Free Key West Connection by Randy Wayne White

home now.
    The Sniper .
    Appropriate.
    She had been equipped for hunting down and taking the big ones; the blue-water rogues that stalk the Gulf Stream. Si-Tex/Koden 707 digital readout loran C. Benmar autopilot. Furuno FE-502 white-line commercial fish finder. The best outriggers, the best rods and reels and line; the best of everything because that’s what I, as a professional, demanded. Now I needed to outfit her for a different quarry. A bigger, smarter, and far less noble kind of game.
    I sat at the little table in the salon and made a list.
    Â 
    D. Harold Westervelt was a friend of mine. One of my stranger friends. We had both survived military life and war, commando raids and espionage missions, but where I had married and found a new life, D. Harold could never leave the conflict behind. He loved it all too well. He lived in an ironically peaceful setting: suburban house near the naval base on Boca Chica Key. When he got too old for midnight assaults, the state department kept him on as sort of a freelance inventor. When it came to killing, Westervelt was indeed ingenious. They financed his sometimes strange notions and, in return, he produced for them highly sophisticated—albeit unusual—weaponry.
    Those of us who held D. Harold’s friendship—and there weren’t many—and those of us who knew how he made his living—even fewer still—often referred to him as the Edison of Death.
    It not only fit. It was accurate.
    He was eating lunch when I arrived. Tossed salad and unsweetened tea. A man of severe discipline, he looked much younger than his fifty-odd years. Shaved head, icy blue eyes, the lean steely look of an Olympic 170-pound-class wrestler. He was dressed in a white golfing shirt, blue serge pants with razor creases, and well-oiled topsider shoes. He looked like a retired German executive who had come to the Keys to enjoy bridge and lawn sports.
    â€œI was expecting you, captain.” He got up from the table, poured me a glass of iced tea, added the teaspoon of honey. I had been to his home maybe twice in eight years, and still he remembered how I took it. We sat across from each other.
    â€œIt goes without saying that I was very sorry to hear about your wife and children.”
    â€œHow did you know I was coming? I didn’t call.”
    He shrugged. “I know you, captain. Why belabor the obvious?”
    â€œThen maybe you know why I came?”
    He stood, removed his dishes from the table, washed them carefully in the sink, and stacked them neatly to dry.
    â€œCome with me.”
    I followed him through the kitchen, past the Jelloblue swimming pool on the patio, down the hallway to a padlocked fire door. He unlocked it and swung it open, revealing his workshop. Except for one wall lined with a marble workbench, there were locked gun cabinets everywhere. Every kind of handgun and military rifle. There were mementos of the Second World War, his many decorations framed and pinned to blue velvet; and American and British, Nazi and Russian uniforms on racks.
    â€œWe’re similar end products from two different wars, captain. There’s an interesting story behind the Nazi combat helmet with the bullet hole in it—but I won’t bore you with my recollections. That’s what happens to most old soldiers, you know. Like the warriors of all time, we become very, very boring.” He studied me for a moment. “What have you gained? Ten, twelve pounds?”
    â€œAbout seven.”
    â€œHmm . . . I would have thought more. You’ll need to lose the excess. At your age—thirty-five?—it can make a great deal of difference. Still using the snuff, I see. The stain on your index finger tells me so. Good. You never did use cigarettes—such a childish habit. I never could understand how people could obtain pleasure by slowly killing themselves. Sucking and exhaling smoke.” He shook his head. “So! You’ll want to work