Open Carry

by Marc Cameron

  “None of this matters,” Carmen sniffed, regaining a semblance of composure. “Don’t you understand? We’ll all be dead in fifteen minutes.”

  January kept her hands raised as she went inside, unescorted since they had Cassandra as a hostage. Maybe her plan could work after all.

  A lot could happen in fifteen minutes.

  CHAPTER 46

  LOLA FONTAINE STOOD ON TOP OF A SPRUCE STUMP AS BIG AROUND as her dining room table. Hundreds of identical stumps, remnants of a clear-cutting timber operation from years before, stuck up through thick underbrush on the steep incline above the road. It was no wonder there were so many deer on the island.

  Less than a hundred feet from the stump forest, a yellow backhoe grumped and growled as it labored over the mountain of mud and sticks that had cut off her boss from the rest of the world—at least by road. Fontaine figured Cutter didn’t really mind, since he had a warm boat to sleep on and, if his reputation as a ladies’ man was to be believed, a little something extra to pass the stormy night.

  The rattle and squeal of the backhoe seemed sacrilegious in the quiet wilderness. The machine was able to move massive quantities of dirt and debris, but the ground was already saturated from the melting winter snow, rendering it a slow and tedious process. Every bucketful the backhoe moved allowed space for more mud and shredded roots to slide down the fragile mountainside. Sam said they’d probably be able to squeeze by in a half hour or so. Which was good, because Fontaine was pretty certain Cutter would need a Jiminy Cricket by now—and she couldn’t do that if she was cut off from him by heaps of mud.

  The trooper stood behind his Tahoe, talking to his sergeant who couldn’t seem to get it through his thick head that they had done a bang-up job with little or no assistance from the brass of any agency. Gerald Burkett was drying out, and hadn’t been allowed to destroy his life by killing the piece of shit, Kenny Douglas, who had been screwing around with his little girl—and probably murdered her. Douglas was also in jail. As was Hayden Starnes.

  The trooper folded the antenna on his satellite phone and walked down the gravel road to the backhoe. The operator took off his hearing protection and the two men spoke briefly.

  “Looks like another twenty minutes,” Benjamin said, climbing up the hill to the base of Fontaine’s stump. “I tried to call January’s boat on the marine radio, but I’m not getting through. Hope your hotheaded boss is okay.”

  Fontaine motioned for the trooper to climb up with a flick of her wrist. Rolling green mountains, pockets of fog, and even a sliver of the ocean lay below her. The view was too good not to share.

  “Don’t worry about Cutter,” she said. “I’m sure he’s having the time of his life.”

  * * *

  Cutter floated on the opposite side of Tide Dancer from the new vessel, his mouth just above the surface of the water. He’d slipped below for a quick moment and held his breath while he peeled off the neoprene hood so he could better hear what was going on topside. So far, at least, adrenaline kept him from noticing the cold.

  January obviously had some kind of plan. He just couldn’t picture one that didn’t involve her ending up hypothermic—or worse. The zipper on her dry suit might hold up for a short time, if she was lucky. But the odds were, it was going to flood within moments after she hit the water.

  Cutter took stock of his gear—which wasn’t much. The tank had plenty of air left and he had a working dive light. The small, three-inch blade clipped to the belt of his BC was meant for cutting line. His grandfather had taught him there wouldn’t be a need for any violent action underwater. Wrong about that one, Grumpy, he thought.

  “Come outside to get dressed,” a derisive male voice called out above. “I do not like to be where I cannot see what you are doing.”

  Cutter heard the cabin door open and January’s shuffling footsteps on deck.

  The same man spoke again. He had a pronounced Hispanic accent, but his English was flawless. “Do you need assistance, my dear? Certainly you do not mean to wear your clothing inside that thing.”

  “I do not,” January said.

  A derisive chuckle, and then the sound of jeans hitting the deck.

  The men clapped and whistled, urging her to strip. He clenched his fists under the surface as their jeering suddenly stopped. One voice in particular, higher, and more nasal than the others, said, “Ai ai ai! Look at her. She is but half there, Patrón.”

  The boss’s voice was quieter, but steeped in evil. “I have always wondered how such a woman would look in person.”

  “End of the free show, boys,” January said, holding up well, considering what she was going through. Cutter wondered if he’d be so cavalier under the same circumstances.

  He heard the sound of the faulty zipper as she drew it shut with a grunt. There were heavy footfalls as she trudged across the deck, no doubt lugging her scuba gear.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked. “How big is it? Which part of the lagoon? Do you know how deep? On the bottom or floating in the water column?” She sounded all business as she worked on her preparations.

  “This is the spot,” the boss said. “Floating or on the bottom is yet to be determined. Is that correct, Luis?”

  Luis nodded confidently but glanced over at the sad one, who shrugged slightly.

  “My men will lead the way and retrieve what needs to be retrieved. Your job is to make sure they come back alive.” Slick rested his hand on Cassandra’s shoulder as she and Carmen sat cowering, their arms around each other. It was hard to tell who was comforting whom.

  “You do not put on your tank in the boat?” a new voice said—this one older, more sincere in his questions. “I have seen the Jacques Cousteau television programs. He jumps into the water backward, after donning his tank.”

  “That’s one way,” January said. “But I find it easier when I’m in the water.”

  There was a telltale hiss as she filled her BC with air. She dropped her rig in off the stern step, then slipped in after it.

  “Remember, my dear,” the one called “Patrón” said. “You know what I will do to this child, even if she does not.”

  The man with the nasal voice spoke next. It made Cutter’s eye twitch, just listening to him speak.

  “I’m watching you, bitch,” the voice said, quivering a little at the prospect of the dive.

  Cutter blew salt water from his lips, and listened as the men jumped off the new boat’s swim platform. They winced and cursed as they hit the cold surface. Cutter put the regulator in his mouth and submerged slowly—allowing himself a rare smile, pleased that the man with the nasal voice was now with him in the water.

  CHAPTER 47

  CUTTER LEVELED OUT TEN FEET DOWN, ARMS RELAXED AT HIS SIDES as he hung motionless in the water column, parallel to the bottom. Above him and approximately twenty feet away, beyond Tide Dancer’s stern, three sets of legs dangled from the surface. The men were vulnerable now. They would probably both drown before they thought to get their regulators in if Cutter dragged them under. But that would leave the two other men on the surface with their prisoners.

  The water was cloudy from the storm, but there was still a good thirty feet of visibility at the surface. January was easy to pick out in her faded, gray dry suit. She faced them, her legs fluttering serenely, belying her fear. She was, no doubt, briefing them on what was probably their first dry-suit dive—and likely giving Cutter time to come up with a workable plan that wouldn’t get everyone killed.

  The flutter kicks grew more intense, as if they were about to dive, so Cutter retreated toward Tide Dancer’s bow. He pushed thoughts of barnacles out of his mind and flattening himself against the hull. The boat would hide his bubbles from anyone above.

  Cutter had allowed himself a short glimpse of the one with the nasal voice. He was the smaller of the two and more tentative in the way he dove. Both January and the other man flutter-kicked their way down from the surface. The small man spun out of control, arms and leg
s outstretched like a starfish dropped off a pier.

  Cutter submerged with them, but stayed back at first, drawing closer only when the depth gauge on his wrist indicated forty feet. Colors started to bleed away here, turning most everything gray and black. Thirty feet later, the smaller guy slammed into the bottom, throwing up a cloud of silt and further helping with Cutter’s concealment. January arrested her descent, as did the larger of the two men. A few feet away, seated as if resting seventy feet below the surface, was the body of a man. His arms floated slightly in front of him, palms up as if explaining something to a crowd. Strands of long, ropy hair swayed like a kelp forest above his bowed head.

  Shrimp and crab and other marine organisms had gone to work doing what they did best on any piece of flesh dropped into the ocean. Even from the shadowed distance, Cutter could tell the body was crawling with sea life.

  The body was obviously the target of their search—and both men moved in immediately once they’d located it. January hung back, hovering expertly in the water column, hands folded in front of her chest as she used her fins and body position for control.

  Cutter figured he had seconds rather than minutes before they located what they were after, and turned for the surface. The fact that they were side by side made it even more difficult.

  It also dictated who he would attack first.

  Peripheral vision is severely limited when wearing a scuba mask and Cutter intended to use that to his full advantage. He and his brother had often played a version of underwater hide-and-seek. Ethan was an expert at swimming up behind him and latching on to his tank unseen. The extra weight was hard to notice in the water and Ethan was often able to hitch a free ride, eventually turning off his younger brother’s air as a joke. They never did it at depth, and though Grumpy frowned on the practice, it went a long way to teach both boys emergency out-of-air procedures.

  The taller of the two divers had positioned himself slightly to the rear of Nasal Voice. Thick clouds of bubbles rose in a constant stream from both men. They were nervous and burning through a lot of air. Cutter drew the small knife from the front of his vest and moved slowly up behind the taller diver. Five feet away, he kicked toward the bottom, inserting the razor-sharp blade between the man’s thighs and flicking it back and forth. He felt it drag across the dry suit, saw the blossom of blood in the water, and repeated the action again before the man even knew what was happening. The man finally gathered his wits enough to spin and face his attacker. When he did, Cutter drove upward with his fins, pushing his body directly at the other man’s face and clawing away the mask. The only thing more frightening than being blind seventy feet below the surface is to be in the same predicament, bleeding and with no air. Cutter hooked his blade behind the man’s air hose and upward. A hiss of bubbles erupted from the severed hose. Blood from the arteries in his legs blossomed up around him in a dark cloud. Cutter hit him with the puny knife three more times in the upper chest, prison-style, snapping the blade in the process. Panicked and weakening from loss of blood, the diver began to claw his way back to the surface.

  The entire attack took less than four seconds—but that was plenty of time for Nasal Voice to wheel. And this one had thought to bring a much larger knife.

  Better armed, but still terrified to find an unknown diver in the deep, Nasal Voice attempted to crawfish backward, scuttling away from danger. In doing so he ended up in Greg Conner’s lap. Soapy arms wrapped around his chest, embracing him. Nasal Voice screamed into his mask, floundering now, and throwing up an underwater cyclone of silt and bits of Greg Conner.

  Cutter was completely at home in the water, but the big knife caused him to fade back. His hand swept for a pistol that wasn’t there. Instead of attacking, the smaller diver held the blade in front of him and looked upward, bending his knees in preparation to spring toward the surface.

  That could not happen.

  Cutter shot forward now, feinting left, and then moving in to claw at the other man’s mask. He missed, and narrowly avoided a gash to the torso. Breaking his momentum with his hands and the jet fins, Cutter swam in a wide arc, staying just out of reach of the slashing knife.

  And then January kicked in from the shadows behind him.

  Nasal Voice had either forgotten she was there, or he had severely underestimated January Cross. She clung to his back like a limpet mine. The cumbersome tank and buoyancy control vest made it impossible for him to reach her with his blade without stabbing himself or risking damage to his own equipment.

  Cutter seized the opportunity, swimming in to rip Nasal Voice’s mask off his face. He left the regulator in place for the moment, dodging another blind slash, before he pressed in close, reaching with both hands. His left hand flicked the quick-release buckle on the man’s weight belt while his right pressed the valve on the chest of his dry suit, filling it with air.

  The weight belt fell away instantly—just as it was designed to do—and Nasal Voice rocketed toward the surface, eyes wide, gulping air. As a novice diver, he’d surely hold his breath, which was just what Cutter wanted him to do.

  Above him, the taller diver rose quickly toward the light, air jetting from his severed hose. The men on the surface would know something was going on in a matter of seconds.

  Cutter turned to find January kneeling on the ocean floor in a cloud of silt. Her arms were folded across the open front of her flooded dry suit. He raised a thumb signaling that they should surface, but she shook her head, shivering from the frigid water.

  Beckoning him closer, she uncrossed her arms and reached inside the flooded suit. A wad of the flimsy plastic grocery bags that she’d used to stuff into the hollow opposite her surviving breast came out with her hand. Cutter caught a glimpse of the long horizontal scar inside the open zipper. He started to turn away but she grabbed his arm. Shaking her head, she held out her free hand. The flimsy bags drifted away in the tidal current to reveal the baby Glock pistol he’d left onboard the boat.

  Exposing her scar while getting dressed had diverted the men’s attention from the gun she had stuffed inside the breast of the suit. She pressed the Glock into his hand and then pointed toward the surface. He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. She returned the signal, patting him on the arm with a shaking hand, as if to convince him she’d be fine. Arm in arm, they began their kick toward the surface. He made sure she was beside him, careful not to rise more quickly than their bubbles.

  Thanks to January, he had a gun now. Surprise, surprise, he thought, and allowed himself a grim smile.

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAGO GROANED AT THE SOUND OF THE FIRST SPLASH. SURELY IT was too soon for Luis and Fausto to be back. Things would get bloody now, and he was so very tired of all that. Perhaps it was only a whale swimming in the lagoon. He had no desire to take foolish risks going under the dark water, but he would not mind seeing a whale.

  It took the big sicario a few seconds to realize what he was looking at—and it was no whale.

  Fausto floated on his back like an oil slick, arms and legs outstretched. His mouth opened, but instead of words, he groaned the shuddering sounds peculiar to a dying man. Chago had heard these sounds before. The suit around his legs had been slashed, and blood pumped into the water. Something had gotten him. There was no way the woman could have done this. There were sharks in Alaska. Bean had said so when they’d arrived. Whatever it was, it had bitten completely through poor Fausto’s air hose, which now spewed and sputtered in the water next to his face.

  Garza pushed the young girl off his lap and jumped up from his deck chair at the noise, a fat cigar clenched between his teeth. Cassandra scrambled to get out of his way as he ran to the rail.

  Garza made a low growling sound. Chago had heard the noise before. The things that happened after were never pleasant.

  “Miss Delgado!” Garza hissed. “What has happened to my man?”

  Carmen took a tentative step, peering down at the water.

  Luis rocketed to the surface
before she could speak. His dry suit was full of air, swollen like a balloon ready to burst. Bubbles fizzed from the seals around his wrists. Bloody froth drooled from between clenched teeth.

  Carmen’s mouth fell open, her voice unsure. “You mean your men,” she said.

  Garza screamed, throwing the cigar in the water. “That bitch! Chago! Go and find her!”

  “Patrón,” Chago said. “I . . .”

  Luis flailed toward the boat with the distended arms of his overinflated suit. He tried to speak but managed only a rasping croak.

  Garza paced the rail, fuming over his dying men, but he made no move to assist them.

  Chago could only stare. His grandmother had warned him that the devil lived under the sea. Looking at the film of blood on Luis’s gnashing teeth, Chago was inclined to believe her. The man was surely in great agony, but had not he and Luis caused many people this same sort of agony? Murdering others side by side did not make them friends. Did it? Perhaps they were both destined to die in some terrible way.

  “Chaaagoooo . . .” Luis gasped, hand out toward the boat. But Chago merely looked at Carmen and thought how much she reminded him of his sister, Lucia.

  Carmen grabbed the child by the shoulder and shoved her toward the other boat.

  “Go!” she whispered, before running toward Pilar’s bow.

  “Shoot her!” Garza snapped, sweeping the muzzle of his own pistol back and forth as he scanned the surface. “I’ll take care of the one in the water.”

  Chago drew his gun and looked to the fleeing woman.

  “Carmen!” he shouted, his deep voice rolling along the deck. She stopped in her tracks, then turned. He waved toward the bank. “Run!” he said. “Take the girl in the skiff!”

  Garza spun on the rail. “Chago, you gutless son of a whore!” He fired a shot at Carmen, but she’d already fled to the other side of the wheelhouse. Furious, he turned back on Chago.