A
lex Blackwell had no doubt the helicopter droning above his catamaran was an ominous premonition. He wasn
’
t disputing it was a clear sign his old life had finally caught up with him. Because these would have been the wrong questions to ask. Good men perished and great civilizations were vanquished under the weight of wrong questions. Like wasting time pondering whether your attacker
’
s gun was loaded, when you should be wondering how to plant a bullet in his skull first.

Smack dab in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, his mind had instead gone into overdrive to answer what he knew was the right set of questions. Who was it who had found him, after four years in hiding on the tiny island of Anguilla, and what the hell did they want with him?

He considered the bare facts again just to be thorough. A chopper had appeared in the sky out of nowhere, then landed a mile north on the tiny Prickly Pear Island. Exactly where his catamaran was heading. The ripples of a mechanical body slicing through the air had touched his naked back and made the fine hairs on his nape tingle. A blanket of noxious helicopter jet fuel had throttled the atmosphere and thrown him into crisis mode.

For anyone else, like the five people with him on the boat, these fast-paced events would have been little cause for concern. His Anguillan skipper Leron was a decent sailor, but being nineteen, his head was in the clouds and he wasn
’
t very perceptive of the world around him. And the four newlyweds from Dallas and Omaha who had signed up for Blackwell
’
s island-hopping cruise. Well, they were newlyweds. Lying on the trampolines of the boat worshipping the cloudless sky. Blissfully oblivious to the flying anomaly.

But Blackwell
’
s mind functioned with a different operating system. He was trained to perceive and react to the seemingly trivial details that a lay person happily skips over. Callers in the dead of the night who hang up when they hear your voice. Unfamiliar faces that stick out in a crowd. The drop in pressure when someone harboring dark secrets steps into your orbit. Subtle changes in people
’
s body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice when they try to mask fear or aggression. Even minor disruptions to innocent routines like street cleaning or garbage collection. Blackwell was programmed to process anything out of the norm as a possible harbinger of more sinister things to come. Just like the unwelcome sight of that helicopter.

The fact that the chopper had landed on the northern shore of the minuscule island where the catamaran was heading was the real red flag. “Coincidences are for pussies,” an instructor had once told him. The island didn
’
t have a heliport, and whoever had landed there had just broken a thick wad of laws. No coincidence there.

Blackwell had taken tourists on this cruise almost every day for the last two years, and never once had a helicopter of this size flying this low taken this path and landed on the island. The largest aircraft permitted to fly here were turboprop commercial planes connecting Anguilla to its neighboring islands. And Prickly Pear was only really fit for day trips by boat. No one lived there—the service staff of the island
’
s two beach-shack restaurants
and the thatched-roof bar commuted from Anguilla and left before sundown.

He took off his cream Panama hat and ran his fingers through his untamed auburn hair with its subtle signs of gray. Then stepped back and considered the situation from every possible angle. Whichever way he went about, he was always left with two possible options. Two explanations of who had come for him, both distasteful in their own ways.

The first possibility was the most obvious. Considering the work he
’
d left behind and the types of characters he
’
d dealt with, any number of people could still want to punch his ticket. Terrorists, organized criminals, human traffickers, and every possible shade of ordinary people turned psychopathic killers could just as well be on that chopper with some ancient score to settle with him.

Then there were his old employers. That option wasn
’
t second in order of priority because they lacked the means or didn
’
t know all along where to find him. But because it was unlikely they would still have any interest in him.
What could they want from me?
What purpose could I possibly serve now?
The last job he did for them in Hermosa Beach four years ago had burned him out and left him a poor facsimile of a man. He had escaped to this island hardly interested in staying alive, let alone willing to ever work that job again. And the emotional meltdown hadn
’
t just cost him his job. He
’
d lost his marriage. His kids. And he came this close to losing his mind as well. To pulling the trigger.

He descended into the tiny cabin of his boat and grabbed a pair of Yukon binoculars.

Then he returned to the deck, positioned himself away from Leron and the newlyweds, and scanned the shoreline. They were now about half a mile from the southern shore of Prickly Pear.

The original plan had been to circle around and dock by the north face of the island. They
’
d ferry the passengers by dinghy to the shore for some snorkeling and a lazy lunch of barbecued mahi-mahi washed down with a few cold beers. Then over to an even smaller island called Sandy Beach to witness the magic of an orange sun plunging into the water.

But if the helicopter that had just landed on Prickly Pear was indeed waiting for him, maybe even ready to take him by force, he wasn
’
t about to play into their hands. Not with five innocent bystanders on his boat, let alone the handful of day trippers and the service staff already on the island.

There was no chance he was overreacting. No way he could account for a perfectly innocent reason a helicopter had landed on the island. And even if there was a sliver of doubt, Blackwell was not the sort of man to risk it.

The sight of the barren south shore of Prickly Pear gave him an idea. He could probably swim the distance to the south face in about ten minutes. Then he
’
d walk across the island to get to the north side. It was only about a thousand feet and he
’
d hiked it several times. If the people in the helicopter were coming with harmful intentions, his only bet was to counter-ambush them from the south side.

He slipped back into the cabin and put on a pair of water shoes and a diving shirt. Then he stuffed his nine-millimeter Beretta, binoculars, and phone into an airtight pouch, which he strapped to his body.

Back on the deck, Blackwell removed his sunglasses, took Leron aside, and whispered to him, “Slight change of plan, kid.”

Blackwell rarely took off his shades to expose his powder-blue eyes to the world. The dark tint of the glasses didn
’
t just block harmful UV rays coming in, but his innermost thoughts and feelings seeping out.

Leron
’
s eyes were clouded with confusion. For the last two years, Blackwell had drilled into his young assistant the fundamentals of customer service and running a serious business, American-style. Which entailed a religious obsession with sticking to the routine. Acts of God, a slow economy, or nasty weather were the only exceptions to that rule.

“I need you to turn this boat around, take these kids back to Anguilla, and give them a refund.”

Leron nodded, eyes wide and tugging nervously on his sun-kissed dreadlocks.

“Then pass by my place and take Jacky. There
’
s plenty of dog food in the pantry, take that too.”

“Keys?”

“Hidden inside a conch near the back door.”

Leron glanced at the bulging pouch strapped to Blackwell
’
s body. “Where you going, boss?”

Blackwell wasn
’
t about to explain.

“Cancel all bookings indefinitely until you hear from me.”

Even though Leron was more man than boy, Blackwell saw the fear of an insecure child in his eyes. It reminded him of his own kids, Milo and Calista, and the fact that what he was about to embark upon might result in never seeing them again.

Without waiting for Leron to internalize his marching orders, or for himself to have second thoughts, Blackwell plunged over the silent engines of the catamaran and disappeared in the water.

Other books

Icarus. by Russell Andrews

Silence by Mechtild Borrmann

Murder by Candlelight by Michael Knox Beran

Setting by Jack M Bickham

La fortuna de los Rougon by Émile Zola

Red Line by Brian Thiem

The Fuller's Apprentice (The Chronicles of Tevenar Book 1) by Angela Holder

My Angel by Christine Young

The Reason Why by Vickie M. Stringer

Play Dead by John Levitt