Blood in the Water

by Jack Flynn

  Buddy and Diamond were helping Cormack down into the salon, where it was warm. Diamond stripped off his gloves and worked to untie his boots. They were caked with ice, and it took a few minutes to make progress. Cicero went down the stairs toward the state rooms. He found the hatch and pulled it up. He switched the flashlight on and aimed it around the hold below the hatch. He could see the interior of the hull and couldn’t see any water in there.

  He pulled his head out, closed the hatch and headed back up to the salon. ‘Doesn’t look like we’re going to sink,’ he said to Cormack. ‘You should get out of these clothes.’

  ‘In a minute,’ Cormack said. ‘Go back up and tell skip to head south as fast as he can.’

  ‘South?’

  ‘Soh’s got a boat on the northwest side of Long Island. If we come around the tip and head back north toward the city, he may be able to cut us off. If we head south to Weymouth, we can make it there before Soh could find us on the water. The harbormaster there can give us a covered slip. He’ll get us a car, too. It’s the safest way.’

  Cicero nodded. ‘I’ll let him know. You need to get out of that suit, though. Hypothermia will set in, if it hasn’t already.’

  Cormack nodded. ‘I’ll go down and get changed.’

  ‘There’s a mirror,’ Cicero said. ‘Make sure you haven’t been shot.’

  ‘I think I’d feel it by now,’ Cormack said.

  ‘Maybe. Just make sure.’

  Cormack struggled to his feet and made his way to the stairs that led down to the state rooms. He took hold of the railing, but turned before he headed down. He looked at his daughter and gave her a weak smile. ‘The next time I tell you to stay at home, you better goddamned listen.’

  She nodded as a tear ran down her cheek. ‘I had to go to the doctor.’

  She looked hesitantly at Buddy. Cormack understood, and said, ‘You two have some things to discuss. I’ll be downstairs.’ He nodded at his daughter. ‘When you’re ready, we’ve got a fresh change of clothes for you, too, down here.’ He went down the stairs, leaving Buddy and Diamond alone.

  ‘I have something I need to tell you,’ Diamond started, hesitantly.

  ‘I know,’ Buddy said. ‘Your father already told me.’

  Diamond just looked at him, as though frightened to say anything. She was sitting on a chair, her arms pulled around her, still fighting off the cold. Buddy went over and knelt in front of her. He put his arms around her.

  ‘I’m not asking for anything from you,’ Diamond said. The tears were flowing freely now. ‘This is my decision. So it’s my responsibility. You’re not on the hook.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Buddy said, stroking her hair gently. ‘It will all be OK.’

  She buried her face in his chest. ‘Will it?’

  He forced a smile. ‘It will. I promise.’

  She didn’t smile back. He took her in his arms and kissed her, and she reciprocated. After a moment, she pulled away. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘You’re suit’s wet,’ she said. ‘And I feel gross.’

  ‘Go get changed. I’ll be down in a second.’

  She nodded and stood up, rubbing her fingers through his hair as she separated from him. He stayed there on his knees for a moment, in silent prayer – for what, exactly, he wasn’t entirely sure. Then he got to his feet and opened the door at the rear of the salon. He stepped back out onto the deck and watched the mainland shoreline stream by as the boat sped south.

  A moment later Cormack stepped out onto the deck with him. ‘Things OK with the two of you?’ he asked.

  Buddy shrugged. ‘I think things are going to be all right, eventually. Better than all right, maybe. I hope.’ He looked at Cormack. ‘Are you good with that?’

  Cormack shrugged. ‘It’s not for me to judge. Besides, I’ve got bigger things to worry about.’

  ‘This thing with Soh isn’t over, is it?’ Buddy said.

  ‘It’s barely started,’ Cormack said.

  Buddy looked uncomfortable. ‘You’re gonna need help.’

  Cormack looked at him, frowning. He needed all the men he could get, he knew. Even one more might make the difference. ‘You’ve got responsibilities now.’

  Buddy nodded. ‘I do. But she’s not gonna be safe if this thing isn’t taken care of. Our child isn’t gonna be safe.’

  ‘It’s gonna get uglier. Are you prepared for that?’

  ‘I did all right back out there, on the island.’

  ‘That’s true, you did.’ Cormack sighed. He knew Buddy was right, but he also knew the risks. ‘If you fight this thing, and you die, Diamond will never forgive me.’

  ‘If I don’t fight this thing, and you die, she’ll never forgive me,’ Buddy responded. ‘Your daughter could never love a coward.’ The boat was pulling into Weymouth Harbor, and Olney eased off the throttle. ‘Once we’re through this, I’ll make sure they’re safe,’ Buddy said. ‘I can promise you that.’

  The boat slowed and eased its way forward. Cormack breathed in the cold air. ‘I understand how hard you’ll try to keep that promise,’ he said. ‘But it’s been my experience that there’s no way to keep bad things from happening to the ones we love. In the end, that’s up to God.’

  Fifty-Three

  Special Agent Kit Steele was sitting at her desk at eight o’clock in the morning when her cell phone rang. She’d tried to sleep the night before, but it had been a futile exercise. She came into the office to keep busy and to try to quell her imagination. She was reading through all the information she had on Vincente Carpio, looking for anything she might have missed in the past. The attempt at distracting herself was only partially successful, though. Imaginations aren’t always easy to silence, she’d learned over the years.

  She picked up her cell phone, her heart racing as the caller ID registered. It was his number. She clicked on the call and waited.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said. She recognized Cormack O’Connell’s voice, and she took a deep, grateful breath.

  ‘How did it go?’ she asked. They kept their phone conversations general as a precaution.

  ‘I’ve had better nights,’ he said. ‘But I’ve had worse nights, too, so I guess it went as well as I could have expected.’

  ‘How’s Diamond?’

  ‘She’s safe for now. That’s all that matters.’

  ‘Just for now?’

  ‘It’s still a dangerous world out there,’ he said. ‘That hasn’t changed.’

  ‘Too bad,’ she said.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Can we meet?’

  ‘That might be difficult. Do you have information?’

  ‘Nothing useful. It would still be good to meet, though.’ Steele kept her voice even, but she couldn’t deny her need to see him again.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll try to figure something out. I’ll let you know.’

  The line went dead, but she kept the phone to her ear for a moment, a part of her hoping to hear his voice again. Finally she put the phone back on top of her desk.

  Her office phone rang, and she picked it up. ‘Steele here.’

  ‘It’s Martin.’

  ‘Special Agent Martin,’ she said. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

  ‘I wish it was a pleasure,’ he said. ‘You told me that information would go both ways. It doesn’t feel like that’s a promise you’re living up to.’

  ‘If I have information to give, my first phone call will be to you,’ she lied. ‘That’s the best I can do.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘You have my word.’ She marveled at how easily she was able to betray others in law enforcement at this point. It was for the greater good, though, she told herself.

  ‘There was a war out on the harbor last night,’ Martin said. ‘You know anything about that?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘No one knows for sure. There was a series of explosions and gunfire out around Long Island. From our reports, it lasted for ten
minutes or so. But it was late, and there were no boats at the ready, so it took a couple hours to get people over there to check it out. By then it was light, and everything was gone. It looks like someone was using Fort Strong as some sort of a hideout. No one’s talking along the waterfront, though. You sure you haven’t heard anything?’

  ‘Like I said,’ Kit reassured him, ‘if I hear anything, you’ll be the first to know.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Martin said. ‘This feels like it’s getting out of control.’ Steele remained silent. ‘When is Carpio due in court?’

  ‘Next Wednesday,’ Kit said. The word seemed to stick in her throat.

  ‘One week,’ Martin said. ‘Not much time.’

  ‘Not much time,’ Kit agreed.

  ‘OK,’ Martin relented. ‘If you need any help making sure you’ve got all the bases covered, let me know.’

  ‘Will do,’ Kit said. Martin hung up, and Kit lingered with the phone against her ear. In her heart she knew that one week wasn’t nearly enough time to make sure all the bases were covered, no matter how much help she had.

  Fifty-Four

  Saturday 9 February

  ‘The police will bring him in through here.’

  Javier Carpio was leaning over a table in the back room of a garage near the harbor in Charlestown, speaking to T’phong Soh and his men. The room was far more cramped than the space at the Eastie warehouse, but Soh was determined to move to a new location every day. Cormack O’Connell’s successful raid at Fort Strong served as a reminder that the Irishman’s information network along the water could not be challenged. Soh had been overconfident. He’d been stupid. He’d had the advantage, and now he’d lost it. He was angry, but there was nothing to do about it. Now he had to focus on the plan to help Vincente Carpio escape from custody. Javier and his brother had offered Soh the opportunity to take over a large portion of the drug trade in the United States. If they were able to break Carpio free, they would conclude their bargain and Cormack O’Connell would no longer be an issue – Soh would be able to crush him in a matter of months, and then he could start the process of putting in place his own power base in the harbor. He would have unlimited funds, and nearly unlimited power – as long as he could keep O’Connell from interfering in the next few days. The union head’s network was still tied in, and he could still pose a threat to the plans to spring Vincente Carpio – Javier had made it clear that there would be no agreement as long as his brother was in the hands of the American authorities.

  There were a dozen men around the table, and they were looking at maps of the waterfront. As Soh considered the strategic options, he realized that he might have been overly optimistic in his ability to break Vincente Carpio from US custody. In reality, the chances of getting through the security at the courthouse were extremely low.

  ‘Courthouse Way,’ Soh said, following Carpio’s finger on the map. It was a one-block dead-end lane that led to the back of the courthouse and the edge of Boston Harbor. ‘They’ll have the courthouse surrounded,’ he pointed out.

  Javier nodded. ‘They will. But the lawyer says they will focus on the area along Northern Avenue, where the cars will turn onto Courthouse Way, and where there will most likely be crowds of people.’

  ‘Once he is through that point, it will be impossible to get him away. Even if we could get to him, we would have to fight back out Courthouse Way to Northern Avenue, where most of the police will be,’ Soh pointed out. ‘We have to get to him before that.’ He looked at the map and considered the streets leading to the courthouse. ‘Does the lawyer know which direction they will come down Northern Avenue? From the north or the south?’

  Javier nodded. ‘From the north.’

  ‘Do we know what time they will bring him?’ Soh asked.

  ‘The hearing is scheduled for two o’clock. The lawyer says that they will arrive at the courthouse before noon.’

  Soh examined the maps, looking for a weakness – a flaw in the defenses that they could exploit – but he could see nothing.

  It was Javier who stated the obvious. ‘We must attack on Northern Avenue. In front of the Courthouse, as they slow down to turn.’

  Soh considered that for a moment before shaking his head. ‘It will be suicide.’

  ‘There will be a crowd. We can use them as a distraction,’ Javier persisted.

  That was true, but Soh wasn’t convinced. ‘I still don’t like it,’ he said.

  ‘Do you have a better plan?’ Javier asked.

  Soh did not, and they both knew it.

  ‘We will need men,’ Javier continued. ‘They will need to be armed. Can you see to it?’

  Soh nodded. He saw no other option. He wanted to point out that a plan to try to free Vincente Carpio was madness, but the lure of the riches the Carpios could provide if they were successful was too tempting to pass up. More than that, Soh knew that if he backed off now, Cormack O’Connell would come for him – and without the riches that the drug routes would provide, it was more than likely that Soh would be dead in a matter of weeks. ‘I will make sure we are prepared,’ he said.

  Javier nodded and left the room. In dribs and drabs Soh’s men drifted away, until Soh was left only with Juan Suarez standing by his side, looking over the maps on the table. They could both sense the trepidation in their men as they melted into the larger spaces of the garage.

  ‘You are troubled,’ the loyal lieutenant noted.

  Soh nodded slowly.

  ‘But there is no better plan.’

  Soh nodded again. ‘Not one that we can see. But Javier Carpio must know that this plan is suicide. And he would not sacrifice his brother.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Suarez admitted.

  ‘There is something that he is keeping from us. Some part of the plan that he is keeping to himself.’

  Suarez considered this for a moment. ‘That is not all that is troubling you, is it?’

  Soh shook his head.

  ‘What else?’

  Soh looked at Suarez. The bruises from the man’s mistreatment at the hands of Cormack O’Connell’s men were still prominent on his face. ‘I have heard rumors about arms being brought to harbor,’ Soh said. ‘Very dangerous arms. I must find out whether there is anything to them.’

  Fifty-Five

  Diamond O’Connell lay in her bed in Cormack’s house, curled up on her side. Buddy was wrapped around her, one arm tucked under her head, the other heavy on her shoulder and arm. It felt good. Not good enough to wipe away the terror of the past few days, but better than she ever thought she’d be able to feel again.

  His arm moved, and she felt his hand caress down her chest toward her abdomen. At first she thought he was trying to entice her. That would have been his style, she thought. He had always been driven by his sexual attraction to her. Truth be told, she had always been the same with him, so she had trouble faulting him – though she also knew that she wasn’t ready yet. Not after what she’d been through.

  She was about to warn him off, gently, when his hand’s southerly journey stopped. He rested his palm on her belly, rubbing gently in a circle. The gentleness of his touch felt wonderfully intimate, and it took a moment before she realized what he was doing.

  He’s rubbing the baby.

  The thought made her heart throb. Could it be that he was genuinely happy about the prospect of being a father? It seemed almost impossible. She’d known that he was a certain type of man when she had taken up with him, and she was too streetwise to believe that people change. Not really.

  And yet there was always a chance, she was beginning to think, that she’d been wrong about him. That possibility brought with it a flood of contradictory emotions. She was thrilled at the notion that she might actually have a love and a partner in her life, but the thought of relying on someone – counting on them as she set expectations for what her life would be – terrified her. She had spent her life relying solely on herself, and never expecting anything from anyone else. She loved Mack,
and they had developed a comfortable level of interaction and trust, but it had never risen to the level of reliance on her part, and she suspected it never would. Particularly now that she had a better understanding of how dangerous and illicit his business was, she would never put her future in his hands.

  Now, for just a moment, she felt as though there might be something more to life than a lonely existence of self-protection. And the rational, protective part of her brain rebelled against such a notion.

  She rolled over and looked Buddy in the eyes. They were so close together that his face was a blur.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re going to help my father, aren’t you,’ she said. It wasn’t a question, and she could see how uncomfortable he was with the fact that she knew his mind so well.

  ‘I have to,’ he said. ‘It’s the only way I can be sure that you’ll be safe. That the baby will be safe.’

  ‘And when this is over?’ she asked. ‘If you survive, where do we go then?’

  It was clear that he hadn’t really thought that far ahead, and the question took him by surprise. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘I mean, what do we do after? Are you going to get a real job? I mean a legitimate job. Are you going to settle down and get out of the game? That won’t happen if you’re working at the harbor.’

  He sat up in bed, and looked down at her. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve always been a hustler. I’ll always be yours, though.’

  ‘That’s it?’ she asked. ‘That’s all you can promise? You can’t at least sit there and tell me that you’ll try to get out, that you’ll try to make a normal life for me and our baby?’

  He thought about that for a moment. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t tell you that. The reality is that I like the life. I like the risk and I like the excitement. It’s a part of who I am.’