Acts of Nature

said, exasperated. “If you’re armed, you need to throw your weapons out first. Understand?
    Jim Born was an FDLE agent I’d been introduced to by Sherry. He hadn’t worked for DEA in several years.
    “Fuck you,” I said. “There’s an officer from the Broward sheriff’s office in here so why don’t you come in here with your hands up and toss the shotgun and the handgun in first.” I was guessing the weapons based on the last sounds I’d heard. It might throw the guy, wondering how I knew.
    Would some of Buck’s shithead friends have joined him on their merry looting party, maybe even started a shootout to cut down on the number of shares in the proceeds? That’d be a lot of homicide for a little profit. Or was this another group altogether? I didn’t have time to wait the guy out. Sherry was dying next to me. He didn’t know that. But I wasn’t taking the chance of having him come through the door with backup behind him. I’d be outflanked again. So I worked out logistics, coveted the high ground, and took a gamble. If it was someone with the ability to help us, friendly or not, I’d have to take the chance.
    “You already know you can’t get through these windows. People have been trying to chop into them all night.
    “And you probably also know there’s one other entrance. The escape hatch through the floor in here. So here’s the deal. You go below. I open the hatch. You show me some kind of identification. I let you come up.”
    There was silence. A whispered discussion? A plan being prepared? I was flying blind but if I minimized the space, made it impossible to be rushed by bodies and force, I might at least be able to put more information together than I could through a door. I was hoping this guy was cagey enough to be thinking the same thing.
    “Yeah, OK,” the voice said. “The surveillance intel shows that hatch. Open it and I’ll toss my badge up.”
    I listened as intently as I could, heard one set of solid footsteps move away. The sound of the air conditioner drowned out anything once the voice moved to the outside. I got up, found the switch, and turned the machine off. I had not registered the coolness in the room until then. The chill in my skin had started with the first sound of gunfire and had stayed. I now moved to the hatch and yanked it open so I could at least hear or maybe see the ruffle of the water when one or three men sloshed under the decking. When I peered in over the edge there was already a telltale swirl, some kind of eddy on the dark surface that seemed to have been pushed up from the bottom. Then I heard the slosh of someone lowering themselves into the swamp.
    “OK. Where’s this hatch?” The man’s voice echoed up from the porthole.
    “West side. In between the last two stringers,” I said. There was more movement on the surface, expanding arcs of water like rings moving away from the plunk of a rock.
    “Look. Tell me your name, friend. Let’s make this easier,” the voice said, loud now as if he was already in the room, his tone booming from the space between water and wood like it was coming from a wet basement.
    “Freeman,” I said. “Max Freeman.”
    “You’re a cop?”
    “No. Private investigator working with a cop,” I said, maybe giving too much away if they were drug hunters following a rumor.
    “OK, Freeman.”
    Looking down through the circular hatch at an angle, I caught a glimpse of fabric.
    “Here’s my ID.”
    I sneaked another look. He only showed a forearm and hand, holding a wallet. I noted it was his left hand. Most people are righties. His gun hand was hidden.
    “Toss it up,” I said.
    He underhanded it high but I did not follow its trajectory and instead watched the circle of water. The man’s face, ruddy, middle-aged, slipped into the space and we made eye contact. If I’d had a gun I would have had the muzzle over the edge pointing down. I hoped that didn’t give him courage.
    I moved around in a half circle and picked up the wallet: Edward Christopher Harmon. Florida private investigator. The photo was similar enough to the glimpse I’d just had. The lie about DEA didn’t surprise me. Admitting it did.
    “So now we’re on the same field,” Harmon said from below. “Two PIs doing a job. You yours. Me mine.”
    “It doesn’t exactly make us brothers, Harmon,” I said. “What’s your job and what the hell happened out there?”
    I heard him slosh. But I’d been down there myself. There was no