Ric pursed his lips and laughed. “Oh, man, I am going nowhere. My sailing days are long gone. I know the place you mean, but I won’t be leaving this shore again.”
“We have much to offer.” Crouch made the universal money sign.
“Don’t care if you’re offerin’ me Shakira in a Lamborghini. I ain’t takin’.”
Alicia paused with her lips around the mouth of the bottle. “Really? I might.”
Ric made a shooing gesture. “Have at it.”
Crouch looked despondent. “Is there anything we could offer you?”
“Got all I need right here in this shack, man. Do I look unhappy to you?”
Crouch admitted that he didn’t.
“Had my fair share of material shit. Had money. Had women. It’s all jus’ complication. Out here—” he spread his arms “—is easy. Out here — you live long and happy.”
“And lonely,” Alicia pointed out, still drinking. “I know about running. Truth is, it gets you nowhere.”
“Who says I’m running?”
“Well, my contact actually.” Crouch smiled. “Says you owe a tidy sum in back taxes.”
“Shit.”
“But we’re not here to hassle you. We just need a little help.”
“Shit.”
“Either way, we never saw you.”
“Duppy Island, you say?”
“Is that what it’s called? We can’t find it on any map.”
“Nah. Nobody go there. Only a Yardie knows.”
“A Yardie?”
“A local. Jamaican. And a duppy is a ghost. Duppy Island be crawling with ’em.”
“Shit.” Now it was Alicia’s turn to curse.
“You believe inna duppy?”
“ ’Course not. What kind of ghosts?”
Ric shrugged. “Lotta dead there through the years. Pirates mostly.” He looked away. “Don’t want talk ’bout it.”
“If you won’t take us there, can you show us where it is?” Crouch pointed toward Caitlyn’s laptop. “Exactly?” Their contact had explained that Ric had once been a competent showboat captain and an explorer of the local area. He would have a wide knowledge of all things nautical.
“You mean real coordinates? Nah. But I can sail you close if you got a real good digital map.”
Caitlyn placed her laptop on one of the plastic table tops. “Ready to go.”
Ric slowly unstuck his body from the counter as Caitlyn raised the screen, then came around using a languid gait. For a man essentially on the run, Alicia had never seen anyone so laid-back.
“I guess police chases happen around here on a whole different level,” she remarked.
Ric ignored her and peered at the screen. Pinpointing Port Royal, he took a virtual voyage first toward Haiti and then Panama, east then south across the Caribbean Sea, zooming in at points of interest — sandbars, reefs and unnamed islands too small to be of any interest — before sailing on. When he found a spit of land shaped like a spoon he grumbled, adjusted his positioning and started afresh from there. Half an hour passed as Ric ran a painstaking eye over their journey. At last he pointed at what could only be described as the tiniest ring of land amid the sea.
“That is Duppy. Be careful there. It is… overrun.”
Crouch nodded happily. “By ghosts, yes. Thank you so much, Ric.” He pumped the Jamaican’s hand and turned to the others with a huge smile on his face.
“We have it.”
Alicia grunted. “Let’s hope, this time, it’s not a local’s wristwatch.”
“Have faith. On Duppy, there are no locals.”
“Don’t forget the ghosts.”
Russo ran a hand over the back of Alicia’s neck, making her shiver. “You scared, sweetie?”
Alicia grabbed the hand and bent the fingers until their owner pleaded for mercy. “Sweetie?”
“I meant bitch. Sorry, sorry I really meant bitch.”
“That’s better.” Alicia let him go.
“If you two are ready,” Crouch started walking back toward their vehicle, “it’s time to set sail in search of the treasure.”
Alicia followed with Russo. “How the hell did he say that without using a pirate accent? I know I couldn’t.”
“I guess he’s a pro.”
“Aw, sore that I bent your likkle fingers?”
“Barely felt a thing. The noises were to help you feel better.”
Alicia slapped the man on the shoulders as they neared the car. Behind them, Healey and Caitlyn walked so close no daylight passed between them. The final hunt was on, and the team were ready.
“Let’s hope we’re not walking into a trap,” Alicia said, climbing in. “Or into hell on earth.”
“Shit,” Russo said. “Now you’ve gone and bloody jinxed it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
The team planned their boat trip so that they neared the island as darkness descended in its entirety. Using their benefactor’s wealth and influence they had managed to rent a large, sleek, ocean-going yacht from Port Royal and programmed their coordinates into the advanced auto-pilot system. Sometimes it paid to be acting for well-off individuals known for their entrepreneurship and contributions to local governments. A man that could open the doors of power with a single phone call.
Michael Crouch found it increasingly hard to suppress the excitement as he neared what he believed would prove to be yet another historic achievement. Men had searched for Henry Morgan’s long lost treasure through the centuries, through long years lost in the mists of time; men long dead and turned to dust themselves. And none had prevailed. Crouch lived for the hunt.
Which was nearing its end.
All the years of living for the job, of training soldiers and planning missions. All the times he’d coached and planted men like Beau to go behind enemy lines, to become part of a terrible organization. Some of those decisions haunted him now. All had seemed necessary at the time.
But time itself lent a new perspective to “necessary.”
Everything changed. Even me. Even correct decisions. Even concrete chipped and eroded and faded away. We can only do what we think is morally right.
The boat began to slow and, on the digitized display before them, the team saw the details of the approaching island. Assuming they would be here well past sunup they anchored the large yacht well offshore and broke out the motorized dinghies.
Caitlyn transferred the map’s specifications from the on-board computer to her smartphone. The island wasn’t large but it would still be good to be able to find their way around and know the location of coves, beaches and places of sanctuary. Assuming Jensen would have landed at the most easily accessible cove, they plotted a course to one of the hardest and set out in two dinghies, wearing black and carrying loaded weapons, invisible in the darkest part of the night.
The sea buffeted them gently, soft swells passing by. The moon presented a thin sliver of silver that bounced across the waves and offered the barest amount of light to see by. Crouch took what he could get, embracing the dark and using the faint illumination to navigate closer to a beach bounded by rocky outcroppings. They were jarred, tipped left and right, glanced once and then twice off the thin tips of rocks, dinghies shaken but remaining intact, bounced between swells, and skipped off the top of a curling wave. They were left rousted, but safe as they finally drifted up to shore, the shifting waters giving way to a soft beach, silver in the quarter-light and happily empty.
Crouch had always been confident about their landing point. It was where they went afterward that might prove difficult. A proper recce was called for, as they needed to know enemy positions, numbers and extent of firepower in short order.
No sign of Jensen then.
Crouch walked carefully along the beach as Alicia and Russo found a safe place for the dinghies. Soon, he was standing before the tree line, peering into a darker interior. As his eyes adjusted, something began to take shape.