Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

“ I’d like to help out any way I can, now that I know what you people are trying to do.”

“ And now you know how much we pay?” added Santiva.

“ Well, yeah… that, too.”

Lansing stepped closer, his hand out for Eriq to take. Eriq pushed up from his chair and the two men shook hands. “But what about getting back? What about Pete?” Jessica asked.

“ Are you kidding? I’m in no hurry to see Pete. Besides, this may be my only chance in this life at ever doing anything… well, heroic. Hell, we pull this off and we’re going to be island gods to these people, right, Chief Okinleye?” Lansing smiled down at the chief. Obviously, Don had done some checking around.

Jessica raised her eyebrows, confused for only a moment. Then, her eyes boring into Ja, she said, “It’s all over the island. Everybody knows about us being here and why we’re here, don’t they? Don’t they, Ja?”

“ Oh, good Christ,” moaned Santiva, whose eyes joined with Jessica’s to bore into Ja Okinleye’s.

“ It is a small island,” he weakly replied. “Word leaks out.”

“ It could leak out over the water,” Eriq complained. “Suppose a radio dispatch happens to say something to a ship out at sea.”

“ All the more reason to go out hunting tomorrow morning,” replied Jessica, “bright and early. Make it fiveish.”

“ How’re we going to know it’s him-his ship-when we see him?” asked Eriq.

“ We will… we just will…”

‘ ‘ Only boats we know of between here and Cuba are the racing ships,” said Ja.

“ Racing ships?” asked Eriq.

“ What about reports of any ships down at sea between here and the Gulf of Mexico?’’ asked Jessica.

“ Nothing reported, no,” Ja replied, pursing his lips in thought.

Lansing joined them, taking a seat and accepting the offer of a drink from Aliciana. He found himself amazed to be involved in the FBI operation, and quickly settled in.

“ What race?” repeated Eriq, his voice revealing his irritation with Ja.

“ Ahh, yes, that would be the Jamaica Run Sailing Boat Race. Our port is a stopover for them, you know.”

“ No, I didn’t know. When do they stop over?” he pressed.

“ Sometime tomorrow morning.” Jessica, Santiva and Lansing glanced about at one another. “You don’t suppose he’s going to come in with the others, do you?” asked Lansing, voicing what was on Eriq’s mind.

“ Would he know of the race?” Ja sipped at his drink. “He knows the islands,” Jessica said, raising her free hand. “He has a state-of-the-art sailing vessel; he reads the sailing magazines. We know that. He has radio equipment. He may be listening to the other sailing ships and in communication with them and their whereabouts.”

“ Where are they now?”

“ They rounded Cuba at between noon and two today, I am told.”

“ Rounded Cuba?”

“ Her northern tip.”

“ We’ll know the boat when we see it,” Jessica tried to reassure them, raising her daiquiri to the others, indicating that they should all drink to it.

Lansing turned to Ja and asked, “Do you think you have room for one more here tonight?”

“ Oh, most certainly, Mr., ahhhh…”

“ Lansing, Don Lansing.”

“ Ahh, yes, with the Tiger airlines. I have heard of your services to and from the islands. Perhaps we can speak of more business for you and your partners here, after this trouble is complete.”

The two men exchanged a knowing look. Jessica and Santiva glanced significantly across at one another, but both kept silent. Then Eriq said, “Look here, Chief Okinleye, it’s imperative-I mean imperative-that nothing goes out over the radio waves about our being here or about the possibility of the Night Crawler’s coming this way. Do you understand this? If he is communicating with the racing ships, if he is intending to be a sheep amid this flock, then no one on this island can convey these facts to the racing teams or anyone out at sea.”

“ Such as the cruise ships,” Jessica added. “I wouldn’t put it past Tauman to tap into the signals sent them.”

Aliciana acted a mute to all this talk of a killer coming to the island and a trap being laid for him. The children listened in rapt awe. Their mother told them to go into the house and complete their chores and homework and say nothing to anyone about what they had heard. She then offered up another round of drinks.

Jessica looked about the lovely island setting. “It’s so beautiful here. I don’t recall ever seeing such vibrant, alive colors anywhere on earth save Hawaii, Ja. You’ve got such a place here.”

Ja grinned wide, showing his white teeth, nodding his appreciation and grabbing at his boys as they ran past for the house.

Later that evening, during a lavish meal prepared for them by the Okinleyes, news came from Ja’s headquarters that an important break in the Night Crawler case had come about back in mainland America. The Pensacola Democrat was the recipient of a letter from the Night Crawler, the letter having been postmarked St. Petersburg, Florida. Ja announced the information after having looked it over thoroughly himself in a separate room when officers dressed in white uniforms-shorts and long socks-had interrupted him at his meal.

Ja brought the news and the facsimile of the killer’s note back into the dining room with him, but he allowed everyone to finish eating and drinking before bringing up the disturbing news. “I fear perhaps you have come a long way for nothing,” he said after his bombshell.

“ Let me see that,” demanded Eriq, staring down at the facsimile, then announcing, “It’s him all right. The final verse in his perverse poem, Jessica.” Eriq could not control the glare he gave her as he passed the letter to her. Jessica stared down at the verse, which read:

When audience cries,

Lungs fill with venom

And foam and lies,

Momements before she dies,

An applause a bow, arise!

For it smiles down

From tassers distant eyes!

As it seems them all to be

Flush with his breath,

So washed by his empowering

Hand they will be flowering

And cleansed.

“ This could be just another ploy to throw us off, Eriq.”

“ You really think this creep is that clever?”

“ Yes, he has been.”

The others slowly, quietly vacated the room to allow the two FBI people to hash out this latest wrinkle in the case.

“ If we’re down here on a wild-goose chase. Jessica, it’s going to be damn near impossible to explain to D.C.”

“ It was my call, Eriq. I don’t expect or want you shielding me again on this case. You got that?”

“ What’re you saying? That we go through with our plans as if this”-he lifted and tossed the facsimile of the killer’s note back onto the table and continued to worriedly pace- “that this didn’t happen? That it doesn’t exist?”

“ I’m doing exactly that.” He fumed a bit and then said, “You mean we… We’re doing exactly that.”

“ Thanks, Eriq.”

“ For what?”

“ For hanging in with me…for trusting me.”

“ I’m going to turn in early… Get some sleep,” he advised. “We’ll see what dawn brings.” Eriq gathered up the information provided by Ja and disappeared for his room upstairs. Jessica sat alone until Ja’s two youngest children crept into the room and begged her to come play with them. She knew she would be spending a restless night filled with questions she had no answers for, so the simplicity of a children’s game and perhaps a bedtime story held a tremendous appeal, and Ja’s children were lovely.

Jessica allowed the children to pull her by her fingers away from all thought of the Night Crawler.