by Lyle Howard
He had only heard the whispers ... the unfounded rumors ... the snippets of backroom conversations—but to actually be a witness to it only helped to confirm in the Deputy’s mind, that Cal Mackey had not always made his fortune mixing Fuzzy Navels.
* * *
Cal slithered effortlessly along the length of the dock, using the shadow of the Nocturne as cover. He was halfway to the smaller boat when he recognized its familiar sleek profile. It was Allen Bushkin's Bayliner! Now, he knew something was definitely wrong in River City! Falling to his stomach, Cal shimmied across the pier until he reached the mooring cleat the boat was secured to. Grabbing hold of the single line which was tied incorrectly to the stern of the Bayliner, Cal began to pull the boat closer to the dock.
Lying flat on his stomach, but still able to peer down into the deserted boat, Cal began to call out the lawyer's name with hushed urgency. "Al ... Al Bushkin ... are you in there?"
There was no response from below as the bow of the boat, caught up in the outgoing tide, struggled to free itself from Cal's tenuous grip.
"Hey, Bushkin ... it's me Cal Mackey ... if you're in there, say something!"
The boat was as soundless.
Alan Bushkin was one of the most materialistic men Cal had ever had the misfortune of meeting. He was one of those Paradise regulars that Cal had always wished irregularity on. If there was only one thing the lawyer prized more than his twenty-four-foot Bayliner, it might have been his Jaguar or perhaps his trendy apartment on South Beach (pictures of which, Bushkin always kept in his wallet and tended to show off at the slightest twist of a lime). There was no way on God's green earth that the hotshot lawyer from Miami would ever leave his pride and joy in such a disheveled condition! There was a copy of the latest issue of Boating magazine strewn across the afterdeck, the key was dangling haphazardly in the ignition, the entrance to the cuddy cabin had been left yawning open, and no bow lines had been secured to the pier. Maybe these were the slovenly traits of your average weekend sailor, but those didn't apply to Allen Bushkin. He was as meticulous and anal retentive as they came! The boat had simply been abandoned, left adrift on the tide, with no signs of a struggle. It appeared that the lawyer and the young girl Cal had seen him with earlier in the evening had merely vanished ... just like his father had!
Back on the shoreline, the deputy continued to periodically peek over the concrete wall for any indication of his friend's whereabouts. It was during one of these vigilant moments that he spotted Cal running in a low crouch back to the beach.
"What did you find out?"
Cal jumped down onto the beach landing soundlessly. "It's Allen Bushkin's Bayliner and it’s tied down real funky. No bow lines ... and the deck's a mess!"
"You talking about Bushkin, the lawyer?"
Cal nodded.
"What's he still doing here? The Marine Patrol says your dock has to be cleared out by three a.m., right?"
Cal was out of breath. "Bushkin wasn't on board."
"Are you shitting me?"
Cal shook his head. "I spoke to him on the dock a few hours ago. He had a good-looking young woman with him, and he was looking for a place to moor."
"Did you ever see them in the club tonight?"
Again, Cal shook his head. "If he'd been in there, you know damned well he'd have come up to the bar and given me his usual grief about something."
Geiger knew Bushkin's reputation almost as well as Cal did. If he had somehow managed to scrape up a date somewhere, he would have been parading her around the Paradise Shack like a new Rolex. The deputy gnawed on his lower lip. "There's no way in hell Bushkin would have left his boat abandoned like that!"
Cal's solemn expression seemed chiseled in his blackened face. Geiger hadn't seen it change since they had stepped onto the sand. "You know it and I know it!"
Geiger shifted his weight so that his back was now against the pier and he was totally enveloped by the moon's shadow. "So you think the redhead and her grandfather have something to do with Bushkin's disappearance as well?"
Cal's eyes darted between the Bayliner and the yacht. "And you don't?"
The deputy sighed. "Jeez Cal, I probably stopped thinking the minute I followed you out here!"
Cal put his hand on Geiger's shoulder. "You're still with me, aren't you, Artie?"
Geiger frowned. "Well I didn't come this far just to turn back now."
Cal's teeth flashed brightly in the moonlight, reminding the deputy of a hungry tiger.
"Okay then, stay close," Cal urged. "We're goin' in!"
Nine
Drip ... Drip ... Drip...
Becky Abram’s emerald eyes fluttered open like the brittle wings of a butterfly, her mind valiantly struggling to free itself from its drug-induced stupor. With her eyes able to open little more than narrow slits, trying to see had never been such a chore before. Everything around her appeared shrouded in a murky haze, intangible impressions that lacked substance or shape. The incoming light was so bright it hurt, like hot needles piercing the perverted focus of her eyes.
She tried to shake her head to lessen the cobwebs, but promptly discovered that something was restricting her freedom of movement. Sluggishly, the nerve-endings on her forehead dispatched the message to her brain that her head was being held in place—a coarse leather strap was pulled taut above her eyebrows, threatening to chaff her skin if she continued to struggle. Her wrists and ankles were trussed as well, restrained firmly by her side with the same type of rough leather shackles that confined her head.
What was this place, and how did she get here? The last thing she could remember was that she was really getting ticked off at Allen for being so obsessed about finding dockage behind the Paradise Shack. He kept bitching like a broken record about Cal Mackey having the audacity to turn him away, and so he continued circling the boat until ... for some reason, she was drawing a blank. What happened next? Her head throbbed as she tried to concentrate. In her mind she could see the man ... backlit by the beacon on the end of the pier. She could remember spotting him waving to them ... calling them over. Allen pulled the boat in close and said something to the guy in his usually belligerent tone, and, without warning, the man reached into his pocket and...
Drip ... Drip ... Drip...
Becky closed her eyes and tried to remember. Now, she was positive ... the guy had pointed something metallic in their direction... She could almost feel the stabbing in her neck like it was happening all over again. She thought she heard what sounded like two staccato bursts of compressed air. Then, the pain started. Burning ... the side of her face was burning like it had been doused with sulfuric acid, until it went numb. After that, she knew that her knees must have gone limp, because she remembered falling to the deck in a crumpled heap, her long blond hair twisting into a tangled mess that covered most of her face. Back then, just like now, even the slightest movement was impossible—her nervous system had been short-circuited in the flash of a muzzle. Yes! She could see it now! There had been a gun in that man’s hand! But what had happened to Allen? Forget him, she thought. She needed to worry more about herself right now.
Returning her attention to her present dilemma, her eyes darted back and forth in a panicked frenzy, trying desperately to disseminate her surroundings. Her mouth was stretched open as wide as it would go, and filled with a rubber gag. Trying to scream for help was useless; she was incapable of vocalizing the sheer terror she was experiencing.
Slowly, her senses were returning. She could tell that she was in an upright position, her back pressed flat against a cold steel wall or table. With tears welling up in her fright-filled eyes, she strained to glance downward, and was marginally comforted by the sight of her intact bathing suit top, still supporting her bountiful breasts.
The air smelled unnatural, almost antiseptic, like the acerbic odor found in most hospital corridors. But this was no hospital … that much she could tell. Something about these claustrophobic surroundings told her that this was a lone ro
om—a special place built for a specific purpose. And thinking about that purpose was driving her insane!
Drip ... Drip ... Drip...
As though her situation wasn’t abusive enough, there was that incessant dripping sound that reverberated throughout the room like the constant hum that comes from a fluorescent lightbulb that needs to be replaced. She couldn’t quite pinpoint the source of the annoyance since her eyes weren’t able to scan the entire room, but if it didn’t stop soon she was going to have to figure a way to muster the courage that would allow her to swallow her tongue, just to spite her kidnappers.
Like a mixed blessing, in tiny increments, her eyesight was starting to normalize. Whatever drug her captors had used to sedate her had also dilated her eyes and was beginning to wear off. Now, with her vision clearing, she thought she might be able to estimate the size of the room they were holding her in. Not that knowing the measurements of this torture chamber would help her escape, but, after all, an idle mind is a deranged mind. So, from her limited vantage point, she estimated there was approximately fifteen feet ahead of her, and that the room appeared at least that same distance in width. A useless tidbit of intelligence to say the least, but doing the calculations seemed to unblock her mind even faster.
Drip ... Drip ... Drip...
Now, as she was beginning to be able to differentiate between indistinct shapes, what she had initially thought to be the shiny metallic walls were in fact an imposing conglomeration of medical and computer equipment that took up the entire perimeter of the room. The various machines were silent in their efficiency, and she quickly came to realize, that the unrelenting dripping noise that was tormenting her was not a by-product of any of these technological marvels.
Drip ... Drip ... Drip...
That stomach-churning sound was coming from right beside her!
Ten
The Nocturne remained motionless in the moonlit water, her titanic steel hull undaunted by the battering of the encroaching tide that pounded ashore from the gulf. On the other side of the pier, Allen Bushkin’s little pleasure craft was dwarfed by the enormous ship. The little boat pitched and rolled on the increasing waves, like a rubber duck in a bathtub. Even though Cal had secured the lines correctly, nothing could have prepared the small boat for the advancing thunderclouds that were churning just beyond the horizon.
Now, as the pair of soldiers of misfortune belly-crawled along the concrete dock toward the enormous yacht, the only sound that pierced the stillness of the night was the splashing of the waves and the whipping of palm fronds in the spiraling breeze. But the two men could smell the rain as it approached, and it made their lungs heavy, like breathing in steam in a locker room.
“I can’t believe I’m actually creeping around on my stomach like a reptile!” Geiger protested, as he tossed away a pebble that had imbedded itself in the palm of his hand.
“Keep it down,” Cal warned his cohort. “Your bitchin’s gonna give us away for sure, before we ever step foot on the damned boat!”
The deputy was getting awfully tired of staring at the soles of his friend’s boots. He had only been slithering along for fifty or sixty feet, but for someone who wasn’t in prime infantry shape it felt more like a mile and a half. “Why don’t we just storm the place with bullets blazin’?” Geiger suggested. “You know, like Bruce Willis used to do it in Die Hard?”
Cal whispered without looking back. “Yippee ki-yay.”
The deputy smirked. “Mo-fo!”
Cal rolled his camouflage-accentuated eyes. “Just put a lid on it will ya? And stay low!”
The only conventional entry onto the Noctourne appeared to be the same gangway that the bodyguard had used to carry Rachel back onboard. It was an awning-covered, single piece of teakwood that rose up from the dock to the ship’s main deck at a forty-five degree angle. As he ran his hand along the base of the well-polished hardwood plank, Cal quickly surmised that expert workmanship like this simply didn’t exist anymore on modern-made vessels. Every last detail—every inch of railing and every foot of decking—was hand-crafted and spit-shined to an impeccable gloss!
“Well, are we going up there, or do I have to lie here all night?” Geiger asked, swatting at the heel of Cal’s boot.
“You see any signs of life?” the bartender asked.
The deputy craned his head. “It’s four-thirty in the morning, for God’s sake! They’re probably all sleeping, like we should be!”
Cal rolled over onto his side. “I don’t think both of us should just stroll in through the main hatch.”
Geiger stared at his friend incredulously. “What do you mean you think? I thought you had this whole scheme all planned out!”
In the distance, the clouds rumbled like a herd of stampeding cattle.
“I just don’t know if both of us going in this way will take away the element of surprise for us.”
Geiger looked toward the bow of the yacht. “So what do you wanna do, climb up the damned mooring rope?”
Cal wiggled his eyebrows at that intriguing idea.
The deputy shook his head. “Oh no, you don’t! I wouldn’t climb up that rope even if the pope asked me to.”
Cal scrambled to his knees. “No, we’ll split up. I’ll climb the rope to the bow, and you go in this way.”
Geiger had to grab Cal’s sweatshirt to hold him back. “Where the hell are we supposed to meet up?”
Mackey pointed to the stern. “You scope out the stern, and I’ll check everything forward. We’ll meet in fifteen minutes back at the bar.”
The deputy scowled. “I’ll bet you’re not even wearing a watch, are you?”
Cal shrugged. “What? You don’t think I’ll know when fifteen minutes are up?”
Geiger shook his head. “Well, at least tell me what the heck I’m supposed to be looking for.”
“Anything unusual,” Cal whispered.
Geiger sucked on his lower lip just as a chorus of heat lightning ignited the cloud tops with a burst of white energy not very far away. “Anything unusual? That’s real helpful, pal!”
Cal turned toward the bow. “Just snoop around for a few minutes, and then I’ll see you back at the Shack.”
“Don’t forget ... fifteen minutes!” Geiger whispered emphatically. But Cal was already out of earshot.
Halfway up the gangplank, still crawling on his stomach and feeling pretty much like an idiot, the deputy paused to peek over the railing at Cal, who, like the perfect saboteur, had evaporated into the darkness.
The main deck that ran the entire periphery of the Nocturne reminded Geiger of the floor of the gymnasium where he had played his college round ball. Pieced together like a mosaic, the polished wood slats glistened in the sparse light cast by the few lamps that still remained lit around the yacht.
He didn’t know what he was doing here. He stood up and pressed his back up against the cold, steel bulkhead, his heart was pounding like a little kid who had just pinched his first pack of gum from a convenience store. Looking fore and aft, everything seemed dead. Cal had told him to check out the back of the boat, so that’s where he headed.
Above the bridge, a tall radio mast poked through the darkness toward the cloud-obscured night sky. The scent of rain was stronger than ever and Geiger wondered if Cal was also aware of how quickly it was approaching.
As he continued to make his way toward the tail of the ship, his sneakers squeaked with each stride. No matter how lightly he tried to tread, his shoes betrayed his every step. He thought about taking them off, but, after all, it was nearly five in the morning and the wind was howling like a banshee! Who was going to hear?
But what Geiger and Mackey would soon come to realize was that the Nocturne was not as she looked. On the one hand, it appeared to be the classic cruising vessel, decked out in all of its majestic glory, a sight that probably inspired reverence from every ship it encountered. But beneath its well-oiled decks, and behind all of its polished brass hardware, pumped the engines of a techno
logically advanced, state-of-the-art marauder of the high seas. The least of which of these advancements was its security system.
And from the moment they had stepped out onto the pier, both men were being tracked like prey.
Eleven
In the rear of the darkened cabin, the old man sat in his wheelchair, pensively staring up at the conglomeration of video monitors filling the wall. From his right arm dangled a catheter which looped upward to the hanging pouch of blood that was renewing his life. “I do not like this one bit. They should never have been allowed to get this far!” he snarled in his native dialect.
The technician manning the console swiveled around in his seat. “Why should we take a chance on bringing any undue attention to ourselves, when these two idiots are coming right to us?” he chuckled in the same awkward sounding language.
The old man’s hand was becoming noticeably steadier as he pointed to the screen in the upper left corner. “The other intruder moves like an amateur, but this one ... this one might be a problem. Keep a careful eye on him. Do you see how skillfully he approaches? He is experienced. Just like a trained commando.”
The technician studied the image on the screen carefully, zooming in as Cal began to shimmy hand over hand up the heavy mooring rope. “Do you think I should wake Raimund?”
