She turned away, taking a moment to regain focus. She needed every ounce of concentration now.
Footsteps stopped right outside the tent.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
“Hey mon, all good in der?”
The thick tones were so close to her ear Alicia thought for a moment the man had stuck his head through the loose flap. She realized he was bending down, listening. She looked around at the dead men, the seeping blood. Probably not what the new pirate wanted to see.
She hated herself in one way but knew the old Alicia wouldn’t mind doing what she did next.
“Ahh,” she whispered softly. “Yeah, that’s it. Right there.”
She moaned softly.
“Jake? That you?”
Stifling a retort, she played it out a bit further and a bit louder. “All the way in. Go on… just… oh, yeah.”
Silence for five seconds made Alicia let out another series of sounds. A shuffling of feet tensed her body and made her ready the knife.
“All right, mon. You be happy.” Footsteps moved away, vanishing into the night.
Alicia gave it five minutes and then carefully pushed her head through a gap in the bottom of the tent. Darkness and stillness presented in equal measure, so she squeezed through and back outside. The camp looked the same as she reacquainted herself, then took a few minutes to look beyond the prison tents and on up the steady slope to the top of the hill. It was a busy stretch of land up there — not only dotted with campfires and tents but also crowded with thick brush and undergrowth, trees and outcroppings, natural curved features and random boulders. On the plus side it offered quite a bit of cover; on the downside it would be hard to negotiate properly. Danger lived in that climb, danger as lethal as any she’d ever known.
Taking care, she skirted the hill as best she could, seeing no alternatives, and then started to make her way back through the camp. She fancied she could see an early smudge of dawn marking the lowest horizon. She wondered how she’d managed to stay in there half the night. No further communications had come from Crouch, but that was as it should be. The team wouldn’t want to compromise her. A double-click every half hour told them she was staying out of trouble.
As much as Alicia Myles was able.
As she neared the edge of the camp she began to hear the muted sounds of men waking, the coughing and the yawning. She guessed the sentries would be on their way back in. Creeping low, she heard a sound in the undergrowth outside the camp and froze. Waiting, she saw Russo.
“Hey.” Her voice was pitched low. “Hey. Here.”
Russo looked over, saw her move, and hunkered down at her side.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Looking for you. We thought…”
Alicia shushed him with a finger to his lips as another creaking and crashing sound attested to the presence of another individual — this one clearly born without any realization of the word stealth. One of the guards, looking sleepy and hungover, barged through, snagging his clothes on branches and scratching bare skin, not caring. Alicia stared at Russo as the man passed them by, four feet away but oblivious. When he was gone Russo prized the finger from his lips.
“Don’t ever do that again. I have no idea where that finger of yours has been.”
“Oh, I think you do, Rob,” Alicia whispered cheekily. “I really think you do.”
Together, they made their way back to Crouch and the others. The boss had found a nice hiding place, an eroded overhang surrounded by rocks and whispering waves on three sides, a mini-cave with its rocky back to the island. Alicia picked her way over the rocks to the dry back part of their hiding place.
Crouch nodded. “Report?”
Alicia laid it all out, from the state of the camp and the men in the tents to the hazardous hill and the prisoner area and the ancient weapons. She voiced her opinion that this group was a band of modern-day pirates.
“Worst of the worst,” Russo grunted. “Scavengers. They care little about life.”
“They are likely to find the ones I killed,” Alicia said.
“I guess it happens most nights,” Russo said. “I doubt they’ll care, except for those chosen to take care of the burial.”
“Any sign of who’s in charge?” Crouch asked the question a leader would wonder about.
“Nothing. No special tents, no banners or black flags.”
“It’s not a joke. We could use the info.”
“I know. It’s the whole pirate angle is getting to me. No sign of Captain Flint, sir.”
Crouch sat back on his heels, spine against the rock. “Then what next? Where’s Jensen going?”
“I find it hard to believe you guys haven’t figured that out by now. What have you been doing all night?” Alicia looked suspiciously from face to face.
“First, we searched for guards. Then Jensen. Then we got some kip,” Russo said. “Thought you’d be back hours ago.”
“Oh, so you were all just sleeping whilst I tussled with two men in a tent?”
They all stared, not quite sure what to say. Healey broke the silence. “Is that a movie title, or real life?”
Alicia sighed. “I give in.”
Caitlyn came to her rescue, reciting the passage they already knew. “And though he traveled often and tarried little, Henry Morgan did find himself a stronghold. Not a refuge but a fastness. It lay between Haiti and Panama and Port Royal, spoken of as a large mountain surrounded by a ribbon of beach with an unusual feature atop. A wizened, crooked, bent old tree, a hundred foot tall. A marker of passing time. No leaves, no branches, nothing but a stark, warped trunk. Why was it here? It was there to speak to the fanciful mind of the Pirate King.”
“We already know all that.”
“Yes, and we think it also points to what the author believed was the place where Morgan buried the bulk of his treasure. Where else? It says ‘marker’. It says ‘speak to the fanciful mind of the Pirate King’, meaning he would find significance by using such a clear marker in the middle of so large a sea. Morgan would see it as a sign. He made this place his stronghold, after all. Total security for as long as he pirated the Caribbean seas. A visit every few months to drop the wealth off. It’s a very strong pointer.”
“You think the treasure is buried beneath the twisted, barren tree?”
“At the top of the mountain.”
“Hill.”
“Not in the fanciful tales.” Caitlyn laughed. “It’s always a mountain, Alicia. Always.”
Alicia plonked herself atop a boulder. “Well, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, guys. But that mountain is gonna be an utter bitch to climb, nigh on impossible. It’s hard-going, half-full of tents and fires, littered with brush, trees and rocks. You won’t do it in daylight, and at night,” she spread her arms, “bones are the least you’d be breaking. Skulls most likely; one slip and you’ll roll down to your death, or imprisonment, and then we’d all be outed. Trapped behind the enemy camp with nowhere to go. It’s a logistical nightmare.”
“Do I hear Alicia Myles being cautious?” Russo mock-gasped. “Shit, did the tent tussle cure you?”
“You hear a soldier telling you the lay of the land, and you’d best listen. Seriously, I’m up for anything but we’re going on supposition here. A passage in a book that could also mean something else entirely.”
“It doesn’t,” Caitlyn said. “This time — it’s real. And Jensen wouldn’t have come if he didn’t believe it too.”