Doc Ford 19 - Chasing Midnight (28 page)

Now we were only fifty yards from the lodge, close enough for me to slow down and adjust the thermal monocular as I listened to Tomlinson say, “Or maybe the pilot will notice all the lights are out and they’ll do a flyover and take a look.” He snapped his fingers. “Start a fire. That’s what we need to do. A fire would bring them running.”

I exhaled in a way that communicated irritation, then knelt to do a quick thermal survey of the fishing lodge. Mosquitoes hovered near my ears, I was sweat soaked from running and my shaky hands were symptomatic of dehydration as I mounted the monocular over my eye. The first spot I checked was the fourth-floor balcony. If Trapper, the Third Planet lookout, was still at his post, he’d have a clear shot at us as we approached the porch.

It was a good thing I looked. Trapper was there. Instead of a rifle, though, he was holding binoculars to his face. It took me a moment to figure out that he had spotted the helicopter and was watching it continue its low-level search. Judging from the man’s antsy movements, he was scared. He didn’t know I had released an emergency transmitter, so he assumed the Coast Guard helicopter was coming after him and his gang.

Good. The Neinabor twins were sociopaths, but Kahn, Trapper and Densler were nothing but egocentric screwups with terrible judgment. Cowards, too, so the helicopter might scare them into surrendering before anyone else was killed.

Yeah… Trapper was spooked, because now, as I watched, he was yelling something through the open doorway, yelling loud enough for me to hear but not understand.

“He’s warning them,” Tomlinson said softly. “He thinks the cops are coming. Let’s hope the Diablo twins panic and run like hell.”

As he said it, I watched Trapper kneel, get his rifle and disappear into the room in a rush to get downstairs.

I asked, “How much time do we have?”

“Six minutes. But it’s not like we synchronized our watches.”

“I want to be sure of what we’re walking into. Give me another minute, then I’ll get into position. You understand what you’re supposed to do, right?”

Tomlinson said, “Simple. I call the twins outside and you try to take them from behind. And you’re not going to use the gun unless you have to. You promised.”

I hadn’t promised Tomlinson anything, and I was tempted to point out that, accident or not, he had forfeited the right to lecture me on the bad karma consequences of violence.

I replied, “Yep, very simple—unless they decide to shoot before you open your mouth. The important thing is, stop at least ten paces
from the porch. That’s important. Get too close to the porch, I’ll lose sight of you from the side of the house. Got that?”

“What if the twins don’t come out? Or won’t open the door?”

“We’ll have to play it by ear—but
do not
get any closer than about ten yards from that porch or I can’t protect you.” The man was thinking about it as I asked, “Are you sure you’re okay with standing out there in the open? I can try to pick them off from a side window before they realize what’s happening.”

“Nope, absolutely not. We’ve got to put a stop to this existential bullshit. It’s all about getting derailed into the wrong dimensions, you know.”

Spooked by his own seriousness, maybe, he tried to downplay it by saying he could invoke a trance that would cloak him from bullets, before adding, “If not, I’ve always wondered what the goat feels like when it’s waiting for the lion.”

I was searching the third floor, where I had seen what I assumed to be restaurant staff huddled together in a guest room. The room was at the back of the lodge, though, and the TAM’s heat sensors failed to pierce the interceding walls.

After a quick sweep of the second floor, I focused on the dining-room area where Sharon and her friends were being held. At first, I was heartened by what I saw: a female shape was walking toward the next room unrestrained. But then I realized it was Winifred Densler when she stopped at the bar and poured what was probably vodka into a glass radiant with heat from her fingers.

Nearby, two males—Kahn and one of the Neinabor twins, gauging from their height—stood talking. Kahn was bouncing something in his left hand with the jauntiness of some speakeasy gangster flipping a coin at a bus stop. I couldn’t identify the object. It was an amorphous shape with a rhythmic liquidity that appeared to change in size as it moved.

As I watched, Kahn and Neinabor turned in unison when a third male descended into the room from the stairway. It was Trapper, just arrived from his lookout post, in a hurry to spread the news about the helicopter. He must have been talking loud enough to be heard in the trophy room because the second Neinabor twin soon appeared.

It was Odus, and he was mad about something, as usual. He was easy to identify because of the wild arm gestures as he confronted Kahn, close enough to stand chin to chin if Odus had been six inches taller.

Beside me, Tomlinson whispered, “Are the women okay? What do you see?”

“If any of them were alive when we got here,” I told him, “they’re safe for now. All four of your symbiotic brothers are in the bar, too busy to shoot anyone. I think they’re arguing about the helicopter, what they should do next. Densler’s in the bar, too. Drunk and getting drunker.”

“Doc, I feel shitty enough without the sarcasm.”

The man was right. I’d pushed it too far. “Sorry. That was unfair.” I tilted the monocular away from my eye and said, “Let’s move while they’re arguing. You ready?”

“Ready, willing and unstable.”

I collected the rifle and checked the pistol’s magazine one last time. It was an expensive piece, a 9mm Smith & Wesson, one round in the chamber, eleven stacked and waiting, ivory grips and a chrome-plated body with lots of complicated engraving. It could have belonged to Kazlov or Armanie—both were garish enough to own such a weapon.

As I levered the hammer back and engaged the safety, I said, “I’m curious. How’d you get this pistol? Your hands were taped, and Armanie’s a fairly tough guy. Or was, anyway.” I hadn’t asked earlier
because when police are involved, sometimes the less you know, the better.

Because it was dark, I couldn’t tell if Tomlinson was smiling as he replied, “I used my mystic trance of invisibility. Great for women’s shower rooms and stealing guns. Tomorrow, at Dinkin’s Bay, we’ll start your lessons. It takes years to learn.”

I said, “Deal,” then sprinted toward the side window of the fishing lodge.

S
haron Farwell was still alive. So were her friends—the nicest surprise so far in this long, long night.

I had slipped along the edge of the building, through a hedge of jasmine, lifted one eye to the window and there they were. The ladies sat a few yards away against a wall, hands still tied behind them, Sharon in the middle with her exhausted friends resting their heads on her shoulders.

It was a touching scene, but I didn’t let my attention linger. Tomlinson was watching me from the shadows, awaiting my signal. It was almost deadline time—and his nerves were too brittle to go for long without communicating. I ducked beneath the window, then stood with my back to the wall so the man could see me. I gave him a thumbs-up, which he might or might not interpret correctly. Next, I held up a fist, which meant
Halt
or
Wait
, depending on the circumstances as my occasional scuba partner knew. After the man replied with a thumbs-up, I returned to the window. I didn’t want to move
until I’d done my best to fix the positions of everyone in the lodge—most importantly, the Neinabor twins.

Sharon was awake. I watched her try to wiggle her legs into a more comfortable position, then say something to her friends. Yes, they were all alive. It was reason enough to continue with our plan to surprise the twins and disarm them, preferably alive. I had no moral reservations about shooting one or both, but that would guarantee long sessions with police. Worse, it would make headlines. Killing the brothers would put my freedom in jeopardy and compromise my low-profile lifestyle at Dinkin’s Bay. The same was now true of Tomlinson, whose guilt was unambiguous if a smart cop took an interest. Terminating the lives of two sociopaths was sensible, in my Darwinian view of the world, but it wasn’t practical, considering the risks.

I looked beyond the dining room, through open French doors that revealed a portion of the bar. The first thing I noticed was the incongruity of a photographer’s vest, pockets laden, hanging on a hat rack near the door. The irony caused me to smile. Kahn, or the twins, had placed the vest there for safekeeping but in fact might have provided me with an another weapon. But how could I use it?

I let my subconscious consider the options while I shifted my attention to what was going on in the bar.

Densler was there. She had passed out, her upper body sprawled across a table where a stub of candle burned. And I could see one of the twins—Odus, I guessed. He was still arguing with Trapper and Kahn, although they were blocked from my view. I confirmed it by using thermal vision to count the heat signatures on the other side of the wall. Four people in all, which meant that Geness had probably returned to his trophy room, the office where they were holding Darius Talas.

That accounted for all but one person, not counting the employees hiding upstairs. Where was Umeko? I hadn’t seen her since we’d
left for Armanie’s rental house and her absence was disturbing. We’d heard two gunshots, yet the women from Captiva Island were still alive. Who had the twins executed? Talas was a possibility, or maybe the four staff members had been rousted from their hiding place on the third floor. Umeko was a more likely choice, though, because the twins already suspected she was a spy. If Talas had been forced to confess that she was also Lien Bohai’s daughter, it would have sealed her fate.

I barely knew Umeko, but I was impressed by her resilience and intellect—a tad intimidated, too. Because it was painful to believe she’d been executed, I considered a more hopeful possibility: Geness Neinabor had fired those shots into the ground to torment me. And also to remind me that he was awaiting the truth about how he and his brothers would be judged. That he believed my fanciful lie would have been amusing if it didn’t illustrate how crazy the man actually was. On the other hand, maybe it had awakened Geness’s conscience to the possibility that murder was wrong. No… that was wishful thinking. Abraham, his alter ego, wouldn’t tolerate it.

Thinking about the dead triplet caused me to test the rifle’s scope by shouldering the weapon, centering the crosshairs on the photographer’s vest, then lowering it to a side pocket that bulged with the weight of one of my homemade weapons.

But which weapon?

There was no way of knowing, that was the problem. One of the jars contained an incendiary mix that required a flame to ignite it. In movies, a bullet might cause a gas tank to explode, but that doesn’t work in real life. Only a few paces away, though, the candle sputtered on the table where Densler slept, its flame burrowing its way through the wax.

I thought about it for a moment, then aimed the rifle at Odus Neinabor, taking my time, breathing into my belly, as I steadied the
scope’s crosshairs so that they segmented the man’s temple. My timing was good because, at that instant, the twin checked his watch and yelled to his brother, “Hey, Geness! It’s time. Ford’s not back yet!” which I heard faintly through the window.

Sadly, Sharon and her friends heard it, too. Their vocal reaction was a garble of panic that ascended into a wail so heartbreaking that I was tempted to shatter the window, shoot Odus and anyone else who threatened the women.

Instead, I turned and signaled Tomlinson to action. Immediately, the man stepped into the open and strode toward the front porch, calling, “I’m back! Stop everything! I found Kazlov, I found Kazlov!” which was exactly as we’d planned.

I spun toward the window and this time aimed the rifle at Neinabor’s chest because he was moving and still talking as he pulled his semiauto pistol from his waistband. At this range, the scope was a liability. The rifle was a cut-down knockoff of a Remington 800, but the scope was an expensive Leupold, elevation and windage knobs clearly marked, with a side-mounted parallax adjustment. It was an instrument designed for long-range targets, which is why I couldn’t get it focused on Odus, who was less than fifteen yards away.

The Smith & Wesson pistol was in the waistband of my shorts, but the rifle was still a better option. The twin would have been a can’t-miss kill at this distance. A target didn’t have to be in focus to be obliterated by the weapon’s heavy grain bullet, so I had my finger on the trigger, ready to shoot, when the twin heard Tomlinson’s voice and stopped. I watched Odus pause, surprised. Then he looked at his pistol as if disappointed and tilted his head to yell, “Hey, Geness! Mr. Freaky-Freak is back!”

It wasn’t until Odus turned toward the front door, though, that I moved my finger to the outside of the trigger guard… hesitated…
then squared the crosshairs on the photographer’s vest once again, breathing with purpose because anxiety was creating a growing pressure within me. Where the hell was Geness Neinabor? Certainly he’d heard his brother calling. The guy was wearing a wristwatch, so he knew our deadline had passed. I’d already decided that if Geness didn’t appear, our plan was doomed—and so was Odus Neinabor because I would shoot him if he so much as lifted his pistol toward Tomlinson.