For power: twin Merc 250s, top speed over sixty, a range of four hundred miles—almost to Cuba and back, or almost to the Yucatán.

Almost being the operative word.

Ford checked fuel, oil, and plugged in the charger even though all four batteries were new.

At Jensen’s Marina on Captiva he had stored a fifty-gallon gas bladder, thinking he would never need it. He told the dog, “Let’s hope I don’t.”

•   •   •

FROM HIS TRUCK, he phoned Scottsdale, Arizona, Colorado Springs, and an unnamed city in Maryland. The process was so complicated it resembled ceremony. Six calls, five recordings, and, finally, one human voice: Hal Harrington, an old associate who still owed Ford a big favor, but the conversation did not go well.

Harrington saying, “You dropped out. What do you want me to do?”

Irritating, the bland way he spoke. Before getting in his truck, Ford had sent the man an encrypted note, part of a text he had received from his pilot friend Dan Futch. Implicit was Ford’s request for help:

“Mexico such a shithole via Bahamas only safe route. Most likely San Andros, clear customs, use Bethells as residence. Approach from east at night, low altitude, fifty feet max, use mountains to obscure Fat Albert, and hope no boats in the area when we land.”

They were directions, a seaplane ingress that could be to only one place, Cuba, although the island wasn’t mentioned. Something else not mentioned was that the charter company, Tampa to Havana, would not accept firearms as baggage. Even if they did, the next flight wasn’t until Sunday. Neither option would get him to Cuba before Tomlinson arrived the next night or Friday morning, depending on the wind.

Ford attempted patience with his former boss. “I sent you something fifteen minutes ago. Maybe you didn’t get it.”

“Really? Guess not.”

Harrington was lying.

Ford said, “Didn’t we learn a technique called communiqué by omission? I’m reluctant to spell it out. Hal?”—he tried to soften this into a request—“Don’t make me.”

“Is that a threat?”

“You know better. Maybe if you check your emails again? In the note’s first line, there’s a mention of Mexico.”

After a couple of seconds, Harrington said, “I’ll be damned. A little confusing the way it’s worded, but it helps. You should have referenced this in the first place.”

“I’m a little rusty, I guess.” The dog, with his nose out the window, ears flapping in the wind, sneezed.

“Gesundheit,” Harrington said.

“Thank you,” Ford replied. “I wouldn’t jump the ladder if I didn’t think this was serious.”

“Does that mean you’re interested in coming back?”

Ford resorted to a lie. “It’s that obvious? I never thought I’d get tired of sitting on my butt in air-conditioning, but, yeah, I sort of miss the old days.”

“You’ve always been a sentimental guy, Doc.” A hint of sarcasm there. “Well . . . I guess I could do some checking around. As a friend—not as a contracted deal, of course. Keep that in mind. What I’m still unclear about is—”

Ford pushed the phone away from his ear, thinking, I might as well hang up right now. That happened a few minutes later when he lost patience and said, “I don’t give a damn, Hal, if it’s protocol or not.”

Harrington was a trigger-puller, the real deal, but, through necessity, had developed the polish of a politician. “I know,” the man replied. “Any wonder your special phone doesn’t ring anymore?”

•   •   •

FORD HAD INTENDED to buy extra dog food at the 7-Eleven. Instead, he headed for Jensen’s Twin Palm on Captiva, which was across Blind Pass Bridge. Impossible not to slow at Castaways and check the cottage windows. Maggie was there, the same cheap rental in the drive.

“I don’t know what’s got into me,” he said to the dog, thinking the words but sometimes speaking aloud. “This one-night stand bullshit, it’s symptomatic of something. Totally out of character.”

The dog wasn’t interested.

“If she’s awake, I’ve got a built-in excuse. Those papers stolen from Castro’s estate? Didn’t find a single damn article. She wasn’t lying. Why would she make that up? That tells me something about her possible occupation. Reason enough, I think, to sneak a look at her phone. Now I’m glad I did.” Ford noticed car lights behind him and pulled into the grocery parking lot, the store and Sunset Café closed, but the Flamingo still open if he was hungry.

Maybe later.

“On the other hand, if I ask, she might have to reveal something about herself. Next, we’d be trading numbers and I don’t want that. Know why?” With the truck running, he focused on Maggie’s cottage, hoping the screen door would open, also hoping it wouldn’t.

It didn’t.

On the road again, he finally admitted, Because Maggie’s married, that’s why. Pissed at himself because he’d known from the start. You can remove a ring, but not a tan line. Breaking a personal rule was taboo, but lying to himself was worse.

That wasn’t his only lie.

At Jensen’s Marina, by the docks, palm trees framed a vast darkness where navigation lights blinked, red, white, and green. Ford let the dog out, walked to the bait tanks, and stared. To the northeast, across six miles of water and muted by mangroves, a milky dot marked the fishing village of Sulphur Wells. A woman lived there. An unusually good woman; smart, independent, and solid. Captain Hannah Smith was also a first-rate fishing guide.

They had dated, but it was more that; now they were done.

Ford touched the phone in his pocket . . . hesitated, still staring, and sent a telepathic message: I’ll call you when I get back.

The fifty-gallon fuel bladder, stored beside the office, was empty, so it was easy enough to load. It took longer to unlock the fuel pump at Dinkin’s Bay, where Mack complained, “Working the graveyard shift now, are we? What’s up?” It was almost midnight.

Ford contrived a story about Ridley turtles and camping on Shark River, south of Naples.

Hours later, in darkness, with engines synched, he threaded the cutoff Lighthouse Beach and pointed his boat toward Key West.

Key West Cemetery is nineteen acres of shipwrights, cigarmakers, gunrunners, wreckers, sailors, and others who would have been happier drowned at sea. Not a cheery place at night, especially after an hour spent searching for a missing shortstop. No flashlight, only a lighter to flick, after tripping over several tombstones, one of which turned out to be the grave of an old friend.

Tomlinson felt a descending melancholy. He sat with his back against the stone and tested a happier theory.

“Hell, Shine . . . maybe I’m imagining this entire goat fest. Is that why you called this meeting?”

From beneath the stone Captain Kermit “Shine” Forbes responded, Boy, get off your dead butt an’ go find that li’l Cuban.

Tomlinson obeyed. He was striding toward Passover Lane when he noticed blue flashers to the south and sirens. Experience told him to flee north, but he maintained control and crept toward the lights anyway. When he was close enough, he stopped behind a tree and listened as two cops questioned a man who, even seated on the grass, was the size of a grizzly bear.