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Black Sunshine
G.P. Putnam's Sons All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Prologue It took the first, echoing ba-boom of thunder for Spencer Tolliver to finally notice the purplish-green wall that had taken up position over the Seven Seas Resort’s red-tiled condos on shore. As he watched, a leading edge of wispy cirrus eclipsed the late afternoon sun, instantly robbing the water of its sapphire brilliance. It would not be long before the dark thunderheads themselves loomed overhead, turning blue sky and bluer ocean into a uniform slate color, and the first, cold breath of air came blasting out ahead of the squall. And it would be at that moment, he promised himself, that he would abandon the enormous fish on his line and point the boat back in toward the inlet. Which meant, he estimated with a glance over his polarized Ray-Bans, he had about ten minutes to tire and boat a monster he had been fighting now for more than an hour. Tolliver gave his rod a yank, got a tug in return that reeled off a few yards more line, and then settled back to wait another minute before going all out. It was a grouper. That or a snapper. Big bottom fish, darting in and out of a maze of hidey-holes along the coral-and-rock seabed some fifty feet down. He had three feet of wire leader at the end of the line. Three feet of margin. If he let the fish go any deeper into a hole than that, it would simply shake its head a few times until the nylon line snagged and parted with a snap. Tolliver sighed. This fish had no doubt escaped more than one angler that way in its lifetime, and it was looking more and more like it would escape yet another. Well, that was fine. There was no dishonor in losing to a smart old fish. And certainly the old saw was still true – a bad day’s fishing was indeed better than a good day’s work, which in his case was being the Comptroller of Florida, and was many times better than a good day’s campaign fundraising, which was what he was scheduled to do later that evening. There was, in fact, little he disliked more than fundraising – going around the room, shaking hands, grinning like a fool, thank you, thank you, thank you ever so much. Occasionally the donor would whip out a checkbook right in front of his eyes, post-date it, put pen to paper, then look up to ask him: how much? Spencer Tolliver always struggled to contain the smart-ass reply: Whatever you think owning a piece of the next Governor of Florida is worth. Technically, with his campaign still unofficial and below the radar, he was collecting commitments, not actual money. It made little difference. Owning a piece of the next governor was what nearly every one of his potential contributors was thinking, particularly those who attended the swanky, black-tie optional, quail eggs-and-caviar events that netted the big, six-figure IOUs. It hadn’t been as bad during the campaign for Comptroller, but that was only because, first, few people had even heard of the office, and, second, even fewer thought he had a chance of winning. There he’d been, a cranky, old retired Marine general and one-time POW, whiling away his golden years on a Panhandle beach, fishing at sunup and sundown and writing cranky, old op-ed pieces to the local newspaper in the afternoon about corruption in Tallahassee, particularly in the office of the Comptroller, the erstwhile watchdog of the rest of state government. Finally the local party boss had suggested he put his money where his mouth was and run against the guy. No one, not even Tolliver, thought it possible he might actually win. The incumbent was going on his fourth term, with a big, fat campaign war chest for a race that few voters paid any attention to. Tolliver decided to run because he believed somebody should. Then, out of nowhere, the FBI and U.S. Attorney swooped down and indicted the guy, and political first-timer Tolliver walked into the office with seventy-two percent of the vote, putting him in charge of regulating Florida banks and brokerage houses, giving him oversight over all state finances, and, most important, giving him a seat on the Florida Cabinet, one of six votes equal to that of the governor in state executive branch matters. And it was in that capacity – as a free-thinking Republican on the Cabinet who could not be bought by the special interests, as staunch a defender of Florida’s remaining wilderness as the environmental lobby could hope to see – that Tolliver began catching the eye of good-government purists who began a whisper campaign to persuade him to run for governor. Tolliver had thought about it long and hard. There was a lot about public life that he was not crazy about. Particularly following his experience in the military where his orders were carried out without discussion, the endless wheedling by the moneyed interests on issues where the Right Thing to Do was as obvious as a flashing neon sign sometimes drove him to distraction. At least once or twice a week, to regroup, he would need the long drive from Tallahassee out to his beach house in Cape San Blas for a soothing hour of surf casting for blues and jacks. On the other hand, Tolliver had realized, he was facing a rare political opportunity. The incumbent Democrat was retiring after his second term. His lieutenant governor, a decent enough fellow, was nonetheless a bad candidate, and beatable. Meanwhile, among Republicans, only he had successfully run a statewide campaign before. A former congressman, two state senators and the political novice Billings brothers were also interested in running, with the state party chairman openly supporting the Billings boys on the theory that their father’s name would make either of them the strongest candidate in the field. Tolliver had almost bought that argument before his contrariness had gotten the better of him: He was the one on the Cabinet, by God, not Percy or Bub Billings. And if party boss Farber LaGrange didn’t want him, it was because the electric utilities and Big Oil and Big Sugar and Big Everyone Else didn’t want him. And that right there was reason enough to run. Besides, he was a widower whose children were grown. What else did he have to do? Three weeks earlier he had told LaGrange his decision, that he intended to announce his run for Florida Governor on June 1, and if that meant the party had to endure a primary in September, then so be it. That’s what democracy was all about. To his credit, LaGrange accepted it and told him he would do all he could to get the party behind him. He’d arranged a series of unpublicized meet-and-greet sessions with the big-money set in Sarasota, Naples and Palm Beach, had even arranged for Tolliver to use his fishing boat for a little R&R before his event at Jupiter’s swanky Seven Seas Resort. And a nice little boat it was, Tolliver thought again as he eyed the craft up and down. A 26-foot Robolo with a 225-hp Mercury. He personally would have picked an Evinrude, but what the hell. Beggars could not be choosers. Plus the man had been generous enough to point out his favorite fishing hole. Tolliver knew he had little grounds for complaint. The water around him suddenly lost its remaining color, and Tolliver took off the polarized sunglasses and put them in his pocket. They would not do him much good, particularly once the rain started. He eyed the tall thunderheads approaching from shore with a twinge of nervous energy. It would get wild, once the wind started blowing and the waves started frothing. Wild, he knew, but not particularly dangerous. He was only a few miles offshore. Not enough room for the waves to build quickly. Besides, the big Merc would let him cover that distance in ten minutes, tops. Then, if the wind was still blowing too hard once he made the inlet, he’d drop the hook in the Intracoastal for a while before tucking back into Seven Seas’s marina. Tolliver eased back the rod a bit, preparing for his final attempt to land his fish. He had the butt of the pole resting in its receptacle in the leather harness he was wearing, with the pin pushed through the base to keep it from flying overboard. When the time came and he still hadn’t caught the fish, he would simply tighten the drag wheel and walk back a few steps until the eight-pound line snapped, and then turn his attention to getting the boat back in ahead of the worst of the storm. He’d go to his room, shower and order a room service sandwich before dressing for the gala that evening. He’d spend the night and maybe get in a half day of fishing in the morning before hitting the road for an Orlando gig the following evening – his twenty-first event in twenty-nine days, bringing him close to the million dollar commitment mark that would help cement his lead among potential GOP candidates and, with any luck, keep the rest of them from even filing papers. Then, with all that grubby money locked in early, he could spend the remainder of the summer and early fall doing what he liked best: the town hall meetings where he’d mingle with regular Floridians, one-on-one, and explain why they should not only vote for him for governor, but also pester their legislative candidates into supporting his broad, campaign-financing proposal to take big money out of Florida politics once and for all. Like fishing, he thought with a grin, he could happily talk about campaign finance reform for hours on end. Perhaps, he realized, he could even do both…. After all, the vast majority of the state’s population lived within twenty miles of a coast. He could park the RV each night at a nearby beach for a couple hours of daybreak surf casting to start out each morning. He smiled at the prospect, gave another gentle tug at the rod perched on his still-flat belly and, without warning, felt himself nearly knocked over by the blast of frigid air barreling ahead of the squall line. Landward, the resort’s tiled roofs had nearly disappeared in sheets of rain, and Tolliver wondered if he’d perhaps underestimated the storm’s strength. Well, no matter. He’d run through spring squalls before, and he’d do so again. There was nothing like driving a boat under a purple sky, wind roaring, lightning flashing all around, icy rain coming more straight at you than down. It re-invigorated the life force, reminded him what it meant to be alive. He couldn’t help the beginnings of a grin as he cranked down the drag on the reel, tightening as hard as it would go. Then, a mere tug on the handle would make the rod bend over and the line sing for a moment before it snapped, like so…. But the line didn’t snap. He tugged, then tugged harder, then stepped back from the transom, but the monofilament showed absolutely no sign of strain. His brow narrowed and his lips thinned as he stared at the reel, then tried pulling line out by hand. Nothing. The drag was indeed set, but for some reason the eight-pound test simply refused to break, no matter how much force he applied. He reached for his belt for his wire cutters, realized they weren’t there, saw them on the port bait well and began moving toward them when the fish hit again and again, bigger than it had all afternoon, yanking Tolliver bodily toward the starboard gunwale, slamming him hard against the rail. Over and over, it hit, now actually pulling the Robolo through the water, and Tolliver struggled to work the pin free from the base of the rod handle, realized he couldn’t against the strain of the fish, tried instead to undo the buckles of the harness attaching him to the fishing pole – which is when he felt the unmistakable tightness of electricity surging through his body, contracting every muscle, locking the breath in his lungs, stopping his heart…. And with Spencer Tolliver’s ears unable to hear the roaring wind and the exposed skin on his neck barely registering the first cold drops of rain, the fish pulled yet again and yanked him clean over the side and down into the wind-roiled black water. Chapter
One The port cap rail was about half scrubbed when the state car pulled into the gravel parking lot beside the single-wide trailer that served as the marina office. Murphy Moran knew even before the plain yellow tag with the official lettering came into view that it was a state car, and stood with one hand on the starboard shroud to watch. Like most boat docks in Florida, Blastoff View Marina was on sovereign waters, with the submerged land leased to the boatyard. A code enforcement officer had been by a couple times previously in recent weeks, once even coming on Columbus Day, a state holiday, and Murphy looked forward to the distraction a confrontation between humorless bureaucrat and humorless scofflaw would bring when he noticed the erect carriage of the silver-haired gentleman who emerged from the passenger seat. Ramsey, he realized with a wide smile. Only Ramsey. Of all the high-ranking politicos he had ever known, Ramsey MacLeod was the only one who refused to treat his Highway Patrol driver like a chauffer and insisted on riding in the front seat beside him. Quickly, Murphy appraised himself, set the plastic bristle brush in his hand on the cabin top, grabbed a torn T-shirt off the dorade vent and ran stained fingers through his hair before returning Ramsey MacLeod’s wave. “Mr. Lieutenant Governor!” Murphy called out, moving quickly to the bow. MacLeod was already walking down the worn dock, agilely avoiding the spots with the missing planks before reaching out to pump Murphy’s hand. “Permission to come aboard, Captain!” Murphy helped him over the pulpit and Ramsey MacLeod grabbed him by both shoulders and squeezed, gray eyes twinkling merrily, then bent to slip off his loafers. “I know how you yachtsmen are about scuff marks.” He glanced around the boat, at the squalid trailer on shore, then affected mock concern. “I don’t mean to sound unkind, man, but I thought you were a Republican consultant. How come you’re living like a Democrat? I thought you had a big boat.” He nodded at the half-scrubbed teak rail. “And I figured Republicans had people to do that sort of thing.” Murphy shrugged. “I did the math. I didn’t have money enough to quit and keep Dark Horse.” Dark Horse had been his Hinckley Sou’wester 54, the dream boat he had rarely sailed in the years he’d owned her. He shrugged again. “You wanna retire at forty, you gotta make sacrifices. With Mudslinger, I can pay my running costs and living expenses off the interest, never touch the principal.” Ramsey MacLeod took off his blazer and slung it over his shoulder. “Spoken like a true Scotsman.” “I’m Irish,” Murphy said. “Well, we all got our shortcomings,” Ramsey said with a wry smile. “Anyway, I admire your fiscal discipline. And you gotta love the name: Mudslinger.” He pursed his thin lips a moment. “Actually, it was on that matter I came to see you.” Murphy nodded toward the stern and led his guest down the narrow side deck, into the cockpit, then down the companionway into the main salon. MacLeod admired varnished cherry bulkheads, hunched over the chart table and dinette, poked his head over the stainless-steel stove and sink, then ran his fingers over weathered bronze portholes. “Well, this is cozy,” he announced. “The smaller the boat, the less there is to maintain,” Murphy said, with more than a twinge of defensiveness. “She ain’t that small,” Ramsey MacLeod said. “Yeah, she is. Southern Cross 31. Nine-and-a-half foot beam. Canoe stern. She’s small.” He pounded the bulkhead, and it gave a solid thunk. “But she’s built like a tank. Oversized, redundant rigging. Hand-laid glass in the hull. Anywhere I want to go, she’ll get me there.” Ramsey MacLeod nodded, impressed. “And once you get there, will you be able to watch videos?” He reached into his blazer pocket for a VHS cassette and handed it to Murphy, who opened a cabinet over the starboard settee and popped the tape into a compact, combination TV/VCR. It turned on automatically and showed a home video of a boisterous campaign rally, the camera panning over hundreds of people clapping to bass-and-keyboards Eurotech rock music. “In case you haven’t been following, this is one of my opponent’s events,” Ramsey MacLeod narrated. “Mine don’t attract quite as many folks. They got better stuff to do, like rearrangin’ their sock drawers.” The camera settled on the stage, where a dozen stuffy, Republican-looking community and business leaders stood clapping and stomping their feet at random intervals, when suddenly the crowd went berserk as a short, curly haired guy in a golf shirt and khakis came strutting onto the stage, his head doing its own strut, like a hen’s, and stood at the microphone with arms outstretched and thumbs up. “That’s my opponent,” Ramsey MacLeod said. “Bub Billings.” Bub mouthed “thank you” about a dozen times, then, with head still bobbing, he launched into his remarks and got as far as My Fellow Floridians before the crowd erupted again and the candidate had to say “thank you” another dozen times. Finally he began again: My fella Floridians, I am humbled and honored by your energy. If I could bottle it and sell it, shoot, I bet I could give ol’ Bill Gates a run for his money! Another round of insane cheering, with Bub once again flashing thumbs up, before he settled into his speech: When I founded Bub’s Fine Lawn Furniture in my garage five years ago, I didn’t have but two nickels to rub together. But I invested both of them in the business, and you know why? Cause I believed that in America, you CAN make a difference. Now my payroll’s fifty-seven fine people. Fifty-seven TAXPAYIN’ folks like you an’ me! Because in America, the business of America is business! And that’s an ethic, a … Bub squinted just off camera for a long second … what the … what? oh: para-dime. Yeah. Great. Teach me for usin’ speechwriters that use fifty-cent words. All right: A para-dime that we gotta have instead of the somethin’-for-nothin’ culture that encourages the economically disadvantaged to pass their values on to the next generation. “Amazing, isn’t it?” Ramsey MacLeod said. “Guy can’t read a Tele-Prompter. Turns it into an applause line.” We CAN take this
back, folks. For eight long years, the liberal-media-elite’s been runnin’
things in Tallahassee, and look what they’ve given us: the highest
unemployment in twenty years, and three-dollar-a-gallon gas. Anyone here like
payin’ three dollars a gallon for gas? A resounding “nooooooo!” from
the crowd. Me neither! It’s time the regular folk got a chance! Or my name
ain’t Bub Billings! Bub smiled and pointed out into the crowd until the
applause died down. Three and a half more weeks, everybody! So keep your eye
on the brass ring and get ready to grab the prize, and on November the 5th, we
the people are gonna win! Thank you very much! Bub ran off the stage, thumbs held high, as the music thumped. Ramsey MacLeod reached around the folding dinette table to hit the STOP button. “And Elvis leaves the building.” Ramsey removed the tape and slapped his palm with it a few times. “He does five of those rallies a day. Half the folks in the audience are bused from one to the next like cattle. We suspect they’re gettin’ paid but can’t prove it. He and his handlers ride in one luxury bus. All the press rides in the other. The buses have satellite TV and catered food. After five, the press bus has an open bar. On my campaign, the press has to squeeze into a rented mini-van. They eat McDonald’s. Sonny’s Barbecue on a good day. Guess which campaign the reporters like covering better?” Murphy Moran said nothing, kept his arms folded across his chest. He had a feeling where this was headed. “Pretty much the same story on the fund-raising side. They’re raising and spending five dollars to every one of ours. Now, I’ve been a Democrat all my life. I’m used to getting outspent. But five to one? That’s a bit hard to take. Especially from a guy and a campaign like this. Had it been Spencer Tolliver beating the pants off me? I wouldn’t have minded so much.” Murphy nodded. “I heard that rumor, too. That he was starting to raise some money. It’s a damned shame about what happened.” “Even Percy Billings wouldn’t have been so bad. Sure he’s an arrogant son-of-a-bitch, but there’s no doubt he’s worked his butt off his whole life. But I suppose he doesn’t poll as well as Bub, and we all know how important that is in the World According to Farber.” Ramsey shook his head. “I can’t tell you how depressing losing to this one is. Shoot, he didn’t take his own life seriously until a couple years ago. He hasn’t put forward a single policy objective. His entire campaign is high energy and flashy production. That and three-dollar gas. Like that’s somehow my fault.” Murphy shuffled his bare feet on the cabin sole. Like most boats, it was dark teak interspersed with strips of white holly. Like most boats too poor to afford paid crew, it was badly scuffed, in need of stripping down to bare wood and re-varnishing. “You been paying much attention to the race?” MacLeod asked. Murphy shook his head. “I’ve been trying to get Mudslinger ready to go down island this winter. Finally. You can imagine how it is: a million things to do, fewer and fewer days left to get them done. Like right now, I’m waiting on a part to fix the VHF, haven’t even started to install the SSB. Haven’t even taken it out of the box yet – ” “They dragged out ‘Mother,’” MacLeod said. Murphy winced, then let out a long, deep sigh. “Mother” had been Murphy’s brainchild four years earlier, when MacLeod and his boss, Governor Bolling Waites, had run for re-election against a punk real-estate developer from Miami. Murphy had worked for the punk, and “Mother” had been a masterpiece of below-the-belt campaigning, a thirty-second television ad shot in grainy black and white, flashing between the image of an old lady lying in a hospital bed with tubes running in and out of her nose, and stark white lettering explaining how she had developed bed sores and lesions and, ultimately, a fatal infection while negligent nursing home attendants had failed to notice – all on the Waites-MacLeod watch. The only sound was the beeping of a heart monitor that, by commercial’s end, became the steady flat tone signifying death. Left out of the spot, naturally, was even a hint of how it had been the Republican-dominated legislature, not Waites and MacLeod, who had refused to fund even a token number of nursing home inspectors as a sop to the industry that, coincidentally enough, had provided millions for their campaigns. The ad had been as effective as it was unfair, and had given Murphy’s man a solid lead in the polls that Waites had been able to overcome only with a stunning performance in the final debate and a blitz of tens of thousands of last-minute “scare” calls to elderly voters, accusing the Republicans of wanting to repeal Social Security. “How bad is it?” Murphy asked finally. “Twenty-one days to the election, and I’m a solid eleven down in the polls. Before gas prices went nuts, I was actually ahead. Gas got to two-fifty a gallon, and I was four points behind. Three bucks a gallon, and I fell to eight points. Now they started running your ad, and suddenly I’m down eleven.” “Their poll? Or yours?” “Mine,” MacLeod said, to Murphy’s groan. “Exactly. So it’s probably more like thirteen, what with pollsters always shading it on the side of whoever’s writing the check.” Murphy stared at the grease- and paint-stained to-do list on the navigation table. More than half the items on it still did not have a check mark against them, and he was quickly running out of weather window. If he wasn’t in Georgetown by mid-November, he could kiss the Caribbean goodbye for yet another winter. Still and all, it was his brutal handiwork that was continuing its ruthless destruction long after he’d left the scene. Like an abandoned gill net in the middle of the ocean, indiscriminately killing every swimming thing even after the fishermen had forgotten they had lost it. “Now I know I ain’t the most charismatic candidate to come down the pike. Far from it. But I know state government, and I know how to make it work better,” Ramsey MacLeod said. “I suppose that’s not near as sexy as making fun of it and running against it. But there it is. That’s who I am.” “You don’t have to apologize for being decent, Ramsey,” Murphy said with a sigh. “I’ll do it. I owe you.” MacLeod shook his head. “You don’t owe me, Murph. Not after how you came around and helped Bolling in the tobacco fight like you did.” “That wasn’t to help Bolling. That was because it was the right thing to do. I still owe you.” Ramsey nodded slowly, then cracked a grin. “I guess I can’t pretend I wasn’t hoping you’d see it that way. All right then. I thank you. I don’t mean to drag you out of retirement or anything. I just need a mind like yours to come up with a fresh idea. You know, something….” “Devious?” Murphy offered. Ramsey grinned again. “Just whatever you can manage. I won’t destroy your reputation by paying you or anything. It’s not like I can afford your rates, anyway. I’m a Democrat, you remember. Just … a new concept, is what I’m looking for.” He gathered up his blazer and started to climb the companionway ladder. “I’ve got a few ideas you could work with. About a dozen different things he’s said on the campaign trail –” “We haven’t got time for that. That would take a solid two months, minimum, to build a strategy based on contradictory statements. We’ve got less than three weeks.” Murphy followed MacLeod up into the cockpit, felt the boat list slightly as they walked forward along the port side deck. “This late in the game, we need a sucker punch.” MacLeod put his shoes on and swung one leg over the stainless tubing of the bow pulpit. “You were thinking….” Murphy thought for a second, opened his mouth to answer before closing it again. “You probably don’t want to know.” Ramsey MacLeod stood on the dock and waved at his driver. “You’re probably right. But I can tell from that gleam in your eye that whatever it is, it ain’t gonna be pretty. Okay then. Bolling warned me it might come to this. So be it. Alia iacta est. Go for it. Get me something I can use to kick the snot out the little twerp.” MacLeod took a deep breath, blew it out. “You got yourself a cabin wench yet? For this world cruise of yours? Hey, weren’t you seeing that lobbyist for Bell South Wireless?” Murphy winced, shook his head. “Don’t go there, please.” Ramsey MacLeod raised a sympathetic eyebrow. “Sore subject? That’s all right. I’m sure the wench issue will take care of itself when you get to one of those islands where the women all go topless. You are planning on visiting some of those islands, aren’t you? Well, of course you are.” He thought about that and nodded slowly. “Well, I think I’ll shut up now, before I talk you out of helping me. Take care, and thanks again.” And with a broad grin, MacLeod turned and walked up the dock to the car, where he carefully hung his blazer in the back seat before climbing in beside his driver. Murphy watched from the bow as the Crown Victoria bumped down the gravel road ahead of a cloud of dust, then turned to gather up and stow his teak-scrubbing gear before heading to the marina bathroom for a shower. #
# # Clyde Bruno cracked his knuckles impatiently as Grant carefully copied the question off the printed page and onto the back of his hand. Behind him hung a giant banner, “Floridians Meet Bub!” over the Coral Reef Ballroom, and Clyde was starting to get nervous that the candidate would at any moment stroll on through and start the bull session, leaving Grant and his big yellow name tag that said “Regular Floridian Grant” out in the lobby, still copying. Clyde said, “Hurry it up,” and got a grunt in reply. He stood, walked to the front window and saw the candidate on a stage set up in the parking lot raising his thumbs skyward triumphantly, the crowd going wild on cue. He turned and walked back to the vinyl seat, sniffed with wrinkled nose at the mildew that managed to overpower both salt air and disinfectant. There had been a time when such a smell would not even have registered with him, so accustomed was he to the rank mess that was his own trailer park home. Stale beer, cigarette smoke and mildew were constants, interrupted only during the occasional tropical-storm-induced flood that would leave instead a month-long stench of organic decomposition. That, though, had been before he’d caught the eye of Petron North America chief Link Thresher during a labor dispute. The boss happened to be in town and took notice of refinery hand Bruno and how he’d sided with the foreman against the rabble with enthusiastic violence, resulting in three concussions, a broken nose and a shattered kneecap. The end result was that the unionizing effort failed, and Thresher had started him on a chain of rapid promotions that quickly put him in the rarified air of the executive suite with the title: Special Assistant to the President. Now it was strictly first-class for Clyde Bruno. Company house, company housekeeper, company cook, company car. On the road, it was a room next door to Mr. Thresher at five- and, in extremely rare instances, four-star hotels. No more Holiday Inns, no more Waffle House dinners, no more mildew. Except now, he allowed grudgingly, for the sake of getting the job done to Mr. Thresher’s satisfaction. Once again he growled, “Hurry it up,” and this time leaned over Grant’s shoulder to check his progress. The goober was clutching the pen in his hand like a carving knife and copying each letter individually in all capitals, and Clyde rolled his eyes and shifted his weight from leg to leg. Whether Grant was a first or last name he had no idea. The man had simply introduced himself as Grant from the Party. Clyde knew he was on the Party’s Goon Squad, the thick-browed gents who were dispatched as the GOP’s “observers” during election disputes. He personally wouldn’t have chosen Grant for this particular task, but there apparently was not a whole lot of choice. They needed someone the candidate absolutely had not met before, which ruled out pretty much everybody at party headquarters. Grant happened to have been out on assignment during Bub’s visit and therefore met the main criterion. Others, like the ability to read and speak … well, Clyde had had to make do. “Got it, boss,” Grant proclaimed, handing the pen back. Clyde Bruno read Grant’s hand and nodded his assent. “Okay. Good. Now, you know how this works?” “I’m a Regular Floridian with an important question,” Grant recited. “Mr. Billings –” “Bub,” Clyde Bruno corrected. “He likes to be called Bub. Everyone else will call him Bub. Don’t draw attention to yourself.” “Okay, Bub. Bub will ask me if I have a question for him, and I read this.” Clyde Bruno heard a roar outside and saw the candidate bounding down the steps off the stage toward the hotel entrance as rally organizers began shepherding the dozen or so other yellow-name-tagged Regular Floridians in the lounge into the Coral Reef Ballroom. Clyde Bruno reached into the inside pocket of Grant’s too-small houndstooth blazer, pulled out the Sony microcassette recorder and pushed the record and play buttons simultaneously, then dropped the recorder back in and patted Grant’s jacket. “You’re ready to rock and roll, sport.” Then he grabbed the larger man’s lapel and caught him with a steely gaze. “Don’t fuck this up.” Clyde Bruno turned Grant to face the Coral Reef Ballroom and gave a gentle nudge to get him moving before he ducked into a hallway to avoid the approaching entourage. #
# # In the penthouse suite of the Floridians for a Better Future, the Politics Channel blared on from the corner about the latest national poll numbers from the various congressional races that were expected to be close. Percy Billings paid it no mind, instead furrowed his still youthful brow as he dug into the raw data of a different poll, one commissioned by the party five months earlier following the sudden death of its top potential candidate for governor. In broad numbers, it showed that likely voters regarded Percy Billings most highly among the remaining field for his intellect, his depth of knowledge and his experience for the job. And yet, just as convincingly, it showed his brother as the most likeable candidate and the one they thought would win with the biggest margin in a head-to-head election against Ramsey MacLeod. Percy swore inwardly at the data, shaking his head in disgust but not, he allowed, disbelief. It had been this way all his life. No matter how hard he worked, how much he learned, how sincere he was, he would still be measured against his brother and come out poorly in the comparison. It had baffled him since their youth. Percy had been the straight “A” student in prep school. Byron made C’s. Percy had gone out west to Stanford and earned a masters and bachelors together in just four years. Byron had gone to Florida State, had dropped out to “find himself,” and eventually finished his single degree with night courses at UCF. After college, Percy joined Southwest Florida’s largest commercial developer and had ultimately worked his way up to senior vice president while at the same time serving on a dozen volunteer boards. Byron worked the line in an Alaskan cannery, drove semis over-the-road, then did two stints as a roustabout on a Gulf oil rig before “settling down” to a series of failed businesses in Brevard County until, at age 42, he had finally hit upon his one success: a lawn furniture company. In politics, Percy had served as a county committeeman, then county chairman, then state committeeman and, finally, RNC delegate. Byron had done nothing. Nada. Zero. And yet, Percy was reminded with each hourly update, it was his brother, not he, who was cruising toward an easy win as Governor of Florida in less than three weeks, in so doing becoming the first son of a governor to himself reach that position. Percy could only blame what had to be the defective polling data relied upon by state party chair Farber LaGrange. He flipped through the pages to see the numbers for Brevard County again and shook his head: In these tables had to be the proof of the poll’s fatal flaw. How else to explain it? The people of Brevard County knew his brother better than anyone else in the state. They had seen his Launch Café fall flat and his Nerds on the Go Dry Cleaning close after a single month. Bub’s Computer Repair had folded even before the grand opening because, by then, even the greenest graduates coming out of Florida Tech were wise to him and would not take a job with a known loser. At one point, Byron had even incorporated as Billings’ Space Services to bid on NASA’s multi-billion dollar Shuttle Processing Contract. The agency had refused even to respond to his application. Yet somehow, according to the party’s poll, the public even in Titusville, Cocoa Beach and Melbourne – towns with among the highest education levels in the state – had been snowed by Byron’s cute dimple and aw-shucks manner, rating him fifteen points higher in likeability, twelve points higher in trustworthiness and seven points higher in competence that Percy. Percy read that last bit again and stood to walk over to the plate-glass picture window overlooking downtown Marco Island and, beyond it, the green Gulf of Mexico. A pair of charter fishing boats were heading in toward the cut, coming down off plane as they approached the jetties. Percy sniffed angrily as he stood, hands thrust in the pockets of his khakis, as the boats tied up at the fuel dock and the charter parties disembarked, floppy white hats shining in the sun. He turned away from the window and stared absently at the television. Higher even in competence. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. It proved again his long-held suspicion that no one ever got elected overestimating the intelligence of the voting public. He snorted again at the poll numbers. Likeability: sure, Bryon was more likeable. Like a big, dumb Labrador was likeable. Trustworthiness: okay, fine. Boy Scouts were trustworthy, too. But competence? On what planet? In front of the focus group Farber had assembled, Percy had presented a well-reasoned, fully documented, Twelve Point Plan for Florida, dealing with everything from the lousy public schools to out-of-control Medicaid costs. What had Byron presented? Nothing. Instead he’d just shown up, talked about integrity and honoring the memory of their daddy and some such other nonsense … and the idiots had fallen for it! Given the focus group, given the polling backing it up, there really wasn’t much of a choice, Farber had explained. At the time Percy had sucked it up and taken the news like a man and a brother. After all, what else could he do, other than give Byron a big clap on the shoulder and wish him good luck? But then, over the months, it had started to rankle inside him, how this wasn’t some minor delay, some temporary setback. This was the real deal. The people of Florida were never going to elect both of Lamont Billings’ sons to the Governor’s Mansion. Only one of them would reach that level. If it was Byron, it would never be Percy. In other words, it would be the same as always. He had always been the more dutiful, the more loyal, in short, the better son, but Byron had always been Father’s favorite. He had always been better looking, but Byron had dated prettier girls. He had always been smarter and worked harder, but now Byron was going to get to be governor. The whole thing had pushed him to distraction, to the point where it was noticeably affecting his work. He had, inexplicably, missed a buying opportunity for a prime, forty-six acre tract on the edge of some wetlands outside Fort Myers. A perfect spot for a new strip mall, anchored with maybe a Walgreen’s, filled in with the usual mix of tanning salon, Laundromat and payday loan outlet, and Percy somehow had let it slip away to their arch competitor from Naples. It was even, Percy had realized one morning, affecting his golf game. It had been months since he had shot below eighty. One recent Sunday, he had actually been on a pace not to break a hundred when it thankfully began to rain and thunder. He became conscious that he was hearing the name “Billings,” and brought his gaze back from deep space to the television set. The Politics Channel had turned its attention to Florida’s gubernatorial race, where political novice Bub Billings was incredibly heading into the final stretch with a double-digit lead over the sitting lieutenant governor, Ramsey MacLeod, for eight years the right-hand man of popular incumbent Bolling Waites. The TV showed a clip of Bub wading through an affectionate crowd, shaking hands, tousling children’s hair, pointing at recognized friends, while the reporter’s voice-over filled in Bub’s back story, the black-sheep-son-made-good of legendary Florida governor Lamont Billings, the man who’d dragged a redneck legislature into the civil rights era and racial integration, a stance that had cost him his job after a single term. Political observers around the state, the reporter noted, had fully expected another Billings to make a run at the Governor’s Mansion someday. Interestingly, nearly all of them had assumed it would be Percy Billings, a Marco Island real-estate developer who for years had worked his way up the Republican Party totem pole. The blood in Percy’s ears hissed, his eyes narrowed and his hands clenched, but he was unable to tear himself away from the set. The reporter continued with the tale of Bub Billings’ meteoric rise from small businessman – Florida’s Lawn Furniture King – to a mere step away from chief executive of the nation’s fourth-largest state, while his brother, in all likelihood, was doomed to fade into political obscurity…. The hiss had become a full-blown roar, darkening Percy’s vision, when the phone rang. Percy hunted for the remote, hit the mute button, then grabbed the handset off his desk. “What,” he snapped. But then he heard who it was and his brow relaxed a bit. “How did it go?” He listened, and his face began to brighten. “Really… and the tape is clear? Let me hear it.” Percy listened to the phone some more, and a smile began spreading across his face. “Okay, listen: Dub it and keep a copy safe. Got it? Good…. Let me know how it goes.” He hung up, then turned with an amused glance at the television set, where his brother silently mouthed malapropisms to a packed high-school gym. Percy picked up the remote and switched the set off completely, then moved to the plate glass window. He took a deep breath, let his face assume a posture of equal parts sorrow and sincerity, and addressed a shrimp boat heading out the cut into the sparkling Gulf: “My fellow Floridians…. These are indeed the times that try men’s souls.” #
# # With one ear listening to Farber LaGrange’s latest tirade in his office, Florida Republican Party Finance Director Antoinette Johnson sorted through folders until she came to the one marked “Donors – 100k – 3Q” and cleared some space on her crowded desk. It was a nearly an inch thick, testament to her success at getting the state’s richest individuals and businesses to put their money where their mouths were and fork over substantial sums to put a Republican in the Governor’s Mansion after twenty years on the outs. Week after week, she went through reams of donations, inputting them into the database so they could be reported the Friday before election day to the state Division of Elections, while simultaneously writing personal thank you notes to those donors who had given more than $100,000. This election, she had noticed, that latter task had started to give her writer’s cramp. At one point she had run a query and was honestly shocked to learn that the six-figure donors now accounted for ninety-four percent of every dollar the party collected, up from seventy-three percent when she’d taken the job a decade earlier. The official line to the media and the watchdog groups was that this was a wonderful thing: The more money the Party collected, the more the free speech rights of Florida’s populace were being expressed, the more joy and happiness would spread across the land. The only one who could manage that explanation with a straight face was Farber. Of course, the only one who could manage a lot of explanations with a straight face was Farber – everything from solemn attacks on the other party’s masculinity to a spirited defense of a Republican Miami city commissioner caught embezzling. As for Toni, she had a while back concluded that the big money she helped collect was the single most corrosive factor in politics. The big checks came in, and a few weeks or a few months later, the contributors would call for help arranging a meeting with their beneficiaries, who were by then elected officials. Toni would always try to discourage such attempts, but would eventually pass the calls along to Farber, who would quickly and without fail set up the requested meetings. And, a few days or weeks later, a particular person would get appointed to a particular job, or a certain state contract would get awarded to a certain vendor, or an obscure rule or regulation would get waived in an equally obscure permit application. Toni was fairly certain that these exceptions and shortcuts were not advancing the public good. Being a part of the system that generated them had in recent years worn on her soul – to the point where she had taken to making the occasional photocopy to let a newspaper know about a particularly egregious situation. The treasonous leaks in the name of good government had at first salved her conscience, particularly in those rare instances when a bad actor wound up losing a contract or, even better, going to jail. Ultimately, though, she had come to accept how little real effect the public disclosures had on the system. It wasn’t the extreme cases that made the system corrupt, she had realized, but the everyday acceptance of the little ones: the Insurance Commissioner who returned phone calls from the insurance company executives but not from the consumers who’d gotten screwed on a policy. The museum grants awarded by the Secretary of State that happened to correlate with the largest fund-raisers in her last election. The no-bid contracts let by the Department of Agriculture that went to relatives of the citrus baron whose jet the Agriculture Commissioner had used on the campaign trail. It was time, she had told herself that summer, to get out. One last campaign cycle and she would leave politics and Tallahassee for good. Maybe move down to the islands. Find an oceanography lab somewhere that needed a CPA or even an office helper or even, frankly, a janitor. Something that would get her back to the sea again. Something that would let her enjoy life for a while, give her a chance to figure out what she wanted to do when she grew up. She’d always been good with numbers, so accounting had been a natural choice. Politics, though, had not, particularly not Republican politics, and it was time she found something she could make a life out of. A throat cleared beside her, and she returned from her reverie to a perky little blonde holding out a stack of new mail. Her name was Britney. Or maybe Meghan. She always got the two of them confused. Toni eyed her up and down, over the skimpy blue sundress and sandals, and with a smile accepted the packet from the girl. Toni checked her tongue as Britney or Meghan sashayed away, casually touching the male employees of the office as she walked and generally creating a stir. Farber called them Victory Hostesses, but Toni thought of the dozen, fresh Florida State graduates and non-graduates more as honey bees, the way they flitted around, alluring yet dangerous. During their first week on the job, she had tried to suggest a professional dress code to Farber: closed-toed shoes and business-length skirts, for starters. Farber had come back with one of his vulgar southernisms that, roughly translated, wondered why in the hell he’d go out of his way to hire a gaggle of sexpots and then make them dress up like old ladies. Toni had stood steaming in a rage for a long minute before stalking out. There was no reasoning with Farber when he was being an asshole. Besides, the girls’ presence in the office was minimal. They’d been hired, as their name suggested, as arm candy for fund raising events, to meet and greet donors, serve them drinks, help with the set up and clean up. Or at least that was what Toni continued to tell herself, despite the rumors of what was actually going on aboard Farber’s big sailing yacht, the Soft Money … that the Victory Hostesses had become more like comfort girls, starting each event wearing little more than a bikini and losing coverage from there. Toni didn’t know details and she didn’t want to know. That despite the number and size of checks that poured in from Soft Money events, every single one of them written by a male. Well, it just wasn’t her problem. All the girls were of legal age, old enough, if they wanted, to perform in pornographic movies or take jobs at the Mustang Ranch. She sure as hell wasn’t about to take it upon herself to become their mother hen and try to protect them from sexual harassment – particularly given the attitude they displayed to every other female who worked at party headquarters. Still, the whole Victory Hostess thing added to her rising discontent with Farber in particular and the state party in general. Back when she’d taken the job, the Democrats controlled both chambers of the legislature as well as the Governor’s Mansion and five of six seats on the Cabinet. They ran the state like a fiefdom. She personally had little political ideology beyond good government, and had signed up with the Republicans because anything was better than the way things were. A decade later, thanks to Farber’s organizational skill and her financial knack, the situation was nearly reversed: Four of six Cabinet seats were Republican, as were both House and Senate, and the old, popular governor, the Granddaddy Gator of Florida politics, was retiring after two terms. Yet even before the election that would realize Farber’s dream, Toni could sense that Floridians were getting a state government every bit as bad as the one they had methodically voted out of office over ten years. And it was Farber’s single-minded drive, she realized, that had brought it about. Instead of winning to make things better, he had become consumed with winning for the sake of winning. It was an attitude that trickled down from the top, so that freshmen Republican legislators, flush with victory, would at once forget the constituents who had actually voted for them and instead start sucking up to the special interests that paid their way. Farber saw nothing wrong with it. Toni couldn’t find the words to adequately express her disgust. She sighed and pushed her frustration aside. In less than three weeks, it would all be over. Farber would have gotten what he wanted, and Toni could submit her resignation letter, take her weeks of accumulated leave and sell all her belongings at a yard sale. Then she’d fly down to, say, St. Barts, and start from there. Maybe find a waterfront bar that needed help with its books. Maybe use her off hours to find a beat-up thirty-footer she could restore, down in the tropics, away from politics…. Twenty-one more days, she thought, then realized she was once again chewing her thumbnail and made a conscious effort to pull her hand away. One of the Hostesses, Tiffany she thought it was, had been so kind as to inform her that chewed fingernails were not sexy. The last thing she needed was another grooming lecture from a twenty-year-old bimbo. With a sigh, she removed the rubber band from the fat file folder representing the week’s hundred-thousand-and-up donations, then began filling in her database and deposit slips for the party’s checking account. She studied a cover letter, entered bank number and $500,000 for the amount, flipped a page, entered bank number and $450,000, flipped another page, entered bank number and $575,000…. She stopped, looked at the column for bank number, and realized the three entries were the same. Three checks totaling one and a half million dollars from three different corporations, all coming from the same bank…. She blinked, quickly skimmed through the rest of the folder, found three more big checks from the same commercial bank in Miami from three more contributors. She leaned away from her computer, thought a long moment, then brushed a strand of dark hair behind an ear and moved to the query field and typed in the name of the bank. Within seconds, the screen filled with a list of twenty-four donations over the past five months, all from the same Miami bank, but every one from a different corporate account. She blinked again, thought for another minute, then toggled over to her web browser, where she brought up the state Division of Corporations and looked up the first name on the list. She noted the result, then looked up the next and, with a sigh and a nod, looked up third and fourth and fifth. Then she flipped to an open page of her notebook and wrote down names and addresses and drew arrows between them. For a good hour, she zipped back and forth across first the Corporations, then the Securities and Exchange Commission and finally the Dunn and Bradstreet web sites. Finally she uncrossed her legs, slipped her feet back into the beige pumps beneath her desk, and walked over to her boss’s office. She knocked twice and entered at the grunt to find Farber LaGrange seated at his massive desk scribbling on a yellow pad. She watched the bald spot on the exact top of his big head, where Grecian Formula black strands crossed at regular intervals, waiting for him to finish writing. On the wall behind him were photos of him playing golf with Gerald Ford, welcoming Ronald Reagan at the bottom of Air Force One, fishing with George Bush in Islamorada. On the credenza to the side were assorted saltwater fishing trophies, at least a dozen of them, with the largest one a good four feet tall and topped with a gold-plated sailfish in leaping splendor. Fishing and politics, and Farber played both to win. “You rang?” Farber’s tanned, leathery jowls reflected his age and time on the water, but the steely blue eyes that stared across the desk were as steady and sharp as a bird of prey’s. A hawk’s. Or in Farber’s case, Toni thought, an osprey’s, diving out of the sky at full tilt to snatch up an unsuspecting fish. She glanced down at her notebook and cleared her throat. “Northstar Consulting of Jacksonville, Harris & Beauchamp of Naples, Interlink Transport of Tampa, Rancourt and Associates in Orlando, Southeast Marine of Fort Pierce, Ronadet Service Corp. in Miami and Island Graphics of Palm Beach. You want to guess what they all have in common?” Farber LaGrange put on the poker face that Toni knew meant he was about to lie: “I ain’t got the foggiest idea,” he said, pronouncing it eye-dee. Toni continued to play it straight, glanced back down at her notebook. “Well, as it turns out, they have two things in common. One, they all have given our party between $400,000 and $600,000 since May.” Farber said, “You want I should write personal thank-you’s to ’em?” “And two, they all list as their registered agent somebody in Apalachicola called Goodkind and Sams. Sounds like a law firm, right? Well, that’s what I thought, too. But I checked in the Bar Journal, and there’s no such law firm in all of Florida. So I ran it through corporate records, and Goodkind and Sams has a registered agent named Clyde Bruno. Isn’t that something? You remember Clyde, don’t you?” Farber said nothing. “He’s your fishing buddy Link Thresher’s, uh, how should we call him … executive assistant? Fixer? Kneecap-smasher? Whatever. It’s kind of interesting that ol’ Clyde would have the time, given his day job, to manage the affairs of so many unrelated companies.” She watched for a response, got none, continued. “Except, of course, I suppose it’s not particularly hard, seeing as how none of those companies actually does anything. No record with the SEC, nothing in D&B. Not even a phone number.” Now Farber cleared his throat, played with the fountain pen in his hands, balancing it on the tip of his forefinger. “I’m just curious here, Toni, if there’s any part of what you’ve described is in any way against the law –” “Of course, those aren’t the only companies for whom Clyde is the named agent. There are, via three other intermediary firms, seventeen more, for a total of twenty-four companies around the state, whose sole business seems to consist of giving us an average $500,000 to elect a Republican governor.” Farber nodded and smiled, now. “I’ll ask you again, Toni: What Florida statute or Division of Elections rule is either Clyde Bruno or his various companies or the Florida Republican Party violating with these donations?” Toni tucked the notebook against her chest and crossed her arms. “The whole point of the campaign finance code is to let the public know who gave and who got. We’re breaking the spirit of these laws.” “That’s why we got all them high-falutin’ lawyers, Toni,” Farber laughed. “To find ways to break the spirit of laws without messin’ with the letter of ’em. Ain’t that right? Now you seem to be concerned that Clyde Bruno, and, I presume by extension, Link Thresher and Petron Oil is givin’ all this money to us. Correct me here if I’m wrong, but this is all soft money, ain’t it? Which means, if he wanted, ol’ Link coulda sat there at the top of Petron Tower in Houston and written out a check for the en-tire twelve mil in one shot and it woulda been perfectly legal. Am I not correct?” Toni stood her ground. “So why didn’t he?” Farber threw his arms up in mock surprise. “Fuck should I know? Ask him!” He began stacking his appointment book, a Palm Pilot and other items from his drawers onto his desktop blotter. “Look, maybe he thinks it’s to his strategic advantage for everyone not to know he supports our side.” “That’s my point,” Toni said. “The law was designed so everyone could know exactly that. He’s making that impossible.” Farber straightened, narrowed his eyes. “Not completely impossible. You figured it out. Now, Toni, I always said you’re a smart gal. It’s why I hired you. But seriously, you’re not suggesting that there ain’t nobody in the entire Democrat party, in all the media, who can’t connect the dots like you just did? Christ almighty, Toni, it’s what they get paid to do.” He grabbed his briefcase from the floor and started packing the things on his desk. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get a move on. Flyin’ back out to Titusville tonight. Got fundraisers on Soft Money the rest of the week.” He glanced up with a smile. “You might even get a couple more checks from Clyde Bruno companies, if you’re lucky.” Toni sighed again, thought of one last protest when the phone buzzed on Farber’s desk. He hit a button and the speakerphone’s static filled the room. “What now?” Farber bellowed. “Thought you’d wanna know,” a voice crackled. “MacLeod ducked away from his campaign this morning. Guess who he visited.” “The Pope. I ain’t got time for games, Buckin’ham. Just tell me.” “Murphy Moran.” “Hah!” Farber laughed, then shot a wink at Toni. “Ain’t heard that name in a coupla years. Thought he slinked away with his tail ’tween his legs after the tobacca fight. Well, too bad for Ramsey. Not even ol’ Murph’s gonna be able to save his bacon this time. Bucky, hold on just one second.” Farber nodded at Toni: “We finished?” Toni Johnson shrugged, then remembered three other transactions that had caught her eye. “Not unless you can tell me anything about the Clean Gulf Trust.” “Ain’t got the foggiest,” Farber said, then turned back to his phone. “Bucky, you still there?” Toni blew out an exasperated breath and headed back toward her desk, shaking her head as she walked. It was a giant game to him, that’s all. He knew as well as she did that the chances of anyone catching on to the trick with all those checks in the days left before the election were negligible. It was only because the name Clyde Bruno rang a bell with her that she had been able to figure it out. As Toni walked, though, resignation rekindled into anger. She had no idea what exactly Petron wanted, but could only assume from their desire to remain anonymous that it wasn’t good. She should tell someone, is what she should do … is what she would do, she decided. She paged through the corporate search printouts in her notebook, tried to think of who…. It was probably too late to get them to anyone in the press. Plus, it was a crapshoot, getting them into the hands of a reporter who had both the ability to do the necessary digging as well as fifteen free minutes at the moment he or she opened the envelope to realize the significance of the documents rather than simply pitching them in the waste bin. And sending it to the Democrats was pointless; anything they said this late in the campaign would be viewed as last-minute desperation. If only there were somebody else, somebody not associated with the Democratic Party, somebody with the savvy to – And then a wide smile broke across her face as she walked right past her desk to the rear window that overlooked tree-lined Meridian Street, to the high-speed photocopier just beside the window, and pushed the green button to let it start warming up. #
# # With enormous gas turbine engines emitting a low thrum and giant screws churning the Gulf into a swatch of whitewater behind her, the oil tanker City of Galveston slid steadily west-northwest toward New Orleans. Seven-hundred feet of black hull streaked with rust stains, she carried a Panamanian ensign on her stern rail and sixty thousand tons of Bahrain crude in her holds. Like most commercial freighters, she was staffed with a bare skeleton crew, with nearly half of the ship’s complement unfilled. Like most tramp freighters, the crew that was aboard rarely paid much attention. On most hours of most days, the six-foot radar antenna that spun atop her superstructure was purely ornamental, collecting data for an empty radio room. Neither radar operator nor radio man made a distinction between on- and off-watch hours, typically spending both in the rec room playing cards and drinking whiskey or in his bunk sleeping it off. All of which had made the wet-suited man’s mission that much easier. Eighteen hours earlier, as the vessel plowed west through the Florida Straits, hugging the hundred-fathom line to avoid the worst of the Gulf Stream current setting the opposite direction, he had climbed aboard easily, finding no one at the forward lookout station. The one thing that had worried him the most, that during the daylight hours the aft lookout might notice the thin Kevlar rope he had tied to a fitting near the stern, also never came to pass. On the City of Galveston, no one kept watch at all – forward, aft, or any other direction. His first six hours aboard, the wet-suited man conducted a thorough reconnaissance of the vessel, finding a total of eight people aboard as he drew himself a schematic of the engine rooms. Less than twelve hours after he’d come over the rail, the wet-suited man was finished and waiting in one of the tarpaulin-covered lifeboats that hung from davits as a red, mid-October sun sank into the Gulf off the port beam. He lifted his head as the moment grew near, risking detection to watch the final seconds of sunset. Alas, the fiery ball dropped uneventfully into the sea – no green flash – and the wet-suited man ducked back into his bivouac and closed his eyes for some sleep. Hours later, his dive watch beeped softly six times, and he was instantly awake. He checked forward and aft along the deck, and with two steps was over the rail. He clung to the metal bulwark with one hand, undid a knot and retied it around his waist with the other, and then tossed a waterproof, buoyant tool bag into the darkness before following it in with a dive so clean it barely made a splash. Twenty minutes later, six small explosions simultaneously rattled the City of Galveston’s transmission and engine rooms. Had anyone been monitoring the systems panels, he might have seen and heard the oil pressure alarms. As it was, the chief engineer and his mates were placing bets on one of two Hialeah-bred, Mexican-trained roosters in the main lounge, and it was only a few minutes later, after moving parts in both of the ship’s propulsion systems had fused into much larger, non-moving parts, that anyone noticed all the smoke pouring out of the engine room hatches. Ten minutes after that, the wet-suited man finished pulling himself along two thousand meters of line back to a 22-foot Ranger flats boat, stripped of her poling platform and painted black and midnight blue and therefore invisible in the moonless night. There he hooked up one of a dozen, twenty-gallon fuel tanks arranged in two rows to the big Evinrude on the stern, then sat on the equipment locker forward of the driver’s console sipping from a Thermos of hot coffee he’d swiped from the City of Galveston’s galley. He put a hand bearing compass to his eye every few minutes to check the tanker’s progress. Then, when the coffee was gone and he was satisfied that City of Galveston was dead in the water, he pulled a rope on the outboard to start it, keyed his destination coordinates into the GPS navigation unit and got the black-and-blue skiff up on a plane and pointed toward Flamingo.
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