The Cuban had overtaken the canoe. “This boat is a worthless turd,” he called over. “It won’t let me in.”
Tomlinson’s Spanish was good enough to say, “Walk the freakin’ thing over here, you dumb shit. Get the lead out.”
Ford’s toes found the drone. He kept his back to the marina and lifted the thing to the surface, but just for a quick look. It was an expensive, high-tech piece of machinery. No obvious markings. The carapace was carbon fiber. It bristled with eight propellers and the appendages of telemetry. Two . . . no, three mini-camera eyes were mounted on robotic cams, and a cockscomb of antennas along the spine.
The genius of technology, as always, was in the parroting of nature. In this case, a flying crab.
Eight days he’d been away, the last three nothing but butt-busting travel, not one minute of sleep. Now to return to this?
A reasonable way to refocus was to haul the drone ashore and give it a careful inspection. Where had it come from? Why had a military-grade drone—an unmanned aerial vehicle; UAV—been circling his house?
The problem was, Ford knew the answer and he didn’t want anyone—especially Mack or others watching from the docks—to figure out the truth. Someone—an organization or its hireling—had sent an aircraft to monitor his lab. They wanted to know if he was still alive and if he’d made it back to Sanibel.
His eyes moved to the marina, where Mack stood apart from a cluster of tourists. A few locals had been alerted, too. Rhonda and JoAnn, middle-aged women, were on the bow of Tiger Lilly, an old, ornate Chris-Craft that was their floating home. Marta Estéban and her daughter Sabina watched from the dock. A couple of other familiar faces were there, too. All friends.
A UAV required a pilot linked via a computer. He focused on the unfamiliar faces, presumably tourists. There were eight . . . no, nine. Young parents with a couple of kids; some mom-and-pop retirees; a fit-looking threesome dressed in stretchy cyclist outfits. A male cyclist and two others: one of them, unmistakably female; the other, no clue.
None carried a briefcase of the sort necessary to house a computer control system. And only the woman cyclist was concerned enough to jog across the deck, where she jumped down among the mangroves to get a closer look.
Maybe she was a UAV hobbyist and it was her aircraft.
Ford hoped this was true.
He kept his back to Tomlinson and tuned out a monologue that oscillated between wild profanities and gentle spiritual negotiation. By then, the Cuban, Figgy, had gotten involved, saying, “Brother, I don’t think you’re doing that right unless you’re kissing the dog good-bye. You never been to a cockfight?”
The absurdity of this caused Ford to turn. The two men had laid the retriever across the bow of the canoe, Figgy holding the dog’s rear while Tomlinson did compressions and blew air into the dog’s mouth. His pal looked up long enough to say to Figgy in Spanish, “Do you mind? I’m trying to concentrate here.”
“Just a question, man. I never liked this dog much. He growled and pissed on my foot once. Why you think a dog do that? Trotted up, sniffed, and pissed right on my—”
Tomlinson said, “Hold the damn canoe steady. Check his heart. Do you feel anything?”
Figgy continued talking. “Yes, and me wearing my new shoes.”
“His heart’s beating?”
“No. Yes, he pissed on my shoe, so I don’t like this dog. But if you trying to breathe life into an animal, brother, you not doing it right. That’s why I ask about cockfights. You never been to a cockfight?”
More compressions, another attempt to blow air into the retriever’s mouth. Tomlinson, exasperated, said, “If you know something I don’t, show me.”
“Ain’t no roosters around to show you, man. I’m talking about fighting cocks. I had a bunch one time. They didn’t fight worth a damn, so I had to breathe lots of them back to life.”
“You breathed roosters back to life.”
The Cuban asked, “What else you gonna do? They too stringy to eat, man.”
“He’s all yours,” Tomlinson said and waited to trade places.
Ford had had enough. “Carry him back to shore—but not in front of those kids. Into the mangroves by my place, take him there.” He pretended to kick around with his feet. “That little plane—whatever it was the dog was chasing—I can’t find it. So to hell with it.”
Tomlinson gave him an odd look while the Cuban, slogging around to change sides, said, “Okay. But if he bites me, it’s your fault.”
Figgy’s CPR technique was unorthodox. He clamped the dog’s jaws shut and opened his own jaws wide enough to insert half of the dog’s snout into his mouth. First time, he damn near gagged. Pulled away, saying, “Dog snot . . . mierda, man,” but went right back at it, blowing air while Tomlinson worked the dog’s ribs like a bellows.
How long had it been?
Ford wondered about that, irritated with himself. When something of potential importance occurred—a gunshot, a scream, a lightning strike—he automatically looked at his watch. It’s the way he was. Not this time. It felt like a lot more than five or six minutes had passed. Add to that the minute or two the dog had been trapped underwater.
If true, further efforts to revive the retriever were futile. Worse, it struck him as a pointless indignity to man or animal—in this case, a dog who, while not spectacularly bright, had possessed quirks that Ford, like most dog owners, found endearing because they either were qualities he lacked in himself, or mirrored strengths that appealed to his own vanity.
“That’s enough,” he said finally. “The dog’s dead. Don’t make more of it than it is.”
The UAV was on its side between his feet. He squatted, pretending to adjust a shoe, and picked it up, but kept it beneath the surface when he started toward shore.
“Marion?” Another odd look from Tomlinson. “You okay? How long has it been since you got any sleep?”
Ford didn’t respond. Slogging toward them in a hurry was the woman cyclist in blue-and-gold racing tights, no helmet, chestnut hair tied back. Tall with broad shoulders, and busty enough to give the illusion of narrow hips until the water deepened. Without stopping, she called, “Hey. Hey! Someone said there’s a dog out here in trouble.”
No mention of the drone.
“Slide your feet,” Ford called back. “Even if you’re wearing shoes, slide your feet. A lot of stingrays on the bottom out here.”
She kept coming, but took longer strides like a skater. “What about the dog?”
“It’s too late unless you’re a veterinarian. Too late even if you are.”
“I am,” she said. “Are you sure?”
This was unexpected. “You’re a vet?”
“My office is in Sarasota, but maybe I can help. Are you sure he’s gone?”
Ford floated the UAV drone behind him, even though it was underwater. “No, he’s right there. He drowned; got snagged on something and was down too long.”
That struck the woman as insensitive. She stopped and squinted, looking beyond him to the canoe—nearsighted or her contacts weren’t up to the task. “Thank god, the owner hasn’t given up,” she said, then abandoned her skating technique, got her knees up, and ran past him. Stumbled only once; kept her balance and covered a lot of ground. An athlete. Soccer or track; possibly, a hurdler.
She didn’t hear him respond, “I am the owner.”
Ford watched the woman until the angle threatened to bring the dog’s body into view, then turned away.
Where could he hide the UAV? He focused on the problem as he waded toward shore. More people had gathered on the docks, and the fishing guides were back, idling their skiffs, beneath flocking gulls, into the boat basin. Vargas Diemer’s yacht was in the channel, too, the Brazilian standing at the flybridge wheel looking svelte, crisp, and confident.
Too many eyes. Ford would have to drop the drone b
efore he got ashore. But it had to be the right place. As he knew, if you sink even a sizable object in a small area of water, it’s still damn hard to find. Years ago, he’d hopped into a rental boat with Jeth, one of the guides, to test a small outboard. Jeth had failed to tighten the transom bolts; the motor had vibrated off, not far from the dock, in less than six feet of water, yet it had taken them hours to find the damn thing.
Another example was . . .
He stopped. Why was his mind wandering? Strange, the way he felt; a sudden inability to focus that might be caused by days without sleep. On the other hand, it might also be a way of distancing himself from what had just happened to the retriever.
This was unusual for Ford.
Dogs, insects, fish, people, the old, the very young, died by the billions each microsecond of every new day. Some men died with a stake in their brain; others, on patios after a fall. Death was as necessary as it was inevitable. It was a chemical process unsullied by sentiment.
Sometimes, death was also a tool.
But, damn it, this was Sanibel Island, not the back of beyond . . . the dog was, after all, his dog. He about-faced and plowed toward the canoe, which wasn’t far.
Tomlinson had the animal in his arms, holding him nearly upside down, while the woman worked on the dog’s abdomen. Massaging it, perhaps. Every few seconds, Figgy did that weird thing with his mouth as if trying to swallow the dog snout-first.
Geezus, this time when the Cuban pulled away, the dog’s tail thumped the water a few times.
Had the tail really moved? Or was it just a weird spasm? Ford began to jog.
A moment later, when Figgy leaned to brave another breath, a long, sloppy tongue slapped his face, then his ear. Feeble paws tried to swim; the retriever’s tail whacked the canoe. It made a wooden drumming sound that didn’t stop until Figgy, trying to dodge the tongue, hollered, “Hey-y-y, man, stop that shit.”
“You’re one lucky owner,” the woman was saying to Tomlinson when Ford came up. “Not many people know canine CPR; a large dog, especially. But it’s basically the same for small animals. Your friend’s obviously a dog lover.”
She shot a look at the Cuban, who was shirtless, all sinew and muscle, blue and red Santeria beads around his neck. “I’m Ava,” she said to him. “What’s your name?” Then, because of Figgy’s blank response, she asked Tomlinson in confidence, “Is he hearing-impaired?”
“Figueroa? Dude’s got impairments you would not believe.” Tomlinson was scratching the dog’s back, his ears, grinning. “He doesn’t speak English, but he’s a hell of a shortstop. And he knows quite a bit about roosters, as it turns out.”
Figgy, not so confidentially, requested a translation, before explaining in Spanish, “I like her chichis and her ass. In Key West, a gringa once told me I was delicious. Think she’d like to smoke a pitillo?”
The woman liked the rhythms of his voice. “My Spanish is terrible, but I know he asked a question. Something about me in Key West?”
“He’s concerned the dog might bite you because you’re a stranger, uhh . . . which happens a lot in the Keys,” Tomlinson replied, then addressed the Cuban in Spanish: “You sick, twisted little pervert. Mind your manners. This woman’s a freakin’ veterinarian.”
“I like gringa soldiers. Of what army?”
“A médico de animales, you sex fiend.”
“Even better,” Figgy said while the dog squirmed in his arms, “tell her to take this crazy bastard.” He cringed, pulled away. “Stop your shit, doggy. I’ll drown you myself.”
Ford stepped toward the canoe. “Give him to me.”
“I want to check him over first,” the doctor said to Tomlinson. “He’s not the owner, you are, right?”
“No way, it’s his”—he indicated Ford—“the damn dog won’t listen to a word anyone else says. Hey, Doc. I think the big fella’s gonna be okay. Isn’t that great?”
The woman said, “I’m not so sure,” with an edge that offered a couple of meanings. She helped Figgy transfer the patient into the canoe; the dog, so woozy, couldn’t stand when he tried. She checked his eyes, his gums, felt the pads of his feet, then waited in silence with three fingers on his chest, her growing concern visible.
She checked his eyes once again before saying, “He’s not out of the woods by a long shot. His breathing’s way off. We need to get him to a clinic. Do you have a vet? One of the guys I’m with, he owns a building complex, and a vet has an office there. This late, though . . .” She took out a phone in a waterproof case and used her thumbs to send a text.
Ford ran a hand over the retriever’s head and started pushing the canoe toward shore. “He was underwater for a long time. Four or five minutes . . . But, yeah, a vet, of course. A couple of months ago, I had a vet check him out . . .” He lost the thread and spoke to Tomlinson. “Any idea how long before he started to respond? He had to have been under for at least five minutes. Hell, maybe more. It seemed longer.”
The woman said, “You’re exaggerating, I hope.”
Ford’s expression: Why would I?
“That’s bad; very bad.” She sent another text, or read one, in a real hurry now. “We’ve gotta move, guys. My friend will open the clinic. We had a taxi waiting, so our bikes are already loaded.” She splashed up beside Ford. “Get out of the way. It’ll be faster if I do it.”
“Do what?”
“Move.”
He did.
They watched her take off running, pushing the canoe, the dog’s head visible amid geysers of water, his expression a look of addled surprise. Over her shoulder, she yelled, “At least one of you try and keep up. I’ll call the marina with . . .”
They couldn’t make out the rest.
Ford arrived onshore ahead of Tomlinson, who’d stopped when the Cuban fell into a hole, but the woman and her friends were already buckled into a van—a Sanibel Taxi—that was leaving the parking lot.
It was a while later that Ford remembered the drone. He had dropped it out there in the bay when he’d seen the dog’s tail move.
After sunset, which was early, only six p.m., the man Ford trusted called and said immediately, “You dropped the ball, but I don’t want to hear details. Not here. Understand what I mean?”
In all his years of clandestine work, this was the first Ford had been warned not to trust their supposedly high-tech, cutting-edge, “impenetrable” communications system.
I’m screwed—that’s what he thought, but said, “Then why did you call?”
“It’s a sports metaphor. Dropped the ball. Instead of going one-for-one—which is what you were supposed to do—you went one-for-goddamn-three. Baseball. Are you with me so far?” There was silence, the man controlling his anger.
Ford’s take on this gibberish: David Cashmere had not survived his parasailing adventure. Great. KAT and Winslow Shepherd were still alive and that was okay, too. But then he realized that “one-for-one” might not refer to Cashmere, his actual target. If so, no telling who was dead.
“I haven’t slept in a bed for quite a while,” he told the man, “and I haven’t slept at all going on thirty-six hours. So I’m going to take a chance here—” He was about to just say it, come out and ask, Did I kill the right guy? but his eyes moved to the kitchen window, the dark bay beyond. The UAV was still out there somewhere. Its owner had yet to appear. Ford, staring out the window, asked, “How did you know I was home?”
“You’ll recognize the sound of me hanging up when you check your messages. You were overdue, so I called. Tell you the truth? You ever make a call and hope someone doesn’t answer? That’s me calling you. One-for-three,” the man said again. Then he lost it. “Where the hell do you get off going rogue? Engaging our own assets when you knew—”
“Our assets?” Ford interrupted. “Look up an Aussie named Shepherd. While you’re at it, find out KAT’s real name and who’s�
�”
“No details,” the man warned. “Jesus Christ. There’s a word for what you did. In fact, whole books on protocols and laws, but the word I’m thinking of begins with you have-screwed-the-pooch, buddy. I didn’t okay any of this shit, not a single directive from me. And you didn’t bother asking. That’s the truth, isn’t it? I want to hear you say it.”
The conversation was being recorded, Ford realized. Months from now, it might be played at a hearing if Congress ever figured out who to subpoena.
“I understand,” he said.
“That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
“Hang on,” Ford replied and put down the phone before he lost his temper. He’d been making ceviche because Mack had invited him and some others to discuss a real estate deal—some old cottages off West Gulf Drive. On the counter were limes, an onion he’d been slicing, and a superb chunk of mangrove snapper. He placed the knife in the sink, opened a beer, then returned to the phone. “My dog almost drowned today,” he said.
After a long silence, the man replied, “Who?”
“The vet’s keeping him overnight for observation.”
“So what?”
“That was my reaction, too. At first anyway. Weird, huh? I think back, I see the last ten, fifteen years of my life in double vision. Separate jobs, memories. In fact, separate personalities, but just one guy: me. That’s what I’m getting at. No complaints—I signed on the dotted line and I’m proud of some of our work. But one of those personalities I mentioned is a cold-blooded asshole.”
“No shit,” the man said. He was loosening a little.
“I’m talking about myself, not you.”
“Do I sound confused? Asshole; of course you are. With the personality of an ice pick. Like going rogue without any input from—”
Ford decided to get it over with. “I take full responsibility for doing what I felt was necessary. At no time did I receive a directive or instructions or advice from—wait. Should I say your name?”
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