James Swain - The Program

“You’re a star,” he said.

A rhythmic tapping lifted Linderman’s eyes from his morning newspaper. Two taps, followed by two more taps, then a hard knock.

He went to the motel room door, threw back the chain, and opened it. Jack Carpenter, the avenging angel, stood outside, his trusty dog by his side.

“Good morning,” Linderman said.

“The eagle has landed,” Carpenter replied.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s an old line from the movies.”

“Guess I missed that one.”

Linderman ushered Carpenter and company inside and shut the door. Of all the law enforcement people he’d worked with, Carpenter was easily the most annoying, and had an uncanny ability of getting under his skin. His use of old movie lines was a good example. They were irritating as hell, yet Carpenter kept right on using them.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Linderman said.

Carpenter drew an overripe banana from the pocket of his cargo pants and peeled away the skin. “A bag of Tom’s Toffee was delivered to the grocery up the road last night. The manager put it on the shelf behind the register, waiting for it to be picked up.”

“You saw it?”

“Yeah. I was just in the store.” From his other pocket came a second banana, which he handed to Linderman. “Eat this. It will make you feel better.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Eat it anyway.”

Linderman went to the curtained window and sat down in the chair next to the telescope. He peeled the banana while spying on the grocery up the road. It was called Mel’s Foods, the owner a displaced New Yorker with a ponytail and a suspicious nature. The register was by the front door, an old silver machine that was manually operated. On the shelf behind the register sat a bag of Tom’s Toffee, the shiny silver and red colors hard to miss. He felt his heartbeat quicken, the sound reaching his ears a split-second later, like a slow, steady drumbeat.

Carpenter pulled up a chair. “Now we wait.”

He munched on the banana. He’d called Carpenter when he’d discovered that the company which made Tom’s Toffee had been shipping to a store in Marathon in the Florida Keys for the past six years. Carpenter knew Florida better than anyone, and had explained the Keys to him.

“You have to watch your step down there,” Carpenter had warned him. “There’s a lot of dirty business going on. Drugs, smuggling, that sort of shit. The natives are a tight knit community who don’t take kindly to strangers. You start poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, and soon everyone will know.”

“I think Danni is being held in Marathon,” he’d said.

“I’ll help you find her, if you want,” Carpenter had replied.

He’d taken Carpenter up on his offer. The decision had pissed off everyone in the FBI’s North Miami office, only he didn’t care what his fellow agents thought. Carpenter knew how the natives thought, and was the right person for the job.

They’d driven down to Marathon together. Carpenter had made several suggestions which Linderman had decided to follow. He’d made Linderman grow a beard, get a sun tan, and change his wardrobe to sandals, ragged T-shirts, and Bermuda shorts, the idea being to make him look like a Conch, which was what the locals called themselves.

Carpenter had also made him pick a team of agents who could pass as Conchs. No pasty-faced guys with short-hair cuts, or women with toned bodies and steely gazes. People in the Keys could smell a policeman a mile away, and they could smell an FBI agent five miles away. The team had to look right.

Linderman had picked four Latino FBI agents for his team. Their names were Jesus Aguilla, Frank Sanchez, Nester Eslava, and Javier Nocerino. The four agents had worked undercover in Miami infiltrating the drug cartels, and knew how to keep a low profile. They were checked into another motel down the road, pretending to be construction workers.

The fifth agent he’d picked for his team was Vick. Considering what she’d been through, it had only seemed right. Vick was staying in the same motel, and had colored her hair with silver streaks, and taken to smoking and walking around barefoot. She looked like a teen runaway, and fit in with the denizens that populated the area.

“Why don’t you take a break? I’ll keep watch while you’re gone,” Carpenter said an hour later.

Linderman was tired and out of sorts. All the waiting was eating a hole in him. He threw on his sunglasses and floppy hat and went for a walk.

His motel was a stone’s throw from the highway, and he walked with his back to the oncoming traffic to the marina just down the road. The marina was small and dingy, the fishing boats it harbored sporting names like Not Home and To Each His Own . He stood on the edge of the dock and drank in the scenery.

It was hard not to fall in love with the Keys. Every view was a postcard just waiting to be shot. Yet knowing that Danni was being held here darkened his perspective. His daughter’s captor had chosen to live here because the locals were prone to keeping their mouths shut, even when they saw questionable things. That didn’t mean they were bad people. It just meant that bad people were able to live among them.

A boat with an inboard motor puttered into the harbor. The man at the wheel had slicked back hair like a flamenco dancer and a diamond stud in his ear. He waved to Linderman and tossed him a rope. Linderman tied him up, and he jumped out.

“Muchas gracias,” the man said.

Linderman spied a fishing pole lying in the boat.

“How the fish biting?” Linderman asked.

“Don’t ask me,” the man replied.

The man walked off the dock and headed up the road. He was well dressed – designer jeans, leather shoes with no socks, a glittering Rolex – while his accent was hard on the vowels, perhaps South American. Like so many people Linderman had encountered in the Keys, it was impossible to know what his story was.

Linderman’s cell phone vibrated. Muriel calling. His wife thought he was out of town on an investigation. He hated lying to her, but did not want her to share the burden of his search. She had already been through enough.

“Good morning,” he answered.

“Hi. I just wanted to check in, see how you were,” she said.

“I’m okay. How about you?”

“You sound out of sorts. Are you sure everything is all right?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“We got an invitation for dinner Friday. I wanted to see if you’d be back by then.”

Friday was two days away. He wanted to say yes, he’d be home, but there was no way to know what the next few hours or days would bring.

“I wish I knew,” he said.

“So it’s no.”

Muriel sounded put out. Like she thought he was letting work kill what little social life they had.

“Can you let them know by tomorrow?” he asked.

“I guess. It’s a barbecue. Nothing fancy.”

“I’ll do everything I possibly can to be there,” he promised.

“Okay. Are you sure everything’s all right? You sound awful.”

Linderman started to tell a lie but got no further. The flashy guy with the South American accent was strolling down the shoulder of the highway toward the marina. Cradled in his arms was a brown paper bag stuffed with groceries. Peeking out of the top was the Tom’s Toffee bag, the silver and red colors lit up by the sun. It was him.

Linderman looked further up the road. Carpenter had come out of their room and was standing in the shade of the motel. He was holding a camera with a zoom lens, and was shooting photographs of the South American.