“Very cool,” said Peter. “Why do I need it?”
“Because no matter where you are, you need to contact me the second you find Jake and your family. I have to know before the media does—even before the Coast Guard, if possible.”
“I got that part, Agent. But why?”
“If there were people who wanted Jake Dunne dead, it’s safe to assume they still do. That’s why we have to get to him first—for his protection and, more important, for your family’s. At the very least, they’re out there with a drug runner.”
Peter blinked long and hard. “This is weird,” he said. “I mean, the fact that you’re helping me. You don’t even like me.”
“You’re right, I don’t. That said, you have your job to do and I have mine.” Pierce smiled. “Now do me a favor, will you? Go find your family.”
Chapter 92
THERE WAS THIS ONE NIGHT BACK when I was a resident at the Cleveland Clinic, and I was supposed to be catching an hour nap in the middle of a twenty-four-hour shift. It was my only chance to get some much-needed rest, and I was exhausted.
But I couldn’t sleep. I was too tired. So I turned on an old Sony Trinitron in the doctors’ lounge and started watching this documentary on Ansel Adams. Or was it Franklin B. Way? I can’t remember. Anyway, what I do remember is the phrase they used to describe this time of day, when supposedly the light from the sun is perfect for photography. “Magic hour,” it’s called.
Magic hour.
As I sit here on the beach, staring out over the ocean as the sun kisses the horizon, I’m pretty sure this is what they were talking about on the TV show.
It’s beautiful.
It’s also ironic. Back home I almost never saw sunsets. Hell, I barely saw the outdoors. Most of my days were spent standing in a sterile, windowless room, my view alternating between heart monitors and the real thing pulsing on a table in front of me.
No regrets, though. I never lost sight of the good I was doing. But like I said, it’s ironic. It took all of this to happen before I could really appreciate something as simple as a sunset.
“Hey, Mom,” says Ernie, running over to me. He stands sideways, displaying his profile. It’s obvious, in a very cute way, that he’s sucking in his stomach a little. “How much weight do you think I’ve lost?” he asks.
Indeed, my pudgy little man is a lot less pudgy than at the start of the trip. He’s probably lost seven or eight pounds, and it shows. Better yet, it’s seven or eight pounds more than he was ever able to shed back home.
I look at his face, the pride written all over it. Then I glance down at his stomach. I’m ready to gush about how thin he now looks.
And that’s when my eyes nearly pop out of my head.
There’s a boat sailing out of Ernie’s belly button!
“What is it, Mom? What’s wrong?” he asks, looking down at himself in horror.
“Nothing’s wrong!” I answer with a jolt. “It’s all right!”
In fact, it’s better than all right.
It’s magic!
Chapter 93
I CAN BARELY GET THE WORDS out of my mouth fast enough. “Ernie, where are your brother and sister?”
“They’re picking berries,” he says. “Why?”
“That’s why!” I say, pointing out to the horizon. “Look at what’s there.”
Ernie turns to see what I see—a huge sailboat, close enough that we can actually make out the shape of the sails. It’s not a blip like the other boats we’ve seen, too far away ever to notice us.
We’ve got a chance with this one. A real chance!
“Hurry! Go get Mark and Carrie,” I say. “We need to light the fires! Ernie, run!”
Ernie races as I push myself up to stand. If I could, I’d be doing jumping jacks or cartwheels, anything to attract attention. Please, let there be someone on that boat with binoculars! I pray. Look this way. I can see you, so you can see me.
“Holy shit!” yells Mark seconds later, bursting through the brush onto the beach. Carrie’s behind him. They both outran Ernie, who finally brings up the rear.
“See! See, I told you!” says Ernie.
“Yeah, now let’s make sure they see us!” says Mark, heading for our campfire.
He grabs our ready-made “match,” a thick stick wrapped with a swath of one of our blankets, and douses it with the rubbing alcohol from the first-aid kit. As he dips it into the fire and sprints to our three piles of leaves and branches, he looks like he’s carrying the Olympic torch.
“Here goes nothing,” he says, lighting the piles.
They ignite immediately, their orange glow matching the sky almost perfectly.
With the last of the sun disappearing, all we can do is stand here on the beach, our gaze bouncing back and forth between the boat and the flames as if willing them together.
“C’mon,” pleads Carrie. “They have to see us!”
This has to be our moment—has to be. We deserve it. So we wait to be spotted, the fires roaring in their perfect triangle. I’m fifty feet away and I can still feel their heat. I keep thinking that at any second we’ll see a signal from the boat. A flash of light, a flare shot high into the sky. Something.
Anything.
I look at the kids and I see exactly what I feel—hope. But as five minutes turn into forty, without any signal from the boat, it fades. Slowly. Painfully. Our fires are beginning to die down. It’s getting dark on the beach, in every sense of the word.
I want to cry. I don’t. I can’t. For the kids’ sake. For my own sake, too. But this is so cruel.
“There’ll be another boat soon, you’ll see,” I say instead, trying to lift everyone’s spirits.
The kids know exactly what I’m trying to do. But rather than calling me on it—something they always used to do—they go along with me.
It’s as if we all suddenly realize that even though we’ve had our hopes dashed today, that’s better than having no hope at all.
How can it be that the more life throws at us, the stronger we become?
Chapter 94
SITTING AT A SECLUDED BACK TABLE in Billy Rosa’s, the diviest of dive bars on the outskirts of Nassau, Devoux glanced at his Glashütte Pano Navigator watch yet again. He’d made the trip down to the Bahamas for one reason and one reason only. Insurance. If Carlyle needed backup, he’d be close by to intercede. But he was hoping that it wouldn’t come to that.
He knew they couldn’t afford even the slightest hiccup. Everything had to go as planned, tidy and neat. Like clockwork.
But here was Carlyle, over a half hour late. They were supposed to be discussing his flight plan one last time, and exactly how he should commit the murders. What the hell was keeping him?
“It’s not what, but who,” explained Peter when finally he arrived, a few minutes later.
Peter then shared his recent conversation with Agent Ellen Pierce. The upshot was surprisingly simple, not to mention being an amazing case of serendipity. Jake Dunne was taking the fall for everything.
“Talk about a lucky break, huh?” said Peter before letting go with one of his obnoxious chuckles. He leaned in, his voice cutting back to a whisper. “For a minute there, I almost believed the bitch.”
Devoux rubbed his square chin, not yet sold either way. “What tipped you off?”
Peter reached into his pocket. “This,” he said. “She gave it to me so I can call her the minute I find Katherine and the brats.”
Staring at the satellite phone, Devoux nodded knowingly, a rocket on the uptake. “There’s a tracking device inside.”
“Exactly.”
“You sure you’re not just being paranoid, Peter?”
“No, she suspects something, all right. I’m not sure how or why, but she does.”
Now it was Devoux’s turn to reach into his pocket. He pulled out a Swiss Army knife, classic red.
“Give me the phone,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” asked Peter.
&nbs
p; “Just give me the phone.”
Peter handed it over. “Be careful with it, okay? She can’t think I tampered with it.”
Devoux bypassed both the foldout scissors and the Phillips-head screwdriver on his knife. He went straight for the blade, wedging it hard between the seams of the phone.
With a flick of his wrist he shucked the phone open like an oyster.
“Trust me,” he said. “If you’re right about your little agent friend, tampering will be the least of our problems.”
Chapter 95
THE AREA SURROUNDING Billy Rosa’s bar wasn’t exactly conducive to a stakeout. Come to think of it, thought Ellen, it wasn’t conducive to much of anything. To the left of the bar was the scorched frame of a burned-down warehouse, to the right a junkyard of rusted-out cars and trucks. Dotting the rest of the otherwise barren, sandy landscape was a smattering of withering sea-grape trees and bleached-out grass.
All in all, it was hardly a tourism brochure for the Bahamas in the making.
Still, Ellen made do.
First she parked her rental, a dark blue Honda Civic, amid the junkyard of cars, propping up the hood so it would blend in. Second, she nestled behind one of the sea-grape trees about seventy-five yards from the bar’s main entrance.
Third, she waited.
Despite the obvious fact that the sun was setting, the heat remained brutal. She was sweating from every pore, and her clothes were absolutely drenched. Even the leather strap of the high-powered binoculars draped around her neck was soaking wet.
Of all the places to have a drink on this island, why here, Peter Carlyle?
Ellen continued to wait, occasionally glancing at the receiver in her hand, which was picking up a signal from the phone she had given Carlyle. The receiver’s screen, about the size of a credit card, glowed bright with a 3-D topo-graphical map of the area, a red dot indicating Carlyle’s location right smack inside Billy Rosa’s bar.
She smiled. She had turned the creepy lawyer into a human LoJack device. Good thing, too. Now she didn’t have to follow him around the clock.
Just when it counted.
Like right now.
Staring at the entrance to the bar, Ellen scanned the dozen or so cars lined up in front. Some of them were only a notch above the clunkers in the adjacent junkyard, the rest being either modest compacts or Jeeps.
Then there was the one on the end. All she could think of was that bit from Sesame Street: One of these things is not like the others . . .
It was a black Mercedes 600CL coupe. Ellen was no car fanatic, but she had learned a thing or two over the years while tailing drug dealers. When it came to Ferraris, Porsches, and Mercedes-Benzes, she could moonlight as a reporter for Car and Driver magazine.
Boasting over 500 horsepower and a price tag hovering around a hundred and fifty grand, the 600CL stood out no matter where it was parked. But here, outside Billy Rosa’s, it might as well have been painted purple with pink polka dots.
And the more Ellen stared at it, the more her gut told her the 600CL was somehow connected to Peter Carlyle.
Two minutes later her gut proved right.
Carlyle stepped out of the bar.
He wasn’t alone.
Ellen quickly peered through her binoculars. With Carlyle was a man of about the same height and build, maybe a little younger. He wore white linen pants, a blue silk shirt, and dark, mirrored sunglasses. And he was easily as creepy as Carlyle.
After chatting for a moment, the two went their separate ways. There was no handshake, barely even a nod from either of them.
Carlyle walked over to a white Buick Lucerne. The Mystery Man climbed behind the wheel of the hot Mercedes.
Ellen lowered the binoculars, waiting for both cars to leave. Whatcha up to, Peter? Who’s your new friend? Anybody I should know about?
Only one way to find out.
Chapter 96
HURRY!
Ellen sprinted to her rented Honda and slammed the hood shut. After climbing in, she snapped her wrist hard against the key and gunned it. The puny four-cylinder engine instantly squealed its disapproval.
Talk about a mismatch! Could she even catch up to the Mercedes, let alone follow it?
She sure as hell was going to try.
The Mystery Man was the break she needed, she was pretty sure of it. She knew he didn’t look kosher. As for Carlyle, she’d catch up with him later—not a problem, thanks to the transmitter.
No, the problem lay straight ahead, speeding down the dirt road. That Mercedes was already a blip on the horizon. Soon she wouldn’t be able to see it at all.
Or maybe not.
Ellen blinked with disbelief. The blip was getting bigger. No lead foot for the Mystery Man; it was more like helium. He was taking his own sweet time.
That probably had something to do with the quality of the road, she thought.
While Carlyle had left the same way Ellen had come, the Mystery Man was heading the other way, fittingly into the unknown. It was a dirt road, bumpy and winding. Not a building in sight. Not even a sign or a billboard. If Billy Rosa’s bar was isolated, this direction was damn near off the map.
Suddenly Ellen had to do what she least expected: hit the brakes. She was getting too close to the coupe and had to pull back lest she arouse suspicion.
Where are we going, Mystery Man?
He wasn’t telling, not yet.
One mile became another, and another and another. Ellen’s eyes stayed focused on the back of the Mercedes. Her mind, however, began to drift. Out of nowhere she heard a voice from her past. It was her grandfather, as if he were sitting right next to her, riding shotgun. In his thick, raspy staccato he was invoking one of his favorite expressions.
Take the devil you know versus the devil you don’t.
Back in those days, when Ellen was a young girl, she never really understood what it meant. That’s probably why she forgot about it.
Until now.
Ellen glanced down, peeking through the steering wheel at the speedometer. The Mystery Man was puttering along at no more than thirty miles an hour. Wherever they were heading, they weren’t in any hurry.
Then, in a flash, all that changed. The Mercedes took off like a missile, all 500 horsepower firing at once. Before Ellen could speed up, it was gone behind a wall of dust.
Shit!
Ellen’s foot found the gas, but it was probably a lost cause. No contest, right? She couldn’t see the Mystery Man now. She couldn’t see anything.
Including the bullet heading straight for her head.
Chapter 97
AN INCH.
Maybe two inches.
That’s how close she came to dying on the dirt road somewhere in the Bahamas.
The bullet ripped through the windshield, buzzing Ellen’s right ear amid shards of broken glass. She had no idea what was happening. Until . . .
Duck!
Dead ahead, the Mystery Man was standing squarely in the middle of the road, staring down the barrel of a 9-millimeter Beretta.
As he fired again, Ellen flung herself against the seat, her foot jamming the brake pedal. Smack! went her forehead against the glove compartment as the car slowly skidded to a stop.
For a second she lay there, her head throbbing, the brainwaves scattered. She listened for another shot. It didn’t happen right away. Instead she heard something worse. Footsteps.
He was coming for her.
My gun! Where is my gun?
She reached down her right leg. She could feel the shin holster, the rippling grain of the worn-out leather. But no gun.
She never kept it strapped. It must have fallen out!
The footsteps stopped. Ellen twisted in a panic, looking up at her driver’s side window. There he was! He was right there!
His body blocked out the setting sun, a badass eclipse if ever there was one. He raised his arm, cocking the gun with absolutely no remorse in his eyes. This guy, this Mystery Man, had clearly killed before.
And he was about to do it again.
No!
Ellen threw the car’s shift in reverse, her foot hopscotching from the brake to the gas. Suddenly a second shot shattered the driver’s side window.
Am I dead? Badly wounded?
No. He missed!
Accelerating backward now, she kept her head tucked just below the dash. With one hand she gripped the steering wheel, struggling to keep the car straight if she could. With the other hand she searched frantically for her gun, feeling blindly under her seat.
There!
She wrapped her fingers around the grip and pulled it up to her side. The chill of brushed steel had never felt so good.
Then, spinning the steering wheel like a top, she threw the car into a seemingly endless three-sixty. One wall of dust deserved another.
It’s my turn, you son of a bitch.
Chapter 98
THE DIRT ROAD WAS no longer a road—it was more like a Kansas-style tornado.
With the dust funneling round and round, Ellen peeled off her second three-sixty, backing up the car about a hundred yards.
She threw it into park for all of five seconds, just long enough to lift her feet and kick out what remained of the front windshield. As the glass splintered across the hood she raised the gun.
Then she hit the gas.
The little blue Honda choked and sputtered its way past thirty, forty, fifty miles an hour. When it finally emerged through the dust, it was pushing past eighty!
Are you still there, Mystery Man? Are you waiting for me? Well, here’s a little surprise for you. Today you’re going to get shot, not me!
The split second she saw him, Ellen started firing. He was still smack in the middle of the road, precisely where she’d left him. Only there was one big difference now. His gun wasn’t visible.
The psycho was standing there, not firing back. What? Did he have a death wish?
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