by Tom Hilpert
We braced ourselves against the heaving waves as Phil explained how to hold our course to the destination indicated on the GPS.
“Whoever is in the cabin will have our handheld unit,” said Angela. “If we see you going off course, we’ll hurt someone. If it happens a second time, someone will die.”
“Where is this?” I asked. “Where are you taking us?”
“Nowhere,” said Phil. “It doesn’t really concern you.”
I was no GPS expert, but it looked to me like we were heading into the middle of Lake Superior in the teeth of an autumn storm that had only just begun.
CHAPTER 3 4
The waves were piling up and white spray seemed to fly everywhere. Sail or no sail, the wind from the northwest pushed us a little to starboard, while fifteen-foot waves tossed us around like a toy. Every so often we hit one wrong, and it crashed across the deck, burying our bow underwater for a few heart-sickening seconds. But each time, the Tiny Dancer heaved herself up like Archimedes slowly getting out of his bathtub. The water washed around the dodger for the most part, though some of it still flowed into the cockpit, only to drain out the scuppers. The sky was black, and the steadily increasing wind roared and plucked eerie tunes from the rigging.
Angela waved her gun at Leyla. “Take the wheel. Someone will relieve you in two hours. If we start moving off course, we’ll castrate your lover-boy first, and only afterwards send someone up to correct you. You understand?”
“Stay on course,” said Leyla grimly.
“Philip,” said Angela. He went down the companionway. Stone started to move after him.
“Wait!” snapped Angela. “Let him get to the bottom and out of your way first. You try anything, and that pretty little girl down there won’t be so pretty anymore.”
We waited a beat. “Okay.” She waved us forward with the gun.
Stone waved me ahead of him. I was one step from the bottom when the boat lurched just a little more than it had on the previous wave, and he came crashing down on top of me. We fell to the cabin deck with him on top, bruising me to breathlessness.
A bare millisecond after we landed and were still, he coughed softly and sighed a little bit. I strained in shock, but I couldn’t see his face. Then I heard a loud click and Phil was standing, legs low and spread apart to brace against the roll of the boat, his gun about one foot from Tony’s head. I couldn’t see Angela because Stone was on top of me, but I heard the barely controlled rage in her voice.
“Do you have a death wish?”
Stone lay still on top of me. “I lost my balance is all,” he mumbled. He coughed softly again, but didn’t move.
“Get up,” said Angela.
Slowly, with what seemed a great deal of trouble, Stone got himself off me, but not without pushing and poking me and using me as if I was some kind footstool to assist him. My breath began to come back. I rolled over onto my hands and knees, and then sat down with my back against the galley wall. Stone clambered to his feet and Phil grabbed his arm, shoving him into the straight settee on the forward port side.
“Now you,” said Angela, who was down in the cabin. The door behind her was shut. I got up slowly, making a show of feeling my aches and bruises. “To the other settee.” She gestured to the starboard U-shaped bench that went around the eating table. “Hands on the table, always visible,” she said. I put my hands on the table and sat down with my back to the forward bulkhead, facing the stern. Jasmine was standing next to me, her hands on either side of the great steel mast-pole, secured by plastic cable-tie type handcuffs.
Stone glanced at her. “I lost my pager, Jaz,” he said. He sounded like it was the end of the world.
For a moment, her face looked shocked and worried, but quickly her expression became bored again. “Now is not the time to worry about work,” she said.
“He just about went overboard,” I said. “Both of us did. The wave probably ripped it off his belt. It’s at the bottom of Superior now.”
She stared at me, and then looked at Tony.
“The pager is the least of your worries,” said Phil. He pointed to me. “Move around,” indicating that I should sit at the top of the U with my back to the starboard wall. It was a pretty good strategic arrangement. Jasmine stood just out of Stone’s reach, against the mast-foot. She couldn’t move from the mast in any case. My hands were visible on the table, and it wasn’t possible to make any sudden moves – I was encumbered by the table, which extended over my legs, almost to my stomach. No way was I getting out of there fast. Stone was out in the open, but too far from anyone to make a move. He still looked a little groggy from the fall.
“We’ve heard about you, Borden,” said Angela. “We know you are a killer, but so are we. So sit tight back there. I don’t think that even you can move fast enough to get anywhere before we shoot you.”
“You shoot me, you might put a hole in the boat,” I said. “You’d be killing yourself.”
“Hollow-point bullets,” said Phil. “They spread out on impact. Made to stay inside the body they hit. Do a lot of damage to the target, but not to anything behind it. If we’d used them before, maybe you wouldn’t be walking so well right now.”
“Shut up Phil,” snapped Angela. But I could see the gleam of Stone’s eyes under his lowered brow.
“You – ” I paused to feign incredulity. “You were the bank robbers?”
Angela stepped over to Phil and slapped him on the face. “You’re an idiot, Philip, as I’ve told you before. They don’t need to know anything.”
I looked closely at Phil, but the slap did not seem to shock him. He took it as if it were a normal way of relating. “Sorry, Angela,” he mumbled. I could see the red flush spreading across his whole face, not just where her hand had struck him.
There was a long silence that stretched out even longer until it simply became the way things were. The sound of storm was louder down here. The boat creaked and groaned as she heaved through the water. I could hear banging and thumping from above, and I assumed that various ropes and pulleys were being slapped against the deck by the angry waves. The engine beat stolidly through the deck. I slowly began to warm up.
“Can I take off my jacket?” I asked. “My legs are cold, and I want to cover them.”
“Nice and slow. Stand up where we can see what you are doing.”
I couldn’t really stand up straight. But I slid my back up the wall with my knees bent, and slowly, awkwardly removed my coat. My helpless position and easy movements seemed to satisfy them. After it was off, I held it up in my hand. Angela nodded. I sat back down and spread it over my legs under the table. I fumbled a little bit.
“Hands back on the table,” said Angela.
I put them back in view. I let my head droop with shock and weariness. My shoulders slumped in defeat. But inside, I was buzzing. When Stone fell on me and coughed, he had whispered “FBI. Wait my signal.” And when he was getting up, pushing and pulling on me, he had stuffed a knife into my jacket pocket.
CHAPTER 3 5
Time passed. Phil sat on the outside stern-end of the U-shaped settee to my left, facing forward. Angela settled on the companionway steps, the whole cabin in front of her. Take the Money and Run was flowing through my head endlessly. I got the irony, I hated it, but I couldn’t stop looping that song over and over again. The pitching and rolling of the Tiny Dancer was getting worse. All of us had to brace ourselves constantly against violent movements of the boat. I moved a little, to try and keep my muscles loose, but it didn’t help. I had been cold and wet, and now sitting still had begun to make me stiff and sore. I leaned back against the hull and glanced around aimlessly.
“What are your plans for us?” I asked Phil.
“Shut up,” said Angela.
“That’s nice,” I said. “But I’d like more specifics.”
No one said anything.
“Chatty group,” I said. I looked at Stone, sitting against the opposite settee. His head was down, but he was nodd
ing imperceptibly, like maybe he wanted me to keep talking. I glanced sidewise to my right at Jasmine, and she too gave the tiniest nod.
“So, a sailboat seems like a slow way to get where you want to go.” I could have been talking to a trout I had just caught.
“So.” I stretched again. “You guys are the bank robbers that have confounded everyone on the North Shore. Pretty clever modus operandi – small banks, small police forces, no FBI.” I was careful not to look at Stone when I said that. Still no response. I was used to preaching to tough crowds, but this was ridiculous. I swallowed and gathered myself before my next comment.
“You have your flaws, though. You tend to get your partners shot, don’t you? First my dad shoots one of you, then me. Pretty ironic, huh?”
With an inarticulate cry, Phil dove across the table at me. I caught a glimpse of him swinging his gun like a club, and then something very hard and sharp-edged struck me high on the left side of the head. I flung up my arms, and caught another blow on the forearm. Through the ringing of my head and the blood that had begun to flow down into my eyes, I sensed another blow. I twisted towards it, caught his arm and pulled it down, jamming his wrist between me and the edge of the table. I slammed it hard and he grunted and dropped the gun onto the floor under the table. I ducked under after it, but before I could reach the weapon, Angela’s voice cut like a whip-crack. “Touch it and he dies.”
Slowly I pulled myself up above the table top. Angela stood with her left hand around Stone’s head, the gun screwed into his right ear. Phil was kneeling on the aft portion of the settee, kitty-corner from me, wringing his right hand.
“Philip, get the gun,” said Angela, speaking as if to a slow child.
He backed off the seat, knelt to his hands and knees and scooted under the table. A moment later, I gasped as he struck me in the shin with the butt of the gun.
“Enough, Philip,” said Angela. “We need him able-bodied.”
Phil emerged from the under the table, chest heaving. My shin felt like I had kicked a coffee table with it as hard as I could.
“I wanna kill him,” said Phil. “Can we just kill him now?”
“Shut up, Philip,” said Angela patiently. She looked at me. “You killed his twin brother, so he doesn’t like you very much, you see.”
My face felt wooden. Blood dripped down my forehead. “So the man I shot died then,” I said. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.” And I didn’t. What kind of ordinary person ever would?
Phil just glared at me with pure hatred.
I thought about pointing out that if no one had been shooting at me, I would not have fired back. I might have suggested that if one didn’t rob banks, one would be less likely to get shot. But I didn’t think it was what I would call a teachable moment. And truthfully, I was too distressed about my own part in it to say anything more.
Angela took a smooth step backwards. “Come stand in the galley, Philip,” she said to her husband. She grabbed his arm and pulled him over as he passed her and whispered something into his ear. He took a breath and nodded, and then moved behind the galley counter, covering me with his gun, leaving Angela to cover Stone.
I wiped at my bloody face. Angela got a washcloth from the galley for me, and I held it to my head, which began to throb.
It was not exactly quiet, with the roar of the storm, the beat of the engine and crash of water against the vessel, but somehow inside the cabin, things began to settle down again. Stone had not had time to act during the confusion – Angela was too quick. I didn’t know what else I could do. I wasn’t so sure about the future either. One of my captors clearly wanted me dead.
Stone hunched far over, bracing his elbows on his knees, his head hanging low. Jasmine slid her bound hands down the mast foot and sat on the floor, leaning her head on the brightly polished pole. I was tired and sore, but I didn’t dare fall asleep while I waited for a signal from Stone. I started to get hungry.
Suddenly, without warning, the engine stopped. A moment later, it coughed and sputtered, then died again. We heard the fruitless sound of a starter laboring to give life to an engine that would not catch. Stone looked up, alert. I watched him.
Immediately, our movement in the water changed. Though it was rough before, our steerage had given the boat a certain rhythm, almost predictable. But now we bounced around any which way, and the movements grew more and more violent.
“What the – ” said Angela, turning for the companionway as the door slid open and Leyla’s form appeared, haggard, wet and cold.
“Now!” said Stone. Across from me, his right hand dropped smoothly to his ankle and then he stood up rapidly, holding a gun, straightening his arm toward Angela. “FBI!” he shouted. “Drop your guns.” Time slowed down for me, as it always seems to in such moments. I threw my jacket into Phil’s face. He fired blind twice, the boom shockingly loud in the confined cabin, but I was already under the table, squirming like mad for the walkway.
I emerged and looked up at Stone. He was hesitating as he noticed Leyla in the companionway above and behind Angela, in the line of fire. Angela herself was still half turned between Leyla and the rest of the cabin. Then a violent wave threw Stone off balance. Angela brought up her gun and fired four times in rapid succession. Leyla screamed.
The noise of the shots was like a physical blow. Stone’s gun clattered to the floor, and he sat back down heavily on the settee.
My ears were ringing, though I still dimly heard the waves and wind in the background. Jasmine was calling Stone’s name urgently. Leyla had sat down on the top step of the companionway. As I watched, water cascaded across her back, and she turned and pulled the doors shut.
Angela’s weapon was trained on me. “Stay away from his gun.” Her face was flushed and she was breathing fast. She was smiling.
“I’m kicking it to you,” I said. I pushed it away from me with my foot and turned to Stone, who was half reclined on the settee to my right. His entire right side was a mass of blood.
“I can help,” Jasmine said. “Let me go, let me help him.”
Angela looked at her with hard eyes. “Why did he have a gun?” she asked.
Jasmine shrugged. “I never knew about the ankle holster.”
Angela glared at her for a moment longer, and then turned to me. “You can help him. But if you find any more weapons on him, you just hand them carefully to me.” I was aware of her gun, very near my head. She had a strange look of satisfaction on her face. She looked like I felt just after I landed a big fish.
The boat was plunging ever more wildly. It was hard to keep my balance.
“I’m trained in first aid for this sort of thing,” said Jasmine. “Let me help.”
Angela gave her a funny look. Jasmine cut her eyes quickly at me and then met Angela’s gaze again.
“Tell me what to do, Jasmine,” I said. Angela gave a shrug.
“What do you see?” asked Jasmine. “Where is he hit?”
Tony was conscious, but he wasn’t speaking. His eyes were glassy and his breathing was labored. I gently pulled his jacket aside. There was a lot of blood. Some of it seemed to originate from his right shoulder. “Shoulder.” I carefully explored more and found a long tear in his shirt and a gash across the right side of his ribcage where a bullet had plowed an ugly furrow through the skin without penetrating the body. “Flesh wound on the right side of the ribs.”
Tony seemed like he was trying to whisper to me, but couldn’t make the necessary noise. I leaned down with my ear to his lips. “High, right side of the chest,” he said, barely breathing the words. “Tell them I’ve got a lung wound.” I explored the area. It was covered in blood, from his shoulder, but I could find no wound. Stone grabbed my right arm, in front of my body, where Phil and Angela could not see. His grip was like iron. He pumped my arm twice, looked meaningfully into my eyes and then let go.
I made a show of looking further. “He’s hit in the chest too,” I said, pointing to his blood soaked shirt below
the shoulder wound. “Maybe clipped in the top of the lung.”
Jasmine took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “We need clean cloths for bandages. Any dishtowels or anything?”
“I’ll get them,” said Leyla. Phil and Angela moved out of her way as she went to the galley cupboards. She brought the dishtowels forward and I took them. Following Jasmine’s instructions, I bound up Stone’s two wounds, plus his fake one. I was glad he was not hit in any vital spot, but his shoulder was an awful mess. He probably didn’t have to fake the agony that he expressed as I worked on him. It took me much longer than it might have, because the boat was bucking like a prize rodeo bull.
“Since he wasn’t hit low, we can give him a pain killer,” said Jasmine. “But not Aspirin or Advil – those thin the blood.” Under Angela’s watchful eyes, Leyla got a glass of water and some Tylenol. Right before she brought it to me, Stone’s head slipped down to his bloody shoulder. I lifted his head up again. His eyes were still open, and he gave me a nanosecond wink, more imagined than seen. I supported his neck and held the glass while Leyla put the Tylenol in his mouth. He took it, and then blew a flimsy red bubble of blood out of his mouth. Angela saw it, and so did Jasmine. Jasmine said in a strange dispassionate voice, “He’s hit in the lung. He won’t last long without surgery.”
“He should have thought of that beforehand,” said Angela, which seemed a little hypocritical to me. Jasmine looked at Angela. “Any need to keep up with this still? These other two aren’t much of a threat, and I can’t do anything like this anyway.”
Angela shrugged. “I guess not.”
“Good,” said Jasmine. “Then get me out of these stupid cuffs.”
Phil stepped over wordlessly, and cut Jasmine’s plastic’s handcuffs. She stood up and stretched, and then ran her fingers through her thick dark hair. She reached under her fleece, and pulled out a black leather wallet, opened it and tossed it on the table. It was an FBI badge, accompanied by her photo ID. “Glad to be finally done with that,” she said to no one in particular.
