by Matt Hilton
From beyond the SUV I’d heard sloshing, and understood that somebody had already escaped its confines and was in the boggy pond on the far side of the ditch. Other figures kept low as they too slipped out the prison of the car. To keep their heads down, I sent a shot through the shattered back window. At once I jabbed a finger for Sue to follow and she checked out the direction of travel. On our side of the hardpack there was another salt bog, water left there after the sea receded. Beyond, the woods looked navigable but there were enough fallen trees to shield behind. Keeping the Audi between her and the SUV she began a run for the swamp. Before following, I retrieved my backpack and shrugged into it, then began a slow retreat, watching for targets.
‘Hunter!’ Vince called from the darkness beyond the swamped SUV. I couldn’t see him or even pinpoint the origin of his voice. ‘You really want to play this game out? C’mon, man, this place is gonna be swarming with cops in no time, so let’s quit the bullshit, accept the inevitable, and hand the woman over before we all end up in prison.’
‘The only inevitability is you getting a bullet in the face if you follow us,’ I replied.
‘You’d kill me? I thought we were good, man.’
‘Vince, we were never good.’ I scanned left and right, alert to the probability he was trying to distract me so his pals could outflank me. I continued backwards. Behind me Sue was already up to her hips in swamp water.
‘I told Rink already; this isn’t about you guys. We only want, Suzanne Bouchard. C’mon, Hunter, we are on the same team. Give me a break, will ya?’
‘Isn’t going to happen.’
‘Hunter, think about it, man. You were told to stand down and leave things to us.’
‘Walter doesn’t tell me what to do, Vince. Besides, that request was regarding another subject entirely. Go back to Walter and tell him that Sue’s under my protection and off limits.’ I’d reached the bog and went backwards into it, feeling the chill of murky water invading my clothes. The footing was treacherous, thick beneath the surface with broken branches and wreckage from the nearest buildings. Choosing the swamp as an escape route might not sound like my finest idea, but any second I expected the second SUV to come roaring along from the highway so we couldn’t go that way.
‘You think that Walter sent us here?’
‘Who else?’
Vince didn’t answer, not in words. He fired and his bullets kicked up water a few feet from me. I returned fire, aiming for his muzzle flash, but they were wasted shots as he’d already adjusted his position. It dawned that the son of a bitch was trying to determine my exact location and had drawn me into returning fire. I spun away, plunging for the cover of the nearby forest. From two different sides of the SUV, silenced pistols spat rounds at me. One of them hit my backpack, but thankfully not my spine. I popped off an answering round, but continued wading through the muck. Ahead of me, Sue had taken cover behind a fallen tree trunk. She covered me, firing back at those that’d tried to bring me down. Another bullet whizzed past my head, liquefying the air. I vaulted the fallen tree, and went to my knees. Something jabbed the palm of my left hand, something sharper pierced my left side. I slapped away the huge splinter of wood that had stuck into my flesh. Even soaked as I was, I felt warm blood pour down my hip, but knew the wound wasn’t serious.
‘Where now, Joe?’ Sue’s words sounded accusatory, for putting us both in such a tenuous position, and to be fair, she had a point.
‘We go through the woods,’ I told her. ‘There’s a service trail back there that will take us around the town. If we make it out alive, we’ll reconnect with Rink and get the hell out of Dodge.’
‘Do you think Rink has made it?’
‘I’ve all faith in the big guy.’
She didn’t answer; maybe she realised I was trying to change her opinion of him following his actions concerning Jason Mercer. She only offered a nonplussed expression.
I gestured out into the darkness where our hunters were. ‘Those guys out there, they’ve got their orders and are trying to obey them to the best of their abilities. We’ve become their enemies through circumstances beyond all our control. They might not like it. We might not like it. But it is what it is. It was no different for Rink.’
‘Neither was it different for Jason,’ she reminded me. ‘What he was accused of in Sierra Leone, he was ordered to do. And when it was done, Arrowsake didn’t want him around anymore. They still don’t, and because they suspect I know their secret they don’t want me around either.’
I nodded sharply at her logic. We could debate this all night, go round and round in circles and get nowhere. More importantly was getting the hell away before Vince’s team got organised and outmanoeuvred us. Whether or not they’d woken that morning with murder in mind didn’t matter; they’d kill us if they caught us. And I’d do my best to stop them.
‘How are you for ammo?’ I asked.
She dropped the clip on her gun, inspected it and then shoved it back in. ‘I’m down to my last two rounds.’
I twisted around so my backpack was presented. ‘Dig in there. There’s another pistol that should be fully loaded.’
She did as instructed and pulled out the gun I’d taken from the female assassin. Her own pistol she tucked into her tote bag.
‘Stay low and stay hidden,’ I told her, pointing off into the woods, ‘take a straight line and I’ll meet you a couple of hundred yards in.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Dissuade anyone from trying to follow you.’
She eyed me again, but not with the expressionless features as moments ago. She sucked in her bottom lip, nodded at my selflessness and then moved away. As she progressed through the maze-like branches and fallen trees, I shifted too, so that I was in a better position to watch both sides of the SUV. At least two of my enemies were concealed behind it, and largely pinned down from showing their faces, but Vince and possibly two others had moved away, probably seeking to find a way to outflank me. At present, the strip of hardpack was between us, and nobody was eager to cross the open space. From way off to my left there came the sounds of crashing timber. One of Sue’s hunters had made it further than I realised, and was currently trying to find a way to get behind us by scaling one of the demolished houses down by the collapsed bridge. They’d probably slunk off while Vince kept me busy.
Sue was invisible to me by then, but I could hear her crackling progress through the woods. Keeping my head down, I went after her. Twenty feet further into the woods I halted, and peered back the way I’d come. I’d lost some of the panoramic nature of the view I’d enjoyed before, but beyond the trees it was lighter, so I’d more chance of spotting movement. Beyond the hardpack, and the wrecked cars, I could make out the bulky shapes of some surviving buildings, and further back the glow of arc lights on the highway. I also noted the flickering play of red and blue emergency lights. The cops were on US-98, seeking the architects of this fresh calamity to strike their town. For now I was happy to note that the cops were unaware we’d taken our fight down the City Dock road; all the nearby buildings had been evacuated, so it was unlikely our crash and brief gunfight had been overheard.
Without an enemy target in sight, I followed Sue deeper into the woods. The hurricane had done a number on it the further I progressed, and I had to take more care. There was a thatch of fallen trees overhead, some only held precariously on the splintered branches of other fallen trees. A heavy sneeze could bring any of them toppling down to spear me with their shattered limbs. I came to one spot that resembled a log jamb. Sue had been forced off track by the mountain of fallen trunks, but it was OK, as my vision had adapted to the night and I could now pinpoint her moving to my left. I went after her, and once she was around the pile, saw her try to regain her original direction of travel: she was following my instructions to the letter. Once I’d negotiated the pile I again halted and listened. Distant sirens wailed, and something crashed down — possibly a damaged building that’d finally gi
ven in to gravity — but it was far enough away to be unconnected to our hunters. There was no hint we were being tracked, and the best-case scenario was that Vince had abandoned the hunt for now, in favour of escaping the tightening police cordon.
I moved on for a dozen steps. Sue was a little way ahead. She paused to check where I’d gotten. Backlit by the city lights, I was probably just another dark blob against the thousands of others we pressed through. I’d the benefit of seeing her figure limned by the hull of an upturned cabin cruiser wedged between the fallen trees beyond her. The boat’s position spoke more of the ferocity of the recent hurricane even than the complete destruction of my beachfront home. The boat must’ve been snatched from its moorings and hurled end over end to finally come to rest on a nest of branches hundreds of yards into the woods. Hopefully its skipper had evacuated long before the hurricane made landfall, and he wasn’t still inside the boat, a jumble of rags and broken bones.
A silenced pistol coughed. The bullet struck a branch alongside my head, showering me with splinters and dust. Too late I ducked — my right eye was full of grit — and turned and fired blindly at the source of the noise. My SIG barked by comparison, and a visible flame stood inches from the barrel with each squeeze of the trigger. Another gun returned fire, this one from the opposite side. Again I ducked — instinct — but fought the impulse to go to ground. I adjusted my aim and fired at the figure crouching alongside the log jamb. The figure took cover. Immediately I searched for the first shooter, but couldn’t get a bead on him. I was exposed where I stood. A bullet smacked another tree inches from my left shoulder, and I was showered in stinging splinters a second time. With my compromised eye half shut and streaming with tears, I turned and ran, urging Sue to greater speed. We headed for the best available shelter nearby, the upturned boat. Bullets chased me all the way, and again my backpack saved my life when it absorbed a round destined for my spine.
17
It was apparent that Vince’s team had abandoned pursuit of Rink long before he reached Port St. Joe, the next coastal city down U.S. Highway 98, but he continued on until then. Port St. Joe was the permanent home to less than four thousand residents, a small city set alongside the white sands of Saint Joseph Bay, at the intersection of the highway with State Road 71. Earlier, after throwing Hunter his backpack, he’d called his buddy “Saint Joe” and said he’d see them down the road apiece; it was an instruction where they should meet once they’d given their pursuers the slip that Hunter would understand without any clarification. On several occasions that Rink had visited with Hunter in Mexico Beach, he’d joined his buddy on fitness sessions that had seen them run the sands to Port St. Joe and back. Usually the historical Cape San Blas Lighthouse or adjacent marina marked the halfway point in their twenty-mile runs. Hunter would know where to find him.
He took the turn towards Marina Drive, and found a space on a visitor parking lot. The hurricane that had devastated Mexico Beach had also touched here, but with less fury. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a destination for the usual sightseers and vacationers just then. The lot was otherwise empty but for some mounds of detritus piled up and awaiting collection. He parked so that one of the piles hid his Ford from the entrance. He kept the engine running.
The pistol he’d taken from the gunman on the stairwell was beside him on the passenger seat, in easy reach, but not the tool he required just then. Earlier in the day both he and Hunter had switched off their phones, and Rink had gone a step further in separating the battery from the handset. He dipped in his pocket and took out the components and reassembled his cell and switched it on. He didn’t care that Arrowsake might locate him through it, considering he wished to speak with Walter Hayes Conrad.
He rang a number from memory, and waited while he was shunted through the usual encryption and diversionary servers and then listened to his phone ring. There was no immediate pick-up, but Rink waited.
Finally, ‘Yes?’
‘I’m probably the last person you expected to hear from, you sumbitch.’
‘Ah, Rink. You’re right; I wasn’t expecting you to call.’
‘You were maybe expecting Joe? Joe’s a bit tied up right now, kicking the asses of your goddamn attack dogs.’
‘Hold on a minute, son. What are you talking about?’
‘Don’t call me son and quit your goddamn bullshit. The team you sent after us—’
‘Team? Rink, what are you talking about?’
‘You know fine well. The team led by your boy, Stephen-fucking-Vincent, or Vince-fucking-Everett, or whatever the hell he’s goin’ by these days.’
‘Vince is out there in Florida?’
‘Quit playing around, Walt.’
‘Rink, I know you don’t trust me, but—’
‘You’re right. I don’t trust you. So keep your bullshit excuses. You sicked Vince on us, and that’s unforgivable.’
‘I swear to you, Rink. I’d no part in sending anyone after you. The only one I’m interested in finding is Jason Mercer. Remember? It was you and Joe who told me he’d resurfaced, and I asked you to step down. I wanted you guys out of the way, so you didn’t get caught up in Arrowsake’s business.’
‘Bullshit! There’s only you who knew where to find us.’
‘Rink, I hear you. I understand your suspicion, but believe me when I say—’
‘No. You should believe me when I say, if any harm comes to either Hunter or Sue, then I’m coming for you. I don’t care how many killers you put in my way they won’t stop me. I’ll find you and cut off your goddamn head! Do you get me?’
‘I don’t take kindly to threats, Rink, but under the circumstances, I can expect nothing less. You’re mad at me—’
‘Damn right!’
‘But your anger is misguided.’
‘Is it? You didn’t as much as pause just now, when I mentioned Sue. That tells me you knew she was with us, and you sent Vince’s crew to capture or kill her.’
‘Rink, I’m sorry, but I’ve no clue who this “Sue” is.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Rink paused. In fairness, he’d warned Hunter against mentioning Sue to Walter, and Hunter had been good to his word. ‘Then if not you, who else would know where to find us?’
‘I’m not denying I reported to my superiors, and advised that they mobilised a team — I was on it the second Joe got off the phone earlier — but they were sent to confirm that Mercer had survived. In the process I had to disclose you and Joe as my sources, but I did that with the express caveat that Arrowsake left you alone. I told my bosses I’d ordered you to stand down, and that I trusted you to do so. There’s no reason why they should’ve sent Vince after you guys unless…this Sue you just mentioned? Who is she Rink, and why’s she as important to them as Mercer is?’
Rink sucked in his bottom lip, and bit down. He had stupidly let his tongue get away from him by electing information that Walter had previously been unaware of. But it had been a fair assumption that Walter was the person behind the team that’d turned up at the hotel. Vince had proclaimed they were only there for Sue, so it stood to reason that Rink would think he’d gotten his information from Walter. However, he now understood where he and Hunter had fucked up. Walter — for all that Rink still believed him to be an untrustworthy conniving weasel — had inadvertently given the game away when demanding clemency for him and Hunter.
‘Son of a bitch,’ he growled in self-admonishment. He worked through a hypothesis as it came to him. ‘When you told them about Hunter spotting Mercer, they must’ve interrogated Hunter’s cell phone data to identify where exactly he’d been, and where they could therefore locate Mercer. They saw that he’d spoken with Velasquez back at the office, and that led them to check out Val’s subsequent research into Suzanne Carter. They’d have figured it out that Sue was somehow connected with Mercer, and that she was their conduit to him. That led them to Sue’s house, and once they realised they’d missed grabbin’ her, they deduced she was probably with us. They’ll have been aware th
at a hurricane had ripped Mexico Beach apart, but that Hunter must still be stayin’ local. Hunter was registered under his genuine details at the goddamn hotel, so it’d have taken them minutes to find out where he was livin’.’
‘Sounds plausible,’ said Walter. ‘Enough that you believe I didn’t have anything to do with sending Vince after you?’
‘You ain’t off the hook yet.’
‘Who is Sue Carter? The name means nothing to me.’
‘It wouldn’t,’ said Rink, but didn’t expound this time.
Walter didn’t push for more. He didn’t need to: Rink supposed he could learn all he needed about her from Arrowsake.
‘You need to pull Vince’s team off her right now,’ Rink said.
‘I would if I’d anything to do with the operation. It was taken out of my hands, Rink.’ Walter sucked air through his teeth. ‘My influence with Arrowsake isn’t what it used to be…’
‘Don’t give me that! You’ve been calling the shots for years.’
‘You’re wrong. This Arrowsake is a different beast than the one you belonged to. It’s different even to the version you’d the unfortunate experience of in Manhattan. There was the recent incident down in Miami where I was able to pull a few strings to help, but we’ve had little to do with each other after that job you helped Hunter with in Mexico, so you won’t be aware that I’ve taken a step back. In fact, I’ve been pushed back several steps too. If I had my way I’d gladly sever all ties, but you know that isn’t possible. You got him back for me, Rink, and I want to enjoy my great grandson for as long as I can. But that won’t happen if I fully turn my back on Arrowsake. Ha! Even that would be impossible; I’d spend my last few years with one eye over my shoulder. I know too much for them to let me go free — I’m too much of a security risk to them — and these days I’m kept out of the inner circle so I don’t learn more.’