Bluewater Voodoo: Mystery and Adventure in the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 3) Page 24

  "Where are they?" Phillip barked.

  "In the den, through there," Liz answered, gesturing at an arched opening in the wall to her right. "They won’t hurt you."

  Phillip stepped through the arch with Sharktooth on his flank, weapons ready. "Dead," he said, after a moment.

  "The professor?" Dani asked.

  "He faints every time there’s shooting," Liz said. "He’s had a rough night."

  "Okay, let’s go," Phillip ordered. "Sharktooth, carry the professor. We need to be gone in case somebody heard us blow the door."

  "But what about…" Liz started to ask, but Dani interrupted her.

  "We’ll call Paul from the boat. They’ll handle it all with the locals. Don’t forget our sat phone."

  "The battery died," Liz commented, holding the phone up for Dani to see.

  ****

  Giscard was awake when they got back to Vengeance. He held the RIB alongside as Liz and Lilly helped the professor up the boarding ladder. The others cleared their weapons and returned them to the locker in front of the steering console on the RIB as Phillip and Jacques spoke softly into Phillip’s sat phone, giving Paul the GPS coordinates of the beach house.

  Dani put a pot of coffee on the galley stove as the others gathered in the saloon and began peppering Liz and Lilly with questions.

  "Wait, please," Liz knocked on the tabletop to get their attention. "Dani, get me an ice-pack for this eye, would you? Lilly, keep me on track, and I’ll tell you what happened."

  Ice-pack pressed to her swollen eye with her left hand, steaming mug in her right, Liz began to tell her tale.

  "They boarded us right after I called you about the Coast Guard’s change of plans. I was in the aft cabin, trying to find the charger for the sat phone. I had noticed the battery was low. Lilly and the professor were in the saloon. I slipped up behind the last guy in the group. He was holding an AK-47, and I snatched his pistol from the holster on his right leg and brained him with it. While everything was confused, I shot the guy who was facing me. Sorry about the bulkhead – the bullet went through his shoulder. That left the sergeant and Martinez. Martinez had his back to me until I fired the shot; then he turned around and grabbed the pistol with his left hand and hit me with his right fist. Son of a bitch; I saw stars. They herded us into a big RIB and took off. How am I doing, Lilly?"

  "Great. You were moving so fast I didn’t know what happened until Martinez punched you and your knees buckled. You had the pistol in your right hand and the sat phone in your left when you went down. He took both, and one of the marines picked you up over his shoulder and carried you to their boat. They bandaged up the guy you shot while we were on the way to the beach house. Martinez held a pistol on us while one of the guys drove and the other took care of the one you shot."

  "Okay. I was kind of vague on how we got to the beach house – never been punched that hard before. I was pretty much recovered when we got ashore. They locked me and Lilly in a bedroom, probably for about 20 minutes. Left us by ourselves. What happened to you then, Professor?"

  "They tied me to a kitchen chair and Martinez started asking me a bunch of crazy questions. He thought I was a government agent of some kind – he kept saying I was CIA. He got frustrated with me and said he didn’t have time to drug me and interrogate me. Then he called the sergeant and had them bring the two of you into the room."

  "Right," Liz took the floor again. "Martinez told the three marines to gang-rape Lilly to teach the professor a lesson. He told them to make me watch so I could tell the professor all about it before they started on me; he figured that maybe you’d talk to save me, I think."

  "I couldn’t believe it when he asked who you were," Lilly interrupted. "She said, ‘I’m Liz Chirac, and you’re a dead man,’ and she spit in his face."

  "I did?" Disbelief showed on Liz’s bruised face.

  "You did. I swear. It would have been funny if I hadn’t been so scared." The professor nodded his agreement.

  "What did he do?" Liz asked.

  "Laughed, really hard. He said, ‘I like you Liz Chirac. Maybe I’ll have you myself,’ or something to that effect, and you said ‘You better pray that you get a chance.’ Then the three of them dragged us back to that big bedroom," Lilly said.

  "Two of them started to manhandle Lilly. The third guy, the one I shot, he sat on the couch beside me to watch. He said he was waiting for me, so he could get even with me for shooting him. He was telling me all sorts of things that he would do to me when Martinez was finished with me. Sick bastard. Then Lilly talked the two guys into letting her strip to some salsa music that was playing on the stereo. She said something like, ‘I’ll make it more fun, if you want.’ That wasn’t too hard to sell, and she put on a really good show. Finally, she unbuckled their belts and let their pants drop to the floor. The guy next to me was so turned on that he stood up to see better. While the two guys with their pants down were trying to get their feet clear, Lilly looked at me and shoved both of them. They went down hard, and the third guy started for Lilly. He was so worked up he left his pistol on the sofa. I shot the three of them, just like you taught me, Dani. Double tap, center of mass. By then, Martinez burst into the room. He saw Lilly standing there naked with the three dead marines, and turned around with his hands in the air."

  "I couldn’t believe you shot him, Liz. He said ‘Don’t shoot! You win,’ and you just blew him away."

  "He was just trying to buy time to get the drop on me. Besides, the bastard tried to blow up my boat, and he hit me in the face."

  Dani smiled.

  Chapter 39

  "Good morning! This is Kathy Conners for News Center A.M. with the latest from Senator Rufus O’Rourke’s campaign headquarters. As a result of last night’s posts on various social media Internet sites disclosing the Senator’s long standing relationship with well-known black movie star Lakaterisha Turner-Jones, the Senator has withdrawn from the race for his party’s presidential nomination. His office released this recorded statement in the Senator’s own voice just minutes ago:

  "'Irregardless of the fact that there is no truth to this-here smear campaign which was started by anti-Amer’can, anti-white, pseudo-liberal racis’s, I believe that, as a loyal member of my party, it is in ever’one’s best inneres’ for me to withdraw for the time bein’. I swear to my followers on the Holy Bible that I will focus on getting’ to the bottom of this squirrelous matter, and I will come back stronger than ever.'

  "There you have it, in the Senator’s own words. The Senator has declined to comment on statements by Miss Turner-Jones to the effect that he has fathered at least two, possibly more, of her children. Stay tuned for the weather with Davey Jones, right after this message from our sponsors."

  Jerry Smith switched off the television at Carmen’s breakfast bar as she put a plate of scrambled eggs with chorizo and grits in front of him. "I don’t think it’s possible for him to get much closer to the bottom of anything, ‘squirrelous’ or otherwise. He’s lower than a snake’s belly in a hog wallow already."

  Carmen smiled. "You could write speeches for him, Jer."

  "Hey, I speak fluent cracker – had to, growing up in north central Florida. You think this is the big change in his campaign that Martinez told you to watch for before you stepped up the homeless thing?"

  "Maybe, but I’m turning that off. Martinez didn’t make the last payment that was due to the account in the Caymans. I’ve been trying to get in touch with him for two days. Finally got a call-back from somebody who said Martinez would be unavailable for the foreseeable future. It was fun while it lasted, Jer, but we need to find something else, now."

  "I know where to look." He tugged at the ribbon holding her filmy robe closed across her bosom.

  "Your eggs will get cold."

  "Hope so."

  ****

  "We’re in business," the professor announced to the group in the great room of Phillip’s villa. Giscard and Racine had been the last to arrive, driven to the vi
lla by Richard DeMille, who had borrowed Phillip’s Jeep to pick them up. "RDF is lining up a screen writer and a video crew. They’ll be down next week, most likely. RDF wants me and Lilly to keep fleshing out the outline I sent him. I got the okay from the Feds through Paul Russo to tell what I know. Paul says they’re still getting information out of that Moraga character, but most of it has nothing to do with this plot to use zombies as terrorist bombers. Paul says they told him that as long as I stuck to that story line, it was too unbelievable to be taken seriously. They want a look at the final script before we start shooting, but they don’t expect any problems. The guy told Paul that Mark Twain said that truth was stranger than fiction because fiction had to be believable, or something like that.

  "RDF’s okay with Henri and Racine as the subject matter experts on zombies and Voodoo, and he thinks it’s great to portray Voodoo as a serious religion. The part about the terrorists using zombies for suicide bombers gives it all the sensationalism we need. He’s already got sponsors begging to give us money, just based on the outline."

  "Does this RDF understand that Henri and I will approve the script before any videotaping takes place?" Racine asked.

  "I think so," the professor said.

  "You must ensure that he does, Professor Johnson. My attorneys in Miami will review the documents before any taping takes place, and Henri and I will approve the finished tapes before they are released. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, ma’am. I understand. Don’t forget though, RDF is writing the checks."

  "Be assured that I haven’t forgotten, but don’t you forget that money is not my first concern. You must tell RDF that he doesn’t have that much money."

  "Yes, ma’am."

  "And there will be no zombie; he does know that, does he not?"

  "You made it clear to him on our conference call."

  "Yes, but he mentioned using an actor. I will not be a part of that. We will discuss zombies fully, but there will be no spectacle made of our faith – he must find his sensationalism elsewhere."

  "There’s plenty of sensationalism with the terrorist connection," Phillip interjected. "Even without all the details from Moraga’s interrogation. Paul says that O’Brien has no problem with you using everything that we have from first-hand knowledge, and you’re free to speculate all you want about what Martinez was planning."

  There was a lull in the conversation as Liz and Sandrine came in to announce that lunch was served on the veranda. The atmosphere became more relaxed, and Liz and Dani found seats with Lilly at a small round table slightly away from the others.

  "To new friends," Lilly proposed, raising her glass of iced tea to the other two.

  "New friends," Dani and Liz agreed, touching their glasses to Lilly’s.

  "Can you teach me to shoot this afternoon? I can see where it might be a good thing to know," Lilly asked, smiling.

  "Sure, but not this afternoon," Dani said. "I’m going shopping with Sandrine after lunch."

  "You?! Shopping?" Liz looked stunned. "For what?"

  "A little black dress and some heels," Dani said, smiling. "I’d ask you ladies to come, but I know you’re planning to fix that bullet hole in the bulkhead."

  "Yes, that’s been worrying me." Liz smiled. "You know how I feel about Vengeance."

  ****

  Read a preview of Bluewater Ice, the next book in the series.

  Chapter 1

  The wind howled in the rigging like a chorus from hell until her head went underwater. There was a hollow silence as Dani held her breath and braced her feet against the bulwark; she maintained a death-like grip on the handrail as she waited for the wave to recede. When it did, she snatched another breath and resumed her crablike progress along the windward side deck toward the bow, taking care not to tangle her feet in the tether to her harness. She timed her movements to the rhythmic rise and fall of Vengeance as the overpowered yacht crashed through the storm-tossed seas.

  As she paused again to wait for the deck to shed the knee-deep water from the next breaking wave, she spared a glance back at the cockpit to check on Liz. Satisfied that her partner had the helm under control, she inched her way forward again. It was a rule of nature that sail changes always happened at the worst times, usually in the wee hours of the morning, but this predicament was the result of her own impatience. She knew better than to trust a weather forecast this time of year, particularly when heading north from the tropics, and she had known there was a problem with the headsail furling system before they set out.

  Except for the failure of the roller furling stay on their Yankee jib, the storm would have been easily managed. They were about 50 nautical miles northeast of Eleuthera when the wind clocked rapidly from the southeast to the northwest. Had they been able to reduce sail, the wind shift would have allowed them to come about and run straight for the Northeast Providence Channel, quickly putting them in relatively protected waters all the way to Nassau.

  Dani was annoyed with herself. She had known that the bearings in the furler were failing, but she and Liz were committed to pick up a charter guest in Nassau the day after tomorrow. The pre-departure weather forecast had been favorable, and she had gambled that she could replace the bearings in Nassau while Liz got their guest settled. Now the furler was jammed and they had their big jib up in 50 knots of wind. As she got drenched repeatedly on her way forward to drop the sail, she was cursing modern conveniences like roller furling, thinking that old-fashioned, hanked-on sails never jammed.

  She reached the foredeck and unhooked her tether from the safety line that ran from the cockpit to the bow along the upwind side deck. Clipping the tether to the inner forestay, she paused and held her breath as a wave crashed over the bow, lifting her clear of the deck. She felt the tether take her weight as it kept her from being washed overboard, and then the water receded and dropped her hard on the teak deck. Between waves, she moved her tether to the safety line on the downwind side of the deck. Now she could work her way down the partially submerged leeward deck and prepare ties to hold the dropped sail in place against the rail.

  Reaching into the cavernous pocket of her foul weather jacket, she took out a sail tie and made it fast to the leeward rail. She worked her way aft, pausing every few feet to loop another sail tie around the rail. After being doused several more times, she was finally ready to drop the sail. Even though she and Liz had trimmed the sails to reduce the wind-load on the Yankee jib as much as they could, it was still full and drawing. Liz would have to use the diesel to bring the bow into the wind to let the sail fly free, allowing Dani to lower it and wrestle it into the ties she had just rigged.

  Dani worked her way forward again, climbing out on the bowsprit and turning to face aft, hanging in space eight feet out in front of the bow with her back to the wind and the seas. She secured her tether and straddled the Yankee jib, locking her ankles to hold herself against the headstay with one arm on each side of the big sail. She ran through the checklist in her mind; she couldn’t afford any wasted motion. Once Liz eased the working jib sheet, the big sail would flog violently. Any delay in dropping it could result in the destruction of the sail or damage to the rig from the impulse loads. Deciding that she was ready, Dani took a deep breath and gave Liz the prearranged hand signal. She felt the vibration as Liz engaged the diesel and opened the throttle.

  Slowly at first, the bow turned up into the wind and the sails began to flog, cracking like thunder in the howling wind. No longer under the steadying influence of her sails, Vengeance began to plunge wildly. With every wave, Dani was submerged in seawater that rolled over the bow. Ignoring her discomfort, she pressed her hands together with the sail gripped between them and pulled down on the sail. As soon as Liz released the halyard that held it aloft, Dani felt the sail begin to slide down. She shifted her grip and pulled again, and again. Soon, her progress came with less effort as the length of the sail’s bolt-rope in the slot of the furling headstay lessened. In less than a minute, she had the sail down on
deck.

  Dani felt the change in the boat’s motion as Liz killed the engine and turned the bow out of the wind. The mainsail filled with a loud crack, and the ride eased dramatically. Dani shifted her tether to the leeward safety line again. She held onto the headstay, now bare of its sail, and stepped around it, trapping the sail between her legs as the wind tried to blow the loose canvas over the side.

  She waited as Liz unfurled and trimmed the smaller staysail, which further settled Vengeance. Once they were in the groove, making nine knots on a close reach, Dani grabbed a double armload of the Yankee jib and dragged it to the leeward rail. She lashed it to the rail with the ties she had rigged earlier as she rolled and folded it into a 30-foot-long sausage of canvas. Wind-driven spray continued to soak her periodically as she worked, but no more waves washed over the deck now that they were properly canvassed for the weather.

  ****

  Connie Barrera gazed out at the leaden seascape as the sunrise began to turn the sky gray. If she had been anywhere but Nassau, she would have sworn that snow was on the way. The furniture on her balcony had awakened her an hour ago when it crashed against the wall, driven by the first strong gust of wind. She shivered at the thought of what it would be like to be out in a boat in weather like this. She wasn’t a boater, but after living in the Bahamas for a few years, she understood what cold fronts did to the waters around the islands. She wondered if this would cause enough of a ‘rage,’ as the locals called it, to close the harbor.

  As far as she knew, no one was after her yet, but she was certain that someone would be -- and soon. Her initial estimate put the value of the diamonds at around $10 million. Nobody willingly absorbed a loss of that magnitude; certainly someone would be looking for the stones. The islands were like a small town; everybody knew everybody else’s business. She needed to get out of the Bahamas without leaving a trail. Then she could consider how best to convert the diamonds to cash.