Castigo Cay

by Matthew Bracken

  Frank’s department probably had some offices under proprietary business cover in the Miami area. Maybe there really was a Southern Maritime Associates. I guessed that I wasn’t very important to them. I was just a mildly interesting prospect, with just enough potential usefulness for Frank Bloomfield to make this initial recruitment pitch. If this meeting had departmental pre-approval, more than likely he wouldn’t have come alone. Something more impressive would have been arranged for our first chat. But either way, big effort or small, I was on their radar. That was an incontrovertible fact.

  He waited patiently, then asked again. “Dan, we really want you to do this job for us. It’s only one operation, and then we’ll see where it goes from there.”

  I was in a box, feeling the steel door closing. I stared at the southbound tanker, now almost out of sight. “You know, Frank, I remember when this was a free country. I was just a kid, but I remember.”

  “I do too, better than you. But what can we do about it? Nothing. We have to live in the real world. So, when can you do dinner and meet some of the team?”

  “I have a previous commitment, and I’ll be busy for a few days.”

  “Today’s Friday. How about next Monday, by close of business?” A Southern Maritime card appeared in his hand. He jotted a number on the back. “Be in touch. This is going to work for both of us. Believe me, it’s a win-win proposition—and good for your country too.”

  I took the card and dropped it next to the senator’s in my jacket pocket. Too much serendipity was breaking out on all sides, and I wasn’t buying any of it. So, who had tipped him to my Florida itinerary? Harry Allan had heard me mention Topaz, which would lead to TPS and Prechter. Harry Allan and Yance Mabrey both knew that I planned to use a tracker beacon after I smuggled myself into South Florida. Then there were Mike and Sharon Delaney…and Kelly Urbanzik. And Brooke Tierstadt. Only Nick Galloway was above suspicion. Well, almost. After all, this entire ball had started rolling when he’d approached Rebel Yell on his red inflatable the evening after Cori left. If not for Nick, I would still be aboard Rebel Yell at anchor, putting Cori Vargas out of my mind.

  “Just think it over, then call that number and we’ll set up dinner. Or lunch—your choice, anywhere in South Florida.” We rose together and shook hands again. Then he turned and was quickly lost from sight among the aisle walkers. I sat back down on the bench facing away from the hall, staring through the giant windows across the swimming pools and the boardwalk and the waves rolling onto the beach. Then I took out my phone and turned it off. Just a few hours after getting it and already I couldn’t trust the damn thing. For all I knew, every call passing through its microchip brain would now be forwarded to Frank’s office, my every movement tracked. Every conversation overheard. Turning it off wasn’t enough. I slid the back panel open and popped out the battery pack, slim as a wafer biscuit.

  13

  A few minutes before eleven I was in the main concourse heading toward the Dazzle Room. It was accessed by two sets of open double doors, one on each side of the back of the room. My eyes were on hyper-scan as I passed the wide openings, always trying to see before being seen. Whether in war or in this type of combat, the one who sees the other first is able to shape the battlefield and will usually prevail. It is better to ambush than to be ambushed. It is better to spot the enemy sniper before the enemy sniper spots you.

  A lot better.

  The earlier lecture was over, and during the interim folks were entering and leaving or milling about in small groups chatting. There were too many people moving about and facing in every direction to be sure of seeing everyone. I walked past both entrances, got a drink at a water fountain, scanned both directions of the concourse again, then doubled back and entered the Dazzle Room. It was about sixty yards on a side, with the same high ceiling as the exhibit hall. The wall across from the two entrances supported a stage and a podium. Between the entrance doors on the back of the room and the stage, several hundred padded chairs were grouped in rows and aisles. Some individuals and small groups were still seated, evidently remaining from lecture to lecture. Those who were leaving merged and mingled with those entering.

  The perimeter walls were taken up by more of those long hotel banquet tables covered in white linen. The tables contained coffee tureens, snack trays, brochure racks and free magazines. Many people worked at their laptops and other electronic screens, oblivious to what went on around them in the primitive analog world of the living and breathing.

  I was searching for my two known enemy faces. I stood near the back right corner, the corner nearest the concourse exit. Almost immediately I noticed Mr. Personality to the left of the stage, all the way diagonally across the room from me. Richard Prechter, PhD, with a small circle of people around him. I watched him intermittently without neglecting to scan the rest of the room for nasty surprises. Then I saw my other nemesis across the crowded room, by himself and heading toward the stage. He must have just come in through the other entrance.

  Trevor Ridley. Even from two hundred feet I recognized his ruddy English face. He needed a haircut and some work with a brush, or maybe he was having a bad-hair day. I counted my blessings for my recent trim and styling makeover, key parts of my disguise. He was wearing a white dress shirt and dark slacks. The long sleeves and high collar would conceal his thuggish tattoos. Ridley was smart enough not to have marked himself above the neck or on his hands, which enabled him to pass in polite circles.

  He continued straight toward the front of the room and gave some kind of signal to Prechter, who said something to the knot of people around him and walked toward Ridley. In a few seconds the two men were ensconced near the corner of the room. Ridley was a few inches taller than his boss, and built like a weight lifter. I couldn’t see them every moment, too many people were moving between us, but I had the main advantage. I knew I was looking at them, and they didn’t even know I was in Miami—I hoped.

  Another man joined them. He was wearing a dark suit and tie. Hispanic or Asian, between Ridley and Prechter in height. The three heads were close together for a minute as they conferred, Prechter making emphatic hand gestures. Ridley had a conference badge clipped to a shirt pocket. Had he just been called in from Topaz to solve a problem for his boss? Take care of a loose end? In addition to seeing me with Cori at the patio party in George Town exactly one week before, maybe Prechter had also heard my voice. He might have called Ridley to come in and make a visual confirmation. The third guy could have been another of Prechter’s underlings, or just temporary help.

  Maybe Prechter had been given definite knowledge of my presence at the RASE convention. Frank Bloomfield had found me, so who else knew I was in town? If Prechter was on to me, he would be able to give a very detailed and up-to-date description to his henchmen, including my clothes, glasses and hairstyle. The name Marcus Garnet pinned to my lapel now felt more like a flashing beacon than conference camouflage. I pulled it off and pocketed it.

  Ridley and the new man left their boss and split apart. Ridley walked across the front of the room, passing the stage, methodically scanning the crowd. The guy in the dark suit walked toward the far bank of exit doors, also scanning. Prechter’s two men were walking apart at right angles to search and clear the entire room. At the opposite corners they would cross back toward each other and close the box in a classic pincer movement.

  But who else might already be waiting outside in the concourse? Were these two goons merely working as intentionally visible beaters, spurring me to move from their hammer toward an anvil being set up elsewhere? Was Richard Prechter able to tap into the resource of Senator Sanchez’s protection detail to ferret me out? What about the Fontainebleau’s security department, with its hundreds of video cameras? They could be spreading an electronic search net around me even now. A net with pistols and handcuffs waiting at each exit.

  What more could be gained here at the conference? Nothing that I could see, except further mission compromise. Above all, I c
ouldn’t hand my enemies a confirmed Dan Kilmer sighting. If they were working off hunches and guesswork, then the best thing for Marcus Garnet would be to simply disappear. It was a big convention involving several thousand people moving between a dozen halls within a major hotel complex. If they didn’t see Mr. Garnet again, it would really mean nothing. Let them wonder who he was, or was not.

  The man working in tandem with Ridley was not Hispanic, I could see that now. He was Eurasian, or possibly Indonesian. Short-cropped black hair, clean-shaved, slim and fit-looking, late twenties. Could have been a grad student, or a military junior officer; that intense, focused look was there. Maybe he was a military reservist working private security contractor gigs between TADs, temporary active duties. Or maybe he was just a young man of mixed ancestry who was into conservative grooming standards, and I was projecting all the rest.

  The Eurasian left the Dazzle Room through the other exit. When I left the room, Ridley was in the front right corner, opposite my exit and scanning up the aisle toward me. I tailgated along behind a small group of strangers. From the corner of my eye I saw the Eurasian man posted in the middle of the concourse by the other exit from the Dazzle Room. I walked quickly, getting ahead of the group I’d used for cover. A kiosk at the side of the concourse was selling designer eyewear and had several mirrors. I paused as if browsing and looked behind me. I saw Ridley coming out of the Dazzle Room through the exit I had just used, easily identifiable in his white shirt with the long sleeves rolled down. The Eurasian in the dark suit was scurrying to catch up to him. Both men were unquestionably on my tail. It was seriously time for Marcus Garnet to evaporate.

  Hurried down the escalator to the main lobby floor, then down another hall toward the swimming pools and the beach. Glanced back the way I had come and saw Ridley and the Eurasian a hundred feet behind, almost running. Turned a corner, and the new hall became a mini-mall selling thousand-dollar T-shirts, designer bikinis and Chanel No. 5. Zigzagged through connecting halls past a noisy bistro restaurant, to a small secondary lobby on the ocean side of the hotel. Away from the wall of windows facing the swimming pools and the beach was a men’s lavatory.

  This mini-lobby had outlets and exits in five or six directions, leading to gift shops, another restaurant, a nightclub, a fitness room and outside to the swimming pools. I was at least one turn ahead of Ridley and the Eurasian, and I ducked into the lavatory. Straight into a stall, my third time today. It was a dangerous move, impulsive, maybe fatally stupid.

  If Ridley had already posted other watchers ahead of me, they would quickly check my possible hiding places, and the men’s room would be near the top of the list. Even now they could be preparing to storm inside with guns drawn, and if that happened, I would be trapped like a rat, soon to be a dead rat. Or Ridley and the Eurasian might be working without any other support elements. In that case one of them would logically be posted outside near the intersection of corridors, instead of both of them choosing random bolt-holes to run down, thereby risking losing the rabbit for good.

  My valise was smooth brown cowhide, Mexican, hand-worked and custom made to my specifications, a little larger than a briefcase. When empty it was quite thin, yet it could widen to easily carry a change of clothes. Off went my convention outfit. On went a green-and-white Hawaiian shirt, tan shorts that could have been swim trunks, and sandals. Next my dark curly-haired wig, and on top a wide-brimmed canvas sun hat. Lastly, aviator sunglasses with gold frames and very dark lenses. My loafers went into the valise first, and then my quickly folded clothes. My leather valise fit nicely into my new black canvas swag bag, and my transformation was complete. It bulged as if it contained the expected beach towel and other gear of somebody on his way to the pool.

  I waited in the stall until I heard a gaggle of voices at the sinks. Some young men speaking a foreign tongue, German or Dutch. I left the stall and washed my hands, then walked out with them. A father and presumably his two teenage sons, all tall. They were returning to the pool area through the glass doors across from the bathroom. I walked a step behind them in my under-six-foot slouch. You can alter your appearance, but it’s harder to alter your height, and men over six feet tall make up a manageable subset of the population for watchers to screen very carefully. But in the end you have to trust your camouflage and go.

  Glancing to the left while barely moving my head I saw Trevor Ridley a dozen yards away, slowly turning around in the connecting passage to the shops and restaurants. The standard Bluetooth was in his ear, he was staying connected, but his back was to me as I scooted across the hallway with the European family. He was searching for somebody who no longer existed while I left the building.

  ****

  The swimming pools were indeed magnificent, as Kelly had said. There were curved interconnecting pools on several levels, with waterfalls between them. Towering royal palms. A steel drum band on a small stage. Elaborate tiki bars and waiters in white uniforms carrying trays of drinks at a brisk pace. A place I would have loved to share with Cori for an afternoon. I’d seen nothing remotely like it since Brazil. The Fontainebleau was a first-class operation, even by the first-world standards of Miami Beach.

  Past the final pool, past the lawn trimmed as finely as a putting green and up a few steps and I was on the elevated Miami Beach boardwalk. A glance behind as I descended the matching steps on the other side to the sand showed no Trevor Ridley, no Eurasian man. I was just a tourist in a big hat, a loud shirt and tan swim trunks, carrying a black canvas tote bag. A hundred yards of white sand ran to the lazy surf, each wavelet turning over at the shore like an elderly dachshund doing a final trick. Sandals went off and into my bag.

  Supine girls were displaying their bare breasts to the sun as I trudged up the wet sand toward the north, my shirt open. I was one of countless thousands of sun worshippers, beach-combers and seekers of the opposite sex (or the same sex), from at least four continents, occupying those hundred acres of Miami Beach. Unremarkable in any way.

  From within a colorful forest of rented beach umbrellas I paused to give a good scan in all directions. No pursuit. I looked up at a biplane dragging a banner advertising a nightclub dance contest en español. No UAVs, but you couldn’t see them anyway. I sat on the sand, my canvas bag between my knees, dug out my new cell phone, and mated it once again with its battery. Once it booted up I clicked on the N, and Nick answered on the third ring.

  “Yo.”

  “I’m done here.”

  “What about the lecture?”

  “Not today. I decided to hit the beach instead. I’ll tell you all about it. I’ll be at the Coconut in five minutes.”

  “Um, five minutes?” I heard Kelly’s voice in the background but couldn’t make out the words. Nick said, “I think we need twenty. Maybe longer. Depends on traffic.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Actually, right now we’re in the drive-through lane at a Burger King. Is it an emergency? Should we bolt out of line?”

  “No. Just get here as soon as you can.”

  “We tried to call but you, but your phone was out of service,” he explained.

  “When?”

  “A few minutes ago.”

  “All right, I’ll see you at the Coconut in twenty.”

  “Roger, out.”

  I snapped the phone closed and removed the battery again. Had Frank Bloomfield or his office just heard the call? No way to know. A Frisbee landed near my feet, and I tossed it back to a teenage girl clad in a black bikini and a gold belly button pendant. She caught it one-handed and said merci, then turned smartly back toward her friends with a flip of her hair. Walked past the Eden Roc and turned away from the ocean.

  I traded a hundred-dollar bill for a cold twenty-ounce bottle of imitation Gatorade and two soft pretzels from a push-cart vendor working the public parking lot. At eleven-forty I was standing in the shade and studying a free tourist map when the GTI turned off Collins. Kelly swung the car in a wide half circle and stopped, facing back
out. Proud of my tourist disguise, I let them look around for a minute before I walked over to the car. I was almost ready to put my hand on the door when Nick finally recognized me and opened it first. He stepped out without a word and climbed into the backseat. I handed him my black canvas bag and my beach hat, sat down and buckled up.

  14

  Kelly said, “Nice wig. I had no idea it was you.”

  “Thanks.” I pulled it off, shoved it in my daypack, gave my head a good scratching, and finger-combed my hair back.

  “Which way? North or south?”

  “South. But first take the batteries out of your phones.”

  “Why?” she asked. “These phones are safe.”

  “We’re together, so we don’t need them powered up. Why take a chance? All they can do now is work as trackers. And turn off the SunPass until we need it again.” If Frank Bloomfield had captured our cell numbers, his people would learn our direction of travel if we left the parking lot while they were still on. Then his electronic surveillance programs might co-locate our three phones with the SunPass, and he’d have that to track us by as well. Or maybe he already had my Orbcom or the SunPass under watch and removing the cell phone batteries was a pointless gesture. For the time being, I decided to say nothing of my unexpected encounter with the spook. Maybe I’d tell them about it later, when the mission was over. It would just be a distraction now.

  Kelly said, “You’re sounding mighty paranoid.” But she grabbed her phone and extracted the battery, then dropped them into her leather purse. I heard similar snapping noises in the backseat. Once their phones were neutered, she turned left on Collins Avenue. We passed in front of the Fontainebleau, retracing our route of a few hours before.