Grand Cayman Slam (13 page)

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Authors: Randy Striker

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BOOK: Grand Cayman Slam
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Hubbard insisted on paying the bar tab, and the Irishman and I left throwing promises over our shoulders that we would come to his house one afternoon for plantain and green-turtle stew.
Outside, O’Davis and I climbed into the cramped Fiat. He backed out onto the shoulder and headed down the twisting road toward North Sound.
“That’s a pretty loyal friend you have there,” I said.
“Hubbard is a fine old man. Salt of the earth, ol’ Hubbard. Employed him aboard me old ship when I had a spot o’ work ta do fer the government. Very handy with his hands, and knows how ta keep ’is mouth closed. Fancied ’imself somethin’ of a secret agent after the job. An’ he’s my eyes an’ ears when it comes to the island folk. Come ta look upon him as me second father.”
“Good choice,” I said. “It always surprises me when you show good taste, O’Davis.”
“Hah! An’ how kin I argue that when I have the likes o’ you sittin’ beside me, ya dirty little snit!”
While we headed for his boat, which he had brought around from Gun Bay Village to the west end of the island, I told him about my visit with Lady James, and about my suspicions concerning Sir Conan James.
“Some of it adds up when you think about it,” I said. “Let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that Sir Conan was having an affair with his son’s nanny, Cynthia Rothchild. Then you came along. He gets jealous. And then he follows her. It just so happens that you’re not home. He goes inside and there’s an argument. Sir Conan has a sadistic streak in him. But this time it goes too far. He rips her blouse. She grabs a knife to protect herself, but he takes it away and uses it to murder her.”
“But Yank, she tol’ me she wasn’t havin’ an affair with him.”
“Some women lie as good as or better than men. Sir Conan wasn’t home that night—remember? He was away when his son was kidnapped.”
“But what about the fella in the Jaguar? How would Sir Conan get hold of Cynthia’s stolen car? If he’s as crazy as his wife says he is, I kin understand why he would take shots at me—but how did he get the bloody car?”
I wiped my face with an open hand. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe the murder and the kidnapping and the attempt on your life are all separate occurrences. Maybe one doesn’t have anything at all to do with the other. Or . . . damn . . . I don’t know.” I looked at O’Davis. “I should have known that if you wanted help it wouldn’t be anything easy.”
“An’ would I need help if ’twas?”
“One thing’s for sure—tomorrow, we have to tell your police friend to put a tail on Sir Conan. I don’t like him running around loose.”
“Yer worried about yer stewardess friend?”
“And wouldn’t you be? There’s somebody on this island with snakes for brains—and, so far, the arrow points to him.”
“I’ll tell him,” O’Davis said with a shrug, “but Sir Conan is a very powerful man, brother MacMorgan. They’ll not be pickin’ him up on jest my say-so. They’re goin’ ta need some proof.”
“Just so long as they watch him.”
The road took us east across the narrow peninsula of island. There were shapes of small houses and stone fences. A night heron flapped off through the blaze of headlights, a crab squirming in its beak. The roadsigns were round and plain, peppered with buckshot. Australian pines leaned feathered and frail by moonlight. Through a crevice of trees, the water of North Sound spread away from the land, silver and swollen.
“You brought my gear?”
“Aye, that I did.”
“The knife, too?”
The Irishman nodded. “Yer nasty-lookin’ Randall knife, too. . . . ”
 
Bota Bano is a little fishing settlement which, for four hundred years, has watched the explorers and the pirates and the green-turtle hunters come and go. Wooden piers reeled drunkenly into the night sea. Commercial boats were black smudges on the harbor. House lights shimmered across the bay. The place smelled of diesel and hemp. While the Irishman changed clothes, I tested his handheld 200,000-candlepower light. The beam knifed through ten feet of clear water to the coral sand bottom. Sergeant major fish froze in the white glare at the base of a piling. There were beer bottles on the bottom and a rusted fifty-gallon drum. Amber antenna of a half-dozen lobsters protruded from the drum, and a large strawberry grouper rested with heaving gills and malicious eyes.
“We’ll not be needin’ the light, I’m thinkin’.” O’Davis came out of the cabin, pulling at the zipper of his black wet suit.
“You’re going to run that little reef cut blind?”
“It’s either that, Yank, or let them know we’re comin’.”
“In that case, I’ll say a few Hail Marys while I dress.”
“Didna know you were Catholic, Yank.”
“I’m not—but I figure you are. Or once were.”
Traveling across the night water at forty miles an hour, the shoreline seemed to move—not the boat. I wore my lucky Limey knickers, rubber dive boots, and a black watch sweater. O’Davis hummed his strange Irish tune as he stood at the wheel. The moonlight added a rusty halo to his red hair, and his beard fluttered in the wind.
We rounded Head of Barkers staying well away from the reef. There were no house lights now, and the shore was a dark haze of coconut palms and Australian pines in the distance.
“Should be the Canadian’s estate jest ahead.”
“And the cut through the reef?”
“Up another quarter mile, I should think.”
“You think? Christ, you’re going to kill us on the coral before we even have a chance to search the house.”
O’Davis cackled gaily. “Hah! Wurra, wurra—ye’ve got more Irish in ya than Scotch, Mr. Dusky MacMorgan! Jest leave the drivin’ to me.”
“But you can’t see a damn thing!”
“I can hear, Yank. I can
hear.
Now jest give me a few minutes’ silence!”
Surf breaking over the reef was a writhing gray line in the moonlight. The ratty cruiser,
Rogue,
lifted, paused, and nose-dived in the stern sea as we powered toward shore, twin props cavitating at the peak of every wave. Then, suddenly, I could see the narrow surf break of the channel.
And O’Davis was right—you could hear the difference. Even so, it wasn’t something I would have tried with my beloved
Sniper
.
He drove the wheel hard to port, banking west, brought her halfway back, then hard a-starboard.
The cruiser took a wave over the bow in a warm sheet, there was a heart-stopping jolt as a staghorn crushed beneath us, and then we were free, on the landward side of the reef.
“By sound, huh?”
“We made it, didna we?”
“I’ll go below and see how big the hole is.”
“Hole? Hah!”
O’Davis was right. The coral had not damaged the hull. In the weak cabin light, I checked the planking for leaks and found none. Upon the vee-berth rested the two Thompson machine guns, oiled and lethal.
A quarter mile from the Canadian’s estate, the Irishman dropped the cruiser off plane. The sound of the surf was off to our right now. I got the anchor ready and dropped it when ordered. In the new silence, you could hear the wind in the pines. It leached a warm citric odor from the land.
You could barely see the neat geometrics of fence and well-kept lawn in the moonlight. There were no lights on in the house.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home, Yank.”
“We’ll see,” I said. “We’ll see.”
“We’ve got a short swim ta shore—maybe two hundred yards.”
“Good. We’ll swim on our backs and carry the weapons. Remember, if something goes wrong and we can’t make it back to the boat, we’ll meet at the car.”
“Aye.”
The Irishman wore mask and snorkel. I opted for just the good Dacor fins. The water was warm, with a current that swept east toward the point. Far off, I could hear the diesel rumble of a boat headed toward North Sound. It ran without lights. I swam on my back, propelling myself with long languid strokes of fin. Ahead, there was a loud swirl and watery
whoof
as some predatory fish crashed bait.
I remembered the sharks we had seen earlier. But my Navy SEAL training had long ago dulled my fear of night diving. We had done almost all our patrols in Nam at night. You become a fatalist: If a shark wants you, he’s going to get you. So why worry?
It had taken me a long two months after recovering from my own shark attack to regain the relaxed attitude of the fatalist and be comfortable again.
Even so, night is the time for the blue-water killers to come feeding on the reefs. Everything fears them. And they fear nothing.
We made it to shore okay. My clothes were wet and warm and soggy. I waded backward over the jagged rocks, checking each step before putting full weight down because of the poisonous black-spined sea urchins.
We hid our dive gear in the brush by a line of coconut palms. I had my knife, a small narrow-beam flashlight, and the Thompson. O’Davis carried two extra clips in a waterproof pouch. He removed the clips and hid the pouch with the rest of our gear.
“Should we spread out when we get ta the fence, Yank?” O’Davis asked in a whisper.
“No. We’ve got plenty of time. Besides, I don’t want to take the chance of you shooting me by mistake.”
He snorted in the darkness. “If I shoot ye, Yank, it won’t be by mistake!” His soft laughter blended with the sound of the surf.
11
 
The boat surprised me.
O’Davis saw it first.
We had made our way through the moonlight down the rocky stretch of coast. The estate was perched upon a bluff with a twenty-foot sheer ledge. We were looking for a place with plenty of handholds so we could make the climb.
And that’s when he saw it. He grabbed me by the shoulder. “Looks like we might have company, brother MacMorgan,” he whispered.
I followed his finger toward the dim shape anchored off a set of wooden steps that led up the bluff. It looked to be a small powerboat, sleek with the common flat racing design of ski boats.
“That wasn’t there this afternoon.”
“Yer a smart one, MacMorgan.”
“If I was smart, I’d be back in Key West having my third cold beer after a supper at the El Cacique.”
“I’ll buy ya a better supper and colder beer when we’re done here, mate.”
“That’s a deal.”
We stood motionless and watched the boat for a long time. When we were sure no one was aboard, I slung the Thompson over my shoulder and climbed the bluff, digging into salt-damp crevices with knees and toes. The steps that led to the sea would have been easier to climb—but also a hell of a lot easier to see in the moonlight.
I pulled myself over the ledge and crawled to the nearest clump of trees before standing. Across the lawn, the house was huge and pale in the shadows. A wrought-iron fence lined both sides, stopping at the seaward bluff.
There were still no lights.
We stayed close together, moving from tree to tree in the milky light. Night birds squawked and palmetto rats scurried high in the trees. There was the distant whine of a jet and a starry spasm of flight beacons as a commercial airliner descended toward the island, bringing more tourists on a late flight from Miami.
At the back of the house, we hugged the wall, listening.
Nothing. Not a sound.
“I fear we’ve come on a wild goose chase, Yank,” O’Davis whispered.
“Maybe. I just want to get a look at that car in the garage.”
We slipped around to the side. I tested the garage door quietly. It was locked. I motioned with my hand, and the Irishman followed me to the front of the house. Something bothered me about the windows of the house—and that’s when I realized what.
They were dark, all right.
Too dark. Far too dark for a moonlit night. Someone had covered them—from the inside. A very strange thing to do.
The front entrance was a formidable gate of two huge doors with a giant brass latch. The thin hand of illumination that came from beneath the doors told me what I wanted to know.
Someone was inside, all right. And they sure as hell didn’t want anyone to know they were there.
“I think we’re on to something,” I whispered.
“Aye. But if me friend Hubbard was right, we may have jest stumbled onto a drug deal.”
“Could be. Or maybe they have the kid. We have to get inside and see. There were some French doors at the rear. I should be able to jimmy the lock.”
Silently, we returned to the backside of the house. I used my Randall knife. I pried at the lock, jamming the blade between the doors. The windows weren’t covered here—they had blacked out only the front part of the house. When the lock snapped, I opened the door an inch or so and slid my hand carefully up and down the edge of it, looking for a wire that might trip a burglar alarm.
There was none.

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