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To Aunt Peggy, an angel on earth if ever there was one

CHAPTER

1

HE HAD THE LOOK of a man who was afraid that tonight would be his last on earth. And he had good reason to think so. The odds were fifty-fifty that it might be, and the percentage could go higher depending on how the next hour turned out.

The margin of error was that small.

The roar of the twin-engine boat moving at near full throttle wiped away the nighttime quiet on calm ocean waters. At this time of year the Gulf of Mexico was usually not so peaceful. This was typically the most active period of the hurricane season. While several storms were brewing out in the open Atlantic, none as yet had formed a firm center and entered the Gulf. Everyone on the coast was crossing his fingers and praying it would remain that way.

The fiberglass hull cut cleanly through the dense, salty water. The boat could hold about twenty people comfortably, but there were thirty folks on board. They were desperately gripping anything they could to keep from being bounced overboard. Despite the smooth waters, a boat carrying far too many people and moving at high speed was never very stable.

The captain piloting the boat did not care about the comfort of his passengers. His top priority was staying alive. He kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the dual throttles. He eyed the speed gauge with a worried look.

Come on. Come on. You can do this. You can make it.

Forty miles per hour. He pushed the throttles ahead and crept the speed stick up to forty-five. He was almost topped out now. Even with the twin stern-drive engines he wouldn’t be able to muster more speed without unduly depleting his fuel. And there were no marinas around here to provide more gas.

Even with the breeze created by the boat’s movement it was still hot out here. At least one did not have to worry about mosquitoes, not at this speed and this far from land. The man eyed the passengers one by one. It was not an idle observation. He was counting heads, although he already knew the answer. He had four crewmen with him. They were all armed, all watching the “passengers.” In a mutiny it would be five against one. But the passengers did not have submachine guns. One clip could take out every one of them with bullets to spare. And the majority were women and children, because that was where the real demand was.

No, he was not worried about a mutiny. He was worried about timing.

The captain checked his illuminated watch. It would be close. They had been late leaving the last outpost. Then their chart plotter had gone haywire for thirty nerve-racking minutes, sending them in completely the wrong direction. This was vast ocean. Every bit of it looked the same. No landmass to aid in navigation. They were not in well-marked shipping channels. Without their electronic guidepost they would be screwed, like flying a plane without instrumentation in thick fog. The only outcome would be disaster.

But they had gotten the plotter straightened out, corrected course, and he had immediately pushed the stern-drives hard. Then he had pushed them some more. His gaze continued to flit to his dash, checking the oil, fuel, and engine temperature gauges. A breakdown out here would be catastrophic. They couldn’t exactly call the Coast Guard for assistance.

He futilely looked to the skies for eyes watching from up there. Unmanned eyes that would send back gigs of digital data about what they were seeing. He would never hear the response team until it was too late. The Coast Guard cutters would be on them before he could do anything. They would board, know immediately what was going on, and he would go to prison for a very long time, perhaps the rest of his life.

But he was not as scared of the Coast Guard as he was of certain other people.

He pushed the boat’s speed up to forty-seven and said a silent prayer that a vital engine part would not blow. He looked at his watch again. He counted the minutes in his head as he scanned the water ahead of them.

“They’ll feed me to the sharks,” he muttered.

Not for the first time, he regretted agreeing to this business venture. Yet the money was so good he could not turn it down, despite the risks. He had done fifteen of these runs and figured with a similar number in the future he could retire to a nice, quiet spot in the Florida Keys and live like a king. It beat the hell out of driving his boat for pasty tourists from the North looking to land a tuna or marlin but more often simply puking all over his boat in rough seas.

But first I have to get this boat and these people where they need to go.

He eyed the red and green navigation lights on the bow. They gave a solemn glow to an otherwise moonless night. He counted more minutes in his head at the same time as he scanned the boat’s gauges.

His heart sank.

His fuel was running low. The stick was dipping perilously close to reserve status. He felt his gut tighten. They had too much weight. And the problem with the navigation system had cost them over an hour, many nautical miles, and precious fuel. He always added a fuel buffer of ten percent to be sure, but even this surplus might not be enough. He scanned the passengers again. Most were women and teenagers, but some were beefy men, easily over two hundred pounds each. And there was one man who was a true giant. But dumping passengers as a solution to his fuel issue was beyond problematic. He might as well put a gun to his own head and pull the trigger.

He swiftly redid the calculations in his head, just as airline pilots did after getting a full passenger and cargo manifest. It was the same question regardless of whether your ride was in the water or thirty thousand feet above it.

Do I have enough fuel to get there?

He caught the eye of one of his men and beckoned him over.

The man listened to his boss’s problem and did his own calculations. “It’s gonna be tight,” he said worriedly.

“And it’s not like we can start throwing people overboard,” said the captain.

“Right. They have the manifest. They know how many we’re carrying. We start throwing them overboard, we might as well jump in too.”

“Tell me some shit I don’t know,” the captain snapped.

He made a decision and eased off the throttles, cutting their speed back to forty miles per hour. The dual props started spinning more slowly. The boat was still fully up on plane. To the naked eye there wasn’t a big difference between forty and forty-seven miles per hour on the water, but with the reduced fuel burn it could be the difference between running dry or making it. They would fuel up, and the return trip, with only five of them on board, would be no problem.

“Better to be a little late than not get there at all,” said the captain.

There was a hollow ring to his statement and the other man did not miss it. He clenched his weapon tighter. The captain looked away from him, his throat constricting as a cold dread gripped him.

To the people who’d hired him, timing was important. And being late, even by a few minutes, was never a good thing.

Right now the insane profit margin did not really seem worth it. You couldn’t spend money if you were dead.

But thirty minutes later, with his engines starting to suck on air instead of fuel, the captain saw his destination straight ahead. It rose out of the ocean like a throne for Neptune.

They were here. They were very late, but at least they’d made it.

He looked at the passengers. They too were staring at the structure, their eyes bugged out. He couldn’t blame them. Even though this was not the first such structure they had seen it was still a monstrous sight, especially at night. Hell, it still freaked him out, even after all the similar trips he’d made. He just wanted to dump his load, fuel up, and get his ass back to where he’d come from. As soon as the twenty-five passengers stepped off his boat they were someone else’s problem.

He slowed his engines and took his time docking alongside a floating metal platform tethered to the larger structure. After the ropes were secured, hands reached across and started pulling the passengers onto the platform, which bobbed up and down from the light chop created by the docking process.

He didn’t see the larger ship that was normally waiting to take passengers onward. It must have already left with a load.

As the captain signed off on some documents and received his pay in plastic bundles taped down, he looked at the passengers as they were herded up a long metal stairway. They all looked terrified.

They should be, he thought. The unknown was not nearly as terrifying as the known. And he understood quite clearly that these people were well aware of what was about to happen to them. And they also knew that no one else cared.

They were not rich.

They were not powerful.

They were truly the forgotten.

And their numbers were growing exponentially as the world was settling swiftly into a permanent state of the rich and thus powerful and then everyone else. And what the rich and powerful wanted, they usually got.

He opened one of the plastic bundles. His mind did not immediately register what he was seeing. When it became apparent that what he was holding was cut-up newspaper and not money, he looked up.

The muzzle of the MP5 was pointed directly at him, less than ten feet away, held by a man standing on Neptune’s Seat. The MP was an awesome killing weapon at close quarters. It would prove so tonight.

The captain had time to put up his hand, as though flesh and bone would block shaped ordnance coming at him far faster than a jumbo jet could fly. When it hit him it did so with thousands of foot-pounds of kinetic energy. Twenty such rounds slammed into him at roughly the same time, shredding his body.

The impact of the spray of slugs knocked him off his feet and then over the gunwale. Before he sank beneath the waves the four other men on board joined him in the water. All shredded, all dead, they disappeared into the depths. The sharks would have a buffet tonight.

Punctuality was not only a virtue, it seemed, but also an absolute necessity.

CHAPTER

2

THE VESSEL WAS IMMEDIATELY drained of its fuel, oil, and other fluids and then scuttled. Oil and gas created a large sheen on the water’s surface that could be seen from above by patrolling Coast Guard and DEA planes.

During the day the abandoned oil platform would look, well, abandoned. Not a prisoner in sight. They would all be inside the main structure safely away from view. Shipments of fresh product moved in and out only at night. During the day the operation shut down. The risk of being seen was too great.

There were thousands of shuttered oil platforms in the Gulf awaiting either demolition or else transformation into artificial reefs. Though laws required that the demolition or transformation take place typically within a year of abandonment, the actual time for that to happen could be much longer. And all the while these platforms, large enough to comfortably house hundreds, just sat there well out to sea. They were empty and ripe for exploitation by certain ambitious folks who needed a series of landing sites as they shepherded their precious cargo across broad waters.

As the vessel slowly sank into the deep Gulf, the passengers were herded up steel steps. They had been roped together and spaced a foot apart. The younger ones had a hard time keeping in step with the adults. When they fell, they were immediately jerked back into line and then beaten around the shoulders and arms. Their faces, however, were not touched.

One man, far bigger than the rest, kept his gaze downcast as he marched up the metal steps. He was over six-six and rock-solid, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, and thighs and calves easily the girth of a professional athlete’s. He also possessed the hard, bony musculature and near-gaunt features of a man who had grown up with not enough to eat. He would fetch a good price, but not as high as the girls, for obvious reasons. Everything was based on profit margins, and the girls, particularly the younger ones, had the highest margins of all. And that could be extended over at least ten years. By that time they would have collectively earned millions of dollars for their owners.

By contrast, his life would be relatively short as he was literally worked to death, or so his captors believed. “LMP,” or “low-margin product,” he would be called. The girls, on the other hand, were simply referred to as “gold.”

He seemed to be mumbling to himself, but not in a language that anyone around him could understand. He missed a step and stumbled. Batons immediately rained down on his shoulders and the back of his legs. One struck him in the face, bloodying his nose. They were apparently not worried about his looks.

He rose and kept going. And kept mumbling. The blows did not seem to have affected him.

There was a young girl in front of him who glanced back at him once, but he didn’t return her gaze. An older woman in line behind him shook her head and said a prayer in her native Spanish and then made the sign of the cross.

The man stumbled again, and again the beating took place. The guards jabbered at him, slapped him with their roughened hands. He took the punishment, rose, and kept going. And kept mumbling.

A shaft of heat lightning to the east illuminated the sky for about a second. Whether or not the man interpreted this event as some divine signal to act was unclear. His actions, however, were crystal clear.

He bulled past one guard, slamming into the man so hard that the guard pitched over the rail and plummeted down more than thirty feet, hitting and bouncing off the steel platform. His neck broke on impact and he lay still.

What was unnoticed was the sharp knife that the mumbling man had taken from the guard’s belt. It was his sole reason for attacking him. As the other gunmen lined up their shots, the man cut through his bindings, grabbed a life jacket hanging on a hook on the stair rail, slipped it on, and dove off on the opposite side from where the guard had gone over.

When he landed he did not hit steel. He slammed into the warm waters of the Gulf.

He broke the surface awkwardly and went under.

Seconds later a barrage of MP5 rounds ripped the surface of the water, creating hundreds of tiny whitecaps. A boat was sent out a few minutes later to look for him. But there was no sign. In the dark, he could have gone in any direction, and it was a lot of surface water to cover. The boat finally returned. The Gulf waters grew calm once more. He was probably dead, they thought.

If not he soon would be.

The remaining prisoners, twenty-four of them now, continued their slow ascent to the cells where they would be kept until another boat came to take them onward. They were placed mostly five to a cage. There they joined other prisoners who were also awaiting rides to the mainland. They were young, older, and in between. They were all foreigners, all poor or otherwise not part of any mainstream society. Some had been targeted and captured. Others had merely been unlucky.

As bad as that luck had been, it would only get worse once they left here.

The guards, mostly foreigners themselves, never made eye contact and did not even acknowledge the existence of their captives, other than when they slid plates of food and jugs of water inside the cages.

The captives were just nameless, meaningless bits of particle temporarily residing in the Gulf of Mexico. They sat on their haunches. Some stared out between the bars of the cages; most kept their gazes on the floor. They were defeated, resigned, unwilling to attempt a fight, or find a path to freedom. They seemed to have stoically accepted their fate.

The older woman who had been behind the large man would occasionally direct her gaze far down to the ocean’s surface. It would have been impossible for her to see anything in the water from the enclosed space. But once or twice she imagined that she had seen something. When the food and water came she ate and drank her small allotted share and pondered the man who had attempted an escape. She silently admired his bravery, even if it had cost him his life. At least he was free, if dead. That was far better than what awaited her.

Yes, maybe he was the lucky one, she thought. She put a bit of bread in her mouth and took a sip of warm water from the plastic jug and forgot all about the man.

A half mile from Neptune’s Seat the man swam through the water. He looked back in the direction of the structure, now invisible to him. He had never intended to swim to shore from an oil platform. This was solely improvisation on his part. He had planned to take a plane from Texas to Florida. His current dilemma was the result of carelessness on his part that had resulted in his becoming a victim. But he had to get to land, and swimming there seemed to be the only way.

He adjusted the life jacket—which was too small for him but provided some needed buoyancy—and treaded water for a bit, trying to move as little as possible. Next he turned and started to float on his back. Darkness was when the sharks came out. Eventually, though, he would have to swim. Nighttime was the best time to do that, despite the dangers from the finned predators. Daylight would leave him exposed to many hazards, many of them man-made. Aided by the stars, which provided some needed navigational guidance, he set out in the direction that he believed to be toward land. He would occasionally look back at the platform, trying hard to solidify in his mind its location in the vastness of the Gulf. It was unlikely, he knew, but he might one day have to find it again.

His strokes were compact, seemingly effortless. With the buoyancy of the life jacket he could keep this pace up for hours. And he would have to, to get where he needed to go. He had decided to turn a possible catastrophe into an advantage.

He would head in the same direction another fast boat would have taken him at a later point in time. Perhaps he would beat his fellow captives to the final destination, if the sharks didn’t disrupt his plans by shearing off a limb or two and leaving him to bleed out alone.

His strokes became automatic, his breathing the same. This allowed his mind to wander and then focus on what lay ahead. The swim would be long and exhausting and fraught with peril. He could die at many points along the way. But he had survived much to get to this point. He would simply will himself to live.

He had to hope it would be enough.

It usually had been in a life marked more by tragedy and pain than by anything remotely approaching normalcy.

He stoically accepted it as his lot in life.

And he swam on.

CHAPTER

3

THE OLD WOMAN WAS TALL but bent. Her spine had curved itself over the last decade, and that had reduced her height by three inches. Her hair was cut short and in severe lines around her face, which had all the wrinkles and sun damage one would expect after more than eight decades of living, two of them in coastal Florida. She navigated with the aid of a walker, two tennis balls stuck onto the bottoms of the front legs for stability.

Her large hands clutched the top bar of the walker. Over her shoulder was her purse. It was large and bulky and rode awkwardly against her body. Her gait was steady and purposeful. She looked neither right nor left, nor over her shoulder. She was a woman on a mission and the passersby on the street voluntarily moved out of her way. Some smiled at what they no doubt believed was a dotty old woman who no longer cared what anyone thought about her behavior. It was true she no longer cared what others thought. But she was far from dotty.

Her destination was just up ahead.

A mailbox.

She ran her walker right up to it, using a free hand to balance herself against the stout property of the U.S. Postal Service. With her other hand she reached into her purse and pulled out the letter. She paused and looked at the address one last time.

She had spent considerable time writing the letter. The younger generation, with all of its tweets and Facebook and cryptic texts and emails where no actual language or grammar were involved, would never have understood taking the time to compose a handwritten missive such as this one. But she had wanted to get the words just right, because what she was writing about was so extraordinary. At least to her way of thinking.

The addressee’s name was written in block letters to make it as clear as possible. She did not want this piece of mail to go astray.

General John Puller, Senior (Ret.).

She was sending it in care of the VA hospital where she knew he was staying. She knew his health was not good, but she also knew that he was a man who could make things happen. He had risen nearly as high in the military as it was possible to go.

And he was also her brother. Her younger brother.

Big sisters were special to their little brothers. While they were growing up he had done his best to make her life miserable, playing an endless series of practical jokes on her, embarrassing her in front of her boyfriends, competing with her for their parents’ affections. It was different when they became adults. Then it was like the grown man was desperately trying to make up for all the hardship he had caused his older sister.

She could count on him to sort this out. More to the point, he had a son, her nephew, who was very good at figuring things out. She reckoned this letter would eventually end up in his capable hands. And she hoped he came down here. It had been a long time since she had seen her nephew.

Too long.

She opened the lid of the mailbox and watched the letter slide down the metal gullet. She closed the lid and then opened it twice more just to make sure the letter was in the belly of the box.

She turned her walker around and made her way back to the cabstand. She had a favorite taxi driver who had picked her up from her home and now would drive her back there. She could still drive but chose not to tonight.

The mailbox was situated at the end of a one-way street. It was easier for him to park where he had, leaving her with only a short walk to the mailbox. He had offered to post the letter for her, but she had declined. She needed to do it herself, and she also needed the exercise.

He was a youngster to her, only in his late fifties. He wore an old-fashioned chauffeur’s hat, although the rest of his outfit was decidedly more casual: khaki shorts, blue polo shirt, and canvas boat shoes on his feet. His tan was so uniformly dark that it looked like the product of a UV bed or spray-on tan.

“Thank you, Jerry,” she said, as she climbed, with his assistance, into the backseat of the Prius. Jerry folded up her walker and put it in the rear of the car before getting into the driver’s seat.

“Everything good to go, Ms. Simon?” he asked.

“I hope so,” she replied. For the first time she looked and felt truly nervous.

“You want to go back home now?”

“Yes, please. I’m tired.”

Jerry turned around in his seat and scrutinized her. “You look pale. Maybe you should go see a doctor. Got enough of them in Florida.”

“Maybe I will. But not right now. I just need some rest.”

He drove her back to her little community on the beach. They passed a pair of soaring palm trees and a sign set on a brick wall that read, “Sunset by the Sea.”

The sign had always irritated her, because she lived by an ocean, not a sea. Technically, she actually lived on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in the Panhandle of Florida. She had always thought that “Sunset Coast” or “Sunset Gulf” sounded better than “Sunset by the Sea.” But the name was official and there was no changing it.

Jerry drove her to her house on Orion Street and saw her inside. A typical residence for this part of Florida, it was a two-story structure with cinderblock walls covered in beige stucco with a red terra-cotta roof and a two-car garage. The house had three bedrooms, with hers right off the kitchen. It was thirty-one hundred square feet in an efficient footprint, far larger than she needed, but she had no interest in moving. This would be her last home. She had known that for a long time.

She had a palm tree out front and some grass and decorative rocks in the yard. In the back a privacy fence ran along the property line, and she had a small reflecting pool along with a bench and a table where she could sit, drink her coffee, and enjoy both the cooler mornings and the final rays of the evening light. On either side of her house was another house pretty much exactly the same. All of Sunset by the Sea was pretty much the same, as though the builder had some large machine to spit the houses out off-site to later be transported and erected here.

The beach was behind her house, just a short drive or long walk to the sugar-white sand of the Emerald Coast.

It was summer and the temperature was in the low seventies at nearly six in the evening. That was about twenty degrees cooler than the high for the day, which was about average for Paradise, Florida, at this time of the year.

Paradise, she thought. A silly, conceited name, but she also couldn’t say it didn’t fit. It was beautiful here most of the time.

She would take heat over cold any day. That’s why they had invented Florida, she assumed. And perhaps Paradise in particular.

And why the snowbirds flocked here every winter.

She sat in her living room and gazed around at the memories of a lifetime. On the walls and shelves were photos of friends and family. Her gaze rested longest on a picture of her husband, Lloyd, a natural-born salesman. She had fallen in love with him after World War II. He had sold her a bill of goods, too, she supposed. He always claimed to be more successful than he was. He was a good salesman but a bigger spendthrift, she had found. But he was funny, made her laugh, didn’t have a violent bone in his body, never drank to excess, and he loved her. He never cheated on her, though with his job and the traveling involved, he certainly had had chances to wander from his marriage vows.

Yes, she missed her Lloyd. After he’d passed away, she’d discovered he had a sizable life insurance policy he’d kept in force. She’d taken the whole of it and bought two stocks. Apple and Amazon. This had been way back. The two A’s on her report card, she liked to call them. The investment return had been enough to allow her to pay off the mortgage on this house and live very comfortably on far more money than Social Security alone would have allowed her.

She had a light supper and some iced tea. Her appetite wasn’t nearly what it once was. Then she watched some TV, falling asleep in front of the screen. When she awoke she felt disoriented. Shaking her head to clear it, she decided it was time to go to bed. She rose with the aid of her walker and headed toward her bedroom. She would sleep for a few hours and then get back up, start her day over again. That was her life now.

She noticed a shadow of movement behind her, but had no chance to feel alarmed about it.

That was to be Betsy Puller Simon’s last memory.

A shadow behind her.

A few minutes later there was a splash from the backyard.

CHAPTER

4

THE TIMING WAS AS good as it would ever get. He performed a few more strokes in the water until he finally felt the earth beneath his feet.

He had lucked out and been picked up by a small fishing boat about two hours after his escape from the platform. The men had asked no questions. They gave him some food and water. They told him their location, and by reversing that course he got a better fix on the platform out in the Gulf. He could not forget all the prisoners housed there. They would be gone before he would ever return there. But there would be others to replace them.

The fishing boat could not take him all the way to shore, they told him, but they would get him close enough. They chugged along slowly for what seemed a long time and he helped them with their work as part repayment for their helping him. They could not make a beeline for his destination. They were out here to work, and work they would.

His great strength was marveled at by the fishermen, and they seemed sorry to see him go.

They pointed in the direction of land when they got to the place where he needed to get off. They gave him a better-fitted life jacket and he slipped over the side of the boat and started swimming toward land.

As he turned back he saw one of the men make the sign of the cross over his chest. Then his sole focus became reaching something he could stand on.

By the time he arrived on shore his muscles were tight, knotted, and he was once more dehydrated. Water had been all around him for such a long time and yet he had not been able to drink even a drop of it. Fish had nipped at him. Singly that was not a problem. Cumulatively, his legs and arms were covered in tiny cuts and welts. And his head and shoulders hurt from the beating he’d taken from the guards and from his plunge off the platform. He could feel the bruises and cuts on his face from these impacts.

But he was alive.

And on land.

Finally.

The darkness covered his high-stepping through the last few breakers until he reached the sugar-white sand of the Emerald Coast in Florida’s Panhandle. He looked right and left up the beach for any late-night beachcombers. Seeing none, he dropped to his knees, rolled onto his back, and drew in long deep breaths as he stared at a sky so clear there seemed to be no space between the billions of visible stars. Paradise was a small town with long beaches, but its downtown area was built right along the sand. The central business district was farther down and to the west. And luckily it was so late that there was no one out on the boardwalk that ran parallel to the beach where he was.

He thanked God for allowing him to live. So many hours of swimming, and then being picked up by the boat. In the vastness of the Gulf, what were the odds of that without divine intervention? The sharks had also miraculously left him alone. He had to attribute that to his prayers as well.

His captors had not come after him.

Prayer again.

Thankfully, the beach was deserted.

Well, not quite.

God must have missed that one.

He hunkered down in the sand as he heard the people coming.

Then he flattened himself to the beach and burrowed in, allowing his over six-foot-six-inch, 290-pound frame to blend into the white grit that people from around the world came to lie on during the course of a year.

It was two people. He could tell by the different voices.

One man. One woman.

He lifted his head a bare inch and stared in their direction. They were not walking a dog. Prayer, again. A dog would have found his scent by now.

He would not act unless they spotted him. And even then, they might just assume he was simply lying on the beach enjoying the evening. He hoped they would not see him, and that if they did they would not panic. He knew that after his long journey at sea he must look pretty bad.

He tensed his body, waited for them to pass by.

They were within forty feet of him. The woman looked in his direction. The moonlight was not strong, but not weak either.

He heard her exclaim and then say something to her companion.

But then he realized that she was not actually looking in his direction.

As he watched, a lithe figure came out from behind the cover of sand dunes.

There was one pop and the man fell. The woman turned to run, but there was another pop and she fell too, hitting the compacted sand with a thud.

The figure put the gun away, gripped the woman’s hands, and dragged her into the water a good ten feet. The tide took over from there and the body quickly sank beneath the water and was swept out.

This same process was repeated on the man.

The figure stood on the sand a few inches from the water and scanned the breakers, probably making sure the bodies were not going to be swept back to shore. Then the figure turned and was gone the way it had come.

He kept his body flat to the stretch of beach even as he felt shame for not coming to the couple’s assistance. But it had happened so quickly that he doubted he could have prevented their deaths.

And sometimes God was busy with other things. This he knew to be true. God had often been busy when he had needed him. But then many people needed God. He was just one of billions who asked for divine assistance from time to time.

He waited until he was certain the shooter was gone. He had no idea why the couple had been killed. He had no idea who had killed them. It was not any of his business.

He could not remain on the beach now. He made his way to the boardwalk, and spotted a bicycle chained to a post. He ripped the post out of the ground, freeing the chain. He wound the chain around the frame, climbed onto the bike, and set off.

He had the city’s streets mostly memorized. He had a place to go, to stay, where he could change his clothes, rest, eat, hydrate, and then he could begin his quest, the real reason he had come here.

As he disappeared into the night, he began to mumble again, to pray for forgiveness for not helping the couple by killing their attacker. He was good at killing, perhaps the best. But that did not mean that he liked it, because he did not.

He was a giant, but actually a gentle man.

But even gentle giants could be moved to violence for the right reasons.

He had such reasons.

He had them in abundance.

He was no longer going to be gentle. Not while he was here.

It was the sole thing driving him. Indeed, it was the only thing really keeping him alive.

He rode on as the two corpses were pulled slowly out to sea.

CHAPTER

5

JOHN PULLER TOOK A sharp left-hand turn and drove down the narrow two-lane road. In the backseat of the car was his cat, AWOL, who had wandered into his life one day and would probably leave him just as unexpectedly. Puller was in the Army, formerly a Ranger, and currently a CID, or Criminal Investigation Division, special agent. He was not investigating any cases at the moment. Right now he was just returning from a protracted road trip with his cat, allowing himself a bit of R&R after a hellish experience in a small West Virginia coal-mining town that had nearly ended with him and many other people dead.

He pulled into the parking lot of his apartment complex. It was near Quantico, Virginia, where the Army’s CID headquarters was located along with the 701st M.P. Group (CID), the unit to which Puller was attached. This made for an easy work commute, although he rarely spent much time at Quantico. He was more often on the road investigating crimes that involved a person who wore the uniform of the United States Army and yet was doing bad things. And unfortunately, there were a lot of cases to work.

He parked his car, a trim Army-issued Malibu, grabbed his rucksack from the trunk, opened the back door, and waited patiently for AWOL, a fat orange-and-brown tabby, to mosey out. The cat followed him up to his apartment. Puller lived in six hundred square feet of rigid lines and minimal clutter. He had been in the Army for most of his adult life and now, in his mid-thirties, his personal aversion to junk and clutter was irreversibly established.

He got food and water out for AWOL, snagged a beer from the fridge, sat down in his leather recliner, put his feet up, and closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually gotten a full night’s sleep. He decided to do something about it right now.

The last few weeks had not been especially kind to Puller, who was nearly six feet four and a normally solid 232 pounds. He had not gotten any shorter, but he had lost about ten pounds because his appetite had abandoned him. Physically, he was still doing okay. He could beat any test the military might offer related to strength, endurance, or speed. Mentally, however, he was not doing very well. He wasn’t sure he ever would be doing well mentally again. Some days he thought he would, others not. This was one of the other days.

Puller had gone on the road trip to try to get his head back on straight after the ordeal in West Virginia.

It had not worked. If anything, he was even worse. The time away, the miles driven had only provided him with far too much time to think. Sometimes that was not good. He didn’t want to think anymore. He just wanted to be doing something that would carry him into the future instead of transporting him to the past.

His phone buzzed. He looked at the readout on the screen.

USDB. That stood for the United States Disciplinary Barracks. It was located in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. It was the Army’s prison for its most important—that is, dangerous—criminals.

Puller knew it well. He had visited there often.

His older brother and only sibling, Robert Puller, would be stationed there for the rest of his natural life, and maybe even beyond, if the Pentagon had its way.

“Hello?”

“Please hold,” an efficient-sounding female voice said.

The next moment a familiar voice came on the line.

It was his brother, formerly a major in the Air Force before being convicted at court-martial for treason against his country for reasons that Puller neither was privy to nor would probably ever understand for as long as he lived.

“Hey, Bobby,” said Puller dully. His head was starting to ache.

“Where are you?”

He said irritably, “Just got back. Just put my feet up. What’s going on?”

“How was your road trip? Get things figured out?”

“I’m good.”

“Which means you didn’t and you’re just blowing me off. That’s okay. I can take it.”

Normally, Puller looked forward to talking to his brother. Their calls and visits were infrequent. But not this time. He just wanted to sit in his recliner with his beer and think of exactly nothing.

“What’s going on?” he said again, a little more firmly.

“Okay, I read you loud and clear. ‘Get the hell off the phone, I don’t want to talk.’ I wouldn’t be bothering you except for the call I got.”

Puller sat up in his recliner and put his beer down.

“What call? The Old Man?”

There was only one “Old Man” in the Puller brothers’ lives.

That would be John Puller Sr., a retired three-star and a fighting legend. He was an old bastard from the Patton Kicking Ass and Taking No Names School of Combat. However, the former commander of the legendary 101st Airborne was now in a veterans’ hospital suffering from short but intense bouts of dementia and long and even more intense episodes of depression. The dementia was probably because of age. The depression was because he no longer wore the uniform, no longer commanded a single soldier, and thus felt he had no more reason left to live. Puller Sr. had been put on earth for one reason only: to lead soldiers into combat.

More to the point, he had been put on this earth to lead soldiers to victory in combat. At least that’s what he believed. And most days both his sons would have agreed with that assessment.

“People on behalf of the Old Man from the hospital. They couldn’t reach you, so they tried me. I can’t exactly up and visit the Old Man.”

“What did they call about? Is he failing mentally again? Did he fall down and break a hip?”

“No on both counts. I don’t think it has to do with him personally. They weren’t entirely clear what the issue was, probably because Dad wasn’t entirely clear with them. I believe that it involved a letter that he received, but I can’t swear to that. But that’s what it seemed to be about.”

“A letter. Who from?”

“Again, can’t answer that. I thought with you being pretty much right there you could go over and find out what’s going on. They said he was really upset.”

“But they didn’t know what was in the letter? How can that be?”

“You know how that can be,” replied Robert. “I don’t care how old or out of it Dad is. If he doesn’t want you to read a letter he has, you ain’t reading it. He can still kick ass even at his age. There’s not a doctor in the VA system who could take him or would ever want to try.”

“Okay, Bobby, I’ll head over now.”

“John, all bullshit aside, you okay?”

“All bullshit aside, no, Bobby, I’m not okay.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m in the Army.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

“Meaning I’m going to soldier on.”

“You can always talk to somebody. The Army has lots of specialists who do just that. You went through a lot of shit in West Virginia. It would screw anybody up. Like PTSD.”

“I don’t need to talk to anybody.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

“Puller men don’t talk about their troubles.”

Puller could imagine his brother shaking his head in disappointment.

“Is that family rule number three or four?”

Puller said, “For me, right now, it’s rule number one.”

CHAPTER

6

AS HE WALKED DOWN the hall at the VA hospital Puller wondered whether he would end up in one himself when he got older. As he looked around at the elderly sick and disabled former soldiers his spirits dropped even more.

Maybe a shot to the head when the time comes would be better.

He knew where his father’s room was and so bypassed the nurse’s desk. He actually heard his old man long before he saw him. John Puller Sr. had always possessed a voice like a bullhorn, and age and his other infirmities had done nothing to lessen its power. Indeed, in some ways, it seemed even more strident than before.

As Puller approached the door to his father’s room it opened and a frazzled-looking nurse stepped out.

“God, am I glad you’re here,” she said, staring up at Puller. He was not in uniform but she apparently had easily recognized him.

“What’s the problem?” asked Puller.

“He’s the problem,” she replied. “He’s been asking for you for the last twenty-four hours. He won’t let it go.”

Puller put his hand on the knob. “He was a three-star. It’s always personal and they never let anything go. It’s in their DNA.”

“Good luck,” said the nurse.

“It’ll have nothing to do with luck,” said Puller as he walked into the room and shut the door behind him.

Inside the room he put his broad back to the door and gazed around. The place was small, maybe ten by ten, like a prison cell. Actually, it was about the same size as the place his brother would be calling home at USDB for the rest of his life.

The room was furnished with a hospital bed, a laminated wood nightstand, a curtain for privacy, and a chair that did not look comfortable and felt just how it looked.

Then there was one window, a tiny closet, and a bathroom with support bars and panic buttons all over the place.

And then, lastly, his old man, John Puller Sr., the former commander of arguably the Army’s most famous division, the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles.

“XO, where the hell you been?” said Puller Sr., staring at his son like he had him lined up over iron gunsights.

“On assignment, just got back. Hear there’s something up, sir.”

“Damn right there is.”

Puller moved forward and stood at ease by the side of the bed where his father lay, wearing a white T-shirt and loose-fitting blue scrub pants. Once nearly as tall as his son, the old man had been shrunken by age to a little over six-one—still tall, but not the near giant he had once been. A white fringe of cottony hair ran around the rim of his head, with nothing else on top. His eyes were ice blue and went from flashing fire to vacant, sometimes in the span of a few seconds.

The doctors weren’t quite sure what was going on with Puller Sr. They wouldn’t officially call it Alzheimer’s or even dementia. They had begun to say simply that he was “getting old.”

Puller just hoped his father had enough lucidity left today to tell him about the letter. Or at least to allow him to see it.

“You received a letter?” he prompted. “Top-secret communication? Maybe from SecArm?” he added, referring to the Secretary of the Army.

Although his father had been out of the Army for nearly two decades, he didn’t seem to realize that was so. Puller had found it better to keep the military subterfuge going, in order to put his father at ease, and also to move conversations forward. He felt silly doing it, but the doctors had persuaded him that this was a preferable course, at least in the short term. And maybe the short term was all his father had left.

His father nodded and looked grim. “Not bullshit, at least I don’t think so. Got me concerned, XO.”

“Can I get read in, sir?”

His father hesitated, stared up at him, his expression that of a man who was not quite sure what or who he was looking at.

“Think I can get read in, General?” Puller asked again, his voice quieter but also firmer.

His father pointed to his pillow. “Under there. Had me concerned.”

“Yes, sir. May I, sir?”

Puller indicated the pillow and his father nodded and sat up.

Puller stepped forward and pulled up the pillow. Underneath was an envelope that had been torn open. Puller picked it up and gazed at it. The address was written in block letters. His dad. At this VA hospital. Postmarked from a place called Paradise, Florida. The place sounded vaguely familiar. He looked at the name in the top left-hand corner of the envelope.

Betsy Puller Simon. That’s why it sounded familiar.

That was his aunt and his father’s sister. She was older than her brother by nearly ten years. Lloyd Simon had been her husband. He’d died many years ago. Puller had been on deployment in Afghanistan back then. He remembered getting a note from his father about it. He hadn’t thought about his aunt very often since then and suddenly wondered why. Well, now he was totally focused on her.

She’d written to her brother. The brother was upset. Puller was about to find out why, he supposed. He hoped it wasn’t about a missing pet, or an unpaid bill, or that his elderly aunt was getting remarried and maybe wanted her younger brother to give her away.

There was no way that was happening.

He slid the single sheet of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. It was heavy stock with a nice watermark. In five years they probably wouldn’t even make this stuff anymore. Who wrote letters by hand these days?

He focused on the spidery handwriting sprawled across the page. It was written in blue ink, which made it jump off the cream-colored paper.

There were three paragraphs in the letter. Puller read all three, twice. His aunt had ended by writing, “Love to you, Johnny. Betsy.”

Johnny and Betsy?

It made his father seem almost human.

Almost.

Puller could now understand why his father had been upset after reading the letter. His aunt had clearly been upset while writing it.

Something was going on down in Paradise, Florida, that she didn’t like. She didn’t go into detail in the letter, but what she had written was enough to get Puller interested. Mysterious happenings at night. People not being who they seemed. A general air of something not being right. She had named no names. But she had ended the letter by asking for help not from her brother.

She asked specifically for my help.

His aunt must’ve known that he was an Army investigator. Perhaps his father had told her. Perhaps she had found out on her own. What he did for a living was not a secret.

He folded the letter back up and put it in his pocket. He looked at his father, who was now gazing across at the little TV set connected to the wall by way of a hinged arm. On the screen was The Price Is Right. His father seemed intrigued by the goings-on. This was a man who, in addition to having led the 101st, had commanded an entire corps composed of up to five divisions, totaling nearly a hundred thousand highly trained soldiers, in combat. And he was now intently watching a TV show where people guessed the prices of everyday stuff in an attempt to win more stuff.

“Can I keep the letter, sir?” he asked.

Now that Puller had been summoned and had the letter and matter seemingly in hand, his father no longer seemed interested or upset. He waved his hand in a vague symbol of dismissal.

“Take care of it, XO. Report back when the matter is resolved.”

“Thank you, sir, I’ll do my best, sir.”

Even though his father wasn’t looking at him, he performed a crisp salute, spun on his heel, and exited. He did this because the last time he’d seen his father he’d walked out on him in both disgust and frustration, leaving the old man to scream after him. Apparently that memory no longer resided in his father’s mind. Along with a lot of other things. But it had remained in Puller’s mind, stark and fierce.

However, as his hand hit the door pull his father said, “Take care of Betsy, XO, she’s the real deal.”

Puller looked back at his father. The old man had turned and was staring at him. His ice blue eyes appeared to hold as much lucidity as they ever had. He was no longer in Price Is Right land.

“I will, sir. Count on me.”

On the way out Puller ran into his father’s primary-care physician. Balding and slight of build, he was a good doctor and labored here for far less money than his medical degree from Yale could have earned him elsewhere.

“So how’s he doing?” asked Puller.

“As good as can be expected. Physically, he’s still an amazing specimen. I wouldn’t want to arm-wrestle him. But up top things seem to be continuing to slip.”

“Anything that can be done?”

“He’s on the meds typically prescribed for his condition. There is no cure, of course. We can’t reverse things now, though the future holds some promise for that. I just think it’s going to be a long downward spiral, John. And it might speed up as time goes on. Sorry it’s not better news.”

Puller thanked the doctor and headed on. He knew all of this, but still asked each time he was here. Maybe part of him thought the answer might one day turn out to be different.

He left the hospital and walked to his car. On the way he took the letter back out of his pocket. His aunt had helpfully written in her phone number in Paradise. He reached his car, sat on the hood, slid out his phone, and punched in the digits.

Puller was not someone who liked to put off to the next minute what he could do in the current one.

The phone rang four times and then went to voice mail. Puller left a message for his aunt and then clicked off and put the phone away.

He gazed at the letter again as he sat there on the hood of his Malibu. Well, it actually belonged to the United States Army, but Puller was the United States Army, so maybe it was the same thing.

A letter with troubling concerns. But then again he’d only tried to call her once. Maybe she was simply at the doctor’s. Elderly people spent much of their time at doctors’ offices. He had certainly seen that with his father.

Puller sighed. In many important ways this was not his problem. His father had probably forgotten all about the letter. Puller hadn’t seen his aunt in a long time. She had not been a part of his life as an adult. But she had been when he was a young boy. Sort of a substitute for a mother who was not there because she couldn’t be.

All these years later Puller still could recall vividly moments spent with Betsy Simon. She had been there for him when he needed something that he simply did not have in life. Things that little boys needed. Things that fathers could not supply, even if they happened to be around, which his father had not. He’d been too busy commanding thousands of men to do things not just the Army way, but also his way. Betsy Simon had filled that void. She was so important to him back then. He had talked to her about everything, both troubles and triumphs. She had been a wonderful listener. And Puller had come to realize that the advice she dispensed to him growing up had been couched so artfully that it seemed to be his own ideas.

He had leave time still remaining. No one had expected him back this early. He could not walk away from this.

Or her. And it wasn’t entirely altruism. A part of Puller wondered whether his aunt could once more help him through troubling times. And not just with his father. He had never really talked about what had happened in West Virginia with anyone, not even his brother. Yet, despite what he’d told his brother, Puller had things he needed to talk about. What he didn’t have was someone he felt comfortable doing that with.

Maybe his aunt could be that person. Again.

It looked like he was headed to Paradise.

CHAPTER

7

THERE WERE MANY AVENUES, it seemed, to get to Paradise. Puller chose a Delta flight connecting through Atlanta that got him into the Northwest Florida Regional Airport four and a half hours after he left Washington. The airport was actually on land owned by the United States government. Eglin Air Force Base was one of the biggest Air Force bases in the world, and one the Army grunt Puller had visited while in Ranger School.

This part of Florida was on central daylight saving time, so when Puller walked to the Hertz rental car counter he took a few moments to change the time on his watch. It was now ten-thirty hours CDST. He had gained an hour. The temperature was already in the eighties.

“Welcome to the Emerald Coast,” the woman behind the Hertz counter told him. She was short and stout with frizzy hair dyed brown from its normal gray.

“I thought the spiel would be ‘Welcome to Paradise,’ ” said Puller.

She looked up at him and smiled. “Well, that’s about forty minutes or so from here. And I try to mix it up. But I probably say ‘Welcome to Paradise’ about twenty percent of the time.”

“I guess even Paradise can get a little old.”

“You want a convertible?” she asked. “Everyone does when they come here. Got a beautiful Corvette that was just turned in.”

“I don’t know, how much is it?”

When she said the per diem price he shook his head. “Army doesn’t pay me enough to afford that.”

“You’re in the Army?”

“Ever since college.”

“So is my son. He’s a Ranger.”

“I was an instructor with the Ranger Training Brigade and then went across the street to the 75th out of Fort Benning for two years before I deployed to the Middle East.

“Rangers lead the way.”

“It’s what I’ve always thought despite what the Marines and the SEALs say,” replied Puller.

She paused. “You still want that Corvette?”

“Like I said, ma’am, it’s not in my budget.”

“How much can you afford?”

Puller told her.

“Then it is in your budget.” She started clicking computer keys.

“Can you do that?” he asked.

“I just did,” she replied. “And the GPS is thrown in for no charge.”

“I appreciate it.”

“No, I appreciate you.”

The Corvette was a gold color, and Puller pulled out onto the road feeling pretty golden himself. He took Highway 85 south and passed places named Shalimar, Cinco Bayou, and Fort Walton Beach. Then he merged onto the Miracle Strip Parkway, crossed over Okaloosa Island, which was also part of the massive footprint of Eglin AFB, zoomed across a bridge, drove through the town of Destin, continued east, and a short while later arrived in Paradise.

As he looked around he could see why it was named Paradise. Everything was relatively new, distinctively upscale, and clean, with postcard ocean views. There were high-rise condo buildings right on the water, a picturesque harbor with fishing boats that looked right out of a Hollywood film, chic-looking restaurants, Gucci-level shopping, beautiful women wearing very little, cars that made his Corvette look cheap, and a general air of “this is as good as it gets, people.”

He parked in a free spot, climbed out of the low-slung car—no small feat for someone his size—and looked around. He wore jeans, a loose-fitting untucked long-sleeved white shirt, and loafers sans socks. His M11 pistol was tucked into a belt holster at the small of his back and covered by the shirt. As an Army CID agent he was required to carry his sidearm with him at all times. And even if it hadn’t been required he would have done it anyway.

Multiple tours in the Middle East just did that to a guy. You gunned up as naturally as you drew a breath. Because without guns the odds were someone would try to stop you from breathing.

The sun was climbing high in the sky. It was hot but the breeze was nice, managing to evaporate several beads of perspiration off his forehead. Several young, curvy, and barely clothed ladies gave him long, interested looks as they passed by clutching their Kate Spade and Hermès bags and teetering in their Jimmy Choos.

He didn’t reciprocate. He was still on leave, but this was no vacation. He was here on a mission, albeit a personal one.

He slipped off his shoes and walked to the beach just a few steps away. It was some of the whitest sand he could remember seeing, and it was soft. Middle East sand was different, grittier. But that might have been because on that sand people had been doing their best to kill him by gun, IED, knife, or simply using their bare hands. That sort of marred the perception one had of a place.

The water too was unique. He could now understand the appellation “Emerald Coast.” The water did look like a huge pan of luminous green stones. The breakers were calm today. The wooden board displaying the water conditions indicated yellow, which meant light surf and medium hazard. But he wasn’t here for a swim.

When he’d done his third and last phase in Ranger school it had been conducted in Florida. But not Paradise. It was in the swamps of the Sunshine State, filled with gators, moccasins, rattlers, and coral snakes. Puller couldn’t remember a bikini-clad hottie or Gucci bag within a hundred miles. And even worse than that were the Ranger instructors, who had kicked his ass from one end of the Florida muck to the other.

He watched as sunbathers sat under blue umbrellas or lay on towels. He had never seen so many mostly naked asses and top-down ladies in his life. And more than a few were not in the best of shape. It would have been far preferable for them to dress a lot more modestly. He observed a tanned male lifeguard sitting high up in his tower, scanning the waters for trouble. Down below another tanned and buff lifeguard on a three-wheeler sped down the sand.

Nice life if you could get it.

Puller looked up toward the sun, snatched a few rays, and then decided his tanning time was over. The Army did not encourage loitering, whether he was on leave or not.

He walked back to the car, rubbed sand off his feet, and slipped his loafers back on. He watched as a cop car with “Paradise PD” and palm trees airbrushed across the doors rolled by. There were two cops inside.

The driver was a burly guy with a shaved head, wearing reflector shades. He slowed the car, checked out Puller’s ride, then gazed up at the tall man.

He nodded.

Puller nodded back, having no idea what the man was trying to communicate, if anything. But it was always a good idea to stay on the good side of the local police, even if they had foliage painted on their vehicles.

Behind her shades the lady cop eyed Puller too. She was blonde and looked to be in her early thirties. Unlike her partner, she didn’t nod at him. When she looked away she said something to her partner and the cruiser sped off.

Puller stared after them for a few moments, climbed into his Corvette, and drove off. He had plugged his aunt’s address into the car’s GPS. It said he was only five minutes away.

Five minutes to go with no idea what he would be facing.

It was a lot like combat.

But in combat you usually had support, backup.

Here he was solo.

After going it alone in West Virginia he was beginning to find this strategy a little annoying.

If he were lucky Betsy Simon would answer the door and invite him in for iced tea.

CHAPTER

8

HE WAS A WELCOME addition to the landscaping company because he was as strong as three men and could outwork all of them, which he had proven beyond doubt his first day on the job.

After fleeing the beach as the bodies of the two people slowly drifted out into the Gulf with the tide, he had ridden the stolen bike to a part of Paradise that was not as picturesque as the rest. This was a prearranged place for him to stay, rented for one month and stocked with food. It was a twelve-by-twelve room with a hot plate, yet was more living space than he had ever had before. He felt fortunate to have it. He had rested for several hours, hydrated, eaten, nursed his injuries, and contemplated his next moves.

It was the sort of neighborhood where everyone either drove decades-old pickup trucks and cars with bald tires and smoking engines or else rode bikes or hitched rides with more affluent friends to get where they needed to go. At night, the area was not safe to go out in unless you had the protection of one of the gangs that controlled this small corner of Paradise. It was not near the water, and no one would ever come here to take tourist photos. But it was where most of the men and women lived who cut the lawns, cleaned the pools, washed the clothes, and cleaned the houses for the wealthier folks who called Paradise home.

He had ventured out at night, but only to confirm his employment with one of the larger landscape companies. One look at his size and physique was all that the company foreman needed to pronounce him up to the task. On the walk back to his apartment he had encountered four young men who were street-level members of a gang that called themselves dueños de la calle, or the street kings.

They had encircled him on a quiet side avenue, gazing up at his great size. It was like the bull elephant surrounded by a pack of lionesses. They were trying to decide if they could collectively take him. He could see the gun bulges under their shirts and in the streetlight the glints of homemade shivs and store-bought blades resting in their hands.

He did not wonder if they could take him.

He knew they would fail, armed or not.

He had already decided how he would kill each of them if they attacked. It was not his first choice, because it would complicate his reason for being here. But he obviously couldn’t let them kill him either.

He kept walking and they kept encircling him like a moving bubble of flesh and bone. Finally, he stopped, looked at them. They spoke to him in Spanish. He shook his head, told them in broken Spanish that he didn’t really speak it, though he did, fluently. He only did this to throw them off, make it harder for them to communicate with him. Frustration messed with the mind.

Then he spoke in his native tongue, and this seemed to catch them off guard, which had been his intent.

The largest gangbanger, probably in an attempt to show he was not cowed by the big man, strode closer and asked him in English where he was from.

In answer he pointed in the direction of the water.

This did not seem to please them.

The smallest of them shot forward, using more courage and adrenaline than common sense, and tried to stick a knife in his gut. The man moved with a speed that was surprising for someone his size. He disarmed the smaller man and lifted him off the pavement with one arm as though he were a child. He placed the blade against his throat, where it tickled the little man’s trembling carotid. Then with a flash of movement he threw the knife and it buried point-first in a wooden door twenty feet across the street.

He dropped the man and the gang melted away into the night.

They were young, but obviously their stupidity had limits.

He walked on.

The next day had been spent in twelve hours of labor for which he received eight dollars per hour. This was paid in cash at the end of the day, but he was docked five dollars for food that consisted of a bottle of water, a sandwich, and chips. And another dollar per hour was deducted because of rising gas prices, he was told. The money was meaningless to him. He simply took it, stuffed it into his pocket, and rode in the back of a battered truck to a location near where he was staying.

The temperature had reached ninety-eight that day, and he had been out in the sun for all of it. While even the most veteran of the company’s workers had wilted quickly in the heat and humidity and sought frequent breaks in whatever shade was available, he had worked away, as oblivious to the heat as he had been to swimming all those hours through the Gulf.

When one had been to hell, anything less did not intimidate.

He had sat on his bed early the next morning. Sweat dripped down his back because his rent did not include air-conditioning that actually worked. Part of what had been left for him in the room had included a cell phone, with certain numbers and information on it that would prove useful in completing his task.

He moved through the phone’s screens every day going over what he needed to and deleting certain things he wouldn’t want anyone to possibly discover. Finished, he sat back on his bed and lifted a glass of cold water to his lips. He stared around the close confines of his room: four plain walls and a solitary window overlooking the street where the sounds of late-night partiers could be heard coming from the waterside, a long way from here. The closer one drew to the beach, the more it cost.

He was supposed to have traveled here by plane. Instead, he had taken a tranquilizer dart strike to his chest when he was on the street of a Mexican border town just across the line from Brownsville, Texas, one of the most dangerous places on earth. He had been fortunate to have just been tranquilized. He had woken on a vessel at sea trussed up like a shark in a net. Shifted from boat to boat, abandoned oil platform to abandoned oil platform, he had been successful at his first real chance at escape.

He took in a long breath and sat up against the wall as the frail bedframe squeaked and groaned trying to support his weight. His door was locked, a bureau in front of it. If someone came for him in the night he would not be surprised. He had slept palming a serrated knife. If someone came for him he would kill him. It was just his life, as he had always known it to be.

He got up to go to work.

CHAPTER

9

PULLER EASED THE CORVETTE to the curb and gazed across the street at his aunt’s house. Sunset by the Sea was the name of the community, and Puller decided it was appropriate. The place was near the water and the sun did set every day just like clockwork.

His aunt’s house was a nice, sturdy-looking two-story with a garage. He had never visited her here. She had been mostly out of his life long before he’d joined the Army. She had originally lived in Pennsylvania with her husband, Lloyd. Puller recalled that the move to Florida had come about twenty years ago, when Lloyd retired.

There had been a few points of correspondence with his aunt over the years. His brother had been better at keeping up with Betsy Simon than he had. But then Bobby had gone to prison, their father had mostly lost his mind, and Puller had lost all contact with a woman who had been central to him as a little boy.

That was what life did to you, he supposed. Wiped out important things and replaced them with other important things.

He spent a few minutes sizing up the area. Nice, upscale, palm trees. No mansions here, though. He had passed a whole spate of those on the way here. They tended to be close to or right on the water, big as condo buildings—huge pools, high gates, and Bugattis and McLarens parked in circular drives with towering fountains as focal points. That sort of lifestyle was as foreign to Puller as living in Pyongyang, North Korea, would have been. And for him probably just as distasteful.

He would never make much money. After all, the only thing he did was continually risk life and limb to keep America safe. That apparently wasn’t as important or as valued as making billions on Wall Street at the expense of the average citizen, who was often left holding the bag of empty promises that seemed to be about all that remained of the American dream.

But his aunt had apparently done okay. Her house was fairly large and immaculate, and the yard watered and well tended. She apparently had not outlived her money.

He didn’t see anyone outside or passing down the street, either on foot or by car. The heat was really miserable, and maybe people took their siestas around now. He gazed at his watch. It was closing in on one p.m. He climbed out of the car, crossed the street, strode up the sidewalk to his aunt’s front door, and knocked.

There was no answer.

He knocked again, his gaze sliding left and then right, checking to see if her immediate neighbors had their curiosity antennae out. He didn’t see any prying eyes and he knocked once more.

He heard no footsteps.

He walked to the garage door and peered through the glass. Parked inside was a Toyota Camry. It looked relatively new. He wondered if his aunt still drove. He tried to lift the garage door, but it was locked down. Probably on an automatic door lift, he thought. No way elderly people were going to bend down and constantly jack up heavy overhead doors simply because they wanted to go for a drive.

He walked to the side yard and his height allowed him to peer over the privacy fence. He saw a fountain in the middle of the small backyard.

He tried the gate. It was locked. It was a simple latch, though; a bit of jiggling and it opened. He stepped into the backyard and walked over to the fountain. The first thing he noticed was the gouge in the dirt just outside of the stone surround that held the water in. He knelt down and studied the gouge and found another one parallel to it and about three feet away. He looked at the fountain. Someone had pulled the plug on the pump, because the water, designed to flow from the top of the fountain and into the lower pool, was not operating.

He leaned over and studied the floor of the pool. There were loose decorative stones laid there, but something had disturbed them. Some of the stones had been pushed around to such a degree that the concrete floor of the pool was revealed. As he leaned closer he saw where one of the rocks from the stone surround had been partially dislodged and was lying on the ground. There was a mark on this stone. He looked at it more closely.

Is that blood?

He knelt down and studied the topography in relation to the back of the house. He noted the gouges in the dirt once more. Could they be from a walker? There were no footprints that he could see. The grass was wiry and pretty dry, so he wouldn’t have expected any discernible impressions. He leaned in closer and studied the pool. Maybe two feet deep, about six feet in diameter, with the water kept in by the low stone wall.

His gaze swept around the rocks looking for any other marks. He saw no blood, no human tissue, and no hairs. He moved closer, peered down into the clear water, and once more observed the places where the stones had been disturbed.

Puller stood and pantomimed falling into the pool, hands out to break his fall. One there, one there. Knees impacting the decorative stones too. He adjusted things a bit to account for a possible walker. He compared his pantomime with what he was seeing. Not an exact fit, but something had disturbed the stones.

But unless she were unconscious his aunt could have rolled herself to the side and gotten her face out of the water. So, unconscious for some reason, facedown in the water. Two feet of it would easily cover her head. Death would have been quick.

Then Puller shook his head.

I see felonies everywhere. Dial it back, Puller.

He had no proof that his aunt was dead, or hurt in any way. He might have been crawling around her backyard in the heat looking for evidence of a crime that had not even been committed. That’s what he got for investigating crimes for a living. He could also make them up out of whole cloth if necessary.

Or even unnecessarily.

Then he took a step back and received confirmation that something out of the ordinary had indeed happened back here.

There were two parallel lines visible in the grass, like miniature train tracks where the grass had been pushed down. When he looked at another spot in the lawn, he saw another pair of parallel tracks. Puller knew what that meant. He had seen it many times before.

He walked swiftly to the back door and tried the knob. Locked. At least his aunt was security-minded. But the lock was just a single bolt. It took Puller all of fifteen seconds to beat it. He stepped inside, closed the door behind him.

The interior layout of the house seemed relatively simple. Straight hall from front to back, rooms off that. Stairs leading up, fore and aft, with bedrooms no doubt on the second floor. With his aunt’s advanced age he figured she might have a master suite on the main level. Puller had heard that concept was very popular in retirement communities.

He passed a laundry room, small den, and the kitchen and found the master suite off that. He finally arrived at a large family room that opened off the foyer and was visible from the kitchen over a waist-high wall. The furnishings were heavy on tropical motifs. There was a gas fireplace surrounded by stacked slate on one wall. Puller had checked out the Panhandle region and discovered that the lows in the middle of winter rarely crept down into the thirties, but he could understand his aunt, who hailed from the snowy Keystone State, wanting to warm her bones with a cozy fire that didn’t require chopping wood.

He noted the alarm panel next to the front door. The green light showed that it was not on, a fact he already knew because the alarm had not gone off when he had opened the back door.

There was an abundance of photos—mostly old ones—on shelves, consoles, and occasional tables set around the family room. Puller studied them one by one and found several of his old man, and him and his brother in their respective uniforms with their aunt Betsy. The last of these was from when Puller had joined the Army. He wondered now where the break in the family had come but couldn’t quite put a finger on it. There were also quite a few photos of Betsy’s husband, Lloyd. He’d been a little shorter than his wife, his face was full of life, and there was one picture of the two of them in which Lloyd was wearing his Army greens from World War II. Betsy was in her WAC, or Women’s Army Corps, uniform. The way they were gazing at each other in the photo it looked like love at first sight, if there was such a thing.

Puller heard it before he had a chance to see it.

He stepped to the window and drew the curtain back just a fraction of an inch. Ever since his tours in the Middle East he never revealed more of himself—physically or emotionally—than was absolutely necessary.

The police cruiser pulled to the curb and the driver killed the engine.

No sirens, no lights; the two cops inside were obviously in stealth mode. They climbed out and drew their guns, looked around, their gazes inching to the front of the house.

Someone had seen Puller in the yard, maybe going into the house, and had called the cops.

The male officer was bald and burly, the same one he had seen earlier. Next to him was his female partner. She was two inches taller and looked in better shape. He was thick and muscular up top but light in the legs. Too many bench presses and not enough squats. He looked, to Puller, like a washout from the military, but he obviously couldn’t be certain about that. Maybe it was just the condescending nod the man had given him earlier.

The guy held his nine-millimeter awkwardly, even unprofessionally, as if he had learned how to do it by watching TV or by sitting on his butt at a theater to see how action stars handled their weapons. She carried hers with perfect control and ease, her weight balanced equally between both legs, her knees slightly bent, her silhouette angled to the side to lower her target profile. It was like a Pro-Am tournament pairing, thought Puller.

If his aunt was dead and there had been an investigation, he sure as hell hoped bald and burly hadn’t been heading it up. That had screwup written all over it.

Puller decided to cut to the chase, mainly because he didn’t want the guy to accidentally shoot himself. He slipped a photo from its frame and slid it into his shirt pocket. Then he walked to the front door, opened it, and stepped out into the brilliant sunshine of Paradise.

CHAPTER

10

“FREEZE!”

The order came from the woman.

Puller obeyed the command.

“Hands over your head,” added her partner.

“Do you want me to freeze or put my hands over my head?” asked Puller. “Because I can’t do both. And I’m not looking to get shot over a misunderstanding.”

The two cops moved closer, one to his right, one to his left.

Puller noted that the woman watched his hands, while the guy was glued to his eyes. The woman was right. Puller couldn’t kill with his eyes. But his hand could pull a weapon and open fire within a second without his eyes moving an inch.

She said, “Put your hands over your head, fingers interlocked. Then down on your stomach, legs spread, facedown.”

“I have an M11 in a rear belt holster. And my Army creds and badge are inside my front pants pocket.”

The two cops made the mistake of glancing at each other. Puller could have shot them both dead in the two seconds they took to do that. But he didn’t and so they would get to live another day.

“What the hell is an M11?” asked the male officer.

Before Puller could answer the woman said, “Army’s version of the Sig P228.”

Puller eyed her with interest. She was about five-seven, with blonde hair pinned up tight with a clamp at the back. Her build was slender, compact, but she moved with a dancer’s grace and her hands looked strong.

He said, “If I could reach very slowly in my front pants pocket I’ll show you my creds and badge.”

This time the woman didn’t look at her partner. “What unit?”

“The 701st out of Quantico, Virginia,” he answered promptly.

“CID or MP?” she asked.

“CID. I’m a CWO.”

Before her partner could ask she translated: “Chief warrant officer.”

Puller looked at her curiously. “You former military?”

“My brother.”

Puller said, “Can I get my pack out?”

“Do it really slowly,” said the guy, tightening the grip on his gun.

Puller knew that was the exact wrong thing to do. An overly tight grip meant you would increase your error rate about thirty percent or more. But he was more concerned that the guy would mess up and accidentally shoot him.

“Two fingers in the pocket, that’s all,” said the woman. “And keep your other hand on the top of your head.” Her voice was firm, direct, even. He liked that. Her nerves were definitely not running away with her senses, unlike her partner.

Puller two-fingered out his cred pack and held it up, ID card first, badge second. The CID’s one-eyed eagle symbol was unique.

The two drew close enough for Puller to simply hand the pack to the woman while the man kept his drawdown on him. He actually wished it had been the other way around, because the guy looked wound tight enough to shoot all three of them dead.

She lifted her gaze from the cred pack, checking the photo on there with the man himself, and said, “Okay, but I’m going to have to take your sidearm as a precaution until we sort this out.”

“Small of my back, belt holster.”

She moved behind him while her partner took a step back and lined Puller up in his iron sights.

She gave him a quick but efficient patdown, her hands flitting over his backside, then down and up the insides of his legs. Puller felt his shirt being lifted up. Then she slid the pistol out of the holster and a moment later she stood in front of him, gripping his pistol by the muzzle and pointing it downward.

She said, “We got a call about a break-in. What are you doing here?”

“This is my aunt Betsy Simon’s place. I came down here to pay her a visit. No one answered the door, so I went in through the back.”

“Long way to come, from Virginia,” said the man, with his gun still aimed at Puller’s head.

Puller didn’t look at him but spoke to the woman. “Can you ask your partner to holster? Accidents can happen.”

“The cred pack’s legit, Barry, and he’s unarmed now. You can stand down.”

“John Puller,” said the woman. “And your aunt was Betsy Simon?”

He nodded. “And you are?” He had glanced at her nametag, but the sun’s glare made it impossible to read.

“Officer Landry, Cheryl Landry. That’s Officer Barry Hooper.”

She handed him back his cred pack.

“Any idea where my aunt is?” asked Puller.

Landry looked at her partner nervously.

Puller caught the look. “I saw some interesting things in the backyard. Did something happen back there?”

“Why do you think that?” she asked suspiciously.

“Clues around the fountain. And I saw tracks in the grass back there where a gurney had been wheeled in and out. I’m assuming that gurney was carrying someone. Was that someone my aunt?”

“We were first responders,” said Landry quietly.

“To what exactly?”

“The lady who lived here drowned in the little pool back there,” interjected Hooper.

His partner shot him a reproachful glance and said, “It seemed to be an accident. I’m sorry, Agent Puller.”

Puller stood there trying to take it all in. In a way, he was not surprised. In another way he was flummoxed. He had been hoping that the victim was someone other than his aunt.

He asked, “Can you walk me through what happened?”

Hooper snapped, “We’re responding to a B and E right now and you’re it. We’re not standing here jawing with you. We should be cuffing you and reading you your rights.”

Landry looked at him. “He’s right. We don’t know if your aunt was Betsy Simon. And we don’t know what you were doing in her house.”

“Photo in my shirt pocket. I took it from the house.”

Landry slid the photo out, looked at it.

“It’s quite a few years old, but if you saw my aunt I don’t think she’s changed that much. And I look pretty much the same, with a few more lines. And our names are listed on the back.”

Landry studied the picture and the reverse side and then let Hooper look at it.

“It’s him, Barry,” said Landry.

“Still not conclusive to me,” retorted Hooper.

Puller shrugged and took the photo back. “Okay, so let’s go down to the station and straighten it out. I was heading there anyway after I finished looking around here.”

“Like I said, the lady fell and drowned in her little pool,” said Hooper. “Accident all the way.”

“Medical examiner confirm that?”

Landry said, “Haven’t heard. Autopsy should be done by now.”

Hooper said, “It was an accident. Lady fell and drowned. We checked the scene out thoroughly.”

“Yeah, that’s what you keep saying. What, are you trying to convince yourself it’s true?”

Landry added, “That’s what it looked like all right, Agent Puller. I can understand it’s hard to accept a tragedy like that, but it happens. Especially with older folks.”

“And Florida has more than most,” added Hooper. “Dropping like flies every minute of every day.”

Puller turned to look at him and took a step closer to the man to accentuate their differences in vertical prominence. “Except they’re not.”

“Not what?” said Hooper, looked confused.

“Flies. And in case you didn’t know, autopsies reveal about twenty-five percent of the time a different cause of death than the one everybody thought it was.”

“We can go down to the station,” said Landry in a placating tone. “And straighten things out, like you said.”

“You want me to follow you or go in your car?” asked Puller.

“It’s not a choice. You go in our ride,” said Hooper, before Landry could speak. “With your hands cuffed and your rights read.”

“You’re really going to arrest me?” asked Puller.

“Did you break into that house?” Hooper shot back.

“I went in to check on my aunt.”

“Why didn’t you call the police if you were concerned?” asked Landry. “We could have filled you in.”

“Maybe I could have, but it’s not my way of doing things,” replied Puller.

“Army have the luxury of letting its guys just bop around the country doing their own stuff?” said Hooper. “No wonder our taxes are so damn high.”

“Even the Army lets its guys have some R and R time, Officer Hooper.”

“We’ll leave your car here,” broke in Landry. “You ride with us, but without the cuffs or the rights read.”

“Thanks,” said Puller, as Hooper eyed his partner darkly.

“But if your story doesn’t check out,” she warned, “that all changes.”

“Fair enough,” said Puller. “But after you find out I’m legit, I’ll need to see my aunt’s body.”

He walked toward their cruiser. “Let’s roll,” he called back over his shoulder.

The two cops slowly followed.

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

28

PULLER HAD ALREADY SPOTTED the place before, a Hertz rental outlet that stayed open until eleven. He pulled to the curb and got out. It only took a few minutes before he had turned in the Corvette and driven off in a GMC Tahoe. The man at the counter seemed surprised that Puller would want to trade in the Vette for a glorified truck/van, especially in a beach town, but he smiled and handed him the keys.

“Have a terrific time in Paradise, sir.”

“Yeah,” said Puller.

He next went to a beach clothing store and purchased a baseball cap that read “Paradise Is Forever,” sunglasses, and sneakers. Flip-flops or sandals were more typical of beach attire, but one could not run in flip-flops or sandals, at least not very far or very fast. He also purchased some T-shirts and cargo shorts with big pockets that could hold big things, like weapons. He changed into the shorts, T-shirt, and sneakers in the dressing room, put the ball cap on, slipped the shades into a pocket along with his M11, and walked out.

He was physically imposing enough that it would be hard to miss him in a crowd, but most people’s observation skills were poor. Dressed the way he was now, he could probably walk right past White, Black, and Latino and they wouldn’t even look at him twice. At least he had to hope for that.

He parked two blocks from the Sierra, but on the same street. It was well past dark by now but not quiet. There was a lot of activity around here at night, and not just on the beach. Cars gunning up and down streets, people yelling. He heard footsteps running. Whether they were heading to trouble or away from it he didn’t know and didn’t really care.

Diego had said his casa where he lived with his abuela was down the street and to the left.

Puller checked his watch and then scanned the street. He figured that White, Black, and Latino had all awoken by now, made sure their brains were still in their heads, to the extent that they had any, and were now on the revenge path. He further speculated that they would have done some recon of their own and found out that he was staying at the Sierra and drove a flashy Corvette. Thus the transfer to the Tahoe. Plus the Tahoe had a lot more space and Puller figured he was going to need it. His investigation duffel would be pretty big and the Vette’s trunk wasn’t that large. They might have recruited more muscle to help them enact that revenge, seeing as how three of them were not enough. And they were also now spooked and suffering from concussions.

It might come to bullets this time instead of fists.

But before he confronted that, Puller wanted to check something else out.

He walked down the street, slipping past the Sierra, and nearly ran into a boy coming the other way. Puller caught him by the arm to keep him from falling.

“You okay?”

The boy’s small face was all bunched up in anger. He cursed at Puller.

“Can you tell me where Diego lives?”

He cursed at Puller again, the expletives coming out in a mishmash of English and Spanish.

Puller slipped a five-dollar bill out of his pocket. “You can either take this or a bar of soap in your mouth.”

The boy pointed down the street. “The blue one. On the second floor.”

Puller gave the boy the fiver and he ran off.

The blue one meant the little building with the blue awning. It seemed to be a rooming house composed of two stories and what looked to be about eight rooms, four up, four down. There was a wraparound deck on the exterior of the building and Puller made his way up the stairs. He knocked on one door but there was no answer. He was about to knock on another one when the door opened and Diego stood there.

He looked up at Puller and right away Puller could tell something was wrong.

“What is it, Diego?”

There was movement over Diego’s shoulder and Puller was able to answer his own question.

Isabel was standing there with Mateo next to her. Her face was bruised and so was Mateo’s. Someone had used them for punching practice. Mateo was sniffling and coughing. Isabel said nothing. She just stared at Puller with unfriendly eyes.

But Diego said, “Isabel told me what happened. I want to thank you for helping her and Mateo.”

“Are they your brother and sister?”

“My cousins.”

Isabel stepped forward. “We all live with our grandmother.”

“Where is she?”

“Working,” said Diego. “At a restaurant on the water. The Clipper. She works in the kitchen.”

“As a cook?”

“No, as a cleaner,” said Isabel.

Puller motioned to their injured faces. “Who did that?”

“Who do you think?” said Isabel.

“I’m sorry but I had to step in, Isabel. I couldn’t just let them do that to you.”

“Why not? It’s happened before.”

“You’re not a puta,” retorted Diego. Mateo began to cry.

“Maybe I am a puta,” said Isabel.

“No, you’re not,” said Puller. “It’s not a road you want to go down.”

“Oh, right. I’ll just go to college and become a doctor or something.”

“Why not?” asked Puller.

She looked at him pityingly. “What planet do you live on?”

“You are not a puta,” Diego said again and she looked away, gently stroking Mateo’s head to make him stop crying.

Puller refocused on Diego. “Did you see the car?”

Diego looked over at Isabel, who was watching them closely. He stepped outside and closed the door.

“What happened to your and Isabel’s parents?” Puller asked.

Diego shrugged. “One day they were here and then the next day they weren’t. They might have gone back to El Salvador. I do not know.”

“Doesn’t your grandmother know what happened?”

“She does not say if she does.”

“And your parents would just leave you all here?”

“They must think this is better than to go back there. They wanted the best for us. Now I am the man of the house. I will take care of things.”

“Okay, I like your guts, but you’re still just a kid.”

“Maybe I am a kid, but I found your car.” He paused. “And you said there would be more money.”

“Did I?” But Puller had already pulled out a twenty. “Give me the details.”

Diego gave him the license plate number first.

“How’d you get that? It was covered up.”

“The men they have to eat, right? When they do, I take a rag and wipe the dirt off. Before they come back, I put the dirt back on.”

“Describe them to me.”

Diego did so.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Puller handed him the twenty bucks.

“Isabel and Mateo. Did someone come here and hurt them?”

Diego shook his head. “Not here or I would have looked like they do too, because I would have tried to stop them.”

“Tell me about the men I knocked out. Are they part of a gang?”

“They want to be, but they are so stupid that no one wants them. They run some drugs on their own, but nothing much. Then they hassle people. And get money for that. They are scum.”

“Do they have friends?”

“Anyone here has friends, if they have the money to pay for them.” As he said this, Diego carefully folded up the twenty and placed it in his pocket.

“Think they’re waiting for me back at my place?”

Diego shrugged. “I think you must be very careful.”

“Thanks for your help.”

“I just do it for the money.”

“I admire your honesty.”

“Don’t trust anyone in Paradise, mister, including me.”

“At some point, Diego, you have to trust someone. You need any help, you can come to me.”

“If you are still alive, mister. We will see.”

“You can just call me Puller.”

“Okay, Puller. Buena suerte.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Puller walked off. Part of him was thinking about having to deal with the three stooges again, and possibly their paid help. But part of him was thinking about the descriptions that Diego had just given him of the two men in the Chrysler.

Lean, fit, buzz cuts. They fit the description of men who had the same employer he did.

The United States military.

CHAPTER

29

PULLER WALKED TO THE TAHOE, climbed into the back, stretched out, and thought about what he had just learned.

If the guys in the Chrysler were former military, then that changed the balance of things. They might very well see through his disguise and change rides. They might be able to fire at him faster than he could fire back.

And if they were still in the military he wondered why they would be here following him.

If they weren’t in the service he wondered the very same thing.

After what had happened to him in West Virginia it was possible that the military had put a tail on him. He decided to see if that theory held any water. He called Kristen Craig back.

She must’ve recognized his number because instead of hello she said, “Miss me already?”

“Always.”

“Seriously, don’t you ever sleep?”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Yeah, but I heard what happened in West Virginia. Not the official story, because there is no official story. But just scuttlebutt, stuff between the lines. I think you could probably write your own ticket right now. Even take a vacation if you wanted to.”

“I’m on vacation. Well, sort of.”

“I have my iPad ready to take down your next assignment, boss.”

Puller chuckled to himself. He got a kick out of the lady, he really did. If she weren’t married, he might have even asked her out.

“I need a license plate run down.”

“Okay. Not usually something I do, but I know people.”

“Do you know people who can get it done sooner rather than later?”

“You know the drill. Somewhere in the world there are DoD personnel awake and on the job.”

“And there are two of them on this call.”

“I’ll turn it around as fast as I can. Now, can you tell me a little of what you’re involved in?”

“Why?”

“Just in case you get killed and I have to explain my billable hours. Is it even related to the military?”

“Five minutes ago I didn’t think so. Now I’m not so sure. It all started when my aunt sent a letter saying things were not quite right in Paradise, Florida. Then the next thing I knew, she was dead under suspicious circumstances.”

“Jesus, Puller, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. Anyway, I got down here and things got even funkier.”

“And the license plate?”

“Two guys making my business their business by following me. And from their descriptions they sound a lot like dudes who either wear or wore the uniform.”

“I don’t like the sound of this.”

Her voice had clearly changed. Gone was the playfulness, replaced with legitimate concern.

“Me either.”

“Do you have any backup?”

“Like I said, I’m on vacation.”

“You need to stop taking vacations, then, and get back to work. Seriously, Puller, get somebody to watch your back.”

“Good advice. I’ll start looking. In the meantime, get me what you can. I’ll pick up the duffel tomorrow as planned.”

“Just make sure you get to tomorrow.”

“I’ll do my best.”

He clicked off, set his internal clock to wake in two hours, and closed his eyes. His hand gripped the butt of his M11 and he knew it would take him three seconds to wake, aim, and fire at anyone trying to do him harm. If that wasn’t fast enough then he was dead. That’s just how it went.

At the end of two hours he woke in the backseat of the Tahoe, refreshed and ready to go. It was one a.m. now and he believed that the time was right for things to happen. Both military and cops liked to strike at night. Targets were tired, in their beds, with weapons often conveniently out of reach.

Yet even stupid criminals could grasp the concept of coming for you in the dark.

Ten minutes later Puller’s theory turned into a fact.

White, Black, Latino, and three of their best friends were heading down the street, marching with purpose. It seemed like they had worked out the optimal ratio at six to one. To Puller, their math was a little fuzzy, but maybe his standards were higher. Actually, there was no maybe about it, his standards were higher.

All the men’s features were grim. White was perhaps the most grim-looking of all, largely because it seemed his mouth was wired shut.

I must have hit him even harder than I thought I did.

They passed the Tahoe without even a glance. On the battlefield this negligence would have resulted in their immediate deaths. But this was Florida and not Afghanistan, so Puller refrained from drilling them all in the back with rounds from his M11.

He could see gun bumps under their shirts, front and rear. Two of them carried baseball bats and another was clasping a metal bar. They were loaded for bear. Geared for war. Ready to kill.

Of course probably none of them knew what being in actual combat was like.

Puller did.

And for those who had experienced combat, they never wanted to experience it again. It was not really a situation sane people tended to embrace. But Puller, who was sane, had embraced it countless times, because he had signed up for the job. It had changed him completely and irreversibly. It had made him a killing machine. He could slaughter people in ways unimaginable to most folks.

He debated whether to let the night pass without this encounter, but then decided it was best to get it over with. Otherwise he would always be looking over his shoulder. And he didn’t have time for that.

He did make one phone call, relayed certain information to the person on the other end of the line, and clicked off. He waited ten minutes and then got out of the Tahoe.

It was time to go to work.

CHAPTER

30

THE STRETCH OF BEACH was isolated and thus deserted. That was why he was here tonight. He had ridden a small scooter over. With his great size he looked slightly ridiculous on the little machine. But he didn’t care. It beat walking and the helmet hid his face.

He stood near a dune and behind a palm tree and observed the sandy rim with a pair of night-vision optics that had been in the welcome package he had received on arriving in Paradise. The ocean was vast and black, nearly impossible to distinguish from the sky above. The conditions were hazy and the featureless horizon blended with the water to seem like one solid mass.

The sea captured his interest for a good reason. What was coming tonight would definitely be arriving by water.

He checked his watch. He had been given parameters of time, and that’s all they were, parameters. But his patience was nearly infinite. He had spent years of his life waiting for relatively insignificant events to occur. Those were lessons that never left you. They were mental scars carved on your brain and your soul.

He drew in a breath and scrunched up his face. The smell was foul and it apparently always was here. He looked at the sand with his optics.

The Emerald Coast did not live up to its name here. The sand was marred by black rocks jutting out everywhere, like soft skin pulled back to reveal the hard, charred bone underneath.

There would be no sun worshippers here during the day.

And no one at night for any length of time unless they wore a gas mask.

Forty minutes later his patience was rewarded. It was a wink of white light, nothing more. He saw no red and no green. The boat was not using its running lights, which was highly illegal and highly dangerous under all nighttime marine conditions.

But he could understand their reluctance to announce themselves in such a way. He knew it was not the same boat that had carried him to the abandoned oil platform. He had heard the gunfire. He had seen the men riddled with bullets, their bodies hurtling violently into the water.

But it was another boat, though probably far larger than the one he had been on. It was one in a long string of such vessels carrying precious cargo from one place to another. And this place, this landing, this beach tonight was just one more stop in that string. The ride forward from here would be by land, in a vehicle that was not built for the comfort of its passengers. Nothing about the trip was built for their comfort. But the trip itself would be far more humane than what would happen to them at the end of it.

The boat would not come all the way in to shore, of that he was certain. They would offload onto a smaller, more versatile platform for the final approach.

He turned his attention to the road behind him as he crouched farther down in the native foliage that grew next to the dune. He heard the application of brakes and then doors opening and clunking closed. An overhead door was pulled up.

He crouched still lower, moved to his left, and then lay flat in the sand as he eyed the large box truck and two SUVs that were parked on a small section of asphalt off the roadway. Three men stood next to the truck, its rear door open. Two other men were striding down the path leading to the beach. He assumed they were armed and prepared to use their weapons. He followed their movements down to the edge of the water.

One of the men signaled with a flashlight. A return signal could be seen from farther out on the water. A few minutes passed and then the sound of a small boat engine could be heard. As it drew closer to shore the outline of the vessel became clearer. It was a thirty-foot-long RIB, or rigid hull inflatable boat, which military special forces often used during their missions. It was painted black and was nearly invisible as it made its approach.

It came to within several feet of the beach and the pilot cut the engine, allowing the RIB to gently glide until the bow hit the sand.

The men on the beach hustled forward and started grabbing people off the RIB, one by one until twenty were assembled on the beach. They were tied together and their mouths were taped shut. Even from this distance he could see that many of them were children.

Some had on blue shirts, some red, some green. This was not by accident. The colors designated the purpose and ultimate destination of the prisoners. There were more green shirts than the other colors. He was privy to the meanings the colors represented; thus he was not surprised by this. The choice of green had not been by happenstance either.

To be sure, there was strong cash flow in blue and red, but green was where the real money was.

Two of the men on the beach took the line of captives and led them up the boardwalk, where they were quickly loaded into the box truck.

The RIB’s pilot put his boat in reverse and pulled away from the beach, then turned and headed back out to sea. At the same time another RIB pulled in, cut the engine, drifted to shore, and the same transfer of captives took place. This happened twice more. After the other two RIBs departed and the last group of captives was herded into the truck, the rear door was closed and locked, the men jumped into the cab, and the box truck pulled away with the SUVs following.

He sat alone on the beach watching the vehicles for a few seconds until they disappeared into the darkness, heading west. Then he looked out to sea. He could barely hear the whine of the last RIB; a few seconds later, it was gone too.

He counted in his head. Four boats with a total of eighty captives. The entire transfer had taken less than ten minutes. Ten minutes for eighty human beings to be pushed from point A to point B. Forty green, the rest split roughly equally between red and blue.

He had just seen potentially millions of dollars of illegal commerce march across those sands.

He had no idea where the truck was taking them. He knew that the RIBs would go back to the larger ship lurking out there like some great white shark, be loaded on, and then the ship would power its way back to base. Tomorrow night the process would likely start all over again. This was a business, after all. A big one. And like most businesses, the primary motivation was profit. And to be profitable you had to sell product, as quickly and efficiently as possible, getting good prices and making and thereby keeping happy customers.

The purposes for which the prisoners were being used were all insidious, but the fact was that much of the world simply didn’t care enough to do anything about it.

Well, he wasn’t “much of the world.” He was simply one man. And he did care.

Tonight had been merely a scheduled run for the sellers of human beings. For him it had been a dry run to learn valuable intelligence. Soon there would come a time when the valuable intelligence would be translated into action. He wished it could have been tonight. But that most likely would have ended up with him killing all of the guards, freeing the captives, but destroying any chance he had of achieving his larger goal. Or else with his being gunned down and thrown into the ocean.

He walked a mile down the beach, retrieved his scooter, and headed back to the Sierra. He would sleep for a bit, but he doubted his sleep would be restful. He would keep the images of the captives in his thoughts for tonight, and then for far longer. They deserved to have someone care about them. He did care. But he wanted to do more than care.

He wanted to stop it.

He wanted to stop it all.

But most of all he wanted to find someone.

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

36

LANDRY AND PULLER PARTED COMPANY as Puller answered the phone.

“Hey, Christine.”

But it wasn’t Christine. It was a man’s voice.

“Agent John Puller?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Colonel Peter Walmsey, that’s who, soldier.”

“Yes, sir,” said Puller, automatically snapping to attention even though he was only on the phone. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“I want to know why you’re calling USACIL to perform work on things unrelated to your duties at CID. That’s what I want to damn well know. Do you view the Army’s premier forensics lab as your personal playpen?”

Puller licked his lips and pondered how to respond to this. “Would you be referring to my phone call to Ms. Craig?”

“I would be referring to that, specifically your request that she run down a license plate number for you. And also why a duffel full of investigative equipment owned by this man’s army is on its way to you at Eglin Air Force Base to be used on a matter not involving CID.”

Shit.

“I apologize for the misunderstanding, sir.”

“So you’re saying it was a misunderstanding? Why don’t you explain that one in a way that doesn’t make me want to prefer official charges against you, Puller?”

“I observed two men who looked like soldiers following me in Florida, Colonel Walmsey. I requested that Ms. Craig attempt to use reasonable means at her disposal to determine if the men were members of the service. The most expeditious way of doing that seemed to be tracking their vehicle. I acquired the license plate information and communicated that to Ms. Craig.”

“Why would Army personnel be following you, Puller?”

“If I had the answer to that, sir, I would not have involved Ms. Craig.”

“And the duffel?”

“Connected to the same matter, sir. I came down here on a family matter. I didn’t bring any equipment with me. If it became necessary for me to initiate an investigation I wanted to be properly outfitted to do so.”

“When exactly were you going to inform your superior officer of all this?”

“Once I determined that I had something to report, sir, that involved other military members. But I want to make it clear that I accept full responsibility for this. Ms. Craig was under the impression that I was engaged in authorized work. None of this should reflect on her record, sir.”

“You cover for your friends well, Puller, I’ll give you that. But for your information Ms. Craig has been relieved of duty pending completion of an inquiry on this matter.”

Shit again, thought Puller.

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

“Not as sorry as she was. Now let’s talk about you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I understand from CID that you’re on authorized leave right now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that you successfully carried out a commission in West Virginia that saved this country an enormous headache.”

Puller said nothing.

“So I’m basically being told that you need to get a pass on this. I don’t like that one bit, Puller. Every soldier should be held to the same standard, don’t you agree?”

“Yes I do, sir.”

“And what is that standard?”

Puller thought he was back in boot camp. “The highest possible standard, sir,” he replied automatically.

“But that apparently is not how it’s going down in this case. Sounds like bullshit to me, Puller.”

“Yes, sir, it does.”

“But you can man up and do something about it. Get your ass up here and take the heat.”

Puller admired the skill with which the colonel had maneuvered him into a corner.

“Sir, I would be glad to do that as soon as I have completed my task down here.”

“What the hell task is that?” said Walmsey, who had apparently not reckoned on this response.

“My aunt.”

“Your aunt? What the hell is going on with your aunt?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out, sir.”

“Can’t you ask her?”

“I would, sir, but somebody killed her.”

“Someone killed your aunt?” Walmsey said skeptically. “Is that why you want your duffel? Is your aunt in the Army?”

“No, sir.”

“Then I’m apparently not getting through to you, Puller. What you’re planning to do is an unauthorized—”

It was at this moment that Puller ran out of patience. It was contrary to his nature in speaking with a superior officer, but perhaps his brief time away from the Army had dulled those professional instincts. He would just assume that was the case.

“Sir, if I may elaborate. My aunt sent my father a letter at the VA hospital where he’s currently staying. The letter stated she was afraid, that things were happening down here that she thought were suspicious. My father asked me to investigate. I came here to do so. I found my aunt dead. Naturally my suspicions were aroused.”

When Walmsey next spoke his tone was far less confrontational. “Your father? At the VA hospital?”

“Yes, sir. He’s not that well, but he’s hanging in there. Even though sometimes he thinks he’s still commanding the 101st.”

There was a long stretch of silence and then Walmsey said, “Fighting John Puller is your father?”

“Yes, sir. I’m John Puller Jr.”

“That was not included in my briefing on this. I can’t imagine why the hell not.”

Puller could see a certain aide to Colonel Walmsey getting his or her ass reamed over that one.

“But my father being who he is should not impact this matter at all.”

“No, it shouldn’t,” said Walmsey in a halting voice.

“It’s just that my aunt was my father’s only sibling. He took it hard. He was her younger brother. You have siblings, sir?”

“Two older sisters. Special relationship, big sisters and little brothers.”

“Yes, sir, so I’ve heard.”

There was another long pause.

“Why don’t you carry on down there and we’ll revisit this issue later, Agent Puller.”

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir. And Ms. Craig?”

“Don’t worry about her. I’ll take you at your word that she wasn’t involved in anything that was unauthorized. She’ll be back on duty today.”

“Appreciate it, sir.”

“You tell your father I said hello and convey my best wishes for a speedy recovery.”

“I will do that, Colonel. Thank you. Uh, any chance on running that license plate down, sir?”

But the line went dead.

It didn’t look like the Army was going to be much help with this.

Puller headed to the Tahoe.

He needed to get his investigation duffel.

CHAPTER

37

THE SWEAT TRICKLED DOWN his neck.

At eight in the morning he’d already been hard at work for an hour. It was eighty-two degrees with a projected high of nearly a hundred today.

He was at the same house. He had been told that the grounds here were so extensive that they required a landscaping crew every day. He had taken steps to make sure that he would get the assignment. It had involved payments and promises to people who didn’t give a damn why he wanted to be here. For them it was just an exchange of something for something else. And when you were dealing with folks who had little money, bartering became a way of life. For all they knew he was trying to case the mansion in hopes of robbing it. They did not care about folks stealing from the rich. The rich had everything. They would just print more money.

He was simply one man working for others. He was paid a wage that could barely keep him alive. And he was one injury away from being homeless.

As he looked around at the workers next to him, he was actually describing their state of affairs, not his. Money meant nothing to him. He was here for his own purposes and no other. When he was done he would leave.

Unless he was dead. Then he would stay in Paradise for eternity.

He rubbed the sweat from his eyes and commenced clipping a hedge for owners who demanded a precisely trimmed bush. But he also focused on what he had seen the previous night on the beach.

Those people were lost forever. As soon as they had been taken, it was over. On the boat. On the truck. It didn’t matter. Nothing could break the long chain of ownership, for that’s what it was.

Chattel.

The sixteenth century or the twenty-first century, it didn’t really matter. People with power and means would always take advantage of those without them.

He clipped and thought about his next move.

He ran his eye along the top of the hedge and at the same time skirted his gaze along the perimeter of the mansion. The same Maserati was parked in the front cobblestone circular drive. He assumed that the young couple had stayed over. Why leave this place if one didn’t have to? He had learned, by asking subtle questions of a house servant who had come out to retrieve the mail, that the interior staff consisted of ten people. These included maids, a chef, someone playing the role of a butler, and various others who worked cheap and were able to live in the servants’ quarters of the grandest home on the Emerald Coast.

The family who lived here consisted of four people:

The cash machine husband.

The pampered second wife.

The even more pampered son.

The mother-in-law.

The cash machine was in his mid-forties, relatively young for having amassed such great wealth. He had not asked the maid how the money had been made.

He already knew.

The second wife used to be a runway model, was in her early thirties, and spent most of her time shopping.

The cash machine’s son—the second wife’s stepson—was seventeen and attended a private boarding school in Connecticut. He had already been accepted at an Ivy League school based more on his father’s largesse to the university than his academic performance. He was now home for the summer playing polo, driving his Porsche, and sowing his wild oats among the available local young women, who were unabashedly competing to one day live in grand houses filled with servants. This he had also found out before coming here.

The second wife’s mother lived in the lavish guesthouse and was, at least by most accounts, a bitch of massive proportions.

As he watched, the same woman he had seen by the pool the day before strolled out of the mansion’s rear French doors. She had on a white skirt that showed off her bare, tanned legs, a light blue shirt, and spike backless heels. Her hair fell around her shoulders. Her appearance was quite dressy for this early in the morning. Perhaps she had an appointment.

He watched as she crossed over to the guesthouse and went inside, perhaps to pay her respects to the resident mother-in-law.

The rear door to the mansion opened once more and a man stepped out.

He studied him. About five-eleven, trim, fit, dressed in white shorts that showed off his tanned, muscular calves. He had on leather loafers that looked expensive and no doubt were, and a pale blue patterned long-sleeved Bugatchi shirt. He had left the shirt untucked, no doubt to show that despite his immense wealth he was a casual yet hip man. His hair was brown and wavy with just a touch of gray around the temples.

The man crossed the grounds and entered the guesthouse.

He knew who the man was. He was the cash machine. The man owned this estate and everything in it.

His name was Peter J. Lampert.

He’d made and lost most of a multibillion-dollar fortune as a hedge fund manager, along with most of the money entrusted to him by his clients. Then he had made another enormous fortune to pay for this place and other assorted toys of the rich. But he had not bothered to recoup his clients’ money.

That was what bankruptcy was for, he’d responded, when someone asked him if he felt remorse at all for destroying the lives of so many people.

Lampert, he knew, also had his own private jet, a Dassault Falcon 900LX that was parked at a private airport about thirty minutes from here. Its maximum cabin height was six feet two inches, which meant Lampert could stand up straight inside it, but he couldn’t. Yet he never expected to be on it. Private jets were not meant for the hired help.

At the end of the estate’s main dock, one hundred feet out to sea in deep water, sat Lampert’s mega-yacht, named Lady Lucky. Lampert had named that after his second wife, whose name was Lucille, but whom everyone called Lucky, because she apparently had been as the second wife of Peter J. Lampert.

Lucky was currently away, he had been told by the same maid. A shopping trip to Paris and London. Well, the rich had to spend their money on something.

As he thought about it, it was quite likely that her mother was traveling with her too. If so there would be no reason for anyone to visit the guesthouse.

Except perhaps for one.

He worked his way over to the left side of the structure. There were bushes there that required trimming. He managed to look like he was clipping but actually made no noise with his tool. He edged closer to the window. The drapes were partially up. He heard it before he saw them.

Moans and groans.

He looked around for security. They did not seem to be in this sector.

He grew closer to the window, squatting down, trying to shrink his great height.

He took a peek through the window.

The woman was now wearing only her shirt. Her skirt was on the bed along with her spike heels. Her panties were down around her bare feet. On her tiptoes, she gripped one of the bed’s four posters, her body bent forward at a forty-five-degree angle.

Lampert was behind her. He had not bothered to take off his clothes. Apparently he could only be bothered to slide his zipper down. She arched her neck back and was making suitable noises designed to urge on her lover.

Lampert pushed into her violently, grunted heavily one last time, and then bent forward, supporting himself on her back, totally spent. Panting, he freed himself from her and zipped up his shorts. She turned and kissed him. He fondled and then slapped her bare buttocks.

Lampert said something that he couldn’t hear, but the woman laughed. A few moments later Lampert was gone. He apparently had other appointments.

He watched as the woman lay back on the bed, slipped a pill bottle from her shirt pocket, tongued a capsule, and swallowed it. She took off her shirt, walked naked into the bathroom, and emerged about a minute later, her face looking scrubbed.

He continued observing as she quickly dressed, smoothing out her shirt and zipping up her skirt before slipping on her heels. When she left the room, he came around the corner of the building, stooped down, and started to weed the lawn.

She stepped from the guesthouse, looked to the right and saw him there. Her features grew brighter when she saw him. She smiled. The smell of sex was all over her. He wondered if she realized that, despite her freshening up. He wondered what the young man she had driven up with in the Maserati would say if he detected evidence of the morning tryst.

“Hello,” she said.

He nodded at her, keeping his gaze partially downcast but still watching her.

“You were here yesterday. What’s your name?” she asked.

“Mecho.”

“Mecho? I’ve never heard that name before.”

“In my country it means ‘bear.’ I am as big as one, you see. I was a big baby, you see, so my father decided to make it official.” He stopped and smiled shyly.

His English was much better than that, and he was not by nature a shy man, but he did not want her to know that. Mecho was not his given name, but it had been his nickname, precisely because of his great size.

“What is your country?” she asked.

“Far away from here. But I like this place. My country is often too cold.”

She smiled and waved away a fly with her hand. Her smile was radiant, her cheeks slightly reddened.

Sex agreed with her, he thought.

“It’s always warm in Paradise,” she said.

“Hey!”

They both looked over to see a burly security guard heading their way. Mecho hastily stood and moved away from her.

“Hey!” the guard said again as he came up to Mecho. It was the same guard as yesterday. “You’re really trying my patience, bud.”

The woman said, “I was talking to him. He was doing his work. I asked him a question.”

The guard looked at her like she was on drugs. “You asked him a question. Why?”

“Because I wanted to hear his answer,” she said, scowling. “So you can just leave him alone.”

The man was about to say something, but seemed to think better of it. “Right, Ms. Murdoch. I was just making sure everything was okay. Just doing my job.”

“Everything is very okay,” she said sternly.

After the guard retreated Murdoch said, “My name is Christina, Mecho. My friends call me Chrissy. It was nice talking to you.”

As she walked away he watched her. She glanced back once, saw him, and smiled again, tacking on a little wave.

In that knowing smile he saw something interesting. He was almost certain that she knew he had been watching Lampert and her have sex. And she didn’t seem concerned by it in the least. In fact, she seemed uplifted by it.

A singularly remarkable woman of great beauty.

A part of him hoped he would not have to kill her.

CHAPTER

38

THE TRIP TO EGLIN Air Force Base took about thirty minutes. The duffel was where it was supposed to be and Puller signed the necessary paperwork, loaded it into his rental, and drove back to Paradise. Along the way he passed through Destin and eyed Landry’s high-rise.

That made him remember he needed a new place to stay.

He arrived back in Paradise around noon.

He hadn’t missed it for even a minute.

He made a stop at Bailey’s Funeral Home, where he needed to see his aunt’s body again.

After he was finished there, he drove directly to his aunt’s house. The sun was high, the day was hot, and the humidity had crept so high that simply walking produced rivulets of sweat. But Puller had spent many years of his life in heat even worse than this and it had little effect on him.

He reentered his aunt’s house using the key that the lawyer Mason had given him. Now that he had his duffel he could make a proper investigation.

He unpacked his duffel and spent the next five hours going over the interior room by room.

The only remarkable thing he found was nothing.

The only fingerprints were his aunt’s. That was why he had stopped by the funeral home, to take a set of elimination prints from Betsy Simon.

There was no sign of forced entry, no indication of a struggle.

He found a box of photo albums stuffed in a closet next to the small laundry room. He looked through a few of them and then stuck the box into his duffel. He would look at them later.

He moved his investigation out to the backyard, where he followed his aunt’s presumed path from the house to the fountain area. He got down on his knees and examined the stone surround, the disturbed stones under the water, the holes in the lawn made from the walker. If his aunt’s body had still been here he might have seen something that was not right, but it wasn’t and thus he couldn’t.

He sensed someone watching him and turned and saw Cookie peering over the fence.

“Did you grow?” Puller asked.

“I’m standing on a box. What are you doing?” asked Cookie.

“Just satisfying my curiosity.”

“You really think she was murdered, don’t you?”

“What do you think?”

Cookie seemed alarmed by the question. “I don’t have an opinion. I thought it was an accident, but I wouldn’t know what to look for.”

“Well, I do know what to look for and I’m not finding much.”

“Did you speak to Mason?”

Puller rose and went over to the fence. On the box Cookie and he were close to eye to eye.

“I did. He was helpful. What do you know about him?”

“Like I said, good lawyer. He’s handling my estate too. He does the same for lots of people.”

“You know him beyond that?”

“Some. But we’re not really friends socially.”

“Did you hear about the bodies washing up on the beach?”

Cookie nodded sadly. “The Storrows. I knew them. Nice people. I wonder what the hell happened.”

“The police are checking it out.”

“The paper wasn’t very full of details. Do you know anything?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be at liberty to say.”

“Are you working with the police?” asked Cookie.

“No. I tend to work solo. But I’m just naturally tight-lipped with details like that.”

Cookie glanced over his shoulder at the fountain. “Still gives me the creeps, thinking of her dying there.”

Puller said, “I guess I need to arrange for the funeral service and all.” He didn’t have a clue as to what this entailed.

“Betsy told me that she wanted to be cremated. It should be in her will.”

“Mason didn’t mention that.”

“Did he give you a copy of the will?”

“Yes.”

“You should read it. Betsy was very particular about her funeral arrangements. I’m sure she spelled them out to the letter.”

“Thanks. I guess I should have already done that.”

“You’re young. You don’t think about wills and funeral arrangements.”

“I’m also a soldier. We tend to think about them more than most people.”

Puller left Cookie, went back inside, and packed up his equipment. He took one last look around and hauled his duffel out to the Tahoe. He sat in the driver’s seat and pulled out his aunt’s last will and testament. After skimming over most of the legalese, including the part leaving the house to him, he arrived at the provisions about her final arrangements.

Betsy Simon did indeed want to be cremated. She had prefunded the service with Bailey’s Funeral Home. That included an urn for the ashes and a request that they be spread over the Pennsylvania countryside where she had grown up.

He tucked the will back into his pocket. He would speak with Bailey’s about this. He figured they were probably very experienced with cremating folks down here.

He was starving and he had no place to stay. He would take care of the food first, the lodgings next. He also had to check in at the police department. He figured Landry would soon require his sworn allegations to process the eight idiots who had come after him last night.

He checked his phone and was surprised that there was no text from her.

Or Bullock.

He wondered if the moron Hooper had stopped puking yet.

And then he stopped wondering about Hooper.

He put the keys in the ignition, pulled his M11, and hit the gas, pointing the Tahoe straight at the car.

Sometimes the direct way was the best.

CHAPTER

53

ANOTHER EIGHTY HAD BEEN DELIVERED tonight.

Just like clockwork.

Four boats’ worth.

They looked just like the last shipment.

Destroyed.

Mecho watched from a different spot tonight. He did not like patterns. Patterns could get you killed. He had no reason to believe that anyone suspected he was here. But he had no reason to think they didn’t either. He imagined these men lived their lives full of suspicion.

Just as he did.

After the bomb went off at Lampert’s house they would have to proceed with caution. Calling off tonight’s shipment might have been tempting for them, but apparently the allure of a mountain of dollars was too much. And the boat was probably already on its way when the Bentley had been blown up.

So the show went on.

These folks wore the color-coded clothing of the previous group. As he observed them Mecho concluded that tonight was heavy on drug mules and prostitutes, by far the most profitable. The simple laborers, the ones who silently mowed grass in nice southern suburbs or mutely hefted cartons in warehouses in the Midwest, brought the least amount of money.

But the profit margins were still excellent, just not off the scale like those associated with the drugs-and-hookers revenue streams.

The fourth RIB turned and headed back out to the mother ship.

Mecho turned his attention to the truck in which the eighty people had been placed. The rear door came down and was bolted shut. The back of the truck would be soundproofed, of course. No screams would be heard, though Mecho imagined the prisoners were probably too terrified to utter a sound.

He hustled to his scooter and climbed aboard. When the truck started off with its two-SUV motorcade, Mecho fell in behind it, keeping about eight hundred yards back. He did not worry about losing the vehicles. He had placed a tracking device on the underbelly of the truck while the first shipment of passengers was arriving on the beach. The guards had made the mistake of moving away from the vehicles to draw nearer to the beach, never thinking that leaving their rear flank exposed would be a problem.

Yet it was a problem, a big one. But one man’s problem was another man’s opportunity.

They traveled east for four miles, their route gradually leading away from the Gulf as they did so.

The destination was not surprising: a warehouse in the middle of a decrepit industrial park. This was far away from the tourist traps and nowhere near the pristine white beaches or the emerald green waters.

This had the look and stench of the real world. A world where people toiled away for crap wages doing shit work and wondering when their ship was going to come in.

Mecho understood that very well. He had wondered that very same thing. Only far away from here. A universe away from here, in fact.

Where is my damn ship?

Well, maybe it was a RIB with human cattle on it.

After the truck drove through the open overhead door of the warehouse the door rattled down behind it. One SUV had driven in with the truck. The other had stayed outside. Mecho had a good idea what was happening inside the warehouse.

It was like U.S. Customs’ processing in a way, and in a way the farthest thing from it. The folks in the truck were being led off, dressed in different clothes, and given certain documentation, a bit to eat, a few ounces of water to drink. They were being told things. Things that would further demoralize their spirits.

Such as, “You will do exactly as we say.”

And if you don’t, not only will you die, but your entire family, back in the little village or town or city where we took you from, will die too. No exceptions. Ever.

The instructions would be given. They would be able to sleep for a bit. They would be segregated according to their ultimate function. The future prostitutes would be given the best accommodations and rations. Their looks and overall health mattered, at least for now; later, they wouldn’t. And then they would be discarded, most drugged beyond rehab, and they’d shuffle away and die alone.

The drug mules would be given things too, things that would allow their innards to receive more bags of drugs than they would have thought possible. Ten percent of them would suffer ruptures of these bags while they were still inside them. All ten percent would die from it. Heroin or coke pouring into one’s bloodstream in such profound doses is not something the body was built to endure, because nowhere in the evolutionary chain did humans have to adapt to such treatment.

That was good for humanity, bad for the ten percent.

The ten percent was known, in the industry, as a reasonable and acceptable cost of business. Indeed, like credit card companies that jack up interest rates to cover losses from hackers and deadbeats, the slavers upped their chattel rates to cover these losses.

Businesses always passed the costs along, whether they were selling hammers or humans.

Again, there was nothing Mecho could do to help the eighty people in the warehouse tonight. That was not why he was here.

He sat on his scooter just outside the gate of the fence that surrounded this industrial park and waited.

He took a photo out of his pocket. While it was dark and he had killed his scooter light before approaching the warehouse area, Mecho could see, in his mind’s eye, the image of the young woman in the picture he held.

She looked a lot like Mecho. There was a reason for that.

Family was family.

Her name was Rada. In his language her name meant “joyfulness.”

And she had once possessed it in abundance.

But no longer. That he knew without knowing it for certain.

Sometimes Mecho wished that Rada were dead.

Being alive and doing what she was doing must be worse than being dead.

He had no idea where in the world she was.

He had come here to get an idea.

But that was not all.

There were other pictures in his jacket pocket. All women. All young.

These women were not related to him.

But that did not matter. There was another connection, a strong one. That was enough for him.

He had no idea where in the world any of them were.

And it was a big world.

He needed help.

Tonight would begin his attempts to find such help.

An hour went by and the overhead door opened. The SUV zipped out and the door closed once more.

The second SUV stayed where it was while the first SUV approached the gates. They automatically opened and the SUV sped through them.

Mecho knew there were four men in the SUV.

As he started up his scooter to follow them it didn’t matter to him which one of the four would provide the assistance.

He would work through them all until he got it. To him, they were no longer human. Just like they treated the people in the truck.

They were there for him to use, in any way he chose, to achieve his goals.

In a way he was a businessman too.

Only his incentive, his profit, was not measured in money.

It was measured in justice.

It was calculated in revenge.

And in Mecho’s case, those two things were exactly the same.

CHAPTER

54

THE HOTEL WAS FAR nicer than the Sierra. And it was right on the water.

The SUV was parked in the hotel’s garage. The four men had ridden the elevator to the lobby and then gone on to their rooms. They each had their own, a perk of this job. Money obviously was no limitation.

The man who had ridden shotgun in the SUV reached his room on the fifteenth floor and opened the door with his key card. He slipped off his jacket, revealing his holstered Glock nine. He made a beeline for the minibar and mixed a gin and tonic, then went to the window and gazed out over the Gulf. He took a long breath and slipped a cigarette from his pocket and lit up.

It was a nonsmoking room but he apparently didn’t care.

Thirty minutes later there was a knock at the door. Not his hotel room door, but the one connecting the room next to his. One of the other men was staying in that room.

He walked over to it. “Donny?”

“Yep.”

“What’s up?”

“Call from the boss, we got to roll,” replied Donny.

“Shit.”

“Got something for you,” said Donny.

He opened the door.

The blow hit him so hard it lifted him off his feet and he flew backward and landed on the soft bed, his nose broken and his consciousness gone.

Donny stood there with a gun barrel held against his right temple. Mecho was behind him.

“Please, man, don’t kill me,” moaned Donny.

Mecho shoved him into the room and closed the door behind him. A ferocious blow to Donny’s head dropped him to the floor.

When he awoke later he was tied to the bed along with his colleague, who was now awake as well. The two men looked at each other.

Mecho stood over them looking down. He duct-taped their mouths, pulled their pants and underwear down, and held the knife pointed at their privates.

When he cut him there, Donny screamed, but it was a nearly soundless one with the duct tape across his mouth.

The next instant Mecho slammed the knife straight into his chest so hard that the point came out the man’s back and stuck into the mattress.

Donny’s mouth sagged open as he died.

The other man looked in panic at his dead colleague.

Mecho took off the other man’s duct tape.

The man braced for the strike of the knife, but Mecho just looked at him.

The man glanced at dead Donny. “Why did you kill him? He’d tell you anything you wanted to know.”

“I killed him,” said Mecho, “because I could.”

“What do you want to know?” the other man said, his voice panicky.

Mecho sat on the bed next to him. “What is your name?” he asked quietly.

“Joe.”

“Where are you from, Joe?”

“New Jersey.”

“What is this New Jersey?”

“It’s a state. Of the United States.”

“Do you have a family?”

Joe hesitated, but Mecho pointed his blade at his chest and Joe said, “Wife and two little girls.”

“In New Jersey?”

Joe nodded, his eyes filling with tears.

“And you want to see them again?”

“Yes,” Joe gasped. “More than anything.”

“And the people from the boats?”

Joe’s chest heaved more and he sobbed. “It’s just a job.”

“They have family too.”

“I just do it for the money, I swear to sweet Jesus. It’s the only reason. I got nothing against those people.”

“They have people they love and who love them.”

“Just a damn job. That’s all,” moaned Joe.

Mecho took out the photo of Rada and held it in front of Joe. “Do you recognize this person? Her name is Rada.”

Joe’s eyes were so filled with tears that he could barely see.

“I… I don’t know.”

Mecho gripped him around the neck and jerked him upward as he thrust the picture closer. “Do you know her?”

“I… I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“Her name is Rada.”

“I don’t know any of their names. We don’t get names.”

“She is a beautiful woman. About a month ago she came through here. Were you here then?”

Joe started to nod, sensing perhaps that if he had valuable intelligence it would keep him alive. “Wait a minute, yeah, I think I do remember her. Right, a month ago. Yeah, Rada.”

“Rada,” repeated Mecho. “One month ago.”

“You want to find her, right? Maybe I can help.”

“One month ago,” said Mecho again. “Rada. She is beautiful.”

“Absolutely,” said Joe. “A real looker. I can help you. If you untie me—”

Mecho slammed the blade into Joe’s chest and drove it in up to the hilt. Joe gave a shudder and joined Donny in the land of the dead.

Mecho stared down at him. “Rada has been gone for one year.” He fingered the photo. “And this is not a picture of Rada.”

He looked at dead Donny.

“And your friend already told me all I needed to know back in his room.”

He pulled his knife free and some pent-up arterial blood squirted from the wound. With the heart no longer beating and zero blood pressure, there would not be any more significant blood loss.

Mecho said, “So you can see that I have no further need of your assistance. I perhaps forgot to mention that. Forgive me, Joe. I’m sure your family in this New Jersey place will mourn you.”

He stood, wiped the blade off on the sheets, and stared down at the two men.

For the money. Just for the money.

They did not know the names. They never knew the names.

But I know their names.

I know them all.

CHAPTER

55

PULLER SAT IN HIS ROOM at the Gull Coast staring at the wall. Sadie was curled up at the end of his bed. The dog had drunk so much water that she had peed in the Tahoe. Puller had cleaned that up and then walked her before coming up to his room.

It was four a.m. and he had not yet been to sleep.

There were many items swirling through his mind.

At four-thirty he closed his eyes and willed himself to rest for three hours.

When he woke at half past seven he felt like he’d slept for a full eight hours.

He showered and dressed, walked Sadie, and then fed her with food he had taken from Cookie’s. He walked the dog again to let her do her business and then went out to eat breakfast, leaving Sadie back in the thankfully air-conditioned room. He knew he would have to make other arrangements for the dog, but that was not at the top of his priority list right now.

He walked two blocks to the waterfront and found a small diner with a fifties retro interior and ordered the biggest breakfast it offered. In deference to the heat outside—the temperature was already in the eighties—he had water with ice in lieu of coffee.

Fully fueled, he left the diner and walked down the street.

“Did you get enough to eat?”

He turned and saw her standing by a mailbox.

Julie Carson was not in uniform. She had on jeans, sandals, and a green sleeveless blouse.

She didn’t look like the one-star that she was. She looked like a tourist. A very fit, attractive tourist.

Puller walked over to her.

“I’m more than a little surprised, General,” he said.

“I’ll take that as a compliment since I know it’s very difficult to surprise you, Agent Puller. And you can make it Julie. No uniform today.”

“And you can make it John. When did you get in?”

“Grabbed a free seat on a cargo plane into Eglin. Little perks we generals get. Got in around midnight last night.”

“And you found me how?”

“How many guys that look like you are in Paradise?”

He watched her, awaiting her real answer.

“Okay, I ran your credit card activity. Saw you checked into the Gull Coast.”

“Then you should have had breakfast with me.”

“I overslept. I knew you’d be up early to get chow. That diner seemed to be your sort of place. I was about to walk in when you walked out.”

“And you’re here why?”

“Had a week of leave I never took. Found out J2 could get along without me for a few days. Your description of Paradise sounded so inviting it was an easy decision.”

“It might not meet your expectations.”

“Let a girl decide that for herself, John.”

“I take it you want to be updated on my investigation even though you’re here on R and R?”

“I crave information. So why don’t we go back into the diner and I can eat and you can have a gallon of water to keep hydrated and we can have ourselves a nice conversation?”

And they did exactly that.

Puller saw that Carson had an appetite. She put away eggs, pancakes, bacon, and grits, and while she drank three glasses of water, she also had two cups of coffee.

While she worked through her meal Puller brought her up to speed on all events, including the explosion at the Lampert mansion the night before.

Carson took one last sip of water and set her glass down. “You’ve been busy.”

“I’ve been reactive, actually. Not an ideal situation.”

“Eight guys. I’m impressed.”

“I only took out six. If the big man hadn’t been there we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“So if I’ve got this right, you’re investigating your aunt’s suspicious death. And her neighbor’s murder. You also have the disappearance of this kid Diego. There are two guys down here following you who are so well connected the Pentagon gets stonewalled. And some rich prick gets his Bentley blown sky-high. And I almost forgot the murders on the beach.”

“The two guys might not have been following me. They could have picked up my tail from when I visited my aunt.”

“Meaning their focus was her not you, which lends credence to the theory that she was murdered.”

“That’s how I see it,” said Puller.

“Which prompts the question of what the hell she was involved in that would get her that kind of attention. You sure she wasn’t some retired spy with a dark past?”

“If she was, she was damn good at keeping her cover. No, I think she found out something down here and that’s what got her killed. I wish she had been more specific in her letter, but she wasn’t.”

“You mentioned mileage on her car.”

“Right. Five miles out and five back. At least that’s my speculation. Jane Ryon said that five miles east seemed the best bet. But I’m not sure about her now, considering what happened to Cookie.”

“Have the police found her?”

“Don’t know. By now they should have, I guess.”

“She might be able to clear some things up if she is involved.”

“Maybe.”

“So what’s the next move?”

“You really sure about this, Julie? I mean, you don’t have to do this.”

“I’ve been covering enlisted men’s backs most of my career. It’s why I’m beloved by the rank and file. Besides, my last few vacations have followed similar patterns and have been pretty boring. And my J2 assignment, while necessary for my career path, is pretty damn uninteresting at times. I need some excitement.”

Puller looked across the table at her. “Well, I think you came to the right place. But keep in mind that at least four people have died so far.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I thought the same thing about me, and I almost bought it. The punks I dealt with are nothing special. I just messed up but got lucky. I can’t count on being lucky again.”

She looked across at him, her amused features turning more serious. “So we treat this just like combat?”

“Just like combat,” he replied.

“So the next move?”

“The most obvious. We find out if the police have picked up Jane Ryon.”

“And if they haven’t?”

“Then we find her, before someone else does.”

“You really think she killed this Cookie person?”

“I have no idea. But if she did, she also might have killed my aunt.”

“And all the other stuff that’s been happening down here, you think it’s all connected?”

Puller thought about this for several long seconds while the sounds of traffic picked up out on the street as Paradise came to life.

“I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

“Meaning exactly that I don’t believe in coincidences.”

CHAPTER

56

WHEN THEY CAME OUT of the diner a police car was zipping past. It screeched to a stop and Cheryl Landry leaned her head out.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she began, before her gaze came to rest on Carson.

Puller noted this and said, “General Julie Carson, Officer Cheryl Landry.”

As Puller’s gaze swiveled between the two women he felt a pang of guilt. He had been out twice with Carson, though the first time was not a real date. However, he sensed the general was interested in something deeper than mere friendship. Landry clearly wanted a relationship with him. Thus having the two women together was deeply discomforting.

Carson nodded and said, “Nice to meet you, Officer Landry.”

“I’ve never met a general before.”

“Well, now you have, and we don’t look any different from anyone else,” said Carson.

“I won’t believe what?” said Puller.

“Two more murders. At the Plaza Hotel two blocks down. Two guys in a bedroom stabbed to death, it appears.”

“Two guys,” said Puller quickly.

Landry nodded. “I know what you’re thinking. I don’t know if it’s the same two who you think have been following you.”

“You want us to come?” asked Puller.

Landry glanced at Carson and then at Puller.

Puller, sensing her indecision, said, “Make the offer to Bullock. He can make the call if he wants.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you pick up Jane Ryon?”

But Landry had already hit the gas and the car had sped off.

Puller looked at Carson. “Two more dead.”

“Who knew Paradise could be so damn bloody,” said Carson. “And of course it can’t be a coincidence,” she added, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Don’t think so.”

“So we wait until we get the okay from this Bullock guy? And what about Ryon?”

“We can check her out. But while we’re here I want to find out something else.”

She followed him down the street and away from the beach. The sun seemed to be fighting its way to the top of the sky with astonishing speed. Carson wiped a bead of sweat off her brow and picked up her pace so she was walking next to Puller.

“What’s this place we’re heading to?”

“Diego’s.”

They passed the Sierra and Puller arrived at the building with the blue awning. He marched up to the second story and knocked on the door. No one came.

He knocked again.

And then a third time.

He heard footsteps and relaxed slightly as Carson looked at him expectantly.

The door opened. Puller had thought it would be one of two people. Diego or Isabel. Well, maybe three if one counted little Mateo.

It was none of them.

The woman standing there was in her sixties, short and plump with brown hair streaked heavily with silver. Her face was thickly lined and a prominent mole had grown in the crevice between her cheek and nose. She was dressed in sweatpants, cheap sneakers, and a dark top. She looked curiously from Puller to Carson.

“Sí?”

So this was the abuela, thought Puller, the grandmother.

“Habla inglés, señora?” asked Puller.

“Yes. Poquito.”

“My name is John Puller. I know Diego and Isabel and Mateo. I helped them out the other day. They might have told you.”

“Yes, they tell me.” Then her face collapsed and her shoulders started to shake. Puller put a hand under her arm to keep the woman from slumping to the floor.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

“Los niños, they no here.”

“Where are they?” asked Puller.

“Donde están los niños?” amended Carson.

“No sé. Desaparecido.”

Puller looked at Carson. “They vanished?”

Carson nodded. “That’s what she said.”

Puller said, “Have you called the police? He llamado a la policía?”

She shook her head. “No policía. Nunca la policía.”

Carson said, “Doesn’t sound as though she likes the police very much.”

“She could be undocumented. And the kids too.”

“Right.”

Puller looked at the sobbing woman and said to Carson, “it could be the guys I beat up. But something feel me it’s not. But Diego did help me track down the two guys.”

“So the two guys made them disappear?”

“I guess that’s the most likely answer. Diego was following them. Maybe they spotted him and Isabel and Mateo were with him.” Puller felt sudden guilt for involving Diego in this.

“Unless the two guys are lying dead at the Plaza.”

“Still could have been them. Diego and his cousins might have escaped from them.”

“After killing the two guys?” Carson said skeptically.

Puller looked at the woman again. “Lo siento. Podemos ayudar de alguna manera?”

The woman shook her head and told Puller that only God could help her now. She shut the door and Puller stood staring off over Carson’s shoulder.

“Should we report it?” she asked.

“We might do more harm than good if the kids are okay. They might end up getting deported.”

“Better than being dead, John.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“We can ask around. Maybe someone has seen them.”

“That’s a good idea. Diego has some friends around here. They might know something.”

It took them twenty minutes to locate two of Diego’s friends. The first had not seen Diego for two days. The second one had seen him yesterday.

“Was he with anyone?” asked Puller.

The boy held out his hand.

Puller put a five-dollar bill in it.

“Yes.”

“Who?” asked Carson.

The boy held out his hand again.

Carson put a dollar bill in it. The boy said nothing.

Puller said, “You tell us something useful there’ll be more. Otherwise, the ATM is shut down for the day.”

The boy looked around and said, “He is with the dueños de la calle.”

“The street kings?” said Puller.

“Yes. The street kings.”

“What is he doing with them?”

The boy held out his hand and Carson put another dollar bill in it.

“I think he is trying to join. If he is, he is stupid. They are a very bad gang.”

“What about Isabel and Mateo?” Puller asked.

The boy withdrew his hand and put the cash in his pocket. He shrugged. “I do not know about them.”

“Where do we find the street kings?” asked Puller.

“You do not want to find the street kings, señor,” said the boy.

“Actually, yes, I do. Where?”

Puller held out a twenty. “Ahora!”

The boy gave them an address and then ran off.

Puller looked at Carson. “You don’t have to go with me.”

“The hell I don’t. This is just getting interesting.”

“You have any weapons?”

“You’re asking a one-star if she has any weapons? Other women might like shoes and nail polish. I grew up on Winchesters and Colts on a farm in Oklahoma. So I brought some goodies with me.”

“Okay. So we might want to gun up for this.”

“Hell, John, I don’t think there’s any ‘might’ about it.”

CHAPTER

57

THE SMALL SHACK SAT behind an abandoned-looking building ten blocks off the water. It was in an area that would be discreetly described as in a transitional stage, meaning don’t go there at night and also try to avoid it during the day. The place looked dead and wasted and nothing like Paradise and its emerald beaches relatively close by. It seemed that the town’s beauty was only skin deep. A few layers under the surface it became quite ugly.

Three young men were standing outside the building and taking turns tossing knives at tin cans set atop a Dumpster. They were good enough that each one consistently knocked the cans over from a distance of ten feet.

“Decent aim.”

The men whirled, their hands dipping to the guns in their waistbands.

And then they stopped reaching for their guns.

Puller stood there holding an MP5 set on two-shot bursts. Carson had not been kidding about weapons. And flying on military transport had allowed her to bring whatever guns she wanted.

“Wise decision,” said Puller, coming forward and lifting his gaze past them and to the windows of the shack. They were covered and he saw no one trying to peek through to get a sightline on him with a weapon.

“Got a question.”

The men looked at him warily. Puller could tell they were trying to think of some way to turn his tactical advantage into a disadvantage.

But he wasn’t worried because the MP5 at close quarters was a difficult nut to crack.

“His name is Diego. He has two cousins. Isabel and Mateo. Where are they?”

The men said nothing.

Puller moved closer. “Diego, Isabel, and Mateo, where are they?”

The men remained silent.

Puller moved a foot closer. With one sweep of the MP he could lay all three down for eternity.

He shifted the fire selector on the MP to full auto. “I’ll ask one more time and then I won’t ask again.”

“We don’t know where they are,” said one of the men, staring at the muzzle of the MP.

“But you did know, right?”

The three men looked at one another. The man who had spoken shrugged. “Hard to say.”

“No, it’s really not. You just have to say it.”

Puller moved another foot closer.

The men smiled.

Puller thought he knew why.

“I wouldn’t,” said Puller. “I’m not the only one here.”

The men stopped smiling.

It was in the corner of Puller’s eye. A fourth man.

He’d come around the building’s east side. He had a slim compact pistol aimed at Puller’s head.

“Check your chest,” said Puller.

The man flinched, looked nervous, but didn’t look down, obviously suspecting a trick.

The other men glanced over. The one who had spoken swore under his breath as he saw the red dot squarely over the man’s heart.

He said something in Spanish. The man with the gun looked down, saw the dot. He swore too, lowered his gun.

Puller pointed his MP at him. “Why don’t you lose the gun and join the discussion group.”

It wasn’t a question.

The man dropped his gun and walked over to the others, the red dot following him the whole way.

“Diego and his cousins,” said Puller. “They were here and now they’re not. So where did they go?”

The four men glanced nervously at one another.

“Glancing and not talking tends to make me very angry,” said Puller. “And when I get angry I do unpredictable things.”

He put the fire selector back on two-shot bursts and fired some rounds above their heads. They all instinctively dropped to the dirt.

Puller eased his finger off the trigger and said, “Where?”

The men rose on trembling legs. One of them said, “They took them.”

One of the other men glared at him and looked ready to punch his colleague.

The speaker sensed this but hurried on. “They were taken last night. The man paid one thousand dollars for them both.”

“Both? Which both?”

“Los niños. Diego y Mateo.”

“Who paid one thousand dollars?” Puller said sharply.

“Like I said, un hombre.”

Two of the other men hissed, but the speaker looked defiantly back at them.

Puller said, “What was his name? What did he look like?”

Before the other man could answer there was a roaring sound. Puller looked to his left and saw the pickup trucks coming. In the truck beds were men standing and holding a lot of firepower and looking ominously in Puller’s direction.

In Puller’s earwig Carson’s voice crackled. “I think retreat is the order of the day,” she said.

Puller grabbed the man who had answered him and they ran off.

The trucks veered off to give chase, but several shots rang out and both trucks ground to a halt with flattened tires. Two men fell out of one truck bed as it screeched to a stop.

Puller turned the corner with the man in tow and saw the Tahoe up ahead. He double-timed it and saw Carson coming down from her high perch on another building carrying her scoped rifle. She jumped into the passenger seat. Puller threw the man into the rear seat and leapt into the driver’s seat as he heard feet pounding down the road and men yelling in Spanish.

He hit the gas and the Tahoe sped off, turned a corner, and disappeared in the maze of streets.

Carson had her rifle pointed at the man in the backseat. She studied him calmly. “What man took the boys?”

Puller glanced at her.

She said, “I heard over your earwig.”

She looked at the man in the backseat. “We need some details.”

The man shook his head.

“You’ve come this far,” said Carson. “In for a dime, in for a dollar.”

The man looked at Puller. “You are big. Like the other guy.”

Puller glanced at him in the rearview. “What other guy?”

“The big guy. Bigger than you. He can fight.”

“Is he staying at the Sierra?” asked Puller.

The man nodded. “He picked up one of our guys like he was nothing. Threw a knife twenty feet point-first into a wall. El Diablo.”

Puller glanced at Carson. “The same guy who saved my butt the other night.”

Carson looked at the man. “El Diablo have a real name?”

The man shrugged. “No sé.”

“Is he the one who took los niños?”

“No.”

“Who did, then?”

“No sé.”

Carson moved her finger closer to the trigger of her rifle.

A smile crept across the man’s face. “You won’t shoot me.”

“Why?”

“Because you are military. A general.”

Carson looked down at the one-star ring she had on.

The man said, “I was in the military once. Not yours. From my country.”

“Sorry to see you’ve fallen so low,” snapped Carson.

Puller said, “We want to help Diego and Mateo. That’s all. Help us do that. They’re just kids.”

“They are beyond help.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know that. And I don’t care. They’re not my problem.”

Carson looked at Puller and shrugged. “Open the door,” she said.

The man said, “What?”

“Open your door and jump.”

“What?”

“Jump!”

She pointed her gun at his crotch. “General or not, you jump now or you’ll be missing some very vital parts.”

The man kicked open the door and leapt out, tumbling along the road and then coming to a stop. They watched as he picked himself up and slowly limped off.

Puller said, “I like your style.”

Carson eyed him with a stern gaze. “What?” he said.

“Next time you go on R and R, pick a safer place than Paradise.”

His phone buzzed. He answered it and listened for a bit before saying, “Okay.” Then he clicked off.

Carson said, “Talk to me.”

“I’ve been officially invited to join the murder investigation.”

CHAPTER

58

MECHO STUDIED THE POLICE OFFICERS.

He was bagging yard debris and the police officers were bagging the remains of a very expensive automobile.

Mecho wondered if they had found the bits of the license plate with “The Man” on it. He hoped not. He hoped it had been blown into the water and swallowed by a shark.

As he used a rake to collect some dead branches that had fallen to the ground, he watched the maid Beatriz walk across the lawn with a tray of lemonade and snacks. She was headed to the pool where Lampert and James Winthrop and Chrissy Murdoch were lounging. Her eyes were puffy and she kept her gaze downcast as she served the drinks and food. He watched Lampert eye her as she walked back across the lawn.

As she neared the house and was out of sight of the others, Mecho hoisted the bag of debris and used his long legs to reach a spot that would cross her path. She pulled up when she saw him. He was well over a foot taller than her and more than twice her weight.

He spoke to her in Spanish, asking her if everything was okay.

She mumbled that it was and kept walking. He kept pace beside her.

He asked more questions, and finally queried Beatriz about her employer. Her features hardened.

Mecho pounced on this vulnerability.

“I understand that your boss is leaving the country soon.”

She looked sharply at him. “How do you know that?”

“One of his guys told me. Asia?”

“And Africa. At least that’s what I overheard.”

“When does he leave?”

“Why do you want to know?” she asked suspiciously.

“I was thinking of asking you out. It would probably be easier if he weren’t around.”

Whether she understood the significance of his words or not it was impossible to tell from her features.

“You want to ask me out?” she said slowly.

“I wasn’t always a laborer,” said Mecho truthfully. “I treat women with respect and courtesy.”

“It is impossible.”

“I understand.”

She put a hand on his arm. “No, you do not understand. I am not allowed to leave the premises.”

“You cannot leave here?”

She shook her head and said in a low voice, “It is not permitted. I should not even be talking to you.”

“I am a nobody. They do not care about nobodies.”

She glanced up at him. “I think you are somebody,” she said hopefully.

“Is it the guards that keep you in here?”

“Not just the guards.” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the pool.

“You could call the police.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“It is not just me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There are others.”

“Your family?”

She nodded, tears trickling from her eyes. She picked up her pace and hurried across the lawn and into the house.

Mecho slowed his walk and ambled over to the truck with his load of debris. He dumped it in the vehicle’s rear bed and watched as Lampert walked down to the gate that led to the pier and unlocked the gate. The walls back here were wrought iron, six feet high. Lampert obviously didn’t worry too much about prying eyes from the water. There was enough foliage to block the main house and guesthouse from observers on boats.

Mecho continued to watch as Lampert walked down the pier, climbed on board the yacht, and disappeared belowdecks.

I could kill him. And maybe I should.

But Mecho didn’t move toward the boat. Part of it was practical. He counted five security men within his sightline.

He had no way to easily get through the gate. And he also had no weapon. Each time they had come here every man on the landscape crew had to walk through a magnetometer and then was wanded by the security detail. Lampert was a careful man. Before he even got to the big boat they would have shot him, and what would that have accomplished?

No, better to let the plan play out the way he had envisioned.

As he continued to work under a hot sun he thought about what the man Donny had told him last night at the hotel.

The shipments came nearly every night. The last platform used as a staging area was twenty miles off the coast and to the west. Mecho believed that was the one he’d been on.

Mecho had also been told that the plan was to start smuggling even more people in beginning next month. This would include people from Asia and Africa. That made sense if Lampert were planning to travel to those continents.

How soon he would be leaving could be problematic. If things were not in place and he left before Mecho could act?

I will not let that happen. Even if I have to somehow shoot his plane out of the sky. He will not get away again.

Never again.

Mecho sensed someone watching him and turned to see Chrissy Murdoch staring at him from just off the pool deck. She had on a bikini with a short terrycloth cover-up over it.

He continued to work away as she walked over to him.

He knelt down and pulled at some weeds around a flowerbed. He saw her painted toes stop a few inches from him. He looked up.

“Mecho?”

“Yes?”

“You work very hard.”

He shrugged as he threw the weeds into a sack he had taken from the truck. “The only way I know. Hard.”

She smiled at this as though the comment had amused her somehow. “Did you hear what happened last night?”

Mecho didn’t look up. It was beyond odd that she was talking to him at all, and particularly about bombs exploding in the darkness.

“I saw the car,” he said in a low voice.

“And you saw me too, didn’t you?”

He looked up at her, shaded the glare of the sun with the width of his hand. “I do not understand.”

“At the window of the guesthouse yesterday morning. You were looking. I saw your reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall.”

Shit! thought Mecho.

“It’s okay. I’m not upset or anything. Did you like what you saw?”

Was she playing with him? Yet for some reason he thought she really wanted to hear the answer.

“Did you like what you were doing?” he shot back.

She seemed to mull this. “It’s complicated.”

“Complex things are actually simple.”

“Oh, you think so?”

“Don’t you?”

“Maybe. What do you think? Did I like it?”

“No. But then again, it’s none of my business.”

She looked over his shoulder at the yacht. “He has the best of everything,” she said. “Houses, planes, yachts.”

“And you? Are you one of his bests?”

“You don’t seem like a typical member of a landscaping crew.”

“I came here for a better life. I have yet to find it. In my country I had a good job. I used my brains. Here, I just use my back.”

“So why come here, then?”

“I had to.”

“Were things bad in your country?”

“Things were bad,” he said curtly.

“I see.”

“Do you really see?”

She looked at him with a bemused expression. “Why do I think you’re talking more about me than you?”

“Does the other man know?”

“James? James is lock, stock, and barrel with Peter.”

“This is a phrase I don’t understand.”

“Peter owns James. So, no, he doesn’t care.”

“Then James is less than a man.”

“A fact I know perfectly well.”

“Why do you bother to talk to me? Because I saw?”

“I trust my gut on people. And you passed that test.”

“That doesn’t matter. People like you do not talk to people like me.”

“Is that the rule?”

“Yes.”

“I like to smash rules, Mecho. I always have.”

He shrugged and went back to weeding.

“Will you be here much longer?” she asked.

“Will you?”

“I don’t know. It’s up to Peter.”

The same for me, thought Mecho.

CHAPTER

59

THE PLAZA HOTEL DID NOT look like the far more famous one in New York City on the edge of Central Park. Its exterior was the usual beige stucco, its roof the usual terra-cotta tiles, and each balcony overlooking the water had columns shaped like palm trees.

Puller did not focus on the architecture of the building as he and Carson walked inside. He was thinking about Diego. And how to get him and Mateo back in something other than body bags. And he still had no clue where Isabel was.

“Do we tell the police about what just happened?” asked Carson as they hurried through the ornate lobby that had as its centerpiece a fountain with King Neptune in the center on a pedestal with dolphins and mermaids leaping around him. If it weren’t so garish it might have actually been funny.

“Yes, we do. They need to get an APB out on the kids right now.”

Landry met them at the elevator banks and they rode a car up to the floor where the murders had occurred. On the way Puller told her about Diego and Mateo and their run-in with the street kings.

“You’re lucky to still be walking around. Those guys are real animals.”

“They wouldn’t last a minute in Afghanistan,” said Puller.

“Amen to that,” added Carson.

Landry called in this information. “I’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything,” she said after she got off the phone.

As they climbed off the elevator Puller caught Landry and Carson checking each other out in a way only women could do and most men would never even notice. But Puller noticed and, again, it made him uncomfortable.

The hotel room was empty except for Bullock and the two dead bodies. Other than that there was no visible sign that anything had been processed.

Bullock came over to them, and as if in answer to his thoughts he said, “Called in some support from the state police. And I’m trying to think of a way to engage the FBI. This is getting out of control. But I’ve heard nothing back yet. Florida’s slashed its budget like every other state. Not sure we’re going to be getting any help.”

Puller was only half listening. His attention was on the bed where the two men lay. He drew closer, Carson right next to him.

“Who called it in?” asked Puller.

“Hotel. Room service came up here with a breakfast order one of the guys had put in the night before. No one answered. She opened the door and, to put it delicately, tossed her cookies along with the breakfast tray. Luckily someone cleaned that up before we got here.”

“Those wounds look deep,” said Carson.

“They are,” replied Landry. “The knife blade came out the other side on both men.”

“Long blade and strong killer,” said Puller. He focused more on the faces. He had already seen that the two men were not the same pair that had been following him.

When Carson asked him about this, he shook his head. “No. Different guys. Never seen them before.”

He looked at Landry. “Time of death?”

“The ME came in and did a quick look-see and pronounced death. She said between two and four last night.”

Puller ran his gaze over the bodies. “Tied up.” He looked closer at their faces. “Were their mouths taped? I see some residue.”

“Apparently so, but the killer took the tape with him. And there’s this.”

Landry edged down the pants and underwear of one of the men.

“The killer cut his groin?” said Carson.

Landry nodded. “We saw the blood on the pants and the ME had a look.”

Puller said, “Torture? Getting them to talk?”

“I guess that technique would work on most guys,” observed Landry dryly.

“Who are these two?” asked Puller.

“Joe Watson is the guy on the right. This was his room. Stiff on the left is Donald Taggert. He was in the room next door.”

“What else do we know about them?”

“Not much. They came down here about two weeks ago. They’re both from New Jersey. We’re checking into their backgrounds now. Next of kin being notified, all the standard stuff.”

“Two weeks here,” said Puller. “Pretty expensive.”

“It can be, yes,” said Landry.

“Nice suits,” said Carson, edging up Watson’s jacket to see the label. “Hands manicured, expensive shoes. There’s money here for sure.”

Bullock came over to join them. “And a bombing at Lampert’s place. Murders on the beach. Gangs attacking folks. I don’t know what the hell is going on. Just last week this place was as peaceful as a small town in the middle of Kansas.”

“Even small towns have problems,” said Puller, thinking of his recent escapade in rural West Virginia.

“Well, right now I’ll switch with any of them,” replied Bullock. He looked inquiringly at Carson, and Puller quickly introduced her.

“A general?” said Bullock. “That’s pretty impressive.”

“Not really. The Army has a lot of one-stars.”

“Not many who are women, I bet,” said Bullock.

“The Army could definitely do better in that regard,” agreed Carson.

Puller said, “Any leave-behinds from the killer?”

“Not much so far. No one saw anything. And unfortunately the hotel doesn’t have security cameras in the corridors.”

“Why not?’ asked Carson.

“What happens in Paradise stays in Paradise,” replied Bullock.

“Vegas has tons of surveillance cameras,” she pointed out.

“In the casinos. And I guess we’re a little more forgiving here.”

“Not very forgiving to those two,” said Puller, pointing at the dead men.

“How’s the investigation coming with your aunt?” asked Landry.

“It’s coming. Did you ever find Jane Ryon?”

“She wasn’t at her home. We left messages on her phone for her to contact us.”

“How about an APB?”

“We don’t have enough cause to issue an APB. You just saw her driving down the street. She could have been coming from anyone’s home, or just passing through the neighborhood. We learned she has other clients on that street. And the ME has not issued her report yet. We don’t even know if it was a murder.”

“So you’re just going to wait to hear from her?” said Puller. “And if you don’t? If she’s already fled the country?”

Carson said, “You can put markers in the system for passport, credit card, and cell phone usage. She can be tracked that way.”

Bullock looked doubtful. “I’d need a court order for that. Let’s just try to work the case a bit more. I don’t want to get my butt sued in case she’s just off on vacation or something. And now I’ve got all this to deal with. This, we know, was a murder.”

Puller turned back to the bodies on the bed. “What do you want me to do?”

“You’re a trained investigator. Look around and tell me if you see anything that strikes you.”

“I’ve got my evidence duffel in my car. If I’m going to look around I’d rather do it my way and professionally.”

Bullock exclaimed, “Hell, have at it. I’m not too proud to admit I’m out of my depth here.”

Puller left to get his duffel.

CHAPTER

60

FOUR HOURS LATER Puller rose off one knee and bagged one more piece of evidence. He gave all the bags to Landry and slipped off his latex gloves and booties.

Carson, Landry, and Bullock had watched Puller methodically work the crime scene, taking photos, measuring, dusting for prints, and generally scrubbing the room for any clues to the killer’s identity. He had done both this room and the one next door.

“Army trained you well, John,” said Carson, looking impressed as he tossed his gloves and booties into his duffel.

“Yes, they did, John,” Landry added hastily.

Puller tried not to think about the increasingly complex situation with the two women as he packed his tools away.

Bullock was sitting on the edge of a credenza. While Puller had worked away, Landry went for sandwiches and waters. They had eaten outside the room, at Puller’s insistence, so as not to contaminate the crime scene.

“Any conclusions?” Bullock asked.

“Got a partial footprint near the edge of the bed in the other room. Dirt pattern that was probably carried in from outside. No obvious smells. Killer probably wasn’t wearing any type of strong cologne that might have lingered. I did elimination prints on the dead guys. Those are most of the prints I found in the rooms. I would assume some others match hotel personnel. For elimination purposes, we’ll need to print any of them who came up here.”

“Unless it was someone working at the hotel who killed them,” Carson pointed out.

“Right,” said Puller. “Then we’ll need to print all of them.”

Bullock said, “We’ll get right on that.” He nodded at Landry, who walked out to get it done.

Puller swept his gaze around the room. “Anything else?” asked Carson.

“Not forensically. I think we’ll know more when we find out about the dead guys’ backgrounds.” He looked at Bullock. “These aren’t street bangers. But you have drug problems here, right?”

“What city doesn’t have drug problems?” he said stiffly.

“Any other issues here we should know about?”

Carson looked at Puller and then at Bullock.

The police chief stared back at the CID agent. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you. You know this town better than I do.”

“There’s nothing special about Paradise in the crime department. In fact, before this last wave of violence we were pretty clean.”

Puller glanced at Carson.

Bullock caught his look and said, “You know something I don’t?”

“People disappear here?” asked Puller.

“Disappear? What the hell do you mean? Spontaneous combustion?”

“Do they live here one day and then they’re gone the next?”

“Missing persons? No. We don’t get much of that.”

“How many folks here are undocumented illegals?” asked Carson.

“This is a beach town on the Gulf. Unprotected border. Tourist destination. Cheap labor is important.”

“Meaning you have a lot of undocumented,” said Puller.

“I wouldn’t say a lot.”

“But if they went missing you wouldn’t necessarily hear about it. I mean, folks might not report it.”

“I guess they might not. But what are you getting at?”

“When I find out I’ll let you know.”

Landry said, “I’ll fill you in, Chief. Some kids are missing. We have an APB out on them.”

Before Bullock could react to this, Puller hefted his duffel over his shoulder and looked at Carson. “You ready?”

“Let’s go.”

“You just gonna leave it at that?” said Bullock.

“I came down here to find out why my aunt died. I intend to finish that mission.”

“And all the other stuff that’s going on?”

“If it’s connected to what happened to my aunt, then that too.” He motioned with his hand to the bed. “You might want to get them out of here. The smell is only going to get more unpleasant, especially in this heat.”

Carson followed him out as Bullock stood in the middle of the room looking at the dead men.

Puller loaded his duffel into the Tahoe and climbed into the driver’s side while Carson got in the passenger seat. Landry hurried up to them.

“Are you heading out?” she asked.

“For now, yeah. You getting the elimination prints done?”

“Organizing it right now.”

“Let me know when you find out anything about the two stiffs. They weren’t down here for a vacation.”

“I will.”

Landry glanced at Carson and then back at Puller. “You have time to get together later?”

Puller licked his lips and felt the heat rise to his face. “That’s a possibility. I’ll give you a call.”

Landry looked like she’d been slapped and she glanced once more at Carson. “Are you at the Gull Coast?”

At first Puller thought she was asking him, but then it became clear she wasn’t.

Carson said, “Yes. Just checked in.”

“I assume you’re down here on vacation.”

“I am.”

“Then you might want to try a place closer to the beach. The Gull is a long walk. And you don’t want to miss any rays.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“You’re welcome,” she said curtly and then turned and stalked off.

Carson said, “Am I interrupting something?”

Puller put the Tahoe in gear and backed out of the space. “No,” he said.

“Okay. Where are we going?”

“You want to hit the beach?”

“Is that what you want to do?” she asked, looking surprised.

“No. But I’m here working. You’re not.”

“I’m not a sun worshipper. And I’m here because you’re here, so let’s get to work.”

“All right.”

“So where to?”

“Where it all started. My aunt’s house.”

CHAPTER

61

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?”

Carson was staring at Puller, who was searching through his aunt’s closet.

“Things that aren’t here.”

He went back outside, dug through his duffel, and pulled out the stapled pieces of paper, rifling through them. He counted down the items on the list and nodded his head.

“Breakthrough?” asked Carson.

“You could say that.”

Puller slid the papers into his pocket and stared over at Cookie’s house. Yellow police tape was still up, but there was no police cruiser parked out front. They were probably over at the new crime scene at the Plaza.

“John, what’s going on?”

“Just trying to piece something together.”

“About the murders?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

She followed as he walked over to Cookie’s house and through the gate into the backyard.

The house was dark.

The door was locked.

Ten seconds later the door was no longer locked.

“Army teach you that?” whispered Carson over his shoulder as he eased the door open.

“Army taught me a lot of things. Most of them useful.”

She followed him inside.

“While I’m here I might as well get some stuff for the dog,” he commented.

He opened some cabinets in the kitchen, found the doggie supplies, and piled them in a plastic bag he pulled from the recycling bin next to the pantry door.

“So you just came for the dog stuff?” asked Carson.

Puller didn’t answer. He went over to the cabinet housing Cookie’s watch collection. He counted off again.

“This is getting to be a little tiresome, Puller,” Carson said, a bite in her tone.

“Just trying to add up the pieces before arriving at a course of action.”

She looked at the watches. “And those figure in all this somehow?”

“They figure in something. But we’ve got one more place to check.” He looked at his watch. “It’s still too early yet. We’ve got some time to kill. Let’s take a drive.”

“Where?”

“Not where, really. More like how far. Five miles.”

They left Cookie’s house and climbed back into the Tahoe. Puller checked the rearview.

“See the two guys anywhere?”

“No, but I didn’t expect to, really.” He looked at his odometer. “Okay, five miles out, five miles back. We’re going to head east. At least that seems to be the direction based on what Jane Ryon told me.”

They left Orion Street and then the community of Sunset by the Sea. Three miles out they left any semblance of civilization behind. Four miles out it was only them, the sand, and the ocean.

Five miles out Puller stopped the truck and looked around. They were on the main street. To the north looked busier, with some buildings visible in the distance. To the south was a row of palm trees.

“The ocean has to be on the other side of those trees,” said Puller.

“Provides a natural screen from the road,” observed Carson.

They pulled down a side road and quickly found that beyond the trees was a section of thick brush, more trees, and some surface roads running through them.

And then the sand.

And then the ocean.

Puller swung the Tahoe to a stop on an asphalt park-off and they climbed out. He looked in all directions except toward the ocean.

“Pretty isolated here,” he said. “No people.”

“I wonder why?” asked Carson. “The beach looks pretty enough.”

They walked toward it and quickly found out why the beach was not very popular. The sand was gritty, the beach was covered with sharp rocks, and then there was the smell.

Carson covered her nose. “Sulfur.”

“Must be some geological quirk around here that makes this stretch of beach the way it is. And then there’s that.” He pointed at the large sign erected on a dune.

It read, Warning. Strong riptide. No swimming allowed.

“So not all of Paradise is a paradise,” said Carson.

“I think we might have left Paradise about a half mile ago. Not sure what this place is called. Maybe it’s nothing.”

“It’s a wonder that sulfur smell doesn’t foul up the other beaches.”

“Wind probably doesn’t carry it that far,” said Puller. “Or there might be some sort of meteorological reason. I didn’t smell the sulfur until we got near the beach.”

“Me either, come to think of it. But why in the world would your aunt come here?”

“I don’t know. She was old, disabled. Used a walker.”

“So walking on a beach like this would be problematic. I’ve almost fallen twice.”

They stopped and looked around.

Puller fixed his gaze directly out at the ocean. “Any shipping channels out there?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It’s the Gulf of Mexico. I would imagine there are lots of ships coming and going. And then there’s all the oil drilling platforms.”

“Right. Like the one that popped and kept spewing oil for a long time.”

“I remember when the BP well burst open. J2 was tracking it for security reasons. And we did some background on the area. There are thousands of oil platforms out there. Most of them are concentrated off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. But some extend over into the Panhandle.”

“Oil is king.”

“At least for now, yeah.” Carson bent down, picked up a chunk of rock, and tossed it into the waves. “Can we go? I’m about to puke with this smell. And I’ll need a shower to get the stink off.”

“A lot of smells more gross than this in the military,” said Puller dryly.

“True. But that doesn’t mean I have to endure them when I’m on vacation.”

They walked back to the Tahoe. Before they got in Puller stopped and knelt down.

Carson said, “What is it?”

“The king.”

“Excuse me?”

She walked around to join him.

He ran his finger over the asphalt and it turned black. He lifted his finger to his nose and looked up at her.

“Oil. Not from a platform. From a vehicle.”

CHAPTER

62

MECHO WALKED THE LAWNMOWER up the ramp of the truck and positioned it next to two other pieces of motorized equipment. He turned and stared back out across the Lampert estate. He didn’t know how much the man spent on landscaping, but it must be a lot. They had come every day and worked all day. When one part was done it was time to move on to another. When the cycle was complete it started over again.

When he had asked the foreman about it the man had just shaken his head and muttered, “He spends more on grass than I’ll make in my entire life. What’s fair about that?”

“Life is not meant to be fair,” Mecho had told him.

“You got that right,” the man said. “Life is meant to suck. Unless you’re rich.”

“There are things other than money,” Mecho said. “To bring happiness.”

The foreman smirked. “Keep telling yourself that. You might actually start believing it.”

“I do believe it,” Mecho had said after the man walked off.

Mecho climbed down and washed the back of his neck with cold water from a bucket carried on the truck. He glanced toward the yacht. Lampert had never come back off it. He had been on there most of the day. But then again, when you had a yacht like that why would you get off?

Then Mecho wondered if he were there by himself. He doubted it.

He knew that Chrissy Murdoch was not there. He had seen her go into the house.

The maid Beatriz had not gone out there either.

But there were other women here. And one could have arrived directly at the yacht from the waterside via a tender and Mecho would not have been able to see it. The yacht blocked the water view along its full length.

Mecho looked back over at the guesthouse and then at the remains of the Bentley. The police had finally left, apparently having exhausted the evidence remaining at the crime scene.

Actually, they would not find any, because he had not left any. If they were looking for a bomb signature they would not find one. He had gone totally generic on that. It would provide them with a thousand possible paths to go down with nary a viable prosecution case at the end of any of them.

He looked up in time to see the sun reflecting off something in an upstairs room of the main house. He immediately walked in the opposite direction, took cover behind a tree, and knelt down, ostensibly to look for weeds to pull or mulch to tidy up.

From the partial cover provided by the tree canopy he looked up, shielding the sun’s glare with one of his huge hands. He counted windows. Third floor, second window from the left. Southwestern side of the house.

He squinted to see if he could tell who was holding the optics. But he couldn’t make out the person.

He ran a sightline from the window to what the person was looking at.

It was a simple process and yielded a simple answer.

The yacht.

With decent optics and from that height the person could probably make out quite a few details on the boat. Which also meant the person was well ahead of Mecho when it came to recon.

He saw Beatriz come out again.

Mecho moved swiftly enough to intersect her path. He walked along with her for a few paces. He asked the question that he needed answered.

She didn’t seem to want to, perhaps thinking he was casing the place for a later burglary. But finally she did tell him.

Mecho thanked her and said that he would try to help her.

“How?” she immediately asked him.

“I can get you out, perhaps.”

“You cannot do that,” she replied, her face turning as pale as her almond skin would allow. “My family.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s complicated.”

“It is not complicated,” she whispered back. “Do not do anything to help me. I am beyond help.”

She turned and rushed off.

Mecho looked around to see if this conversation had engaged the interest of anyone, security types or otherwise.

He could see no one paying them any attention.

They were merely servants conversing. Perhaps it was expected.

Class to class.

It was only when you tried to mingle outside your class—steerage passengers emerging on the main decks during daylight hours—that people became upset.

But she had told him what he needed to know.

The room with the optics belonged to Christine Murdoch.

She was the one spying on Lampert and his yacht.

And Mecho wondered why that was so.

CHAPTER

63

PETER LAMPERT SAT BACK in the leather chair that was located in his private office on Lady Lucky. He was surrounded by only the best here. The best boat, the best equipment, the best crew, the best wine, the best views, and the best ass money could buy.

It had been a long slog for him, though. South Beach was a rough place to survive, much less build a successful business. Lampert had tried the legitimate side for a long time. But ultimately he found it too stifling with all its rules and regulations and laws that could trip you up. He did not like regulatory agencies looking over his shoulder. He didn’t know of one businessman who did.

After his hedge fund had imploded he had decided to build a different business model. Thus he had taken his talents to another line of work. He had installed proven business systems in a field that often existed on crude violence and sketchy accounting.

Now he had built an incredibly profitable empire by charging fees tied to profitability, like royalties on a book. He charged a standard fee up front to find and transport product to the end user. If the product hit certain benchmarks once deployed in the field, additional monies started to flow back to him.

If a prostitute reaped over six figures then monies started to come back to him. If a drug mule successfully completed ten missions, monies started to flow back to him. The lowest-level product, the common laborer, typically had a more modest threshold to meet because their initial cost was the least. But the profits generated by them added up because there were so many of them deployed in the field. Volume was volume.

Slave labor in civilized countries was one of the fastest-growing segments of the criminal world. Not that he ever saw anything remotely criminal about it. To Lampert he was doing these poor folks a favor. As slaves they were fed and housed and lived a decent life, despite the fact that they were not free.

He had often had these people taken from worlds where there was never enough to eat, never a roof over their heads, and where wages were something one dreamt about but never actually received.

Freedom was vastly overrated in his mind.

He had accountants placed in strategic areas with full access to the books of his business associates. These associates, often not the most cooperative of men, had fallen in line with his demands solely because he had made the business far more lucrative and stable than it ever had been before. And he guaranteed a steady stream of product across all service lines. That was the most critical factor in his business and it demanded constant foraging for bodies in some of the most remote places on earth. There was no margin of error in this segment of the business.

As a result a boat that was late with product was a boat that would not be sitting above the water much longer, along with its captain and crew.

He looked out the starboard window and checked his watch. Then he glanced back at the computer screen over which a stream of business data poured over secure networks.

He played hard, but he also worked hard. It was not easy building what he had. Most people would not have the nerve or stomach for it. He had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth on the shores of Lake Michigan. His father had been CEO of a Fortune 500 company. His mother was a beautiful socialite who entertained often and lavishly at their multiple homes. They had lived the life that most Americans dreamed of.

He had gone to the most elite universities and set up shop on Wall Street along with a gaggle of his classmates. Many were now titans of industry and preferred to keep the money and influence that came with it in tightly controlled circles of people who were just like them. Upward mobility was nice to talk about to the masses, but not something that people at his level ever really took seriously. The pie was only so big. Why share it with folks who did not share your values?

Your vision for the future?

Your fraternity affiliation?

What most people didn’t understand was that it was the risk-takers who made America great. It was said that the rich had captured nearly all the wealth and all of the income generated over the last decade or so. Well, Lampert thought, they should. It was right and just. The only thing wrong with income inequality was that it wasn’t unequal enough.

The 99.9 percenters were sheep and stuck right where they should be. They were the players to be named later. There were billions and billions of them and they looked exactly the same. The 0.1 percenters deserved everything because they were the elites. They were special. They moved the world to new heights.

And it didn’t deter Lampert in the least that he was acting on the wrong side of the law. People wanted whores and drugs and slave laborers. Thus there was a need.

He was simply fulfilling that need. Nothing more, nothing less. Like cigarette manufacturers, porn sites, fast food outlets, and casinos fed people’s desires and addictions. That simple model had driven business success for all of recorded history.

Find a need and fill it as hard as you can.

Ten minutes later he checked his watch again and looked out the window. It was growing dark. That was good.

An hour later he heard the thump-thump.

He rose and looked out the window. The lights of the chopper were drawing closer, coming in from the Gulf where a boat larger than the one Lampert was on lay at anchor.

A few minutes later he felt the wheels of the bird come to rest on the helipad at the aft of the yacht. The chopper powered down and he could envision but not hear over the sounds of the engine the doors of the aircraft opening and then thunking closed.

He sat back down in his chair, put his fingers together, and waited, counting off the seconds in his head.

The door to his office opened and the person came in, escorted by a member of Lampert’s security team.

With a curt nod Lampert dismissed the guard, who closed the door behind him.

The visitor was around five-eight and strongly built, with a head that was too large by half for even his muscular frame.

There was a lot contained in that overly big head, Lampert knew.

The man was dressed all in black. His shoes had blocky heels to push his height up as much as possible.

It was enlightening, thought Lampert, that a man that powerful still felt compelled to artificially inflate his stature.

He nodded at Lampert and sat down across from him.

“Good trip?” asked Lampert.

The man flicked a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit up without asking whether it was permitted or not.

Lampert would not have questioned the man’s decision to smoke on his floating palace.

Peter Lampert did not fear many people.

The man sitting across from him was one whom he did fear.

“A trip that ends safely at one’s destination is, de facto, a good trip,” said the other man in an accent that showed that English was not his primary language.

“Things are going well,” said Lampert.

“Things could be better,” said the man as he exhaled smoke and watched it float toward the elaborately carved ceiling.

“Things could always be better,” replied Lampert, leaning forward a bit in his chair.

The other man tapped his cigarette ash against the arm of his chair, letting it fall to the carpet.

Lampert did not object or even react to this.

“Things could be better,” said the man again. “For example, there have been a number of killings in Paradise. The police are investigating. Your car was bombed. Again, the police are investigating.” He stopped talking and stared across the width of the desk.

Lampert’s expression didn’t change. “Steps had to be taken. The fallout is what it is. The investigations will lead nowhere.” He might be afraid of the man, but he could not show that fear. And Lampert could debate a point with the best of them.

“Your opinion that the investigation will not go anywhere,” said the man, studying him closely as he bent the fired match between his two fingers.

“My educated opinion based on conditions on the ground.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“I don’t believe that I am.”

“But if you are?”

“There will be consequences.”

“Of course there will be. For you.”

“Then I have every incentive to make sure I’m right.”

The man eased a bit to the left, making the leather seat squeak. “Moving on. It’s getting more difficult to acquire product. The price has to go up. You’ll send this down the line.”

“How much?”

“Ten percent for now. As a base. Add five percent for each category above base.”

“Meaning a twenty percent increase for the top tier?”

“Yes.”

“That’s steep.”

“It could be more. But I’m a reasonable man.”

“I’ll have to eat some of that.”

The man looked around at the luxurious interior of the yacht. “I think you’ll be just fine.”

“I’m sure I will.”

“So long as your educated opinion turns out to be right. Money isn’t everything.”

Lampert smiled. “I would disagree with you there. Money is everything, because it leads to everything else of value.”

“Would you like to visit my boat? I have a new submarine. It can hold over thirty people. The marine life here is quite fascinating.”

“I would like to, but demands here will prevent me.”

Lampert was thinking, I don’t actually want to become part of the marine life.

The man rose. “Someone who blows up Bentleys and disappears like a wisp of smoke is someone who is formidable. It was a message.”

“Yes, it was. Perhaps more directly than you know.”

“And you have the answer?”

“Working on it as we speak.”

“A small measure of advice?”

Lampert looked up at him expectantly. “I’d love to hear it.”

“Smoke often evidences a large fire that can burn out of control.” He paused and put out his cigarette on the surface of Lampert’s forty-thousand-dollar custom-built desk. “So work faster.”

The next moment he was gone.

Like a wisp of smoke blown out to sea.

CHAPTER

64

MECHO LIFTED HIS HEAD SLIGHTLY out of the water and watched the chopper lift off from the helipad and head south out to sea.

He turned on his back and used small strokes of his hands to propel him closer to the boat.

There was security on the main deck and two men on the pier holding MP5s. However, they had no one in the water. That was a large breach in security. But then again the sharks would be out now.

And while Lampert paid well, he apparently didn’t pay that well.

Mecho drew close enough to the boat to touch its hull on the starboard side. He looked out to sea where the lights of the chopper were still visible.

From land and with the aid of binoculars he had caught a glimpse of the man who had first climbed off and then climbed back on the bird.

Mecho had known instantly who he was.

Stiven Rojas.

Police around the world would pale at the name.

There had never been a successful prosecution of Rojas, though many had been attempted. But when witnesses, prosecutors, and even judges are slain during the course of a trial, convictions are exceedingly rare. He had given a whole new definition to the term “ruthless” and would make some of the world’s worst terrorists look innocuous by comparison.

He had started as an orphan on the streets of Cali and built himself into a cartel chief of near mythic proportions. Despite his modest stature, men twice his size would drop to their knees at his approach. He would kill without warning or provocation. He was not simply a sociopath who happened to be a global criminal.

He was the sociopath who happened to be a global criminal.

But something had come along that even Rojas had not anticipated.

Rojas had watched his hemisphere’s drug pipeline into America move from his native Colombia to Mexico. But then he had adapted to a new business line. He would provide the mules to move the drugs throughout the United States. And along with that he would move other valuable product, namely prostitutes and slaves. Slaves in particular were the new growth market. Forget illegal immigrants. They expected to be free, and paid at least something. Slaves expected nothing. They just hoped not to die. Everything after that was a positive for them—not that there was much that was positive.

Rojas and Lampert were partners in the largest slave ring in the world. And they were poised to make it even larger.

Unless they were stopped.

Still in the water, Mecho moved down the starboard side of the ship. There was a line of portholes low enough for him to see in. He gripped one and pulled himself partially out of the water.

The room he was looking into was dark. And empty. He lowered himself back into the water and moved to the next window.

It was on the fourth porthole that he found something other than dark and empty.

Beatriz was still dressed in her maid’s uniform. She stood in one corner while Lampert sat at a table and ate his dinner. He ate slowly, chewing his food methodically. When he glanced at the bottle of wine within a few inches of his arm, Beatriz shot forward and refilled his glass.

As she bent slightly forward to do so Lampert’s hand slipped to her bottom and grabbed. She didn’t jerk or drop the bottle. She was apparently used to this treatment. She finished pouring the wine and retreated to the corner, her gaze downcast.

A minute later Lampert glanced at the basket of rolls.

Beatriz shot forward again, picked up one roll, broke it open, and used a small knife to butter it.

While she did this Lampert cupped her left breast with his hand and snaked his other hand under her skirt. As she buttered the roll Mecho could see her face. Bubbling just below the surface was anguish, coupled with a hatred that Mecho, in all his life, had rarely seen. He saw her hand tremble ever so slightly with the knife in it. He knew what she wanted to do. Even as Lampert stroked her she wanted to take the blade and stick it into his chest.

Mecho wondered why she didn’t do so.

Just do it, Beatriz!

Then he looked to the right and saw why she didn’t.

A man stood there with a gun pointed straight at Beatriz’s head.

She finished buttering the roll, placed it on Lampert’s bread plate, set the knife down, and once more retreated to the corner.

The man with the gun relaxed his stance and holstered his weapon.

Mecho sank back into the water.

Peter J. Lampert was not a man who took chances.

Mecho let the current pull him away from the yacht. When he was far enough away he struck out with long, powerful strokes.

And with every stroke he imagined plunging a knife into Lampert’s chest.

CHAPTER

65

PULLER WAS DRIVING FAST.

Carson eyed him from the passenger seat.

“So where are we going now?”

“I need to see my lawyer,” Puller answered cryptically.

When they reached the street on which Griffin Mason had his law office, Puller parked the Tahoe at the curb about a hundred yards down from it. He reached into his duffel and pulled out his pair of night-vision optics and put them to his eyes. He trained them on Mason’s office.

Carson followed his gaze.

“Your lawyer?”

“Actually, my aunt’s lawyer. He’s handling her estate.”

“And how is Mason doing handling her estate?”

“Not so good.”

Puller eyed the other buildings on the street. They were all dark.

There was no car in Mason’s driveway. No lights on in the office.

“How do you feel about a little breaking and entering?” he asked.

“It’s a felony. That’s how I feel about it.”

“Then you can wait here. I’ll be back shortly.”

She grabbed his arm. “Puller, think about this. You don’t want to piss away your military career, do you?”

“What I want is to do right by my aunt. And that includes taking a hard whack at a creep who’s screwing her. And others.”

Carson sighed. “I’ll come. I can keep lookout.”

“It wasn’t fair to ask you. You have a lot bigger career to lose than I do.”

“So don’t get caught. And if you do I’ll disavow all knowledge.”

“And I’ll back that statement up one hundred percent.”

“You’re damn right you will, soldier.”

A few moments later they were walking down the street. When they got to Mason’s place, Puller hooked a left and entered the man’s backyard. At the fence he told Carson to wait and keep watch.

“This shouldn’t take too long,” he said.

“Make sure it doesn’t.”

Mason had a security system, but one glance through the back-door window told Puller that it was not armed. The green light on the panel was lit.

Puller was surprised by this. Why have a security system if you didn’t use it?

The door lock was a deadbolt that took Puller only a few seconds to defeat using a pick gun from his duffel.

He opened the door and penlighted his way to the lawyer’s interior office.

It took him about thirty minutes to find what he was looking for.

Mason was meticulous in his recordkeeping.

A little too meticulous.

Puller looked at the pages he had brought with him, the inventory list Mason had given him about his aunt’s personal items. He checked it against the inventory list Mason had in the files.

It matched down to the last item.

He next searched for and found the inventory list for Cookie’s estate. He ran his gaze down it.

Puller saw what he knew he would see.

He put Cookie’s inventory list in his pocket along with his aunt’s. He shut the file drawer and looked around.

He thought about what the other estates attorney, Sheila Dowdy, had said.

Mason’s other car was an Aston Martin. He took expensive vacations. He had a big house.

It was all adding up, the pieces falling into place faster and easier than was normally the case.

The next moment his phone vibrated.

He looked at the text.

Bogie on our six, the text from Carson said.

Someone had just pulled into the driveway of Mason’s office.

Now Puller could understand why the security system had not been engaged.

This also told him that it probably wasn’t Mason coming back to work. He would have armed and then disarmed the system. This was someone whom Mason did not want to give his passcode to.

And maybe the person wasn’t supposed to be here at all.

He thumbed a text back to Carson.

Description?

Blue subcompact. Young slender woman with blonde hair.

As Puller read the text he knew they didn’t have to look for Jane Ryon any longer.

She had come to them.

CHAPTER

66

“TAKING SOMETHING or bringing something?”

Jane Ryon screamed and jumped backward as the light came on.

Puller stood there staring directly at her.

When Ryon turned to run, she pitched headlong into Carson, who stepped into the other doorway.

Ryon bounced off Carson, but before she could move again, Puller had her wrist clamped with his hand. She didn’t even try to tug herself free, understanding that that was impossible.

“What are you doing here?” asked Puller.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said defiantly. “I have permission to be here.” She held up a key. “Mr. Mason gave me this.”

“And why would Mason give you a key to his office?” asked Carson.

Ryon looked at her. “Why is that any of your business?”

“I saw you leaving Cookie’s house last night, Jane,” said Puller. “And then I found Cookie lying in the bottom of his bathtub.”

Puller watched her intently for any reaction to this.

“Cookie’s dead?”

He shook his head sadly. “You’re not a very good poker player, Jane. You knew he was dead,” said Puller. “And the police are looking for you. Where have you been hiding out?”

“I haven’t been hiding. Why would I hide? Why would I hurt Cookie? I liked him.”

With his free hand Puller slipped the stapled pieces of paper from his pocket.

“Inventory list of my aunt’s personal possessions. Mason gave it to me. The only problem is it doesn’t list all of my aunt’s jewelry. There are two rings, three sets of earrings, and a necklace missing. All looked pretty valuable. And a dozen old gold coins are also missing from a coin book she had.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” said Ryon.

“Actually, you know everything about it. Those pieces were in your bag when I ran into you at my aunt’s house. I had told Mason that I was going to my aunt’s house in the morning, but then I changed my mind and went that night. He had sent you to the house to get the jewelry and coins before I would have a chance to go through her things. You had already inventoried the items and then Mason had decided which ones he wanted you to rip off and changed the real inventory list to reflect those subtractions. But you had to get them out before I saw them. Or so he thought. The fact is I had already seen my aunt’s jewelry and coins before you got to the house, only he didn’t know that. When I went back to check later those items were gone. You took them. You did the same thing to Cookie. You took some of his watches. I found the inventory list for Cookie’s property in the file here. It didn’t list the watches that were missing. And I know they were missing because Cookie showed me his collection.

“You and Mason have a nice scam going. You get inside the houses of elderly people that Mason represents and find out what their valuables are. Then when they die, you take them and Mason alters the inventory list accordingly, fences the items, and the poor heirs aren’t any the wiser. Then Mason can afford his Aston Martin and trips around the world, and I’m betting you’re damn well paid for your part.”

Ryon’s face had been growing paler with each word spoken by Puller.

Carson added, “And maybe you help your targets into the hereafter. You kill Cookie and that way you get his property faster.”

“I didn’t kill Cookie.”

“But you were in his house.”

Puller stared at her bag. “Open it.”

“What?”

“Open your bag.”

“You have no right to—”

Puller grabbed the bag and opened it. Wrapped in a silk scarf were four of Cookie’s watches.

Puller stared down at her. “Say goodbye to your life, Jane.”

Ryon was crying. “I didn’t kill him. I swear to God I didn’t.”

“Tell the police that. You just walked into his house, took his property that you could only take after he was dead, and he was coincidentally dead upstairs in the bath. It might give the jury a nice laugh before they sentence you to prison for the rest of your life.”

“Mason told me to go there and get the watches. So I did.”

“He told you to do that?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed.

“Didn’t you wonder how that was possible with Cookie still being alive?”

She took a shuddering breath. “Okay, look. He… he told me that Cookie was… was dead,” she said in a trembling voice.

“And how did he know that?”

“I don’t know.”

Carson looked at Puller. “Mason kills him for some reason, then orders her up to get the stuff.”

“Why wouldn’t Grif just snag the watches if he was already there?” asked Ryon.

“So it’s Grif now and not Mr. Mason?” Puller looked at her and shook his head wearily. “And the answer is because he wanted you to take the stuff, not him. That would put you at the scene of the crime. As soon as you found out Cookie was dead, you’d get suspicious. But you’re not going to say anything because you were in the house too. He set you up.”

“That little son of a bitch,” snarled Ryon, who was no longer crying.

“But why would he kill Cookie?” asked Carson.

Puller put his hand on Ryon’s shoulder and gripped. “Any ideas on that?”

“No. He never mentioned anything to me about it. He would have no reason to kill Cookie.”

“When did he call you to go over to Cookie’s?” asked Puller.

“Last night. I was in the area, so it only took me a few minutes to get there.”

“Would Mason have been at Cookie’s?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he went over for a drink. Or to get some baked goodies,” she said callously.

Puller shook her. “An old man is dead. Did you have anything to do with my aunt’s death?”

“I swear I didn’t.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” said Puller.

“I’m telling the truth,” exclaimed Ryon.

“Well, a jury will determine that. Now, where is the little son of a bitch?” asked Puller.

“I don’t know.”

He shook her again. “Not good enough. Try again.”

“Is he at his home?” asked Carson.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” asked Puller.

“He has another place he goes to. It’s more isolated.”

“Why does he want isolation?” asked Puller.

“He just does sometimes.”

“Does it have to do with the photos of kids he has in his wallet?”

Ryon looked up at him, stunned. “What are you talking about?”

“The guy’s a pedophile?” snapped Carson.

“Where is this place?” asked Puller sharply.

“It’s north of here, up near the bay. Nothing else really around it.”

“You have the address?”

“Yes.”

“Why, do you like kids too?”

“No, of course not,” shouted Ryon, and she started to cry again.

Puller squeezed her shoulder once more and cupped her chin and directed her gaze right at him.

“We’re going to give you a chance to make amends, Jane. But you only get one shot. You blow this, it’s all over. Do you understand?”

She looked back at him, the fear etched on her face.

“I understand.”

CHAPTER

67

MECHO PUT HIS PHONE AWAY after making the call.

It was the longest he ever had been on the phone. The man on the other end was critical to the success of Mecho’s task. The man knew this and Mecho knew this.

It was give-and-take. What the man wanted Mecho would have to give him, if he wanted to succeed. And he had never wanted anything more in his life.

“You will have to prove that to me, Mecho,” the man had said. “Words are available to anyone with a mouth and half a brain.”

“It will be done,” Mecho had told him. Now he just had to figure out how.

He left his room at the Sierra and walked to a diner nearby. He ate lightly for such a massive person. He had never eaten very much for the simple reason that he had never had much available to eat. Over the years one’s stomach and appetite withered.

But it was partly the hunger that drove him, kept him on edge. Complacency and comfort were not words that he accepted or even understood.

He drank copious amounts of water, though. The physical ordeal of swimming through the Gulf still lingered. He felt like he would never get enough liquid inside him.

He paid for the meal with some of the dollars he’d earned keeping Peter Lampert’s property pristine.

He considered it blood money. Anything that helped the man was blood money in Mecho’s mind.

He looked around the small diner and was not unduly surprised to see two uniformed police officers eating their meals. They sat near the door. A man and a woman.

The male was short and burly with a shaved head. The woman was taller with an athletic build and blonde hair. They were having an intense discussion. The man looked upset, the woman looked consoling.

It seemed to be a woman’s lot in life to ease the ridiculous anger of men, thought Mecho.

As he rose to leave, both officers’ gazes rose to meet his.

He nodded, attempted a smile, and walked out.

He did not much care for the police. For him they were as much an adversary as his actual one. They were bound to uphold the law.

There was no law that would ever touch Peter Lampert or Stiven Rojas. They were too clever and too dangerous by half for anything as impotent as laws to bother them. They had to be punished in other, more straightforward ways.

He walked down the street, trickles of sweat winding down his shoulders and broad back. He opted to take a stroll on the beach, to attempt to catch an ocean breeze before he headed back to the little oven that was his room.

He trudged across the sand, oblivious to the other beachcombers, but his antennae were still on high alert.

Or so he thought.

“Mecho?”

He turned but he already knew who the speaker was.

Chrissy Murdoch stood there, sandals in hand. She had on a white sundress and the wind whipped it around her long legs.

Mecho simply stood there, neither advancing nor retreating.

She walked toward him, looked up at him.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I was just walking on the beach and saw you.”

“Mr. Lampert has a private beach nicer than this one.”

“I suppose he does. I’m surprised you know that, though.”

“Enjoy your walk.”

He turned to walk back to the Sierra. Every warning bell he possessed was clanging so hard he felt almost deafened.

“Mecho?”

He stopped but did not turn back around.

He felt her hand on his arm.

Still he didn’t look at her.

“I understand that you were asking about the whereabouts of my bedroom,” she said.

This question was not the one he had been expecting.

She stood in front of him.

“Was there a reason for your inquiry?” she asked. “Beyond the obvious one?”

“What is the obvious one?”

She smiled disarmingly. “Sex, of course.”

He did not smile back. He had no reason to smile. She was playing an odd sort of game with him. But of course it wasn’t a game at all. It was never a game when people died.

“I doubt that the guards would let me into the main house.”

“Well, we’re not at the main house right now, are we? Where are you staying?”

He turned and trudged off down the sand.

She followed, her feet making springy steps over the sand.

He stopped so abruptly that she almost bumped into him. He turned, looked down at her.

“So what is the non-obvious reason?” he asked.

She didn’t seem surprised by the question.

“Since it’s not obvious, I’m not really sure.”

“You treat everything so casually?” he asked.

“Your English is much better in town.”

“I learn quickly.”

“About my bedroom?”

“Who told you I was making inquiries?”

“I like being on the top floor. It gives one some interesting perspectives.”

“On what?”

“Lots of things.”

“Why are you at Lampert’s?”

“I’m staying with Mr. Winthrop.”

“The man who doesn’t care if another man screws you?”

“There are lots of men like that, Mecho.”

“I am not like that.”

“No, I would imagine you wouldn’t be.” She slipped her sandals back on. “The sand is so hot even at this hour. So where are you staying?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I like to know things.”

He turned and walked off.

“I can find out, you know. On my own.”

He stopped and turned back as she drew closer.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Maybe the same thing you want.”

“How would you know what I want?”

“Perhaps you’re not as subtle as you think you are.”

Mecho stared right through her.

“The thing is, Mecho, I’m not sure we can both get what we want. Only one of us can.”

“Only one of us can,” he repeated.

He turned and walked off. This time she did not follow and he did not look back.

Mecho was thinking only one thing.

I will have to kill her after all.

CHAPTER

68

“JANE, what the hell are you doing here?”

Griffin Mason stared back at Ryon as she stood on the front stoop of his cottage near Choctawhatchee Bay. He was dressed in a robe and his hair was disheveled.

“Actually, it’s a threesome,” said Puller as he appeared on the right of Ryon while Carson appeared on the left of the woman.

Mason paled as he looked at the pair.

Puller said, “We need to come in and talk.”

He glanced nervously over his shoulder. “This isn’t a good time.”

Before he could look back he was being propelled into the house by a hard shove from Puller. His robe flew open, revealing his naked body.

“I didn’t say it was a request,” said Puller as he stood over Mason, who had ended up on his back on the floor.

“Where are they?” Puller demanded.

“Where is who?” yelled Mason.

Puller grabbed him by the shoulders and jerked him to his feet. “The kids,” he barked. “Where are they?”

“What kids?”

“Diego and Mateo.”

Carson glanced sharply at him.

Puller eyed her. “It occurred to me on the way over. This jerk-off can afford a thousand bucks to buy a kid.”

They all heard a noise from the next room. Puller raced to the door and threw it open.

Mason shouted, “Damn it, you can’t go in there.”

“The hell I can’t,” said Puller.

He froze in the doorway as the others joined him.

They all stared into the room.

A bedroom.

Someone was on the bed.

It was not Diego. Or Mateo.

It was Isabel.

And she was naked.

She barely had time to lift the sheet to cover her body.

“Isabel?” said Puller.

She stared back at him, her face a ball of anger. “What the hell is going on, Grif?” she exclaimed, looking over at Mason.

Mason grabbed Puller by the arm and tried to jerk him around, but Puller was so big and strong that Mason merely ended up knocking himself off balance and falling to the floor.

He jumped back up and screamed, “I am going to sue your ass off.”

Puller turned to him. “What is she doing up here?”

“That is none of your damn business,” yelled an apoplectic Mason.

“It is my business,” said Puller. He looked at Isabel. “Are you here voluntarily?”

“Of course I am.”

“Now get your ass out of here,” yelled Mason. “And you better damn well lawyer up. I’m going to own your military pension and every other asset you have, including your aunt’s house.”

“What about the photos of the kids in your wallet?” asked Puller. “The black kid and the Asian?”

“How did you know about them?”

“Who are they?”

“They’re my kids,” exploded Mason.

“What?”

“My ex and I adopted them years ago. They’re both grown now. But I carry their pictures in my wallet from when they were kids. Not that it’s any of your damn business.”

Carson said, “Isabel, how old are you?”

“Sixteen,” she replied automatically.

“Isabel, the truth. It’s something we can find out easily, but it’ll be better coming from you.”

Isabel hesitated and said, “I’m almost sixteen. In a year and a half.”

Puller looked at Mason in disgust. “You’re in bed with a fourteen-year-old?”

“She told me she was sixteen. Check out her rack. She looks eighteen.”

Puller said to Isabel, “How much is he paying you?”

Mason yelled, “I’m not paying her anything. This is not a prostitution thing.”

“Right. She’s just up here screwing an old fat guy because it’s so much cooler than doing the young bucks.”

“He just gives me things,” said Isabel.

“Like what?” asked Carson.

“Don’t say anything, Isabel,” demanded Mason. “They’re just trying to trick you. I’m calling my lawyer.”

“Stat rape is stat rape, Mason,” noted Puller. “Not much of a defense to that.”

Mason took a step back. “Look, we can work this out. It was just a misunderstanding.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re going down either way, stat rape or not.”

“What?” said Mason, looking confused.

“We busted your scam.”

“What scam?”

Puller looked at Ryon and Ryon looked at Mason.

Puller said, “I caught her with the stolen goods. She ratted you out. And now we know how an estates lawyer can afford an Aston Martin. So maybe you better lawyer the hell up.”

Mason stared at Puller for a few seconds and then lunged at Ryon. “You stupid bitch!” His hands were around her neck and he was squeezing with all his strength.

Puller ripped him off her and threw Mason back against the wall.

Ryon slumped to the floor, gasping for breath and looking terrified.

Puller whipped Mason’s hands behind his back and secured them with plasticuffs.

“Okay, we also now have your ass for assault and attempted murder. Thanks for the favor.”

“You dumb bitch!” screamed Mason again at the sobbing Ryon.

Carson said, “Yeah, we got it the first time.”

Puller grabbed Mason by the neck. “And maybe you help your targets into the grave a little faster so you can cash in, Grif?”

Mason looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Cookie? Floating in a bathtub. You were there. You told Ryon to get over there and take his most valuable watches. Only way that works is if he’s dead.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Yeah, right. And what about my aunt? You make her do a header into the fountain? Hold her under?”

“I swear to God I didn’t.”

“We know you were at Cookie’s house,” roared Puller.

“Okay, okay, I was there. For a meeting. I found him dead.”

“Bullshit.”

“He was. That’s why I told Jane to get her ass over there. I wanted to get the watches out before anyone came to the house. Do you know how much they’re worth?”

“Save it for your trial.”

Puller looked back at Isabel. “Get dressed. I’m taking you home. By the way, your abuela has been worried sick.”

“I have a life to lead.”

“Where are Diego and Mateo?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you know they were missing?”

She stared at him defiantly and then shrugged. “They’ll probably come back.”

“Get dressed,” he said quietly and shut the door.

As they hauled Mason and Ryon outside, Puller’s phone buzzed. He looked at the text that had just come across. His jaw plunged.

“Son of a bitch.”

“What is it?” asked Carson as they loaded Ryon and Mason into the back of the Tahoe and slammed the doors shut.

Puller stared across at her.

“ME finished the post on Cookie. He wasn’t murdered. He died from a popped aneurysm.”

Carson said, “So Mason’s not a killer?”

“And he’s not a pedophile.”

“He’s just a scum who steals from old people and beds underage girls.”

Puller sighed and leaned on the top of the Tahoe. “So we’re back to square one.”

“With Diego and Mateo too,” added Carson.

“With everything, actually,” said Puller quietly. He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter past one. As he looked at the time something clicked in his brain. It had always been there, he supposed, but until this moment it had not registered.

Carson said, “Puller, what is it?”

Puller didn’t hear her. Part of him couldn’t believe it. Part of him could. But he would have to make sure. He would have to make calls. He would have to dig. He would have to once more become the investigator.

It was about time, he thought. It was about damn time.

CHAPTER

69

MASON AND RYON WERE in custody with the Paradise Police Department. Puller had given a full report to Bullock, who was burning the midnight oil. It had taken hours to fill him in on everything and then hours more to complete the paperwork. Justice, it seemed, was obsessed with paper.

Bullock did not seem pleased to have one more thing added to his plate, but he had his people fill out the necessary reports and ordered Ryon and Mason into holding cells. Mason was screaming about suing the entire city of Paradise, but Ryon had signed a confession and it was confirmed that Isabel was only fourteen, so the stat rape charge seemed solid.

Isabel was released into her grandmother’s care after confirming in writing the account of what had happened.

Puller had also filled out a missing persons report on Diego and Mateo. He had told Bullock about the allegation that a man had paid a thousand dollars for them.

Bullock’s features had turned darker while he listened to this.

Carson, who had been hovering in the background, said, “Do you have a problem with things like this in Paradise?”

Bullock glanced sharply up at her. “What do you mean?”

“With people being bought like that,” said Puller.

Bullock frowned. “Look, we have a large population of undocumented down here, even with the reverse immigration because of the bad economy. If people are here illegally it’s hard to know if anyone’s disappeared. Folks come and go.”

“These are two little kids,” countered Puller. “They lived with their grandmother.”

“I get that, Puller. But I don’t have the manpower to put on every case of folks disappearing. Not even the big-city departments can do that anymore. It’s just the way things are.”

“Then things suck,” Puller said.

“Okay, they suck. What do you want me to do about it?”

“You’re putting a lot of resources on the Lampert case.”

“A bomb exploded there.”

“But no one was hurt.”

“It’s different.”

“It’s only different because he has the biggest estate in Paradise.”

Bullock rifled through some papers and didn’t respond.

“Any leads on the bomber?” asked Carson.

“No,” replied Bullock, still rifling.

“What about Cookie?” asked Puller.

“Not a homicide. You know that. Aneurysm popped. So if you were thinking there was a homicidal lunatic loose on Orion Street and that person killed your aunt too, well, stop thinking it.”

“Just because Cookie’s death was from natural causes doesn’t mean my aunt wasn’t murdered.”

“Puller, I appreciate you bagging Mason and Ryon, I really do. If the case holds against them they’re scum who deserve to go away to prison. But what I will not appreciate is you running around town playing detective.”

“I offered my services before and you told me you might take me up on it.”

“I said might. And I’ve decided not to. You’re not part of this department. You’re in the military. You have no authority here and I have no authority over you. Things would get tricky real fast.”

“Okay, I guess I understand that.”

“Thanks. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to process the paperwork on Mason and Ryon.”

Puller and Carson left and walked out into a new day with the sun already well up into the sky and the heat and humidity feeling like a pitcher of warm beer poured on them.

Carson stretched and worked a kink from her neck. “Well, I’m officially tired.”

“Yeah, not going to bed at night does that to a person.” He looked at his watch. “It’s already ten hundred.”

“We should catch some bunk time, John. Otherwise we’ll be no good for anything.”

Back in his room with Sadie bedded down on a large beach towel in the corner, Puller showered. He toweled off, slipped on a pair of boxers, and toppled backward on his bed. He wanted to go to sleep, but he couldn’t. Not yet. He rose and spent the next two hours burning up cell minutes. He found out a great deal of interesting information. All of it dovetailed nicely with what he had been thinking. And if he hadn’t looked at his watch last night, he never would have thought of it. Sometimes the mind did work in mysterious ways. He had more calls to make and more digging to do, but now he lay back on the bed and fell instantly asleep.

Hours later the knock on his door surprised him. He rose, snagging his M11 out of its holster.

“Yeah,” he said, standing to the left of the door.

“You can stand down. It’s just your friendly neighborhood one-star. You decent?”

Puller opened the door and looked at Carson. She had on a clingy light blue sleeveless dress with a V neckline and two-inch heels.

“What time is it?” asked Puller, who had gone from groggy to alert at the sight of her.

“Seventeen hundred.”

“Damn, I must have really been asleep. It only felt like an hour of sack time.”

“Can I come in?”

He stepped back and let her pass. She smelled of ginger and lilacs. Her skin glowed. Her hair was swept back, highlighted by the sun. The dress stopped about mid-thigh.

She sat on the bed and crossed her long legs as he closed the door.

“I thought we could talk about the case and then think about dinner. Unless you wanted to hook up with Officer Landry.”

She was gazing not at his face, but at a spot lower.

Puller looked down and realized he was still in his boxers.

“You must have a different definition of decent than I do, Puller.”

“I don’t want to hook up with Officer Landry,” he said curtly.

“All I needed to know.”

She rose, stepped out of her heels, undid a clasp at the back of her dress, and it fell to the floor.

She had nothing on underneath.

“This must seem very forward of me.”

“It actually seems just right.”

She rubbed her hand across his cheek. “I’ve learned from the Army that when you want to take a position you just have to go for it. Hesitation is for losers.”

She lay back on the bed and lifted up the covers. “I know you’ve been asleep a long time, but you want to crawl back in here? You won’t be sleeping. That I can guarantee.”

They kissed lightly at first and then deeper, their fingers probing. When they drew apart Carson looked unsteady, vulnerable and breathless, her hair askew, her lips parted. Tough one-star now naked, helpless, and literally in his hands. He traced her lips with his finger.

No words necessary.

He lifted her up, her long legs immediately scissoring around his torso. He laid her back on the bed.

There was a rim of sweat on her back that Puller flicked his hands over as he gripped her tightly. He rose up and settled down firmly on top. His hands slid to her buttocks and squeezed the soft flesh. Her hands kept busy too, slipping to his thighs and directing him to where Puller now needed to go.

A familiar motion took over, growing more and more frenetic as the fire inside each of them reached a point of no return.

Her moans were becoming more rapid. She started to talk. Telling him in his ear precisely what it was she wanted.

A while later Puller gave one last shudder and fell limp over Carson. She was gasping and trying to catch her breath and telling him how pleased she was at his performance. Together they slowly moved down to lie flat on the bed side by side.

“That was truly unbelievable, John,” she murmured in his ear.

It was, thought Puller, and he told her so.

She turned, faced him, and kissed him, first on the cheek, then the lips, sliding her fingers up and down one side of his face.

It had been a while for Puller. He worried whether he could bring the necessary level of passion. Apparently he had. And that made him feel both satisfied and relieved as he lay there next to her. He was still breathing hard, like he’d just completed the Army two-mile in record time.

“I don’t do this sort of thing lightly, just so you know,” she said.

“You don’t seem the type.”

“I’m not,” she said firmly, propping herself up on one elbow and looking at him.

“I’m not either,” he said.

“Trust me, I know.”

“You’ve been checking me out?”

“Your record speaks for itself. Not a lot of room in there for personal time.”

“You either.”

“Simple story, chasing stars.” She rubbed his chest. “So where do we go from here, big fellow?”

Puller jerked up and stared at her.

She laughed. “I’m not looking for an engagement ring and a wedding date, Puller. I’m talking about eating. I’m starved.”

He smiled. “Then how about we go eat?”

She kissed him, ran her fingers along a part of his anatomy that made him shudder.

She whispered in his ear, “Is that an order, soldier?”

“With all due respect, ma’am, yes, it is.”

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

83

THEY PULLED INTO THE PARKING lot of the Paradise Police Department headquarters. It was after four in the morning and the town was quiet and dark.

That was to be expected.

But the police department was supposed to be a twenty-four/seven operation.

And it was dark too.

That was not expected.

“How many officers do they have?” asked Carson.

“Not that many, apparently,” said Puller. “But I’ve never been here in the middle of the night either.”

Puller looked back at the dark station. He glanced toward the street when a pair of headlights turned the corner and headed their way.

Carson said, “That’s a police cruiser.”

“Yes, it is,” replied Puller.

The car pulled into the parking lot, stopped, and Cheryl Landry climbed out. She was in full uniform and had apparently been on patrol. She looked hot and upset.

Puller opened the door and got out.

“Puller?” Landry said, squinting at him in the darkness.

“Yeah. Where is everybody?”

“What do you mean?”

He pointed at the police station. “Don’t you have someone here day and night?”

“Oh, no, not anymore. Budget cuts. Even in Paradise.”

“What about 911 calls?”

“Outsourced. But we do have people on patrol at night, of course. That’s what I was doing. Until you called me. What’s up?”

“Riding solo? Where’s Hooper?”

“Good question. He didn’t bother showing up to work. I came on at eight last night and I’ve got another four hours to go on my shift. So why did you want to meet at this hour? You didn’t say over the phone.”

Puller pointed to the Tahoe. “Got some friends over there. We need some help.”

Landry eyed the SUV. “What friends? And what help do you need?”

“Where’s Bullock?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I just do.”

“Home in bed would be my guess.”

“How many uniforms in the department?”

“Including Bullock, sixteen.”

“Small force.”

“Small town. We’ve also got four admins and one forensics tech that you already met. Now, answer my questions. What friends? And what help do you need?”

“Paradise has a big problem.”

She looked at him skeptically. “What’s that?”

“People disappear.”

“Come on, Puller.”

“And Paradise is part of a pipeline for slaves being brought into the U.S.”

Landry froze and blurted out, “What?”

“Right down the road from here. At the beach that smells like sulfur.”

“I know that stretch of sand. No one goes there.”

“You’re wrong. People do go there.”

“No one from Paradise, I meant.”

“So the police don’t patrol there?”

“It’s not part of the town. It’s a no-man’s-land between Paradise and the next municipality over.”

“That makes it perfect for a pipeline, then.”

“And you have proof of this? Then let’s call in the Feds. Right now.”

“We don’t have proof. The proof is getting away as we speak.”

“So what are you doing here, then?”

“We need another gun.”

Landry once more looked at the SUV. “Who the hell is in there?”

“Carson. The big guy who saved my life at the Sierra. And one other person who I can vouch for. Are you with us?”

“I’m on duty. I’m on patrol. I can’t just up and leave on some wild-goose chase with you.”

“It’s not a wild-goose chase. And you can get someone else to relieve you.”

“Puller, I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t? Look, Landry, we nail this group you can write your own future in law enforcement.”

“I like it just fine here.”

“Then you’ll be helping us catch some really bad people. It’s why you carry the badge, right?”

“Does this have to do with your aunt? And the Storrows?”

“I think it does, yes.”

“Slavers killed them?”

“Yes. Because they found out what was going on.”

Landry drew a deep breath.

“Come on, Landry. We need you to get this done. You’re the only one here I’d ask.”

“Let me make some calls, see if I can get someone to cover for me.”

“Why don’t you call Hooper and Bullock?”

“Why them?”

“Because I’m betting they don’t pick up.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Just call them.”

She did so and there was no answer on either phone.

Landry put her cell away. “Both went to voice mail. But they could be asleep.”

“Doubtful.”

“Why?”

“Just don’t think so.”

“You’re not implying that they’re somehow involved in all this.”

“We don’t have time for explanations. Are you coming or not?”

Landry drew another long breath.

Puller said, “I think the town can get along without you for a few hours.”

“If this costs me my job?”

“Then you can kick my ass. And I’ll help you get another job.”

Landry smiled resignedly. “And your friend the general?”

“She’ll help you too.”

“Right, like I believe that. I don’t see us being best friends.”

“You might be surprised. Let’s go.”

“Where exactly?”

Puller pointed toward the Gulf.

“Out there.”

CHAPTER

84

THE BOAT WAS NOT large, and the seas were rough. Water continually washed over the sides of the boat.

Puller had everyone put their weapons in a watertight compartment. Mecho had given up his gun reluctantly.

Puller could hardly blame him. He did not like to be without a weapon either.

Puller had the wheel of the twenty-two-foot bow rider that Diaz had led them to. It was the same one they had used to dispose of the bodies of the men they killed. There was still some blood on one of the gunwales.

When Landry saw this she looked startled, but on a glance from Puller she said nothing. However, there was wariness in her eyes after that as she stood next to him at the helm holding on as the boat bounced over the waters.

Mecho had given Puller general directions to follow to the oil platform. In the darkness he was navigating by compass and the GPS plotter.

“Are you sure about these directions?” asked Puller. Mecho nodded, though he didn’t look all that confident.

Carson came to stand next to him. She held up her smartphone.

“Before we left land I had my office forward me the locations of every platform within fifty miles of Florida. There is one that is far closer to the coast than any other. Here are the coordinates.”

Puller looked at the numbers on her phone and then checked his plotter. He shot Mecho a glance. “Your memory is good. It’s pretty much right where you said it was.”

A wave hit them and Puller had to execute a sharp turn.

Puller looked at Landry, who was watching the rising seas with caution.

“Why so rough out here?” he asked.

“Remember Tropical Storm Danielle? It’s heading this way. Might get up to a Cat One. We’re catching the front edge of it.”

“Great, love the timing,” said Puller.

“You want me to pilot?”

“I got it.”

Landry looked over at Diaz. “That’s the woman from Lampert’s place. Murdoch, right?”

“Right.”

“What’s she doing here?”

“Her name isn’t Murdoch.”

“What is it then?”

“Diaz. She’s a cop.”

“A Fed?”

“You could say that. She was planted at Lampert’s.”

“Lampert? He’s involved in this?”

“Apparently his source of wealth is selling people.”

“Jesus! And his car being blown up?”

“A not so subtle warning that someone was on his track.”

Landry pointed at Diaz. “Her?”

“No, the big guy over there.”

“Why him? Is he a cop too?”

“No. I think this is more personal with him.”

Mecho sat in one of the stern seats and stared straight ahead. The pitching and rolling of the boat seemed to have no effect on him.

However, Carson and Diaz were leaning over the sides of the boat and looking green.

Landry observed this and said, “They don’t have their sea legs.”

“Carson is Army. She’s used to firm land under her feet. Diaz, I don’t know.”

The boat caught a large wave the wrong way and nearly capsized. They were all drenched.

Puller regained control and focused on the seas ahead. “Take a seat, Landry, and hold on.”

Puller turned and called out to the others, “Everybody get life jackets on, now. This is going to get worse before it gets better.”

They all pulled on life jackets, although Mecho’s was far too small. It wouldn’t even stretch across his chest so he just held on to it.

Puller looked up ahead. The sky was jet black even though the dawn wasn’t all that far off. While light would be welcome so he could see the approaching waves better, he preferred the dark. Attacking something in broad daylight was never a good idea even with superior numbers.

And they would not have superior numbers.

They would in fact probably be vastly outnumbered, with prisoners who could instantly be turned into hostages. It would take perfection to actually pull this off. And one almost never achieved perfection on the battlefield.

The VHF radio mounted underneath the helm squawked. Diaz must have programmed it to sound off when there were weather alerts available. Puller picked it up, listened to the taped announcement. He put the handheld back in its slot and looked grim.

Carson crab-walked over to him as the boat rolled and pitched in waves that were far higher than it.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Small craft warning was just issued. Ordered to get to shore.”

“Well, we’re going the other way,” said Carson.

“You okay on the water?”

“If I were I would’ve joined the Navy.”

“I’d take you back to shore if I could.”

“I wouldn’t let you. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force. We all go where the battle will be fought. Get there however we can.”

“With that attitude you’ll get at least three stars, General.”

“General?”

“Back on the clock.”

She looked up ahead. “Any idea how much farther? Even with the storm the skies are lightening.”

“I know. And in this weather the trip time is hard to judge.”

A moment later there was a huge bolt of lighting that briefly turned night to day. It was followed by an enormous crack of thunder that seemed to shake the bow rider to its fiberglass core.

“This boat was not built to take a beating like this,” said Carson.

“Neither were people.”

“If we go down we’ll never survive in these seas.”

“Some R and R for you, huh?”

She touched him on the shoulder. “Like I’d have it any other way.”

“Okay, you have my vote for four stars.”

“And so what’s the plan when we get there?”

“The plan is we beat the bad guys and rescue the prisoners.”

“That concept I got. I mean how do we do it?”

“I don’t think we can tactically battle-plan this one, General. It’s all about conditions when we get there. It’s an oil platform. We get to the base and work our way up. With the head start they had they’re already there. And with the storm like it is they’ll have to move to an enclosed space. I doubt they’ll have perimeter security set up. They wouldn’t expect anyone to hit them tonight. When the storm has passed they’ll head back out, retracing the way they got here, taking all the evidence with them.”

“And then?”

“And then they’ll set up a pipeline somewhere else. These guys are bacteria. They keep mutating to keep one step ahead of the antibiotics.”

“So we’re penicillin?”

“Something a lot stronger, I hope.”

“If they’re higher up in an enclosed space?”

“It gives us a chance. Stealth plus ability plus luck. That combo has equaled victory on more battlefields than you and I can count.”

“Let’s hope we can add one more to the pile.”

“Do my best.”

“I know that, Ranger. And if you were wrong and they didn’t come back out here?”

Puller didn’t answer. He was looking up ahead.

“Go sit down, General.”

“What?” She looked up ahead, but couldn’t make out what he could.

“Julie, go sit down. Now! And hold on. Tell the others. Quick.”

Carson scurried to do this.

She had just heard something in Puller’s voice she thought she never would.

Fear.

CHAPTER

85

IT WAS NOT A giant wave heading at them.

Maybe it would have been better if it were.

It was a boat. No, boats were small.

This was not small. This was a ship. An ocean-going vessel of immense proportions.

A horn sounded from somewhere, deep and penetrating.

Puller did not even bother hitting his horn. It would not have been heard over the sounds of the storm or the engine noise from the approaching vessel.

Puller had an immediate problem. He had to keep taking the approaching waves at roughly a forty-five-degree angle. As even sailors with limited experience knew, hitting waves at that angle cut their power sharply and also lessened the height the water would send a boat to.

Head-on at ninety degrees would ensure that you would receive every ounce of kinetic energy the oncoming liquid hammer could provide.

And you might very well climb a wave only to find yourself capsizing when a vertical point of no return was reached. Once your bow was straight up in the air, you were done. Flipping over backwards was pretty much inevitable. And for the passengers on board, you’d either be crushed by the boat or thrown out into the water to drown.

The problem was that for Puller to veer away from the path of the oncoming ship, he would have to hit the waves nearly directly on. The oncoming vessel was big enough, and with a deep V hull made of steel, it was strong enough to take the waves head-on. In fact, the ship was creating vast banks of rolling seas as it churned through the water at about twelve knots, pushing millions of gallons of already frothing Gulf water ahead and to the sides of it like a shovel does snow.

At the last possible instant, with the ship’s horns ringing in his ears, Puller cut the wheel sharply to the left. He not only had to avoid the ship, he had to avoid its wake, which could easily capsize the bow rider.

In order to achieve that he had to cut a wide arc around the ship and move away quickly.

To do that he had to increase his speed.

That was not easily accomplished in seas like this. In fact it was nearly impossible. Half the time his prop was completely out of the water, spinning uselessly in the open air with no water around it for traction.

He did not entirely achieve his goal.

Puller yelled, “Everybody hold on.”

They didn’t hit the ship. But they did hit something else.

The leading edges of the ship’s wake broadsided them. The boat’s port side tipped down and the starboard side lurched up, probably far beyond the manufacturer’s recommendation.

Carson and Landry slid across the deck and hit the port gunwale.

Carson would have gone into the water except that Mecho, one big hand wrapped around a handrail inside the boat, grabbed her leg in a crushing grip.

Landry managed to hold on to the gunwale, but her legs were dangling over the side before she regained her equilibrium and fell back inside the boat.

Diaz had slid back to front and ended up entangled with Puller’s legs. One hand firmly on the wheel, Puller grabbed her with the other and lifted her up.

Unfortunately, the wall of water thrown off from the trailing edge of the ship’s wake hit them just as the boat righted itself.

Gagging on saltwater, Puller managed to call out, “We’re getting swamped.”

They all grabbed buckets that Mecho found under a seat and started bailing. The drains on the boat helped, but they were overwhelmed with the volume of seawater.

Puller watched as the sides of the boat started lowering into the ocean.

Using two buckets, Mecho bailed like a machine with inexhaustible fuel. Puller gave the wheel to Diaz and grabbed a bucket.

Soon, as first Landry and then Carson grew exhausted and slumped down into the water collected inside the boat, it was just the two men standing nearly side by side in the boat throwing water out a little quicker than it was coming in. Puller’s painkiller was wearing off and his wound began to throb. But he didn’t stop.

“We’re coming back up,” shouted Diaz. “Keep bailing.”

Renewed by this, Carson and Landry jumped back in and started to bail simply using their hands. The tide began to turn in earnest.

Forty minutes later, the drains and bilge pump took over and the interior of the boat became relatively dry.

It was only then that Carson and Landry hung their heads over the side of the boat and threw up the seawater that had collected in their stomachs.

Puller upchucked over the side as well and then took over the wheel from Diaz and continued his fight through the leading edge of Danielle.

Mecho dropped the buckets and stood there, soaked, his big arms at his side, breathing hard and looking up ahead.

It was if he could sense something coming.

At the helm Puller eyed the fuel gauge. He had filled the tank before they had left from cans that Diaz had had on board. But the pounding waters had caused the engine to suck a lot more fuel than normal to keep its forward progress.

Puller performed a quick calculation in his head.

The answer was unmistakable. And deeply disturbing.

We’re not going to have enough gas to get back.

He looked over at Mecho, who still stood, braced against the stern seats. Mecho was watching him. It seemed the big man had read Puller’s mind as he had studied the dials in front of him.

Then he looked over Puller’s shoulder and slowly pointed up ahead.

Puller turned back and looked at where he was pointing.

A huge structure suddenly became visible in the middle of the storm’s fury.

Neptune’s Seat was dead ahead.

They had reached the battlefield, exhausted and nearly drowned.

And now the real fight was about to begin.

CHAPTER

86

NEARLY TWO HUNDRED PEOPLE WERE clustered in cages meant to hold half that number.

Diego and Mateo crouched in a corner of one cage. Both were seasick from the journey out here. There were many others who were in the same condition. Pools of vomit lay everywhere. The stench made more people sick to their stomachs, which only added to the vileness of the cages.

Diego gripped Mateo’s hand and looked around.

The guards were everywhere but they didn’t look as confident now.

Perhaps it was because there were far more prisoners than normal.

Perhaps it was because they all could feel the battering effects of the angry ocean against the steel frame of the oil platform. The room they were in shook with every wave.

Mateo’s eyes were big as he watched the ceiling, and his fingers tightened around Diego’s every time a wave slammed into them.

Diego dipped his lips to Mateo’s ear. “It will be okay, Mateo. We’ll be okay.”

Mateo said nothing. He just kept looking at the ceiling, kept tightening his grip.

Diego looked down at his finger. Where the ring had been.

He had dropped it at the place where they had been held. He hoped someone would find it. Someone other than these people.

He kept a brave face for Mateo. But their odds of getting out of this were dwindling. If the storm did not kill them, Diego had no idea what would happen to them or where they would end up.

With this thought, a feeling of terror seized him and he tightened his grip around Mateo’s hand.

Perhaps sensing this, Mateo put his mouth to Diego’s ear and whispered, “It’ll be okay, Diego. We’ll be okay.”

Puller eased off the throttle and slipped his night-vision goggles over his eyes for a better look.

He studied the structure that had risen up from the midst of the storm. It seemed to tower right up to the top of the sky. Waves were crashing over its lower platform. Its steel legs shuddered with the pounding from millions of tons of water hitting it, driven by the fierce winds propelling Danielle landward.

Puller was looking for sentries first.

Entry points second.

Overall weaknesses third.

Mecho joined him at the helm.

“Docking will be a problem,” said Puller as he watched the floating platform pitching and rolling with the waves.

“I don’t think we can dock. It will crush the boat.”

“Well, we can’t exactly jump in and swim for it. The wind is heading away from the platform and right at us. We’ll be swept out in seconds.”

Puller ran his gaze over the platform once more.

“I’m thinking that in a storm like this they’re not expecting any visitors. They’re probably inside trying to stay warm and dry.”

“Probably.”

“I mean, someone would have to be batshit crazy to be out here attacking this place in the middle of a tropical storm.”

“Batshit crazy,” agreed Mecho.

“And they have no way of knowing that we could find our way to this platform.” Puller had a sudden terrifying thought, despite the coordinates Carson’s people had sent. “You’re sure it’s the right platform? There are a lot of them out here.”

“It’s the one I was on. I jumped from that deck.”

Puller looked up about forty feet. “And then you swam to shore?”

“Yes. With help from some fishermen.”

“No perimeter security. Wind coming from the south. Floating platform over there.”

“What’s your plan?”

“All timing.”

Puller told the others what he was thinking.

Carson shook her head as she surveyed the rough seas and the approaching storm.

“No margin of error, Puller,” she said.

“No, it’s slight, but it’s there.”

Landry said, “Is this the only way?”

“Only one I can think of, and if we wait much longer that plan won’t work.”

Mecho said, “We need to try it.”

Diaz nodded. “Okay, and let’s break out the weapons. We’re going to need them.”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Puller.

“And once we’re on the platform?” said Diaz.

Mecho pointed up at the enclosed structure. “They’ll be in there. There are multiple entry and exit points. Prisoners and guards. The guards are not that well trained but they have heavy firepower. More than what we have.”

“So we have to hit them hard and fast and take them by surprise,” said Carson as a large wave pummeled the boat, forcing everyone to grab something to hold on to. “That will negate their superior numbers and ordnance.”

She looked at Puller. “So how are you going to get us there?”

“Two at a time,” he replied.

“What exactly does that mean?” asked Landry.

“It means, exactly, that you’re going to have to jump. Two at a time.”

CHAPTER