Alicia felt like reminding him who they were, but bit it back. This wasn’t the time. She prepared herself mentally and then moved to the side, following the curve of the ledge around the hill. Then, without a word, she stepped out between it and the next tree and started firing. By the time her bullets reached the top of the hill she was sheltering again behind a thick trunk. Two pirates went down, writhing. Russo followed her lead, taking out two more. Healey went the other way with Caitlyn and felled another. Five seconds later gunfire erupted from the other side of the hill and the pirates started yelling.
Panicked. They didn’t even understand they held the better ground.
“Hey!” Guttural shouting rang out. “I foun’ dis!”
Alicia moved again, tree to tree, gaining ground. The slope was steep and still hazardous. She stepped over roots and ankle-breaking delves in the earth. A bullet smashed into the tree trunk at her back, the impact passing through her body with a judder. Russo followed, firing constantly. More screams. She peeked around the rough bole and spied the next haven—a body-length delve in the rock. She ran, fired and dived headlong, twisting her body to the shape of the delve and rolling inside. Bullets pounded the area around her. The pirates were slow, but they caught up eventually. Russo took a slightly different route, moving ahead now and making sure she knew it.
“Wanker,” she mouthed and rolled to view her next piece of cover. She saw Healey and Caitlyn moving up the hill too, heard Jensen’s attack, saw Crouch carefully aiming and picking off the more reckless pirates. Already, they were clearing a gap.
Alicia rose and ran. Two trees this time, and the last before the top of the hill, which now lay about fifteen feet above her. A pirate charged recklessly, cleaver and rifle held above his head. Alicia could hardly believe his stupidity until spotting the fevered light in his eyes; then took a second to put him out of his misery forever. There was no place in the world for men that shunned compassion, that reoffended their sins without remorse or regret, that cared nothing for humanity.
She spied more cover, probably the last before the summit, but it was good. A cave, a yawning mouth large enough to admit a crouched woman. She had no intentions of exploring, but could use it to make ready for the last assault. Firing now she ran, heard a bullet whizz past her head and another strike a tree three feet to her right. Not great shooting but these guys were more likely to hit her by accident as they aimed for Russo or even Crouch back down the hill. She saw three more fall and roll toward her. Russo knocked down another, now only three steps ahead. The man looked pissed.
Alicia gave him the finger and rolled to her cave; striking a rock with her knee and feeling the fire. She grunted. Dirt rolled off her body. Her tendons ached from the strain and her head hurt with the constant focus required to pull this off. Heat caused sweat to drip into her eyes which she wiped away with earth-caked fingers.
She took a last look at the summit. Glanced over at Russo. “We ready?”
Down the hill Healey and Caitlyn were advancing more slowly, but thinning the herd just as proficiently. Crouch hadn’t moved but looked ready, still dispatching the pirates. To their credit the men above had finally realized they were sitting ducks, ranged in a circle as they were, and had found several areas of shelter. But the team—and Jensen’s—had taken a fair portion of them down.
Alicia fired above and ran, taking a snaking route and laying down her own cover fire. Crouch helped. And then Russo, doing the same. Bullets shredded the earth at the top of the hill and any foreheads that were crazy enough to pop up. Alicia pressed on, confident she could reach the top before her mag ran dry and already thinking about drawing the handgun. She saw several dangers; pirates to the far left of her trying to crawl into better positions. She diverted her spray momentarily. A head popped up, dispatched by Crouch. She approached the very summit now, ready to engage.
A root caught at her ankles, sending her headlong. She held on to her gun and turned the sprawl into a roll, managing to spin her body right over the curve at the top of the hill, coming around on flat ground and with a full view of the wide, level summit.
She’d left two pirates at her back, but Russo came bounding over the top and soon dispatched them. Alicia took the moment to take it all in. The outlandish tree stood at dead center, a gray, deformed phenomenon. Several figures dug all around it and the pirate leader stood up to his waist in a wide hole, head bent and only his bare back showing. Two pirates sat with their backs to a tree, talking and smoking, guns at their sides, adding to the confusion and sheer peculiarity of the scene. Twelve pirates ranged around the lip of the hill, most now turning their weapons toward her and all at the same time.
Jensen and his three lieutenants burst over the other side of the straggly rim, snagging attention.
Alicia and Russo ran hard for the center of the hilltop, the only logical way to go since it would stop the pirates from shooting as they neared their own men. Healey then crested the brow, Crouch a few steps back. All four of the Gold Team opened fire and felled pirates. The leader popped his head up from the hole and the rest of his body followed.
In his filthy hands he held a strongbox.
Alicia felt her heart drop and her stomach lurch as she leapt into the fray. Jensen ran in from the right with just three men now, the stress showing clear across his face. The assault on the hull had decimated his force, or perhaps some of the mercs had deserted, preferring not to risk suicide.
Whatever it was, Alicia grabbed the shoulders of the pirate in front of her, knowing he would use his machete to attack. She shimmied her body aside, saw the blade pass by, then headbutted the man, spun him to the side and kicked him to the ground. Another came at her, gun up. Alicia ducked low, then came up hard, head under his chin so forcefully she lifted his feet a foot off the ground. He fell hard, unconscious.
Pirates still ran at them from all sides. She dropped her expended rifle and slipped out the all-black Walther. Two men fell, the third barged into her, knocking her off her feet. Alicia rolled and struggled, finding it hard to get a grip of his bare, sweaty skin. Then she saw his hair flapping around in a thick bob and grabbed a handful, jerking it as far back as she was able. He cried out, striking ineffectually with a knife. Alicia shot him and rolled away, rising to her feet.
Only a few strides from the pirate leader now.
Russo came past her. Healey covered Jensen and his three cohorts, who fought the last of the pirates on that side, not as efficiently as the Gold crew it seemed.
The pirate leader held the strongbox above his head. “Wait!”
Clods of earth dropped from his arms and shoulders and the box itself. His face was filthy, his hair hanging rank. Two men lay dead at his side, blood seeping into the grass that surrounded the lifeless tree.
Russo came close to the edge of the recently dug hole. Others lay around with pirates half-crouched inside, hands black with dirt. They had assailed the area fast and hard, mindlessly it seemed. But their frenzied efforts had paid off.
“Wait,” Crouch echoed as he came over the brow of the hill, weapon aimed steadily at the leader’s heart. He brought Caitlyn with him, who moved over to Healey’s side and pointed her small Glock at Jensen.”
“We have to know what’s in that box.”
“Then wait,” the leader of the pirates repeated.
Alicia raised her gun.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
Tension formed a net over the hilltop as concentrated as a localized rain shower. Dozens of pairs of eyes flicked from one face to the next, one trigger-finger to another, evaluating each scenario and every chance. The pressure and friction grew so thick it might form lightning over the warped sentinel that towered above and bore witness to it all, but lightning would never dare strike such a custodian for fear of what it might uncover.
Because the tree still existed at all, it had to exist for a reason.
Ghost Island, Alicia thought as she assessed every angle. Well, now you have a far larger members
hip.
She saw the remaining half-dozen pirates lower their guns. Saw the leader unarmed and unprotected in the hole. Watched as one of Jensen’s lieutenants—Forrester she thought—drew down on Healey and fell with a hole through his chest. That left Jensen, now angrier than ever, and two men. She saw Crouch advancing from the corner of her eye, heading straight for the strongbox. She saw Jensen strain his every sinew to get a better view. Silence descended again for a long minute.
Violence gripped hard to the edge of the curtain of tension. Soon, Alicia knew, it would break through.
“You take it,” the pirate leader snarled at Crouch. “Here, for you.”
He placed it on the edge of the hole, at Crouch’s feet. The boss evaluated the leader, saw no immediate threat, and moved back, dragging the dirty box with him. From her own vantage point, Alicia could see its appearance was terribly familiar—the same as all the others they had found. The next few minutes didn’t bode well.
All this death. This struggle. This expectation.
All for naught.
Crouch moved to the side of the box, blocking Jensen’s view, and fell to his knees. A deep breath came next and a quick glance at Alicia. Then, he broke the lock and lifted the heavy lid.
Absolute silence. Bated breath. Every man and woman waited to see what Crouch would find.
Alicia saw no sign on his face. Then he placed his hands inside the box, scooped something up and lifted it high for all to see.
“The treasure of Captain Henry Morgan,” he said.
Alicia stared hard, biting her bottom lip. It was a tangled bunch of trinkets, as she’d expected and just like all the ones that came before. It was a guilty hoard, a local offering. It was disappointment to the treasure hunters that came next.
“No gold.” Jensen’s legs wobbled. “There is no gold?”
The pirate leader sat down despondently in the hole. Only his head could be seen. His men drooped. Alicia saw Caitlyn walk across the clearing, heading for Crouch’s side. Nobody else moved and the only sound was the slither of gold chains through Crouch’s shaking fingers.
“Is there nothing else?” the researcher asked. “It strikes me as odd that this final clue, not recorded on Morgan’s maps, lead us to another strongbox. He wanted only the committed and the worthy to find this.”
Crouch let the jewelry fall back inside the box and rooted around in the depths. “We failed.” He was muttering obliviously. “Failed again.”
Caitlyn fell beside him and put a hand over his. “Stop. Let me look.”
She bent over the box. Alicia continued her surveillance of the hilltop, wishing now they’d dispatched more men. The numbers up here were still a little daunting.
Caitlyn pulled a sheet of parchment from the strongbox. “What’s this?” She laid it on the grass and unfolded it.
Crouch peered over her shoulder. “A letter. Is it written by Morgan?”
Caitlyn glanced around at all the watchers, saw no way of imparting the information that wouldn’t result in bloodshed, so lowered her head and began to read aloud.
“I, Henry Morgan, here leave behind the last of the treasures that blacken my conscience. There is no more, and nothing left for me. I set sail now on my final voyage and with everything that I own, to the place of my birth and to England, there to meet a date with the gallows. I have regrets, but regrets always outlive the men that harbor them.”
“Just a final note?” Russo said. “Now there’s a letdown.”
“A goodbye,” Alicia said. “Seems odd.”
“Remember that Morgan was recalled by the English after sacking Panama,” Caitlyn reminded them. “He broke the peace treaty between England and Spain and was recalled to face a trial. His pirating days came to an end right then.”
“Privateer.” Jensen took a step forward so that he was now in the open. “The English made the treaty with Spain without Morgan’s knowledge. So, in effect, he was a privateer until then, and only became a pirate when he attacked Panama—even though he didn’t know it at the time.”
“It hardly matters,” Crouch rooted again in the box as if expecting another map to pop out of a secret compartment. Caitlyn again gently laid her hand atop him.
“There is nothing more, Michael.”
“A name is but a title,” Alicia said then. “It doesn’t change the person beneath. A politician can be a crook. A finance manager a thief. A hedge fund manager a con man. Huh.” She grimaced. “And Wall Street bankers can be all of those things, I guess.”
Caitlyn rose and pulled Crouch up with her, leaving the box. She reread the letter and googled Morgan’s signature to make sure it matched. The hilltop still bristled with an unrelenting apprehension. Alicia started to wonder how their own team and then two highly strung, murderous crews might hope to withdraw peaceably from the situation.
Maybe they could back away and let the other two have at it.
She glanced at Russo who appeared to be thinking along similar lines. He nodded toward the edge. Healey nodded too. Then she saw Jensen looking at them.
We have to take him with us.
Jail time was maybe too good for him, but she couldn’t just kill a man, even one such as he. It felt good now to know that once she’d had no such compunctions. Every day, she moved further ahead.
Caitlyn came over with a dejected Crouch carrying the strongbox. Nothing else moved. Caitlyn looked at both Alicia and Russo.
“So whilst searching for Morgan’s sig I came across the tales that followed his recall to England and followed his journey. Not one of them mentions him returning to his homeland.”
Alicia frowned. “You’re speaking riddles. England is his homeland. That’s why he returned at her request to face trial.”
“No.” Caitlyn smiled. “England was not Morgan’s homeland. He was born in Wales where his family had a large farm. Now, none of the accounts mention that he returned to Wales. Take that in context with what we just read and you have . . . ?”
“Can barely remember,” Russo said. “Busy here.”
“All right. The relevant part goes ‘I set sail now on my final voyage and with everything that I own, to the place of my birth and to England, there to meet a date with the gallows.’ ”
Out of context and with the new information, Alicia understood without any further prompting. She stared at Crouch and the abrupt hope in his eyes. “You believe that Morgan finally finished his guilt-trip here and then set sail supposedly for England with his entire treasure hoard?”
“The sentence alludes to it,” Caitlyn said. “And Morgan would do it. From everything we know of him, you know he would. He told them he sailed straight for England, but stopped off in Wales and returned home. Either by force, or bribery or sheer charisma, Morgan is one of history’s most charismatic men, able to lead so many in such harsh circumstances, for so long, and with such success. The facts are all here.”
Alicia had no illusions that Jensen was listening to their reasoning, but now wasn’t the time to deal with the crook. “And the family farm? Don’t tell me it’s still there today?”
“I still think it’s a stretch,” Russo grumbled. “And Wales is a long way and can freeze the balls of a brass monkey.”
Alicia grunted. “Is that a pirate expression?”
“Yeah, but who gives a fuck?”
“Of course I haven’t mentioned the real reason we should believe the treasure went all the way to Wales,” Caitlyn said sweetly, then paused.
Even Alicia leaned forward, along with every pirate and self-proclaimed leader.
“Simple—Henry Morgan thought he was going to die. He believed he would be put to death for his crimes against the Crown in London.”
“And clearly he still hoarded his treasure, right up until then.” Crouch suddenly had a thrill in his voice. “Right until this letter was written. So, not wanting the Crown to seize and squander his treasure, he took it home, and buried it there.”
Caitlyn bowed. “You read my mind
.”
And then the hilltop finally erupted in violence.
Jensen had heard enough and dived for a nearby boulder, screaming at his two remaining lieutenants to open fire. The pirate leader rose up out of the hole, shedding earth and mud, a fearsome sight with an Uzi suddenly grasped in each hand. Alicia saw it and knew Crouch had missed it; one more mistake. Before anyone could react, bullets were lacing the air.
Caitlyn fell to the ground under fire, screaming.
Healey dived in front of her, a tad late but staying put.
Alicia dropped and drew her Walther. Incredibly though, the pirate leader’s head exploded as Labadee and Levy fired at him. The body slumped just as the remaining pirates found their wits and their guns.
Alicia flicked a glance at Caitlyn. “You okay?”
“I’m good. Not hit.”
Healey rolled off her. Russo fired at the pirates that were charging as if playing a game. All fell, tumbling and bloodied to the grass. One spun under fire and smashed head-first into the resolute tree, leaving a smear of blood on the bark. Jensen scrambled for the edge of the hilltop as Labadee and Levy turned their weapons on the Gold Team.
Too late. Alicia and Russo were already within striking distance. Alicia took the big Jamaican, wrestling with his gun. The man was strong and tussled hard, muscles bulging. Alicia used his own force against him, turning the limbs so that they would break. Labadee barely managed to stop in time, but then became redundant, doing nothing. Alicia pushed him away for space, then delivered a double blow to the face and to the chest. She kicked his knee so that he fell hard on his good one. She jumped in with a right knee that connected solidly with his nose.
And was left standing, her opponent battered and out cold at her feet.
Russo tangled with Levy, dodging knife blows, catching two on his own Walther which he used as a metal shield. The knife thrusts came fast and deadly, but Russo turned them all. Alicia came up close.
“Need help, fat boy?”
Russo glared, then saw Levy’s knife nick a sliver of flesh from his right arm. When the next attack came he fell to his knees, brought the gun around and simply shot Levy in the gut. Fight over. Alicia let out a breath.
Caribbean Gold Page 18
