Everglades (40 page)

Standing in line, waiting to hand his first-class ticket to the attendant, Izzy couldn’t make himself relax. He’d had a couple of beers with lunch at Cheers in the main terminal, then three Bloody Marys at the Crown Room.

They didn’t even dent the tension in him. Until he was in the plane, off the ground, some cop or Fed could come up any second, tap him on the shoulder and say, “We need to ask you a few questions.”

As long as he was still in Miami, still in U.S. airspace, it was all right there with him.

The Italian, surprising him the way he did, had nearly screwed up all those months of planning. Izzy was a perfectionist. Had always been a perfectionist. He hated improvising last-minute changes. But he’d had to do it. And until just now, when he’d successfully received the account number and password from Carter, nothing had gone the way he’d wanted.

On Friday night, getting the two men taped and loaded into the truck of the pimpmobile was a nightmare. He’d been scared shitless that some security cop, or some neighbor, was going to come snooping around.

So how should he do it? Drive them to some secluded place, and pop them? Or risk the noise and do it ghetto-style, like someone high on crack who really didn’t give a damn who they killed or how, just as long as they found money for drugs?

Even with his mouth taped, the old man was bawling like a baby when Izzy touched the Beretta to the back of his head.

But not the big guinea. With those black eyes of his, the guinea had looked at Izzy like he would have ripped him apart and eaten him if he could have gotten his hands free. One scary son-of-a-bitch.

No fear, either. Not a whimper. Even as Izzy put the barrel behind his ear, and said, “I’m gonna count to three real slow, then your fucking head’s coming off.”

The guinea had shrugged, like he didn’t much care.

It took the pleasure out of it; the power-feeling it normally gave Izzy.

Same with the Merry Widow. She’d been the biggest disappointment. Turned out she wasn’t so merry. Like the wop, she wasn’t afraid, either. Not after she got herself under control, anyway.

For most of Saturday, he’d kept her in the back of the U-Haul, tied and gagged. He had so much work to do! But, every now and then, he’d pull into some secluded spot, remove the gag, and try to have a little fun.

She wouldn’t cooperate. Even after he’d slapped her a few times, she’d steady herself on her knees, eyes turned skyward, repeating over and over, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He restoreth my soul . . .”

Which sure as hell ruined the mood.

Plus, she wasn’t afraid. Nothing he did, nothing he threatened, frightened her.

So, as far as enjoying himself, the whole deal had been a bust. But that was okay. He had Nicaragua to look forward to. His own tropical island paradise, and plenty of money now to enjoy it.

When the attendant took his ticket, and passed it through the scanner, Izzy felt his heart rate increase—he’d been worried they’d cull him out into the security line. Not that he had anything on him to hide. It was the delay he dreaded.

Now, though, he grinned at the attendant, shouldered his briefcase, and walked down the ramp, feeling a little spring in his step.

One Bloody Mary later, Izzy was lounging in his first-class seat, looking out the starboard window as the plane lifted off, ascending and banking. He was looking west into a blazing aftermath of a sunset sky. He could see domino rows of houses that thinned, then ended abruptly on a demarcation of unbroken light that he knew was the edge of the Everglades. It was a golden void connected to a golden sky, prairie and sky linked by a thin black tether of horizon.

He checked his watch.

Eight-twenty P.M.

He’d left the Merry Widow, Sally Minster, with her hands and legs tied, mouth taped, in the front seat of the U-Haul, doors locked, engine running so to produce the necessary voltage to detonate the barrels of ammonium nitrate loaded into the rear.

Hey—if she’d been more cooperative, he’d have gone easier on her.

So much for the evidence.

The Feds, though, would be all over it. The underground stuff would be harder to find. But chunks of a U-Haul lying around?

Too bad for the supercilious hippie. Too bad for Jerry Singh.

Izzy had grown to despise the man.

Now he held up one finger to get the attention of the lean, redheaded flight attendant—service was always so much better in first class. He smiled his lady’s-man smile, dimples showing, as he said, “When you get some time, how about another Bloody Mary?”

Then Izzy Kline sat back and released a long, slow breath, the tension flowing out of him, replaced by a feeling of liberation so powerful that it seemed a mix of serenity and deliverance.

chapter thirty

We
rounded a stand of cypress, the hull of
Chekika’s Shadow
skidding, then catching on its starboard chine. A half-mile or so ahead, I could see the elevated rim of the abandoned limestone quarry.

We were back in karst country. For millions of years, rain and flowing water had created conduits, caverns out of rock; a slow geologic cataclysm that showed in the gray limestone piled high above sawgrass.

In my earphones, I heard Tomlinson yell, “There it is! We’ve got to go faster, man. Can’t you go faster?”

No. Running at sixty miles per hour in an airboat is like turning a boat with a flat hull into a hurricane wind. I’d already come close to wobbling out of control a couple of times. Any faster and I feared we’d hydroplane into the air, then pitch-pole to disaster.

Within the last four minutes, we’d felt the boat rock with two, perhaps three or more tremors. Hard to tell for certain, because these explosions—and that’s undoubtedly what they were—seemed to come from behind us, at opposing spots on the perimeter of the outdoor amphitheater, Cypress Ashram.

Long ago, I’d spent months training with various explosives, and I’d used them, when required, for several years afterwards. Pros with explosives have zero tolerance when it comes to the people whom they teach. You learn, you remember or you get the hell out. So I’d learned.

Izzy Kline had, apparently, bracketed the amphitheater with underground charges. He’d staggered the timers to go off every one or two minutes. With the shock of each tremor, Tomlinson would cry out as if in pain, but I found the pattern of explosions encouraging. If the first explosion occurred at 7:48 P.M., the last explosion would almost certainly occur as predicted by Shiva—at sunset. Maybe a minute or two later, just for better effect.

I checked my watch again: 7:52 P.M.

If I was right, we had five minutes. With luck, we had a little longer.

Against my better judgment, I pushed the accelerator closer to the floor and held it there. I felt my cheeks begin to flutter with wind torque; felt the hull beneath me rise as if elevated by the razor edge of sawgrass.

Standing between us and the limestone quarry was a marsh of swamp maples, cattails and arrow plants. The trees and cattails were coated in golden light, casting black shadows eastward. If there were old lighter pine stumps in there, or hidden cypress knees, and we collided, we were dead. Even so, I kept the accelerator mashed flat, right hand sweaty on the joystick.

Instead of hitting stumps, though, we flushed a hidden populace of wildlife. Two gigantic gators bucked out of our way, one of them hitting the hull so hard with its tail that he nearly flipped us. A cloud of snowy egrets flushed before us, too: white wading birds that angled away, banking, then igniting as a single, flaming pointillism in the burnished light.

In my earphones, I heard Tomlinson say, “Panthers! Two of them!”

There they were: two flaxen-colored animals the size of retrievers, running fast, their long tails swinging like rudders.

I kept my eyes fixed on the rim of the abandoned quarry, and noted that there was something different about the area. It took me a moment to identify the change, and then connect it with what Billie Egret had already told me.

The previous week, the quarry had been on the edge of a shallow marsh. Now the marsh was dry but for a small, crater-shaped lake. The lake was several hundred yards from the quarry, at the terminus of a descending ridge of limestone that was overgrown with scrub grass and small melaleucas. The perimeter of the lake was as round as the rim of a volcano. It held water that mirrored a molten sky.

James Tiger had also told us about it.
Lost Lake.
The lake that was visible only when the ’Glades were nearly dry. The lake to which, Billie had said, tarpon had returned. She’d wanted me to see it.

Maybe I would. Later.

Still traveling near top speed, I angled the airboat toward the access road that climbed the ridge. Then I turned hard onto the road, banging our way up marl and limestone, the hull shuddering. As we breached the top of the ridge, Tomlinson was already shouting, “It’s there. The truck’s there!”

A medium-sized U-Haul, with a bed that extended over the cab, was backed in tight against the wall of limestone where, a week before, we’d seen the white GMC pickup.

Sliding to a stop, I yelled, “We’ll gut the hull if I try to jump across that rock. Stay here; I’ll run for it.”

But Tomlinson had already bailed while the boat was still moving, throwing his earphones off, sprinting hard down the incline toward the truck.

I looked at my watch: 7:54 P.M.

Three minutes until sunset.

 

 

Tomlinson has always been faster than I. Now, though, in the worst shape of my life, he left me far behind as he sprinted the hundred yards or so to the U-Haul.

“Doc, she’s here! She’s in the truck!” He was pulling at the door handle on the driver’s side. It was locked. Still pulling at the door, he banged on the window. “Sally. Are you okay?
Sally!
”

He ran around to the other door, saying, “Oh God, I think she’s dead!”

I ran harder, feeling an appalling sense of loss and failure; was also aware that, in three minutes or so—maybe less—the truck was going to blow up. I’d made Tomlinson come with me. I was responsible, and now I was going to get him killed, too.

Still running, I yelled, “Are you sure she’s dead? Get
away
from there. I’ll try to get her out.”

He was pulling at the passenger door now—it was also locked. I leaned and picked-up a baseball-sized chunk of limestone and was coming around to the driver’s side of the truck as Tomlinson, banging on the opposite window, yelled, “Sally! We’re going to get you out.” After a pause, he then said, “Doc, she’s
alive.
”

And there she was, my friend from childhood, lying naked on the seat, her hands and feet tied, her mouth and most of her face covered with duct tape, a purple swelling on her left temple, her jade-blue eyes wide, tears welling—an expression of joyous disbelief—staring back at me.

I yelled to her, “Close your eyes!”

The chunk of limestone broke in my hand when I smashed it against the door’s window, but the glass shattered. It became a pliant, plastic shield. I used the remaining chunk of rock to knock the window open, calling to Tomlinson, “Check the back of the truck. If it’s not locked, I might be able to disconnect the detonator.”

Unconsciously, I’d already assessed the situation; the steps I’d have to take. The truck’s engine was running—there could be only one reason: voltage. If the bed was full of ammonium nitrate, Kline had probably rigged some kind of high-voltage detonator to back up, or assist, a standard, timer-rigged blasting-cap-type detonator.

With the truck’s engine running, there would be a small boom followed by a horrendous explosion. Shut the engine off, the nitrate would still blow, but a markedly smaller portion of it.

Tomlinson yelled, “The back doors are padlocked! I can’t get in.”

I used my hands to rip the sheet of glass away, reached in, found the lock and yanked the door open. Tomlinson was already behind me as I took Sally by the shoulders and pulled her out. He took her gently into his arms as I said, “Try to find some cover. Get her away from here.”

I jumped behind the steering wheel, and reached to shut off the engine—but the key wasn’t in the switch. It took me a long, dull moment to realize why: Kline had broken the key off in the ignition. If the woman managed to get her hands free, he didn’t want her to be able to foil the explosion.

I glanced to the west. The sun was gone; vanished behind a scrim of distant cypress trees. I looked at my watch: 7:56 P.M. Less than a minute remained.

Feeling a sickening sense of unreality, I considered opening the hood and disconnecting the battery. But that would not disable the secondary timer switch. At this distance, any explosion, big or small, would kill all three of us anyway.

That’s when it came to me. What I had to do.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel sickened or frightened anymore.

Tomlinson had Sally cradled in his arms, struggling beneath her weight, trying to get her away from the truck. I called, “Stay here. Get down and cover her with your body.” Then I put the truck in drive, floored the accelerator and began to bounce and jolt my way up the access road.

The back of the truck was loaded to maximum. I could feel the weight in the sluggish, teetering way the truck handled. As I drove, I checked to see if the transmission was in four-wheel drive—it was—then tried to calculate how far I’d have to move the truck so that, when it did explode, Sally and Tomlinson wouldn’t be hurt.

That was the inescapable truth. Which is when another idea popped into my brain.