The smog parted, revealing Bream standing outside Charlie and Drummond’s cell. Dust whitened the pilot’s hair and coated his face, except where blood dripped down. He carried an assault rifle, his pants pockets bulged with fresh mags, additional guns protruded from his waistband, and grenades dangled from his belt along with a sheathed knife almost as big as a machete.
“I had to whack an attractive lady from the CIA in the head with a teakettle to get out here, but otherwise you fellas did well in getting thrown in this clink,” he said. “I had no damned idea how we were going to get you off Martinique after we took care of the bomb business.”
Could this be Bream to the rescue? Charlie was at a loss.
The pilot stepped out of sight. The cell’s front wall slid open with a resounding clank. Reappearing, Bream grumbled. “Course, now we gotta get off this island.”
“Thank you, J. T.,” said Drummond, exiting the cell.
“My pleasure.” Bream drew one of the pistols from his waistband.
Charlie was too far away to do anything more than watch in horror: Had Bream decided that Drummond was now expendable? Drummond, for his part, barely registered the pistol.
“Either of you got a preference for the Glock 17?” Bream asked.
“I do.” Drummond claimed the stout black pistol as if slipping on a glove. He racked the slide, inspected the chamber, hit a button ejecting the clip, and studied its contents. Satisfied, he rammed it home, checked the safety, and found a comfortable grip. “Nice.”
“Fly me, you do get some frills,” Bream said.
He offered Charlie a rugged gray pistol, a Sig Sauer. Charlie happily accepted, though in his estimation his skill as a marksman was limited to hitting a target directly in front of him. If the target was large and stationary.
He followed Bream and Drummond to the stairs, imitating the way they led with their guns, as if lighting the way.
At the lower landing, Bream sidestepped the crimson pool surrounding Minana. “I got this guy and Ricky-Ricardo-on-Steroids on their way down from the cellblock. The other guard was dead on my arrival. Who else have y’all seen since you’ve been here?”
“We heard there was a maintenance man.” Charlie tried to avoid looking at the dead man.
“Yeah. Overalls. Him and a ponytailed version of Ricky Ricardo and another thug were loading the washing machine onto a cig boat when I puttered up. They dropped what they were doing and started shooting at me. I had to fire blind.” Bream pantomimed ducking beneath his boat’s gunwale and firing without looking. “I got lucky,” he concluded with false modesty.
Sticking his gun out ahead of him, he hugged the doorframe, then darted out of the stairwell.
“We’re good for now,” he called back.
Drummond exited with catlike movements similar to Bream’s. Charlie brought up the rear, clumsily, slipping off the short step down from the landing to the intake desk, almost falling onto the bribe-proof Bulcao. The guard sat at his computer terminal as if still typing, except his neck was at an impossible angle and there was a dark cavity where his left eye had been.
“Don’t forget your personal items,” Bream said with a wave at the brown paper bag now labeled LESSER/RAMIREZ. “Also it might be slightly less conspicuous if you two changed out of those fire-colored jumpsuits.”
Charlie snatched the paper bag. Nauseated by Bulcao’s body, he raced to check the contents of the bag-everything was there-then rejoined Bream and Drummond.
Like them, he flattened himself against the front wall and peered out a window. The Hector look-alike and two other men lay outside, on the stretch of dirt between the building and the water. The late-afternoon sun cast long shadows of their bodies, making it all the more apparent that the men were not moving and never would again. If there were more of their gang, the barren, rocky ground offered nowhere for them to hide.
“Exactly what I was hoping to see,” Bream said. “The only bad news is this rock’s now too hot for us to do the bomb-for-Alice swap. We gotta go somewhere else.”
“Where?” Charlie asked.
“There’s an uninhabited spit of land a few clicks off Saint Lucia. An associate of mine is standing by with a scientist who’ll do the nuclear physics version of kicking the ADM’s tires.” Bream started toward the giant speedboat bobbing at the dock, the washing machine visible in silhouette in the stern. “Here’s hoping the dead guys won’t mind if we take their boat.”