My head spins again from the impact. Everything flickers for a moment, but I manage to stay awake.
The first guy comes at me from the side. I flatten out again, and he nearly goes right over me. I hear a whisking noise, and realize he’s got a blade. He missed slashing me by inches.
The guy on my feet is still struggling to tie off the line. I’d like to give him a nightmare, or split his brain open with some phantom memory of pain, but I can’t concentrate. I’ve got one move here.
I pull my legs away from him and manage to roll to my feet.
I stand there, snarling, “Come on, you bastards!”
They laugh. They find my last stand hilarious.
I can’t blame them. I’m bound hand and foot, stumbling on the deck of a boat in the middle of the ocean, my talent gone, completely unarmed. Not exactly my scariest moment.
But I lunge at the first asshole anyway.
By reflex, he comes up with the knife. And I turn just in time to take it in my shoulder instead of my neck.
You’d think, with everything else going on at the moment, it wouldn’t hurt so much. But it does.
I stagger back, but the knife stays put, buried deep in my flesh.
Then the edge of the boat hits the back of my knees, and I fall over.
I hit with a splash. I’m hoping he didn’t have a chance to tie off the line.
For a second, I float, struggling to tread water with my feet and hands bound, the cold water rapidly sucking the strength right out of me.
Then something yanks me and drags me straight down.
The anchor.
Looks like he managed to get it tied to me after all.
*
Now it’s just a math problem. How far can I descend while attached to the anchor before the air in my lungs runs out?
I don’t waste time trying to figure it out. I was never any good at math without a calculator.
Instead, I work on getting the knife out of my shoulder.
I can just get at it with my mouth, but it resists. It’s stuck in there deep. I try not to think about the darkness closing in on me all around, the pressure building in my ears and in my head. My lungs are burning already. The math is getting worse every second.
Doesn’t matter. Focus.
I pull the knife free with my teeth. A warm spurt rushes into my face. My blood.
Doesn’t matter. Focus.
I fold myself in half. Manage to get the knife from my teeth to my hand. Flip it. Slice through the rope on my wrist, take a big piece of meat off the edge of my palm at the same time. Another warm spurt of blood. No time to be careful. Thank God the asshole kept his blade sharp.
Then I’m sawing away at the cord pulling me into the depths.
This is one of my nightmares. Being dragged down into the dark. I relive it every time after I kill someone, or when the pain and the fear get too thick against my defenses. There is a hole in the world that opens up every time someone goes out of it, and it always pulls on me. I see it every time. The abyss, waiting to take me. To take me out of this life. To where it is still and quiet and dark. Where I belong.
But not yet. Not yet.
Focus, dammit.
The cord is tougher than the stuff on my wrists. Maybe some kind of high-test fishing line. I keep sawing away, but it stays straight as an arrow in flight.
And then, amazingly, finally, it snaps. I stop flying toward the bottom of the ocean. For a second, I am suspended in the middle of all the black water, unmoving.
Another math problem. Can I make the surface with the air I’ve got left in my lungs, or have I already passed the point of no return?
I can barely see a dim light above. A spotlight playing over the waves. Has to be them, on the boat. They’re looking for me. If I head for it, I’m going right back to the men who tried to kill me.
But I’ve got no choice. I don’t have enough air to go anywhere else, and if I tried, I could easily get lost out here.
So I kick hard and swim for the surface.
Compared to my descent, it seems to take forever. I am no longer a bullet aimed at the bottom of the ocean but a piece of sodden garbage.
My left arm drags, courtesy of the knife wound.
Doesn’t matter. I kick and pull as hard as I can. I release the used-up air in my lungs. I fight against every instinct I have to refill them.
The light above still looks a thousand yards away.
I’m almost done. My left arm stops moving.
Doesn’t matter. Focus.
I am stuck in place. The light wobbles and seems closer. But I’m out of the last bubbles of oxygen in my bloodstream. I’ve got nothing left.
I stretch and crane my neck. Kick with everything I have.
I feel a different kind of cold on my skin.
Air.
I put my face up, barely strong enough to break the surface. I manage to suck down a greedy lungful before another wave washes over me.
And just like that, my talent returns. The men are still here. I know their thoughts. I know them.
*
It takes every bit of discipline I’ve ever learned to stay still. To remain just at the surface, breathing as quietly as I can, floating there in the dark. The spotlight passes by every few seconds, but there’s a lot of water out here.
The men in the boat are watching for me. Arguing among themselves.
“He’s gone.”
“Another five minutes.” That’s the first guy’s voice. I know him now.
“We should get out of here.”
“You got a date? Five more minutes.”
His name is Nolan. Dennis Nolan. He’s in charge of the other two, but only because he was hired first. He’s ex-military, likes to tell people he was Special Forces, but he wasn’t. He’s been doing thug work for almost five years, since he was dishonorably discharged. (Assault on a superior officer in the Philippines. Drank away his last paycheck in Thailand. Been bouncing around the East ever since.)
They go silent again, but I can sense the dissatisfaction coming off the other two.
The second guy is also ex-military, Iraq and Afghanistan. Alex Perez. Former Marine. Another dishonorable discharge. Barely submerged death wish. Drinking buddies with Nolan in Thailand. Followed him here. Seemed like a good way to find somebody who would kill him. Hasn’t been that lucky yet.
The last one is Sherman. Jeff Sherman. Another American stuck in Hong Kong. Wandered over a half-dozen years ago with a vague plan to become an MMA cage-match fighter, got in the hole with a local loan shark, now does whatever he can to make his interest payments. Met Nolan in a bar eighteen months ago and became part of his crew.
Thank God Nolan is so invested in proving he’s the dominant male of their little pack. If they had left, I’d really be dead. My body is going numb. The water is cold and I’m bleeding and I’m probably already in shock. I am not going to make it if I swim. That boat is my only way back to shore.
The trick, of course, is getting on board without them trying to kill me all over again.
Times like this I really wish I could control minds. Then I’d just swim up and order them to bring me on board, fetch a couple of warm blankets and maybe some good Scotch if they had any, and tell them to drown themselves after they delivered me to the nearest hospital.
But I can’t. So it’s time to see what else I can pull out of my toolbox.
I ease myself closer to the boat, using my good arm. I try to get inside the head of Perez, who’s on the spotlight. He’s pretty focused on his job, but I manage to read him.
Dammit. He’s more or less competent. He might think this is a stupid idea, but he’s still doing his jo
b. Scanning each section of the ocean in a grid formation. He hasn’t found me yet, but there’s no way I can get past him without putting my face in the pattern at some point.
And time is on his side here. If I wait them out, I still drown.
I need a way to distract him, and I don’t have a lot of juice for this.
So I try something a little more subtle. I pick around his memories until I find something pleasant. A day on a beach. In Thailand, drinking ninety-proof rum cut with lime juice. He met a girl, running away from her life as a student at USC, seeing the world. She was golden blond and tanned brown and tight as a rubber band. They screwed all night long in her cheap hotel room until her roommate came home in the early morning hours. She saw their bodies sandwiched together on the narrow bed, naked and sweating, and without a word lifted her dress over her head and joined them.
Yeah, that was a pretty good night.
While he’s busy reliving it, the spotlight moves automatically over the water without him seeing a thing. I slosh and heave myself through the waves until I make my way right up alongside the boat.
I tread water by the hull, staying as quiet as I can. I’m right beneath them. They’re standing a few feet above my head, looking over the railing.
I find Nolan’s mind.
I’d like to do something really nasty to him, but I can’t muster the strength, and I’m not sure I can take the pain of the feedback. So I go with something (relatively) simple. I push a picture into his mind of an enormous shark emerging from the water, just like that scene in Jaws, all teeth and blood and hunger. Inside his brain, it’s suddenly Shark Week.
Like most people would, he panics.
“Holy shit!” he screams at the top of his lungs. He flails about wildly.
It takes a lot of balance and coordination to stand on a boat, even in calm waters. Nolan waves his arms for support. The other two guys slap them away. They don’t like him that much, and anyway, they are keyed up and hostile. Any hand flying in their direction, they’re going to see as a threat.
Nolan goes over the edge and into the water.
I’m probably going to have nightmares about sharks later, but it’s entirely worth it as I hear him scream for help, splashing wildly, convinced he’s about to become dinner.
Now the other two are looking for a life preserver or a rope or anything as Nolan keeps thrashing and panicking. When I sense them inside the boat’s small cabin, I make my move.
I haul myself over the railing and onto the deck.
I land like a dead fish. Zero points for grace and style.
At first, the other two think it’s Nolan. Then they process what they’re seeing. I don’t have the time or energy to mess with their heads to prevent it.
They bellow and race toward me.
Sherman races forward and plants his foot to deliver a kick that would do a punter in the NFL proud.
But I’ve still got the knife.
I roll over and slam it into his boot.
The pain is a fire alarm screaming in his head. He tries to check his kick and ends up falling backward, doing some real damage to his joints as the knife keeps his foot nailed to the deck.
Perez stumbles, trying to get past him. I decide that he can share his buddy’s pain. I light up his synapses with the feeling of a knife wound and the hyperextended tendons.
He screeches and flops down, grabbing at his foot and leg like there’s a shark chewing on them.
Nolan, half drowned, finally gets a hand on the boat, and he’s coming up over the side. Unlike the other two, he’s smart enough to be quiet.
But I can hear his thoughts just the same. He’s got nothing good in mind for me.
So I yank the knife from the other guy’s foot and haul myself up just in time to turn and face him.
He’s looking at the knife, thinking of how he’s going to get it away from me. I dance backward, over the other two, who are still spastic with pain on the deck.
I keep the knife in my good hand, facing him at an angle. The other two slowly haul themselves to their feet. They’ll get it together soon. Again, time is on their side here. It’s three against one, and I’m in sad shape.
My mind races, trying to pull up just the right combination of moves and mind tricks that will cripple them without costing me too much. Disposal of the bodies is easy enough—just into the drink, like they planned for me. But even once I pull that off, there’s still the boat ride back. I’m leaking fluids all over the place, and I could easily pass out before I get to shore. The odds are not stacking up in my favor.
I think of Sara. What she said earlier. And for once in my life, I do the smart thing.
“How much are they paying you?” I ask.
The number pops up in Nolan’s brain like it’s on a cash register: <$10,000>.
I can hardly believe it. “Ten grand? Ten thousand dollars? Seriously?”
Nolan looks sheepish. “U.S.,” he blurts. “Not HK.”
“Jesus Christ,” I say. “I’ll triple it.”
That stops all three of them cold. “What?”
“Stop this shit, get me back to land, and I’ll pay all three of you triple what you’re getting now.”
They’re reluctant. They look at each other. None of them wants to say it, but they can’t see a reason not to accept my offer.
Nolan finally speaks. “How do we know we can trust you?”
“Well, if I don’t give you the money, you can always try to kill me again.”
They look at one another again. Nolan raises his eyebrows. The other guys shrug.
“All right,” Nolan says. “You’ve got a deal.”
I’ve already lowered the knife. “I know.”
*
The ride back to shore is almost ridiculously friendly after that. They produce a bottle of cheap whiskey and we all treat our wounds with generous shots. I realize I am more banged up from the car crash than I thought. My ribs are aching, something twinges painfully in one leg, and half my teeth feel loose in their sockets.
I pull the entire scheme easily from their minds. It’s actually pretty smart for its simplicity. Godwin hired them to watch the party and to pick us up in case I managed to pull one of my usual daring escapes from Zhang’s men. Once we started down the hill, one of the security detail called them and let them know we were coming. They knew I was supposed to be dangerous at close range. So they improvised and hit us with a car.
I scan their memories and see they left Sara behind because they had no instructions for her. She was half conscious at the time and bleeding from a cut on her head, but didn’t look too bad otherwise.
When I call her cell, she picks up, half panicked and half outraged. I’m surprised by the amount of relief I feel.
“Where are you?”
“Where am I?” she snaps. “Where the hell are you?”
“Took a boat ride. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Paramedics showed. The people at the party called emergency services, there were all kinds of panic attacks and heart problems among the guests. I just got out of the emergency room.”
“They looked at your head?”
“Smith, I said I’m fine. What the hell is going on?”
I tell her what I need and where to meet me.
“Where the hell am I supposed to get—”
“My bag, back at the hotel. There’s a black Amex in the lining of the top compartment. Pin number is four-five-nine-seven, password is ‘kentallard,’ all one word.” I spell it for her. “Hit the ATM.”
“Do ATMs even have that much cash?”
“They do here. See you soon.”
I hang up and take the bottle as it’s passed to me again.
Perez turns out to have some combat medic training and manages to patch up the knife wound and bandage my other cuts with the supplies he finds in the boat’s first-aid kit. He recommends I see a real doctor as soon as I can. “There is some aggressive stuff out in that water,” he says. “You a
re going to need a big dose of antibiotics.”
Sara is waiting for us when we get to the dock—a small dark slip in a crowded marina. One arm is in a sling. In her free hand, she has a small shopping bag with the Valentino logo. She also has company. Two very big guys clearly wearing body armor under their shirts. They glare at all of us on the boat, all kinds of bad intent coming off them.
Sara isn’t much friendlier. Along with her dark thoughts, I pick up that she’s called in a few favors. The big guys are bodyguards who work for an international security firm. They’re in town as part of a detail guarding a boy band on tour. Sara knows their boss, and after I made my call to her, she decided she needed some backup before carting $90,000 in cash down to the docks in the middle of the night.
She hands over the Valentino bag to Nolan, who feels a cascade of relief when he sees the cash inside.
He reaches for me, and I can feel Sara and her sidekicks tense. But Nolan only wants to shake my hand.
“Thanks,” he says. “I mean it. Thanks.”
Getting a sincere thank-you from the guy who was paid to throw me into the harbor. It’s not the weirdest thing that’s happened to me this month, but it’s definitely in the top five.
Still. Aside from trying to kill me, he’s not a completely bad guy. So I just shrug and shake his hand, and tell him, “Don’t mention it.”
I step onto the dock, and they immediately kick their boat into reverse and motor away from us.
Sara lets them get back out into the harbor before she turns on me. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I look at her and the two big guys. “Well, for starters, I need a lot of antibiotics.”
*
Sara is volcanically pissed by the time we get back to the hotel. We took a slight detour to a small medical clinic that one of her bodyguard buddies knew about—he’d delivered an aging rock star there once after a nearly lethal combination of Viagra and cocaine—and I got patched up properly. The doctor, who seemed barely awake the entire time, ripped open the makeshift dressing on the new knife wound and sealed it again with surgical glue. Then he shot me up with what looked like a horse-size syringe.
“What’s in there?” I asked him.
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