OFFSHORE

 

 

“Got a doozie comin’, Terr.”

Ernie stood at the big picture window with his thumbs hooked in his belt on either side of the gut pouting over his buckle, and stared out at Upper Sugarloaf Sound.

Terry Havens looked up from the bar where he’d been making a wet Olympics symbol with the bottom rim of his sweating Red Stripe.

“Good. Maybe it’ll cool things off a little.”

Terry had been expecting the storm, looking forward to it, in fact. But not because it would cool things off.

“I think this mother might do more than cool things off. This’n looks mean.”

Terry took a swig of the Red Stripe and carried the bottle to the big window. He stood beside Ernie and took in the view. Bartenders always need something to talk about. Not much happening during off-season in the Keys, so some heavy weather would keep Ernie going through the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening.

And this looked pretty damn heavy. A cumulonimbus tower was building over the Gulf, dominating the western sky. Some big mother of a storm—a dark, bruise-purple underbelly crowding the entire span of the horizon while its fat, fluffy white upper body stretched a good ten miles straight up to where the shear winds flattened and sluiced its crown away to the north. Anvil-topped buggers like these could be downright mean.

“Where you got those glasses hid?”

Ernie limped back to the bar and brought out the battered field glasses he’d smuggled home from the Gulf War. Terry fitted them over his eyes and focused on the body of the storm. What looked like fluffy vanilla cotton candy to the naked eye became slowly boiling steam as violent updrafts and downdrafts roiled within.

Damn. He’d been looking for a storm, but this thing might be more than he could handle. Like casting light tackle out on the flats and hooking something bigger than your boat.

He lowered the glasses. He was going to have to risk it. He’d promised the Osler a delivery on this pass, and tonight was his last chance. The big boat would be out of range by tomorrow.

Besides, the worse the storm, the better his chances of being alone out there on the water. Not even Henriques would be out on patrol in the belly of the beast growling on the horizon.

Terry finished the rest of his Red Stripe. “One more of these before I get moving.”

“Sure thing,” Ernie said.

As Terry returned to his stool, he glanced across the horseshoe-shaped bar and saw two of the grizzled regulars poking into their wallets with nicotine-yellowed fingers. Reed-thin, wild-haired, leather-skinned, stubble-cheeked Conchs.

“Betcha that storm’s good for at least five spouts,” Rick said.

Boo flipped a sawbuck onto the bar. “Ten says you don’t see more’n three.”

Rick slapped a bill down on top of Boo’s. “Yer on.”

Terry smiled as he reached for the fresh bottle Ernie put in front of him. Those two bet on anything. He’d seen them wager on the number of times a fly would land on a piece of cheese, the number of trips someone would make to the head in an evening. Anything.

“I guess that means you two’ll be spending most of the night here,” Terry said.

“You betcha,” Rick said. “Watchin’ the storm.”

Boo nodded. “And countin’ the spouts.”

“Some guys sure know how to have fun.”

Rick and Boo laughed and hoisted their Rolling Rocks in reply.

They all quaffed together, then Terry glanced up at the TV monitor. The sight of a bunch of flak-jacketed federal marshals toting riot guns around a tandem tractor trailer shot a spasm through his stomach lining.

“Turn the sound up, will you, Ern?”

Ernie touched a button on the remote. The audio level display flashed on the screen, zipped to a preprogrammed volume, then disappeared as the announcer’s voice blared from the speakers bracketed on the ceiling.

“—tainly put a crimp in the black market in medical contraband. This haul was most likely bound for one of the renegade floating hospitals that ply their illicit trade outside the twelve-mile limit in the Gulf of Mexico.”

The screen cut to an interior of one of the trailers and panned its contents.

“Syringes, sterile bandages, dialysis fluid, even gas sterilizers, all bound for the booming offshore medical centers. President Nathan has called on Congress to enact stiffer penalties for medical smuggling and to pass legislation to push the offshore hospitals to a hundred-mile limit. Insiders on the Hill think he is unlikely to find much support on extending the twelve-mile limit due to the complexities of maritime law, but say he might get action on the stiffer penalties.”

The president’s intense, youthful face filled the screen.

“We are talking here about trading in human misery. Every medical item that is smuggled offshore deprives law-abiding citizens, right here at home, of needed medical supplies. These racketeers are little better than terrorists, sabotaging America’s medical system and health security. We’ve got to hit these criminals hard, and hit them where it hurts!”

“Okay, Ern,” Terry said. “I’ve heard enough.”

Poor President Nathan—thoroughly pissed that some folks were making an end run around the National Health Security Act.

Nothing new in the trucker bust, other than somebody got careless. Or got turned in. Terry wondered who it was, wondered if he knew them. He’d tuned in too late to catch where the bust had gone down.

“Excuse me,” said a voice to Terry’s right. “Is there a Mister Havens here?”

Terry didn’t turn his head. Rick and Boo acquired a sudden intense interest in the “33” inside the labels on their Rolling Rocks.

Ernie cleared his throat and said, “He comes in now and again. I can take a message for you.”

“We wish to hire him for a boat trip,” the voice said.

Terry swiveled on his barstool. He saw a moderately overweight golden-ager, white hair and a sunburned face, wearing cream slacks and a lime green golf shirt.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Are you Mr. Havens?” the guy said, eagerly stepping forward and thrusting out his hand.

Terry hesitated, then said, “That’s me.” Hard to lie to a guy who’s offering you his hand.

But the immediate relief in the guy’s eyes made him wish he hadn’t. Here was a man with a problem, and he seemed to think Terry was his solution. Terry was not in the problem-solving business.

“Joe Kowalski, Mister Havens,” he said, squeezing Terry’s hand between both of his. “I’m so glad we found you.” He turned and called over his shoulder. “It’s him, Martha!”

Terry looked past him at a rickety, silver-haired woman hobbling toward them, supporting herself on the bar with her right forearm and leaning on a four-footed cane clasped in her gnarled left hand. Her wrinkled face was pinched with pain. She couldn’t seem to straighten out her right leg, and winced every time she put weight on it.

“Thank God!” she said.

Terry was getting a bad feeling about this.

“Uh, just where is it you folks want to go?”

“Out to the Osler,” Joe said.

“You missed her. She took on her patients this morning and she’s gone.”

“I know. We missed the shuttle. Martha wanted to say good-bye to the kids before the surgery. You know, in case…you know. But our car broke down last night just as we were leaving and what they said would take an hour to fix wound up taking much longer. Damn car’s probably still up on the lift back there in Stewart. I finally rented a car and drove down here fast as I could. Collected two tickets along the way, but we still missed the boat. We’ve been driving up and down Route One all day trying to find someone to take us out. No one’s interested. I don’t understand. I don’t want a favor—I’m willing to pay a fair price. And it’s not like it’s a crime or anything.”

Right. Not a crime or anything to ferry someone out past the twelve-mile limit to one of the hospital ships. But bad things tended to happen to good boaters who engaged in the trade if officialdom got wind of it. Bad things like a Coast Guard stop and search every time you took your boat out; or all sorts of lost applications and inexplicable computer glitches when you wanted to renew your boating tags, your fishing permits, even your driver’s license. Terry had heard talk that the good folks in question seemed to suffer a significantly greater incidence of having their 1040 audited by the IRS.

No, not a crime, but lots of punishment.

Which was why the hospital ships ran their own shuttles.

“What excuse did they give?”

“Most said they were too busy, but let me tell you, they didn’t look it. And as soon as those clouds started gathering, they used the storm as an excuse.”

“Good excuse.”

Terry glanced back at the western horizon. The afternoon sun had been swallowed whole by the storm and its white bulk had turned a threatening gray.

“But I hear you’re not afraid of storms,” Joe said.

Terry stared at him, feeling his anger rise. Shit. “Who told you that?”

“Some fellow in a bar up on the next key—is it Cudjoe Key? Some cantina…”

“Coco’s.”

“That’s the place! Fellow with bleached hair and a fuzzy goatee.”

Tommy Axler. Terry wanted to strangle the bigmouthed jerk. In fact, he might give it a try next time he saw him.

“He must have thought you wanted to go fishing. Sometimes I take people fishing in the rain. I do lots of things, but I don’t ferry folks out to hospital ships.”

That last part, at least, was true.

Joe’s eyes got this imploring look. “I’ll pay you twice your regular charter fee.”

Terry shook his head. “Sorry.”

His face fell. He turned to his wife. “He won’t do it, Martha.”

She halted her labored forward progress as if she’d run into a wall.

“Oh,” she said softly, and leaned against one of the barstools. She stared at the floor and said no more.

“But let me buy you folks a drink.” Terry pointed to his Red Stripe. “You want one of these?”

“No,” Joe said through a sigh, then shrugged. “Aaah, why not? Martha? You want something?”

Still staring at the floor, Martha only shook her head.

Ernie set the bottle in front of Joe who immediately chugged about a third of it.

He stifled a burp, then said, “You won’t reconsider, even if I triple your usual fee?”

Terry shook his head. “Look, the Osler’ll probably be shuttling patients in and out of St. Petersburg in a day or two. Hop in your car and—”

“Martha’s got an appointment for a total hip replacement tomorrow. If she’s not on board the Osler today they’ll give her appointment to someone on the waiting list.”

“So reschedule.”

“It took us six months to get this appointment, and we were lucky. The fellow who had the original appointment died. Might be another ten months to a year before Martha can get rescheduled.”

“That’s as bad as the regular government wait lists.”

“No,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “There is no government wait list for Martha. Not anymore. She’s too old. HRAA passed a regulation barring anyone over age seventy-five from certain surgical procedures. Total hip replacement is on the list. And Martha’s seventy-seven.”

Martha’s head snapped up. “Don’t you be blabbing my age for all the world to hear!”

“Sorry, dear.”

Terry looked at him. “I thought the cutoff was eighty.”

“Right: was. They lowered it last year.”

Terry had assumed that most of the hospital ship patrons were well-heeled folks who didn’t want to wait in the long queues for elective surgery in the government-run hospitals. And since all the hospitals in America were now government run, they had to go elsewhere. But cutting people off from procedures…

The Health Resources Allocation Agency strikes again.

“I didn’t know they could do that.”

Joe sighed. “Neither did I. It wasn’t part of the regulations when the Health Security Act became law, but apparently the HRAA has the power to make new regs. So when they found out how far their Health Security Act was running over projections, they started making cuts. What really galls me is I supported the damn law.”

“So did I.”

“Yeah, we all thought we were getting a bargain. Ten years later we find out we got the shaft.”

“Welcome to the twenty-first century, Pops. Believe in the future but always read the fine print.”

“Tell me about it.” He slugged down some more beer and stared at the bottle in his hand. “It’s not fair, you know. We busted our butts since we got married—fifty years come next July—to make a good life for our family. We educated our kids, got them married and settled, then we retired. And now we’d like to enjoy the years we’ve got left. Nothing fancy. No trips around the world. Just hang out, play golf once in a while. But with Martha’s hip, we can’t even go for a walk after dinner.”

Terry said nothing as Joe polished off his beer. He was trying not to listen. He wasn’t going to get sucked into this.

Joe banged his bottle down on the bar. “You know what really bugs my ass? We’ve got the money to pay for the surgery. We don’t need the government to pay for it. Fuck ’em! We’ll pay. Gladly. But they won’t let her have the surgery—period. Their letter said total hip surgery at her age is ‘an inefficient utilization of valuable medical resources.’ I mean, what the hell did we work and skimp and save for if we can’t spend it on our health?”

“Wish I had an answer for you,” Terry said.

“Yeah.” He pushed away from the bar. “Thanks for the beer. Come on, Martha. We’ll keep looking.”

He took his wife gently by the arm and began helping her toward the door. Terry stared across the bar at Rick and Boo so he wouldn’t have to watch the Kowalskis. He saw a grinning Rick accepting a ten from a grumpy-looking Boo. He wondered what the bet had been this time.

He looked out the window at the towering storm, black as a hearse now, picking up speed and power. If he was going to head out, he’d better get moving.

Terry waited until Joe Kowalski had eased his wife into the passenger seat, then he waved to Rick, Boo, and Ernie and headed out. The August heat gave him a wet body slam as he stepped outside. He slid past the Kowalskis’ idling rental but couldn’t resist a glance through the windshield.

Martha was crying.

He averted his gaze and hurried to his pickup.

Life really sucked sometimes.

He jumped into the blisteringly hot cab.

That didn’t mean he had to get involved.

He turned the key and the old Ford shuddered to life.

Wasn’t his problem.

He threw it into reverse.

As he was backing out he saw Joe put an arm around his wife’s thin, quaking shoulders and try to comfort her.

He slammed on the brakes and yanked the gearshift back into neutral.

Shit.

Cursing himself for a jerk, Terry jumped out of the cab and stalked over to the Kowalskis’ car. He rapped on Joe’s window.

“Follow me,” he said as the glass slid down.

Joe’s eyes lit. “You mean—?”

“Just follow.”

As he was heading back to the pickup, he heard a voice call out behind him.

“Aw, Terry! Say it ain’t so!”

He turned and saw Rick standing in the doorway, dismay flattening his weathered features. Boo peered over his shoulder, grinning.

“You’re takin’ ’em, ain’t ya,” Boo said.

“None of your damn business.”

Boo nudged Rick none too gently and rubbed his palms together. “See. I toldja he would. I win. Gimme back my saw plus the one you owe me. Give it now, Rick.”

Rick handed the money to Boo and gave Terry a wounded look.

“Y’disappointed the shit outta me, Terr.”

“Yeah, well,” Terry muttered, slipping behind the wheel again, “there’s one born every minute.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You really think he’s going to risk this storm?” Cramer asked.

Pepe Henriques looked at his mate. Cramer’s round, usually relaxed boyish face was tight with tension.

He’s scared, he thought.

Which was okay. Showing it wasn’t.

Henriques looked past Cramer at the storm that filled the sky. Giant forks of lightning occasionally speared down to the Gulf but mostly jumped cloud to cloud, illuminating the guts of the storm with explosions of light. Thunder crashed incessantly, vibrating their fiberglass hull. He could see the rain curtain billowing toward them.

Almost here.

When it hit, visibility would be shot and they’d have to go on instruments. But so would the runner.

“He’ll be out here. Why else would that hospital ship be dawdling fourteen miles out? They’re waiting for a delivery. And our man’s going to make it. That is, he’s going to try. This’ll be his last run.”

He tossed Cramer a life jacket and watched him strap it on. Saw the black ATF across the yellow fabric and had to shake his head.

Me. An ATF agent.

He still couldn’t believe it. But he’d found he liked the regular paycheck, the benefit package, the retirement fund. Sure as hell beat taking tourists tarpon and bone fishing on the flats.

But he might be back to fishing those flats if he didn’t catch this runner.

Henriques had run up against him twice before, but both times he’d got away. Two things he knew for sure about the guy: He ran a Hutchison 686 and he was a Conch. Henriques had seen the Hutch from a distance. The registration numbers on the twenty-six-foot craft were bogus—no surprise there. What had been big surprises were the way the boat handled and its pilot’s knowledge of the waters around the Lower Keys. The Hutch 686 was popular as hell in these parts, but this one had done things a propeller-driven shouldn’t be able to do. It ran like a VMA impeller—like Henriques’s craft. The runner had customized it somehow.

And as for being a Conch, well…nobody could dodge among all these reefs and mangrove keylets like that runner unless he’d spent his life among them. A native of the Keys. A Conch. Took one to know one.

Take one to catch one.

And I’m the one, Henriques thought. Tonight’s his last run.

 

 

* * *

 

The rain hit just as they neared the inner rim of the reef. Terry pulled back on the throttle and idled the engine.

“Thank God!” Martha Kowalski said. She clung to the arms of her deck-fast seat with white knuckles. “That bouncing was making me sick!”

“What’re you doing now?” Joe shouted over the mad drumming of the big drops on the deck and the roof of the open cabin.

Terry didn’t answer. His passengers would see for themselves soon enough.

He unwrapped the molded black plastic panels and began scampering around the deck, snapping them onto the sides of the superstructure. Two of the strips for the hull sported a brand-new registration number, fresh off the decal sheets. Another went over the transom to cover the name, replacing his own admittedly corny Terryfied with Delta Sue.

Joe looked bewildered when Terry ducked back into the cabin enclosure.

“I don’t get it.”

“Just a little insurance.”

The less Joe knew, the better.

The panels changed the boat’s lines and color scheme. Nothing that would hold up against even casual inspection in good light, but from a distance, through lightning-strobed rain, his white, flat-bottomed VMA impeller craft looked an awful lot like a black-and-white V-hulled Hutchison 686. The black panels also broke up the boat’s outline, making it harder to spot.

“That’s what you said when you were playing around with the light on that channel marker,” Joe said.

“That’s right. Another kind of insurance.”

“But that could—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll undo it on my way back in. No questions—wasn’t that the deal?”

Joe nodded glumly. “But I still don’t get it.”

You’re not supposed to, Terry thought as he gunned the engine and headed into the wind.

The hull jumped, thudded, shimmied, and jittered with the staccato pounding of the waves, and all that rhythmic violence worked into every tissue of his body. Once he zipped through the cut in the barrier reef it got worse—two, three, maybe four times worse. Riding at this speed in this weather was a little like getting a total body massage. From King Kong. On speed. Add to that the tattoo of the rain, the howl of the wind, the booming thunder, and further talk was damn near impossible. Unless you shouted directly into someone’s ear. Which Martha was doing into Joe’s as she bounced around in her seat and hung on for dear life.

Joe sidled over. “Think you could slow down? Martha can’t take the pounding.”

Terry shook his head. “I ease up, we won’t make enough headway.”

Joe went back to Martha and they traded more shouts, none of which Terry could hear. Joe lurched back.

“Let’s go back. I’m calling the trip off. Martha’s afraid, and she can’t take this pounding.”

He’d been half expecting something like this. Damn. Should have left them back on Sugarloaf.

“Don’t wimp out on me, Joe.”

“It’s not me. Look, you can keep the money. Martha’s getting sick. Just turn around and take us back.”

“Can’t do that. No questions and no turning back—wasn’t that the deal?”

“Yes, but—”

“It’s still the deal. Tell Martha to hang on and she’ll have a new hip tomorrow.”

As Joe stumbled back to his wife, Terry concentrated on the infrared scanner. Clear and cold except for the faint blob of the Osler straight ahead. Good. Stay that way.

Terry liked rain. Besides lowering visibility, it played havoc with heat scanners. Radiant energy tended to get swallowed up in all that falling water. But that could be a two-edged sword: Terry couldn’t spot a pursuer until they were fairly close.

Didn’t worry him much at the moment. Weren’t too many craft that could outrun him in a sprint, and once he slipped past the twelve-mile limit, no one could touch him. Legally, anyway. Always the possibility that some frustrated ATF goon with a short fuse might blow a few holes in your hull—and you—and let the sharks clean up the mess.

He checked the compass, checked the Loran—right on course. Just a matter of time now. He looked up and froze when he saw Joe Kowalski pointing a pistol at him. The automatic—looked like a 9mm—wavered in the old guy’s hand but the muzzle never strayed far from the center of Terry’s chest.

“Turn around and take us back,” Joe shouted.

No way was Terry turning back. And no way was he telling Joe that at the moment. Guns made him nervous.

Terry eyed the gun. “Where’d that come from?”

“I brought it along…just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

“In case you tried to rob us. Or worse.”

“Whatever happened to trust?”

“The Health Resources Allocation Agency’s got mine.” His eyes bored into Terry’s. “Now turn this thing around. I told you you could keep the money. Just take us back.”

Terry shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t do that.”

Joe couldn’t seem to believe what he’d heard. “I’ve got a gun, dammit!”

Terry was well aware of that. He didn’t think Joe would pull that trigger, but you never knew. So maybe it was time to shake Joe up—more than physically.

“And I’ve got a cargo to deliver.”

“My wife is not cargo!”

“Take a look below,” Terry told him, jutting his chin toward the door to the belowdecks area.

Joe’s gaze darted from Terry to the door and back. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You wouldn’t try anything stupid, would you?”

Terry shrugged. “Take a look.”

Joe thought about that, then backed away and opened the door. More hesitation, then he slipped below. A moment later he appeared again, pale, his eyes wide. Terry could read his lips.

“Medical supplies! Martha, he’s a smuggler!”

Martha freed up a hand long enough to slap it over the O of her mouth, then returned it to the armrest.

“The way I see it, Joe, you’ve got two options. The first is you can shoot me and try to get the boat back home on your own. Not only will you have to guide it through the storm, but you’ll have to avoid the shore patrol. If they catch you you’ll go down for murder and smuggling. Or you can follow through with our original plan and—” A blip caught his eye on the infrared scanner, aport and astern, and closing. He forgot all about Joe Kowalski’s gun. “Shit!”

“What’s wrong?”

“We’ve got company.”

“Who?”

“ATF, most likely.”

“ATF? But they’re alcohol, tobacco and—”

“They added medical supplies to their list. Get over by Martha and hang on. This could get a little rough.”

“A little rough? It’s already—”

“Get out of my face, dammit!”

Henriques, Terry thought. Has to be him. No one else has such a bug up his ass that he’d brave this storm looking for a runner. Not just any runner. Looking for The One That Got Away.

Me.

He jammed the throttle all the way forward. Terryfied lifted farther out of the water and began bouncing along the tops of the waves. Like riding downhill in a boxcar derby on a cobblestone road. With steel wheels. Planing out was impossible, but this was as close as she’d get. The price was loss of control. The boat slewed wildly to port or starboard whenever she dipped into a trough.

How’d Henriques find him? Luck? Probably not. He was a Conch but even that wasn’t enough. Probably some new equipment he had. Price was no object for the ATF when taxes were paying for it.

Damn ATF. For years Terry had breezed in and out of the Keys on his supply runs until they’d got smart and started hiring locals for their shore patrols. Making a run these days had become downright dicey.

He concentrated on the Loran, the infrared scanner, and what little he could see of the water ahead. The blip had stopped gaining. And running on the diagonal as it had to, was actually losing ground. Terry didn’t let up. Unless he hit some floating debris or broached in a freak swell, he’d be first to cross the twelve-mile limit.

But he wouldn’t be celebrating.

 

 

* * *

 

“Oh, Lord!” Martha cried, staring up the sheer twenty feet of steel hull that loomed above her. “How am I going to get up there?”

“Don’t worry,” Terry said as he tried to hold his bobbing craft steady against the Osler. “We have a routine.”

Above them a winch supporting a pair of heavy-duty slings swung into view. The straps of the slings flapped and twisted in the gale-force winds as they were lowered over the side. Terry nosed his prow through the first when it hit water, then idled his engine and manually guided the second sling under the stern.

The winch began hauling them up.

Once they were on the deck the crew pulled a heavy canvas canopy over the boat and helped Martha into a wheelchair.

“Well, she made it,” Terry said.

Joe Kowalski stared at him. “I don’t know whether to thank you or punch you in the nose.”

“Think on it awhile,” Terry said. “Wait till you’re both sitting in a bar sipping a G ’n’ T after a round of golf. Then decide.”

Joe’s face softened. He extended his hand. They shook, then Joe followed Martha inside.

As the Osler’s crew offloaded the medical supplies, Terry ducked out from under the billowing canopy and fought the wind and rain to the deck rail. He squinted out at the lightning-shot chaos. A lot of hell left in this monster. But that didn’t mean Henriques had run home. No, that bastard was laying out there somewhere, waiting.

Not to arrest him. Couldn’t do that once the contraband was gone. And if Henriques did manage to catch him, Terry could thumb his nose and say he’d been out on a little jaunt to say hello to some old friends among the crew.

But even though Henriques had no case against him, Terry still couldn’t let him get near. It wasn’t fear of arrest that gnawed at the lining of his gut. It was being identified.

Once they knew his name, his runner career was over. He’d be watched day and night, followed everywhere, his phones tapped, his house bugged, and every time Terryfied left the slip he’d be stopped and inspected.

His whole way of life would be turned upside down.

One option was to stay on the Osler and make a break for the coast farther north. But the weather would be better then and officialdom would have copters hovering about, waiting to tag him and follow him home.

No, he had to use the heavy weather. But even that might not be enough. On the way out he’d had the advantage: Henriques didn’t know Terry’s starting point. Could have been anywhere along the lower twenty miles of the archipelago. But now Henriques had him pinpointed. All he had to do was wait for Terry to make his move. Didn’t even have to catch him. All he had to do was follow him home.

Yeah, getting back was going to be a real bitch.

 

 

* * *

 

“Maybe he’s not coming,” Cramer said. “Maybe he’s going to wait out the storm and hope that we drowned out here.”

Cramer’s whininess had increased steadily during the hour they’d been holding here. It was getting on Henriques’s nerves something bad now.

“He is coming out, and it’ll be during the storm, and we’re not going to drown.”

At least he hoped not. A couple of times during the past hour he hadn’t been so sure about that. He’d had Cramer keep the VMA low and slow in forward into the wind while he watched the lights of the Osler through his binocs. But every so often came a rogue wave or a gust of shear wind that damn near cap-sized them. Cramer had good reason to want to hightail for home.

But they weren’t turning around until the fuel gauge told them they had to.

Besides, according to the Doppler the rear end of the storm was only a few miles west. The runner would have to make his break soon.

And then you’re mine.

“We got heat action, chief. Lots of it.”

Henriques snapped the glasses down and leapt to the infrared scanner. Fanning out from the big red blob of the hospital ship were three smaller, fainter blobs.

“What’s going on, chief?”

“Decoys.”

The son of a bitch had two of the Osler’s shuttles running interference for him. One heat source was headed north-northeast, one north-northwest, and one right at them.

Henriques ground his teeth. The bastard had raised his odds from zero to two out of three. God damn him.

“All right, Cramer,” he said. “One of them’s our man. Which one?’

“I—I dunno.”

“Come on. Put yourself out here alone. You’ve got to chase one. Choose.”

Cramer chewed his lip and stared at the scanner. Probably doing eeny-meeny-miney-moe in his head. Henriques had already decided to ignore whichever Cramer chose. Cramer was never right.

“Well, it sure as hell ain’t the guy coming right at us, so I’ll choose…the…one…to…the…” His finger stabbed at the screen. “East!”

Henriques hesitated. Not a bad choice, actually. The Lower Keys were more heavily populated toward their western end, especially near Key West; coast guard base and naval air station down that way—all sorts of folks runners don’t like to meet. And the storm was heading northeast, so that direction would give the most rain cover. He might just have to go with Cramer this—

Wait a second.

Well, it sure as hell ain’t the guy coming right at us…

Yeah. The obvious assumption. So obvious that Henriques had bought into it without really thinking. But what if the runner was counting on that? Send the shuttles right and left, draw the heat toward them, then breeze through the empty middle.

And remember: Cramer is never right.

He grabbed Cramer’s wrist as he reached for the throttle. “Let’s hang here for a bit.”

“Why? He’s got to—”

“Just call it a feeling.”

Henriques watched the screen, tracking the trio of diverging blobs. As the center one neared, he lifted the glasses again. Nothing. Whoever it was was traveling without running lights.

Doubt wriggled in his gut. What if the runner had pulled a double reverse? If so, he was already out of reach…as good as home free.

“Getting close,” Cramer said. “See him yet?”

“No.”

“Still coming right at us. Think he knows we’re here?”

“He knows. He’s got infrared too.”

“Yeah, well, he ain’t acting like it. Maybe we should turn the running—”

And then a dazzling flash of lightning to the south and Henriques saw it. A Hutch 686.

He let out a whoop of triumph. “It’s him! We got him!”

“I see him!” Cramer called. “But he’s coming right at us. Is he crazy?”

“No, he’s not crazy. And he’s not going to hit us. Bring us about. We got us a chase!”

Cramer stood frozen at the wheel. “He’s gonna ram us!”

“Shit!”

Henriques grabbed the spotlight, thumbed the switch and swiveled it toward the oncoming boat. He picked up the charging bow, the flying spray, almost on top of them, and goddamn if it didn’t look like the bastard was really going to ram them.

Henriques braced himself as Cramer shouted incoherently and ducked behind the console. But at the last minute the runner swerved and flashed past to starboard, sending a wave of wake over the gunwale.

“After him!” Henriques screamed. “After him, goddamn it!”

Cramer was pushing on the throttle, yanking on the wheel, bringing them around. But the ankle-deep seawater sloshing back and forth in the cockpit slowed her response. The bilge pumps were overwhelmed at the moment, but they’d catch up. The VMA would be planing out again soon. That cute little maneuver had given the runner a head start, but it wouldn’t matter. Henriques had him now. Didn’t even have to catch him. Just follow him back to whatever dock he called home.

 

 

* * *

 

Terry caught himself looking over his shoulder. A reflex. Nothing to see in that mess of rain and wind. He cursed Henriques for not chasing one of the decoys. The guy seemed to read his mind. Well, why not? They were both Conchs.

Terry had only one trick left up his sleeve. If that didn’t work…

Then what? Sink the Terryfied? What good would that do? The ATF would just haul her up, find out who she belonged to, and then camp outside his door.

Face it: He doesn’t fall for this last one, I’m screwed.

And being a Conch, it was a damn good chance Henriques wouldn’t.

Terry spotted the breakers of the barrier reef ahead. Lightning helped him get his bearings and he headed for the channel. As soon as he cut through, the swells shrank by half and he picked up speed. Now was his one chance to increase the distance between Henriques and himself. If he could get close enough to shore, pull in near the parking lot of one of the waterside restaurants or nightspots, maybe he could merge his infrared tag with the heat from the cars and the kitchen.

And what would that do besides delay the inevitable? Henriques would—

A bolt of lightning slashed down at a mangrove keylet to starboard, starkly illuminating the area with a flash of cold brilliance. Terry saw the water, the rain, the mangrove clumps, and something else…something that gut-punched him and froze his hands on the wheel.

“Christ!”

Just off the port bow and roaring toward him, a swirling, writhing column of white stretching into the darkness above, throwing up a furious cloud of foam and spray as it snaked back and forth across the surface of the water.

He’d seen plenty of waterspouts before. Couldn’t spend a single season in the Keys without getting used to them, but he’d never—never—been this close to one. Never wanted to be. Waterspout…such an innocuous name. Damn thing was a tornado. That white frothy look was seawater spinning at two or three hundred miles an hour. Just brushing its hem would wreck the boat and send him flying. Catching the full brunt of the vortex would tear the Terryfied and its captain to pieces.

The hungry maw slithered his way across the surface, sucking up seawater and everything it contained, like Mrs. God’s vacuum hose. Somewhere downwind it would rain salt water and fish—and maybe pieces of a certain Conch and his boat if he didn’t do something fast.

It lunged toward him, its growing roar thundering like a fully-loaded navy cargo jet lifting off from Boca Chica, drowning out his own engine.

Terry shook off the paralysis and yanked the wheel hard to starboard. For a heartbeat he was sure he’d acted too late. He screamed into a night that had become all noise and water. The boat lurched, the port side lifted, spray drenched him, big hard drops peppering him like rounds from an Uzi. He thought he was going over.

And then Terryfied righted herself and the raging, swirling ghostly bulk was dodging past the stern, ten, then twenty feet from the transom. He saw it swerve back the other way before it was swallowed by the night and the rain. It seemed to be zigzagging down the channel. Maybe it liked the deeper water. Maybe it was trapped in the rut, in the groove…he didn’t know.

One thing he did know: If not for that lightning flash he’d be dead.

Would Henriques be so lucky? With the waterspout heading south along the channel and Henriques charging north at full throttle, the ATF could be minus one boat and two men in a minute or so.

Saved by a waterspout. Who’d ever believe it? No witness except Henriques, and he’d be…fish food.

Terry turned and stared behind him. Nothing but rain and dark. No sign of Henriques’s running lights. Which meant the waterspout was probably between them…heading right for Henriques.

“Shit.”

He reached for the Very pistol. He knew he was going to regret this.

 

 

* * *

 

“Mother of God!” Cramer shouted.

Henriques saw it too.

One instant everything was black, the next the sky was blazing red from the emergency flare sailing through the rain. And silhouetted against the burning glow was something dark and massive, directly in their path.

Henriques reached past Cramer and yanked the wheel hard to port, hard enough to nearly capsize them. The tower of water roared past like a runaway freight train, leaving them stalled and shaken but in one piece. Henriques watched it retreat, pink now in the fading glow of the flare.

He turned and scanned the water to the north while Cramer shook and sputtered.

“You see that? You ever see anything like that? Damn near killed us! Hadn’t been for that flare, we’d be goners!”

Henriques concentrated on the area around the lighted channel marker dead ahead. Something about that marker…

“There he is!” he shouted as he spotted a pale flash of wake. “Get him!”

“You gotta be kidding!” Cramer said. “He just saved our asses!”

“And I’ll be sure to thank him when he’s caught. Now after him, dammit!”

Cramer grumbled, started the engine, and turned east. He gunned it but Henriques could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

And he had to admit, some of the fight had gone out of him as well.

Why had the runner warned them? That baffled him. These guys were scum, running stolen or pilfered medical supplies out to the rich folks on their luxury hospital ships when there was barely enough to go around on shore. Yet the guy had queered his only chance of escape by sending up a warning flare.

I don’t get it.

But Henriques couldn’t let that stop him. He couldn’t turn his head and pretend he didn’t see, couldn’t allow himself to be bought off with a flare. He’d seen payoffs all his life—cops, judges, mayors, and plenty Conchs among them. But Pepe Henriques wasn’t joining that crowd.

The rain was letting up, ceiling lifting, visibility improving. Good. Where were they? He spotted the lights on the three radio towers, which put them off Sugarloaf. So where was the runner heading? Bow Channel, maybe? That would put him into Cudjo Bay. Lots of folks lived on Cudjo Bay. And one of them just might be a runner.

He retrieved his field glasses and kept them trained on the fleeing boat as it followed the channel. Didn’t have much choice. Neither of them did. Tide was out and even with the storm there wasn’t enough water to risk running outside the channel, even with the shallow draw of an impeller craft. As they got closer to civilization the channel would be better marked, electric lights and all…

Electric lights.

He snapped the glasses down but it was too late. Cramer was hauling ass past the red light marker, keeping it to starboard.

“NO!” Henriques shouted and lunged for the wheel, but too late.

The hull hit coral and ground to a halt, slamming the two of them against the console. The intakes sucked sand and debris, choked, and cut out.

Silence, except for Cramer’s cursing.

“God damn! God-damn-God-damn-God-damn-God damn! Where’s the fucking channel?”

“You’re out of it,” Henriques said softly, wondering at how calm he felt.

“I took the goddamn marker to starboard!”

Henriques nodded in the darkness, hiding his chagrin. He shouldn’t have been so focused on the runner’s boat. Should have been taking in the whole scene. Cramer hadn’t grown up on these waters. Like every seaman, he knew the three R’s: RED-RIGHT-RETURN. Keep the red markers on your right when returning to port. But Cramer couldn’t know that this marker was supposed to be green. Only a Conch would know. Somebody had changed the lens. And Henriques knew who.

He felt like an idiot but couldn’t help smiling in the dark. He’d been had but good. There’d be another time, but this round went to the runner.

He reached for the Very pistol.

 

 

* * *

 

“What the hell?”

The flare took Terry by surprise. What was Henriques up to? The bastard had been chasing him full throttle since dodging that waterspout, and now he was sending up a flare. It wouldn’t throw enough light to make any difference in the chase, and if he needed help, he had a radio.

Then Terry realized it had come from somewhere in the vicinity of the channel marker he’d tampered with. He pumped a fist into the air. Henriques was stuck and he was letting his prey know it. Why? Payback for Terry’s earlier flare? Maybe. That was all the break he’d ever get from Henriques, he guessed.

He’d take it.

Terry eased up on the throttle and sagged back in the chair. His knees felt a little weak. He was safe. But that had been close. Too damn close.

He cruised toward Cudjo, wondering if this was a sign that he should find another line of work. With Henriques out there, and maybe a few more like him joining the hunt, only a matter of time before they identified him. Might even catch him on the way out with a hold full of contraband. Then it’d be the slammer…hard time in a fed lock-up. Quitting now would be the smart thing.

Right. Someday, but not yet. A couple more runs, then he’d think about it some more.

And maybe someday after he was out of this, he and Henriques would run into each other in a bar and Terry would buy that Conch a Red Stripe and they’d laugh about these chases.

Terry thought about that a minute.

Nah.

That only happened in movies.

He gunned his boat toward home.