"Doing a hit on an island is like doing a kill in a small town, then going to the only IHOP in town to eat. You don"t have a shootout and stick around for a Rooty Tooty Fresh "N Fruity."

"Right now we are trying to keep a war between us and the LKs from breaking out."

"Why would a war break out?"

"Look in the mirror and see the answer. Things didn"t go as scheduled. You didn"t burn the safe house. You killed two LKs. Do I really need to cover that major f.u.c.k-up point by point?"

"Look, if I stay on this island, I need supplies. Call Tradespan, send two barrels of supplies."

"Make do with what you have. Need cash, you can always try to sell what you sit on."

"Respect me. You expect me to work and work and work and show up every d.a.m.n day and not get paid a d.a.m.n dime? Who do you think I am, a schoolteacher in Antigua? I demand my money."

"The man behind the double red doors will send someone from the Barbarians to meet you."

"I know how this goes. All problems are redundant and redundancy is eliminated."

"Unless notified otherwise, the meet with the representatives will happen in two days."

"Get me credit cards and a clean pa.s.sport. This is my last time asking nicely."

"Just be prepared for the meeting with the team members they have organized."

""Members." Plural. Who is coming down here to this ham-shaped rock?"

"The team has been prepped. They will come to the Six Roads safe house."

"No. Not my safe house. If we meet, we meet in a public setting."

"You don"t control this, Reaper."

"My way, or there will not be a f.u.c.kin" meeting."

There was a long pause. He put me on hold. Forced me to listen to elevator music.

He came back on and said, "Don"t f.u.c.k it up like you f.u.c.ked up in Trinidad."

"f.u.c.k you. Pick up a newspaper from down here and read how I handled last night, you p.r.i.c.k."

"No more calls or texts to Pembroke Pines, Florida. You"ve made at least one call to Florida a day. We were hoping you would put that behind you, but you continue to put this organization at risk."

"You"ve tapped his phone."

"The man behind the double red doors sent a message, one for me to read you."

"I"m listening."

""Johnny Parker. He"s a n.o.body, but it could get ugly for him and his child. n.o.body likes to go to a double funeral for a father and his kid. So let"s avoid making that accident happen.""

My Ducati was fine where it was parked. I stood where I was until a young woman in a black sequined dress parked her Toyota Allex on the side of the road, then went toward Sugar Ultra. When no one was watching, I went through the gate that led to the Anglican church. Went in dressed in black jeans and a dark hoodie, and emerged as a vixen with gray eyes, mid-back-length bleach-blond hair with sandy brown lowlights. The basics were important. People recalled hair and eyes. Most of all, they remembered accents. My guns had been left inside of my backpack, and my backpack had been hidden on church grounds. Soon I strolled by a crowd of aggressive taxi drivers. One potbellied man walked out to the road and up on me, told me that I looked thirsty and offered me a beer.

With a raspy, c.o.c.kney accent, a female Michael Caine, I said, "Is the lager complimentary?"

He quirked his lips and in a hard Bajan dialect he said, "Englishwoman, meat gaw pull?"

Meat gaw pull. The old man had asked me to f.u.c.k him for a can of beer.

He stood there wearing a red T-shirt, TIME"S UP FREUNDEL in bold letters on the front.

I dropped the c.o.c.kney, sounded as Bajan as flying fish, and snapped, "Fuh fakkin Banks? Go suck a s.h.i.tty ra.s.shole you old a.s.s nasty son-of-a-f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h. Old a.s.s acting like a hard-ears saga boy wid nuh brought-upsy. Open your nasty mouth again and you get catspraddled in a ba.s.sa-ba.s.sa wid me. I will f.u.c.k yuh up, boi."

If we hadn"t been on a main road, a crowd pa.s.sing, I would"ve kicked his a.s.s, Chicago-style.

I showed him two middle fingers, turned around, shook off the urge to bash his face in, became a lady again. Irritated. Last night I was gunning down drug runners. Tonight my target was a cricketer.

In my mind, as I walked like the child of Tyra and Beyonce, I tried to connect the dots.

First I tried to understand why the h.e.l.l I had been sentenced to this prison for so long.

Then I wondered how many people I would have to damage to close this next contract.

EIGHTEEN.

Diamond Dust entered the private suite at the Carlton again, head high, this time excited.

War Machine rose from his seat, went to his wife. "Was there a new problem?"

"No. Good news just arrived. I need all of my top men to hear this announcement."

Appaloosa, Guerrero, King Killer, and Kandinsky came to her, stood in front of their queen, their Princess Di of Trinidad. War Machine stood in front of his men, their leader, their one true king.

Diamond Dust said, "The workers we hired to go above and beyond what the authorities here are capable of doing have found something. They have spent every moment studying bank footage and have pulled images from all cameras in the area. We have information the police will never access."

War Machine said, "What do we have? Get on with it."

"We have a solid image we can use to track her using facial recognition software. The Kiwi is cunning. Quick. Daring. So we have to remain vigilant, not let another moment pa.s.s. Believe it or not, after all of this time, the b.i.t.c.h might still be in the West Indies. She might be on our island."

Kandinsky sipped his liquor, asked, "What good will the photo do?"

"No matter what deception the killer used, the workers said the distance between the eyes is all we need to try to run an image through databases. The alarm had been off, but the camera was active."

King Killer put his hand on his sister"s shoulder and asked, "And there is a clear shot?"

"Yes, my brother. They have gone frame by frame and found a shot."

Appaloosa said, "Finally. We can run that through databases at the airport and see if she left on a plane. Same for the ships. It"s a long shot, but it"s better than nothing."

Diamond Dust said, "It is a shot we should have had forty days ago."

War Machine said, "Until that leads us somewhere, we can only wait, so we are done."

"No. We are not done."

War Machine asked his wife, "Is there more?"

"There is more. I have hired others to track the Kiwi."

"When was this done?"

"I hired a group out of South America."

"I was not aware of this project."

"Not important, husband. They came here, reviewed what had been left behind, and have found the safe house she used. It"s northeast. I had expected it to be in Port of Spain, but it"s northeast."

War Machine asked, "Why wasn"t I informed? Why weren"t my men informed?"

She paused. "I am informing you now. I am informing all of you, everyone on this team. The police haven"t found the safe house, aren"t aware that it exists, so we are ahead of everyone on this."

"I will say this for all to hear, and I will only say this once," War Machine said, and tightened his jaw. "I am the strategist."

"I see things that you fail to see."

"Karleen, my ambitious wife, don"t overstep."

"Don"t talk to me that way in front of my men."

"And don"t ever make me look weak in front of my soldiers. Don"t ever try."

She paused, smiled, raised her hand, touched War Machine"s face, and in a soft voice said, "Apologies. I had forgotten how fragile an ego can be. Forgive me for that oversight. Two of our brothers were killed. Good news arrived and I was excited. I didn"t think that anything I was doing would lead to anything substantial, but it has. I have sent men there to secure the safe house until we can arrive."

"You sent men? How in the f.u.c.k are you going to send my men without notifying me?"

"I did what needed to be done. If it had turned out to be nothing, then no one would have . . . I wasn"t sure if it was the location, so I sent three men there to stake it out, see if she returned."

"Under whose authority?"

"Under my authority. Be glad I did. They broke in and it was more than we expected."

"And I wasn"t notified? None of the top five were notified?"

"There wasn"t time."

"We sleep in the same bed, woman."

"Can we move forward?"

"Move forward."

"The men texted me photos of what was on the walls. She was there. I don"t know how many were there with her, who were her accomplices, but that small house in the north was where this was plotted. Blueprints, plans, everything is there, intact. The a.s.sa.s.sination was planned, and I am sure that it was part of the conspiracy to discredit our organization and cause us to lose favor with the people."

"You don"t give military commands. You don"t use my men without my authority. Sending men up there without proper backup, they could"ve all been slaughtered, and whose fault would that have been?"

"But they weren"t."

"You"re missing the point."

"There is a conspiracy in play. We have been attacked in Miami, New York, and Barbados. Do you think all of that is a coincidence? The island knows we have faltered. The world knows."

"Other organizations know as well."

"Exactly. Now men and women who need protection are going to other groups, and will do so until this is resolved. Our brand is damaged. We have a reputation to maintain and we will not cease our hunt until we have someone in the ground. We will do what we have to do to fix our sullied reputation."

The men said nothing, just shifted, looked to War Machine, waited for him to make a call. Warriors would always follow the word of the king. But War Machine knew that his wife had ensured an emotional connection between her and all the top men. She had been cunning, smart, forward-thinking.

She said, "We will make the widows feel the satisfaction that comes with revenge. We will make the rest of our organization know that we are solid, and make the outside world know that we remain competent."

War Machine looked at his wife, displeased. Her words, her voice, her speeches were always as powerful as his gun, his sword, his sharpened knife. She had an undeniable gift. If he damaged her, then all would be lost. He loved her. He hated her. He couldn"t destroy her without destroying himself.

He had to let this play out. This course of action had momentum and resistance was futile.

She said, "I sense the tension between us all. Soon we can all meet at Pa.s.sy Bay. It has been a while since I have conferred with all five. It has been a long while since we have bonded."

War Machine nodded. "Men. Finish your drinks. Let"s prepare to move to the northeast."

King Killer took his sister"s hands, kissed her cheeks, her lips, then looked in her eyes.

He said, "As usual, you have done an excellent job. We will find her."

She nodded. "We will find the truth. Neziah, my brother, the killer of kings; we will find the truth."

NINETEEN.

St. Lawrence Gap, Parish of Christ Church Biggie Smalls. Tupac. Dr. Dre. Snoop Lion when he was Snoop Dogg. American music b.u.mped hard. I had spent my teen years in Southern Cali and the music was taking me back.

Men were in their own line, being searched by security at the door. Women were in a separate row. I stepped to the rear of the queue, felt the music, and my body started moving, wining. Bajans were in line, many Bajans talking fast, dramatic, humorous, expressive. Nothing like the dialect in Trinidad, but the European ear couldn"t distinguish the two songs any more than they could differentiate between soca, calypso, and reggae. I listened, mimicked the dialect, repeated idioms and words like mobaton, ovadayso, obzocky, pancart, suck salt, wunna, jipsey, chossel, spranksious, peenie, cafuffle, cut eye, do-flicky, c.u.mma, barrifle, rangate, salt bred, long talk, onneat, duppy, cheese on bread, bruggadung, lemme, muddah, caniption, igrant, bullcow, ba.s.sa-ba.s.sa, collyfox, wulloss, too sweet, onliest, and nuff.