They pulled up in front of new metal gates that glinted silver and wet in the headlights. A massive chain clenched the gates shut. A No Trespassing sign banged a strident beat in the wind.
Watanabe squinted into the rain. Other than the gate and the rattling sign, the night was utterly empty. The first faint light of a grey wet dawn revealed scrubland and stumpy palms and not another soul. “Explain it to me again how come you’re so sure.”
“First back away from here, in case somebody is watching.”
Watanabe reversed them back onto the main road and down another fifty meters to where a ranch trail opened on the highway’s other side. “This do?”
“I went through all the sites they’re putting together. This place is perfect.”
“How so?”
He pointed to a massive dirt hill in the distance. “Behind that dike is Lake Okeechobee, the largest inland body of water in the southeast US. Forty miles across. Nine miles north of here is Port Mayaca, the point where the Inland Waterway enters off the Saint Lucie Canal. Boats can cross the lake, connect with the Caloosahatchee River, and follow that all the way to Cape Coral, Fort Myers, and Sanibel Island. And from there on into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a perfect inland development, Detective.”
“I told you to call me Karen.”
“They own seven square miles here. It’s a small city just waiting to be built. You got Palm Beach forty miles to the east, some of the most expensive real estate in the world—”
“Okay, so it’s perfect for building. So why are we here?”
Wayne pointed to the north. “Three-quarters of a mile up there is a small tributary. And on that tributary is a motel. My guess is it used to be a fishing camp.”
“Used to be.”
“This was the only name on the land bank list that was described as derelict. There was no mention of structures on any of the others.”
She tapped her stubby fingers on the steering wheel. “I call the local sheriff at this hour and request an emergency warrant, you know what they’re gonna tell me.”
Wayne opened his door. “I’m not waiting.”
She sighed but did not object. “You keep your phone on the whole time, you got me?”
The actions were so ingrained he would never lose them. Wayne melded with the grey fractional light, with the rain, with the rising wind. It was all cover. He moved with the ease of a man who was born to slip in and vanish, like the trace of wind that slid under a door or through a crack in the shutter. A tiny little rattle was all the sign he gave of his passage. A splash of water, a shiver of motion. Less than the rain falling off a rattling palm frond. Less substantial than the dawn.
He covered the three-quarters of a mile in about seven or eight minutes. He waited until he was within sight of the roofline to turn on Berkind’s phone. He called the number Watanabe had given him. “I’m thirty yards out.”
She hissed, “I told you to keep that sucker on.”
“There’s no outside sentry. I’m moving closer.”
“Wait, Grusza, wait.”
He put the phone back to his ear. “I’m here.”
“Let me call this in.”
“Do whatever you want, Karen. But I’m going in.” He clipped the phone shut.
The tributary was the size of a large creek and heavily overgrown. Wayne slipped into the water and used mangrove branches to pull himself hand-over-hand, keeping a close watch for snakes and gators. Rain dimpled the creek’s green waters. Up ahead he heard the faint sound of a radio or television. Coming from what was supposed to be an abandoned motel. The sound amped his heart rate to where he could scarcely breathe.
The fishing camp’s side of the tributary was marked by rotting timbers and the remnants of a marina. He crawled out of the water and took cover behind a pair of rusting gas pumps. The rain swept in hard, then subsided. But the wind grew with the grey light, making it impossible to see more than a dozen or so yards ahead. Wayne readied himself for a sprint across the cracked concrete ground, the open and coverless terrain between himself and the first building.
Then he froze.
A figure came around the corner of the building. He was covered in a grey poncho with the hood pulled far down. His shoulders were hunched and he was far more concerned with keeping dry than watching for someone coming out of the dawn.
Wayne checked in both directions. Saw no one. He leapt forward.
His feet scrabbled over loose rock. The man jerked around. Through the rain dripping off the poncho’s hood, Wayne caught sight of two startled eyes. He recognized the same guy as he had taken down inside the Neally house. Tommy.
Tommy got a shot off at the concrete to Wayne’s left just as Wayne’s fist hammered his jaw. Tommy’s eyes rolled back and he went down hard.
Wayne’s ears rang from the gunshot and his nostrils were filled with the stench of damp cordite. Off to his right came a banging door and the cry, “Tommy!”
Another voice yelled, “Back over there!”
He thought he heard footsteps running from two different directions. He couldn’t be sure.
He fired a round through the window directly in front of him and leapt inside.
The shouts were shriller now. Wayne rolled and came up with the gun extended. The room was empty. Rain swept through the open door, the door through which the guy must have just run. He ran after him. Speed was everything now.
Two bullets whapped the doorjamb as he exited. Wayne dove low and rolled. He felt the heat of passing lead and kept rolling until he came up against the corner of the next building. Two more bullets struck the wall beside his head.
Wayne scrambled to his feet and raced away. The motel was shaped in a U with the parking area in the center. Three trucks and a limo were pulled into the area. Wayne took the angle around the first truck too close and whacked his leg. He felt the stitches in his thigh tear. He heard more gunfire and the hammer of bullets striking metal. He ran around the next truck. Three shooters, he figured. The only good thing he could say about the odds was the men were all behind him. Wayne crawled under the limo and sprinted around the building’s far eastern corner. Headed for the almost invisible dawn. Just trying to draw the shooters away from the people trapped inside those rooms.
Then he heard it. A motor far beyond redline. Screaming toward them, the engine bellowing in time to the siren.
Karen Watanabe’s Crown Victoria slid on the wet road and skidded into the pillars fronting the motel office. The sign connected to the roof gave a rusty creak and came down on the hood. Watanabe burned rubber reversing back far enough to free up her door. She spilled out and screamed, “Police! Put down your weapons and come out with your hands up!”
Wayne raced through a ninety-degree change of course, heading back around the buildings now, pumping as fast as the sedan through the final corner.
The three of them were clustered there, looking through the opening between the side and rear units, clearly uncertain how to handle the sudden appearance of the cop. A cop that was now between them and escaping with one of their vehicles.
Wayne took them down like human bowling pins.
He pounded the nearest with the butt of his pistol. Kicked at another. Punched a third. Shouting half-shaped words and feeling his chest and gut impossibly tight, waiting for the strike that didn’t come.
Instead, Watanabe said, “Okay, sport, ease up there. I got them covered. You three, spread-eagle on the ground. You’re under arrest.”
Wayne pulled out of his next punch, jammed the pistol into his belt, and raced off. Behind him, Watanabe yelled something about waiting, and evidence. He was too focused on what was ahead to pay any attention.
He did not bother with either locks or knobs. Doors were simply another foe to destroy. “Tatyana!”
He rammed his way into one room, then another. Empty. Then he found Neally huddled with a woman and two young children in the third room. In the fourth, Foster was on his knees by one bed, hands tied behind his back, with Julio and Jerry bound back to back on the other. Wayne was in serious conflict about whether to stop.
A voice called to him. Her voice. He ran back outside. “Tatyana!”
The voice came from the room behind the office. He demolished the door and the frame both.
She was tied but had managed to slip into the space between the bed and the wall. Wayne lifted her back onto the bed, then made a mess of untying the knots. He knew she was saying something, but his heart was pounding so loud and his trembling was so bad he couldn’t make out what she was saying.
But he knew how her mouth felt. He could feel the heat of her lips like a branding iron on his face.