Flash

by Tim Tigner

  It would have taken him less than ten seconds to reach the bathroom door, throw it open with a violent smack, and meet the wide-eyed stares with a programmed UV-C flash.

  The crucial mistakes were always just a matter of seconds.

  Even before his feet hit the ground he knew that there was no going back. He did not have a key to the Wootens’ front door and Troy and Emmy would get away in the time it took him to pick his way in or climb back up. “Govno!”

  “What?” Luther asked. “Did you miss? Kill the wrong guy?”

  Farkas had also forgotten that his boss was on the phone. He pulled the black helmet over his head before answering into the wireless mike. “I don’t miss. The cop’s toast and they’re going to get the blame. I just twisted my ankle jumping from the balcony,” he lied.

  He hopped on his scooter and brought it to life.

  “Don’t let them escape,” Luther said, adding the obvious. The man was more nervous than he was.

  “No worries. Between Troy’s padded clothes and Emmy’s high heels they’re not setting any land speed records.” Farkas watched them disappear around the corner before the first police car arrived.

  “What’s your plan?” Luther asked.

  “I’ll follow them to wherever they were hiding out, interrogate them, and then end this whole fiasco such that they get the blame for killing the cop.”

  “How you gonna do that?”

  “Make sure their bodies are never found. I’m leaning toward concrete galoshes.”

  “I mean the cop part. Won’t ballistics prove that it wasn’t them?”

  “What ballistics? I’m on a tropical island. They’ve got known cop killers and another dead cop. These bozos aren’t going to look further than that.”

  “What about the bank’s security video?”

  “Icing on the cake. Solomon’s has cameras over the front door and behind each teller, but nothing in the entryway. Troy and Emmy will be identified walking in and running out right after the shot.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Where did that come from?” Farkas said to himself.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They’re getting into a car. A gold Camry. I didn’t know they had a car. I’m going to have to let you go—”

  “No! Keep me on the line. Go ahead and focus on them, but keep me on the line. Update me when you can. I’ll keep quiet.”

  Farkas did not reply.

  Luther broke his promise almost immediately. “You still on that scooter?”

  “Yeah … Shit.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think Emmy spotted me.”

  “You said scooters were invisible there. You said—”

  “I know what I said, but they weren’t looking for tails before, and even the best tailing tactic is going to be far from perfect when it’s one on one. The pro’s use teams, but you won’t let me use anyone else.”

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly.” Farkas sped up as the Camry did the same. There was no sense trying to hide anymore. “I’m not going to get that chance to interrogate them. They won’t stop moving until they’ve lost me. I’ve got to take them out on the road.” He reached for the Glock 36 in his cargo pocket.

  “No. That will draw attention, raise questions.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” Farkas asked, pleased by the opportunity to avoid Luther’s Monday morning quarterbacking.

  Luther’s one word response came after a surprisingly short interval. “Yes.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Did they see you shoot the cop?”

  “Of course not. Nobody did.”

  “So this is the first time they’ve spotted you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then don’t shoot. Shout. Pretend to be their friend. They don’t remember anyone they’ve met in the past six years. Troy doesn’t even remember his wife and daughter. Pretend that you were helping them on the case. Get them someplace alone and give them a soft interrogation. Then make sure no one finds the bodies.”

  “Luther?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re brilliant.”

  Chapter 35

  Honey awoke to the ringing of his mobile phone. “Yeah?”

  “Captain, it’s Molly. They did it again. The couple. They killed Jacobs. Shot him in broad daylight.”

  Honey bolted upright on the couch, knocking a bag of chips to the floor. They were still on the island! “When? Where?”

  “Just a few minutes ago, at Solomon Bank & Trust on Elizabeth.”

  “Are they still at the bank?”

  “No. They got away.”

  Honey felt his adrenaline stutter. “In Jacobs’ cruiser?”

  “No. It’s still at the scene.”

  “Damn.”

  “As far as we know,” Molly continued, “nobody saw where they went. Information is still coming in. I knew you’d want me to call you right away.”

  “You did good.” Honey looked at his watch. Four-fifteen on a Friday afternoon. His mind was churning like an outboard prop. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Honey said, pressing the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he buckled his utility belt. “Contact the police stations on all the surrounding islands. Let them know that the blue brotherhood needs their help catching a couple of cop killers. Ask them to volunteer their weekend to the cause. We’ll fly in everyone who can come tonight on the Coast Guard plane and bunk them at the Ivory Inn—old Morris owes me a favor.”

  “Okay,” Molly said, drawing the word out. “Then what?”

  “At dawn we’ll launch the biggest manhunt in island history.”

  Chapter 36

  “Can’t you go any faster?” Emmy shouted. “He’s still behind us.”

  “Faster isn’t going to help. On these roads he’ll still be able to keep up and we’ll just run the risk of attracting cops. We need to go smarter.”

  “Smarter? What does smarter mean?”

  “Getting him caught at a light. Finding a narrow alley where I can jam the car into reverse and back over him. Luring him close and then breaking hard so he crashes into us and goes flying. I’m not sure what opportunity will present itself, but I figure that it’s kind of like obscenity; I’ll know it when I see it. Speaking of which, I don’t suppose you recognize him?”

  “He’s a hundred feet away and wearing a black helmet with a tinted face shield.”

  “Kind of distinctive, don’t you think?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. I just thought that with your talent for reading people, you might recognize him by some other means.”

  Emmy was struck by Troy’s insight. She made a point of learning to recognize her regular clients by the sound of their footfalls and the smell of their toiletries. It was always impressive to greet a client by name when he approached from behind. But all she had to go on now was the visual input of a man dressed in black on a scooter. “I don’t recognize him.”

  “That’s all right. I just recognized smarter. Hold on.”

  Emmy turned back to face forward just as Troy jerked the wheel hard to the right. The Camry jumped the curb onto a wide staircase whose yard-long steps connected the sidewalk along an upper business road with the lower beachfront one. He punched the gas and the horn simultaneously, evoking stares and screams from all around. “What are you doing?”

  “Being smarter. The scooter may be as quick as the Camry, but it has much smaller tires and only minimal ground clearance. He won’t be able to climb the stairs.”

  “Will we?”

  “God, I hope so.”

  Emmy planted her feet flat against the floorboard and clenched her seat in a death grip. It was a good thing she did. The impact of the first stair would have given her whiplash otherwise. A series of bone-jarring jolts followed as the car bucked from stair to stair like a playground pony. By the time they neared the top their momentum was spent. She thought the car was g
oing to stall out and reverse directions—crushing their pursuer with any luck—but then the rear tires caught and they bounced over the top.

  She immediately turned back to see how the scooter was fairing but their trunk blocked her field of vision.

  Troy got the car back onto a proper road without killing anybody and before she knew it the staircase and the scooter were both far behind. The whole maneuver had taken less than ten seconds, but fear had made them feel like an hour.

  “Well done,” she said, her dry mouth capable of only a whisper. “What now?”

  “Finally—an easy question,” Troy said, sounding considerably more chipper than she felt. “Now we find someplace out of sight to park. We need to have a look at your videotape. We need to find out if that close call was worth it.”

  The quiet place they selected some thirty minutes and fifteen miles later was the parking lot of Reefer’s Dive Shop. Reefer’s boat was out for a sunset dive so the place was deserted. An easel on the counter predicted calm waters for the eight AM boat dive to Ten Sails—no reservation required. There was a kid running about, but he was too busy washing out gear and filling up tanks to pay them any heed.

  Troy busied himself swapping license plates again while Emmy used the zoom feature on the video recorder’s built in three-inch LCD display to transcribe the information on account 004995625425 onto the margin of their map. The angle was a bit too sharp to make reading Gunter’s computer screen a piece of cake, but working letter by letter while using the appearance of known words like account for reference, she had it pieced it together by the time Troy plopped back into the driver’s seat, his mission accomplished.

  “Are we happy?” He asked, handing her a vending machine Snickers bar.

  “We got what we came for. How happy that makes us remains to be seen.”

  “Do tell.”

  “It appears to be a personal account, with one Kostas Kanasis as the sole owner. I’m not sure if that’s a man or a woman.”

  “It’s man,” Troy said. “A Greek man. I don’t suppose you got a meaningful address? Just a PO box in Delaware or Mykonos, right?”

  Emmy smiled and it felt good to use those muscles for a change. She pointed to the coastal region of West Bay. “Actually, Kostas lives right here on Grand Cayman.”

  Chapter 37

  “I should have shot the damn tires,” Farkas cursed to himself. “Instead of struggling to ride, push, carry and toss a two-hundred-fifty pound scooter up a staircase, I should have just whipped out the Glock and shot the damn Camry’s rear tires. Then I could have walked up, put a bullet in each of their brains, and ridden straight to the airport never to return. Witnesses be damned.”

  He looked down at the satellite phone in his left hand and then over at the bottle of Tortuga rum in his right. He weighed the two like competing melons at a farmer’s market. Then he thought about his sisters and remembered why he was working for Luther in the first place. “Perhaps later, my friend,” he told Tortuga, and then turned on the phone.

  Farkas expected Luther to start out cursing him for ending their call in the middle of the action. Instead, he simply said, “Tell me.”

  “I lost them. I fucking lost them. That bastard drove his Camry up a staircase. Up a staircase. The scooter wouldn’t follow. I blew it. We’re screwed.”

  “Do you know if they got any information at the bank?” Luther asked, the calmness of his voice surprising Farkas.

  “I don’t know anything, but I bet they did.”

  “Why so certain? The Caymanians are like the Swiss, secretive as pedophiles.”

  “You should have seen Emmy. Dressed the way she was, given her charms and talents, she could have gotten Cheney to confess why he really invaded Iraq. Anyway, do you want me on the next plane to Vegas?”

  “No. Obviously we still have business to deal with there.”

  “Look, I know that my judgment has fallen far short of flawless lately, but we can consider our business here done. Troy and Emmy are far from fools. They’ve seen the wanted posters and are feeling serious heat. With a second cop killing now attributed to them, they know they’ll get burned if they stick around. Either they already got what they came for or they never will. In either case, they’ll run now.”

  “Where do you think they will run?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Well, fortunately I do.”

  “I can—” Farkas interrupted himself as Luther’s words sank in. “What did you say?”

  “I said I know exactly where they’ll be running to—and it’s right there on the island. So do us both a favor: quit your whining and pick up a pen.”

  Chapter 38

  “What did you learn? What’s he like?” Troy shot the questions at Emmy the moment she closed the Camry’s door. She had used a large bouquet of flowers and a FedEx envelope full of real estate advertisements to con her way past The Tropical Towers’ guards and up to the luxury penthouse condo of Kostas Kanasis himself. This was primarily a reconnaissance mission to prepare for their impending attack, but Troy was dying to know if the owner of bank account 004995625425, the man who had stolen their lives, was more like The Godfather or Doctor Frankenstein.

  “Kostas is not the man behind our misfortune. He is a harmless old man living out his golden years alone.”

  “What! That can’t be. If this is a dead end then everything we’ve done since waking up in the police garage has been in vain. He must have pulled the wool over your eyes.” Troy knew that assertion was nonsense even as he spoke the words, but his frustration had a mind of its own.

  If Emmy took offense, she did not show it. “I did not detect a hint of deception the whole time we spoke.”

  Her tone was far too chipper for the news she conveyed.

  Troy blinked twice as if to clear his ears and said, “And you saw no flash of recognition when you said the flowers were from Emerald Green and Sebastian Troy?”

  “No. I don’t think he’s ever heard of us. When I handed him the envelope and explained that Troy and Green were with a real estate developer he deflated before my eyes. In my professional opinion, Kostas Kanasis is just another bored and lonely senior citizen.”

  “So that’s it then,” Troy said, his voice trailing off.

  “Not necessarily. Just because he doesn’t know us, doesn’t mean he doesn’t know the people who did this to us. We should be able to learn everything we need to know by asking him the right questions the right way.”

  “What questions? What way?” Troy had asked, his hopes rising. Two hours later, he was about to find out.

  Emmy had explained her plan while they shopped for clothes. Yet again. Troy noted that Emmy’s plans always seemed to involve buying a new wardrobe, and that was fine with him. By his amateur reckoning, her scheme was as brilliant as her smile.

  Looking at the door to the penthouse of Tower A, he asked, “Are you ready for this? You sure look it.”

  She had her hair pulled back and knotted, and wore sunglasses that robbed her emerald eyes of their fire. Her gray suit, like Troy’s, was off-the-rack, and her black pumps had three-inch heels. Unless Kostas had Emmy’s talent for reading people, he would not recognize her as the Flowerama delivery girl who had knocked two hours earlier. “Absolutely,” she said. Then she reached up, pulled his head down to hers and gave him a breathtaking kiss.

  She turned and knocked on the door before he knew what hit him.

  Now there was a first kiss he would never forget, Troy thought, even as he struggled to purge it temporarily from his mind.

  Emmy cleared her throat and pointed to her lips.

  He hastened to wipe the lipstick transfer off in time.

  Troy’s first thought when he laid eyes on the man who haunted his dreams was that Emmy’s “harmless” appraisal had been an understatement. For starters, given the veins and age spots on his hands and neck, Kostas appeared to be well into his seventies. His gray cardigan sweater and thick dark-framed glasses, showed li
ttle inclination toward either the evil mastermind or backstage powerbroker stereotypes. Troy detected no hint of malice in his watery grey eyes, nor deepening crease between his long curly brows. The man slated to change their lives looked about as alert and intimidating as an old squirrel.

  “Mister Kanasis?” Emmy asked, holding up her false identification.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Julia Sanders with Interpol. This is my colleague, Agent Harold Singer. May we speak with you for a moment?”

  “I suppose. What is this about?”

  “Perhaps we could step inside. It’s personal in nature.”

  Kostas took a step back, pulling open the door. “Of course.”

  “Did you receive an unexpected delivery this afternoon?” Troy asked, noting the flowers on the dining room table off to his left.

  “Yes. I got the bouquet of flowers you see over here and an envelope full of advertising materials.”

  Troy and Emmy gave each other grave nods for Kostas’s benefit before turning back to him. “We’re going to need to see your driver’s license, passport, and latest bank statement, Mister Kanasis.”

  “What for? Am I in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, sir. You’ve done nothing wrong. Our purpose here today is to keep you and others from becoming victims of a crime.”

  “A financial crime,” Emmy added. “If you’ll show my colleague the documents he requested, I’ll be happy to explain everything to you while he makes note of your information.”

  Kostas looked unsure for a few seconds, but then laid his suspicions aside. Motioning toward a doorway he said, “Why don’t you have a seat at the kitchen table. I’ll be there in a moment with the documents.”

  Troy and Emmy nodded appreciatively and headed for the kitchen. The moment they entered Troy understood why Kostas favored this room. The kitchen offered a spectacular view of West Bay and the Caribbean Sea. Looking down he could see four distinct shades of blue in the water, as though the sea was painted by numbers. The hues ranged from the faintest turquoise near the beach to a midnight blue further out. All of it looked inviting, and though it was just there beyond the glass, it seemed a million miles away.