Blackwater Sound

‘MicroDyne?’ said Thorn. ‘Morgan Braswell.’

She shifted the clipboard to her left hand, freeing up her right to pump him full of lead.

‘Is this MicroDyne?’

‘You have business here, sir?’

‘What do they manufacture?’

The blank look on her face got blanker.

‘None of the news articles say. Government contractor, that’s the phrase. What’s that mean? Is that defense work? Military? Top-secret gizmos? What?’

She took a step back from the car. Her eyes were working. She was going over procedures in her head, making decisions about how to proceed. Memorizing his face, the car. On a better day Thorn might have trotted out the charm, tried to win her over, seduce a fact or two. But today he was shit out of charm. It was all he could do to press the accelerator, turn the wheel. Hold one thought for more than a few seconds.

Thorn put the VW in reverse and backed slowly out of the short drive.

The security guard stood in front of the steel barricade with her legs spread, right hand close to her holster. Annie Oakley about to shoot the hearts out of silver dollars flung high into the air.

Thorn took the turnpike south.

He hit rush hour in Miami. Fifty miles of raging incivility.

‘Did he give you his name?’

Morgan Braswell was looking at her computer screen, the freeze-frame of the surveillance tape from the front gate. The man from last night at the crash site, the big hero who’d pulled thirty, forty people from the water. Lanky, blue-eyed, tan, tousled sandy hair.

‘No, ma’am. He didn’t say his name.’

‘But he mentioned me? By name.’

‘That’s correct.’

Morgan ran her tongue along her upper lip. She leaned back in the leather chair. Behind her desk was a large window that looked down into the testing lab. A quiet, sterile space where dozens of men and women in white lab coats spent their days peering into computers, monitoring the sintering furnaces that were located behind layers of tempered steel in a distant section of the plant.

‘Did you get a license number?’

‘Yes, ma’am. I’m running it through DMV. But there might be a problem. It looked like it was an expired tag.’

Johnny was standing at the window looking down into the lab. It was empty now. Everyone gone home for the day.

Johnny wore navy blue shorts and a white polo shirt with their boat name embroidered on the left breast. His long hair was clenched back in a ponytail.

‘He probably wanted a date,’ said Johnny. ‘A little cootchie-coo.’

‘Joyce,’ Morgan said.

‘Yes, ma’am?’

‘Print out the best frames of that video. His face from the front, profile. As many angles as you can get. Enhance them, sharpen the focus.’

Joyce nodded.

‘The pictures and whatever you get from DMV on my desk in the morning.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘He was a smart-ass,’ Johnny said. ‘He said he saw three of us on the boat. You, me, and a guy in a cowboy hat. I should’ve iced him right then. Filled him full of daylight.’

Morgan swiveled her chair around and looked at her brother.

‘Joyce,’ she said, keeping her eyes on Johnny until he finally turned and read her expression, then quickly looked away. ‘You can go now. But I want those items first thing.’

When Joyce shut the door, Morgan said, ‘Johnny?’

He was staring down at the test lab and wouldn’t look at her.

‘Johnny?’

He swallowed and stepped back.

‘Come over here, Johnny.’

He shook his head, mouth clenched, eyes dodging hers. A four-year-old doing his willful routine. Her tone was delicate, coaxing.

‘I just want to talk to you, Johnny, that’s all.’

He tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling as if conferring with his personal savior.

‘Johnny.’

He blinked, then stepped over to the side of her desk, bowing his head.

‘Look at me, Johnny. Lift your head and look at me.’

He drew a breath and met her eyes.

‘What did you do wrong just now?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘Yes, you do, Johnny. You know what you did.’

‘I spoke out of turn.’ His eyes were half-shut. Shoulders slumped.

‘That’s right. You spoke out of turn. You made a threatening remark in front of one of our security officers. You mentioned a man in a cowboy hat.’

‘I’m sorry.’