Iowa, Florida, Central America. Dissimilar lives, dissimilar regions, yet all intimate, connected within me.
I kept my eyes on the shoreline as I drifted. I expected to see armed men searching-Dasha had mentioned an intercom system. The water was salt-heavy, warm. I occasionally had to swim sidestroke to adjust my course. I wanted to land at the island’s northernmost point. No buildings there. A lonely-looking place of rock, and the bonsai silhouettes of mangrove trees.
The crossing took me less than twenty minutes. I waded ashore over rock and sand, eyes searching a grove of coconut palms for movement. I held the shotgun at waist level, the selector switch on semi-automatic. Or so I thought.
If Dasha had tipped off her pals, I guessed they’d be waiting inside the window of one of the coral structures near the main house. Good protection, excellent field of fire.
I didn’t expect to surprise a man who was hidden in the shadows of palms, smoking a cigarette. A big guy, nearly as large as Ox-man, with similar Slavic features, and the same bearish black hair.
The woman had mentioned someone named Broz, part of the smuggling ring. One noxious exotic trafficking other noxious exotics.
From his guilty reaction, I got the impression he wasn’t supposed to be smoking. But then he realized who I was, recognized the weapon I was carrying-his eyes widening as his brain put it together.
The man then surprised me by producing a pistol, a short-barreled revolver, heavy caliber, nickel plated, with some weight. He brought it up from the shadows and pointed at me so fast, yelling something in Russian, that I reacted without thinking. As I’d been trained to do.
I fired from the waist. A single squeeze of the trigger. I wasn’t prepared for a three-round burst, nor the recoil that nearly jarred the shotgun out of my hands.
Broz wasn’t prepared, either. No man could be. The blast lifted him off the ground and flung him backward.
I stepped into the smoke and drifting detritus, close enough to see what three direct hits from combat munitions can do to the human body.
Razor-tipped needles. Arrows.
Efficient.
I could hear Dasha saying, “A quick death among professionals.”
The man had certainly been granted that.
I checked the weapon’s selector switch. Saw that I’d accidentally moved it to automatic.
Five rounds left.
I stepped into the gloom of palms and began to jog toward the main house.
A distinguished-looking man told me, “Dr. Stokes, he took his own life. It’s very sad. You can see the body, if you want. I can’t make you prove you have some affiliation with the police. But it’s not a nice thing to see,”
I’d gone from cottage to cottage. In one of them, I’d found three women and a little boy cowering in a corner, terrified. Otherwise, the cottages were empty.
I’d spent too much time taking the best tactical route to the main house, only to be greeted by this: the bizarre sight of this man sitting on the porch in a rocker. He was wearing a white linen suit, a white panama hat. He had a drink in his hand and a frosty pitcher on the table beside him. A cigarette in an ivory holder.
It looked like he was enjoying Derby Day in the shade of his Lexington mansion.
Very civilized. An articulate gentleman who didn’t get upset. Don’t worry, be happy.
His skin was dusty black. He had a gaunt Abe Lincoln face.
Mr. Luther Earl, Dasha had called him. “He’s very mean and sneaky.”
There was a quality she’d left out: The man had balls.
When I’d pivoted around the edge of the porch and leaned the shotgun into his face, he’d reacted as if I were a neighbor arriving for cocktails. Not a flicker of fear. The way he handled it told me the guy was used to dealing with cops and bad guys.
Big smile. “Oh… hello! Would you like a mojito? Mint and rum, with lots of ice. It’s what we drink down here on the islands. They’re very refreshing, Dr. Ford.”
“Dr. Ford, huh? You know my name.”
“Those thugs that Dr. Stokes made the mistake of hiring, a woman and her partners. Russian Mafia. They told me they caught you trying to steal some kind of formula from us and had to lock you up. But I’m smart”-that smile again-“I snuck a look at your billfold. You got the credit cards, the cash. You’re a Ph. D.! It’s those damn Russians working some kind of con, again. Dr. Stokes was going to fire them all.”
The man surprised me by removing my cell phone and billfold from the inside pocket of his jacket. He leaned and placed them on the porch railing. The impression was that he’d been sitting, waiting on me.
“My credit cards are here, but the cash is missing. I had a gold Krugerrand in the inside pocket. That’s gone, too.”
Mr. Earl appeared saddened. “It’s a dangerous world, Dr. Ford. I warned you about them Russians. Very typical.”
Innocent. I spent a moment calculating how much he had stolen from me, then stepped onto the porch and positioned myself in the doorway to his right and slightly behind him, weapon at belt level. I kept an eye on the stairway inside the house, a nearby line of avocado trees to the south, and the boat landing, which was beyond the helipad, at the water’s edge.
Rounding the point of the island where I’d left Dasha, I could see two cutter-sized boats coming fast. They were military green,. 50 caliber machine guns on the bow, radar antennas scanning. I also saw an open boat that looked like a Boston whaler, a blond female at the wheel.
When Mr. Earl noticed the cutters, his mood brightened. “That’s the Bahamian Coast Guard finally getting here,” he said. “I called them more than an hour ago. Asked for helicopters, but that’s what they send. We got a serious problem here that needs taken care of.”
Those damn Russians needed to be arrested, he told me, because Dr. Desmond Stokes was dead.
“What they done to him caused it,” he said. “That bitch of a woman. She got me, too. Here, see for yourself.”
I watched the man stand, find his balance, and walk toward me. I realized he was very drunk. As he neared, I smelled the overpowering odor of lavender. It touched one of the memory synapses. Last night, when they’d kidnapped me-the stink of lavender. Luther Earl was there.
“Looka this.” He was pulling up his sleeve. “Want to see what that split-tail’s done to every man on the islands?”
There was a bandage on his forearm. I knew what would be there before he lifted the gauze: the pointed white scolex, or head, of a guinea worm struggling to exit.
“I got two more coming out of my leg. Can you imagine doing something so awful to people? It was a woman.”
I said, “I met her. You locked us in the same cell-or maybe you forgot. We had an interesting talk this morning.”
For an instant, the cheery facade vanished, and I got a snapshot of the real Mr. Earl. Mr. Nasty. “You know where that bitch is? We never locked her up, but, man oh man, I’d sure like to. Last night, she got in the room with Dr. Stokes, then run away and let all our research animals loose. Which was smart, I’ve got to admit, ’cause then no one would go look for her. Staff was so scared, we won’t be able to get them back here for a month.”
The man was a superb liar-my guess. But I didn’t think he was lying now.
He’d recognized the shotgun immediately. Played it cool, though. Waited until this moment to gesture to it. “Looks like you met Aleski, too. Better be careful if he comes back here. The man’s a bad one.”
His question was implicit. I decided to answer.
“Aleski was busy playing fetch with the local pets the last time I saw him.”
“You don’t say?” Mr. Earl liked that. “Wouldn’t bother me at all to find out him and the woman was both dead. Whoever did it, I’d think the man deserves a reward. Privatelike.” The guy was drunk but managed to underline the offer with innuendo. “I heard that you knew Dr. Applebee. That you might know something about a cure he invented for these damn worms. Could be, there’s all kinds a money I’d be happy to pay you. If you’re a businessman, the smart kind interested in making a deal.”