Key West Connection

by Randy Wayne White

  The area around the sportfisherman was well lighted. Very well lighted. There was a big floodlight above it, and it illuminated the water beneath it. The waves rolled and receded, jadelike and glistening. In its huge bulk, the sportfish erman barely moved.

  I slid into the water, taking care not to let the sea crest knock me back into the barnacled pilings. In the flash of lightning, the mangroves that curved away from the pier threw weird shadows. I stayed close to the mangroves, pulling myself along in their cover. And when they reached a point, out and away from the pier where I knew the water deepened, I stopped and took ten good deep breaths, hyperventilating.

  And that’s when I saw it. Hidden back in a little cove, looking a fluorescent blue in the bright burst of lightning—my little Boston Whaler.

  It was a good sign. A good omen. I had bought that solid little skiff for Ernest and Honor. It was the boat I wanted them to learn about the sea on. And now its discovery became not only a faster means of getting back to the Sniper when I needed to, it also offered fair augury for the approaching mission.

  I almost smiled. It bounced and jerked above the spent waves like a toy duck. Fair sea, foul sea—a dependable little boat. It was almost like seeing an old friend.

  It was a short sixty-yard swim to the Senator’s sportfisherman. I got the RDX I needed from the knapsack and dove.

  The lights of the boathouse guided me. They shimmered strangely on the pier, beneath the water, revealing silvered baitfish and the long, black stiletto forms of barracuda. I pulled myself through the water, using long, solid strokes of fin, my arms at my sides. There was no hurry. I had them now.

  I surfaced beneath the dock at the stern of the boat. I could hear the loud creak of footsteps above me. Heavy men, heavy loads. The name of the sportfisherman, in golden letters a foot and a half high, blared out the boat’s name: Independence.

  So typical of the political hypocrite mentality—cover the vehicle of dirty deeds with glorious nomenclature.

  It made me want to vomit.

  I knew where I wanted to place the block of RDX. Under the skeg, beneath the engines. When the boat went, I wanted it to be useless for ever and ever; a wasted hulk to remind the Senator—and bastards like the Senator—that there are still some people you can’t walk over. There are people who will fight back.

  I submerged quietly and checked out the bottom. I wanted to do the job perfectly and with care—RDX is nothing to play around with. Cyclonite, military variety—one of the most powerful explosives of all. A partial block would do the trick and still leave the little Whaler, 150 yards or more away, high and dry. It would take the boathouse and probably damage the sleek blue death boat secured on the next pier—but nothing else.

  I was concentrating so intently on fastening the RDX just right that it wasn’t until too late that I realized I wasn’t in the water alone.

  Ellsworth was taking precautions, all right. Guards above the water. And below. And when the diver, complete with tanks and wet suit, grabbed me from behind, I suddenly understood what all the light was for. They had posted a night underwater patrol. Ellsworth hadn’t been much of a SEAL—but he had worked with plenty of good ones. And he knew how to secure an area. I had to give him that.

  The diver took me down, his arms locked around my throat. His plan was simple. He wanted to drown me.

  I forced myself to be calm; to think. It was certainly not the first time I had been attacked underwater—in training or in actual combat. He would have a knife, of course. And I couldn’t afford to make him use it. Even a lucky stab with my Gerber would only condemn him to a slow, bleeding death—long after he had cut my throat. He wanted to drown me? Fine. I would let him drown me.

  I pawed at his arms frantically. I jerked and squirmed—but not hard enough to break free. And, after a half minute of that, I gave a final, convulsive heave and then went slack, letting a little, precious air bubble from my lips.

  I was either some actor, or he was no critic—because he released his grip and began to pull me upward. And we had nearly reached the surface when I slid my Gerber out of its holster and jammed, with one smooth thrust, all eight inches of blade up through his throat, into his brain.

  There was no violent death struggle from that diver. He folded as if anesthetized, and I carried him back down to the bottom, a black curl of blood following us. After a long, welcomed exchange of air from his regulator, I pulled him to a piling beneath the dock and tied him down with quick hitches, neck and legs. I took a few more deep breaths from his regulator, and then screwed off his air.

  I didn’t want anyone to notice that his telltale bubbles stayed, now, in one place.

  The RDX was still in position. It hadn’t been knocked loose by his attack. I secured it with a length of wire, considered adding another partial block for good measure, and then decided against it.

  I surfaced once more beneath the dock for air, and then swam the sixty yards back to the mangroves underwater. The rain hit my face with an angular velocity when I surfaced. Stormy August night: sea and rain both as warm as blood.

  It would be best to get Bimini out of the house—if that’s where she was—before I started Diversion One. That I knew. In the dirty business of drug running, all witnesses, all competitors, all unwanted baggage, are disposed of as readily as picnic paperware. And, besides, entering the house now might give me a few minutes alone with Ellsworth. The few precious minutes it would take to rip his throat out with my bare hands.

  I put the mask and fins back in the knapsack and took a short breather. The underwater struggle had brought my head injury to bear. There was a throbbing pain at the base of my neck, and I felt a little dizzy. My wrist, where the dog had bitten me, ached with every pulse of heartbeat. I checked my Rolex. They still didn’t know I was on the island. And my mission wouldn’t take long to complete now. I could take it. I was in pain—but a sweet, sweet pain it was.

  I stuck the detonator to the RDX into my left thigh pocket and buttoned it securely. And in the momentary darkness, I scampered back toward the cover near the little cottage. A bright explosion of lightning sent the limb of a huge gumbo limbo crashing to the earth, not far from the boathouse. I saw the men duck reflexively.

  “Why’nt we call it quits for tonight?” I heard one of them yell.

  “Can’t, brother. Can’t.”

  “I say screw Ellsworth.”

  “Keep it down, man. He’ll be coming down from the house soon. Might hear you.”

  “I don’t give a shit if he does. Tired of this crap, man.”

  So, he was in the house.

  The Senator’s hulking fortress sat huge and well lighted in the pouring rain on the mound above me. The yellow rectangles of windows looked like peering eyes from my vantage point. I wanted to gain entrance to the house unseen, get Bimini, and get her to safety. And once that was done, I could go ahead with the operation—which would mean that, for a few minutes, I would have free access to the sportfisherman and then, later, be able to roam the house at will.

  If everything went as planned.

  And it would. I had plenty of time, now. Things were going smoothly. Very smoothly indeed.

  I wouldn’t have seen the guard on the porch had it not been for the lightning. Big man, dressed in black, with a full black beard. He held some kind of automatic weapon, cradled in his arms. The guard, in the strange light, looked oddly like a wax figure.

  I readied the Cobra crossbow, stuck a shaft in it, and cocked it. And then I leveled the weapon, poised on the dark space of side porch where I knew he stood. And with the next white crack of lightning, I fired. I didn’t see him go down. But I heard him.

  Humph!

  All clear.

  I hustled up the mound, hugging the jungle of wet foliage. Little rivulets of rainwater swirled down the ancient shells, heading for the timeless rendezvous of sea. Before I reached the door, I stopped and looked in the window of the master bedroom. The Bach played on in evidence of the island gir
l who loved the classics. But she wasn’t there. No one was in the room. The covers of the bed were thrown back, revealing silk sheets. There was a half-finished bourbon on the hatchcover table.

  She was up and awake. But where?

  I went to the fallen heap which was the guard. I pulled him down off the porch and hid him in the bushes, binding and gagging him. I took his weapon and jammed a solid length of jasmine twig down the barrel and broke it off.

  The person who tried to use that rifle again would be awfully, awfully sorry.

  Carefully, I opened the door. Just cracked it enough so that I could look in. The cold force of air conditioning hit me full in the face. I was at the side hallway. Beyond was the entrance to the master bedroom, the ornate bathroom and sauna bath, and the Senator’s study. A huge dark figure stood outside the study door, and I could hear muffled voices coming from within—muted laughter; something that sounded like a groan.

  I considered taking the guard out with the Webber dart pistol. But that would blow my cover. Instead, I shut the door quietly, then ran around to the back of the house, hoping I could get a look inside the study window.

  I could. And I did.

  And what I saw made me sick. I hit my own thigh hard, punishing myself.

  You have plenty of time, plenty of time, Captain Dusky MacMorgan. And things couldn’t be going more smoothly.

  Sure, sure. Absolutely.

  Sometimes my own stupidity dazzles even me.

  Ellsworth stood within. Trim, thin, naked body in the process of getting dressed. I saw his hateful, feminine face, the thin girlish lips. And I saw the beastly look of conquest in his dark eyes, complete with animal glow of triumph.

  He had just finished raping Bimini.

  XVII

  She sat bound to a heavy leather chair, her legs tied wide apart. She was naked, brown body looking frail and defeated in the white neon glow of the study lamp. Her dark breasts heaved, glistening with the sweat of Benjamin Ellsworth, and small streams of blood dripped down the corner of her bruised mouth, and down the thighs of her immobile legs.

  A cigarette hung rakishly out of the corner of Ellsworth’s thin lips. He looked at the girl, laughed derisively, and opened the door to leave.

  Quickly, I pulled the rubber tip off an aluminum shaft, lifted the Cobra, and fired.

  “Shit!”

  Some great SEAL; some cold professional I was. In my haste I hadn’t even cocked the crossbow.

  And then it was too late. Ellsworth was gone, pulling the door closed behind him.

  I was trembling with rage. Poor Bimini, poor little island virgin. Her head lolled back on the chair pathetically, her eyes closed as if she wanted to make the world disappear. I lowered the crossbow and tried to figure out how to intercept Ellsworth. I didn’t give a damn about my game plan now. I wanted to kill him and kill him now.

  He would probably head for the sportfisherman. I had heard the men talking. They were just about loaded. So he would go out the front door. And I was just about to leave the awful vision through the window to meet him when I saw the study door open again.

  It wasn’t Ellsworth this time. It was the guard. A huge black man. I watched momentarily, hoping for some sign of sympathy; hoping the guard would cut her free and give Bimini her clothes.

  But he didn’t. He had something else on his mind. He shook her by the shoulders and touched her naked body roughly. Bimini opened her dazed eyes, saw the huge man, then half cried and half screamed, “Stay away from me, you bastard!”

  The huge man grinned.

  “Gonna give you somethin’ nice, darlin’.”

  “No . . . !”

  He turned away from her, facing the window, and dropped his pants. The awful grin still creased his face. And he died with that grin; a horrible, frozen leer.

  The silver Cobra arrow shot through the window as if it were tissue paper, entered and exited the guard’s heart, then buried itself in the wall.

  F-f-f-tt—CRACK—thud—CRACK.

  All in a microsecond.

  The guard studied the tiny hole in his chest, like a bear studying a bee sting. He tried to push the sudden gush of blood back in with a big black hand, and then he fell heavily to the floor, still leering.

  “Gonna give you somethin’ nice, darlin’.”

  Right.

  Bimini’s eyes widened in surprise and horror, and she inhaled as if to scream—but then didn’t. Her eyes swept the darkness beyond the window where I stood.

  “Oh, Dusky,” she whispered in agony. “Oh, God . . . ”

  I kicked the window out, unconcerned with the noise now. I whipped out the Gerber and cut the ropes, and she stood up painfully and clung to me.

  “I knew you would come back. I couldn’t let myself believe that you were dead.”

  I pulled a blanket, neatly folded, off the leather couch and spread it around her shoulders. She shivered as if she were suffering from hypothermia.

  “The Senator—is he coming back, Bimini?”

  Her eyes were glazed, the glaze of severe shock. “I just knew that you would get here, Dusky. And now you’re going to kill him, aren’t you? But you can’t. You can’t because you have to let me kill him—”

  “Bimini!”

  “And I think I know how I’m going to do it. I’ll take a knife and—”

  “Bimini!”

  She shook herself and stared at me, as if waking for the first time from her ordeal. And then she fell against me, crying in long, sweeping waves of anguish. I stroked her short black hair. “It’s okay now, lady. I’m going to take you away from all this. But first you have to tell me—is the Senator coming back?”

  She shook her head, still crying. “No, no, he went off and . . . and left me with that . . . that animal. Dusky, he . . . he . . . ”

  “I know what he did, Bimini. And he’ll pay for it. I swear to you, he’ll pay. One more thing, Bimini—the Senator’s private papers. Did he take them with him?”

  “In his desk,” she said, motioning. “I don’t know.”

  I sat her down on the couch and went to the desk. It took about five minutes to find the one with the false bottom. I jerked it open—nothing. Nothing but my Randall knife. He had cleaned the place out when he left. Left for where? South America, probably; left with a bundle, never to return. Unless one Norman Fizer had reason to hunt the Senator down. And I would give him reason. Plenty of reason. A whole boatload of it.

  I secured the knife in my belt.

  “Where are your clothes, Bimini?”

  She nodded toward a pathetic little heap of underwear beside the chair.

  “Stay right here. I’ll get some stuff out of your room.”

  I went out into the hallway. Someone, attracted by the sound of the breaking window, was coming. I pushed myself against the wall, praying it was Ellsworth.

  It wasn’t. Another of the drug flunkies. He was so surprised when I stepped out in front of him that he took a wide, flailing punch at me, the kind of punch that angry little girls throw. I hit him once in the throat, a good one, straight from the shoulder. He went down gagging and gasping. I didn’t even stop to see if he would live or die. I got jeans, a wool sweater, and shoes from Bimini’s closet. I took them back to her and, ludicrously, turned my back as she dressed. When she was ready, I took her out the side door and back down the mound.

  The boat was loaded now. The big twin engines rumbled, muted in the wind and downpour of the storm. We crouched there by a sweet-smelling hibiscus bush, and I told her what I was going to do.

  “It’ll take about ten minutes, Bimini. Do you think you can wait?”

  She nodded, looking me in the eyes. I couldn’t tell if the water on her autumn colored face was rain or tears. “Whatever you say, Dusky. Just take me away—that’s all I want.”

  When I was sure that it was safe, I hustled her across the clearing to the mangroves. We waded along the bank, back into the little cove where the Boston Whaler lay at anchor.

  “
Sit flat on the bottom of the boat. Don’t mind the water—I’ll run it out later. And don’t lift your head up for anything, Bimini. There might be some bullets flying around after the first explosion.”

  When I was sure that she was comfortable, I waded back along the mangroves to the first pier. I could see the toolshed, beyond two big trees. It was about two hundred yards away on the other side of the mound, dimly lit at the outer edge of the big yard light. Ellsworth and his men were nowhere to be seen. The work done, they had all been driven into the boat or into the big house by the rain. I took out the Wise penlight and readied a shaft. I added the proper weights. It was not guesswork—I had done it before. Back in Nam. And when the shaft was properly weighted, I took out one of the thermite grenades. In Asia, I had had one true great horror—that of being wounded by thermite. It is terrible stuff. When it goes, it throws a white-hot flame, in excess of four thousand degrees. And the smallest fragment of it can burn through your skull, right down to your toes. I gauged wind and distance. Then I fixed the thermite canister to the tip of the shaft, pulled the pin, aimed, and fired.

  Crack—wo-o-o-osh!

  It looked like the wooden toolshed had just been hit by a meteorite. The entire back half of the island was illuminated by a hellish white light as the building burned.

  “Hey . . . fire!”

  “Get some extinguishers, man!”

  “Someone tell Mr. Ellsworth that lightning or something hit the toolshed!”

  They came running out of the boat and out of the house like ants from a damaged anthill. But, with the extreme heat, they couldn’t get near the building. I wondered if Ellsworth would remember what thermite was like. And then I wondered if he had ever let himself get close enough to actual combat to find out.

  When I was sure the fire had everyone’s attention, I scrambled across to the next pier and climbed aboard the Independence. It was about forty feet of class fishing boat—like the ones you see in the exclusive yacht basin in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. Mahogany and brass were all polished to glass; the latest electronics and nautical niceties. It was a craft decorated and outfitted to impress visitors, not to work. And that made it even more like the yachts of the big rich boys. She had probably been the vehicle of half a dozen real fishing trips, but a hundred cocktail parties. I felt sorry for her in a way. She was solidly built but misused through kindness—like a good hunting pup who is raised and, finally, ruined in the show ring.