RJ looked quickly over to Toni. “Tell him no, we don’t need him to bring anyone out. Tell him that DeBlanc wants you and the other new girls to take special care of him and his guests.”
After Toni had hung up, RJ asked DeBlanc several questions about the boat, wanting to know where it was and how they go about getting it underway.
“We’re at anchor,” he said as if the answers to her questions should be obvious. “The crew knows to have the boat made ready for me at all times whenever we are at anchor.”
RJ grabbed DeBlanc by the hair and pulled his head back so he was looking right at her. “Where is it?” she demanded.
DeBlanc started to answer but then he hesitated. “W-what are you going to do with me?”
“I haven’t decided that yet,” RJ said impatiently. She tightened her grip on his hair until he winced. “But if you don’t hurry up and answer my question, your stalling just might make the decision for me.”
“Okay, okay,” he said quickly, his eyes squeezed shut from the pain. “I’ll tell you whatever you want, just p-please don’t k-kill me,” DeBlanc pleaded. “Y-you know I’m…” Shaking in voice and body, he stopped talking to take in a deep breath to try to gather himself; but when he spoke again, the fear he felt was too great to be suppressed and it still rattled his voice, diminishing his attempt at his typical arrogant, disinterested manner of speaking. “Obviously I’m very rich. I’ll p-pay you whatever you want.”
RJ yanked harder on the hair. “Nobody gives a damn about your money, you cocky bastard. The only thing—”
Ruby cut in. “Yo, Ruby Black gives a damn about the money. Shit, now that you all fucked up my game, what else is there for—”
“Shut up, Ruby,” RJ said coldly, still staring into DeBlanc’s eyes. “Money means nothing to the dead. Right now all I care about is the boat. Where the fuck is it, DeBlanc? All the way aft?”
DeBlanc shook his head. “No. It’s tied up midships port side.”
“Okay. This is a big boat. How do we get to it?”
“Take the elevator down to the second deck and head aft. Just past the open area with the large viewing window and grand piano, on the starboard side, I mean you’re right, you’ll see a watertight door that leads outside the yacht to a small landing and an accommodation ladder. The ladder leads down to the boat moored alongside a retractable deck.”
“Perfect,” RJ said as she crammed the socks back into his mouth. But a thought occurred to her and she took them back out. “The code to the cabin they’re holding Killian in, what is it?”
“Who?”
“The man being interrogated by the Russians. Jesus, we already talked about this.”
“Oh, him. I have no idea what the code is,” DeBlanc said, momentarily forgetting his fear and regaining the tone of his usual snooty arrogance. “Why would I ever need to know the code to a cabin down in the crew’s quarters?”
RJ believed the pompous bastard. She crammed the socks back into his mouth and pulled the two tied hanging around his neck back into place to hold them in. She then turned to Toni and Ruby. “Well, I guess we don’t really need the code since I’ve got the master key right here,” she said holding up the rifle. “Let’s go find Killian and then get the hell out of here.”
“Just how the fuck you think we gonna do that?” Ruby said as she followed RJ out of the room. “You can bet your ass those Russians have more guns than we do.”
“I haven’t figured that out yet, to be honest with you Ruby,” RJ said.
Before following RJ and Ruby out of the room, Toni walked over to DeBlanc and glared down at him.
DeBlanc looked up at Toni with wide eyes and began speaking incomprehensibly to her. Toni removed the gag. He stumbled over his words in his haste to speak. “You know, Ms. Steele, you are much lovelier than your sister. This evening was one I’ll never forget. What will it take for you to set me free? Name your price. I’ll give you whatever you want. I’ll make you my queen and together we can rule the world.”
RJ opened the door to the room and stuck her head back in. “Let’s go, Toni. We’ve wasted enough time on that creep.”
“Coming,” Toni said without emotion, still staring down hard at DeBlanc. She slowly returned the gag and put the hold back into place over his mouth. Then, without warning, her right arm shot out from her side and she smashed the palm of her hand into his large nose, nearly knocking him backwards over his chair.
“Damn,” RJ said, impressed by the punch.
DeBlanc, stunned by Toni’s sudden brutality, wasn’t sure whether to holler out from the pain or puke from the blood pouring down into his mouth and soaking into the socks.
“I’m not finished with you yet, asshole,” Toni said evenly to DeBlanc, her eyes glaring with pure and visceral hate.
RJ led the way down the passageway at a quick but cautious pace, rifle at the ready, alert to her surroundings as if she were in the forest stalking bear. However, as they reached the spot where McKnight lay bloodied and very dead across the width of the passageway, they had no choice but to come to a stop. Captivated, and a little nauseated, by the wrath she had wrought upon the hulking lifeless man, RJ was first to navigate her way over the body. Not wanting to soil Ruby’s pristine Chuck Taylors, she was careful not to step into the soggy, bloody carpet that outlined McKnight like a rusty red shadow. With her legs stretched wide as she straddled the blood and body, she was just about to swing her back leg over to the front when Lukos Sabra sprang out from behind the corner, the same corner she had used for cover when stalking McKnight, and drove the butt of his Kalashnikov KR-9 SBR rifle hard into her left temple, dropping her into an unconscious heap on top of the dead bodyguard’s cold and bloody chest.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Killian couldn’t get his nose to stop bleeding. Nor could he get the room to stop spinning, or his ears to stop ringing, or his head to stop pounding fiercely. He turned off the faucet and studied himself in the mirror with a blurred and darkened vision. In addition to the crooked, definitely broken nose, what had once been dark circles under his eyes from a lack of healthy sleep, were now even darker bruises from all the hammering McKnight had done on his face. At least he was able to get that initial head block in to break the goon’s hand, he thought, or he was certain the damage would have been much worse.
Unable to stop the bleeding from the nose, he was only able to curtail the heavy flow by stuffing wads of toilet paper up his nostrils, Killian exited the head and went back out into the main room of the cabin where Rudenko lay. A blackness that now outlined everything he saw like a blurred picture frame, seemed to be slowly closing in on him, blocking out more and more of his vision. He looked down at the Russian through the darkening blur. The man’s face was recognizable now only as a mangled messy stew of blood, flesh, and bone. Killian’s stomach churned from the sight; not because he was unused to seeing such gruesome carnage – he had become desensitized to such sights long ago – but because he was unused to having been the one who had inflicted such gruesome carnage himself. As a professional warrior, he had always tried to be as restrained as he could when he was forced to take another human’s life, never hesitating to kill when warranted, but always striving to do it as clinically and efficiently as he could.
He knelt next to the dead Russian, not wanting to look at what he had done, but unable to take his eyes from it. The mental pain of guilt the sight caused him was at least equal to the physical pain he was feeling from what the dead Russian had caused him. No, not equal. The physical pain was nothing compared to the wretched, whole body anguish of remorse that now assaulted him.
“What happened to me?!” Killian said out loud, pleading to what was once Rudenko. He grabbed the corpse by its sticky wet jacket lapels and pulled it up close to his face. “This isn’t me...,” he cried to it, repeating the phrase again and again until his words faded into an incomprehensible mumbling.
Everything hurt too much anymore. Pain everywhere. The conflagration bu
rning hot inside the skull, its indiscriminate fire leaving everything inside him charred and disfigured. Black. The pounding. The ringing. The noise beating in his head was unbearable. Everything was driving him madly into the black. He lay down and rested his flaming head on the cool linoleum floor next to the corpse. The smells of death. The silent empty sounds of death. Mosul. The mission of failure. Its same death smells. Its same silent death sounds. The girls… dead. Even the girl he had managed to rescue… dead. Father Diego, because of him… dead. His father, perhaps, too, because of him… dead. All dead. Nothing but death. Except that of the only death wished for… his. Instead of death, for him only sleep. A hateful sleep. A death-filled sleep.
But the fire in his head burned away even the sleep. He sat up as if possessed. But it is me! he cried out blindly again and again, remembering that his savagery had precedent. His lack of honor had precedent. His disgrace after his downfall had been wholly earned. The hammer. The anvil. The sword. From which came so much savagery. From which came his madness.
He lay back down babbling incomprehensibly again, turning on his side and pulling his legs up close. A savage fetus. He squeezed himself into a ball. Squeezed himself as tight as he could. Squeezing out the pain. The memories. The death. The disgrace. Squeezing out everything until all that remained was the welcoming black.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
After ending the call with whom he thought was his boss’s latest sexy courtesan Ruby Black, Hammond, publicly recognized as the chief of the Half Moon Island Resort & Casino’s mostly licit hotel and gambling operations, but privately recognized, and then only by a very few select individuals, as the chief of Louis DeBlanc’s illicit personal drug and sex trafficking operations, sat at his desk thinking for some time about the troubling conversation he had just had with the provocative young woman before finally navigating to his phone’s recent calls list and selecting the number for the next call he had to make.
As the call to Sticks Dowdy was going through, Hammond leaned heavily on his desk with both elbows and, while holding the phone tight to the ear with the right hand, began worriedly running his short, thick fingers through his short, thick silver hair with the left hand.
After Dowdy had answered the call, Hammond said with a false energy, “Hey, old timer. You still awake?”
A crooked but honest smile broke slowly across his face as he listened to Dowdy’s response. “Yeah, yeah, I know. You don’t have to remind me, mother fucker. My old bones do all the reminding I need every damn morning…”
He leaned back into his chair and the left hand unconsciously dropped down from the head to beneath his large veiny nose and began stroking the severely trimmed silver mustache. “Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s late as fuck, but that’s why we get paid the big bucks…”
He chuckled. “Fuck you, I’m sitting on my ass all day. Look who’s talking. You’re the one who gets paid a shit ton for doing nothing but flying a big ass toy all over the place…”
He chuckled again. “Ain’t that the truth, brother. Anyway, listen. I talked to the boss… well, I talked to his whore anyway, and she said the boss and his guests have decided to stay overnight on the yacht…”
“Yeah, I know. You’re right, it does seem strange. But hey, our boy Louie has been known to do a strange thing or two every now and again. Hell, you’ve spent more time with him than any of us carting him all over the place so who am I telling, right? All those mile-high sex romps I bet he’s having up there in that bird…”
He placed his feet up on the edge of the desk and inspected the shine of his black leather wingtips as he listened to Dowdy’s response, halting the stroking of the mustache just long enough to reach down to wipe a finger at a smudge on the toe of the left shoe.
“Damn, that is some crazy-ass shit,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Fucking billionaires, I tell you. Listen, Sticks, don’t be surprised if you get another call from me in an hour or so letting you know the boss has changed his mind and wants to fly back to the resort…”
“Yeah, I know he’s got the boat, but do you think that spoiled little prick will—”
He laughed in earnest this time. “Exactly right, exactly right. Anyway, I’ll try to get ahold of McKnight again to see if I can find out from him what the hell is going on out there…”
“Nope, neither he or his partner have been answering their phones…”
“Well, it could be any number of things. The cell phone coverage way the hell out there where DeBlanc likes to anchor always sucks. Or, it could just be that they both are asleep after getting their asses handed to them the way they did by that big ass Navy SEAL. You saw that big mother fucker…”
“Okay, it’s late. Just keep your phone nearby, will you. This shit him staying out there overnight with those crooked-ass Russians ain’t setting right with me so…”
“Yeah, right. I’m sure you can imagine then that them dirty Reds ain’t out there on that boat to watch Netflix and play Twister…”
“Exactly, that’s why I’m worried so don’t be pissed if I still can’t get ahold of McKnight and I call you back wanting a ride out there for a peak…”
“Okay, good. Thanks brother. Right, roger that…”
Hammond ended the call, tossed the phone on the desk, and sighed a heavy, old man’s sigh as he went back to running his fingers through his bristled silver hair, wondering what the hell was going on out there on that yacht.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
The door to the cabin opened slowly. Lukos Sabra peeked his head around the doorframe from out in the passageway to get a quick, cautious look inside. He saw two bodies lying on the deck in the middle of the room, blood puddled between them. He pulled Toni in front of him and poked the barrel of the rifle into her ribs, prodding her to enter the room. He pushed a complaining Ruby in right behind her. He then grabbed RJ by the arm and dragged her in through the doorway and left her lying unconscious on the deck at the front of the room.
He closed the door to the cabin and ordered Toni and Ruby to sit on the deck next to RJ. After checking the head to ensure it was clear, he walked cautiously over to the two bodies lying in the middle of the room. Ignoring the body with the demolished head, he kept his rifle trained on the back of Killian’s head. He nudged it with the toe of his shoe. No response. He backed up to where the chair laid shattered on the deck, the rifle still targeting the back of Killian’s head. He kicked at the pieces of wood, looking for the gun he had given to Rudenko before he had left to find McKnight. It wasn’t among the rubble, nor was it in either of the hands of the men lying on the deck or anywhere around them.
“You two,” he said to Toni and Ruby, “come over here and turn over your friend’s body.”
“Fuck that,” Ruby said. “He ain’t no friend of mine and I ain’t touching no dead man’s body.”
Sabra pointed the rifle at Ruby and a red dot appeared on her chest. “Let me be clear, Ms. Black,” he said firmly, his heavy accent tinging his speech ominously, “that wasn’t a request.”
Toni stood up slowly and held her hands in the air. “It’s okay, we’re coming,” she said. She kicked Ruby in the thigh. “Get your ass up and do what the man says.”
Ruby stood up reluctantly. “Why is it everyone thinks they got to stick their guns all up in Ruby Black’s face?” She nudged RJ on the shoulder with her foot. “Why don’t you wake that bitch up and make her help?”
“I’m losing my patience, Ms. Black,” Sabra said, still aiming the gun at her chest.
Ruby stepped over RJ and then took several steps toward Killian. She stopped all of a sudden and looked down at her feet. She had stepped right into a puddle of Rudenko’s blood. She screamed and jumped back onto dry linoleum. “No way. You can go ahead and shoot me if that’s what you gotta do, but there ain’t no way in hell I’m touching either one of those dead mother fuckers.”
Toni, exasperated with her sister, was about to walk over to Killian and turn him over herself, but Sabr
a beat her to him.
“Jesus, you whining fucking whore,” Sabra said as he placed a foot on Killian’s shoulder and began pushing on it in an effort to roll him over. “I don’t know what the fuck DeBlanc ever saw in such an annoying bitch as you.”
“Who you calling bitch, you big cracker ass Commie mother fucker?” Ruby said as she marched over to Sabra as if she were going to kick his ass.
When Sabra saw Ruby coming at him, he stopped trying to roll Killian over and began to laugh. “What, you think you’re going to hurt me?” he said. “Come on, little black whore, come try to hurt me. I just might like it.”
Toni stepped in front of her sister. “Whitney, you’re going to get us both killed if you don’t shut your damned mouth up right now.”
Sabra gave another half-hearted push with his foot to Killian’s shoulder before standing up straight and looking directly at Ruby with an ugly grin on his face. “Do you know why America is falling and Russia is rising up to take its place?”
“Like I give a fuck,” Ruby said with an exaggerated disinterest.
Sabra laughed vilely before going off on a passionate, hate-filled diatribe. “Yes, my point exactly. You people don’t give a fuck about anything, except of course getting high on drugs that you buy with the money from the welfare checks your government sends you each month for doing nothing except making a houseful of illegitimate babies, little ignorant black ones that will grow up to be just like mommy and a daddy they’ll never know, taught from birth to not give a fuck about anything except their drugs and welfare checks.”
That got both Ruby’s and Toni’s attention.
Filled with rage, Ruby once again marched toward Sabra. “You racist Russian pig,” she hollered as she again stepped right into the puddle of blood next to Rudenko. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”
Equally upset, Toni followed close behind her sister, her hands balled into tight fists and her heart beating hard from a fury so strong she thought her chest would explode.
The Good Kill Page 40