by Dale Mayer
When Keane caught a reflection, he realized that they really did have a visitor. The shot, when it came, was both a surprise, yet not unexpected. What he hadn’t expected was the target. Wilson’s body jerked once. He’d been half dozing against the rocks and had never seen it coming. He never felt a thing. The only change was the blossoming red spot in the center of his forehead.
And that told Keane a whole lot more. It wasn’t that easy to shoot downward, and whoever was up there was good at his job. But he wouldn’t have come alone, and that meant at least one more guy was out there. Keane heard Lennox nearby as he whispered, “Bull’s-eye.”
Keane nodded and gave a thumbs-up. The figure up above quickly disappeared backward again. But was he gone? Did he suspect that his target was the only person here? Did he not care? Had he come and done his job, or had he not even realized that Wilson wasn’t alone? With the first two gunmen now dead, the question was, who were these other men, what were they up to, and why would they have taken out Wilson?
When it was safe, Keane slipped toward Lennox and they both snuck silently to the wooden doors. “I figured two,” he said, “and they likely came in where our Zodiac is.”
“One going low. One going high,” Lennox said, already strapping weapons onto a hip holster and securing a knife at his ankle. “Yeah, we’ll need to take a little bit more weaponry with us though.”
They headed back inside to the two women. Keane caught sight of the whites of both of their eyes. “We’re going after the shooter and his partner,” he said.
Both women gasped but didn’t say a word.
“Stay inside, and don’t make a sound,” Keane said. “We don’t know that they even realize you’re here, so let’s keep it that way. They’ve shot Wilson dead, and they could be looking for his buddy Adam. In which case they won’t find him, or maybe they’ll just take off.”
“What will you do?” Sandrine whispered.
“We’re going after them. They got here somehow. That means they have some way to leave.”
She nodded slowly. “Or they were dropped off.”
“Or they were dropped off and somebody is circling the island. I haven’t heard any boat motor though,” he said. “Have you?”
“No, but it wouldn’t take very much for them to cross that little distance in front of us during the storm, and we wouldn’t have heard anything.”
“Quite right,” he said. He reached down and stuffed a granola bar and some fruit leather into his pocket and grabbed a bottle of water, then leaned over, gently stroked her cheek and said, “You’ll be fine.”
“Will I?” she asked, her voice low.
He smiled and said, “I’ll come back for you.”
She nodded gently. “Make sure you look after yourself,” she said. “That shot came out of nowhere.”
“Not quite,” he said. “I did see the guy first.”
She stared at him, awestruck, her gaze widening. “Magical powers or what?”
He smiled and whispered, “Remember? This is what we do.”
She let out a long slow and somewhat shaky breath. “I’ll keep that in mind.” As he got up to leave, she grabbed his hand and pulled him back down again.
Thinking she needed to say something, he crouched low and whispered, “What?”
Pushing herself up on one elbow, she gently brushed her lips against his. “For good luck.”
He chuckled. “Then I better come back for good luck lots of times.” Then he stepped out as Lennox looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Keane shrugged. “What can I say?” he said. “Women like magic.”
“Right,” Lennox said, shaking his head.
They shared a silent laugh, then quickly raced along the cliff. They were out of sight from anybody above but knew that the danger would be as they came around the cove. It would be interesting to see what they came up against. With the two of them moving silently on the rocks, Keane led them up the narrow staircase to where it opened up in the meadow. As they stopped and studied the area, Keane whispered, “Across there through the trees is another very narrow pathway,” he said. “I found Wilson up on the top, and still more of their gear is up there.”
“We may grab that too,” Lennox replied.
“Later,” Keane whispered with a nod, his gaze studying the trees, looking for movement or for any sign of something that didn’t belong. But it all looked innocent, and, of course, that was the last thing it was. The better these men were, the harder it would be to find them.
Keane heard a noise off to the right and melted back against the rocks. Sure enough, he saw two men. Both of them carrying rifles. As they crouched down, they quickly dismantled the weapons and put them in their cases. In other words, they didn’t think they had any further threats and were packing up, ready to leave. Keane watched silently as the two men moved efficiently and quietly.
They both had swarthy complexions, with darker skin, suggesting Latino backgrounds. They were good enough that he knew they had spent considerable time on the other end of a weapon. These won’t be the same caliber of men as Wilson and Adam. These gunmen were ones who had been sent to clean up the mess.
Guns packed up, the two men stood and looked out at the ocean, one lifting his hand to study the horizon. “They’re still not around.”
“We’re early,” the other one said. “It was a little too easy.”
“Yeah, but we only got one.”
“They’re always together,” he said. “So we only got one. The other one isn’t there to get.”
The logic was interesting. Clear-cut and simple.
“Well, Mother Nature will take out the other one, if something didn’t already. We didn’t even need to bother in this instance. We could have just abandoned the two of them, and they would have been fine.”
“Fine, as in dead, you mean.” The man laughed. “How many times have we had to go in and clean up this shit? I’m getting tired of it.”
“Tired in what way?”
Something in his tone had Keane melting farther into the shadows.
“You know what I mean,” he said. “The money is good, but, after a while, you realize you’ve got to live in order to enjoy it. We spend all this time killing and accruing money, but we never get a chance to spend it.”
“You know what happens if you quit,” his partner said.
“Oh, I know,” he said. “There’s no quitting. That’s just a fact of life in this industry. We were born into the smuggling world. It’s not like we’ve ever had a chance to get out. At least we’re in the independent world, not back on the mainland, following orders.”
“Don’t let anyone ever hear you say any of that though. I mean, I understand discontent,” he said. “We deal with that all the time. But the thought about retiring? Yeah, you’ll get a bullet between your own eyes if that gets out.”
“I know,” the other man said, but there was an edge and a wariness to it. “Don’t you ever wonder about getting out in that ocean and sailing across to some completely different country and away from this lifestyle? Where you can sit back on a beach and see what that is like?”
“We haven’t sat on a beach and enjoyed ourselves since we were kids,” his partner growled. “And I don’t have to tell you, Carlos, just how damn dangerous this talk is.”
“I’m only saying it to you, for Christ’s sake,” Carlos said with a yawn. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Well, you know what’ll happen if you get overheard.”
“I know,” Carlos said.
“And what about the money? It’s not like you’d do without that.”
“We’ve got millions in the bank,” he said. “If they had any idea how much money we had, you know we’d be forced to give that up too.”
“I wasn’t planning on telling them. It’s our own money,” he said. “It’s our bank account.”
“Oh, I get you,” he said, “but we do have the money. If we wanted to leave, you know we could.”
“Well, what you’r
e saying is, we could in theory, but it’s not gonna happen.”
“Maybe not, but it should,” he said. “One day it should.”
“Well, I’m not ready yet,” he said. “I want to keep living.”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
They headed to the far side, but not in the direction that Keane expected. He watched as the one guy stood again at the top of the cliff and said, “Still, it’s kind of sad.”
“What is?” asked the other man impatiently.
As Keane watched, one man turned to face the other, and a shot rang out.
One man stood, staring, clutching his chest. “Seriously?” Then he fell to his knees and smashed onto the ground.
The remaining man walked over, his rifle still pointed at his buddy. “Yeah, seriously. The money is in our joint account, for fuck’s sake. You were either coming with me or I was going alone.” He looked around at the options for the body and then swore, stripped it of gear and weaponry, and pushed it over the cliff’s edge.
Keane and Lennox exchanged hard glances as they heard the sounds of the soft body hitting rocks all the way down.
“That’s shitty,” Lennox whispered.
But the last guy just stood there, his face up to the sky, almost as if he’d been freed from something. And then he slowly made his way to the far side and disappeared from sight.
The question Keane and Lennox had to answer was whether they would take out this guy or see if he disappeared quietly into the night? It appeared to be a falling out among thieves, but Keane and Lennox had learned long ago that there were times to get in a fight and times when it wasn’t theirs to get into.
If this guy had a boat, that was a different story. But, in theory, Keane and his companions were probably getting picked up tomorrow. It was just hard to know how this would play out right now.
As the guy made his way to the far side, he stopped, looked back toward where Keane and Lennox stood in the shadows and said, “Shit.”
Keane tensed, fearing the guy had seen them as he walked toward them. Keane looked at Lennox and shrugged as they both stepped out of the shadows and leveled their weapons at him. “Were you going somewhere?”
The man stopped in front of them, all anger and ugliness as he lifted his rifle.
Keane shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Nobody’ll spend your millions if you get yourself killed.”
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” the man raged.
“We came after the two women.”
The surprise in the guy’s face was shocking. “What women?”
Keane laughed. “The two guys who came here to set up your transmitting station rescued two women who had washed overboard. In the process, they crashed their own boat, and all four of them washed overboard.”
“You’re kidding?” He shook his head. “Those two were just a mess-up from the beginning. I couldn’t believe it when the boss hired them. They said they needed a ride, but we were here to give them a bullet instead.”
“Well, you took care of that nicely,” Keane said.
“Not quite. I only took care of one. I’m one of those people who likes to cross my Ts and dot my Is. I was heading back to make sure the other one wasn’t hanging around anywhere.”
“Don’t worry about him,” Keane said quietly. “We took him out.”
“And why was that?”
“Because he was trying to kill the women.”
The man’s face was a confused mixture as he sorted through what he’d been told. “Now he wanted to kill the women after saving them?”
“Yes. The one you shot told him that he needed to.”
“Got it. Well, he shouldn’t have rescued them in the first place.” He shrugged and said, “But we all have sisters and mothers and daughters. It’s hard to watch women suffer.”
“Unless you’re into smuggling. Do you smuggle women?”
He shook his head. “No. Drugs.”
“Of course,” Keane said. “So now we’re at a stalemate.”
“What do you want to do?” the smuggler asked.
“What are you trying to do?” Keane asked.
“I wanted to ensure the other guy was dead and then take off.”
“And your buddy? You’ll just let the birds eat him?”
“The ocean will probably take him out to deeper water,” Carlos said with a shrug. “I gave him a chance. You heard me practically begging him to come with me. I did give him a chance.”
“Right. And now the question is, what chance are you looking for?”
“To return to my boat, to leave this island and to head off in the opposite direction from the bosses.”
“Won’t they come after you?”
“I doubt it,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons for setting the stage for both of us being dead.”
“And you think they’ll just disappear and come back in six months and see if anybody’s still alive?”
“If I don’t report in,” the smuggler said steadily, “it won’t matter, because they won’t come looking anyway.”
“Is that the kind of job you do?”
“It’s the kind of job I’ve always done,” he said, with a world-weariness. “Cleaning up messes. I’m just so damn tired of it all.”
“And how can we believe that you’ll just take off and disappear?”
“You don’t need to,” Carlos said. “But, if my bosses find me, I’m dead anyway, so either shoot me or give me a chance at having a decent life. I was born into this bullshit, and I’ve not had two seconds to myself to call my own, let alone refuse an order,” he said.
“I’m not terribly interested in your sob story,” Keane said, “but I want to make sure you’re not bringing any other people back onto this island. We have enough trouble as it is.”
Carlos laughed. “Believe me. Nobody’s coming here after us. We’re the last stop to clean up the bullshit,” he said. “A ship is out there, but it’s a good fifteen miles away. They won’t come any closer. We either make it back, or we don’t.”
“What kind of boat do you have?”
“I have one down below,” he said. “It’s hidden.”
“Are you the one who took out our Zodiac?”
The man looked at him in surprise. “Was that yours? Sorry. I thought it belonged to the other two. I was trying to make sure they didn’t leave the island.”
“That makes more sense,” Keane said. “Yeah, it was ours. Speaking of which, another couple people were shot in this area a week or so ago.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that was us. Like I said, there’s no getting away from this work. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We captured them. I fought to keep them alive, but it wasn’t going down well, so they were taken out.” He shrugged. “It’s a shitty life.” He studied the look on Keane’s face. “I can see you don’t like my answer. But it’s the truth. Why the hell do you think I want out?”
“Understandable but will you get out is the question?”
“If you give me a window, I’ll take it. Chances are you have somebody coming in for a pickup then, don’t you?”
“We do,” he said. “In the morning.”
“Let me leave then,” he said. “No guarantee I’ll make it anywhere with my boat as it is. It’s small, and the waves are big, but it’s my only chance at a new life.”
“Good point,” he said. “So disappear.”
They dropped a line of fire at his feet, and he disappeared around the rocks.
“He didn’t protest too much.”
Keane exchanged a glance with Lennox, who just shrugged and said, “You know the ocean will get him, or his bosses will.”
“I know. But he didn’t kill any of us.” Walking to the edge of the cliff, Keane looked down. It was too early yet to see Carlos, but, before long, he came through a little hollow, and there on the side, he tugged his boat into the water just around the corner. Another Zodiac type of watercraft, with black pontoons and a big-as
s motor on the back. Keane wondered at the seaworthiness of it out in a big storm, but that wasn’t his problem.
Carlos hopped in and pushed out until he could turn and pull at the engine. As soon as it fired up, he headed around the island, away from their view.
“Something tells me that’s the opposite direction of the smugglers.”
“If he’s smart, it is, but he’ll have to go up the coast to get away from this squall. He won’t head across the ocean in that thing.” But he let his thoughts trail off, because he didn’t really give a shit. As long as they were alone now, he was fine with it.
“We need to make sure the other guy’s dead and that neither left anything behind.”
“He should have left enough behind so that anybody landing and checking up on them would see that they were gone.”
“And what are we supposed to do? Add Wilson’s body to the mix?”
“If we could ever get some comm set up,” he said, “we could report what happened and let the coast guard or whoever deal with it.”
They followed his footsteps, carefully navigating to the bottom.
“Are you getting the feeling that we should have killed him?”
“Not really,” he said. “This has been a bizarre mission right from the beginning.”
“I know,” he said, “not exactly the same as the other Mavericks ops.”
“No, but it’s all good,” Keane said quietly. “We’re still doing what’s right. We’re helping others.”
They checked to make sure that Carlos’s partner was dead. His body washing up against the rocks along the shore wouldn’t take long for nature to deal with him. Lennox and Keane left the body where it was and took several photos. They checked where the other boat had been hidden and couldn’t see any signs of it left. If they hadn’t seen Carlos leave themselves, they’d never have known he was here.
The two looked at each other, and Lennox said, “Let’s head back.”
“Yeah,” Keane replied. “When we hit the top again, let’s try to communicate with the coast guard.”
“Good idea.”
Chapter 9
