by Sam Jones
Billy, slowing rising and feeling a dull ache all over, took a few seconds to gather his bearings. He saw that he was about ten feet or so from the body of the shooter he had killed with the grenade earlier, the right side of his body torn and tattered and bloody. But resting five feet away from his dead, outstretched hand was his MP5K submachine gun, a sort of compact-looking version of Billy’s MP5 he had ditched just a couple of minutes earlier.
Billy scooped up the weapon, checked the rounds, and headed toward the docks.
He could hear Mr. Thompson writhing around on the hood.
Still alive.
55
BILLY DESCENDED THE wooden ramp, admiring the sight of the Ford having crushed Mr. Thompson between its hood and the wooden post behind him. The only audible noise came from the engine puttering out its last few breaths of life, but Mr. Thompson himself remained silent. The sick prick was wiggling to try to get free, but he never once showed any indication of pain.
Billy kept the MP5K tight and at the ready as he closed in on Mr. Thompson, searching for signs of anyone else that might come in and fuck up the party. With the coast seemingly clear, Billy lowered the gun to his side and looked Mr. Thompson in the eyes. The crash had knocked his sunglasses off, and now the sideshow-looking fiend was homing his ruby red eyes right in on Billy.
“You just don’t know how to die, do you?” Billy said.
Mr. Thompson said nothing.
He just continued to wiggle.
Billy motioned to the Ford, Mr. Thompson, and then the lamppost. “Second time I’ve sandwiched someone today. Kind of like lightning striking twice, no?”
Billy then reached into his pocket, took out his last grenade, pulled the pin, and popped off the safety lever. He walked up to Mr. Thompson, stuffed the grenade inside his left jacket pocket, patted him on the face, and said, “Hold this for me.”
And then he walked away.
Mr. Thompson, struggling to operate with just a shred of his normal motor functions, tried to reach inside his jacket to remove the grenade.
But it was far too late.
His time was up.
In the last second of his life, Mr. Thompson, possibly the most emotionally void presence on the planet, experienced a sensation he had never felt before, the final sensation he would ever feel in his sick, twisted life.
Fear.
His red eyes lit up.
The grenade exploded.
Billy kept on waking.
He didn’t need to see the aftermath to know it was gnarly.
And then something caught his attention: the sounds of a sea engine coming to life, the churning and gurgling of water.
It was coming from Dock Four, fifty feet ahead of him and on the left.
With a tight grip on the MP5K and the smoldering and upper-torso-less corpse of Mr. Thompson draped over the Plymouth parked on the dock behind him, Billy screamed out into the night, “Kruger!”
56
KRUGER WAS IN the pilothouse of Ripley’s Run, screaming at the scrawny guy in the windbreaker behind the wheel to “get this thing out of here,” as soon as he saw the Ford fly down the ramp and run over the most notorious member of his entourage.
The scrawny guy at the helm fiddled with the controls as the remaining thug in Kruger’s employ untethered the ropes from the yacht, an Uzi in his free hand and one eye peeled on the docks.
“We good?” Kruger asked him over the radio.
The thug replied, “All set,” into his handset as he threw the last rope tethering the one-hundred-and-ten-foot yacht to the slip and ducked back inside the galley.
BANG.
The grenade went off—Mr. Thompson was blown up into a bunch of pieces.
The engines on Ripley’s Run were now at full throttle, ready to hightail away into open waters.
Billy Reese, MP5K in hand and screaming out Kruger’s name, hustled toward the yacht, hooking a left onto Dock Four as the rear end of Ripley’s Run slowly began its trek out of the marina.
Billy was thirty feet out from the stern, and at the rate the boat was cranking up the knots, he knew would have to utilize all those sprinting skills he acquired from outrunning the neighborhood bully he knew in Eagle Rock—“Dino the Meano”—if he was going to make it on board.
Behind him, Billy could hear the cacophonous accumulation of several dozen police cruisers and unmarked sedans pulling into the parking lot from the east, representatives from every single law enforcement agency from local security to the FB-fucking-I.
Ripley’s Run was eight feet away from the docks as it veered left, port side, toward the channel that led out into the pacific.
Come on, Billy.
Run.
Billy, Nikes slapping against the deck, hotfooted it as fast as his legs could carry him toward the stern of the boat off to his left, his thighs on fire as he took long strides toward the end of the dock and prayed to whatever was listening to give him a break.
When Billy was five feet from the end of the dock, he pivoted, planted, and then leapt across the ten-foot opening with nothing but wishful thinking carrying him across the water.
With a hard and pain-inducing thud, Billy landed on the stern, rolled off the boat, and grabbed onto the davit, a crane for ski boats attached at the stern, just before he felt into the water. He hoisted himself up, swung like he was on a monkey bar, and landed on the deck.
Billy grumbled the pain away and threw a look over his shoulder at the ten-foot gap he had managed to leap across.
Nice job, ace.
He then moved to the starboard side of the yacht, held up his MP5K, and placed his back against the wall next to the door that led inside.
He drew a breath.
“Go.”
57
KRUGER WAS STARING at the radio inside the pilothouse on the second deck when Billy came over the line. His last thug, standing at attention to his left with his Uzi at the ready, disengaged the safety on his weapon and said, “I’ll deal with him,” before moving left and down the stairway that led to the lower level.
Kruger shook his head. Sighed.
“He’s not coming back.”
The scrawny guy in the windbreaker behind the wheel started to tremble as he eyeballed the Beretta resting near the wheel—his last line of defense.
Kruger then had an idea. A simple idea.
A brilliantly simple idea.
Mr. Thompson’s toy.
He then moved left, through the pilothouse and into the cabin on the left-hand side to retrieve it.
Billy slipped inside and found himself in an open space filled with plush couches in front of him and flanked by a pair of lounge chairs arranged at oblique angles. Ahead of the couch was a stairwell that led to the second deck. Beyond that was the saloon, and the galley, and the dinette area, and beyond that was the other stairwell that led up to the pilothouse, cabins, and another spacey, lounge-like area.
Billy slowly made his way through the room and to the left, passing a shelf filled with leather-bound books.
Calculation.
Confidence.
Patience.
Control.
Moments later he heard footsteps hustling down the stairway.
Billy raised his MP5K—but the shooter approaching him was already lining up Billy between the sights.
He had the drop on Billy, so Billy stepped back and rolled behind the couch as the punk tore up the fabric and chewed up the stuffing with his Uzi.
Click! The gun was dry.
Billy, lying on his back, held the MP5K over his head and fired blindly at the shooter from six feet out.
The guy had enough holes punched in him that he looked like a bloody meat sponge by the time he hit the deck, the close-quarters shots making Billy’s ears ring and stinking up the room with the smell of cordite.
Billy took one last look at the MP5K, drained of all its ammo, and tossed it on the deck as he shuffled toward the body of the shooter. He got down on one knee and took the g
uy’s blood-soaked Uzi from his hands.
Much obliged.
He checked the rounds—empty—and the guy had no backup clips on his person.
Billy reached to his waistband for his silver Colt—missing.
Shit.
He checked the backside of pants, found his vintage ’Nam Colt still tucked in his waist, and drew it out.
Phew.
He had three clips, including the one already loaded into the gun—twenty-four shots in total.
He disengaged the safety.
Right around that time, Kruger appeared at the top of the steps, his arm hooked around a young woman’s neck and a Heckler & Koch P7M13 pistol pressed flush against her temple.
The fuck?
Billy, down on one knee, had Kruger lined up between the sights of his Colt the moment he appeared. “Hold up!”
And his stomach sank the second he laid eyes on the girl that Kruger was using as a shield.
He had never met the girl before. Never laid eyes on her before. But based on the stories he had been told about her and the beauty mark resting above her left eyebrow, Billy knew that he was staring at someone who was a pseudocelebrity in his circle of friends who should have been dead long ago, a girl that up until now was just a character in a story.
It was her—Maria’s missing mystery girl, Analena Rodriguez.
Alive and not well.
58
AS THE SHOCK settled in for Billy, all Kruger said to him was, “Drop it.”
Billy didn’t move—Kruger’s forehead was still framed exquisitely between the sights as he took note of Analena Rodriguez’s slack and emotionless face.
“How?” Billy asked.
“Who gives a shit,” Kruger replied.
Billy felt the itch in his trigger finger.
“Don’t try it,” Kruger said, squeezing the girl tight, “or I take her with me.”
Analena wasn’t whimpering. She barely made any kind of noise. She just stood there, Kruger’s arm tight around her neck and a glazed-over look in her eyes.
She was young. Beautiful. At one point no doubt a knockout with a lot of smarts and a lot of promise. But now, based on the voided look on her face, she was a zombie, a virtual shell of a human being that functioned off nothing but fumes, time itself a lost concept on her as she merely existed from one terror-filled moment to the next.
A lost soul.
A slave.
Billy could see the scars on her body where Mr. Thompson had no doubt been cutting pieces from and feeding them to her in sprawled-out increments over the course of who knows how long.
A nickel-sized wound from her shoulder.
A quarter-sized piece from her forearm.
A significant chunk of her ear.
For a quick beat, Billy felt like the grenade he had stuffed in the snowman’s jacket was not a sufficient enough death.
“Personally,” Kruger said to Billy, squeezing his arm a little tighter around Analena’s neck, “I would have tossed this girl overboard, but Mr. Thompson has quite”—Kruger moved a loose strand of hair out of the girl’s face—“specific urges that require satisfaction.”
Billy could see the whole scenario play out inside his head: Mr. Thompson toting around his little torture/sex slave across the globe as he did Kruger’s bidding, cutting her, raping her, and getting his twisted jollies off while her family—after a long time of searching and praying and hoping—had assumed she had been lost to the abyss.
And, in a way, she had.
And Billy, way past his boiling point, was growing more perturbed and furious as the seconds ticked by, thinking and deducing and strategizing a way out that would save both of their lives.
Calculation.
Confidence.
Patience.
Control.
Kruger said, “You’re going to back off and jump in the water. Then maybe, maybe, I dump the girl over the side after you. I know that cop friend of yours has been looking for her.” He shrugged. “Well, here you go…”
He kissed Analena on her cheek.
She remained unfazed.
“I’m leaving here, Billy,” Kruger said. “Alive. Untouched. But I’ll happily depart and leave you with this silver lining, since that seems to be what you’re foolishly clamoring after.”
Billy thought about it. But he no longer trusted Kruger—Sykes—as being a man of his word.
It was a shit situation. This moment, this little slice of time in Billy Reese’s existence contained all the elements that embodied the very essence of life itself: chaos, fear, anger, shock, elation. All of it laced with uncertainty. There was no more calculation, no more confidence, no more patience, and—perhaps most importantly of all—no more control.
Billy was gonna shoot Kruger.
Kruger was gonna shoot Billy.
And that was all there was to it.
Billy knew he needed to embrace the fact that this was pretty much the end of the line. So, he took a breath, thanked whoever was listening for his time on the planet, began to squeeze the trigger, and prayed that heaven was a real thing.
He then said to Kruger, “How about we count to three?”
“Never short on the chestnuts, Billy.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“You were told right. Now drop the fucking gun.”
Billy smirked. “Come on, chicken shit,” he taunted, a tight grip on the Colt. “What do you gotta lose?”
Kruger stood his ground.
Billy started the count.
“One…”
Kruger clenched his jaw.
“Two…”
Billy said a Hail Mary inside his head.
“Thr—”
Both men began to feel a little off balance as the yacht began a sharp starboard turn.
Kruger lit up. “What the hell are you doing?” he called out to the scrawny guy at the helm, eyes still on Billy.
The scrawny guy said nothing as the boat continued to veer to the right, Kruger still at the top of the stairs and Billy with his Colt aimed square at his head.
Billy knew what was up the second he felt his weight shift and the yacht turning.
He’s taking the boat back to the marina.
59
“DON’T DO IT, Billy,” Kruger said as he slowly began to back up toward the pilothouse to check on the helmsman’s malfunction.
“Kruger,” Billy called out as he followed him up the stairs.
Kruger, now in the pilothouse, glanced over his shoulder and saw that the scrawny guy was turning the yacht back toward the marina, his nerves having gotten the better of him as he aimed Ripley’s Run toward the small army of red and blue lights flashing from the parking lot of the marina. Dozens upon dozens of figures with guns in their hands scrambled and positioned themselves along the docks as a Long Beach PD chopper came in overhead and lit up the yacht with its spotlight like a singer on a stage.
All eyes were on the Ripley’s Run, now clocking in at thirty knots with the nose of the craft aimed head on toward the docks, the center of the universe, the stage serving as the venue for the showdown of the year.
“Turn this fucking thing around!” Kruger ordered the scrawny guy, the pistol in his hand still jammed against Analena’s skull as Billy arrived at the stop of the stairs.
Billy saw the unmistakable lights of the law in the distance and the terror-stricken look on the scrawny captain’s face as he kept his Colt level. “Give it up, Sykes,” he said. “It’s over.”
It was a three-way standoff, and Kruger saw only a few, nonideal choices at his disposal: kill the girl, and then Billy kills him. Or kill the scrawny guy, and then Billy kills him, and then the boat probably crashes into the docks. Or he kills then girl, then tries to kill Billy, and then tries to force the scrawny guy to turn the boat around.
But that Long Beach PD helicopter was now overhead. Every law enforcement rep in the immediate vicinity now had a hard-on for Ripley’s Run, and wherever Kruger went, someone wa
s bound to follow.
He realized his options were completely and utterly fucked all around.
He was finished.
He lost.
Done and done.
With a depleted look on his face, and his eyes still on Billy, Kruger coiled his index finger around the trigger, and said, “Isn’t life a shit show?”
BAM!
Kruger shoved the girl toward Billy and fired his gun into the back of the scrawny guy’s head. The guy’s brain matter and blood and pieces of his skull were now smeared all over the windows, his body thrown forward onto the throttle, forcing the lever all the way forward as the yacht climbed up to forty knots and cut through the water toward the docks like some kind of kamikaze freighter on a mission from God.
Ripley’s Run was about to collide with the Alamitos Bay Marina.
And it wasn’t going to be pretty.
60
BILLY CAUGHT ANALENA after Kruger pushed her off of him and killed the scrawny guy. Billy grabbed the girl, and then he and Kruger dove off in separate directions, Kruger taking cover under a table to the right of the scrawny guy after shooting him, and Billy ducking low behind the counter of a U-shaped bar set up to his left with Analena, popping off two shots over the bar top from his Colt for cover.
The docks were now only fifty feet away from Ripley’s Run and closing, the uniformed officers and government agents in suits on the deck now clearing out to the left and right as they waved each other off and yelled, “It’s going to hit!”
The yacht was now forty feet from the docks, a dinghy and a daysailer directly in its path, but at the rate the vessel was going and the petite size of the crafts, they were nothing more than minor obstructions compared to the bigger boat.
Ripley’s Run was thirty feet from docks.
Twenty…
Kruger held onto the leg of the table and braced for impact.
Billy gripped onto a brass railing bolted in the countertop, wiped the tears from Analena’s face and said, “Close your eyes,” before gently burying her head in his chest and cloaking her body with a comforting embrace.
