And Jarvis knew that if they did, he would come to the same bloody end as his cousin Udonis and those men out of Point Hope he’d hired to bring him away safe.
Jarvis glanced over at the left side of the channel, where a forest of mangrove trees had crept toward the water’s marshy bank, their air roots groping out over the mud and rushes like slender, covetous feelers. Though the helicopter was not yet in sight, he could tell it was close upon him from the loud knocking of its blades, and didn’t need to check the GPS box on the motorboat’s control console to know there was a long way to travel before he reached the inlet. Probably his bow lights would be enough to guide him — bright new kryptons, they were, he’d received that much good treatment from the bloodsucking waterfront leach in exchange for emptying his wallet — and Jarvis supposed he could have found his course through the river’s many twistings and turnings by second nature after having lived his whole thirty-five years on earth near its shores. But say he reached the Serpent’s Mouth before daybreak? What lay ahead of him then? A journey of many miles around the cape, with a chance he would be coming into Cedros Bay against the tidal current, all depending how fast he could navigate.
Could be it would have been none the worse if sweet Nan hadn’t given him a heads-up and he’d stayed put, just waited for the Sunglasses to come for him. Could be. But why bother his mind with second guesses, eh? There were times when you had to make your choice and to stick to it whatever the outcome.
Jarvis darted along the curving waterway, his bow high, heavy sheets of spray lashing against the outboard’s windscreen as he breasted the surface. Still he was unable to leave the noise of the chopper behind… indeed the sound of its blades seemed closer than before. Holding steady as he could, he once again flicked a glance over his shoulder toward the south bank.
That was when he got his first fearful look at it, a sleek black shadow which might have blended seamlessly into the night except for the tiny red and blue pricks of the running lights on its sides and tail. The helicopter whirred in over the mangroves he’d just left behind, a spotlight in its nose washing the treetops in sudden brilliance. Jarvis saw them churn from its rapid descent, their interwoven branches beaten into wild contortions by the downdraft of its rotors.
The long shaft of the beam sliced ahead of the oncoming bird, roved over the trees and across the reeds to the water. It made a quick sweep over and past Jarvis, and then reversed direction and locked on his speeding craft.
Jarvis kept his eyes raised for only a moment before he brought them back to his windscreen, blinking as much from fear and agitation as the somehow otherworldly glare. His hands clenched around the butterfly wheel, he shot into high gear and poured on speed, pushing the outboard to its max, holding onto that wheel, feeling its jerky resistance and holding on tight, certain the wheel would tear free of his grip if he loosened it the slightest bit, spin right out of his fingers and send the boat careening onto its side.
The helicopter attached its trajectory to him even as he struggled to retain control. Cutting across the shoreline to the river, it veered sharply west and then swooped down low at Jarvis’s back, came down in pursuit like an enormous predatory nighthawk, the fixed, fierce eye of its spotlight shafting him with brightness. And the
And then, out of that clamor, a voice from the bird’s public address system:
Jarvis raced around a looping bend in the channel, hoping to buy whatever thin slice of time he could, aware that separating himself from the helicopter would be almost impossible.
He felt no surprise when it stuck to his tail as he took the turn, then gained on him, pulling practically overhead, its spot blazing down like the noonday sun.
Jarvis squinted, trapped in the lights, struggling to stay his course while barely able to see what lay ahead. Cooperation, no harm, was that what they’d told Udonis and the rest when they caught them? As if the Sunglasses would find someone like him worthy of their attention, bother to dig up his name, ask his whereabouts of every acquaintance whose path he might have crossed lately, and then send a helicopter into the air after him — a search helicopter in the hours between midnight and dawn — without harmful intent. And was there any chance they had sent the bird up alone?
No, no, Jarvis thought. The Sunglasses, they did not operate so. Others from the fleet would be headed his way, he knew. Closing in at that very moment, launched off their pads or turned from patrols elsewhere on the peninsula, all of them summoned over their radios by the helicopter that had picked him up. And while no proof had ever been given to him, he’d heard talk among the employees that they carried electronic eyes that could penetrate the darkness, guide them straight to him in the night, make an image of a man by reading the heat that came off his body.
Jarvis again considered those words with a black and stinging sort of amusement — and all in an instant had an idea. Perhaps it wasn’t so bad that they expected him to give up trying to scram with a simple, trusting smile on his face. Jarvis Lenard’s mother hadn’t raised any fools, no she hadn’t. But if the Sunglasses were expecting to find one tonight, he would be right glad to oblige and give them a peek at what they wanted.
A peek and nothing more, though.
His hand on the shift, Jarvis throttled back hard, cutting the engine with a jolt that nearly sent him overboard. He held onto the wheel, swaying to and fro, afraid the lightweight boat would capsize from its abrupt power- down.
The helicopter, meanwhile, came gliding straight on from behind and pulled to a hover not thirty feet above his head, hanging there almost like a toy dangled on a string, its blades churning the water to make the boat pitch even more violently. A hand over his eyes to shield them from the aircraft’s bright light and blasting wind, Jarvis craned his head back and saw two helmeted crewmen behind its bubble window.
Bathed in the unremitting brightness of the spots, Jarvis finally had to break into a grin. He could not help himself, ah no, not after having heard that voice speak the word
Jarvis saw a hatch open in the belly of the chopper, watched the basket begin to descend at the end of its line, took a very deep breath, and held it.
Then, his lungs filled to capacity with oxygen, he tore his knitted dread bag from his head, cast it into the wind of the blades, and plunged headlong over the side of the boat into the river.
Jean Luc watched Tolland Eckers emerge from the field office and knew he was about to receive word that wasn’t good. The security man’s stiffly erect walk and hiked up shoulders said it all; he seemed to be overcompensating for the urge to hang his head as he approached.
“I’ve got that update you ordered from Team Gray-wolf, sir,” Eckers said, his voice raised above the thrum of the oil pumps. “It’s disappointing, but their search operation is still at an early stage.”
Jean Luc leaned back against the Range Rover, holding the protective helmet he’d worn for his inspection at his side. Besides the doffed hard hat with its goggle and earmuff attachments, he had on jeans, tan mocs, and an open-collared indigo linen shirt that was perhaps a half shade darker than the strikingly blue eyes that regarded Eckers from under his tanned brow.
“I want the simple details, Toll,” he said.
“Would you prefer hearing them now or on the drive back—?”
“Start right here,” Jean Luc said. “Just be kind enough to spare me the excuses.”
Eckers took a cautious look around from behind his Ray-Bans while a truck rumbled slowly past on the dirt road to their left, ferrying a group of roughnecks toward the wells.
“The man in that boat’s been positively identified as our groundskeeper,” he said after a moment. “It took a
