Doc - 19 - Chasing Midnight

by Randy Wayne White

  Kahn and Thomas had apparently tried to mutiny, information that caused Sharon to look at Tomlinson, her expression asking See how easy it is?

  An impressive woman. But it wasn’t important enough to make me pause as I tossed aside combs, a day planner, cigarettes, several bottles of prescription pills, and then, finally, I held up two keys attached to a float.

  “Here they are! Let’s go.”

  I was already moving as Tomlinson asked, “Winnie, there are two rental boats. Which one?”

  “For Christ’s sake,” the woman hollered, “it’s an old Boston Whaler. Do I have to provide every single little detail?”

  Tomlinson is the faster runner, so I handed off the keys as he went flying past. By the time I got to the dock, he was already aboard the little boat, tilting an ancient Mercury outboard into the water. The engine looked too small and old for what I feared we’d have to do: stop a thirty-ton boat that was carrying maybe five people, plus a manifest of fingerling sturgeon, in a hull that was awash with salt water.

  Despite all that had happened, the young sturgeon had been on my mind since their existence had been confirmed. I’d tried to convince myself they were just fish and what happened to them was unimportant. After all, trillions of fish died daily, some by my own hand. They are useful animals but little more than a mindless, expendable source of protein encased in scales.

  From a cynical overview, that might be true, but not from the microperspective that defined my own life. I hadn’t been aboard the yacht nor had anyone shared a description of the fish. No matter. These weren’t ordinary sturgeon—as if there is anything ordinary about that implacable genus. With the exception of one beautiful woman, Viktor Kazlov was nobody’s fool. Nor was Lien Bohai. If the Russian had risked transporting a cargo of live sturgeon from Mexico to Florida, it wasn’t because he hoped to fool an aquaculture expert like his old rival. Not for long, anyway. The logistics alone were daunting. Kazlov’s custom yacht probably had a motion stabilizer for rough seas, but he would have had to install oversized aquarium tanks below deck, plus an oxygen generator and a chiller to maintain water quality for the fish. It would have been a sound investment only if he actually had modified a beluga that could produce eggs dependably, profitably, and also thrive in the warmer water of the tropics.

  No, the Dragos Voyager wasn’t carrying just sturgeon. It was carrying the first generation of the caviar industry’s future—and possibly the future of the beluga sturgeon itself.

  After I had started the boat’s engine and adjusted the thermal monocular over my eye, I said to Tomlinson, “You have Densler’s cell phone, right?”

  My pal stepped down from the dock, the boat’s lines free. “Right here,” he said. I could see his swollen eye in the iPhone’s glow as he studied the screen. “No signal. But when I get one, she has the Neinabors in her recent calls—that was early yesterday. And a bunch to Markus Kahn. If we called, they’d think it was Winifred.”

  “The moment you can, try nine-one-one,” I told him as I throttled the Whaler onto a laboriously slow plane. “Then call Kahn. Tell him he either helps us or he’s going to die.”

  “You didn’t learn anything from the way Sharon handled Winifred?”

  As I searched for the first channel marker, I had to raise my voice over the sound of the engine. “On second thought, I’ll call him. Tell the nine-one-one operator to contact the Fort Myers Beach Coast Guard. Maybe that helicopter can scare the twins into stopping. Or, at least, be on station to rescue survivors—if there are any survivors.” I nodded to the northwest where the chopper, four miles away, was fanning the water with its searchlight.

  After that, I stopped talking. The channel was narrow, the boat’s steering was sloppy, and just making it out of the basin required my full attention. I hadn’t switched on the Whaler’s running lights, so I used the neon residual of the thermal unit to check the instrument panel once we were running flat. The boat’s top speed was thirty-four hundred rpm—twenty miles an hour at best—and the engine began to cough and sputter when I tried to push it harder. That made us more than twice as fast as the Dragos, but I still made a silent vow to never, ever leave my own boat at home again.

  At the entrance to the marina, I made a hard left and picked up a line of navigational markers that were spaced uniformly like fence posts and not much taller. Each was tipped with a reflective red triangle or a green rectangle that gleamed with thermal vision heat like Christmas ornaments. I kept the red markers to my left, or port, side. Stray too far to the left and we’d bounce hard aground in water not deep enough to cover the legs of night herons that spooked to flight as we passed.

  To my right, a ridge of limestone tracked a ditch-straight line along the channel from which it had been dredged. If we veered off course, or the steering cable broke, those rocks would kill the boat and maybe us, too.

  Tomlinson was aware of the hazards because he said, “I know the twins learned on the Caspian Sea, but they’re fools if they think they can run these narrow channels at night without lights.”

  I hadn’t mentioned the cheap Russian night vision that Geness Neinabor was carrying. The optics were too poor to help much out here. At least, I hoped it was true, which is why I replied, “If they run aground—or I can force them out of the channel—we’ve got a chance. They’re not going to fight, so they’ll try to run.”

  When Tomlinson started to reply, I shushed him with my hand. I needed to think. Ahead, channel markers curved northwest where the night sky was fogged by the lights of Bonita Beach Club condominiums. Ultimately, though, the channel would turn west toward Big Carlos Pass, which was screened from view by the black undulations of mangrove islands. The Neinabor twins, and Kazlov’s yacht, had to be somewhere on the other side of those islands.

  “What time is it?” I yelled the question because I was frustrated and worried.

  “We’ve got less than forty minutes.”

  “You have a signal yet?”

  Tomlinson cupped the iPhone to his eyes, then said, “A T and T stands for ‘abysmal third-rate tele-shit-the-fucking-bed-phone.’ Some soup cans and a string would be better.”

  “But it’s not jammed, is that what you’re saying?”

  Tomlinson shrugged, punched in three numbers, then pantomimed throwing the phone overboard. “I’m telling you, soup cans and a string.”

  I tapped my fist on the throttle and studied the unmarked water separating us from the last stretch of channel and islands that screened the Dragos from view.

  “What are you thinking?” Tomlinson had one hand on the console as if trying to push the boat faster.

  “What’s the tide doing?”

  When he heard that, the man understood exactly what I was thinking because he knows boats and water. “We’re three days past the new moon. Low tide’s around four a.m. So the sooner we leave the channel, the more water we’ll have.” He took a look over the side before adding, “Which won’t be much.”

  Leaving the channel was risky and we both knew it. The west coast of Florida is a macrocosm of every leeward island in the subtropic world, just as every bay and sandbar is a microcosm of Florida’s Gulf rim. On windward coasts, water drops abruptly into the descending troughs of open ocean. On leeward sides, though, water is shallow and tilts incrementally toward the sea. The bottom possesses the geography of a grass mesa, pocked by limestone implosions, guttered by currents, fissures and the wheel tracks of long-gone vessels that might have made it across the shallows but probably didn’t.

  Tomlinson asked me, “Have you ever run this flat before?”

  Once, but that was years ago, so I shook my head and told him, “Get up on the bow, that’ll help,” then waited until he had scrambled forward before I turned the wheel, banking us out of the channel and into shallow water.

  In my own skiff, I would have felt an instant buoyancy as the hull was lifted by turbulence echoing off the bottom only inches beneath. But my skiff was designed for backcountry passages, the B
oston Whaler was not. It is a popular name brand that came into vogue after builders sawed a Whaler in two and discovered both pieces remained afloat. It was an effective PR gimmick for a craft that’s built like a truck but also handles like a truck. The eighteen-foot Whaler has the esthetics of a Tupperware dish, with a bow as flat as an ax. Popular or not, it may be the heaviest, wettest, roughest-riding boat in its class, which is why I didn’t feel much confidence as I cowboyed the beast across the flat.

  From the bow, I heard Tomlinson yell, “It’s getting thinner!”

  The warning wasn’t necessary. I could already feel the motor’s skeg banging bottom, which caused the boat to jolt and surge as if the carburetor was sucking water, not gas. We were losing the speed required to maintain plane and I had to do something—either that or circle back to the channel.

  I yelled, “Hang on!” then spun the wheel left so the boat heeled on its port chine, a maneuver that angled the propeller away from the bottom. A moment later, I spun the wheel right so that we rode our starboard chine. Zigzagging could help maintain our speed, but it would cost us too much time, so I studied the area ahead, searching for roils or a riverine chop that might signal deeper water.

  Instead, I found something almost as good: a Styrofoam buoy that marked the location of a crab trap. In shallow areas, blue crab fishermen often set their traps in a line that follows the deepest water so wire cages won’t be exposed at low tide. Unless the trap had been blown astray by a storm, I might find more.

  I did. Tomlinson hooted and raised a fist when we raised a second crab buoy, then a third, each trap framed by an oil slick that proved it had been recently baited. One by one, I left the buoys rocking in our wake, as I followed a dozen more, the trapline traveling a scimitar arc that threaded between mangrove islands and would soon intersect with the channel to Vanderbilt Island.

  “I got a signal, Doc!” When Tomlinson yelled the news, I made a shushing motion with my hand because, absurdly, I feared that if the twins had run aground they might hear us coming. Which was ridiculous because our outboard was as loud as a machine gun, and Tomlinson, with a finger plugged into an ear, had to yell to be heard by the 911 operator he was now talking to.

  The wind sailed snatches of conversation past me, only some of it understood.

  “In a boat, ma’am. Yes, a boat… Definitely life and death… No, I can’t stay on the line. The Coast Guard, please… Right! And the sheriff’s department, marine division…”

  I tried to piece it together but then stopped because of something I saw a mile ahead: it was Kazlov’s yacht. The vessel had a black angularity that set itself apart from the black water and it plowed a silver wake. The yacht had reached the final bend in the channel and was motoring northwest toward Big Carlos Pass, where, beyond, the Gulf of Mexico was a sparkling vacuum of space and Yucatán stars.

  I was thinking about the electronics that a yacht of that quality would carry. It would have autopilot and a sophisticated GPS mapping system with all navigable channels precisely located. Use the touch screen to mark a destination and the autopilot would tractor the vessel precisely through every turn. No wonder the Neinabors had been able to negotiate so much shoal water without knocking the bottom out of the boat. Trapper had been right. The twins were smart but probably not savvy enough to realize that an unerring navigation system made their course unerringly predictable.

  I looked northwest, toward Big Carlos Pass. Navigation lights that marked the main channel were robotic eyes, red, green and white, that blinked every four seconds. A red light, though, pulsed a two-second rhythm, alerting mariners that the intersection of two channels lay ahead. The yacht’s autopilot would steer a rhumb line toward the light because in that triangulated spoil area, as I knew from experience, water outside the channel was only ankle-deep even at mid-tide.

  Suddenly, I knew the best way to take the Dragos by surprise.

  Careful not to turn so fast I’d throw Tomlinson off the bow, I banked northwest to leapfrog ahead of the yacht, throttle wide open. On my right, the shell pyramids of Mound Key traced a dinosaur’s hump on the starscape. Ahead and a few degrees to starboard, Monkey Joe Key was a gray vacancy, trimmed like a hedge. Less than a minute later, when I was sure we were in deeper water, I backed the throttle until the boat began to buck on its own wake, then switched off the ignition and let the boat glide.

  In the sudden silence, I could hear the diesel rumble of the Dragos Voyager as it plowed past us only three hundred yards away. The vessel rode at an abnormal angle, bow tilted so high it reminded me of an airplane frozen in takeoff—too much water in the hull.

  Tomlinson, still on the phone, made no attempt to hide himself, but I crouched low. At that distance, it was unlikely the twins would see us. But, even if they did, a lone boat had materialized in front of them, not from behind as would be expected of a vessel giving chase.

  As she passed, I used thermal vision to scan the yacht, which appeared to be shearing liquid sparks that were forged by engine heat and exhaust. Twice, I clicked the magnification button to zoom in. The flybridge was empty, but I could see two vaporous profiles, maybe three, in the steering room near the helm, images blurred. On the afterdeck were two people, both probably male.

  Kahn and Trapper were aboard. Possibly Umeko, too, but I still couldn’t be sure there were five people. If I had seen the woman, she was standing, which meant her legs weren’t bound.

  Good.

  Tomlinson, in a normal voice, was just finishing with the 911 operator, saying, “Tell the Coast Guard pilot to steer directly for Big Carlos Pass. We’ll flash our running lights.” Then he looked at me, asking, “What’s the number of the closest marker?”

  I focused the monocular, then held a fist away from my face to gauge the distance. “Green marker number nine, maybe a quarter mile northwest.”

  When Tomlinson was done, I checked the time, then said, “Give me the phone.”

  It was 2:30 a.m.

  25

  When Kahn answered, I said, “Don’t talk, just listen. You’ve got thirty minutes to live. Got that? Thirty minutes—unless we get you off that boat. I can help if you cooperate.”

  It took Kahn a long second to react, but he finally did, saying, “You? What do you want?”

  “Do the twins think you’re talking to Densler? Don’t do anything stupid, just answer the question.”

  He said, “Her picture came up, so, yeah—” then his tone changed when he finally figured out what was happening. “Oh… Winifred. I understand now. I couldn’t, uhh… I couldn’t hear what you were saying at first.”

  The man sounded shaky and out of breath, which told me he was scared.

  I said, “Is someone holding a gun on you?”

  “Uhh… no. Geness decided we should take the sturgeon out and release them. So… so that’s what we’re doing. Uhh… letting the fish go. Maybe rescue those dolphins, too.”

  I wondered if Kahn actually believed that.

  In the background, Odus was yelling, “How’d the bitch get a call out?” as I asked Kahn, “Is the Chinese woman with you?”

  “Yes… uhh… I think it’s a good idea myself. About the fish, I mean. But I really can’t talk right now, we have to go under a bridge pretty soon.”

  Holding the phone to my ear, I started the Whaler’s engine and took a look. We were only three hundred yards off the vessel’s stern quarter, and Big Carlos Pass bridge was still almost two miles away.

  At the southern lip of the pass stood the high-rise condos of Bare Key Regency and Casino, the lights an aggressive checkerboard of neon blues and greens. Kahn had just told me they would soon go under the bridge, but it was possible the twins had lied to him. Maybe they actually planned to detonate their bomb near the casino’s dolphin pens. If true, it was still possible they could make it by three a.m. because the casino was closer.

  Whatever their destination, the yacht would soon have to turn sharply north, a switchback that would cause it to pass within a h
undred yards of the Whaler. Because the Dragos was so much heavier, it couldn’t have made it across the shallow delta where we now waited. I knew that the autopilot would follow the channel every foot of the way.

  I told Kahn, “No matter what the twins say, don’t hang up. I’m trying to save your life. Understand?”

  “I… I’m beginning to.”

  “Are they running low on ammunition? I need to know.”

  “They were just saying…” The man hesitated. “I heard that, too—just a few minutes ago. I’m hoping it’s true.”

  Kahn had overheard the twins talking, apparently.

  “Are they out?”

  “No! No… uhh, definitely not. Look, Winifred, I don’t know how many fish we have.”

  “Fish” equaled “cartridges.” Kahn was trying to help, which told me he definitely wanted off that boat.

  I put the Whaler in gear and started idling across the shallows toward the section of channel where the yacht would pass closest. “Can you move freely around the boat?”

  “Uhh… well, yeah. Not entirely, but pretty much.”

  What did that mean?

  In the background, Odus was now shouting, “I told you to hang up that goddamn thing, asswipe!” which caused Kahn’s voice to change when he said, “I wish I could help but I really have to go—”

  I cut him off, saying, “Listen to me—you’re going to die, anyway. Twenty-nine minutes, that’s all you have. But it doesn’t have to happen.”

  I could hear Kahn arguing with Odus, telling him Densler was worried, so what was the big deal? Then he said into the phone, “I’ve got to hang up soon, so make it fast.”

  Through the monocular, I could see a person scrambling up the ladder from the yacht’s afterdeck, as I said, “The Super Mario bag the twins are carrying, I think there’s a bomb in it.”