was true. Although Novak had heard of them, he hadn’t run into them before. He knew they’d had a chapter in New Orleans until the DEA busted it up. “This lawyer? You think he sent them in last night to murder you and your brother?”
“Yes, they found us there. We don’t know how. We were very careful not to be seen. You are our guardian angel.”
“I’m no angel, but I’ll help you as much as I can. What else do you know about the lawyer?”
“Eldon says he is a mobster.”
“If these guys are in with the mob, we’re in trouble.”
“All I want is Rosa back.”
“You can’t be a part of this. They’ll kill you next time they get you.”
Her face fell, and along with it, her burst of bravado. “Please help me, please.”
“We can’t do much else until Claire gets here, but that should be soon. Then she and I will look for your baby and deal with whoever’s got her. But you need to keep your head down, either out here or somewhere else where they can’t find you. You and Pedro are witnesses to attempted murder now. So am I. Both of you need to stay in hiding. Are you willing to do that?”
She nodded.
Novak glanced around. “Do Kellen and his men know about this place?”
She shook her head. “Eldon’s boys guard the entrance and make sure they don’t get in. They will call the tribal police if they come around.”
Novak glanced back at the men around the fire. They looked young and green and were probably inexperienced, but they’d managed to take down him and five other guys without much effort. They were pretty good, but they weren’t going to win any war waged against a murderous motorcycle gang backed by the local mob. This woman and her brother would end up dead if the bad guys thought they could endanger their business interests. Now Novak was involved up to his neck, and the Skulls on that beach might be able to identify him. It had been dark most of the time but they knew he was big. That took away Novak’s anonymity somewhat and made it a good bet that they’d grab him the moment he showed up anywhere near Fort Myers. That could put Claire in danger, as well, and Novak was not willing to take that risk.
“I’m going to help you, Alcina. So is Claire. Just keep your head down and stay out of sight.”
And he would, not that it was the smartest thing he’d ever done. Still, Claire would insist they take the case because Claire was Claire and she had a high sense of justice and got off on making criminals pay for their evil deeds. What’s more, she’d be right to take it, of course, just like she usually was. This poor woman had been through enough. It was time to let somebody else fight her battles for her. More to the point, he did not like bullies, and these guys were the worst kind. He looked out into the darkness pressing up against the illumination of the fire, not sure what lay out there. “Are you sure we’re safe out here? That fire could be a beacon bringing them to us.”
“They lock the entrance gate at night. No one is allowed in here without their permission.”
That wouldn’t stop the killers, but being on a Seminole reservation just might. “So we’re close to the Everglades? There are some dangerous animals out here.”
“Yes, they told us. Big alligators and snakes, we have seen them. We have them in our jungles and rivers back home.”
Novak stood up, and his head started hammering. He had a concussion, all right, but not bad enough to kill him. He’d had them before and was still breathing. “Which one of those guys clubbed me?”
“Jake. He is sorry, though.”
“I really need to talk to Eldon.”
“He said he’d talk to you tomorrow. He said to be careful because they will come for you and kill you for helping us. They will take you somewhere and beat you with hammers. Then they will harm your family.”
“I don’t have a family.” Not anymore, he thought.
“I am sorry.”
Yeah, so was he. He’d lost his wife and their young son and daughter on 9/11 when the World Trade Center came crashing to the ground with all of them trapped inside. That was the worst day of his life, and the nightmares he had every single night never let him forget it. He looked into Alcina’s sorrowful face and understood her pain. But he could get her little girl back for her. He would never see his babies again.
“The cut on your head is deep. You can sleep here until Eldon gets back. He wants to talk to you,”
She was right. His headache was not going away. Now that he was on his feet, he felt dizzy again. “Okay, show me where I can lie down.”
Novak stepped down off the chickee and followed the tiny woman around the fire pit. The men they walked past stopped their conversation and watched him. Most of them looked to be in their twenties and thirties, a few older than that. He searched among them for weapons like knives and guns and baseball bats and saw pretty much all of it everywhere. These guys had armed themselves to the hilt; they did not think this place was safe from attack despite what Alcina had been told.
Feeling slightly more secure with their numbers and firepower around, he followed Alcina Castillo down a dark path that led through a field of knee-high grass. He had a feeling he was about to spend a long night, wide awake with a million or so buzzing and biting insects swarming his sleeping bag, if he was lucky enough to get one. Claire had no idea what she had gotten them into. Truth was, if somebody here had kidnapped a little baby from its mother, Claire would hunt them down if it took her the rest of her life. That was just the way she rolled. That was Novak’s favorite thing about her.
Chapter 3
Years in the military had taught Novak that he could sleep anywhere. He could get by on two or three hours of sleep for days at a time. He hadn’t needed that capability of late, but tonight he did. After Alcina had led him to a different chickee, she left him there without another word. This one had a pup tent erected on the raised platform. Novak zipped himself up inside and found a colorful handwoven blanket and pillow left there for him.
After that he lay awake for several hours and thought about what an unmitigated disaster this case was going to be. The tent was too small for him, and he had to bend his legs. It felt more like being encased in a funeral shroud. The primary thoughts running through his mind were how easy it would be to sneak up on a man caught inside a tiny tent atop an open-air platform. So he listened for footsteps or the racking of firearms. After a while, he got out and looked around. He couldn’t see anything.
The constant, strident, static of singing insects became tedious fast, although he’d heard it in countless jungle camps all over the world. It was getting on his nerves. So was the idea that a small army might be descending on the camp right now, armed with AR-15s. He just couldn’t shake the idea that they would come after Alcina and Pedro. Alcina felt secure here, and hopefully Eldon Osceola’s men were on guard. Still, underestimating your enemy was asking for trouble. One lucky helicopter sweep across the swamps, one slip of the tongue in some bar, and the Skulls would know exactly where to find them.
It didn’t help, either, that Novak did not know these guys who could be sleeping like babies in their own pup tents. He didn’t know if he could trust them. He didn’t like being zipped
