Scorpion Strike

by John Gilstrap

  Esteban’s expression darkened. He stopped again. “You know, many consider it a dangerous thing to wander into a stranger’s place of business and accuse him of being a criminal.”

  “That’s another nonanswer, Señor Gris,” Davey said. He made no move to escalate the situation, but he did nothing to defuse it, either. “Here’s the thing. If you sell me someone’s very expensive boat, I don’t want to find myself being arrested in the future for being in possession of stolen property.”

  Esteban held Davey’s gaze for a beat, and then gave a hearty laugh. “I’ll promise you this,” he said. “I won’t keep any permanent records of the transaction. If I don’t know who you are, then neither can the party who may be upset that his property is missing.”

  The answer seemed to please Davey, who gave his own hearty laugh. “Let’s see what you have for us.”

  Three minutes later, they stood in front of big speedboat with a long sleek bow and a cockpit that began a little past halfway to stern. The shiny white fiberglass body was crusty with dirt, but to Jesse’s eye it look seaworthy enough. In fact, it looked almost brand-new.

  “There she is,” Esteban said. “Fifty-five feet long, a seven hundred sixty–horsepower Detroit Diesel engine. It has a range of about three hundred fifty nautical miles, and it is a steal at two hundred and thirty thousand American dollars.”

  Jesse hung back as Davey and Esteban circled the vessel. If it had tires, they’d have kicked them. The entire circuit took maybe five minutes, during which Jesse wished that he’d been allowed to bring his phone along. The burner Davey had given him was literally just a phone. No e-mail, no games, no anything that would distract him from the oppressiveness of the heat and the humidity and the stink.

  When the walk-around was completed, Davey said, “Put her in the water for me, please. Let’s see if she floats.”

  “Remember that this is a cash transaction,” Esteban said.

  “I remember,” Davey said.

  Esteban’s eyebrows danced once, and then he headed off.

  “Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?” Jesse asked in an urgent whisper. “Why are you trying to pick a fight with that guy?”

  “To let him know that I’m willing to,” Davey said. “We’re about to produce a couple hundred thousand dollars in very real money. It’s important that Señor Gris be a little afraid of me.”

  “Why won’t he just kill us and take the money?”

  Davey gave his son a clap on his shoulder. “Now that’s the way you should be thinking,” he said. “It would be bad business. I have it on good authority that Mother Hen plays a good game of hardball. If he kills us, he knows that he’ll follow soon. Remember, we have his address.”

  “With a quarter million dollars in his pocket, maybe he’ll take the chance.”

  “Aren’t you the cheerful one? Well, if it goes that way, it’s been a pleasure parenting you.”

  Esteban wasn’t gone long. Within a minute or two, the roar of a big engine marked his return as he drove a massive forklift around the far corner of the line of stored boats. Gouts of black smoke marked every gear change. Davey and Jesse both stood out of the way as Esteban expertly maneuvered the big machine into the correct angle to lift the boat from its supports, and then transport it across the uneven, pitted yard to the marina’s launch ramp.

  After twenty minutes, the beast was ready for a test drive.

  “Until you buy the boat, I must come along with you,” Esteban said. “Unless, of course, you’d agree to leave your colleague here with me as collateral that you will not steal my property.”

  Jesse’s gut tensed as the fat man tossed a thumb at him. For a few seconds, it looked like Davey might be considering it.

  “Nah,” he said at last. “He came with me. I guess I should go home with him.”

  Davey had Esteban lead the way down to the boat, and let him board first. Davey went second, and Jesse brought up the rear. It was not lost on him that through the whole transition, Davey never moved his eyes from the fat man.

  The throaty engine fired up right away, and after they’d trolled out a little ways from the shore, Davey opened it up wide. The bow rose on acceleration and the stern dipped accordingly as the big engine churned the water and propelled the vessel smoothly across the water.

  “Take a look belowdecks and tell me what you see,” Davey instructed.

  Jesse found the short flight of stairs at the front of the cockpit and lowered himself into the area under the long forward deck. He didn’t have a lot of experience with such things, but this looked fairly palatial to his eye. Lots of dark wood paneling and white leather furniture. He found two small bedrooms and one large one at the very front of the boat, plus a bathroom—a head, he remembered—complete with a shower. There was some light staining on the upholstery, and the carpet needed a good shampoo, but everything looked good structurally.

  Jesse felt the vessel slowing while he was still below, and when he returned to the others, Davey was carefully but expertly piloting the boat back to the dock. Ten minutes later, they were all back in Esteban’s office, and Davey was peeling off greenbacks and stacking them on the desk.

  “Two-thirty,” Davey said when the count was finished. “Count it yourself, if you want.”

  Esteban waved the offer off with a flick of his hand. “I watched you count and you seem trustworthy.”

  Jesse watched for a reaction from Davey, but saw nothing. Maybe this whole thing was about to end.

  “It’s interesting, though, that you insisted on paying in cash,” the fat man went on. “I didn’t ask for that. Your girl on the phone told me that was your preference.”

  “Do you have a problem with cash?” Davey said, straightening his posture.

  “I do not, no. As I said. Yes, it is an inconvenience to deal with. I cannot just deposit so much money in a bank. Not without drawing suspicion.”

  Something about the way he leaned on the word raised the hairs on Jesse’s back. He watched the muscles in Davey’s jaw flex.

  Esteban leaned back in his chair, causing it to creak. “Cash is inconvenient for you, too, I’m sure. And certainly it poses security concerns. I always assume that people who prefer to deal with large sums of cash are trying to hide something.”

  “Do you now?”

  “And to invest that much money up front tells me that there is much money to be made by that investment. Much more than just, say, two hundred—”

  Davey struck like lightning, launching himself across the desk to grab the fat man’s throat and shirt collar. Before Esteban could react, Davey pulled him out of his seat and halfway across the cluttered work surface. He wiped the surface clean with a sweep of his arm and rammed Esteban’s face into the flat surface twice, with startling force. Blood spattered the wood as Davey tossed him back into his chair.

  “Don’t threaten me,” Davey said. His tone was harsh, but his volume soft. The fat man’s nose and mouth bled freely. “We’ve made a deal, and you will stick to it. Cross me and the consequences will be dire. Do you understand this?”

  One hundred percent of Esteban’s attention seemed to be focused on stanching the flow of blood from his broken face. He pressed his hands against his mouth and nose, but he bled through his fingers and off the end of his chin.

  Davey didn’t press for an answer. “Let’s go,” he said, and he led the way out the door and back toward the car.

  “What about the boat?” Jesse asked.

  “We need to get the tools out of the trunk.”

  “You really hurt that guy.”

  “Nah,” Davey said. “Just rearranged his face a little. You can’t take even an ounce of shit from people if you’re going to play in this league.”

  “But what—”

  “He was going to extort us for more money. I paid a good price, and that should be the end of it.”

  Jesse was no saint—he’d done his time in prison for taking shit that didn’t belong to him—but th
e ease with which Davey meted out violence and the total absence of remorse startled him. But it also made him proud.

  Back at the BMW, Davey opened the trunk and removed the heavy bag of tools he’d brought from the airport. He bounced the bag once in his hand to get it comfortable, and then he closed the lid. “Now it’s time to get to the boat.”

  “What are the tools for?” Jesse asked.

  “You know all that fancy leather stuff belowdecks on the boat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s all got to come out.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re going to need all the speed and range we can get, and all those creature comforts weigh too much.”

  “But you just paid for all those comforts.” The last boat Jesse and Davey had shared didn’t even have a belowdecks area—he still had the signs of his sunburn even after months had passed. He’d been looking forward to some time on all that comfy leather.

  “I paid for a way to get people and weapons out to an island and back,” Davey said. “And let’s not forget the most important thing.”

  Jesse looked to him, waited for it.

  “It wasn’t my money.”

  CHAPTER 20

  VENICE HAD NO IDEA HOW THE CLOCK HAD SPUN ALL THE WAY AROUND to one, but such was the nature of things when she lost herself in research. Jonathan’s revelation that there was a network of tunnels under the Crystal Sands Resort posed some interesting opportunities for research. She was looking for anything on the construction project—any small detail—that could lead to other small details. Those tidbits, when stitched together, could provide invaluable intel. The fact that she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for made the problem infinitely more challenging and deepened her mental rabbit hole.

  When her phone rang—the landline, which she almost never used—the noise startled her. It was one of those old-fashioned rings, too, the kind with an actual bell. She lifted the receiver before it could split her concentration a second time.

  “Hello?”

  “Um, Ms. Alexander, this is Rick Hare at the security station.”

  Venice’s insides tightened. While the phone rarely rang, the security station at the entrance to the office had never called her. She waited for the rest.

  “There’s a visitor here who says he has to meet with you.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He says he can speak only with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Um, he said he’d only speak with you, ma’am.”

  Venice chuckled. “That was kind of a stupid question, wasn’t it? Does he look threatening?”

  “No, ma’am. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be calling you.”

  Another stupid question. “Did he give you a name?”

  “Yes, ma’am. His name is Derek Halstrom. He said he talked with you this morning.” Hare lowered his voice to a whisper. “But he doesn’t know how to pronounce your name properly. Do you want me to tell him to go away?”

  A chill rattled Venice’s whole body, leaving her feeling light-headed and nauseous. Derek Halstrom was TickTock2. She’d screwed up big-time. This was a power play, and it scared the daylights out of her.

  “Ma’am? Are you there?”

  Venice shook herself back into reality. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m right here. Tell Mr. Halstrom that it’s inappropriate to meet here in the office. Tell him to wait on the bench outside and that I’ll join him in five minutes.”

  She listened as the guard covered the mouthpiece and delivered her message. It took longer than she expected. There clearly was some back-and-forth between the two of them. When Hare returned to the phone, he sounded agitated. “Yes, ma’am, I told him. He wasn’t happy about it, but he’s on his way outside.”

  Venice closed her eyes. “Okay, thank you, Rick.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Yes?”

  “He told me to tell you that five minutes means five minutes. At six, he said, and I’m quoting here, your life will get very difficult.”

  The chill returned. “I understand.”

  “Perhaps you’d like me to go with you?”

  Venice smiled, touched by the loyalty and commitment to duty. “No, Rick, that’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

  “You can’t stop me from keeping an eye on you,” he said. “You need something, you just give a wave and I’ll be there.”

  “I know you will, Rick. Again, thanks.” She hung up before there could be more conversation. This was bad. No, it was beyond bad. This could be catastrophic. She’d overextended her hand to exactly the wrong person. She’d allowed herself to fall victim to the same hubris for which she’d chastised so many others, so many times.

  With the clock ticking, she realized that she had exactly zero control over what would transpire next. TickTock2 had invaded her space because she had invaded his. She didn’t know how he’d been able to find her, but at this point, the how of it really didn’t matter much. He was here, and she was vulnerable to the point of being defenseless. And she had two minutes to get downstairs.

  She needed to settle her thoughts, to push the fear away and to rejoin the moment. She was about to embark on a live-action chess game, the stakes were unspeakably high, and her opponent had had at least the length of a long car ride to figure out his plan. He worked for one of the most secure, secretive agencies in the world. He could make her disappear and in the process erase all traces that she had ever been born.

  But to do that would require him to kill Roman, as well, and maybe even Mama.

  “Computer geeks are not killers,” she told herself aloud, but she didn’t find her voice all that convincing.

  “Stop it,” she said. “Just stop it. It is what it is. In about a minute and a half, you’ll know just how awful it is.”

  She’d discovered many years ago that the act of speaking thoughts aloud made them more real. The phrase just how awful resonated louder to her ears than any other.

  She slipped her cell phone—the one that linked her to Jonathan—into her pocket and left everything else on her desk untouched. As she headed for the door, she stopped and returned to the top right-hand drawer. Years ago, Jonathan had given her a little .22-caliber pistol with the instruction to carry it with her all the time. It was a tiny thing with a Beretta logo on the grip and a weird tip-up barrel for easy loading. Jonathan said it was a girly gun that would make a lot of noise, and was better than going through life unarmed.

  She’d never carried it, and frankly, she objected to having it in her desk. Until today. She shifted her cell phone to her left pocket, and slid the pistol into her right. For all she knew, she couldn’t hit within three feet of anyone she might shoot at, but for the first time, she understood where Digger was coming from. It felt better to have it than to not.

  Venice exited the Cave, passed through the main work area, and then exited out onto the hallway and the stairs.

  Rick Hare was waiting for her. He rested one hand on the pistol in his belt, and the other on the array of spare bullets he carried on the other side. “I really think I need to go with you.”

  Venice smiled and touched his cheek with her fingers. “You’re sweet,” she said. “But I’ll be okay. I know who he is.”

  “Then why does he pronounce your name like the city in Italy?”

  Venice decided that it made no sense to continue the conversation. Rick Hare had his orders, and he would follow them. She had no doubt that he would try to position himself so that he could watch them from afar, but she also had no doubt that TickTock2 was way too smart to allow that to happen.

  With a blossoming sense of dread, Venice descended the long stairway, and stepped out into the heat of the day.

  When Jonathan Grave converted the Fisherman’s Cove firehouse to his personal residence and office space, he’d gifted the patch of ground at the corner of Church and Water Streets to the town, where he’d planted some trees and installed a bench that walkers or runners could use for respite. He’d also in
stalled a marble pedestal-style drinking fountain. The space was rarely visited, so far as Venice could tell, but it was beautiful.

  A thin African-American man sat in the shade on the bench. He appeared to be within a couple years of thirty and he wore close-cropped hair and beard. Wearing a gray sport coat with a blue shirt and a maroon tie, he looked more like a lawyer than a hacker. Not that she had any idea what a hacker should look like. He stood as she approached.

  “Hello, Venice,” he said.

  She corrected his pronunciation.

  “How very pretentious,” he said. His smile took the insult out of the words. “Do you mind if we walk while we talk?”

  “May I ask what we’re going to talk about?”

  Derek extended his hand. “Let’s meet properly. Derek Halstrom.”

  Venice hesitated, then shook his hand. “You’re confusing me,” she said.

  Derek smiled. “I don’t think that’s true. It was your security guard who confused you. He’s the one who made you nervous.”

  “Because you said my life would get difficult if I didn’t hurry.”

  He conceded the point with a twist of his neck. “I didn’t want you doing something desperate that would get me in trouble before we had a chance to talk.”

  “Again, what’s the topic? I’m busy here and I have a job—”

  “Your coworkers are in more trouble than you know,” Derek said.

  And he started walking up the hill toward St. Kate’s and Resurrection House beyond it. Venice wondered if he knew the significance of either one of those buildings and the roles they played in her life—and, by extension, in Digger’s life. She quickstepped to catch up.

  “Officer Hare is not going to be happy to lose sight of you,” Derek said.

  “This would be a good time to tell you that this is a small town,” Venice said, “and I’ve lived here my whole life. I am what you might call connected, so if you think—”

  “I’m not a killer,” Derek said, cutting her off. “I’m not even a beater-upper. You can relax.”

  Something about Derek impressed Venice as honest. She’d been wrong before—had the ex-husband to prove it—but not in a long time. She found herself liking this guy. “What are you, then?” she asked. “If not a killer or a beater-upper?”