Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,115

building, Tomlinson showed me his note, a two-word question: Code Talkers?

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FRIDAY NIGHT, AND MY DATE WITH HANNAH SEEMED a long time coming. The fact that the retriever was gone, claimed by his owner, when I got home late Sunday had nothing to do with it. And it wasn’t just because I was nervous about a dinner date—although I was. So I buried myself in research and started a version of my hook placement study for weekend anglers. I worked out twice daily—running, swimming, wearing a forty-pound vest on the VersaClimber—and I also kept a very close watch on the news.

Sooner or later, someone would find the Stiletto ocean racer, one dead witch doctor aboard, and competent men with badged IDs would appear at Dinkin’s Bay, eager to ask questions. Sooner or later, Cressa Arturo would discover she had been robbed—same tight sphincter scenario.

The eventuality didn’t seem to bother Vargas Diemer. Probably because the man was too smart, too cool to behave as if he had something to hide. So his million-dollar yacht remained where it was, the jet-set assassin happy to entertain guests, including his beautiful victim, Cressa, the soon-to-be-unmarried mistress. I, too, was a regular visitor during that short span, Monday through Friday, but only when I was bored or restless—which was constantly.

It was Wednesday evening, around sunset, sitting topside with Diemer, that I first learned that Dean Arturo had tried to escape from a state psych ward and then, inexplicably, had been released after his father posted bail. The Brazilian and I had been debating the true intent of the old aviator’s secret mission while also discussing the role of American Indians in World War II. Many tribes had sent volunteers as “Code Talkers” to befuddle the Japanese and Germans by communicating in their native tongues. Something I didn’t realize, though, was that ninety percent of Native American males had rushed to enlist after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Their astonishing loyalty to a government they had every reason to distrust had provided the nation with highly decorated heroes in every service branch—including the Marine Corps’ top fighter pilot ace, Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, a Sioux Indian.

It was an interesting irony that called for more research, and my respect for Angel Sampedro, and the airmen who had perished among ancestral bones, had grown exponentially. Same was true of the Brazilian, I think, who that Wednesday evening had turned the conversation to why those four men were being trained secretly for a night bombing mission off Guam.

Diemer pressed a three-pronged theory: 1. The U.S. government would have been derelict not to anticipate the Indianapolis being disabled. 2. Only bombers flown by American Code Talkers could have breached the ship’s security umbrella while also communicating freely among themselves. 3. The training mission’s secret couldn’t risk compromise by a prolonged search for three missing men.

Sinister government conspiracy theories are as commonplace as the simpletons who believe them, but this was the jet-set assassin talking so I had to at least listen patiently. Which is what I was doing when Diemer’s cell phone rang: Cressa Arturo calling, frightened once again because her crazy brother-in-law was on the loose.

“Why don’t you take her on a cruise?” I suggested when he’d hung up, then had to add, “Deano couldn’t get to her on your boat—and less chance of her looking inside her wall safe. Whatever it was you took.”

Diemer dodged the implicit question by asking, “Is he dangerous? I’ve never met the man.”

Later, I would regret my answer, but what I told the Brazilian seemed true at the time. “No, but in the way most snakes aren’t dangerous,” I said. “The guy will run unless you corner him.” I then repeated my suggestion that he take Cressa on a trip—Key West, although she’d probably enjoy Palm Beach more.

The man was already shaking his head. “Even on a vessel the size of Seduci, quarters are too close with a woman aboard. Not for more than a day or two. Better, I think, if I simply make nightly visits.”

“Just an idea,” I said. “A beautiful woman—very neat, too, so you have a lot in common—and she’s rich.”

“Tempting,” he said, “but unwise. Risk ugly scenes, emotional involvement? No . . . In certain professions”—the man attempted a kindred smile—“romantic relationships are wasted time. Never do they survive more than the first or second new assignment. They ask questions, they suspect infidelity. How does one answer? Impossible!”

That gave me the opening I’d been waiting for to ask about the