The Bishop's Pawn (Cotton Malone 13)

“I was thinking of heading to somewhere between Naples and Fort Myers.”

She shook her head. “Can you make it to Lake Okeechobee?”

That was miles inland, toward the center of the peninsula, a massive expanse of fresh water that drained into the Everglades.

“We can get there, but there’s a lot of land between the lake and the coast. Somebody along the way is going to want to know who we are and where we’re headed.”

South Florida was notorious for drug trafficking, and an unidentified aircraft not responding to radio requests would raise nothing but red flags The situation would only escalate if Jansen called in reinforcements. I had not, as yet, mentioned the former agent to her.

“Does the name Jim Jansen mean anything?”

She stared across at me and shook her head.

“That’s the guy who brought me in the boat, then left in the plane and tried to kill me. He was also the one shooting at you from the beach.”

She still held the gun, in a way that I noticed wasn’t casual or with any apprehension. Instead, it signaled someone familiar with firearms.

“Are you a cop?” I asked.

She nodded.

I should have been surprised, but she’d handled herself under pressure like someone with training. “Is this official?”

“Personal. It concerns my father.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone back there at the fort you were a cop?”

“I was debating that when you showed up to rescue me.”

I caught the touch of sarcasm.

“Who is your father?”

“The Reverend Benjamin Foster, of the Christian Faith Baptist Church, Orlando, Florida.”

“How does Valdez know him?”

She reached into her pocket and found the coin. “This is yours. But those files in the back are mine. That was the deal I made with Valdez.”

She slipped the coin into my shorts pocket.

“I don’t work for Valdez,” I pointed out.

She shrugged. “A deal’s a deal. And I don’t want that coin anymore.”

I decided now was not the time to tell her that I wasn’t about to allow her to keep that waterproof case. Though I had no idea what it contained, it apparently was important enough for Valdez, Jansen, and this woman to all want it. I already knew Stephanie Nelle wanted it, and what better way to impress my new boss than by delivering the coin and the case? But something told me outsmarting Coleen Perry was not going to be easy.

“Where are you a cop?”

“Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Orlando. What do you do?”

“Until yesterday, I was a Navy lawyer. Now I’m not sure what I am. Bait, I think.”

Jansen’s duplicity still bothered me and I wondered how much information Stephanie Nelle had also withheld. Out the window I saw only ocean. We were still miles away from the Florida coast.

“See if there’s a chart anywhere.”

She searched the compartments and found one.

Thank goodness. Dead reckoning would have eaten up a lot of fuel. “What’s at Lake Okeechobee?”

“I have relatives. I was headed there tomorrow.”

That would have been after she made the deal with Valdez and had the files in her possession. But things had changed. As they had for me, so I assessed my options. Landing anywhere on the coast could be a problem. Lots of people and police. Okeechobee had people, too, but it was off the beaten path and its rural location would offer a measure of privacy, one that might be advantageous. The problem was that landing anywhere near where we were ultimately headed would be like dropping a trail of bread crumbs.

So I made a decision.

“We’re going to set down away from your relatives,” I told her. “Then head that way.”

* * *

The fuel gauge was near empty as Lake Okeechobee came into view. I’d dropped down low once we’d found the Everglades in the hope of staying off any prying radar. So far, no radio contact had been made and no other planes or helicopters had been spotted.

The lake was enormous.

About forty miles long and thirty wide. Over seven hundred square miles of pristine water, the second-largest lake in the continental United States. A mecca for fishermen and water sports enthusiasts. It also served as a divide among five counties, which meant a ton of local law enforcement from every direction.

“Head east,” she said.

I stayed low and followed her instruction. A highway ran north to south, near the eastern shore.

“That’s U.S. 441. Track it north.”

I banked left and kept going, glancing at the fuel gauge, realizing that we needed to get down soon.

A town came into view.

“Port Mayaca,” she told me.

A string of houses began to populate the shoreline like islands in a chain. Huge oak trees draped with vines shielded most of them. A few alligators basked in the sun on the shore.

“My family’s place is five miles farther north.”

That’s all I needed to know.

I reduced the throttle and began to descend. Most of the lakefront properties had docks and any one of them would do. I swung around and dropped out of the bright sky, the plane wobbling in the warm afternoon air currents. I kept the nose high as we gently kissed, then skipped off the flat water. We bounced a few more times then settled on the surface, the pontoons jolting us to a stop. I used the engine to glide across the lake, approaching one of the docks, then killed the prop and glided toward shore.

Coleen opened her door and hopped onto the dock.

I released my harness and climbed across the passenger seat, jumping over to the aluminum deck. A rope was there, tied to one of the vertical supports, and I used it to secure the plane. Then I reached back inside and retrieved the waterproof case, which I immediately noticed was much lighter. Those weights Valdez had mentioned were gone. That meant Jansen had opened the container. But something remained inside. I could feel it shifting back and forth.

“I need a phone,” she said.

We left the dock and headed for the house, which appeared to be unoccupied. No vehicles sat in the drive. No sign of anyone. Heat and humidity had settled all around us like a moist blanket. Buzzy, circling flies prospected our sticky skin. Coleen peered in through the glass of the back door.

“There’s a phone in the kitchen.”

Before I could say a word, she used the gun to break the glass, then reached in and opened the lock. Now burglary could be added to my growing list of crimes. I decided to stay outside and keep watch, but I could hear her talking on the phone. I laid the case on top of a picnic table, near a swing set. Time for me to find out what this was all about.

I released the latches.

“Don’t do that.”

I turned.

She had the gun aimed straight at me.

“You going to shoot me?”

“If you don’t close that lid, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“I was nearly killed for what’s in this case,” I said. “I want to know for what.”

The gun stayed aimed at me.

I stared into her eyes, which were brown and hard, wondering what was torturing this woman. She was troubled, of that I was sure. But I wasn’t backing down. “I’m here for the Justice Department. And whether you like it or not, you’re not in control.”

“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“You’re a cop. That’s all I need to know. You don’t shoot people for no reason.”

And I was right.

She lowered the weapon. “All right, let’s both take a look.”

Sounded like a plan.

I turned my attention back to the case.

She exited the house and approached the picnic table. I opened the lid to see several file folders lying inside. They were definitely old, a faded green, edges tattered. Two words were printed in thick black marker on the cov

er of the top one.

BISHOP’S PAWN

They meant nothing to me. So I asked, “Do you know what that refers to?”

Two sounds broke the silence almost at the same time. A distant siren and the basso beat of rotors through air. I glanced up, stared out over the lake, and in the far distance saw a black dot in the afternoon sky.

Helicopter.

The siren had to be the local police.