The man in the shack grinned, showing a missing tooth.
He didn’t care what I had to say. The job was to collect the money, or take possession of me. Pretty simple, actually. I’d been counting on it. The problem was, these men knew I could fight. I had to lose the battle, and it had to be believable. I’d need to put a few lumps on them along the way.
The two thugs came from opposite directions, grabbed me by the arms in a coordinated move, and slammed me against the wall of the shack. I was pinned by a double arm bar hold. Damn, they were good. In an instant, they had my wrists secured with a zip-tie. I’d never seen a move like that. Good thing I’d been able to take them by surprise at the jail. I might not have fared as well as I had.
I bucked backward, making a good effort. But one nailed me in the back of the knee and I crumpled and smacked the ground, face first, right in the sand.
They got the better of me on that one, too. Fine.
I rolled on my side, hacked a gritty mouthful of goo, and spit at the one with the lump on his forehead.
“Puta,” he spat back. Bitch.
The two men got ahold of me by my elbows, lifted me off the ground, and set me on my feet between them—two towers of muscle on my flanks.
“Move,” the one grunted.
“Good idea. Enough of this. Yes, take me to the man in charge. I want to see Doug.” Cocky and overly confident would work. I hoped they’d think I’d seen too much TV and didn’t realize the danger I was in. “Then we can work something out.”
I headed for the army jeep, but I got yanked back.
“This way,” he said and gave me a shove in the direction of the beach.
Um, all right.
They walked me right into the thick of the jungle. Instead of using a machete to knock back the branches, the men forced me through in front of them—I swear, every thicket or bramble they could find. Palmetto fronds scraped across my face and neck, leaving tiny slices like paper cuts. Spider webs stuck in my hair. I was sure I’d knock a snake from its arboreal perch.
So far, everything was going as planned. These henchmen didn’t think to search me. The turtle tracker was safely attached to my bracelet, sending out its signals. All I needed now was for them to take me right to Doug.
Assuming they would. What if they didn’t? Were we even headed anywhere in particular, or were they taking this route purposefully to make me miserable? Wouldn’t surprise me if it was to get back at me for the fight at the jail, now that they had the upper hand. But would they really take the time? No. But why head for the beach? There’s nothing that way for miles. It’s completely deserted and—Oh crap! They’ve given up on the money and they’re going to kill me.
I was on a death march.
My hands started to shake. No! No. There’s no reason to think that yet. They want the money. That’s what this is all about. If they kill me and Doug, all their investment is gone. It was all for nothing.
Nope. I’m just another captive, a commodity to them. Unless—what if they suspect I’m a fed?
No. Why would they? I don’t fight like an agent. I learned to fight in the Philippines. And even Officer Ramón still didn’t know my name. To them, I was just some annoying, cocky girl who couldn’t come up with the ransom money.
Just stick with the guise. Give them a hard time.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I said. No response. “I mean, what if we get lost?” I turned to the one closest to me, the one with the limp. “How’s that leg holding up? You gonna make it? Maybe you should leave some bread crumbs along the way, huh, Hansel?” I stopped, turned my attention to the other. “That makes you Gretel, right?” He shoved me forward. “Where’s your sense of humor? Okay, you can be Hansel then.”
The foliage changed from old growth trees to bushes covered in a tangle of vines. There was no way I could get through. Hansel nudged me south again. We were changing directions. I skirted a big mud puddle and then faked a fall, tripping over an imaginary vine, stalling for time. I let out a squawk that could be heard for some distance. The men hauled me back to my feet and shoved me onward, seemingly unconcerned.
I kept my eyes forward. I didn’t dare look around, even hint of scanning the forest for Dalton. But he was here. Close behind. I knew it.
And Noah was watching the pings from the satellite. He had my back, too. Both of them did.
They both cared about me. A lot. But I wasn’t too sure I liked the idea of them working together. Ugh. Dalton had turned into some kind of macho, I don’t even know what to call it, and Noah was acting all, “Hey, didn’t mean to walk onto your turf.” Like I’m turf. Men. After this was over, I needed a man-free vacation. Hell, come to think of it, I needed an actual vacation.
Right now, I needed to focus.
For more than a mile, I figured, I ducked and turned, trying to protect my face, until finally, we pushed through a particularly thick wall of green onto a great expanse of sandy shoreline. The men shoved me to my knees.
“You stay,” the one said, and they walked away from me. I assumed so they’d be out of earshot. They didn’t need to go far. The surf rolled in and pounded against the beach like rolling thunder.
The beach was secluded. No doubt about that. A magnificent frigatebird circled overhead. A male. Such beautiful birds. He soared on the wind, his eyes searching the waters below. Two brown-footed boobies zinged by, just above the water’s surface. This truly was a natural paradise, ripe for plunder by wildlife traffickers.
Sometimes I hated my job. Living in blissful ignorance would feel much better right about now. I could’ve been sitting here with a pair of binoculars, enjoying the scenery. Maybe have packed a picnic lunch. Some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Oooh, a nice bottle of wine. And a damn hat. What I wouldn’t have given to have my hat right now. A pair of sunglasses would be nice, too. The sun had made its way overhead and I was getting blasted full-on by solar rays. With my pale skin, after a few minutes of this, I’d be a lobster. Yes, I could’ve been napping under a pink umbrella. But no. Instead, I’d volunteered to be kidnapped.
Come to think of it, when I get back, maybe I should see a shrink.
“Hey, I could use a drink over here!” I hollered. “Icy cold beer, if you’ve got one.”
Hansel turned and glared at me. I had to keep an eye on him. He had this look about him, like he was weighing the punishment from his boss against sticking me with a knife.
“Well, that’s the last straw. You’re definitely not getting a tip.”
A phone call was made. Some pacing.
As far as I could see, there was no road in sight. This spot was about as remote as it gets. But not a place horses couldn’t get. Was I going to get to ride on my own horse? At least that would be fun. Tourists probably pay hundreds of dollars for a horseback riding trip on a deserted beach in Mexico. Here, I was going to get one for free. Ha!
Just get me to Doug already.
The more I thought about it, the more I liked the scenario. They wouldn’t be able to run the horses in this heat. Dalton would be able to track me on foot.
So why were my nerves jangling like a damn telegraph wire?
I looked out at the ocean, seeking calm from the soothing action of the waves. Wait. What was that floating out there? A log? The men saw it, too. Something bobbing in the surf, long and gray.
With each rolling wave, it popped up where I could get a quick glimpse.
I’ll be damned. It was a crocodile. About forty yards out from shore. I had no idea they’d swim out into the open ocean like that. Yikes. Not a good place to take a swim.
Suddenly, the men got excited. They pointed at the croc, spouting a flurry of words, none I could make out. Then I saw what the fuss was about. The crocodile had a sea turtle in its mouth. Those monster jaws clamped down on the turtle’s carapace, locked in a death grip. As the croc bobbed on each wave, the turtle stretched its long neck, the poor thing gasping for a breath.
The croc swam
for shore. Made sense. It wouldn’t be able to eat the turtle underwater. If it opened its mouth to chomp down, the turtle might slip away. It needed to get on land, where the turtle was at great disadvantage, to enjoy its meal. This, I did not want to witness.
As it got closer and closer, the men moved toward the spot where it was headed to come ashore. I shook my head. Not a good plan, guys. But then again, hey, maybe the croc would take out one of them for me.
The croc got within fifty feet of shore when a tiny fishing boat came zinging around the sand bar and headed straight toward us. In a flash, the croc disappeared under the surface and was gone.
The boat rode right up onto the beach. My captors forgot the croc and turned their attention to me.
Wait. A boat wasn’t in the plan.
Once again, they lifted me by my arms and escorted me, one on each side, to the boat.
No, no, no. Not a boat. We hadn’t thought about a boat. Cars, Jeeps. Even aircraft. But not a boat. Dalton wouldn’t be able to follow.
My heart thumped in my chest. Dalton wouldn’t like it. He wouldn’t like it one bit.
But this was the only way to find Doug. It was this or forget it.
I let my eyes trail back to the jungle. To where he must have been hidden.
Let me go.
The two thugs forced me into the boat and onto the center bench seat. Gretel got in on my right side.
Wherever they were taking me, pings from the turtle tracker would have to be enough to track my location. Noah had programmed them to the shortest interval he could, one every twenty minutes. Dalton had still grumbled, saying it was too long between pings. But he would plot a trajectory, would investigate the location of every ping. He’d…he’d be right behind me.
I just needed to stay in character, keep up the act.
“I’m not sure this boat is big enough for all of us,” I said, which was the truth. It was a steel rowboat with a forty-horse outboard motor on the back. “Do you have enough life jackets?”
The driver, a young man no more than eighteen, gave me a quizzical look.
Gretel gave me an annoyed glance and said, “Shut up.”
We can’t be going far, I told myself, trying not to let my eyes be drawn back to the jungle. The boat had no extra gas tank, no radio, no life jackets, no nothing. Just one oar.
Hansel gave the boat a shove, then crawled over the side as the driver rammed the throttle in reverse. We backed out into the ocean, waves splashing over the stern.
Not twenty feet away, the croc surfaced. Alone. The turtle had gotten away.
It’s an omen! I closed my eyes and willed my thoughts to be sent to Dalton. I can handle this. Everything will be all right. The good guys always win. Right?
Chapter Eighteen
The driver hauled ass, full throttle, making the boat bounce across the tops of the waves, beating the crap out of us. I wouldn’t have minded so much, but with my hands zip-tied behind my back, it was difficult to keep my balance. I braced my feet against the bench seat in front of me and bent forward, keeping my center of gravity low.
We were probably going about twenty-five miles an hour, but it felt like eighty. Dalton had been right—they could move me quite a distance between signals from the turtle tracker in my bracelet. Assuming the signals were even going out. I couldn’t imagine the rant he was formulating for Noah right now. I’d bet he was fit to be tied.
My situation wasn’t what we’d planned, but I’d have to make do. I was stuck with two thugs who weren’t too happy with me after our first encounter, but on the positive side, they weren’t in charge. Someone else was calling the shots. And if he wanted me kept alive so far, it was for a reason. I’d be alive for a while longer.
We zinged along the shoreline just offshore, where the water was deeper, before it hit the shallows and raised up and curled over as it headed for the beach. The shore looked the same—sandy beach lined with palm trees backed by thick jungle vegetation—as we rode south. No distinctive landmarks. No man-made structures. Nothing to give a hint as to our exact whereabouts.
Salt stuck to my sun-burned face. I licked my lips. That was a mistake. Yuck.
Was I losing my mind, or were those dolphins off our starboard bow? “Look at that,” I said aloud, quickly realizing these men couldn’t care less.
They were real. Spotted dolphins popped from the surface—one, two, three—as if in formation, their movement so graceful and sleek they barely left a ripple upon the water. Their course looked to cross with ours. I hoped our driver would care enough to watch out for them. Of course, they were so agile and intelligent, they’d maneuver without trouble, but still.
The dolphins dipped and surfaced with incredible speed and soon they were beside us, surfing on the wake of the boat. One popped up at the bow, then another. With each dive, they playfully pivoted from side to side, just as they would with their mothers or other dolphins. They kept up with us, their gray bodies moving through the crystal clear water, seemingly without effort.
I sat up straighter and felt myself smile, in spite of my anxiety. Somehow, I felt like they were my guardians, come to escort me. It’s been recorded time and time again, dolphins coming to the aid of stranded swimmers. Their intelligence is far greater than most give them credit for, and their compassion and altruism even more so.
Soon they moved away. Bored, I supposed. But they left me with a calm resolve. I wasn’t alone out here.
At twenty-five miles an hour (if my guess was accurate) and what seemed like about a half an hour passed, I reckoned we’d traveled about twelve miles when Captain Jack pulled back on the throttle and slowed us to a reasonable speed for these waves. My brain had been jostled enough to make me believe I was in Idaho. Maybe that was their intent.
If Dalton got a good look at the boat and the motor attached, he’d be guessing the same. A motor of that size and age, with four adults on board could travel at X speed. But I couldn’t see a road from here. Which meant, even if Dalton had gotten back to the car with Noah, they couldn’t see me either to know we’d stopped.
They could back track though. Triangulate. Dalton would figure it out.
The driver pulled out a ratty old chart, unrolled it, and tried to hold it up to look at it. The paper flopped in the wind.
Genius.
Finally he figured out he should spread it out on the bench seat.
“Don’t tell me we’re lost,” I said.
I’m thinking Captain Jack didn’t speak English because I got no reaction. Good to know.
“I think the Tiki bar is back that way,” I said. “I could use a cold one.”
Still, no reaction.
He looked up from the chart and scanned the shoreline. Well, that was promising. Dry land sounded really good about now. But here, there was no beach. Mangroves grew right down to the waterline.
The chart got rolled back up and stuffed under his butt. He cranked on the throttle so hard with the prop turned at an angle, I slammed into Gretel beside me. He shoved me back upright.
Then I saw what the driver had seen. A break in the mangroves. He headed right for it.
The engine slowed. We surfed on the rollers toward shore, and into the mangrove swamp we went. Branches scraped against the sides of the boat as we ducked to keep from getting swatted in the face. The driver didn’t slow, but kept pushing along, farther into the thick of it.
If they zig, I’ll know. If they zag, I’ll be there.
Talk about a needle in a haystack. Dalton wouldn’t see me if he were ten feet away.
Captain Jack followed an unmarked, meandering course that he seemed to know without checking his chart. He’d been here before. Enough to be confident of his path. But he’d had to look to find the entrance. That meant he usually approached from the south, not the north. I stuck that tidbit of info away in the back of my brain.
At last, the bow scraped the sandy bottom and he killed the engine. But no one moved. Hansel and Gretel remained where they were, l
ooking as stoic as ever. Captain Jack consulted his watch, an impatient look on his face.
And we sat, mosquitoes buzzing around my head.
“This wasn’t really what I had in mind when I booked this excursion, and I expect a full—”
Gretel rammed his elbow into my side.
Right. Shutting up.
A few minutes passed. The driver looked at his watch again. Then he was over the side and gone. Neither Hansel nor Gretel made a move to take the helm.
Was the driver making sure the way was clear to transport me? To make an exchange? Maybe he wasn’t sure of the exact spot he was supposed to deliver me and he had to go find it.
We waited. More damn mosquitoes found me. I rubbed my ear on my shoulder, trying to get them off.
“I think he might be lost,” I said after about five minutes had passed. “Maybe you should go look for him.”
Hansel, sitting in the bow, smirked.
More than twenty minutes passed while we waited. I was certain of it. That meant at least one ping went out from the tracker in my bracelet. Dalton would be back on course. He’d know right where I’d come ashore. He could pick up my trail again. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Then the driver appeared again with a satchel in his hand. He tossed it into the boat, climbed in and with one pull he had the motor started again.
Well, crap.
He backtracked through the mangroves, faster now, and soon we burst back into the sunlight. I was glad to have the breeze again. The bugs blew away. But we were on the move again. Would Dalton notice in time? Or would he assume we’d come ashore?
As we got through the rollers, and back out into the pounding surf, the boat didn’t turn south. Or back north.
The driver held the throttle, full speed, pointing the bow into the waves, straight out from shore.
We were headed out to sea.
Well, crap. Not good.
Chapter Nineteen
Hansel and Gretel didn’t seem phased by this change in direction. Why would they? They knew exactly where we were headed. I was the one wishing I had breadcrumbs to leave behind. All I had were electronic crumbs, twenty minutes between signals, if they were working at all. Nope. I wasn’t going there. They were working. Every twenty minutes. Sending my location to Dalton. They had to be.
Operation Turtle Ransom Page 17
