Chapter 22.
Bannon stood in the boat’s cockpit and stared across the harbor to where ‘Mandrake’ lay moored along the main pier of the marina. Sully was beside him, the big man’s attention fixed on the distant waterfront.
“We have no weapons,” Bannon said.
Sully shook his head somberly.
“I don’t even have the soldier’s handgun,” Bannon lamented. “I left it under one of the break wall rocks.”
The two men lapsed into brooding silence. ‘Mandrake’ was at the end of the main wharf – maybe forty or fifty feet away from where they were anchored. There was a small cluster of undead at the end of the game fishing pier, still howling at them, the zombie’s snarling voices carrying clearly across the water. Bannon frowned and tried to make calculations.
“How long do you think each wharf is?” he asked Sully.
The big man grunted, then shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe a hundred feet from the waterfront out into the harbor.”
Bannon nodded. His guess had been similar. “And how far between each pier?”
“Maybe another forty feet.”
Bannon rubbed his chin. “So those zombies will need to cover a hundred feet back to the waterfront, then forty feet to the main pier… and then another forty or fifty feet to reach the bow of ‘Mandrake’.
Sully nodded. “That’s not far. It doesn’t give us any time.”
Bannon made a wry face and then shook his head. “It gives us time…” he countered. “It just doesn’t give us time for any mistakes.”
“You got a plan?”
Bannon turned and stared into Sully’s grey sunken face. “No,” he said. “We just have to race in and get aboard as quickly as possible. I’ll get the diesels running – you’ll have to cast off the bow and stern lines. Once we’re away from the jetty, we’ll be safe. As soon as you clear the lines, I’ll con ‘Mandrake’ out into deeper water.”
Sully frowned. “The lines – they’re going to take some time.”
“Cut them,” Bannon shrugged. “The panga is still in my cabin.”
Maddie had been listening intently. She had her lip trapped between her teeth and her expression was fraught. “What’s a panga?” she interrupted.
Bannon glanced over his shoulder at her. She was sitting in the swivel seat near the boat’s steering wheel. She had one long brown leg slung over the armrest, lolling indolently.
“It’s like a machete,” Bannon said. “A crude blade, about eighteen inches long. We use it on fish sometimes.”
Maddie frowned. “I thought you were supposed to be out catching fish, not hacking them into little pieces.”
Bannon could barely be bothered with the woman. Suddenly she was like an obnoxious stranger to him. “Some fish we don’t want,” he said vaguely, then turned his back on her.
Bannon suspected one or two of the undead wailing at them from the end of the game fishing jetty had drifted away. He glanced at his wristwatch again and his expression became grim.
“It’s now or never,” he sighed.
Sully hauled up the boat’s anchor and then leaped down into the cockpit and gunned the twin outboards. The little boat lunged forward. He swung her bow in a shallow arc and then lined up for the stern of ‘Mandrake’. Over the throaty roar of the engines Bannon could hear the undead become agitated. It was as if the sound of the motors was a gnawing torment to them. He clung on to a stainless steel handrail and the speedboat skipped across the calm oily surface, bearing down on the broad black hull of the long-line fishing boat at incredible speed.
At the last possible moment, Sully cut the engines. The boat’s bow dropped down in the water, the speed and grace gone from her. She wallowed, still drifting towards ‘Mandrake’, carried on by her forward momentum. Sully spun the wheel hard and the boat crunched into the side of ‘Mandrake’.
Bannon was standing ready in the cockpit. The two vessels came together with a terrible rending grind of wood and aluminum – the impact jarring him off balance. He steadied himself and leaped for the side of the big fishing boat, using the stern scuppers as a foothold. He went over ‘Mandrake’s’ gunwale and landed heavily on the boat’s stern deck. Sully was a few seconds behind him. Bannon didn’t wait. He ran at a crouch past the big open hatches, and the tangle of lines and winch equipment. The fiberglass deck was slippery and streaked with slime. A swarm of flies took to irritated flight, buzzing around the reeking rotting catch still in the hold. Bannon swatted at the air until he crashed through the open doorway into the dark gloomy spaces of the ‘Mandrake’s’ superstructure.
The big diesel engines kicked to life. Bannon threw back his head with a sigh of relief. He heard Sully scrabbling around in the captain’s cabin.
“Hurry up!” Bannon shouted. He peered hard through the boat’s windshield. The pier was littered with debris, and much of his view of the waterfront was obscured by the smoldering ruins of the trawler, moored to the jetty in front of him. He thought he heard an undulation of sound – a moaning rise and fall of clamoring voices.
“For fuck’s sake, hurry up!” he cried again.
He fiddled with the controls – settled the engines until they were throbbing. He saw a flash of movement, and then saw legs pass in front of his view. It was Sully. The big man was scampering over the forward deck, holding the brutal blade of the panga low by his side.
The mooring ropes were as thick as a woman’s wrist. Sully chopped hard at the bow line and it severed neatly. Bannon felt the nose of the big fishing boat begin to inch away from the jetty. Sully turned and ran towards the stern.
Bannon waited impatiently, counting down from ten in his mind. It would take Sully that long to reach the stern of the boat and sever the line. When he reached zero, Bannon threw the lever control into reverse, and ‘Mandrake’s’ big engines began to claw her backwards.
The fishing boat’s hull shook and shuddered in protest. The whole vessel seemed to come alive under Bannon’s feet, trembling and tremoring so that he thought she might break apart. He saw the stern of the burned out trawler inch away from him – and then the pylons of the main peer began to slide past.
Bannon waited as long as he could. He could hear cries of rage now, carrying down the length of the jetty and he knew the undead must be rushing along the concrete pier. He left the controls and burst out onto the stern deck. At the side of the boat he could see Sully, heaving Maddie aboard in his big muscled arms. Bannon ignored them. He clambered up the narrow flying bridge and lunged for the fishing boat’s dual controls.
The undead were shambling along the pier. There were at least a dozen of them. They were drenched in blood and gore, hurling themselves forward on broken limbs and oozing stumps of rotted flesh. Bannon wrenched a last look over his shoulder – the fishing boat’s blunted stern was just creeping out beyond the end of the pier. He toggled the controls and swung the boat around in a tight reverse turn.
‘Mandrake’ swished her stern, and the boat hung broadside to the end of the pier. They were barely clear of the wharf. Bannon pushed the throttle control forward, and the boat’s propellers churned the water into white frothing wake. Her backward momentum halted – she hung motionless for a second in the lapping calm water… and then slowly began to nose her way forward, towards the distant rocks of the break wall and the harbor’s deep-water channel.
Chapter 23.
Bannon swarmed down from the flying bridge and shouldered his way along the narrow passage, back to the fishing boat’s wheelhouse controls. Maddie and Sully were standing in the small kitchen area waiting. Maddie was peering fretfully out through the starboard windows as the marina’s main wharf slid slowly away behind them. Only then did she allow a sigh of relief.
Bannon took the wheel. He had conned the big fishing boat out through the heads of Grey Stone more times than he could remember. He eased the boat’s speed up to four knots, and his touch at the controls was light and instinctive.
“Where’s the regenerator d
evice?” Bannon didn’t actually know what to call the little black box. He couldn’t call it what it really was.
Maddie had it. She thrust it into his hands.
Bannon took his eyes off the view through the fishing boat’s broad windshield and programmed the three-digit code the special forces soldier had given him before the Black Hawk had lifted off.
Six, zero, two…
For an instant nothing happened. Bannon frowned. Then a pinprick of red LED light began to flash from one corner of the keypad panel. It was unimpressive.
“That’s it?” Sully looked doubtful.
Bannon shrugged, nodded. “It’s been programmed, and I’ve set the code,” he said. Bannon didn’t know how the emergency rescue beacon really worked. He had expected some kind of rhythmic pulse of sound…
He only hoped that every military radio along the coast and the army’s defensive perimeter was picking up the distress message and taking action to respond.
“Keep it with you,” Bannon urged Sully, his eyes steady and the conviction in his voice compelling. “It will only work if it’s within a few feet of you.”
Sully nodded. He set the emergency beacon on the saloon table and watched it.
“Thirty minutes,” Bannon went on. “That’s what the army doctor told me. “You should start to feel an improvement within half an hour.”
Sully nodded. Maddie reached for the big man’s hand and interlaced her fingers with his, gripping him tightly. She smiled up into his eyes. “We’re going to make it, John,” she said softly. “I just know it.”
Bannon turned back to the wheel to cover the sudden withering blaze of contempt that crept into his eyes. The ‘Mandrake’ was on a straight line for the narrow channel, bordered by the two long arms of the break wall. Ahead, he could see the stern of the wrecked yacht skewed across the path. He nudged the big boat up to five knots, and then six.
He pointed out through the windshield glass.
“We’re going to hit that first yacht near its stern,” he spoke to Sully. “We’ll take her on our port side. As we get close, I want you to call out the distances to me. Okay?”
Sully nodded.
“We can’t do anything to avoid the other yacht – the submerged one. We’re just going to ride right over her.”
‘Mandrake’ was a big vessel with a high, blunted bow. As she drew nearer to the dark blue water of the channel, the stranded yacht was going to disappear from Bannon’s view. Sully went out through a sliding wheelhouse door. There was a slight breeze coming off the ocean. He slitted his eyes and braced himself. Maddie wedged herself into one of the narrow saloon benches and clung to the edge of the table.
Bannon finessed the spoked wheel, shifting ‘Mandrake’ in the water as he approached the channel marker and the beginning of the break wall. He saw the light grey rock where he had hidden his shirt, boots and the gun roll past the starboard windows, then turned all his attention to the hull of the stranded yacht that loomed directly ahead.
It disappeared under the bows of the fishing boat.
“Forty feet!” Sully called.
Bannon thrust out his jaw and gritted his teeth. He kept the bow of the boat lined up with a marker he had picked out near the far end of the break wall. Overhead gulls began to circle and wheel in the air above fishing the boat, their raucous cries filling the tense silence
“Thirty feet!”
Sully’s voice rose, becoming strained. Bannon saw Maddie fidget in her seat. Her face was drawn. She was gazing sightlessly at the little black box as though mesmerized by the tiny flash of red light.
“Fifteen feet!” Sully called. “You’re going to hit her amidships.”
Bannon touched the wheel. The bow of the boat swung a foot to port. He braced himself, spreading his legs and tightening his grip on the wheel.
“Ten feet!” Sully called. The big man grabbed for a handhold. Bannon touched the throttle control and the ‘Mandrake’s’ big engines roared out in response.
The big fishing boat crashed into the hull of the deserted yacht, hitting her near the sleek stern and shattering her timbers to splinters. The fragile structure collapsed before the weight and momentum of ‘Mandrake’, and was crushed down beneath the keel, smashed into floating debris that gurgled and churned in the big boat’s frothing wake. Bannon heard the rending grind echo up through the ‘Mandrake’s’ keel, a mournful groan that was sickening. The sound dragged out for long agonized seconds – and then she was free.
Bannon allowed himself an instant of sighed relief.
“Coming up on the next one!” Sully barked. He had run forward to the bow of the fishing boat. He peered over the side, then turned back to stare at Bannon through the thick glass. He signaled ‘left’ with his hand.
Bannon touched the wheel.
Sully held up his hand again. ‘Hold’.
Bannon steadied the wheel and took a deep breath. The channel was opening up to the rolling swells of the ocean. He could feel the boat beneath his feet, suddenly restless, as if she was eager to be free of the harbor and once again out in the deep ocean. Bannon eased the throttle down until ‘Mandrake’s’ speed was steady and sedate.
The sudden scrape and ragged vibration came as a surprise. Bannon had underestimated the distance to the sunken yacht. He felt the wheel suddenly kick in his hands, and then a sound like a juddering vibration hammered up through the water. He glanced up in alarm. Sully was bent over at the waist. The big man straightened and came lumbering back through the wheelhouse door.
“We’re clear of the sunken yacht!” Sully said in an excited gasp of relief. “We made it!”
Bannon nodded. He felt his fingers unclench from their grip at the wheel, and the tight strain seep from his back and shoulders. He took a step away from the wheel, and only then realized that he was sweating. The cold breeze through the open doorway felt chilled as ice.
“She’s all yours,” Bannon made a sweeping gesture with his hands. The end of the break wall loomed just ahead. ‘Mandrake’s’ motion became suddenly lively as the ocean swells reaching the long rocky arms of the harbor entrance crashed into milling confusion. “Just hold her steady until you get well offshore.”
Sully nodded. He stepped to the wheel and frowned with concentration. He had rarely been at the helm before. Bannon had never trusted him. He peered hard through the windshield, craning his neck forward with total attention.
Bannon watched the big man for a moment, and then suddenly a shaft of sunlight came streaming through the glass – a golden ray of blinding morning light – as the huge round orb of the sun finally rose across the rim of the world.
It was morning.
Steve Bannon had just run out of time.
Chapter 24.
Bannon went out to the starboard rail. He could see the end of the break wall, white surging foam boiling around the rocks. He glanced over the side. The water here was dark green, deepening to shades of blue.
Maddie appeared suddenly behind him. She stood silently, her arms folded across her chest, her expression unfathomable. Her mouth was tight with some kind of restraint.
Bannon stared at his wife for an instant, and realized he couldn’t muster any kind of emotion. He was done with her, and the finality of the feeling was like a release.
“You reap what you sow,” he warned.
Then he leaped over the side of ‘Mandrake’ and splashed into the foaming wake of the big boat’s wash.
The water was ice-cold, carried into the mouth of channel from the deep ocean currents that swept and swirled in endless cycles along the coastline. Bannon came to the surface gasping, feeling the frigid water like a clamp around his chest. He struck out quickly for the southern break wall.
It was just a dozen strokes. His hands and feet clawed at the slime-covered rocks. He went up the face of the wall like a mountain climber, and when he reached the lip of the wall, he stood for a moment, with one last life-or-death decision to make.
Before him wa
s the rocky face of the headland promontory, rising maybe thirty feet. He could climb the ledge, or run back along the break wall to where he had hidden the gun and his clothes. It would mean wasting precious minutes, but the climb over the rise to the tourist lookout would be easier.
He hesitated.
He stole a glance at his wristwatch.
5.53am.
But the watch had stopped.
How long ago? He panicked.
Cold despairing dread washed over him.
What time was it really?
Bannon started to run along the break wall, back towards where he had concealed the gun.
Shards of jagged rock cut and slashed his feet, but he barely noticed. Bannon ran with the desperation of the hunted, leaving a trail of spattered blood behind him. He ran with his arms pumping, staggering across the broken ground until his panic seemed like an impossible burden that turned the world around him into a slow-motion nightmare of fear and dread.
He found the rock, fumbled for the gun. He stared down at his feet. They were slick with dripping blood. Tattered shreds of flesh hung from his toes. His heels had been slashed open. He dropped to the ground. There was a thumping beat in his ears – a relentless pounding of blood hammering in his head, made so loud that it numbed his senses. He tried to control his breathing. His heart was racing. His hands were trembling. He turned and shot a glance over his shoulder, scanning the waterfront with his eyes. He could see no movement – see nothing hunting him. He screwed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. He forced one of his bleeding feet into a boot… and then realized that the pounding in his ears was getting louder.
And clattering.
He wrenched his eyes skyward. There – in the distance – he could see the dark dragonfly shape of a helicopter, suspended on the blurred disc of its rotors, swooping in low over the trees. It was flying in from the north. The air began to fill with the thumping vibration of its approach.
Dead Rage Page 21
