Kirk Russell - Shell Games

“She’s one of my team.”

“He used this format three times last year and all of the victims were already dead.” Marquez didn’t answer. “I’m going to come see you and we’ll write the response,” Douglas said.

When he hung up, Katherine said, “John, you already know it’s a trap. I understand wanting to save her, but you can’t do this.”

“I don’t know any other way.”

Katherine stayed through a meeting at the house with Douglas. She grilled cheese sandwiches and made coffee. Douglas told him the FBI would get a Zodiac outfitted, but Marquez shook his head, said Fish and Game had a boat. It was already on a trailer and had twin Honda engines, was reinforced, and most of all, it was familiar to Marquez. But how much cash would he carry and how would they get it in time? And how quickly could they close on his position if he needed them? Who was the officer in charge at the Coast Guard? He’d carry his Glock .40, a second gun would be on board, stun grenades, night vision equipment, a short laundry list of defensive weaponry. He watched Douglas’s sidelong glance to the kitchen where Katherine cleaned quietly and was listening.

“This stuff will be useful if you have to abort,” Douglas said, pick-ing crumbs off his plate, wiping his hands, his eyes on Marquez’s face. “But you’ll be at their mercy at some point when you deliver.”

“That’s where you come in.”

When Douglas left, Marquez told Katherine another Kline story he never had told her before, about Mexican military planes used to ferry cocaine and dope, and the death of a DEA agent named Brian Hidalgo, a sunrise, a haze at horizon and the sun’s blood light and Hidalgo’s body in the burned-out car. Spanish phrases, forgotten Indian dialect, words he’d lost returned to him.

“Kline tortured Hidalgo and inside twenty-four hours had started working his way back through our team. I shot the man who was supposed to kill me and the word we heard after was that Kline swore he’d get me. When I quit the DEA and decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, I think he did send someone for me. I’d crossed a junction near Kearsarge Pass in the southern Sierra and had camped at a place called Charlotte Lake, planning to hike down the trail at Kearsarge and resupply in Bishop early the next morning, but I met a man on the trail who said there were two men who’d camped for a while near Kearsarge who were looking for me. They’d showed him a photo and he’d recognized me. They’d told him they were there because my mother had died of a heart attack, but she died when I was a teenager so I knew it was bad. I stayed off-trail and I waited.”

“You saw them?”

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure they were Kline’s people. I hiked during the night the next two days. I didn’t get home until late that fall.” She already knew the rest, but he said it anyway. “I hiked north to the end of the trail in Washington and you and I didn’t meet for another two years. By then, I was trying to put it behind me.”

“You should have talked more to me, John.”

“If I could do it over again, I would.”

“And now he’s asking for you by name. You can’t go, John. You just can’t do it. Think about Maria and me. Ask yourself what you’re doing. You’re carrying the same guilt you had when I met you and now you’re going to risk sacrificing yourself. This is crazy, really crazy.”

“The Feds will be close by.”

“How do you know?” He didn’t and Douglas didn’t either. “Maybe you want to die, John. Maybe then everything is even and you’re with your dead friends. It’s all even and fair again.” Her face flushed and tears flooded her eyes as she shook her head. She stood and moved away from him. “You’re going to go even though Douglas said he’d get an FBI volunteer.”

“I think her only chance is if I show.”

“I can’t wait here and I can’t be a part of this.”

She stood and shook her head. Then she walked out the front door and he heard her car start, gravel kicking up on the driveway as she drove away. He watched her headlights hit the road.

Near midnight he checked his e-mail, found nothing, and opened the Web site again. Petersen’s face had changed, the bruis-ing had darkened. Some sort of necklace hung from her neck and he focused there, saw the iridescent green, the cut triangular shape and he was sure it was similar to the abalone piece he’d taken from Bailey’s boat. He fought the terrible heaviness inside and reached for the phone to call Douglas.

“I recognize what’s around her neck,” Marquez said. “I pulled something similar off Bailey’s boat.”

“What’s it mean?”

“Maybe nothing. It’s abalone shell, so maybe it’s a statement.”

“Do you have it still?”

“No, it went back to Bailey. His lawyer got everything released before we had probable cause on Bailey.”

“Is it the same shell?”

“It could be.”

“Incoming,” Douglas said, and Marquez saw the mail icon flash. He clicked to the e-mail as Douglas cleared his throat. “Are you reading?”

“Got it,” Marquez said. “I’m reading now.”

John Marquez, you’ll be in Humboldt Bay at 7:00 a.m. tomor-row. You’ll need fuel for a 400 mile range. Money in waterproof bags. Any surveillance and she’ll be executed.

“The bags you carry will transmit position,” Douglas said. “We’ve got two fishing boats we’ll get there before you arrive, but why Eureka, Marquez?”

“It’s been fogged in for two days and it’s big enough to where you wouldn’t pick his people out as easily. The four-hundred-mile range could mean he’s going to burn a lot of time determining who’s following.”

Marquez gave Douglas Katherine’s numbers and then called her as he drove down the mountain. He stayed on the phone with her until he was almost to the boat. In San Rafael he hooked the trailer up to the Explorer with the help of an FBI agent, then started north with the FBI following and the SOU leading. Cairo and Roberts would get into Eureka by dawn. Shauf and Alvarez were heading to Shelter Cove with another Zodiac. The Marlin had left the Berkeley marina and was already five miles north of the Gate. He drove slowly up 101, towing the boat, taking the occasional phone call from the team and Douglas. He talked to Kath again and Keeler, then to Baird as he came into Eureka. It was cold and the light flat this morning, the pavement wet, fog rolling in from the bay. Foghorns sounded and a nervous energy burned in him as he put the boat in the water and called the number they’d given him, what the FBI had confirmed was a cell phone activated yester-day morning in San Francisco.

“I’m in the harbor. Where do I go?”

“All business, are you?” An Irish accent, he thought. “Leave the bay and go south. Give me your phone number.”

Marquez read it off as the boat bounced in the first swells. “How far south?” The Irishman didn’t answer and after the line went dead Marquez positioned the phone where he could keep it dry and still reach it. It was a satellite unit and he had backup in case this one went down. The bags of money were near his feet and cabled to the boat. When he left the harbor he skirted the coast, passing the mouth of the Eel River and moving out to sea a little farther before Douglas called.

“We’re with you, but keep your speed as steady as you can. How are you doing?”

“It’s going to get a little choppy ahead, but I’m good.”

“When you made the call they were in a car probably on High-way 101 near Santa Rosa. They didn’t stay on long enough to deter-mine their direction. In case you were wondering, he recruited out of the IRA, got a handful of ex-IRA working for him.”