An Absence of Light

Chapter 79

The guard came back into the hangar and stood at the rear of the van. He was out of Graver’s line of sight for a few moments, but whatever he was doing didn’t last long, and he soon closed both doors and slammed down the latch. But he did not close the hangar doors. Rather, he stood outside the opening, just about where he had shot the two men a few moments earlier, and worked with his Uzi. It sounded like he was fieldstripping the gun, a fact which gave Graver pause. As soon as the next plane landed Graver would be confronted with two armed men. Now was the perfect moment to cut that risk in half. But if he did, there would be no way of knowing whether or not this man had a role-a signal, some kind of all-clear communication-to play in the landing of the next shipment And Graver wanted that next shipment right there in the van in front of him, just like the first one. So he waited.

The heat inside the back room of the hangar was exacerbated by the dead weight of the motionless air. There was no circulation, and everything Graver touched stuck to him. Like Remberto, he had shed his coat and rolled his sleeves to his elbows, and every time he put his arm down on the edge of the barrel or on a box or a board, a layer of dust stuck to the sweat on his forearm. Perspiration rolled down his ribs, staining his shirt in long, dark smears. In the faint light he looked at Murray who had pulled off his white T-shirt because of its visibility. His thick chest and arms made him look like a gladiator as he held his reliable old. 45 in his right hand, his arms slightly out from his sides.

Graver then looked at Last who wiped his forehead on the arm of his expensive linen jacket and rolled his eyes. Last had done well. Graver had had secret reservations about giving him a gun and a role of responsibility, but by doing so without expressing doubts to Murray and Remberto, he was tacitly vouching for his trustworthiness in a squeeze. He had no idea, of course, if Last was indeed trustworthy in a squeeze, but Graver already had his neck out as far as it would go, and he needed another body-and another gun-on his side of this equation.

The guard reassembled his Uzi and then lit a cigarette which he left dangling in his lips while he stepped over to the side of the hangar, unzipped his pants, and urinated into the dried grass at the edge of the tarmac.

Just as Graver was beginning to wonder if something had gone wrong, the drone of Maricio Landrone’s Mooney became audible in the distance. Hearing it, the guard finished his business, zipped his trousers and walked farther out onto the tarmac and looked up at the sky. As Pace had done, Landrone buzzed the hangar and headed out into the Gulf. The guard quick-walked back into the hangar, went to the electrical box inside the door, flipped on the runway lights, and then returned to the skirt of the tarmac to watch the landing.

While the guard was concentrating on the sight and increasing sound of the incoming aircraft, Graver nodded at Murray who slipped out of the door of the back room and signaled to Remberto. The two men went to opposite sides of the hangar, Remberto on the left side of the van as viewed from the office and Murray on the right Each hid behind a piece of equipment that they already had picked out and which would provide only momentary cover, Remberto behind a four-cylinder caddy for an acetylene welding rig, and Murray behind a generator for an arc welder. If anyone decided to take a look around, even a cursory one, everything would happen fast. If all went as planned, it would anyway.

Graver’s eyes were straining to see in the dull light of the hangar. From the moment Murray stepped out of the office door everything was out of Graver’s hands. Arnette’s men were perfectly willing to be led by Graver as to operational strategy, but when it came to tactical decisions they were on their own. They had had a long talk and an agreement about that. Graver was responsible for the decisions that set everything into motion, but the action itself was a second-by-second unfolding over which he had no control.

Landrone taxied his Mooney up to the door of the hangar as Pace had done his Malibu and the guard stood just inside the hangar, ten feet from the prop. Again the pilot cut the engine. The Mooney was a smaller aircraft than the Malibu, and the doors swung open from either side of the cockpit. Landrone and his copilot were the first out.

“Has Pace come in already?” Landrone asked, walking toward the guard, removing his baseball cap by its bill and wiping his forehead in the crook of his arm.

“Come and gone,” the pilot said, turning to the van, unlatching the doors, and flinging them back. “Eight boxes.”

“Okay. We’ve got eight too.”

The other guard and client were climbing out of the plane now, both stooping to come under the wings of the plane and into the light.

“Everything’s set,” the first guard said.

The second one nodded. “Okay, let’s unload this shit then.”

At that point both guards had their backs turned to Remberto and Murray, one on each side of the plane, both just inside the hangar and dimly illuminated by the light coming out of the back of the van. Pace’s guard was on Remberto’s side, Landrone’s guard was on Murray’s.

What happened next had been discussed in advance, the probabilities analyzed, the practical matters posited and agreed to.

“Police-freeze!” Remberto and Murray yelled simultaneously, charging out from behind their concealments straight at their respective guards with their firearms extended. Graver and Last also burst out of the office yelling, “Police! Police!” to make the place sound like it was filled with law enforcement officers.

But the guards did not freeze.

As naturally as their hearts beat, their hands clapped onto their Uzi’s which hung across their shoulders on straps, and they began spinning and dropping to a crouch. Neither Remberto nor Murray waited for them to get more than halfway around before they fired three times each as fast as they could from a distance of little more than twenty feet, their volleys knocking both guards off their feet and killing them instantly. Only Murray’s guard managed to fire his Uzi, though he had not managed to raise the muzzle, and the sputtering burst from the barrel chewed off his left foot and splattered concrete splinters and blood all over Landrone and his copilot and the stunned man in the business suit.

Within seconds the two pilots and the client were on the ground being handcuffed as Graver and Last relieved the two dead guards of their Uzi’s.

Graver quickly flicked off the runway lights and stepped over to the pilot.

“I want this plane out of sight,” he said. “We’ve got our cars in that hangar right over there.” He motioned to their right. “Are either of the other two hangars empty?”

“Both,” Landrone said.

And then they heard the hum of Redden’s Pilatus.

“Goddamn,” Murray swore, breathing heavily. They were all breathing heavily from working fast and from the adrenaline. Killing always drove the adrenaline.

Murray’s expression was one of surprise. The fate of Eddie Redden had been a hotly debated question during the planning stages several hours earlier. They all wanted the last load of money, but Murray had contended they should take it at Hobby airport where it was supposed to be delivered to Redden and loaded into his plane. But to do that, one of them would have had to go with Redden and take the responsibility of commandeering the load without help. Murray contended that could be done by one person having the advantage of total surprise. Graver wasn’t so sure, and besides, he didn’t want to spare the man here at Bayfield in the event that they ran into a much different situation than they were anticipating. The plan already had forfeited Neuman to Ledet’s flare raid over Las Copas.

Graver contended they should send Redden alone. After a long private conversation with the pilot in which Graver assured him that if he disappeared-with or without the money-that he, Graver, would hunt him down even if he had to go to hell to get him and, conversely, assured him if Redden helped them he, Graver, would do his utmost to see that he got every break possible when it was over, Graver felt that Redden was worth the risk. Murray swore they would never see his crab-red face again if they let him fly off in the Pilatus.

Suddenly the Pilatus screamed low over them and shot out into the Gulf.

“I don’t believe it,” Murray barked.

“There’s no time to get this thing across the tarmac to the other hangar,” Graver yelled, frantically helping Last and Remberto stand the three men up and cuff their hands together behind their backs. “Cuff them back to back, and get them into the storeroom,” he snapped to Last, and then ran back into the hangar and flipped on the runway lights he had just turned off.

Remberto was already pulling one of the dead guards around the corner into the darkness and Murray was grabbing the other, both bodies leaving a snail’s slag of blood and dirt. Graver ran to the rear of the plane and lifted the tail as Remberto came back, followed closely by Murray, each man getting on the leading edge of either wing and pushing the plane out onto the tarmac. When the plane was out far enough for the wings to clear the turn, Graver swung the tail around, and they all began pushing from the trailing edge of the wings, rolling the light craft out into the darkness, into the weeds between the two hangars, past the four bodies, all the way down the length of the hangar and around to the back.

Running to the front doors again, Graver grabbed the garden hose and began washing down the blood. A wet cement skirt in front of the hangar would not raise the immediate questions that a bloody one would.

Graver felt like he was in a dream. Jesus Christ He could not believe he had just let two men be killed so that he could have a slim chance at catching the man they worked for. Now, washing down the blood, he belched a mouthful of bile and bent over and spat it on the concrete, fighting to hold back the rest of it as he hosed it away from his feet His face was hot, and he fought a persistent, destabilizing nausea.

He heard the Pilatus approaching from the water, just as Remberto and Murray returned from between the hangars.

“Murray,” Graver yelled, “the guard with Redden will probably know the other two guards.” He handed one of the Uzi’s to Remberto and slung the other over his shoulder. “We can’t let them see but two of us, and only from a distance.”

“I’ll get in the dark just around the corner,” Murray said. “It’s a toss-up which side of the plane the guard will get out of, but I want to get to him as soon as his feet hit the ground. We can’t give him too much time to think about what he’s seeing here.”

Everyone agreed, but as Murray disappeared around the corner they didn’t have time to discuss how to handle it.

“Do we leave the door of the van open?” Remberto panted.

“Maybe, only one,” Graver said, checking his clip. “The guard’s going to be looking through the cockpit window. If he gets a good look at the whole inside he’ll know both shipments aren’t in there, not enough boxes. But maybe we ought to let him see some boxes, and the Uzi’s. He’ll be looking for those.”

Remberto closed one door, leaving open the one that controlled the interior light.

The turbo-powered Pilatus, sounding sure and powerful, its lights brighter than had been the lights of the other two aircraft, came off the water in a precision approach that allowed no seam of sound or sight to tell them when it had hit the tarmac. One moment it was airborne, and the next it was taxiing as though there were no tactile difference in the two activities. It went slightly farther down the runway than the others had done, and when it turned to come across to the hangar it did so without hesitation or uncertainty, almost as if it were being flown by a computer.

Graver’s heart was working hard, still crazy from the shooting. It didn’t help any that he now began to worry that the guard on the Pilatus was going to see something he didn’t like and cause a standoff that might get one of them killed.

“Let’s move across in front of the light,” Graver said, “let them see us, but not too well.” His legs were rubbery, and he hoped to God they didn’t give way unexpectedly.

Redden, perhaps sensing the situation in front of him, cut the plane lights when he squared on the hangar door, and now the only light that could illumine their faces was the dim one coming from inside the van, which Graver and Remberto were careful to keep behind them.

The Pilatus stopped as had the others, about a dozen feet from the hangar doorway, and then Redden cut the engine and the turboprop whooshed to a standstill.

For just a moment nothing happened. Every one of Graver’s pores was weeping perspiration. The Pilatus was large enough to have both a passenger door just behind the cockpit as well as a much wider cargo door behind that But there was only one cockpit door, on the opposite side of the plane from Murray.

The passenger door opened first, the steps were lowered, and the client stepped into the doorway and started down. Almost to the tarmac, the passenger suddenly turned and looked back to the plane, and at that instant Graver heard shouting from inside and suddenly four explosions-bam! bam! bam! bam! — and a man’s body flew backward out of the door, landing on his back almost on top of the client, half on and half off the stairway.

The guy in the business suit screamed and lurched back and was instantly grabbed by Graver who dragged him into the darkness a few feet beyond the body.

“Hold it! Hold everything!” Redden yelled from inside the plane. “I shot him, Graver! Had to, okay? Hear me?”

“Okay, Redden,” Graver yelled. “Toss out the gun and come down with your arms straight out to the sides, shoulder high.”

“Okay! Okay.”

An autopistol flew out the door and bounced and skidded on the tarmac. That didn’t mean a damn thing, of course. He still could be armed. But Redden appeared in the doorway, his arms straight out as instructed as Murray came under the belly of the nose behind the prop and stood at the steps.

“Son of a bitch smelled a rat,” Redden explained, standing on the top step. “He got spooky from the very start when I showed up without a copilot Watch his goddamn Uzi”-Redden nodded at the body at the foot of the steps-”it’s cocked and off safety.”

“Come on down,” Murray said, his. 45 trained on the considerable target of Redden’s chest.

At the bottom of the steps Redden had to be careful not to lose his balance when stepping over the guard’s body, and the moment his feet hit the tarmac Remberto was cuffing his hands behind his back.

“No one else in the plane?” Graver asked.

“No, that’s it. But the money’s in there, ten boxes of it.”

Graver felt like a man who had just survived an explosion unscathed; he was doing the psychological equivalent of feeling his body, almost disbelieving the fact that he had been through something so incredible without having one of his limbs blown off. All three loads of money were on the ground. None of his people had been hurt or even fired on. He had two of the three clients. Each of them could be tremendously enlightening about Kalatis’s operations from their own perspectives.

But even so, standing there in the silence of the aftermath, his relief at having escaped all the tragedies that could have befallen them, he was somberly resentful that Kalatis had escaped. Whatever means Kalatis had arranged to take possession of his money had died with the guards and the van driver. The clients would know nothing about what was to happen to the money after the delivery. And now everyone who did know was dead. Graver was, in effect, cut off from Kalatis by a very neat sectioning away of the middlemen. He hadn’t even laid eyes on him, except for photographs. But like a greedy man, though realizing that fate had been good to him, Graver still was not satisfied. The very thing he had wanted most had eluded him, and that single deprivation turned all the rest of his good fortune to sour disappointment.

Then suddenly the darkness began to throb and thicken, and Graver’s nausea instantly leapt to the back of his throat with the chest-pounding, wind-beating, and almost deafening appearance of a sleek, black helicopter that slid over the tops of the trees across the runway. A glistening, pitch airship, it was nearly invisible as it hung in the night air, its lights winking against the stars, its dimly lit windows goggling at them like a giant locust’s eyes from across a hundred feet of tarmac. Its mammoth rotors whipped up an invisible cloud of grit and sand that pelted them as though the chopping blades were hacking the black night into cinders.