by Mike Nemeth
There was nothing left to do but wait. When Julius Caesar decided to cross the Rubicon, he reportedly said, “The die is cast.” I said those words aloud. If Harlan and Travis never turned up, the cops would arrest me for kidnapping. If Harlan and Travis did show up, I would fight for my life. Belowdecks, Carrie threw dishes against the bulkheads, but her effort to alert passersby was futile; the cove and its banks were deserted.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I heard them coming long before I could see them. From more than a mile away, the piercing squeals of twin Mercury outboards, operating at maximum RPMs, opened a hollow crevasse from my sternum to my testicles and filled the vacuum with a frozen stream of fear. The speed at which the onrushing boat was closing the distance to the cove was consistent with a police boat answering my Mayday call, but I knew the difference between the soprano duet being sung by these two big motors and the lathe-grinding-metal alto notes produced by the three smaller Evinrude motors mounted on police boats. Harlan’s boat would be the first to arrive.
For the tenth time, I scuttled down into the aft cabin and scanned the dock and the sloped land that led up to the roadway. There was no sign of any cops or witnesses. This is the definition of lonely, I thought. I climbed back into the bridge and grabbed my gun. The Beretta was ready to fire bullets as fast as I could pull the trigger.
The sound of the oncoming motors dropped an octave as Harlan’s boat slowed to make the turn into the mouth of the cove, and the pitch dropped again as the boat maneuvered around the cypress knees choking the entrance to the open cove. Harlan’s Boston Whaler whipped through the right-hand turn and headed straight for my Carver, but then it staggered like a late-night drunk, stutter-stepping first to the left then to the right and back to the left again. Harlan was surprised to find himself nose to nose with my boat and not approaching his target from its vulnerable stern. After a few moments of indecision, Harlan gunned the motors and headed down my starboard side, the side that afforded more open water between my boat and the shoreline. As he passed the bridge, I saw that the passenger held a shotgun aimed more or less in the bridge’s direction. I also noted the passenger wasn’t the fat kid, Travis. It was Chance Dickson, former Green Beret and Harlan’s former son-in-law.
I ducked low, slid down the steps to the aft cabin level, and moved through the doorway out onto the starboard wing above the steps from the stern platform. I kept my right arm extended inside the aft cabin so that the pistol was out of sight. Harlan pulled his boat alongside the junction between the dock and the stern platform, and Dickson leapt onto the swim platform in one athletic movement. As he moved, Dickson fired his shotgun once in my general direction like a combat troop assaulting an enemy stronghold. I dropped into a squat, like a baseball catcher, to evade the shotgun blast, but Dickson had fired from his hip to cover his movements, and the shotgun pellets harmlessly sprayed the canopy above the aft cabin. Dickson then disappeared around the stern of my boat before I could react.
In the heat of battle, when I could have been thinking of any number of life-saving tactics, all that came to mind was the sardonic quote from a World War I German general that went something like, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” The actual quote, I knew, was longer and decorated with arcane language, but I had no time to remember trivial history lessons. With Dickson trapped on the stern platform, I focused on my father-in-law.
Harlan struggled with the assault. He tried to grab a cleat on the Carver with one hand and hold his shotgun with the other while he steadied his boat with one foot and raised his other leg to climb onto the swim platform. But Harlan’s boat swayed under him, and he was frozen in that precarious position like a bug stuck to a spider’s web.
Before he could gain control of his situation, I shot the old man somewhere in the upper chest. Harlan tumbled backward into his Whaler, which promptly drifted away from the dock. Now the odds are even, I thought. Dickson was trapped on the stern platform, and I owned the high ground.
I wheeled to my left to reenter the aft cabin and climb into the bridge from which I could command the fields of fire for the entire boat; but before I could get inside, a shotgun blast came from the opposite aft cabin entryway on the port side of the boat. My legs were blown out from under me, and I hit the deck before I could break my fall. I had the odd sensation one gets in dreams that I had made a serious mistake and caused my own demise. There were no stairs on the port side of the boat, so Dickson must have grabbed the aft cabin window ledges and used the handholds on the side of the boat as footholds to inch his way from the stern platform to the walkway on the boat’s port side.
I’m battling some comic book character. Travis couldn’t have done that. I pointed my gun at the entryway, but Dickson had gone off to some other tactical objective. He had again taken a shot merely to cover his maneuvers, but this one caught me flush in the left leg, shredding flesh and shattering bone from my upper thigh down to my calf. I took a quick look, and what I saw made me retch. My leg looked like a column of freshly ground hamburger meat.
There was no pain—I must have been in shock—but I could not make my left leg work to stand up. The boat rocked gently forward, so I figured Dickson was moving around the bow to come at me from behind. I rolled to the right and used my good leg and right arm to shimmy across the aft cabin like a swimmer doing the sidestroke. Laboriously, I crawled to the portside steps to the bridge, dragging my bad left leg behind me.
After what seemed eons, I traversed the steps, reached the bridge, and crawled toward the captain’s chairs and the instrument panel. At any moment, Dickson could burst through the port entrance and shoot me from behind, so I kept checking over my shoulder; but then I heard Carrie down below, banging on the galley windows that faced forward, yelling, “Get me out!”
She sees Dickson. He’s still on the bow. In pain now and unable to move fast, I crawled between the captain’s chairs and squeezed as far under the overhang of the instrument panel as possible. Looking back between the chairs, I could cover the bridge, the stairs, the starboard entranceway, and some of the aft cabin. Unfortunately, a broad smear of blood dotted with bits of torn flesh led from the bridge steps to the space where I hid. I had left a trail no one could miss. Then the side-to-side rocking of the boat told me a new story. The Green Beret was climbing the bridge’s steeply sloped façade. How can he do that? It was slippery polycarbonate, and there were no built-in handholds or footholds. He’s using the windshield sills to pull himself up and look over the top of the windscreen.
Dickson’s shotgun banged against the windshield, and I thought of that ominous music from Jaws when the shark stalked its unwitting victims. Ta dum, ta dum, ta dum. I craned my neck to peek out from under the dashboard and saw Dickson’s shotgun and face appear over the windscreen then retreat before I could take a shot. I watched as his hand moved along the windshield, and I realized that he was moving toward the portside to get a good look at me. As he shuffled toward the center of the windscreen, I slid in the same direction to remain out of sight under the overhanging instrument panel and behind the swiveling bridge chairs. It was a raw game of predator stalking prey, and I felt like an antelope cornered by a pride of hungry lions. The terror I felt as I crawled toward cover must be what antelope felt when they were about to be eaten alive.
When Dickson reached the center of the windshield, I heard a woman’s voice shouting something unintelligible. For a moment Dickson stopped, and I gained ground on him. Where I lay under the dashboard, behind the two captain’s chairs, I was concealed from his view and had a clear shot at the space above the port windshield, where Dickson would have to appear to get a shot at me. I pointed my gun at that patch of blue sky and waited for him to come into view.
The woman yelled again. This time I understood her words.
“Drop your weapon or I’ll shoot!”
I recognized Jamie’s voice. Where did she come from?
Jamie yelled again. “Stop! Drop it!”
Dick
son began moving again, and the barrel of his shotgun came into view and caused me to flinch. I could not see Dickson’s head because he had not reached the open space where I was aiming. Keep moving, damn you!
Small dogs have a yappy, high-pitched bark, while big dogs howl in deep-bass tones. The same is true of handguns. The small calibers pop like firecrackers, but the heavy calibers boom like little canons. The pistol shot that echoed around the cove came from a high-caliber firearm. Dickson’s shotgun clattered to the floor of the bridge just feet from my face, and I heard his body striking the side of the bridge and thudding to the deck.
Two things happened at once: A small-caliber pop came from belowdecks combined with a metallic smack, and Jamie began yelling “Dad!” over and over. I heard splashes made by someone in the water. Dickson or Jamie?
At first I thought Carrie may have tried to shoot me through the bridge decking, but shortly afterward a second shot came from below and the bullet struck something hard and ricocheted off the back wall of the aft cabin. Carrie was trying to shoot the lock off the sliding hatch so she could escape. I couldn’t allow her to emerge with a loaded pistol and find me cowering under the instrument panel. Once again I turned on my right side, mustered all my remaining energy, and slithered toward the hatch.
I heard more splashing, and Jamie screamed, “Dad! Oh my God, are you alright?” I didn’t have the energy to respond. The high/low wail of a police boat siren suddenly ruptured the air and competed with Jamie’s repeated screams.
Carrie kept firing through the fiberglass hatch—one shot, a second shot, then a third, in a paced sequence as though she were aiming carefully. The lock being too difficult to hit with a direct strike, she was trying to blow the old fiberglass to bits. I inched into a position above the hatch and looked down at it. Carrie must have realized she was close to escape because she fired three more shots in rapid succession—crack/ thwack, crack/thwack, crack/thwack.
I watched from above as Carrie pushed the ruined fiberglass aside to create a hole to crawl through. From outside the boat came the sounds of Jamie plowing through the water, wading toward the boat, yelling “Dad?” over and over. In the distance, two, or possibly three, sirens blared as cops rushed toward the scene from all directions.
Carrie pushed her gun hand through the ragged opening, followed by her head and her upper body. I raised the Beretta in my right hand as high as I could stretch and brought it down with all my remaining might on the back of Carrie’s head.
Carrie screamed and poured out of the hatch and onto the aft cabin deck like a fish slithering out of a net. Her hands went to her head, and her pistol skidded three feet away from her. It was another peashooter, a little Saturday night special. She moaned. I had to smile; she wore gym shoes, Bermuda shorts, and a top that covered all her feminine charms. The top was ripped from the neck to her cleavage. She was dressed to meet the cops, and that’s exactly what she was going to do. She would even have blood on the conservative clothes—but it would be hers.
Carrie rolled onto her back to look up at me with unadulterated fury. Then she looked for her gun and calculated her chances of grabbing it and shooting me before I could shoot her. The sirens were growling and winding down; the cops were drawing near. Lazily, Carrie stretched her left arm toward her gun, but it was a full foot beyond her hand.
With my gun arm hanging limp, I said, “Make your best move.”
Carrie shriveled up into a fetal position and started wailing. At that moment, Jamie rushed through the port entranceway and instantly read the situation. “Don’t do it!” she shouted.
With two long strides, she advanced into the cabin, snatched the gun out of my hand, and tossed it onto the stuffed chair at the back of the aft cabin. Then she hastened over to Carrie and stepped on Carrie’s outstretched wrist to pin it to the floor as she retrieved her pistol. Carrie yelped; Jamie tossed the pistol onto the chair and climbed onto the bridge to see about me. Carrie sat up and leaned against the wall of the aft cabin. Kneeling beside me, Jamie pointed her pistol at Carrie and said, “Move a muscle and you’re dead.”
A center-console police boat, with lights flashing and siren whooping, came skidding to a stop at my stern. One cop, with short red hair, freckles, and muscles, leapt onto the swim platform and took the stairs three at a time. Hunched low, gun drawn, the cop entered the aft cabin. He dropped into a shooter’s crouch, aimed his weapon at Jamie with both hands, and yelled, “Police! Drop your weapon!”
Jamie dropped her Sig Sauer and responded, “Law enforcement,” as she grabbed the badge pinned to her blouse and shoved it toward Redhead.
Redhead, whose nametag above his breast pocket read “O’Shea,” said, “Law enforcement? What agency?”
“Tampa Metro.”
O’Shea was confused. “What is Tampa PD doing here?”
“This is my father,” Jamie said, indicating me, “and she’s your perp.” She pointed to Carrie.
“She did all of this?”
“Caused it. Help me with my father. He needs an ambulance.”
The second cop, the driver of the police boat, burst into the room. He was very young and tan, with buzz-cut black hair. His nametag said “Riordan.” O’Shea gave the orders.
“I’ve got it in here,” he said. “Secure all the weapons, and then see about the guy out on the deck.”
Jamie handed her gun to the driver, who then collected the weapons from the chair. Riordan went out on the deck and returned a minute later. He said, “That one’s still alive, weak pulse, so we need Life Flight.”
O’Shea said, “Get two. This one”—he pointed to me—“needs to fly.”
The driver went back out to the deck and made a radio call for two Life Flight helicopters.
A second police boat pulled alongside, and the cops in the boat conversed with Riordan on the deck. I heard them decide the situation was under control and that Harlan could be transported to a hospital by water. The boat left with Harlan lying inert on its deck like a rescued manatee.
On the bridge, O’Shea and Jamie gently flipped me onto my back. I tried to tell them what happened, but they didn’t seem to understand me.
“He’s bleeding out,” O’Shea announced. “His skin is cool. We need to get a tourniquet on that leg STAT.”
My vision was blurred, but I saw Redhead pull his thick leather belt off his shorts and dump all the cop paraphernalia onto the bridge. He secured the makeshift tourniquet and yelled at his driver to call again for helicopters.
“They’re in the air,” Riordan shouted back.
People were talking, but they sounded like they were in a tunnel and growing more distant. At the sound of people clomping up the stairway, Jamie and O’Shea turned toward the entranceway and went on guard. A uniformed cop warily entered the aft cabin, followed by the ubiquitous Lieutenant Callahan, the cop who had searched my boat.
Callahan glanced around and addressed O’Shea. “What’s the story here?”
O’Shea summarized for him: “We transported one casualty by boat. We have choppers on the way for this one”—he was indicating me—“and for a guy out on the deck. This officer”—he nodded toward Jamie—“is Tampa PD, and this is her father.” He touched my shoulder.
“What’s she doing here?” Callahan said, pointing to Carrie. The blood oozing from Carrie’s scalp was drying in rivulets that streaked her ashen face and hung suspended in clumps in her stiffly sprayed hair. She looked like a member of a rock band made up for a Halloween concert.
Carrie motioned toward me and answered weakly, “He kidnapped me, and then he shot at everyone who came to rescue me.”
Jamie piped up. “All lies. She and her friends attacked my father, and I had to defend him. I made the 9-1-1 call. When I got here, the guy outside had my father down and was going to finish him off, so I shot him.”
“He tried to rape me,” Carrie insisted.
“Run a rape kit on her,” Jamie said to Callahan.
Callahan ran his fing
ers through his hair and whistled. “Okay, Murphy,” he said to his uniformed cop, “secure the crime scene and get forensics out here. The two casualties will go by chopper, and I’ll take the wife and the Tampa cop to the station in our cruiser. We’ll sort it out after we get statements from everyone.”
“I’m going to the hospital with my father,” Jamie said.
“You know procedure better than that, officer,” Callahan said. “You’re a material witness, and you’ve just described an officer-involved shooting. You’re suspended pending a hearing on the shooting, and you aren’t going anywhere until I get a statement.”
“There won’t be room on the choppers,” O’Shea said kindly to Jamie.
“Then take my statement here. Now, while we’re waiting for the chopper.”
The lieutenant shrugged, exasperated. He looked around but couldn’t find his sidekick. “Murphy, where the hell are you?”
The uniformed cop came back inside after checking on Dickson on the foredeck. “Right here, lieutenant.”
“Alright, Murphy, you keep an eye on the wife. I’ll take this officer back to the cruiser to get her statement.” Callahan turned to Jamie and said, “Come with me.”
O’Shea told Jamie, “Go ahead. I’ll take care of your father, and I’ll wait for you at the hospital.”
Jamie bent over me and gave me a kiss. Then she and Callahan walked out of my vision.
I heard a helicopter. It sounded far away, as though it were on television in another room. I was cold and felt as though I were falling off a cliff backward with nothing to stop me. Please, God, don’t let her win. At some point, I felt motion. It made me nauseous, but the nausea didn’t last long as I drifted toward unconsciousness. To our left the sun dove into the Gulf. Then I was engulfed by darkness.