by Paul Carr
Sam turned to say something to J.T. and saw him looking down at a red spot blossoming on the front of his shirt. A bullet had gone through the back of the seat and exited through his chest.
“Hang in there, you’ll be okay,” Sam said and gingerly touched his shoulder.
“He shot me in the chest,” J.T. mumbled. Raising his head, he stared at Sam and said, “Am I going to die?”
“No, you’re not. I’m going to get you back.”
It would take an hour to return to Grand Cayman, and that might be too long for J.T. He turned toward the cockpit to ask Randy if they could get to Jamaica any quicker. Randy yelled something Sam couldn’t understand and came racing from the cockpit.
“The starboard engine’s on fire! We’re all going to die if we don’t jump!” Although he’d had several drinks too many, he stumbled to the rear of the cabin, snatched open a storage compartment on the bulkhead, and pulled parachutes out.
Sam glanced out the porthole. Sure enough, the engine was ablaze, and flames ran down the wing toward the fuselage.
Sam opened an overhead compartment with a red cross on it and found a first-aid kit with tape, gauze and a small knife. He put gauze compresses over J.T.’s wounds and piled on extra tape since they would be in the water. The color had drained from J.T.’s face, and his eyelids looked heavy as Sam put the shirt on him over the bandages. J.T. winced from the effort and said, “I’m not going to make it, Sam, I just know it. Tell Amy goodbye for me. Okay?”
“You can tell her yourself. But right now we have to get out of this plane.”
Blood streamed down Sam’s arm, and he cut a piece of the tape and wrapped it around his own wound. He dropped the knife into his pocket in case he needed it later.
Randy came back with two parachutes and life vests and handed them to Sam.
“What about him?” Randy nodded toward Grimes.
Sam glanced at the unconscious man on the deck. “Yeah, might as well take him, too.”
Sam helped J.T. with his vest and parachute and then strapped on his own. He opened the hatch and Randy asked for help with Grimes. Sam sighed and helped Randy put the parachute on him. They lifted him and dropped him next to the hatch.
“You’ll need to open his ‘chute for him,” Sam said.
Randy nodded and put his arms through the straps of his own parachute. “I’ve done this before. I am a pilot, you know.”
Sam turned to J.T. His eyes had glazed over and his face was pale.
“Can you stand up?”
“I think so,” he mumbled.
Sam glanced at the starboard porthole and saw only flames. It would be too late when the tanks caught fire. He popped the canisters that filled their life vests with air, helped J.T. to the hatch, and shoved him out the opening. Jumping out behind him, Sam saw J.T. tumbling in the air. Probably unconscious. Sam dived and tried to grab him, but J.T. careened away, still tumbling. Got to get his parachute open. I can’t let him die. Sam dived again and caught onto a strap. He held on for a few seconds, until they both stabilized, and pulled J.T.’s rip cord. The air caught the parachute and yanked J.T. away.
Sam saw the water coming up fast. He pulled his own cord and the straps jerked against him. Then his descent seemed to stop as he hung in a lazy panorama of sky and water, nearly impossible to discern where one stopped and the other began. His head felt light as a balloon, as if it might go into a spin. He looked up and saw only one parachute other than J.T.’s, and wondered if Grimes had made it. The seaplane, now more than a mile away, resembled a fiery kite with a black tail on the otherwise flawless sky. Then it exploded and became an expanding blob of smoke.
They drifted in the sky, alone in the middle of nowhere. Only the hiss of sea air passed Sam’s ears. Nothing waited beneath them but desolation. He remembered the phone and took it out and punched in a number he had committed to memory several weeks before. A computer voice answered and Sam yelled at it until he hit the water.
He submerged, and the vest popped him out of the water a couple of seconds later. Then his parachute glided to the surface and lay down like a dying swan. He released the straps and let it drift away. J.T. had dropped into the water about thirty feet away, submerged, and came up coughing. Sam swam over to him and released the parachute. Then he cut one of its shroud lines with the knife in his pocket and tied it between him and J.T.
J.T. lost consciousness after his coughing fit, leaving Sam alone to worry about what might happen to them. They could be here for days, or until they died, so far away from anything it would be unlikely for even a small craft to fly over. The jets flew so high they’d never see them, but he hoped the ‘chutes stayed afloat for awhile just in case. He wondered if he’d completely sealed off the bleeding from their wounds with the tape. If he hadn’t, they’d soon have company they didn’t want.
Chapter 28
THEY FLOATED in the Caribbean for almost four hours before the helicopter flew over from the east. It looked like a Vietnam-era Huey, the big chopper used for personnel transport and rescue. Sam waved his arms and it circled and set down on pontoons a few feet away, its blades still turning, churning up the water around them.
J.T. opened his eyes without seeing anything and said, “What’s that?” His teeth chattered when he spoke.
“It’s our ride home,” Sam said over the noise of the chopper engine. “How do you feel?”
“Cold. The water is so cold.” He dozed off again.
Sam didn’t feel so great himself. His arm hurt and he felt weak, dehydrated. He had covered their heads for most of the time with J.T.’s parachute, but they still got sunburned, and Sam felt as if he could drink a gallon of fresh water.
Two men stood inside the chopper door. One of them, a man with a shaved head and a green beard, threw a life preserver to Sam and he grabbed it. Green Beard pulled them over to the pontoon and lifted them out of the water. The other man, who had gold rings in his eyebrows, closed the door and nodded toward J.T. “What happened to him?”
“He took a round in the back and it came out his chest.”
Sam sat down next to the bulkhead and took off his vest while they put J.T. on a gurney and strapped him down. Although large enough to carry several gurneys, this Huey had only two, leaving plenty of room for the medical men to work while in the air. Green Beard tossed Sam a blanket and went back and told the pilot they were ready for takeoff. Sam could see only the back of the pilot’s head and his right arm inside the cockpit as he accelerated the engines and they lifted off the water. The man looked older than the other two. He was thin and had long, graying hair. Maybe a Vietnam veteran.
An ice chest sat on the floor a few feet away from Sam. He took a large bottle of water from it and drank it down.
Rings tossed a jump suit to Sam. “Here, get out of those wet clothes.”
Once they got airborne and the ride stabilized, the two men started working on J.T. They removed his vest, cut off his shirt and peeled away the tape.
“Doesn’t look too good,” Green Beard said.
Rings nodded. “Probably has some internal bleeding.”
Green Beard studied J.T.’s wounds. “Think we should open him up?”
“Are you doctors?” Sam said.
Rings glanced at Sam and smiled. “Sure, you can call us that if you want. You got any injuries?”
“Just the arm.” Sam pushed up the baggy sleeve of the jump suit.
Rings stepped over, removed the tape and looked at the wound.
“You’ll be okay. We’ll put a couple of sutures in after we work on your friend.”
He got a syringe and went back to Sam.
Sam didn’t care much for needles. “What’s that?”
“Don’t worry. This is good for anything wrong with you.”
“You work for Carling?”
Rings shrugged. “Who else would come out here and get you? I thought she was joking.”
He gave Sam the injection, and after a few seconds the inside of
the helicopter became a blur of colors. Sam heard music, a familiar tune from an old cartoon show long ago. It went faster and faster. Then the music faded and he floated away on a cloud.
Sam woke when they landed. He looked outside and saw only a portable building and a white van. J.T. still lay on the gurney, his face the color of granite. A couple of IVs hung above him, one of them red.
“How’s he doing?” Sam said.
Green Beard shrugged. “Hard to say. He lost a lot of blood.”
The rotor blades slowed to a stop and the two men who might be doctors got out, pulled a ramp from underneath the helicopter, and dropped it on the ground. They came back and rolled J.T.’s gurney down to the van.
Sam staggered behind them. His arm had a fresh bandage and he felt no pain. A man came out of the building, glanced at J.T. and winced.
“He going to make it?” the new man said to Rings.
“Don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine. Carling’s expecting him.”
The man nodded and got in the driver’s seat of the van. Sam got in the back with J.T., and Rings and Green Beard stayed with the helicopter. The trip to Carling Research took about twenty minutes. Two men in hospital greens met them at the door and rolled J.T. inside.
Sam walked in behind them and took a seat in the waiting room. He saw Carling coming down the hall and stood up. She wore a short white dress, and looked as if she might be going to a party.
“So, you made it back alive,” she said.
A hint of perfume reached Sam’s nostrils and the room suddenly felt warmer than it had.
“Yeah, thanks to you.”
She looked beautiful, and she might have read his mind because her face flushed.
Taking his hand, she said, “You look like you could use a drink. I need to go to a fund-raiser, but I have a few minutes before I leave.”
Sam nodded and strolled with her down the hall, her hand warm, pleasant, inside his. She passed the office where he’d been before, and led him in another door further down.
Letting go of his hand, she said, “This is where I sleep when I have to stay here overnight.”
Sam looked around the small, furnished apartment and took a seat on a leather sofa.
“How about a brandy?”
“Sounds good if you’re having one.”
“Why not. I could be a little late.”
She went to the bar, came back with two drinks, and handed one to him. Sitting on the sofa a couple of feet away, she held her glass up for a toast.
Sam took a drink and felt the burn at the back of his throat. He took another and set the glass on the coffee table.
“Thanks for coming to get us. J.T. would be dead by now, and I might be too.”
Carling smiled and crossed her legs.
“Don’t mention it.”
Sam thought he had reached a wrong number when he called from the satellite phone, but now knew they must have heard everything he said, GPS coordinates and all.
“I’ll take care of the bill, of course.”
“Forget it, it’s already covered.”
“Oh, yeah? By who?”
“Jack Craft. I checked with him when we got your call, and he said you went to the Caribbean on vacation.”
“Yeah, some vacation.”
Sam made a mental note to call Candi later and let her know what had happened, in case she still planned to show up on Grand Cayman. He glanced back at Carling and could tell from her smile that he’d been drifting.
Several seconds passed before either of them said anything else. Finally, Carling took a sip of her drink and stood up.
“Well, I have to go. Can I drop you somewhere?”
Sam stood, too. “I’ll wait around a while, if that’s okay, to see what the doctors say about J.T.”
“Sure, you can wait right here. I’ll tell the staff to give you a ride when you’re ready to go.”
Carling turned to leave and Sam said, “What kind of fund-raiser?”
She turned. “What? Oh, one of the local hospitals has a program to help people who need expensive treatment and can’t afford it.”
“What do you do, to raise funds, I mean?” Sam wondered if he might be talking too much. And it didn’t even sound much like his own voice. Probably the effects of the brandy on top of the medication. Or Carling’s perfume. Or Carling.
“You know, the usual; I talk rich people out of their money.”
“Hmmm. I didn’t know you would be into that sort of thing.”
Smiling with her eyes, she said, “There’s a lot more you don’t know about me.” She picked up her handbag from the coffee table and left.
Sam drank another brandy and went back to the waiting room. He looked at magazines for a few minutes before one of the doctors came out, the same man who had worked on Candi Moran the night she showed up on Sam’s boat with a bullet hole in her side.
“The jury is still out on your friend. He lost a lot of blood, but the good news is, the bullet only nicked his lung. Actually, he’s very lucky to be alive at all.”
The doctor told Sam to leave a number and they would call if J.T.’s condition changed. Sam nodded and gave him the telephone number on his boat, since he’d left his cell phone in the hotel room on Grand Cayman. Sam asked if he could get a ride, and a minute or so later a man came down the hall and took him to the airport where he’d left his car.
He drove to the marina and went to his boat. After a cool shower, he put on fresh clothes and sat down to call Candi Moran’s cell phone.
“I’m glad you called,” Candi said. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Where are you?”
“Still on the island. I need a few more days to finish what I’m doing.”
Sam told her what had happened and that he had returned to Miami.
“So, you okay?” Candi asked, sounding distracted.
“Sure, I’ll be fine, but J.T.’s in pretty bad shape. The doctor said he lost a lot of blood.”
“That’s too bad. I hope he pulls through.” She didn’t sound very concerned. Sam wondered why she needed so much time on the island.
“What’s happened with La Salle’s operation?”
“He pulled it out of the fire after he got a bundle from selling that fake statue, and he also talked his clients into investing more money.”
“These are the same clients who lost their money when La Salle invested it without their consent?”
“Well, yes, but their investment didn’t get lost. He showed them where all of it went, and made quite a presentation.”
This casino business excited her. A feeling of dread settled into the pit of Sam’s stomach.
“Why are you still down there?”
“Well, that’s what I wanted to tell you. With that...uh...information you gave me, I convinced him to give me an equal share of the company.”
Sam couldn’t believe his ears. “You’re partners?”
“Something like that. We actually work pretty well together.”
“Are you crazy? He killed your father and put out a hit on you.”
“Yeah…but he knows I have him now, with the recording, and this casino is just too good to pass up.”
Sam didn’t know what to say. He had expected her to use the recording for protection, or to send La Salle to jail, but not this. Well, they should make swell partners.
A silence stretched into a few seconds before Candi spoke: “Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, “I’m still here. That’s great; I hope you’re very successful.”
“Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Ready to hang up, Sam said, “Glad I could help.”
“I’m going to send you a check for your work as soon as I get everything straightened out.”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
“Okay, I’ll call you as soon as I get free and we’ll have a night on the town.”
“Why don’t I call you. I’m going to be b
usy for the next few days, and you might not be able to reach me.”
Candi paused, maybe getting the message, and said, “That’ll work. Don’t forget me, though.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.” Sam closed the phone.
Fat chance forgetting one of the most beautiful women he had ever known. Just two little problems: she’s greedy and happens to be partners with a crime lord, who also is her former lover. Serves you right, Mackenzie, for getting involved in this mess in the first place. He might not forget her, but he wouldn’t be calling back, either.
Sam leaned his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. Something nagged at the back of his mind, but he felt so tired he could barely think. Going over the last 24 hours, he remembered J.T.’s call from his hotel room saying Grimes had taken Amy. Amy! With all that had happened, he’d completely forgotten about her. She might still be at the house where Grimes had parked the car, but it would take hours to get back to Grand Cayman. Sam didn’t know anyone there who could check on her. Then he remembered the man he’d met on the flight. What was his name? Harold something, and very nervous. Yes: Shakes, Harold Shakes.
Sam called Long Distance Information and got the number for the hotel where Harold said he had a job. Within a couple of minutes he had Harold on the line.
“Harold, this Sam Mackenzie. I met you on the plane a few weeks ago.”
“Sam who?”
“Mackenzie, I sat next you and you told me all about your new job at the hotel. You said your girlfriend works there, too.”
Pause. “Oh, yeah, I remember. She’s not my girlfriend anymore, though....” Harold’s voice trailed off.
“Sorry to hear that, Harold. I wonder if you’d do me a favor.”
Harold remained silent for a couple of seconds, probably wondering what kind of con this might be. “Well, I don’t know--”
“Harold, this is really important. A woman’s life is at stake. You’ll be a hero.”
Sam told him what had happened to Amy and why he couldn’t help her himself. He described the house and the location, and mentioned the For Sale sign.