One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [47]
I wasn’t sure what to do. I figured I’d better call 911 but decided to check on Jennifer first. I called her name and descended into the galley. She came flying out of the forward hold, hugging me and crying uncontrollably. She stopped sobbing and began babbling something about her uncle and the danger he was in.
I held on to her arms and pushed her back a little until I could see into her eyes, saying, “Whoa. Slow down. It’s okay now. What did those guys want?’
“I don’t know. They said that my uncle was in trouble, and that if I wanted to help him I had to give them a package he had sent. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I never got a package, but when I told them that, they said that it was going to be very painful for me if I continued to lie. The shorter one began talking about what he was going to do to me if I didn’t give them the package.”
I already knew something screwy was going on, because Neanderthal had mentioned my fight at the Windjammer. These guys must have had Jennifer under surveillance, and an effort like that meant that somebody wanted something very badly from her. I found it hard to believe she was completely in the dark. Great. Just perfect. I had broken up some sort of sleazy criminal exchange.
“Who are those guys, and don’t give me ‘I don’t know.’ Bad guys hunting you for no reason only happens in the movies. What are you into? Drugs or something?”
Jennifer shook her head violently. “I’m not into anything. I don’t know what they’re after. Something about my uncle, I guess.”
“Who’s your uncle?”
“He’s on a research expedition in the Guatemalan rain forest. I have no idea what they could want with him, or with me. I’m telling the truth. They were definitely after me because they knew my uncle’s name. I don’t know what’s going on.”
She broke down again and began to sob, sinking into a chair. I didn’t buy a single bit of what she’d said. I didn’t think the crying was an act, because they probably had threatened her with all sorts of vile shit, but I was sure she was lying about not knowing what was going on. After interrogating hundreds of suspected terrorists, I had a cynical view about a person’s innocence when the facts didn’t jibe. You wouldn’t believe the number of times I have heard a terrorist say something stupid like, “I swear, I didn’t know that the car in my garage had four hundred pounds of TNT in it. I just took it in for an oil change. . . .”
I figured Jennifer and her uncle were involved in some sort of drug smuggling scheme, and would leave it at that. Research expedition. Yeah, right. Researching how to get some product across the border.
Whatever she was into, I now had a new concern. I had just whacked a couple of unsavory individuals. These types of thugs had bosses who remained in power by being the biggest badasses in the jungle. They wouldn’t let this go, but would be coming for me to make sure everyone knew what happened to somebody who interfered. On top of that, there was no way the cops would believe that I had nothing to do with whatever was going on.
I thought about my options, which is to say I realized I had very few. I could simply get on my boat and start sailing somewhere, getting someplace safe and starting over, but in the two months I had owned the boat, I had done absolutely nothing with it. It was less seaworthy now than when I’d bought it. Not that that really mattered, since I barely knew how to sail and had about four hundred dollars to my name. That pretty much eliminated the water option. I could leave the boat and do the same thing on land, but my finances made this even more unattractive. At least with the boat I’d be taking my house with me. Without it, I’d either be sleeping outdoors or running out of money in a matter of days.
I cursed and punched a bulkhead, the anger coming back with a vengeance. Jennifer recoiled at the violence, but I didn’t give a shit.
“You’re going to tell me what’s going on before the cops get here. I’m not going to get rolled up into