And then, out of that clamor, a voice from the bird’s public address system: “Bring the boat to a halt! We mean no harm! I repeat, Jarvis Lenard, we mean no harm!”
Jarvis raced around a looping bend in the channel, hoping to buy whatever thin slice of time he could, aware that separating himself from the helicopter would be almost impossible.
He felt no surprise when it stuck to his tail as he took the turn, then gained on him, pulling practically overhead, its spot blazing down like the noonday sun.
“We want only your cooperation!” the voice blared over its loudspeakers. “I repeat, we want only—”
Jarvis squinted, trapped in the lights, struggling to stay his course while barely able to see what lay ahead. Cooperation, no harm, was that what they’d told Udonis and the rest when they caught them? As if the Sunglasses would find someone like him worthy of their attention, bother to dig up his name, ask his whereabouts of every acquaintance whose path he might have crossed lately, and then send a helicopter into the air after him — a search helicopter in the hours between midnight and dawn — without harmful intent. And was there any chance they had sent the bird up alone?
No, no, Jarvis thought. The Sunglasses, they did not operate so. Others from the fleet would be headed his way, he knew. Closing in at that very moment, launched off their pads or turned from patrols elsewhere on the peninsula, all of them summoned over their radios by the helicopter that had picked him up. And while no proof had ever been given to him, he’d heard talk among the employees that they carried electronic eyes that could penetrate the darkness, guide them straight to him in the night, make an image of a man by reading the heat that came off his body.
Cooperation. No harm.
Jarvis again considered those words with a black and stinging sort of amusement — and all in an instant had an idea. Perhaps it wasn’t so bad that they expected him to give up trying to scram with a simple, trusting smile on his face. Jarvis Lenard’s mother hadn’t raised any fools, no she hadn’t. But if the Sunglasses were expecting to find one tonight, he would be right glad to oblige and give them a peek at what they wanted.
A peek and nothing more, though.
His hand on the shift, Jarvis throttled back hard, cutting the engine with a jolt that nearly sent him overboard. He held onto the wheel, swaying to and fro, afraid the lightweight boat would capsize from its abrupt power-down.
The helicopter, meanwhile, came gliding straight on from behind and pulled to a hover not thirty feet above his head, hanging there almost like a toy dangled on a string, its blades churning the water to make the boat pitch even more violently. A hand over his eyes to shield them from the aircraft’s bright light and blasting wind, Jarvis craned his head back and saw two helmeted crewmen behind its bubble window.
“Remain calm, Mr. Lenard, you’re doing fine,” the voice from inside the chopper called out. “We’re sending down a rescue basket, and will give you instructions on how to exit the boat once it’s lowered.”
Bathed in the unremitting brightness of the spots, Jarvis finally had to break into a grin. He could not help himself, ah no, not after having heard that voice speak the word rescue. The men up there had gotten a look at a fool out here, surely he’d given it to them… but looks could deceive, as the old saying went.
Jarvis saw a hatch open in the belly of the chopper, watched the basket begin to descend at the end of its line, took a very deep breath, and held it.
Then, his lungs filled to capacity with oxygen, he tore his knitted dread bag from his head, cast it into the wind of the blades, and plunged headlong over the side of the boat into the river.
Jean Luc watched Tolland Eckers emerge from the field office and knew he was about to receive word that wasn’t good. The security man’s stiffly erect walk and hiked up shoulders said it all; he seemed to be overcompensating for the urge to hang his head as he approached.
“I’ve got that update you ordered from Team Gray-wolf, sir,” Eckers said, his voice raised above the thrum of the oil pumps. “It’s disappointing, but their search operation is still at an early stage.”
Jean Luc leaned back against the Range Rover, holding the protective helmet he’d worn for his inspection at his side. Besides the doffed hard hat with its goggle and earmuff attachments, he had on jeans, tan mocs, and an open-collared indigo linen shirt that was perhaps a half shade darker than the strikingly blue eyes that regarded Eckers from under his tanned brow.
“I want the simple details, Toll,” he said.
“Would you prefer hearing them now or on the drive back—?”
“Start right here,” Jean Luc said. “Just be kind enough to spare me the excuses.”
Eckers took a cautious look around from behind his Ray-Bans while a truck rumbled slowly past on the dirt road to their left, ferrying a group of roughnecks toward the wells.
“The man in that boat’s been positively identified as our groundskeeper,” he said after a moment. “It took a while to confirm this from our photos — bad angle. The bird didn’t pull overhead until right at the last minute, and he was wearing a dread bag that made it difficult to see his features.” He paused. “A dread bag, that’s one of those knitted caps some of the locals wea—”
“I was born and raised on this island,” Jean Luc interrupted. “My time away didn’t result in severe loss of memory.”
Eckers didn’t speak. A warm mid-morning breeze ruffled his loose-fitting guayabera shirt.
“I think we were already clear about who was out there,” Jean Luc said. “A man doesn’t head full-tilt for the open sea at two A.M. without some pressing reason. Not from where he did, and not on a crap motorboat.”
Eckers stood there uneasily another moment, then nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
“We know it was Lenard, and we know he took a dive out of the boat… to everybody’s surprise but mine,” Jean Luc said. “The question is, Toll, can we say what happened to him afterward?”
Eckers shook his head.
“I’m sorry, sir, we can’t with absolute certainty,” he said. “Our general feeling is that he drowned, though. The current’s pretty strong over near the lower tip of the peninsula. There’s soft riverbank — a mix of clay and sand — for a stretch that runs several miles up and down the channel from the point where Lenard abandoned the outboard. Vegetation’s weeds and cattails, some scrub growth. Our trackers are familiar with this kind of surface geography, and they’d have likely discovered evidence if he made it ashore. Footprints in the mud, bent or snapped rushes, something of that nature—”
Jean Luc cut him off. “I assume the scuba teams are on this.”
“Since last night.”
“And they’ve found nothing? No sign of him?”
Eckers hesitated. Jean Luc looked at him, waiting.
“The dread bag was retrieved from the water about a half mile down from where the son of a bitch took his plunge,” Eckers said. “That’s it.”
“The dread bag.”
“Right.” Eckers inhaled. “Again, the search is in its initial stages. We’ve got experience with this sort of thing and the resources to back it up.”
There was a brief silence. Jean Luc’s eyes remained steady on Eckers.
“Lenard’s from that village,” he said.