Piranha

18

MacD stood up from his table and staggered backward, knocking into his chair and pitching sideways until Hali Kasim and Mike Trono caught him. Neither of them seemed much better off. Shot glasses littered their table along with three beer bottles. They’d been ordering rounds of whiskey for the last twenty minutes, ever since they’d spotted the guy at the bar sneaking glances at them.

The Waterfront Bar & Grill was filled with tourists from the cruise ship, college students on spring break, and young couples on vacation. Some were watching basketball games and cricket matches on the TVs that festooned the walls of the bar, but most were enjoying the breeze coming in off the ocean, over drinks and burgers, watching the bathing beauties on the beach to one side and the foot traffic on the street to the other.

It wasn’t a place frequented by the locals, so when MacD noticed a solo guy at the bar who seemed to be invested in a West Indies versus England cricket tilt, he assumed the man was a Jamaican there for the television. But during a couple of commercial breaks when the screen went dark, he saw the man watching their table in the screen’s reflection.

The guy was obviously keeping tabs on the three of them, but they had no idea why until they received Eric’s call. If they were targeted for assassination, taking them out inside the bar would be messy, leaving plenty of witnesses and making escape difficult. But if their attackers waited until they stepped outside, they could fire a few shots and get away quickly before anyone even knew what had happened.

Before they received the warning from Eric, they’d decided to have a little fun with the guy, in the event he was setting them up for some kind of scam. Every shot they took was followed by a slug of beer, and they got louder and more obnoxious with every round. But instead of swallowing the whiskey, they’d been spitting it into the half-empty beer bottles, an old barmaid’s trick. The guy must have relayed the news to his buddies by now that their targets were completely sloshed.

What had started out as a lark was now deadly serious.

MacD headed to the bathroom, wobbling his way through the tables. The man at the bar was right in his path. MacD gripped the backs of the barstools as he passed, seemingly to steady himself. When he reached their observer, he misplaced his hand and pushed against the man’s back instead.

The man instinctively whipped his head around at the disturbance. If MacD had been anyone else, the guy at the bar would certainly have yelled at him to watch his step. But since he was trying to keep a low profile, he said nothing.

“’Scuse me, pardner,” MacD slurred. “Ah didn’t mean to knock you over.”

“Mwen pa konprann,” the man replied. Then he added, “No English,” and went back to looking at the TV.

MacD’s eyes went wide like he’d just met a long-lost cousin. He’d heard from Eric that the attackers might be Haitian and the man had said “I don’t understand” in Creole. MacD, who’d grown up in Louisiana, had learned Creole and French from his grandfather, and many Haitians are bilingual. The Haitian and Louisianan versions of Creole have many similarities. MacD decided to catch him off guard.

“My friend,” MacD said in Creole, “you speak my language! Are you from Haiti?”

The guy, who certainly didn’t expect MacD to speak his native tongue, stammered, “I… I’m trying to watch the television.”

“You do speak Creole! I’m from the bayous of Louisiana. That practically makes us related.”

“I should be going soon.” The Haitian nodded to the bartender for his bill.

MacD draped his arm around him. “Going? Now? Let me and my pals buy you a drink. What’s your name?”

“I really have to be leaving.”

MacD’s hand brushed against a hard metal object in the small of the Haitian’s back, which confirmed that he was armed.

“Come on, brother,” MacD said, “one drink won’t kill you.”

The bartender put the check in front of the man.

“I have to go,” the Haitian said.

“At least let me pay your bill.”

MacD leaned forward and tossed a U.S. twenty on the check. As he did, he snatched the pistol from the Haitian’s waistband and jabbed it into his kidney.

“I have no problem killing you right here,” MacD said. “Got it? If so, nod slowly.”

The Haitian did as he was told.

MacD grabbed a napkin and covered his gun hand. He nodded to Hali and Trono, who instantly gave up the drunk act and stood. The four of them retreated to the back hallway, where the restrooms were located. They took him inside the men’s room and locked the door.

Hali kept watch while MacD and Trono frisked the Haitian. Other than a folding knife, the SIG Sauer.40 caliber pistol Trono now held was his lone weapon. He also carried a phone with the same French text message that had been relayed by Linda. Two more messages indicated that he’d been communicating with someone outside the Waterfront.

“Who are you?” MacD asked him in Creole.

“I’m saying nothing.”

“You’ll say a lot once we get you back to the ship.”

“No, I won’t.”

“You’re no amateur, but this isn’t exactly what you’re best at. You’re a soldier, aren’t you?”

The Haitian didn’t respond.

“See, soldiers are good at attacking, not so good at the spy stuff,” MacD continued. “We, on the other hand, have had a little training in those kinds of things. Things like interrogation.”

The Haitian’s eyes were defiant. “Do you think you can scare me?”

“We’ll see. Who’s outside?”

“No one,” the Haitian said with a smile.

“So we can just stroll out the back?”

Without hesitation the Haitian said, “Go ahead.”

“They’ve got men posted front and back,” MacD said to Hali and Trono.

“Did he say how many?” Trono asked.

“No. And getting anything out of him won’t happen here. We’ll have to take him back to the ship to figure out who he is.”

“How do we get out of here?” Hali asked. “Use him as a hostage?”

“They may not care about him,” Trono said. “For all we know, they could shoot him along with us.”

“Good point,” MacD said. “Let me see that phone. Stay with him.” He took the gun, leaving Trono holding the knife to the Haitian’s throat. He also took a spare roll of toilet paper with him.

“What are you going to do?” Hali asked.

“Not sure yet. Keep your phone handy.”

MacD walked back into the bar and edged up to the front window but stayed out of sight. He typed a text in French saying “All three are coming out the front in two minutes. Honk twice to acknowledge.”

The text went through. Seconds later, two short beeps came from the left. He poked his head around and saw a Toyota SUV with two Haitians inside waiting at the curb. Both of them were staring intently at the front door.

MacD went up to a table of American college students who had a collection of beers on their table. One was wearing a Panama hat and a plaid shirt over his T-shirt. He and MacD were about the same size.

“Ah’ll give you a hundred dollars for your hat and shirt,” MacD said.

The student looked at his three buddies, then back at MacD. “Is this a joke, man?”

“No joke.” MacD held out a crisp hundred-dollar bill. “Right now.”

“Yeah!” the student said, laughing, and shucked the clothes. He plucked the bill from MacD’s hand and high-fived the other guys before ordering another round.

MacD donned the hat and shirt. The two men in the car wouldn’t expect only one of them to come out, and the different clothes would make him invisible.

He sauntered out the door as if he were simply taking a stroll, keeping his eyes toward the open window and away from the Toyota, the hat shielding his face from view.

He passed the Toyota and another car before ducking and circling around. Through the side mirrors, MacD could see that the SUV hitmen were still focused on the Waterfront’s door.

He strode up to the Toyota and flung the rear door open. Before they could react, he was inside the SUV with the SIG Sauer against the driver’s neck.

“Don’t move,” he said in Creole. “You understand?”

They nodded. He sat back and put the pistol’s barrel against the toilet paper roll.

“Poor man’s silencer,” MacD said. “Don’t make me use it.” Each of them had a Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine gun laying across their laps. “Now, as slowly as you can, take the magazines out of your weapons and drop them behind you. Then pull back the bolts and show me they’re empty.”

The two men exchanged glances, then complied with MacD’s instructions.

“Good. Now drop them on the floor back here one at a time. We’ll start with the driver.”

The driver twisted in his seat and held the MP7 up. Then he shoved it down while the passenger lunged toward MacD with a knife he’d been palming.

The sudden attack left MacD with no alternative. It was him or them. He shot the passenger first, then the driver, through the back of the seats, the blasts muffled by the thick toilet paper. Both men slumped forward. The smell of gunpowder filled the SUV. He checked to make sure they were dead, then scanned the street around him. No one had noticed the brief battle.

“Ah really hate that you made me do that,” he said to the two corpses, then called Hali.

“The front’s clear. You can bring him out.”

“Do we have transportation?”

Even though MacD wanted to take the SUV, there was no way to remove the dead body from the driver’s seat without being seen. “We’ll have to cab it.”

“We’ll be out in a minute.”

MacD strapped the two bodies into their seat belts and propped them up so that it looked like they were napping. Then he wiped down the SUV for any possible prints.

Trono and Hali exited the bar with the Haitian in front of them. Trono had the Haitian in a Krav Maga finger lock that allowed him to control his captive while he held the knife in his other hand.

MacD walked up to them and said in Creole, “Your friends didn’t want to cooperate.”

The Haitian gaped at his partners slouched in the SUV. His prior confidence evaporated.

“No,” he said, panicked, “you cannot take me. They will kill my whole family if they think I am helping you.”

“Who?” MacD said over the rumble of an approaching truck. “Who do you work for?”

“Please kill me now!”

MacD shook his head in bewilderment. Someone had total control over these men.

“He wants us to kill him,” he said to Hali and Trono.

The two of them responded simultaneously, both incredulous.

“What?”

“You’re kidding.”

Before MacD could explain, the Haitian tore his hand away, breaking two fingers in the process, and darted out into the street directly into the path of the oncoming truck. He was crushed by the truck’s grille and fell under its wheels. Several women screamed. Two men rushed to his aid but drew back when they saw the condition of the body.

They were all shocked by the man’s willingness to kill himself rather than be captured.

“Let’s get out of here,” MacD said.

While they hoofed it to the next street to find a taxi, MacD called the Oregon. Linda answered.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“We’re on our way back.”

“Everyone okay?”

“We’re all fine. I’ll report when we’re there.”

“Get back as soon as you can. We’re getting ready to set sail.”

“Is everyone else back aboard?”

“No. That’s the problem. We can’t reach Max and the Chairman.”