Chapter 3

APRIL 17, 2009

Luis gave me a nod from behind the bar. It was a Friday, but a lot of the regulars hadn't shown up. Guatemala and particularly the port cities like Puerto Barrios on the Gulf of Honduras and Pacific sides were hurting. The American Depression of 2008 could be called a Recession in the U.S. but it was a full fledged 1930s Great Depression in the Central American economies.

A lot of the shipping business that brought money and jobs into Puerto Barrios had dried up. Bars like Luis' Eldorado, that once did a flourishing business with many local types and Americans doing business down here, were keeping their heads afloat – barely. My buddies and I were doing our bit to keep Luis' open and in the black.

The booze wasn't too bad, and not too badly watered down. The local females weren't too hard on the eyes. The place was always good for some poker and we could keep track on world affairs through the cable link to CNN. All in all while I was checked out rumors of a possible oil field a few miles off the coast in the Gulf of Honduras, it was a comfortable place to hang out.

Luis was well connected and he was usually aware of what was going on this part of the port. So I excused myself from a poker game being played with some of the local gangsters and a dark haired angel with breasts that nearly fell out of the sheer blouse she wore and stood up.

Maria ran a hand lightly down the side of my thigh and although I know she didn't come close to my dick, I started getting hard.

"Don't be long," she said in heavily accented English.

"How could I stay away from you for long?" I replied in Spanish. That brought a smile that made the blood in my lower extremities hum right along. Poker was for relaxation. We wouldn't lose too much and wouldn't try to take the gangsters for too much. They were fairly pleasant as long as they weren't losing a lot of money. And my two friends and myself carried enough hardware that they wouldn't cause trouble. Too much effort for too little profit.

But Maria and that body of hers! Now, she was going to make this a memorable night. It would cost me because the head gangster was either her boyfriend, husband, or pimp. But it would be worth it. It had been a little too long since I'd buried myself in a warm, rounded female body. There were rooms upstairs available at very reasonable rates. I intended to be in one of those beds with Maria in the not too distant future.

"Luis?"

Luis was probably only about 40, but he looked to be about 60. He had one of those long, bony faces with bags under his eyes that made him look like he was always sleep deprived.

"There are people looking for you."

"Yes?"

People looking for me could be a good thing or a bad thing, but usually it turned out to be a bad thing. I tried very hard to stay away from married women but sometimes mistakes happened. Sometimes business deals didn't turn out the way they'd been planned and some businessmen weren't the kind to take a long range view of wins and losses, They wanted their money back – now. There weren't a lot of philosophical businessmen south of the border. Not that many north of the border, for that matter. But unhappy businessmen in the U.S. and Canada were likely to send lawsuit notices. South of the border they were more likely to send men with guns.

"Americans. Two of them. Well dressed. One is older, a big dark haired man. The other one younger with silver hair."

He snorted.

"They might as well carry signs saying 'rich North Americans'. They probably wouldn't live long enough to be a problem, but they have three armed bodyguards – one of them very big, well armed, and very bad. A Brit."

The last caught my attention. It was unlikely to be who I thought it was, but it was odd.

"Anything else?"

"They are throwing money around freely, so it won't be long before they walk in here."

I reached into a hidden pouch in my money belt and pulled out a hundred dollar bill. We threw a lot of money his way, but down here it was common courtesy to repay a favor with currency.

"Gracias."

He shrugged.

"De nada."

I was walking back to my table when Ben Overhouser intercepted me. He had been a part of my crew for nearly five years and always had my back.

"Something?"

"Not sure. Two Americans looking for me with three armed bodyguards."

"You want to hang here or make ourselves scarce. We can ask around and find out who they are before we meet."

"I think I know who they are. I'm just not sure why they would be here."

I had a hunch. One I didn't want to think about. Despite my warning, had something bad happened to Deirdre – something final – and the company had thought I should be notified? I had walked away and buried her. But she refused to stay dead.

I didn't even want to think about that. I had wished a lot of bad things upon her over the last five years, but I didn't wish death upon her.

As Maitland had said, I was just stupid.

I sat back down and Maria began ALMOST jerking me off, but not quite. Her husband-boyfriend-pimp Macario and two of his stooges glanced at Maria but then returned their attention to the table. A deck waited for the next hand and there was about a hundred dollars American in ones and change and a few fives scattered among the players.

We never played for heavy stakes and Macario's boys knew that if they tried to bump the table stakes up to $5 a hand or higher, we'd just shut down the game and go back to drinking. Too much money on the table was a bad idea all around.

Overhouser carried an AK47 on a loop from his left shoulder and it was always ready. He had been a mercenary in a former life and like a lot of professional soldiers he swore by the AK 47. Besides its mystique fashioned in guerilla conflicts around the globe, he swore that it never jammed, never misfired and you could put almost any kind of shell in it and it would still spit out death.In a holster on his side, he carried a Clapp Colt 1911.45 with 20 rounds in an ammunition belt. In a shoulder holster he carried one of the new Glock 31 semi-autos and ammunition in a bandolier. He hadn't had to shoot many people in the five years I'd known him, but he looked fierce as hell.

Ray Windell carried a Mossberg 500 specially adapted short barrel shotgun, which was very good for calming down disagreements in tight quarters, a Glock 17L pistol with a 17 shot shot magazine and on his hip a Sig Sauer P320 with a 17-shot magazine.

And me. I carried a FNX 45 which carried 16 very nasty and high powered shells that if they didn't kill you, they were likely to leave you wishing you were dead. That was the handgun I carried in a holster on my right hip loosely. I ran my fingers over its metal and I could fire without taking it out of the holster. Of course, Maria ran her fingers over it while running her fingers over other parts of my anatomy, but I didn't figure she'd want to shoot her own man and she couldn't take it away from me.

And, on various parts of my body I carried a three-inch long Bond Ranger derringer which fired two BIG shots, a Patriot 45, and a Stinger SS. Again, I'd only had to shoot one man in the last year, and he had been surprised as hell when he missed the derringer and it blew a very big hole in his chest. But he hadn't been willing to discuss our differences like gentlemen.

Actually life in Guatamala was not nearly as blood thirsty as that accounting might indicate, but looking like bad men had worked for us so far.

I sipped another whiskey during the next hand while Macario griped about his luck at the table, the miserable economic climate and how difficult it was for a hardworking Guatamalan to make an honest living.

From time to time his thugs would throw in a comment or two. I was pretty sure he knew I knew what he and they was saying.

People came in and out and now there were four gangsters and then five, moving from the bar to buy drinks for a couple of the working girls and hitting the bathrooms as well. I wasn't really worried, but I began to get a general bad feeling about the evening. Maria stood at my side and nuzzled my ear. Her breath was sweet and the feel of her soft flesh pressing against my shoulder was very nice. In English and Spanish she told me how big and hard I felt and how she was dripping, waiting for me to take her upstairs.

Of course, I knew I was just a job for her, a source of coin. The whore with the heart of gold is as rare as the Unicorn, but I couldn't help the effect she was having on me. We are all of us slaves to female magic.

I asked her to get me another shot of whiskey, and as she walked away I looked at Over-houser and Windell and tapped my white gold Rolex Oyster Cosmograph. Both of them nodded. We needed to close things out shortly and get out.

I looked back at Macario and noticed his lustful glance at my Rolex. It was stupid to be flaunting steak in front of a starving tiger, but the Rolex was my most prized possession. My father had always wanted one, and from time to time he'd had the money, but there was always some reason why he couldn't' buy it when he could afford it. When I could afford it, I wasted no time and I'd worn it on my wrist for the past five years. It truly would come off my wrist only after my heart stopped beating.

He grinned at me, although it wasn't a friendly grin. He wanted what I had and he was weighing how much it would cost him to try to grab it from three well-armed Yanquis.

"Michael McCarthy, you're a hard man to track down"

The chatter in the bar stopped. Overhouse and Windell kept their eyes on Macario and his men. I turned around and wasn't surprised to see Hugh Davidson and Matt Henry standing in front of the bar. A few feet behind Henry stood the hulking Harper-Stevens and two other men who had to be professional bodyguards.

Macario and his men studied the newcomers. As Luis had said, both Davidson and Henry reeked of American wealth and the smell had the same effect that spilled blood would have on sharks. I knew I had to get Davidson and Henry out before the sharks went into a feeding frenzy and a lot of bodies piled up.

I walked toward them as quickly, and casually as I could but the hair rose on the back of my neck.

"Davidson, Henry, it's been a long time. Why don't you guys come with us to our hotel room and we can talk about why you're here."

Davidson reached out to shake my hand, saying, "That would be fine. We didn't want to get in the middle of your business here."

As he took my hand his left swung around and I saw that the same expensive attache case he'd carried into Bailey's conference room was attached to his wrist, with a handcuff.

It was one of those moments that freezes time. As I saw it my gaze shot back to Macario. He had seen it as well and he was pulling out short barreled revolvers in his left and right hands and shouting to his men. Bullets began to smash into the bar and bottles shattered behind the bar.

I shoved Davidson aside and hoped he'd have sense enough to go to the floor. I had my

FNX out and was pulling the trigger as fast as I could. Time unfroze but it was still moving very slowly. Macario's body was slammed backward by the FNX shells and his shots were going wild all over the place. Maria was screaming and had hit the floor. I had a feeling this wasn't the first time she'd been in a gunfight.

Windell had brought his shotgun up and even while one of Macario's lieutenants pointed an old-fashioned six-shooter at him, Windell fired the shotgun. The blast threw the small man against the back wall of the bar. From behind me I heard shots from where Harper-Stevens and the other two bodyguards were exchanging fire with two more of Macario's gang. Then all hell broke loose as Overhouser from the floor where he had dropped while bullets were whizzing by him opened up with the AK 47, spraying the back of the bar with a hail of fire.

The scene was still struggling to come to full speed from the slow motion action that had been unfolding all around me. I watched Macario hit the back wall, stand and then wind up cut down by AK-47 fire. Four of Macario's men went flying in different directions. After the sudden explosion of violent noise, there was only silence.

I took in the sobbing, the movement of people trying to get to their feet, and then I glanced down at Davidson where I'd pushed him to the floor. He held a Glock in a professional two-handed grip, aimed directly at my chest.

There wasn't time to wonder why, I just threw myself as hard as I could to the left to try to get out of the line of fire. As I fell, Davidson fired once, twice and three times where I'd been standing. He lowered the Glock and I allowed myself to breathe again. I looked in the direction he had fired.

Another man who had been with Macario, based on the two handguns that slipped from his lifeless fingers, was folding up and falling to the floor.

"Sorry, McCarthy. I saw him and didn't have time to warn you. I'm glad your reflexes are good."

Harper-Stevens walked over to the dead man and rolled him over. He looked back at Davidson.

"You military, Mr. Davidson?"

"A long time ago."

"You must have kept up your practice. Three shots to the heart, all fitting within a half dollar. I don't know many professionals who could do that in this kind of situation. They could have sent you as MY bodyguard."

"I handle 'troublesome' situations for the bank. I've had anti-terrorist training. And I was a military cop in Berlin in the 70s when it was the Wild East. I guess it's just ingrained now."

Luis poked his head over the top of the bar.

"You're going to owe me big time, McCarthy."

His gaze ran from one end of the building to the other. Six dead men on the floor. Maria bent over Macario, sobbing. Five barflies and port workers who had picked the wrong night to come in for drinks standing up and wondering if it was safe to bolt for the door to the outside.

Henry knelt in the corner and looking closer I saw he was staring at one of the body-guards who lay sprawled out on the floor of the bar. Moving closer, I saw a bullet hole in the center of the fallen man's forehead, blood beginning to pool beneath him. I put my hand on Henry's shoulder.

"Are you okay, Henry?"

He didn't answer for a moment, then looked up at me. There were tears in his eyes.

"He pushed me down when the shooting started and stood over me. He died saving my life. Nobody's ever died to save my life before."

Harper-Stevens was beside me.

"That's what he was paid to do, Mr. Henry. That's what everyone who works as a professional bodyguard, or a mercenary, knows is s a risk of the game. He was well paid, and he knew the risks."

"His name was Goldberg. Tommy Goldberg. He has a wife and two kids back in Jacksonville."

Harper-Stevens loomed over him, his voice lowered to a near whisper.

"This the first time you've ever seen somebody die like this – in real life."

Henry just nodded.

"It's not like the movies," Harper-Stevens said. "It's real."

He grabbed Henry by his arms and pulled him to his feet, pushing him toward Luis and the bar. He held up two fingers and Luis filled two glasses with whiskey.

He just nodded to me and stood Henry against the bar, picking up one of the shot glasses and handing it to him.

"The first thing you do is down two shots of whiskey, and then as many more as you need. Feel free to upchuck, or cry. Do whatever you need to do but you need to keep moving. It will be easier tomorrow.

Davidson looked around as he got to his feet.

"We need to get out of here. We have six dead locals and one American. I'd hate to ex-plain that to the local cops when they arrive."

Windell and Overhouser walked toward us, Windell leaning on Overhouser. I noticed the blood staining his shirt and dripping down his chest. Windell stayed on his feet, but he was pale.

"You going to be okay?"

Windell nodded.

"Bastard was faster than I expected. But I'll be okay. Doesn't feel like he busted my shoulder and O says it's a straight through and through. We can run down the coast and be at a clinic in a couple of hours. I'll last that long."

Then, looking at me, he said, "what about you?"

"What about me?"

Windell reached out and ran his finger along the side of my face. He pulled it away and blood dripped down.from his finger.

I reached up and ran my finger across my cheek. The pain hit me a second later. There was a half-inch deep furrow running from my ear to the edge of my mouth.

"Shit. I must have used up all my luck for the next five years."

"No," Overhouser said. "You used up all your luck for the next 25 years."

He reached up and ran his finger over my scalp. It was dripping blood when he drew it back.

"What the hell?"

I was almost afraid to reach up and touch my scalp but I did so. There wasn't a deep furrow, only a scratch, but it was bleeding like crazy. As I ran my fingers over my forehead I wiped away the blood beginning to seep down over my left eye.

"I don't know how in the hell you managed to miss being killed twice by less than a fraction of an inch in a firefight," Overhouser said. "We ever go to war again, I want to be standing behind you."

I didn't want to think about the odds against me continuing to breathe so I went over to the bar and told Luis, "What would it cost to have these bodies disappear without reports going to the local Policia? And replace all the damages? Can you make this go away?"

Luis studied the bodies, the bullet holes, the smashed chairs, the five witnesses huddling in a corner and Maria kneeling over Macario's body.

"Ten thousand American. Cash. Now."

"Done."

I reached into my money belt into a compartment behind the buckle and pulled out ten crisp one-thousand dollar bills. Then I handed over another thousand dollars.

"Free drinks for our friends over in the corner for the next month or so. That cover it?"

"Si."

He was already on a telephone barking out Spanish so rapidly that I had trouble keeping up. I thought the dead men – the Guatamalans at least – were on the road to becoming chum for the fishermen who brought in sharks to satisfy the Chinese and Asian markets for shark fin soup and other delicacies.

I approached the five witnesses with my FNX held loosely in my right hand, Windell at my right holding his shotgun at a 45 degree angle, Overhouser carrying the AK47 with the barrel pointed toward the floor. Harper-Stevens loomed up behind us.

I singled out a rough looking six-footer with broad shoulders and the skin tone of a man who worked in the sun all the time. In Spanish I told him, "I have a proposition for you and your friends."

His gaze darting among the firepower facing him, he answered, "What kind of proposition?"

"You're going to go home and forgot you saw anything tonight, or even that you were in here. There's a hundred dollars American for each of you, and a free bar here for the next month. If you can keep your mouths shut."

Four minutes later they were gone. I approached Maria, still cradling Macario's bloody head in her lap. It looked like she was crying real tears. Overhouser had removed all of Macario's firepower.

"Maria. Maria, You need to go. Macario is gone. We will be leaving and we'll give you a ride anywhere you like. We don't have to do anything, you don't have to earn your ride, but-"

"He was my husband, you bastard. He was my husband and you killed him."

"He didn't leave us any choice. And, now you're a widow, so-"

She screamed and hurled herself up at me only to be caught by Harper-Stevens and held tightly against his chest. He tightened a hamfisted grip on the side of her neck and within moments she sank back against him. Motionless.

He handed her over to me and I threw her over my shoulder. We couldn't allow her to go right now to the local police screaming about a Yanqui massacre of her husband and his friend. Harper-Stevens knelt down over the fallen body of Tommy Goldberg and lifted him like a man hoisting a child.

We looked around carefully when we stepped outside. It was already near ten p.m. and there were few people on the street. We didn't see any police patrols. We found our jeep where we'd parked it down the street from The Eldorado. Davidson and Henry and their crew had come in a Lincoln Town Car.

"Follow us. We're heading for the harbor. We have a motorboat there to take us out to a yacht a friend loaned me. It will get us down the coast."

There was more room in the Town Car so Maria and Goldberg's body were guarded by Harper Stevens and the remaining security guard. Davidson drove. Henry rode with the three of us in the jeep.

As we followed the winding streets toward the waterfront, Henry suddenly said, "Six men died back there. How – how do you – go on like nothing happened?"

"We're not," Overhouser said. "We're just getting out before we wind up spending years in a Guatamalan jail or with our throats cut by those bastards' friends."

I motioned for him to cool it.

"Mr. Henry, we're not acting like nothing happened. Windell was shot and will need medical attention, one of your bodyguards was killed, and I nearly had two holes put in my head. Overhouser is right. There is no way there could be a good ending to our killing Guatamalan nationals and having a wife testify as to how we attacked them. Don't forget. We were the victims. They came after us and we were defending ourselves.

"You're in shock right now because you're not used to experiencing this side of life. This is a different world. We're used to it because we live in it. You're not. Like Harper-Stevens said, just keep moving, go back to your life, and this will all seem like a bad dream."

He was silent while we made our way to the powerboat. Two trips brought all of us to the 50-footer that a Chinese general had said I could use for keeping my mouth shut about activities that would have put him in front of a firing squad. It was small but it was fast and had two bathrooms, a completely equipped galley with some expensive food stuffs (caviar-stuffed shrimp in the freezer), a complete medical kit and an area where you could lay a patient down while sewing up their boo-boos.

There were only four beds but you would throw a blanket down and sleep on deck if more passengers came. Overhouser was constantly riding my ass about learning the proper nautical terminology for beds and stuff. I very reasonably reminded him, "I'm not a fucking sailor and I can call them whatever I want, and besides, I PAY you. Understood?"

But he remained defiant. If he hadn't been such a good oil man, and so good with the AK-47 I would have fired him. But I figured his services were worth a little aggravation. He had also been a medical corpsman and was good at patching up things, handling broken bones, all the misadventures you could encounter a long way from a regular hospital.

He administered an injection to Maria after laying her down in one of the beds – bunks, OK. She turned over and snored in her sleep. Looking down at her with bronzed skin showing all over the place, long thick black hair cradling that pretty face, I wished that she could forgive me for killing her husband, scumbag that he was. But that wasn't going to happen. If I ever laid down with her, I'd get up minus dick, balls and my head.

"We'll check on her but I think that should keep her down for eight to 10 hours," he said. "Let me give Windell some TLC that will keep him breathing until we reach a clinic in Puerto Cortes," which was a fairly good sized city just across the border in Honduras.