As she scrambled up the ladder, her world went dark. She felt rough wool on her face, and was conscious of a musty smell as she struggled. She was quickly subdued, having no opportunity to employ any of the dirty tricks Dani had drilled into her. She felt her wrists being bound behind her, and she was lifted from her feet. As she tried to kick backward, strong hands grabbed her ankles, and her feet were soon taped together. She felt a cord drawn snuggly around her neck, effectively turning the damp, musty woolen material into a hood. Someone put her down in the cockpit, none too gently.
"She the one in the picture," a man said.
"Check below, anyhow. S'pose to be two gal."
That makes two men, Liz thought, remembering everything she had ever been taught about surviving abduction. When she had been working for the European Commission, such indoctrination had been routine for people in her position, and Dani had given her a refresher course over the last few days. She concentrated on listening, feeling, smelling, and remembering. Knowledge would help her to escape, and it gave her a focus to keep panic at bay, as well.
"Hurry, here comes a boat."
Three men, Liz counted, hearing the sound of a powerful engine approaching. Too big to be our dinghy, she thought, disappointed on one hand, but glad her friend was safe, on the other. If Dani was safe, Liz had no doubt that Dani, Phillip, and Sharktooth would rescue her.
The big engine suddenly throttled back, and there were bursts of gunfire. She recognized the distinctive sound of an AK-47 on automatic fire. Dani had her empty a few magazines that way when she taught her to shoot. Was she being rescued? By whom?
Her ears were ringing from the gunfire, but even so, it got quiet all around her. She felt herself being lifted over someone's shoulder, and then passed to another person, who dropped her on what felt like a couch, upholstered in vinyl. There was another single shot fired, that she recognized as coming from a large caliber pistol, like the .40 caliber Glock she had left at the nav station. There was a curse from immediately above her, and several answering shots from her immediate vicinity. Then it got quiet again.
"I'll take the girl back to the boat. You two clean up here. Load the bodies in that boat, and bring it all back. We'll chain 'em up and dump 'em in deep water, then sink that boat."
Liz heard a couple of grunts of acknowledgement. The engines roared, and she felt herself pushed back into the seat cushions as the boat that carried her accelerated away from Vengeance.
****
Dani and Mrs. Walker were on their second cup of coffee when Phillip and Sharktooth appeared.
"Good morning, Phillip, Sharktooth," Mrs. Walker said. "It's so good to see everybody. I don't think we've all been together since Mr. Walker died, and Dani was just a little thing, then."
Phillip and Sharktooth both hugged the dignified old lady. With her smooth, medium brown skin and flashing green eyes, she looked of an age with Phillip, except for the streaks of white in her long, straight, black hair. A native of Bequia, she was living evidence of the tiny island's complex gene pool. Dani stood, picking up a shopping bag. "Provisions, compliments of guess who," she explained.
Mrs. Walker said, "Dani has told me enough of what's happening so that I don't want to delay you, but I'm counting on a visit when this adventure of yours is over. And I'm coming to your wedding, young man. I can't wait to meet the lucky lady." She hustled them out the door.
They waded down the beach to the dock in front of the dive shop and boarded the dinghy. They were about a mile and a half from Vengeance, which was anchored at the outer extremity of the crowded harbor. With Sharktooth's massive weight, the trip was relatively slow, the outboard laboring.
"Hey, Liz," Dani called as they came alongside. "Come up and give us a hand."
There was no answer.
Chapter 21
Ozzie and Big Jim were having coffee and warm gingerbread with lemon sauce in the open-air dining room on the second floor of the Jacaranda House. As they looked out over the yachts at anchor in Admiralty Bay, they agreed that Bequia was the perfect spot to kidnap the Berger woman.
"It's close enough so your boys can get her to Wallilabou without anybody noticing, Ozzie."
"Yes. From there, they can move her to the cabin."
They had decided that one of the abandoned cabins in Ozzie's cane fields would be a good place to keep the girl. Although each had other plans, they weren't shared.
"So, probably in the next day or two we'll grab her, you think?" Big Jim had his poker face on. He was mopping up lemon sauce with his last piece of gingerbread, avoiding looking Ozzie in the eye.
"Yes, that's the way I see it."
"Once you tell me you have her out in the cane field, I'll make the call to her old man; get him started on the ransom. You got any ideas on that?"
"I thought you were going to have him wire it to one of your accounts up in the Cayman Islands, or the Bahamas. You do that kind of thing more often than I do."
"Sure, I'll do that, Ozzie, but you know this guy Berger's not your ordinary mark. He's gonna want to talk to the girl, see she's okay. She may be his daughter, but he's still one tough hombre, don't forget."
"Well, we'll use a stolen satellite phone, and call him from the cabin once you give us his number. We'll put her on; let her say a few words. That should be good enough. We'll keep it short. The service provider can probably give him some sort of position fix on the sat phone, but I'll send one of my runners up to St. Lucia with the phone right after we make the call. I'll tell him to call one of those phone sex numbers from up there, or something. That should lay a false trail." Ozzie was pleased with himself. He thought that was such a clever idea that he might actually use it sometime.
"But what if it drags out, and we need another call from her, Ozzie?"
"No problem. I have plenty of those phones. They get 'lost' from yachts all the time, when people anchor along the west coast. The phone isn't the first thing they miss. Sometimes, it's a month or more before the service is cut off." Ozzie laughed. "What about releasing her, Big Jim?"
"After we get the money, I'll let you know. I think we'll drug her, and leave her at the old whaling station on Petit Nevis."
"Just south of Bequia?" Ozzie asked, looking worried.
"Yeah. I've used it as a drop before. It's almost always deserted at night. There's usually a yacht or two anchored there in the daytime, but they go back to Bequia for the evening. Same with any local fishermen. That too close to home for you?"
"No. I believe that will do admirably. I just hadn't thought of it before."
After a brief silence, both men nodded.
"I'll get this, Ozzie. I'm registered here. Got a lady friend coming in this afternoon," Big Jim said, with a grin and a lascivious wink, picking up the check.
Ozzie nodded again and pushed his chair back. "I'll be calling you soon, then, Big Jim. It's a pleasure to do business with you, as always." Ozzie shook the proffered hand and left.
****
"Liz?" Dani called as she scrambled aboard Vengeance, leaving Sharktooth and Phillip to manage the dinghy. In her haste, she missed the bloodstains in the cockpit. She put her left hand on the bulkhead as she went down the companionway ladder. As she steadied herself, she registered that the surface was sticky, and then she almost lost her footing as her feet hit a pool of blood on the varnished surface at the bottom of the ladder.
"What the hell!" She muttered, as she got to the main cabin. Everything below appeared normal, except for the bloody mess at the companionway. She satisfied herself that Liz wasn't aboard and returned to scrutinize the bloodstains more carefully. Just then, Phillip called to her.
"Hey, Dani. You see all the blood up here in the cockpit?"
"No, I missed that, but it's pretty thick down here, too, Phillip."
"I've got a bunch of brass up here. Looks like somebody emptied an AK-47."
Dani pulled her eyes from the blood and swept her gaze around the area. She spotted the glint of brass at the
foot of the ladder.
"I've got three .40 caliber casings down here. I left Liz with a Glock, and it's not at the nav station where we've been keeping it, Phillip."
Dani climbed back into the cockpit, avoiding the slippery mess at the foot of the companionway ladder. Phillip peered down the hatch.
"Whoever was on the ladder probably didn't make it," he remarked.
"If Liz got shot, why would anybody take her body?" Dani asked.
Phillip frowned and shook his head. "The only thing that makes sense here is a kidnapping, Dani."
"Yeah, you're right. If Liz had surprised a robber, she'd still be here, or her body would be. Besides, I've never heard of anybody robbing a boat at gunpoint around here. Maybe down off the coast of Venezuela, but not here. She must have caught somebody on the stairs and put a few into him with the Glock, you think?"
"Could be," Phillip said. "I don't know, but I think our friends got ahead of us, somehow. Could be they just got lucky and spotted Vengeance."
"Phillip! Dani!" Sharktooth called. He was staring intently at some marks on the bare teak deck stretching back toward the cockpit from where he was standing. He was still in the dinghy, holding onto the side of the big boat.
"Yeah, Sharktooth. What do you have?" Phillip responded, as he and Dani turned to look at Sharktooth.
"Brass in the scuppers, here, 'long the toe rail, too. Somebody stand mebbe in boat like me, shoot back at cockpit." He mimed the shooting, and pointed out where the shell casings were strewn along the side deck. "AK-47, look like to me."
Phillip and Dani both nodded their agreement.
"You see blood on deck, streak from cockpit to here." They nodded again.
Phillip studied the bloodstains in the cockpit, lost in thought. The other two watched him as he moved slowly about the area, squatting in one spot, standing to look down the companionway, turning to look at Sharktooth. He would pause, think for a moment, and then repeat the movements with slight variations.
"Okay," Phillip said, breaking what had seemed to Dani an interminable silence. "I think two people got shot, probably several times each, judging from the blood and all the brass from the AK-47. One here in the cockpit," he pointed to the pool of blood on the seat, "and one on the companionway ladder. The AK-47 was fired from where Sharktooth is standing on the starboard side, and again from just forward of the cockpit on the starboard side. That explains the brass. It's possible there were two shooters with AK-47s up here; no way to tell without lab analysis of the brass. Then, whoever was on the companionway ladder got off a few rounds with the Glock before they got nailed by the guy shooting from just forward of the cockpit."
He paused, thinking. Dani and Sharktooth waited.
"I'm surprised nobody's come to see what the shooting was about," Dani said.
"Wind’s blowing 20 knots from town. We're the last boat in the anchorage. Gusty as it is, 50 yards upwind you probably wouldn't have noticed it. Could have had suppressors, too." Phillip was standing in the cockpit. He bent over and picked up a worn boat shoe, handing it to Dani, his question on his face.
"That's Liz's" she said.
Phillip nodded, bending again. This time, he retrieved a roll of silver duct tape, being careful to avoid smudging what appeared to be a bloody handprint. "I think somebody was taping Liz up, standing right about here. She was probably on the cockpit grate. That person got shot several times, dropped the duct tape, and fell on top of Liz. See the pattern of blood on the grate and the seat? There was something here that protected this part of the grate from the blood -- probably Liz." He illustrated with a gesture. "Then someone came up the companionway, fired a few shots with the Glock, got greased from the side, and fell back down the companionway. The shooter dragged the bloody bodies back to where Sharktooth is, loaded them in the boat, grabbed Liz, and took off." He walked through the activities as he described his theory.
Sharktooth and Dani both thought about what Phillip had said. Dani was the first to break the silence.
"I understand your reasoning. All of that's consistent with what I see, but why would one guy shoot his two buddies, right in the middle of a kidnapping?"
"I can't explain that Dani. Double cross? Argument? High on drugs? Or maybe something else happened. How much do you know about Liz?"
Dani gave an abbreviated biography of her partner, shaking her head in confusion as she talked.
"Can you think of any reason anybody would kidnap her?" Phillip asked, once Dani was through.
"No. She has no family, really. Just a stepmother, and they aren't close. Liz has a little money, but just enough to do what we're doing. No way would anybody think she was rich. I'm sure she wasn't mixed up in anything strange; everything she said and did was consistent with what I know about her. It just doesn't make sense, Phillip."
"You're right, Dani. It doesn't. My bet is she was mistaken for you. You look enough alike. If someone who didn't know either of you was working from, say, a passport photo, it would be an easy mistake. You, someone might be stupid enough to kidnap, if they knew how wealthy your family is."
The three of them sat, thinking, for a few minutes.
"You t'ink they try before?" Sharktooth asked. "The people on Baliceaux, they kidnap Dani las' time?"
"No, I think they got her by accident that time, or there would have been a ransom demand. But after you and I rescued her, they probably figured out that she was special to someone. They decided to get even and maybe make some money, once they found out who Dani was. That's my guess, anyway."
"So, it be this Santiago Rodriguez, you t'ink?"
"I think so, Sharktooth."
"But what about this Johnston, in St. Vincent? He the man Ezekiel an' James work fo'."
"Well, If J.-P.'s right, and Rodriguez is operating on his own here, he would have had to recruit some local help. He couldn't have used people from El Grupo, or he'd have been in more trouble than he's probably in now."
"Should we call the cops?" Dani asked, her face indicating what she thought.
"Well, I'll call the Chief Superintendent as a courtesy, but I wouldn't expect much help. They really aren't geared up to deal with this kind of crime, and we already heard that this Johnston is well connected. I think we're on our own, if we want to get Liz back any time soon. You disagree?"
"No, not at all. Just had to ask. Catholic upbringing, you know. Respect for authority, and all that."
Phillip smiled at the irony, glad to see Dani wasn't thrown off her stride.
"So what we do now, my frien's?"
"I vote for a short sail down to Mustique. You and Dani can handle the boat, and I'll call the Chief Super. Once we're there on a mooring, Dani and I can go ashore and do a little recon. Tonight, I think we should call on Señor Rodriguez and pay our respects."
"What if he don' have her, Phillip?"
"Too bad for him," Dani interjected. "He's got me irritated."
****
Ozzie was in high spirits on the ferry going back to St. Vincent. He laughed out loud several times at the thought of how he had outmaneuvered Big Jim. The oaf had no clue; Ozzie hoped that he enjoyed his time with his lady friend. By this time tomorrow, Big Jim would be on the run. Ozzie idly wondered if he would take the lady with him, and how long he would have before the little Cuban psycho caught him.
****
Big Jim was drinking his first rum punch of the day, savoring his midday cigar. He was still at the table where he had conned Ozzie just a little while ago. Rita wouldn't be here for a couple of hours, and he found the view of Admiralty Bay soothing. He had switched off his cell phone, wanting to be alone with his thoughts for a while. He had spotted José shortly after Ozzie left. As he followed Ozzie's stroll up the beach toward the ferry dock, he saw the little cross-eyed weasel sitting in the shade, drinking beer from a bottle. He wondered idly how José got here from Baliceaux, and what Camacho would think when Big Jim disappeared.
****
Later that evening, José
was still sitting on the beach, still sipping beer from a bottle, but he had moved. He was now in the evening shadows, about 50 feet from Big Jim's balcony. He was on a rise in the ground, and the angle was just right so that he had a good view of the couple in the dimly lighted room. It was quite entertaining -- better than the videos he watched back in Miami. The indirect lighting and the mosquito netting that fell from the ceiling to surround the bed softened the figures of Big Jim and the woman as they cavorted. The haziness of the view through the netting left just enough to the imagination, unlike the stark clarity of the videos. José watched with rapt attention as he stroked the straight razor in his lap.
Chapter 22
Liz ran her fingers lightly over every surface, tracing their movement with her eyes. She was attentive to every nuance of texture and light, looking for any irregularities. She wasn't looking for anything specific, but she reasoned that the more she knew about her surroundings, the better her chances of survival or escape. Although one of her captors implied that she was being held for ransom, she knew how quickly her situation could change.
She had been locked in this room for only a few minutes. Her captors had lifted her from the speedboat after a fast, rough ride that she estimated at no more than thirty minutes in duration. They balanced her on her feet, although the tape around her ankles had cut off the circulation, and she couldn't stand without assistance. Her feet had tingled painfully. She guessed that they were on a swim platform across the stern of a large motor yacht. Two men had grabbed her arms and frog-marched her for a brief distance, her numb feet dragging. When they stopped, one of the men stepped behind her and gripped her firmly by her upper arms, supporting and immobilizing her. She heard a door open in front of her, and then one of the men spoke.
"I have your pistol aimed at your right kneecap. I won’t pull the trigger as long as you don't try nothin'. Understand?"
Bluewater Vengeance: Mystery and Adventure in the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 2) Page 12