thick brown mud.
“What next?” Saladin said.
“Blindman’s Bluff. You keep the lens covered till I say ‘Ready.’ I’m going to start moving slowly back toward the bridge. I’ll start a count aloud down from twenty, go about twenty yards and do a face plant. When I get to ‘five,’ you take your hand off. The camera will do a recon. Probably a full rotation before the tank starts after me. Then I’ll say ‘ready’ again and pop up in the middle of the trail for it to find me again.”
“I think this machine is omnidirectional.”
“Meaning it goes both ways? Speak for yourself.”
“Are all American spies as crazy as you?”
“Who said I was a spy?”
“Christ, Harry. Trolls do go both ways. They simply reverse the tread direction. Ready?”
“Go.”
“Twenty…nineteen…eighteen…seventeen…” Harry said, picking and groping his way through the vegetation, headed back to the bridge.
“Five!” Harry said. He dropped on his belly and disappeared in the undergrowth.
Saladin took his hand off the lens. The periscope tube started its rotation above his head.
“Ready!” Harry cried, and Saladin saw Brock now standing in the middle of the trail about a hundred yards before the bridge. Without the slightest hesitation, the Troll simply reversed its treads and started moving back toward Harry and the bridge.
“Watch out!” Saladin yelled.
A second later the lens found Harry. The machine guns opened up half a tick later, kicking up clods of black earth. Harry faked left and crouched, then made a hard move right and stood upright again. The lens paused and instantly swung again toward Harry, who repeated his faking maneuver, this time faking right but moving to his left to add confusion. Harry took some pleasure in how crazy he must be driving this guy at the controls.
The idea seemed to be working, much to Saladin’s amazement. Harry didn’t get hit and the tank kept heading back down the trail ever closer to the bridge.
When Harry got to the foot of the bridge, he stopped and turned around to face the oncoming tank.
“You want me to blind it now?” Saladin cried, watching the camera swing around toward where Harry stood.
“Wait! Not until the instant he locks me up.”
“You’ll get shot!”
“I have a plan for that,” Harry said. He didn’t need to shout anymore because the Troll was getting so damn close. The lens was coming around, Harry could see it easily now, another fifteen degrees ought to put him in camera range.
“Say when,” Saladin said nervously, his hand hovering over the bug-eye.
The tank was maybe ten feet from Harry, who stood with one foot on the bridge. The Troll’s beanstalk camera and the silent guns were swinging toward him. Harry stood stock still, smiling at Saladin. If Brock was nervous, Hassan thought, he was doing a very good job of hiding it.
Five feet to go and Harry was still alive and on his feet. The lens was almost on him. It had to be.
Four feet.
Three.
“Now!” Harry said, and Saladin clamped his hand down over the bug-eye.
“Get out of the bloody way!” Saladin said. The Troll was about to run Harry down.
“Clear the lens!” Harry said.
In the same instant that Saladin removed his hand, Harry smiled into the camera, then dove headfirst to the ground, directly in the path of the oncoming tank.
“Harry!” Saladin shouted. But Harry was gone, disappearing beneath the tank.
Face buried in muck, Harry had no choice but to hold his breath as the Troll rolled over him. He flattened himself, arms clenched at his sides, the clanking treads missing him by less than a foot on either side. The width was okay, but the ground clearance underneath? A low-slung oil sump or protrusions he hadn’t counted on? Shit. He closed his eyes and waited. It was only a few seconds. But time is so relative when a tank is passing over your head.
Finally, the tank cleared. The Troll, with Saladin on the rear, rolled across the bridge. It seemed happy to be going home.
“Harry! You okay?”
Saladin saw Brock getting to his feet, wiping the thick mask of brown mud from his eyes, at the same time sprinting in pursuit of the tank. Saladin stuck his hand out.
Harry caught it, grabbed a rail, hauled himself aboard.
“Congratulations, Harry,” Saladin said as they both huddled around the base of the periscope, preparing to face the enemy once more. “Credit where it’s due.”
“Yeah, well,” Harry said, “I’m a professional. Do not try this at home.”
44
KEY WEST
L ucky old sun was hanging in there, low in the evening sky. Franklin W. Dixon walked over to his hotel room’s seaward window, put his hands on the sill, and took a bite of cool, wet air. The brine was sharp in his nostrils. He still hadn’t grown accustomed to the tang in the air. Not that he minded it. He could see how a man could grow to love living hard by water. One of those little houses on stilts he’d seen back in the mangrove swamps, a rowboat tied to the front porch.
He looked and looked at his view. He could hardly believe it. His hotel was the cheapest Daisy had been able to find for him, but it was smack dab on the water. It would have been quiet and peaceful, too, if not for that big neon sign that hung outside above his window.
The Green Pelican. Every few seconds, the giant bird buzzed and flapped his illuminated wings and flooded his room with watery green light. Snap, crackle, and pop went the neon buzzard, three seconds on, three seconds off, all night long.
If Key West were not some fancy resort town, you’d call his hotel a flophouse. But, from his small corner room on the top floor of the Green Pelican, he could see that picture postcard harbor spread out below. There were some small islands beyond the harbor. They were covered with pine trees and dotted with tall radio antennas, red lights up top blinking against the dark purple clouds, low on the horizon.
Every kind of motorboat and sailboat was criss-crossing the choppy water. There was a tall ship, a schooner maybe, full of party folks, whooping it up. She was heeled over and sailing right by his hotel. Only a hundred yards away! Her sails, like the sea, looked bathed in liquid copper.
The big old schooner sailed by so close he felt like he could reach out and touch her. There was music aboard, Jimmy Buffett and it rode in through his windows from across the narrow stretch of water. Franklin tapped his boot heel to the tune and said to himself, Look who wound up in Margaritaville!
Funny thing was, it was just like he’d always pictured it to be when he heard that song the first few times. Most things, in his experience, were not at all like what you pictured.
From another window, directly beneath the Green Pelican, he could look straight up colorful Duval Street. Swarms of folks were filling the sidewalks, busy buying doodads, gewgaws, and T-shirts; people hitting the bars and burger joints. Sunset was a busy time here in Key West, he figured. Well, it was sure pretty.
Dixon snapped on the television and leaned back in the wicker rocking chair. He stretched his boots out on a thin, rosy-colored carpet that smelled of tobacco and spilled whiskey. He was still stiff from sitting in the folding chair all day at the conference. Long day, but he was glad he’d come. Tomorrow, he’d say what he had to say and then he’d head back home.
There was a lot of stuff about Mexico on the news, nothing he didn’t already know. If there was any good news to be had, it was that folks up in Washington were starting to take the border crisis more seriously. Two
