Crooked River

51

Chief Perelman drove past Buck Key, half-drowned and completely disgusted. He’d planned on spending the last ninety minutes in his study, warm and dry, trying to master Doc Watson’s break from the ’72 recording of “Way Downtown.” Instead, he’d been roused from his house and sent out into the rain because some idiot tourist decided this would be the perfect weather to take a dip off Redfish Pass. By the time a hastily assembled rescue squad had located the youth, hauled him ashore, pumped the salt water out of his lungs, and finished explaining to him the difference between one-digit and two-digit IQs, Perelman didn’t want to play the guitar or do anything else but go back home, wring himself dry, and crawl into bed. Tropical storms were a fact of life on the barrier islands, and Perelman was used to dealing with them. But he’d had more than his fill of bullshit lately, with all the extra hours and bureaucratic wranglings dealing with the task force. This little stunt by a jackass from Skokie was one too many.

He crossed Blind Pass Bridge to Captiva Island, following Sanibel Captiva Road. On the trip out, he’d heard some noise over the police radio about a wrecked vehicle, shooting, and homicide reported near Estero Bay, but that was far out of his jurisdiction. Besides, whatever investigation had been required was probably done and dusted by now. Still, as he’d driven back from Captiva there’d been cross-chatter over the radio. And then, suddenly, he heard:

Lam. That was the name of the postdoc assisting that cute scientist — the oceanographer, he recalled, whom Pendergast had been working with. And the vehicle, the dispatcher reported, was a Range Rover. Christ, Pendergast had leased one of those. Why the hell hadn’t they run the plate? But that question was almost immediately answered by the report that the rear of the vehicle had burned, leaving the plate illegible, with no identifying papers inside.

Perelman pulled his vehicle to the side to do a three-point turn and get the hell to the scene of the homicide. But just as he was backing up, he heard a sound over the steady rain. It was unmistakable: the whining scream of a boat engine being revved past redline, followed by a loud thumping noise. A pause, then the racket started up again: a wild revving of twin boat engines, and then a shuddering whump.

He jammed on the brakes and peered into the darkness. The sound was coming from the small communal marina just beyond the road, where he housed his boat.

What fresh hell was this?

He stepped on the gas, but instead of heading for the causeway, he skidded around and went down the sandy lane that led to the marina. He left his headlights on as he jumped out.

In the glow of the headlights, he saw something astonishing. The shrieking engines were, as he’d feared, those of his own boat. The water was churning up around the vessel into a froth so thick it almost looked like lather. There was a lone figure at the wheel, unidentifiable in the downpour. As Perelman watched, the figure pushed both throttles forward. But with the stern still cleated to the pier, the boat only shot forward about half a dozen feet before running into a brace of pilings with a shuddering thump. Without turning, the figure violently thrust the throttles into reverse and repeated the process, this time ramming its stern. The bowline was loose and flapping in the water, but constrained at the stern, his boat was like an enraged bronco in a bucking chute. Perelman watched in mixed horror and anger as he saw his beautiful — if never quite finished — vessel getting beaten to hell. It was a miracle the props hadn’t sheared off already.

He raced down the dock to the boat and jumped in, grabbing the throttles and shouldering the figure aside. He pulled the throttles into neutral and centered the wheel. “Hey!” he yelled. “Just what the hell do you think—!”

Abruptly, he stopped. The figure before him — rain-soaked, rivulets of mud dripping off fabric and skin alike — was Pendergast’s ward, Constance Greene. The haute couture he’d seen her wearing so casually before had been replaced by tactical clothing, and she was soaking wet, covered with mud, her hair a wild dripping tangle. Only her violet eyes, and the unsettling expression on her face — mixed detachment and violence — convinced Perelman this was the same young woman who had stepped out of a limousine just days before, reminding him of the forgotten actress Olive Thomas.

“Chief Perelman.” She nodded. “Good evening.”

The calmness with which she greeted him was unexpected. “What the hell are you doing to my boat?” he asked angrily.

“I’m glad you’re here. I need you to take me somewhere. I don’t seem to be able to operate this thing properly.”

Although this exchange had been brief, it had already taken on such a fantastical quality that Perelman found his anger draining away. “What are you talking about?”

“Aloysius has been abducted.”

“Aloysius — who?”

“Agent Pendergast.”

The report over the police radio. Okay, now he was beginning to understand.

“He was fleeing in his car, only to be ambushed and fired on. Dr. Lam was killed and they took Aloysius and Gladstone.”

“Taken — where?”

“The old Bonita sugar plant on Crooked River — north of Carrabelle.”

“And how do you know this?”

She took a deep breath. “It would take too long to explain.”

“But you want to use my boat to go there.”

“Is there any other means of transportation, under the circumstances?”

“But... that’s two hundred and fifty miles across the gulf!”

She took a step closer to him. “They found out the truth and were kidnapped. They’ll die, or worse... unless we save them.”

“God, if this is true... we need to call in the cavalry.”

“No!” For a brief moment, Constance’s eyes blazed with such intensity Perelman shrank back. “Maybe you already know that the task force has been compromised by a mole. Any word of an operation and they’ll kill him immediately — you know that. You also know how these things work: even if we ignore the mole, your ‘cavalry’ will take perhaps ten or twelve hours simply to assemble. So you see, it’s up to us to get there — and rescue him ourselves.”

Perelman stared at her, his mind working fast. She was right on many levels. Baugh wasn’t the man for this job, and he himself had definitely begun to smell a rat. If he called in Pickett, well, they would put together an assault — by the book. But taking the boat?

“This is crazy,” he said.

A beat, and then Constance suddenly lashed out. With the speed of a striking snake, she unsnapped the Glock from his belt, pulled the weapon out, and shifted it from her left hand to her right as she stepped back. Perelman had never seen a human being move so fast. He was still blinking in disbelief as she aimed the gun, racking the slide. A bullet clattered to the floor of the cockpit.

Constance raised the Glock toward him. For a moment, nobody spoke.

“You just wasted a bullet,” Perelman said.

Constance held the gun steady. “I didn’t think a village constable favoring a pancake holster would walk the streets with a round already chambered.”

There was a long silence, broken by nothing but the rain and the idling engines. Perelman held out his hand for the gun and, after a hesitation, Constance lowered it and gave it back. “Shooting you won’t get me to Crooked River.”

Perelman holstered the gun. “If Commander Baugh and the cavalry can’t save Pendergast, how can we?”

Constance said nothing for a moment, seeming to withdraw into herself. Then she looked at him again. “To paraphrase Sun Tzu: ‘Know yourself and you shall win every battle.’”

Perelman sighed. “Somehow I don’t think Sun Tzu quite applies.”

“We’re wasting time. Either you help me or you don’t. Because if Pendergast dies, so will I — one way or the other. You and I both know this boat is the fastest way to get to Crooked River.”

The silence that followed this was shorter. “Shit,” Perelman said. “All right, take a seat next to the helm and let’s go.”

Constance took a seat. He checked the bilge pumps and glanced into the cabin to make sure it wasn’t leaking water from the previous manhandling, then uncleated the stern line and took a seat at the wheel.

“Hold on tight,” he told her. “Boats don’t have seat belts. The sea is calm right now, just rain, but a storm is coming and we may be in for a hell of a ride before this is over.” And with that he put the starboard motor in reverse, gave it a shot of gas, maneuvered away from the dock with a little port forward, and then — when they were clear — pushed both throttles ahead, accelerating toward the mouth of the channel and the open water beyond.