Zero Island (Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners Book 2) by Chris Bauer (mobi ebook reader .TXT) 📗

“As long as there are enough insects, the bats won’t be a bother. And God knows there are enough insects out here.” He swatted at his face, leaned forward, squinted into the distance. “Up ahead is our first stop.”

Two armed seamen stood side by side on the middle of three small, cantilevered wooden platforms. They snapped to attention when their CO got close. Between them, an electric lantern. Behind them, tangled in the overgrowth, head high, was a drone the size of a go-kart, with four black rotors outboard of a plastic body. Its payload was firmly in the grasp of its mechanical red claws, a Styrofoam cooler that had snapped apart at the bottom like it was a wafer cookie.

“At ease, sailors. Step aside, we need a closer look.”

Evan marched Philo and Patrick to the edge of the platform, their flashlights blazing. Philo’s jaw dropped. The cooler had birthed its contents onto the muddy floor of the swamp.

“That what I think it is?” Philo asked.

“If you’re thinking it’s a woman’s severed head,” Evan said, “then yes.”

Dark skin, short black hair, open black eyes, swollen cheeks, unhinged jaw. Polynesian-Hawaiian. The decapitation appeared clean, a one-and-done blow across the neck as effective as a guillotining. Philo got into a crouch, focused his torch to examine it more closely.

“Jesus, Evan.” Philo leaned left, tilted his head to see it at a different angle. Flies and other insects were starting to accumulate on the skin, wandering inside the nose. “When will the police be here?”

“Probably like right now. We held off calling it in long enough. Orders from my superiors, trying to gauge if there was a national security threat.” Evan gestured at the planking laid out in front of them, leading north. “This was one delivery that didn’t work. There were others that did. We need to keep moving.”

“Is there? A national security issue?”

“Someone’s screwing with the U.S. Navy, but we think no. Let’s go.”

Fifty yards into the next leg, Evan spoke freely, Philo shadowing him step by step. “We’ll take the drone, let the police examine it at the base if they want to. We’ve already confirmed the protocol.”

“I have to say, Evan,” Philo said, “if someone is using drones like the one I just saw, this seems like a local breach.”

“Right you are, Chief, one might think that. And the Navy thinks they know who it is, generally speaking. Me, I have my own theory. Here we are, the next platform.”

Two more armed seamen, another lantern between them, more saluting. No drone, but another Styrofoam container, this one sitting uncovered and flat in the mud, abutting the platform, the lid missing. Three flashlights provided a look inside. A jumble of arm and leg parts, two of each, had been cut to fit the container.

“We’re not done yet, men.” Evan handed them each a bottle of cold water. “Hitch up your jockeys,” he said, sipping, “our next stop is about a mile away.”

Sparse chatting between the three of them, their flashlights swaying, their bug spray bath failing to keep away the insects they walked into. Evan gestured with his flashlight at a swarm of hovering bugs of unknown species. Within seconds a flurry of flapping wings announced their predators, swooping in for a nighttime meal.

“Hoary bats, two o’clock. Keep moving.”

A flickering lantern beckoned them forward to the next stop. Same M.O., guards, guns, salutes, and an open Styrofoam container sitting on the ground within reach of another platform, and again, no drone.

“The final delivery, men.”

They illuminated the inside of the white cooler with their flashlights. Buzzing flies feasted on their swampy picnic: a headless, armless, legless female torso. And on closer inspection—

“The internal organs are gone,” Philo said.

“And this, my good Chief,” Evan said, “is why I want Wally Lanakai’s head on a silver platter.”

Philo and Patrick leaned in, looked over the cooler’s gory interior, the remainder of the woman unceremoniously dumped into the wild. This whole situation—someone had a flair for the dramatic, was Philo’s assessment. The three containers spread out along this swamp trail—again, like with the other bodies, no one was trying to hide anything. On the contrary, someone was making a point.

“I don’t think it’s Lanakai, Evan. It might be someone trying to call attention to him, but it’s not him.”

“Not buying it, Philo. You yourself said he’s into organ trafficking…”

“In Philly he cleaned up after himself. He had people to do that for him, to make crime scenes disappear, like what I do legally. This… this is nuts.”

“Goddamn it, Philo.” Evan paced the planks. “I am losing my mind over this—”

“Give me the other theory, bud.”

“What other theory, damn it?”

“What does the Navy think is going on?”

Evan removed his naval cap, un-gritted his teeth. Exhausted, he surrendered to the question. “It could be the Yakuza. Or an offshoot of the Yakuza.”

A blast from the past. A rumor as old as Philo’s early SEAL training days in Hawaii. A ruthless, dangerous cult, with origins among the Samurai, and organized to the hilt in Japan. But in Hawaii?

“In Kauai and around the other islands. They’ve terrorized the Japanese population here. Occasional beat-downs that make the news. They make examples of people, especially if someone helps the Navy in any way, for reasons unknown. I also heard that they’re crazy brutal. A severe, more radical strain.”

Which was what Philo also remembered hearing. “No ceremonial hara-kiri or seppuku, like in the old days,” Philo added. “They behead people, even their own.”

“Rumored, yes.”

Flashlights approached from farther up the trail. “This will be the police,” Evan said. “Our monopoly on the Alakai Swamp Trail is over, gentlemen. We’re better off taking the trail forward and saying hello to them. I can get someone to pick us up at the end—”

Craaack-craaack-craaack went a handgun, piercing shots from behind them, deafening, echoing, causing Philo and Evan to draw their weapons. The flashlights in front of them on the trail started forward in a rush. Philo and Evan turned to see one of his seamen