The Last Family

47

Laura loved the sound of the rain against the deck overhead, and she loved the hollow clanking of the scores of wind-driven halyards, their steel spring buckles against the aluminum masts, like some magnificent world filled with wind chimes. But the wind had become a wall of noise, and something sharp on the outside was catching the wind and had become a high-pitched whistle. Laura had drained two glasses of red wine to relax her nerves. Woody sat on the couch in his California-casual billowing silk shirt and white Italian pants. The shoulder holster looked completely out of place. Woody’s eyes were cold, the lines around them tight. He seemed even more distant than usual.

“You play golf, tennis?” Reid asked him.

“Golf some. Ride horses. Work out.”

“You must find this bodyguard thing boring,” Laura said.

“No,” Woody said. “Quiet is normal, but it’s always quiet before-”

“The storm?” Reid laughed. “Absolutely.”

Laura smiled. “I just hope it’s as quiet after the storm as it was before. I wonder what’s happening in Miami.”

“What did you do before?” Reid asked.

“This and that,” he replied.

“Where did you learn your violence? School or before? How does it feel to hurt people?”

“I don’t go around hurting people unless they want to hurt someone I’m shielding,” Woody said. “Someday you might have reason to be glad that I’m like I am. Thankful there are people like me so people like you can sleep safely.”

“I’ll just check on the kids. Reid, Woodrow, would you like a glass of wine?” Laura said.

“Glass of wine would be great,” Reid said. “I need to walk Wolf, and I’ll give the guards coffee while I’m out.”

“Give you a hand,” Woody said, standing.

“Don’t be silly. No sense getting that silk shirt wet. I need to take him out.”

Woody sat back down. “They won’t allow you off the boat,” he told Reid. “Orders from Masterson.”

Reid raised his eyebrows. “What kind of gun is that?” he asked, changing the subject abruptly.

“Glock,” Woody said.

“Could I see it? I’ve never seen a Glock up close. Never felt comfortable with pistols. Pistols are single-purpose instruments. I mean, they’re only good for shooting people with.”

“Well, as long as some people need shooting, I hope the guns’ll be around.” Woody pulled the Glock and stared at Reid.

“Would be a better world without them,” Laura said.

Woody removed the clip and the shell from the breech and handed it to Reid, grip first. Reid held the gun and aimed it at the wall. Then he gave it back. “Interesting. I remember them as being heavier. You keep a bullet in the barrel? Isn’t that dangerous?”

“In the chamber. We carry them armed so they’ll be ready to use. Sometimes a split second makes the difference between walking and being carried.”

“Where’s the safety?” Reid held the gun out to Woody between two fingers.

“These don’t have a safety per se. They’re like revolvers in that-”

“Please.” The edge was apparent in Laura’s voice. “I’d rather you keep that put away. I mean, it isn’t really necessary to have it out armed, is it?” Laura said. “Paul never entered the house with a hot chamber.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” Reid said. “I’m sure Woody here knows what he’s doing. But these walls are thin. What with the kids and all… I mean, if there was an accident…”

Laura went back toward the bathroom.

“No sweat,” Woody said. He put the magazine back in place and the extra bullet in his pocket.

Reid filled two of the plastic, insulated coffee mugs, snapped the tops in place, and put on the rain slicker. “Wolf!” he called. The dog jumped up and followed him to the door. Reid put the leash on the animal, and they started out, the coffee mugs in Reid’s left hand.

As soon as Reid was out the door, Woody took his gun out of the holster and slid the receiver back and forth slowly, careful that the action didn’t make a loud noise. Then he slipped the magazine out of the gun and put the bullet he had ejected for Laura’s benefit back into the chamber. He smiled to himself. Civilians.

Outside, the Hatteras’s halogen spotlight hit the agents, who were standing on the dock covered by large umbrellas. Reid pulled up the hood and stepped over onto the pier. The guards walked up. Wolf sniffed at their legs and wagged his tail. Though the dog was hunched against the wind, he didn’t seem to mind the rain. Reid looked back and saw Woody standing on the deck by the aft door, holding his telephone.

“Guys,” he yelled. “Thorne says we’re on a full red alert.”

“Why?” Alton yelled back.

Woody shrugged. “Hey, you want to ask?”

Reid handed the two guards the coffee. “Thought you guys might be needing these. One of you can knock on the hull if you need anything else and I-”

“Thanks,” Alton said. “Appreciate the coffee. This weather is a bitch.”

“I was gonna take the dog for a walk,” Reid said.

“I’ll do that,” Alton said. “We aren’t supposed to let the group separate until we get an all clear. Now there’s a red alert. I’ll pass the word to the uniform guarding the gate,” Alton added as he walked away down the dock behind the dog.

“All right,” Reid said to Tom Nelson. “When he’s finished, just put him on deck, he’ll scratch at the door.”

He looked up, and Woody was gone back inside. “By the way, have you worked with Woody before?”

The agent shook his head. “No, Thorne and Sean neither, though. Big organization.”

“He’s DEA, too, isn’t he?”

Nelson laughed. “Depends on what he said he was. I haven’t asked, myself.”

Reid shrugged. “I guess he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t feel comfortable answering questions,” Reid said. “Seems nice enough, though. He gets on well with the kids.”

Reid went back inside, locked the galley door, and hung up his coat. “Brrrr,” he said. “The wind drives that rain straight through you. I’m gonna take a hot shower.” He looked into Laura’s eyes and lipped, “Join me?”

Laura shook her head. “I’m going to see if I can get Erin to go to sleep. I think she’s a lot more upset about Paul’s visit than she’s letting on.”

Reid turned to Woody. “Woody, listen for Wolf. They’ll turn him loose on the boat, and he’ll scratch to get back in.”

Woody opened a book that had been on the coffee table. It was a large photographic essay called A Day in the Life of America. “Back in twenty,” Reid said as he went down the hallway.

“Take your time, asshole,” Woody said to himself.

He watched Reid walk down the hallway. Then he waited for a few seconds, slipped off his shoes, drew his gun, and crept back to the aft cabin door. He listened there until he heard the shower running, then placed the gun back in the holster and returned to the lounge. He looked out the window at Tom Nelson’s legs as he moved by in the blowing rain. Then he turned and walked back toward the galley. He removed his shirt and hung it on the back of a stool and ran a hand through his wet hair. A bolt of lightning illuminated him, casting a bright white rectangle of light across the cabin.

Alton walked Wolf to the grassy area at the end of the dock. He spoke to the armed policeman who blocked the pier from the parking lot as he passed. There were several small sailboats on trailers on the edge of the parking lot, and Wolf started nosing around the tire of one. The agent looked out and could barely make out the flying bridge of the sport-fishing vessel where the SWAT sniper was positioned. He could see only a hazy form where the Coast Guard boat was anchored. A man under an umbrella moved briskly toward the yacht club. Alton walked that way, hoping the dog would relieve himself so they could go back out on the pier. There should always be at least two men on the pier near the boat. But with all the firepower around the place he wasn’t worried. The man was in Florida.

The dog led him to another pair of small sailboats on trailers and pissed against one of the tires.

“I have to go myself,” Alton said, looking around. “Hold it here.” He put the leash over a cleat on one of the trailered boats. He walked a few steps and, after checking again over his shoulder, opened his zipper.

As the agent began relieving himself, he heard something behind him and turned to see the policeman from the gate walking toward him, playing his flashlight on the ground in front of him. Then the uniform touched the brim of his cap and turned his back, unzipping his trousers to urinate. Alton looked down at the dog he was supposed to be walking. “Seems like we’re the ones with weak bladders and you just stand there growling at our own people.”

The dog growled for a second time, and before Alton could turn, the cop locked an arm around his neck, pushed the round blade deep into the base of his skull, and with a quick wiper-blade motion ended the agent’s life. Martin Fletcher held the agent for a second, then released him to the ground. Then Martin pulled Alton’s coat off his body and put it over the recently purloined policeman’s uniform.

Tom Nelson was glad to have the coffee. He hated the close lightning because the accompanying thunder was deafening. He wasn’t concerned that he’d be struck, though. There were a thousand aluminum masts aimed at the sky, and his umbrella was a comparatively small target. He kept his eyes on the point where Alton and the dog would appear. “Red alert,” he mumbled. He saw Alton coming, all but pulling the dog along. He tried to make out the sniper’s roost on the Hatteras but couldn’t. In fact, he could barely see the row of boathouses or the Coast Guard vessel.

Then he heard something and looked down to see a diver surfacing near the Shadowfax’s stern. Tom waved. The diver waved back and started swimming toward the pier. Tom dropped to his haunches so he could speak to the man in the wet suit when he broke the surface again. Nelson was vaguely aware that the diver he had been watching earlier was black, and this diver was white. He was staring at the man’s blue eyes through the mask’s lens and reaching for his Uzi when Alton and the dog reached him. “Alton…” He started to mention the diver’s skin-color change.

At that point he saw that the man in Alton Vance’s coat wasn’t Alton and realized that the Uzi was in the wrong position. When Martin bowed to dispatch the agent, the dog seized the opportunity to pull free and ran off down the pier in a panic.

Martin wiped the blade of the ice pick and turned to make sure that the killing hadn’t been witnessed. He was always amazed that men won’t scream, not even when they face certain death.

Close overhead, jet engines whined as a plane passed on its way to the airport to the east. Martin and Kurt Steiner looked up reflexively, but neither could see the landing lights through the soup.