Saving Sharkey

by Felicity Nisbet

  Too shocked to do otherwise, the culprit closest to me let his gun drop to the ground and put his hands in the air. However, the second guard was not so frantic and thought to grab Sharkey. He had a knife and strategically placed it across Sharkey’s throat. Shit. This was not going as well as I had hoped. Just when I was assessing what chance I had of shooting the guy without harming Sharkey, Sarai swung into action.

  She was only a few feet from the guard and despite having her hands tied behind her back, she managed to first kick him in the back of his leg and then again in the hip and finally aiming for his balls with more conviction and strength than with which I would have credited her. Her response gave Charlie and me time to relieve the moaning guard of his weapon. Unfortunately before we were able to do that, he had swung the knife in Sarai’s direction, slashing her arm in the process.

  “No!” Sharkey wailed and I knew just how close these two had grown.

  “Watch out!” came from Ella and my eyes immediately flew in the direction of the other guard. I aimed my gun and shot, knowing full well that if I missed my target before he had retrieved the gun he had dropped, someone else might well be injured or worse. I also was well aware that if I missed the culprit, the bullet I shot was likely to ricochet off the wall of this tunnel and cause the same harm.

  “Well done, laddie,” Charlie’s voice soothed my fearful heart. I looked up and saw that I had neatly lodged the bullet in the man’s leg.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Sharkey yelled. “Can someone untie us?”

  While Charlie motioned for the knife wielding offender to move closer to the injured culprit, he held his gun on both of them. I sank mine into my pocket, and started untying the rope around the wrists of the hostages and used it to tie the wrists of the reprobates.

  “Thank you,” came from three directions and then Sharkey was moving quickly toward the door into the house. “Where are the others? Where is Mok?”

  “He’s knocked out and tied up in the kitchen,” Charlie said. “The others, if all went well, are being held at gunpoint by your Westside Wanderers.”

  “What?” Sharkey pushed open the door and then pulled Sarai into his arms to comfort her for a moment before rushing to the kitchen to get a towel to stop the bleeding. “How the hell did—? And what was that whirring noise? Sounded like a helicopter landing on my soccer field.”

  “Aye, that it was. We called in the coast guard. They sent out a cutter and a dolphin,” Charlie said, as he and I, both with guns drawn now, nudged the reprobates into the house, the uninjured one aiding the other.

  “Is Sam okay?” Ella’s first question.

  “He should be fine. He’s down at the soccer field.”

  She didn’t wait to hear any more but ran for the front door. She opened it just as two coast guardsmen appeared.

  “Everything okay in here?” one called out.

  “Fine now,” I yelled. “But we could use a paramedic.”

  One of them turned and trotted back to the cutter and returned a few minutes later with a medical bag. Apparently these guys were trained to do more than catch the bad guys.

  “What’s happening down at the soccer field?” Charlie asked. “Is everything under control?”

  One of the men laughed and said, “I’m not sure you even needed us. It looks like your old boys team handled things just fine. How did you manage to pull it off?”

  “Probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Charlie said, “since only two of us are licensed to carry guns, but—”

  The coast guardsman who wasn’t tending to Sarai’s injury shrugged and said, “I have been accused of being forgetful on occasion. “

  Charlie chuckled. “We all had guns stashed in our soccer socks. I feigned an injury and my partner in heroics here, Malcolm, accompanied me up to the house for some ice. We knew the ring leader”—he nodded at the semi-conscious Mok who was still lying on the kitchen floor—“would follow us. We knocked him out and sprung into action. Fortunately we knew where the access to the hidden tunnel was. We covered both entrances and headed in, disarmed the culprits—with Sarai’s help”—he gave her a big smile which she returned—“and that’s when you arrived.”

  “How did you organize the soccer players to coordinate their capture of the others?”

  Charlie and I looked at each other and grinned. “They waited for a signal from Father O’Malley.”

  “Father O’Malley? There’s a priest down there?”

  “Aye, indeed there is,” Charlie said. “A mean striker he is too.”

  Sharkey had turned his attention from Sarai to our conversation. “What kind of signal was that?” he asked. “Crossing himself, I suppose?”

  “Wiser than you look,” Charlie said. “We told him to wait until fifteen minutes after we had left the field and then to give the signal to pull their weapons. Little did the bad guys know that most of the good guys had no idea what to do with them. They could have as likely shot themselves as the criminals.”

  “Very clever,” Sharkey said, patting first Charlie on the back and then me. “Risky but clever.”

  None of us disagreed.

  Chapter 23

  “Thank you, laddies,” Sharkey said as he handed us each a pint. The authorities had taken Mok and his crew into custody, handcuffing them and escorting them to the coast guard cutter. Mok managed to give us all a seething look as if to say we had destroyed his life. He did have one final threatening glance reserved for Sarai that was as telling as any words. He would find a way to make her pay for his plans going awry. I didn’t know about her, but it sent chills up my spine.

  The Westside Wanderers had taken the rented boat back to Gael Island, with Father O’Malley at the helm. I only hoped he could keep under control their jubilance which came with playing swat team and emerging as heroes. And I did wonder at the wisdom of Sharkey’s sending a case of beer with them on their journey.

  “We’re at your service,” Charlie responded to Eddie as he took the Guinness “Anytime.”

  “Like hell,” I said. “How did you get yourself into this mess anyway?”

  “Can I wait for the FBI to debrief me so I don’t have to repeat myself?”

  “Not a chance,” Charlie said. “Not after what we’ve been through.”

  “Well, if you will, let me check on Sarai first.”

  “The coastguardsmen cleaned her cut well and bandaged it. It was only a superficial wound. She’ll be fine, I’m sure,” Charlie said.

  “I know she is physically, but she’s very frightened.”

  “As all of you were, I’m sure,” I said.

  “Aye, but she has more at stake. She still stands to be deported.”

  “There’s one way to save her from that fate,” Charlie pointed out.

  “And that is exactly what I plan to tell her, it is.”

  Charlie and I laughed. “A third marriage after all. I wonder how Maureen and Declan will react to that news,” Charlie said.

  “I do believe they’ll be so relieved to have their father home that they will not mind one bit,” I said.

  I punched in Maureen’s number and found Sharkey standing beside Sarai, comforting her. I quickly handed him the phone. “I think there are a couple of people who would like to hear from you.”

  After Sharkey reunited with his children via cell phone and gave them a condensed version of what had happened and promised to return home the following day after the FBI had a chance to debrief him, he proposed to Sarai. Right there in front of us. That easily. That smoothly. And well enough to get an exuberant yes that I truly believed had nothing to do with the lass’s desire to stay in the country.

  Then he turned back to us and, with a broad grin on his face, said, “So, what took the two of you so long?”

  Charlie and I chuckled and he responded with, “Well, we did have a few stumbling blocks along the way.”

  “And what might those have been?”

  “For one, your reputation as a wandering adventu
rer.”

  “Och, aye, that would give the wrong impression. Anything else?”

  We lowered our voices although Sarai and Ella were now in the kitchen throwing together some sandwiches. “Sarai told us she had heard from you and that you were in Thailand.”

  His sigh was heavy. “They told her what to say. She did what they told her for fear that they would harm me.” The sadness in his eyes revealed the pain he had suffered these past weeks. “They sought my cooperation the same way. Only they threatened to harm all four of us if I didn’t sign over Tara Island to them.”

  “Ah, yes, an ideal location for their smuggling operation. A perfect way station.”

  “Precisely. I was starting to worry they would go after Maureen and Declan to persuade me to, but thank God, they didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you sign over Tara?”

  “I knew that as soon as I did, we would all be dead. The night they took me, my dogs were barking fiercely so they threw them on the boat to shut them up. They hardly fed the poor creatures. They were starving. Then, later when we were out in the Strait near Tara, they decided they didn’t want them barking on the island and attracting attention so, without a moment’s hesitation, they threw the poor wee beasts overboard.” His eyes were watering and he shook his head in disgust. “I knew they would do the same with us.”

  “Speaking of your dogs—” I said.

  “What?”

  “They were found.”

  “They’re alive?”

  “They are—alive and well and living on Anamcara Island with three lovely ladies who have become very attached to them.”

  Sharkey’s grin made him look years younger than he had only moments earlier. “Would one of those lovely ladies happen to be Jenny McNair?”

  “Aye, indeed,” I answered.

  “And if you’re asking me if they can stay in their new homes, the answer is yes.”

  “You don’t need to consult with Maureen and Declan?”

  “I think not. After they dumped the wee beasts on me? And after what you’ve done for me?”

  Charlie was only half listening to our conversation, distracted by questions swirling around in his wee head, I was sure. “Mok must have realized though that had you signed over Tara Island to them, the police, or a couple of bumbling PI’s would have traced the disappearance of four people to them.”

  “They had an elaborate scheme to prove I had sold the island to them, including a phone call from me to Maureen and Declan telling them as much and my appearance in various locations proving I was alive well after they had ‘purchased’ Tara Island.”

  “They did not try to access your bank accounts?” Charlie asked.

  “They only seemed interested in Tara, but I suppose they feared that the withdrawal of a large sum of money could somehow be traced back to them or at least be an indication of foul play which would lead to an investigation.”

  “Aye, that is true,” Charlie said.

  “My stubbornness is what saved us, I believe. They had not worn me down to the point that they felt they could trust me to comply with their orders.”

  “I assume Mok was the ring leader?” Charlie asked.

  “Aye, indeed. And here I thought I was being hospitable showing him the island. A blithering idiot is more like it! I even showed him the tunnel!”

  “No wonder his English is so good. How long has he been smuggling people into the country?” Charlie asked.

  “Ah, so did you figure out yourselves what he’s been doing or was it from the information I gave the coast guard?”

  “We did make an educated guess. We were not certain of what they were smuggling until now,” I said. “Remembering how Sarai was so tight-lipped about her entry into the country, made us suspect it was people they were smuggling.”

  “Apparently they’ve been doing it for several years now. When they found out about Tara Island, they figured it would provide the perfect holding station. They’ve a ship off the coast now with close to a hundred people on it, I suspect. Turns out Mok is a right piece of work.”

  “He’s not Sarai’s brother, we take it.”

  “No, he’s—”

  “He put her on the streets, didn’t he?” I said, lowering my voice again.

  “Yes. After her parents had died. Later, after she had earned a good amount of money for him, he let her come over.”

  “Why did she cooperate with him in the first place? Let him into your home? Pretend he was her brother?” Charlie asked.

  Sam joined us at that point, bringing a tray of cheese, bread, and more beer with him. When Sharkey hesitated, Sam filled in. “Sarai has two younger sisters who are still on the streets. He promised to stop prostituting them and to bring them over if she said he was her brother and let him stay for a few days at the house.”

  “She had no idea what he was planning,” Sharkey added.

  “You mean he knew about you and Tara before he came? He didn’t discover it during his visit?” Charlie asked.

  “Apparently. I’ve no idea how. Hopefully the FBI will get more details out of him.”

  “Hopefully,” Charlie said, but I could tell from the wrinkles across his forehead that he didn’t have a lot of confidence that all the answers would come to light.

  “Have you been here this whole time?” I asked.

  “No, they held me on the Innisfree for a while—ten days or so—before we came here.”

  “Where is the Innisfree?” Charlie asked.

  “They tied it up at a nearby island—didn’t want anyone seeing it here.”

  “Which island?” I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.

  “A tiny one just northeast of here—isolated. No homes, just an odd compound.”

  I laughed at the irony. “Three Dog Island.”

  “Three Dog Island?” Sharkey asked.

  “Actually Aurora Island, but nicknamed Three Dog Island by one of Jenny’s friends—for your—rather their three dogs. It’s where they found them.” Synchronicity at its best.

  “I’m surprised they even took the Innisfree,” Charlie said. “It could have provided a trail to you.”

  “I think it was going to play a part in my demise. First they would be certain people saw me alive and well on it, and then a while after I signed over Tara Island, they would be sure I ‘accidentally’ went down with my trusty boat.”

  A dismal thought, but one that very well might have come to fruition but for the grace of three dogs.

  “Why did they hold you on the Innisfree for that period?” Charlie asked, the detective wheels still turning. “Why didn’t they bring you here right away?”

  “They were waiting until Sam and Ella were off the island. We were nearby when they saw them leave in their boat. They thought they’d gone home to Orcas for the week. They were going to have me call them and tell them I would no longer need their services, but—”

  Sam took over where Sharkey left off. “We had only gone for supplies and came back and—”

  “And you too got caught up in this mess,” Sharkey finished.

  “What about Sarai? Why did they bring her to the island?

  “They brought her to the island because she was so emotional that they were afraid she might crack and give them away. Also they knew I had feelings for her and if I saw them threatening her, they thought that might encourage me to cooperate with them. I had to put on a good act to convince them I didn’t care about her, that I was only using her. Fortunately she knew better.”

  The puzzle was falling into place, but Charlie kept shaking his head. I had a feeling there were going to be some questions we never did find answers to in this convoluted smuggling and kidnapping plot.

  “If they wanted people, especially us, to think you were okay, why didn’t they just have you call us to check in or have you call your kids or something?”

  “That was the plan, but then they decided they couldn’t trust me to do that.”

  “But they let Sam talk
on the phone,” I pointed out.

  “And each time they did, they held a knife to Ella’s throat. Whereas with me, they didn’t know the extent of my feelings for Sarai or Sam and Ella for that matter. I was convincing enough that Mok figured they were all just servants to me.”

  I released a deep sigh and took a long swallow of my beer. Ella called us to the dining room table so we could feast on what appeared to be egg salad sandwiches. A perfect meal, I thought, particularly after the long gap since the couple of bites of the food Jenny had provided that I had managed to force into my anxiety-ridden stomach several hours earlier.

  “Just so you know,” Charlie said, after swallowing a couple bites of his sandwich. “We have been searching for you for close to a month now.”

  Sharkey chuckled. “I suppose I’ll be getting a hefty bill then?”

  “It’s already been sent,” Charlie said.

  “Ah, then you had faith that you would find me.”

  Charlie and I looked at each other, both thinking there were times we had serious doubts.

  “So, what triggered your search?”

  “You didnae show up for a soccer game,” Charlie said.

  “The one you had arranged on Waterloo Island,” I added.

  “Ah, Sam did tell me you had come to Tara looking for me.”

  “That we did,” I said. “But it was before they brought you here apparently.”

  “So, tell me, where else were you looking for me?”

  “Let’s just say we’ve met many of your exes—wives and girlfriends.”

  “And Charlie is smitten with Evelyn,” I offered. “And she did seem taken with him in return.”

  Ella and Sam chuckled at that news and then they shook their heads in warning.

  “Rightfully so, she is a looker,” Sharkey said. “So did you learn anything from your investigation into my life?”