At the north end of Duval was Mallory Square, a popular gathering spot on the wharf where magicians, jugglers, and portrait artists entertained crowds and turned sunsets into a festival every day of the year. During Fantasy Fest, the square was simply an extension of a ten-day party that stretched from one end of Duval to the other.
Fantasy Fest was already in its ninth day when the Swytecks arrived, and the party in the streets was still nonstop. Some tourists were buying their feathers, beads, and noisemakers for the annual but hardly traditional Halloween parade on Saturday night, others were just people-watching. Many were already in costume. Men dressed as women. Women dressed as Martians. A brazen few were undressed, covering their bare breasts or buttocks with only grease paint.
“Check that out,” Jack said from his passenger seat, pointing to a man outfitted in a lavender loincloth and a pink bonnet.
“Probably the mayor,” the governor deadpanned.
Harry parked the car in the covered garage near their hotel. They grabbed their overnight bags and a briefcase from the trunk and headed up the old brick sidewalk, grateful for the shade of hundred-year-old oaks and a cool ocean breeze. Hotel rooms were hard to come by during Fantasy Fest-especially if requested at the last minute-but the governor had a few connections. They checked in at the front desk and carried their own luggage to a suite on the sixth floor.
The sliding-glass doors offered a stunning, eight-hundred-dollar-a-night view of the Gulf of Mexico. Jack walked out onto the balcony and looked at the Pier Point, one of those outdoor waterfront restaurants where the food was never as good as the atmosphere. It all seemed so surreal, he thought He wanted to think that at any moment Cindy would join them, and then they’d get caught up in the party, walk on the beach or head over to the original Sloppy Joe’s and find the table Ernest Hemingway used to like. But they had business to tend to-someone to meet. And at 1:00 p.m., the man they wanted to meet was at their door.
“Peter Kimmell,” said the governor, “meet my son, Jack.”
Jack closed the balcony’s sliding-glass doors and pulled the curtains shut. “Glad to meet you,” he said, reaching out to shake the man’s hand.
Kimmell was tall, about six feet four inches, with a lean body that moved with catlike grace. His face registered little emotion, but his eyes seemed to be constantly assessing, processing information. They gave Jack the uncomfortable feeling that he was being evaluated, measured against some personal set of standards.
Old habits die hard. Kimmell was a twenty-year veteran of the Secret Service who’d burned out two years before and retired to his bass boat in the Florida Keys. But he’d quickly grown bored with fishing, so he took up cycling, then swimming, then running-and before he knew it, the same energy that had made him a top agent made him one of the top competitors in the age-fifty-and-above Ironman triathlon. He still did some work as a private investigator when he wasn’t training, and Harry Swyteck used him as a consultant on special events that raised thorny security problems. The governor considered Kimmell the best in the business. And, most important, he was the only man Harry trusted to give Jack and him the expertise they needed without any danger of a leak to the press or police.
“So you’re Jack,” Kimmell said, smiling. “Your dad’s told me a lot about you-all good.” He shifted his gaze from son to father. “You ready to get right to it, men?”
“Ready,” they both answered.
“Good. Now let me show you some toys I’ve brought along for you,” he said with a wink. He hoisted onto the bed a gray metal suitcase that was nearly as big as a trunk. “Voila,” he said as he popped it open.
The Swytecks stood in silence as they peered at the cache inside. “What did you do,” asked the governor, “mix up your bag with James Bond’s?”
“You won’t need half this stuff,” said Kimmell. “But whatever you will need is here. I got everything from voice-activated wires to infrared binoculars.”
“I think we should keep it simple,” said Jack.
“I agree,” he replied. “First, let’s talk weapons. You ever fired a gun, Jack?”
Jack smiled at the irony. How would Wilson McCue have answered that question for him? “Uh-huh”-he nodded-“back when I was in college. I had a girlfriend who didn’t feel safe at night without a gun in the apartment, so I learned to use it.”
“Good. Now, for you, son,” he said as he removed a sleek black pistol from the holster, “I recommend this baby-the Glock Seventeen Safe Action nine-millimeter pistol, Austrian design. It’s completely computer-manufactured of synthetic polymer. Stronger than steel, but weighs less than two pounds even with a full magazine, so you can hold it nice and steady. Deadly accurate, too, so you don’t have to be right in this lunatic’s face to blow him away. And it’s got a pretty soft recoil, considering the punch it packs: You got seventeen rounds of police-issue hollow-point para-ammunition that’ll drop a charging moose with an attitude dead in its tracks.” He handed it to Jack. “How’s that feel, partner?”
Jack laid it in his hand and shrugged. “Feels like a gun.”
“Like a part of your hand, Jack. That’s what it feels like” He took the pistol back, then dug into his suitcase. “Now, let’s talk real protection: body armor. It’s gonna be hot as hell, but you gotta wear a vest. This is the top of the line in my book. Made of Kevlar one twenty-nine and Spectra fibers. Full coverage. Protects your front, back, and sides, and the shirttails keep it from riding up on you. Stops a forty-four-magnum slug at fourteen hundred feet per second-that’s point-blank range. Excellent multi-hit stopping power, too”-he winked-“but I think I’d still hit the deck if he pulls out an Uzi. Best of all, it weighs less than four pounds and gives you full range of motion. Beneath your baggy black sweatshirt, your kidnapper won’t even know you got it on. Governor, got a Glock and body armor for you, too. I know you never used to like to wear the vest, but-”
“I’ll wear one,” he said without hesitation.
“Good,” replied Kimmell. “Now-the plan. If I’m gonna help you men get ready to meet this character face-to-face, I need to get a fix on who he is. I need to know everything you know about him. So let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about the murder he confessed to. Who was the woman he says he killed?”
“A teenager, actually,” Jack answered. “She got herself into a nightclub with a phony ID, then she was abducted in the parking lot on the way to her car. The next morning, they found her on the beach. Her throat had been slit.”
“What else-” Kimmell asked, but he was interrupted by the shrill ring of the telephone. “You guys expecting a call?”
“No,” answered the governor.
The phone was on its third ring. “Answer it, Jack,” Kimmell directed.
“Hello,” he answered, then listened carefully. “No, thank you,” he finished the conversation, and then hung up. His father and Kimmell were staring expectantly. “There’s a package at the front desk for us.”
“From who?” asked Kimmell.
“No name on it. But it must be him. When he called me yesterday, he said we should just check into one of the big hotels and that we’d hear from him. There’s only a handful of possibilities on the Key. Looks like he found us.”
Kimmell nodded. “Tell them to send it up.”
Jack phoned the manager and asked him to deliver the package to their room personally. The manager was glad to accommodate. In two minutes he was at their door with the delivery. Kimmell answered, then brought the shoe-box-sized package inside and lay it on the bed. He took a metal detector from his suitcase and ran it across the package.
“There’s metal inside,” said Kimmell.