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taken a knee and was trying to suppress Knuckles, a losing proposition considering he was out in the open and Knuckles was behind the bricks in the tower.
    He got Knuckles to duck, then stood up and began running toward the front door, and I took aim. I squeezed off a double-tap and he tumbled. I raced out from cover and kicked his weapon away, seeing him straining to draw a breath, his lungs punctured like a whitetail deer’s. He tried to sit up, his eyes wide, his left arm clawing the dirt.
    I did nothing but watch, knowing he was slipping into another place. There was nothing I could do, even if I wanted to. He raked his nails through the earth one more time, then relaxed. I saw his eyes roll, and I knew he was done. Not for the first time, I wondered when someone would stand over me, waiting on my life to drain into the dirt.
    It won’t be today.
    The entire engagement had taken less than ten minutes. By the time Knuckles was back down the stairs, I was stripping the guy of his boots. Knuckles began doing the same to the man he’d chucked out the window when we heard movement. We both whipped our weapons up and saw a crusty-looking old man with almond skin coming out of the brush.
    Knuckles said, “Doesn’t look like he’s from Romania.”
    I stood up and waved, saying, “Nope. Looks more like a ride off of this rock. I think he’s a fisherman.”
    The man waved back, then sat on a hunk of limestone, content to watch. Like he’d seen a shoot-out on this island every other week. I waited for him to engage us, and when he didn’t I went back to work. We continued searching the team’s belongings, trying to find some clue as to what was going on, and two more Haitians emerged from the brush. They talked among themselves, looking at us like we would do something else to provide entertainment, but did nothing to interfere.
    We finished searching the bodies, finding precious little to explain what was going on. Little to enlighten how a simple contract to find a pirate treasure had evolved into a hunting team armed with the latest killing weapons available.
    Knuckles waved a fixed-blade stiletto he’d pulled out of a sheath from the man he’d chucked out the window. He flicked it into the dirt, the blade spinning once before stabbing into the ground, and said, “What the hell is going on here?”
    I unzipped the window jumper’s backpack, finding a walkie-talkie that was of little use and a notebook in Romanian. I said, “I don’t know, but one thing’s for sure. It’s got nothing to do with Blackbeard.”
    Knuckles said, “Actually, I think this whole thing had a lot more to do with Edward Teach than we know.”
    “What? You still believe there’s some treasure out here that caused all of this?”
    He stood up and waved the old man forward, saying, “Did you put your wallet in that waterproof bag with the phone?”
    “Yeah. Unlike you, I didn’t trust a bunch of foreigners with my personal stuff. Answer the question. What do you think is going on?”
    He shook the man’s ancient hand and said, “I think these fuckers are modern-day pirates, and Jennifer and Brett are walking into a shit storm.”

Chapter 8
    Jennifer felt the boat begin to gently roll and knew they’d cleared Port Royal. They were now out in the open ocean. She glanced at Brett and saw that he recognized it as well. They’d been locked up in the galley of the diving boat Pike had rented for close to twenty hours, their only movement allowed having been bathroom breaks. Even then, the zip ties stayed on their wrists and the door to the head had remained open, the Romanian thugs leering at her as she went. She had no idea what had happened to Pike and Knuckles, but after last night, she knew it wasn’t good news.
    She and Brett had reported to Dylan’s room to provide their initial take on the research they’d conducted during the day, both on the various legends of the location of pirate treasure as well as a rundown on past