Dead of Night

34

Do you hear it? That sound. The screaming-he’s stopped. The silence, it took a while to register.”

The woman asked, “Mr. Sweet?”

“Who?”

“Dr. Stokes. Yes, he’s stopped screaming. He must be dead. Or Mr. Earl could’ve knocked him unconscious. That would be his way. That man is very smart, and very sneaky. Him, you cannot trust.”

We were standing on a cement bulkhead near the point of land where Ox-man had come ashore. I now understood why the boat couldn’t wait. Outside the cut separating the islands, trade winds stacked great volumes of water, compressing it through the narrows like water sprayed from a nozzle. A precept of physics, the “venturi effect”: When a liquid or gas is constrained by space, velocity increases.

“Now you can see for yourself why we have to go by boat. If you swim here, the sea will take you.”

I sat on the bulkhead’s edge, seeing tropical fish among corals, water clear, a fathom deep. Flashes of red, iridescent gold. “The sea’s taken me before. I’m used to it. Keeps me on my toes.”

Dasha was to my right, looking absurdly prayerful because of the handcuffs. She’d told me the key was in Stokes’s office, didn’t know where.

“But I want to go with you. I can call Broz on the intercom, tell him to come for me, then trick him. Or there’s a little open boat we could use at the other end of the island. Only a quarter mile away.”

I was familiarizing myself with the weapon I’d taken from Ox-man. It wasn’t an AK-47, although the appearance was similar. I had to read the stamping on the barrel to refresh my memory. It was a Russian-made combat shotgun. A Saiga-12, with folding stock, stubby full-choke barrel, and a box magazine that held…?

I popped the magazine to check. Counted seven sausage-sized rounds, plus one in the chamber. The ammunition was military issue. Red plastic cartridges produced by Sabot. Waterproof.

I have the same interest in guns that I have in carpentry tools: zero. I don’t use either for pleasure, but there are times when I have no choice. So I keep up on the technology. I knew that these cartridges contained dozens of razor-tipped needles, not pellets. There was a name for them I couldn’t remember. Better range and accuracy, more killing power.

I was very glad Ox-man hadn’t gotten a clean shot at me.

“Please. We take the boat.”

“Nope. What’s the point of arriving unannounced if the neighbors know you’re coming?” I tapped the magazine on my knee, then locked it into the weapon. The selection lever had three settings: safety, semiautomatic, and automatic three-round bursts. Lethal.

“Why are you being such an idiot about this? I want to help you!”

“Because I can’t figure out what you have to gain by helping me. You and your pals are going to jail, lady.”

“You still don’t trust me.”

“No. ”

Her eyes became pale glass. Furious. “But you can’t leave me here with all those damn snakes!”

Fitting the shotgun’s sling over head and shoulder, I said, “The snakes will just have to fend for themselves until I get back.”

I rolled into the water.

The current was racing from southeast to northwest, and I allowed it sweep me along, using my feet and hands like sails to steer.

The main island was to the west: a mansion-sized two-story surrounded by poinciana trees in red bloom, three cottages nearby that I guessed would be staff housing. They looked as if they were made of coral rock. There was also a wide clearing, grass neatly mown, and a helicopter landing pad. I could see that the orange wind sock was fully inflated on its pole-strong northeasterly trade wind. “Christmas wind,” it’s called by sailors in the Caribbean.

Fitting. I had to think for a moment before deciding that it was the nineteenth of December, a Sunday. Five days before the holiday.

My son would be on his way home. Members of the little floating village that is Dinkin’s Bay would be finishing their shopping, then rushing back to the docks in time for sunset. Dewey and Walda would be out among the corn stubble and snow, blasting fast red birds from the sky.

Iowa, Florida, Central America. Dissimilar lives, dissimilar regions, yet all intimate, connected within me.

I kept my eyes on the shoreline as I drifted. I expected to see armed men searching-Dasha had mentioned an intercom system. The water was salt-heavy, warm. I occasionally had to swim sidestroke to adjust my course. I wanted to land at the island’s northernmost point. No buildings there. A lonely-looking place of rock, and the bonsai silhouettes of mangrove trees.

The crossing took me less than twenty minutes. I waded ashore over rock and sand, eyes searching a grove of coconut palms for movement. I held the shotgun at waist level, the selector switch on semi-automatic. Or so I thought.

If Dasha had tipped off her pals, I guessed they’d be waiting inside the window of one of the coral structures near the main house. Good protection, excellent field of fire.

I didn’t expect to surprise a man who was hidden in the shadows of palms, smoking a cigarette. A big guy, nearly as large as Ox-man, with similar Slavic features, and the same bearish black hair.

The woman had mentioned someone named Broz, part of the smuggling ring. One noxious exotic trafficking other noxious exotics.

From his guilty reaction, I got the impression he wasn’t supposed to be smoking. But then he realized who I was, recognized the weapon I was carrying-his eyes widening as his brain put it together.

The man then surprised me by producing a pistol, a short-barreled revolver, heavy caliber, nickel plated, with some weight. He brought it up from the shadows and pointed at me so fast, yelling something in Russian, that I reacted without thinking. As I’d been trained to do.

I fired from the waist. A single squeeze of the trigger. I wasn’t prepared for a three-round burst, nor the recoil that nearly jarred the shotgun out of my hands.

Broz wasn’t prepared, either. No man could be. The blast lifted him off the ground and flung him backward.

I stepped into the smoke and drifting detritus, close enough to see what three direct hits from combat munitions can do to the human body.

Razor-tipped needles. Arrows.

Efficient.

I could hear Dasha saying, “A quick death among professionals.”

The man had certainly been granted that.

I checked the weapon’s selector switch. Saw that I’d accidentally moved it to automatic.

Five rounds left.

I stepped into the gloom of palms and began to jog toward the main house.

A distinguished-looking man told me, “Dr. Stokes, he took his own life. It’s very sad. You can see the body, if you want. I can’t make you prove you have some affiliation with the police. But it’s not a nice thing to see,”

I’d gone from cottage to cottage. In one of them, I’d found three women and a little boy cowering in a corner, terrified. Otherwise, the cottages were empty.

I’d spent too much time taking the best tactical route to the main house, only to be greeted by this: the bizarre sight of this man sitting on the porch in a rocker. He was wearing a white linen suit, a white panama hat. He had a drink in his hand and a frosty pitcher on the table beside him. A cigarette in an ivory holder.

It looked like he was enjoying Derby Day in the shade of his Lexington mansion.

Very civilized. An articulate gentleman who didn’t get upset. Don’t worry, be happy.

His skin was dusty black. He had a gaunt Abe Lincoln face.

Mr. Luther Earl, Dasha had called him. “He’s very mean and sneaky.”

There was a quality she’d left out: The man had balls.

When I’d pivoted around the edge of the porch and leaned the shotgun into his face, he’d reacted as if I were a neighbor arriving for cocktails. Not a flicker of fear. The way he handled it told me the guy was used to dealing with cops and bad guys.

Big smile. “Oh… hello! Would you like a mojito? Mint and rum, with lots of ice. It’s what we drink down here on the islands. They’re very refreshing, Dr. Ford.”

“Dr. Ford, huh? You know my name.”

“Those thugs that Dr. Stokes made the mistake of hiring, a woman and her partners. Russian Mafia. They told me they caught you trying to steal some kind of formula from us and had to lock you up. But I’m smart”-that smile again-“I snuck a look at your billfold. You got the credit cards, the cash. You’re a Ph. D.! It’s those damn Russians working some kind of con, again. Dr. Stokes was going to fire them all.”

The man surprised me by removing my cell phone and billfold from the inside pocket of his jacket. He leaned and placed them on the porch railing. The impression was that he’d been sitting, waiting on me.

“My credit cards are here, but the cash is missing. I had a gold Krugerrand in the inside pocket. That’s gone, too.”

Mr. Earl appeared saddened. “It’s a dangerous world, Dr. Ford. I warned you about them Russians. Very typical.”

Innocent. I spent a moment calculating how much he had stolen from me, then stepped onto the porch and positioned myself in the doorway to his right and slightly behind him, weapon at belt level. I kept an eye on the stairway inside the house, a nearby line of avocado trees to the south, and the boat landing, which was beyond the helipad, at the water’s edge.

Rounding the point of the island where I’d left Dasha, I could see two cutter-sized boats coming fast. They were military green,. 50 caliber machine guns on the bow, radar antennas scanning. I also saw an open boat that looked like a Boston whaler, a blond female at the wheel.

When Mr. Earl noticed the cutters, his mood brightened. “That’s the Bahamian Coast Guard finally getting here,” he said. “I called them more than an hour ago. Asked for helicopters, but that’s what they send. We got a serious problem here that needs taken care of.”

Those damn Russians needed to be arrested, he told me, because Dr. Desmond Stokes was dead.

“What they done to him caused it,” he said. “That bitch of a woman. She got me, too. Here, see for yourself.”

I watched the man stand, find his balance, and walk toward me. I realized he was very drunk. As he neared, I smelled the overpowering odor of lavender. It touched one of the memory synapses. Last night, when they’d kidnapped me-the stink of lavender. Luther Earl was there.

“Looka this.” He was pulling up his sleeve. “Want to see what that split-tail’s done to every man on the islands?”

There was a bandage on his forearm. I knew what would be there before he lifted the gauze: the pointed white scolex, or head, of a guinea worm struggling to exit.

“I got two more coming out of my leg. Can you imagine doing something so awful to people? It was a woman.”

I said, “I met her. You locked us in the same cell-or maybe you forgot. We had an interesting talk this morning.”

For an instant, the cheery facade vanished, and I got a snapshot of the real Mr. Earl. Mr. Nasty. “You know where that bitch is? We never locked her up, but, man oh man, I’d sure like to. Last night, she got in the room with Dr. Stokes, then run away and let all our research animals loose. Which was smart, I’ve got to admit, ’cause then no one would go look for her. Staff was so scared, we won’t be able to get them back here for a month.”

The man was a superb liar-my guess. But I didn’t think he was lying now.

He’d recognized the shotgun immediately. Played it cool, though. Waited until this moment to gesture to it. “Looks like you met Aleski, too. Better be careful if he comes back here. The man’s a bad one.”

His question was implicit. I decided to answer.

“Aleski was busy playing fetch with the local pets the last time I saw him.”

“You don’t say?” Mr. Earl liked that. “Wouldn’t bother me at all to find out him and the woman was both dead. Whoever did it, I’d think the man deserves a reward. Privatelike.” The guy was drunk but managed to underline the offer with innuendo. “I heard that you knew Dr. Applebee. That you might know something about a cure he invented for these damn worms. Could be, there’s all kinds a money I’d be happy to pay you. If you’re a businessman, the smart kind interested in making a deal.”

I replied, “Seems like everyone on the islands wants to make a deal. It makes a stranger feel important. We can talk.” I glanced to my right: The Coast Guard cutters were closing in. I didn’t want to be here when they arrived. “But first, I need to confirm that Stokes is dead.”

“That’s the sort of thing a cop says. Confirm so-and-so’s done this or that.”

“Being sleepy makes me rude. We didn’t leave Florida until-what?-after midnight?”

Mr. Earl was shaking his head tolerantly. Said, “No, we left hours before-,” then caught himself. His mean eyes acknowledged his slip. Okay, you caught me. So what?

“That’s something else a cop does. Tricks innocent people for no reason.”

I didn’t respond.

That’s when the man told me I could see the body if I wanted.

“I’ve got to ask you not to touch anything,” he said, leading the way into the house. “Desmond Stokes was my dearest friend. He appreciated what I did for him. That’s why he left the place to me. People been stealing from this island all morning, even though I keep telling them: I own everything you see.”