Mac in Martinique, ch 4
Unusual Suspects

Jack waited behind the wide bole of a palm tree until MacGyver and Mike left the bungalow. He watched as they walked down the path, arm in arm and laughing, until after they were out of sight and their voices were swallowed by the music pulsing out of the tropical air. Only then did he hurry toward the now-darkened bungalow, sneakers stepping softly across the warped boards of the porch. He went inside, working quickly and without light. Once finished, he crept out again, tip-toeing across the sand to disappear among the trees.

It was very late when Mike asked Mac to escort her back to the bungalow. They were both glowing from a long night of laughter and dancing, walking in the sand to ease their tired feet.

"Where do you think Jack wandered off to?" Mike asked. "I thought he'd catch up with us at the restaurant."

"You know Jack," Mac answered with a shrug. "He has his own agenda… even when he's on vacation. Maybe he met up with that girl he met the other day when we were surf-skiing."

"Maybe," Mike responded, "But it's not like him to miss a party." They walked on in silence for a while. "You're not worried about him, are you?"

Mac blinked, "No, not really. I mean, with Jack you should always worry a little… but he can take care of himself. Usually."

"I know, but…" Mike's voice trailed off. Her eyes looked beyond the sea and sky, focusing on a far-away thought. "It's just… he's been acting kind of strange, don't you think?"

Mac frowned, taking a few moments to reflect. "I dunno, Mike. I haven't seen him since we returned from the reef." Mac laughed a little. "He saved my life out there, you know."

"I know… but before that, he… he was…" Mike sighed and turned to face Mac directly. "He came up at first light, saying he was going down to the reef. I told him he shouldn't dive alone, but he made me promise not to tell you. Doesn't that seem unusually strange?"

"Yeah," Mac answered, "Yeah... it does."

"Why would he want to keep it a secret? I mean, he must have known that you'd find out he went down."

"Maybe it's not what he did that he wants to keep secret… but what he found." Mac tapped his lip thoughtfully. "Did you see him bring up anything?"

"He took a game-bag down with him, but I didn't notice if there was anything inside it when he came up." Mike searched her memory. "That's funny… I don't remember seeing the bag, now that I'm thinking about it. I wonder if he lost it underwater and just didn't mention it?"

"I wonder." Mac didn't look like he agreed, though. The crease in his forehead had deepened with his frown. He took Mike's elbow and they continued walking toward their quarters. "Let's find the bad boy and ask. You're right… there's something strange going on here."

David DuGaul stood on the pier and looked out toward the sea. The sun was already lightening the sky eastward, and he had had a long and busy night. The reef where he had concealed a small fortune in South African gold lay somewhere behind his left shoulder, but there was no need to sail out there or even to look in that direction. DuGaul really had put the gold there himself. Someone had taken it, and therefore someone had to have used a boat to get there.

He had visited each of the many marinas that circled the small island, looking for information on who might have gone out to the reef on the day the gold had disappeared. Because of the influence of his employer, DuGaul had no problem with cooperation from the residents, even though he had pulled most of them from their beds to question, but there wasn't much that they could tell him about who went where. Tourists do not often give an itinerary of the places they planned to sail. Some had asked about good places to scuba dive, and the Shelf Reef was a popular answer.

It was because of the popularity of the place that DuGaul used it as a drop-off and pick-up point. Traffic in that area was not questioned, and the drug enforcement officers scoured the waters by both water and air. They would not stop a pleasure boat to search without a tangible reason. There were just too many and the DEA were spread thin in these waters.

DuGaul had just finished questioning the last possibility. The weathered old native seaman had given him vague answers, even when threatened with violence. The man acted as if he didn't care one way or the other, and he had no fear of DuGaul or of Mr. St. Just.

"There's nowt ye can do to these sea-logged old bones tha't'will make me answer any different," the man had said, liberally cursing DuGaul in a variety of different languages. "Tourist's tourists-- and I don' tell 'em where to go an' I don' ask where they been! Phah!"

"You senile old fool," DuGaul said under his breath, as he turned and left the man, still spitting and grumbling. Normally, he would have had the man beaten for is insolence, but he didn't have time to take the pleasure at the moment. He made a mental note to send one of his men back to teach the old bastard a lesson… but right now, he had more important things to do.

Tourists needed more than boats to look at the reefs… they also needed equipment. DuGaul had decided to concentrate on the idea that the thief was a tourist. If it were a local, the sudden appearance of krugerrands on the island would quickly come back to his ears.

DuGaul had intended to return to the Big Island and recruit some of Mr. St. Just's men to assist him, but as he was returning to his boat two men came running up to him. He recognized them. The politically correct description of them would be 'extortionists', but DuGaul though of them as 'brainless muscle-sacks'.

Both men were out of breath from running, mussed and bloody. One had a deep cut in one of his ears that had stained his t-shirt crimson. The other man had angry red marks on his nose and cheeks. They walked right up to him and began speaking at the same time.

"Mr. DuGaul!"

"We got trouble, sir!"

DuGaul waited while they continued to chatter, trying to talk over the other man. He finally held up a hand and whistled loudly. Both men fell silent. "Just you." DuGaul pointed at the one with the cut on his ear. "Talk."

"We got trouble, sir! Me and Chink, we were down on Sands Avenue, shakin' down the diver's shacks for Mr. St. Just…"

"You mean, collecting payments on their insurance," DuGaul amended calmly.

"Yeah… we were shakin' 'em down for their payments," injected Chink, "me and Jones."

"Shut up, Chink!" Jones elbowed his companion in the gut. "I'm talkin'."

"So talk some more," DuGaul encouraged him.

"Yeah… so, there we were at Ricky's, and some tall nosy geek tourist comes in and ruins everything."

"He hit me with a crab," Chink said miserably. Jones elbowed him again, harder.

"Who was this man?" DuGaul asked sharply. "Where is he now?"

"We dunno…" Chink began to say, but doubled over when Jones hit him again.

"We dunno, sir. We got blind-sided, and we didn't get up in time to see where he went. We had to split quick, 'cause the rasta called the cops on us."

DuGaul stepped forward until he was about six inches from Jones's face. "Find him," he breathed in a soft, dangerous voice. "Look very hard… as if your life depended upon it."