by dannal
“Looks like Chris-Craft, one of those old wood boats,” Josue shouted. “Real fancy.” Max knew the young Haitian was monitoring the property’s surveillance cameras from a large touchscreen tablet from his seat at the kitchen table. With the swipe of his finger, Josue could toggle through the outputs from each of the cameras.
They were mounted all around the villa, as well as at the top of the viewing platform Max and Josue had built into the tops of the ilet’s tall slender balatá trees. From the tablet, Josue could also operate the controls for some of the cameras’ pan, tilt, and zoom functions.
Max gave the barrel of his pistol a good wipe with a clean rag and dropped it into the pistol’s slide. He replaced the guide rod and spring and reassembled the weapon, attaching the slide to the frame. Max replaced its magazine, the one he kept loaded with only three 9mm hollow-point cartridges. He stood up from his desk, racked the pistol’s slide, and then holstered the weapon, smoothing his long sleeve black shirt over it to conceal the weapon.
“I’m ready,” Max said with resolve. “Josue, are you ready?” Max checked his other pistol, the .40 caliber FNS compact, which was a small double-stack semi-automatic with an extended magazine; it gave him fourteen shots in the magazine, and one in the pipe. Max checked the weapon, confirming it was loaded to capacity with fifteen hollow-point cartridges.
Josue stepped out of the kitchen, and walked down the hall carrying a Ruger SR556, and black military-style Interceptor body armor strapped over his torso. He pulled back the charging handle of the Ruger and let it go. The handle snapped forward and loaded a 5.56 round into the chamber. The rifle’s Leupold VX-6 scope would make the sporting rifle precise and deadly from his perch in the lookout. Then Josue slung the rifle over his shoulder. “Ready, Boss.”
“Stay out of sight if you can, Josue. If I bring anyone up to the porch, don’t let them know you’re covering them with a rifle. The lookout platform should be enough out of sight they won’t even see it.” Max felt the blood coursing through his veins. He couldn’t believe that zero hour had finally arrived. He had waited so long to look into the eyes of Everest Walsh and each of his men, and now it was all about to go down.
“Remember,” Max said, “what we’re selling them is me as a mild-mannered bootleg rum distiller, not a man whose fire has been slowly burning for years, waiting patiently for them to arrive so he can burn them down to the ground.”
“Steady, Boss,” Josue said. He placed both hands on Max’s shoulders. “You’ll be okay. Breathe.”
Max took a deep breath. This moment had been far too long coming for him to relax. He was so wired he felt like a walking grenade begging for someone to set him off. “Okay,” he said, shaking some of the nerves out of his hands. He made sure his shirt covered both pistols. “I’m going down to the dock.”
“Wait,” Josue said. He reached into his pocket and produced a small aluminum box. He flipped it open and removed a tiny earpiece embedded into a foam cutout. Josue made sure the diminutive device was switched on, and Max screwed it into his ear. The miniature communicator virtually disappeared into his ear canal.
“Check, check, check,” Max said. “You read me.”
Josue nodded. The clear wire of a communication earpiece coiled between Josue’s ear and a radio Velcroed to his vest. He turned away from Max and whispered. “Read me, Boss?”
Max gave Josue a thumbs-up. “Show time.”
Max’s feet made a steady, rhythmic pace as he walked down the villa’s porch steps, and onto the dirt path through the trees leading to the pier. He strode with purpose, all the time running various scenarios through his mind. What if they opened fire on him? How would he respond to that? One pistol? One in each hand? How many of them could he cut down before they killed him? Calm down, Max.
The boat that approached the dock was a fully restored 1930’s era Chris-Craft. Its mahogany sides and deck looked as smooth as glass, varnished and polished to deep, shiny perfection. The red, white, and blue flag of the Dominican Republic rippled above the boat’s rear deck as it cut through the warm tropical wind. The boat seemed as if it belonged in a museum, yet here it was pulling up to the dock at the end of Max’s pier.
Max waved at the two men in the boat, as if he were happy to see them. Truth was, Max did not like the look of either man. And his familiarity with them was both unsettling and disheartening, like a dark cloud that had just rolled into his life. Max promised himself he would become the dark cloud to these men; the fact they didn’t know that would prove to be their undoing.
The first guy was maybe six-foot-four and built like a UFC fighter. His thick head of peroxide-blond hair gave one a sense of confusion: at first glance one might assume he was Caucasian. But a second glance in which one observed the man’s bronzed skin and dark brown eyes suggested he was actually Latin American: Dominican, Puerto Rican, or Cuban, most likely. The guy looked tough, and he appeared to be around twenty-nine or thirty years old. Tattoos crept like a growing organism up the man’s neck, giving Max an unsettling sense they might suddenly grow even more and choke the guy to death.
The other man, the one driving the boat, was squat, maybe five-two, although he appeared to be made up almost entirely of thick sinewy muscle. He was one of those guys you would write off as a fat guy, only to find out too late he was the strongest man you’d ever encountered. This fellow appeared Latin American as well.
UFC hopped out of the boat and grabbed the bow to keep it from slamming into the dock until he and the short, dumpy guy could tie it off. They made quick work of the task and then UFC walked right up to Max.
“You Maxwell Craig?” the statuesque blond asked.
Max’s heart pounded in his ears. His throat was bone-dry. He knew he had seen both of these men before. And there was only one place in time he could have seen them. Max thought about his pistols.
“Yeah,” Max managed. “I’m Max. How are you guys doing today? You come in off that big yacht? Pretty impressive vessel.”
The tall man handed Max a white envelope, which featured Max’s full name printed in silver lettering. The tall tattooed man summarily hopped right back on the boat. In seconds, the two visitors had untied the show-quality vessel, and were motoring away from Max’s dock as quickly as they had arrived.
Max wasted no time. He ripped open the envelope to find an expensive-looking invitation card inside. It reminded Max of the invitations you picked out for your wedding and sent to all your family and friends. Except this one read:
You are cordially invited to dine as a guest of Everest T. Walsh this evening onboard his yacht the Snowy Lady
Transportation will be provided by boat; pick-up time 7:00 pm sharp
Business casual attire is expected
No contact information was provided for an R.S.V.P. Max wondered what the protocol would be if he couldn’t make it. Maybe that was the point; perhaps Walsh was telling him in a subtle way that he didn’t have any choice in the matter.
As the Chris-Craft grew smaller in the distance as it neared Everest Walsh’s massive yacht, Max wandered back toward the villa, meeting Josue beside the porch. The agile younger man had climbed down from his perch at the lookout platform, and now stood by with his rifle still slung over his shoulder.
“Walsh wants me to meet him for dinner,” Max said, still peering down at the silver letters.
“That is good, no?” Josue asked.
“Yeah,” Max said. “I suppose it is exactly how I hoped things would play out these many years. It just seems surreal now that it’s actually happening.”
“Instructions?” Josue looked like a soldier at attention.
“I want you back up in the lookout,” Max said. “Gather as much data as you can before the boat arrives back here at the dock. You have the 400mm super telephoto?”
Josue nodded. “Two Canon DSLRs set up to shoot video and stills, and I’ll be shooting thermal imaging video from the FLIR as well, just in case.”
“Good,” Ma
x said. “Boat’s coming at seven. We’ll be ready. I’m going down to the cave and see about grabbing something special to take to Walsh.”
“I suggest the 2013 élevé sous bois,” Josue said. “You remember? Aged in cognac barrel. Very good bottle.”
“Yes,” Max agreed. “I am rather proud of that myself. I think there are still a couple of bottles of it socked away, behind some of the barrels.”
Josue nodded and headed back into the dense underbrush, where he would find the partially concealed steel cable ladder he would climb back up to the lookout platform. Watching the young man climb—his effortless movements were like liquid, as if he were slowly defying gravity—Max suddenly felt a pang of guilt for involving his friend in everything they had planned. It was Max’s family who had been cut down by the gunfire of Walsh’s man, not Josue’s. The young Haitian had never even met Max’s wife and kids. Yet here he was, ready to face a dangerous pool of enemies for the honor of Max’s family.
Max stepped lightly down the wooden steps into the ilet’s cavern. He was so familiar with his rum-making operation, he could have found his way around the humid, subterranean distillery without a light. But he threw the switch and time seemed to freeze.
Max found himself face to face with a towering black man who stood in place, holding up a machete, cocked back, ready to strike. After the initial split second of shock, Max let his countless hours of training with Josue take over.
Max let the intruder swing the blade down toward his neck. Max blocked the machete strike, hitting the man’s right wrist with the side of his left hand, fingers tucked down, bladelike. The machete clattered to the floor, and Max flipped off the cavern lights, enrobing them both into shadow.
In the first instant of darkness, Max used the mental photograph his brain had taken of his environment to strike his right fist square into the assailant’s face. A sickly sound of crunching cartilage, and possibly bone, echoed throughout the cavern.
Next, Max slithered around behind the man like a deadly python. Before the invader even had a chance to think about the pain in his wrist or face, Max slipped his arm around the man’s thick neck, locking it down with his other arm. He twisted and brought the heavy man down to the ground.
Max’s powerful choke hold subdued the massive man, whose body writhed and twisted as he struggled to get free of Max’s viselike grasp.
As Max wrapped his legs around the man’s torso, further restraining his aggressor, he became concerned about the intruder’s free hands.
The huge, wounded man reached his arm far around Max’s body. Max cursed as the man fought to get his hand on the FNS pistol holstered on Max’s right rear hip.
“Uggh,” Max grunted as he wrestled the uninvited behemoth.
He pulled harder and harder on his choke hold. Then Max felt his pistol slip free from its holster.
Max released his hold on the man’s throat. He grasped the intruder’s wrist of the arm holding the gun.
The pistol went off twice with shockingly loud, echoing reports, and two stabs of blinding light.
A sickening snap resounded as Max broke the man’s right wrist, pulling it back against the front of his shin. The gun tumbled to the cavern floor.
Max fumbled for the gun and retrieved it, holstering it. He clicked the light switch on.
As quickly as he had holstered the weapon, he reached for it again as he caught sight of someone standing at the top of the stairs above him. He saw the barrel of a shotgun.
“Easy, Max,” Vivienne Monet said. “It’s me. You okay?”
Max turned to the guy he had just bested, and was sickened by what he saw. The large black man rolled on the ground in agony, reeling from the pain in his wrist. Max guessed his left radius and ulna were both likely cleanly broken. The guy’s face was awash in blood from his crooked, broken nose.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Max shouted at the man. “Who sent you?”
The beaten man hesitated at first, but said, “Molière paid us to come here and trash your still, your barrels of aging rum. He told us not to get caught.”
Max looked past the wounded man and saw that his still and aging barrels, as well as the rest of the rum-making equipment, appeared to be intact, except for a pool of rum below an aging barrel which sat at the top of the stack, slowly trickling the sweet liquid from a gash on the side. An axe lay on the ground next to the barrels. He was relieved that he had encountered the man before he had done any more damage.
“This guy will need medical treatment,” Vivienne said, covering the fallen intruder with her shotgun. “I took care of the other guy.”
“Other guy?” Max said, surprised. He looked at Vivienne’s outfit. What an intriguing woman, he thought, as he took in the sight of her bulletproof vest, shotgun and bandolier, as well as her military-style combat boots. And still the lovely Martinican looked as if she had just stepped off a private jet on her way to a photo shoot. She wiped away beads of sweat from her face and let out a big sigh.
“I like this look on you, Viv,” Max said. Then he noticed the trickle of blood that ran down her side, staining her pink tank top above her hip. Closer inspection showed him the long gash in the private investigator’s side. Max’s blood boiled.
He rushed up the steps to find the other intruder writhing on the grass, just outside the cavern’s mouth, his arms and legs bound with crowd control zip ties. Max pulled a SOG spring-assisted folding knife out of his pocket and slashed through the ties. He tossed the knife aside and grabbed hold of the man’s shirt and pulled him up into a sitting position. Max crushed his fist into the man’s face. He let the guy fall back onto the ground. And then Max hopped on top of him and began to pummel his face.
“Max, stop,” Vivienne said. She stood beside him; she placed her hand onto his shoulder. “It’s okay.”
Max pounded the man again, and the guy’s face looked blank, as if he had lost consciousness with his eyes open. Max struck him again, and again.
“Max, it’s over,” Vivienne said, trying to push Max off the guy. “He’s done.”
Max continued to maul the thug in the face.
“Stop it, Max,” Vivienne shouted.
Max turned his head and saw the barrel of Vivienne’s twelve gauge inches from his face. His lips spread into a smile. “You’re gonna shoot me? To save this guy, who tried to kill you?”
“I handled it, Max. He’s done. Now get off of him!” Vivienne looked surprised herself to be covering Max with the shotgun. But Max knew she couldn’t stand by and watch him kill the guy, even if he was a criminal and a trespasser, and he had cut a woman with his knife.
Max rolled off the guy. He stood up, and spat on the grass. His breath came in quick panting breaths, and his face dripped with sweat.
Josue rushed onto the scene. “Boss, Boss, you all right?”
“I’m fine, Josue.”
“Oh, boy,” Josue said, looking down at the pummeled intruder. “He in bad shape, Boss.”
“These men are groundskeepers from La Maison de Verre distillery, near Le Francois,” Vivienne explained. “I gave the distillery owner my report about you, Max, because that’s what he hired me to do. But before I gave him my report, I made him swear he wouldn’t come after you. His pants were obviously on fire.”
“What?” Josue asked.
“I think she’s saying that the distillery owner is a liar,” Max offered.
Vivienne smiled. She unstrapped her bulletproof vest and dropped it on the grass.
“Get the other guy up here,” Max said to Josue.
Josue helped the wounded man up the stairs, as Vivienne threw a bucket of cold water and ice she had filled in the kitchen onto the other man’s face. The unconscious man came to after a few seconds, though he seemed rather disoriented at first. Josue forced the older man to kneel.
Vivienne held her shotgun at low ready as Max addressed the men. “You guys got some cojones coming onto my property. You’re lucky you’re leaving this ilet al
ive today. Period.” Max did his best not to lose control and start yelling at the men. He knew an icier tone would resound in their heads with much greater impact.
“You came here to attack me? To wreck my distillery operation? You attacked this woman? You cut her?” Max’s voice started to rise. “Where’s that guy’s machete?”
“No,” the huge man who had grappled Max in the cave protested. Josue rushed down to retrieve the weapon from the cavern floor. He returned and handed the long-bladed weapon to Max. “Please.”
Max stuck the tip of the machete into the dirt. He used his foot to press on the side of the blade, starting a deep bend in the blade. Then Max used his hands to fold it the rest of the way over. He grabbed the machete by the handle and threw it as far as he could. It splashed into the turquoise water, just beside the ilet’s long pier. The machete-wielder looked relieved.
“You fellows look like you’re related,” Max said, smoothing out his nylon shirt. He was dismayed to find a long tear by one of the chest pockets. “Father and son?”
The younger man nodded. The older man gave his son a stern look, as if he shouldn’t have offered such information.
“I’m not calling the police on you,” Max said, this time making his voice sound explicitly chilly. “I’m letting you go. But if I ever see either one of you on this property again, you’re done. Do you understand?”
The bloody-faced man held his shirt up to his nose; he clearly was in a great deal of pain from his swollen wrist. But he nodded with obvious reluctance. The younger man did so as well.
“And I will tell you this, not as a threat, but by way of giving you my solemn word,” Max said, peering directly into the father’s eyes. “If I hear that you went to the police about my rum operation I won’t just come for you.” Max drew his FNS pistol and aimed the muzzle directly at the son’s face while he stared into the father’s eyes. “I’ll come for him first. Then I’ll find you. Then I’ll look for anyone else who might so much as know your names. Do you understand?”
