Caribbean Gold

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Alicia exited last from the museum, her senses alert even in the sleepy building. The bright sunlight blinded her for a moment, but then she was checking the streets outside and everything in the distance. Ironically, she remembered ambushing Matt Drake somewhere near here once, a fact she had long wanted to forget, and now looked to where she had positioned her own team during the Blood King conspiracy.

Key West bumbled along happily, bright, vivid and content in its relative seclusion at the southern tip of America. The only signs of life she could see were tourists, camera-snappers munching on the local and scrumptious item of fame — Key lime pie, and old locals sitting on metal benches, staring out to sea.

Crouch led the way to a taxi rank and the team decided to slip more comfortably into two separate cabs. The drivers agreed on a route that took them away from the busy Highway 1 and through Key West’s residential suburbs, and pulled away from the curb. Alicia again assured herself that no one was following and that was when Crouch’s cellphone rang.

She felt a small tingle, sensed trouble.

Crouch stared at the screen. “Unknown caller. Hello?”

He listened for a while, gripped the bridge of his nose, and scrunched his face up. “I see,” he repeated four times and then ended with: “Any clue as to where?”

Alicia perceived that the answer was no and questioned the boss as he ended the call. “Didn’t sound like a lottery win?”

“John Jensen escaped from prison,” Crouch said with a pained exhalation. “Broke out by what they think was a ten-man team and a few insiders. There are casualties. Survivors gave chase but the man is gone.”

Alicia closed her eyes in a moment of respect and then asked the obvious. “Where’s he gone?”

“Wait.” Crouch added Caitlyn and Healey, in the other car, to a conference call and quickly brought them up to speed.

“You think he’s coming here?” Healey asked immediately. “To find the book?”

“It’s possible,” Crouch said.

Alicia saw him glance at the driver as if debating whether they should stay put. They were currently cruising past two rows of houses with palm trees waving in the gardens, white walls and white gates bordering the properties. Green refuse bins lined the sidewalks and cars were parked in haphazard fashion up and down the road. A woman dragged a shopping trolley on wheels across a junction ahead, slowing the cabs, and a man worked under the raised hood of an old Buick. A lethargic air hung over the city as it waited for the sun to begin its descent into the west.

“We can check for movements,” Crouch said, “aliases. But remember, Jensen sees himself as a pirate captain. Wouldn’t he escape using the sea?”

Alicia shrugged. “You can’t count on a madman acting predictably.”

“Good point,” Russo said from the front seat. “We could spin around and put a watch on the museum.”

“How many ways could he get in?” Alicia wondered.

“Normal routes,” Crouch said. “Smugglers’ routes. We can’t watch them all.”

“But wait,” Caitlyn’s low voice stopped their speculations in their tracks, “there is another possibility.”

Crouch nodded. “Yes, I know.”

“Anyone care to inform us?” Russo asked.

Caitlyn was already speaking. “Jensen already knows where the island is,” she said. “And sent us off with an authentic clue to get us out of the way. Remember, he actually did my research for me.”

“Knowing,” Crouch added, “that we would eventually find the location and head straight for the island. It’s a tactic I should have foreseen.”

“Where he’ll be waiting?” Alicia asked, a tad hopefully.

“Either that, or long gone. Pawing through his ill-gotten gains.”

The team reflected for a few minutes before Crouch made the decision. “We’ll inform the local cops,” he said. “Put them on the museum and the access routes. We need to find that island.”

“Not to mention the treasure,” Russo said.

“No.” Alicia glanced at their driver. “You’re right. Only a knob-end would mention that.”

“But where to now?” Healey asked. “Back to Panama? Jamaica?”

“Our goal remains the same,” Crouch said. “We find a man that knows that island. The passage said look between Haiti, Panama and Port Royal. I think Jamaica would be the perfect place to ask around.”

Alicia thought the plan had merit. Judging by the satnav, they were starting to get close to the airport now, though it was screened behind a row of houses and tall trees to their right. They passed a driveway inhabited only by a speedboat, and a white house built on stilts so a fleet of cars could be parked easily in the shade underneath.

Ahead a black SUV approached.

Alicia squinted toward the blacked-out interior. “You see that?”

Crouch spoke into the cellphone. “Healey? How are we back there?”

“Black SUV just pulled out of a side street. Approaching fast.”

“Shit.”

Alicia told the driver to put his foot down just as the man started to slow. The SUV swerved into their path. Russo leaned over and wrenched the wheel out of his hands. “Get down.”

“How did they find us?” Caitlyn asked.

“Easy,” Crouch breathed. “They were watching the bloody museum.”

“That’s some forward planning on Jensen’s part.”

“Well, like it or not, the guy’s good. Or at least, he was. You don’t lose that kind of training.”

Russo turned the wheel so that their vehicle bounced up onto the narrow, barren patch of earth that ran parallel to the sidewalk. Rutted, it played havoc with their tires, sending Alicia slamming into the doorframe and Crouch against the back seat.

“C’mon, Robster. You ever drive before?”

“Not with my head in this guy’s lap. You wanna jump over and try it yourself, be my guest.”

“Oh, you’d like that wouldn’t you?” Alicia managed to find her gun as the SUV slammed by to their left, sideview mirrors crashing together and shearing away. The smoked-glass windows in the other car remained closed, adding to the mystery as it slewed around in the road just behind Healey and Caitlyn’s cab. Dust plumed up into the air and tires squealed. Onlookers jumped back into their gardens.

“Slam the accelerator!” Russo shouted at the driver to a look of utter confusion.

“The gas,” Crouch said. “Hit the bloody gas.”

The car lurched ahead, sending out a smoke-plume of its own. The SUVs were more powerful, though, and were soon all over the back ends of their quarries. Alicia looked back and knew they had a matter of seconds.

“Faster.”

They switched roads, still running parallel to the airport. The maneuver opened up a small gap but not enough. Alicia opened her window and leaned out, gun ready.

“Stick your head out now,” she murmured to herself. “See where it ends up.”

The SUVs windows powered down in sync. Arms holding machine pistols emerged and, rather than ducking back, Alicia took potshots at them. Russo swerved the cab at every opportunity and Crouch twisted his body so he could lean out of the other window. At first only Alicia’s gunshots filled the air, but then fire was returned and the deadly sound of automatic gunfire shuddered around them. Alicia saw metal flatten and almost instantly the back window shattered. Now she ducked, feeling the impact as more bullets thudded into the car’s chassis to left and right and through the trunk.

Russo manhandled the cringing driver out of the way, depositing him into the footwell of the passenger seat. Once behind the wheel he shifted it better, zigzagging for their lives and hitting one large red trashcan so that it spun into the car behind. The tree-lined road stretched on. Alicia fired blindly through the rear window. Crouch popped his head up.

“To the left a little,” he said. “Perfect.”

Alicia glanced through the broken glass to see the pursuing vehicle’s windshield destroyed and two men wearing sunglasses revealed. The driver leaned away from the center, probably thinking the frame might give him shelter. Alicia knew he was their best chance. Before she could fire he rammed his own gas pedal to the floor and screamed at his companion to shoot. Bullets riddled the cab. Russo turned sharply again and again. Then he stepped hard on the brake pedal and the other car crashed right into their rear fender.

Alicia’s eyes widened in surprise as she saw the passenger fly through the air, land on their own trunk, and grip hold of the razor-edged glass that remained in the rear window, desperate to hang on.

Alicia rose.

Staying beneath the man’s head for shelter, she lunged at him. Her fist connected hard with his forehead, causing a splutter and a scream of pain. Still he hung on, twisting with the car’s momentum and ignoring the blood that seeped between his fingers. The spare hand, held down at his side, still gripped the gun and he brought it around now to aim at Alicia. She saw it coming — the arc of the arm and the effort required was substantial — and she leaped up to catch it. Now face to face with the man, swinging from side to side and buffeted by sudden gusts of wind, she struggled hard.

She slammed her forehead into the bridge of his nose, sending blood trickling into his eyes. She forced the gun hand as far away as she could. A bullet ripped from the barrel, burying itself into the road. He tried to headbutt her back, but Alicia had been wise to that move since high school, and dipped her skull. She let go of the rear window frame with her right hand and punched him in the cheek. Dynamite went off behind his eyes; she felt she saw it clearly. She punched again and he was out cold, gone, tumbling off the rear end and spinning away. Now the driver was vulnerable.

Crouch had already lined him up. The men in the back seat pushed their weapons forward through the gap but Crouch fired first, a perfect shot through the center of the driver’s skull. The black SUV swerved and crashed, tipping onto its side, another man thrown clear.

Alicia saw the second attacker now as it hounded Healey’s cab.

The young soldier’s driver was nowhere to be seen. Caitlyn sat behind the wheel, trying to block the following car and stop it from coming up alongside. The researcher’s reactions were slow and only Healey’s careful shooting was keeping them from being stopped. Alicia knew they had to come up with a fast plan.

“Russo. Three sixty and brake in ten seconds. Crouch — you still on that open line?”

“I am.”

“Tell Caitlyn to hold steady and hope she hears.”

Crouch complied and readied himself as Alicia counted the seconds down for Russo. On cue the big man stamped on the brakes and threw the cab into a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, ending up with the nose pointing toward the two oncoming vehicles. Alicia and Crouch emptied their clips at the SUV as Caitlyn powered by on the left so close they lost another sideview mirror.

Bullets ripped apart the SUV, fragmenting the windshield and both men in the front seat. Traction was lost and the vehicle spun badly, ending up on its side. A man pushed himself up through a rear door and Alicia picked him off with ease, watched him slump still with his rear body in the SUV. Crouch told Russo to make a fast getaway.

“Move it, before any more turn up.”

“We Jamaica bound?” Russo asked as he helped the panic-stricken driver up into a proper seated position.

Crouch punched in another number that would connect him to the police. “Oh, yeah, as soon as we get this particular shitstorm sorted out.”

“And meanwhile Jensen gets closer and closer to the treasure,” Alicia said.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Crouch assured her. “We’re not out of this hunt yet.”