provided.
For five thousand dollars Lunt could supply anyone with a new identity-driver’s license, passport, Social Security card, birth certificate, the works-quality paper, backed up by official entries in government files. The hacker’s art of obtaining access to encrypted computer data was one of several skills Teddy had mastered.
Lunt was out now, relocated in San Diego, supposedly reformed. Jack knew his address. And he knew that con men were never reformed. They simply switched to subtler scams, such as his own precious metals swindle. Teddy was still in business. Jack was counting on that.
I’ll rent a post office box in Islamorada, he mused. Then send Teddy my driver’s license-he can use the photo for the new license and passport-along with whatever cash I can spare. Probably about twenty-five hundred. He’ll know I’m good for the rest.
Once Lunt sent the papers, Jack could travel to the Bahamas under his new name; no visa was required for U.S. citizens traveling as tourists. After establishing himself in some pseudo-legitimate enterprise, he would apply for a green card, or whatever they called it over there; if the bureaucracy gave him any hassles, perhaps Teddy could doctor up the requisite Bahamian papers as well.
It would work. It had to.
Jack maintained an easterly course, navigating by landmarks familiar from his boyhood: the lights of the Matecumbe Keys due west, the beacon of the Alligator Reef lighthouse to the south. From time to time he made small corrections to adjust for the gentle push of the southerly breeze. There was a natural inclination to steer away from a wind on the beam; he nudged the nose of the dinghy a few degrees starboard to compensate.
Dead ahead, the stars nearest the horizon began winking out, swallowed by a deeper darkness. The black, ragged line of Pelican Key resolved itself out of the gloom.
Jack relaxed, seeing it. “My private island,” he breathed.
He felt his mouth smile.
9
Wetness. Wetness on his hand.
Steve Gardner surfaced from sleep and felt a soft tongue licking his knuckles. Anastasia, whining softly.
“What is it, Ana?” he whispered. “You need to go outside?”
The dog sniffed the air and growled.
No, he realized. That’s not it. She’s worked up about something.
Apprehension slapped him fully awake. He listened to the house. Heard nothing but Kirstie’s soft, regular breathing and Ana’s warning growls.
Soundlessly he slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Kirstie. The room was a cage of stifling heat, the claustrophobic stuffiness only marginally relieved by the warm breeze through the windows. His underpants stuck to his groin and thighs in clinging patches; his torso was slick with droplets of perspiration.
He reached under the bed and withdrew a gun.
It was a 9mm Beretta 92SB pistol, which he had purchased at a gun show two years ago, after a rash of burglaries in their Danbury neighborhood. The blue-black barrel gleamed in the pale starlight.
He checked the clip to confirm that it was fully loaded. Sixteen 9mm Parabellum jacketed hollowpoints lay stacked on top of the magazine spring like sardines in a can.
Anastasia let out a louder sound, half cough, half bark. Kirstie stirred, murmured briefly in her sleep, but did not wake.
“Come on, girl,” Steve breathed.
He left the room, Anastasia padding after him.
The house seemed larger at night. It covered twenty-five hundred square feet, all on ground level; there was no cellar, no second story. The architecture was Spanish Colonial Revival: thick walls, lead-framed windows, hand- painted ceramic tile. Though much of the original decor had been ruined by the hurricane of ’35 and by years of neglect, Larson’s renovations had restored it.
Steve started with the guest bedroom, then checked out the bathroom, a nest of bright turquoise tile in floral patterns.
He proceeded down the long, tiled loggia that connected the two bedrooms and bath with the rest of the house. To his left was a wall of carved cedar, the recessed display cabinets holding terra-cotta curios. On his right, a row of French doors framed a corner of the patio and garden.
He paused at one of the doors and peered through a filigree of decorative ironwork. A blue tile fountain-two dolphins with interlocked tails-spat an arc of salt water into a star-shaped pool.
At the end of the loggia were doorways to the entrance hall and the living room. He went into the foyer first, passing under the skylight through a glittery fall of starshine.
Anastasia scooted ahead of him and sniffed at the front door. Steve tensed. Somebody outside?
Gingerly he tested the door. It felt secure, unviolated. He nudged Ana back, then unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The hammock on the front porch swung lazily in a fresh breeze. The flagstone court beyond the steps was as vacant and still as the surface of the moon. The gate was closed.
“Nobody there,” he reassured the dog as he shut and locked the door.
The living room was next. He stopped in the doorway and scanned its wide expanse. Starlight filtered through tall, arched windows, gleaming on the mahogany furnishings, the miniature schooner on the mantel, the ceramic vases squatting like trolls in the corners.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Still, a person could be concealed behind the sofa or one of the leather armchairs.
He considered flicking on the lights. Caution stopped him. Illumination would make him a better target.
In darkness he circled the room, the gun held at waist height, cocked, a pound or two of pressure on the trigger. The large antique globe creaked, spinning a few degrees, when he brushed against it.
Anastasia preceded him into the dining room. A wrought-iron chandelier hung over a long mahogany table flanked by hand-carved chairs. He found no intruders under the table or behind the floral-print curtains drawn over the French doors.
He and Ana slipped through a side doorway into the 1920s-style kitchen, replete with bottle-glass windows and inlaid wall tiles in a pelican design. A pile of crockery was soaking in the sink; along the counter scuttled a large shiny palmetto bug.
Steve crept past the antique stove toward the door at the rear. The tile floor was cold against his bare feet. Anastasia’s toenails clicked softly.
He reached for the doorknob, and there was a hand on his arm.
His heart kicked. He pivoted, the gun rising And saw Kirstie in her nightgown, drawing back with a gasp as she saw the pistol, her eyes very big.
Anastasia woofed.
“Jesus,” Steve hissed, fear receding and leaving him limp. “Never sneak up on a nervous man with a loaded gun.”
“Sorry.” Her voice was a frightened whisper. “I woke up and you weren’t there. What the hell’s going on?”
“Ana’s antsy about something. As if we’ve got company. But I haven’t found any sign of trouble.”
“Have you looked everywhere?”
“Just about. But I’d better be thorough.”
He drew a couple of shallow breaths, then opened the door and entered a small, musty chamber, a maid’s room in an earlier day. It was unfurnished save for a chair, a table, and the two-way radio. Through the walls thrummed the pulse of two diesel generators, which Steve fed with fuel oil on a daily basis; they were housed in a shed directly outside.
“Looks okay,” he told Kirstie after checking the window for signs of intrusion.
“How about the patio?”
