Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck

Antarctica, Present Day
In the final seconds before impact, John "Buck" Banyon, arguably one of the wealthiest hotel owners in North America, released the U-shaped steering column. He folded his large arms over his chest, obscuring the hand-stitched, gold lettering across a bomber jacket that simply read "Buck." He knew he was as good as dead as soon as the engine restart had failed and all the other backup systems which had at first gone crazy winked out one by one. There was no time now for another restart and bailing out was a joke in this weather. He snorted at the white-filled cockpit screen and whispered a final "fuck it," as the altimeter told him the ground was just about in his face.
Banyon had invited his senior executive team and their wives or lovers on a reward-for-service flight in his private jet, the Perseus--a one-day flight out of southern Australia over the Antarctic. He had made the trip several times alone and this time he hoped to show his young Turks that there was more to Buck Banyon than making money and eighteen-hour days. There was such rare and exotic beauty here; you could keep your wildlife colonies--he could see a fucking penguin at the zoo any day. But down here he had seen things only a handful of people on earth had witnessed: rare green sunsets where the sun hovered at the horizon for hours and a band of emerald flashed out between ice and sky; floating ice mountains caused by the stillness of the air creating the mirage of an ice peak which seemed to lift off and hover hundreds of feet above the ground.
He should have known better; you fall in love with the Antarctic and she'll hurt you. Buck had forgotten one thing; she was as beautiful as she was unpredictable. Even though he had checked the meteorology ser vice before leaving, the icy continent had surprised him with a monstrous katabatic flow jump. She hid them behind mountains and deep crevices; and then when you were close enough she revealed them in all their ferocious power--mile-high walls of snow and wind and fury that climbed rapidly over a rise in the landscape.
Light that was once so clean and clear you could see for hundreds of miles in all directions suddenly became confused and scattered by rushing snow and ice. The result was a freezing whiteout where the sky and the ground became one and there was no more horizon. In seconds, temperatures dropped by a hundred degrees and winds jumped by that amount again. A rule book didn't exist for what to do when you were caught within one; you just avoided them--and once inside them, a plane just ceased to exist.
Buck's ten passengers were not as calm as he was; the cacophony from the main cabin resembled something from one of Dante's stories on the torments of hell. Martinis and cocktails were voided onto the plush velvet seats which the passengers were crushed back into as they felt the combination of velocity and steep descent.
The seventy-foot white dart fell at roughly 500 miles per hour towards the Antarctic ice on a terminal pitch; its small but powerful turbofan jets had ceased to function in the blasting icy air above the blinding white landscape. As it plummeted towards the desolate ice plains below it was all but silent, save for a high-pitched whistling that could have been mistaken for a lost snow petrel calling to its fellow wanderers. This too vanished in the louder scream of the ferocious katabatic storm pummelling the skin of the sleek metal bird.
The initial impact, when it came, was more like the sound of a giant pillow striking an unmade bed than the metallic explosive noise of 30,000 pounds of metal impacting on a hard surface. A funnel-shaped plume of snow and ice was blown a hundred feet into the air, followed by a secondary spout of rock, debris and a hollow boom as the once sleek Challenger jet at last struck solid stone. The plane penetrated the ice surface like a bullet through glass, opening a ragged black hole into a cavern hundreds of feet below. The echoes of the impact reverberated down into the tunnels for miles, bouncing off walls and ceilings as the silent stone caught and then transferred the terrible sounds of the collision.
Silence once more returned to this subterranean world--but only briefly.
The creature lifted itself from the water and sampled the air. The vibrations from the high caverns drew forth a race memory dormant for generations as it dragged itself from its primordial lair in confusion. In its darkened world it had long learned to be silent, but the noises and vibrations from the ceiling caverns excited it and it rushed towards the high caves, making a sound like a river of boiling mud.
It would take hours for it to reach the crash site, but already it could detect the faint smell of molten alloy, fuel and something else--something none of its kind had sensed in many millennia. It moved its great mucous-covered bulk forward quickly, hunger now driving it onwards.
Excerpted from Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck.
Copyright © 2009 by Greig Beck.
Published in September 2010 by St. Martin's Paperbacks.
All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.
(Continues...)

The Stranger You Seek: A Novel by Amanda Kyle Williams

In the sweltering heat of an Atlanta summer, a killer is pushing the city to its breaking point, preying on the unsuspecting, writing taunting letters to the media, promising more death....


My name is Keye Street. First name from my Asian grandfather; my adoptive parents awarded me the second. By trade I am a detective, private, that is, a process server and bail recovery agent. In life, I am a dry alcoholic, a passionate believer in Krystal cheeseburgers and Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and a former behavioral analyst for the FBI. How I ended up here in the South, where I have the distinction of looking like what they still call a damn foreigner in most parts of Georgia and sounding like a hick everywhere else in the world, is a mystery Emily and Howard Street have never fully unraveled for me. I know they had wanted a child so badly they adopted a scrawny Chinese American with questionable genes from an orphanage. My grandparents and guardians had been murdered and my biological parents consisted of two drug addicts and one exotic dancer. I have no memory of them. They took flight shortly after my birth. I can only manage a word or two in Chinese, but my mother, Emily Street, who is as proficient in innuendo as anyone I've ever known, taught me a lot about the subtle and passive-aggressive language of southern women. They had tried for a cute little white kid, but something in my father's past, something they have for my entire life flat-out refused to share with me, got them rejected. It didn't take me long to understand that southerners are deeply secretive.
I embraced the South as a child, loved it passionately and love it still. You learn to forgive it for its narrow mind and growing pains because it has a huge heart. You forgive the stifling summers because spring is lush and pastel sprinkled, because November is astonishing in flame and crimson and gold, because winter is merciful and brief, because corn bread and sweet tea and fried chicken are every bit as vital to a Sunday as getting dressed up for church, and because any southerner worth their salt says please and thank you. It's soft air and summer vines, pine woods and fat homegrown tomatoes. It's pulling the fruit right off a peach tree and letting the juice run down your chin. It's a closeted and profound appreciation for our neighbors in Alabama who bear the brunt of the Bubba jokes. The South gets in your blood and nose and skin bone-deep. I am less a part of the South than it is a part of me. It's a romantic notion, being overcome by geography. But we are all a little starry-eyed down here. We're Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara and Rosa Parks all at once.
My African American brother, Jimmy, whom my parents adopted two years after I moved in, had a different experience entirely. Not being white, we were both subjected to ignorance and stereotyping, but even that seemed to work in my favor and against Jimmy. People were often surprised that I spoke English and charmed that I spoke it with a southern accent. They also assumed my Asian heritage made me above average. I was expected and encouraged to excel. The same people would have crossed the street at night to avoid sharing a sidewalk with my brother, assuming that being both black and male he was also dangerous. He'd picked up our mother's coastal Carolina accent, the type usually reserved for southern whites in a primarily white neighborhood at a time when diversity was not necessarily something to be celebrated. He couldn't seem to find a comfortable slot for himself in any community, and he spent high school applying to West Coast universities and carefully plotting his escape. Jimmy's a planner. And careful with everything. Never screwed up his credit, never got fired, never had addiction issues, and never rode down Fifth Avenue in New York City after a few too many with his head sticking through the sunroof of a limo yelling "Hey, y'all" like I did. Jimmy's the well- behaved child. He now lives in Seattle with his lover, Paul, and not even the promise of Mother's blackberry cobbler is an attractive enough offer to bring him home to Georgia.
How I came to be here this night, edging my way along an old frame porch, double-clutching my 10mm Glock, body pressed flat against the house, peeling paint sticking to the back of my black T-shirt and drifting onto cracked wood, is another story entirely.
I had once been called Special Agent Street. It has a nice ring, doesn't it? I was superbly trained for this kind of work, had done my time in the field before transferring to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) at Quantico as a criminal investigative analyst, a profiler. A few years later, the FBI took away my security pass and my gun, and handed me a separation notice.
"You have the brains and the talent, Dr. Street. You merely lack focus."
I remember thinking at that moment that the only thing I really lacked was a drink, which was, of course, part of the problem.
I was escorted that day to the FBI garage, where my old convertible, a '69 Impala, white-on-white and about half a mile long, was parked at an angle over the line between two spaces. Fire one Special Agent, get back two parking spots. Sweet deal.
Now, four years later, I passed under the curtained front window and congratulated myself on accomplishing this soundlessly. Then the rotting porch creaked. The strobe from a television danced across the windows, volume so low I could barely make it out. I waited, still, listening for any movement inside, then stuck my head round and tried to peek between the curtains. I could see the outline of a man. Whoa! A big outline.
Jobs like this can be tricky. Bail jumpers move fast. You've got to go in when you can and take your chances. No time to learn the neighborhood, the routines, the visitors. I was here without the benefit of surveillance, without backup, going in cold with my heart thundering against my chest and adrenaline surging like water through a fire hose. I could taste it. Almonds and saccharin. I was scared shitless and I liked it.
2
The streetlamps were out, the night draped in billowy white clouds that cast a faint light across the overgrown yard and locked in the heat like a blanket. Atlanta in summer-suffocating and damp. Nerves and humidity sent sweat trickling from my hairline and over my darkened cheekbones. I was grease-painted and dressed for night work, crouching near the front door, searching my black canvas backpack for Tom. Anyway I called it Tom, as in Peeping Tom, a thirty-six-inch fiber optic tube with a miniature screen attached to one end, an electronic eye to the other. Tom takes a lot of the guesswork out of jobs like this. As I twisted and turned the tiny tube under the door, I got a pretty good look at the front room.
The subject, Antonio Johnson, was a repeat violent offender. He'd been out of prison for two months when he robbed a convenience store. I had traced him to Canada three weeks ago and lost him. But his ex-wife was in Atlanta and Johnson had a history of stalking her. She'd been getting hang-ups again. A trace of the calls, with the help of a friend at APD, led to a pay phone in a sleazy motel in Atlanta's crack- infested West End. I found people there who knew Johnson. One of them ratted him out for thirty dollars. He was staying at a place off Jonesboro Road near Boulevard and the federal penitentiary. There even locals check their car doors at stoplights and commuters take the long way around after dark.
I could see him on the three-inch viewer, sitting on a ragged couch, feet on the edge of a wooden utility spool coffee table. He appeared to be alone, a beer in his right hand, his left hand in his lap and partially hidden from view. You hiding something under there, big guy?
Hovering in the damp air around the front porch, just above the sweet, sick scent of trash and empty beer cans, was the aroma of something synthetic like Super Glue and Styrofoam.
I released the safety on the Glock, then tapped on the front door. I was going to use my best woman-in-distress voice, say I needed a phone, say I had a flat, say something, anything, to get the door open. I wasn't sure. I'd learned to improvise since I'd been on my own.
Johnson didn't hesitate. I got a glimpse on my tiny viewer of something coming out of his lap seconds before he blew a hole in the door near my ear the size of a softball. The blast was cannon-loud, splintered the door, and left me light-headed and tumbling off the porch to safer ground.
Another blast. The front windows exploded. Glass flew like shrapnel. I balled up against the side of the porch and felt the sting on my neck and arms and knew I was cut, then rose up enough to get a shot off in the general direction of the front window. I didn't want to shoot him. I merely wanted him to back off a little.
. . . Then silence.
I took the porch steps in a half crouch, made it to the door. Still quiet. I tried reaching through the hole in the door to unlatch it. That's when I heard it, a shotgun, a goddamn pump-action, and if you've ever heard the sound, you'll never forget it-the foregrip sliding back, one shell ejecting, another pushing into the carrier, the bolt closing. It happens in a split second with a good operator, and Johnson had had plenty of practice.
I pressed my back against the house, took a breath, took a moment. A quick reality check is always a good idea in these situations. Did I really want to get killed bringing in this guy? Hell no, I did not, but the adrenal flood of mania this kind of event produces propelled me forward rather than back, which perhaps illustrates most effectively the differences between those of us in this business and the sane population.
Boom! Johnson let the shotgun loose once more. I felt it under my feet, like a fireworks show when the ground shakes. He was probably making his own loads. God only knew what he was firing at me. Another chunk of front door blew out. Then the pop, pop, pop, pop of an automatic weapon.
On three, I told myself.
. . . One . . . Two . . . Two and a half . . . Two and three quarters. Fuck! Three!
I put everything I had behind one of the black combat boots I wear for this kind of work and went for the space just above the front doorknob. It had no fight left, splintered and swung open. I flattened back against the house and waited.
. . . Silence.
Glock steadied with both hands, heart slamming so hard I felt a vein in my throat tick, tick, ticking against my shirt collar. I stepped around the corner and surveyed the front room, a living-room/dining- room combo pack. I could see the kitchen beyond that, a hallway. I was figuring the place for two bedrooms and a bath. I'd poked around outside for quite a while before making my move, counting doors and windows. So where was he? A bedroom, the hallway?
. . . Then pop, pop, pop. I hit the floor and rolled into the tiny dining room, got off a few rounds in case he had any ideas about coming to find me.
"Bail recovery, Mr. Johnson! Drop your weapon and come out with your hands behind your head. Do it now!"
"A chick?" Johnson yelled back, and laughed. "No fucking way!"
Then I heard the back door opening, the screen slamming. I rushed into the kitchen and saw the door swinging half off its hinges, and beyond that the white letters on Johnson's T-shirt bobbed across the dark backyard toward the fence.
I took the back steps into the yard and watched with some satisfaction as Johnson neared the fence and the gate. I'd left something back there in case it came to this, which had been a pretty good bet.
It didn't take long. It was a postage-stamp small yard with a chain- link fence and a horseshoe lever on the gate. Johnson grabbed the fence, and just as he tried to hoist himself over, a blue-white explosion knocked him backward. Just a little black powder, some petroleum jelly, a battery and a couple of wires, a few fireworks to slow him down. My ears rang from five feet away and for a couple of seconds I had to fight my way through a million tiny flashbulbs.
Johnson lay there like a slug, motionless. I approached him cautiously, Glock steady, and checked him for signs of life. Breathing fine. Out cold. I pulled his big arms up behind him. His palms were scorched.
"It wasn't supposed to be quite that dramatic," I told his limp body as I snapped cuffs on his wrists and threaded a belt around his waist and through the cuffs. "But then I really don't know shit about explosives."
I rolled him onto his back. With one size-thirteen shoe in each hand, I attempted to drag him by the ankles. Damn. The guy was at least two- sixty and dead weight. I'm five-five on tiptoes and one-ten if I drink enough water. I moved him about three inches before I gave up. I could have used my mobile phone to call the cops for a pickup, but the girl jokes would have run for weeks at APD.
I plopped down on the ground and poked him in the ribs with my Glock. "Come on, you big fat baby, wake up."
His eyelids rose a full minute before his eyes were able to focus.
"Hi," I said cheerfully, shining my flashlight into his bloodshot brown eyes. I was holding it cop-style over my shoulder and near my face. "Remember me?"
He squirmed angrily, then made grunting animal sounds when he realized his hands were locked behind him.
"Now, would you like to walk your fat ass to my car, or you want me to call the cops?"
"Who you if you ain't no cop?"
I thought about that. It wasn't a bad question. "Soon as I figure it out, I'll let you know," I promised him, nudging him again to get him on his feet. But he was having trouble getting up without his hands. I got behind him and pushed.
"Ever think about a diet?"
"You like it, bitch," Johnson slurred. He seemed a little loopy. "You want some Antonio. You know you do."
Oh yeah, bring it on. Nothing like a big ole fat man with a prison record.
"Okay, Lard Boy. Lets you and me take a drive."
(Continues...)

Vanish (Jane Rizzoli, Book 5) by Tess Gerritsen

Dr. Maura Isles had not smelled fresh air all day. Since seven that morning she had been inhaling the scent of death, an aroma so familiar to her that she did not recoil as her knife sliced cold skin, as foul odors wafted up from exposed organs. The police officers who occasionally stood in the room to observe postmortems were not so stoic. Sometimes Maura caught a whiff of the Vicks ointment that they dabbed in their nostrils to mask the stench. Sometimes even Vicks was not enough, and she’d see them suddenly go wobbly and turn away, to gag over the sink. Cops were not accustomed, as she was, to the astringent bite of formalin, the sulfurous aroma of decaying membranes.
Today, there was an incongruous note of sweetness added to that bouquet of odors: the scent of coconut oil, emanating from the skin of Mrs. Gloria Leder, who now lay on the autopsy table. She was fifty years old, a divorcee with broad hips and heavy breasts and toenails painted a brilliant pink. Deep tan lines marked the edges of the bathing suit she had been wearing when she was found dead beside her apartment swimming pool. It had been a bikini—not the most flattering choice for a body sagging with middle age. When was the last time I had the chance to put on my bathing suit? Maura thought, and she felt an absurd flash of envy for Mrs. Gloria Leder, who’d spent the last moments of her life enjoying this summer day. It was almost August, and Maura had not yet visited the beach or sat by a swimming pool or even sunbathed in her own backyard.
“Rum and Coke,” said the young cop standing at the foot of the table. “I think that’s what she had in her glass. It was sitting next to her patio chair.”
This was the first time Maura had seen Officer Buchanan in her morgue. He made her nervous, the way he kept fussing with his paper mask and shifting from foot to foot. The boy looked way too young to be a cop. They were all starting to look too young.
“Did you retain the contents of that glass?” she asked Officer Buchanan.
“Uh . . . no, ma’am. I took a good whiff. She was definitely drinking a rum and Coke.”
“At nine A.M.?” Maura looked across the table at her assistant, Yoshima. As usual, he was silent, but she saw one dark eyebrow tilt up, as eloquent a comment as she would get from Yoshima.
“She didn’t get down too much of it,” said Officer Buchanan.
“The glass was still pretty full.”
“Okay,” said Maura. “Let’s take a look at her back.”
Together, she and Yoshima log-rolled the corpse onto its side.
“There’s a tattoo here on the hip,” noted Maura. “Little blue butterfly.”
“Geez,” said Buchanan. “A woman her age?”
Maura glanced up. “You think fifty’s ancient, do you?”
“I mean—well, that’s my mom’s age.”
Careful, boy. I’m only ten years younger.
She picked up the knife and began to cut. This was her fifth postmortem of the day, and she made swift work of it. With Dr. Costas on vacation, and a multivehicle accident the night before, the cold room had been crammed with body bags that morning. Even as she’d worked her way through the backlog, two more bodies had been delivered to the refrigerator. Those would have to wait until tomorrow. The morgue’s clerical staff had already left for the evening, and Yoshima kept looking at the clock, obviously anxious to be on his way home.
She incised skin, gutted the thorax and abdomen. Removed dripping organs and placed them on the cutting board to be sectioned. Little by little, Gloria Leder revealed her secrets: a fatty liver, the telltale sign of a few too many rums and Cokes. A uterus knobby with fibroids.
And finally, when they opened the cranium, the reason for her death. Maura saw it as she lifted the brain in her gloved hands. “Subarachnoid hemorrhage,” she said, and glanced up at Buchanan. He was looking far paler than when he had first walked into the room. “This woman probably had a berry aneurysm—a weak spot in one of the arteries at the base of the brain. Hypertension would have exacerbated it.”
Buchanan swallowed, his gaze focused on the flap of loose skin that had been Gloria Leder’s scalp, now peeled forward over the face. That’s the part that usually horrified them, the point at which so many of them winced or turned away—when the face collapses like a tired rubber mask.
“So . . . you’re saying it’s a natural death?” he asked softly.
“Correct. There’s nothing more you need to see here.”
The young man was already stripping off his gown as he retreated from the table. “I think I need some fresh air . . .”
So do I, thought Maura. It’s a summer night, my garden needs watering, and I have not been outside all day.
But an hour later she was still in the building, sitting at her desk reviewing lab slips and dictated reports. Though she had changed out of her scrub suit, the smell of the morgue still seemed to cling to her, a scent that no amount of soap and water could eradicate, because the memory itself was what lingered. She picked up the Dictaphone and began to record her report on Gloria Leder.
“Fifty-year-old white woman found slumped in a patio chair near her apartment swimming pool. She is a well-developed, wellnourished woman with no visible trauma. External exam reveals an old surgical scar on her abdomen, probably from an appendectomy. There is a small tattoo of a butterfly on her . . .” She paused, picturing the tattoo. Was it on the left or the right hip? God, I’m so tired, she thought. I can’t remember. What a trivial detail. It made no difference to her conclusions, but she hated being inaccurate.
She rose from her chair and walked the deserted hallway to the stairwell, where her footfalls echoed on concrete steps. Pushing into the lab, she turned on the lights and saw that Yoshima had left the room in pristine condition as usual, the tables wiped down and gleaming, the floors mopped clean. She crossed to the cold room and pulled open the heavy locker door. Wisps of cold mist curled out. She took in a reflexive breath of air, as though about to plunge into foul water, and stepped into the locker.
Eight gurneys were occupied; most were awaiting pickup by funeral homes. Moving down the row, she checked the tags until she found Gloria Leder’s. She unzipped the bag, slipped her hands under the corpse’s buttocks and rolled her sideways just far enough to catch a glimpse of the tattoo.
It was on the left hip.
She closed the bag again and was just about to swing the door shut when she froze. Turning, she stared into the cold room.
Did I just hear something?
The fan came on, blowing icy air from the vents. Yes, that’s all it was, she thought. The fan. Or the refrigerator compressor. Or water cycling in the pipes. It was time to go home. She was so tired, she was starting to imagine things.
Again she turned to leave.
Again she froze. Turning, she stared at the row of body bags. Her heart was thumping so hard now, all she could hear was the beat of her own pulse.
Something moved in here. I’m sure of it.
She unzipped the first bag and stared down at a man whose chest had been sutured closed. Already autopsied, she thought. Definitely dead.
Which one? Which one made the noise?
She yanked open the next bag, and confronted a bruised face, a shattered skull. Dead.
With shaking hands she unzipped the third bag. The plastic parted, and she saw the face of a pale young woman with black hair and cyanotic lips. Opening the bag all the way, she exposed a wet blouse, the fabric clinging to white flesh, the skin glistening with chilly droplets of water. She peeled open the blouse and saw full breasts, a slim waist. The torso was still intact, not yet incised by the pathologist’s knife. The fingers and toes were purple, the arms marbled with blue.
She pressed her fingers to the woman’s neck and felt icy skin. Bending close to the lips, she waited for the whisper of a breath, the faintest puff of air against her cheek.
The corpse opened its eyes.
Maura gasped and lurched backward. She collided with the gurney behind her, and almost fell as the wheels rolled away. She scrambled back to her feet and saw that the woman’s eyes were still open, but unfocused. Blue-tinged lips formed soundless words.
Get her out of the refrigerator! Get her warm!
Maura shoved the gurney toward the door but it didn’t budge; in her panic she’d forgotten to unlock the wheels. She stamped down on the release lever and pushed again. This time it rolled, rattling out of the cold room into the warmer loading area.
The woman’s eyes had drifted shut again. Leaning close, Maura could feel no air moving past the lips. Oh Jesus. I can’t lose you now.
She knew nothing about this stranger—not her name, nor her medical history. This woman could be teeming with viruses, yet she sealed her mouth over the woman’s, and almost gagged at the taste of chilled flesh. She delivered three deep breaths, and pressed her fingers to the neck to check for a carotid pulse.
Am I imagining it? Is that my own pulse I feel, throbbing in my fingers?
She grabbed the wall phone and dialed 911.
“Emergency operator.”
“This is Dr. Isles in the medical examiner’s office. I need an ambulance. There’s a woman here, in respiratory arrest—”
“Excuse me, did you say the medical examiner’s office?”
“Yes! I’m at the rear of the building, just inside the loading bay. We’re on Albany Street, right across from the medical center!”
“I’m dispatching an ambulance now.”
Maura hung up. Once again, she quelled her disgust as she pressed her lips to the woman’s. Three more quick breaths, then her fingers were back on the carotid.
A pulse. There was definitely a pulse!
Suddenly she heard a wheeze, a cough. The woman was moving air now, mucus rattling in her throat.
Stay with me. Breathe, lady. Breathe!
A loud whoop announced the arrival of the ambulance. She shoved open the rear doors and stood squinting against flashing lights as the vehicle backed up to the dock. Two EMTs jumped out, hauling their kits.
“She’s in here!” Maura called.
“Still in respiratory arrest?”
“No, she’s breathing now. And I can feel a pulse.”
The two men trotted into the building and halted, staring at the woman on the gurney. “Jesus,” one of them murmured. “Is that a body bag?”
“I found her in the cold room,” said Maura. “By now, she’s probably hypothermic.”
“Oh, man. If this isn’t your worst nightmare.”
Out came the oxygen mask and IV lines. They slapped on EKG leads. On the monitor, a slow sinus rhythm blipped like a lazy cartoonist’s pen. The woman had a heartbeat and she was breathing, yet she still looked dead.
Looping a tourniquet around one flaccid arm, the EMT asked: “What’s her story? How did she get here?”
“I don’t know anything about her,” said Maura. “I came down to check on another body in the cold room and I heard this one moving.”
“Does this, uh, happen very often here?”
“This is a first time for me.” And she hoped to God it was the last.
“How long has she been in your refrigerator?”
Maura glanced at the hanging clipboard, where the day’s deliveries were recorded, and saw that a Jane Doe had arrived at the morgue around noon. Eight hours ago. Eight hours zipped in a shroud. What if she’d ended up on my table? What if I had sliced into her chest? Rummaging through the receiving in-basket, she found the envelope containing the woman’s paperwork. “Weymouth Fire and Rescue brought her in,” she said. “An apparent drowning . . .”
“Whoa, Nelly!” The EMT had just stabbed an IV needle into a vein and the patient suddenly jerked to life, her torso bucking on the gurney. The IV site magically puffed blue as the punctured vein hemorrhaged into the skin.
“Shit, lost the site. Help me hold her down!”
“Man, this gal’s gonna get up and walk away.”
“She’s really fighting now. I can’t get the IV started.”
“Then let’s just get her on the stretcher and move her.”
“Where are you taking her?” Maura said.
“Right across the street. The ER. If you have any paperwork they’ll want a copy.”
She nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”
* * *
A long line of patients stood waiting to register at the ER window, and the triage nurse behind the desk refused to meet Maura’s attempts to catch her eye. On this busy night, it would take a severed limb and spurting blood to justify cutting to the front of the line, but Maura ignored the nasty looks of other patients and pushed straight to the window. She rapped on the glass.
“You’ll have to wait your turn,” the triage nurse said.
“I’m Dr. Isles. I have a patient’s transfer papers. The doctor will want them.”
“Which patient?”
“The woman they just brought in from across the street.”
“You mean that lady from the morgue?”
Maura paused, suddenly aware that the other patients in line could hear every word. “Yes,” was all she said.
“Come on through, then. They want to talk to you. They’re having trouble with her.”
The door lock buzzed open, and Maura pushed through, into the treatment area. She saw immediately what the triage nurse had meant by trouble. Jane Doe had not yet been moved into a treatment room, but was still lying in the hallway, her body now draped with a heating blanket. The two EMTs and a nurse struggled to control her.
“Tighten that strap!”
“Shit—her hand’s out again—”
“Forget the oxygen mask. She doesn’t need it.”
“Watch that IV! We’re going to lose it!”
Maura lunged toward the stretcher and grabbed the patient’s wrist before she could pull out the intravenous catheter. Long black hair lashed Maura’s face as the woman tried to twist free.
(Continues...)

Three Weeks to Say Goodbye by C.J. Box

It was Saturday morning, November 3, and the fi rst thing I noticed when I entered my office was that my telephone message light was blinking. Since I’d left the building late the night before, it meant someone had called my extension during the night. Odd.
My name is Jack McGuane. I was thirty- four years old at the time. Melissa, my wife, was the same age. I assume you’ve heard my name, or seen my image on the news, al­though with everything going on in the world I can un­derstand if you missed me the first time. Our story, in the big scheme of things, is a drop in the river.
I was a Travel Development Specialist for the Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau, the city agency charged with bidding on and hosting conventions and en­couraging tourism to Denver. Every city has one. I worked hard, often staying late and, if necessary, coming in on a Saturday. It’s important to me that I work hard, even in a bureaucratic environment where it’s not necessarily en­couraged or rewarded. You see, I’m not the smartest guy in the world, or the best educated. My background doesn’t suit me for the job. But my ace in the hole is that I work harder than anyone around me, even when I don’t have to. I am the bane of an offi ce filled with bureaucrats, and I’m proud of it. It’s the only thing I’ve got.
Before doing anything, though, I punched the button to retrieve my voice mail.
“Jack, this is Julie Perala. At the agency . . .”
I stared at the speaker. Her voice was tight, cautious, not the confident and compassionate Julie Perala from the adoption agency Melissa and I had spent hours with while we went through the long process of adopting An­gelina, our nine-month-old. My first thought was that we somehow owed them more money.
“Jack, I hate to call you at work on a Friday. I hope you get this and can call me back right away. I need to talk with you immediately—before Sunday, if possible.”
She left the agency number and her cell-phone num­ber, and I wrote them down.
Then: “Jack, I’m so sorry.”
After a few beats of silence, as if she wanted to say more but wouldn’t or couldn’t, she hung up.
I sat back in my chair, then listened to the message again and checked the time stamp. It had arrived at 8:45 Friday eveining.
I tried the agency number first, not surprised that it went straight to voice mail. Then I called her cell.
“Yes?”
“Julie, this is Jack McGuane.”
“Oh.”
“You said to call immediately. You’ve got me scared here with your message. What’s going on?”
“You don’t know?”
“How would I know? Know what?”
There was anger and panic in her voice.
“Martin Dearborn hasn’t called you? He’s your attor­ney, isn’t he? Our lawyers were supposed to call him. Oh dear.”
My heart sped up, and the receiver became slick in my hand. “Julie, I don’t know anything. Dearborn never
called. Please, what is this about?”
“God, I hate to be the one to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
A beat. “The biological father wants Angelina back.”
I made her repeat it in case I hadn’t heard correctly. She did.
“So what if he wants her back,” I said. “We adopted her. She’s our daughter now. Who cares what he wants?”
“You don’t understand—it’s complicated.”
I pictured Melissa and Angelina at home having a lazy Saturday morning. “Of course we’ll work this out,” I said. “This is all some kind of big misunderstanding. It’ll all be fine.” Despite my words, my mouth tasted like metal.
Said Julie, “The birth father never signed away parental custody, Jack. The mother did, but the father didn’t. It’s a terrible situation. Your lawyer should have explained all of this to you. I don’t want to be the one going over legalities because I’m not qualified. As I said, it’s complicated . . .”
“This cannot be happening,” I said.
“I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “She’s been with us nine months. The birth mother selected us.”
“I know. I was there.”
“Tell me how to make this go away,” I said, sitting up in my chair, leaning over the desk. “Do we pay off the kid, or what?”
Julie was silent for a long time.
“Julie, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“Meet me at your agency now.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“I can’t. I shouldn’t even be talking with you. I should never have called. The lawyers and my executives said not to make direct contact, but I felt I had to.”
“Why didn’t you call us at home?”
“I got cold feet,” she said. “You don’t know how much I wished I could erase that message I left for you.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, “but you can’t walk away. I need to understand what you’re saying. You’ve got to work with me to make this kid go away. You owe us that.”
I heard a series of staccato sounds and thought the con­nection was going bad. Then I realized she was crying.
Finally, she said, “There’s a restaurant near here called Sunrise Sunset. On South Wadsworth. I can meet you there in an hour.”
“I might be a little late. I’ve got to run home and get Melissa. She’ll want to hear this. And on such short no­tice, we’ll probably have Angelina with us.”
“I was hoping . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Hoping what? That I wouldn’t bring them?”
“Yes. It makes it harder . . . I was hoping maybe you and I could meet alone.”
I slammed the phone down. Stunned, I wrote down the address of the restaurant.
I sensed Linda Van Gear’s arrival before she leaned into my office. She had a presence that preceded her. It could also be called very strong perfume, which she seemed to push ahead in front of her, like a surging trio of small, leashed dogs. Linda was my boss.
She was an imposing, no-nonsense woman, a force of nature. Melissa once referred to Linda as “a carica­ture of a broad.” Linda was brash, made-up, coiffed with a swept-back helmet of stiff hair like the overlapping ar­mored plates of a prehistoric dinosaur. She looked like she wore suits with shoulder pads, but they were her shoul­ders. Her lips were red, red, red, and there was usually a lipstick line across the front of her teeth, which she moist­ened often with darts from a pointed tongue. Linda, like a lot of the people who worked international tourism mar­keting, had once had dreams of being an actress or at least some kind of indefinable celebrity, someone who judged amateurs on a reality singing show. Linda was not well liked by the women in our office or by many in the tour­ism industry, but I got along with her. I got a kick out of her because everything about her was out front in spades.
“Hello, darlin’,” she said, sticking her head in the door­way, “I see you found the leads.”
I hadn’t even noticed them, but they were there: a bulg­ing manila envelope filled with business cards that smelled of her perfume, cigarette smoke, and spilled wine.
“They’re right here.”
“Couple of hot ones in there,” she said with mock enthu­siasm. “They’ll singe your fingers when you touch them. Let’s meet on them in a half an hour.” She squinted, look­ing me over, asked, “Are you okay?”
“No I’m not.”
I didn’t really want to get into details, but felt I needed to explain the situation to her in order to postpone the meeting.
She listened with glistening eyes. She loved this kind of thing, I realized. She loved drama, and I was providing it.
“Some boy wants custody of your baby?” she asked.
“Yes, but I’m going to fi ght it.”
“The baby obsession skipped this broad,” she said. “I guess I never really understood it.” She shook her head. She had no children and had made it clear she never wanted any.
I nodded like I understood. Fragile ground, here.
She said, “Look, you know I’m leaving for Taiwan with the governor Monday. We’ve got to get together before then. Hell, I dragged my jet-lagged ass out of bed just to meet you here this morning. We need to meet.”
“We will,” I said. “Let me call you as soon as I talk to Julie Perala. That’s all I ask.”
“That’s a lot,” she said, clearly angry.
“I’ll call,” I said. “I’ll even come meet you at your house if you want.”
“Plan on it,” she said, turning on her heel and clicking down the hallway, her shoes sounding like manic sticks on the rim of a drum in the empty hallway.
Melissa was on the floor with Angelina when I came in the door. Before I could speak, Melissa said, “What’s wrong?”
“Julie Perala called. She says there’s a problem with the adoption.”
Melissa went white, and she looked from me to Ange­lina and back.
“She said the father wants her back.”
“Back?” Melissa said, her voice rising in volume, “Back? He’s never even seen her!”
I met Melissa when we were both students at Mon­tana State University thirteen years before. She was a lean jade-eyed brunette—attractive, smart, athletic, earthy, self­confident—with high cheekbones and a full, expressive mouth that tended to betray whatever she was thinking. She sparkled. I was drawn to her immediately in a crazy, almost chemical way. I could sense when she entered a crowded room even before I could see her. She was taken at the time, though, involved in a long-term relationship with the star running back. They were a remarkably hand­some couple, and I despised him for no reason other than she was his. Still, I pined for her. The thought of her kept me awake at night. When their breakup became news, I told my friend Cody, “I’m going to marry her.” He said, “In your dreams,” and I said, “Yes, in my dreams.” He said, “You’ve got it bad,” and urged me to forget about her and go out and get drunk and get laid. Instead, I asked her out and became Mr. Rebound. She thought I was solid and amusing. I found, to my delight, that I could make her laugh. All I ever wanted to do, all I still want to do all these years later, is make her happy. After we’d been married three years, she said she wanted children. That was the next step, the next easy, logical step. Or so we thought.
The look on her face now crushed me and angered me and made me want to pound someone.
I walked over and picked up Angelina, who squealed. Until this little girl entered our lives, I didn’t know how much I could care. She was beautiful—dark-haired, che­rubic. Her eyes were big and wide open—as if she were always in a state of delighted surprise. Hair that stuck straight up in spots when she woke up from a nap. Four pearly teeth, two top, two bottom. She had a wonderful laugh that started deep in her belly, then took over her entire body. Her laugh was infectious, and we’d start laugh­ing, too, which made her laugh even harder, until she was limp. She laughed so hard we actually asked our pedia­trician if there was a problem, and he just shook his head at us. Recently, she’d learned to say “Da” and “Ma.” The way she looked at me, like I was the greatest and stron­gest creature on the planet, made me want to save and protect her from anything and anybody. She was my lit­tle girl, and like Melissa, she made me think differently about my place on earth. In her eyes, I was a god who as yet could do no wrong. I was a giant—her giant. I wanted to never disappoint her. And as the bearer of this news, I felt I had.
***
I thought I’d misunderstood the address or name of the meeting place as we entered because I couldn’t locate Julie Perala at any of the tables or booths. I was lifting the cell to call her when I saw her wave from a private room in the back used for meetings and parties. I pocketed the phone.
Julie Perala was broad-faced and broad-hipped, with soft eyes and a comforting professional smile. There was something both compassionate and pragmatic about her, and we had liked her instantly when we met with her so many months before for our orientation. She seemed es­pecially sensitive to our situation without being cloying, and was by far more knowledgeable about “placements” than anyone else we had met at other agencies. Nothing made her happier to be alive, she told us, than a placement where all three parties were perfectly served—the birth mother, the adoptive parents, and the child. She was to be trusted, and we trusted her. I also noticed, at times when she let her guard down, a ribald sense of humor. I had the feeling she’d be a hoot with a few drinks in her.
“Coffee?” she asked. “I’ve already had breakfast.”
“No thanks,” I said, pausing.
Melissa held Angelina tight to her and glared at Julie Perala with eyes I hoped would never be aimed at me.
“I know the manager,” she said, answering a question I was about to ask, “and knew I could get this room in the back. Please close the door.”
I did, and sat down as she was pouring coffee from a thermos carafe.
“I’m taking a real chance meeting with you,” she said, not meeting my eyes, concentrating on pouring. “The agency would kill me if they knew. We’ve all been ad­vised to communicate only through the lawyers now.”
“But,” I said, prompting her.
“But I like you and Melissa very much. You’re good, normal people. I know you love Angelina. I felt I owed you a frank discussion.”
“I appreciate that.”
Melissa continued to glare.
Julie said, “If this comes back to bite me, well, I’ll be very disappointed. But I hoped we could talk without lawyers around, at least this once.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
It took her a moment to form her words. “I can’t tell you how bad I feel about this situation,” she said. “This should never happen to a nice couple like you.”
“I agree.”
“We shouldn’t have kept it a secret from you that Judge John Moreland contacted us three months ago,” she said. “Our hope was we could settle it internally, and we of­fered to do exactly that. Our hope was you would never be troubled about it at all, that you wouldn’t even know.”
“Who is Judge Moreland?” I asked. “The biological father?”
“No, no. The biological father is his son, Garrett. Gar­rett is a senior at Cherry Creek High School. He’s eigh­teen years old.”
“Unbelievable,” I said.
She shrugged and showed her palms to me. “I agree. But if we’d been able to resolve it internally, we wouldn’t be here now. There wouldn’t be a problem at all.”
I said, “Ninety- nine percent. Remember when you used that figure when I asked about the birth father signing away his parental rights?”
Her face clouded. “I remember. And it’s true. It really is. I’ve been involved in nearly a thousand placements in my life, and this is the first time this has ever happened. We just didn’t think it could.”
“Didn’t you say you tried to find the birth father?”
Melissa asked bitterly. “Didn’t you say he’d agreed to sign the papers?”
She nodded.
“What happened?”
“We tracked him down in the Netherlands, where he was on vacation with his mother. He was staying with his mother’s relatives, I guess. I didn’t talk with him, but a coworker did. She explained the situation to him, and she said he was surprised. He agreed to sign away custody and he gave us a fax number where he could be reached. We sent the papers over.”
“But he never signed them,” I said.
“We dropped the ball,” she said. “The woman who’d made contact left the agency. If any of us had had any inkling at all that he would refuse to sign, we would have kept you abreast of the situation. But as far as we knew, it was his wish not to be a parent. We can’t coerce him, you know. We can’t pressure. It has to be his decision.”
My anger was building to the point that I had to look away from her.
“Legally, we covered our bases,” she said sympatheti­cally, almost apologetically to us. “We placed public no­tices for him and did everything we’re required to do. Not having the signed papers isn’t that unusual, because the family court judge always—and I mean always—awards full custody to the adoptive parents in a case like this. Af­ter all, we can’t let a nonresponsive birth father hold up a placement, can we?”
“Did you contact Garrett’s father?” I asked. “Is that how he got involved?”
“We normally don’t contact the parents of the birth father. That’s considered coercive.”
“But you knew about him? You knew about John Moreland?”
Excerpted From Three Weeks To Say Goodbye by C.J. Box.
Copyright © 2008 by C.J. Box.
Published in January 2009 St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.
(Continues...)

Shadow Cay by Leona DeRosa Bodie

An instant hook thriller when paradise becomes a life-and-death nightmare. Already reeling from a rash of maritime disasters, a war and international terrorists, vigilante Madeleine Nesbitt and amateur detective Peter Duncan are destined for even darker days when they investigate the man with no conscience behind the world's most profitable enterprise. They find themselves in a sea of corruption, deception and lies.


Prologue
Mooring on Great Bahama Bank
A WHIFF OF FRESH AIR, reminding him of her perfume, stirred the anger that smoldered then flared into a rage, blazing in his gut. Claude Pelletier gritted his teeth and grabbed the wheel tighter. His wife was gone. For the first time in his life, he felt all of his fifty-seven years. A voice lighter than mist whispered: adapt or die. He pulled the half-empty bottle of rum from the cooler and chugged.
The alcohol brushed away some of the pain for a few minutes. He looked out over the water of Chub Cay, on the northeastern fringe of Great Bahama Bank. A coconut scent lingered, and palm trees hugged the coastline. The water was sparkling clear, and he counted the starfish beneath his keel. Although he was anxious to explore the Bermuda Triangle, he was tired. Claude heaved the anchor over the side and settled in for the night.
He reached for the bottle and took another swig, watching the glaring yellow ball of sun sink into the horizon. The beauty of the sunset momentarily consumed him, bringing a certain peace that tempered the bitterness in heart, if only for a short period.
With a sigh, he staggered across the deck. Halfway to the cockpit, he stumbled. The bottle of rum slid from his fingers and distilled alcohol formed a slick patch of amber. Claude swayed. He saw the boom swing and fended it off, but it swung back and caught him. He struggled to stay upright, but his feet slid out from under him. As his head hit the bronze and stainless steel winch, he heard a cracking sound and fireworks detonated in his skull. Everything went black.
CLAUDE struggled to awareness, despite the pounding in his head. It was dark. The radiant dial on his watch told him he’d been out for three hours. Slowly the gray fog cleared from his brain. He frowned. Why didn’t he hear nature’s typical night talk coming from the nearby island? A cold sweat drenched him. Something felt terribly wrong.
He crouched in the cockpit and listened, straining to hear anything ominous. He straightened up and scanned the twilight seas and the stillness. Clouds like a parade of boas slithered across the moon, turning the sky top a charred-purple. The velvet silence provoked anxiety. Claude flicked two toggle switches on the instrument panel, illuminating the foredeck and filling the cabin’s interior with light from overhead fixtures and a hurricane lamp.
He entered the galley and opened a second bottle of rum, pouring two fingers into a tumbler. Drinking should help him forget Nina’s desertion. So far, it wasn’t working. He sat down at a table in the teak-paneled salon and stared in shock at the mirror above the table. He saw the hard lines of a man he didn’t recognize. There was no sign of the burned out music teacher. Instead, looking back at him was a boat bum, his ragged gray hair spiked and his clothes rumpled. He ran his fingers over the ugly red lump near his hairline, then put down his glass and wondered if things would ever be right again.
Pouring more rum, he went to the stateroom and confronted the photograph of his wife.
“Where are you, bitch? Why aren’t you here?”
He glanced at the portholes, at the emptiness of the sea. Someone was out there. He chugged his drink. Finally peaceful and numb, he turned off the lights and slept.
CLAUDE abruptly awoke to sounds that didn't belong in the silence of the cay. The clock by the bed read 1:15 am. A wet puff of air steamed down the companionway, adding to humidity so thick his boxer shorts clung to his skin. Then he heard it. A muffled hum drifted across the water, then hushed voices. The noises slowed then stopped. Claude waited. Nothing.
Suddenly, the boat listed. Somebody's on board. Claude heard the thud of heavy boots topside and could tell there was more than one intruder. The skin on his neck prickled. His only thought was to flee, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. He had no weapons. He bolted from the stateroom, through the galley and hid in the farthest corner of the second stateroom.
“Won't do you any good to hide,” a cold, hard voice called. “Come out where we can see you. We won't hurt you.”
The sliding stateroom door squealed open. Claude clutched a corner of the bedcover. Someone grabbed it, at the same time the room exploded with light.
“Who are you?” Claude could barely speak for the suffocating pressure in his chest. “I can't see you.” No answer. The flashlight's beam strayed from his face. He stared into the darkness, praying. He heard the metallic click of a safety and watched in horror as cowboy boots and a blur of denim rushed toward him. Cold steel pressed into his temple.
“Please,” he begged, “please don't hurt me.”
“Dis ain't part of the deal,” a voice called from outside.
Claude caught sight of a short man, dressed in fatigues. When the man with the gun turned toward him, Claude made his move, lunging toward the gunman, grabbing him in a chokehold. The struggle was short-lived. Claude heard the gunfire. He looked down at his chest. A strained whine rose in his throat and he felt himself falling, falling, falling...
TWO hundred and forty-five miles away, a young girl frowned in her sleep, as she tossed and turned in her bed, struggling to escape an image of a rumpled and frightened gray-haired man she'd never seen in her life.
Part One
A SWING OF TIDES
Chapter 1
THE NEXT DAY: February 13, 1991 Neumans Cay, Southern Exumas, Bahamas
RICO SALAZAR CHECKED HIS WATCH, then scanned the horizon. Nothing. Quarter to ten and still not even a glimpse of the long-awaited powerboat. His crew had to arrive soon. They should have called an hour ago. Discretion had always been crucial, now even more so, especially if they were followed.
With only the warmth of the sun and the whispering sea for company, he scrutinized the quiet lagoon and the mile-long stretch of beach. He didn’t see a single soul. Only he and several crabs moved in the stillness.
Standing on a knoll, flanked by palm trees, Rico gazed at Exuma Bank’s clear waters. The squeal of an osprey, plunge-diving feet first into the surf, startled him. He marveled at the raptor’s fluid motion, as it skewered a bluefish then flapped its wings and resumed flight, soaring over him. Rico squinted at the fish that dangled midair, face forward, still squirming.
An instant later, a single drop—the bright color of blood—dripped from the sky. He told himself the splatter on his shirt was a bad omen and Rico remembered his crew hadn’t called. He glanced down at the blood. Maybe, they couldn’t.
His island, Neumans Cay, was a part of the Exuma Cays, a chain of three hundred sixty islands in the Central Bahamas. The virgin beachfront suggested the cay was a blank canvas, bound for obscurity. He knew otherwise. Just two miles inland lay the epicenter of his island-based import/export company, miles from any traveler's radar. He meant to keep it that way.
RICO had literally stumbled upon the island. Like an over-ripe mango ready for plucking, the islet offered golden opportunities. Oozing out like nectar from rotten fruit, the temptations began here too.
He thought back to his discovery of eleven years ago. Searching for investment property, he'd cruised into a mild thunderstorm, along the western border of the Great Bahama Bank. Within minutes, a seventy-knot squall howled, as staccato bolts of lightning split the sky.
Visibility became a problem and he was disoriented. Flashes of light, shadows of trees and foaming seas jumped around him, flickering like a flawed movie, making the picture oddly disturbing. Chaotic seas stirred giant waves, coming at him from all directions. He edged to the stern, struggling to stand upright, as the boat rocked.
Naldo, his right hand man, shouted for Rico's attention. “The storm's fouled the communication system!” The dying wind finally swept past them.
“My God, look at this place,” Rico bellowed. “We're in the middle of nowhere. Where the hell are we?”
“According to my calculations, we’re about a hundred and twenty miles off course,” Naldo responded.
As Rico studied his surroundings, he could barely conceal his enthusiasm. He spied the southern anchorage and his gut told him this was it. He could easily move through these waters. “What a place for my operation. It's a hell of a find,” he said to Naldo. He pointed to its two entrances and natural deep water. “Ocean access.”
RICO had bought one hundred and eighty acres on Neumans Cay, which included a handsome house, a small marina that accommodated large ships and a resort, to house business associates and guests. He constructed warehouses, barracks and a dock, with wide slips. Inside his concrete “Berlin Wall,” he built an airstrip and erected a mast-type radio, high on the island's southwest tip.
To assure his privacy, he fired a barrage of bullets into the cottages on the northern shoreline. Fifteen owners slammed their windows shut, locked their doors and dove to the floor. The natives, traumatized by their trigger-happy neighbor, hunkered down in their bungalows, like shell-shocked soldiers. From that point on, they stayed out of his way. None of them realized he'd built a 4500-foot runway, protected by radar, bodyguards and Doberman attack dogs.
HE smiled at the memory. He’d moved onto the island and now owned and controlled half of the island's six square miles. Bribes to the Bahamian Prime Minister assured large cargo planes, shuttling product from Colombia to the island base, and small planes, ferrying contraband into the U.S., operated with no interference. A few other well-placed bribes meant business boomed and officials did nothing to stop his irregular and profitable activities. His business continued to grow, as did his fortune.
Hundreds of cocaine deliveries were shipped into Neumans Cay from the Exuma Sound's northeastern cut, his own channel to the Atlantic. While other dealers relied on human mules on commercial flights, the Salazar Cartel used submarines, go-fast boats and small aircraft. He revolutionized the trade, by transporting drugs to the U.S. in the keels of tankers. For the past ten years, Neumans Cay had flourished as a multinational smuggling and refueling hub.
Rico scratched the scar on his chin, studying the varied shades of azure between water and sky. He had lived too hard, worked too hard and come too far to lose everything. He'd paid his dues. Despite the pale aquas and deeper teals of the banks, and the midnight blue of the ocean floor, his mind suddenly sank back into the mire of his childhood. No matter how hard he tried to forget, the nights and the stench slithered back anyway. His mind went back to Cali, Colombia, when he was nine. He doubted the memory would ever fade.
THE steamy night smelled like cooked garbage and raw sewage. In the dark alley, sweat from ninety-two degree heat rolled down his face as he groped inside a rusty icebox, until his fingers landed on two hunks, which he slowly withdrew.
He glanced at the green mold on the cheese and the black spores on the bread then shoved the morsels into his mouth. Nothing he had eaten in a week tasted so good. If he’d had found these bits of food earlier, he wouldn’t have eaten the cockroaches.
Rico had never known who his father was. His mother was an alcoholic prostitute, who made no attempt to hide her profession from her son. Rico hated her. Hated seeing men on top of her. Hated the fact she spent any money she earned on booze. Hated rummaging through garbage cans for food. Hating the beatings he endured, when he came home empty-handed from his forays for food. He'd felt no grief, when she failed to return to their filthy shanty one night and he learned she'd been killed by a vicious customer. He wasn’t surprised. A crow had crashed into his bedroom window the previous morning. That always meant bad news coming.
Rico had learned the trade early on. He sold his body to the young and old alike, male or female. He was a survivor. He darted from filthy streets to cavernous spaces, near dismal underpasses, where the homeless huddled in abandoned, overgrown parking lots and homesteaded soiled cardboard boxes. The streets were the only home he had. While he was good looking, he got by primarily on his charm.
That changed, when a rich old woman, with rheumy eyes and yellow craters for cheekbones, took pity and welcomed him into her home. She became his abuela, his foster grandmother, and spoiled him shamelessly. Despite his own manipulation, he never completely understood why the seventy-six year old woman took him in, but he loved her, because she taught him how to live. Gradually, the sheen wore off his image of the old woman. It was nothing she did, nothing she said. Still, he sensed things were changing in some way.
Things shifted the afternoon a crow hit the window in the living room with a loud thud. He remembered the other crow at the window, the morning before his mother died. Dead birds meant death.
That evening, his abuela hobbled across the room to kiss him goodnight. She flashed a hideous grin, showing teeth that looked like cracked nutshells. When her silhouette crossed his bed and her hand touched his shoulder, the hair on his neck bristled.
A curious shadow lowered over his bed. Her misshapen limbs blotted out the lights from the antiquated homes outside his window. For an instant, he saw his mother's features superimposed on abuela's face. His foster grandmother became a dead ringer for his mother.
From that point on, he hated loving her. Depending on a woman was a nightmare. The obsession consumed his days and nights. He felt like a monster, hiding behind a perfect mask. Whenever he saw her crooked grin, the rotten teeth, the webs of wrinkles, the parchment skin draped over her sparse frame in loose folds, his blood chilled. Rico thought such frailty meant death was near.
He was wrong. The old woman didn't die. He endured the situation for eight long years. One afternoon, he knew he could stand it no longer. She 'd looked at him with her brown-toothed smirk, drool dribbling from the corner of her mouth, and the decision was made. He followed her across the room, his rubber soles making no sound on the hardwood floor. With almost no effort, his strong hands heaved her toward the ledge.
Her eyes flickered to his, filled with confusion. She started to shriek.
Afraid of losing his resolve, he quickly shoved her again and listened to her scream, as she tumbled off the ledge, plunging four stories to the ground. He took several deep, calming breaths, then smiled, imagining his mother falling to her death.
The old woman had no children or grandchildren. She'd had no one to love, but Rico. He inherited the house and all her money. How grateful he'd been. Her wealth transformed him into a wealthy college student.
IN addition to his education in business and finance, Rico quickly learned what products did well in the market place and those that would always be in demand. After graduation, he instinctively cultivated the same plant his Andean Indian ancestors had, before the Spanish occupation. He'd carved a special niche for himself and, in ten years, had jockeyed his way into the major leagues. He was proud of his global connections and the financial empire he'd built, with production facilities in Colombia, Chile, Peru and Boliva.
He sometimes wondered what would have happened, if he'd taken another road, if he and Jeanette had made a life together. He'd probably be living in the States, bored stiff. Instead, now that his island had become a major transfer point, his world had more curves and excitement than a roller coaster. He'd found the gateway to an oasis, comprising more than seven hundred uninhabited islands and cays. And he'd be damned if anyone was going to interfere with it. He'd do whatever he had to do to protect his empire.
RICO’S thoughts were pulled back to the present by the sound of quick footsteps on the sand behind him.
“Oye, Rico.”
Finally. Naldo Perez, his second in command, tugged on his shoulder. Relief lasted a fleeting second. Rico shifted his sights back to the waterfront, his breathing labored. Think, don’t panic. He couldn’t run. He’d find a way. Only cowards gave up, and he’d never been a coward.
“Boss, what’s a matter?”
“Got things on my mind, that’s all. Don’t keep me guessing. How’d the new recruit do last night?”
“He doesn’t have the guts for our kinda work.”
“You know what to do.”
“Seguro que sì. Done.”
Rico shrugged at his lieutenant's comment. His concerns were far more important than one individual who couldn't work with the team he'd assembled. His entire business was threatened. His instincts warned him he had to be extremely careful. While he might not be able to stop progress, he intended to do everything possible to redirect it and save his empire.
“Something wrong, Boss?"
Rico turned and studied Naldo, from his cowboy boots up to his worried face. “Yeah.” He again scanned the water, then turned back to Naldo. “You know the new hydrofoil that's supposed to link the islands?”
“Sure. What's that got to do with us?”
“Their Exuma trip touches a bit of the ocean, overnights in Georgetown and returns the next day.”
“Yeah? So?”
“They'll make unscheduled stops near our remote outposts.”
“Caramba!” Naldo immediately grasped the dangers.
"What should we do?”
“That's what I'm trying to figure out. Not a word to anyone, Naldo. I'll find a solution. Okay?”
Naldo nodded and turned back to the compound. Rico continued to stare across the water. If passengers were shuttled to the Southern Exumas, throngs might descend. Who wouldn't want a day beyond the reach of cars, a day without the clang and clatter of civilization? Who wouldn't want a piece of paradise?
No, a route through the Exumas was way too close. Rico wouldn’t accept such a threat to his world. He couldn't do that. He'd find a way to protect himself and all he'd built up over the past eleven years.
Continues...

The Hard Way: A Reacher Novel (Jack Reacher Novels) by Lee Child

JACK REACHER ORDERED espresso, double, no peel, no cube, foam cup, no china, and before it arrived at his table he saw a man's life change forever. Not that the waiter was slow. Just that the move was slick. So slick, Reacher had no idea what he was watching. It was just an urban scene, repeated everywhere in the world a billion times a day: A guy unlocked a car and got in and drove away. That was all.
But that was enough.
The espresso had been close to perfect, so Reacher went back to the same cafeŽ exactly -twenty--four hours later. Two nights in the same place was unusual for Reacher, but he figured great coffee was worth a change in his routine. The café was on the west side of Sixth Avenue in New York City, in the middle of the block between Bleecker and Houston. It occupied the ground floor of an undistinguished -four--story building. The upper stories looked like anonymous rental apartments. The cafe itself looked like a transplant from a back street in Rome. Inside it had low light and scarred wooden walls and a dented chrome machine as hot and long as a locomotive, and a counter. Outside there was a single line of metal tables on the sidewalk behind a low canvas screen. Reacher took the same end table he had used the night before and chose the same seat. He stretched out and got comfortable and tipped his chair up on two legs. That put his back against the cafe's outside wall and left him looking east, across the sidewalk and the width of the avenue. He liked to sit outside in the summer, in New York City. Especially at night. He liked the electric darkness and the hot dirty air and the blasts of noise and traffic and the manic barking sirens and the crush of people. It helped a lonely man feel connected and isolated both at the same time.
He was served by the same waiter as the night before and ordered the same drink, double espresso in a foam cup, no sugar, no spoon. He paid for it as soon as it arrived and left his change on the table. That way he could leave exactly when he wanted to without insulting the waiter or bilking the owner or stealing the china. Reacher always arranged the smallest details in his life so he could move on at a split second's notice. It was an obsessive habit. He owned nothing and carried nothing. Physically he was a big man, but he cast a small shadow and left very little in his wake.
He drank his coffee slowly and felt the night heat come up off the sidewalk. He watched cars and people. Watched taxis flow north and garbage trucks pause at the curbs. Saw knots of strange young people heading for clubs. Watched girls who had once been boys totter south. Saw a blue German sedan park on the block. Watched a compact man in a gray suit get out and walk north. Watched him thread between two sidewalk tables and head inside to where the cafe staff was clustered in back. Watched him ask them questions.
The guy was medium height, not young, not old, too solid to be called wiry, too slight to be called heavy. His hair was gray at the temples and cut short and neat. He kept himself balanced on the balls of his feet. His mouth didn't move much as he talked. But his eyes did. They flicked left and right tirelessly. The guy was about forty, Reacher guessed, and furthermore Reacher guessed he had gotten to be about forty by staying relentlessly aware of everything that was happening around him. Reacher had seen the same look in elite infantry veterans who had survived long jungle tours.
Then Reacher's waiter turned suddenly and pointed straight at him. The compact man in the gray suit stared over. Reacher stared back, over his shoulder, through the window. Eye contact was made. Without breaking it the man in the suit mouthed thank you to the waiter and started back out the way he had entered. He stepped through the door and made a right inside the low canvas screen and threaded his way down to Reacher's table. Reacher let him stand there mute for a moment while he made up his mind. Then he said "Yes," to him, like an answer, not a question.
"Yes what?" the guy said back.
"Yes whatever," Reacher said. "Yes I'm having a pleasant evening, yes you can join me, yes you can ask me whatever it is you want to ask me."
The guy scraped a chair out and sat down, his back to the river of traffic, blocking Reacher's view.
"Actually I do have a question," he said.
"I know," Reacher said. "About last night."
"How did you know that?" The guy's voice was low and quiet and his accent was flat and clipped and British.
"The waiter pointed me out," Reacher said. "And the only thing that distinguishes me from his other customers is that I was here last night and they weren't."
"You're certain about that?"
"Turn your head away," Reacher said. "Watch the traffic."
The guy turned his head away. Watched the traffic.
"Now tell me what I'm wearing," Reacher said.
"Green shirt," the British guy said. "Cotton, baggy, cheap, doesn't look new, sleeves rolled to the elbow, over a green T-shirt, also cheap and not new, a little tight, untucked over -flat--front khaki chinos, no socks, English shoes, pebbled leather, brown, not new, but not very old either, probably expensive. Frayed laces, like you pull on them too hard when you tie them. Maybe indicative of a -self--discipline obsession."
"OK," Reacher said.
"OK what?"
"You notice things," Reacher said. "And I notice things. We're two of a kind. We're peas in a pod. I'm the only customer here now who was also here last night. I'm certain of that. And that's what you asked the staff. Had to be. That's the only reason the waiter would have pointed me out."
The guy turned back.
"Did you see a car last night?" he asked.
"I saw plenty of cars last night," Reacher said. "This is Sixth Avenue."
"A Mercedes Benz. Parked over there." The guy twisted again and pointed on a slight diagonal at a length of empty curb by a fire hydrant on the other side of the street.
Reacher said, "Silver, four-door sedan, an S-420, New York vanity plates starting OSC, a lot of city miles on it. Dirty paint, scuffed tires, dinged rims, dents and scrapes on both bumpers."
The guy turned back again.
"You saw it," he said.
"It was right there," Reacher said. "Obviously I saw it."
"Did you see it leave?"
Reacher nodded. "Just before eleven -forty--five a guy got in and drove it away."
"You're not wearing a watch."
"I always know what time it is."
"It must have been closer to midnight."
"Maybe," Reacher said. "Whatever."
"Did you get a look at the driver?"
"I told you, I saw him get in and drive away."
The guy stood up.
"I need you to come with me," he said. Then he put his hand in his pocket. "I'll buy your coffee."
"I already paid for it."
"So let's go."
"Where?"
"To see my boss."
"Who's your boss?"
"A man called Lane."
"You're not a cop," Reacher said. "That's my guess. Based on observation."
"Of what?"
"Your accent. You're not American. You're British. The NYPD isn't that desperate."
"Most of us are Americans," the British guy said. "But you're right, we're not cops. We're private citizens."
"What kind?"
"The kind that will make it worth your while if you give them a description of the individual who drove that car away."
"Worth my while how?"
"Financially," the guy said. "Is there any other way?"
"Lots of other ways," Reacher said. "I think I'll stay right here."
"This is very serious."
"How?"
The guy in the suit sat down again.
"I can't tell you that," he said.
"Goodbye," Reacher said.
"Not my choice," the guy said. "Mr. Lane made it -mission--critical that nobody knows. For very good reasons."
Reacher tilted his cup and checked the contents. Nearly gone.
"You got a name?" he asked.
"Do you?"
"You first."
In response the guy stuck a thumb into the breast pocket of his suit coat and slid out a black leather business card holder. He opened it up and used the same thumb to slide out a single card. He passed it across the table. It was a handsome item. Heavy linen stock, raised lettering, ink that still looked wet. At the top it said: Operational Security Consultants.
"OSC," Reacher said. "Like the license plate."
The British guy said nothing.
Reacher smiled. "You're security consultants and you got your car stolen? I can see how that could be embarrassing."
The guy said, "It's not the car we're worried about." Lower down on the business card was a name: John Gregory. Under the name was a subscript: British Army, Retired. Then a job title: Executive Vice President.
"How long have you been out?" Reacher asked.
"Of the British Army?" the guy called Gregory said. "Seven years."
"Unit?"
"SAS."
"You've still got the look."
"You too," Gregory said. "How long have you been out?"
"Seven years," Reacher said.
"Unit?"
"U.S. Army CID, mostly."
Gregory looked up. Interested. "Investigator?"
"Mostly."
"Rank?"
"I don't remember," Reacher said. "I've been a civilian seven years."
"Don't be shy," Gregory said. "You were probably a lieutenant colonel at least."
"Major," Reacher said. "That's as far as I got."
"Career problems?"
"I had my share."
"You got a name?"
"Most people do."
"What is it?"
"Reacher."
"What are you doing now?"
"I'm trying to get a quiet cup of coffee."
"You need work?"
"No," Reacher said. "I don't."
"I was a sergeant," Gregory said.
Reacher nodded. "I figured. SAS guys usually are. And you've got the look."
"So will you come with me and talk to Mr. Lane?"
"I told you what I saw. You can pass it on."
"Mr. Lane will want to hear it direct."
Reacher checked his cup again. "Where is he?"
"Not far. Ten minutes."
"I don't know," Reacher said. "I'm enjoying my espresso."
"Bring it with you. It's in a foam cup."
"I prefer peace and quiet."
"All I want is ten minutes."
"Seems like a lot of fuss over a stolen car, even if it was a Mercedes Benz."
"This is not about the car."
"So what is it about?"
"Life and death," Gregory said. "Right now more likely death than life."
Reacher checked his cup again. There was less than a lukewarm -eighth--inch left, thick and scummy with espresso mud. That was all. He put the cup down.
"OK," he said. "So let's go."
From the Hardcover edition.
(Continues...)