Never Too Late (19 page)

To which
Andrea's father responded by shoving a cigar in his mouth and raising a butane
lighter to it while holding Jerry's gaze. A clear challenge, which Jerry didn't
meet.

The inspector
looked from one man to the other, and said, "I'm going too. We won't be a
team, but I can't stop either of you from going in, and you can't stop me from
trailing behind either. But I'll be armed."

As the men
discussed the logistics of what they were about to do, Andrea paced the floor
while contemplating a plan, not a brilliant one, but a viable one. Turning to
the inspector, she said, "I have my own reasons for wanting to see
Alessandro Cavallaro nailed to the wall—" she eyed Jerry and added
"—figuratively speaking, so I'm going too. I'll act as a decoy to draw
Alessandro out from wherever he is. The bodyguard and the rest of you can catch
him when he comes out of hiding to see what I want. He never once threatened me
in any way, so I don't believe he'd do anything to harm me when he sees me. By
the time he realizes it's a trap, it will be too late for him to do
anything."

"Absolutely not!"
Barbara
said. "Carter, it's bad enough you're determined to do this thing, but you
must forbid Andrea from going along."

Carter crooked
a finger under his wife's chin and lifted so she was forced to look directly at
him, and said, "If I thought I could forbid Andrea I would, but she's got
too damn much of me in her to listen. But she'll be fine. Bud Howell's a
competent man. He won't let anything happen to her. In the meantime, you'll be
flying home. There's no reason for you to stay here."

Barbara held
his gaze, then gave a sigh of resolve, and said, "I know better than to
try and stop you from doing this, but I won't be flying anywhere until I know
you and Andrea and Jerry are back safely." She set her jaw and glared at
her husband, who kissed her lightly on her tightly-pressed lips, smiled into
her eyes, and said, "I didn't think you would."

It was an odd
exchange between her parents, and Andrea wondered how much confrontation mixed
with love play might have taken place behind the scenes while she was growing
up. It seemed out of character for both of her parents—her mother challenging
her father, her father yielding in a loving way to her mother's concern. She'd
have to think on that.

***

They set out
just before daybreak the following morning, all wearing batik outfits that
matched as closely as possible the colors of the thick underbrush of the
forest, and each carrying a long machete for hacking brush, or defending
themselves if need be. The night before, they'd studied a topographical map of
the region they'd be accessing, noting the location of several blue holes in
the vicinity where the trail would be making its way through the forest.

It was decided
that Carter and Jerry would go first to locate and clear out any booby traps,
and following a few hundred feet behind would be the inspector, Andrea, and Bud
Howell the body guard. If any of them heard someone approaching, they'd hide in
the brush until the person passed. Inspector Schribe mentioned that few ventured
into the
interior,
and those who did were connected
with Cavallaro's operation.

Inspector
Schribe had someone take them by boat to the southern part of the island and
drop them off within walking distance of where they'd be entering the forest.
It was barely light when Schribe led them up the beach and along a deserted
road to the trailhead. There, he pushed aside a twist of vines, revealing a
trail cutting through the woods, which was skillfully disguised by almost
impenetrable brush. They each slipped through the narrow opening and Schribe
carefully closed the brush behind them. The forest was so dense, little light
came through the tangle of trees overhead, but it was enough to reveal a narrow
trail edged on one side by a mangrove swamp, and on the other by a mixed forest
of Madeira, pine and crepe myrtle.

After they'd
gone a few hundred feet, Carter, who'd been leading the procession, turned and
said, "Porter and I will go on ahead from here and spring any traps. The
rest of you wait a half hour before following." As Carter started up the
trail, he glanced over his shoulder and said to Jerry, "Stay a good ten
feet behind me, Porter. I don't want you breathing down my back."

Jerry said
nothing, but as he followed the tall, white-haired man who was gripping a long
machete, and who seemed not only fully capable of carrying out this mission,
but eager to do so, he wondered what would happen if either of them had to put
their faith in the other. The idea of laying down his life for Carter Ellison
didn't sit too well at the moment.

They were well
into the forest, and had been walking for over a half hour, when Carter
crouched to examine something on the trail. When Jerry caught up to see what it
was, Carter said, while pointing, "Four tufts of grass tied in knots, each
placed at the corner of what will be a pit below. Whoever did it knows what
he's doing." He lifted an interlaced network of sinuous vines, revealing a
shallow pit. "Just what I thought. A punjit trap."

Jerry looked
into a pit, about knee deep, and saw spikes coming up at sharp angles. Carter
prodded one of the spikes with his machete and the spike shot upward with
force. "They're mounted on sapling triggers and are deployed when someone
steps in the pit," he explained. "The spikes can go through a boot
and tear a leg apart."

Jerry stared at
the brutal-looking trap, and said, "I have to hand it to you, Ellison. I
never would have spotted that thing."

"That's
the idea," Carter replied, springing another spike. "Just keep in
mind that booby traps are like snakes. Where there's one, there are
others." After he'd sprung the remaining spikes, Carter continued to stare
into the pit. When the silence became profound, Jerry glanced at him and saw a
troubled, yet faraway look in his eyes, the look of a man recalling something
he didn't want to remember, but couldn't forget. Carter confirmed it when he
said, "I doubt if we'll find tiger pits in a small operation like this but
I'll still watch. They're six feet deep with two-foot-long spikes primed with
sapling triggers, ready to impale a victim. A hell of a way to die."

"You saw firsthand,
didn't you," Jerry said, even though he suspected Carter had never talked
about it before.

Carter nodded.
"A boy about twelve. It hadn't been a quick death."

In one of the
most profound moments in his life, Jerry reached down and squeezed Carter's
shoulder. "Some memories don't go away," he said, knowing only too
well, feeling a bizarre closeness with a man he'd hated for twenty-five years.

Carter looked
up at Jerry from his crouched position, and his mouth twitched in a half smile
of understanding. It was an odd moment, Jerry thought, connecting with Andrea's
father the way he'd once connected with Andrea. But there was one difference
between them. He'd never share with Carter his own haunting memory, but he
carried a photo of it in his wallet as a reminder.

Carter stood.
"The most feared trap was the Bouncing Betty," he said, as if wanting
to talk about something he'd held inside for most of his adult life. "They
weren't intended to kill, just blow off the family jewels. That's what the men
feared most, which had a devastating psychological effect on them."

Jerry thought
about that, and its ramifications. If he'd been stripped of
that
part of him twenty-five years ago,
would Andrea have stayed with him? There was no question she'd enjoyed sex as
much as he had back then. It had been very much a part of their everyday life,
to unwind from the worries of the day and wrap themselves up in each other's
bodies before going to sleep each night...

As they made
their way up the trail, Jerry said, "Would you sign up for Special Forces
again, knowing what you know now?"

"Sure,"
Carter said, without hesitation. "I'd rather die fighting a pointless war
for my country than while boozing it up with a bunch of rich kids who didn't
know their asses from a hole in the ground. I suppose that's why I'm here, to
prove to myself that I'm not just another rich boy who never did shit for
anything or anyone. Capturing a drug king pin helps take the edge off
that."

Jerry stared at
the broad back of a man he was beginning to have a newfound respect for, while
contemplating Andrea's surprise on learning that her father had been in Special
Forces. It seemed odd that Carter had never said anything to her, if only to
make her proud. "Why didn't you tell Andrea you'd been in Special
Forces?" he asked.

Carter
shrugged. "Girls don't need to be exposed to that. If I'd had a son, I
might have told him, but not a daughter."

Jerry
understood. He'd treated Scott different from the girls, his own little
silver-spoon-fed princesses. But talking about those differences wasn't
something he wanted to share with Carter at the moment. Maybe someday he would,
but not now.

As they
continued on, while hacking through brush that encroached on the footpath,
Carter said, "At least we don’t have to contend with bamboo grass. That
stuff sliced through skin like razor blades. It was hell over there." He
raised his machete to slash at more brush, then caught himself and walked
cautiously to where there were three tiny sticks, tied together to form an
almost invisible tripod, and which were placed in the center of the trail. He
removed the tripod with the tip of his machete and lifted another webbing of
vines to reveal another spike pit.

"It's the
same as the other, just a different kind of marker," Carter said. "At
least they're consistent." After he sprang the spikes, he scanned the
surroundings, his eyes sharpening as they caught something off the trail.
"Over there... crushed brush, like a footpath." He made his way
toward what appeared to be a crude path. A short ways into it, he pointed to
two sticks straddling the path, and said, "Parallel sticks mean this path
is clear. Let's see what's hidden back there."

Jerry followed
Carter to where the path ended in a tangle of crepe myrtle trees interwoven
with vines. Carter parted the brush. "I'll be damned," he said.
"A blue hole."

Jerry stepped
to Carter's side and looked into a natural grotto. Down a slope, about twelve
feet from where they stood, was a hole about eight feet in diameter. Jerry
moved around Carter, then made his way down the embankment and peered in the
hole. "The water's not blue," he mused.

"It is
from the air," Carter said. "The reflection of the sky makes them
look blue. Meanwhile, we'd better get back to the trail. I don't want the
others thinking we're ahead of them and winding up in a trap."

They returned
to the main trail and continued in the direction they'd been going. After
springing another pit, Carter said, "We'll let the others catch up so they
can see what to look for if we get separated." He covered over the pit and
set the marker in place—a stick shoved in the ground at a forty-five degree
angle, with the stick pointing to a trap—then lowered himself to sit on the
trunk of a fallen tree.

Jerry sat
beside him, and as they waited, he looked askance at Carter, and asked him a
question that had been nagging him from the start. "Why did you join up in
the first place?"

"You mean,
why did a rich kid like me join up when I could have gotten out by going to
college or with the help of big daddy Ellison's connections?"

"Well,
since you put it that way... Yes."

Carter rested
his elbows on his knees, laced his fingers together, and said, "I enlisted
at a time when I was trying to figure out what in hell to do with the rest of
my life. I was away at prep school when Vietnam was building up. None of us
knew where it was or why we were fighting there. But it all came home to me
when the son of our butler was killed in action. A Marine. He and I grew up
together so it hit me hard. Then the issue of the draft came up. My family
pushed me to go to college to get out of being called up, which seemed like
dodging the draft. So while I was trying to figure out what to do, I graduated
from the elite New England academy my father sent me to, and partied, and
chased girls, and wrecked my car. Then one day I was just plain fed up with the
direction of my life and I signed up." He glanced at Jerry then, and said
in a voice that carried with it a touch of humor, "This may come as a
surprise to you, Porter, but life can seem pretty pointless when you don't need
to work because you have all the money you need to live comfortably without
doing a damn thing."

Jerry laughed.
"Well, I can tell you this much. When you haven't got two plug nickels to
rub together you're ready to claw your way to the top if that's what it
takes." He glanced at Carter, whose lips held a slight smile, and took a
chance by asking, "So, how was a rich boy fresh from an elite New England
academy received among the troops?"

Carter let out
a muffled guffaw. "Like a rich boy from an elite New England academy. Not
very well. But I was also working with men who'd been in the military for
years, and I was green. Another reason they didn't want me around. I'd be a
risk in the jungle because I didn't know shit what I was doing."

"Yeah, I
know the feeling," Jerry said, "maybe in reverse. I was the punk kid
from nowhere. No class, no education to speak of, and before long, I was cleaning
up messes for men who'd been in business twice as long as I was old. But they
needed my services, so they begrudgingly gave me their business." He let
out a little chuckle. "So it seems
,
we were both
fish out of water."

One corner of
Carter's mouth tipped up as he looked at Jerry, and said, "Maybe that's
what it takes to build character in a man."

And Jerry knew
Carter had not been talking about himself. It was a curious feeling to get
backdoor praise from a man who'd held nothing but disdain for him for
twenty-five years. Carter cut the discomfited moment of letting down their
guards by adding, "It seems strange sitting here surrounded by booby
traps, talking about something I haven't wanted to talk about since leaving
Nam. It also feels kind of... therapeutic."