by Steve Berry
We came to the main entrance and were careful when we passed, but the windows and glass doors did not open directly into the lobby, which offered us some protection. We hustled past and headed for the docks, crossing the street, which was light on traffic. I kept glancing back over my shoulder to see if Valdez had noticed our escape.
So far, so good.
Few people were out this early.
We approached the dock entrance.
A car roared in behind us and squealed to a stop. I looked back to see a man emerge from the driver’s side. He rushed forward and tackled me from behind. We both slammed into the pavement and I lost my grip on the waterproof case, which clattered away. He had me in a bear hug, squeezing tight, and he was strong for a retired guy. We rolled a few times and I could feel the gun nestled at my waist as it pressed to the pavement. I freed my right arm and elbowed the bastard in his ribs, then a little lower to the kidneys. His grip weakened enough for me to break his hold. I knifed my other elbow into his gut, then rolled off him and pounded my right fist into his jaw. I had no time to linger, so I sprang to my feet but stumbled in my haste, rolling over, scraping my hands and knees.
I looked for the case.
It was gone.
My gaze searched the concrete.
Nothing.
Then I focused out to the dock.
Coleen was in our boat, drifting away, the outboard revving.
She spun the wheel and powered off.
No question where the case had gone.
A voice came from behind me.
“Cotton.”
I turned back.
Stephanie had stepped from the car. “Let me handle this.”
I was beyond pissed. “No way.”
I bolted onto the dock and leaped into the inflatable that had just arrived. It too came with an outboard—not near as much horsepower as the other boat, but enough.
I yanked the cord and fired up the motor.
The man on the dock was starting to stand, still dazed.
I pointed at Stephanie and yelled, “You lied. I still have a day.”
She stared back but said nothing.
There were a few other boaters around, all looking on in astonishment at the mayhem. Valdez and his men were nowhere to be seen. I angled the inflatable away from its mooring and headed off in Coleen’s direction. A quick look back and I saw the guy on the dock reaching for a weapon. I freed my own gun and fired a round his way, scattering both him and Stephanie.
Which bought me a few seconds of confusion.
More than enough to motor away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Now I had a real problem.
The files were gone.
And Coleen’s boat had disappeared around a bend in the river ahead, past where two tall bridges littered with cars spanned north to south. I glided beneath them and managed to just catch sight of her wake, headed north, farther up the St. Lucie River. Thank God I caught a peek as I could have easily headed south down the river in the wrong direction.
I angled the steering column and twisted the outboard’s throttle to full power. The bow lifted from the water and I sped ahead. Houses, apartments, and condos lined both banks. More houses and a golf course could be seen ahead. I was worried about streets running close to the water’s edge, places where Stephanie or Valdez could catch up to us by car.
Coleen had seized the first opportunity she’d found to grab the files and go, leaving me to fend for myself. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was a total stranger to her. And besides, I’d been a thorn in her side since the moment we met. What was it about partners in work or life? I had a hard time keeping either.
The river widened.
Maybe half a mile across now between the banks. We were headed due north to God knew where. I kept glancing back but saw no one in pursuit.
Stephanie had apparently tracked my use of the credit card, deciding that giving me a little rope was not a good idea. So she beat a trail straight to Stuart, Florida. Who could blame her? A rookie in the field had gone rogue. No reason at all for her to trust me. She knew little to nothing of my capabilities. Still, a deal was a deal. Not to mention that she might have serious security leak within her ranks. The smart play was for me to continue forward. Explanations could come later.
But shooting at my new boss?
That might be a problem.
I sympathized with Coleen’s agitation. Her father was someone she surely admired. Once he’d been a warrior in a great struggle, close to Martin Luther King Jr. himself. But his insistence that the past be forgotten was frustrating. I was frustrated by his deliberately leading me into a trap. I could partially understand his duplicity toward me. But to her? Why would he not want to tell his own daughter how he helped change history? And there was one other curiosity. Based on what I’d read last night, I could not understand why he’d want those files burned. On the contrary, it would seem he’d want every word to see the light of day. They revealed truths that the public should know. Nothing was incriminating toward Foster. So far I’d shared nothing with Coleen, thinking I was honoring not only her father’s wish but Stephanie’s, too. But for the life of me I could not fathom why.
The river began to narrow.
Houses remained on the east side, but marsh appeared to the west, with only a few residences scattered at its far edges toward higher ground. The river’s wide-open expanse was gone, the width here more like a canal, the banks tight. Coleen still had a solid half-mile lead, but I had her in my sights. This wasn’t so much a chase. More a following. At some point she’d run out of either water or gas.
She veered left.
Now heading due west.
I kept pace, entering some sort of human-made canal. I knew that south Florida was littered with them. A way to divert fresh water inland where it was needed for agriculture and helped with coastal flooding. We passed under a pair of bridges for a highway. Had to be the Florida turnpike. Then, a couple of miles later, another pair of viaducts streaked with speeding cars. Interstate 95. We were heading inland. Subdivisions of single-family homes gave way to flat farmland, stretching as far as the eye could see. Here the canal fed off into a multitude of non-navigable irrigation channels. This was a path to nowhere, and I saw that Coleen realized that, too. She stopped, then leaped from the boat to shore, the waterproof case in hand. I motored up, killed the engine, and jumped onto the low grassy bank. She was waiting for me, her forehead twisted into a scowl and bathed in a light sheen of sweat. She sat on the ground, knees to her chest, rubbing her arms as if she were cold.
“Dammit, Malone. I have as much right to read this stuff as you do. More so, maybe.”
We were alone. Nothing but cleared land in every direction, the grass beneath us close-clipped and damp with dew.
“Can’t you just go away,” she asked me. “Can’t you just let me take these files and leave? This isn’t your fight. It doesn’t concern you.”
I heard the anger and frustration and stayed quiet, letting her vent.
“You don’t get it,” she spit out. “I admire my father more than any man alive. He’s been there for me every day of my life. He taught me about right and wrong, good and evil. He showed me how to live. But the one thing he’s never spoken about was that day in Memphis. Never. Not once.”
I knew the rest. “Until recently.”
She nodded.
“And I could tell that he was holding back. He dodged my questions and avoided answers. He finally got angry and went silent. So when Valdez called and wanted to make a deal, one he’d refused, I decided that was my chance. I went behind him and set up the meeting in the Dry Tortugas.”
“Why there?”
“Valdez made the choice, and I wasn’t in a position to argue.”
“There’s more happening here than just you and your father,” I pointed out. “There’s some kind of current corruption going on inside the FBI. What’s happening to us is bringing that to light. That’
s why I’m here.”
“I don’t give a damn about the FBI. They can all go to hell. I want to know what happened to Martin Luther King Jr. and what my father has to do with it.”
I suddenly realized something. “You can’t discuss this with your husband, can you?”
“To a point. For Nate this is about changing history. Like me, he came along long after King was dead. We grew up in a different world. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s not the 1960s, either. Nate’s a good man. Don’t get me wrong. He loves me. But he’s a fourth-year associate in a law firm with a long way to go before he’s a partner. He’s got a black woman for a wife, which shouldn’t matter. But we all know it still does. He volunteered to work with the King family in the Memphis civil trial. My dad made that happen. He’s still close with the family. But Nate was more errand boy than lawyer. He thinks my father knows things, and he wants to be the one to discover them. He wants to change history. Make a name for himself. But this isn’t about him. It’s about me and my father. So no, I can’t discuss this with him.”
“So I got nominated?”
She looked up and for the first time smiled. “Something like that. You seem to be my only choice.”
Exactly what her father had said to me.
“I never thought all this would happen,” she said. “I had no idea. I was going to trade the coin for the files and pick Valdez’s brain. Simple as that. But after I found that coin in his drawer, I did some research and learned all about it.”
“I imagine that was a shocker.”
“To say the least. Which created even more questions I knew my father wasn’t going to answer.”
“So you opted to give Valdez a try?”
“It seemed like my only play.”
I walked closer and crouched down before her. Her anger seemed to have passed. She appeared more defeated now.
“Have you heard from Nate?”
She shook her head. “He hasn’t called, which is troublesome.”
“I read every page of the files last night,” I told her.
Her eyes burned into mine. I knew what she wanted to hear.
“It does change history. If it’s real.”
“I want to read it all, too.”
I would eventually come to learn that there were moments in every intelligence operation when only one course was available. Blind risk. A point when you had to place your trust in something that would otherwise be senseless and hope for the best. In later years I both lived for and feared those moments. But right now I needed an ally, not an enemy. And Lincoln was right. Do I not destroy my enemy when I make them my friend?
“Okay,” I said. “You can read it all. But we still have to establish that what’s inside this case is real, and not something Valdez manufactured.”
“How do we do that?”
“I have an idea. But I need your help to make it happen.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
I listened as Coleen used Nate’s cell phone to call Orlando and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Back in the cemetery at Port Mayaca, when the guy Foster had taken me there to meet drove off, I memorized his Florida license plate. I didn’t know at the time whether the information would be important, but I realized last night that it was now vital.
That guy knew things.
And he was former FBI.
What I needed was a name and address, and now I knew that I couldn’t contact Stephanie Nelle for help. But a sheriff’s deputy? All she had to do was ask one of her friends to run the tag. Cops did it all the time, as did military police. Thankfully, the phone had a signal out here in the middle of farm country, albeit a weak one as the conversation appeared to be cutting in and out with a lot of can you hear me’s.
She ended the call.
“The car belongs to a Bruce Lael. He lives in Melbourne. You gonna tell me who he is?”
“Your father brought him to Port Mayaca.”
And I told her what happened.
“He wanted Lael to lead Jansen straight to us.”
She seemed astonished. “For what?”
“My guess is, when you opened this can of worms, he saw it as the only way to close it. So he calls Lael, who calls Oliver. Then he sends me to get food, with everything in the car. He didn’t want any harm to come to you, and he doesn’t want you reading what’s in that case, so he sent me out to be caught.”
She glanced at the container as if it were a holy relic. “What the hell is in there?”
“Enough to raise some serious questions about who really killed King and why.”
She sat silent on the damp grass and I allowed her a moment with her thoughts. The sun was rising, becoming hotter by the second.
“Melbourne is about two hours north of here,” I said. “When we passed under I-95 a mile or so back I saw there was an exit just beyond the canal. I say we head there and see if we can bum a ride north.”
“We could wait for Nate to call. I’m a little surprised he hasn’t by now.”
I shook my head. “We have to do this without your father. He won’t want us to find this Bruce Lael. No way.”
“You still haven’t explained why not.”
Because I didn’t know. None of it made sense. But hell, I’d only been an investigator for all of one day.
“How long have you been a cop?” I asked her.
“Four years.”
“You like it?”
“I like what I represent. A little color in blue is good for everyone.”
I smiled. “So you’re a trailblazer. Like your father was long ago.”
She stood and brushed the moisture from her clothes. “I’m a good cop.”
And for the first time I heard the pride of a daughter trying to earn the respect of her father.
We walked back to the boats.
I carried the waterproof case. She seemed resigned to our uneasy truce. We left the inflatable and took the other boat back to the I-95 overpass. From there we walked through a neighborhood of boxy, single-family homes to a busy street, with exits on and off the interstate, that accommodated gas stations and a truck stop. It took only half an hour to find one of the long haulers willing to take us north to Melbourne. The rig’s main cab came with a sleeper compartment. I sat up front and chatted with the driver while Coleen occupied the sleeper, flicking through the files, reading every page. Every once in a while I glanced back and caught the surprise on her face.
Which I could understand.
It took just under two hours to make it to the Melbourne exit, where we thanked the trucker. I offered some money, but he refused. At a gas station I found a pay phone and learned the number of a Melbourne cab service. A car arrived a few minutes later and took us east, toward the coast, and the address we had for Bruce Lael.
Twelve years as a Magellan Billet agent would eventually teach me that people nearly always left trails. It’s human nature. Paper ones. Pictures. Bread crumbs. Doesn’t matter. There’s something. But I felt reasonably safe that no one could have possibly tracked us to this point. We’d made it away from Stuart with no one on our tail and I had laid down not a single speck that anyone could follow. Once we found Lael’s house, though, that could all change. It was entirely possible Oliver had the guy under surveillance. Of course, once Lael had served his purpose and led Oliver to Lake Okeechobee, they may have abandoned him. But then again, maybe not. So I had the taxi driver drop us off about a mile from the address, learning from him directions the rest of the way.
I paid the driver and we walked down the quiet street, the air filled with the sweet, sticky smell of freshly mowed grass. The houses were small, single-story, concrete-block rectangles, most with tile roofs and painted either white, pale blue, or yellow. Lots of tall trees signaled that the neighborhood had been here awhile. An enormous brown-and-white dog pounded across one of the front yards, charging with a canine friendliness, a light in its eyes, paws upraised, tail flailing like a whip. Coleen showed the animal a little attention
, but it quickly lost interest and padded away.
The address we sought was at the end of a long street, another ordinary sort of place, one of the white-painted houses. The same dark-blue, late-model Taurus with tinted windows and the correct Brevard County tag sat parked on the street, the short driveway filled with a flat-bottomed bass boat on a trailer.
We walked to the front door and I knocked. It was answered a few moments later by the same man from the cemetery.
He appraised me with a careful gaze.
But his words sent a chill down my spine.
“What took you so long?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Bruce Lael seemed like a man who still breathed the past. He wore a pair of dirty cargo shorts, a loud Hawaiian shirt, and tattered flip-flops. His house cast a measure in simplicity, everything neat and orderly. The living room reminded me of the one at my grandfather’s house back in Georgia, complete with an upholstered sofa, high-backed chairs, flat beige walls, and a brick fireplace. The cool rush from an overhead AC vent was particularly welcome.
“Were you expecting us?” I asked.
The warm grin slipped from his face. “You’re with the Justice Department. I figured you’d eventually run me down and come for a chat.”
“You didn’t seem real happy back in Port Mayaca?”
“I did what Foster wanted.”
“Leading Jim Jansen straight to me?”
The guy nodded. “I thought it was nuts, too. But that’s what he wanted.”
“You do everything he wants?”
I could see he did not appreciate my sarcasm.
“I don’t want those files going anywhere near Washington, either. I saw the wisdom in involving Oliver. He’d take care of things.” He paused. “And I don’t give a crap about you.”
I noticed he hadn’t offered us a seat or anything to drink, which meant this was going to be a short conversation. So I came to the point. “What is it you and Foster know about the King assassination?”
“Aren’t you the impatient one. No romance? No dinner beforehand? No foreplay? Just get right to it. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. You’re awful young. How long you been on the job?”