Deadman's Cay

by Boyd Craven

  “You’re insane,” he said in lightly accented English. “Those two are cops, I voted for the sheriff there. You can’t let him do this. I have rights.”

  “We’re in international waters, and we found you with about ten pounds of cocaine. Here’s the deal, though,” I said, getting in his face. “I’m the one who wanted you. I want you for what you did to my woman.” I grabbed the back of his head, holding it in place. He squinted his eyes against the blow he knew was coming. I punched him low in the stomach instead. “But the rest of the fellows want you for what you know, and who you work for.”

  He fell forward, almost coming to the literal end of his rope, and started throwing up on the deck. Shame, I would have to get a bucket of saltwater to clean it off. I waited for him to more or less get control of himself, then picked him back up and put him on the cooler. Eduardo looked at me, real fear in his eyes now. I knelt down, showing my teeth. I held up my fist, then pulled my thumb out of it and showed it to him.

  “What… what are you going to do?” he asked.

  “See this thumb? I was measuring it against your eye socket to see if it’d fit. I figure you don’t need both eyes, and how else am I going to make sure you know how serious I am without having to go through killing you?”

  “I don’t think he actually cares about asking the questions,” Donnie said. “He just wants to fuck this dude up for shooting Carly and toss him to the sharks.”

  “Well, we have a second part of the mission to think of,” Serf shot back, anger in his voice.

  “I’m kind of ok if he takes just the one eye,” Mark said, making them all shush.

  “You know,” Charles said, “nobody says the defendant has to see his accuser, just that the accuser gets to confront him.”

  “But ... you’re law enforcement…” Eduardo was blubbering.

  “And your sweet ass is mine. You’re not the only one to do hard time,” I said, then leaned in close, whispering sweet nothings to him, then closed the promise off with a kiss to his temple.

  “Oh shit!”

  “That’s disgusting!”

  “You got a girlfriend, man.”

  Irish John suggested, “You make him your bitch, keep him on boat. Be bouncy boy whenever you want him. Oh, and we’re at three hundred feet.”

  “Excellent.” I was looking at the man who was falling apart in front of me. “Now you want to answer our questions?” I asked him.

  “You didn’t ask me anything yet,” he blubbered.

  “Yeah, well, there’s that,” I said, slapping him off the cooler again.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Eduardo talked. He sang like a canary, all of which Sheriff Williams actually recorded with his cell phone. Not for evidentiary sake, but to make sure he didn’t miss any detail. We knew where, when, how. We even got names of local politicians who were allegedly involved in the corruption, and the names of cops Eduardo knew were on the take. We also found out there was a small island about fifty miles away where the kids were being kept. The smugglers would run smaller boats between different points on the map we recovered, and the waypoints on the phone Donnie and Serf had taken. Then they would either run it to somebody else, a mothership where they refueled, or cargo ships where they could slip their merchandise into sealed containers coming or going.

  I probably had a lot of the details wrong, because understanding how a criminal organization runs is not something they taught in prison on a 101 level. I was also hearing about it from one of the lowest guys on the totem pole, so a lot of what he was giving up was probably either wrong, straight up misinformation, or blabbing to blab because he was afraid I was going to actually take him below decks and romance him the way I’d promised. Being big and ugly had its advantages, and all I had really done was slap him twice, punch him once, and threaten to treat him like Hoffa.

  “Irish John wants to know if Tony is tired of being a bobber?”

  “No, the four of them are getting good info,” I told him, standing near the rear. “I just can’t believe… What was it like inside that shack? That was some crazy shit!”

  “His back was to Irish John. You do as I say and circle. Made Eduardo suspicious, so I sneaked up ladder and when he had his back turned, I thump him on head with bottom of knife. ’Den I roll him over and put knee on belly, knife under chin. Any jerky movement and he would have new breathing hole.”

  “I’ve never seen you move like that,” I told him.

  “Irish John was once JDF in late sixties and seventies,” he said, “I wanted to join, wanted to get away from family business.”

  “What’s the JDF, and what’s the family business?” I asked him.

  “JDF is Jamaican Defense Force. Military.”

  “Oh,” I said softly, watching as a map was brought out, and Eduardo pointed to the same spot, his voice pleading.

  “What was the family business?” I asked him.

  “Fishing,” he said simply. “Irish John wants drink, but thinks we need clear head.”

  “You could always have a beer,” I told him.

  “No, I ’tink I want to try one of ’dose flavored color water ’tings when ’dey done talking to Eduardo.”

  “Not an issue,” I told him. “I think I want a beer, though.”

  “What if mission needs you to keep clear head?” Irish John asked me.

  “I’m big and ugly, not stupid. It’ll be out of my system in an hour. From what I’m hearing, we may have to motor for a couple hours to get to either the next stash spot, or where they’re keeping the kids.”

  “We shall see. How’s your hands?”

  “I didn’t punch him hard, and I got him in the belly. The slaps hurt worse,” I admitted.

  “You almost smack ‘da ‘teef out of poor man’s head.”

  “I was mad,” I told him.

  “Remind Irish John to refrain from calling you dummy asshole as much. Ha!”

  I laughed and saw the four breaking things up. Mark went below decks and Charles drifted our way with Donnie and Serf.

  “You get the location?”

  “Yeah. We have to move fast, though. I was hoping we could hit them at dark, but they sent a boat out to get Eduardo there and bring him back. With the site burned out… if we don’t get moving, we might miss them getting there and radioing for instructions.”

  Damn. I had hoped burning it was the right move. Now, it was a sign that somebody was in the area and, with the dingy with us, they would be phoning home quickly.

  “Apparently homeboy wanted to leave the area. He blasted Carly in revenge and tried to bug out,” Donnie told me, “but when his bosses found out what he’d done, they cut him off. They sent some guys to his house, figuring to pick him up there, but only found his family. Eduardo was running and was going to try to trade some of the coke he’d been pilfering over the years as a bribe back into their good graces, or something stupid like that. Dude’s a grade A idiot. Probably has the IQ of a turnip.”

  Serf nodded. “But if we can get to the island first, we still might have the element of surprise. According to the charts and map, the water around it is deep until you come around this point,” he told us, showing us on the map. “The building they’re keeping the kids in is old and abandoned. Somebody a long time ago tried putting a landing strip on this place, and that’s the hanger. It’s got a well, some septic working, a generator and a radio setup.”

  “We don’t know how many boats and resources they have in the area, so we’re going to have to do this as quiet as we can, unless we can take out their radio capabilities right off,” Donnie said.

  When Mark moved back up top, we all huddled near Eduardo.

  “If the information you gave us was good, we’ll just turn you in to the police when we’re done. Somebody is going to have to stay back on the boat while we do our thing, and I’m guessing you’d prefer it not be either of these two,” Detective Terrey asked, pointing to me and Irish, and he shook his head emphatically no. “So if we
put you below in one of the cabins and lock you in, there won’t be any funny business, will there?”

  “No señor,” Eduardo said.

  I thought these guys were supposed to be tough, full of bravado, the whole big bad gang thing. That was when I sort of put it all together. His family had been murdered because of him, by the guys he was trying to get back in good graces with. Eduardo’s peace offering had been confiscated by us and we were about to punch his bosses in the face while they were coming to get him. With him and his boat gone, and the place burned, they might even think he was working against them, or coming for revenge. All he could do at this point was cooperate and hope we were successful, or he would die. From us, or from them. On a boat, there weren’t many places to get away from us, and if we used the dinghy and had all the guns with us…

  “What are you thinking, boss?” Irish John asked me, startling the hell out of me.

  “Eduardo, can you drink out of a straw?” I asked.

  “Si,” he said, hesitantly.

  “Stand up, let me snake some drinks out,” I ordered.

  Irish started smiling and went below deck to grab one. I’d seen he’d bought a whole box of them for some damned reason, but they gave me a little bit of an idea. Irish came back as I fished out alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks for everybody, along with two or three beers for Eduardo, and let him sit on another cooler, moving it over while he stood. I motioned for him to sit, and he did. I cracked the beer and dumped in the straw Irish offered, and held it up for him. He hesitated, fearing a trick, but soon he was drinking greedily, taking deep breaths in between, since my smacks had gotten his sinuses running. Or he was a fucking crybaby.

  “Thank you,” he said after a bit. “It is hot here.”

  “Where you from, Eduardo?” I asked him, keeping the beer close enough for him to lean in and drink whenever he wanted.

  “Right here. I had a cousin who got me in,” he admitted.

  “Jimenez?” I asked, using the name Serf and Donnie had provided me with, which earned me dirty looks from the cops.

  “Si. I do not know where my friend Enrico is. For all I know, he was the one that visited my family…” An actual tear started down his cheek.

  I held up the beer, shaking it. He took the straw in his mouth and didn’t let up except to take a breath and when he was done.

  “What color is your friend Enrico?” I asked him.

  “He’s… I mean, he’s almost Anglo. Dark hair. About my size. Why?”

  “Because I’ve got a crazy idea, and if you’d prefer drinking beers with me, instead of being my bed buddy, you’d better give me the straight truth.”

  “Si…” he looked around to the others. “I suspect it was Enrico who killed my family. He probably is the one they sent to pick me up too, because they know I know him and probably wouldn’t suspect. I did though, he always wanted bigger job than he was ever given.”

  I cracked a new beer and transferred straws, putting the empty in the cup holder on the cooler.

  “Donnie, Mark, come here, take off your hat.”

  “What?” Mark asked suddenly, but Donnie was grinning, nodding.

  I stood next to the two of them. Mark was fit, dark haired and had a slight tan, but nowhere near as dark as my Hispanic heritage. Donnie was my height, dark haired, though it was cropped short.

  “From a distance,” I asked, “which of these guys could pass themselves off as you and your friend Enrico?” I asked him.

  “I… In truth, the one who looks like he wants to eat my liver,” he said shuddering.

  Donnie had the Cheshire Cat of grins, and that was what I’d thought.

  “What does this mean?” Mark asked, confused.

  “We have a plan. Donnie and I will be on the dinghy when we get close. We will go in fast and loud. Irish John, we’ll need you to bring the boat in close enough for Serf, Mark and Chuck to get to shore quickly in the confusion me and Donnie are about to make.”

  “’Den what you need Irish John to do?” he asked, an eyebrow raised.

  “How good are you at distance shooting?” Serf asked before I could answer.

  “Irish John is the best gunman in ‘da entire Caribbean!” he said immediately.

  “He’s the best at everything,” I said, half joking after his comment from earlier.

  Irish John flipped me off and went below deck. He came back up with a soft-sided case I hadn’t seen him put on the boat and unzipped it on the drink cooler. An old Russian Dragunov was inside. I almost lost it; I had only seen them in movies. It looked like the bigger, meaner, nastier brother to what I’d been given to use for the trip.

  “Irish John, where did you—”

  “Same place as my pistol. From Deadman’s Cay. I have my whole life on ‘dat island. Someday, it’ll all be yours, but until ’den, trust Irish John. Can hit target from boat easy. Was shooting sharks for fun as a boy.”

  “Where did you get that?” Mark asked him seriously.

  “Jamaica,” he shot back immediately.

  “We’re going to have to dig up that whole damned island,” Detective Terrey said with a groan.

  “If you do, Irish John make you shit in your hat and make you eat it!”

  “That’s what it was, I couldn’t remember!” Mark said snapping his fingers, pointing with his free hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Donnie and I saw the dock. It was right where Eduardo had said it would be, on the other side of the island from the old hanger. We saw a figure come out onto the dock when we were half a mile out and glass us. We both kept our heads kind of pointed down so he couldn’t get a good look at our faces. I was counting on my skin tone matching up with Eduardo’s and Donnie’s, with Enrico’s to fool them. Evidently it did because the man waved our way. Donnie waved back while I sat with my arms behind my back, my gear on the floor of the boat in front of me, out of sight.

  “Them using mostly the same small dinghies is lucky on our part,” Donnie said.

  “Probably figured their main boat had engine problems,” I said as we came in fast.

  Nobody was in sight as we got close to the dock, and I tied the line off and got my gear on. I held onto the rifle, but if there was shooting, Donnie was going to do it. He had a suppressed AR and had less than lethal rounds loaded in it. He said it did horrors to his barrel, but I wasn’t a gun guy really. He just assured me he could do this, and I believed him. We took cover in the tall grass and started crawling in. Our hope was to draw two of the six to eight men that usually were around according to Eduardo, but he hadn’t been here to this locale in a couple of years.

  Donnie said something into the lip mic of the radio he was wearing on his tactical vest underneath the oversized Hawaiian shirt he was pulling off. I didn’t. My bottom layer was still the white tank top and the splash of color would probably give me better camouflage value judging by all the tall grasses and wildflowers that were growing twenty feet in from the shoreline.

  “Enrico?” a voice called loudly as the echo of our motor died away and we both got under cover.

  We didn’t answer. Donnie motioned forward and to my left, and I started crawling slowly with him a few feet away from me. I heard the tall grass swishing before I saw the man walking our way. I froze, praying I would stay as invisible as I hoped I was. Donnie rose up slightly and I heard his gun going off and rushed forward in a crouch as the man fell. There was a smear of blood across his forehead and he seemed to be out cold. I rolled him onto his stomach, tossing his gun and knife behind me. I was pulling his hands behind his back when Donnie gave me a set of doubled up nylon zip ties. I got his hands done up while Donnie did the ankles. Then we turned him over. His eyes were rolled up, but I could see the rise and fall of his chest.

  Donnie pulled a piece of duct tape he had already cut to size off his vest and planted it over the man’s mouth and motioned me to keep going. I did, praying we didn’t set anybody else off. We moved slowly, coming to the top of what could ha
ve once been a grassy dune, but the vegetation gave way to some small brush. A path had been cut through it, the ground beneath, worked down to the sand from feet coming and going from the dock. I heard the thrum of a diesel motor and turned to look. My boat was making a wide turn away from the island, fishing lines out. I grinned, only seeing Irish John on the deck.

  “Hey, did you three stop off for a circle jerk?” A new voice called from the brush ahead of us.

  We pulled back into cover and waited. When a gurgle sound erupted ten feet away, Donnie jumped to his feet and rushed. I followed, my gun pointed at the dirt, so I didn’t get excited and shoot him by accident. Donnie led, barrel first, until we saw the thrashing. Serf and Mark were wrestling with two men while Charles was trying to get the nylon restraints over their wrists. Donnie shot them with the rubber bullets at close range, first one in the ass, then the other. It was a near thing, but a scream almost broke out before Serf punched the guy’s face into the dirt. Mark had changed tactics with the guy he was wrestling with when he was shot. The man arched up and he put him in a choke hold.

  That gave Charles time to do his work, and with some grunting cussing and swearing and more than a few punches thrown, both men were knocked down. To make things final, they were stripped of weapons, knives, duct taped and tied together sixty-nine style. The violence surprised me, but more so than me, these men were comfortable with violence and didn’t hesitate to unleash it when necessary. I had only used it to defend myself, or when I lost my cool at the bar.

  “Now we just have to wait for Irish John,” Serf said, breathing hard. “We’ve got what, three to five more?”

  “Something like that, we got one,” Donnie said. “Popped the sucker in the head from four meters,” he said, shaking his AR.

  “Too bad these guys are already dumb,” Serf said, “I mean, two walking down the path together? Come on.”

  “Um, we’re all grouped up ourselves,” I pointed out.

  That earned me a sharp look, and we went silent. Serf and Donnie gave hand signals and me and the cops spread out. The Boom Brothers took either side of the short path leading to a clearing in the middle of the smallish island. I could just make out the roofline of the hanger. As soon as Irish John took out the generator which we could hear now that we were closer, we would be a go. We moved forward, nearly fifty feet to the edge of the clearing.