by Mac Fortner
“Not bad, and guess what?”
“What?”
“Dave woke up,” he said, tapping me on the chest with his long finger as if to drive the point home.
“You don’t say. You think I can go see him?” I asked.
“Yep. Crazy Wanda did. She said he was normal. Not even a bump on his head.”
“What about his wife? Did she know Crazy Wanda went to see him?”
“Yep, said she don’t care.”
“Thank you, Sammy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go.”
“Tell him ‘ol Sammy and Pirate say ‘Hey,’” Sammy said.
“Hey, awk.”
“Will do.”
~*~
Jenny arrived at Buck’s house at four thirty.
She wasn’t looking forward to this. She knew the time was close and it could get very dangerous. What if Juba wanted to tie up all the loose ends? She was alone here with no protection.
Buck opened the door and smiled at her. “Hello, Jenny, come on in and have a celebratory drink,” he said, opening the door wider and stepping aside.
“What are we celebrating?” she asked, entering the house.
“The end of an era. No more boat thefts, no more killing innocent people, and the countdown to the end of our mission.”
“So, the bomb is ready?”
“Yes, it is. And in two days it will be on the way to Quantico.”
“What will my part be in these last few days?”
“Your part,” Buck said, handing her a drink. “Your part is over, my child.”
“But there has to be something I can do. I can help you deliver the bomb, or maybe watch your back. I can shoot a rifle with the best of them.”
“I’m afraid I have Billie Daryl for that. If we have too many people then things get too complicated,” he said, holding his hands out to the side as if it were out of his control.
Jenny took a big drink of her Wild Turkey and set the glass down on the table. “Well, I guess this is goodbye then,” she said.
“Wait just a minute, I have something for you.”
He turned, opened a cabinet and reached inside. Jenny, at the same time, reached into her purse and gripped the handle of her Glock 19.
Buck turned, a package in his hand. His eyes went straight to Jenny’s purse. He smiled. “Darling, do you really think I would harm you? I’ve grown quite fond of you. And if I was going to kill you, it wouldn’t be in my own house.”
“You never know in this business,” Jenny said. “What’s in the package?”
Buck handed it to her and said, “Severance. I hope one hundred thousand will tide you over until you get a new job.”
“Well, it certainly won’t hurt,” Jenny said, dropping the package into her purse.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said. “We could have done a lot of business together if we would have met earlier.”
“It’s not too late.”
“Yes, it is too late. My business days are almost over.”
Jenny didn’t like the sound of that. Was he going to deliver the bomb personally and blow himself up with the rest of the base?
Chapter 63
I left the hospital with Jenny’s picture in my pocket. I felt sick to my stomach. Dave had confirmed that Jenny was the girl he saw walk Jack to the boat. What was Jenny doing with Jack on that dock, and what happened to Jack? Was she the last one to see him alive? Did she kill him?
I pondered these questions and at the same time tried to figure out what to do with the information. Did Jenny have anything to do with my boat blowing up? All these questions kept coming to my mind as I drove north on highway 1. I turned into the sheriff’s station without even thinking about what I was doing. I guess I knew what I had to do with the new facts.
Deputy Wilson was working at the front desk when I entered. I had seen him around town quite often and had played cards with him on a few occasions.
“Hi, Brent, how are you?” I said politely as I approached the desk.
“Pretty good, Cam. What brings you to this part of town?”
“I need to see Sheriff Buck. Is he in?”
“No, but he’ll be back in an hour or so. Can I help you with something?”
“Do you have an envelope and a pen and paper? I’ll just leave him a message.”
“Sure,” Brent said and handed me the paper and pen. “I’ll be right back with the envelope.”
I wrote a note to Buck explaining the picture of Jenny and what Dave had told me about her and Jack. That was all I could say because I didn’t really have any further facts. Just speculation.
Brent returned with the envelope and handed it to me.
I folded the note, inserted it into the envelope and then started to slip the picture in. Jenny’s face stared up at me. I felt sick again.
“Are you okay, Cam?” Brent asked.
I looked at him for a minute, not registering what he’d said, but then came back from wherever I had been. “Yeah, I’m good,” I said, sliding the picture in and sealing the envelope.
I handed it to Brent and asked him to give it to Buck.
“I will. As soon as he walks in.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, Dan’s having a card game next week. You going?”
“Maybe. I don’t know yet,” I said somberly.
“If you do, bring plenty of quarters. I’m feeling lucky,” and he chuckled.
“I’ll only need the one, then I can play with yours.”
I waved bye to him and walked back out into the humid evening air. It was hard to breathe. “Must be the humidity,” I told myself.
I drove back to Diane’s house, poured a stiff Wild Turkey and took it out to the back patio. Diane wasn’t home, so I took the opportunity to mellow. I must have needed the drink and quiet. The next thing I knew Diane was waking me and telling me it was time for bed.
Chapter 64
Agent Wootton walked into Sanchez’s office and slapped a paper down on his desk. “Check it out,” he said. “This just came in. Buck was a college roommate with Yazid Bishara. We checked, and he is known to be connected to the Taliban.”
“The Taliban,” Sanchez said.
“Yeah. We figure that is when Buck was recruited. Yazid must have convinced him that the US was killing innocent Muslims or something to that effect. William Buck and Yazid Bishara started an organized march at WVU, to recruit followers and sympathy for Jihad.”
“Holy war?” Sanchez said.
“Right. And guess who was arrested in 2005 for smuggling C4 to a militant group called Islamic Jihad Union?”
“Buck,” Sanchez guessed.
“No, Michael Garrison, only you know him as Billie Daryl Dunn. He changed his name, not legally, after doing twenty-four months in prison, and then disappeared. In 2008 he joined the sheriff’s department in Key West, a year after William Buck became Chief. He works at the docks most of the time, but Buck swears him in when he needs him.”
“Oh shit. This is getting complicated. We have an invisible terrorist organization working right here in Key West.”
“Yeah, right, but we knew that already. We just didn’t know who was involved.”
“The IJU has terrorist cells in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia. They have bombed the US and Israeli embassies among other attacks and were seen fighting alongside the Taliban.”
“Cam Derringer is right in the middle of all this. If he goes to Buck and tells him he knows that his girlfriend Jenny is involved in the boat jacking, Buck will kill him.”
“We need to get him out of there before it’s too late,” Sanchez said.
“I’ll have one of my men pick him up.”
“On what charges?”
“We’ll think of something.”
“What about Buck?” Sanchez said, thinking out loud.
“We can’t tip our hand yet. We don’t want to alert Amar before we find that bomb.”
“Yeah I know but...”
�
��We’ll protect Cam and Jenny,” Wootton said.
Chapter 65
The next morning, I woke late. The sun was shining in my window, and it felt warm and comforting.
It was a muggy day, as most were, and I still found it hard to breathe. My guess was I wouldn’t be able to breathe right again until I’d found out what had happened to Jack.
I walked through the house, looking for Diane.
“DIANE?” I repeated twice.
No answer, so I walked through the living room and into the kitchen. I heard music coming from the backyard so I opened the back door and stepped out.
Diane was lying in a chaise lounge, scarcely clad in a bikini.
“HELLO,” I said loud enough for her to hear but not so loud as to scare her.
She didn’t hear me. I walked around her to the front of her chair. She was asleep, and with the music, couldn’t hear anything.
I had a little dilemma. I didn’t want to scare her by touching her and didn’t want to yell louder. That would scare her too. I didn’t want her to wake up and see me standing here staring at her either. Kind of a catch-22.
I stood there for a minute and finally decided to turn off the music. I figured the sudden silence would wake her. It did.
“What are you looking at?” I heard her say.
I jumped. Now I was the one who ended up getting scared.
“I...I didn’t want to scare you,” I said, in what I thought sounded like a very guilty voice.
“Uh-huh,” she said with a crooked smile.
“I wanted to fill you in on the latest,” I said, trying to change the subject.
“And you were going to do that by staring at me while I slept,” she said, still smiling.
“No. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to scare you,” I said, still stumbling through my words.
“Just kidding, but you do sound guilty.”
“Okay, you got me,” I said, raising my hands in surrender.
“Pervert.”
“Anyway, I wanted to fill you in on the latest.”
“Alright,” she said, not making any attempt to cover up.
“After you left Sloppy Joe’s yesterday, Jenny told me she was going to leave last night for Michigan for a week. I went to the docks to see if anything new had come up when I ran into Sammy and Pirate. He said Dave had woken up, so I took the picture of Jenny to the hospital and Dave ID’ed her as the woman Jack had left with.”
“Oh no, Cam. I’m sorry. I know that must hurt.”
“Yeah, it does, but what really hurts is that I turned her in to Buck.”
“You did the right thing, Cam.”
“Maybe, I hope I didn’t react too quickly.”
“When was Jenny supposed to leave?”
“Last night.”
“But I saw her last night. I drove past her house on my way home, and she was going in the front door.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, it was around ten.”
I was just about to ask why she was going past Jenny’s house when I heard a car door close in the driveway.
“I’ll go see who it is,” I said, “You cover up.”
“I was dressed fine a minute ago.”
“Cover up,” I said, throwing her a towel that was hanging over another chair.
I went through the kitchen and peaked into the driveway from the side window. I recognized the black SUV and the suited men as FBI. They would stand out in church. I didn’t like this. Since I’d returned to Key West, no one had asked me about finding Barbie.
They clearly knew I’d returned to work on the boat case. That’s why they’d had me in New York in the first place, to stop me.
I returned to Diane in the backyard, closing the door quietly.
“It’s the FBI,” I said in her ear. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“I’ll hold them off,” Diane whispered back. “Go over the fence and down the alley. Call me later, and I’ll come get you.”
“Forget everything I told you about Jenny. We can’t pass that on to them.”
“No problem. Now go,” she said, standing and going to the back door.
“Cover up,” I said.
She smiled and put her hand on her hips in a pose. “I said I was going to hold them off.”
I turned and ran toward the back gate. When I came to it, I hurdled it instead of opening it.
Chapter 66
I ran for three blocks before stopping to catch my breath. I was in the middle of a tourist group who were taking pictures of a street performer, painted silver and posing like a statue. Some of the things people thought of. I stood in the crowd and looked up and down the street, half expecting the FBI to come racing in their SUV’s, blasting bullets from machine guns out the open doors.
I waited five minutes before walking down the street toward the southernmost point. It was the most out of the way place I could think of in this area. No one would just happen by there. It was a destination.
I entered a bar close to the street where I could sit at a table with a view. The windows, which had no glass, only shutters, were open. I ordered a diet coke and some chips—the breakfast of champions.
Looking out the window, I watched groups of tourists taking turns standing at the southernmost point monument and paying a lady, who spent her days standing there waiting for this opportunity, to take their pictures with their own cameras.
Halfway through my breakfast, my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number on my caller I.D. but answered it anyway. Even if it was the FBI, I could just hang up.
“Hello.”
“Cam, it’s Buck.”
“Willie, I’m glad to hear from you. Did you get my message?”
“Yes, I did. Are you sure?”
“I only know what I told you. Except Diane said she saw Jenny late last night entering her house and Jenny had told me she was leaving for Michigan yesterday.”
“Do you have any other proof that Jenny could be involved in this?” Buck asked.
“Well, I saw her meeting with those Iraqi men, but you said you’d checked them out and they seemed legitimate.”
“Yeah, they did. I hope you’re not just jumping to conclusions. I don’t want to insinuate anything, but maybe Jenny has another guy, and she just needed some space for a while.”
I gave that some thought. “Maybe, but what about Jack and her on the docks? She was the last person to be seen with him.”
“Sounds like you’re sure she’s involved,” Buck said.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m hiding from the FBI right now. They’re at Diane’s house looking for me.”
“Why does the FBI want you?”
“It’s a long story. To make it short, they think I’m getting too close to the truth about the boat jacking ring, and they want me out of their way.”
There was a brief silence on the other end of the line.
“Where did you say you were?” Buck asked.
“I didn’t say.”
“Cam, I can offer you some protection. I’ll make sure they don’t find you.”
“I can’t take the chance right now, Willie. I know you’re only looking out for me, but I need to be able to move around on my own for a while.”
“I want you to come to my house tonight. Don’t tell a soul you’re coming. I won’t try to talk you into turning yourself in, but we need to talk. It sounds like you’re in trouble and I want to help you. Maybe together we can find out who is behind this.”
“We’ll see. Give me some time to think about it.”
When they hung up, Buck called Jenny.
Chapter 67
Jenny picked up the phone on the first ring. “Hello.”
“Hello, sweetheart,” Buck said.
“Juba, what a pleasure. Did you miss me already?”
“I missed you before you left.”
“So, did you decide you needed me?” Jenny
said.
“That I did. We have a bit of a problem. Do you still want to help?”
“Of course, I do.”
“Good. This is for your good too.”
“Sounds important.”
“Very. I just talked to Cam. He has a picture of you and Jack on the dock together on the day he disappeared.”
“How did he get that?” Jenny asked, surprised.
“I’m not sure, but I have the picture or at least a copy.”
“That is a problem?”
“Yeah, and it gets worse.”
“Tell me.”
“He said the FBI is after him. They think he’s getting too close to the boat jacking case.”
“The FBI?”
“Right. We need to get him before they do.”
“Get him?”
“Diane saw you going into your house last night after you left here.”
“That’s not good. I wonder what she was doing at my house?”
“I don’t know.”
“I bet she was waiting to see if I was with Cam. I think she’s developed a thing for him.”
“I know you and Cam got close, but this could jeopardize the whole operation. If we get him and hold him somewhere until it is all over, we’ll be able to let him go. I don’t want to harm him.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“That’s where you come in.”
~*~
I finished my breakfast of chips and diet coke. I had been here for an hour and was reasonably sure the FBI had left Diane’s house by now. I’d pulled out my cell phone to call her when it rang. According to the caller ID, it was Jenny. I had to be careful how I talked to her now. I didn’t want her to know that I suspected her.
“Jenny. How was your flight?”
“Hi, Cam. I didn’t go.”
Now I was confused again. She’s not lying to me. Was she ever? Still, there was the picture.
“Why not? Did something happen?”
“Yes, you happened.”
“Me?”
“Yes. After I left you yesterday, I did a lot of thinking. I want to stay here and give us a try. That is if you want me to.”