Everglades (33 page)

It was happening to him now. He was helpless.

“You fucking little pervert Peeping Tom. On a lady as nice as her. What I maybe might do is break both your arms, then pull your kneecaps off.” The Italian was nodding, his expression crazed. “Yeah, both kneecaps. I’ll push ’em down by your ankles. Make it so you got to crawl around on your belly.”

Barely able to breathe with the man’s hand clenching his throat, Izzy was shaking his head desperately. In a rasping whisper, he said, “You’ve got the wrong idea. Geoff Minster . . . trying to find out what happened to Geoff.
Investigating.
Like you.”

The Italian loosened his grip slightly. “Sure, Mac. What the hell you guys care about Minster?”

“He stole money from us. A hundred . . . a hundred grand.”

Actually, Izzy had stolen the money; set it up to look as though Minster had done it.

The Italian seemed to be considering it, though; as if it might be true. His grip became even looser as he said, “Bullshit. You hid cameras in her bathroom to find out about her husband? How dumb you think I am, Mac?”

Izzy didn’t hesitate. He used the momentary lapse to knock the Italian’s hands free, then tried to slam the heel of his open palm into the big man’s nose.

Same thing. It was as if the man knew in advance what Izzy was going to try.

He blocked the punch, no problem, then slapped Izzy three times, very fast. The slow smile that then spread across the Italian’s face was chilling. He grabbed Izzy’s right wrist, saying, “Like those pigeons last Saturday. Let’s find out if you can fly, motherfucker.”

Then the man lifted him without effort, grunted and spun him over the stairway banister.

Falling toward the ground floor, Izzy screamed—a shrill falsetto—kicking wildly. He landed hard on his left side, and lay there, groaning, hearing the heavy footsteps of the Italian coming down the stairs, in no hurry now.

It felt to Izzy like his left shoulder might be broken. Like there was something sharp sticking out of his own skin. From the first-aid classes he’d taken during Mossad training, he knew the term. Compound fracture. There’d been a photograph in the manual. Sickening to see.

Experimentally, he touched his shoulder with the gloved fingertips of his right hand, expecting to feel bare bone. Instead of bone, though, he felt the checkered grip of his .22 Beretta.

He’d landed on his own gun.

Izzy pulled the gun into his hands, and was already aiming it at the Italian as he got to his knees, then his feet. When the Italian realized what had happened, saw Izzy standing there, the gun trained on him, the big man’s expression changed. It was like a shade being pulled.

He stopped halfway down the stairs. Stood there considering the situation, thinking about it. Then the man’s expression changed once more—got that same crazed glare—and he started down the stairs again.

Izzy said, “Stop right there, asshole! You get any closer, I’ll shoot you.”

Which Izzy didn’t want to do. Not here. Not in the house. Way too much evidence. Which the Italian also seemed to know, because he kept walking, his eyes like lasers. “Go ahead and shoot me, Mac. A little sissy gun like that, if I get my hands on you, I’m going to tear your fucking head right off anyway. So make it good.”

Now Izzy was backing away, holding the gun, but still afraid of the man who was walking calmly toward him, wanting to end it somehow, make him stop. So he said, “If you don’t cooperate, I’ll have to kill the woman, too, when she gets back. I’ll have to shoot her because you’re not giving me any other choice.”

That did it. The Italian stopped, furious, but at least becoming rational about the situation. “Then why don’t you just get the fuck out of here right now!”

Izzy said quickly. “I
will.
But you’ve got to do what I say. Stay cool, cooperate, you won’t get hurt. The lady won’t get hurt. First, you got to tell me—who drove off in your car?”

The Italian paused a little too long. “Two off-duty cops. They’re going to be back any minute.”

He was lying.

“Are you carrying a weapon?”

“You think I’m going to tell you, dumbass? Why don’t you search me and find out.”

No way was he going to let the guinea get close enough to get his hands on him again. It didn’t look like he was carrying: a refrigerator-sized man with biceps, wearing a seedy white shirt and wrinkled slacks. A guy trying to look sharp, but didn’t know how to pull it off. No holster visible.

Izzy said, “Look, all I want to do is get my camera shit and get out of here. So, we’re going to find some tape. I’m going to have you tape your right wrist to your ankles. Just to slow you down a little. Then I’m out of here.”

When the Italian didn’t budge, Izzy used the pistol to motion toward the kitchen. “Goddamn it, move! You do what I tell you to do, no one gets hurt. Fuck with me, I’m gonna have to kill her.”

His heart was pounding; he was scared—
Jesus, how am I going to make this work?
But there was still a trace of a smile on Izzy’s face as he added, “Trust me, man. I promise.”

 

 

It turned out, the guy who drove off in the pimpmobile was a chicken-skinny man even older than the security guard who’d surprised Izzy the week before.

He was the guinea’s
landlord,
for God’s sake. Just some old retired dude who had nothing better to do then hang out, doing favors. Probably wanted to add a little excitement to his life; help the dick set his little trap.

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.

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.”

I said, “Omar Muhammad, huh?”

Abul Nidal Organization, or ANO, has carried out terrorist attacks in dozens of countries, killing or injuring thousands of people. Targets have included the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel and even moderate Pales tinians. They like bombs. The ANO is responsible for putting a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103 that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. Other major attacks included the Rome and Vienna airports, the Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul and the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73.