Silent Hunt

by John Lescroart

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  Silent Hunt

  John Lescroart and T. Jefferson Parker

  From the anthology FaceOff

  Simon & Schuster

  New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi

  JOHN LESCROART

  VS. T. JEFFERSON PARKER

  The genesis of this story goes all the way back to 2009 when John and Jeff discovered a shared love of fishing, while contributing a short story to an anthology called Hook, Line & Sinister. Then, in 2011, the two hung out together on a deepwater fly-fishing trip to East Cape and Cerralvo Island in Baja California. Every day for a week the anglers set out at dawn in pangas (Mexican fishing boats) seeking tuna, dorado, roosterfish, amberjack, pompano, or whatever else might be biting. Their guides were a fantastic and personable collection of skilled pilots and fishermen, mostly from one extended family who lived in the nearby village of Agua Amarga.

  When they were approached with the concept for FaceOff, both immediately glommed on to the idea of John’s Wyatt Hunt (The Hunt Club, Treasure Hunt, and The Hunter) and Jeff’s Joe Trona (Silent Joe) teaming together. Both characters were close to the same age, athletic, and were more or less involved with law enforcement, so putting them together on a fishing trip to Baja was a no-brainer. As soon as the two characters showed up on the page together, the chemistry was clear and palpable. John and Jeff quickly discovered that if those two characters actually existed in real life, they would probably be buds. Friendship aside, though, this is a thriller anthology, so the story needed an adventure that would place the heroes in danger.

  Jeff had done quite a lot of research into Mexico’s narcotrafficantes. Headlines from around the world attest every day that there is a serious problem with drug trafficking in that part of the world. So what could be better, fiction-wise, than to have these gangsters threaten a tightly knit extended family of hardworking fishermen? And what would poor fishermen possess that could possibly lure the local narcotrafficantes out to their village so that they could steal it? These good people don’t do drugs. They’re not political. They fish and play baseball. But there is one other little-known, and only partially explored, commodity in Baja California that would draw the attention of gangsters.

  Gold.

  A hidden stash that could rejuvenate a little fishing town, providing money for a new electric generator to make ice and run refrigerators, to power streetlights, and buy new motors for the pangas. But the narcotrafficantes have also heard rumors of gold. Where it’s hidden. Who’s hiding it. They won’t hesitate to torture and kill to get their hands on it.

  What’s to stop them?

  Just two Americans, Wyatt Hunt and Joe Trona, down in Mexico on a fishing vacation.

  Silent Hunt

  WYATT HUNT MADE IT TO his gate in the International Terminal of LAX with an hour to spare before boarding would begin for his noon connecting flight to La Paz. He was traveling light, with one brand-new light-brown-on-dark-brown carry-on duffel bag into which he’d stuffed nearly two grand’s worth of new fly-fishing gear, his toilet kit, and two changes of clothes, long pants of good wicking material that with a zip converted into shorts and two long-sleeved shirts, the latter items newly purchased from REI against what was forecast to be debilitating heat—eight hours a day on the water, no shade, average temperature around 110.

  It was September and his party of ten, all unknown to him, were going after dorado, roosterfish, various tuna, and the occasional marlin, sailfish, or shark. None of these fish would weigh less than ten pounds, and some might go to a hundred or more. Hunt, a lifelong fly-fisherman in streams for trout in the half-pound range, was skeptical about the ability of his new gear to handle fighting fish of this size and caliber, but he was game to try.

  In any event, he was a gear freak and the new stuff—ten-weight and twelve-weight rods, reels holding over a hundred yards of sixty- and eighty-pound test backing, barbed and artistically feathered hooks the length of his fingers—was undoubtedly cool. He’d gone out with a fishing pro at San Francisco’s Baker Beach four times over the past month, trying to master the casting technique known as double-hauling, essential if you wanted to reach surface targets in salt water. He was still far from expert, but at least felt he wouldn’t completely embarrass himself.

  With time to kill and slumping a bit after his five AM wake-up, he grabbed an open chair at the end of the bar, stuffed his duffel down under his feet, and ordered a large cup of coffee. When he’d finished about half of it, he turned to the guy next to him—a portly, pale, bald guy in a bright red and green Hawaiian shirt. “You mind watching my duffel a minute?” he asked. “I’ve got to hit the head.”

  The older gentleman, already drinking something with an umbrella in it, looked down at Hunt’s duffel and broke an easy smile. “We are urged not to leave our baggage with strangers, are we not?”

  “Constantly.” Hunt had covered his half cup with a napkin and was already on his feet, now suddenly in a bit of a hurry. He lowered his voice. “I promise it’s not a bomb. You can look if you want.”

  “I’m going to trust you,” the gentleman said. “Go already.”

  On the way to the men’s room, Hunt not for the first time found himself reflecting on the fact that in many ways, and despite his own demise, Osama bin Laden had basically won the first round of the War on Terror. Already that morning, Hunt not once but twice had to take off his shoes and belt, empty his pockets, and assume the position in the TSA’s X-ray machine. A victim of his early-morning fatigue in San Fran, if they hadn’t just changed the rules again, he’d also have donated to the cause the Swiss Army knife he’d forgotten in his pocket—which would have been the third time that had happened.

  Even if he acknowledged the general reason for it, the whole thing pissed him off.

  As if the geezer next to him was going to steal his duffel bag. He didn’t look like he could even lift the thing. As if anybody, for that matter, in the secured area for boarding, was an actual threat to take anybody else’s luggage.

  Caught up in his internal rave, Hunt ran with it. Let’s see: first, your potential thief needs a valid boarding pass with photo ID, then he’s half stripped and X-rayed, and he’s going along with this runaround because of the very off chance that some random person will leave their baggage “unattended”—Hunt loved that word!—and that he would then have an opportunity to steal it. And then what? Leave the building with his loot? When had that happened? Had it ever happened? Could it ever happen? Who thought of these things? What was the average IQ of a TSA employee anyway? Or of the goddamned director of the Department of Homeland Security, for that matter?

  Room temp at best, Hunt was thinking as he exited the men’s room . . .

  . . . just in time to see a guy about his own age and size, in jeans, a work shirt, and a San Diego Padres baseball hat pulled down low over his eyes, strolling toward the security gates with Hunt’s pretty damn distinctive duffel bag slung under his left shoulder. Jesus Christ!

  “Hey!” Hunt yelled after him. “Hey! Wait up, there!”

  The guy kept walking.

  Hunt broke into a trot.

  The other man was at least sixty feet away from Hunt and now almost to the exit. The thief moved with an easy grace, taking long strides, neither slowing down in the least nor speeding up, but moving, moving, moving. He would be at the exit within seconds.

  When he had to, Hunt the athlete could move, too, and now he turned on
the speed, closing the gap between them, calling out, “Stop that guy!” to no one in particular, but drawing the attention of every traveler in the terminal. He finally caught up just as the guy was arriving in front of the exit gate.

  Hunt came up behind him and with a lunge grabbed at the duffel, getting a hold on it. “Hey! Hold up! What do you think you’re doing?” Hunt pulled at the strap.

  The guy held on, whirled, and threw an elbow that Hunt barely ducked away from. But in that one fluid movement, Hunt realized he was dealing with a strong, lightning-fast, and trained fighter. Hunt himself had a black belt in karate and this guy, even hampered by the heavy duffel, was coming on as at least his equal, in any case a force to be reckoned with. Now he had Hunt backing away, and like any experienced fighter he kept coming, dropping the duffel and coming around with a right chop that Hunt knocked away with his forearm. It felt like he’d stopped a tire iron.

  Squaring up now, ready to press an attack of his own, Hunt got his first good look at the man’s face, and it stopped him cold. Nearly half of it bore the scars of a serious burn injury, almost as though the skin had been melted away.

  It immediately took the fight out of Hunt, though his breath was still coming hard. “What the hell are you trying to do?” he rasped out.

  The other man spoke with an unnerving calm. “What am I trying to do? You just attacked me. I was defending myself.”

  “You were walking out with my duffel.”

  “That’s not your duffel. It’s mine. And I wasn’t walking out anywhere. I was going to buy a newspaper”—he pointed—“at this shop right here.”

  Meanwhile, three TSA officers had broken through the ranks of onlookers and one of them—Hillyer by his name tag—advanced on them, arms spread out, asserting control. “All right, everybody. Easy. Easy now. What’s going on here?”

  “This guy,” Hunt said, “was making off with my duffel bag.”

  “It’s mine, sir,” the scarred man replied, dead calm.

  With his own first look at the man’s face, Hillyer, too, took an extra beat, then came back to Hunt, who said, “That’s my duffel. You can check it out. It’s filled with fishing gear. I’m on my way down to Baja.”

  “So am I,” the scarred man said. He reached into his shirt pocket and held out a boarding pass. “With your permission, sir,” he said to Hillyer. Going to one knee, he pulled around the identification tag attached to the strap and held it out first to the TSA officer, then to Hunt.

  “Joe Trona,” he said. “That’s me.” He stood and reached behind him and took out his wallet, which also revealed a badge. Hillyer inspected the badge and seemed to read every word on it, twice looking from badge to man. “I’m a police officer and I promise you I did not steal this man’s duffel bag.”

  Hillyer unzipped the duffel for a quick look. Hunt saw the neatly arranged reels and spools of fishing line, similar to his own. Hillyer looked at Trona, then to Hunt. “When did you last see your own duffel bag, sir?”

  “I left it at the bar when I went to the bathroom. The man sitting next to me was watching it. But then when I came out, I saw . . .” He stopped because there was nothing more he could say. “I’m a horse’s ass, Mr. Trona,” he said. “I owe you an apology.”

  Trona looked at Hunt but said nothing.

  “Let’s go see if your duffel’s still at the bar,” Hillyer said to Hunt. “As our announcement says, many items of luggage look the same. If it’s still there, let’s not leave it unattended anymore. How’s that sound?”

  JOE TRONA STOOD IN THE shade outside the La Paz terminal, his back to the wall in the infernal Baja heat. His duct-taped quiver of rod cases lay safely along the wall, along with his duffel and a cooler. The van would be there any minute. “The horse’s ass.”

  “Hunt sounds better.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  Hunt joined Trona in the shade and offered his hand. “Wyatt.”

  “Are you fishing out of Baja Joe’s?”

  “First time.”

  “Always an adventure.”

  Trona watched a gaggle of pretty Mexican flight attendants walk-roll past them and into the terminal. One glanced at him, trying to be furtive, then let her gaze brush off of his face and into the sky where she pretended to be interested in a descending passenger jet. Even with a hat on and the brim pulled low, Trona’s scar-studded face was spectacularly there. By now, after living thirty-odd years with that face, Trona actually forgot about it sometimes. Of course, the reminders were always quick to come—reflections, people from adults to children, even dogs.

  “You’re the deputy from Orange County,” said Hunt. Trona nodded and enjoyed the inevitable beat of silence. “It’s been ten years since all that.”

  “It’s good to be out of view.”

  “Don’t I know,” said Hunt.

  “Those murders you worked in San Francisco were big news down south. Took you all the way back to ’78 and Jones-town. Man.”

  “History isn’t so ancient.”

  “No,” said Trona. “Not when Richard III shows up under a parking lot. How’s the PI work?”

  Hunt shrugged. “I read about the cartel trouble here in La Paz. Zetas barging in on La Familia is what I heard.”

  “Long as they stay away from Baja Joe’s,” said Trona.

  “All I want is six days of peace, quiet, and fishing. Maybe some bourbon.”

  “Let’s fish together tomorrow. I’ll show you what I’ve learned.”

  “Twist my arm.”

  The van and its six passengers bounced down the beaten two-lane asphalt that led toward the bay. Trona looked out at the cardón cactus and the elephant trees and the vultures circling precisely in the blue. He couldn’t wait to get on the water. They slowed down for a Policía Preventiva officer standing by his truck, flares in an angled line behind him, belching pink smoke. He saw more vehicles up ahead. The cop talked to the driver and the driver showed ID and the cop looked at each fisherman then waved them through. When they passed the other cars Trona saw that one was a white Suburban, new and shiny, windows riddled with bullet holes and smeared with red. Two bodies slumped within. Two more lay on the road shoulder, one covered with blankets, one not. Another police officer hurried them past.

  “There is very little crime in this part of Baja,” said the driver, resolutely. “Very little. Occasional only.”

  Trona wondered what the occasion was. He looked at Hunt, who had to be thinking the same thing.

  AT DAWN HUNT AND TRONA were skidding across the Sea of Cortez in a panga, both holding their hats in their hands, spray flying and the red paint of sunrise spread out before them. Cerralvo Island was a gray behemoth in the distance. The captain was named Israel and his panga was Luna Sombrero. He said little and regarded the anglers skeptically. Hunt shot pictures left and right, swung the camera, and before he could think, he’d shot Trona not once but twice. As Hunt slid the camera back into one of the many pockets of his fishing shirt he felt embarrassed for barging into Joe’s face like that, then saw the minor joy on it, the joy that a cursed childhood could not prevent, the joy of being on the water.

  Two boys raised by adoptive parents go fishing, thought Hunt. What a cool thing.

  As the Yamaha screamed along, Hunt saw Israel turn to Joe, take his hands off the wheel, and swing an invisible baseball bat. Nice form. Buster Posey–ish. Beside him, Trona gave the captain a thumbs-up and a smile appeared beneath Israel’s sunglasses.

  “What’s up?” Hunt asked.

  “Baseball. The captains all play. Israel says there’s a game tonight. It’s quality ball if you want to go.”

  “Done.”

  The water shone pale, flat, and nacreous in the early day, the sun barely a foot off the horizon. Already Hunt could feel its heat and could only imagine what it would be like when it reached its zenith.

  Suddenly Israel swung the wheel and the panga pitched hard left, heading into a cove along the shoreline where another small boat, now ju
st visible, had anchored. Behind them, the other fishermen from Joe’s fell in line, and within five minutes they were all floating around the bait boat. Hunt wasn’t expecting bait, and with all of his new flies, why would he? But bait seemed to be part of the ritual here. Whatever its purpose, he’d soon find it out.

  Once everybody had loaded up with sardines, the captains held a short conference and then they were off again away from the shore and out over the vast expanse of water. With Israel leading the way and nothing even remotely like a GPS, they were all heading toward a destination that must have been clear to them, although Hunt couldn’t make out any kind of a marker or buoy.

  The target, a good ten minutes and perhaps a mile out, was a white one-gallon plastic Clorox container, tied to some rope that probably had a sea anchor attached down below to keep it more or less in place. Hunt thought that Israel locating this random piece of flotsam out on the endless unbroken surface of the water a fairly impressive feat of navigation.

  “Fish here?” he asked.

  “Shade,” Trona said. “A little goes a long way.”

  Meanwhile, the captain had cut the motor and now Trona grabbed his rod and stepped up, taking the more precarious position on the bow. “Showtime,” he said, playing line out at his feet. At his place in the middle of the panga, Hunt stood and started doing the same as Israel threw a couple pieces of the bait out into the water around them.

  Nothing.

  They waited. There was no swell and after a minute or so the light chop of the other pangas had dissipated as well and it was dead-still. Hunt, tensed for action, dared a look around at the other four parties who’d killed their own engines and fallen into a semicircle behind them. Suddenly, though, Israel leaned forward and slapped a heavy palm on Hunt’s shoulder. “Hey, hey!” Pointing into the well of the boat at Hunt’s feet.

  Hunt turned back, looked down, saw nothing. “What?” he asked. Then, over to Trona, “What’s he want?”