“Soap and water... No amount of soap and water can clean out the rotten core of your heart, Warren Tauman, you rascal, you devil, you serpent, you Satan seed...” he heard Mother say in his ear.
Santiva got on the headphones, likely to keep busy in his futile attempt to control his airsickness. Conferring with Jessica, he said, “See anything?”
“It’s still like soup down there.”
“What is it you’re looking for?” demanded Don Lansing.
“We’re searching for a boat.”
“A boat? A particular boat?”
“That’s right.”
“We’ve been following the coast in pursuit of some guy on a boat?”
Santiva barked, “Yes, is that so hard to understand?”
“What happened to your accent?” Lansing wanted to know. “Look, Mr. Lansing...” began Jessica, realizing they’d traversed nearly a third of their journey to the Caymans now, “I think it’s time you knew the truth.”
“Truth? What truth?” We’re not being chased by anyone, especially not the cops; we... Eriq and I—are FBI, cops you might say...”
“What?” His look of shock seemed out of proportion to her revelation.
Eriq explained, “We didn’t lie back in Tampa to the tower guys.”
“Whataya saying?”
“We are FBI agents.”
“Oh, Christ, you’re shitting me. Holy Mother, Pete’s going to kill me when he hears about this. I’ll be damned. How in hell’d I not see it?”
“We’re good at what we do. But really, Don, we are really FBI, and we’re really in pursuit of the—”
“—the Night Crawler,” he finished, the light coming clear on. “Sure, why not? Story of my life. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Mr. Lansing ... Mr. Lansing...” Jessica tried to quell his concern, but he kept babbling to himself through the headphones. “I must not live right. Something I did once to my mother, maybe. God has a way of punishing even the blind and ignorant...”
“Sorry to burst your bubble,” she weakly apologized.
“Then one of the two stories you made up back at the airport was... was the truth?”
“ ‘Fraid so.”
“Damn... damn, you must think I’m some kinda fool. Hey, I want both of you to know that I’m nobody’s fool.”
Jessica realized that Lansing didn’t believe them now any more than he had on takeoff.
“Whatever your game, I’m not interested. All’s I want is to set down in Miami and we can settle up there. Plenty of guys in Miami’ll be happy to take you on to the Caymans. Just don’t tell ‘em you’re the fuzz, all right?”
“Miami? We’re not going to Miami,” she countered.
“It’s on our flight pattern to the Caymans. It’s the only safe way. We attempt another way and we could get in trouble over Cuba. Trust me. Besides, like I told you, we need to stop at Miami to refuel and get in the flight path over Cuba to the Caymans, so we log where we’re going in case of problems.”
“Do you always follow such rules to the letter?” asked a suspicious Santiva.
“Always,” he lied.
“Mr. Lansing, we want you to take us all the way to Grand Cayman,” Jessica pleaded. “I don’t know...”
“We’ve offered to pay three times your normal rate,” she reminded. “Three times?” asked Santiva, whistling into the headphones.
“Not if we’re dumped in Miami, no,” she responded.
Lansing broke down, saying, “All right, but we stop over in Miami to refuel and file a flight report, and once we touch down in Cayman, I collect my dough from you people and wave bye-bye.”
“Agreed,” she assured him, and the cockpit grew silent now as they soared over scattered cloud cover.
“Can’t you get us down a little lower, so we can see better?” she asked.
“Lower means more turbulence right now,” he countered, “and your so-called hotshot FBI agent friend is already three shades of green.”
They were on a due-south tack now, coming out of the storm clouds, getting beyond the front. There was bright sunshine and gleaming blue waters ahead. “You can start bringing us down now,” she ordered.
Perhaps to test just how honest or dishonest she’d been with him, Lansing frowned and let go of the controls. “You take the controls,” he said. “Seems to me that’s what you like, being in control.”
She grabbed on to the controls almost immediately, but the plane was already in a screaming nosedive, everyone but Lansing losing his stomach to the cockpit ceiling, Eriq shouting through his headphones, freaking out while Jessica grabbed and then pulled hard on the controls, bringing the plane back under control, leveling her out, tiger stripes and all. The plane was a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron, Lansing having chosen to take it over the smaller, modified Sandpiper back in Tampa. The machine was not nearly so old as it was made to appear. Lansing, or more likely his boss, Pete, had painted the Baron to appear older and perhaps more romantic than it actually was. The seats were plush, the controls state of the art. The World War II look of the tiger stripes, the lettering of the call numbers—all a ruse to mirror what? Experienced, vintage fliers? Lansing was too young for vintage, she thought.
“What the hell’re you trying to do, Lansing?” Jessica shouted now.
“Wanted to see if you lied about being a pilot, too. Guess not.”
She shook her head and gave him a half smile, to which he responded by frowning. He wasn’t amused at having literally been taken for a ride. His arms were folded tightly against his chest as he watched her take the bird lower over the water.
Jessica had felt the power of the light plane the moment she’d grabbed the controls. It was a feeling like nothing else she’d ever experienced—flying. She couldn’t hold back the sense of wonder, or her smile.
Lansing, looking at her reaction as she soared ever closer to the emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico below them, suddenly broke into laughter.
“What’s so damned funny?” demanded Eriq from the rear. Then Jessica began to laugh. “Go ahead, enjoy yourself for a while, and buzz every damned boat you see down there for all I care,” said Lansing, “but give a thought to the fuel gauge while you’re doing it, all right?” Behind his protestations lay an understandable frustration. He didn’t know or trust them; he didn’t know what their game was; he didn’t know who they were chasing; he didn’t believe they were FBI agents in pursuit of the Night Crawler any more than he believed her Alice in Wonderland and Eriq the Wizard of Oz.
But something in his tone told Jessica that he did care. that he was worried about who they were and what they intended. “Look, reach into my bag and pull out my wallet, Mr. Lansing,” she told him.
“What for?”
“You’ll find my badge there.”
He looked from her to the bag that’d been jammed into a space too small for it just beside her ankle. While he went for the bag, he admired the creamy-skinned legs below the skirt she wore. He rummaged about, feeling the cold metal of a gun, which he lifted along with her wallet. “What the hell’s this?”
“Be careful with that; it’s a Browning automatic, same gun I used to kill Matthew Matisak with in New Orleans last year.”
He looked at her as if she were mad. She wished now that she had brought along that stupid Enquirer story with her picture for this show-and-tell moment. “I really, truly am Dr. Jessica Coran, and this is Chief Eriq Santiva of the FBI.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Yes, damnit, it’s the truth.”
He raised both hands to run through his hair, as if to do so might ease his consternation. But the gesture had little effect. “You now want me to believe that you ... that you’re an M.D. with—”
“An M.E. for the FBI, yes.”
“The one who caught that heart-eating, banshee killer in New Orleans last year?”
“One and the same,” added Eriq from the rear.
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“Same one who also cornered and killed Mad Matthew Matisak there?”
“That would be me, yes.”
He reserved judgment as he opened her billfold and closely examined her FBI photo ID and badge. Then the light in his brain finally flickered on. “Damn, hellfire, unbelievable... here in Pete’s plane, sitting just across from me. Well, here, let me shake your hand, Dr. Coran.” He extended a hand and took hers, shaking so vigorously she had trouble holding the plane steady.
“Then you’ve heard of me?” she unnecessarily asked.
“Are you kidding? I mean, who hasn’t heard about you? The Eskimos? But why didn’t you just tell me who you were in the first place? I wouldn’t’ve balked a moment taking off at the airport the way I did, had I known it was you...”
Eriq grumbled through the static of his headphone upon hearing this and added, “Does that mean you won’t charge us triple?”
“No, no... didn’t say that.”
Again they laughed together, now with the plane coming in over the water at seventy feet above the surface. They saw a few scattered boats, but most boaters had wisely chosen to steer clear of these waters for the duration of the storm retreat.
“Look, over there in the distance!” shouted Eriq, blowing out their ears through the phone sets.
“Where?” asked Jessica.
“Over there!” repeated Eriq.
“Give us a direction, Eriq. Ten o’clock, two o’clock, what?”
“Oh, yeah... ahh, three o’clock.”
Jessica and Lansing looked immediately to their right, Lansing leaning in and over Jessica a bit, catching her perfume as he did so. “Small craft, nothing like what you’re looking for,” he advised.
“How would you know what we’re looking for?” countered Eriq.
“Hey. I listen to the news reports. I read the papers. They say it was a schooner-class ship, and that thing down there’s no schooner. A schooner has three masts, for one thing, and it moves over the water differently...”
“How can you possibly tell from this distance?” Jessica wondered aloud.
“The way she moves in the water. A schooner slices through the water. She doesn’t bounce atop the waves.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I am, so don’t waste your time or our fuel.”
“Looks pretty impressive to me,” countered Eriq, still staring at the boat below. They were south of Naples now, out over the water, nearing the straits of Florida. “Jess, what do you think?”
She had to crane her neck to see back over her shoulder now, twisting in her seat, showing some backside to Don. Lansing encouraged her to release the controls and rise out of her seat to lean over for a better view while he took in his own better view of her form, all the while telling her that it wasn’t a large enough boat.
“I can’t tell from here,” she confessed.
“Then take her in for a closer look,” Santiva said, his voice grating now, giving way to his stress and fatigue.
Jessica brought the plane around, and they gently glided in over the boat and saw her markings clearly enough. There were several people aboard the large two-masted sloop, all waving in wild abandon at the buzzing, puzzling plane some thirty-five-odd feet above them now.
Don Lansing had been right: They needed to pick and choose better. It wouldn’t do to waste fuel on so many red herrings, especially if the killer arrived at Grand Cayman before them and managed to unload his boat for another one while they were uselessly shopping the sea from boat to boat.
“So you’re Dr. Jessica Coran; damn...” Lansing said as they climbed to a safer altitude.
“Are we back to that?” Eriq irritably asked.
Lansing ignored Eriq, continuing, “Pete’s just not going to believe this. But I gotta tell you, even if he cans my ass, it will’ve all been worth it. Something to tell my kids someday.”
“Oh? Do you have children?” Jessica asked.
“No, not at the moment, but someday I suppose I will.”
Jessica smiled back at her newfound admirer and tried to simply enjoy flying the craft. But his remark stuck with her, that someday he supposed he would have children. Something about him said otherwise. And she thought of her own someday plans, the ones she had made with James Parry. They seemed now like clouds that had dissolved and floated off over the cerulean-blue sea and into oblivion. She felt a pang of loss. To combat the feeling, she concentrated on the sense of power and sheer delight in manipulating the aircraft. She was a beauty, this little plane, and Lansing, smiling over at Jessica, understanding her rush of emotions, didn’t seem in the least concerned about reclaiming the controls.
“We’ve got to turn her due east, Dr. Coran,” he told her now.
“For Miami?”
“It’d be the safest and best route.”
“But it seems so indirect. Why can’t we refuel in Key West?”
He hesitated a moment. “You don’t want to be with me the next time I touch down in Key West. Trust me on this one.”
She looked into his eyes, saw the sincerity there and relinquished, turning the plane’s nose toward the sun. “Miami it is. We can check in with the MPD while we’re there, Eriq. Let them know of our whereabouts.”
“Yeah, I suppose that’s a good idea.”
“Going over Cuban airspace is a little tricky,” confided Lansing. “We’ll do much better getting into the established flight lanes.”
•TWENTY-ONE-
The world is governed more by appearances than by realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.
—Daniel Webster
The tropical maelstrom, which the Tau Cross had carefully sluiced through by keeping at the outer fringes of the storm, had been nothing compared with the North Atlantic sea squall that Warren Tauman had endured coming over from England. In the earlier storm, the waves were as tall as houses, and he’d been hurt and had to handle every problem with a sprained ankle and a snapped mast. He and the Tau Cross had limped over the ocean after that for days, and he’d feared that he would never see land again; he’d found no wind for seventy-two hours and had to rely on his diesel motors and his less than keen sense of direction. Somehow he’d gotten hopelessly lost, his ship having passed through the western Caribbean waters and amid any number of small island ports, none of which he had seen until he’d come far to the southeast of America and sighted land— the Dominican Republic. He’d put to port there, but for only a brief few days, finding it less than hospitable, and even before all necessary repairs to his ship could be done—largely due to the fact that he could find no one capable or quick enough—he left this island world only to locate another: Cayman Brae Island, as he came to know it later.
Cayman Brae was like a godsend. He’d been alone for too long with his thoughts and Mother, who taunted him, telling him he was a fool and that he would die alone at sea. But his spirit guide deposited him instead at the Cayman Islands. The Caymans were composed of three islands: Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brae. All were at low elevations, but Cayman Brae rose 140 feet into the sky with its limestone bluffs, and it became a beacon for him that morning after leaving the inhospitable Dominican shore. He saw Cayman Brae rise from the water like some sort of Loch Ness Monster, yet it was nonthreatening, beautiful. He stayed on at Cayman Brae for two weeks while true craftsmen worked on his mast and windows and whatever else needed repair, paying in funds still available to him on his mother’s life insurance policy. As for the more serious problems with navigational equipment—nav, as the seasoned sailors called it—computer hardware and software damage, he’d have to await his arrival in America. In Cayman Brae he learned just how close he was to America, to Florida waters.
While remaining in the safe port during that time period, Warren had wisely restrained from any hunting and killing until all repairs were finished and paid for. He’d stocked new food, fixed broken equipment, beefed up weak points in the boat
and rigging, repaired old sails and got some new ones. After that, he began exploring each of the three islands in the chain, and while doing so, he began to collect a handful of willing victims.
Now he raced for this safe port again, low on food but with his boat intact and sound. He sat at the navigation station, studying weather maps. Sitting in this area of the cabin was a bit like sitting at the center of a teacup; at the center of the cup was the nav station. His chair faced a phalanx of electronic equipment, blipping radar screens, computers, radios and instruments towering to the cabin’s ceiling. At the top was a portable CD player strapped in with bungee cords. From here, he could read wind speed true, wind direction and wind speed apparent in the bright red letters of the light-emitting diodes before him.
The chair and the table were gimbaled, so as the boat leaned to one side or the other, Warren could sit perfectly level to work, eat or drink. He studied the weather maps every day, each generated from his own on-board computer weather station. A lean man at six-two, he averaged 170 pounds but burned them like a panther. On a one-man sailboat where speed and progress depended on reading and agilely responding to wind and waves, his incessant activity—trimming and changing sails, tweaking this, modifying that—translated into miles between him and Tampa Bay, the Florida authorities and the FBI.
So now Warren was blasting along on a calm and unhurried West Caribbean wind at about twenty-five knots, allowing the autopilot to steer while he checked the maps again. From what his speed and the maps were telling him, he knew now that he must rig the new sail, his old one having been shredded by the storm at his back after an abrupt wind shift. Warren went above deck and wrestled with an enormous snake—actually, a giant sock encasing a new sail which he’d purchased in Sanibel Island during his stay there. He knew it would take him two, possibly three hours to get the new sail up, more if the old sail were to get knotted in the rigging. But it was his only chance to hook up with the Caribbean sailboat race called the Jamaica Run that he intended to infiltrate and ride in on. It made perfect sense, if he could time it exactly right, for entering Cayman was like finding a postage stamp out there, and the race would act both as a guide—thanks to more experienced sailors than he—and as a cover. Entering port at Cayman amid such confusion and mayhem would afford the perfect cover. If he could only pull it off. The new sail, too, with its sundial face, would fit right in with the racers.
Darkest Instinct Page 39
