Born to Run

edge.

“What did you do to Sofia?”

The man with the gun went to him.

“What does it matter?” he said, and he spat in the Greek’s face.

“What do you want?”

The man shrugged. “Nothing.”

With a wave of his hand, the two bigger men tightened their grip, and the Greek felt his feet leave the rooftop.

It all happened in a flash, but the next few seconds seemed like an eternity, as the Greek was airborne, flying up into the night at first, the stars seemingly within his reach. Then gravity took over, and just as quickly he was a meteor tumbling out of control, spiraling down, down, down-headfirst, feetfirst, headfirst.

He didn’t hear himself scream, or the Sicilians laughing, as his body collided with the cobblestone below.

Forty-six years later Chapter 2

They looked dead-except for the eyes.

Sleek and dark saurian bodies lay perfectly still, concealed in a flat pool of water that was black as ink. The heavy air of night stirred not a bit-damp heat, no breeze to speak of, sweetened by the perfume-like scent of surrounding water lilies. The surest signs of life were in the chorus of sounds from unseen creatures of the night: the rhythmic belch of bullfrogs, the predawn squawk of egrets and osprey, the steady hum of insects. At any moment, however, that peaceful pulse of nature could spike into tachycardia. The eyes of a bull gator lurking in the marshland said it all-primeval red dots caught in the sweep of a handheld spotlight. There was hunger in that eerie, ruby shine. And with good reason:

Nighttime was feeding time in the Florida Everglades.

Phil Grayson wasn’t precisely in the Everglades-gator hunting wasn’t permitted there in December-but this guided hunt on adjacent private land was the next best thing. Grayson stood tall in the twenty-foot wooden rowboat, his gaze fixed on the telltale eye-shine in the darkness. His love of hunting dated back to BB guns and doves on telephone wires, and when Grandpa gave him a Harrington amp; Richardson single-shot rifle for his eighth birthday, he considered himself a true outdoorsman, even if he wasn’t allowed to shoot without his dad looking over his shoulder. Over the next forty-six years, that passion continued to grow-from quail in Texas and duck in Arkansas to Montana deer and Canadian moose.

Gator hunting, however, was new to him. In fact, this cool autumn night in south Florida was his very first stab at conquering the king of Florida’s freshwaters.

Grayson had spent two days exploring the nearby Everglades, which was not at all the dismal swamp he had imagined. To the north, Lake Okeechobee gathered water from rain-filled rivers and streams. Tea-colored water flowed for a hundred miles, south to the tip of mainland Florida and west to the Gulf of Mexico, much as spilled milk spreads across the kitchen table. All across these millions of watery acres grew the tall reeds of saw grass, a rare species of swamp sedge that has flourished here for over four thousand years. This legendary “river of grass” divided the east coast of Florida from the west, an utter North American anomaly where visitors found exotic reptiles, manatees, and rainbow-colored tree snails, roseate spoonbills and ghost orchids, towering royal palms and gumbo-limbos. Here, biblical clouds of mosquitoes could blacken a white canoe within seconds, and oceans of stars filled a night sky untouched by city lights. Grayson had traveled all over the world and never seen any place like it.

“Twelve footer, I’m bettin’,” his gator guide said in an old-Florida drawl. “That’s sumptin’ special.”

There were two boats in their hunting party, each in its own channel, each hunter with his own guide. Grayson’s guide was a retired county sheriff named McFay, who took his gator hunting seriously. He rarely smiled, and when he did, his crooked teeth showed the stains of chewed tobacco. He reminded Grayson of the redneck version of Captain Ahab. No peg leg, but his left ring finger was missing, lost to the snap of a mammoth jaw and three thousand pounds of pressure per square inch. Grayson wondered if it was the same giant that had left an inch-deep bite mark-and a tooth-in the side of the boat.

McFay switched off the electric trolling motor. It was barely big enough to push along two men in a rowboat, but the quiet hum didn’t scare away gators the way gas-powered engines did. McFay was a stickler for details, which was why he insisted on a wooden boat over noisy aluminum. The glare of a spotlight was the one hindrance to the hunt that he could put up with. Not even the craziest of gator cowboys relied solely on moonlight

Grayson released the bale on his rod. He could feel the power, and with good reason. His saltwater fishing gear could have whipped a hammerhead. Rod thick as his thumb. Microfiber line testing 150 pounds. Treble hooks in size 14/0.

“Get good ’n’ ready before you cast,” the guide said. “When there’s a hook up, that line’s gonna pop like a rifle shot.”

“Bring it on,” said Grayson.

Once an endangered species, the Florida alligator had grown in population to a robust million-plus-one for every eighteen people in Florida. Firearms were nonetheless illegal in gator hunting, except for the handheld.44 bang stick that delivered a death blow directly to the brain. Experienced hunters used a variety of weapons to snag their prey, from crossbows to snares, harpoons to slings. McFay was partial to a saltwater rod and reel, which allowed him to catch and release small gators.

Over eleven feet and-bang-lights out.

Grayson cast his line into the darkness. With a sniper’s precision, he placed it just a few yards away from the glowing red dots at the surface. It was dead-center of the narrow channel that cut through razor-sharp reeds of ten-foot saw grass. Feeling for tension, he slowly retrieved the line, not sure what to expect. Clearly, however, that was no largemouth bass peering back at him through the night. Out there-all around him-was an unending fight for survival that bordered on prehistoric. He had witnessed that fight with his own eyes, and in most dramatic fashion, right before sundown. Grayson was visiting Florida on official business, trying to learn more about the latest threat to the Everglades-pythons. In the first five years of the new century, more than a million had been imported by the United States for commercial sale. Nearly half of them went to Miami. An alarming number of those were now thriving in the Everglades, growing to over twenty feet in length and rivaling gators for the top of the food chain.

Grayson felt the hook drag. With the angler’s touch, he worked the line and set it firmly.

A growl in the pitch darkness made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. The noise that followed was like a bus dropping into a lake. Line screamed off the big spinning reel as something truly gigantic thrashed amid the water lettuce, lily pads, and pickerel weed.

“Coming right at the boat!” McFay yelled.

“Under the boat!” Grayson shouted back.

Bubbles and mud boiled up from below as Grayson worked the bent double rod around the bow.

“Out on starboard side!” said McFay.

The mighty tail slammed the wooden hull as the gator motored away. McFay popped from his seat to help his client screw down the drag, and off they went on a gator-powered sleigh ride in a twenty-foot boat.

“Bigger ’n twelve feet!” shouted McFay. “Hold on!”

Grayson’s arm suddenly felt numb. Sweat ran from his brow.

“I…can’t,” he said weakly.

The tingling gave way to a sharp pain in his chest that shot all the way up to his jaw. The fishing rod slipped from his hands and sailed over the bow. Grayson lost his balance and tumbled backward.

“McFay!” he called, but he was beyond his guide’s grasp. In the blink of an eye he went over the side, headfirst into the marsh.

Suddenly, spotlights shone from virtually every direction. It was as if someone had flipped a giant switch, the way the channel lit up. Voices called to him. Grayson was kicking, flailing, and screaming for help, but it was nothing