Long Way Down (19 page)

The sun’s fingers pushed through the trees from the east, illuminating vapor rising above the lagoon’s surface. A water bird screamed, flapped its wings and took flight. The dying flames on the helicopter snapped like breaking twigs, and the odor of cordite and burned fuel floated on the damp air.

Sam fired a burst of rounds from the Uzi into the air and yelled, “Okay, time’s up.”

“Wait, don’t shoot. We are coming out.”

Three men jumped down from the hatch. Training the Uzi on them, Sam told them to stand by the dock with Danilov.

“Get the weapons from the plane,” Sam said to J.T., “and take a look at the cargo.”

J.T. came back a couple minutes later with an armload of rifles and said, “There’s several crates left on there. Let’s push this jalopy back into the water and get out of here.”

“No can do.” Sam pointed to the hole in the hull.

J.T. made a face and kicked a dent in the sheet metal, then jerked back and jumped on one foot, cursing under his breath.

“You break your toe?”

“I don’t think so.” He tested his foot on the ground and took a few steps, then drew a deep breath and blew it out. “Okay, so what do we do now?”

“We could take this stuff to the airport in the van and wait for a plane to return. One of them has to be coming back pretty soon.”

J.T. nodded, then turned and glared at the men from the helicopter. “Who do you guys work for?”

One of the men smiled and glanced at the sky, as if expecting something else to happen. Then he nodded toward Danilov and said, “Why don’t you ask him.”

J.T. looked at Danilov. “You know these guys?”

Danilov raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “No, I have never seen them before.”

J.T. shrugged and said, “I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

“Move all the crates from the plane to the van,” Sam said to Danilov and the others, pointing with the Uzi.

Danilov and one other man climbed into the plane and began handing crates through the hatch for the other men to carry to the vehicle. Sam wondered why Candi hadn’t joined them already. He looked for the golf cart, but it had disappeared.

“Grimes got away,” Sam said to J.T. “Watch them while I go check on Candi.”

He handed J.T. the Uzi and pulled the handgun he’d taken from Gino out of his damp waistband. Hurrying up the road, he saw tracks where the cart had spun around in the sand, and found it in the spot where the car had been parked. No sign of Candi or Grimes. Sam wished he’d given Candi a weapon, but he hadn’t expected Grimes to show up.

Sam went back to the van and said to Danilov, “Get in. You’re driving.” He turned to the helicopter men. “The rest of you get in the back.”

“Where’s Candi?” J.T. said.

“Grimes must have taken her. The car’s gone too, so they could be anywhere on the island by now.”

“Aw, man. Why does everything have to be so complicated?”

Danilov looked as if he might smile as he turned to get into the driver’s seat. J.T. stepped over and shoved him, rapping his head on the door well. Danilov grabbed his forehead and shot him a threatening look.

“Hey, I bet that hurt,” J.T. said. “Better be more careful.”

The three helicopter men scrambled into the back and sat on the floor next to the crates. J.T. got into the rear seat and held the gun on them. Sam got into the front passenger seat next to Danilov and made sure he didn’t try anything funny while they rode up the winding road to the airport.

The airport looked abandoned. Someone would have brought La Salle to the plane the night before, but no cars remained on the tarmac, so that meant someone had driven away and stayed on the island. Sam told Danilov to park the van behind the trailer where they would be out of sight but could peer around the edge and see the flight line.

Sam took the van keys and J.T. kept an eye on the men while Sam got out, strode to the front of the trailer, and looked in the windows to make sure no one hid inside.

When he returned, J.T. said, “Watch them while I get this guy’s phone. He called somebody, but I didn’t see him until he hung up a second ago.” 

J.T. opened the back door and pulled the man out. He had what looked like a satellite phone hanging from his belt.

“Who did you call?”

The man shook his head. “No one, the, ah, reception no good.”

J.T. handed Sam the phone and said to the man. “Get back in the van.”

An approaching airplane droned in the distance, and Sam stepped to the edge of the trailer where he could see the landing strip. The hum of the aircraft engines grew louder by the second and a silver jet descended onto the runway. Unlike La Salle’s smaller planes, its wings seemed to span fifty yards.

Sam hurried back to where J.T. guarded the men. “I don’t like the looks of this.”

“Yeah,” J.T. said, “let’s go to the hotel.”

They got back into the van, and Sam told Danilov to get going. He started the engine, put the van into gear and pressed the accelerator. The van darted around the trailer and headed across the tarmac, but the plane taxied ahead of them, its rear cargo door dropping open. Before the plane completely stopped, four men dressed in dark coveralls and carrying silenced automatic weapons jumped out and ran toward the approaching van. They halted less than a hundred feet from the front of the moving vehicle and trained their guns on the windshield.

“Stop,” Sam said.

Danilov glanced at Sam. “No, they will kill us.”

One of the men fired a burst of warning shots into the air.

Sam put the gun to Danilov’s head and yelled, “I said stop. They’ll kill us if we don’t.”

Danilov stepped on the brakes and brought the van to a standstill in front of the men. The whine from the jet’s engines wound down and the man who had fired the warning shots, perhaps their leader, said, “Get out and drop the weapons.” Like the men from the helicopter, he spoke with a Spanish accent.

“They knew exactly where to find us,” J.T. said.

“Yeah, our friend with the telephone must have tipped them off.”

J.T. looked at Sam and said, “We can take these guys.”

Sam glanced at him, wondering if he might have been smoking something.

“What do you think?” J.T. said.

Getting out of the van, Sam said, “I think this is where we drop our weapons.”

J.T. followed Sam and they laid their guns on the tarmac. The helicopter men burst out the back of the van, laughing and patting each other on the back.

The leader from the plane, a tall man with short, graying hair, aimed his Uzi through the windshield at Danilov and said, “Out,
bandido
.”

Danilov sighed, opened his door and climbed out. The leader spoke to them in Spanish and one of the helicopter men nodded and said, “
Gracias, Renaldo
.” The helicopter men strode to the plane and went up the loading ramp. That left only Renaldo, the leader, and the three other men from the airplane. One of the men had a scar running down the side of his face. Another had two gold teeth in front, and the third man had a tattoo of a snake on the side of his neck. They all looked deadly.

Renaldo peered into the back of the van, pointed his gun at Sam and said, “Load the gold onto the airplane.”

Sam and J.T. stepped to the rear of the van and pulled out one of the crates.

“You too,” Renaldo said to Danilov.

After they had loaded all the crates onto the aircraft, Renaldo pointed his Uzi toward the rear doors of the van and told Sam and J.T. to get inside. He waved the gun at Danilov and said, “You drive,
bandido
.”

Sam and J.T. got in and sat where the helicopter men had ridden a few minutes before. The man with the scar got in with them and held an Uzi muzzle just inches from their faces.

Danilov got into the driver’s seat again, and Renaldo sat in the passenger seat next to him. “Go to the place where the big man with one eye stands in front.”

Danilov glanced at him. “You have all the gold. If you go to the hotel you will be ambushed.”

Renaldo jammed his gun into Danilov’s ribs. “Just drive. You are lucky I don’t shoot you where you sit.”

Danilov winced and started the engine.

They arrived at the front entrance a few minutes later. Several men worked there unloading slot machines from a truck and rolling them on hand trucks through the doors. When Renaldo got out of the van, the workers saw the gun and stopped their work, got into the truck and sped away, leaving several shiny slot machines scattered around the front of the building.

Renaldo strode to the entrance where the doors stood open and looked inside. He turned back and said, “Everybody out. Let’s go.”

Sam wondered if Gino or others left behind might be waiting for them. If so, they might be sorry, because their handguns wouldn’t stand up to the weapons these guys carried.

Inside the hotel, they went directly to the money room, Renaldo seeming to know where to go. The door to the room stood ajar, and Sam tried to remember if they had left it that way. Renaldo held up his hand and everyone stopped. He took a small canister from his belt, pulled a pin from it, tossed it inside the room, and closed the door. Sam heard muffled shouting for a few seconds and then silence.

“We are going inside and you will open the vault,” Renaldo said to Danilov.

Danilov shrugged. “I don’t know the combination.”

Renaldo smiled and said, “You better know it, otherwise you will be of no use to us.”

Renaldo put on a gas mask and Scarface handed one to Danilov. Danilov put it on, Renaldo swung the door open and they went inside. Sam peered around the doorway and saw Jimmy and the man from the security room lying on the floor near the door, their eyes closed. Guns lay next to their hands where they had dropped them. The bomb probably contained a general anesthetic that would wear off in an hour or so. Sam got a whiff of something with a chemical odor and backed up, bumping into J.T.

Renaldo shoved Danilov’s shoulder and he stumbled over the men toward the door of the vault. Sam turned, thinking this might be the time to grab a weapon from one of the men, but the barrel tips of two Uzis jammed him in the side. Scarface yelled something in Spanish at Sam and Renaldo glanced at them and grinned.

Renaldo gave an order in Spanish to the man with gold teeth and Gold Teeth dragged La Salle’s men away from the doorway and bound their hands with nylon ties. Danilov stared at Renaldo for a few seconds, maybe considering his chances if he just played dumb. Then he turned to the steel door and reached for the large chrome dial. Danilov worked on the dial for almost a minute and finally pressed down on the handle. The door snapped open a quarter-inch and Renaldo pushed Danilov out of the way and swung it open. Inside, a dozen or more crates similar to the ones they had taken off the seaplane sat on the floor.

J.T. stared at the crates, then glanced at Sam and shook his head. The look on his face said
That could have been ours
.

Gold Teeth and the tattoo man went outside and got three hand trucks left by the workmen while Renaldo watched the prisoners. When they returned, Renaldo took their gas masks and gave them to Sam and J.T.

“Move the gold to the back of the truck,” Renaldo said.

They put on the masks and, along with Danilov, hauled the crates one-by-one to the van, then rode in back to offload them to the plane. Gold Teeth drove while Scarface guarded them from the back seats, and Renaldo and Tattoo stayed with the safe.

On the first trip to the plane, J.T. whispered to Sam, “You got any ideas about getting us out of this?”

Scarface saw him talking and said, “
Silencio
,” before Sam could reply. It was just as well. With so many guns pointed at them, the only idea he had was to appeal to Renaldo and try to convince him to let them live.

It took two trips to get all the gold. La Salle’s men still slept in the money room when they finished. Renaldo said something in Spanish to Tattoo as they left the money room the last time. He nodded and stayed behind with the sleeping men while everyone else loaded the last crates and got into the van. Tattoo came out a few minutes later and got in the back seat. Sam wondered if he had killed the men.

When they had rolled the last crate up the airplane ramp, Sam wiped perspiration from his face with his shirt tail and caught Renaldo’s eye. “How about letting us go?”

“Sorry, we have orders.”

He actually sounded sorry, probably for what he had to do next.

“We don’t have anything to do with this place,” Sam said.

“You tried to steal the gold,” Renaldo said. He stared at Sam for a couple of seconds, as if trying to decide what to do, then pulled a satellite phone from his belt and punched in a number. Scarface, Gold Teeth, and Tattoo held their guns on their three prisoners, maybe waiting for orders from Renaldo to kill them.

A couple of moments passed and Renaldo spoke into the phone in Spanish. Pacing, he ran his fingers through his hair, and closed the phone.

Renaldo glanced at Sam, an eyebrow raised. “You are Mackenzie?”

“Yes,” Sam said, wondering who he had spoken with.

“And your friend?” Renaldo glanced at J.T.

“John Templeton Smith,” J.T. said.

Renaldo nodded. “Get on the plane with the
gringo bandido
.” He spoke to his men in rapid Spanish and Scarface jammed a gun into Sam’s back.

Sam, J.T. and Danilov sat in small seats along the starboard side of the aircraft next to the cargo. The ramp closed and the jet engines fired up. The aircraft turned and started toward a runway on the far side of the flight line from where it had landed.

Sam looked out the porthole next to his seat. A car raced down the road toward the airport. It slid to a stop at the edge of the flight line and the driver’s door swung open. Grimes climbed out on his one good leg and wrestled a rocket launcher out the door. He leaned against the roof of the car, put the launcher onto his shoulder and took aim. If he pulled the trigger, there would be nothing anyone could do to stop the rocket. The plane would go up in flames as the helicopter had, and they would all die. Sam’s pulse thumped in his ears, and perspiration beaded on his face. Seconds passed, the plane taxied into takeoff position and Sam wondered if Grimes might be considering that the gold would also be destroyed if he fired the rocket. Then the jet engines accelerated to maximum thrust and seconds later the plane lifted off and shot skyward. Grimes took the launcher off his shoulder and just stood there, leaning against the car, watching the fortune fly off into the sky.