That’s when I heard him say, “What is happening now? Answer me! Who is shooting?”
Shooting?
Suddenly, I wasn’t smiling. Yes, shooting. Not firecrackers. Gunshots. I heard them, too. Three shots, rapid-fire, followed by two shots, a gun of heavier caliber. Then another burst of rapid fire from the opposite end of the island. It was like a small war was erupting around us.
For a moment, I felt detached from reality. People on Vanderbilt Island didn’t carry weapons. The explosion I had heard was just that—an explosion. Lightning, a faulty wire—it could be explained. In a peaceful place like this, though, gunshots were an aberration. What the hell was happening?
Now the man had the transceiver out of his pocket and was tapping it on a piling. Frustrated, he held his wrist to his mouth and said, very loud, “If you hear me, I find Ford. Take no more chances. Understand? He is here… at marina. Out!”
It was startling to hear my name, but I was shocked at what happened next.
As I floated motionless, only fifteen yards away, the man drew a semiautomatic pistol and took his time mounting an oversized sound suppressor on the barrel. Then he chose a section of water above my sunken flashlight, pointed the weapon toward the bottom and fired four muffled shots in rapid succession.
After waiting a few seconds, he went to the other side of the dock and fired four more rounds. The bullets pocked the water with miniature geysers of light, each report no louder than an air rifle.
I wasn’t dreaming—it was happening.
Slowly, then faster, I began kicking quietly toward the dock because I realized what was happening. Not why, but what, and I didn’t like it. The sound suppressor implied the shooter was a pro, and he intended to kill me. But to do it, he either had to make a lucky shot or scare me to the surface.
The odds favored me surfacing, and the shooter knew it. That’s why he took his eyes off the water long enough to check his watch. It was also why I was swimming toward the man instead of panicking and racing for shore.
I had to get under the dock before he spotted me. It was the only available cover, and the shooter’s next move was obvious: he would produce a flashlight and search the area before firing randomly again.
A flashlight… it scared me more than the gun. But that’s what the shooter was doing now, taking a cop-sized Maglite from a pack strapped around his waist.
As I swam, I watched him check his watch again, then use the flashlight, shining the beam down into the water, then panning it in my direction.
I didn’t see what the man did next. I was busy slipping free of my inflatable vest, submerging silently, then kicking hard in darkness, in the direction of the dock.
3
Underwater, from old habit, I counted each kick-stroke with my left fin. It’s an effective navigational tool. And the only aid available, under the circumstances, except for the faint glow of my lost flashlight, off to my left, which helped me maintain a straight course.
Or so I hoped.
I guessed the dock was twenty yards away. I knew that, for me, twenty-five yards requires at total of eighteen to twenty fin strokes. Nine to ten, if counting only my left leg.
It varies, of course, depending on tidal current. Or whether I’m in a pool or open water. So, the seventh time I kicked with my left fin, I thrust my hands ahead of me, anticipating a collision with a piling.
Something else I anticipated was the shooter spotting me, and that bullets would soon pierce the surface. I’ve heard bullets from underwater before. They make a keening sound. Their punch creates an uncomfortable shock wave as they arc past.
There were no shots fired, though. Nor did my hands make contact with a piling as expected.
Because adrenaline was firing my muscles, I was burning air fast. But holding my breath was the least of my problems, I decided, when I still hadn’t found the dock after a total of twenty-four fin strokes. Twelve with my left leg.
Could I have possibly swam beyond the dock? That was unlikely. It would have required navigating a perfect line between rows of pilings, a feat similar to threading a needle in darkness. If I’d wanted to do it, I couldn’t have done it.
Apparently, though, I had swum too far. So I jettisoned air to reduce buoyancy, balled my legs beneath me and spun around, pulling hard with my arms, attempting to retrace my course.
Yes, it turned out, I had threaded the needle. I knew almost immediately because, mid-glide, before I could get my hands in front of me, my head collided with a piling.
Thunk.
It was the sound of an ax rebounding off green wood. I hit so hard, I was disoriented by the impact and the acid sting of barnacles that lacerated my forehead.
I surfaced without deciding to surface, still woozy and unsure what had happened. Then it took me a moment to realize that the light suddenly blinding me was unrelated to the starbursts firing inside my head.
From above, I heard a voice say, “Hah! Blood on your face! Is dangerous, you know, to produce blood when swimming. Sharks everywhere in water—Dr. Ford.”
A joke, I realized. Someone was making a joke before shooting me—something only a cold-blooded killer would do.
The man also had a head full of rage. It was in his tone.
I blinked my eyes, the taste of salt water and blood warm on my lips, as I looked up. The shooter was a vague silhouette behind the flashlight’s glare. He was on the dock above me, only a few feet away. Too close to miss with the pistol he was pointing at my face… now getting ready to squeeze the trigger—I could tell by the way he leaned to reduce the distance that separated us.
Why? That’s the question I wanted answered.
Instead, I haggled for a few extra seconds of life, sputtering, “If you shoot me, I won’t be able to tell you what I know. It’s worth a lot of money.”
The lie was as desperate as it was baseless, but it caused the man to stop what he was about to do.
The shooter lowered the gun slightly. “You have secrets to sell? In our work line, who does not?”
In our line of work, he meant. Not good news for me. It suggested that I’d been right from the start. He was Viktor Kazlov’s bodyguard, whom I’d seen earlier in the bar. Big slope-shouldered man, hairy as a bear, and former KGB, my guess. A professional who was also furious about something, so he didn’t mind waiting while I humiliated myself by trying to negotiate.
I took a chance and said, “Government secrets—who cares anymore? Beluga caviar, though, that’s valuable.”
Yes, the guy was taking his time, enjoying himself, because he replied, “Beluga, of course. Better exchange rate than gold. Diamonds are shit to beluga. This is information you selling? Maybe you working for competitors and make me better offer.”
Another joke.
My head was clearing, I was putting elements together: an explosion, several gunshots, then a man aiming a pistol at me. It meshed with the gangster tactics common in the black market caviar industry.
I was also assembling a vague plan. My right hand confirmed that my dive knife was still secure in its scabbard as I replied. “I’m not going to risk lying. You’d just shoot me later. Let’s talk. How about you start by telling me your name.”
I wasn’t being polite, I was employing the hostage’s first rule of survival: use first names, make it personal.
In reply, I heard laughter with a derisive edge. “Putin—Vladimir Putin. What you think of that?”
Yep, a funny guy. I used the name, anyway, saying, “You can drop the doctor stuff… Vladimir. Give me time to get out of the water and I’ll tell you why I’m worth more alive than dead.”
Suddenly, the shooter was tired of the game. “Enough talk. I see you and long-haired friend at bar tonight—he like to talk too much, I think. I know you steal from Mr. Kazlov’s yacht today. That stupid. Then, tonight, you shoot Mr. Kazlov. That very stupid.”
Kazlov, shot?
No wonder the guy was furious. I hadn’t been aboard the yacht, but, otherwise,
the shooter, Vladimir, was uncomfortably accurate in suspecting I had targeted his boss. Not to kill him—not yet, anyway. Even so, what the hell had Tomlinson said to make me a suspect?
The conversation had taken a dangerous turn, but going for my dive knife was the wrong move now. Instead, I said, “How badly was Kazlov hurt?”
Vladimir was staring at me, letting his anger build. “There is only one secret you have I want. Where is explosives? You and hippie friend put bomb somewhere, kill everything on island? Or poison gas, maybe, huh? Where is?”
Bomb? What in the hell had Tomlinson told the man?
I exhaled, and sank imperceptibly as I said, “If there’s an explosive somewhere, I didn’t set it—but I’ll help you find it. And I didn’t shoot your boss. In fact, we had a friendly talk today. Kazlov will confirm that, if he still can.”
“One more chance, I give you. Where is explosives? No more time for lies.”
I started calm and tried to reason with the man. “Vladimir, listen to me. What you’re saying makes no sense. I live in this area. I’m known in Florida. Why would I risk all of that? Put the pistol away and let’s talk, okay?” As I said it, I allowed my body to sink another few inches. Now only my face was visible above the water. Beneath me, through contact with the fins, my toes sensed the bottom only a few inches below.
The timing was right because Vladimir was shaking his head, done talking. I waited as he extended the pistol toward me again. Four feet separated us… then three feet. It was impossible for him to miss, yet I fought the urge to throw my hands up as a shield. My hands had to remain where they were, in the water, to provide thrust when I needed it. Another reason I couldn’t use my knife.
I heard the first syllable of something the man was going to say, some parting word, before he pulled the trigger. As he began to speak, I sank deeper. Then, when my fins touched bottom, I used that tiny momentum to vault upward, kicking furiously, as I butterfly-stroked once with both arms.
The combined thrust dolphined me out of the water, my hands soaring above dock level, high enough to grab for the pistol. As I did, Vladimir made a grunting sound of surprise and fired two, maybe three, wild rounds. Impossible to be sure because it all happened so fast.
Instead of finding the weapon, though, my hands made contact with the man’s right wrist. It was all I had and I wasn’t letting go.
My fingers buried themselves tendon-deep in the guy’s forearm. He fought back, but my descending weight was too much. Vladimir made a bellowing sound as I pulled him into the water on top of me.
We went straight to the bottom, the bodyguard kicking and clawing, as I wrestled for hand control. By the time we’d surfaced, I had confirmed that the semiauto pistol and the flashlight were both gone, lost during the fall.
I was relieved, at first. Then vaguely disappointed. I spent years as an amateur wrestler learning hard lessons from tough technicians. Then more years learning lethal, unconventional techniques from military studs, usually at the Jungle Operations Training Center, Fort Sherman, Panama. I knew within seconds that Vladimir had the grappling abilities of an average adult male—few skills at all, in other words. Unless he’d gotten very, very lucky, I could have stripped the weapon from him, no problem.
Or maybe I’d badly misjudged the man.
When we surfaced, I was facing the shooter. I tried to slip behind him, but he pivoted with me, which was impressive, considering the man wasn’t wearing fins. When I grabbed for his elbow, he used the palm of his free hand to try to knock my jaw crooked, then swung a wild right fist that numbed my ear, then deadened my shoulder. Vladimir, I realized, was a boxer with some martial arts skills. Worse, he possessed what’s called “heavy hands.” If he landed a punch, it might be the end of the fight, and the end of Marion D. Ford. The possibility scared the hell out of me, so I retreated by exhaling and diving for the bottom.
When I reappeared, I was kicking so hard that I launched my body over the man, smothered him with my arms, and took him under for several seconds. This time, when we surfaced, I was behind him. I had an ankle grapevined around his right leg to ensure body control, leaving one fin free to keep us afloat. My right forearm was across the man’s throat, my left hand was behind his head. The configuration resembled a figure four: my right hand locked over my left arm to create a fulcrum. I had sufficient leverage to snap the man’s neck, if I chose to do it. Deadly—as I knew better than most.
Or, with the sharp edge of my wrist, I could slow the flow of blood through the man’s carotid artery until he chose to surrender rather than black out. The finesse provided me options—persuasive, debilitating or deadly—depending on how much pressure was applied.
I was glad I hadn’t risked using my dive knife now.
Vladimir was a fighter, though, and wouldn’t quit. He bucked and thrashed; rested for a few seconds, then bucked and thrashed some more. His efforts reminded me of a grazing animal that had been surprised by one of the big constrictor snakes. A python or anaconda. His was a gradual surrender interrupted by frenzied bursts of desperation.
Finally, when I felt the man’s body go limp, I pushed his head under long enough to confirm he wasn’t faking. It was a judgment call—I didn’t want to drown him. I wanted the guy alive so I could find out what the hell was going on. Afterward, I’d call the cops—if they weren’t already on their way to arrest the trespassing environmentalists. Or I would use the sailboat’s VHF to raise the Coast Guard—depending on the man’s answers.
There was a reason why his answers were important to me.
Inside the boundaries of the United States, I’m just another face in the crowd, a low-profile citizen. And that’s the way I want to keep it because I live a very different life when I’m in other countries. Which made it risky for me to get law enforcement involved—especially the feds—so I had to be very, very careful.
What worried me was the possibility that Vladimir, and Kazlov, knew about my other life—my “shadow life,” as an NSA associate once described it. I’m a biologist by profession, true. But I also use my research as plausible cover to travel the world, gathering intelligence for an agency that remains classified, as well as to carry out less traditional assignments.
The euphemisms vary throughout the intelligence community, although few agencies have cause to use them—only one deep cover team, as far as I know. Special duties. Executive reassignment. Kinetic military action—just a few of the code phrases used in my shadow life and my work overseas.
On those rare occasions when I’m assigned a specific target, a human objective. “Eternalize” is a better word choice. Spoken or written, it might be “internalize,” which could be explained away as a typo. Or a word that was misheard.
Always give yourself an out.
Early in my secret career, I sometimes struggled with the moral ambiguities. No longer. For better or worse, I’ve come to terms with who I am, what I am. Darwinism explains the human condition as accurately as it describes the competitive process that is natural selection. It was possible that the bodyguard had been assigned to eliminate me for reasons just as cold, just as impersonal. Reasons that had nothing to with a supposed theft, or the shooting of Viktor Kazlov—if the man had, indeed, been shot.
From the instant I saw Vladimir mounting a sound arrester on his weapon, that possibility had been in my mind. There are at least three foreign governments, and two foreign black ops organizations, that would me shoot on sight, given the opportunity. It was not improbable that one of those groups had been tracking me for a while and had chosen Vanderbilt Island because the caviar gathering provided plausible cover. After all, that’s what had brought me here.
How much did the bodyguard know? That’s what I had to find out. And I would—as soon as the man regained consciousness.
How I handled the situation depended on how he answered my questions. I didn’t want to go to extremes—in fact, dreaded the tight-sphincter complexities of disposing of a body or staging an accident.
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br /> If the man posed a threat to my career, my group or my freedom, however, I wouldn’t hesitate.
4
As I swam Vladimir into the shallows, I heard more gunshots in the distance. Someone was burning a lot of ammunition. Because the reports lacked the distinctive give-and-take rhythm of enemies trading fire, the random bursts suggested chaos… or panic. It was as puzzling as it was surreal.
Nor did my interrogation of Vladimir go as smoothly as expected. I discovered that I hadn’t kept the man underwater long enough to confirm he was unconscious. The instant our feet touched bottom, he surprised me by hammering me in the ribs with his elbow, then caught me with a right fist to the forehead as he turned.
It was a glancing blow. I was wearing fins, though, which put me at a disadvantage. As if wearing clown shoes, I went stumbling and splashing sideways, struggling to keep my balance. When I finally went down, Vladimir was charging me through knee-deep water to continue the fight—a mistake on his part.
The man should have run for shore and escaped into the shadows. It might have saved him from what happened minutes later.
I was wearing old-style Rocket fins. They’re heavy, but I like them because they don’t float, and because they’re big enough to allow me to wear jungle boots rather than booties, if the situation requires.
Tonight I was wearing worn-out Nikes, not boots, but that didn’t make it any easier to pry the fin straps over the heels of my shoes. That’s what I was trying to do when the man threw himself on me, yelling something in Russian.
As he clubbed at me with his fists, I managed to get one fin off and toss it toward the dock before deciding I’d better fight back. If he connected solidly, knocked me out, he might be able accomplish with his hands what he’d failed to do with the pistol.
I became an armadillo—pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms over my head for protection. It gave the bodyguard enough confidence to do what I anticipated. I waited until I felt the man’s body weight move to my shoulders as he tried to get a clean shot at my face. He was riding too high, in wrestling jargon, something he wouldn’t have understood. That subtle change in balance allowed me to crab-crawl backward from beneath his legs and escape behind him. Out the back door—more wrestling jargon.
Doc - 19 - Chasing Midnight Page 3
