her. Anyways, poor thing… They fished out a body at Madeira Beach where-”
“ Isn’t that where-”
“ Yeah, the two Florida watercops were brought ashore; anyways, some are saying the body’s the Naples girl, that they’re the same.”
“ I pray not.”
“ Sorry about the way the boss treated you, back there at the hangar, I mean. He can be an ass,” Lyle confided as he turned his cart and headed back the way he’d come, disappearing into the shroud and whistling “Misty.”
She’d had extremely bad luck with the helicopter guys across the field. She hadn’t been wrong in feeling some hostility from Lyle’s boss, which even the less than alert mechanic had taken note of. No doubt the guy had eaten heartily of all the negative press about the FBI’s handling of the Night Crawler case. Now, telling the White Tiger guys the truth might easily alienate them, she feared. She needed a plan, one that didn’t include stories in the press and photos in the National Enquirer. She sauntered into White Tiger, knowing she would tell them nothing about her true identity or mission.
Inside she found a man with his feet propped on a desk amid stacks of paper, books and charts, his office a mold and mildew pit below the Quonset hut shell. Dust mites teemed here, it was a place where cheese mold would feel quite at home. A half-eaten sandwich and a Pepsi can indicated a quasi-meal had been only partially consumed some days before.
The moment he saw her come in, he dropped his feet to the floor and began tossing wrappers and empty cans and grossly neglected items such as bread crumbs into a waste- paper basket. He clearly hadn’t expected anyone to step in from the fog outside. All the while, she saw his mind racing with questions: Who is she? How’d she get way out here? Is she alone? Jessica guessed that he also wondered about her marital status, and perhaps how much effort it might take to get her into bed with him. Knowing the male mind as she did, she suspected the truth of it, and it had nothing whatever to do with her opinion of herself. In fact, the weaker her opinions, she knew, the more likely he’d be attracted to her. Perhaps, she told herself, she could use this typical male attitude against the guy to get what she wanted.
Despite all of her patently biased thoughts, all the man said was a polite, “May I help you, ma’am?”
He was a tall, gaunt young man with rugged Clint Eastwood features. In fact, the fellow most certainly didn’t look old enough to have been in the Vietnam War; neither did he look as if he’d be comfortable in the cockpit of a small plane, given the length of his legs. Still, his flak jacket hung on a coat rack behind him, and pictures of him and other men standing around Air Force fighter jets signaled that he was a wartime flier at one time, perhaps during Desert Storm.
“ I need a plane out of here, Mr., ahhh…”
“ Lansing, ma’am. Don Lansing.”
“ I thought your name was Pete Geiger.”
“ I’m Pete’s, ahhh… partner. We’ve been told to stand down till this weather’s over, though, ma’am, so I’m-”
“ Don’t say it! I’ve heard ‘sorry’ up and down this damned airport. You’ve flown in worse, I’m told.”
His smile was wide, charmed and charming. “I have, but going against the tower, ma’am, miss… well… it rubs those boys the wrong way, and I’ve got to live with them after…”
She read into his words that he’d also have to answer to Pete.
“ I’ll make it worth your while.”
He was instantly interested. “How much?” She drew on her best Lauren Bacall voice now. “Double your usual rate.” She saw his eyebrows twitch.
“ Phewww… wish I could. I hate turning down green, and being grounded all in the same day. now that’s a bitch. Pardon, ma’am.”
“ Then let me take it up; I’ll fly it out, return it in a few days.”
His hands shot up in a defensive gesture as if she’d pulled a gun on him. “Whoa… you’re going to take it up in this fog?”
“ I’ve flown in fog before,” she lied. “Besides, once I’m above the soup, there should be no trouble.”
“ ‘ Cept from Pete or Harvey up there in the tower. You hear those winds revving up to eighty, ninety miles an hour? You know what that does to a little bird like that modified Sandpiper out there?”
“ I’m heading due east,” she lied again.
“ Straight for where?”
“ The other coast.”
“ Must be awful important, Miss, ahhh…”
“ Little, Pamela Little, and yes, it is important, extremely.”
“ What’s your exact destination?”
“ The… the Cayman Islands.”
“ Really? That’s not exactly due east. Damn, you’d be lost in a blink up there alone. Love the Caymans myself. Haven’t been there in some time.”
“ Maybe now’s a good time? We go sharp east first, avoid the storm, get south of it and continue in southeast over Cuba.” She purposefully, rapidly blinked her lashes at him as she spoke. “That ought to get us to the Caymans sometime late today.”
Jessica could tell that he was giving it serious thought as his eyes played over her; he imagined she was propositioning him. She really wants a pilot, badly… maybe some sort of pilot groupie, he no doubt was thinking. She really didn’t have any notion whatsoever of flying out of here for the Caymans on her own.
“ Whataya say?” she prodded. She really didn’t want to have to fly out of here herself, especially not with Santiva screaming in her ear that she was a madwoman to attempt it. “Twice my usual rate?” asked Lansing, biting his inner right cheek.
“ That’s what I said.”
“ You must be in an awful hurry. You runnin’ from the law or something?”
“ Will you do it?” Let his imagination fill in the blanks, she told herself. He looked out at the fogged-in airfield. “Well, I can’t let you do it.”
“ All right, then you take me out of here.”
“ No, I can’t do it neither, much as I’d like, Miss… Little, did you say? I could lose my license; I could lose my business.”
“ Triple your usual rate.”
“ Damn…” He started to pick up the phone. Then he thought better of it, replacing it in its cradle. “How soon can you be ready?”
“ I have to make a call; you’ll have two passengers.”
“ Two?”
“ Is that a problem?”
“ Well, it means more drag… the weight, you know.”
“ Is it a problem?” she repeated. “No… no… guess not. How soon do you want to depart?” he asked again.
“ As soon as my… my friend can get here.”
Jessica, already armed with the water route that Anderson had outlined for her, thanks to Quincey’s being in contact with him, needed now only to get Eriq out here to the airfield. She telephoned the hospital, waited on hold, finally reached him and asked in a conspiratorial voice for Mr. Santivas, intentionally adding a final letter for Don Lansing’s benefit. Santivas sounded even more exotic and intriguing than Santiva.
Lansing, while remaining the other side of the desk, cocked an ear in her direction as she spoke to Eriq, hearing only Jessica’s voice. “Has the situation there changed?” she breathily questioned Eriq.
“ Yes, it has,” he surprised her. “What’s happened?”
“ Stallings is out of critical danger, and he’s fully conscious; it appears he’s going to make it, and with some rehab, he’ll be fine. They’re not so sure his eyesight will ever return, however.”
“ That’s good news; has he been able to tell you anything, anything at all? About the boat, perhaps?”
“ He’s still weak, and his eyesight is zero like I said, and his emotional state isn’t so good; he’s blaming himself for Manley’s death.”
