That seemed like a stupid move for someone hiding from dangerous people, but given how easily Travis Porter was taken off Madge earlier, he must not have been armed.
“Flares?” I asked. I was already heading to the nav station–it was where I kept mine.
Lily shrugged, but when I lifted the table, I found two flare guns. One had older flares. If I had been the Coast Guard, I might have cited Travis Porter. Luckily, the other one was within the “use by” period.
“Here,” I handed the gun with the older flare in it to Lily. “You have one shot. Don’t use it unless he gets past me. Aim for his chest. These aren’t designed for accuracy.”
She stared at the plastic flare gun in her hand.
“Move up front and stay down,” I ordered.
The girl obeyed as I lifted my head out of the companionway. Only one of the cigarette boats was returning. Did Travis already break? That’s not unheard of. Most people can’t hold out to a heavy interrogation. If fear doesn’t break them, pain will.
The big boat was bearing down fast. Maybe a minute before he reached us.
The metal boat hook hung from the lifelines on the port side. I reached over and grabbed it. With the hook in hand, I dropped back below deck.
A boat didn’t offer a lot of room for a fight. On deck, I might just make an easy target from the cigarette boat. One or two flares wasn’t going to stop a boarding. From my quick glimpse, I couldn’t tell how many people were on board. My best bet was to take advantage of whatever surprise I could muster.
The flare gun slipped under the waistband of my swimsuit at the small of my back. What I told Lily was accurate: I had one shot.
There wouldn’t be more than two of them. I only counted three earlier. Unless they rendezvoused with reinforcements, the most there would be was two.
More than likely, only one. If Travis was still alive, the other driver couldn’t be expected to watch him and drive.
No, there was going to be only one. They either figured out that Lily was still on board, or the money was. It was a one-man job.
The sound of the engine decreased just before the hull echoed with the thud of the other boat. Madge was rocking hard, and I couldn’t tell if we had been boarded yet.
The sound of feet dropping from the deck to the cockpit floor confirmed it. The Beneteau 50 had two aft staterooms. Slinking back into the starboard one, I waited. There was only one pair of feet clomping around above me, confirming my suspicion. Those feet started down the companionway steps slowly. He was taking it slow. There was more caution than I would have expected from someone coming after a girl.
The boat hook swung as I stepped out of the stateroom. It was an awkward swing with no real room to stretch. If I was on the ball field, it would have been a puny punt. Nonetheless, metal struck kneecap, and a hairy brute tumbled off the stair.
The hook had already snapped back up into my grip, ready to spring forward again. No point in wasting a perfectly cocked pitch. I let it shoot forward with a supple jerk of my wrist. As if I was aiming a pool cue, the tip struck the white ball center mass. Enough force to make him gasp for air, but not enough to do more than bruise or, at worst, crack a rib.
“Don’t move,” I ordered. “The next one will go right between your eyes.”
The face staring up at me from the galley floor was dark. Not just from the sun. Some mix of genetics gave him naturally bronze skin. He sported a mustache that should have retired with Tom Selleck. The hunter-orange shirt was unbuttoned, which let me see the bruise already forming on his chest.
“Wait,” the Magnum-wannabe pleaded. His left hand rose and spread, begging for me not to react. “Don’t do anything, please.”
I stared at him—the hook poised like a spear in my palms. I waited for him to react.
His eyes cut around. He wanted to know if we were alone. He was looking for an opportunity, and I wasn’t about to offer him one.
“On your belly!” I shouted. “Hands on your head!”
He was evaluating me. The knuckles on his fingers were gnarled. I counted three facial scars. He was a fighter. Taking a hit was nothing new to him, and if I hadn’t made the first hit a dirty one, he might have pummeled me around the cabin. Those kinds of guesses are moot. The first few seconds of appraisal can tell me a lot about what kind of a fighter I’m up against. With 74 inches and 215 lbs., I can feel pretty confident about the outcome with most people. Especially those that haven’t met their match. The bellow of the self-confident ego is familiar. The very aura they carry boasts that they are invincible.
Magnum didn’t give off that aura. He knew he wasn’t invincible, but he wasn’t afraid to test if someone else was. That kind of fighter gives me pause. Could I take him? If I was lucky, didn’t make a mistake, and the gods favored me. The exact same could be said of his taking me. This was a challenge that I thought could wait. Better to keep him at arm’s length.
Magnum obeyed me, rolling to his chest. The hairy forearms holding his head bore a tattoo that looked to be an Army Ranger design. Despite my core belief that a Force Recon Marine would have no challenge in combat with an Army Ranger, my common sense told me that fraternal bias rarely proved the truth.
Pressing the flat top of the hook against his neck, I patted him down. Under his shirt, a .45 automatic was tucked in his shorts, roughly the same place the flare gun was situated on me. I debated swapping the hook for the handgun, but at the moment, I didn’t want to remove the pressure I was using to hold him in place. I didn’t want to kill him outright, and if I wasn’t willing to do that, the .45 could only become a liability.
The magazine released. I tossed the gun and the magazine into the port stateroom. Neither hit the bed, and a loud clattering indicated they were on the floor.
“Alright.” I released the pressure on his neck. “We are going to move very slowly. You so much as flinch, this hook will crack your skull like it was an egg.”
“Yeah, man,” Magnum conceded, “I got it.”
“We’re going to talk slowly and clearly. I ask; you answer.”
He nodded.
“Where did you take Travis?”
He paused, and I realized that I might have made a mistake. Using his real name might have given away Lily’s presence.
“He was needed in Florida. We were just trying to help.”
I held steady. “That’s a lie!” I snapped. “The next one, I’ll break your shoulder.”
“Alright,” Magnum admitted. “We were sent to get him.”
“Is he still alive?”
“He was,” Magnum answered with precision.
“Who wanted Porter?” I demanded
Magnum didn’t respond. The gears in his head were turning. He was muscle, but he was aware of the consequences. He wasn’t going to betray the man that sent him unless he was certain that it didn’t matter. Right now, the clicking and whirring in his mind were weighing the odds of his survival and his subsequent future. He could tell me everything I wanted to know, as long as he thought it would buy him time to overtake me.
He already reached the same conclusion about me that I had about him. A contest of strength here was contestable. Neither of us was willing to try the other unless it became a last resort. I’d made the mistake of removing the .45 from the equation.
Moral delusions can often result in fatal outcomes. I didn’t consider myself a murderer, despite the fact that I had killed a few people in the service of Uncle Sam. I realized my error; my cards were shown. If he didn’t attempt to attack, I wouldn’t be forced to use deadly force. He knew that about me now, and I knew that were the roles reversed, he would have no qualms about killing Lily and me in cold blood.
“Fine,” I growled. “I want you to crawl over to the settee. Don’t move too fast.”
He obeyed. Slithering like a snake along the ground, he used each movement to get a look around. I didn’t like the position I put myself in.
Dammit, Chase, I cursed to myself. Don’t be so
resolute.
That lizard part of my brain urged me to bash his head while I could. Leave Magnum’s crushed skull on the sole of Madge. Turn his brain to pudding and walk away unscathed.
The human side tasted the bile that the thought produced. That’s the part that likes to look in the mirror in the morning and see a face that it likes. Sans scales and slitted eyes.
My internal voice pointed out, you won’t recognize your own face when this hairy Selleck look-alike caves your face into the counter in the galley.
“We’re going to wait on the Royal Bahamas Defense Force,” I assured him.
He chuckled into the floor. He knew the joke for which I just delivered the punchline.
“Get up on the settee. Sit on your hands,” I ordered.
Magnum smirked beneath the mustache, playing mind games.
“What part of this is funny?”
“I think you’ll be waiting a long time for the RBDF.”
“That’s why you came back,” I stated. “My Pan-pan got out.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. His lizard brain made up the larger portion of him. We were going to fight, and only one of us could leave here alive. He had seen my limits. He would wait until he felt the situation lined itself up in his favor. He’d be ready for his move, and I would be forced to react.
Should have smashed his brain in when you could, the voice in my head scolded.
“Let’s say the authorities probably won’t be responding.” He leaned back against the back cushion. “Is this how you thought your day would go?”
“I generally don’t like to plan that far ahead,” I responded.
“You from the other boat?”
I didn’t answer.
“Makes sense. There was no one else around,” he commented. “We should have taken care of you too.”
“Hindsight,” I pointed out.
“Where’s the girl?” he asked. “Up front?”
I stared at him.
“Your dad’s going to be dead soon,” he remarked in a louder voice.
She appeared in the doorway, staring at Magnum. The flare gun hung at her side.
“There she is,” he sang.
“Lily,” I warned, “be careful.”
My eyes shifted for a second. His hand shot out like a snake striking at a rabbit. I moved to lunge the boat hook toward him. At the last second, I caught it before it smashed Lily in the face. He had her across his lap; the flare gun pressed up against her chin. His grin turned from mischievous to lascivious.
“Sorry, buddy.” His voice was condescending.
Pressed against Lily’s skin, the result of the flare going off would melt her face. A flare can ignite at over 350 degrees Fahrenheit and burn well over 1,000 degrees. She would be dead, but the moments before the end would be agonizing.
“Guess we can call this a Bahamian stand-off, right?” Magnum quipped.
“Let’s think this through.” I tried to remain calm.
“Yes, let’s do that,” Magnum agreed. “I’m going to take her up top, and we are going to leave together.”
“Not going to happen.” My eyes didn’t move from his this time. My tone was level. The way all the experts say to speak in situations like this. Don’t sound excitable.
None of that mattered. He wasn’t going to give me an inch. I wasn’t going to let him pass.
I watched the words form in his head. The two words that his lizard brain told him. Two words, pointing out he had a gun and I only had a metal pole. Those two words reminded him he had a human shield, and even if I tried to strike, my aim would have to be precise to be effective.
My brain wasn’t listening when he said it. My eyes watched his top teeth scrape over his bottom lip as the two words leaped from his lizard brain to his mouth. The flare gun turning toward me as the first word escaped. He squeezed the trigger, and my ears caught up to the moment to hear him mutter “Hell with it” followed by a click.
The hook fired through my hand like the spear pole earlier; the blunt, rounded top of the hook driving into his throat. My arm pushed the thrust harder, and a wet gag erupted from his surprised face. My wrist snapped the hook back, and the lizard part of my brain smiled as I launched a second, harder blow that crunched into his larynx.
Lily scrambled away as Magnum’s grip loosened before he slumped to his side.
The expired flare gun rattled to the floor.
6
Lily crumpled in the floor at the base of the bed in the forward cabin; she stared through the door at the body on the settee. Bile or saliva oozed from his open lips; his dark eyes stared back at her from the same place she had eaten three meals a day for the last month. The danger emanating from them only minutes earlier had flushed away in an instant.
The only reason a corpse is ever mistaken for the living is a mental block. From birth, we are afraid of that final destination. We fill our minds with maps and brochures of what it will be after we step into the light. If there is a light, I can’t say that I know. Clergy will tell you that the goal is the destination; humanists swear it’s about the journey.
Whatever it is, the moment death comes, the change is instant. When the boat hook struck the second time, the lights went out. Like seeing a house on a street that has trimmed grass, pruned bushes, and fresh paint, but the house is so obviously not a home. The thing that changes it is gone or hasn’t arrived.
Magnum was the same way. He was an adversary, but I can’t help feeling that it was a waste.
I crouched in front of Lily. She turned her eyes up to me. That armor she was forging around her had a big chink in it. Not all the way through, but the blow knocked her off her horse.
“Hey, it’s going to be alright,” I promised her.
She gave a quick nod.
“I’m going to shut the door for a minute, Lily,” I told her. “Will you be okay?”
“Yeah,” she mumbled.
Straightening my legs, I turned to shut the cabin door.
“The gun didn’t go off,” she muttered.
Looking back at her, I saw her struggle with the tightrope we were just crossing.
“No, the flares probably got some moisture in there.”
She shook her head, not understanding the how’s or why’s. I closed the door, letting the latch click. She didn’t need to see me clean up the mess. This was her home, and it had been spoiled. She might not be one to need the kid gloves. I’m no expert in children, but she seemed stronger than this moment showed.
I rolled the body onto the floor. He had a U.S. passport in his pocket. Garrett Walls. I only knew him as Magnum, and that was how he died. I doubted I could wrap my brain around Garrett Walls.
Letting out a sigh of macabre relief, I was pleased that there was no blood. He seemed a little shorter than me, but our entire relationship never saw him standing eye to eye with me. Still, he weighed about 220, and as dead weight, he was a struggle to get up the companionway steps.
There had been about an hour from the time the two cigarette boats left before Garrett returned. If both vessels were heading to the mainland at 70 to 80 mph, the other boat was almost to Florida. How long before they worry when Garrett doesn’t communicate? Give him half an hour to secure the craft. Maybe spot him another 30 minutes for difficulties. By then, the other boat should make landfall. It would take another two hours to get back if they decided to return.
Three hours at a minimum. That was probably too generous on my part, but it could be all wrong. If they didn’t go straight to Florida but stopped somewhere else, I could be overestimating my time.
Basically, don’t dilly-dally Chase, I told myself.
Dragging Garrett’s body across the deck, I stood over the cigarette boat. Lifting him over the safety lines was the next hardest part. After that, he just rolled forward into the cigarette boat. He landed in a heap with his head folded up between his legs.
Once I had him off of Madge, I returned to find Lily rocking slowly on the bed.
&nb
sp; “I need you to get anything you want to take with you,” I told her. “Assume that you will never get to come back. We might be able to, but for now, we have to make tracks.”
She nodded an understanding. While she started ambling around, trying to decide what part of her life was worth taking, I climbed back on deck. Untying Beth’s painter, I pulled the dinghy around and looped it on the aft cleat of the cigarette boat. Releasing the ropes tying the cigarette boat to Madge, I started the engine.
Borrowing an idea from Garrett and his friends, I aimed the boat north. Keeping the speed low, I charted a course that would take the boat north past Bermuda to Greenland and set the autopilot. She’d never make Bermuda. The fuel range wasn’t that far even, if she had a full tank. Somewhere out in the blue, the engine would die. Garrett would drift along until someone found him.
With any luck, that would be years from now. Nonetheless, I wiped down the wheel and autopilot.
Pulling Beth alongside, I pulled the bowline off the back cleat. Dropping the line, I turned and shoved the throttle all the way forward. The cigarette boat lurched forward as I turned and dove off the stern. The craft accelerated past 50 mph before I hit the water.
My head broke the surface; Beth was already 50 yards from me. The cigarette boat zoomed away at over 70 mph now.
I was back onboard Beth within five minutes. Even the whine of the cigarette boat’s engine was gone. Dropping onto the bench, I stared after Garrett’s wake. The trail in the water extended to a small dot receding on the horizon. Deep breaths filled my lungs as I sat there staring into the empty space between sea and sky. The waves rocked and turned the boat, so my neck had to strain so I could hold my gaze in the same direction.
Another deep breath, Chase, I reminded myself, you’re entitled to each one.
Pushing that melancholy aside, I started the engine and motored back to Madge. I found Lily sitting on the front bed; the salon settee wasn’t welcoming anymore. A backpack was resting on the floor next to her.
“You okay, girl?” I asked as I climbed into the cabin.
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