Kirk Russell - Shell Games

“Kline did?”

“Yeah, in the ‘90s.”

“I heard the one I just talked to as Irish.”

“So did we.”

When he hung up with Douglas he wiped water from his face and sealed the Velcro at his wrists after putting on gloves. With the lack of sleep the cold reached him a little faster and there was more wind out here. He went south now for two hours and hit a patch near Cape Mendocino where the wind was cross and fog shredded through the rocks that the wind was trying to drive him toward. Waves pitched the Zodiac and it slapped hard on the water. At half-hour intervals, Douglas called.

“You’re doing all right?”

“What are you, my mother?”

But he had a tightness in his chest and the cold seemed to come from inside out. Katherine’s voice echoed in his head.

“Your chief is here with me now. We’ve got a copter inland, moving with you. You’ve got another thirty miles of fog and you’ll hit blue.”

Unless he turns me around, Marquez thought, or heads me out to sea. The reassurances were nice but meant nothing. He cut his speed and got off the phone with Douglas, called Shauf. Her father had been a fisherman up here. She’d gotten into resource management because she’d heard her father talk all the time about how the fisheries were collapsing. He’d railed against the bottom-raking industrial trawlers that took everything, and he’d had names for them, would point to a trawler and tell her that one is named the Antichrist. She’d gone through her childhood thinking there was a boat out there named that.

“I’m coming onto Punta Gorda,” he said. “What’s your guess?”

“Somewhere along the Lost Coast and we’re already here. We’re in the King Range on that main dirt road.”

The Lost Coast was his guess, too, because it was empty, because you could follow one of the creeks to the water and pack the money back out through the mountains on foot, and because Kline had trafficked drugs out of Humboldt for years. Along an empty stretch of the Lost Coast, a quick execution after the money was handed over, but better not to think that way. Better to think it’s going to work out. He swept past Punta Gorda, continued south, reached Shelter Cove and the phone rang.

The Irish voice said, “Where are you?”

“Still going south.”

“Where the fuck are you?”

“Shelter Cove.”

“Circle.”

“How long? I’m burning through my fuel.”

He circled an hour, half of it talking to Douglas, ate a dry roll and a Payday bar, drank hot tea from a thermos. He’d heard an edge in the Irishman’s voice that said killing came easy to him. Another call came and they moved him farther south, then back north five miles before turning again. The thrum of the engines vibrated in his bones now. The cold ran deeper and he was close to Fort Bragg. More phone calls and the Marlin had him on radar, so did an FBI copter and a spotter plane and a fishing boat carrying FBI agents, so he knew it wouldn’t be anywhere near here. He was through half his fuel now and ran on one engine only, conserving out of habit, crouching in the boat to loosen his muscles as the fog began to sweep back in the late afternoon. Two hours now since he’d heard from the Irishman, so maybe they’d called it off. Then the call came.

“Are you ready?” the Irishman asked.

“You’re going to have to show her to me before I put to shore anywhere.”

“Turn south, again.”

“I’m burning fuel fast. I don’t have much more range.”

“It was Belfast in ‘85 when the lad carrying the ransom ran out of petrol and got his man killed, the stupid arsehole.”

The line went dead, and the next call didn’t come until after dark. Marquez was south of Fort Bragg about twenty miles, run-ning with lights and GPS, but it would be much harder after dark to put in anywhere, dangerous with the rocks. The Irishman had him continue south another hour, then reverse and turn north. By then the sea had calmed and he rode half a mile offshore in a light wind. Douglas checked in.

“There’s a boat three miles off your port side we’re looking at. Nothing else close to you.” Static and a bad connection, then, “We’ve got agents all along the highway.” The SOU was there too, but Kline would know that the shore was lined with police. “They may run you all the way back north.”

“Are you just chatting me up?”

“How are you doing?”

“I’m ready to get it done.”

Near the coast at Van Damme State Park he got the call to turn shoreward and run hard toward the surf.

“You want me to run aground with the money and lose it in the ocean?”

“No, you arsehole, I’ll bring you home.” The Irishman barked at him about some kidnapping that had gone bad along the border in Peru, then cut back in, “North again, you fuckin’ copper.”

So he has me in sight, Marquez thought. Reading a heat signal if nothing else. Close in as he was the Sony Palm IR would work at this range. He was close to the surf, too close to rocks. He flicked on the boat lights and the Irishman said nothing. “You’ll see a flash of blue light.”

Several minutes passed, the Irishman still on the phone. “I see it,” Marquez said, and turned toward the caves of Van Damme. “We’re going to run you through the caves and she’ll be waiting for you. You don’t want to fuck up now and lose one of your own. She’ll be wearing a hood and two men will be with her. You’ll take a boat ride together.”

Marquez saw the blue light flash again and moved closer, glad that he knew these caves, maneuvering the boat constantly to stay off the rocks. Hit the rocks and it’s over. He eased inside the cave, the Zodiac engine an amplified roar. He swept his light along the rock and in a cleft saw what looked like a woman sitting with a hood over her head. A man yelled for him to bring it in close, yelling “faster, faster, come on, you fuckhead, in here and kill the engines,” and now Marquez saw light in the water below, a diver surfacing near him, the man onshore still yelling instructions, holding an assault rifle on him as the diver boarded and Marquez fought the impulse to go for his gun.

“Don’t move,” the order came again, and then to the hooded woman sitting on rocks, “Raise your arm. Let him know you’re okay,” and when the arm came up he wasn’t sure if it was Petersen’s, but a second diver had the bow rope and was towing him over to the rock, the Zodiac rising with every swell, the sound drowning the man’s voice.

Now it was the diver behind him speaking, telling him to put his hands out, patting him down as the other diver boarded. “Where’s the money, lad?” And before he could answer a knife cut into one of the cabled bags and the diver yelled to the Irishman.

“It’s here.”

“Let’s see her face,” Marquez demanded. He didn’t see the blow coming, but it was the diver behind him and he tried to rake an arm back to defend himself as his knees buckled. His hand caught teeth and he snapped a head back before sinking down. He didn’t feel the second blow but felt his arms pulled back, hand-cuffs clicked on his wrists, then his ankles, and he heard faraway laughter as he rolled into the cold water and felt himself pulled forward, dragged along the sand, then a knife cutting off his shirt, and he was shoved and propped against a rock. The Irishman squatted near him on the sand, his voice low, a light on Marquez’s face, the breath of the man on him.

“The tide’s out, lad, enjoy the beach.”

Marquez saw the woman pull the hood off. She wasn’t Petersen.

“Where is she?”

“I hear she’s the crew’s favorite on a boat somewhere, but you can ask him yourself. He’s coming to visit you here. If I was you, I’d be giving myself up to God.”