Authors: Randy Wayne White
I rotated the lens head again and said, “The muck probably saved it. No oxygen, no oxidation, so we need to get photos, then figure out the best way to preserve it.” I stepped away so Tomlinson could take a look, adding, “Because the tube’s smashed doesn’t prove a wounded man used it. You’re guessing. More likely, it was damaged in the crash. See how delicate the needle is?”
“Ten yards from where we found the parachute harness?” Tomlinson argued. He gestured toward his little Mac laptop, where he’d opened several photos. “You knew what it was, didn’t you?”
I cleaned my glasses, then sat in front of the laptop, seeing photos of parachute harnesses issued in the 1940s and another of a small yellow box labeled
Solution of Morphine WARNING: May Be Habit Forming!
Beneath the box was a syrette tube of malleable metal, the needle protected by a glass tube and a safety key. The die stamp matched what I’d seen through the microscope.
I leaned back and said, “The D rings and clips told me it was some kind of harness, but the canvas fooled me. I could have sworn it was leather.” After scrolling through several more photos, comparing what we’d found melded into a tree with vintage harnesses, I added, “These are so simple compared to what they issue at Fort Bragg. Integrated parachute systems, sort of like BC vests for diving. But, yeah, I suspected.”
Tomlinson stooped beside me, the scent of patchouli not as strong as usual. He’d done his homework and pointed out similarities that seemed to prove we’d found what the old Army Air Corp called a Quick Attachable Chest harness. A remnant of red material at the shoulder, he claimed, proved the harness had been produced after 1943. Then he turned toward the door, asking, “You want a beer?” and left me alone to try to picture the unlikely scenario he was suggesting.
Just before his Avenger crashes, a pilot or crewman throws open the heavy canopy and jumps into the darkness. His chute opens, but he’s so badly injured when he lands he needs morphine. Or he finds an injured crewmate and injects him with the morphine. All possible but for one glaring detail: on a stormy night, how in the hell had a parachute drifted down within fifty yards of where the Avenger had crashed? Where pieces of the airplane had landed, anyway. Even if the man had jumped at a crazy low altitude, the parachute would have put on the brakes while the plane rocketed onward. Unless . . . unless there was a strong tailwind and the chute had followed the same trajectory and landed
after
the plane had crashed or—as I still suspected—broke up before hitting the ground.
I was interrupted by the sound of the screen door banging open and I looked around to see Tomlinson, fresh beer in hand, a wild smile of discovery on his face. “We’re idiots!” he said. “All three of us, it was right there and we missed it!”
I edged my chair back to create more space. “Are you okay?”
“Move . . . move—I’ll show you!”
Tomlinson couldn’t wait to get at the computer, so I stood and got out of his way. It took him awhile, but he finally brought up a photo of an Avenger taken in the 1940s. Then he opened a photo he’d taken of the tail rudder we’d found, a portion of a 3, or possibly an 8, faintly visible. He touched his finger to one, then the other. “Now do you understand?”
No . . . but I was working on it. In the old photo, the bomber appeared pristine, painted black or navy blue, the number 79 stenciled in white, huge, on the tail. The shot was taken from the plane’s starboard side. In Tomlinson’s photo, the rudder section Dan had found was also shot from that side. The top edge of the rudder was crowned with a hinge but otherwise flat, angled slightly aft. Distinctive. No chance the number we’d revealed was upside down.
My eyes moved back and forth. Finally, it hit me . . . a detail so damn obvious that I could only agree with Tomlinson.
“Absolute idiots,” I said. In the old photo of Avenger 79, the number 7 covered the rudder. The 9 covered the solid section of the tail. On the port side of the tail, though, the numbers would have been reversed. To prove it, I ripped a sheet from a notepad and just for the hell of it wrote 36 on both sides of the paper—the ID number of one of the missing Avengers.
“The second number will be on the port side of the rudder,” I said, flipping the paper to illustrate. “If there is a second number. And if there isn’t, it proves we found Torpedo Bomber FT-3—one of the five missing planes. How many crew was she carrying?”
I moved to my own computer and opened a folder I’d created for research on Flight 19. Tomlinson was up and pacing, tugging at a strand of hair, when my cell rang. Dan Futch.
Ideas are in the air,
Thomas Edison once wrote. Maybe so, because I heard Dan tell me, “We’ve got to get back there, Doc! I just realized something about that tail section—”
A minute later, I said to Tomlinson, “Dan’s booked the next four days, so we fly down Saturday morning. Or you and I take my new boat and go without him. He doesn’t have a problem with that.” Then I said into the phone, “Are you sure?”
“Tomorrow!” Tomlinson replied, “Or . . . Thursday—I’m teaching Beginner’s Mind Wednesday night.”
I covered the phone with my hand because I didn’t want Futch to hear. “First, we need to have a serious talk about your married girlfriend,” I said. “
Then
we decide.”
14
AND I HAD SOMETHING ELSE TO DO AS WELL. MACK
had given me some interesting info this morning. Bernie had given me even more.
At sunset, my shorts dripping seawater and sweat, I finished a long swim and gimpy run at A-Dock, my Clydesdale weight causing the planks to vibrate, which announced my presence to all deepwater vessels and passengers aboard.
Exactly what I wanted to do.
Sitting aft on the recently arrived Lamberti yacht, reading a magazine, was a lean, aloof man who could have played Zorro in the movies. Errol Flynn mustache, white cardigan sweater on this cool evening, a long Macanudo freshly lit—the vessel’s Brazilian owner, presumably, who jogged every morning when he wasn’t smoking cigars. His name was Alberto Sabino, according to Mack, and had paid cash in advance. Euros.
At my approach, the Brazilian looked up, then pointedly ignored me by finishing the last of his white wine and checking his watch. After a glance at the pumpkin moon blossoming from the mangroves, he stood, then disappeared into the cabin with a dancer’s easy grace that I’ve always envied but will never possess.
What does come naturally is imitating the cliché American boob. Big smile, loose-limbed, I clomped up to the boarding gate and rapped on the yacht’s hull. Twice I had to knock before the Brazilian finally poked his head out.
“You wish something?”
“You’re new to Dinkin’s Bay,” I smiled. “I always like to stop and say hello to the new ones.”
“
Es
fascinating,” the man replied with sarcasm, “I am, though, busy at this particular time.” His English was flavored with Portuguese and a whiff of German; articulate, but in a way that caused me to picture him as a boy practicing the tough words:
fass-cin-A-ting
,
par-r-r-tic-U-lar
. Working at it hard to impress important people down the road.
I said, “My name’s Ford, but everyone calls me Doc.”
The man stared at me as if he’d discovered a new type of bug. So I bumbled along, saying, “I’m not a real doctor, but you know how folks are. I’m a biologist. I hear you’re a runner—I’m always looking for running partners.”
Silence, the man staring at me through wire-rimmed glasses, not blinking. So I pointed down the shoreline to my stilthouse. “I’ve got a lab there. You’re welcome to stop by anytime—your wife, too. You have a wife? There’re some really nice places to shop on the island.”
The man was entertained, possibly also reassured by my vapidity, which accounted for his expression of contempt. “This area is private, no?” he said, then looked toward the dock juncture where a sign read
Owners Only!
“That’s to keep outsiders away,” I explained, then hurried to add, “Great fishing here. Tarpon are already showing up. Maybe you’ve met some of our fishing guides—they’re the experts.”
For an instant, just an instant, I saw a glimmer of interest, but it didn’t last. “Already I have arranged this matter,” the Brazilian said, “now please you go,” then he closed the door with a sound that only oiled teak and brass can make.
For several seconds I stood there, then clomped down the dock to the sleek Kevlar Stiletto and banged on that hull. Lights showed through porthole curtains, but no telltale shift in trim to suggest the boat was inhabited. And still no response after I’d knocked again, so I backtracked to
Tiger Lilly
, where I would have stopped but just in time heard the fragments of an argument that froze my fingers inches from the visitor’s bell.
JoAnn accusing, “. . . might as well just admit you’re seeing someone!”
Rhonda firing back, “As if you’d notice . . . and so damn self-righteous—”
“I’ve never done that to you! Who is it? Tell me!”
“So now you
own
me, too, is that it—”
“An appointment with a doctor, that’s all I’m asking! Honey, your hormones are all screwed up!”
Turning a blind eye to the small, inevitable indignities that befall us all is one of the duties of friendship, so I hurried away doing my version of a tiptoe jog. By sparing the ladies aboard
Tiger Lilly
, I was of course also sparing myself the role of mediator, but I chose to believe I was being courteous, not cowardly.
Mack and Jeth were still in the office, so I waved good-bye, but Jeth had already unlocked the door. “Tom . . . tah-tah-Tomlinson was looking for you,” he stammered, “’bout fifteen minutes ago. Said you two were doing somethin’ tonight—I forget the word he used. But he was gonna be late, so I should tell you.”
Surveillance?
If that was the word, it was true. We planned to visit the Arturo property before joining Cressa for dinner, although no telling why Tomlinson would share the information. Jeth seldom stutters these days, but still avoids problematic syllables so I didn’t press the issue.
“He’ll be late,” I said. “What a shock.” Jeth was still smiling as I stepped inside and spoke to Mack. “Did you find anything else on that Stiletto and the Lamberti?”
“Already have it out for you,” he replied, then looked at Jeth. “This is just between us. Understood?”
I spent a few minutes going through documents while Jeth and Mack went back and forth, having fun rehashing details of our encounter with the bobcat, then the limb breaking.
“Bloody drongos!” Mack roared. “Had to be like trying to catch a damn refrigerator—surprised either one of you can still walk.”
Jeth agreed by rolling his sore shoulder, and they were both still laughing when I left to jog home, where instead of showering I filled the dog’s water bucket, then lugged the heavy Soviet binoculars outside to the porch.
To the east, the moon was huge, a blaze of smoky orange, and sunset clouds were still streaked with tangerine. A wooden courtesy screen shields my outdoor shower from the marina, so I moved the screen to the railing to create a hidden viewing station. When I had the tripod positioned the way I wanted it, I swung the binoculars toward A-Dock and took a look.
The Lamberti Custom, sixty yards away, was partially blocked by other boats, but I could see enough. It was a beautiful yacht, white-hulled, with a white upper deck that was trimmed with mahogany, teak, and stainless steel, Palm Beach registration below the name
SEDUCI
in luminous gold script. Translation: “seduction,” or the masculine spelling for “seductress”—several possible meanings, in Portuguese, I guessed. The Brazilian had taken his bottle of white wine and cigar to the flybridge, where, I realized, he had a clear view of my stilthouse. But his attention wasn’t on me. He was sipping wine and talking on a cell phone, his expression blank, movements relaxed and fluid.
According to Mack and the paperwork I’d seen, now and earlier, Alberto Sabino was CEO of an import-export company that had offices in Rio, Luxembourg, and Dubai. His real name, though, was Vargas Diemer, originally from São Pedro, Brazil—information provided by my aging pal Bernie Yeager.
Bernie had some other interesting tidbits. The area around São Pedro was settled by Germans in the 1940s and known for the freakish number of twins born there—the result of experiments done by Dr. Josef Mengele, some geneticists believe. The Nazi physician had posed as a veterinarian during the years he’d lived in São Pedro. It wasn’t until long after 1979, when Mengele was drowned by a SEAL-trained Mossad agent, that researchers made the connection between the reclusive veterinarian and a small village where for three generations more than half of the infants born are fraternal or identical twins.
“They are very, very German,” Bernie had told me, then informed me of something unexpected and disturbing. Vargas Diemer was the son of a locksmith and now a pilot for Swissair. It was ideal cover for an elite thief and sometime assassin—which he was, according to Yeager, although his avocation was known only to a few in the international community. Diemer was an articulate man, picky about assignments, who specialized in recovering compromising letters, photographs, and videos for blackmail victims. Contract assassination was the natural and more lucrative next step. Vargas Diemer, according to Bernie, had amassed a fortune working for a jet-set clientele—the politically powerful and ultrawealthy whom the Brazilian had met on the social circuit.
I’d been looking for someone who might want to kill me. Well, here was somebody in my own backyard. Automatically, I connected Diemer’s Sanibel visit with the Muslim cleric who had vanished after burying his teeth in my forearm. This wouldn’t be the first time a fatwa had been issued declaring that, as adjudged by Islamic Law, I deserved to be executed. But then, as I thought about it, I wasn’t so sure. Hire a Germanic Brazilian pro to mete out Muslim revenge? Money wouldn’t have been a problem, but that was not the way the religious crazies usually work.