“If he’s flesh and blood, he can be killed,” Stockwell said.
“Have you ever been up the Manamo, Colonel? The river itself can kill you in half a heartbeat, and the jungle around it is practically impenetrable and just as deadly. There’s still people back in those jungles that’ve never seen a white man or a gun. The brotherhood carved out a huge swath of it, surrounded by the river and a huge, guarded wall.”
“My operative isn’t without talent and skill.”
“And you want me to take him up there?” Thurman asked. “That what you came down here for? Those fuckers’ll shoot my ass on sight.”
“Then you’ll have to not be seen,” Travis said.
“Good luck with that, man,” Thurman snorted. “It ain’t about not being seen up there. It’s about not being seen, heard, smelled, or sensed. There’s piranha and crocs in the water, and jaguars in the jungle. They know you’re there, no matter what you do. And they tell Babo.”
“You getting superstitious in your old age?”
“Fuck off, Colonel. You don’t know the jungle here.”
“I can get you a boat,” Travis said. “Faster and tougher than Wipe This.”
“No such animal. On the Manamo, speed’ll kill you dead anyway. A boat’s gotta be nimble and able to run shallow enough to glide across a water puddle. The river’s plenty wide, but the sand bars are constantly shifting. People’ve tried hovercraft, but if one errant tree branch snags the skirt and rips it off, you got yourself a fifty-mile-per-hour hunk of shit heading straight for the spot where it’s gonna kill you.”
“Twenty-eight-foot tunnel boat, with twin waterjet engines.”
“That’s been done, too,” Thurman said, pulling a flask from his pocket and taking a drink. His lips pulled back in a grimace as the fiery liquid burned its way down to his empty stomach. “Sand gets sucked up into the strainers and clogs the cooling system.”
“Air-cooled engines,” Stockwell said. “A pair of turbo-charged vee-twin motorcycle engines on steroids. A friend came up with the idea, and I had the boat built just for this op. It’s yours if you help.”
“Motorcycle engines? You gotta be shittin’ me. Wipe This has twin one-tens.”
“Each one produces over a hundred and eighty horsepower.”
“Out of a motorcycle engine?”
“Not your standard Harley,” Stockwell replied. “They’ve been specially adapted to work in the boat, with big cooling fans.”
“And all I gotta do is take your guy into the jungle and drop him off?”
“You’ll do it?” Stockwell asked, leaning on the pier railing and looking out over the water. “I can have the boat here in two days, so you can get used to it. My operator will be here in three.”
“Why not bring him in with the boat?”
“She is under sail, Napper. Arriving in the Caymans tomorrow. That’s another thing. Do you still have that little airfield and hangar?”
“She?” Napier asked, incredulously. “You’re sending a woman into that jungle after Babo? Are you fucking nuts?”
“She’s not your average woman,” Stockwell said. “Now, do you still have the hangar?”
“Sure, but it’s nowhere near water for a sailboat to get to.”
“In two days, she’ll be in the air, arriving here in three.”
The big man scratched at his scraggly beard. “No offense, Colonel, but something just don’t add up here. In the big picture, the babo’s small potatoes. Sure, he’s probably raped and killed a bunch of indigenous people down there, and I know for a fact he’s killed some of his own and probably done a lot worse than that. But why would the American government put a contract on him?”
“This particular operative,” Stockwell began, choosing his words carefully, “has been on sort of a probationary status for a while. This is what you might call a test.”
“A test? And you wanna rope me into it?”
“Oh, she’s perfectly capable,” Stockwell replied. “It’s just that on her last mission she sort of went off the reservation.”
“Off the reservation? Is that your way of saying overkill?”
Stockwell nodded. “In the literal sense of the word.”
“And the Puzzle Palace up in DC wants to do a reboot, but on a smaller scale?”
“Something like that,” Stockwell replied. “Are you in?”
After the murder by the river, Leon and his men climbed back into the aluminum-skinned boat. The piranha did not take long to consume the body of the small boy, leaving little but tattered clothing over bones.
“Navarro!” Leon shouted as the boat backed off the crushed canoe. “Babo wants to see you at his house tonight when the sun goes down. Do not make him wait.”
Vicente looked down at his ruined canoe, shrugged, and walked away toward his hut. Miguel Anders and the others followed him at a distance, the woman still very distraught.
“What will you do, Buyei?” Anders asked the shaman in Spanish, as the two men walked ahead of the others.
Vicente shrugged. “I will go see the babo.”
Miguel stopped on the trail for a moment, until Vicente also stopped and turned toward him. “The babo is evil,” Miguel said. “He will kill you just for fun. Besides, how will you get there?”
“He killed your harvester to make a point,” Vicente said. “He will not kill me, and that was not my only bongo.”
The two men continued walking toward Vicente’s hut. When they reached it, Vicente stirred the cook fire and added more wood. Miguel sent his wife home with the smaller children. The two men, Miguel’s oldest son, and Vicente’s two young field workers sat down at the fire.
From a bag next to the fire, Vicente produced a long slender pipe and a small pouch. He filled the pipe with dried yopo seeds and lit it with a twig from the fire.
Passing the pipe to Miguel, Vicente said, “A spirit came to me last night, right here on this very spot. She looked like a child of the Wanadi, but inside she radiated a white light.”
Miguel pulled slowly on the pipe, relighting it with another twig. Sharing the yopo seed with the buyei was a great honor. Holding his breath for a moment, he gently waved the smoke, curling from the end of the pipe, up and over his head, as he’d seen the old shaman do at times. The field workers were not yet men and not permitted to partake of the yopo.
“Did this spirit tell you something?” Miguel asked, unsteadily passing the pipe back to Vicente. He was already feeling the effect of the hallucinogenic seeds. Miguel had lived on the land next to Vicente for many years, but they rarely spoke. The older man was a buyei of the boat people and Miguel was a simple peasant farmer of the forest people. Sitting by the fire, smoking the yopo with the old shaman, gave Miguel a feeling of importance.
“Yes,” Vicente softly replied. He relit the pipe once more, before continuing in an almost reverent voice “Her appearance was at first confusing to me. Yet I know this spirit was sent by the Mother of the Forest. The spirit said for me to do as the itoto tell me. She conveyed that when the time was right, she would descend on our enemy and banish them to the Snake of Being, where they belong.”
Miguel nodded his head, pleased that the old shaman already knew what would happen. “It is good, then.”
Vicente turned to the older of his two apprentices. “Go to the people. Tell the elders I wish them to meet me here tonight, when Choco is directly overhead.”
Without a word, the young man rose and ran off toward the river where he’d left his canoe.
“Return to your field, Miguel,” the old man said. “I will await another visit from this spirit. Take this nibora with you, so that he may continue to work in place of your lost nibora.”
Together, Miguel and the two boys rose and went in the direction of the low fence separating the land used by the two men. They would work until the sun touched the surrounding treetops, giving the boy from town enough daylight to make it home safely.
Vicente tapped the ashes from the pipe and r
epacked it. Before lighting it, he took a charred twig that had fallen away from the fire and used it to make jagged lines low across his forehead and cheeks. From his pack, he removed a cloth that was dyed red using achiote seeds. Vicente carefully folded the cloth from corner to corner and rolled it into a bandana, which he then tied around his head. Satisfied, he relit the pipe and drew deeply, swathing the smoke over his face and head.
Eyes closed, he waited for the light spirit to return.
Wind Dancer and Osprey arrived in Cayman waters several hours before daybreak. Charity and Josh both called ahead to Port Authority and were told there was an overtime charge to gain entry after hours.
“Can we anchor in North Sound until the Customs office opens?” Josh asked.
The Port Authority man directed both boats to an anchorage in North Sound, near Governor’s Creek. He explained that they could clear in at Georgetown, if the cruise ships weren’t in the way, or at Cayman Yacht Club.
Anchoring in twelve feet of water, off Governor’s Creek, both boats flew the quarantine flag, signifying that they had not yet cleared customs. The engine in the Alexanders’ boat had continued to run slightly hotter than usual the whole way, but within its normal operating range, so it hadn’t been a big concern.
With little else to do, Charity put her new dinghy in the water, with help from Angela. Leaving the boat wasn’t legal and Charity knew it, but she needed to get separated from the Alexander family. She and Angela motored quietly over to where the Osprey was anchored less than a hundred feet away. Tonia already had breakfast ready for the whole group.
“I want to thank you for all your help, Gabby,” Josh said, as Charity stepped over into the Osprey’s cockpit.
“A pleasure,” Charity replied, still using her slight Cuban accent. “Having Angela aboard made my passage a lot more restful. She’s a fine sailor.”
Tonia insisted that she join them for a quick breakfast, but as soon as they finished eating, Charity said her goodbyes and returned to the Dancer, telling the Alexanders that she wanted to get some rest before checking in with Immigration and Customs.
“I’m going into the creek as soon as it’s light,” Charity told Josh. “I’m meeting a friend at the yacht club for lunch.”
“Too steep for us,” Josh said. “We’ll clear in at the Georgetown dock and grab one of the free Port Authority mooring balls.”
Charity liked the Alexanders, but needed to be clear of them before meeting with Director Stockwell. She really was tired, but she also needed to check for a message from him. The director had said he’d meet her somewhere on Grand Cayman this morning. Opening her laptop, she signed in on the secure email client and there was indeed a saved message in the drafts folder.
Lunch at noon. Casa Havana, at the Westin on Seven Mile Beach.
TS
After deleting the message, she typed in a one word reply— Affirmative—and saved it in the folder.
Lunch? How is he going to bring a rifle and the other gear to a restaurant? Charity wondered.
This was outside the parameters of what they’d discussed beginning several months ago. They’d agreed from the outset that there would be no further contact with any of the team members after she left. Contact with the director himself would be kept at a minimum, and only through the saved email drafts and an occasional text message or phone call on her secure satellite phone.
For the next hour, Charity cleaned and straightened up the cabin, converting the settee back to a table. Finished, she stripped down to just a tee-shirt and climbed into her bunk for a few hours of sleep, still wondering why the director wanted a face-to-face meeting.
Light was shining through the starboard porthole when Charity awoke. The narrow shaft of light fell on the dark-stained wooden hatch of the hanging closet, the angle telling her it wasn’t very long past sunrise. Checking her watch, she confirmed that it was just past eight o’clock local time.
Charity rose, turned on the hand-held VHF, and contacted Port Authority to ask about entry at the yacht club. The man told her he’d relay the message to Immigration, Customs, and Mosquito Control. They’d be happy to come to her at the marina, and would probably be there in thirty minutes or less.
She contacted the marina to see about renting a slip until the following morning. The marina operator told her there was plenty of room, and assigned her to a slip with shore power and water hook-ups, very close to the marina office.
“I plan to sleep the day away,” Charity said. “I’ll be leaving in the morning. Is there a slip further away, where it might be more peaceful?”
The marina operator gave her a different slip number, and directions to it. Dressing quickly in a loose-fitting green halter dress she’d bought in Cozumel, Charity went to the galley to start the coffeemaker, then up to the cockpit with the last of her bananas and a mug of coffee. She noticed that the Alexanders’ trawler was already gone.
Minutes later, she had the engine started and pulled the anchor from the sandy bottom, marveling at how clear the water in the sound was. She found her assigned slip easily enough, at the end of the longest pier, and was pleased to see a marina employee waiting to help with the lines as she approached.
Once the Dancer was tied up and she’d tipped the young man, she went below to refill her coffee mug, returning to the cockpit to wait for the officials to arrive and grant her entry.
The wait wasn’t long; she’d barely finished half of her second cup before the officials arrived. She filled out the required forms, declaring nothing, and the Mosquito Control man went into the salon to spray his chemical fog.
“You must leave the cabin closed up for at least five minutes,” the guy in the white jumpsuit told her. “Not to worry, di fog won’t hurt you, only di mosquitos.”
Charity had reservations about that, and planned to leave the cabin closed and locked while she went to the marina store. Then she’d leave it open for an hour to air out.
The Customs man stamped Charity’s passport and she paid the entry fee, then grabbed her oversized shoulder bag and went to the marina office to take care of business, get directions to the Westin, and hopefully buy provisions for the next leg of her journey.
Returning to the Dancer, she placed her bag of groceries on the port bench and opened the main hatch. Taking a deep breath, she hurried down the ladder, opening the portholes in the salon and the overhead hatch in the forward stateroom.
Her lungs were burning for oxygen when she grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and climbed quickly back up the ladder. On deck, she exhaled and drew in a few deep breaths. She didn’t want to take any chances with whatever chemicals the bug man sprayed.
The morning was still cool. The prevailing southeasterly wind was light, fresh and clean as it blew across the Dancer’s bow. It carried a mixture of scents from all around the anchorage. She retrieved her hammock from the storage box under the port bench and strung it up under the boom to relax for a while before putting the groceries away.
Feeling not the least bit refreshed after an hour nap, Charity stowed the groceries and walked back down the long dock to the marina office. The man there had assured her that a cab could arrive within just a few minutes to take her anywhere on the island, if one wasn’t already parked there.
As she approached the front of the building, a cab was just pulling into the driveway. It stopped in front of the marina office, and a tall, blond man climbed out of the front passenger seat. He was obviously an American, judging by the Def Leppard tee-shirt he wore. Charity angled toward the cab, picking up her pace.
The man was athletically handsome, Charity noticed as she got closer. His tan rivaled her own, and he moved with methodical intent, seeming completely sure of who he was and what he was doing. He paid the driver, waving off the change, and turned toward Charity and the boat slips.
The cab driver looked at Charity questioningly, and she waved to let him know she needed a ride. The tall man strode toward her, nodding his head as h
e passed, his eyes masked by a pair of dark blue wrap-around sunglasses like some fishing guides wore.
Charity nodded back at the man and continued toward the cab. The scent of his aftershave or cologne wafted back toward her on the breeze.
“Can you take me to the Westin?” she asked the driver.
“Course I can,” he replied with a gap-toothed grin.
Charity walked around and opened the front passenger door, looking toward the slips where the man had been heading. He was nowhere to be seen. Like a ghost, he’d been swallowed up by the wind and carried away. Getting into the car, she found that his scent lingered, mixed with the pungent smell of ganja that seemed to permeate the fabric inside the car.
Minutes later, the cab pulled under the portico of the Westin, and Charity got out. She paid the driver and also refused the change. A man she’d worked with a few times had mentioned how beneficial it was to stay in good graces with cab drivers. Jesse McDermitt was a retired Marine, and was sometimes hired to transport field operatives for Director Stockwell’s group. He’d mentioned more than once how cab drivers and bartenders were always good sources for local information, as many people barely noticed them when talking to others.
Inside, she asked about the Casa Havana at the front desk and the desk clerk instructed her to just follow the long corridor to the left. It was in the back of that wing, facing the sea.
Entering the restaurant, she spotted the director right away. He was sitting just where she’d expect him to sit: in a corner, back to the wall, with windows on either side. He wasn’t looking at the scenery, though. He was staring straight at her.
Stockwell rose as Charity approached the table. “You could pass for a Latina woman any day,” Stockwell said, holding out the chair next to him.
Charity sat down, somewhat uncomfortable. “Why the meeting?” she asked, deciding to get straight to the point. She feared that he might pull her off, after what happened in Mexico.
Apparently the apprehension showed on her face. “Relax,” he said. “There’s just been a slight change in plans. Care for a drink?”
Ruthless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 2) Page 4