Buzzard Bay (61 page)

Novak and Rikker searched through the debris, quickly noticing that they were joining a search already underway by a number of fins protruding from the water. They found part of a body dressed in a white uniform and some unidentifiable body parts, but that was all. Within an hour, they were joined by a patrol boat, but they had heard of no reports of survivors.

Rikker finally broke down and cried on Novak’s shoulder. “I never got a chance to say goodbye,” he sobbed.

“They knew you loved them, and that’s all that matters,” was all Novak could think of to say. It was pretty obvious the Greens’ luck had run out.

EPILOGUE

N
OVAK WATCHED AS
Mindy and Rikker walked across the windswept cemetery. Grandma Green had died, and she’d always wanted Bob and July’s name on the tombstone with hers. Their bodies had never been found, so the kids had agreed to this, although they knew their parents might resent the fact that they were buried here. They had made the islands their home, but this was in name only, so it was okay.

Novak had been forced to quit his job with the Bahamian government, but Interpol had insisted he stay on with them so he’d been allowed to stay in the islands which he too now considered home. Novak’s luck had stayed with him; he wrote a book about his adventures. It became a best seller, and he had become very famous because of it.

He guessed that Horatio Norton had neutralized Old Man Gator because he never put a claim to the hotel on Andros. Mindy had taken it over and made it more successful than ever. It probably hadn’t hurt that Novak spent a great deal of time there and a lot of people came so they could meet him and see the hotel he so often wrote about in his stories. He stayed there because he felt at home and he could keep an eye on Mindy.

Rikker was a different story. He worked at the hotel for a while, but that wasn’t for him. He’d gotten a taste of the Interpol world, and Novak had to admit he was a natural at it. Sir Harry had always said the Greens liked to stick their noses in other people’s business, and Rikker was no different. In fact he’d pretty well taken over Novak’s job, but he didn’t mind; it gave him time to pursue his other interests.

No one saw much of Lena anymore except for Novak. They still had their liaisons. It was from her that he learned that Henekie was in South America where he lived with a woman he’d met in Germany. One of her boys, which Henekie considered to be his own, ran the show for her here in the Bahamas.

“He’s a computer wizard and smarter with money than I’ll ever be,” Lena told Novak.

Henekie apparently owned a prosperous town where everyone worked in a sugar mill that he also owned. One side of the mill, of course, produced enough cocaine for him to ship a planeload every month directly to Africa, where his other two sons looked after the distribution from there.

ome things don’t change, Novak thought. The world had become smaller, and the Bahamas were no longer needed as a distribution center, but the white powder still sifted its way around the world.

There was one story that would haunt Novak until the day he died. He’d done everything he could to verify the story, but there was nothing he could find to back it up, and he found out the old man who told him the story told lots of them. Novak decided that it was his heart that made him want to believe it was true, not his head.

There had been an old black man at the Andros Hotel one night. He was from one of the southernmost Bahamian Islands and was telling stories about the islands that Novak loved to hear.

The old man had far too much to drink, and Novak was about to leave when he began one last story. “I got a little dock down there, where you’s know I gas up a few boats, and I gots a little store up the dock that people can get some fishin’ supplies or whatever they might needs when they’s passin through.

I was closing up one night. It was just dark when I heard the sound of a big powerful engine pullin’ in. This ain’t you’re usual fishin’ boat, you understand. This was the kinda boat used for things we don’t talk about. There was a man and a woman aboard. Thing that struck me funny was they was dressed in fine clothes just like they come from a fancy ball, but when I saw them up close, I could see they was beat up like they’d been in a fight.

This old boy didn’t like the looks of things, but the man asked me if they could still get fuel, and I hoped to get rid of him by saying we only took cash. He handed me five hundred American and said, ‘If that ain’t enough, let me know.’ Next he asked me if there’s anyplace they could clean up and maybe buy some clothes. The woman rubbed her stomach and said, ‘Yes, and maybe something to eat too.’ I didn’t usually say anything, but I knew they got money, so I told them, ‘My sister’s got the restaurant and store up at the end of the dock. I’m sure she’s around there someplace. She’ll help you out.’ They headed on up the dock, and I didn’t see them for a while, but that’s okay. The locals come down on the dock to have a look at the boat and tell me the peoples are having something to eat.

I dozen’t mind. I got lots of company and nothing too important to do anyway. After a while, the two peoples come down the dock looking like tourists, and I realize it’s not the boat these boys want to see—it’s that blonde. Man, she was some good-lookin’ woman. She wasn’t like most of these stuck-up white woman either. She started talkin’ to those black boys just like she knew them all her life.

The man came up to me and asked if I knew anyone looking for a boat like this one. I says yes, I know such a man. He lives down in Aruba, but I know he’d pay big money for a boat like this. I writes down the name for the man, and then he asks where’s the next place to the south he can get fuel. I shows him on my chart where he has to go, but I tells him it’s a good eight hours away. ‘You ain’t gonna find that place at night,’ I tells him. He says, ‘No, the sea is very calm tonight. We have to go while the goin’s good.’ They get in the boat, and the man lights up the dash in front of him. Then he said, ‘Don’t worry about us. We’ll just follow that star.’ I looked up at the sky, but there were a million stars up there.”

The old man dozed off; Novak reached over and shook him.

“Then what happened?” Novak desperately wanted to know.

“They idled their way out of the harbor, and then we heard that powerful engine open up, and they was gone.”

But then there are lots of stories in the islands.

Watch for Bob’s next book, “The Caine Train” as some of these same characters continue to move the white powder around a modern-day world.