by Linda Ladd
The young woman met him about twenty yards from the chopper. She was a pretty girl. Looked a whole lot like Marisol except for the blond hair, which was bleached. Dark roots showed down the middle part. She appeared quite calm and collected about walking into a lion’s den. She didn’t look at him at first, but then she stopped walking and turned to face him. Her smile was strange and somehow knowing.
“So we meet at last, Mr. Novak.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Jenn and your little Marisol will explain everything to you. Jenn told me to tell you not to worry about them. They are both safe and sound at her beach house. She said they’ll wait for you there until you can come back and pick them up.”
That relieved Novak a hell of a lot. “Who are you?”
“Jenn will tell you everything. She’s waiting for you.”
“Why are you taking this kind of chance? You don’t know what you’re getting into. Ruiz is going to kill you the minute he realizes you aren’t Marisol.”
That made her smile. “But you’re wrong, Mr. Novak. I am Marisol Ruiz. I am Arturo’s daughter.”
Novak could only stare at her. She’d managed to shock him, and he didn’t shock easily.
She glanced down the length of the grassy field at her father and then turned back to Novak. “Enough people have been hurt because I wanted to be out from under my father’s control. All of this is my own fault. It is time for me to return home and face my father’s anger.”
Novak wasn’t buying it, not for a minute. “If you’re Marisol Ruiz, who’s the kid I’ve been dragging around for days?”
“Go to the beach house and let them explain it all to you. They are quite well and waiting for you. The Mayan will not waste his time on them now that I am home. He is more interested in finding that little girl that you found hidden on the Calakmul.”
“How do you know about that?”
“You better get out of here while you still can,” she told him. Then she started walking slowly toward Ruiz and his armed guards. Novak looked back at Ruiz. The big man stood in the same spot, waiting, his eyes on the blonde, his cigar forgotten in his hand. All his men swiveled their weapons to Novak’s head.
Frowning, confused at the weird turn of events, Novak ran toward the chopper. When he was about ten yards out, Claire Morgan yelled at him. “Hurry the hell up, Novak! Before they start shooting!”
Novak ducked under the rotors, the wind whipping his shirt, but he paused at the copter’s door. Ruiz and the girl now stood about six feet apart. It didn’t look like the warmest reunion he’d ever seen. He was having trouble believing that she was really Marisol Ruiz. It had to be a trick, but if it was, Ruiz was buying it. Novak climbed into the backseat, and Claire jumped in the front and slammed the door. Nicholas Black told them to buckle the hell up. Claire obeyed, but she kept the rifle beaded on Ruiz. Black lifted slowly off the ground and banked left in a gradual turn toward the sea. Once they were out of range of the compound, Claire turned to Novak and said, “What the devil? You trying to get yourself killed?”
Novak was more than glad to see her. He was glad, too, to get out of the Ruiz compound in one piece. But there was that one little snag. He put on the headphones that Claire handed him and spoke into the microphone.
“I hate to tell you this, but we’ve got a problem.”
“Oh great. What now?” Claire asked, twisting around to look at him.
Novak glanced back at the small figures standing at the edge of the pool, as Black swept the copter around and headed back to the city. Father and self-proclaimed daughter had not embraced, but he hadn’t ordered the young woman shot, either. “That girl down there? She’s not the Marisol Ruiz I know. So who the hell is she?”
Claire’s jaw dropped. “She told us that she was Marisol Ruiz. She’s the one who showed up at the airstrip after Jenn and I set up her exchange for you.”
“Well, I’ve never seen her before.”
Claire shook her head and turned back around. Novak frowned some more and tried to figure out how he was being played and why, without much success.
“How did you know Ruiz had me?” Novak asked them a moment later.
“You called me, remember? Said you were being taken prisoner and the Ruiz cartel might be involved.”
Black spoke up. “My brother knows Ruiz. He negotiated your release. You made an impression on him when you helped us last summer in Sicily.”
Novak knew all about Nicholas Black’s brother. Jacques Montenegro was a well-known, powerful mob boss out of New Orleans. Black was not a part of his brother’s business and never had been. Novak also knew Montenegro played a major role in a bigger syndicate, with lots of mob contacts all over the world. Jacques had used his illicit business relationships in Sicily to gain his brother’s release and now had used them again in the mountains of Mexico. He was turning out to be a good friend to have.
“So you’re welcome,” Claire said.
“You talked to Jenn yourself?”
Claire turned around again. “Yeah, she got hold of me somehow, and we put the exchange in motion. That girl we just let out back there? She showed up at the airstrip in a white Winnebago and told us that she was Marisol Ruiz and Jenn had sent her out to us. She said Jenn was okay and would wait for you at the beach house. You don’t know her, really?”
“I have no idea who she is. But she’s connected with the girl I’ve been protecting because I saw her on the street when the kid with us tried to take off. I think they’ve been in contact somehow, maybe by cell phone or something. Maybe the girl back there at the compound is the real Marisol Ruiz. Maybe the two of them had some kind of ruse going on. Ruiz didn’t shoot her down the minute she got close to him. That tells me that she probably is his daughter.”
“Jenn told me that Marisol had agreed to go back home to her father. She said once the girl was with us, Jenn would wait for you at the beach house. Everything seemed fine then. She was worried about that child you told us about. She thinks the killer’s going to go after the little girl instead of us, especially once Ruiz gets his daughter back into the fold.”
Novak felt a prickle of fear slither down his nerves. The blond Marisol had told him that Jenn and the other girl were waiting at the beach house. And that made as little sense as everything else that was going on. If the Mayan had been out to kill Marisol, and he had been, he just lost out on his paycheck. But Ruiz told Novak that the Mayan had been instructed to find her, not to kill her. So who was the girl that Novak had been protecting for days, the one with the same blue butterfly tattoo that Marisol was supposed to have? And why did the Mayan want her if she wasn’t Marisol? The killer couldn’t get to her now, wouldn’t be able to find her, not since Novak had dug out the GPS chip, so she was safe with Jenn. And he couldn’t get the real Marisol; she was under her father’s protection and inside that fortified compound. But the child could definitely identify him as the man who had abducted and tortured her, and he might be able to get to her out at Doc’s. So they better get back there quick and get her out. And that meant that Doc and Auroria were in danger, too. The Mayan left no witnesses.
“Let me have your cell,” Novak said to Claire.
She handed it back to him, and he tried to call Doc. Nobody answered. Shit. Something bad had gone down; Novak knew it. “I think he’s going after the little girl I found on his boat, too. I think he’s found out where she is and is probably headed there, if he’s not there already.”
“Good God, Novak, what the heck is going on down here?”
So Novak told them the whole sordid story. Neither Claire nor Black commented, just listened intently.
“I’ve never heard of an assassin called the Mayan until now.” Claire looked at Black. “Have you?”
“Not by that name. I know there are assassins for hire all across Central America. Some pretty bad guys. The scalping thing is new to me.”
“I’m going to get him,” Novak said.
“That’ll
probably get you a standing ovation from all concerned,” Claire said.
“He’s on a killing spree, and he’s coming after me next, if I don’t get him first. And he tortured that poor little kid. She’s probably eight years old, maybe even younger. He beat her and slashed her up with a knife.”
Claire looked horrified. “Oh my God.”
Black said, “Then you need to get him.”
“I want to know who the girl is, the one who’s been telling me she’s Marisol all this time. I want to know why she lied to Jenn and me. She could have gotten us killed. Did Jenn say the girl was with her at the beach?”
“She just said she had agreed to go home. I assumed she meant the blonde who showed up.”
Black glanced back at Novak. “Is there a place I can put down near where the child is? If the killer knows how to get to her, we better get her out of there first. Jenn seems capable of taking care of herself. The little girl is a sitting duck.”
“Where’d you leave her, Novak?” Claire asked.
“With a good friend of mine. A Marine medic who’s taking care of her. I think she knows something that the Mayan wants to know, and that’s why he’s keeping her alive.”
“Maybe she saw him commit a murder,” said Black.
“Well, let’s go get her and then get Jenn and the other girl you’re talking about. I want to get out of here,” Claire told him. “We’ll all be safe back in the States. We can figure out how to bring down the killer after we get them up there.”
“Where’d you land the plane?”
“At the airport in Belize City. We leased the helo there.”
Right now, Novak didn’t know who he was more worried about, Doc and his wife and the child or Jenn and the girl pretending to be Marisol Ruiz. The Mayan seemed to know his way around and appeared to have lots of access to lots of pertinent intelligence. Novak just had to figure out how to counter the killer’s next move. Not a whole lot else was making sense at the moment.
Novak dialed up Jenn’s private line. He let it ring according to the arranged code. No answer. Then he called back and let it ring ten times. Nothing. Then he tried a second number. Nothing there, either. Then he sat back and felt sick to his stomach. She should have answered, should have been waiting for his call. Claire and the blonde had both said she was safe at the beach house. Maybe she had a good reason for not answering. Maybe the phone was dead. Maybe she’d left the cell in the car or lost it somewhere. He kept telling himself these things as they reached the coast and sped out over the ocean. But he was worried. Now he had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, about everything and everybody.
Chapter Nineteen
Once Nicholas Black got the helicopter out over the water, it didn’t take him long to get them to Soledad Cay. They flew very fast, skimming the water, the sound of the rotors’ beating relentless. Nobody said much else. Novak sat there and continued to worry about Jenn. Down deep, he couldn’t believe she’d let anybody get within a hundred feet of her and the girl. She was just too damn good at what she did. But he was anxious to get to that beach house and find out what the hell was going on.
Then he thought of the tortured little girl he’d left at Doc’s house. He felt certain the Mayan would go after her first. It stood to reason. He had kept her alive and on board his boat. He had tortured her. He would want to finish her off before he again went after the woman masquerading as Marisol, whoever she was. Novak was at a loss as to what her role was in all of this. Why had she stayed with Novak and insisted she was Ruiz’s daughter? What was her connection with the real Marisol, if the blonde even really was Marisol? It appeared to Novak that she had to be. Once the two of them had stood face-to-face, her father had accepted her. Maybe one of the other girls, either the one still with Jenn or the little child, was the other kidnap victim who’d disappeared from the convent along with Marisol. Maybe the Mayan knew the little girl’s family and wanted to take her and hold her for ransom. Maybe she’d seen him take Marisol and had to be silenced. Or maybe he had just liked the looks of her and that’s all it took. Who knew the inner workings of that maniac’s mind? The whole damn thing was bizarre. Novak would feel better when he had the Mayan in his crosshairs and could slowly tug back on the trigger and be done with him for good. Right now, however, he did not have all the facts and was not quite sure what was going on.
When they finally arrived at the turquoise waters off Doc’s cove, Novak leaned forward and looked for the flags. The Marine Corps flag was gone. Crap. That meant trouble, and that probably also meant the Mayan had been there. Black took the copter down low and hovered over the boat dock, pushing fast-moving concentric rings out across the water.
“Doc’s not in there.”
“How do you know?” Claire asked.
“He signals with the flags. He’s not in there, but I know where he is. He’s got a bunker out on his airstrip. If he gets spooked, he gets the hell out on his Cessna. If he doesn’t have time to fly out, he holes up in that bunker.”
“Good. That probably means they got away, if that guy showed up here,” Claire was telling him. “They’re probably safe and sound and hidden away inside that bunker, so quit looking like something horrible has happened. You don’t know that yet.” She was trying to cheer him up, but she didn’t know the Mayan, hadn’t seen his work. But Novak knew Doc. Doc was nobody’s fool. If he’d had any advance warning at all, any inkling of incoming danger, he would’ve gotten his wife and the little girl on that plane or inside that bunker. He’d never take a chance on Auroria’s life. Novak just hoped he’d had some kind of forewarning.
“Where’s the airstrip?” Black asked, glancing back at him.
“Straight behind the house, about a mile and a half, I guess.” Black took the helicopter up over the house, and Novak leaned his forehead against the back window, his eyes glued on the dark green jungle rushing past below, waiting for the terrain to clear and reveal the dirt airstrip.
“There it is. Up ahead. See it, Nick?” Novak said.
“Okay, I got it.”
They slowly circled the field. It looked deserted. “That’s Doc’s Cessna, there under the camouflage netting. So they didn’t get away on the plane. If he’s still here, he’s in the bunker. Land this thing and let’s hope they’re in there.”
Black took the helo a good distance away from the airplane under the netting, then hovered for a few minutes, watching the jungle perimeter for attack, just in case. The Mayan could be there, and they all knew it. After several minutes, Black touched the chopper gently down onto the ground.
“Stay here. Be ready to get the hell out,” Novak told them, as he pulled the door lever and stepped down onto the ground.
Ducking low, he ran out. He stopped a few yards outside the wind draft and waited, watching the camouflaged netting, his arms held up and out to his sides. If Doc was in there, he would be watching them. Nothing happened. The roar of the helo was deafening, and then, thank God, he caught some movement under the Cessna’s wing. Seconds later, Doc stepped into view, armed with a rifle. He waved Novak toward him. Novak turned and gestured for Black to turn off the rotors.
Novak ran across the grassy field and met Doc at the nose of the plane. “Thank God, Doc. You had me worried there for a minute.”
“Yeah, it was pretty damn tense for a while. I didn’t hear him coming until it was almost too late to get out. Good thing he didn’t know about this place.”
“Is Auroria okay? And the kid?”
“Yeah. They’re both down in the bunker.”
Novak nodded. “Sorry I brought that guy down on you. Did you see him?”
“I heard the boat coming. Then the motor stopped somewhere outside the bay, and I figured he was gonna try to sneak in on us, like you said he did to that pirate camp. I didn’t wait, just got Auroria and the kid the hell out. I would have tried to shoot him myself if I hadn’t had to worry about them. Guess it was about two or three o’clock in the morning. I’ve got to say that you
spooked me when you told me how he operated. I wanted nothing to do with that animal. How’d he find us?”
“I don’t know. Probably had the GPS location where the Mexicans picked me up on the Calakmul. He seems to have his ways to find people. They got me before I was too far from here. I think he was the one who put them on to me. I guess I led him right to you. God, Doc, I’m sorry.”
“Think he’ll come back?”
“No, I think he would’ve tracked you out here to the bunker and killed all three of you if he’d known about it.”
“That’s why I built it. You’re not the only one with old enemies.”
“C’mon, let’s get Auroria and the girl out of here.”
Doc had built the bunker himself, underground, constructed of timber and concrete, ventilated with fresh air, but not made for any kind of siege. It was a temporary hiding place, well hidden in the jungle undergrowth beneath some of the netting. Hard to see from the air, or from a few feet away, it was a two-room fortified cabin of sorts, with enough weapons and ammunition to fight off a small army.
“I need a place like this on Bonne Terre,” Novak told him, looking around. “Look, Doc, my friends out there in the helicopter can take you over to Jenn’s. She can put you up in a safe house for as long as you need until I get him. We’re headed there right now.”
Doc shook his head. “No, we’re okay here. Maybe I’ll fly us over to Costa Rica for a few weeks. My wife has family there. They’ll put us up, and she’s been on me to take her to visit them.”
“You’ll be safer with me,” Novak said.
“You really think so?” Doc searched his face, and Novak knew he was probably right. He wouldn’t be safe with Novak, not right now. Nobody was.