Test Pilot's Daughter: Revenge (21 page)

They both broke into a full run. For two miles, they picked the path of least resistance all the way back to the beach. When he heard the screams, Billy was gripped with fear.

“
Help me, help meee.” The voice was fading, but it sounded like Heather.

Christina sprinted the final distance to the plane. Stopping hard in her tracks and gasping for breath, she was completely immobilized.

“
What happened?” Billy came jogging up behind. He scanned the morbid scene. Two men were covered in blood, one straddled over Heather’s squirming form. He yelled, “Drug runners!”

Heather twisted in his direction. “Get this bastard off of me,” she sobbed.

Frozen like a statue, Christina couldn’t speak.

Billy’s mind tried to make logic out of chaos. When they left that morning, Jessica and Heather were sleeping peacefully. Now it was something out of a horror film. Stark naked, Heather was staked out, covered by a dark, bloody form. Protruding from the man’s back was the butt end of a hunting knife. Jessica lay twitching, strangely contorted, and another man lay dead on the beach. The scene was so horrific, Billy’s mind couldn’t take it all in. He couldn’t figure how this could’ve happened in such a short time.

Heather shouted again, “Billy! Get him off me. . .can’t breathe.”

Billy ran to the rescue. He grabbed the dead man by one foot and heaved to drag him back. When he was clear, Billy yanked the bloody knife from his back and wiped the blade in the sand. He quickly cut the ropes binding Heather’s arms and legs.

Heather tried to talk, but all she could do was sputter. She got up and ran across the beach like a wild woman, tumbling into the water. Flailing hands all over her body, she looked as though she was swatting bees. Grabbing hands full of sand she scrubbed away the wretched stench and the memory of her worst nightmare.

Christina finally thawed and went to Jessica. She sat down beside her and cradled her lifeless body. “
Jessy!
Jessy, what happened? Please don’t die.”

Jessica’s eyelids opened just enough to recognize her best friend. She struggled to smile. With lingering strength she whispered, “All for one. . .and one for all. Don’t lose my map. Promise me you’ll find it.” She coughed again and wrenched in one big spasm.

“
I promise.”

“
Tell my mom, I love her.” Her body went completely limp with one final sigh.

Christina just sat there cradling the bloody form like a newborn. “No, baby, please don’t die. Don’t leave me.” Back and forth she rocked, as though Jessica were still alive.

Billy wasn’t sure what to do, but he had the presence of mind to pick up the gun and look around. He pulled back the hammer and scanned the perimeter for any more bad guys. As he looked down the beach, he was shocked to see movement. Somehow the other man had managed to get up on one knee. He had a gun, and as if in slow motion, it came up off the sand and dropped again. It was clear the man was unable to lift it.

Billy walked calmly in his direction and stared into bloodshot eyes. Without hesitation he lifted the pistol up to the man’s head and pulled the trigger.
Baroom!
His head burst like a ripe watermelon. The body shot into the air and fell back down, jerking and twitching in a voodoo dance to the death. When the body was finally still, Billy realized that he had just killed a human being.
Nothing more than a rabid dog,
he thought.

“
There were only the two of them,” Heather mumbled in a low voice as she walked up behind him. She seemed unfazed by the fact that she was naked.

Billy gasped at her wretched appearance. One eye was swollen almost shut and badly bruised. Bloody patches oozed all over her body. Her form was surreal. She looked at Billy with the blank stare of the walking dead. When she shivered, he picked up a jacket from their beach sign and wrapped it around her.

“
They were going to rape us, then shoot us and take the plane. You saved our lives, William.”

Billy didn’t know how to tell her the bad news; he just turned toward Christina.

“
Oh no!” Heather fell to her knees in tears.

Finally, he put his arm around her and said, “How did they get here? I don’t see a boat or anything.”

“
Came outta nowhere, tackled us to the ground,” she sobbed. She buried her face in her hands and bawled.

Billy stroked her head and tried to provide some level of sanity. “I’m going to check around and make sure there aren’t any more of these guys.”

He picked up the dead man’s pistol and handed it to Christina. With the other gun tightly gripped in his right hand, he started walking the perimeter of their campsite. He quickly found tracks in the sandy terrain and followed them in reverse. Pistol at the ready, he was anxious and jumpy. Every large bush and rock formation was a potential ambush. Every little noise the threat of attack. When a gull swirled in the sea breeze along his path, for an instant, he was sure he saw a man. He picked his way across the island and found their boat pulled up in a cove. Seeing only two sets of prints in the wet sand, he began to relax.

The boat was a goldmine of useful things: binoculars, rifles, ammunition and an ice chest full of sandwiches, beer and bottled water. The keys were in the boat, and the fuel indicator showed half-full. Wondering where they had come from, he looked for maps or anything that might give away their origin. No luck.

Billy dragged the heavy ice chest all the way back to camp where nothing much had changed. Heather and Christina sat in silence on either side of Jessica’s lifeless form. He didn’t say a word but handed each girl an ice cold beer and opened one for himself. He was sure of only one thing: nothing was going to bring Jessica back to life, and there was still the business of survival.

“
Thanks, William, you’re a brave man,” Heather said softly.

Taking the airplane tow bar over to where his granddad was buried, Billy worked feverishly to scratch out more shallow graves. He buried the bodies of the two drug runners and carved a third, deeper pit for Jessica. He laid her body on a large plank of driftwood. Christina silently combed Jessica’s hair and pulled a long white nightgown over blood-soaked clothes. Heather picked some wildflowers and put them across her chest. Billy stared at the starkly ashen face and thought,
How can someone dead be so beautiful?

He knew it would be difficult for Christina to speak over Jessica’s burial. He couldn’t understand how she managed not to cry. The three survivors held hands around the grave and did their best to send her off properly. Every time Christina started to talk, she choked. Finally, she managed to get out a few words.

“
Dear Lord, we send you Jessica Ward. . .my very best friend. . .a true sport, adventurer and treasure hunter. She was pure as the driven snow. A devout Baptist, she stands before you today saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. Just like Jesus. . .she died so that we may live. She made the ultimate sacrifice. Please prepare a place. . .for her near my mom, so one day we may all be united. May her beloved soul. . .rest in unending peace. Amen.”

“
Amen.”

Christina doubled over with a stabbing pain and staggered away.

Before he buried Jessica, Billy took off her necklace with the Spanish gold coin and gave it to Christina. He then lowered her into the depression and covered her with sand. The sun was setting, showering their world with a soft golden radiance. Billy piled rocks over the sandy grave, and used dark colored pebbles to inscribe JW.

As Heather began singing
Amazing Grace
, an aura of angels engulfed the scene. Her sweet voice resonated as the sun slowly disappeared below the horizon. Finally, overwhelmed by the trauma of the day, Billy cried out loud as he listened to the beautiful words, which, for the first time in his life, seemed so meaningful:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I’m found,

Was blind, but now I see.

Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come;

‘
Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

Heather abruptly stopped singing and sobbed.

In the last golden rays of dusk, Christina stood tall, straddling the fresh grave. She held the necklace high, just as Jessica had done on that beautiful evening in Key West. She looked into the sky and spoke with fierce determination, “Jessica, you gave us these coins to symbolize our love and loyalty to each other. Here, over your grave, I swear with all my soul, your death will be. . .
avenged!
I’ll wear both your necklace and mine until such time as Weston rots in hell.”

After all the bodies had been buried, Billy built a blazing campfire. No one was in a state of mind to talk, so he just passed out the rest of the beers.

“
I’ve got a weapon now,” he stated. “I’ll guard the camp tonight.”

“
You’re a brave man, William,” Heather mumbled right before she fell into a deep slumber, vulnerable to the terror of her own nightmares.

Christina grabbed her sleeping pad and wandered down the beach to be by herself.

Billy sat up on a tall rock, turned on his weather radio and scanned the frequencies. Once again he heard reports of Hurricane Amy. It had grown to a category 3 and slowly progressed half-way across the Atlantic.

* * *

Christina woke up in the middle of the night screaming, drenched in a cold sweat. She quickly remembered the horror of Jessica’s demise. She could still feel the blood running between her fingers. A familiar pain shot through the center of her being.
Where’s the justice in all this? She didn’t deserve to die!
The rage that had smoldered in her soul for years rekindled into an inferno. Once again, her entire being was ripped apart with a burning hatred. Only this was different. This time she could put a human face on the injustice. For the first time since she leveled her shotgun at Roy Pitts, she desperately wanted to kill someone. Staring out over the vast blackness of the ocean with a savage snarl, she made a chilling pledge, “If I ever get out of here alive, I’m going to kill that slimy bastard.”

Chapter Fifteen

Weston chewed his nails as he watched news accounts of the missing airplane. It was a bad habit, one he picked up in childhood. Speculation about the Bermuda Triangle made him chuckle, and yet he remained unsettled. Concern grew daily because he had received no confirmation from Gilmore. All kinds of scenarios ran through his mind. He hated nothing more than a messy operation, one with loose ends.

On the sixteenth day after Heather left with her friends, his phone rang late at night when he was sound asleep. It made him start, and he fumbled around in the dark trying to find the receiver.

“
He. . .hello.”

“
Weston?”

“
Yeah, I’m Weston. Who the hell is this?”

“
You don’t recognize my voice. I’m hurt.”

Glancing at the clock, he said, “I don’t recognize my own voice at 3:00 a.m. Now who
is
this?”

“
Gilmore, stupid.”

“
Where the hell are you? You were supposed to call days ago. I’ve been a worried sick.”

“
Sorry, I’m laying low. A lot of people are asking questions. I’m in the Keys, and I don’t want anyone to track me down. Have you seen the news?”

“
Duh, have I seen the news? Damn right, I’ve seen it. It’s about all I’ve seen for the last two weeks. I can’t even work. Now tell me, exactly how did your little escapade turn out?”