Caribbean Gold

by David Leadbeater

  Crouch had always been confident about their landing point. It was where they went afterward that might prove difficult. A proper recce was called for, as they needed to know enemy positions, numbers and extent of firepower in short order.

  No sign of Jensen then.

  Crouch walked carefully along the beach as Alicia and Russo found a safe place for the dinghies. Soon, he was standing before the tree line, peering into a darker interior. As his eyes adjusted, something began to take shape.

  Something that flickered.

  “What is that?” he whispered, a breath no louder than silk on a breeze.

  “Is it a ghost?” Alicia peered hard.

  Crouch parted a lattice of branches. “Oh, hell. I never expected that. Oh no.”

  Alicia took a step back in surprise. “Am I seeing things, or is that—”

  “It is,” Crouch said, still staring. “It is.”

  Flickering for as far as the eye could see were dozens and dozens, possibly hundreds, of virtually smokeless campfires. They were all under the dense tree line, and the trees ran more than halfway up the grassy hill that formed the bulk of the island; their lurid flames painting the sides of tents crimson, the trees with blood, and large pavilions with their big stretched canvases in orange. Flames sputtered everywhere, attesting to the presence of a large group of men.

  Crouch backed away very carefully. Close to the lapping waves he gathered the team around. “I don’t know what to think. Surely Jensen can’t have gathered so large a force.”

  Alicia shifted. “We can always take a closer look.”

  “Go among them? Do you think you can pull it off? One bad move and all hell would be unleashed. I think we’re talking over a hundred men out there.”

  “I could do it,” Alicia said. “Alone. No Sasquatch or inseparable twins beside me.”

  They all glared, but said nothing. The truth was, Alicia was right and Crouch and the others all knew it. Crouch sent a glance toward the top of the large hill, the center of the island, which nobody could see from here.

  “I’m wondering what is going on. In my experience a large crew like this means an awful lot more than a random treasure hunt. I hope we anchored the boat far enough offshore.”

  “We did,” Caitlyn assured him. “Unless they sail that way.”

  Crouch nodded silently, wondering too about the fate of Jensen. Was the ex-SAS madman already here? Surely this force wasn’t his. Crouch had to believe that Jensen was in hiding somewhere, pondering options.

  “Alicia can do it,” he said unnecessarily. “And we need the Intel. I have to say though—it’s a dangerous, lethal mission. If you’re noticed, you won’t get out of there alive and we’re unlikely to be able to come in after you.” He shook his head. “It’s suicide.”

  Alicia laughed. “Seriously? It’s any day of the week, then. I’ll see you soon, guys. Don’t wait up.”

  She turned away.

  Crouch watched her walk into the lion’s den, remembering the years and the missions and finding it hard to think of a person he admired or cared for more. The worst of it was—he had let her down. The explanation was hard, and clear, but hardly flattering. Leaders were often forced to make the difficult decisions, ones they later may have made differently, and Beau’s inside Intel had paid off at least half a dozen times, foiling entire plots.

  Still, Alicia had suffered and Crouch hated himself for it. He spoke to her retreating back as she walked away.

  “Be safe.”

  She never heard it. Or maybe she chose to ignore it. Either way, the message was the same.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Flames flickered and spat at the darkness; lurid, dancing light in one place revealing the dangers, deep playful shadow in the other, concealing them. Campfires stretched across an area hundreds of feet wide and on up the steady slope of the huge hill at the end. Tents stood around the fires, some dangerously and uncaringly close to the flames. Pavilions stood dotted and tied between trees. Alicia knew this was a permanent camp, a home of sorts. But the identity of those that lived here so far remained a mystery.

  Without a sound she advanced to within throwing distance of the perimeter, taking time to pause, listen and become attuned to the camp’s general ambiance. The faint music. The raucous laughter. Other sounds came from behind canvas. Chiefly, she looked for guards and wanderers, those that might stumble upon her. Of the latter there were a few, but of the former there were none. At least, not so close to the camp.

  Perhaps they were positioned nearer the shore. After all, the only danger to these people would come from the seas.

  Alicia stood with her back pressed up against a tree, blending with the dark and the leafery as best she could. Her eyes swept the camp, flicked off every pit of fire and noted every loose piece of canvas. A man with long, matted hair and a bare chest staggered between rows, belched and then disappeared into a tent. Another came out for a fast smoke before discarding the remnants into a fire and ducking back inside his makeshift home once again.

  This man carried an old-style machine gun. The barrel dangled at his side, pointing at the ground.

  Alicia thought she might know what kind of men these were. And the knowledge was incredibly ironic.

  She felt she’d adapted to her environment enough, and stepped out into the camp.

  *

  Wearing black, wandering from point to point, blending as well as she was able, Alicia walked the campfire gauntlet. A dark sky looked down upon her, interspersed by drifting clouds tinged around the edges by the silver moon. Branches crackled underfoot, but that was fine because they crackled and spat in every small fire. The first obstacle she encountered in her path was a large, prone figure, snoring loudly. Passed out from the liquor, he held a machine gun in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. His face was dirty, his clothes old and tattered. Almost like his features, which Alicia guessed were old before their time. Seen too much and done too much. There was no redemption for men like these.

  Picking her way past the figure, she moved on. Heat from a campfire washed her face from the right. A movement against a tent wall to the left sent her to the floor, waiting patiently. It appeared to be a man falling over. She waited a minute for the snoring to start and then rose carefully and crept on. The tents themselves afforded some cover, but the dancing fires sent her shadow flitting in all directions.

  Past the tent she moved to another and another, listening hard at every step and keeping a careful eye to every perimeter. At first she worried that a woman’s figure might single her out in the camp, but she soon saw other females that were part of the crew, wandering between tents, armed to the teeth. No figures hung around the edges of the camp and she had to assume it wasn’t closely guarded. Deductions? These people had been here a while, saw no obvious danger to their settlement, and didn’t particularly care what happened during the night. They were too comatose to notice, no doubt just like Henry Morgan’s men hundreds of years before them.

  Still evaluating and listening, Alicia pressed deeper into the camp. A tent flap rattled near her left knee but nobody emerged. The sound of a rifle cocking behind her made her spin, weapon ready, but all was clear. Another undercover episode. Still composed, she picked her way among the flames.

  A head popped out of a tent opening to her right.

  “Hey girl, where you goin’?”

  Alicia thought: Girl? Really? but moved and leaned in close to the filthy individual that had spotted her. “You alone in there?”

  “Oh yeah, for now.”

  Her face hovered before his, sending an unwashed stench into her nostrils. “So what are you waiting for?”

  The man backed away inside his tent, double-time, and Alicia followed. It was a small space, taken up by a hard mattress and a backpack. Two rifles leaned against the back canvas.

  “Mattress?” the man asked. “Or floor?”

  Alicia glared. “Oh, you’re such a charmer.”

  “Been said
before, girl. By man and woman.” The man was already unzipping.

  “Oh, you swing that breadstick both ways, do ya?”

  “Huh?” The man looked down. “Well, in this camp you have to.”

  “As attractive as you make all that sound.” Alicia came close. “I have to reject you.”

  “Wha—”

  He collapsed without making any noise, unconscious, bruised around the temple. Alicia tied and gagged him, but couldn’t bring herself to help the zipper situation so just left everything hanging out. He’d probably never notice. She slipped her head back out of the tent, saw all was still clear, and resumed her mission.

  Then Crouch was in her ear. “We found a guard out by the beach. Drunk and unconscious. We think there’s another around the other side, but don’t want to get close. Keep seeing the end of a burning cigarette and hearing the sound of a bottle clunking.”

  Alicia tapped twice to show she had heard, but didn’t reply. The guards—if they could be called that—watched the sea then. Of course they appeared to have been located here for years, so complacency was a given, especially considering the amount of alcohol and drugs she’d already seen about the place.

  Someone was going to regret it in the morning.

  Still, their numbers were large enough to be worrying. And what had happened to Jensen? Alicia thought she knew. If the self-acclaimed pirate boss had known about this place, he’d have also surely known about the force that occupied it. Clearly, he’d chosen a safe route and was probably ensconced inside some rum-sodden hidey hole.

  Waiting for . . . what?

  She delved further into the camp, halfway through now and well past the point of no return. The fires still burned strong; men tended them every now and again. To them she was a shadow, barely discernible. She froze in her tracks as two men exited a tent and sauntered by, cursing and laughing at some uproarious joke. They passed her position only a meter away, not noticing the crouching blonde at the side of the nearest tent. On one of the men’s belts swung a set of handcuffs, on the other a huge hunting knife and a coiled rope. Curious. She held her breath as their boots tramped the grass before her, then stopped, the men spotting something after all.

  “What da fuck is dat?”

  “Jus’ Jeff, man. He up dat tree.”

  “Ya mon. I see now.”

  Alicia slowly turned her head so she could see what they were seeing. Beyond their waists she saw a thick oak bordering the camp and a figure sitting with his legs on either side of a wide branch. The harness that kept him up there stretched taut as he had clearly fallen off whilst fast asleep. Both men stared.

  “Y’think we should help?”

  “Naa, mon. Dis is cool. He drinkin’ too much bag juice.”

  Both men guffawed, then moved off. Alicia let out a deep breath. If the quest for Morgan’s treasure had been fraught with nothing but bad luck so far, tonight had gone a little way to evening the score. She waited until the camp quieted again before moving to an area near the back, where the slope of the hill began. Here a row of tents had been lashed together, and a perimeter fence staked down at chest height. Whoever inhabited those tents would not easily leave.

  Prisoners.

  Alicia was sure now. These men—this band of callous, neglectful, dirty, well-armed thugs—were nothing but modern day pirates. Men that roamed the seas looking for boats and people to kidnap and ransom. Men that lived to steal and hurt and terrify. These kind of pirates smuggled people, belongings and even bodies through borders and across the waves, meeting the demands of ruthless entities such as terrorist organizations and the worst criminal enterprises. Alicia knew they brought the word pitiless down to a whole new level. For most of them, life had not been easy and they had no clue how real people and the real world actually worked. They made rich men richer, and took everything they wanted.

  Alicia saw some of the signs of their occupation smoldering away in a fire in front of the row of tents. Piles of clothes, burned and still smoking. Whoever had once worn those clothes clearly no longer had a use for them.

  Alicia paused before the fence, well aware of her exposure but feeling a pull toward what could well be an imprisoned family. The area also appeared unguarded and a close check of trees and nearby tents revealed no sentries. Alicia moved to the rough gate and looked at the lock.

  A length of twine, knotted around. Classy.

  With nowhere to hide, she turned and surveyed the camp. Very little moved out there save for the flickering of flames. Another man emerged from another tent, making her drop low, but he soon vanished without even looking around. Tension caused the muscles across her shoulders to knot but she shrugged it off. Even a seasoned soldier found it hard to deal with such relentless danger and having to keep a hyper-awareness. A guard now exited a nearby tent and looked over at her. Alicia sauntered away, conscious his eyes never left her back.

  It didn’t look right. She was going to be exposed.

  “You want something?” His voice echoed.

  Alicia held up a hand and chose a tent at random, conscious that she wore no metal-plated vest or other protection in her efforts to blend. To look back would only increase his mistrust so she fell to her knees and pushed at a tent flap. The material gave and she climbed in.

  Face to face with two bearded men.

  Both stared at her with wide eyes, mouths working but making no sound. Both were bare chested and hairy. They played cards, drank alcohol and chewed on some kind of blackened meat. And, perhaps trusting some kind of brutish sixth sense, they both reached for their weapons.

  Alicia acted instantly, knowing there was no going back now. She launched herself at the men, but not in a panic-stricken way. She attacked with precision, using the lessons learned from hundreds of face-to-face battles. The man to the left was quickest, fingers already brushing the barrel of his Uzi, but it was pointed the wrong way and tangled with a bed sheet. So she swooped for the other, clamping his wrist before he managed to even touch the cool metal, twisting and breaking bone just as she clamped a hand over his mouth.

  The scream went unheard.

  Wrenching again, she twisted his arm until his face showed he was too concerned about the pain than the screaming, and she left him collapsed on his knees. Now she switched to the other man who was just bringing his own Uzi to bear. Alicia let it come around, knowing he would be fully concentrated on the weapon and its deadly uses, which was his weakness.

  The barrel brushed her forehead.

  She brought the hilt of her knife up under his chin, through the roof of his mouth and on, watched his eyes bulge and felt the machine gun fall between her knees.

  Twisting again, she didn’t let up. Her first opponent was finding an extra burst of adrenalin as he saw his comrade die. But still, like almost everyone that hadn’t been trained, he focused on the one thing he thought gave him the advantage—the gun. Alicia watched him reach out, bend slightly, waiting for the precise moment, then used his own lunge to turn him around and put a chokehold around his throat.

  No sound. No warning cries. Just the dying chokes of a ruthless modern-day pirate.

  She ended it faster with the knife, then let him fall gently to the floor of the tent. She looked around, wondering now that she had a tent to herself if there was anything of importance she might find. With low-level crooks such as these she suspected to find nothing, but would look anyway.

  Underneath the bunk was a pile of magazines and spare clothes. The low picnic table in the corner—the owner’s only furnishing—held an assortment of what appeared to be trophies. A gold watch, a pearl bracelet, a pair of cufflinks. Alicia bit her bottom lip as she stared at possessions that had once belonged to innocent people, no doubt captured by this band of callous mercenaries and ransomed or tortured and killed. She looked over at the dead, bleeding bodies and felt no remorse, only a pang of distress at the knowledge that they had once been as innocent and young and carefree as any child born anywhere. Somebody had made them this
way. Somebody made a deliberate decision to make a child become . . . this.

  She turned away, taking a moment to regain focus. She needed every ounce of concentration now.

  Footsteps stopped right outside the tent.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  “Hey mon, all good in der?”

  The thick tones were so close to her ear Alicia thought for a moment the man had stuck his head through the loose flap. She realized he was bending down, listening. She looked around at the dead men, the seeping blood. Probably not what the new pirate wanted to see.

  She hated herself in one way but knew the old Alicia wouldn’t mind doing what she did next.

  “Ahh,” she whispered softly. “Yeah, that’s it. Right there.”

  She moaned softly.

  “Jake? That you?”

  Stifling a retort, she played it out a bit further and a bit louder. “All the way in. Go on . . . just . . . oh, yeah.”

  Silence for five seconds made Alicia let out another series of sounds. A shuffling of feet tensed her body and made her ready the knife.

  “All right, mon. You be happy.” Footsteps moved away, vanishing into the night.

  Alicia gave it five minutes and then carefully pushed her head through a gap in the bottom of the tent. Darkness and stillness presented in equal measure, so she squeezed through and back outside. The camp looked the same as she reacquainted herself, then took a few minutes to look beyond the prison tents and on up the steady slope to the top of the hill. It was a busy stretch of land up there—not only dotted with campfires and tents but also crowded with thick brush and undergrowth, trees and outcroppings, natural curved features and random boulders. On the plus side it offered quite a bit of cover; on the downside it would be hard to negotiate properly. Danger lived in that climb, danger as lethal as any she’d ever known.