Chapter 45

EVAN WOKE EARLY the next morning exhausted after a restless night of tossing and turning. The relentless chirping of the cicadas outside his open window had filled his subconscious mind with vivid and disturbing dreams. Running barefoot through the paddy fields and jungles of South East Asia, chased by a faceless man with teeth filed to points and something bloody clutched tightly in his bony left hand. A thing that shifted and changed each time he caught a glimpse of it. But in the end was always the same. Kate Guillory’s sad face, streaked with blood, a gaping hole in her forehead.

He set off early and walked the length of Duval Street to clear his head, stopping only to grab some breakfast, withdraw a large sum of cash from the ATM and buy a pair of cheap binoculars and a clear plastic waterproof cell phone case.

Because you never know when you might be going into the water against your will. Ask George Winter.

Then he boarded the Yankee Freedom III at the ferry terminal in the Historic Seaport for the 8:00 a.m. departure to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. He found a seat on the upper deck and settled in to enjoy the trip.

Except his mind wouldn’t let him relax. Nor his churning gut, the vague feeling of dread that something that had started before he was born in a place he’d never been was waiting for him somewhere over the horizon. As soon as the boat had cleared the marina, he called Guillory. For something to fill his time as much as anything else, thinking it would be better than his own thoughts.

Shows how wrong you can be.

‘Lydia Strange followed me when I left the Jerusalem last night,’ she said.

He opened his mouth to ask her if she was sure, she’d had a number of beers after all, thought better of it. The fresh sea air was obviously good for the brain. And his wellbeing. He kept it simple.

‘Really?’

‘ No . I wasn’t imagining it. I’d only had a couple of beers anyway.’

‘What happened?’

‘She ran off again. She’s up to something.’

Her words made him wish he hadn’t made the call, had just stared at the endless blue of the ocean and let the wind blow his mind clear. Because he still hadn’t told her about the Vanquish sniper’s rifle that had been in his possession and was now in Lydia’s. And she hadn’t gone to the effort of snatching it out from under his nose in Crow’s house for nothing.

He told her now.

A stunned silence came down the line in stark contrast to the noisy laughter and shouting of the kids surrounding him and leaning over the rails. He guessed she was re-living the meeting in the diner where there may well have been a high-powered rifle aimed at her head.

He wanted to tell her not to dwell on the past, concentrate on the future. He had the sense to leave that unsaid too. The sea air was sure working wonders today.

‘Thanks for telling me,’ she said eventually.

Quick translation: why didn’t you tell me earlier?

‘I didn’t get the chance to tell you earlier.’

She let out a nervous stutter of a laugh.

‘Good to know that your head might explode at any minute rather than just have it happen out of the blue, eh? That’s the kind of heads-up to make your day.’

He didn’t trust himself to speak. No answer would’ve worked, so he didn’t try one. It wasn’t a good note on which to end the call.

Immediately he called Crow to chew him out for sending him on what would probably turn out to be a wild goose chase while he should be at home doing what he could to put right the mess he’d caused.

Crow answered with his customary wariness at receiving a call on the telephone, a much over-rated piece of equipment in his opinion. He recovered when he heard Evan’s voice.

‘Hope you’re enjoying yourself in the sun down there.’

With those few words he gave himself away.

If Evan had been a cynical man, he might have thought that Crow was talking just for the sake of it. To prevent Evan from taking him to task over all the things he hadn’t told him. Things which he suspected Evan would have come up against in the course of his enquiries. Because Evan had never known Crow to make small talk in his life. So he’d let him believe it was working for a minute or two.

‘Yep. On the ferry now. On my way to the Dry Tortugas National Park with the sun on my face and the sea breeze in my hair.’

‘Ah, yes. Fort Jefferson. One of the largest brick fortifications in the Western Hemisphere. Bet you can’t guess how many bricks it’s made of.’

‘A couple of thousand?’

‘Stupid boy. Sixteen million.’

‘Wow! You seem to know a lot of useless information.’

‘Don’t be impertinent.’

‘I’ve got one for you. Why would a person file their teeth to points?’

The silence on the line was a lot more satisfying than the last one, the one with Guillory. Because, for once, it wasn’t him who was the guilty party. It was a good feeling and he made the most of it.

‘And don’t give me any crap about ethnic groups and indigenous tribes in Africa and Asia doing it as an initiation ceremony during puberty to prove their manhood. I read all that stuff on the internet last night. What I’m interested in is why an American soldier, a man in a photograph standing next to Vaughan Lockhart, a photograph that you gave me and a man you described as nobody important would do it.’

This time the silence seemed to go on forever. For a moment he thought he might have gone too far, offended the old buzzard. Then a man sitting behind him tapped him on the shoulder.

‘You’re wasting your time, buddy, there’s no signal.’

They were out of range of the cell phone towers on the mainland and he’d forgotten there aren’t any in the Dry Tortugas.

Not only had he not gotten an answer from Crow, he was on his own.

Until he got to the Dry Tortugas, that is.