Kill Fee (18 page)

T
he
Vigilant
’s skipper pointed through the wheelhouse windows at a line of lights on the horizon. “That’s her,” he told Stevens and Windermere. “The
Island Joy
.”

“Comm’s ship,” said Stevens.

“Roger. We’ve just hailed her, and she’s slowing, thank God.” He turned to a seaman lingering close by. “Petty Officer Briggs will get you ready to board.”

They followed Briggs aft through the cutter to the stern of the ship, where a team in black tactical gear was readying a rigid-hulled Zodiac intercept boat for launch. Stevens studied the men. They didn’t say much. They wore grim expressions and carried compact machine guns.

You’re a long way from Saint Paul,
Stevens thought, feeling the cutter roll across another wave.
No way in hell Nancy ever finds out about this.

Briggs came back with an armload of bright orange neoprene survival gear. “In case you fall overboard,” she told Stevens. “Kind of rocky out there.”

Stevens took the suit from her and pulled it on. Windermere dressed beside him, her eyes on the
Island Joy
on the horizon. Her jaw was set, her eyes narrowed. She looked like she was ready to kick somebody’s ass.

The
Vigilant
slowed and the assault team launched the Zodiac, struggling to keep it close to the larger vessel in the swell. Windermere grinned at Stevens, and then climbed down the hull of the cutter to the little boat. Stevens hesitated a moment. Then he followed.

THE LITTLE ZODIAC
skipped like a pebble over the waves, lurching and jiving as it sped toward the freighter. Stevens crawled up to the bow, where Windermere crouched, gazing forward, taking spray in her face with every new swell.

“Comm had better be on that ship,” she yelled across at Stevens. “This is a hell of an adventure to have to explain if he isn’t.”

“Harbormaster said the ship left in a hurry,” said Stevens. “Wasn’t scheduled to depart for a week. This is suspicious, whatever it is.”

“You got that right,” said Windermere. “Maybe we get unlucky and it’s just a mountain of drugs.”

The Zodiac sped up alongside the freighter. The ship looked vast from up close, a featureless black hull topped with yellow sodium light. There was movement on board, faces at the rail. The Zodiac slowed, and the crew dropped a pilot ladder forty feet to the swell. Stevens watched as the team around him climbed up, one by one. Then Windermere shoved him forward. “Go for it.”

Stevens felt his heart racing. Whatever his fears, this was kind of cool. He crawled back along the Zodiac to the swinging ladder. Watched as the pilot brought the small boat alongside. The hull stretched high above him, almost to the sky. The boat rocked in the swell. A chasm of roiling water appeared. Then the pilot gunned the engine and the ladder was there. Windermere slapped his back.
“Jump.”

Stevens jumped. His arms found the ladder and he pulled himself
upward, feet kicking off against the slick hull. Then he was climbing, the ladder rocking against the side of the freighter. Stevens climbed and didn’t look down.

The climb took forever. His arms ached at the top. He clambered over the hull and stood beside the assault team, his limbs screaming, his lungs begging for air. A minute or so later, Windermere appeared. She stretched. Shook her head. “Holy shit,” she said. “That was cool.”

She surveyed the deck of the freighter. The assault team had their machine guns drawn on the crew. The crew waited, eyes wide, their hands in the air. Windermere turned to Stevens. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s find Comm.”

I
t took less than ten minutes for the new asset to start screaming. Parkerson left him alone for an hour.

The kid was curled up on his thin mattress when Parkerson finally walked in with breakfast. He’d puked on the floor. “Poor guy.” Parkerson sat on the bed beside the kid. Rubbed his shoulder. “You just had a bad dream, is all.”

The kid hugged his knees to his chest. Looked at Parkerson with wide eyes. “What the hell is this?”

“You’re having nightmares,” Parkerson told him. “Those visions you get. You’re safe now. I’m with you.”

The kid stared at him, shivering. Parkerson held up a plate. “I brought breakfast.”

Gray closed his eyes tight. Rubbed his head and groaned. “Where am I?”

“You’re safe,” said Parkerson. “You just had a vision. Eat your breakfast.”

“I feel like shit.”

Parkerson nodded. “You had a lot to drink last night,” he said. “You got crazy. You won’t be drinking like that again.”

The kid leaned his head back against the concrete wall. “No, I won’t.”

“No, you won’t.” Parkerson pushed the plate forward. “Now, eat up.”

Gray looked at the food and grimaced. Looked at Parkerson. Parkerson held his gaze. The kid closed his eyes. Then he reached for the plate.

He ate, slowly at first. Then he found his appetite. He cleared the plate. Wiped it clean with his last piece of toast. Then he sat back and grinned weakly at Parkerson. “That was good shit, man.”

Parkerson matched his smile. “I’m here for you,” he told him. “Here to help. Whatever you need. You’re safe now.”

The kid frowned. “You got a pisser?”

Parkerson stood and picked up the kid’s empty plate. Motioned to a bucket that sat in a corner of the room. “Right there,” he said. “Use it.”

“For real?”

“For real.” Parkerson walked to the door. Turned back and tossed him a rag. “And clean up that puke while you’re at it.”

The kid started to complain. Parkerson ignored him. Walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. Locked the padlock. After ten minutes, he unlocked it again.

The bucket was beside the bed. The kid had used it. He hadn’t cleaned up his puke. Parkerson sighed. “I said clean up that puke, soldier.”

The kid rubbed his eyes. “I want to go home.”

“Clean up the puke and we’ll talk about it.” Parkerson closed the door and locked it again. Waited another ten minutes. When he opened the door, the rag was filthy and the puke was gone.

“Good work,” Parkerson told him. “I’m pleased with you.”

“Can I go home?”

“You are home,” Parkerson told him. He closed the door again. Locked
it again. Walked back to the recliner and turned on the DVD player. Then he took the kid’s empty plate and walked back upstairs. It was morning now; the sun shone through the trees. Parkerson rinsed the plate and left it out to dry. He locked up the cabin and walked out to the Cadillac. Stood beside the car for a moment, savoring the stillness of the grove. Then he slid behind the wheel and drove back to the city. It was nearly six-thirty. Time to go to work.

C
omm didn’t make it easy on himself.

The captain of the
Island Joy
swore innocence. The crew, Bahamian mostly, shrugged and held up their hands and said nothing. Windermere swore at them. Threatened, cajoled. Finally, she shook her head and turned to Stevens. “Let’s tear this boat apart.”

First they searched the house, the thirty-foot-tall superstructure that contained the bridge, the accommodations, the galley. They left a couple Coast Guard men to watch over the crew, and took the rest with them to scour the ship. The house yielded nothing. Comm wasn’t there.

The ship was an old tramp steamer, the wheelhouse situated midway between bow and stern. Windermere and Stevens left the assault team to tear through the engine room. They walked up the deck together toward the bow, guns drawn.

“So where is he?” said Windermere. “Is this bastard on board or what?”

Stevens looked down the length of the ship. The house loomed white in the night sky. “He’s here,” he told Windermere. “He’s here somewhere.”

They reached the bow of the ship. A stairway led up to the mast and
the anchor winches. Beneath it was an iron door to the ship’s forecastle. Windermere walked to it. “What’s in here?”

She turned the heavy wheel and it groaned in her hands. Stevens watched her, tensed. She turned the wheel hard over. Then the door was flung open. It swung inward, too fast. Windermere stumbled back.
“Shit.”

“You goddamn bastards.”
A desperate voice from inside the forecastle, action-movie heroic.
“You want me, you’re coming with me.”
Then gunshots, three of them, like a snare drum. Windermere dived for cover. Stevens ducked behind a bulkhead, his head down. Another three shots. Then Phillip Comm stepped out on deck, screaming, incoherent, waving a pistol in the air.

Shouts from the house. The assault team ran forward, machine guns at the ready. “Don’t shoot him,” Stevens called back. “Take him alive, but
be careful
.”

“You fuckers,”
Comm screamed.
“You’ll never take me.”

Comm advanced from the doorway, staggering now, unsteady. His eyes were wide and wild, his pupils huge. He waved the gun at the advancing assault team, fired again.
If they kill this guy,
Stevens thought,
we lose Killswitch.
He watched Comm behind the bulkhead and searched for Windermere in the shadows, hoping she had the same notion.

As Comm advanced, Windermere crept around behind him, keeping low and to the shadows. Comm kept screaming at the assault team. Kept waving that gun.

He’s hysterical. High on something. Or terrified. Or both.

Comm steadied his pistol again. Aimed across the deck and squeezed off another three shots.

Windermere tackled him. Leapt out from behind and took him down to the deck. Comm dropped the pistol. The assault team swarmed. Stevens picked himself up from the bulkhead and hurried over to where Windermere had Comm pinned. Comm struggled against her. She held him. He looked around at the assault team, at Windermere and Stevens,
and seemed to deflate. “Who are you?” he said, wheezing for breath. “You’re not
him
.”

“FBI,” said Windermere. “Coast Guard. Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.”

“You were expecting someone else?” said Stevens.

Comm nodded, still gasping.

Windermere elbowed him.
“Who?”

Comm didn’t answer for a moment. Then he laid his head back on the deck and stared skyward. “Killswitch,” he said.

I
t was the strangest interrogation Stevens had ever conducted.

They brought Comm back to the
Vigilant
on the Zodiac, after they’d finished searching his little hideaway in the
Island Joy
’s
forecastle. It was a hell of a cubbyhole: between the crates of bread, onions, and dehydrated milk that took up most of the room, Comm had built himself an ugly little nest for the voyage to Port-au-Prince.

“Gross,” said Windermere, kicking a sodden sleeping bag aside. “He really moved in.”

Stevens nodded. “Quite the little bachelor pad, huh?”

Apart from necessities such as the sleeping bag, pillow, and case of bottled water, Comm had packed with him the week’s
Time
magazine, the month’s
Penthouse
, another pistol and ammunition, and enough cocaine to kill a horse. Stevens figured he’d been nose-deep in the stuff when Windermere barged in on him.

The Coast Guard left a few men aboard the
Island Joy
to turn the ship
around and supervise its return to the Port of Miami. Meanwhile, Stevens and Windermere rode with Comm to the cutter, where Petty Officer Briggs found them a spare room in which to hold their prisoner.

Now Comm sipped coffee and stared down at his mug. Avoided Windermere’s eyes, and Stevens’s. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I swear I didn’t know you were cops.”

“Just figured you’d come out shooting, huh?” said Windermere. “Better safe than sorry?”

“I thought you were Killswitch,” said Comm. “I thought I was next.”

Stevens cut in. “Before we go any further,” he said, “you have the right to an attorney, Mr. Comm. You don’t have to talk to us. You’re well within your rights to say nothing at all until we hit Miami and you have a lawyer present.”

Comm waved him away. “I don’t care about that.”

“You know anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.”

“I know,” he said. “I watch TV. Look, I don’t care. Book me for whatever you want. Just fucking find Killswitch before he comes after me.”

Stevens glanced at Windermere. Windermere grinned. “Be right back.”

She was gone fifteen minutes. When she returned, she was holding a flimsy sheet of paper and a ballpoint pen. She slid the paper at Comm. “Sign here,” she said. “This indicates that we’ve informed you of your rights and you’ve waived the right to an attorney.”

Stevens frowned at Windermere as Comm signed and dated the form. “Where the hell’d you get that?”

She grinned at him. “Ojeda faxed it in.”

“It’s two in the morning.”

“He loves me,” she said, shrugging. “Tell me you wouldn’t do the same.”

Comm tapped the pen on the tabletop. Looked from Stevens to Windermere and back again. Stevens cleared his throat. “So you thought we
were Killswitch,” he said. “Why would Killswitch come for you? You paid him, didn’t you?”

Comm sipped his coffee. Didn’t look up. He nodded.

“So?”

Comm was silent some more. The cutter rocked in the swell. Its big diesel engines throbbed somewhere far below. Windermere sat across from him. Ducked down until she could see his eyes. “What’s the deal, Comm?” she said. “What are you afraid of?”

Comm looked at her. Whether from fear or from shock, he’d seemed to calm. Now he stared into Windermere’s eyes with a chilling intensity. “I went down to watch,” he said. “I wanted to see for myself. Don’t know why. I guess I just wanted to make sure I got my money’s worth.”

“You mean you watched Killswitch shoot Ansbacher.”

Comm nodded. “I drove to Terminal Island. Parked across from the marina. I had a pair of binoculars, and I watched Peralta’s yacht. I saw Peralta come aboard. Then I saw Ansbacher.” He shook his head. “I guess I didn’t think it would actually happen.”

“You bought and paid for a murder,” said Windermere. “Two hundred grand. You thought there was a chance it was bogus?”

“I was angry,” he said. “I was desperate. I wasn’t myself. I didn’t think that anyone . . .” He looked at Windermere again. “I didn’t think anyone could be so cold.”

“The shooter was on Terminal Island,” said Stevens. “Did you see him?”

Comm laughed. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I saw him.”

“And?”

“And he was a fucking weirdo, man. He was parked a couple stalls over. I didn’t notice him until right before it happened. There was this truck parked between us. It moved just as Ansbacher came down the ramp. I glanced over and saw the guy’s rifle. That’s when I knew it was real.”

“But you didn’t stop him.”

“I was scared shitless. The fucking guy had a rifle.” Comm looked down again. “And I guess a part of me really did want Ansbacher dead.”

“So you watched Killswitch shoot him.”

Comm nodded. “Shot him twice. First time in the chest. Second time in the head. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to puke.”

“Then what happened?”

“I looked at the kid. Couldn’t take my eyes off him. I knew he’d kill me if he knew I’d seen him, but I couldn’t look away. He was just a fucking young kid, man, in his twenties, but his eyes . . .” Comm shivered.

“We know,” said Windermere. “We’ve seen him.”

“Christ, I wanted to shit myself. He put away his rifle and climbed across to the driver’s seat and took off. I followed—” Comm rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t think he’d seen me, but then, just as I pulled onto the ramp up to the causeway, he’d stopped the car. Blocked the whole lane. I swear he stared straight at me in the rearview. I thought, This is it, I’m going down. This kid’s going to kill me.”

“But he didn’t.”

“He didn’t,” said Comm. “He just drove off.”

“So why’d you think he would come back for you?”

Comm shivered again. “I just
knew
, man. Once he figured out who I was, I was gonzo.”

Comm put his head down. Closed his eyes. “Shit,” he mumbled into his arms. “What the fuck am I doing?”

Windermere studied him a moment. Then she stood up from the table. Looked at Stevens. “Got three or four hours until we’re back in Miami,” she said. “Come on. Let’s get some rest.”