Going Dark (Thorn Mysteries) (23 page)

“Leslie, Leslie, Leslie.” A lament.

“Now, where’s the phone?”

Flynn stared at the ground and shook his head once more. He blew out a breath, glanced at Thorn, then lifted an arm and pointed to his left. “Buried in the sand, below the balance beam.”

“Go get it, bring it back.”

While he was digging, Thorn said, “If you try to hurt Flynn, you’re going to have to kill me. You know that, right?”

Leslie was silent, the lantern steady. “Step forward where I can see you better. One step, that’s enough.”

“What’s this about, Leslie? What the hell happened?”

Flynn returned with a phone and presented it to her.

Leslie waved it off. “Turn it on. Go to recent calls.”

Flynn brought the device alive, and in the glow of its screen he tapped it twice and held it out.

With her gun hand, she slid her trigger finger down the screen once, then again and again, scrolling.

“Whose number is this?” She held out the phone to Flynn, pointing at its screen. In its radiance Thorn could see Flynn’s agonized face.

“He’s the head of the Miami FBI, Frank Sheffield.”

Thorn groaned to himself.

“You called him a week ago. While you were here on Prince Key.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“In a moment of weakness, but that weakness is gone. I’m where I want to be. Doing what I need to do.”

“What did you tell this FBI agent?”

“Nothing specific. I didn’t know anything specific.”

“But you told him where you were. Here on the island.”

“Yes, I told him I’d gotten mixed up with some political activists, and I was getting a little worried what they had in mind.”

“And what did he say?”

“To stay put. Call him if anything happened he should know about. He didn’t seem particularly concerned. But he’s a laid-back guy. So I don’t know.”

“Have you called him again?”

“No.”

“You’re telling the truth?”

“I made a mistake,” Flynn said. “I was confused.”

“But you’re not confused anymore.”

“I’m where I need to be. Doing what I need to do.”

“How do you even know this guy, this federal agent?”

“He’s a friend of Thorn’s.”

She turned Thorn’s way. “Is that true?”

Thorn nodded. “We worked together on a situation in the past. I wouldn’t say we’re friends. He’s buddies with Sugar, from Sugarman’s days as a deputy sheriff.”

“Did you know about this, Thorn? Flynn being in contact with him?”

Thorn said he didn’t. Leslie stared at him for a long moment, tapping the pistol’s barrel against her thigh. Then she turned again to Flynn. “You understand, don’t you, what you did was a betrayal. You could have put all our lives in danger.”

“I understand.”

“This operation is more important than any single member. We’re all expendable. You understand that, too?”

Flynn nodded.

She held Flynn’s gaze for several moments, and even in the bad light Thorn could read in that exchange of looks something that was more charged and personal than he could fully absorb.

“Okay,” Leslie said. “I’m going to trust you. You say you were confused but you’re no longer confused. I accept that.”

Flynn whispered, “Thank you.”

“Well, I don’t. I don’t accept any of it. This is total bullshit.” Cameron Prince stepped into the circle of light. “You can’t make a decision like that on your own, Leslie.”

Thorn stepped aside. Leslie set the lantern at her feet. She tucked the pistol back beneath the tail of her shirt. Prince bristled with a dark radiance as though some dormant power source within him had been activated. Standing only a few yards away, Thorn could feel the hum of threat.

“From the very outset you’ve been usurping the power. That ridiculous vote on Thorn, letting this unreliable piece of shit walk right into the heart of our group. And now this. Flynn collaborating with the feds, and good God, you’re simply going to take his word for his change of heart.

“I know what’s going on. I see it, Leslie. You’ve got a weakness for these two. You’re simply too emotional to be a leader, and that puts us all in jeopardy. I won’t have it. I won’t fucking take it anymore. Risk my goddamn life and everything we’ve put into motion, for what? These two punks?”

“And what do you propose?”

“It’s time we adjusted the pecking order.” He turned his head and scowled at Thorn. “I’m promoting myself. From now on, I’m assuming leadership. Understood? And my first official act will be to rid ourselves of these two. Starting with this one, then his little boy.”

“We need them,” she said. “We need all six to make this work.”

“Jesus,” Thorn said. “That’s your best argument?”

“See, that’s exactly what I mean,” said Prince. “This derisive attitude.”

“Hey, meathead, forget the pecking order,” Thorn said. “You want to adjust something, see if you can adjust my attitude.”

From the get-go, when Thorn had confronted Prince prowling his property, there had been an instant clash. Ever since then Thorn and the pompous hulk had been headed toward this moment. Better to do it in the darkness where Thorn had at least a remote chance to catch him off-balance.

Prince came at him quicker than Thorn expected. Nothing in how he walked or moved hinted at this propulsive speed, a sprinter’s surge. Head down, arms pumping, and just before contact, he spread those big arms wide, to tackle or sling or crush. His crude martial art.

His right shoulder aimed at Thorn’s midsection.

Managing a quarter turn, Thorn deflected a fraction of the weight with his hip, but the impact sent him sprawling into the sand beneath the climbing rope. On his back, he was stunned, fighting for breath, as Prince gathered himself, came to his feet, and sneered at Thorn.

“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got, Mr. Back Alley eye-gouger?”

Behind Prince’s bulk, Thorn caught sight of Flynn shaking loose from Leslie’s grip. She grabbed his arm again and hung on, trying to spare the kid this nightmare of anabolic steroids and mindless brawn.

Thorn tried to rise, but groaned and sagged against the sand as if that single blow had ruptured something in his entrails. A possum’s trick.

So cocksure of his supremacy, Prince bought the act and sent Leslie a gloating look. Just that second.

Long enough for Thorn to roll, and roll again, building up sufficient thrust to ride up hard against the front of Prince’s shins, bowing the ankles back, the knees straining against themselves, whiplashing his body. Something inside the meat of his legs crackled like gristle sizzling on the fire.

Prince staggered and danced two steps, legs rubbery, howling with rage.

Thorn got to his feet, reached up, and grabbed the hawser, thick as a tugboat’s towline. He retreated a yard, then swung feetfirst at Prince’s bulk.

Arcing high, he timed his flight, lifted his legs, and scissored them around Prince’s neck, locked his ankles, clamping the big man’s neck, then wrenched sideways as if levering the cap off a beer bottle.

But Prince’s neck was too braided with muscle for this to make an impression. With a spurt of fury, he growled and vise-locked his hands on Thorn’s ankles, pried them apart, then took a step backward and wrenched him loose from the rope and began a slow twirl, around once, and a second time, swinging Thorn like a sack of corn.

Prince rocked unsteadily on his gimpy ankles, but managed to build up enough velocity with the next rotation to hurl Thorn against the climbing wall with such force that bottle rockets and willow trees of flaming sparks fired across the black sky of his consciousness.

He felt himself sliding down the wall and thudding into the sand.

Bleary and disoriented, he floundered on his side and tried to crawl away, escape whatever delights Prince had in mind next. Blinded by sand, his body half-numb, with a broken rib perhaps, an aching shoulder, his jaw clicking on its hinges, Thorn only made it a few feet.

Prince grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him upright and swung him around to face Leslie and his son.

“As I was saying,” Prince spoke over Thorn’s shoulder. “After I snap this one’s neck, I’ll do the kid. We’ll just have to manage with two less men.”

He took Thorn’s chin in one mitt and gripped the back of his head in the other. One good twist from the end.

Leslie commanded Prince to stop. She released Flynn and went for her pistol, but it was too late. Prince had already cranked Thorn’s neck to its limits, pointing his chin back of his shoulder blade, his cervical vertebrae so strained that the darkness grew twice as dark.

Thorn exited the scene, became a spectator, viewing this from afar, his hands going through the motions, scrabbling and clawing at Prince’s meaty arm. To no avail. But it didn’t matter. Thorn was safe somewhere else, watching it unfold, watching Flynn spring across the grass to jump the goon. Protect his old man. Good kid. Brave kid.

Then for some reason Flynn halted, and from the great, comfy distance where Thorn was perched, weightless, observing these inconsequential events, he saw Prince’s hands break loose from their hold on Thorn’s head, felt air seep back into his own lungs.

Thorn didn’t witness the exact footwork or handhold or throwing technique that Pauly employed. All he saw were the results: Prince staggering, then pitching away to his right, going airborne, his heavy arms flailing, a shout coming from somewhere as he body-slammed face-first against the earth, an impact so violent that a yard away the lantern toppled onto its side.

From the great precipice where he’d been so pleasantly removed, Thorn swooped back to his body on the ground. Tasting the blood in his mouth, his big joints throbbing, stretched out of alignment.

After an interval, Thorn grunted and sat upright, wiped away a smear of blood from his lips, and rubbed his hand clean on his shirt.

Pauly squatted before him. His inexplicable savior. His buddy. Pauly, whose martial arts skills came from a more exalted plane.

“You okay?”

“Never better,” Thorn said.

Leslie helped Thorn to his feet, made him extend his hand to Cameron Prince and declare a truce. Thorn said something and the hulk huffed an empty apology and lumbered off to attend to his wounds with Pauly shadowing him. Maybe Leslie sent them both away. Maybe they left on their own. Thorn wasn’t following the specifics too closely. He was concentrating on staying upright, keeping his legs beneath him, drawing breath.

Sometime later he found himself slouched on the wooden bench. Leslie and Flynn stood nearby, watching him as if he might tip over. She set the lantern on the grass.

Then Leslie dropped Flynn’s phone on the ground in front of Thorn. Raising the heel of her hiking shoe, she crushed it, splintering the glass face. Then she lifted her foot again and stomped on the phone and stomped a final time on the broken remains.

With the tip of his tongue, Thorn was exploring his mouth, going from tooth to tooth, touching the jagged edges. Three so far, a molar loose, a rip inside his cheek.

“Can I trust you, Thorn?”

He looked at Leslie. Her face a blurry shadow. He said nothing.

Flynn said, “He can barely keep his eyes open. Can’t this wait?”

“I need to know where he stands. No, it can’t wait.” She took a seat beside Thorn on the bench, brought her face close. “You’re still not with us, are you? You haven’t committed.”

“What choice is there? I’m with you, damn it.” A second molar loose.

“I want to trust you, Thorn. I want to believe you.”

“Maybe we should close up shop,” Flynn said. “Get the hell away from here. Reschedule the whole thing.”

“No,” Leslie said. “We’re on track. We’re fine. As long as you’re telling me the truth about Sheffield.” She kept looking at Thorn, trying to read him.

“It’s the truth,” Flynn said. “Sheffield’s in the dark.”

When Thorn was able to stand, the three of them walked back to the barracks tent. Somewhere along the way, Thorn laid a hand on Flynn’s shoulder to steady himself and as a gesture of gratitude for Flynn’s attempt to help. Flynn didn’t shrug his hand off, which Thorn took as progress.

Around them the breeze was picking up, stirring the fronds, heaving waves against the mangrove roots and the rocky shoreline. Out in the Atlantic a bright branch of lightning lit the blackness briefly. Then a single ragged shaft struck the waters closer to Prince Key. Thorn waited for the thunder but it didn’t come. No further sign of the approaching storm except for the rising wind that trembled the walls of the tent as one by one the three of them stepped inside and Leslie shut the flap.

TWENTY-EIGHT

SUNDAY NIGHT, JUST AFTER 10:00 P.M.,
all their gear was prepared and the assault plan had been laid out for both teams, critiqued, tweaked, and agreed upon. Both groups assembled at Black Point Marina. Sheffield’s guys and the NCIS bunch. Everyone seemed more uneasy about the weather than raiding Prince Key.

After stewing for a couple of days in the overheated waters south of the Bahamas, tropical storm Juanita had become a Category 1 hurricane. Tonight one of her outer bands was whipping in from the southeast, and even the mile-long protected channel that led from the marina out to Biscayne Bay had a three-foot chop.

The bay itself was a wall of six-foot swells with whitecaps that blew away like seedpods exploding in the darkness. Small-craft warnings. Not the night for a five-mile cruise in electric-powered inflatable rafts.

Magnuson raised the possibility of a weather delay, but Frank said no. He was spooked. That video clip of the reinforced-concrete wall obliterated by the experimental explosive had become in his imagination the walls of a containment dome at Turkey Point. Frank was picturing a catastrophic rupture releasing a radioactive cloud so toxic the city that was his lifelong home and where he planned to live out his days would be changed forever. Magnuson was focused on Chee. Frank was thinking about a few million of his neighbors.

The ten SWAT guys were huddled inside the marina’s enormous storage barn, an indoor boatyard where five-story racks of powerboats towered behind them. An employee from the county had been summoned to open up the facility for their use, and he stood fifty yards away across the vast cement floor smoking a cigarette and looking up at the ceiling as if expecting it to be peeled off by the heavy winds.