Randy White - Dead Silence

Ninety minutes later, the jet banked southeast along the sun-bright beaches of Clearwater and Saint Pete, then landed at what I recognized as MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa. The Navy lieutenant got off, carrying a briefcase. I noticed there was no rating emblem on his uniform-meaningful to someone who has worked with naval intelligence. We were soon airborne again.

The Learjet made a short arc over Siesta Key and Englewood before it reduced speed, maneuvering to land. Below, I saw toy cars, coconut palms, seaside estates and the domino concretion that is Cape Coral.

Sanibel Island drifted into view, a green raft on a blue horizon. The island’s shape was impressionistic, like a totem on the Nazca desert of Peru, a giant shrimp petroglyph, tail curved. The totem’s belly was hollow, formed by Din-kin’s Bay, a brackish lake ringed by mangroves. Home.

After landing, I asked the pilot about the plane’s return schedule. “We have another stop or two after we refuel,” he told me vaguely, and handed me his card, his cell number on the back.

When I trotted down the steps onto the tarmac of the civic airport in Fort Myers, it was a little after nine, temperature already seventy-four degrees.

Page Field had been a gunnery school during the Second War. Now it was the namesake of an adjacent mall where six lanes of traffic filed as methodically as leaf-cutter ants, the driver of each anonymous car resigned.

I got a cab and joined the procession. Told the driver, “Dinkin’s Bay, Sanibel,” which was an hour away because of tourist season. After nearly freezing in a Central Park pond, I understood Florida’s allure better than ever.

My note to Tomlinson had read, “What is significance of term Tenth Man? Need all interpretations, derivatives, variations. MDF.”

He would assume I was still in New York. Surprise the man. That’s what I wanted to do. How, I hadn’t decided. I didn’t believe Tomlinson was involved with the abduction. The guy was not capable of hurting anyone. But he was also wildly complicated and prone to talking jags when intoxicated, which was often.

Because Tomlinson knew my schedule, he also knew Senator Hayes-Sorrento’s schedule. He would’ve had ample opportunity to talk. He had lectured in Manhattan after spending three days on nearby Long Island, where there was a Zen master he visited regularly. A little village near the Hamptons that statistically was the wealthiest enclave in America. Billionaire estates. Old money, Internet tycoons. International rock stars and actors.

Sag Harbor, I remembered, was the little village near the Hamptons.

It was possible Tomlinson had been used once again by one or more of his dilettante associates, the trust-fund revolutionaries who flirted with violence like children pulling wings off flies.

Ruthless, arrogant: the very definition of crimes I associated with the name Tinman.

Tomlinson was no dilettante. He didn’t use his spiritual convictions to manipulate or fly his counterculture lifestyle as a flag of contempt. That’s not true of the typical cast of New Age mystics, born-againers, crystal worshipers, alien advocates, astrology goofs, conspiracy saps or thought-Nazi elitists, along with their politically correct mimics.

Tomlinson has a stray-dog purity, without ego or malice. I have never met anyone, anywhere, who didn’t like and trust the guy.

Yet the man was also easily manipulated.

A Tomlinson quote: “I’m prone to exaggerate when I’m sober.”

Accurate. It was also unsettling if he had information that should not be shared.

My home on Dinkin’s Bay is a pair of weathered gray cottages on stilts fifty yards from shore. Tomlinson secures his sailboat, No Mas, on nearby moorings. When his mood is monastic or he’s dodging a jealous husband, Tomlinson anchors far from the marina. Usually, though, No Mas sits just beyond the channel within hailing distance of my porch.

I was looking for the boat’s sun-bleached hull as I made my way through the mangroves, walking quietly on the boardwalk that leads to my home and lab. I’ve installed a gate at the water’s edge to discourage unwelcome visitors. One of the fishing guides made the sign that hangs there: SANIBEL BIOLOGICAL SUPPLY MARINE RESEARCH STATION

The sign is hand-routed teak. Much nicer than the plywood tag some comedian or activist had nailed beneath: KILL IT amp; STUDY IT-THE WHITE MAN’S WAY

I disengaged the alarm system, closed the gate and could soon see Tomlinson’s boat, moored where it was supposed to be.

As I walked toward the house, I thought about the surest way of surprising the man. I could borrow a canoe. Or swim?

No, stealth wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t going to accuse him. My e-mail about Tenth Man might, hopefully, key the retrieval of similar code names from his unconscious, which then would be left to ferment in his short-term memory. I wanted Tomlinson’s unedited reaction, then maybe a brief talk before I collected my gear, got another taxi and headed back to the airport.

As I approached the house, though, a voice called, “Hey, compadre! Didn’t think you’d get here for another hour. Delta added a new direct from Newark?”

I stopped at the stairs. Tomlinson was on the upper deck on a beach chair in the sun using two pie pans as reflectors, holding them near his face.

So much for surprising him.

As I climbed the stairs, I said, “I chartered a private jet,” expecting him to laugh and he did. I stowed my computer and satchel in the lab, then stepped outside. “You were expecting me?”

Tomlinson didn’t open his eyes, but he moved the pie pans enough so I could see his face: stringy bleached hair hanging over one shoulder, bikini underwear, bony toes visible over the rims of his Birkenstocks.

He said, “I was expecting you or the cops. Maybe both. I spent most the night in the lab waiting. Think I ought to get dressed?”

I was thinking, Cops because of the abduction?, but knew better than to rush to assumptions with Tomlinson. I said, “This is possibly a new record. Four seconds and you’ve already confused me.”

“Kidnapping and murder, man. Don’t kid a kidder. Cops still make house calls for that sort of thing… don’t they?”

“I’ve heard the rumor.”

“Good. I neatened up the place just in case.”

I stepped closer. “You’re admitting it?”

“Why shouldn’t I admit it? The house was a mess-well, a little messy after some tourist ladies stopped by last night for refreshments

…”

“Not that,” I said, “the kidnapping. You’re telling me you were involved? The driver was stabbed to death, for godsakes.”

Tomlinson opened his eyes. “Huh?”

“Isn’t that what you’re talking about? Now you’re lying around, soaking up rays, while you wait to be arrested for an abduction that-”

“Arrest me?” He sat up. “Marion Ford, are you high? They’re not gonna arrest me. I keep an emergency stash in the lab over one of the rafters. Just because you never found it doesn’t mean the pigs won’t. Now it’s gone-that’s all I meant.”

Stash. Even after all the years I’ve known the man, my brain took a moment to translate. Drugs. Marijuana for sure, and God knows what else.

He said, “Not that there was much left after the tourist ladies visited. But what there was, I took and put in a nice safe place. So the cops won’t pin it on you when they show up with a search warrant.” He looked at the sky, recalculating the sun’s angle, then moved the beach lounger a few inches, his dreamy expression telling me the women tourists were a lot of fun, I should’ve been there.

“Search warrant,” I said, trying to be patient. “We’re not all telepathic, Tomlinson. A lot of people might expect, you know, some sort of explanation. The reason you think the police are coming to search my place.”