Gardens of the Queen Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Nicholas Harvey

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2019

  ISBN-13: 9781082763458

  Mermaid illustration by Tracie Cotta

  Author photograph by Katy Short Photography

  Cover design by author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner unless noted otherwise. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Except Jen and her Greenhouse Restaurant, you can’t make up Jen.

  For Cheryl, my mermaid.

  Chapter 1

  Rain lashed against the windshield of the Cessna 182 float plane, the wipers almost completely ineffective as the storm blew the small aircraft around like a toy. The noise between the struggling single engine and the storm raging outside was deafening. A young man, Carlos Rojas, fought the yoke and worked the pedals as best he could, his eyes laser focused on the instruments as the darkness of night masked anything the storm didn’t hide. The altimeter read 500 feet and finally the radar screen showed the edge of a small land mass ahead amongst the red, yellow and green of the storm cell. Next to him, a tall, slender, brown-skinned girl of similar age hung on to her seat in a death grip as the plane kicked and bucked.

  Regina, who much preferred to go by her middle name, Sydney, reached forward and tapped the radar screen, shouting above the ferocious noise, “That’s Grand Cayman! We have to find the North Sound, it’ll be the only water we’ll have a chance of landing on in this weather!”

  Carlos nodded in her direction, still fighting the controls as he bounced around in the seat and against the door in the violent turbulence.

  Sydney turned and reached behind her seat to grab a map. The back of the Cessna where the two passenger seats would normally be was filled with large, black protective travelling cases and various pieces of equipment strapped to the floor. The rearward strap was loosening and the load was starting to move as the plane jounced and leapt about. She thought for a moment about releasing her belt and attempting to secure the strap but as if to dissuade her the plane dropped in a pocket of air and slammed as it gained lift again. She turned back to the front with the map and prayed the cargo would hold.

  They’d given up using the plane’s intercom headsets as they couldn’t keep the cheap models from sliding off their heads in the turbulence. They wouldn’t be talking to flight control anyway. Carlos leaned her way, shouting in a thick Hispanic accent, “We’re approaching from the east; you’ll have to guide me to the Sound, okay?”

  Sydney gave him a thumbs up rather than waste her time screaming, switched on a small light and spread the map across her lap. She knew the island like the back of her hand but Carlos didn’t. She wanted to have all the tools available to help him navigate to the shallow sound she hoped would have calmer waters than the open ocean. The sound was about five miles wide, the same long, surrounded by the island on three sides and protected by a treacherous reef across the opening to the north.

  According to the radar they were travelling along the north coast of the island, heading west. Carlos looked down out the side window but even at 500 feet couldn’t make out anything but rain and blackness. He eased the plane down, carefully watching his altimeter and attitude indicator to level off after dropping to 200 feet.

  “Can you see any lights on the ground from your side? There should be land down there!” he yelled anxiously to Sydney.

  She shook her head. “Nothing!” Her skin was glistening with sweat from a combination of the humid air and fear.

  She looked over at the young Cuban and could see the concern in his eyes too. He noticed and gave her his best smile. “No problem, we’ll do this on instruments, we’ll be fine.”

  The plane shuddered and banked hard to the right in a vicious gust of wind, slamming Carlos against the door as he fought the yoke and pedals to level them again. Something crashed in the back and the plane lurched again to the right, dipping its nose at the same time. Carlos felt a solid impact to the back of his seat which shoved his hands forward on the yoke, causing the plane to dive even more. Sydney was thrown across the cockpit towards Carlos and then forward towards the instrument panel as a torch came hurtling from the back, hitting her a glancing blow behind the ear before spinning into the instrument panel. The radar screen exploded in a spray of plastic and electrical parts as Carlos finally righted the plane and pulled back on the stick to recover some altitude.

  Sydney winced and touched the back of her head, feeling something wet and sticky matting her hair together. Carlos was breathing heavily from the effort but rested a hand on her leg. “Are you okay?”

  She looked at him, her voice shaky. “It’s just a bump, I’ll live, but we’ve lost the radar!”

  They both stared at the broken instrument. Their lifeline through the foreboding, squall-ridden night was gone. With zero visibility they knew their altitude and heading but had no reference for where they were relative to the island. Blind.

  Carlos reacted quickly, “We knew approximately where we were ten seconds ago and we’re heading a few degrees north of that now.” Sydney laid the map back out on her lap from the crumpled mess it had balled up into on the floor, and Carlos leaned over to look. Pointing at the north coast he surmised, “We were about here, approaching Rum Point, correct?”

  Sydney nodded. “Yes, and that means we’re around the north wall by now.” She pointed to her estimate on the map. “The Sound should be to our left about now – turn left and go two or three miles and we’ll be in the middle!”

  Carlos shook his head. “I can’t do that!”

  Sydney looked puzzled. “Why not?”

  “We have to land into the wind, especially in this mess, and the wind is out of the north!”

  He banked the plane to the left and the wind noise dropped a little as the plane sped up with the wind now to its tail.

  More confused, Sydney asked, “Then where are you going?”

  He swirled his finger over the map in a circle, “We have to head south like you said but then we’ll have to turn around and land facing the north!”

  He checked their altitude and level as he pulled out of the turn and noted the time so he could judge the distance they were travelling. Sydney reached back and tried to shove the gear off the back of their seats without much success. The straps lay helplessly to the side having finally given way, allowing the cargo to shift. She reached for the small rucksack they’d brought a handful of clothes and personal items in and managed to shove that to the back out of the way. With nothing she could do to secure anything properly she returned her attention to the front.

  “Lights!” Sydney screamed. “I see some lights down below us to the left!”

  Carlos looked down on his side but it was useless – he still couldn’t make out anything. “On land or a boat you think?”

  Sydney scanned desperately, trying to make them out again. One small connection to Mother Earth – for the briefest of moments she had a glimpse of life outside their tiny airborne capsule.

  “I’ve no idea, I think it was land, there were a few lights, more than a boat I think and there’s no way any boat is out in this. Well, hopefully one.” She trailed off.

  They both glanced at the map and Sydney ran her finger along the east side of the sound. “There’s nothing along this side after Rum Point until we get to the south shore of
the sound.”

  Carlos followed her finger along the map next to hers as the plane continued to kick and buck in the turbulence. “We should be about three miles across the sound by now, still two miles from the south shore.” He pondered carefully and looked up at Sydney, “Unless we weren’t as far to the north as we thought… In which case we’re flying over the island right now and the sound is behind us.”

  “Shit Carlos, I don’t know, but the more we fly around the more lost we’re gonna get!”

  Carlos banked hard to the right, making a 180˚ turn back north into the wind, “I don’t know either but you’re right we’re getting more lost the more we fly blindly on. I’ll begin descending and we’ll either start brushing trees or water!”

  He eased back the throttle and began losing altitude steadily, staying focused on flying level. Heading straight into the wind had the rain smashing into the windshield even worse than before and the small plane bucked and kicked. The altimeter dropped through 100 feet and kept falling. Carlos checked he had his landing lights on as he really couldn’t tell. Fifty feet and he still couldn’t see anything. He’d slowed to minimum speed; any slower and they’d stall and nose into the water. Thirty feet, nothing.

  Sydney had turned the map light off to dim the cabin as much as possible, hoping to see outside a little better. The instruments still eerily illuminated them both but Carlos desperately needed the altimeter and attitude indicator. Twenty feet. “Water! I see water below us! The waves are…” Sydney didn’t get to finish the sentence. The pontoons caught the top of a wave, effectively slamming on the brakes, and with that they were no longer flying.

  Chapter 2

  Silvio Martinez felt dog tired. It was nine o’clock and he was finally dropping into the threadbare chair in his tiny apartment and unwrapping the now lukewarm burrito he’d bought from the taco stand on his way home. He should have eaten it before he showered but he’d felt too grubby and had to rinse off first. Research work was supposed to be white coat laboratory stuff, all science and atmospherically sealed rooms. Not so much in Silvio’s world, he huffed – four years of marine biology at university in Havana and he was little more than a glorified boat captain. No different from the boat captains running the fishing fleet from the harbour, except they probably made more money than him. Damn he stank. Didn’t matter how much he showered and scrubbed; he couldn’t rid himself of the smell of ocean mixed with diesel.

  He took a big bite of burrito as his mobile phone buzzed in his pocket. He cursed. Putting his dinner down he retrieved the phone from his tracksuit trouser pocket and read the text.

  In Spanish it read ‘Did you lash the boat and seaplane down securely?’

  He tilted his head back and cursed again. Badly. Out loud.

  Reaching for the bottle of beer he’d just opened to enjoy with dinner he took a large swig.

  ‘Yes,’ he lied in his reply.

  Another bite and another swig gave him time to ponder his dilemma. He could make sure he was at work early enough to tie them down and the bastard would never know. But with his luck the boss would go in extra early or, worse still, this storm over to the west of them would blow this way and they really would need to be lashed down.

  With another swig he got up, grabbed his car keys and left with lukewarm burrito in hand.

  Silvio pulled into the empty car park of a modern brick building by the ocean to the west of the small town. The sign on the building read ‘Instituto de Estudios Geológicos’, Jucaro, Cuba. Tall wire fencing stretched from either side of the building down to the water, securing the facility and making sure anyone arriving by land had to go through the front door.

  He unlocked the door and disarmed the alarm, careful to close the door behind him. He walked through the small front reception room that rarely received anyone, past a few more offices, flicking lights on as he went. Next was a larger room with multiple computers and several benches scattered with microscopes and various scanning and analysis equipment. At the back of that room he unlocked another door leading outside to the concrete piers surrounding a manmade inlet cut into the coastline from the open ocean. With another switch on the outside wall, a couple of floodlights illuminated the inlet and a seventy-foot converted trawler tied to the cleats on the pier. The wind was blowing a bit but so far no other sign of the storm and he shook his head, figuring he could’ve stayed in his chair.

  He lifted the lid of a waist-high container on the deck and dragged out some ropes, throwing them over by the boat. It was then that it struck him. Where was the damn seaplane? He ran down the pier and desperately searched the inlet. How could that thing break loose? He knew he’d tied it off when Carlos flew in earlier that afternoon from Jardines de la Reina, the island chain off the coast. He recalled watching Carlos top it back off with petrol while they chatted. They’d stood where he was standing now. He kept replaying it in his mind but every time it ended with a seaplane tied to this dock.

  He slowly took his phone out and stared at it a while, summoning up the courage to make the call. Being caught in the lie about the extra tie lines was now the least of his problems – how could he explain to his Russian boss that he’d lost a whole float plane? Maybe Carlos, the pilot, had a trip Silvio didn’t know about or came up late, he thought, but Carlos had left long before he had tonight. He dialled Carlos’s number, hoping to God he had the answer. Straight to voicemail. “Damn it.”

  He had no choice, he had to call the Russian. He dialled the number and paced the pier, hoping the plane would magically reappear before he answered. No such luck. “Mikhail? We’ve got a problem here.”

  The voice on the other end of the line was calm, even, and with surgical precision spoke Spanish with only a hint of his native Russian accent. “What kind of problem?”

  “It’s the float plane, it’s gone…” Silvio cringed, expecting the monotone tongue-lashing he knew was coming. His boss had a way of demeaning people while never raising his voice. He’d been admonished by him and seen it happen to everyone working there and not once had the man shouted. But he could verbally strip you down and whip you to pulp with his words. Always logical and usually correct, he had a way of exposing every vice, fault and mistake until you felt like a helpless fool.

  “How can a complete aeroplane disappear Silvio? Are you telling me you didn’t tie it down at all and it’s drifted into the sea or has someone stolen it in which case one of you left it unlocked?”

  Before Silvio could muster an answer Mikhail carried on, this time with a hint of urgency in his voice. “Go back inside. What is missing?”

  Silvio stammered as he started back into the building, “Nothing, I think, I didn’t see anything out of place when I came through. The front door was locked and the alarm was on.” He burst into the electronics room, scanning for anything out of place.

  “Shit!”

  Mikhail was almost a whisper. “The computer is gone, correct?”

  Silvio put his hand to his forehead, “Well, yeah, the main computer is pulled out and it looks like the hard drive has been taken.”

  “Check the survey maps,” the Russian continued. Silvio rummaged on the benches and threw his hands in the air. Returning to the mobile, he reluctantly confirmed, “All of them, cases, everything, it’s all gone.”

  Mikhail was silent for a moment but Silvio dared not say a word.

  He finally spoke. “Check the alarm log. Someone logged in after we left tonight. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Chapter 3

  Sydney grabbed Carlos’s shirt as the plane heaved over again and they both slid uncontrollably to her side away from the opened door. She wished she could see his eyes. Those beautiful dark eyes that made her heart skip when he looked at her. Those eyes full of life, adventure and laughter, the eyes of the young man she adored. The eyes she was sure she’d never see again.

  Without hesitation or pause the plane rolled over and crashed upside down into the water with the powerful wave washing over it
like a giant hand shoving them under the surface.

  They fell head first to the roof of the plane as it inverted before being slammed by the wall of sea water rushing through the open door that had been ripped from its hinges in the melee. Sydney instinctively took a gulp of air as she scrambled to get upright again and find the door. Carlos was pinned under Sydney with his face shoved against the roof lining. A burning sensation in his cheek suggested all was not well. His head pounded and swirled hazily.

  Sydney felt like she was clawing through mud – she tried to reach out and grab the door frame but it didn’t seem her arms were responding. It was completely dark and suddenly became terrifyingly quiet. She quickly realised she’d been fighting against the fire hose of water pouring in and, now the cockpit had filled, she was under water and could move again. But move where? She had no idea where anything was, especially Carlos. She desperately searched around her until she found his body beneath her. He was still.

  Her lungs burned for air and panic rose quickly. She grabbed at Carlos with one hand and fumbled for the door opening with the other. She had to have air. The feeling of panic overwhelmed her and she pushed hard with her legs, driving herself upwards where her brain told her air should be. Her head smashed into the inverted floor of the cramped cockpit and she gasped in pain. She screamed and the noise echoed around her head in a strange dampened way. She could breathe. She sucked in the precious air and calmed herself, her mind clearing and slowly able to assess the situation.

  Carlos was below her – in fact she realised she was standing, or more accurately crouching, on him. He’d seemed unconscious… or was he dead? She forced the idea from her mind; it was too unfathomable that in the midst of doing something so right and so courageous he’d be dead. She physically shook her head to banish the thought and focus on next steps. She had to get Carlos, the unconscious Carlos, find the door opening and swim them both to the surface.