W. Griffin - The Last Witness

A heavy rug covered most of the concrete floor. Tugging back the far corner, she uncovered a false floor that was a three-foot square of sheet metal.

She slid the square aside to reveal a fireproof safe that had been set in the concrete floor. Its door had a readout and a digital keypad for its combination, and she quickly punched in a string of numbers. The keypad beeped as each number was pushed.

Suddenly there was a rapid series of three beeps . A tiny bulb beside the readout lit up red. The screen flashed ERROR.

“Damn!” she said, breathing heavily.

She punched the CANCEL key, then held her breath and again rapidly keyed in the combination’s string of numbers. When she finished, she hit the pound symbol key.

Simultaneously there came a single beep , the tiny bulb glowed green, and the readout flashed OPENING. That was followed by the whirring sound of the door tumblers disengaging the insets of the door frame.

She exhaled heavily, then swung open the fireproof safe’s heavy door.

Maggie reached inside and pulled out a stack of folders and notebooks. She quickly stuffed them into her shoulder bag. She then reached back into the safe, found a bulging brass-zippered cloth bank pouch with the silk-screened logotype KEYSTONE FINANCIAL SERVICES, and a heavy black plastic bag imprinted in gold with LUCKY STARS CASINO AND ENTERTAINMENT, and added them to the canvas bag.

Finally, she extracted a black molded plastic clamshell case. She flipped open its silver latches and swung back the top. She looked for a long moment at its contents-a Baby Glock Model 26 9mm semiautomatic pistol with two extra fully charged ten-round magazines-then grunted and shook her head. She racked the slide back and a shiny round ejected, landing inside the safe.

Damn it.

She then let loose of the slide, chambering another round. She stuck the pistol and extra magazines into her bag with everything else, then dropped in the plastic case, slamming the door shut.

Maggie McCain climbed into the Land Cruiser and with effort put the now heavy canvas bag on the front passenger seat. Tires squealed as she quickly backed out of the garage.

When she slid to a stop in the alleyway and looked up through the snow that now fell steadily, she could not believe her eyes. The entire second floor was engulfed in flames. And the flames were quickly spreading to the third floor.

The sirens were getting louder.

It’s all too little too late.

Poor Krystal. .

Her thoughts were interrupted by her work cell phone ringing. She tugged it out of her pocket, looked down-and gasped.

The screen read KRYSTAL G.

That’s impossible!

She’s. . she’s. .

After a moment, the call went to voice mail, and a moment later Maggie touched the message icon that appeared on-screen.

Over the speakerphone, a Latin male’s voice, with a siren growing in the background, growled: “I told those putas to keep their fuckin’ mouths shut. Now I’m tellin’ you, bitch-”

Her heart raced. She dropped the cell phone as if it also were on fire.

She put her hand over her mouth, staring at the phone on the floorboard until its screen dimmed and went dark.

She looked out the windshield, her mind starting to spin as she watched the flames.

That was the guy. . Ricky?

He’s here! And knows my number!

He has to know about Mary’s House. .

What else is on Krystal’s phone?

Her mind flashed with the scene of the burning kitchen and the girl, lifeless on the floor in a pool of her own blood.

The sirens screamed closer.

She shook her head, trying to clear it.

She jerked the gearshift into drive and floored the accelerator.

She frantically slapped at the door panel, finally finding the window switches. The right front and rear windows both went down at once. Bitter cold air blew into the SUV.

She felt as if she were going to start shaking, from both the chill and the fear, and forced it back.

She then reached down to the floorboard, grabbed the cell phone, and threw it. It went out the front window, disappearing into the thick snowflakes. Then she hit the switches again, putting the windows up.

As she skidded to a stop at the end of the alleyway, an enormous red fire truck filled the windshield. Engine 11 flashed past, its siren wailing and emergency lights pulsing in the falling snow.

Crying, she dug the Baby Glock out of the bag while watching the fire truck make a right turn onto her street.

She then spun the steering wheel left. And again floored the accelerator.

Latitude 23 Degrees 32 Minutes 64 Seconds North

Longitude 81 Degrees 92 Minutes 77 Seconds West

North of the Republic of Cuba

Sunday, November 16, 1:35 A.M.

“Damn it, Miguel, that’s got to be them!” First Mate Raul Alfonso announced, peering through binoculars as he stood beside the helm of the Nuevo Dia . “Those Pangas are right on the GPS coordinates they sent. But why two boats? Is one a backup? Or what. .?”

The sky was clear, the winds calm, the sea almost flat. The thin crescent of a new moon hung near the horizon amid a blanket of twinkling stars. The humid air was thick, its salty smell heavy.

The New Day was a faded black, rusty steel-hulled cargo vessel 280 feet in length. In addition to a regular schedule of calling on ports around the Bahamian Islands, she and her sister ship made staggered once-a-week trips to Havana from their home port of Miami. The vessels delivered items deemed by the Communist government of Cuba to be of humanitarian value-for an outrageous import tariff paid by the Cuban exiles in the States who sent them-and thus permissible to enter the sovereign island nation.

Months earlier, in another humanitarian shipment, handheld Motorola two-way radios and Garmin GPS units, possession of which Cuban law considered treason and would result in the bearer’s immediate imprisonment and likely torture, had been smuggled to Cuban fishermen inside fifty-pound bags of dried frijoles negros . Black beans, a Cuban staple, were in almost as great a demand as rice.

A chunky round-faced thirty-year-old Cuban-American, Alfonso stood five-five. He wore a mussed tan uniform, the shirt untucked and his ample belly straining its buttons.

Even with the high-powered optics and the clear weather, he could make out no more than the silhouettes of the two Pangas in the predawn darkness. The narrow, low-profile, twenty-five-foot-long fishing boats, each powered by a single outboard motor, were designed more for calmer inshore waters than for the open sea.

“Perhaps God is with us,” Alfonso said, as he passed the binoculars to the ship’s master.

“Don’t speak too soon, mi amigo ,” Captain Miguel Treto replied.

Treto also was Cuban-American. At thirty-three years of age, he looked like a slightly older version of Alfonso, though not nearly as chunky. His tan uniform was much neater.

Alfonso pointed out the pilothouse window.

“Near one o’clock,” he added helpfully, “about two hundred yards out.”

“Got ’em, Raul,” Captain Treto said, almost immediately after putting the rubber cups to his eyes. “But, like what happened last month, they could just be other fishermen. Or, worse, even a trap. Radio the code to confirm that’s really them.”

The previous day, the Nuevo Dia had made the run from Miami to the Port of Havana. The Cuban capital was only ninety miles due south of Key West. Alfonso and the four-man crew had unloaded the cargo of forty-foot-long corrugated metal intermodal containers in just under two hours. Immediately thereafter, with paperwork complete-and none of the crew, including the captain, having been allowed ashore-lines were cast off and the ship headed back to the States.