Bone Deep

by Randy Wayne White

  I was reluctant to move but would soon have to because of the falling tide.

  Bull Bay is a tricky area. Over eons, its islands have separated in apparent randomness that, even by day, resemble fragments of an exploded iceberg. From the air, the shaping influence of current and wind are discernible. At sea level, though, chaos reigns—unless you are a waterman with local knowledge.

  As I’d told Tomlinson, my local knowledge was rusty, and I didn’t want to be stranded by the tide. So I waited only a restless few minutes before I untied my boat, pushed free, and started the engines. The bug jacket wasn’t needed while under way, so I stowed it. Velcroed near the steering wheel in a holster was my 9mm SIG Sauer—another emergency backup. I returned the gun to its padded case but left the case unzipped on the console.

  Fear of an ambush was no longer in my mind. There were now two probabilities: my adversary would appear shortly after one a.m. or he would arrive at dawn to collect the bag. Anticipating both, I had devised a finesse that didn’t require a confrontation—or even my presence.

  It did, however, require the duffel bag.

  I opened the console, hefted the bag onto the deck, and idled toward the drop spot. I had already looped a rope through the duffel’s nylon handles. Lashing a forty-pound bag to a piling would be awkward and I didn’t want to waste time. The X spot, a trained sniper would call the pilings—an intersection the quarry could not avoid.

  It was a shiny stainless hook that put me on alert, a hook that had been augured into the foremost piling. My adversary had been here first . . . might still be here, I realized. It was a revelation that caused a beat of indecision. Should I bury the throttles and duck, hoping crosshairs weren’t already locked on me? Or deliver the bag and hope that would pacify him?

  Too late to turn back now, I decided.

  I swung the boat around, bow pointed at the closest exit, before maneuvering closer. When the piling was within reach, I used one hand to transfer the bag—and that’s when a spotlight from the trees found me, the man behind it shouting words I could not hear over the sudden twin roaring of my engines.

  • • •

  I EXITED THE BAY doing a serpentine thirty knots, then opened the throttles, still afraid to raise my head above the console. Waited until Cayo Pelado was a mile astern to stand and reassess. My adversary had been deep in the trees—a wild hog, I’d thought—but that meant he would have a long, clumsy hike to his boat. In fact, I could probably intercept him there, where his boat was anchored, on the western side of the island.

  No . . . that wasn’t the way to handle it. My adversary had no reason to follow me and I had nothing to gain by forcing a confrontation.

  I had already contrived a better alternative: in the duffel bag, superglued under a flap, was a transponder. Its frequency had been entered into my GPS radar system earlier. I could track my adversary, if I wanted, but that was unnecessary—better to wait until he had reached his destination.

  Made sense. Outside the country, I make up the rules as I go, but I was in Florida, where playing loosey-goosey with the law might put me in jail.

  Time to reassume the role of the good citizen that I pretend to be. I had postponed my call to a cop friend in Tallahassee. In the morning, though, I would make that call. I would provide the duffel bag’s final destination and explain what had happened—most of it anyway. My friend might also have a lead or two that could help Fallsdown find his tribe’s stolen property.

  First, I wanted to confirm the transponder was working. I checked gauges—oil and water pressure: normal—then switched on the GPS radar and punched in the tracking code.

  Blip . . . Blip . . . Blip . . .

  “Hello to you, too,” I murmured. The duffel bag and my adversary’s boat were between Cayo Pelado and Devilfish Key, two miles behind. Would he steer north toward Venice or circle east toward Albright Key? The opportunity to find out was too tempting to resist. I dropped the B-Tactical off plain and waited in darkness, watching the screen.

  Blip . . . Blip . . . Blip . . .

  A red pixelated circle was my adversary and he was gliding south toward me . . . traveling at a high rate of speed.

  “Fast boat,” I said, while I switched on thermal imaging. Then added, “There you are.”

  A mile and a half away, his engine exhaust cast a fiery wake. Very soon, he would turn east if Albright Key was his destination . . . or he could continue on toward Burnt Store Marina . . . or bank northeast into the mouth of the Peace River. Phosphate country.

  Blip . . . Blip . . . Blip . . .

  None of the above. My adversary continued south toward me. Strange. Presumably, he had ties to the Venice area. Why south?

  I found out. His boat was equipped with a spotlight. He switched it on: The beam was invisible to my right eye but dazzlingly bright through the night vision monocular.

  “Damn.” The driver was using tactical infrared—proof that a covert equal was tracking me. A fellow devious bastard.

  I switched off thermal imaging and the Golight to reduce my heat signature. Should I take the SIG Sauer from its padded case and wait to meet my adversary? Or outrun his boat?

  I ran.

  TWELVE

  Two fast boats were chasing me, not one. Flying at fifty knots across thin water didn’t permit a glance over my shoulder, but the radar screen confirmed it was true. The pixelated red circle had been joined by an anonymous green blip.

  Don’t be there when my people show up, the man had warned Tomlinson.

  I had assumed it was a purposeful lie. Now I wasn’t so sure. Worse, the anonymous boat was closing the distance between us, only a mile behind. No doubt the driver had a night vision system, maybe thermal imaging, too, because I was running without lights, invisible even to roosting pelicans that flushed as my boat screamed past the northern rim of Pine Island. To the south, a mile-long shoal—Jug Creek Bar, some called it—guarded a narrow channel. I hoped to lose the boats there.

  First, though, I had to pay attention and not plow aground myself. I no longer had a spotlight to guide me, but the monocular I wore was passive night vision—no infrared signature. It allowed my left eye to convert darkness into eerie day.

  I spotted the channel. It was marked by a picket row of red triangles and green squares. Red right returning is the old sailors’ maxim. That’s what I did, kept red triangles to starboard and followed them into the creek, a mangrove opening not much wider than a cave. On thermal imaging screens behind me, I felt sure, I had disappeared.

  No time to risk a glance astern. My trackers would figure out what I’d done. They also would follow the markers—I hoped. I also hoped they were unaware of an unmarked exit from the creek that was like a back door. Take the bait. If they did, I would soon be in open water while they zigzagged toward the creek’s terminus, the pretty little fishing village of Bokeelia.

  A lot of boats were moored at the marina there. Once my adversaries figured that out, I would be gone. But my timing had to be perfect. Exit the creek’s back door too soon, they would see me before they had entered the creek by the front door.

  I slowed to cruising speed, a change of pace that allowed a troubling thought to nag at me. Mangrove channels are dangerous. Jug Creek is among the most dangerous in Florida. Lots of blind switchbacks, sharp turns where innocent boaters have been crushed by the hot rod types. It was after midnight, but it was still possible that some unsuspecting fishermen were anchored ahead, hidden by mangroves. I pictured it: my adversaries running two fast boats in blind pursuit . . . shouted warnings unheard . . . carnage after a collision.

  Lose my pursuers only to read about more Jug Creek fatalities in the news? I couldn’t do it.

  Damn damn damn.

  Change of plans. Ahead, to the right, was an opening in the mangroves—the back door exit from the creek. I turned, slowing until I was safely through the cut, then c
rossed Burgess Bay doing fifty. I emerged, expecting to see my pursuers north of the shoals about to enter the channel. Instead, I saw a blue strobe light—a police boat traveling fast.

  I checked the radar. No doubt that the red pixelated circle carried the flashing blue lights. Ahead of it was the anonymous boat, running lights out. His thermal imaging had already spotted my engine heat. Both vessels were changing course, their bows soon aimed at me.

  I maintained speed and turned southwest, wondering, Why are police chasing me?

  True, I had been too busy at the helm to do a visual check; the blue strobe could have followed me across Charlotte Harbor. I remembered Tomlinson saying he’d gotten a sensory hit from the man on the phone, sensed he was a cop. However, I also remembered Deon, the petty thief, yelling “Police!” then commandeering my boat.

  Any civilian can purchase a blue strobe. There were only two other possibilities: either I’d stumbled into a legitimate sting operation or my adversaries were crooked cops.

  A sting? Absurd—I couldn’t construct a scenario to explain it. On the other hand, the bad guys were not responding like bad guys. The threatening caller knew where Tomlinson and I lived. If he was a crooked cop, instead of giving chase he would go straight to Dinkin’s Bay and intercept me there.

  A spooky possibility came into my head: Maybe the man on the phone, my true adversary, had done exactly that. He could be at the marina right now, carrying gasoline and a bundle of rags. Or ransacking my lab in search of the stolen relics.

  My boat’s top speed is sixty-five miles an hour. I toyed with the trim, seeking maximum efficiency, then activated all four bilge pumps. Water is heavy, and I wanted to jettison unnecessary weight. I had to get home fast without those two boats tailing me.

  A decision was required. On a rhumb line, Dinkin’s Bay was fifteen miles to the southwest, but a direct course was impossible—islands and shoals lay between. The safest route was via the Intracoastal Waterway, its blinking markers just ahead. A riskier route was backcountry: a slalom course across a plateau that, on this falling tide, would soon reveal grass and oyster bars that could rip the bottom out of any vessel drawing more than a foot of water.

  The most dangerous course was my best hope, I decided. This wasn’t Bull Bay. Here, my local knowledge wasn’t rusty.

  Off Captiva Pass, in shallow water, stand a cluster of fish houses built in the early 1900s. I steered toward them and switched on the radar long enough to confirm I was still being chased. The lead boat was only eight hundred yards off my stern—one hell of a fast boat. The trickiest stretch lay ahead, but water west of the houses was good. I had a minute or so before reaching the point of no return, so I tried raising Tomlinson on the radio. Aboard No Más, he monitors channel 69—tasteless VHF humor he can’t resist.

  No response. I fumbled with my phone and tried calling. Voice mail.

  Imagining his sailboat ablaze was a futile distraction to be shoved aside and that’s what I did.

  Time to concentrate. I reduced speed by half. I secured loose items on the console and confirmed the ignition kill switch was hooked to my belt. Water temp was up a little, but that was okay. I banked to within throwing distance of the fish houses and ran parallel them, their tin roofs black beneath a gray flotilla of clouds. Somewhere over the Everglades, lightning flickered. A freshening rain-wind cooled the air.

  Now I was also racing a thunderstorm, but it was the least of my worries.

  The first of several hazards lay ahead. A shoal joined the fish houses. It ran north-south, then broadened to intersect with a larger shoal that ran east-west. The junction was interrupted by a trough not much wider than a gate. Thread the gate, a channel lies on the other side. Miss the gate, any craft larger than a canoe will be left high and dry at low tide. Sometimes a stake marks the opening. Tonight, the cut was marked by glassy water on both sides. Easy to read if you know what you’re looking for.

  I hit the opening at a good angle and felt the Brunswick settle into what was the channel—but a narrow channel. So far, so good.

  Ahead were hillocks of oysters, one bar partially exposed, the other hidden. Between the bars was a winding gutter that ascended after a few hundred yards into another shoal. Without risking a glance behind me, I weaved my way through the bars, engines trimmed until I cleared the shoal, then I used a heavy hand on the throttles.

  A quarter mile later, I switched on the radar. Among concentric circles was the anonymous green blip. The blip was stationary, as if it had hit a wall. I watched the second boat—a pixelated red circle—veer west to avoid colliding with the lead boat . . . only to be stopped by an unseen oyster bar.

  Success.

  I was off Hemp Key when it happened, but watched the screen for another two minutes before dropping off plain. By then, the boats were so far away, I saw only the flashing blue strobe.

  My ego intruded. Why not circle back and ID the boats from a distance? It was a dumb excuse to gloat before a storm dumped rain on my pissed-off adversaries. Even so, I was giving it serious consideration when I saw a rhythmic glitter approaching from the north.

  What the hell?

  It wasn’t a boat, but was too low on the horizon to be anything else. Or was it?

  A helicopter is what you should worry about, I had told Deon, my would-be abductor. They’ll hit you with a tracking laser.

  That’s what I was seeing: an aircraft flying low, rocketing toward my grounded adversaries. Its running lights were tilted at the angle of a scorpion’s tail.

  A helicopter. But would it hover over the blue strobe or come straight for me?

  Waiting to find out wasn’t an option. I had told Deon, You’re going about this all wrong. Find a creek with mangrove cover.

  That’s what I did: pointed the B-Tactical inland toward Demere Key, where the cry of honking peacocks followed me south. The course change allowed me to keep an eye on the helicopter. It had settled over the blue strobe but was climbing now, the aircraft suddenly linked to the water by a searchlight. The beam became an elastic tether. The tether stretched two hundred feet into the air, then the copter angled south, skating a white wafer of light across the water as it gained speed.

  Police were after me, no doubt about it. What agency, and how I had been lured into a sting, didn’t matter, but the motive did. Something else: if my adversary was a crooked cop, the chopper would fly directly to Dinkin’s Bay.

  Or would it? The chopper began a low-level search, a methodical grid based on radar contacts and my last-known heading. I kept a wall of mangroves between us, hopscotching between unnamed islets. I followed the Chino cut, wound my way behind York Island, then crossed open water to Dinkin’s Bay with a heavy southeast wind pushing astern.

  The last leg was the most unsettling because it was open water. The crossing required the leisurely speed of a drunk puttering homeward, while, two miles north, the helicopter drifted toward me, undecided, then peeled away.

  It was a little after two a.m. when I reached the marina basin. No sign of fire or recent chaos, and the Sunday shrimp roast party was long over. I plucked a celebratory beer from the ice but then returned it unopened.

  Lights in the Brazilian’s bedroom were off now, but Hannah’s boat was still moored in a slip nearby. Extra lines had been added, I noticed.

  Hannah, or the Brazilian, had anticipated the squall that was following me home.

  • • •

  THE NEXT MORNING, after sunrise, I put away The Journal of Morphology—a good article by Dr. Phil Motta on scale flexibility of black tip sharks—and decided a tough workout was the rational way to deal with the irrational emotion that had kept me awake most of the night.

  First, I returned to my boat and checked the GPS locator: someone—a smart cop, possibly—had found the transmitter in the duffel. The transmitter had been disabled—the last marked location was the bar where the two boats had ru
n aground.

  Question: Why had I been targeted by a sting operation? I settled on three possibilities: 1. Police had used a badass relics dealer to lure me—a fellow dealer—into a trap. 2. The drop had been sabotaged by a third party—possibly a crooked cop. 3. The badass dealer, once the relics had been confiscated by police, could prove he or his boss was the rightful owner.

  There were variations on each theory, but the last two were the most plausible.

  The puzzle wasn’t enough to shield my thoughts from Hannah, though, so I jumped off the dock, swam toward Woodring Point, then did pull-ups on the bar under my house.

  Still not enough, so I went for an early-morning run. Put the dog on a leash, and we jogged double time along Tarpon Bay Road, where, at the Periwinkle intersection, something happened that finally displaced jealousy—a van ran a stop sign and damn near hit us both. Would have hit me if I hadn’t dived for the bushes.

  Unbelievable. Sparse traffic on this Monday morning, no one around but early customers breakfasting at the Over Easy, where, it is true, the smell of bacon had diverted my attention.

  The van stopped. I calmed myself, expecting the driver to apologize. Instead, a florid-faced man screamed out the window, “You stupid son of a bitch. Watch where you’re going.”

  My disposition changed. I asked him, “Do you have something against runners, pal? Or just suicidal?”

  “I’ve got a crowbar in here, asshole! I’ll use it.”

  Before I could respond, the man sped away, driving a blue soccer mom van with out-of-state plates I should have focused on but was too stunned by the absurdity of what had just happened.

  To the dog I said, “The guy runs a stop sign—hell, I could be bleeding in the ditch right now—then yells at me.”

  The dog was used to our workout routine. He could smell the nearby Gulf of Mexico, knew there were birds to flush and dolphins to chase. He had already dismissed the affront as an insignificant lull in one hell of an exciting life.