He took a breath, stood, his back to the wall, knife in hand, and waited for the door to open.
When the guard turned his back and lit another cigarette, Devlin moved quick and silent out of the trees. He locked a forearm across his throat, took him down.
They landed in a heap, the M-16 pinned beneath them. The guard snapped his head back into Devlin’s face, jacked an elbow into his stomach. The blow took his breath away, broke his hold. The guard tried to rise, buck him off, bring up the rifle. Devlin got an arm across his throat again, pulled back hard, tightened the choke hold until the guard went limp.
He had to move fast. He disentangled the rifle, caught the ankles of the guard’s heavy boots, dragged him facedown into the trees, left him on a bed of casuarina needles. He retrieved the rifle to get it out of the light.
The guard stirred, gasped. Devlin drew the automatic from his holster, pushed the muzzle into his side so he could feel it.
“Be smart and you’ll live through this.” Devlin kept his voice low. “Do you understand me?”
The guard took a breath, nodded.
With his free hand, Devlin patted the deep pockets of the guard’s fatigue pants, found a buck knife and an extra magazine for the pistol.
He kept a knee on the man’s back, set the automatic aside, picked up the rifle. The magazine was combat-taped to a spare one, upside down for quick reloading. He released the magazine, peeled off the tape. It was flat black and nonreflective, about ten inches’ worth. Some of the adhesive would be gone, but it would work well enough.
He pressed the tape over the guard’s mouth, smoothed it down. The guard’s eyes widened, and he started to struggle again. Devlin picked up the automatic, put the muzzle to the nape of his neck. “What did I say?”
The guard went still. With his left hand, Devlin began to pull at the lace of the man’s boot. It wouldn’t come loose, so he took the knife, eased the blade open with a thumb until it locked in place. He sliced through one of the thick laces, pulled it free from its grommets, used it to tie the guard’s wrists together behind him. Then he cut the lace off the other boot, bound his ankles. He closed the knife, pocketed it, picked up the automatic again. He leaned close to the guard’s ear.
“This is the safest place for you. Stay here, and you’ll be fine. You manage to get free, get up, and start moving around, you’ll get your head shot off. You understand?”
The guard looked to the side, breathing heavy.
“Show me you understand.”
He nodded.
Devlin stood, put the automatic in his belt, picked up the rifle. He’d need a diversion. No telling how many men were posted on the grounds, how long it would take until they realized one of their own was missing.
He brushed sand off one of the M-16 magazines, blew into it to clear the mechanism. He fit it into the rifle’s receiver, slapped it home. The spare mag went into a back pocket.
The guard had twisted on the ground, was looking up at him. Devlin worked the bolt to chamber a round, went up to the blockhouse window, and drove the butt through the glass.
It shattered, collapsed inside. He turned the gun around, fit the butt against his shoulder, aimed at the generator, and squeezed the trigger.
Bishop came through the door first. He moved in fast, raised an automatic, and fired twice at the dark shape of the mattress. Lukas heard the sharp snaps of suppressed rounds.
He threw himself against the door, slammed it into the second man, lunged with the knife just as Bishop turned toward him.
Too dark to pick a target, so Lukas aimed for the face, felt the knife strike flesh and hard bone. Bishop screamed, and Lukas caught the gun with both hands, twisted it from his grip. The knife hit the floor. He shoved Bishop out of the way, turned and fired three times through the closed door, heard a gasp on the other side. The rounds left splintered holes in the wood.
He swung the gun back toward Bishop, now silhouetted against the moon, fired twice into his center mass. He stumbled back and fell out onto the balcony.
Gun smoke drifted in the cylinders of light that came through the door. There was a whimpering on the other side.
Lukas pulled the door open. Kane lay on the floor there, crawling backward. He was bleeding heavily from the side of his neck, trying to stem the flow with one hand. The other held a silenced pistol. He raised it weakly and fired once, unaimed. The round hit the door jamb.
Lukas kicked the gun from his hand, sent it skittering down the hall, left him there to bleed.
The butt of the M-16 punched back into Devlin’s shoulder. Sparks flew from the generator as the rounds ripped into its side. He squeezed off another short burst, and yellow and blue flames leaped out, triggered the sprinkler system. Water hissed down. The flames died as smoke and steam filled the blockhouse. He stepped away from the window, waited for someone to come running.
Lukas was halfway up the marble staircase when he heard the gunfire. The lights flickered once and went out.
He raised the gun, waited, then went up the rest of the way and onto the second floor. It was awash in moonlight. He moved away from the windows. He had the high ground here. No one could come at him without being seen.
Gun up, he waited in the darkness.
A man came out the door into the dark side yard, an automatic down at his side, said, “Kirk, where are you?”
He saw Devlin, stopped short. Devlin raised the M-16, fired a burst over his head. The man leaped back into the open doorway, quick-crawled inside, slammed the door shut behind him. Devlin let him go, then fired another round through the top of the heavy glass panel. It would keep him inside, his head down.
Devlin circled toward the back of the house, using the palm trees as cover. To the east, the sky was beginning to lighten.
More gunfire outside. Lukas wondered who was shooting, and at what.
He saw shadowy movement on the far side of the dark room, raised the gun, and fired. The round broke glass somewhere. He heard voices below, running feet. He pointed the gun down the staircase, waiting for a target to present itself. His side ached, and the dressing beneath his T-shirt was wet, the wound bleeding again.
He sensed movement at the base of the stairs, fired, heard a round ricochet off marble.
“Hey,” a voice said.
He spun, and Winters stepped out of the shadows on the other side of the room, the M110 up at his shoulder.
Lukas fired, felt a hammer blow to his chest. He tried to raise the gun, felt another blow, this one to his shoulder, went over and down.
The room seemed to spin around him. He couldn’t breathe.
Winters came toward him, trying to line up a clear shot. Lukas fired upward, saw him flinch. Another round from the M110 gouged the floor near his face. He gripped his right wrist with his left hand to steady the gun, kept firing until the automatic’s slide locked back empty.
Winters dropped the rifle, took two drunken steps, and fell backwards down the marble stairs.
Lukas tossed the gun away, tried to stand, couldn’t. He touched his chest, felt the blood-soaked T-shirt, tried to process it all calmly. He hit you at least twice, but you’re still breathing. You need to compress the wounds, stop the bleeding, get some kind of dressing on them.
Then, from outside and below, came the roar of the helicopter’s engine.
Devlin came out onto a patch of ground just above the verandah, saw the two stairways and the helipad below. He heard the crack of gunfire inside the house, saw muzzle flashes in the windows above him. A cluster of shots, then silence.
Engine noise below. The helicopter was starting up. It coughed exhaust, and the rotors began to spin. He could see the silhouette of the pilot inside. The rotors picked up speed, raising dust from the pad, and the helicopter began to tremble, ready to lift off. To the east, the sky was a paler blue. Dawn coming fast.
A sliding glass door opened on the verandah, and two men came out, started down the steps to the helipad. It was Kemper and the guard fro
m the side door, the one Devlin had driven back into the house.
He brought the rifle to his shoulder, aimed it down at the stairs ahead of them, leading them slightly, slid his finger over the trigger.
Forty-Four
Lukas crawled across the floor, pulled the M110 to him. It was slick with Winters’s blood.
He dragged himself to the wall. He was weak, dizzy. You’ve lost a lot of blood, he thought. You may not have much time. You need to finish this.
He braced his back against the wall, forced himself to stand. He coughed, tasted blood, spit it out.
Through the windows, he saw Kemper and Reece on the stairway to the helipad. Kemper slow, Reece trying to hurry him along and shield him at the same time. They reached the pad, stooped to avoid the spinning rotors.
The M110 had a second magazine taped to the first. He reversed them, fed in the full clip, worked the bolt, and stepped back from the center window. He raised the rifle and fired four times. Glass exploded out onto the verandah, rained down on the flagstones. What was left of the window collapsed in its frame. A cool breeze blew in around him.
He unclipped the night scope and shroud, tossed them away. He wouldn’t need them.
Devlin watched the two men going down the stairway. He tracked them with the M-16’s front sight. Easy to do it, he thought. Squeeze the trigger, end any threat the old man might present to him or anyone else in the future. Pay him back for all he’d done. For Bell, for Colin. For San Marcos. For all of it.
He aimed at the helicopter, his finger tight on the trigger. The two men reached the pad, ducked under the rotors’ blur. The guard got Kemper up into the right side of the cockpit, leaned in to help secure his seat harness. Then he backed away, staying low, gave the pilot the thumbs-up. It was a two-seater. He knew there’d be no room for him.
Devlin let the front sight drift over the pilot, Kemper beside him. Easy shots.
He steadied the rifle, held the sight on them. Then he eased his finger off the trigger. He wasn’t killing anyone. Not today, at least.
A crash of glass, and one of the windows above the verandah splintered and fell apart. There was a man standing there, framed in the empty window, aiming a rifle.
The helicopter began to rise.
Lukas inhaled, tucked the rifle butt into his shoulder, looked through the scope. He watched the helicopter hovering, its skids a few feet off the pad. He centered the crosshairs on the cockpit, let his breath out slow, and squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked back, and concrete dust puffed off the helipad. Reece threw himself to the ground, elbow-crawled toward the hangar.
Lukas adjusted his aim, fixed the crosshairs again, squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times, the gun thumping into his shoulder. The helicopter seemed to falter in its ascent for a moment, then put its nose down and sped out over the water. He watched it go.
Devlin saw the helicopter climb, sunlight glinting off its canopy. From above him came the sharp cracks of the rifle. The helicopter picked up speed as it headed out to sea, toward the rising sun, its shadow trailing across the surface of the water. It climbed higher, then began to lose altitude and bank to port. The pilot tried to right it, get the nose up. Devlin pictured him in there, fighting with the controls.
The helicopter made a long, slow, graceful arc, and hit the water at a forty-five-degree angle. Spray exploded around it, the rotors chopping into the water. One broke off and flew away, skipping over the surface. The helicopter flipped onto its back, skids up, and began to sink nose first. The silver tail rose up above the waves, the rotor there slowing, then stopping.
The tail seemed to hang there, straight up out of the water, all that was visible now. Sun flashed off the metalwork. Then it slipped below the waves and was gone.
Lukas lowered the M110, watched the helicopter go under, the glint of the sun on its tail as it sank.
The rifle was heavy now. He let it slip from his hand to the floor. Then he sat down amid the broken glass and spent casings.
The room was filled with red sunlight. The breeze coming through the empty window frame had warmed. He turned toward it, closed his eyes, felt the sun on his face.
Devlin went in through the side door. There was a narrow hallway here, stairs. He went up with the M-16 at his shoulder, finger on the trigger, came out into a big empty room.
A man sat on the floor near the window, a scoped rifle across his knees. The T-shirt he wore was soaked through with blood. His eyes were closed. More blood on the floor, a trail of it that led to a marble staircase. Another body halfway down.
Devlin aimed at the man by the window, moved closer, saw it was the one who’d attacked him at the motel, who’d murdered Roarke and the others. Who’d gone after his family.
The man opened his eyes. Devlin kept the front sight locked on him. “Are you Lukas?”
The man gave a weak smile, shifted slightly, but didn’t try to raise the rifle. Wind moaned through the window frame.
“You,” he said. “I should have known.” He coughed, and there was blood on his lips.
“Put the weapon down,” Devlin said. “Slide it away.”
Lukas’s hand went to the rifle’s pistol grip, his finger into the trigger guard. Devlin took a step closer. Glass crunched under his sneakers. “Put it down.”
Lukas coughed again, wet and deep. His finger curled over the trigger. “If you were going to shoot me, you’d have done it already. I don’t think you are.”
“Don’t…”
“Too bad,” Lukas said. He reversed the rifle, put the muzzle under his jaw, and pulled the trigger.
Forty-Five
Devlin stepped back, lowered the M-16.
“Is he dead?”
He turned, swung the rifle back up. A man was standing at the top of the marble stairs, his hands raised. The guard who’d gotten Kemper into the helicopter.
“Don’t move,” Devlin said.
“Believe me, I’m not.”
Devlin nodded at the pistol on his hip. The man drew it out by its butt, set it on the floor. He looked at Lukas. “He dead?”
Devlin recognized the voice. It was the man who’d complained about having to board Chase’s boat, search the body.
“He is.” Wind rolled the shell casings on the floor.
The man cocked his head toward the shattered window. “They didn’t make it.”
“I saw.”
“You think he hit the engine or the pilot?”
“I don’t know. Maybe both,” Devlin said. He felt tired, leaden.
“You don’t need to worry about me. I’m hired help. This is just a job.”
“What’s your name?”
“Reece.”
“Are there any more of your people around, Reece?”
“I don’t think so. I think they’re all dead.”
“You all worked for Kemper?”
“We did.”
Devlin pressed the magazine release, shook the rifle once. The clip fell to the floor. He pulled back the bolt, ejected the chambered round, then took the closed buck knife from his pocket.
“One of your buddies is in the trees by the side of the blockhouse. Tied up. You better go cut him loose.” He tossed the knife.
Reece caught it, looked at him. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m one of you. At least I was.”
Reece backed away, gave Devlin a last look, then went down the side stairs.
Devlin dropped the rifle. The room was full of light, and the sounds of wind and water.
Devlin drove the Sea Ray. Reece and the other guard, whose name was Kirkland, sat on the rear bench seat, sharing a joint Reece had produced from a cigarette pack. Kirkland was shivering, wrapped in a blanket from the house. He looked at Devlin with something between anger and fear. But the fight had gone out of him.
“I wonder if we’ll still get paid this month,” Reece said.
Devlin looked at him. “If you want, I’ll take you back there. You can hang around, find out.”
“I’ll take a pass on that.” He held out the joint. Devlin shook his head.
There were other boats out, the water calm and flat. Devlin kept his speed down, steered to the southwest, Green Turtle Cay in sight. Reece had shown him on a chart how to find Kemper’s private landing, said he had the keys for a Land Rover parked there.
Kirkland said, “What will happen to them? Back there.”
“Someone will find them,” Devlin said. “Sooner or later.”
He thought about Chase, what they were leaving behind. Reece had told him about Farrow, what Lukas had done. So much death, Devlin thought, and for no good reason.
“What about us?” Reece said. “What do you think we should do?”
“Make yourself scarce,” Devlin said. “Get out of these islands as soon as you can, however you can. Cover your tracks. It’ll take them a while to work out what happened. There’s a good chance they never will.”
He’d wiped down the M-16 and its magazine before leaving the house. His prints were nowhere else. As soon as they’d left the boathouse, he’d dropped Kirkland’s automatic and the extra magazines into the water. He didn’t need a gun anymore, didn’t want one.
Reece took a last draw on the joint, pinched it out.
“I think I need a new profession,” he said. “Something safer. And indoors.”
Devlin drove on, the sun at his back.
He had them drop him a half mile from the marina, walked the rest of the way.
The Higher Tide was as he’d left it. No police on board. No customs officials or Bahamian constables demanding to know where he’d been, what he’d done.
He unlocked the hatch and door, opened them to air out the cabin. He knew he should leave as soon as possible, head back to the States. But the fatigue was on him hard now.
Some Die Nameless Page 29