Doc Ford 19 - Chasing Midnight (3 page)

Yet… I still wasn’t worried. Not really. I had plenty of options, plenty of air, and I have lived an unusual life. I had been in tougher spots than this and survived. Marion D. Ford, world traveler, expert waterman, drown in a marina basin in four meters of water? Not likely.

Ego, again.

Diving alone at night isn’t for amateurs, nor the poorly equipped. In that way, at least, I was prepared. I had a good knife. And looped to my dive vest, a brilliant little ASP LED flashlight.

I decided to have a look at what I was dealing with before going to work with my knife. Methodical action, taking small, careful steps, is my way of neutralizing panic. When I freed the flashlight, though, my hand banged what might have been a piling crosstie, which caused me to fumble and drop the thing.

Uckkin Id-ot!

Even though I spoke through my regulator, a dive buddy—had I been wise enough to have recruited one—would have understood that I was getting frustrated.

Fortunately, I’d hit the flashlight’s pressure switch before it tumbled to the bottom. It landed on its side.

Visibility was better than usual after a storm—which meant the viz was poor, only a few yards at most. Even so, the little LED speared a dazzling column of light toward a buoyed ring of netting where the sturgeon I had been watching was penned.

A second sturgeon had joined the animal, I noted through the murk. Both appeared unfazed as they hugged the bottom, silt blooming from their gills, as they suctioned crustaceans and worms from unseen holes. I was amused by the notion the fish were now observing me, but I knew better. Even in temporary captivity, wild Florida sturgeon had better things to do than watch a primate drown.

The flashlight provided enough ancillary light for me to take stock of the situation. Yes, I was tangled in a dozen yards of crab line, a weighted trap somewhere off in the darkness.

For the next ten minutes, I stayed very busy trying to recover from my error, and the snowballing series of small mistakes that no diver with my experience should have made. Underwater, the only
expert divers worthy of the term have scales, or fluked tails. No matter how shallow, or close to shore, that reality doesn’t change. Primates are rank tourists whenever depth exceeds the distance between our feet and our nose.

For me, the “expert diver,” it was a much deserved kick in the butt. And a reminder that “the unexpected” only surprises amateurs, drunks and children.

It was not, however, the most compelling reminder of the night.

A stranger, pointing a semiautomatic pistol at my head, would provide that.

I
was a little shaky when I finally surfaced. And mad enough to have exhausted the profanities that accurately described my incompetence—and there were many.

A dazzling tube of light still marked my flashlight’s location. It was beneath a dock in the deepest part of the basin. Seeing it was frustrating enough to cause me to swear at myself again. My damn tank and regulator were down there, too. Plus a weight belt!

I had gotten so badly tangled that I had jettisoned everything but my buoyancy compensator vest. Worse, I hadn’t managed to get a look at the underside of the Russian’s yacht, which was moored in deep water along the outside T-dock. The vessel sat alone, tethered to shore power by an electrical umbilical cable, which explained why its cabin had gone black, and why its pumps were no longer bilging water that is omnipresent in a craft her size.

Thinking,
Her emergency generator will kick on soon,
I treaded water above the flashlight, vaguely aware the generator did
not
start
automatically—a fact that would prove of grave importance by early the next morning.

I was more concerned with what had just happened. Finally, I decided, screw it. Enough for one night. I could always buy more scuba equipment. More likely, though, I’d recover my gear in the morning.

To regroup, I rolled onto my back, inflated my vest and took a look around. The power was still out; no backup generators running on shore, either, which I found odd. The marina was a gray scaffolding of docks; the island, a density of shadows pocked by rooflines, coconut palms, the opaque glint of windows. Miles to the northwest, though, a pearlescent glow told me that Bare Key Regency Resort, and its floating casino, hadn’t lost power. Farther north, Sanibel was an inverted island of luminous ivory, moored beneath the stars.

Seeing the lights of Sanibel reminded me that Vanderbilt Island is only a thirty-minute boat ride from my fish house and laboratory on Dinkin’s Bay. Fast, unless you come by sailboat, which I had (against my better judgment), arriving earlier that day aboard Tomlinson’s old live-aboard Morgan,
No
Más
.

The decision seemed harmless at the time because Vanderbilt ranks as one of the most insulated and safest retreats in the world. The acreage is a tropical garden of blooming flowers and coconut palms, with a historic fishing lodge built atop the remnants of a pre-Columbian pyramid. That’s right, a shell pyramid in Florida. Vanderbilt is one of several ancient places on the Gulf Coast once inhabited by contemporaries of the Maya.

Now, though, as I floated in darkness, I began to regret coming by sailboat. There was no telling how long the island’s power would be out. More than a few hours, and I’d be forced to bunk aboard
No
Más
instead of the air-conditioned suite in the main lodge, where I had already stowed my overnight bag.

Tomlinson snores. He barks and chortles as he dreams. If I’d arrived in my overpowered fishing skiff, I could sleep in my own bed and be back on Vanderbilt Island before breakfast.

Then the prospect became even more unsavory. What if Tomlinson had lured his eco-elitist friend, Winifred Densler, aboard
No Más
while I was underwater? By God, I’d sleep on the dock before enduring close quarters with someone like her. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d slept outside to escape Tomlinson’s craziness.

I flutter-kicked into deeper water for a better view of the very few boats among the network of dockage. My friend’s old Morgan was moored thirty yards from where I’d surfaced, so it wasn’t hard to spot. No oil lamp showing through the porthole, though… no sounds that I could hear.

Reassuring, but it wasn’t proof.

I checked my Chronofighter dive watch: 9:45 p.m. Early, by island standards, where days are shortened in favor of long nights spent partying.

Tomlinson probably was still at the main lodge, getting determinedly drunk by candlelight. Or entertaining his eco-elitist lady friend, or some equally determined female—or females. The man is open-minded when it comes to excess. And he’s a resourceful opportunist when it comes to power failures.

No one else was around, either. The caviar reception again. The island’s summer population, which was zero, had been displaced by a dozen weekend caviar-minded dignitaries, which was why the marina was now a ghost village of a few empty boats and silence.

That was okay.

It was nice to be in the water, alone at night—particularly after coming so close to being killed by my own ineptitude. I decided it was the perfect time to drift for a while and look at stars. After being reminded of my personal deficiencies, it might be comforting to
reaffirm that, above me, were a trillion indifferent solar systems that simply didn’t give a damn what happened to me, and never would.

That’s exactly what I was doing—floating on my back, looking at the sky—when I noticed a lone figure coming down the dock toward me.

It was a man, walking fast, hands in his pockets. Was he wearing a crewneck? It crossed my mind because Tomlinson’s environmentalist friends had all worn black crewnecks, the organization’s yellow logo on the breast pocket. Maybe the visitor had come searching for Tomlinson and the outspoken Ms. Densler.

My glasses were around my neck on fishing line, but I also use a prescription dive mask. I seated the mask on my face, but there wasn’t enough light to see. So I tilted the mask to my forehead and waited.

There was something so determined—no, aggressive—about the man’s body language, it stopped me from calling out a greeting. Or asking,
What knocked out the power?
which I would probably have done under different circumstances. Small islands are throwbacks to small towns of the previous century—even a retreat for the ultrawealthy. Strangers interact. People smile. They wave. They make inane remarks about the weather, totally out of character with the aloof and guarded lives they’ve probably left behind.

Not with this guy, though. He wasn’t out for a stroll. He was on a mission.

I used my fins to rudder me safely into the shadows, closer to shore, where, if need be, I could be out of the water quickly.

The man continued along the main dock, still walking fast. That’s when I realized he had spotted my flashlight. The one I had dropped and left on the bottom. Its beam created a murky corona beneath the dock, noticeable from a long distance because it was the only light for miles.

Yeah… the guy’s attention was focused on the light, because he didn’t stop until he was standing directly above it. I watched the man squat to get a closer look. Then he was talking into what must have been a cuff link–sized transmitter, because he touched a finger to an earbud as spoke into his wrist.

“I think find him at marina. You hear? I see underwater light, I see bubbles.” Then, to himself, he muttered, “Damn radio amateurs!”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, other than my regulator was leaking residual air (I had closed the valve after jettisoning my tank.) And the man had some professional training of some sort or his tone wouldn’t have been so contemptuous.

He was having radio problems, obviously. I watched him slap at the transceiver before he asked again, “You goddamn hear me or not?”

The accent was Russian. For a moment, I assumed the accent confirmed it was Kazlov’s bodyguard, or an employee of one of his competitors. He definitely wasn’t with the Chinese mega-millionaire. But then I remembered that Densler and her party crashers were part of an international organization. I’d been told there were five Third Planet members on the island, but only three were at the reception. I’d gotten a quick look at the other two, though, before I’d fled the fishing lodge, a pair of chubby blond-haired twins who, Densler had said, drove their van from California. Were the twins originally from the Caspian Sea region, the epicenter of the organization’s work?

Possibly. If so, I guessed they would soon be enjoying a night in an American jail, compliments of one pissed-off Viktor Kazlov.

The prospect buoyed my spirits as I watched the man bang the transceiver with his fist, then curse it with a string of Russian profanities. Finally, he said, “Transmission jammed! Bastards have jamming device, you hear?”

A jamming device? On Vanderbilt Island? Hilarious. I actually smiled. I didn’t believe it, of course, but at least the guy was entertaining.

That’s when I heard him say, “What is happening now? Answer me! Who is shooting?”

Shooting?

Suddenly, I wasn’t smiling. Yes, shooting. Not firecrackers. Gunshots. I heard them, too. Three shots, rapid-fire, followed by two shots, a gun of heavier caliber. Then another burst of rapid fire from the opposite end of the island. It was like a small war was erupting around us.

For a moment, I felt detached from reality. People on Vanderbilt Island didn’t carry weapons. The explosion I had heard was just that—an explosion. Lightning, a faulty wire—it could be explained. In a peaceful place like this, though, gunshots were an aberration. What the hell was happening?

Now the man had the transceiver out of his pocket and was tapping it on a piling. Frustrated, he held his wrist to his mouth and said, very loud, “If you hear me, I find Ford. Take no more chances. Understand? He is here… at marina. Out!”

It was startling to hear my name, but I was shocked at what happened next.

As I floated motionless, only fifteen yards away, the man drew a semiautomatic pistol and took his time mounting an oversized sound suppressor on the barrel. Then he chose a section of water above my sunken flashlight, pointed the weapon toward the bottom and fired four muffled shots in rapid succession.

After waiting a few seconds, he went to the other side of the dock and fired four more rounds. The bullets pocked the water with miniature geysers of light, each report no louder than an air rifle.

I wasn’t dreaming—it was
happening
.

Slowly, then faster, I began kicking quietly toward the dock because I realized what was happening. Not why, but what, and I didn’t like it. The sound suppressor implied the shooter was a pro, and he intended to kill me. But to do it, he either had to make a lucky shot or scare me to the surface.

The odds favored me surfacing, and the shooter knew it. That’s why he took his eyes off the water long enough to check his watch. It was also why I was swimming toward the man instead of panicking and racing for shore.

I had to get under the dock before he spotted me. It was the only available cover, and the shooter’s next move was obvious: he would produce a flashlight and search the area before firing randomly again.