Going Dark (Thorn Mysteries)

by James W. Hall

  The next five numbers were from some Miami-Dade building inspector. Scratch those. Nicole dialed the next number, got a car repair shop, hung up.

  The next was next to last on her list. It rang five times, then went to voice mail. A guy sounding rushed, out of breath.

  “Hi, listen, I’m going away for a while. Taking a hiatus from the show, I’m not sure when I’ll be back. If this is Mom, don’t worry. I’m safe. It’s all cool. I’m doing something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, something important. Fill you in later. Don’t worry, really. So leave a message if you want. You know the drill.”

  She clicked off.

  She called the last number, the pizza parlor again. Frank liked his pie.

  “This is him.” She pointed at the phone number on her list, the hiatus guy.

  “Yeah?”

  “Contact Leslie. Have her call this number, she’s going to recognize the guy’s voice. She needs to eliminate him, whoever it is. Let her know that. Eliminate him immediately.”

  “And Sheffield? If he’s laid up, he’s not sending SWAT anywhere.”

  Nicole set the phone aside. Put the index card back in her purse. She settled back against the pillow.

  She considered it a minute more, then turned and looked at Claude, reaching out beneath the sheets and finding him. “Call Leslie, eliminate this guy,” she said quietly. “I’ll handle Frank.”

  * * *

  Sheffield was still at his desk, smiling to himself, when Marta cleared her throat in his doorway. She was holding her dime-store steno notebook.

  “You got two calls while you were chatting.”

  “Tell me you weren’t listening in, Marta.”

  “I never press my ear to the wall. But if you want total privacy, you should consider soundproofing.”

  Sheffield shook his head. He and Marta were hopelessly enmeshed. “And the calls?”

  “I contacted Agent Sanford about the flyover of Prince Key. He called back to say he’ll do it later this afternoon if that’s okay. If you want him to shoot anything specific, you should ring him. He gave me his cell.”

  “Call him back, Marta. I want shots of the island, surrounding waters. Boats, people, dwellings. Whatever’s down there. No more than two passes, nothing that would arouse suspicion on the ground.”

  While she scribbled on her pad, she said, “The second call, that’s the intriguing one.”

  “Okay.”

  “From NCIS, Threat Management Unit. Special Agent Zach Magnuson. Said to tell you it was urgent. Call as soon as you’re off the phone. It’s Pauly Chee. The calls I made about him, I guess it rang someone’s alarm.”

  “Well, well.”

  “Yes,” Marta said. “This is heating up. No?”

  Frank picked up the phone, smiled at Marta, and waited until she was out the door before he dialed.

  Twenty minutes later, he hung up, rocked back in his chair, and stared at his yellow legal pad.

  While the special agent was speaking, Frank had scribbled a list:

  1. Paul Chee, E-6 Petty Officer First Class, SEAL team 2

  2. Munitions specialist

  3. Desertion and Possible Larceny of Government Property

  4. Heptanitrocubane HpNC—most powerful non-nuclear explosive compound

  5. Theft of 7 pounds, Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, CA

  6. Magnuson arrives Miami Saturday sixish.

  7. Bringing NCIS team, meet Saturday 8PM at 4 Seasons

  8. Set up SWAT for Sunday night—Prince Key takedown

  “So?” Marta was standing in the doorway.

  Frank said nothing, his eyes still fixed on the list.

  Marta walked over to his desk. “I guess it must be exciting news.”

  “Yeah?” He looked up. “How can you tell?”

  “On your arms, the goose bumps.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON, THE sun grazing the tops of the mangroves, golden arrows of sunlight firing through the dense foliage. Light wind from the east, new moon, tide coming in. Perfect fishing weather.

  He’d convinced Leslie that after they finished their construction project, he should take the guys out, catch tonight’s dinner. Fresh fish instead of the fast-food shit the group was surviving on. Teach them how to cast the bait net, get some pilchards, threadfin herring, or minnows, then find a coral head or patch of turtle grass, snag some snappers.

  Suspicious at first, Leslie finally relented. Gave him a sharp, cautionary look, then headed off in her flats boat on an errand she didn’t reveal. Cameron was gone, too. Shortly after a breakfast of cold pizza slices from the ice chest, he’d paddled away to work at the power plant’s biology lab. Staying with his routine, keeping up appearances.

  At the moment just the four of them were on the island, and it seemed unlikely Thorn would have a better chance to make a break.

  Only steps from where they stood, the pry bar was buried in the sand, but going for it, then taking on both Chee brothers hand to hand was too risky. Once they were out on the water, though, the balance of power would shift. The sea was Thorn’s second home. And he had a plan, nothing fancy, a way to stall the Chees long enough for him and Flynn to get a decent head start.

  He knew he’d get one chance and only one. If he blew it, there’d be no democratic vote this time. And he had to brace himself for the prospect that Flynn might side with the others. If that was how it went down, Thorn was prepared to leave Flynn behind, return as fast as possible with backup.

  While Pauly hauled the last of the four kayaks from the storage rack, his brother stood at the shore practicing with the cast net—trying to sail it out into the cove, but fumbling yet again.

  At the waterline sat the slatted box they’d spent most of the day constructing. Thorn guided them through Leslie’s blueprint, making use of the handsaws she provided, the hammers and nails. It was a rectangular cage, so large it would be a tight squeeze in the bed of a pickup.

  Leslie didn’t say what it was for, just that it would play a role in their plan. To Thorn it resembled an oversize lobster trap.

  Thorn stepped over to Wally as he was hauling in the handline, once again the entire rig snarled in a mad tangle of loops and netting, the lead weights knotted in a clump.

  Six times he’d failed, but each time Wally dragged the net to shore, methodically untangled it, and hurled it again—failing, failing, failing, but on a compulsive mission to get it right.

  Thorn asked Wally if he wanted to walk through it one more time.

  “Fucking thing is impossible.”

  “Loop the handline around your left wrist, then take the line and make even coils, and hold the horn of the net in your left hand.”

  Wally followed the instructions with the grim focus of a child tying his shoelaces for the first time.

  Thorn walked him through it again. Wally’s face was flushed from the exertion, the waxy skin shining and his brutish eyes crinkled with focus. Wearing yellow Bermuda shorts and a black T-shirt and leather sandals with white socks, Wally struck Thorn as oddly childish, as if perhaps a mangled gene had scrambled his code. His focus shifted continually while he glowered and muttered below his breath as if reciting some profane nursery rhyme.

  “Okay, last step. Reach down, pinch the skirt about midway, and take one of the sinkers between your teeth.”

  “This is where I fuck up. You need three hands.”

  Wally lifted the edge of the net and bit on one of the lead weights that fringed the bottom, the rest of the net balancing precariously in both hands.

  “You’re almost there. Now rotate to your left, pull the net back, and throw it like hitting a backhand in tennis. Release everything at once, except the handline.”

  Wally pivoted left and swung back around, lofting the net out into the cove. It swelled open nicely this time, a ten-foot, perfect circle parachuting into the water and sinking fast.

  “Now hit the handline hard and haul it in.”

  “I
did it,” Wally yelled. “Hey, Pauly, I fucking did it.” Wally dragged the net up onto the beach. A couple of finger mullet flopped on the sand at his feet and wriggled back into the dark water of the cove. “Hey, Pauly. I caught some goddamn bait. Look at this shit. I’m fucking Hemingway.”

  While Wally wrestled with the net, Thorn edged over to Flynn and said, his voice low, “I’m making a break. You with me?”

  Flynn swallowed hard as if slugging down a dose of bitter medicine.

  Thorn lay a hand on his son’s shoulders and Flynn tensed at his touch. “This stunt won’t work. You’ll go to jail, people could get hurt.”

  “You’ve done worse.”

  “And I regretted it later. We need to get out of here.”

  “Go ahead. I’m staying.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “You’re a goddamn bully, you know that?” Flynn gave Thorn a shove and stepped away.

  Hell, the kid was right. Flynn was an adult. Years of tough decisions behind him, a mature, sensible man who’d succeeded in a competitive business. Which was a shitload more than Thorn could say.

  Sure, without meaning to, Thorn had become an authority on twisted fucks like Wally and Pauly and the brutal games they played. But what kind of expertise was that? What rights did it give him to dictate to Flynn?

  Maybe, in the last year, all those mumbling monologues Thorn had carried on with an absent Flynn had seduced Thorn into believing he and his son had forged a real connection. When the fact was, Flynn Moss was still a stranger. Aside from biology, Thorn wasn’t the kid’s father in any meaningful way. He was just a guy who’d stumbled into the young man’s path.

  Thorn’s adoptive father, Dr. Bill Truman, had guided Thorn with little more than a nod, a rare word of support or praise, never a heavy hand. Thorn’s notion of manliness, his sense of honor and loyalty, were not forged from strong-armed discipline or overbearing lectures.

  Then again, could he just let this gang of zealots put Flynn’s life in peril? Wasn’t that the crucial job of any father, to protect his kids? Wasn’t that the whole goddamn point of parenting? Take all necessary actions to spare the kid pain even if the kid was an adult, even if bullying was required?

  When Pauly had all four kayaks nosed into the water, the four of them spent a few minutes stowing the rods in the tight compartments, then one by one they climbed into the cockpits and settled in. Thorn arranged the cast net in the forward hold.

  They rowed out of the cove and into the narrow creek that snaked to the bay. Wally leading, Flynn following close, with Thorn tucked in behind his son. Thorn glanced back to see Pauly bringing up the rear, paddling strongly and easily.

  In fifteen minutes they reached the bay, emerging on the ocean side of Prince Key. To their west the nuke plant was hidden behind the tall trees of the island. Farther to their south was the long span of Card Sound Bridge, and beyond that, out of sight, lay Key Largo, with its channels and back bays and creeks, a hundred familiar places to hide. But Key Largo was at least ten miles off. An impossible distance.

  The shortest route to safety was to head a mile south, duck into the main channel at the Ocean Reef Club, and get his ass to the dock at the oceanside marina, where armed security officers patrolled day and night.

  “Okay, smart guy,” Pauly said. “Do your thing.”

  The wind was light, the water close to shore with barely a chop, while farther out the ocean was a polished slab of cobalt spangled with silver coins of light, a flawless slick that stretched endlessly toward the horizon.

  A dying wave from the wake of a distant cabin cruiser lifted the four kayaks and rolled on toward Prince Key, carrying with it a mat of seaweed and a battered styrofoam cup. Six feet down the bottom was visible, a couple of coral heads and spatters of white sand where minnows darted across the open ground, exposed for a blink before disappearing into the swaying patches of turtle grass. The hot summer air was thick with the vinegar scent of barnacles on the roots of the mangroves exposed by the not-yet-risen tide. And a sharp stink came from the trees along the shoreline where roosting pelicans had smeared the upper leaves with white streaks of guano.

  Thorn scanned the adjacent waters, choosing a spot as distant from Prince Key as he thought he could sell to Pauly.

  “Over there,” he said, motioning south.

  “Get on with it.” Pauly fell in behind him.

  Passing Flynn, Thorn glanced his way, but couldn’t read him.

  Pauly kept pace with Thorn, allowing no distance to grow between their kayaks. Stroke by stroke Thorn led them farther from Prince Key.

  One cast, that’s all he needed. Best cast he’d ever made.

  Thorn pictured the perfect layout of the four kayaks, and how it would work, step by step, a sharp, vivid scene without a lot of fuss. Cast the bait net once, then when everyone’s guard was down, he’d turn and lasso Pauly, hit the handline hard, cinch the rope, add a hard knot, and Pauly would be trussed up like a holiday turkey.

  While Pauly fought the netting, deal with Wally. Whack him overboard, shove his kayak out to sea. And get the hell out of there.

  Just one good cast, something he’d done a thousand times.

  Thorn pointed toward a patch of ruffled water. “Bait,” he said, giving Flynn a quick look. You with me?

  And got no response.

  A mass of gunpowder-gray clouds was scudding out of the west, dimming the sun and turning the blue sea to pewter as if nature were having the same grim mood swing as Thorn.

  The arrangement of the boats he’d been picturing wasn’t happening. The rising wind had spread the kayaks helter-skelter. Pauly was drifting farther from the group, almost out of range.

  Thorn cast the net out to the open water and hauled it in. On that throw he captured a single needlefish, which squirted through the knotted cords as he drew the net close.

  “This is fucked,” Wally said. “We’ll be out here all night.”

  “Fishing takes patience,” Thorn said.

  “Fuck patience. Patience is for assholes with nothing better to do.”

  Thorn gathered the net and got set. He took a second to arrange his grip and aim, then swiveled in the cockpit and launched the net.

  Pauly saw it coming, jammed his paddle deep, and tried to scoot out of range, but Thorn had guessed he’d respond that way and led him by a few feet. The net fluttered around him like a lariat over the horns of a rodeo bull.

  But as Thorn was yanking the handline to tighten the noose, Flynn slid next to Pauly’s kayak, dropped his paddle, took hold of the bait net, and whisked it off.

  “Jesus, Thorn,” Flynn said. “I thought you were good at this.”

  Pauly looked Thorn’s way, his mouth widening a fraction. A cramped smile. “Nice try, hotshot.”

  “It was the wind,” Flynn said.

  “Sure it was,” said Pauly. “The wind.”

  Hand over hand Thorn was dragging in the net when a flats boat idled into view from the opening of Pumpkin Creek, then with a roar, it rose up on plane and in a handful of seconds was veering alongside him, its wake rocking Thorn’s kayak so hard he had to grip the sides to keep from capsizing.

  Wearing a broad-brimmed sunhat, Leslie Levine stood at the wheel of her Whipray. The bow of Thorn’s kayak scraped hard against its sleek white hull. She throttled back and maneuvered the boat out of range.

  On her face was the kind of unruffled look you’d expect from some forgiving kindergarten teacher who dealt every hour of every working day with the shortcomings of her wayward charges.

  “Any luck?” she said.

  Wally opened his mouth to rat Thorn out, but Pauly cut a stony look his way and he halted.

  “We’re just getting started,” Thorn said.

  “There’s plenty of bait around,” said Flynn. “Looks promising.”

  “So there’s no trouble, Pauly?”

  Pauly looked at her and grunted. Nothing he couldn’t handle.

  “I’ll get the grill
ready,” she said. “We’ll have a cookout.”

  Wally was staring at each of them in turn, trying to decipher the meaning of this moment. Not sure what he was missing. Thorn was just as mystified. Pauly was giving him a pass. A simple word from him and Thorn was done.

  “You need me to stick around, make sure everything goes smoothly?”

  “Got it covered,” Pauly said.

  As Leslie moved her hand to the throttle, out in the western sky, breaking through the thickening clouds, a single-engine Cessna headed toward them, swooping low, thundering only a few hundred feet overhead, then continuing a mile or so out over the Atlantic and circling back for another pass over the island before it headed back in the direction it had come.

  Leslie watched it disappear, then took another look at the four of them and kicked the skiff up on plane and roared off.

  In the next twenty minutes, as the tide was coming in, Thorn nabbed a dozen glassy minnows and two stray ballyhoo. He handed out the bait and they fished until twilight.

  Slow at first, until they found a rocky patch with a hungry school of gray snappers and some white grunts and a good-size spotted sea trout. Before they were done, even Wally caught a lane snapper. A dozen fish in all.

  Paddling back in the gathering darkness, Thorn drew alongside Pauly.

  Around them, in the thickening dusk, the bay glowed bluish silver as if the water were hoarding the last seconds of daylight within its depths.

  “So this was a test,” Thorn said. “See if I’d try to make a run for it.”

  “She wants to trust you,” Pauly said. “She thinks you’re hot shit.”

  “Why’d you give me a pass?”

  “We need six people to make this work. Don’t want it to fall apart.”

  Pauly drew his paddle out of the water, looking Thorn in the eyes as they coasted side by side.

  “Plus I’m sick of those turkey subs.”

  They stroked in unison for a while.

  “Good thing we caught fish then,” Thorn said.