by Tim Tigner
Again a pause. “So our friends are in place, but undiscovered?”
“Right,” Farkas said. “I expected discovery over an hour ago. Who would have predicted a double-homicide in paradise? I mean, what are the odds?”
“Tell me you set the flasher to max and erased the full twenty percent?”
“I did. These two are much too clever and resourceful to play patty-cake with. Troy will have lost about seven years of memory, Emmy six. Poor bastard will think he’s still in the army. She’ll believe she’s still eking a living off the streets of L.A.”
“Good. How long since the flash?”
“That’s the problem. Three hours.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. I’ve been monitoring the police scanner. They’re wrapping up at Moonshines. I’m expecting a full house any minute, but we’re cutting it close.” As he spoke, the streetlight above the garage began to dance. For an instant Farkas thought it was an optical illusion caused by wind and rain, but experience quickly superseded. He cursed. His blood sugar had dropped dangerously low.
Farkas had passed out a few weeks back in a Chicago hotel lobby. He’d been waiting for the elevator after an early morning run when the room started spinning. Then the marble floor hit him in the face. He woke up in the hospital with a raging headache and a pancreatic tumor. An insulinoma. Benign but requiring regular and frequent anti-insulin injections to avoid hypoglycemia. Operable in the long term and not a big deal in the short. He already carried an insulin injection kit. Camouflage for the tool of his latest trade. All he had to do was exchange the insulin for anti-insulin and then actually start poking himself four times a day.
“I gotta go,” he said, hanging up on his boss without waiting for acknowledgement.
The reminder alarm on his watch had startled him just as he was liberating the cop’s soul from his body. He had twitched and nearly put a bullet into Troy as well. With Troy dead or injured, all his trouble would have been for naught. Farkas had slapped the beeper off without thinking—three hours ago.
Eager to correct his mistake, Farkas pulled a black leather pouch from the left cargo pocket on his shorts, unzipped it, and laid it open on the seat of the scooter between his legs. He selected the silver injector pen—not the black; even in a hypoglycemic haze he could never make that mistake—and cocked the mechanism.
His satellite phone began to buzz again.
He ignored it.
He was pulling up the tails of his black silk shirt to expose his favored injection site when the light across the street actually did start flashing and the garage door began ascending.
“Govno!” Farkas cursed in his native Croatian. He stuffed his shirt back into his shorts as he studied the opening door. Could Troy and Emmy really be escaping? He would prefer swarms of locusts.
The anti-insulin would have to wait.
He dropped the injector pen back into the pouch and stuffed the pouch back into his pocket without taking his eyes off target. He pushed the starter and brought the scooter to life. For what seemed a full minute the garage door stood open but empty, like a hungry mouth. Farkas was about to move in for a closer look when a squad car tore out and turned in his direction. Number thirty-seven. Detective Sergeant Johnson’s. Flat tire and all.
As the car raced past him, Farkas caught a glimpse inside. Troy was no longer in the trunk. He was at the wheel, with Emmy once again by his side.
It was a shame, Farkas thought, pulling the scooter out in dark and silent pursuit. He had gone to some trouble to get the meddlesome pair life in prison. By fleeing the scene, Troy and Emmy were only outsmarting themselves. They had just upgraded their sentence to death.
Chapter 6
The rain diminished to a light drizzle while they bathed off their bloodstains, but the wind refused to let up. Now the gale threatened to blow Emmy over as they trudged the waterfront in search of safe harbor. She was tempted to walk behind Troy, to use his broad shoulders as a windbreak. But she had been burned before by taking the backseat, so she stayed by his side, confronting the elements head-on and taking three steps for every two of his.
“You’re pretty handy with a weapon,” he said, his eyes continuing to sweep their surroundings, his tone inquisitive.
Truth be told, Emmy was baffled by her own behavior, and more than a little scared. “To the best of my knowledge, that was the first time I ever touched a gun.”
“Really? You fooled me. And Captain Honey too.”
“I just did what they do on TV.”
Troy shook his head. “There was more to it than mechanics. You radiated enough competence to bluff Dirty Harry.”
Emmy debated how much to tell her accomplice as they crunched along the roadside stones. It did not take her long to conclude that the biggest secret of her life was already on the table. “I’ve been doing that since I was fourteen. Had to … to survive.”
“Doing what?” He asked, turning toward her with a hint of understanding in his eyes.
His expression encouraged her to open up more than she generally would. “Radiating competence,” she replied. She was about to elaborate when he grabbed her arm and pulled her further back from the road with a shush.
They crouched behind a cluster of palms.
Ten seconds later a police car drove slowly by, lights off. Troy obviously had excellent hearing. Or, she reevaluated, perhaps his mentor had focused on skills very different from radiating competence.
“How far do you think we’ve come?” She asked, as they resumed their trek.
“The swimming pool’s just over two kilometers to the southeast.”
“Sounds far enough to me,” she said, pointing ahead to a pink neon vacancy sign.
The Seagull’s Nest was on the cheaper side of the road, away from the water. To her it looked perfect. Not too big. Not too small. Not too fastidious.
Troy scanned the area before returning his gaze to her. “Too risky. The police will be checking all the hotels. Besides, I only have eighty Cayman dollars. I’m not sure what Cayman dollars are worth, but judging by the prices posted at the Gas-N-Go next door it’s less than an American dollar. We’ll probably need all eighty for food and a change of clothes.” He nodded, implying game-match-and-set, and turned to continue their march.
“Hold on a minute,” she said. “You’ve been calling the shots ever since you got behind the wheel and I relinquished the gun. I’ve been happy to go along this far because you seem to know what you’re doing and I didn’t have a better plan. But now I do have a better plan.”
He stopped and turned, thrusting his dimpled chin forward like a lance. “What’s your plan?”
She did not really have a plan yet, per se. But she had needs. “I don’t care about food or clothes. I need someplace to gather my thoughts in peace. I need to get dry and I need to get some rest.”
“If you don’t change your clothes, you’re going to be gathering your thoughts in prison and getting nothing but rest. Those pink shorts you’re wearing mark you. Mark us. Don’t worry though,” he said, his expression softening. “I will find us someplace safe to get some sleep. You’ll feel better once the sun comes up. Then—”
Troy stopped talking as a couple emerged through the motel’s lobby door twenty yards ahead. They faded back into the palm copse and watched as the young woman made her way to one car and the older man unlocked another. The couple was obviously done, with each other—and with their room.
Now Emmy had a plan.
“I’m going to get us a room,” she said, leaving no uncertainty in her voice. “Anonymously. And I won’t need any of your money.” Without waiting for his reaction, she turned her back and began unbuttoning her shirt.
Emmy knew she looked a mess. She was still completely drenched from the rain and their blood-cleansing dip. Her hair was flat and damp, and she bore not the slightest remnant of makeup. But she also knew that most men would not notice those finer details if something more alluring was on offer.
> She took off her shirt and then her bra. She gave both a good wringing and then donned her shirt while holding her bra between her knees. She fastened only the middle button and then tied the shirttails so that they knotted just under her breasts, augmenting her cleavage while exposing her toned midriff. Her breasts were not huge, but they were large and pert enough to make a wet white shirt an irresistible attraction for most pre-geriatric men. Checking the results in the reflection of a parked car’s window, she decided that if six years had indeed passed, they had not been overly cruel. She turned back around to test her hypothesis.
Troy did not disappoint her.
“Hold this,” she said, handing him her wet bra. “I should only be a minute.”
Emmy turned back around before Troy regained enough composure to comment, and headed for the lobby door. She used the interval to put herself in the proper mindset. She was cold, drenched, exhausted, and beyond confused, but she needed to appear sexy and carefree. That would hardly be a piece of cake, but Troy’s flaring irises helped to boost her confidence. And, after all, she had been there before.
Emmy gave the outside of the motel the once over. If this were a corporate hotel or normal operating hours, she would have done some reconnaissance before plunging in. She would have tried to get a look at the key rack, or the logbook, or she would have walked the grounds to determine which of the two-story complex’s forty or so rooms were occupied. But she was too tired for that, and frankly, she did not feel the need. It was approaching three AM on a tropical island: amateur hour.
She breezed into the lobby and made straight for the bell on the counter. After confirming the location of the key-drop slot, she adjusted her cleavage while the air-conditioning did its trick. Then she slapped her cheeks to add some color, read the name plaque on the wall, and gave the bell a jingle. Twenty seconds after her second ring, a sleepy-eyed forty-something male emerged from the room behind the counter. The instant she caught his eye Emmy knew that her assumptions were correct.
“May I help you, Miss?”
Emmy put her hands on her hips, arched her back and shook her head in self-reproach. “I’m so sorry to disturb you at this hour, Anton. Problem is, I’ve been such a fool. I just tossed my key in the drop slot but left my purse in the room. Would you mind fishing it out for me?”
“Ah … sure. What was your room number?”
She had no idea what room the prostitute and her John had enjoyed, but she suspected that a military minded man like Troy would want the high ground if there was a choice. “Oh, I don’t remember. Twenty-something I think. It’s on the key.”
She stood on tiptoe and leaned over the counter toward him while inclining her head toward the drawer that caught the keys. Anton pretended to be considering her request as he soaked up an eyeful, but then pulled open the drawer without further comment. After a second glance at her soaked shirt and a quick appraisal of her pouty lips, he fished out the only key. “Twenty-seven?”
“That’s it. Thank you, Anton. You’re a doll.”
Chapter 7
Farkas skidded the black scooter to a stop on the gravel lot of Whitfield’s Fish Market & Restaurant. He dismounted in the shadow of Whitfield’s delivery truck and removed his helmet. The air had gone sweet again after the storm but the smell of yesterday’s fish lingered here. It was unpleasant, but nonetheless reminded Farkas that he was hungry.
He unslung a long slim case from his shoulder and slid it atop the truck. He was about to follow it when his satellite phone began to buzz. He checked the luminescent dial of his watch. Three AM. Luther had waited two hours—double the time frame promised. Farkas had to answer. He activated the wireless unit in his ear. “Yeah.”
“Are we happy … yet?”
“Very happy.”
“Tell me.”
Farkas backed away from the truck for a slow three-sixty audiovisual scan before uttering another word. The wind brought him snippets of banter from a few distant beach bums, but no other signs of life. This section of the coast was delightfully deserted. “You will recall that the original plan was to have them caught covered in blood in the dead cop’s car, with the murder weapon and corpse and gunshot residue on their hands?”
“But no alibi,” Luther added.
“Right. A perfect frame but for the lack of witnesses and motive.”
“Go on,” Luther said.
“We now have a witness, an ideal witness—not to the murder itself, but close enough. They restrained another officer at gunpoint during their escape.”
“Excellent. Did the security camera catch it on tape?”
“No. The cameras are on the outside of the garage, angled to capture faces as people enter and exit. But the officer they humiliated was a captain. Head of the second shift.”
“Does he have them now?”
“Not yet. I’m about to see to that. Although from what I’ve been hearing between the lines on the police scanner, this has become a shoot first, ask questions later scenario. The captain’s account of what he saw them doing to Detective Johnson really shook everyone up.”
“How long until they’re caught?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“No chance of their escaping—again?”
“Not a prayer.”
“I want details,” Luther said.
As a rule, Farkas never shared the details of his work with anyone, but the fresh taste of crow loosened his tongue. “I’ll do you one better. You can listen in—quietly. It might do you some good to get a taste of life in the field.”
“Listen in on what?”
“You’ll see.”
Farkas crossed the dark road to the pay phone in the Gas-N-Go parking lot. He practiced speaking with a raised voice and island twang before dropping in three coins. “Yes, hello officer, this is, well, I’m not sure I want to say. I’ve been listening to my police scanner—you see I have this condition that just doesn’t let me sleep. My husband, he says that, well, it doesn’t matter. I was calling to say that I just saw a couple whose description exactly matches the fugitives you described in connection with the 11-99—clothes, color, height, everything. They just walked into the Seagull’s Nest motel on South Church Street. If you hurry, I’m sure you can catch them.”
He cradled the receiver without waiting for the inevitable questions. Then he gave the receiver a superfluous wipe. No sense tempting fate.
“Nice,” Luther said. “What now?”
Farkas had been so focused on his work that he had forgotten Luther was listening. “By my calculations, the first squad car will arrive within three minutes. I’ve got to hurry into position.”
“Position for what?”
Farkas said, “Plan B,” as he jogged back across the street to Whitfield’s parking lot. He used his scooter as a stepstool to climb atop the delivery truck without leaving a telltale print on the hood. Odds were, Mister Whitfield would drive his truck to the docks before dawn, taking the crime scene with him, but Farkas liked to be meticulous.
“I’ll be using the new toy you bought me,” Farkas clarified, pulling the silenced Heckler & Koch sniper rifle from its custom carrying case. Remaining prone on the roof, he twisted the stock into place, then attached the trigger unit and Hensoldt scope. He slapped in a five-round magazine, put a couple of beanbags under his forearms for support, and sighted in on the Seagull’s Nest. The lobby’s aluminum door handle looked close enough to touch. “If our friends outmaneuver the cops again—there’s no way I can miss.”
Chapter 8
Captain Honey leaned over the pier’s broken rail and watched the dark waves slap the barnacle-crusted supports. His flashlight revealed no sign of Evan’s car, but he knew it was down there all the same. Honey reached again for the weapon that wasn’t there and cursed. He crouched to diminish his profile, keyed his shoulder mike and spoke through gritted teeth. “Molly, this is Honey. I’m at the end of the harbor pier. Looks like our perps took Evan’s car for a swim.”
�
��You think they drowned?”
“I’m not that lucky.”
“You want me to wake up Sherwood?”
“Oh yeah. Nobody’s sleeping until that couple’s in jail. Have Sherwood bring diving gear for me too. Tell him I want to be in the water in fifteen minutes.” Honey would gladly get wet for the chance to recover his Colt before submitting his report.
“Will do,” Molly said. “Does that mean we can release the suspect couple Huey brought in?”
“Hell no! Not till I’ve seen them. Give ‘em coffee and tell them I’ll be there as soon as circumstances—”
“Hold on,” Molly interrupted. “I’ve got an emergency call coming in.”
Honey stood and wiped the drizzle from his face with a soggy handkerchief. What a miserable night. His first week wearing captain’s bars and he ends up with his pants around his ankles.
He looked back down at the water. In all likelihood, his former partner was down there sloshing around in the submerged trunk. A friend and family man with twenty years of service reduced to fish food. How fragile we are …
He shook his head. Esther was a widow now. Martha had nearly become one too; Honey wasn’t kidding himself about that. That pixie of a woman had seemed eager for the trigger. If his bladder had not been empty, forensics would now be cataloging his puddle of piss. Retirement would have been his only escape from that humiliation.
“We got a break, Captain,” Molly’s voice came back on, all squeaky and excited. “A woman monitoring police channels just reported seeing a couple matching your description enter the Seagull’s Nest motel on South Church.”
Honey’s hopes surged for a second but then his brows narrowed. “That’s awfully convenient,” he said. “Let me guess; she called from a payphone and didn’t tell you her name.”
“Right on both accounts. What you want to do?”
