Marine C SBS

by David Monnery

  ‘Ready,’ he said.

  Cafell was already unscrewing the hatch. ‘Watch out for crocodiles,’ he said seriously, as Marker clambered up and out on to the top of the submarine.

  ‘Thanks for reminding me,’ Marker said sarcastically. The only wildlife in sight was a black cormorant perched on a mangrove root some twenty yards away. ‘Won’t be long,’ he said, and slid down into the water.

  He only had to swim a few yards before the bottom came to meet him. He waded ashore, and found his path obstructed by the dense mangroves. ‘Should have brought a fucking machete,’ he muttered to himself.

  He squeezed through a narrow gap, and then another, and another. It was like being trapped inside an enormous hedge, with the added complication that he was standing in three feet of water. Already the hour he had set himself was beginning to look optimistic.

  A sudden movement in the water ahead stopped him in his tracks. The snake, striped like a tiger, only in dark brown and beige, swam away into a tangle of roots.

  Marker breathed out heavily. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, he thought. Maybe they should just tell the Yanks the whole story and head on home.

  But first he had to find out whether Russell was here. With more than a little reluctance he started forward again.

  His luck changed. The swamp and its wilderness of roots gave way to more solid ground and slightly sparser vegetation. Marker rechecked the compass on his wrist and walked on, his boots sinking into the moist soil, his eyes constantly sweeping both ground and foliage for snakes. According to the map it was only a hundred yards or so across this headland to the shores of a narrow creek.

  It took almost fifteen minutes, and Marker’s relief on catching his first sight of the creek was almost his undoing. He was just about to slide back into the water among the tangled roots when a strangely familiar sound halted him in his tracks.

  He crouched down behind a gnarled trunk and found a small window on to the river in the wall of vegetation. He could hear the faint swish of a paddle being deftly wielded by an expert, and the canoe suddenly came into view. In the stern sat a man in jeans, T-shirt and felt hat. The feather in the latter went with the stereotypical Native American face, but the Walkman didn’t. The leakage of noise from its earphones was providing the strangely familiar sound, one that Marker had last heard on a bus coming back from Bournemouth not ten days before. At this sort of volume, he reckoned, personal stereos would prove as dangerous to the Indians as white men or alcohol.

  The sound faded into nothing, and Marker started making his way forward through the roots. He was within a couple of yards of open water when the view in front of him dramatically expanded. Across the thirty-yard width of the creek another wall of mangroves rose up, but a little way to his left the creek opened into Hell’s Lake, and around the far headland, some two hundred yards in the distance, he could see the corner of a wooden jetty. As yet he could see no buildings, but logic put them close to the shore behind that jetty. His spirits, somewhat depressed by the struggle through the undergrowth, began to lift once more.

  With only his head above the surface of the green-brown water he moved slowly out from behind the mangrove curtain. The musical canoeist had vanished from sight round the next bend in the creek, and there was no sign of his having a colleague. Marker pushed off through the torpid water towards the far bank.

  Getting himself ashore proved as difficult as before. As he fought his way through the interwoven roots Marker promised himself that on his return the SBS would launch a multimillion-pound research programme into the problem of movement through mangroves. There had to be an easier way.

  Fifteen minutes and fifteen yards later he was back on relatively dry ground. The trees here were taller and more varied – he was on a hummock, one of those slight humps in a flat land which acted as a magnet to wildlife. There certainly seemed to be more birds in the foliage, and there were flowering plants growing out of tree trunks and branches. Some of these were orchids, he realized. The place smelled like a perfumed Turkish bath-house.

  He removed the Browning from its sealed holster, checked that the compass on his wrist tallied with his inbuilt sense of direction, and resumed his progress. He had not gone much further when the vegetation ahead of him began thinning out. Soon he could make out the straight lines of something man-made through the foliage.

  It proved to be the roof of a large one-storey wooden building. Marker crawled forward until he could see the end which was facing him. It was about thirty-five feet wide, and boasted two big windows, both of which appeared screened and shuttered.

  To his right, behind the building, an area the size of a tennis court had been painstakingly cleared and covered in tarmac, but there was no helicopter sitting on the pad. One had probably departed as soon as the contraband had been transferred from the sub.

  To his left, through a gap between the corner of the lodge and the forest, he could see more of the jetty and the lake beyond. There was no cover in that direction. He removed the camera from its waterproof pouch and took several photographs, before moving further back into the trees and starting on a course that would take him around behind the helipad to the far side of the lodge-like building.

  The going seemed easy after the mangroves, and it took only a few minutes to reach a spot from which he could study the back of the building. This was about sixty feet long, and contained eight shuttered windows and one door. It had been constructed as a wilderness lodge, Marker guessed, a place to bring boy scouts of all ages for canoeing, bird-watching, orchid picking, whatever. There had to be at least a dozen rooms inside, and most of them were probably lined with bunk beds.

  There was one separate outhouse to its right, and what looked like another closer to the lake shore. Maybe Russell was being held in one of them, Marker thought, though he couldn’t think of a single reason why he should be.

  He took more photographs, then resumed his march round the perimeter, making sure to keep out of sight inside the trees.

  The second outhouse turned out to be a boat-house, built mostly of corrugated plastic sheets, with one side wall resting on dry land, another two on pilings in the lake. The fourth side looked open to the water from where Marker was standing.

  He sat on his haunches among the trees, wondering what to do next. So far he hadn’t seen a single occupant, but he had to reckon on there being at least two people inside the lodge – the submarine’s crew. After a seven-hour voyage underwater it seemed likely that they would take a good long rest before heading back to the Tiburón Blanco. And in any case they would need darkness for the return passage through the shallow waters of the bay and the Keys.

  They might be alone, though, and quite possibly sleeping.

  At the very least, he had to check the outhouse, Marker decided. He carried on round the perimeter until he found the point of approach which offered the most cover, and began crawling out across the ten yards of open ground. There were no cries of discovery from the lodge.

  The blind end of the outhouse lacked a window, so he was forced to risk the side facing the lake, which rendered him visible from the jetty and the front veranda of the lodge. One look in the window showed him the building was virtually empty, and certainly not a prison for Nick Russell. Marker turned away, and noticed with a leap of his heart what had previously been hidden from sight by the boat-house – there were two men on the jetty, both sitting in cheap plastic chairs.

  Marker sank to the ground, thanking his lucky stars that the men had their backs to the shore. It made sense, since their task was presumably to frighten off unwelcome callers, and here in the western Everglades such visitors could only arrive by boat.

  He studied the two men. One was Hispanic-looking and wore jeans, T-shirt and baseball cap. He was smoking a cigarette, and cradling what looked suspiciously like an Uzi sub-machine-gun in his lap. The other one, blond, was wearing a uniform which Marker didn’t recognize but which he guessed was that of a Park Ranger. Both men
were wearing wraparound sunglasses.

  He took out his camera, and was about to take a picture of their backs when the uniformed man got to his feet. He stretched, turned, and said something which made the other guard laugh. Marker depressed the shutter release, and then watched the man walk back up the jetty and disappear behind the boat-house. About half a minute later the sound of a screen door slamming came from the direction of the lodge.

  Marker crawled back into the safety of the trees and considered what to do next. He had already exceeded his stipulated hour, but Cafell would give him at least as much time again before he started to worry in earnest. Just the boat-house, Marker told himself, and then he would head home to the sub. The prospect of fighting his way back through the mangroves was not an enticing one.

  It took him only a few minutes to come within spitting distance of the lake, but the configuration of the shoreline made it impossible for him to see what was inside the boat-house without leaving the shelter of the trees. Fortunately this didn’t seem a risky proposition. There was only a short stretch of open ground between where Marker now stood and the top of the wooden steps which led down to the front of the boat-house. The view from the side windows of the lodge was obscured by the outhouse, and the line of sight of the guard on the jetty was blocked by the boat-house itself. Unless someone emerged from the front of the lodge at the exact moment Marker stepped out into the open there seemed little danger of his being seen.

  He walked briskly across the space and on to the steps. The top one creaked slightly, and he took care to lighten his step as he descended the others. From the bottom a wooden walkway led in along the land wall of the boat-house. The Russian submarine and two canoes were tied up against it.

  Marker had seen all that he needed to, but for a moment curiosity triumphed over caution, drawing him into the shadowed building for a better look at the submarine.

  There was nothing much to see, of course. He would have to climb inside, study the controls, take the craft apart and put it back together again. One day, perhaps.

  He crept back down the walkway, turned to ascend the steps, and heard a soft scraping sound from the path above. In the split second which passed before the man came into view Marker had braced his legs and brought the Browning into the classic two-handed firing position.

  The Uzi was only halfway towards its target when Marker fired, pumping two bullets into the man’s torso and a third through his brain, cancelling the message en route to the finger on the trigger.

  The sub-machine-gun clattered noisily down the steps, while the guard sank slowly backwards on to the path.

  Marker caught the Uzi on its third bounce, with the unconscious air of a conjuror making a difficult trick look easy. His ears were straining for evidence that someone had seen or heard what had just happened.

  All he could hear was the singing of birds, the faint breeze in the trees, the slurping of water against the boat-house pilings. He climbed the steps, grabbed the dead man’s feet, and half pulled, half slid him off the path and on to the top steps, where at least he was out of sight from the lodge veranda.

  What to do? Marker stood there, his thoughts racing through the possibilities, and lingering for a moment over the memory of the only other man he had ever killed, a Chinese drug smuggler.

  He shook his head angrily. There would be plenty of time to worry about his soul – first he had to get his body home.

  There was still no sign of an alarm. It didn’t look as if he would have any problem leaving by the same route he had used on his way in. Except, of course, that he couldn’t take the dead man with him, and the discovery of his body would scupper any chances they had of finding Nick Russell and nailing Fidel Arcilla. The Cuban would put his operation on ice, close the pipeline down, hide away one of his submarines. As of now, they hadn’t a shred of proof against any of his men, let alone Arcilla himself.

  So how could he get rid of the dead man, and make it look like an accident? With three bullet holes in him, there was no way they could afford an examination of the body. It had to disappear, either in the forest or the lake.

  The canoes riding in the water beneath the jetty caught Marker’s eye, and he tried to imagine he was looking down from above at the layout of lodge, boat-house and jetty. He decided that with any luck he could get to one of the canoes without ever putting himself in view from the lodge. It was risky, but no riskier than any alternative he could think of. And he wouldn’t have to deal with the fucking mangroves.

  He lowered the dead man down the steps and on to the walkway. There he removed the blood stained blue T-shirt and baseball cap, knotting the former around one thigh and stuffing the latter into his utility belt along with the dark glasses. He tangled the Uzi round the guard’s wrist, lowered the body slowly into the water, and slid in beside it. Then he began swimming slowly towards the jetty some thirty yards distant, with one hand firmly grasping the dead man’s wrist.

  The canoe tethered at the near end was not visible from the lodge. With some difficulty Marker bundled the corpse over its side, and then clambered in himself. He took off his wetsuit hood and put on the blue T-shirt, the baseball cap and the sunglasses. The dead man was not that much smaller than he was, and sitting down in a canoe . . .

  Marker decided that climbing up on to the jetty to untie the canoe would be riskier than leaving behind a rope that had clearly been cut. They would have no idea why the guard had gone out in the canoe, so how could they expect to understand how much of a hurry he had been in? He reached for his knife, sliced through the mooring rope, and used a hand to push himself off from the jetty.

  With the skill acquired by long practice he manoeuvred the canoe around the end of the T-shaped jetty, and then moved it along the other side, with the wooden pilings effectively masking him from anyone watching on land. From the end of the jetty he would have to cross about a hundred and fifty yards in clear view, before the trees on the first headland screened him once more.

  He paddled fast, as if he was in pursuit of someone, taking care to keep his face turned away from the lodge. If anyone shouted after him, he would just wave his arms excitedly and point in the direction of the hidden cove, where Cafell was hopefully waiting with the Vickers.

  But no one shouted, and when he finally risked a look back all but the empty jetty was hidden from view. He took off the baseball cap and dark glasses, and let the boat drift while he pulled the sodden T-shirt over his head. Marker had no desire to test Cafell’s reflexes by confronting him with what looked like a stranger in a canoe.

  He rounded the headland beyond the creek, saw the Vickers in the distance and raised an arm in greeting. After what seemed like a long hesitation Cafell waved back.

  The sardonic grin on the younger’s man’s face disappeared when he saw the corpse in the canoe. ‘No time to explain,’ Marker said. ‘Find something to weigh him down with. And hurry.’

  Cafell disappeared into the body of the submarine, and re-emerged less than a minute later. ‘There’s nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Shit. We’ll have to take him with us,’ Marker decided. He hauled the dead map up, and the two of them somehow contrived to lift him on to the roof of the vessel, before bundling him in through the hatchway.

  After collecting the sunglasses, Uzi and clothes and passing them to Cafell, Marker leant down, overturned the canoe, and shoved it away from the submarine. There was still no sign of the enemy. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

  Two minutes later they were submerged once more, and heading out across Hell’s Lake towards the head of Lostman’s River. As before, Marker took the controls and Cafell navigated. Neither man looked back at the body wedged behind them.

  There was no sign of the dolphins on the return trip – perhaps they could sense the dead man on board, Marker thought – and the open-jawed crocodile had left his spot on the mudbank by the Slipstream Queen. There was no sign of it in the water either, but Cafell wasted no time as he waded the thirty feet which separated
the boat from the nearby headland. There he found a heavy enough rock for their purposes.

  It was too smooth for a rope attachment, so they wrapped the body in a blanket with the rock inside, and then secured both ends with rope, creating what looked like a human Christmas cracker.

  Out in midstream once more, they dropped it into the deep-water channel and watched it sink.

  Cafell caught the grim look on Marker’s face. ‘You had no choice,’ he said firmly.

  ‘I know. Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘OK.’

  Marker went inside to find some fresh clothes, and emerged ten minutes later with a couple of cans. Cafell had one eye on the river, another on the chart, and one hand on the wheel. He reached out the other for the beer. ‘So where do we go from here?’ he asked.

  ‘Home, I guess.’

  ‘Not England?’

  ‘No. Our villa in the Keys home.’

  ‘And then what? After twenty-four hours’ sleep, I mean.’

  ‘Good question,’ Marker said. ‘Any answers?’

  Cafell shrugged. ‘I did have a few thoughts on the subject while you were out for your walk. And most of them were pretty depressing.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, we may know how most of it works now, but we don’t have a fucking thing that could be used in a court of law against Arcilla. We haven’t any evidence that any crime has been committed at all. And worse, I haven’t managed to think of any way we could get hold of any.’ He put down his beer and ran a hand through his hair.

  Marker waited for him to continue.

  ‘There are two things we don’t know. No, three. One is what they’re smuggling, two is where they pick it up in the chopper, three is where it goes from the lodge back there. The obvious way to crack one is to follow the chopper when it leaves Provo, right? And the obvious way is to ask our friendly frigate to track it. But when we find out where it’s going we’re not really any further ahead. Say it’s Haiti – well, the government’s hardly going to sanction using the Royal Navy in Haitian waters, is it?’