He stepped back and bent over, hands resting on his knees, to check the license plate. It was from Texas. He made note of the number.
There was the faintest hint of sound, like the rustle of clothing, just as he felt something cold and metallic press against the back of his neck.
"Don't move a muscle!" The voice was low, commanding, with a hardness matching the object jammed into Burke's neck. "In case you're wondering, this forty-five-caliber Sig Sauer would take the top right off your head. All I got to do is pull the trigger a tiny bit more, mister. Don't tempt me."
Burke froze, his heart thumping rapidly. The cold gun barrel pulled away from his neck as he heard the man take a step backward. He could whirl and try to kick the gun, if he were bent on suicide.
"Now raise your arms slowly. That's right. As high as you can get 'em. Stand up straight."
He was close enough to see Burke's combat fatigues.
"Damn! I got me a P.O.W. Okay, soldier, move to your left. Keep those arms high. Out into the light."
Burke's mind was racing. How had he let himself get trapped like this? He was sure everyone would be asleep at three-thirty in the morning. Don't assume anything, Lori had warned. How right she was.
He knew he'd have a better chance facing his opponent. "Let's talk this over, friend," he said, trying to keep his voice calm. And he began a slow turn to the right.
The blast from the automatic pounded his ears at the same time the sand kicked up next to his right foot. He froze again. What would Brackin do, he wondered? He should be waiting in the shadows not too far away.
"Don't try any more tricks, soldier," the man said. "Next time it'll be in the middle of your back. Start walking forward, slowly."
Before he had taken two steps, Burke heard the sound of voices and running feet coming from the area of the living quarters. Then he saw them, a gaggle of men dressed only in their underwear, the first two with guns drawn.
"Everything's under control," his captor said with a shout. "We got ourselves a P.O.W."
The lead figure stared at Burke’s fatigues. "Where the hell did he come from?"
"I don't know," the first gunman said. "I happened to see a light flash in the truck while I was taking a walk. I snuck around the shop and heard him close the door. Then I jumped his butt there in back of the truck."
They were now standing near the truck's cab. "Did you check to see if anybody else was in there?" a man with a slight British accent asked.
"I haven't had time. You guys were so damned sure those intrusion detectors would warn us. How do you explain him?"
"I'm positive the system was operating," said a short, husky man obviously shaken by what was happening.
Burke listened to them argue as he glanced from face to face. He recognized the last one to speak as Blythe Ingram. The tall, dark-haired man with the bulging muscles and the English accent, was he Emerson Dinwiddie, the bogus salesman in Hong Kong? He saw Robert Jeffries looking like a man contemplating a pending disaster. He wore a chain around his neck with some kind of gold pendant attached to it. The big guy with the funny face was undoubtedly the large figure in the photo. A dark-skinned, slender figure stood off to the side, detached from the others. Burke thought he had a Middle Eastern look about him. The heavyset old white-haired guy standing unsteadily in the midst of the group had to be the cook.
A young man with sandy hair and a commanding voice nodded toward the Englishman and Burke’s captor. "You two check out the truck while I frisk him."
As they headed around the vehicle, Burke was ordered to spread eagle and lean his hands against the truck in the classic search posture. He was patted down, his Ruger, Minox and billfold removed.
"All right, straighten up and turn around."
Burke saw the man look in his billfold. "Douglas Bell," he read. "Private Investigator." He looked up. "You're in a hell of a lot of trouble, mister. This is a United States Government reservation."
Burke had let his hands drop to his sides. He glanced briefly to the right as the two men returned from their search of the truck. It was his first look at the bare-chested man in jungle fatigue pants, who still held the Sig Sauer in his hand. He considered the face borderline handsome, though it held more than a hint of bitterness. He noted a tattoo on the man's left arm at the shoulder, some kind of insignia. Crossed arrows over a knife, or something like that.
"Nothing there, Ted," the Englishman said. "Apparently he's alone."
Burke spoke up, looking at the one called Ted. "The sign on the beach said U. S. Government contractor."
"Semantics," Ted said. "It isn't going to make much difference when we turn you over to the FBI. What were you after? Who sent you?"
Whoever this one was, Burke thought, he had picked the wrong party to bullshit with that FBI talk. "You know the ethics of the profession," he said with a shrug. "I can't divulge the name of my client or what I'm investigating."
Ted examined the Minox. "People don't go picnicking with 8mm cameras and ultra high speed film."
They were all standing beneath the glow from the sodium light. The one with the tattoo had returned his pistol to it's holster, leaving only Ted and the Englishman with weapons drawn. A deep voice suddenly boomed from the shadows beyond the truck's hood, and every head turned to see the barrel of the Walther pointed at them from the curve of the windshield.
"Freeze right there, gentlemen," Walter Brackin said, phrased in his normal polite manner. "You two, very slowly, throw your weapons to the side, beyond Mr. Bell."
Burke grinned. Special Forces to the rescue. Good old Walt had sure picked the right moment to intervene. Ted and the Englishman, looking angry enough to chew rocks, did as they were told.
"Very good," Brackin said. "Now if you'll stand there quite still while my friend—"
His voice choked off abruptly as they heard a dull thud, the sound of a karate chop striking Brackin's right shoulder. Walt had shifted his stance at the last moment, saving himself from the full force of the blow. But the Walther clattered against the truck hood and fell to the ground.
Burke had started bending over to pick up the guns. He stopped at the sound of the blow and found himself suddenly slammed to the ground by a diving Englishman. One of the pistols was hardly two feet away. He wrestled to free an arm and reach for it, but the attempt was in vain. The hulking figure with the odd face, obviously one of the Jabberwock team members, had jumped in to pin his arms against the sand.
A few moments later, he heard a Mideast-sounding voice call out from beside the truck. "I suspected he might have a partner. What do you want done with this one?"
“I’d say this calls for a summary judgment, and the two spies should be shot,” said the man in camouflage fatigue pants, waving his gun toward Burke.
“Put your weapon away,” Ted ordered. “There will be no executions until we have some answers.”
Burke looked across at Walt Brackin, whose eyes were closed, his lips pressed together in a thin straight line. His right shoulder was obviously causing considerable pain. They were tied securely at the wrist, each arm bound separately to the back of the wooden chairs. They were in a small office area that occupied one corner of the machine shop. Since there was nothing but water for miles around, their captors hadn't bothered with gags. But they had taken no chances. The cook called Sarge leaned against a table a few feet away, an Army-issue .45 in his beefy right hand. Something didn't look quite right about the way he held the gun, but Burke was too concerned about the next move to pursue the thought.
Before they were hustled into the building, lights had been turned on throughout the campsite and around the perimeter of the island. It looked like party time, and any unwelcome guests would be subjected to a perverse kind of hospitality. The group was dispatched in pairs, two in the Jeep, to search for possible additional intruders.
Fifteen minutes later, Ted and the Englishman returned to the shop.
"We found your raft," Ted said. "And the rope you used
to get over the perimeter security. Very clever. You didn't come all this way in a damned raft with a little electric motor, though. Where's the boat?"
Burke and Brackin stared at him in silence. Then Brackin let out a low moan and clenched his teeth.
"What's the matter with you?" Ted asked.
"Damned shoulder. It's killing me. Must be fractured. I need something for pain."
"You'll get more pain if you don't do as you're told." Ted turned to Burke. "This is no PI game, Bell. I want some answers, and I want them fast. Is there anyone else with you?"
"Yeah, we brought your mother. You may have heard her barking out there."
Ted nearly toppled him over with an open-handed blow to the face. "Smart ass! Who sent you out here?"
Burke shook his head and blinked his eyes a few times, then glared at his tormentor. "Mickey Mouse. Who else?"
Ted drove a fist into his stomach, bringing a choking gasp.
Burke’s head and shoulders toppled forward, and he struggled to catch his breath. Finally, he was able to lift his head and press his back against the chair, taking short, rapid breaths. Despite the blow and the powerful slap, which still rang in his ears, he was determined to divert their attention from any thoughts of going after Lori.
"It appears our visitors are going to be a bit more difficult than anticipated," the Englishman said. "As entertaining as it might be to pursue this, I doubt there's time at the moment."
Ted glowered. "What the hell are you suggesting?"
"I think we should get the men and equipment away from this island immediately. Bob can fly the team out. He could circle the area and see what kind of boat they came in, see if it appears likely anyone else is aboard. He can radio back to us."
Ted didn’t appear any happier, but he nodded. "Somebody should go with Blythe on the boat. He may need help, the way the weather's looking."
"I'll go," Sarge volunteered.
Ted and the Englishman exchanged apprehensive looks, leading Burke to conclude they had serious misgivings about the cook’s ability to help with the boat.
"I'll go with him," said the Englishman. “We’ll take Hans along in case there’s a need for heavy lifting.”
Ted, like Golanov, knew the success of the mission depended on making certain the team joined with Ingram and the truck and got safely on their way to Arkansas. The contact in Little Rock would be made by Ingram. Plans for painting the truck on Sunday had already been agreed upon. Ingram would hide the team members in a motel, arrange for the auto theft gang to pick up the truck and return it to a certain location. There would be no physical encounter with anyone. The trail had been carefully blurred through a labyrinthine series of approaches to prevent its being traced back. The auto theft operation had been contacted by a counterfeiter, a former cellmate of one of the gang members. The counterfeiter had been recruited through an ex-cop, who in turn was approached anonymously by telephone. He knew only that the caller had spoken the correct words.
"All right," Ted said. He had seen the threat of imminent physical violence, and the even more effective threat of imminent death, bring a torrent of words from the mouths of more than one reticent cold warrior. "Sarge and I will babysit these two. Bob can fly the other two team members back. While Sarge and I are waiting, I'll see what I can dig out of these assholes."
"You might want to get a little guidance there," Golanov said. "I've dealt with some of your private detectives. This one doesn't fit the mold. He should be protesting his innocence and demanding that you release him. He may be something entirely different, requiring special handling."
"You have a point, Andrew." He needed to advise the "old man" about this development anyway. He turned to Sarge. "Keep a close eye on these two while we get things moving."
"Don't worry," the old soldier said. "They ain't going nowhere."
Chapter 38
They could hear the shouted orders outside, instructions to load everything in the truck and onto the boat. Then the rumble of the truck's engine as it started and quickly moved away. The quiet was broken again by the sound of Jeffries' airplane being warmed up. Soon they heard the droning engine fade off into the distance. An ominous silence enveloped them, like the oppressive stillness before a tornado.
Brackin moaned again. Sarge pushed up from his resting place against the table and walked to one side, taking a closer look at the injured right shoulder. He shifted the gun to his left hand, rubbed the right against the stubble under his chin.
Ted returned shortly. Sarge looked around. "They see anything from the airplane?"
"A small sailboat about a mile out, on the side where we found the raft. Didn't see any lights or people. Apparently they came alone." He turned to his captives, a smile on his face. "I have some good news for you, if you want to call it that. The 'old man' says to forget the rough stuff." He paused to get their reactions. Both had guarded looks. "He's sending someone for a proper interrogation, with intravenous needles."
Burke felt a cold chill ripple down his spine. Truth serum. While it couldn’t compel a person to speak truthfully, it would make them particularly talkative, without much concern for the subject. A skilled interrogator could draw out information the speaker wanted to keep hidden.
"We'll find out how you tracked us down here, Mr. Burke Hill."
Burke's heart skipped a beat. How had they discovered his true identity? A description would be the only way. Or would it? He had taken a chance by using his real name at Aerial Photomap and Starr Security Fence. And, of course, with Toby Callahan. He thought of the anonymous call he had made to the Acapulco Princess. Might it have spurred Jeffries to talk to Toby? He glanced around at Brackin. Somehow they had to engineer an escape. But being bound to sturdy chairs, constantly menaced by a lethal Army .45, the chances looked slim. Walt hardly appeared in shape to fight his way out of a paper bag, and the pain in Burke's stomach wasn't encouraging.
The man called Ted continued chatting, apparently just to taunt them. "It will be interesting to learn how much you know and who you're working for, Hill. And who your friend here is." He turned back to Sarge. "I need to make a few more calls. Then I'll do a final check of the buildings, be sure nobody left behind any little hints about who was here."
"Don't take too long," Sarge said. "I may...uh...I may have to go to the latrine."
Ted laughed, shook his head and walked out.
"What time is it?" Burke asked.
Sarge frowned. "You got an appointment?" Slowly, he checked his watch. "About four-thirty."
Burke noticed that something seemed to be agitating the grizzled old man. His voice sounded jerky, like someone on edge, and he was shifting about nervously. Glancing around at his partner, Burke got the impression that Brackin was making the same observation.
Then Brackin suddenly screwed up his face, gritted his teeth and blurted a long drawn-out, "Shhhiiittt!"
Sarge shot up straight, eyes blinking. "What the hell's wrong?"
"My damned right arm, feels like it's coming off. Loosen the damned rope on it. Please! I don't care if you tie two more onto the other one."
Sarge stared across at Brackin's contorted face with a troubled frown. Burke could imagine his thoughts. He was obviously an old soldier, had heard them described as P.O.W.’s. You didn’t deny medical attention to prisoners.
Finally, he made his decision and walked around behind the chair, fumbled with the knots. Each movement was accompanied by a painful grunt from Brackin. After an eternity, he went over to a workbench and brought back a screwdriver.
"Knots are too damned tight," he muttered. But he finally worked them loose from the right arm. When he grasped the wrist, Brackin flinched and uttered a sharp, unintelligible growl.
Sarge moved back to his former spot and cradled the gun with both hands.
"Thanks," Brackin said with a sigh.
"You gonna be okay?" Burke asked. He wasn't feeling too good himself.
"Hopefully. Sorry I messed things up for
you."
Burke shook his head. "You tried."
"Yeah, I tried." His voice turned philosophical. "You know, it's the little things in life that can really screw you up. Like a little foot drag that seems so insignificant you disregard it. And a little headache that keeps coming back but you try to ignore it. Then you go to your doctor and get the diagnosis. It hits you like a brick—brain cancer."
Burke raised an eyebrow. What was all that leading up to?
"I made a mistake by not counting heads. There should have been eight out there, but there were only seven."
Burke nodded. "You weren't alone. Even the best make mistakes in the heat of battle. I didn't see that guy cut out. I had no idea who hit you."
Sarge had been listening with a deepening frown. Finally, he waved the pistol toward them. "That's enough talk. You can hold your talk for Ted. Save yourselves a heap of trouble."
Burke shrugged his shoulders, as best as he could the way he was tied. He attempted to shift his position a bit, constantly aware of the pain in his stomach. Then he looked around at Brackin. He had to fight to keep his face from showing the shock he felt. From the angle where he sat, he could see the back of Brackin's chair. Both of his hands were waving, free of the ropes. What was he going to try? Sarge held the gun, and he was far enough away that an attempt to rush him would mean almost certain death. But if they didn't do something soon, Ted would be back, and the chances then would be nil.
Hoping to distract the old man from noticing what Brackin had done, Burke licked his lips and said, "I'm dying of thirst. Isn't there any water around here?"
Sarge stared at him with a grimace. "If there was water in this damned place, I'd have had some. I told that bastard Ted not to—"
His voice broke off as he saw Brackin suddenly push himself away from the chair and lunge toward the cook. With both hands, Sarge raised the automatic, pointing it directly at Brackin's chest. Burke could see the finger gripping the trigger. All he could do was cry, "No!" In that split second before the expected blast, the thought seared through his mind—what will I tell Lori and Chloe?
Beware the Jabberwock (Post Cold War Thrillers) Page 26
