Gardens of the Queen

by Nicholas Harvey

  Mikhail’s phone rang and he stared at the caller ID, deciding whether to answer or not.

  He hit accept. “Detective, how can I help you?” Mikhail answered and pulled the car over, listening to Whittaker.

  “Mr. Gurov, we have some news on the case, could you please come back to the station so I can brief you?”

  Mikhail’s monotone showed a hint of annoyance. “I was just with you, can you not tell me this information over the phone? I have a lot to do if we’re to leave tomorrow.”

  Thumps and muffled groans echoed from the boot of the car and Mikhail quickly opened his door and stepped out. Figuring the girl must have heard he was speaking with the detective he made sure he got out of earshot and pointed at Anatoly to go back and take care of it.

  Anatoly watched his boss walk away, unsure exactly what was expected of him. Making his best guess he took the keys from the ignition and gathered the duct tape from the back seat. Checking around to make sure no one could see them, he popped the boot and the girl immediately went quiet and stared up at him, blinking at the bright sunlight pouring in. Mikhail had bound her wrists with plastic tie-wraps and put tape across her mouth. She lay motionless, staring up at Anatoly looking terrified and for a second he felt a tinge of shame. He also remembered the verbal lashing he’d just received for letting Carlos get away, which started when she embarrassingly bowled him over the side of the boat. He started peeling off a strip of tape to wrap her legs together but as he went to tear it off the roll a movement caught his eye a moment before he felt a stinging blow to the side of his head. He staggered back, stunned, dropping the tape as Sydney wriggled to her knees and threw one leg, the one that had kicked him, over the back of the car to climb out. Shaking off the ringing pain he stepped forward to grab her but before he could get to her a fist swept in and punched Sydney in the jaw, sending her sprawling back into the boot. Mikhail snatched up the tape and roughly bound her ankles, closed the boot and shoved the tape back into Anatoly’s hands.

  “Get in the car before you fuck something else up,” Mikhail barked.

  Carlos and AJ ducked back behind the shrubs as the grey car shot past. It had been everything AJ could do to hold Carlos back when he saw Sydney in the boot and Mikhail strike her. She clung to him and held him down so he’d have to drag her with him, which he tried to do at first. They were no match for the two Russians and they both knew it but Carlos didn’t care, he simply wanted to fight for his girl. He’d finally sat back with tears of frustration streaking his cheeks.

  They rushed back to the van and AJ grabbed her mobile phone as she started the engine. “Carlos, I have to call Reg for help, I don’t know that I can catch them now, we have to get out of this neighbourhood and they have a straight shot to the main road.” She pulled away as soon as Carlos was in and accelerated hard again.

  “Reg will insist we involve the police,” she continued. “Honestly Carlos, I think it’s time, we need their help.”

  “I don’t care any more, whatever we need to do, Sydney is more important than anything to me,” Carlos replied desperately.

  AJ took the winding paved road back to Yacht Drive and turned right towards the highway, but the grey car containing the two Russians and Thomas’s sister was long gone. She slowed down and dialled Reg on her phone, putting it on speaker.

  It rang twice before Reg picked up. “Hey, did you check on them?”

  “The Russians have Sydney,” AJ got straight to the point. “I don’t know how they found them but they did. I have Carlos but they grabbed Sydney and the hard drive.”

  “Oh shit! Any idea where they headed?” Reg sounded ready to give chase.

  “We lost them – they chased us but we managed to hide. The Gurov guy got a phone call and then they left in a hurry. I’m worried they’ll take Sydney and the hard drive to the boat and leave,” AJ said, continuing slowly down Yacht Drive.

  Carlos added, “We have to find Sydney, she’s innocent in all this, I dragged her into it and now she’s been taken. Whatever we have to do to stop them and get her safe, Reg.” Carlos was beside himself.

  “Alright, we’ll find them, it’s a small island, but I have to call Whittaker and tell him, we need to tell him everything now,” Reg warned.

  “Whatever we need to do to get her back, police, trade me for her, whatever,” Carlos begged.

  “It won’t come to that, I’ll call him now,” Reg assured them and hung up the phone.

  AJ rolled to the end of the road and stopped the van, unsure what to do or where to head next. They looked at each other. She could see the desperation in his eyes, the disbelief that his noble effort to save a beautiful stretch of reef could lead to the current mess they were in.

  “We’ll get her and the hard drive back, Carlos, we just have to figure out what their next moves will be. If we were them what would we be trying to do now?” AJ asked, trying to think it through.

  “That’s simple I think,” Carlos said in a wavering voice, “They have the hard drive, now all they need is me out of the way.”

  “Agreed, so why did they leave when they knew you had to be around here?” AJ puzzled.

  “I can’t figure that out either. Maybe they think the evidence is enough, no one will listen to me without something to prove what I say?”

  “Perhaps,” AJ said, mulling it over, “but I have to think they’d be in a hurry to get the hard drive safely to the boat, or just destroy it, right? You said they have backups of everything? They don’t need the hard drive, they just need to make sure you don’t have it.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Carlos agreed. “But what about Sydney?”

  AJ thought carefully about how to reply. The truth was she couldn’t think of any good reasons they’d want to hang on to her, unless they planned to trade her for Carlos, as he’d mentioned. But the logistics of that didn’t fit: the Russians had no open line of communication with Carlos, and where could they hide her? Where could they meet? This was not a big island and wasn’t the Russians’ home turf. No, she wasn’t part of their plan, she just happened to be holding the hard drive when they grabbed it, now she was another problem they had to deal with. AJ couldn’t believe she was thinking about this like they could do anything against a group of Russian agents or whatever these guys were; certainly they weren’t geologists. They didn’t need Sydney or the hard drive. But they couldn’t leave loose ends on the island that led to them, and Sydney would be a loose end. But no one officially knew she was on the island.

  AJ felt the urgency rising within her, as Carlos became more defeated and overwhelmed, she became more determined. The answer was the Cuban boat. If both the hard drive and Sydney needed to disappear the obvious place was the vast ocean surrounding them. How do you dump things in the ocean? You take a boat and head away from land.

  “We have to get to their boat, that’s where they’ll take her.” She sounded more convincing than she felt but he needed hope and she was hell bent on doing something more than sitting in her van by the side of the road.

  “How do we get to the boat without them knowing?” Carlos asked, perking up at the suggestion of a plan.

  “I don’t know but let’s get to the harbour and we’ll figure something out. Hopefully Reg has got Whittaker arresting the Russians right now and it’ll all be over before we get downtown.”

  AJ hoped with all her heart that Roy could have Gurov and his buddy in handcuffs by the time they were to the port, but something told her it wouldn’t be that easy.

  Chapter 63

  Roy Whittaker sat down at his desk, placing the gun from the hotel room in front of him, safely wrapped in an evidence bag. He took a deep breath. Firearms unfortunately made their way onto the island occasionally but it wasn’t every day he prepared himself to put a Russian agent in custody for possession of one. Or for any other reason. He wasn’t sure exactly what role Gurov played in this pantomime but he was certain the man wasn’t a marine biologist, all of which made this more complicate
d. He needed to make sure he aligned all the details correctly or this could be an embarrassing episode for the RCIPS, played out in the scandal-hungry press. Roy didn’t crave attention, and whenever possible actively avoided getting his name in the papers, but more important in his mind was upholding the good name of the police service and representing it appropriately. If this whole business became wrapped up in politics and went sideways it could certainly reflect poorly on the department. But that aside, he’d found an illegal weapon and his job was to react appropriately, so act he would. If he did his job correctly everything else would take care of itself.

  His mobile phone rang and he checked the caller ID. Reg Moore. He pondered a moment. Gurov should arrive any moment and he had arranged to meet him in the police yard behind the station; he wanted to be waiting when he got there. His curiosity was too much – deciding he could talk and walk he answered as he headed for the door, putting the evidence bag in his jacket pocket.

  “Hey Reg, I’ve only got a couple of minutes, how can I help you?”

  Whittaker stopped midway down the stairs at Reg’s opening line, “Roy, you have my sincerest apologies but I’ve not been straight with you and now we have a big problem.”

  The detective’s shoulders dropped. He’d known there was something Reg was holding back but this sounded bad. “I assume it has something to do with our Russian friend Mr. Gurov?”

  “It does,” Reg replied, “and your missing pilot, but more importantly right now it involves Thomas’s sister Sydney Bodden.”

  “Start with the Gurov part Reg, he’s on his way here right now, then tell me about the Bodden girl.” Roy asked urgently.

  There was a pause on the line. “The Russian is coming to you?”

  “Yes, I had a matter to discuss with him, he may be waiting downstairs; I was on my way down.” Roy decided until he heard Reg’s full story he wouldn’t mention the gun and his intended arrest.

  “Open the boot of his car and you should find Sydney tied up in there.”

  Roy was incredulous. “What? Are you serious?” He started back down the stairwell in a hurry. “My God, do you know if she’s okay?”

  “She was alive and kicking ten minutes ago,” Reg relayed.

  Whittaker reached the lower floor and waved over Constable Spalding. Holding the phone aside he directed the policeman, “Spalding, get me three more constables to the yard and find any detective in the building and have them come down immediately.” He shouted after Spalding as the constable took off to round up people, “Tell the detective to come armed!”

  He returned the phone to his ear and stepped out the back into the empty yard, trying to process the barrage of new information. “Where’s the pilot, Rojas? I assume he’s alive?”

  “He is,” Reg admitted, “He and Sydney were in the plane, they both got out okay. Carlos is with AJ, they’re the ones that saw Gurov grab Sydney.”

  “Damn it Reg.” Roy tried to stem his frustration, but why did everyone choose to make his job more difficult? “Why the hell didn’t you all just come to me from the beginning? If the kid wants asylum we could have worked with him.”

  “I know, I’m sorry Roy, but it’s more complicated than that, it’s not about asylum, he has information on the Cuban government and the Russians’ involvement that needs to be known.”

  Roy cut him off as a detective and several constables poured out the door into the yard. “He’ll be here any moment, I need to hang up, but Reg?”

  “Yes Roy,” Reg answered hesitantly.

  “Bring Rojas to the station, now.”

  Chapter 64

  It wasn’t just dark in the boot of the car, it was ink black, not a sliver of light anywhere. As if being kidnapped, bound and gagged and stuffed in the boot of a car wasn’t terrifying enough, the complete darkness added another element of fear. The only thing it helped was the claustrophobia. Sydney felt something against her when she moved in any direction and she was sure if she could see how confined the interior of the boot was it would put her over the edge. The ‘edge’, she thought laughingly. If anyone had asked her three days ago what her limit was, what would be too much too handle? Where was her ‘edge’? She would have stopped the ride sometime during the flight in the storm, well before the plane crash – or ‘harsh landing’, she could hear Carlos saying. Before the ride to the sea bed, before the desperate escape and subsequent mayhem on the surface. Definitely before the kidnapping by Russian thugs. Maybe she hadn’t reached her ‘edge’ yet? Maybe she could take more than she thought? She shifted uncomfortably and her arm, foot and head all bumped a confining surface simultaneously. She fought down the overwhelming urge to crumble into total panic. No, she was teetering at the cliff of her personal ‘edge’. Her jaw throbbed. Thinking about the pain distracted her from the panic and she made note of that. She needed something to focus on.

  They’d bounced down the road and then made a curve on a smoother surface; she’d barely noticed in her state of shock and fear but now she tried to focus on anything she could pick up from her other senses. She felt the car turn left then right then left again – that must have been the roundabout where the redirected West Bay Road met the dual carriageway, they’d gone straight over, staying on the bypass. Another roundabout, this would be the one by the cut price market, same thing, they’d stayed straight on the bypass. Should be some bumps ahead where the pavement had been poorly repaired. She waited and sure enough the car bumped and rumbled over the uneven surface, jolting her around in the boot. Forgetting her anxiety, a little excitement crept in as she felt connected again to the outside world just knowing where she was. Another roundabout, that would be the one with no other exits that no one knew why they’d ever built.

  A voice from the car. They hadn’t said a word since they’d driven off but now she could hear the muffled voice of one of them speaking in excellent Spanish. The sound was dulled but she could make out what he said.

  “Bring the skiff to the port, same place, we’ll be there in five minutes.” The voice paused, presumably listening to whoever was on the other end of the line.

  He continued, “Just you, and bring a cover or blanket, you need to hurry.”

  Back to silence. The car had been curving slightly back and forth and now took a bigger arc left, right, left, which she determined was the roundabout at the north end of Camana Bay. She was amazed how much information was streaming into her senses, she was confident she knew where she was and fairly sure where they were going. The fear rose again like an evil serpent wrapping itself around her throat and tightening its hold, constricting her breathing, quickening her pulse and closing the world in around her. What would happen when they got there? She worked her jaw back and forth causing a searing pain to jolt though her skull and drag her consciousness back from the brink. I have to stay focused and alert, she demanded repeatedly, as a swaying left then long right forced her to visualise the road she knew and figure out the turns. Left again. They’d turned towards Seven Mile Beach off the dual carriageway. A short distance and then slowing to a stop. Edging forward. Left turn. They must be on West Bay Road now behind the hotels and condos on Seven Mile Beach. These guys didn’t know the twists and turns you had to take through the back of George Town to the harbour so they’d joined the tourists on the front road.

  The voice she heard earlier spoke again, but this time in Russian, which she couldn’t understand. The second man appeared to acknowledge what the first one said, he was clearly subservient in his manner; he must work for him she presumed. The first man spoke some more, monotone, deliberate, unfriendly. He sounded businesslike, giving commands. What were the instructions he was giving? Were they the specifics of how she would be dealt with? Disposed of? She shivered at the paralysing thought. Silence again. They rolled to a stop. She heard traffic moving around them so maybe a red light? That would mean Lawrence Boulevard or were they already at the edge of George Town at Eastern Avenue?

  Time was running out, they’d be at the
dock soon; she tugged and pulled at the plastic ties wrapped around her wrists but they were tight and dug in painfully when she tried to twist them. Her watch strap dug into her wrist as well and she wondered if she could use the strap to cut the tape. She shifted focus to her ankles that were wrapped in tape. She tried to bend backwards to get her hands that were strapped behind her back to her ankles but her knees hit the front of the boot and she was wedged in place. Sydney wriggled and twisted but her height was against her in the confined boot and she couldn’t get her fingers to the ankle tape. If she could get her feet free again she’d take another swing at them, she had a chance at surprise as they expected her to be trussed up. Maybe she could cause enough ruckus to get someone’s attention. She stretched and reached and squeezed her body into a painful arch with parts of her body shoving against parts of the car. Her fingers extended until it felt like her tendons would tear themselves apart and finally touched the edge of the duct tape. She scraped her knees hard against the side of the car, which moved her ankles a tiny amount closer enough to get the nail of her index finger firmly on the tightly stretched edge of the tape. She nicked the tape and felt it give. The car stopped. She couldn’t hear any traffic. She was out of time and options to get free as just then she felt her watch strap come undone. The engine cut and the doors opened. She made her last attempt at survival. The boot lid opened and strong hands roughly dragged her out and before she could focus in the flash of sunlight she was tossed into the bottom of a small boat and everything returned to darkness as a smelly canvas sheet was thrown over her.

  Chapter 65

  AJ pulled the van into the narrow parking next to a dive operator’s office on the north side of Casanova restaurant. The building shielded their view of the harbour but walking around to the concrete pier, extending a hundred feet into the water, revealed the Cuban trawler moored outside the port. Carlos followed AJ down the pier, nervously looking around in case he was recognised. This was the first time he’d been in the open since landing in Cayman three days ago.