‘Who’s that?’ Marker asked.
‘My brother,’ she said shortly.
‘Oh, does he live here?’
‘Only for vacations. He lives in Miami.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s a businessman. What do you think of my picture?’ she asked, reaching down behind a sofa and lifting up a similar-sized portrait of herself. The artist had rendered the lovely curves of her body with even more generosity than nature, but her face had been painted as that of an innocent child. Marker remembered Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which a man’s face had retained its innocence through life while his portrait had changed to reflect the ugliness growing in his soul. This seemed like an attempt to do the opposite, to hold on to something in a painting which could not be held on to in life.
The fact that she had pulled it out from behind the sofa suggested that her brother was the one with the fixation. For the second time in their short acquaintance Marker felt moved by a terrible pity.
‘It doesn’t do you justice,’ he told her.
Tamara laughed, put the painting back, and took his hand. ‘Do you need another drink?’ she asked.
‘No . . .’
‘Then let me show you my bedroom,’ she said.
It was as lovely as she was. The furniture comprised a rocking chair, an old Victorian dressing-table and a large bed without head or tailboards. A wooden fan whirred lazily above. Through the open doors which led out to the veranda Marker could see and hear the ocean.
They undressed each other this time, and stood naked in each other’s arms for a long time before taking to the bed. Then, as if to make up for lost time, they made love in what seemed a ferocious haste, coming together in a violent arching of limbs and digging of fingernails. They sat outside on the veranda for a while, and then went back to bed and made love again, this time slowly, lingeringly, savouring each sensation until hunger drove them over the brink once more. For half an hour after that Marker struggled to stay awake, until he was sure she was sleeping soundly. Then he eased himself out of the bed, pulled on his trousers, and started to explore the house.
He quickly realized that his chances of finding anything useful were very slim. For one thing he had no idea what he was looking for; for another he could see no reason why Arcilla should leave anything incriminating in a house he only ever used for vacations. The elaborate security might indicate otherwise, but it could easily reflect nothing more sinister than habit on Arcilla’s part.
And there was always the risk of his getting caught. He had decided against wearing a gun on the grounds that Tamara’s hands would almost certainly have detected it at some point during the evening, and he was far from certain that his unarmed combat skills would suffice to overcome the combination of Arcilla’s thugs, the dogs and the wall. Getting caught might be the quickest way to find out what had happened to Nick Russell, but it didn’t seem the most sensible.
Of course they might believe he really was looking for the toilet. And that pigs could fly.
It took him ten minutes to go through all the rooms in the main villa. There was a safe behind the portrait of Arcilla which might contain something useful, but he could only have opened it with some C4 explosive. There was nothing else in the house that seemed even remotely suspicious. To all intents and purposes the place seemed set up as somewhere for the idle rich to idle in, and nothing else.
He went back upstairs to check that Tamara was still sleeping, and then down to the door which led out to the covered walkway. In the dark he could detect no alarm sensors, either around the doorway or inside the walkway, and there was no way he could turn on a light.
‘Sink or swim,’ he murmured to himself, and started forward. No alarms went off, no men came bursting through doorways waving guns. Marker was almost down at the end when he saw two dogs running towards him across the dark compound. They almost threw themselves at the glass, spattering it with flecks of drool, and then stood staring at him, feet restlessly pawing the ground, teeth bared, eyes full of yellow hatred.
But they didn’t bark. They couldn’t – someone had seen to that. No one would ever hear these dogs coming. They weren’t there to provide warning of intruders, they were there to finish them off.
Marker had never liked dogs much. He took a deep breath, opened the connecting door to the next building, and eased himself through it.
The rooms seemed to house the staff, all of whom seemed to enjoy snoring. One door was open though, revealing an empty bed. Either two of the staff were sleeping together, or one of them was up and about.
Confident that he wouldn’t be tripping any alarms, and not wanting to attract the dogs’ attention again, he took the next passageway at a faster pace, noticing as he did so the light glimmering from one of the windows in the building he was approaching.
Prudence dictated that he check out that room first. He eased his way silently down the passage until he reached the door which was leaking a ribbon of light. Muted Spanish music was audible inside. Putting his eye to the keyhole, Marker could see the back of a seated man, and beyond him a modern radio transmitter. On the edge of his field of vision a silverish glow suggested video screens, presumably those for monitoring the compound. From the man’s posture Marker thought it likely he had allowed himself to doze off, confident that any message from the helicopter would wake him up again.
The SBS man started searching through the other rooms in the building. No one lived here – that was for certain. The floors were mostly bare earth, the walls unpainted plasterboard. Several of the rooms were empty, but the largest contained a neat pile of boxes. Marker investigated the contents, and found tinned food, bottled water and sundry general supplies. On the other side of the same room there was a stack of assorted fuel drums, several of them containing marine oil. Twin doors gave on to the empty helipad.
It was all consistent with a regular airlift to resupply an underwater treasure hunt on the Cay Sal Bank. And there was no sign of drugs or guns or any other contraband which Arcilla might be smuggling into the United States.
Tamara Arcilla had led them nowhere, he thought. In his case, in more ways than one.
The silence was suddenly broken by the distant sound of an incoming voice on the radio. Hoping he might hear something interesting, Marker walked quietly and swiftly back towards the radio room, but the message must have been a short one, and the door swung open when he was only about six feet away from it. He flattened himself against the wall of the passage and prayed the man would walk the other way and not look back.
He did, and disappeared into what Marker remembered was the toilet. The sound of piss hitting water confirmed as much.
Marker backed into one of the empty rooms, waited until the man had resumed his position in the radio room, and then retraced his steps through the walkways and buildings to Tamara Arcilla’s bedroom. She was still asleep.
He climbed back in beside her, feeling a sense of emptiness which seemed as apt as it was irrational. She stirred and turned towards him, her face almost angelic in the soft, grey light.
Marker let exhaustion carry him into sleep, but not for long. He lay there listening to the sound of decelerating rotor blades, and realized that it been the helicopter’s return which had woken him. His watch said half-past three.
When he woke again the sun was already streaming into the room. A hand encircled his neck and gently pulled him into a sleepy embrace.
8
Russell woke to find her face leaning over his in the darkness, and for a moment he thought time had taken him back to their first meeting. But on this occasion her hand was urgently shaking his shoulder. ‘I need your help,’ she said, seeing he was awake.
‘Why, what . . . ?’
‘One of the two girls is critical,’ she said.
His heart sank. ‘Not mine?’ he said stupidly.
‘No, not yours,’ she said impatiently, as he reached for his shoes. ‘That bastard Bodin’s.’
One voice in his head was thanking God that he was not responsible while another asked bitterly what difference it made. The girl didn’t care, that was for sure.
They walked briskly across the silent compound. The first hint of light seemed to be showing in the eastern sky, which meant it had to be around five-thirty. Russell wondered why she had woken him rather than one of the nurses or the vastly more experienced Calderón.
As so often, she seemed to read his mind. ‘The last time this happened we had trouble,’ she said. ‘A boy died and his brother went berserk. A guard shot and killed him. I don’t want any of the kids to know about this until they have to. So you’re my stand-in nurse.’
They reached the medical building. The girl was lying wrapped in a sheet on one of the operating tables, hooked up to an intravenous drip. Her pulse was almost non-existent.
‘Are you going to open her up again?’ Russell asked.
‘There must be internal bleeding,’ Emelisse said. ‘I’ve got no choice. Go and get scrubbed up while I watch her. And be quick.’
He was back out in a couple of minutes, but it no longer mattered. Emelisse was sitting, hands entwined above her head, on the adjacent table. Her eyes seemed cast in stone.
‘Is she dead?’ Russell said unnecessarily.
‘Yes.’ She looked at him for a second, then at the dead girl. ‘Can you go and wake Calderón,’ she said.
‘OK,’ he said doubtfully. ‘What do I tell him?’
She smiled bitterly. ‘That there’s a fresh corpse for him to harvest – what else?’
What else indeed. He hovered for a moment in the doorway, not wanting to leave her.
She was unwrapping the sheet.
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked. It sounded the stupidest of questions.
‘I’m going to open her up again and find out how that bastard fucked up,’ she said in a brittle conversational voice.
Russell went for Calderón. The birds were singing up a storm in the trees now, and he found the doctor already awake, reading an AMA journal and drinking a cup of freshly brewed coffee. The news of the girl’s death produced no obvious reaction, except perhaps a flicker of academic interest.
‘What was the cause of death?’ he asked, as they walked back across the compound.
‘Eme . . . Dr Alabri is finding out,’ Russell told him.
This produced a quickening of Calderón’s pace.
When they reached the operating room Emelisse was back on the adjoining table. This time Russell thought he detected a watering of the eyes. The dead girl lay open on the operating table. ‘Take a look,’ she told Calderón. ‘The bastard forgot to suture one of the arteries. Or just couldn’t be bothered.’
Calderón looked, and nodded. ‘I’ll talk to him,’ he said.
‘I should save your breath,’ she said. ‘He’ll probably get a bonus for donating the girl’s bones.’ And with that she strode out of the operating room, eyes blazing.
At twelve-thirty the next day they were eating lunch on the outside terrace of the Ocean View hotel. Marker watched her pick at her chicken salad, and wondered why his own appetite seemed to have deserted him. In the background he could see Franklin lurking, waiting for his signal.
That morning, after they had made love for the fourth time in ten hours, she had announced that she was flying to Miami that afternoon. She didn’t know when she would be returning to Provo. She didn’t seem to care either.
His implied dismissal had produced a multitude of conflicting emotions in Marker, uppermost of which were relief and an absurd sense of rejection. He had asked her to have lunch with him in reaction to the latter, and it was only later that he had devised the plan which he and Franklin were now about to put into operation.
She had accepted the invitation, but probably only as a convenient way of filling her time. Now, sitting there in dark glasses, she looked as unapproachable as any film star, and it was almost impossible to imagine that less than six hours earlier he had been engaged in passionately kissing almost every inch of the body encased in the tight black dress.
How could feelings so strong mean so little? Because memory was what preserved the meaning, and someone inside her had decided never to remember.
Marker stared out across the tranquil lagoon, inwardly sighed, and scratched his right ear. Almost immediately Franklin was towering over their table, eyes full of anger. He brought his face down to a position only a couple of feet from hers. ‘I know your brother kidnapped my friend,’ he told her, his voice low and menacing, ‘and I’m going to prove it if it’s the last thing I do. He may think he has important friends on Provo, but by the time I’m finished the people who live here will know exactly what he is. And all about his whore of a sister.’
‘Hey, mister,’ Marker said, getting slowly to his feet. ‘You take your mouth somewhere else.’ Tamara was silent. She seemed to be almost rigid in her chair.
‘Her brother kidnapped my friend,’ Franklin repeated belligerently, speaking louder this time. ‘Or killed him.’
Marker looked across at her, as if inviting a denial.
She just shook her head and looked down.
‘If you’re so sure, then take it to the police,’ Marker said curtly. There weren’t many people on the terrace, but they were all looking in his direction. ‘Now get the fuck out of here.’
Franklin looked at him, as if wondering whether to knock him over. ‘Her brother has the police in his pocket. And she’s probably had them all in her knickers.’ He turned back to her. ‘You tell him,’ he hissed.
She said nothing.
‘You enjoy bullying women?’ Marker asked, but the big man was already walking away through the tables.
Marker pulled his chair closer to her and sat down. ‘What was all that about?’ he asked gently.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. A lone tear welled up in her right eye. ‘I want to leave,’ she said suddenly, and reached for her handbag.
‘I’ll come to the airport with you,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said, almost violently. ‘I don’t want you to. Leave me alone.’
There was nothing he could do. She walked briskly off the terrace, her heels clicking on the stone, every eye following her. Marker watched her go, and then went in search of Franklin and Cafell. He found them in a dark corner of the bar, and took a pint over to join them.
‘No joy,’ he said, ‘If she does know anything she’s either too scared or too loyal or too crazy to tell anyone. The whole business has been a fucking waste of time.’
‘With the emphasis on fucking,’ Cafell added slyly.
Marker didn’t laugh.
‘But we have found out something,’ Cafell went on, pulling a crumpled sheet of paper out of his pocket.
‘What’s that?’ Marker asked hopefully.
‘It’s some intelligence from the Yanks. The helicopter touched down on the floating helipad next to friend Arcilla’s boat at 22.58, and lifted off again at 00.24 hours. You said the helicopter arrived back here at around 03.30, which would figure. It’s a 520-mile trip, and the 365F Dauphin has a cruising speed of about 184mph. So around three hours for the journey.’
‘So?’
‘Don’t you see. We watched the damn thing leave before you went off to meet the lady. At 18.30.’
‘It took four and a half hours to get there and only three to get back . . .’
‘Deduction – they must have put down somewhere else. And not for fuel: the Dauphin has an operational range of 547 miles, fully loaded.’
Marker and Franklin looked at him.
‘Why would someone supplying a treasure hunt do that?’ Cafell insisted. ‘They’re either stopping to pick something up or drop something off. And since you didn’t find anything at the villa, the odds are they’re picking something up.’
‘From where?’
Cafell pulled a tattered map from his hip pocket and spread it out in front of them. ‘That’s an interesting question.�
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‘Give us an interesting answer.’
‘OK. Half the Bahamas are between here and the Cal Say Bank, and there’s Cuba too.’ He pointed them out on the map. ‘A stopover on either wouldn’t be much of a detour. Of course, Cuba guards its airspace pretty thoroughly, but who knows what connections Arcilla might have there. Castro had one of his own generals shot a few years ago for involvement in the drug trade.’ Cafell looked up. ‘But I don’t think so. My money’s on here,’ he added, plonking a finger down on the map.
‘Haiti?’ Marker and Franklin exclaimed in unison. ‘Why?’ Marker asked.
‘It’s just a hunch. Maybe they’re smuggling voodoo dolls.’
‘OK,’ Marker agreed. ‘But let’s assume it’s drugs. The chopper leaves here, picks them up – maybe in Haiti, maybe somewhere else – and then delivers them to the Tiburón Blanco along with the supplies.’
‘It’s a perfect cover,’ Franklin murmured.
‘And that would explain why they do the resup at night,’ Marker added. ‘If anyone did challenge them they could always dump the drugs in the sea and have a perfectly legitimate reason for being in the area.’
‘And they must be using the submarine for the last leg of the journey,’ Franklin interjected. ‘From what I hear the US Coast Guard and Navy have made it pretty hard for smugglers to gain entry by air or sea. On the surface, that is. Arcilla obviously had the bright idea of going in underwater.’
‘You mean, while the submarine’s supposed to be down below Arcilla’s boat looking for treasure it’s really running a shuttle service to Florida?’ Cafell asked sceptically. ‘You’d think the Americans would have twigged the possibility of something like that when they checked out Arcilla’s boat.’
‘Maybe our allies have a blind spot,’ Marker suggested without much conviction. ‘But if they weren’t using the submarine, then how . . .? There’s only one way to find out,’ he said, ‘and that’s to check out the boat ourselves.’
Marine C SBS Page 11
