Ford hollered back, “Don’t unbuckle that harness,” and kept going; vaulted over roots and used branches for support. He couldn’t hear the Jet Skis yet, but knew they would come.
The failed actor recognized an American accent when he heard it, so he switched roles. “Goddamn, man, am I glad to see you. My face is bleedin’; arms, too. Help me get down from here.”
Above, a branch snapped and tilted him in his harness. Only then did he realize he was thirty feet off the ground. “Oh my god . . . help me, man. I can’t—”
A rumble of thunder blotted whatever came next.
“Grab a limb,” Ford yelled, and kept repeating advice while he battled the last few yards through the brush.
Cashmere tried; reached and kicked his legs, but lost his nerve when the parasail lifted several feet higher, then bounced him as if on a trampoline. “Oh . . . shit. Man, I’m gonna die up here if you don’t—”
More thunder.
A tangle of yellow nylon snaked along the top of the tree canopy, the last of it draped among low branches. The guy was too far off the ground to reach without climbing trees too frail to climb, so Ford turned toward the rope. When he was halfway there, another gust dragged the parasail into the air while the man screamed, “Dude . . . do somethin’!”
Ford did. He trapped the rope, secured it around his waist, and began tractoring in line. Soon he was pulling at the ankles of the killer he had watched behead two innocent people—Cashmere, still in his harness and tangled in a shroud, while a storm tried to pull them both off the ground.
In the distance, the hornet whine of Jet Skis was now audible. Ford locked his hands on the harness and let his own weight pull the man down until they were nearly eye to eye, but it was a battle. The wind was getting stronger.
“Shut up and listen,” Ford said, which didn’t do the job, so he slapped the man—not hard—and nearly lost his grip on the straps.
Eyes the color of almonds sparked. “Asshole. Why the hell you do that?”
No acting. This was the real David Abdel Cashmere.
Ford replied, “Do what I say, you’ll be okay. First, dump your pockets.”
“Pockets?”
“Do it.”
“The hell I will. Get me down from here or I’ll—”
The parasail shot upward. Ford had snaked an arm through the harness, so it lifted them both into the trees, where they spun, then yo-yoed.
“Shit.” Ford got his legs wrapped around the guy’s waist, then emptied the pockets himself—nothing but a plastic room key, a guest wristband, and some change that spilled to the ground, falling farther than expected when he looked down.
Some of the fight went out of the Chicagoan. “I’ll do anything, man; anything, but don’t let that wind take me again. Okay? Money—you want to get paid? Seriously, I’m rich . . .”
The temptation was to use the wooden spike and get it over with. Instead, Ford let the man talk while he switched his grip from the harness to the dragline, which trailed to the ground. When he got both hands tight, he pushed away, then swung close enough to grab a tree limb. After that, getting down was like descending a ladder, just slower, because he had to get a wrap, then pull the parasail down hand over hand. Finally, he dropped free, still holding the yellow line.
On the ground, he tied a quick-release loop around a sapling, then pulled Cashmere to within a few feet of safety. The whole time, the man had been hollering threats and orders, but suddenly realized what had happened.
“Hey—why’d you stop? I’m gonna get this damn harness off before—”
Ford yanked the rope free and let the parasail jolt to a tenuous stop a few feet higher. “I’m going to ask you a few questions. If you lie to me, I’ll let you fly away.”
The man’s breathing changed. “Sure . . . anything. What do you want? But pull me down first.”
Ford did—almost.
What he wanted was an answer to four questions, but he had to settle for three. That’s when, through a montage of leaves, the first Jet Ski streaked past, followed by two more. The parasail was visible from the water. That was obvious from the sound of the engines. The skis slowed, and turned back, which is when Cashmere lost it and began screaming to the drivers for help.
Ford popped the quick-release knot and let the chute kite upward. If he let go, the Jet Skis would follow the parasail, not him. But he didn’t let go. Instead, hand over hand, using the sapling as a brake, he hauled the man almost to the ground and looped another knot. Then he reached for the harness as if to unbuckle it. “David,” he said. “That’s your name, right? Your real name. David Cashmere. Where’s your ruby-handled knife when you need it, David?”
Hearing his name frightened the guy more than the stream of wind battling to lift him skyward. “No. Really . . . it’s not, you’ve got it all wrong. Who are you?”
Ford held the harness with one hand and moved the other to his belt. “Those men you decapitated a few weeks ago—did you bother to tell them it wasn’t a rehearsal?”
Cashmere looked away.
“What about the day care centers? More than three hundred dead children; body parts scattered for their parents to find. That doesn’t bother you?”
Cashmere turned and said, “Fuck you. If you want to get paid—”
Ford swung the wooden stake then, but it skipped off the man’s temple. It took another glancing blow with the wind gusting, then a third try, this stroke cleaner—maybe—before the stake wedged deep enough to stick.
Strange . . . in those wild seconds, Ford heard no screams nor the thunk of wood seeking purchase. He heard nothing at all until the wind ripped the parasail from his hands.
After that, he stepped back and watched as the man was dragged through the high tree canopy into the sky, still kicking and screaming—but cognitive enough to pull the stake out of his face or temple and hurl it.
A very sloppy job.
Ford didn’t want to think of that.
The northern point of the island offered a better view. From the bushes, he watched Jet Skis chase the parasail. David Cashmere became a rag doll that banged across the bay at an incredible speed. In half a mile, he would collide with trees on another island. If that didn’t kill him, a twilight squall and open sea awaited on the other side.
No one could live through that.
Could he?
• • •
Ford waded the cayuca into the bay and started south, using islands to screen him from the beach and Jet Skis.
If he’s not dead now, he soon will be.
In his head, he repeated that like a mantra.
Water had lost its turquoise glow to clouds overhead. Wind remained a goading force. It pushed him away from what some might refer to as the scene of the crime—if that twisted bastard survived.
He won’t, impossible. He’s drowned by now.
But what if the Jet Skis got to him first?
Ford was a rational man and had to admit it was possible. That led to a new level of reasoning: even if Cashmere was found dead, there were at least two people at the resort who might claim a crime had been committed.
KAT and Winslow Shepherd.
Maybe that was the setup.
Shit-oh-dear.
It was an expression used by his pal Tomlinson to denote any unexpected quandary that should be dealt with but was beyond control.
Shit-oh-dear, indeed. KAT and Shepherd could blame the murder on him—not that they’d seen him. They hadn’t. But even if they accused a faceless, nameless American, it would make it difficult to get out of Mexico or even to cross the border into Belize.
Ford slowed the boat and argued with his better judgment. The rules of his profession could be summarized in three words, hit-and-vanish, meaning Leave no trace and do not linger. He’d never had to return to cover his tracks, so why start now
?
Because of the damn woman, that’s why. One of the three questions Cashmere had answered was about her.
KAT was a double agent. Or, at the very least, a traitor. More irksome was her condescending tone. He was a dinosaur, according to her, incapable of understanding how the world had changed. Even more offensive, he was predictable.
Bitch—he nearly said the word again but didn’t. Emotion could not play a role in the decision he was about to make. No . . . a decision he had already made.
He stopped the boat, shifted his bags to adjust trim, then turned into the wind. Ahead was a waterfall of rain and sparkling lights that, in the far distance, marked the hotel resort.
• • •
An hour passed. The squall swept the bay clean of waves and flooded into the jungle, where clouds and rain were absorbed by foliage. Lightning tracked the storm’s path with a silent strobe. A couple of times, he almost changed his mind. But then a medevac chopper landed, sat for twenty minutes with lights flaring, then banked away toward Playa del Carmen or somewhere on the Yucatán where there might be a hospital.
This suggested that Cashmere was still alive.
A short time later, a second, larger chopper buzzed the resort, then settled into a methodical search pattern miles to the south and southwest, which was the likely path of escape for an American agent on the run.
Ford knew they were looking for him.
Okay . . .
After that, there was no turning back.
He anchored the little boat a quarter mile off and swam to shore, carrying the gear he needed. In his head was a plan. Winslow Shepherd was in Room 802, according to the notepad he’d found near KAT’s phone. She might join the professor there or they would rendezvous at her place.
This was all hopeful guesswork. Even so, he followed that linkage methodically. He used the laser to fry the sensors on two security cameras and entered Cinnamon Cottage. It was empty. He removed the thumbtack transmitters he’d planted and hurried on, destroying three more security cameras along the way.
Lightning strikes could be blamed for all sorts of technical failures.
There was only one building with eight floors—a stack of luxury suites set back from the beach and away from the noise of the pool bar, although the bar was closed and quiet after so much rain.
Ford took the stairs, rather than an elevator, and checked out the seventh floor to get a feel for the layout. These were the big-money suites, two to a floor, each with the requisite bedroom with a view.
Ocean views guaranteed balconies.
He went up the stairs to the eighth floor and stopped in a corridor that separated the suites and was open to the sea. No windows, no screens, just vaulted stucco supports with a railing that was within reach of each balcony.
He placed an ear against the door of Room 802. Quiet inside. By straddling the railing, he crossed over to a back sliding door and entered Shepherd’s apartment. The man had been a math professor, according to the Internet, and the professor had left a desk lamp on and the television.
Ford went through, then came back to the balcony. There was no need for additional light to inspect the balcony railing. It was made of wrought iron with a polished wooden banister, all anchored solidly in concrete.
From the tactical bag, he took a multi-tool and a stainless Randall survival knife that was strong enough to pry bolts out of walls. Not all the bolts; not even most. Just a few key supports to scare the hell out of them both, if needed. The rest, he would play by ear.
There was a closet off the kitchenette. That’s where Ford was hiding when, around midnight, the professor and KAT entered. They locked the door behind them, then tumbled themselves into an embrace that carried them, both panting, to the floor, then a couch.
The next half hour was awkward but informative because they talked afterward. Talked a lot; some of it loud enough to hear.
Finally, the lovers walked naked out onto the balcony, where there were stars above the deep ocean gloom and where they lit what, from the vantage point of a closet, smelled like a joint.
The professor was offering the joint to KAT when Ford stepped out with a flashlight in one hand, the little 9mm pistol in the other.
He asked the professor, “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” then spoke to the woman, saying, “Okay. Tell me what happens next.”
Mack was in the marina office on Sunday, the second week of December, when Tomlinson entered, holding a leash attached to a large dog. The dog, a retriever of some sort, was prone to destructive behavior if his owner, Marion Ford, left the island for more than a few days.
It had been eight.
Mack tilted his bifocals up from The Wall Street Journal. “Instead of fidgeting, just go ahead and give me the bad news.”
Tomlinson had a habit of chewing strands of hair when he was nervous or using a finger to doodle designs on his temple. He was doing both. “Whoa. Whatever happened to a simple ‘Hello’?”
Mack frowned at the dog. “What did he do this time? No, get to the important part. If insurance won’t cover it, how much is this gonna cost me until Doc gets back? I’ve about had it with pets and children around here. Did he chew the lines off a dinghy or drag in more canoes?”
Tomlinson said, “Shallow up, man. Yeah, he took something, but unless someone called the cops, no one has to know. Doc’s what I came to ask about. Any word from him?”
Mack swung around in his swivel chair. “I knew it.”
The marina office was in a two-story building with large windows overlooking Dinkin’s Bay, a brackish lake ringed by mangroves, oyster bars; a few houses, way out there on Woodring Point. Outside the windows, on the pine deck, was a walk-in freezer and a fish-cleaning table that serviced the little restaurant next door. The deck narrowed to make room for more mangroves, then branched off into dockage, where, in the deepest part of the basin, vessels large enough to live aboard sat in a neat row. That was A dock. Docks B and C fingered away from the shoreline.
“Nothing missing,” Mack said, then paused while his eyes lingered on a small man, shirtless, all bone and muscle, out there alone, standing in a canoe.
Standing?
Yes—the silly fool. The bay was a submerged plateau of turtle grass and sand potholes, seldom deeper than a person’s head, but deep enough if the person was only five-four and couldn’t swim.
“What the bloody hell is Figgy doing out there without a life jacket?”
Tomlinson didn’t have to look. Mack was talking about Figueroa Casanova, a Cuban whose size and IQ had been stunted during childhood but who was still smart and funny in odd ways. He, too, had come to Florida with Marion Ford’s help.
“He’s fishing. Using a handline. Don’t worry about him. Figgy used to paddle out in an inner tube and fish the Gulf Stream.”
“Well, someone should tell the crazy fool that six feet of water is as good as a mile for a man who’s barely five feet tall.” Mack’s eyes refocused. He stood. “I’ll be damned . . . a boat is missing. See? The Brazilian’s boat. It’s gone from its slip.”
The Brazilian was Vargas Diemer, a jet-setter who owned Seduci, a 55-foot Lamberti custom yacht. Tomlinson chuckled. “Are you high? It would take a tug to tow that thing. Vargas probably went for a sunset cruise. What about Doc? Have you heard from him? We’re supposed to go diving tomorrow, and that guy has never missed an appointment in his life without calling ahead.”
Mack had other things on his mind. “If it floats, flies, or isn’t tied down, that dog is the devil with fur.”
On the counter was a black cat, Crunch & Des—named for two characters in novels by Philip Wylie. The cat stood and arched his back to invite a scratch, but Mack ignored him.
“Thieving dingo,” Mack muttered and tossed his cigar on the counter as if his day had been ruined. He exited the side door and reappeared through the front, his
head bobbing above shelves that were stocked with hats, fishing tackle, peanuts, peanut butter crackers, and a mannequin wearing a T-shirt that read
SANIBEL ISLAND
ZEN CITY
“I give up,” he said and took his seat behind the counter. “Get him out of here before he shakes water all over everything.”
Tomlinson gave the leash a couple of tugs, then backed out the door, coaxing, “Come . . . Come on. That’a boy,” speaking in a respectful tone until the dog sprinted past him, ripped the leash from his hand, and vaulted over a railing into the bay. A dozen gulls spooked to flight, screaming as they soared overhead.
“I’ve got a shock collar,” Tomlinson yelled from the door. “And I know how to use it!”
Mack turned away. “Now, for the last time—what did the dog steal?”
“It’s not like it’s grand theft . . . Come on, I’ll show you.” He stepped back so Mack could exit, then spun a section of The Wall Street Journal around. A small headline, inside page, appealed to his taste in conspiracy theories:
CHINA CLAIMS
TWO U.S. SPIES
KILLED IN MEXICO
Speaking to Mack’s back, he said, “Did you read this?”
“No . . . just the stocks.”
“You should. I’m telling you, people of the world are fed up with America’s bullshit. Fascists will blame the Muslims or—” Tomlinson stopped to rescan details because it occurred to him the name Marion Ford might appear.
It did not. Even so, he dropped the subject.
“I hope you don’t spout that hippie political drivel around the guides,” Mack said. “Especially if you plan on stealing their beer. Very patriotic, those buggers, and not in the best of moods. Hello, Dolly! may have hurt the dive business, but she was a boon to the fishing guides.”
“What do you mean?”
Dolly, the great white, had faded from the headlines over the last three weeks, but Tomlinson felt like he’d missed something. “I thought tourism was way off.”
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