Ray eased onto the beach. He watched Mitch and could barely see Abby. The beach was deserted.
It was almost midnight, Saturday, and most of the fishermen had left the pier for another night. Abby saw three in a small cluster near the rest rooms. She slipped past them and nonchalantly strolled to the end of the pier, where she leaned on the concrete railing and stared at the vast blackness of the Gulf. Red buoy lights were scattered as far as she could see. Blue and white channel lights formed a neat line to the east. A blinking yellow light on some vessel inched away on the horizon. She was alone at the end of the pier.
Mitch hid in a beach chair under a folded umbrella near the entrance to the pier. He could not see her, but had a good view of the ocean. Fifty feet away, Ray sat in the darkness on a brick ledge. His feet dangled in the sand. They waited. They checked their watches.
At precisely midnight, Abby nervously unzipped her windbreaker and untied a heavy flashlight. She glanced at the water below and gripped it fiercely. She shoved it into her stomach, shielded it with the wind-breaker, aimed at the sea and pushed the switch three times. On and off. On and off. On and off. The green bulb flashed three times. She held it tightly and stared at the ocean.
No response. She waited an eternity and two minutes later flashed again. Three times. No response. She
breathed deeply and spoke to herself. “Be calm, Abby, be calm. He’s out there somewhere.” She flashed three more times. Then waited. No response.
Mitch sat on the edge of the beach chair and anxiously surveyed the sea. From the corner of an eye, he saw a figure walking, almost running from the west. It jumped onto the steps of the pier. It was the Nordic. Mitch bolted across the beach after him.
Aaron Rimmer walked behind the fishermen, around the small building, and watched the woman in the white hat at the end of the pier. She was bent over clutching something. It flashed again, three times. He walked silently up to her.
“Abby.”
She jerked around and tried to scream. Rimmer lunged at her and shoved her into the railing. From the darkness, Mitch dived head first into the Nordic’s legs, and all three went down hard on the slick concrete. Mitch felt the gun at the Nordic’s back. He swung wildly with a forearm and missed. Rimmer whirled and landed a wicked smash to Mitch’s left eye. Abby kicked and crawled away. Mitch was blind and dazed. Rimmer stood quickly and reached for the gun, but never found it. Ray charged like a battering ram and sent the Nordic crashing into the railing. He landed four bulletlike jabs to the eyes and nose, each one drawing blood. Skills learned in prison. The Nordic fell to all fours, and Ray snapped his head with four powerful kicks. He groaned pitifully and fell, face first.
Ray removed the gun and handed it to Mitch, who was standing now and trying to focus with his good eye. Abby watched the pier. No one.
“Start flashing,” Ray said as he unwound the rope
from his waist. Abby faced the water, shielded the flashlight, found the switch and began flashing like crazy.
“What’re you gonna do?” Mitch whispered, watching Ray and the rope.
“Two choices. We can either blow his brains out or drown him.”
“Oh my god!” Abby said as she flashed.
“Don’t fire the gun,” Mitch whispered.
“Thank you,” Ray said. He grabbed a short section of rope, twisted it tightly around the Nordic’s neck and pulled. Mitch turned his back and stepped between the body and Abby. She did not try to watch. “I’m sorry. We have no choice,” Ray mumbled almost to himself.
There was no resistance, no movement from the unconscious man. After three minutes, Ray exhaled loudly and announced, “He’s dead.” He tied the other end of the rope to a post, slid the body under the railing and lowered it quietly into the water.
“I’m going down first,” Ray said as he crawled through the railing and slid down the rope. Eight feet under the deck of the pier, an iron cross brace was attached to two of the thick concrete columns that disappeared into the water. It made a nice hideout. Abby was next. Ray grabbed her legs as she clutched the rope and eased downward. Mitch, with his one eye, lost his equilibrium and almost went for a swim.
But they made it. They sat on the cross brace, ten feet above the cold, dark water. Ten feet above the fish and the barnacles and the body of the Nordic. Ray cut the rope so the corpse could fall to the bottom properly before it made its ascent in a day or two.
They sat like three owls on a limb, watching the buoy lights and channel lights and waiting for the
messiah to come walking across the water. The only sounds were the soft splashing of the waves below and the steady clicking of the flashlight.
And then voices from the deck above. Nervous, anxious, panicked voices, searching for someone. Then they were gone.
“Well, little brother, what do we do now?” Ray whispered.
“Plan B,” Mitch said.
“And what’s that?”
“Start swimming.”
“Very funny,” Abby said, clicking away.
An hour passed. The iron brace, though perfectly located, was not comfortable.
“Have you noticed those two boats out there?” Ray asked quietly.
The boats were small, about a mile offshore, and for the past hour had been cruising slowly and suspiciously back and forth in sight of the beach. “I think they’re fishing boats,” Mitch said.
“Who fishes at one o’clock in the morning?” Ray asked.
The three of them thought about this. There was no explanation.
Abby saw it first, and hoped and prayed it was not the body now floating toward them. “Over there,” she said, pointing, fifty yards out to sea. It was a black object, resting on the water and moving slowly in their direction. They watched intently. Then the sound, like that of a sewing machine.
“Keep flashing,” Mitch said. It grew closer.
It was a man in a small boat.
“Abanks!” Mitch whispered loudly. The humming noise died.
“Abanks!” he said again.
“Where the hell are you?” came the reply.
“Over here. Under the pier. Hurry, dammit!”
The hum grew louder, and Abanks parked an eight-foot rubber raft under the pier. They swung from the brace and landed in one joyous pile. They quietly hugged each other, then hugged Abanks. He revved up the five-horsepower electric trolling motor and headed for open water.
“Where have you been?” Mitch asked.
“Cruising,” Abanks answered nonchalantly.
“Why are you late?”
“I’m late because I’ve been dodging these fishing boats filled with idiots in tourist clothes posing as fishermen.”
“You think they’re Moroltos or Fibbies?” Abby asked.
“Well, if they’re idiots, they could be either one.”
“What happened to your green light?”
Abanks pointed to a flashlight next to the motor. “Battery went dead.”
The boat was a forty-foot schooner that Abanks had found in Jamaica for only two hundred thousand. A friend waited by the ladder and helped them aboard. His name was George, just George, and he spoke English with a quick accent. Abanks said he could be trusted.
“There’s whiskey if you like. In the cabinet,” Abanks said. Ray found the whiskey. Abby found a blanket and lay down on a small couch. Mitch stood on the deck and admired his new boat. When Abanks and George had the raft aboard, Mitch said, “Let’s get out of here. Can we leave now?”
“As you wish,” George snapped properly.
Mitch gazed at the lights along the beach and said farewell. He went below and poured a cup of scotch.
Wayne Tarrance slept across the bed in his clothes. He had not moved since the last call, six hours earlier. The phone rang beside him. After four rings, he found it.
“Hello.” His voice was slow and scratchy.
“Wayne, baby. Did I wake you?”
“Of course.”
“You can have the documents now. Room 39, Sea Gull’s Rest Motel, Highway 98, Panama City Beach. The desk clerk is a guy named Andy, and he’ll let you in the room. Be careful with them. Our friend has them all marked real nice and precise, and he’s got sixteen hours of videotape. So be gentle.”
“I have a question,” Tarrance said.
“Sure, big boy. Anything.”
“Where did he find you? This would’ve been impossible without you.”
“Gee, thanks, Wayne. He found me in Memphis. We got to be friends, and he offered me a bunch of money.”
“How much?”
“Why is that important, Wayne? I’ll never have to work again. Gotta run, baby. It’s been real fun.”
“Where is he?”
“As we speak, he’s on a plane to South America. But please don’t waste your time trying to catch him. Wayne, baby, I love you, but you couldn’t even catch him in Memphis. Bye now.” She was gone.
41
Dawn. Sunday. The forty-foot schooner sped south with full sails under a clear sky. Abby was in a deep sleep in the master suite. Ray was in a scotch-induced coma on a couch. Abanks was somewhere below catching a nap.
Mitch sat on the deck sipping cold coffee and listening to George expound on the basics of sailing. He was in his late fifties, with long, gray, bleached hair and dark, sun-cured skin. He was small and wiry, much like Abanks. He was Australian by birth, but twenty-eight years earlier had fled his country after the largest bank heist in its history. He and his partner split eleven million in cash and silver and went their separate ways. His partner was now dead, he had heard.
George was not his real name, but he’d used it for twenty-eight years and forgotten the real one. He discovered the Caribbean in the late sixties, and after seeing its thousands of small, primitive English-speaking islands, decided he’d found home. He put his money in banks in the Bahamas, Belize, Panama
and, of course, Grand Cayman. He built a small compound on a deserted stretch of beach on Little Cayman and had spent the past twenty-one years touring the Caribbean in his thirty-foot schooner. During the summer and early fall, he stayed close to home. But from October to June, he lived on his boat and hopped from island to island. He’d been to three hundred of them in the Caribbean. He once spent two years just in the Bahamas.
“There are thousands of islands,” he explained. “And they’ll never find you if you move a lot.”
“Are they still looking for you?” Mitch asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t call and ask, you know. But I doubt it.”
“Where’s the safest place to hide?”
“On this boat. It’s a nice little yacht, and once you learn to sail it, it’ll be your home. Find you a little island somewhere, perhaps Little Cayman or Brac—they’re both still primitive—and build a house. Do as I’ve done. And spend most of your time on this boat.”
“When do you stop worrying about being chased?”
“Oh, I still think about it, you know. But I don’t worry about it. How much did you get away with?”
“Eight million, give or take,” Mitch said.
“That’s nice. You’ve got the money to do as you please, so forget about them. Just tour the islands for the rest of your life. There are worse things, you know.”
For days they sailed toward Cuba, then around it in the direction of Jamaica. They watched George and listened to his lectures. After twenty years of sailing through the Caribbean, he was a man of great
knowledge and patience. Ray, the linguist, listened to and memorized words like spinnaker, mast, bow, stern, aft, tiller, halyard winches, masthead fittings, shrouds, lifelines, stanchions, sheet winch, bow pulpit, coamings, transom, clew outhaul, genoa sheets, mainsail, jib, jibstays, jib sheets, cam cleats and boom vangs. George lectured on heeling, luffing, running, blanketing, backwinding, heading up, trimming and pointing. Ray absorbed the language of sailing; Mitch studied the technique.
Abby stayed in the cabin, saying little and smiling only when necessary. Life on a boat was not something she dreamed about. She missed her house and wondered what would happen to it. Maybe Mr. Rice would cut the grass and pull the weeds. She missed the shady streets and neat lawns and the small gangs of children riding bicycles. She thought of her dog, and prayed that Mr. Rice would adopt it. She worried about her parents—their safety and their fear. When would she see them again? It would be years, she decided, and she could live with that if she knew they were safe.
Her thoughts could not escape the present. The future was inconceivable.
During the second day of the rest of her life, she began writing letters; letters to her parents, Kay Quin, Mr. Rice and a few friends. The letters would never be mailed, she knew, but it helped to put the words on paper.
Mitch watched her carefully, but left her alone. He had nothing to say, really. Maybe in a few days they could talk.
By the end of the fourth day, Wednesday, Grand Cayman was in sight. They circled it slowly once and anchored a mile from shore. After dark, Barry Abanks
said goodbye. The McDeeres simply thanked him, and he eased away in the rubber raft. He would land three miles from Bodden Town at another dive lodge, then call one of his dive captains to come get him. He would know if anyone suspicious had been around. Abanks expected no trouble.
George’s compound on Little Cayman consisted of a small main house of white-painted wood and two smaller outbuildings. It was inland a quarter of a mile, on a tiny bay. The nearest house could not be seen. A native woman lived in the smallest building and maintained the place. Her name was Fay.
The McDeeres settled in the main house and tried to begin the process of starting over. Ray, the escapee, roamed the beaches for hours and kept to himself. He was euphoric, but could not show it. He and George took the boat out for several hours each day and drank scotch while exploring the islands. They usually returned drunk.
Abby spent the first days in a small room upstairs overlooking the bay. She wrote more letters and began a diary. She slept alone.
Twice a week, Fay drove the Volkswagen bus into town for supplies and mail. She returned one day with a package from Barry Abanks. George delivered it to Mitch. Inside the package was a parcel sent to Abanks from Doris Greenwood in Miami. Mitch ripped open the thick legal-sized envelope and found three newspapers, two from Atlanta and one from Miami.