Dead of Night

epilogue

On a balmy, tropic-scented January evening, fifty miles off the coast of Cuba, aboard the Queen Mary 2-the world’s fastest, most luxurious ocean liner, according to its own literature-I hugged the woman as she entered our state-room, and kissed her cocoa brown cheek.

I said to her, “You gave him the message?” I was wearing a white tuxedo; had been fitted that morning by the ship’s tailor. It was the first tux I’d ever owned. Maybe the first tux I’d ever worn. I wondered about that as I used a full-length mirror to straighten my red bow tie.

She laced her arm through mine affectionately. “He’s below on second deck, gambling. Playing blackjack at the hundred-dollar-minimum table. A big crowd.”

“He’s winning tonight?”

She answered, “Yeah. But he hasn’t met you yet.”

I smiled.

“Does he cheat?”

The woman had told me she knew what to watch for.

“At cards, probably-if security wasn’t so good. Does he cheat on his mistress? Definitely. He said he’d meet me on the promenade deck. Forward, where the ship’s superstructure will provide some cover. At the outboard railing.”

Just as I’d instructed.

The woman was dressed in gold: a glittering, full-length gown that clung to incremental curves, long legs, narrow waist, breasts. The gown accented her height, and her beauty. Added a regal countenance.

The QM2 does that. Its own regal history elevates passengers through association.

Prior to the voyage, I’d only seen the woman in the common informal dress of the tropics. I realized that she was stunning.

I said, “My guess is, he’ll show.”

She began unbuttoning her gown. I turned my back as a courtesy, even though she’d already told me it wasn’t necessary. Ten days spent island-hopping, Lauderdale to Panama, is a long time to preserve modesty, even if we were sharing a plush suite. “That man’s the touchy-feely type. Fingers on my butt, feeling for my bra strap, letting me know he knows where things are. Sweet talker. He told me every woman in the islands should look like me. He’ll be there. Midnight sharp.”

I checked my watch: 11:25 P.M.

I nodded, looking into her unusual eyes. “Things seem to be going as planned. Thanks to you.”

She stepped closer, and rested both hands on my shoulders. “Be careful; come back quick. I know you’re good at what you do, but he’s big. Got that nasty ‘screw you’ look about him.” Something was hidden in her hand, and she pressed it into mine.

A gold coin.

I looked at it. Looked at her, amused by her craftiness.

“For luck,” the woman said.

I went out the door.

I felt nervous. I’d done this sort of thing once before, but never aboard a ship as well appointed as the Queen Mary 2. She is the length of three football fields, as tall as a Lauderdale condo, and packed with every high-tech amenity-including electronic surveillance on each deck.

If that wasn’t sufficiently daunting, I’d learned at the Captain’s Ball (by personal invitation only) that ship’s security was maintained by the Queen’s own Gurkhas-Nepalese mercenaries who are among the most feared commandos on Earth.

It was not an exaggeration, as I knew. I’d worked with them long ago in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Belize. Small, dark men who never unsheathe their oddly shaped knives-kukris-without drawing blood. If Great Britain ever withdraws the Gurkhas from Belize, Guatemala will take control of that marijuana-dazed country within a week.

Yes, daunting. Which is why I’d spent the previous three days doing reconnaissance of my own, scouting for the right spot, calculating the right time.

I was now as ready as I would ever be. Thanks to the woman. But also nervous.

I had half an hour to burn. I considered going below to watch the man gamble, but decided it was unnecessarily risky to let security video capture me in the same room with him so close to midnight.

Instead, I jogged up a carpeted staircase a few decks to the ship’s library. I walked among burled maple stacks, an articulate place for books, into a room appointed with brass and polished mahogany. I sat at a computer, signed onto the Internet.

Among the many e-mails was one from my son. The subject heading was: “You should have told me.”

For the first time in days, I wasn’t fixated on this midnight rendezvous.

I opened Lake’s letter. Leaned and scanned it for what I’d been waiting to receive: the results of the paternity test he’d ordered. I read the letter again, then a third time much more slowly. It touched on two important topics, including the test results.

The first few graphs explained a document that was attached. My son had cracked Jobe Applebee’s code. It wasn’t difficult, he said, once he deciphered the pattern Applebee used to avoid repetition.

“Number 4 is the key,” Lake wrote. “His documents were a confusing pain in the butt until I remembered Dr. Matthews’s e-mail. She said Dr. Applebee considered 4 to be the only true number because it has four letters. That was a start. I tried shifting the numbers 1 through 26 four letters to the right of the alphabet. 1 was D, 2 became E. It worked! But only for the first paragraph-and every fourth paragraph after that.”

Lake soon figured out that after each paragraph, Applebee shifted the numerical key four more letters. After four paragraphs, though, he returned to the original pattern: 1 represented D, 2 became E.

One of the attachments was labeled: “Selecting Copepod Hybrids to Control Guinea Worms.”

I could heard the voice of my much-missed friend, Frieda Matthews, telling me that her brother and I had more in common than I realized.

An amazing little man. I regretted never meeting him.

As interesting as that was, though, I was far more concerned with what Lake had written about the paternity test.

I lingered on his last few sentences.

You could have told me, even though I probably wouldn’t have listened. Only a compulsive freak for accuracy would order this test when two great guys like you and Tomlinson are the men in question. A compulsive accuracy freak-someone like you.

I’m sure you recognized the genetic traits. I should’ve. But now we know for sure. I’m a pretty happy guy, Dad. No offense to Tomlinson

…

I had a great big grin on my face as I read it over and over.

The news from Lake was especially welcome because I’d spent Christmas in Iowa. The visit could have gone worse, but not much worse.

Three adults in a two-bedroom farmhouse, snowdrifts, wind and freezing weather outside. The first night, huddled near the fire, Dewey’s Romanian girlfriend, Bets, had made it clear that they’d renewed their relationship, and that she planned to be at the bedside when Dewey’s child was born.

“Our child,” I’d corrected her, looking to my old friend, workout partner, and former lover for reassurance.

It wasn’t offered.

Bets was in a mood to argue. I didn’t press it.

Anyone who invites emotional meltdowns is a fool. The same is true of a man or woman who bums a bridge and forever separates from the partner they once treasured.

I assumed a role: supportive friend of two old friends who were embarking on a new, exciting chapter in their lives. Each afternoon near sunset, I found relief from the tension that filled the house by walking along the Mississippi River. Frozen paths, black trees.

I was envious of the direction that water flowed beneath its mask of ice.

“You’ll always be the girl’s father,” Dewey told me before I drove away in my rental. Walda had nodded her head in agreement. I gave each woman a hug, and touched my fingers to Dewey’s belly, wondering if I would ever see any of them again.

Thinking of Christmas changed my mood.

I checked my watch: 11:51 P.M.

At midnight, I was standing on the promenade deck, in shadows near the bow, my tuxedo jacket flapping in gale winds created by a ship traveling at thirty-plus miles an hour through Caribbean darkness.

I was on the starboard side, looking west. Cuba was on the horizon, not many miles away. The last of the Bahamas, too. Cay Sal Bank. Ragged Cays. Islands adrift beneath a husk of copper moon, and six star-bright planets evenly spaced among a riot of stars.

Seven planets, not six, I decided, if I counted the ship.

I did.

Isolated lights marked isolated islands, some joined by darkness, others set apart. The woman, and her islands, came to mind. Dasha had somehow found my Internet address and sent me a note that was troubling, and suggestive. But it also contained a satisfying revelation. She’d been doing some reading. She didn’t realize it took guinea worms a year to hatch, and it had only been seven months since “someone” had contaminated their water supply.

“Applebee must have had the same idea months before. He did it first. Never piss off an autistic, I guess.”

Snakes, she added, continued to be a problem. She hinted that she wouldn’t mind a break from her own isolation.

“Snakes are always a problem,” I’d replied.

True.

A sentence fragment came to mind. Words of a respected friend.

There’s only one safe haven for guys like us. Only one home we will ever know…

The same good man, who, on a rainy jungle night, helped me craft a precept that began: “In any conflict, the boundaries of behavior are defined by those who value morality least…”

It was something to think about until I heard: “Excuse me!”

A man’s voice startled me from the shadows of the bow. A large man with an accent. He brushed by, his shoulder touching mine, even though there was plenty of room to pass. An aggressive signal.

He took a place at the railing, also too close. Checked his watch as I checked mine.

12:14 A.M.

I moved away a few feet, conceding the space. He obviously wanted me to disappear.

The man was wearing a white tux that was as well tailored as my own. His black hair was groomed back, oiled to a sheen. He wore a diver’s watch on a heavy silver bracelet, a single ring on his pinkie finger.

In a cheery, midwestern voice, I said, “Nice night, huh? Have you tried one of them rum punches? Really good.”

The man turned his head away. Didn’t bother to grunt.

I gave it a few seconds. “You waiting for somebody?”

He looked at me. Used his eyes to communicate contempt. Looked away.

I checked the promenade deck. Empty, both directions. Leaned to get a look at decks beneath, water flowing by seven stories below.

A few people visible, but it couldn’t be helped.

Moved a half step closer to him as I said, “Me, I’m waiting on a woman. Beautiful woman, wore a gold evening gown tonight. She told me to meet her here. But she’s late.”

Abu Sayyaf, the Islamic disciple who’d help plan a train bombing in Madrid, and who was now developing a plan to bomb school buses, turned slowly to face me. “A woman in gold? With very dark skin?”

I’d taken the gold coin from my pocket. Flipped it into the air, caught it. Flipped it again. “That’s right! How’d you know?”

Sayyaf could also use laughter to communicate contempt. He was laughing now. “You must be the jealous husband she mentioned. Were you spying on her? Of course, why else would you be here?” He waved his hand, dismissing me. “Tell your wife she had her chance but blew it.” Once again his eyes followed the coin as I flipped it into the air.

As if shocked, I said to him, “Wife? That’s not my wife, mister. I’d trust that woman with my life, but we’re not married-”

I flipped the coin a last time. Flipped it so that it spun high, but too far out over the water for me to reach. Sayyaf had quick hands but bad instincts. He threw both hands outboard and leaned to snag it.

I’d already dropped to one knee for maximum leverage. I locked my arms around his thighs, buried the side of my head into his short ribs, using neck muscles to turn his back to the sea. Battled briefly for hand control, as Sayyaf hyperventilated, slowed by the shock of what was happening. Remained stiff, almost resigned, as I squat-lifted his weight off the deck and vaulted him over the railing. Only then did he become animated, hands clawing at darkness to impede his fall, his body shrinking as he descended toward black water, falling at the same speed as the golden coin-a voodoo charm the lady had handed me for luck.

I stood, waited for a moment, then walked calmly to the ship’s port side, sensitive to reverse thrust of engines, or security alarms, comforted by the knowledge that a black ops helicopter was shadowing us in case I, too, had to vanish into the safety of midnight water.

Nothing.

I straightened my white tuxedo jacket, looked at my watch-12:33 A.M.-then headed downstairs toward the champagne bar to meet my much-trusted cabinmate for a drink. Ransom Gatrell, an island woman who was gorgeous in gold, said that she’d be expecting me…