An Absence of Light

“What about the girl in there?” Murray asked. He sat up straight in his chair without leaning back, holding his glass in thick hands, the muscles in his arms and shoulders looking like they belonged to a man twenty years his junior. He had a ballpoint pen stuck in the neck of his plain white T-shirt, and an old Colt-Browning. 45 service automatic stuck in the waist of his jeans. His face was so closely shaven it was slick, and his burr haircut, even though his widow’s peak was thinning considerably, added to the air of no-nonsense professionalism that he exuded. Graver had no doubts about either the competence or the reliability of Murray.

“I thought I’d leave Last with her while we go to pick up Redden. I haven’t thought about it beyond that. But I can’t very well let her go.”

“Good.”

“And this Redden, he will be armed?” Remberto asked.

“Ledet says he will be.”

Remberto was tall for a Latin, a little taller than Graver, rangy but with broad shoulders. A good-looking young man with thick black hair that was neatly barbered and combed, he wore slacks, a pale blue shirt, and a sport coat, all of which looked very much stressed after his hour-long sauna in Connie’s courtyard. He wore a shoulder holster under his jacket with a Sig-Sauer like Graver’s jammed into it and sat in his chair with a very relaxed and self-assured manner. But the stillness in his dark eyes belieda a concentrated tension that he had acquired during his few, but densely experienced, years in undercover work and which now occupied the core of his personality.

Both men had kept their eyes on him since the moment they had walked out on the porch. For them there was no tendency to let their attention wander to the bay, the predictable reaction of anyone who sat on a porch with a beach view. But Remberto and Murray-Graver still didn’t know their last names-had no curiosity about the water or the ship or the Gulf. They were only interested in Graver and what Graver had to say to them about the impending events.

“I’ve been behind a desk for a long time,” Graver said, “and you two know more about the tactical end, but I’ve got a couple of suggestions about when it might be best to take him. Tell me what you think.

“The first good opportunity, it seems to me, is while he’s refueling. Ledet says that at Bayfield the planes refill from a small tanker truck that pulls up to the hangars. Always two servicemen in the truck. I thought two of us could take their place. If that’s not feasible maybe pose as other pilots, whatever, milling around the parking lot, the terminal office. Whatever it takes. The second opportunity would be at the restaurant where they eat I’ve done that before, and I like it It’s easy to be on either side of him and have two guns on him before he suspects anything. Have Ledet sit at a table that would accommodate an easy approach.

“What I don’t like about the second option,” Graver added, “is that taking him at a restaurant would mean that he and Ledet would have to drive there alone in order to avoid raising any suspicion. Too great a chance for Ledet to think he could win a car chase… too much time for a lot of things to happen.”

“No, I favor the airport too,” Murray said.

“So do I,” Remberto added, “but, if something goes wrong, if there is shooting, we will be risking fire with that fuel.”

“Yeah, I thought of that,” Graver said.

“What is his personality?” Remberto asked.

“I don’t know, but judging from his telephone conversation, he’s the one in control. Ledet seems to be going along, less concentrated. And, too, Redden’s the one that Kalatis trusts, which says a lot. Kalatis seems to insist on personal contact with his three lead pilots.”

“And we’re just going to question the guy, is that it?” Murray asked.

Graver explained his situation regarding the bureaucracy he would have to negotiate in order to move officially against Kalatis.

“And while they’re trying to work out the politics of such a move, Kalatis would vanish,” he said. “And he wouldn’t be the first big target to slip out the back door while the bureaucrats are trying to make up their minds. So, my intention in questioning Redden is to see if there’s some way to salvage something out of this fiasco other than a long, drawn-out investigation that will wind down eighteen months from now with nothing to show for it but a few oversentenced small-timers.”

He looked at them. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I told Arnette they’d be moving money tonight, and they will be. But my sole concern here is Panos Kalatis. I want the money because Kalatis wants the money and my guess is wherever it is he’s not far away. To me the money is nothing more than bait. I’m not going to be looking at that; I’m going to keep my eyes on the shadows.”

He wasn’t going to spell it out. He didn’t think he had to.

“You’re sure the cargo’s not drugs,” Murray said.

“Ledet says it’s cash or people or both. Not drugs. According to him, these pilots never move drugs. That’s another cell, another group.”