Stokely, barely able to keep his butt planted in his seat a third of the way back in the old bus, watched Ambrose Congreve bouncing around behind the big steering wheel and thought he’d bust a gut.
Man had on a tweed jacket with a little white hanky hanging out the top pocket, some kind of damn flannel trousers, and shiny brown shoes with little tassels dangling on the front of them. Best part, man had on uptown bright yellow socks, and his feet were flying back and forth mashing the clutch and brake pedals!
Stoke, like most everyone else on the bus, was dressed completely in black. All were wearing Kevlar vests. But not Ambrose. Had on a nice old gray woolly vest with leather buttons! Man was something else. Man on a mission, though, you had to give him that. Pipe jammed between his teeth, tearing up the deeply rutted sandy road twisting through the scrubby palm trees. Grinding gears, mashing on the brakes, flying over the hills.
Damn Mario Andretti of schoolbus drivers!
Just then the bus got airborne at the top of a big hill and Stokely caught his first glimpse of the ocean. Which meant they were getting close.
Everybody on the team was quiet, holding on to keep from flying around inside the bus. In situations like this, Stoke knew, each man was thinking about his immediate future. Hell, he was too. Nobody really knew what they were up against. No time to even send a recon team ahead. Could be real easy. Could easily be real hard. When they went bad—like that time in Panama—well, best not be thinking about that.
Stoke checked his gear and ammo. In addition to the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun hanging from a shoulder strap, he had his custom Beretta 92-SF in his thigh holster, along with ten clips of ammo. A hundred rounds of hollow-point HydraShok hot loads that could literally blow a guy’s head off.
Lots of other goodies were hanging from his webbed belt. Dagger, flash-bang grenades, and thunder-strips to disorient the bad guys. And a secure Motorola walkie-talkie with a voice-activated lip mike and earpieces so he could communicate with Ross and Quick.
He also had fifty feet of nylon climbing rope with a rubber-coated grapnel hook at one end.
He was pumped. Man. It had been a long time.
Stoke, Ambrose, and Ross, with the help of Amen Lillywhite, had quickly roughed out a plan. Amen had used a stick to scratch a diagram of the target house in the dirt parking lot outside the club. Ground floor, second floor, top floor. Big wide center stairway leading upstairs right from the front door. Hallways on either side leading to the rear.
Target’s bedroom was on the top floor front, guard’s dormitories at the back of the first floor. A solid stone wall around the entire perimeter, ten feet high. Two ways in and out of the property. A guarded iron gate at the front. Two big wooden gates on the north side.
It was a basic snatch.
Surprise. Confusion. Overwhelming firepower. Float like a pissed-off butterfly. Sting like a badass bee. In other words, your basic SEAL behavior.
Ambrose saying the target must be taken alive.
Stoke saying that these things were entirely up to the target. Ambrose giving him a look. Not sayin’ more, which was good.
The bus crested a hill, banged down hard, and Amen, sitting up front, said, “This’d be a fine place to stop, Mr. Congreve. This piney wood right here goes on down to the wall at the back of the house.”
Ambrose mashed the brakes and the bus skidded to a stop at the edge of the pine forest. He pulled up the hand brake and turned around in his seat.
“This is where we disembark, gentlemen,” Ambrose said. He pushed the handle that opened the door. “Check your weapons and ammunition. Stay low and stay silent. We will descend this hill in single file and regroup at the wall to the rear of the house. Mr. Jones will lead us in from there.”
Mr. Jones? Nobody ever called him that. Still, man sounds like he knows what he’s doing, Stoke thought. That was good. Rest of these guys, well, he wasn’t used to working with amateurs. This Tommy Quick, of course, now he was a comfort. Had his Remington 700 sniper rifle with a bigass Star-Tron Mark scope on it. Guy was the best sniper in the whole U.S. Army. He could definitely come in handy. Still, this was definitely not your split-second-timing SEAL-type deal.
Hell, hadn’t even had time to recon the place before going in. This would be a first, going in blind. Gain experience, that much was for sure.
“Lock and load, ladies,” Stoke said, getting out of his seat and making his way to the front of the bus. He’d made sure the whole team was equipped with basically the same gear he had, minus the three walkie-talkies. “We going in to get this bad boy, truss him up like a Christmas turkey, and deliver his ass on a platter.”
They moved swiftly down through the pines, their footsteps deadened by a thick carpet of pine needles. Stoke took the lead, Congreve was safely in the middle, and Sutherland, the trailman, brought up the rear. It took less than five minutes to reach the ten-foot stone wall that rimmed the perimeter of Don Carlo’s estate.
Stoke held up his closed fist and the little band huddled around him. It was still pretty dark, but not for long. They had to move quickly. Stoke divided them into two squads. A Squad, led by Tom Quick, would go around the north side of the property. B Squad, led by Stoke, with Ross, Ambrose, and Amen right behind him, would go south.
Stoke would take out any guards at the front gate.
“Test, test, test,” Stoke said into the tiny lip mike that he, Ross, and Quick were now wearing. “Everybody copy?”
“Loud and clear,” Ross said.
“Ditto,” Quick said. “Five by five.”
Stoke looked at his watch and said, “A Squad, go!” Quick and his five men took off in a low, crouched run.
Stoke watched them disappear around the curved wall and then started with his team around the south side. Halfway, they came to a set of heavy wooden gates. He held up his hand and motioned for Amen to come forward.
“What’s this for?” Stoke whispered to Amen, pointing at the gates.
“Way he gets his cars in and out,” Amen said. “Two big Jeeps.” Stoke pondered that a minute. Besides the bus, Stoke had only seen three or four cars on the whole island. All beat-up little taxis.
“Good,” he said. “How much farther around to the guardhouse?”
“Another hundred yards, mebbe,” Amen said under his breath.
“Tap me on the shoulder just before we get within sight of it, you understand?” Amen nodded.
“Hey, Ambrose,” Stoke said, “you cool back there?”
“Never cooler,” Ambrose said, smiling. Had to give the man credit, he wasn’t lying. Seemed like the man had balls, after all.
Stoke hand-signaled his little team and they began to move forward behind him. Just when they had the ocean in sight, Amen tapped him on the shoulder, and Stoke dropped to his knees. The team came to a halt behind him. He pulled the Beretta from his thigh holster and fitted a silencer on the barrel. Then he crawled forward on knees and elbows, the pistol out in front of him.
Two minutes later, he was back.
“No sign of a guard in the window I can see,” he whispered. “Just a blue TV light flickering. First time I ever seen a damn TV satellite dish on a guardhouse.”
“Probably asleep, though,” Amen whispered in his ear. “I’ll go check. Guards all know me. If he’s awake, I’ll just hand him these. I do it all the time. Keeps peace in the family.” He pulled a pint of Jamaican rum and a big hand-rolled spliff of marijuana out of his pants pocket.
“My brother,” Stoke whispered to Amen. “You good, you very good.”
Two minutes later, Amen came crabbing back along the wall, smiling his ass off. Stoke could already pick up the sweet smell of ganja drifting around from the guardhouse.
“What up?” Stoke asked Amen.
“One guy only in there,” Amen said. “Usually, they two. Awake. Got headphones on, listenin’ to his Marley tunes, watchin’ TV. Gave me a big smile.”
“Weapon?”
“Always keeps a machine gun layin’ cross his lap.”
“Quick?” Stoke said.
“Copy,” he heard in his headphones.
“You guys in position?”
“Roger that.”
“Okay,” Stoke said to his team. “Nobody move. I’ll be right back.” He took off in a low crouch.
The guardhouse had three windows. One facing the ocean, two on either side. Long as he stayed low and quiet, no way the guy could pick him up. In seconds, Stoke was crouched just below the north-facing window. A cloud of pungent smoke floated out above his head. Beretta in his hand, he suddenly popped up and looked in the window, not four feet from the guy.
“Boo,” Stoke said, smiling.
The guard looked up, big case of wide-eyes, the gun in his lap already coming up.
“Bad idea,” Stoke said.
The Beretta spit twice and the man’s shirt puffed inward and then outward as blood gushed from the sucking wound made by two shots to the heart. The man pitched forward from his stool. Stoke reached through the window and grabbed his gun just before it clattered to the stone floor.
He saw an old green metal panel on the wall. Lots of toggle-type switches. Not marked in any way. Shit. No way to know which was which. He saw Amen and Ambrose peeking around the corner of the wall and motioned them forward.
“Quick?” Stoke said into his mike. “Copy?”
“Copy,” he heard in his phones.
“Guard is down at the front gate. Looks clear. Let’s link. We’re going in.”
“Twenty seconds,” Quick said.
Stoke turned and handed the guard’s machine gun to Ambrose.
“We might come out this way, Constable,” Stoke said. “We might not. But if we do, you got a great field of fire to cover our retreat from this guardhouse window.” Man looked like he didn’t find this plan agreeable.
“Listen to this very carefully,” Ambrose said. “I’ve been working on this bloody case for thirty years. I’m going into that house and arrest that man either with you or without you.”
Stoke looked at him for a long second, sizing him up.
“Let’s go get him then, Constable,” he said. He leaned back inside the guardhouse. The man on the floor was dead. He looked at the corroded control panel. Some of the switches had to be wired to some security system inside. Which ones? He felt a sudden heat on his shoulder and looked up. Goddamn. The sun had just broken the horizon. Way past time to move.
“Amen, do you believe in God?” Stoke said.
“I believe in Jah,” Amen said. “Jah soon come.”
“Thing is, this Jah of yours, he goin’ to come a whole lot sooner you don’t tell me the God’s honest truth right now, my brother. Ready? Which one of those switches opens the gate? And which one shuts down the alarm system?”
“One on de far left is de gate. Middle one is the main alarm.”
“You understand whose side you’re on here, don’t you, my brother?”
“I do, sir.”
Stoke reached in and flipped the middle switch and the one on the left. If he heard any bells and whistles, he was prepared to shoot Amen on the spot, which he really didn’t want to do, as he’d come to really sort of like the old coot.
He waited, the Beretta in his hand hanging loosely at his side.
The big black iron gates swung silently inward just as Ross and his team arrived. There were no audible alarms. Stoke waited a minute, his eyes focused on the house, looking for any sign of activity inside. Then he turned to Amen.
“Amen, you the man. Now you sneak back on up to the bus and wait twenty minutes. We don’t show up, you go on home and get back in bed. We all thank you, brother.”
He put his hand on Amen’s shoulder. The man had been invaluable. Then he turned to the seven men who remained gathered at the gate. He felt dumb even asking the question, but under the circumstances, he had to do it. This was not exactly a highly trained SEAL squad that could perform like a bunch of deadly ballet dancers.
“Okay. Everybody know what they doin’?”
They all looked him in the eye and nodded. Good. They may not be cool, but they looked cool. He felt better. Anyway, what the hell. This one was for Alex. All the shit he’d been through, time he got a little back on the plus side.
“Let’s book,” he whispered, and stood back as they passed through the gates, fanned out into the pines, and started climbing. Stoke gave them twenty seconds and then he too started up the hill toward the house.
He started getting glimpses of the place through the trees. Huge. Towers, golden domes, damn house looked like Disney World might if it was on the Strip in Vegas. At the back of his mind was whether or not there was a silent alarm inside the house whenever the gate opened. That might make the whole thing way too interesting. Better not go down that road.
“Ross?”
“Copy.”
“Out of the woods?”
“Edge. We have an open courtyard with a circular drive. Thirty yards to the front door.”
“Sit tight. How’s it look?”
“Quiet.”
“Good quiet or bad quiet?”
“Good.”
Stoke came over a rise and saw his whole squad crouching along the tree line, weapons ready. So far, nothing looked funky. He crept up and squatted beside Ross. He had the nylon climbing rope in his hands, swinging the hook and looking through the trees up at the third-floor balcony. Because of the thick woods, the house was still in shadow. But people might be waking up in there any minute now.
Middle of the man’s circular driveway was this splashing fountain, all lit up. Three cars in his driveway, all bright red. Two Humvees and what had to be one of those Ferrari Testosterones. Where the hell you gonna drive a Ferrari on this island? Can’t hardly keep a schoolbus on the road at more than twenty.
He looked at Ambrose and started undoing the snaps on his Kevlar vest.
“Since I’m going up the outside of the house, I won’t be needing this,” he said to Ambrose. “Best you wear it since you goin’ inside the front door.”
Ambrose looking at him like he’d lost his mind.
“I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that monstrosity,” the man said.
“You sure as hell might get caught dead you not wearing it, Constable. Now put it the fuck on.”
“I’m quite comfortable with what I’m wearing,” Ambrose said.
“Ain’t no time for this shit, Ambrose, know what I’m sayin’? Alex already lost Vicky. What I’m going to tell him I come back without his best friend, huh?”
Ambrose heaved a sigh and pulled the vest on over his tweed jacket, muttering to himself the whole time.
“Okay. Quick, get your boys through the woods to the back of the house and wait for my go signal. Check?”
“Check.”
“Ross, you and Ambrose wait here twenty seconds after I go. See me goin’ up that wall, you haul ass for that front door. Stay low. Wait. You hear me tell Quick ‘go,’ that means I’m inside, and Quick’s going inside and you and Ambrose blow through that front door. Then straight up them steps to that top-floor bedroom fast as you can, cool?”
“Cool,” Ambrose said, smiling at him.
“I believe you are,” Stoke said.
He gave Ambrose a punch to the shoulder right on his Kevlar vest, laughed, and took off, sprinting around the fountain like a running back. He looked in both Humvees and saw keys stuck in both ignitions. Man sure seemed lax about a lot of shit. In seconds, he was crouched beneath a window, looking up at the balcony. The sun’s rays had just hit one of the tallest towers on the roof and were moving down toward the balcony. Shit.
He caught the balcony rail with the first toss of the rubber-coated grapnel hook on the end of his climbing rope. Didn’t make a sound. He went up the wall hand over hand with the dagger in his mouth, just in case the man had decided to sleep out on his porch. Knife in your mouth like to scare folks shitless.
Peeking over the rail, he saw that the long terrace was empty. Just a row of louvered mahogany doors onto the bedroom, all closed. He hauled himself up and over and stood for a second, thinking it through. He turned to the rail, leaned over, and saw Ross and Ambrose scrambling around the fountain. He gave them five seconds, then started trying the doors, praying to find one open.
Third one was ajar. He pulled it open two inches and put his ear to the door. Snoring. Loud damn snoring. He started feeling lucky.
He slipped through the door and pulled it shut. Like stepping into a damn meat locker, it was so cold. Man had the AC down to fifty. He couldn’t see shit for a couple of seconds, it was so dark. The snorer was to his left, maybe thirty feet away. To his right, same distance was a goddamn fire going in a fireplace. Had to be ninety outside and the man had a fire going!
Across the room, he could see light shining under a wide doorway. He started in that direction, not making a sound, and bumped into something hard. Banged his damn knee. It was some kind of damn chair, bolted to the floor. He felt the arms and back. Like a dentist’s chair felt like. What the hell?
He moved through the darkness to the double doors most likely leading to the upstairs hallway. Tried them, both were unlocked. He cracked one door wide enough that Ross would see it, then he felt around on the wall for a light switch. Just before he pressed it, he whispered the word “Go!” into his mike.
He hit the switch, and the whole room lit up. Huge damn bed with a huge damn bald-headed man under some shiny black satin sheets. Man was on his back, had about twenty pillows behind him, propped up with a black and pink silk sleep mask over his eyes. Son of a bitch was still snoring!
That’s when the first of many concussion grenades went off downstairs and the man sat bolt upright, lifted his cute little mask, and saw this huge black guy standing by his bed with a pistol aimed at his forehead.
“Madre de Dios!” he shouted. “Quй pasa? Who the fuck are you? What’s going on?”
“Good morning, Doctor,” Stoke said, a big grin on his face.
“Doctor?” the man said. “There must be some mistake. I’m not a—”
“You a pussy doctor, ain’t you?” Stoke asked. “Otherwise, why you got that damn gynecological chair stuck in the middle of your damn room? Banged the shit out of my knee on one of your damn stirrups, Doc.”
All hell was breaking loose downstairs, and just when he was starting to worry about them, Ambrose and Ross came through the man’s bedroom door.
“I was just waking up the doctor here,” Stoke said as Ambrose and Ross joined him at the foot of the bed. “See his chair? Man like to play doctor. Do pelvic examinations and shit.” The man shifted under the sheets and Ross brought up the Streetsweeper and put it right on the target. Streetsweeper tended to get people’s undivided attention.
“Take your hands out from under the sheets, very slowly, and cross them behind your head,” Ross said. The man, who’d gotten real quiet, did like he was told, but who wouldn’t, looking down the barrel of Ross’s sawed-off weapon?
“Is this your man, Constable?” Stoke asked.
Ambrose stepped closer to the bedside and studied him, mentally adding thirty years to the face in the Polaroid photograph and the one in Stubbs Witherspoon’s police sketch. It wasn’t the face that did it so much as the eyes. One look at the eyes and you knew this was a killer. Wild, dark, killer’s eyes. There was no question in Ambrose’s mind.
He was face to face with the man in the New Year’s Eve Polaroid. One of three brothers who’d slaughtered Alex Hawke’s parents. He leaned in close to the fellow and spoke.
“What is your name, sir?”
The man stared at him in disbelief. This could only be the work of his brother Manso! He’d been set up. This was why he’d been forced off the Martн. Humiliated in front of his men. His treacherous brother would pay dearly for this. He would—
“I asked you your name!” Congreve shouted.
“I am Admiral Carlos de Herreras, seсor! Commander in chief of the Navy of Cuba! This is an outrage! I demand that you—”
“Quiet.”
Ambrose pulled out a little leather case and flipped it open, showing the man his shield.
“My name is Ambrose Congreve,” he said in an even voice, full of measured intensity. “I am a special investigator for the Criminal Investigation Department of New Scotland Yard. In the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I am placing you, Carlos de Herreras, under arrest upon suspicion of murder. I order you to get out of that bed and come with me. Now.”
“You will regret this, seсor. We are the new ruling party of Cuba! My brother, he is the new—”
“Get out of that damned bed!” Congreve shouted, and ripped the sheets back. “As if I give a hoot in hell who you are! On your feet, Admiral, you’re under arrest!”
The man sighed, major league all pissed off, slowly pulling his hands out from the pillows. Still had the little black and pink mask up on his forehead. Stoke was looking at Ambrose, smiling, about to congratulate him, when Ross shouted, “Stokely, watch out!”
Stoke turned but it was too late. The fat man’s arm was extended toward him, a little black automatic in his hand. His thought was, shit, this is what happens when you go lending out your flak jacket. Then a sledgehammer hit him.
Stoke stayed on his feet long enough to see Ambrose raise and fire his weapon, hitting the suspect’s gun hand before he could squeeze off a second shot. The fat man was screaming in pain as Stoke hit the floor.
Ambrose knelt beside him, stuffing his handkerchief into the wound. There was a tremendous amount of blood, but he was still breathing. Ross had the big man cuffed and was speaking into his mike. Stoke was fading in and out and Ambrose was feeling for his pulse when he heard Ross in his headphones say, “Tom, give me a sitrep.”
“Still taking fire,” Quick said. “I’ve got one man down.”
“Were coming down the front way,” Ross said. “Give us some cover.”
Then Ross had his hands under Stoke’s armpits and was pulling him to his feet.
“Come on, Stokely, we have to get you to a doctor now!”
“He’s a doctor, ain’t he?” Stoke said, grinning weakly at the fat man and getting woozily to his feet. His whole front was sticky with hot blood.
Ambrose led them out into the hallway and they headed for the stairs. Ross was in front with the Streetsweeper, supporting Stoke. Next, the prisoner, with Ambrose’s pistol jammed in his back. Ambrose could tell the firelight below was a lot less intense as they started down the broad marble staircase. He saw Stoke tighten his grip around Ross’s neck to steady himself going down the stairs. He heard Quick shout a warning to Ross in his headphones. What the—
Suddenly, rounds whistled by his ear and over his head and he looked down to see three young chaps in T-shirts crouching at the foot of the steps, guns trained directly on them. One guy squeezed off another burst. He felt a sharp jolt of pain, clutched his chest, and fell back hard on the marble steps. Staring at the ceiling, Ambrose managed to move his hands and legs. God in heaven, he was still alive. But they were getting killed up here.
Ross didn’t wait for another shot. His finger snapped shut on the trigger of the Streetsweeper, and it erupted in a rapid series of blasts that blew what was left of the three men right out the front door and down the steps to the driveway.
Ross stuck out his hand, and Ambrose grasped it, pulling himself to his feet.
“Hold on,” Ross said to him, shouldering himself into the Street-sweeper’s strap and getting his other arm under him. “We’re going right out the front door!” They were going down the stairs fast. Then they were outside. Somehow, the sun had come up.
The front steps of the finca were slick with bodies and blood. Stepping over somebody’s blown-off foot, Ambrose somehow managed to tell Ross what he’d seen on the way in. That there were keys in both Humvees. Blood was pumping out of Stokely, even with the handkerchief stuffed inside the wound.
Ambrose dredged up a strength he’d never known and jammed his gun into the back of the prisoner. The chap had been about to run for it.
“I’m all right,” he told Ross. “Let’s just get this bloody bastard the hell out of here!”
Then Ross was behind the wheel of the Humvee, the prisoner next to him up front. Ambrose climbed into the backseat and pressed his pistol against the back of the Cuban’s head. He felt dizzy, and the sight of their prisoner still wearing black and pink silk pajamas, with the matching mask on his head, made him doubt his own mind.
Suddenly a new wave of chaps started coming out on the steps and seemed to be shooting at them. Then they started dropping to the ground, left and right. He thought he saw the sharpshooter Tom Quick in an upstairs window, picking them off with his sniper rifle, putting neat little black holes in people’s foreheads.
“Hold on, Inspector,” Ross said, and he mashed on the accelerator, the Humvee screaming around the fountain, heading for the wooden gates, and taking both of the gates off their hinges as they went crashing through.
“Okay, we have the suspect,” Ambrose heard Ross say in his phones. “We have two casualties needing immediate medical attention. Get your guys the hell out of there! There are keys in the second Humvee at the front door. Use it!”
Two casualties? Ambrose thought. That meant he must be one of them.
That’s when he felt a sharp pain in his chest and all the lights went out.