“You wanna get it out of the water?” Snow asked.
“Nah, it can wait till morning. I was gonna run her harder tomorrow, but I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Won’t argue with you there,” Snow said. “Let’s go into town and blow off some steam.”
It was early afternoon when Charity brought her helicopter down on the tarmac at Piarco International Airport, ten miles east of Port of Spain. She had a room reserved at a nearby hotel, where she planned to rest up. In the morning, she was going to fly up to the home of the man she was supposed to meet. He had a small airstrip and a hangar there.
Before leaving her last fuel stop on Martinique, Charity sent a message to her handler, asking for more information on the man she’d be meeting. The saved reply contained an attachment, which she would open once she was in the hotel room. If the man was as trustworthy as Stockwell had said, she’d have him fly up the river with her to have a look around.
After securing the bird and checking in with Customs, Charity walked out the front door of the private aviation building and looked around. The small parking lot held a handful of cars, but no cabs. Off to the right, she saw a covered area with benches in front of the general aviation building. A lone taxi sat parked in the shade of the overhanging awning, its right tires up on the sidewalk; Charity assumed this was to get the car out of the direct sunlight. She walked toward the cab, her backpack and computer bag over one shoulder, and her small flight bag in her hand.
“Where to, Miss?” the cab driver asked as Charity approached.
“The Hyatt,” Charity replied, tossing her gear in the backseat and climbing in after it.
“Yes, Miss,” The driver replied, starting the engine. “No plane s’posed to be in for another hour. Did you come in on dat helicopter?”
Charity opened a side pouch of her backpack and searched around inside with her hand. Zipping it closed, she checked the middle pouch and found the flat metal business card holder Stockwell said would be in it.
“Yes,” she said, handing a card to the driver and calling to mind what McDermitt had told her about cab drivers. “I’m a photographer and pilot with Tropical Luxury Magazine.”
“You di pilot and di photographer?”
“It allows me to visit beautiful places on my own and get paid for it,” Charity replied, noting the man’s name on the permit mounted to the dash. “I’m doing a multi-page layout on Trinidad, Devin—but mostly as a jumping-off point for anglers on the Manamo River.”
The cab bounced off the curb, the driver taking lefts and rights out to the main road. There, he pulled out onto Churchill Roosevelt Highway, headed west toward the coast. “Fishing on dat river? Yuh might catch piranha, not sure what else dere is.”
Ten minutes later, the cab pulled up to the hotel. Charity gave the driver a decent tip and walked inside. She breezed through the check-in process and was in her room just minutes later.
Powering up her laptop, she carried it out onto the balcony, to acquire a better satellite signal. A small table and two chairs were set up, facing the water. The view was magnificent, the water stretching out to the horizon.
For just a moment, Charity felt cheated. Two chairs, a romantic view—they probably even had a hot tub in the bathroom. A place for vacationing couples. She quickly pushed the thought aside and sat down, clicking the desktop icon to connect with the satellite.
Once the saved file was downloaded, Charity opened it and began reading about Thurman Napier. She scanned the ten-page dossier, picking out the high points of the man’s past. He’d enlisted in the Army at age seventeen and was sent to Vietnam for his senior trip. At nineteen, he was sent there a second time, attached to the Army’s vaunted 101st Airborne Division.
As she scanned the document, a name caught her eye. A young lieutenant by the name of Travis Stockwell had recommended Napier for a Silver Star medal. Their unit had been nearly overrun by the enemy. Napier was a sergeant and, although wounded twice, he continued to direct his men, often charging from one position to another through a hail of small arms fire. He’d been shot and thought killed twice, but only lost consciousness for a minute or two before springing back up and engaging the enemy once more.
Connections made in combat sometimes last a lifetime, Charity thought.
As evening approached, she called down to find out where the restaurant was located. The desk clerk told her she had several choices, including the rooftop pool bar, which served lighter fare.
Before leaving her room, Charity changed into a swimsuit, wrapping a colorful sarong around her waist. A few laps in the pool might help her unwind. She also called the number Stockwell had given her for Thurman Napier.
“Yeah,” a gruff sounding voice replied after three rings.
“Mister Napier, my name is Gabby Fleming. A mutual friend gave me your number.”
“I ain’t got any friends, lady,” Napier replied with a low moan. “What do you want?”
“The friend’s name is Travis,” Charity said. There was silence on the other end. “Are you still there?” she asked. “The friend’s name is…”
“Yeah, I heard ya,” Napier interrupted, with a groan. “Are you on the island?”
“Yes, I’m staying at the Hyatt. I’d like to fly upriver in the morning. Are you available as a guide?”
The man laughed. “A guide, you say? You planning some kinda half-assed fishing expedition?”
“Something like that,” Charity replied. “Look, I want to do just a basic fly-by, no stops. It’d be a big help, if I knew what it was I was flying over. I can pay you extra.”
Napier laughed again, followed by another moan. “Look, lady, I don’t need your money. Right now, you’re interrupting a pretty decent blowjob, though. Where ya want me to meet you in the morning?”
Ugh, Charity thought. Way too much information.
“Give me the GPS numbers where your house is located. I was told you had an airstrip.”
Charity wrote the numbers down, as Napier gave them to her. He ended the call with a low moan and Charity had a sudden urge to wash her phone with industrial-strength disinfectant.
When she got to the rooftop pool and bar, she gave up on any notion of swimming; the pool was full of rowdy teenagers. Instead, she took a seat at a table in the corner of the rooftop terrace, overlooking the Gulf of Paria.
A waiter brought her a glass of water almost instantly, taking her drink order and leaving a menu.
“I’ve seen you before,” a man said, from the next table.
She looked over her menu at him. He was obviously American, but without any discernable regional accent. She recognized him immediately. She’d seen him at the marina on Cozumel, as she was getting into the cab to meet Stockwell. Her senses went on full alert, though outwardly she only smiled.
“Three days ago on Cozumel,” Charity replied, a slight Cuban accent to her voice. From behind her dark sunglasses, she scanned the rooftop. “You were just arriving, and I was on my way to meet a friend.”
The man smiled and took his sunglasses off. “Ah, now I remember. You took my cab.”
“I wasn’t aware it was yours.”
“I’d just come from a meeting,” he said, smiling again. His blue eyes seemed to sparkle with mischief. “Just needed to grab my bags from the boat, before catching a flight here.”
Is this guy following me? Charity wondered. Does he know something?
Taking one of the phony business cards from her purse, she extended it to the man. “Gabby Fleming, I’m a photojournalist with Tropical Luxury Magazine.”
Taking the card with his left hand, he reached across Charity’s table with his right. “Rene Cook, thrill and adventure junkie.”
Charity took his offered hand. “What kind of thrills brought you all the way across the Caribbean without your boat?”
“Mango festival,” he replied with a sheepish grin.
The wind had blown a strand of hair across her face; Charity pushed it behind her ear. “Mangos
?”
“Best in the world,” he replied, studying her card and frowning. “I assume you’re here for work, not for pleasure?”
Satisfied that there wasn’t anyone on the roof paying the two of them any attention, Charity decided that Rene was no threat, and smiled. “Is there a rule that a person can’t combine the two?”
Rene stood up suddenly. “Excuse me, I just remembered I have an appointment. Nice meeting you.”
“Sure,” Charity said, somewhat annoyed. “See you around.”
As he walked past, Charity noticed the same cologne that she’d smelled in the taxi. She followed him with her eyes as he wove through the tables toward the elevator.
The waiter interrupted her, asking if she were ready to order. When she looked again, Rene was gone. The elevator door opened and several more teenagers got out.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she told the waiter as she stood up, leaving a five-dollar bill on the table. “I’m going to have dinner in my room.”
The elevator opened instantly, when she pushed the down button. Nobody was inside. She stepped in and the door closed. The only scent in the small box was coconut suntan oil.
How could the man have disappeared from a rooftop? Charity wondered.
When she reached her room, Charity went to her laptop and powered it up. She typed a quick message, asking if there was another asset in the country besides Thurman Napier. She saved it, then went inside and used the desk phone to call room service.
When she returned to the balcony, there was a new saved message. No, why do you ask?
She quickly described meeting Rene, and her suspicions, giving a complete description of the man, then saved it. The reply came just a few seconds later.
Your quarry may have contacts in PoS. Proceed with caution.
TS
Charity decided that it would probably be best if she limited being seen for as long as she was here. She opened the file on her target and began to read through it again, much more slowly, while she waited for room service.
Rene managed to leave the rooftop, by way of the stairway behind the bar, without anyone noticing. When he reached his room, he went straight to his laptop. He’d recognized the woman instantly when she got off the elevator.
The Caribbean was over a million square miles, with thousands of islands. Cook’s instincts told him that the chances of seeing the same person on two islands hundreds of miles apart were very low—almost non-existent. But there was a slim chance that it was just coincidence. While he waited for the laptop to boot up, he examined the business card the woman had given him.
The font and raised texture of the words were all too familiar. He set it aside and dug through his computer bag until he found another business card, which he placed beside the woman’s.
Logging onto the hotel’s wifi, he searched Google for the woman’s name, but found nothing connected to photography. When he searched for the name of the company she worked for, he found quite a few hits. Searching again, with the woman’s name and the business name both in quotes, Google came up with only five results. He clicked on the first one and waited.
Cook studied the two business cards, side by side. The words were different, as was the logo, of course. But he’d been trained to look beyond the obvious and he felt pretty certain both cards were from the same source. Maybe not the same exact office, but he felt pretty certain they were both from the American government. He knew the one from his bag was fake, and felt pretty certain the woman’s card was, also.
The business card from his computer bag was one of his own. He rarely used them when he worked for Central Intelligence, unless they were phony and he was undercover. His job description entailed not being known.
The name on the cards he used now, Rene Cook, was an alias—as was the name of his boat. He’d come up with the name himself, taken from a novelist whose books he enjoyed. But she’d spelled the first name Renee, the feminine version. His new cards had been printed by a friend, and sent to him through a series of contacts. His passport and other identification had been created by the same friend in Coconut Grove, a suburb of Miami. The business cards he’d printed were different paper, with no raised letters.
The guy lived off the grid, in a way. He was a computer hacker and gamer who rarely ventured outside his small house. Everything he needed, he purchased on the Internet and had shipped to his house. His groceries were delivered weekly. No, Marcus wouldn’t be the one who divulged where Rene was located. All he knew was that Rene was somewhere in the Caribbean.
A couple who lived aboard their yacht at the marina on Grand Cayman were keeping an eye on his boat while he was away. He didn’t like leaving his boat, but he didn’t want to miss the annual festival. Weather delays in the Caymans put him beyond the window he could sail here.
Rene checked his email. Nothing from the couple in the next slip. He composed a quick note to them that he’d arrived safely and innocently asked if everything was okay there. He sent the message and sat back in the chair to think, while staring out the glass sliding door at the water. The sun was nearing the horizon.
A few minutes later, his laptop pinged. It was a reply from the couple looking after his boat. From the woman, it seemed, though they shared a single email address. She wrote that Ken was still out on a dive and everything at the marina was boring and she was going to go shopping. No mention of anyone around his boat.
Cook had once been a field agent with the CIA. His specialty was the Caribbean and South America and, for a time, he’d been an attaché at the American embassy in Bogota. He’d left the clandestine service nearly two years ago, fed up with the politics. He knew enough to permanently retire a number of U.S. congressmen and senators, as well as a few high-ranking people in the military.
Disappearing was something Victor Pitt, also known as Rene Cook, Simon Campbell, Will Souther, and several other aliases, was very good at. His code name with the Agency had been Smoke, because he could disappear in a puff of it.
If Gabby Fleming, or whatever her name really was, was an agent on his tail, she was sloppy. He knew the Agency wanted him back—or, at the very least, dead. Would they send a sloppy agent after him?
He decided he needed to be certain if the Agency had picked up his trail. He’d shadow the woman. If she really was after him, she’d tip her hand sooner or later. If so, one or the other of them would disappear in a puff of smoke.
And the nature of the smoke would be his choosing.
Before dawn, Charity was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved work shirt. She’d eaten breakfast in her room an hour before sunrise. She checked the hall in both directions, before walking quickly from her room to the elevator with her flight bag.
In the lobby, the only person in sight was the clerk at the desk, who smiled as Charity walked past. She nodded to the young man and continued out to the waiting taxi. She saw nobody outside, and looked out the back window of the cab several times during the short ride to the airport.
Minutes later, the driver dropped her off at the private aviation terminal. She looked all around and saw that there wasn’t a soul in sight, and the parking lot was empty. The door was locked, but they’d given her a key card like hotels used. She swiped the card; the door buzzed and she pulled it open, then went inside. Though it could be accessed by private aircraft owners, the private terminal wasn’t manned twenty-four hours like the main terminal.
Stepping out the back door to the tarmac, she again scanned the area. Hers was the only helicopter, but there were several small private planes and two larger corporate jets. They all sat silently in the dim yellowish glow of the lights around the apron and the sun just about to rise over the mountains.
She walked out to her bird, did a hasty walk-around, and released the tie-downs. Then she unlocked and slid the back door open, quickly climbing inside and closing it behind her. She opened the storage hatch and pushed the release for the false bottom, then lifted it out and removed her Sig from beneath it, stic
king the gun into her flight bag.
Climbing into the left seat, Charity stowed the bag under it and strapped in. She went through a quick preflight, raised the wheels to avoid a torque spin, then started the turbine. The sound was unusually loud in the quiet morning air.
Getting clearance from the tower, Charity lifted the chopper a few feet off the ground and, in the gathering light of day, taxied to the runway. In minutes, she was climbing and headed towards a gap in the mountains several miles to the east.
If the man she’d met was following her, Charity felt pretty confident that she’d left unseen by anyone besides the hotel clerk and the taxi driver.
Ahead, the peaks rose up sharply and Charity flew straight toward the highest one, knowing there was a gap just south of it and Napier’s land would be just beyond that.
As she banked right through the gap, the sun suddenly appeared. It hung just above crystal blue water to the east, though the west side of the island was still in the shade of the mountains. She put on her sunglasses and pointed the nose downward, following the contours of the mountain slope.
There were a few scattered farms, but Napier’s place was pretty easy to find. The strobe on the roof of his hangar set his apart from the farm houses, even in the bright sunlight of the new day.
Noting a tattered windsock at the end of the short airstrip, she turned slightly to approach upwind and gently set the bird down in the grass at the end of the strip.
As the rotors slowed, a large man stepped out of the hangar. He was taller than just about any man Charity had seen outside the freak shows her father had taken her to as a girl. His hair and beard were wild, and he wore a patch over his left eye.
Gee thanks, Colonel, Charity thought. You don’t want me to attract any attention and then you give me a gargantuan pirate for a guide.
Climbing out of the helo with her flight bag, Charity put it over her right shoulder, her hand inside gripping the Sig as the big man approached her.
“Thurman Napier?”
Ruthless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 2) Page 8