks in a file he had, with tongue firmly in cheek, labeled “Pirate Playlist.”

  The sound of Caribbean steel drums had just faded out on Jimmy Buffett’s “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” and now began Michael McCloud singing “Just Came Down for the Weekend.”

  They could really be singing about me, Matt thought, grinning broadly. A guy flees the frozen North for the warm tropics, embraces island time—and winds up staying a quarter-century.

  That’d be just fine with me.

  We’re a world away from Philly—and the damn insanity of me dealing with murders.

  His grin faded.

  Do we have to go back to that?

  Matt saw the screen of his cell phone, which he had placed in a cup holder in front of the wheel, light up. A text message box appeared:

  305-555-1254 2:05 PM

  IT’S CHAD. WE STILL ON FOR TONIGHT?

  Guess he got a new number down here.

  Or had to borrow someone’s phone.

  Bet he dropped his in the drink again!

  Matt picked up the phone and texted back:

  TRIED TO TEACH ANOTHER PHONE TO SWIM, HUH?

  YUP. WE’RE EN ROUTE TO LITTLE MUNSON NOW. ETA 2 HOURS.

  SEE YOU AT 7. BRING $$. YOU ARE BUYING.

  Growing up on the upper-crust Main Line, known for Philadelphia’s old money, Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV and Matthew Mark Payne had been buddies since they wore diapers. The friendship of the Nesbitts and Paynes—Chad’s father and Matt’s stepfather were best friends—went further back than that.

  Matt put his phone back in the cup holder and pulled a water bottle from the built-in cooler. He looked back over his right shoulder, then over his left, making his regular scan of the area for boat traffic and other possible obstacles. He thought he heard the music getting a little louder again and glanced back down in time to see Amanda pulling her hand and its twinkling diamonds away from the control panel.

  Well, she clearly likes my music mix.

  Maybe cranking up the songs is her way of hinting she could get used to this, too. . . .

  —

  Matt and Amanda had arrived in the Keys two days earlier, exactly a week after he mentioned over dinner in Philadelphia that he finally had found in Florida a year-old Porsche 911 he wanted to buy. It would replace his 911, which had been riddled by shotgun blasts as he’d chased a pair of robbers in a restaurant parking lot, one that happened to be a dozen blocks from the police department’s headquarters.

  “Now that I’ve finally finished up the last case’s paperwork, I can take a little time off and go get it,” Matt said, then took a swig of red wine.

  Amanda knew he was referring to what the news media had been calling the “Halloween Homicides,” a series of murders involving a vigilante shooter taking out convicted sex offenders and drug dealers who were fugitives.

  In the end, Matt had become involved in a shoot-out and then a chaotic foot chase across the massive Interstate 676 suspension bridge—the Benjamin Franklin—that had been broadcast live. Images from that—all invariably showing Matt running and dodging cars with his Colt .45 semiautomatic drawn—soon appeared in every local media outlet from television to print to the Internet with headlines that, in one sensational phrasing or another, screamed: “Bullets Fly as the Wyatt Earp of the Main Line Solves Serial Murder Mystery.” Various national media ran with the story, too.

  “You’re being disingenuous, sweetie,” Amanda had replied, pointedly but with a smile. “What you mean to say is that your Uncle Denny ordered you to take the time off so you would be out of sight and mind of the media, not to mention the ACLU. Playing up the story of the wealthy hometown hero with a growing history of shoot-outs sells newspapers—and creates friction for City Hall.”

  Matt’s “Uncl
e Denny” was First Deputy Commissioner Dennis V. Coughlin. The fifty-six-year-old wasn’t a blood relative, and thus not actually Matt’s uncle. But he was his godfather—having been best friends with Matt’s biological father, who was killed in the line of duty while Matt was still in the womb—as well as second in command of the Philadelphia Police Department.

  And it was the mayor himself who had ordered—through Coughlin—that Matt take another “cooling-off period.” With all his shootings having been thoroughly investigated by Internal Affairs and judged to be righteous, the time off wasn’t meant exactly for Matt’s benefit. The periods were instead designed to give the media and the American Civil Liberties Union time to find something else on which to focus their seemingly boundless energy.

  Careful, Matty, he thought. Don’t need to pick the scab off that conversation now.

  No question Amanda would like for this cooling-off period to become permanent—for me, as she says, “to quit playing cop and get a job where no one shoots at you.”

  Her being newly pregnant can’t help but bring that up again.

  “I stand corrected,” Matt said, smiling and raising his wineglass. “Either way, I’m off-duty and going toy shopping.”

  “And I’ve been waiting to hear what you were going to do with your time off,” Amanda had then enthusiastically announced. “Let’s go together to get your toy!”

  “Really?” he said, almost dropping his glass. “You can get away from the hospital?”

  “Of course. You need a break from the city, and I personally need a saltwater fix. Diving is out of the question for me right now. But maybe we could get some fishing in. Certainly we can enjoy some nice long walks on the beach.”

  Matt’s initial plan was for them to fly from Philadelphia to West Palm and check into the Breakers or the Four Seasons on the beach there. The sports car—which he had already had professionally inspected and the sale paperwork completed by overnight courier—would be waiting when they arrived at whichever hotel Amanda chose. They would watch the Atlantic Ocean’s waves go up and down for a week or so, then drive the 911 back to Philadelphia.

  But when Matt outlined that to his stepfather, Brewster Payne offered another idea.

  “As I was having lunch at the Union League,” he had said, “Steve Whittings stopped by my table to say he had news that might take the sting out of the storm having sunk the boat.”

  The Union League of Philadelphia, with the motto Love of Country Leads, was founded as a patriotic society during the Civil War. It enjoyed an exclusive membership—well heeled and well connected—including such luminaries as the founding partner of Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo & Lester, which was the city’s most prestigious law firm, and the president of Franklin National Bank. The Union League’s impressive brownstone covered an entire Center City block, a brief walk from City Hall and many other political and corporate power addresses.

  “He always was partial to the Hatteras,” Matt said, having a mental image of them fishing aboard the fifty-five-foot Final Tort IV.

  “That’s because he almost always caught the biggest fish on her.”

  Matt chuckled. “He certainly likes beating the Nesbitts. I’m beginning to think Chad gave up fishing and went to those high-performance offshore boats because of that.”

  “Would not surprise me. The Nesbitts have always been very competitive. Anyway, Steve told me that his bank was having trouble getting rid of a Viking they’d repossessed after its owner went to jail last summer. He said it really is a buyers’ market, and that if I were interested, the bank was damn tired of having the boat on their books. He said he’d almost intentionally sink his own boat so he’d have an excuse to buy her.”

  “She must be nice. Are you interested?”

  “Of course. We’ve never been without a boat. I just don’t have time to go there and check her out. And now that you’re planning on being in the area . . .”

  Matt nodded thoughtfully. “A Final Tort IV. Why not?”

  Two phone calls later—one from Brew Payne to Steve Whittings to explain the situation and get details on the boat, and another call from the banker to the yacht broker, whom Whittings instructed to give Matt a familiarization cruise, then hand over the keys for however long he wanted them, having made the point, “I’ve watched Matt run his father’s boats since he could stand and hold the wheel, he won’t so much as ding the boat”—it was a done deal.

  “Matt,” his stepfather reported back to him, “you can get your car in West Palm, then meet the broker in Islamorada. Captain Clyde has the boat next to his at Bud and Mary’s Marina. Take Amanda down to Little Palm and put it on my account.”

  [FOUR]

  Matt scanned ahead of the Viking with his binoculars as he—off-key but with gusto—sang along with Buffett about a modern-day pirate. After leaving Islamorada, the big boat had been running almost two hours on a southwesterly course, following along the chain of islands and the bridges of the Overseas Highway connecting them. Matt could easily make out Seven Mile Bridge, which ran south of Bahia Honda to Big Pine Key. He saw what was easily a score or more of other vessels, mostly powerboats but some under sail, crisscrossing the area. And, just out at the edge of the Gulf Stream, a cruise ship was headed east, passing a rusty cargo ship riding high with an empty deck and slowly making its way northward.

  Matt heard Amanda playfully clear her throat behind him as she approached the helm. He felt her hand reach around him, finding the volume control.

  “I hope you’re not planning to use those singing skills to provide for your new family,” she said as she turned it up.

  He put the binoculars on the console and turned to her. She had pulled back the front brim of her floppy hat, revealing her face dominated by a pair of big round black sunglasses and an even bigger mischievous smile.

  “Thanks a lot,” he said, smiling back. “You know how that part of the vow goes, the ‘for richer, for poorer’ one . . . ?”

  “I think not,” she said, and kissed his neck. “You took advantage of me, and got me in the family way. You’re obligated to make it right.”

  His hand slipped to her bikini bottom and gently squeezed her right cheek.

  “With pleasure,” he said, then added, “So you like my Pirate Playlist, I hear.”

  “Very much. I love all of this down here,” she said, making a grand sweep of the horizon with her left hand. “And I adore what I read about Little Palm Island. How did you say you discovered it?”

  “In Scouts. And we really did discover it.”

  “Boy Scouts?”

  He nodded and pointed toward shore.

  “Off Big Pine Key there are a couple of small outer islands once owned by the guy who made a fortune selling wood-refinishing products. The undeveloped one is called Big Munson, which he donated to the Scouts after some government agency wouldn’t let him build on it. Thirteen or fourteen years ago, Chad and I camped out on it for a week with a bunch of guys from our troop. We played castaways, like Robinson Crusoe, diving the reef, cooking fish on driftwood fires, that kind of thing. Our second day, we were paddling sea kayaks around a tidal flat of mangrove trees when we came out the other side of the island—and almost ran into an enormous yacht. It was moored at a lush little island that was ringed with an immaculately groomed sandy beach. The irony wasn’t lost on us. There we were, a bunch of nasty-smelling sunburned city boys living in mosquito-infested tents next door to a really swank resort accessible only by boat. We didn’t think our kayaks counted.”

  She laughed. “Little Palm?”

  He nodded. “I like to call it by its old name, Little Munson, just to remind the staff I lived next door before I even knew the place existed. You know, back in the day, Harry Truman and John Foster Dulles stayed there.”

  “How nice. And now the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Payne.”

  “Huh,” Matt grunted. “
I don’t know, baby. I was thinking we’d go native. When was the last time you were in a tent?”

  “Enjoy yourself. I’ll be getting room service and a massage in one of those thatched-roof cabanas oceanside that I saw in the photographs.”

  He chuckled. “Fine. Be high maintenance. Dinner with Chad is at seven. He texted earlier to confirm.”

  He then pointed to a pack of maybe ten high-performance boats that had appeared to the south of them. The boats, moving fast, were kicking up tails of white spray. A helicopter kept pace with the pack, then picked up speed and moved up the coast.

  “That’s probably him playing with his buddies in their go-fasts,” he said. “He’s running the company’s new boat.”

  Chad Nesbitt was being groomed to one day take over Nesfoods International, just as his grandfather had groomed Chad’s father. Chad recently had been promoted to vice president and put in charge of developing new brands at the Philadelphia headquarters.

  “Oh, yeah,” Amanda said. “The boat you said that’s promoting their NRG! drinks.”

  Matt nodded. “That caffeine-packed sugar water is making a helluva lot of money. He told me his new NRG! boat cost a cool million—and that’s for a forty-two-footer that only seats maybe eight. Its twin Mercury Racing engines pump out more than two thousand horsepower. Top speed is around one-thirty.”

  “A hundred and thirty miles an hour? That’s insane. Why?”

  “‘Healthier—Faster!’ That’s the marketing slogan. The boat’s been wrapped in custom vinyl to make it look like a giant can of the stuff. But simple answer? Chad’s come to love go-fasts after hanging out with Antonov. And because he’s got a big hand in the promotion, he gets to pick where they throw money. He said there will be race car promos, too. Guess I’ll have to change his name from the Soup King to Speed King.”

  “Antonov? The casino guy?”

  Nikoli Antonov was general manager of Philly’s year-old Lucky Stars Casino & Entertainment, an enormous five-story complex that offered cavernous areas for gambling—2,500 slot machines, 100 gaming tables—fine dining, and performances by top music artists. Despite the competing casino that was nearly next door, Lucky Stars was said to sell the highest volume of alcohol in all the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Both casinos were just off the I-95 Delaware Expressway and overlooked the Delaware River, not far from Amanda Law’s luxury high-rise condominium building in Northern Liberties.