by Dane Hartman
All he received by way of response was a sudden staccato of rifle fire. It caused him to tremble, to shift to the left, still training his AKS on Harry, who complacently remained where he was, holding his fighter over the heroin and hoping that he would not run out of fluid any time soon.
“Vincent? Vincent? What was that shit?”
Another fusillade sounded. Glass popped and something else gave way and crashed to the floor.
“Cocksucker! You stay put, you stay put!” Booth stammered. This was all really too much for him; his mind was not equipped to handle situations that got this complicated.
“I have no intention of going anywhere,” Harry told him.
The calmness of his voice further infuriated Booth. His face had gone white, sweat moistened his skin.
“Vincent?” he called again. The panic was audible in his voice.
“Coming!”
Booth visibly relaxed. Though Harry recognized the voice as Max’s, Booth had not. He had wanted to hear Vincent, he was desperate to hear Vincent, and so he had.
“I got the fucker here, Vincent, I got him here.”
He was smiling at Harry, assured now that this whole enterprise was going to be successful.
So it was that Booth did not turn around when the footsteps sounded on the stairs behind him. “You going to take him out or should I do the honors?” Booth asked, momentarily forgetful that until the threat to their shipment was disposed of no one was going to take out Harry.
“You do it,” Max said, making no effort to disguise his voice.
The look on Booth’s face was a wonder to behold. His eyes bugged out, his face returned to its previous ashen state. Whatever words he had ready caught in his throat. He spun around, but not nearly so quickly as he should have.
Harry didn’t wait. He had his Magnum out and shot it just as Max’s knife flew into Booth’s throat. Almost simultaneously, as he staggered backward toward Harry the .44 flung him in the reverse direction. Enough life remained in him to pull the trigger on his AKS and hold it tight, but he did nothing more than ravage the ceiling of the cabin. Then, abandoning his weapon, he brought both hands up to his neck, though in his last seconds of life he retracted his left hand so he could get a good sense of what the .44’s exit wound was like. It was very big and fatal.
Max regarded Harry, distracted from the injury in his groin which was now filling his sneakers up with so much blood that they were dyed red.
“How’s that for team effort?” he declared proudly.
Harry took one look at the bloodied figure in front of him and shrugged. “Vincent?”
“Feeling no pain.”
Harry understood. He drew the lighter closer to the heroin, close enough for it to ignite.
“What’s that?” Max asked, but with only minimal curiosity.
“Are you hurt?” Max was coated with so much blood by now that it looked almost as if he’d been turned inside out.
Max appeared to think about this for some time. “I think I am. I think that bastard Vincent shot me. It sure hurts like hell.”
“Well, why don’t you get washed up and I’ll take a look at it?”
The heroin made a strange, faintly crackling sound as the fire took to it. It was a more satisfying means of disposing of it than simply tossing it into the sea.
C H A P T E R
S e v e n t e e n
On the edge of Golden Gate Park, about twenty feet above the coastal highway, overlooking the Cliff House restaurant and extending for some distance beyond it, are a series of artificial rock formations, simulated caves. From the outside there would be no way of determining that the massive boulder-like rocks are not genuinely a part of the landscape. In fact they are hollowed out. To reach these caves it is necessary to go around in back and penetrate by means of narrow passageways that are known mostly to teenagers who have left as their legacy empty beer cans, used condoms, and the occasional depleted bottle of Wild Turkey.
The purpose of these phony caves is easily enough discerned. For there on the dirt floor, among the pebbles and human detritus, is a swivel block upon which a gun emplacement was once supposed to be mounted. The first detonation of the gun presumably would eliminate the false barrier over the highway, yielding a spectacular view of the Pacific. These caves were constructed during World War II in the eventuality that the Japanese launched a seaborne invasion. The Japanese never did, and the guns were never installed. Aside from nocturnal visits by lusting teenagers the caves remained empty.
Until now.
Nicholas Cimentini looked well and rested. Whatever stress he’d been under since his arrest had not adversely affected him. On this particular day, shortly after noon, he sat at a table strategically positioned to allow him and his two companions, Trime and Esser, an unrivaled view of the Seal Rocks and the sparkling blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. The bay was well populated on this late summer day, dotted with the billowing masts of nearly two dozen sailboats that listed precariously in the wakes stirred up by the powerboats and ferries.
The meal that Nicholas—Father Nick—had set before him was one of the Cliff House’s specialties: sautéed king crab meat topped with a brandied cream sauce. “I know,” Father Nick laughed, observing the dour expressions of his dining companions, “I know what the doctors told me. I swore off this kind of stuff. But you got to give a guy a break. Even priests suffer relapses.” His eyes were drawn back to the coastal waters far below. “And besides, this is a rather special day. I feel like celebrating.”
Trime and Esser, both austere-looking gentlemen who had been responsible for laundering Father Nick’s vast inflow of cash for several years, had no idea what he was talking about. Nor were they certain they much cared for his animated manner. Father Nick was not usually so genial, so outgoing. When he got this way, it was cause for alarm.
Trime and Esser were both thin men. They ate because that was the only way they were ever going to survive. But unlike Father Nick, they seldom displayed a genuine interest in what sort of food they were consuming. And being of practical natures, they preferred holding business discussions in an atmosphere free of spider plants, stuffed couches, brass railings, and spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean; a windowless room with dull beige walls they felt was far more conducive to getting to the matter at hand.
They were here, so far as they knew, for the purpose of considering just how they would invest all the proceeds from the burgeoning Mexican operation. The way they spoke, it might as well have been the sugar market or the interest rates on that week’s treasury notes they were discussing, not the transport and sale of pure-grade heroin.
The problem they were encountering, however, was that Father Nick seemed incapable of concentrating. Here they had it all down on paper, figures upon figures, vast sums added and subtracted and subdivided, and all he kept doing was looking out the damn window and savoring every bite of his king crab. Trime and Esser had outlined a whole catalogue of front operations that were worth putting money in—laundromats and pizza parlors, Reno casinos and Manhattan hotels, massage parlors and tax-shelter movie deals. But each time they thought they had made a point, all they would get in response was a blank look. Father Nick was known for his quick grasp of facts, his formidable powers of memory, but today he seemed capable of grasping nothing whatsoever.
“What was that you said, Tom?” he addressed Esser. Then he laughed as though it were all a great joke, the point of which neither of his guests could guess.
By dessert and coffee, when they should have begun grappling with the details, gotten down to brass tacks, as it were, Father Nick had ceased paying attention to them entirely. Now he was beginning more and more to glance at his watch, a digital device that kept popping red phosphorescent numbers out of an empty black field.
Then he turned away from Esser and Trime so that he could scrutinize the bay. Though his physicians had warned him to stay away from alcohol as well as from dishes heavy in chloresterol, he was ignoring t
heir advice. His fifth—or was it his sixth?—martini rested in his hand. One pack of cigarettes lay exhausted on the table, and he’d begun a second. Still, these were the only outward signs of increasing nervousness. Otherwise he retained his apparent good humor. The successive drinks had made him just slightly more taciturn, less inclined to play host, but that was all the impact they seemed to have had.
Suddenly Father Nick’s face lit up; for on this warm September afternoon it had become Christmas just as it should have for a man whose nickname enjoyed such widespread recognition.
There, just visible on the bay, steering a steady course between a Hatteras and a thirty-foot masthead ketch, was Harold Keepnews’ yacht Confrontation. Father Nick had never actually seen it before, but he had studied photographs enough to recognize it. The photographs had been shot from virtually all possible angles in the harbor of Carangas and flown up to San Francisco three days previously.
“Half an hour late,” Father Nick muttered. Esser and Trime looked at him bewilderedly, having no idea what he was referring to. “But I’ll forgive them.” He then turned back to his guests; it was almost as though he were surprised to see the two of them still there. “You will excuse me, gentlemen, I have to make a phone call. I will be right back.”
Way below Point Lobos Avenue, where Cliff House was situated (1090 to be exact), hidden in among the outcroppings that defined the steep descent of the land into the sea, was a solitary man who held two objects in his hands—one was a thermos filled with cold water to relieve him from the hot afternoon sun, the other was a CB radio. It was the second object upon which he focused his concentration now.
“Have you subject in range, Delta-five?”
The man now raised the binoculars strapped over his chest to his eyes and studied the horizon. A few moments passed, and then the prow of the yacht came within sight.
“Confirm, Sigma. Subject in range.”
“Ten-four.”
To the diners in the Cliff House it sounded like a thunderclap, but a glimpse of the sky revealed no sign that this could possibly be; not a cloud was visible in the blue expanse.
From the mountain above, rock and cement, ground into pulverized fragments, came tumbling down, strewing the coast highway with a large heap of rubble that caused traffic going both directions to halt.
Higher still, what had once looked like the sheer stone surface of a boulder had almost completely disintegrated, revealing in its place a big black hole, from which a Soviet-constructed .82mm howitzer protruded. There was a second explosion, a thick cloud of smoke, and a sudden tongue of fire in its midst.
Out of the bay, scarcely a moment later, water shot up like a geyser, and the boats in its vicinity rocked violently in response.
“Sigma, this is Delta-five. I would say five degrees up.”
“We read you, Delta-five. Five degrees up. Ten-four.”
A second blast produced the same concussive sound and eruption of smoke and fire. But in this instance the angle of the gun had been adjusted correctly.
Harry, having radioed ahead to Keepnews to tell him to expect his boat back, adding that they were three crewmen short (without elaborating), had not known exactly what kind of welcome he would get—if any. But whatever he’d imagined it had not been anything like this.
As soon as the first shell plummeted down directly ahead of the Confrontation and slightly off to the port-side, heaving up water so that the yacht careened dangerously on the crest of each succeeding wave, Harry had understood all too well that his vessel was the target. But still he was slow to react if only because this was possibly the last thing that he had expected—to be plunged into such an unequal military engagement.
Worse was the fact that he had to operate the boat by himself. Though Max had been quick to dismiss the groin wound he’d sustained as insignificant and though Harry had sought to minister to it, relying on what practical medical experience he’d picked up over the years, the bullet had penetrated too far into the muscle to be easily excised. And while Harry had provided him with whatever antibiotics were available to them, an infection had sprung up the night following their flight from Carangas. Max had refused special attention, insisting that they would arrive in San Francisco soon enough without him being airlifted off the boat. And besides, as he had reminded Harry, Keepnews was not likely to put out any money to rescue him, considering who he was and what his relationship to Wendy had been.
But just that morning Max’s fever had grown worse, and he now lay listless on his bed, suffering in silence, suffering all the more with the yacht’s crazy keeling motion.
Harry struggled to maintain the wheel and keep the yacht from running aground. But his struggle was futile. With the waters in such tumult from the first bombardment there was no way he was going to gain mastery over the craft. And then, twenty seconds later, the second shell was lobbed into the bay, this one at a much more accurate trajectory. Harry could see the mountainside belch out fire and smoke and knew what to expect. Not that that did any good.
The shell caught the Confrontation amidships, blasting a hole all the way down into the cabin and out the hull. The yacht broke into two, each half capsizing in a different direction. Was it always going to be his lot to drown in San Francisco Bay, Harry wondered, as he was thrown back and forth against the sides of the pilothouse, which was now so sharply angled that it was just a couple of feet from meeting the ocean full on.
Harry could not decide whether he was hurt or hurt so badly that he could not count on his body. The old pain in his leg was reawakened, he knew that much, but he could still work it. Blood was slipping down from his scalp, but the injury did not seem substantial. It was difficult to determine the situation with any precision, especially when he was being hurled this way and that while seawater assaulted him on all sides.
Max! He suddenly remembered that Max was down in the master stateroom. He could not allow him to drown. After all, he’d promised Wendy he’d save the bastard’s ass and he meant to do so—particularly since he truly felt an obligation to Max, Wendy or no Wendy.
There was no further shelling. The mountain above the coast highway went silent, and gradually the water surrounding the Confrontation grew more tranquil.
Nothing remained to be seen of the stern-half of the yacht; of the bow-half only the pilothouse remained partially above water.
There were other boats visible, but they had, wisely, withdrawn as fast as possible, their captains fearing that they too would be shelled if they lingered too long in the neighborhood.
So it would be a while before Harry could expect any help. With no other option left to him, he swam, not certain where exactly he was destined but hoping that he had the general direction down right. Underwater, the yacht’s configuration was a shadowy, spectral thing; nothing seemed substantial. He located a hatch and tugged hard until he forced it open.
There, gripping the teakwood supports upon which the hatch rested, was Max. Blood had welled up in such profusion that at first it was almost impossible to see him.
Harry seized hold of him, dragging him up toward the surface, his only thought to get some air into his lungs before the pain overwhelmed him. At last he broke through, his arms locked about Max’s jaw. As he continued laboriously to swim toward shore, a trail of blood spread in the water behind him. All of it, or most of it anyhow, was coming from Max. “You’re going to live, goddamnit,” Harry muttered to him, though it was doubtful Max could hear. “I’m not doing all this for nothing.” He was angry, raging, and it was the anger, more than anything else, that propelled him onward.
Struggling against the currents, in water that was—despite the atmospheric temperature—unusally cold, Harry managed finally to attain a small beachhead that was completely empty: a forlorn stretch of sand in the shadow of jutting rocks. He pulled Max onto the dry surface and for the first time looked closely at his face. His eyes were open, so was his mouth, but the eyes were vacant and the mouth engorged with seawater.
>
Then Harry allowed his eyes to continue their inspection; where, he wondered, was the source of all this blood? He did not need to search too far for an answer.
The blood was still pulsing out but at a diminished rate. One did not require an extensive medical background to see why this was so. The truth of the matter was that there was very little blood left to drain out of Max; for directly below his knee, in a terrible even line, something big and sharp, dislodged by the blast, had sheared off his extremities. Max had been dead, or nearly so, when Harry had found him. His rescue effort had been in vain.
C H A P T E R
E i g h t e e n
Harold Keepnews was a shattered man. When Harry appeared before him he was scarcely able to recognize him. He sat in the living room, with the curtains drawn against the intrusion of light, a drink in his trembling hand and Rossini playing on the turntable. He seemed to have aged prematurely. His eyes hinted at a protracted period of insomnia compounded by heavy drinking, perhaps pills. There were no servants about, no gardener. And above all, no wife.
When Harry sat down beside him and briefed him on what had happened, sparing nothing in his account of the Mexican adventure and the fiasco upon his return, Keepnews scarcely seemed interested. That he had lost his skipper and a second yacht that had cost him nearly a quarter of a million dollars apparently made little difference to him.
“I am glad that you got out alive,” Keepnews said, though the fact was he didn’t appear to be glad about anything whatsoever. “I saw in the papers that all were thought lost.”
That was fine with Harry. The fewer questions he had to answer the better. As far as he knew, no one had been aware he was on the yacht in the first place. No one except for the men who wished to see him dead.
Harry did his best to cast a favorable light on the operation even so, emphasizing the destruction of the heroin lab in the Villa Corona, but he did this mostly to buoy Keepnews’s spirits. He realized that whatever damage he had inflicted on the operation managed by the late Señors Virgilio and Ignacio Mendoza, it would only be a temporary irritant to the drug dealers, not a major setback. There were too many Ignacios and Virgilios in the world ready to replace the ones who lay moldering in the jungle.