Murder Island (A Rogan Bricks Thriller Book 3)

by Steve Richer

  “Anybody seasick or planning to be?”

  There was a round of laughter, just as he’d anticipated. These guys were veterans, professionals. They weren’t about to get seasick. And if they were, they’d certainly know how to handle themselves.

  Clearing his throat, Blake made each operator sound off and repeat their part of the operation. It was as much to find out if they knew their roles by heart as it was for everyone to get the confidence needed to complete their own tasks. In his experience, Blake was aware that this made a team much smoother in their work.

  “Any other hiccups before we leave?”

  At that, Beta cringed. “The weather.”

  “I thought this was under control.”

  “It still is, sir. For now. There’s no telling how this hurricane will turn out.”

  Blake looked at his watch. As well-trained as he was, he was enough of a student of military history to know that Mother Nature had as much say into operations as generals did. A headwind, a storm, a harsh winter, they were all liable to destroy your tactical advantage. Napoleon had basically lost his empire because of bad weather.

  But his plan was solid.

  “Our timetable is tight,” Blake announced. “We have plenty of time for the insertion and the strike. According to the plan, our escape route will take us away from the hurricane’s path. Worst case scenario, we wait until extraction.”

  “Aye aye, Alpha.”

  “The mission is a go, gentlemen. Let’s load up!”

  No one snapped to attention, no one saluted, but the sense of discipline was the same. Everyone hurried out of the warehouse, jogging to the three cigarette boats moored to the peer.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  On Saturday night, the team was once again invited to stay for dinner at the main house. Tonight it had been a choice between pasta with mussels and lacquered duck. Bill had both.

  After talking about business all day, no one said anything about banking or money through the entire dinner and Oliver was glad for it. It was as if they didn’t want to mention anything since Sabatini was at the table with them.

  Talking among themselves, discussing drug money, it was kind of theoretical when they analyzed spreadsheets. But with this mobster with them, it made it real so they avoided talking about it in his presence.

  There was also the fact that they were exhausted. Oliver could barely stand on his feet despite having spent the day sitting down. After Sabatini retired, the group remained at the house for drinks and they did resume their financial planning. After all, no one wanted to miss out on the bonus money.

  Eventually it was enough. Bill and Orland watched a movie in the projection room. It was The Blind Side and while Oliver enjoyed it, he had seen it three times before so he walked back to his makeshift office to double-check numbers.

  “Raymond making you watch The Blind Side again?”

  Oliver spun on his heels to find Renna looking at him. He hadn’t seen her since dinner and now she was wearing a long satin robe. From her cleavage, he wondered if she had anything underneath. She was sipping a glass of champagne.

  “Oh, hi. Yes, it’s that movie.”

  “Every time we have guests, that’s the movie he shows. He has a thing for Sandra Bullock.”

  “It’s a good movie.”

  “I prefer something with romance in it,” she said, walking slowly toward him.

  Oliver swallowed, nodded, and went to the table where he busied himself rifling through his notes. She followed him until he felt her body heat over his skin.

  “I was thinking about going to the sauna. Want to join me?”

  Oliver turned back to her. Was she serious? She was probably teasing. Then again, he would be pretty stupid to pass up this opportunity.

  He knew that in twenty years, when he remembered this night, he would wish he had taken her up on the offer. How many times in your life did a gorgeous young woman invite you to join her like this? People were usually naked in a sauna, right?

  She stared into his eyes as she drank some champagne. She was waiting for an answer and he opened his mouth to give her one. But which answer?

  Chapter 10

  Oliver couldn’t act stupid and said what he knew was the right thing.

  “I think I’m fine right here, Renna. Thanks for the offer though.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Christ, was he? She was giving him a second chance. However, some decisions carried heavy consequences. Making a move on the hot wife of a powerful crime lord had to rank as one of the dumbest things one could do.

  That’s what Oliver reminded himself as he smiled tightly. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Your loss.”

  She walked away and he couldn’t help watching her go. He hadn’t been near a butt like that since college. You could bounce quarters off that thing, he thought. And he had turned it down. Foolish move. Maybe five minutes with her would have been worth cement boots.

  He left his notes and went outside to the pool, hoping fresh air would clear his thoughts. On the way, he ran into Clifford.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Outside,” Oliver replied with a frown, not understanding why he was being treated like a child who needed to justify himself for everything.

  The assistant looked at his watch. “It’s midnight.”

  “And? Are there any pumpkins I should be worried about?”

  “Most of the security staff goes off duty at midnight. We can’t have anybody walking around outside with no security. In fact, I just heard that Mr. Swank and Mr. Lush are being driven back to the guesthouse at the moment.”

  “Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

  Oliver acted as if he was grateful for the information and walked away. He took a right toward the kitchen and then turned at the dining room to go back toward the pool. It worked, Clifford wasn’t there anymore and he had no trouble reaching the pool area.

  While he had expected to be alone—had wished it, actually—he wasn’t. Gina was there. She was by herself at the bar, sipping some sort of juice. She glanced over her shoulder at him and he could swear she groaned.

  “I won’t ask you if you mind me joining you.”

  “Then why are you coming over,” she asked.

  He grinned and sat next to her on a stool. “Am I that repulsive?”

  “Listen, Oliver, don’t try anything. We’re here for another day and I don’t want to start anything with anyone.”

  “I’m that transparent?”

  “Like glass.”

  “And here I thought I was smooth.”

  She shook her head. “You’re not. So whatever is going on in that head of yours, forget it. You have no chance with me this weekend.”

  “What about another weekend? I’m sure there’s a shuttle between Cleveland and Nashville. I’m gonna be flush with cash tomorrow night. I’m not afraid of flying back and forth.”

  “Forget it,” she said although she was smiling a little.

  She looked down at her drink while he stared at the ocean on the horizon. The moon was obscured by fast-moving clouds. It wouldn’t be long until it rained.

  Off to the right was a shadow. It moved. He was about to wonder out loud what this was when he realized there had been someone in that spot all day. He was part of the security guards. A sentry. Oliver hadn’t told anyone how stupid he thought this was to have people standing guard on a remote island.

  To him, it was like having cookies on the top shelf so that your toddler wouldn’t get to them. There was no sense posting a guard to keep the baby away because it was already out of reach. Maybe you become paranoid when you become rich, he decided.

  From the corner of his eye, he observed Gina. He thought it strange that he suddenly felt more attracted to her than he was to Renna. Twenty years ago, he would have thought this completely nuts. Renna was perfect. She belonged on top ten lists. She probably had her own shrines.

  But Gina held his attention. She was smart and didn�
��t go out of her way to be sexy like Renna. That in itself made her far more interesting. It was just his luck that the woman he wanted was evidently not feeling the same about him.

  He pulled out his phone and she groaned again.

  “You’re not going to ask for my number, are you?”

  “Everything isn’t about you, you know.”

  She raised her hand in defeat. “Fine. Sorry I asked.”

  “I’m checking to see if I have any messages from my son. Sometimes his mother is not a total bitch and she makes these little video messages for me. He’s five, doesn’t write yet.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “Unlike his mother,” Oliver added, years of bad memories with Ashley rushing back. “This is weird…”

  “What?”

  “I can’t seem to get a signal.”

  Gina said, “Kind of normal for an island in the middle of the Caribbean, no?”

  “I was able to get the house’s Wi-Fi all day. I’m getting nothing right now.”

  At that, Gina produced her phone and flicked through it.

  “Me neither. I can’t connect to any network. They all come up unavailable.”

  Oliver looked at the sky again. “Maybe it’s because of the storm coming.”

  “Maybe.”

  However, Gina didn’t seem convinced. She slid her drink to the side and rose to look at the other side of the bar. She searched for a moment and found a telephone set. She grabbed it and placed it on the counter before putting the headset to her ear.

  “There’s no dial tone,” she said.

  “It’s a landline. The weather shouldn’t affect this.”

  “I know.”

  She hung up and tried again, shrugging to let Oliver know that the phone was still dead.

  “Maybe we should go tell somebody?”

  “Like who, Verizon? It’s midnight. I’m sure it can wait until morning.”

  Oliver was about to agree with her point when he saw movement that was definitely not normal. The shadow—the sentry—it disappeared in a flash. Moreover, Oliver could swear that at the same time he’d heard a thud.

  “What is it?” she asked when she noticed his expression.

  “I’m not sure. The bodyguard who was out there just vanished. Like he collapsed. I think we’d better tell Clifford.”

  They left the bar and headed back into the house. Oliver had the eerie sensation that maybe it wasn’t so stupid to have sentries after all. But what exactly had happened and why was he now breathing so fast?

  Chapter 11

  Oliver cringed when he slammed the door behind him as he rushed inside the house. If there was some sort of intruder, it would be stupid of him to bring attention to himself. Anyway, it was too late to take it back.

  Gina was ahead of him. She was on a mission and reminded him of a mother taking charge. A few years back, he had been at the mall with Ashley, Jeremy being in his stroller. They were already in the phase when they talked to each other only when absolutely necessary. Spending time with one another had become a chore.

  In an effort to limit their amount of time together, they split up the errands as they walked into the mall. Unfortunately, it was also at a time when they’d stopped listening to each other. Ashley said she was going to Walmart on the left, Oliver said he was going to pick up dry cleaning on the right, and in their haste they both assumed the other was taking care of Jeremy.

  They had left him alone. It had nearly given Oliver a heart attack when he came back and saw that the stroller was gone, and that it wasn’t with Ashley. She blanched and they both ran to the information center, where a good Samaritan had taken their son. The way Gina was marching forward was exactly like how Ashley had acted.

  “Clifford?”

  They turned left, they turned right, they were back into the maze of this house as there was no answer.

  “What do you think happened out there?” Oliver asked.

  “I don’t know. You’re the one who saw something.”

  “You think he was assaulted by some sort of intruder?”

  “It could have been a heart attack, no? Maybe it’s nothing but a medical emergency. Clifford!”

  Oliver shook his head. “It didn’t look medical.”

  That was it, he thought. The way the man had collapsed was like no medical emergency he’d ever seen, in real life or on TV. One second the guy was on his feet and the next he was going down. Something was fishy.

  This island, he muttered silently. He had a bad feeling about this. Everything was piling up to jinx this weekend.

  At last, they climbed a few steps and entered a sumptuous room with dim lighting. The centerpiece was a pool table with red felt.

  Clifford was there, near the wall where a bar was built into it, covered with mirrors and recessed lighting. The young man looked sheepishly at the two guests, quickly taking a sip of his drink.

  “This isn’t what it looks like,” he said.

  “What does it look like?”

  “This scotch. Mr. Sabatini totally gave me permission to drink it. I was assured that I could, I swear.”

  Oliver glanced at the nearest bottle. It was a 1926 Macallan and he remembered someone at a party years ago mentioning this. It cost something like fifty thousand dollars a bottle. This guy definitely wasn’t allowed to drink it.

  “Forget it,” he said. “One of the sentries outside just when down.”

  “Down? What are you talking about?”

  “He just collapsed and it didn’t look like a coronary.”

  Clifford lowered his drink, dismissing it completely. “Wait, are you saying somebody hit him?”

  “Hit, shot, whatever. Get security.”

  “Oh boy,” Clifford whispered before draining the last of his expensive booze. “It’s after midnight, all the security personnel has gone back to the staff house. Well, Johnny and Sal are here.”

  “Get them,” Gina ordered.

  Clifford put his glass down and produced his phone. With surprise, he looked up at the guests.

  “There’s no signal.”

  “Yeah, same for us. Where are Johnny and Sal?”

  “Uh, upstairs somewhere.”

  “Let’s go.”

  They left the room and followed Clifford. They went down a corridor and took a right. This was some kind of hallway, but wide enough to have its own furniture. One wall was made up of glass and he could see the ocean down below.

  More than that, Oliver spotted a shadow.

  It was out in front, low as if someone was crouching. It was a man, this much was certain. Was it another sentry? Was he armed? He couldn’t tell either way.

  There were a hundred possibilities and Oliver struggled going through all of them. He could tell the others what he had seen. He could question Clifford as to what to do.

  But he had seen the shadow in a fraction of a second. There was a chance that, if he stopped and brought the others’ attention to it, it would be already gone. So he decided to simply let it go. For now. The important thing was to get to one of the security guards.

  They turned a corner and something caught Oliver’s eye on the ceiling, a white circular disk. It was a smoke detector, that much was obvious. That gave him an idea that would solve multiple problems at once.

  Against the wall was an antique console table. It was constructed of ebony and carved in a tremendously ornate pattern. It had to be worth thousands, if not more. He grabbed it before unceremoniously dragging it to the middle of the hallway.

  “What are you doing?” Gina asked.

  Without answering, he climbed on top and reached the smoke detector. He pushed the button on it and the alarm went off.

  “Why the hell did you do that?” Clifford screamed while covering his ears.

  Oliver motioned for them to continue running away in their search for one of the security guys. After turning another corner, the sound wasn’t so deafening anymore.

  “Best way to get the guards to us,” h
e said.

  He didn’t tell them that it was also a way to scare the shadow outside. If he was indeed a suspicious character, it might make him go away. Oliver congratulated himself on this bold move.

  But before he could genuinely explain his reasoning to the two others, they made a left at the next corridor where they came face-to-face with Johnny. The man was shocked and everyone stopped in their tracks.

  “Don’t move!” he said, raising a pistol and aiming it directly at Oliver.

  Oh shit. What if the threat wasn’t coming from outside? What if it was already in the house?

  What if Johnny was the real enemy?

  Chapter 12

  Bill and Orland were swaying in the backseat of the Jeep as they headed back to the guesthouse. The fat man rolled his eyes and groaned.

  “How about they pave this road, uh? I mean, the guy has this giant house with all the amenities a normally-constituted human could ever want, and yet they can’t lay down some asphalt? Sabatini’s priorities are wrong.”

  Orland glanced at him but didn’t reply. Instead, he looked at their driver. His name was Alex, another member of the security force. He was gaunt, his cheeks caving in, giving him a skeletal look.

  “And was I the only one falling asleep during that movie?” Bill continued. “Poor black kid gets saved by rich white woman and plays football. Big deal.”

  “It’s a good movie,” Orland replied.

  “Whatever. It wasn’t enough to distract me.”

  “Distract you from what?”

  “From this!” Bill snapped, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Let me tell you, I’m really ambivalent about why we’re here, okay? I chose corporate law because I wanted to stay away from criminals. Some guys go corporate because they want fat checks and country club memberships. They follow in their daddy’s footsteps or they want to get into politics. Not me, no way.”

  “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me why.”

  Bill nodded emphatically. “You bet, I am! When I was in law school, I spent a few months participating in a free law clinic. You know, you have a cheap folding table with two plastic chairs and people who don’t know enough to stay away from law students come to you for legal advice.”