Night Diver: A Novel

by Elizabeth Lowell

  They had already had this argument on the way into the harbor, so Holden saved his energy for what was coming. The sky outside was black with only loose tendrils of clouds showing when inky purple lightning stabbed in the distance. Wind skated across the water, making moored boats toss and rigging wail. Even away from the sea, the taste of brine was in the air.

  Or maybe it’s just the salt crust running down from my hair, he thought, licking his lips.

  It took his mind off his thigh, which was settling down more slowly than a spoiled child.

  Lightning flashed nearby, bleaching everything white, leaving incandescent afterimages. Simultaneous thunder hammered down, shaking the world. Debris from the streets and then the forests cracked against the truck at unpredictable intervals.

  Kate flinched at the most recent hit and told herself she was better off in the truck than she had been in a metal workboat on a wild sea. In either case the visibility was about the same—forward-facing lights revealing quicksilver rain and looming darkness. There was no real scale, nothing to help judge how far away the watery lights that glimmered occasionally really were. There was just rain and wind, night and lightning.

  “Are you sure this is still only a tropical storm?” she asked.

  “Last time I checked, yes. But some of the gusts are above the upper limit of one hundred and eighteen kilometers. Sustained winds are still below that.”

  “Feels like more than seventy miles an hour to me,” she said grimly as she fought to keep the lightweight pickup on the road. “Do you really think that Farnsworth is going to try and fly out in this?”

  “He doesn’t have much choice. Even if we all had gone down with the Golden Bough, he couldn’t be certain that we didn’t air every bit of his dirty linen by radio or even cell phone before we drowned. He’s an amateur, and I thank God for it. A pro would have killed us, waited for the storm to blow over, then boarded the first plane out with a new identity and a suitcase full of gems.”

  “Okay, he’s crazy and an amateur.” She swerved to avoid a flying piece of something unidentifiable. “Apparently he could dive. Is he a pilot, too?”

  “I doubt it. From what your grandfather said, Farnsworth learned to dive from a book and a swimming pool. It will take one hell of a good, lucky pilot and plane to fly in this weather.”

  “But it could be done?”

  “Certainly,” Holden said, thinking of some of the reports he had heard from combat zones. “Necessity is a cruel mistress. If there is a plane and a runway on St. Vincent, we have to assume that Farnsworth is headed for it.”

  “I don’t think any of the gypsy strips will be usable,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The runways carved out of the forest for private—often illegal—use. They aren’t paved. The only public strip that I know of that will be usable is the one we flew in on, but the flights have been shut down.”

  “Commercial carriers have. The assumption is that small airplane pilots have enough sense to stay on the ground.” Holden’s grin was more of a grimace. “Farnsworth is desperate. If he can get a kite into the air, he will fly it.”

  “We can’t be sure he even made it to shore.”

  “And we have had that argument, too, shortly before the one about my driving the truck.”

  Kate shut up and concentrated on driving. She knew that Holden somehow felt responsible for what Farnsworth had done, as though being from the same country and working for the same government department meant that he and Farnsworth were equally guilty for what only one of them had done.

  As if Holden knew what she was thinking, he said, “I’m sorry, Kate. I should have figured out the game sooner.”

  “You’ve done everything you could,” she said.

  “Not yet.”

  Rain poured over the truck, overwhelming the wipers. Flying palm fronds smacked into the windshield and clung to the glass like giant bats. One wiper quit working before more rain and wind peeled the fronds away. Fortunately, the dead wiper was on the passenger side.

  The cry of the wind rose and fell like a caged animal. Lightning turned the world white, and thunder battered everything in its wake. Water on the road became so deep that the wheels fought for traction.

  “Hang on, this might get rough,” she said.

  “Thank goodness. I was about to expire from boredom.”

  Kate would have sworn she had lost the ability to laugh, but she hadn’t. As she laughed, she discovered that it released the pressure growing in her, improved her reflexes, and allowed her to concentrate better.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He touched her cheek with fingers that were damp. “My pleasure. One of the first things combat teaches is that laughter keeps you sane.”

  The truck plowed through the low spot and kept on going. A faint blur of light in the distance slowly became the airport. As they pulled into the nearly empty lot, curtains of rain gleamed like liquid gold in the parking lot lights. Palm fronds and other unidentifiable debris flew horizontally across pools of light and dove into darkness.

  Then the grasp of the wind slowly, slowly eased, as if the storm itself was taking time to draw breath. Through curtains of rain, the headlights picked out a car parked at the far side of the main terminal lot, where there was a smaller building for private planes and passengers. The car appeared black, but the make and model were right.

  “Farnsworth rented a screaming red Mustang,” she said.

  “Are you certain?”

  “It was listed in the expense file. Not the red part. That was something Grandpa mentioned when he was complaining about Farnsworth’s pricey speedboat.”

  “In this light, red looks black,” Holden said.

  The instant she stopped next to the car, he got out and put his hand on the vehicle’s hood—almost hot enough to make rain steam. A car rental decal showed in the corner of the windshield.

  Kate came out and stood beside him. He was speaking in what she assumed was Pashto. He turned to her.

  “I really hoped I was wrong and the psychotic sod had drowned,” Holden said.

  Her mouth turned down. “Sometimes being right is a bitch.”

  “Now will you wait in the truck?”

  “If you do.”

  Old argument. Again.

  Holden switched to Pashto again and headed toward the rattling aluminum structure that catered to charter outfits. It was the only one that had lights on.

  As Kate followed, she didn’t ask for a translation of his seething words. She imagined she wouldn’t like it. But at least he was barely limping now. Obviously the adrenaline ride to Lee Harbor and the storm-shaken trip in the pickup had given his leg a chance to recover from diving.

  And fighting, she thought. Don’t forget that.

  The memory of fists and shots shuddered through her. She really hoped there wouldn’t be any more of it.

  And she knew she wasn’t leaving Holden to face a madman alone.

  Between the building and the main terminal, outlined by runway lights, loose junk skidded and cartwheeled across the apron like kids out at play. The rain poured down so heavily that simply being in it made Kate feel like she was wading through mud carrying a heavy pack. Water trickled down the neck opening of her dive gear and mixed with the sweat beneath.

  At least our gear is black, she thought. Both of them were like shadows trudging through the rain.

  Holden stopped at the small building whose lights barely made a dent in the darkness of the storm. The weak illumination was enough to read the sign nailed over the door.

  “What’s in there?” she asked.

  “Paradise Air, which boasts having tours for every budget, including a jet available for the impatient. Likely the jet is older than we are.”

  “Could it take off in this?”

  “A trash bin could get off the ground in this,” he said. “Staying aloft is a different matter.”

  She looked at the front door. “Is it locked?”
/>
  “I haven’t checked. Several of the louvered windows on the downwind side are open.”

  “Most ventilation, least water,” she said. “Do you think Farnsworth is working with someone on the ground?”

  “He doesn’t seem like a share-the-pie sort of fellow. I’m going to have a listen while you wait here or in the truck. If there’s a commotion, for the love of Christ get your beautiful ass out of here.”

  He didn’t give her a chance to answer before he walked off into sheets of rain and vanished.

  Kate followed. Even if she couldn’t see him, she could see the lights that were his destination. When she found him, he looked like one more lump of tropical greenery being mashed down by rain. A few hundred feet beyond the building, a line of three planes shuddered against their tie-downs. Hangars were for rich people and corporations. Paradise Air didn’t qualify.

  She eased into the shrubbery close to Holden. Eavesdropping wasn’t difficult. The corrugated tin roof guaranteed that anyone inside had to nearly shout to be heard over staccato explosions of rain on metal.

  Holden stood to the side of the window, watching louvered slices of what was inside. Farnsworth was arguing with someone. He must have taken the time to change out of his dive gear, because he was in casual dress now, and rather wilted from running from his car to the building.

  “We had an agreement,” Farnsworth yelled.

  “That was before my equipment clocked a one-hundred-and-twenty-kilometer wind.” A woman’s voice, even more clipped and upper class than Farnsworth at his best.

  “It was just a gust, not a steady blow. See? We’re only at ninety kilometers now.”

  “When it holds steady at eighty, I’ll fly you to South America. You may have a death wish, but I do not.”

  As though to emphasize her statement, she came and stood toe-to-toe with Farnsworth. She was nearly his height, mixed race, and determined.

  “I’ll double the fee we agreed on,” Farnsworth said.

  “The dead don’t need money.”

  He pulled his pistol from beneath his rain jacket. “Die here now or live and fly me out of here. Your choice.”

  The woman paled beneath her normal warm coloring. “You are mental.”

  “Not your problem. Which will it be—die now for certain or trust your skill and live?”

  The pilot began trying to reason with Farnsworth.

  Holden didn’t wait to hear anymore. It was obvious that Farnsworth had switched the magazine in his pistol when he changed his clothes. Pulling Kate after him, Holden moved until they couldn’t be overheard. It wasn’t very far; the wind howled with renewed force. They staggered and leaned into it to keep their feet. Branches, pebbles, leaves, and sticks whipped at them.

  “We have to help her,” she said before he could speak. “But if we jump in there, we’re likely to get shot.”

  “Do you have a hammer or wire cutters in that rusty box in the pickup?”

  “I haven’t checked because the truck hasn’t broken down. Why?”

  “Let’s have a look,” he said.

  He grabbed her arm both to help her in the renewed wind and to make sure she didn’t decide to try to rescue the pilot without him. The wind pushed them at a good clip to the nearby pickup. A few curses and fist slams were all it took to open the rusty box. He ignored the pliers and volt tester and screwdriver and wrenches as he dug to the bottom of the box. There, among random washers and bolts, were small wire cutters and a hammer.

  Ignoring the pain in his thigh, which had been awakened by slogging through the storm, Holden grabbed the wire cutters and hammer in one hand and Kate in the other.

  “Hurry,” he said urgently. “We have to get to the planes before Farnsworth does.”

  They leaned into the wind and plowed through water and rain-sodden landscaping to the apron. The three planes quivered against their tie-downs, dipping and weaving like fish holding against a powerful current. Each plane carried the Paradise Air logo.

  Lightning flashed randomly across the darkness, followed by a cannonade of thunder. In the relative silence that followed, Holden and Kate heard a shot and a woman’s scream.

  “My God,” she said. “He shot her.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “But I heard it.”

  “Farnsworth is mental but not stupid,” Holden said. “He needs the pilot. He’s just tired of her arguments. Take the hammer and stand back. When I draw him out, you get the pilot to cover.”

  Kate had an idea of what Holden planned and her blood chilled. “Be careful. One of those wires could take off your head.”

  “I never run with scissors, love. Knives are much more thrilling. Signal me if you see the door open.”

  He waited until she staggered upwind and clung to one of the rows of metal posts sunk into the apron to separate passengers from planes. Then he turned to the first in the row of planes.

  The tie-downs were guy wires that ran from a metal half loop on each wing to an anchor sunk into the cement. The thin cables hummed with strain, singing rather like the rigging in the harbor. There was too much tension on the tie-downs to release them in the normal manner. He gripped the wire cutters, shoved them around the cable, and turned his face away.

  Then he squeezed with the strength of adrenaline and necessity.

  CHAPTER 25

  THIN METAL CABLE parted with a deadly whiplash that sliced toward Holden. It cut through tough neoprene like it was a shadow. Even as blood seeped out, the small propeller plane flipped in the wind and flailed around like a bird with one wingtip pinned to the ground. The tie-down on the tail ripped free.

  The racket of two planes repeatedly crashing into each other rose above the storm.

  Holden ran to the back door of the building and waited behind it. The burning along his left arm was minor, barely a shadow of the pain pulsing in his thigh from crouching and then running.

  Irrelevant, he thought. Everything will hold together for a few more minutes.

  If Farnsworth had been alone, Holden would have tried to cut the throat of the first person through the door with his dive knife, but there was no way to be certain who would be the first in line.

  With a wet slide and a crunch, one of the planes turned perpendicular in a gust. Sparks leaped where metal skidded over concrete. Something big whisked past Holden’s head, close enough to sting. A piece of corrugated aluminum, bent from a previous collision, made a graceful arc to the ground, where it continued to tumble on its corners, warped and deadly.

  And loud.

  Kate signaled frantically.

  Holden tensed. Between the dark and the motion of the rain and wind, he should be invisible. He watched the slice of light that grew as the door opened.

  Farnsworth screamed curses when he saw the jumble of planes. His leather-shod foot poked out.

  Holden crashed into the door, slamming it back. His injured leg slowed the momentum of the strike.

  Farnsworth howled as his foot was being smashed between metal doorframe and door. From the front of the building came the sound of a slamming door as the pilot ran off in the opposite direction.

  Smart lady, Holden thought.

  Sweating, he leaned harder on the door, trying to cripple the other man. Farnsworth shoved back with surprising strength until Holden’s weakened leg give just a little.

  Just enough.

  With a yank, Farnsworth freed his foot from the loafer and slammed back at Holden, sending him off balance. He barely managed to duck the backswing of the metal door.

  He heard Kate call his name and yelled at her as he rolled to the ground, “Run!”

  Farnsworth limped through the door, one foot shoeless, his gun in his right hand and the handle of the metal case in his left. He looked for targets but his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness outside.

  In an uneven rush, Holden came up off the ground and tackled the other man. There was an audible crunch as his shoulder slammed into Farnsworth’s ribs. Holden saw the gleam
of a pistol in the other man’s hand as he flew sideways and off his feet, coming down hard on his tailbone and one elbow. The metal case slammed on concrete.

  Holden leaped for the gun but his leg wasn’t up to it. He went sprawling on the concrete hard enough to make stars explode in his vision. Suddenly his head was filled with broken glass and his leg was on fire. The only way he could locate his opponent was from his curses and mocking words.

  “Long way from the rugby pitch, old boy,” Farnsworth grunted. “And I never played by the rules there, either.”

  Holden pulled his knife and lunged up at the amateur who was wasting his breath gloating. Steel connected with Farnsworth’s left wrist, twisted and squeezed until bone ground. He shrieked in pain, dropped the case, and brought the pistol butt down on Holden’s right shoulder. It was a glancing blow, but enough to make his arm numb for an instant.

  The knife slid soundlessly onto the concrete.

  Holden brought his left elbow up, aiming for Farnsworth’s throat. Instinctively the other man tucked his chin, but the blow knocked him down. Holden followed him, wrestling for control of the gun. Like deadly pieces of debris, the two rolled over and over, grappling for position.

  Unnoticed, Kate circled the writhing men, waiting for a chance to use the small hammer on Farnsworth. He might have been thin, but he was tougher than she would have believed.

  When Holden saw the gun descending again, he wrenched at Farnsworth’s arm as they rolled and kicked and rain poured over them like a sea turned upside down. Black swirled in Holden’s vision as his biceps strained. When they finally stopped rolling, Holden was on top. The other man clawed and kicked but he couldn’t match Holden’s sheer strength. As Farnsworth’s fingers slipped away from Holden’s neck, he brought his knee up and slammed it below Holden’s ribs.

  Pain, raw and purple, exploded when Holden’s diaphragm took the hit. Even as the world began to go black, he knew he couldn’t let Farnsworth shoot him. At this range, he couldn’t miss. Holden’s fingers clamped around Farnsworth’s gun hand. Holden squeezed with every bit of his strength—until a knee slammed into his bad thigh and the night shattered. He felt his hands slipping and the world sliding away and prayed that Kate had run fast and far.