Pepper kept them into the wind and the boat rose and dipped across the swells and Thorn had to hold tight to a starboard cleat to keep from breaking free and crashing through the companionway door. Grumbling along with grim resolve, the diesels carried the boat out into the path of the lumbering waves.
For a moment Bean stood at the door to the lower deck, holding Thorn's eye with a wistful smile. Waves splashed high over the sides and sea spray dampened the deck before him. Bean rocked back and forth, gripping the ladder against the steady lurch.
"I'm going below," he said. "See if Greta is ready to join our little tea party. You can interrogate her, Thorn, ask whatever you want. See if she considers herself my victim or my advocate."
"Fine," Thorn said. "Go get her. And don't forget the crumpets."
Bean turned and struggled down the steps.
Up on the flyway, Pepper was smiling down on Thorn as she steered one-handed, taking them out into darker and rougher water.
***
Capsizing was a distinct possibility. The rollers Monica met when she rounded the backside of Key West and headed into the harbor were so high and unpredictable she almost gave up right there and turned the boat around and headed back to Garrison Bight. If they were five to six feet in the harbor, how big were they outside?
But she took several slow breaths, fought down her panic, and nudged the throttle forward, tried to find the right pace so she could cut as smoothly as possible through the chop.
But there seemed to be no way of outsmarting those waves. Most were rolling in from the west, coming directly into her bow, and when they rammed the land, they rebounded and sent countersurges ricocheting at her from unexpected angles. The boat was lifting and hammering, not holding a steady path, and Monica was drenched. Cold, shivering.
A gray sun was up, air temperature in the high seventies, but she might as well be mushing sled dogs across the arctic steppes. Teeth clicking, she crashed on through the waves, gripping the chrome wheel with one hand, the console rail with the other, leaning out around the smeared windshield to locate her target, the pier at Mallory Docks. Dr. Bean Wilson's frail voice coming over the VHF, urging her to hurry, hurry. He was losing sight of the Miss Begotten, which appeared to be heading out of the harbor into open seas.
Monica couldn't spare a hand to pick up the microphone and answer him. The boat plowed into the waves, taking great splashes of water over the bow. The deck was covered, water damming up at the scuppers in the rear. She was trying to read the harbor, find the path of least danger across the waves, but she could only manage an occasional glimpse as she mounted the summit of each roller, not enough of a view to make an informed decision.
As the boat slammed down and porpoised through a series of small whitecaps, the outboard sputtered and coughed. With a yelp of dread, Monica jiggled the throttle. If she lost power she'd be finished; floundering around out there, she'd flip the boat for sure, or maybe be driven into the cement seawall thirty, forty feet to her left. Either way, it was the end.
She bent low, tried to read the labels below the several switches and toggles on the console. Looking for the choke that might be engaged, mixing too rich a blend. But she saw nothing, and with a gasp and flutter the engine died.
Wind wailed around the straps of the canvas top, buckles chattered. The VHF antenna was whipping violently from side to side. Twenty feet away a laughing gull beat its wings into the gale but made no progress, so it tilted to the side and let the wind take it where it would.
Monica turned the ignition key but nothing happened, and a wave cast the small boat hard to the left and another lurched it back to the right and she was knocked off balance and banged her hip against the flip-up seat. She reeled, almost went down, but seized the console rail in time and hauled herself upright.
She took a breath, wiped her face, and tried to remember what the woman on the houseboat had showed her when she cranked the engine the first time. Riding high on a swell, Monica slipped the throttle into neutral, then turned the key. The engine spun several times but didn't engage. Probably a damp spark plug or something. She had no idea how outboards operated, what might be wrong.
She held the ignition key on start, spun the motor for several moments, and could hear from the slowing spin that the battery was quickly running low. That much she knew. She'd lost car batteries before, wintertime in the tundra of upstate New York. She'd worn out more than one trying to bring a frozen car engine to life.
Caught in a vicious curl of water, the boat pitched hard toward shore, the seawall only twenty feet away, barely enough time to scramble forward and get out the lifejacket. But Monica decided she couldn't abandon the ignition key, couldn't give up yet to go dig through the locker.
She turned the key to off. Counted the seconds. Letting the swells take the boat where they would. She'd give the battery a chance to think this over, decide if it wanted to rest forever on the bottom of Key West harbor. Peering at the seawall, Monica waited, trying to gauge the right second, hearing the dim echo of some counsel given to her by a mechanic years ago: Let the battery rest so it can renew its vigor.
Ten feet from the seawall, riding in the trough of a strong current, Monica set her feet, chose her moment, and twisted the ignition key hard. The engine turned over twice, faltered, then roared to life.
She jerked her hand to the throttle, eased it forward, and for a moment seemed to make no progress at all, so she pressed it farther, milking some revs from the engine, trying not to stall, while the cement wall came so close she could read the graffiti, white paint, red, initials, hearts, a poem scribbled in yellow. On the roughened cement she could see the tiny crabs scuttling for safety.
Hell with it. She rammed the throttle flat, swung the wheel as far right as it would go, and with a hard bump and rumble and spew of water the boat surfed up out of its ditch, breaking the hold of the wave.
She took a huge breath. Then tried again to find in that chaotic soup a quieter path. But it was all turmoil and upheaval, like a pond bombarded with boulders, nothing resembling a pattern, every route as dire as the next. But she kept looking, laboring to see the larger view. And finally, as she narrowed her eyes to a squint, she saw the course she'd need to take.
She'd been looking out too far or else reacting to the immediate situation before her, but now she saw it, keeping her eyes on a place ten or fifteen feet ahead, the middle way. She steered the boat into a gentle eddy that gave way to a smooth stream, and that led to a short stretch of lazy water. She ducked behind the curl of a roller, rode in its trough for a few moments, then found another mild avenue after that.
Seeing now the topography of the harbor, the patterns and designs that held sway for a moment or two, then passed, she swept the boat ahead, rode it like a steeplechase Thoroughbred, timing her jumps, sliding and swinging around those watery obstacles, one after the other, feeling a bond growing with that rental boat as she dipped and swayed, holding her balance, squinting at the water, reading her way forward, ten feet at a time until he was there, Doc Wilson standing on the Mallory Pier, waving his arms above his head. Waving and pointing.
Monica swung around in the direction he was indicating, peered out to sea and saw it coming in like a mountainous iceberg broken free of its glacier, a great white cruise ship, ten stories tall, arriving at port, ramming the water out of the way, taking an angle that would almost certainly intersect with her own.
She faltered briefly, lost her concentration, and the waves hurled her hard to the left. Staggering, she clipped her knee, had to grab the wheel with both hands to drag herself back up.
Dr. Wilson was waving her away, pointing furiously beyond the cruise ship. His voice on the VHF was shouting at her now, shouting the words over and over.
"Forget about me. Follow the boat. Follow Thorn!"
***
Thank the Lord, Greta's pain was back. Oh, to be hurting again, flesh inflamed, a cramp knotting the calf of her right leg, her toes burning separately as
if someone were holding a match to each one. And to be famished, her stomach rumbling from days without a substantial meal. Such a joy. Even the dread and longing for her daughter was a kind of strange comfort. Thank God, thank God, Greta Masterson could feel again.
She rocked on her bunk and listened to the old diesels complaining, felt the yacht grind on through a choppy sea. And then she heard the distinctive thump of his step on the companionway stairs. Bean Wilson coming to check on his patient. The one in torment. Beautiful pain.
***
Wincing at each hard bounce of the ship, Pepper sucked on a Tokyo Rose, the hottest chili known to man, some genetic freak the Japs had cooked up. Hot as it was, the pepper still wasn't doing her much good. The throb in her jaw was growing worse by the minute. Eyes watering from the chili, she could barely see to keep her daddy's boat in the channel.
Dark clouds were accumulating in the north, like maybe the last cold front of the season was rolling down the state, colliding with all that stale Florida air. Gloomy day. Perfect weather for what they were about to do.
Tran was hiding down in the storage cabin. Ready to dart out when things started taking shape. They didn't have a plan exactly, but they were well armed, which Pepper had come to believe was better than all the plotting in the world.
She steered her daddy's boat out the mouth of the channel. No traffic to speak of today. One or two tourist charters, a dive boat braving the ten- to twelve-foot swells, but all in all a good day to be alone on the ocean, get off by yourself, shoot a few of your nearest and dearest.
Pepper set a course due south, away from the reefs where the diehard fishermen would be, heading out toward the bottomless Gulf Stream. And as they moved past the million-dollar houses of Truman Annex, running along a half mile offshore, the swells began to smooth out, coming high but regular, easy enough for the Miss Begotten to slice through.
Pepper sucked on the Tokyo Rose and guided her daddy's boat out to deep water, where the air was fresher, the daylight clearer, and the laws of man didn't apply.
CHAPTER 31
With Bean belowdecks and Pepper piloting them out to sea, Thorn bent forward slowly to peel the Colt from the bottom of his seat. Up on the flybridge, Pepper swung around and asked him what the hell he was doing.
"My morning sit-ups," he said.
"Well, knock it off. Just sit there and don't move or I'll shoot both of you right now."
"Aye, aye, Captain. Whatever you say."
Thorn hadn't seen Pepper's pistol. For all he knew she was unarmed. But it wasn't a chance he could take at the moment. He allowed himself one quick glance backward, but there was only the Zodiac floundering in the big boat's wake, no other boat back there shadowing. Something had gone wrong with that part, but Thorn didn't let himself consider what it might be. He stared instead at the northern sky, where along the horizon thunderheads towered up, gray and translucent as scar tissue. The sunlight was dimmed by half, a suppressing light that stole the blue from the sea and deadened the glitter of the boat's chrome plate.
Pepper looked forward again as Bean appeared at the top of the steps with a blond woman scooped up in his arms. She had one hand around his shoulders, the other on the overhead rail, helping to steady them against the brutal pitch of the boat. For a moment they looked like drunken newlyweds reeling over the threshold. The bride with a ghastly smile, the groom gripping in his right hand a black automatic.
***
"Is this a drug bust or what?"
"Just keep your eyes on the road," Brad Madison told the blond kid. Thirty years old, said his name was Tropical Mike. Happy-go-lucky when Brad flashed his badge and jumped aboard, but looking a little grim now as he steered them out past the first markers.
"Channel, you mean. There aren't any roads out here."
"Channel, then," Brad said. And looking over at Doc Wilson, who was staring out the console window, he said, "She'll be fine, Doc. Don't worry. We'll catch up to her, take her with us. She'll be fine."
"So you going to tell me or not?" The kid was smiling uncertainly, getting up in Brad's face like he was nearsighted. Tropical Magoo.
"Tell you what, kid?"
"A drug bust? Is that what this is?"
"Yeah," Brad said. "Exactly. A drug bust."
"Marijuana or cocaine?"
"Neither."
"What? Roofies, angel dust, what?"
"What're you, a junior G-man or something?"
"I've got a quizzical nature, that's all. Hey, you commandeered my goddamn boat, least you could do is tell me what kind of drug we're looking for."
"Dolphin endorphins," Dr. Wilson said.
Brad gave him a look. The old man's eyes were murky and his face bloated as if he'd spent the night sobbing. Might be on the verge of it still.
"It's a long story," the doc said. "I'll fill you in later. But maybe you should get on the radio now, call for a helicopter. We're going to need to airlift Thorn out of here the second this is over. If it's not already too late."
Brad nodded, reached for the microphone. His last official act with the DEA. Tomorrow he was sure to get the phone call—an invitation up to D.C. for a skull session with Madame Attorney General. His skull against her mallet. Negotiate his severance package, a cement parachute.
"Which way?" Tropical Mike said, waving toward the end of the channel. "North or south?"
Brad leaned out from behind the cockpit windshield. The wind was fierce, ten- to twelve-foot seas. No boats in sight. "Which way would you go, Tropical?"
"What, to do a drug deal?"
"Let's say you wanted to murder somebody, be alone when you did it."
"Murder?"
"That's right."
"Okay, well, that's easy enough. All the killing gets done out in the Gulf Stream, south. Throw the bodies overboard, they float away, ride the current north, wash ashore in Daytona Beach or wherever. If the sharks don't get them first. Drug deals are north, in the backcountry."
"Drugs north, murders south, I like that," Brad said. "A good system, neat and efficient."
"I mean, but, hey, I can't promise anything," Tropical Mike said, getting the boat up on plane, opening it up. "It's a big ocean."
"So, I've heard," Brad said. "Let's take a look."
***
Bean set Greta in the fighting chair and rested his hand on her shoulder. She was wearing a blue surgical gown and her blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, looked like it hadn't been washed in weeks. As haggard and dazed as she seemed, the photograph hadn't done her justice. Her skin was as creamy as a ten-year-old's, eyes a deeper and more resonant blue than the snapshot had shown. But behind that elegant symmetry and the flawless skin of a Swiss milkmaid, there was a diamond-hard fierceness flickering, a woman who'd trusted one too many men, once too often, and by god, was never going to make those mistakes again.
"Hello, Greta," he said.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Excuse my manners," Bean said. "This is Thorn, he's come to rescue you, Greta. That's what he does, a hobby of his when he isn't holed up in his cave, showing his back to the world—he goes out and saves women. Preferably beautiful ones."
Greta tilted her head and studied Thorn critically, as if he were the fish she'd been reeling in for days and this was her first look at him up close—a much less impressive specimen than she'd been hoping for.
"I thought all the heroes had found better-paying jobs."
"Oh, no, Thorn works for free," Bean said. "The genuine article. Newly crippled but still thinks he can go hand to hand with any fire-breathing monster that steps in his path. Isn't that right, Thorn?"
"How you feeling, Greta?"
Thorn rolled forward. He held his wheels steady against the toss and sway of the waves.
Bean was gripping his automatic in one hand while his other still rested on Greta's shoulder. On the flybridge Pepper kept the yacht plowing out to sea, holding a speed that smoothed out the giant swells as much as that was possible. Her head
turned to the side, eavesdropping and keeping them in her peripheral sight.
"I'm feeling good," Greta said. "Better every second."
"So now you see, Thorn. You were wrong as usual. You came all this way for nothing. There's no one here you need to save. Except possibly yourself."
Off their starboard, a single ibis, as gawky and fragile as a creature made from chopsticks and tissue paper, toiled into the heavy wind. On a course for shore, the bird was clearly not taking the quickest route, but following a path that must have been scripted in its blood, some ancient stubbornness that told it where to build its nest, the precise branch where its young would be born. To hell with the wind, to hell with the obstacles—you did what you were designed to do.
"I found this," Thorn said. "You left it behind in your room. I guess you must have been in a hurry to leave."
With one hand still holding himself in place, Thorn drew out the snapshot of Greta and her daughter at the beach, then he let go of his hold and rolled forward and handed it to the woman. She studied it for a while, then looked up and a cautious smile spread her lips. She held his eyes for several moments, as if trying to read his thoughts or transmit her own.
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you, very much."
"Did Bean tell you," Thorn said, "where he gets the ingredients for the drug he used on you?"
She shook her head.
"Dr. Wilson and I haven't been communicating very successfully of late."
"He slaughters dolphins, hacks them up, then he takes a spoonful or two of some chemical from the leftovers."
I see.
"So tell us, Bean. How much pain have you relieved by killing those eleven dolphins?"
A swell crashed the boat broadside and a spume of seawater rained down on them. Thorn backed away to his corner near the transom.
Red Sky At Night (Thorn Series Book 6) Page 29