Avenger (16 page)

Alex Morgan arrived in Belize on a day when the heat haze across the 9700 feet of runway at Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport obliterated everything beyond the cyclone fencing of the perimeter. Meanwhile, in the distance, he could see dark clouds rolling in from the sea to the east and noticed that the palm trees dotted around the airport’s boundary were being whipped by heavy gusts. He had arrived at the tail end of the Caribbean’s hurricane season and hoped that Mother Nature was simply reminding everyone that there was still a bit of puff left in the low-pressure systems sitting off the coast but that would be it.

Morgan had flown in on Avianca TACA flight 410 from San Salvador, via Guatemala City. He’d planned the stopovers en route to Belize to bolster his cover as a private security consultant specializing in infrastructure vulnerability assessments and personal security, undertaking aftercare meetings with multinational clients operating in Central America. To enhance the cover further he’d met with two former colleagues, one in Guatemala City and the other in San Salvador, both of whom he’d known for years through the airborne and special forces community and both of whom were actually conducting those tasks for major international security firms, Control Risks and NYA International respectively. The stopovers had added a couple of days to his travel arrangements but they were necessary in terms both of ensuring that, if anybody were to check on his movements prior to arriving in Belize, his story would hold up – at least to a cursory examination – and secondly, to re-establish contact with some trusted allies operating in the area whom he could call on if things became “hectic.”

The extra day also allowed Elizabeth Reigns more time to confirm certain information that Morgan would be relying on in the field, specifically the identity of the Night Witch and her connection to the crew travelling on the Belizean passports. Of course, once he was on the Night Witch’s turf, there was every likelihood that his contact with Intrepid HQ would be necessarily cut off. So, in lieu of formal confirmation, he’d be relying on the old-fashioned, direct enquiry approach to close in on her, beginning with the bar manager at the Paradise Palms Resort.

Morgan eventually cleared customs, traveling on an Australian passport under the name Daniel Culliford, and made his way through the terminal to the Tropic Air lounge. He was booked on Flight 551, departing at 15.20 and arriving at Placencia at 15.55. He removed the jacket of his lightweight beige suit and dropped it on the seat beside him as he waited for the boarding call. With the suit he wore a fitted, navy blue military-cut shirt and brown leather shoes and belt. It was appropriate for his cover, formal enough to meet clients in the tropics yet casual enough to cope with the humidity. He checked his watch, the trusted old TAG Heuer that he’d worn for years, wondering whether it was worth getting a drink before they took off. It was 14.50. They’d be boarding soon, he thought. Best wait until he reached Placencia.

Fifteen minutes later, he was settling into his seat aboard a Cessna Grand Caravan 208B. Despite all of the usual pre-flight activity and scurrying around outside by ground crew, he once again fell into a mood of quiet contemplation. A long-haul flight from the UK to the US, followed by a few days of short flights around Central America, along with a couple of nights sharing stories with comrades, had given him a lot of time to think and, most importantly, to finally accept that his friend Dave Sutherland was dead. But even though he had accepted it, Sutherland’s premonition of death had got under Morgan’s skin. How many times had he himself questioned his own likelihood of surviving a particular situation, or even getting through it without serious injury? To date, he’d beaten the odds, but how long could that last? As he looked beyond Sutherland’s shadow on the slow march toward his own fortieth birthday, his bouts of facing those same questions about mortality were becoming more and more frequent, while the answers became less encouraging.
Fuck me, what is wrong with you?
Morgan thought, annoyed by his own malaise.
Snap out of it, for fuck’s sake, or you’ll definitely get yourself killed.

The captain came aboard and welcomed his half-dozen passengers, apologizing for the slight delay, as they were awaiting the arrival of two more passengers. No sooner had he spoken than Morgan’s attention was drawn to two men strolling nonchalantly across the tarmac. One was young, late twenties, tall, good-looking but surly about it, with dark hair. He was dressed in the latest jeans, a casual shirt and shoes; one of those young guys who spent a lot of time on his appearance and was constantly on the search for his next conquest. The second man was the complete opposite and Morgan was surprised to see the two of them together. He was a monster: about Morgan’s height, fight-smashed face, buzz-cut hair, and built like a tank – thanks to the ’roids and plenty of time in prison, probably. The ape’s heavily muscled body was covered in tattoos and he’d somehow managed to push it all into a tight short-sleeved shirt and cargo shorts.

“Ah, and here they are now,” said the captain nervously when he spotted them. “Mr Kawowskee?”

“Ki-kov-skee,” the big man grunted and with little regard for courtesy clambered awkwardly aboard, shoving past the captain and only just managing to maneuver his body down the narrow aisle between the seats.

“Welcome aboard,” the captain replied. “And you must be Mister Velasco?”

The cool kid just nodded and followed silently in the wake of his traveling companion.
What a pair
, thought Morgan. Not a combination one would expect. They weren’t gay – well, the big guy definitely wasn’t – they didn’t appear to be related, and there wasn’t a principal/bodyguard vibe going on between them, in fact the big guy appeared to be in charge. All of which suggested that they were required to be together for a reason, rather than by choice.

Ki-kov-skee
.
Kajkowski?
Morgan was sure that he’d seen that name on the list of Belizean passports Reigns had shown them back at HQ. Could this guy be one of the crew – one of the Night Witch’s bodyguards? Morgan caught the man’s eye briefly but deliberately as he squeezed past. On the surface, Morgan gave him no more than a desultory glance but in reality he took a detailed mental snapshot, instantly storing every line, angle, marking, contour and imperfection. He wanted a clear, up-close picture of the face so he’d remember it when the time came. That said, it would be a hard mug to forget in a hurry. Upon a Slavic canvas, the nose was smashed flat against the face, the ears were cauliflowered and the eyes just slits above shattered cheekbones. Morgan also managed to catch a tattoo on the man’s left jowl, three interlocking triangles – a badge favored by white supremacists.

Ever since leaving England, Morgan had fought a nagging doubt about whether or not they’d made the right call in following the trail to Belize. Now, those doubts had gone. He was sure they were right after all. He could feel it in his gut. With a welcome sense of purpose and resolve, he returned his attention to the airstrip and watched with faux interest as the withdrawing ground crew readied themselves to release their bird into the air. No matter what lay ahead of him in the seaside resort of Placencia, he knew it was about to become an underworld battleground, with two opposing forces facing off for war, Morgan on one side, the Night Witch and her army of Aryan brothers on the other.

Only time could tell who would be left standing.

“Oh, my dear,” said a gentle voice as a small woman came scurrying into the room. “I wasn’t expecting you for another fifteen minutes. I’m so sorry. Come in and sit down. I’ll get you a nice cup of herbal tea.”

Jovana stood rigid in the foyer area of what could only be described as an exclusive beauty salon. Behind her was a sumptuous sofa. Opposite, a huge mirror surrounded by evenly spaced lightbulbs sat above a broad white benchtop that was stocked with every kind of hair and make-up accessory: hairdryers, curling wands, rollers and hairsprays. Make-up was arranged within a tiered glass display, organized by label: Dior, Chanel, Estee Lauder; nothing but the best. Two comfortable-looking chairs faced the mirror. To the left was a massage table and behind it, shelves packed to the gunnels with an array of oils, scents and beauty products. Diana Krall’s
The Look of Love
album was playing softly in the background. On every available inch of wall space there were photographs of women, all young, all pretty, and all made up to look exactly the same. In the opposite corner of the room, between the mirror and the massage table, was a door through which she could hear water running.

Jovana was alone with the Asian woman, petite and very beautiful, dressed in a knee-length white dress with a mandarin collar and short sleeves. Her hair was jet black and pulled back in a compact bun just above her collar. Her skin was fair and her complexion absolutely flawless, radiating health and vitality. She wore only the merest hint of make-up, highlighting her eyes and adding a subtle strawberry hue to the outline of her lips. Her fingernails were short and impeccably manicured and her tiny feet were sheathed in fine leather sandals, strapped above the ankles.

 “My dear,” she said, holding out her hand, “please, come and sit down.”

Jovana couldn’t speak, suddenly realizing what she was looking at. Instead she shook her head.

“You don’t want to sit?”

Jovana simply shook her head again, clutching self-consciously at her body, clothed in nothing but a gown, the only thing she could find in the room just off the salon where they’d put her two days ago. Right now, she didn’t want to sit down. She didn’t want to feel the pain again.

“Very well, dear,” the lady said. “Then follow me through here. I have your bath almost ready. Once you’re nice and warm and relaxed, I’ll take you straight to your new room, where you can sleep some more and then we can begin your special treatment whenever you’re ready. You’re with me now, my dear. Everything will be all right.”

In that moment, with those few reassuring words hanging in the air, Jovana handed herself over completely to the care of this woman. She had no strength to resist. And anything was better than where she had come from.

“Can I get you another drink, sir?” the young barman asked. The nametag on his shirt read “Oliver.”

“That’d be great,” said Morgan. “Another Red Stripe.”

“You were in last night, weren’t you?” Oliver asked, getting Morgan’s beer from the fridge behind him. “I was just going off shift when you came in for dinner.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I arrived yesterday. Taking a few days off.”

Oliver wiped down the bar and placed the beer in front of Morgan on a new coaster. Morgan took a long drink while Oliver engaged him in amiable small talk about the weather, work and women; clearly a well-practiced patter he’d established over countless similar encounters across the bar. Morgan didn’t mind. It gave him a chance to get more of a feel for the place. Last night’s attempt at gathering any kind of information was a wash out. The bar had been dead quiet with only a few hotel patrons having dinner, young couples mostly. He’d stayed until about 11pm before deciding to cut his losses and, after a much-needed sleep in, had spent the day recovering by the pool. The hours spent swimming and reading, with the occasional retreat to his room to sleep, gave Morgan time to unwind, consider his mission in a more objective light and, importantly, recharge. He couldn’t help but be reminded of the time he’d spent poolside with Arena Halls in Barcelona, which inevitably led him to think about time spent more recently with Charlotte-Rose Fleming.

Somehow, despite his feeling ready to commit to the right woman and settle down once and for all, the erratic trajectory of Morgan’s life and the pressures of his profession had quashed any naïve dreams he’d had about achieving a normal relationship.

He recalled how he and Arena had miraculously escaped the bloody civil war in Malfajiri intact, afterward taking refuge in Spain. Their time together had been brief but intense – the war in Malfajiri and her abduction at the hands of Victor Lundt in Sydney weighing heavily in the mix of things that eventually tore her from him. Arena was “the one,” or so Morgan had thought at the time, and he had felt her loss on an almost daily basis ever since. But the chances of a couple, even a couple with a bond as strong as theirs had been, surviving that scale of trauma and being able to maintain a healthy long-term relationship were slim at best. At least, that’s what he told himself over and over; it helped him keep her inevitable departure from his life in perspective.

“
I can’t stay here any more, Alex,
” she’d said on that Monday morning at Heathrow. “
I thought I could but I can’t. I need time for me. I need to put all this behind me.
” And that had been that. They’d hugged. She’d smiled through tears and walked off to her flight, and Morgan had driven, utterly depressed, all the way back to Farnham, settled himself in at the Nelson Arms and spent the next two days getting as drunk as was humanly possible. And like it or not, despite the time that had passed since then, he still missed her and often wondered where she’d ended up and if she was happy. He hoped she was.

Charly Fleming had been a completely different story. Their relationship was forged during an equally traumatic time, but their connection had been deep infatuation and fondness rather than real love. Morgan had adored Charly and he knew she adored him, but their lives were too different and a future together inconceivable. She was a world-famous classical pianist and he was an Intrepid agent. The months they’d spent fighting against the odds to maintain a relationship, with her life in the spotlight and Morgan’s in the shadows, eventually came to an end when they’d realized, almost simultaneously, that it was over. There’d been sadness, but they knew it was right to end things when they did. They were still in contact, which he was surprisingly happy about – Morgan wasn’t usually the type to maintain contact with ex-girlfriends – and whenever their schedules allowed, they tried to catch up for dinner or at least a drink, always in strictest privacy.

Thinking of Charly inevitably brought Morgan’s musings back full circle to the death of her father, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Fleming, decorated and much-respected veteran of the Special Air Service and close personal friend of General Davenport. In all likelihood, Colonel Fleming had died on the orders of the Night Witch and Morgan felt an overwhelming responsibility to avenge not only Dave Sutherland’s death, but also Fleming’s. He owed it to Davenport and, of course, to Charly.

Then his thoughts turned to Elizabeth Reigns. Damn!

Reigns was a shock to the system. A very welcome shock, but Morgan was still conflicted. She was exquisite, confident, strong, independent and incredibly hot. There were no two ways about that. Thinking of her naked was the equivalent of hours of therapy. In such a short space of time, Beth had become a huge part of his life and he knew, no matter which way the wind might blow in the future, she was going to be important to him. It was her faith and confidence in him that had given him the impetus and courage he needed to deploy. It was her blessing on his bid to avenge Sutherland’s murder that had made everything OK. “
Come back to me, Alex Morgan,
”
she’d said as he’d left the room at The Rembrandt that morning. “
I will,
”
he’d replied from the door. And he’d meant it. The thought of getting back to Beth at the end of this mission was what was keeping him going. That much he did know.

“So tell me, Oliver,” said Morgan. “Why’s this place called Domingo’s? Why isn’t it just called the Ocean View Bar, or something like that?”

“You know, some people think it’s the boss’s name,” Oliver replied. “After all, he built the place before the hotel was even here. He got bought out a few years back but he did such great business that the hotel people cut him a solid deal to keep him working for them. This place has changed a lot since he first set it up and the owners of the resort can make life pretty shitty for him at times. It’s still very much
his
place, but it’s not his name.”

“You seem to know a lot about it, mate,” Morgan replied. “How come?”

“I’m his son. I’ve grown up in this bar,” said Oliver proudly. “And one day I’ll buy it back from the new owner. Papa’s name is Javier. He’s retired now but he’s getting me ready to take over. Well, that’s what he keeps telling me. Maybe he’s just stringing me along to keep me working here!”

They laughed.

“So, Domingo’s?” Morgan asked.

“Sorry.” Oliver laughed again. “Sure, well, years ago, around the time my dad first came here, it was pretty wild, you know? The village was small and there were only a few bars, mostly catering for sailors and fishermen, and the mangrove swamps hadn’t been reclaimed by the developers like they have now. So, back then, the wildlife lived a lot closer. You know what I mean? Like, the mangroves were all around here.”

“What do you get down here?” Morgan asked. “Alligators, right?”

“No, sir,” Oliver replied. “A lot of people think we have ’gators but we don’t. We have crocodiles, and back then there was one big motherfucker, twenty-five feet long and, get this, two thousand fucking pounds! And his name was Domingo.”

“Jesus,” said Morgan. “That is a big croc. Why Domingo?”

“Well, the English say that Domingo means, like, ‘the Lord’ or some shit. And the Spanish say it means ‘born on Sunday.’ Well, according to my dad, the first time that croc showed up in Placencia was a Sunday and he took a kid, the son of one of the fishermen. So, the locals, they were pretty religious people back then,  superstitious, you know? They thought that God Himself had come down as this monster fucking croc and taken the son of a fisherman because he wasn’t happy with them. So, somehow, Domingo kinda stuck.”

“Bloody hell,” said Morgan. “Great story. The old croc obviously left an impression.”

“Some say he’s still around here,” said Oliver. His mood had changed, almost like recounting the story had spooked him. “He almost took my dad once.”

“Seriously?”

“No shit. He’s lucky still to have his left arm and he’s walked with a limp ever since.”

“Fuck,” said Morgan. “What happened?”

“You can ask him yourself. He may be in tonight,” Oliver said. “He occasionally drops in on busy nights. He likes to meet the guests, make sure everyone’s happy. I’ll introduce you if he does.”

“That’d be great,” Morgan replied.
Finally
.

Talking to Oliver and seeing the obvious admiration for his father in the young man’s eyes, Morgan got a sense that Javier Vasquez was an old-school, family-oriented businessman. That could prove to be helpful in terms of what he might be prepared to share, inadvertently, with Morgan if he didn’t have any loyalties to the criminal fraternity, because according to Rodgers’ recollections, Vasquez had been more than willing to share his observations on the Night Witch all those years ago. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but it would be interesting to see what the man was like today.

The place was starting to get busy and Oliver was called away to serve other customers, so Morgan took the opportunity to leave the bar. He found a dining table in the angle formed by two solid brick uprights that supported the roof. It gave him a sweeping view of the entire place as well as of the ocean. Palms were swaying in every direction and the ocean breeze gently swept through Domingo’s, rustling the eaves of the cabana roof, drawing the vacationers from their towels by the pool and on the beach, up to the open-air bar. Under better circumstances, he’d be happy to take a genuine vacation in a place like this. The weather was perfect, the food and service excellent. Above all, the place was as yet not over-commercialized.

Morgan began to peruse the menu and was contemplating ordering a steak when a strikingly beautiful girl walked into the bar. She was tall, catwalk tall, with an even tan, wearing a loose-fitting sheer dress over a yellow bikini. Her peroxide-blonde hair was cut short, but not styled – she’d obviously just been to the beach – and her eyes were like bright blue glass. She walked to a table that gave her a view back down to the beach, not far from Morgan’s. Oliver appeared within seconds from behind the bar and placed a beer on the table in front of her. He withdrew without a word. The girl took a lazy sip and put the bottle back on the table.

Morgan watched her, subtly glancing her way without appearing to stare at her, which most of the other men in the bar were doing. His mind was full of images and descriptions he recalled from the briefing in COBRA. Elizabeth Reigns had described the Night Witch as, tall, white, Eastern European features, athletic physique, with very short, almost white-blonde, hair. She’d also mentioned a prominent birthmark down the right-hand side of the Witch’s face. Morgan tried to get a clearer view without being caught out. The woman definitely met all of the key physical criteria, there was no doubt about it, but was the face just ten feet away from him the same as that on the passport photo he’d seen back in London? Or, more importantly, the one on criminal records released by the Ukraine Ministry of Internal Affairs? This girl had tattoos, words of some significance apparently, that snaked around each ankle beneath the straps of her sandals. They were subtle and unobtrusive. And he noticed a similar one that ran down the inside of her left forearm. But he could not see any form of birthmark down the right side of her face.

She had just come from the sea. Her towel-dried hair and the way in which the sheer dress clung to her body told him that she’d been swimming, not just sun-bathing. It was highly unlikely that make-up would still be able to mask an imperfection of that magnitude – or was it? How the hell would he know anyway?

One thing was for sure: this girl was beautiful but troubled. She didn’t have any of the animation or unabashed confidence of a young, good-looking girl on vacation in the Caribbean. There was a distance there, a reserve, almost as if she felt she couldn’t have fun even if she’d wanted to. She was, on the surface, a dead ringer for the Night Witch, but with none of the poison-laced charisma that had been described by witnesses. This girl was vulnerable, cautious, someone on the payroll who did exactly as she was told. This was the girl on the passport,
Ş
tefania Yovenko, of that he was certain. But she was no killer and she was definitely not the head of a brutal human trafficking cartel. Morgan’s thoughts turned to the staged car accident in Poland and the discovery that the girl who’d died in the crash, although bearing a close resemblance to her, was not Darja Voloshyn.

Reigns’ doppelgänger theory was starting to look more likely by the minute.