Red Stripes Read online

  I came across the next guard standing beneath the lintel of a conical building that used to serve as a grill and pizzeria. The cooking ranges and ovens were long gone, and now the space inside the circular brick walls was home to a stand of bamboo that had grown clean through the holes in the tiled roof. Rainwater sluiced from the tiles, and made it difficult to see the man beyond. If he hadn’t struck a lighter to his cigarette at the opportune time I might have missed him. Taking a good look I could see he was also armed with a pistol that was holstered beneath his left armpit, but he also had a machete with a black matte blade hanging from a loop on his belt. By the looks of things the blade hadn’t been employed to cut back any of the jungle, so there was only one reason that the guard was carrying it. I was in no rush to lose any of my appendages.

  The water was spilling from the roof hard, but it was no hindrance to my bullets. I placed one in the man’s heart and then one in his head. He slumped to the floor, the machete making a clank that was dulled by the storm’s fury. I immediately moved in on him, ready to put another round in his skull if necessary, but as I inspected him I found that he’d be no trouble. The bullet had took him through the left eye, and exited a little behind his left ear. It had bounced around in his skull cavity a few times before finding a place of egress. He was as stone cold dead as he could be. For a moment I thought about relieving him of the machete. I’m all for proportional retribution as a rule, and there were two or three guys here who should be made to pay for their crimes at the tip of the blade, but I couldn’t allow myself the distraction. Taking some of them out of the picture was a bonus, but secondary on this occasion. My job wasn’t to punish the gang members, but to extract their hostages.

  Kidnap for ransom was largely a forgotten crime in the Caribbean. Nowadays you had to look to the east coast of Africa, and Somalia in particular, to find groups of pirates willing to take ships both large and small. Generally, when it was one of the larger ships, the pirates demanded ransoms from the shipping companies, and the payment was made through insurance brokers and mercenary intermediaries. These days the payouts could count in tens of thousands, perhaps even millions of dollars, but it was still a small price to pay to insure that the shipping companies got their boats back, and, more important, their cargoes. Occasionally, the Somalian pirates would take a smaller yacht or pleasure cruiser, and then the demands for money would be directed at the families of the rich men and women they held. Largely, the ransoms were paid and the hostages returned unharmed. Pity that this upstart Jamaican crew hadn’t based their operation on the Somali blueprint, then it wouldn’t have been necessary for me to be on the island. The trouble was, instead of trusting to the family’s desire to get their loved ones back, the Jamaicans had started negotiations rolling by mailing one of their hostage’s index fingers to his parents, wrapped in a bubble wrap bag to keep it fresh. Pay up, they’d said, or the next thing in the mail would be the rest of the boy’s hand. Next his parents should expect a bigger box, this one large enough to contain a bowling ball. The family had paid up. Because there were express instructions not to involve the police, the FBI or any other law enforcement agency, the family had been directed to deliver the ransom payment in used U.S. dollars to an apartment block in SoBe, Miami. Using a local private investigator to conduct the drop, the family handed over $500,000 on the promise that their son would be returned to them safely.

  Greed, and the ease at which the family had been manipulated, told the Jamaican crew they were onto a winner, and instead of returning Stephan Pilarcik to his parents, they moved the goalposts, now demanding that a further half million dollars be raised to cover their expenses for keeping the boy in food and water and for delivering him home to Florida.

  It was apparent that without outside assistance the Pilarcik family would see the eventual return of Stephan, albeit piece by piece, and each time after further demands for money. There would be no resolution to the scenario for the Pilarciks that didn’t end with a dead son and a zero bank balance. They were on the cusp of calling in the FBI, but their PI counseled them against it. The Jamaican crew obviously had connections in Miami, and it was highly likely that any involvement by the FBI or police would be spotted and reported back to the main players, who would chop the boy to chunks as a warning to the other families they were extorting. That was when the PI, a guy named Charles White, made the Pilarciks understand that the only sure way to get their son back was through what’s known in the trade as a “successful rendition”: in layman’s terms, a snatch and grab. He wasn’t in business for the job, but he reassured the Pilarciks he knew some guys that were. That was where Rington Investigations came in. And why I was on the job.

  Rink was there too. He’d entered the compound earlier sans his brightly colored shirt. His choice of clothing was as dark as my own, but he’d enhanced the camouflage capacity by adding patches of green and brown rags stitched to netting that he’d draped over his shoulders in a makeshift ghillie suit. He’d smeared dirt on his face, blackened the steel of his KA-BAR knife over a candle flame, and gone hunting. He was one of the best recon soldiers I’d ever known, and against the type of sentries here could probably sit in silence a few feet away from them and never be noticed. Minutes earlier, before I’d made my assault on the three lazy guards, Rink had confirmed that he’d located the hostages through the stick mikes and earbuds we wore.

  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 domin
ated 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.

  Snapshot!

  Stephan Pilarcik huddled in one corner. Terrified. Hand bandaged with a soiled rag. Weak and bewildered. Of no use to himself, let alone his girlfriend.

  Wendy Charteris. On her back, feet windmilling between her and the man trying to pull off her denim shorts.

  One man standing bent over her. Skinny. Bald. Pockmarks on his glistening face and speckled across his bare shoulders and chest. One hand ripping at Wendy’s clothing, the other wielding a large machete. The blade was pitted and stained.

  Second man. Big, with dreadlocks. Vest and baggy combat trousers. Turning my way, mouth open in shock. Gun coming up.

  All these details seen and absorbed in as much time as it took to select my first target.

  The man with the gun was the most dangerous.

  I double-tapped him in the chest.

  When you have innocent hostages to consider you don’t want your bullets to pass directly through the bad guy and hit them. You have to use smaller-caliber rounds. The problem with 9 mm rounds is sometimes they don’t have much stopping power. The big guy was fucked up, and would die without medical intervention, but the rounds didn’t put him immediately on his ass. He staggered toward me, mouth writhing in a grimace, tears beading from his eyes, but he continued to bring up his gun. It was a cannon. Magnum rounds. They’d definitely drop me.

  Not that I waited around to give him a clear target.

  I dodged to the right, grabbing at a rickety old chair and backhanding it toward him, even as his gun thundered and filled the space I’d just deserted with jacketed rounds. I felt the displacement of air as a bullet zipped by an inch from my neck. The stool hit the man’s gun arm, and his next shots went high and wide. It was all I required to brace my footing, adopt a Weaver stance and put a couple more holes in his body. This time he went down hard, his revolver clattering away across the floorboards.

  It was only seconds since I entered the room and took note of the people inside, but already the tableau had changed. Stephan had curled up tighter, as frightened of me as he was the other man. Wendy had got her feet under her and had swarmed up, trying to reach her boyfriend, but the final kidnapper had other ideas. Armed with a big knife, he was no threat to me and my gun, so he went for the obvious. He grasped Wendy by her throat, pulled her around and used her as a shield between the two of us.

  “Let the girl go.”

  “Fuck you, mon, I cut off her head.”

  “Do it then,” I said. My face was pinched in fury, my eyes seething. “See where it gets you.”

  “You won’t shoot.”

  “Try me.”

  The kidnapper glanced around seeking a way out. There was a window behind him. Slats covered it. I caught a shiver of movement beyond them. Rink moving in.

  “Throw away the knife,” I said. “I’ll let you live
.”

  “You will shoot me down like a dog,” he said. He was right.

  “I’m gonna shoot you if you don’t.”

  “Won’ matter if I cut up dis bitch, den!”

  He wasn’t making an idle threat. But he was bluffing about cutting Wendy. He hurled her toward me, and for a brief second or two the girl’s body was between the two of us. I half expected him to crash through the window and into Rink’s arms. He didn’t. He came after Wendy, machete raised to chop at my head over her shoulder.

  Stephan cried out, thinking his girl was about to be beheaded.

  I grabbed Wendy, pulled her away, out of the way of the hacking blade. It whistled toward my skull. With my other hand I brought up my Sig. Not to shoot: there were no guarantees it would be enough to save my skull being cleaved in two. I used the top edge of my gun as a shield to check the blade.

  A machete swung downward carries more force than a handgun swung up, and in a shower of sparks my SIG was battered aside. Yet I’d angled the gun so that the blade careened off it at an angle and it missed taking off the side of my skull by inches.

  Wendy scrambled to get away on her hands and knees. She was still entangled between our legs as the kidnapper fell up against me, his arm rising for another chop. I clasped his wrist. His left hand went for my gun hand, wrestling for control of the SIG. For such a skinny guy he was strong, but that would have been the adrenaline flooding through him. I twisted the SIG around, fired point-blank at his gut. Fucking thing jammed. But not surprisingly, considering it had just taken the full brunt of the machete blade striking it. I’ve seen guys cut their way through cinder-block walls with those things. The gun an encumbrance now, I dropped it, freeing up both hands.

  The man snarled something at me. I’d no idea what, but I felt hot spittle spray my face. We jostled, our fight taking us sideways. We caught up with Wendy.

  Tangled in Wendy’s legs, I fell backward. I held on to the kidnapper, and he didn’t relinquish his hold on my wrist. Controlling my fall, I sat sharply and wedged both my heels against his shins, my toes outward, then rolled back. It was a technique I’d learned years before in a jujitsu class, not something you’d see in a competition environment because it would fail against a savvy opponent. But this man wasn’t used to this type of combat and was caught out as I levered up with both feet and spun him in a somersault over my head. Neither did he know the art of breaking a fall. Rather than roll out of it he went flat on his back, the wind knocked from him as he slammed the floorboards hard. I did continue to roll. Going over one shoulder and onto one knee. I powered up. Kicked at him. I had to skip backward as he swept the machete around to chop at my ankles. The kidnapper came up, the blade between us.