“Ahoy! Ahoy on board!” The voice came from a bull horn. The chugga-chugga sounds of the cutter’s big engines could be heard in the background as the boat pulled up alongside the Paradise. The siren died away slowly with a fading whine. “This is the Coast Guard. Request permission to come aboard.”
“Denied!” The captain of the Paradise was speaking through a bull horn too. “Permission denied! You know what sort of ship this is, Ensign. We don’t want you aboard. And we’re out here beyond the three-mile limit.”
“We saw a distress flare. What is your situation?” Hunter opened the door again and looked out. He spoke to Kristin in a whisper as he peered at the nighttime scene, which was now brightly lit up near the forward deck by searchlights from the Coast Guard cutter. “Get ready, babe. When I say the word, we go. We’ll move back to the aft motor skiff. It’s already on the water, ready to take the Johns back later. We’ll try to get into it without being seen.”
“Can’t we just go straight to the Coast Guard now? Just saunter right on over to them? These hoods wouldn’t shoot us or try to stop us with the Coast Guard watching.”
“Don’t be so sure. They don’t want trouble with the feds, you’re right. But if you get to the Coast Guard and tell them about being abducted, they’ll have trouble anyway. That falls under the international piracy laws, and there’s no three-mile limit on that. Rooney’s thugs may try to stop you, even if they have to fire on the Coast Guard to do it.”
That Sounded unlikely to Kristin. Hunter noticed this and shrugged. “Maybe it is safer than the alternative. You might want to try it. I can’t go with you though.” “Why not?”
“I’m wanted on a half-dozen federal warrants. Once they got me, they’d never let go.” He paused. “But you go ahead, if you want to.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll stay with you.” She almost surprised herself by saying this. She told herself that she had a good reason for taking this course of action: She needed to stay near Hunter for Chad’s sake. Deep down, though, she knew there was another reason making her choose to take her chances alongside Dallas Hunter.
“This is it. Let’s go.” He took her hand and pulled her after him. They scurried down the deck, toward the rear, keeping low. A spotlight beam passed over their heads but did not catch them. All attention on the ship was focused on the scene taking place near the helm, where the Paradise captain was insisting that the flare was set off accidentally, while the Coast Guard ensign commanding the cutter was equally insistent that he should be allowed to come aboard to check out the situation for himself.
As Hunter and Kristin neared the skiff at the rear, near the side of the ship away from the Coast Guard, they came face to face with one of the hoods, Bill Bonebrake, who was standing there ready for action.
“Hey! Who the hell are you?” The barrel of Bone-brake’s Tommy pivoted toward Hunter’s chest before Hunter had a chance to react. The hood stared at him, his face grim with suspicion. Suddenly his face brightened though. “Oh, it’s only you, Casanova. So, how’s your love life?” Everyone on the ship had heard the story of how the hick in the bow tie had brought a bouquet of flowers, like a school kid on his first date. The hood lowered his Tommy nonchalantly.
Then his eyes fell on Kristin, who came up behind Hunter. Realization dawned on his face. Looking back at Hunter, the hood now noticed the pistol held down at his side. Bonebrake tried to raise his Tommy again. Hunter slugged him hard, sending him crashing backward. He leaped at him before he could recover his balance, and he hit him again, even harder. Hunter yanked him down to the deck and pulled him around the corner of the cabin, just as a voice barked over the bull horn from the Coast Guard cutter. “What was that noise? Let’s have some illumination over there, Seaman.”
The searchlight beam swung over to the aft section. Hunter and the unconscious hood were out of sight, but Kristin had not had time to move around the corner. She was caught in the bright beam, squinting into it, wearing only her blue bathrobe. What could she do? She felt the tension sharply increase on the deck of the Paradise, and she heard the gasps from several crewmen. She could sense their fingers secretly tightening on hidden weapon triggers. Her own gun was out of sight, in the hand held behind her.
She smiled and waved at the Coast Guard ensign. She could not see his reaction because she was blinded by the searchlight, but evidently her ploy worked. The beam swung away, the ensign satisfied that nothing suspicious had taken place. He returned to his argument with the captain of the Paradise. Kristin saw several members of the crew begin sauntering down the deck toward her with seeming nonchalance.
Hunter’s hand grabbed her and pulled her around the corner. There was a metal ladder near him, leading down to the skiff in the water. He practically shoved her down it, nearly making her fall. She got into the bottom of the small skiff. Hunter joined her and quickly cast off the line. He did not dare start the engine. The Coast Guard would hear and come to investigate. There were oars in the boat. He handed his gun to Kristin, then quickly began rowing away from the Paradise.
Two crewmen reached the ladder now and saw what was happening. One raised a pistol to shoot, but the other slapped his arm aside sharply. A shot right now was all they needed! He cursed the man’s stupidity in a low voice. Then he demonstrated his own stupidity by pulling off his sweater and diving into the water, whereupon he began swimming toward the rapidly departing skiff. He was a good swimmer, and he reached the skiff just in time for Hunter to slam him on the head with the flat of an oar, knocking him under the water. If he surfaced, Kristin did not see him do it.
The Coast Guard cutter’s engines came loudly to life as the white ship began to depart. The argument had ended. The ensign had been continuing it this long only for harassment purposes anyway. He knew he could not board the ship without more of a provocation than he had. Kristin could not see the ship departing at first, since it was on the other side of the Paradise. After a minute it came into view, slicing through the water back toward the cluster of pinpoint lights on the mainland, leaving a phosphorescent blue foam is its wake.
Now Hunter pulled the cord on the outboard, bringing the motor to life. “Get down low,” he ordered as he took the rudder and moved perpendicularly away from the Paradise as fast as he could travel. “There’s nothing stopping them now.”
Shots rang out from aboard the ship. Kristin saw water splash up very near them on both sides of their small craft. One bullet careened into the skiff near where Kristin lay on the floor, blowing a hole the size of a dime in the wooden side.
The engines on the Paradise began turning over. It seemed to Kristin that the Paradise would almost certainly be swifter than a mere water taxi, but also that it would take a while for engines that size to warm up before the ship could reach full speed and overtake them.
She turned to Hunter, the cool sea wind whipping through her hair as the skiff sped forward. “Will we be able to reach the mainland before they catch us?” she shouted above the roar of the motor.
“No problem!” shouted Hunter.
Another burst of Tommy-gun fire came from the Paradise, and this time, instead of splashing the water alongside, it stitched a line of bullet holes along the side and bottom of the skiff.
“Problem,” corrected Hunter. Sea water began to spout in jets into the bottom of the boat. He looked toward the front of the skiff, at the utility cabinet. “See if there’s a bucket or anything to bail with.”
She hurried to the cabinet, keeping half-crouched to avoid falling over in the choppy sea. “Nothing! Not even a teacup!”
The Paradise was after them now, slicing through the water, its engines churning up the sea. It was still far enough back so that they had time before it reached full speed, but it was gaining on them. Kristin could imagine the horrified faces of the Johns on board, ordinary workingmen out for a good time, who had never expected to witness a shootout at sea. On second thought, she realized, they were probably all being kept below decks so they could no
t see what was happening. That way they could not be witnesses.
Hunter glanced at the water that ceaselessly jetted into the boat, now covering the bottom completely. His eyes were squinting against the wind. “We won’t make it to the mainland. I’m heading us out to Ana Pris Island. It’s only a mile from here—farther out, not closer in.”
“Are there people on it?” she had to shout quite loudly to be heard above the roar of the loud motor.
“Yeah. But no one who’ll jump at the chance to help us. It’s a transfer point for bootleg booze coming in from Europe. One group of hoods drops the stuff off; another comes to pick it up in smaller boats and run it into the mainland.”
“Are any of your men involved?”
“I’m a Chicago boy, remember? This is strictly a New York crowd.” More bullets churned the water near them. “Stay low, babe. Don’t want to lose you.” They sped through the water in silence. Kristin was preoccupied with wondering how much longer she would live. The signs were not very fortuitous. She felt the cold wind on her face, making her nose and ears numb. The stars and the moon danced above, looking exceptionally bright. Behind them was the Paradise, still a good distance away. The distance did not matter, though, for their skiff was rapidly filling with water, slowing its progress. If they did not reach Ana Pris soon, they would find themselves under water.
“There!” shouted Hunter, pointing. She saw it looming up before them, silhouetted against the starry sky. It was jagged and mountainous, with a forest of tall trees blanketing the base. Hunter did not head straight for the nearest point, but instead motored parallel to the coast for a few minutes. “The beach was too flat and empty back there,” he explained. “Over here there’s more cover. Trees, cliffs, nooks and crannies. More places to hide.”
He aimed the skiff toward the rocky beach. It was not a moment too soon. The skiff was on the verge of sinking. “Hold tight!” He rammed it onto the beach, hitting a jagged rock that sent Kristin pitching forward in the boat. She fell down into the cold water in the bottom, losing the guns she had been holding. She began searching for them frantically, but Hunter pulled her up and grasped her hand. Then, the next thing she knew, they were running with all their might between the jagged rocks along the sandy beach. Gunfire was crackling behind them, and bullets were zinging into the rocks and the sand on all sides.
A line of trees loomed up in the distance ahead of them, and soon they were into it, leaving the gunfire behind. Hunter pulled her along as he ran, leading the way. Soon Kristin was out of breath and panting, her lungs burning, her legs aching. Still he kept pulling her forward. She said nothing, determined not to complain. When it seemed she could not run any farther, he bent down and lifted her into his arms. She put her arms around his neck. Then he continued running with her.
It was only after they reached higher ground, where they could see the beach and offshore water below through the break in the tree line, that Hunter set her down and gave himself a moment to catch his breath. He collapsed to the forest floor and sat resting with his back against a tree. Together they watched the Paradise pull close to the coastline, but not so close as to endanger scraping her keel along the shallow ocean bottom. Kristin thought that the second skiff would already have been put out, with hoods aboard to bring them back. But as it turned out, the second skiff was still on board.
“What are they waiting for?” Kristin asked.
“They’re deciding whether it’s worth it to come after us. They’ve already spared off half their future business from all this gunfire. They don’t want to drag this out any longer than necessary.”
“You think they’ll leave us alone, then?” she asked hopefully.
His eyes were riveted on the Paradise, which was idling just off the coast. “It’s fifty-fifty either way. They’ll catch hell from Rooney if they let you escape. He’s a powerful man. They don’t want to anger him.”
Hunter noticed her shivering, and his arm went around her shoulders, pulling her near him. They watched the Paradise with baited breath, their bodies tense with anticipation and suspense. Long minutes passed with no action aboard the ship. For a moment, Kristin thought they would be safe. The ship would cruise away, leaving them in peace.
But then there was a flurry of activity aboard the Paradise, and the dark silhouettes of three gangsters climbed into the remaining skiff, their weapons glinting ominously in the moonlight. The skiff was lowered into the water.
As Kristin watched with a sinking heart, the skiff’s motor roared to life, and the small boat raced toward the beach.
CHAPTER 10
“What do we do now?” Kristin tried to keep the fear from her voice, but failed.
“Nothing,” said Hunter, pulling a cigarette from his shirt pocket and looking at it dejectedly. It was soaking wet from the ocean spray that had splashed in on them as thèy sliced through the water. His entire shirt front was wet. He flicked the cigarette away. “There’s no place better to be right now than where we are. They won’t find us here. At least, not till daybreak. You can’t trail a man in the dark. Besides, these hoods aren’t at home anywhere outside their own turf. They’ll end up walking in circles if they try to find us in this darkness.”
“So we’re safe?”
“For the moment. They’re looking for us on the beach now. Soon they’ll go tell the local hooch relayers to be on the watch for us too. They’ll offer them a reward to make it worthwhile.”
“You’re not very encouraging. Why don’t you tell me some good news?”
Hunter watched the Paradise steam away, back toward its anchoring berth three miles off the coast of the mainland. He slouched farther down against the tree, so that he was almost lying, and crossed his hands over his chest comfortably. “The good news, babe, is that you won’t have to worry about getting fat from tonight’s dinner, because dinner is going to consist of a good healthy portion of salt sea air. And that’s about it.”
She looked around at the unfamiliar trees and bushes. “You don’t know how to find edible plants or berries?”
“I’m not a boy scout. I was one once. But I got kicked out.”
She looked at him warily, not sure she wanted to ask why. He told her anyway. “They said I seduced the den mother.”
“Did you?”
“I had to fight her off. She was a real disgrace to her uniform, coming after a naïve teenage boy scout like me.
“I’ll bet,” said Kristin skeptically. She stood up and began walking around, treading on the pine needles and breathing the heavy fragrance of moist forest greenery. She was hugging herself to keep from shivering. It was very cold now that the heat generated from her vigorous running was gone. She began shuddering. She felt cold and hungry and scared. What had she done to deserve this? And more important, what was she going to do to get out of it?
“Don’t worry too much,” Hunter said. “I’ve got an idea on how to get us out of here.” He paused. “No sense talking about it though. Might get your hopes built up for nothing. We’ll see if it works in the morning.”
“The morning? I don’t know if I’ll even make it through the night.” She shuddered some more and hugged herself tighter, trying to quell it.
He motioned to her with his finger. His voice was surprisingly gentle. “Come here.”
She looked at him cautiously. “What for?”
“You want to freeze to death?”
“It’s not that cold.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. He didn’t move for a long time. Kristin couldn’t tell if he was asleep or not. She paced around some more, trying to keep warm. He had been so adamant aboard the ship about trying to convince her that he didn’t care about her that now she began to wonder. Finally she went to him and lay down next to him—far enough distant so that she did not seem to be giving in.
He extended his hand to her without opening his eyes. He held it out, unmoving. After a moment, she took it. He pulled her to him and held
her against him, hugging her as they lay huddled together on their sides, his arms around her. She did feel less chilly. Lying together like this, the heat of his body helped warm her.
Her head was cradled against his shoulder. His face was against the crook of her neck, and he began kissing her there, leisurely, his lips playing up and down her neck and throat. She stiffened. His hand brushed back her stringy wet hair, and his lips moved to her ear. She felt a strange, delicious sensation as his tongue moved tantalizingly about her ear.
“Don’t do that,” she said, pulling her head away.
“Why not?”
“Let’s talk first.”
“Let’s not,” he said softly, directly into her ear. The feel of his warm breath in her ear, contrasted to the cold air outside, excited her.
“But I want to!”
“Well, then you do it. I’m busy.” He continued kissing her, and his hand began moving down her front, between their two bodies. When his hand moved down to her bosom, she pulled it away and moved slightly apart from him.
“I don’t want to make love to you,” she said sternly.
He looked at her, perplexed. “It didn’t seem to bother you when we were living together.”
“That was different.”
“Why?”
“Because . . . well, because now you don’t want to have anything to do with me anymore! And if we ever get off this island alive, you won’t, will you? You made it clear enough before. You made it clear that you were only keeping me around because Ironman wanted you to. And that after the raid on Rooney’s warehouse, when I wouldn’t be useful to you anymore, you wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Hey, babe. You were the one who threw yourself at me. You were determined to be my moll whether I wanted you or not. So don’t go making yourself out to be some kind of wronged woman. I never pretended that I wanted you as my moll.”
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