Taking care, she skirted the hill as best she could, seeing no alternatives, and then started to make her way back through the camp. She fancied she could see an early smudge of dawn marking the lowest horizon. She wondered how she’d managed to stay in there half the night. No further communications had come from Crouch, but that was as it should be. The team wouldn’t want to compromise her. A double-click every half hour told them she was staying out of trouble.
As much as Alicia Myles was able.
As she neared the edge of the camp she began to hear the muted sounds of men waking, the coughing and the yawning. She guessed the sentries would be on their way back in. Creeping low, she heard a sound in the undergrowth outside the camp and froze. Waiting, she saw Russo.
“Hey.” Her voice was pitched low. “Hey. Here.”
Russo looked over, saw her move, and hunkered down at her side.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Looking for you. We thought . . .”
Alicia shushed him with a finger to his lips as another creaking and crashing sound attested to the presence of another individual—this one clearly born without any realization of the word stealth. One of the guards, looking sleepy and hungover, barged through, snagging his clothes on branches and scratching bare skin, not caring. Alicia stared at Russo as the man passed them by, four feet away but oblivious. When he was gone Russo prized the finger from his lips.
“Don’t ever do that again. I have no idea where that finger of yours has been.”
“Oh, I think you do, Rob,” Alicia whispered cheekily. “I really think you do.”
Together, they made their way back to Crouch and the others. The boss had found a nice hiding place, an eroded overhang surrounded by rocks and whispering waves on three sides, a mini-cave with its rocky back to the island. Alicia picked her way over the rocks to the dry back part of their hiding place.
Crouch nodded. “Report?”
Alicia laid it all out, from the state of the camp and the men in the tents to the hazardous hill and the prisoner area and the ancient weapons. She voiced her opinion that this group was a band of modern-day pirates.
“Worst of the worst,” Russo grunted. “Scavengers. They care little about life.”
“They are likely to find the ones I killed,” Alicia said.
“I guess it happens most nights,” Russo said. “I doubt they’ll care, except for those chosen to take care of the burial.”
“Any sign of who’s in charge?” Crouch asked the question a leader would wonder about.
“Nothing. No special tents, no banners or black flags.”
“It’s not a joke. We could use the info.”
“I know. It’s the whole pirate angle is getting to me. No sign of Captain Flint, sir.”
Crouch sat back on his heels, spine against the rock. “Then what next? Where’s Jensen going?”
“I find it hard to believe you guys haven’t figured that out by now. What have you been doing all night?” Alicia looked suspiciously from face to face.
“First, we searched for guards. Then Jensen. Then we got some kip,” Russo said. “Thought you’d be back hours ago.”
“Oh, so you were all just sleeping whilst I tussled with two men in a tent?”
They all stared, not quite sure what to say. Healey broke the silence. “Is that a movie title, or real life?”
Alicia sighed. “I give in.”
Caitlyn came to her rescue, reciting the passage they already knew. “And though he traveled often and tarried little, Henry Morgan did find himself a stronghold. Not a refuge but a fastness. It lay between Haiti and Panama and Port Royal, spoken of as a large mountain surrounded by a ribbon of beach with an unusual feature atop. A wizened, crooked, bent old tree, a hundred foot tall. A marker of passing time. No leaves, no branches, nothing but a stark, warped trunk. Why was it here? It was there to speak to the fanciful mind of the Pirate King.”
“We already know all that.”
“Yes, and we think it also points to what the author believed was the place where Morgan buried the bulk of his treasure. Where else? It says ‘marker’. It says ‘speak to the fanciful mind of the Pirate King’, meaning he would find significance by using such a clear marker in the middle of so large a sea. Morgan would see it as a sign. He made this place his stronghold, after all. Total security for as long as he pirated the Caribbean seas. A visit every few months to drop the wealth off. It’s a very strong pointer.”
“You think the treasure is buried beneath the twisted, barren tree?”
“At the top of the mountain.”
“Hill.”
“Not in the fanciful tales.” Caitlyn laughed. “It’s always a mountain, Alicia. Always.”
Alicia plonked herself atop a boulder. “Well, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, guys. But that mountain is gonna be an utter bitch to climb, nigh on impossible. It’s hard-going, half-full of tents and fires, littered with brush, trees and rocks. You won’t do it in daylight, and at night,” she spread her arms, “bones are the least you’d be breaking. Skulls most likely; one slip and you’ll roll down to your death, or imprisonment, and then we’d all be outed. Trapped behind the enemy camp with nowhere to go. It’s a logistical nightmare.”
“Do I hear Alicia Myles being cautious?” Russo mock-gasped. “Shit, did the tent tussle cure you?”
“You hear a soldier telling you the lay of the land, and you’d best listen. Seriously, I’m up for anything but we’re going on supposition here. A passage in a book that could also mean something else entirely.”
“It doesn’t,” Caitlyn said. “This time—it’s real. And Jensen wouldn’t have come if he didn’t believe it too.”
“Maybe.” Alicia forced them to listen to the single word. “Maybe.”
“How many pirates?” Crouch asked.
“Around seventy. Could be a hundred.”
“We would have to go tonight.”
“Did you not hear me? It’s suicide.”
“Would you rather we packed up, rowed away and returned home? Call this entire endeavor a failure?”
“It would split the team,” Russo muttered.
Alicia eyed them all. She hadn’t realized they were so desperate for a win this time. She remembered they’d had a few failures recently, whilst she pursued global enemies with her other team.
“This is your lifelong dream,” she said to Crouch. “I get it. But there are times when you just can’t win, boss.”
“Not this time. Our early successes as the Gold Team may have filled us with a false pride, but we need this. And you, Alicia, I know you’re trying to change. To be better. To stop running and face it all head-on. But once upon a time, recently, you’d be calling for an assault on that hill.”
She found herself suddenly introspective, weighing his words. She found that he was probably right. Still, the dangers were no different, still standing and as real as the figures seated around her.
“I’m with you,” she said. “I won’t walk away. Whatever you guys decide I will do. Fight together, die together, right?”
With difficulty she forced down a yearning to return to her new life, her new man, and a new sense of security.
Crouch stared at the sea, a far-away look on his face. “My own desires shouldn’t factor here,” he said. “I’d try to pick out a doubloon caught between a kraken’s gnashers if it shone bright enough. Russo. Caitlyn. Healey. You decide.”
Russo grumbled, not liking being put on the spot. Caitlyn and Healey predictably turned to look at each other.
“We’ve come a long way,” Healey said.
“To get nothing,” Caitlyn said.
“And go home empty handed. Again,” Healey added.
Alicia snorted. “You two are even finishing each other’s sentences now, eh? Shit, there’s no hope for you.”
“Says the changed woman,” Russo grumbled.
“Changed, yes,” Alicia said. “Turned into a fluffy boxset love
-monkey, I will never be.”
“Now there’s a word I never thought I’d hear you say.”
“Fluffy?”
“Love-monkey. It doesn’t sound right coming from a bit—”
“Look,” Caitlyn interrupted. “We both want to try for the treasure. We came a long way. We beat every clue and found nothing. We have to finish this, right?”
All eyes then turned to Russo, who rather surprisingly nodded immediately in Alicia’s direction. “I trust Myles. I’d trust her with my life. She’s seen the camp, the men. I go by her instincts.”
Alicia blinked in surprise, then felt a little swell of gratitude. No way six months ago would Russo ever have backed her. An incredible accomplishment in itself since a seasoned soldier would take a great deal of convincing.
She watched Crouch’s face, feeling sorry for the man’s lifelong goal. “It’s over, boss. The risk is truly too great.”
“Then I guess we head back out to sea,” the man said, rising quickly. “No point wasting time here.”
Together they rose, largely disappointed but still part of a professional team. Crouch cocked his head as sounds echoed from the camp. First there was shouting and then a volley of gunfire, then more shouting. The men sounded excited, raucous even, as if a new friend had come to play.
Alicia stared hard at Crouch. “Let’s see what’s going on. Could be a game-changer.”
It wasn’t. The whole team made their way carefully out of the shelter and through a few stands of trees. Creeping low, they fought off persistent branches, greenery and sneezing fits. They shimmied through dry earth and over ruts and thorn bushes, snagged in inextricable knots. As they reached the edge of the pirates’ camp they paused and waited.
Ahead, among the tents, a group of eight men dragged a captive. The man’s head was down, his eyes facing the floor and his arms were cut and bruised, bleeding, but it was clearly John Jensen.
“Shit,” Crouch hissed. “How the hell. . ? Jensen’s SAS.”
“No,” Alicia cautioned. “Twenty years of crime, debauchery and alcoholism have passed since he belonged to the Regiment. He’s just a merc now with a merc’s ideals.”
“Look,” Russo said. “They’re questioning him right there.”
“You seem surprised,” Alicia stated. “These pirates—they have no morals. No grasp of normal life. This is their normal. This is their amusement. They may be stupid, but man, they’re bloody dangerous.”
Jensen was thrust to his knees and then made to stand. Men threatened and slapped him. A knife-wielder drew a thin bead of blood from shoulder to shoulder, following the curve of the blade. Another man commented on his tall, rangy stature, likening him to the trunk of a tree. Another pointed out his corded muscle, warning others not to get too close. Weapons were realigned.
A man then appeared, the pirate leader. As filthy and rough-looking as the rest, he wiped sweat from his brow and flicked it at the ground, leaving smear of dirt across his forehead. A broad cleaver hung in one hand, and even from her vantage point Alicia could see it was so encrusted with blood it appeared to be blemished by several layers of dark crimson.
“Who are you?” the pirate leader asked in a voice that explained English was his second language. “You tell or I cut your throat.”
The threat wasn’t idle. Nobody stood under any illusion. The pirates wanted it to happen. When Jensen didn’t answer immediately, the pirate leader stepped forward and pushed his chin up toward the skies.
“I make sure you see your blood soaking your feet before die.”
He raised the cleaver as his men took tight hold of Jensen. To a man they were grinning, laughing, jesting at Jensen’s expense. To Alicia it was a scene from a circle of Hell, one where demons took immoral men and women to suffer.
She half rose. Crouch pulled her down. Then Jensen shouted out, stilling the blade and the hands and tongues of all those that stood about him.
“A treasure! There’s a treasure at the top of the hill. We’ve . . . I’ve come for it.”
“Y’have?” The leader looked surprised. “What treasure?”
“Pirate,” Jensen said, then winced as he remembered where he stood. “Old pirate. Doubloons. Gold. All you could ever want.”
“Slice him,” one man cried.
“Lying shite just wants to save his own arse.” Surprisingly an English accent in the midst of all the others made Alicia wonder just how these assorted, diverse men came to be here right now, in this place, and what made them stick together.
“No. It’s right here on this island. Captain Henry Morgan. Heard of him? Sacked a dozen ports or more. This is where he buried it all.”
He pointed to the top of the hill. “Up there. Under the tree at the top of the mountain.”
The pirates were massed by now, all listening. Russo called out a head count of seventy five. Alicia pointed to the far perimeter of the camp where she saw a new mass of men—most likely Jensen’s own well-manned crew.
“Shit,” Russo breathed. “This just went crazy.”
The battle of Duppy Island and the final race for Captain Morgan’s lost, buried treasure began.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Jensen may well have viewed the world through rum-tinted glasses for the best part of the last decade, but certain skills he’d been taught in his youth never faded away. Getting caught was a momentary lapse. Breaking free was a well-honed skill. The pirate leader doubled over and almost stabbed himself with the bloody cleaver; Jensen kicked him into another man. The nearest found his arm broken, his gun taken and then heard shots being fired. Pirates quickly sobered and jumped away, taking cover as Jensen knew they would.
Not a warrior among them.
He backed away fast, surveying the territory behind and the potential threats. A sniper could never be dismissed but Jensen had no time for that. He sprayed the area in front of him and backed up some more. His men had seen him now, Labadee and Levy sprinting hard and keeping the pirates low with well-placed shots. They were outmanned, but their sudden assault, Jensen’s escape and the pirates’ general malaise evened the score. The leader was shouting at the top of his voice, thick curses, but at nobody in particular and nobody was listening. The cleaver beat ineffectually at the ground.
Jensen sprayed again and thought he saw a glimpse of figures way across the clearing, bodies moving through the trees. Not pirates. Then . . .
Could be. It could be them.
The race was going to be a tough one. All his life he’d prepared for something like this. Well, not really, but for the last ten years he’d wished to fall lucky just once, take that vast score, and today his numbers were up. Just bad luck it was all going to be in the midst of a firefight.
Labadee and Levy reached his side and he waved them back. “To the woods. Move it!”
Soon they cleared the tree line and melted away without looking back. Jensen raced to the center of his men as he saw Levy hang back to make sure nobody dared follow them. A brief check of the pirate campsite saw them milling back and forth, undisciplined and unsure what to do. Jensen knew it was imperative to take advantage of their confusion.
“Top of the mountain,” he said simply. “Any cost. Now.”
His men reacted immediately, the mercs a little more slowly. Jensen counted his men as the guys who’d been with him since near the very beginning. Only ten now, several had died recently. But those ten were loyal. The mercs outnumbered them three to one, but the promise of gold made their eyes shine and their brains take a break. Jensen would make sure he put them to the front and the sides of the pack as added insurance for stray bullets. No loss.
He wrapped it up and pointed the way forward. Nobody, not even his lieutenants questioned as to how he’d been captured, let alone what he’d recklessly told the pirates to save his life. Jensen was no coward; he’d faced down unspeakable dangers in his career, but seeing certain, indifferent death in the eyes of a man wielding a blood-caked cleaver? That made a man want to prolon
g everything, in any way possible. Jensen knew he’d made it all worse.
Still alive though . . .
And running. He hammered home a magazine into his handgun as he swept past a gaggle of trees, running downhill along a sweeping path and jumping over ruts. To their right the trees frequently thinned and then thickened, offering sporadic views of the pirate camp.
The indolence was lifting. The sullied men were gathering, forming a large hunting party it seemed. Their leader was pointing them toward the great hill with its dangerous obstructions and dense cover. Weapons were being held high and orders were being listened to.
Jensen ran harder, needing to pull out a lead. The man at the top of the hill was going to win this treasure hunt.
King of the mountain?
Shit, the schoolyard game had nothing on this.
“C’mon,” he hissed. “Draw your guns and take a bead. Shoot anything that moves that isn’t us. We have to reach the top first!”
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Alicia saw Crouch struggle with the decision and then make it anyway. His eyes met hers first and asked a question.
“If we do this we do it fast,” she said.
He nodded, turned to the front and started sprinting through the trees. Russo loped along in his wake, rifle swinging from a shoulder. Healey and Caitlyn went next and Alicia brought up the rear. Down a slope and then over a small hillock, taking time to skirt the huge, overgrown bole of an ancient tree, scrambling in the undergrowth for a minute and then zigzagging through a thick stand, whipped by branches and almost tripped by concealed roots. Crouch led the team hard, calling on all his training and skills. To their right through the trees the pirate camp was in uproar, more men shouting than listening to their boss, others standing around in bewilderment and not having the awareness to find out. Drugs explained most of the uncertainty, but a lifetime of bullying and persecution also spoke for a portion of it. Alicia guessed that some of these men might not even know who their leader was.
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