Agent Nyler shifted his weight anxiously. Why couldn't it have been a Venezuelan radio that shorted out? Why the FBI equipment, and at just the wrong moment?
"It is a long time," Officer Salazar, the head of the force assigned to assist Nyler, commented. His English was sufficient for easy communication.
Nyler nodded his agreement. "Too long. That wasn't Eddie's voice we heard just before the radio cut out. It was an older man."
"Señor Lerwick, you think?"
"Could have been." Minutes had passed, and the radio had picked up nothing more.
"Look," Salazar said, pointing across the highway from their hiding place in the trees near the La Guaira port. He was scanning the ship through a pair of binoculars.
He handed them to Nyler, who put them to his eyes. "They're boarding the ship now? Why?" A handful of crewmen had suddenly returned to the ship and begun scurrying about the deck as if making preparations to depart.
"I think your Eddie, he is in trouble," Salazar told Nyler.
He waited for Nyler to make a decision, but Nyler hesitated. Heavy firearms aboard the ship would only put Eddie in greater danger—if he was still alive, of course. Without the radio, Nyler was flying through fog with little sense of direction.
A new, low sound rumbled out of the port—the ship's engines. Nyler met Salazar's eyes. The crewmen were preparing the vessel to depart. Agent Nyler quickly found his direction.
"Take the ship?"
Salazar grinned. "It will be easy. My men are good."
Nyler turned away to hide his grimace in the darkness. "Go quietly. If Dr. Lerwick knows you're coming, he may take Eddie hostage."
"He is already hostage on that ship, I think," Salazar pointed out.
Yes, Nyler realized. Otherwise he would have returned by now. "Okay, do it."
The Venezuelan immediately spoke a command in Spanish to the men gathered around him. He singled out one officer and handed him the binoculars, and that man stayed behind as the rest of the team ventured out of the trees, Salazar leading the way, Nyler trailing him.
There was little traffic on the two-lane coastal highway at this hour. They waited for a single truck to lumber by, then jogged across the highway and onto the grounds of the port. A small service road wrapped around the U-shaped port, linking its docks. The officers crossed that road and, following Salazar's lead, knelt down behind an assortment of trucks and forklifts parked between the service road and the water.
Salazar, to Nyler's left, spoke into his radio, conversing with the officer he had left behind. His eyes widened and he turned to his men to whisper an abrupt command. They prepared their rifles. "One person coming off the boat," Salazar explained to Nyler in his Spanish accent. "He comes this way."
"Eddie?" Nyler drew his own gun even as he turned to peer hopefully through the windows of the truck behind which he and Salazar had hidden themselves. After a few moments, a figure stepped into view, walking away from the ship. It was a man, alone.
The man turned and angled toward them, passing behind a forklift. A pair of small cars were parked beside the forklifts, and the man rounded the nearest one, pulling keys from his pocket. For a moment he gazed toward the highway, and the port lights caught his face.
Nyler grabbed Salazar's arm. "That's him!"
"The doctor? Muy bien." Salazar nodded to the officer beside him, who scrambled away, waving other officers to him.
Dr. Lerwick opened the driver's door of his car and set one foot inside the vehicle. Suddenly Salazar jumped out from behind the truck. "Stop there!" he cried, targeting Dr. Lerwick with his rifle. The doctor froze as half a dozen more national police officers leapt from their hiding places and surrounded his car, rifles trained on him. Others raced past him toward the ship.
"Do not move!" Salazar yelled at Dr. Lerwick. "Your gun—drop it!"
Dr. Lerwick held a pistol in his hand; slowly, he squatted and set it on the pavement.
"Your hands—on the car!" Salazar screamed as another officer approached just close enough to kick Dr. Lerwick's weapon away.
"Ah," Dr. Lerwick intoned as he turned to face the car. He set his left hand on the top of the vehicle, but with the other hand he reached into his jacket.
"Stop! Hand out!" Salazar yelled, tensing.
But Dr. Lerwick merely smiled. "Officer," he said pleasantly, "I would prefer not to be arrested this evening." He broke into fluent Spanish.
The other officers did not relax, but Salazar gave a small laugh and lowered his weapon. Responding in Spanish, he approached Dr. Lerwick with an empty hand outstretched.
Dr. Lerwick slowly, cautiously drew his hand out of his pocket, producing a thick bundle of cash. He glanced at Salazar, who nodded with a smile, and Dr. Lerwick began to count out the cash in dollars by the hundreds.
Salazar laughed again and shook his head. "No," he said, "all of it."
Dr. Lerwick's eyes widened, and he swallowed once before handing the whole wad of bills to Salazar.
Salazar received the money and ran a thumb along the edge of it, satisfied. Then he stepped back and barked a command to his men. Two of them hurried to Dr. Lerwick and wrenched his arms behind his back to cuff him.
"Wait!" he protested. "I can get you more! I can give you more than you've ever dreamed of!" He continued to protest as the other officers gathered around his car, a pair of them opening the doors to search inside it.
Salazar chuckled. "Sorry, Señor Doctor. Bribing an officer is illegal in my country. And my friend, he gets tired of looking for you."
"Your friend?" Dr. Lerwick inquired darkly.
Nyler took that as his cue. He stepped around the truck to join Salazar. "Dr. Lerwick," he smiled, and it was entirely genuine; this was a pleasant moment. He looked the man over, this man who had eluded him for a decade, and with impressive skill. "Sir, my name is Clint Nyler, Federal Bureau of Investigation. I believe you know how long I have looked forward to making your acquaintance."
Dr. Lerwick's face turned red with fury. "Edward led you to me."
"You trained him well."
"He hid the boy for years!" Dr. Lerwick declared. "He broke into the school's computers! I can testify! It was he who arranged to keep the boy out of sight!"
"It was he who sent him home, Dr. Lerwick," Nyler countered calmly.
"He's on the ship! You have to arrest him!"
Nyler gave Dr. Lerwick a wry grin. "Not to worry, Doctor. Eddie will pay his debt to society."
With a nod from Salazar, the officers took Dr. Lerwick away. The man continued to cry out accusations against Eddie as they dragged him off toward the van they had parked on the back side of the port.
It appeared that the officers who had run toward the ship had taken control of it without incident. They escorted several crewmen down the ramp from the main deck to the dock in handcuffs, leading them away toward the van just as the hum of the ship's engines cut off.
Nyler clicked his tongue. How good it did feel to catch a crook after a long, tiresome search. Dr. Bill Lerwick, after all these years.
Now, what to do with Eddie…
*****
The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain Page 133