Under the Carib Sun: An Adel Destin Crime Novel

PART 1: Chapters 1 - 7

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(Thursday, October 24th)

The next drop in altitude came as a gut-twisting plunge toward the sea that lifted Adel clear off his seat, the safety belt biting into his thighs. A loud decelerating roar from both propellers followed, with an ominous succession of snap-like sounds alongside the fuselage­. The French woman holding hands with her husband or boyfriend behind Adel let out another terrified yelp, just as the Twin Otter seemed to stabilize for a spell, the pilot of the small Air Caraïbes plane turning to flash his six passengers a shit-eating grin.

“Gonna be okay, folks,” he nodded fervently, “we’ll be touching down real soon now.”

Adel noted the beads of sweat on the pilot’s forehead, the tension in his face. He could smell the man’s perspiration fogging the cockpit and regretted taking the first seat in the cabin. He turned to his window and glanced at the symphony of blues outside, bright azure meeting deep ultra-marine on the lazy curve of the horizon. A band of indolent white clouds throwing their distended shadows on the water’s surface below. No land in sight.

We’ll be touching down real soon.

One way or another.

The nineteen-seater lurched wildly to one side, then dropped again.

“Oh, mon Dieu!” gasped the woman.

Adel noticed his own white-knuckled grip on both armrests and wondered if he was about to die. Here. Now. A few days shy of his twenty-ninth birthday, on his way to tiny tropical St.-Barts, French West Indies. Ironically because he thought Marseille had become too dangerous for him.

Adel couldn’t remember which day of the week it was, and this bothered him. A weekday, he was fairly certain. But which one?

Wednesday?

“Five minutes, folks!” the pilot cried out.

Which meant they were already halfway through the ten-minute flight from Saint-Martin. Adel leaned forward to gaze past the pilot’s shoulder through the cockpit’s windshield, once again amazed by time’s ability to shift depending on the situation. The island now stood right in front of him, jagged volcanic hills covered with green vegetation and surrounded by white sand beaches, a halo of turquoise water.

The Twin Otter began its descent, pitching from side to side, causing the French woman to whimper.

Shut the fuck up.

Adel tried to tune her out, concentrating on the view outside his window, a shimmering natural harbor dotted with red-roofed buildings now visible to the right of the plane.

Gustavia, the ‘capital’ of the eight square-mile island.

Adel looked back ahead and in the distance saw the short strip of runway he’d read about. Just over two-thousand-feet-long, sandwiched between a hill and the iridescent bay of Saint-Jean. Pilots had to get some kind of renewable qualification to be allowed to land here.

This is gonna be interesting.

The plane descended further, Adel realizing how windy it actually was down there, palm fronds twisting in violent gusts, white caps on the water of the bay.

A low modulated howl rose from the seat behind.

“Ah, ta gueule, Stéphanie,” snapped the woman’s companion, “ça va aller maintenant, hein?”