He seemed half crazed or drunk, or both, but there was no doubt he knew how to handle a speedboat. Once they were in the lee of the island, the swell diminished, and the boat stopped bucking like a wild stallion. Chuco then leaned over and switched on the landing lights, along with a powerful spotlight on the prow.
“What the fuck?” Osvaldo shouted. “We’ll be spotted!”
“I have to be able to see!” the skipper called back as he also turned on the Fathometer to gauge the depth of the water. “You don’t want me to fucking ground us. Now, let me do my goddamn job!”
Glancing between the sea up ahead and the Fathometer screen before him in the instrument panel, Chuco slalomed his way through the reef on the approach to Ons. With the occasional sudden sharp flickof the rudder, he managed to steer clear of the treacherous rocks lurking just below the surface.
If he hadn’t been so focused on those things, he might have seen, a few hundred feet to the left, a person clinging to an oil drum. But the idea of anyone being desperate enough to get in the water in such conditions didn’t so much as enter his thoughts.
With a final, almost suicidal burst of throttle, after which he cut and expertly tilted all four engines inside by jamming down a lever, Chuco Barreiros launched the speedboat straight at the beach. The nose hit the sandy bottom with a rasping hiss and carried the vessel—about two-thirds of the hull—firmly ashore.
“Made it!” cried the skipper.
With the din of the engines gone, the sudden quiet onshore—there were only the wind whistling in the bare trees and the waves lapping against the shore—was almost eerie.
Osvaldo stood up, which felt strange after having just about acquired his sea legs on such a bumpy crossing. He gave himself only a few seconds. They had to move.
“All right, men, lock and load! First, we secure the beach. Carlito, Joel, you take the right side. Python, you take the left. I’m covering. Move out!”
The Colombians jumped out of the boat with practiced movements. If any of them still felt discomfort from the bumpy ride, it didn’t show. Osvaldo watched them with satisfaction. He had handpicked these three for their extensive military experience. They were ruthless and remorseless, the best in the field.
They fanned out across the beach, handguns at forty-five-degree angles to the ground, fingers hovering on the triggers. After a short while, Osvaldo heard a series of confirmatory whistles. All clear.
“See you back here,” grunted Chuco, taking a cigarette between his ruinous teeth. “Don’t take too long—the tide’s going out, and it’ll be a job getting the boat down over bare sand.”
“We’ll be quick,” Osvaldo said, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m not here on vacation.”
Osvaldo knew Chuco would wait for them, however long it took. The man knew whom he was dealing with.
Osvaldo caught up with his men, and the four of them, with the deserted vacation homes the only witnesses, moved soundlessly along the track to the village.
When they reached the road, they were amazed at what they found.
“What the . . .”
The street, which in the summer would be crowded with tourists just off the ferry, was desolate—it looked like a hurricane had been through the place. Shotguns seemed to have been fired at the pitted front of the Docampo supermarket, and someone appeared to have smashed the door down with an axe. The ice cream sign, full of holes, creaked dully in the breeze.
There was evidence of fighting everywhere they looked. Broken glass covered the ground, and a barricade, formed of yellow garbage containers, old tires, and fish crates, had been set up in the middle of the road. Whatever had happened there had taken place some hours earlier, and none of the combatants were anywhere to be seen.
Python moved a little way to the side. He was short and barrel-like, with arms like pistons, and his half-unbuttoned shirt revealed the sizable snake tattoo from which he got his name. He crouched over something glistening on the ground, touched his fingers to it, and brought them to his nose.
“Blood.” He nodded. “Still fresh. Shoot-out happened less than two hours ago.”
“I can see that.” Osvaldo frowned.
He didn’t like it. He thought he was showing up on a cute little island inhabited by the type of people he could simply scare into handing over the money. And here was the aftermath of what appeared to have been a full-scale gunfight, outcome uncertain. Maybe the victorswere hiding in the shadows, with him and his men in their sights at this very moment.
“Change of plan,” he hissed. “Shoot first, ask questions later. We move together, and we stick to the cover.”
They crept forward along the street, observing the damage. There didn’t appear to have been many casualties, apart from whoever had left the patch of blood. The bullet holes seemed scattered rather than concentrated, and to Osvaldo’s clinical eye, it looked more like an act of vandalism than a bona fide assault.
The work of amateurs, he concluded. Civilians, most likely, out to cause a ruckus and give whoever it was a fright.
Nonetheless, he would have felt better with an assault rifle in his hands just now. He and his men each had a Beretta 92S—provided by the fixer in Madrid for what was supposed to have been a simple in-and-out job—but these had only fifteen-round magazines. But he might as well have asked for the moon to be made of cheese.
You play the hand you’re dealt.
One of his men, his olive-skinned face leathery and sporting a pencil mustache, tapped him on the shoulder.
