by Jack Mars
“Tell me,” Luke said.
“I requested a tail on him like you asked for last night,” Trudy said. “The local FBI followed him leaving his house in a blue BMW Z3, the same car he previously surrendered to the police. At some point, he recognized the tail. He drove around seemingly at random for a while, then stopped the car on a bridge over the Cape Fear River. He climbed to the top of the bridge and threw himself off. The local agent followed him up there, tried to engage, but said Zorn wouldn’t talk. They recovered the body downriver about six miles, near where the river dumps into the ocean, caught on an old Army Corps of Engineers retaining wall.”
“What does that tell us?” Luke said.
“It tells us he was involved. Turns out Jeff Zorn and Darwin King are known associates. They used to party together when they both lived in New York City.”
“Ah,” Luke said. “Do we still think the girl is on the island?”
“We do,” Don said. “I don’t think this man’s suicide changes anything, except now we know how King got access to the girl. So let’s do it. Trudy, tell us about the island.”
One of the pages on the kitchen counter was a large map of the island. Trudy Wellington took the handoff from Don, and started giving them the rundown.
“St. Simon’s Saw,” she said. “It’s a private island about forty miles north of the Honduras coastline. It is basically a series of small, very steep hills or mountains rising out of the ocean. Hence the name. Early mariners thought the jagged peaks looked like a long saw, and named it for Saint Simon the Zealot, traditionally one of the twelve Apostles of Christ, thought to have been martyred by being sawed in half.”
“Lovely,” Luke said.
“Beautiful story,” Trudy said. “It was a pretty common method of execution for many centuries. I could show you some nice woodcut images of people being sawed in half during the Middle Ages.”
“No thanks.”
Suit yourself,” she said, and moved on. “There is a large stone house, Casa del Sol, or House of the Sun, at the top of the tallest mountain. The house was built in the 1890s by Mexican industrial baron Carlos San Patricio. The stone was brought to the island by boat, and was pulled up the mountainside by mules.
“Over the years, San Patricio had acquired vast tracts of land throughout Central America, including several islands off the coast. He was a devout Catholic, and repeated disease outbreaks in the region—cholera, typhoid, and smallpox, to name a few—led him to believe the world was ending. St. Simon’s Saw was where he planned to wait for the resurrection of Christ.”
“How long did he wait?” Ed said.
Trudy laughed. “He’s still waiting.”
Luke looked at a topographical map. The island was a misshapen thing, rounded to the west, with a long peninsula of what looked like beach at the bottom of some foothills stretching out to the east. The base of the island, basically an outer ring all the way around, was at sea level. The house appeared to sit at an elevation of 1,100 feet, the highest point on the island.
“Is that an airfield I see at the north end?” he said.
“Yes,” Trudy said. “The island changed hands numerous times through the twentieth century. In the mid-1960s it was an exclusive resort of the emerging international jet set. The house became a hotel, with numerous smaller cabana houses both on the grounds of the house and down near the beach. People would fly in on private planes.”
Luke picked up an old, full-color, three-panel brochure. Visit fantastic St. Simon Island. The cover was a photo of a rambling, whitewashed stone house, surrounded by dense green foliage. Inside the brochure, a beautiful woman in a one-piece bathing suit lounged by an inground swimming pool near lush gardens, the ocean visible in the distant background. Finally, there was an aerial photo, probably taken by helicopter, of a long, seemingly deserted white sand beach, with waves crashing.
“Didn’t work, I gather,” Luke said.
“It seems that it was up and down,” Trudy said. “The resort changed hands and names several times. The ocean along the island’s beaches can be rough. A handful of people drowned while vacationing there, which didn’t help the place’s reputation. That area also tends to get pummeled by hurricanes and tropical storms. The beachfront cabanas were repeatedly destroyed, and the whole beachfront accommodation idea was eventually abandoned.”
“When did King buy it?” Ed said.
“It’s not clear that he ever bought it,” Trudy said. “I’ve researched it and haven’t found a deed of sale, a quitclaim, any kind of transfer of ownership to him. It’s officially owned by a shell company based in Grand Cayman, called Heritage Trust Royale, which may be affiliated in some way with an entity known as Royal Heritage Bank. The headquarters of both is the same post office box. The company has owned the island since 1979, when Darwin King would have been about thirty-two years old. It’s possible he is Heritage Trust Royale, and he bought it as an investment when he was a young man. Whenever and however he came into possession of it, he seems to have started appearing there in the early 1990s. The place had fallen into disrepair by then, and he renovated it, returning to the idea of using it as a home, not a hotel.”
“A place to escape the law?” Ed said.
“Indeed,” Trudy said. “Darwin King prefers to live outside the lines. St. Simon’s Saw isn’t claimed by any country. In a technical sense, international law prevails there, but in reality no one is there to enforce it. Honduras is the country most nearby, but the government is utterly corrupt and King has close ties with several people in the government and the military. They do not interfere with him.
“On his own private island, to a large degree, he is the law. When he’s in hot water in the United States, such as the ongoing investigation in Florida, he retreats to St. Simon’s. He’s thought to have been living there for the past six months, with occasional visits to Honduras, the Cayman Islands, and possibly, Colombia and Venezuela.”
“Who’s the woman with him?” Ed said.
“In the photos we sent?” Trudy said.
“Yes.”
Ed was holding a photograph of a younger Darwin King and staring at it intently. In the photo, King was dressed in a nicely tailored black sports jacket, his hair only a bit gray, at some sort of cocktail party. On his arm was a thin, lovely short-haired brunette in a green dress, which matched her striking green eyes. They were both holding drinks. On the counter there was another photo of King with the same woman, this time on a boat. In that one, the woman was wearing a green windbreaker jacket.
“That’s Elaine Sayles, fifty-one years old. An heiress to the old Sayles furrier fortune from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, long since diversified into cosmetics, high tech, defense, and real estate.”
“Furs,” Swann said.
“Yeah,” Ed said. He had not taken his eyes off the photo. “Out of fashion.”
“She grew up in New York, London, and Paris. She ran with a fast crowd when she was young, movie stars, musicians, artists. She did some magazine modeling, and appeared in low-budget avant-garde films. She took up with King sometime in the 1980s, and began to appear on his arm at charitable events, dinners, shows. Maybe she was his girlfriend in those days, maybe she wasn’t. Now she’s thought to be a procurer of sorts for him, bringing teenage girls into his orbit. She is also thought to play den mother and disciplinarian to the girls, keeping them organized and in line.”
“She’s a pimp,” Ed said.
“If you like,” Trudy said. “Either way, she is definitely a member of his household, and is his longtime friend and partner in crime.”
The look in Ed’s eyes was very, very dangerous. Luke flashed back to the way Ed looked when he was dealing with Louis Clare.
“You planning to kill somebody?” Luke said.
Big Ed shrugged. “I don’t have any firm plans right now.”
“In any event,” Trudy said, “as far as we know, Darwin King is on St. Simon’s Saw. Our best guess is that Charlo
tte Richmond is there as well, likely along with several other abducted or trafficked teenage girls, any number of household staff, a squad of personal bodyguards, and possibly a dozen or more rank and file Honduran soldiers. And also Elaine Sayles.”
“Do we know any of this for a fact?” Luke said.
“Stone,” Swann said, “I’ve been flying a gossamer drone, very light, up near eighty thousand feet, in that area since before dawn. Although I’m way up high, I have pretty good optics. There was thick fog around the island this morning, but it has mostly burned off. Skies are clear and I’m looking at it right now, almost in real time. I can see the whole island and the compound around the house in detail.”
“Let’s hear it,” Luke said.
“There are troops present at both the house and the airfield, hard to say how many. There is a small modern jet and two military-style jeeps parked at the airfield. There is a checkpoint and guard station near the entrance to the house, along with a couple more jeeps, at least one of which may have a rear-mounted gun. Also, there is what looks like security fencing around the entire house compound. Inside the compound, there are four or five people at the pool. There are other people milling around, what I would guess are servants or bodyguards.”
“Terrific,” Luke said. Not only were there soldiers to fight, there were all kinds of civilians to get in the way. He stared down at the map.
“Would you say that’s about a mile from the airfield to the house?”
“A mile and a half, closer to two,” Swann said. “And bear in mind the road goes straight up the hillside.”
“Okay.”
“Here’s the best part,” Swann said. “Along that perimeter fencing, there’s something moving, which I’m going to guess… Hold on, let me see if I can pull in a bit. Yeah, it looks like what you’ve got there is two fences, with a bit of a gap between them. And there are dogs in the gap.”
“Dogs?” Luke said.
“Either that, or small ponies. Something on four legs. Bear cubs? I think probably dogs. Dobermans, Rottweilers, something along those lines. Four, five, I count at least six. Could be more.”
“How about something friendly, like Labradoodles?” Luke said.
“Sure,” Swann said. “If you prefer. It’s a security dog run filled with friendly, happy dogs. Bring some chewy treats.”
“And a Frisbee,” Trudy said.
Luke sighed. “So what’s the plan? We go there by airplane, ask for permission to land, hitchhike two miles up to the house, waltz right past all his people and his killer guard dogs, and arrest the man?”
It seemed far-fetched, at best.
“This is a rescue operation,” Don Morris said. “Not an arrest. It’s an extraction.”
“An extraction?” Ed said.
“Yes,” Don said. “We have one objective. Infiltrate, find, and extract the Richmond girl, and get her back out safely. Everything else is superfluous. You are not there to arrest Darwin King. You are not there to go to war against the Honduran army.”
“What about the other girls?” Ed said.
“It’s tricky,” Don said. “We don’t know how long those girls have been there. We don’t know why they’re there. We don’t even know for sure who they are. Many people who are being trafficked don’t know they’re being trafficked, or have forgotten how they came to be in these situations. Many will take the side of the traffickers. It’s going to be hot in there, and you do not want to waste time trying to drag people out who do not want to leave. If you encounter evidence of human trafficking, acquire it, and we’ll go back in there with Black Hawks and squads of Delta. I will see to it myself.”
Ed didn’t answer.
Luke looked at him. Ed was taking a sip from his coffee mug, his eyes peering over the top. Those eyes said this was not an arrest, or an extraction. It was a hit. At least, that was how Luke read them.
This was beginning to seem impossible.
“Yeah, but how do we even get in there?” Luke said. “The island looks like dense jungle pretty much everywhere, and it’s a steep hillside, so it would be hard to parachute in, especially at night. The airfield is doable, but they control it. Even if we do get in, how are we supposed to get back out again?”
“Right,” Don said.
“Is that an answer to my question?”
“Do you remember a guy named Buzz MacDonald?” Don said.
Luke shook his head and smiled. What was this, some sort of nostalgia game? Of course he remembered him. Mike “Buzz” MacDonald was an old combat junkie from even before Don’s generation, when special operations wasn’t a term yet. He was still around Joint Special Operations Command when Luke was just coming on board Delta.
They used to call him Buzz Mac. Buzzsaw. Iron Mac. Big Mac. A bunch of nicknames. He was the ultimate cowboy, even more so than Don himself. Don could play along well enough that the brass trusted him with men under his command, and now with his own agency. Buzz MacDonald was out there on a limb, all by himself. The gossip was that Buzz had lived through more than a hundred missions.
“Yeah,” Luke said. “I remember him.”
“He’s waiting to talk to us,” Don said. “I believe he can get you men in there.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Morning
An Island Near Honduras
The Caribbean Sea
21 needs to get out of here.
It was the first thought on her mind as she slowly came awake. She knew it was daytime because the light had changed, from absolute darkness to a dim twilight. She also knew it because she was hungry, thirsty, and had to go to the bathroom. She was learning to tell time by her bodily urges.
21 better think of something.
Soon, a small, dark man in a green uniform would open the door and wordlessly walk her down the short hall to the grimy bathroom. After that, he would bring her breakfast on a tray, with water and tea. Or maybe, if she was lucky, Mistress Elaine would turn up and take her outside onto the bright, sunlit patio for breakfast.
She knew where she was now, more or less, and she had some sense of the time. Her orientation was much better than it had been. She still had no idea how long she had been gone from home, but it now seemed like she had been here just a few days.
Last night before she slept, in the pitch dark, she went over the day in her mind. She didn’t think about Darwin or Elaine, per se. She did not want to think about them, or what they wanted from her.
She thought instead about the place.
It was an island near Honduras. She knew that. Near, but far. Not so close that you could swim there.
The house was very big, with lots of rooms. When they led her upstairs to see Darwin yesterday—it was yesterday, wasn’t it?—she had lost track of where she was going.
There were men here, soldiers. They carried rifles. There were other men, as well, big white men in suit jackets with dangerous looks in their eyes. In fact, all the men here had dangerous looks in their eyes, from Darwin on down.
There was a fence around this property. She had noticed that. She had also noticed the looping razor wire at the top of it. The place was a fancy beautiful prison, and she was trapped inside.
There were telephones here. Darwin had one on his table. It was old, but it was definitely a working phone. She had been posing for him, showing him her body, and then one of the big men had come in and told Darwin there was a phone call. She noticed Darwin look at the phone. After she left, he was going to pick it up and talk on it.
People could call here, and that probably meant you could call out.
Call where?
Home, of course.
How?
She didn’t know. Did you have to dial a certain number to get an outside line? Did you have to dial one followed by an area code? Was there a special code because you were out of the country? She didn’t know any of these things.
And if she reached someone, what would she tell them?
“I’m on an island near Hond
uras.” Would that be enough? Were there a lot of islands near Honduras? How far away was Honduras?
There was so much she didn’t know.
She had seen a photo of the beach here. Elaine had told her that one day, when they trusted her, they might let her go off the property and down to the beach with the other girls. Could you swim away from here? Was there another island nearby that you could swim to? Charlotte was a good swimmer.
Charlotte. My name is Charlotte.
But she wasn’t swim-across-the-English-Channel good. She wasn’t Olympics good.
Also, what if there were sharks in the water?
That wasn’t going to work.
Just then, the familiar sound of the bolts being pulled back came. Charlotte was still on her bed, with the robe still on, and face down under the threadbare blanket. She rolled over and pulled the robe tightly around her. She prepared to shield her eyes from the sudden onslaught of light about to come.
The door opened and the light streamed in. There were two figures in the doorway. One was a man, probably the same man who opened this door every morning. The other figure was a thin female—Mistress Elaine. Good. That was good. Charlotte did not like Elaine, and was afraid of her. But she would brave almost anything to get out of this room and into the sunlight again.
“There she is,” Elaine said. Her voice was cold. “Sit up.”
“Good morning,” Charlotte said, moving to a sitting position. She was trying to sound cheerful, but not too cheerful. Every step, every word, every gesture, could be putting your foot down on a bomb.
“What’s good about it?” Elaine said.
Charlotte was hesitant. “I don’t know.”
“If you don’t know, then why did you say it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know anything, do you?”
Charlotte didn’t answer.
“Are you really that stupid?”
Elaine stepped into the room. Charlotte’s eyes were already adjusting to the light, and she could see that Elaine was carrying a leather switch, the kind that she liked to hit Charlotte with. The man with the gun stepped in behind.