LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

and thirties, a few older than that. He searched among them for weapons like knives and guns and baseball bats and saw pretty much all of it everywhere. These guys had armed themselves to the hilt; they did not think this place was safe from attack despite what Alcina had been told.

      Feeling slightly more secure with their numbers and firepower around, he followed Alcina Castillo down a dark path that led through a field of knee-high grass. He had a feeling he was about to spend a long night, wide awake with a million or so buzzing and biting insects swarming his sleeping bag, if he was lucky enough to get one. Claire had no idea what she had gotten them into. Truth was, if somebody here had kidnapped a little baby from its mother, Claire would hunt them down if it took her the rest of her life. That was just the way she rolled. That was Novak’s favorite thing about her.

      Chapter 3

      Years in the military had taught Novak that he could sleep anywhere. He could get by on two or three hours of sleep for days at a time. He hadn’t needed that capability of late, but tonight he did. After Alcina had led him to a different chickee, she left him there without another word. This one had a pup tent erected on the raised platform. Novak zipped himself up inside and found a colorful handwoven blanket and pillow left there for him.

      After that he lay awake for several hours and thought about what an unmitigated disaster this case was going to be. The tent was too small for him, and he had to bend his legs. It felt more like being encased in a funeral shroud. The primary thoughts running through his mind were how easy it would be to sneak up on a man caught inside a tiny tent atop an open-air platform. So he listened for footsteps or the racking of firearms. After a while, he got out and looked around. He couldn’t see anything.

      The constant, strident, static of singing insects became tedious fast, although he’d heard it in countless jungle camps all over the world. It was getting on his nerves. So was the idea that a small army might be descending on the camp right now, armed with AR-15s. He just couldn’t shake the idea that they would come after Alcina and Pedro. Alcina felt secure here, and hopefully Eldon Osceola’s men were on guard. Still, underestimating your enemy was asking for trouble. One lucky helicopter sweep across the swamps, one slip of the tongue in some bar, and the Skulls would know exactly where to find them.

      It didn’t help, either, that Novak did not know these guys who could be sleeping like babies in their own pup tents. He didn’t know if he could trust them. He didn’t like being zipped up in a tent where everyone knew where he was. He’d rather make the bad guys search for him when they had murder in mind. Claire’s case had placed him in a hornet’s nest of strangers, and he hoped to hell he was joining up on the right side of this war. He was pretty sure he was, but he’d feel better when he knew more about those guys around that fire. He had never heard of Eldon Osceola, never met him, and wouldn’t know if he could trust him or not. It didn’t sound to him like Alcina really knew him, either.

      So he lay down outside the tent with the blanket over his head and chest to ward off the swarm of mosquitoes that were feasting on him. Maybe the tent wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. When he finally did get to sleep, he woke next to find a weird cloud of gray mist drifting around him like ghosts in the breeze. He lay there for a few minutes and stared at the palmetto fronds forming the roof above him. Birds were waking up: cheerful and chirping and irritating. It had been a while since he had spent the night in an unfamiliar swamp. His house had the luxury of modern electricity and plumbing, but nothing like that out here, not that he’d seen. These people knew how to rough it.

      The surrounding fields were covered with that same damp ground-hugging fog, so he couldn’t see much that didn’t look like he was wading through a cloudbank. The night before, Alcina had disappeared without a word, presumably heading back to her own tent. Everybody else was either gone or asleep or dead. He hoped it wasn’t that last, but he wouldn’t be surprised. He dropped his face into his hands and rubbed his eyes.

      Novak was uneasy but tried to shake it off. He had no real reason to doubt these people or to fear them. Still, if they had all gone off during the night and left him out in the middle of nowhere, he was not going to enjoy a good day. Stepping down into swirls of gray, he headed off in the direction he thought he’d come from the night before. The sun was trying to come up. The fog started to lift as if on cue. Within minutes, Novak made out a large building on the far side of a grassy field. It was built with dark wood and a galvanized red metal roof. It was several feet off the ground like the chickees. He started walking toward it.

      The farther he got, the more he could see. It was a little settlement. What did Alcina call it? Pa-hay-Okee Safari. That’s what it looked like: the jungle area at Disney World, maybe. It looked clean, interesting, unthreatening. There were a dozen more chickees built along a central road. Most of them had tents pitched on top. There was a body of water down close to the major building. There was a good-sized covered dock down there, too, and he could see four large airboats and about ten aluminum canoes and kayaks where they were neatly stacked on boat racks along the bank. This was a place of business catering to tourists, all right.

      Novak felt better because the girl’s story panned out. Roads covered in small white shells led up to smaller buildings. None of them looked like private residences. He had a feeling this might be a replica of a historic Seminole village that also offered boat rentals and guided tours. If he had to guess, the water would eventually wind around and empty into the Everglades’ immense grasslands. There were similar offshoots in the bayous with businesses that catered to tourists. He could see now that there were booths, still shuttered, but where they likely sold handmade arts and crafts. That meant they weren’t out in the middle of nowhere, but fairly close to a highway. Breathing easier, he turned and headed for the big building, hoping to find Alcina and Pedro.

      Then he saw the guy. He was squatting down beside a cook fire not too far away, and the come-hither aroma of frying bacon wafted enticingly to Novak. His stomach reacted, got hysterical, in fact, so he hastily changed course. He hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. He wanted some of that bacon.

      About thirty feet from the fire, the man glanced up and saw Novak. He was a Seminole, Novak knew that at once. He was tall and slender, with black eyes and even blacker hair. Even from a distance, he had a presence about him that made Novak feel he would be someone important. In the 1800s, he might have been a chief. Maybe he was now, too. He looked mid-forties, maybe in his fifties, but it was hard to tell. He was muscular but in a hard, lean way. He had on faded denim jeans and a beige canvas shirt and New Balance black tennis shoes. He said nothing to Novak but kept an eye on him as he approached. Novak broke the ice. “Good morning.”

      “You think so?” the man said, looking up at him.

      “So far. Maybe not for long, all things considered. You tell me. I’m new around here.” Novak shifted his gaze to the meat sizzling in the skillet, and his stomach made embarrassing sounds. “Can I buy some breakfast off you?”

      That brought a smile. “Considering you’re wearing no shirt and have mosquito bites all over you, I suspect you don’t have any money with you. But go ahead, sit yourself down. Everybody around here is just damn lazy.” He flipped a piece of bacon. “Kids today only think about their cellphones and stupid stuff like Twitter. All that social media crap won’t do them a lick of good in the long run. Waste of good time where they could be learnin’ something. Go ahead, help yourself to the coffee, if you have a liking for it. You look like you might need all you can get. Got you in the head last night, did they?”

      “I met up with a baseball bat, but the kid says he’s really sorry he hit me so hard and both times, too. I’ll take as much coffee as you can spare.”

      “Good, that means he shows some manners.”

      Novak found some metal mugs sitting on a camp table alongside paper plates and plastic forks and a roll of paper towels. He took a cup, squatted down, and lifted the percolator. Now the guy was ignoring him, so Novak took the hint. This guy wasn’t chatty; neither was Novak. He sat down in a camp chair and watched the cook prepare breakfast. It was just past dawn. Ten thousand birds seemed ecstatic to see the sunrise.

      Up close, Novak realized the man might be older than he’d first thought. Now he looked

Скачать книгу