Bluewater Voodoo: Mystery and Adventure in the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 3)

by Charles Dougherty

  The sails roared, flogging hard in the 20-knot breeze, until the bow came through the eye of the wind and they filled on the opposite tack. The jib was still sheeted for a starboard tack, although the boat was on the port tack. The two sails were now working against each other to hold Kayak Spirit nearly motionless as Liz played the big fish. Tiring, the fish jumped again, much farther away.

  "He must have taken a good hundred yards of line while we were heaving to," Phillip said.

  "Coming toward us," Liz grunted, reeling in line so quickly that her right hand was a circular blur. She continued to pump the rod, still recovering line even as the fish turned for another run. This one was much shorter than the first, and the fish turned without jumping. "Tired," Liz remarked.

  "Want me to bring him in?" Dani asked.

  "No! The fish is tired – not me," Liz grunted in explanation.

  "Okay. I’ve got the gaff," Dani said, scrambling into position on the side deck just aft of Liz, who continued to crank in line. They could see the beautiful blue-green back, shading to gold on the sides, and finally to white on the belly. Just as they got a good look at the fish, it saw the boat.

  "Going again," Liz said, as the fish began to strip line from the reel. "Not far, though. He’s finished, now."

  She brought the fish alongside again, and it turned on its side, feebly attempting another run as Dani struck with the gaff. Her practiced skill evident, she brought the sharp hook of the gaff down into the throat, just behind the gills. Before it could react, she flipped the fish over the lifelines and into the cockpit in one continuous, sweeping motion. As the fish thrashed in panic, Phillip took a big swig from a bottle of Martinique’s cheapest 150-proof white rum. His gloved left hand moving with the speed of a prize fighter’s, he stuck his thumb into the fish’s mouth, grasping the lower jaw and pulling it until it was fully distended. Bending over and lifting the fish, he came close enough to kiss the panicked creature. He blew his mouthful of rum into the fish’s open mouth. In a split second, the rum hit the gills, and the fish died.

  "Nice job!" Liz remarked.

  "We’re a good team," Phillip agreed.

  Dani nodded and went back to the tiller as Liz hauled in the lazy jib sheet. With a glance at Dani to see if she was ready, she cast off the working sheet. The sail filled on the port tack with a loud crack, and Kayak Spirit surged forward. Phillip took the fish below and stuck it in the galley sink. "We’ll clean it when we get in," he said.

  "Ready, about!" Dani called, pushing the tiller down, as Phillip came back up the companionway ladder into the cockpit. He paused on the ladder, watching the two young women’s seamanship with approval. Liz, one jib sheet in each hand, nodded to Dani.

  "Helm’s alee," Dani said, as the mainsail began to fill on the starboard tack and Liz hauled in the working jib sheet. They settled back onto the course to Marin as Liz and Dani tweaked the sails.

  "Mahi-mahi on Vengeance tonight," Liz said. "We can tell Lilly and the professor what’s new. They’ve been hiding on the boat, working on a proposal for their sponsor; probably could use a break. Will you and Sandrine join us?"

  "You bet," Phillip said.

  Chapter 23

  Gines Moraga stood on the bridge deck with Martinez, watching Gomez and two crewmen hoisting the seven-meter-long rigid inflatable with its twin 200-horsepower outboards onto Santa Magdalena’s deck.

  "Any trouble getting the RIB?" Martinez asked.

  "No. I couldn’t find one in St. Lucia, though. Had to catch a ferry to Martinique. The Zodiac dealer there had this one; he had taken it in trade from the harbor patrol in Fort-de-France. Got everything – radar, the whole works."

  "Damn," Martinez murmured.

  "What?" Moraga asked.

  "Nothing. Just worried that there’s a paper trail, now. I was hoping for a private sale in St. Lucia."

  "No paper; no worries, Jefe," Moraga said.

  "How?"

  "€100,000 in cash; no time for paperwork. Take it or leave it. He took it."

  "He’ll remember that," Martinez said.

  "He’ll remember me, too, Jefe, but he won’t tell nobody."

  "Why is that Moraga?"

  Moraga’s face went cold and hard. "Because he remembers me. His wife works in the office; a beautiful woman. He’s in love with her. He didn’t want to lose her."

  Martinez looked away. "You got the plastique?" he asked, after a long pause.

  "From Capitan Sanchez. No problem. A remote detonator, and a timer, too. Just in case, Jefe."

  "Good. Here’s what I’m thinking, Moraga. I’ll have the houngan, Giscard, arrange a handoff to the professor. You will accompany Giscard and the zombie to the handoff. Then you can leave and get far enough away so that you can watch with binoculars. Maybe you will pretend to be fishing, so you can drift for a little while. Once you see the professor and the zombie get on board the yacht, you can trigger the charge. It should take care of the yacht and the crew, as well as the professor and his assistant."

  "The charge…, the zombie will wear a vest?"

  "No. Too obvious. He will carry a backpack, and Giscard will explain to the professor that it contains the ingredients and the instructions for the daily potion."

  Moraga nodded, a smile of approval on his rugged face. "I like it, Jefe. Es bueno."

  "Yes," Martinez said. "Muy bueno. You will take one of the crew to run the boat. You will be armed, but keep your weapons out of sight. There should be no problem. We need to think of a place to do this. It would be best in a remote place where the explosion doesn’t attract attention immediately."

  "Jefe, I am thinking," Moraga said, a question written across his hard features.

  "What?"

  "In a remote location, I could take the yacht with an RPG, or an antitank rocket. No need for the zombie."

  "Yes, of course, Moraga, you could do that, but this is an opportunity for us to see how the whole zombie thing will work. Besides, this is an expensive yacht and four people. Two of them are C.I.A., probably. There will be an investigation, and not by local police. If the yacht is destroyed by an explosion from within, there is at least the possibility that it was an unfortunate accident. Perhaps their propane stove, like the yacht in Miami Beach a few weeks ago. These people would know if the yacht was destroyed by a rocket."

  "Ah! Yo entiendo, Jefe," Moraga said.

  ****

  "May I please speak with Professor Johnson?" The man’s voice had a Creole accent, Liz noticed. Although his English was clear, his tone was tentative, with an almost nervous quality.

  "One moment," she said, extending the phone across the cockpit table to the professor. She and Dani had rejoined their guests on Vengeance a few minutes earlier. It was late afternoon, and Lilly was taking a nap below. They had been sharing the latest information with the professor.

  "Who is that?" Dani asked Liz in a soft tone as the professor took the phone up onto the foredeck.

  "I don’t know," Liz said. "The caller i.d. was blocked. He sounded like a Creole, though."

  The professor returned to the cockpit and put the satellite phone on the table as he took his seat.

  "The houngan, Henri Giscard," he explained. "He wants us to take the zombie from him."

  "What?" Dani asked, sharply. "Wait. Where is he? Did he get away from Martinez?"

  "He didn’t let me ask any questions, Dani," the professor said. "He says he’s decided to go back to Haiti because of family issues and he can’t take care of the zombie any longer. He said I should get in touch with Racine Laveau if I had questions about caring for him; he told me how to find her house."

  "He couldn’t know you’ve met her," Dani said.

  "No, I didn’t get that idea. Look, we have to go to an island called Marie Galante, in Guadeloupe."

  "He’s meeting us there?" Liz asked.

  "Maybe. He didn’t say so, but he said we should get there as quickly as possible, and he will call again with more details in two days."
<
br />   "I don’t like it," Dani said. "Sounds like a trap. If Martinez has Giscard, he could be using the zombie as bait to try to trap you again. You sure you don’t know what’s going on?"

  "I swear, I don’t. How long will it take us to get there?"

  "Two days, if we spend the night in Dominica; around 20 hours if we go straight through," Dani said. "I’d vote for an early morning departure and a run out to the east of the islands. That’s the straight route. It’ll be better sailing, and a lot faster. We’d get to Marie Galante before dawn the day after tomorrow. We can clear in with customs and rest while we wait for the call. I still don’t like it."

  "Isn’t Marie Galante pretty developed?" the professor asked.

  "Yes," Liz answered. "I spent a few weeks there last year. It’s around 160 square kilometers -- 10,000 to 15,000 people."

  "Sounds like an unlikely place for a trap; I’d figure this Martinez would pick an uninhabited place if he was up to something," the professor said.

  Dani was quiet, thinking of the possibilities. "There are some desolate places along the coast of Guadeloupe, 15 to 20 miles away from Marie Galante. He could call us at the last minute and send us somewhere else."

  "Why not just send us somewhere else to begin with, if that’s what he’s got in mind?" the professor asked.

  "Because, if we knew where we were going to end up, we could set up a plan of our own. If he gives us three or four hours to get somewhere, it limits our options for defense," Dani said.

  The professor swallowed hard, giving Dani a strange look. "I want the zombie. What do you think we should do?" he asked.

  "I’m okay with sailing up to Marie Galante, but I need to talk to Phillip. If we’re going to go from there to somewhere off the beaten path, I’ll want some backup on call."

  "What kind of backup?"

  "Not sure, Professor. You call Racine and see what she thinks about helping you care for a zombie while I study the charts, okay?"

  The professor nodded his agreement, reaching for his cell phone as Dani got up and went below to the chart table. Settling herself at the nav station, she opened the lid of the chart table and pulled out the Caribbean Yachting Chart that covered the area from Guadeloupe to Martinique. She studied it intently as Liz began her dinner preparations. Lilly appeared, stretching and yawning, as Dani put the chart away. She went into the galley to help Liz as Dani went back up to the cockpit to await the arrival of their dinner guests.

  After they had taken Kayak Spirit back to her berth in nearby Marin earlier that afternoon, a friend of Phillip’s had given the three of them a lift to Vengeance in his fishing boat. Phillip had taken Vengeance’s dinghy to use for the afternoon, planning to return with Sandrine in time for Liz’s dinner of fresh mahi-mahi. Dani got to her feet and walked over to the boarding ladder on the port side as she heard the outboard approaching.

  ****

  Two hours later, after another of Liz’s gourmet dinners built around the fish they had caught earlier in the day, they sat around the table in the saloon reviewing their options.

  "Clarence is happy to help," Phillip said. "His helicopters are mostly idle, since the tourist season has wound down. We’ll both be on standby. When they tell you where to pick up the zombie, you call us and we’ll be airborne within 20 minutes. Figure another 30 minutes for us to be covering Vengeance."

  "I don’t get it," the professor said. "Even if they are planning something, won’t the helicopter tip them off? Those things are noisy."

  "Not this one," Phillip said. "Latest stealth technology, like something from science fiction. Quiet, and damn near invisible."

  The professor looked dubious.

  "I’m betting on Îles de la Petite Terre," Dani said. "Three-hour sail from Marie Galante, uninhabited, unlikely to have any bird watchers or divers around this time of year. It’s five miles from the mainland, and there’s not much ashore on that part of Guadeloupe anyway. As good a place for an ambush as you’re going to find."

  "Yes, that would be my pick, if I were Martinez," Phillip agreed.

  "So, I will clear you for leaving early in the morning," Sandrine said. "You give to me your entrance document now, and I am just writing some explanation on it, in the case that you are needing it to show to the Douane in Marie Galante. I will fix here in the computer in the morning, but one officer is maybe working up there, I think. They may ask you for it, but most likely they are not," Sandrine said.

  "Nice that you’re married to the customs officer," Dani smiled, elbowing Phillip in the ribs.

  "It’s not a duty-free deal, though," Phillip said.

  "I am make him pay me the bribe now, for all the things he get away with when he was the single man," Sandrine said. "He owes me now the large hours. That is how you say, Dani?"

  "Big time, Sandrine. He owes you ‘big time,’ for sure."

  "Yes. The large hours, for sure."

  Chapter 24

  Santa Magdalena was hove to several miles south-southeast of the town of St. François, Guadeloupe. Martinez reasoned that they were far enough offshore to avoid attracting the attention of customs, and they were about 12 miles west of Îles de la Petite Terre. This put them over the visual horizon from the islands for anyone in a small boat, yet it was close enough for quick access using the high-speed RIB that Moraga had brought.

  Martinez and Moraga stood on deck watching Gomez and one of the deck crew hoisting the RIB over the side. The brilliantly blue water was relatively calm, with a slight wind chop on top of the big, widely spaced swells that rolled around the southeast corner of the big island of Guadeloupe. One of the deck crew was riding in the RIB as Gomez and the other man lowered it into the water. Once it was afloat, the man in the RIB started the outboards and unhooked the crane’s cable from the three-point harness used to lift the boat. He brought the boat carefully alongside, holding it a few feet from the pilot ladder that was rigged on the leeward side of the ship. Martinez went down the pilot ladder and hung by his left hand, both feet on the last rung of the ladder. The crewman brought the boat in close, and Martinez, timing the rise and fall of the boat, stepped gracefully aboard. The boat drifted back a few feet as Moraga came down the ladder, and when he was ready, the crewman brought the boat in again.

  Once both were aboard, Moraga took the controls, and they were soon skimming across the water at 50 knots, the boat leaping free of the water as it vaulted the higher waves, the outboards screaming as their propellers came out of the water. The morning sunlight was refracted through the curtains of spray, forming brief rainbows before the slipstream carried the warm spray back into their faces. Martinez, sitting in what he had expected to be a comfortable seat on the front side of the steering pedestal, was soon drenched. After a few more bone-jarring landings, he rose into a crouch, and holding on carefully, worked his way back to stand beside Moraga. He tapped Moraga on the shoulder and bent to yell in his ear.

  "Slow down, damn it. We’ve got plenty of time," he bellowed over the roar of the engines.

  Moraga pulled the throttles back, smiling to himself as the boat settled into a more comfortable rhythm. In 10 minutes, they were in the shelter of the Îles de la Petite Terre, and he slowed the boat to a fast idle as they began exploring the shoreline of the low islands. After a complete circuit of the islands, they beached the RIB on the south side of Terre-de-Haut and went ashore. There were two islands surrounded by innumerable small rocks and reefs; the larger of the two, Terre-de-Bas, lay a few hundred feet to the southeast, across a channel about 300 meters wide. The islands were part of a marine preserve and a bird sanctuary, attracting some tourists during the winter season, but largely abandoned during the hurricane season.

  Terre-de-Haut was small and low; despite its name, it was high ground only when compared to its larger, lower-lying neighbor. The ground was sandy, with volcanic rock, and the vegetation was sparse. The air was hazy, filled with wind-driven spray from the waves breaking on the reef on the east side, the salt mist burning
Martinez’s eyes. He had studied the charts before leaving Santa Magdalena, assuring himself that there was enough water between the two islands for a yacht the size of Vengeance to anchor in the channel, not far from where they had beached the RIB. A short walk took them to the eastern side; they found a low, rough beach, pounded incessantly by the waves rolling in from the open sea.

  "This is perfect," Martinez said. "You can leave the zombie on the beach here. Shackle him to that big piece of driftwood and then head back toward Santa Magdalena. Call me as you’re leaving the island, and I’ll call the professor. You can come back to the ship and wait until we spot them on radar, and then take the RIB in just close enough to watch them with binoculars. What’s the range of your remote?"

  "Miles. It uses a marine VHF with a tone-encoded key pad like a telephone. I just have to enter the correct 4-digit code."

  "Good. Once you blow up the yacht, you can be back aboard the ship and we’ll be out of the area before anybody knows what happened. Unless somebody on the mainland sees the blast, it could be days before the wreckage is discovered. Maybe weeks."

  ****

  Fifteen miles to the south, Vengeance was at anchor off the town of Grand Bourg on Marie Galante. Dani had taken the ship’s papers into town in search of a customs officer, but she found the office closed. Her inquiry at the police station resulted in a Gallic shrug, accompanied by the advice that she should enjoy her stay on Marie Galante and visit the customs office in Point-à-Pitre if she felt compelled to do the paperwork. She returned to Vengeance to join the others in catching up on the sleep they had missed during their overnight sail from the south coast of Martinique.

  She awoke a few hours later to the sound of soft conversation from the cockpit. Rolling over, she saw that Liz’s berth on the other side of the forward cabin was empty. She got up and went into the head on her way aft, splashing her face with cold water. Climbing the companionway ladder, she found her three shipmates drinking coffee and eating pastries from an overflowing basket on the cockpit table.