I nodded my head. “Empty promises, you stupid fuck. That’s all you are.”
Maybe the wrong choice of words. He struck the side of my face with the butt of his gun. Now, that’s pain. I’d almost rather have been shot and accepted oblivion. If you’ve ever been there, you know what I mean.
He would have finished me off right then, but as he started to strike me again, we heard the sirens of a Coast Guard boat. Through bloody and blurry vision, I watched him take his phone from a drawer and then disappear into the night. I sighed, finally having a moment of relief.
I hoped Stephanie had survived the crash. She’d saved our lives, and I had so many questions for her. A bellow of thunder shook the boat, and the rain came down even harder. It was the worst I’d seen yet. We must have been north of the eye.
I went back to Kado. Unable to pull him from consciousness, I tried to figure out a way to stop the bleeding without removing the glass. While I tried to apply pressure in the right places, I spoke to him, quietly and calmly, letting him know I wasn’t giving up on him. And I wasn’t.
39
Sometimes the person you least want to see one day is exactly the person you want to see the next. Stephanie came in through the door calling my name. Her dress had completely soaked through, and I could see it all. Not that my mind could even go there.
“Hey,” I said. Nothing too dramatic.
“You’re alive. Thank God.” She crouched low to move across the floor.
“I’m glad to see you are, too. Where’d they go?”
“They took off.”
“Where are we?”
“Fort Sumter.” She touched my cheek. “You look awful.”
“I bet.”
“But I’m so happy you’re alive.”
“Me, too.”
She let out a cry when she saw Kado. “Oh, my God! Is he breathing?”
I guess we did need to focus on him at the moment. “I think so. Help me find something to stop the bleeding.”
Stephanie nodded. Her body shook in fear at the sight of his blood. She crawled to the kitchen and found a knife.
“Take care of him first,” I said, watching helplessly. I told her what to do. She began to saw off the rope binding his feet. Once she had enough length, she spread his legs, pushed up his shorts, and wrapped the rope around his thigh above the laceration and tightened it. The blood slowed significantly.
“I’m glad you’re here, Stephanie,” I said.
She cut me free. I sat up and tightened the rope even more around his leg.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought I could help…”
“You did. No idea how, but I owe you a beer.”
“It’s a date then.”
I couldn’t help but smile. The sirens got louder. “You wanna tell me what happened up there? How did you get on board?”
“When I saw you at the condo, I knew something was wrong. I saw Jack coming out of his room with a gash on his head. He grabbed Ronnie and said they needed to go down to the boat. I beat them to the elevator while they were looking for Kado and drove over. I thought you’d be there, but you weren’t. So I decided to hide in the engine room. I think it’s just a woman’s protective instinct. I knew you were in danger.”
“Then what?”
She sat back on her ankles. “I heard everyone come aboard. I kept my ear to the hatch, trying to figure out what was going on. When the engine turned on, it was so loud in there. Luckily there were some earmuffs hanging on the wall. The engine cut off finally, and I tried to figure out what was going on. I couldn’t hear anything over the sounds of the hurricane, though. Not until the gunfire. Then all of a sudden I was getting thrown around.”
“I bet it was bad down there.”
“Yeah. But I didn’t want to climb out. I didn’t know who was shooting.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Then, once we were moving again and things were back to normal, I decided to get out of there. I saw you and Kado tied up and saw Jack with the gun. And Ronnie on the bridge. Didn’t know what else to do. I went up and tried to talk to him. As you can imagine, he was shocked to see me. I told him I’d hopped on at the last minute. While he was trying to figure it all out, I took that empty white cooler up there by the handle and slung it at him. It knocked him off the bridge. When Jack came after me, I didn’t know what to do. So I jerked the wheel toward land.”
“I guess that was the best option.”
“Well, I didn’t have many.”
I grinned a little. “You’re crazy.”
She looked at me like I’d insulted her.
“Not crazy… you know what I mean. How’d you know how to get into the engine room?”
“An ex used to have something like this.”
“How fortuitous. You undoubtedly saved my life. Thank you, Stephanie. Really. You risked your life for me.”
Two men from the Coast Guard carefully carried Kado out on a stretcher. I tossed back a bottle of water they’d given me and sat back against the wall. I’d be damned if I too was going to be carried away. I just needed a few minutes to get my strength back.
Ches, my trusty partner, came in next and looked at me with Samwise Gangee eyes. Rainwater dripped from the brim of his DEA rain jacket. I mumbled, “Am I dead?”
“Could be.” He grinned. “I can’t believe you made me come out in this. I hate hurricanes.”
“You look good wet.”
“I’m sure I do. You know you almost cleared a wall of Fort Sumter?”
“No shit?”
“Didn’t make it, though. You’re going to piss off every historian in the country.”
“These things happen. What happened to y’all? I could have used some help.”
“Your transmitter went down. We lost your signal.”
“I figured. We met the source. I was ten feet away from their boat. We could have gotten them.”
“The Hatteras? They didn’t get away. We got ‘em. Three of them. Twenty kilos, Reddick. Biggest bust in Charleston in a long time.”
I was elated. “Did one have a bullet in him?”
“I wasn’t there, but yeah. I heard the Coast Guard say one was dead.”
“That was Diego Vasquez. The guy from Miami whose brother I shot.”
“Really? That’s hard to believe.”
“If I hadn’t seen him, I wouldn’t believe it myself. The drug world spins on a tiny axis, Ches.”
“Yes, it does.”
Finally, closure. I didn’t have to worry about Diego anymore. No more phone calls to the US Marshall. Not as many sleepless nights. There would always be people out to get me, but he’d always been different. He was a true enemy.
“How about the party?” I asked.
“As we speak, they’re booking everybody. Couldn’t have gone any smoother. They even picked up Tela Davies back at the Mazyck.”
“Good.” I started to push to my feet. Nearly fell back down but held strong. “Let’s quit talking and go get these boys.”
“You’re going to the hospital, my friend.”
“The hell I am. Don’t even try. What kind of boat do they have?”
“A twenty-five-foot Defender, twin 225 Hondas on the back.”
“Do you know the draft?”
“Probably three feet.”
“She’s perfect.”
Chester helped me up and we moved to the door. Spock was coming in. “You look like shit, Reddick.”
“At least I have an excuse, rookie.”
“Oh, snap.”
“I think Jack had his money in one of the cabins. You wanna do the honors?”
“I’d be glad to.” He moved his way through the salon.
I hobbled out into the hurricane. Had to see what we’d hit with my own eyes. We really were at Fort Sumter, a pentagon-shaped fort built on an island in the Charleston harbor many years earlier. It’s where the first shots of the Civil War were fired, where Beauregard’s rebels won their firs
t battle against the Union. The boat had crushed one of the walls. Stephanie had steered us right into it. I carefully stepped over the broken bricks, and we made our way toward the water.
It took some convincing, but after I let one of the Coast Guard guys set my nose, Chester came around. And as I told him, there was no freaking way I wasn’t going after them. I’d do it alone if I had to. We’d destroyed the dock on the island, so we had to wade out a few feet before climbing into one of the two Defenders. The Coast Guard was taking Kado and Stephanie back to the mainland in the other one.
As we pulled away, Spock came out dragging a bag. He set it down and reached inside. Pulling up a stack of cash, he raised it high in the air. “Jackpot!”
There’s a rule Beau Tate taught me when I was a kid about leaving the harbor by boat. Never go right of Fort Sumter. It’s too shallow. At low tide, like it was now, you could almost walk across. Because of the hurricane, it wouldn’t be easy, but with a little luck and some swimming, Jack and Ronnie could make it to James Island and get a chance at escaping.
The captain of the Defender steered us around some of the shallow parts, trying to cut Jack and Ronnie off. The waves were rabid with white foam and juggled us in every direction, repeatedly slamming the boat down and sending shocks up our spines. Debris blew by so quickly that you couldn’t tell what it was or even what direction it came from.
We moved back toward land after a few hundred feet. With our draft, we got pretty far. The captain sent a man to the bow to look for obstructions with a spotlight, and we slowed and made way into the shallow water. The reeds were bent down to the water by the wind. The sound of the storm was almost like holding the end of a vacuum cleaner up to your ear.
Forcing our way through the marshland in the hurricane, the absurdity of our chase became all too real.
40
I was losing faith that we’d find them. There was so much marsh out there, and I could barely see a damn thing. They could have gone a number of ways, toward the lighthouse on Morris Island; to the middle of the marsh to hide under one of the old sailboats that had been left there to die; or closer to James Island, toward the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) site and, past that, to the many neighborhoods.
I hoped Steve had gotten their faces on the news, because Jack and Ronnie had a great chance of getting out of that marsh without us catching them. We could only hope that someone who hadn’t evacuated the storm would see them running along the street and call it in.
Chester and I knelt near the spotter on the bow, searching and listening for any signs of life. All three of us gripped the bow rail with everything we had, knowing some of these gusts could easily lift us off the deck. The black clouds were much closer now, like the whole ceiling had lowered. The dank smell of pluff mud—the typical wet mud found in and around the marshes in the lowcountry—spun around us.
A board flew by in the air and nearly knocked Chester in the head. “That was close,” he said. My ribs wouldn’t let me laugh.
We hit another sandbar and all flew forward. We’d gone just about as far as the Defender was going to take us. I had a banged-up shoulder, a broken nose, broken ribs, and a broken heart, but I was starting to catch my second wind.
“I got something!” the spotter yelled. Chester and I nearly knocked each other over in our eagerness to see what he was talking about. I squinted; there it was. There were prints. In between a patch of blown-down reeds, there was a path of footprints a foot deep in the brown mud. My heart started pounding.
“Good eyes,” I said, patting the spotter on the back. “That’s all I need.” I hopped off and started following the prints with my light, staying low to keep my balance in the wind. My feet sank deep into the mud with each step. I was wearing Italian loafers, which weren’t ideal, but what the hell. I guess I should have known to dress for a chase. When one loafer didn’t come back up with my foot, I decided to leave both of them there.
My team wasn’t too far behind me, but I wasn’t waiting. Off in front of me, something reflected off my flashlight. “I got one!” Forty feet away, somebody came out of the weeds. Holding my light on him, I charged. Jesus can walk on water, but T.A. Reddick can run in mud. Leaves and debris flew past me as I tore through the hurricane.
My flashlight lit up Jack’s back. It was my watch on his wrist that had caused the reflection. Serendipity, asshole.
I screamed back to the others, “I got Jack! No sign of the other one!” As fast as I ran, I couldn’t catch up with him. Forty feet is too much of a head start, and Lord knows he had as much motivation to haul ass as I did.
The lights of several DNR buildings came into view. Mostly brick structures. I was yelling my heart out. Jack tripped and went down hard. I was able to gain some on him, but he was on his feet in no time.
A man appeared in front of us, shining his light on Jack. “Police!” He was standing up the hill from the marsh. Jack was running right for him. The officer yelled, “Stop or I’ll put one in your knee!” Another few feet and I recognized him. Darby Long, Kado’s arresting officer.
“Don’t shoot him!” I yelled back. “He’s mine!”
Jack turned a hard right along the shore and one of his feet stuck deep in the mud. It was all I needed to catch up. Making a good dive, I hit him in the kidneys with my shoulder and took him to the ground. We splashed into the wet slope and slid down into the muddy oyster bed about ten feet below. Shells tore through my shirt and cut my bare feet, but I didn’t care. It was my time for revenge. My prey had no chance.
At least I didn’t think so. He came on strong, going for my ribs, then my nose. I don’t know how either of us were still moving. It was our second fight of the night.
Once again, it wasn’t going to be easy. I tried to ignore the screams of pain from my body. We scrapped in the mud, wrestling to gain the upper hand. We both went to our knees. I slipped onto my back trying to stand. Grabbed onto his shirt, and he fell next to me. I rolled on top of him.
Flashes of Jack under me began to mix with images of Shawn Philips, the man who killed my father. Those lost eyes again, staring back at me. It felt like someone was trying to climb out of my flesh to kill Jack, like some phantom devil being exorcised. I put my hand around his neck and pressed hard, cutting off his air flow. I raised my fist, ready to drop a right that would send this demon back to hell. I’d had enough.
He spat some blood and said, “You may have fucked up the little vacation I’d planned for Liz and me, but I’ll always know she never made her flight tonight. You should have been worried about her, instead of chasing me through this goddamn storm.” He spat some more blood and smiled. “Good luck putting her back together again.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. I squeezed and pressed his neck harder. He kicked with his legs and reached for my hands, trying to free himself. I tightened the hold around his neck, ignoring the pleas from Officer Long and Chester begging me to let him go. Jack’s arms fell to his side. He was dying.
Generations of men, some great, some not, danced around me, waking up the animal. I looked up. The storm screamed and roared down, feeding my rage. I roared out into the night and my heart pumped adrenaline through seething veins.
Then it stopped.
The rain and wind came to a halt—like we were in the eye—and we became the only two people in the universe. The hate I felt for the man below me began to drift away like a cloud. A calmness I’ve never known descended upon me. I took in great breaths of air. At that moment, I found peace with Jack and with myself. I’m not quite sure where it came from, but perhaps Liz had something to do with it. She’d healed me in some way.
I let go of him and he gasped for air. Once he’d gotten control and his eyes opened, I patted his cheek a couple times and said, “Don’t let the hag ride ya.” I smiled with my eyes. Yet another wonderful look on his face, one that I would never forget.
As quickly as it had come, my moment of clarity passed. We were back in the storm, back und
er the mighty strength of Hurricane Henrietta. I flipped Jack onto his stomach and reclaimed my father’s watch.
Officer Long cuffed him and jerked him up out of the mud, saying, “I already got Ronnie Downs. Plucked him out of a mud pit. He was hiding in there like Saddam Hussein.”
I patted Darby on the back. “I’ve gotta borrow your cruiser and cell phone.”
Darby nodded and handed me his keys. “All yours.”
41
I had to find out what Jack was saying about Liz, and I wasn’t about to underestimate him again. With both prisoners in the back and Chester sitting shotgun, we tore across town in Officer Long’s patrol car. We were the only ones on the road, and I drove like Earnhardt was trying to cut around me on the next turn. The wind had calmed but the rain still came.
As I waited on hold with Delta, I listened to Ches on the police radio. He was putting some people to work, including getting a unit of cops to the airport and initiating a search. Finally, after a round of robotic voices and some unbearable muzak, a human came on the line. I explained who I was and asked her if Liz had made the flight. The woman verified my credentials, and after an agonizing wait, she came back. “No, sir. Elizabeth Coles did not check in.”
I screeched to a halt on the side of the road near MUSC, just over the bridge to downtown. I got out of the car with a Colt Chester had brought me. Opening the backdoor, I grabbed Jack by the arm and dragged him out. He fell into a puddle collecting on the pavement. I knelt and put the barrel of the Colt to his temple. “Where is she? Who has her, Jack?”
He looked up at me and didn’t say a word. I thrust my hand into his pockets, looking for his phone. It wasn’t there. I remembered seeing him take it from the boat. Now, it was probably somewhere out in the marsh. Even if we did find it, I couldn’t imagine it was still operational. Nevertheless, that phone could have all the answers.
With the barrel still on his temple, I called Officer Long. I still had his number from the first time we met. I asked him to round up help and search every inch of that marsh. He said he was on it.
Lowcountry Punch Page 20
