by Cap Daniels
He removed his gloves and threw away the remnants of the medical procedure. “So, what did you tell her?”
“I told her the truth—that I didn’t know who’d sent me. But that’s not what’s important. Her question is what’s important. She didn’t ask who sent me to kill Suslik. She asked who sent me to kill Barkov.”
Realization consumed his face. “That’s perfect! That means whoever she works for thinks you were after Barkov and not Suslik. They think this was a botched assassination attempt, when in reality, it was the epitome of success. You’re a genius. Simply a genius!”
He grabbed my face in his hands and repeatedly kissed me on the forehead until I shoved him away.
He calmed himself. “Okay, okay, so tell me. How did she get the jump on you and get you hogtied without you waking up?”
Honestly, I had no idea how she’d been able to climb aboard my boat, evade the mousetraps, and tie me up with enough piano wire to build a dozen Steinway baby grands without waking me up. It was unthinkable. I hadn’t been that drunk nor that tired.
That’s when Dutch cocked his head and leaned toward me. I shoved him again, thinking he was about to continue his romance with my forehead, but he slapped my hands away and reached for my neck. He plucked a tiny dart from the flesh of my neck, about an inch below my hairline.
He held the dart up to the light and whispered, “Holy shit. She shot you with a tranquilizer. Who the hell is that girl?”
Instinctively, I rubbed my neck where the dart had been, but the puncture wound was so small I could barely feel it. “I have no idea who she is, but I’m going to find out. I’m most definitely going to find out, Dutch.”
He stumbled his way to the galley and poured two drinks. I followed him through the companionway and up on deck. I found my seat, and I felt my tongue swelling. The anesthetic was wearing off and the pain was returning. I thought a drink might help, so I graciously accepted what Dutch had poured and polished it off in short order. I handed the tumbler back to my surgeon, and I pointed back into the galley. He laughed, finished his drink, and promptly poured two more. This time, he brought the bottle.
With our fresh drinks in hand, Dutch asked, “So, what are you going to do now? You know you can’t stay here.”
My tongue throbbed and consumed all the free space in my mouth. “The hell I can’t. I’m not leaving this island until I find her, question her, and decide if I can let her live.” Blood trickled from my tongue, and I wondered if I’d ever be able to taste anything again.
“There’s no way she’ll come back tonight. I’m not sure if you hit her with your rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ demonstration earlier, but I’m pretty sure you scared her away, at least for tonight.” I hoped I hadn’t pissed him off by making fun of his pitiful display of shipboard marksmanship.
“Hey, I wouldn’t have missed if it weren’t for the nine thousand mouse traps you have on the floor. What’s that about anyway?”
I laughed. “It’s not a floor, Dutch. It’s a deck, and the mousetraps are my burglar alarm. Anyone who sneaks aboard while I’m sleeping will set off a few of the traps and make enough noise to wake me up. I borrowed the idea from Joshua Slocum, except he used carpet tacks in South America. He would scatter a handful of tacks on deck every night before falling asleep, so that any barefoot natives who decided that his head would look good on their mantle would be in for quite a surprise. The tacks worked for Captain Slocum, but my mousetraps didn’t do a thing to dissuade little miss blowgun from making herself right at home.”
I downed my second drink and stared at him. “Dutch, whoever or whatever she is, she’s good . . . very good. And definitely better than me.”
“She ain’t better than me, kid,” he snorted.
“She made you miss a pistol shot from less than twenty feet, and then got you stuck in my hatch while she swam away. I’d say she bested both of us tonight.”
He huffed and returned to his drink.
“So,” I said, “do you have any suggestions on what to do next?”
He screwed up his face. “Yeah, I have a very good idea of what to do next. You get this tub started and get the hell out of here before she comes back and cuts your throat. Which is exactly what she would’ve done if I hadn’t shown up to save your tranquilized butt.”
I wasn’t so sure Dutch was correct. I wasn’t convinced that she was going to cut my throat, but I silently vowed that the next time I saw her, she would be at my mercy, not the other way around.
I asked him, “So, how many of us are there?”
“It’s just you and me, kid.”
He didn’t understand the question.
“No, I mean how many operators are there who do what we do?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a hundred or so. I don’t know all of them. Somebody’s always getting dead, and somebody new is always coming up through The Ranch. I can’t keep track. What difference does it make?”
I said, “The difference it makes is that we could use a little help down here in paradise. Like my father used to say, ‘If this ain’t a mess, it’ll sure do ‘til one gets here.’ I’d like to get some eyes on that girl and keep our thumb on her without her knowing we’re watching. How soon can we get half a dozen operators down here to help us catch her?”
He lifted his drink and peered through the sweaty glass. “That’s not how this works. We don’t just call in reinforcements when things get screwed up. We deal with the problem and we fix it. The fewer people who know what’s going on down here, the better. If we get other people involved, they’re going to want the credit for catching, interrogating, and maybe flipping this girl.”
“What do you mean, flipping her?”
“Grow up,” he said. “That’s what we do when we aren’t killing them. We flip them to work for us. Everyone has a weakness: sleep deprivation, withholding food, torture, whatever it takes. We find out what scares or motivates them, and then we exploit the hell out of it until our captive spills his—or in this case, her—guts and tells us everything we want to know. Then, if we’ve not killed her, we put her to work as an asset for the good guys until she’s found out and killed by her own people. That’s how it’s done, Chase. You should know that by now.”
No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t see me or anyone else flipping her. She was cunning and fearless. Those aren’t characteristics of a person with weaknesses. Even after she nearly cut my tongue in half and then tried to cut my hand off, I still wanted to know her name. I wanted to see her smile, and most of all, I wanted to hear her say my name. I didn’t want to flip her. I wanted to hold her, smell her hair, and taste her lips . . . if my tongue ever healed.
“I’m going back to bed, and you’re going back ashore,” I said. “Thank you for shooting up my boat and sewing up my tongue. We’ll talk tomorrow, then we’ll find that girl.”
“Since when did you start deciding what we were going to do, kid?”
“Get out of here and let me get some sleep. She didn’t get what she wanted from me tonight, so she’ll be coming back. When she does, I won’t be the one who’s interrogated.”
22
My Deadly Mermaid
My mind wouldn’t stop churning. I couldn’t get her out of my head. I had to come up with a plan to find her and have a conversation without her cutting me, stabbing me, or tying me up again. I didn’t understand why she felt so comfortable strolling along the beach in plain sight, but in the middle of the moonless night, it occurred to me that she had no idea that I’d ever seen her before then. She didn’t know I was at Belmont. She didn’t know I had watched her on top of that water tower. She had no way of knowing that my thoughts had been consumed by her for months. I at least had that much of an advantage over her. She was clearly quite accomplished in her craft. She, or her support network, had tracked me over a thousand miles through the islands of the Bahamas and the Caribbean, and found me there on St. Thomas.
I wrestled with that one for some time. I couldn�
�t conceive how they could’ve possibly tracked me. I’d made no purchases with anything other than cash. I’d bought no fuel. I’d cleared no customs. I’d made zero telephone calls. And I’d done most of my navigation via dead reckoning—the practice of navigating with just a compass and a clock—since the weather had been so good, and I’d stayed within sight of the islands most of the voyage. Her ability to track me there didn’t make sense, but then again, Dutch had found me.
I had to find him before he vanished. I had to know how he was able to find me. A terrifying thought occurred to me.
What if Dutch intentionally missed his pistol shot? What if he’s working with the Russian?
If, as Dr. Richter had said, Dutch was in it for the money, my newfound wealth would make me an irresistible target for his greed. I didn’t like the conspiratorial voyage my mind was taking. I wanted to trust Dutch. I wanted to trust someone. I thought back to the bank in Miami and the prophetic words of David Shepherd: Here’s to knowing when to be afraid.
Sleep wouldn’t come. I inspected my throbbing tongue in the mirror and found that it was twice its normal size. The stitches looked pretty good, but the surface of my tongue was solid black from the bruising. My wrist was still oozing blood, but it didn’t hurt. For the first time, I was thankful for the metallic hand the doctors had built for me.
I tossed a towel, t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops, and my pistol into the dry bag, and grabbed my mask, fins, and snorkel. As quietly as possible, I slipped over the side of my boat and into the water that appeared inky black under the dark Caribbean sky. I oriented myself toward a particularly dark cove and a secluded section of beach before setting off swimming.
Breathing past my bloated tongue proved more challenging than I had expected. After what felt like half an hour swimming in the dark and gasping for air most of the way, I finally arrived on the beach, stripped off my wet shorts, dried off quickly, and pulled on my dry clothes. I carefully hid my remaining gear under a pile of palm fronds, pocketed my pistol, and headed for Dutch’s bungalow.
I moved cautiously. I not only didn’t want Dutch or the Russian to spot me, I didn’t want a security guard to discover me lurking around with a pistol. As I approached Dutch’s bungalow, I listened carefully for any sound. He would’ve set up at least some measure of perimeter security to warn him of anyone approaching. The closer I got to the bungalow, the emptier it appeared. There was no light coming from the windows and no sound coming through the thin walls. The most telling sign that the bungalow was empty was the absence of sand on the steps leading to the door. If anyone had entered after the steps had been swept, there would’ve been at least some trace of sand on the bowed, wooden planking. Clearly, he had thoroughly cleaned the place before he left. His tradecraft skills were among the best on Earth. If he didn’t want me to find him, I certainly didn’t have the skill to flush him out.
If he was working with the Russian, it would be reasonable to assume that his skill as a ghost would carry over to her as well. Even if she were less skilled than him, he would ensure that their tracks were well covered until they’d achieved their goal. For the moment, I was working under the assumption that their goal was my newly burgeoning bank account.
As I planned my entrance to Dutch’s cabana, the world in front of me exploded with a blindingly bright light. I shielded my eyes and tried to peer around my fingertips to bring the source into focus. I knelt in the sand to shrink the size of the target I presented and squinted painfully against the light.
Dutch would never do anything to draw that much attention to himself in the middle of the night. Only a cop would be so clumsy. I’d been trained to think on my feet and avoid being arrested at all cost, so I hatched what I thought was a brilliant plan to not only avoid being arrested, but to get a look inside Dutch’s bungalow.
I twisted my swollen tongue until I could feel one of the stitches between my teeth. I bit down on the stitch and yanked my tongue back as quickly as I could. The pain of the stitch tearing away from the flesh of my tongue was agonizing, but I held in the scream that wanted to explode from my throat. I let the blood seep across my lip and down my chin.
As I rehearsed the lines for my upcoming performance, an excited voice yelled out, “Don’t move! Security! What are you doing out here sneaking around?”
I didn’t have to exaggerate my inability to form coherent words. My bloated tongue did that for me. I held my hands to my mouth to emphasize the blood, and I mumbled, “Two guys . . . attacked me . . . stole my wallet . . . ran in there, I think.”
I pointed at Dutch’s bungalow and watched the bright light jerk away from me and land squarely on the front door. I was still mostly blind from the light, so I made no effort to move. I sat down with a thud and covertly drove my pistol into the soft sand beneath my leg. When I had regained the ability to pick out objects in my field of vision, I saw the outline of a security guard coming toward me.
He asked, “Are you okay, sir?”
I pointed to my mouth. “They hit me in the face and stole my wallet and passport. I didn’t have much money, but I really need that passport.”
I wasn’t faking the pain associated with talking, but the pain was the only genuine thing about my performance.
The guard, clearly not interested in getting involved with my bloody mouth, backed away. “Okay, sir. Just stay right here. We’re going to check inside the bungalow.”
He turned and joined his partner, and slowly approached the bungalow. With the barrel of his flashlight, the first security guard tapped the front door. “Security! Is anybody in there?”
When no answer came, he pounded more aggressively, this time with his fist. On the third or fourth blow, the door of the bungalow drifted open, just like it had done when I knocked the previous day. The unarmed security guards shuffled through the door with their flashlights blazing a trail before them.
By that time, I had mounted the top step behind the guards and began scanning the front room. My height permitted me a vantage point over their shoulders. When I saw the inky, semi-circular puddle a few feet inside the bungalow, my heart sank.
The guards noticed the pooling blood at the same moment I did. One of them crossed himself and whispered something that I suppose was intended for God’s ears. Both men followed the blood with their flashlights until the white rings of light fell on Dutch’s body. I leaned inward to get a glimpse. Dutch had been sliced from the tops of both kneecaps, up to his belt, with wounds so precise a surgeon would’ve been in awe. Above his belt line, he had been gutted like pig, but that wasn’t the most disturbing wound. As I quickly surveyed his corpse, I noticed that several small, cautious incisions had been made around the base of his neck and a few inches down his shoulders. The wounds obviously weren’t life threatening and hadn’t produced much bleeding, but they were meticulous and unmistakably intentional.
I felt my stomach spasm as the reality of the scene overtook me. I couldn’t let the emotion of the experience overwhelm the necessity to disappear. I backed silently out the door and turned and ran. I couldn’t let myself get caught up in a murder investigation on St. Thomas. I ran until the lights of the bungalows were no longer visible and I was completely breathless. I sprinted to the point where I hid my pistol and snatched the Makarov from the sand. Having lost enough blood over the last several hours to drown a cat, I lacked my typical stamina. I finally collapsed on the beach where I had stashed my gear under the palm fronds. When I was able to catch my breath, I reclaimed my dry bag, donned my mask, fins, and snorkel, and hurriedly threw my pistol into the bag before slinking back into the lagoon.
As my head sank beneath the water, I paused to adjust the snorkel in my bloody mouth and attach my dry bag to my belt loop. I pushed off the sandy bottom with my hands, and I thought I caught a glimpse of something sinking in front of my mask. I ignored whatever it was, and I gently kicked with my fins and felt my body move away from the beach. It didn’t take long to realize that what I had glimpsed was a thin
rope, and it was drawing tightly around my torso, trapping my arms to my sides. At the same instant, I felt a bony knee land squarely between my shoulder blades, pinning me to the bottom.
My survival instinct joined forces with my mammalian reflex to find oxygen and sent my brain into near panic. There was nothing more important than getting air into my lungs, and there was no question whose knee was pressed between my shoulder blades, pinning me to the bottom of the lagoon. I was going to have to fight for my life.
I exhaled every ounce of air inside my lungs, preparing to inhale what might be my final breath. Just as I felt my lungs empty, I pumped my abdomen to draw in my next breath, but instead of air, saltwater and sand poured into my mouth through the barrel of my snorkel. My situation had just become exponentially worse. Not only was I pinned to the bottom of the lagoon in less than three feet of water, but my arms were tied to my torso, and the deadliest woman I knew was kneeling on my back. As bad as all of those things were, the most troubling issue was the saltwater and sand filling my lungs.
I was about to die with eight million dollars in the bank and the woman I so desperately desired kneeling on my spine. After what I had endured at The Ranch, and doing what only a handful of people on Earth could accomplish in Havana, I was going to die in mere inches of water.
I heard Ace’s voice ringing in my head. You’re something special. You’re your father made over, only better.
I couldn’t let them down. Not Ace. And definitely not my father. What would Beater think if he knew I’d let a ballerina get the jump on me twice in one night?
I felt the hard metal frame of the Makarov pistol through the rubbery material of the dry bag pinned to my hip. I found the curve of the trigger guard and pressed my index finger against what I hoped was the trigger. If I got lucky, the barrel of the Makarov would be pointed toward the Russian, and the bullet would find enough flesh to get her off my back. When I felt the trigger collapse beneath the pressure of my finger and I heard the report of the pistol from within the dry bag, part of my brain expected to feel the heat of the bullet burn through my own flesh, but the burn didn’t come. Before the echo of the shot could resound, I heard the Russian scream, and I felt her nimble body collapse beside me in the shallow lagoon.