Shadow Islands
Mick Morkan and Ike Sears represent Nguyet Finn and Cassandra Correa, Vietnam veterans and victims of the Iran-Contra Affair. Nguyet’s husband was killed, and Cass grievously injured flying supply missions to Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. They recover large verdicts against Harley Montaigne, an operative who ran the Contra operation. However, the jury lets the higher-up defendants off the hook—and Harley’s assets are limited to a sport fishing boat, woefully insufficient to cover the verdicts.
Before Morkan and Sears can seize Harley’s boat, he tells them that the higher-ups had pledged to create a fund to cover death and injury for those flying the missions, but never did. However, Hector Ozuna, an ex-CIA agent who worked with Harley, used Hector’s access to the higher-ups’ bank accounts to make off with millions. Before he disappeared, Hector hid some of that cash for Nguyet and Cass in case they failed to recover in the lawsuit. Harley suggests they combine efforts to find that money. They uncover a mysterious map but need Harley’s help to find the exact location. Everyone distrusts Harley, but they follow him into the Caribbean on Cass's boat. Chief among the perils awaiting them is Flint, a rogue agent with whom Morkan has a troubling history from the Vietnam War.
Excerpts
Chapter 1
Belize City, Belize, March 5, 1993
I always knew somebody would come looking for us. I mean, even on a remote Caribbean Island, you can’t leave seven bodies behind without someone eventually wanting to ask a question or two… It would also be hard to miss that burned-out hulk in the harbor, which had been the local naval garrison’s landing craft. One can see that begetting the raised eyebrow.
I’d presumed that our likely pursuers would be government types: military or intelligence from the U.S., or Honduras, maybe even Nicaragua. Shame on me; I should have reckoned on that most unquenchable of Javerts: a U.S. lawyer armed with a money judgment. Hell, that’s what got me here.
*****
Omar picked up a couple of pages from the left side of his desk and handed them to me… I’d seen this Los Angeles Times story before, but, as I always tell my own witnesses, read whatever the examiner hands you before answering questions about it.
Mystery Shrouds Fate of Naval Garrison on Remote Honduran Islands
By Eileen Castro, Times Staff Writer
September 21, 1990 12 AM PT
Tegucigalpa, Honduras – A remote island group some 100 miles off the coast of Honduras has become the source of a mystery and rampant rumors, which the Honduras National Defense Secretariat has done little to quell.
The stories began to circulate about a week ago. Jose Rios and Esteban DeJesus, fishermen from the Village of Puerto Castilla on Honduras’ Caribbean coast, returned from a trip to the Islands, which the locals call “Islas de Sombra,” the Shadow Islands. The fishermen reportedly told the officer in charge of the local Honduran naval station that they had been fishing near the smaller of the Islands (Isla Pequena). As was their custom, they pulled into the harbor, where a small Honduran naval garrison is based, to share some of their catch… They went ashore and found the garrison’s barracks deserted. They also noticed that the garrison’s only vessel, a Vietnam War-era landing craft, was missing from its usual anchorage in the harbor. They discussed what to do and decided to sail south to nearby Isla Grande, to seek the men of the garrison.
*****
The fishermen pressed on and brought their boat through a narrow inlet on the southern coast of Isla Grande. What they found shocked them. As they made their way down the inlet, they spotted the garrison’s landing craft partially submerged a few yards from a beach that formed the end of the inlet. They sailed past the landing craft and saw that it had been ravaged by fire. The men beached their boat and approached a walled structure which they took to be the old radio station compound.
A few yards from the compound, they found the remains of the Honduran naval lieutenant who commanded the garrison. Sr. Rios believed that the garrison usually numbered between six and eight men and went into the compound to look for other members. He and Sr. DeJesus did not find any other Honduran personnel. They did, however, find two men inside, who they described as “Gringos,” dead, apparently from bullet wounds.
At that point they returned to their boat. As they made their way back up the inlet, they came alongside the sunken landing craft and saw the bodies of at least two other Honduran Navy men on the burned-out hulk.
*****
I handed the article back to Omar. “Where would you like me to begin?”
He took a sip of scotch and smiled. “Wherever you’d like to start.”
Chapter 10
There was a time, not long ago, when Nguyet and I had talked of taking a Caribbean cruise. And here we were. Not exactly Carnival Cruise Line but, then again, the ol Hispaniola was where we’d gotten underway, as Cass might put it; in fact, on one of her famous excursions.
We’d just wrapped up the depositions phase of the case that Thursday afternoon with the completion of Cass’s testimony. Ike wasn’t part of the crew due to a preliminary injunction hearing in another case he had the next day. So, the cast of revelers was limited to Cass, one of her boyfriends, Nguyet, and her counsel. After a fine dinner of grouper and plantains, accompanied by a creative rum libation, Cass and her guest retired to her cabin. This seemed to raise the possibility that we might not be returning to shore right away, leaving Nguyet and me to treat the rum concoction remaining in the pitcher as an after-dinner cordial and enjoy twilight on a cooperatively calm sea. I don’t think either of us could testify we hadn’t seen this coming or wanted it to happen. Our conversation ebbed without awkwardness. We looked at the fading light and then each other.
The Hispaniola didn’t make her way back to shore until late the following morning. Cass woke us shortly after dawn, entering Nguyet’s cabin with mimosas while singing Blame It On The Hispaniola to the tune of Blame It On The Bossa Nova.
Chapter 21
From the hillock we now had a direct view of the beach and the fort. A morning fog moved across the beach. The Mike Boat had shifted close to shore and was hammering the fort with twin fifties. Smoke from the fifties mingled with the fog. Someone in the fort was returning fire, but it was desultory and not having any noticeable impact on the Mike Boat whose gunners were protected by steel shields around the gun barrels.
Hector tapped me on the shoulder. “Stay here. Hold this hill. I’ll attack the boat. Once that’s done, meet me back at the entrance to the tunnel.”
Hector grabbed the RPG and moved off crawling down the hillock toward the beach. The Mike Boat kept up its fusillade. The return fire from the fort, if anything, decreased. I envisioned Nguyet, Ike and Cass working together to husband their remaining bullets and taking turns firing. The men on the Mike Boat sure as hell weren’t concerned about conserving ammunition this morning, raking the front wall of the fort at will.
I glanced down the hillock toward the left wall of the fort. One man was limping and trying to drag the other along the fence toward the beach. I moved closer and aimed the M16 at them just as the limping man turned my way. There was enough light to make out his face. He saw me, rendered a quick salute, and went back to dragging the other man. They were both clearly wounded, moving away from the fight, and posed no threat to Hector or me or the fort. I held my fire. Besides, I had no interest in discovering the cosmic repercussions of killing a man named Fausto dos Santos.