Wild Card pp-8 Read online

  Fisk reached for the radio handset on his helm console, identified himself, gave the coordinates of the tuna grounds, and then listened to the specifics of the detour with chagrin… It would cost him an hour, or even longer. Then he thought about the level of ire it would bring about in his fanatical anglers and almost shuddered. A year or so back, his ship had been just ten miles short of a teeming pod of fish when a British prime minister’s vacation yacht had crossed its path, the attendant patrol boat escort forcing him into a circuitous, lengthy, and in Fisk’s opinion unnecessary course change that had left his infuriated passengers with limp lines, empty hooks, and many, many vocal complaints.

  He pressed his handset’s talk button, mindful of past experience. Perhaps today he might succeed in a compromise.

  “Captain Fisk, again, coastal patrol. I roger your alternate coordinates,” he said. And then took his stab. “Request permission to stand by and wait if that would be shorter, over.”

  “Negative, Captain. Our action will take a while.”

  “I’m going to have some very unhappy passengers,” Fisk pressed.

  “We apologize, Captain. This area’s off limits and must be cleared of traffic.”

  Fisk felt the wind go out of him.

  “Can you help me with explanations for when they chew my head off?”

  “We’ve received a Mayday distress call and are taking appropriate action. That’s all I can tell you, Captain. Out.”

  Fisk expelled a long, defeated breath and set the handset into its clip, wondering how serious the Mayday might be. With so many amateur boaters in the water panicking if they so much as got splashed by a wave, one never knew. Nine times out of ten it was something minor.

  Captain Greger Fisk sighed again, girding for his announcement over the ship’s intercom, thinking he might as well throw himself overboard afterward and give the patrols a real problem to worry about.

  * * *

  Nimec and Annie swam a few feet from the boat in the warm, placid green water, then floated facedown on the surface and immediately saw the great reef below them.

  It was, Nimec thought, spectacular. What he might have described as a sort of forest masquerading as crusted, irregular shelves of rock. The growth of new living coral flared off it in shoots, spurs, and willowy masses of different shapes, all of them covered in seaweed that ribboned out and out in long, drifting strands.

  They kept looking down through their face masks a bit, pulling regular breaths into their snorkels. Then they filled their lungs and dove.

  Nimec had expected to catch a glimpse of some underwater life, but the reef was teeming with creatures everywhere. It was, he thought, almost too much to take in all at once. Schools of tiny silvery-blue fish darting between coral branches that swayed and undulated in the gentle current; some spidery, leggy thing that fled through a nook in the formation in a scattery cloud of sand; a great bugeyed fish with iridescent red scales, blotchy blue spots on its massive head, and what seemed to be dozens of fins spraying from its sides. It at first moved slowly past them, and then put on a sudden, explosive burst of speed to plow away through a dense clump of plant growth.

  Then Nimec felt Annie tap his shoulder, looked over at her, nodded.

  They went up for air.

  * * *

  The racing boat moved at idle speed like a restrained thoroughbred, its twin 225hp outboards humming in low gear.

  Beside his pilot in the forward bow seat, Eckers checked the time with his digital wristwatch, fingered on its compass display for a moment, and then shifted his glance to the GPS marine chart on his handheld. The latter device would have sufficed to give him all the information he wanted, but he was a cautious man, and a comparison check could only back up and refine his situational awareness.

  He brought his binoculars up to his eyes, spotted the target at rest in the clear distance ahead, turned the zoom knob with his thumb, studied it more closely, and nodded to himself.

  “Kick it, Harrison,” he said at last, glancing over at the pilot. “They’re ours.”

  * * *

  Nimec had plunged down for his fourth or fifth dive to the reef when he heard the distinctive thrum of an engine somewhere above. It made him curious. He turned to Annie, who was beside him exploring a huge knob of coral that was plastered with starfish and other tentacled, suctiony things. He pointed to his ear, then pointed toward the surface, and up they went to investigate.

  * * *

  On his deck enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, Blake was a touch perplexed when he noticed the yellow racer planing across the water toward him. This was not because crafts of that sort were rare sights in themselves, but because they usually came in pairs or threesomes… hard for a crew to stage a race if they didn’t have any competition. Course, he thought, these blokes might be on a solo practice run. Made good sense, since they were traveling at a moderate speed, and the environmentalists looked upon contests near the reef formations with sneering disapproval. Did all sorts of bad, said they in their cries for legal restrictions — damaged the coral heads, tore apart the seaweed growth, disturbed and injured the sea life. And who with a right brain and working eyes could dispute it?

  Blake watched the racer continue to approach from starboard, the sound of its engines growing louder by the second. Then he thought about his lovebirds and glanced to the left, making sure they were still safely on the opposite side of his boat, where he’d last seen them… and there he found them surfacing for air within the approximate twenty-foot boundary he’d laid out. Fine couple, they were. And took instruction with no flapping of the lips, which made them all the finer.

  He saw Pete wave to him, waved back, noticed him stay on top looking his way, and made the OK sign to let him know everything was all right, betting he’d heard the hum of the racer’s outboards and gotten curious. It was easy to hear a noise like that when you were underwater, tough to judge the direction it was coming from because of the way vibrations scattered.

  Blake smiled. Maybe old Pete was worried he’d scram off with the boat. It was dotty to even think he’d be concerned about that, sure, and wasn’t something that struck Blake in a serious-minded vein… or not too much so anyway. Hard to put a finger on it, but there was quite a bit more to that fellow than might seem. Always on the watch, he was. And three or four thoughts deeper into his head than he let on.

  Blake turned toward the sled-shaped racing boat again. It was still coming on apace, and had gotten near enough for him to tally a crew of four aboard, men in gray shortie wetsuits. A few minutes later it had almost pulled abeam and was throttling down.

  He moved to the starboard safety rail, watched the racer slow to a halt in the water several yards away.

  “Hello!” hollered the man seated beside the pilot. He was an American, to tell from his accent. “Embarrasses me to say this, but we’ve gotten ourselves lost.”

  Blake stood with his hands on the rail. Well, he thought, that answered a question or two.

  “Sorry to hear it, mate,” he said. “You out of Los Rayos?”

  “And trying to find our way back,” the man replied with a nod. “Our GPS unit went on the blink.”

  Blake gave him a commiserative look. Lord knew why, but it was just the sort of thing that happened with tourists.

  “Got to love those gizmos… It’s why I always bring a good, old-fashioned reliable map for backup,” he said. “No need to fret, ’owever, I could shout you directions if you’d like. The island’s no more’n forty minutes due east, with a small twist this way ’n’ that.” He paused. “You gents set for petrol an’ supplies?”

  The man nodded.

  “No problems there, thanks,” he said. Then he tilted his head toward his pilot. “Hope I’m not imposing, but it’d be a help if we could have a look at that map of yours.”

  Blake thought about it a second and then shrugged his broad shoulders.

  “No imposition ’t all,” he said. “Pull yourselves broadside, toss a line
across, ’n’ we’ll bring the two of you aboard — how’s that?”

  The man offered a big smile.

  “Sounds perfect,” he said.

  * * *

  “I ’ave a spare chart in this chamber a’ horrors somewhere, worst part’s findin’ it ’midst the rest a’ my junk,” Blake was saying a few minutes later. He was in his pilot station bent over a storage compartment below the butterfly wheel, the men from the racer’s bow seat standing behind him, their craft bound fast to his gunwale. “Soon’s I pull it out, I can get the route ’ighlighted with a marker an’ you’ll be on your way right quick.”

  “Can’t tell you often enough how much we appreciate it,” Eckers said. He nodded to his companion, who reached into a belt pouch against his hip.

  Blake fumbled in the compartment, moving aside a first aid kit, a pack of facial tissues, a bottle of sunblocker, a box of toothpicks, and a two-year-old program for the Matildas women’s soccer team with a feature article on a particularly sexy goalie.

  “You blokes keep thankin’ me, I might start to believe I’m doin’ somethin’ that deserves it,” he said without turning, his hand still in the box. What on earth was a plastic bag filled with marbles, metal jacks, and a red rubber ball doing in there? One of these days he’d have to tidy up. “By the way, m’name’s Blake Davies. Didn’t catch either a’ yours.”

  Eckers glanced at the man beside him, saw that he’d taken the blunt wedge of stone from the pouch into his hand, and nodded again.

  “They call us Grim and Reaper,” he said as the rock was smashed forcefully against the left side of Blake’s skull.

  * * *

  Nimec had surfaced to look over at the pontooner several times after Blake flashed the OK sign with his thumb and forefinger. He didn’t think much of it when he saw the yellow racer approach, except that maybe the Aussie had run across a couple of his water-loving buddies having their own little jaunt off the island.

  On the instance he came up to see lines being cast between the boats, it drew his closer attention.

  “Annie,” he said. “What do you make of ’em? Those guys who came in that racing boat, that is.”

  Swimming in place beside Nimec, she watched a couple of them board the pontooner.

  “They seem friendly with Blake,” she said, and kind of shrugged her shoulders out of the water. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Nimec said.

  He kept watching the boat. Blake had gone around into his pilot’s console, followed by the two men.

  “Pete?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you thinking something’s wrong?”

  He took a moment to consider that, lifted his dive mask over his forehead.

  “I’m not sure what I’m looking at, and I’d like to be,” he said, glancing over at her. “If that makes sense.”

  Annie read the expression on his face.

  “It does,” she said. “Should we go back to the boat?”

  “Maybe I should,” Nimec said.

  “You?”

  “Right.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Right,” Nimec said, shooting another look at the boat. “Find out what’s up, then come on back.”

  She shook her head.

  “No, Pete. Where you go, I go—”

  Annie broke off, the words dying on her tongue, her eyes grown wide with shock and confusion as she saw what was suddenly happening on the boat, happening all in a terrible second — the one man raising something in his hand, bringing it down on Blake’s head, then Blake slumping over the console, falling below it onto the deck.

  “Pete!” she cried, and reached out to grip his arm. “Pete!”

  Nimec turned to her.

  “Annie, stay put,” he said.

  “What about you?”

  “I need to swim over there,” he said. “It’s our best chance.”

  Annie shook her head again vehemently.

  “How, Pete?” she said, clinging to him. “What can you do against them alone?”

  He looked at her, unable to think of a reply.

  And then the men aboard the pontooner made any answer he could have settled upon irrelevent as they hurried to the side of the boat, pulled guns from under their wetsuit jackets, and pointed them at Nimec and Annie over the safety rail.

  “Over here,” one of them shouted in a voice that carried clearly over the water. “Both of you. Now.”

  * * *

  Tolland Eckers faced Nimec and Annie across the pontoon boat’s deck, the Steyr 9mm in his right hand leveled on them. He had donned thin black boater’s gloves as a precaution against fingerprints.

  “It fascinates me how quickly a person’s situation can change,” he said. “Turn from one thing to another overnight. Or sometimes in the blink of an eye. You never know what might happen next.”

  Still dripping water, Nimec stood there in the booties he’d worn under his fins before removing them on the dive platform. He lowered his gaze to where Blake lay fallen in a motionless heap, blood oozing from his temple to mat his thick blond hair against the side of his face. Then he shifted his eyes onto those of the man with the semiautomatic.

  “What you did to him tells me everything I need to know,” he said.

  Eckers shrugged.

  “Does it?” he said. “The poor fellow was enjoying himself when he slipped and took a nasty fall. What I’d call a piece of bad luck, or couldn’t you see?”

  Nimec nodded toward the other man, who was now busy loosening the ropes that secured the racer to the pontoon boat’s gunwale, his own portable weapon in a sling harness at his side.

  “I saw your friend hit him with whatever was in his hand,” he said. “Go ahead and call that a fall, or anything you want.”

  “You know what you know, is that it?”

  Nimec didn’t answer.

  Eckers looked at him and smiled coldly.

  “It’s your knowing too much that changed your situation,” he said. “Changed it in a sudden, drastic way. Turning you from an invited guest to an interloper.”

  “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” Nimec said.

  “Nothing to what I’m saying, is that it?” Eckers motioned toward Annie with the Steyr. “And you? Also without any ideas about why we’re all here? Or do you mean to keep them to yourself like your husband?”

  She just stared at him in silence, as if simply trying to process what was going on. Eckers’s companion, meanwhile, had finished unfastening the lines between the boats and come around to stand slightly off to one side of Nimec.

  “Whatever I saw, or you think I saw, I didn’t tell my wife.”

  Eckers shrugged a third time.

  “Maybe, or maybe not,” he said. “Sadly, I won’t leave maybes swirling around.”

  Nimec felt his stomach tighten.

  “Whatever you intend to do out here, you’re out of your mind to think you’ll get away with it.”

  “Because?”

  “Because of who I work for,” Nimec said. “Because they won’t let up on you or the people you work for.”

  Eckers continued to look at him, his weapon steady in his grip.

  “Accidental deaths happen,” he said. “Your employers can have suspicions. They can search, and investigate, and they can be left with their nagging doubts. But in the end, if the evidence still points to an accident, none of that will matter.”

  Nimec was silent. He hadn’t wanted to use words like death or kill or murder, had hoped to protect Annie from hearing them. But while he’d done a lousy job of protecting her from anything so far, that might be about to change.

  If the evidence still points to an accident, he thought.

  But how could it, if both he and Annie had bullet holes in them?

  He stood watching as Eckers glanced over at the racing boat.

  “Take it out to the ledge,” he said to the two men inside it. “Kettering and I will join you shortly.”

  The man a
t the wheel nodded, and a moment later the racer’s powerful engines roared to life. Then it turned in the water and sped off westward toward the buoys, churning up a long, white wake of foam.

  “We’re almost finished now,” Eckers said, looking back at Nimec. “This may give you small comfort, but I’m a professional and will be”—he hesitated a beat—“as efficient as possible.”

  Nimec had kept his eyes locked on Eckers’s, peripherally aware of the man he’d called Kettering sidling closer. How did they intend to do it? He needed to buy some time. Seconds, minutes, whatever he could.

  “Except your plan won’t work,” he said, thinking hard. “You figure you’ll ride this boat out to the ledge, or outcrop, or whatever it is. Wait there till the tide goes down, make it look like it crashed and took on water, then head away with your friends. Could be you’ve even got a Mayday logged somewhere so you’re covered on that end.” Nimec paused a second, took a deep breath, wishing again that he could have spared Annie from what he needed to say. “But we won’t stand around waiting for you to drive us into the rocks,” he resumed, then. “Not if we’re going to die anyway. We’ll try to stop you and you’ll have to use that gun of yours to stop us. And the people who come out searching won’t stop till they find our bodies. You know that. You need them to find us for this to seem real. And they see bullet holes, there goes your accident.”

  Eckers’s cold smile reappeared, but Nimec believed he saw something in his eyes that conflicted with it.

  “Gamma hydrooxybutyrate,” he said. “Ever hear of it?”

  Nimec looked at him. He hadn’t, but he wasn’t giving that away.

  “It’s a drug classified as a sedative and anesthetic,” Eckers said. “Short form nomenclature, GHB. Common street names ‘soap,’ ‘scoop,’ ‘grievous bodily harm,’ ‘easy lay’… although by now the kids who use it for date rape have probably replaced them with a dozen others, our youth culture always being in a hurry to move on.”

  Nimec watched him silently. Watched his eyes. And at the same time remained watchful of Kettering.