Текст книги "Medusa"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

He turned to the Ministry of Health official, who had called him.

“I’m not sure why you asked me to come here,” Ming said. “It appears that the city has the situation well in hand. There seems little need for crowd control by the military.”

“This was no ordinary building and this was no ordinary fire,” said the minister, whose name was Fong. “There were medical tests of some sort going on here.”

“This seems an unlikely place for that sort of thing. Are you sure?”

Fong nodded.

“We found a number of people locked in cells,” he said. “They had been left there to burn, but, fortunately, even though they were in poor condition, they were able to talk. They said they had been kidnapped, and that many people had been taken from their cells, never to return. We believe they were moved to labs, and, from the equipment we found, it seems they were the subjects of experiments.”

“What kind of experiments, Fong?”

“We don’t know specifically. But we did find traces of a virus strain that is of some concern to our ministry. It is the same virus that caused an outbreak in a village to the north. The person who caused that epidemic was from Shanghai.”

“Quite the coincidence,” said Ming.

“Even more, the person was employed in a security capacity by Pyramid Trading based here in the city. And, almost unbelievably, Pyramid owns this building.”

“I think I know where you are going with this, Fong. It’s well known that the Army operates a string of brothels in partnership with Pyramid. But there’s no connection to this,” he said with a wave of his hand.

“I understand that, Colonel, but perhaps you might want to reexamine your partnership when I tell you what else we found in the building: the remains of dozens of human beings, discovered in a crematory. We think they had been used in the experiments.”

Ming’s reaction was one of combined fear and revulsion, fear that his name had been linked to Pyramid, revulsion over the experiments.

He stared at the building, trying without success to imagine the horrors within its four walls.

“Thank you, Minister,” he said. “I shall look into it and take the appropriate steps.”

“I hope so,” Fong said. “This is not good for China. Whoever is responsible must be brought to account, but it must be done quietly.”

“I am in complete agreement with the need for discretion,” Colonel Ming said. “And I think I know exactly where to begin.”

CHAPTER 22

DOOLEY GREEN LOOKED UP FROM THE OUTBOARD MOTOR he’d been repairing at the end of the dock and his mouth widened in a gap-toothed grin when he saw the young Asian woman coming his way.

“Afternoon, Doctor,” he said. “Going to take another crack at that pink bird?”

Dr. Lee tapped the zoom lens of the digital camera hanging from a strap around her neck.

“Yes, Dooley. You know how determined I am to get a photo of that beautiful roseate spoonbill.”

“Spoonbills can be cagey all right,” he said. “Kayak’s waiting for you. I’ll fetch your gear.”

Dooley put his screwdriver down and got a kayak paddle and flotation vest from the boat shed. He and Lee walked along the beach to where a light blue fiberglass touring kayak sat on the sand with its bow partway in the water. Lee slipped her arms through the vest and snapped the buckles, then eased her slender body into the cockpit. Dooley handed her the paddle and pushed the craft into the water.

“I’ll probably be back on the mainland by the time you get back, so just put your gear in the shed. Good luck with that spoonbill,” Dooley called out. “And watch out for Granddaddy ’Gator.”

Lee acknowledged the warning with an airy wave of the paddle.

“Thank you, Dooley. I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

The warning was a private joke. When Song Lee first arrived on Bonefish Key from China, Dooley told her about the monster alligator lurking in the mangroves. Seeing from her startled expression that she believed his tall tale, he had quickly explained that no alligator had been seen around Bonefish Key for decades.

Dooley watched Lee paddle the kayak to the mouth of the inlet and thought how fond he had become of the young Chinese scientist. He wasn’t too old to appreciate her flowerlike beauty, but his interest was far from prurient. Lee was around thirty, the same age as a daughter who had disowned him years before. He had quit drinking, after running the family shrimp business aground on the shoals of gin, poker, and a series of wives, but he and his daughter were still estranged.

As Dooley went back to the outboard motor, Lee headed along the shore of the island and emerged from the mangroves into a small bay. She pointed the kayak’s prow toward the stranded cabin cruiser, then left the bay and headed into the funnel-shaped cove Dooley had entered earlier that day on his tour with Gamay. Seeing a ripple on the water, Lee shipped her paddle and was rewarded a moment later when a shiny back scarred by propeller blades broke the surface.

Manatee!

She banged off some photos, until the lumbering mammal submerged to feed on the bottom. Lee took up her paddle again, heading farther into the cove. The distance between the mangroves diminished from a quarter of a mile to a couple hundred feet.

A great blue heron took off with a mighty flap of its long wings. Lee watched the big bird until it was out of sight, then she brought her binoculars to bear on a pair of snowy egrets wading in the shallows. Her heart skipped a beat at the flash of pink behind one of them.

The egrets moved, and she brought the camera up to her eye. Through the viewfinder, she saw a bird that looked like a flamingo with a duck bill. She snapped off several pictures of the roseate spoonbill, then reviewed the photos. They were all perfect. Lee was smiling when she took up her paddle again.

With a few strokes, she sent the kayak toward a weathered gray wooden post that stuck out of the water near the edge of a mangrove. It marked a narrow break in the otherwise impenetrable tangle of roots. The kayak’s hull scraped an oyster bed and came to rest on shore.

Lee stepped into warm, knee-deep water. Although she knew that Dooley’s giant alligator was a fable, she quickly hauled the kayak onto the narrow beach.

She grabbed a rucksack that held water and power bars and walked through a tunnel of trees for a hundred feet or so before she broke into an open area. A white sandy path wound through the cactus and shrub for a few hundred yards to the other side of the island.

A rush of air off the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico cooled Lee’s face as the path ended at a barrier beach. She strolled along the beach for a short distance and plunked down on the sand with her back against a sea-silvered driftwood log.

A blue-hulled fishing boat was anchored offshore just beyond the line of breakers. Otherwise, she had the beach to herself. She had seen the boat several times in the past week or so, but it had stayed a respectful distance away. She examined it through the zoom lens of her camera but saw no one on deck.

When she had first landed on Bonefish Key months before, Dr. Lee had been advised by Dr. Kane to find a distraction to take her mind off her work. Some scientists avoided burnout by fishing, others by playing chess or reading. A few spent too much time at the Dollar Bar. The daily kayak trips into the mangroves had been her salvation. The break she took each afternoon rejuvenated her, allowing her to work late into the night.

With the project nearly at an end, she would miss the remote beauty of the island when she returned to China. She wondered if her government would reward or even acknowledge her labors, or if she would just return to her country practice.

She gave in to her weariness and fell asleep. When she awoke, she glanced at her watch. She looked off along the beach and noticed that the blue-hulled boat had vanished. She frowned. She had regained her privacy, but it was time to go back to work. She got up, brushed the sand from her shorts, and headed across the island to her kayak.

When Lee broke through the tree canopy, she saw that the kayak was no longer where she had left it on the beach. She set her pack aside, waded out into the water, and visually searched the lagoon.

There was no sign of the kayak.

Lee turned back to the island, saw blue plastic gleaming in the grass, and let out a sigh of relief. The kayak had been pulled up into the tall grass on one side of the beach. She wondered why anyone would do such a thing and stepped into the grass to retrieve the kayak. It was a remote spot, and she felt uncomfortable knowing there was someone else on the island.

She was pulling the kayak back toward the water when she felt a prickling sensation that had nothing to do with the heat on the back of her neck. She turned and saw a man on the beach, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.

He had soundlessly materialized from the scrub and now blocked Lee’s way to the water. He was physically frightening. His hardened Asian features seemed to have been hammered on an anvil. His thin-lipped mouth looked as if it could not be pried into a smile with a crowbar. He wore shorts, and the muscles on his arms and legs appeared capable of driving his knuckles or clublike feet through a brick wall.

Making him even more formidable was the automatic weapon cradled in his arms. The muzzle was pointed at her heart.

Despite her fears, Song Lee managed to croak out a question.

“Who are you?” she said.

“I am the ghost who watches,” he said with no change of expression.

What nonsense,Lee thought. The man was obviously deranged. She tried to assert control over the situation.

“Did you move my kayak?” she asked.

She thought she saw a slight nod of the chin.

“Then I’d appreciate your help in pulling it back to the water.”

He smiled for the first time and lowered the gun. Thinking that maybe her bluff had worked, she turned to grab the kayak.

“Dr. Lee?”

Hearing her name called, she knew this was no random encounter. She saw a quick movement out of the corner of her eye as the man raised his gun above his head and brought it down stock first. She felt an explosion at the back of her skull, and saw a flash of white light before the darkness closed in, and she was unconscious before she crashed facedown into the mud.

CHAPTER 23

THE FBI’S J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING HEADQUARTERS ON Pennsylvania Avenue is the antithesis of the bucolic, tree-shaded campus at Quantico. The hulking, seven-story structure was made of poured concrete, in the Brutalist architectural style made popular in the 1960s. The Hoover became even more fortresslike after the terrorist attack of 9/11. Tours for the public came to an end, and barriers were put up around the first floor.

Caitlin Lyons had called ahead, easing Zavala’s entry into the FBI’s inner sanctum. There was the visitor’s badge, and the pleasant guide, a serious young man this time, who miraculously managed to navigate the labyrinth of the corridors without having to resort to map or GPS.

The guide stopped in front of an unmarked door and knocked softly. A voice on the other side of the door said to come in. Zavala thanked the guide, and opened it.

Inside was an office slightly bigger than the gray metal table and chairs it contained. There was nothing on the walls except a black-and-white photo of the Great Wall of China.

A man sat behind the desk talking on the phone in Chinese. He waved Zavala to a chair, continued chatting a minute, then ended the conversation and set the receiver back in its cradle. Popping up like a jack-in-the-box, he shook Zavala’s hand as if trying to coax water from a reluctant pump, then settled back in his chair.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “I’m Charlie Yoo.” He flashed a friendly smile. “Please, no jokes about the last name. I’ve heard enough ‘ Yoo-hoo’ and ‘How’s by Yoo’ around here to last a lifetime.”

Yoo was a pencil-thin man in his mid-thirties. He wore a stylishly cut shiny gray suit with a cobalt blue shirt and blue-and-red striped tie, a sartorial style more in keeping with a cocktail hour at the Willard Hotel than the bowels of the FBI, where conservative navy blue suits were the norm. Yoo spoke English with a New York accent, the sentences coming like bursts of photon energy.

“Nice to meet you, Agent Yoo. I’m Caitlin’s friend, Joe Zavala.”

“The man from NUMA . . . great organization, Joe. Please call me Charlie. Caitlin’s a fantastic woman and a terrific cop. She said you were looking into the Pyramid Triad.”

“That’s right. She thought you might be able to help.”

Yoo sat back in his chair and tented his fingers.

“Excuse me for asking, Joe, but NUMA is an underwater outfit, from what I’ve heard. Why would a guy from NUMA be interested in Chinese organized crime?”

“We wouldn’t be, ordinarily. But someone tried to sabotage a NUMA operation, and we have circumstantial evidence that the seafood subsidiary of Pyramid Trading may have been involved.”

Yoo hiked his eyebrows like Groucho Marx.

“Excuse me for being skeptical, Joe, but that doesn’t seem like Pyramid’s m.o. What’s your evidence?”

“Let me fill in the background. A few days ago, NUMA launched the Bathysphere 3, a replica of a historical diving bell, in waters off Bermuda. The dive was broadcast all over the world . . . You may have seen it on television . . .”

Yoo spread his hands apart, his empty palms signifying no. “I’ve been pretty busy, Joe. Haven’t watched much TV. Is this the op that Pyramid supposedly tried to sabotage?”

Zavala nodded.

“I designed the diving bell,” he said, “and Kurt Austin, my partner at NUMA, was the project leader. The most interesting part of the dive wasn’t transmitted because an underwater robot cut the bathysphere’s cable.”

“Whoa!”Yoo said, a wide grin on his boyish face. “An underwater robot.That’s pretty wild stuff, Joe.”

“I thought so at the time. When the cable let go, the sphere was buried a half mile down in muck.”

Yoo leaned forward across the desk. His grin had disappeared.

“You’re not kidding, are you? That’s an incredible story! How’d you get out of a situation like that?”

“Kurt made a rescue dive, and we were able to activate our flotation system. While we were on our way to the surface, the robot went after Austin. He beat the thing off of him and grabbed one of the pincers it had used to cut our cable. The pincer was stamped with a triangle identical to the Pyramid Trading logo.”

Yoo shook his head.

“You had me going there for a minute. Sorry, Joe, but the triangle is a pretty common symbol. It could mean anything.”

“I agree, Charlie, except for one thing. The robot is identical to one that Pyramid’s seafood division uses to inspect nets.”

“You know this for a fact?”

Zavala nodded.

“I know it for a fact, Charlie.”

Zavala reached in his pocket and extracted a folded copy of the magazine article about the Pyramid seafood division’s AUV, smoothing out the wrinkles on the desk. He put photos from Austin’s Hardsuit camera next to it. Yoo read the article and studied the photos.

“Wow!”Yoo said. “Okay, you win . . . Pyramid tried to sabotage your dive. But why?”

“Haven’t a clue. Which is why I went to see Caitlin. She said Pyramid Trading was the baddest of the bad when it came to Chinese Triads.”

“Pyramid is definitely a major player. But it’s one of hundreds of Triads based in cities around China. Did Caitlin tell you what I do?”

“She said you were a specialist in Chinese gangs around the world.”

“I’m morethan a specialist, I’m a former gang member. I’m from Hong Kong originally. My parents moved my family to New York.”

“That accounts for the American accent,” Zavala said.

“Learned English on the sidewalks of Mulberry Street. That’s also where I joined the Ghost Shadows, one of the biggest gangs in the country.”

“Caitlin said the Ghost Shadows is a Pyramid gang.”

“That’s right. My family saw what was going on and moved back to China to keep me out of the gangs. Pop had a bicycle-repair shop, and he kept me so busy I was too tired to get into trouble. I kept my nose clean, went to college. Now I’m part of a special unit from the Ministry of Security.”

“How did you end up in Washington?” Zavala asked.

“Your guys needed my expertise. I’m over here for a few months sharing intel with the FBI. This is just a temporary office, as you’ve probably guessed.”

“Caitlin said that Pyramid was bucking the old traditions, consolidating its power, and that’s one of the reasons it’s in hot water with the Chinese government. That, and the safety scandals over contaminated products.”

“Caitlin’s the expert on the Triads,” Yoo said. “I’ll go along with what she says.”

“She also said that the front man for Pyramid is a guy named Wen Lo.”

There was a slight tick, a second, when Yoo seemed to pause before answering.

“As I said,” he began, “Caitlin knows more about the Triads. I’m familiar with organization and strong-arm stuff at the street level, but others can tell you about the leaders.”

Yoo talked about gang ritual and power structure for another five minutes before glancing at his watch.

“Sorry to cut you short, Joe, I’ve got an appointment to keep.”

“No problem,” Zavala said. He rose from his chair. “Thanks very much for your time, Charlie. You’ve been a great help.”

They shook hands, and Yoo called the security desk. They were standing out in the hallway when the guide arrived minutes later to take Zavala in tow.

Yoo flashed a smile.

“You’ve stirred up my curiosity about this thing with your robot stuff. Let me poke around and see if I can come up with anything else.”

Yoo jotted down Zavala’s cell-phone number and wished him good luck. He went back into his office and locked the door. He sat behind his desk, stone-faced, as he punched in a number on his cell. The cell’s signal flashed around the world several times, passing through a series of filters and detours, until it was untraceable.

“Report, number thirty-nine,” a gruff voice said.

“He just left,” Yoo said.

“What does he know?”

“Far too much for comfort.”

Yoo relayed the gist of his conversation with Zavala.

“This is a fortunate happenstance,” the voice said. “Zavala is small fish. Use him as bait. I want you to take Austin alive and bring him to me.”

“I’ll get on it immediately,” Yoo said.

“Sooner,”the voice said.

ZAVALA WAS in his Corvette on the way back to NUMA headquarters when his cell phone buzzed. It was Charlie Yoo.

“Hi, Joe, long time no talk. Look, I’ve got something for you on the Pyramid Triad.”

“That was fast,” Zavala said with genuine surprise. He had thought Yoo to be something of a lightweight when it came to police work.

“We lucked out. It’s like pulling teeth with the guys at the Bureau. They’ll pick your brains until there’s nothing left, but I’m a foreigner so they still don’t quite trust me. Anyhow, there’s been an ongoing surveillance of a gang-connected alien-smuggling operation. After I told them about our little chat, they invited us to sit in. Might give you a chance to talk to some of the other Asian crime specialists. You could be in for some excitement if they make a bust.”

“When and where?” Zavala asked.

“Later tonight, on the other side of the river. You interested? Your partner Austin is invited too, if he’s not busy.”

“I’ll ask him and get back to you.”

Zavala hung up and made a quick call to Austin and told him about Yoo’s invitation.

“I’m expecting a call from Sandecker in a few minutes,” Austin said. “I have no idea what the old sea fox has up his sleeve. I’ll have to catch up with you later.”

“Call me when you shake loose. And don’t let Sandecker keep you too long.”

“Not a chance, pal,” Austin said, and, in words that would come back to haunt him later, added, “Hell, Joe, I wouldn’t want you to have allthe fun.”

CHAPTER 24

THE SECOND HAPPY HOUR IN THE DOLLAR BAR WAS A REPEAT of the first gabfest. The vacuous chitchat around the table ground on Gamay’s nerves, but she had to admit that the Gibson was perfect and that the dinner that followed was superb, featuring freshly caught shrimp in a savory jambalaya.

Mayhew waited politely until dessert was served before he made his announcement.

“Dooley will pick you up promptly at nine-fifteen tomorrow morning,” he said. “You can leave right after breakfast. It’s been a pleasure to have you as our guest, Dr. Trout. We’ll be sad to see you go.”

Mayhew’s broad grin seemed at odds with his dismay over Gamay’s impending departure. She wondered how long he would maintain his smiley face if she insisted on staying another night.

“And I will be sad to leave,” Gamay said in a performance worthy of Ethel Barrymore. “Thank you for having me, and allowing me to see the wonderful work that you and your staff are doing here in this slice of paradise.”

Mayhew was too caught up in the moment to pick up on her veiled sarcasm. At his suggestion, they moved out onto the patio for a nightcap and to watch the sunset.

The scientists gathered in knots, keeping their voices low. Occasionally, Gamay heard a scientific term spoken, suggesting they were talking among themselves about their research.

By nine o’clock, all the staff people had gone to their cabins, leaving Gamay alone. She waited another half hour until everyone had settled in, then followed the shell path to Song Lee’s cabin. The windows were dark.

Gamay climbed onto the small porch and knocked softly at first, then harder. There was no answer.

She was surprised to find the door unlocked. She went inside and switched on the lights. It only took a few seconds to see that the cabin was unoccupied. There was no sign that Lee had eaten dinner alone there. Gamay switched the lights off, and hurried along the path to the waterfront. Lee’s kayak was not in the boat shed.

Gamay pondered what she should do. She could wake up Dr. Mayhew and the rest of the staff, but, given the penchant for oysterlike secrecy on the island, it was likely she’d be cut out of the action.

Impulsively, Gamay lifted the second kayak from its rack and set it on the beach.

Then she had another thought, and dashed back to the boathouse to grab Dooley’s night vision goggles. She slipped them over her head, shoved the kayak in the water, got in, and paddled furiously.

She followed the perimeter of the island and headed out into the bay. The stranded cabin cruiser was greenish and grainy through the goggles. She paddled directly to it to get her bearings, then turned in to the funnel-shaped cove Dooley had shown her earlier that day.

The mangroves squeezed in on both sides. At the narrowest part of the cove, she found the post that marked the break in the mangroves. She paddled to shore, got out of the kayak, and was pulling it up onto the beach when she stumbled over Song Lee’s rucksack, which was lying in the sand.

Gamay glanced around and saw something gleaming in the grass. It was Lee’s kayak.

Gamay struck off inland, following the winding path through the thicket of trees, carrying her wooden kayak paddle in one hand. The path emerged from the trees into the open, meandering through cactus and scrub. The whisper of the waves washing the beach provided a backdrop to the insect chorus.

With the aid of the night vision goggles, Gamay moved quickly along the path. She paused where it broke out onto the beach and looked around. Two sets of footprints led off down the beach. Taking up the hunt like a hound on a scent, she followed the prints around a bend. She was trotting now, slowing only when she saw a yellow glow in the distance. There was a house up ahead, partially hidden by trees and bushes. She moved closer and saw that the light was spilling through a screen door and window.

She crept up to the house and put her back to the wall a few feet from the window. She could hear a man and a woman speaking excitedly in Chinese, their voices starting out low and then getting louder. The man now sounded angry, the woman hysterical.

Gamay edged up to the window, pushed the goggles up on her forehead, and peered through the glass panes at a sparsely furnished room illuminated with gas camp lanterns.

Song Lee was sitting at a kitchen table across from a brutish-looking Asian man who was dressed in shorts and T-shirt. An automatic weapon lay on the counter next to the stove. The man had apparently just run through his reserve of patience. He brought his hand back and slapped Lee across the face. The blow knocked her off her chair to the floor.

The man turned away from Lee to get his weapon, a big mistake on his part. She got to her knees and plucked a steak knife from a rack that was within arm’s reach. There was a flash of blade as she plunged it into the man’s thigh, then pulled it free. Letting out a scream of pain, he dropped the gun to the floor and grabbed his bleeding leg.

Lee stood up and dashed for the door. Bellowing with rage, the man lunged after her, but she was too quick for him. She burst through the screen door and ran down the beach.

The man picked his gun up off the floor and limped to the door. Standing in the doorway, he shouted in Chinese, then raised the gun up to shoulder level.

Gamay stepped from the shadows just then, raised the kayak paddle high, and brought it down on the man’s head with all her strength. The handle snapped like a dry twig, and the man crashed to the ground, falling on top of his gun.

Gamay hoped the blow had knocked him out, but he soon groaned and began to stir.

She pulled the goggles down and sprinted along the beach. Seeing a figure running a hundred feet or so ahead, she called out Song Lee’s name. The scientist stopped and wheeled around to face her pursuer. She clutched the steak knife defensively in her hand.

Gamay ripped the goggles from her head.

“It’s me . . . Dr. Trout!”

“Doctor . . . What are you doing here?”

“I followed you.”

Gamay glanced back toward the house.

“No time to talk,” she said. “I slowed your friend down only for a second.”

Gamay tossed away the useless paddle, and then she and Lee ran along the beach. In their haste, they missed the path that would take them across the island and had to go back, costing time. But Gamay took the lead, and within minutes they were on the other side of the island. She had Lee give her a hand getting the kayak out of the grass.

There was a soft footfall on the path, and seconds later a figure burst from the bushes. The man who had held Song Lee prisoner flicked on a flashlight and snarled in triumph. He was surprised to see Gamay, but only for an instant, and quickly swung his light and gun around and brought them to bear on her midsection for an easy gut shot.

Gamay put her head down and charged like a bull, butting the man in the stomach. He had abdominal muscles like a stone wall. He brought down the gun’s stock on her head in a blow hard enough to knock her to the ground. Through a gray haze she punched his wounded leg and heard him scream in pain.

Lee leaped onto the man’s back, clinging to him, but he shook her off and she fell to the ground. He stood there unmoving, staring at her, then the gun dropped from his hand and he crumpled to the ground as if all the air had gone out of him. The beam from his flashlight fell on the wooden handle of the steak knife protruding from his chest.

As Gamay helped Lee to her feet, Lee gazed at her deadly handiwork.

“I’ve never done anything like that,” she said. “Never.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Gamay said. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know. He came up while I was getting my kayak and struck me with his gun. He said he’d been watching me, and that others were coming in a boat to take me away.”

Gamay suddenly put her hand on Lee’s arm.

“Listen,”she said.

Excited voices talking in Chinese could be heard coming along the path. The othershad arrived.

Lee’s kayak was righted and dragged to the water. She produced a spare plastic-and-aluminum paddle for Gamay to use. They both shoved their kayaks off the beach and paddled madly. They were about a hundred feet from the mangroves when flashlight beams probed the water around them.

The shafts of light reflected off the shiny fiberglass hulls. Gamay told Lee to hug the shore, where they’d make a more difficult target. She tensed, expecting gunfire, but the lights blinked out.

“They are going back to their boat,” Lee said. “They will come around the other end of the island and intercept us.”

“How long before they get there?” Gamay asked, without breaking the rhythm of her strokes.

“Five, ten minutes, maybe. What should we do?”

“Paddle as if our lives depended on it . . . because they do.”

They put their backs into each stroke and made it out of the cove, but the sound of a boat engine soon shattered the quiet of the night. A spotlight moved slowly back and forth across the water. There was no place along the shore where they could put in and hide. Thick, gnarly roots extended out from mangroves, forming a formidable barrier.

A silhouette loomed ahead. They were coming up on the grounded cabin cruiser. Gamay paddled toward the old boat with Lee right behind. They climbed aboard the derelict, pulling their kayaks up behind them, and lay facedown on the rotting deck.

Through cracks in the hull, they saw the spotlight go past the cruiser. For a second, Gamay entertained a flash of optimism, but that faded as the search boat changed direction, circled the wreck, and came closer. The spotlight filtered through the cracks and fell on their faces.

The women’s pursuers peppered the cabin cruiser with gunfire, starting with the elevated bow and working back toward the stern. They took their time, pumping round after round into the pilothouse. Splinters showered the two women. Gamay covered her head with her hands and cursed her own stupidity. The only thing they had accomplished by climbing on the old boat was to give these bozos some target practice. It would only be a matter of seconds before the bullets found them.

Then the firing stopped.

Gamay expected the attackers to swarm aboard, but instead a bottle filled with flaming gasoline arced through the air and landed on the deck. Crackling fire from the Molotov cocktail spread in a blazing puddle that lapped at their feet. The heat became unbearable. The two women stood up, preferring to be shot rather than be burned to death. But the boat carrying their assailants was moving away from them and picking up speed. By then, the cabin cruiser had become a blazing torch.