by Linda Ladd
Novak tensed up further when the next horrific shriek started up and shattered the stillness. Then came another and another, each one worse than the last. Then there were some long and awful cries that sounded like Li Liu was begging for mercy. Novak stayed hunched down, listening and waiting. Isabella was now pressed up tightly against his back. She had her hands clamped over her ears. Li Liu’s men had to have turned on her for some reason. That was the only explanation that Novak could come up with. That didn’t make much sense, either. Novak had watched her give orders, and they were obeyed without question.
All of a sudden, the screaming and begging stopped, right in the middle of a long and terrible shriek, as if her windpipe had been severed and that ended the cry. The night grew quiet around them, the raucous noise of insects and croak of tree frogs starting up again and building back into a cacophony. Novak had heard enough to be spooked. He pulled the girl up and pushed ahead through the brush, this time going as fast as he could. Somebody was out there with them, somebody who had taken his time murdering a very dangerous, well-armed woman. The guy liked a knife, too. If Novak guessed correctly, the killer had been slicing off patches of her skin. Most likely skinning her alive, slowly and cruelly. He kept up his struggle to get to his boat. In time, the jungle thinned out a bit, began to get sandy underfoot, and they made better time. The girl was still on her feet and holding her own, no doubt as creeped out as he was by the woman’s excruciating cries. Li Liu was dead now. No doubt about it.
The soft wash of waves sliding up on the sand grew loud, and then Novak spotted the line of torches set periodically down the beach. He could see the path that led inland to the house, the darkness dotted with torches that he could just barely detect, located a good distance off to his left. He squatted down again. Listened. All he heard now was Isabella behind him, trying to catch her breath. She had to be exhausted, physically and mentally. No sounds anywhere, just the sea. No voices. No movement. There was apparently nobody at all out there. No one calling orders. No one leaning against a tree smoking. No one eating or drinking. No one on duty. More important, no one came running, concerned by the banshee shrieks filtering out from the jungle canopy. Novak’s instincts told him that he was getting ready to face something very bad. Something evil was right on his heels, running fast, bloody knife still in its hand.
Novak stopped at the point where the beach met the jungle growth. They crept along together, just off the sand, keeping down low, making no sounds. Now Isabella had a grip on his shirt as if she’d never let go. She was terrified. She knew, too. Something terrible was coming. Nobody screamed like that and came out alive. But Isabella was trying to hold it together. So Novak kept his rifle up and ready for anything, slowly moving it from side to side, searching the dark night, not sure where the danger was coming from or what the danger was. The horrific screaming had thrown him off, big-time, thrown off his theory of how the camp was run. He liked to know his enemy, and he didn’t know anymore. He did not want to venture out onto the open beach. He hunkered down and watched. For what, he wasn’t sure. Nobody showed up. Nobody moved. Nothing. Novak started crawling again on his hands and knees, laterally, but inside the jungle, headed for the long piers and the Sweet Sarah. A few yards farther along, he found out why the night had become so quiet.
The first body lay at the side of the trail leading back to Li Liu’s big house. It was the guy in the white linen shirt who had met them out on the pier. Except that he was dead now. He was lying on his back, arms and legs out spread-eagle. His cigar was beside his right hand, and a flashlight lay on the ground next to him, still switched on. The handle was half buried in the sand. The beam angled up and lit the swaying palm fronds high above, causing swinging shadows over their heads. The man’s throat was a bloody mess, sliced through almost down to the spine with a deep horizontal gash across his gullet. The top of his head was sheared off. It looked like raw meat, still dripping blood. Scalped to the bone. A macabre calling card. It took a very sharp knife to do the things that were done to that poor guy.
The minute Isabella saw the gore, she fell on her knees and then down on her stomach and covered her mouth with both her hands. She was retching and moaning into her palms. Novak pulled her over to him and got his hand over her mouth, muffling the sick sounds she was making. He put his mouth close to her ear. “You can’t do this, or he’s gonna find us, too. Be quiet, you hear me?”
Isabella nodded. She understood, but she kept her eyes squeezed tight and a forceful grip on his forearm. Novak searched the man’s pockets and took everything he thought they could use—more Mexican money and a pocketknife, but no weapon. The killer must have disarmed him. Novak kept his eyes moving constantly, darting from side to side, and listened for footfalls. Nothing at all, pure silence, except for the crashing surf. No human beings anywhere to be seen. Maybe they were all dead now. Maybe they had been invaded by a competing band of thieves, a deadly force that had swept in from the sea with murder in their hearts. Whoever had killed the man bleeding out beside Novak was a practiced pro, most likely a paid assassin. Otherwise, his victim would have put up some kind of fight, and he had not. No interruption in the smooth sand, no footprints, no indication that anyone had been there. Like a phantom. The killer had not seen fit to empty his victim’s pockets or steal his cash. All he took was the weapon. So he had a different motive. This guy was highly trained and struck fast and hard and without pity. Novak was pretty damn sure that this wasn’t the only body they would find. He waited a few minutes, then pushed Isabella farther back into the jungle cover.
“You stay here. Stay put, understand? Don’t move and don’t make a sound and don’t wander around looking for me. I’ll be back. If this guy sees you, you’re dead. I’m going to check out the beach and come back for you. If you’re not right here, waiting for me, I’m leaving without you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Isabella nodded, but she wouldn’t let go of his arm. Novak pulled away and told her to get down and lie still and wait for him, that she’d be all right. He was surprised when she stretched out on her stomach and hid her face in her folded arms. She wouldn’t venture off on her own this time, no way. She’d heard those awful screams. She’d seen what a scalped man looked like. So Novak left her in deep cover and moved down low and just inside the undergrowth. He was careful, stopped often and listened. This guy, whoever he was, was good at what he did. He would be hunkered down and listening, too. Listening for his next victim to make a sound. For Novak to make a sound.
Novak crouched low, moving swiftly through the palm trees until he was just above the piers. The beach looked deserted. All the activity around the captured boats had disappeared. Flaming torches still lit up the docks, spots of light glowing every twelve feet or so, their images reflected in the dark water. Enough light for Novak to see all the dead bodies, laid out in various poses of death. Some had died at their guard posts, others lost their lives on the sand, some floated facedown in the water, their corpses pushed and rolled farther toward the beach with each incoming wave. It looked as if the killer had moved among them and dropped them where they stood, one by one, stealthily, mercilessly—some kind of ghostly apparition, unseen, unheard, inhuman. Looked like each corpse had been scalped, the same as the first guy, the sand stained red under the heads. The killer liked souvenirs. Or maybe it was just a warning to anyone left alive, like Novak. Run fast or die. Novak got the message, loud and clear. He felt a cold chill rise up inside him, because he didn’t know his enemy, didn’t know who he was or what he wanted. Maybe this overkill was an act of vengeance, payback a thousand times over. This assassin could be Death personified out reaping in the jungle. And Novak had a feeling that this guy enjoyed what he was doing.
By the time Novak made it across the deep sand to the edge of the water, he had counted seven bodies, all killed the same way. Jugulars severed. Probably surprised from behind. Scalped and bloody. This guy did not take prisoners.
No longer willing to wai
t, Novak ran down to the end of the pier where they’d tied up the Sweet Sarah. She was still there, thank God. As he neared the boat, he stopped in his tracks, shocked, and just stared. No, she had been scuttled, her deck and hull underwater, only the mainmast and riggings visible above the surface. He looked around. All the captured boats were on the bottom. Cursing, he looked back at his own boat, trying to figure out why it had been done. The pirates would never have done it. Those vessels were worth big money to them. He scanned the water. The cove lay black and deep and quiet. What the hell was going down?
Eerie silence had descended over the grisly murder scene like a heavy bank of fog. Novak brushed off his anger because he didn’t have time for it. Okay, no escape by sea. His boat was gone. The assassin/serial killer/vengeful ghost was on the loose and probably headed back to the beach after torturing Li Liu to death. Novak remained hidden in the deep shadows at the end of the pier and tried to reason what his best move would be. All he knew was that he had to get out of there, and get out fast. The killer was most likely winding up his death spree at the jungle house. Novak didn’t have time to worry about who this killer was or what his motives were. Not right now. This guy apparently moved like a wraith in the mist, killed at will, and took down everyone he encountered, and that already meant lots of armed men.
Novak started running back down the length of the dock, knocking the torches off into the water. The dark was now his friend. The killer had to have come in to the beach somehow. Had to have come in on a boat, but there were no new boats and the captured ones were nonoperational. Novak kept down and shone the flashlight into the water along the side of the pier, thinking maybe the killer had come on a small Zodiac—anything that would provide him an escape when he was finished annihilating everything in his path. Novak was in such a hurry that he almost missed it. Half hidden under the pilings, close to the sand, he saw a black aluminum canoe bobbing and rocking in the shallows. He dropped to his stomach, reached down, and pulled it out from under the pier. It was tied up, and there was a paddle and a small black knapsack in the bow. The killer’s boat, it had to be. It was nearly invisible in the dark.
Novak eased off the pier and lowered himself into waist-deep water, got a good hold on the side of the canoe, and jerked it up until it scraped onto the sand. Then he squatted down and waited there, on edge now, watching the beach for any kind of movement. Nothing—just the swaying royal palms and the flickering torches blown sideways by the incoming wind. The other pier and the beach were empty, so he took off at a hard run up to the tree line, rifle ready, finger near the trigger, knocking down one torch after another as he went.
Isabella had not moved a muscle. He grabbed her up onto her knees, told her to keep down, run fast, and stay quiet. He watched the edge of the jungle again, fairly certain the killer was out there waiting for them to move, or headed their way after finishing his bloody work at the house. They took off together, avoiding any remaining torches, and Isabella kept up with him. They made it back to the water without being atta cked, but Novak did not take chances. The killer was somewhere close by, maybe even watching them already. When he appeared, he would come out of nowhere and strike without warning. The dead bodies scattered around were enough evidence for Novak.
Novak sloshed into the water, pulled the girl after him, and then shoved her up and into the prow of the canoe. It rocked precariously, but he stepped quickly into the stern, almost overturning it in his haste. It was too small for a man his size, but he grabbed the paddle and dug it deep into the water. He kept looking over his shoulder as he put down hard and steady strokes that sent them skimming alongside the dock toward the open cove. The killer would return for his canoe.
Halfway across the cove and well hidden in the night, Novak caught sight of the ghost. He was a small guy, compact build, dressed all in black like a Japanese ninja warrior. Maybe that was just what he was. He was running lightly across the sand toward where he’d stashed the canoe, down along the waterline under the torches. He had some kind of a knife in one hand. Novak held the paddle on his lap and watched him for a moment. Unless the killer had night goggles, he wouldn’t spot them. And if he did have them, they were probably in the knapsack he’d left in the canoe. Novak dipped the paddle again but kept his eyes on the killer, who moved swiftly down the beach, bent almost to the ground. The man was closing in on the pier now. When he passed near the next torch, Novak saw the scalps hanging off his belt. This guy was a psychopath. The killer wasn’t looking around, not even at the dead bodies he’d left mutilated and scattered across the sand. Apparently, he wasn’t worried about anybody attacking him. Maybe he thought he’d gotten everyone. Maybe he didn’t know about Novak and Isabella.
The little guy was now splashing through the shallows. When he found the canoe gone, he stopped as if stunned and stared down into the water. Then he turned and gazed out over the cove. Novak ducked instinctively, even though he knew the guy couldn’t see him. A second later, the killer was running hard toward the end of the pier. He had a high-powered flashlight in his hand and had it up and sweeping the dark water. Novak plunged the paddle down harder, propelling them swiftly toward the open mouth of the inlet. The guy couldn’t catch them now, not without a boat. But Novak was pretty sure he wouldn’t stop. He’d be hot on their trail before it got cold. Then he would kill them. In fact, killing them might have been his mission all along. But how could he have known that Novak and the girl were there? Novak couldn’t worry about that at the moment. He had worse problems. He had to get the hell out of there and find a good place to hide until he figured out who this guy was and what the hell was going on. No matter what else, now that Novak had stolen his canoe, this guy would be out for blood.
Chapter Seven
Paddling the black canoe through the dark was like sliding swiftly through a vat of black ink. No moon at all to light Novak’s course. Cloud cover everywhere, with the heavy scent of impending rain. Great; all Novak needed now was a thunderstorm. But the bad weather had been threatening all day, and now the first cold drops were speckling his head. Once they hit the big breakers, Novak struggled desperately to propel the canoe far enough out to prevent it from being pushed back to shore. Gusts of rain sprayed the canoe and kept pushing it sideways. The paddle was a good one, but too short for Novak’s wingspan, which tired him more, but the canoe had been engineered to cut through water swiftly and efficiently. Whoever had designed the craft definitely knew his stuff. All Novak thought about now was getting out to sea and putting miles between him and the murderous little guy in black.
Novak plied the water with deep and steady strokes, never letting up, never giving up. Once he got over the breakers and out on calmer water, he got the hang of the rhythm, and the canoe flew over the restless waves. Instead of his grueling physical effort, he tried to think about what had gone down back at the camp and why. He was pretty sure now that he was dealing with a professional assassin, a good one, who had been hired to take out a specific target. Someone in that camp had been the target—probably Li Liu, because she had paid dearly at the killer’s hands. The dead guards must have been collateral damage—overkill, for sure, because if the assassin had the ability to sneak up and dispatch that many men, he could have easily bypassed the guards with his stealth and zeroed in on the woman. But he hadn’t. He had wanted them all dead for some reason. That puzzled Novak. Assassins didn’t usually mess around with dramatic flourishes like that. They went in, did the job, and got out. They didn’t leave a string of mutilated corpses with possible evidence for the authorities to find. The confiscated boats weren’t sunk by the pirates, no way; that would be stupid on their part. The assassin had done that, too, Novak would bet on it, taking away his victims’ means of escape and/or pursuit while he was busy killing everybody. The guy was a sicko, all right.
Another possibility was that the assassin had been after Novak. God knows he had plenty of enemies, made in the military as well as through his investigative work. More than one man
wanted him dead. Maybe somebody was tracking him, had been for a while. Still, that seemed unlikely out in the middle of the Caribbean. He was usually home at Bonne Terre, a stationary target and a much easier killing ground. Last but not least, there was little Isabella to consider. Maybe she was the one the ninja was after. The guy on Orion’s’s Trident had tried to kill her and had been unsuccessful. Maybe he was back with a vengeance. He was the most likely person to know where they were. Nobody else would have a clue. Very little time had passed since Novak and the girl had been captured. It had to be Isabella.
Novak kept paddling. He had a few old enemies still living in Mexico who remembered him with no love in their hearts, men adversely affected by the covert missions he’d carried out in the past. They had long memories, just like Novak did. He had some good buddies down here, too, undercover and hard to find. But who could have tracked him? He had sailed down the Gulf and into the Caribbean with no specific destination in mind, a totally unplanned, unmapped voyage. He had anchored whenever and wherever he fancied and had followed no exact agenda. Nobody could track him, not easily, in any case. Hell, he himself hadn’t known where he’d end up day to day. The whole scenario seemed bizarre and unlikely. But it had happened. Now he had to figure it out before something else bad landed on their heads.
Not right now, though. Now he needed to find a good place to hole up.
Isabella was still huddled down in the prow, had been the whole time, no doubt freaked out by the scalped victims strewn around the beach. Not a pretty sight for anyone to see. She was curled up in a fetal position, not moving a muscle, not saying a word. Her weight, as slight as it was, helped stabilize the narrow craft and guide it through waves whipped up by the incoming storm. What Novak needed to do was to find a protected cove or inlet, where they could gain temporary shelter and wait out the brunt of the storm. Fortunately, bad weather would slow down the killer, too. Best-case scenario: the killer was long gone, getting the hell away from his mass-murder scene. Novak’s gut told him different, told him the guy did not leave witnesses. He would be a man who tied up loose ends, and Novak and Isabella were definitely loose ends.
