They were facing the oncoming waves, but another head between theirs was looking back up my way. The shore break pounded down just a few yards seaward of them, sending overlapping and colliding sheets of foam up the sand to cover them. For long seconds their heads were entirely submerged, and then the retreating waves rushed back down the sloping beach, giving them another chance to breathe.
The face in the middle belonged to Trevor Ridley, of course, proned out and using the girls’ heads for cover. Behind the three heads in the water was something black on the end of a shiny pole, remaining just above the water. It made no sense to me and then suddenly it did. Another video camera, this one facing the girls, recording their anguish as the waves rose against them.
I couldn’t afford to wait Ridley out. The girls’ heads were still fully erect as the water raced past them in both directions. They were alive, but for how much longer?
Using Kentucky windage and elevation to try for Ridley between the girls was out of the question. Not when I’d needed to adjust four feet up and over to tag his boss only once out of a half-dozen tries at less than two hundred yards. That type of offset shooting would obviously not work in this situation. If I’d had the Serb’s rifle, I could have done it. Shoot the camera on the monopod behind them to confirm the rifle’s zero, then put one between Ridley’s running lights. But I didn’t have the Serb’s one-inch-accurate scoped AR; instead I had an MP-5 that was off by several feet in both axes.
And the tide was still coming up. Time for a new plan of action. I stood, held the MP-5 out to the side, then kicked and slid down the dune to the line of rocks above the beach.
Ridley bellowed, “Not one more step, Yank, or one of them loses a nose!”
I could see the flash of a knife in front of his face as the foam raced back toward the ocean, revealing all. He was lying on his stomach, propped on his elbows. The backwash streamed the sand away from the girls’ necks and bare shoulders. If he’d had a firearm, he’d have shown it. I wondered if he regretted his overarching vanity in foregoing a firearm, especially since none of his henchmen were still around to impress with his machismo.
We were a hundred feet apart. Because I could hear him plainly over the crashing surf, I knew he would be able to hear me as well. I said, “You heard the shooting, Trevor. Your friends are all dead.”
He barked a laugh. “Is that supposed to bother me? Now it’s just me and you, Danny boy, exactly the way I always hoped it would be. Winner takes all. And then it’s going to be me and the girls on Topaz. They can keep me company on the way south, until I get tired of them. You ever drag somebody behind your boat after chumming for sharks? Somebody alive and kicking? Let me tell you, that’s a special kind of fun. Then I’ll run down to Belize or Nicaragua for a paint job and new papers. A new name for Topaz and a new name for me. I’ll make out just fine.”
“That sounds like bold talk, Ridley, coming from a coward who hides behind girls.”
“Oh, you hurt my feelings. Boo-hoo, what shall I do? I suppose we’ll just wait and see what develops. Another ten minutes should tell the tale.”
The waves were washing completely over their heads, submerging them for longer and longer parts of minutes and freeing them for less. The high-tide debris line was twenty feet behind the girls. They still had another vertical foot of tide ahead of them, and that foot would be fatal. Already they both had to hold their breaths for significant periods until each wave subsided.
At times their three heads disappeared entirely as multiple waves overlapped and pounded them from cross angles. I considered rushing them while the waves obscured Ridley’s view, but I didn’t dare. Not while he held a knife just inches from their exposed and defenseless faces and necks.
“Forget the ten minutes, Trevor. I have a better idea. I’ll just come down there now and kick your Limey ass back to jolly old England.”
“With all those guns you have? I shouldn’t think so.”
He could see the MP-5, of course. My Glock, with at least a few rounds left, was stuffed into the back of my pants, held up by my paracord belt. “No guns, Ridley. I’ll take my chances with my bare hands. You have a knife, so it should be a fair fight.”
“What took you so long to figure it out, Yank? Finally, we’re humming the same tune. Just throw your weapons behind you, then come on down and join the party.”
I pulled the submachine gun’s sling over my head and tossed it to my right. It clattered down among some rocks.
“And the Glock.”
He knew that if I’d killed Prechter, I’d have my pistol again. I pulled it out from behind my back, showed it to him, and tossed it over toward the MP-5. Then I put both arms straight out and turned around to show him I was unarmed—at least as far as he could see. That done, I jumped the seven or eight feet from the wall of boulders down onto the beach.
****
Ridley wasn’t having it. “Just you hold it right there! Don’t forget Andre’s little sissy gun, and his switchblade.”
Trevor wasn’t stupid. He knew who had carried what. I carefully removed the pocket pistol and the automatic knife, and pitched them over on the sand beneath the other weapons.
“Lovely! Just lovely. Now, Danny boy, come on down and let’s have some fun.”
He remained prone behind the girls until I was only thirty feet away, then he stood up between their heads, my Ka-bar knife in his right hand. His neck, shoulders and arms were massive and rippling, glistening as the sea foam blew off him. Neptune’s warrior arising from the sea, lacking only a trident spear. He was wearing just a green tank shirt over his cutoff camo shorts, so the colorful tattoos on his slick white skin were quite impressive. His black jump boots were visible when the water rushed all the way out.
He smiled warmly and said, “Oh, Danny, you don’t know how I’ve been looking forward to this moment. But this is turning out even better than I hoped. Oh, and thanks for giving me the clear title to Topaz. Me and the lassies are going to settle in right nice and cozy for a week or two, till we play ‘Feed the Sharks.’ Now, if you don’t mind too much, I’m going to drop your guts in the ocean and use ’em for chum.”
“You talk tough, Ridley, but so far I’ve only seen you being tough to girls.”
He waved me forward with his empty left hand. “Keep it coming, Yank. I just love your big, fat mouth. I’m going to enjoy cutting your lips off and feeding them to the girls. Then your tongue. Oh, this is going to be a wonderful experience for both of us. But better for me, I expect.”
“Hey, Trevor, I was wondering something—did you really serve in the British army, or did you buy those pants in an army-navy store?”
“Wouldn’t you love to know, mate? Come on down and find out.” He was still grinning, shifting from side to side, waving the knife in circles, cutting the air in anticipation.
“I’ll take that as a no.” I continued my slow walk down the beach toward him. The pink coral sand was firmer where it was damp. “Your boss and your Belgian faggot buddy are dead. So is Vuko. Why do you think you’ll have better luck than them?”
“Why? Because I have control over what you want, and they didn’t. Your sweet, precious lassies, alive and well. How long before there’s no more air over their pretty little noses? Until it’s just solid water till the turn of the tide? Ten minutes? Five? Come on, Danny boy, quit stalling. What are you waiting for? The girls don’t have all day.”
He stood on the other side of their heads, the water swirling around his legs as it rose and fell. I hated seeing his combat boots so near their unprotected faces. I’m sure that in the moments when their ears were above the water, Cori and Brooke could hear us. Both of their heads were turned far around so I saw them in profile, wild desperation in the corners of their eyes as they strained to see the events that would determine their fate.
Ridley held the Ka-bar in his right hand, both arms up in a fighting stance, knees bent, lightly crouched, relaxed. Not worried at all. Enjoying the moment, his blueberr
y eyes locked on mine. I took another step toward him. Just a few yards between us now.
“Ridley, you have fifty pounds on me. All that pumping iron, and you still need a great big knife? Are you really that afraid of me?”
“Nope. Are you afraid of getting cut?”
“I’ve been cut.”
“Not where I’m going to cut you, boy. Not near where I’m going to cut you.”
“I can’t believe you’re so afraid of me. What’s the point of taking all those steroids if you still need a great big knife? I’m just another skinny Yank with a big mouth, right?”
He stared at me while several waves advanced and retreated, and then he flicked the Ka-bar backhanded to his right and a little behind. It landed grip-up twenty feet away in the wash zone. Then he lunged toward me, but the move was only a feint to throw me off.
There was no starting gun, just the knife angled hilt-up in the wet sand as a wave rushed out. He made his pivot and launched himself toward it and I was right behind him. The game was on, but he had known about it first and so he had the edge. The knife disappeared as another sheet of foamy water rushed in.
****
He was going to beat me to it by half a body length or more. Attempting to tackle him and claw my way up his slippery oak-like torso while he grabbed my Ka-bar would be stupid. Instead I hooked my fingers through the paracord loop, still protruding from my right front pocket. The inch of tan cord had been invisible to him against my tan shorts. His back was to me as he began to scramble for the knife. I got one swing around my head to build the iron nut’s speed and whirled it ahead as I dived after him.
The cord wrapped around his right boot at the ankle and I yanked it back hard. He slammed down onto his chest, how far from the submerged Ka-bar I couldn’t tell. I drove myself forward in the swirl of sand and water and used the paracord bolo to pull myself up to his boot. The nut on the end of the cord pulled free but not before I was able to tackle his right ankle with my left arm and shoulder, the side of my head jammed against his flailing calf.
Our bodies were outstretched on the sand. I snatched the little X-acto knife from my back pocket as Ridley’s other boot smashed down against my neck and shoulder, but I clung to him like a barnacle as waves rushed over our backs. He could use his free leg to push forward toward the Ka-bar, or to try to dislodge me, but he couldn’t do both at the same time.
While he thrashed I dragged the razor knife across the back of his right knee, ripping it through the tautly stretched flesh, his hamstring tendons wiry ropes beneath his skin. He tried to rise to his knees and when he did I slashed the blade across his quadriceps muscle in front. When a big shore break pounded down on both of us, he was pushed back into me. I released his leg and grabbed the back of his belt and pulled myself far enough up his back to stab him deeply in his right side just below his ribs.
I intended to drag the one-inch blade back through his abdominal wall, but before I could he rolled hard to his left, threw me off and nearly scissored his legs around my head, giving me a sharp kick in the face as a departing shot. He rolled again, and went up on his knees.
He held the Ka-bar in his right hand. As I was coming up onto all fours he lunged forward to give me a backslash. I threw up my arms, hoping my chest was beyond the blade’s reach. He caught me off balance against the force of the wave and deftly flicked the tip of the blade upward in passing.
He slashed me across the inside of my left arm midway between elbow and armpit. The same wave that pushed me toward him pushed him back and I was able to roll away, the next wave helping to set me on my feet. A glance at the wound beneath my arm told me it was no mere scratch; it was a deep, gaping cut, fountaining blood. I knew how sharp my Ka-bar was, so the injury was no surprise. I fell backward in the surf, rolled through another plunging wave, and came up on my feet again. I pressed my arm hard against my side to stanch the blood spurting from the wound. He had probably sliced through the brachial artery and the nerves around it: my left arm hung limp.
Another wave rolled Ridley upright and he stood for a moment, tottered and fell forward onto his knees, looked down and noticed the wooden handle protruding from his right flank. He switched the Ka-bar to his left hand and jerked out my little X-acto knife, held it up and studied it for a moment, then snapped it out into the waves. He half smiled and said, “So, it was you who needed a knife.”
“If you call that little thing a knife.”
He grinned and winced in pain at the same time. “You fight dirty, Yank, and I like that in a man. But I’m still going to gut you like a deer.” He raised a leg to stand up and toppled over onto his right side, clutching the back of his knee. The rushing water had hidden the flowing blood from him until then. A wave slammed into him and when he rolled face upward he screamed, “Oh, you bastard! You fucking bastard!” He struggled to get into a sitting position, the waves pouring across his lap and chest, and examined his wounds when he could see them. He tried to stand up again, got half way to his feet and fell onto his backside. But through it all, he kept hold of my Ka-bar.
The two of us had ended up thirty feet from Cori and Brooke, but still in the surf zone. I churned away from Ridley toward the girls, the rushing water pulling at my legs and hips. For a mad moment I couldn’t see the girls at all, they were lost below the chaotically moving foam and spray, but I spotted the black video camera on the pole and from there I found them again. I could see their heads for only a few seconds at a time, in those moments when the waves went rushing back to the ocean just before the next ones came crashing in.
Both girls had wide-open eyes and their heads were still erect, not rolling flaccidly with the swash. They were watching me, gasping for air when their mouths were above the water, then holding their breath when they were submerged. A few yards seaward from their faces, the video camera was still capturing their horror. The fist-size waterproof camera on a pole was too light to use as a club but it was all I had, so I grabbed it and pulled it out. The tip of the telescoping monopod where it stuck into the sand was pointed metal, but not sharp. A half-pound plastic camera and five feet of alloy tubing were all I had for a weapon.
I kept an eye on Ridley as I went to the girls and knelt between them, looking at each of them as they looked at me. When their heads were above water I yelled, “I’ll get you out—don’t give up!” The backwash receded but the next wave covered their heads by over a foot. Even when fully submerged both girls kept their eyes wide open, afraid to miss any approaching chance to gulp at the air. The waves ran so far up the beach that I knew we were nearing high tide. Soon they would need to hold their breaths for over a minute at a time, looking up through the foamy water at the sun, wondering if they would get even one more opportunity to breathe the sweet air. If they panicked now, they would ingest sea foam, then solid water, and then they would drown.
Cori and I had practiced buddy-breathing from one regulator when I’d taught her to scuba dive. We also had practiced mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. This would be much harder, but she seemed to understand my intention instinctively. All she wanted was air, and that was what I was offering, so there was no chance of miscommunication. I took a deep breath, held both sides of her head and put my face underwater, turned my mouth over hers and exhaled as she sucked my lungful of air into hers. I could still use my left hand as long as I didn’t try to lift my arm. Her long hair was gone, so it was not an impediment.
The waves pulled me back and then drove me against them, but I was able to get another lungful into Brooke the same way. During an extra-deep trough between incoming waves both girls were able to gulp another breath unassisted. I tried to hold my cut closed with my right hand when I could, while clamping my left arm against my body to apply pressure, but it was no way enough. The rushing salt water washed the blood away from my wound, but I knew that I was rapidly exsanguinating. And extra physical stress makes your heart pump more rapidly, making you bleed out even faster.
Then I looked over and saw Ridley
coming toward us, moving along while half lying on his left side. My Ka-bar knife was still clutched in his right hand. He was dragging his hamstrung right leg behind him in the wash zone. His belt was wrapped around his thigh as a hasty tourniquet. He had discovered a crab-wise motion that worked for him, using his left hand and leg for slow but steady forward propulsion.
When he was just a few yards away he cried out, “Time to kiss them goodbye, Yank. Time to kiss them goodbye!”
****
That’s when Senator Pete Sanchez came charging across the beach, still in his blue pajama bottoms and tank shirt, sand covered. He must have been hiding somewhere up in the rocks, waiting for his moment to strike. He was holding the long-handled shovel poised above his head like an ax, and he was making a beeline for us, his face a livid red, no sound emitting from his open mouth.
Ridley saw him too, but could not stand up to face the new threat. At two yards the senator brought the shovel over and down as Ridley slashed toward him with the knife. Ridley took the steel blade full on the back, the edge striking him on the meaty shoulder behind his neck. Before the senator could pull the shovel back, Ridley grabbed it left-handed and cast it behind him into deep water with one fluid motion. The senator used this moment to dodge out of knife range.
The girls were underwater for a long time, the troughs between waves barely allowing the tops of their heads to reach the air, but not their noses or mouths. By then they were entirely focused on me, waiting for the gift of air with their eyes wide open in the swirling salt water. I got a fresh lungful into Brooke and went back to Cori. Trevor Ridley was only a few yards away, grinning again while creeping forward on his side. He gave a few warning stabs in the senator’s direction with the Ka-bar and that was enough to keep him at bay, but at least Sanchez presented a complication for Ridley.
Castigo Cay Page 52