Ocean Grave

by Matt Serafini

  “He’s going to kill you,” he said, lapsing into a coughing spasm that painted the sand around him red.

  Sara skidded through the bloodstains on her knees and brought her ear straight to his lips.

  “They’re paid to kill,” he said. “Bitch they work for is ruthless.”

  “How do you know them?”

  “Work where I do, you learn the players,” he sputtered. “Don’t tell me you think that guy’s your friend.”

  “Where’s the jewel?”

  Another cough. His limp wrist gestured to the waves.

  “The ocean?”

  “Pirate’s got it... jumped out just before the crash.”

  Guillaume had been right about Holloway’s broadcast being compromised, but at least he’d tried to ditch the pirate before landing. The crash was a gamble that hadn’t paid off.

  Holloway was the color of moon glow and might probably be dead before sunset. He smiled red and the blood streamed down the sides of his cheeks, finding new areas of flesh to stain.

  “I’m sorry, Holloway.”

  He shook his head. Didn’t care to hear it. “Catch up to him.” His hand brushed the grip of her pistol. “Kill him.”

  It was the last thing she wanted to do. Didn’t want to believe Guillaume would kill her. She considered telling Holloway about the deal the Baroness had given her. But wasn’t that more naiveté?

  Before she could even consider that, she caught a glimpse of the Star Time in the corner of her eye. The ship was moving, coming around, and headed straight for shore.

  What now?

  She drifted toward the open beach and drew her weapon. Just behind the boat, the fin cut the water.

  And then somewhere out of sight, Guillaume began to scream.

  Forty-Five

  Kaahin could’ve gone for the island, but the vicious undertow would have cost him time and maybe more.

  The yacht, on the other hand, was further out. The fish, here. He accepted his helplessness and swam for it, thinking the boat would grant him tremendous leverage, should he make it.

  A hundred kilometers. Maybe less. The longest swim of his life. He pushed through water that was perpetually red. Blood pouring from unknown wounds.

  A tired hand reached for the yacht’s swim platform. He climbed onto it and scaled the stern ladder. He moved across the deck mumbling a quick offering of thanks to his god.

  The living space was luxurious past the point of mockery. This boat would net him one large sum. He could take it right now, cast off for home and leave these foolish treasure-seekers to die. Only there was no chance he’d get far. The angatra wouldn’t let him. Besides, the treasure was within reach...

  “One hell of a swim.” The thick French accent was almost too difficult for Kaahin to understand. He froze on the stairwell landing. A man in a flak jacket was on the next landing up, leaning over the railing, an automatic weapon pointed down. His face was smeared in blood and his eyelids seemed heavy.

  “What are you doing on my ship?”

  “You shot me out of the sky,” Kaahin said.

  “Didn’t do shit. What are you doing on my ship?”

  “Didn’t want to drown.”

  “I’d have preferred it if you had,” the Frenchman said. “I know who you are.”

  “Then you have the advantage.”

  “I’ll keep it. Upstairs. Now.”

  Kaahin walked with his hands in the air. He wouldn’t give this man one excuse to shoot him. They went single file into a supply room where the far wall was lined with weapons. Diving equipment and field-ready computers were sprawled across the table.

  The Frenchman ordered him into a seat and then joined him, eye-to-gun barrel. Another soldier of fortune. No shortage of these parasites.

  “You’re going to go fishing with me,” the Frenchman told him.

  Kaahin laughed. The first time he felt like laughing in forever. Not only was the request absurd, but this man was nearly dead. Kaahin saw oversized gauze stuffed beneath his vest where someone had shot him. “Oh, fishing,” he said. “Is that all?”

  “We’re going to kill that thing.”

  “And do what with it?”

  “Worry about the killing.”

  “Why not ask your people?”

  “The fish is hammering us now. I can’t wait for my people to come back. I think it punctured the hull.”

  “Ah,” Kaahin said. “Then you are running out of time.”

  “This isn’t a partnership. You refuse, I shoot you in the face and use your corpse as chum.”

  “Tried that,” Kaahin said. “It does not work.”

  “I will try again.”

  “It will not be easy.”

  “Let’s cut through it, then, Pirate King. What do you want?”

  “This ship.”

  The Frenchman’s turn to laugh. “It’s yours. For as long as it floats.”

  “It’s a smart fish,” Kaahin said. “Bait it and it will not come.”

  “She went after my people as they went ashore.”

  “I would guess your people were anything but ready for it.”

  The Frenchman considered this and lit a cigarette. He took deep breaths that sounded like someone blowing into a kazoo. “It haunts this ship. I wonder why it let you make it aboard.”

  “It is not through torturing me,” Kaahin said.

  “We’ll turn those tables.”

  Kaahin felt bold. He reached two fingers out. The Frenchman stared back and at last slid a cigarette in between Kaahin’s fingers. “I know how to catch it,” he said.

  “Start talking,” the Frenchman said.

  Kaahin did. The easiest way was to go inland. The fish would go for a living thing inside a Zodiac boat.

  “We rig a second boat,” the Frenchman said. “Send it straight for shore. It’ll sputter against the undertow, make the fish think we’re trying to follow our friends.”

  “And while that’s happening we lift anchor and move this boat closer,” Kaahin said. “Use everything we’ve got to take it out. Which begs the question, what have you got that kills?”

  The Frenchman went to the back of the room and lifted a soviet RPG off the floor. “Funny,” he said. “Used to be three rockets here. Now there’s one.”

  Kaahin ashed his cigarette on the table and tossed.

  “There is someone else aboard this ship,” the Frenchman growled. “We thought they went to shore but—”

  Kaahin nodded sadly. “It is me they want.”

  “And we need to find him fast,” the Frenchman said.

  ***

  Mr. Reeves grabbed the blonde by the hair and yanked her head.

  Her eyes were soaked, but steely. Impotent hatred that bored him. “If I take the sock out of your mouth,” he said, “do you promise to remain silent?”

  A muffled uh-huh, so he pulled the dirty sock free and tossed it. She pressed her mouth to the bed sheet and gagged in silence.

  Mr. Reeves thought she was a lovely sight. Very fit and with an exquisite body. Nice curves beneath the white and yellow lemon wrap dress she wore. The way it rode up around her thighs. He enjoyed the way one of her ass cheeks poked out from beneath the thin fabric, for he felt like he was seeing something he was not supposed to.

  Very fit, he thought. In another life, he would enjoy sitting with her and inquiring about her workout regimen. He felt depressingly out of shape beneath his gear. It had been years since he’d worn this much and it was so heavy. Made him... tired.

  The good news was that Mr. Reeves still had his fastball. He and Davis had taken this ship with ease. But Davis, young as he was, had suffered a tragic dimming of instinct. The boy had gotten himself killed for no damn reason other than thinking he could control the situation.

  “Why don’t you get up now?” Mr. Reeves suggested. “And stand in front of the door. Make a sound I do not like, and I will execute you.”

  The blonde did it and Mr. Reeves couldn’t suppress his grin seein
g how much fear he’d instilled in her.

  Fastball indeed.

  Mr. Reeves knew you did not underestimate your enemy, no matter who he was. Once Davis got his ticket punched for the Heaven Express, he knew they’d search the ship. Mr. Reeves found the one place to hide they wouldn’t think to look. The small storage panel beneath the engine room floor, intended for tools and spare machine parts, but deep enough to take a body. You wouldn’t even know it was there, hidden beneath floor matting, unless you’d read the owner’s manual. This wasn’t Mr. Reeves’ first time at the dance, recalling circumstances that led to him being stranded on the Atlantic in a boat that wasn’t at all dissimilar to this one. Him, alongside with a cadre of Washington types that included two former presidents. An amusing story that would have to die with him.

  The problem now was that he couldn’t use that spot again. Because pirates learned every crevice of their ships by trade, and this bastard would certainly know to look there.

  “I almost hit him, you know,” Mr. Reeves told her. “I mean, I hit the fucking plane. That could’ve been it. Why couldn’t that have been it? I’ve got to clip him here and now.”

  “You don’t have to kill Jean-Philippe, you know,” the blonde said, her voice all trembles.

  “Oh, I won’t.” Mr. Reeves popped the magazine from his submachine gun, dispassionately checking to ensure it remained loaded—a nervous tick he’d never been able to shake. He tuned her out. Thing was, it was less of a mess if he waxed them all.

  The blonde eyed him with caution. She knew what he was.

  “It’s time we take the fight to them,” Mr. Reeves said.

  She winced as he crossed the room and put a gloved hand on her shoulder. She didn’t see, but the barrel of the gun was an inch from her back. “You’re on point,” he told her. “Open the door.”

  She did as she was told.

  There was no motion, save for the creaking boat that made more groaning noises now than when he’d boarded. Mr. Reeves knew the others aboard hunted him the way he hunted them. And he would’ve clipped the blonde already if he didn’t think he’d need a human shield.

  “Where might they be?” he said, almost inaudibly.

  “Last time we searched from the top down,” she whispered.

  Yes, they had. Mr. Reeves recalled lying in the dark, listening to the humming engine while waiting to hear footfalls crossing over him. And it had taken a long time.

  “We go up,” he whispered. “Move too fast, and I will execute you. Got it?”

  An affirmative whimper.

  They reached the stairwell and Mr. Reeves made the blonde ascend to the next landing and hold there. He kept his gun trained on her just in case the others were on their way down. He wanted them to spot her first. And alone.

  They did this until they got topside, passing through the entertainment space on their way out.

  Mr. Reeves caught motion in the window beside him, a figure moving along the outside of the deck. He spun toward it and, through the glass, saw the other figure mimicking him.

  Gunfire shredded both sides of the yacht wall at once. Electronics detonated into shrieking sparks as the deck exploded into a full-fledged firefight.

  The blonde shrieked and ran for the open air. Mr. Reeves continued firing through the wall as he dashed behind the tattered bar for what little cover he could get.

  Elsewhere on the deck, two male voices exchanged screams.

  I got one of them, Mr. Reeves knew. He gave his own body a once-over to ensure he hadn’t been hit and nearly laughed once he realized he was going to get through this.

  He was on the move then, approaching the busted glass and peering through. He spotted a blood trail that went amidships.

  Mr. Reeves rushed for the open deck. As soon as he crossed into fresh air, a fist smashed the side of his face, hard and unexpected enough to knock into him a stagger.

  He spun, expecting to find the pirate there. The blonde’s twisted and angry face inside a full body wetsuit. She had a diver’s tank in her hand and hoisted it as he began lifting his gun. The tank cracked across his face, sending Mr. Reeves into a helicopter twirl. He fired his weapon toward the sky as he danced.

  The blonde wasn’t done. She cracked him a second time, harder. His vision crumpled. The tank struck him again. The crack inside his skull was like branches snapping on a winter’s day.

  He no longer had the gun in his hand and didn’t know how he’d lost it. He reached for the blonde, found one of her wrists and tugged her.

  They stumbled across the deck together. Mr. Reeves felt as though his skull was collapsing. He clung to the blonde, reaching for her face and thinking he could claw her eyes out before this was all said and done.

  She shrieked and attempted to pull free, but it was no use. Mr. Reeves continued yanking her along, thinking she’d lose her balance and fall into his arms where he could snap her fucking neck.

  And then the ground beneath him disappeared. And as Mr. Reeves realized he’d fallen off the ladder landing on his way overboard, the only comfort he took was knowing he was taking the blonde with him.

  ***

  Kaahin retrieved the Zodiac boat from storage, then made a second trip for its motor, dragging it topside in order to attach it.

  This while the Frenchman sat slumped against the ship’s railing, bleeding out beneath the sun. They both knew he was a dead man, only the Frenchman did not wish to admit it.

  “A fish is pure cartilage,” Kaahin said. “As soon as we destroy it, it will begin to decompose.”

  “Its body will,” the Frenchman wheezed. “That awful head will not.”

  “That will be enough?”

  “That will be everything.”

  Kaahin sprinted back to the helm and lifted the anchor. He spotted a curved trimming blade resting in the pot of one of the ship’s decorative plants and picked it up, deciding he could never be too careful.

  He returned to the deck to find the Frenchman looking out on the water and said, “You know that you are going to be the one to go, correct?”

  The Frenchman had a pistol in his hand, and he thought about lifting it but instead threw it across the deck and sat wheezing for another moment. “Yes, I can avenge Daan,” he said. “I can do that much. I can’t believe he killed me. They came for you. And killed me.”

  “I will help you down,” Kaahin said. “You will still help take this thing out of the ocean. You will become a hero.”

  The Frenchman’s eyes rolled, blood spilling from his mouth as he stirred. “You did not even try and help Carly.”

  “The woman is not my concern.”

  “After everything you did to her—”

  “She is at peace now,” he said. “Think of it like that. Let’s go.”

  The Frenchman oozed blood as he descended the ladder, Kaahin expected him to bleed to death on the swimming platform. But he struggled into the boat and dropped against the wall of the tubing, where Kaahin thought he might’ve died on the spot.

  Then he stirred, enough strength to give the motor cord one good tear. It sputtered and hummed and Kaahin motioned to the shore. “Godspeed,” he said flatly and started back for the helm.

  Take him, Kaahin thought, watching the small boat zip off. He wanted it so badly he could almost visualize the dying Frenchman being swallowed whole.

  A coarse grinding somewhere beneath the hull disrupted his thoughts as the lower decks whined. Noise that became an almost permanent groan.

  “Death’s Head,” he whispered and raced for the yacht’s controls. He started the ship inland while around him the navigation equipment continued to spark and sizzle from a previous gunfight.

  The ship continued to screech like nails crawling a chalkboard. He imagined the fish dragging the tip of its head along the hull’s length just to keep him irritated.

  The Zodiac boat veered off and Kaahin watched the dorsal fin break the surface directly behind it. The Frenchman rose on a fast-flying wave. At that speed, he
was able to punch straight through the water wall and disappear into the thin channel beyond.

  Kaahin gave chase in the yacht, accelerating toward the same spot. The grumbling hull grew louder as it scraped coral bottoms, slanting as the portside shallows lifted the ship on an increasingly severe angle.

  The Frenchman’s boat was long out of sight. In a moment, his screams echoed somewhere beyond the twisting river.

  At last, the fish had done something stupid. They had seen from the sky that the river did not slice its way through the entirety of the island. There was no exit. Now that the yacht was wedged between beaches, Death’s Head was trapped.

  The Star Time was taking on water, slipping beneath the waves and going lopsided. Kaahin knew his dream of selling this to the Saudis was finished, and here was the next best use of it.

  He was careful to traverse the ladder, climbing down with his back almost directly over the ocean. Much of the equipment had slid across the deck and clustered against the rails. He tossed it into the sand over the starboard side.

  The jackhammer plopped into the mud and Kaahin had to abandon ship in much the same way, falling straight into the shallows, then wading up on the shore, dragging the jackhammer onto dry sand.

  He stood over the spill of salvaged weapons and tools, realizing how desperate the situation had become. They were trapped here with a sinking ship and a crashed plane. No other means of escape.

  Kaahin stroked the curved blade that dangled from his belt loop. He turned to watch the ship tilt further, all the way onto its side. He mourned its passing like a dying relative. The only solace he had left was in his pocket. He reached deep and freed the ruby red jewel.

  All of his misfortunes for this.

  Something lifted out of the water and rose against the yacht’s stern. A figure in a diving mask. The blonde bitch. She clung to the overturned swimming platform, using it for leverage as she unholstered a pistol that looked like a cannon in her fist and wasted no time drawing down on him.