“Locked and loaded!” Darcy said, making an awkward attempt at a Weaver stance.
Rez zipped the weapon and ammo into her vest. “I’ll keep it close to my heart,” she said.
“Same as last time,” I said. “We make sure the women are safe first, but after that…”
Rez nodded. The set of her jaw was firm, but her eyes seemed restless. They flicked south to the Oyster; then north over my shoulder. I glanced. There were plenty of lights on the distant shore, but also a couple running out on the Gulf.
“Anything you need to tell me?” I asked Rez.
She glared at me but said nothing. My mind churning with new variables, I slid over the side of The Sirocco and dropped into the water.
Chapter 40
Dr. Gary said, “We’re on in five…” He counted the rest with his fingers.
The green light lit on the remote camera. “Good morning,” he said. “My name is Dr. Garrison Lacy. I am a board-certified obstetrics surgeon with twenty-two years of experience in the field. You may find my research articles and their findings in JAMA, including the salient abstracts…well, you’ll find those in your email boxes and on all relevant social media sites. I am a human rights proponent. And given the terrible direction of our federal government, you might even call me a revolutionary.”
Dr. Gary paused, and Jack spoke on cue. “I am Jacqueline Gainer. And I am a victim of the oppression supported by this nation’s leaders and lawmakers. At age thirteen, I became pregnant, but due to the ignorant laws then, as well as, the fanatical beliefs of my parents, I was denied the right to do with my body as I pleased. I was denied the right to a legal abortion, and so, I sought help at a local college. Unfortunately, the med students who performed my procedure lacked the training and equipment. I was maimed and nearly died. In an emergency hysterectomy, my uterus was removed. Motherhood was stolen from me.”
Dr. Gary spoke again. “Over the last two decades, we have witnessed a periodic shift in this nation’s politics, a tragic shift to barbarism, manipulation, usury, and criminal ignorance. During such times, we have waged a silent war against the so-called Pro Life agenda. And through our good works, we have won back the rights for all of mankind’s women to control their bodies. But, they turned out to be short-lived victories. And now, we stand on the brink of the worst travesty in American History since the first slaves were forced onto this continent. If current trends are not reversed, then the landmark of liberty, Roe v. Wade will be repealed.”
“By taking away our right to choose,” Jack continued, “you steal a woman’s sovereignty. You gouge away our humanity, just as my womb was torn from me. When you take away our right to choose, when you take away our humanity, you take our lives. And so tonight, we will deliver our final act of revolution: a protest written in the blood of women.”
Dr. Gary used the remote zoom and focused in on Midge and Carrie. Jack continued to narrate: “I’d like to introduce two young women this nation gave up on a long, long time ago. In unconscionable hypocrisy, a so-called Pro Life nation, abandoned these two daughters…left them for dead. And dead they will be…to show you, to teach you, what a backward culture does to its people. Ladies and gentlemen, these women are modern martyrs. Do not forget their blood.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I stayed submerged for as much of the swim as I could. Once, I surfaced for air and thought I heard a strange buzzing sound, but a thunder blast obliterated any chance of identifying it.
In the darkness and murk, there was no way to tell if Rez was keeping pace. I saw no sign of her on the surface, so I swam on. The water gave me some additional rejuvenation but, as much as my body ached for it, I could not stop, could not open up to the resetting I really needed.
I surfaced near the heaving keel, paddled around to the transom, and waited. Rez appeared a moment later. Lightning flickered and slashed overhead. The thunder crashed and rolled and never seemed to end. In the span of our several hundred yard swim, the weather had gone from threatening to murderous. The irony was not lost on me.
Rez and I exchanged grim glances but said nothing. It was no small task to clamber up the landing’s half ladder in the rolling Gulf. With the storm raging, we found the deck predictably empty. But through the sheets of rain, lights gleamed angrily ahead.
We moved as quickly as we could across the lightning-strobed, endlessly tilting deck; which is to say, we didn’t move quickly at all. By the time we reached the door to the main cabin stair, it felt like we’d crossed the yacht’s 62.5 feet six times.
Unlike the movies where ships seemed to somehow have multiple ways of ingress and egress, there were only two ways in. And the cabin stair was the only way we could enter standing up.
I wiped the rain out of my eyes only to have the wind toss another bucket-full right into my face. I glanced at Rez. With her gun raised, her hair plastered to her dark and rain-streaked flesh, she looked like a Comanche Indian warrior. I wondered briefly about the wisdom in letting her stay behind me, but there was nothing for it. I raised the Benelli Super 90 with my right hand, opened the door with my left.
Getting down the stair without slipping was a chore, but we took it slow. We found ourselves in a spacious living area, lit warmly in the corners and with recessed lights above. Bench seat couches lined both sides of the room and a dining table cozied up to the couch on the right.
I was a little surprised to find no one in the room. Even in a luxurious 62ft., yacht there was only so much living area. Beyond the living room, there was a very narrow, very short hall…and light beyond. I nodded to Rez, tucked the shotgun into my shoulder, and crept forward.
The door just ahead was cracked about two inches, and I couldn’t immediately tell what was on the other side. But I heard voices. One of them sounded slurred, drunken.
“My turn, my turn, myyyy turn.”
The other voice was low and gritty but clear enough.
“…if the Supreme Court cannot recognize the inherent authority of a woman over her own body, it has left the path of reason. A woman with no choice is reduced to chattel, enslaved…breathing but still dead. Antiquated monotheistic ideologies must not be permitted to once again dictate the rule of law. This determined initiative to overturn Roe must be defeated utterly. Let the blood of…”
That was all I could bear. I kicked open the door, stepped inside and, in an instant, took in the entire scene. It might once have been a bedroom, but it had been retrofit to become a studio. There were bright lights overhead and digital lights blinking on banks of electronics ahead. Nearest us, was a large digital motion picture camera, and in its view, there sat four people.
Dr. Garrison Lacy was on the left. Smiling Jack on the right. Not Smiling Jack as he…she’d portrayed herself in all the photos and videos. This was Jacqueline Gainer: hair down, make up on, and a shirt tight enough to reveal the bosom she’d kept hidden. In that stunning moment, I felt just a flash of pity…wondering why she had chosen her tragic path. All pity vanished when I saw the Cain’s Dagger in her hand.
Jack held the knife to the throat of a young African-American woman. The other young woman who sat between the doctor and Jack had long, sandy brown hair that had been intricately braided. Both young women wore sheer white camis and the same ghastly grin as the other women in the photos. The women who were about to die.
All that, in an instant. And before my next breath, I realized my mistake. The shotgun, as intimidating as it was, left me at a huge disadvantage. It lacked precision. Dr. Lacy sat too close to the sandy-haired woman; Jack far too close to the dark-skinned woman.
Firing on either killer with the shotgun risked hitting the innocent as well. I could only hope Rez would make the same assessment and train her M9 on Jack.
“Rezvani, is it?” Doctor Lacy asked, adjusting his thick-framed glasses. If he was shocked by our sudden appearance, he showed no sign of it. Thunder growled ominously outside. “But not a doctor, after all. Shame. Had you a clinical perspecti
ve, you might understand.”
“I understand that you are both murderers,” Rez said, her voice tight, words clipped as if she was biting them as they escaped her lips. She stepped beside me and raised the Beretta to aim at Jack, just as I’d hoped she would.
“Murderers,” Jack said slowly, as if chewing on the term. “That’s what people like you call all who support a woman’s right to choose, isn’t it?”
“It is their rhetorical stance,” Dr. Gary said. “And yet they come to kill us. Justifiable, they might say. Just as we justify what we are doing on behalf of womankind. Why don’t you come before the camera, officers? We are broadcasting live to hundreds…of millions.”
My shotgun blast shattered the moment…and the camera. Its black, modular casing splintered into jagged, smoking shards. What was left of the camera jolted from the tripod and clattered up against the far bulkhead. In that same moment, there was a clap of thunder. Only it wasn’t thunder.
Rez had fired her Beretta. As I tossed the shotgun away and ripped The Edge from my vest, I saw blood erupt from Jack’s shoulder. The head, Rez! I screamed mentally. You should have shot her in the head!
But the Cain’s Dagger fell from Jack’s limp left hand. The young women swayed slightly and held their hands up to cover their ears.
“Move away from the girls!” Rez yelled. “NOW!”
“It’s far too late,” Dr. Lacy replied, his dark eyes flashing malevolently. “The message has gone out. The world knows.”
“I said, get up and move away from the girls!” Rez fired and put a dark hole not ten inches above the doctor’s right ear.
He didn’t even flinch. His upper lip curled into a snarl beneath his bristling mustache, making him look like some cornered feral animal. Now, I could see it plainly. I didn’t need to engage Netherview. Dr. Garrison Lacy had been taken by something more than a Shade.
Then, the lights went out.
Chapter 41
“Rez!” I cried out, lunging forward. “Protect the girls!”
Something barreled into me hard. I was thrown against the bulkhead. Blinking at the abject darkness, I tried to roll to a knee. But blunt force struck my side, and I toppled. The next thing I knew, something sat astride my chest and had a hand on my throat. A single hand.
But that grip was more than human. It was devastatingly strong, and I had little bodily strength to fight it off.
But I had The Edge.
And then there was light.
The words appeared as brightly in my consciousness as the weapon’s incandescent blade in the darkness. I carved a weak slash through Jack’s elbow, but it was enough. She shrieked and fell away from me. She rolled into the darkness.
I grabbed her dismembered forearm, pried her hand from my throat, and tossed the limb away. But Jack wasn’t finished. Her pale face and crazed dark eyes came out of the black. Her teeth flashed and she took me in an animal embrace that made it impossible for me to strike with The Edge.
I felt a sharp, stinging burn on my neck…an agony-inducing pinching of flesh as she bit into me. I dropped The Edge and tried to roll her. She clamped down even harder, and we fell backward into the cabin wall. I pushed at her shoulders, but it only caused the pain of her vice-like bite to intensify exponentially. If I forced her away, she would tear out my throat.
So I did the only thing I could. I wrapped my arms around her back and shoulders and thrust her into an even tighter embrace. My hands found her spine at last. I felt the bony knobs of vertebrae under my fingertips. I probed and prodded until I found the pressure points. Then I drove the points of my fingers in hard.
The stilling touch.
Her jaws lost pressure, and she went limp. I rolled her to the side. She wasn’t dead. Not yet. But I couldn’t linger. I grabbed up The Edge and cried out, “Rez!”
There was no answer. That’s when I saw the square of lesser darkness. A hatch had been opened in the ceiling above the corner where Dr. Lacy had been. In the bluish light of my weapon I saw the two young women laying side-by-side and clutching each other.
“Rez!” I yelled again. “Rez, where are you?”
“Up here!” came a voice from above. But the voice was muffled and distorted by the storm. It could have been anyone for all I could tell.
No way, I’m sticking my head up through the hatch, I thought, my mind racing. That was not going to be a part of any plan.
I glanced down at Jack. Her eyes found me, and somehow, I could feel the smile in her consciousness. I so wanted to pry the Shade out of her right then and there, to strangle it in my bare hands…but I couldn’t. Not yet.
I left her lying there, and went to the two girls. They whimpered softly watching the Edge in my hand. I switched it off for a moment, picked up both young women from the bench, and carried them aft. I left them in an alcove behind the cabin stair. “Stay here!” I commanded them, using a little Netherview to deepen my voice. And I flicked on the Edge. It was just enough for a glimpse, but I saw the blazing red Soulmark on each young woman. I prayed for their healing, turned, and left them.
I took the stairs and thrust myself out into the storm. Lightning lit the back of the sail craft. No one was there, but I saw something large out on the water. There was a pale shape and a red light, but that was all I could make out through the pitch and yaw of the waves and the windblown curtain of rain.
The boat leaned suddenly, and I was thrown to one knee. An icy cold blast of water smacked into me. I stumbled forward, spun, righted myself with a slick rail, and spun around. “Rez!” I yelled into the wind.
I heard something in reply, a cry maybe. Nothing intelligible.
I plunged forward, half-sprinting, half-sliding. I ducked under the boom and came face-to-face with a nightmare.
Chapter 42
In the ethereal blue light of The Edge, I saw Dr. Garrison Lacy holding Rez from behind. It was an eerily similar pose to all the Smiling Jack photos.
But no one was smiling.
The doctor looked as if he’d taken a sledgehammer to the face. His nose was mashed to one side, obviously broken. His left eye was swollen near to the point of being shut. Blood ran in rivulets from his temple, from the corner of his other eye, and like a flood from his ruined nose.
Somehow, Rez looked worse. Her cheeks, forehead, and jaw bore the swollen and bloodied abrasions that could have only come from being bludgeoned with the butt of a gun.
The same gun that Dr. Lacy now held with the barrel pointed under Rez’s chin.
“You…sssee,” he said, his gritty voice all the more choked with gobbets of gore. “It isss…too late.”
Just then voices came out of the night, and a dozen suns blazed around us. Or, so it seemed.
“SAILORS ABOARD OYSTER SIX-TWO-FIVE, BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD, YOU ARE COMMANDED TO STAND DOWN!”
Even in the raging storm, the voice sounded like a cannon blast. My eyes darted left and right. A large cutter heaved and rolled on either side of us.
“You called them,” I said. “Didn’t you, Rez.”
She looked up at me weakly and gave the slightest of nods.
“John Spector!” came another voice from the speaker of the portside cutter. “This is Deputy Director Barnes of the FBI! Put down your weapon!”
I didn’t move a muscle. I stared ahead and saw three tiny, bright-red dots appear on Dr. Lacy’s neck and face. I looked down and found three more dots darting around my chest. I was certain a couple danced on my head as well.
Laser sighted rifles in the hands of trained snipers. It was over. I deactivated and dropped The Edge.
Chapter 43
“Doctor Garrison Lacy!” Barnes bellowed from the speaker. “You are marked. Drop your weapon immediately!”
I watched the doctor look left. He tried to move Rez’s body as a human shield, but then he saw the red dots dancing on his right side. It didn’t matter which way he turned. The other would have a clear head shot.
He held
out his right arm, let the gun dangle from a finger, and then, with a flick of his wrist, sent the weapon careening overboard. But he did not let go of Rez. He kept her pressed tight to his left side.
“Release Agent Rezvani!” Barnes commanded. “Now!”
“Even better,” Dr. Lacy said, lisping. He glanced down at the deck as if thinking. “A very public trial…weeksss on end. A new platform for our message.”
Our? What is he talking—I saw movement. A head emerged from the hatch just a few feet away. Smiling Jack slowly clambered out. Her hair was wild and soaked, but it was her. She was missing the lower half of one arm, and the other arm, strewn with dark blood, hung uselessly at her side. Still she came up.
“You there!” came Barnes’ voice. “Don’t move!”
I cringed inwardly. Barnes couldn’t tell if Jack was a victim or something else. He wouldn’t fire, not unless Jack did something provocative. But Jack did nothing like that. She stumbled out of the hatch, got to one knee, and stood just to Dr. Lacy’s left.
Then, I watched Dr. Lacy turn his body, so that Rez was now shielding his right side. I knew what he was doing. And I knew what I had to do.
“You know what your trouble is, Rez?” I called out.
“What’s that, Spector?” she groused, her voice just a thin cry.
“You just don’t listen!” I said.
“Everybody, get down on the deck!” Barnes bellowed.
I thought maybe Barnes saw too, and thought maybe, he didn’t like the positioning either.
“Get down on the deck!”
“I listen when it makes sense,” Rez said, glaring at me. I saw a glimmer in her eyes, that same cunning I’d seen before, but now with a hint of mischief.
I heard boots on the deck far behind me. The Coast Guard, the FBI—whoever—they were boarding. Time was running out.
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