Aftershock & Others (17 page)

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 lighting 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.