THE LAST OPERATION

PROLOGUE

Route 41, Near the Everglades. May 2003

The blood seeped down the back seat of the Lexus, pooling in
congealing clumps, gleaming black on the gray leather. His shirt was
soaked in the red splashings and the battered ruined face looked like
road kill on the lolling head. One eye was swollen shut, the other a
white slit under the partially shut lid. His hands were behind him,
held together with bailing wire that had cut deep into the wrists,
coloring the steel wire a dark copper red.
A fat man sat next to him. He was bulky-muscled fat with a long beefy
arm resting on the victim's shoulder, the scarred-knuckled hand like a
great shovel blade against the side of the bloodied shoulder. The fat
man looked out the window like a grotesque black pumpkin as the night
countryside flew out of the front circle of the halogen headlamps. He
looked at the world from narrowed squinty eyes in a face like
compressed white and brown raisins. His eyes held no emotions, no
curiosity and little intelligence. Certainly no pity for the demolished
human being next to him.
It's just a job.
The driver of the Lexus held the wheel loosely with his right hand,
the left disappeared down his side to rest on the interior panel of the
door. He kept the speed at a steady eighty, the night road straight and
long and numbingly boring. Traffic was non-existent at this hour. An
occasional eighteen-wheeler, trying to make time toward an early
morning delivery in Naples or Fort Myers, was the only thing to break
the monotony of Route 41, the Tamiami trail in the Everglades.
The driver was another hired hand, maybe higher up, but still a hired
hand. His dark face shone in the reflected light of the instrument
panel, the thin mustache a black line above the slash of a mouth. The
eyes caught your attention. Slightly bulging lids gave him a bit of a
bug-eyed look. The nose with the flaring nostrils betrayed the mixed
blood of the Cuban Latino and the Miami African-American.
The passenger next to him wore the uniform of a Collier County
Sheriff's deputy. The tag above the brown pocket read "Schmus." His
bulk filled the generous bucket seat. His stomach was beginning to
build over the beltline and a lower roll of fat rested against the
regulation nine millimeter strapped in the holster at his belt. A
crewcut with military style whitewalls topped a face partially hidden
by the shaded glasses. Under the lenses, two small eyes peered out in a
porcine brutish face that screamed redneck. His hands fidgeted as he
sat and darted quick glances at the driver and the fat man in the rear
view mirror. What really made Schmus nervous was having to deal with
Taylor and that big spade, Rollie.
Schmus believed Rollie was the second scariest man he had ever
encountered. The first was that damned Richard Daniels and his Special
Forces and Karate shit. Best thing about Daniels was that you rarely
ever encountered him.
Taylor was something else. Schmus had been dealing with him much too
often for comfort since he got on his payroll. He smiled at the thought
of the weekly envelope stuffed with six greenbacks, all with pictures
of Grant.
"Left turn coming up," said Schmus.
The driver slowed the car as the sign appeared, shining green and
white in the headlights.
EVERGLADES CITY, ROUTE 29
The Lexus turned left heading west between the Visitor's Center and
the all night Texaco. The headlights cut a swath in the surrounding
dense vegetation without penetrating its blackness.
"Fucking boonies out here, gives me the creep," said the fat
man.
"Wha'd you wanna do, dump him in Miami Square? Heads up, there's a
trail coming up, you're going to make a right," said Schmus.
The Lexus slowed as the little trail appeared, nothing more then a
lighter spot in the thick jungle. The Lexus turned into it, the
suspension moving the car up and back as it negotiated the bumps and
sand holes at walking speed. Branches and bushes rubbed against all
sides of the car and wheels making scratchy squealing noises. Schmus
thought it was like driving in an inkwell with ghosts on all
sides.
The trail became wider as Mangrove trees seemed to spring around the
Lexus. The branches and leaves twined above them in a black canopy that
ended at the edge of a natural canal. Across the canal, no more then a
dozen feet, the eyes of an alligator glittered like diamonds in the
headlights.
The driver opened the door and got out. A handful of stars peered out
from the black sky. Dawn was still a few hours away. All around him
cicadas, frogs and God-knows-what chirped and chattered. Something
screeched in the distance answered by a nearby splash in the canal. The
alligator suddenly disappeared in a swirl of sooty black water and a
slight breeze carried the scents of wet tropical vegetation.
The fat man opened the door and dragged the passenger out. He fell to
his knees and pitched down, face first in the grassy muck. A gurgled
moan escaped from the swollen lips as he sprawled in the illuminated
oval of the Lexus interior lights.
"Just do it now," said the driver.
"Where the hell's the Indian?" said the fat man.
"He'll be here, guaranteed," replied Schmus.
"Yea, but still, he ain't here now."
The fat man reached in his pocket and pulled a small nickel plated
automatic, a 22 Caliber Saturday Night Special. Cheap and accurate to a
maximum of about twenty feet. It glinted in the reflected light like a
snake's fang.
"Jesus, not now, not when I'm here," said Schmus.
The driver looked at him and laughed, a short barking joyless
noise.
"What do you think. You don't like, see it, it means you ain't
involved Mister Deputy Fucking Sheriff. You'll fry with us, maybe
worse. They expect this shit from people like us, not from you."
Schmus turned his head. His face flushed and his eyes burned. He could
feel his hands shaking, a nervous tremble that soon spread to his
forearms. All around them the rich smell of decaying vegetation and
tidal-flat mud bathed them in a miasma of alien scents. The fat man
leaned down and jammed the barrel of the .22 against the base of the
man's skull and pulled the trigger. There was a loud wet plopping
noise, like a champagne cork popping in a bag of jelly. The man's body
settled into the black mud inert as a sack of rocks. That was the
beauty of the 22. Enough power to penetrate the skull, rattle around
causing massive damage with no exit wound. A momentary silence
enveloped them, as if all the night creatures of the great swamp had
paused to watch.
The fat man reached down and put two fingers around a thick silver
chain tight on the dead man's neck. He tugged with a curse as the chain
didn't break.
"What the hell are you doing?" asked the driver. Don't take shit from
the man you just whacked. You wanna carry evidence on you?"
The fat man shrugged and took his hand off the corpse's neck.
The Indian came up out of nowhere. It was like he had been part of the
surrounding blackness, just another unmoving shadow upon shadows. Tall
with rangy muscles like knotted steel cables, dark face hidden in the
night and head covered with a formless bandanna.
"Shit, what the...," said the driver, jumping back. His hand went to
the butt of the .357 Magnum in the shoulder holster. The Indian ignored
him, stepped around the Lexus, picked up the corpse by both arms and
dragged it away into the night like a Panther slinking off with its
kill.
"Lets get the hell out of here. This is too fucking weird," said the
driver.
The fat man shrugged and got in the back. Schmus became aware of a
stinging pain in the palm of his hand as he realized he had gouged out
a little chunk of flesh with his nails.
In the stillness of the luxury car, they didn't hear the roar of an
airboat engine starting as the Lexus backed out of the narrow
trail.

At the same time, in the dark across the canal, shards of pain like
lances of glass penetrated every inch of Bobby-Ray's skull. He felt it
especially in the tender areas behind and above his eyelids. His head
was on fire as the remains of Mr. Jim Beam, fine Kentucky sipping
Bourbon, avenged itself in his system. He groaned softly and ran a hand
over his face, feeling the small raw bumps. Not good to fall asleep in
the Everglades where the mosquitoes were the size of small helicopters
and aggressive as mad pit bulls. Godamm, he thought, as he sat up with
a groan, this shit's going to kill me yet. Now that he was approaching
the big Three-Oh, it seemed harder to recover. He didn't remember much
about yesterday, barely remembered opening the quart bottle and the
first drifting, beckoning whiff of fine sour mash. When the afternoon
started that way you never knew where it would end, whose bed he wound
up in, or, this time, in the middle of the Everglades, passed out in
his airboat with no idea how he got there.
It was black as the inside of a dead coal mine. A cloud cover had
robbed away any starlight. He stood up, holding the center console and
sniffed the air, senses alert as they could be under the vicious
hangover. Something had wakened him. Something slight, something
changing, picked out by his subconscious as he slept.
Off to his left, about two hundred yards, a moving glow of automobile
headlamps appeared. Dimmed and reflected from the vegetation, the glow
moved slowly like it came from a giant languid firefly. It stopped at
the canal's edge, the headlamps stabbing out over the water and
absorbed into the viscous blackness.
From the position of the car, Bobby-Ray had a good idea of where he
was, one of the main canals that ran off the sides of Everglades City.
He noted that his airboat was well under a large clump of overhanging
Mangroves, invisible in the night swamp. The glowing dial of his
commando watch read three AM. What the hell is a car doing here at the
edge of the canal at this time, he thought. He picked a water bottle
from its holder and splashed a little on his hands and rubbed it into
his face as if it could chase away the pounding in his head. He frowned
as the single shot washed over the canal and swamp, its noise, although
muted, distinctive and unmistakable as a 747 jet. It couldn't be
poachers. There was nothing there so close to Everglades City. The
deers were much further in the wooded areas and the most valuable thing
in the Everglades, the big alligators, would be well into the bogs and
outlying canals and interconnecting ponds. Besides, that had been a
pistol shot, small caliber he guessed.
As Bobby-Ray watched, the car backed away and the headlight glow
retreated until it disappeared over the rise that marked the beginning
of the shoulders of US 29.
A few minutes later he heard the bellowing roar of an airboat
engine.
Bobby-Ray was the product of the public schools and culture of
Florida's Collier County that encompassed, much as it could, the
Everglades. In the seventies and eighties, when Bobby-Ray attended,
those schools had been notorious for their mediocrity. Even then,
Bobby-Ray had dropped out at fifteen. There were only a few things that
mattered in the life of the young males in that Southern backwash
country. Drinking, fishing, guns and pussy were all right up there
along with another biggy: Cars and engines. Six years with the US
Special Forces had done nothing to dampen his enthusiasms for those
things.
When Bobby-Ray heard the sudden roar of the unmuffled airboat engine,
he recognized it immediately; Chevy big block, 327, bored and stroked.
The deeper whoom on acceleration told him dual Rochester Quads. Only
one airboat engine like that in the Everglades.
White Hawk.
What the hell is going on, thought Bobby-Ray. Someone had met White
Hawk on the edge of the canal, someone had fired a pistol shot and now
White Hawk was taking off in that souped up airboat, all at three in
the morning.
Basic curiosity crowded out the little demons with stabbing pitchforks
behind Bobby-Ray's eyes and head. He reached into one of the side
compartments and pulled out a helmet and goggles and a clip-on light
attached by long wires to a power pack. Bobby-Ray knew every inch of
the sixteen foot platform of Olive-Drab stainless steel and aluminum.
He had built it and equipped it all himself. In total darkness he
clipped the light to the top of the propeller cage and flipped the on
switch. A dull red glow shone out of the face and seemed to be
immediately swallowed by the voracious blackness of the night. He put
on the helmet, adjusted the goggles and turned them on. The night
immediately sprung bright and clear into the infrared goggles for fifty
yards around him. It was like noon-time under a green sun, but visible
only to Bobby-Ray. He started the engine. That had been his special
creation, a fuel injected Honda V-6, turbo-charged and muffled, driving
a variable pitch aircraft propeller, facing the transom, enclosed
within a stainless steel protective cage. He strapped himself in the
console as he stood. The boat had no seats. He engaged the drive and
stepped on the accelerator. The engine let out a low pitched growling
whine as the airboat shot out of the little cove into the canal.
He drove at three quarter throttle, the infrared generator lighting
the night all around him. Up ahead he could see the bobbing dim light
of the single beam on White Hawk's boat. There was no chance the Indian
could hear his boat over the unmuffled din of his own boat. Still, if
he made a sudden stop, he might be able to hear the Honda's whine over
the Chevy's deep-throated idle.
The two boats flew over the water, past the Everglades National Park
ranger station on the left and the tiny Everglades City airport on the
right and Billy's Marina a hundred yards or so further down. The spread
between the boats widened as Bobby-Ray slowed periodically, listening
for White Hawk's engine noise, the Indian's single beam light growing
dimmer. The boats emerged into the widening bay that marked the
beginning of the Ten Thousand Islands.
Aptly named, the Ten Thousand Islands were an uncountable number of
Mangrove islands interspersed by connecting ponds and natural canals,
peat bogs, swamps and rivers of saw grass. Always shifting and
changing, most of it poorly charted, the area was home to an amazing
diversity of plant and animal wildlife, much of it dangerous. It's been
said that the Everglades contain everything that can cure any illness
and also much that can kill in blindingly painful seconds.
Bobby-Ray's tach indicated 2400RPM. With the variable-pitch high
performance propeller, it translated to a land speed of about forty
miles per hour and still he was losing White Hawk's boat. Now he
followed the signs of passage of the Indian's airboat, the crushed
clumps of elephant grass and tampened down saw grass that had not had
time to straighten. Large sleeping great Blue Herons flashed by in the
green world of the infrared goggles, the eyes glowing phosphorescent
white.
The two boats, now several miles apart, burst through the edge of the
Ten Thousand Island regions.
As the sky began to lighten just a shade for the coming dawn,
Bobby-Ray stopped the boat and took off the infrared equipment. Like a
primitive bloodhound on the hunt he sniffed the air and listened. In
the distance, dim as a muffled whisper, came the fading sound of an
airboat engine. There was enough light now so he could be spotted.
Better to wait until White Hawk left and then see what he had been up
to. He had stopped long enough in that one spot up ahead. Bobby-Ray
wanted to check it out. He could always catch up with the Indian if he
had to.
A lifetime of running in the great swamp had taught him all the signs.
He followed the thin reeds in the murky salt marsh, newly broken and
crushed, the panicky wide trails of the big alligators and the patches
of muddied brackish water that would take hours to settle. Just past
the trailing end of Lostman's River, he found the pond flanked by two
deeper alligator holes. Half a dozen turkey vultures pointed the way
from the apex of shallow lazy circles, the great wings riding low warm
currents, their buzzard heads fixed on the scene below with patient but
ravenous anticipation.
Bobby-Ray idled the airboat to the commotion at the edge of the pond.
Three great bull alligators trashed and sent mud splatters a dozen feet
in the air as they fought and tore at something, the wide toothed jaws
snapping and dismembering great gobs of flesh, bright white and red in
the chalky pre-dawn light. Shreds of cloth floated in the red-tinged
water and off to the left, an incongruous shoe floated right side up, a
human foot still in it, part of a white bone sticking up in the air
like some sort of obscene mast.
As the boat drifted closer, Bobby-Ray could see long blue-grey ropes
of intestine looped in the mouth of the largest reptile. At least nine
feet of vicious gator and a dozen feet of torn human entrails. Engaged
in this harrowing feeding frenzy, the big reptiles ignored the airboat
slowly drifting into their midst. Now he could see several smaller
gators on the outskirts of the action, waiting for morsels to drift out
and for their larger relatives to be sated. Next to the biggest gator,
most of a human head, neck and part of one shoulder bobbed slowly in
the roiling brown and pink water. Of course. They would go for the
softer tissues first.
Bobby-Ray kicked open a side compartment with his foot. A slat came
down with an assortment of a half dozen grenades held in plastic ties.
There was also an Israeli-made Uzi with folding stock and a longer
barrel modified for greater single shot accuracy. All that was needed
for the occasional work he did for Richard Daniels.
He chose a non-lethal flash-banger grenade. This type of weapon was
normally used in hostage situations. The grenade emitted an intolerably
loud explosion and blinding flash. It was meant to stun without
killing.
With the notable exception of certain deserving humans, Bobby-Ray
never killed anything he wasn't going to eat. As for the alligators,
well, they just did what alligators do.
The flash-bang immediately ended the feeding frenzy. The big reptiles
swam away with amazing speed. A ten foot bruiser ran on the slight
embankment and disappeared in the tall saw grass.
The temperature was climbing rapidly and drops of sweat beaded on
Bobby-Ray's face and dripped off his nose. He reached into the murky
water tinged with wisps of fast dissipating tendrils of blood and
pulled the head by what was left of the hair. Great chunks of flesh had
been torn from the face exposing skull bones and upper teeth. The lower
jaw was gone but as he turned the revolting bloody remains, he noted
the back of the head was intact and the half-dollar size entry wound
clearly told him how the man had died.
Bobby-Ray felt a wave of sadness wash over him like a forlorn spirit.
He had seen plenty of violent death in four years of Special Forces
covert operations. Much of it he had inflicted himself. But the end of
this stranger, dumped like so much refuse to be devoured by reptiles,
gripped him like a morbid memory. He just hoped the poor bastard had
been dead when White Hawk dumped him.
Sometimes, the sudden and surprising depths of his emotions, rising
like Leviathans out of the abyss of his psyche, amazed Bobby-Ray. Yet
he understood their power and essential rightness in ways he would deny
and could never try to explain.
Bobby-Ray thought briefly about bringing the remains back. But for
what? How would he explain it? There were already some law enforcement
agencies looking to question him about those smuggling incidents with
Richard Daniels and that Mexican psycho associate of his, Carlos. No my
friend, thought Bobby-Ray. I can't risk the problems just to bring a
couple of pounds of your poor dead ass to some coroner so they can
write down you're officially dead.
He noticed an amulet on a chain around what was left of the neck.
Somehow it had clung to its owner's neck like it had a life of its own.
He reached with his commando knife, cut the chain and placed the amulet
in his pocket before gently lowering the grisly remains back in the
water. Maybe he could track this guy's family, if he had any, and let
them know it was over.
It was then, just at that moment, thin minutes away from the sunrise,
that Bobby-Ray felt it. It had been there all along but he had been so
occupied by the corpse that he had been unaware of it. He stood and
looked around, his head moving slowly as his eyes darted in trained
movements, taking in the thickets of Mangrove and saw grass on islands
that were nothing more then large clumps of mud and hardened clay. He
saw nothing unusual, nothing out of sorts with the environment he knew
so well.
But something was out there, something alien and strange to the swamp.
He could feel it in the marrow of his bones, in the deepest pit of his
gut and the pounding of his heart. He pulled the Uzi from its rack and
armed it. The metallic click was loud, incongruous in the thick
silence.
Suddenly Bobby-Ray knew that's what disturbed him. The silence. The
chirpings, splashings, croaking and other myriad noises of the swamp
were gone. It was like a jungle when the big predator cats are hunting.
Waiting, anticipating, holding it's collective breath. He remembered
his Grandmother's words when he was a child. His Grandmother whose
world was populated by the spirits and legends of her tribe.
Like the shadow of a ghost, dancing on my grave.
A flaming corner of the sun peered above the horizon with surprising
swiftness, the darting rays a hot breath on his face. Bobby-Ray looked
around once more. He shuddered as if an icy blast rolled over him and
the spell was broken. He put down the Uzi, shook his head and started
the engine.
As the noise of his airboat engine faded away, small crabs emerged
from the mud and began nibbling on the tattered remains of flesh.
Clouds of buzzing insects began to form above the fresh carrion
smell.
But the alligators did not return.

It was still there. In the blackness of the thick mangroves, shadow
upon shadow, shades of black pitch distinguishable only by the eyes of
nocturnal creatures. It had moved to the edge of the tangle of roots
dipping in the brackish water, its soundless fluid movements rendering
the great armored bulk of its body like quicksilver in the night. A
dagger-like horned claw, mute-ivory in the burgeoning light, was
camouflaged by the white Mandrake root it rested upon.
It had sensed the noise of the first airboat long before it became a
throbbing roar that reverberated among the lush vegetation and still
waters. It heard the sound of something dropped in the shallow water
and its heightened perceptions sensed it was a human body. It was
puzzled, but not concerned by this event. As the airboat left in waves
of dissipating thunder, it knew that whoever had been dumped was no
longer alive and would serve to bring out his prey.
Beneath the trunk-like bulk of its limb overhanging the black water,
was an alligator hole. The hole was large and the alligator inhabiting
it was six foot long, weighing over two hundred pounds.
The alligator's brain may have been primitive from a human sense, but
it was superbly adapted to its environment. A few molecules of blood
drifted in the dark water entering the alligator's snout where it was
picked up by its sensory receptors. Stirrings of hunger awakened in its
brain, galvanizing its movements. The beast swam out of the hole.
There was no caution to the alligator's movements. It's speed and
power placed it at the top of the food chain. It was always the hunter,
always the killer, the feeder.
Until now.
The alligator swam out of the hole, unaware of the hulking presence in
the mangroves overhanging its lair.
A sophisticated night camera would have been hard pressed to capture
the dizzying speed of the huge limb as it arced into the water below.
The great claw instantly penetrated the tough hide as if it was made of
flimsy tissue, impaling through the skull bone of the reptile,
destroying its brain. Another great limb reached under the alligator
and over two hundred pounds of flaying, dying reptile was hurled into
the mangroves. The great limb slashed again and again until most of the
hide was cut away. Another claw, curved and sharp as an old time
barber's razor, slashed the meat into long thick strips.
It finally stopped and began to feed on the butchered alligator.
It stopped feeding. Something alerted it. Wide eyes overhung by great
ridges of armored brows picked up whatever dim light was available,
scanning, watching. Scaly armored whorls of ear flaps turned in the
direction of another airboat rapidly approaching. It hunkered down
among the dark roots and black mud, covering the remains of the
alligator. It's scaly dark hide was excellent camouflage, impossible to
see in the pre-dawn murk.
It watched as the new arrival drifted among the feeding alligators and
set off the flash-bang. It saw the man reach in among the remains and
pick something from a body part. Suddenly the man stood, alert. It
heard the metallic click of the Uzi being armed and recognized the
sound.
The man was aware. Somehow he had sensed its presence. It held its
very breath, willing its huge bulk to become part of the landscape,
part of the mud and black clay and mangrove roots. At last, the man
started his airboat and accelerated out of the little watery clearing,
leaving a misty plume behind.
That had been too close.
It did not want to be forced to kill human beings again.