He had a two-week stubble from his neck to the top of his head, like a man who from time to time takes a razor to everything above his shoulders and then forgets it for a while. His face and arms were sunburnt and chapped except for two pale ovals around his unblinking dark eyes. Tactical sunglasses hanging around his neck by a strap explained the raccoon effect.
He was wearing a soldier’s web gear and harness over a green T-shirt, and faded camouflage fatigue pants in a national pattern I didn’t recognize. He had four GI magazine pouches on the front of the green web belt. They could each hold up to three spare thirty-round M-16 magazines. There were also a pair of canteens on the back of the web belt. I wondered if the Serb was a veteran of the Balkan wars in the nineties. He was old enough to have been there. A lot of older guys still liked the retro-style web gear and H-harness instead of more modern tactical vests. It was sort of minimalist, but it got the job done. No body armor, just the green T-shirt beneath the webbing straps.
The Serb had a carbine slung over his back, muzzle down. If it was fully automatic it was a military M-4, or an AR-15 variant if it was only semi-auto. They were just civilians on Topaz, so it was probably an AR clone. The compact rifle was a “flat-top” without the signature M-16 carrying handle. Instead, there was a full-size telescopic sight mounted on the top rail. Somewhere around a four-by-twelve zoom, judging by the diameter of the big objective lens in front. Bare glass on the front lens; there was no kill-flash screen to hide it.
The scope had large adjustment turrets, and although I couldn’t make out its brand name I had no doubt that it was of good quality and perfectly zeroed. To serve as the ship’s engineer he needed to be an expert on the German turbo diesels and all of the many complex hydraulic and electrical systems on board the megayacht. He would be intelligent and detail oriented. A scoped precision rifle would be a simple tool in his hands. No more than a 5.56 millimeter fly-swatter.
If I got my hands on that AR, I could turn the tables in an instant. I’d used dozens of nearly identical M-16s and M-4s with every type of scope made. I’d taken out a score of enemy insurgents with them when the lighter and faster-shooting gas operated rifles were a better mission fit than my bolt-action 7.62 millimeter M-40A3. I could kill these four men with four shots. But with my hands bound behind my back, the chances of that ever happening seemed damned unlikely.
Still, my mind spun out escape plans. Escape fantasies, more like it. Did every condemned prisoner have them on his way up the gallows steps? Perhaps it was a standard neurological reaction to imminent death. Did every doomed man have a final dream of bursting from his restraints and flying away, or of miraculous rescue? The cavalry riding over the hill, the Quick Reaction Force fast-roping in, throwing flash-bangs and making head shots on the bad guys? Nothing like that was going to happen here, four hundred miles southeast of Miami.
The Serb approached his boss and made his report in heavily accented English. “All the lines ashore are tied fast. The tender is launched and ready.”
Prechter stood and said, “Excellent. Bring up the girls.” Then he disappeared forward, through the galley toward the bridge.
Ridley restated and expanded Prechter’s orders like a sergeant major. “Right, Vuko, you get the big blond whore and bring her up first. Tell her to come easy or she’ll get more of what she got last night. Andre, you fetch the brunette slut. She’s more your size, so you should be able to handle her by yourself, right?”
Then Ridley turned to me. “And I’ll take care of you myself, Danny boy. Oh yes, you and I are going to get to know each other very, very well today. Intimately well.” He smiled at me, nodded and patted his knife in its sheath. Check that. My knife. My Ka-bar fighting knife.
I wasn’t surprised to see Brooke Tierstadt pushed from the galley into the saloon, but she was certainly shocked to see me. Shocked and confused. She was handcuffed behind her back, with a length of quarter-inch nylon rope tied around her neck. In one hand the Serb held the end of the rope like a dog leash, and with his other hand he grasped the knot at the back of her neck. She was wearing a loose-fitting white University of Miami T-shirt and knee-length blue shorts. The clothes that she’d been wearing for her walk to work, the clothes she’d been kidnapped in. The left side of her face was scraped raw, as if she’d taken a bad fall from a bike. Or been tackled to the ground on a parking lot. The scrapes to her cheek and jaw had been cleaned but not dressed or bandaged. She squinted down at me and said, “Marcus? Marcus Garnet? What in God’s name are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story,” I muttered. It was not my best morning for clever comebacks. Beaten dogs are rarely bubbling fountains of wit, despite what you may have seen in Hollywood movies.
Ridley said, “That blond bitch put up a better fight than you did, Yank. Before I could even handcuff her, she gave me these lovely stripes.” He grinned and felt the grooves gouged across his throat. “She’s a prize catch, oh yes she is! My kind of lassie—full of piss and vinegar. Oh, we’re going to have a fine day together. A fine day!”
Next into the saloon was Cori, prodded along by Andre, the monochrome chef. They were the same height, so he was about five-nine. Both girls were barefoot, like me.
Cori was also handcuffed behind her back, and there was another noose around her neck. These freaks knew how to control prisoners. Lots of practice. Probably bought their police handcuffs by the case lot. And their Tasers.
Cori still had on the clothes she’d been wearing when she left Rebel Yell. Skintight Capri jeans and the snug turquoise top that showed off her flat tummy. No bra, and with her hands cuffed behind her back her breasts were thrust out. But not at all sexy, of course, under the grim circumstances. Her manifest sensual beauty only heightened my fear of what was to come.
****
I looked up and said, “Hello, Cori.”
“Hello, Danny.” She didn’t appear to be surprised to see me. Her captors must have told her the news of my capture.
“I tried to find you. I tried. I really tried.” It was all I could do not to weep at the hopelessness of our situation.
Her long uncombed chestnut hair hung around her face and down almost to her waist. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying. “But at least you came for me. At least you came.” Her voice was subdued, almost blurred. Sorrowful, yes, but something else too. This was only a shadow of the spirited Cori Vargas that I knew so well. I guessed that she had been drugged into a compliant stupor for the past few days. Or perhaps she’d already been beaten or raped into a state of physical and mental collapse.
“What do they want, Danny? What do they want? They have money. They have everything. What do they want?”
What should I have said? Everything will be fine in just a minute, once we straighten out a few misunderstandings? I saw no point in sugarcoating the truth. “Richard Prechter is a psychopath. Something’s broken inside his head. And he’s gathered a little crew of madmen who share his psychosis.” I looked at each of Prechter’s men in turn. They just seemed amused by my analysis. Not bothered at all by my words. In fact, my observations only increased the breadth of their smiles. They were proud.
Cori said, “This is true, de verdad? You are in serious?”
“I wish I wasn’t.”
Prechter returned to the saloon and sat again in the middle of his sofa, obviously pleased by his audience of ebullient crew and terrified, bound prisoners. He patted the leather couch on each side of him, and gestured “bring them” to the Belgian and the Serb with casual waves of his hand. The girls were manhandled and shoved down to sit on either side of him, Cori to his right, Brooke to his left. I was the audience of one seated on the floor at his feet. Brooke tried to push herself away from him and the Serb gave her noose a sharp jerk and slapped the top of her head. Both girls were trembling with fear. I wasn’t doing so great myself.
Prechter looked at me and said, “And nothing is broken in your head, Dan Kilmer? How many people did you line up in your sniper scope an
d shoot down in cold blood?”
I stared straight back at him. “There’s no comparison. I shot terrorists who were planting bombs, and I shot fighters who were holding weapons in their hands. I’m nothing like you, Prechter. I never hunted innocent women the way you do. Not even close.”
“Oh, get off your high horse, Danny boy—killers are killers. Takes one to know one, right? And you don’t do so badly for yourself in the woman-hunting department, do you? The dashing young captain of his own sixty-footer, sailing into third-world ports and taking his pick of the young ladies…” He ran his fingers through Cori’s long hair and she recoiled away from him, but he only laughed and continued.
“Oh yes, I know about you and your little schooner. Cori told me all about you, and I found out a lot more. Lovely little mermaids like this one everywhere you drop your anchor.” He trailed his fingertips down Cori’s shoulder and arm and then squeezed her thigh. She jerked her knees away from him and tried to slide away. Prechter looked at her in mock sympathy, then back at me and said, “What young lady could resist such a generous offer when your offer is a free ticket out of third-world poverty?” He laughed again and threw me an exaggerated wink.
Cori shook her head defiantly and cursed at him in Spanish that was much too rapid for me to follow after her first maldita curse.
“We’re not so different, Dan. We both enjoy the ladies, each in our own special ways. And we use what small assets we have to attract them, true enough. Really, it’s only a matter of offering them a better lifestyle, isn’t it? I suppose even your decrepit old rust bucket would have a bit of charm in some of the poorer third-world ports.”
Cori cut her eyes at him and hissed, “I was never poor, you o-gly pig!” She was getting some of her spirit back.
“We’re nothing alike, Prechter. Guests come onto my boat by their own free will. I don’t need to send a goon squad out to kidnap girls off the street. And anybody can leave anytime they want.”
He feigned a yawn and then pointed at me. “You do it your way, and I’ll do it mine. To each his own, but really, the sanctimonious crap gets rather boring. Next, somebody is going to bring up my everlasting soul.”
Leaning against the bar and looming above me, Ridley grinned and said, “Oh, I do love it when they go on about Jesus bleedin’ Christ. It’s more laughs all around then, oh yes it is. And that’s when I like to use a big brass cross on ’em. Right up the old—”
Prechter held up a hand and said, “Not too vivid, Captain Ridley. We wouldn’t want to upset the ladies.” Then he clapped his hands together, rose from the sofa and said, “Now, unchain the sniper and let’s get started.”
Ridley crouched and dropped a slip-knotted noose over my head. He took out all the slack, cinching it down like a snug necktie. It was the same quarter-inch braided nylon line around the girls’ necks. He held the noose against my neck, looked in my face from only inches away and said, “Danny boy, if you get tricky, if you cause me the least little problem, I’m going to take your knife and cut that pretty Venezuelan lollipop’s face to ribbons. Then you can tell her you’re sorry for being stupid while she bleeds to death. So for once in your life don’t be stupid, okay?”
He grabbed me behind my neck with a powerful hand and slammed me forward, head down to the carpeted deck. I felt a blow to the back of my head and saw stars. Probably an elbow to encourage me to stay down. Another pair of handcuffs were applied to my wrists, on the other side of the footrest, and only then were the first pair removed. He stood and pulled me up to my feet by my noose. The handcuffs were ratcheted painfully tight, but I wouldn’t beg for lenient treatment from Trevor Ridley.
Prechter said, “Take them down to the tender and wait for me. It’s time to awaken Sleeping Beauty. I’ll be along in two shakes.” He disappeared forward past the formal dining area into the galley. Somewhere up there out of my sight were interior stairs leading down to the staterooms. To think that just a few hours before, I’d planned to infiltrate those rooms one at a time, killing the men with my Ka-bar and rescuing Cori and Brooke.
We were dragged though the saloon and out onto the after deck. Topaz was tied bow and stern to the land, moored in the center of the mini-harbor on Castigo Cay. This was my first close look at the yacht’s exterior in daylight. Even under the circumstances I couldn’t fail to note the first-class teak decks, the gleaming turquoise paint job and custom-made stainless fittings. Some “research vessel.” Richard Prechter was a sadistic serial killer with a nearly unlimited budget for fulfilling his evil fantasies, but I had to admit he had very nice taste in yachts. Obviously, his money, power and perverse charm were enough to attract a small crew of like-minded deviants to serve him.
We were shoved past the hot tub and down the starboard-side transom stairs to the swim platform. The white inflatable was tied alongside it, the big Yamaha engine idling quietly. The girls were made to step over the side tube onto the rigid-hulled inflatable’s fiberglass deck, and then pushed down to sit on the small padded bench seat extending from the front of the console.
As I stepped across, Ridley tripped me and shoved me facedown to the deck, then nimbly followed me over and put a boot on my neck, mashing my face against the non-skid just behind the center console. “Don’t get any ideas, Yank.” He kicked me in the ribs and then jerked me up to a sitting position by my noose, then sat down on the side tube above me. A leashed dog brought to heel. Sit. Stay. Choke collar and all.
****
We waited there for about five minutes. The water in the little harbor was calm and clear. Ridley sat on the tube behind me, holding my noose. I looked up at the sandy hill that ran the length of Castigo Cay and found the precise spot where I’d peered over the berm. I could have built a sniper’s hide up there two mornings ago and just waited. Topaz would have pulled in this morning directly beneath my Savage’s barrel. I could have picked these assholes off with ease, one after the other. Dead before they knew what hit them. When they were all on the dinghy would have been perfect.
And now look at me.
But who knew anything, two long days ago?
Richard Prechter came down the steps behind Senator Pete Sanchez, who was dressed in sapphire-blue silk pajama bottoms and a lighter blue cotton tank T-shirt. His chest hair was snow white, contrasting the silver-gray hair on his head. He stepped down onto the teak-decked swim platform, rubbing his eyes against the early morning sun and complaining of a lack of coffee. He seemed disoriented and agitated, as if he’d been abruptly awakened and told the yacht was on fire. He looked at the six passengers already seated aboard the tender and noticed something unusual about half of them. He spun around to his host and cried, “What is this? What is this? Richard, who are those people? Why are they tied up?” He stumbled backward against the closed boat garage bulkhead. “Wait—that’s—that’s the blond from the conference! What the hell is going on? Is this some kind of practical joke?”
“Pete…just get on the boat. Please.” Prechter was holding a brown daypack by its carry strap.
“Oh, no, I’m having nothing to do with this. Nothing!”
“But Pete, you already have everything to do with this, I’m afraid. Everything.”
“You’re out of your mind!” The senator turned to go back up the stairs to the after deck, as if some magical refuge of sanity would be found inside the yacht. Perhaps he would bury his head beneath a pillow and wish himself all the way back to Miami or Washington.
Prechter grabbed him by the neck and spun him back around. “Where are you going, Pete? What do you hope to accomplish up there? Nobody’s there to help you.”
“Ah, I, uh…well, um…it’s not—”
“Pete—let me be very clear. Do you see the ropes around those young ladies’ dainty little necks? If you don’t get on the boat—right now—I’m going to tell that large man with the colorful tattoos to tie the other ends of those ropes around your neck. Then I’ll tell him to toss you three into the water like pond kittens, and we’ll
see how far you can swim while they’re drowning.”
Prechter grinned, all collegial joviality once again. “Or we can all have a truly memorable day together on my island. It’s your call.” He patted the senator on the back and steered him toward the inflatable.
Trembling, eyes wide and mouth agape, the senator paused, reconsidered, and then stepped over the side tube of the boat. Prechter was the last to board. He stood behind the console and took the controls while the Serb cast off the lines. It was only a hundred feet from Topaz’s stern to the beach. The boat nudged up to the sand and the girls were dragged stumbling onto Castigo Cay by their rope leashes.
4
We were met at the beach by the other island guard, the second man I had glassed through my rifle scope only—it seemed impossible—two mornings before. Edward Medina, if memory served. Medina appeared to be Hispanic, was slight of stature and build, in his mid-twenties. He was wearing sneakers, blue jeans and a New York Yankees long-sleeve T-shirt, white with blue sleeves. He was unshaven and his dark hair was matted and unruly, as if he had only recently rolled out of his rack in the dormitory trailer. A black MP-5 submachine gun hung over his shoulder by a strap. It had a thin, curved, thirty-round magazine, and the collapsible stock was pushed all the way forward.
As soon as Prechter stepped ashore, he had immediate harsh words for his caretaker. “So, Eddie, your text said that Archy just disappeared into the ocean.”
“That’s right. He disappeared.”
“Nothing was taken? His clothes were left behind? And the gun was still there?”
“Everything was there except Archy—every damn thing. This is the gun. It was laying right across his shoes.” Eddie patted the MP-5 where it rested against his hip. He had a New York accent, so his Yankees fandom was probably legit.
“You’ve had a few days to look around since then. What do you think happened?”
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