RJ and Toni both liked the sound of the plan and nodded together in agreement. Toni then went forward and sat on the bench that ran the length of the bow in the shape of a U. It was a smaller version of the one in the stern where her disgruntled sister sat bound and gagged. She sat on the end close to the helm so she could stay in contact with RJ and Killian while keeping watch on what lay ahead.
Killian looked questioningly in RJ’s direction. “RJ, did you hear what I just said?” he hollered loudly.
“Oh, Killian, geez,” RJ said embarrassed. “Yes, Toni and I both heard you and think it sounds like a great plan. I guess you couldn’t see us nodding our heads. Sorry about that.”
Killian sat back and brought his hands before his face, flipping them front to back. “Hey, RJ,” he said excitedly. “It seems like I’m starting to get some vision back. I can just make out the outlines of my hands.”
RJ couldn’t hear him through the din. “What did you say?” she hollered.
But before Killian could repeat himself, Toni pointed up at the sky and hollered, “Look!” Within seconds a helicopter thundered by overhead only a hundred yards or so off their starboard bow. Toni spun in her seat as she followed its course. It was heading straight for the yacht.
“Looks like DeBlanc was able to get that call out after all,” RJ hollered out.
“Bet it’s that guy I talked to on the phone earlier,” Toni said.
“Well, whoever it is it won’t take him long to realize his boss is dead and start coming after us,” Killian said.
“What should we do?” Toni asked.
Killian shrugged. “Nothing we can do but haul ass and hope we can outrun them to the beach.”
RJ scoffed. “We have at least an hour, maybe two in this shitty weather, before we will make the beach. You know as well as I do that we could never outrun that helicopter.”
Killian nodded thoughtfully. “Well, we don’t know if they’re going to come for us, but if they do, we have to assume they’ll be coming with guns blazing so I guess the only thing we can do to protect ourselves is to fight back.”
All three of them were silent for a moment as they reflected on the grim possibilities of what may lay ahead for them.
“Hey, the good news is,” Killian said, trying to sound upbeat, “I’m starting to get my vision back. I can just make out fuzzy outlines of whatever I’m looking at, so maybe I won’t be completely useless if they do come after us.”
“That’s great, Killian,” RJ said. “How’s the pain?”
“Manageable,” he said unconvincingly.
RJ gave him a yeah, whatever look and then increased the throttle. The boat responded, throwing Killian back into his seat and Toni into the front of the console as it picked up speed, hitting the angry waves even harder as it plowed through them.
Toni went aft and sat on the bench next to Ruby. Ignoring her sister’s glaring eyes and muffled complaints, she turned backwards in her seat and watched the helicopter intently as it flew up to the yacht and began hovering over it. She kept expecting it to land as she watched, but instead it just hovered there for several minutes until, all of a sudden, it pulled away from the yacht and began flying straight at them low over the water. A powerful spotlight flashed on, hiding the helicopter behind its blinding glare.
“Holy shit,” Toni said as she rushed back up to the front. “The helicopter! It never even landed on the yacht. It just turned back and is heading straight for us.”
Killian looked at RJ and said, “Okay, here we go. You got the running lights off, right?”
“Shit,” RJ said. She flipped some switches. “They’re off now. I guess I turned them on by habit.”
“Okay, don’t worry about it,” Killian said. “Even if they hadn’t already spotted us, they’ll be able to find us easily enough just by following our wake.”
He then looked at Toni. “What should we do about your sister?”
“What do you mean?” Toni said suspiciously.
“Well, if we leave her tied up like that and they start shooting, she’ll be defenseless, a sitting duck. Besides, we could use her help. Extra firepower.”
“There’s no fucking way we’re giving that backstabbing bitch a gun,” Toni said.
RJ nodded her head in vigorous agreement. “She’ll use that gun on us as soon as she has it in hand.”
Killian seemed doubtful, but not wanting to go against the majority opinion he said, “Okay, but we can’t leave her back there like that. Let’s bring her up and have her lay on the deck in between the bench. The console should give her at least a little cover. At least as much as the rest of us.”
Ruby didn’t move easily, but after Toni finally got her troublesome sister in place on the deck in front of the console, Killian began laying out their strategy for defending the boat, which was nothing more than RJ staying as low to the deck as possible as she drove, and Killian and Toni taking firing positions at the stern, staying low to the deck and taking cover behind the bench. Killian, since he could still barely see, would be shooting blindly at the sound of any incoming fire. Toni would try to take out the pilot.
The two immediately went to the back of the boat and took up their positions, Killian laying low on the starboard side, his left, and Toni on the port. Toni had Sabra’s Kalashnikov KR-9 SBR, and RJ had given her Henderson’s Glock 19 for backup. Killian had gotten McKnight’s Bushmaster Carbon 15 off RJ, and for backup he had the nine-millimeter Glock 26 subcompact he had gotten off Rudenko.
The helicopter was coming in fast on their wake.
“Describe to me what you see,” Killian said to Toni. “All I can make out is a bright glare coming at us.”
“Actually, that’s about all I can see too,” Toni said as she shouldered the rifle and began to get her sights on the target. “I’d say it’s about 500 yards off and closing fast.”
“Okay, is the light shining from the passenger’s side of the helo? Most civilian helos don’t have fixed headlights or spotlights on them so I’m guessing the passenger is the one holding it.”
“Uh, yeah. I think it is,” Toni said without taking her sights off the aircraft.”
“Okay, then, after whoever it is holding the light gets a fix on us, he’ll probably have to set it down before he can shoot. So that means—”
“That means once the light goes out,” Toni said, cutting Killian off, “that’s when we start shooting.”
Killian smiled, liking her confidence. “Exactly. Take the pilot out if you can, and I’ll try to get the shooter.”
“Got it,” Toni said, steeling herself to the task.
Killian strained to see through the fuzziness of his vision to look at Toni. “Hey, you sure you know how to use that thing?”
Toni gave Killian a look. “I managed to blow DeBlanc’s face off with it, didn’t I?”
Killian chuckled, acknowledging her point. “Just checking,” he said as he turned his sights back to the glare of white light, the only target he could make out. “Okay, here it comes. The light’s still on! Hold your fire until it goes out!”
Both steadied themselves onto their targets.
“Hey Killian,” Toni hollered out suddenly.
“Yeah?”
Fear sounded in her voice for the first time. “I-I really don’t want to die!”
A rush of images flashed through Killian’s mind – dead girls, dead friends, dead family, dead pimps and sex traffickers, him setting the noose around his head in search of his own death. He wasn’t sure he could yet say the same thing, so all he could tell her in response was, “Then don’t!”
The spotlight never went out and the helicopter screamed by them directly overhead, so low it seemed as if they could have reached up and touched it as it passed. Toni and Killian turned around and scrambled to the front of the boat.
“Are you all right?” Killian asked RJ, who was sitting back up now behind the wheel after having had taken cover between the seat and console as the helicopter flew by
.
“I’m fine,” she said with a thumbs up. “Why didn’t they shoot?”
“I don’t know,” Killian said. “Maybe they wanted to make sure that it was us first.” Just as Killian said this, the helicopter made a looping turn back around and came charging at them again. He grabbed Ruby by the arm and dragged her to the other side of the console, leaving her down by RJ’s feet.
“Seems like you got your sight back pretty good now,” RJ said to him.
It was his turn to give her a thumbs up before making a dash to the bow and positioning himself next to Toni.
The helicopter came right at them low on the water, its spotlight still burning bright, as if it wanted to play a game of chicken with the boat. But then the light went out and the helicopter could be seen now as it bore down on them, flying behind a white mist of spray swirling out before it like smoke from a fire-breathing dragon. And then the dragon breathed its fire – the hot orange of muzzle flash shooting out in short, rapid bursts from the passenger’s side.
Killian and Toni fired their rifles simultaneously. A line of bullets pierced the water along Killian’s side, just missing him. As the helicopter made another apocalyptic pass overhead, Killian rolled on his back and emptied the Glock into its underbelly. They both rushed aft after it passed and took up their positions.
They watched as the helicopter again made an arcing loop back towards them.
“I guess we didn’t get them,” Toni said.
“Looks like it,” Killian said as he tossed the Glock on the bench and checked the magazine for the rifle. “I got enough for one more pass. You?”
Toni checked. “Shit! Rifle’s empty,” she said, tossing it aside. “She pulled out the handgun from the back of her pants. “Guess I’m down to this.”
“Make it count,” Killian said as he lay across the back of the bow and lined up his rifle.
Toni set up next to him, holding the Glock in two hands out before her. She watched the helicopter for a moment and then said, “It’s coming in a lot slower this time.” Just as she spoke, the helicopter began to sway, slowly side to side at first, and then more erratically. “Something’s wrong,” she said excitedly. “Maybe we did get it.”
“Maybe,” Killian said, not taking his eyes off his sights.
But still the helicopter came, and when it was within range, the shots rained down at them, spraying everywhere unpredictably as the helicopter swayed in its flight. This time, along with the sound of bullets piercing through the water, there was also the sound of several of them ripping through the boat.
Killian and Toni returned fire, shooting desperately at the helicopter until they both were out of ammunition.
After the helicopter had again passed overhead, they rushed back to the front. RJ was back up again behind the wheel. All three watched the helicopter flying away from them.
“We’re both out of ammo,” Killian said to RJ. “So if it makes another pass at us, it’s up to you to try to evade them.”
RJ nodded solemnly.
All three felt a sense of defeat as they watched the helicopter begin yet another looping turn back at them. But it was an uncertain turn and the nose of the helicopter dipped radically. It looked like the bird was going to lose control.
RJ spun the wheel to starboard, wanting to get out of its uncertain path.
The helicopter leveled off and, just when it seemed it was back under control, the tail swung out wide to the side and flames shot out from the engine exhaust at the top of the craft. The nose dipped hard again, too far this time, and the blades caught the water. Just as the splintering blades began to rip the helicopter apart, the engine exploded, blowing it all to pieces, sending flaming chunks of it high into the air.
RJ throttled the engine all the way down and they watched in frozen awe as the helicopter, now an unrecognizable floating heap of burning metal, lit up the black gloomy night a hellish orange before sinking with an angry, explosive hiss down to its awaiting watery grave.
With the night returned to black and the only sound now the howl of the wind and the chopping of the waves, the three turned their gaze from where the helicopter had just been and looked at each other, stunned.
“Is everyone okay?” Killian finally asked, looking at all the bullet holes plastered zig-zag throughout the boat.
RJ nodded. “I’m okay.”
“A little freaked out maybe, but I’m okay,” Toni said. She looked down at Ruby, still tied up on the deck down by RJ’s feet. “Whitney, you okay, girl?”
Ruby didn’t answer.
Toni gave RJ and Killian a worried look and then, nudging her sister with a foot, said, “Whitney, quit playing.”
When Ruby still didn’t respond Toni knelt next to her, ripped the gag off her mouth, and began shaking her by the shoulders. “Whitney are you okay?” she cried out desperately. “Did you get hit?”
Ruby’s eyes open wide and looked right at her sister. “Damn it, Toni. How many times I got to tell you, the name is Ruby mother fucking Black.”
PART FOUR
Though the mills of God grind slowly; Yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, RETRIBUTION
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Toni would not allow them to take her to a hospital. Her only demand was some fresh bandages and a change of clothes, so their first stop after making it to shore and finding Killian’s rental car was to a Walmart. As they made their way to the store, Ruby, unbound now and sitting with arms folded tight across her chest in the Mustang’s cramped back seat next to her sister, complained vulgarly and incessantly about her treasured pink tracksuit being ruined with Toni’s blood. Toni had to swear on their grandmother’s grave that she would buy Ruby a new one as soon as they got back to Baltimore to finally get her to shut up about it. To head off any expletive-filled wrath that may have been coming her way, RJ quickly promised to have the tracksuit she was wearing of Ruby’s cleaned professionally before returning it to her.
Ruby’s constant rude and selfish behavior may have kept them distracted for the most part, but it wasn’t until they were in the airplane taking off down the runway to begin the first leg of their early morning flight back to Baltimore that any of them felt truly safe. And it wasn’t until they were long in the air on the mostly empty flight that RJ, after Toni and Ruby had fallen asleep in the seats across the aisle from her and Killian, and after she had double checked to make sure that the seats in front and behind them were vacant, felt it was safe enough to lean over close to Killian’s ear and ask in a whisper, “Killian, you awake? Just what exactly were those Russians trying to get out of you anyway?”
Killian, leaning back in his aisle seat with the bill of his ballcap pulled down over his eyes, pushed the hat up and squinted at her through his still hazy vision. He also checked the area around him to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “Honestly, RJ, I don’t really know other than that it had something to do with my father hacking into Russia’s classified computer networks. From what Rudenko told me, they think my dad either stole information off these systems or did something to them, planted a virus or something. Whatever it was, they can’t figure it out. They thought I would know something about it since my father and I spoke right before they murdered him.”
RJ shook her head slowly. “Geez, the Russians must really be freaking out about it for them to track you all the way to New Orleans. What do you think’s going to happen next? Do you think it’s over?”
Without hesitation Killian shook his head. “No way, this won’t be over until the Russians find whatever it is they’re looking for. The problem for me... for us, really... is that more than likely whoever that Rudenko guy reported to is not going to know that he had already questioned me and came up with nothing. His superiors are going to think that I killed him and their hitman in order to keep the information I had safe.”
“What about the authorities? The FBI?
Shouldn’t we tell someone about it? I mean, Russia working with corrupt businessmen, sounds like some pretty heavy stuff to me. Presidential, or congressional hearing stuff, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, you’re right. I do. And if it only involved just me, I wouldn’t hesitate. I’d go right to the feds, tell them everything and not worry about whether I ended up in jail or if the Russians kept coming at me because of it.” He leaned in closer to RJ. “But it also involves you and Toni and Ruby. Who knows what could happen to the three of you. Besides, with one disgraced ex-sailor with documented mental health issues, a drug addict, and a prostitute, we wouldn’t stand a chance if we went public with our story, one that implicates not just rich and powerful people like DeBlanc’s father, but the entire Russian government, a government famous for eliminating any threats to it, large or small, foreign or domestic.”
RJ’s eyes widened at the stark portrait Killian had painted of their situation. But after thinking about it, still she said, “I don’t know, Killian. I think we might be better off getting out in front of this and not waiting until the feds come knocking on the door for us. I mean, I’m sure our fingerprints, our blood, are all over that yacht, not to mention all the security cameras it must have had.”
“You may be right… you probably are. But I think that’s something we need to discuss with Toni and her sister. Coming from the streets, I’d bet they wouldn’t be too comfortable going to the cops, even with something as bad as they just went through.”
The Good Kill Page 42