Liz awakened with a start, her eyes snapping open, dazzled by the light. Instinctively, she remained motionless as she gathered her wits. She ached all over, and she was in the woods, curled up in a pile of dead leaves at the base of a tree. From the angle of the sunlight, she thought that it must be late morning. Coming to her senses, she remembered choosing this spot, well up into the hills above the coast road she had been following.
As she started to wonder what had disturbed her sleep, she had the sense that she was being watched. She moved her eyes, searching the foliage around her, turning her head very slowly, not wanting to show that she was awake. She saw just a flicker of motion, and heard light steps, running away. She rose to a crouch, focused on the sound, and just caught a glimpse of a small, chocolate-brown body, disappearing into the undergrowth. Without thought, she launched herself in pursuit. Only as she was dodging the low-hanging branches did she wonder why she was chasing someone, when she should be on the run herself. There was a crash in the bushes a few yards in front of her. She stopped, crouching again, peering through the leaves in the direction of the crash. She heard a scuffling sound, a grunt, and then watched as a small, nearly naked girl, a child, scrambled to her feet and resumed her flight down the hill.
Liz picked her way back through the undergrowth to where she had been sleeping, thinking as she stumbled, conscious now of her bare, badly blistered feet. She realized that while this appeared to her to be trackless wilderness, it was just a playground for the local children. There were people living all through these woods; she had come on a number of small, shack-like houses last night as she looked for a place to pass the daylight hours. Now, she thought she must move on. While the child was no danger to her, she worried that word of her presence might find its way to her pursuers. She strapped on her knapsack and, ruefully, pulled the rubber boots onto her raw feet. She hobbled as quickly as she could, continuing to work her way on a diagonal up the hillside. She didn't want to get too far from the road that ran north and south along the coast, but she reasoned that the farther she got from it, the less likely she was to encounter other people.
****
David and Timothy had split up and searched the little village of Wallilabou, not really expecting that the girl, since she had wits enough to escape, would still be there. It didn't take them long to determine that she was nowhere to be found.
"We had to start somewhere, though," David had said, after hanging up from his second call to Ozzie.
"Yeah," Timothy muttered. "How's he sound? Still spaced out?"
"Nah. He sounds like himself, pompous. He thinks somebody's here, on the island, looking for the girl. We gotta catch her and get out of here. Supposed to meet him down at Blue Lagoon as soon as we find her. Gonna take Yellow Hooker to Trinidad and meet up with Steve. He's canceling Creole Belle's haul-out. Figures to make it look like we're all going out for a little fishing trip. Simon will drop us in Trini and bring the Hooker back, like we never left St. Vincent's waters."
"Then what?"
"How the hell should I know, Timothy? Whatever he wants, I guess. He's still the boss."
"Sometimes, I wish we'd never left South Africa, you know?" David said, shaking his head. "How the hell we gonna find her?"
"That first old man we talked to, he said he could track her for us, if we wanted to pay him. I'm for it. How about you?"
"Yeah, okay. Let's do it."
****
Ozzie had indeed recovered. He was at his desk, working the phone. He had spoken with several of his contacts in the police, and now they were looking for Danielle Berger. He had reminded the inspector, who was on his payroll, that they should still have her particulars, including a passport photo and an informal snapshot of her from his request a few days earlier. The man agreed that they did.
Ozzie had also queried his customs and immigration contacts, asking them to see if they had any record of Phillip Davis, Kayak Spirit, or Vengeance entering the country. He was just patting himself on the back, thinking that he was back in control, when the phone rang. He glanced at the display as he lifted it, noting with a flicker of unease that it said, "caller i.d. blocked."
****
Marianne Jones was cleaning the ragged cut on her middle daughter's foot, hoping she could avoid having to take her to the clinic for stitches.
"Now you stop that fussin', Melinda. Wha' you get the cut?"
"In the woods, Mama, up the hill."
"Wha' chu doin' up there? I tol' you don' be goin' up there. Now look wha' chu done to you. How you cut the foot?"
"Don' know, Mama. Runnin' from the jumbie. Step on somethin'."
"They no jumbie. I tol' you befo'. Tha's ol' people foolishness."
"Yes, Mama, but the jumbie, she chase me dungda hill."
"No jumbie, child. Somebody mebbe chase you, but no jumbie. Be still now. I got to get the dirt out, keep the 'fection from start."
"She look like the jumbie, Mama. She white, got leafs instead of hair on she head, mashup wit' gold thread, an' she eyes, they green, shine in the shadow. She jumbie."
****
Isaac Dawson walked into the moldy, boarded-up apartment behind the two white men. He looked around at the mess, remembering a few years ago when the movie people had been living here. It had looked better, then, although it had been just as cluttered with all the stuff they didn't want stolen. It hadn't taken them very long to learn that things left outside at night were gone by morning. He was surprised there was so much junk still inside, given how long these places had been vacant, but they were boarded up pretty well, and the yachts that anchored in the harbor were more lucrative targets. Besides, the police would get after somebody stealing from inside a house, even an empty house. They didn't care much about the yachts, because even if they caught the thieves, the yacht people wouldn't be around to go to court. They were rich foreigners, anyway.
"You see here," Isaac pointed to the window in the bathroom, at the daylight showing around the perimeter of the window. He pushed gently on the plywood, and it fell to the ground outside. "This wha' she bust loose."
He went back outside and walked around behind the building, carefully examining the ground as he went, bending over now and then to touch the earth, bringing his fingertip to his tongue, making a thoughtful face as he tasted and sniffed at the soil. He had learned his tracking skills from an old Indian in a John Wayne movie. He wasn't sure why you had to taste the dirt, but it was good for show. For the two hundred dollars these men were paying him, they deserved his best effort.
After the men had first spoken to him this morning, while they were searching the village, he had been busy on the cell phone, the modern equivalent of the drums that his ancestors had used to stay in touch with their neighbors. Isaac didn't know much about the drum talk, but cell phones he knew well. Before the men came back to hire him, he had already found the woman. His mother's half-sister's stepdaughter, that Marianne Jones, had told everybody about the 'jumbie' her middle daughter had seen. Blond hair and green eyes, just like the two white men said.
He led them through the woods, up to the road, where he stopped and got down on hands and knees, crawling back and forth along the shoulder of the road, sniffing the ground, tasting the dirt occasionally. He stood and walked smartly to the south along the shoulder of the road. After a hundred yards, he pointed across the road to a slight break in the undergrowth on the uphill side where the footpath took off up to Marianne Jones's house. Now that he was off the hard shoulder of the road, he could actually see an occasional footprint in the soft spots along the seldom-used path. He knelt beside one and pointed it out to the two men. "She wear rubba boot," Isaac whispered to the men, nodding solemnly.
Isaac was impressed that this woman had found her way to the path in the dark. He wasn't sure he could have done it himself, even though he knew the path from his childhood, before everybody rode the minibuses. Of course, the undergrowth was so thick to either side of the path that she probably had found
it because it was the only way to get through the woods.
"How much farther, old man?" David asked.
Isaac whirled, finger to his lips. "Don' know," he whispered. "We follow, see wha' she go. In the night is ver' hard for her to go; not like now. Mebbe not so far. Mus' be quiet."
David nodded sheepishly, and Isaac started up the path again, figuring another thirty to forty-five minutes, unless the woman had kept walking after Marianne had found her. She had apparently been frightened by Marianne's daughter, and had moved a few hundred yards. When Marianne had found her, she was sleeping in a little hollow lined with leaves, covered with palm fronds. Marianne said she thought about inviting her back to the house, but then decided just to leave her alone, figuring that she was one of those eco-tourists the government kept talking about. Isaac and Marianne had chatted for a minute about that, wondering why foreigners wanted to struggle through the undergrowth and get eaten by bugs for a holiday, when they had enough money to stay in one of those fancy resorts.
There was no understanding foreigners. That brought him back to wondering what these two men wanted with the woman, and why they had her locked up in the old apartment, anyway. Not my business, he reminded himself. Two hundred dollars U. S. worth of not my business.
Chapter 36
"Yes?" Ozzie answered the phone, wondering what else could go wrong.
"Mr. Johnston?"
"Yes," Ozzie said, recognizing Camacho's voice from the earlier call.
"I was upset when we spoke a little while ago; I had just received some bad news. I wish to apologize for what I said. I think that perhaps we may be able to help one another."
"Perhaps," Ozzie said, caution in his tone.
"I think it's best if you maintain your relationship with the woman we were discussing. Her continued presence with you might be in our mutual interest."
"Mmm," Ozzie said, hoping they could find the girl quickly. "What did you have in mind?"
"Nothing specific, yet. I just spoke hastily about sending her home. After thinking about it, I realized that she could still be important to both of us. I only wanted to let you know this, you understand?"
"Yes," Ozzie said, wondering what game Camacho was playing.
"Very well. I'll be in touch with you again about this, but call me if you have any questions or if you need any assistance."
"Yes, all right. Thank you. I accept your apology; I understand. We'll talk later."
Ozzie realized that he had just acquired a new partner in the kidnapping that had gone awry. He reached for the pill bottle, taking another double dose. Now he had to find that damned girl and disappear with her until he could sort this out. He had no doubt that Camacho would kill him if he discovered that Ozzie's men had allowed the girl to escape; Berger would kill him if anything happened to her. He cursed the absent Rodriguez, hoping that he was suffering unimaginable torment at the hands of the little Cuban.
****
Liz was thrown from one side of the backseat to the other as the S.U.V. careened around the curves of the mountain road. Her wrists were bound with cable ties again, as were her ankles, and her eyes and mouth were covered with duct tape. She was utterly miserable; every muscle cried out at the jostling, and her feet were on fire. She had been so soundly asleep that she was taped and bound before she knew what was happening. She thought she recognized the voices of the two men who had held her before her escape, but she couldn't be sure. She knew that these men were angry, and they had handled her roughly, not with the deference they had shown before. She supposed that was to be expected. They had no doubt been embarrassed by her escape; now she could expect worse treatment at their hands. She fought to regain her positive attitude, reminding herself that if she escaped once, she could escape again.
"Slow down, damn it!" One of the men said.
"We've gotta beat him to the boat," the other replied.
Now she recognized the voices. She wasn't happy at the prospect of being held on the boat again. That severely limited her opportunity to get away. After a few more minutes, she could tell they were on pavement. The sound of gravel pinging against the undercarriage of the S.U.V. faded quickly, and the ride was much better. She felt the driver accelerate, and listened to the whine of the tires on asphalt for a few minutes. She had counted five minutes before they slowed down and turned sharply onto another gravel road. After a short distance, the driver stopped with a jerk, and she heard a door open. Counting time and memorizing detail was probably useless at this point, since she had no idea of their point of departure. What good would it do her to know they had taken five minutes driving downhill from some unknown spot to another unknown spot? She reprimanded herself, reminding herself that knowledge was never without some value, and she needed to keep her mind engaged.
The door to her right opened, and one of her captors grabbed her right upper arm and dragged her out of the vehicle, throwing her over his shoulder in one motion. He carried her a few steps and lowered her to a surface made of rough-hewn planks; she thought it was probably a dock, given the earlier comments. In a second or two, he dragged her over the edge, allowing her to tumble before she landed painfully on a hard surface. Through her discomfort, she registered the sound of a generator rumbling and guessed they were on the boat.
As she was working out that this was a much smaller boat, someone grasped her bound ankles and dragged her a few more feet. She felt her back scrape over a low threshold, and there was the sound of a sliding glass door closing. The generator sound was much quieter, and she felt a sudden drop in temperature. She must be in an air-conditioned cabin. There was loud rumble accompanied with vibration, immediately repeated. She realized that two big engines had been started, and then there was the sense of motion. The sliding door opened and closed again. She felt herself prodded roughly by the toe of someone's shoe, and rolled to get away.
"So this is the little bitch that's caused so much trouble," a man's voice said.
This was a new voice; the inflection and pronunciation evoked an image of an upper-class British man; the product of a public school in England, she had no doubt. She wondered who he could be; the voice didn't fit her image of Rodriguez.
****
"Yes, I understand. Thanks very much, my friend," Phillip said, as he disconnected the call.
He turned to his companions aboard Midnight Thunder. They were drifting about 20 miles west of the southern tip of St. Vincent, out of sight of any casual observers. They were maintaining a radar watch, and when any vessel came within 15 miles, they moved slowly away, staying below the visual horizon. They themselves were invisible on radar at that distance, and they had only moved a couple of times. "That was the Chief Super," Phillip said. "He was letting me know that the police are looking for Danielle Berger, and there is a passport photo and description that was circulated a few days ago. He can't find out who initiated the request, but he thinks it's most likely one of Johnston's spies in the department."
"That doesn't make sense," Paul said.
"Not if Johnston thinks he's kidnapped me," Dani agreed. Why would he want the police looking?"
"Mebbe Rodriguez lie to we," Sharktooth mused. "Somebody else got Liz?"
"Or she escaped," Phillip said.
"Seems unlikely," Paul said. "These guys hold women against their will all the time. They're bound to know what they're doing."
"Maybe," Phillip said.
"Well, I don't know. Liz isn't exactly street-smart, but she's no strung out junkie like they're used to dealing with, either," Dani said.
"He had one other interesting piece of information," Phillip added. "Creole Belle cleared out with customs yesterday for an early morning departure for Trinidad this morning, with just the skipper, the chef, and two of the normal crew of four on board."
"You think Liz could be aboard?" Dani asked.
Phillip shrugged his shoulders. "After Carnival, Trinidad's biggest industry is probably kidnapping," he said, "so I guess she could be."
"Good afternoon, Phillip. It's nice to hear from you. How is everyone doing on your boat ride?"
Phillip chuckled softly at the notion that they were aboard Midnight Thunder for a 'boat ride.' "We're all fine, Mrs. Walker. How are you?"
"Well, I was waiting for your call. Mr. Berger told me you would be in touch when he asked me to talk to the folks around Wallilabou. I would have called if I had known how to reach you. In fact, I was about to call him."
Phillip restrained his building excitement, reading between the lines of her understated, island-time delivery. "You must have heard something." He switched to speakerphone mode and put the phone on the table.
"Yes. There have been some strange things happening around Wallilabou. Two men from a large motor yacht named Creole Belle brought a woman ashore in the early morning yesterday. Nobody got a good look at her, but they took her to that old apartment building that the movie people built, and they left her there. When they came back to get her this morning, they couldn't find her."
"I see," Phillip said.
"There's more, Phillip."
"Okay."
"Yes. They asked all over the village. Do you remember an old rascal named Isaac Dawson? He used to work for my Lowell sometimes."
"Yes, I think so."
"Well, old Isaac called around on the cell phone that his children gave him, and found out there was a white woman camping up near the crest of the ridgeline south of the village. He pretended to track her for those two men, and they agreed to pay him, apparently a lot of money. Anyway, they found the woman asleep in the woods. The two men put tape over her eyes and mouth, and then her hands and feet. One of them stayed with her while Isaac took the other one back to get their car, and Isaac showed him how to drive on the back roads up to where they found her. The two men took her away in the car."
Bluewater Vengeance: Mystery and Adventure in the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 2) Page 20