Somewhere in my peripheral hearing Tinkerbelle was barking her ear-piercing Maltese melody. By the rapidity of her yelps, I figured the chicken woman – compliance officer – was returning. I grabbed her keyboard in the hope of creating an illusion of theft. At a distance, she might assume I’d run off with the entire computer system and not think of looking in the hollow tree.
I galloped down the beach, the keyboard in one hand and Tinkerbelle in the other.
All three hundred pounds of the banker lady raced after me, screaming in a language I’m glad I didn’t understand. She was a mass of panting flesh with one bleeding earlobe. Two large chickens trotted behind her kicking sand in the air.
As a diversion, I threw the keyboard into the sea as hard and far as I could manage. Ms. Jean Luc stopped running, looked at me, then the ocean, and collapsed on the shore. Motionless, she looked like a huge beach rock.
My knee ached, and I had deep dog scratches on my belly as I reached the tender. Holding Tink by her collar, I jumped into the boat, dug the one-hundred dollar bill from my shoe and waggled it at the dock boy. He raced toward me, grabbed the money and untied the Nibs. We were off. Mission accomplished… I hoped.
Chapter Fifty-Two
As I swung around the stern of the Predator I could see the giant manta ray still stuck in the anchor chain. I slowed the boat and scoped out the action straining to see. Roger stood on the helideck next to the chopper. It appeared Kit was sitting inside the helicopter. Armed crewmen stood around the deck like a pack of edgy seabirds.
Before climbing from the tender to the swim platform, I made an executive decision. Turning the boat out to sea, I set the motor to fast-forward, grabbed Tink and jumped onto the swim platform. Then I scrambled to the mini-sub in the dry dock rails, pulled the key from the ignition and pitched it into the sea. Darlin’s Dudes had the chopper for our get away. The crew would be left with no way to follow us.
Inching up to the flight deck, I stood behind the landing screen, an eight-foot by ten-foot monitor that allowed the captain to observe the chopper’s takeoffs and landings. Roger looked my way and nodded. I hoped he meant for me to walk to him. With all the moxie I could muster, I strode out on the deck clutching the wiggling dog.
Roger leaned in and whispered. “Where’s the tender?”
“I cast it adrift.”
“You’re pretty smart. I like that in a woman.” His smile tingled in my pocket. “Follow my lead.”
Dale approached carrying a rifle in one hand and a revolver in the other. He was all attitude. “Where are the black market guys?”
“Wendy says they insist on coming by chopper. You stay here with the treasure and make sure the crew keeps their hands off it. We’ll go pick up the buyers.”
“If you’re double-crossing us…”
Roger stood his ground looking up at Dale. “You’re holding all the cards. You have the treasure in the van in the ship’s hold. You have the Predator. You cut the deal without me if you think you can do it. I told you, I’m their inside man. They trust me; they don’t know you. But go ahead. Try it your way. See how far you get.”
Dale shrugged. “Do what you need to do. This has taken long enough. The crew’s relieved Hook is out of the picture. They’ll be cool. See you before sunset?”
Roger nodded. We ran to the chopper and climbed in. Kit was in the back. I handed him Tinkerbelle. She snuggled in his lap looking pleased, despite the excitement crackling around her. Taking a quick inventory, I could see the suitcase, which I hoped contained the Lost Boys.
Jaxbee was slumped in the middle front passenger seat, head back and earphones in place.
“Get in the pilot’s seat,” Roger said as he buckled into the third front seat.
“I can’t fly this thing. I can’t fly, period. I crashed a plane once.”
“Haven’t we all? Just do it. Jax is in no condition to fly the chopper. Her shoulder is dislocated and her right leg is broken. She hit the swim platform hard when Roscoe threw her.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Taking hold of my fried nerves, I repeated… “Nothing is impossible. I’m possible.”
Jaxbee mumbled, “Remember your lessons. You can fly. I’ll walk you through it. I’m conscious… just dizzy from the pain. Wendy,… my father’s dead.”
“I know, Jax. I’m so sorry.”
“Roscoe and Croc, too.”
“Sweetie, I know. Just take it easy.” I turned to Roger. “What about the crew? Won’t they shoot us down?”
“As long as they think Jaxbee is at the controls and we’re headed to pick up the money men, they’ll let us leave. If Dale starts to sense something’s wrong we could be target practice. Let’s get out of gun range, fast.”
I tried to divorce myself from the tension. I needed to stay focused on what little I had learned during my play-lessons with Jaxbee. My fear of crashing lay just below the surface of my bravado. I wouldn’t let it overtake me.
“The poor manta ray’s horn is still stuck in the anchor chain. Those boys aren’t going anywhere,” Roger said as he looked out the chopper door.
Kit sat wide-eyed and silent, looking like a Ken doll after a kid’s soccer team had gotten hold of it. His face was bruised and his hair was a disaster.
I did as Jaxbee told me, repeating her instructions like a prayer.
I turned the starter key and the engine coughed to life.
“Today we’re gonna break some rules, if we hope to get away in one piece,” Jaxbee said.
“Don’t wait for the engine to warm up. As soon as your manifold pressure stabilizes around 3200 rpm, engage the rotor.” Her voice was shaky.
Giving her my scared silly look, I took one last breath and did as she instructed.
Slowly but deliberately turning the throttle, I watched the needle climb. Pulling hard on the engagement lever, the heavy blades of the Shark began to move – swish, swish, swish – making the most beautiful noise I’d ever heard, slowly picking up speed till it created enough downdraught to make the crew run for cover.
The noise inside the cockpit made normal conversation impossible. Jaxbee’s instructions crackled in my earphones, “Don’t look at any other instruments. Just glance at your manifold pressure, control it with your throttle, and whatever else you do, NEVER let it go below 3200 rpm. Okay. You’re good to go… NOW!”
I lost my stomach but kept some of my faculties. To avoid hitting the superstructure of the yacht, I maneuvered an awkward sideways takeoff. My hand trembled as I pulled on the collective, increasing throttle at the same time applying gentle pressure on the left pedal to keep the tail end from swinging around. The chopper rose shakily and stayed within ground effect for a moment while I wrestled with working four controls at once.
“Okay, steady as she goes… pull, pull, more collective…keep your cyclic neutral… more left pedal,” Jaxbee said.
We somehow broke the shackles of gravity and were now ten feet off the platform.
“Slowly on the stick to the left and forward slightly and feel your airspeed with your fanny as you take her through transition. Rather over rev than under rev,” she said.
At about thirty feet in the air we slowly drifted over the water. My sweating right hand pushed too hard on the stick for a brief moment. “Oh shit!” It came back to bite me. The tail lifted and the nose dipped to the water below. I over-corrected for the mistake. The nose lifted and the tail dipped. A flash of panic hit me. I beat it back. Jaxbee couldn’t help me. I had to get the feel for the chopper on my own. I was the loneliest person on the planet. It was just the machine and me.
Everything then happened in slow motion, as if God himself came to the rescue and retarded time in order to give me the opportunity to recover. The Shark was level. The front of the chopper was like half a fishbowl with glass nearly reaching under our feet. Through the bottom dome I could see the ocean picking up speed. We were good.
Jaxbee scanned the instruments and counted the airspeed on the interco
m. “20, 30, 50, 60 – up and away.”
I leaned back on the stick to pull the Shark into a steep climb to an altitude of 300 feet. Heavenly elation overtook my being as I realized I was in control of this incredible bronco.
Now all I had to do was land the bloody thing at Saint Kitts. I looked out over the crystal clear water and watched sharks circling the yacht waiting for the giant manta ray to die.
Jax started to speak, “In case something happens to me –”
I almost jumped out of my skin. “Stop! Don’t say it. Never again.”
Roger reached over and squeezed my arm. “You’re doing fine. We’ll call the feds to get the crew when we land. Were you able to stop the wire transfers?”
“Think so.”
“Do you have the backup for Hook’s accounts?”
“Think so.”
He squinted his eyes at me.
“Tell you later,” I said as I concentrated on flying the Wendy-Bird.
Saint Kitts airport came into view. Jaxbee threw a few more pointers in my direction.
The sun slipped behind a cloud as the chopper wobbled onto the airport tarmac, its tail dancing like an angry cat. The blades slowed to a halt. I fell apart. Tears of relief flooded my eyes. It was the first time I’d failed to keep a promise, but I felt good about not taking care of Hook.
“Hey!” Roger reached over and hugged me. It was a warm, stinky embrace. “We make quite a team. How about we go after the thirteenth Lost Boy?”
“You have the worst timing in the world.” I slipped out of his embrace. “Will you please ditch those brown shoes?”
“I didn’t hear my name mentioned,” said Kit, the color returning to his face.
“Would you like to join us in recovering the thirteenth Lost Boy?” Roger asked.
“You bet your tushie … no.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
The Shark was on the ground, but my legs were still up in the air. I checked my watch. Could it be only four in the afternoon? It seemed like a lifetime.
Roger, Kit, Jaxbee, and I sat on the small porch of the Saint Kitts airport, with the dull drone of cable news on the monitors inside the building. We sipped on paper cups of water. Without a penny in our pockets we were hungry panhandlers drinking free tap water.
“How soon will we be in Miami?” Jaxbee was groggy. The local medicine man had given her a Darvocet to ease the pain in her shoulder.
“My client’s private jet will be here in a few hours. We’ll have you home before midnight.” Although Kit and Jaxbee now were in the loop about the Lost Boys, they were still loopy. Roger was up to speed on what had transpired at the chicken bank.
“You did well,” he said to me as he hunched forward studying my expression.
“You know I need to go back to Nevisland? I have to find Peter.”
His brows came together in a frown. “Don’t go back. Do you understand I care about you?”
I took my time choosing my words carefully. “Do you understand I can’t care about you until I know how I feel about Peter? I have to go back before I can go forward.”
“I understand.” He leaned his head on the porch post. “You do know he’s a crook?”
“I doubt that, but it’s something I have to discover for myself. He’s two miles away after twenty years… he’s two friggin’ miles away. I’m going. I haven’t come this far to walk away without an answer.”
He crushed his paper cup and balled it up in his hand. “Hook’s world is about to fall apart. I set the FBI wheels in motion with my call. They’ll be on the Predator within the hour and then onto Nevis and the bank. You could get caught up in red tape or even gunfire.”
“I don’t care. Did you tell them about the computer in the hollow tree?”
He nodded. “Let me go with you.”
“That would be perfect. You, me, and Peter.” I stood up. “You have a job to do. Those Lost Boys need your protection. I’ll be back before your private jet leaves Saint Kitts.”
“If you take the Nevis ferry the last run is at six… less than two hours from now. You could be stranded on the island.”
I smiled as I took a sip of paper-flavored water. “Roger!… Roger.”
“If there is any gunfire, get the hell out of there. And don’t bring Peter back with you.”
***
The sun touched the sea with a silent sizzle as the ferry made an easy trip across the narrows between Saint Kitts and Nevis Island. Two lovey-dovey couples hung on each other… honeymooners, I guessed. We put ashore in an intoxicating blend of lush tropical plants, white sand, and soft breezes. It was not the view of Nevis Island I had experienced just hours earlier.
I headed up the beach at a tired trot. The forested interior rose to scenic Nevis Peak, which was cloaked in clouds. Bougainvillea, hibiscus, and other brilliant flowers danced along the perimeter of the shoreline. It could be a romantic setting with the right person.
Blue and white cabanas appeared in the distance. Either it was an oasis, a mirage, or a very posh resort. I could see each of the cabanas was enclosed on three of its four sides. The fourth side of each was open to the sea. A young guy was tugging lounge cushions onto a cart.
It was pushing five – cutting it close. Creeping along the shoreline I tried to focus my wind-burned eyes. I blinked, and in blinking I saw the beach kid had copper-colored hair. He was dressed in dark shorts and a white shirt. Although I couldn’t see his face I knew it was Peter.
Suddenly I was afraid. Afraid he wouldn’t know me, or worse would be casual about our meeting. My body went cold despite the boiling Caribbean heat. I stepped toward him, my legs shaking.
He looked up in dreamlike slowness.
Silently, we stared at each other.
I could see the confusion on his face. After twenty-four years I appeared out of nowhere. “Wendy? Is it you?” Peter said. He reached out and swooped me into his arms. As he pressed me to his chest I could feel his heart beating in sync with mine. A wicked chemistry kicked in, and I wanted nothing more than to devour him. Instead… I cried. All the worries and the questions plaguing me were gone. This was my Peter, and he could never do anything wrong.
Gently he pulled me away from him. He looked befuddled as he touched a laugh-line near my lips. I felt like he was analyzing every wrinkle, every freckle on my face.
“Wendy…” Peter repeated my name first in a whisper and then crowed it to the sky. “I thought I’d lost you forever. You did the thing I dreamed of doing but didn’t have the nerve. You found me. How did you get here?”
“The ferry,” I said breathless.
The beach was abandoned. He guided me toward a cabana and gently pushed me inside, drawing a curtain in place. At that moment we were the only two people in the world. His mouth sought mine, and that kiss that sat at the corner of my lip…waiting all these years. A kiss can make the heart young again and wipe out a lifetime of tears. Stepping into the past, I willingly fell into his embrace for a moment, then caught myself. Roger’s accusations sat heavy on my mind.
“Peter, why are you here?”
He touched his finger to my lips replacing it with his mouth. A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words are useless. It was delicious. In my mind I was seventeen again and lost in the trance Peter cast over me.
As I slipped my arms around his neck, he dropped his hands to my waist.
“Now that you’ve found me, I’m never going to let you go,” he said. He was so happy, so warm. He held me in his arms as if I were a small bird perched for flight. He ran his calloused fingers over my cheekbones and down my neck to my shoulders.
Fighting his caress, I brushed his hand aside. “Have you been here all these years? Why didn’t you contact me? A simple call?”
He looked like a little boy who had been chastised. Dodging my questions, he pulled the curtain open. “See that yacht far out on the horizon? It’s my partner’s ship. I’m going to be very wealthy soon.”
I stared at the Predator in horror. Everything Roger said was true. Peter was a crook.
A clueless crook. His partner Hook was sucking on polonium somewhere out at sea.
“What do you do for your partner?”
He gave me a thinly veiled look of impatience. “We’re in import and export.” He nuzzled my neck as he put his hands on my shoulders.
Gaining a firmer footing in the sand, I braced myself against him as he tried to force me to the ground. “What kind of trinkets do you import to this tiny island? I can’t imagine there’s any money in it.”
“My partner sells very rare antiques. I bring him the buyers and get paid big finder’s fees. It would be hard to explain it to you. It’s complicated.”
“It’s illegal? Isn’t it?”
“Jeeze Louise!” he said as he shoved me to the ground and dropped on top of me.
His face was too close to see. I pushed him away. “Let me look at you, Peter.” I ran my fingers through his hair as I planned my escape.
“I don’t remember you being such a chatterbox.” He forced his kiss on me.
I thought of my friends back on Saint Kitts ready to jet off. I thought of Treanna who was counting on my return. Those thoughts gave me the strength to fight the lips I had welcomed mere minutes ago. I had been naïve. I might as well have shown up on Nevisland packing a tiara and a whoopee cushion.
“Be with me… after all this time… be with me.”
He’s whining.
“Ten minutes won’t change the future, but it may complete our past. You owe me.”
I owe him? That was when I was sure I had to clock him.
He pinned me to the ground. I hate feeling trapped. This was getting to be a habit.
“What is it with you men?”
Thank God she gave men man-berries to level the playing field for women. I thought about it for half a second then brought up my left knee with a power-thrust. I’m going to have to get knee-guards if this keeps up.
As Peter howled and hugged himself, I was pretty sure I’d written the end of the tale of Wendy and Peter Payne. Now I knew the only thing I ever loved about Peter was the memory of him. He was a binky. A comfort when I felt lonely or controlled. It was time to let go of something that never really existed.
Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 01 - Wendy and the Lost Boys Page 16
