Any other man would have shrivelled under the accusing glares that kept drifting his way but Nathan Raine merely leaned back, arms behind his head, sunglasses obscuring his eyes and feet up on the bonnet of the Humvee.
“So, somebody want to tell me where we’re heading?” he asked.
Silent exchanges passed between the civilians and the soldiers, trying to determine just how much information the ‘rogue’ agent was going to be privy to. Raine let the seconds tick by, unconcerned.
Eventually, King spoke. “Jamaica,” he answered.
Raine’s face broke into a wide grin. “Yeah, mon!”
25:
The Kernewek Diary
The Super Stallion helicopter swung low over the aqua marine waters of the Caribbean and raced towards the coastline of Jamaica. It banked hard to starboard, swinging almost in a three sixty loop before roaring into a steep climb, coming almost to a halt high above the earth and then plummeting back down like a rock. At the last possible moment the two pilots wrenched the controls and brought the aircraft back under control.
In the cargo hold the six remaining SOG operatives sat strapped to their seats, ramrod straight, not bothering to hide their amusement at the obvious discomfort of the three scientists. Even Nadia Yashina’s normally icy demeanour seemed shaken by the fierce banking the two pilots threw the aircraft into for no reason other than some testosterone driven need to prove something to the final member of the group.
To the chagrin of the soldiers, however, Nathan Raine lay slumped in his seat, feet sprawled on the hood of the Humvee, arms crossed, apparently dozing, looking for all the world as though the best efforts of the pilots to shake him loose were in fact boring him to sleep.
The chopper lurched starboard with such sickening ferocity that even Benjamin’s King’s African skin visibly paled.
“Is there really any need for this idiotic flying?” Sid shouted angrily over the din of the rotor blades echoing through the hold.
Lawrence Gibbs levelled his gaze on her. He was not a man used to being spoken to in such a manner but Sid met his beady eyes with her own fierce indignation.
“All right,” Gibbs shouted, his voice being picked up above the noise of the cargo hold by his ear mounted com-unit. “Sykes, cut the testosterone bullshit.”
“Copy,” the crisp confirmation of David Sykes snapped over the shared com-link.
“Boss,” Lake’s voice cut in. None of them referred to one another by rank or title. “Updated E.T.A. to destination is 17 minutes.”
“Copy,” Gibbs replied then took in his whole team, civilians included. Raine continued to doze in his slouched position as the helicopter levelled out and headed smoothly and surely towards the coastline of Jamaica.
“Okay, listen up,” he bellowed. “This will be a quick snatch and grab mission. O’Rourke, you and Garcia will take point.” Garcia was the youngest member of the team, stemming from New Mexico, King guessed, based on his accent and the colour of his skin, though no such details had been provided on any of their chaperones.
“The civvies will follow you,” the team leader continued, referring to the scientists. King listened intently as the man laid out his plan with military brusqueness. “West and I will bring up our six. Nelson, Murray, you’ll take up sniping positions to the east and the west of the main building. Sykes and Lake, keep the bird running hot in case we need a fast get away—”
That’s enough! King thought. “Excuse me,” he interjected, cutting off Gibbs. He ignored the angry glare he received in response and continued. “A fast get away?” He frowned. “We’re talking about a seventy six year old obese Jamaican woman.”
“Ben’s right,” Sid supported him, leaning forward and gripping his hand. He felt uncomfortable as Nelson and Murray saw the demonstration of affection and sniggered like school boys.
“Don’t you think storming the castle, all guns blazing, is a bit of an overkill?” she accused.
Gibbs’ face flushed red. “Your job,” he replied, his voice scarcely more than a growl, his Texan drawl elongating his words, “is to identify the target. My job is to get you to it. I suggest you let me do mine and you do yours.”
“I can’t do my job,” King shot back just as pointedly, “if she dies of a heart attack before I locate the target.”
Gibbs glared, his voice dripping with thinly veiled contempt even over the direct com-link. The small transmitter/receiver unit King had lodged in his ear was surprisingly comfortable but he’d much rather be listening to the sounds of Jailhouse Rock than the drawl of the soldier over the din of the engines.
“You yourself said that the proprietor would be uncooperative—”
“I can try and reason with her,” he suggested. “Bargain with her. Langley said I’d have the full disposal of the U.N. Security Council behind me, including their financial clout.”
“You said she wouldn’t sell when you approached her in the past.”
“Anything’s for sale at the right price,” a new voice cut in.
All eyes turned to Nathan Raine. He hadn’t moved a muscle nor opened his eyes, but he was far from asleep.
King saw Gibbs’ eyes flash with intense hatred and he wondered what the exact source of such hatred could be. Sure, he had been told about Raine, in so far as he was ex-Special Forces and had subsequently been convicted of high treason, but there seemed to be something deeper in Gibbs, something that went beyond patriotic indignation.
“We’re not going to a goddamn Sunday market, Raine,” Gibbs snarled at him.
“Nor are we going into a theatre of battle… Gibbsy,” Raine replied calmly. He removed his sunglasses and opened his eyes. King could feel the tension in the air. It was electric. Raine’s nonchalance only seemed to irk Gibbs all the more.
“Benny said it’s a haphazard, almost bust museum, a private collection of memorabilia from Port Royal’s heyday, run by a little old lady with a temper,” he recited.
King had earlier explained the reasoning behind having made Jamaica the team’s first stop.
In his on-going research into the life of Kha’um, he believed he had discovered another diary, most probably belonging to Emily Hamilton and picking up the story after the attack on the Hamilton estate in 1707.
In 1714, a new player had entered the social spotlight of Kingston’s elite. Lady Amelia Kernewek had, in one newspaper at the time, been described as possessing a king’s ransom in wealth yet with no traceable ancestry. It was as if she had appeared out of nowhere, many years after the terrible, unexplained fire at the Hamilton Estate.
While Amelia was a derivative of Emily, that alone was not enough to go on. However, King’s research had shown that Lady Kernewek had all but bankrupted her estate by the time she died at the age of 71. Her vast wealth hadn’t been frittered away on the lifestyle of the day, however. Instead she became something of a recluse, purchasing a large lot of land and hundreds upon hundreds of Negro slaves.
But the slaves, apparently, had not been treated as slaves. Instead, she had paid them generously to work in a self-sustaining community where all she asked for was that they provide her with enough food to live on. She went on to campaign for slave rights and became an influential voice in those early days of the abolition of slavery. She founded the ‘Hand of Freedom’ museum, an ineffectual attempt at presenting the horrors of slavery to a world which still turned a blind eye. Some rumours even suggested that she had a scandalous affair and sired a Negro child.