Invasion USA 3 - The Battle for Survival (32 page)

The soldiers were introduced and helped Clint, now in his wheelchair, out of the rear door and Preston wheeled him towards the house. Oliver and Puppy were already out of the kitchen door jumping up to greet the newcomer. Carlos shouted that he was off to sleep and went up to his usual room.

Preston showed Clint the guest room with its own bathroom; the boy was able to look after himself, and was very adamant about his privacy. When needed, he could walk fairly well. He looked around the nice room, his only belongings to put away a small military pack with a few things collected from the air base in Yuma.

“The President of the United States slept in this exact room,” Preston whispered to a still excited young boy.

“Wow!” the boy whispered back.

“This is your room from now on. You have everything you need and that is your own bathroom, with towels and a washcloth. There is a new toothbrush in the top drawer. The bed is fresh and you can shower in the morning. We will drive over to my neighbor’s farm tomorrow. Joe has five boys and I’m sure we can get you kitted out there.”

Clint stood, leaned up and gave Preston a hug. He moved his wheelchair to the side of the room as Preston closed the bedroom door. The tired pilot went to sneak a peek in Little Beth’s room.

Mo Wang – At Sea

Over breakfast the next morning, Mo asked Marie to call up the minivan. He needed to find his niece. He also asked the girls for any local currency they had. There wasn’t much left over from the shopping, but he thought he had enough to get the taxi for an hour or two.

This day it took the minivan three hours to arrive at the villa gates. Mo went out to open the gates and asked Marie to close and lock them behind him. He drove off towards town with a driver who looked very stressed out. Mo, who now considered Pedro a friend, asked him why he looked so worried.

“Much trouble on the island last night, Señor Wang,” the driver replied. “Shooting in several tourist parts of the island, maybe tonight shooting possible in main town. Friends say men were raiding tourist bars for alcohol and causing trouble. Many people are very unhappy and many fishing boats left early this morning for the mainland.”

“What about fish for the locals?” Mo asked.

“I don’t know. All fishermen take their families and valuable belongings in their boats to the mainland,” the driver replied. “Several people, mostly white bar owners, killed last night. One tourist hotel was raided by men with guns and took away two tourists, killing two others. Police nowhere to be seen, very bad!”

Mo made his mind up about leaving and asked Pedro what the weather looked like for the week.

“Good weather, I heard. No problems, no storms for a while, the fishing will be good because of the calm water, but the fishermen are not fishing, that is very bad!”

Mo asked the driver to take him to the supermarket. It was closed and boarded up. The fish market was virtually empty, but there was one lady outside selling produce. He asked the driver how much he would need for this trip into town and paid him. With the remaining local currency, Mo purchased lettuce, tomatoes, pineapples and melons. He told Pedro that he was now out of money, but needed to search all the dry cleaners on the island.

“There are only two dry cleaners on island, Señor Wang, both here in town. All tourist hotels bring dry cleaning into town every day,” replied the driver. “Best dry cleaner is a Chinese lady. You will like her.”

“Pedro, take me there, please,” asked Mo.

“You must be very careful tonight,” continued the driver on their way to the dry cleaners. “I think there will be a lot of trouble, but not at your villa yet. Trouble will come later to your villa.” There was no traffic and very few people were out and about.

“Why is that?” asked Mo.

“Your villa is owned by a bad man, a politician from Colombia. He is from the biggest drug family in Colombia and he comes here for vacation. I drive the important Señor once when the German lady’s car is in for service. The German lady works for him and keeps his villa clean and occupied when he not visiting. He is usually here June to August every year. The Señor is a very rich man and also has a house on San Andrés Island south of Honduras, by Nicaragua, Señor Wang.”

Do you know his name?” Mo asked thinking that information might be useful since Lee Wang told him that Carlos Rodriquez was Colombian, “Señor Calderón owns the house. German lady calls him the senator. The other man in the car when I took him was an old, fat Colombian, look like policeman, called Pedro, same as my name; he also acted important. Once I also took two younger men, brothers I think, to the house. They looked like real bad young gangsters; one was called Manuel and I can’t remember the other one’s name. Here is the dry cleaner shop. I also took another very fat man, a Venezuelan man called Victor. I remember him because I had to wait to take him back from meeting with the senator who was in the house for seven hours. When I dropped him off at the airport, he laughed when I wanted my tip. He was very nasty.”

Mo plugged it all into memory and knocked on the closed door to the dry cleaners. He noticed a closed sign over the door and then a pair of eyes peeked at him, and the lace curtains were closed.

“Lu Xhing, it is your uncle, Mo Wang,” he said in Mandarin, and slowly he heard the door open, his niece looking at him with a very puzzled expression.

“Mo Wang, what are you doing here? You should be in Shanghai, not here in Honduras. There is trouble here and we are closed for business,” she replied. As they stared at each other, fond memories of her favorite uncle came back. He had been the only one in the large family to ever play with her when she was a little girl and something awakened from deep in her memory, and she rushed into his arms.

“I’ve come to rescue my little niece, Lu. I believe you need rescuing?”

“How did you know? Shanghai is a million miles away and I’m very scared. Come in. Tell me how you got here. I will make us some tea.”

I don’t think we have time for tea,” suggested Mo politely. “I have a driver outside and need to know if you need to be rescued. Where is your family?”

“It’s only me, and my son and daughter. My husband left me many years ago. Come, Lula. Come, Lee, come and meet your uncle,” she shouted to the back, and a slim and slender girl of about sixteen and a little boy of about eight or nine emerged from the back of the shop. “Mo Wang, this is my daughter, Lula, and my big boy Lee, named after his uncle Lee Wang.”

“Lu, do you have any local money? I need to give my friend Pedro, the minivan driver, some so that I can stay a little longer. And I need to hear your news,” stated Mo.

His niece went to the door and shouted, “Pedro, this is my uncle. I will pay you but I need more time!” The taxi driver shouted something back and she sat down to tell him her story.

“I arrived here with my husband, Rhu. His sister lived here and had this dry cleaning shop. She was sick and she died while we were here. Somebody needed to run the shop so we stayed. It wasn’t difficult as it was the only dry cleaner shop on the island and our papers came through fast. I had Lula and then Lee. We lived upstairs and we made lots of money. Then one day the new police chief of the island opens a second dry cleaning shop at the other end of town. He wants the business and tries to close us down. The tourist hotels like our work and we are cheap. He is not. Rhu is beaten up a couple of times and he tells me that we must return to China. I liked it here so he returned to China seven years ago to get a job and I was to try to sell the shop. Something must have happened to him as Rhu never returned for us. I’ve tried to sell my shop for years, but the police chief tells people not to buy it. I was told that the police chief works for the man in the big villa.”

“The senator?” Mo asked.

“How do you know that? Oh! Pedro must have told you. Well the senator is taking over all the business on the island and I was told to leave the island by the end of last year, or else. Then, all of a sudden there are no ferries and I can’t leave. We have heard nothing here on the island since the beginning of the year. No tourists, no ferries and very little business so I wait. Last night I heard that the police chief was attacking bars and hotels on the main beach; two friends of mine were killed and two tourist girls abducted. I have been packed in six suitcases and ready to leave for over two months now. The till is empty, all my money and valuables are packed and we are ready to go. Where are you staying?”

“In the senator’s villa. I now know why it is the safest place on the island,” Mo replied smiling and Lu put her hand in front of her mouth, a flicker of distrust flashing across her face. “I don’t know the senator. I am staying as a guest of a group of French tourists renting the villa.”

“Of course, the senator is never here at this time of year,” Lu replied, noticing Pedro enter her front door.

“We need to go. I think trouble is coming. I heard some shooting in the distance,” Pedro stated.

Get all your cases in the minivan. Let’s get back to the villa,” stated Mo. Within a minute the minivan was packed with the suitcases in the back with the pile of vegetables. Mo got in the front and Pedro drove off.

“What are you going to do, Pedro?” asked Lu, concerned.

“What can I do? Our small boat cannot reach the mainland with all my family,” he replied.

“Are there other boats?” asked Mo.

“A couple of old fishing boats are for sale, but I don’t have enough money,” the driver replied.

“How much would it cost to buy a boat?” asked Mo.

“About $2,000 American dollars in local currency for a boat big enough to take my whole family and our possessions as far as Cozumel. We have a big family in Cozumel and I’m sure the trouble is not as bad as here or on the mainland. If it is bad here, it must be just as bad on the Honduras mainland.”

“Could you be ready to go tonight if you had the boat?” Mo asked.

“Si, Señor Wang. A man who owns an old hotel near our farm has a boat for sale. If I pay the man cash, I can have the boat. He will not leave his beloved hotel. I can pay him in local currency. He owes money to the senator and the police chief has been warning him. I will also have to pay him for fuel. It will take my family only a few hours to pack; we are not rich people and do not have many valuable things to carry. But we don’t have enough money for the boat.”

“Lu, how much local currency do you have packed away. Is it enough to pay for the boat for Pedro?” Mo asked.

“Of course, but are we going with him,” Lu asked?

“Not on the same boat, Lu, but we could meet up with him and he could guide us north. I can give you some American dollars as repayment.”

“Of course!” added Pedro, smiling at Mo. “Your friends, the French women, are very rich.” Mo smiled at that one and said nothing.

Lu asked Lula for her suitcase and, making sure nobody else could see what was inside, took out a large rolled bundle and gave it to Pedro. “You have always been my friend Pedro, and able to help take the dry cleaning to the hotels when it was urgent. This is all the local money I have. Uncle Mo, it is about $3,000 in American dollars. It is all the shop’s income from this year. I had already changed all my money in my bank account into U.S. dollars before Christmas last year, ready to leave.”

“Pedro, you get that boat filled up, and get your family and your things aboard. Sail out to sea and meet me tomorrow morning at the eastern end of the island. Do you understand?” Mo asked as they drove up to the villa gates.

Life here was very peaceful. Birds and insects were making their usual noises and nobody could tell that anything was amiss.

“You want me and my family to meet you sailing in the boat at the end of Roatán Island…” and then Pedro understood. “You are taking the senator’s boat with the big guns, Señor Mo! That is a good idea! The guns will protect us and we will certainly need protection. But how will we find each other?”

“First of all, do not tell anybody what you are doing or where you are going, nobody, not even your father, until you are out to sea, understand?” Pedro nodded. “I’m going to loan you a satellite phone. I will show you how to use it, but I want it back. It will be fully charged. You are not to use it or somebody much worse than the senator’s police chief might hear you talking. I will call you at midnight and again at dawn tomorrow morning. If I cannot make it then you go wherever you are sailing to. If you don’t make it, I will leave at midday tomorrow and go north, understand?” Pedro nodded.

The minivan arrived and Marie unlocked the gates, after Pedro honked the horn a couple of times. Mo asked him to help Lu carry her belongings and the purchases into the villa.

He headed to his bedroom and retrieved one of the extra satellite phones from his suitcase. Mo turned it on, checked that the green light flashed once, and returned to the driveway to hand it to Pedro. “Do not use the phone, Pedro, or you might get a real bad guy on the other end, a guy called Carlos Rodriquez. He doesn’t like me or my friends very much. Wait until it rings and then answer it. If it’s not me, hang up… it could be the President of the United States!” That statement caused Pedro’s mouth to hang open and he looked at Mo very strangely.

They shook hands; Pedro thanked Lu and Mo several times and he rushed off to organize his family. Mo went in and found the girls by the pool. He introduced the French girls to Lu and her children and told everybody that they were leaving after dark. There had been more shooting, tourists were being killed and if they wanted any more information Lu could fill them in.

The girls looked at Lu and she began to tell them what was happening on the island. It didn’t take them long to head towards their rooms to start packing.

Mo packed his two suitcases and, with Lu and her children carrying their belongings, they walked down to the pier and placed their belongings next to the ship. Marie had left the door unlocked and they carried all of their bags inside. Mo turned on the lights, then the generator, and made sure the fridge and freezers were on and cooling. Mo had seen a couple of extra camp beds in the villa, presumably for extra guests, and he went back for them, telling Lu to look through the closets for any pillows and sleeping bags.