Trapped (45 page)

new Cessna Skylane. Seth in the co-pilot’s seat, letting her have

the controls for the first time. He’s still a bit uneasy about taking

on the responsibility of instructing a teenage girl, one who has

been badgering him unmercifully by e-mail. He’s made it clear

he’s not interested in some whimsical impulse to get a free ride

in a small plane. She will have to prove herself, and quickly.

Seth Manning, for all his boyish good looks, is the most

serious man she’s ever met. For him flying is a vocation, not

a hobby or job. He’s been flying since he was fourteen—he

soloed at fifteen, long before he could legally drive—so he

knows that some teens are capable of serious commitment.

She knows what he must be thinking: this skinny girl in the

pilot seat has made all the right noises, but the fact is she’s

never even been in a small aircraft, let alone taken the yoke.

For all he knows, she might be a puker. Lots of steady,

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serious people can’t fly because of motion sickness. Others

can’t learn because they don’t listen.

Kelly doesn’t puke. She’s a sponge, soaking up instruc-

tion and repeating it back to him word for word, if necessary.

Her attention is fully engaged, firmly concentrated, and when

he tells her to place her feet on the rudder pedals, find the

balance between them, she does so with the confidence of

someone who trusts her own physical instincts. Then she has

the yoke and she’s flying the aircraft, banking firmly to the

right as she follows his instructions, gradually coming back

to level, finding the horizon, checking the instruments.

Flying.

The moment is, for Kelly, transcendent. For the first time

in her life she’s in control of her own destiny, flying free

above the earth. Her heart tells her that so long as she can

fly, she’ll live forever. She can see not just her own small life,

but the shape of the world below. Joy comes off her like

waves of heat, and Seth knows what she’s experiencing. She

can feel him studying her, judging her ability, and when she

risks a quick glance the first thing that registers is the

kindness in his eyes. He wants her to succeed.

“You’re a natural pilot,” he tells her that day, as if slightly

disappointed.

“That’s good, right?”

“It can be. But it means you have to be extra careful, es-

pecially during the first few hours of instruction, as you

develop discipline. Naturals tend to fly by the seat of their

pants because they have an instinctive understanding of how

the aircraft moves through the air. They concentrate on the

feeling part and tend to ignore the instruments. That’s what

gets them into trouble. When a plane stalls into a tailspin,

there’s no ‘feel’ about it. You have to trust your instruments

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and your instruction, not your instincts. Most of being a good

pilot is in your head, not your hands.”

“But my hands are okay?”

“Your hands are fine. If it’s any consolation, I was a

natural, too. But I forced myself to become a very boring, by-

the-numbers pilot.”

“By-the-numbers isn’t boring,” Kelly tells him. “By-the-

numbers means staying alive.”

It was exactly the right thing to say. Once they were back

on the ground—no, he wouldn’t allow her to attempt a

landing the very first day—he seemed as excited about her

continuing instruction as she did. He bought her a coffee at

the airport’s little café and they talked for hours. He told her

how he became obsessed with the notion of flying shortly

after his mom died, when the idea of lifting into the air

seemed like a way to escape grief, and later became some-

thing altogether different, a place where he felt whole and in

control and completely alive. His mom died of cancer, he told

her, and for the first time in her life Kelly found herself will-

ingly recounting what it had been like to be a child stricken

with leukemia, facing the very real possibility of death at an

age when most kids’ biggest fear was invisible monsters

under the bed.

They bonded big time.

Seth was different. Not like a potential boyfriend or a

teacher, more like the perfect older sibling—or that’s how

she, an only child, imagines it might be to have an older

brother.

She can’t, she won’t, let him die.

That’s why, when the first shotgun blast explodes through

the mangroves, followed by the flat bang of the discharge,

Kelly Garner covers Seth Manning’s body with her own.

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“Come on out, little pig,” says the monster man.

So close he might as well be whispering in her ear.

“Ain’t got all day. Quit humping your fag boyfriend.”

Kelly stays where she is, not moving. The next shot blows

apart a branch not an inch from her head, spitting shredded

mangrove leaves into her tightly clenched eyes.

“Two ways we can do this,” says monster man. “Crawl out

and beg, or be killed where you’re at. Thing is, I need fag boy

alive, so I’ll have to wing you and let you bleed to death, then

drag you off him.”

He kicks at the mangroves. Kelly decides she doesn’t

want to die with her eyes closed. She opens her eyes, squints

up through the tangle of mangrove branches.

Monster man is no more than ten yards away.

“Make up your mind,” he says. “I ain’t got all night.”

Beneath her Seth struggles. “Leave her alone,” he says,

voice muffled. “I’m the one you want!”

Feverish and weak though he is, Kelly can’t stop him

from crawling out from under. Clenching his teeth, groaning

in agony as his swollen arm thrashes through the branches.

Finally staggers to his feet, finds himself up to his knees in

the dark water surrounding the stand of mangroves. A faint

blush of first light just now showing along the horizon.

“I surrender,” Seth says, straightening up, his feverish

body shivering. “You got what you want. Take me and just

leave her there.”

“Oh, I aim to,” says the monster man, chuckling.

He swings the shotgun from Seth to the mangroves where

Kelly still lies entangled in the branches, barely able to move.

“Say your prayers, little pig,” he says.

A shotgun fires.

And part of monster man’s head turns to dark mist.

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He collapses backward into the water and does not rise.

Standing behind him, a different monster. One wearing

night-vision goggles and aiming a large, odd-looking shotgun.

“Get in the boat,” says Ricky Lang, yanking on the rope

to an aluminum skiff. “We’re going to a party and you’re

both invited.”

14. Three Shots At Sunrise

Leo Fish is beginning to grow on me. For the first hour or

two in our company, he parted with very few words, but the

coming dawn has warmed him up. Or maybe years of rarely

speaking have left him with a lot of pent-up verbal pressure.

Whatever, every stroke of the push-pole seems to bring forth

another anecdote or observation.

“When I was a boy, say about seven, my daddy come

upon hard times. Had a house in Glade City but lost it to the

bank. So he moved us out to the shell mounds—them are the

little islands made by the Calusa Indians—and we camped

out for a year, living off the land. Dint have a proper tent to

start out, just a piece of canvas strung over a limb. Skeeters

were bad, but the fishing and the trapping was good. Daddy

gimme a little .22 rifle and I become a good shot. Yessum,

best year of my life, out on the mounds.”

Part of me is aware that he’s purposefully distracting me

from our present situation and I’m grateful for the effort.

Shane, a hulking presence in the little boat because of his

size, remains mostly quiet, staring off at the dark horizon as

if willing the sun to rise, and the search to resume.

“For a whole year we dint eat nothing much that wasn’t

protected species nowadays. White ibis—what they call

Chokoloskee chicken—and night heron and egret and such.

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It was that or starve. Today they might say we was homeless,

but we dint think of it that way. Once Daddy got together a

few gator hides, he was able to trade for staples like cornmeal

and flour and beans and cooking oil. Life was hard but good.

When you work yur butt off from sun comes up till sun goes

down, cleaning and salting hides, you better believe Mama’s

cornbread in the iron skillet smelled like heaven.

“Funny enough, we never ate gator. Just skinned ’em and

threw away the rest. They say it tastes like chicken. I say

chicken tastes like alligator,” he says, chuckling at his own joke.

“How far, Mr. Fish?”

“Just Fish, or Leo if you druther. Mister makes me

nervous. Not too far, missy. Around the bend a short ways.

We’ll get there, don’t you worry.”

“You think we’ll find her?”

“Gonna do our very best for you, missy. Ain’t that right,

Mr. Shane?”

“Just Shane,” says Shane. “For the same reason. And yes,

absolutely, we’ll find Kelly.”

Can’t help notice he doesn’t specify on finding her alive.

Around the bend arrives, and Fish puts us ashore on a tidy

little island he calls a hardwood hammock. Tall trees, mostly

tamarind, acacia, and something called gumbo-limbo, are

thick around the outside, like the walls of a fortress, the

interior being mostly ferns and low-growing shade plants.

Much of this has been cleared because he sometimes used it

as a camp. The deep canopy of fronds and leaves makes it

feel almost like a roof over our heads.

Fish looks around, smiling with contentment, and says,

“Always sleep like a baby in here. I woke up once ’cause a

whitetail fawn was licking my face. Must have been the salt.

Which makes me an old salt lick, I guess.”

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Setting us at our ease as he unpacks a rifle from his lit-

tle boat.

“What’s going on?” Shane wants to know.

His plan is to leave us here for a bit while he checks out

one of Ricky Lang’s camps. Shane naturally wants to accom-

pany him, but Fish insists on going alone.

“On my lonesome I can do it in twenty minutes,” he says,

tying little bits of rope around his trouser cuffs. “With you along

it’d be an hour. Plus you’ll be tough to hide on open ground. So

rest yourself down on the nice soft ferns. We’re gettin’ where

we need to be, even if it don’t seem so at the moment.”

Shane reluctantly agrees to let him go it alone.

“Those ropes around your pant legs, what’s that for?” I

want to know.

“Keep out the leeches, missy. Don’t mind a leech or two

on my ankles, but up higher they give me the willywaws, if

you know what I mean.”

Moments later he’s waist deep in the dark water, holding

the rifle clear, and before long I lose sight of his cowboy hat

as he blends into the swamp. Leaving me with a lump in my

throat and nothing to do but wait.

Shane, sensing my despair, plops himself down next to

me, hugging his knees.

“I feel good about Fish,” he says.

“He knows the way,” I say, without much enthusiasm.

“Yes, he does. And in about twenty minutes the sun will

come up and the search will resume. Today’s the day, Mrs.

Garner.”

“Me Jane,” I respond laconically. “You Shane.”

He actually giggles. Which sounds weird coming from

such a big guy. When he realizes I’m not going to join in, he

clears his throat and says, “A while ago you asked me why I

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resigned from the FBI. I said I’d tell you about it later. Now

seems like as good a time as any. You still want to hear my

story?”

He, like Fish before him, seems intent on distracting me

from the more immediate crisis. Obviously he’s trying to help,

so I go, “Sure. Why not?” more out of politeness than interest.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he adds, not

quite kidding about it.

“You go first,” I suggest. “The Randall Shane story. But

make it quick, because Fish’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

“Won’t take me five,” he promises. “It starts, like a lot of

good stories, with a beautiful wife and a beautiful child. Jean

and Amy. Jean was my wife, Amy was our daughter. We had

this nice little place in New Rochelle, I think I mentioned that

part already, and I worked out of the New York office, mostly

testifying in fingerprint cases. We’d had to reorganize the fin-

gerprint division after a scandal—the previous expert never

saw a print, any print, that he couldn’t connect to a criminal

case—and I’d become the new and improved resident expert,

basically reorganizing the way we identify prints. Computer

stuff. Boring guy with a boring job, but I loved it.

“Anyhow, I had this long weekend, so Jean and I decide

we’ll take Amy to the Smithsonian. She’s got this project for

her world-studies class and the Smithsonian will really help.