“Okay, let’s hurry.”
He dropped the shotgun in the sand. This time, they got as far as knee-deep water and were all about to climb aboard the catamaran when McCanliss emerged again. He was not stooping and showed no sign of caution. He walked to where they stood in the surf. At the end of his long right arm, he held the Glock.
“Almost, Sam,” McCanliss said. “Good try.”
Teagarden realized that his lunge from the evergreens had been a ploy. McCanliss deliberately drew his shotgun fire. It was clever. After hearing the click, click of the empty chamber, he knew it was safe to emerge.
“This has got to stop!” Teagarden shouted.
McCanliss nodded and rubbed his balding head with his left hand. He glanced at the two boys, the sky, the green waters of the Gulf, and back at the two boys.
“I agree,” he said. “Now’s the time.”
He casually raised the Glock and fired twice. Each bullet struck its target. The first hit Jimmy’s tan, sweaty face below his left eye, sending him reeling backward into the surf. The second struck Scotty in the teeth on an upward trajectory. He, dropped to a straddle on the left hull of the catamaran, head drooping back, a bucket with a leak in the bottom, sending a steady stream of blood into the water.
Teagarden stared at the gradually reddening surf. He too was about to die, and he had no doubt that this black ops sociopath meant it when he said he would take his own life afterward. The Key West police or the Coast Guard would have the unpleasant job of lugging four bodies from Wisteria Island. Teagarden sent a last thought to his daughter: Don’t blame yourself, Eva.
McCanliss pointed the Glock at Teagarden.
“None of this will stop the Dear John File from going public,” Teagarden said softly. It may have sounded like a final, desperate attempt to delay the inevitable, but it wasn’t. It was merely what came to mind while speaking to no one in particular, except maybe to the God he planned on becoming more acquainted with.
“That’s good,” McCanliss said. “I decided while sitting with my best friends, the snow leopards of the Central Park Zoo, that the Dear John File—should—go public. The FBI has been so incompetent they deserve it.”
He was going to make one last statement before shooting, but was interrupted by a mechanical buzz that drew his attention. It was a drone, about the size of a baseball, hovering ten feet overhead.
McCanliss instantly understood the danger. He raised the Glock and aimed at the K-32 a moment too late. It fired before he could squeeze off a shot.
Harry McCanliss fell backward onto the rough sand of Wisteria Island’s narrow beach.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
No longer floundering, the Beyond Bayonne was laboring under its own smoky power.
Exhausted, with aching body and heart, Teagarden stood beside the catamaran in the shallow surf growing redder from the young men’s gushing head wounds. He put a hand over the right side of his face to block the glare, straining to follow the arc of the small drone as it circled back, away from the island. It eased to a landing on the aft deck of the old wooden houseboat that slowly chugged closer.
Teagarden waved. The man in the pilot’s cabin gave a small, quick wave in response while struggling with the stubborn, unresponsive controls of the old boat.
The huffing motor slipped to neutral, then made a grinding noise as it shifted into reverse. A whirlpool of dirty backwash churned at the stern to ease the impact when the bow of the Beyond Bayonne hit the island’s sand bar, bringing it to an abrupt stop. A cloud of gray exhaust wafted ashore, passing over Teagarden, the catamaran, the bodies of the two young men and McCanliss. After a moment, the engine shut down and the pilot stepped from the cockpit with a downcast look.
It was Pangolin.
They stared into each other’s eyes for a prolonged time. Each felt a great sadness for the two boys that lay nearby, their young bodies limp, their wonderful energy interrupted, draining into the Gulf of Mexico.
“The Coast Guard is on the way,” Pangolin called out from the deck of the Beyond Bayonne.
Teagarden nodded appreciation. Gradually the red-tinted water returned to a full emerald green. Pangolin eased over the gunwale of the Beyond Bayonne and waded ashore. Avoiding the body of McCanliss, they both stumbled to a rocky outcropping at the surf’s edge, and sat down, their bare feet bobbing in the undulating shallow surf.
“You’re a fast learner,” Teagarden said. Pangolin gave him a confused look. “The drones.” He nodded at the prostrate body of McCanliss behind them. “You’re a fast learner on those drones.”
“Not fast enough, unfortunately.” Pangolin nodded at the other two bodies snagged by nylon cable wrapping the catamaran. He sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here faster.” He regarded the body of the man he’d taken up on the DC-3. The man he respected and had given extra time in the cockpit because of the story about his father and son dying in service to the U.S. He wondered why he didn’t get any sense that he was a thorough sociopath at the time.
“I hear you,” Teagarden said. “Still, you got—him. At least that job is finally done.”
“I suppose so. I had no idea they were making those drones that small. The suitcase on board the houseboat held two, each not much bigger than an apple. Two video screens are built into the suitcase along with remote controls. It’s a compact, portable little air force.” He wiped his face with the palms of both hands. “Nasty little machines. If they keep that up, the entire U.S. Air Force will eventually be nothing more than swarms of killer mosquitoes. I’ll tell you something, it’s just plain ironic.”
A high-powered motorboat appeared on the western horizon, rounding the slip between Sunset Key and Wisteria Island. At nearly the same time, a helicopter appeared overhead.
“Coast Guard?” Teagarden asked.
“That would definitely be the Coast Guard,” Pangolin confirmed.
They watched the boat approach. Maybe thirty feet long, it was a muscular vessel and a welcome sight because it carried what Teagarden wanted all along, had wished for from the first moment. It was the cavalry—the good guys. At last.
“What’s ironic?” Teagarden asked. Pangolin appeared confused again. “You said it was ironic. How so?”
“Drones!” He shook his head from side to side while looking at the approaching powerboat. “I quit the U.S. Navy because of ’em. Now here I am, saving the grandfath—well, saving you from that devil back there by flying a remote-controlled drone.”
Teagarden knew why Pangolin stopped himself. He was about say that he saved the grandfather of his own daughter with a drone. He chose different words because he did not know that Teagarden was already aware who baby Marnie’s real father was. That was all right. The subject didn’t need to be discussed at that moment; there would be plenty of time for that later.
They quickly related events of the morning and the previous night.
For Teagarden it was a fairly short story that could fit into a tweet: “Slept on Tomcat…stung by drone at sunrise…regained consciousness w/awful sickness…forced onto island for shootout with McCanliss.”
For Pangolin, the story was longer: “Suspected McCanliss was driving Chispa’s taxi…went to check on her…discovered her murdered on board the Beyond Bayonne…got knocked out by blow to head… regained consciousness with awful headache…saw Teagarden and McCanliss exchanging shots…cranked houseboat motor…set up drone case…chugged toward island…sent drone aloft for aerial attack.”
“You only had a headache?” Teagarden asked. “You didn’t feel wretchedly ill, like feverish or drugged from the drone hit?”
“No,” Pangolin said. “I wasn’t hit with a drone. I’m not sure what he hit me with. A roundhouse karate kick, maybe. I never saw it coming in the dark. That guy had the longest arms and biggest fists I’ve ever seen. Whatever it was, it felt like a bowling ball. Put me out cold all night.” He rubbed his neck and head. “Lord, I’ve still got a mighty a
che.”
“When you put that drone into the air just now, did you reset it to kill?” Teagarden asked. “Or did you leave it on stun?”
Pangolin cocked his head toward Teagarden. Before he could ask, “What the hell are you talking about?” the answer came from a voice behind them.
“He…left…it…on…stun.”
Chapter One Hundred
They turned from their craggy seat at the surf’s edge.
Behind them stood McCanliss, Glock in hand. Like some absurd Hollywood sequel, he’d risen from his own grave to threaten them yet again. Teagarden could see from his eyes that he was not yet fully conscious, but recovering from the same wretched fever he’d experienced in the boat. McCanliss was trying to focus, trying to will every cell and synapse back to health.
“And you’re right,” McCanliss went on slowly, “it does cause a nasty hangover.” He shook his head. “Those K-32’s are potent bastards, even without epipoxilene.”
Pangolin spoke before Teagarden could find words, “Sir, that’s the United States Coast Guard approaching the beach and circling overhead. There’s no way you can escape.”
BLAM!
That was McCanliss’s answer. His shot at Pangolin missed, though not intentionally. His intent was to kill, just as he’d easily shot the two young men still lying where they were snagged by nylon ropes attached to their catamaran. McCanliss had missed because he was teetering, likely seeing double, the result of being hit by the K-32 set to stun.
“Do I look like I give a fuck about the Coast Guard?” he said. “I enjoyed my ride in your DC-3, you commie-loving, liberal bastard, but this is my last day on Earth. Yours, too.”
BLAM!
He fired again, this time at Teagarden, but missed again. Teagarden dove from the rocky outcropping to the beach and rolled into the shallow breakers. As he did so, he remembered his failure to capitalize on Harry’s biggest weakness—his own arrogance. He’d accurately diagnosed the man’s Achilles heel, but had failed to fully strike at it.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
McCanliss took several more shots at Teagarden’s moving target, his unfocused eyes confused by the slowly rolling surf, the sun’s glare, and the rapidly approaching boat whose captain laid on the foghorn.
Ah-OOOO, Ah-OOOO, Ah-OOOO.
When he saw that all shots missed, McCanliss squared his shaky legs as best he could. He stepped toward Teagarden, taking careful aim. At the same time, Pangolin reached into his hip pocket for the gun he’d taken from Chispa’s bedside bureau on board the Beyond Bayonne. He aimed and fired, emptying the small nickel-plated weapon.
Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
Of the ten .22 caliber bullets, four hit the devilish target: one in the shoulder, one in the abdomen and two in the left leg. The others only kickedup sand behind the long-armed man. Incredibly, he remained standing.
McCanliss looked with drugged confusion at his bleeding wounds, then back at Teagarden and Pangolin.
“I told that dumb bitch her .22 wouldn’t stop shit,” he mumbled. He gave a defiant laugh, and raised the Glock again, ready to resume shooting. He knew it would be his last action before falling and bleeding out. Just before he fired, his macho, drunken swagger was momentarily distracted by yet another drone.
It was directly overhead, descending like an elevator, much larger than the other drones, the size of a basketball. Instead of a quaint buzzing sound, it made a noisy motorized whirring noise, more like a finely tuned sports car, as it descended to a point about ten feet off the ground. It came to a hovering stop, glittering with silver reflections in the sun, like a disco ball. It spun around forcefully before firing.
Vah-WOOSH-tah!
Unlike the small K-32, it did not spit venom, nor did it fire a projectile. Instead, it shot only a powerful force of concentrated air directly at McCanliss, whose torso opened-up like the sail on a clipper ship shot through with cannon ball. It turned his midsection into an open window the size of a Kindle. For the briefest moment, McCanliss looked down—and through—the rent in his abdomen where he could see the coarse beach sand behind him. It was stained with the remains of his own blown-out guts.
After McCanliss fell, dead at last, the drone resumed flight, returning straight to the helicopter circling high overhead.
Chapter One-Hundred-One
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
The Carolinas, 35,000 Feet
Sam Teagarden sipped a can of diet soda during the flight north.
“It’s not too cramped in here,” he said. “There’s plenty of room for a pilot. But you need to put in a window.”
“It’s not cramped because I took out the bomb bay payload equipment,” his daughter’s voice said in the headset. “And there’s no window because there’s no need for one.”
“Where am I now?”
“You just passed Charleston at thirty-five thousand feet, traveling at Mach point-nine. In one minute you’ll come up on Fort Bragg’s radar in Fayetteville.”
“Speed it up, will you? Push it to Mach two. I want to know what that feels like.”
“Can’t do it, Dad,” the voice said. “The X-47 is not designed for supersonic flight. Just hang in there. You’ll be on the ground in Washington in about a half hour.”
It was her idea. After the national news broke that her dad was not a murderer or an intentional whistle-blower, but only a decoder of an encrypted, long-lost diary that would force reinterpretation of American history—everything changed. But not all of it was good. For the next three days, a far different sort of war raged. Mostly, it was a war of words in Washington and on the so-called news networks, where it was more about stomping and shouting than legitimate transfer of information via responsible journalism. And once the media found Eva’s house on Olivia Street, its occupants became homebound prisoners. The Key West P.D. was forced to partner with the Florida State Police to provide twenty-four-hour protection on order from the governor, who was acting on request from the president.
Violence broke out more than once in Old Town. It was initiated by crazed Americans, otherwise patriotic, who wanted Teagarden in prison, or worse, because they wanted the past to stay where it was—in the past. More importantly, they wanted the past to stay—what—it was, which for them was conveniently tidy. It was the past they knew, and they didn’t want to become acquainted with a different history.
When shots were fired at the Conch House on Olivia Street, the governor summoned the National Guard, which set up a three-block security perimeter around the house. Only year-round residents were allowed to pass what was quickly nicknamed in Key West fashion, “Checkpoint Closet Case,” in honor of J. Edgar Hoover.
But the discord was not limited to Key West.
There were news reports of fights, marches, demonstrations and disorderly behavior across the country. The politics fell on both sides of the aisle. About forty or perhaps forty-five percent supported the idea of amnesty should any actual crime be determined on Teagarden’s part, in exchange for knowing the truth. A slight majority of about forty-seven-percent wanted him arrested and prosecuted for high treason, crimes against the state and generally being a no-good, un-American SOB. Those who wanted him prosecuted faced criticism for having no knowledge of what information he actually bore. Truthfully, no one did. People knew only what was leaked to the media, which merely hinted that Teagarden was purported to have proof that John Edgar Hoover led a secret life as a closet queen while simultaneously—allegedly—running a national police agency both racist and homophobic, and that he—allegedly—ran a secret domestic black-ops program whose crimes—allegedly—ranged from spying, blackmail, and murder, to assassination of a president, a presidential candidate and a beloved civil rights leader.
What a word, “allegedly.” The media loved it. Every report used it a dozen times. Some on-air commentators said it four or five times a minute.
The national madness and the continuing
danger to her father led Eva to the idea. She proposed it to Cynthia, who proposed it to House Speaker Alderman, who liked it for security reasons and for its sheer drama. The commander of the Naval Air Station at Boca Chica, however, did—not—like it. In fact, he walked to the gaggle of microphones at the air station’s main entrance gate to say no and publicly scorned the proposal. But when he received an unexpected call from the Speaker of the House, he issued the order that was released to the media.
“Upon request of the Democratic House Speaker of the United States Congress, U.S. Navy Captain Eva Ghent will be allowed to remotely pilot an X-47 currently stationed at Key West civilian airport, to Washington, D.C., with her father on board.
“It being for the purpose of guaranteeing his safe delivery to the hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure and Security Technologies that convenes Wednesday on Capitol Hill.”
“May I have another soda?”
“Sorry, Dad,” his daughter’s voice told him in the headset. “The X-47 doesn’t have galley service. I’m sure they’ll have lunch for you in Washington. Maybe a nice buffet.”
“Lunch? I’ll be lucky if they give me a bottle of water. Please just concentrate on your joystick, or game control or whatever you call it.”
“Actually, you’re already fully programmed. I haven’t touched any controls since you took off from Key West.”
He didn’t like the sound of that.
“Well, just keep looking at the computer screen or whatever it is you normally look at.”
“Will do, Dad. By the way, since you’ve been in the air, we’ve had a change of plans.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Instead of landing at Reagan National, you’re going to land somewhere else. Somewhere safer because it’s closer to Capitol Hill. It’s what I wanted from the beginning. They just approved it.”
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