by Len Maynard
‘I’ve been tied up,’ I said. ‘I’ll explain when I see you.’
‘You’ve been tied up? That’s rich.’
‘Poor choice of words,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’
‘My God, is that an apology?’
‘Yes.’
There was a pause. ‘Must be serious then. Where do you want me to take The Lady?’
‘Nowhere special. Just head out to sea. When it gets dark head back to the harbor. We’ll be waiting. And then we’re going on a little trip.’
‘We’ll be waiting? Who’s we?’
‘Friends.’
She thought about this for a while. ‘Okay. See you later.’
31
It had just turned nine when I saw The Lady’s lights approaching the harbor.
‘How do you know it’s your boat?’ Sam said as we sat in the darkened interior of the Jeep and watched The Lady of Pain approach.
‘Listen,’ I said.
Carried in on the breeze was the gentle throb of two Penta engines, working in unison, powering the twin screws that drove The Lady forward through the waves. It was a sound that still raised gooseflesh on my arms. ‘I’d know the sound of those engines anywhere,’ I said.
Stevie brought her in to the harbor and eased her up alongside the dock. As the three of us climbed aboard she emerged from the wheelhouse.
‘This is Stevie,’ I said to Billie and Sam. But before I could say anything else there was a squeal of tires, and a black SUV hurtled round the corner at the top of the road leading to the harbor and began bearing down on us.
‘Shit! It’s them. Stevie, get us out of here.’
She didn’t need telling twice. Within a blink she was back in the wheelhouse, gunning the engines and taking us back out to sea.
As the SUV screeched to a halt by the harbor wall, the Cubans leapt from the vehicle, weapons in hand.
‘Get down!’ I yelled, and threw myself at Sam and Billie, dragging them down onto the deck. ‘Keep your heads down,’ I said as bullets ripped through the air above us. One of them shattered the side window of the wheelhouse, and I glanced up. Stevie was holding tight to the wheel, her mouth set in a determined line. She saw me glance up and raised a hand. I’m okay.
Moments later we were out of range. They were still shooting, but their bullets were missing by miles. I left Billie and Sam still sprawled on the deck and climbed up into the wheelhouse.
Stevie was grinning. ‘That was fun,’ she said. ‘Just like the old days.’ There was blood on her cheek where a fragment of glass from the shattered window had sliced through the skin.
‘Remind me, when were we last shot at?’ I took a handkerchief from my pocket and wiped away the blood. ‘It’s not serious,’ I said. ‘Probably won’t even leave a scar.’
‘Damn!’ she said. ‘Nothing to show for it.’
She was a good little actress, but not that good. The sweat that was trickling down her face had nothing to do with heat or excitement. She’d been badly scared, but she was determined not to let it show.
I pulled out a chart and spread it on the table, switching on the map light.
‘So where are we heading?’ she said, craning her neck over my shoulder.
‘Watt’s Cay,’ I said, pointing to a small cay in the Berry Island chain. ‘I know someone there who can shelter us, and won’t ask too many questions.’ I jotted down the coordinates then fed them into the autopilot. It was going to take us a good few hours to reach the island, and I wasn’t taken with the idea of spending half the night at the wheel, plus the fact I needed to sleep.
The ocean was calm and there were no hidden dangers lurking under the waves waiting to surprise us. Stevie could keep an eye on things while I slept, but the autopilot would do all the hard work. That was why I’d spent so much money getting a good one. ‘Time for proper introductions,’ I said.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Stevie said.
‘Who?’
‘The woman you brought on board. Stunning.’
‘I hadn’t noticed.’
Stevie muttered something I didn’t catch.
‘Pardon?’
‘None of your business,’ she said.
‘Fair enough.’
32
Watt’s Cay is one of the Bahamas’ best-kept secrets; a privately-owned island of over one thousand acres with beautiful silver sand beaches and verdant vegetation. Named after Benjamin Watt, an American print magnate who settled there in the late 1800’s, it’s off the tourist route simply because Kim Weaver, who now owns the island, is rich enough to do without that form of income.
I’d known Kim for years. She’d come to the Islands twenty years ago with her husband Ted, a wealthy financier from Baltimore who, despite being nearly thirty years her senior, loved his wife with a passion that bordered on the obsessive. The cay was his gift to her. He’d retired, and chose this idyllic spot to see out the rest of their life together. But his grand plan was thwarted by the onset of a very aggressive form of pancreatic cancer, and he died just eighteen months after settling on Watt’s Cay, leaving Kim with a fortune but a very lonely existence. She’d loved her husband dearly, and his death left a huge, gaping hole in her life.
I’d filled the vacuum for a while, until we realized that we worked better as friends than lovers. In more recent years she had developed a gift for writing fiction. Her romance novels now filled the shelves of airport bookshops across the world, and the royalties she received swelled her already not inconsiderable fortune.
There was no harbor at Watt’s Cay; instead, there was a simple wooden jetty. As we were tying up at one of the stanchions, Kim came down to the jetty to meet us. To my alarm she was carrying a twelve-gauge shotgun, broken across her arm.
Her face split into a grin. ‘Harry! I thought I recognized the boat.’
‘Expecting trouble?’ I said, nodding toward the shotgun.
She glanced down. ‘This old thing? God, no. I would be in trouble if I relied on this. It hasn’t shot straight since Ted dropped it down the stairs, and that was, oh, too many years ago to remember. No, Harry, rabbits. They’ve decimated my vegetable patch. I fire at the buggers to scare them off. Haven’t hit one yet though.’ She laid the gun down on the jetty and opened her arms wide. ‘Give me a hug,’ she said. ‘It’s been ages.’
We embraced while Stevie, Sam, and Billie looked on, all three wearing slightly bemused expressions.
Kim’s body still felt the same, still smelled the same. There was more grey in her hair, and perhaps the laughter lines around her eyes had deepened slightly, but mostly she hadn’t changed at all.
‘You’re looking good, Kim,’ I said. Which was true.
Kim Weaver had always been a beautiful woman, and the passage of time had done little to diminish her looks. Her brown hair was cut to an elegant chin-length bob that made the most of her delicate bone structure and her startlingly intense grey eyes. I could see why I had fallen for her, despite there being a twenty-year age gap between us. The magazines nowadays would call me her boy toy.
As an inexperienced young man barely out of my teens, I’d found her regal, unassuming beauty irresistible. But it was more than just her looks. Kim was fun. Losing Ted was the great trauma of her life, but once he’d gone she made a conscious decision to embrace life and wring as much from it as she possibly could. I was just the first of a string of much younger lovers.
Finally she ended the embrace and held me at arm’s length. ‘Let me look at you,’ she said, scrutinizing me. ‘Yep, as I thought. Your age suits you. You’ve become rugged.’
I laughed. ‘You mean I look worn out.’
‘No, I mean you looked rugged…ruggedly handsome. I could see your potential all those years ago. Are you going to introduce me to your friends?’ She looked beyond me to the others on the boat.
‘Of course,’ I said.
As I made the introductions Kim scrutinized each of them in turn, paying special attention to Stevie’s beaten up face. ‘M
y word,’ she said. ‘You’ve been in the wars. Did you win?’
‘You should see the other guy,’ Stevie said.
Kim laughed and turned to me. ‘I like her. Tom Bailey’s daughter, right?’
I nodded.
‘I knew your father,’ she said to Stevie. ‘A good man.’
‘One of the best,’ I said.
I couldn’t be sure, but I could swear Stevie was blushing.
‘Okay,’ Kim said. ‘Let’s go back to the house.’ She threaded her arm through mine and we walked together along the sandy path that led to her house.
‘You’re in trouble,’ she said quietly as we walked along. We were ahead of the others and out of earshot.
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘To anyone who knows you, and let’s face it, Harry, I know you better than most. Why else would you come and see me?’
‘It’s not like that, Kim,’ I said.
She snorted. ‘Of course it is. Don’t worry. I’m not offended. So, are you going to tell me about it?’
‘Later. When we’re alone.’
‘That works for me.’
‘I do have a favor to ask you though.’
‘You want to stay for a few days?’
‘Not me. Them.’ I jerked a thumb back over my shoulder at Sam and Billie. ‘They need to lie low for a while. I’m afraid I’ve put them in danger.’
Kim frowned. ‘This sounds serious, Harry. It’s nothing illegal, is it?’
‘Not as far as we’re concerned. But there are others to whom the law doesn’t matter a damn. Which is why I have to protect them.’
There was a pebble on the path in front of us. Kim kicked it and sent it spinning into the irrigation ditch that ran alongside the path.
‘Okay,’ she said decisively. ‘They can stay.’
‘Thanks.’
‘But I want the whole story, Harry. And by that I mean complete, unexpurgated.’
‘You got it,’ I said.
We breasted a small rise as Kim’s house came into view…a large, low building, all white walls and plate glass. It was ultra-modern and quite ugly, sticking up out of the landscape and shouting its presence. Ted Weaver had spent a million dollars having it built to his own design, and I’d always thought he should have spent his money more wisely and hired an architect. The ugliness was confined to the outside. The interior was a luxurious, air-conditioned palace with long white leather sofas, terracotta floor tiles, and palms set in huge stone urns. It could have been cold and sterile, but Kim’s sheer ebullient presence made it homely enough.
As we entered, there was a young man standing at the cooker in the open plan kitchen rustling up a stir-fry in a stainless-steel wok. Apart from a blue and white chef’s apron he was stark naked; his body was lean and well-muscled, and tanned to the color of teak. He turned and smiled.
‘This is Philippe,’ Kim said, completely unfazed by the young man’s lack of clothes.
‘Right,’ I said, glancing at the others, whose faces registered a mixture of confusion and amusement. Kim strode across to the young man, planted a kiss on his cheek, and whispered something in his ear. Philippe glanced down at himself, smiled, and hurried from the kitchen. When he returned a few moments later he was wearing a garishly colored pair of Hawaiian shorts.
Kim returned to us, smiling broadly. ‘You’ll have to excuse him. He’s French,’ she said, as if that explained everything. ‘Have you eaten?’
We’d had a light breakfast of coffee and muffins on The Lady, but I could feel my stomach rumbling, encouraged by the mouth-watering aroma coming from Philippe’s wok. I said as much.
She turned to Sam and Billie. ‘Okay, I’ll show you to your rooms and then we’ll eat.’
‘Sounds good to me.’ I said.
Later, once we’d sampled Philippe’s excellent stir-fried chicken, Kim persuaded the young man to take Billie, Sam, and Stevie on a tour of the house and grounds. Kim and I settled ourselves in the comfortable cane chairs on the terrace with glasses of ice-cold lemonade.
‘So,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘A long story,’ I said.
‘Well, you have the time to tell it. I told Philippe to keep them out of the way for at least an hour.’
I smiled. ‘You haven’t changed,’ I said.
‘Oh, I have, my darling. In ways you couldn’t possibly imagine.’ She looked at me sharply. ‘Begin,’ she said. ‘And don’t leave out any details.’
33
I wasn’t able to give her the complete and unexpurgated version of the story that she wanted – there were too many uncertainties in my mind for that; too much I didn’t understand – but it was as close to it as I was willing to go.
‘Harry Beck….’ I deliberately started by referring to myself in the third person; it helped me focus. ‘Harry has a carefree, almost idyllic, life in the Bahamas. The owner of a small charter company, he enjoys a laid-back lifestyle with few responsibilities and fewer commitments.’
‘Sounds like the man I know.’
‘Exactly. I couldn’t have asked for more. Anyway. His peaceful life is shattered when his best friend’s wife and small daughter are brutally killed in an explosion, and his friend, Alan Lancaster, goes missing. On the same day, his home is ransacked and Stevie Bailey, the girl who crews for him on The Lady of Pain, his boat, is tortured and left for dead.’
‘Anna and Sally? No….’ Tears were welling in her eyes. She blinked and dabbed with her sleeve.
‘I was there. I saw it happen.’
‘And that’s where your friend, Stevie, got her obvious injuries?’
I nodded. ‘I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Alan.’
‘I can’t believe it. Poor Anna. And Sally, that sweet child. Alan thought the world of both of them. What’s he got himself involved in this time?’ She shook her head and sniffed back more tears.
‘Harry comes to realize that the people responsible for torturing Stevie are the same as those who planted the bomb in Alan Lancaster’s car that killed Lancaster’s wife and child, and that the bomb was intended for Alan himself.’
Kim shrugged. ‘That sounds logical. The Islands can be a bit lively, but car bombs and torturing young girls sounds like someone who’s pretty organized.’
‘Harry receives a message he believes to be from Alan, which leads to the discovery of a computer flash drive. Contained on the stick is evidence of a pedophile ring, a cartel of rich and influential people who are a using the Bahamas as a gateway through which to traffic children from Haiti and Cuba.’
‘You have to be fucking with me.’
I drained my glass of lemonade. I wished it was something stronger.
Kim had hardly touched hers. ‘I don’t know Alan anywhere as well as you, but what I do know doesn’t lead me to think he’d be mixed up in anything like that. What names are on this list?’
‘It’s a long list. There’s not a lot more to tell. My father’s life has been put in jeopardy; the same people tried to kill him with kindness.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘The only way to keep me and everyone around me safe is to find Alan Lancaster and, somehow, through him, bring down the cartel behind all this.’
‘Sounds laudable,’ she said. ‘Except for one thing.’
‘Which is?’
‘Alan could be the one behind all this.’
Her sentiment dangerously echoed my own thoughts. What was becoming obvious to me was that everything I had always known and believed about friendship was turning into murder and betrayal. It was the only way any of it made any sense. Alan had betrayed the people he professed to love; his wife, his daughter, and his friend. Except that if my father was to be taken seriously, Alan wasn’t just a lifelong friend, he was my brother.
I was being forced to re-evaluate my life, and I clearly had some difficult choices to make about the future. And let’s face it, for the first time in my life I had to take responsibility and get some contr
ol.
When it was obvious I’d finished, Kim stared off into the distance. The terrace had a view down to the sea. From where we sat we could see The Lady tethered at the jetty.
‘I knew you were in trouble as soon as I saw the bullet holes in The Lady’s superstructure.’
‘It’s going to cost me a month’s money to get those repaired.’
‘You could have been killed.’
‘But we weren’t.’
She sipped at her lemonade and gave me a long, hard, appraising look. ‘So, what’s next?’
‘I have to find Alan.’
‘Alan Lancaster may be many things...but a pedophile?’ She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t buy it.’
‘The evidence is pretty conclusive,’ I said.
‘Bullshit! It’s circumstantial. Why won’t you give him the benefit of the doubt? You two have been friends a long time.’
It was my turn to stare off into the distance. I couldn’t answer her. I was dealing with a whole raft of emotions as far as my best friend was concerned, and I was unable to articulate any of them.
‘I think Stevie should stay here,’ she said.
‘I agree,’ I said. ‘But she won’t.’
‘And if something happens to her? How will you be able to live with yourself?’
‘Something has happened to her, and I’m having a hard enough time getting my head around that. Believe me, it gnaws away at me.’
‘And if she’s killed?’
‘Then I’ll find a way to carry on,’ I said with a certainty I didn’t feel.
The conversation was curtailed with the arrival of Philippe and the others. Billie was effusive. ‘Kim, it’s a wonderful place to live. You’re so lucky.’
‘Yes,’ Kim said. ‘I am. That’s what my husband Ted thought too…until his pancreas exploded.’
Billie flushed. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause offense.’
‘None taken,’ Kim said lightly. ‘You weren’t to know. Ted and I had a wonderful marriage, and I don’t regret a moment of it... except maybe the end. That was difficult. But the times we spent together here were the happiest of my life.’ She changed tack suddenly. ‘Stevie, I was wondering if you’d like to stay on for a while, rather than sailing the high seas with this old reprobate.’ She jerked a thumb in my direction.