The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 41

Pockets of swirling vapour spewed up from the rocks of the promontory above the Pacific. Evan suppressed his panic, remembering his covenant with himself: he would not die passively; he would not be killed without a struggle, no matter how futile. Yet even last-ditch efforts presumed the outside possibility of survival, and he had spent his adult life studying the complexities of specifics. There were tropical vines all around him, thick and strong from the moisture and the winds constantly assaulting their trunks. There was lush undergrowth on both sides of the string of amber bulbs and loose wet dirt within that twisted foliage, mud that never knew a dry moment. The Mexican who had directed the Mafioso to the killing ground was a reluctant partner to murder. His voice grew fainter as they approached the final steps towards the white barrier.

'¡Defrente, defrente!' he cried nervously. '¡Adelanto!'

'Go over it or around it, Congressman,' said the Secret Service man, his tone cold, a professional doing his professional job, someone for whom life and death meant nothing.

'I can't,' answered Kendrick. 'It's too high to step over and there's some kind of barbed wire spreading out from the sides.'

'Where?'

'Here.' Kendrick pointed down into the dark undergrowth.

'I don't see—’

Now! screamed the silent voice inside Evan's throat as he whipped around, both hands surging for the large ugly weapon, gripping it and pushing it away as he bent the Mafioso's wrist back and crashed his shoulder into the guard's chest, pulling the arm forward and desperately, with all the strength that was in him, heaving the man off balance and into the brush and the wet dirt. The gun fired, the explosion melding with the sounds of the crashing waves below. Kendrick shoved the weapon into the soft earth and, freeing his right hand, grabbed a fistful of mud and slapped it into the Mafioso's face, grinding it into his eyes.

The guard shouted garbled words of fury, trying simultaneously to wipe his eyes and yank the gun out of the earth and Evan's grip. Kendrick remained on top of the writhing, thrashing killer, repeatedly crashing his knee up into the man's groin as his right hand continuously scooped up mud, crushing it into the Mafioso's eyes and mouth. His knuckles struck a hard, jagged object… a rock! It was almost too large for the panicked spread of his fingers, but nothing could, nothing would, stop him. Straining muscles he had not exerted in months, years, holding off the convulsive assaults beneath him, he pulled the heavy, jagged rock out of the mud, raised it, and crashed it down into the head of his would-be executioner. The killer-guard went limp as the man's body sank into the wet undergrowth and the soft ground.

Evan grabbed the gun and snapped his eyes up towards the Mexican. The Hispanic, waiting to see who would live and who would die yards away in the mist-laden, shadowed foliage, crouched, backing into an amber lamp, smashing it with his foot. Seeing the survivor, he spun around, digging his feet into the path to run.

'Stop!' yelled Kendrick breathlessly, leaping up and lurching out of the bordering overgrowth. 'Stop or I'll kill you! You understand me well enough for that.'

The Mexican stopped, turning slowly in the wash of light to face Evan. 'I am no part of these things, señor,' he said in surprisingly clear English.

'You mean you don't pull the trigger, you just tell them where they can pull it!'

'I am no part,' repeated the man. 'I am a fisherman but there is no decent pay on the boats these days. I make my pesos and go home to my family in El Descanso.'

'Do you want to see your family again?'

'Si', very much,' replied the Hispanic, his lips and hands trembling. 'If this is what happens, I will not come back.'

'Are you telling me it's never happened before?'

'Never, señor.'

'Then how did you know the way!' shouted Kendrick against the sound of the wind and the crashing waves. He was regaining his breath, gradually aware of the mud that covered him and the pain everywhere inside him.

'We are brought here and given maps of the island, which we must know completely in two days or we are sent home.'

'Why? For multiple executions?'

'I told you no, señor. These are drug waters—narcoticos—and very dangerous. Mexican and American patrols can be summoned quickly but still the island must be guarded.'

'Summoned quickly?'

'The owner is a powerful man.'

'Is his name Grinell?'

'I do not know, sir. All I know is the island itself.'

'You speak fluent English. Why didn't you speak English before?' Evan gestured towards the dead Mafioso. 'To him!'

'I say it again, I wanted no part. I was told where to take you, and as we grew closer I began to understand… No part, señor. But I have my family back in El Descanso, and the men who come here are powerful men.'

Evan stared at the man in indecision. It would be easy, so easy, to end his life and eliminate a risk, yet there was a glimmer of opportunity as well if the frightened Mexican was not a liar. Kendrick knew he was negotiating for his life, but there was another life involved, too, and it made the negotiation easier. 'You understand,' he said, drawing closer to the man, raising his voice to be heard clearly, 'that if you go back down to the house without him and he doesn't appear or they find his dead body up here or washed up on the rocks, you'll be killed. You do understand that, don't you?'

The Mexican nodded twice. 'Si'.'

'But if I don't kill you, you've got a chance, don't you?' asked Evan, raising the Mafioso's gun. The member of staff closed his eyes and nodded once. 'So, it's in the best interests of you and your family back in El Descanso to join me, isn't it?'

'Si'. The Mexican opened his eyes. 'Join you in what?’

'Getting out of here—away from here. There's a boat down at that dock next to a fuel tank. It's large enough to handle the trip.'

'They have other boats,' interrupted the executioner's guide. 'They go faster than the government drug boats and there is a helicopter with powerful searchlights.'

'What? Where?'

'Down near the beach on the other side of the island. There is a cement landing ground… Are you a pilot, señor?'

'I wish I were. What's your name?'

'Emilio.'

'Are you coming with me?'

'I have no choice. I want to leave here and go home to my family and move to a town in the mountains. Otherwise I die and they will go hungry.'

'I warn you, if you give me any reason to think you're lying, you'll never see El Descanso or your family.'

'It is understood.'

'Stay at my side… First I want to check out my hangman.'

'Your what, señor?'

'My friendly executioner. Let's go! We've got a lot to do and not much time to do it.'

'To the boat?'

'Not yet,' said Kendrick, a vague, fragmented plan coming into abstract focus. 'We're going to disrupt this goddamned island. Not just for you and me but for everybody. Everybody. … Is there a tool shed—a place where they keep things like shovels, picks, hedge clippers, those kinds of things?'

'The mantenimiento,' answered Emilio. 'For the gardeners, although we are often required to assist them.'

'We'll make a stop first, then take me there,' continued Evan, moving awkwardly and in pain back to the dead Mafioso. 'Come on!'

'We must be careful, señor!'

'I know, the guards. How many are there?'

'Two on each of the four passable beach areas and the pier. Ten for each shift. All carry radio alarms that set off sirenas—very loud sirens.'

'How long are the shifts?' asked Kendrick, bending over the corpse of the Secret Service man.

'Twelve hours. Twenty guardas and four jardineros—gardeners. Those not on duty are in what they call the “barracks”. It is a long building north of the main house.'

'Where are the tools?'

'In a metal garage fifty metres south of the generador.'

'The generator?'

'Si.'

'Good.' Evan removed the Mafioso's wallet and black plastic identification case, then went through the mud-soaked pockets finding more than a thousand dollars, undoubtedly not from a federal payroll. Finally, he took out the small electronic 'key' that released the bolts and opened the door of the cabin-cell in the woods. 'Let's go,' he repeated, rising with difficulty from the soft, wet earth and undergrowth.

They started down the path of amber ground lamps. 'Una momenta!' whispered Emilio. 'The lights. Kick them out, señor. The more darkness, the better we are.'

'Good thinking,' agreed Kendrick, heading back with the Mexican to the white barrier, where they proceeded to crush each succeeding domed bulb on both sides. They reached the main island path that on the left led down to the boats and the dock, on the right up to the manor house on the top of the hill, with an offshoot leading to the escape proof rustic cabin. Evan and the Mexican raced from one lamp to another, demolishing each until they came to the cabin path. 'That way!' ordered Kendrick, rushing ahead to the right. 'Forget the lights. We'll take them out on our way back.'

'La cabaña?'

'Hurry up!' Once again the startling magnified wash of light from the thick bevelled windows illuminated the clearing in front of the small, solid house. Evan approached the door and pressed a green button on the electronic key. He heard the bolts slap back into the frame; he turned the knob and went inside. 'Get in here,' he called to Emilio. The Mexican did as he was told and Kendrick closed the door, pressing the red button, locking it.

He ran to the kitchen area, opening drawers and cabinets one after another, selecting items that struck him as useful: a torch, a large carving knife and several smaller knives, a meat cleaver, three small tins of Sterno, solid fuel, a box of camping matches—coated with paraffin, strikable on any hard surface—and a stack of folded towels. With everything on the oval oak table, he glanced over at Emilio, who was watching him. He picked up one of the knives, the handle extended, and held it out for the Mexican. 'I hope you don't have to use this, but if you do, don't miss.'

'There are men I could not kill without reasoning with them first, for they are as desperate as myself for employment. But there are others, the ones who have been here longest, I would have no such problems.'

'Goddamn you, you can't have any problems! If one alarm is raised—'

'No alarms will be raised by my friends, señor, not if they know it is I, Emilio. Besides, most of them are in the barracks asleep. They use the veteranos for the night patrols; they fear the boats at night.'

'You'd better be right.'

'I wish to go home, believe that.'

'Take some towels, a can of fuel and a handful of matches. Hurry!' Picking up the remaining items and putting them in his pockets, Kendrick left the meat cleaver until last. He gripped it, went to the intercom console on the wall and, standing sideways, sliced the heavy blade into the back of the equipment, prising it off the wall and out of its recess. 'Get the two lamps over there,' he said to the Mexican. 'Smash them. I'll do the stove lights and the lamp on the other side of the room.'

Less than a minute later the two desperate men were out on the path, the previously brightly lit clearing in front of the cabin now eerily dark. 'The tools—the gardeners' tools. Take me to them.'

'Con mucho cuidado! We must be careful going around the big house. We will put out the path lights only up to where I say. From the second level those in the house can see they are not on, and there will be alarms. If there are patrols, let me study them first.'

'Let's go. They've got problems up there, but pretty soon someone's going to wonder where my executioner is. Hurry up!'

They smashed the amber lamps up to a ridge that preceded the level ground of the huge manor house—great house, thought Evan, thinking of the tropic zone and the great houses of the Caribbean. The Mexican suddenly grabbed Kendrick's arm and pulled him through the bordering foliage of the path, then pushed his shoulder down, gripping the flesh; the message was clear: Crouch and be still. A guard, his rifle strapped over his shoulder, passed them on the path going in the opposite direction. 'Now quickly, señor! There is no one until the back galena where they drink wine and smoke fish!'

A large patio with a barbecue pit, thought Evan, following Emilio through the thick greenery, wishing he had a machete to cut through the vines but grateful for the strangely ever present sound of the wind and the crashing waves. They circled down and around the house, another sound intruding. It was the massive generator, its hum constant, bass-toned, awesome. The engineer in Kendrick tried to calculate the power it produced and the fuel it consumed and the auxiliary input of the necessary field of photovoltaic cells—it was mind-blowing. He had installed generators from Bahrain to the western deserts of Saudi Arabia but they were temporary, to be used only until electricity could be cabled in; nothing like this.

Again the Mexican gripped Evan's shoulder, now more fiercely, his hand trembling, and again they crouched in the undergrowth behind the long clipped wall of shrubbery. Kendrick looked up and with sudden fear understood. Ahead, to the left, above the hedgelike border of the path, a guard had heard something or seen something. His upper body was clearly visible in the glow of the amber lights; he moved forward rapidly, snapping the rifle off his shoulder and levelling it in front of him. He walked directly towards them, then only feet away, he poked the barrel of the weapon into the brush.

'¿Quien es?' shouted the patrol.

Suddenly, lashing out and pouncing like an angry cat, Emilio shot up, grabbing the rifle and pulling the guard through the foliage. There was an abrupt expunging of air that cut off the start of a scream; the man fell into the greenery, the base of his throat a mass of blood. The knife was in Emilio's right hand.

'Good God!' whispered Evan as he and the Mexican dragged the body farther into the brush.

'I had no problem with this perrol' said Emilio. 'This dog smashed the head of a boy, a young gardener who would not accommodate him, if you understand, señor.'

'I understand, and I also understand that you just saved our lives… Wait a minute! The rifle, his cap. We can save time! There are no uniforms here, just work clothes—the weapon is the uniform. Put on the cap and strap the rifle over your shoulder. Then walk out there and I'll stay as close to you as I can over here. If it's quicker for me to go on the path myself, you can make sure it's clear!'

'Bueno,' said the Mexican, reaching for the cap and the weapon. 'If I am stopped I will say that this perro forced me to replace him for an hour or so. They will laugh but no one will doubt it… I go. Stay close and when I tell you, come through the bushes and walk at my side. Not in front and not in back, but at my side. Do you speak Spanish?'

'Not well enough to talk to anyone.'

'Then say nothing. Stay close!' Emilio broke through the bordering hedge, the rifle over his shoulder, and started down the path. Thrashing against the dark tangled greenery, Kendrick did his best to keep pace, every now and then whispering to the Mexican to slow down. Once at a particularly thick area, Evan removed the meat cleaver from his belt and hacked at a webbed mass of tropical vines, only to hear Emilio cry out under his breath. '!Silencio!'… Then he heard another command: 'Now, señor! Come out and walk with me. Quickly!'

Kendrick did so, forcing his way through the bushes and joined the Mexican, who suddenly, emphatically, began accelerating his strides down the sloping path. 'Is going this fast such a good idea?' asked Evan breathlessly. 'If we're seen, someone might think we were running while on duty.'

'We have come to the back of the main house,' answered Emilio, rushing forward. 'There is no one here at this hour but two guards on different paths who meet at the stone galena then go back over the hill and down to the beaches. It takes them many minutes and they have just left. We can run across the galena and up the far path, then through the woods to the mantenimiento— the tools, señor.'

They reached a sunken brick patio, the same patio Kendrick had studied from the small balcony of the guest room above. He remembered the two guards signalling each other from the bases of the opposing paths. The Mexican, who was now very much in charge, grabbed Evan's arm and nodded to his left, breaking into a run. They raced down into the sunken patio which was far larger than Kendrick had realized; it extended the length of the house itself, and white wrought-iron furniture had been placed around the central area in front of a large brick barbecue pit. They ran by the side of the house under the balconies, then sprinted across and up the south path of amber lights to a flat area bordered by tall grass, a knoll overlooking the ocean and two beaches separated by a rock-filled coastline perhaps six hundred feet below. The amber lights were now behind them, nothing in front but a narrow descending dirt road.

From this vantage point, a great deal of the back part of the island could be seen in the sporadic moonlight. Directly on the right, no more than three hundred yards away and washed in floodlights, was the enormous generator. Beyond the fenced enclosure were the blurred outlines of a long, low building, Emilio's 'barracks', Evan assumed. Then far below, just above the beach on the right, its white concrete standing out like a huge flat beacon, was the helipad with a large military helicopter resting in place—painted in civilian colours and with Mexican identification but unmistakably United States military.

'Come!' whispered Emilio. 'And say nothing, for voices are heard on this side of the island.' The Mexican started down a dark, unlit path cut out of the woods, a forest alleyway used only in daylight. And then, thinking about Emilio's words, Kendrick realized what was missing. The sound of the wind and the crashing waves had all but vanished—voices would carry across the calm of these acres, and a helicopter could manoeuvre into its threshold with minimum difficulty.

The metal 'garage' Emilio referred to was an apt description but far larger than any garage Evan had ever seen except for those outsized, sterilized padded structures housing an Arabian royal family's various limousines. Conversely, this was an ugly mass of corrugated aluminium with several tractors, assorted power mowers, chain saws and clipping machines, none useful because of the noise they would make. On the side wall and the floor below, however, were more practical objects. They included a row of petrol cans and, above, on hooks and suspended between nails, axes, hatchets, scythes, long-handled wire cutters, machetes and telescoped rubber-handled tree clippers—all the tools required to hold back the tropical foliage from its incredibly swift takeover.

The decisions were minor, instinctive and simple. The meat cleaver went in favour of a hatchet and a machete—for both himself and Emilio. Added to these were the wire cutters, one full can of petrol and one ten-foot extension tree clipper. Everything else from the cabin remained in their pockets.

'The helicopter!' said Kendrick.

'There is a path joining the north and south roads below the generador. Hurry! The guards have reached the beaches by now and will soon start back.' They ran out of the gardeners warehouse and over to the first dirt road, their tools precariously held by belts, in their hands and under their clenched arms. With Emilio leading, they darted across into the border of high grass and worked their way down to the narrow path heading across the sloping hill. 'Cigarrillo!' whispered the Mexican, shoving Evan back into the still reeds of grass. A bobbing lighted cigarette glowed as the guard trudged up the hill and passed them less than eight feet away. 'Come!' cried Emilio softly as the figure of the guard reached the knoll above. Crouching, they raced to the north road; there was no sign of the second patrol so they walked out and began their descent to the concrete helicopter pad.

The huge repainted military aircraft stood like a silent behemoth about to strike out at an enemy only it could see in the night. Taut heavy chains were looped around the landing mounts and anchored in cement; no sudden storms from the sea would move the chopper unless they were strong enough to tear it apart. Kendrick approached the enormous machine as Emilio stayed in the grass by the road watching for the return of the guard, prepared to warn his American companion. Evan studied the aircraft with only one thought in mind: Immobilize it and do so without making a sound loud enough to be carried up the quiet island slope. Nor could he use his torch; in the darkness the beam would be spotted… Cables. On top under the rotor blades and in the tail assembly. Gripping first a door handle, then the frame of a window, he pulled himself up in front of the flight deck, the long-handled wire cutters protruding from his trousers. In seconds he had crawled over the pilot's curving windshield to the top of the fuselage; unsteadily, cautiously, he made his way on his hands and knees to the base of the rotor machinery. He pulled out the wire cutters, stood up, and three minutes later had severed those cables he could see in the dark night light.

The whistle was sharp and brief! It was Emilio's signal. The guard had come over the crest of the hill and would reach the helicopter pad above the beach in barely minutes. The engineer in Kendrick was not satisfied. Had he immobilized the aircraft or merely wounded it? He had to reach the tail assembly; it was his backup in this mechanical age where every machine that went airborne had backup after backup in case of in-flight malfunctions. He crawled down the fuselage as rapidly as possible without risking his balance and sliding off, plummeting twenty feet to the white concrete. He reached the sloping tail and could see nothing; everything was encased in metal… no, not everything! Straddling the sleek body while holding on to the rising tail, he leaned over and spotted two thick, ropelike cables that branched off into the right aileron. Working furiously, his sweat dripping and rolling down the shiny metal, he could feel the wire cutters doing their work as succeeding strands of the top cable sprang loose. Suddenly there was a loud snap—too loud, a massive crack in the still night—as a whole louvred section of the aileron thumped down into a vertical position. He had done it; his backup was secure.

Running feet! Shouts from below. '¿Que cosa? ¿Que dese?' Beneath the tail assembly the guard stood on the concrete, his rifle angled up in his right arm aimed at Evan while his left hand reached for the radio alarm clipped to his belt.