“Maybe.” Alicia forced them to listen to the single word. “Maybe.”
“How many pirates?” Crouch asked.
“Around seventy. Could be a hundred.”
“We would have to go tonight.”
“Did you not hear me? It’s suicide.”
“Would you rather we packed up, rowed away and returned home? Call this entire endeavor a failure?”
“It would split the team,” Russo muttered.
Alicia eyed them all. She hadn’t realized they were so desperate for a win this time. She remembered they’d had a few failures recently, whilst she pursued global enemies with her other team.
“This is your lifelong dream,” she said to Crouch. “I get it. But there are times when you just can’t win, boss.”
“Not this time. Our early successes as the Gold Team may have filled us with a false pride, but we need this. And you, Alicia, I know you’re trying to change. To be better. To stop running and face it all head-on. But once upon a time, recently, you’d be calling for an assault on that hill.”
She found herself suddenly introspective, weighing his words. She found that he was probably right. Still, the dangers were no different, still standing and as real as the figures seated around her.
“I’m with you,” she said. “I won’t walk away. Whatever you guys decide I will do. Fight together, die together, right?”
With difficulty she forced down a yearning to return to her new life, her new man, and a new sense of security.
Crouch stared at the sea, a far-away look on his face. “My own desires shouldn’t factor here,” he said. “I’d try to pick out a doubloon caught between a kraken’s gnashers if it shone bright enough. Russo. Caitlyn. Healey. You decide.”
Russo grumbled, not liking being put on the spot. Caitlyn and Healey predictably turned to look at each other.
“We’ve come a long way,” Healey said.
“To get nothing,” Caitlyn said.
“And go home empty handed. Again,” Healey added.
Alicia snorted. “You two are even finishing each other’s sentences now, eh? Shit, there’s no hope for you.”
“Says the changed woman,” Russo grumbled.
“Changed, yes,” Alicia said. “Turned into a fluffy boxset love-monkey, I will never be.”
“Now there’s a word I never thought I’d hear you say.”
“Fluffy?”
“Love-monkey. It doesn’t sound right coming from a bit—”
“Look,” Caitlyn interrupted. “We both want to try for the treasure. We came a long way. We beat every clue and found nothing. We have to finish this, right?”
All eyes then turned to Russo, who rather surprisingly nodded immediately in Alicia’s direction. “I trust Myles. I’d trust her with my life. She’s seen the camp, the men. I go by her instincts.”
Alicia blinked in surprise, then felt a little swell of gratitude. No way six months ago would Russo ever have backed her. An incredible accomplishment in itself since a seasoned soldier would take a great deal of convincing.
She watched Crouch’s face, feeling sorry for the man’s lifelong goal. “It’s over, boss. The risk is truly too great.”
“Then I guess we head back out to sea,” the man said, rising quickly. “No point wasting time here.”
Together they rose, largely disappointed but still part of a professional team. Crouch cocked his head as sounds echoed from the camp. First there was shouting and then a volley of gunfire, then more shouting. The men sounded excited, raucous even, as if a new friend had come to play.
Alicia stared hard at Crouch. “Let’s see what’s going on. Could be a game-changer.”
It wasn’t. The whole team made their way carefully out of the shelter and through a few stands of trees. Creeping low, they fought off persistent branches, greenery and sneezing fits. They shimmied through dry earth and over ruts and thorn bushes, snagged in inextricable knots. As they reached the edge of the pirates’ camp they paused and waited.
Ahead, among the tents, a group of eight men dragged a captive. The man’s head was down, his eyes facing the floor and his arms were cut and bruised, bleeding, but it was clearly John Jensen.
“Shit,” Crouch hissed. “How the hell. ? Jensen’s SAS.”
“No,” Alicia cautioned. “Twenty years of crime, debauchery and alcoholism have passed since he belonged to the Regiment. He’s just a merc now with a merc’s ideals.”
“Look,” Russo said. “They’re questioning him right there.”
“You seem surprised,” Alicia stated. “These pirates — they have no morals. No grasp of normal life. This is their normal. This is their amusement. They may be stupid, but man, they’re bloody dangerous.”
Jensen was thrust to his knees and then made to stand. Men threatened and slapped him. A knife-wielder drew a thin bead of blood from shoulder to shoulder, following the curve of the blade. Another man commented on his tall, rangy stature, likening him to the trunk of a tree. Another pointed out his corded muscle, warning others not to get too close. Weapons were realigned.
A man then appeared, the pirate leader. As filthy and rough-looking as the rest, he wiped sweat from his brow and flicked it at the ground, leaving smear of dirt across his forehead. A broad cleaver hung in one hand, and even from her vantage point Alicia could see it was so encrusted with blood it appeared to be blemished by several layers of dark crimson.
“Who are you?” the pirate leader asked in a voice that explained English was his second language. “You tell or I cut your throat.”
The threat wasn’t idle. Nobody stood under any illusion. The pirates wanted it to happen. When Jensen didn’t answer immediately, the pirate leader stepped forward and pushed his chin up toward the skies.
“I make sure you see your blood soaking your feet before die.”
He raised the cleaver as his men took tight hold of Jensen. To a man they were grinning, laughing, jesting at Jensen’s expense. To Alicia it was a scene from a circle of Hell, one where demons took immoral men and women to suffer.
She half rose. Crouch pulled her down. Then Jensen shouted out, stilling the blade and the hands and tongues of all those that stood about him.
“A treasure! There’s a treasure at the top of the hill. We’ve… I’ve come for it.”
“Y’have?” The leader looked surprised. “What treasure?”
“Pirate,” Jensen said, then winced as he remembered where he stood. “Old pirate. Doubloons. Gold. All you could ever want.”
“Slice him,” one man cried.
“Lying shite just wants to save his own arse.” Surprisingly an English accent in the midst of all the others made Alicia wonder just how these assorted, diverse men came to be here right now, in this place, and what made them stick together.
“No. It’s right here on this island. Captain Henry Morgan. Heard of him? Sacked a dozen ports or more. This is where he buried it all.”
He pointed to the top of the hill. “Up there. Under the tree at the top of the mountain.”
The pirates were massed by now, all listening. Russo called out a head count of seventy five. Alicia pointed to the far perimeter of the camp where she saw a new mass of men — most likely Jensen’s own well-manned crew.
“Shit,” Russo breathed. “This just went crazy.”
The battle of Duppy Island and the final race for Captain Morgan’s lost, buried treasure began.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Jensen may well have viewed the world through rum-tinted glasses for the best part of the last decade, but certain skills he’d been taught in his youth never faded away. Getting caught was a momentary lapse. Breaking free was a well-honed skill. The pirate leader doubled over and almost stabbed himself with the bloody cleaver; Jensen kicked him into another man. The nearest found his arm broken, his gun taken and then heard shots being fired. Pirates quickly sobered and jumped away, taking cover as Jensen knew they would.