by David Gilman
Xavier’s brother eased the throttles back. The wind had picked up on the open ocean and small waves lapped the hull. Alejandro nudged the subdued engines forward toward a fishing boat and shouted in Spanish to the two men aboard who caught the ropes thrown by his men.
When the engines were cut and the boat was tied alongside, the silence was complete.
Max stayed where he was. This was no place to jump ship. They weren’t even in sight of land, and they had been pounding the ocean for hours. At those speeds and with the boat’s extra-long-range tanks, they must have covered hundreds of kilometers.
Xavier looked nervous.
“What’s happening?” Max asked him.
“We do the drugs run. We need boats out here to refuel us. This is our gas station,” he said, and smiled. But his eyes scanned the skies. What was it that scared him? Max wondered.
Alejandro’s men seemed unconcerned about anything other than feeding a fuel line into the tanks, and then Max heard the muffled thumping of a generator below the fishing boat’s decks.
The fishermen handed over a cold box. Alejandro’s men opened it and passed out food. Cold meat, sausage, chicken, flat bread, beer and soft drinks. Max made no move toward it, although he was ravenous. He was in an unpredictable situation and felt it best to be as low-key as possible. Stay still. Stay silent. He did not want to tempt fate and have Alejandro dump him out here. Even if he’d spared his life because of the debt he owed Max for saving his brother, he could easily leave him on the fishing boat to be eventually taken ashore.
“Kid,” Alejandro said, offering Max bread and meat, “eat. There’s enough.” He nodded at Max as if enticing a nervous stray dog forward. Max took the food gratefully and had no concern for whatever it was that he ate. It tasted good—salty and tough—and made the juices in his mouth run.
Bobbing in a boat on the deep blue sea, with barely a cloud in the sky and a warm trade wind scuffing the surface, he could have been on a picnic. But he kept his eyes on the gang leader and his gunmen. Max would not be lulled into any false sense of security.
He turned to Xavier. Now that the battering speed had stopped, the boy seemed more subdued. “You all right? Your wound? Does it hurt?” he asked.
“It hurts, but it’s OK.”
“Where are you taking me?” Max asked, daring to prize information from them.
“Yucatán. South.”
Yucatán! Max kept the gasp of excitement locked in his chest. That might take him close to the border with Belize. If he could get ashore and make his way inland from there, he might have a chance to pick up Danny Maguire’s trail.
“Down the cays. Plenty reefs and islands,” Xavier said, his mouth full of food. “You will like it there. We get into the jungle and no one can find us. No one. Out here”—he scanned the horizon again—“there are Coast Guard boats and their helicopters.”
“American patrols?”
“Maybe. We are out of American waters now. But the Yanquis, they pay good money for our people to hunt us down. They all hunt us.”
Max tugged a shred of meat from between his teeth. If government patrol boats found them, he would be repatriated. He would never get to the rain forest and find out what had happened to his mother. His thoughts whirled. Escape now seemed impossible. Even if they got within sight of land, he would not be able to jump ship. Like jumping out of a fast car onto a motorway, hitting the water at the speed the boat traveled would be no different from landing on concrete.
He would go all the way with these men and pray that as soon as he got ashore, he would be able to make a run for it. That was the best bet. But run where? He did not know that yet.
One of the smugglers lifted a shrink-wrapped carton of water bottles onto the boat. With a slash of his knife, he cut free the plastic and handed them out. Everyone drank thirstily. Saltwater spray encrusted Max’s face and hair from the accelerated ride, and after swallowing as much as he could, he tipped the remainder of the bottle over his head and face. Once the sticky film was sluiced away, he immediately felt better. Wind-burned and tanned, and now with a full stomach and his thirst quenched, he felt stronger and more able to tackle whatever lay ahead in the next few hours.
The man who’d ripped the plastic wrap free from the bottles threw it into the sea. Without thinking, Max shouted at him, “Hey! Don’t do that!” The generator stopped, the water lapped and the breeze made a hollow echo in Max’s ears. That was the only sound as the men stared at him in disbelief.
“Dolphins and turtles die because of that kind of stuff,” he mumbled. Big mouth, slow brain. Why had he chastised a man who looked as though he could rip him apart with his bare hands? But no one made a move toward him; instead, they looked to Alejandro.
“He’s right, Carlos. The boy is right. What are you, an ignorant peasant?” Alejandro said.
“Sí.” The man nodded.
“You let a fish die slowly because you throw away a piece of plastic?”
The man shrugged.
Alejandro kicked open the lid of a box, and Max could see it was packed with grenades and snub-nosed machine pistols. Alejandro reached down and took out a grenade, testing its weight like a bowler with a cricket ball. Max felt the lump of food he’d just eaten regurgitate. He swallowed hard. Xavier’s brother looked every inch the kind of man who could cause you very serious harm. There was no humor in his eyes. Probably never had been. He yanked the pin, flipped the grenade and everyone ducked—except Alejandro.
A softened boom! and a geyser of water rocked the boat. Spray covered them and Max saw twenty or more fish float to the surface.
“I am a kind man. I bring death quickly. Yes? You think I care about fishes in the ocean?” asked the man who helped destroy thousands of lives with his drug smuggling. Alejandro and his henchmen laughed, but Xavier and Max did not. Max averted his eyes from the drug smuggler’s. Push a man like that a sliver over the edge and he would forget any sense of obligation or family honor. Max would be fed to the fishes with a grenade tied round his neck.
Alejandro shouted at the men in Spanish. They were obviously commands to cast off and release the fuel lines. No sooner had the boat been pushed free than the monster engines bellowed, churned water and hurled the boat forward. Max was slammed back into the seat. He saw Xavier’s look of concern. The boy raised a finger to his lips and shook his head. The message was clear. Don’t ever challenge his brother.
Cazamind’s power reached far and wide. He had the support of a vast complex of government and corporate infrastructure. Police in Miami were somewhere near the very bottom of authority and power, but Cazamind’s contacts had been busy. The news of Max Gordon being involved with drug gangs was immediately backed up by intelligence reports that a known drug dealer, Alejandro Escobodo Garcia, had been in Miami that night. And someone had contacted the Drug Enforcement Agency to cut a deal. Complete immunity for Alejandro in exchange for information about the drug-shipment routes that flowed up from South America and their dispersal points from Central American countries. It looked as though Alejandro wanted to get out while he still could. It was an excellent opportunity for the American intelligence agency.
Drug dealers were of no interest to the Swiss master planner. The secret he was protecting was more terrifying and dangerous than the international drug trade. Within hours of Max’s disappearance, Cazamind had tracked police and FBI reports, collated all the information and concluded that Max Gordon had stumbled into this very scenario. For whatever reason, the smugglers had taken Max with them.
The Drug Enforcement Agency had issued an intercept command to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron to chase down Alejandro Garcia and to arrest and detain him.
It would be a clean sweep that snared a turncoat drug dealer.
Arrest and detain.
If they did that, Max Gordon would be found and sent home. Was it better that way? From everything Riga had told him about the boy, he would keep on trying to unco
ver the secret of his mother’s death. He would have to be dealt with in England if he returned. A risk worth taking?
Cazamind picked up the phone. The intercept command must be changed.
Arrest and detain was insufficient.
Locate and destroy.
In Alejandro’s world, millions of dollars changed hands, and buying information was easy. There was always someone who needed a new car, a health plan for their children or a means to pay off their own bad habits. There were informers at every level, and people like Alejandro Garcia had them in his pocket.
Now one of them told him that he had been betrayed.
Alejandro braced himself against the boat’s controls, the satellite phone pressed tightly against his ear. He eased back the power, spoke quickly and turned to look behind the boat, across the plumes of water.
“Carlos!” Alejandro’s man stepped forward to take the controls.
Xavier flinched as his brother stared at him in disbelief. “Usted me traicionó. You betrayed your own brother?”
Xavier cowered into Max. Alejandro had not made a move toward him, but the man struck fear without raising a hand.
Alejandro gestured to Carlos, who eased back the throttles.
The boat slowed quickly and then settled into the ocean’s swell. The silence was frightening; the engines’ roar had at least muted Alejandro’s anger.
Xavier turned to Max and spoke rapidly in English as if the foreign language might disguise his guilt.
“They said they would take us and give us a new life!”
“Drug smuggling is a death sentence!” Alejandro yelled.
“No, no! They come for us now there is no trouble. We are going home. We have no drugs on board. You see? They cannot charge us with anything,” Xavier pleaded. “This is not a life, brother. We can live in America. They will look after us. They promised!”
The men stood silent, dumbfounded by the discovery of the traitor in their midst, but they could make no move against their leader’s brother. If the boy was to die, and surely he must, then it had to be by Alejandro’s hand.
“It is a way out,” Max said, wanting to break the imminent threat of the violence he knew was about to be inflicted. “They can’t charge you with anything.”
“You are wrong. Kidnapping is a life sentence,” he said. And then he gave a sorrowful smile and shook his head. “Xavier, you are a fool. You made your deal before he came aboard,” Alejandro said, pointing at Max.
Xavier looked confused.
“Do I kill him now?” Alejandro said. “Tip his body in the water? Then there is no kidnapping, eh? No evidence?”
Max was ready to jump, but knew he could never survive the gunfire that would surely follow.
“He saved my life!” Xavier cried.
“And I was in his debt. But you are no longer my brother.”
Alejandro eased a semiautomatic from his belt, pulled back and released the slide, loading a round into the chamber. It was the moment before their deaths.
“He’s still your brother,” Max said desperately. “He’s your blood. He did it because he loved you. He was trying to protect you.”
Alejandro raised the gun and gazed along its barrel.
“It’s too late,” he said.
He lowered the weapon. “They’re here.”
The Coast Guard’s Hamilton-class, high-endurance cutter lay sixty kilometers beyond the horizon, but its attack helicopter came like a low-flying vampire bat out of hell—and it was looking for blood. Precision laser-sighted, .50 caliber rifles, nestled next to M240, 7.62 mm machine guns, lethal weapons that exemplified this unit’s special status—AUF, Airborne Use of Force.
Alejandro powered the go-fast boat into a rearing surge, and like a white stallion given its freedom, the boat charged forward. Max held on to Xavier, who fell to the floor, grasping his wound as he slammed into the bulkhead. The boat slewed right, snaked and then headed due west, toward the setting sun.
“He won’t outrun a chopper!” Max yelled over the engines.
Xavier shook his head. “He’s going for land—for the inlets.”
Max squinted against the blurring light and spray. There, on the ragged horizon, was a scribbled pattern of palm trees. Alejandro was taking the straightest route while shouting instructions to his men. They opened the weapons box and armed themselves.
“He’s crazy. That’s exactly what they want him to do. That gives them an excuse to shoot back.”
Xavier’s face streamed with tears, but whether they were caused by the buffeting of the wind or by his emotions Max didn’t know.
The helicopter was less than a kilometer away now—and so was the shoreline. The waves had disguised the distance between boat and shore, and Max could see the narrow, curved beaches, the rocky outcrops and the headlands. Reefs intertwined like bracelets, settling the swells into narrow strips of calm water.
The walloping downbeat of the rotor’s blades flattened the air above their heads. The helicopter was less than a hundred meters above them. The expert pilot shadowed Alejandro’s every evasive move. But then Alejandro swung the boat in an almost suicidal maneuver. For a moment it felt as though they would all be thrown overboard. The boat nearly flipped and fell onto its side, engines screaming in the air as they sought the water that fed them. The helicopter zoomed past.
Alejandro turned to Max. “Get ready! I’m going across the reef! You take Xavier.” He paused a moment and locked on Max’s gaze. “He can’t swim. You get him ashore. You saved him once. You save him again. Yes?”
Alejandro was giving him his life. Max nodded.
“He’s a fool, but he’s my brother,” Alejandro said. “Get ready.”
A tortured, ripping sound reverberated through the boat as he ran it across the reef. The helicopter was coming in again. Max gripped Xavier’s shirt.
“We’ve gotta jump, Xavier. You stay with me.”
Xavier looked bewildered. He cried out in Spanish to his brother, who turned and answered him. Max didn’t understand what they said, but he knew that one brother was sacrificing himself for the other.
Alejandro looked at Max and nodded. The engines suddenly slowed; the boat wallowed in its own wake. Max didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Xavier and pulled him over the side. As they hit the water, the boat’s engines surged, churning the sea into a twisting confusion of foam.
Max was out of his depth but quickly hooked the struggling Xavier under his arms. “Kick your feet! I’ve got you!”
Max pulled Xavier after him, calming the boy’s panic. Beyond the reef, Max could see the boat zigzagging and the helicopter weaving to keep alongside. Alejandro had fooled the pilot, making it look as though they were running for the mangrove inlets and had caught the reef, momentarily losing control. For a few seconds the boat and the wave concealed Max and Xavier, and once Alejandro was back on the open sea, the helicopter crew was focused on him and him alone.
Dark shadows glided beneath Max’s legs. Sharks. Don’t panic. They must be reef sharks. His mind urged him to remember that most predatory sharks were outside the confines of the reef—unless there was a break in the reef wall.
Max felt the sand beneath his feet and the slushy entanglement of turtle grass—soggy strips of lasagne-like kelp. “We’re there, Xavier. Come on, we’ve got to reach the trees.”
They floundered, forcing their legs to push against the weight of the water, and fell onto the hard, wet sand, which was darkened by palm-tree shadows and low, overhanging branches. Max pulled Xavier deeper into the shade. The gentle waves lapped behind their heels, but their footprints were still visible. There were barely a few meters of sand, trimmed halfway with a ribbon of seaweed, as light as lace. Max bellied back to the water, brushed the sand smooth and edged up the weed to disguise the scuff marks.
Back in the safety of the tree line, he turned and watched the cat-and-mouse game between boat and helicopter. Max could see the boat was not as maneuverable as the chopper. They must be taking
on water. It had been damaged on the reef.
The gentle thunder of waves on the reef muted the cracking of gunfire. Flames spat from the side of the helicopter. Two of the men in the boat pointed machine pistols in the air, fired and then fell back as blood exploded around them, the heavy-caliber rounds smashing their bodies. The other two men were still alive on the boat. Alejandro steered with one hand and fired his pistol with the other.
The helicopter seemed to shudder, then dipped its nose like an angry bull readying to charge. A sudden shattering noise reached Max and Xavier as the violence from the gunship assaulted their senses. Sustained firepower poured into the boat in angry response to its resistance.
A vivid flame blossomed, ballooning outward, then sucked back in on itself as the inferno in the boat’s fuel tanks made them explode. Moments later, the sound of the explosion washed over the two boys.
Xavier cried out and ran toward the water’s edge. Max grabbed him. The boy fought free, yelling his brother’s name.
“They’ll see us! Xavier. Wait!”
Max threw him to the ground and pinned him into the wet sand. The wildness went out of the grieving boy’s eyes, and Max felt the strength seep from Xavier’s body. Max forced him to his feet and pushed him back into the undergrowth.
The helicopter turned like a beast sniffing out another victim.
Max didn’t wait for it to find them. He grabbed Xavier and ran him deeper into the trees. Within fifteen meters, they had lost sight of the sea, and the tangled undergrowth made it almost impossible to penetrate any farther.
Scratched, bleeding and soaking wet, they rested, gaping upward through the jungle canopy, involuntarily holding their breath, as if the shadow that roared above the treetops might hear them.
