Acts of Nature - By Jonathon King Page 0,79

da da daaaa. Dat! da dat! da dat!, da da daaaa.

I take my card and I stand in line

To make a buck I work overtime

I put my bloodstained knife into my back pocket and grabbed the ends of Sherry’s bed frame. I scraped the legs over and then with my back into it like a rower I pulled her through the door opening and into the computer room. Then I jumped back to the door and slammed it shut and punched a series of numbers I will never remember into the locking device, and like a miracle the lights on the lock went red.

In the closed room the music was twice as loud. Something about another drone, something about feeling like a number. I remembered the CD player on the southern wall and strode over to it but it took me one more stanza to find the off button, and the room went quiet.

I pulled my knife again and sat down on the edge of Sherry’s bed and cut loose her wrists and ankles. Then without hesitation I laid my head down on her chest. I was listening to her heart, yes, but it was not my only purpose and she responded by wrapping her freed arms around my shoulders and holding me with the little power she had left.

TWENTY-SIX

Harmon looked at the GPS in his hand and then down at what seemed like a thousand acres of trampled backyard wallowing in standing water and said: “Take her down. I think we’re here.”

The helicopter pilot looked to his right to see if the look on Harmon’s face meant he was serious and Harmon simply looked back and shrugged his shoulders. The pilot was told by whomever hired him to follow Harmon’s instructions and don’t ask questions. They were less than an hour northwest of the city and had left all civilization behind when they flew over U.S. 27, the demarcation line where South Florida changes from rows and rows of orange-tiled roofs to the gray-green world of the Everglades.

As the chopper descended, the landscape only became slightly more defined. Now they could see that those darker green blobs below were actually stands of trees. The slate- colored patches were open water, reflecting the color of the sky. And the brownish smears were acres of sawgrass beaten down at the moment by the path of the storm. Harmon pointed to a kidney-shaped island that looked more and more like a pile of pickup sticks as they got closer. Soon they could make out tall trees snapped off at their tops and vegetation and debris at their base so thick it was difficult to discern anything more. They came in lower and then from the backseat Squires called out: “Structure at eight o’clock.” The pilot swung his head down and to the left. Harmon was on the blind side.

“Bank a turn and get as low as you can,” Harmon said, climbing out of his seat and squeezing into the back with his partner. While they swung around, Harmon and Squires readied the fast ropes, tying them to U-bolts secured into the floor of the chopper. Harmon slid open a side door and looked out.

“Eleven o’clock,” he said into the microphone. “See it?”

“Yeah, I got it,” the pilot said. “I’ll get you over that decking at the rear.”

“Nice armpit they got for us to visit this time,” Squires said. “I’m not picking up any movement but that don’t mean a thing considering that ground cover. Shit, somebody coulda parked a fucking yacht in there and you wouldn’t spot it.” The big man took the Mk23 handgun out of his operations bag and strapped it to his thigh.

When they were thirty feet over the dark wooded deck both men slung their packs over their shoulders and put their feet out on the landing runners.

“I’ll call on the satellite phone for a pickup,” Harmon said to the pilot and by turn, Squires first, they rappelled like circus artists down the ropes.

“Fuck! They are cops,” Buck said when he saw the first man slide down the rope and touch down on the deck. The guy unsnapped his line and had a nasty-looking handgun out faster than Buck had seen most men flick a switchblade. He was dressed all in black, like some goddamn SWAT dude who meant business. Then the second guy came down.

“What the hell?” he whispered to himself. This one was dressed like he was going to baseball game: a pair of jeans and

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