Harvey Bennett Mysteries: Books 4-6

by Nick Thacker

  He turned underwater and looked behind Julie, barely able to make out the darker shadow of the boat’s hull against the lighter skyline above it. He kicked his legs and arms and shot forward, propelling himself toward the shadow.

  Reggie was telling us to get to the boat, he realized. He could see the gunman. He knew he was aiming down at us.

  But the man had fired, sending Ben and Julie crashing into the surf, safe but rattled.

  That means he’s reloading, Ben realized. And I bet I know what his next target is…

  He kicked harder, hoping Julie had understood the message as well. They needed to get to the boat and get inside before the man finished reloading his weapon and sending down another grenade.

  Ben knew for a fact that a boat was a much bigger target than a single human bobbing in the waves. They were waiting for him and Julie, but he knew it would be stupid for them to wait too long.

  He broke the surface, taking a huge gulp of air, and immediately heard Reggie yelling. The boat’s motor was idling noisily as well, the chugging sound of the engine nearly drowning out Reggie’s voice.

  “Get in the boat, Ben!” Reggie shouted. “What’s taking so long?”

  Reggie had a huge smile on his face, but Ben knew better than to think the man was in a good mood. To anyone else, that face meant joy, happiness, ease, nonchalance.

  To Ben, it meant Reggie had his game face on.

  He swam a quick breaststroke to the boat, pushed Julie in, and started up the ladder himself.

  55

  Reggie

  REGGIE HAD BARELY FINISHED hauling Ben and Julie up and onto the boat when he felt a surge of force and fell sideways. Mrs. E had thrown the engine into reverse, immediately pulling them ten feet straight back, deeper into the cove. Reggie grabbed the back of a chair and caught his balance, only to be thrown sideways again as Mrs. E slammed the boat back to a gentle forward throttle.

  “Come on, E,” he shouted. “You trying to throw me out?”

  “Trying to beat him,” she shouted in return, calling to him over her shoulder.

  Trying to beat who? Reggie thought. Just as the words passed through his mind he followed Ben’s and Julie’s gaze up to the rocky pathway.

  Shit.

  The man had finished reloading, the giant tube on his shoulder now staring down at their tiny boat.

  “Okay, team,” he yelled. “Change of plans — again.”

  Ben and Julie didn’t hesitate, and Reggie watched them jump off the port side of the boat, back toward the destroyed dock. Mrs. E was in motion as well, her large strides carrying her to the back of the boat in two easy steps.

  “Get out,” she said as she hustled past Reggie. “I need to look for —”

  She didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence, and Reggie didn’t get a chance to start his own escape. The whistling shell sang in the air, louder and louder until it smashed into the bow of the hull, a direct hit on the narrow, v-shaped front. In the split second before impact, he closed his eyes and turned his back to the explosion.

  The blast lifted him and carried him clear of the wreckage, the cool water of the Aegean quickly counteracting the searing heat of the fiery explosion. He landed facedown, stinging his chest and legs, but was otherwise unharmed.

  He resurfaced and tread water, looking around. He had landed behind the boat about twenty feet, but he could see that the boat’s front half was completely gone. Chunks of smoldering debris sizzled as the heated plastic and foam came into contact with the water. Smoke billowed from the back half of the boat’s hull, a fuel line or oil leak slowing burning. He doubted the boat’s engine would explode — the fuel tank had already been decimated — but he wasn’t about to swim back over and check it out.

  He turned to his left, noticing Ben and Julie standing on a jagged strip of wood that had once been a support post for the dock. They were leaning out toward the water, where a tall, thin silhouette of a woman swam toward their waiting hands.

  Apparently she’d succeeded in grabbing whatever it was she’d gone back to retrieve, as she swam with one arm, the other arm clutching a tiny, briefcase-shaped object. A box with a handle, black and hard plastic. Julie grabbed the case from Mrs. E’s hand while Ben pulled the woman out of the water. Reggie also saw that Mrs. E was holding her left arm — the one that had been dragging the case.

  Reggie swam toward the dock as well, keeping an eye on the man still standing on the pathway. He wasn’t sure if the man was trying to see how many of his enemies had survived his latest attack or if he was simply out of ammunition.

  Reggie hoped it was the latter.

  Still, the fact that the man wasn’t moving was a bit unnerving. It meant he was confident, not at all fazed by the brutal explosions and carnage down below him.

  And it meant that he was probably just waiting until all of them were standing together on the ground. He could have only one grenade left, and he wouldn’t want to waste it on two of them, only taking out half the invading party.

  What would my next move be? he found himself wondering. If I were in that man’s shoes, what would I do? What would I be thinking?

  He’d been trained long ago as a sniper, to observe the battlefield below him — or in this case, above him — and try to understand every player’s motives, drives, tactics, and movements. It was like a game of chess, every move affecting every other move, but every move somewhat predictable.

  I would wait until we were all together, Reggie thought. Until I knew without a doubt that my last shot would count.

  The man had already wasted three grenades on them, and while those shots had done a fantastic job of shaking them up and scaring the daylights out of them, they hadn’t achieved their ultimate goal: destruction of the enemy.

  Reggie waded to the dock and pulled himself out. They were outgunned and outmatched, the enemy sitting on its perch — the literal high ground. The climb up to him wasn’t impossible, but it wasn’t fast, either. They couldn’t exactly rush the man.

  And if the beating rotors he could now hear from the top of the little volcanic island were any indicator, he wasn’t alone, either. He had friends, and those friends were most likely armed as well.

  As he exited the water he joined Ben, Julie, and Mrs. E at the edge of the cliff — right where Ben and Julie had been standing earlier — the only place on the ground out of range of the enemy’s RPG. For now, at least, they were safe.

  But Sarah’s up there, he thought. They’re getting away, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

  “What’s the plan?” Reggie asked, looking around at his wet, sopping team. “We don’t have the high ground, we don’t have any weapons, and —”

  “Actually,” Mrs. E said. “We have this.”

  He frowned, looking down at the black case Julie had handed her. He watched as she snapped it open, understanding that it was a waterproof box — the sort of dry storage container often found on boats and yachts to house anything that didn’t agree with saltwater. Whatever was inside, therefore, would be totally dry and ready for use.

  “It’s not much,” she continued. “But I have a plan.”

  He frowned again as she handed him a tiny pistol she took out of the dry storage box. How the hell are we going to rush a guy with an RPG carrying a peashooter?

  He turned the gun over in his hands, realizing that its weight was off. Even for a snub-nosed weapon like this one, it still should have felt like a rock in his hands. But the longer he examined it, the more he noticed that everything about the tiny gun felt off — it wasn’t even made of metal.

  A streak of waning moonlight hit the weapon and it emerged from the shadow. Reggie saw that the pistol was actually made of hard, bright-orange plastic.

  “Is that a flare gun?” Ben asked.

  Mrs. E grinned, then nodded. “It is. I had a hunch there would be one on the boat, and I was right. We’ve got five rounds — all high-reflectivity, high-sight flares, orange-pink color.”


  “And you’re thinking we’re going to alert the authorities with it?” Reggie asked. “Let them know we’re under attack and then just wait it out?”

  “No,” she said. “I am thinking it is our only chance at getting past that man with his rocket launcher. And it is our only chance at getting to Sarah.”

  56

  Reggie

  THE ORION SAFETY ALERTER COASTAL Signaling Kit was the full name of the cheap plastic flare gun, and Reggie turned it over again in his hands and tried to work out a plan.

  He knew the flares were 12-gauge, and in his limited experience knew that despite the gun’s lightweight, cheap construction, they were accurate up to about 500 yards. He’d seen them shot in training expeditions while serving in the US Army, and he’d fired one once or twice when he was younger.

  Still, as a defensive weapon it was as last resort. The type of thing he preferred to use only if his hands and fists were already taken out of commission.

  Worse, an offensive weapon it seemed downright risky.

  But it’s all we’ve got. He knew Mrs. E was smart for finding and retrieving it, even though using it against the RPG-wielding man above them still felt like a suicide mission.

  But we do have numbers…

  “We’ve got numbers,” Ben said, reading his mind. “We could rush him.”

  Reggie nodded. “This thing is accurate at close range. It’ll at least leave a bruise, if not knock him on his ass.”

  Julie jumped in. “And if we stay close to the cliff, I don’t think he’ll be able to pick us off. He’d be firing almost straight down and it would still be a tricky shot.”

  “Right,” Mrs. E said. “But he might be working his way down the path as we speak. If he gets to that switchback about 100 feet away, he will have an open shot.”

  Reggie nodded again, looking at his friends and teammates and analyzing their ad-hoc plan. It’s not much, he thought. But it’s all we have.

  “Okay,” he said, reaching into the open box in Mrs. E’s hands and grabbing a few of the 12-gauge flare rounds. “Let’s roll. Ben, Julie, you guys stay behind me. Mrs. E, you’re rushing first. You’re big, and plenty fast enough. He comes around that corner, you let him have it.”

  Mrs. E was already smiling, nodding along. “You got it. But I do not want to take him myself,” she said. “Get a shot in if you can.”

  Reggie pocketed the other four rounds and held the gun lightly in his right hand. Accuracy with a small weapon like a pistol was far lower than a long-range weapon like a rifle. He was a dead shot with a pistol, but only in proper conditions — a range, his own trusted piece, no wind. Without those variables in place he was still far better than the average red-blooded gun-toting American, but tonight none of those variables were in place. It was dark, he would be firing mostly blind, using a cheap piece of plastic weaponry that had been manufactured by the thousands in some Chinese factory.

  To top it off, he’d be firing into a man who was very interested in killing him and his three friends, and very equipped to do just that.

  He didn’t feel terribly confident about their odds of survival, but it didn’t matter — Sarah was up there, getting forced into a helicopter. Once that happened, all bets were off. They might be able to take down a single enemy combatant with a flare gun, but he seriously doubted its effectiveness against a flying machine.

  “Ready?” Mrs. E asked.

  He nodded, tensing his finger around the trigger and feeling the spring-action pressure.

  Mrs. E didn’t wait for further instruction. She barreled ahead, running full-tilt up the narrow path cut against the mountainside. Reggie watched her for a few strides, then followed. He needed to time it right — too close to Mrs. E and a wrong step could send all of them plummeting to their deaths on the rocky spires below. Too far behind her and he wouldn’t be of any use to her.

  Mrs. E slowed, turning at the end of the switchback, then started up the opposite stretch of path. He watched Ben and Julie begin to round the turn as well as he continued behind Mrs. E.

  Before Mrs. E reached the top of that stretch, the big man bounded down the turn and stopped. He was carrying the RPG loosely at his side while he ran, but quickly swung it up and onto his shoulder.

  And then pointed it directly at Mrs. E.

  “Get down!” Reggie yelled. Mrs. E didn’t need any additional encouragement, and she was already curling into a roll. Reggie watched the man’s aim shifting, following the large woman as she ducked. At the last second, he shifted again and brought the barrel of the RPG up.

  Now aiming directly at Reggie.

  Crap, he thought. He launched himself up and to the right, landing on a small protrusion with his right foot. He pushed upward, now standing on the protrusion but still in motion, his momentum carrying him forward. At the top of his swinging arc, he pushed off again with his right foot and was soon flying forward, headfirst, toward the man.

  He sailed over Mrs. E, his speed overtaking her, just as the man fired his last rocket. It pushed through the air with a whitish tail of smoke trailing behind, directly into the space Reggie had been standing in less than a second before. As if in slow-motion, Reggie watched the missile as it passed next to his left side, inches below his nosediving body.

  At the same time, he brought his arms up and forward, aiming the flare pistol at the man’s head.

  No, he thought, suddenly changing his mind. Too small a target.

  Just like the man’s rocket was a detonate-on-impact explosive device, the Orion 12-gauge flares were like simple fireworks: built-in propellant would carry the charge forward, eventually fizzling out in a fiery and bright flash of light. Unless its forward motion was stopped by something solid, at which point all of the explosives causing the forward motion would be compacted into a single ball of fire.

  A human skull was certainly solid enough, but it was too small a target for accuracy, especially fired from a cheaply made piece of plastic while lunging through the air on the side of a cliff.

  He shifted his aim to the right, flicking his wrist just before he fully depressed the trigger. The charge shot out and sailed to the right, its energy carrying it directly toward the space to the right of the man.

  But it wasn’t empty space — unlike the man’s failed last shot, the flare wasn’t heading for dead air. The man was standing near the cliff, and right to the side of his head a large section of boulder jutted out from the surrounding rock face. This was the area Reggie had aimed toward, and this was the spot the flare hit.

  The impact was quiet, but the blast it created was massive. Orange and yellow streaks of light streamed every direction, and a sizzling ball of fire grew and bounced off the rock, right into the man’s face.

  He screamed, dropping his RPG tube, and fell to the ground. Blinded and scarred from the hot propellant, his scratched at his face as Reggie landed.

  Right on top of the man.

  He hit the man’s lower half, knocking the wind out of both men, but Reggie rolled to his right and recovered. The man was coughing and still wiping his eyes, mostly unharmed but still in significant pain. He pulled himself up into a sitting position…

  And that’s when Mrs. E’s boot caught him in the chin. He went out immediately, his head lolling backwards as he fell, down for the count.

  “Nice shot,” Mrs. E said.

  “Nice kick,” Reggie replied.

  Ben and Julie caught up, and the four of them regrouped quickly as they took stock of the situation. Reggie took a deep breath, checked the man for a pulse, and stood up again.

  “Can’t stop here,” he said. “Sarah’s up there.”

  The helicopter above them roared to life, the beating of the rotors growing in intensity.

  No, he thought. Please don’t tell me we’re too late.

  He broke into a run, hurdling the man on the pathway and rounding the last switchback before the final ascent to the top of the mountain. He picked up speed as he neared the top, but couldn’t see
anything over the bushy edge until he was almost level with the mountaintop.

  At that point all his fears were realized. The heli was hovering a few feet off the ground, and a man — the other one from the bar — was standing on one strut closing the door. He pulled the handle and swung the metal hatch closed, but Reggie caught a glimpse of the inside of the chopper.

  Sarah.

  Sarah was inside, her hands ziptied. She was blindfolded and her mouth was open, and it looked as though she was screaming something. He couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the chopper.

  The man slid across the strut to the passenger side door, opened it, and entered, closing the door behind him. Apparently they don’t want their other goon, he thought. The unconscious man was still laying on the rocks somewhere down below.

  Reggie picked up speed, trying to beat the clock. He was running full-tilt, but the helicopter was still a hundred yards off.

  It began to rise, the angle of the blades shifting to provide more lift for the craft. It was already four feet off the ground and increasing speed, now moving closer to Reggie. He knew without needing to calculate that the aircraft would be traveling far too fast, and it would be far out of reach, by the time it passed over him.

  She’s gone.

  The helicopter changed direction slightly, but then tipped its nose down and flew off over the Santorini bay, the dark waters below only slightly darker than the craft itself.

  Reggie tried controlling his breathing, but the events of the last two hours were finally catching up to him. They’d lost, and now there was nothing else left to do.