Assassin's Shadow

by Striker, Randy

  Only Sonya Casimur looked upset. I couldn’t tell if she was going to cry or start swinging at the St. Carib staffers.

  One thing was for sure: She wasn’t at St. Carib because she liked it. And she was right about the men drooling over her. She never had a minute to herself. There was always some overweight group member lolling around her, flirting like a teenage boy. Someone once said that a truly beautiful woman sees all of life’s ugliness by the time she is eighteen.

  Sonya Casimur had seen it all, and she was tired of it.

  Before dinner, they gave us one more task: an open-water swim from St. Carib to a nearby island and back. To me it was a very short swim—no more than a quarter mile, round trip. But you could tell by the horror in the eyes of some that it was a terrifying distance.

  Sonya was among them, the worry plain on her perfect face.

  After stripping down to my running shorts, I walked up beside her.

  “It’s not going to be that bad, Sonya.”

  She looked up, surprised, too unnerved to still be angry at me. “My God, I can hardly swim at all. When did I ever have time to learn? There was always a stunt woman for this sort of thing. . . .”

  “So tell them you can’t make it.”

  She shoved her hands on her hips. “What, and have those nasty bastards yell at me the way they yelled at the fat Jewish man?”

  “They’ll be following us in rowboats. They can pick you up if you get into trouble.”

  “Hah! I would go to the bottom and drown first!”

  I had to smile at her. She was as stubborn as she was beautiful.

  “Then stick with me,” I said. “When you get tired, just grab onto my shorts. Make a swimming motion with your other hand, though—that way they won’t be able to tell that I’m pulling you.”

  She actually smiled. “You can really do that? You can still swim pulling my weight?”

  “Swimming is one of my very, very few talents. I’m a regular water taxi.”

  “Oh,” she said, “that’s very nice . . . nice of you.” She paused and gave me the slightest of winks. “But I am still mad at you.”

  “Just not as mad?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Not as mad as before. So I will allow you to pull me through the water.”

  “You’re too kind, Miss Casimur.”

  “I know.”

  Sonya was wrong when she said she didn’t swim well. The truth was, she could hardly swim a stroke. Fifty yards off St. Carib, she grabbed me by the elastic waistband of my shorts and held on with white knuckles for the rest of the trip.

  “I’m not too heavy?” she kept asking, terrified.

  “Like an anchor. But I think I can make it.”

  “The sharks . . . musn’t we worry about the sharks?”

  “With you in the water, Sonya, that’s probably the least of our worries.”

  Dinner was held at the main house on the top of the mound. They gave us a steak the size of a silver dollar and a scoop of cottage cheese that was more parsley than anything else. I could see why the clients of St. Carib tended to get mean after a few days. After the plates had been swept away by a staff of waitresses dressed like traditional English servants, Matrah addressed us in glowing words about how the St. Carib experience would enrich our lives. Earlier, I had gone to see him at his office ready for the worst. But he was unexpectedly cordial; apologized for our fight, said that we had both probably drunk too much, and that we must now try to get along for the sake of everyone.

  But the apology was a little too smooth. And he couldn’t disguise the glimmer of contempt in his dark eyes as we shook hands.

  I would try to get along—but I was going to keep a damn tight eye on him.

  You could bet the bank on that.

  During the speech, he outlined the rest of the course and described the importance of the day and night each of us would spend on an island alone— called it our “Solitary.” And to the backdrop of much cheering and applauding, he also divided us into groups, reading our names one at a time.

  Sonya, Yabrud, another hugely fat man, and I were all in the same group. The very slowest group, apparently. Heiny turned to me and winked knowingly when our names were read, as if he had arranged it all.

  And maybe he had.

  After dinner, everyone filed off stiffly toward cottage and bed. The strain was already getting to them. Sonya came up behind me as I walked through the growing March darkness toward Frigate house.

  “Dusky?”

  Her face looked tired. She still wore the blue warmup pants, and the jacket was tied around her shoulders like a cape.

  “Sonya! I’m so full after that dinner I can barely walk. How about you?”

  “Oh, Dusky,” she said wearily, “do not make with the jokes. I am so tired.” She reached over and put her arm through mine, more for support than anything else. “This place depresses me so.”

  “I don’t suppose a couple of cold beers would make you feel any better?”

  Her eyes lighted. “Oh, would you! That would be so nice; I knew you wouldn’t deny me such a small thing. And maybe a sandwich, too. A nice thick—”

  “And I thought you were here to lose weight.”

  She jerked her arm away. “You! You are so mean!”

  “And you are a very fine actress. But you’ll take the beer, won’t you?”

  She pouted for a moment, then slipped her arm back into mine. “Yes. Two beers?”

  “I’ll make it three. You’ve had a tough day. Go on up to your cottage. I’ll bring them.”

  I went down to the docks and opened Sniper. All my little snoop alarms were in place. I got a sackful of beer out of the locker, then went to the fish box and got the few things I needed. I stopped first at my cottage and dropped off the hardware, then went on up the walk to Sonya’s place. St. Carib was quiet in the ten p.m. darkness. A few early chuck-will’s-widows called whip-poor-will–like in the gloom, and out on the water, a Belcher barge went chugging down the intercoastal, orange bow light flashing. Far across Pine Island Sound I could see the soft lights of Cabbage Key. I wondered what Marina was doing at that moment. Cleaning up after the supper rush, probably. She would be tired and, perhaps, wondering what I was doing. For a moment I considered climbing back aboard Sniper to pay her a visit.

  But I couldn’t.

  I had too much work to do.

  Sonya had just finished her shower when I got to her cottage. The curtains were drawn, and the old air conditioner labored, condensation dripping down the rust lines on the wall. She wore a bright-green football jersey, number 12 white and satinlike on front and back. The swell of breasts and dark softness of thighs beneath keyed the old stirring within my abdomen.

  I opened a beer for each of us. She took half the bottle in the first long swallow, then wiped her lush mouth daintily.

  “God, this is so good,” she said.

  “Nothing like that first taste of beer.” I still stood in the doorway. She crossed the room and took a seat on the bamboo couch, looking wary for the first time. There was no mistaking that look. She realized that I might expect something in exchange for the beer.

  “It was very nice of you to bring this, Dusky.”

  “As I said, after the day you had, you deserve it.”

  Some of the theatrics returned to her face, and she offered a long yawn. “Did you know they make us awaken at six a.m. at this awful place?”

  I smiled. “Sonya, you don’t have to worry about me sticking around.”

  Her face showed brief surprise. “But why would you say such a silly—”

  “Because I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m going to make a move on you. You’re thinking that I’m going to try and hustle that nifty Italian body of yours into bed.”

  “Well, aren’t you?”

  I shook my head. “No.” She waited for me to say something else. Instead, I reached into my pocket and took out the little tin of Copenhagen. She watched me take a pinch, depositing i
t between cheek and gum.

  “What’s that?” she brooded.

  “Tobacco.”

  “You said you had no cigarettes!”

  “I don’t. Just this.”

  “Let me smell it.”

  I closed the tin and tossed it onto the couch beside her. “You can keep it,” I said. “But if you decide to try it, be careful. It can make you sick.”

  “Hah! Only you and this place makes me sick.”

  I grinned, heading out the door. “Enjoy the beer, princess.”

  She stood, surprised that I was leaving so soon. “You can stay for a few minutes longer, can’t you? We could talk. I always have the trouble sleeping here. . . .”

  “Can’t,” I said. “Too tired.”

  As I went down the steps, I could hear her throwing things inside.

  11

  I was tired.

  But I couldn’t allow myself to sleep.

  Not yet anyway. I had too much work to do.

  I went back to my cabin and got my duffel bag from beneath the bed. I stripped off the St. Carib clothes and slid into the old and well-loved British commando knickers and black watch sweater, and pulled the black Navy watch hat down low over my blond hair.

  I gave it a half hour before I finally switched off the lights as if going to bed—just in case someone was watching. In the darkness, I gathered the Persid seismic alarm system, the Star-Tron night-vision scope, and the Remington 700 sniper rifle. Then I went to the bed and built the rough image of a man sleeping beneath the covers.

  Outside, even the lights of the main house were off now. Green glow of Rolex told me it was almost midnight. I moved through the island quiet, sticking to the cover of trees and foliage, well away from the walk.

  I didn’t want to take a chance of meeting someone unexpectedly.

  Not with the gear I was carrying.

  I had located Samuel Yabrud’s cottage earlier. It was Osprey, only two doors down from Sonya’s place. They all had their air conditioners on, even though the night was March cool. Some people get so used to a controlled climate that they can’t sleep without the whir of an engine and the comforting generator punch of an air conditioner.

  I buried the first geophone at the base of a gray eucalyptus tree not far from Yabrud’s cottage. After I had covered it with sand and leaves, I swept all signs of digging away, then moved on through the darkness.

  Matrah stayed in the main house at the peak of the mound on the south end of the island. The house was three stories high, with gables and rectangle windows. It appeared ghostly in the starlight. I planted the second geophone beneath the porch there. For a moment I thought I heard voices coming from inside. I lay there beneath the porch for a long time before moving.

  It took me a while to decide where to plant the final geophone. Finally I settled on the docks. If anyone suspected me, they would want to check out Sniper. And with the geophone, I could hear a man’s footsteps within a hundred meters of the dock. I didn’t know how the little disk listening device would react to salt water, so I carefully gauged the high-tide line before burying it beneath the sand on the narrow strip of beach. Sniper floated calmly on her lines in the darkness. The wash of tide and the muted crack of pistol shrimp from their tunicate hideaways were the only sounds that came from the dock. I took my time, stayed low. Silhouettes stand out all too well when backdropped by open water.

  By one a.m. I was ready to get some sleep.

  But I wouldn’t be sleeping in my cottage.

  Not this night—or any night that I stayed on St. Carib.

  I moved along the rise of mound through the darkness toward the water tower. It looked pale and fragile rising sixty feet above the island on wooden beams and a network of cross ties.

  The steps sagged beneath my weight as I climbed. The water tower creaked like an old house in the wind.

  From the platform at the top of the tower, all of Pine Island Sound spread out soft and silver in the darkness. Channel markers pulsed north toward Boca Grande, and south toward Sanibel. A sudden flare of distant deck light told me there was a bait shrimper working the shallow flats off Pineland.

  I settled in the shadows of the water tower. I placed the Remington sniper rifle on the narrow deck and opened the seismic alarm system’s carrying case. I switched on the set and pulled on the earphones. A row of silver toggle switches activated any or all of the little buried geophones. A noise near any of the geophones would key a soft electronic gong and one of four red flashing lights. I adjusted three of the four set levels, balanced volume and sensitivity, then picked up the Star-Tron night scope.

  Some great invention, the Star-Tron.

  I had used it more than once back in Nam. It works on the principal of light intensification. The lens gathers all available starlight, amplifies it more than fifty thousand times, then gives you a sharp clear image through the binocular eyepiece. Even on the darkest night, watching someone through the Star-Tron is like watching a man through a red filter at high noon.

  I mounted the scope carefully on the sniper rifle. Then I braced the rifle on the railing and swept the sights around the island, looking through the scope. I could see coons foraging along the beach, and birds roosting. Even the inscription on my boat’s stern stood out in soft red highlights: SNIPER

  KEY WEST, FLORIDA

  Finally, I brought the scope to bear on the door of Samuel Yabrud’s cottage. The 135 mm lens made it seem as if I were standing only a few yards away instead of the two hundred yards that separated the water tower from his room.

  Satisfied with my position, I turned up the volume of the Persid-4A, adjusted the earphones until they were comfortable, and, with the Remington cradled in my arms, settled back to get some sleep.

  The alarm system awoke me about an hour later.

  At first, the soft electronic gong-gong-gong slipped into my dreams; a benign sound, like a doorbell chime.

  But then I was sitting bolt upright, rifle in hand, mechanically switching the safety to off.

  Red lights on the alarm board blinked softly.

  Not just one light. Two.

  Through the earphones, I could hear the steady pad of shoes on sidewalk.

  More than one person was up, walking near the seismic geophones.

  Smoothly, I went to the edge of the water tower and braced the Remington 700 on the guardrail. The geophones by Yabrud’s cottage and by the main house where Matrah lived had both been activated.

  I settled the scope first on Yabrud’s doorway, then panned along the walk.

  Midway between his cottage and the main house I saw the man: short fat man in a checkered dressing gown. He walked along the sidewalk looking this way and that, like a kid skipping school.

  It was not FEAT’s assassin. Couldn’t be—because it was Samuel Yabrud himself. He held the dressing gown tightly around him as if cold.

  But why? Why would he be up and out at this time of night? Maybe the assassin had conned him into some kind of two a.m. rendezvous.

  I moved the scope along the sidewalk, hoping I would discover who set off the other alarm.

  And that’s when I saw the woman, her back to me, heading in the same direction as Yabrud.

  It was Sonya Casimur. She had covered herself in a sheer nightdress, and I could see the naked outline of hips and heavy outline of breasts beneath it.

  Soon Yabrud caught up with her. I watched them through the Star-Tron scope, carefully keeping my index finger outside the trigger guard of the rifle.

  They seemed surprised to see each other. Through the earphones I heard them make embarrassed introductions. They made small talk about insomnia, and how they were out for a walk, but finally there was this:

  “The truth is, my dear Miss Casimur, I was hoping I might find a way of getting into the kitchen and . . . appropriating some food.” Yabrud had an oily voice with a phlegmy chuckle.

  With Sonya, it was all theatrics. “Food? You mean steal some food, Signor Yabrud? Why, what a novel i
dea! How adventurous!”

  “Would you care to join me?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t—but then, it just might be fun. I’ve never played a thief before. It would be so exciting!”

  Together they walked on toward the meeting house, which was just beyond the main house. Soon they were far enough away from the geophone that I could not hear their conversation. I remembered something Heiny had told me, something about the “piggies” always trying to break into the kitchen. Apparently it wasn’t all that uncommon.

  Still, Yabrud was awake. And alone, except for Sonya.

  And I didn’t want him to be out of my sight for long. So I had just about decided to climb down the tower and join them unexpectedly at the kitchen when I heard something else through the earphones: the slam of a screen door.

  It was Matrah. He wore pants but no shirt. He stood on the porch of the main house, hands on hips. He seemed to be waiting for someone, looking from the meeting house where the kitchen was, then back down the walk.

  Finally, two men came lumbering up the walk at a heavy trot. It was Heiny and his German friend. I could hear them clearly through the earphones.

  “Heinrich, I heard some of our clients out here a moment ago. They were headed for the kitchen.”

  “Ah, the little piggies are after the food again!” Heiny laughed.