Doc Ford 19 - Chasing Midnight (16 page)

Ahead was an ornate cottage that had been converted into a VIP retreat. I had seen the place earlier in the day. The structure was a rectangle of yellow pine beneath a tin roof, with a private courtyard that contained a patio and dip pool, all walled with tropical adobe. Elegant Old Florida architecture for old-money guests—and it was empty, judging from the dark windows.

Separating us, though, was an elevated plateau, smooth as a golf green. It was a croquet court. Winter residents of Vanderbilt Island
were big on croquet. They hosted international tournaments. They drank gin fizzes in the shade of a huge banyan tree and ate canapés during breaks.

The last thing I wanted was to cross an open area while a marksman dialed in the distance with a night vision scope. So I angled toward the tree.

Banyan trees are unusual. They expand in circumference as they grow. Overhead limbs drop air roots to support their own weight so that, after half a century, the trees resemble the schematic of a circus tent that contains a maze of poles.

The banyan tree
—if I could put it between me and the fishing lodge, it would screen me from sight when I crossed the croquet court. So that’s where I headed, running hard.

The finesse worked, because I dived and rolled behind the trunk of the tree without another shot fired. Or… maybe the guard believed he’d wounded me when I’d stumbled and now he was on his way to finish the job.

A disturbing possibility.

I got to my knees and peeked around a buttressed root to look. No sign of the guard, although I could still see the heat signatures of people clustered on the first floor of the lodge—inside the dining room, I guessed. I waited and watched for a full minute. It wasn’t enough time to be sure the gunman wouldn’t appear, but it’s all that I could allow.

On hands and knees, pulling the waterproof bag with me, I crossed to the opposite side of the banyan tree. Roots suspended from limbs overhead were spaced like bars in a giant jail cell door. It was exactly the kind of cover I wanted. If someone was searching for me with conventional night vision, it was unlikely I’d be spotted.

The veil of roots extended for ten yards from the trunk of the tree, which is where I stopped and tried to figure out what to do
next. Was it smarter to approach the lodge from the side and work my way around to the front? Or should I just sprint toward the entranceway and use the veranda as cover until I was sure the guard wasn’t still looking for me?

The fastest, cleanest approach was best, I decided. First, though, I wanted to have a weapon in hand, ready to use. I opened the bag. I had wrapped each of the three jars in towels and added electrical tape to secure them. Because I knew the jars would be banged and jostled during the swim, it had been too dangerous to add the necessary chemical catalyst while still aboard
No Más
.

I did it now. I removed three medicine-sized glass bottles, checked again to confirm they were empty, then lined them up next to the much larger jars.

The container of matches, three small Ziploc bags and a pair of Tabasco-sized bottles came out last.

It was dark, and I had to guess at the proportions. Thermal imaging is great for finding people but useless when mixing chemicals at night. I knew that if I screwed up, if I slopped one liquid into another, I would activate the damn stuff. If that happened, I’d not only be incapacitated, I might tip off my location to the bad guys inside.

Finally, when I’d gotten the last lid onto the last jar, I relaxed a little and spent a few seconds looking at the stars. It was a symbolic pause, more than anything. I felt calm, my hands weren’t shaking. True, the jars were filled with a volatile mixture that might interact unexpectedly. Same if I dropped a jar while sprinting toward the veranda. But that was okay. I’d done my work methodically, unemotionally. Strangely, that has always been enough for me—whatever the outcome.

Only a few items remained in the waterproof bag, so I closed it and pushed it closer to the tree. I needed Tomlinson’s photographer’s vest, though. I put it on and carefully placed a jar in each side pocket,
then zipped the vest closed. The vest had a big back pocket, too, into which I slid the first-aid kit. There was no guessing the kind of injuries I might have to deal with once inside the lodge.

Getting to my feet, I cupped the third jar in my right hand and found the dive knife with my left. If I could get close enough, I would shatter the dining-room window with the knife, then lob one or two jars inside, depending on what I saw.

The third jar contained a different combination of chemicals, which I didn’t plan on using unless my life—or the life of someone else—was on the line and I had no choice. It was most volatile of the three by far, and I paused for a moment, thinking it might be safer to carry the thing in a vest pocket. No… If the guard reappeared, I had to able to throw the thing without hesitating.

I was ready. Just as I was about to sprint toward the porch, though, an unexpected sound caused me to hesitate. It was a distant mewing that ascended, then descended. I might have assumed it was a cat, but there was a pleading quality that caused me to worry it might be a child.

I hadn’t seen any children in the fishing lodge. Because it was low season, there were no property owners on the island and only a handful of staffers who arrived and left daily on a service boat. The four people I’d seen hiding on the third floor should have accounted for the few who, normally, would have left late after the bar had closed. But maybe employees were using staff housing because they’d brought their young sons or daughters along. It was an unsettling thought.

I turned and listened. The sound seemed to be coming from the courtyard of the VIP cottage or maybe from inside the cottage itself. Yes, it was a person, not an animal. But maybe not a child. A woman, possibly.

Because no lights were showing in the windows of the cottage,
I hadn’t bothered to check it carefully using the thermal monocular. Now I did.

I had been wrong about the place being empty. Through the thin pine walls, I could see the glow of a human figure. A woman… definitely a woman, judging from the heat signature of her breasts. She was standing near a second person, who was lying on what was probably a bed. Nearby two candles burned, invisible from outside.

The details sharpened as I adjusted lighting and contrast and confirmed they were alone in the cottage. But then the details became unimportant when the woman’s mewing turned into a muffled cry, her words indistinct but decipherable:

Breathe for me! Damn you, breathe!

By the time the woman said it a second time, I was already up and running toward the cottage.

A
s I slipped into the courtyard, I somehow managed to bang the gate against the Mexican adobe wall. When I did, sounds coming from inside the cottage stopped. Using the TAM-14, I watched the woman stand straight, as if listening, then hurry to the other side of the room, where another candle flickered.

So much for the element of surprise.

I took a quick look to confirm I wasn’t being followed, then I tested the door. It was locked, as expected. Twice, I knocked: two sharp raps. Then I raised my voice to call, “My name’s Ford. Do you need help?”

No response. I didn’t blame the woman for not answering after so much gunfire, but I wasn’t leaving until I found out why she had been imploring someone to
Please breathe!

I backed away from the door as I slipped out of the photographer’s vest. I couldn’t risk breaking the jars I was carrying, so I wasted another few seconds while I carefully placed the vest on a ledge next
to the dip pool. Then, gripping my dive knife, I kicked the door so hard it shattered off its hinges.

It wasn’t a clean break, though, because a chain lock held it suspended, still blocking the entrance. My attempt at surprise had turned into a debacle—a fact made all too clear when a shadowed figure appeared in the doorway, pointing something at me.

“Who are you? Go away!” A woman’s voice.

Inside, candles threw enough light for me to recognize the woman I’d seen earlier at Lien Bohai’s table. Not the stunning beauty with the Anglo-Malaysian eyes. It was the stunningly plain woman whom I’d found appealing because of her swimmer’s muscles and solid look.

In her hand was a black semiauto pistol. The Tritium night sights atop the slide reflected cat’s-eye dots on the woman’s forehead that implied proficiency. In the weapon, for certain. Maybe in the woman, too, although I wasn’t convinced.

I held my hands up, palms out, to reassure her, as I said, “My name’s Ford. I saw you earlier tonight. In the dining room, remember? I’m not going to hurt you.”

The woman tried to sound unruffled as she responded, “Quite right, you won’t! You’re leaving. Right now.” Then used the pistol to motion toward the courtyard gate.

“It’s not safe out there,” I said, trying to buy time.

“It’s not safe
here
since you broke down the bloody door.” She indicated the gate once again. “Please leave
now.
I’m… I’m busy!” Then surprised me by turning and rushing inside, calling, “I’ll shoot you if you come in. I mean it!” her tough-guy calm unraveling under the pressure of some emergency.

I leaned and peeked around the doorframe. Two candles burned in the room, invisible from the outside because cardboard was taped over the windows. I watched the woman rush to a couch where a
man lay motionless. She was still wearing the shiny silk dress, which told me that she had been dealing with the emergency for a while. Instantly, I turned, grabbed the photographer’s vest and rushed back to the door.

“I have a first-aid kit,” I called. “And I know CPR. I’m coming in.” Without waiting for a response, I ducked under the door into the room.

The woman was hunched over the man, doing chest compressions, using both hands, dropping her weight onto him. The unconscious man was Lien Bohai.

“What happened? Was he shot?”

Not looking up, she asked, “Why are you doing this? I told you to get out.”

I said, “At least let me try to help,” as I placed the first-aid kit on the couch, then touched my fingers to Bohai’s throat. No pulse. Bohai’s skin was blue from cyanosis and much too cool on this hot night. He was dead or soon would be, but the woman couldn’t allow herself to believe it, that was my guess. So I played along because I needed that damn pistol.

“How long’s he been out?”

The woman made a sound of irritation but finally said, “The first time he stopped breathing was half an hour ago. I got him going again, he seemed to be coming out of it. But then he stopped again. Maybe longer than half an hour, I don’t know. Then, just a couple minutes ago, he started coming around, but then I think he vomited and choked.”

There was a hint of Brit in her accent that gave even graphic words a formal quality. No, not British… Singapore or Hong Kong, was more likely for a twenty-some-year-old Chinese woman.

I said, “You’ve been doing CPR the whole time? Mouth-to-mouth and—”

“Of course!”

I knelt beside the couch, tilted Bohai’s head sideways, then used two fingers to probe inside his mouth, searching for a blockage. The woman had correctly guessed the problem.

I scooped out what I could to clear an airway while opening the first-aid kit with my free hand. Tomlinson hadn’t packed the thing in an orderly way, of course, but it was well equipped. I found a plastic, flexible oropharyngeal airway tube, depressed Bohai’s tongue with crossed fingers and pushed the device into his mouth upside down.

The woman watched me, her expression illustrating distrust. “Do you know what you’re doing? That looks wrong.”

I replied, “Speed up your compressions. I was taught at least a hundred a minute.”

The airway tube was giving me trouble. I’ve got big hands and there wasn’t much room to work. After I’d turned the tube a hundred and eighty degrees, I wiggled it around and applied more pressure than I expected to be necessary. Finally, it slid past the man’s soft palate, down into his epiglottis.

“Watch his chest,” I said. “Tell me if his lungs inflate. I’ve never done this before—not on a real person, anyway.”

I had to remove my thermal vision headgear before I pinched nostrils closed, covered Bohai’s mouth with mine and exhaled two long, slow breaths.

“Yes… he’s getting air,” the woman said, continuing to work on his chest. “Good. Thank you.”

For the first time, we made eye contact. I watched her expression change from distrust to suspicion as she looked at me. “What happened to your face? You’re all cut up, you’re bleeding. And that thing you were wearing on your head”—she studied me more closely—“it’s a night vision system, isn’t it? I’ve used night vision goggles before. It’s
not the sort of item an average person owns, now is it?” After a thoughtful pause, she added, “Who are 
you
?”

Interesting.
The misplaced inflection suggested that the woman, in fact, already knew who I was but was trying hard not to reveal the truth—possibly because the truth was dangerous. There was something else: she was familiar with tactical night vision. Why?