Realizing that I had only one chance, I took a calculated risk, hoping the sentry who’d discovered me had looked up at the woman’s question. I rolled onto my back and kicked out with my right leg, using all my strength and focus. At the same time, my Sig came up and the little dot fell on the center of the man’s chest.
There were two more snapping sounds; both sickening. One was the hammer of his Glock as he pulled the trigger and the other was his knee. He dropped his disabled weapon and went down, writhing in pain from the severely dislocated knee. He was screaming like a wounded hyena.
Continuing my roll, I snatched up the gun the man had dropped, stuffed it into my waistband, scrambled to my feet, and made a mad dash toward the group around the fire. The blond woman called Sunna rose, three pairs of hands trying to pull her back down. I recognized her as one of the people whose pictures I’d seen in the guard’s desk up on Tortola.
“Who are you?” she shouted again, though not very coherently.
Ignoring her, I sprinted to the table and grabbed the plastic bag from which Frenchy had been distributing the pills and stuffed it into my pocket. Then I picked up one of the unused drinks the people had drunk from.
Quickly, I ran toward the woods on the other side of the perimeter, trying not to slosh out too much of the contents of the cup.
Once in the cover of the forest again, I stopped behind a tree and looked back. The sentry who’d discovered me was still down, clutching his knee. He was out and would need a doctor. The group on the mats, including Sunna Johannsdottir, was now in a sexual frenzy, perhaps charged by the intrusion. Beyond what I’d read, I had no idea what the effects were of ecstasy, which is what I felt certain was in my pocket. But those people were now into a full-on orgy.
I quickly shed my pack and pulled a water bottle from one of the side pockets. Dumping the water, I poured the liquid from the cup into the bottle and put the lid on tight.
Spotting movement beyond the bunkhouses, I made out a man running toward the group, a rifle in his hand. A scoped rifle. It was time to get small.
I stuck the bottle back in the pocket and threw my pack over my shoulder. I didn’t run headlong into the dense foliage, but I did pick my way quickly, and moved down the hill in the direction of the road, as fast as I could go while making minimal sound. The scope on the man’s rifle was a worry, but it was long and slim, more of a hunting scope. It definitely wasn’t equipped with night-vision optics, which had a much larger objective lens, and was overall shorter and bulkier.
The fence was no more than a five-second obstacle, and once I was on the road, I picked up my pace, knowing there were no trip hazards. They had an electric cart. Even on this rough terrain, it would be faster than my slow jog. So, I needed to increase the distance they’d have to search. No matter how powerful an enemy might be, if he spreads his assets too thin, he is vulnerable.
Night-vision goggles work great for what they’re designed for, which is seeing in the dark. They gather and intensify existing light, through electronic means. But the wearer has tunnel vision; no peripheral vision at all. You have to move your head to look left or right.
Or down.
My right foot came down on a loose rock and my ankle turned outward, pitching me into a sideways dive. I rolled with it, already knowing that the pain would reach my brain before I hit the ground, and it did.
Fortunately, I landed in a patch of sandy soil where no cacti was growing. I stifled a moan and rolled, protecting my right ankle as best as I could. The goggles flew off my head.
As if in slow motion, I rolled again, scurrying behind a gumbo limbo tree, where I sat down with my right leg out in front of me.
The pain in my ankle throbbed with every beat of my heart.
This wasn’t good, and I knew it. I took a mental inventory and decided that, aside from a couple of scrapes, my ankle was my only injury. I reached down and felt it through my boot, gently moving it. The pain was intense, but I didn’t think anything was broken, though the injury would definitely slow me down.
The moon had set hours ago, and the only light was from the stars. It was a clear night, but my eyes had yet to adjust from the night-vision goggles to total darkness.
Using a low-hanging branch for support, I stood and put some weight on my injured foot. The pain was sharp, but I could hobble on it.
My eyes were adjusting to the darkness, so I looked around for the NV goggles. I found them just a few feet away, but they weren’t operating.
I felt the lens and didn’t detect a crack or any other damage, but when I moved my hand to the switch to reboot the system, I found the small battery compartment open. The battery was about the size of a quarter and as thick as three of them, but it was gone. Without light to see by, I had no chance of finding it. I didn’t dare use the flashlight in my pack. That would be worse than the tunnel vision of the goggles; it would let the enemy see me.
I was reminded of what an old friend and former platoon sergeant, had told me: “Tracers work both ways.”
So does light.
Hearing noise coming from up the road, I scooted back behind the gumbo limbo again, stuffing the useless goggles into my pack. I looked up the hill and noticed light bouncing along the road. The cart.
The headlamps on the cart worked in my favor. Now whoever was in the cart could only see what the lights shone on directly, and they were still far enough away that they couldn’t see me.
Moving as quickly as my bad ankle would allow, I stepped farther away from the road and found another—much larger—gumbo limbo. In seconds, I was twenty feet up in the tree, using mostly my arms.
When searching for something, most people have their heads down, expecting gravity to do its thing and what they’re looking for to be on the ground. Duck hunters and anti-aircraft gunners look up. So do trained warriors. But I was certain these commune people lacked any kind of skill in that department.
Flattening myself against the tree’s trunk on the side away from the road, I shielded my eyes, so as not to lose my natural night vision when the cart came by.
I heard it approaching, less than a hundred feet away, the electric motor whining as the tires crunched across the rocks and stones.
“Go faster,” I heard a voice say. “He has to take this road—it’s the only one.”
“I’m going as fast as possible, brother,” another voice replied. “Why weren’t we told that Sunna was doing the initiation herself?”
“I don’t know,” the first man said. “But we gotta catch this guy. She’ll be very upset if we don’t.”
The driver said something else, but they’d moved past my position and too far away for me to understand.
Sunna Johannsdottir was somebody of importance, that was for sure. The tone of their voices conveyed fear and concern, beyond simply anxiety to please a boss.
I had no way of knowing if they had other security people on foot behind the cart, so I waited a few more minutes.
Finally, I climbed down from the tree and looked around the base of it. I found a dead branch about five feet long and a couple of inches thick to use as a walking stick, so I wouldn’t have to put all my weight on my right foot.
The darkness was still my ally. The Onayan security people needed artificial light to move about. They didn’t really need it, but they didn’t know that, and weren’t trained how not to rely on it.
I was. Hundreds of Marines had gone through my night infiltration course in scout/sniper school during my last few years in the Corps. Maybe thousands. The kids in my neighborhood hated playing hide-and-seek with me. Except one. Billy Rainwater had taught me a thing or two about moving unseen.
The stars above provided enough light for me to limp and stumble my way down the hill, and the cart lights would alert me long before those security guys got close.
I moved down the road toward the bay. The guy in the cart was wrong,
or at least I thought he was. He’d said this was the only road on this end of the island, but I remembered the GPS showing a cutoff road about halfway between the bay and the compound. But I didn’t remember seeing it on the way up here.
I powered the device on, with the lighted screen off, and checked my position. The cutoff road was no more than a hundred feet ahead. It ran north, to the top of the ridge, then followed it west.
Hearing the cart returning, I moved off the road, uphill this time, and found cover behind a large rock. I chanced a quick look at the GPS again, zooming out. I was only half a mile from John’s house.
Deciding to stay away from the road, I took a bearing on where his house was; almost due west. I looked up at the night sky and easily found Saturn, low on the western horizon. I brought the GPS up in front of me, aligning it with the ringed planet. John’s house was right under it.
Hobbling along at the speed of mud, I chased Saturn west, safe in the belief that I was probably making less noise than any pursuer.
Gilbert Mashonay rose from his bed and went to his desk. The vibration of his cell phone had awakened him and the light on the phone’s screen showed him where it was. He noted the time on the face before he answered it: after 3:00 am.
“We have a problem,” Sunna said.
“What is it?”
Sunna was sometimes prone to dramatics, but usually not at this hour. She handled the day-to-day operation of things and was Mashonay’s best pupil ever. She understood immediately the deeper meaning of what he was doing.
“Someone from the outside was at the Norman Island commune tonight. They saw the rage therapy and initiation.”
“And?”
“Jason discovered him, but the man reacted violently. Jason has a broken knee. Whoever the man was kicked Jason when he found him watching us.”
“Have you found this man?”
“He escaped on foot, Onay,” Sunna said, “taking some of our product.”
This piqued Mashonay’s attention and he felt the beginnings of his own anger rising from the pit of his stomach.
“What exactly does that mean?” he asked, measuring each syllable as he looked back toward his bed. The girl from two nights ago still lay sprawled on it with another of the new girls.
“After he broke Jason’s knee, he grabbed a plastic bag with several pills in it, and one of the cups with the rage potion.”
“A local who needed a fix?”
“I don’t think so,” Sunna replied.
“Why not?”
“He was white; a tall man, wearing dark clothing with some sort of electronic device on his head to see.”
Mashonay felt the hot rage building as he walked back over to the bed and gazed down at the two nude bodies tangled in the bedsheets.
“Find him,” Mashonay said, and ended the call.
Both girls stirred. The one who had tried to escape two days ago had needed more intensive treatment and meditation, so she’d remained in his house the whole time.
What was her name? he wondered, as the anger over his operation possibly being discovered began to boil inside him.
This isn’t a good time, he thought. They had product nearly ready to ship and he’d been told it was much better now.
Penelope? he thought, his mind running in circles. No, it was Phoebe.
The other girl, a very pretty Korean with long dark hair and almond-shaped eyes, had tried to leave earlier the previous afternoon. She’d been brought to him, as well. He couldn’t recall her name at all. Or even if she’d given it. Not that it mattered. The two of them together made wonderful bookends.
The new girl moved her head slightly, her eyes opening. She gazed languidly up at him.
“Myoo,” she said with a soft sigh.
Mashonay had his own way of exorcizing his hostility, and he didn’t need any potion. He grabbed the new girl by the arm, jerking her toward him.
She whimpered in dazed confusion, as Mashonay reached into a small ornate box on the nightstand and stuck another pill in the girl’s mouth, then forced her to swallow copious amounts of water.
They say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. While that’s true, it’s not always the fastest way to get from point A to point B.
The terrain was just what you’d expect on a volcanic island; treacherous. And with a bum ankle and no light to speak of, I had to move very slowly. I was under no illusion of invincibility. A younger me would have plunged headlong, ignoring pain. But I’m not ten feet tall and bulletproof anymore.
I finally saw the glow from a window ahead and below me. The GPS indicated that it was John’s house. I looked past it, where Bight Bay lay sprawled against the night sky. Though the sea and sky were both black as pitch, it was easy to tell where the horizon was—it was where the stars ended. And Saturn was about to disappear over it.
I thanked the Roman harvest god for his guidance and blessing, then started down the steep hill, picking my way carefully. I was glad to have had the forethought to wear long pants and boots.
Finally reaching the house, I crossed the small backyard and approached the steps.
John’s voice came out of the darkness. “It’s about time you got back.” He rose from a chair that was pushed back in the shadow of a cluster of banana trees. “You hurt?”
“Twisted ankle,” I said, limping toward him. “What are you doing out here?”
“Heard the commotion,” he said. “Came out and saw the Onayan golf cart drive out onto the beach down by Pirate’s Bight. Figured you’d have to return a different way, and you being a Marine…well, I figured it’d be a straight line and you’d wind up in my backyard.”
Shifting the walking stick to my left hand, I let John take my right arm and pull it across his shoulder. Together we made it up the steps to the door, without my having to put weight on the ankle.
The only light came from an oil lamp in the living room, where a large window looked out over the bay. Mitzi and the Snyders were sitting on an overstuffed couch and recliner.
“Mitzi,” John said, “grab a bag of frozen peas from the fridge.”
“What happened?” Mitzi asked, moving past us into the tiny kitchen.
“Twisted ankle,” John replied.
“Bring him over here,” Alicia said, moving toward the recliner Mitzi had vacated.
John and Jerry helped me into the chair and then John pulled the handle, sending it flopping back and ratcheting my legs up. The suddenness of the movement shot pain up my leg and I winced.
“Sorry about that.”
Mitzi arrived, as Alicia carefully removed the laces from my right boot, and gently slid it off. Then she eased my sock off. Even in the subdued light of the single lamp, I could see that it was swollen.
Mitzi gently lifted my leg, placing a green and white bag on the footrest. “Slide up a little,” she said, “and take di weight of your foot on di bag.”
I did as I was told and she placed a second bag on top of my ankle, sandwiching it between two bags of frozen peas.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
John produced a bottle from a cupboard and used it to point at my leg. “How long ago did that happen?”
“Three hours.”
He uncorked the bottle and handed it to me. I knew it’d be rum and wasn’t disappointed. I took a long pull on the bottle, letting its fire in my belly do combat with the fiery pain coursing up my leg.
“What happened up there?” John asked, pulling two wooden chairs from the kitchen.
Mitzi and Alicia sat on either side of me, attentive to anything I might need. Jerry moved over beside his wife on the couch, while John corked the bottle and placed it on the small wooden coffee table, then took the remaining chair.
“Well,” I began, “you were right about the weirdness going on up there.”
I went on to attempt to explain everything I’d seen, heard, and learned, even though I knew it sounded extremely far-fetched.
Pulling from my pocket the bag that I’d swiped from the Onayans, I tossed it on the table. “I’m almost certain that those are ecstasy tablets.”
Jerry picked it up. “Yeah, looks a lot like the ones I’ve seen on the streets back home. Newport Beach doesn’t have a lot of crime—very few murders. But there’s plenty of night life and this is the drug of choice in the dance clubs these days.”
He opened the green bag and took one of the pills out. It was bright pink. “A bunny,” he said, turning it toward me. It had a cute little light-blue rabbit face with one floppy ear and one straight.
“Now that’s just sick,” I said. “A kid could find those.” I motioned to where John had dropped my pack next to the chair Mitzi now sat in. “Pass me my pack, will you?”
Mitzi handed it over and I took the water bottle from the pocket. “This is what they drank before they all went nuts and started beating the mats, wrestling, and screwing each other. One of the leaders, a woman named Sunna Johannsdottir, said it would help them to release all their rage and hostility, and that it was made from plants they were growing there.”
“Johannsdottir?” Alicia asked, pronouncing what I’d read the same way I did, like it rhymed with boater.
“Not sure if that’s the correct pronunciation,” I replied, then spelled it out for her.
“That’s Johannsdottir,” she replied, pronouncing it like daughter. “It’s probably an Icelandic name. In their culture, children are given a first name only. They don’t hand the last name down from parents to child. That woman’s father was a man named Johann. Had she been a boy, the last name would have been Johannson.”
“Learn something new every day.”
“Any idea what’s in that bottle?” John asked Jerry.
He picked it up and looked at the contents. “No idea,” he said, tilting the bottle near the lamp, then unscrewing the cap and smelling it. The contents were milky white and somewhat oily, as it clung to the side of the bottle.
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