Randy White - Dead Silence

Somewhere, Will decided, was good enough.

But as he reached to take the hand, Joseph was abruptly replaced by the fierce flat mask of a plains Indian, his body, wind-sculpted, sundried, with two cavernous, red-sparked skull eyes glowing with a scent that Will knew too well: rage.

A mask-behind-the-mask appeared, an old male Skin who was thinking loud enough for Will to hear, even as the boy’s heart slowed, slowed, then ceased beating, in a silence that spoke: Come with me… Come with me now…

In what Will did not believe were his final seconds, a windblown name formed. It vibrated drum notes through wood and earth, resonating long afterward in the living flesh of the boy, and the echo of a coffin that housed two skulls.

Geronimo…

I was on the flybridge of the luxury yacht talking with Hump. I had just maneuvered him into sharing some surprising information when the lights of Barbara Hayes-Sorrento’s van swung through palm trees, then hunted for the turnoff to the dock.

Hump was carrying a gun, which was unusual-Shelly Palmer’s gun. He touched the barrel to the back of my head and whispered, “The senator is here. Get down.”

For the first time in many minutes, my attention shifted from what the rhino-sized Cuban was saying to what I was seeing.

My hands were duct-taped behind me. Hump had looped a braided rope around my neck and knotted the end to the heavy aluminum sun canopy three feet overhead. Aside from concentrating on stretching the duct tape and working myself free, there wasn’t much else I could do but look and listen and follow Hump’s orders-for now anyway.

I ducked below the flybridge fairing but could still watch the van as it parked and its doors opened. Barbara wasn’t alone as she had told me.

On the passenger side was a man, a large man, shoulders twice as wide as his seat in the van. For a moment, I felt hopeful. But then I heard the hydraulic drone of a sidelift and knew it was a van for the handicapped, one of a special fleet maintained for tourists in wheelchairs.

Because it had to be Otto Guttersen, I could guess what had happened.

Barbara had met the man at Tampa International. Because it was the polite thing to do, she had probably invited him to ride with her. They had compromised by driving Guttersen’s rental van.

“No problem,” she had answered over the phone when I had asked if she was alone. Only now did I realize it was a politician’s device. Again, she’d done the polite thing.

And why not? I had already met Guttersen via telephone, so she’d meant it as a pleasant surprise.

Now here she was, walking into a trap, accompanied by this fraud wrestler with his showtime name, Sheriff Bull-something. Will Chaser’s male guardian, newly arrived in Florida to find comfort in sunshine and being close to the U.S. intelligence group based at MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa.

Damn it.

I remembered Barbara telling me, “We’re flying the foster grandparents to Tampa. After what we’ve been through, it’ll be good for all of us.”

Yes, that’s what had happened.

I was thinking, Where’s the foster grandmother? Something about the flu? Wherever the woman was, I hoped she remained there. A volatile situation was now out of control. Farfel was desperate to get the senator on the boat, but Guttersen? The Cuban would view a cripple as a liability, as useless as empty baggage, and he would dispose of the man.

Otto Guttersen was about to die.

Up until that moment, I’d been mildly optimistic. Things had begun to go my way. It had required subtle countermoves and some risk to convince Farfel that if he killed Shelly Palmer, I wouldn’t help him.

The man had agreed for a simple reason: He was afraid. The infamous interrogator, who specialized in using fear as a weapon, was now the hunted, not the hunter. He knew it and was tired of dealing with his mounting problems alone.

So we had left Shelly Palmer, duct-taped and gagged, in one of the stalls. I hadn’t been able to say good-bye, but she and I had exchanged a look before Hump shoved me outside. I had attempted an apology by shaking my head, thin-lipped. Shelly stared back with a familiar quizzical sadness, asking once again Who are you?

I hoped the woman was still alive an hour from now so I could answer at least part of that question. I was the man who planned to take Farfel and Hump safely into the Gulf of Mexico, then return without them.

The odds had been shifting in my favor… until now.

The Cubans had lost their edge. Another rough day for the kidnappers, I knew, because Hump had been telling me about it. We had been alone on the flybridge for about ten minutes before the van arrived, and I’d goaded and plucked information from him.

Hump had run the ugly little cabin cruiser aground while attempting the channel between Tamarindo and the Gulf of Mexico. After Hump finally wrestled the boat free, Farfel took the wheel, then made the same amateur mistake minutes later, running the boat high and dry onto another oyster bar.

Farfel had injured his back. His arms were a mess from the oysters. He had wrenched a knee trying to push the boat, and, as Hump had explained, the man wasn’t a hundred percent to begin with.

“His hand was already bleeding,” Hump told me, and I felt a charge of admiration when he described the boy decoying Farfel close enough to bite him.

Will Chaser: That’s who we had been discussing finally when the van appeared. It had required a different style of manipulation to convince Hump that he could trust me, that I really didn’t care if the boy lived or died, but that I was talkative just like him.

There was something else he believed we had in common: I was afraid of Farfel. Which was true. Farfel was injured and in pain, so he was even more foul-tempered and more likely to use violence as an easy solution to minor irritants.

“Don’t worry about me saying anything to Dr. Navarro,” I had reassured the huge man. “What we say here stays here. Maybe tomorrow when we’re in Havana we can go out and have a beer together. A man can’t have too many friends.”

It was a less subtle lie. Truth was, I had come to despise Angel Yanquez almost as much as I despised Rene Navarro from the very beginning.

Hump had enjoyed putting the rope leash around my neck, then leading me aboard the boat, pausing once to slap my face, then club me with the back of his hand. He claimed it was because I moved too slowly, but I knew the truth. Hump was enjoying this rare opportunity to act out as the alpha male.

By the time we’d made it to the flybridge, my head was pounding, and my ribs ached because of the kicks he’d landed in the stable. Hump’s simpleton way of speaking, and the uneasy alliance I had forged with him to protect Shelly Palmer, made me impatient.

I didn’t trust Farfel. He had returned to the stable alone as Hump led me to the boat. He’d been gone for several minutes before returning to hide in a storage shed, anticipating the senator’s arrival. I hadn’t heard a gunshot, but that meant nothing due to the Cuban’s fondness for the drill.

Had he used it on the detective?

It made it tough to bide my time but I knew I had to wait. I had to wait until Farfel and Hump were together on the flybridge.

It hadn’t happened yet-Farfel was shrewd that way. He had a jackal’s instincts when it came to self-preservation and a professional’s gift for tactical positioning.

The man had always stayed just out of my reach, allowing Hump to do the dangerous work, and never getting close enough to his assistant to allow me a single, united target.

But it would happen. Hopefully, my opportunity would come before we cast off, but even if Farfel didn’t join us until later I would continue waiting until we were together, then I would kill them both, at the very least leave them miles from shore.