When you kill another person, part of you dies as well.
What kind of permanent damage would she have to live with? She’d worried about long-term emotional scars Jackie might suffer, but that concern had been a Band-Aid that kept her attention from her own concerns. Until now. Standing up slowly, she bent over Antonio’s inert form and looked at what had been his face. It was a caved-in Halloween mask now.
This was meant to be.
Where had that thought come from? It was almost as if the voice of a complete stranger had entered her mind uninvited. Meant to be? What did that mean? How could it have been? Had she been born under a cursed star, destined to become a murderer?
Wait. That wasn’t murder—it was self-defense.
Except it wasn’t.
The man had been lying on the ground, defenseless and injured. He’d posed no immediate threat to her, or Jackie. She had simply lifted her flimsy canvas sneaker and driven her heel into the bridge of his nose, his chin, his mouth, his forehead, again and again until she ran out of steam. She’d meant to deprive him of life. She had, quite simply, murdered the man.
Bullshit. His presence in this room was threat enough.
He’d raped and tortured Jackie. He’d have done it again, and he’d have done the same to her eventually. He was strong, injured or not.
Christie sat back down on the crate with a deep sigh.
“CJ? Honey?”
“Yeah, Jax.”
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank—thank—thank—God, I love you, CJ,” Jackie said. She began to cry as she did, softly at first and then much harder.
Christie stepped over Antonio’s body and sat on the edge of Jackie’s bunk, stroking her hair, soothing her.
It’s nice to be appreciated, said the voice in her head.
She knew she’d lost a part of herself—forever.
And found another. A part she never knew she had.
Eventually Jackie drifted off to sleep.
Much later, the cabin door opened, and Tom stepped in. He looked at Antonio’s still form on the floor and then at Christie, who signaled him to be quiet.
“She’s sleeping,” Christie whispered.
Tom laughed softly and then stepped back out and pulled the cabin door shut.
He returned a few minutes later with another sailor, who helped him drag Antonio out through to the passageway. They left the door open, and Christie heard Tom say, “We need help getting him up the stairs.”
“What do we do with him?”
“Out to sea. He goes over the side.”
So much for her naïve idea that these men were affiliated with law enforcement.
Be prepared, said the voice in her head. You may have to do it again.
That voice really scared her. But it comforted her at the same time.
She felt the vibration of the ship change. It felt like they were turning. They must be getting ready to dock. She stood silently for several minutes, listening and feeling the motion of the ship. After a time, she was fairly certain the boat had docked.
It surprised her that the cabin door was still open. She stepped through, pulling it almost closed behind her but leaving it open just a sliver so it would not lock.
She made her way to the stairs. The trail of blood ran up them. She followed it to the deck, surprised to find it had grown dark outside. The only light came from the bulbs in wire cages along the bulkhead. She could see the blood trail, growing thinner, leading to the very same spot along the railing where she’d been seasick.
They were parked beside Ventura Harbor. Kenehan, Partridge, Jensen and Sand watched from Timmy Schaefer’s awful Subaru as two Asians escorted Beeman across a boarding ramp onto a large cabin cruiser that had seen better days.
Kenehan relayed the location, name and registration number of the vessel to Thomas. Ventura Harbor was the perfect place for the North Koreans to stage an exfiltration. Yachts, cabin cruisers and small freighters of similar girth trolled in and out of the harbor and its adjoining marina every day.
“Time to call in the feds,” Thomas said. “If the girls are alive, they’re likely on that boat. Beeman, the girls and the Koreans are all in one place, with the virus. We can have an FBI SWAT team there in less than an hour.”
As he listened to these words, Kenehan watched in horror as the deckhands started untying lines bound to cleats on the deck.
“We don’t have that kind of time, Grayhound. They’re prepping to cast off. We’ve got to move in the next five minutes.”
“Negative, Tomahawk. If they go to sea, the Coast Guard will intercept.”
“Grayhound. This is our gig. We own this.”
Brecht’s voice came on. “You’re the boots on the ground, Tomahawk.”
“We’re going in hot in five.”
“Leave your comm open. We’ll have backup and medical help there soon.”
“By the time they get here, this will be over one way or another. Tell them to bring a chopper, in case the boat makes it to open water.”
“Roger, Tomahawk. Good hunting.”
Are you fucking kidding me? Another gunfight on a boat?
Kenehan turned to face Jensen in the back seat. Beside him, Sand was slipping his Colt beneath his waistband.
“They’re—”
“I heard,” Jensen said. “Give me a gun, goddamn it!”
Kenehan nodded to Partridge, who pulled a Glock 19 from his pack and handed it to Jensen. It comforted Kenehan that Jensen press-checked the weapon, noted that the chamber was empty and then extracted the magazine to verify the load. Then the lawyer slammed the mag back into the well and racked the slide. He tucked the pistol into his pants as he’d seen Sand do.
Sand was now unzipping the case containing his Japanese short sword. He pulled it out and slid the scabbard under his belt, whispering, “The sword is the soul …” The weapon wasn’t that large—Kenehan had seen large combat knives almost as long—but it exuded a venerable lethality that was ancient, undeniable. The way Sand’s hands caressed the weapon told Kenehan it was more than just a tool. It was a lover; this was obviously an old and time-worn affair. The repeating black-and-white pattern of the elongated two-hand grip reminded him of the snake he’d come across in training two weeks ago in the Florida Everglades.
Had that been an omen pointing to this moment?
Sand’s eyes were not visible in the darkness of the car, but the set of his mouth and the steadiness of his movements spoke to Roady of a warrior who had been waiting for a long time to get back to doing what he was born to do.
Partridge checked his own Glock. Then he distributed a handful of tie wraps to Kenehan. “Prisoners,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be taking some.”
Tonight, we fight or die.
He pulled his Wilson, which—unlike his custom 1911—was equipped with a threaded barrel from its leather holster on his right hip, screwing a short suppressor onto the threaded barrel, and slid the pistol into his waist-band, where there was room for the now-elongated weapon. He had three spare magazines in pouches on his left hip. Four more in his back pockets. His Microtec knife—a tiny automated version of Sand’s tanto—was clipped in his right pants pocket. In his left pocket, he had a SureFire tactical light. He adjusted the comm unit at his throat.
“Okay,” he said. “When I get out of the car, I’m going to walk up the gangplank like I own the boat. You follow at a distance but not too far back. I’ll neutralize those two guys as quietly as possible and wait for you there. When you join up with me, we’ll split into two groups—Jensen, you’re with me—and work our way through the ship. Try to avoid lethal force, but—”
Partridge finished for him. “No letters to Mama.”
Kenehan had spent enough time aboard oceangoing vessels to know when a ship was preparing for hasty disembarkation. The activity on deck signaled departure was imminent. They were rushing to complete final preparations to cast off. They’d be heading out to sea in a few minutes.
He
banished thoughts of the Cogliano from his mind.
Here and now, baby. This fight is this fight, and no other fight is this fight.
Two more deckhands joined the first two, so Kenehan would have to deal with four men rather than two. Fortunately, none of them held weapons in their hands, but Kenehan could not tell what was under their shirts. He’d have to assume they were armed and knew how to fight. If the DPRK had dispatched these men for a job of this magnitude, they were likely special forces, and they didn’t look malnourished.
A deckhand started untying the lines secured to cleats on the gangplank, preparing to release them. A harbor hand was walking toward the ship to assist in retracting the gangplank.
Show time, baby.
He drew his Wilson and held it behind his right thigh as he strode purposefully up the ramp. As soon as he did so, one of the deckhands produced an AK-74 from nowhere and pointed it at him.
Training took over.
Front sight. Squeeze, squeeze.
Two shots to the chest, and the man dropped like a sack full of hammers. His rifle clattered when it hit the deck. Five thousand rounds a week for a nearly a year will give you that ability. He dropped to one knee and fired three more times, hitting each of the remaining men in the chest. Two dropped immediately; the last remained standing, clutching at his chest with a look of terror on his face. Kenehan gave him a Jeff Cooper failure drill—following the two rounds to the man’s chest with one to his head—and the man dropped out of the fight.
Pressing the release button behind the trigger, Kenehan dropped his partially depleted magazine, speed-reloaded and kept moving up the gangplank. He stopped to pick up the AK and a spare magazine for it from beneath the dead man’s belt; then he signaled with his hand for the rest of his team to join him.
Christie heard the gunshots and froze.
What was going on? It was like the moment in the cabin, under the protective guard of the Oriental men when she’d heard the sound of them shooting Asshole and heard him cry out.
Another rescue? This time for real?
She had to get to the side of the boat where she could see the dock, to get some idea of what was happening. She thought of diving over the side, but she couldn’t leave Jackie. She crept quietly along the deck.
She heard voices behind her, so she sprinted for the stern, her head down, her arms pumping, her legs jacking her forward.
As she came to the corner, she saw a man gunned down by someone shooting from behind him. She turned back and sprinted toward the bow of the ship. She flew up a ladder and rolled onto the foredeck.
“I’ll go forward. You two go aft,” Kenehan said.
Partridge led Sand to the back of the boat, signaling him to stop as they reached the afterdeck. Just as he did so, he felt something hard pressing into his kidney. “Drop your gun and get down on your belly,” said a heavily accented voice behind him.
Fuck, not again!
This was worse than what had happened during training. Someone had caught him unaware once again. He felt giddy with failure and resignation. What was wrong with him? He froze for a moment, considering his options. Dizziness rocked him.
He had no choice. He’d have to comply.
Just then he heard a sound that made him think of a comedian he’d loved as a young man, famous for smashing watermelons with a sledgehammer—Gallagher. Then a voice whispered in his ear. “Keep going.”
Partridge turned and saw Sand. At his feet was the headless body of a sailor.
He turned back to look toward the stern of the ship, raising his gun once more and continuing to move toward the stern. One man came around the corner, and he dropped that one with a single shot to the chest.
Then everything went forever black as a bullet from behind him tore away the top of his skull.
Kenehan crept softly toward the ladder that led up to the flying bridge. He moved slowly, doing his best to “pie” corners—edging around them with his pistol up gripped in both hands with his arms outstretched, so he’d have an early shot on anyone waiting around the corners. It slowed him down, but it was the only way to move around a corner in a gunfight.
He heard gunfire behind him. He turned and dropped to one knee, his pistol and his eyes tracking as a single unit.
Looking down the length of the deck, he watched in horror as a man came out from behind a storage locker and put a gun to Partridge’s back. Then Sand appeared behind that man—who knew where from—and like the samurai he was, he beheaded the man with a single stroke.
Rock on, Sandman.
Just as Partridge started moving again, another man came from the front of the ship behind Kenehan and fired a few rounds from another AK. One of the rounds sliced the air near Kenehan’s ear, continuing on its journey to pulp Partridge’s brain.
Kenehan watched Sodbuster fall.
Oh. Letter to Mama.
I’ll say a prayer for you, to make it through to the other side.
Then Sand was gone again.
Turning on one knee once again, Kenehan flattened all the way to the deck and fired two rounds with his own AK. The man who had killed Partridge staggered backward, fell against the railing and then dropped to the deck.
Kenehan gave him a security round to the head and kept moving.
From the bridge of the ship, Beeman heard gunfire and knew instantly what was happening.
The killing would be random, he realized, and he knew that if he showed himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, a bullet would end his life.
Death did not frighten Beeman, but he didn’t want to die this way. He looked at the two men standing with him, as if for guidance, and one of them barked a command: “Remain here! Under no circumstances do you leave the bridge.”
Both men disappeared through the hatch closest to the pier. The sound of intermittent gunfire continued. Beeman moved toward a hatch on the opposite side of the bridge—the one facing the ocean—and stepped through it.
He looked over the railing at the water below. It was quite a drop, but he could do it. The pain in his ribs was just bearable. As quickly as he could with his bruised ribs, he climbed over, took a deep breath and let go.
Jensen caught up to Kenehan and watched in horror as he fired a finishing round into the head of the man who had killed Partridge. When he’d been in the Air Force, his kind of killing was at a distance, in his fighter.
With even greater horror, he watched another man with an assault rifle lean over the railing of the deck above and aim at Roady. Yet another man rounded the corner with a pistol, also aiming at Roady. They would fire on him at the same time, and they’d appeared so unexpectedly, he hadn’t seen either one of them.
Jensen’s arm came up fast, and he started squeezing the trigger while he pressed Roady back against the bulkhead with his free hand. The man with the handgun went down fast, just as a curtain of bullets rained onto the deck where they had been standing an instant ago.
When the fusillade subsided, Kenehan jumped out, aiming quickly upward, and fired two careful rounds. Then he flattened his back against the wall once again, beside Jensen. He turned quickly and hammered a pair of rounds into the man Jensen had just sprayed bullets into. Kenehan flattened against the bulkhead again, dropped the magazine into his left hand to check it, shook his head and pulled the spare from his back pocket. He quickly switched out the magazines, jamming the new one into the well, hammering it home and then slapping the bolt into battery with the butt of his left hand.
It took about three seconds.
Jensen had never seen anything like it.
And Jesus, I just killed that man. He was dead before Roady hit him.
Jensen had killed from the cockpit in his Viper with missiles and cannon but never up close.
Kenehan turned to face him. “Fucking awesome, dude,” he said. “Go into battle with you anytime. Let’s go get the girls.”
The two men climbed a ladder and found themselves on the foredeck.
Topping the l
adder on the opposite side of the foredeck, Christie looked up when she caught movement in her peripheral vision. She couldn’t believe what she saw: her father, with a gun in his hand and blood on his shirt, looking back down the opposite side of the ship as gunfire echoed and the sound of rounds skimming the deck near his feet followed a split second later.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
She tried to call out, but her voice caught in her throat.
Beside her father appeared a younger man with a combat rifle and long hair tied back, also looking back down the ship. The man looked deadly. He met her eyes, opening his mouth as if to speak, and then turned his head again. His rifle came up fast and then locked steady, pointing down the opposite side of the boat from which she’d come. Four deafening reports sounded, and flame spit from the barrel of his gun. Then he darted out of her field of view.
Her dad remained behind.
Tears streamed from her eyes. Thank God!
She was alone on the foredeck with her father.
She forced her voice to work: “DADDY!”
Jensen jammed his gun into his waistband and ran to her.
They came crashing together, both crying, kissing; their tears mixed as they turned slowly in space, crushing each other with love. “Oh, my baby, my baby!” Jensen crooned into her ear, stroking the back of her head. “We’re going home now.” He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, everywhere on her face, while he cried.
She couldn’t let go of her daddy. She would never let go of her daddy.
Until she saw yet another man, an Asian, coming up the ladder she’d just climbed, with a pistol in his hand. In what almost seemed like slow motion, she watched as he paused at the top of the ladder and raised the gun, pointing it at them.
She stepped in front of her father to protect him—at least from the first shot or two.
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