Fallen Mangrove (Jesse McDermitt Series Book 5) (25 page)

Faye quickly made her way down to the beach. Pulling on a tee shirt and swapping her heels for running shoes, she looked both ways along the beach. Seeing no one, she ran out onto the sand. She ran daily on the hard-packed sand back home in Miami and knew exactly how long it should take her to reach Turtle Hill. She found a path that led to the road in front of the villas and hid in the bushes to wait for Jose and Bianca.

They came up the street a minute later and went into the office. Faye remained hidden in the bushes. A few minutes later, the two came out and Faye followed them at a distance, keeping to the shadows along the edge of the tropical jungle. They soon arrived at one of the larger villas on the bay and went inside. Faye found a spot among the foliage where she could see the house clearly and waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. Fifteen minutes after Jose and Bianca went into the house, four men appeared from the main road, moving quietly toward the house. Faye could tell by the way they moved that they weren’t there to party. They moved with precision, using hand signals. Faye ducked back deeper in the bushes as one of the men reached the door to the house and knocked before pulling a gun out of his pocket.

When Reynolds opened the door he must have seen the gun in the man’s hand. Stumbling backwards he fired a quick shot at the man from his own gun. The shot hit the man in the shoulder and spun him around as he fired harmlessly into the door jamb.

Instantly, the other three men swarmed into the house, firing two more shots, which made Faye cringe. A moment later, the three gunmen came out and helped the first man to his feet, then moved toward where Faye was hiding in the bushes, stopping just a few feet away.

“Just a flesh wound, Colour Sergeant,” the injured man said with a British accent. “Weren’t there supposed to be three of them here?”

“Reynolds texted me just as we were approaching,” another man said, also with a British accent, but with the timbre of authority in his voice. “Madic got the other slag. Break up and head for the next target.”

“Right away, Colour Sergeant,” the first man replied and they split up, all taking different routes away from the crime scene, but all heading north and not south, which was the way Faye was going to go.

When they were well gone, Faye made her way quickly past the villas and took a different path back to the beach. People were coming out of some of the rentals, so she walked casually. Once there, she could just make out someone moving north along the bottom of the dune, half a mile to the north. She waited until she was sure he was out of sight and started running south again. She wasn’t exactly sure how far it was to where McDermitt was staying, but she had a fair idea. She also knew the main house and the cluster of villas below it should be visible from the road.

It took her fifteen minutes to cover nearly two miles of beach. Her normal morning runs were five miles on the hard-packed sand of south Florida. Two miles on this powdery sand left her short of breath when she started up the path from the beach to the main road. When she got to it, she knelt on the sand at the edge of the path to catch her breath and look around. There were very few cars on the island, but a lot of golf carts and bicycles. She waited, watching the villas and the big house above them. All of the villas were completely dark, as was the house. She checked her watch and saw that it was just after ten o’clock.
Someone should still be awake
, she thought.

Seeing and hearing nothing, she quickly darted across the road and into the shadows along the left side of the path going up the hill. Moving as quietly as possible, she made her way past the smaller villas and neared a large house on the left. The lights were on and would illuminate her if she continued.

Faye knelt in the darkness for a moment, the blood pounding in her ears. Finally, hearing nothing, she darted across the path and into the lush tropical foliage between the villas and the house. The grounds were well manicured and she moved from tree to tree, staying in the shadows as much as she could.

She stood next to a large coconut palm catching her breath and looked up at the darkened house. As she started to step away from the tree and proceed further, she felt cold steel pressed against the side of her head and warm breath on the side of her neck.

“Don’t even think about moving,” a rough voice whispered in her ear.

When I looked back from the open doorway, Ettaleigh was reaching for her purse. I drew my Colt and leveled it at her, saying, “That’s far enough, Miss Bonamy.” She looked up, surprised. “Yes, we know who you are,” I added. “Now step back away from that purse real slowly.”

She took two steps back as I came back into the room. “How did you know?” she asked.

“Recognized you from the plane,” I replied. “We also know you work for Madic.”

This revelation really surprised her, as her mouth fell open and she began to stammer something. I picked up her purse and looked inside. It didn’t surprise me when I found a Serbian-made Zastava .357 Magnum, just like the ankle gun I took off one of the bodyguards at the
Anchor
.

“Into the bedroom,” I said as I motioned with the Colt. A gleam came to her eyes and I realized I’d had an erection for the last half hour. “Just to turn off the lights,” I added.

Once she’d turned off the lights in the bedroom, I motioned her toward the front door, turning off lights behind us as I went. Once outside, I turned off the porch light and motioned her in the moonlight to go down the steps.

“Head up to the house,” I said. “And be real quiet.”

We walked quickly to the house. Tony was at the northwest corner of the house and saw us coming. “Welcome to the party, Ettaleigh,” he said, startling her. Stepping partly out of the shadow, he grinned, his white teeth gleaming in his dark black face. Then he turned to me and said “The two women from the other villa are inside.”

His last statement excited me and that in turn sickened me.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I wondered. Then it hit me.
The bitch drugged me
. I wasn’t stumbling or slurring words. My mind was clear, but it seemed to be fixated on one thing. Sex.

“Who is on perimeter?” I asked, to get my mind off it.

“Me, Bourke, Rusty, and Deuce,” Tony replied, handing me an earwig.

I put it in and, switching it on, I said, “Com check.”

Everyone responded that they could hear me. “Are you all right?” Doc asked.

“She drugged me, Doc,” I replied, pushing Ettaleigh up the steps. “Nothing debilitating, though.”

Julie opened the door to let us in, wearing her Sig openly outside her pants with her shirt pulled up and tucked behind the holster. This, too, seemed to be both a turn-on and revolting at the same time.

Doc stepped into the dining room from the living room. “If it’s not debilitating, how do you know you’ve been drugged?”

“Sit down over there,” I said, shoving Ettaleigh onto the couch, where Charity held the other two women at gunpoint. Again, the urge to just jump into that pile of feminine flesh nearly overwhelmed my brain.

I turned to Doc and, pointing to my crotch, I said, “That’s why.”

Doc looked down and tried real hard to hold back a laugh. Finally he said, “What’d she give you? Viagra?”

“It ain’t funny, Doc!” I walked over to where the three women sat on the couch. “What the hell did you give me?” I growled.

“Nothing,” she said with a seductive smile and those smoldering black eyes. Looking into them, I had the urge to turn and shoot my friends so that I could be with her.

“Charity,” I said, turning toward her and turning my gun around in my hand. “Take this. I’m not in full control.”

Charity reached out slowly and took the gun from my hand. The touch of her fingers on mine was like electricity. I turned and went back through the dining room, motioning for Doc to follow.

Outside, in the soft breeze, with the moonlight shining down on us, I felt a little better. I reached up and switched off my earwig, motioning him to do the same. “Whatever she gave me, Doc, it’s made me horny enough to hump a fence post. Charity’s hand touching mine just now excited me like all hell and just looking into that woman’s eyes made me think that shooting everyone so I could be alone with her wasn’t such a crazy idea.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not kidding, dammit. Even Julie’s open carry holster turned me on. What the hell did she give me, Doc?”

He thought about it a moment and said, “There are any number of drugs on the market to boost a man’s virility, but what you’re describing goes way beyond any of that. Almost like ecstasy.”

“Look,” I said. “She works for Madic and they want to either beat us to the treasure or take it from us. Taking me hostage, or even killing me and saying I was their hostage, would make sense. So why would she give me some kind of drug that’d turn me into her own personal stallion?”

“That’s it!” Doc said, snapping his finger. “I bet that’s what caused that island guy to have a heart attack. Let me check your pulse.” He put two fingers to my neck and after a few seconds, he said, “Your heart’s racing. Come inside. I’m going to give you a sedative. Any exertion now could cause you to go into cardiac arrest. She did want to kill you, but in a really sick way.”

We went inside and I sat down at the dining room table. A moment later, Doc handed me two pills. “Swallow these, then go in the bedroom and lay down. I’ll be in there in a minute.”

I washed them down with a bottle of water he handed me and did exactly as he told me to do, keeping my eyes off of Ettaleigh as I went through the hall to the middle bedroom and lay down.

The sedative he gave me was strong. Coupled with the rum and whatever drug she gave me, I was soon drifting off to sleep.

A moment later, I heard the door creak and Doc said, “You all right, Gunny?”

I mumbled something as I tried to open my eyes, but even I didn’t understand what I said. Gradually, my eyes opened and I could see that it was light in the room. I lifted my left arm and strained to focus on my watch.

“You’ve been out for six hours,” Doc said. “I checked your pulse every hour and even dead asleep, your heart was pounding like a racehorse. It finally came under control about an hour ago.”

I groaned as I tried to sit up, but only fell back on the bed.

“But you still have a hard-on,” he added with a chuckle.

“You looked?” I groaned. “Don’t ask, don’t tell, Squid.”

“Didn’t have to look,” he added, still guffawing. “Looks like you’re sleeping under a tent.”

I saw movement behind Doc and Charity’s face came into focus. “Oh my,” she said, covering her mouth and turning away, giggling like a schoolgirl.

“Get the hell outta here,” I snapped. “I gotta hit the head.”

Doc closed the door, and only when I heard his footsteps retreating down the hall did I throw off the covers and get unsteadily to my feet. I went down the hall to the bathroom, where I relieved my straining bladder for a full minute. Soon, after splashing cold water on my face, everything was back to normal and my head was clearing.

All eyes were on me as I walked into the living room and made a beeline for the coffeepot. Just by the smell, I knew Rusty had retrieved his La Minita stash from the boat. I poured a cup and drank about half before I turned around. The three women were now tied up on the couch, the two younger women asleep.

I walked into the living room and held my hand out to Charity. “Give me my Colt.”

She reached behind her, pulled my gun out and handed it to me, butt first. I removed the magazine and checked that it was still fully loaded, reinserted it, and racked a round into the chamber.

I turned and crossed the room in two strides to where Ettaleigh sat primly on the sofa, her hands bound behind her and her breasts poking at the fabric of her silk shirt. The view did nothing.

I gripped her throat with my left hand and brought the Colt up and put the barrel against her forehead and roared, “What’s your real name and what did you give me?”

Pescador was immediately at my side, the hair on his back up and his lips pulled back in a vicious growl.

“Easy, Gunny,” Doc said. “That sedative is still playing tricks with your brain.”

“We’ll get to what the hell you gave me in a minute, Doc,” I snarled, pushing the woman back against the cushion of the couch with the barrel of the gun and pulling back the hammer. “Answer me now, or I swear I’ll blow your head completely off.” Ettaleigh’s eyes no longer held anything remotely resembling a smolder. They were suddenly wide and filled with terror.

“There’s no need, Captain,” a strange voice said. I looked across the room and couldn’t believe my eyes. It was one of the prostitutes we’d left at Hole in the Wall.

“Her real name is Tena Horvac,” the call girl said. “She’s been under surveillance by both Miami-Dade and FDLE for several months, along with Consuelo and Jose Reynolds, Gary Lopez, the Maggio firm, and Valentin Madic.”

“And who the hell are you?” I asked.

“My real name is Linda Rosales. I’m a Special Agent with Florida Department of Law Enforcement, working undercover.”

“It’s true,” Doc said. “Chyrel verified it last night while you were asleep.”

I decocked the Colt, holstered it at the small of my back and said, “Why didn’t you say something at Hole in the Wall?”

“I tried,” she replied. “But you said to ‘Shut up and wait here’ when you carried me ashore. That was the only time I was alone with any of you and didn’t want to blow my cover.”

“I still want to know what the heck it was that she gave me,” I said, pointing at Horvac.

“We only identified her last week,” Rosales said. “The word on the street is that she’s supposed to be some kind of sorceress—a Chovani, as they’re called in Romania. Her people are the original Gypsies. She’s from Croatia, though, and the drugs she gave you are probably a mixture of several that were hidden in a secret compartment of her briefcase.” Rosales turned a briefcase around on the table, showing me its contents in a red-velvet-lined false bottom.

“Okay,” I said, even more confused, “someone needs to bring me up to speed. There were gunshots in town last night. What happened?”

Just then Deuce walked in with the cop, Sergeant Cleary. “Four unknown gunmen shot the hell out of my town,” Cleary said. “Their first target, the shots you heard, was supposed to be Agent Rosales here, along with her recently deceased companions, Jose Reynolds and Bianca Garcia. At least, that’s who the room was reserved for half an hour before the shooting. Both Reynolds and Garcia were killed by a single gunshot wound to the head. In the case of Garcia, the back of the head, execution style. Reynolds got one of the gunmen, it looked like, but probably only wounded him. About half an hour later there was a running gunfight on the beach, where four men were killed. The news this morning said that three of the men were guests at Hope Town Harbour Lodge and the other one had just arrived on the island. The news didn’t release their names, because we haven’t given that information out yet.”

Opening a notebook, he continued, “The three guests are Valentin Madic, Borislav Varga, and Ivo Novosel. All from Miami, according to their passports. Based on Agent Rosales’s description of the four gunmen she witnessed kill Reynolds and Garcia, the fourth dead man on the beach was one of them. He was shot and killed by Royal Bahamas Police and had no identification on him. Agent Rosales said that two of them spoke with British accents and one was referred to as Colour Sergeant. Agent Livingston has identified all of you as working for the American Department of Homeland Security. Does Colour Sergeant mean anything to any of you?”

“British Royal Marines,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “It’s Colour with a
u
. A Colour Sergeant is the same rank I was in the Marine Corps, E-7.”

“There are three of these men still running loose on the island,” Cleary said. “But we’ll catch them. It’s a small island. Now, I must ask. Why didn’t you identify yourselves as American Federal Agents when you found my brother’s body?” Horvac looked at Cleary quickly, which drew his gaze to her.

“I apologize for that, Sergeant,” Deuce said. “All this is somewhat our fault. We’re not here in any official capacity, nor for the fishing and diving. Petty Officer Talbot’s wife’s family held a secret clue to a buried treasure and we traced it to a Spanish vessel that wrecked here on your island in 1566. We think we know where it is and went through the Bahamian government to get permission to look for it. These two factions somehow learned about it and were planning to take it before we had the chance to turn it over to the proper authorities.”

Rusty stepped up and handed Cleary his American and newly acquired Bahamian salvor’s licenses, along with the certificate to salvage on land.

Cleary examined the documents and said, “I’m satisfied with that. But you should have come to the Police and informed us. Now, what about these three women you’re holding?”

“FDLE has reciprocity and extradition agreements with the Royal Bahamian Police,” Rosales said. “Tena Horvac is in my custody and will be going back to Florida to stand trial. That is, unless she’s arrested here first. Then we’ll wait our turn.”

“Arrested here for what?” Cleary asked.

“For starters, drugging me,” I said.

“With the same drug she probably used on your brother,” Doc added.

Cleary’s head snapped around. “My brother?”

“Tena Horvac was registered at the Hope Town Harbour Lodge under the name of Ettaleigh Bonamy,” Deuce said.