Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can’t Put Down

“I’ll get the first-aid kit.”

“Stop.”

Bailey stopped, turned back. He looked the man over. No evidence of injury.

The man stared him down, said, “I had a nosebleed.”

“Right.”

“Just get us out of here, fast.”

“Fast or quiet,” said Bailey. “You can’t have both.”

“Fast.”

“You got it.” Bailey climbed up the ladder to the flybridge helm. “Hang on.” He jammed the throttles forward and the twin diesels roared up from idle. His blood-splattered passenger grabbed the ladder for support, but stayed down on the aft deck.

As they came around the reef, automatic weapons fire rang out from shore.

Pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap.

The man who called himself Diego flattened against the deck, but the gunfire sounded more like protest than attack, and it died rapidly. At this distance, with only dim starlight and no moon, with the boat ru

Haiti had a meager Coast Guard and Bailey didn’t think they’d be able to scramble a boat out in time, but he stayed up on the flybridge where he could spot any unwelcome company, just in case.

No boat appeared.

Outside the protection of the reef, the sea rose up and the swells grew to about seven feet. No challenge to the stability of the cat, but Bailey wondered if an unexpected storm was in their future. He’d checked the marine forecast earlier in the day, but conditions change quickly in these parts.

He switched on the radio. No storm on the way. Small consolation.

No moon. I leave nothing to chance. Damn. Bailey had noticed that it would be a moonless night when he’d checked the tide calendar. It should’ve raised a red flag, but he’d been too busy thinking about the ten thousand dollars. Too busy chasing his dream.

And now everything had gone to dog shit.

Bailey told himself to take it easy: cut out the self-flagellation and focus on the present situation. Yes, his client was wearing someone else’s blood, and yes, there’d been men with automatic weapons on the beach. But automatic weapons were relatively easy to come by in Haiti; the men on the beach could’ve been gangsters as easy as cops.

And then the radio rendered Bailey’s rationalizations impotent.

The Caribbean News Agency was reporting that Dominic Martel-the leader of Haiti ’s pro-democracy movement-had been shot to death that evening as he dined with his family in a restaurant in the town of Cap Haitien. Cap Haitien was only six miles southeast of Labadee Beach.

Shit. Bailey felt his stomach turn over. His client was an assassin.

Still no boat appeared, and he realized that there would be none. They’d gotten away clean. But now he had bigger things to worry about. Now he had to worry about his client. It was time to start being active, instead of reactive. Time to put the old skills to work.

There was no boat giving chase, but down on the aft deck, the man who called himself Diego could not see over the swells. Bailey set the autopilot, grabbed the flashlight and moved to the ladder, as if in a hurry.

“We got company,” he called down to the man. “Get inside.” He came down the ladder at speed and ushered his client into the pilothouse. The man didn’t argue.

Bailey opened a trapdoor in the cabin floor and climbed down a steep set of metal stairs into the port hull, just ahead of the engine room. It was hot and loud down there. He flipped a switch and fluorescent lights flickered to life in the ceiling.

“Come on, come on,” he said, waving at the man. He pressed on a false wall and it opened, revealing a small padded closet just large enough for one person. There was a built-in seat, also padded.

The man came down the stairs, clutching his case. He looked dubiously at the custom-built people-hider.

Bailey said, “It’s safe. It has its own ventilation. If we get boarded, they won’t find you.”

The man stepped inside, but he didn’t look happy about it.

Bailey pushed the false wall back into place. He climbed up the stairs, got a water bottle and a box of extrastrength Gravol from the galley, returned and pressed on the wall.

“Here,” he said, and handed the bottle to the man. He held the box of Gravol up for the man to see, then popped a couple of pills free of their blister pack. “Take these.” The man did not reach for them. “Listen,” Bailey said, “I’m go

The man swallowed the pills. Bailey shut the secret door.

At the lower helm station, Bailey shut off the autopilot and switched on the ru

Then he reached forward and flipped a toggle switch, shutting off the ventilation to the people-hider.

He thought things through. The man who called himself Diego had taken a brief nap after Bailey had picked him up at the marina, but had not slept on the overnight journey from Long Island to Haiti, and Bailey doubted that sleep had been on his agenda during his time ashore. So he’d been awake at least thirty hours.

Shutting off the ventilation wouldn’t kill the man, but the oxygen level in the people-hider would deplete. Between that and the extrastrength Gravol, Bailey figured the man would be unconscious within the hour.

Bailey pressed on the secret door and eased it open. He was greeted by a beautiful sound. Snoring. The man who called himself Diego was asleep, reclined on the seat, his head resting against the padded wall. The Pelican case had slipped from his grasp and lay on the floor.

Bailey took the case, and gently closed the door.

Up in the lounge, Bailey flipped the latches and opened the case. He withdrew a map that showed a section of Haiti ’s north shore, from Labadee to the town of Cap Haitien. Beneath the map was a semiautomatic pistol. He lifted the pistol from the case, smelled it. Cordite. He put the recently fired pistol aside. There was money in the case. American money, about $30,000. Bailey fished around under the cash, found a passport. A U.S. passport. He took it out of the case and opened it.

His blood ran cold. Staring back at him was the standard passport photo of the man who called himself Diego. But the name on the passport was Tom Bailey.

I leave nothing to chance. So the man who called himself Diego wasn’t done killing.

Or thought he wasn’t. Bailey could take care of this threat without breaking a sweat. The man was asleep and Bailey had his gun. Easiest thing in the world, to walk downstairs and put a bullet in the man’s head with his own gun. End of threat. He could weigh down the body with an anchor and some line. Dump the body at sea, along with the gun. Done. Finished. Pretend it never happened.

But then Bailey thought about it from the other man’s perspective. A change of identity would mean relocating. It was an expensive proposition. It would mean a significant sum of money waiting for him in his new destination. Had to. But there was nothing else in the case to say where.

And that led Bailey on a new train of thought. Was this a crazy idea? A reckless bet? No, he decided. It was time to go legit-now-and this could set him on his new path. The man had an ego problem; he would play on that.

This was a calculated risk.

He would have to put the case back the way he found it-passport under the money, gun on top and the map covering the gun. Then return the case to the people-hider with the man and switch the ventilation back on.