Destroyers of the Lost Garden (The Lost Garden Trilogy Book 3) (11 page)

Chapter Three

It was past midday when Manny surfaced in the aftermath of the seven beers and half a bottle of Baileys he consumed the night before. After regurgitating what was left in his stomach, he stumbled into the living room trying his hardest to remember some of what happened. He was grappling with the beginnings of a headache and was jolted back to reality when he cut his foot on the remains of the mirror still strewn about the floor. Manny switched on the TV, channel- surf while he drank coffee, and then he booted up his laptop. His ego was not in the best of shape following his one-sided argument with his dead grandfather, and it had resulted in the down spiral of self- pity that had resulted in an alcohol-fueled nightmare.

While he had reservations about the validity of the buried treasure hokum, he had come to the conclusion, somewhere around the five beer mark, that a trip to a tropical island might not be such a bad idea. Tropical islands meant sunshine and hopefully some hot bodies in bikinis to hang out with; that was without doubt a better option than freezing to death in New York until April next year. According to the airline tickets, he’d need to fly to Antigua first, and then take a two-engine prop island hopper over to Montserrat. He logged onto his laptop, and began checking flights from JFK Airport, but paused as he was typing the name into Google. Deleting it, he typed instead ‘Captain Marlowe + Pirate’. On the third site, the previous two belonging to works of fiction that had appropriated the Marlowe name, he found what he was looking for.

“Captain B. Marlowe, aboard the
Suffering Amy
, terrorized the Caribbean in the mid-nineteenth century. He raided many island forts, and sunk ships of France, England and Spain.” Eventually captured, he was tried and hung for piracy, on November the 2
nd
, 1871. So, at least that part is true. From what he could find out online, Montserrat was still a no-go area for half the island. There were tours and such to see the volcano, but short of joining one and then bailing out of a moving truck, he didn’t see much hope getting up close to it, if this wild goose chase should even go that far. What would he do if the treasure was halfway to the middle of nowhere, where no one went? He didn’t think it would be a good idea to go roaming around an island with no clue where to go. The map was little help. The miniscule writing denoted three locations; the Volcano was clearly marked, which was understandable as it was surely the biggest feature of the tiny island. There was also a kind of parabola that might have been part of a circle or semi-circle once, with the legend ‘Look West’ written next to it. So... there was a widely curved path, that didn’t appear on Google Maps, and was made nearly two hundred years ago, and he should follow it to the west, when the path curves to the east and back to the west. That would mean he’d be walking away from what he should be looking at for a fair few miles, over what the internet told him was over the Centre Hills, and right across the valleys where an active volcano might decide to bury him under molten rock at any time. Great! Finally, there were three tiny, faded letters, which after a moment of analysis Manny decided spelled ‘E.I.C.’

He guessed he’d figure that out later once he got to the island. Getting back to the travel booking site, he began to make his reservations. From the apartment he’d take a taxi to JFK then on to Antigua, and Montserrat. Screw the old man, he was taking the challenge. He’d go and show him who deserved to be in this family. He’d show his brothers, his cousins and his dad; then none of them could tell him what to do, ever again.

Manny was not the only adventurer visiting Montserrat. While Manny, the youngest American son of an influential family, could not have any idea of the trouble he was getting himself into, Kang Xiaoping knew exactly what he was doing. Manny’s only experience of anything like what he was planning came from James Bond movies, and despite his complete lack of training in espionage, he thought he had what it took to pull off a treasure heist on his own. While he was still in the air somewhere over the ocean near Bermuda, Kang was arriving under cover of darkness, coming ashore on a dinghy launched from a small boat. He waded the last few paces through the surf at the deserted Bunkham Beach.

For all intents and purposes, he looked like any other tourist. Bad shirt, camera, cheap shoes, cheaper sunglasses in a shirt pocket and a duffle bag containing yet more awful clothes. His contact on the island had recommended Bunkham Beach as an easy entry point. There were steep, vegetation-covered cliffs stretching the full length of the bay, and only one way on and off the sand, unless you were a climber of prodigious skill. The beach itself was also very narrow, dropping off sharply into the Caribbean Sea, facing out across more than a thousand miles of empty water in a straight line towards Nicaragua.

Kang hiked up the beach, but did not leave the black sands for the rough path that led up to the Birds of Paradise Villa overlooking the beach. With no light source behind him, Kang was confident that even the sharpest eyed guest would not have seen him. Someone else did see him, however, and moved down to the shore trying to disguise his nervousness. He was another Chinese, dressed identically to Kang himself, the same shirt, right down to the same sneakers. Kang barely looked at him as he passed, but it was enough to notice that there was a good ten years between them in age, and the other was going grey at the temples where Kang’s hair was still thick and jet black. Kang was also taller, in far better shape, and had no protruding overbite. The fake-Kang muttered “Xièxiè, Xièxiè!” as he splashed into the water, clumsy and loud as a buffalo in the shallows. The oaf fell into the dinghy, and with little care for stealth began rowing madly out to sea as soon as he had managed to get in his seat.

Kang sucked air through clenched teeth with displeasure. Checking his luminous watch, he realized that there would be very little time for him to enjoy the sights of Montserrat, it was 4a.m. already, and he planned to be well on his way over the Pacific by noon. He had to get to work. Following the path the fake-Kang had taken down to the beach, the new and improved-Kang made it to the Villa in only a few minutes. The place was lit, but deserted. The Kang who had left in the dinghy had rented the entire 10- bedroom complex for his brief stay; opulent. The man had clearly gone soft on his fat government salary, and more than likely had taken plenty of bribes in his time to be able to afford this.

Entering by the sliding doors on the veranda, Kang proceeded to search the rooms for intruders. It was unlikely that there would be any, given the short time frame in which the two men had switched places at the beach, but he hadn’t stayed alive this long, in this business, by being sloppy. Satisfied he was alone, the new Kang Xiaoping emptied his duffle bag of clothes, drew a short, snub nosed pistol from a rolled up t-shirt, and settled down in a chair, looking out to sea. Dawn was on the horizon, a new day, and the job at hand would soon follow.

The Swashbucklers

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About the author:

K.T. Tomb
enjoys traveling the world when not writing adventure thrillers. She lives in Portland, OR. Please find her at:

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