“Okay,” he said. “Light ‘em up!”
Laser aiming dots suddenly appeared on the chest of each of the surviving Cartel gunmen.
Corcoran’s men fired. One shot, then two, then a third.
All of the Cartel gunmen slumped to the ground. No theatrics. No screams. No return fire. They just got shot and fell down.
Keeping their guns aimed at the fallen men, the policemen quickly walked to where they lay in a sodden heap. One of the men was Bruno Banderas, lying on his back in the weeds, his chest covered with blood. Corcoran knelt beside him. Banderas blinked up at him with an expression of bewilderment, fear and hate. “Hey, Bruno,” Chief Corcoran said, not unkindly. “Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?” Then he shot him through the head. Around him, his men were dispatching the others. There would be no witnesses.
“Okay,” Corcoran ordered. “You know what to do. Get those packages into the trunk of the spare car and get them out of here. Rest of you, open my trunk and get what’s in there. You two,” he pointed at Duffy and Higgins, “put on some gloves, take an AK from each of these assholes and come with me. Move it!” he barked, and the men sprang into action.
Corcoran took Duffy and Higgins to the edge of the tree line, where he raised his binoculars and scanned the far bank.
Duffy and Higgins glanced at each other in confusion. “Uh, sir, what is it we’re doing, exactly?” Duffy asked hesitantly.
“There’s a man over there who is a threat to us,” Corcoran said, eyes glued to the binoculars. Once I spot him, I want you two to shoot him, then we’ll join the others.”
“Yes, sir,” Duffy said.
______________
Frank Finley fired another burst into the south side of the Cove, but there was no return fire. He waited a moment, and when there was still no return fire, he cautiously stuck his head out and scanned the Cove with his binoculars. It was hard to see much, but as far as he could see, there was no one there.
“Christ Jesus, I think they’re gone,” he said loudly. He stood up from behind the rock that had been shielding him and stepped towards the water’s edge. “Sing out!” he called to his men. “Anybody else hurt? Anybody missing?”
______________
Across the Cove, Chief Corcoran saw a figure suddenly stand up and heard a voice call. He studied the shape of the man carefully through the binoculars, the way he moved and held himself, then smiled savagely. “Got you, you little weasel.” He turned to Duffy and Higgins. “Guy who just stood up. Can you see him?”
Duffy was looking through his scope. He’d been more than a little surprised when the man had suddenly stood up. He’d had pretty good cover, so long as he stayed behind it. “I got him, Chief.”
“Higgins, you got him?” Corcoran asked.
Higgins frowned, moving the scope slowly along the tree line. Then, “Got him!”
Corcoran nodded. “He’s wearing a vest, so you’re going to have to hit him hard, unless you think you can get a head shot.”
Duffy calculated. “If we both hit him with a three-round burst in the chest, odds of causing internal damage are pretty good. Hard to guarantee a head shot in this light, though.”
“Tell you what,” Higgins said. “You go for the chest, I’ll go for the head. Might get lucky.”
“On ‘one,’ do it,” Corcoran told them. “Three…two…one.”
They fired simultaneously.
Chief Corcoran lowered the binoculars. “Shit, where’d he go?”
Duffy grinned. “Knocked him ass over teakettle into the trees.”
“Did you get the headshot?”
Higgins shrugged. “We shot at the same time. I had a pretty good bead on him, but in this light I couldn’t tell for sure if I got him or not.”
“We fucked him up, for sure,” Duffy laughed.
______________
Finley never knew what hit him. One second he was getting reports from his men, then he felt/heard something zip the air on either side of his head. Then something pounded his chest with hammer blows and his body was jolted back and his feet tangled and over he went, cartwheeling to the ground so that most of his body was once again covered by the low boulder he’d been hiding behind. Now he was on his back, one leg snagged on top of the rock and a vicious, sharp pain in his chest. Bullets whined overhead. He coughed once and hot blood splashed on his chin and chest.
That can’t be good, he thought distantly. Something shifted within him and the pain got weird. It seemed far away, hurting like hell and almost not at all.
Odd. Is this shock? He grinned inwardly, bemused. Feels pretty good. He opened his eyes and looked at the trees above him, birches and pines. Why do they call this Elm Tree Cove? No elms in sight. This was important, though he couldn’t see why.
Honeycutt was standing over him, shouting his name. Finley wished he would just shut up.
And he’d never felt so tired in his life. So tired.
______________
Corcoran shook his head, frustrated. He wanted to know if Finley was dead, but in the distance there was the distinct wailing sound of sirens. Time to get out. “Leave the AKs, then come with me,” he told Duffy and Higgins, “we’ve got more work to do.”
In a few seconds they were out of sight of anyone on the north shore of the Cove. In five minutes, they were back at the cars, where Corcoran gave Duffy his orders again.
“You know what to do,” he told him. “Go, and stay out of sight until I call you.” As soon as Duffy had driven off, Corcoran turned to the rest of his crew. “Only two more things we have to do, guys. Let’s get these packages to the bridge, then we meet up with the Feds. You guys just stand there and look like heroes, I’ll do all the talking.” Corcoran looked at them. “Got it?”
They all nodded.
“Good,” Corcoran said. “Don’t fuck it up now.”
They picked up the three fifty-pound packages and carried them to bridge, just in time to watch four State Police cars pull up, sirens screaming and lights flashing. State Troopers leapt from the cars, guns drawn.
Much too late.
Chapter 61
Night Action
Calvin could feel the Celeste surge as it picked up speed. He searched through the equipment shed for an immersion suit that might protect Jacob from the cold, but found nothing except a flare, which he jammed under the rope Stanley had urged him to take. He looked around, and his eyes fell on a foul-weather jacket with a hood. Hmmm…could he do something with that? It was a size small, which was too small for Jacob, but a little tight might just be what he needed. Rummaging around, he found a roll of duct tape, the universal tool.
“Put this on,” he told his brother, handing him the jacket. Jacob struggled to get into it. The sleeves didn’t reach his wrists, and the hood went over his head with difficulty. Calvin struggled to get the zipper pulled up, but finally got it tight under Jacob’s chin. Calvin stepped back and looked at him.
“Perfect!” he said. Then he ripped off a length of duct tape and circled each sleeve cuff, so it was taped tight against Jacob’s skin, making it – hopefully – watertight. He ran a loop of tape around Jacob’s waist, making the already tight jacket even tighter, then taped the bottom of the jacket to Jacob’s pants. Lastly, he taped the opening of the hood to Jacob’s forehead, cheeks and chin.
“There,” he said, stepping back. “A poor man’s wetsuit. That ought to minimize the flow of water around your chest and allow your body to warm it, just like my wetsuit does.” He frowned. “One more thing, I think.” He tore off another length of tape and put it firmly over the zipper seam, then added a layer to the left and right of the first one.
“Don’t want water to leak in through the zipper,” he said, nodding at his handiwork. “This won’t make you warm, exactly, but it will buy you some time before hypothermia sets in.”
Jacob held out his arms and looked at the duct tape. “I look like a dork,” he complained.
His brother smothered a laugh. “I don’t k
now, Jacob. With all that tape, you look like a 170-pound striped bass. Just hope there’re no sharks out there tonight,” he teased.
Jacob wandered to the vent and peered through. “Hey, Cal,” he called softly. “Coming up on Cats Cove.”
It was time. Calvin worked the action on his pistol to chamber a round. With his left hand he readied his knife, then looked at his brother.
“Out the door, turn right, two steps to the end of the shed, turn right and one or two steps off the back of the boat.” He smiled, trying for reassurance. “Don’t worry if you get cold, I’ll get you to shore. Ready?”
Jacob nodded, his face pale. They stood looking at each other, then embraced, wrapping their arms around each other in a fierce hug.
“I’m sorry you had to come for me,” Jacob said, meaning it.
“I’m not,” Calvin said. They pulled apart, still looking at each other. “Hell, this story will get me laid at college parties for years to come,” he said, cuffing his brother affectionately on the head. “I just wish it had happened earlier, so I could have used it in my college essay. Christ on a crutch, I’d be going to Harvard now.”
Jacob tried to laugh, but he was trembling too much.
“Hey,” Calvin said. “After everything else, this will be the easy part.” He peeked through the ventilation grill in the door. No one was in sight. He slipped the knife blade under the latch and jerked it up, popping the latch. The door swung out.
Calvin stepped briskly through the doorway into the stern work area and immediately turned right.
And ran headlong into Jacques LeBlanc.
It was hard to know which one of them was more surprised. Jacques’ eyes widened in shock and his mouth opened to yell, but Calvin swung the pistol butt up into his throat with a solid thump and the older man staggered back, both hands going to his neck, struggling to breath. Calvin rushed him, smashing him in the chest and forcing him back a step, then back another, until he abruptly tumbled backwards into the ocean.
“Jacques!” Out of nowhere Jean-Philippe LeBlanc was aiming a pistol at Calvin’s head, but Jacob darted forward in a diving tackle, arms wrapped around Calvin’s knees, feet churning. The impact carried them both off the boat and into the night water.
But not before Jean-Philippe LeBlanc shot Calvin in the chest.
______________
In the small boat, Ensign Dunbar prowled up the north side of the inlet, searching in vain for any sign of another boat.
“Christ Almighty, it’s black as an admiral’s heart out here,” he complained mildly.
Jankowski came back to the cockpit. “I got a suggestion, Mr. Dunbar, if that’s all right?”
Dunbar was an ensign and Jankowski only a Seaman, but life on a small boat is pretty informal and Dunbar knew Jankowski had several years of experience with small boats and drug interdiction, while Dunbar had only graduated from the Academy a few months earlier.
“Any advice is fine with me, Mark.” Dunbar throttled back a bit in order to be able to talk easier.
“Well, I used to hunt a lot at home in Wisconsin,” Jankowski said, “and the thing my daddy taught me early is that in the woods, sometimes the best thing you can do is stay still, real quiet like, and listen. You might hear the buck you’re after before you see it. But if you’re movin’ around, you can’t hear nothin’ over your own noise.”
Dunbar resisted the impulse to remind him that there weren’t too many trees about, but simply said, “Okay.”
Jankowski was not deterred. “It’s black as fuck out there tonight, sir. Storm is raising hell with the radar and there’s lot of image noise from all the land around us. I’m not sure we’re going to see anything, but we might hear them if we stop dead quiet and just listen.”
“Huh,” Dunbar grunted. He looked around at the inky darkness. Still a lot of wind and the waves were roiling the surface, but why not try it? He wondered briefly if he needed to inform the Captain, but decided not to quite yet. “Okay, Seaman, you’ve convinced me. Let’s get into the middle of the channel and try it.”
Ten minutes later, sitting in mid-channel, the engines off, they heard the sound of gunfire.
“Christ, was that a gunshot?” Dunbar asked.
“Sounded like one to me,” Seaman Levine said.
Then, distinctly, there were several more “pop! pop!” sounds.
“It really works,” Dunbar enthused. He flicked on the radio. “Big Eyes, this is SB One. We are stopped mid-channel, one mile northwest of your position. We have heard shots from our west. Repeat, shots from our west. Request permission to investigate.”
Captain O’Brien’s voice came back instantly. “SB One, Big Eyes. Permission granted. Report in if you have a contact.”
“Big Eyes, SB One. Proceeding.”
Dunbar couldn’t hide his excitement. “Jankowski, make sure your rifle is handy! Levine, get the .30 cal ready. We’re heading up the inlet to see what’s going on. Keep your eyes peeled, gentlemen!”
______________
The cold water felt like it was crushing Jacob’s chest and squeezing the air from his lungs. Waves pummeled him no matter which way he turned. The Celeste was already pulling away, but there was a figure standing at the stern, firing a pistol at them. Jacob ducked underwater, but his oxygen starved body drove him to the surface within seconds. The figure on the boat fired another two shots, then seemed to run out of bullets. He turned and ran back to the pilothouse.
“Calvin! Calvin!” Jacob shouted. He turned around once, then again. “Calvin!” he shouted desperately. “Where are you?”
Another wave crashed over him, and this time something large struck him hard, pushing him under. Surfacing, he pushed the object away and realized it was Calvin, floating in his wetsuit, face up. Grabbing Calvin’s arm, he pulled him closer. “Calvin! For God’s sake, Calvin, wake up!” But Calvin gave no sign of hearing him.
______________
Ensign Dunbar ran the boat for a thousand yards, then killed the engine and drifted. Everyone strained to hear anything in the darkness.
“Hear anything?” he asked the others. They both shook their heads.
He gave it another minute, then started the outboards and continued deeper into the inlet, but this time he kept the speed down, so that the engines were softly growling rather than howling. He remembered games of hide and seek on summer nights with his brothers when he was little, lying on the ground behind the big rhododendron bush as they prowled by in search of him, the coppery taste of excitement in his mouth.
Of course, his brothers didn’t shoot at him.
“Guys, I am taking us to the south side of the channel,” he called softly and got two nods in reply. Five minutes later he was one hundred yards off the south bank and cut the engine again.
In the front of the boat, Seaman Levine suddenly put up his hand in a clenched fist.
“What?” Dunbar demanded.
“Something out there! When the wind dropped I thought I heard it.” Levine’s voice was high with tension and excitement. He reached down and pulled up the clear ballistic shield and propped it beside him, ready to grab if he needed it.
Then Dunbar heard it, too. “Shit!” he muttered.
It was close.
______________
On the Celeste, Jean-Philippe LeBlanc tried to quell the panic that was rising. Who the fuck was that with Jake Finley? It had all happened so fast. He had turned around to say something to Jacques, only to see someone pushing him overboard. Somehow he’d managed to get his gun up just in time and got a shot off. He’d hit the guy in the wetsuit; hell, he’d seen the blood splatter from the guy’s chest.
But was he dead? When LeBlanc ran to the stern to shoot at them, he couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Were they dead? Jacob was dead, or he would be in twenty minutes when the cold water killed him. But the other guy?
What a clusterfuck.
He went to the pilothouse, advanced the throttle to full and pushed the Celeste fo
r all she was worth. Once he was out of this damned inlet, he would go into the maze of islands, work his way north and run for Canada. There were lots of places to hide in Canada. He hammered the ship’s wheel with his fist. All he needed was a few goddamned minutes, that’s all.
“Jean-Philippe!” His brother, Guy, calling him from the bow and urgently pointing. “Looks like a small boat out there, coming towards us fast!”
LeBlanc cursed. “Lay down on the work deck! Hide yourself as best you can, but be ready to fire! Hurry!” The two men hurried aft.
LeBlanc positioned his rifle in the pilothouse where he could reach it easily, fed a new clip into his pistol, then turned the wheel slightly to angle away from the small craft and into the mid-channel. He wanted room to maneuver, but also wanted to flush out these guys if they were really after the Celeste and this wasn’t just some sort of stupid coincidence. Not that he believed in coincidence.
Sure enough, a light bar began flashing blue and red on the smaller boat and a loudspeaker boomed across the water. “Unidentified craft, this is Homeland Security! Kill your engine and prepare to be searched. This is Homeland Security, kill your engine! We are coming alongside.”
“Get ready down there,” LeBlanc called to his crew. “I’m going to stop and let them get close. Be ready to pop up and shoot when I tell you to. They’ll have a machine gun mounted in the bow. Go for the gunner first, then the rest.”
He picked up his mic and flipped on the loudspeaker. “What is this all about? I am taking my boat to North Harbor for repairs. Why are you stopping me?”
The loudspeaker from the other boat boomed back. “This is Homeland Security. You are ordered to kill your engines and we will come alongside. If you do not comply, you will be fired upon.”
“Don’t get your shorts in an uproar,” LeBlanc replied, throttling back. “But I can’t turn off my engines in this weather without risk to my boat. I need to maintain my orientation into the wind or I’ll breach. You’re supposed to be a fucking sailor, you should know that!” LeBlanc was trying for mildly aggrieved and thought he got it right.
North Harbor Page 38