Acts of Nature

tracking the echo effects and movement of sound waves to tell them where the oil and natural gas deposits were. That kind of shit went on all the time all over the world. It’s just that in most of this particular part of the world, in an environmentally designated part of the Everglades, such exploration was illegal as hell. That’s why you need security to check out a lonely outpost after a hurricane. That’s why you would be ordered to check its infrastructure and report if it had been seen or uncovered by anyone. He stood and looked across the deck. That’s why you clean up after yourself.
    The older peckerwood was still crying when Harmon heard the clank of metal on metal. It seemed to come from under him and he felt the vibration in his shoes. Was that a door? Was it proof that this asshole who had just killed his partner was telling the truth? Were there more men inside?
    Harmon stood still for a moment, listening, assessing. He couldn’t divide his concentration now. He was alone. You focus on one situation at a time and if you can eliminate a distraction, that’s what you do.
    With no more thought than that, Harmon stepped forward and shot the older man with the blown-off leg through the back of the head with Squires’s pistol. The end of the annoying whimpering. The fingerless boy took it easier. He was still wrapped up around his disfigured hand when Harmon put a round into his ear hole. Those chores done, he carefully walked around to the entrance of the cabin, noted the crowbar blade under the door, and used a single blast from the shotgun to blow away a six-inch hole around the metal tip. The hinges creaked as the door swung free and he entered at a crouch, weapon at the ready. No one greeted him. The place smelled of jerky and antiseptic, sweat and wet wood. One bed was partially disassembled on the opposite wall. A cooler and some trash were over in the corner. Sunlight was leaking through a rough opening in the roof, the damage he had seen from the air. Someone might have dropped through it, but there was nothing near it to indicate a man could have climbed unaided back out. There was no place to hide.
    On the western wall he studied the door to the adjoining room. The red light was glowing on the electronic lock, and in all the confusion, he’d forgotten where he left the remote switch. He noted the damage around the door frame where attempts had been made to break in, unsuccessfully. The company was hiding its secrets well. Harmon tried the latch. Then he actually knocked.
    “Hello?” he called out at the door, and even he realized how stupid he sounded. “Is anyone in there? This is the DEA, federal officers. Is anyone alive in there?”

TWENTY-SEVEN
    I was still at Sherry’s side, easing her back onto the bed, repeating to her, “It’s OK, baby. It’s OK. We’re almost out of here, Sherry. We’re almost home.”
    Her eyes were open but the way they were twitching in her head, the irises never stopping long enough to absorb the light, made me wonder what she was seeing or what those images were telling her. I didn’t think the pain was even registering anymore. She’d forgotten the leg, I thought. Now she was struggling with another demon and the only thing keeping her from it was her own internal strength.
    Two more small-caliber gunshots sounded after I’d clapped the porthole door closed and both made me flinch. Then I heard the roar of the shotgun next door. But who was firing. Buck? Wayne? Was Marcus coming to pay me back for taking his fingers?
    When I heard someone twisting the knob on the door, I pulled my knife and moved to the hinges. They’d have to come through here. I might wound one; everything else would fall from there. My face was close to the metal when I heard a stranger’s voice identify himself as a DEA agent.
    “Is anyone alive in there?”
    I let him wonder while I tried to sort out the possibilities. This place was obviously not a drug storage bin. Buck’s dreams were just that, a small-time thief’s dream of a big score. So why the hell would DEA be out here two days after a hurricane? It might have been a good flush technique, but I wasn’t going for it.
    “Do you know Jim Born, the agent-in-charge for the Broward office?” I said, loud enough for him to hear it. There was a hesitation on the other side of the door.
    “Yeah. But I just transferred in from Virginia. Look, you need to come out there with your hands raised, OK?” the voice