Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (17 page)

 
          
Hardcastle,
pleased, decided not to push it. He changed the subject. “How’s your mother?”

 
          
“Fine.”
Hardcastle gave him a questioning look.

 
          
“Okay,
okay. She’s pissed.”

 
          
“Because
I missed last weekend?” Daniel nodded. “I want to apologize for that, Daniel. I
was swamped ...”

 
          
“You
don’t need to apologize to me. Mom thinks I’ll be scarred for life if I don’t
interact, as she calls it, widi my father every other weekend. Sure, I miss our
time together, dad, but honest to God, I won’t be scarred ...”

 
          
Hardcastle
stood, collected the stack of papers on his desk and locked them away in an
office safe. “Let’s get out of here. Had something to eat?”

 
          
“I
. . . was hoping . . .”

 
          
“Let
me guess,” Hardcastle said with a smile. “A ride in the Scorpion.”

 
          
“It’s
been a long time ...”

 
          
“But
the closest airfield to your mother’s house is Taimiami. You’d have to walk at
least two, three miles.”

 
          
“It’s
worth it, and I’ll be careful and not let mom know.” Jennifer, Hardcastle
didn’t need to be reminded, didn’t approve of him letting Daniel fly in the
Super Scorpion (“You want to kill yourself, fine, but not our son.”). But
Hardcastle enjoyed being with his son. He was so full of energy, alive, if also
a little wild. Exactly the opposite of his self-controlled, controlling mother,
a real estate agent in Miami, not to mention his brother, a third-year medical
student at Johns Hopkins. Oh, he was proud of Roger and still had some
affection for his wife, but being with Daniel was different, special. When he was
with Daniel he felt years younger. You couldn’t buy that... besides, there was
no danger in taking the kid in the helicopter. “All right, all right,”
Hardcastle told him. “But I’ll call the assistant manager of Tiger Air at
Taimiami; he should be able to give you a ride home. You're not going to
hitchhike in the middle of the night, your mother would really fry my scalp if
she found out.”

 
          
Hardcastle
finished securing his reports and notes, then unreeled the ribbon cassette and
fed it into a small shredder mounted on a wastebasket in the outer office.

 
          
“Your
project must really be secret,” Daniel said. “You do this every night? What a
hassle.”

 
          
“That’s
why they pay me such big bucks.”

 
          
“Yeah,
right, a whole two thousand nine hundred and eleven dollars and eighty-three
cents a month. Before taxes.”

           
“Afraid you won’t get an
inheritance?”

 
          
“Nothing
like that,” Daniel said as they filed out of the office. “I just hear mom
talking all the time. She says you’ve gone through hell already and she doesn’t
understand why you still do it. She says you could have your pick of positions
in half the corporations in
America
if only you’d stop playing sailor-boy.”

 
          
“What
do you think?”

 
          
“I
think you do what you do. And I admit I was pretty aced when I heard about that
bust at Mahogany Hammock. You really blew away a transport? Right out of
mid-air?”

 
          
“It’s
nothing to crow about, Danny. It was something that had to be done.”

 
          
“I
would’ve loved to see that baby auger in. Those smugglers must have been
thinking they were about to get away when boom, they lose power and plow into
the
Everglades
. Ruined their whole day.” Hardcastle said
nothing as he continued to lock up classified papers, then locked up the
office, logged out with building security and they left.

 
          
As
they emerged onto the roof of the
Brickell
Plaza
Federal
Building
, the helipad lights automatically snapped
on, revealing the sleek, shiny red chopper sitting in the center of the pad.
Daniel unlatched the chopper’s tie-downs as he had been taught years earlier,
Hardcastle was pleased to note, even remembered to look up for the rotors and
put his hand on the tail rotor guard for safety as he quickly moved around the
fuselage.

 
          
They
had just climbed aboard the chopper and received weather and traffic advisories
when Hardcastle saw a member of
Brickell
Plaza
’s security team coming up the stairs to the
helipad. “Damn,” Hardcastle muttered. “
Harrison
. The assistant security chief.” Daniel said
nothing. Hardcastle watched the guard for a moment, but he had not yet made any
move to wave him down. Sitting back in his seat, checking out the left canopy
away from where the guard stood, Daniel finally asked, “Is he still there?”

 
          
“Yes.
But he’s not saying anything. I don't think I could have left any safes open or
doors unlocked . . . starting engines.”

 
          
As
the engine began cranking up to speed Hardcastle watched
Harrison
stop near the steps up to the helipad and
make a brief comment on his walkie-talkie just before the noise of the engine
drowned him out. Now
Harrison
was moving around to the front of the
Scorpion, well away from the rotors but farther left. Suddenly, as
Harrison
moved in front of the Scorpion, he said
something in his walkie-talkie, brought the receiver tight up to his ear to
receive a reply, then quickly moved forward toward the Scorpion waving his arms
and drawing a thumb across his throat—the shut-down sign. “What the hell...”
Hardcastle flashed his landing light to warn the guard away from the spinning
rotors, then closed the throttle and killed the magnetos.

 
          
“You’re
shutting down . . . ?” Daniel asked nervously.

 
          
“I
got to find out what he wants,” Hardcastle said irritably. “Otherwise I’m
liable to slice his head off.”

 
          
Harrison
was right beside the left door as
Hardcastle undogged it. “All right,
Harrison
,
what’s going on?”

 
          
Harrison
wasn’t looking at the admiral, he was
looking at his son. “Sir, I need to ask you and your passenger to step out of
the cockpit.” The “please” he added sounded more like an order.

 
          
“What’s
going on here,
Harrison
? This is my son, Daniel. You’ve seen him
before. Hell, you must have let him upstairs ...”

 
          
“Your
son was not cleared inside, sir. Please step out of there. Now.”

 
          
Hardcastle
looked over at Daniel, who shrugged and gave him a weak smile. Hardcastle began
unbuckling his shoulder harness. “C’mon, Daniel. This’ll only take a second.”

 
          
They
came out of the chopper, and
Harrison
led them from the Scorpion to an enclosed corner away from the stairs. “All
right,
Harrison
. My son didn’t check in with you?”

 
          
“No,
sir,” the guard replied. “Commander Becker mentioned that he was with you but
he didn’t come through the front desk or sign in.” Hardcastle realized that
that was true; otherwise he would have gotten a call from the downstairs desk
telling him that Daniel was on his way up.

 
          
“I
forgot,” Daniel said, his face now grave. “I came up to the garage entry door
but I forgot it was locked. Someone was coming out and he must’ve recognized me
and let me in.”

 
          
“I’m
afraid there’s more, sir,”
Harrison
said. “A boy matching your son’s description was seen riding a motorcycle on
route 836 toward the city—”

 
          
“My
son doesn’t own a motorcycle.”

 
          
“.
. . The motorcycle was reported stolen from a residence in
Westchester
. We found the bike about three blocks from
here in a parking garage ...”

 
          
Hardcastle
looked at his son—he and his mother lived in
Westchester
.

 
          
“I
didn’t
steal
anyone’s motorcycle—”

 
          
“That’s
enough,” Hardcastle told him. “
Harrison
,
what’s all this got to do with Daniel? He came up here to see me.”

 
          
“I’m
sorry, sir, you’ll have to wait here for the police. They’ve been notified.”

 
          
“Of
what?
Dammit, you need proof before
you can accuse someone of something like this,
Harrison
. What’s gotten into you? Daniel didn’t
steal a motorcycle.” He turned to his son, and when he saw his son’s face
averted and his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets, he knew something was
terribly wrong. “Daniel . . . ?”

 
          
Before
he could answer, a
Dade
County
sheriff's deputy trotted up the stairs,
followed by another security guard. The cop came over to Hardcastle carrying a
large flashlight in one hand and a metal notepad case in his other. “Admiral
Hardcastle? Sergeant Kowalski, Dade County Sheriff’s Department. Sorry to
disturb you, sir. May we have a word with your son?”

 
          
“Go
ahead, but I’m sure—”

 
          
“In
private?”

 
          
“No.”

 
          
Kowalski
nodded, holstered the flashlight, opened the notepad case and turned to Daniel.
“What’s your name, son?”

 
          
“Daniel
Hardcastle.”

 
          
“Address?”

 
          
“Five-five-oh-one
Ridgecrest
. . .”

 
          
“
Miami
?”

 
          
He
paused, then muttered, “
Westchester
.”

 
          
Kowalski
nodded. “What time did you leave
Westchester
tonight?” “About nine.”

 
          
“How
did you get downtown?”

 
          
“Hitchhiked.”

 
          
“Did
you get a ride right away?”

 
          
“Yes.”

 
          
Kowalski
looked at Daniel for a moment, then: “You sure you hitchhiked into town,
Daniel?” Kowalski’s radio was now crackling to life. He stepped a few paces
away to answer the call, made a reply, then returned.

 
          
“We
have a set of fingerprints off the motorcycle,” Kowalski said. He turned to
Hardcastle. “An off-duty deputy gave us an exact description of your son on the
stolen motorcycle, Admiral. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask your son to come with
me.”

 
          
Kowalski
reached out to take Daniel’s arm, and Hardcastle was forced to watch his son
being led away with his head down like a common criminal.