Victor just winks at her, causing Laura to punch him again on the shoulder before grabbing him and pulling him close to her. His body is warm and hard.
“Join me when I go to Peru to track down the treasure and scrolls.” Laura freezes when she hears the invitation, then gives Victor a big kiss and snuggles up tightly against him, her head spinning and her body still tremoring from delight, it will take a while for her heart to return to normal pace.
“Oh yes,” she answers before closing her eyes and falling asleep. Victor takes a deep breath then also closes his eyes and waits for sleep to come. He now starts to realize that he has not been given all the details and many more players were on the ship than he was originally informed of. It is clear now, the man he had killed in his apartment had been sent to assassinate him. There is only one explanation for that, they must think that he had turned for not killing Laura. Well, now they will definitely think he has turned, and since he has the disc, they will send people after him and Laura. It will be just a matter of time before they catch up to him. The only way to keep Laura safe is to find the scrolls himself and use them as bargaining chips for Laura’s life.
Chapter 9
Something woke Victor. He is not sure what, but something is wrong. Listening intently he realizes what it is that woke him. The night air is cool and silent, except for the faint hum of aircraft engines. He knows that sound. It is from a specialized airplane the agency he used to work for uses to deploy personnel at very low altitudes with a small boat directly into water. The engines are specially muffled so that very little noise is made. He had not expected them to reach him this fast, the airplane must have flown from somewhere in the US to get here so fast.
Pulling his arm from under Laura, she immediately rolls closer and grabs his cushion, pulling it tightly against her naked body. The moonlight reflecting off her soft skin makes it look as if she has body paint on. Victor runs his fingers over her body and slowly Laura wakes up. Smiling up at him through half open eyes she asks, “Is it time to get up already?”
Victor nods, “We have to go, they’re here.”
Immediately Laura is awake. Quickly they get out of bed and start to get dressed. Laura starts to put on the high heels she was wearing when evacuating the ship, but Victor shakes his head.
“We will get you something else, you need to be able to run,” he whispers to her.
Suddenly Victor freezes, there it is, the sound he was waiting for, the sound of a muffled small outboard motor powering a pontoon boat. There should be four men, standard deployment for an assassination like this.
Victor knows they will be wearing standard company issue body armor; night vision, two Heckler & Koch MP5K sub machine guns; a modified 9mm Beretta sidearm holding 20 rounds, fitted with a silencer; and an assortment of hand grenades each.
Victor reaches into his bag and takes out a titanium dive knife, a Blackie Collins series, with a seven inch double edged blade. He puts the knife behind his back, clipping it to the top of his t-shirt, making it easy to pull out from behind his head. Then he takes Josh’s pistol and chambers a round, then crawls to the living room. He motions for Laura to go into the bathroom and stay there. Laura crawls into the bathroom and peeks out of the door, her heart beating wildly, she is shaking with fear.
Laura sees Victor pick up the cushion he had dropped when he kissed her in the living room and hold it in front of him with the gun behind it. She wonders why he would hide his pistol when they surely know he is armed.
The curtains are swaying gently in the wind, and Laura fears someone jumping from behind them every time they swing into the room. There is a faint sound of someone picking the lock in the kitchen, and Victor stands up and presses himself against the television cabinet, waiting for the man to enter the living room through the kitchen.
Laura has a clear view of the kitchen and has to bite on her finger to stop herself from screaming when she sees two men entering the kitchen, submachine guns ready, with silencers fitted, the same type Victor used to rescue Laura. Slowly the men make their way through the kitchen and towards the living area.
She can make out that the men have some strange devices on their heads. It looks like those shown in movies allowing them to see in the dark. The first man is now right in the archway to the living room; Victor is only inches to his left against the dry wall, yet the man does not enter. It looks like he is waiting for someone, backup.
Sensing that the man is stalling, Victor moves. For Laura it all seems to happen in slow motion, even though it is all over in seconds. Victor brings the cushion up to stomach level with the gun following and fires as he turns directly into the path of the first attacker. As he fires, he continues to walk forward, pushing the man backwards and keeping him off balance so as not to allow him to counter attack. Victor keeps firing through the cushion, putting seven rounds in total into the man. The gun makes almost no sound and suddenly Laura realizes why Victor had the cushion when they kissed.
The second attacker is unable to get a clear shot but does not care, he opens fire, shooting his buddy who is already dead and being held up by Victor as a shield. Victor keeps pushing forward until the second attacker is pushed against the kitchen table and has emptied his magazine, causing him to need to reload.
The moment Victor hears the click sound from the firing pin falling on the empty chamber of the second man’s gun, he pushes the dead body to the side and fires over it.
He puts two rounds in the man’s head and empties the magazine into his chest.
Laura suddenly sees a gun appearing from behind the curtains in the living room and then an attacker, he is almost behind Victor and ready to shoot. Laura jumps from the bathroom and shouts at Victor, “Behind you!!”
The attacker immediately stops and turns to look where the shouting came from. Upon seeing Laura he immediately brings his machine gun up to kill her. Suddenly the living room lights go on, blinding the man’s vision, yet he still fires in Laura’s direction, hoping to kill her.
Victor grabs the gun from behind and pulls the barrel up just as the man fires. Bullets rip into the wall just above Laura’s head and as she ducks down she sees how Victor pulls the gun barrel up until it points at the man’s chin while holding the man’s finger down on the trigger. The last 10 rounds of the magazine go through the man’s head, causing it to explode.
The lifeless body drops to the ground. Victor quickly takes the man’s side arm, the spare clips for it from a pocket next to the holster and tucks the magazines into his backpack that he had left on the living room floor. After making sure that the pistol is loaded, he switches the living room lights off again. Making his way to Laura, he asks, “Are you hurt?”
Laura shakes her head but stares intently at the blood on Victor’s face.
“Strange, normally there are four,” Victor comments. He listens intently for footsteps, and suddenly feels a damp cloth on his face. Laura has silently wetted a face cloth and is busy cleaning the blood off his face and neck.
Victor waits until she is done, still listening for another attacker. When Laura is done he takes her by the right hand with his left and says, “Let’s go, we will get a car in the parking area. It’s not safe here, we have to leave the island tonight. I know where we can get a boat.”
As Laura follows him she asks, “Why can’t we fly out tomorrow?”
Without looking at Laura he replies, “They will know when we board a plane and simply shoot it out of the sky, body count means nothing to these men as long as the job is done and the pay is right. We have to go where they don’t expect us to go and where their intelligence gathering is low. As long as we keep moving and stay off the grid we will be ok.”
Laura is shocked at his answer, but then after all she has been through and seen, nothing would surprise her now. Slowly, they make their way out of the unit and down the stairs, Victor in front making sure there is no danger. He uses the stairs so as not to make any noise. When they reach the ground floor,
he holds Laura back while he peers around the corner into the passageway. Nothing, all is silent. Slowly he moves into the passageway and presses himself against the wall, listening for the slightest sound that is out of place.
Laura is still on the last step and is about to step into the hallway when the elevator arrives with a ping and the doors open. Victor spins around and covers the door. Light from inside the elevator floods the hallway, but no one emerges. Slowly the doors close again and the hallway goes back to being dimly moonlit.
Just as Victor turns towards the exit to the parking area a voice makes him freeze in shock.
“Drop the gun or I kill the girl.”
Slowly Victor turns and to his horror sees the fourth attacker he was looking for standing right behind Laura, one step above her, with his pistol against her head. Laura’s eyes are wide open and he can see them pleading for him to help her.
“The gun, on the ground, now,” the man says and gives Laura’s head a slight push to the left with his gun. Slowly Victor drops to his knees and puts the gun on the ground in front of him. Then he slowly raises his hands and puts them behind his head.
“You should have killed her,” the assassin says as he twists his wrist to change his aim from Laura’s head to Victor’s. It is just the movement Victor is waiting for, when the barrel is not pointed at either of them, he pulls the knife from behind his head while at the same time standing up quickly, throwing the knife as hard as he can. The knife goes just over Laura’s head and strikes the man in his windpipe, cutting it open and continuing until it hits the bones in his neck. The knife is not heavy enough to carry sufficient momentum to go through the bones, but blood is already entering the man’s windpipe, while the blade blocks air from entering his throat due to the way Victor threw it.
As soon as Victor throws the knife, he jumps forward, pulling Laura away with his left hand and gives a blow with the palm of his right hand to the heel of the knife, driving it through the bones in the man’s neck.
Laura falls to the side and into the passage and rolls onto her back, looking up at the man with a knife in his throat. Victor immediately follows up his punch with a round the house kick, spinning on his left leg and bringing his right around. He catches the handle of the knife with the edge of his boot, causing the knife to twist inside the man’s neck, severing the flesh still holding his head in place.
As the body drops to the ground, the fall tears off the last of the skin and flesh holding the head and it comes off. Laura watches in horror as the head rolls partway down the hallway. Victor immediately picks up his gun and knife, cleaning the knife on the dead man’s clothing, then pulls Laura up and towards the parking area.
Looking around, Victor goes to the rental car parked closest to the entrance, a Nissan four door sedan 1.6 L, an Avis rental car, right hand drive. Reaching the left front door, he puts the tip of his knife blade against the keyhole and strikes the back of the knife with his pistol. The knife cuts into the lock and Victor turns the knife breaking the lock. Laura is surprised to see the door lock jump up inside the car. Victor opens the door and motions for Laura to get into the car. He walks around the car and she opens the door for him from the inside.
Immediately as he climbs into the car, he starts feeling under the steering for the electrical wires, but stops when Laura dangles a car key in front of him.
“Will this help?”
“Where did you get that?” Victor asks in surprise.
“Was on the driver’s seat.”
They both laugh at the dumb tourist who locked his car keys inside his rental car, and for their luck. Victor starts the car and as he turns right out of the parking lot, Laura wants to know where they are going.
“To the bank.”
As they drive Laura slides her hand onto his left leg, he responds by dropping his left hand from the steering and placing it on top of her hand. They drive for a while until Victor suddenly slows down and stops next to a signpost saying, “Duppies Turn”.
“We’re here, I won’t be long.”
Laura looks around, but all she can see is a deserted road with bush on either side. She notices that the signpost tells the story of how the place got the name of “Duppies Turn”.
A young man used the small path that linked up with the main road to visit his girlfriend due to no main roads being available to her house. He came back late one evening just as a storm was starting to move in, with the wind picking up. Suddenly he saw a ghost in the path up ahead. Ghosts were reported widely in the area in those times and the man was so scared by the ghost that he ran back towards his girlfriend’s house where a friend lived nearby. He begged his friend to walk with him to the turn. At the exact same spot as the Laura is in now, they saw a black figure swaying in the road.
Shivers run down Laura’s back. She watches as Victor removes rocks from a pile next to the path, marked “Duppies Turn”. There are a lot of black figures swaying around in the dark around him and Laura wants to lock her car door, but realizes that she cannot due to Victor breaking the lock. She holds the door as tightly closed as she can while continuing to read the story.
The man and his friend, taking courage by being together, slowly approached the black swaying figure, edging forward foot by foot until they were only 15 feet away. Only then did they discover to their relief that the swaying black figure was a silver thatch palm tree that twisted in the breeze, causing it to go from dark green to silver as the front twisted in the wind. Laura relaxes a bit and loosens her grip on the door a little while stealing a glance at how Victor is progressing.
Laura freezes in shock when all she sees is an empty path, no Victor. Suddenly the driver’s door opens, frightening Laura. She screams and rips her door open and jumps out, tripping over a loose rock on the ground and landing face first in the dirt. Victor just leans over her seat and looks at her while laughing.
“You coming?”
Laura dusts herself off and climbs back into the car, she is furious at him, but when she turns to face him, his smile and piercing blue eyes just melt away her anger.
“You are such an ass,” she says before reaching over and kissing him. Victor just shakes his head jokingly at her when she pulls back, and he starts the car.
Laura notices a waterproof bag on the back seat.
“What’s inside the bag?”
“Just over a million dollars,” Victor replies calmly as he points the car towards West Bay, the other side of the island, and floors the car. Laura notices that the wind has picked up considerably and black clouds are starting to form in the night sky, partly blocking the full moon’s light.
“Is there a storm coming?”
“Sort of, actually a hurricane.”
“And we’re going by boat?” Laura is not sure about this idea.
“No worry, the storm is far away, and this boat can handle it.” Laura does not reply, but just watches as the bush along the road makes way for houses and shops and then later houses again. Finally they come to a road that stops right by the water. There are three villas on the right and Victor parks in front of the first one. Immediately a security light comes on.
Laura can see that it is a double story wooden villa with a lit pathway on the left that leads to a canal, where she can make out the front of a boat, but is not sure what kind.
“Let’s go meet my friend,” Victor says as he climbs out. To the right of the villa is wooden stairs that lead to the balcony on the top floor. After climbing the stairs they come to a glass door, through which Laura can see the kitchen and living room. On the far side she can see glass doors that open up onto another porch with a view of the canal. To the right of the living room are two rooms, possibly bedrooms.
Victor knocks on the glass door, nothing happens. Again he knocks, this time louder. Suddenly a light goes on in the last room and moments later a man in his forties comes to the door, wearing only shorts.
Upon seeing Victor he quickly opens the door and greets him with a surpr
ised but happy face. Seeing Laura he greets her with a hug and before Victor can introduce him, he announces that he is Nathaniel.
“Come in, come in.” As soon as they enter he closes the door and motions them towards the living room where they each take a seat.
“So, I presume this is not a social visit due to the sun not being up yet?”
Victor smile, “Directly to the point. We need a boat ride.”
Nathaniel laughs as he replies, “This time of night? You’re crazy, there’s a storm coming, do you know that? Wait until tomorrow.”
When she hears about the storm, Laura looks at Victor who remains motionless when he replies, “It is important that we leave tonight.”
“Where to?” Nathaniel asks, now a bit more serious.
“Cancun.”
“Now I know you’re crazy,” Nathaniel says as he stands up and then asks, “Coffee?” Both Victor and Laura reply yes and Nathaniel starts to make a fresh pot of filter coffee.
Looking at the two he finally asks, “You serious?” Victor has been fiddling with his bag and stands up, then walks to the kitchen counter where Nathaniel is putting cups out.
“100 000 dollars cash serious” he says as he places a pile of money on the counter. Nathaniel almost drops a coffee cup when he sees the money.
“You know it’s going to be a wet and uncomfortable ride?” Victor nods. Looking at the money again, Nathaniel replies, “Then I better make us some spare coffee for the trip.” Both men just smile at each other, both always keen for an adventure.
Chapter 10
Laura makes sandwiches while Victor and Nathaniel make ready the boat. The boat is an ex-navy seal rib that has been converted into a dive boat, with seating for thirteen people plus two crew. It has twin inboard 450 horsepower turbo diesel motors and can cruise at just over 40 knots. Using a unique twin jet drive system, the boat can maneuver in very shallow water and turn on the spot by placing one jet system in forward and the other in reverse.
Nathaniel loads additional diesel cans due to the boat’s inboard tanks only giving a range of around 250 miles. Laura looks on from the balcony as Nathaniel activates the spreader lights around the boat and opens the engine hatch. The boat has three rows of seats on the bow facing forward, followed by two rows of four seats on either side of the boat, facing inwards. These last seats are bolted on top of the engine hatch that is split into two massive steel doors operated by hydraulics.
Laura 01 The Jaguar Prophecy Page 11
