by Tom Clancy
Kelly chuckled and altered course to port to stay well clear of the small cutter. “Nice to know that our country’s waterways are in such capable hands, Coast Guard, ‘specially with a weekend coming up.”
“Careful, Springer, or I’ hit you for a safety inspection!”
“My federal tax money at work?”
“I hate to see it wasted.”
“Well, Coast Guard, just wanted to make sure y’all were awake.”
“Roger and thank you very much, sir. We were dozing a little. Nice to know we have real pros like you out here to keep us on our toes.”
“Fair winds, Portagee.”
“And to you, Kelly. Out.” The radio frequency returned to the usual static.
And that took care of that, Kelly thought. It wouldn’t do to have him come alongside for a chat. Not just now. Kelly secured the radio and went below. The eastern horizon was pink-orange now, another ten minutes or so until the sun made its appearance.
“What was that all about?” Billy asked.
Kelly poured himself another cup of coffee and checked the autopilot. It was warm enough now that he removed his shirt. The scars on his back from the shotgun blast could hardly have been more clear, even in the dim light of a breaking dawn. There was a remarkable long silence, punctuated by a deep intake of breath.
“You’re . . .”
This time Kelly turned, looking down at the naked man chained to the deck. “That’s right.”
“I killed you,” Billy objected. He’d never gotten the word. Henry hadn’t passed it along, deeming it to be irrelevant to his operation.
“Think so?” Kelly asked, looking forward again. One of the diesels was running a little warmer than the other, and he made a note to check the cooling system after his other business was done. Otherwise the boat was behaving as docilely as ever, rocking gently on the almost invisible swells, moving along at a steady twenty knots, the bow pitched up at about fifteen degrees on an efficient planing angle. On the step, as Kelly called it. He stretched again, flexing muscles, letting Billy see the scars and what lay under them.
“So that’s what it’s about . . . she told us all about you before we snuffed her.”
Kelly scanned the instrument panel, then checked the chart as he approached the Bay Bridge. Soon he’d cross over to the eastern side of the channel. He was now checking the boat’s clock—he thought of it as a chronometer—at least once a minute.
“Pam was a great little fuck. Right up to the end,” Billy said, taunting his captor, filling the silence with his own malignant words, finding a sort of courage there. “Not real smart, though. Not real smart.”
Just past the Bay Bridge, Kelly disengaged the autopilot and turned the wheel ten degrees to port. There was no morning traffic to speak of, but he looked carefully anyway before initiating the maneuver. A pair of running lights just on the horizon announced the approach of a merchant ship, probably twelve thousand yards off. Kelly could have flipped on the radar to check, but in these weather conditions it just would have been a waste of electricity.
“Did she tell you about the passion marks?” Billy sneered. He didn’t see Kelly’s hands tighten on the wheel.
The marks about the breasts appear to have been made with an ordinary set of pliers, the pathology report had said. Kelly had it all memorized, every single word of the dry medical phraseology, as though engraved with a diamond stylus on a plate of steel. He wondered if the medics had felt the same way he did. Probably so. Their anger had probably manifested itself in the increased detachment of their dictated notes. Professionals were like that.
“She talked, you know, she told us everything. How you picked her up, how you partied. We taught her that, mister. You owe us for that! Before she ran, I bet she didn’t tell you, she fucked us all, three, four times each. I guess she thought that was pretty smart, eh? I guess she never figured that we’d all get to fuck her some more.”
O+, O-, AB-, Kelly thought. Blood type 0 was by far the most common of all, and so that meant there could well have been more than three of them. And what blood type are you, Billy?
“Just a whore. A pretty one, but just a fucking little whore. That’s how she died, did you know? She died while she was fucking a guy. We strangled her, and her cute little ass was pumping hard, right up till the time her face turned purple. Funny to watch,” Billy assured him with a leer that Kelly didn’t have to see. “I had my fun with her—three times, man! I hurt her, I hurt her bad, you hear me?”
Kelly opened his mouth wide, breathing slowly and regularly, not allowing his muscles to tense up now. The morning wind had picked up some, letting the boat rock perhaps five degrees left and right of the vertical, and he allowed his body to ride with the rolls, commanding himself to accept the soothing motion of the sea.
“I don’t know what the big deal is, I mean, she’s just a dead whore. We should be able to cut a deal, like. You know how dumb you are? There was seventy grand back in the house, you dumb son of a bitch. Seventy grand!” Billy stopped, seeing it wasn’t working. Still, an angry man made mistakes, and he’d rattled the guy before. He was sure of that, and so he continued.
“You know, the real shame, I guess, is she needed drugs. You know, if she just knew another place to score, we never woulda seen y’all. Then you fucked up, too, remember.”
Yes, I remember.
“I mean, you really were dumb. Didn’t you know about phones? Jesus, man. After our car got stuck, we called Burt and got his car, and just went cruisin’, like, and there you were, easy as hell to spot in that jeep. You must’ve really been under her spell, man.”
Phones? It was something that simple that had killed Pam? Kelly thought. His muscles went taut. You fucking idiot, Kelly. Then his shoulders went slack, just for a second, with the realization of how thoroughly he had failed her, and part of him recognized the emptiness of his efforts at revenge. But empty or not, it was something he would have. He sat up straighter in the control chair.
“I mean, shit, car easy to spot like that, how fuckin’ dumb can a guy be?” Billy asked, having just seen real feedback from his taunts. Now perhaps he could start real negotiations. “I’m kinda surprised you’re alive—hey, I mean, it wasn’t anything personal. Maybe you didn’t know the work she did for us. We couldn’t let her loose with what she knew, right? I can make it up to you. Let’s make a deal, okay?”
Kelly checked the autopilot and the surface. Springer was moving on a safe and steady course, and nothing in sight was on a converging path. He rose from his chair and moved to another, a few feet from Billy.
“She told you that we were in town to score some drugs? She told you that?” Kelly asked, his eyes level with Billy’s.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Billy was relaxing. He was puzzled when Kelly started weeping in front of him. Perhaps here was a chance to get out of his predicament. “Geez, I’m sorry, man,” Billy said in the wrong sort of voice. “I mean, it’s just bad luck for you.”
Bad luck for me? He closed his eyes, just a few inches from Billy’s face. Dear God, she was protecting me. Even after I failed her. She didn’t even know if I was alive or not, but she lied to protect me. It was more than he could bear, and Kelly simply lost control of himself for several minutes. But even that had a purpose. His eyes dried up after a time, and as he wiped his face, he also removed any human feelings he might have had for his guest.
Kelly stood and walked back to the control chair. He didn’t want to look the little bastard in the face any longer. He might really lose control, and he couldn’t risk that.
“Tom, I think you may be right after all,” Ryan said.
According to his driver’s license—already checked out: no arrest record, but a lengthy list of traffic violations—Richard Oliver Farmer was twenty-four and would grow no older. He had expired from a single knife thrust into the chest, through the pericardium, fully transiting the heart. The size of the knife wound—ordinarily such traumatic insults closed up until
they became difficult for the layman to see—indicated that the assailant had twisted the blade as much as the space between the ribs allowed. It was a large wound, indicating a blade roughly two inches in width. More important, there was additional confirmation.
“Not real smart,” the ME announced. Ryan and Douglas both nodding, looking. Mr. Farmer had been wearing a white cotton, button-down-collar shirt. There was a suit jacket, too, hanging on a doorknob. Whoever had killed him had wiped the knife on the shirt. Three wipes, it appeared, and one of them had left a permanent impression of the knife, marked in the blood of the victim, who had a revolver in his belt but hadn’t had a chance to use it. Another victim of skill and surprise, but, in this case, less circumspection. The junior of the pair pointed to one of the stains with his pencil.
“You know what it is?” Douglas asked. It was rhetorical; he answered his own question immediately. “It’s a Ka-Bar, standard-issue Marine combat knife. I own one myself.”
“Nice edge on it, too,” the ME told them. “Very clean cut, almost surgical in the way it went through the skin. He must have sliced the heart just about in half. A very accurate thrust, gentlemen, the knife came in perfectly horizontal so it didn’t jam on the ribs. Most people think the heart’s on the left. Our friend knew better. Only one penetration. He knew exactly what he was doing.”
“One more, Em. Armed criminal. Our friend got in close and did him so fast—”
“Yeah, Tom, I believe you now.” Ryan nodded and went upstairs to join the other detective team. In the front bedroom was a pile of men’s clothes, a cloth satchel with a ton of cash in it, a gun, and a knife. A mattress with semen stains, some still moist. Also a lady’s purse. So much evidence for the younger men to catalog. Blood types from the semen stains. Complete ID on all three—they assumed three—people who had been here. Even a car outside to run down. Finally something like a normal murder case. Latent Prints would be all over the place. The photographers had already shot a dozen rolls of film. But for Ryan and Douglas the matter was already settled in its curious way.
“You know that guy Farber over at Hopkins?”
“Yeah, Em, he worked the Gooding case with Frank Allen. I set the date up. He’s real smart,” Douglas allowed. “A little peculiar, but smart. I have to be in court this afternoon, remember?”
“Okay, I think I can handle it. I owe you a beer, Tom. You figured this one faster than I did.”
“Well, thanks, maybe I can be a lieutenant, too, someday.”
Ryan laughed, fishing out a cigarette as he walked down the stairs.
“You going to resist?” Kelly asked with a smile. He’d just come back into the salon after tying up to the quay.
“Why should I help you with anything?” Billy asked with what he thought to be defiance.
“Okay.” Kelly drew the Ka-Bar and held it next to a particularly sensitive place. “We can start right now if you want.”
The whole body shriveled, but one part more than the others. “Okay, okay!”
“Good. I want you to learn a little from this. I don’t want you ever to hurt another girl again.” Kelly loosed the shackles from the deck fitting, but his arms were still together, bolted in tight, as he stood Billy up.
“Fuck you, man! You’re gonna kill me! And I ain’t gonna tell you shit.”
Kelly twisted him around to stare in his eyes. “I’m not going to kill you, Billy. You’ll leave this island alive. I promise.”
The confusion on his face was sufficiently amusing that Kelly actually smiled for a second. Then he shook his head. He told himself that he was treading a very narrow and hazardous path between two equally dangerous slopes, and to both extremes lay madness, of two different types but equally destructive. He had to detach himself from the reality of the moment, yet hold on to it. Kelly helped him down from the boat and walked him towards the machinery bunker.
“Thirsty?”
“I need to take a piss, too.”
Kelly guided him onto some grass. “Go right ahead.” Kelly waited. Billy didn’t like being naked, not in front of another man, not in a subordinate position. Foolishly, he wasn’t trying to talk to Kelly now, at least not in the right way. Coward that he was, he’d tried to build up his manhood earlier, trying to talk not so much to Kelly as to himself as he’d recounted his part in ending Pam’s life, creating for himself an illusion of power, when silence might—well, would probably not have saved him. It might have created doubts, though, especially if he’d been clever enough to spin a good yarn, but cowardice and stupidity were not strangers to each other, were they? Kelly let him stand untended while he dialed the combination lock. Turning on the interior lights, he pushed Billy inside.
It looked like—was in fact a steel cylinder, seventeen inches in diameter, sitting on its own legs with large caster-wheels at the bottom, just where he’d left it. The steel cover on the end was not in place, hanging down on its hinge.
“You going to get in that,” Kelly told him.
“Fuck you, man!” Defiance again. Kelly used the butt end of the Ka-Bar to club him on the back of the neck. Billy fell to his knees.
“One way or another, you’re getting in—bleeding or not bleeding, I really don’t care.” Which was a lie, but an effective one. Kelly lifted him by the neck and forced his head and shoulders into the opening. “Don’t move.”
It was so much easier than he’d expected. Kelly pulled a key off its place on the wall and unbolted the shackles on Billy’s hands. He could feel his prisoner tense, thinking that he might have a chance, but Kelly was fast on the wrench—he only had to remove one bolt to free both hands, and a prod from the knife in the right place encouraged Billy not to back up, which was the necessary precursor to any kind of effective resistance. Billy was just too cowardly to accept pain as the price for a chance at escape. He trembled but didn’t resist at all, for all his lavish and desperate thoughts.
“Inside!” A push helped, and when his feet were inside the rim, Kelly lifted the hatch and bolted it into place. Then he walked out, flipping the lights off. He needed something to eat and a nap. Billy could wait. The waiting would just make things easier.
“Hello?” Her voice sounded very worried.
“Hi, Sandy, it’s John.”
“John! What’s going on?”
“How is she?”
“Doris, you mean? She’s sleeping now,” Sandy told him. “John, who—I mean, what’s happened to her?”
Kelly squeezed the phone receiver in his hand. “Sandy, I want you to listen to me very carefully, okay? This is really important.”
“Okay, go ahead.” Sandy was in her kitchen, looking at a pot of coffee. Outside she could see neighborhood children playing a game of ball on a vacant field whose comforting normality now seemed to be very distant indeed.
“Number one, don’t tell anybody that she’s there. Sure as hell you don’t tell the police.”
“John, she’s badly injured, she’s hooked on pills, she probably has severe medical problems on top of that. I have to—”
“Sam and Sarah, then. Nobody else. Sandy, you got that? Nobody else. Sandy. . . ” Kelly hesitated. It was too hard a thing to say, but he had to make it clear. “Sandy, I have placed you in danger. The people who worked Doris over are the same ones—”
“I know, John. I kinda figured that one out.” The nurse’s expression was neutral, but she too had seen the photo of Pamela Starr Madden’s body. “John, she told me that you—killed somebody.”
“Yes, Sandy, I did.”
Sandra O’Toole wasn’t surprised. She’d made the right guesses a few hours before, but hearing it from him—it was the way he’d just said it. Calm, matter-of-fact. Yes, Sandy, I did. Did you take the garbage out? Yes, Sandy, I did.
“Sandy, these are some very dangerous people. I could have left Doris behind—but I couldn’t, could I? Jesus, Sandy, did you see what they—”
“Yes.” It had been a long time since she’d worked the ER, and she’d a
lmost forgotten the dreadful things that people did to one another.
“Sandy, I’m sorry that I—”
“John, it’s done. I’ll handle it, okay?”
Kelly stopped talking for a moment, taking strength from her voice. Perhaps that was the difference between them. His instinct was to lash out, to identify the people who did the evil things and to deal with them. Seek out and destroy. Her instinct was to protect in a different way, and it struck the former SEAL that her strength might well be the greater.
“I’ll have to get her proper medical attention.” Sandy thought about the young woman upstairs in the back bedroom. She’d helped her get cleaned off and been horrified at the marks on her body, the vicious physical abuse. But worst of all were her eyes, dead, absent of the defiant spark that she saw in patients even as they lost their fight for life. Despite years of work in the care of critically ill patients, she’d never realized that a person could be destroyed on purpose, through deliberate, sadistic malice. Now she might come to the attention of such people herself, Sandy knew, but greater than her fear for them was her loathing.
For Kelly those feelings were precisely inverted. “Okay, Sandy, but please be careful. Promise me.”
“I will. I’m going to call Doctor Rosen.” She paused for a moment. “John?”
“Yes, Sandy?”
“What you’re doing . . . it’s wrong, John.” She hated herself for saying that.
“I know,” Kelly told her.
Sandy closed her eyes, still seeing the kids chasing a baseball outside, then seeing John, wherever he was, knowing the expression that had to be on his face. She knew she had to say the next part, too, and she took a deep breath: “But I don’t care about that, not anymore. I understand, John.”
“Thank you,” Kelly whispered. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll do fine.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. I don’t know what we can do with her—”
“Let me worry about that. We’ll take care of her. We’ll come up with something.”
