Darkest Instinct

TWENTY-TWO

“ So, now it has become a game of cat and de mouse, hey?” Okinleye asked Jessica and Santiva where they sat across from one another at his backyard patio table. There, they enjoyed a view of the ocean in the distance, the sun, the hibiscus trees, the birds chasing one another, the trade winds and the bright orange daiquiris which Ja’s wife, Aliciana, had just prepared for them. The Okin- leyes” home was, by island standards, a Grecian mansion, but Ja laughed uproariously when Jessica made mention of its grandeur.

“ This… this old place? It is our little hut.” Ja drew two of his three children into his arms while the third and oldest was ordered to answer an incessant door chime filtering out to them.

Ja had done well for himself and his family, perhaps too well to be above suspicion of graft, Jessica thought. It was well-known the islands over that graft was the rule of law and order in most dealings here. However, middle- class American standards of right and wrong seldom applied in foreign countries, where a man had to be concerned first for his family, and besides, here as in America, a complete absence of crime would mean people would have to go without food, clothing and shelter. Some just knew how to play the game better than others, it appeared. Jessica withheld her judgments of Ja for the time being.

“ It was a foreclosure, this house. The old couple died owing a great deal of money to the island government. It was put on auction. I was highest bidder.” It sounded good.

“ Were you able to find anything helpful in your records here about the disappearances, the deaths, any possible connections with our man Tauman?” asked Jessica.

Ja sadly shook his head. “Very little of help, I’m afraid. We used both names you supplied, but nothing comes as result. Some notion here and there about some strange fellow. I have my men working on it still.”

It didn’t sound promising, and Santiva gave Jessica a frown.

“ In the morning, we’ll want a helicopter, very early, say six,” she told Ja. “Can you provide us with one?”

“ Ours is a small government agency, Dr. Coran, not like your FBI, no… I can only recommend to you my most talented cousin who operates a tourist line from George Town Airport.”

“ That will do just fine, but we’ll need a combat-ready pilot for what we need. If we get lucky.”

“ Combat-ready? Henri, he is such a man.”

“ He has flown in combat conditions?”

“ Bad weather, yes… combat, no,” confessed Okinleye.“Well, he’ll have to do,” said Santiva.

“ I’m certified on fixed wing and choppers,” came a deep voice from the patio doors. “I also flew a chopper in Desert Storm. Let me help you,” added Don Lansing, who had been shown through the house by Okinleye’s oldest boy. The boy had a wide grin on his face as though he had performed a miracle in making Don appear.

“ Don, I thought you had to get back,” Jessica replied.

“ I’d like to help out any way I can, now that I know what you people are trying to do.”

“ And now you know how much we pay?” added Santiva.

“ Well, yeah… that, too.”

Lansing stepped closer, his hand out for Eriq to take. Eriq pushed up from his chair and the two men shook hands. “But what about getting back? What about Pete?” Jessica asked.

“ Are you kidding? I’m in no hurry to see Pete. Besides, this may be my only chance in this life at ever doing anything… well, heroic. Hell, we pull this off and we’re going to be island gods to these people, right, Chief Okinleye?” Lansing smiled down at the chief. Obviously, Don had done some checking around.

Jessica raised her eyebrows, confused for only a moment. Then, her eyes boring into Ja, she said, “It’s all over the island. Everybody knows about us being here and why we’re here, don’t they? Don’t they, Ja?”

“ Oh, good Christ,” moaned Santiva, whose eyes joined with Jessica’s to bore into Ja Okinleye’s.

“ It is a small island,” he weakly replied. “Word leaks out.”

“ It could leak out over the water,” Eriq complained. “Suppose a radio dispatch happens to say something to a ship out at sea.”

“ All the more reason to go out hunting tomorrow morning,” replied Jessica, “bright and early. Make it fiveish.”

“ How’re we going to know it’s him-his ship-when we see him?” asked Eriq.

“ We will… we just will…”

‘ ‘ Only boats we know of between here and Cuba are the racing ships,” said Ja.

“ Racing ships?” asked Eriq.

“ What about reports of any ships down at sea between here and the Gulf of Mexico?’’ asked Jessica.

“ Nothing reported, no,” Ja replied, pursing his lips in thought.

Lansing joined them, taking a seat and accepting the offer of a drink from Aliciana. He found himself amazed to be involved in the FBI operation, and quickly settled in.

“ What race?” repeated Eriq, his voice revealing his irritation with Ja.

“ Ahh, yes, that would be the Jamaica Run Sailing Boat Race. Our port is a stopover for them, you know.”

“ No, I didn’t know. When do they stop over?” he pressed.

“ Sometime tomorrow morning.” Jessica, Santiva and Lansing glanced about at one another. “You don’t suppose he’s going to come in with the others, do you?” asked Lansing, voicing what was on Eriq’s mind.

“ Would he know of the race?” Ja sipped at his drink. “He knows the islands,” Jessica said, raising her free hand. “He has a state-of-the-art sailing vessel; he reads the sailing magazines. We know that. He has radio equipment. He may be listening to the other sailing ships and in communication with them and their whereabouts.”

“ Where are they now?”

“ They rounded Cuba at between noon and two today, I am told.”

“ Rounded Cuba?”

“ Her northern tip.”

“ We’ll know the boat when we see it,” Jessica tried to reassure them, raising her daiquiri to the others, indicating that they should all drink to it.

Lansing turned to Ja and asked, “Do you think you have room for one more here tonight?”

“ Oh, most certainly, Mr., ahhhh…”

“ Lansing, Don Lansing.”

“ Ahh, yes, with the Tiger airlines. I have heard of your services to and from the islands. Perhaps we can speak of more business for you and your partners here, after this trouble is complete.”

The two men exchanged a knowing look. Jessica and Santiva glanced significantly across at one another, but both kept silent. Then Eriq said, “Look here, Chief Okinleye, it’s imperative-I mean imperative-that nothing goes out over the radio waves about our being here or about the possibility of the Night Crawler’s coming this way. Do you understand this? If he is communicating with the racing ships, if he is intending to be a sheep amid this flock, then no one on this island can convey these facts to the racing teams or anyone out at sea.”

“ Such as the cruise ships,” Jessica added. “I wouldn’t put it past Tauman to tap into the signals sent them.”

Aliciana acted a mute to all this talk of a killer coming to the island and a trap being laid for him. The children listened in rapt awe. Their mother told them to go into the house and complete their chores and homework and say nothing to anyone about what they had heard. She then offered up another round of drinks.

Jessica looked about the lovely island setting. “It’s so beautiful here. I don’t recall ever seeing such vibrant, alive colors anywhere on earth save Hawaii, Ja. You’ve got such a place here.”

Ja grinned wide, showing his white teeth, nodding his appreciation and grabbing at his boys as they ran past for the house.

Later that evening, during a lavish meal prepared for them by the Okinleyes, news came from Ja’s headquarters that an important break in the Night Crawler case had come about back in mainland America. The Pensacola Democrat was the recipient of a letter from the Night Crawler, the letter having been postmarked St. Petersburg, Florida. Ja announced the information after having looked it over thoroughly himself in a separate room when officers dressed in white uniforms-shorts and long socks-had interrupted him at his meal.

Ja brought the news and the facsimile of the killer’s note back into the dining room with him, but he allowed everyone to finish eating and drinking before bringing up the disturbing news. “I fear perhaps you have come a long way for nothing,” he said after his bombshell.

“ Let me see that,” demanded Eriq, staring down at the facsimile, then announcing, “It’s him all right. The final verse in his perverse poem, Jessica.” Eriq could not control the glare he gave her as he passed the letter to her. Jessica stared down at the verse, which read:

When audience cries,

Lungs fill with venom

And foam and lies,

Momements before she dies,

An applause a bow, arise!

For it smiles down

From tassers distant eyes!

As it seems them all to be

Flush with his breath,

So washed by his empowering

Hand they will be flowering

And cleansed.

“ This could be just another ploy to throw us off, Eriq.”

“ You really think this creep is that clever?”

“ Yes, he has been.”

The others slowly, quietly vacated the room to allow the two FBI people to hash out this latest wrinkle in the case.

“ If we’re down here on a wild-goose chase. Jessica, it’s going to be damn near impossible to explain to D.C.”

“ It was my call, Eriq. I don’t expect or want you shielding me again on this case. You got that?”

“ What’re you saying? That we go through with our plans as if this”-he lifted and tossed the facsimile of the killer’s note back onto the table and continued to worriedly pace- “that this didn’t happen? That it doesn’t exist?”

“ I’m doing exactly that.” He fumed a bit and then said, “You mean we… We’re doing exactly that.”

“ Thanks, Eriq.”

“ For what?”

“ For hanging in with me…for trusting me.”

“ I’m going to turn in early… Get some sleep,” he advised. “We’ll see what dawn brings.” Eriq gathered up the information provided by Ja and disappeared for his room upstairs. Jessica sat alone until Ja’s two youngest children crept into the room and begged her to come play with them. She knew she would be spending a restless night filled with questions she had no answers for, so the simplicity of a children’s game and perhaps a bedtime story held a tremendous appeal, and Ja’s children were lovely.

Jessica allowed the children to pull her by her fingers away from all thought of the Night Crawler.

Jessica had been up before dawn, and she’d had one of Ja’s sons-also up and watching a crude local television show for children-roust his father. Ja contacted the port authorities and asked if there had been any sightings of the ships racing toward Grand Cayman. There had been none.

“ Ask if there have been any ships to come in overnight, any at all,” urged Jessica.

Ja asked in his native tongue, a crude concoction of old French, Dutch and pidgin English. He listened politely after asking the question, then turned to Jessica and replied, “Only another cruise ship standing off the island.”

“ What news have they on the race?” she asked quickly. Ja smiled at her and again in his native tongue asked her question of his port authority man. Jessica watched her friend as he unnecessarily nodded several times into the phone, when he then finally told her, “You may relax, my good friend. They are hours yet away.”

She did relax, taking a walk about the garden which overlooked the ocean far below. It was a wondrous, ever- surprising place, this patch of sand lying in the Western Caribbean between Cuba and Belize-one of thirty-four island nations. The children had taught her how best to pronounce it the night before, training her to say Kay-Monn, and they wanted to know when and where she would be diving in the brilliantly green sea, as diving was done by everyone who came to Kay-Monn. She could only wish for the time.

Before the famed and legendary six-thousand-foot drop to the ocean floor called The Wall, with its extensive barrier reef, had been discovered, no one had ever heard of the Caymans, but word had spread among divers the world over. As a result, divers were always arriving and dive outfitters and excursions were one of the island’s leading tourist industries. Every other shop along the wharves sold to or outfitted snorkelers and divers.

Jessica, on her earlier visit to the island in the company of Alan Rychman, had become familiar with the busy retail enclave here called Coconut Port and she and Rychman had outfitted themselves out of Aquanauts. Everywhere in Cayman you heard the expression, “Sorry, mon, can’t help you tomorrow, ‘cause I’m doing The Wall.” She recalled her own sense of freedom forty and fifty feet below-over the legal limit for these waters-as friendly black-and-yellow angelfish, electric-orange fish and others of many colors swam past stalk after stalk of elkhorn coral and wave-spreading fan coral. There were dry alternatives to exploring The Wall, like booking a seat on the Atlantis submarine, which carried tour groups on dives to one hundred feet-eight hundred if you wanted the deluxe treatment, which she and Rychman had opted for, at about what it had cost the two of them to learn to dive over the years. But The Wall was wondrous, magnificent, worth it, and Cayman-especially for the underwater enthusiast- was truly one of the few places on earth where the hype was not overkill and the reality disappointing. Still, to the naked eye and raw spirit, reality here seemed unreal, a mirror held up to another time, place, dimension-a colorful dimension like that of a cartoon. It was spectacular and breathtaking, reminding her of Hawaii, and of Jim, which all seemed now an illusion as well.

Had Hawaii ever happened? she silently wondered.

Only the wind coming in from over the ocean had an answer. It might be a wind that had traveled here all the way from Hawaii, she thought as she walked the lovely gardens where Aliciana had planted literally thousands of flowers of all color and variety.

Yes, the wind affirmed to her… Hawaii had felt real, Jim’s touch and his love for her had certainly felt real, regardless of its near-magical qualities, its seeming like an illusion, just like this dreamworld place called Grand Cayman. It was quite as terribly real as it was beautiful. Nowadays, in fact, the orderly, tidy and superficially wealthy British colony was considered the Caribbean’s best place for an underwater getaway, and how much further from ugly reality could one get than to become a fish?

Ja’s home and grounds were beautiful and ugly, double-edged remnants of a time past, when the colonials ran things here and no native such as Ja stood a chance at capturing a brass ring like a good job, a career, a well fed family and. least likely of all, a mansion, Jessica thought. Her walk at an end, she returned to the house to find Aliciana, still somewhat sleepy, preparing a native breakfast with much attendant fruit for them all. It appeared obvious that Ja had clamored until she climbed from bed and went to work in the kitchen, to fulfill her duty as a well-kept wife, but she was a kind lady, gracious and easily giving; she extended a genuine and lustrous smile for Dr. Jessica as she, Ja, and the children had come to call her.

Soon the others were finding their way downstairs from their various rooms, enticed by Aliciana’s cooking, the sweet, luring odors enough to brighten even Santiva’s day. Still, Jessica was anxious to get down to the airport and out over the water in search of their prey, and to this end, she hustled the others through their breakfast, despite Ja’s insistence that one couldn’t hurry an island meal.

Sunlight buttered the island and the bays and the wharves. To get to the airport, Jessica and the others had to drive by George Town Port, where they saw a crowd milling about the boats moored in the heaviest tourist district. The floating docks were mobbed with reporters, photographers, tourists and what Ja told them were friends and family. “Friends and family of whom?” asked Jessica. “The racers, of course-the sailboat racers who stop here today. They are touring the entire Caribbean Sea and now they stop over here, later today, tonight, depending on the sea and the condition of their sails, of course.”

Jessica now realized what she was looking at, so she saw that not everyone on the docks and wharves were idle onlookers, that many were shore-crew personnel, people struggling to prepare for the arrival of the boats. Amid the crowd she saw the bustle of business. She saw hoses, vacuum cleaners, water jugs, crates of food, folded sails, lines piled high, saws, drills, marine sealant, flats of cardboard, all shining in the blood-orange glow of morning sun. It looked like the contestants had quite a welcoming committee on deck.

“ How many contestants are in this race of yours, Ja?” she asked.

“ Oh, it varies now. Some have given up. It may look calm out there in the Caribbean, but there are surprise storms, problems no one can plan against.”

“ An approximation then.”

“ Hmmmm, maybe one hundred twenty, maybe more.”

“ That many?”

“ They will be spread about from here to Cuba this morning.”

“ Damn, that’s going to make our guy hard to spot,” Santiva complained.

“ The Caribbean Classic is larger, but this one means big money, too.” said Okinleye with a wide grin. “And it brings in de money to de island, as they say.” His gesture was that of a penny-pinching banker or Scrooge as he said this.

“ Well, we’ve got our own little welcoming committee for the Night Crawler,” replied Jessica. “Let’s get airborne, gentlemen.”

Okinleye told the driver to “rush rush,” and soon they were at his cousin’s helicopter hangar, where a large sign read paradise flights. But there were immediate problems. His cousin Henri would not release his best helicopter-he had two machines-to “no udder man” without a signature on an insurance form and twice his double fee. Okinleye nearly took the man’s head off, and he settled for the usual fee and the signature, with Lansing taking up the better of the two birds.

After the haggling, Don Lansing took the helicopter up with Jessica beside him and Santiva in the rear. It was a large bird, with hatch doors on both front and rear seats, and Santiva’s view was almost as good as Jessica’s. They circled the island once on takeoff and then headed due north toward the incoming fleet of racing ships. Within an hour, they came into view of the racing ships, their tall masts and sails like miniature fingernails on the horizon at first, soon enlarging to half moons. The sun and shimmering emerald-blue waters here created a blinding effect of beauty and brilliance against which the sailing ships existed like cartoon cutouts. “Fly in low over those boats. Let’s be sure our guy hasn’t gotten smart and is camouflaging himself among them,” said Jessica over the headphones.

“ Why would he bother?” asked Santiva a bit sullenly, still feeling jarred by last night’s revelation that the killer might well still be in Florida. “He doesn’t know we’re here. If he has come to the Caymans, he’s got no reason to suspect we know that, right?”

“ We know he’s outfoxed any number of port authority agents, Eriq,” she countered. “We know he’s cunning. Maybe he’ll take the race for a way for him to slip into the Caymans unnoticed.”

“ And maybe he knew about the race all along?”

“ Maybe… either way, we best not take any chances. Go in lower, Don, please…”

Don did as Jessica instructed, and together they studied each boat for any sign of perversion-a ragged sail, a weathered-the-storm appearance, any sign of death, as if it would leave a pall over the ship. What they found on closer inspection was that there were many ships in the race with torn and stripped sails and a beaten-up look. It appeared they had all seen some rough weather since their last stopover.

The brilliant yellows, oranges, blues, greens and reds of the boat markings only added to the needle-in-the-haystack feeling of the search.

“ If he has chosen to hide among this flock, he couldn’t have selected a better one,” Jessica said, a sigh releasing some of her pent-up frustration.

“ There’re too damned many…” complained Eriq.

“ Look for a large ship, larger than sixty feet,” she suggested.

Lansing added, “A schooner class is sleek, smooth-lined, but I gotta tell you, most of those below are schooner class. You gotta be to be in a race like this. Santiva said through his teeth, “There’re too damned many. If he is among them, how can we know?”

“ He’s got to be farther out than this. If he’s trailing the race, he’ll be due north ahead, and he’ll be standing alone. Take us up and northward, Don,” Jessica suggested.

The ships below were beautiful, the sails flapping in the wind, their brilliant colors winking up at the sun and the passing shadow of the helicopter. The trio moved onward, northward out to sea and toward Cuba, looking intently at those straggling, losing boats at the end of the race line. But none called out to Jessica or to the others as the killer ship.

“ God, I hope we’re not out here on a wild-goose chase, Jess,” complained Eriq.

“ Whataya want to do now?” asked Lansing, the chopper continuing due north, no sails whatsoever on the horizon.

“ Keep going forward for another ten or fifteen minutes,” Jessica suggested. “You suppose he was among those boats back there, Jess?” asked Santiva. “Maybe we should just return to port, wait at the dock and keep our eyes peeled there.”

“ No, he’s out here somewhere, and we’re going to find the bastard. Don’t you see? If we can take him in international waters, before he gets to Cayman-’’

“ Then he’s our prisoner free and clear, sure… I see, Jess, but it’s not worth it if we miss him altogether. Trying to see from up here, well, it has its drawbacks.”

“ Give it a little more time, Eriq, please.”

“ Ten minutes, then we head back.”

“ Agreed.”

They spotted a stranded ship on the horizon. The mast was down, and looked like there had been a war aboard the craft. They flew in low and closely examined the markings and the overall appearance of the lame ship. It was a sixty- or seventy-foot schooner, exactly what they were looking for, but there were three crewmen aboard, all waving life jackets. Their engines seemed damaged and they’d jerry-rigged a small sail, but it wasn’t getting the job done.

Lansing dipped the chopper from side to side, an international sign that their distress was duly noted and that the pilot would send back help. They thought the chopper was very likely an official checker for the race.

“ Now, turn us around and let’s head back for George Town,” Eriq told Don.

Lansing frowned and raised his shoulders, waiting for Jessica to give him the word. When she did so, Lansing turned the bird around, and they headed back toward Grand Cayman, the cockpit thick with disappointment.

“ I want you to fly in lower over the boats as we come on them again,” Jessica instructed Don.

“ How close do you want to be?”

“ As close as we got to that disabled vessel. I want to see the crewmen aboard, the names of the boats, the registration numbers, the tattoos on their biceps.”

“ What’s the use, Jess?” asked Eriq. “Can’t you admit defeat? He’s not out here; he’s most likely back in Pensa- cola, for God’s sake.”

“ We’ve come too damned far for defeat.” Lansing brought the chopper down, skimming just above the water, and as they came in sight of a racing vessel, they buzzed it, making crewmen either shout or curse-it was difficult to tell which. Some likely thought them a camera crew trying to get some footage for the evening news, while others likely thought them race spotters or thrill-seekers.

They passed boat after boat, and each had multiple crew members. “We find a boat with a crew of one aboard, we’ll have Tauman, Eriq,” she promised, sounding like the psychic detective Dr. Desinor, “and if we find him soon enough, he’s ours free and clear.”

“ Are you that worried the Cayman government will cause us problems with deportation?”

“ I just got an uneasy feeling about Ja’s plans for cashing in on this whole affair. He’s a good man, but he’s also into taking care of himself.”

Lansing brought the bird up a bit and wheeled to the left, spotting a ship off in that direction. He glanced over his shoulder at Eriq to see if he was all right with everything.

Eriq shook his head and said into his headphones, “Go, do as she says.”

Lansing lowered and came in hard toward the lone craft, and Jessica became excited for a moment, seeing a large T figuring in the lettering of the name. But it was the Trinidad, and there were two men above deck and a third who came rushing out when the chopper careened by.

More racing ship crewmen were alarmed now by the buzzing chopper, as if it were some enormous albatross that had invaded their space, a few of them sending up hand gestures to make their minds known. This only made Lansing more daring, and he began driving the chopper between boats that were a mere fifty or so yards apart.

While Lansing was having his fun, whooping like a cowboy, Jessica saw a ship to their extreme right which Don had not seen. The boat moved swiftly and its sail was clean, bright, a beautiful sundial image reflecting back at her. There were no rents in the sail. It looked different from the other ships only in that it was in too good a repair.

“ Don. turn us around. There’s one at just past three o’clock you missed, and I want to go in low over it.”

“ The sundial?” he asked.

“ Yeah, that’s the one.”

“ Give it up, Jess,” Eriq said into his headphones.

Lansing did a complete turnaround and circled high over the craft.

“ Bring us in,” she instructed as Eriq now studied the clean, teakwood lines of the sundial ship, his eyes growing larger.

“ She’s got the teakwood veneer we’ve heard so much about,” he granted. “Get us in a bit closer, Lansing,” he unnecessarily added. “Will do.” They lowered at an alarming rate, causing Eriq to grip the back of Jessica’s seat. “Damn, take it easy,” he shouted. They came in fast and low across the bow of the ship and sped by her. “You see anybody aboard?” asked Jessica.

Lansing shook his head. “Not a damned soul.”

“ Take us around again. This time approach the aft. I want her name.”

Eriq’s curiosity was piqued, but he cautioned Jessica with regard to the scarcity of crew members, saying, “They could all be below, eating or ill. Don’t get your hopes up.”

Coming in low again, they saw someone poke a head from the cabin and appear to shout back down to others. Then this figure waved for his comrades to come out and have a look, and next he warmly waved up at the folks in the chopper in a friendly gesture, unlike the angry other boaters they’d seen. Jessica could not clearly make out the man’s features, except to say his hair was a sandy-blond shade. She instead concentrated on the stenciled name of the boat at the rear, as did Eriq, who read aloud, “Smiling Jack and blond hair. That’s a far cry from the Tau Cross, Jess.”

They buzzed off from the boat again, Lansing saying, “What now?”

“ Take her around again for a closer look. I only saw one man.”

“ Jessica, I could swear I saw someone below. This manhunt is getting us nowhere. It’s simply futile.”

“ It’s the name: Smiling Jack\ Remember Kim Desinor indicated we should take care to look as much for the symbolic as the literal meaning in things dealing with the Night Crawler?”

“ I seem to recall something of the like, yes.”

“ His Union Jack and Smiling Jack could be one and the same. What symbol is as strong as a flag? And Jack has, over the years, been used to refer to the Devil, and a smiling Jack could well mean the Devil’s grin. And C. David Eddings told us that if the killer is into e. j. hellering’s poetry, he might well also begin to quote e. e. cummings.”

“ I don’t get the connection.”

“ I took a little time one night with cummings and stumbled over a particularly nasty little limerick called ‘jack hates all the girls.’ “

“ You think he’s gone to all this trouble to change the name of the boat only to leave such glaring Freudian slips behind?”

“ I don’t know, but I want another look. Besides, there’s something queer about that boat and about the man’s behavior.”

“ What?” asked Eriq.

She shook her head. “I don’t know what. I just have a feeling, an instinct.” Her darkest instincts, she thought. “Bring her around for another look, then, Mr. Lansing,” Eriq relented. “Aye, aye, Chief.”