by Thomas Locke
The olive-skinned man bounded to his feet. “All right!”
Reese winced again. “Patel, chill.”
Strang said, “Excuse me?”
“Go ahead, General. You were saying?”
“Hazard wanted Sylvie to file the papers. He called it the honorable out.”
Patel said into his mike, “I have the police records here in front of me. Sylvie Hazard died in a car accident. Charlie was in the car and was injured.”
Reese said, “Sorry, General. I don’t see how this helps us. The lady is dead.”
“Hazard claimed he was asleep when the car went off the road. The police found him unconscious, saved by his seat belt and air bags. It appears that his wife, who was driving, was not wearing her belt and was thrown from the car, hit a tree, DOA. The authorities had some questions about Hazard’s possible involvement. But they didn’t know about the wife’s affair. At the time, it was to my advantage for them not to find out. The prosecution decided they didn’t have a case.”
“You know this how?”
“I have an ally inside the LAPD.”
“Can you get him to change his mind?”
“It will cost you. He’s put in his twenty. He’s looking for a cushy corporate security job.”
“I can make that happen.”
“He drinks.”
“I said I can make it happen. But your pal has to issue the warrant tonight.”
“And the service contract with your group—”
“Will be expressed to you tomorrow. We need an international arrest warrant, and we need it now. Not some local alert. We’re pretty certain Hazard has left the country, or is about to do so.”
“I’m on it. Strang out.”
Reese hung up. “Patel?”
“Almost there.” His fingers began a tap dance on the keys. “Is your console on?”
“Hang on. Okay.”
“Here we go.”
On the arena’s top left screen, Charlie watched as his face appeared on an international fugitive warrant. The charge was murder. Beneath his picture, words appeared in a multitude of languages. Considered armed and extremely dangerous.
“Looks good,” Reese said. “Be ready to put this out the instant the police act.”
23
There ain’t no fish round these parts. Ain’t been none since them deadbeats moved in.” Donovan’s guide was a lean strip of leather, dyed by years of sun to a coppery black. The guide’s eyes were a blue as washed of color as the sky. “But you ain’t no fisherman, are you?”
Donovan eased his aching foot. “No.”
“Soon as I laid eyes on you, I said, this man don’t know one end of a pole from t’other. What are you, some kinda investigator?”
“No.”
“You better not be no cop, I’m telling you that right straight. That’s an ornery bunch up there. They don’t take no truck to cops coming round.”
“I’m Army. Retired. I’m looking for a friend. You been out here before?”
“When I was a boy, sure. Them shoals used to be a fine place for bonefish and snook. And mussels. Not no more.” The guide spit over the side. “I hear tell there’s some vets living down there. That who you’re after, some head case who never got over his taste of war?”
“Yes.” Donovan recognized the guide’s battered headgear as a Marine field cap. “You were in ’Nam?”
“Mekong. Two tours. I don’t have no truck with them head cases, I tell you that straight up.”
Donovan was feeling his age, and it definitely wasn’t just the heat, which was Florida fierce. He had not slept well the previous night, stuck in some Miami highway motel. He had grown used to his little routines. Taking care of the dog, meals at certain times, his pills . . .
His pills. Donovan checked his watch. He should have taken his daily dose of heart medicine four hours ago. No wonder he was feeling low. Be just his luck to get out here in the middle of nowhere and suffer another heart attack.
The air was so still and the water so calm they might as well have been slicing their way across a blue-green mirror. The sun was blisteringly hot. Donovan tilted his cap, trying to protect more of his face.
The guide must have noticed Donovan’s discomfort because he opened the starboard locker and pulled out a stained windbreaker. “Put this on and fold up the collar. It’ll protect your neck.”
“Appreciate it.” The jacket was ancient cotton poplin and smelled of oil and other people’s sweat.
“Better?”
“A lot.”
Between Marathon Key and Key West were sixty miles of well-traveled emptiness. The highway bridges traversed one barren coral rock after another. Traffic gradually congealed in the approach to that odd American mecca, Key West, the city at the edge of nowhere. All tourist eyes strained forward, yearning for that first glimpse of the last island. They totally ignored the same boring vista they had traversed since leaving Miami six hours earlier. Donovan had never been to the Keys before and had no intention of ever returning.
The guide’s craft was a twenty-six-foot flat-bottomed skiff with a ninety-horse Mercury kicker, made for trolling the Florida Flats, which was what the locals called this region of shoals and emerald islands. Donovan knew this because the guide had told him.
From behind the boat’s console, the guide said, “A buddy brought this lady out here, musta been four months back. Came looking for her little girl. The daughter’d taken off with this rough sort. The lady tracked her daughter down to this place we’re headed. My friend had heard the same tales as me and didn’t want to go. The lady paid him double. Only thing my buddy got for his troubles was a bullet through his bow. As they turned back the lady screamed and screamed the girl’s name. Like to’ve broke my buddy’s heart.”
Donovan asked, “Where are we?”
“Near ’bout there.”
“I’m supposed to be a professional tracker.” Donovan peered around. Every direction looked exactly the same. Still water, small green islands with storm-twisted pines, birds standing in inch-deep shoals. “I couldn’t find my way back with a Sat Nav and a chopper.”
The guide displayed teeth as brilliant as his eyes. “What’d you do for the Army?”
“Rangers.”
“So you’re some kinda tough nut.”
He slipped a hand inside his shoe and massaged where his toes had been. “Not anymore.”
“Yeah, growing old is nasty business. I swear, some days I’m tempted . . .”
The guide might have stopped talking or it could have been that Donovan simply stopped hearing. They rounded another island, and suddenly there in front of them was a floating metropolis.
Hundreds and hundreds of boats. Thousands. All kinds of craft, every conceivable shape and rig, even an old paddle wheeler. The thing had to be two hundred feet long, with a shadow of the word Casino still visible on its side.
All wrecks.
The sailboats had no masts. Many of the yachts were missing their entire superstructure, like they’d been shaved down. Most windows were broken out and the portholes covered with duct tape and plastic sheeting. The boats’ sides were stained, the waterlines fouled. The upper decks were filled with junk—wood-burning stoves, generators, lawn chairs, bicycles, solar panels, portable AC units, fishing gear. Clotheslines dangled from the stumps of masts. Anchor chains wore garlands of seaweed.
“What is this place?”
“Where you said you wanted to go. Hobo Harbor.”
“Right, sure.” Never in his wildest dreams had Donovan expected to find a floating city of derelict boats.
The guide cut his motor and shifted to the trolling station in the bow. He slipped the electric motor over the side and started forward. “Sixteen years back, a couple of big blows washed some yachts up by Mud Flats Key. The insurance fellers came down, took their pictures, and left. The owners got their checks and went off to buy new toys. Some homeless showed up one day and took to living there. One by one, more of them
wrecks started showing up, usually moving in at night. There was some break-ins back in Marathon Key, and the police ran ’em off. Next thing anybody knew, they showed up here. One of them islands over there has an old freshwater spring.” The motor made a soft purr as they moved forward. “My buddy said it’d grown. But I didn’t never expect this.”
Up ahead a trio of dogs started barking.
“Heads up, Ranger man. Move behind the wheel. If we catch incoming fire, you hit the gas and power us outta here.”
“Roger that.”
A few heads popped into view. Bearded men, mostly. Then a cluster of sun-blasted youngsters emerged from the tangle of green on the island to Donovan’s left. Some of them wore clothes.
Sounds carried far over the still waters. Donovan heard the sharp ratchet of a rifle being cocked.
So did his guide. He cut the trolling motor and froze.
Donovan rose to his feet and called, “I’m looking for Benny Calfo!”
All movement around the boats halted.
A voice called out of the afternoon sun, “Who’s asking for Calfo?”
“Charlie Hazard sent me!”
“Who’re you?”
“The name is Donovan Field. Benny Calfo doesn’t know me. Charlie said to tell him Eltee is calling in a debt.”
The tableau remained locked in silence and stifling heat. Then an inflatable dinghy wound its way through the morass of ruined hulks.
Donovan asked softly, “What was the girl’s name?”
The guide jerked. “Eh, what’s that?”
“The girl your buddy brought the lady to find. Her name.”
The guide blinked once. Twice. “Sarah. Sarah Long.”
The dinghy’s motor died. A bald man with no more flesh to his head than a skull said, “I heard of you, Colonel. Mind showing me that gimp foot of yours?”
Donovan slipped off his shoe and sighed with pure pleasure.
“Doubt there’s a fed alive who’d chop his own toes off.” He looked at the guide. “Can you navigate home after dark?”
“Been trolling these waters since ’fore you were born.”
“We won’t be too long. Come on, Colonel. Hop aboard.”
Benny Calfo was too muscular to be skeletal. He simply possessed no spare flesh whatsoever. His neck and arms and chest above his tattered T-shirt were heavily tattooed. He wore an ear stud and three turquoise rings with faces that fit into a single wall when he made a fist. The rings were chipped and scarred.
Calfo lived with a woman who flitted in and out of sight. His home was an old harbor tug, steel-shanked and solid as a house. He served Donovan a jelly jar of tea in the windowless wheelhouse, the flies and mosquitoes kept out by rusty screens and duct tape.
Donovan had never been one for mincing words. He settled into the copilot’s chair and said, “There was another guide who came through here about four months back. Had a very distraught mom looking for her little girl.”
“Sure. Sarah. Forgot her last name.”
“Long.”
“That’s the one. Sarah Long. Nice girl. She kept company with a bad man.”
“Hearing you say that in a place like this, it’d have me worried. No offense.”
“Sarah and her bad man left here about three weeks after her mother showed up, caterwauling and giving the children fits. Last I heard, Sarah was dealing high-stakes blackjack in a casino up Natchez way.” Calfo had an easy smile that came nowhere near his eyes. “So how is old Eltee? Sat on any grenades lately?”
“All I know to tell you is, he’s in trouble and he’s asking for your help.”
“Meaning if I don’t go, it isn’t any of my business.”
Donovan sipped his tea and stared out the screen at the floating city.
“Where exactly is it Eltee needs me?”
Donovan fished the flight coupon out of his pocket and passed it over.
“Never been to Zurich.” He flashed an empty grin. “There’s no name on this, Colonel. Good as cash. Dangerous thing to be passing over in a place like this.”
“Show the coupon and your passport at any airport.” Donovan felt his heart lurch and jammed his fist onto his chest.
“Something wrong?”
“Forgot my heart medicine.”
“What are you on?”
“Rythmol.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem.” He raised his voice. “Kerry.”
A shadow inserted itself into the doorway.
“Paddle over to the pharmacy and see if they’ve got a couple doses of Rythmol. Get some baby aspirin while you’re at it, calm this man down.”
When the dinghy pulled away, Donovan asked, “Pharmacy?”
“I worked out a deal with the stores in Marathon and Key West soon after I showed up. They supply us with all their outdated wares. There hasn’t been a break-in at any of those places since.”
“You’re playing cop?”
Calfo had an assassin’s easy grin. “The folks around here have bad associations with that word. My official title is chief. It’s sort of elected. I make sure nobody cooks meth or steals from other boats or gets too crazy or does anything else that could bring in the feds. Otherwise, long as the strong don’t hurt the weak, especially the kids, I leave things pretty much alone.”
“Can you come?”
“This is for real, Hazard needs me and you don’t know what for?”
“I’ve had just a taste of the danger Charlie’s facing. A taste is all I ever need. This is as real as it gets.”
A crazy glint burned in Calfo’s gaze. Like the evil genie was just begging to come out and play. “Soon as my lady gets back, she and I will have a word.”
24
Charlie slept on a pallet at the foot of Gabriella’s bed. He had been in such circumstances many times before. But a woman’s soft breaths had seldom been so alluring.
He woke Gabriella an hour before dawn. They took a room service breakfast and settled the hotel bill in cash. Charlie walked them across Times Square to the Marriott Marquis, where they joined a queue of sleepy tourists waiting for transport to Niagara Falls. Despite the hour, Charlie saw a few elderly couples holding hands and exchanging quiet smiles. As the bus sifted through half-empty Manhattan streets, the morning fog condensed into a misty rain. By the time they reached the northbound interstate, the rain was heavy and the light leaden. Gabriella watched the clogged lanes heading through the tollbooths toward Manhattan and did not speak.
Two hours outside New York, they stopped for coffee. Charlie used the rest stop’s phone to contact a buddy on the NetJets admin staff. After he’d arranged enough of the general’s flights, the guys on commission had started counting Charlie among their closest pals. Once the pleasantries were over, Charlie asked for two deadheads into Europe. Just as he had seen himself do in the final portion of the previous evening’s ascent.
His buddy on the other end of the line replied with the words Charlie had already heard once before. “Hold one.”
Gabriella leaned against the wall next to the phone. “Deadhead?”
Charlie cupped the phone. “When a plane is flying empty, sometimes they let friends or good customers travel free. These passengers aren’t on any register. It’s called deadheading.”
His contact asked, “Who’s that you’re talking to there, buddy?”
“A friend.”
“She nice, this friend?”
“You wouldn’t believe me. You got anything?”
He replied as Charlie knew he would. “We’ve got an empty G-4 outbound today from T-town for a pickup in Milan.”
“Two passengers, no paperwork, no record. The general does not need to know about this one.”
“You dog. Be planeside by fifteen hundred.”
“I owe you.”
“Give me her number and we’re even.”
Charlie met Gabriella’s gaze. “I don’t owe you that much.”
They left the bus at Niagara Falls and walked the Friendship Bridg
e into Canada. Charlie flagged a taxi and asked to be taken to the Toronto municipal airport. Gabriella remained not merely quiet but removed. Charlie took her silence as a compliment, a sign that she felt no need to offer him anything more than what came naturally.
They had time for a quick lunch at the pilots’ café and were in the air by four. They were joined on board by a silver-haired gentleman who had his work spread across the table before the plane doors were shut. He neither spoke nor looked their way. The plane offered the same luxurious surroundings Charlie had known whenever flying with General Strang, only without the service. The pilots offered the three deadheads a perfunctory greeting and went on with the business of flying.
When they were over a cloudless north Atlantic, Gabriella said, “I have a problem.”
They were seated across from one another at the rear of the jet. The executive worked at the table closest to the cockpit. Charlie rose from his seat, slipped around the table, and slid into the leather chair next to hers. “Fire away.”
“Three problems, actually.”
The airplane’s noise formed a sweet cocoon that invited him to slip into her space. “Okay.”
“One is Brett. He is my partner for ascending. He is becoming, well . . .”
“He’s pressuring you.”
“It is my fault. Six months ago, I discovered Byron with another woman. It was the first time I actually witnessed anything. I told you how I had always suspected, or maybe even known. What really happened that day was I came face-to-face with all the lies I had been telling myself, and how much I wanted to walk away and pretend it had never happened, even then.” She shrugged. “Brett found me weeping. I needed a friend. He was very kind. We met a few times. He took me for lunches, once to the opera. Then I realized he was after being more than just a friend. I tried to tell him that what he wanted was impossible. But he refuses to listen. Sometimes he can be . . . dominating.”
Charlie crossed his arms and pretended to give that serious thought. What he was thinking was, one good punch and the guy would fold like a cardboard cutout.
