Hurricane (8 page)

Meiko tried to hold her mother back, but relented when she saw that Julie was determined. Julie slid her face around the door jamb in time to see Kurt helping Dieter hobble out of the house. She thought that he looked every bit as pathetic as he sounded.

“
I want you to bring as many people from the yard as you can, we’re going to go over every inch of this island. If it’s here, we’re going to find it, period. And bring that fucking doctor from Glencoe. I’m not moving one inch off this island without a doctor.” Dieter spat the words with such venom that both women shivered. He was not the courteous businessman that ran TYS now.

“
Yes, sir,” Kurt said, and from the timbre of his voice Julie knew that he was afraid of him. She wondered about Dieter, so smooth and suave and macho. She saw two new sides to him this morning, first a whiner, then a tyrant. She hadn’t found much to like about him before, now she found much to dislike and she was more convinced than ever to remain hidden. It would not be a good thing for Dieter to find them here.

“
Get me down to the beach. I’ll wait for you there. And don’t keep me waiting all fucking afternoon, you understand me?”

“
Yes, sir,” Kurt answered, still the frightened servant, and Julie wondered what could ever frighten Kurt.

They watched from inside the abandoned house. Kurt helped his boss down to the beach. Then he started to pull the dinghy back into the water.

“
Wait.”

“
Sir,” Kurt said. The word was clipped short, like a German soldier being upbraided in ranks.

“
I forgot the fucking phone.” Julie had known Dieter on both business and a social level for the last two years and she’d never heard him swear. Now it seemed like every other word out of his mouth was an obscenity.

Kurt stood with water up to his knees as Dieter pulled the small phone out of his shirt pocket and punched the buttons. Both Julie and Meiko were watching and listening from the house above.

“
Fritz, it’s me. I’m out on the little beach on the nearest of the Five Islands. Get out here and bring about five of the boys with you. If you’re here in less than twenty minutes you get a five hundred dollar bonus. If it takes you longer than thirty, you’re fired.” He slapped the pocket phone closed. “Now we wait and see if that bastard keeps his job.”

“
You forgot about the doctor.”

“
Shit,” Dieter said.

Kurt turned away from his boss and started to haul the dinghy back out of the water.

“
Now,” Julie whispered, pulling Meiko out of the house. They made their way down the other side of the hill as quietly and quickly as they could, to where their own dinghy was waiting.

Julie, still in the lead, pushed the overgrowth aside and clambered over the dinghy dock. She hopped in the boat. Meiko jumped in after her and landed badly. She slipped and started to go down, but Julie caught her.

“
Easy,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.

“
Thanks.” Meiko sat down on the right tube. “What’s this?” she said, noticing the new patch for the first time.

“
I patched a leak this morning,” Julie said. Then she grabbed the starter cord and was about to pull it when Meiko’s hand closed over hers.

“
What?” Julie said.

“
They’ll hear.”

“
Forgot. I was in such a hurry to get out of here that I wasn’t thinking.” She sat silent for a few seconds. “We’ll have to row.”

“
Back to the yacht club?”

“
No, Dieter’s Germans would see us way before we got back, besides the tide is going out and I don’t think we’re strong enough to row against the current.”

“
What are we going to do? They’ll find us when they get back, for sure.”

“
We’ll row to the next island. It’s not too far. We’ll be able to make it way before Fritz gets here.”

Meiko scooted toward the front of the dinghy, untied the painter and pushed off. They each grabbed an oar and started to row toward the island.

Off in the distance they heard the buzz of two or more outboards and they put more muscle into the oars. There was hardly any distance between the first and second island, but it seemed like the end of the world to Julie as they rowed against the current. She was afraid they wouldn’t make it before Dieter’s Germans came into view. She hoped they’d head toward the beach side of the island, so intent on getting to their boss on time that they wouldn’t notice them.

“
What will they do if they catch us?” Meiko asked.

“
They won’t.”

“
But if they do?”

“
I don’t want to think about it,” Julie said, rowing even harder. Meiko matched each stroke. It was getting close to noon and the sun was straight overhead. The gray, rubber tubes of the dinghy were hot to the touch and Julie took a flash of a second to wipe the sweat from her brow. Meiko did the same.

The buzzing outboards sounded like an angry hive of bees swarming above their heads and Julie imagined them up there, with thousands of stingers, ready to attack any second.

“
Harder,” Julie said, and both women pulled with a dogged determination. Julie felt the sweat pouring off her forehead and she could taste the salt of it as it ran into her mouth from her upper lip, but she couldn’t take her hand from the oar to wipe it off now, she needed every ounce of her strength to move the boat.

And the buzzing got closer.

“
We’re close,” Meiko said, “but we’re not gonna make it. They’re gonna be around the island any second and they’ll see us.”

And the buzzing got louder.

“
No,” Julie said, and she pulled her oar out of the water and threw it into the bottom of the boat.

“
Mom!” Meiko said, but Julie pulled the starter cord.

“
Get the oar in,” Julie said. Meiko obeyed as the motor roared to life and Julie gave it the gas.

And they couldn’t hear the buzzing any more. They rounded the back side of the second island scant seconds before the two dinghies from TYS would have come into view. Julie cut the motor as soon as they were safely out of sight.

“
That was close,” Meiko said. “Do you think they heard?”

“
I don’t think so. I think the sound of the big motors on the TYS boats drowned out ours.” A shudder ran through her. A man was dead, most likely murdered, a witness in an assassination, and it looked like Dieter had something to do with it, or at the very least, knew something about it. What kind of man was he? What kind of man had the yachties been doing business with? What kind of man had Hideo invited to their table on numerous occasions?

“
Dad was wrong about him,” Meiko said.

“
He sure was.”

“
What are we going to do now?” Meiko wiped sweat off her brow with the back of her hand.

“
We’re going to wait till they leave, then we’re getting out of Trinidad.”

“
We should’ve left right away.”

“
You’re probably right, but then we wouldn’t have known about Dieter.”

“
Maybe we’d be better off.”

“
Maybe, but we’re in it now.”

“
How do you figure?”

“
We have to tell the police.”

“
Excuse me, Mom, but you’re crazy. We’re going to forget this ever happened. When they leave, we leave. We get on Fallen Angel and we sail out of Trinidad and we don’t come back. And we don’t ever, ever, ever tell a soul.” The fierce look in Meiko’s brown eyes startled Julie and it reminded her of the agreement she’d so recently made with Bill Broxton.

“
What about responsibility? You’ve always raged against women that refuse to testify in their own rape trials.” But she knew, even as the words left her lips, how hollow they sounded.

“
This is different. Trinidad is a major transshipment point for the Colombian drug cartels.”

“
How do you know that?”

“
Come on. They talk about it in the Guardian and the Express all the time. Don’t you read the local papers?”

“
No, sorry.”

“
Like I was saying, Trinidad is a big deal for the Colombians. The attorney general was murdered. I’ll bet you just about anything you want that it was a drug deal. Those kind of people don’t forget. You go to the police, they’ll be after you for the rest of your life. Heck, I’ll bet if they even knew we were here our lives wouldn’t be worth zip.”

“
If everybody felt like that then the criminals would rule the world.”

“
Wake up, Mom. They do.”

“
That’s not a very pretty picture you’re painting.”

“
How come you and Dad bought a boat? I thought it was to get away from all of that.”

“
It was, but—”

“
No buts,” Meiko said. “And think about this, if you go to the police you’ll never get Fallen Angel out of Trinidad. They’ll make you stay here and you’ll lose the boat.”

“
All right, you win, no police. But I’ll make an anonymous phone call as soon as we get to Grenada.”

“
And how long do you think it’ll take the bad guys to figure out it was you? No. No phone calls. We mind our business and we let the police do their job.”

Julie didn’t like it, but she had to admit that Meiko made sense. But maybe in a couple of days she’d call Broxton, the bald headed DEA man.

Chapter Five

The cab dropped him in front of McDonald’s busy fast food restaurant on Independence Square. He stepped out into the noonday sun and tasted the exhaust fumes. He moved through the throng and into the restaurant. The line was long. McDonald’s had been in Port of Spain for only a few months and the locals were still fascinated with fast food that was actually fast.

He ate and watched the world go by from a window seat. Port of Spain was built by the British and had a distinctively European flavor. Independence Square reminded him of the Ramblas in Barcelona, a large walkway in the center of the street. Many benches, shady trees, old men playing chess, street vendors plying their wares, shoppers, businessmen, workmen, but homeless begging instead of children playing.

Trinidad hadn’t been independent long enough to deal with its social problems, so the citizens barred their windows, bought big dogs, built tall fences, and kept their children at home. Across the room an armed security guard watched the patrons eat. Guards were supposed to make the voters feel secure, but they never did. The government had a lot to learn.

He was halfway through the hamburger and still watching, when he saw two policemen moving through the crowded square. Port of Spain was a bustling city, but everybody downtown was black. He stood out like a carrot in a cabbage patch. As inept as the local police were, they’d find him soon enough if he didn’t act quickly.

He wolfed the rest of the burger, left the fries and went to the card phone by the restrooms to make his call. She answered on the second ring.

“
Yes.”

He recognized her sultry voice immediately. “It’s me.”

“
I should hang up on you,”

But he knew she wouldn’t. “I’m in trouble.”

“
Don’t I know it.”

“
What are they saying?”

“
I can’t talk to you,” she said, not answering his question.

“
Marietta, I need help.”

“
And what can I possibly do for you? You don’t need anyone. Remember?” Even though she was across town her words made him flinch. He deserved the rebuke, but she shared some of the blame as well. He’d never made any promises.

“
I need a passport.”

“
It’ll be a Z.” He heard the snap in her voice. She didn’t sound sultry now, and that should have warned him.

“
I don’t understand,” he said. At least she hadn’t rejected him outright.

“
Passport number starts with the letter Z. Means it was issued outside of the United States.”

“
How will I get you a picture?”

“
Don’t come here,” she said.

“
I hadn’t planned on it.”

“
I’ll meet you at Rafter’s after work. Five-thirty. Give me the photo then. You’ll get your passport tomorrow, same place, during lunch.”

“
Thanks Marietta. I know you’re taking a hell of a chance.”

“
For old times,” she said, and the sweet sultry was all back in her voice. Doubly warned.

He hung up and looked at his watch. He had four hours to get a reasonable looking wig and a passport photo. There was a full service hair and body salon on the third floor of the Long Circular Mall.

An hour and a half later he left the salon and took the stairs down to the first floor. It was a small mall by American standards, but it was full of people, women hustling from store to store, teenagers lounging and talking, children busy blasting space ships to dust in the video arcade and a food court full of late lunchers. He wondered how they kept the riffraff out of the mall, then stopped wondering as two guards passed by. Both big, both carrying heavy nightsticks.

Why hadn’t he ever noticed the security guards before? Now that he thought about it he realized that they were everywhere, the bakery, the supermarket, the hardware store, there was even one in front of the video store where he rented his movies. He had been wrapped up in his job while the real world moved along without him. Well, he was caught up in the real world now.