An elevator next to the security desk opened and a woman several years younger than Parsons stepped out. Tall and slender, with dark skin, hair, and eyes, she strode toward Parsons. She was dressed in business attire, gray jacket and slacks, gray pumps. The short heels clicked on the tile floor of the lobby as she approached.
She extended her hand, and Parsons took it, studying her face. In two-inch heels, she was exactly the same height as Parsons, which put her at about five nine. He guessed she couldn’t possibly weigh more than one thirty, probably a runner.
A person’s facial expressions and handshake always told Parsons a lot more than their words did. Her grip was firm and dry, her face serious, but with a slight upturn at the corners of her mouth. She seemed genuinely pleased to be meeting him.
“Thank you for coming so quickly, Agent Parsons. My name is Delores Juarez, but please call me Lori. I’m afraid that due to the nature of our work, civilian law enforcement may be at a slight disadvantage, which is why I’m so glad you’re here. There are things we simply can’t divulge, even to civilian police. I’m hoping that once you know the seriousness of what’s going on, your office can expedite the search for Mister and Missus Minnich with local authorities and the Coast Guard.”
Her voice sounded solid to Parsons, unwavering, self-assured, and clever, with only the slightest bit of a Cuban accent. Probably American-born, raised by Spanish-speaking Cuban immigrants who’d arrived here before America severed relations with the island country. Her eyes were a deep, dark brown, the surface reflecting the low indirect lighting in the lobby, as if that were just the first of many layers of depth.
Parsons noted that she looked directly into his eyes when speaking, blinking normally. His first impression was that she was a very capable and passionate woman. Someone who would throw herself into her work or leisure activity with equal passion. Also a woman who could be deceitful without many people noticing. Right now he felt she was being forthright and open.
Parsons’s professional appraisal was interrupted when he suddenly realized she was a strikingly beautiful woman and much closer to his own age than he had first assumed. She tried to disguise her beauty, and nature disguised her age. Her face had that flawless sort of complexion few women possessed, with only the tiniest creases at the corners of her eyes and lips, indicating she was, or had once been, a happy woman, full of vigor and smiling at life.
Lori Juarez led him to a small seating area off to the left. Aside from Waldrup and three of his security staff, there wasn’t anyone else in the lobby.
Three comfortable-looking seats were arranged around a low glass table. Lori motioned to the seat facing the foyer and sat down in the one next to it. Waldrup remained standing just beside her, where he could see Parsons’s every movement. He’d removed his sunglasses, hanging them in a slot above the pocket flap of his shirt. Waldrup’s eyes were surprisingly blue, denoting, along with his name, a mixed heritage.
Hispanic mother and white father, Parsons thought. Probably the second son, at least. The father acquiescing to his wife on a Hispanic first name for the younger son.
“Are you the second or third son, Captain Waldrup?”
“I see you did your research, sir.”
“Nope,” Parsons said. “Never heard of you until you introduced yourself a moment ago.”
“Your deductive powers are well developed, Agent Parsons,” Lori said. “Miguel is the youngest of three brothers, all of whom are employed by CephaloTech Security.”
He smiled slightly in response, taking a small notebook from his jacket pocket and getting right to business. His agents used electronic devices to keep notes, but Parsons still preferred his notepad. He always had several in his briefcase. In his home office, he had five large boxes filled with old notebooks, each one with a date range written on it.
“When did the Minniches leave on their cruise?” Parsons asked
“Last Friday,” Lori replied. “There was a lull in our work and Mister Minnich decided to take the yacht to the west coast, to pick up a friend and his wife. The friend is a lobbyist who helped the company secure a government contract for research and development. Their yacht was scheduled to return this morning, and the last communication with Mister Minnich was yesterday morning, when they were anchored at Mooney Harbor in the Marquesas.”
“I’m an Alabama boy, Miss Juarez,” Parsons said, his slight accent making the word boy sound like boeh. “Where is that exactly?”
“About twenty miles west of Key West, sir,” Waldrup replied. “Or one hundred forty-five miles southwest of here.” Parsons looked up at the big man, who shrugged. “Good spear fishing out there.”
“And the yacht can cover the distance from there to here in a single day?”
“With no problem,” Waldrup replied. “She has a cruising speed of thirty-five knots and a top speed just over forty-five. Crew of four, working in shifts. All very experienced. They rode out a hurricane at sea two years ago. Hurricane Wilma. Missus Minnich’s dog got swept overboard, though.”
Parsons made a few notes, then looked up at Lori. “Did Mister Minnich say what time they planned to leave Mooney Harbor?”
Lori looked up at Waldrup, who said, “I was the one who spoke with him, sir. He checks in with me every twelve hours, at oh six and eighteen hundred hours. They were going to get underway with the evening tide, about seventeen hundred.”
“And he didn’t check in an hour after their planned departure?” Parsons asked, writing another note in his notebook.
“No, sir. And repeated calls to him and the captain went unanswered. I contacted the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office twenty minutes later.”
“Twenty minutes?”
“Mister Minnich is punctual to a fault, sir. I knew something was wrong at two minutes past the hour. When I couldn’t reach him or the boat, I went down to the security offices and we tried to locate the yacht’s position using the onboard satellite telemetry. The GPS was disabled and we couldn’t locate it.”
“Let me guess,” Parsons began. “The sheriff’s department down there gave you the runaround about being missing for twenty-four hours.”
“Bullshit, and I knew it, sir. So I contacted Colonel Brash at the Pentagon. He’s our liaison to the Assistant Secretary of the Army. Minutes later the sheriff himself calls me back. I couldn’t give him details on why, but he began a search immediately. A chopper was dispatched out of Key West, flew over the Marquesas, and advised that there was no yacht fitting the description of the Obsession anywhere near there. Coast Guard and Navy are already stretched thin down there, but they put some choppers up, too.”
Parsons wrote furiously. “How big an area are they searching?”
“At first, only the fifty-mile stretch on the ocean side of Highway One, from the Marquesas to Big Pine Key and out to the Gulf Stream. That’s about eight hundred square miles.”
“And now?”
“By noon, due to the speed the Obsession is capable of, the search was expanded in a circle one hundred nautical miles out from the Marquesas. Over thirty thousand square miles of water.”
Parsons stopped writing midsentence. “That’s a lot of ocean.”
“A drop in a bucket,” Lori said. “The Obsession has a cruising range of three hundred miles and she’d just taken on fuel in Naples the day before. From the Marquesas, the yacht could travel another two hundred and fifteen miles.”
“She could easily make the Bahamas,” Waldrup added. “Or Boca Raton, Tampa, or even the western tip of Cuba.”
“Cuba?” Parsons asked, looking up at the head of security.
“Our work is something that other countries would like to have,” Lori said.
“Which brings us to the why, Miss Juarez.”
“General Bottoms apprised me of your security level,” she replied. “Follow me, please.”
Parsons followed Lori and Waldrup to the elevator. Inside, she swiped a card in front of a sensor and another panel slid out, just like t
he one by the entry door. She pressed her left thumb on the pad, and it pinged and then retracted. Lori then pressed an unmarked button and the elevator doors silently closed.
The car began to descend. The light for the basement, where Waldrup had said his security offices were located, flashed for a moment. But the elevator didn’t stop. It continued down for several more seconds.
“Our lab is twenty-five feet below ground,” Waldrup explained. “The floor between the security offices and the lab is five feet of reinforced concrete and steel.”
“Quite an achievement in a city barely above sea level.”
Waldrup only nodded. When the door opened, Lori stepped out, motioning Parsons to follow. There were rows of electronic equipment, desks, and people bustling around. In the center of the room was a large round pedestal, ten feet across, the surface only a couple of feet above the floor.
Lori stopped in front of the pedestal, Parsons stopping next to her. He looked around the vast room at all the activity. “Very impressive,” he said. “And busy.”
“We’re undergoing the final round of testing right now. The CephaloSuit will be undergoing all kinds of background tests for the next two weeks, to make sure it’s ready for anything before the presentation.”
“CephaloSuit?” Parsons asked. “What exactly is that?”
Lori turned toward Parsons. “It’s the most advanced camouflage suit ever developed. Cephalopods are a group of sea creatures including octopi and cuttlefish. It’s the cuttlefish’s ability to change color at will that we’ve been trying to mimic. The wearer will be virtually invisible to the naked eye, as well as thermal imaging. Are you familiar with the ghillie suit used by military reconnaissance teams and snipers?”
“Yes, I was infantry before moving to CID.”
“Imagine a ghillie suit that can change color, like a chameleon. So precise in its ability to match any background instantly that even if the background changes abruptly, it will adapt.”
She nodded at a man sitting on the other side of the pedestal in front of a small console. Suddenly, the pedestal changed to a black-and-white check pattern, then the pattern began to swirl, resembling a checkered flag flying in the wind. The checks changed colors, first to red and green, then blue and yellow. Lines of assorted colors undulated like psychedelic snakes across the swirling checkerboard.
After a moment the pedestal returned to plain white. “Agent Parsons, would you be kind enough to stare at the center of the table and very quickly move sideways several steps?”
Parsons did as she instructed, moving quickly to his left as he studied the middle of the pedestal. At first, he thought he detected a minute change in the surface, as if it were a bubbling liquid. He assumed it was the hypnotic effect of the multicolored light show.
“Did something appear unusual when you moved?” Lori asked.
He slowly returned to her side, while still watching the surface of the pedestal. “When I moved fast, it appeared as though the surface texture changed a little.”
Lori turned toward the pedestal. “Major Roberts?”
Again, Parsons saw swirls emanate from the pedestal, but it wasn’t changing color. Something seemed to be moving on top of it, growing higher, until it nearly reached the ceiling. It was like looking through an old glass windowpane, back when glass wasn’t made so perfectly flat. The man at the control console on the other side, and the equipment behind him, seemed to waver slightly and shimmer as though Parsons were looking through a prism.
Suddenly, a vision appeared above Parsons’s head, like a window to nowhere had opened. A man’s face, floating in the air, looked down at him. Parsons blinked his eyes in disbelief.
“Good afternoon, Mister Parsons,” the disembodied face said, looking straight at him. “I’m Major Frank Roberts, USMC.”
Parsons moved quickly left and right, while looking straight ahead. Making rapid movements, he was able to detect the subtle changes that outlined the man’s invisible body, just below his very visible face. It looked as if he could see right through him.
“I’ll be damned,” Parsons said. “It really is a Predator suit.”
Marty pulled into Sombrero Resort early. He’d texted the English forensics lady before leaving his apartment, letting her know he’d be out front in ten minutes.
Only one person was outside the lobby, a young woman about twenty-five, with a large black suitcase, whom he’d never seen before, He assumed this was her, but she showed no interest as he pulled in. Her eyes were on the driveway entry, as if waiting for someone.
When he opened the door and got out, the woman glanced at him and smiled, seeing his uniform. She walked toward him, with her hand out. “I was expecting an American police car,” she said, Marty recognizing the voice and accent.
“My police vehicle is a boat,” he said, taking her hand. “Deputy Marty Philips. I assume you’re Meg Stewart?”
“Very nice to meet you, Marty. I’m quite anxious to see your arm and help in any way I might.”
Opening the door to his pickup, Marty took her suitcase and put it in the small backseat area of the extended-cab Dodge. It took Meg a moment to figure out which foot to put on the step to get into the raised vehicle. Once she was inside, Marty closed the door and trotted around the hood.
As he climbed in, Meg said, “I still can’t get used to your gigantic American cars. Is it far to the morgue?”
“Just a couple of miles. It used to be in the hospital, but the county just built a brand new facility up island.”
Minutes later, Marty pulled off the highway onto the crushed coral road to the ME’s office on Grassy Key. He parked under a poinciana tree across from the entrance to the building, even though there were a number of empty spots in front of it.
“Reserved parking?” Meg asked.
Marty looked at her, confused, and she pointed to the empty spots in front. “Oh, no,” he replied. “Not reserved. Most people around here will park in the shade, even if it’s a longer walk.”
Climbing out, Marty hurried around the back of the truck, but Meg had already stepped down. She was a pretty woman, a little on the short side, so it was a bit of a descent. Her brown, wavy hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, hanging past her shoulders.
The sun was barely up, but the overnight temperature never got below eighty, so it was already warm, even for November.
“I can understand why,” Meg said, reaching for her suitcase in back. Marty reached for it at the same time, and the two bumped shoulders, turning to look at one another. “Is the weather here always so sultry?”
Picking up her case, Marty said, “It’s usually a bit cooler this time of year, but the wind’s out of the south. We’ll probably get some weather this afternoon.”
Inside, Marty introduced Meg to the ME’s assistant, a young man named Clyde Barnes. Clyde checked her ID against his list of expected visitors, then rose from the desk.
“Right this way, Marty,” Clyde said. Though they were several years apart in age, the two men knew each other, as most people in a small town, on a small island, will.
“You from Australia, Mizz Stewart?” Clyde asked as he led them down the hall to the morgue.
“Britain,” she corrected him. “And it’s Miss, or just Meg.” Marty got the impression she said that for his benefit.
At the door, Clyde punched several buttons on the keypad by the door. It whisked open, cold air carrying the sterile chemical smell into the hallway.
“Just holler on the intercom if you need anything,” Clyde said and returned to his desk in front.
Crossing the morgue, Marty was glad there were no bodies lying around. “The arm’s right over here, Meg.”
Opening the same drawer as yesterday, Marty pulled the cover back so Meg could inspect the arm. Bending over it, she studied the severed end for a moment, then looked around the room.
“Could you pull that tray cart over, Marty?”
He wheeled the cart next to her and placed her cas
e on top of it. Meg opened the case, turning the cart to position it beside her. From a pouch, she removed a small head lamp and pulled it over the top of her head, switching it on and adjusting the beam.
From another pouch, she removed a magnifying glass and a pair of latex gloves. She pulled the gloves on and bent over the arm, holding the glass up in front of her face as she inspected the bone.
Reaching for the small tray the arm lay on, she looked up and asked, “May I turn it round?”
“Please,” he replied. “Anything you need.”
Turning the tray, she examined the severed end more closely. After a moment, she removed a small digital camera from the case and took several very close-up pictures of the end of the bone.
“This was definitely done with a chain saw,” Meg said, not looking up. “Any idea how long it was in the water?”
“Doc Fredric says probably less than twenty-four hours, based on scavenging.”
“You have some hungry foragers here,” she quipped.
“Water’s always warm. Lots of crabs, lobster, and fish.”
Putting the magnifying glass and camera aside, she removed a small instrument that looked like a portable TV, along with a pair of hemostats and a very thin cable. She plugged the cable into the TV and switched it on.
Moving her examination further down the arm, to where the muscle and flesh were still attached, she gently moved the gnawed meat this way and that. She finally found what she was looking for and grabbed it with one of the hemostats, ratcheting the clamp-like device onto whatever it was and pulling it out slightly.
“This is the brachial artery, Marty. The main artery in the arm. On the inside of the elbow, it branches into the radial and ulnar arteries. It’s at that branch where blood is usually drawn.”
Marty watched as she used the second, smaller hemostat and inserted one jaw of it into the blood vessel. Clamping it, she then released the other hemostat and laid it aside.
“Now we may take a look inside the artery,” Meg said.
“Are you a doctor?” Marty asked, marveling at Meg’s dexterity.
Fallen Tide: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 8) Page 7