Suddenly, my desire for Horvac shifted to this warrior woman now standing before me. Brief flashes from the past surged past the blockage in my brain. A glimpse of her standing on a beach in the moonlight, holding Neptune’s trident, quickly appeared and disappeared, replaced with another image of her upturned face, the moon shining fully on it.
“Don’t move!” Linda shouted at Horvac.
The nearly naked woman froze in place, splotches of Lavolier’s blood smeared on her belly. I felt someone behind me, tugging at the bindings on my wrists until they parted. As I was reaching down to untie my feet, Linda looked at me and asked, “Are you alright, Jesse?”
Horvac moved as quickly as a jungle cat, lashing out with a sideways kick, knocking the rifle out of Linda’s hands. She followed through with an overhand left, meant to break the taller woman’s jaw, but the strike met nothing but air.
Linda rolled forward, following the lost rifle and easily dodging the blow. When she came up, she grabbed Horvac’s long black hair from behind, allowing her momentum to pull the woman backward, flinging her across the room and through the broken doorway.
Horvac stumbled off the small porch, rolling out onto the wet ground. To her credit, she came up in a kneeling position with one leg straight out to the side. She looked up quickly, her hair falling down over one shoulder to the ground. The rain immediately soaked Lavolier’s shirt, which clung tightly to her body.
Linda followed her through the door, back out into the rain. She slowly unbuckled her holster and dropped it as she crossed the porch. Then she stepped lightly to the ground in the pouring rain. Her head held low, she watched Horvac carefully under hooded brows.
Suddenly, the two women charged at one another, Horvac’s bare feet slipping slightly on the wet ground. Linda went in low, planting her shoulder just under the other woman’s ribcage. Lifting the smaller woman off her feet, Linda drove her backward into the ground.
Horvac’s breath escaped her lungs with a gasp. She writhed in Linda’s grasp like a wildcat, twisting and turning, trying to gain some leverage.
The two tumbled across the ground, rolling in the mud and water. I watched from the doorway, excited. Tony slipped past me and joined Art and Donnie on the porch. The sight of the two women fighting reached way deep into my brain and I liked it.
Suddenly, there was an audible crack, like lightning splintering a nearby tree, and the fight was over. The two women lay there in a heap in the pouring rain, neither moving. Horvac was on top, Linda’s legs wrapped high around her narrow waist. Lavolier’s shirt was twisted around Horvac’s middle, exposing her body from the angel wings to her feet, the heavy rain splashing off her skin.
Horvac moved slightly, Linda’s arm still wrapped behind her head, where her fingers clutched the arm opening of her body armor.
Releasing the hold, Linda grabbed Lavolier’s shirt and rolled the woman’s body off her. Horvac’s head lolled to the side in an unnatural way. She lay face up in the mud, completely exposed, her blank, dead eyes staring at nothing.
The rain suddenly stopped as Tony stepped off the porch and extended a hand to Linda. She took it and stood up, straightening her body armor where Horvac’s chin had been caught by Linda’s hold, stretching and snapping her spine.
Linda glanced up at me on the porch as the sun broke out from behind the clouds. She had three bloody scratches across her cheek, the blood mixing with the rainwater and streaking her jaw and neck.
I felt something warm and sticky running down the inside of my thigh.
Chapter Thirty
Two hours later, the effects of the drug Horvac gave me began to wear off. On his arrival, Deuce had ordered Bourke to take me into the kitchen and pour coffee into me as soon as he arrived.
The DEA choppers, along with the sheriff’s helo, circled the island as the team fanned out, securing the camp first and then the rest of the island. Two more of the Zoe Pound gang were found hiding on the next small island to the north.
During that time, Kim arrived. Between Linda and Deputy Phillips, they managed to at least keep her at the makeshift pier, Linda assuring her that I was okay. Knowing the effects of the drugs, Deuce kept Linda busy and away from me as well.
After the Coast Guard took the refuges and prisoners off the island, I was deemed detoxed enough to be in mixed company.
“It was the same drug she gave you last fall?” Linda asked as we walked down the path to the pier, with Deuce.
“She said it had some kind of truth agent in it, too,” I replied guardedly. “She asked if I could get the money from the treasure and I voluntarily told her I could get that and more.”
“Is it worn off?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Then, doing my best Schwarzenegger impression, I added, “Ask me a question I would normally lie to.”
She grinned, “Are you in love with me?”
“One day at a time,” I reminded her. Then with a chuckle, I added, “But, yeah, you’re hot.”
Reaching the pier, Kim hugged both me and Linda in turn and then both of us together. I took her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “What the hell were you thinking, coming out here?”
She started to stammer and Deputy Phillips stepped up. “It’s my fault, sir. I should have stayed with her on the island.”
I turned to the deputy and grinned. I’d learned that he hadn’t told anyone he was joining the search and just up and did it. Most guys would have hit the road real fast. I stuck out my hand and said, “Then you have to take her back home, Deputy.”
He took my hand and said, “Would it be alright with you if I called on her again?”
I just shrugged. “She’s apparently beyond my control.”
We left the island just after noon, Kim in the deputy’s patrol boat and Linda riding with me aboard the Revenge. I kept the speed down to just twenty-five knots and the Cigarette quickly left us behind, roaring off with Tony at the helm and the patrol boat following behind.
“You’re going awfully slow,” Linda commented. She’d taken a few minutes to shower and change, and now sat in the second seat wearing shorts and a tee shirt. Shoes off, her long legs were up on the right side of the console as she leaned against my shoulder.
“I’m in no hurry,” I replied.
Linda’s cellphone chirped from where she’d placed it on her side of the console. She reached for it and looked at the display.
“It’s a DC number,” she said.
Taking it from her, I punched the button to accept the call and said, “McDermitt.”
“Glad to hear your voice, Skipper,” Stockwell said. “I have some information you might be interested in.”
“What’s that?”
“One of the people killed in the firefight at the gang’s clubhouse has been identified as Elijah Beech.”
“So, they were in it together?”
“No idea in what way just yet. Interrogations are ongoing, but yeah, it appears so. Got a question for you.”
“Fire away,” I replied.
“That First Mate job? Still available?”
“You’re serious?”
“I’d want more than a buck a day, but yeah. I’m tired of the politics and the rat race.”
“Okay, we can negotiate that,” I said, punching in a saved location on the GPS. The plotter changed, showing the new heading. “When do you want to start?”
“I thought I already had,” Travis replied.
“Good enough. Pay’s eight hundred a week, plus two hundred each day we actually charter. Agreeable?”
“You have a new First Mate, Skipper.”
“Great. I’m taking the rest of the day off. I want my island cleaned up and any sign of your former team gone by the time I get home tomorrow. Kim’s curfew is twenty-one hundred and you’ll stay on the island until I get home tomorrow.” I ended the call and turned the wheel, looking at Linda.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“Know what?”
“I’v
e been out here at night many times. How did you know where that satellite would be among all those millions of stars? And what did you use to signal it?”
“Just a matter of elimination,” I replied. “Only one star in the sky doesn’t move.”
“The North Star?”
“Right, but it’s called Polaris. I hoped the satellite would be directly overhead and with the sun coming up, I hoped it reflected light. So I watched for a few minutes and saw one star that wasn’t moving. It had to be a satellite in geosynchronized orbit.”
“Geosynchronous, Jesse.”
I glanced over at her and grinned. “Whatever. I’m a shooter, not a rocket scientist.” Pulling the bore sight from my pocket, I handed it to her. “It’s a laser bore sight, for adjusting a rifle’s sights.”
“Pretty ingenious,” she remarked. “Um, where are we going?”
“You ever been up Shark River?”
Epilogue
The charter with the Vets from up the coast in Palm Bay went very well the day after Linda and I returned to civilization. Some of the guys looked much too young, though many had been in the military for years. They were a tight-knit bunch and told me about how their organization, along with help from the city and other donors, bought and remodeled homes for other injured Vets. A couple of the guys had already been handed keys and were living in theirs, but they all helped in the work, along with dozens of other volunteers and the Space Coast Paratroopers Association.
Before hitting the Gulf Stream, we went out to G Marker and retrieved Peter Simpson’s camera equipment, which we’d left behind after the attack. On the way out to the Stream, Kim looked over the images from the camera’s card on the laptop. When she brought it up to the bridge to show me, I was amazed. Annette and Mitzi looked like surreal apparitions, floating through the air in some shots and like ghostly mermaids in others.
We’d had a great day of fishing in the Gulf Stream. I’d put Kim on the bridge and enjoyed talking with these young warriors as we fished. She’d brought Marty Phillips along, since it was his day off. Travis and I helped these young Vets, who we started referring to as “the kids,” catch quite a few mahi and dozens of other fish. Some had limitations and it gave us both a huge charge to see how they quickly figured out how to overcome whatever physical limitation they had and conquer the denizens of the deep.
On Saturday, Eve arrived and Kim was waiting at the dock in her own skiff. I decided that my late wife’s boat was doing nothing but collecting dust, so I’d handed Kim the keys. Eve’s husband was unable to make it. He’d had a case come up suddenly involving a family who had lost a son in a random act of violence. The family was unable to hire a lawyer, so Nick and his dad took the case pro bono. They were suing the estate of Jean-Claude Lavolier.
My grandson, Alfredo Jesiah Maggio, is a handsome little man. His hair’s dark brown and he has blue eyes. He barely fussed the whole time they were here. That evening, Linda and I took Cazador out for a cruise around the backcountry with both my daughters and grandson. He didn’t make a sound the whole trip.
At sunset, we pulled up on the sand at Cape Sable and waded ashore. It seemed like a lifetime ago that the Tolivers had been murdered here. This place had always been such a quiet and tranquil place for me as a kid and I wanted it to return to being that for my kids. Eve let me take little Jesse out into the water. I walked out a couple of hundred yards, until the water was to my waist and the last of the sun was about to disappear. Just as it happened, there was a momentary green flash and I dunked my grandson under the sea, raising him back up to see King Neptune falling toward the far horizon.
“You have to be born down in the Keys to be a Conch,” I’d whispered to him. “But you can be born a waterman anywhere and at any time in your life.”
The following day, Eve and the baby headed back to Miami. She promised to come down again and said she really wanted me to meet her husband. I told her I was really looking forward to it.
The next morning, there was a funeral service for Annette D’Francisco up in Key Largo. Travis and I both attended. Peter Simpson and Tom Schweitzer were both there, as well as Mitzi, who introduced me to Annette’s parents. I’d heard the D’Francisco name many times. They were a Conch family in the Upper Keys and Annette had been their youngest. Mister D’Francisco was an old friend of Vince O’Hare, who was there also.
The two men had pulled me and Travis aside after the funeral. Standing under an Australian pine tree, Mister D’Francisco took out a small box and presented it to me.
“Mitzi and Annette were real tight, Captain. She told us how you dove in and tried to save my daughter. Her momma and I appreciate that.”
I’d opened the little box. It held two gold earrings. Knowing the significance, I handed one to Travis, who had been working as First Mate that day. Taking the other, I unfastened the ring and pushed the rigid clasp through my left earlobe. Without asking a question, Travis did the same, wincing slightly.
He did ask later, when we were running outside, off of Long Key. “Why am I suddenly wearing an earring?”
I’d turned to the man and asked, “You didn’t know? You just did it anyway?”
“You did,” he’d replied. “Figured it’d be rude if I didn’t.”
I then looked out over the horizon toward Cuba and beyond. “In the years of early exploration, sailors rarely strayed far from the coast. Few could swim and most were devout Christians. Their biggest fear wasn’t drowning, but having their body wash ashore and not receive a Christian burial. They took to wearing a gold ring in their ear, to pay whoever found their body to have that done. We were the two responsible for that girl’s well-being.”
The following day, Travis had to go back to being Director Stockwell, but I could tell by the look on his face during the ride to Marathon, that he was hooked and would return. His job’s waiting for him, at least until Kim heads back up north and I have to find someone full-time.
Things were back to normal in the Content Keys and all around the backcountry. Carl and I continued work on the boat. We hope to launch it in the spring.
A couple of weeks later, I heard through the Coconut Telegraph that O’Hare had been arrested. I’d called the Sheriff and arranged bail for him. It turned out that Vince had gotten into an argument with a guy in a bar who had then pulled a Ka Bar knife on him. The old man had called him out on his stories about being a Marine. The Battle of the Bulge hero tossed the guy all over the bar and took his knife away from him.
I realized I’d been getting a little soft lately, so I’m spending more and more time exercising. Swimming had always been my favorite way to stay in shape and I’d been neglecting my three-times-a-week routine of swimming three miles. For the last few weeks, Linda has left work early on Friday, meeting me at the Anchor and going on a three-mile run along the beach. Already, I’ve lost an inch around the middle.
Kim’s still seeing Marty. I had Rusty print him a copy of the Rules for Dating a Marine’s Daughter.
The End
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Afterword
Homes for Warriors and Space Coast Paratroopers Association are real organizations. They are registered 501c3 nonprofit corporations that buy and remodel dilapidated homes in Brevard County, Florida, where I grew up. These homes are then turned over to deserving Veterans, mortgage free. Currently, I donate half the royalties produced through the sale of Fallen Pride to help in their funding. If you’d like to make a donation, go to the website, www.spacecoastparatroopers.com.
Other books by the author:
Fallen Out: The Beginning
Fallen Palm: Jesse McDermitt Series Vol. 1
Fallen Hunter: Jesse McDermitt Series Vol. 2
Fallen
Pride: Jesse McDermitt Series Vol. 3
Fallen Mangrove: Jesse McDermitt Series Vol. 4
Fallen King: Jesse McDermitt Series Vol. 5
Rules for Dating a Marine’s Daughter
Rule One: If you pull into my driveway and honk you’d better be delivering a package, because you’re sure not picking anything up.
Rule Two: You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter’s body, I will remove them.
Rule Three: I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don’t take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open-minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: you may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my air-powered nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.
Rule Four: I’m sure you’ve been told that in today’s world, sex without utilizing a barrier method of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate: when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.
Rule Five: It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is “early.”
Fallen King: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 6) Page 25