Going Dark(48)
“Well, what’d you say? Am I seeing anyone?”
“Not for more than a month at a time.”
“That’s what you told her?”
“This is important to you, this Nicole woman?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“Well, I did tell her you’d be one hell of a catch.”
Juan was walking over with his clipboard, talking on his cell. He waved at Frank, and Frank gave him an almost-done wave back.
“Good answer, Marta.”
“No, it’s not. Moby-Dick would be one hell of a catch. Doesn’t mean anybody’s going to land that big old whale.”
“Anything else?”
“You want my opinion of her?”
“After one phone call?”
“The lady is muy ambitious.”
“Everyone we work with is ambitious. I’d be worried if she wasn’t.”
“I mean muy. Like, I don’t know the right word. She’s nice enough, polite, not pushy or anything, but there’s something about her.”
“Oh, come on, Marta.”
“Not pushy, but intense. A lady with a plan. Eyes on a prize.”
“The prize being me?”
“My guess is, you’re part of it. That’s for sure. But, hey, I don’t want to get involved in your personal life. Too messy. Unprofessional.”
“I think we’re a little past that.”
Over the last few years, they’d grown close. Even helped each other through bouts of cancer. Prostate for him, breast for her. Camping out in the hospital pre-op, post-op, Frank bringing Marta takeout black beans and rice from La Lechonera, her favorite Cuban joint, and badgering her nurses to quit yakking and do their damn jobs. Marta doing the same when he was laid up.
Juan took a seat at the concrete picnic table, snapped his phone shut, and gazed out at the parade of yummy mommies speed-walking on the shore.
“And before I forget,” Sheffield said. “We need eyes in the sky, aerial imagery. Call our friend at NSA, see if he’s willing to give us some satellite time. If he refuses, try Miami-Dade PD, see if we can rent one of their drones for a few hours.”
“They’ve never been very cooperative.”
“Ask nice.”
“Can I tell them what we want a peek of?”
“Prince Key. Small island in southern Biscayne Bay, three, four miles due east of Turkey Point. I want real-time feeds, close-ups, what’s going on down there. How many citizens are walking around, what they’re doing, if they’re armed. If county won’t cooperate, hell, we’ll hire a small plane, do flyovers with telescopic lens. Agent Sanford’s a pilot, right? See if he’s available.”
“You’re worked up. Haven’t heard you like this lately.”
Frank raised a finger to Juan—one more second.
“And we need a boat. Border Patrol, Fish and Wildlife, Park Service, somebody cruising around out there to watch for comings and goings. The kind of boat that would blend in.”
“I’ll call around.”
“Last thing. Any updates from our guy? Phone or text?”
“Your confidential informant?”
“You heard something?”
“Not a word.”
Frank was silent, staring through the palms at the white sands.
“Wouldn’t he contact you directly, Frank, on your cell?”
“Yeah, probably he would. I was just double-checking.”
“But it worries you, him not calling. It’s been four days.”
“Five,” Frank said. “Going on six.”
“So why not call him?”
Frank waved Juan over. “Can’t take the chance. Where he is, his phone rings, it could blow the whole thing all to hell.”
TWENTY
AFTER JUAN SIGNED OFF ON the hurricane windows, Sheffield showered, dressed, and drove his old Chevy Impala, his personal car, off the key, took back streets north through Brickell and Little Havana, jumped on the Palmetto Expressway, and went west out to Doral.
The Midwest District Station of the Miami-Dade Police Department was a hodgepodge of building styles, combining about five clashing architectural ideas into one sprawling complex. Part industrial park, part smoked-glass office tower, with a quirky sculpted concrete wall out front that sported whimsical cutout designs you’d expect at a modern-art museum. Like a committee slapped the place together, half of them believing law enforcement was serious business, the other half trying to attract the latest TV cop show to use the place as a trendy backdrop.
In the lobby he stopped at a kiosk, bought some heavily buttered Cuban toast and a paper thimble full of ninety-proof espresso, and by the time he was upstairs at Killibrew’s office he’d finished both and was ready to put on his flying cape and soar out the third-story window and explore the heavens.