Rising Water

by Wayne Stinnett

  Hearing something coming down the hill, I made myself invisible, camera at the ready. Soon a golf cart came into view, being driven by a man who might have been the brother of Ronald Olafson. After it disappeared, I crossed the road and moved quickly down the hill again. Once more I had to wait until the cart passed.

  Finally, I reached a point where the hill leveled off. Checking the GPS, I angled away from the road toward the pickup point. I could hear the cart arrive at the guard shack as I once more slipped through the barbed wire fence and hunkered down to wait for my ride. If he was punctual, he’d arrive in ten minutes. While I waited, I quickly shed my boots and camo clothes, dampened a rag with water and wiped the grease from my face.

  The sound of conversation and laughter reached my ears. Apparently, the two guards were talking, though I couldn’t hear what was being said. From their tone, it seemed the guy I’d cold-cocked sounded defensive and the other guy was doing most of the laughing. If they’d inspected their surroundings and weapons, they might have noticed that the firing pin was missing from the Glock. So much for situational awareness.

  After just a few minutes, I heard the whine of a gasoline engine coming up the road from the north—the direction my van had disappeared. I was just about ready to stand and flag him down when I saw there was more than just one person in the van, and the driver was white.

  It slowly rolled toward my position and I got a good look at the driver and the people in the back. There was another man in the passenger seat, but everyone in back had black hoods over their heads. Just like the ones I’d found in the guard’s desk. I got several pictures as the van passed.

  “Sassafras?” I asked over my secure video connection. “You mean like tea or root beer?”

  I’d waited until I was halfway across Drake Channel before contacting Chyrel, after first calling John and telling him what I’d found. Chyrel was our research genius, having formerly been a computer analyst with the CIA.

  “Not anymore,” Chyrel replied. “The FDA outlawed it after scientists found that it caused cancer in lab rats. Food and Drug was happy to do it, because of the trees’ illegal use.”

  “What’s illegal about a sassafras tree?”

  “Safrole is an oil produced from the tree’s bark and roots. It’s used to make MDMA, a hallucinogen commonly called ecstasy.”

  I’d heard of the synthetic drug. It was common in the club scene, particularly in techno-music dance clubs. It caused a person to become more extroverted, even those who were typically shy or reserved, giving them an elevated sense of well-being, emotional warmth, empathy toward others, and enhanced sensory perception. In other words, a huge physical turn-on. But it was a dangerous drug; one of the possible side effects for the casual user was a trip to the morgue.

  “Didn’t know it came from a tree,” I admitted. “I was under the impression that it was synthetic.”

  “It is,” Chyrel agreed. “Safrole is just one of the ingredients. Need anything else?”

  “Let me know if you find out anything on the people in the pictures I sent you,” I said.

  “I will. Facial recognition software can take a long time. Any idea on nationality or anything that could narrow the search?”

  “A few of the names in the ledger seemed Northern European or Scandinavian.”

  “That’ll help,” Chyrel said. “There are cameras everywhere in Europe. I’ll narrow the search.”

  “Thanks, that’s it for now.”

  Reaching over, I closed the computer’s video app, and returned the screen to the navigation chart. I was twenty minutes from Norman Island.

  Marijuana and ecstasy? I wondered.

  I had had my own personal dealings with pot and knew there were many different kinds—a far cry from the Panama Red and Colombian Gold that was prevalent when I was a kid. In my lifetime, grass had morphed into pot, which changed to weed, and was now called tree. I’d tried it once in high school and didn’t like it. I’d tried it again three decades later and had gotten hooked. But I hadn’t touched it in a few years now.

  Today’s pot farmers were a different breed. They wore lab coats, protective goggles, and gloves. They grew high-grade marijuana in temperature-, light-, and humidity-controlled labs with sophisticated irrigation systems. Much like my garden on the island. Under those ideal conditions, they grew various strains that had different effects on people. That made me think that the Onayans weren’t growing it to compete with the high-end stuff, that was cultivated and sold in states where it was legal.

  Maybe they had a lab for pot growing. If they did, and had the know-how, they could also make ecstasy right there on Tortola.

  But to do what with it? I wondered, as Floridablanca continued to eat up the miles.

  The BVI were a long way from the primary MDMA market—the streets and clubs in the inner cities of the United States and Europe.

  This was just the sort of thing I’d signed on with Armstrong Research to do. But I didn’t think it would be necessary to bring the vast corporate assets to bear. At least not yet. With any luck, I could make a difference all by myself. Or with a few friends.

  Thirty minutes later, I piloted Floridablanca back into Bight Bay and approached the mooring field. I’d paid for a ball before I departed and had left my dinghy tied to it.

  I tied off to the mooring ball and moved the dinghy aft, securing the painter to the stainless-steel rail next to the transom door. Then I went inside and retrieved my satellite phone. Minutes later, I pulled the little tender up onto the sand at Pirate’s Bight.

  The sun was hot on my back as I trudged up the beach toward the open-air tiki-style bar. There weren’t many people around; Sundays were turnover days in the Caribbean. Flights loaded with sunburned tourists took off and returned later with excited people ready for a week of fun in the sun.

  “Hello, Captain,” Mitzi said from behind the bar as I walked in. She gave some instructions to one of the bar staff, then came around and joined me, carrying a cold bottle of water.

  I thanked her for it and then asked if she’d seen John Wilson yet.

  “Not since dis morning,” she said, taking my elbow and leading me to a table in the corner. We sat at the same spot John and I had the previous night, overlooking the beach.

  I took a long pull from the water bottle. “He was here this morning?”

  “No,” she replied. “I live in John’s house.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “Nothin’ like dat,” she said, smiling brightly. “At least not anymore. We just friends now.”

  I looked at her more appraisingly. She was probably twenty or twenty-five, but I’ve never been good at guessing a woman’s age. John was in his late sixties.

  Was she the source John had said found the terrorist cell’s handler?

  “You were right,” I said. “The Onayans are growing marijuana at the compound on Tortola. Probably manufacturing MDMA, too. That’s a synthetic drug commonly called—”

  “Ecstasy,” she finished, bobbing her head. “I know of it. It has become a big problem here in di islands.” Her eyes looked suspicious. “How do you know dis?”

  I took a shot in the dark. “When John said we sometimes worked together, he didn’t mean that we fished together.”

  Her features melted into an amused smile. “You’re armed?”

  The question was a surprise, and I looked around quickly, expecting trouble. “Not at the moment.”

  Mitzi laughed. “I meant Mister Armstrong’s Mobile Expeditionary Division. A.R.M.E.D.”

  That was the first time I’d heard it referred to in that way, but it confirmed my suspicion that she was part of the organization. “No, I contract with the operational readiness side of things.”

  “Same, same,” she said.

  “And you?”

  She
smiled and nodded. “Not directly employed. I just see tings and tell John or Mister Armstrong. For dat, I get a small monthly stipend. So, you went dere and saw what dey are doing?”

  “Yeah. Rows and rows of marijuana plants and sassafras trees.”

  “And you know di ganja bush when you see one?”

  I arched an eyebrow. “I’m no saint, Mitzi.”

  “Nor I,” she said, with a knowing smile. “What is a sassafras tree?”

  “It normally grows in the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada, west to Iowa and as far south as central Florida and Texas. Also, in some parts of China. It’s not native to the Caribbean.”

  “What is it used for?”

  “In earlier times, it was used to make tea and root beer,” I replied. “But these days, the oil from the bark and roots is used in the manufacturing of ecstasy.”

  “Ah, dat would explain how it suddenly became easy to get here.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t remember it ever being a thing in dese islands until about a year ago.”

  John mounted the steps and came toward us. I rose and shook his hand as Mitzi went back to the bar and brought another bottle of water.

  John sat down and nodded toward Mitzi. “She’s okay, ya know. Her and her cousin both have been on Jack’s payroll for a few years now. You can speak freely around her.”

  I nodded. “Already figured that out.”

  Mitzi returned and sat across from us.

  “So, whaddya have planned?” John asked after I’d explained things more fully and shown him the pictures.

  “I don’t know yet,” I replied honestly. “In my past life, I was a door kicker. Any ideas?”

  John leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands clasped together, and lowered his head. After a moment, he looked up and fixed me with his one eye.

  “The woman’s body makes things a little different,” John said. “Normally, we’d put someone on the inside, gather evidence, pick up some intel, and learn their scheduling. Then get out and turn it over to the authorities.”

  “I hear a but,” Mitzi said.

  He nodded. “The taking of a life changes things. What if we got enough actionable intel to get the right person on a murder charge?”

  Mitzi shrugged. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no death penalty in the BVI or the UK,” I said. “The trial would take years, and the killer would get three hots and a cot for the rest of his life.”

  Mitzi frowned. “Dat’s a very cynical way of looking at it.”

  “Jesse’s a cynic when it comes to the legal process,” John said. “True, the killer’s future would be considered luxurious compared to the future that dead woman has.”

  John sat back and took a deep breath. He let it out slowly. “But ‘call it in’ is what we’re supposed to do in a situation like this.”

  “Call what in?” I asked. “The police up on Tortola have a body, not us. We have proof of ongoing criminal activity that might or might not be linked to the murder investigation.”

  “Always the maverick, aren’t you?” He said it more as a statement.

  Mitzi took his hand, and he looked over at her. “John, you know di Ministry of Natural Resources and Labour have been pushing for not just legalizing ganja but growing and harvesting it demselves.”

  “Yeah,” John said, letting out another defeated breath. “Growing pot in the islands is almost a rite of passage and they’re not gonna get more than a slap on the wrist for that. Their culture condones it, so that angle is out. I can see he’s not gonna call it in anyway.” He shrugged. “Try to expose them for making X?”

  I grinned. “I’m thinking the smiling Buddha would frown on that.”

  “Ha ha,” he said, in a mocking tone. Then he rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I wonder what Mashonay’s immigration status is here in the BVI. He’s American, right?”

  “He has an American accent,” Mitzi offered. “I met him once.”

  “If he did kill someone or was a part of it, you want to just throw him out of the country?” I was sure there was more to it than that.

  “No, that’s not where I was going.” John placed both palms on the table, leaned back, and looked alternately at each of us. “It makes a big difference on how we approach things if he and his people are here as tourists or as religious workers.”

  Later that night, I sat on the flybridge to watch the sun go down. Floridablanca’s stern swung lazily from northwest to west, depending on how the wind came over the island. The sun seemed to be heading toward the horizon right between the two extremes, so my view was perfect. It looked like it would probably disappear over Privateer Point on St. John, just three miles away.

  There was a buzzing noise forward; a dinghy starting up and heading away from the beach. After a moment, it slowed, coming close to my boat. I turned in my chair and looked out over the side.

  What was she doing here?

  “Hello, Captain,” Mitzi called up. “Do you plan to keep dat view all for yuhself?”

  I went down to the cockpit and opened the transom door. When Mitzi neared the swim platform, I grabbed the line off the bow of her little jet-drive tender and tied it off on the rail opposite my own dinghy. She took my extended hand and stepped over.

  “Is John okay?” I asked, wondering what she’d come out here for.

  “John is always fine,” she said, smiling up at me. “Dis is my one night off, and I saw you out here alone.” She lifted a canvas bag that obviously had a bottle in it. “So, I came out to drink and watch di sun go down wit yuh. If yuh have glasses, we have a party.”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. “Head on up to the flybridge and I’ll grab another glass.”

  A moment later, I returned to the bridge and found Mitzi relaxing with her feet up on the aft settee. I handed her a rocks glass, then opened the cooler. “Ice?”

  “Just one, thank you.” She opened the drawstrings on the bag and took a bottle out. “You strike me as a rum man. Am I right?”

  “When I drink, yeah,” I replied, dropping an ice cube into her glass, then sitting in the helm seat. “What is that?”

  “Another Tortola cousin blends dis,” she replied, turning the bottle toward me in the gathering darkness.

  “Tortola Spiced Rum?”

  “He starts with Cruzan dark,” she explained. “Den he adds his own choice of spices, and ages it for two years. Try it.”

  After I poured two fingers into Mitzi’s glass, she put her hand to the bottom of the bottle and continued the pour, filling the glass halfway.

  I poured two fingers into my glass, neat, and took a sip. “That’s pretty good.”

  “He makes his own recipe, too. But I tink his blend is better.”

  Looking over at her, I studied her profile as the sun shone full on her ebony face. Her eyes showed a mix of ancestry, as did her facial features. She had the high forehead and cheekbones of Europeans, both of which were more pronounced in the low-angled sunlight. Though not tall, her dark legs, bare except for her tight, white shorts, looked long, stretched out on the white sofa cushions.

  “I like to watch di sun go down,” she said. “In di winter, it is always over water from di bar.”

  “How long have you worked there?”

  “Since I was twenty,” she replied.

  “That tells me nothing.” I took another sip of the spiced rum. “Could have been two weeks ago or ten years.”

  She turned her head and smiled broadly, showing perfect white teeth. “Let’s say dat I have been working dere for less dan fifteen years.”

  Early thirties, I thought. A bit older than I’d guessed.

  The sun moved closer to the horizon. It was clear now that it would set beyond Privateer Point, but not by much. A slight swing to the north on the anchor rode would give us a water vi
ew, between Tortola and Saint John.

  We watched the sun retreat from the sky, each of us lost in our own thoughts. It quietly slipped below the point and was gone. A moment later, there was a flash of light just a few degrees to the north of where the sun had disappeared.

  “Was dat lightning?” Mitzi asked. “Just a little to di right?”

  “I thought I saw a flash,” I replied, still counting in my head.

  Light travels so fast that it’s almost instantaneous. There just wasn’t a distance far enough on Earth that it wouldn’t seem so. A flash of light 186,000 miles away would be seen one second after it was emitted. The Earth is only 25,000 miles around and standing at sea level, the horizon was only three miles away. So, a visible flash on Earth takes only a nano-second to reach the eyes. Sound, on the other hand, is much slower, taking nearly five full seconds to travel a single mile.

  When I reached forty in my head, I heard a low rumble coming from the west-northwest, the same direction we’d seen the flash.

  “Eight miles away,” I said. “Might be a storm brewing.”

  “What is dat in kilometers?”

  I ran the calculation in my head, almost before she finished the question. I’d worked with snipers and scouts from all over the world, so these conversions came naturally to me. “Almost thirteen kilometers.”

  “Di western end of Tortola is about dat far.”

  My sat phone rang on the console, and I picked it up. “It’s John.”

  “Don’t tell him I am here,” Mitzi said.

  I touched the Talk button and held the phone to my ear. “Hey, John. What’s up?”

  “Just a few minutes ago, there was an explosion on Little Thatch Island.”

  My feet came off the seat cushion and hit the deck with a thud as I sat up straight. “What kind of an explosion?”

  “Not sure yet, what or exactly where. I’m listening in on the Royal Virgin Islands Police band. They have boats on the way to the west end of Little Thatch. That’s where the call came in from. Isn’t that where the woman’s body was found last week?”