by T L Yeager
“One day I was on the beach here and it occurred to me that these resorts are soft targets. On clear days, you can see the coast of Venezuela if you go down past the airport. It was all much easier than even I could have imagined.”
“So you came from Venezuela?”
Anas nodded. “It took time to assemble the team and get them there. We imported our supplies with help from the people I met in Venezuela. We stole a yacht and came over to the dock.” Anas pointed toward the front of the office in the direction of the beach. “We arrived in the middle of the night when everyone was sleeping. We’ve taken control, we’ve demanded a ransom, we’ve explained our intention is to limit the violence. Once the countries pay, we’ll leave.”
“But you can’t just leave. They can watch you.”
“We’ll take a small number of hostages when we leave to go back to Venezuela. Once we get there, we’ll break into smaller and smaller groups as we move. We’ve given money to many people who will help us disappear. There will be no pursuit. And we’ll live to fight another day.
“I must go.” Anas said. He was halfway across the room now. “Coloring supplies. I’ll bring them later. For you, Isabelle.”
40
Kavita’s Café, Aruba
After she hung up with PTang, Madeline walked down to the café to find Geert and get some food.
“Have a seat. I’ll get you some breakfast. Geert will be back any minute,” Kavita said. She looked worried, but smiled, her cheeks rising to expose immaculate teeth.
Madeline nodded.
She pulled out her phone and opened the map app, switching it to satellite view and sliding it with her finger to find the Surfside resort. It took a minute to find it, but the lazy river in the center was a dead giveaway.
Kavita set something down on the table in front of her. Madeline didn’t look up right away; she was analyzing the layout around the resort. When she did lift her eyes from the phone, she was greeted by one of the most beautiful sights she’d ever witnessed—a bottle of Balashi sweating profusely in the morning heat. Beads of condensation grew on the glass until their weight became heavy enough to slip down to the table. Maddie lifted the icy bottle and took a long pull. Cold worked its way toward her stomach, chilling her core and bringing the hint of a grin to her face. Over the top of the tilted bottle she saw Kavita fading toward the kitchen. She stopped at the door before entering and checked. She smiled when she saw that Maddie was drinking. Maddie nodded her thanks and Kavita disappeared with a wink.
Droning above her, the BBC channel circled the wagons on what was known. They analyzed the website, scrutinized the rules of engagement and provided commentary on how it was set up like a game. They zoomed in on the website videos and speculated on the purpose of the skeleton masks. They showed video of the executed hostages, stopping it just before the trigger was pulled. There were tables with the ransom amounts and lists of countries whose citizens regularly vacationed at the resort. It all ran unending as the world waited for the next move.
Maddie was surprised by the level of sophistication. Loops of Kyle King’s shaky videos churned on above her. The scroll at the bottom of the screen quoted his words in the minutes before he was killed. Drones, assaults, armed men on the roof; it looked and sounded like a professional operation.
“How we doing this morning?” Geert asked from behind.
“Better.” Maddie turned and tracked him to the table.
“It’s a Balashi breakfast, I see.”
“Yes, thanks to your wife. She’s always looking out for me.”
“Did you get any slaap?”
“I did, surprisingly,” Maddie replied. “Hey Geert, I’m thinking I’d like to take a drive up that way. See how close we can get to the resort.”
Geert hesitated. He tracked her eyes to the TV then nodded. “That would be okay. My guess is we’ll hit roadblocks on the mains. Maybe have to stay off to get close.”
“Does this whole mess ring as professional to you as it does to me?” Maddie asked. “I mean, they cut the balls off the police by killing their leaders and they hit while the Dutch Marines are away. Seems like everything is going right for these bastards.”
Again he hesitated, seeming to smile at the way she put things.
“I agree. Of course, I’m not sure any of that made much difference. They seem to have tied hands on their own. Even if the Marines were here, there’s little they’d be able to do.”
“How many Marines are stationed here?”
“A company. Maybe one hundred and fifty men. Small but professional. You’ve driven by the entrance to their base in Savaneta.” Geert waved in the direction of the town that you passed through on your way to San Nicolas. Maddie had noticed the base in the past.
“They go to Camp Lejeune once a jaar,” Geert added. He struggled to pronounce the word Lejeune correctly. He gave it more French emphasis than it required. Maddie had attended basic at Camp Lejeune. She spent years stationed there with One Six Hard. She could almost see the Dutch soldiers running the training grounds.
“They leave behind just a handful. The date is not announced but word gets around. It’s not hard to find out,” Geert continued. “The post is a good one. They work with the police to stop drug runners from South America. They run a small fleet of boats around the island. Search and rescue… that sort of thing. Lots of time at the beach, of course.” Geert smiled. “That’s the real attraction. They also train an Aruban militia. Volunteers that get a stipend to provide security at the barracks.”
“Confused police and a ragtag militia?” Maddie asked. “That’s what we’re working with?”
Ten minutes later, they were on the road. Geert headed toward the airport on the main highway. He pointed out the Marine base in Savaneta and a few miles later turned north on Route 4 toward Santa Cruz.
“This will get us up island without having to content with Oranjestad,” Geert said.
North of Santa Cruz the road hooked into a slow left turn until they were once again driving with the lean of the Divi trees. Maddie had been told that if you’re ever lost on Aruba, just drive in the direction that the Divi tree leans. The steady trade winds that sweep the island bend the trees to the west, which is the side where the resorts are lined up along the beach.
A few minutes later, Geert turned again, this time onto a dirt road.
“You’ve got your own way of getting up here, huh?” Maddie asked.
“There’s a police station where this road meets up with Route 3. Route 3 runs alongside L.G. Smith.” Geert motioned with his hands. The momentary lack of focus was enough to catch the edge of a pothole and the pickup sunk through it, the rear bumper dragging the ground briefly.
They weaved their way through a maze of potholes that dotted the rough interior island roads. The third world compounds rolling by on either side, made the shanties near the coast look luxurious. How they stood up to the sun and wind, Maddie could not understand.
A cocoon of dust rose from the road behind them. It ran through the Divi tree branches, heading west for the coast. Eventually the dirt turned back to pavement.
“We’re far enough north now that we should be past the major road blocks. They’ll have more in close to the resort,” Geert said.
Resort outlines were visible in the distance.
“There’s the mall!” Maddie pointed to a gap in the buildings where the domed roof of the Plaza Mall was sticking up. “There’s the Surfside.”
From this distance, the buildings of the Surfside looked innocent. Geert veered hard left. Maddie registered a neighborhood of single-family homes and then saw a sign introducing ‘Regal Palms.’ It looked new, the terracotta roof shingles still vibrant in the sun. “This is a big neighborhood. It runs right up to the salina,” Geert said.
Most had garages. The doors were down and the driveways empty. As they rounded their way toward the Surfside, a police car came into view. The uniformed driver was leaning toward the passenger side talkin
g to a man halfway up the yard. A woman and child behind him were loading bags into the trunk of a Mercedes.
Geert attempted to drive by with a wave, but the officer put his hand out the window. He signaled them to stop and gave them the universal sign to roll down the window.
“This neighborhood is being evacuated. No work in here today.” Geert was an electrician. The bed of his pickup truck was rimmed with utility boxes.
“We had some work up the road. I didn’t realize how close it was to all of this,” Geert said. “We’ll drive on around and out.”
“Turn around and follow me. The road is blocked at the other end.”
Geert nodded.
“Go just one or two more houses, Geert.” Maddie was whispering, her eyes locked on the top edge of the resort buildings. “You have binoculars?”
Geert looked over at her. “You truly are a lunatic. You trying to get us locked up?”
“It’s right there, Geert. I just need a minute.”
Geert stopped in the road, a metal on metal scrape of the brakes accompanying it.
“I have a little of everything in the back. Just a matter of finding it.” Geert was not the most organized man. Maddie had been inside his shop on two occasions. Geert popped the door open and disappeared to the rear of the truck.
Ross and Izzy felt so close. Maddie wished she could let them know she was here. She estimated the distance at eight to nine hundred meters—about a half a mile. The open space between the houses and the hotel was a flood plain. A salina, as Geert had called it.
“Here.” Geert handed Maddie the binoculars. He climbed back in and shifted into gear. “The police is moving down the road. We’ve got a few minutes.” He crept ahead as Maddie scanned the roofline with the ancient binoculars.
One side was frosted with a light haze. Maddie tried to clean the lens with her shirt but the cloudiness remained. She closed her right eye and leaned forward, resting the end of the binocular on the dashboard. There was a speck on the top left corner that very well could be a man. Maybe the sandbags of the machine gun position they were showing on the website. She moved the monocular to the right and picked up a walker. There was a rifle slung over the man’s shoulder.
Maddie was less than a mile from her husband and daughter. How far would she make it if she charged across the field now?
A buzzing sound interrupted the thought.
“What’s that?” Geert asked.
Maddie rolled down her window and stuck her head out.
“A drone.” She opened her door and got out. Shielding her eyes from the sun she picked up movement in the sky ahead and above them. She tracked the white speck for several seconds before the sound and sight dissolved to their left.
The Marine Corps had been working with drones for years by the time she got out. Her unit was trained on a platform called the Aero Ranger. It was a jarhead proof system that was operated by a tablet. It came with a backpack that could be carried down range. All you did was click the arms in place, press a button and back away. Prompts on the tablet did the rest. She remembered the instructor telling her it could operate in 50-mile-an-hour winds.
Maddie looked down from the sky and checked the road. The patrol car was gone. She jogged across the yard in front of her, pulling up at the front corner of the house. From there, she could see down through the back yard to the last row of houses between her and the resort.
The neighborhood provided the line of sight PTang mentioned, but the distance was too far to capture the wi-fi. She didn’t see an easy way to get closer. The police had to have the area around the resort cordoned off and the flood plain was a wide-open field. This would have to do.
Before she turned back for the truck, Maddie lifted the clear side of the binocular to her eye again. She spotted the walker with the rifle. A sniper, Maddie thought. Probably the one that killed Kyle King.
Maddie walked away from her rifle the day Will was killed. She turned her back on it and moved on. A friend had to check it into inventory for her. In that moment, looking out at the resort, she’d have given anything to have it back.
41
Surfside Resort, Aruba
White noise from the waterfall cascading into the pool lulled Fazul in and out of sleep. He was catnapping on a chaise in the shade of a palm. The day had grown boring. The escape attempts had stopped and Anas hadn’t picked up anything with the drones since the attack that killed four of his men.
The distant crack of semi-automatic weapons fire shocked him awake. Two shots in quick succession.
Another rung out seconds later. He was already moving quickly toward the security suite in the main lobby. He scanned the palms at the entrance where the main road connected to the resort. It was clear. The shots sounded like they had come from the far side of building three.
“We’ve got a full-scale riot on the first floor,” Fahd said as Fazul came through the door to the security suite.
Fazul leaned down on Fahd’s shoulder. “Which building?”
“Here.” Fahd pointed. “Building Three.”
Hostages were lined up in the hall below the camera. There was a camera positioned just inside and above each of the emergency exit doors. Fazul couldn’t see the door itself, but based on the fact that the crowd was still there, he assumed the door hadn’t yet been compromised. A separate box, to the right on the screen, showed video from the camera at the other end of the hall. The gathering looked more like a blob in the display but the rectangular window in the door at the other end of the hall was visible. They hadn’t broken through yet.
They’d tested the blockade bars back at the staging warehouse in Venezuela. They held up to a tremendous amount of pounding, but they could be broken free with enough effort.
“The shots came from outside,” Fahd said. “Another hostage trying to climb down on bedsheets. Probably was hoping the group might serve as distraction.”
Fazul was still focused on the assembly on the first floor. The group parted as a man with a chair moved forward. Fazul felt like they were making eye contact.
“They’re going to take out the camera.”
Fazul stood tall and keyed his mic. “I need reaction teams three and four headed to building three at once. We’ve got a riot in progress. First floor. They’re trying to break through the blockade bar. They’re gathered on the north side of the building, closest to the resort entrance. We must stop them.” He paused to gather his breath. “Team three, take the north stairwell. I’ll meet you there. Team four, take the south. Wear your masks. Safeties off before you enter the stairwells.” There were no cameras in the stairwells. The only way to know if anyone was in there was to enter from below and work your way up.
As Fazul finished his transmission, the man with the chair climbed up. He produced a frying pan. The first swing shook the display but didn’t take it offline. At the base of the chair, the crowd surged backwards. A group of large men, likely the battering rams, were huddled closely. Fazul could imagine their conversation. They wanted to play hero like the assholes on United Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11. He could almost hear the lead man say, “Let’s roll,” as they turned their attention back to the door and disappeared from view.
The man on the stool swung again. This time the strike knocked the camera loose from its mount. It danced on its wires, the image shaking indiscernibly.
“At least we have something to do,” Fazul said as he hurried around the security desk and pushed his way into the IT room. Anas was at his computer watching the screen. He looked up as Fazul shot in.
“Anything on the perimeters?” Fazul asked.
“All clear,” Anas confirmed.
“Then come with me. And bring your weapon. We could use an additional gun. We’ll let you do some real work.” Fazul spoke quickly and was out the door before Anas had time to react.
“Now, Anas!” he yelled as the door drifted closed behind him.
The seconds it took for Anas to emerge felt long
and wasted. “We must hurry!” he commanded as he moved through the front entrance. He sprinted down the front walkway, the koi ponds flanking the decked approach just a blur in his peripheral vision. At the corral for the luggage carts, he stopped and checked for Anas again. “Come on, dammit!”
They ran into the shade beneath building three and caught a glimpse of the last man of the reaction team entering the base of the northern stairwell.
Fazul keyed his mic. “Team three. I’m right behind you.” A second later, he was through the door and taking the steps two at a time. He heard the door close and then open again as Anas struggled to keep up.
“Let them see your faces and weapons,” Fazul said as he reached the four men on the first floor landing. “That should move them back.”
He gave himself a second to catch his breath then keyed his mike again. “Team four. Back down the stairs to the turn. We don’t want rounds coming through the door and hitting you.”
The soldier in front of Fazul pounded his fist on the door and yelled, “Backup!” Fazul moved in behind him. The soldier took a step back and leveled his weapon at the thin vertical strip of a window in the door.
Fazul looked over his shoulder. “They’re far enough. Pull the bar and let’s breach. Go in firing. We’ll make examples of them.”
As the soldier in front popped the first lever on the blockade bar, Fazul made another transmission. “We’re going in,” he yelled.
“We go on my count,” Fazul instructed to the men around him. The lead soldier had his hand resting on the second latch of the blockade bar.
Fazul shouldered his weapon. He wanted to be first through the door. “Actions louder than words!”
On three, the blockade bar was lifted from its mounts. The soldier pulled the handle of the door almost simultaneously. Fazul could see the fear in their eyes as the hostages coursed back. He pulled the trigger twice before he cleared the door jam. A muscled twentysomething in a tank top caught both of the rounds in his upper body. They impacted just inches apart, cratering his chest and throwing him back at the others.