The Last Operation (The Remnants of War Series, Book 1) (24 page)

"And Duke, one last thing, don't take any more money from Ol'Donny."

Daniels slammed Duke's head into the fender of the Chevy. Blood exploded over his face and down the front of his shirt as his nose broke. Daniels released him and he slumped forward.

Duke raised his head and saw the man walk into the darkness at the edge of the canal beyond the dirt parking lot. The man seemed to vanish like a ghost into the night jungle of the swamp. No noise, no cars. One moment he was there, the next moment, gone.

Duke staggered back into the bar. The two end fingers of his left hand dangled at unnatural angles. His face was pale and blood ran in streams from his mushroomed nose down his shirt, mixing with the vomit and mud. He could barely speak as two of his drinking friends drove him to the emergency clinic.

* * *

The next morning Deeno showed up alone at Ol' Donny's house.

"Duke said I could go with you every day. He said you don't have to give him any more money either," said Deeno.

Ol' Donny Murtagh couldn't keep a grin from lighting his face as they loaded the airboat and started out.

Chapter 33

Three days passed before Duke ran into Richard Daniels in the back parking lot of Juny's groceries in Everglades City. Duke had not been sleeping well, he kept waking up in nightmares where Daniels held his broken fingers, dragging him into a dark forest. In that swamp Duke saw things lurking under the rippling water—nightmare creatures with eyes like Deeno and huge gaping maws bristling with fangs. He woke from these episodes bathed in sweat, his hand and nose throbbing with pain. He'd taken to carrying a .38 revolver, police special. But deep in his mind, laid the certainty that he was outclassed. No way could he ever stand up to Daniels, no matter what he carried.

Duke made his way across the parking lot, holding a grocery bag gingerly in his right hand, the left swathed in bandages and a cast. Another bandage ran across his nose, taped to his cheeks on either side. He opened the door to his pickup, slid the bag across and sat behind the wheel.

Before Duke could take the keys out of his pocket, Daniels appeared at the open window, one arm casually draped across the top.

"Howdy Duke. How's the hand these days? At least your nose seems to be healing."

Duke's stomach felt as if it dropped through his body while a sinking sensation overtook him. He dove for the glove box and pulled out the .38, holding it in his right hand, trying to steady the shaking weapon with his bandaged left hand.

Daniels didn't waiver at the gun barrel not more than two feet from his face. He held up a trigger mechanism and twirled it on his hand.

"I think your little popgun lacks something." Duke looked at the missing trigger and whimpered.

"Leave me alone, I didn't do nothing. The kid goes to Murtagh's every day, I don't take no money from them, I leave them be."

"Oh I believe you. I don't think you'd be that stupid. I want to talk to you about something else. You're going to get a visit from a lawyer in the next few days. She's going to have a lot of papers for you and Loretta to sign. These documents will have you giving up your custodianship of Deeno."

Duke blinked several times as if he had something in his eyes. He put the useless .38 on the seat next to him as Daniels pulled a folded computer printout from his pocket.

"I don't think your loving paternal instincts will stop the transaction. No, I see it more as the ending of your little cash cow: Deeno's trust fund."

A sinking feeling started in Duke's gut. He imagined hooked sandworms crawling around his intestines couldn't feel much worse than this.

"I, uh, we been using it to take care of the kid."

"Oh I'm sure you have. The new Bassmaster twenty foot boat with twin eighty horsepower Johnson outboard and all the amenities, this new pickup truck, the projection TV with VCR, satellite hookup and the high end Harmon Cardon stereo, new shotgun, new fishing equipment, not to mention all the cash withdrawals—all for little Deeno's benefit. See, I believe you Duke. I know what a good heart you have. Problem is, when we take it to Florida State court, they won't see it that way. Fact of the matter is, they'll consider it a felony, good for ten to twenty."

Duke felt trapped, his entire world had been caving him on him these last few days, since he met this devil of a man two nights ago. At the moment Duke wished most fervently to be far away from him, somewhere he would never follow. Duke didn't know anyplace like that or any way to be rid of his tormentor.

"Now you may think I'm difficult," continued Daniels, "but I'm as friendly as Santa Claus compared to those murdering lifers who will become your social life in State Penitentiary. You'll wind up punking your chubby ass to them just to stay alive."

Duke was breathing hard in the stifling truck cab. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead and were sopped up by the wide bandage across his nose. The stink of sweat and fear burned in his nostrils.

"But things aren't all bad for you Duke," continued Daniels. "I'm willing to let bygones be bygones. You sell the truck, the boat and all the other stuff you stole from the boy. Sell it quick, get as much money as possible and put it back in the trust fund. I'll be checking on it. Tonight, you round up all the boy's belongings and take him to Murtagh's. Leave him with Ol'Donny, don't look back don't ever glance his way again. If you see them on one side of the street, run, don't walk run to the other side. You have one certainty in your life now. If you ever touch that boy again, I will cause you to suffer untold agonies until your heart can no longer take it and you die. You do understand that much, don't you Duke?"

Duke nodded, he was starting to feel dizzy as Daniels continued.

"Like I said, sell the stuff, put the money back in the trust fund and when the lawyer comes, sign everything and don't look back."

"Alright, whatever you want, I'll do it."

* * *

That evening when Deeno came back, he found his bags packed. There was so little it all fit in one battered suitcase and one plastic Hefty trash bag. Without a word Loretta helped him put it in the pickup. She drove him back to Ol'Donny Murtagh's and left him in the oyster shell driveway with the old suitcase and the Hefty bag on the ground.

As the taillights of the pickup disappeared at the bend, Ol'Donny opened the door and stepped outside. He walked until he stood a few feet from Deeno. The boy looked up at him, his eyes questioning, glistening in the reflected porch light. The old man took in the boy standing very still, waiting, the beat up old suitcase and the Hefty bag at his side.

Ol'Donny Murtagh squatted down, his knees creaking like popcorn. He gathered the boy in a fierce embracing bear hug, talking soothing words as hiccupping sobs of joy came from the boy's throat.

After a while the old man and the boy walked back to the house as the Basset puppy danced and barked around them.

* * *

It was three days later when a cream colored Mercedes with gold trim pulled in front of Duke and Loretta's house. In front of the ramshackle house overflowing with debris and rotting garbage, the Mercedes looked like a gold diamond-studded ring atop an old garbage can. A woman in an expensive blue business suit got out of the car carrying a briefcase. With shoulder length blond hair, she was beautiful and all business. She knocked on the door and handed Loretta a card.

"My name is Kate Boswell. I'm the attorney representing the estate of Marjorie Drosso and the minor child, Dean Labianca."

Kate was out of the house fifteen minutes later with all documents duly signed. Eighteen months later a Miami court awarded custody of Deeno to one Donald Murtagh. Instrumental in the court decision was a new trust, funded by Richard Daniels, to be administered for the benefit of the minor by Donald Murtagh and Richard Daniels.

Chapter 34

A dozen years later

Inside the Everglades

It was sunset by the time Richard Daniels made his way back to his base. He stopped at the tiny island where a solitary group of four mangroves grew at the water's edge, sucking up the salt from the brackish water and exuding it through the exposed white roots. Daniels bent the main branch of the third tree exposing a wireless keypad transmitter wrapped in a waterproof pouch. He keyed the access code that would disable the sensors and alarms just long enough to get in.

All the way back from Taloona's, Daniels had been thinking on how all this fit in. There was something missing, some tie-in hovering just at the edge of his grasp. One of the keys lay in the dead soldier's diary besides the reference to Deeno. And what about Deeno? How was he involved in this? There was more then it seemed, something he was failing to understand, some landmark he missed.

Daniels was preoccupied with these thoughts chasing around in his head like a bunch of scurrying mice when he walked into the house. Conboy jumped out of the chair where he'd been waiting for Daniels' return. He looked annoyed.

"Where the hell have you been? You were supposed to bring that Indian for a tracker. We should have been out there long ago."

Daniels felt his stomach knot and for a wild moment thought about punching his lights out. Three good soldiers dead, fine young Americans, plus that Sergeant last night in addition to Carlos' horrendous wound. All the single-minded bastard could think about was how quickly they could get on the chase again.

"
We
are not going.
I
am going, minus you and your people. I'll bring back your bio-soldier."

"Don't be an idiot," replied Conboy. "I have two Blackhawk helicopters and two six men teams standing by. We're going to need more men, the satellites lost him, and the laptop-finders don't function anymore. Hart believes he changed his body temperature. He thinks he can do this at will."

"All the more reasons for staying out of it. You're going to create a cluster-fuck and you won't get anywhere near him. You'll just get more good men killed."

As Daniels looked him in the eye, he thought Mr. Conboy, Assistant Director of whatever it was, didn't seem to have too many good thoughts on the value of human lives.

"But then, you don't give a shit how many good men you get killed, do you?" said Daniels.

"Don't be an idiot Daniels. Of course I do. You think I don't have any feelings for those men? It hurts like hell when I lose just one, let alone four. But I have to think about the greater good, about national security not to mention public safety. What do you think is going to happen if that thing goes berserk and reaches one of the heavily populated tourist areas? How many lives do you think are going to be lost? Christ I'm sick of people like you, pontificating while you send people like me to do your dirty work."

"In case you hadn't noticed," replied Daniels, "I don't stay very far away from the dirty work. You didn't use your scumbag tactics to force me to work for you because of my clerical abilities, did you?"

"All right. What do you propose to do?"

"I'm going alone—me and one tracker. I'll bring back what you want. Give me five days."

"Impossible. How are you going to ever find him out there?" said Conboy, waving toward the vast expanse of the Everglades outside the hidden camp.