“Oh my god.”
“Yeah. I’ve got a whole file, but it’s way out of my field.”
“Oh my god,” she said again but slower. “You think Pete’s a specially engineered hybrid.”
“Who?” Ford asked, then winced but pressed ahead. “I’ll bring the results when I pick him up. Will he be ready sometime today?”
“He’s with Tomlinson. I thought I mentioned they just left . . . well, about fifteen minutes ago. If you don’t mind, I do have one more question. The geneticist—do you remember his name?”
• • •
It was calm this December morning, the air cool off the bay, but warmer when Ford exited the mangroves into the sunny parking lot where his truck was parked, the engine still ticking with heat.
Tomlinson had recently returned.
There were a dozen cars in the lot, and, outside the office, Mack was deep in conversation with Rhonda, while Figueroa, muscles shiny in the sun, lugged a heavy box toward the boat ramp. But no sign of his pal or the dog.
Ford did an about-face. He completed routine chores in the lab, then went into his bedroom to change into shorts and running shoes. He awoke an hour later, glared in the mirror, and told himself, Your lazy ass is slipping . . .
A fitting punishment was a tougher workout, which he modified to do double duty. Instead of jogging to the beach for a swim, he put on a mask, no fins, and crawl-stroked a quarter mile out into the bay. Maybe he would stumble onto the missing drone.
He did not.
Half an hour and three miles later, he sprinted the final hundred yards into the parking lot, then stood, panting at leaning rest, until he was able to walk without wobbling. As he made his way through the mangroves, he tried to convince himself That’s enough for today.
No it wasn’t. A few years back, he’d drilled holes in two joists under his house and mounted a wooden bar over the water. It had just enough spring to make pull-ups easier, but not enough to admit it was cheating. Because of a torn rotator cuff, he hadn’t used the bar in months. Today, his lazy ass decided he would. Never mind the spectacular bruise behind his shoulder or the orthopedist’s warning to let the damn shoulder rest.
You can do this, he told himself.
No he couldn’t.
Four pull-ups into an intended set of fifteen, what felt like ground glass caused him to lose his grip and sprawled him into the water. He came up spouting more personal advice, but louder, and when he was done, a man said, “I’ve heard all those words, but never in exactly that combination. Do you need help getting out?”
On the walkway, near the gate, stood a guy who looked too young to be wearing a gray suit and carrying a briefcase. “Are you Dr. Ford? My name’s Watts. I was told this is where you live.”
“Give me a second,” Ford said. He used the ladder, went up the steps, and came out with a towel and wearing a dry tank top. “What can I do for you?”
“Just a couple of questions. I’ve already spoken to a few others who live in the area. Friendly place, this island.”
“Questions about what?”
“Is there somewhere we can sit down and talk?”
“That sounds official.”
The man, smiling, shook his head and started toward the house. “More like a private discussion.”
Under the house, hidden in the boat, was the broken drone. Ford went down the steps, but not in an obvious hurry, saying, “Most people see the sign at the gate. You’re supposed to ring the bell before you come through . . . Watts, you said?”
“You were putting on quite a show when I walked up,” the man replied. “I must have missed it.”
“Not a problem. For all I know, the damn sign’s gone. Come on. We can talk out here.” Ford slid past the guy, where he got a whiff of shaving lotion and gauged his size: six-three, a hundred and ninety pounds, with ears and a face unscarred by wrestling or mixed martial arts. “Yep”—he stopped and held the gate open—“the sign’s still here.”
Watts—if that was his name—remained relaxed. He had the easygoing confidence typical of insurance salesmen and federal agents. “Why is it I get the impression I’m not welcome?”
Ford wasn’t wearing his glasses but stared as if the man’s eyes had come sharply into focus. “You aren’t—until you tell me why you’re here. You could be a con man or with a group that’s offended because I sell marine specimens. Or pissed-off because I don’t think manatee and snook should be on restaurant menus. Oh, don’t laugh. I get my share of crazies. What’s your first name?”
The man, still chuckling, let that go and opened his briefcase. “I’ve been retained by a company that lost one of these yesterday. We know it went down here, somewhere in the water. There’s a reward if you can help.”
Ford accepted a color photo of the saucer-shaped drone. He studied it for a while, then handed it back. “I saw something that looked like this fly past yesterday afternoon. Propeller-driven—you could hear the propellers but no motor—so I remember thinking it must be fairly high-tech and expensive. Then, for no apparent reason, it crashed right out there.” He pointed vaguely. “I was surprised the owner didn’t come charging out and try to get to it before it sank. So was everyone else. Now, a day later, here you are. How do you explain that, Mr. Watts?”
“Like I told you, it’s owned by the company that hired me. It’s a production company out of New York, but they have offices in Miami and Naples. They were shooting B-roll for a national ad campaign—Florida’s sunny, sandy beaches, something like that. And you’re right, it’s an expensive piece of equipment. They want it back.”
Ford started to say, “If they launched the thing out of Naples or Miami . . .” which is when he saw the dog out there, in three feet of water, struggling with something heavy; a black, saucer-looking object he’d dragged halfway to the stilthouse, even though it sank whenever he stopped to get a better grip. Like now.
“Let’s talk in the parking lot,” Ford said. He waved for Watts to follow him through the gate.
“Something wrong?”
“I was just pointing out there are plenty of scenic beaches around Naples, so why would they send a drone clear up here? But if they did, they did.” He pulled the gate wider. “Are you coming?”
Watts sensed Ford’s uneasiness. “Where?”
“The guy who owns the marina, his name’s Mack. Mack got a better look at the thing than I did, and he rents boats. If it’s in the water”—he motioned again, getting impatient—“you need a boat, right?”
“Maybe they’re shooting an ad about Sanibel,” Watts replied. He turned and looked where Ford had been looking and saw a furry butt sticking out of the water. But he did not yet see the missing drone, which the dog was battling to lift to the surface. “What the hell’s that?”
“It’s a dog.”
“I can see that.”
“He brings me all kinds of junk from the bottom. It’s what retrievers do. Do you like dogs?”
When Watts turned away, saying, “Not really,” Ford released a long breath but didn’t feel safe until they were in the parking lot, where he pointed to the marina office and said, “You’ll find Mack in there.”
“We’re not done.”
The temptation was to tell the guy, The hell we aren’t, but he couldn’t risk being followed back to the lab. Plus, he had some questions of his own for the man.
It didn’t happen. After waiting fifteen minutes outside the office, Ford went in to find Mack alone at the cash register. “Where’s Watts?”
“The guy in the suit?” Mack reached under the counter for something—a small brown envelope. “I don’t know. He walked in, gave me this, and left. I told him you were around here someplace. Who is he?”
Inside the envelope, no writing anywhere, was a cheap memory stick.
Ford said, “I’ve got to go,” and jogged back
to his house, where the dog was still battling the drone. But there was no sign of Watts—if that was his name.
• • •
A stopwatch icon appeared on the screen, then a warning in red: Time Terminated: 30 seconds. Do not pause or attempt to copy.
The stopwatch began ticking when Ford opened the file. A document appeared that typed itself as if being dictated:
If you killed the lying fool, I might have thanked you. Instead, I’m obligated. Your only option is to cooperate. Reparations, etcetera, to be decided pending the old man’s death or recovery.
The document vanished, replaced by video. It showed a hospital bed, where Winslow Shepherd lay with his leg in a cast elevated in traction. Otherwise, he didn’t look too bad when he turned to the camera and slurred, “Tell him he won’t get away with this. Show him.” Then attempted to yell, “You can’t hide from . . .” but the words collapsed into a coughing fit.
Ford tried to do two things at once: note details that gave away the location and also capture a screenshot to study later. But too late—not for the screenshot but to correct his first mistake, which was opening the memory stick in the first place.
The screen went black; a fan inside the hard drive doubled its speed. Ford realized his system was being hijacked, or erased, or both. In a rush, he yanked cables and power cords free and threw the memory stick across the room. The hard drive went silent, but it took a while. If his files were still being downloaded, would throwing the hard drive in the bay halt the theft?
No . . . not if software mogul Julian Solo was behind the attack. Ford believed he was. The phrases lying fool and old man’s were convincing.
Idiot.
He slid the computer under the steel dissecting table—as if that would help—banged open the door, and clomped down to the lower deck, where he tried to calm down by looking in a wooden fish tank there. He’d made it from a thousand-gallon rain cistern, added all necessary pumps, a sub-sand filter, and a hundred-gallon upper reservoir to improve water clarity. Pumps hummed a froth of fresh spray onto the surface. Pinfish and snappers and a little bonnethead shark darted for cover among a host of living, breath-filtering species. There were tunicates, scallops, and triangular pen shells.
The pen shells were the size and color of a turkey’s wing. They produced iridescent black pearls, and their abductor muscles were sweet with a mild cucumber flavor and good to eat. Colonies of thousands lay not far off the beach yet were unknown to most chefs, thus an unused resource.
It was calming to stand there and observe a lucent microcosm of the sea. But then the missing drone popped into his head and he turned. The dog was gone, but the drone was there, abandoned at the edge of the mangroves. He checked behind him, glanced at the sky, then went after it.
Beneath the house, next to his boat, was a hose. He washed the carbon fuselage clean and inspected both sides. Six of eight propellers were gone. Four mini-cameras protruded on spindles. There were dozens of sensors embedded in the skin but no identifying marks.
The aircraft wasn’t heavy, once the water had drained. Fifteen pounds, approximately, and the circumference of a garbage can lid. He hid the thing on his boat next to the other UAV, then decided the bow cover, which was engineered for stealth, wasn’t safe enough.
Maybe there was no safe place. Not with Julian and his network of Internet wizards in pursuit. They obviously had their orders, and Ford suspected what those orders were. Julian wanted his drones back. And wanted revenge.
But after rethinking it, Ford wasn’t so sure. The document had been ambiguous. If you killed the lying fool, I might have thanked you, the text had read. Or was he wrong about the wording? Then something about reparations, etcetera, to be paid pending the old man’s death or recovery.
I should make notes while it’s fresh, Ford thought, but, either way, he had to wonder if Julian had offered him a way out.
If you’d killed the old fool, I would’ve thanked you.
That wasn’t quite right either, but close enough.
Ford stepped under the house and looked up at the floor. Stacked between joists were sheets of tin roofing he’d replaced after the hurricane of 2004. If he covered the drones with enough tin, maybe a satellite couldn’t find them. That was easy enough but sloppy. There had to be a better way.
Somewhere he’d read about constructing a room that was immune to lightning strikes. A Faraday cage, the structure was called. The design was based on a theory regarding the flow of electromagnetic energy. The cage was equally effective at blocking electronic waves of all sorts. That’s what had caught his attention—Ford, a man who loathed the intrusions of the Internet yet lacked the willpower to get rid of it.
These days, at least, he could rationalize his weakness because there was no place in the whole damn world where satellites could not be accessed.
Winslow Shepherd’s voice had reminded him, You can’t hide.
Well . . . he could try.
He didn’t remember enough about building a Faraday cage to start immediately, but metal sheeting was a key component. Later, assuming his computer was kaput, he’d borrow Tomlinson’s laptop to do the research.
Ford stacked the tin at the edge of the deck, made notes in the lab, then went to find his dog.
On the wall separating the office from the fish market was a VHF radio that scanned three channels used by the fishing guides, plus emergency channels monitored by the Coast Guard. Mack, and sometimes Jeth, who filled in behind the counter, kept the volume low unless they heard something of interest.
Mack, chewing at a cigar, reached for the knob now when an unfamiliar voice called out, “Shark! . . . Shark! . . . You wouldn’t believe the size of this bastard. It’s gotta be twenty feet long.”
Seconds passed, then he heard: “A great white, I think. Yeah . . . gotta be. A great white shark. Oh my god . . . it’s coming back and we’ve got two divers in the water. Anybody copy? Shit . . . Stand by.”
A burst of static followed. This suggested to Mack he was eavesdropping on a vessel that was close enough to Sanibel to bang in loud and clear, but not far enough offshore to communicate with vessels in deeper water. On the roof was an illegal antenna that, on a good day, reached twenty-five miles into the Gulf. Ten miles, though, was typical. The captain in trouble wasn’t far off the beach.
Static . . . more static, then the same voice yelled, “A freakin’ great white shark! I gotta get our divers up. Anybody . . . do you copy? I could use some help out here, guys.”
Mack knew that Fast Eddie had left with a scuba charter at eight a.m., yet he looked to confirm Eddie’s boat was gone. It was the man’s first charter in weeks, but that wasn’t Eddie’s voice. New Jersey accents were unmistakable. Dive captains sometimes paired up offshore, so maybe Eddie’s radio was the source of the static. A bad antenna, or too far out to be heard.
He reduced squelch and turned up the volume, then hurried to the door, which was always propped open. He wanted someone to witness this. Aside from tourists, all he saw was the big brown retriever and the little Cuban, Figuerito, who was in the parking lot throwing rocks for the dog to retrieve, pitching as if in a baseball game.
Mack hollered, “Hey, Figgy. Get in here. Hurry, man! Bring Tomlinson and Rhonda, too, if they’re handy.”
The Cuban said something to an invisible umpire and came on the run. He didn’t speak English, but he knew an emergency when he heard one.
Mack slid into his regular seat behind the counter and pointed to the VHF when the Cuban and dog appeared. “A dive captain out in the Gulf, he spotted a great white shark and he’s got divers in the water. It’s gotta be her, the one they tagged. Dolly. Damn it, I knew I should’ve made Fast Eddie cancel that trip.”
Figuerito nodded as if he understood. The dog, panting, did a circle and collapsed on the linoleum floor.
“The captain, the poor bugger, he can’t contact
anyone. I’m thinking I should hail the Coast Guard and—” A burst of static caused Mack to hold up a warning hand: Listen.
Offshore, the unknown captain spoke to a passenger but had the mic key open. “Goddamn thing’s bigger than my boat, man. You see it? I don’t know where it went. Keep your eyes open.” He clicked the mic key twice. “Hailing any vessel, any vessel off Lighthouse Point. We’ve got a big-ass great white circling us and we’ve got two divers down. I blasted the emergency recall until I’m deaf, but they haven’t responded. Oh, shit . . . now what?” There was a pause. “I’m thinking about . . . Yeah, I’m gonna have to go in after them. Stand by.” A wailing horn made the last few words difficult to decipher.
Mack got to his feet. “Did he say he was going in the water? That’s what I think he said. Or did he? Geezus, I hope I’m wrong. Figgy”—he pointed in the direction of Ford’s lab—“go fetch Doc. Bring him back as fast as you can.”
The dog jumped to its feet and charged out the door. The Cuban, confused, followed.
Mack looked at the radio, saying, “You’re a fool if you go in. Don’t do it,” then realized he could talk to the guy himself by picking up the microphone. He tried.
“Break, break, this channel, this is Dinkin’s Bay Marina. Skipper? We’ve got you loud and clear. Do you read? State your location, we’ll send out a boat now. Also suggest you switch to emergency channel sixteen. That’s channel one-six. Do you copy?”
Static; more static, then a garbled mess when other vessels came on with offers to help—one off Vanderbilt Beach, another near Sanibel Causeway. The confusion went on for a while, which Mack tried to abate, saying, “Clear this channel. Do you read? There’s a boat out there in trouble. He has two divers he can’t locate. Someone hail the Coast Guard and tell them to switch over.”
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