Paradise Crime Box Set 4

by Toby Neal

  My soaking-wet boots scrabbled for a purchase on the slippery wood as I hauled myself higher by my arms alone, the rifle banging my back as it hung by its strap. Kerry caught me by the back of the shirt and hauled me completely out of the water. I straddled the log, panting and soaked with sweat and swamp water.

  I turned just as the croc lashed its tail and surged forward, jaws agape. I yanked my leg out of the way and it hit the log, its powerful, green-brown tail propelling it upward. The short clawed legs scrabbled and huge jaws clashed. I scrambled back with a cry toward the other men. We all moved farther down the log, crawling to stay on it. I hoped the height was enough, only three feet above the surface of the water.

  The crocodile fell back with a grunt and a splash. It swam back and forth a few times. We all made sure our legs were up out of reach.

  “Close one, LT,” Kerry said.

  “Yeah.” My breath was ripping through my lungs and I couldn’t stop shaking. We squatted in a row on the vast length of fallen wood. It was a big log, but at some point we had to get back off and continue our miserable journey.

  The croc submerged suddenly and disappeared. I scanned the water for bubbles, for anything to indicate where it had gone, but it seemed to have vanished.

  “Look!” Falconer pointed. We could see a slight disturbance of the water thirty feet away, a tiny gout of bubbles, a vibration of the surface.

  “He could just be waiting for us to get off this log.” MacDonald gave voice to what we all feared.

  I squatted on the log, shivering with damp, my belly so empty it had stopped even hurting. I scanned the water. Just because we couldn’t see monsters didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lei ran the last few hundred feet through the stand of trees and burst out into the open on the road. Rifle at the ready, she scanned up and down the road.

  No one in sight. As it often was, the two-lane, picturesque road was bordered by the jungle she’d just come from on one side and the ocean on the other.

  She turned and headed back in the direction of Kahului at a run.

  Lei was just rounding the hairpin turn of the road as it curved around the bluff that was the rise she’d decided not to climb when a truck came roaring around the bend. Lei tried to wave it down, but couldn’t get the driver’s attention as the man, clearly a local, just accelerated at the sight of her waving arms.

  “Shit.” She trotted up the road in the oncoming lane, looking for the next car.

  The next vehicle to come along was a convertible silver Mustang, a popular rental, and the windblown, sunburned couple came to a halt at the sight of her, legs spread, badge and gun raised.

  “Maui Police Department. I need this vehicle.”

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “Step out of the car. Now.” She lowered the automatic rifle, and the guy pushed the door open and got out. “Police emergency. Both of you, in the back seat. We’re going to the Hana Police Department.”

  The woman got out, both of them looking angry and scared as they clambered in to the back. “Sorry. Emergency. Thanks for your cooperation.” Lei cranked the car around in the narrow space and laid down some rubber heading for Hana, the couple clutching each other for comfort in the back seat.

  The police station was a small beige concrete block building whose color was made dingy by a film of mold. Lei showed her badge, asked for the commanding officer, and called in to Captain Omura. It ended up taking several hours to round up the necessary personnel for a raid of the growers’ secret valley.

  Lei called back to the house and spoke to her father, making sure Kiet was taken care of, then called Pono.

  “Lei, what the hell was that message?” Pono sounded annoyed. “Thought you weren’t going off by yourself anymore.”

  “Yeah. About that.” Lei paced back and forth, tethered to the long cord of the phone on one of the Hana PD’s desks. Her cell still wasn’t getting coverage. “I found a lot more than I bargained for when I went up that valley looking for where the skull washed down.” She described the action so far. “So I won’t be back in this evening, needless to say. We’re pulling together a raid.”

  “I could have told you not to go into one of those valleys without backup. Never know what you’re going to find out there!”

  “Well, so far no one’s died. Except a pit bull named Killah, which was horrible.” Lei shut her eyes on the memory, but told Pono what had happened.

  “You know it’s not your fault. His owner, that’s the guy whose fault it is.”

  “Yeah. This perp is a piece of work. Working kids in the fields, siccing his dog on me when I warned him I was armed…” Lei pushed a hand through her tangled curls. “I can’t wait to get this guy, but I heard him on his radio. They’re pulling the plug on the valley. Probably will be long gone when we get there.”

  “Well, you could come back. Let the Hana PD and SWAT take care of the raid.” Pono’s voice held little conviction that she’d choose that option even as Lei shook her head.

  “No. That bastard shot up my truck. And I left the satellite phone I’m using to connect with Security Solutions in my vehicle. Even if I didn’t need to see this through, I’d need to get back and pick up that item.”

  “Shot up your truck?” Pono groaned. “What’s that, number three?”

  “Yeah, it’s totaled. I’m trying not to keep count.”

  “Call me when you’re done. I’ll see if we’ve got any laulau in the freezer. I can have Tiare run some over for you and the boy?”

  “My dad’s got us covered, but we appreciate it. Thanks, partner.” Lei’s chest tightened and her eyes prickled. “Thanks for looking out for me.”

  “Someone’s got to.” He hung up with a bang. Lei knew he wasn’t mad at her but at her husband for leaving.

  Replacing the phone in its cradle, Lei wondered what was happening to Stevens. She shut her eyes briefly. “God, please keep him safe. Please.”

  “Time to roll, Sergeant Texeira,” the station commander said, walking by. Lei’s eyes flew open and she hurried after him.

  We let another five minutes pass in our safe spot on the log, and in those long moments of careful looking and listening, we could hear yelling and splashing in the distance.

  They were coming, and they weren’t happy about it.

  Falconer lifted a finger to his lips, turned, and slid silently off the log on the opposite side from the croc. He barely made a splash as he entered the water. The rest of us followed in our established order, not as quiet as Falconer, but making every effort to keep the noise down as we hurried forward. I didn’t mention the snake I saw slithering through the water, its arcing movement strangely beautiful.

  And suddenly we’d reached the Coco River. Glimpsed through a scrim of trees, it was a vast swath of churning brown water. We stood at the edge, on a submerged bank where the river had overflowed into the jungle in flood.

  “How are we getting across?” MacDonald gestured to the forbidding stretch of water. Swimming was out of the question. The river was the chocolate-brown of churned soil, surging and swirling in eddies, and as I watched, a whole tree rolled by, spinning lazily in the current.

  “No idea,” Falconer said. “Stevens?”

  I scanned around. “I was hoping for some dry ground. Or some other people. I heard the river was fairly well-trafficked. I thought we might find a boat. Let’s pick a direction and work our way along the bank. We don’t have a lot of choice.” I gestured back the way we’d come. “They don’t have dogs or any way to track us on foot now that we’re in the water, so as long as we keep moving, quiet and out of sight, we’re bound to lose them.”

  “Let’s go east,” Falconer said. “The nearest town is west, so they’ll expect us to go that way. We should do the opposite of what they expect.”

  I was grateful for Falconer’s lead. After all, he’d been hired to train the MPs in infiltration, tracking, and survival skills. Given our limited reso
urces, we were damn lucky to have him. I hadn’t had enough of a look at the map to have any idea which way was the nearest town—and though getting to civilization was appealing, it wasn’t likely that we’d be able to beat the kidnappers to that destination.

  Hours of silent movement downstream followed as we clambered over obstacles, swishing through the water. I constantly turned back and kept an eye on our rear. We heard a spooky yowling cry that I was pretty sure was a jaguar, but made progress along the overflowed banks parallel to the river.

  The Coco River was a steely brown expanse glimpsed through the trees. We forged on, and saw no sign of other humans until we heard the distinctive thrum of a chopper.

  “Take cover.” I ducked in close to a tree. The chopper, a Plexiglas-fronted Bell Jet, zoomed low along the river. The doors were open on either side and a pair of shooters armed with automatics hung over the struts.

  MacDonald hadn’t gotten behind a tree fast enough. His startled movement must have drawn their attention, because the next thing we knew, the murderous zing of automatic fire ripped through the trees, scattering birds and raining shredded leaves and broken branches down on us. The tree I’d sheltered behind shuddered with the impact of bullets.

  “Holy crap!” Kerry exclaimed, his words drowned by the hail of fire as the chopper paused and swiveled, trying for a better angle. We endured the storm and then, abruptly, the bird lifted.

  “They’re reloading. Move inward!” We sloshed and splashed as fast as we could in deeper, farther from the river. “Take cover!” I yelled again, hearing the whir of blades directly overhead this time. I pressed close in to the nearest wild mahogany tree, a giant sturdy hardwood tree prized throughout the world for its quality lumber.

  This time they strafed us from above, but without a clear shot at us, they gave up after a few passes and went back to the river, moving up and down, looking. Hurrying from tree to tree, we worked our way deeper into the jungle and away from the river. The water level began dropping, and I became aware of the persistent burning of my blistered, waterlogged feet chafing within my boots.

  “They must have had a fourth helicopter parked somewhere. Wish I’d gotten them all. But for now we need to get out of the water,” I told Falconer. I was shaking nonstop with mild hypothermia from the wetness. Even in the jungle humidity I couldn’t get warm, and I tried not to think about what the water was doing to my skin.

  “I’m looking for some high ground,” Falconer agreed. “We can always come back to the river some other way.” He pointed. “Over there.” Ahead, we could see a mound of dense foliage, the long flanged leaves of wild bananas.

  The thought of bananas reawakened my belly and it gave a loud growl. “Maybe there will be something to eat there.”

  “We can hope.” We splashed forward toward the rise in ground and pushed up into the dense foliage. Falconer used the knife to hack a way into the overgrown stand of banana trees, and we climbed gratefully after him.

  “Oh, shit!” Kerry shrieked. A huge, hairy brown spider had jumped onto him from the banana trees.

  I knocked it off and it scuttled away. “Harmless. Most of them don’t bite.”

  “Can I just say, once and for the record, that if I’d known the destination for this assignment was the deep jungle of Honduras, I wouldn’t have taken the job?” MacDonald swiped his arm across his forehead.

  “Likewise,” Falconer rumbled. “I suspected Central America, because I’ve worked here before, but this area has never been a favorite destination. Let’s get up out of the water and dry out a bit.” The ground rose slowly and steadily out of the swamp, but we were getting farther and farther from the river, which had the potential to attract help and get us to civilization.

  There was nothing to be done about any of it right now. Scanning around, I spotted the first bright spot of the day—a cluster of greenish yellow bananas dangling high above on a long stalk. I pointed. “Lunch break.”

  We managed to get the stalk down by pushing on the tree’s pulpy, plantlike stalk until it leaned over enough to cut the bananas down. “I don’t think we should eat too many at once,” I told the men. “We haven’t had anything in a while, and these aren’t ripe yet. Three per person.” Falconer agreed, and used the knife to cut three of the short, thick wild bananas off the stalk and hand them out.

  The first one tasted like heaven, sweet and starchy and over too soon. The second was also good—but by then my stomach had begun to rebel. I stowed the third in a pocket as my belly cramped painfully. Falconer cut up the rest of the bunch and gave us each a handful.

  “If we find a palm, I know how to get the heart, and that’s good to eat. Bamboo, too, and ferns. There are some edible roots and other fruit here.”

  We stripped off our boots. I didn’t want to look at my feet. I’d been feeling blisters and lesions forming on them as we moved through the water, brought on by friction on wet skin. Sure enough, all of our feet were going off to some degree, but mine were the worst. Open, oozing sores covered my feet, and sheets of skin came off the soles as I removed my soaking-wet socks.

  “Jesus, LT,” Kerry said.

  I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? I didn’t want to take my wet pants off and give the clouds of buzzing mosquitoes more to feast on, so I draped the socks over a banana frond and curled up, the M16 cradled in my arms, as Falconer assigned a watch order for while we rested.

  Lying on my side, curled in on myself under a few banana leaves, I noticed a gleam of water on the leaves of the jungle floor. The color sparked a memory of Lei.

  The sun shone on her curly brown hair just that way in our yard at home as Lei threw a ball for the dogs. Our son ran after the ball, too, laughing. I loved that big yard, filled with fruit trees, the grass always a little too long because neither of us had time to keep it up the way we should.

  My heart felt as sore as the rest of me. I shut my eyes briefly. God, keep them safe. Just get me home. I’ll never leave again. I’ll never drink again. Please.

  Sleep dropped over me like a black cloak, and even as it did, gratitude filled me. I was sleeping again, and that felt like heaven. Too bad I’d had to come to hell to get it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The police convoy crested a rise, and Lei looked out the window of the SUV down the stretch of muddy road into the cup of the secret valley. Sharply pungent smoke rolled up from the pot fields.

  “Contact-high alert.” The SWAT leader in the front seat grinned. “They’d rather burn the product than let us get our hands on it.”

  Lei nodded, but she couldn’t smile or joke, even with the pre-raid jitters. She wore a helmet and a new, black Kevlar vest, and she was glad to have left the blood-stained, tooth-marked one behind. On the way she’d chugged a bottle of water and eaten a couple of sticks of beef jerky one of the men had given her. Tension crawled along her nerves as the vehicles bumped through deep puddles, the fronds of wild hapu`u ferns, grass, and ginger brushing the sides of the vehicle as they crept down the rough track to the bottom of the valley.

  They pulled into an empty clearing. Tire tracks showed the departure of vehicles. Camouflage netting was draped over a series of nearby metal sheds, and a path led deeper into the valley.

  “Stay to the rear,” the SWAT commander told her as they flung the doors open. “We’re going to check for hostiles and booby traps in these buildings first.”

  Booby traps. That would be just like Boss Man. He would be happy to hurt them just for spite. “Yes, sir.”

  Lei hung back as directed. The team swept the buildings, one of the men checking for hidden trip lines and explosives. It reminded her of working with ex-partner Abe Torufu, with his big grin and steady coolness under pressure—but she didn’t miss her bomb squad days. Lei felt no such cool. A restless apprehension swept over her in waves as she waited by the vehicles, her weapon ready.

  Finally they gave the all clear for the sheds. Lei strode over and looked inside. Clearly used for drying and pr
ocessing the marijuana, the sheds were empty now but for the thick scent of dried weed. She walked under the drying racks, bare of anything but a few twigs, and looked around outside. The area was tidy, and signs of human use had been hidden under the kukui and albizia trees that forested this area.

  “I want to see where they were keeping the workers. The kids I saw. There were living areas near the fields at the stream,” she told the commander.

  “Will do. Let’s move out.” He gestured for the men to follow. They moved out down a well-worn path leading toward the source of burning. Lei was sandwiched between the SWAT members, with the booby-trap expert on point. He carried a motion detector, a powerful light, and a probe for clearing the path. As they walked along, he worked his equipment.

  Lei kept her shotgun ready, scanning for movement, but there was nothing other than the last of the afternoon sun gleaming on the light green palmate leaves of the kukui trees. Clumps of six-foot pili grass provided a scary amount of cover as they progressed down toward the smoldering fields.

  “Got a trip wire here,” the sabotage expert said, turning to them. He was in the standard black helmet and bulletproof vest, but he wore an additional backpack of supplies. He slung it off his back and set it down.

  Lei spotted the wire crossing the path once he pointed it out. It was actually a loose strand of transparent fishing line, and if the sun hadn’t gleamed on it, she wouldn’t have seen it at all. She moved up next to the expert, Sergeant Manolo, whose name was marked on his vest.

  “Can I help? I have explosives training.”

  He glanced up at her. An older, weathered man, his intelligent brown eyes gleamed. “Yeah. You can hold this clamp. Keep the tension on.”

  Lei held the clamp steady, keeping the tension on the line, as Manolo traced it to its end, uncovering a cardboard box. She controlled her breathing and tension as he opened the box carefully. Inside, a grenade was nestled cozily in a bed of nails. The transparent filament was tied to the pin of the grenade.