Caribbean Gold

CHAPTER FORTY TWO

Wales lies at the western side of the United Kingdom, a rugged country composed largely of mountains and coastline. They ordered the jet to land at Cardiff Airport and then rented a car to travel the last leg of their journey to Llanrumney Hall. The roads were blacked out as it passed the witching hour, snaking, hedge-lined byways lit only by the stark crescent moon. The team sat together in the Range Rover, an acute feeling for the one person missing cutting each one of them as deep as a razor.

Alicia stared out the window at a darkness that threatened to engulf them all, the only relief the odd pool of light offered by a random streetlamp or the distant lights shed by a solitary house or farm. Crouch drove by the directions offered by the satnav, following one twisting route after the other and passing only a single car coming in the opposite direction. They could have been the only people left alive in the world, traveling the lonely, unsociable darkness forever and a day.

Alicia fought off a feeling that this was all wrong. Bouncing from Jamaica and Haiti and Panama to a small Welsh tavern didn’t fit — it didn’t fit with Henry Morgan and it didn’t fit with the tales of his storied treasure hoard. But then, maybe that’s why it was never found.

A night in Wales on his way to England. Who would know? Only those that helped, and they would only be well-trusted and well-paid men, able to strike off alone to live out their days in luxury. Either that or Morgan murdered them all in Llanrumney Hall. Either story could be true.

The car crunched slowly up a gravel drive and approached a wall of trees. Darkness was now a palpable thing, pressing down amidst all the wilds of the Welsh countryside. And then came a totally unexpected thing.

Llanrumney Hall, an enormous pub out in the middle of nowhere, known and visited by all but still a kept secret. Alicia wondered if there were many that knew this once belonged to the Morgan estate as she marveled at the size of it. White-walled, three-storied and with a flat roof, it had been built in the fifteenth century. All the more surprising because it fitted in at the end of an unremarkable tree-lined lane, the pub stood dimly lit now, its windows dark save for the odd lit lamp, its doors closed and barred against the ungodly hour.

After all, brigands rode the night didn’t they? Especially in Wales, the home of the greatest of them all.

Alicia studied the great pub and its surrounds. A smaller structure lay to the left and other houses beyond a fence. To the right an open field, also bordered by a fence. Crouch crunched into the car park and found a space, left the engine running.

“Ideas?”

Caitlyn never stopped thinking. “They turned this place into a pub in 1951. Before that it was a residence, presumably much unchanged from the original structure. It’s a Grade I listed building.”

“Some things will have changed,” Crouch insisted.

“Agreed. But where, logically, would a pirate not leave his treasure?”

Crouch studied the pub. “Bedrooms,” he said. “Loft. Anything above the ground floor. He would want it safe, dry, and unlikely to be found accidentally. That leaves the grounds—” he studied what he could see “—which are nothing more than flat earth. Possibly a hidden trapdoor?” He shrugged. “Or the house itself. Shall we see?”

Alicia hesitated. “It’s three in the morning.”

“Perfect,” Crouch said. “We have reason to do this. We’re in the UK, my stomping ground. We’re checking no unsavory sorts have come before us.” He looked over at Alicia. “Want me to continue?”

“Not even a little bit.” She reached for the door handle. “Let’s do this.”

The team exited the Range Rover and assumed a formation. Hands hovered near weapons they had brought with them from Jamaica. Crouch’s contacts and Alicia’s Special Agency ID had their uses, after all. Dark patches away from the house moved slowly, causing Russo to hiss for silence. Slowly, he crouched, staring at the dark.

“Careful.” He put a hand up as Alicia walked by.

“It’s just sheep,” she told him. “Wales is full of ’em. Is it the big furry ones that scare you, or the bare, shaven skinny ones?”

“Shit.” Russo rose and faced the house without a hint of acknowledgement. Crouch headed for the rear and the back door, moving carefully and hugging the side of the building. Alicia followed, eyes flitting and trying to penetrate the black shroud. Noises came from the far field, animals moving, and the call of night creatures. Around the back of the pub they found an extensive patio area with benches, seating and a huge barbecue. Outdoor heaters stood around every table, chained to the floor.

Crouch hugged the wall. Alicia looked up and to the side, leaving nothing to chance. They moved soundlessly, and the chill Welsh night pressed around them. Alicia saw breath stealing from Crouch’s mouth as he walked, a wild contrast to where they had come from. Her fingers were cold on the trigger.

Crouch stopped. Alicia glanced around his body.

“That’s not a good sign.”

The pub’s rear door had been forced, the frame broken. Light flooded out from the room beyond but no alarm had been tripped. Alicia could only assume Jensen had managed to find a local thief to do the job, unless he’d somehow learned burglary skills during his many travels. Possible.

“It could be unrelated,” Caitlyn said.

Alicia didn’t believe in such coincidence, but kept her silence. She pushed ahead of Crouch and beckoned Russo over. “Be ready.”

Inch by inch, she used her left hand to push the door open, revealing an interior hallway. Narrow and lit at the far end it was cluttered with a vast array of items in boxes and plastic containers. The door at the far end was closed.

She inched along, allowing the team to form behind her. The far door opened with a faint click and then they were inside a softly illuminated kitchen area. Alicia went first and then the others spread out. Pots and pans hung at head height and a large industrial fridge-freezer filled one corner. A central worktop bench almost cut the room in half and a double sink sat near the exit door. The whole area was quiet, the lights dim but still enough to ensure they were totally alone. Russo crouched down to the floor and hissed for attention.

Without a sound he pointed at three sets of dusty footprints overlaying the pristine floor. A set of trainers, a pair of boots and a smaller set of trainers. Alicia felt a rush of fear not for herself but for the men, women and children lodging here. No telling what Jensen might do. Carefully, she placed a hand on Crouch’s shoulder.

“Shouldn’t we get everyone out?”

“Probably.” The boss sent a longing glance after Russo. “But I’d like to know where we’re going first before we warn Jensen.”

Alicia considered it. The truth was, the footsteps might not be Jensen at all. Another truth was, this could be yet another wild goose chase.

It felt right though. Validation ran right through the bricks and mortar of this place, from its fifteenth-century foundations to its connection to Morgan and the subterfuge surrounding his last voyage. A man knowing he was going to his death wouldn’t take his spoils all the way to the government’s front door now would he?

She nodded. “Ten minutes.”

They crept through the kitchen and entered a large, mahogany paneled room with a pool table at the center. Chairs lined the walls and a darts- and chalkboard too. Some kind of function room. Russo pointed to the bare floor and retreated, soon silently padding into another room with high, curtained windows, tables and several armchairs scattered about. Darkness was their nemesis here, drowning out their small flashlights as they looked around. Again, nothing appeared out of place and no footprints lined the floor. Russo led the way through two more rooms as the minutes ticked away.

“Boss, we gotta do this right,” Alicia said finally. “Lights on. People out. We’re blind here.”

They switched around and headed back to the kitchen. Crouch turned on the lights as the others leaned against worktops. Alicia got a better look at the dusty prints and noted that they never actually left the room.

Crouch clucked and smiled. “Look at this, guys.”

Alicia was talking to Caitlyn. “Any chance you can use that magic of yours to find an old blueprint of this place? We need to separate the old from the new.”

“Not a chance, I’m afraid. Info regarding Llanrumney Hall is pretty sparse around the Net and Google Maps can’t penetrate through walls.” She shrugged and added: “Yet.”

“That we know of,” Crouch pointed out and then caught their attention. “How about this?”

Alicia looked across to see a small, red fire alarm button. Russo frowned. “You think it’ll open a secret door?”

“No. But I do think it will clear the place out.”

“Ah, yeah. Good idea.”

Crouch pressed the button and listened to the klaxon sound of alarm bells. Lights started to go on and, after a few minutes, the sound of feet descending the stairs and sleepy voices could be heard. Someone was trying to calm the residents down and a man’s voice stated that he was “off back to bed”. The team saw more and more illumination as they watched through the open kitchen door.

Crouch was wasting no time though. As soon as he had pressed the alarm he enlisted Russo’s help and started moving units. Alicia took a different stance on the matter, checking the floor for scuff marks. Caitlyn examined the walls and inside cupboards. It stood to reason that the kitchen would be the oldest room in the house, but after five minutes they had found nothing. Alicia took another careful look at the footprints as they watched people start to walk toward the front doors.

“They do actually leave the kitchen area,” she said. “Look.”

Outside, the residents and landlord of the pub noticed people standing in the kitchen. Some started drifting over. The bulk of them milled around as many started to question the fire’s authenticity. Alicia shook her head. “If it were a real fire some of these people would wait to go crispy duck before they started to run.”

They followed the prints again, ending at a dark-wood paneled wall in which was set a six-foot high door. Crouch reached out to push it open.

As it moved inward a red wire stretched, a fuse exploded and an incendiary device went off. The door had been booby trapped from the inside. The entire house plunged into darkness.

“Damn, he’s prepared for us.”

Screams sounded out from behind. Men yelled for someone to get the doors open. In utter darkness, the house and the countryside took on a more menacing aspect. As Alicia watched a man fell over, struck his head on a table and didn’t get up. A woman screamed. “He’s dead! He’s dead! He just fell. Oh God, there’s a killer among us!”

So much for the power of television. Without hesitation someone lifted a vase and threw it through a patio door window. Someone else wrenched at the frame, drawing blood and shrieking. A young man saw the blood and leaped away.

Crouch pushed open the door and looked down, shone his flashlight. “Appears to be a cellar. Some steep steps here so watch out.”

The team descended into the inky, creepy blackness, taking care and wondering what might lurk in the far corners of the room. Pitch black and utter silence fell over them, making Alicia feel smothered. The stairs were their only safe harbor, the rest of the room could have been a pit leading straight to Hell. Russo took point, followed by Crouch, Caitlyn and Alicia, who made sure she closed the door at their backs. They didn’t want anyone falling through an open door by accident.

“Watch out for any other traps,” Crouch said.

Russo grunted, finally reaching solid ground. The cellar was a vast place, the walls just rock and chipped stone, with the roots of a desiccated tree running through. Alicia immediately got an impression of age, refuted by the modern strip-lights and piles of boxes, cans and drinks, but it was the overlying feel of the place that spoke to her bones. This cellar had been hewn at the same time they built the house.

Still, it was just one big oblong room. No passageways leading further underground. No doors that they could see. And no clear footprints to follow.

“Split up,” Crouch said. “Examine every nook and cranny.”

Alicia brushed a spiderweb away to reach into a far corner. The walls were solid. Caitlyn called them over to investigate a niche at the bottom of the far wall, but no seams were evident. They moved boxes and crates but found nothing, the light from their tiny flashlights barely any use at all. In the end, Crouch sat on a crate and let out a long, frustrated breath.

“What are we missing?”

“Dinner,” Alicia breathed back. “I really missed that last night, and pretty soon I’m gonna be missing breakfast too.”

“Proper tools would help,” Caitlyn said. “We could check for spaces behind these walls.”

“An awful lot can happen in four hundred years,” Crouch said. “Maybe this was where Morgan left his treasure.”

“And somebody found it? Kept it quiet?”

Crouch shrugged. “Maybe. It would be a fitting end to this bloody quest.”

“I don’t think so,” a voice said from the shadows. “It would be too damn easy, Michael.”

Jensen leapt for Crouch, aiming for the man’s throat. The deeper shadows erupted with figures, arms and legs and twisted faces, like demons leaping up from the caverns of Hell. They wielded knives and their eyes flashed in the reflected flashlight beams. Alicia stumbled back in shock, tripping over Caitlyn and falling to the floor. Russo almost managed to cover a little shriek, at the same time stumbling across a crate of water bottles.

The fiends were upon them.