Randy White - Dead Silence

There was no reason for Navarro to destroy Myles as a person before killing him. But he had, needlessly and viciously, used the power drill in the forehead area. Joined by lines, the three holes would have formed a triangle, a one-dimensional pyramid.

I had felt contempt for Nelson Myles. That wouldn’t change, not only because of what he’d done long ago to a thirteen-year-old girl but also because he’d gone on with his life while the child’s family was condemned to suffer through their lives, scarred by loss and haunted by the unanswered question Where is our daughter?

No amount of good deeds or rationalization could redeem his self-centered cruelty. But in the small arena of large personal bravery, my respect for the man once again was on the ascent. Myles had told me he was a member of a noble society, an ancient and honorable fraternity, that his membership was the one good thing no one could ever take away from him. For the first time, those words- ancient, honorable -had credence.

The silver-haired man, called Farfel by POWs, had put a drill bit to the multimillionaire’s head and demanded to know where Connie Myles was hiding. Myles had chosen to endure the horror rather than put his wife-or his lover-in harm’s way.

We are a much-flawed species, capable of deeds so inhuman that only humans could devise them. But even the worst of us are capable of acts of heroism and sacrifice far beyond the purview of lesser primates. Here was proof.

I said to Myles, “Drink some of this.” I was holding the bottle to his lips. When he tried to push the water away, his malfunctioning neurosystem only managed to flop one chilled hand on my shoulder, the hand which still wore the Skull and Bones ring. He was dying before my eyes.

I had been in the stable for less than three minutes, yet the life of a man was flickering away. Rather than drink and preserve himself, Myles continued talking, trying to anchor his presence by jettisoning information.

“I told them to… use my boat. Told the… Cubans… gave them the keys… to my… crown?… No!… Keys to my

… Tah… Tah… Uhhh!… Wrong word!”

He was getting frustrated, trying to recall the make of his luxury yacht, a Tiara. He had told Navarro and Yanquez where to find the keys, hoping they would go away.

“Cubans,” I said, trying to reassure him with an easy question. “There were two of them, right?”

“An… eight,” Myles said, managing a smile as if he’d done something clever. For a moment, I was confused but then understood. It was Bonesman code- eight: yes- there were two men.

The death rattle is not folklore. A final spasm of abdominal musculature creates a distinctive crackle. A moment after Nelson Myles died, I flicked off the lights and checked the windows for the first time in almost four minutes.

Standing outside the stable was a silver-haired man and a giant companion. They were staring at me, their expressions amused, as if they’d been watching a television sitcom.

The SIG Sauer was jammed between belt and butt in the back of my pants. I drew it, already leaning toward the window as I leveled the weapon, hammer back, ready to fire. But I caught myself in time. I didn’t shoot.

Slowly, slowly, I lowered the pistol, index finger parallel to the barrel. I used the decocking lever to release the hammer, then squatted and placed the weapon on the floor. When the silver-haired Navarro motioned me to step away from the gun, I did so without hesitation.

Whatever they told me to do, I would do-for now-because they had Shelly Palmer.

The giant, Angel Yanquez, had his arm around the woman’s throat. He was holding the detective’s pistol to her temple, grinning at me, head down as he made eye contact, showing me his stub of a horn like a rhino.

The rhino-sized Cuban pushed Detective Shelly Palmer into the stable as the older man, with his neat gray hair and tidy mustache, locked the door, then pointed the pistol he was carrying at me. It had a laser sight. My eyes squinched shut, temporarily blinded by the red dot that painted my face.

“Sit!” the man yelled. “Sit on your hands!”

When Navarro emphasized Sit!, his dentures clicked, just as I’d been told they would. So it was Farfel… Farfel and his giant assistant, Hump.

I sat immediately. Palmer did not, which gave Hump reason to grab her hair and trip her legs from beneath her. She collapsed on the floor beside me, her body making a bone-on-cement thump, as he yelled something in Spanish about her being stubborn like a mule.

Palmer righted herself, pulling her skirt over her knees, then turned to me, eyes dazed. Her lip was bleeding, and there was a cut above her right eye. She hadn’t surrendered without a struggle.

“I’m so damn sorry,” the detective said, her voice shaking. “I should have believed you. Who are these people?”

I whispered, “Did you get a chance to radio?,” as Farfel yelled, “Quiet!”

I watched the woman’s eyes blink No, then move around the stable. She froze when she came to Nelson Myles, then leaned away as if to create distance. A corpse is an overpowering presence. It shrunk the room and weighted the air with a tangible dread, an absence of energy and a silence-an inexorable silence.

The nearby power drill was more unsettling because Farfel knew who I was. I could tell by his reaction as he went through my billfold, checking the driver’s license, then looking from the photo to me, before pocketing my cash and credit cards.

Maybe he recognized my name from the newspapers: the civilian who’d gone through the ice with Choirboy. I hoped that was the reason.

“Marion Ford,” Farfel said with a heavy accent, tossing my billfold aside. “Finally, some luck that is good! It is what we need, an excellent boat captain to drive us to Cuba. Not an idiot boat captain, one who steers like a farmer pulling a plow.” He shot a withering look at Yanquez, who looked like he’d been in a minor car wreck: His right ear was scabbed over by a recent injury and there was a goose-egg-sized bruise on his forehead.

Newspapers hadn’t mentioned my prowess with boats, so now I hoped Myles had told him about me. What I feared was that Farfel had gotten info from someone else, a person who knew about my former life-Tinman possibly. If that’s how the Cuban knew, I wouldn’t survive the night.

The drill: I couldn’t keep my eyes off the thing. It was a perverse magnet demanding my attention, so I stared at the floor, choosing not to make eye contact. For someone like Farfel, even a poor reason to torture a man was good enough. It was terrifying to imagine him doing to me what he’d done to Myles.

Fear is an antonym of bravery. I am often afraid but only occasionally brave. We all deal with small, nagging fears on a daily basis. But I had never been in a situation where I risked the ultimate indignity, the violation of my own skull. The fear I felt was a cloying, physical manifestation. It sucked the air from my lungs, making it difficult to breath or think clearly.

Farfel startled me when he stepped closer, demanding, “In a boat to Havana, how many trips do you have? You are an expert with boats, yes?” The man used reversed syntax characteristic of Spanish.

When I didn’t respond immediately, he pressed, “I know of your identity. You are Dr. Ford but not a real doctor. You are the marine scientist. Or…”-the little man was examining my face-“… or the one who is a trained killer, some say. Which?”

Myles could have told him I was experienced with boats or about my role as a hit man earlier, but something in Farfel’s eager contempt suggested he knew I hadn’t been acting back on the dirt road. The question produced a quizzical stare from Palmer, her expression asking What’s he talking about?