I’d seen men behave that way before around her.
I’d reacted that way myself.
Perhaps she still affected me that way. I wondered.
Something else I noted: Pilar carried the photographer’s case.
Only two roads cross the Everglades, connecting Florida’s Gulf Coast with the Atlantic. We’d come to Miami via Alligator Alley, the newest, fastest, and northernmost highway. Now I was returning homeward on the narrow, more southern Tamiami Trail, a less traveled two-lane road that augers through ninety miles of sawgrass and cypress swamp.
The highways travel similar topography, but they are unlike in most other ways. Alligator Alley is a modern freeway, buffered by public land on both sides. There are no homes, no businesses, and only one service station along the way. The Trail, in comparison, is old-time Florida. It is a remote and isolated country road that is interrupted by an occasional cluster of Indian chikee huts, or a lone trailer set back in, or a bait stand. The Alley is six lanes. The Trail is seldom more than two. The Alley is faster, busier. The Trail is slower, shadier, more remote.
I drove westward on the Trail, past tacky Deco roadside attractions at Coppertown and Frog City, eyes shifting from the highway to the road behind. I had to stay far enough ahead of the Chevy to keep them from seeing that I was now alone, but I didn’t want to get so far ahead that I gave the impression of flight. Didn’t want to tip them that I was aware I was being pursued.
So I drove at a consistent ten miles an hour over the speed limit. Fast enough to keep some distance between us, but not fast enough to attract the attention of the highway patrol.
Getting stopped by the cops now would be disastrous. I pictured myself on the highway shoulder, a squad car parked behind, lights flashing as the black Chevy slowed just enough to confirm that I was alone. I imagined the Chevy driving for another quarter-mile or so before making a U-turn, then heading back to the Radisson exit-the logical starting place to resume their search for Pilar. I pictured the Chevy passing again as an officer handed me a ticket.
Yes, disastrous…
Or… would it be?
As I sped along, passing slower cars and pickups with bass boats in tow, camper trucks and the occasional semi, I mulled over the possibilities and the potential.
What were the options if law enforcement came between me and the Chevy…?
I considered different scenarios, weighing risks.
Beyond the levee at Chekika’s Hammock, the road straightened through a dome of cypress trees, water and lily pads on both sides. I slowed for another Indian village.
There were thatched huts around a gravel parking lot and a sign that read JAMES TIGER’S FAMOUS REPTILE SHOW AND AIRBOAT RIDES.
James is a friend of mine-and there he was, using a wrench on an airboat engine, the sleeves of his rainbow-colored Seminole shirt rolled high, his old black cowboy hat battling the sun.
I was tempted to stop. If a man lives a long and lucky life, he may meet a handful of people he can trust under any circumstance, in any situation, life or death. James Tiger is one of those rare men.
Still slowing, looking at James, my mind flashed on a different plan, and on how I could work it. I could slide into the parking lot, stuff the satellite phone in one pocket, the Sig Sauer pistol in another, and tell James that the bad guys were after me. Tell him I needed to borrow an airboat, or ask to hitch a ride on his boat to some remote island a couple of miles out in the swamp.
He’d do it. No questions.
Then I’d wait for my pursuers to find me. It might take a while. A couple of hours. Maybe a couple of days. But they’d track me. For half-a-million dollars, they’d figure a way.
I’d be waiting out there with the Sig Sauer, and I’d take them. Put the bodies in a gator hole, never to be found.
It could work… if I was willing to do something so extreme.
Which I was. If I had to. I’ve taken similar action before in my life. Hated doing it; loathed myself at the time and for a long while afterward. Despised myself because I was capable of such action, and also because it scared me to the core.
Something inside me is capable of that?
When those memories come slipping back, they produce a sickening and sweaty unpleasantness-which is why I make every effort to live in the present, not the past.
But I’ve now come to terms with who I am, and what I am. Occasionally for better, often for worse, I have come to terms with that truth.
I sometimes wonder if focusing on marine biology as a life’s work isn’t a way of justifying, or at least validating, a specific and unsentimental view of existence. From biology’s elemental view, human beings, like all species, are not only guided by the tenets of natural selection, we are mandated. In such a world, eliminating enemies, or behavioral anomalies, isn’t a decision to be made. It is a necessary process.
I’ve participated in that process. I can do it again if required. Of that there is no doubt.
Something else, though, was necessary to make my airboat escape work. I also had to be willing to involve my friend James Tiger in what amounted to cold-blooded murder.
That was something I would not do.
I touched my foot to the accelerator and sped on.
Once, on a long and open stretch of highway, I got a glimpse of the Chevy way, way back there, still on my tail. I wondered if they’d decided to try and catch me.
To find out, I reduced my speed from 75 to 65. The dark car closed briefly, then dropped back.
No. I guessed they’d decided there was still too much traffic. Too many passing witnesses. They were content to stay close. Were probably waiting, hoping there’d be a reason for me to stop in this rural region.
I’d been thinking about doing exactly that, my brain scanning furiously, continuing to inspect variations of what might be a plausible plan, defining, rejecting, then refining.
I could hear Tattoo saying, If my people catch them tailing you again, the deal’s off. Could hear him saying, It’s your problem, not ours.
I had to come up with a way not just to shake them, but to lose them. I didn’t have to get rid of them permanently, but I did have to make them disappear for a sizeable block of time-several days, and probably longer.
Finally, I settled upon something that might work. I thought about it some more, then finally committed myself to putting the plan into action.
Decision made, I began anticipating details, which presented me with a whole other stack of problems. Not the least of which was, I didn’t know how many people were in the car.
So I chose a figure. I chose five because that was the worst-case scenario. It gave me something to work with.
Another troubling possibility was, assuming they had entered the country illegally, they could’ve smuggled in some heavy firepower with them. The prospect of facing a carload of men carrying automatic weapons made my stomach roll.
No matter how many there were, though, and whatever they were packing, I needed to get it right the first time. I needed to pick the ideal place, make a good guess at the timing, and then keep the timing tight.
Ahead, road signs now warned, was an abrupt right curve in what is otherwise a straight road-Forty Mile Bend.
Forty Mile Bend is part of Everglades mythos. It is said that back in the early 1900s, when construction crews were using floating dredges to build the Tamiami Trail across the great sawgrass river, one team started from Miami, to the east. Another started building from below Naples, in the west. The plan called for the two construction crews to meet in the swamp’s middle-but the engineering was way off and they missed by many, many miles. Thus a great bend was required to join the two sections of road.
Traveling from east to west, where Forty Mile Bend angles northward, Dade County, which is home to Miami, becomes Collier County, which is home to Naples. Just as Miami and Naples are polar opposites in style and population, so are the two counties. The same is true of the infrastructures that keeps them operating.