Emerald Dawn, page 1
part #2 of A Lenny and Lucas Action Adventure Series
EMERALD DAWN
A LENNY AND LUCAS ADVENTURE
BOOK 2
AJ STEWART
In memory of the 113 people who lost their lives during a few days of hell in a little piece of paradise.
And for Heather, always.
CHAPTER ONE
OCTOBER 19, 1983 GRENADA, EASTERN CARIBBEAN
The protesters in the market square of Grenada’s capital, St. George’s, were restless. As the morning sun rose and the crowd grew, the mood soured. Before long, as many as 30,000 people—almost one-third of the island nation’s population—were chanting for the release of Maurice Bishop. The deposed prime minister was under house arrest in his residence at Mt. Wheldale, and when a large section of the mob marched the kilometer or so up the hill, that was their destination.
They chanted and cried for his release. A small contingent of the People’s Revolutionary Army stood guard on the street where Bishop and his longtime partner—and deposed minister of education—Jacqueline Creft were held. When the mob went to free Bishop from his home, the soldiers, confused by the entire situation, made little effort to stop them. Fellow Grenadians were facing off for reasons few truly comprehended.
Protesters found Bishop and Creft tied up in their bedroom. Once freed, Bishop called on many in his cabinet, most of whom had resigned after his house arrest, to convene at Fort Rupert, an imposing fortress first erected by the French in 1705 to protect the entrance to the picturesque St. George’s Harbor. And the group met little resistance from the soldiers when they met to devise a plan to take back the leadership of the ruling New Jewel Movement.
But Bishop was under no illusions. On the march to the fort, he had told a journalist that he understood the motivations of those who claimed the leadership of the party.
“I am a dead man,” he said.
The People’s Revolutionary Army had moved much of its base of operations from Fort Rupert on the peninsula to Fort Frederick, another colonial-era fortress strategically placed high on a ridge to the east of the capital.
The current leadership of the Central Committee was also working out of Fort Frederick, and it was here that they met to discuss Bishop. The meeting was ostensibly chaired by General Hudson Austin, the de facto leader of the military junta that had first arrested Bishop, but the chairman of the Central Committee, Bernard Coard, was the real power behind the NJM. “We must avoid further bloodshed,” Coard told those in the meeting. “To the greatest extent possible.”
“But these traitors cannot be allowed to incite violence against the party,” said a committee member.
“Agreed,” said Austin. “Colonel Devonshire?”
A lean uniformed officer took a single step from the wall to the table. “We must disabuse the counterrevolutionaries of any expectations that the military supports them.”
“How?” asked Austin.
“We take the fort with armored vehicles. These are not trained men. They are civilians. The shock of our firepower will no doubt weaken their resolve.”
Coard nodded.
“Do it,” said Austin.
When the convoy of armored personnel carriers arrived at Fort Rupert, hundreds of Bishop supporters stood between them and the two-story headquarters just inside the fort walls. The crowd cheered, thinking that the soldiers had come to join them, but the APCs formed a tight V-formation and readied their turret guns.
A loud burst of machine-gun fire from the APCs and a car exploded in the parking lot. Then gunfire erupted from both sides. The APCs opened up with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. The APCs advanced, causing the crowd to flee. Some leaped from the twenty-foot fort walls to escape the volley of bullets. Two soldiers were hit, and when the APCs moved into the fort, they rolled by the dead body of a Bishop supporter.
The APCs stopped outside the headquarters, and Colonel Devonshire used a megaphone to urge the survivors to surrender. Bishop did just that, and the PRA soldiers retook the fort.
Bishop and seven of his closest allies were dragged away and held in a barren, stone-walled courtyard. A civilian communications officer established a phone connection to Fort Frederick, and Devonshire called for further instructions.
“We met armed resistance and lost at least one man,” he told the Central Committee members still at the other fort. “I don’t think they’re going to relent, not willingly.” He didn’t mention that they had already retaken the fort. “We do have Bishop and his allies in the courtyard. I don’t believe the revolution is safe as long as these people remain a threat.”
“Let us discuss this, and we will advise,” said Austin.
Devonshire waited for nearly an hour. When the phone rang, he asked the communications officer for a pencil, then wrote down what he was told. Without a further word, Devonshire hung up and marched away.
Back in the courtyard, two captains stood with rifles aimed at the eight people against the wall. Colonel Devonshire told the eight to turn around and face him. Maurice Bishop turned first, then the others followed. Devonshire read from his notepaper.
“This order from the Central Committee says that you shall be executed by gun fire.”
There were gasps from the condemned. Only Jacqueline Creft spoke.
“Comrade, you know I am seven months’ pregnant!”
“Turn around.”
Sobbing, the eight turned to face the wall again. Devonshire directed his men to take aim.
“Prepare to fire,” he said. “One, two, three.”
The sound of automatic weapons fire echoed around the walled courtyard. When the shooting ended, seven people lay dead. One man clung to life. Devonshire stepped over to where he lay moaning. The colonel unholstered his sidearm and shot the man in the head.
The gunfire wasn’t heard by the American medical students at the True Blue campus of St. George’s University Medical School. The collection of low-slung buildings sat in a slight hollow on a peninsula at the south end of the island. Students gathered around the radio to listen to the hesitant voice of General Hudson Austin.
Days previously Austin had reported the house arrest but otherwise good health of the former prime minister, and had assured the citizens of the island, and the medical students with them, that order would be maintained and the Central Committee would ensure the ongoing function of the revolution.
Now he was on Radio Free Grenada again, reporting the quelling of unrest and the death of Bishop and his fellow counterrevolutionaries after they attempted to take Fort Rupert. Prime Minister Coard had ceded his position to Austin himself, who would assume chairmanship of a military council that would rule until normality could be restored. He then announced a four-day curfew to prevent further trouble.
“No one is to leave their house. Anyone violating this curfew will be shot on sight.”
The students were as aware of the political posturing as they were of the socialist structure of the ruling government, but they had never had cause to be concerned for their own safety before. Gossip swept through the student body, and many used the communal pay phone to make calls home, reporting that they were so far okay but worried.
The entire population of the residential campus was in the communal lounge when a university administrator addressed them, asking to pass on a message from the Central Committee. The students were safe and continued to be welcome in Grenada. Their ability to move freely around the island would be restored as soon as possible, and classes would resume within days.
The message assuaged most of the students, who drifted back to their dorms or to the library to study. A few remained in the lounge, sharing their concern for a situation they couldn’t comprehend.
The bodies of the executed were placed in the back of a truck and driven out of Fort Rupert. Colonel Devonshire sat in front as it bounced along empty roads, eight kilometers south to Camp Fedon on the Egmont Peninsula.
A large hole was dug in a field away from the camp buildings, and the bodies were dumped in. When the soldiers drove off, the colonel stood alone over the mass grave. He poured a jerrican of gasoline over the bodies, then he set them on fire and walked away.
CHAPTER TWO
OCTOBER 21, 1983
Some people take nice commercial airliners to the Caribbean. They relax on the flight with cigarettes and bad meals, and are welcomed on arrival by fruity drinks with little umbrellas in them.
Lenny Cox and Lucas Burnside weren’t most people. They were strapped into the cavernous hold of a Korean War–era Lockheed C-130 Hercules. The massive aircraft had been decommissioned by the United States Air Force and found a second life as a cargo plane for hire across the Caribbean islands.
The owner and pilot, a man with a pirate’s beard called Moxan, flew anything for anyone, if the price was right. The only limitation was where the huge bird could land. Most airstrips in the Caribbean were too short, but the runway at Grantley Adams International Airport on Barbados was just right for the job.
Lenny had paid cash for the ride, with a little extra for their special disembarkation request. Now he lay across three drop-down seats, trying to read a week-old New York Times newspaper. Lucas had made a bed from a collection of packed parachutes that looked like they might have landed in Nazi Germany but which Moxan assured were perfectly packed and ready for use, and he lay on them listening to Circus Animals by Cold Chisel on his Walkman. Occasionally he would cry out lyrics into the cacophony of noise, telling whomever might listen that he needed to start again, when the war was over.
Neither man got more than the intermittent do
There was only one problem. Having come from another op, neither man carried a passport or any other form of ID. Lenny had mailed his back to his—what was she? Girlfriend didn’t seem to fit either Alice or their relationship. Regardless, his passport was in DC now. Lucas had left his with the dock master at a marina in Miami. So there would be no landing at the terminal and passing through customs.
No matter. The Hercules thundered above the ocean as a brilliant sunset burst through the cockpit. Moxan gave it a smile. Lenny and Lucas didn’t even know it was happening. They didn’t talk much—the loud roar of the engines and the complete lack of insulation made it harder work than they could be bothered with—until Moxan called over a loud speaker.
“Land ho!”
Lucas eased up into the cockpit. Moxan pointed to the small dot of green among the sea of dark blue turning black.
“Barbados,” he said.
“I appreciate the ride. You good to get back?”
“Peachy. I’m gonna land at the airport. I got a load of Mount Gay Rum to pick up and fly back Stateside tomorrow.”
“Let’s hope it all makes it.”
“Unlikely.” He smiled and winked. “Remember, when you see the sand, count three and go.”
“Thanks, mate.”
Lucas retreated to the cargo hold, where Lenny was preparing two parachutes.
“Red or blue?” he asked.
“Pink’s my lucky color,” said Lucas. “So red will do.”
They each slipped into a harness and then checked the other’s equipment. Moxan banked and brought the aircraft in low from the northwest. He was going to fly low over Bridgetown and outside the usual pattern, so he was in for some grief from tower control at the airport on the southeast end of the island. But that would be dealt with by a bottle or two of the Mount Gay.
“Time,” Moxan said over the speaker.
Lucas hit the button to lower the ramp at the back of the aircraft. The wind nearly knocked him over, and Lenny’s newspaper came alive and blew all over the hold. The two men edged to the top of the ramp and shared a nod in lieu of talking.
Lucas saw the beach below and jagged his palm sideways to the sky, three times fast. Then he ran.
The swirling buffeted him around in circles. He didn’t have time to put his hands out and steady himself—they were jumping from far too low for that. He just yanked on the cord, and his guts were thrust up into his chest as the chute opened and the rush of wind felt silent. His head snapped up, and he saw the Hercules flying away toward the airport.
First order of business was to orient himself. He felt like he was floating in place, but the town below was approaching rapidly. He looked around the black mass, searching for the lights Moxan had said would be there. Lucas barely saw a lit road, let alone a lit open space. For a moment he considered a Plan B—pulling hard on the steering toggle and heading for the water off the nearby coastline.
But then he saw it: a ring of dim light surrounding what looked like a black hole. He angled the parachute to head for the middle of it. Every instinct told him to bail, but he held fast as he sank toward the darkness.
The roof on the pavilion of the Kensington Oval cricket ground surprised Lucas as it appeared from nowhere. The wind was pushing him away from the stadium, so he pulled the toggle to sweep back across toward the field, but the tin roof almost leaped up at him. He was at a forty-five-degree angle when his foot hit it. He tried running along the roof but only one foot could make contact, so he ended up hopping until he reached the edge of the roofline, then he plunged off toward the wooden benches below.
Lucas grabbed the opposite toggle and righted himself as he swished in low above the grass of the cricket field. He held both steering lines steady and, for a moment, almost hovered like a bird on a thermal. Then his boots hit the grass, and he found himself running at full speed before the chute dropped in behind and arrested his momentum.
He turned quickly and began pulling his parachute in. Once he had it under control, he cast he eye to the evening sky to see Lenny ease his chute down on the opposite side of the pitch. Lucas removed his harness and pulled in his rig, then packed it haphazardly into the container, threw one strap over his shoulder, and waited for Lenny.
Lenny packed his chute away and then ambled toward Lucas, the pavilion behind him. When he was twenty yards away, Lucas hissed at him.
“Don’t walk on the square,” he said. He waved for Lenny to go around the shortcut square in the middle of the ground. Lenny did as he was told and took a wide berth, then headed back toward Lucas.
“That okay?” Lenny asked.
“Yeah. You never walk on the pitch.”
“Is that like a baseball diamond?”
“No, mate. You’re supposed to run on the diamond. This is like taking your putt in golf and then standing on the hole before the other guy takes his shot. Bad form.”
“I’ll remember that if I ever have to parachute onto a cricket ground again.”
“Do,” said Lucas.
The two men carried their chutes across the lush outfield toward the white picket fence that marked the perimeter of the field. There was a gate to the side of the pavilion where the curators brought in their equipment. As they stepped through the gate, Lenny stopped suddenly.
“What?” asked Lucas.
Lenny pointed at what looked like a miniature steamroller.
“That’s a roller,” said Lucas. “To flatten out the pitch.”
“I’m more concerned about the guy sitting on it.”
Lucas looked again. There was a Black man in a faded red bucket hat watching them from his perch up on the roller.
Lucas walked toward him. “G’day.”
“Eve’nin,” said the man.
“Nice night for it.”
“Yep.”
“We too late for the game?”
“Stumps be at five.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“Yep, I’d reckon so.”
Lucas said good night and walked toward the gate. Lenny gave the man a nod as he passed, which the man casually reciprocated, as if he saw people drop from the sky onto his cricket ground most nights.
“So, what do you think?” asked Lenny. “Bunk down tonight and make a plan tomorrow, or purloin a boat right now and make for Grenada in the dark?”
“Depends on the boat, I guess.”
A flashlight lit Lenny and Lucas up like deer, and they stopped instantly. A woman’s voice spoke with the authority of a school teacher.
“You’re not going anywhere tonight, gentlemen.”
CHAPTER THREE
Lucas shielded the light from his eyes. “Don’t I know that accent?”
“You tell me, Sergeant Burnside.”
“Kendra Abernathy?”
The light cut out. Lucas and Lenny both blinked the spots from their eyes. When Lucas opened his, a short woman with blond hair stepped toward him.
“You know they do have an airport here,” she said.
“No passports,” said Lucas.
“We can fix that.”
“We? How are things with the British Council?”
“Still teaching the world about language and culture, one student at a time.”
“I’m sure. You remember Lenny Cox?”
“Of course I do. How are you, Marine?”
“Very well, Ms. Abernathy. Surprised to see you here.”
“I like cricket as much as the next girl.”
“I meant—”
“Yes, Sergeant Cox, of course.” She smiled at Lucas. “I have a car to take you to the high commission.”
“Both of us?”
“Oh, no. Sergeant Cox has his own ride.”
“I do?” said Lenny.
“Yes. We figured your landing pad would be either the oval here or the cemetery across the street, so—” A car skidded to a stop in the lot behind the wire gate. “Here he is now.”
