Operation Caribe

24

On the Dustboat

NOLAN WONDERED IF he needed some suntan lotion.

He was stretched out on a beach chair atop the Dustboat’s bridge roof, the sun beating down on him mercilessly. He had his shades on, and a wet cloth was covering his head. But he could still feel his skin getting a little burned—and this was a good thing.

He believed the last of the methoxsalen injected into him for the Shanghai adventure was finally leaving his system. The diluted nitric wash had already faded away. So if he was getting a sunburn, that might mean he was on his way back to being just another pale white guy again—at least on the outside.

It was almost 3 P.M. They’d been cruising around the astonishingly clear waters of the outer Abaco island chain since before 10 A.M. Ramon, their stoned informant, was in the ship’s control room below, studying maps, looking at GPS readouts and having intense discussions with the Senegals—who he was convinced were from Jamaica, despite their repeated denials. This was all in an effort to find the island he believed the missing woodcutters were actually taken to, maybe by pirates, maybe by a UFO.

But at the moment, Nolan really didn’t care. The sun felt warm and healing. The flashbacks of Shanghai were finally dissolving, along with his fake stitches, and all thoughts of the weird events from the night before. He’d spotted a number of U.S. military aircraft flying off in the distance. Navy P-3 Orions and Air Force C-130s, they seemed to be doing crisscrossing patterns as part of the overall search for the phantom pirates, he guessed. So at least someone was doing something constructive. But if, as Batman believed, Whiskey had been sent out here on a fool’s mission, then for $5 million, fools they would be.

He just wished they’d brought some Coppertone.

* * *

THERE WERE VERY few islands in the Bahamas that had anything taller than palm or black mangrove trees growing on them.

A few, though, were dotted with the juniperus barbadensis, a type of conifer, or the ficus aurea, better known as the strangler fig. Both trees could grow to substantial size.

By Ramon’s distorted thinking, the native Bahamian women who’d lost their menfolk had probably gotten the name of the work island wrong. That’s why the cops had found a cay with no trees on it. Only islands where juniperus barbadensis or ficus aurea grew would be logical places for anyone wanting to cut down a “forest of trees.” And Ramon was sure he knew of just such an island close by North Gin Cay. It all sounded good—but they’d been going around in circles ever since he’d come aboard.

Nolan could hear everything being said on the bridge right below him—and Ramon truly was trying to find the island he had in mind. But he kept saying that he was lacking in “inspiration,” as he called it, and that was making the search more difficult.

Half asleep and pleasantly disengaged, Nolan wasn’t sure just what Ramon meant until one of the Senegals finally poked his head up over the roof and, in a slightly exasperated voice, told Nolan, “Son inspiration est l’herbe.”

His inspiration is in the herb.

Without moving an inch, Nolan replied: “Informer l’homme Chauve-souris.”

Tell the Batman.

Within a few minutes, Batman had passed a little inspiration on to Ramon. Ramon lit it up, indulged in it, and instantly had them going at full speed toward the northeast.

* * *

NOT TEN MINUTES later, they were approaching an isolated cay at the end of the outer Abaco chain.

It was an odd-looking place, flat, oval-shaped and maybe a half-mile around. There were no buildings or any other sign of habitation on it. A huge lake in the middle was fed by a long channel running through it from the sea. The lake was 100 yards wide at some points, narrower at others, and was roughly rectangular in shape. Judging from its blue water, it ran fairly deep.

The island was also home to some “blue holes,” the underwater cave systems found on many Bahamian islands. And just as Ramon had said, the place was thick with patches of tall overhanging trees that didn’t seem particularly Bahamian. There were so many of them, they practically hid the lake from view in some places

Appropriately, the island’s name was Big Hole Cay.

* * *

THEY LOWERED A boat, and Nolan, Batman and Ramon motored toward shore.

The closer they got to the island, the more deserted and lifeless it seemed. So when they finally arrived on the beach, they were surprised to discover a lot of tools scattered about the sand. There were some axes and saws and ropes, and dozens of shovels, rusting in the sun.

“Looks like the equipment made it here,” Batman said. “But was anything ever done with it?”

It was hard to tell. They could see no felled trees, no stumps, no piles of sawdust. And no evidence that any wood had left the island.

“This is a good sign,” Ramon told them. “There is supposedly a creature that lives on islands such as this. It’s called a chickcarnie. It has three toes, red eyes and the body of a bird. Anyone who disturbs its nest gets very f*cked up, as in nothing is left of them but a few bones.”

“Charming,” Nolan said.

They left Ramon with the boat and walked deeper into the forest. That’s when they came upon something very odd.

The channel that fed the island’s big lake had a fairly narrow opening coming in from the sea. On reaching its banks, Nolan and Batman discovered what looked to be a recent effort to widen this opening. On both sides, they could see substantial portions of sand, mud and vegetation had been freshly removed, enlarging the relatively slight gap from about fifty feet to 100 feet or more.

It was only a small area where this work had been done, maybe 200 feet along each bank until the channel widened out on its own before emptying into the big, tree-shrouded lake. But it must have been arduous work for whoever did the labor, because all of it would have had to have been done by hand.

So, had the missing woodcutters actually been hired to widen this channel’s opening? Was that the reason for all the rusty shovels?

“This channel’s mouth was already fifty feet wide,” Nolan said, looking at a year-old Google photo of the place. “Why would anyone want it to be a hundred feet across? No one’s building anything here. This place is about as isolated as you can get. It’s hardly been touched by civilization at all.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Batman agreed. “There’s more water than land here—plus before you built anything, you’d have to cut down all these freaking trees.”

They walked back to the beach to find Ramon lighting up again.

Batman peeled off ten fifty-dollar bills for him.

“We did see something weird out there,” Batman told him. “We’re just not sure whether it means anything or not. I mean, let’s face it: those woodcutters could be over on South Beach right now, paying for the boom-boom. Or maybe they’re sleeping with the fishes. Or living on Mars. Who knows? It’s strange.”

Ramon took the bills, counted them out, and then put them in his pocket.

“Like I tell you, mon, lots of things are like that out here,” he said after blowing out a lung full of smoke. “Some things more stranger than others.”

“Like what?” Nolan asked him. He couldn’t resist.

Ramon pushed back his dreadlocks and said, “Like that submarine I found.”