An Absence of Light

The haze of the dying evening extended in both time and space until it seemed to have swallowed the horizon in its progress toward the smoky sheen of dusk. It was as if the world ended just there, a little ways out in the bay, and the thick hoar of the Gulf summer evening spilled over an imperceptible edge into the cosmos. Seagulls screaked, invisible in the limitless, timeless gray.

“I don’t see how we can do it,” Graver said, finally. He dropped his notebook on the floor at his feet and rubbed his face with his hands. “I just don’t think we can risk it Too many unknowns, too little time. It could end in a disaster.”

For a moment the only sounds that could be heard on the veranda were the shrills of the seagulls and the uncertain gasping of the surf.

“Well,” Remberto said, his voice low, just above the surf, but clear and steady, “if you want all the cash at one place because you think it will bring in Kalatis, then I think there’s another way we can do this.”

Chapter 76

10:40 P.M.

Rick Ledet banked the Cessna 185, and Neuman looked across the cockpit past him, out the window, and down at the black space that Ledet assured him was Chocolate Bay.

“I see the strip,” Ledet said, pulling the Cessna back up to parallel with the horizon. They were headed back toward Houston and Neuman could tell by the glow from the city lights that they were upright again. “I’m going to bank again and head back toward the Gulf. Then I’ll throttle down and do some turns, and every time I say so, you fire one off. We’ll light ’em up like a damn firefight.”

“Okay,” Neuman said. It was all he could say. It was amazing how quickly up and down disappeared at night He was gripping the box of military parachute flares between his knees in the cockpit seat, and the gun was cocked open. He jammed a flare into the breach.

“I thought if I made a couple of passes they might give us a flash,” Ledet said. “Assholes. I should’ve known better. Disciplined bastards. It doesn’t matter. I’ve made that strip enough times… hell, I can even see the bayou. Okay, hang on.”

The Cessna banked and dropped at the same time, but it didn’t drop far before Ledet leveled it out, and Neuman could see ahead of them the half moon on the Gulf. Jesus, it was a beautiful sight. The beauty of it surprised him.

“You ready?” Ledet yelled. “This first one’s going to be for spotting.”

Neuman pulled back the window flap, slapped closed the flare gun, braced it in the window, and cocked it He felt the engine of the Cessna trim down and then Ledet yelled, “Fire one.”

Neuman pulled the trigger. The whump filled the cockpit with its concussion.

“Holy shit!” Ledet laughed. “Whoooooeeeeel! Look at that!”

The flare exploded in the night sky outside the plane with surprising brilliance. Phosphorous white. The parachute made the light bobble in the black, and then it settled to a gentle swinging back and forth like a lantern as it descended.

“God I’d love to be down there right now. Don’t you know those assholes are shitting!”

Neuman was reloading.

“Okay, yeah!” Ledet yelled, confirming their positioning by the flare’s illumination of the bayous below them. “Awww riiight! We’re right on! Fire two!”

Neuman fired. Whump! The sky burned angel white. Neuman reloaded.

“Fire three!”

The Cessna was banking again and Neuman could feel the structure shuddering against the torque of the turn. He tried to ignore it as he reloaded and fired again… and again… and again. The maneuver was a blur in time. He had no idea how long it lasted, but as he felt gravity sling him first one way and then another, as he fired every time he heard the word fire and reloaded every time he finished, he watched the trails of the propellants followed by the explosion of the flares, and then the giant sphere of white light hanging in darkness, a darkness which, in contrast to the intruding flares, was no longer murky darkness but solid pitch.

He felt the plane bank one more time. The box of flares was empty. He looked out the window and saw half a dozen floating fires drifting laterally away from him through the darkness. It looked as if they had set fire to a corner of the night, and the fire was so dazzlingly bright that he almost expected to see it ignite the rest of the sky, all the way to daylight.

10:50 P.M.

Wade Pace had scanned the instrument panel of his Malibu Mirage for the tenth time and, satisfied with what he saw, took the time to look out the side window of his cockpit at the Houston skyline slipping away to his left His copilot was doing the same. Wade turned and looked over his right shoulder at the passengers behind him. The client sat uneasily in the first pair of seats, also looking out his window at the skyline, and behind him in the next pair of seats was Kalatis’s human Doberman, looking straight back at him. The Doberman wasn’t interested in the view. Wade turned back to his panel of dials.

“Shit,” he said to his copilot and shivered. The copilot nodded slowly and widened his eyes.