Deception Cove

by Owen Laukkanen

  The marine was a sharpshooter. Joy was wearing the proof on his shoulder. In his shoulder, and out the other side. He knew he was lucky he’d lived, knew it was only the unpredictable roll of the ocean swell that had saved him from a kill shot to the head. Joy didn’t want to give the widow another chance to kill him. He didn’t relish the idea of advancing on her hiding hole, letting her see him approach.

  But he didn’t feel any allegiance toward Kirby Harwood or the other one, Sweeney. Those men were going to have to die anyway, no matter what happened next. Better they die doing something productive.

  Harwood and Sweeney would seek out the widow Winslow. Probably she would kill at least one of them. But she would reveal her position when she did. And then Joy would take her, alive if possible, and she would take him to the stolen shipment.

  Joy walked north until he’d nearly reached the trail that bisected the isthmus. He stopped and turned south again, searching through the forest he’d just walked for any sign of the deputies. He couldn’t see them, and that was fine. He would hear them loud and clear when the shooting started.

  He took a step in Harwood’s direction, intending to retrace his path and stalk the deputies from behind. Before he could go any farther, though, he sensed something behind him, and he half turned, thinking maybe Mason Burke really was out there, plotting some big rescue.

  “Stop right there.”

  It wasn’t Mason Burke’s voice. Joy stared as Dale Whitmer came out of the woods, his face scratched and bleeding, his clothing soaking wet and torn, his hand holding a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic aimed square at Joy’s head.

  “Deputy, you survived,” Joy said. “That is excellent news. We’re going to need you to help us flush out that widow.”

  Whitmer smirked back and the pistol didn’t waver. “Don’t either of us have to worry about Jess, not just yet,” he said. “We’ve got unfinished business between us, and I’m about ready to put things right.”

  He motioned with the pistol. “Drop the gun, Mr. Joy, and let me tell you a few things about my brother.”

  Sixty

  Joy didn’t drop the rifle. He stood still, eyeing the deputy over his busted shoulder, watching the man’s gun, and trying to calculate his odds.

  “You didn’t think I was just going to let you walk away after what you did to Bryce, did you?” Whitmer was saying. “I mean, shit, you shot him in the head in his own goddamn kitchen, Joy. You didn’t even give yourself a chance to get to know the poor miserable bastard.”

  Joy said nothing. He kept his grip on the rifle. He would have to duck and turn, fast, he decided. Throw himself to the ground and come up firing. He had reloaded with a fresh magazine when they came into the woods off of the boat; if he played this right, he could surprise Whitmer, take out his legs. The deputy had relaxed a little bit. He was already thinking he’d won.

  Stupid.

  “Got nothing to say for yourself, huh?” Whitmer continued. “I guess where you’re from, that kind of behavior is normal. You all just kill a man, instead of talking things out.”

  “It worked,” Joy replied. “You and your colleagues needed motivation. I provided it, and now we’ve nearly solved your problem.”

  “My problem.” Whitmer spat. “Mr. Joy, I don’t give two shits about that product you all are trying to move. You attacked my family, and if Okafor takes offense with how I choose to deal with that, he’s welcome to come up to Makah County himself to square up with me like a man. But in the meantime, I’m fixing to solve my problem right now, with this gun in my hand.”

  Joy kept his voice calm. “If you lower that pistol now, Deputy, I’ll forget this happened. We can continue to seek out the widow and her companion, and we can find your missing shipment. I won’t bring this back to Mr. Okafor, and you and your friends can carry on with your lives. If not…”

  He shrugged, and the pain in his shoulder was real, though he forced himself not to show it.

  “If not, Deputy, then I’m afraid you won’t like how this problem is solved.”

  Whitmer sneered. “You’ve got a real way with words, Mr. Joy,” he said, advancing a step. “But I’m afraid you can’t talk yourself out of this one.”

  Now was the time. Joy tightened his grip on his rifle, tensed his legs, and prepared to drop. Found a nice place to land, a clear patch of dirt. Whitmer was still speaking. Joy tuned him out.

  Three.

  Two.

  BOOM.

  A gunshot. Deafening. Joy ducked, instinctive, rolled away like he’d planned. Came up twisting around on his wounded shoulder, swearing from the pain, curling around with the rifle to find Whitmer and bury him. But Whitmer was gone.

  Correction: Whitmer was already on the ground, howling and clutching at his midsection. He’d dropped the pistol, his hands bloody where he gripped at his stomach. He writhed on the ground, screaming. Another explosion, and a sapling near Joy’s head disintegrated.

  Whitmer hadn’t fired, Joy realized. Those weren’t pistol rounds.

  This was a shotgun.

  * * *

  The last thing Mason had expected to see when he reached the isthmus was two of Harwood’s boys pointing guns at each other, but when he’d made his move on Dale Whitmer, he’d realized a little late that it wasn’t Jess Winslow the deputy was trying to preach to. It was the new guy, the other guy, and Whitmer had him in a hell of a bind.

  By that time it was too late to change strategy. Mason followed Whitmer’s voice and figured he had to act fast, spotted a faded orange fishing slicker through the woods and knew it had to be his man. He came in hot, stopped as close as he dared, aimed the shotgun through the trees and prayed, and pulled the trigger.

  Whitmer went down, dropped his pistol, and focused on trying to keep his guts in his stomach, but Mason figured out pretty quick he had other problems to deal with. He stepped out into the clearing toward Whitmer and caught movement to his left, turned with the shotgun just in time to see the new guy coming up from the ground with that M4 in his hands.

  What the what?

  Mason let off another blast from the shotgun, missed the new guy but sure taught that tree, and then the new guy was firing back, and Mason was ducking away and searching for cover.

  Damn it, this idea had gone ugly, and it’d gotten there real fast.

  * * *

  Joy let off a burst and watched Mason Burke fall back. He stayed low, found cover behind a massive fallen spruce, breathed in the moss and the smell of gunpowder as he searched the forest through his scope for any sign of the murderer.

  Dale Whitmer was still crying out like a gutshot man ought to. But if Mason Burke was hit, he wasn’t making any noise about it. Joy scanned the forest, but the forest was thick. Burke had dropped away, out of sight, and he could be dead, or he could be playing possum.

  One thing he wasn’t doing was shooting. Joy thanked his stars the murderer wasn’t much of a shot; at that range, with the shotgun, any half-competent gunman would have blown his head clean off. As it was, Joy imagined it was a small miracle the murderer had managed to hit Dale Whitmer. He’d at least solved that problem, anyway.

  Now let me properly express my gratitude, Mr. Burke.

  Burke wasn’t coming. Joy realized he would have to hunt the murderer. He wished he had something for the pain in his shoulder; his left arm was going numb, but that fall to the ground had still hurt like fire.

  Be a man.

  Joy used the barrel of his rifle to lever himself into a crouch behind the fallen spruce. Slowly, stealthily, he eased his way around the far side to where Whitmer lay dying. He leaned down for the pistol, tucked it into his jacket. Stared down at Whitmer a beat and wanted to say something, but from the look in Whitmer’s eyes, Joy could tell the deputy already knew.

  Hate. Frustration. Anger. Fear. The deputy would die hurting, and he would die unhappy.

  But he would die nonetheless.

  “Goodbye, Deputy.” Joy stepped across Whitmer’s body toward whe
re Mason Burke had disappeared. Somewhere out there the murderer waited, and Joy intended to find him.

  Then Whitmer coughed behind him. Rasped something out that Joy didn’t quite catch. Joy turned back.

  “I beg your pardon, Deputy—”

  BANG.

  This time Whitmer didn’t bother with soliloquies. He’d dug another pistol from somewhere Joy didn’t know about, and with the last of his strength, he’d unloaded the weapon into Joy’s midsection, sending Joy staggering back into the trees and down into the brush.

  Sixty-One

  The men were killing one another, somewhere else on the island. Jess hunkered down and scanned the woods, and hoped Burke was all right.

  She’d heard the boom of his shotgun, a couple of times, and then some rifle fire, and now small-arms stuff. No more shotgun, and that didn’t bode well.

  The fuckers were wearing body armor. Jess had figured this out when she watched Dale Whitmer emerge from the Grady-White in an orange rain slicker and hobble his way to the woods. She’d caught him square when she shot him, she knew it, and he should have died in the water, if not sooner.

  But he was alive, and he’d rearmed himself. And she’d watched Joy fall back from where he was patrolling with Kirby and Cole, and now she knew Burke was probably fighting both of them. And if he hadn’t learned to shoot since last afternoon, he was probably losing bad, or he was about to.

  He’s dying. Just like Afia.

  Like Ty.

  But Jess didn’t have time to worry about Burke. She couldn’t help him until she’d dealt with the problem at hand. And right now that problem was Kirby Harwood and Cole Sweeney, advancing up the incline toward her and hidden by a wall of trees.

  If they were as smart as Dale, they’d be wearing body armor, she thought, watching as Sweeney swung out from a tall Douglas fir and dashed up to take cover behind another. And that complicated things just a tad.

  But not much.

  She waited, kept her breathing steady, her rifle trained on the Douglas fir that hid Sweeney. She could see where the barrel of his rifle stuck out, watched it move up and down as the young deputy caught his breath. She waited. She could fall him with a head shot as soon as he took a step, and that would be the end of Cole Sweeney.

  Damn it, she knew Cole’s mother. Jess gritted her teeth, tried to push that fact from her mind. The kid had known what he was getting into, coming here. He’d have no compunction with killing her.

  Sweeney made his move. Jess tracked him with her rifle. She didn’t pull the trigger.

  The kid hadn’t killed Burke when he’d had the chance.

  Damn it.

  Sweeney stuck his head out from behind another tree. Emboldened, he stepped out from around it, scanned the forest ahead of him with his own rifle. Jess swore softly and lowered her sight. Put a round through Sweeney’s left knee and watched the kid fall.

  You’re getting too soft, marine, she thought. Too damn soft.

  Then the forest blew up around her.

  * * *

  Jess was losing her touch.

  Harwood had her pegged the second she blew out Sweeney’s kneecap, watched the muzzle flash from sixty feet down the hill and opened fire accordingly, emptying his magazine into the trees where she’d fired from.

  Sweeney was down, and from his screams, he was hurting, but Jess hadn’t killed him. He was out of the battle, but that didn’t matter. She’d lost some of her accuracy, apparently, and now he had her pinned down.

  Harwood slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle. Advanced up the hill running, maintaining steady fire at Jess’s hiding hole, fully aware that when he stopped to reload, she’d be up again and shooting back, and she still had the advantage.

  He closed the distance, hurdling fallen logs and scrambling up wet rock, nearly falling backward but catching himself, squeezing off more rounds, keeping her pinned.

  Damn it, but he could have used Joy right now.

  He was coming around the side where Jess was dug in, her cover not so great on this side but perfect for Sweeney’s position. Didn’t matter now, except she wasn’t quite set up to defend from this angle, and Harwood figured to overrun her. He was about out of breath when he reached the top of the rise, a couple of fallen logs making a nice little pillbox, and he was just about out of rounds, too. No time to stop now, though. Not with Jess on the ropes.

  Harwood pulled out his pistol. Came in over the logs and kept firing, heard Jess open up from somewhere else, and ducked down until he heard her rifle click empty.

  Harwood smiled. Gulped a breath. Stood up again and made for where she’d been firing from. He had the bitch dead to rights now.

  * * *

  Perfect time to run out of ammunition.

  Jess had conserved her rounds after neutralizing Cole Sweeney. Knew she couldn’t waste too many trying to tag Harwood through the trees. But Kirby was smart; he’d kept her pinned down, forced her to play defense. She’d guarded her last bullets until he reached the top of the rise, fired a couple of times and missed by quarter inches, and then she was out.

  Jess dropped the rifle. Pulled a pistol from inside her jacket and let off a couple of shots to show Harwood she wasn’t done yet. Nearly caught him too; she heard him curse, loud, as bark flew by his ear, and then he leaned out with his own pistol and squeezed off a couple of shots of his own.

  She backed off, farther up the rise, farther into the island. Found cover and held it and waited for a shot as Kirby advanced, fired and stayed low as Kirby fired back.

  He was better than she’d expected. He stayed low and out of sight, kept out of her crosshairs, edged around the side of her cover and nearly blew her head clean off. She fell back some more, scrambling up the slope on her backside, legs churning, aiming the gun down the rise and hoping Harwood didn’t catch her first.

  They traded shots again. Jess had the elevation, but Harwood had the advantage. He was gaining, close enough that Jess couldn’t turn and run, for fear he’d put two in her ass. She clawed her way backward instead, sweeping the forest, feeling in her pocket for another magazine, knowing she’d be empty again soon.

  So would Harwood.

  Jess backed up, found rock. Wet rock, a wall of it, and she knew where she was, knew she was in trouble. There was no way to back up this wall. No way to get away now that she’d backed into it. She was going to have to climb for her life.

  She emptied the last of her clip at where she’d last seen the deputy. Then she turned and scrambled up the rock, feet struggling for purchase, her knuckles scraped raw. The rock was wet and dangerous, but she’d done this before, she and Burke on their way to the cliff, and Jess knew the path. She made the top just as Harwood came out firing some more; she dashed into the clearing and heard Harwood click empty.

  Now was her chance. Jess dropped out the spent magazine. Felt in her pocket for the spare, couldn’t find it. Fuck. She looked around the clearing and saw it lying on pine needles where she’d mounted the wall. It must have dropped out when she ran.

  She hurried back to the magazine. Could hear Harwood fighting the climb, slipping, swearing, getting closer regardless. She had only seconds. She picked up the magazine, jammed it into the pistol just as Harwood came over the top. She swung up and fired, caught him center mass—but of course the bastard was wearing armor.

  Harwood didn’t even blink, though Jess knew from experience it must have hurt like a motherfucker. There was something bad in his eyes, something mean and full of venom, something like she’d seen in the men who’d tried to kill her and stolen Afia in that little village in the valley.

  This was personal for the deputy. This wasn’t just about a million dollars anymore.

  This was a fight to the death.

  Harwood came at her. She fired again, at his head this time, but missed low and found armor again, and then the deputy was on top of her, knocking her back with a forearm like a grizzly bear, sending the pistol clattering across the clearing and flattening her to
the ground.

  Harwood kept coming. Went down with her, pinned her on her back. Rained punches at her head as she struggled to fight back, clawed at his eyes, his mouth, tried to block the blows.

  He was too strong. She was strong for a woman, but he was strong, period, and he weighed double what she did. She couldn’t move him from atop her chest, couldn’t get the leverage to hit him back.

  All she could do was lie there and try to grab at his arms, fight the best she could and try to stay conscious, hope somehow Burke found her before Harwood beat her skull in.

  Sixty-Two

  But Mason was in some trouble of his own.

  He felt his chest burning as he backed off into the forest. When he looked down, he saw blood on his jacket, a hole in the material a couple of inches above the bottom of his rib cage. He hadn’t felt it at first, with the adrenaline rushing. He’d taken a round from the other guy’s rifle.

  It hurt, and hurt bad, but there was no time to get upset over it. He was bound to hurt worse if the new guy caught up, and he retreated back into the trees, listening to the hellfire erupting on the other side of the island and hoping Jess was making out okay.

  You’ve got to get over there.

  The other guy wasn’t even trying to keep quiet. Mason could hear him crashing through the trees as he came in on the chase. As far as he could tell, the guy wasn’t shooting, though. He’d heard a couple more shots from back toward the isthmus, heard someone cry out and wondered if that was the end of Dale Whitmer. But it was about that time that Mason realized he’d been shot himself, and he decided to stop worrying about the corrupt sheriff’s deputy and focus on saving his own ass.

  Dang, but this sucked, and it wasn’t just the pain. Mason could feel himself slowing, feel his body getting weaker, as he fought his way through the brush and over more deadfall. He’d been fighting his way through this forest all morning; even if the new guy hadn’t shot him, he figured he’d have been about ready for a break. But now he felt beat. He felt slow, heavy. Clumsy. He climbed a fallen trunk and crashed down on the other side, nearly dropping the shotgun, couldn’t muster the focus to stay upright, stay nimble.