Deep Shadow

received particular attention. I would like to give special thanks to Florida geologist Jason Sheasley, and also William and Cameron Barton, for reading an early draft of the manuscript and offering their insights. Lee Florea of the Karst Research Group, Department of Geology, University of South Florida, and Dr. Bruce Flareau, M.D., provided valuable information on air bells and karst topography. Bob Alexander of NAVSYS Inc. was of great assistance in helping me select a first-rate underwater night vision system, which I used often as reference while writing this book. For assistance in research regarding Florida exotics, monitor lizards, neurological pain, cerebral diseases, the effects of blood-thinning poison on stroke victims and the luminosity of various dive watches, I want to thank the following people, in no particular order: Oklahoma authority Henry Baker; Ken Warren, public affairs officer, South Florida Ecological Services office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Jenny Edgar of the Mermaid Restaurant; Dr. Brian Hummel; Captain William Gutek; Dr. Donald Slevin; Captain Russ Mattson, Marvin Metheny; Nitrox diver Audrey Fischer; Dr. Chance Wunderlich; chronograph experts Eric Loth, David Camba and Alexandra Castro; maestro O. J. Whatley; and marine biologist/ watch entrepreneur Dr. John Peterson. If there are factual errors in the narrative, they are wholly the fault of the author.

The early chapters of this book were written in Cartagena, Colombia, and Havana, Cuba, and I am indebted to friends who helped me secure good places to live and write. My thanks go to Giorgio and Carolina Arajuo for their help in Cartagena, as well as Evelyn, Eliana and Elisa for their kind attentions, and also to my pals Ron Iossi, Marlin, Javier and Jose of the Hotel Centro. In Cuba, my Freemason brothers Ernesto Batista and Sergio Rodriguez were particularly helpful, as were Roberto and Ela Giraudy, Raul and Myra Corrales, Alex Vicente and Mack Wiggins. Through the generosity of the Robert Rauschenberg estate, much of this book was written on Captiva Island, in a fish house, thanks to Mark Pace, Darryl Pottorf and Matt Hall.

Most of this novel, though, was written at a corner table, before and after hours, at Doc Ford’s Sanibel Rum Bar and Grille on Sanibel Island, Florida, where staff were tolerant beyond the call of duty.

Thanks to my friends and partners Brenda Harrity, Heidi Marinello, master chef Greg Nelson, Dan Howes, Brian Cunningham, my baseball pal Chad Cook; Reynauld Bentley, Andrea Guerrero, Dawn Oliveri, Mojito Greg, Liz Harris, Captain Bryce Randall Harris, Milita Kennedy, Kevin Filliowich, Kevin Boyce, Eric Breland, Sam Khusan Ismatul, Olga Guryanova, Rachel Songalewski of Michigan, Jean Crenshaw, Lindsay Kuleza, Greg Barker, Roberto Cruz, Amanda Rodriguez, Juan Gomex, Mary McBeath, Kim McGonnell, Allyson Parzero, Cindy Porter, Sean Scott, Big Matt Powell, Laurie and Yak’yo Yukobov, Bette Roberts, as well as the wonderful staff at Doc Ford’s, Fort Myers Beach. At Timber’s Sanibel Grille, my pals Matt Asen, Mary Jo, Audrey, Becky, Debbie, Favi, Bart and Bobby were, once again, stalwarts.

I would especially like to thank dear Iris Tanner, my helper and appointed angel, for clearing the decks, gradually over the last few years, so that writing, finally, has become my primary focus.

Last, I would like to thank my two sons, Rogan and Lee White, for helping me finish, yet again, another book.

—Randy Wayne White

Casa de Chico’s

Sanibel Island, Florida

“He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you.”

—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

PROLOGUE

TUESDAY MORNING, KING WAS WATCHING THE SKY, relieved there were no search helicopters plowing the horizon, like the day before, and he thought, Good.

Maybe Florida cops had arrested someone else for the murders.

King was about to tell Perry, “Let’s get the bikes and head south,” meaning Homestead or Key West. Anywhere but here, where they’d been hiding for two days, sleeping with ants and mosquitoes, near a teardrop- shaped lake, black water and cypress trees, in the boonies of central Florida, sixty miles south of Orlando.

Perry had shushed him, though, flapping his hands, saying, “Listen. You hear that? Someone’s coming.” A moment later, Perry had crouched lower, hissing, “Listen!”

Perry, a man with small hands and a small brain but good ears.

Shit. He was right.

Twenty minutes later, King and Perry were in the trees, south of the lake, watching four men with machetes hacking a path for a diesel pickup, a truck that made a whining sound when it accelerated. Three men plus a teenage boy, actually. Indian-looking kid in jeans, a red wind band around his head, black hair long, like an Apache in a TV western.

Miles from the nearest dirt road, but here they were. Perry’s expression read Can you believe this crap?

The truck crept forward . . . stopped . . . bounced over palmetto stumps, then stopped again, while a crabby old redneck sitting behind the wheel yelled orders.

“Fifty more yards, Doc, we got her licked!”

Doc? King studied the men. Unlikely that it was the hippie-looking dude, skinny with ribs showing, or the Apache teenager, which left the man who was doing most of the work. He was a nerdy- looking guy with glasses tied around his neck, but he had a set of shoulders on him. Forearms, too. A doctor, maybe, but the teacher variety, not a real doctor, because, sometimes, when they spoke to the guy, they called him Ford.

Perry whispered, “You think they’re cops? They don’t look like cops.”

No. Cops wouldn’t be driving a truck loaded with scuba diving gear, a generator and a bunch of other stuff that Perry and King watched the men unload, half an hour later, interested now instead of worried.

Nice-looking Dodge with oversized tires, the tow-rig package. Easy to steal, once the men put on those wet suits and went into the lake, which it appeared they were going to do—as long as they left the keys in the damn truck.

It should have put Perry in a better mood. Instead, when King said, “Looks like the King was right. Our luck’s changing,” Perry stared at him, then spit in the direction of King’s feet, before saying, “You haven’t been right since we left Indiana.”

Not something King would have admitted, but it was true.

From the bus station, downtown Bloomington, an Arctic low had followed the two men south like bad luck, blowing snow across parking lots from Nashville to Atlanta, then Macon, too, which caused Perry to finally say, “Maybe Florida’s not such a hot idea. I feel like we’re being chased into a corner.”

To which King had replied, “What? You’re blaming me for the shitty weather now?”

A little later, thinking about it, King added, “A corner has walls. That was a stupid thing to say about Florida.”

Perry said, “What do you call an ocean? The damn state’s surrounded on three sides.”

It took King a moment. Surrounded by water, Perry meant.

King said, “You ever seen a wall that could take you to Mexico? Costa Rica, maybe. I hear that’s sweet. Stick with the plan, Jock-a-mo. With enough money, a man can live like a king in those places. Personally, the King’s ready for a change. Or maybe you’re getting homesick for Joliet?”

It had irritated Perry, at first, the way the man spoke of himself, the King this or the King that, like he was speaking of a third person, but Perry was used to it now, and said, “How much, you think?”

Money, Perry meant.

King knew what Perry wanted to hear, so he went over it again, saying, “We each put a couple hundred grand in some Mexican bank, the word will get out. That’s millions, when you convert dollars into pesos. How you think