“Can ya see the driver?” she asked.
“Not too clear,” Austin replied. “Pretty sure it’s a woman, though. But cops use that same kinda car.”
GT was watching the mirror on his side as the car came into view under the sparse streetlights. “Speed up a little and see if she does too.”
“No way, man,” Austin said. “Cops here in Largo’ll stop you for one mile over the limit.”
Squinting his eyes, GT said, “That’s a Mercury Marquis. Same body as Ford’s Crown Vic, though. Cops drive the Fords. It’s turning off, anyway.”
Ten minutes later, the big truck turned north out of Key Largo. A few miles further, Austin slowed as they approached the bridge over yet another canal. When oncoming traffic cleared, he crossed over and turned onto the maintenance road down to the canal. All three failed to notice a white van with dark-tinted windows pull off the road on the opposite side of the canal.
At the bottom of the low incline, Austin reached down and shifted the truck into four-wheel drive, then switched on the bright driving lights mounted on the roll bar behind the cab and on the brush guard of the front bumper.
“It’s gonna get a bit bumpy now,” Austin said as he turned right onto a double rut, running west, startling an eight-foot crocodile that slid down the bank into the canal.
Scott and Germ joined us on the north pier to watch the sun go down. Carl and Charlie had taken the kids to bed and I could see them sitting in their rockers on their porch. Michal and Coral were up on the deck watching from another set of identical rockers.
Hearing my sat-phone chirping from where I’d left it in Chyrel’s office, I knew it was probably Linda, so I excused myself and trotted toward the bunkhouse. It’d stopped ringing by the time I got there and Travis handed it to me, so I pulled up the recent calls and hit the redial button.
“I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me,” she said when she answered. “How’s the little family reunion going?”
Stepping back outside, I stood at the foot of the pier, looking out at my friends and family. “We’re out on the pier. Hey, I taught little Jesse, er, I mean Fred, how to swim today. That’s what Eve wants me to call him around Nick.”
“He’s only what? Four months old?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But he’s a little fish. I sure wish you were here.”
“Me too,” she whispered. “I’ll be back in another week and I plan to take a few days off to unwind.”
Teasing her, I said, “By unwind, do you mean having wild and crazy sex?”
Linda laughed, which made me miss her all the more. We talked for a few more minutes, as the sun neared the horizon and then she told me to get back to my family and we said goodbye.
When I returned and sat down next to Eve on the pier, she looked up and asked, “What’s she like?”
“Who?” I asked evasively. I wasn’t real comfortable talking to my daughter about Linda’s and my relationship.
“Your girlfriend,” Eve replied. “Scott said she’s a badass.”
Laughing, I glanced over at Scott on the far end, his feet dangling in the water, and he just shrugged. “She works for FDLE,” I replied. “Right now she’s up in Tallahassee for a few weeks working.”
“Dad, that’s what she does. What I asked you is what’s she like?”
“Well,” I said, grinning, “Scott’s right. She’s a badass.” Eve punched me on the shoulder, like her sister always does. “You met her. She’s a nice lady and she makes me laugh. That’s all you need to know.”
As the sun slowly disappeared from sight, I looked over at Eve and Nick. He had a sling over his neck and shoulder, with the baby hanging in it like he was in a hammock. Nick held Eve’s hand, as they both watched the sun disappearing. I thought back to when Eve was a baby and the sunsets Sandy and I had watched together. Like my daughter and her husband, we were crazy in love, but didn’t really know a lot about one another.
As the last of the sun disappeared, we got up and headed back to the tables. I caught Travis out of the corner of my eye, motioning me to join him.
“Why don’t you take the baby and get him tucked in the guest cabin?” I said to Eve. “I need to talk to Travis for a bit.”
Scott and Germ headed toward the far end of the bunkhouse, as Eve and Nick started across the clearing. I called after them, “Hey, Nick, can I talk to you a minute?”
Eve looked back with a concerned expression and I winked at her. She took the baby from her husband and stood on her toes to kiss him. “Don’t be long.”
Together, Nick and I followed the two Marines. In the office, Travis had the laptop opened, the screen segmented into four parts.
“Jesse just walked in,” Travis said. “Tell me where you are again, Sherri.”
In the top right corner of the screen, Sherri Fallon’s face was illuminated by the dashboard lights of the car she was in. “About a mile south of where the Sheriff’s Department has a checkpoint set up. I’m pretty certain they didn’t make either me or Jim. We traded off several times. The truck turned off the highway onto a dirt road that runs alongside a canal. There’s no way either of us can follow it in these cars and they’d be sure to see another vehicle turn off and follow them.”
At the top left was a map, showing the empty landscape that is the southern Everglades, with the same red dot at its center. I pointed at the map and said, “Zoom in a little.”
Travis clicked a couple of keys and the map tightened on the area between Card Sound Road and Blackwater Sound. “There,” I said. “That’s Southern Glades Trail. It’s built on the spoils of the drainage canal and there are dozens of other canals off it. The roadblock was probably in place when the wife came down.”
Travis glanced up at me. “Where’s that trail come out?”
“It doesn’t. It’s a maintenance trail for the canal, which disappears in the Glades. Other canals off that main one crisscross and intersect most of the roads in the area, each one with its own rough maintenance trail alongside it. With that truck, old as it is, he could surface anywhere.”
The screen below the map was from inside a van and I recognized the man sitting at a small desk in back, in the low light of the displays in front of him. William Binkowski used to be with the FBI and had been part of the investigation into my wife’s abduction and murder, nearly two years earlier.
“Is that Binkowski?” I asked Travis and saw the man’s face come up from what he was looking at.
“Captain McDermitt?” he asked.
“Yeah, Bill. Where are you?”
“I’m parked at the business across from the gun shop in Naranja. It’s an adult video store, open till three. Guthrie left thirty minutes ago and will be back at four.”
“He has a parabolic mic in the van,” Travis said. “If Brown and Bradley go there, he should be able to hear what they say, even through the glass. We have a takedown team ready in Homestead that can apprehend them both.”
“Wait one,” Binkowski said. “A van just pulled into the parking lot.”
Binkowski’s screen went black, then switched to an exterior view. A full-size gray Chevy passenger van came to a stop next to the front door of the gun shop. The camera zoomed in on the back doors of the van to get the tag number. Next to the tag was an Avis car rental sticker.
“So much for running back to Pittsburgh with his tail between his legs,” I said as the camera zoomed out and six men climbed out, stretching arms and legs.
“Think they drove all the way down?” Travis asked.
“Doubtful,” I said. “Even driving straight through, that’d take nearly a full day. He hired local muscle last night instead. They probably flew. Which means they didn’t bring guns.”
Over the speaker, Binkowski confirmed it. “Tag’s registered to Avis and was rented an hour ago at Miami International by Malik Phillips, with a Pittsburgh address.”
Travis looked over at Nick. “Do you really want to help?”
Nick looked from
me to Travis and back again. “What do you want me to do?”
“Make another phone call,” Travis answered. “Tell Brown that you have a guy with a case of AK-74s that he needs to unload in a hurry.”
“I don’t know, Colonel,” I said. “You’re talking eight men and a woman in a gun shop. Try to take them down there and bullets could be flying into every house for miles around.”
“Wasn’t planning to,” Travis said. He turned to Scott and said, “Get Hinkle on the horn. Call the base armory, too. They have until morning to crate up eight AKs with the firing pins filed down just enough to make them inoperable.”
Spinning around in the chair, Travis spoke into the desk mic next to the laptop. “Sherri, get to the base and help Donnie. Those pins have to be just short enough to not work, but can’t show any obvious flaw to a casual inspection by a gunsmith. Can you make that happen?”
“Yes, sir,” Sherri’s voice came over the speaker. “But if he mikes the pin, he’s sure to know.”
“We’ll have to hope he doesn’t do that,” Travis said. “Bill, keep an eye on the new players and let me know if they go anywhere.”
I was watching Binkowski’s video feed. “Bill,” I said, “zoom in on the guy holding the bag on the right side.”
The camera zoomed back in again as the man turned toward the highway’s streetlights. “Conner.”
Chase Conner stood in the middle of the group of men. He stood out from the others, with his slight frame and more distinguished features. The others were all gorillas, by comparison. While Conner seemed oblivious to his surroundings, the street muscle he was with appeared to be on full alert, scanning the area.
“Scott, tell Donnie the plan. If we can make this work, he’ll meet Brown with a single fully operational AK-74 in a regular gun bag. He’ll arrange to deliver a full case of eight rifles at sunrise. Tell him we’ll get back to him on where the meet will take place.”
Travis stood up, stretching his back. “Better get some coffee on, it’s gonna be a long night.” Turning to me, he said, “We need a place for the exchange, away from the gun shop and any innocent civilians. Odds are they’ll bring the muscle and hopefully Conner to the exchange and we can take them all down there. Someplace secluded, since they’ll likely rearm from Brown’s store, but at least they won’t be carrying anything heavy, knowing they’ll have the AKs after the meet.”
“I know just the place,” Nick said. Travis and I both turned around. “The same place Brown will likely recommend. It’s where the water from the Everglades flows into a large narrow lake thirty miles west of his place. He can get there in his airboat. There’s a high clearing right next to the eastern finger of the lake, big enough for our pilot to land the company helicopter in.”
“Can we get a takedown team to it?”
“With an airboat or helicopter, yeah.”
“A lake?” I asked. “Can you point it out on a map?”
“Sure,” Nick replied. “It’s the only water not covered with sawgrass, exactly twenty-six miles west of the little Homestead general aviation airport on a heading of two hundred and sixty degrees. That’s why we both liked it. Impossible to get to except by him in his four-wheel drive, or by helicopter.”
I went to the computer and enlarged the map image and dragged it further north from where Binkowski and Sherri had stopped following the truck. I pointed to two landmarks on the nearly featureless plain that is the river of grass. It was a satellite image, with no markings.
“Here’s the Homestead airport,” I said. “Do you mean this river due west of it?”
Nick looked closely at the scale in the corner and said, “Yeah, the clear spot where we used to meet is right there on the north side of the east end of that finger. He gave me the GPS coordinates. I never realized it was a river.”
“That’s the headwaters of Shark River, which flows into Tarpon Bay, then into the Gulf.”
When Austin finally turned off the endless miles of trails, it was after ten o’clock and GT had absolutely no idea if they were even still in Florida.
“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Austin said.
GT was rubbing his right thigh. He’d banged it on the unpadded door more times than he could remember. “Where the hell are we?”
“About ten miles west of Florida City,” Mary-Beth replied.
They rode in silence until they pulled into the parking lot at Brown’s Guns and climbed out of the truck. GT strode quickly to the passenger door of the van as his accountant opened it and stepped out.
“You got the money I told you to bring?” GT asked.
“Forty thousand in nonsequential small bills, just like you said,” Conner replied. “What happened to you, GT?”
“Been playing fucking Tarzan in the swamps,” GT growled. He turned to Austin and said, “Please tell me you got A/C inside.”
“Y’all come on in,” Mary-Beth said, leading the way to the front door and unlocking it.
Once inside, GT turned to the man who had been driving the van. “You bring me some clothes, Malik?”
The tall, broad-shouldered man handed him the bag he was holding. “Where’s Erik, Mister Bradley?”
Taking the bag, GT said, “Erik’s dead. Killed by a cracker in Key West.” Then he turned around to Austin. “You got a shower here, brother?”
“That man weren’t no cracker. I’m a cracker. And I ain’t your damned brother. There’s a shower in back, first door on the left.”
Conner and the five black men stared at Austin, confused, as GT went toward the back of the store. Austin went behind the counter and picked up a Colt 1911 that he kept there, knowing without checking that it was loaded and a round chambered. He thrust it in his jeans behind his back and came back around the counter.
“There’s a sort of break room in back,” he said to Malik. “You guys can relax there for a while. I arranged for some heavy-caliber guns for your boss. Better’n any of the huntin’ rifles I sell here. Till the guy gets here with ’em, y’all keep your paws off the merchandise.”
Malik took a step toward Austin. “Who the hell are you?”
Austin met his gaze, his steely eyes never faltering, and his voice dropped to a menacing snarl. “I’m the cracker that can feed your parts to the gators, boy.”
Seconds ticked by as the two men glared at one another. Finally, Malik shrugged. “You wanna call yourself a cracker, who am I to argue?” He turned to his entourage and said, “Come on.”
The five men moved toward the door to the back room, but Conner held back. When they were through the door, Conner said, “I assume you’re Mister Brown?”
“Yeah, I am. And you are?”
“Chase Conner, Mister Brown. I handle Mister Bradley’s finances. What happened down in Key West?”
Austin clapped an arm around the smaller man and said, “Long story.” Then, leading him toward the back room, he added, “Fortunately, we got about an hour.”
Once GT finished in the shower and was dressed in clean clothes, Austin got cleaned up himself, leaving Mary-Beth to keep an eye on their guests. Then he sent her home, telling her that he’d stay until the sale was made and he could send GT and his crew on down the road.
An hour later, sitting on the stool behind the sales counter while cleaning an old German Mauser rifle, Austin saw the lights of a car pull into the parking lot. He quickly went through the door to the back room. Most of the men were asleep in lounge chairs, or watching an old episode of Dragnet on the little TV. Austin nudged GT’s shoulder and said, “He’s here.”
GT tapped Conner’s shoulder, asleep in a chair next to him. When Conner opened his eyes, GT jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s do this, then you can fly on back to Pittsburgh.”
As the two men stood up, Malik started to rise. “Wait here,” GT said. “We don’t want to spook the guy.”
The two men followed Austin back to the sales floor, just as a light tapping came from the front window, which ran the width of th
e store and was covered with iron bars. Austin went to the door and looked at the man on the other side. He was smiling.
“You Dinkle?” Austin asked through the glass.
“Hinkle, mate,” the man answered in an Australian accent. “Donnie Hinkle. Mister Maggio said you might be interested in buying something.”
Austin unlocked the door and opened it. The man named Hinkle stepped inside. “You must be Mister Brown, right?”
Hinkle carried a single hard-shell rifle bag. Austin looked out the door at what looked like a brand-new bright red Mustang. Still holding the door open, he looked back at Hinkle. “Need help carrying the rest in?”
Hinkle stopped at an empty display table and placed the rifle bag on it. “Oh, I only brought the one, mate. I don’t know you from Adam, but Mister Maggio vouched for ya, so ’ave a look.”
GT started to say something, but Austin cut him off. “Mister Bradley here is buying. I’m just his advisor, ya might say. I own this place. Maggio said you’d be deliverin’ a case.”
Smiling, Hinkle took a step away from the bag on the table. Lifting his arms wide out to the sides, his coat fell open and Austin instantly recognized the Sig Sauer P226 tucked neatly in a cross draw holster in his pants. “Ya might say Mister Maggio is my advisor. But I make my own deals, my own way, mate.”
“How soon can you deliver the rest?” GT said.
Hinkle slowly lowered his arms. “I can deliver them in twenty minutes, but I won’t. Mister Bradley, is it?”
“GT Bradley, from Pittsburgh,” he answered, as though the name carried weight all its own.
“Never been to Pittsburgh, mate. I’ll get right to the point. You want eight of what’s in that bag, it’ll cost ya fifteen even, but I never deal with people I don’t know but in the broad light of day, somewhere private.” Looking around the sales floor, he smiled and added, “Someplace where I’m not outgunned a thousand to one. Crikey, you got a lot of firepower here!” His eyes settled on the German rifle Austin had been cleaning. “That a model 98 Karabiner?”
Fallen Honor: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 7) Page 23
