Doc - 19 - Chasing Midnight Page 9

  Scribbling on a bar napkin, Tomlinson had translated the Latin as I took my seat: Defenders of the Sturgeon.

  Trying to be cordial, I’d responded, “Well, if there’s one fish in the world that needs protecting, it’s the beluga.”

  Even so, I had given my friend an impatient look. What were anti-caviar crusaders doing at a reception featuring twenty-some different types of caviar now being served from iced tureens?

  In reply, I had grabbed the pen and scribbled a note of my own: They’re trouble. You’re worse.

  Which had caused Tomlinson, who looked Bogart-like in his tropical tuxedo, to nod in cheerful agreement. But he had also flashed me a private look that was more serious. It’s the way close friends communicate, of course. I had seen the look before, yet the meanings varied. Tomlinson was warning me about something—in hindsight, warning me that Densler and her group were party crashers and looking for trouble. He was telling me to pay attention, stay on my toes.

  I hadn’t been there long enough to figure out the truth, so I interpreted a different meaning. More commonly, it is his way of notifying me that he isn’t as drunk as he seems. That he is playing his stoned-hipster role for a reason. Tomlinson is a character, yes, but he can also slip into a Tomlinson caricature when it suits his needs—something that few of our neighbors at Dinkin’s Bay suspect because it’s so damn hard to tell the difference.

  My instinctive wariness of Densler was more deserved than I’d realized. That was true of Markus Kahn as well.

  Kahn was mid-twenties, average height and slim—not lean. There’s a difference. He had the soft look of a shut-in or a clerk at an all-night college library, despite his disheveled red hair and surfer’s tan.

  Third Planet members patrolled the Caspian Sea by boat, Tomlinson had told me.

  Thinking about it now, Kahn’s behavior had signaled several danger signs. The most obvious: he had isolated himself from our table by burying his face in an iPad video game, which he played obsessively. Not unusual, maybe, for a twenty-some-year-old tech nerd—but at a caviar reception?

  When I snuck a look at the iPad, Kahn shielded the screen, but not before I saw the game he was playing. He was immersed in a murderous virtual world, firing weapons at an enemy who spilled realistic blood and guts. It was one of those electronic vortex fantasies that I’d read about but, of course, had never tried. The game rewarded wistful killers with vicarious thrills—all from the safety of their own imaginations.

  Kahn also checked and rechecked his watch, which seemed more sinister now than it did then. Had he been thinking about a detonator positioned to take out the island’s power?

  Sometimes he looked up from his iPad long enough to make eye contact with a guy standing near the door—a kindred video game wizard, from the way the guy hunched over the screen of his cell phone. Tall man, late twenties, his gaunt face an illustration of queasy contempt whenever he focused on someone who was eating caviar.

  Like Kahn, he had worn a black crewneck shirt with the yellow Third Planet logo on the pocket: the Earth shielded by a death’s-head skull. The logo was similar to the one used by the Sea Shepherds.

  Densler had struck me as easier to read, but that was another misjudgment. She was long-legged and aloof in designer jeans and a baggy peasant’s blouse. Lots of beads and crystals and bracelets, and a bright green ribbon in her honey brown hair. I was greeted with an aggressive handshake and withering eye contact. Jaundiced by my first impression, I guessed she was one of those women who despised her own wealthy antecedents but wouldn’t have forfeited the perks she’d inherited for anything in the world.

  After a few more minutes, I came to the conclusion that Densler was a type. She was an in-your-face crusader, so convinced of her righteousness that it forbade rational discussion and excused her own rude behavior.

  In Densler’s mind, anyway.

  My opinion of the woman would change as the night progressed—and not for the better.

  “Have you met the millionaire Nazi who’s paying for all this?” Densler asked Tomlinson, as she worked on her second vodka and rocks. “I haven’t yet. I hear that he’s tall and good-looking—not that I care.”

  Tomlinson read the woman’s denial accurately, I think, because he replied, “Viktor’s about my height, looks like a movie star and is very smooth. I think you two might hit it off—in a dominatrix-dominator sort of way.”

  Densler tried too hard to appear offended, saying, “Hah! I can’t wait to talk to him with our video cameras going. Viktor Kazlov might pretend he’s interested in saving the beluga, but that’s bullshit. He’s only interested in getting a bigger share of the caviar market than his gangster friends. And them, my God, they’re three of the world’s biggest eco-criminals.”

  The woman, at least, had done her homework on Kazlov, Armanie, Talas and Bohai. Then she revealed her organization’s motives by saying, “For years, we’ve been trying to get those four in the same room so we can confront them. The Toxic Rich, if ever the term applied. Now here we are, finally, all in the same place.”

  The woman made a face and then amended. “If Kazlov ever shows up, anyway.”

  From the first, I’d suspected the group was on the island without permission, but now it was confirmed. I should have left, but Densler was so neurotic and venomous that I stayed for the same clinical reasons I would have stayed to observe scorpions fighting or a rabid raccoon. Of course, Tomlinson was happy to play along because the woman was physically attractive, which even I had to admit. But it was in a counterculture Barbie doll sort of way. So the two of them chatted for a while, growing more comfortable as they realized they shared similar politics.

  Then Tomlinson’s stock rocketed when the woman pretended not to know my friend had authored the cult bestseller One Fathom Above Sea Level. Densler had read it many times—loved the insights, the spiritual truths, which caused her to admit, “I feel like we’re both old souls. Two spirits who haven’t seen each other in a thousand years.”

  When the old-soul boat bum and I exchanged looks, his adolescent grin read Guess who’s getting lucky tonight! The enthusiasm was genuine, but I knew that it was also part of his stoned-hipster act.

  I had planned to get the man alone later and find out if he’d known in advance about Third Planet’s intrusion. Until then, though, I decided to just sit there, keep my mouth shut and listen.

  Unfortunately, that’s not the way the night worked out.

  Half a vodka later, Densler was feeling comfortable enough to slap the table and explain, “The Russian wouldn’t give us permission to monitor his little caviar lovefest. So what did you expect us to do? Sit back and do nothing while they cut up the Caspian Sea like a goddamn pie?”

  The woman was an interesting example of passive-aggressive disorder, but it wasn’t reason enough to sit with her. Now my goofball pal, by inviting me to the table, had made us both guilty through association. Finally, I was perturbed enough to ask him, “Did you know these people were going to show up? When Kazlov finds out, he’ll call the police, then probably throw us off the island, too. I wouldn’t blame him.”

  Tomlinson shook his head and kept his voice low. “Viktor walked out about twenty minutes ago. They got here just after he left.”

  Densler ignored us as she surveyed the room, “Judging from his oil gangster buddies, I expected Kazlov to be another overweight, rich slob. Oil—that’s all this country cares about. That’s probably why the feds gave Kazlov the permits he needed to experiment on Gulf sturgeon. Has anyone even bothered to ask how he got the permits?”

  I wasn’t going to share what I knew, but I had bothered to ask. I was interested because I knew enough about the procedures to understand that the paperwork had to have been a nightmare. In that way, at least, Kazlov and I had found some common ground during our short talk that afternoon.

  When it comes to an endangered species, the federal and international governing agencies are multilayered, inflexible and complex. To do it prope
rly, Kazlov would have had to file applications with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species—CITES—the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Wildlife, as well as the Florida Department of Agriculture, none of which are known for having a devil-may-care attitude toward their repetitive forms and pointless details.

  Kazlov, though, had found a “hobbyist” loophole that, in fact, I have used myself when collecting specimens. The gap in the regulations was created for aquarists, amateur herpetologists and other hobbyists whose interests in rare animals and plants is on a scale so minuscule that it’s considered benign. So Kazlov had used it to his benefit to continue his research and to keep fish for display. Who is to say a tropical hobbyist must chose a two-inch angelfish for his aquarium rather than a hundred-pound Gulf sturgeon?

  “A stack of papers this high,” Kazlov had told me in his heavy accent, holding his hand at eye level. “This is how many forms they tell me we must complete. And why? To move, only for a few days, two sturgeon from our aquaculture facility in the Yucatán. Fish that were very common here only sixty years ago!”

  I doubted Kazlov’s claim that the sturgeon he had brought to Vanderbilt Island possessed exactly the same DNA as native Gulf sturgeon, but I wasn’t going to share that information with the Third Planet people, either.

  Densler went on: “Big oil, big business and our own corrupt federal government: a perfect combination. Kazlov paid off someone. Wild sturgeon in pens—it makes me want to vomit! It’s as bad as that freak show across the bay—the gambling casino with the trained dolphins. It’s the fish that should be set free and these fat fucks who should be locked up.”

  Markus Kahn, lost in his video game, looked up and said, “Maybe it’ll happen,” then gave Densler a warning glare. The woman was talking too much, and Kahn didn’t like it.

  But Densler wasn’t done. Her attention swung to me for the first and only time. “I find it strange that someone like T”—she motioned toward Tomlinson—“a spiritually grounded person, would hang out with someone like you.”

  I looked at Tomlinson as I replied, “Maybe a little too strange, as of tonight.”

  Densler took that as an affront because she then asked, “Are you actually a marine biologist?”

  I nodded.

  “Then I’m curious. Are you the sort of biologist who sells his expert opinion to the highest bidder like most in your field? Or are you a legitimate scientist? I’ve met very few of those.”

  I said, “I’m surprised you’ve met even one.”

  I glanced at the door, wondering, Where the hell is Kazlov? I’d had enough.

  Because one of us would soon be leaving, I turned my chair to face her. “Do you know why I’m surprised? Because we avoid people like you.”

  The woman’s face began to color as I continued, “We don’t waste time on phony conservationists. Or the frauds who condemn research that doesn’t mesh with their own biases. Or that won’t scare their members into donating more money. Those are the same groups who damage the movement’s integrity by manipulating data to fit their own agendas—or by pulling ridiculous publicity stunts to grab headlines. PETA is the saddest example of a group that discredits its own cause. Why would a legitimate biologist waste his time?”

  Kahn slid his iPad onto the table as if to challenge me. He had dull green eyes, his expression intense either because of what I’d said or because he was still fired up by the violent virtual world he had just exited.

  Consciously or unconsciously, Densler picked up a fork and gripped it like a knife as she leaned toward me. “If you’re talking about Third Planet, you don’t have the brains to understand what we do. You’re just another oversized fascist who thinks man is somehow the goddamn king of this planet.”

  I was replying “I didn’t mention your organization’s name, you made the association—” when Tomlinson interceded by thrusting his arms over the table to separate us, then made a calming motion with his hands.

  Trying to lighten the mood, he said, “Winnie, don’t take it personally. Dr. Ford usually makes up for his lack of social skills by keeping his mouth shut. At least you got him to open up a little, which says a lot about your passion.”

  Densler glowered at me as she warned Tomlinson, “I hate the name Winnie. Just because I liked your little book doesn’t mean you can call me Winnie. No one knows me well enough.”

  Just then, Kahn leaned over and whispered something in the woman’s ear. It might have been something threatening, because Densler’s face suddenly paled and she retreated into the silence of a fresh vodka.

  My eyes moved from Densler to Kahn to the guy standing near the door, aware that all three had just been reunited by some unspoken motive—or fear. It was then that I got a look at the two additional members of the group. I saw them through the bar’s main window: men, late twenties, identical twins, judging from their girlish blond hair and chubby faces. They were visible for only a few seconds, walking north toward the marina, one of them carrying a brightly colored computer bag. The Third Planet member standing at the door nodded to them as they passed, his face expressionless. Then he caught Kahn’s eye and nodded again.

  At the time, I perceived nothing sinister in the exchange. Densler, Kahn—the entire group—struck me as trivial people whose egos hungered for a celebrity status that their small talents could not earn. They were unhappy people—as the Michael Moores of the world invariably are—and sitting among them had caused me to feel a shabbiness that didn’t match my mood.

  What was to be gained by watching the inevitable confrontation when Kazlov reappeared and ordered them off the island? There would be shouting, threats and more pious spouting of the Third Planet party line.

  It was a waste of time. I scooted my chair away from the table and stood there, waiting for Tomlinson.

  Finally, my pal noticed I was standing. When he got up, I shook hands as if we were strangers, saying, “Nice meeting you, Professor Tomlinson. Hope I didn’t spoil your evening.”

  Tomlinson replied, “Then we must have a serious talk about it later, Dr. Ford. Around midnight, possibly?” which was all he could tell me before slipping back into his stoned-hipster disguise. “We’ll smoke a joint. Get crazy.”

  Now, as I sat aboard No Más, measuring out liquids, pouring small amounts into jars, the man’s reference to midnight had far more significance. And he had no doubt sent other cloaked messages as well. But if Tomlinson had sensed danger, why hadn’t he taken me aside and warned me? It would have been easy enough to excuse himself from the table for a few minutes or he could have followed me to the marina.

  The answer was, he would have warned me if he’d anticipated real trouble. Particularly if he’d known that people might be shot and killed.

  There was another, disturbing possibility, though: what if Tomlinson had warned me and I’d somehow missed it?

  What if? It is among the most popular games played by our species. The wistful scenarios form our favorite fictions—happy endings that give us hope or burden us with guilt and regret.

  I played the game as I finished mixing liquids, and screwed the lids tight on the jars. What if Kahn and Densler, and fellow members of 3P2, were behind this insanity? It meant that I had misread them badly—even after seeing so damn many red flags. But who in their right mind would suspect a group of highly educated people—however abrasive and neurotic—of being violent sociopaths?

  That’s another popular fiction: the belief that mass murderers behave differently than the rest of us. Some expert, some perceptive neighbor, should have recognized the killer’s aberrant behavior and stopped him in advance of his bloody deed. Right?

  The question is motivated by our deepest fears and our most optimistic hopes: they are different from us, right? They must be different from us. Right?

  A single mocking word blurs the demarcation but also addresses both poles of the question, our hopes and our fears.

  The double-edged answer is, Right.

  10
/>
  Before exiting the cabin of Tomlinson’s boat, I gathered my gear, extinguished the lamp and ducked outside onto the afterdeck. The thermal monocular clipped onto a headband, which took only a few seconds to adjust. Soon I was using the TAM-14 to search for body heat, near and far, and also trying to mesh my experience in the bar with the disturbing video I’d just seen.

  Usually, a lapse in concentration is also a lapse in judgment. Maybe that’s why I didn’t spot the man who was watching me through a rifle scope, although he would make his presence known soon enough.

  To my right, mangroves were a reef of gray trees, leaves still aglow, warm from the afternoon sun. Among the limbs were sporadic coals of fluorescence—roosting birds. If Vladimir had been executed, his body, even if he was dead, should have produced a heat signature, too. But I found none.

  Surprising. It was unlikely anyone would have moved a man his size—not from swamp that dense. But I also knew that deciphering the subtleties of thermal imaging takes time. I’d had the unit only a couple of days, so I might be misreading what I was seeing.

  Atop the TAM-14 unit were a series of pressure switches. I touched magnification as I scanned the mangroves again, then turned my attention to the island.

  That’s when I spotted the guy who came way too close to killing me a few seconds later.

  More than a hundred yards away, a lone figure was standing in the shadows of a ficus tree. A man, as evidenced by the absence of breast tissue. A dot of oscillating heat told me he was smoking a cigarette. He was on the north end of Vanderbilt Island where, I had been told, the Iranian, Abdul Armanie, had rented a large house.

  I panned the monocular to the south.

  Darius Talas, from Turkmenia, had taken a beach house near the southernmost point, at the end of a walkway that islanders called the Pink Path. Because of a few scattered cottages near the marina, though, Talas’s portion of the island was screened from my view.