Murder Island (A Rogan Bricks Thriller Book 3)

by Steve Richer

  “And what can you tell us about Mr. Sabatini?” Oliver probed.

  Clifford opened his mouth and then smiled as if he had almost let a secret get out. Instead he said, “We’re almost there.”

  Oliver was about to ask again when the jungle opened up to reveal the main compound. Sweet Jesus, he thought. It was of a similar architectural style to the guesthouse only ten times larger, built on a little hill.

  There was a four-door garage to the left and at first it seemed like a separate building, but it was in fact connected by a passageway. Why did they need a four-car garage anyway? There was only one road on the island.

  He quickly forgot about this as he looked at the house itself. The front yard was beautifully landscaped with flowers and palm trees, more lampposts which were bigger and brighter up here. There were large windows which made it clear there were three stories.

  But since it was apparent that the house was at the tip of the island, the other side must have spellbinding views of the ocean. Oliver couldn’t wait to see it. The two Jeeps came to a halt and Paul and Clifford escorted the guests inside.

  An Asian butler in a fine suit stood inside the oversized, brushed-aluminum door. He bowed. “Welcome to Murder Island. Please follow me.”

  Again, Oliver was struck by how this place matched the guesthouse in style. The foyer alone was bigger than his first apartment. They walked through expansive corridors which linked different parts of the house—a living room to the right and a dining room to the left. In the distance, floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the light and they couldn’t see outside.

  They turned left, they turned right, went down some steps. Oliver was effectively lost, but he didn’t care. This was a palace.

  The butler finally led them back outside to the pool area. The swimming pool was of the infinity variety, ending right at the edge. When Oliver craned his neck, he realized the house was built on a cliff. Bill would probably need Dramamine if he got too close.

  The deck was made of smooth teak and it was surrounded by flowerbeds and tropical trees. Turning around, he saw that steps led to a raised level which served as an outdoor dining area. There was an awning that transformed into part of the roof, the area itself extending into the house when sliding doors were fully opened, as they were now.

  “Tell me something, guys,” Bill started. “The helicopter crashed, we all died, and this is heaven, right? It’s got to be.”

  Gina smiled, observing the house. “It’s beautiful.”

  Paul invited everyone toward the left where a bar stood. It was worthy of the best Honolulu hotels and the butler had become the bartender. Forgetting they were here to work, they all ordered drinks as they waited for their host to show up.

  Oliver went to Gina after he noticed she was alone, sipping pineapple juice through a straw.

  “I want to apologize for earlier. I was an idiot.”

  “Forget about it.”

  “Good, thanks. So, you’re an accountant. You want to go talk over there?” he pointed to the edge of the pool. “We could go look at the view.”

  It was dark, but the moon was already over the horizon, making the waves sparkle nicely in the distance.

  “I’m fine right here. I don’t like the water.”

  “We’re not on the water,” Oliver said. “We’re in a tropical mansion.”

  “Still too close to the water for my taste.”

  He frowned. “But you seemed fine when we were on the yacht. And then on the small boat.”

  “What do you want me to say, that I was screaming on the inside? Because I was.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I hate the water and I’m very happy in Nashville, five hundred miles from the nearest ocean.”

  Oliver suppressed the urge to groan. So much for that romantic walk on the beach he wanted to offer.

  She took a few steps toward the others and he had no choice but to follow. Paul smiled at them, pocketing his phone.

  “My client is running a little late and he apologizes. We’ll be having dinner shortly.”

  “Good,” Bill said. “I’m starving. Is it rude to ask what we’re having tonight?”

  “Dude,” Oliver reproached.

  Paul chuckled. “It’s all right. I think that tonight it’s a choice between prime rib and mahi-mahi. According to our information, none of you is vegetarian.”

  Everyone nodded, confirming this.

  “That’s great, I love prime rib,” Bill said, practically smacking his lips.

  “We’ll be eating outdoors. The breeze is nice. Plus we’re lucky that the weather is holding up. We were afraid a couple of days ago about Hurricane Ashley, but they’re saying it’s going to miss us completely, heading west instead.”

  Oliver swallowed the rest of his vodka to cover his unease. First, Murder Island, then toasting with an empty glass, and now Hurricane Ashley. His ex-wife’s name was Ashley. Was the universe trying to tell him something?

  The sound of heavy footsteps made everyone turn toward the house. Sal and Johnny showed up and separated, each going in a different direction, scanning the area. Oliver finally understood that they were bodyguards. In fact, four other men appeared, the two in the rear almost identical copies, with imposing builds and loose shirts that most likely concealed firearms.

  But the two men in the middle were different. One was in his late twenties, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, while the other was in his early sixties. He was short and thin, rather plain looking, dressed like he was heading out to golf. His salt-and-pepper hair was boringly combed to the side. Yet he had one arresting feature: piercing blue eyes that missed nothing.

  “Lady and gentlemen,” Paul began. “Mr. Sabatini.”

  “Hey. Thanks for coming.” He turned to the butler. “George, club soda.” He nodded curtly to all the guests. “It’s good of you all to be here on such short notice and without knowing why. Any of you know who I am?”

  “No,” Bill said while the others shook their heads.

  As the butler handed a drink to the owner of the house, Paul said, “I think Mr. Lush knows.”

  “Yeah? Why don’t you go ahead and tell everybody, spare me the trouble.”

  Everyone turned to Orland who visibly didn’t like being put on the spot like this. But he didn’t have a choice.

  “You’re Santo Sabatini. You’re the alleged leader of the Rampoldi crime family.”

  Oliver heard himself gasp, Gina stiffened next to him, and for his part Bill whispered, “Fuck me…”

  “That’s right, it’s who I am. This is my son Raymond. Renna might join us later, but don’t count on it. She wasn’t feeling too good.”

  “Can I ask what we’re doing here, Mr. Sabatini?” Oliver asked.

  “Cutting right to the chase, I like that. You haven’t figured it out yet?”

  “I’m a financial analyst. We have a corporate lawyer, an accountant, and a banker. I’m gonna go on a limb and say that it’s something to do with money.”

  Sabatini smiled for the first time. “You’re very perceptive.”

  “You want us…” Oliver could feel his heart about to jump out of his chest. He should have kept his mouth shut, but it was too late. “You want us to launder money for you?”

  “No,” Sabatini replied, still smiling. “I need your help to become legit. I need your help to become an honest businessman.”

  Chapter 5

  Blake was spending the evening on another island, nearly a hundred miles away.

  The air was stuffy in the warehouse, so hot and pregnant with dust that it was a miracle he hadn’t choked already. At least his men weren’t complaining. They were aware that such an attitude wouldn’t be tolerated.

  The warehouse itself was a misnomer. It had once been a fish processing facility, deboning, filleting, and freezing groupers to be exported to the US. Even though the plant was long gone, the putrid stench was still very much present, having seeped into the walls and floor. But it was conveniently
located by the ocean, in an area that had been commercially abandoned. Most of all, the wooden dock served his needs.

  Over by the tables in the back, another foul relic from the fishing era, Xi was inserting an M4 carbine into a duffel bag. Blake bristled.

  “Xi,” he called. “I want you to do another magazine check on that weapon. I don’t trust this ocean air. Too salty. It’s not time for corrosion.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Xi was Asian. Malay, Blake thought. He was young, but not inexperienced. In any case, the reprimand worked on him and he was repentant. Blake looked around, making sure he had everyone’s attention.

  “And that goes for all of you. I want you to check your weapons. When you’re done, you’re gonna recheck them all over again. After that, you do it once more. In fact, you’re going to inspect each and every piece of equipment until I tell you to stop. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir!” the ten men before him replied at once.

  He stared at them a few seconds longer so they would know these weren’t empty words, that there would be consequences if they didn’t heed his advice, and then went about field-stripping his own HK pistol.

  It was strange how life had changed for him and he wasn’t certain that he liked it. He had spent twenty years in the Navy. No, that wasn’t exact. He had only spent nineteen years in uniform. It might seem like a harmless difference, but to him it was everything. That one year—eleven months, two weeks, and three days, in fact—meant that he would never get his full pension.

  A part of him told him that it could be worse. What had happened three years ago could have led to him being dishonorably discharged and maybe that would’ve been better. Who knows? Instead, he had been strongly encouraged to resign his commission to avoid further embarrassment.

  Embarrassment? Christ! Is that what the world had come to? He had been a SEAL for more than twelve years, had served with distinction in the world’s worst shit holes, and then he was pushed out the door?

  So one of the insurgents he had captured had been a pansy who couldn’t take a beating, big deal. To this day, Blake considered the bullet he had put in his head as an act of mercy. Some of his men had squealed on him. Worse, his captain had believed them.

  To add insult to injury, it was the same officer who had taught him that in the field, when performing special operations, sometimes it was necessary to bend the rules. To break them. And it was that same candy-ass son of a bitch who had canned him, a few months short of his full pension eligibility.

  Some nights, when he lay awake on his bed in his small New Orleans apartment, he wondered if it was actually a good thing. It had allowed him to explore different career opportunities. The term private military contractor made it seem so respectable. But he hated sugarcoating. He was by definition a mercenary.

  The work at first had been mundane, escorting convoys, protecting rich people who led dull lives but, nevertheless, felt important enough to be surrounded by former special operators. It was enough to drive a man insane, Blake decided.

  One day, almost a year ago, a colleague had told him about more exciting work. There were businessmen ready to pay for people willing to circumvent the law. Suddenly, he wasn’t protecting dull people anymore. He was protecting dangerous people.

  And danger was exciting.

  It wasn’t long until he understood that he was no longer a mercenary. He was hired muscle. It didn’t register even a blip on his moral compass. The day that the Navy had kicked him out was when he’d realized that he didn’t give a single shit about respectability. He was done playing by other people’s rules. All that mattered now was getting paid for his particular set of skills.

  His reputation grew and so did his business. Now he was allowed to run his operations, being his own man. In fact, he was about to embark on his most important mission yet.

  “Alpha? A word?”

  Blake looked up at the man in front of him. It was Beta. For this operation, each man had been assigned a code name according to the Greek alphabet. Beta was his second in command tonight. The sheer sight of him tended to terrify people. He was built like an Abrams tank.

  “What is it?” he said, beginning to put his pistol back together.

  “I just received word that Epsilon is still being held up. His contact at Customs had to go to the hospital for her kid, so there was a delay. He won’t be able to join us for at least another six hours.”

  “Shit. Contingency?”

  Beta shook his head. “He’s bringing in the explosives. It would be risky without it.”

  “And setting off after he gets here screws up our schedule.”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  Blake sat up from the plastic bucket he’d been sitting on and worked the kinks out of his neck.

  “Okay, the operation is delayed twenty-four hours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Inform the others. We strike tomorrow night.”

  “Aye aye, boss.”

  Beta walked away and started talking to the men. Blake holstered his weapon and then went to his maps, which were laid out on another reeking table. He couldn’t smell it anymore. He was focusing on the plan, as he had for the past few weeks.

  He smiled as he looked at his notes. It was quite appropriate that the name was Murder Island.

  Chapter 6

  Oliver woke up early, something he rarely did on Saturday mornings. But he hadn’t slept much and he intended to go for a run, anything to make him feel alive. He needed this because after last night’s announcement, he felt the opposite.

  To meet a crime lord had been sobering. Some people, when they found out that Oliver used to work on Wall Street, they figured he was used to it. More than once he had been accused of being complicit with everything that was wrong with America. The greed, the unchecked practices of the big banks, the white collar criminals. Everyone was lumped together.

  Hell, they wouldn’t even be wrong about him.

  And yet Oliver had never imported cocaine in the country. He had never held a gun to somebody’s head or even thrown a punch. Sabatini had. He must have, right? The Rampoldi crime family, it wasn’t exactly choir boy stuff.

  Through all the years he had been in New York, he had read his share of news stories about murders linked to these mob types. Gang wars, reprisals, the whole “sending a message” business.

  He pondered this as he ran out of the guesthouse and explored the island. The temperature had cooled since last night, but it was still better than Cleveland any day of the week.

  He never would have been here—would have needed to be here—if he hadn’t tried to bend the rules. At the time, trading on insider information had seemed so benign. Everybody was doing it. Where was the harm? The entire American economy had been built on guys like him taking shortcuts.

  The problem was that he had timed it wrong. He’d been so focused on raking in millions in commission that he had never seen that merger with Goldman Sachs coming. This made his bosses scrutinize everything. The books had to be perfect so they wouldn’t miss out when the golden parachutes were doled out.

  The books hadn’t actually been tiptop and Oliver’s scheme was rapidly uncovered. In a twist of irony, it was that same Goldman Sachs merger that kept him out of prison. His superiors kept this hush-hush, cleaned house, and Oliver was shown the door.

  His name became toxic, his wife cleaned him out in the divorce, and he had to exile himself to Cleveland. He was hoping that eventually memories would fade and that he’d be able to return to New York someday. This weekend was his opportunity.

  There weren’t any road signs, but it was easy to find the beach. It was by a lagoon, the water a bright turquoise that Oliver didn’t believe really existed. Any other day, he would’ve thought this color had been designed for Chamber of Commerce postcards.

  He cleared his head by looking at the island more closely. In the daylight, it was more impressive and more beautiful. The small mountain to the north was overgrown like a
jungle and he couldn’t see the communication station that Clifford had mentioned. In fact, he could barely see the road which spanned the entire length of the island since it was camouflaged by the vegetation.

  On the opposite side from the beach was the marina where they had docked coming from the yacht and he couldn’t see it either from here. Everything was isolated which made the island seem even larger.

  Dinner had been delicious last night although it had been somber. They hadn’t talked much after Sabatini had announced the real reason of their visit. He had wisely decided to let his guests absorb this new information.

  Nothing was said that confirmed that Sabatini killed people for a living or did anything illegal. It was as if whatever assumption they made was validated and deemed enough to keep everyone on their toes.

  After coming back to the guesthouse, Oliver and the others hadn’t even chatted about it, aside from a few “holy shit” comments. They were all too shell-shocked to really believe what was going on and discussing it would be too strange. Conversely, no one had talked about turning this opportunity down. They all needed the money.

  Oliver was walking up the beach, anxious to go explore the mountain—after all, it was only seven o’clock—when his phone buzzed. He slowed down and pulled it out. It was a text message instructing him to go to the main house for breakfast with everyone as soon as possible.

  He cursed the fact that this meant he couldn’t go back to his room to shower and took off toward the mansion. One of the security guards—a guy named Roger—let him in, but there was no one else to direct him.

  Oliver wandered until he was out by the pool. He figured that even though it was overcast, it was still nice enough to have breakfast outdoors. But there was no one. He was about to turn and go back inside when he noticed a towel on the lounge chair next to him.

  This brought his attention to the water where he finally made out a figure deep below. From the flowing hair, it was a woman. Was it Gina? He didn’t want to be a creep, but he still had the urge to see her in a swimsuit.