Randy White - Dead of Night

“I guess that’s what I should expect, huh? Because I’m carrying a baby and living alone.”

Same complaint, different conversation.

I’d replied, “Then come home. We’ll live in your Captiva house. I’ll take great care of you. It’s warm here. Get on a plane tomorrow.”

“I am home. Why can’t I get it through your thick head? I’m where I want to be, and you’re where you want to be. Just admit it. Even when you’re here, you’re gone. I’ve seen that look in your eyes. Those times when you disappear and I know you’re down by the river, probably thinking about fish, water, currents.”

She wasn’t being fair. But she also happened to be right, which made me feel like hell.

A bad beginning to a Monday night that was about to get worse.

In the mangrove gloom, sky darkening, I parked my truck outside the marina gate, shouldered my bag-several live guinea worms secured in a jar therein-and walked the wobbly boardwalk that connects my home to shore. I’m a guy of habit. The first thing I do when back from a trip is check the wooden cistern-sized fish tank on the lower deck.

Usually, I’m holding my breath as I approach the thing, expecting the worst. Pumps fail, filters clog. A decomposing soup of carefully selected marine specimens makes for an unpleasant homecoming.

But my son, Laken, had been taking care of the lab. He was on holiday from school in Central America, and enjoyed the work. So I wasn’t surprised to find that this wooden aquarium had been meticulously maintained. The sides of the tank were algae-free, the water so clear that it didn’t slow my vision even in the weak yellow glow of the deck lights that I’d installed at intervals around the railing.

Everything in the tank-immature snook, tarpon, bandit-masked snappers, horseshoe crabs, spider crabs, blooming anemones, and bivalves-looked healthy and active beneath the crystal water lens.

The boy continued to impress.

Because my place is small, the living area minimal, with one bed, Laken had been bunking at the marina in the guest room of Jeth Nicholes’s upstairs apartment. The lights of my laboratory were on, though. On the chance my son might still be up there hanging out at the computer, doing research on the Internet, or writing e-mails to his Latin American pals, I jogged up the steps and pushed open the lab’s screen door.

Odd. He’d left the lights on, but the room was empty.

Not like him.

I stood in the doorway a moment, seeing the rows of aquaria-each glass tank lighted in blue, aerators pumping-and noted that my dissecting instruments, jars of chemicals, test tubes, and flasks were all in their place on or above the stainless steel table and sink. Saw that my microscopes were covered; that the Bunsen burner, my centrifuge, my goggles, and white laboratory smock were at the epoxy workstation as I’d left them.

Yet, something felt different.

What?

It was a sensory impression, instinctual; nothing reasonable about it. Something was amiss.

My instincts were right.

I heard a noise off to my left. It was a stealthy, creaking sound well known to me. It was the sound of a big man trying to move quietly.

Before I could whirl to look, I felt a stinging impact on my shoulders as someone grabbed me. I dropped my bag as a big man turned me… swung me out into the roofed breezeway that connects house and lab… then slammed me hard, face first, against the outside wall.

He was a tall guy; hands with the sort of hydraulic strength that’s daunting-and distressing. He’d locked his fingers around my left wrist and managed to leverage my arm up behind my back; had me pinned there in a hammer-lock so painful that I was up on my tippy-toes, trying to reduce pressure on my shoulder.

With his mouth close to my ear, he whispered, “I expected it to be harder than this, Dr. Ford. The way Mr. Harrington talks about you, it’s like you’re some hotshot stud. I can’t wait to get back to headquarters and tell him how easy it was to take you down. Consider this a test… and you failed, dude. He said you’d beat my butt.”

The man had my face smashed so hard against the wall that I couldn’t turn to look, but now I knew who he was. I recognized his voice. It was Parker Jones, the so-called executive assistant of a powerful man by the name of Hal Harrington. In practice, though, he was Harrington’s body-guard and errand boy.

Harrington needs both because he’s a high-level U.S. State Department official and covert intelligence guru. What few know is that he’s also part of an elite deep-cover operations team. To give members legitimate cover while operating in foreign lands, the agency provided its people with legitimate and mobile professions.

Harrington was trained as a computer software programmer, and later founded his own company. He’s now listed among the wealthiest men in the country.

But he’s still with the team. The head of it now.

Other members included five CPAs, a couple of attorneys, an actor, a well-known politician, some journalists, and at least three physicians.

There’s a marine biologist, too. A man who’s traveled the world doing research. Bull sharks, Careharhinus leucas were a specialty.

Me, the much-traveled biologist.

I’d been recruited out of high school. Spent too many revolutions and wars as a covert line officer. Lots of dark nights in jungle hammocks.

Any place in the world leucas is found, I could be found.

But the time came when I felt I’d contributed enough. So I resigned. Moved to Sanibel. End of story.

Or so I thought.

Harrington had spent the last year trying to convince me that I was not allowed to quit. Once a member of the team, always a member.

Sending someone to rough me up, though-I never thought he’d resort to that kind of pressure.

Still on my tiptoes, face smashed flat, I listened to Parker Jones say, “I don’t know what you do for Mr. Harrington, but I’m gonna tell him that, whatever it is, I can do it one hell of a lot better. So why shouldn’t he pay me the extra money? Let you go off and play with your fish.”

Wincing, my breath whistling, I said, “Get your hands off me. Or I will personally close your ugly fucking hole.”

He hooted. “Whoo-eee… now, there’s a nasty word I heard you never use. I heard that’s not your style. Now I can tell Mr. Harrington you’re starting to fall apart upstairs, too, psychologically.”

I said, “I only use it on really nasty little people,” as I stomped back hard, crushing my heel down on the arch of his foot. The sudden pain caused him to recoil, but he managed to keep my arm wedged between my shoulders.

It gave me enough room, though, to turn and somersault my body forward-a tumbling escape called “a Granby”; a wrestling move that a hard-assed old coach named Fries made me practice month after month until I could do it automatically. Jones maintained his grip on my wrist, but he lost his leverage on my arm.

I was already turning when I hit the deck; came up on my feet, still pivoting, and used the heel of my right hand to slam his chin backward. Nailed him so hard that his head snapped back against the laboratory wall.

Stunned, he touched his nose, looked at the blood, and yelled, “Hey, you sonuvabitch, you’re not supposed to hit. This isn’t real; it’s a fuckin’ exercise!”

He had both his big hands up now, palms outward, but I wasn’t done. I grabbed his right arm and pulled him toward me, dropping down on one knee so that he stumbled and fell, folding his body naturally over my left shoulder. A fireman’s carry. My hand still controlling his arm, I stood, lifting the man’s full weight on my shoulder, straining to make it seem effortless. Like picking up a child.

The guy was no child. He had to be six-five, over two-fifty.