Ted Bell - Spy

Finally, the tank cleared. The Troll, with Saladin on the rear, rolled across the bridge. It seemed happy to be going home.

“Harry! You okay?”

Saladin saw Brock getting to his feet, wiping the thick mask of brown mud from his eyes, at the same time sprinting in pursuit of the tank. Saladin stuck his hand out.

Harry caught it, grabbed a rail, hauled himself aboard.

“Congratulations, Harry,” Saladin said as they both huddled around the base of the periscope, preparing to face the enemy once more. “Credit where it’s due.”

“Yeah, well,” Harry said, “I’m a professional. Do not try this at home.”

44

KEY WEST

L ucky old sun was hanging in there, low in the evening sky. Franklin W. Dixon walked over to his hotel room’s seaward window, put his hands on the sill, and took a bite of cool, wet air. The brine was sharp in his nostrils. He still hadn’t grown accustomed to the tang in the air. Not that he minded it. He could see how a man could grow to love living hard by water. One of those little houses on stilts he’d seen back in the mangrove swamps, a rowboat tied to the front porch.

He looked and looked at his view. He could hardly believe it. His hotel was the cheapest Daisy had been able to find for him, but it was smack dab on the water. It would have been quiet and peaceful, too, if not for that big neon sign that hung outside above his window.

The Green Pelican. Every few seconds, the giant bird buzzed and flapped his illuminated wings and flooded his room with watery green light. Snap, crackle, and pop went the neon buzzard, three seconds on, three seconds off, all night long.

If Key West were not some fancy resort town, you’d call his hotel a flophouse. But, from his small corner room on the top floor of the Green Pelican, he could see that picture postcard harbor spread out below. There were some small islands beyond the harbor. They were covered with pine trees and dotted with tall radio antennas, red lights up top blinking against the dark purple clouds, low on the horizon.

Every kind of motorboat and sailboat was criss-crossing the choppy water. There was a tall ship, a schooner maybe, full of party folks, whooping it up. She was heeled over and sailing right by his hotel. Only a hundred yards away! Her sails, like the sea, looked bathed in liquid copper.

The big old schooner sailed by so close he felt like he could reach out and touch her. There was music aboard, Jimmy Buffett and it rode in through his windows from across the narrow stretch of water. Franklin tapped his boot heel to the tune and said to himself, Look who wound up in Margaritaville!

Funny thing was, it was just like he’d always pictured it to be when he heard that song the first few times. Most things, in his experience, were not at all like what you pictured.

From another window, directly beneath the Green Pelican, he could look straight up colorful Duval Street. Swarms of folks were filling the sidewalks, busy buying doodads, gewgaws, and T-shirts; people hitting the bars and burger joints. Sunset was a busy time here in Key West, he figured. Well, it was sure pretty.

Dixon snapped on the television and leaned back in the wicker rocking chair. He stretched his boots out on a thin, rosy-colored carpet that smelled of tobacco and spilled whiskey. He was still stiff from sitting in the folding chair all day at the conference. Long day, but he was glad he’d come. Tomorrow, he’d say what he had to say and then he’d head back home.

There was a lot of stuff about Mexico on the news, nothing he didn’t already know. If there was any good news to be had, it was that folks up in Washington were starting to take the border crisis more seriously. Two states had ordered what little National Guard they had left to help the Border Patrol out with skirmishes. The president had ordered 6,000 more Guardsmen down to the border. He just hoped all this wasn’t a case of too-little-too-late. The Border Patrol, the agents he knew personally, were plumb wore out. It was a thankless task.

God help them if it got any worse.

He had a bottle of good bourbon over on the bedside table. His eye lit on it, but he didn’t even feel like getting up and pouring himself one. Ever since he’d spoken to Daisy on the phone here about ten minutes ago, he’d felt kind of let down. Sad and lonely wasn’t a feeling he was all that familiar with.

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you.

That’s what Daisy had said before she hung up the phone. When he was home, that was always the next to the last thing she said before she fell asleep with her long perfumed hair all spread out on the pillow.

Sweet dreams and leave your problems behind you, that was the very last thing she’d say.

He missed her so bad his heart hurt.

He woke with a start and realized he must have dozed off in his rocker. It was dark outside, and rain was blowing in. The window shades were flapping so hard he was afraid they’d bust off the rollers. He got up to shut everything down and realized what woke him wasn’t the wind. It was the phone ringing off the hook on the bedside table. He picked up, wondering who in the world would call him here besides Daisy.

“Sheriff Dixon,” he said out of habit.

“Sheriff ! I’m so glad I got you! Lord, you’re not going to believe this one!”

It was June Weaver, who ran the courthouse switchboard. She sounded all out of breath.

“June, after two days in Key West, I’d believe just about anything anybody tells me. What’s going on?”

“Well, you know today was my son Travis’s big football game? The play-offs for the State Championship?”

He’d forgotten, but he said, “Yep.”

“I was driving home after the game, just minding my own beeswax, you know, like I do, and I said, I saw, I mean, I saw—”

“June-bug, slow down. You sound like you’re about to have a heart attack. Where are you?”

“Yes, sir. I’m home. Just ran in the door.”

“Sit down and tell me what you saw.”

“Well. I was on the highway headed home. I saw something moving on my right. Over where the river makes that lazy loop, you know, where nobody should be that doesn’t have a perfect right to be there.”

“I know where you mean. No Border Patrol around?”

“No, sir. Well, I slowed down fast just to see. At first I thought it was big trucks coming across the river. But that didn’t make sense so I stopped and got out of the car. Luckily, I had my video camera, from taping the football game, laying on the front seat of the Olds. When I got out of the car, I took it with me just in case, it was something, you know, interesting.”

“What was it, June?”

“What I think it was?”

“What you think it was.”

“I think it was Mexican Army units in military Humvees crossing the Rio Grande, that’s what I think.”

Dixon took a deep breath and said, “Why do you think that, June?”

“I know what they look like, Sheriff. You know that. I was with you a few years ago, when you got that award citation from Mexico down in Laredo. These men were in Mexican Army uniforms. Real ones. And they were heavily armed. The Humvees were definitely Mexican Army vehicles. That’s what I think.”

“Did they see you?”

“Are you kidding me? No, sir, they did not! I crept up though the bushes. But, Sheriff, I got them on tape! Filmed the whole thing. I just looked at the cassette on the TV. You can see them plain as day. I swear.”

“Who’d you tell about this, June?”

“Sheriff, I drove over a hundred miles an hour to get home and call you on the telephone. Only thing I did before calling you is stick a chicken potpie in the oven. I’m half starved to death after all that excitement.”