Witchcraft, or Obeah as it was called in the Bahamas, was a powerful voodoo medicine that was sometimes used with devastating effect among the islanders. It was a practice that was feared by most of the native people. A lot of it was more ceremonial that sorcery, but there were times when it was used as an evil tool in the hands of unscrupulous Obeah priests.
There was also a window, which was shut. Not that it made any difference because the room was above ground level and Helen doubted if she would be able to open the window because it was probably locked. And if she decided to smash it, her kidnappers would be on her in seconds, so she decided against it.
It was all very odd, Helen thought to herself. Kidnap victims were normally confined in cellars, remote buildings or even holes in the ground. But this house was in a suburb, so why had she been brought here?
The thought teased her but she found no consolation in it, so she got off the bed and began pacing the room in an effort to make sense of it all. She kicked off her shoes thinking it might help her to reason more clearly. It was something she often did, but this time it didn’t help. An hour later she was no farther forward and had ended up lying on the bed, now very bored and getting frightened.
Despite her fear, Helen was asleep when the sound of a key turning in the lock startled her and she opened her eyes. One of her kidnappers stepped into the room. He was holding a gun which he was pointing at her. She got off the bed and stood up. The barrel of the gun followed her.
“Out!”
It was all he said.
As Helen went through the open doorway he pushed the nose of the gun barrel into the small of her back. She was taken to a garage at the back of the house. The Buick was parked there with its boot open.
“Get in the trunk,” he ordered.
Helen hesitated. “Please, I don’t have my shoes.”
“Where are they?”
“I kicked them off in the room upstairs,” she told him.
Another voice broke in. “Leave them, let’s get going.”
Again the gun was used as a pointer. “In the trunk.”
Helen climbed nervously into the trunk of the Buick and her kidnapper slammed it shut. The crashing noise of the lid coming down made her shake violently. The tears were on her cheeks before she realised it as she gave in to her fears and began crying.
The car moved off and Helen felt every bump and turn in the road. Each jolt was a stab of pain until she thought her body could take no more. Numbness settled in and moments of cramp attacked her body as she wondered if the journey would ever end and if she would ever survive.
Eventually the Buick slowed to a halt and the engine died. The silence pressed in on her and her fear returned. She heard the footsteps as the men got out of the car and then the lid of the trunk was flung open. Helen remained as she was, curled up in the foetal position, terrified. It was dark outside and she could not see the faces of the two men as they dragged her out of the trunk.
She was half carried and dragged to a building, which she could just barely distinguish in the darkness. It looked quite small and her own thoughts came back to her about kidnappers taking their victims to remote places. They opened a door and pushed her in. She fell on to a cold, stone floor. She wasn’t hurt but her nerves were screaming out like tautly strung wires.
The door slammed shut and she heard the key turn in the lock. Then she heard their footsteps fading away. The silence returned and she could hear the harsh sound of her own breathing. She pushed herself up and settled her back against the wall, breathing slowly in an effort to calm herself down. And as her breathing settled and became steadier, Helen heard another noise. It was a soft sound like something moving. She couldn’t figure it out at first, but as her eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness, she was vaguely aware of shapes in the room, and vaguely aware of movement.
Then something cold touched the edge of her hand where she was resting it on the floor. She snatched it away and whatever had touched her ran over her legs. She gave in to a piercing scream that bounced around the walls, and for the first time in her life, Helen knew the real meaning of terror.
Marsh found himself walking out of the Lucayan Beach Hotel like any guest would; as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He was accompanied by Batista and Malik. Apart from a few words in the hotel room, Malik had spoken very little. Marsh still wasn’t sure of the man’s nationality, although he looked like and Arab. Not that it mattered; the man looked tremendously fit and capable. He was also extremely quick when it came to reacting to a threat, and enormously powerful as Marsh could attest to.
They walked together to the parking lots and climbed into the car. It wasn’t long before Marsh realised they were heading towards the West End. The road followed the coast for almost twenty miles passing Gold Rock Creek, which used to be the home of the American missile tracking station. It was now undergoing a thirty million dollar transformation into a film studio and theme park.
The road crossed the peninsular towards the golf course and finally into the town of West End. Batista drove to a small cay where several boats were moored. He stopped the car. Malik got out and beckoned Marsh to follow. Batista stayed in the car. Marsh looked at him and was about to ask a question but thought better of it. He shrugged and followed Malik. Batista threw them a friendly wave and drove off.
“Where’s he going?” asked Marsh.
“To the airport,” Malik answered. “He’ll be taking the helicopter back to the Taliba.”
“So where are we going?”
“To the Taliba.”
They walked along the waterfront until they came to a small cruiser; the kind favoured by many tourists for their fishing trips. Malik stepped down into the cockpit and called out. A black face appeared from inside the yacht.
“This is Romulus,” Malik told him, and disappeared into the cabin.
Marsh stepped into the cockpit, said hallo to Romulus and followed Malik into the cabin.
“You want a drink?” Malik asked him.
“I’ll have a coffee. Thanks”
Malik took a bottle of clear water from the small refrigerator for himself. He then made Marsh a coffee from the percolator set on gimbals in the small galley.
The boat’s diesel engine suddenly burst into life somewhere beneath his feet and he heard Romulus break into song. He had a pleasant voice and it was a song that Marsh recognised as a local, Bahamian song. The cruiser moved slowly away from the quayside, edging its way along the waterfront until it turned and headed out to sea.
Marsh mentally charted their progress. It was not in the hope that he might learn where they were going, but more from habit. The sun was settling low on the horizon and he could just see faint shadows on the edge of the sea where it merged with the darkening sky.
Malik had said little but Marsh had tried to make a judgement of the man from his manner and behaviour. A couple of times he had caught Malik watching him, but when challenged, Malik shrugged it off. As much as he tried, he could get nothing out of the man, so he gave up trying. He settled back on one of the leather chairs in the stern of the boat and tried to figure out the events of the previous week.
He tried to fit it all into a sane, logical pattern, but there was no logic because he had nothing to go on other than the fact that Hakeem Khan was involved in something unseemly, and certainly crooked; crooked enough to warrant the death of Greg Walsh and Helen’s kidnap.