Authors: Randy Wayne White
Screw the odds,
I told the logician.
Coward,
the logician concluded accurately.
I didn’t care. Never again did I want to experience what I’d felt while waiting for the Brazilian to throw open that shower curtain. I’d made a basic error in judgment and wasn’t going to compound it. In the Homo sapiens’ guidebook, the reasons should be bulleted under the heading
Don’t piss in your own pond or crap in your own nest
. I had done exactly that, but for the last time.
Taking calculated risks in South America, Asia, Africa—fine. All part of the job. But how I live, and where I live, composes the fabric of who I am. Death? It’s inevitable. Living among friends in a good place, though, is a temporal pleasure, an inviolate choice not to be risked because of something I had always suspected, but now believed: a life well lived trumps every damn drab, existential alternative, so don’t screw it up!
I was getting off that damn boat fast, but
safely
.
Like a teenage burglar, I hurried from porthole to porthole monitoring Diemer’s movements. He didn’t rush, a man with dignity who enjoyed attention. Which gave me time to notice the room’s only personal appointment, aside from soccer team colors, was a photo on the cabin wall: a teenage girl; blond, gawky, with braces, but cute in an agrarian way. A family resemblance in her aristocratic nose, the Germanic cheeks—Diemer’s daughter, I guessed, or a niece. The photo seemed out of place in a space so impersonal and utilitarian, and also because it was the bedroom of a bachelor. The man had at least one sentimental bond, apparently.
I moved topside and peeked through cabin curtains. Finally, when the Brazilian was aboard Hannah’s skiff flying across Dinkin’s Bay, I exited the yacht as if I owned the thing and went to find Tomlinson. He was under the poinciana tree next to the gift shop.
“I didn’t notice Hannah come back because I was busy herding Jeth away from the docks,” he explained, his nervous fingers twisting a lock of hair. “Damn, that was close, Doc!”
I said, “You turned that guy around just in time—thanks. How’d you get his cell number?”
Tomlinson gave me a blank stare in response:
Huh?
My friend tugged at his hair and shook his head. “I didn’t call the man. I
wanted
to call, but you’re right, his number isn’t in the office. So I was on my way back to A-Dock to maybe kick the side of his boat or scream ‘Fire!’ I don’t know . . . do something that would distract him, but then the dude reappears. Looked like he was in a hurry . . . and I didn’t see any blood on his hands, so”—Tomlinson shrugged—“I figured everything was copasetic. What the hell happened in there?”
I was flipping through various explanations. Barring coincidence—which was possible but unlikely—there was only one possibility.
My eyes searched for my former flats skiff, scanning from west to east across the bay, while I explained, “He got a phone call seconds before the shit really hit the fan. The caller said they needed him right away. He took off.”
My skiff was
there
, just off Woodring Point, a mile away, a dark husk supporting a lean vertical silhouette that was Hannah Smith.
“Saved your ass,” Tomlinson agreed, “whoever made that call.”
“Yeah,” I told him. “She really did.”
—
T
HAT
NIGHT,
because the moon was too bright for sleeping, I rode my bike to the beach and jogged a mile of ocean, turned, then picked up the pace all the way back to Tarpon Bay Road. Because I was without a running partner, I took the dog, who trotted at heel when he wasn’t trying to retrieve waves.
Vargas Diemer was in the lab waiting when I returned, a day’s growth of beard sculpted onto his Zorro face—the Hollywood look.
Surprise!
I’d left the lights on, the doors unlocked as always. Even so, it was unusual to find an elite killer sitting at my desk, reading from a folder I’d left on the autoclave. Worse, there was a black semiauto pistol near his right hand. A sound suppressor lengthened the weapon. It added a look of surgical intent.
When I pushed the screen door open, the man didn’t bother to look up as he said with only a trace of accent, “I decided to return the favor, Dr. Ford.” To his left was a photo, and he spun it in front of me. An unseen lens had caught me studying his yacht’s security monitor while in search of unseen lenses. Stupid, that’s how he expected me to feel. I did.
“A filament camera,” Diemer explained, “self-contained in a memory stick. Remember moving it?
Chiflado
, you break into my vessel, that is a very sloppy thing to do. Now you’re surprised I’m here? Come on, man!”
His stilted English, no longer stilted, had a touch of the barrio now that he had me alone, a pistol within reach. No point in denying I’d been aboard, so I let the door close behind me, saying, “Breaking and entering usually isn’t a shooting offense. But maybe the laws are different in Brazil.”
The pistol—did he intend to use it? That’s what I had to know before I took another step. Behind me, the retriever made his grunting sound, and I thought,
Now? Why not a mile ago!
Diemer, still reading, said, “I know something about these missing planes—is a hobby of mine, the European war. So I sit down expecting to read the same old stories, but no, man, instead I find some information that’s new to me.
Interesting
, some of this shit.”
He had picked up the folder on Flight 19, I realized. It contained Dan’s summary as well as photos of the tail section and other items we’d uncovered. Now I was wondering,
Is that why he came to Dinkin’s Bay?
Or . . . maybe wrong yet again because the man looked at me for the first time, adjusted his wire glasses, and left the barrio behind. “Until tonight,” he said, “when my computer showed a security breach, I’d never heard of you. Thought you were just another American hick because of that dumb act you used yesterday. Christ, and I bought it! So I”—the man became more animated—“you know, made some calls to my people, asked around. After what I hear I’m, like, Wow! How could I be so wrong ’bout a guy might be a badass!”
Diemer was showing off, changing accents with the ease of an actor—a useful tool for a jet-set assassin but irritating. Nothing I could do but stare at the pistol and gauge my options as he dropped the act. “We have things in common, Dr. Ford. But no one mentioned your interest in aviation archaeology. Could be, though,
your
sources are better. The National Security Agency has a ton of money”—he motioned vaguely to indicate the lab’s construction—“but obviously doesn’t pay worth a damn. You ever get tired of being a poor working slob? Consulting work is something you might consider. The finest of everything, and a better class of people.”
The Brazilian had dark eyes, more Latin than German, but his superior demeanor added attentive sparks. The man who’d forgotten his fly case seldom missed a detail, and I got the impression he wanted me to know he was good at what he did. I looked from him to the pistol, then back, and said, “I need some Gatorade and a towel. You want anything? Or did you already check the fridge?”
A smile, definitely a smile—the guarded variety used by neurosurgeons and others who’ve been taught that emotion signals deficiency. “A census switch on my cabin door told me you stayed for only nine minutes. Nothing missing, so I figure you got nervous. Surprising behavior”—he paused for effect—“for an operator who’s supposedly a legend in the field.”
The Brazilian’s middle finger was tapping the pistol grip as I replied, “Your boat’s too close to home, so I pulled the plug. Maybe it’ll happen to you one day.”
“Is that an explanation—or an excuse?”
“Committing a felony isn’t as much fun in your own backyard,” I said. “You’re a long way from São Pedro, but I’m counting on you having better judgment.”
“And that means . . . ? Oh! You’re worried about this,” Diemer said, then swept his hand over the pistol and had the muzzle pointed at my face before I could react. Held it there for a second, savoring the power, then pointed it away. “I thought this might help convey a message. Bad form to board a private vessel without permission, old boy. Particularly my vessel.” He glared at me. “Don’t
ever
do it again, homey—
o es fodido
! Understand?”
Portuñol
slang.
Or you’re screwed
, it probably meant, but I was more concerned with the damn pistol. If the Brazilian was crazy enough to shoot me in my own home, submissive behavior wouldn’t stop him. So I asked, “A Beretta?” Said it coolly to negate the way I’d almost thrown up my hands in surrender.
“Sig Sauer,” he answered, lowering the weapon. “Called a Mosquito—a stupid name for a piece that chambers twenty-two hollow-points as smooth as this little number. Care to try?” Diemer popped the magazine, cleared the weapon, then held it by the barrel for me to take. That quick, the real Vargas Diemer—the articulate killer—was replaced by Diemer the charming foreigner who had worked hard to learn English. His standby persona, I guessed, when dealing with those who might be of some use.
My fists relaxed, but I wasn’t going to let the man see me take a deep breath. “I need something to drink and a dry T-shirt,” I said, turning. “So go ahead . . . make yourself right at home.”
Diemer didn’t miss the sarcasm. “Americans are such a friendly people!” he said, then coughed. No . . . it was the way he imitated laughter.
18
I WAS STILL WONDERING,
WHAT DID HANNAH SAY TO
get the Brazilian off his yacht so fast?
as the Brazilian said to me, “Call me Alberto . . . but not Al. The name makes me think of canned beer and condom dispensers. Doesn’t really fit with Sabino, either—lyrically, I’m saying. Not that I’m a snob, but one has the right to choose one’s own alias. Don’t you agree, doctor?”
The polished syntax again, which suggested a boarding school, or Jesuit, education and old Brazilian money. According to Bernie, though, Diemer was the son of a locksmith, born in a rural village. So it was another act. But maybe a man who’d finessed his way up the social ladder while amassing a fortune had earned the right to play a ruling-class Castilian. The role suited him: a member of the arrogant glitterati who was willing to bond with an inferior—me, in this case—if the inferior was deemed worthy.
Diemer and I had changed places, me sitting at my office desk, him in a metal chair, but the folder was still in his lap and the book
They Flew Into Oblivion
within reach. I hadn’t showered, but I had changed into sweatpants and a pullover before returning with a Corona for each of us and an extra Gatorade for me. “Most people call me Ford,” I said in reply to “Alberto.” “Or Doc.”
Beer in hand, the Brazilian nodded
Salute
, then placed the bottle near the pistol, which lay unloaded, still separated from its magazine. It was a quarter ’till eleven, the moon dazzling outside, where the retriever dozed after returning from the bushes.
The Brazilian wasn’t chatty, but he was comfortable saying whatever he pleased, which struck me as unusual for a criminal operative. Acting or not, he had an elevated sense of entitlement, the imperious Castilian who doesn’t socialize with the uncultured. The reason, I guessed, was that Diemer perceived us both to be isolates in the same lonely profession, which was accurate in some ways—not that I was going to admit it—and it explained why he was so forthcoming.
I reminded myself,
He also wants something
. The man hadn’t mentioned seeing me with Cressa Arturo earlier that morning, which was puzzling. The feral expression on his face had been intense, unmistakable. He couldn’t have forgotten the blonde in the lemon chemise.
So I played it loose by playing along, but paid attention. I hadn’t confirmed his suspicions by using Diemer’s real name, nor had we returned to the subject of me checking his background through intelligence sources. But the man
knew
it was true. In his mind, at least, it allowed us to explore safer topics, such as Flight 19, as well as other missing ships and planes that interested him—a B-25, flown by Captain Gene Nattress; a German sub loaded with gold bullion that had disappeared en route to South America. I was now convinced that World War II and its missing relics actually was one of Diemer’s passions. He had already told me about a DC-3 he’d helped salvage in the Bahamas and had mentioned details from a “drawer full of files” he’d collected on the gold-laden submarine.
“Is all of this information accurate?” he asked, taking several papers from the folder. “For instance, says here that parents of the missing men were convinced some of their sons survived and—most surprising—that they lived ‘like animals’ in the Everglades, according to this. In this newspaper . . . no,
this
one—have you read it? The story made headlines in many of your papers.”
I replied, “I skimmed through them,” and let him talk.
“Then you’ve missed important details,” Diemer scolded. He held up a clipping from the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
that ran January 1946, then adjusted his glasses so he could quote directly: “‘Hunters from the Seminole Indian Tribe of Florida have reported finding an isolated camp and bootprints deep in the swamp. Along with the remains of a campfire, and many bones from animals that have been eaten, this tells us our boys might still be alive.’” His eyes continued to scan as he said, “I wonder if this is possible.”
I said, “A grieving mother would believe anything if it meant her son was still alive.”
“You’re convinced there were no survivors.
Es
fascinating. Newspaper reporters from that time obviously disagree.”
“It could have happened, but there’s not enough information to go on,” I answered, aware that his attention had shifted to a photo of the parachute harness.
The Brazilian leafed through more papers, then said, “The telegram to the missing aviator’s brother is a new one on me. Bizarre, huh? The newspapers published three, four articles about it, but not until”—the man squinted at the small type—“it was several weeks later that these stories appeared. To them, at least, the telegram appeared to be genuine.”