Deadly Pursuit

50

The search-team leader and the chopper pilot were first to reach the row of shacks on the east end of Pelican Key.

To the south, palm trees writhed and twisted like damned souls in the fire’s hot breath. Flames had consumed the Larson house with astonishing rapidity. The smell of gasoline had hung in the air throughout the search team’s brief, dangerous reconnaissance.

When it had become obvious that no one could be left alive in the inferno, the team leader had ordered a retreat from the house, then paired off his people and sent them to search the rest of the island.

He and the pilot approached the first shack in line, service revolvers drawn. They positioned themselves on both sides of the door frame. Silent count of three, and the team leader kicked open the door and pivoted across the threshold.

The shack was empty.

Next door down, same procedure, same result.

Next door, same procedure He froze in the doorway.

Someone was there. Lying motionless on the lower bunk.

“FBI, hands up!”

The figure did not stir.

“I said, put your goddamned hands up!”

Nothing.

He beamed his flashlight at the bunk.

“Oh, Christ.” That was the pilot.

The team leader thought it had been a long time since he’d seen that much blood from just one man.

The two of them moved toward the bunk, less warily now, with nothing to fear. The man they had found was unmistakably dead. His eyes were shut, mouth open, skin bleached of color. Blood had run freely from a wound in his abdomen. It dripped on the floor, monotonous as water torture. A few somnolent, fat flies crawled lazily over the vivid red stains.

“Nice smell, huh?” the team leader observed, sniffing the copperish reek.

The chopper pilot didn’t answer. For six years he had seen duty as a street cop before taking to the air. The lesson had been drilled into him that his first priority in a situation of this kind was to confirm that the subject was deceased.

Conscientiously he pressed his thumb against the dead man’s carotid artery.

He felt a pulse.

“Hey. We’ve got a live one here.”

The team leader took a moment to register this information. “Jesus,” he said softly, staring at the parched mouth and sunken cheeks. “What could keep him going?”

“Willpower.”

“We’ll need a paramedic crew to medevac him off the island-”

“Medical chopper will take twenty minutes just to get here. We can airlift him ourselves in my Huey.”

“This guy needs plasma, oxygen. You don’t stow life-support gear on board.”

“If he’s survived this long, he may hang on till we get him to the mainland. It’s our best shot.”

The team leader nodded. “Point taken. Let’s move.”

Together they lifted the unconscious man off the bunk.

A groan, a flutter of eyelids. The bloodless lips moved, forming a barely audible word.

“Forgive…”

The team leader grunted, backing out of the gloom into the blossoming day. “You don’t need to worry about forgiveness, pal. Whatever it is you’ve done, nobody will say you haven’t suffered enough.”

Lovejoy, swimming in suit pants and button-down shirt, had just made it over the reef to the scattered flotsam of the runabout when Kirstie surfaced in a spreading slick of blood.

“Mrs. Gardner!” He was already reaching for his gun, hoping water hadn’t damaged the cartridges. “Where is he? Where’s Jack? ”

Her words dribbled out between breathless gasps. “I… killed… him.”

“You killed him?”

“Yes.” She regarded Lovejoy with blank, innocent eyes. “He deserved it.”

Lovejoy shook his head slowly, a smile-his first smile in what seemed like a long time-teasing the edges of his mouth. “I wouldn’t venture to disagree.”

She let him lead her through a narrow gap in the reef to the Black Caesar ’s dive step. Pice assisted her on board, then winced as he noticed the swollen puncture marks on her arm.

“Cottonmouth, eh? Lord, he nipped you something nasty-”

Kirstie cut him off. “My husband… you’ve got to help him. He’s in a shack on the island, near the main house. Dying… or dead.”

Lovejoy took out his walkie-talkie. “I’ll tell the search team.” In a lower voice he asked Pice, “Do you carry antivenin?”

“No, but they’ll have plenty at the hospital. Meantime, there’s a first-aid kit in the aft cabin. It’s already been put to good use.” Moore’s arm, Lovejoy noted, had been bandaged and secured in a makeshift sling. “She’ll need water and painkillers, and a dab of antibiotic on those open sores.”

“I’ll take care of that, Captain,” Moore said. “You just get us to Islamorada.”

“In record time.”

Moore escorted Kirstie into the cabin. Pice hurried up to the bridge, and a moment later the diesels roared as the Black Caesar swung toward land.

Alone in the cockpit, Lovejoy radioed the search-team leader. “Dance is dead. Tried to flee the island, and his boat broke up on the reef. There’s more to the story, but it can wait.”

“Congratulations.” The other man’s voice crackled over the speaker. “Sounds like you beat the devil.”

Lovejoy felt no triumph, only exhaustion. “We recovered Mrs. Gardner. She says her husband is in a shack-”

“We already found him. Getting set to fly him out of here. A Code Blue team might pull him through, but I don’t know. He’s in bad shape. I wouldn’t give the wife any false hopes.”

“In my judgment, she’s in no condition to be informed at all.”

As he pocketed the radio, Lovejoy released a wet, noisy sneeze. His sinuses, miraculously unclogged since his arrival in the Keys, were clear no longer. Sea spray and chilly water had done their worst. He’d caught a cold.

He sneezed again, miserably, then turned toward the cabin and saw Kirstie standing in the doorway, Moore at her side.

“I heard,” Kirstie said simply. “He’s alive.”

Lovejoy hesitated. “It’s touch and go.”

“He’ll make it.”

“It would be inadvisable to-”

“Look.”

Head lifted, she pointed toward a distant spark rising slowly from the sooty haze that was Pelican Key.

The helicopter.

It climbed higher, higher, then seemed to hang suspended in the sky, a morning star.

“He’ll make it,” Kirstie said again, dampness in her eyes. “I know he will.”

She watched the point of light until drifting smoke wiped it from view. Then she stepped to the railing and stared at Pelican Key, gliding past.

The Larson house was a roofless shell. Out of the spread of churning vapors, one long tendril of red leaped up to slash the sky like a flaming sword. The sun, swollen on the horizon, flooded the world with a febrile, apocalyptic light.

Lovejoy gave Moore a nod. Together they joined Kirstie at the handrail. She gazed at the distant fire, tears wet on her cheeks.

Moore took her hand. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not.” Kirstie shook her head slowly. “Not anymore. It’s just that Steve always loved that house. He’ll be so sorry it’s gone.” Her voice dropped lower, hushed and contemplative. “Or maybe he won’t. Maybe he’s ready to let it go, now that he’s found what he was looking for.”

“What, Mrs. Gardner?” Lovejoy asked. “What did your husband find?”

Kirstie turned to him, and he was startled to see that through her tears she was smiling, a smile clean of grief or pain. Her voice was a whisper.

“Redemption.”

The boat moved on, and Pelican Key receded, melting in a crucible of sun, dissolving like the last wisps of a dream.