Going Dark (Thorn Mysteries)

by James W. Hall

  In the next few minutes they decided they would rendezvous tomorrow at Black Point Marina in south Dade County at 10:00 p.m., hit the island around midnight. The Coast Guard would supply Zodiac rafts with high-powered electric trolling motors for the landing on Prince Key. Forecast was for thunderstorms, possible tropical-storm conditions.

  Frank was about to share the reconnaissance photos taken by Agent Sanford in his Cessna when Magnuson clicked his computer mouse and sent each of them detailed images of Prince Key. They were recent satellite images that could only have come from NSA. Frank sighed and pushed his folder of photographs to the side.

  The big tent, the obstacle course, a solar panel, and a small lagoon that led to a narrow creek that snaked through the mangroves and joined other creeks and canals, all of them eventually feeding into one broad waterway that led out to the Atlantic. In the various shots, Magnuson counted a total of six ELF members on the island.

  They chose the best landing spots for the five Zodiac teams. The attack teams would fan out and surround the island, with one team blocking the entrance channel, and on Magnuson’s signal, all groups would come ashore in unison and head toward the barracks tent, which appeared to be the center of operations.

  In addition to the Zodiacs, members of the Special Response Team based at Homestead Air Reserve Base would be manning two UH-60 Black Hawk choppers flying in support. If anyone on the island managed to slip through the net, the choppers would track them.

  When Magnuson finished laying out the attack plan, he and Sheffield spent a few minutes hashing out the rules of engagement. Sheffield arguing for operational restraint, Magnuson making the case for a more aggressive approach. In Magnuson’s view, the level of threat that Chee posed was so dangerously high that some collateral damage was acceptable.

  “Not to me it isn’t,” Frank said. “I haven’t heard any irrefutable proof that Paul Chee has this stolen HpNC in his possession. Yes, he had the opportunity, and he went AWOL around the time the explosive disappeared, so, yeah, I understand your assumption. But invading a privately owned island in the middle of the Biscayne Bay National Park with guns blazing is not warranted by any information you’ve presented so far.”

  “There’ll be no guns blazing,” Magnuson said, looking at his three agents. “Is that clear, men?”

  They nodded one by one. Frank studying them, doubting their sincerity.

  The meeting lasted another half hour, Magnuson holding forth, going over the attack plan a second time, then a third.

  Frank sat quietly at his laptop and replayed the video. That steel-reinforced, indestructible wall disappearing in a whoosh. He played it again and again until the meeting ended.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “HEY, LADY,” WALLY SAID. “YOUR phone’s buzzing.”

  “Her name is Leslie,” Cameron said. “Stop calling her lady.”

  In the tent, Leslie lay on the weight bench, pressing a hundred pounds again and again, down to her chest, then pumping it overhead, working up a good lather while Prince spotted for her.

  Pauly lay on his cot, flat on his back, eyes open, doing nothing, but doing it with such fierce focus that Thorn couldn’t stop watching him.

  “You hear me, lady? Somebody’s calling you.”

  “She hears you,” Prince said.

  Leslie’s arms were quivering when she grunted for Prince to take the weight. He settled it into the rack and Leslie toweled her face and sat up, breathing hard.

  She wore a white T-shirt and light cotton pants with a drawstring. The shirt was damp, revealing the shape of her breasts, the tightened nipples.

  She glanced at Thorn, shot him a forced smile, got up, walked across to Wally, and looked over his shoulder at the scrolling code on his screen. “You still inside Turkey Point?”

  “Finished it yesterday. I’m just poking around inside another system.”

  “What system?”

  “South Florida Water Management. These idiots, their security is so out-of-date, it wouldn’t protect a taco stand.”

  Her phone vibrated on the shelf, crawling sideways like a wingless bee.

  “How long has this been ringing?”

  “Hell if I know,” Wally said. “I’m nobody’s secretary.”

  “The last hour,” Thorn said. “Ever since you started pumping iron.”

  “And nobody told me?”

  “I thought you were ignoring it,” said Thorn.

  Fiddling with her phone, Leslie slid her finger across the screen, moving through her text messages. She stiffened. Then she drifted off to a corner of the tent and tapped in a number and pressed the phone to her ear. But she’d left the speaker on, and when the connection was made, Thorn heard Flynn speaking. His voice-mail message.

  “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…”

  Leslie fumbled with the phone, switched off the speaker.

  Flynn was watching her, his eyes dimming with dread.

  Beside the weight bench Prince was doing more curls, oblivious. Pauly stared intently up at nothing while his brother continued to type and type.

  Leslie turned her back to them and brought the phone to her ear again. In a minute when she was done, her shoulders sagged and she bowed her head, nodding several times as though counting off sufficient time to gain control of herself.

  She stepped behind the dressing curtain that hung before her bed, and Thorn heard her rustling through her knapsack. When she slid the curtain aside, her smile was strained, a failed attempt to hide the distress in her eyes.

  “Flynn.” She motioned for him to follow. “We need a minute.”

  She took one of the battery lanterns from the storage shelf and headed toward the exit. As she passed by Thorn, she angled her body away from him, but Thorn spotted it anyway. Hidden beneath the tail of her shirt was a hard, angular bulge wedged into the waistband of her cotton pants. Over the years he’d seen far too many of those bulges and knew the grim results they usually signaled.

  He let a moment pass before he followed them out of the tent. Staying several yards behind as Leslie led the way, holding up the LED lantern, which sent a cone of harsh light around the two of them.

  Stars blazed in a cloudless patch of sky, and a breathless wind was sifting through the mangroves bringing with it the electric scent of rain from out in the Atlantic. He heard the uncertain trill of an owl and the drone of mosquitoes circling in. In the east, muted by the clouds, lightning throbbed like an erratic pulse.

  When she reached the climbing wall, she stopped, turned to Flynn, lifted the lantern to his face. He raised his hand to block the glare, but Leslie stepped closer and kept him blinded.

  “I heard some disturbing news. What I want to know from you, Flynn, is where you’ve hidden your cell phone.”

  Flynn opened his mouth, then shut it.

  “I know it’s here. Don’t lie to me.”

  He shook his head and sighed in frustration.

  Leslie swung the lantern to her left and found Thorn standing at the edge of the sand pit.

  “Step over here.” She had the pistol out but held it loose in her hand, pointing at the ground. A stainless-steel revolver. “That’s close enough. Right there. I’d hate like hell to hurt either of you. But if I have to, I will. Make a move, there’ll be no hesitation. So get it out of your mind, Thorn. All your tricks.”

  “Leslie, Leslie, Leslie.” A lament.

  “Now, where’s the phone?”

  Flynn stared at the ground and shook his head once more. He blew out a breath, glanced at Thorn, then lifted an arm and pointed to his left. “Buried in the sand, below the balance beam.”

  “Go get it, bring it back.”

  While he was digging, Thorn said, “If you try to hurt Flynn, you’re going to have to kill me. You know that, right?”

  Leslie was silent, the lantern steady. “Step forward where I can see you better. One step, that’s enough.”
/>
  “What’s this about, Leslie? What the hell happened?”

  Flynn returned with a phone and presented it to her.

  Leslie waved it off. “Turn it on. Go to recent calls.”

  Flynn brought the device alive, and in the glow of its screen he tapped it twice and held it out.

  With her gun hand, she slid her trigger finger down the screen once, then again and again, scrolling.

  “Whose number is this?” She held out the phone to Flynn, pointing at its screen. In its radiance Thorn could see Flynn’s agonized face.

  “He’s the head of the Miami FBI, Frank Sheffield.”

  Thorn groaned to himself.

  “You called him a week ago. While you were here on Prince Key.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “In a moment of weakness, but that weakness is gone. I’m where I want to be. Doing what I need to do.”

  “What did you tell this FBI agent?”

  “Nothing specific. I didn’t know anything specific.”

  “But you told him where you were. Here on the island.”

  “Yes, I told him I’d gotten mixed up with some political activists, and I was getting a little worried what they had in mind.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “To stay put. Call him if anything happened he should know about. He didn’t seem particularly concerned. But he’s a laid-back guy. So I don’t know.”

  “Have you called him again?”

  “No.”

  “You’re telling the truth?”

  “I made a mistake,” Flynn said. “I was confused.”

  “But you’re not confused anymore.”

  “I’m where I need to be. Doing what I need to do.”

  “How do you even know this guy, this federal agent?”

  “He’s a friend of Thorn’s.”

  She turned Thorn’s way. “Is that true?”

  Thorn nodded. “We worked together on a situation in the past. I wouldn’t say we’re friends. He’s buddies with Sugar, from Sugarman’s days as a deputy sheriff.”

  “Did you know about this, Thorn? Flynn being in contact with him?”

  Thorn said he didn’t. Leslie stared at him for a long moment, tapping the pistol’s barrel against her thigh. Then she turned again to Flynn. “You understand, don’t you, what you did was a betrayal. You could have put all our lives in danger.”

  “I understand.”

  “This operation is more important than any single member. We’re all expendable. You understand that, too?”

  Flynn nodded.

  She held Flynn’s gaze for several moments, and even in the bad light Thorn could read in that exchange of looks something that was more charged and personal than he could fully absorb.

  “Okay,” Leslie said. “I’m going to trust you. You say you were confused but you’re no longer confused. I accept that.”

  Flynn whispered, “Thank you.”

  “Well, I don’t. I don’t accept any of it. This is total bullshit.” Cameron Prince stepped into the circle of light. “You can’t make a decision like that on your own, Leslie.”

  Thorn stepped aside. Leslie set the lantern at her feet. She tucked the pistol back beneath the tail of her shirt. Prince bristled with a dark radiance as though some dormant power source within him had been activated. Standing only a few yards away, Thorn could feel the hum of threat.

  “From the very outset you’ve been usurping the power. That ridiculous vote on Thorn, letting this unreliable piece of shit walk right into the heart of our group. And now this. Flynn collaborating with the feds, and good God, you’re simply going to take his word for his change of heart.

  “I know what’s going on. I see it, Leslie. You’ve got a weakness for these two. You’re simply too emotional to be a leader, and that puts us all in jeopardy. I won’t have it. I won’t fucking take it anymore. Risk my goddamn life and everything we’ve put into motion, for what? These two punks?”

  “And what do you propose?”

  “It’s time we adjusted the pecking order.” He turned his head and scowled at Thorn. “I’m promoting myself. From now on, I’m assuming leadership. Understood? And my first official act will be to rid ourselves of these two. Starting with this one, then his little boy.”

  “We need them,” she said. “We need all six to make this work.”

  “Jesus,” Thorn said. “That’s your best argument?”

  “See, that’s exactly what I mean,” said Prince. “This derisive attitude.”

  “Hey, meathead, forget the pecking order,” Thorn said. “You want to adjust something, see if you can adjust my attitude.”

  From the get-go, when Thorn had confronted Prince prowling his property, there had been an instant clash. Ever since then Thorn and the pompous hulk had been headed toward this moment. Better to do it in the darkness where Thorn had at least a remote chance to catch him off-balance.

  Prince came at him quicker than Thorn expected. Nothing in how he walked or moved hinted at this propulsive speed, a sprinter’s surge. Head down, arms pumping, and just before contact, he spread those big arms wide, to tackle or sling or crush. His crude martial art.

  His right shoulder aimed at Thorn’s midsection.

  Managing a quarter turn, Thorn deflected a fraction of the weight with his hip, but the impact sent him sprawling into the sand beneath the climbing rope. On his back, he was stunned, fighting for breath, as Prince gathered himself, came to his feet, and sneered at Thorn.

  “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got, Mr. Back Alley eye-gouger?”

  Behind Prince’s bulk, Thorn caught sight of Flynn shaking loose from Leslie’s grip. She grabbed his arm again and hung on, trying to spare the kid this nightmare of anabolic steroids and mindless brawn.

  Thorn tried to rise, but groaned and sagged against the sand as if that single blow had ruptured something in his entrails. A possum’s trick.

  So cocksure of his supremacy, Prince bought the act and sent Leslie a gloating look. Just that second.

  Long enough for Thorn to roll, and roll again, building up sufficient thrust to ride up hard against the front of Prince’s shins, bowing the ankles back, the knees straining against themselves, whiplashing his body. Something inside the meat of his legs crackled like gristle sizzling on the fire.

  Prince staggered and danced two steps, legs rubbery, howling with rage.

  Thorn got to his feet, reached up, and grabbed the hawser, thick as a tugboat’s towline. He retreated a yard, then swung feetfirst at Prince’s bulk.

  Arcing high, he timed his flight, lifted his legs, and scissored them around Prince’s neck, locked his ankles, clamping the big man’s neck, then wrenched sideways as if levering the cap off a beer bottle.

  But Prince’s neck was too braided with muscle for this to make an impression. With a spurt of fury, he growled and vise-locked his hands on Thorn’s ankles, pried them apart, then took a step backward and wrenched him loose from the rope and began a slow twirl, around once, and a second time, swinging Thorn like a sack of corn.

  Prince rocked unsteadily on his gimpy ankles, but managed to build up enough velocity with the next rotation to hurl Thorn against the climbing wall with such force that bottle rockets and willow trees of flaming sparks fired across the black sky of his consciousness.

  He felt himself sliding down the wall and thudding into the sand.

  Bleary and disoriented, he floundered on his side and tried to crawl away, escape whatever delights Prince had in mind next. Blinded by sand, his body half-numb, with a broken rib perhaps, an aching shoulder, his jaw clicking on its hinges, Thorn only made it a few feet.

  Prince grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him upright and swung him around to face Leslie and his son.

  “As I was saying,” Prince spoke over Thorn’s shoulder. “After I snap this one’s neck, I’ll do the kid. We’ll just have to manage with two less men.”

  He took Thorn’s chin in on
e mitt and gripped the back of his head in the other. One good twist from the end.

  Leslie commanded Prince to stop. She released Flynn and went for her pistol, but it was too late. Prince had already cranked Thorn’s neck to its limits, pointing his chin back of his shoulder blade, his cervical vertebrae so strained that the darkness grew twice as dark.

  Thorn exited the scene, became a spectator, viewing this from afar, his hands going through the motions, scrabbling and clawing at Prince’s meaty arm. To no avail. But it didn’t matter. Thorn was safe somewhere else, watching it unfold, watching Flynn spring across the grass to jump the goon. Protect his old man. Good kid. Brave kid.

  Then for some reason Flynn halted, and from the great, comfy distance where Thorn was perched, weightless, observing these inconsequential events, he saw Prince’s hands break loose from their hold on Thorn’s head, felt air seep back into his own lungs.

  Thorn didn’t witness the exact footwork or handhold or throwing technique that Pauly employed. All he saw were the results: Prince staggering, then pitching away to his right, going airborne, his heavy arms flailing, a shout coming from somewhere as he body-slammed face-first against the earth, an impact so violent that a yard away the lantern toppled onto its side.

  From the great precipice where he’d been so pleasantly removed, Thorn swooped back to his body on the ground. Tasting the blood in his mouth, his big joints throbbing, stretched out of alignment.

  After an interval, Thorn grunted and sat upright, wiped away a smear of blood from his lips, and rubbed his hand clean on his shirt.

  Pauly squatted before him. His inexplicable savior. His buddy. Pauly, whose martial arts skills came from a more exalted plane.

  “You okay?”

  “Never better,” Thorn said.

  Leslie helped Thorn to his feet, made him extend his hand to Cameron Prince and declare a truce. Thorn said something and the hulk huffed an empty apology and lumbered off to attend to his wounds with Pauly shadowing him. Maybe Leslie sent them both away. Maybe they left on their own. Thorn wasn’t following the specifics too closely. He was concentrating on staying upright, keeping his legs beneath him, drawing breath.