by Haris Orkin
Sancho saw her first. He tugged on Flynn’s sleeve, but James was busy looking at a nautical chart. He tugged harder and Flynn turned to him, irritated.
Sancho pointed.
Dulcie ran like her skirt was on fire. The furious villagers were right behind her, shouting at her in Spanish.
“Time to go!” Sancho shouted.
Flynn shut the top on the motor, slightly muffling the sound. He untied the boat from the dock as Sancho ran to the wheel and revved the engine. The hull banged into the dock, nearly knocking Flynn into the drink. Sancho quickly put the engine in reverse. Dulcie shimmied along the dock now, the pissed-off residents of Puertecitos almost upon her.
The boat backed away from the slip, leaving the dock, leaving Dulcie.
“Wait!” she screamed.
Flynn leaned off the front end, one hand on a fitting as his other hand reached out for Dulcie. She glanced back to see the enraged faces of the fisherman and their various improvised weapons.
“Jump!” Flynn shouted.
The gap between the front of the boat and the dock steadily increased, but Dulcie had nowhere else to go. She ran as hard as she could, which wasn’t much faster than she was already running, and jumped off the end of the dock, diving hard for Flynn’s hand. She missed his grasp by about a foot and hit the water with a painful belly flop. It was so loud that some of the pursuing fisherman actually winced. Dulcie immediately went under and Sancho tossed Flynn a bright orange life preserver attached to a length of rope. Flynn searched the dark surface of the water and finally saw Dulcie pop back up, coughing and screaming. He threw the life preserver like a Frisbee and it bounced off her head.
“Grab!” Flynn shouted.
She flailed for the preserver, finally caught a piece of it and pulled herself out of the water, choking and gasping and calling Flynn every curse word she knew in English and Spanish. A few of the older fisherman were shocked to hear a woman use such rough language, but most of them were too busy shouting at Flynn and Sancho to notice or care.
“Mi barco!” shouted a squat little man waving a baseball bat. “Traer detrás mi barco!”
“Don’t worry!!” Flynn shouted back. “We’ll be very careful with it! Tomaremos el buen cuidada do el! No preocuparte!” They slammed backwards into another docked boat and the collision nearly threw Flynn into the drink with Dulcie. The squat Mexican was jumping up and down now. His wife was right beside him with two small kids and all three were yelling at the top of their lungs. Even their ratty little dog barked at them.
Sancho put the engine into drive and turned the craft towards the open sea. Dulcie dangled off the front, barely hanging on to the life preserver. Flynn pulled her in closer, grabbed her by the top of her dress, and hauled her on board. She was wet and cold, shivering and spitting mad. “Pendejo! Why the fuck didn’t you wait for me!”
“I didn’t know you were coming,” Flynn explained. She punched him right in the mouth. Flynn staggered back a bit and smiled at her with surprise. “That’s a pretty good right cross.” She swung at him again, but this time he caught the punch, holding her fist in his hand. She swung at him with her other hand and he caught that one too. “Are you through?” Dulcie slammed her knee into his groin and Flynn grunted, the condescending smile disappearing from his face.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Goolardo was preoccupied—Mendoza was just fine with that. His boss stood on a balcony outside his master suite, overlooking the dark sea, talking with someone on a satellite phone about something that had something to do with “the plan.” Goolardo held up his hand to indicate that Mendoza should keep his mouth shut.
“So, we’ll be ready in time.” Goolardo’s query was less a question and more of an order. “We need to move quickly. We can’t afford to—” He frowned and his eyes flashed with anger. “That was nothing. Nothing! He was a nobody and he knew nothing!” Goolardo’s anger barely stayed in check. “It is nothing to worry about. I just needed to be sure and now I am and now it’s time to put it behind us and move forward. Okay? Adios!” Goolardo clicked off the phone and glared at Mendoza. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“There was an escape attempt.”
“From who? The psycho, the puta, or the pendejo?”
“What does it matter? They’re dead.”
“What about the bodies?”
“No one will ever find them.”
Goolardo nodded. “No one must ever know about this.”
“I understand.”
“You understand nothing. But that’s all right. I don’t pay you to understand. I pay you to do what needs to be done.”
Mendoza opened his mouth to say something smart and thought better of it.
Sancho couldn’t tell up from down. There was no moon and no stars. The sky was overcast and a thick fog blanketed everything. The lights on the boat penetrated only a few feet forward. It was like they floated in nothingness. The tiny vessel listed to one side as it puttered forward in the mist. The boat was taking in water from the collision back in the harbor.
Sancho watched as Flynn poured over a navigational chart like he actually knew what he was doing. Dulcie looked on, hugging herself to stay warm.
“So, what direction are we heading now?” Flynn asked.
Sancho consulted the globe compass. “According to this…south by south east.” Flynn nodded and squinted at the chart. Sancho tapped the globe and the marine compass changed its reading. Now it appeared they were heading south by south west. He started to tell Flynn, but then let it go. What was the point? They were lost and they were almost out of gas and slowly sinking. Any direction they headed would take them to the same place; the bottom of the Sea of Cortez.
“Change our heading ten degrees south,” Flynn instructed. “According to this chart, Angel Island is about fifty miles out.”
Sancho nodded and turned the wheel, but there was no way to tell which way they were going. The mist was so thick, it felt like they weren’t moving at all. The only indication was the sound of the engine and the wind in their faces.
“You were skeptical before, weren’t you?” Flynn steadied himself as the boat rocked. “You didn’t quite believe me. But now you see what we’re up against.”
Sancho didn’t know what to say. He glanced at Dulcie to see she was glaring at him. He looked back at Flynn.
“Look, dude, I’m all for saving the world and whatever, but first we gotta save ourselves. This boat’s like sinking and we’re almost out of gas and who knows where we’re going.”
“We’re heading for Angel Island,” Flynn said.
“Would you stop listening to him?” Dulcie was losing it.
“Listening to who?” Flynn asked. “Sancho?”
“You!”
“Me?” Flynn was truly perplexed.
“Jesus Christ!” She was talking to Sancho now. “Turn this goddamn boat around and take us back to that stinky ass town before he gets us all killed!”
“Just follow my lead and you’ll be fine,” Flynn said.
“Fine!”
“Wasn’t I right about the plan?”
“No!” screamed Dulcie. “You weren’t!” She was on her feet now, off-balance as the boat bounced about. “You didn’t know about his plan until Goolardo told you! It’s a fucking coincidence!”
“There is no such thing as coincidence. And you make your own luck. I may not have known the specifics, but that’s why you do an investigation.”
The boat lurched over a white cap and Dulcie almost flipped overboard. Flynn grabbed her by the arm and pulled her close. She was frantic and afraid as she shouted into his ear. “James! Jesus! Just listen to me. We have to go back! If we don’t go back, we’re gonna drown.”
“Dulcinea—”
“No, please. Just…take us back to Puertecitos. We’ll call the police. We’ll call the FBI. We’ll tell everybody everything. You’ll still be a hero and we’ll still be alive.”
“I’m sorry,” Flynn said.
“But the police could easily be in Goolardo’s employ.”
“What?”
“I can’t leave this to someone else. I have a responsibility.”
“Please…” Tears filled her eyes.
“I’ve been in much more dangerous situations than this one and each time, I came out unscathed. Do you know why?” Dulcie didn’t offer an answer. She was too upset. “Because I never gave up. I never gave in. As bad as things can sometimes seem, there’s always—”
Just then the boat engine went dead. The gas gauge needle settled on empty. Sancho tried to restart it, but it was futile. It was official. They were screwed. Dulcie sobbed and James tenderly rubbed her back.
“One time, I was strapped to a stainless-steel table with an industrial-strength laser inching towards my scrotum. I could have given in. I could have told them everything. But I didn’t. I said to the villain, do you expect me to talk? No, he said. I expect you to die.” Flynn smiled. “Another time, brutal thugs threw me into a salt water swimming pool filled with hungry sharks. I was cut and there was blood in the water. I could have given up, but instead I kicked and fought and punched those sharks right in their ugly snouts. And do you know why?”
“Because you’re fucking crazy.”
“Maybe I am. I don’t know. I do know this though. The only way to fail for certain is to surrender. As long as my heart is beating, as long as there is a breath left in my body, I know we have a chance.”
Dulcie looked at Sancho, “I’m gonna fucking kill him.”
“We’re going to find Angel Island.” Flynn tapped the map. “We’re going to foil Goolardo’s plan, and we’re going to do it all by Friday.”
The specificity of the date took Dulcie by surprise. “Why by Friday?”
“Tell her, Sancho.”
“Tell her what?”
“He has a date on Saturday.”
Suddenly Sancho remembered. “Oh, yeah, Alyssa.” Sancho nodded, half-smiling.
“The beautiful Alyssa. The princess of El Pollo Loco,” said Flynn. “You can’t disappoint her now, can you? Now that you’ve raised her expectations?”
Dulcie extricated herself from Flynn and crossed to the other side of the boat. Defeated and demoralized, she sat on the deck and immediately realized her butt was under water. She scrambled back to her feet, adrenaline surging into her blood. “Oh, my God! We are sinking!”
“So, start bailing,” Flynn said. “We have to stay afloat. We don’t have much farther to go.”
“How do you know? You don’t even know where the hell we are!”
Sancho pointed at something in the distance. “What’s that?”
Flynn followed his finger and smiled. “Lights. Land.”
“Angel Island?”
“What else could it be?”
Dulcie saw the lights as well. “Oh, thank God!”
The lights grew larger quickly, but the engine was dead and they were out of gas. Sancho wondered how they could be traveling towards Angel Island with such velocity. The current couldn’t be moving them that fast. And then he realized that they weren’t moving at all. Only the lights were.
A thundering roar filled the air and Sancho looked up to see even more lights. A helicopter hovered above, blasting them with a hurricane-like wind. Sancho stumbled back, nearly blown overboard, but Flynn held him by his belt. The approaching lights belonged to three speedboats manned by men in black uniforms, armed with assault rifles. They aimed their weapons and bright red laser dots danced on Flynn, Sancho, and Dulcinea.
Flynn held his hands over his head. “That date with Alyssa…You may need to reschedule
Three cigarette boats cut across the dark, choppy water. Each boat had twin eight hundred horsepower engines that generated speeds of up to sixty knots.
Flynn found himself handcuffed and on the deck with an Israeli-made Galil assault rifle trained on his face. Besides the pilot, there were three other commandos keeping watch. With the sun peeking over the horizon, Flynn could make out the chopper hovering above. It was a Super Cobra attack helicopter with a 20 mm Gatling gun and heat-seeking Hellfire missiles.
The sun climbed even higher and the fog began to burn away, revealing Angel Island on the horizon. It was a bright coppery brown, topped with a deep verdant green. Light sandy beaches ringed its edges. Soon Flynn could make out buildings and structures and a small harbor. Buildings were in the Southern California style; stucco with red tile roofs. As they approached the harbor, the helicopter buzzed overhead and off to a helipad a short distance away.
A reception party waited for them on the docks. In the center stood a tall man in a dark suit, flanked by a dozen commandos in flak jackets. The tall man wore mirrored sunglasses. He wasn’t smiling and didn’t look happy to see them. Flynn and the others were led up a short ramp to where the man in the dark suit waited. He was taller than Flynn and had wide-shoulders. His voice was flat and Southern with the clipped cadence of a military man.
“Welcome to Angel Island. My name is Mr. Harper.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
William Walker, an American doctor, lawyer, journalist, and mercenary, organized a private military expedition to Baja, California in 1853. His plan was to conquer the Baja peninsula and steal it away from Mexico. He commanded a force of forty-five men and managed to capture La Paz. He appointed himself President of the Republic of Lower California and held onto power for three months before being chased out of the country by the Mexican army. In his mind, he was conqueror, destined to create a new American Empire. Some saw him as a bold champion of Manifest Destiny. To others he was simply delusional.
Randall Beckner didn’t need an army to take Angel Island. Just money. Even so, he never bought into the notion that “whoever dies with the most toys wins.”
There were only so many toys a man could play with. He was more concerned with his legacy. His father had made a small fortune in real estate. Beckner took that small fortune and turned it into 16.2 billion dollars. He was lionized and respected, criticized and vilified and he knew that all that attention, good and bad, was simply the price of doing business. As long as he could push along his agenda, he didn’t care what the press said about him. He believed in the free market and free trade, in the global economy and cheap labor. He believed that a rising tide raises all boats. Of course, if some of the boats were leaky and couldn’t stay afloat, that was just too bad. That was just the natural order of things. Natural selection. Survival of the fittest. After a ninety-minute massage, a snifter of Remy Martin, and a half an Ambien, Randall Beckner teetered on the edge of sleep. The sudden thunderous roar of the helicopter pumped him with adrenalin and woke his ass right up. He stared at the ceiling. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. He considered getting up, but it was 3:00 a.m. and he needed his rest. The conference started again in six hours and he needed to be fresh. Alert. On top of his game.
He created the annual Angel Island Conference to extend his influence and cement his power—modeled it on Herbert Allen’s Annual Sun Valley retreat for communication moguls and the titans of Wall Street. Ten of the richest men in the world would gather and confer and discuss the future. They’d exchange ideas and make deals, go deep sea fishing and play poker. They would give talks and have round table discussions, frolic in the surf, and get hot oil rubdowns.
Beckner believed, like most billionaires, that the reason that billionaires were billionaires was because they were smarter than mere millionaires. The fate of the world wasn’t in the hands of governments or presidents or kings. It was in the hands of multinational corporations run by men like Beckner. He believed that putting all that brain power together for a week, once a year, would help not only them, but contribute to the well-being of the entire world economy.
He pulled off his CPAP mask, climbed out of bed and looked out the window to see what all the ruckus was about. There were boats and lights and security men and that damn helicopter landing on the helipad.
He brought billionaires t
o Angel Island to impress them. And all this commotion at 3:00 a.m. was not exactly impressive.
What was impressive was the centerpiece of Angel Island; his ten thousand square foot manor house built on the crest of the highest hill. Surrounding the manor house were lush landscaped grounds dotted with ten opulent guest villas, each with its own private terrace, native Mexican art, and luxurious furnishings. There were three infinity pools and four large Jacuzzis adorned with colorful hand-crafted ceramic tiles. There were conference rooms, huge dining patios, tiki huts with rope hammocks, a driving range, and a private airport.
Beckner watched as security led three people off one of the cigarette boats. It was too far to see who they were, but he assumed they were local fisherman. They often strayed too close to the island. Guards marched them towards the security compound on the other side of the estate. It accommodated a company of one hundred commandoes. Most of the men were ex-military, now working as private contractors. Many were veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. The structure also contained an interrogation room that doubled as a large holding cell. Beckner climbed back into bed, took the other half of the Ambien, reattached his CPAP mask, closed his eyes, and hoped for the best.
Dulcie, Flynn, and Sancho sat side by side at a long table in the interrogation room. They were damp and dirty and tired as hell. Their clothes were torn, they had bruises and scabs, and Dulcie, for one, was in desperate need of a hair brush. All three had their wrists bound in front of them with Flexi-cuff plastic handcuffs. Mr. Harper sat on the opposite side of the table. He looked relaxed as he watched Sancho and Dulcie drink water from Dixie cups. Armed commandoes stood in each corner of the room.
Flynn was agitated. “You’re wasting precious time! Mr. Beckner and his guests are in great danger!”
“You claim that men are coming here to kidnap them.”
“Yes! Why do we keep going over this?”
“And you’re with who?”
“I told you! Her Majesty’s Secret Service!”
Harper saw Dulcie roll her eyes. “What about you Miss? Are you with Her Majesty’s Secret Service?”