Moving quickly, Charity got to the porch and swung up onto it, as quietly as possible. She had just reached the door when it swung open and the man stepped out. The sound of her Sig’s hammer being thumbed back stopped the man halfway across the porch.
“Do not move,” she said in German, her words slow and deliberate. “Very slowly and quietly, bend over and lay your rifle on the floor.”
“Who are you?” the man said, his voice cracking.
“I am a friend,” Charity replied. “But I will kill you if you take another step. Those men out there will kill you if I let you do what you are planning to do.”
The man’s voice was full of conviction when he said, “I will kill them all with my bare hands.”
“I have no doubt that you can in a fair fight,” she whispered. “But it is one against twenty and they have guns, too. You will die.”
The man’s big shoulders drooped and he slowly bent over, laying his rifle on the deck. As he rose, he turned to face Charity and gasped.
She realized what a sight she must be, like a plant come to life. With her Sig leveled at the man, she slowly reached up and slid the hood all the way back, letting the headset fall inside it.
“Who are you?” the man asked again. “Why are you here?”
“I am a friend of the forest people,” she replied, searching for the right words in German. “I have come to free them of the babo and his men.”
“I speak your language,” the man said in broken Spanish. “English as well. How did you get here?”
“I am an American,” Charity replied in English.
“American? But why? How did you get here? Did you come in the black helicopter?”
The man’s English was better than his Spanish. Not your average farmer, Charity thought.
“I flew the helicopter,” she replied, now remembering having seen the big man as she flew over. “I was listening at your window just now. I can’t let you go out there after the man who raped your daughter. Not yet, anyway. When the time is right, I will let you have your revenge.”
Charity heard footsteps coming toward the door and stepped back against the wall, out of sight from inside.
“Erik,” the man’s wife said in German, “please do not do what you feel you must.”
Erik looked inside his house and held a hand up, palm out, stopping his wife. “Stay inside, Gretchen. We have a visitor.”
Using the barrel of the Sig, Charity motioned Erik toward the door. Once he was through it, she followed. The woman gasped, clutching a hand to her mouth.
“I will not harm you,” Charity said in halting German.
“My wife and daughter both speak English,” Erik said, turning to face Charity. “How many are you?”
“I’m here alone,” Charity replied. Then taking a chance that the man she was after wasn’t well-liked by those under his rule, she added, “I’ve come to kill the babo.”
“Beisch?” Gretchen asked, the tone of her voice telling Charity all she needed to know, as well as the man’s name.
“Yes,” she replied. “And any of his men that get in my way.”
“Not Karl Aleksander,” Erik said firmly. “I will kill him with my own two hands for what he has done. But you are one woman and they are many.”
Karl Aleksander, Charity thought. The man who shot at her twice. The man responsible for terrorizing Vicente’s people and killing many of them.
“They seem to be expecting an army,” Charity said. “I had little trouble slipping past them. Will you help me?”
“Yes,” his wife replied, before Erik could utter a word. “He has been responsible for many disappearances here and has ordered the murder of many of the people to the south. I think he killed my boys, for wanting only to leave.”
The young girl came into the room and was about to scream when Charity turned toward her. Erik held a finger to his lips and said, “This woman is here to help.”
The girl wasn’t a girl at all. She had the face of one, perhaps in her late teens, but she was already a full-grown woman. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. She’d changed from her nightgown to jeans and a flannel shirt.
Charity turned toward Erik, not wanting to dwell on the girl. What she’d just gone through brought memories flooding back. Squashing them down, she asked, “How many people are here in the settlement?”
“Here at the farm, or on the whole island?”
“Both.”
“Fifty-one here at the farm. Nine families and three single men.” He furrowed his brow in thought. “Perhaps seven hundred up the hill in town, nearly all born here. Maybe fifty or sixty have been brought in from outside. We tend to keep to ourselves here on the farm, and it is rare that anyone from town visits.”
“How many would you guess would move to protect Beisch?”
“All those out by the wall,” Erik replied, pointing with his chin. “None of us at the farm, and only a handful of the townspeople. He is an evil man, worse than his father.”
“Are those men out there all the security people?” Charity asked, a plan formulating in her mind.
“Yes,” said Erik.
“No,” the young girl said, stepping forward. “I overheard Karl order one man back to the main house where another was already there, to protect Mister Beisch.”
Charity holstered the Sig and looked outside. “So those men out there are the only security for the island.”
“Beisch’s henchmen,” Erik corrected her. “Just as black-hearted as him. All of us here at the farm have guns to hunt with. We supply the whole island with food. Except for what the fishermen in town provide. But we have very little ammunition. Just before a hunt, cartridges are distributed by Aleksander, and any that are unspent are confiscated.”
Charity stepped outside and picked up the rifle, recognizing it as an American made bolt-action Winchester with a small scope mounted on it. She carried the rifle back inside and extended it to the big farmer.
“Will you help me?” Charity asked. “I need to get to Beisch’s house without any of those men knowing. And I need you to not do anything while I’m gone.”
“The sun will be up before you can get there,” Erik said. “And it will be impossible for you to get through town without being noticed.”
“You said nine families are out here?” Charity asked. “And three single men? So, only twelve men? How many are armed?”
Erik grinned. “We have twenty-five men here at the farm. It would have been twenty-eight with my sons. And all have guns, but no more than a couple of cartridges per man that we have been able to hold back from the hunts.”
Charity nodded her head toward the door. “Can I speak to you outside, Erik?”
The big man turned toward his wife and daughter with a serious expression. “Do you have any feelings for this man at all, Jenifer?”
To her credit, the young girl straightened and looked her father in the eye. “I thought I did. I was fooled. He is a monster, no different than Beisch.”
“Go to your room,” he ordered her. “Stay with her, Gretchen.” His wife was about to protest, but Erik cut her off with a single word. “Now.”
As they stepped out onto the porch, Charity pulled on the night vision headset, switching it to thermal imaging. She looked all around, noting only a few small heat signatures moving through the corn.
“You have mice in your corn,” she told him, removing the headset.
“What is that thing?” Erik asked.
“It allows me to see in the darkness and to see heat from living animals. It’s how I was able to sneak past you, as you sat on the porch.” She started down the steps, to put a little more distance between them and Erik’s family. “There isn’t anyone around,” she whispered. “I need that vehicle out there and somebody to drive me to where Beisch is.”
“What do you propose?” the big man asked.
“You and the other men here?” she began. “You’re hunters. Are all the men good with a rifle?”
“The best,” he replied. “But Aleksander’s men have much more firepower. We can barely put a cartridge in each rifle.”
“I can help by giving you the element of surprise. And stealth.”
“Just who are you?” Erik asked again. “And why do you want to help us?”
“My name is Charity. I was sent here on a mission to kill Beisch. Why he’s been targeted by the American government, I don’t know, and it’s none of my concern.”
“You are an attentäter, a hired killer?”
“An assassin, yes,” she replied, finally comfortable with the word. “Sent by the American government. But that can never be revealed. And when everything here is done, it will be said that you and the other farmers led a revolution against Beisch and his men.”
Erik considered it a moment, then a slow grin spread across his broad features, “One of my field hands has been ordered to go into town and bring Beisch here after the sun rises.”
Karl was awakened by one of the sentries, just before dawn. His sleep had been restless, thinking about the girl just a few hundred yards away. She’d protested, and fought like a little jaguar— but in the end he’d simply overpowered her and taken what would soon be his to enjoy, anyway.
Twice during the night, noises had awakened half the camp. Both times it had been only crocodiles catching wayward tapirs as they went to the river to drink. The whole camp had been nervous at dusk; now they just looked tired and bored.
The babo had instructed him to send one of the farmers on the ATV, an hour after the sun rose. The leader wanted to inspect the camp, along with Leon Himmel. Karl had chosen the last watch, so that he would be in the tower when the leader arrived. But just now, all he wanted was to have Jenifer again. He’d found it quite enjoyable, the way she’d struggled.
He rose and stretched, looking in the direction of Wirth’s house, before walking toward the river to relieve his bladder. When he got back to the camp, he went to the nearest tower and ordered the two men to come down.
Climbing up, Karl looked out across the field on the other side of the wall. Though the sun hadn’t cleared the jungle canopy yet, it was already light enough to make out details on the far side of the field. Behind him, beyond the farmer’s plants, he saw no movement around the houses, and no lights on. Karl thought this unusual, as he’d always imagined farm workers to be active before daylight.
Afraid of their own shadows, Karl thought.
Below in the camp, the men began to stir, as the cook went about stoking the fire to cook eggs and meat that one of the men had raided from the farmers’ pens. The meat was from several peccaries, a small indigenous pig that the farmers raised in a communal pen.
Half the men were sitting on the ground, near the fire, and Karl noted that most hadn’t bothered to carry their rifles out of their tents. He was about to yell down at them, when movement to the east caught his eye.
From the first dozen or so rows of corn, several farmers stepped out into the open; at the forefront was Erik Wirth. More men came out of the rows, all of them carrying rifles. This wasn’t alarming to Karl, as he knew none of them had any cartridges for their guns. The hunt was still a few days away and he hadn’t distributed any ammunition. But his men didn’t know this.
“Aleksander!” Wirth shouted, loud enough to be heard all over the camp.
The men below all turned toward the sound of Wirth’s voice. The sun was just starting to peek over the trees on the other side of the river, and the farmers all had their backs to it, spreading out in a line.
One of Karl’s men scrambled to his feet. He hadn’t left his gun in the tent like the others. As the man brought his rifle up, Karl watched in disbelief as his head exploded, sending blood and tissue splattering onto the cook beside the fire.
“If another man moves,” Wirth roared as he looked around the camp, “he too will die.”
Karl realized that Wirth hadn’t yet noticed that he was in the tower. He started to raise his own rifle, when he heard a noise to his left. When he looked, he saw the man in the other tower fall backward over the wall. Another man, standing at the bottom of the ladder, turned and raised his rifle, though the farmers were much too far away. Karl watched in horror as a pink mist replaced the man’s head, and his body slumped to the ground.
Impossible, he thought. The other tower is over two kilometers away.
Karl suddenly realized that he hadn’t heard any shots.
“Come down from there, kinder!” Wirth shouted. “This is between me and you! Do not get any more of your men killed.”
When Karl looked back at Wirth, the man was staring straight at him. How can this be? He thought. None of them have cartridges.
“You are out of your mind, old man!” he bellowed, his anger boiling over. “Where did you get the cartridges?”
“Get down here now!” Wirth roared, stepping forward and shouldering his rifle. “Or I will kill you there. If anyone moves to interfere, they will die where they sit.”
Below, not a single man moved. The only ones armed were the two that he’d just relieved. The farmers stood on the berm created by the annual floodwaters coming around the wall. They were slightly higher than the men in the camp, and the sun was directly behind them now. The farmers’ shadows stretched almost to the tents, telling Karl that his men were blinded, looking toward the farmers on the berm.
Out of the corner of his eye, Karl saw movement to his left. The other sentry who had just come down from the tower stepped out of the corn, where he’d probably gone to take a leak. When the man saw his companion dead beside the ladder, he began to run toward the body. Amazingly, he only made it three steps before he spun and fell to the ground, a stream of red arcing from his chest as he spun. A second later, Karl heard the sickening thunk of the bullet hitting him, but still no report from a rifle.
Wood splinters suddenly flew out of the post next to Karl’s head, several sticking into his face and neck.
“That was your last warning!” Wirth shouted as he took another step forward, his rifle pointed up at the tower, unmoving. “Leave your rifle and climb down!”
Slowly, Karl began climbing down the ladder, leaving his rifle in the tower. I will kill this old man with my own two hands, he thought. The others will then scatter and I will kill the old man’s wife and take Jenifer again. This time, in the old man’s own bed.
When Karl reached the ground, Wirth moved toward him, lowering his rifle, but still pointing it directly at him. “Order your men to carry their rifles by the barrel in their left hand, one at a time, and place them on the ground here.”
Quickly, the farmers fanned out into a half circle around the camp, rifles trained on the men sitting around the fire. “I know you do not have any cartridges, old man. Whatever trickery you are using will not work.”
Karl’s eyes went to Rolph, sitting by the fire. The man’s body was tensed, like a Jaguar ready to pounce. One hand was on the pistol in his belt, watching Karl intently for any signal. Karl nodded slightly and Rolph came to his feet, bringing the revolver out of his belt.
Wirth turned the barrel of his rifle and fired a single shot, the loud boom of the Winchester splitting the quiet morning air like thunder. Several birds roosting in the trees, took off in panicked flight.
Karl couldn’t believe his own eyes. Rolph froze, his pistol halfway up, and looked down at the blood spreading across his shirt in the middle of his chest. He looked over at Karl, his eyes already blank, then crumbled to the ground, one leg going into the fire.
The sound of Wirth’s bolt chambering another round, brought Karl back to the reality of the moment. As if in slow motion, the spent cartridge from Wirth’s rifle flipped end over end and fell into the dust beside him.
“How many more men are you going to cause to die?” Wirth asked. “Tell them to bring their guns out now!”
Slowly, Karl turned and looked at his remaining men—already reduced by a fourth. “Do as he said.”
One by one,
men rose and went to their tents to retrieve their rifles, carrying them carefully by the barrel and depositing them in front of Wirth, then returning to the group.
When all the rifles lay on the ground at Wirth’s feet, the farmer said, “Back away from the camp and stand over there by the door.”
Several men turned and looked at Karl, questioningly. He nodded, and the men moved away from the camp, toward the door. “Open it,” a woman’s voice shouted, seeming to come from the edge of the cornfield.
Karl watched as a pile of leaves slowly rose and took on the shape of a moss covered tree stump, pointing a branch at the men. Several of his men murmured, as the tree swept a thick, moss-covered branch up and pulled the leaves from the top of the form, revealing the head and face of a beautiful dark-haired woman.
The woman started toward his men, still pointing what Karl now realized to be some kind of rifle at them. “I said, open the damned door,” the woman hissed.
One of the men, whether out of bravery against a single woman, or stupidity, charged at her. Her long rifle barrel spat flame, making only a quiet pfft sound. This was followed instantly by the nearly silent mechanical sound of the rifle ejecting a very large spent cartridge and chambering another. The man charging her was yanked backward. As if attached to a mighty spring, he was lifted off his feet, landing with a dull thud in the dirt.
“I am not in the habit of repeating orders,” the woman said in broken German, pointing the rifle menacingly.
The men at the door panicked, all of them trying to lift the large timber at once, then pushing the door open as the woman approached. “Out,” she told them and they hurried through the door.
The strange woman approached the door and ordered them to close it, as Karl watched helplessly. When the door was pushed closed, she leaned her rifle against the wall, lifted the large timber and dropped it back into place.
“You’ve been voted off the island,” the woman said in English, pulling apart the top of the strange looking suit, with a ripping sound. She shrugged out of it and pulled the bottom part of the garment off, revealing a shapely body dressed in a tight-fitting black sleeveless shirt, black pants, and black boots. She draped the suit over one arm and picked up her rifle, then walked toward where Karl stood.
Ruthless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 2) Page 19
