( 2011) Cry For Justice

by Ralph Zeta

  “You see, Jason,” he added, coming so close I could almost make out the pores on his cheeks, “I do like you. But this situation is not of my doing, not my choice. She is responsible. She brought you into this. She is to blame for the fate that awaits you both.”

  He took a thoughtful puff from his cigar and blew it into the warm ocean breeze. “You see, like you, I am a soldier, too. The mission always comes first. We do what we do in furtherance of the objective. Nothing else matters. But, regrettably, despite our best efforts, sometimes there is collateral damage. Unfortunate, yes, but it is the nature of our business. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  “Let her go, Kellerman,” I growled. “She’s no threat to you.”

  “Jason, no!” Amy’s little voice cried. She strained against her fetters. “He’s not Kellerman!”

  I stole a glance at her. Her chest was heaving. Hatred seemed to emanate from every cell of her body.

  Kellerman watched her, and took another long drag on his cigar, a look of amusement on his angular face.

  “Can’t you see?” Amy stared at me with her one good eye. “It’s him!” she screamed. “It’s my stepfather Robertson! That’s him!”

  Her words sent a shiver down my spine. Kellerman was Robertson, aka Stefan Baumann!

  I watched him watch me with morbid curiosity, as if studying my reaction. He was truly enjoying the moment. As if to prove who he was, he removed the wire-framed glasses, tossed them overboard, then took off the jacket and dropped it to the deck. Untucking his shirt, he reached under it and pulled something bulky from his midsection and tossed it on the floor. A fake-belly pillow a cheap prop available in any novelty or costume store. He took off his shirt, and I saw the man I had always expected to see: a tall, fit, muscular man in his mid-fifties.

  In my semi hazy state, the realization was almost too much to absorb. I had overlooked the blatantly obvious. My prey had circled back on me, and I had missed it big-time. Baumann had always been close. Just like his victims, I, too, had bought into one of his masterful deceits. I should have seen it but I only saw what I wanted, I saw what I expected. I had failed to probe beyond the façade. No victims, only willing participants, I reminded myself.

  I watched as the man who had wheeled Amy in tossed Baumann a T-shirt. He slipped it on and said, “Get them ready.”

  He glanced at me once more and said, “So long, Jason Justice.” His face bore no more emotion than if he were discarding some useless garment.

  Baumann next turned his attention to Amy. “See what your actions accomplished?” he said. “His death is on you.” He leaned in closer to her. “How does that make you feel?” Amy sobbed and looked away. “Look around you, you little girl. No FBI and no police. No one is coming to save you this time. I bet you don’t feel so high and righteous now, do you, silly little bitch?”

  She spat at him. “Go to hell, you bastard!”

  Baumann merely straightened his back and accepted the small towel offered by the man next to him. After wiping the spittle from his face, he dropped the towel onto the deck. Then he backhanded Amy across the face.

  The sound of his big knuckles hitting her bruised flesh was sickening. Blood flew from her, spattering me and the man who held me. She gave a muffled scream, and her head lolled to the side as she went limp.

  “You first,” Bauman impassively said.

  Baumann didn’t even bother to look back. He just picked up the towel from the floor, cleaned his hand with it, and said something in Czech to his men before walking off toward the main cabin and disappearing belowdecks.

  I was left with the two men, one of them holding the knife to my neck, the other standing behind an unconscious Amy. I could not see her chest moving, and I wondered if she was still alive. Her keeper wheeled her closer to the three anchors, while the man behind me slacked his grip around my throat and began to pull the knife away. A mistake on his part. This was my opening.

  As the knife moved away I thrust my head back as hard as I could. I felt the back of my skull strike with crunching force. The man let out a guttural grunt. The grotesque sound of crushing bone and cartilage felt overly loud inside my head. The force of the impact momentarily dazed me, though his imploding nose did much to cushion the blow to me. I had hit him a lot harder than I had expected. My knees still felt like mush, but there would be no time to recover. Instincts and adrenaline would have to take up the slack.

  I brought up my elbows chest high and pivoted my upper body to the right. I wanted to catch the man behind me somewhere near his ear, and I did. The sound and feel of my elbow hitting thin bone and cartilage told me I had gauged the distance just right. The knife clattered noisily to the deck, and the goon toppled to his side, eyes unfocused and staring.

  “Mu uniká!” Baumann’s second goon yelled as his right hand darted toward his waistband.

  My instinctive reaction was to me, predictable, expected, and welcome. Our lives depended on my abilities and skills learned long ago. I had already bent over and picked up the knife with my still tied hands and flipped it over so I was now holding it by the cold blade. With an ungainly overhead motion, I hurled the knife as Baumann’s second goon was bringing the gun up. The knife hit him center mass, and the gun fired wide to my right and out to sea.

  The gun fell first, and the goon toppled over, holding on to the knife sticking out of his chest.

  I heard hurried footsteps somewhere below.

  Baumann and whoever else was aboard were already responding to the commotion. No doubt they would emerge in attack mode. I had but a few seconds.

  I glanced at Amy; she was still out. I yanked the knife from the dead man’s chest and cut the thick braided nylon hawser tied to the wheelchair. The footsteps below were closer, and a male voice screamed unfamiliar words of anger.

  I took a second to assess the sailboat’s location. I could see distant costal lights to starboard we were still close enough to land to have a glimmer of a chance. Behind me, the familiar metallic chink of a round being chambered got my full attention.

  I spun toward the sound. Baumann stood on deck, a pistol in his right hand, his left dragging something else. He must not have liked what he saw as he roared a hoarse roar of disbelief.

  I clamped the knife between my teeth and heaved the wheelchair over the gunwale and into the inky waters swirling below, and I followed right behind, never letting go of the chair. We both sailed overboard into the darkness of the bay.

  I heard shots behind me. It would be close.

  I hit hard and felt the sudden and merciless wrench of the water as it encapsulated us in a dark, cool gloom. The throaty sound of the engines and the whine of the propellers chugging somewhere behind rang loudly in my ears. I felt a strong tug on my right arm, something heavy pulling me under.

  Amy...

  The chair felt as heavy as a small car, its weight pulling us down like a huge dead weight. Letting go of it, I worked the knife against the tape binding my hands and managed to quickly free them without any bad nicks. I stretched an arm in the direction where I expected to find Amy’s chair, and came up empty.

  Shit!

  I kicked hard, forcing myself deeper into the gloom, the knife back between my teeth, hands pawing in the dark depths. I must have gone in the right direction. I felt something I wasn’t expecting soft, delicate. I had Amy’s hair in my hand. Grabbing up a fistful, I held on, found the familiar shape of the chair, and went to work cutting her loose.

  We popped up in the wake, maybe sixty yards behind the Carpe Diem, whose running lights were receding at a slow but comforting pace. Amy’s hair was pasted to her swollen face. I cleared it, found her nose, and checked her vitals... no breath, no pulse I could detect. I gave her a couple of quick mouth-to-mouth breaths and followed this with a desperate series of bear hugs, all the while scissor kicking hard to keep her head above the small swells. Justice’s on-the-water CPR. I gave her more mouth-to-mouth, and heard the blessed sound of vomiting followed by vig
orous coughing. She let out a weak, moaning wail.

  I looked at her face. Even in the thin moonlight, it looked god-awful. Baumann’s last backhand and maybe even the impact with the water had opened some stitches on her check and forehead, but at least she was breathing on her own. I turned her over onto her back and allowed her to float as I looked around to reorient myself. The shore lights twinkled maybe a mile away. We must be close to the eastern tip of Providence Island, I guessed, somewhere near the end of the Nassau Harbor channel, in a spot where I knew the harbor widened as it met the open waters of the Atlantic. If I was right about our position and we swam directly at the shore lights, we would be heading into shallower waters, which would present a navigational hazard to any deep-draft vessel such as the Carpe Diem. Baumann wouldn’t be able to follow us.

  In the distance I head the boat’s engines fall silent for a moment only to come alive again a second later. A narrow searchlight beam probed the surface, reaching out toward us then moving off to starboard. The sailboat seemed a bit closer now. Baumann had the boat in reverse and was coming back for us.

  I pushed Amy toward shore, where I hoped the water would soon be too shallow for the sailboat to follow. I yelled as loud as I dared, “Swim, Amy! Swim to shore!”

  She reacted to the urgency of my command. She saw the spotlight, understood the implication, and started pulling for shore as best she could. Even in her condition, she was a still a strong swimmer.

  After a few minutes of swimming, I took a moment to look back for the sailboat. It was still there, chugging along in reverse, with a loose docking bumper still deployed and dragging alongside near the stern. The spotlight jerked and bobbed over the shimmering darkness, but we were putting more distance between it and us. We had maybe about fifty yards to go before where I expected we would be in shallow water and out of Baumann’s reach. I urged Amy on. Her strokes were slowing some, but the cadence was still steady.

  It wasn’t long before the sailboat was a good 175 yards behind us, moving slowly in reverse at right angles to our course. I was hoping he would run aground soon and foul the prop or the rudder, when the searchlight ceased its probing arcs across the water, and the engines died. The large sailboat came to a complete stop. The sudden silence felt unreal, ominous. I could hear my own heartbeat thumping in my ears.

  “Don’t stop,” I said to Amy, who had stopped swimming and was floating on her back, taking deep, labored breaths. She didn’t have much left. “Not much farther to go,” I said. “Swim!”

  “Justice!” Baumann’s deep voice rolled over the surface. “I forgot something. I never mentioned the reason behind the three anchors on deck, did I? How careless of me. Somehow, I forgot I had a surprise for you. But something tells me you’ll understand when you find out about my surprise.”

  I stopped swimming and glanced back. The searchlight came about and lit up the boat’s stern. Now a second figure was standing on deck right next to Baumann. Much shorter figure. Long dark hair. A woman?

  Baumann’s own large frame came under the beam of light beside the figure. “Say something,” he said.

  Silence, then the sound of a slap, and a female voice screamed out.

  “Speak, bitch!” Baumann yelled. “Tell him your name. Now!”

  “Jason!” said the female voice. “Don’t stop! Go!”

  I instantly recognized Mackenzie’s voice... but how was she here?

  “You see, Jason,” Baumann said into the gloom. “She must have followed you to our meeting. One of my men found her sneaking around. She must really care about you.”

  Shit. I looked behind me and saw Amy. She had stopped swimming again.

  “Come back and she goes free,” Baumann offered. “Think about it. Nothing has to happen to her.”

  I told Amy to swim as quietly as possible. She shot me the hamburger-face glare of concern. She stayed put.

  I asked her, “Think about it. If we go back, you think he’ll let any of us live?”

  She thought about it for a moment and shook her head.

  Baumann’s offer was a lie, of course. We were all loose ends. Mackenzie’s only real chance was for us to get ashore, get Amy to a hospital, and summon the Coast Guard. I would borrow or steal a fast boat and chase the son of a bitch to China if that was what it took. Baumann was not getting away. One of us would not live to see the sunrise.

  We began to swim toward the distant lights with renewed vigor. I hoped I could reach Mackenzie on time.

  Odds did not favor a positive outcome, I knew.

  Twenty-seven

  We paused our swim so Amy could catch her breath. She did not have much left.

  The bright lights of beachfront homes glimmered perhaps 150 yards away.

  “What about Mackenzie?” Amy asked between breaths.

  “When we get to a phone I’ll call the Coast Guard and the police,” I said. “There was nothing we could have done back there. This way is her only chance. You know that, don’t you?”

  She gave a feeble nod.

  “Good. Let’s get you out of here.”

  She swam rhythmically ahead of me, toward the brightest cluster of lights. Whoever owned them also had to have access to a car, maybe even a fast boat. Eventually, my foot hit the soft loamy bottom. Amy collapsed as she tried to walk in the waist-deep water, so I lifted her small frame and carried her the last few yards.

  I stumbled onto the sandy beach and found myself staring at a four-foot-high seawall of large rocks and concrete. Above the seawall and well back of it rose a magnificent home, its lights bathing some sort of gathering in a warm glow. There was music, smoke billowing from an outdoor grill, and the happy chatter of people having a good time.

  I laid Amy on top of the seawall. She was spent. The effort had taken every bit of energy she had left. I clambered up onto the seawall, reached down, and collected her. She felt small and delicate, like a sick child, as I carried her on shaky legs toward the sounds of the party, wheezing with every breath.

  Amy was barely conscious now, still heaving with fatigue and pain. I asked her how she had ended up in Baumann’s hands, and in a thread voice, she told me that men with badges, claiming to be federal agents, had shown up at the hospital and told her they were moving her to a safe location. They mentioned my name and Sammy’s, and she went with them willingly. They must have given her some sort of drug, because when she awoke, she found herself tied up in the familiar sailboat.

  I needed to get to a phone fast. We crossed a garden of rock, hibiscus, and palms, rounded a waterfall, and stumbled onto the pool area and the gathering, to the dismay of those in attendance. A woman screamed as we sank down on the terraced deck, dripping and worn out. Another scream, and people were clustered around us asking what happened.

  “Phone!” I demanded.

  “You need an ambulance!” the man closest to me said.

  I laid Amy on the cool, tiled pool deck, stood up, and grabbed a fistful of tangerine silk shirt. “Phone! Now!” The man hurried me toward a pair of French doors.

  My first call was to the local constabulary. The desk man was quick and efficient. He told me to wait for help. An ambulance would be immediately dispatched, and a patrol boat would go out to look for the Carpe Diem. I became aware of the silence surrounding me. The music was no longer playing; the guests were no longer talking and laughing.

  The constable asked for a description of the sailboat, and I obliged. I also gave him the names of the man on board and the kidnapped woman. The deputy asked for my name. I gave it to him and hung up. My next call was to the U.S. Coast Guard. I gave them the same information: sailboat heading out of Nassau Harbor, possibly en route to the Dominican Republic, with a U.S. citizen held on board against her will. He asked what plans I had. I told him I was going to follow the Carpe Diem in another boat, and hung up. I next dialed a number I had thankfully committed to memory: my good friend James Burke, CEO of Atlantis Royal Charters, Ltd.

  James picked up on the third ring. I
explained the situation and told him about Mackenzie’s predicament. It came as no surprise that he knew Mac and her family well. He asked where I was, then told me to get to a nearby destination, where he would pick me up within half an hour.

  I hung up and looked out at two dozen wide-eyed party guests in casual island wear, gawking back at me in silent amazement. I told the man in the tangerine silk shirt to look after Amy until the paramedics arrived.

  “There’s just one other thing,” I said, looking down. “What size are your shoes?” I had kicked my deck shoes off moments after jumping from the Carpe Diem.

  Seconds later, I was running down the driveway and out onto Yamacraw Hill Road headed south, following Burke’s directions. I kept a steady pace, the thin rubber soles of our host’s newish Topsiders pounding the hard blacktop.

  I wondered about Mackenzie. What on earth had prompted her to follow me to the meeting? The frequency at which people who got too close to me were ending up as collateral damage was unsettling. First the six guys in my squad who lost their lives in the foothills of the Hindu Kush. Then there was Jack, my roommate at West Point and the best friend I’ve ever had, who followed me back into active duty after Nine-eleven and straight into Afghanistan, only to come back home in a flag-draped box. Then there was Amy, a sad young girl whose only mistake had been to ask me to recover what was rightfully hers. She had trusted me and almost died for it twice. And to make matters worse, weather accidentally or not, I had come into Mackenzie’s life and now her own life was in peril.

  I cursed myself. And then I cursed them all as I ran in the shadows, Nora included. For trusting me. For coming into my life.

  For making me care so God damned much.

  Twenty-eight

  It took almost twenty-five minutes of steady running to reach the rendezvous point. I found a trail through the low-lying coastal thickets and hoped it would lead me to the designated spot.