Shell Games (29 page)

Marquez called Katherine back
and turned on the porch lights. He laid a gun next to his laptop and then clicked on the computer, which seemed to boot up too slowly. As he’d feared, the Web site was up again but had changed. A scene that maybe only he would recognize showed on the screen. It took him a moment to be sure what he was seeing, a yellowed photograph of a human skull on a stone altar ringed by candles, and at the center the DEA badges. There were wedding bands and photo IDs, driver’s licenses, and the other proof Kline had laid out and photographed eleven years ago. It still reached across the years and shocked him.

He clicked out and checked for e-mail, found nothing, backed out, and his cell phone rang.

“There are three agents on their way to you,” Douglas said. “Four agents are in Bernal Heights with your ex. Anything more from Davies?”

“No.”

“Keep trying to call him.”

A few minutes later headlights showed up on Ridge Road, dis-appeared in the dip in the driveway, then reflected through his windows. He saw two men in a white Suburban in the driveway. He opened the door and told them they were welcome to stay if they hoped Davies would show, but that he was taking off, which didn’t make any sense to them. They tried to get him to wait while they called Douglas.

“Douglas has my cell number,” Marquez said. “Tell him to call me.”

When he got in the Explorer he threw his coat on the passen-ger seat and glanced behind him, making sure he’d transferred everything from the Nissan. A little more than a half moon was well into the western sky when he dropped off the mountain. He couldn’t look at it without wondering what the clue about the moon and the boat was supposed to mean. He spoke the names of boats he knew as if hearing
Blue Moon, Full Moon,
or
Moondance
would bring the connection.

Marquez was near the base of the mountain, ready to turn past the bar on the corner when he heard a rustling behind him. He knew immediately someone was under the tarp covering the equipment, someone who must have gotten in when he’d left the truck unlocked earlier, when he’d been transferring what he’d planned to take. Marquez started pulling and Davies’s voice was hard.

“Bring your hand back to the wheel or I’ll shoot you. Drive to where you dock your boat.”

“What’s there?”

Davies climbed from the rear compartment and Marquez glanced at the rearview mirror. Good chance the FBI would pick him up or already had. Douglas would call, no question about that, and now he felt a cold gun muzzle press against his neck.

“Stakes are high, Lieutenant.” They crossed lower Marin on the freeway and then drove through San Rafael and came up alongside
a cop at a stoplight. Davies slouched back behind the passenger seat, his profile hidden by the tinted windows. “If you do the wrong thing, you’ll get the cop killed,” he said. “Take your hands off the wheel and you’ll make your wife a widow.”

“My hands are on the wheel, but I thought we were on the same side.” They drove to Loch Lomond Marina, turned in, and were alone. “I need to turn around and line up the boat hitch. I’ve got to get out.”

Marquez had a way he angled the Explorer, a way he liked to line up on the fence and another boat that had never been moved in the time he’d rented here. He purposefully missed this time, knew the trailer ball and boat hitch wouldn’t be near enough to hook the boat trailer up.

“It’s a life or death situation, Lieutenant, and I’ve got to bring you to him and we need your boat for that.”

“I’m always missing with the hitch,” Marquez said.

Davies’s voice was low and very quiet. His face had been darkened with camouflage paint and he pointed the gun at Mar-quez’s chest.

“There isn’t enough time for this shit. Hook it up.”

Marquez backed up, got out and attached the trailer hitch, then backed the boat trailer down until the Fountain floated. He did it all slowly and knew the FBI had his position from the tele-locator. He got on board with Davies now, though the Explorer still idled, its muffler coughing as it caught water.

“Back up slowly,” Davies said, and got on the boat behind him. “Keep the speed at twenty-five as we clear the channel. You can figure his people are watching.”

Marquez went with it, hoping Davies was taking him straight to the boat. He looked at the Explorer sitting on the ramp with the driver’s door open, headlights on and the engine running, and backed the boat around. They came under the San Rafael Bridge and out into the open bay, veering right of Angel Island through
Raccoon Strait, and above the engines he asked, “Out the Gate?”

“No, and cut your speed. Go under the Bay Bridge.”

They crossed past the San Francisco waterfront, under the Bay Bridge, and down past China Basin. They headed toward boats docked offshore in a row in the channel. He saw an old transport vessel, maybe a hundred and twenty feet in length flying a Turkish flag, and saw the crescent moon on the flag.

“You try anything and he’ll kill her,” Davies said. “If the Feds came in with you, he’d kill her first. You understand, Lieutenant. It had to be like this. You want to call them this is the last chance. Go ahead if you want, but if they take us down before you get aboard, you won’t get her back. He gave me until dawn to bring you and I said I’d do it. He wants you and you want her back, but you’ll be on your own in there.”

Marquez climbed up the ladder with Davies aiming at him from where the Fountain idled below, a second man above him, a small light guiding him. He could drop off the rungs and into the water without hitting the Fountain. More than likely he could avoid getting shot, swim away, and come back with the Feds. The boat wouldn’t be leaving, but what about Petersen, what if they killed her in the time it took? And the Feds would be coming any-way. He looked down again. Davies was on the ladder now, the low throb of the Fountain engine gone silent.

As Marquez reached the top of the ladder, hands as big as his own grabbed him, dragged him over the last rungs, pushed him chest-down on the deck, and a man squatted near his head with a gun. He heard Davies’s shoes clatter up the metal rungs, giving directions to the men and being ignored. They jerked Marquez to his feet, covered his head with a burlap sack, and he heard the hollow echo of their boots as he was led down a passageway and made to climb down a ladder before his wrists were bound behind him with duct tape.

“I’m with you, Lieutenant,” and Davies from behind him slid
something metal into his hands. “Switchblade,” Davies whispered. “Grip it and cover it.”

A walk-in freezer door in the galley swung open and a heavy boot caught him from behind, low on his back. A rifle butt chopped at his shoulder and he stumbled forward into the compartment, bounced off the back wall and fell sideways. They ran duct tape around his ankles and left him, the door shutting, a chain rattling, a lock clicking loudly.

He uncurled his fingers from around the knife, turned it slowly in his hand, opened it and sawed through the thick layers of tape on his wrists. He pulled the hood off and reached down under his ankles and made a clean cut that didn’t show from above. He tried the door, pushed gently against the chain on the other side and could only open it an inch. He slit the plastic wrap on a package of frozen meat, pulled the telelocator from his shoe and shoved it into the package. Then he sat down against the back wall and waited, marking the time, hours passing as his fingers worked the burlap hood, knowing he’d have to put it back on, knowing he’d have to wait until the last moment, past all fear, past pain if he was stabbed first. He’d have to keep his head when the hood came off. He’d have to face everything, gamble and wait. His breath was shallow and every noise he heard was Kline coming down the corridor. He’d have to lie still, then struggle, let him start before bringing the blade up. He thought, if Kline leaves the hood on, I’ve lost.

There were footsteps, muffled voices, more than a few, the chain rattling, and Marquez put the hood on, cinched it. The door swung noisily and he heard Spanish, orders given for the men to go up on deck and then the door closing. A fist crashed into one side of his face, stunning him, almost causing him to drop the knife. A hand slid under the hood and gripped his throat and held his head pressed against the wall while his shirt was torn open and a blade touched him, sliced skin and cut his pants open. And
Marquez held himself still as Kline’s hand remained tight under his neck, long finger pressing up under the jaw, pushing him tight against the wall, Kline’s weight resting on his thighs, his face close by, the blade low on Marquez’s gut and stinging. But he kept repeat-ing to himself, he’ll want you to see, and then the blade poked at the hood. It cut through fabric near his eye and dipped into his cheek and Marquez barely reacted. Then he heard the hood fabric cut as the knife sliced through it and Kline’s breath was on his face and the knife back at his gut.

“Look at me. This is your death.”

And he saw the colorless skin, looked into Kline’s eyes so near his and said, “Not yet, Kline, don’t do it, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

When Kline hesitated Marquez brought up his right hand with the knife in a slashing move, catching part of his throat, punching the blade in and ripping forward as Kline recoiled, blood flowing down his neck. Kline lunged forward, trying to stab Marquez in the chest. The blade sliced skin as it went past and then Marquez drove him sideways, fought him, punching hard at him, grabbed the wrist with the knife, got the blade free pounding the wrist against the wall. And Kline still fought him. Blood pumped from his neck, and Marquez hammered his face with a fist until he stopped struggling. Then he reached for Kline’s knife and held the blade at his throat.

“Where is she?”

Kline’s eyes closed. His face grew very pale and Marquez lifted his weight from his chest, moved a knee off him, reached and shook Kline’s face. When he did Kline went for him, fingers hook-ing to dig out his eyes, clawing at him, tearing into his cheek and Marquez drove the blade forward and down, hands gripping tightly, leaning into it, all his weight on it. He drove the hilt into Kline’s chest and heard the blade scraping on the metal floor underneath before snapping off. He watched him spasm once and go still.

Then came gunfire and men yelling, stun grenades going off, screaming, more quick bursts of gunfire, and he pushed the door open to a gangway filled with smoke.

He ripped the last of the duct tape off, wiped blood from his hands and then raised them as an FBI team held shotguns on him. He made them understand who he was. He was ordered to wait on the top deck, yelled at to go up now, but he refused. They didn’t have Petersen, hadn’t found Davies, and there was fighting below deck.

“We’ve got a warden on board, kidnapped.”

“Get the fuck up the ladder.”

“I’ll stay with you.”

He fell behind them, went cabin to cabin, bullets whanging off the corridor walls as he advanced behind the fighting. Now there was a much deeper, deafening, metal-rending blast and the boat shuddered. He swung the door of an empty cabin, swung another and another, moved on as emergency lighting came on and the main lights died. He stepped over bodies, stair-stepped down another level and pushed a cabin door against the body blocking it. He heard more yelling now, men clambering up the stairs.

“Taking on water,” someone yelled. “Taking on water fast! Everyone out, let’s go, let’s go.”

Marquez kept pushing, throwing his shoulder into it, sliding the body blocking the door out of the way. Then he saw her. A chain held her to the metal frame of a bed and near her was Davies slumped with his back against the wall, dead, his shirt soaked in blood. He felt for her pulse, then checked Davies’s pockets for a key, found nothing and looked at the bodies at the door. He rolled one over and saw it was Bailey, the other Molina, and realized Davies had fought them. He didn’t find a key on either of them. The boat groaned as it listed, he had to get her out of there. He hammered at the bed with the stock of a gun, and began to break the bed apart, then lifted her over his shoulder, dragging a piece of metal hanging off the chain still attached to her arm.

337The narrow gangway was empty. A single emergency light emitted a red glow near the stairs, and he worked his way toward them, a cabin door banging open behind him as the boat shifted further. He heard a staccato rip of gunfire, feet clanging on the metal stairs below, more yelling, terse hard orders given, a bullhorn, someone yelling in Spanish, couldn’t make out what they were saying. He climbed the stairs, calling ahead, identifying himself, “Marquez. Fish and Game,” and finally found help. A call was made to get a helicopter to get her to a hospital. With the SWAT team he got her into a basket and Marquez gripped her hand, touched her face. He watched her rise into the sky.

As they completed the arrests the Coast Guard arrived to help clear the boat, which was listing further to port. The fear wasn’t that it would sink, but that more explosives would detonate. Marquez got off with the last group onto a Coast Guard boat. He borrowed a phone and called Katherine and after that he let go. Where Kline had cut him low on his abdomen was only a flesh wound but it had bled plenty and stung. He needed to get a bandage. He sat down and let a medic help him, looking back at the listing vessel as he did, registering the name
Bosporus
and spotting the
Marlin
now crossing toward them.

Douglas told him later that nine were arrested, four Mexican nationals and five carrying multiple passports, two that were wanted in Europe, America, and Mexico for murder and drug trafficking. Alvarez and Cairo recovered the Fountain drifting in the south bay and brought it back to its berth in San Rafael. His truck had been towed, but he located it that afternoon.

The FBI had lost two agents. Another died at San Francisco General late in the day. Marquez saw Douglas sitting with senior FBI personnel in the lobby when he came back to check on Petersen that night. Douglas’s face was ashen, his eyes downcast, but Marquez caught a faint nod as he walked by and after he’d passed the group he waited out of earshot before going to the elevators.
He saw faces turn his direction and Douglas rose and walked stiffly from the group toward him, offering his hand as he got close.