1 Red Right Return

by John H. Cunningham

  “Isn’t that where you’ve been hunting for a sunken ship?”

  “MUDDHOUSE must mean Fort Jefferson.”

  “You’ve lost it, Buck.” But she looked curious, not alarmed.

  “Look, I can’t stay but I appreciate your bringing my bag—and for helping me.” I slid toward the end of the booth.

  She grabbed my arm. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around for you.”

  My mind was already running through my next move, but her touch and statement stopped me cold. I scooted back over.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ever since we went out that night, I’ve been—”

  “I left you at the art show. I thought you were pissed at me.”

  “I was, at first, but you planted the thought in my head about Manny helping me with the festival, and well, the ideas started flowing.”

  “I figured I’d blown it when I saw you leave with him after the show.”

  “You were spying on me?”

  “Great view from the corner of the sixth floor.”

  She shrugged. “We went back to his gallery to get the contract for the paintings.

  He had more on his mind, but once I picked up the contract, it was bye-bye.” Her face softened in response to my reaction. “You look surprised.”

  “I don’t know what to…what about the day off? I saw you cruising in the land shark—Gutierrez’s Mercedes.”

  “He insisted on a celebration dinner. It was a big sale, and, well, he tried taking me to Seven Fish. I couldn’t do it.”

  So much for my intuition. “He doesn’t seem the type to take rejection well.”

  “Tell me about it, he’s got anger issues. When we went out to practice on his boat—”

  “That’s tomorrow, isn’t it, the races? The start of the Old Island Days Festival?”

  She nodded. “He drives like a lunatic. I asked him to slow down and he was furious. I’m not sure I can make it through the race, killer special event or not.”

  “Has he said anything about Santeria? Or Enrique Jiminez?”

  “Not that I can think of. But what I wanted to tell you is that Manny’s always asking about you. It’s like he’s obsessed for some reason. He knew your parents were dead, he knew the details about your partner at e-Antiquity being in jail, he knew you were helping Willy.” She paused. “He called me this afternoon. He heard you got clubbed at El Aljibe. He said you deserved it.”

  “How did—”

  “He thinks he knows who did it.”

  A tingle passed through me. Adrenalin or appreciation, I wasn’t sure, but Karen’s concern felt like a ray of warmth. Gutierrez could identify Emilio?

  “Since Emilio worked for Posada, I’ll bet Gutierrez would love to finger him,” I said.

  “Manny asked if I could describe him, but all I saw was a blur.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Karen. I thought you and Gutierrez…” My heart had inflated like a helium balloon. “Listen, about your book—” She started to respond but I held my hand up. “You’ve obviously picked up on some of my flaws, better than I have for that matter, but the thing is, the more I think about your novel, I found the character, well, compelling.”

  She leaned over and kissed me. Her lips pressed hard against mine, launching a thousand electrical impulses between my brain and heart.

  “Ah, Buck? Sorry to interrupt, man, but some suit’s asking about you.” Garrett hovered above us with concern on his face. Booth appeared over his shoulder. Karen was right, he did have rat’s eyes.

  “Here to Party for Peace, Booth?”

  “Don’t you two look cozy?”

  “There are some great gay bars down the street, if you’d rather—”

  “Just remember what I told you, hot shot. National security. You don’t want to be classified an enemy combatant on top of everything else.” Booth held two fingers to his forehead and saluted before pushing his way back through the crowd. A grimace in a sea of smiles. I expected Karen to be concerned, but her expression said otherwise.

  “What the hell’s his problem?”

  “Mr. Ambition? You don’t want to know.” I kissed her forehead. “I need to go.”

  “You said you weren’t leaving?”

  “I’ll be back.”

  Garrett reappeared. “Boss called to check in. He said to do what ever I could to help.”

  “Karen dropped my bag in the kitchen, mind if I slip out the back?”

  “Follow me.”

  Karen squeezed my hand. “I expect a complete summary of your adventures. Maybe you can help me come up with some material for my protagonist’s sensitive side.”

  “If you stay close to Gutierrez, and see if he can find the guy who clubbed me.”

  Her green eyes were the last thing I saw before the crowd engulfed me. Nobody noticed my hasty departure amidst the blizzard of activity in the kitchen. Outside, next to the dumpster, immense palmetto bugs eyed me like raw meat.

  The night was clear, and the brightest stars peered through the reflection of city lights. Where was a full moon when I needed one?

  71

  SPARSE CLOUDS HUNG LOW in the night sky. At first light I’d be flying among them, but for now I handled the Rover with the careful attention of a teenager seated next to his driving instructor. The FBI pilot would be here in the morning, so I had to be ready by sun-up, which meant camping in Betty.

  Smather’s Beach was quiet. Silhouettes of rental kiosks, palm trees, and the naked masts of day sailors blotted out the water. Karen’s lilac scent was on my hands. The recollection of our kiss distracted me, and I nearly missed the pair of police cars parked in front of the airport terminal. I chose a parking spot on the back corner of the lot, close to the private aviation building. The Rover had been my parent’s farm vehicle in Virginia, and abandoning it here felt the emotional equivalent to walking out on them.

  A string of taxis patiently awaited the trickle of new arrivals. I carried my duffel over one shoulder, the backpack over the other, and walked toward the dark windows of the private terminal. The patrol cars were empty. Why was KWPD here? I needed to get on board Betty before anyone thought to look for me. Ray Floyd was long gone, but his assistance enabled my covert departure. I placed my key in the door’s lock.

  I kept the lights off and allowed my eyes to adjust. It made me think of celestial navigation. Had my flight instructor not advised against an instrument rating, I could have snuck out under the cloak of darkness.

  “All you’ll do is kill yourself.” He had actually laughed at the idea.

  I shuffled toward the locker room, where inside the windowless void I turned on the light. I stopped and pulled the chrome handle.

  What the hell?

  My Sage fly rod and back-up flight bag were still crammed in the narrow space.

  Ray hadn’t put the gear on Betty.

  With the aluminum rod tube under my arm, the flight bag and backpack over my shoulder, I swerved awkwardly toward the door that led to the flight deck. Two trips to the plane would be easier, but it wasn’t a night to press my luck. After a few clearing breaths, I turned the handle and pushed the door open. Once outside, I studied the main terminal.

  The engines of a Dash 8 kicked over, and a ramp girl signaled an “all clear” to the pilot with her red-tipped flashlight. I took the message to heart and shuffled toward the far corner of the tarmac. A Stinson bi-plane blocked my path, and past that was a large private jet. Buffett’s. As I veered around his Falcon, the rod tube under my right arm started to slip. When I spotted Betty, I dropped all my gear in a loud clatter.

  The plane was still mummified with police-line tape. I peeked back around the jet’s wheel to see if my fumble had alerted the police, but all remained clear. What the hell had happened to Ray? Was it a sign? Was I being ambushed?

  Damn!

  I piled my gear under Bubba’s plane, checked the main terminal for activity, then chanced my way out to Betty. There was enough tape wrapped around
her to stretch from Cuba to Key West’s Southernmost Point. The green kayak was still chained to the palm tree behind the plane. I put my hand on Betty’s fuselage. It felt cold in the darkness.

  “Sorry, old girl, but come morning I’m getting you out of here.”

  I ran my palm up her port side and spotted a note taped on the hatch.

  Attention, FBI.

  I peeled it off and scurried behind the plane where a blue runway beacon offered scant illumination. Inside was a handwritten note.

  “Dear FBI Pilot,

  I was going to clear the tape off for you, but Special Agent Booth said not to. Since you’re arriving BEFORE SUNRISE, he wanted it left on for security purposes. She’s fueled and ready to go, so sorry about not having her cleaned up. Best of luck.”

  The letter was unsigned, but Ray’s scrawl needed no signature.

  Double-damn!

  I peeked over Betty’s tail section and didn’t see anyone outside the terminal, but several shadowed areas existed where guards could hide. A cool drop of sweat ran down my spine.

  Now what?

  72

  THE AIRPORT WOULD BE a hive of Feds before the sun was up, all swarming to supervise the extraction of my plane. I unlocked the hatch and peeled enough tape off to open it. I retrieved my gear from under Buffett’s jet, hauled it to Betty, pushed it inside, climbed aboard, and closed the door. Options ticked off in my head as I leaned against my worldly possessions on the teak floor. I was a stowaway in my own plane.

  The blue runway lights provided some operating visibility, so I opened the storage door and dug through my junk box. I scraped my knuckle on the anchor before finding the duct tape. I covered the windows in case any night watchmen peered inside with flashlights.

  How had my life had come to this? I rehashed all the facts, loose ends, and people involved in this nightmare, which somehow led me to think of my brother. I could blame him for the letter that left me no choice but to go see Willy, but at this point it didn’t matter. Opening the Swiss bank box required both our keys. If I didn’t retrieve the stash or crack the code, we were both out of luck.

  The epiphany that MUDDHOUSE must mean Fort Jefferson caused me to dig the book on codes out of my backpack. Using the Vigenère table, I drew a graph. The number of letters didn’t match. Fort Jefferson had two more letters than MUDDHOUSE.

  Abbreviation? Worth a check. The empty spaces took shape.

  CICEROSMUSE?

  I laid out another graph for ORYHRIKLVOLIH, but when combined with CICEROSMUSE the remaining thirteen letter clue produced only garble. Cicero was familiar, but my computer was at the La Concha.

  Locked inside the dark plane, I felt like I was in a barrel floating toward the peak of Niagara Falls, ready to drop into the deepest abyss of my life. Karen’s concern for me and the thought of our kiss stirred a sudden loneliness that reminded me of the emptiness of losing my parents and the speculation that I killed them for inheritance. And now I had yet another word puzzle. That thought ricocheted through my brain and clicked on a cell that sat me up straight.

  From the cockpit I studied the airport buildings, main and private terminals, gas shed, private hangar. Nothing was moving. Adrenalin flooded my system. I jumped from the hatch onto the tarmac and checked the sky. Red tail lights of military jets descended like fireflies toward Boca Chica Airbase to the north.

  I dug into my pocket. The sound of change clicked through the payphone on the private terminal wall.

  “Any idea who Cicero’s muse might have been?” I asked Harry Greenbaum.

  “The Roman? Are you referring to muse in the creative sense?”

  “Hell if I know. Maybe inspiration? Anyway, you said you needed more information to triangulate Rolle and the Carnival, so see what you can do with this.”

  After reciting the information from customs and the Coast Guard, I paced like a defendant awaiting his jury’s verdict while Harry roused his source of technical wizardry from one of his sixty-plus companies. An eternity passed, and convinced Harry had fallen asleep, I was ready to give up when a sudden sound caused me to jump.

  “Dear God, my boy, next time keep your inquiries within the United States.”

  “Any luck?” My voice sounded breathless.

  “Afraid not, at least with Rolle.”

  My shoulders dropped.

  “However, we may have solidified a connection between the Carnival and San Alejandro.”

  “May?”

  “It’s ten o’clock at night, dear boy. We found an address of what I presume to be an attorney’s office for San Alejandro, LLC.”

  “And?”

  “The address is in the Bahamas.”

  A loud bang caught my attention, but I couldn’t see where it came from. “Which island?”

  “701 King’s Highway, Alice Town, on an island called—”

  “Bimini?”

  “Well done.”

  I would have never—Bimini’s not much more than a sand spit in the overall chain.

  “By the way,” Harry said. “Julius Caesar.”

  I looked at the phone. “Grover Cleveland.”

  “Cicero’s muse. He and Caesar, although politically divergent, maintained a secret dialogue.”

  “Secret, as in with codes?”

  “Precisely.”

  Thank you’s, IOUs and promises for explanations preceded my abrupt farewell.

  The sky was a featureless void.

  I would be a complete moron to try flying in darkness.

  Ray’s note indicated the FBI would arrive before sunrise.

  73

  I RUBBED MY PALMS together and began pulling the tape from Betty’s fuselage. My stomach felt more twisted by the second. There was an endless amount of the thick yellow marker, which I rolled steadily into a ball as I ran around examining the flaps, rudder, pitot tube, tires, and engine cowlings. When I finished, I flipped the basketball-sized wad inside the hatch. Two points for the home team.

  After running to the palm tree behind Betty, I returned with the new kayak over my shoulder. The skiff fit easily through the hatch.

  Once the door was secure and the gear was bungyed down, I shimmied into the left seat. No flight plan and no radio communication would mark tonight’s voyage. I was joining the ranks of dope smugglers who sweated out low altitude missions to avoid detection. I switched on the batteries and sped through the start-up procedure. The starboard engine kicked over and sputtered out some white smoke before it settled into a steady hum.

  I cracked my knuckles before reaching for the port ignition. Flying fish, voodoo hexes, Santeria candles, and Cuban bombs had plagued that engine, and cranking her now felt like preparing for a duel in a spaghetti western. She coughed, spat some smoke, and grumbled in mechanical misery.

  “Come on, baby.”

  With a fast glance at the terminal and silence in my headset, I shoved the throttles forward, cut a glimpse at the faint silhouette of the wind sock, and nearly broke the land speed record getting to the head of the runway. Once there I pressed the throttles down and launched Betty into the black abyss. The tail wheel swung wildly, and the aft section shook back and forth until the rushing air met the critical point where natural equations and forces ignited to lift our 5,000 pounds off the earth. The airspeed indicator showed 85 mph as Betty climbed into the troposphere. I prayed we would clear God and man-made impediments. We banked to the southeast, and I pressed the stick forward. The sound of the wheels in the wells did little to ease my churning stomach, and the sight of F-18s over Boca Chica only made it worse.

  According to my altimeter, “flying boat” was an accurate description as we roared thirty feet over the dark water. The image of Booth drooling on a hotel pillow at the Holiday Inn with twisted dreams of revenge dancing through his mind made me smile.

  “The early bird gets the Widgeon.”

  I steered Betty on an evasive seventy-degree heading. Radio traffic was minimal. I alternated between Miami Center, Key West tower,
weather, and traffic advisories. Betty ran with spirit like a stall-bound horse set free, even if her jockey was flying blind.

  How would the FBI’s discovery that Betty and I were missing manifest itself? If I was going to survive the crossing and reach Bimini, I needed to stay focused. I compared my chart with the heading indicator under the glow of the instrument panel and cross-referenced it with the information displayed on the new GPS unit. I calculated my airspeed to time our bank north into the heart of the Bahamas as if I had a clue what I was doing. A steady course and fixed vectoring points were the result of equating fuel consumption with airspeed to gauge distance. I’d read about these practices before giving up on the IFR rating. I didn’t remember enough to be dangerous to others but was fool enough to be fatal to myself.

  After flying east for an hour I turned north. Our course should have taken us south of Andros, the largest Bahamian island. Was that the long dark silhouette that now filled the westerly horizon? I cross-checked the chart with the GPS and decided we were pointed toward Nassau. From there I’d bear west toward the Berry Islands, then head up to Bimini.

  Betty had climbed to two thousand feet, the highest we’d been all night. A waning gibbous moon had risen, and what were clear turquoise waters by day now shimmered silver below us. Tiny spits of mangrove, coral, and sand were black holes, randomly dotting the ocean’s surface. Nassau was a distant glow of casinos on the eastern horizon. At the northern end of the dark land mass, I vectored west.

  The stars were brilliant. One was especially bright, and it appeared to be moving. Satellite?

  It wouldn’t be long before I’d have to initiate radio contact with—

  An ear-splitting roar penetrated the solitude of my headset. The star was moving, its bright light blinding—Betty suddenly dropped as if cut from a rope.

  I pulled on the stick and stomped on the pedals, but nothing happened. The silhouette of a 737 blew over us like a hawk over its prey. Jet wash!

  Betty began to spin in an uncontrollable stall.