Marquez smiled. “What’s your take on the Feds?”
“They do have something they’re afraid you’re going to inter-fere with and they plan to keep track of your whereabouts. If they had their way your team would be wearing mountain lion collars.”
“They’re protecting poachers.”
“I won’t argue with that, but don’t start preaching at me. Buehler’s correct, we’re not going to fight them and win.”
Twenty minutes later, Sacramento was a skyline behind Mar-quez and in his rearview mirror the windows of the taller build-ings reflected orange and red in the late sun. He crossed the causeway and rode through Davis in a stream of cars running fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit and still jockeying with each other for better position. He called Katherine. Maria answered, giggling, her teenage voice carrying relief at having her mom home, setting aside her war with her for a few hours. She put Katherine on.
“I’m on my way in,” he said.
“I’ll handle it alone, John.” Her voice got quieter. “Maria and I are going to dinner together.”
“You’re sure? I’m only an hour away. I’ve got something hap-pening tonight, but not until later. Or tell me what restaurant and I’ll come there.”
Kath was silent, keeping her distance, still upset over this morning, then saying she had to get off the phone as though talking to a business acquaintance. A profound sadness welled up from deep in him after he’d hung up, and he drove without taking any calls, letting the phone ring through to voice mail until he was coming through the dry hills above Vallejo and could see the bay in the distance, a milky haze above it, the sky red behind. He thought about the fragility of the connection now with Katherine, how the smallest thing said could trigger all the anger and an immediate turning away. She’d flown home and driven to find him and he’d failed her the next morning.
He listened to his messages, gassed the truck, and got back on the freeway. He talked with Shauf, Petersen, and Alvarez, and when he got into Marin he was still on his cell phone, finalizing how they’d track Li tonight, using all the team, bringing Roberts back down from Bragg, and still it wasn’t enough wardens if the other side was smart. He drove through Marin and checked for Katherine and Maria at the Indian restaurant that was one of Maria’s favorites, but didn’t see them and didn’t know what he would have done if he had. He bought a burrito and coffee and ate as he crossed the bay again and hooked up with the team in Oakland.
Two lights were on in Li’s house, both downstairs. At 10:20 the garage door opened and Marquez rang through to the hands-free setup they’d installed in Li’s truck. Li took three or four rings to answer and his voice was nervous and high-pitched.
“They call already.”
“We’re right with you. Leave this phone open now like we talked about.”
“Yes, I know.”
Marquez brought the SOU up behind and ahead of Li now. They floated him in a bubble and he listened to Li answer the phone with his own heart thumping hard at the poacher’s voice, the clipped instructions to Li, the racial condescension as the man asked Li, did he understand. Li went east on I-80 and exited into Emeryville, crossing under the freeway and running up the frontage road on the bay side and then making a U-turn as the frontage road passed the base of Berkeley. In the darkness away from any street-light and out along the road to the Berkeley Marina he eased to the shoulder and parked. It could go down right here, Marquez knew, a car pulling up behind Li, a casual transfer of coolers. No big deal, a little business, nothing more than that and over in seconds.
“Can you believe that?” Petersen asked, her voice soft and quiet. “If the Marlin was in port the crew could walk up and be our backup.”
Li wasn’t a mile from where the Marlin regularly docked, but the boat was on patrol. Marquez called Hansen, let him know where they were, that they were waiting. He talked with Li again, reassuring him. Then Li’s phone rang, sharp and hard and loud in the truck. New instructions came and Li got on the freeway east-bound again, took the 580 cutoff and headed north toward the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge before reversing himself at the toll plaza. The caller said get off in Point Richmond, then directed him to the tunnel and ran him out the empty road toward Brickyard Landing and the marina there.
Marquez remembered a rock quarry filled with water, a dirt road running through the low humped rockbound hills behind the marina. It was another way to approach Brickyard, but after think-ing about it he discarded it, and drifted the SOU in, one, then a second car down the long open road past the shoreline park and around the curve. To the left was a condo project built into the low rounded hills, and to the right, the harbor and the dark water reflecting the marina lights. The first warden turned up toward the condos, would have to talk to the guard at the gate.
Li had parked near Brickyard Cove Marina, and Marquez drove the road now, was the only car to follow Li’s truck and anyone watching was watching now. He brought Petersen in behind him as Li got out and walked into the marina parking and stood where they’d told him to wait, away from the boats at the lot perimeter and under the lights. Marquez scanned the shingled and wood-sided buildings surrounding the marina lot. The metal-roofed condos across the street were quiet, a few lights on, no one visible outside, glass faces staring across the water. He drove past and parked, nodded to Petersen as she joined him and slipped her hand into his, walking side by side with him, leaning into him as they ran their ploy.
They walked out slowly along the dock, Marquez wearing a billed cap, an old leather coat, Petersen’s hand firm and strong hold-ing his hand. They passed a line of houses with boats docked out front as Alvarez reported steadily through an earpiece Marquez wore.
“I really am going to miss you,” Petersen said, making light of it, though he knew that was her shyness. She was tender and made her way in the world with joking and humor, even with those they’d just busted. It was the innate mark of her gentleness. “I’m so used to seeing that big old scarred head of yours.”
“You make me sound like an old elephant.”
“In a way you are.”
“I’m going to miss you, too. I really am.”
“Roberts will tell you how to run things.”
“Bet on that.”
“John, how come you never had any kids? I mean, you were alone so long before Katherine and Maria.”
“I had girlfriends.”
“Yeah, I was one of them. You know what I mean.”
“I thought I told you once.”
“I don’t think so.”
“There was someone who I thought I was going to be with for-ever and she got killed on a trip we made together to Africa. This was a long time ago and we were pretty young and stupid about where we camped. I got drafted at the tail end of Vietnam, but never shipped out, and when I got out Julie and I went to Africa. Do you see Li still?”
“Yes.”
“We were going to travel for a year and were doing it on next to no money and camped near a game preserve in Kenya. I went into town for supplies one afternoon and came back and she was gone. When she didn’t come back that night I got to the local police and their first reaction was she’d gone off with another man. I found her two days later by driving around with one of the locals and watching the buzzards. She’d been raped and shot, then dumped in the grass less than a mile from where we’d camped. The animals had already gotten to her and it was the hardest thing of my life. I had a real hard time accepting it. When you’re young you think everything has got to work out the way it should.”
“Who killed her?”
“They suspected elephant poachers, three men they held for a while and then released. I had their names and I went to find them later and planned to kill them. But I found I couldn’t do it because there hadn’t been enough proof it was them. Turn toward me, face me like you want to be close to me and tell me what you see on the silver-gray boat down at the end.”