Caribbean Gold

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

Alicia saw Crouch struggle with the decision and then make it anyway. His eyes met hers first and asked a question.

“If we do this we do it fast,” she said.

He nodded, turned to the front and started sprinting through the trees. Russo loped along in his wake, rifle swinging from a shoulder. Healey and Caitlyn went next and Alicia brought up the rear. Down a slope and then over a small hillock, taking time to skirt the huge, overgrown bole of an ancient tree, scrambling in the undergrowth for a minute and then zigzagging through a thick stand, whipped by branches and almost tripped by concealed roots. Crouch led the team hard, calling on all his training and skills. To their right through the trees the pirate camp was in uproar, more men shouting than listening to their boss, others standing around in bewilderment and not having the awareness to find out. Drugs explained most of the uncertainty, but a lifetime of bullying and persecution also spoke for a portion of it. Alicia guessed that some of these men might not even know who their leader was.

Nevertheless, as Crouch passed the area where the prison tents sat, the pirate camp was starting to mobilize; the men were pointed toward the hill and galvanized to run. Several shots into the air helped. Alicia was forced to concentrate hard on the terrain for a minute as the path twisted and turned and crossed several pitfalls.

Russo, ahead, warned, “Pirates are coming.”

Alicia thought of several comebacks but held her breath. The hill might not be a mountain after all, but it was steep and high, and packed with danger. And that was without seventy pirates and forty or so mercs assaulting it. How crazy that their long, hazardous and meandering quest had finished in a race.

How the hell are we ever going to stand our ground at the top if we make it first?

Crouch dropped back through the pack as he fished out his cell and started to make a call. Alicia hoped it would be for reinforcements. Authorities. They couldn’t hope to hold out on their own. She stayed behind Caitlyn, keeping an eye on Crouch and now also eyeing Russo in front.

The ground leveled out and then started to rise up, the lower parts of the hill already beginning. Alicia got her first really good daylight look at the slope. It was worse than she had expected. The dangers lay everywhere and promised no easy climb. She called out to those in front.

“Stay together. Watch for dangers. The pirates will hit this hill hard and will pay the price.”

“They have the numbers to do that,” Russo returned.

“Arrive alive,” Alicia intoned. “Always a good motto.”

“As good as ‘One life, live it’?”

“Nah, that’s the best.”

“Don’t forget Jensen.” Crouch panted a little. “He’s running up the other side.”

“Don’t worry.” Alicia had no intentions of overlooking the man that had dogged them all the way. “That dude has a long life but a short future.”

Healey looked over his shoulder blankly, almost running slap-bang into a tree. “Eh?”

“Means prison,” Caitlyn told him. “She means he’s going to prison.”

“Ahh.”

“Zacky boy,” Alicia hurdled a double rut that looked like it had been made by a giant tractor wheel, and shook her head. “One day you’ll look back on all this and laugh.”

Healey grunted. Alicia loved the interaction between Healey and Russo and herself and even Caitlyn now that she was starting to gel nicely with the main team. Healey was a good soldier and, truth be told, wanted to stay young. It was one of his strengths, a forte she hoped he would never lose. If a grown man could keep a certain innocence, an air of virtue, and never let it go? That was a man she envied.

Upward she ran, the slope steepening with every step. The trees ended and a barren patch of land began that ran around the hill. Suddenly, everyone could see each other and even those oblivious to it all reacted with violence.

The pirates were in the middle and spun both ways. Russo flew to the ground, closely followed by the others. Pirates sprawled headlong as they hit tangled brush, their shots firing dangerously in every direction. To the far right, Jensen’s men returned fire, bullets zinging through the pirates and narrowly missing Crouch as he was last to duck.

The cellphone bounced out of his hand.

“Ah, shit. Hope they can track it.”

Alicia felt like cursing but used her handgun to bring down two enemies. The smaller pistols were better in this environment. A pirate shot one of his brethren as tripped, then himself through the head as his gun grounded and spun around with his finger still on the trigger. Men around him cringed. Alicia took another down.

Russo crawled hard through the tangled scrub, skirting brambles as best he could and snaking alongside small hillocks. One of the small peaks erupted under the impact of a bullet as he passed, showering him with soil. He kept going.

Healey followed close and then Caitlyn. Alicia made sure she shouted at the researcher to keep her head down, nose to the ground.

An outcropping of rock ahead and Russo was on his knees, drifting around it for shelter. He waited for the others. The pirates ran recklessly ahead, one breaking an ankle in a stony rivulet and left there by his brothers, screaming, unable to get free. Another tried to jump over the outcropping, smashed his head against the bare rock, and fell away unconscious. Alicia saw the leader at the center of the pack still waving his cleaver and offering no direction, no support. She could only make shapes out to the far right. Jensen’s men, advancing quickly.

Russo climbed around the outcropping and came to a series of sparse trees. Trunk to trunk he ran, keeping low and covered through open space by Healey. Once Russo had passed the third tree Healey started out, covered by Alicia. In a matter of seconds a fusillade of fire was returned by the advancing pirates, bullets thudding and screaming past. Several punched bark or split air close to Healey, more tore past Alicia, and one slammed off a chunk of boulder close to her left knee. She scrambled back and Healey flattened himself.

Crouch’s eyes were on her.

Is it worth it? she wanted to ask. The risk? The loss? The future pain?

But Alicia remained a soldier, and her boss moved ahead. Russo found a space where he could lay down some covering fire and Healey was scrambling off, forcing Alicia to follow. The hot sun blazed down from a cloudless sky and warmed the earth with an unrelenting energy. Dust and pollen wafted around, saturating every deep breath. The sounds of men swearing and crying out in pain, grunting in exertion, and urging their friends on was all she could hear.

The slope steepened. Above, she saw it narrow as it reached up toward the top of the hill. Still, she saw no sign of the tree and suddenly wondered if it even existed at all. What a fine jest for Morgan to pull. What perfect subterfuge. Sending every band of hunters to the top of a laborious slope to find they had done it all for nothing.

But someone knew it was there. The sailors for one. The tree remained to this day a well-known landmark, recognized by locals who plied these waters.

The pirates were spreading out. Mainly due to their numbers and over-enthusiasm, but nevertheless scattering toward the Gold Team. Alicia helped dissuade them with a few well-placed shots. Still, the rival groups pounded hard for the top of the hill, heads down and trading fire.

Jensen’s men were closer, possibly encountering some impassable obstacle, and were forced to engage in hand-to-hand combat with half-a-dozen pirates. An Uzi rattled, taking out some of Jensen’s men. The leader of the pirates shouted something unintelligible to which nobody reacted.

Alicia paused as a pirate ran hell-for-leather toward Healey. The young lad hadn’t even seen the attack. Alicia met the man head on, clubbed him with her pistol, and then kicked him to the ground. He twisted, feeling for a weapon. She shot him and ran on. Crouch raced at her heels.

Up they went. Russo encountered a cave, thought about heading inside and then decided to skirt its black maw. Crouch had a look of indecision in his eyes as he passed but said nothing. Alicia watched it all. Still, she respected and trusted and followed this man. Still, he remained far from perfect.

As was everyone deep inside, but this was a man she had thought different. The toll of his mistakes was heavy and she felt more was to come. But now was definitely not the time.

Ahead, Russo smashed aside a pirate that had forged ahead and doubled back. Healey finished him off, but that didn’t bode well for the chase. Alicia saw that the pirates were going to be kings of the mountain, and with their force that would make them pretty much unassailable.

Unless their force somehow went into sharp decline.

She clicked comms and shouted out a plan to Russo.

“Do it,” she finished. “Do it now!”

Ramming in a fresh mag she unhooked her rifle and jumped over a ditch and then a fallen log. Russo dropped to one knee up ahead, let off a volley of shots and allowed Healey to pass him by. Then Caitlyn and the rest. Healey now ran at the head of the pack and Russo at the back. Then Healey dropped down, shooting until the others all passed him. Pirates fell and twisted and crashed to the ground, some dead, some with broken bones, all tripping their comrades and getting in each other’s way.

Caitlyn dropped alongside Healey and then Alicia was passing them at a leap. She fell to one knee, lined up the pirate pack and then squeezed her trigger. Bullets flew among them, striking flesh and bone, sending gouts of blood high enough to paint a crimson canvas, blocking the sun and falling in errant patterns. Men collapsed face first. Others jumped over their bodies, trying to match Alicia’s skills on the run and failing. Always failing. Suddenly she felt Russo galloping by and then the rest of her team and she was up again, forming the rearguard.

The hill below them was littered with the dead, soaked by their life force. Jensen’s men added to the dead and took hits of their own. Mercenary met mercenary and forgot their objectives.

Alicia took a moment to look up.

Right to the top of the mountain.

Their goal, the crooked tree and the believed burial site for the most infamous and greatest plundered treasure hoard in history was in sight, and the pirates were in reach of it.

And although they were weary, bruised and bloody, the Gold Team ran harder. And they ran faster. Never had they fought harder for the prize.