I saw four distinct rotors. Wedges of red metal above aircraft tires.
Helicopters ... ?
Four helicopters, drone-sized, incongruous in this Third World setting. One man in the elevated wheelhouse, two deckhands coiling lines astern.
Who?
Why?
The vessel was headed north, morning sun to starboard.
“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”
I jumped, surprised by a woman’s voice behind me.
“You’re in the Bahamas, only thirty miles from Cuba. We’ve got to get out of here. They’re coming to kill us both.”
I turned to see a long-legged blond woman curled in the corner. She was dressed in a khaki-colored blouse and shorts, pressed and pleated. A uniform. It looked as if she’d been dozing. It had to be uncomfortable with her hands tied behind her back, ankles bound with duct tape.
Not tied—handcuffed. I saw the cuffs when she rolled to her side, tried to stretch.
“Even if you tell them everything, they’re going to kill you. They’ll
make
you tell them. No matter how tough you think you are. Soon as they find out you’re alive, they’ll go to work. We’ve got to move now.”
Russian accent, a face linked to a specific memory. A dream? Possibly. But also something real. It took a moment.
The woman who was torturing Jobe Applebee.
I tried to speak. Gagged with pain. Tried again. Coughed and grabbed my neck.
“An animal named Aleski stabbed you in the throat with a needle. He drugged you, but I saved your life. Did CPR for an hour. Hurry—get this tape off my ankles.”
CPR? I’d had a strange, unsettling dream.
Mouth-to-mouth. Erotic images ...
Could that explain it?
“You helped me?”
“Only because there’s a chance you can help me. Now I’m glad I did.”
“Where ... are ... ?”
“Your clothes are in the corner. What they left you. Over there.”
Canvas shorts, that was all—shirt, shoes, wallet, cell phone, and keys missing. I pulled them on. Turned my back before zipping, a pointless modesty.
“I managed to hide your shoes. Under that crate. They didn’t want you to have shoes.”
My running shoes. I knelt to tie them as my tongue found moisture. Swallowed, swallowed again, words beginning to form. Started to speak, but was interrupted by a strange, distant wailing. The sound had a primal resonance, a shriek of terror, the scream of nightmares.
Perhaps a monkey suffering out there in the rain forest, dying. A primate being devoured.
A question exited my mouth as a constricted whisper. “What is
that?”
The woman had begun to crawl toward me, inching over tile like a caterpillar. “A crazy man named Dr. Stokes. He’s infected with a parasite. African worms. Every man on the island will have parasites, but Stokes has a phobia. The fear, I guess, it’s driven him crazy. Last night, I was trying to help him when his brain finally snapped. Nothing I could do. They locked him in a room, hoping he’ll—”
She stopped. That terrible sound again: a falsetto howl rising, then falling, a werewolf’s scream. I turned my head slightly, attempting to decipher something human at its source. An anguish of torn vocal cords, a creature dangling above flames. Torment.
In South America, there’s a giant cockroach that screams when thrown into a fire. Similar.
No. Not human.
The woman finished, “They locked him in a room, hoping Stokes will kill himself. The way Bahamian law’s set up, a person who commits suicide abandons all possessions. Laws of marine salvage—a ship that hits a reef. It’s like that. Strangers can take what they want.”
“Who
locked him in a room?”
“Men who are stealing what he has.” Her impatient tone asked,
Who else?
She used her chin to indicate what lay beyond the window. “They want these islands, housing. His money, everything. Not all rats are caged here. Everyone’s running except the men coming to kill us.”
The woman continued to crawl toward me. I realized I was backing away. I’d once seen a different expression on her face: the pleasure of inflicting pain.
“Why are you handcuffed?”
“Because of them. Stokes and his partners.”
“Desmond Stokes? The environmentalist.”
“Him?” The woman’s chuckle had an acid edge. “Stokes is an environmentalist the same way a pedophile is a priest. I worked for him. I found out he’s been breaking laws, smuggling. That’s
why
they locked me here. They figured out a way to spread the parasites by air and get rich—I can explain later. Hurry! Get this tape off my legs—” She stopped abruptly; strained to listen. “A boat. Was that a boat?
Shit.
They’re coming!”
Her eyes scanned the cages, rats watching us from inside. “Maybe it’s feeding time.”
I asked, “For what?” preoccupied. Returned to the window, listening to her say, “Snakes, monkeys. Research animals, but also garbage they’ve been smuggling into the States.”
I saw that the barge carrying the drone helicopters was now moving away at speed, plowing a white wake.
Drones that were used to spray pesticides?
“They figured out a way to spread the parasites by air ...”
I turned from the window, looked at the woman, then stared out again.
“What do they want from me?”
“They think you know Dr. Applebee’s formula for destroying the parasites.”
“Formula?
There’s no formula ...” I was looking at the barge.
Drone crop dusters. Waterborne parasites. The connection was immediate. So was my self-recrimination.
You should have anticipated this, Ford. Another screwup.
I watched a huge man stumble off a boat. He was several hundred yards away, where the cut narrowed. The man helped the struggling pilot push the boat away again—it was too dangerous to leave it grounded among rocks. The heavy tide spun the vessel like a leaf, pushed it seaward, until the outboard’s propeller gained purchase.
I recognized him: Ox-man, from Night’s Landing. The black hair and muscle, workman’s rough clothes—probably the guy shooting at me the night of the boat chase, firing as the woman drove.
The man was carrying a gun in the crook of his arm, walking toward me. At first glance, the weapon looked to be a Kalashnikov, the classic AK-47 automatic rifle, judging from the folding wire stock, the scimitar shape of the magazine. Then I wasn’t so sure: the magazine looked too boxy, its barrel too short. Difficult to tell from that distance. Whatever the weapon was, the man was comfortable with it, no rush. He’d had some training.
The woman was now near my feet. Recognizing the two Russians catalyzed a rush of images: the bulging eyes of a man hanging in a closet. The eyes of a friend, Frieda Matthews, widening as a speeding car bore down.
“Who is in the boat? Can you see? Is it a big man who has hair like a bear?”
My voice was hoarse, but stronger. “Your partner, you mean? Yes.”
She touched her face to my ankle, a pathetic gesture. “Dear God, you’ve got to help me. You don’t know what Aleski does to women.
Please
don’t make me go through that. He rapes them, tortures them. I’ve seen him with women—”
Something stopped her. Maybe the expression on my face.
I moved my leg out of her reach. “Is that what he did to Dr. Matthews?”
“Yes.”
“You helped him.”
She hesitated, her eyes not just looking at me, but also accessing. She showed no fear until I leaned, grabbed her blouse in both hands. I lifted the woman off the ground, as she said quickly, “Yes. I
helped.
I’m not going to lie. It was my job, but I didn’t want to hurt the woman. I had ... feelings. I wanted it painless. But not him. That’s not Aleski’s way.”
I held her there, face so close to mine that I felt the warmth of her breath, as she added, “I tried to help your friend. Just like I helped you. Marion Ford—I know who you are. I was with Russian Intelligence, the
Federalnaya. Listen
to me. Weren’t you ever ordered to do something you didn’t want to do?”
My conscience translated her question accurately: Haven’t you killed a person you didn’t want to kill?
A woman with pale, iceberg eyes. She wasn’t afraid now. Not of me. The man coming for us, yes. She feared him. But she’d evaluated me efficiently, used the knowledge like a weapon. She was trying to force a bond between us. Her expression wasn’t easily read, but there was a hint of triumph. Inexplicably, there was also disappointment.
I’ve got you.
Or so she thought.
I lifted her higher, so that her face was above mine. “You killed Frieda. Who’d you get to kill Applebee?”
“No one! I was surprised when I heard. He ... he was a strange man. I think he fell a little in love, but knew I’d never go with him. He blamed the men here, what they were doing.”
“Your smuggling operation.”
“Yes.”
“How many people are involved?”
“Many! All over the states. At Tropicane Sugar, several. But only three behind it all: Dr. Stokes, Aleski, and a man named Luther Earl—he looks like a black Abraham Lincoln. They supply exotics to environmental idiots, anyone who’ll buy. The big plans, though—real biological sabotage—it’s just them.
And they’re all still here.”
When I didn’t respond, her glistening eyes narrowed. “Kill them if you want. I’ll help!”
Her tone said, Don’t miss this opportunity.
I lowered the woman to the ground, then let her drop. She managed to stay on her feet for a few seconds—a good athlete even with ankles taped. She did several quick ballerina steps on tiptoes before falling hard on tile.
Her expression changed: surprise, a flash of anger. Her inexplicable disappointment had vanished.
“Is everyone on the island armed?” I was watching Ox-man. Listened to her correct me: two islands, not one, a treacherous cut between. The man was a hundred yards away, head scanning. He appeared nervous now, holding his weapon at combat ready.
“I kept all the guns locked in a safe, but then I stupidly gave Luther Earl permission”—she choked up, emotional—“I stupidly lost control. They’re armed. I’m sure they are. But Mr. Earl and Aleski, they’re the only ones you have to worry about. Maybe one other. Aleski’s cousin, Broz.”
I stepped to the door that opened toward the bay.
Locked.
Hurried toward the opposite door.
“Don’t open that!”
I froze with my hand on the door’s handle.
“That opens into a pit where they dug coral. It’s where we keep the snakes, the monkeys. I mentioned feeding time? Last night, when the place started going crazy, some idiot opened all the cages. That’s why the staff’s running away. You’d have to be insane to go out there without a weapon.”
Her voice began to crack again—panic.
“Please,
help me get my legs free. Don’t leave me alone with Aleski. We can overpower him, then take his boat. No one can get across to the other island without a boat because of the current—”
She stopped talking as I turned the handle and began to open the door slowly. “Lady, I’ll take my chances with the snakes.”
“Why? I
helped
you.” “Because you’re right—I’m a pro. I think you’re a bad actress with an angle. I think you taped your own legs. And if I’m wrong—”
I pushed the door wider, looked out: a rock pit that was gymnasium-sized, mossy coral walls, panes of shattered Plexiglas, retainer screening above ripped away.
“—Lady, if I’m wrong, I hope you have better luck than Frieda. Or Jobe Applebee.”
I took a moment to confirm that the door’s lock was not the sort that latched automatically. Then stepped into the pit.
33
The quarry floor was coral chips and ferns. Banana thickets and birds-of-paradise created scattered domes of shade. Otherwise, it was a rock crater with walls fifteen to twenty feet high, open to the sky now that the overhead screen had been torn away.
The walls were vertical. There were calcium remains of limpets, brain corals, sea fans, vertebrates—evolution etched in limestone. They’d mined the stuff in blocks, so the walls were scarred with ridges where seeds of ficus and fern had rooted. There were cascading vines with umbrella-sized leaves.
Along the wall to my left were shelves of wooden cages of varying size, some as big as small rooms. Each had a door or lid, usually Plexiglas. Most of the doors were open.
Nearby was an enclosed cement circle, and a laboratory table, not unlike the table in my lab. Beneath a roof of corrugated plastic was an industrial-grade incubator, heating tubes suspended above.
This was a place to hatch crawling creatures. A safe place to extract venom.
A serpentarium.
There were also larger enclosures made of wood and wire mesh. Tire swings hanging from chains; rotting banana peels on rock floor.
Monkeys. They’d been freed, too.
The woman hadn’t lied, as I’d suspected. I’d ignored her warning, and now I’d have to deal with it. It gave me a sick feeling in my stomach.
The incubator was operational. A light was blinking near a row of gauges. I got close enough to see that, beneath the incubator’s opaque cover, were hundreds of eggs in open cartons.
Some reptiles are protective of their nest. They use their tongues to wind-track eggs if they’ve been moved. This was not a place to linger.
I walked to my right. Vines grew sunward on pitted rock. They looked strong enough to hold a man’s weight, and there were crevices for feet and fingers. I had to find a way out of the quarry, or soon face Ox-man, the Russian. Him and his rifle. Maybe him, his rifle, and the woman, too.
Or worse.
I reached, grabbed a vine, feeling its triangular edges, and began to pull myself up the wall, hand over hand. Got a few feet off the ground when the vine snapped. I landed butt-hard on gravel, dust and leaves raining down.