Randy White - Everglades

Well, he got it.

When the old dude and Sally came into the house, calling, “Hey, Frank, we’re back. Frank! Frank? ” Izzy waited until they were in the kitchen before he swung open the closet door, pointed the Beretta at them and said, “Frank’s kind of tied up right now.”

Man, the look on the woman’s face. It was like all the blood went out of her. Same with the old guy, whose cheeks started trembling like he might cry.

Both of them looked from the gun to the closet, to the gun again then back to the closet.

There was Frank: His right hand was duct-taped to his right ankle; his left hand was taped to the left ankle so that he was still mobile. He could still walk in a crablike way if properly motivated. There was more silver tape over the man’s mouth, and over that big, crooked wop nose, too, just his dark eyes showing.

When Frank looked at Sally, he shook his head slowly, eyes blinking. It seemed a gesture of apology.

Izzy thought: Pathetic, but he enjoyed the feeling it gave him. It was an adrenaline feeling; a sensation of power.

Later, after Izzy had robbed the house; trashed it-the cops would be thinking motive -and after he got the old dude and the Italian crammed into the trunk of the pimpmobile, Izzy took off his surgical gloves and touched the church lady’s face, his skin against her bare skin for the first time.

Soft.

When she jerked away from him, weeping, Izzy told her the same thing he’d told the guinea. “Cooperate with me, do what I tell you, and no one gets hurt.”

Feeling better about everything now, he added, “Relax a little; we’re going for a boat ride. I know things about you. You might even enjoy it.” chapter twenty-five

I knew something was terribly wrong the instant I saw the expression on Tomlinson’s face.

It was around noon. He came idling across the bay in his dinghy; tied up at his usual spot next to my bay shrimper. Then he came up the steps, shoulders sagging as if he were under the influence of some gravitational force.

I’d been talking on the phone, looking out the window of my lab, when I saw him leave the marina.

Not my regular phone.

I’d received a call on a phone that I seldom use, but always keep charged and hidden away in my lab’s galvanized chemical cupboard. I keep it hidden because it is a government-issue, military SATCOM Iridium satellite telephone.

It is a recent addition. Not a welcomed one.

SATCOM is a satellite-based, global wireless personal communications network designed to permit easy phone communication from nearly anywhere on earth. Sixty-six satellites, evenly spaced four hundred miles high, make it possible. The phone is equipped with a sophisticated scrambler. The same is true of the phones used by the only two people who possess my access number.

Its ring is an unmistakable series of bonging chimes. The sound is suggestive of a clock in a British drawing room at high tea.

When I touched the activate button, I was not surprised to hear the voice of a U.S. State Department intelligence guru named Hal Harrington.

Harrington belonged to a supersecret and highly trained covert-operations team that was known, to a very few, as the Negotiating and Systems Analysis Group-the Negotiators, for short. Because the success of the team relied upon members blending easily into nearly any society, the training agency provided each member with a legitimate and mobile profession.

Harrington was trained as a computer software programmer. He’d made a personal fortune in the software industry by sheer intelligence and foresight. Other members of that elite team included CPAs, a couple of attorneys, an actor, one journalist and at least three physicians.

There was also a marine biologist among them. A man who traveled the world doing research. His specialty was bull sharks, Carcharhinus leucas, an unusual, unpredictable animal that ranges worldwide, in both fresh and salt water.

We probably would have never met; would have willingly lived the rest of our lives without ever exchanging a word. But, a couple of years back, Harrington’s attractive and precocious daughter, Lindsey, got into some trouble. Through coincidence and good luck, I happened to be in a position to help her. Which is how I happened to meet Hal.

By then, he was one of the most powerful and influential staff members at the U.S. State Department, specializing in Latin American affairs. It was Hal who made it clear to me that he and I had more in common than I wanted to admit. He knew certain facts about my past that I hoped no one would ever know. He reminded me of certain events that I preferred to forget.

Unfortunately, once one has participated in a violent, clandestine life, one cannot simply shed it like a skin, or leave it behind like a former job or an old house.

Harrington also made that clear to me. And, because he did know about my past, he had the leverage to guarantee my at least occasional participation in what he referred to as “vital government service.”

When I answered the phone, Hal said, “I gather you’re alone, Commander Ford?”

“I wouldn’t have answered if I wasn’t,” I told him.

“How’s Lindsey?”

We talked about his daughter for a while. Lindsey was twenty-five now. She’d been in and out of drug-rehab facilities. Cocaine had a hold on her and wouldn’t let go. It was especially tragic because Lindsey, lean and blond, had it all: brains, looks and humor. She would have been spectacular at anything she chose to be.

It gave Harrington special motivation when he went after the drug cartel-types. His hatred of them bordered on obsession. So the subject of Lindsey now provided a natural transition.

“That’s one of the reasons I’m calling, Commander. Three weeks ago, my Number Two contacted you with what I considered a perfect assignment. We had good intel that the brother of Edgar Cordero-Giorgio-was going to spend two nights at South Beach, Miami. He’s looking for dependable mules. Apparently, the heroin and cocaine business is good.

“Edgar was one of the most ruthless men in Colombia. As far as I’m concerned, he got exactly what was coming to him. Giorgio’s no better, and he’s taken over the family business. You’ve got a personal grudge to settle with those people, but you refused the assignment. Why?”

I could see Tomlinson swing down off the marina dock, into his dinghy as I said, “Well, Hal, the way I understand it, I’ve been conscripted. Redrafted-however you want to put it, as an active, Special Duty Line Officer, an O-5. Which makes it military. It’s my understanding that the Posse Comitatus Act makes it illegal for me to accept any assignment that requires action within the boundaries of the United States.”

Harrington is not known for his patience. “That’s bullshit, Doc, and you know it. That’s easy to get around; a simple matter of procedural formality. And let’s be honest. It never stopped you before.”

As Tomlinson puttered closer, I could see that he was holding a strand of his sun bleached hair in his fingers, chewing at it-a nervous mannerism.

Something was bothering him.

I listened to Hal add, “Which brings us to another subject. Those paychecks the department’s been sending. Our records show you’ve never cashed them.”

I said, “When I feel like I’ve done something to earn the money, maybe I will. Not until then.”

“Okay, then, here’s your chance. We have hard intelligence that the successor to Sabri al-Banna, head of the ANO, is going to be vacationing in the Leeward Islands in late summer or early fall. Under a false passport, of course. His name is Omar Muhammad. Mr. Muhammad’s got a new hobby. He likes to scuba dive. The house he’s reserved is on St. Martin, the French side. It has a coral reef right off its own little private beach. Out there in the water, that might be an interesting place to introduce yourself, Commander. Find out how well Mr. Muhammad can swim.”