21 Hours

by Dustin Stevens

  I considered leaving the assault rifle on the deck because it was enormous and unwieldy in my decimated hands, but I decided to hang on a little longer. It had the ability to unload two dozen bullets in a matter of seconds. Perhaps even more important, it had the ability to scare the hell out of somebody standing in front of it.

  If anyone inside the cabin had watched me cross the deck, they knew which stairwell I'd climbed to the roof on. I opted to go back down the opposite side, hoping if they were lying in wait for me I would be able to catch them looking the other way.

  I stepped from beneath the awning and back out into the rain, fat drops landing on my soaked scalp. One at a time I descended the staircase, feeling along with the toe of my boot to make sure I had secure footing before heading down.

  The metal was soaked and slick and I was carrying two loaded firearms. I was too close now to afford having an accident.

  At the base of the stairs I pressed my left shoulder against the cabin wall and again watched everything on the deck. I could see the two bodies lying prone, the tire iron and the fresh river of blood framing them on either end. Otherwise, there was nothing but shipping containers and an endless torrent of rain.

  The rifle felt heavy in my hands as I took one last deep breath and turned to face the door into the cabin. It was solid metal, painted the same faded black as everything around it. There was no window or glass of any kind, just a simple silver turn handle.

  Anything could be waiting on the other side of that door.

  For a moment I considered walking around the front and sending a spray of bullets through the front window. I might hit an innocent and I might destroy some necessary electronics, but I at least I would know what I was looking at.

  Of course, that also meant they could look at me.

  I took one last glimpse at the landscape around me. Any signs of city life, or life at all, were long past. In their stead were nothing but rolling fields and hardwood trees just starting to bud for the year. I had been on the boat for half an hour. Only three and a half remained before my self-imposed window was up.

  Anybody that could possibly know I was on board already did. If not, they only had to look out at the bodies lying in the middle of the deck. At least if I burst in through the back door like this, I stood a chance of catching them off- guard.

  One more deep breath.

  I balanced the barrel of the gun across my cast and nestled the stock against my stomach. With one fluid motion I reached out with my right hand, twisted the handle down and jerked the door open. I grabbed up the butt of the weapon, brought it to my shoulder and took two quick steps inside.

  The cabin was overly warm, the sound of the heating vents working in overdrive above me. They replaced the sound of rain falling against metal and the heat met me like a wall as I stepped inside.

  The front of the cabin looked like one unending countertop, a series of buttons and controls spanning the length of it. A steering column was positioned dead center of the tangle of graphs and sensors. The rear wall was covered with charts and maps, pins and post-it notes covering all of them. A single door stood in the middle of the wall, slightly ajar. Everything inside was done in black, including the faded tile floor underfoot.

  Standing in the center of it all was one man, his arms raised by his head as if he were signaling a touchdown. His hands faced me with all ten fingers pointing upwards, motionless. He was the first person I'd seen in several hours not dressed in all black. Instead he was wore jeans and brown hiking boots, a blue zip-up hooded sweatshirt over a red and blue flannel. A blue knit cap was pulled down atop his head and a tangle of white hair stuck out from his face in every direction. He looked to be somewhere in his fifties, though his trim build could have put him up or down a few years.

  "Please, don't hurt me," he said, his voice almost soft. Between that and the attire, he clearly wasn't one of Rifkin's men. "I'm not one of them."

  "How many are there?" I asked, my gaze swinging around the room. There was nobody else there, nowhere for anyone to hide. The open door into the living quarters was the only possible spot for someone to be tucked away.

  "Only four," the captain said, his eyes locked on mine. As he spoke, he balled his left hand into a fist and flicked his eyes towards the right hand. Five fingers remained outstretched. There was one still inside.

  I nodded and shifted my attention towards the door. He couldn't nod his head to confirm, but instead shot his eyes straight to the ceiling and back to the floor. As good as a nod. There was one more hiding inside.

  Adrenaline surged through me as I raised the rifle tight to my cheek and shuffled forward. I had barely moved when the door swung open and a man dressed just like Long Sleeves stepped through carrying a rifle matching my own. Our eyes locked at the same time, our fingers pulled in unison.

  The only difference was as I squeezed, I flung myself down towards the right.

  The sound of gunfire reverberated through the tiny cabin, buffeted by bullets shattering glass and slamming into doors and walls. A searing pain tore through my left arm as I went down, that entire side of my body erupting in agony. Across from me the guard convulsed twice as if having a seizure, a pair of rounds slamming into his body. His rifle clattered to the ground, though he managed to stay on his feet.

  The moment my body hit the ground I snapped the Luger from my jeans with my right hand and fired four quick shots in succession. All four found their mark, tearing into his torso and sending splashes of blood down onto the floor. He took only a single step before pitching himself face first onto the tile, his body hitting it with a wet smack.

  I kept the gun held out in front of me and watched as the blood pooled out from his body. It wasn't as fast as those on the deck, but there wasn't any rain water in the cabin to speed up the process.

  My left arm continued to scream at me as I shifted the gun to the captain, his entire body rigid. His hands were still raised by his head, his left hand still held into a ball. "That's all of them. I swear to God that's all of them."

  "You're sure?"

  "Yes," he whispered. "Just please don't shoot me."

  "Please don't make me," I replied, grunting as I shifted myself from my side up onto my knees. I lowered my gun to the floor and pushed myself to my feet, my left arm hanging limp by my side. I looked down to see a small plume of blood on the outer half of my arm. An inch down and he would have hit an artery. Five inches to the right and he would have hit my heart.

  The captain kept his arms raised above his head and said, "You've been hit. I have a first aid kit in my room."

  I ignored the comment. "Who are you and how do I know you're not involved with these guys too?"

  The man bobbed his head slightly, as if agreeing these were fair questions. "My name is Seamus Smiley, Captain of the Sea Horse. Formerly I was a Chief Petty Officer, United States Navy."

  My arm throbbed. It replaced all the other pain in my body combined. "What the hell is a retired officer doing mixed up with this lot?"

  "You see the guns those guys were carrying?" Smiley responded. "When that walks on your boat and tells you you're carrying some cargo for them, you don't really have a choice in the matter."

  I damned sure didn't want to give this guy too much leeway and let my guard down, but what he was saying made sense. He certainly didn't look or act like the rest of them. "Call it in," I muttered. "I don't even know who patrols these waters, but if you're really a captain I'm guessing you do."

  Smiley's eyes grew a size larger as he shook his head. "Rifkin will kill me if I call this in. He knows where I live, where my grandson goes to school. At the very least I'll go to jail for what they find on here."

  I shook my head. "Cincinnati PD should be at Rifkin's as we speak. He won't be bothering anyone. Just in case, you can spread the word that I killed his guards and called it in. He already knows and hates me."

  He continued to shake his head. "I still don't want to go to jail. I don't know what the hell is
in those containers, but they send five armed guards with me every week. It can't be anything good."

  "You won't go to jail," I said. "I have a friend on the force there. Just make the call." She wasn't quite a friend and she wasn't technically on the force there, but I didn't care. I just wanted the call made.

  Smiley kept his eyes on me and lowered his hands. He lifted the receiver from his a.m. radio alongside the steering column. His eyes never left me, or more aptly the gun in my hand, as he raised the receiver to his lips and said, "This is Captain Seamus Smiley of the Sea Horse I calling for the United States Coast Guard, over."

  A burst of static shot out at us, followed by the mechanized voice of a young male. "This is Seaman Erick Wynn, USCG Cutter Greenwood. Go ahead Sea Horse I. Over."

  "Ship requesting immediate assistance. Coordinates 38°41' North, 83° 33' West. Over."

  "Roger that Sea Horse I, what is your emergency?"

  Smiley looked at me with heavy eyes. "You'll see when you get here." Without another word he clicked off the radio and returned the receiver to its hook.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The bullet passed clean through my arm. The size of the caliber gave it so much power it didn't even notice a few inches of flesh standing in its way. It entered halfway between my elbow and shoulder, a perfect circle roughly the size of a dime. It exited three inches to the left through my triceps, the hole enlarged to about the size of a penny. The edges of both were raw. Blood oozed from each of them, running in thick crimson droplets down my arm.

  Smiley stood at the wheel and watched me, his eyes dancing between me and the dead guard on the floor. We both wanted to drag his body outside and dump it over the side, but for all intents and purposes this was now a crime scene. The Coast Guard might not take kindly to us tossing casualties into the river.

  Instead, Smiley pulled the barge as close to shore as the water depth would allow and dropped the anchor. Every so often a strong push of the current swung us a few feet from side to side, but the enormous implement held true. We were right where he'd said we be, waiting for the law to show up. Everything in my being told me to get away before they did, but I remained where I was. As soon as I made sure the bleeding was stopped, I was finally going to find my niece.

  The first aid kit sat open atop the control panel in front of me, a collection of individually wrapped supplies splashed across the controls. My flannel was unsnapped almost to my navel, the left side of my torso exposed. My ribs were light blue and growing darker by the moment. The comically oversized, waterlogged cast dangled from my left hand. Blood ran from the holes in my arm.

  Smiley took in the injuries and let out a slow whistle. "Damn boy, what did you do to piss off Rifkin?"

  I shook my head and wadded several strips of gauze into a ball. Starting at the elbow I wiped it upward in long strokes, stripping blood away from my skin. "Rifkin was just one of many this weekend," I said. I wiped away as much of the blood as would come free and tossed the soiled strips into the trash. "Can you give me a hand here?"

  I held a clean patch of gauze against the front hole with my thumb and a second patch over the rear hole with my middle finger. I bent over so my limp arm hung away from my body and watched as Smiley unwound over a foot of elastic tape from a roll. Starting on the underside of my arm, he wrapped the roll around three times, the thick tape covering every bit of the gauze. It was a little tighter than I would have liked, judging by the way the tape dug into my skin, but at least I knew the patches weren't going anywhere. To be honest my entire body was numb, so I couldn't feel it anyway. Once the initial shock wore off, I was going to be miserable.

  Smiley tore the tape off atop my bicep and put everything back into the kit as I stood up, worked my arm into my shirt and buttoned it. The numb feeling permeated my entire body and I couldn't help but notice that the temperature of the previously warm cabin had dropped precipitously.

  I didn't have much time.

  "Where would they keep the kids?" I asked, my voice low, a bit uneven.

  Smiley stopped what he was doing, his hands frozen above the open kit. "What kids?"

  "The ones they kidnapped, plan to sell off.”

  His eyes pressed closed and he twisted his head. "Oh sweet Jesus, what have I done?"

  I could imagine the feeling of guilt that must have been going through him, but I didn't care. The clock was still running and my strength was fading fast. I slapped the palm of my hand down on the top ledge of the control panel. "Where would they be?" I said, my voice louder but still lacking much life.

  His eyes remained closed, his head continued to shake. "I don't know. I really don't. The first two rows are all his, has to be one of them."

  I nodded twice and went back outside, the cold air cutting straight through my soaked clothes. My teeth chattered as I stepped away from the cabin and a fresh wave of rainwater washed over me.

  So much for keeping my arm clean.

  Everything outside remained just as it was. In total, less than fifteen minutes had passed, but it seemed much longer as I trudged across the open deck towards the containers.

  The water around Tank Top and Spandex was now clear, the blood having washed over the sides. Their pale skin was fast turning blue as their lifeless eyes stared up at the sky. Beyond them, a reddish puddle sat between two smaller containers. I walked forward into the shadows to see Long Sleeves flat on his back, over a half dozen gouges torn into his body. Once dark red and bleeding, the rain had washed them clean, leaving nothing but torn clothes and holes the size of nickels in various locations.

  I stared down at him for a few seconds as I walked past. Thankfulness filled me that my bullet holes were only through my arm. Nothing resembling guilt came near me.

  I left the bodies where they laid and went back out to the small containers, four of them sitting in a row. They were all of the same general size and design, standing seven feet tall and measuring about the same across. The top of the front of each one opened up with a pair of double doors, a heavy padlock clasping them together. My eyes swung to the tire iron still lying on the deck, but my numb left arm made me think better of it. Instead, I pulled the Luger from the small of my back and fired at the thin metal latch piece of the lock. It shattered and fell away with a sprinkling of metal shards.

  Using my right hand I shoved aside the remnants of the lock and jerked open the door. A musty smell hit me full on that reminded me a lot of the horse barn back in Wyoming. Pallets lined all three walls of the interior, each stacked high with green bricks wrapped in saran wrap.

  Marijuana, and lots of it, all piled up like bales of hay.

  My stomach turned at the thought of the men that had held my niece for the last two days. She didn't need to be anywhere but at home with her mother, let alone out with men running drugs and carrying automatic weapons. A sour taste rose in the back of my throat as I stepped back and surveyed the other three small containers. Odds were they contained the exact same cargo as the first one.

  I turned and glared over my shoulder at the front window. I believed Smiley when he told me didn't have anything to do with this, that he was nothing more than an unwilling accomplice in Rifkin's business, but that didn't make it much better. He still knew what he was doing was wrong, and never once did he try to stop it.

  As much as I wanted to stomp and scream and cuss the wind, my body wouldn't allow it. Precious heat was leaking out of me with each passing second and a dull prod was forming in my left shoulder. It wouldn't be long before the pain settled in, after which it was just a matter of time before I was out cold, flat on my back like the guards heaped around me.

  With the Luger in my hand I stepped through the row of smaller containers to the two larger ones sitting behind them. Smiley said the first two rows were Rifkin's. Annie had to be in one of them.

  I stepped over Long Sleeve's outstretched legs to the door of the closest one. I wanted to drag his body away and dump it over the side so Annie and any other children
inside wouldn't have to see it, but I just didn't have the strength.

  Both containers were the standard shipping sort, with a pair of parallel doors comprising one end of the unit. Everything else was sealed tight. The container on the right was shit brown, the one on the left forest green. Both were positioned so their doors pointed inward.

  Gun in hand, I went to the left and shot away a pair of heavy padlocks holding latches at the top and bottom in place. The small metal implements fell away with ease. Using my right hand I jerked the latches up and swung one half of the door open.

  A tiny bit of light filtered in through the door, though it was apparent there were no children inside. Rows of wooden crates lined one wall, all of them stacked high with uniform precision. Across from them was an even row of long black plastic boxes. Stenciled across the side of them were the letters RPG, a string of numbers behind them.

  Rocket Propelled Grenades. Weapons. This entire container was a weapons cache.

  The barbed wire returned to my stomach. What if I was wrong about all of this? What if Tank Top was just screwing with me when he said Annie was onboard, toying with a dying man? What if I'd killed a half dozen people and made an enemy of a very powerful man for nothing?

  What if I was no closer to finding Annie than I was yesterday and now here I was, running on fumes and out of ideas?

  I swallowed the thoughts back as best I could as I walked from the container. I didn't bother to look at the cabin, instead keeping the gun poised in front of me. The top lock blasted away without resistance and I pointed the gun at the bottom one.

  Click. Nothing but empty air.

  I exhaled and tried not to think of the symbolism an empty chamber represented. I shoved aside every one of the questions that were running through my head and pulled the single round from my pocket. I held it up for a moment and stared at the polished brass casing, the rain droplets running over it. My entire torso in a knot, I slid the bullet in, pulled the slide and blasted the lock away.