One Step to Danger

by John Gubert

  “We’ll be there. Are you on the evening flight from London?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” said my father. “Can you two get up on time? I doubt you have an alarm clock with you.”

  “You’re right about the alarm clock. But we’ll find a way,” said Jacqui.

  “As long as it’s not clubbing till morning,” my mother said.

  “Are you kidding? The average birthday here in some of the places goes back to the nineteenth century. Tea dances are late nights for half the guests,” I responded.

  “Oh good, if you are in bed that early, you’ll have no trouble getting up in the morning. Go and sort out your boat. And do call us back,” said my mother.

  We went down to the harbour. Claire and Maria were there.

  I said, “Look I know this is organised through Mr. Di Maglio. I want to extend the charter for a fortnight until the 2nd of January. Who do I need to contact?”

  “Hey that’s fantastic. Can we stay with you?” Maria asked excitedly.

  “Of course. If you want,” said Jacqui. “You’ve been great.”

  They actually had. They were with us all day and left us alone in the evenings. They were friendly without being intrusive. They had forced us to relax. I had been surprised when they stripped off the first day. I had realised since that that was intentional. They wanted to force us into a different world. Indeed most of their actions had been for that purpose. They had succeeded and Jacqui looked now at the days with the Russians as just an interlude. The break had done more good than any doctor could have done.

  I had been tense but otherwise less affected by it all. Even Di Maglio appeared to me in a better light. I already liked Aldo and people like Alberto. Giovanni was a strange fish, but not that bad. I realised I was accepting the people around Di Maglio. I questioned how long it would be before I accepted his business methods.

  Claire said, “We’ll call. They charge premium rates at Christmas. That doesn’t bother you does it?”

  I shook my head. “But tell me the premium all the same.”

  Jacqui whispered, “Are you a Scotsman? You heard there are millions coming in each week.”

  “I know. But old habits die hard.” I growled into her ear with mock ferocity, “So don’t go and spend your dress allowance in one go.”

  The girls came back, half an hour later. All was arranged. They were dancing with joy. “They call it work,” said Claire, “But really it’s a holiday. You should have seen the faces of Alberto and the boys when we told them. They really whooped it up. Alberto’s got himself some starlet in tow. She thinks he bankrolls films. She is just a silly tart. He’s just taking advantage of her.”

  “Well if everyone is happy, that’s great. Can you arrange everything? We stay in the harbour tonight and tomorrow we sail round to the hotel and moor offshore for a couple of days.”

  “Done,” said Claire.

  Once they had left, I went back to the phone and reported back to my parents. “See you tomorrow,” they responded cheerfully.

  Next morning we were at the airport early. The early morning planes from Europe were all scheduled to arrive on time. We had managed to get into the VIP waiting area with a view of the arriving passengers as they waited for their luggage. I looked casually over the passengers as they arrived.

  The tall, dark-haired man stood out from the crowd. His suit was badly cut and crumpled from the flight. His tie was knotted but askew. The stubble on his cheek appeared to be thicker than one would expect from an overnight flight. His shoes were scuffed. He stood by the console waiting for his luggage while I surveyed him from the reception area.

  I sensed he was trouble. I always carried with me the bleep for Alberto and I pressed the call button immediately. In moments, Claire was by my side.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  I was surprised to see her. But I did not question her. “That man over there is out of place here. He looks like one of the Russians. I think I’ve seen him before but I can’t place him.”

  Jacqui was studying him closely, “He drove the car in Paris. He was part of the kidnap group.”

  Claire moved away and pulled out her mobile. There was a rushed discussion.

  She said, “We could have him stopped at customs, but we need to see if he makes contact. We’ll be trailing him. Are you armed?”

  I shook my head. “No, but Jacqui has a small gun in her bag. I can’t conceal a gun when I am in slacks and a shirt.”

  “You should have a leg holster,” said Claire.

  “These trousers would show the gun outline through the material.”

  “Then you should have them tailored so they don’t. You need to be armed in future, even if you have to wear a jacket. We will be a bit stretched till this afternoon when we’ll have some support flown in. Alberto will be trailing our friend down there and Maria will go along with him. That leaves me on call and Jamie, our local stringer. But he is pretty inexperienced. Barbados is hardly a hot spot in normal times.”

  “We need protection for your parents as well,” said Jacqui.

  “You’ll have to do that,” said Claire. “They aren’t our primary concern. We can only arrange that cover later today or tomorrow.”

  “All right. Jacqui will stay with them at the hotel and I’ll head out to the boat to pick up some clothes and a gun. We can manage it.”

  “Good” said Claire. “I’ll head outside and wait for you. We should go to the boat together.”

  “No,” I said. “You stay with Jacqui and my parents. I’ll cover the boat. It’s in the harbour and I’m not going to be alone. There’ll be people around there. But the road to the beach is lonely. What transport do you have here?”

  “I followed in a four wheel drive. It’s a Range Rover.”

  “Look they’ll meet you sooner or later. Say you came with transport. Play the Girl Friday act from the boat. But let’s keep the Russian and his possible identity to ourselves. There’s no use scaring them.”

  My parents came off the plane. By then the Russian had disappeared through customs and passport control. We waved at them from the viewing area. They waved eagerly back. After we greeted each other and they enthused at how fit we looked. I said, “Look, Jacqui will go with you to the hotel. I have to complete some paperwork for the boat so that it can sail round the island and join us off the coast. I’ll be about half an hour behind you.”

  We packed them into the vehicle. Claire drove them away and Jacqui waved cheerfully at me as they left. When they had gone, I realised that this had been my first moment away from her since we had left Geneva. Suddenly I felt quite lonely.

  I pulled myself together and hailed a cab. I told it to go to the port. The boat was moored between two larger ones. The one came from the Cayman Islands while the other was registered in Panama. Like ours, they were most likely charters. I vaulted the short space to the lower deck. We had pulled up the gangplank. I waved at the security guard. He recognised me and let me go unhindered.

  Just as I was heading for the cabin, something caught my eye. I flung myself to the deck and felt something streak past my ear. I turned to see a knife humming in the wood of the bulkhead. It was a vicious hunting knife with a long blade. Whoever had thrown it had done it with some force. The blade was at least two inches into the wood. And whoever had thrown it, was coming for me.

  I was sprawled on the ground, just a foot or so from the wheel. And beneath the wheel I could see the tape holding one of the guns we had hidden at the start of our trip. I needed more space though to have any chance of getting it before the man got me.

  I saw him lunge towards me and somehow scrambled up and out of his way. He was quick for a man of his size. But I realised that he was constrained by the height of the cabin. He must have been approaching seven feet and the ceiling was lower than that. He looked like a weight lifter. He most likely was given the force with which he threw the knife.

  He would not want to make any noise and I doubted if he
would fire a gun. I didn’t even know if he had one. I would find a way to get out of trouble if I got to use ours. The only thing was that I couldn’t see how to get to it in time. He came to me again. There was only a rug between us. As he stepped on it I grabbed my end and jerked it with all my strength. He lost his balance and went crashing back. His head smashed against the wall with an almighty crash.

  I didn’t check to see if he was dazed. The next moment, before he even stood up, I had wrenched the gun from its hiding place and could hear the roar of the bullets as they thudded into his chest. Even then he made an attempt to get at me. But a last bullet felled him. He lay breathless on the floor, blood seeping from his chest and washing over towards me.

  I jerked away from the flow of blood and moved to the porthole. The noise had seemed so loud but nobody seemed to notice. I shoved the gun into my pocket and clambered up on the deck. My hand held on to it for I didn’t know if others were waiting. I saw someone coming up from the lower deck of the boat next to me.

  “What was that noise?” I called over to him. “I thought it was a gun.”

  We both looked around. There appeared to be nobody on the next boat. In fact the nearest person seemed to be the security guard I had seen earlier. He was a good fifty yards away and appeared unperturbed by any disturbance. “It must have been an engine back-firing,” I said.

  “I’ve never heard that noise from an engine,” he said. Then he shrugged his shoulders and returned below deck.

  I carefully checked the rest of the boat. It was empty. I went to the upper deck and took the gun from below the seat. I used the tape to tie it to my leg. I would risk it being noticed. For the moment I needed to keep alive. And that was more important than raising suspicion.

  I emptied the remaining bullets from the first gun and re-loaded it. I grabbed a jacket and put it on despite the heat. I slipped the gun into my waistband. There was no blood on me. I checked carefully. But I needed support. I jumped onto the shore again and headed over to a pay phone by the harbour.

  I called the hotel. My parents had arrived. “Could I talk to Claire? She’s the girl who drove them.”

  Claire came to the phone. “I had a reception party here. We have a body to get rid of.”

  She was quick; “Did he try anything?”

  “Yes,” I said. “A knife and it wasn’t for making sandwiches. I usually forgive people those even if the bread’s cut a bit thick.”

  “Go back to the boat,” she said. “Keep watch and stay put. Only let anyone in if Maria or I are with them.”

  “Keep guard on Jacqui,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, we know our job. Just hold in there as I say.”

  I slipped back onto the boat. I went to the upper deck, watching the port. I kept myself as covered as possible but there was no sign of any disturbance. An hour went by. I was getting edgy. Waiting was not my strong point. Then Maria appeared with two men I did not recognise.

  I went down to the lower deck and let down the gangplank. They went into the lounge cabin. “Shit he’s one big bear of a man,” said one of her companions.

  They checked his pockets. “No papers.”

  Maria said, “We’d better go out to sea and dump him. Then we’ll clean the cabin down. How many times did you shoot him?”

  She counted the bullet holes. “Seven times. And nobody heard you. Man you have the devil on your side.”

  She ruffled my hair. “Go up on deck. I’ll get you a coffee. By lunchtime you’ll not recognise this place. We’ll have to be careful not to leave it unattended. I can’t tell who he is but we’ll take a shot and see if any of the police records can identify him. I’ll also take fingerprints.”

  I wasn’t surprised that they had access to the police computers. In fact nothing surprised me about Di Maglio. I suspect one cannot survive that sort of life for over thirty years without an amazing network. So the criminals used police intelligence to trace their enemies. There was in reality nothing surprising about that.

  Maria came up with a coffee. “When Alberto and Claire have traced our friend at the airport, we’ll have a chat. In any event we are going to get more help. We’ll be another five on the island if necessary by tomorrow night. These guys with me are just stringers. We can trust them but they are not professionals.”

  We headed out to sea soon after. About two miles off the coast, Maria started to throw small pieces of the body into the water. Within minutes, there were a group of sharks around the boat.

  “They often congregate around here,” she said.

  Once there were sufficient sharks around we scanned the horizon for other boats. There were none around. Maria’s two companions humped up the carcass and threw it overboard. The sharks went into a frenzy as they wolfed their way through the body.

  We then carefully cleaned the boat for all signs of blood. One of the men also removed a couple of bullets that had got lodged in the cabin. He then surprised me by producing a filler and some colouring paste to remove all signs of the hole. He did the same for the knife, and then threw that overboard as well. Brushes were applied to the outside of the boat to clean off any traces of blood. A few inquisitive sharks swam by expectantly and one even had a bite at a brush. But they had left us, having devoured the dead Russian.

  “We’ll head back to the hotel,” said Maria. “It’s easier to monitor the boat when it’s offshore. We can use the satellite tracking equipment. That can’t work in a crowded harbour. It’s too shallow and closely packed.”

  We sailed round the island and were in place in the early afternoon. I still had the leg holster and gun. I would have to be careful to remember it if I changed for a swim. Even the aged guests would notice something strange.

  Maria was on the radio. I realised that she was talking to Alberto. I joined her. “The Russian has holed up in a house just north of here. We need you to come with us. We think there are three of them only but can’t be sure. There’ll be the four of us. Claire and Alberto plus you and me. Then the others will keep watch here.”

  Jacqui joined us. Maria explained what had happened. “We think this may be a maverick gang. They could be a splinter group which wants to upset the deal your father made. In any case, we’ll find out tonight. Charles will act as look out while we go in. It’s not going to be dangerous.”

  Jacqui agreed to stay with my parents. She would wait till I returned. We would tackle the Russians early in the evening.

  Maria and I headed north to rendezvous with Claire and Alberto. “They are three, unless someone hasn’t come out at all today,” said Alberto. “They suspect nothing.”

  We remained hidden. Maria had parked her car next to Alberto’s in the quiet private road. “The police occasionally patrol out here. But it’s not wealthy enough for them to do it often. The cars can be seen from the road if they look to their left as they round the bend in the road. But there’s nowhere better to park that allows us a quick getaway and keeps us concealed from the house.”

  I sat by the car with the others and we waited till it became dark. Alberto and Claire moved to the house to check it out again. They both had guns drawn and moved quietly and carefully. They hugged the sides of the house and ducked under the window, carefully checking out all entry and exit points.

  A car was coming up the narrow road, its headlights blazing sporadically between the trees. Claire and Alberto ducked and disappeared at the far side of the house. Maria and I lay on a gentle slope next to the cars.

  “Oh shit, it’s the police,” said Maria. They came closer and appeared to be passing on down the road ahead. Then they stopped suddenly.

  Maria turned to me, stripping off her top and panties. She pulled up her skirt and grabbed me. My shirt was off in a second. She pulled down my trousers and pants in one move.

  “Pretend to make love,” she said. “Pretend this is an illicit rendezvous. That’ll explain two cars.”

  We twined our legs together. She pressed herself against me. Her slim, wiry figu
re was warm. For the first time I noticed her perfume, a gentle mixture of flowers against the salt breeze from the sea. Her breasts were hard against me. I felt her pull me to herself.

  “Look lover boy, if they search us we have problems. You’ve a real gun in your leg holster. I have one in my bag. And there are a couple hidden in the car. But if you stood up, you’d look as if you just came from a long walk in the cold. Forget about Jacqui and get excited or we’ll be sunk. They’re coming.”

  With that she started to grind herself against me. A small, energetic, inquisitive grind that became more excited for me and, I suspect, for her. I forgot about the approaching men as she and I became more and more entwined. If they had been a bit slower or we had started a bit earlier, we would have taken our simulated love making to its conclusion. But a voice called out, “What’s going on up there?”

  Maria gave a light scream and clutched her top to her naked body. Her small breasts pointed at the two policemen approaching us. Her legs were apart. Her face looked in horror. She grabbed her clothes and pulled on the skirt and top. She patted the ground, making as if she was searching for her panties. She found them and pulled them on as if in panic.

  I yanked up my trousers, pretending to struggle with the zip. One of the policemen tossed over my shirt. “Well who are you two then?”

  Maria said, “I work on a boat. It’s called the “Lively Princess.” It’s moored over by the Sandy Lane. He rents it with his wife. Please let us go. We are doing no harm. If you report me, I’ll lose my job. And he’s going to have some explaining to do. It’ll hit the press. He’s well known.”

  This was delivered in a wailing voice. The policeman looked at us. They obviously decided that it was not worth pursuing. “Ah, enjoy yourselves,” said one of them. “But in future don’t trespass. We’ll be back here in a couple of hours. Make sure you’re gone by then.”

  With that, they laughed and headed back to their car. We watched them drive away into the distance. A noise came from the house. “Who’s there?” shouted a voice. We froze. “Nothing here,” came a call as the door closed and all became quiet.