“There he is!” Murdock’s breathing was raspy, excited.
Salazar squinted into the night. “Yeah, Johnny, sitting under that light on the dock.”
They could see the lantern and, in its white penumbra, the figure of a man with his legs hanging over the planks. The figure wore a baseball cap, a tan jacket, and long pants. From the angle of the cap, the man’s head appeared to be down, chin resting on his chest.
“Dumb fuckwad’s asleep.” Murdock’s laugh was high and brittle. He already had his pistol out.
“Then I guess we better do it,” Salazar said.
“By all means.” Murdock dropped to a crouch.
They had tested the blue lights and siren on the way down, so Salazar knew where the switches were. He flipped them simultaneously, then turned the ignition key. As the Evinrude growled to life, Salazar put all his weight to the throttle.
Gun in hand, John Murdock clung awkwardly to the bow rail as the Aquasport planed off and raced toward the narrow inlet. The wind spiked Murdock’s hair and flattened his cheeks. His teeth were bared in a wolfish expression that might have passed for a grin.
As the boat got closer, Joe Salazar expected Mick Stranahan to wake up at any moment and look in their direction—but the man didn’t move.
A half mile away, sitting on a milk crate under some trees, Christina Marks heard the police siren. With a shiver she closed her eyes and waited for the sound of gunfire.
They could have come one of several ways. The most likely was the oceanside route, following Caesar Creek into the slender fork between tiny Hurricane Key and Old Rhodes. This was the easiest way to Cartwright’s dock.
But a westward approach, out of Biscayne Bay, would leave more options and offer more cover. They could come around Adams Key, or circle the Rubicons and sneak through the grassy flats behind Totten. But that would be a tricky and perilous passage, almost unthinkable for someone who had never made the trip.
Not at night, Stranahan decided, not these guys.
He had gambled that they would come by the ocean.
In the water he had carried only the knife and the spool. Four times he made the swim between Old Rhodes and Hurricane Key; not a long swim, but enervating against a strong outbound current. After pulling himself up on Cartwright’s dock for the last time, Stranahan had rubbed the cold ache from his legs and arms. It had taken a long time to catch his breath.
Then he pulled on some dry clothes, got the .38 that Luis Córdova had loaned him, and sat down to wait.
The spool in Stranahan’s duffel had contained five hundred yards of a thin plastic monofilament. The line was calibrated to a tensile strength of one hundred twenty pounds, for it was designed to withstand the deep-water surges of giant marlin and bluefin tuna. It was the strongest fishing line manufactured in the world, tournament quality. For further advantage it was lightly tinted a charcoal gray, which made it practically invisible underwater.
Even out of the water, the line was sometimes impossible to see.
At night, for instance. Stretched across a mangrove creek.
Undoubtedly John Murdock never saw it.
He was squatting toadlike on the front of the boat, training his .357 at the figure on the dock as they made their approach. Under Joe Salazar’s hand, the Aquasport was moving at exactly forty-two miles per hour.
Mick Stranahan had strung three taut vectors between the islands. The lines were fastened to the trunks of trees and crossed the water at varying heights. The lowest of the lines was snapped immediately by the bow of the speeding police boat. The other two garroted John Murdock in the belly and the neck, respectively.
Joe Salazar, in the bewildering final millisecond of his life, watched his partner thrown backwards, bug-eyed and gurgling, smashed to the deck by unseen hands. Then the same spectral claw seized Salazar by the throat, chopped him off his feet, bounced his overripe skull off the howling Evinrude and twanged him directly into the creek.
The noise made by the fishing line when it snapped on Joe Salazar’s neck was very much like that of a gunshot.