courts sleeping at the bath and tennis club, putting-green lawns and candy-striped cabanas and swimming pools-all sleeping, as if everything had been placed under a pleasant narcoleptic spell.
Clark Sommers spoke in a steady drone as they rode alongside the glittering, bluish green ocean. “Real estate dealings here on South Ocean aren't exactly handled by Century 21. Most sales are actually arranged by Sotheby's, the big antiques outfit. Owners in Palm Beach, they think of their homes as valuable works of art. Maybe you can see why.”
“Reminds me of my neighborhood in New York,” Carroll said.
Agent Sitts pointed from the backseat suddenly, his long, well-tanned arm between Carroll and Sommers. “That's our people up ahead there, Clark.”
At one of the quiet intersections lined with palm trees and sea-grape, six nondescript blue-and-green sedans were gathered together. The cars were parked in clear sight. Several of the FBI men were checking pump-action shotguns and Magnums right out in the street.
“There goes the neighborhood,” Carroll muttered. “I hope Sotheby's is not showing any houses real early this morning.”
“Don't be fooled by the suburban ambiance,” Clark Sommers said. “The Mizeners, the real big shots, they don't live around here. This is Palms ghetto. Drug dealers and South American pimps. These people here are rich, but they're all street scum.”
Arch Carroll shrugged and began to check his own gun. He was wondering more than ever how a Florida hood would know about Green Band the day before it happened. Could that mean a connection with South American terrorists? Which ones? The Cubans? If the Cubans were involved, he could already foresee some impenetrable network of clues that could lead all the way back to Fidel himself, which wasn't a prospect he liked to consider. Castro had always managed to stay aloof from conspiracies, at least the ones that involved his name.
Sommers suddenly snatched the car's microphone. “All units! We will proceed with extreme caution up South Ocean now. Watch yourselves. These people are probably heavily armed.”
The seven-vehicle caravan began to drift slowly up South Ocean Boulevard. Carroll glanced at the peaceful neighborhood. Every house was set back from the street, isolated by closely cropped, bright green lawns that looked as if they'd been spray-painted by gangs of meticulous handymen.
A
One of the FBI men frantically signaled for him to keep going.
“That's it. Number six forty,” Sommers said. “That's where our friend Diego Alvarez lives.”
Carroll tucked the loaded Browning back into his shoulder holster. His stomach was rocking and rolling, and the speed was lighting fires throughout his nervous system.
The FBI cars turned single file down an impressive side street of South Palm. They lined up in front of two Spanish-style estates.
Car doors clicked open and shut very quietly.
Carroll slipped into step with a dozen or so gray-suited FBI agents. They trotted back toward the Alvarez place.
“Remember what I said back at the airport, Mr. Carroll. I give all the orders, okay? I hope the capture of this guy's going to help you get what you want, but don't forget who's running the show, okay?”
“I remember.”
Handguns and shotguns caught the hard, bright glint of the early morning Florida sun. Carroll listened to bolt-action apparatus slamming into ready. The FBI agents looked like young professional athletes as they fanned out in the manner of a marathon team.
Combat was full of visual paradox.
Carroll could see peaceful gulls rising from the sea, lazily sliding west to check the sunrise party at the Alvarez house. Being a seagull seemed like a pretty good idea right now, but he had never been much for vocational planning.
The ocean wind was pleasantly warm. It carried a curious scent of salty fish and orange blossoms. The sun was already intense, too blinding to look at without shading your eyes with your hand.
“Elegant house Diego has for himself. Run about two, two point five million with Sotheby's. When I give the signal we're going to put men in every wing of the villa. We'll shoot anything that moves to threaten any of our lives.”
Arch Carroll remained silent. These were Sommers's men. This was his little planet, where he reigned supreme. Carroll looked at the FBI man for a moment, then took out his handgun again. He pointed the massive black barrel upward as a safety precaution. As he knelt in a sniper shooter's crouch, the heavy wooden door of the Alvarez house flew open and banged hard against the pink stucco front wall.
“What the fuck?” Clark Sommers whispered loudly.
First a blowsy white-haired woman in a tattered Maranca shirt stumbled outside. Close behind came a dark, well-built man, bare-chested, in white flare-bottomed trousers. All across the front lawn automatics and revolvers clicked off their safeties.
Diego Alvarez began to scream at the FBI men. “You motherfuckers! I shoot this old lady, man. She jus' innocent old lady. My fuckin' cook, man. Put down all those motherfucker guns!”
Sommers became deathly quiet. His beach-hero tan seemed to be fading fast. The surprised expression on his face was that of a man who saw his private domain slipping out from under his control.
Carroll studied the south Florida drug dealer. The dark eyes of the man were frantic, desperate. There were flecks of saliva at the corners of his mouth. He was well muscled, like a pro fighter. Carroll turned to Sommers and said, “We have to take him. No matter what, we have to take him. You understand that?”
Sommers remained deathly quiet. He didn't even look at Carroll.
“We
Sommers glanced quickly at Carroll. His look said “You're a New York City cop; this is my backyard, we do things my way down here.” Carroll had a vision of Alvarez escaping, and it was an exasperating vision. That was a possibility he had to prevent. Sommers didn't know what was involved here. The FBI was concerned about the dope bust, nothing more.
Diego Alvarez was awkwardly pulling the enormously fat cook toward a red Cadillac parked outside the garage. The cook's eyes were as wide and as round as two saucers.
Carroll tried to sort through the surprise and sudden, chaotic confusion of the moment. He controlled his breathing the way he was taught during his combat days in Southeast Asia. It helped him regain his focus.
One possible solution came to mind.
He'd actually seen a New York detective demonstrate this particular approach during a robbery in progress in Manhattan 's Greenwich Village.
Carroll waited for Alvarez to eye-check the FBI agents on the far left. As he did so, Carroll smoothly slid behind a flower-decked wall that concealed him from the drug dealer. He waited a few seconds to see if he'd been missed, then continued hustling down behind the flowered wall, back through the side yard between Alvarez's house and the one next door.
A green watering hose snaked up the walkway to a swimming pool with a floating rubber horse that looked ludicrous to Carroll at that moment. He broke into a run, stopping only when he was back out on the street where the FBI team had parked their cars.
A very disturbing thought entered his mind as he climbed into Sommers's Grand Prix.
He never would have done this if Nora were still alive… Never in a thousand years would he have tried this stunt.
Even as the thought cut deeply, Arch Carroll eased the FBI sedan to the corner, where he made a sweeping right turn, then a quick left onto South Ocean.
A block ahead he saw Diego Alvarez backing into the Cadillac. He was still holding the white-haired cook and screaming wildly at the FBI men, his words lost now in the sea breeze.
Carroll kicked down hard on the accelerator. The sedan twitched from first into third gear. The car licked forward with a screech from the expensive radial tires put on for precisely this kind of breakneck situation.
Don't think about this. Get it over with now.
His gun lay on the car seat beside him.
The speedometer read thirty, forty, fifty. Then the front wheels struck the concrete curb loudly with a jolting crunch. The car's front end leaped at least three feet in the air. All four wheels were off the ground, and the vehicle moved in slow motion, the speed at which a car flies.
Carroll double-pumped the sedan's brakes at the last possible moment.
“
“Holy
Diego Alvarez fired three wild shots at the careening Pontiac. The sedan's windshield shattered, spitting glass fragments into Carroll's face.
The car was back on all four wheels again, bouncing over the lawn and over a red-tiled walkway. Suddenly it was skidding helplessly on the turf.
Carroll's foot stomped down full force against the gas pedal again. Just before contact, he tucked his head down. He held the steering wheel in a viselike grip, held on as tightly as he possibly could.
The bounding FBI car crashed broadside into Diego Alvarez's cherry-red Cadillac. The convertible crumpled. It slid sideways like a hockey puck floating on ice and smashed into the side of the garage.
Half a dozen FBI officers were instantly sprinting across the front lawn. They got there before the two interlocking cars had stopped moving.
Revolvers, riot shotguns, and M-16 rifles were thrust inside the Cadillac's open front windows.
“Don't move, Alvarez. Don't move an inch!” an FBI man screamed. “I said
Carroll grunted, then pushed himself painfully out of the wrecked Pontiac. He roared out Diego Alvarez's name, surprised by his own intensity. He was still yelling when he grabbed the shirtless drug dealer out of the hands of the FBI agents, who stared at him with astonishment.
“Arch Carroll, State Department Antiterrorist Division! You have
Diego Alvarez said, “Fuck you!” and spat into Carroll's face.
Carroll shuffled a little to his left, then hit the drug dealer with a sharp right hand delivered to the mouth. Alvarez fell to the ground, already out cold.
“Yeah, fuck you, too!” said the former Bronx street kid still lurking somewhere inside Carroll. He wiped the dope dealer's saliva from his cheek.
