by Shirl Henke
“He’ll love being wakened at 2:00 a.m. to take us for a ride. Probably shoot us.”
“We could always steal his boat,” she suggested.
“Let’s try cash first, okay?”
“Cash works,” Sam agreed.
“I thought you’d see the logic in that,” he replied dryly as they sped through the night.
“There it is!” she called out as a neon green sign appeared on the berm, directing them to a small public docking area used by sightseeing tourists and local fishermen. A large sign, somewhat the worse for wear, advertised Wally’s Swamp Tour Boats For Hire. They followed the rutted muddy road until they reached the dock. A tall, dim light cast the rickety wooden structure in eerie shadows as Matt cut the engine of his Mustang. One car was parked on the deserted gravel lot beside the bait shack.
Sam could swear she heard the faint sound of a powerboat fading into the distance. “Get the Colt .45 from the glove compartment. There’s an extra clip with it.”
He removed the big automatic she’d insisted he carry and checked the action, then dashed after her. She jumped from the car and peered inside a shiny new BMW. “It’s Reicht’s car,” Matt said, shining their flashlight on the vanity plates which read, “SMRTDOC.” Sam took one look, then headed onto the dock.
“Wait, Sam! You agreed to call Patowski, remember?” he asked, quickly catching up to her.
“I heard their engine. No time.”
“I’m calling,” he said, reaching for the cell clipped to his belt. He punched in speed dial for her cop pal as he followed her down the dock. “Shit! No signal.”
“No time, either,” she replied, jumping into a boat.
“How the hell are we going to get one of these tubs to start?” he asked.
“Never was a yacht type, but I did learn how to run an outboard motor when my dad took us fishing. While I figure this out, you make a dash up to Wally’s place and get him to call the local gendarmes,” she said, glancing at the small house about thirty yards farther down the road. It remained shrouded in darkness.
“Sam,” he said, seizing her by the shoulders, “don’t leave without me—swear it.” The intensity of his voice penetrated the heavy night air.
She nodded. “I swear, Matt. Give Wally this note.” She handed him the sheet of paper she’d been scribbling on while he drove. “This should provide enough info to send in the cavalry.”
“Explanations about Reicht’s little hideaway for Wally to give the police?” he surmised as he gave her a quick kiss and took off in a ground-eating dash.
“Don’t go getting yourself shot!” she called after him, then applied herself to the boat’s motor, praying Wally wasn’t the sort to shoot first and ask questions later. There was no telling what Reicht would do. He needed info from Farley about Leila. She must’ve told him the boy had the key to her evidence stash.
“He’ll use drugs, maybe even torture,” she muttered to herself, remembering the description of Leila Satterwaite’s mutilated body.
Sam climbed across the boat seats to the outboard. She had taken the heavy chrome-encased cell flashlight from Matt’s car, figuring it would come in handy. Now she laid it on the nearest seat and pointed it toward the engine. After examining the outboard for a moment, she looked over her shoulder toward the house where lights had now come on. She could see Matt’s tall figure in the open doorway.
“So far, so good. At least Wally hasn’t shot him.” She offered up a silent prayer, then returned to fiddling with the engine. After checking the gas tank, she pulled the ignition cord. The big Mariner 90 HP roared to life.
“Jump in,” she said as Matt pounded down the dock. As soon as he climbed aboard and hunkered down, she took off. “Is Wally calling the cops?” she asked.
Matt nodded. “I’m not sure if he intends to sic them on us or Reicht, but since I paid his exorbitant rental fee, I imagine help’s on the way. He took the note you wrote.”
“Now if only we’re on the right trail…we just can’t be too late to save Farley….”
“Keep the light down,” she whispered to Matt as she cut the engine to a slow low growl.
“You sure you know where we’re headed? We could get lost in here and never find the kid.”
“Shh,” she murmured. “Sound carries over the water.”
Now he could hear it, too. A loud, powerful engine suddenly cutting off. The faintest dab of moonlight filtered through a bank of clouds as they inched their way closer. After a few minutes they could make out a small cabin on the edge of the swamp, its dock protruding directly off the front deck. A narrow slough of brackish water cut through the saw grass. Probably where he trolled for gators.
“I’m gonna pull up to the bank far enough down so they won’t hear us land. Then we’ll sneak up on them. See what’s going on, where they have Farley.”
Matt nodded. It sounded reasonable and she’d had lots more experience doing this kind of thing than he had, although since meeting his wife, he’d been in more harrowing situations than working a newspaper night beat in Miami’s most crime-ridden areas.
After pulling the boat ashore, they picked up what looked to be a very rough path beaten down by Reicht and his fellow “sportsmen.” It was a good thing they had at least some freedom to move without walking through the vegetation as their costumes were little protection from the razor-sharp blades of grass. In just a few yards, Matt’s sleek uniform, even her furry Pandorian costume, had been reduced to shredded tatters.
As they neared the clearing around the cabin, Sam stopped abruptly. Matt heard it, too. The sound of another approaching boat. “Local cops?” he whispered, dubiously.
“No. Too soon.” She began easing closer, light extinguished now as the glow from the cabin enabled them to see. They reached a small window on the opposite side from the slough and crouched down. Sam peeked inside and saw Farley lying on a narrow bed across the room. He appeared drugged but was unbound, his head rolling back and forth as he softly moaned Sara’s name.
Reicht was filling a syringe with a clear liquid from a bottle while Winchester paced nervously. Both men still wore their costumes sans headgear just as Sam and Matt did. While she and Matt listened, the men argued, apparently unaware of the approaching boat.
“We should’ve taken him straight to Homeside. You know how I despise the swamp.” Winchester swatted a mosquito on his cheek and cursed.
“I have to find out what he did with that key Leila gave him. I could scarcely chance a nurse or orderly overhearing when I drug and question him. The evidence she has can put us both in prison for murder.”
“You killed her,” Winchester quickly retorted.
“But you arranged for me to kill your wife and have Brio killed. If I go down, my dear Upton, so do you. Besides, those photos he took with Susan were really a messy complication, don’t you agree?” Reicht spoke with conversational calm. Being so close to ending his association with the wretched accountant gave him patience he hadn’t been able to muster earlier.
“All I wanted was for you to get rid of her lover and keep her quiet. You’ve used that to blackmail me into your illegal schemes ever since,” Winchester’s protest came out more like a whine.
Reicht shook his head. “Poor, innocent victim, aren’t you? We’ve been partners for seven years, since I started medicating your unhappy wife. If she hadn’t slipped that will past you, we could’ve killed her and the kid and you’d have your money free and clear. Pity.” He sounded anything but pitying.
“I hear a boat! Who’s coming?” Winchester asked, alarm in his voice.
“Just a couple of friends of mine,” Reicht said. “Now, prop that boy up so I can work my magic on him.”
“What friends? More of those odious mobsters?” Winchester asked angrily. “You have no right involving any of your thugs.”
Outside, Sam and Matt watched two heavily armed men pull their boat alongside Reicht’s and tie up to the dock. Light from the open front door poured over the
m. “The taller one’s Rico Salazar’s right-hand man. I’ve seen the other one’s mug, too,” Matt whispered. “I don’t think Reicht intends for father or son to leave here alive.”
“Wouldn’t take Karnak to figure that one. We need a quick diversion to draw Reicht outside before he can use Farley as a hostage.” She looked around them, found a badly rotted two-by-four left over from the construction of the dock and handed it to Matt. “You got a good strong arm. Throw it into the water beneath the dock without them seeing you. Then slip back here and cover me from the window. Watch those sweet buns,” she said, giving him a kiss.
He kissed her back, then crept over the muddy earth, crouching low, using brush as cover until he could send the hunk of wood sailing beneath the dock. It landed with a loud splash.
“What the fuck was that?” one of the thugs said to the other. “Hey, Reicht, you got company,” he yelled into the house.
Reicht appeared at the door. “What’s going on, Tito?”
“Somebody’s under the dock—or maybe it’s one of them gators you like to take potshots at,” the other gunsel said, his piece aimed at the water where the wood had gone in. Unfortunately, being rotted, it was buoyant and floated out.
Before anyone could see what it was in the murky light, Tito’s companion yelped, “It’s a damned gator!” He started blasting away at it with his Beretta.
Reicht rushed onto the dock and knocked the man’s hand away. “Stop firing. The sound will carry across the lake. Last thing we need is for that boat rental hick to come investigating—or worse, call the police.” He looked down into the water. “You idiot! You’ve shot some rotted wood.”
“Well, something made a loud splash,” the other man said to Reicht.
While they argued, Sam carefully unlatched the screen and climbed through the window while Winchester stood looking out the front door. She almost made it across the wooden floor to him before a loose board groaned softly, causing him to turn. She raised a finger to her lips and pointed her snub nose directly in his face. “Step away from the door. Now!” she hissed over the sounds of the men on the dock yelling at each other.
Something in her tone took the starch out of Upton Winchester IV’s spine. He stepped to the side but Reicht caught the motion from the corner of his eye and said, “Someone’s inside!”
That was Matt’s cue to fire at the men on the dock. Easy targets under the pole light. He hit Tito’s companion, knocking him down. The thug cursed, holding his arm as he rolled across the narrow dock and fell off, landing in Reicht’s boat. A spray of blood hit the water and dissipated as he thrashed in the small craft. Matt fired again, trying for Reicht, but he was too late. The doctor stood closest to the cabin and moved out of his firing line.
Tito opened up with a burst from a MACH-10, aiming in the direction from which Matt had fired. Matt flattened himself against the side of the cabin and edged toward the window to see how Sam was faring.
She leaped at Winchester, using her snub nose to club him across the kisser. He fell to his knees as gunfire erupted and Reicht burst through the door. The doctor held the syringe in one hand like a weapon, glaring in disbelief at her as he shoved the needle against Farley’s throat.
“You are a troublesome bitch,” he said. “Now, unless you want me to kill the boy, drop the gun.”
“A drug to make him talk won’t kill him,” she said, stalling.
“It will if I plunge it in his carotid full force. You can’t kill me quick enough to stop it. He’ll die horribly.”
Sam knew he was right. The firing outside continued. She prayed Matt hadn’t been hit as she slowly laid down the handgun, all the while watching Reicht and that needle. When she started to straighten up, he kicked the gun away from her. To do that he had to move away from Farley. Suddenly a bloodcurdling shriek filled the still night air, followed by sounds of thrashing in the water.
“Oh, Jesus! It’s a gator!” Tito yelled, firing into the water. He tried in vain to save his gunsel as the gator dragged the wounded man overboard by his bloodied arm.
Winchester groaned, still crumpled on the floor across the room. Reicht instructed him calmly. “Take her weapon and hand it to me, Upton.”
“He intends to kill you and Farley, Upton. That’s why his goons are here.”
Winchester looked dazed. “No,” he said, struggling to pull himself up against the wall, failing. He crouched on all fours, frozen.
“Think. He can’t let Farley live after the kid witnessed him abduct Leila Satterwaite. He can pin everything including the offshore tax and drug scams on you if you’re dead,” Sam said, poised, ready to move.
“She’s lying. If you don’t want to go to jail, help me now!” Reicht commanded his accomplice.
Sam had seen the Remington rifle leaning against the wall near Farley and knew Reicht would try for it. When he edged that direction, she sprang, trying desperately to dodge the needle while grabbing the hand holding it. They went down. She knocked his arm aside and the deadly syringe went flying. Then she punched his soft midsection, but a burst of terror-induced adrenaline gave the pudgy man incredible strength.
Reicht grunted as he rolled away from her, seizing the rifle and leveling it with the expertise of a man well used to firearms. Sam clawed for her .38 but before she could grab it or he could aim the rifle, Matt fired a shot through the window, hitting him. Then Tito, having given up on his dead companion, came charging around the side of the cabin, opening up with his MACH-10.
Matt dived around the corner but Tito’s fire grazed his right arm before he could reach cover. Sweat beaded his eyes and white-hot agony tore through his bicep. He used his left hand to hold on to the rough logs for balance. Gritting his teeth against the pain as he raised his right arm, he aimed the pistol, waiting for his nemesis to appear.
Inside Sam cocked her snub nose .38 at Reicht, who swiveled the rifle at Farley, cradling it awkwardly because of the jagged flesh wound seeping blood down his side. He slowly pushed himself to a standing position using the wall for support. “Standoff, Ms. Ballanger. You shoot me, I kill the boy. Now I recommend we act like sensible adults.”
Sam’s gun never wavered. “Get the hell out of here,” she said. “Or I kill you.”
Reicht started to back toward the door when the gunfire out back resumed. He kept the rifle barrel pointed directly at Farley. He did not see the dazed Winchester on all fours behind him. Now Sam watched as the doctor took another step backward. And toppled over Upton, falling through the door.
Sam’s aim quickly moved to Roman Numeral. “I wouldn’t try it,” she said as he made a feeble attempt to reach the rifle Reicht had dropped.
The doctor rolled to his feet and dashed down the dock in a trail of blood. He leaped into the small john boat and cursed when he couldn’t start the engine. He tried again. The boat began to rock, pitching him forward, over the big outboard motor into the black water…into the waiting jaws of the hungry gators who had swarmed toward the blood spoor from the dead thug’s remains.
Inside the cabin Sam and Upton heard the screams. So did Matt and Tito out back. Still, the man advanced, his automatic ready to fire. Matt was growing weaker. He had to do something fast or he was meat just like the thug and Reicht. Matt looked around him, searching desperately for something he could throw into the saw grass. Where were those rotted boards when a guy needed one?
Then he heard Sam’s voice coming from around the corner. “Matt—don’t say a word. I’m coming!”
Tito whirled around, looking for the advancing woman. Using the diversion, Matt moved around the corner of the cabin and fired. The slug went through the drug dealer’s left arm and exited under his ribs, knocking him on his right side. He did not move. Matt stumbled toward the body but suddenly everything went black.
Sam saw Tito go down. She raced to him, kicking aside the automatic weapon and making sure the thug was dead. “Matt, if you die on me I’ll really be pissed! You don’t want to get me that mad, dammit! W
here are you?”
She was crying and cursing at the same time as she saw his big body lying on the ground at the corner of the cabin. Then she heard the sounds of a chopper coming across the swamp. Ignoring it, she knelt beside Matt and carefully laid him on his back to examine the extent of his injury, trying desperately to recapture the calm detachment of her paramedic days, and failing miserably.
Sam ripped off pieces of her shredded Pandorian costume and wrapped the thick cloth around Matt’s arm to staunch the bleeding. The chopper landed beside the slough and shut down its rotors. A blindingly bright light poured over the pair of them, helping her see what she was doing. After a rush of footstep, a familiar voice came from inside the cabin.
“Just stay where you are, Upton, ole boy. The DEA has a few questions they want to ask you. And when they’re through, it gets worse. Then you get to talk with Ida Kleb. You won’t like her.”
“Scruggs, I could use some help. Radio for a medevac. Matt’s been hit,” Sam yelled.
“Already on its way. When we heard all the shooting, we figured somebody’d need patching up.”
“Is Farley okay?”
“Doped up pretty good, but he’ll make it. You know what Reicht gave him?” Scruggs asked her.
“Just a sedative to get him here. The bastard used something a lot nastier on Leila to get her to tell him about Kenny’s stash and what she’d been up to.”
Matt groaned, listening to their conversation through a haze of pain. “The doc’s trouble was that Leila couldn’t produce the key. I bet that’s why he beat her before he killed her,” he muttered thickly.
“Just lie still and be quiet,” Sam said, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. “What is it about you and stopping bullets, Granger?”
He ignored the jibe. “Reicht had to get that key from Farley.”
“That’s what we figured,” Scruggs said. “After Reicht snatched Farley from Montoya’s, I buttonholed Patowski and he tipped me about the diary in the storage space. We agreed this cabin was a good shot for where the doc would take Winchester and Far to get rid of them for good. Gus Kline didn’t know about it, but he admitted he’d been sent by Salazar to follow you to where Farley was hidden, then report it. My gut said go for the cabin. Then Wally Griswald called Patowski with your message.”