Night Moves (Doc Ford)

17




I WAS IN THE AFT SECTION OF THE BRAZILIAN’S YACHT using a flashlight to search his stateroom when my cell buzzed: Hannah was finally returning my call. I told myself it was idiotic to attempt a conversation while trespassing on a million-dollar yacht, but I answered anyway. Lucky me for trusting bad judgment.

Sounding formal, I heard Hannah’s voice say, “My client forgot something, so I’ve got about five minutes to talk if it’s that important.”

I stiffened and asked, “You’re at the marina . . . now?” As I said it, I heard Tomlinson’s warning whistle—my pal’s criminal skills obviously rusty. I rushed to a starboard porthole and brightened the room by pushing the curtains aside.

On the phone, Hannah replied, “I don’t know why I’m not surprised you didn’t notice my skiff come back—you’re such a busy man.”

I was too rattled by what I saw through the window to respond to the barb. Vargas Diemer was already on the yacht’s boarding ramp, his knees visible only for a second before I heard the sound of his shoes on the upper deck. Two . . . three . . . four graceful paces, and I knew the Germanic Brazilian had stopped to deactivate his security system—no need to bother, but, hopefully, the man wouldn’t realize it.

Tomlinson whistled again. Three sharp blasts, fingers to his lips.

Whispering into the phone, I demanded, “What’s he looking for?” The door to the master stateroom was open, I realized. It had been closed when I arrived, so I had to make a decision fast.

“Who?” Hannah said. “You mean Tomlinson? I guess he’s whistling for your dog.” Then asked, “Where are you? Don’t tell me you’re whispering because of that woman.”

I replied, “No, what’s your client looking for?” while my brain wrestled with two options: I could either run for it or sneak the door closed and hope the Brazilian had returned for something he’d forgotten in the main cabin.

Hannah asked, “Are you drunk or just nosy?”

I came very close to replying, Neither, I’m on your client’s boat, which would have required the woman to take action—possibly attempt to help me even though the right thing to do was call 911 on behalf of her paying customer. I couldn’t put her in that position, so said, “Call you back,” and jammed the phone in my pocket, the Brazilian’s footsteps above me now, crossing the cabin toward the stairs.

Click-click. The bedroom door made a pistol hammer sound when I closed it, the brass latch sliding home, then I turned and used the flashlight, looking for a place to hide. The room consumed most of the stern area and seemed roomier for the mirrors above a bed that was framed in mahogany and joined to the wall. A dresser, two vanity mirrors, the closets and the entrance to the master bath were done in teak and brass, the curtains gold, the bedspread blue on green—the colors of Brazil’s national soccer team, I remembered. Lots of closet space, but none big enough to hold a man my size. On the bed, I also noted, was a tiny hip pack, SAGE RODS embroidered on khaki canvas. It was a fly case—probably the reason Diemer had come back.

Damn it.

No doubt about it, he’d come back for his newly tied flies. I heard the gangway door open, then Diemer’s feet on the stairs, so I crossed the room into the master bath. It smelled of aftershave and diesel. There was sink space, an antique tub bolted to the deck, a cylindrical shower beside it, the floor still wet. The shower was ringed with a privacy curtain, but it wasn’t drawn. I thought, Like I’ve got another option, and stepped into the shower, then swiped the curtain closed. Blue with green stripes again—the assassin loved his soccer.

I switched off the flashlight and waited.

Diemer wasn’t a man to whistle and hum. He came down the steps on rubber-soled shoes at a gallop that is typical of sailors. I heard the door of the master stateroom open, and didn’t hear anything else until the shower curtain rustled against my nose. The Brazilian had pushed a volume of air as he came into the room toward me but then stopped abruptly at the bathroom door.

He’s an articulate, precise man, Bernie Yeager had warned. If true, Diemer might have stopped because he noticed something different about the shower curtain. I shifted the flashlight from my left hand to my right and held it like a dagger.

“Humph.” Diemer said it with the descending inflection of a person who is puzzled. It suggested, yes, he had noticed the curtain. Now he was probably backtracking his steps that morning, visualizing his movements after exiting the shower. I would have done the same.

Slowly, so as not to disturb the curtain, I raised the flashlight to waist level, palm up—it would add the torque and lift needed if I used it to drive the Brazilian’s nose into his skull. And I would if he found me. What happened afterward, I didn’t want to explore, but couldn’t block the obvious: I might have to kill a man to cover the minor crime of trespassing. Sobering . . . No, I was sickened by the thought, never mind that Diemer might also kill me. One was as bad as the other, I realized in that instant. Either way, life in Dinkin’s Bay as I knew it would be over. Grab the false passports, pack a few things, then flee to Central America, where at least I’d be closer to my son. Or Cuba—a government in chaos that might welcome someone like me.

Dumbass!

The prospect of ending my years on Sanibel this way, because of my own stupid misjudgment, was as distressing as falling from the sky in an airplane. There was nothing I could do now, though, but let it play out.

Focus, I told myself. He’s coming.

Like a psycho in some movie, I waited behind the curtain, flashlight gripped, as Diemer voiced puzzlement again—“Humph”—then muttered a Latin profanity that had the ring of surprise. When his feet moved on the varnished wood, I got ready, certain he knew my location, when I heard the man say, “Hello?” Said it in a testing way as if he expected an answer.

I didn’t respond, of course—why make it easy for him? Still crouched, I coiled my body to the right so hips and thighs could generate power when the curtain was thrown open.

Then I heard, “Where are you?”

Why the hell was an elite killer asking me an absurd question instead of taking action? It made no sense until I heard Diemer say, “I didn’t expect you to call,” which is when I realized the profanity he’d muttered was in response to a cell phone vibrating in his pocket.

I released a slow, hushed breath and listened to a one-sided conversation. It was in English, which suggested the call was from somewhere in the U.S. No . . . the call was local because I heard Diemer say, “I see . . . Yes, I see . . . But why so important? Okay . . . yes, yes—I will be there in one minute!”

More Portuguese profanity, but not heated. The Germanic Brazilian wasn’t a man who lost control of his temper. Two staccato zipping sounds also proved his attention to detail—Diemer was confirming the fishing lures were in their case before he closed the door to the stateroom, then galloped up the stairs.

Seconds later, I could hear his footsteps above me, but I wasn’t in the clear yet. Was the jet-set assassin so compulsive that he would actually test the security system before reactivating it? If he did, the mysterious shower curtain would explain why the alarm had been silenced. I had used a portable jamming unit no bigger than a book, set on a frequency that didn’t interrupt cell service—a lucky coincidence that I didn’t fully appreciate until more seconds had passed and I watched the Brazilian exit the boarding ramp, then stride gracefully away from A-Dock.

I needed air, felt a dizzying oxygen debt that couldn’t be replenished until I was off the Brazilian’s damn boat and back in the lab. The logician that steers my behavior argued against abandoning a search I hadn’t yet started. Called me a fool, and explained quite logically that Diemer had probably left to deal with some irritating detail. Afterward, he would hurry straight to Hannah’s boat, eager to enjoy a fishing trip that was already behind schedule. Statistically speaking, the logician told me, now was actually a broader, safer window in which to paw through the man’s personal possessions.

Screw the odds, I told the logician.

Coward, the logician concluded accurately.

I didn’t care. Never again did I want to experience what I’d felt while waiting for the Brazilian to throw open that shower curtain. I’d made a basic error in judgment and wasn’t going to compound it. In the Homo sapiens’ guidebook, the reasons should be bulleted under the heading Don’t piss in your own pond or crap in your own nest. I had done exactly that, but for the last time.

Taking calculated risks in South America, Asia, Africa—fine. All part of the job. But how I live, and where I live, composes the fabric of who I am. Death? It’s inevitable. Living among friends in a good place, though, is a temporal pleasure, an inviolate choice not to be risked because of something I had always suspected, but now believed: a life well lived trumps every damn drab, existential alternative, so don’t screw it up!

I was getting off that damn boat fast, but safely.

Like a teenage burglar, I hurried from porthole to porthole monitoring Diemer’s movements. He didn’t rush, a man with dignity who enjoyed attention. Which gave me time to notice the room’s only personal appointment, aside from soccer team colors, was a photo on the cabin wall: a teenage girl; blond, gawky, with braces, but cute in an agrarian way. A family resemblance in her aristocratic nose, the Germanic cheeks—Diemer’s daughter, I guessed, or a niece. The photo seemed out of place in a space so impersonal and utilitarian, and also because it was the bedroom of a bachelor. The man had at least one sentimental bond, apparently.

I moved topside and peeked through cabin curtains. Finally, when the Brazilian was aboard Hannah’s skiff flying across Dinkin’s Bay, I exited the yacht as if I owned the thing and went to find Tomlinson. He was under the poinciana tree next to the gift shop.

“I didn’t notice Hannah come back because I was busy herding Jeth away from the docks,” he explained, his nervous fingers twisting a lock of hair. “Damn, that was close, Doc!”

I said, “You turned that guy around just in time—thanks. How’d you get his cell number?”

Tomlinson gave me a blank stare in response: Huh?

My friend tugged at his hair and shook his head. “I didn’t call the man. I wanted to call, but you’re right, his number isn’t in the office. So I was on my way back to A-Dock to maybe kick the side of his boat or scream ‘Fire!’ I don’t know . . . do something that would distract him, but then the dude reappears. Looked like he was in a hurry . . . and I didn’t see any blood on his hands, so”—Tomlinson shrugged—“I figured everything was copasetic. What the hell happened in there?”

I was flipping through various explanations. Barring coincidence—which was possible but unlikely—there was only one possibility.

My eyes searched for my former flats skiff, scanning from west to east across the bay, while I explained, “He got a phone call seconds before the shit really hit the fan. The caller said they needed him right away. He took off.”

My skiff was there, just off Woodring Point, a mile away, a dark husk supporting a lean vertical silhouette that was Hannah Smith.

“Saved your ass,” Tomlinson agreed, “whoever made that call.”

“Yeah,” I told him. “She really did.”

—

THAT NIGHT, because the moon was too bright for sleeping, I rode my bike to the beach and jogged a mile of ocean, turned, then picked up the pace all the way back to Tarpon Bay Road. Because I was without a running partner, I took the dog, who trotted at heel when he wasn’t trying to retrieve waves.

Vargas Diemer was in the lab waiting when I returned, a day’s growth of beard sculpted onto his Zorro face—the Hollywood look. Surprise!

I’d left the lights on, the doors unlocked as always. Even so, it was unusual to find an elite killer sitting at my desk, reading from a folder I’d left on the autoclave. Worse, there was a black semiauto pistol near his right hand. A sound suppressor lengthened the weapon. It added a look of surgical intent.

When I pushed the screen door open, the man didn’t bother to look up as he said with only a trace of accent, “I decided to return the favor, Dr. Ford.” To his left was a photo, and he spun it in front of me. An unseen lens had caught me studying his yacht’s security monitor while in search of unseen lenses. Stupid, that’s how he expected me to feel. I did.

“A filament camera,” Diemer explained, “self-contained in a memory stick. Remember moving it? Chiflado, you break into my vessel, that is a very sloppy thing to do. Now you’re surprised I’m here? Come on, man!”

His stilted English, no longer stilted, had a touch of the barrio now that he had me alone, a pistol within reach. No point in denying I’d been aboard, so I let the door close behind me, saying, “Breaking and entering usually isn’t a shooting offense. But maybe the laws are different in Brazil.”

The pistol—did he intend to use it? That’s what I had to know before I took another step. Behind me, the retriever made his grunting sound, and I thought, Now? Why not a mile ago!

Diemer, still reading, said, “I know something about these missing planes—is a hobby of mine, the European war. So I sit down expecting to read the same old stories, but no, man, instead I find some information that’s new to me. Interesting, some of this shit.”

He had picked up the folder on Flight 19, I realized. It contained Dan’s summary as well as photos of the tail section and other items we’d uncovered. Now I was wondering, Is that why he came to Dinkin’s Bay?

Or . . . maybe wrong yet again because the man looked at me for the first time, adjusted his wire glasses, and left the barrio behind. “Until tonight,” he said, “when my computer showed a security breach, I’d never heard of you. Thought you were just another American hick because of that dumb act you used yesterday. Christ, and I bought it! So I”—the man became more animated—“you know, made some calls to my people, asked around. After what I hear I’m, like, Wow! How could I be so wrong ’bout a guy might be a badass!”

Diemer was showing off, changing accents with the ease of an actor—a useful tool for a jet-set assassin but irritating. Nothing I could do but stare at the pistol and gauge my options as he dropped the act. “We have things in common, Dr. Ford. But no one mentioned your interest in aviation archaeology. Could be, though, your sources are better. The National Security Agency has a ton of money”—he motioned vaguely to indicate the lab’s construction—“but obviously doesn’t pay worth a damn. You ever get tired of being a poor working slob? Consulting work is something you might consider. The finest of everything, and a better class of people.”

The Brazilian had dark eyes, more Latin than German, but his superior demeanor added attentive sparks. The man who’d forgotten his fly case seldom missed a detail, and I got the impression he wanted me to know he was good at what he did. I looked from him to the pistol, then back, and said, “I need some Gatorade and a towel. You want anything? Or did you already check the fridge?”

A smile, definitely a smile—the guarded variety used by neurosurgeons and others who’ve been taught that emotion signals deficiency. “A census switch on my cabin door told me you stayed for only nine minutes. Nothing missing, so I figure you got nervous. Surprising behavior”—he paused for effect—“for an operator who’s supposedly a legend in the field.”

The Brazilian’s middle finger was tapping the pistol grip as I replied, “Your boat’s too close to home, so I pulled the plug. Maybe it’ll happen to you one day.”

“Is that an explanation—or an excuse?”

“Committing a felony isn’t as much fun in your own backyard,” I said. “You’re a long way from São Pedro, but I’m counting on you having better judgment.”

“And that means . . . ? Oh! You’re worried about this,” Diemer said, then swept his hand over the pistol and had the muzzle pointed at my face before I could react. Held it there for a second, savoring the power, then pointed it away. “I thought this might help convey a message. Bad form to board a private vessel without permission, old boy. Particularly my vessel.” He glared at me. “Don’t ever do it again, homey—o es fodido! Understand?”

Portuñol slang. Or you’re screwed, it probably meant, but I was more concerned with the damn pistol. If the Brazilian was crazy enough to shoot me in my own home, submissive behavior wouldn’t stop him. So I asked, “A Beretta?” Said it coolly to negate the way I’d almost thrown up my hands in surrender.

“Sig Sauer,” he answered, lowering the weapon. “Called a Mosquito—a stupid name for a piece that chambers twenty-two hollow-points as smooth as this little number. Care to try?” Diemer popped the magazine, cleared the weapon, then held it by the barrel for me to take. That quick, the real Vargas Diemer—the articulate killer—was replaced by Diemer the charming foreigner who had worked hard to learn English. His standby persona, I guessed, when dealing with those who might be of some use.

My fists relaxed, but I wasn’t going to let the man see me take a deep breath. “I need something to drink and a dry T-shirt,” I said, turning. “So go ahead . . . make yourself right at home.”

Diemer didn’t miss the sarcasm. “Americans are such a friendly people!” he said, then coughed. No . . . it was the way he imitated laughter.