An Absence of Light

“And three of my intelligence officers who were working on the case,” Graver added without explanation.

Redden’s stare dropped to the tarmac outside the doors of the hangar. “Sheck was goddamned right… the Greek’s cutting himself loose. He’s going to run.”

“And where do you think his pilots fall into this scheme of things, Eddie? You think he’s just going to let you go-with all you know about him?”

“Son… of… a… bitch.” Redden seemed almost catatonic.

“This might have been your last day of flying anyway,” Graver said.

Redden said nothing. He just stared at the tarmac that was dancing in the heat waves beyond his plane.

Chapter 74

“Tonight,” Graver said, bringing Redden back to the conversation at hand, “if you’re going to be picking up the clients here, taking them on a two-hour ‘diversionary’ and then going into Las Copas, they’ll be boarding pontoon planes there to hop over Chocolate Bay, right?”

Redden nodded. His rate and volume of perspiration seemed to have accelerated.

“How does that work? Does the pontoon plane pull up in the bayou there? There’s a bayou nearby, isn’t there?”

Redden nodded. “About seventy-five yards from the strip.”

Neuman had rolled a car tire over and was sitting on the edge of it behind Redden. Murray and Remberto had pulled over a sawhorse and were sharing opposite ends of it. All of them sweating, all of them riveted to the conversation as they listened to Graver methodically extract every logistical detail.

“Anything different about the routine at this point?”

Redden nodded again, as if something was just now dawning on him, as if another piece of the Kalatis puzzle was falling into place.

“Yeah.” He swallowed once more. “Yeah, normally the cash and the client are loaded onto the ‘tooner and jumped over Chocolate Bay. When we get to Kalatis’s pier, the client goes up to the house for his meet with Kalatis, and the cash is off-loaded onto a cruiser.”

‘Then what?”

“Cruiser takes the cash out to the Gulf rendezvous instead of the ‘tooner. The ‘tooner and pilot have to wait to jump the client back over the bay.”

“You said ‘when we get to Kalatis’s pier.’ You fly the pontoon plane too? There weren’t other pilots for the pontoon plane?”

“No, we fly it. There’s only one ‘tooner. First pilot drops down on Las Copas, everything’s loaded onto ‘tooner, jump over Chocolate, jump back over Chocolate when client is through, pick up the regular plane and leave the ‘tooner in the bayou for the next pilot and client. He does the same thing. The copilot on the last plane takes the ‘tooner away. It’s kept in a small Gulf-side hangar in Kemah.”

“I assume someone stays with whatever plane is paused at Las Copas?”

“Oh, yeah, three of Kalatis’s guards go to Las Copas by boat ahead of time. They take an electric generator and string lights along the strip. It’s quite a job. The lights just come on momentarily during the landing, and then they’re shut down again. The guards-they call them security-stay during the whole operation, just that one night, and help off-load the cash from one plane to the other and then ‘secure’ the plane that’s not being used.”

“Three guards, you said. Are there always three?”

“That’s right. That’s where Kalatis is different from your average, run-of-the-mill smuggler or bad guy. There’ll be six armed guards, not fifteen or twenty. Just six. Three at Las Copas, three at his own dock. They’re low-key kind of guys. In fact, every weapon they’ll be carrying will be fitted with a silencer. The Uzi’s, the Mac-10s, whatever they’re carrying. Silencers. It’s only common sense when you think about it. All those other cowboys like the sound of the blasting. Shit, with silencers you can do a lotta death before anybody even knows you’re there. So they don’t mind using them. I don’t mean they’re trigger-happy; I’ve never seen that But they’re not afraid of using them either.”

Redden thought about that for a second and then he looked at Graver again. “Look, can I have another cigarette?”

Again Neuman took a cigarette from Ledet. When Redden had lit it, Graver went on.

“Okay, now, you said this time was going to be different.”

“Yeah. This afternoon we had a meeting with Kalatis. The normal routine was suspended. Each one of us is going to have a slightly different schedule. Wade’s first up. No diversionary-straight to Las Copas. Same routine at Las Copas, transfer client and cash to the ‘tooner. But when he gets to Kalatis’s, he drops off the money and the client and flies back to Las Copas without the client.”

“Did Kalatis explain that?”

“He said the client’s going into Galveston by cruiser, and then back to Houston by car.”

“But what about the hoax of making them believe they were in Mexico?”

“Yeah, I asked about that. Kalatis said he’d hired me to fly planes, not to run his business.” Redden grinned, the way a man grinned about a death threat instead of allowing himself to panic. “Anyway, so Maricio’s next Same thing, straight to Las Copas-”

“How long is that flight?” Graver interrupted.