The First Casualty (16 page)

33

Rue du Centenaire

Gustavia, Saint-Barthélemy, French West Indies

5:23 p.m. Local Time

Realizing Maria's reaction to his imminent departure might be softened by an evening together, Jason had made arrangements to be picked up by a charter aircraft the following day and flown to San Juan, where his travel options would be far greater than those out of Saint Martin. He really wouldn't lose a day.

That's what he told himself. In a remarkable job of self-delusion, he convinced himself not having seen Maria for over a month, not even having lived with a woman's company (the grandmotherly Mrs. Price excepted) had no more to do with the decision than, say, the fact the afternoon's activities had whetted a sexual appetite he had all but forgotten.

Pulling the Suzuki's right two wheels up onto the curb, the locally accepted manner of parking, he managed to wedge the diminutive vehicle between one of the ubiquitous motor scooters and another rental car, identified as such by the quaint custom of leasing the car without the spare tire. He joined Maria at the open entrance through a brick wall. Next to the opening, so narrow as to admit one person at a time, was only a faded wooden sign,
eddy's.

Eddy's is as much a Saint Barts' tradition as are one-piece bikinis. Entering tropical landscaping, Jason and Maria were under what appeared to be a thatched roof, although closer inspection revealed a more conventional ceiling above. The theme of wood was everywhere from tables of highly polished teak to massive posts supporting the faux roof to primitive carvings. A long bar ran along the right-hand side of the room with the kitchen area behind. In organized chaos, serving personnel scurried back in forth bearing trays of drink and food. No one was busier than Eddy himself. Salt-and-pepper beard and queue hung down the front and back of his white chef's coat as he stopped at each table, old customer or novice, to exchange a few pleasantries. As they were seated by a young woman, Jason and Maria declined menus.

“Do you always have to take the Wild Bill Hiccup seat?” she asked.

Though educated in America, her familiarity with folk heroes was not always right on.

“I believe the gentleman's name was Hickock.”

“Whatever. You always take the seat with its back to the wall.”

Basic security training.

But he said, “I understand it's good for the health.”

“It wasn't for Hiccup or whatever his name was. He was shot in the back, wasn't he?”

“Point made. He wasn't facing the door at the time.”

The waitress's arrival interrupted.

“Do you have the tuna, tuna, tuna?” Maria asked hopefully.

A combination of tuna—sashimi, sushi, and seared—served with rice and wasabi ice cream. It was the favorite of Eddy's habitués. Due to the vagaries of cooperation from the local fish population, it was not printed on the menu. It was with anticipation that the couple sampled a pre-dinner cocktail of Havana Club Añejo Blanco and tonic. Jason would have preferred scotch, but the house's choices of rum were far superior to its selection of whiskey. Oh well, when in Rome . . .

“You never told me you were leaving Sark,” Maria observed with more than an ascertainable trace of bitterness. “I was going to surprise you by showing up. Can you imagine how embarrassing it was to admit to Mrs. Price I had no idea you had left?”

“Mrs. Price isn't paid to embarrass; she's paid to keep house. Besides, I left unexpectedly.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly, a certain signal Jason was about to be subjected to an old-fashioned third degree. “An unexpected trip to Saint Barts? You can do better than that.” She waved a hand indicating the whole room. “Just what business on Saint Barts was so urgent you didn't have time to text me?”

The question was never answered. Instead, Jason's attention was on two men who had just entered the dining area. They had not come in the main entrance, but from the side, where a door from the adjacent dress shop opened into a small space flanked by Eddy's toilets. These men did not look like they had been shopping for dresses.

They looked more like they were shopping for trouble. Big, dark men with hard faces, eyes that searched the room, light jackets despite the air's moist warmth. Jackets to conceal weapons. Each with the beard decreed by Mohammed to distinguish his people from the pagans.

Someone had tracked him here by following Maria, no doubt the same someone who had employed Natalia, the female assassin.

And the killing knife and Glock were safely hidden from Maria's view at the Village Saint-Jean, so certain he had been they would be not be needed for one evening on Saint Barts. He felt as though he had just entered a formal ball room only to discover he was naked.

“You haven't answered the question,” Maria persisted.

Jason stood, pointing across the room and smiling like a man who has just recognized an acquaintance. “I'm going to walk away from the table,” he said as quietly as the room's noise would permit. “Two men, maybe more, will follow. No, don't look around! As soon as they are no longer between you and the exit, get out of here.”

He pushed the car keys across the table.

“But, I don't understand. Why are they . . . ?”

“Maria, we don't have time for explanations. Just do as I say.”

“But, where will I go?”

Jason was already backing away. “The bar at the Carl Gustaf. If I don't show, just stay out of sight until tomorrow. A Tradewind Aviation charter will be at the airport tomorrow around eleven a.m. Be on it!”

She protested something he couldn't hear as he crossed the room, selecting a table next to the bar. A man and a woman looked up from their dinner as Jason sat between them.

He put an arm around the astonished man, leaning over to kiss the cheek of the equally surprised woman. “Jack and Mary!” Jason was speaking loudly. “God, I haven't seen you since . . . When? Was it two years ago at Saint-Tropez?”

The man struggled free of Jason's grasp. “I think you make the mistake,” he protested with heavy French accent.

The two men flanked the left side of the table. In the background, Jason saw Maria headed for the street.

“And you, Mary,” Jason continued boisterously, “how do you do it? I mean, you look younger than ever!”

Jason could only get brief glances of the approaching men as he carried out his plan. By now, they were within a few steps of the table, each reaching inside his jacket. Nearby conversations went quiet, aware something unusual was going on.

In near choreographed unison, both men withdrew pistols, Russian Makarovs, the knock-off of the Walther PPK that had been the standard Soviet military sidearm until 1991. There were screams and sounds of chairs crashing to the floor as Eddy's customers forgot dinner and drinks and headed for the exit.

Jason waited for the men's arms to straighten, bringing the guns to bear. A split second before that happened, he lunged to his feet, fingers gripping the table.

Table, chairs, dishes, glasses crashed to the floor, sending the two gunmen stumbling backward. They regained balance and now stood behind the overturned table. Jason was jumping up on the bar. In a single motion, he stooped, scooping up a filet knife from where a gaping chef had been preparing a snapper. Spinning like a ballerina, he threw the blade, sending steel glittering in the dim light like a comet.

There was a thump, as steel bit into wooden tabletop. Not exactly the result Jason had hoped for, but enough to make the two would-be assassins keep their heads down long enough for him to reach a cluster of plates under a heat lamp awaiting delivery to tables now largely empty. The first one skimmed a head that had popped up from behind the table. The next left a reddish goo as it shattered against the teak tabletop.

One of Eddy's better Creoles.

A food fight out of
Animal House
wasn't going to keep two killers at bay very long, and Jason was running out of ammunition anyway. He was taking aim, though, making sure each plate hit the center of the tabletop so as not to alert his adversaries that he was moving toward the street entrance.

Outside, a group of the curious had gathered.

“What's going on?”

“Who are those guys with the guns?”

“Are you the one they're after?”

For the second time that day, Jason heard the pulsation of a police siren. Judging by the distance, plus the normal evening traffic jam on Gustavia's streets, they weren't going to get there in time to be of any help. He took a quick look around. Those guys inside were going to come spilling out there any second, ready to start shooting. Jason seriously doubted they would give a damn whom they shot as long as the tally included him. A quick calculation told him he probably did not have the time to get out of sight before the excitement got under way. Without success, he tried to shoo away the closest gawkers.

He returned to the street entrance of the restaurant and grabbed the worn wooden sign. The rotted wood tore from its securing nails with little effort. By the time the first assailant emerged from Eddy's, Jason had the sign firmly in both hands. Holding it like a bat, Jason delivered a home run cut that caught the man across the forehead. The man dropped to his knees as though shot.

The Makarov slid from his hand just as the second man squeezed through the wall's narrow aperture. Jason dove for the sidewalk as a shot sent the crowd scattering. Rolling to his left, he snatched the pistol the first man had dropped. He hoped it was ready to fire; there was no time to cock it.

34

Andrews Air Force Base

Maryland

At the Same Time

The man with the silver eagles on his shoulders watched the nav lights of the pair of Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers fade into the winter sky. The two aircraft would be in the air fourteen hours before delivering their loads of fuel to a facility previously secured, where Jet-A would be locked and sealed with a device that would betray any tampering.

None of that was really any affair of William “Wild Bill” Hasty, Colonel, USAF, but the colonel was a meticulous man who made sure everything having to do with his assigned mission went off without a problem. That fuel so carefully inspected and guarded would be for the return trip of the highly customized 747-200B he would be flying in less than a week. His interest wasn't the fact the aircraft was the peak of aviation luxury—its two galleys could serve 160 people simultaneously. It wasn't that the plane cost more than $181,000 per hour to operate, or even that there were only two such airplanes like this in existence. His attention to details, even details over which he had no command, was based on a single passenger who would be on board just six days from now.

Twenty-two years in the Air Force, seventeen in the Air Force Materiel Command, and he'd never lost a passenger or a cargo, a record he intended to keep unblemished until three years from now, when he and Kate pulled the plug and retired to that little fishing shack on the Saint Mary's River near Palatka, Florida, where their closest neighbors would be deer and alligators. And bigmouth bass, the largest bigmouth bass Wild Bill had ever seen.

Bass or not, the fuel carrying aircraft were off, the first part of the mission begun. He turned his attention to the single closed hangar, the one guarded day and night by armed sentries with no-nonsense orders to shoot to kill anyone who approached without displaying the proper credentials. Bill had those credentials, of course, but there was nothing for him to do there tonight. His work, the actual mission, would begin five days from now. For the present, he contented himself with making sure the space on the tarmac was clear, the space where the C-141 StarLifters would load up the two armor-plated limousines and the half dozen or so equally armored SUVs.

Satisfied he had done all he could for the moment, he dug his fists into the pockets of his sage green MA-1 flight jacket and headed for the gate in the razor wire–topped chain-link fence where he exchanged salutes with two men stamping their feet against the night's damp cold.

35

Saint Barthélemy, French West Indies

On his back, Jason had the Makarov in both hands. The man who had just exited Eddy's was silhouetted against the streetlights, as featureless as a figure­ cut from black paper. Only a glimmer of light reflecting on metal from where Jason guessed his hands were told Jason he was holding the pistol he had brandished inside. As if he needed confirmation, Jason had the distinctly unpleasant experience of seeing the muzzle spit fire as he rolled violently to his right while trying to bring his newfound weapon to bear.

Pointing rather than aiming, Jason squeezed the trigger, gratified to feel the gun buck in his grip. He was partially blinded by the muzzle flash, but he squeezed off two more shots as the gun came back to point in the general direction of his first.

His initial clue that he had hit his opponent was the lack of return fire.

He scrambled to his feet, smoking pistol still in hand. The same streetlight that had limned his adversary now showed what at first glimpse looked like a pile of discarded clothing. A second look showed a dark trickle that was now dripping from the curb to the street.

He resisted the impulse to search for something to identify the man, a wallet, a passport perhaps. No point, and, as the siren grew louder, no time. Unlikely a professional like the man lying at his feet would carry anything that might be of use, and the police had obviously navigated the crowded streets. He stepped to his left where he could see small boats rocking in the breeze-caressed harbor. He tossed the gun, waiting until he heard the splash. He doubted the local heat had ever faced a man with a gun. Nervous and inexperienced police have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later where armed men are concerned.

A Range Rover with blue lights flashing howled to a stop in front of Eddy's. Jason calmly blended into the crowd, sought the shadows, and began his trek up a steep hill avoiding light as much as possible as he went.

The grade was such that his calves were aching by the time he reached the entrance to the Hotel Carl Gustaf. He passed the vacant registration desk into the lobby/bar/restaurant, a large space open on one side with a view of the harbor and town below. Other than the bored bartender, Maria had the room to herself. She sat, hands clasped around a tall glass, staring into space as she munched from a small bowl of nuts, olives, and chips. She didn't acknowledge Jason as he slid into the seat across from her.

“You don't look overjoyed to see me.”

“I'm happy you are alive,” she replied flatly

“Unfinished business.”

For the first time since his arrival, she looked at him. “It is always ‘unfinished business.' ”

Jason knew better than to reply. Instead, he signaled the bartender, who grudgingly wandered over.

When in the tropics, Jason normally enjoyed rum and tonic, particularly Havana Club. Experience told him he was going to need something more potent.

“Gin martini, straight up, olive.”

The barkeep shuffled off.

If Maria noted the change in beverage preference, she didn't comment on it. Instead, she said, “Jason, it will not end until you are dead. The constant moving from one place to another, always looking over your shoulder, I cannot live that way.”

He could have pointed out that most of the time she didn't, that she was gone. He also might point out that it had been his lifestyle, his employment by Narcom, that had brought them together. He could, but he knew better. He never won arguments with Maria. The few times he thought he had, he subsequently learned the dispute simply wasn't over.

So he held his tongue as she continued, “Has it ever occurred to you that you might get me killed, too? I mean, those men at Eddy's didn't look like they cared who got shot along with you.”

At least they were in agreement on that point.

“Jason, your past follows you around like a bad smell.”

He doubted she would be any happier if he pointed out the men with guns in Eddy's were here because of a job he had so far concealed from her, not the past.

So he said the only thing he could think of that was true, relevant, and non-incriminating. “I can't change the past, Maria.”

“No, you cannot. After, what, three or four years . . . ?”

She knew how long to the day. Further, she knew he knew she knew. “More like five.”

“Five years together, I thought your past would, would . . .”

“Fade away?”

“Something like that. But it hasn't. We had to leave Ischia because your enemies found you there. Now I am curious why you left Sark.”

Jason paused to accept, taste, and nod his approval of the martini. The Carl Gustaf was one of the few places in the French-speaking world that understood a martini required dry, rather than sweet, vermouth and that in minimal quantity. Jason was not in the mood for creative drinks.

“Who said I left?”

“Well, you are obviously not there.”

“But Pangloss and Robespierre are, as are my easel, paints, brushes, and unfinished paintings.”

“You are saying you will return to Sark?”

Jason took a long sip from the stem glass, giving him time to compose a truthful, if deceiving, answer. “I certainly don't intend to abandon what you refer to as ‘the menagerie.' ”

That seemed to mollify her. “You are returning when you finish whatever brought you to Saint Barts?”

“The sun and sand brought me here,” he said. “I thought getting away from the Channel winter for a few days might do me some good. This is a resort area, you know.”

Well, he
had
been on the beach this morning.

“And you are returning to Sark?” she persisted.

“Not just yet.”

Her raised eyebrows asked the question.

“I've got business on the continent,” he said.

She visibly relaxed. Several times a year, he visited one or more of the financial institutions where he had accounts, trips like the one to Liechtenstein. After accompanying him on one or two, she elected to stay home. After all, the most secure banks were not in the more exciting countries.

Her untouched drink in one hand, she was twirling a strand of hair with the other, an indication of thought process. “When I finish this expedition,” she said at last, “we need to have a talk, a serious talk about our future . . . if we have one.”

From Jason's viewpoint, one of the great things about their relationship was that each had so far been willing to live it a day at a time, neither seeking nor offering commitment. Now the subject seemed to be lurking nearby as unbidden as Banquo's ghost. Jason supposed he should have seen it coming.

Like Jason, Maria had been married once. Her husband had been a lying cheat she referred to as Casanova. The marriage had lasted little more than a year. In addition to repeated infidelities, the man had been a
mammone
one of those Italian men who suffer separation anxiety when away from the mother with whom they had lived their entire life before marriage. From their honeymoon, Casanova had called home twice a day. Upon their return, he took his laundry for his mother to do, returning with a week's worth of her cooking. Maria couldn't decide which of the women in Casanova's life were worse: the meddling mother-in-law whom she could never please and who was always present in spirit, if not in body, or the unknowns whose cheap perfume clung to the shirts the man had his mother launder.

Jason had thought from Maria's point of view, a second marriage seemed a triumph of optimism over reality.

But then, he wasn't Maria.

He trolled a change of subject by her. “When do you think you'll be finished in Indonesia?” Adding diplomatically, “We all miss you.”

The bait was rejected. “In a week, two at the most, once our equipment arrives. But don't change the subject, Jason. When I get back, I want some answers.”

The questions were all the more ominous by not being asked.

A group of three couples came to Jason's rescue. Babbling excitedly in French, they took the table nearest the bar before ordering a bottle of Perrier-Jouët. There was some discussion of vintages before the 2004 was reached as a compromise. Jason smiled. The Perrier-Jouët was expensive enough in France. Add shipping and the generous price boost given to anything consumed in Saint Barts' eating establishments and the Champagne would be costly indeed.

“The 2002 Piper-Heidsieck would be a better value,” Maria offered. “Better Champagne, less expensive.”

Jason was about to ask when she had become a Champagne connoisseur when the conversation at the other table, or that part of it his limited French allowed him to understand, caught his attention.

“Were you downtown when the shooting took place?” a woman asked.

“Yes,” a man responded. “But we were in front of the post office, looking for a parking space. I understand it was some sort of turf war between some of the Russians.”

“A man was shot right in front of our car,” a second woman volunteered. “I'm almost certain the man who did it was one of the Russians at the next table at Le Wall House last night.”

She turned to the man next to her for confirmation. He nodded. “I'm sure it was. I never forget a face, particularly of someone causing a disturbance over dinner.”

The eighth deadly sin in France.

“There were four of them, two men, two women. The men were shouting at each other,” the second woman said. “I'm sure that argument was why someone got shot tonight.”

Jason managed not to grin. A dozen untrained observers would, more often than not, produce twelve different versions of the same event. Policemen lamented the fact; defense lawyers counted on it.

Maria had been listening, too. “You had nothing to do with the men with guns?”

Jason smiled and shrugged. “If I had told you so, would you have believed me?”

By the time they ordered dinner, he still had no answer.