“I’m still not sold. You’re going to have to tell me something to convince me.”
“Like what?” he whimpered. “I’ll tell you anything, just don’t kill me!”
Jones stepped forward. “What kind of business is the Posse in?”
“You guys should know. You’re holding some of their products in your hands.”
“Guns?” Payne remarked. “But that doesn’t make sense. Why bring all of these innocent people to this island if you’re going to smuggle guns? There has to be more than that.”
“There is,” he grunted. “But you’re going to like that even less.”
Payne’s eyes flared with anger, causing the pressure on his gun to increase. “Why’s that, Bennie? Why am I not going to like it?”
“Because you’re white.”
“Okay, you racist bastard, what does that have to do with anything?”
“Hey, I’m not racist, but the Posse is.”
Payne smirked. “No shit! I kind of figured that out. What does racism have to do with the Posse’s business? Racism can’t be sold, you know.”
Blount stared Payne directly in the eyes. He wanted to make sure that Payne recognized the truth of his words. “That’s true, but slaves
can
be sold. White slaves.”
The concept made Payne shiver. If Blount was telling the truth, it meant that these people weren’t just being tortured. They were being broken—housebroken—for their new masters. “And how do you know this?”
“I just know! I’ve been walking around this place for several weeks and have heard stuff. Everybody treated me like an idiot, so they tried to talk over me. Nobody knew that I could put all of the pieces of the puzzle together. But I could. I’ve just been waiting for the right moment.” Blount took a breath. “And that moment is here. It’s finally here!”
“Why’s that?” Jones wondered.
“Because of you two. You’ve killed most of the Plantation guards, you have the masters running for their lives, and as far as I can tell, you got rid of the cargo ship. This is the time to finish them off! We can end the Posse right here, right now.”
“And why should we trust you?” Payne demanded. “You already dicked us once.”
“But I couldn’t help that! I couldn’t risk blowing my cover to help you out. I couldn’t! I tried to make it up to you, though. You know that! If it wasn’t for me, you would’ve died in the box.”
Payne shook his head. “You’re going to have to do better. I wouldn’t have been in that damn box if it wasn’t for you.”
“I know you don’t trust me, but without my help you won’t be able to save your girlfriend from a life of slavery. I can help you find her, and you know it. But we can’t wait much longer.”
The comment staggered Payne. With all of the fighting and arguing that was going on, Payne had forgotten about the one thing that mattered most: Ariane.
“How can you help?”
“I know the island much better than you. I can be your guide and an extra gun. Whether you know it or not, Ariane means an awful lot to me, too.”
Payne pressed the gun even harder into Bennie’s neck. He interpreted Blount’s comment as some kind of sexual insult.
“Why is that, you skinny bastard? And trust me, if your answer isn’t a good one, I’ll splatter your dreadlocks all over the wall!” Payne took a deep breath to control his fury, but it didn’t work. He was still fuming. “Why is Ariane important to you?”
“Why?” he stuttered. “Because she’s my cousin.”
CHAPTER 50
ARIANE
could hear heavy footsteps in the hall, but she had no idea who was out there until the door burst open. Two large figures entered the room.
“Well, well, well.” Greene laughed. “If it isn’t the trou blemaker’s bitch!”
Holmes followed him into the room. “All tied up and lookin’ good! If we had a little more time, I’d be tempted to play with her.”
Greene shook his head. “Unfortunately, we don’t. And all because of Payne.”
The sound of his name made her heart beat faster. “Is he here?” she tried to ask, but it came out mumbled.
“Wow, I think she’s trying to talk.” Holmes stared at her jaw, which had been broken by Harris Jackson. “A good-looking bitch who can’t talk. It’s like a dream come true.”
“Tease her later,” Greene suggested. “We gotta move before the two soldier boys find us.”
Two soldier boys? The sound was music to her ears. That meant Jones was probably with Payne, which only made sense. They did everything together, especially when it came to the military. But how in the world did they find her so quickly? Were they brought to the island the same time as her, or did they find her on their own?
Truthfully, it didn’t matter. As long as they knew where she was, she had a chance.
“Okay,” Holmes said. “I’m going to untie you from the bed now, but I expect you to be on your best behavior. Understood?”
Ariane nodded, even though it hurt her jaw to do so.
Holmes reached for the knot near her left wrist, but before he got ahold of it, a frantic voice came out of his radio. “Jesus! Is that Jackson? What does he want now?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Greene muttered. “You take care of the girl. I’ll take care of Harris.” Greene pushed the reply button on his own radio. “Harris? Is that you?”
“Levon,” Jackson answered, “we’ve got a major problem here!”
Greene frowned. “What’s going on?”
“I went down to the dock to check on the boat and . . . it’s gone!”
“What are you talking about?”
“All the guards are dead, and the boat is gone!”
“What about the slaves?” Greene demanded. “Where are the slaves?”
“They’re gone, too! I don’t know how, but the boat is gone!”
“Fuck!” Greene shouted. “I don’t believe this!”
Ariane watched Greene carefully, waiting to see what he was going to do next. She sensed that he might take his anger out on her. Thankfully, that never came to pass.
“What should we do?” he asked Holmes.
Holmes shrugged as he unfastened Ariane’s rope. “Your call.”
Greene gave it some thought before answering. “Just wait for us at the dock. We’ll be there shortly. And try to find Theo if you can. I think it would be best if we all stuck together.”
“Sounds good,” Jackson replied. “Make it quick. I’m in the open down here.”
Greene turned off his radio. “I can’t believe this shit! How can two guys cause this many problems?”
Holmes grinned at the comment. “You’d be surprised what two men can accomplish if they put their minds to it. . . . Like us, for instance.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I realize you’ve known Harris and Theo forever, but under the circumstances, we need someone to take the blame for all of this. If the feds get a couple of suspects in custody, they won’t be as likely to hunt for anyone else. At least not immediately.”
Greene’s interest was piqued. “What are you proposing?”
“How much would it bother you if we left them behind? Why don’t we get off this island while we still have a chance?”
“Interesting,” Greene muttered. However, after giving it some thought, he detected a flaw in the plan. “But we can’t leave them here.”
“Why not? We have the opportunity to flee, and you’re not willing to seize it because of them. My God! They’d leave your ass behind in a minute!”
“Wait a second!” he yelled back. “I don’t mind leaving them, but we can’t. They’ll name us, say we were the force behind everything, and preach their innocence. I guarantee they’ll frame their stories to suit their needs, and because of Harris’s knowledge of the law, they’ll come out sitting pretty. Hell, they might even be given immunity to testify against us.”
Holmes grimaced at the thought. “Damn, you’re right. So what do you recommend?”
Greene smiled at Ariane, then glanced at his new partner. “We should leave the island ASAP. But before we do, we need to silence Theo and Harris—permanently.”
BLOUNT’S
comment was absurd, completely asinine. Perhaps the most outrageous, preposterous, nonsensical thing that Payne had ever heard. But that was why he was tempted to believe it. It wasn’t the type of thing that someone would make up to save his own ass.
“Okay, Bennie, my interest is aroused. But I promise you, if I smell bullshit at any point of your explanation,
boom!
Understood?”
Blount nodded. “As you know, I’m not a dumb hick, but I
am
a local. My family has lived in these parts for generations. In fact, when this place was owned and operated by the Delacroix family, my ancestors worked the land as slaves.”
Payne signaled for him to speed it up.
“For the past few years I’ve been working on my master’s degree at LSU and recently started work on my thesis. I planned to show the effect that the abolition of slavery had on black families, using my family tree as an example.”
“And?”
“A few months ago, I came to this island to look around. This place had been abandoned for the longest time, and I thought a few photos would look good in my project.”
“What happened?”
“I bumped into a team of black men doing all kinds of work. I assumed that someone had bought the estate after Hurricane Katrina and was going to move in. So I went up to a brother to ask him a few questions about the new owner and discovered that he couldn’t speak English. Actually, none of them could. These guys were right off the boat from Africa.”
Jones asked, “Everyone?”
Blount nodded, then turned his attention back to Payne. “I didn’t want to get anybody into trouble, including myself, so I left quickly. It’s a good thing, too, because if one of the owners had seen me, I would’ve never been allowed to come back later.”
“Why’d you want to come back?”
“I wanted to see what they were going to do to the place, and I thought it could help my research. You see, during the course of my studies, I came across a family journal from the 1860s. It was like finding gold. It gave me a firsthand account of slave life on this plantation from a distant grandmother. Simply fascinating stuff.”
“I’m sure,” Payne said, “but I’m beginning to get impatient here.”
“You want me to get to Ariane, don’t you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
Blount nodded. “During the course of the journal, my distant grandmother admits to having an affair with Mr. Delacroix, her master. She said she did it for special treatment, but eventually, it turned into more than that. She fell in love with Delacroix and allowed him to impregnate her on several occasions. Shortly after that, the Civil War ended and the journal entries stopped.”
“That’s it?” Payne demanded. “What does any of that have to do with Ariane?”
“At the time, I didn’t know, but I was determined to talk with someone from the Delacroix family so I could get a look at their family tree. I figured if I was a direct descendant of Mr. Delacroix, then I would technically be related to all of his white offspring.”
Payne started to see where this was going, and his eyes filled with acceptance. He knew that Blount was telling the truth and couldn’t wait to see how Ariane fit in.
“I went to the local courthouse and tried to find his relatives, but every path I found ended in death. I swear, the Delacroix family must’ve been cursed because everyone in that family died so young. Anyway, when I came back here to look around again, I hoped the new owners had bought the property from a distant relative of mine and would be willing to give me an address.”
“Makes sense,” Payne added.
“But when I came back, I got the shock of my life. The old plantation was back in business. Not just as a farm, but as an
actual
plantation. Crops in the ground and slaves in the field, but this time, unlike the 1800s, the slaves were white.”
“What did you do?” Jones wondered as he watched for unwanted company.
“I tried to leave. I wanted to tell somebody what I saw out here, but before I could get my boat out of the swamps, a big man named Octavian Holmes blocked my passage and demanded information from me at gunpoint. I didn’t want to tell him the truth, obviously. If he knew that I had been digging around, he would’ve killed me. So I decided to play dumb. At that moment, I became a buckwheat by the name of Bennie Blount.”
“Go on,” Payne said.
“I convinced Master Holmes that I’d be useful around here. I could cook, clean, and show him around the local swamps. One thing led to another, and he decided to hire me. I figured it was perfect. I could roam around the Plantation while I got to the bottom of things.”
“Did you?”
Blount nodded. “Up until recently, the Posse was bringing random groups of people onto the island, mostly homeless people. They’d beat them, train them, then ship them overseas for big money. It’s a lucrative business. But all of that changed with this last group of slaves. The people that were selected were no longer random. These people were brought here for a reason. They were brought here for revenge.”
“What kind of revenge?”
“Revenge for the black race. Theo Webster, the brains behind the operation, traced the roots of the Plantation’s four founders and determined their family origins. Three of the men came from slave backgrounds, but Levon Greene didn’t. His family came to America after slavery had been abolished. Anyway, Webster determined the names of the slave owners that had once owned the ancestors of the other three men. Then, tracing their family trees to the present day, he located the modern-day relatives of those slave owners.”
“And the people that were kidnapped were the relatives?”
Blount nodded. “Ariane and her sister are distant relatives of Mr. Delacroix, my great-great-great-great-grandfather. That’s why they were brought here, and that’s why I’m related. I realize it doesn’t make her my first cousin, but she is my relative. I even have the data to back it up.”
