Killing Pace

by Douglas Schofield

  Here comes the rain …

  NO, DAMN IT!

  A tear spilled. She took a deep, shaky breath. “If I live through this, then if I have to walk through every fucking refugee camp from Hungary to the Syrian border carrying that baby’s photograph, I’m going to find her parents and deliver their little girl back to them.”

  Renate looked at Rolf. One of his eyebrows had notched higher. He answered Renate’s glance with an imperceptible nod.

  “We’ll help you do that,” Renate said gently, squeezing Laura’s hand. “You have our word.”

  37

  The shortest sea route from Genoa to Miami is just under fifty-four hundred nautical miles. The normal steaming speed for midsize container vessels was 20–25 knots. Based on that, and on a website that gave distances by sea from any port in the world to any other port, Laura calculated the Olympic Dawn’s crossing would take anywhere from 8.9 to 11.2 days.

  While her calculations provided a sort of comfort, the waiting seemed like an eternity. She ticked off the days on a calendar in her bedroom as her high-energy personality once again chafed against the barriers of enforced inaction.

  Renate and Rolf had both returned to New York—“For appearances,” Renate had explained—so her only companion was Paolo, who, after some behind-the-scenes lobbying by Renate, had been released from his U.N. security duties to rejoin them. Although Laura appreciated the company, his relaxed equanimity and foodie obsessions didn’t quite fill the void imposed by her idleness. Laura spent most of her time reading or playing solitaire, and occasionally sharing a bottle from Paolo’s small cellar of Super Tuscans.

  “Unsanctioned operations call for unsanctioned grapes,” he told her with a grin. She had to Google “Super Tuscans” before she understood the joke.

  The days of waiting were punctuated by a momentarily unsettling occurrence. One evening, after an early supper, Laura was sitting on her bedroom’s small balcony. It overlooked one of the rear garden’s ancient oaks. From somewhere down below the foliage, she heard Paolo’s voice. It sounded like he was speaking on a phone. The odd thing was, he wasn’t speaking English. Or Italian. He was speaking some other language.

  A language Laura vaguely recognized.

  He was speaking Sicilianu.

  She listened, fascinated. Much of what he said was incomprehensible. But she recognized some of the words, some of the phrases, and a name.

  Over breakfast the next morning, she asked him about it.

  At first he blinked, but then he laughed. “Sorry. I was talking too loud. That’s our way.”

  Based on her own experience, it wasn’t necessarily the “way” in Sicily to speak loudly, but she let that go.

  “It sounded like you were speaking Sicilianu. My Guardia friend’s wife spoke it sometimes.”

  “I was.”

  “Did you grow up in Sicily?”

  “Calabria. But we have our own dialect that is very close to Sicilianu.” He hastened to explain. “I was talking to my office. We use Sicilianu whenever we speak on open channels. The dialect is part of our training. Very few people speak it, so we use it. Maybe you’ve heard about the code talkers.”

  “World War Two … the Navajo soldiers in the Pacific.”

  “Not just the Navajo. The Americans used six different Native American languages for voice communication with their units. The Japanese thought they were codes and wasted months trying to break them. We work on the same theory. I’m not sure about my cell phone over here, so I spoke to my boss using the dialect.”

  “Your boss in Italy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does he know where you are?”

  “No. I didn’t want to tell him I was standing beside a swimming pool in Florida.”

  “Or hiding a wanted killer from the FBI.”

  He grinned. “That too.”

  After breakfast, Laura called Renate, as she did every day after logging in on an open-source ship tracker website. Each time a chart of the Atlantic Ocean materialized on her screen, showing the Olympic Dawn’s latest position.

  This time, she went for a walk in the garden while she made her call.

  Then she waited some more.

  On the morning of the seventh day, the usual legend appeared next to the freighter’s position in the western Atlantic, showing speed, heading, and time since last position report:

  OLYMPIC DAWN [GR] 23.4 KNOTS/260°

  POSITION RECEIVED 1 HOUR, 25 MINUTES AGO

  DESTINATION: MIAMI

  It was getting close. She calculated it would arrive at Miami within forty-eight hours. Knowing her access to the Customs database had been terminated when she became a murder suspect, she used the arrivals table on the Port of Miami’s own website to find the Olympic Dawn’s calculated ETA. Then she called Javier to make sure he was assigned to the right pilot boat.

  Then she called Renate.

  Then she paced some more.

  * * *

  Nine days and twenty-one hours after the ship left Genoa, Laura sat with the whole team. Renate and Rolf had arrived the night before, and Paolo had managed to drag himself out of the kitchen. Javier Espinal was sending a streaming video in real time directly to Renate’s phone. He was filming surreptitiously from the wheelhouse of a harbor pilot’s boat, and they were watching the unfolding action on a big plasma screen mounted on the living-room wall. The boat had just been made fast against the hull of Olympic Dawn, but that hadn’t done much to improve the quality of the picture. Luckily, despite the lurching, rolling view, they were still able to make out what was happening. A few minutes earlier, they had watched a flexible ladder being lowered from the deck of the freighter.

  Sitting there, Laura was recalling a conversation she’d had with Marco during their flight from Catania to Genoa.

  “Did an ICE agent ever call you? A man named David Kemp?”

  “No.” A pause. “Well, maybe.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There were two calls. The first one was from your boss. Corbin. She said an investigation team had been assigned, and they’d be sending an officer over for a full briefing.”

  “When was that?”

  “February. Not long after you went home.”

  “Did they send anyone over?”

  “No. Then, maybe a week or so later, I got another call. The man said he was with ICE. I don’t remember his name. It might have been this Kemp. He talked very fast. He said his superiors were reviewing the file. He used the words, ‘because of recent developments.’ He wouldn’t tell me what developments. I didn’t like the sound of that.”

  Neither do I, Laura had thought.

  “I did some searching on the internet. I didn’t find anything until I searched your name—I mean, your Sarah name—and found out you were wanted for murder.”

  On the screen, three figures clad in identical high-visibility buoyancy jackets had congregated at the bottom of the ladder. One of them was obviously a deckhand. He held the ladder while the person next to him started the climb.

  Seconds later, the pilot started to climb.

  But, by then, Laura had stopped paying attention.

  She’d stopped paying attention because she’d recognized the first person on the ladder.

  Phyllis Corbin.

  CORBIN?

  Had Laura’s own supervisor conspired with the Mazzara crime family to sell kidnapped babies, preying on wealthy couples who would not otherwise qualify to adopt?

  Was there any other explanation for her being there?

  Was there any other explanation for the CBP’s Miami area director conducting an everyday clearance for the Lummus Island container port? Any other explanation for just happening to be the Department of Homeland Security official to clear Conrad Nelthorp, aka William Stockton, an international fugitive from justice, to enter the United States?

  Unless … the corrupt officer the Mazzaras were paying off had been unexpectedly sidelined. Sidelined, and now in custody, because
Corbin was on to him, and had replaced him on the pilot boat for all the right reasons.

  If Conrad Nelthorp left the Port of Miami locked in the back of an ICE cruiser, Laura’s worst fears about Phyllis were wrong.

  But if he hobbled out on his crutches and climbed into a waiting car, they were justified.

  They would know in a few hours.

  * * *

  Renate took the call on her cell.

  “Yes?”

  For three minutes, she listened without speaking.

  “Thank you. We’ll wait for your call.” She disconnected.

  “Lanza’s men found the Mazzara car. It wasn’t difficult—two men sitting in a full-size Lincoln with the engine running. About thirty minutes ago, a car showed up at the main entrance to the shopping mall. A man with crutches got out. He had one small suitcase. The car that delivered him drove away. The Lincoln picked him up. It is now heading north on Highway 1. They’re following it.”

  “Lanza?” Paolo interjected. “I thought he was out of this.”

  “He agreed to help out, since we’re short of manpower,” Rolf replied evenly.

  Paolo looked faintly miffed that he’d been left out of the loop.

  Laura asked, “Did they see who was driving the car that dropped him off?”

  “Only that it was a dark-blue SUV.”

  “Corbin drives a dark-blue Santa Fe.”

  “Then it looks like you have your answer,” Rolf said.

  “Using her own car?”

  “She’s comfortable. Which means Nelthorp stayed on script.”

  Laura didn’t reply. She was reexamining the last year of her life. Reexamining all her interactions with the woman. All the meetings before she left for Italy.

  Phyllis Corbin …

  What did I miss?

  And why did I miss it?

  Corbin … trafficking babies?

  Corbin … setting up Bailey’s murder? Sacrificing a confederate, along with two unsuspecting ICE officers, just to save her own ass?

  Just to shield the Mazzaras?

  It beggared belief.

  Or, maybe it didn’t …

  * * *

  “Never forget the treachery of human beings,” Nonna had warned. “Always keep the knife in your hand. The danger of your enemies will never equal the danger of false friends. People talk about the differences between men and women, but they are the same. Both are capable of great acts of courage. But never forget that a woman, as much as a man, is capable of deadly acts of betrayal. In my war, some of our best men died because of those women. When they were caught, Anna and I were chosen to execute them. We did our duty.

  In your life, a terrible day may come when you will face such a choice. If that happens, you must do your duty as well.”

  * * *

  Renate received another call.

  The Lincoln had joined Interstate 95, continued north, and then left the highway.

  “They took an exit called Glades Road.”

  “That’s at Boca Raton,” Laura said.

  “They stopped at a house on Northwest 35th Street. They all went inside.”

  “That’s not far from the Boca airport,” Laura said. “They’re not going to risk a two-day drive with Nelthorp in the car. It would only take one nosy cop at a traffic stop and they’d be in trouble. They’re going to fly him to New York, probably on a private plane. They’re staying out of sight until it arrives.”

  “Which means,” Rolf added, “if Lanza’s men are going to make a move, it will be now.”

  Nobody spoke.

  When her phone rang again, ninety minutes later, Paolo and Rolf were in the kitchen and Renate and Laura were alone.

  The caller was Carlo Barbieri. His report was brief and to the point: Nelthorp’s escorts had been “taken care of,” Nelthorp was unharmed, and he had “agreed to cooperate” with Dominic Lanza.

  “He says the Immigration officer was a woman,” Barbieri told her. “She didn’t tell him her name.” The description he recited fit Phyllis Corbin. Not that they really needed it now that they had her immortalized on video, boarding the ship.

  “Something else the boss wants you to know. One of the Mazzaras was carrying a burner. Our men took it when they left. A while later, the phone got a text message. It said: ‘You’re being tailed. Get out of there.’ Boss said to tell you … don’t call him again.”

  He hung up.

  Renate looked pale. “So … we have another player in our little game.”

  Laura grabbed her arm.

  “What?”

  “We need Dickie.”

  38

  Scott Jardine felt like his brain would explode.

  First, there was the guilt.

  By coordinating Laura Pace’s meeting with a crime boss, and then pulling her out of that motel before the FBI could arrest her, he had acted against every legal and professional principle he had sworn to uphold. He had breached his oath. He had obstructed justice in more ways than he could count. His father was a retired Highway Patrol trooper, living in Tampa. If he ever learned what his only son had just done, he’d disown him.

  And probably turn him in.

  So, guilt … yes. No escaping it.

  But then there was something else.

  Something that kept undermining and eroding that guilt.

  The deep attraction he felt for the woman with the searchlight eyes. The woman whose grace captivated him, whose predicament terrified him, and whose very existence kept him awake at night.

  The attraction he felt for this astonishing woman challenged his guilt, defied his guilt, dared his guilt to bury it.

  And then … there was the contempt.

  He should be directing that contempt at himself, and in his unrelenting cycle of self-doubt, he did. But his deepest well of scorn was reserved for Special Agent Alan Turnbull.

  The man defined contemptible.

  He kept showing up at the Everglades substation, where Scott was now spending most of his time. In fact, almost all of his time … because Turnbull had turned up the heat on the sheriff, who had told Jardine his presence was required at the district 7 office to assist the feds in any way they requested. “You’re needed there because of your rapport with the fugitive,” the sheriff had told him bluntly. His laughable mispronunciation of “rapport” revealed that he was merely parroting a line from a confidential memo, and the expression on his face conveyed the additional message that Scott’s job might be on the line because of the FBI’s behind-the-scenes defamations.

  Turnbull was obviously keeping track of his shifts because he kept appearing at the substation at odd hours when Scott was working at his desk. He never missed an opportunity to ask him if his “girlfriend” had called. The question was invariably accompanied by an insinuating look. Scott figured it was only a matter of time before Turnbull persuaded some compliant judge to authorize an intercept order on his private phone.

  On that score, he wasn’t too worried. He was a few burners ahead of Alan Turnbull.

  Listen to yourself, Jardine! Remember “guilt?”

  Lately, since the failed raid at the motel in Clewiston, the insinuations had become more worrisome. More laden with suspicion.

  “That woman’s prints were all over the room! Who knew about the raid? Who knew about the timing? How is it that she disappeared that same day?”

  “How do you know she disappeared that same day?”

  “Desk clerk says she bought a paper. Said she was carrying takeout. We checked around. A Mexican place on the highway sold her a takeout dinner just after six. And all of a sudden, she’s gone? Left the dinner, and gone. Someone tipped her. Who in this office knew about that motel? Just you!”

  Scott had had it with this guy, and he knew how to deflect with the best of them.

  “The lieutenant knew!” he fumed. “And Belrose. But the only thing we knew was the name of the town—not the name of motel, not your plans, and not your timing. Maybe you should take a good look
at the security in your own office, Turnbull!”

  All he got in reply was a disbelieving sneer.

  So, yes … Turnbull was contemptible. And, not just because he viewed Laura Pace as nothing more than a beast of prey. Not just because he didn’t seem to have the imagination to even wonder in passing what really lay behind the bizarre crimes alleged against her.

  But because, yesterday, Scott had overheard him laughing in the station coffee room.

  Laughing about a search warrant in an unrelated case.

  Laughing about a warrant he and his agents had executed at four o’clock in the morning.

  Laughing about exploding into the slumber of an entire family, about the shouts of fear, about the cries of the children, and about a trembling, terrified grandmother.

  Laughing about his bullying questioning of an agitated, half-naked nineteen-year-old girlfriend of a vanished bank robbery suspect.

  Laughing at conduct that should have filled him with shame.

  Listening to that, Scott Jardine, who did have an imagination, began to wonder how Laura Pace would be treated if Alan Turnbull ever got his hands on her.

  Yesterday was also noteworthy for another incident. It happened late in the day, long after Turnbull and his agents had returned to Miami. Scott had been in the file storage room, hunting for an archived investigation file, when he heard someone talking.

  Someone repeating his own words.

  This morning, after setting out some bait, he had watched and waited.

  And it happened again.

  He was debating with himself about what to do when he got a ping on his burner. It was from a New York area number.

  The message said:

  PLS CALL

  R.R.

  39

  The call from the U.N. woman couldn’t have come at a better time. Richard Bird’s tiny office at the State Department was stacked with printouts, and the workload had become more and more oppressive.