by dannal
Momo shouted in a soft, high-pitched voice, “Hello, friend. My brother here cut himself on some coral. Any chance you have a first aid kit in your boat?”
Josue turned his back to look down into a compartment in the stern of his fishing boat. Momo didn’t waste a second. He stood up on the Sea-Doo, pulled the Taser out of his pants pocket, and aimed the weird-looking black and yellow “gun” at Josue.
Momo took his time. He lined up the sights and pulled the trigger. Two electrodes, connected to the non-lethal weapon by long thin copper wires, shot out of the Taser, riding a blast of compressed air, and striking Josue square in the middle of his back.
Josue Remy’s back arched from the shock of having been struck, his flesh pierced by the sharp barbed electrodes. Then he went rigid as the five-second charge of electricity coursed through his body, rendering him limp, facedown in the stern of his fishing boat.
“Take the Sea-Doo back to the cat, Zann,” Momo ordered. He stepped onto the white dock. “I’m gonna drive over in Josue’s boat.”
Zann took off on the personal watercraft. Momo dropped from the dock into the Cobia center console boat and threw off the lines that secured it. He turned the keys to fire up each of the twin outboards, and then pushed the throttle handles forward. The boat quickened forward and Momo turned back to look at Josue.
The lithe Haitian stirred from his position on the stern deck. Momo stepped away from the helm and brought his fist down hard onto Josue’s cheek.
“Oogh,” Josue grunted as he fell back down to the deck.
“Think you can run away from me, thug?” Momo shouted. He hit the helpless man again, and then reached into his backpack. He grabbed out the black hood soaked in ether, and placed it over the defenseless man’s head.
Then Momo grabbed out a thick zip tie from the bag and bound Josue’s hands behind his back where he lay, facedown on the deck. The former Ti Flow member now lay slack and unmoving.
“Time you gonna pay for crossing Momo,” Momo growled, as he returned to the helm of the fishing boat and grabbed the wheel. He looked back once more at Josue. “Time you gonna pay.”
Max walked out onto the Snowy Lady’s swim platform, just above the mega yacht’s three aluminum-bronze alloy propellers, each as tall as him. He gazed west toward Ilet d’Ombres, the small island of shadows, which he called home. Josue should have finished loading the dozen cases of rum onto the Cobia and returned to Walsh’s yacht by now.
Max felt uncomfortable wearing the clothes of a man savagely murdered in front of him only minutes earlier. But Everest Walsh had asked Max to go into Tito’s stateroom, take a shower, and then put on some of the murdered thug’s clean clothes. Then the cigar magnate called his yacht stewardess and ordered her to keep all staff members out of the cigar lounge on the upper deck until further notice, lest they walk in to see the aftermath of Marquise de Losa’s bloodbath.
Max was careful to find something with long sleeves. He knew that revealing his bare arms would escalate things to a quick and violent resolution that Max just wasn’t quite ready for. He tugged up Tito’s cargo shorts; they were large enough that Max had to cinch them down with a black leather belt taken from the dead man’s dresser.
As soon as Josue arrived with the boat, Max and Marquise de Losa would load up all of the blood-stained furniture and carpet. De Losa had cut the saturated rug with a sharp tanto knife, rolling it up like a morbid crepe, to be transfered to Ilet d’Ombres, where Max would burn it all on his sugarcane pile.
Max didn’t mind doing it. Really, he didn’t. It was a small price to pay to see Marquise de Losa turn like a dog on one of his own men. The extra hundred grand Walsh would pay him was just the icing.
Tito’s body was wrapped tightly in sheets and weighted, and then dumped, likely settling right beside Chuy’s on the sandy sea bed just below the massive yacht. Everest Walsh is starting his very own undersea cemetery, Max thought.
Max’s cell phone vibrated to life in the pocket of his borrowed shorts. He slipped it out and looked at the name and photo of the caller. It was Isobel Greer.
Max didn’t really care what she had to say right now. His dealings with Walsh and de Losa trumped any sort of germ of a relationship he might have had with the woman. Besides, he was pretty sure he had made it clear that things were over between them.
He tucked the phone back in his pocket. Marquise de Losa appeared at the black glass door that separated the yacht’s swim platform from the passageway leading inside the lower deck of the great vessel.
“Who’s calling you?” the suspicious killer asked. He no doubt worried Max might phone the authorities, and report Marquise for the vicious murder of Tito.
“A woman,” Max said. “But I don’t want to talk to her. Not now.”
“May I see?” Marquise asked.
Max handed him the phone without protest. He wanted to prove he had nothing to hide. De Losa switched on the phone and saw Isobel Greer’s name. A tone sounded that told Max she had left a voicemail.
De Losa handed the phone back to Max. “Women.”
Max nodded, as de Losa walked back into the passageway. Max used the phone to call Josue. It rang and rang and then went to voicemail.
Where the hell is he? Max asked himself.
Max switched open the tracking app he and Josue used to keep track of each other; it used the GPS transponder inside each of their smartphones. He tapped Josue’s phone on the app.
It took a moment, but a map of the area appeared on screen. According to the map, the young Haitian was located somewhere about halfway between Walsh’s yacht and Ilet d’Ombres. He should be somewhere near Ilet Boisseau.
Max looked in that direction. All he could see there was the white power catamaran Josue had alerted Max to the day before.
As Max squinted to better see the looming vessel, he spotted something that made his guts quiver; his own Cobia fishing boat bobbed just beyond the catamaran’s starboard hull.
Josue was on that boat. Whether he had gone there on purpose or taken by force, Max did not know. But Josue was so late, and Max couldn’t raise him on the phone. Those facts gave Max a deep pang of concern.
Feeling panicked, Max burst through the door to the passageway that connected the swim platform to the inside of the Snowy Lady’s lower deck passageway. He opened the door to Walsh’s private bar, and rushed inside.
“Hey, Max,” Coyo said. “Everything okay overhead? I heard Mr. Walsh wanted the cigar lounge locked down. I wondered what might be going on.”
Max ignored the suave bartender. He strode through the bar and climbed into Everest Walsh’s heirloom Chris-Craft runabout.
“Hey,” Coyo said, sounding surprised. “What are you doing?”
Max had paid careful attention to how Chuy had operated the buttons on the control panel beside the fancy yacht tender. He pressed a button to open the large doors on the side of the yacht, and then another to flood the chamber with water and lower the hydraulic hoist. The boat settled down into the water as the yacht garage flooded.
Max fired up the engine. The loud roar drowned out the shouts of Coyo, who had rushed over to try to stop Max from absconding with the boat. He watched the bartender pull out his cell phone. “Eric? Coyo. Max Craig is stealing Walsh’s tender. You better get some guys down here.”
Before anyone could stop him, Max backed the runabout out of the open doors, turned the boat around, and threw open the throttle.
Max’s first instinct was to head directly for the catamaran. But he knew he would likely arrive there outgunned or otherwise underprepared. So he fought his instincts and drove the mahogany vessel wide open toward his dock on Ilet d’Ombres. Once there, he ran, full speed toward the villa, throwing open the door hard.
Max rushed into the spare room where he kept all of his skin diving gear well organized, and ready to go. He stripped down quickly and pulled on a black shorty wetsuit, reaching behind himself to tug on the long zipper pull to seal himself inside the ne
oprene shell.
Next Max spread open a large black Watershed dry bag, throwing in a Mares pneumatic speargun with half a dozen spare spears, some of which looked downright barbaric: a few featured barbed tips; one glinted with a shiny, silver, forked trident; and another sported a menacing-looking six-barbed spear tip, frequently used to skewer lionfish.
Max rushed to his gun room behind the bookcase in his accounting office. He swung the bookcase open and grabbed a twelve-gauge Mossberg Cruiser, knowing the short pistol-gripped shotgun would fit easily inside the bag. He also tossed in a belt bandolier filled with buckshot and slugs for the Cruiser.
Max also snatched his Sig Sauer MPX 9mm submachine gun, along with four spare magazines. His FNS pistol and his Smith & Wesson pistol were stuffed into holsters on a black tactical belt with spare magazines and other accessories.
He dropped the firearms and ammo into the dry bag and strapped an Aqua Lung titanium dive knife to his right leg. Max tossed his cell phone into the bag as well. He sealed up the dry bag, securing all of the dangerous contents inside.
Max picked up his diving buoyancy compensator with a single air tank, and slipped it on like a backpack, securing it across his chest. Then he grabbed the handle of his Sea-Doo Seascooter diver propulsion vehicle along with the sealed dry bag and he rushed to the rocky north side of the ilet.
Max tied a tether around his waist, securing the dry bag in place; it would drag behind him through the water. He placed the Sea-Doo in the water, allowing it to settle down below the surface. He placed the air tank regulator’s mouthpiece in his mouth and tested its function. With his gear all good to go, Max settled down into the water and grabbed hold of the Sea-Doo DPV. He used the thumb controls to give the mini vehicle thrust, and he started forward through the water.
Max surged, only feet below the surface, gliding like a dolphin through the clear blue water of Le Robert Bay. He had to surface from time to time to get his bearings, but it only took about two minutes to reach the hulking twin hulls of the power catamaran anchored just off Ilet Boisseau.
Max unstrapped his BCD and let it, the air tank, and regulator fall to the sea floor, maybe a dozen feet below the surface. He let the DPV go as well, and treaded water beside the stern of the catamaran, connected to the dry bag which floated just under the water’s surface behind him.
Max found the luxury vessel’s rear deck deserted. With caution, he climbed aboard and tugged on the tether to pull his dry bag up behind him. Max peeked over the granite-topped bar at the open rear wall of the galley area. That was when he spotted the body.
The dead man’s eyes gaped open, staring blankly upward, his tongue hanging limply out the side of his mouth. A long cord, apparently from a video game controller, had been wrapped around the victim’s neck, trapping his fingers underneath as if in a defensive gesture. Judging by the bruises and scraped skin on his neck, Max figured the young man had been quickly and violently strangled to death by the cord. Probably a savage spur-of-the-moment killing.
Kid must only be about seventeen or eighteen, Max thought, taking in the disturbing sight of the bespectacled corpse that, strangely, was missing an eyebrow. Shame, really.
Max turned back and opened the dry bag. He wasn’t sure if he should use the pistol-gripped twelve gauge or the Sig Sauer. He ultimately decided upon on the latter. The quarters would be incredibly tight onboard the catamaran. The buckshot might scatter too much, and rifled slugs would rip through everything in their path and continue on.
Max checked the magazine in the MPX. It was filled with 9mm NATO rounds Max had hand-loaded with Hornady 124 grain XTP hollow point bullets for maximum expansion; full metal jacket bullets would pass through anything they hit and just keep going. The submachine gun was equipped with a Vortex red dot sight, which Max could use to quickly acquire targets in the dangerous close-quarters environment.
He charged the weapon and stepped through the catamaran’s galley, keeping his center of gravity low and the weapon at high ready. The galley and salon, which essentially occupied the same space, were cluttered with candy wrappers, empty cardboard food boxes, and empty Champagne bottles.
What a mess, Max thought; his eyes roamed intently from side to side.
And then he heard the first sounds of distress.
“Zann, grab me that piece of extension cord,” a deep, threatening voice said. “See how you like me now, Josue.” Then Max heard a whipping sound that made him cringe. They were beating Josue with an electrical cord. Bastards. But at least he was alive.
Max passed two open doors, on opposite sides of the salon, each one leading a few steps down into a stateroom. Max quickly crept down the steps to clear the port side stateroom, finding the room cluttered with traces of weed and a crack pipe on the dresser. Then Max stepped quickly and quietly to the starboard side, clearing that side’s stateroom and head, finding more empty Champagne bottles and a few vials of coke and a rolled-up hundred, U.S. currency.
As Max moved further forward, it became clear the grunts and groans were coming from near the bow of the cat. Max approached a companionway door, partially ajar. As he reached forward to carefully open the door, Max heard the deep, menacing voice from before say, “You seem thirsty, Josue. Tiny Deege, grab me that bottle of Drano. Get me the funnel.”
And then, a familiar female voice said, “Don’t do it, Momo. Just get it over with. You’ve hurt him enough.”
“I ain’t gonna ‘get it over with’ until I had as much fun with this traitor as I wanna have, Isobel,” the one called Momo said. “I got a blow torch, a nail gun, and a ball peen hammer, and I ain’t gonna be done ’til I used ’em all.”
Max slid the door open just in time to take in a horrific scene: a good-sized stateroom had its queen bed unbolted from the floor and leaned up against the wall to create more space, with the floor completely lined in plastic sheeting. Max figured he knew what it was for.
Josue sat in the middle of the room, bound to a dining chair, with about a dozen wrappings of white and blue nylon rope restraining him tightly. Four people occupied the room besides Josue. One was a huge black guy standing beside the chair, so tall his head scraped the roof of the stateroom. Two more black guys stood on either side of the room, one really short and thin, almost a midget, and the other a bit taller, with a big tuft of orange afro and a mouthful of shiny silver.
The fifth occupant of the room was Isobel Greer. Her bright blue-green eyes glistened with tears that sparkled on her cheeks as she stood behind Josue, watching these barbarians torture him.
In an instant, Max wondered if these men had gathered everyone in the world Max cared about, to hurt them, in turn hurting him. But it didn’t make sense. Who would know about both Josue and Isobel? As much as he had grown to like her, Max had barely gotten to know the Scottish substitute teacher.
As Max readied himself to step into the room and confront the three men who threatened his friends, he froze as Isobel Greer reached deep down into the bottom of her ridiculous oversized handbag. She searched for a few seconds, digging her hand around at the bottom. From the depths, she produced a Glock subcompact pistol with a suppressor, and she placed the muzzle against Josue’s head. Isobel Greer pulled the trigger.
Blood splattered across the room toward Max. His best friend in the world—his only friend—slumped forward in the chair, dead.
“No!” Max shouted. Watching his best friend die in the blink of an eye right before him felt like a cold blade being thrust into his abdomen.
“Max?” Isobel shrieked. “Oh, Max!”
Max wasn’t sure whom to hold the Sig’s red dot sight over: Isobel, or one of the gang members: Momo, Tiny Deege, or Zann. In less than a second, Max’s brain processed the reality that he should shoot the only person in the room holding a deadly weapon—Isobel Greer.
Max rejected the instinct, and instead turned the barrel of the submachine gun toward the hulking thug who had seconds earlier been torturing Josue. But the one called Momo was quic
k. He pulled a pistol, a big pistol, from his waistband and opened fire.
Max let his body fall back away from the companionway door, landing on his back in the middle of the salon floor. Bullets ripped through the companionway. They whizzed past his head in a violent flurry, tearing up the furniture of the salon and galley, and shattering the windows.
Momo’s gun looked like a Desert Eagle. The sound of the pistol’s report suggested a big caliber, .50 AE, or maybe .44 Magnum. But the gunman fought like a gangbanger, slinging bullets without regard.
Max reacted by firing back just as he and Josue had trained for years; by the book. Max calmed himself, quickly picked himself up to his knees, and then he brought the Sig up to his line of sight as he peered through the open companionway.
Almost instantly, Max placed the red dot on the bridge of Momo’s nose, directly between his eyes. Max squeezed the trigger twice, hitting the large gangster in the face and the throat. The burly thug dropped to the ground in a loud, heavy heap.
“Oh, man! Momo dead,” one of the other men in the room shouted. “He killed Momo!”
Max stood up and walked as far to the starboard side as he could, holding the Sig at the ready, hoping to get a good sight picture on one of the other guys.
Sure enough, just as Max leaned over a sofa under the starboard windows, the man with the orange afro came into view. The guy spotted Max. He raised a shiny nickel-plated pistol.
Max put three 9mm bullets in his chest, dropping him like a stone.
“Ahhhhhh!” a loud high-pitched shriek erupted from inside the forward stateroom. At first, Max thought it was Isobel’s voice. But then he realized it was more likely the one they had called Tiny Deege. The young gangster was probably completely freaked-out at the sight of his buddies’ sudden deaths.
An arm reached out of the companionway, throwing bullets randomly from a small, shiny, semi-automatic pistol. Bullets ripped all around the spot where Max was standing.