Ocean Prey (A Prey Novel #31) - John Sandford Page 0,13
task force be closed down.”
“Do you think they should do that?” Bob asked.
“I think we should try David Bruce’s idea of the reward. If nobody finds a dope can, we’re no worse off than we are now. At least we’ve got an iron in the fire.” Then she shrugged: “Right now, we have nothing. Unless you two are law enforcement geniuses, that won’t improve. I’m ready to go home.”
Bob smiled at her: “But we are law enforcement geniuses. At least I am. Lucas is more like my assistant, he carries my gun and so on, does my PR. We’ll break it in a week or two.”
“I’m holding my breath,” Taylor said. “Waiting to see you two at work. I know Dale is impressed, and I mean, I could learn so much.”
Lucas said to Bob, “A cynic. She doesn’t believe you.”
Bob shook his head. “It makes me sad to think about that.”
“I have to confess,” Taylor said to Bob, reaching out to touch his arm. “I loved that part where you dropped your Glock on the conference table. That was the most electrifying thing that happened in that room in two months. Well, aside from your shorts.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
The Nissan’s air conditioning produced a breeze that was cold and damp, almost wet, so they drove across Fort Lauderdale with the windows down and their elbows out, Queen doing “We Are the Champions” on the satellite radio.
“This fuckin’ place is like a monument to the concrete block,” Bob said, watching Marina Mile stream by.
“And mobile homes,” Lucas said. “Ever been here before?”
“I went on a cruise, once, with an old girlfriend, but I never saw the city. Never been to Miami.”
“It’s concrete blocks from top to bottom, Palm Beach to Key West,” Lucas said. “Same on the West Coast.”
“Plus the mobile homes,” Bob said.
“Yeah. They’re like the architectonic spice to illuminate the stucco,” Lucas said.
“I wish I’d said that.”
* * *
They followed Bob’s telephone navigation app across Fort Lauderdale and over the Intracoastal Waterway to A1A where they immediately got jammed up in traffic; they grabbed a lucky parking space a half mile from the show, and walked along A1A to the show’s entrance.
The show was a cross between a state fair, the Daytona 500, and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, done on the water, with boats, some of them the size of skyscrapers laid on their sides. “They say there are four billion bucks’ worth of yachts,” Bob said, gawking. “I believe that.”
The line at the entrance was a block long, but they pushed past reluctant ticket-takers with their marshal IDs. A hundred yards inside the gates, they were stopped by cops in military-style uniforms wearing wraparound sunglasses and bulletproof vests and carrying semiautomatic black rifles. Their pistols must be printing on their guayabera shirts, Lucas thought. The lead cop said, his gun barrel slightly raised toward them, “You two . . .”
“Federal marshals . . .” Bob said, before the cop finished talking.
“You have IDs?”
“Of course. We’re working with the joint services task force on the Coast Guard murders,” Lucas said. “I’m going to get my ID out.”
He dug his ID out of his pants pocket and Bob did the same. The cops looked them over and then the lead cop asked, in a tone just short of curt: “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for the Coast Guardsman who shot one of the guys on the killers’ boat,” Lucas said. “He’s working out here. You got a problem with that?”
“I got a problem with people with guns,” the cop said.
Lucas nodded. “So do I. Especially rifles that might be fired in a crowd. You sure as shit will kill some innocent people if you fire those things.”
“That’s not the way we see it,” one of the other cops said.
“I understand that,” Lucas said. “But I’ll tell you what. You shoot some innocent citizen with that rifle and I’ll testify against you at a murder trial.”
The cop opened his mouth to reply, but Bob jumped in: “Have a nice day,” he said.
* * *
As he and Lucas walked away, Bob muttered, “Always good to have the local cops on your side.”
“Whoever sent them out here with rifles is a fuckin’ moron,” Lucas said. “If they’re really worried about a terror attack, they ought to put twenty patrol cops in plain clothes and have them walking every dock.” He waved at the megayachts. “Maybe put a couple snipers up on top of those ocean liners with spotters.”