Maroon Rising (3 page)

Didn’t sound like they’d found anything yet, but they were doubling down in their efforts, which would include more restoration work at a cost even higher than the treasure hunting itself.

If HARC had picked Last Resort, Harry would be furious and I’d be broke.

Again.

Sufficiently updated, I called Johnny Blake, who answered after a few rings. Based on the background noise he was outside.

“Surprised to hear from you, Mr. Buck—we just spoke a couple days ago, yeah?”

“Tell me more about this professor who wants to meet me?”

“Aside from being persistent, you mean?” He laughed. “She’s Maroon by birth, got close connections with them.” Johnny was a pseudo-Rastafarian, so not particularly close with the Maroons but not opposed to them either. “Says the old colonel wants to talk to you. Hasn’t told me why. How come you ask?”

“I have a charter trip to Jamaica, thought I might as well meet her while I’m down there.”

“When you coming?”

“Tomorrow, maybe the day after. Can you let her know I’ll call her when I get there?”

Johnny whistled. “Buck Reilly’s coming back to Jamaica. Yeah, mon, I tell her. Your old partner won’t be too happy, though.”

“No need for him to find out.”

He laughed and we hung up.

I’d met Johnny years ago—in fact, he was the one who sourced the old document that eventually led to the Port Royal salvage project. He was furious when Jack was selected, since I’d promised him 1 percent of Last Resort’s cut of any profit, plus his expenses, but given that the site had been a bust so far, he hadn’t really lost anything.

I sent Thom Shepherd a text message saying we were on and that we should plan to leave tomorrow around noon. Jamaica was ninety miles southwest of Cuba, which was ninety miles south of Key West. A 180-mile flight was well within the Beast’s range, so no need to plan a refueling stop, and given the now thawed relations with Cuba, flying over the island no longer bothered me. My old nemesis Manny Gutierrez continued to have a role in Cuban government, or so my sometime handler FBI Special Agent Edwin T. Booth told me. And Gunner had once bragged that Manny was a silent partner in SCG International and the reason they’d wound up with my old Grumman Widgeon.

Betty
.

Having left her a smoldering ruin on a beach at the western tip of Cuba a couple years ago, I’d been shocked when she’d reappeared last year in the possession of Jack and Gunner. My old partner’s rise from prison inmate to owner of a well-financed salvage operation was bad enough—Jack’s getting his paws on my beloved plane had been a knife to my heart.

But if he thought he’d seen the last of me just because I couldn’t mess with his Port Royal expedition, he had another thing coming. Paybacks, as they say, are a bitch.

T
hom Shepherd was a fearless flier and had no issues with the Beast’s age, semirestored condition, or the turbulence we encountered over western Cuba. As for me, every bump brought back the trauma of crash-landing Betty in the marl flats of the island, to the point that my palms were clammy.

Perhaps sensing my anxiety, Thom volunteered the nature of his special meeting.

“So aside from the songs I’m recording at Tuff Gong Studios, I’m meeting with Chris Blackwell at his GoldenEye Resort.”

“Why do his name and GoldenEye sound familiar?”

“Chris was the founder of Island Records. He discovered Bob Marley, U2, Cat Stevens, and other name artists. And he owns GoldenEye, which includes the house where Ian Fleming lived and wrote all the James Bond books.”

“Now, that’s cool.” I vectored the Beast further west and was now aimed directly at Kingston, about forty miles away. “Does he have something to do with the CD you’re recording down here?”

Thom glanced out the starboard side window, then turned back to me.

“Guess I can trust you, Buck. I’m actually trying to get him to invest in a record label I’m thinking of starting.”

We began our descent toward Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston. Air traffic control had me vector west and circle back around as one large commercial jetliner took off and another landed. We had plenty of fuel, and Thom enjoyed the scenery—lush mountains and the blue water below—so I followed orders and waited our turn to land. After we looped around, ATC sent us north again, then instructed us to land on runway 12, which at nearly 9,000 feet long was four times the length the Beast would need.

On our final approach I realized we’d be flying right over Port Royal, so I dropped altitude to steal a glance at Jack’s operation. Too bad I wouldn’t see the look on his face when he found out I was back on island.

Emerald blue water shimmered below us as we flew parallel to the isthmus of Port Royal, when—there! I spotted Betty anchored adjacent to the big barge with the crane on it from the picture in the
Jamaican Gleaner
.

I choked up at seeing my old plane, and the sentiment knotted my stomach when I saw Jack’s people—

“We kind of low, Buck?” Thom said.

ATC began shouting in our ears that we were too low and to change our angle of attack. I spotted several people looking up and pointing at us from the various boats—was that Gunner?

A flame leapt up from a cabin cruiser—

Gunfire!

I kicked down on the starboard pedal—Thom shouted—the Beast lurched. I spotted several holes in the far end of the port wingtip.

“Son of a bitch!”

“What’s going on?” Thom said.

“Motherfucker shot us!”

I leveled off, now well past Jack’s armada but askew of the runway. ATC started shouting in our ears to abort the landing, but I continued to descend and gradually edged back into position. Thom wedged himself into the seat and wrapped his arms around the shoulder harness—to his credit he didn’t whine or start freaking out.

The Beast’s port wheel caught asphalt, the starboard one touched gravel. We bounced. I shoved the wheel forward and we set down hard on the tarmac. In my ear the ATC was threatening to file a report about unsafe piloting, but I wasn’t really paying attention, too furious at Gunner—or one of his henchmen—for shooting at us. I took a quick glance out the side window. At least there wasn’t any fuel spewing from the holes—must have just missed the tank, though.

They’d pay for this.

“Damn, son,” Thom said. “Folks told me trouble clings to you like a pair of tight jeans. I figured it was mostly talk, but damn if it ain’t so.” He laughed. “You going to radio the authorities?”

While I was grateful he’d shown grace under pressure, it wasn’t easy to stem the stream of obscenities that pressed against my lips—not for Thom but for those sons of bitches on the water.

“No, I’ll take care of this myself.”

Once out of the plane, I inspected the damage. But for my kicking down on the starboard pedal in time, any one of the three bullets that tore through the wing would have hit the fuel tank and vaporized us in a ball of fire.

We made it through Customs. Thom did his best to calm me down, but I was so angry I could barely speak. He said he’d rent a car to drive up to Oracabessa and meet Blackwell at GoldenEye.

“But I’ll wait around until you get back, make sure everything’s okay. Sure you don’t want to call the police?”

“I’ll be fine.”

He patted my shoulders with both hands. “Don’t do anything crazy, now. I still need a ride home.” He smiled, but my lack of warmth sent him on his way.

I ran outside into the heat of the day, already soaked with rage-born sweat—why had I intentionally buzzed them?

Would I ever learn?

Still, trying to
shoot me out of the sky?

I hopped into a taxi, on a mission.

T
he fishing boat I’d hired to take me to Port Royal hesitated when I pointed across the blue water toward Jack’s anchored fleet. I grabbed a sunscreen stocking the boat captain had on the top of his center console and pulled it up over my face to just below my eyes. I rolled the sleeves of my fishing shirt down and buttoned them at the wrists. The boat owner, a young commercial fisherman, shook his head.

“Boats are prohibited from approaching the archaeological site, mon. We been warned by the Coast Guard.”

A fistful of Jamaican dollars changed his mind.

The sight of Betty covered in salt and brine, her wings swaying uneasily in the chop, caused me to clench my teeth so hard a shrill sensation shot through my back molar and I let up. Men on the boats pointed and waved their arms at us as we approached. More than one held fully or semi-automatic rifles.

“I don’t know, mister,” the boat captain said.

“Just pull up to that first boat and I’ll get out.”

He glanced from me to the boat, a big cabin cruiser that likely held Jack’s offshore office. He looked back to the men with guns now pointed at us.

“I don’t know—”

I stood up and he slowed the boat to a crawl.

“I’m here to see the representative from the Jamaican National Heritage Trust and Jack Dodson!” I shouted this twice before Jack emerged from below deck of the fancy fishing boat.

“Who the hell are you and what do you want?” Jack’s shout carried across the water.

I pulled the sun mask off my face. His face twisted into a grimace that matched mine. He waved his arm, and the men with the guns lowered them slightly. The captain sped up until we were close enough for me to grab hold of a rubber dock bumper, and then the railing.

“Just wait a hundred yards over there,” I said. “This won’t take long.”

I climbed from the side of the fishing boat onto the side of Jack’s boat, then over the railing onto the deck of what I recognized as an old custom-built Merritt fishing boat. My feet landed flat on the deck and Jack’s men started for me—

“Leave him be,” Jack said.

He squared off to face me. My heart thudded in my chest.

“You fucking bastard—you shot at me, nearly killed me!” My jaw quivered with anger, but I tried to control my breathing. I had a purpose here. “Where’s your observer? I’m going to file a formal complaint and demand this site be shut down!”

I shoved Jack hard. He took a step back but remained steady.

“Our observer’s underwater on the dive site, he didn’t see or hear anything.” Jack’s lips were taut. “And I didn’t shoot you, Buck. One of Gunner’s men did. As bad as the blood between you and me is, it’s all I can do to keep him from killing you, but I manage.” He paused. “And what’s with the mask? These men thought you were trying to rob us—”

“Recent skin cancer, asshole—”

“Fuck you, Reilly!” Gunner’s voice, from several boats away. “I warned you to stay away from our site!”

I spun around to see him holding his gun up. It was an M4A1 assault rifle in desert camo, no doubt a souvenir from his days as a mercenary in the Middle East.

“You can’t keep me out of Jamaica,” I said. “But don’t worry, I have no use for antique brewery vats!”

His eyes cut to slits and he lowered the assault weapon toward us.

“Gunner!” Jack said. “Don’t point that thing over here. Simmer down, go diving!”

The fifty-foot distance between Gunner and me was so charged, I’m not sure I didn’t feel a shock when he stabbed his forefinger at me.

“Last warning, Reilly! Authority or not, nobody will stop me next time.” He shoved the gun into the arms of one of his goons and disappeared into the cuddy-cabin of the small cruiser.

“What’s all the ruckus?” A woman’s voice turned the blood in my veins to ice.

I spun around to see—no.

NO!

“Buck?” she said.

Her clear blue eyes shot from me to Jack, then she stepped forward out of the air-conditioned salon. She wore a silk blouse and short shorts that showed off her long, lithe, tanned legs. Her ash-blond hair fell across her face. She brushed it off with a graceful sweep of her hand.

She was stunning.

I reached toward her before I caught myself and dropped my arm.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she said.

“Heather.”

My voice trembled, but not so much that they could hear. I felt my legs shudder and locked my knees so they wouldn’t buckle.

The beautiful blond supermodel Johnny Blake had raved about: “Hot bitch is what I call her,” he’d said. Jack Dodson’s constant companion, he’d said.