by Matthew Rief
I’d originally wanted to ask about the guy Enrique, but I knew that I wouldn’t get anywhere with this clown. “Yeah,” I said, standing and grabbing a pencil from his desk. “When you get a chance, go ahead and shove this up your ass.” I dropped it on the desk and Ange and I walked out of his office. After she’d walked through, I slammed the glass door so hard that it almost shattered the glass. Without saying a word, we moved across the main room and out the front door.
“You’re just making all sorts of friends today,” Ange said as we climbed onto the bike.
“At least I didn’t shoot him,” I said, starting up the engine and feeling like that entire visit was a complete waste of time. I hadn’t learned anything about my new enemy. “God knows I wanted to.”
As I slid the kickstand up, the front door opened behind us. Turning around, I saw a young dark-skinned woman shut the door behind her and run down the stairs towards us. What the hell now? I thought.
“Mr. Dodge!” she said. Her voice was soft and as calm as you’d expect, considering she’d probably just run across the entire building to get to us. “I would like to talk with you.”
“I think I’ve had enough talk with detectives for one day,” I said.
“I’m not a detective,” she said. “I’m in charge of the records, and I have some information that I think you’d like to hear regarding your dad.”
Glancing back at the police building, I decided that I didn’t want to discuss anything in there. “Meet me for brunch at the Green Iguana in twenty minutes.” I didn’t wait for a reply. I just started up the engine and hit the gas, cruising out of the parking lot and back along the waterfront.
Her name was Alice Pierce, and twenty minutes later, Ange and I were sitting beside her in cushioned bamboo chairs under the shade of a green umbrella. The Green Iguana had always been one of my favorite places to eat in Curacao. Our table was right on the boardwalk, nestled between the blue waters of Saint Anne Bay on one side and the colorful Dutch-style buildings on the other. We hadn’t realized just how hungry we were from the long night of traveling until we glanced at the menu. Ange ordered a Colombian steak with mashed potatoes and broccoli. I got the catch of the day, which was red snapper with Spanish rice and asparagus.
As we waited for our food and I sipped on ice-cold lemonade, I stared over at Alice, giving her the floor.
“First of all,” she said, her voice calm, with a hint of worry, “I’m sorry for everything that’s happened. And I’m sorry about Millis. He can be a real jackass. But I wanted to talk with you because, well, part of what he told you is true.” I felt the anger deep inside me start to return but wanted to hear her out. “There is evidence to suggest that your dad was working with drug runners. I’ve been trying to piece some of it together, but it’s a hard trail to follow. Just the day before your father passed away, two Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard special agents were killed. And I believe those two agents were your father’s points of contact.”
“Points of contact?” I said, shaking my head. Then my eyes grew wide.
“You think he was working undercover?” Ange said, thinking the same thing I was.
Alice nodded. “I think he was trying to help bring them down from the inside. Then things went south, everyone involved was killed, and the whole thing was covered up.”
We sat in silence for a moment, and I thought everything through. Though my dad had been many things, an undercover agent? The thought had never crossed my mind until that moment. The waitress brought over our food then, and we spent a few minutes enjoying the delicious food and taking in the view.
When we were about halfway through our meals, I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the driver’s license I’d pulled off Enrique’s dead body. Setting it on the table in front of Alice, I said, “What can you tell me about these guys?”
She glanced at the name momentarily, then said, “They’re a group of drug smugglers that run drugs all over the Caribbean. And over the past few years, they’ve grown larger and larger.”
“Who runs the show?” I said. “Who murdered my dad?”
She sighed. “I don’t know who pulled the trigger. But they’re led by two brothers: Pedro and Hector Campos.”
I tilted my head and narrowed my gaze. Both of their names sounded familiar.
“Wait,” Ange said. “Are you talking about the Pedro and Hector Campos? The former MMA fighters from Bolivia?”
Alice nodded. “That’s right.”
Ange’s words snapped the memory from deep within my mind in an instant. I’d read about them years ago in the news, when they had both been booted from professional MMA for fighting dirty and for beating people outside the ring. I knew that they had disappeared from the limelight but had no idea they’d gotten into the drug trade.
“So you’re telling me that these two former fighters are running this whole thing?” Ange said.
“Yes,” Alice said. “And, in all likelihood, one of them murdered your father, Logan.”
When we finished eating, I dug into my wallet to pay the bill using the cash I’d brought. I was glad to have met Alice and finally thought that I was getting some of my questions answered. After I set the bills on the table, Alice pulled a ballpoint pen out of her purse and wrote her phone number on a napkin.
Handing it to me, she said, “That’s my private number. If you need anything else, just call.”
I nodded, folded the napkin and slid it into my black leather wallet. As we sat for a moment, I noticed that a new waiter I hadn’t seen before was approaching us. He had dark skin and giant muscles oozing out of his Green Iguana tee shirt, and he was well over six feet tall. He smiled as he approached and reached for the bills with his left hand. But in his right, I saw something that made my eyes grow massive. Under a folded white napkin, I saw what looked like a Taser high-voltage stun gun.
CHAPTER SIX
Just as my eyes zeroed in on the weapon, the big guy glared at me, energized the two metal prongs with eighteen million volts and stabbed them straight towards my chest. In an instant, I jerked my body backward, balancing momentarily on the two rear legs of my chair and narrowly avoiding the Taser as I grabbed his wrist with my left hand and slammed it into the table. It shattered the ceramic plate in front of me and rattled the glasses as I planted my feet on the ground and kicked my chair behind me.
Forcing his hand free, he yelled and tried to hit me with the Taser again, this time aiming for my face. Narrowing my gaze, I bent my knees, twisted my body, then grabbed hold of his arm and forced the Taser to pass by just over my right shoulder. I forcefully hyperextended his elbow with a loud crack, then hurled his body over mine and slammed it hard into the rust-colored cobblestone.
The incident had lasted less than a couple of seconds, and as I turned back to look at the table, I saw Alice standing nervously, her body shaking as she stared at the guy writhing in pain on the ground. Ange, however, was focusing her trained eyes on the group of people around us. People eating their meals or just passing by, many of them frozen and staring in our direction.
“We need to leave,” Ange said, her voice stern. “We need to leave now!”
She motioned towards where I’d parked the motorcycle in the narrow alley alongside the restaurant. But before we could head in that direction, two more guys appeared, moving in on either side of us. One of them was slightly taller than me and held a metal baseball bat in his hands. The other was shorter but looked more muscular than a gorilla.
The guy with the bat reached us first and swung at me like a major leaguer trying to catch up to a ninety-mile-per-hour fastball. I jumped back, then moved side to side a few times, avoiding the bat as it flew through the air just inches from my body. As he lifted the bat high above his head, gearing up to slam it into me, I hit him with a powerful side kick straight into his neck. His body flew backward, and he crashed to the ground with a grunt and a loud thud.
Lunging towards him, I ripped the baseball bat from his hands a
nd whacked him across the head, knocking him unconscious. A long-haired guy wearing a wife beater grabbed Ange from behind. Bending her knees, she dug her heels into the ground and hurled him over her shoulder, slamming his body to the ground. As I turned to look at the short muscular guy, I saw that he was sprinting straight for me. Still holding the bat in my hands, I moved to hit him with it, but before I could, he tackled me hard onto our table. The combination of both of our body weights caused the table to give, cracking and colliding with the cobblestone beneath us.
Reaching for my neck, he strangled me with a viselike grip and yelled at me like a wild animal as we struggled. Feeling the world around me start to fade, I reached for anything I could and grabbed one of the tall glasses. Shattering the rim against the broken table, I gritted my teeth, then stabbed the sharp broken edges into his chest. He yelled violently as the glass penetrated, causing blood to gush out. I punched him square in the face, then gripped his waist and threw him off me.
Just as I rose to my feet, I saw two more guys running at me. Before the first one could reach me, Ange grabbed one of the bamboo chairs, twirled it around and crashed it into his back. His body jerked forward and he tripped, landing hard on his face. As Ange hit him a few more times to finish the job, the second guy continued straight for me. I took a few steps back and realized that I was standing right on the edge of the promenade. I waited until my attacker was just a few feet away, then jumped to the side, grabbed his white tee shirt tightly, and flung him over the edge. A second later, I heard a loud splash as the guy made contact with the water ten feet below.
I did a quick scan of the area, then ran over to Ange and Alice. Ange was standing over three big wannabe tough guys who wouldn’t be getting up on their own anytime soon. All in all, there were seven guys on the ground, writhing in pain, as I placed a hand on Alice’s shoulder.
“We have to move,” Ange said, weaving through the tables and running across the street towards where we’d left the motorcycle parked in a narrow alley beside the restaurant.
Staring deep into Alice’s eyes, I said, “They’re after us. Just lie low and get out of here. We’ll be in touch.”
As the last word came out of my mouth, the air was filled with the loud rattle of automatic gunfire. Instinctively, I dropped to the ground in an instant. Screams filled the air as crowds of people ran chaotically as fast as they could away from the area. Looking around, I saw a guy wearing a backward hat and holding an Uzi about two hundred feet away from me in the middle of the street. My eyes grew wide as I watched him take aim at Ange, who was hopping onto the motorcycle in the adjacent alley.
I grabbed my Sig from the back of my waistband, then sprinted towards the guy. When it looked like he was about to fire, I took aim and fired off three rounds into the side of his chest. His body jerked sideways and his hands flew wildly into the air before he crashed to the pavement. I continued running towards Ange, and in the corner of my eye, I spotted a few more guys closing in around us.
As I turned to take aim, Ange started the engine, burned rubber and drove right beside me.
“Get on!” she yelled, her blue eyes focused.
Without hesitating I hopped onto the leather seat with my back against hers, facing backward. Just as I hit the seat, she fired the throttles and turned sharply to the left, accelerating us back down the alley alongside the Green Iguana.
I took aim as we bounced up and down on the uneven backstreets, firing off a few rounds at the guys chasing us and forcing them to take cover. I held on tight as Ange weaved between large dumpsters and passed by a few guys sitting out back for a smoke break. When we reached the end of the alley, Ange turned hard to the right, skidding for about five feet between a taxi and a brown van before changing course, heading down along the oceanfront.
We passed by street markets, cafes and crowds of people as we cruised along the ocean, dodging traffic and heading back over the Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge at over sixty miles per hour. When I didn’t see anyone following us, I turned my body around and looked forward, the fresh sea air whipping against my face. Holding on tight, I kept a sharp lookout for hostiles as we cruised west, heading towards the Pearl Beach Resort. Ange was smart to avoid heading back to the police station. I was sure they wouldn’t be of much help to us and knew that if I took one more look at that fat jerk, it would take all my self-control to stop me from punching his face in.
Instead, we kept cruising along the waterfront, weaving around cars. After a few seconds of no activity around us, I spotted a new blacked-out Chevy truck driving on the wrong side of the double yellow lines, heading straight for us.
“Logan!” Ange shouted, her eyes trained forward.
“I see them,” I said, raising my Sig over her shoulder. There was a guy leaning out the passenger-side window, aiming what looked like an AK-47 straight at us. Squeezing the trigger on my Sig, I fired off round after round, shattering the windshield. I hit the guy in the passenger seat twice, and he jerked back into the seat, shooting a spray of bullets high into the air. When the truck was roughly a hundred feet in front of us, I put a bullet through the driver’s neck, causing blood to gush out and his body to whip sideways. The truck turned with him, smashing through the concrete barrier just in front of us and crashing into the ocean.
Ange took a sharp right, almost knocking me out of my seat, then stomped on the gas, accelerating down a small side road. As she cruised past a neighborhood of houses and a large hotel, I heard the loud roar of an engine coming from behind us. Just as I turned around, I saw that a guy on a motorcycle was gaining on us and that he held an Uzi high in the air with his extended right hand. He aimed it at us and held the trigger, sending a stream of bullets in our direction. Ange turned sharply as lead flew past us, sending bright sparks flying into the air as the bullets made contact with the pavement.
She drove us onto a small footpath that wedged itself between houses, trying to put distance between us and our pursuer. As I twisted my body and took aim at him, Ange yelled at me to hold on as she hit a large bump that sent us flying ten feet into the air. She stuck the landing well, our tires barely bouncing more than an inch off the concrete as she maintained our speed. Just as I was turning to look back at our pursuer, I spotted a landscaper’s truck parked on the side of the road, right next to a concrete wall just a few hundred feet in front of us.
“Pull sharply along the other side of that wall, Ange!” I yelled over the roar of the engine as I holstered my Sig.
When we reached the wall, Ange squeezed the life out of the brakes and turned on a dime. We disappeared from view just as the guy behind us hit the jump. I hopped off the bike, grabbed a metal rake from the landscaper’s truck and pushed myself right up against the edge of the wall.
I heard the roar of his engine grow louder and louder. Just as he was about to appear around the corner, I gripped the rake tightly with both hands and swung it as hard as I could. The metal prongs at the end stabbed right into his chest just as he appeared, launching his body backward off his motorcycle.
His bike kept going without him, balancing itself for a few seconds before crashing into a similar wall on the other side of the road. Pulling the prongs free, I stepped around his thrashing body, grabbed his Uzi and hopped back onto the Café Racer behind Ange. He probably wouldn’t die from his wounds, but he sure as hell wouldn’t be chasing anyone anytime soon.
Ange hit the gas and brought us back onto the main road, heading west. Within a few minutes, the road turned inland, converging with the road to the West Point. She hit the gas even harder, sending us screaming across the pavement at over a hundred miles per hour. She drove like a professional racer, causing the wind to roar against our faces as the midmorning sun warmed our backs.
We both kept our eyes peeled, looking for anything or anyone suspicious. After about twenty minutes, we turned onto Santa Martha Avenue, the road that hugs the eastern shore of Santa Martha Bay and passes right by Pearl Beach. When we were within a mile of the reso
rt, I saw something unusual in the sky ahead of us.
“That doesn’t look good,” Ange said, staring up ahead at what I now realized was a black pillar of smoke coming from the Pearl Beach Resort.
Holy shit, I thought as I stared at the blackness rising up like a warning into the tropical air. Reaching for my holster, I grabbed my extra magazine and exchanged it with the partially empty one in my Sig. I had a combined twenty-three rounds left. Fifteen in my fresh mag and eight in the other. It probably wouldn’t be enough to combat the force we were about to encounter, but I also had the guy’s Uzi and Ange for cover.
As we approached the resort, I tried to think of a plan as fast as I could. Up ahead, we both spotted two vehicles, a green truck and a silver SUV, blocking the gate at the main entrance into the resort. As if she’d read my mind, Ange turned us down a dirt footpath that led through a thick growth of palm and coconut trees and ended at the white sandy beach. Slowing down slightly, Ange turned sharply, spitting up a sheet of sand high into the air as she drove along the crashing waves towards the resort.
“Okay,” I said, having gotten an idea. “Cruise along the beach, then head in for the palm trees and drop me off. Once I’m gone, head for the higher units and provide cover as best as you can.”
Fortunately, the beach appeared to be empty of hostiles, making it the best place to attack from. Ange didn’t reply, and when we reached the patch of palm trees I was talking about, instead of dropping me off, she turned to the right and drove the motorcycle right up onto the dock that extended far out over the turquoise water.
As she drove over plank after plank, putting more and more distance between us and our enemies, I shook my head. “What the hell, Ange? What are you doing?”
Her only reply was to hit the gas even harder, sending us flying towards her seaplane moored at the end of the dock at upwards of sixty miles per hour. As we neared the end, she slowed, then slammed on the brakes, skidding us to a sideways stop right next to her plane.