He was in position to free Stephan Pilarcik; his girlfriend, Wendy Charteris, and the three crewmen who’d been snatched from the pleasure cruiser alongside them. It was my responsibility to clear a pathway back to where Velasquez stood offshore with our getaway boat. McTeer was further north; insuring the private plane we’d flown in on was ready to go at a moment’s notice. I didn’t begrudge McTeer his task: the pilot, an islander, was fond of the ganja and had lit up the second we’d touched down on arrival. It was McTeer’s job to insure the pilot wasn’t too stoned to get the rest of us flying as high.
I moved along a narrow pathway between towering fronds. There was no cessation from the rain: it poured from the tips of the fronds in liquid rods that lanced at the earth. There had been a boardwalk once upon a time, but now only the occasional plank had survived. Most were rotted chunks half buried in the soil. The wood was so spongy I didn’t fear my footfall would be heard over the drumming downpour. But I’d to be careful that the damn things didn’t trip me.
Through the dark spots in the foliage I made out infrequent lights. They were storm lamps, strung on poles to mark the pathways. Any flickers of movement between me and them I could put down to the bushes moving in the wind, but that would make me a fool. Any one of them could be another of the Jamaicans stealing through the night. I checked each before moving on.
“What’s your twenty, bro?” Rink’s voice came through the wireless earpiece I was wearing. We both wore twin rigs, with throat mikes and buds in our ears.
“Due west of the main complex, one hundred and fifty yards out,” I told him.
“You got two hostiles on the veranda, another two inside the building. You can forget about the other frog-giggers out back.”
Trust Rink. Couldn’t make do with a simple reconnaissance gig: he wanted in on the action. “How many?”
“Does it matter?”
“Just keeping score,” I mugged.
“My guys were tougher than yours,” he said, and I could hear the grin in his voice. But it wasn’t there in his next exhalation. “I’ve eyes on Stephan and his gal, can’t see the crew they were snatched alongside.”
“Surplus to requirement, I guess.”
“Motherfuckers. Brother, there’s a dude with a big knife. Another with a gun. Looks like a big-ass revolver. You sure you don’t want me to do ’em and get this over with?”
“I’m good, Rink. You just cover my arse when I bring the kids out.”
Rink pinpointed a room to the right front corner of the building I was looking at. It was a single-storey affair, the area to the left of which was dominated by what I guessed was once an entertainment area. A semicircular dais surrounded a listing stage, and the tattered remnants of a canvas roof hung from support poles, dingy and stained by bird crap and rotting vegetation. Next to it was an entranceway to what was undoubtedly the holiday resort’s reception area, and likely an indoor bar area. The room where Stephan Pilarcik and Wendy Charteris were held was possibly one of a number where administration duties used to take place. It would be an easy-enough task to enter the building via the entertainment area, make my way to the room through the reception and surprise the two kidnappers, if not for the two men standing on the veranda. They’d see me the moment I moved on the building.
“Where are you, Rink?” For all the looking I couldn’t see my buddy.
“See the hut to the right?” There was a sagging beach hut about twenty feet from the room where the hostages were held. A hatch in the front was partly open, where staff once handed out towels to beachgoers. I stared and saw a brief flash of white. Rink’s teeth bared in a grin. “What’s up?”
“Could do with a distraction,” I said.
“Gotcha. On three… two… one…”
The hatch slammed shut.
The wind was high, it was natural enough for the disintegrating beach complex to fall apart in the storm, but the sound was sharp enough to attract the attention of the two guards on the veranda without actually raising any alarm. Their instincts were to look for the source of the noise, and it was enough for me to slip out of concealment and rush across most of the intervening open space before either of them turned my way. Most handguns are accurate to about fifty yards. I was within that range. Suppressors have a tendency to affect the accuracy, but my shots were true enough. The first caught one guard in the throat, choking off his cry of warning when he saw me. My second hit his pal in the chest. Neither man died immediately: the one with the blood pouring out of his throat clutched at his wound as he went to his knees, the other was staggered by the round in his lungs, and leaned against the rotting veranda rail for support. Neither of them was in a good way, and neither of them had the presence of mind to shoot, but inevitably one of them would make enough of a racket to alert those inside. I was closer now. My aim better. I put a round in each of their skulls. The first guard went slack, and slumped to the veranda. The other must once have been an extra in a cowboy movie: he pitched headfirst over the rail and executed a pratfall to the earth five feet below. Stunt guys usually get up after such orchestrated falls, but he didn’t.
I moved past the two dead men and circumvented the raised dais. Cushions to soften the seats were a thing of the past, and the dais was now a semicircle of bird-shit-splattered concrete as soulless as the empty stage.
“Rink,” I whispered.
“Go for Rink.”
“You said there were two hostiles inside?”
“Two plus the two guarding the kids.”
Glad I cleared up the momentary misconception. One of the outer guards was just inside the reception area. I couldn’t be sure, but perhaps he heard the thud of his falling mate, because he was craning his neck, eyes rolling white as he peered out through the murky glass of a window.
My supressed gun made a clack!
The guard fell, and one of his elbows crashed against the window he’d been looking though. The glass tinkled. I held my breath as I sought fresh targets. The noise was loud within the building, but was only one of many as the hurricane plucked at the roof and walls and threatened to turn it into kindling.
I crept on, my gun up and out and seeking targets.
A flashlight beam moved lazily between the narrow walls of a corridor ahead. I didn’t get a full-on flash of light, which told me the person holding the torch was playing it in and out of side rooms, and not back my way. Then it went dark.
Creeping on I entered the corridor. I stalled at the threshold, listening. The entire building groaned and creaked; rain drummed on the roof. Faint footfalls sounded, but they were far off, in the back right quarter of the building, barely distinguishable from the dripping of water.
I moved for the rooms at the far end.
As I came within ten feet of the closed door, behind which the hostages were held, I heard weeping. It wasn’t the girl, but Stephan Pilarcik.
Wendy was stronger willed and more strident than her boyfriend, but then it wasn’t her whose fingers had been getting chopped off. She hollered angrily at someone, and in response there was the hard slap of flesh on flesh.
“Don’t you be tryin’ dat wit me,” a man snapped.
“You’re an animal!” Wendy screeched in defiance.
“Dis animal is hungry,” the kidnapper replied in thick patois. “Mebbe I have meself some fresh meat, mon?”
“Keep your hands off me!”
The man laughed, and so did his pal. There was a scuffle of feet, something bumping around. Another slap. Then there was more weeping, this time Wendy’s high-pitched bleating joining the chorus. I’d heard enough.
To Rink I said, “I’m going in.”
“With you, brother.”
I kicked open the door, immediately going in, my SIG leveled.