Age of Voodoo (21 page)

He leaned even closer and whispered in Lex’s ear, a couple of short sentences, a handful of words.

“Got that?” he said, pulling back.

Lex nodded numbly.

“Good. Hee hee!” It was a wheezy laugh, a touch of bronchial wetness to it, as though all was not completely well with Gable’s lungs, some underlying ailment, the consequence of open-air nights and a pipe-smoking habit. “An’ you, my beautiful girl.” He swivelled to face Albertine again, pivoting on his crutch. “Your husbands say to say hello. Erzulie Freda, she worried ’bout you. She don’ like the idea of you headin’ into that deep dirty pit of damnation you headin’ into.”

“Tell her I appreciate the concern,” said Albertine. “I’ll try to stay safe. Lex has vowed not to leave my side.”

“There are some threats even he can’t shield you from. Who’ll be protectin’ who, eh? That’s the question. Who can you count on when hell’s risin’ up around you and the devil’s knockin’ at the door?”

“I can call on Damballah too. Damballah with his staff, to smite my enemies.”

“An’ he’ll fight for you, for sure. But what you’re goin’ up against, even with Lex with you, even with him and those servants of Ogun, those warriors from America, even with all of them and loa swingin’ for you too—it mayn’t be enough. Bondye. Someone’s arousin’ Bondye’s wrath. Someone’s pokin’ the biggest, baddest nest of hornets there is. You don’ want to be there if Bondye comes screamin’ out at you, all fire and fury. You ain’t goin’ to survive that, no, sir, not at all.”

Gable’s eyes dulled a fraction. His face slackened, losing animation.

“Legba,” said Albertine. “Stay. Explain further. I beg you.”

“Baby girl, me is...” Gable looked confused. Something was being withdrawn from him, like a hand pulling out of a glove. Legba was dismounting. “Me is goin’. Can’t remain. This ain’t a strong body. It won’t hold me any longer. A weak
chwal
. Don’ want to ride it death.”

“Then I thank you, Papa Legba, for honouring us with your presence. I salute you, governor of destiny, guardian of the crossroads, and holder of the
poteau-mitan
, the ladder between heaven and earth. I and my friend Lex are your humble servants, undeserving of your grace.”

A vacant expression came over Gable’s face. He blinked uncomprehendingly at Albertine.

“Who—who are you?” he managed to blurt out, and then his head lolled back and he collapsed in a dead faint.

L
EX AND
A
LBERTINE
tried to tend to Gable as he lay on the ground, but the cane dogs wouldn’t allow it. They growled and snapped defensively every time the two humans approached their insensible master.

“I don’t think this is the first time they’ve had to look after him when he’s passed out,” Lex opined. “It must happen quite a lot. Let’s just leave him.”

“We can’t,” said Albertine. “It takes it out of you, being ridden by a loa. And if you’re not in the best of health in the first place...”

“He’ll recover. We can’t afford to wait around, though, not if we’re going to go and fetch Wilberforce and then collect Team Thirteen from the Cape Azure on schedule.”

“There must be some way of dealing with the dogs.”

“There is, but it would involve me killing them, and I doubt you want that.”

Albertine conceded the point. “We’ll check on him when we get back from Anger Reef.”

“
If
we get back.”

She darted him a look. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing. Grim joke, that’s all. I mean, you heard Gable, or Legba. The way he put it, we’re marching straight into the jaws of death.”

“Legba can’t always be relied on for an accurate summary of the situation.”

“Okay, but it still doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a picnic. I’m just thinking we ought to be realistic about our prospects. Come on. Back to the car.”

“Lex?” said Albertine as they retraced their steps through the thickets to the road.

“Yes?”

“What did he say to you?”

“Who? When?”

“Don’t be childish. Legba. When he whispered to you just now.”

“Nothing. Nothing important.”

“Really? Because you seemed pretty shaken by it.”

“No.”

“You’re not going to tell me.”

“It’s not worth sharing. Really. It might as well have been gibberish for all the sense it made.”

“Okay.” Her tone suggested not only that she didn’t believe him but that she would winkle the truth out of him at some point in the foreseeable future. She had no doubts on that score.

But what was Lex supposed to do? Give it to her straight? Quote Gable verbatim?

How could he?

Dead men won’ lie an’ liars won’ die. That’s the truth, Leonard Duncan, and the truth always hurts.

Never mind that the message itself was pretty much unfathomable.

How the hell did Gable know his real name?

NINETEEN

ZODIACS

L
IEUTENANT
B
UCKLER WAS
in a tetchy mood. As Team Thirteen loaded their duffel bags into the cars, he refused to meet Lex’s eye and answered his enquiries in monosyllables.

Lex put it down to pre-op nerves. Everyone reacted differently to stress. Some masked their tension with talk; others, like Buckler, went the other way, turning surly and uncommunicative.

Once they pulled away from the hotel, Buckler turned to him and said, “We’re going to make a detour.”

“Where to?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“Shouldn’t I know in advance? If there’s been a change of plan...”

Buckler wasn’t interested in providing any further detail. Lex now had the impression that the American’s frostiness was targeted—personal. He, Lex, had somehow offended, had affronted him in some way. He didn’t much care. It wasn’t his goal in life to win approval or ingratiate himself with others.

He drove on, leaving Buckler to simmer quietly beside him.

“Left here,” the SEAL commander said eventually.

Lex made the turn. Albertine, in her Suzuki, followed suit.

“Now right.”

“Manzanilla Defence Force HQ,” Lex said, when it became clear there was only one place they could be headed.

“Got to pick up a couple of items,” said Buckler. “Won’t take long.”

The couple of items turned out to be a pair of Zodiacs. They were, as far as Lex was aware, the Manzanilla Defence Force’s entire fleet of seagoing craft: two rigid-hulled inflatables with amateurishly applied camouflage paint jobs. In fact, these boats and a couple of tatty ex-British-Army Land Rovers represented the sum total of the MDF’s mobile hardware. But then Manzanilla’s standing army was hardly a crack fighting unit, consisting as it did of no more than twenty volunteers, part-timers who held down day jobs but put on fatigues and carried out drills and manoeuvres as and when their work schedules permitted. It was unlikely the island would ever be invaded, and if it was the MDF would doubtless offer only a token resistance before surrendering. The government, though, was pleased to think that it had military capability, however paltry, and the soldiers could if nothing else be counted on to put on a parade in Port Sebastian’s Liberation Square every time some foreign dignitary came visiting.

Four MDF soldiers wheeled the Zodiacs out into the main compound on trailers. Lex saw money slip from Buckler’s fingers into the hands of the senior-ranking soldier and from there into the breast pocket of the man’s blouse. So, this was not entirely an above-board procedure. Then again, nothing on Manzanilla was. Graft was just part of the national economy.

While the boat trailers were being hitched to the cars, Lex received a text message from Seraphina.

Just to wish you luck, sweetheart. You’ll be fine. Old pro like you—it’s like riding a bike. You never forget how. Hugs and kisses. S xxx

Lex texted back:

So you know I’m fully active again.

Seraphina’s reply:

Darling, I know EVERYTHING. Haven’t you learned that by now? ;-) You just couldn’t help it, could you? Once an operative, always an operative. Bodes well for the future.

Lex:

It’s a one-off. Don’t get your hopes up.

Seraphina:

We’ll see, won’t we? It would be soooo nice to have you back in harness, darling. With me cracking the whip again, like before. Mmmm. How naughty that sounds.

Lex:

Cold shower time for you.

Seraphina:

I prefer my showers hot, soapy... and accompanied.

“Who’s that you’re talking to?” It was Albertine, peering over his shoulder.

Lex flicked the phone out of text mode. “No one. My boss.”

“I thought you were self-employed.”

“Freelance, yes. She’s more agent than boss.”

“She?” Albertine arched an eyebrow as high as it could go.

“Something wrong with that?”

“Not a thing. But I could have sworn I read something about hot, soapy showers.”

“Jealous?”

“Do I need to be?”

“No.”

“Then that’s fine,” she said, sidling away. “Good enough for me.”

Lex watched her go, admiring the rollicking, insolent sway of her hips. The same hips that had gripped him so urgently, so deliciously last night.

All at once, Gable’s—Legba’s—words recurred, elbowing their way back into his thoughts.

Dead men won’ lie an’ liars won’ die. That’s the truth, Leonard Duncan, and the truth always hurts.

Maybe he had misheard. Maybe Gable had actually said his adopted name, and he had mistaken it for his true name. They sounded similar enough, and Gable’s accent was thick and he had a tendency to mumble.

In that case, setting aside the matter of a compromised identity, what did the remark actually mean? Dead men? Liars? What was all that about?

Lex knew he could keep worrying at it like a bone for hours and get nowhere. With some effort, he thrust it to the back of his mind.

B
ACK ON THE
road, beneath the surging orange brilliance of a Caribbean dawn, with the inflatable boats bumping along behind them.

“Just come out and say it,” Lex said to Buckler. “Get it off your chest. Let’s clear the air now, before the op begins in earnest.”

“Okay,” said Buckler. “Okay. I’m all in favour of air-clearing.” He glanced round at Tartaglione and Sampson in the backseat, both of whom looked as disgruntled as their CO did. “Those boats, see, that was kind of a last-minute thing. I didn’t think we’d need them... not until I went and took a gander at your buddy’s airplane. De Havilland Turbo Beaver. Not in the best of condition.”

“It’ll fly.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it will. I’m sure it’ll get us to Anger Reef just fine, probably get us back too, nice and safe and all in one piece. I’ve been up in rattletraps far worse. The issue here isn’t so much the journey as the landing. We’re timing it so as we insert at high tide, but even then that isn’t going to afford us much clearance in the water. Turbo Beaver’s pretty hefty for its size, especially with a full complement of passengers and a load of equipment too. I reckon there’s a chance she could lose a float. Coral could rip it right off. We can’t have that.”

“Hence the Zodiacs.”

“Nice shallow draught. Virtually flat-bottomed. We’ll skim across just fine.”

“So you’re pissed off at me because I didn’t anticipate this little problem and you’ve had to resolve it yourself,” said Lex. “Well, excuse me, lieutenant, but why didn’t you tell me? I could have done something about it if I’d had a heads-up. Shouldn’t there be more to-and-fro here?” He waved a hand in the air between himself and Buckler. “A free and frank exchange of data?”