Pursuing Chase

by C J Schnier

  “Did I kill him?” she asked through her sobs.

  “I’m not sure,” I confessed. “Andy, can you check if he’s still breathing?”

  “Yeah, of course,” he said.

  “And who exactly are you, Andy? How did you get involved?” Kelly asked with a hint of suspicion.

  “Andy rescued me and agreed to help get you and Paramour back. He’s a good guy, you can trust him,” I explained.

  Andy moved over to where the hitman lay unmoving and poked him with his foot. When there was no response, he knelt and checked his head. Blood oozed from his scalp where he had hit the sharp edge of the table. Mixed with the water on the floor it turned pink and ran down through the cracks of the inspection hatches into the bilge. He rolled the injured man’s head over and stuck his hand down by his mouth and nose.

  “He’s alive and breathing, but he’s gonna have a hell of a headache when he wakes up,” Andy said.

  “Let’s make sure he can’t go anywhere when that happens,” I suggested. “We’ve got zip ties and duct tape in my bag.”

  Andy looked around. “Where is your bag?”

  “I left it in the cockpit, right by the companionway,” I said nodding at the open hatch.

  Andy stuck his head out of the hatch and grabbed the black bag laying out in the rain while I reassured Kelly that she had not killed the hitman. Andy brought the dripping bundle inside and then slid the hatch shut and closed the doors. With the hatches shut I noticed for the first time that the bilge pump was running. Apparently, there was a lot of water that had gotten into the boat.

  Andy placed the bag on the floor next to me and then went forward to shut the bow hatch. Kelly sat up, relinquishing her hold on me. Clarity was returning to her face, and she looked over at the unconscious body. She did something then that I had not seen her do in a long time. Something I was both envious of and something that scared me.

  Kelly and her father Santiago both had the fascinating ability to suppress all emotions at will. One moment they could be in the throes of a heated argument, and then, like flipping a switch, they would become logical and completely business-minded. I had seen her do it several times before on our ill-fated drug trip to The Keys that her father had forced me into, but I hadn’t seen it since. Kelly flipped that switch now and buried all the hate, pain, fear, and relief that had taken over her.

  “We should zip tie his hands behind his back and his feet. You said you have duct tape right? Duct tape over the zip ties and make sure to blindfold him too. You have no idea how dangerous and sadistic he is,” she said in a robotic voice that held none of the vibrancy of her normal speech.

  “That’s the plan. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about him running away too much though, I smashed his knee pretty good,” I said gathering up the supplies.

  Andy came back from the V-berth and helped me roll the hitman over. I pinned the man’s hands behind his back while Andy placed two thick industrial sized plastic zip ties around his wrists and cinched them down tight enough that for a moment I thought he might impede the man’s circulation. Next, we zip-tied his ankles together. The duct tape in the bag had gotten too wet to adhere to anything, but like any good sailor, I had a dry roll accessible on Paramour.

  While Andy finished securing his ankles I searched through the man’s pockets, coming up with a set of keys on a float with the resort’s logo on it, and a smartphone with a cracked screen. I placed them both aside for later. With our captive detained, we turned our efforts to his head wound.

  Blood had stopped pouring from his head, and the wound had started to clot. His black hair was matted with blood, but the cut itself seemed mostly superficial. The massive bump on his head, on the other hand, looked nasty. It was raised a good half an inch and had turned black and blue. Andy was right, he would have a hell of a headache when we woke up. If he woke up.

  The rains outside had started to slacken, and the sun was once again threatening to come out. People would be wandering the docks and the resort again soon. Neither Andy or I had thought much beyond the initial rescue effort. There was no way we were going to be able to sneak a bound and unconscious man down the docks and through the resort.

  “What are we going to do with this asshole?” Andy asked prodding the hitman in the leg with his foot.

  “We need to interrogate him. We don’t know what we’re up against or how to get out of this situation. If we kill this guy they’ll just send someone else after us,” Kelly said, still in her robotic and logical tone.

  “But what do we do after that? We aren’t going to take him with us on the boat, and I don’t think we can just leave him here, we’d never get out of Bahamian waters before the cops came down on us,” I said.

  “I wonder if our friend Andre could help? He said he was from the slums, maybe he knows someone that could hold on to him for a couple of days while we both make our escape,” Andy suggested.

  “I dunno, he managed to track us all the way to the Bahamas and all through both the Berrys and the Abacos. I’m sure he could track us down again. And I’m not so sure about involving Andre in this sort of stuff. Helping us would be putting him in the crosshairs of the cartel.”

  “That reminds me, how did he track you all through the islands? There’s no conceivable way that he could have done that without some sort of device,” Andy said.

  “He has a device. While he had me tied up, he boasted that he had installed it somewhere on the dinghy outboard when we were in the yard in Marathon. That is how he managed to track us apparently,” Kelly stated.

  “We tore this whole boat apart and I never even thought to check the dinghy,” I said in disbelief.

  “Well, we can’t do much with him until he wakes up. Why don’t you look for that tracking device? Kelly, do you need anything? I imagine that you must be thirsty or hungry,” said Andy.

  “I’m starving. He made sure to give me water, but I haven’t eaten since yesterday,” she replied, some of that businesslike demeanor disappearing.

  “Alright, I’ll go talk to Andre, let him know his services are still needed, we can breach the topic of dealing with numbnuts here once we know more. On the way back I’ll pick you up a hamburger from the resort,” Andy said.

  “A burger would be awesome,” Kelly said, nearly drooling on herself.

  “Ok, back in a few minutes then kids,” Andy said.

  Andy headed out of the hatch and then down the dock. A moment later I climbed out into the cockpit, leaving Kelly sitting on the settee staring intently at our prisoner. The sun had come back out, and despite the heavy cool rain, the whole dock now felt like a sauna. Steam rose from the metal dock as they absorbed the solar energy. I found myself hoping that Andy brings a few cold beers with Kelly’s burger.

  I had to lower the dinghy into the water to access the motor. On the davits, it was just too difficult to reach. Once in the water I climbed in it and unfastened the plastic cowling that covered the upper part of the outboard and put it beside me in the RIB. I looked the engine over, and even though it was new to me, I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  “Kelly? Did he say where on the outboard that thing was?” I called down to her.

  “No, just that it was somewhere on the outboard,” she yelled back at me.

  Looking more intensely I began to get frustrated. How small of a tracking device was this? I checked the plastic engine housing, under all the hoses and wires, and into every nook and cranny I could, but I couldn’t find it. Leaning over to check the back side of the motor I kicked the cowling, knocking it over on its side in the dinghy.

  Looking at the overturned cowling, an idea dawned on me. I picked it up and flipped it over to look inside. There, attached to the top of the inside was a small, flat, black box. That son-of-a-bitch hid it in the perfect spot. I pulled it out and tried breaking it in half. Its construction was relatively robust and resisted my attempts to destroy it with my hands. Instead, I just tossed it in the water. At least nob
ody would be tracking us anymore.

  “Chase?” Kelly called from inside the boat.

  “Yeah?” I replied.

  “I think he’s starting to wake up,” she warned.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The cartel thug let out a groan and lolled his head from side to side, struggling back to consciousness. Kelly and I both watched for a few moments until he opened his eyes with a feeble flutter. The whites were showing, his pupils still rolled back in his head. He blinked hard a few times and shook his head. The quick motion must have hurt, he screwed his eyes shut again and started groaning louder.

  He tested his bonds, struggling against them and then grunted. “What the fuck?”

  “Don’t bother,” I warned. “You’ll just hurt yourself. We’ve got you tied up pretty damn good.”

  “Who…” he started but stopped himself. “Ahh, that’s right, Chase Hawkins. I wasn’t expecting you. You must be more resourceful than I expected.”

  “As I told you before, you fucked with the wrong guy.”

  “So it appears.”

  “I’ve got some questions for you,” I said with smug authority.

  “Fuck you, cabrón.”

  Kelly stepped forward, grabbed him by the hair, pulled him forward off the folding table and slammed his head back against it. He grunted and gritted his teeth. She gripped the handful of his hair in her fist and then held his head still while she dug her fingers into the huge goose-egg and raw cut on his head. He yelled in pain until she stopped and pushed his head back into the table again.

  Rage filled her green eyes, burning like a hot flame. I stared at her for a moment questioningly. She had never displayed the sort of violence that I saw from her today.

  She caught me staring at her and her rage-filled eyes softened.

  “This asshole tried to kill us both. He shot me in the arm. He left you for dead, hijacked our boat, and tried to rape me! I hope he doesn’t talk. There is nothing I would enjoy more than torturing this piece of shit to death!”

  “He tried to rape you?” I asked, dumbstruck.

  The revelation hit me hard and left me stunned. For once I didn’t have anything to say.

  “That’s quite the piece of ass you have there Hawkins,” he said laughing.

  Red tinted my vision, creeping in from the perimeter of my sight as I registered and processed what had just been said. I could now understand some of the rage that Kelly was experiencing. Balling my fist, I wound up and delivered the hardest punch of my life into the side of the biggest piece of shit I had ever had the misfortune of crossing paths with.

  Still, the assassin laughed, even as the punch knocked him over to the floor. He spat blood from his mouth, but again, he laughed. Subconsciously I registered that my knuckles hurt and would need attending to, but that would have to wait. It took all my mental ability to force myself down from the edge. At that moment I truly wanted to kill him, I didn’t care what he had to tell us.

  “What is your name asshole?” the words seething like venom from my mouth.

  He held his head up in defiance. “I’ll tell you nothing.”

  “Fine, I don’t care what your name is. All I want to know is how do we get the cartel off our back?” I asked, struggling to suppress my anger. “Killing you, as appealing as that sounds, won’t help our case any.”

  The hitman let out a chuckle that built into a raging laugh. After a moment he stopped and looked from Kelly to me. “There’s no getting in their good graces again. You turned on them and cost them massive amounts of money. You can kill me, but there will always be someone else to hunt you down.”

  “There’s no way to call off the contract?” Kelly asked.

  “I wouldn’t know, I only fulfill the contracts.”

  “What was your plan to hand off Kelly then?”

  “Who said anything about handing her off?” he said sneering.

  “Don’t play dumb with me. You had every chance to kill her. It would have been much easier for you to do that than to keep a live captive. Besides, I saw you talking on the phone when you were on the dock. You must be in contact with the cartel about her.”

  “You were watching me huh? I did underestimate you, I would never have expected you to make it back from that god awful island much less somehow track me down so fast. Tell me, how did you get to Freeport so quickly?” he demanded.

  “We’re the ones asking questions, not you.”

  “That is fine because I have nothing to tell you.”

  “Then I guess there is no point in keeping you alive,” I bluffed.

  As much as I wanted to kill him for what he had done, we needed more information.

  “I’m all for killing him,” Kelly said taking a half step towards him.

  “Go ahead and kill me then. See where that gets you,” he said, still chuckling like this was all a big joke.

  I grabbed him by the collar, ready to rough him up again when a distinct buzzing sound caught my attention. It was rhythmic and insistent. I remembered the phone that I had taken from him. Standing up I snatched it off the galley bar. The screen had cracked in our scuffle, but it was still legible. One name appeared on the screen “Acosta.”

  “Quick, gag him with something,” I commanded.

  Kelly grabbed a rag from the galley and held it over the assassin’s mouth. He refused to cooperate, keeping his mouth clenched shut. That was fine by me though, just as long as he stayed quiet.

  I let the phone buzz in my hand for a moment longer before accepting the call. I held it to my ear and waited.

  “Alonzo?” a thick Hispanic voice inquired.

  “Alonzo is tied up right now, can I take a message?” I asked mimicking the assassin’s early smugness.

  “Who is this? What have you done with Alonzo?” the voice demanded.

  “My name is Chase, but somehow I think you already suspected that. And you are?”

  “Ahh, the infamous Captain Hawkins. You have been a topic of interest these past few weeks. I am an associate of Santiago Acosta, you may call me Raul. Since you are the one answering the phone, should I assume that my associate Alonzo is no longer with us?” Raul asked.

  “Oh he’s still alive, we were just asking him some questions. Persuasively.” I let that last word hang for a moment before continuing. “But since I have you on the line now, maybe I should just skip the middleman and go straight to the source. What do you say, Raul? Are you up for answering a few questions?”

  I watched Kelly’s face when I said Raul, wondering if she knew who he was. Her eyebrows arched briefly in surprise and then furrowed. She knew who he was, and from her body language, he was no pushover.

  “Be careful,” she mouthed to me.

  I nodded at her. Careful isn’t something I do well, but I would certainly give it a try.

  “What would you like to know Captain Hawkins?” Raul asked, his accent thick, but his speech clear.

  “How do we get the cartel off our backs?”

  “I do not think that is an option at the moment. You and my associate’s daughter have caused us to lose significant amounts of money as well as territory. This we simply can not allow.”

  “You have more than enough people to reclaim your territory. In fact, I’m willing to bet you already have. Only the high-level dealers would have been picked up by the feds. Just move some of the junior ones up and set up a new pipeline for the drugs. Surely you had a plan in place for just such a situation.”

  “You are very astute Captain Hawkins. We have indeed reclaimed our territory. We would not be an effective organization if we crumbled with every arrest,” he said with what sounded like admiration.

  “Then the territory issue is moot, and that leaves us with the issue of money. How much did we cost you? What will it take to wipe that debt clean?”

  “Two million dollars. Our south Florida drug operations were down for over a month. There have been significant costs associated with restructuring,” Raul claimed.

&nbs
p; “Two million dollars? The run I captained was only worth a half a million at most. Kelly and I were only responsible for half of that since your guys got picked up with the other half before we even had to deal with the DEA,” I cried in disbelief.

  “Regardless Captain Hawkins, the debt remains. Two million dollars or your life.”

  “And here I thought you’d be pissed about the sixty grand we stole from the DEA,” I quipped.

  “Better that you have it than those pigs.”

  “That is not a stance I would expect from you,” I said.

  “You misunderstand me. Kelly es familia. I do not wish her dead. But this is business, and business always wins,” he explained.

  “Two million and the cartel, the business as you call it, will forgive us and leave us alone? Is there nothing else we can do?” I asked. “That is a lot of money.”

  “Two million is the, how do you say? Family discount. For anyone else, vengeance is the only acceptable repayment.”

  “And that is for both of us correct?” I asked seeking confirmation.

  When dealing with the devil, you had better understand the terms.

  “Ahh Captain Hawkins, we could not care less about you. Though given how resourceful you have proven to be, perhaps we should have. You would have been a solid asset if Santiago had recruited you earlier. However, you owe no loyalty to our organization. Santiago forced you into this against your will, and you did what you must to survive. Two million and you both walk free. Or,” he continued, ”you can let Alonzo take Kelly, and you will never hear from us again,” he offered.

  “Speaking of your good friend Alonzo here, did you know that he tried to rape her? Your own family, your own blood,” I hissed into the phone.

  Silence followed that statement. I glanced down at Alonzo whose eyes were now large with surprise and fright. Kelly’s, in contrast, were narrowed and cold. I turned my attention to the dock, glancing out of the companionway into the impossibly bright sunlight. Andy was just coming down the dock, returning from his errand with a plate of food and an armful of beers. Other than him the docks were still empty.