by Linda Lovely
The cruiser zoomed toward Duncan. Not a damned thing we could do.
Ross boomeranged us into a U-turn. He’d decided to play chicken, force the boat to flinch and alter course before it creamed Duncan.
We’d lost momentum wallowing in our turn, and our target had gained speed. The cruiser planed—her bow jacked high above the dark, churning water. The upright posture wouldn’t prevent her knife-like propellers from slicing into Duncan’s unprotected body.
A second boat sprang into view. The FBI. The villains had turned tail. Unfortunately the FBI’s nondescript deck boat had been chosen for its fade-into-the-scenery façade. It was outclassed in this race.
With no time to influence the unfolding drama, Ross idled our wave runner. Our only play was rescue. He edged closer to Duncan’s runaway wave runner. Ross captured it and fastened a towrope to its nose.
I scanned the water where we’d last spotted Duncan. The cruiser and chase boat would intersect the area in seconds. I frantically searched for some sign of Duncan. Nothing. No hint of a head or arm breaking the churning surface. The boats roared by.
Afraid to look, I forced myself to dissect every dark, oily smudge that might be blood. The chop churned the water into a witch’s cauldron. Seconds ticked by. The dual wakes flattened like the dying line on a heart monitor. Nothing. Then Duncan surfaced less than six feet away. He gasped like a landed trout.
“Are you hurt?” I yelled.
Duncan hadn’t enough breath to answer, but shook his head. “I dived,” he choked out. “Damned glad I wasn’t wearing a lifejacket. Any extra buoyancy and I’d never have kicked deep enough. My weapons pack is gone.”
Ross coaxed the riderless wave runner into Duncan’s reach. With trembling arms, he draped his wheezing body over the seat.
“Will you be okay?” Ross asked. “We have to go. The FBI will never catch that cruiser. It’s got a 280-horsepower motor and a top speed of around fifty miles per hour. If we go flat out, we might run them down.”
“Go,” Duncan said. “I’ll follow in a minute.”
“No, no. Go to Ross’s house,” I yelled. “You don’t have any weapons. Tell the FBI what we know.”
Ross blasted off. Had Duncan heard my entreaty? I wasn’t sure. We retraced our course from Arnolds Park. Why would the kidnappers head there? The flight seemed nonsensical. By now, they surely knew any Arnolds Park cohorts were dead or engaged in a losing battle.
Night fell. The boats we shadowed were harder and harder to see. No running lights. Even the arctic white of the villain’s cruiser disappeared with regularity, a ghostly moon that played hide and seek in twilight’s murky mist. When I again caught sight of our quarry, the cruiser looked bigger. We were gaining.
The icy lake spray had ceased to rule my body. I no longer shivered. The goose bumps that had marched up and down my spine were at parade rest. Numbness has its rewards. The constant spank of our ride had deadened my behind.
We closed on the FBI boat. Silhouettes of gun-toting men crowded the deck. Losers in the drag race. A widening gap between the speedboats neutralized the FBI guns. The kidnap boat pulled out of range. Of course, even eyeball to eyeball, the FBI agents would be reluctant to fire from their jouncing platform. An errant shot could hit Aunt May.
Hang in there, May.
We rocketed past the FBI. The on-deck agents gestured wildly, mouthing commands we couldn’t hear. Soundless and meaningless appeals. We sped forward. “Catch the bastards.” My scream merged with the whine of our maritime motorcycle.
The skeletal frame of the amusement park’s roller coaster and the Queen’s shadowy majesty grew distinct. Our adversaries would ram the pier if they didn’t change course or slow.
Tethered at irregular intervals, the antique flotilla created a formidable obstacle course. The haphazard deployment of vessels would normally be no more than an inconvenience in a No Wake Zone. For a boat approaching at fifty miles per hour, the twinkling boats could prove the ultimate no wake zone.
Was this the plan? Did the kidnappers want to crash and die in a cataclysmic explosion? Were they choosing a fiery death over jail?
Please God, no. In what seemed an answer to my silent prayers, the cruiser slowed.
The first muzzle flash dashed any hope they’d surrender. They weren’t going to say adios without a final firefight. A bevy of bullets whizzed past me. Tiny geysers erupted nearby as bullets peppered the lake’s surface. I tightened my grip as Ross zigged our wave runner one way, then zagged another.
We were at a definite disadvantage. Even if we’d had firearms, we wouldn’t have used them—not with May aboard. Our paltry weaponry required proximity. We’d also need luck or surprise for our odd armament assortment to yield any success.
I picked out the shadowy silhouettes of at least three bad guys. We were outnumbered. Well, well. On shore, I picked up bustling activity. What looked like a full platoon of agents scurried about the boardwalk. Unfortunately none of them had water wings. The FBI wouldn’t be joining our boating party for awhile.
A bright flash lit the sky. An explosion bloomed. An antique boat blew sky high. Chunks of fiery debris rained down like hail from a virulent thunderstorm. Though outside the inferno’s radius, shockwaves lifted us heavenward, then plummeted us toward hell. Ross slipped sideways. I grabbed his jacket, yanked with fury. He scrambled back into position.
“Dammit. That was Gus Swenson’s 1933 Chris-Craft. He’ll be sick.”
Only Ross could expend mental energy mourning a boat owner’s loss with bullets flying.
A new roar drowned out my response. More lethal pyrotechnics. Somehow the kidnappers were blasting the antiques to smithereens.
“God damn!” Ross yelled. “That was Harry Johnson’s 1920 Weekender!”
“Well, Harry and Gus won’t be the only losers if we don’t do something fast.”
What were these idiots trying to pull? The anchored oldies were empty—God, at least I hoped they were. Were the pyrotechnics simply intended to add confusion? Or had their shots gone awry? Did they think FBI agents were swimming toward them?
The destruction did something more than distract us. It narrowed everyone’s field of vision—theirs as well as ours. Oily smoke billowed from the sinking wrecks and added a layer of inky fog to the night sky. The sharp contrast between blazing timbers and the surrounding gloom was enough to make anyone’s retinas act like out-of-control auto-focus lenses. Pinpoints of light danced in my vision. I couldn’t see anything beyond the fires.
Where had the cruiser gone? There she was. Inching our way and maneuvering for a clear shot at open water. Her captain must have decided landing here wasn’t such a hot idea after all. The lake offered many dark, unpopulated coves that promised far better opportunities for a getaway.
So why didn’t they take off?
Suddenly it dawned on me. The bad guys had ceased firing at us. Since I could barely see them, maybe we’d become invisible as well. We presented a much more compact target, and our water-hugging profile had to help. While a sliver of our wave runner’s bumblebee color scheme rode above the chop, how visible could it be from above? Especially with two people in Batman costumes draped over the frame?
“Can you sneak around and sidle up behind them?” I asked. “I don’t think they have a clue where we went after the fireworks started. If you can get close, we can board her—use my grappling hook to lever ourselves up to her deck. They won’t expect that.”
“Forget the grappling hook,” Ross chuckled. “The dummies picked a Stingray with a swim platform. We can step onto that sucker from our wave runner. Or swim in and roll onto the ledge if push comes to shove.”
Playing cat and mouse, we made a do-si-do maneuver around a moored antique, keeping it between us and our prey. The Stingray appeared to be using the same relic to screen its movements from the land-locked FBI. The cruiser huddled so close to the old powerboat their beams almost kissed.
“I’ve got an idea to put the brakes on t
hat Stingray, if she tries to zoom out of here,” I whispered. “I can use the grappling hook to make these boats Siamese twins. Tie the bad guys’ Stingray to the anchored Chris-Craft.”
“Might work,” Ross allowed. “The line won’t hold forever, but it’ll sure give ’em a few seconds’ pause.”
Within six feet, Ross cut our idling motor. Dipping our feet below the lake surface, we finned our way toward the Stingray’s swim platform. No one was visible in the boat’s stern. I prayed all three men were in the bow, eyes trained forward to scan the horizon for the FBI boat pursuing them and, possibly, us. Elimination of their water-based pursuers would dramatically improve their odds of escape.
With hand motions, I signaled Ross to wait. I tied the grappling hook’s line through a cleat on the Stingray—the one usually reserved for a ski tow line. Then I grabbed hold of trim on the old Chris-Craft and heaved myself upright. I wobbled like a crazed first-time rollerblader. As I hefted the grappling hook over the antique’s gunnels, my feet scooted out from under me.
Crap. The jig was up. The hook dropped onto the Chris-Craft’s deck with a loud metallic thwack. I entered the water with a splash grand enough to rival my best-ever cannonball.
As the cold lake baptized me, I said a final prayer. My face broke the lake’s surface. Aboard the Stingray, a solo giant ran toward me. What the heck?
Ross steadied the Sea-Doo and aimed his spear gun. I held my breath as his spear arced over the stern and pierced the man’s torso. The target dropped his gun and clutched at the spear. Trying to extract its imbedded barbs would only increase his agony.
Fine by me. One down. The man grunted and collapsed.
“Gary?” a gruff voice bellowed from the Stingray’s bow. In seconds, Gary’s failure to answer would send another villain charging our way.
Somehow Ross managed a world-class dismount to the Stingray swim platform. With an outstretched hand, he yanked me from my ice-water bath. Together we scrambled over the fiberglass knee wall separating us from the deck.
Now we were onboard but ill prepared. Ross needed time to load another spear. Downing the next kidnapper would be up to me. I grabbed the gaff I’d planned to use as a club and sprinted ahead. I hunkered down in shadows to the left of Gary’s body, held my breath…and prayed the sight of a spear protruding from a colleague would rattle our enemy. Coupled with a background image of Ross and his spear gun, the visual confusion might provide an opening for me to whomp him upside the head.
The new kidnapper hustled into view, then stalled as he tried to absorb the scene. I took my one chance. Winding up as if there were runners on all bases, I had to hit one out of the ballpark. The man’s gun swiveled toward me. I swung my bat-gaff. A sickening thwonk confirmed contact. A second later, a sharp sting and burning sensation told me he’d landed a blow, too. I’d been shot.
My bleeding left arm hung dead and useless at my side. My adversary looked even worse. While the gaff missed his temple, it tore a hole through his cheek and impaled his tongue.
Ross retrieved the man’s dropped gun and pointed it at his chest. “Move an eyelash and I’ll shoot.”
Despite gagging on his own blood, the man grabbed a seat and attempted to lever himself upright.
Someone stomped on the gas. The Stingray leapt forward. Guess the survivor figured to shake things up. The boat snapped back like an enraged pit bull stymied by a choke chain. The grappling hook-as-anchor blocked the attempted getaway. The bucking knocked Ross and me flat.
Our bleeding enemy recovered his balance quicker than we did. He made for the bow. We pursued. Ross led as we bolted up the step to the raised captain’s platform. I stared at the captain’s handgun aimed directly at us. Ross squeezed off a shot. He’d kept his finger on the trigger of the captured gun.
The captain screamed and toppled overboard. One less threat in our equation. Now the odds favored us. Two versus one hemorrhaging villain. Except he’d disappeared. Feeling vulnerable without a weapon, I used my still-working right arm to extract the only thing left in my backpack—a wadded up fish net.
“Where’d he go?” I whispered.
“Dammit, he crawled into the cuddy cabin. Down with Mom. Only one way in. He’s got a definite advantage.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t have a gun. The faster we move the better off we are.”
Cradling my injured arm, I ran like hell to beat Ross to the cuddy cabin door. I knew the first person in would take the brunt of any counterattack. I figured that should be me since I’d gotten us into this mess.
As I burst headfirst into the cabin, I threw the net clutched in my left hand.
“Marley!” Aunt May screamed. “He has a knife.”
As the lunatic pulled his dagger from a leg holster, my fishnet snared him. I pushed off the stairs. The fishnet snagged my legs. Thrashing arms and legs kicked at our shared straitjacket. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed something red and shiny. A cylinder? I heard a pop and a loud whoosh.
The last thing I remembered.
TWENTY-FOUR
Stretched out on an operating table, I bit my lip as a doctor pulled another stitch through my upper arm. It hurt like hell, even though my arm felt tingly from the shoulder down.
“If you leave a scar, you’ll answer to me,” Aunt May warned. “I want those stitches harder to see than tits on a boar hog!”
I wanted to laugh. My hallucination was funny. The deja vu dialogue was lifted straight from my teenage follies—my infamous après car wreck visit to Dickinson County Hospital’s ER. Aunt May sure was bossy back then.
Her voice sounded so real, so close.
Lazily, I opened my eyes. A doctor. I could smell his Brut aftershave and count individual follicles in his five o’clock shadow. He bent close, frowning in concentration. A needle popped into my flesh. I squinted. Aunt May hovered on the sidelines. Her snow-white hair a dead giveaway I wasn’t in some trance. I blinked.
“Lookey who’s decided to join the party,” May crowed. “About time. Didn’t want you to miss all the fun.”
“You’re okay? And Ross?” Words tumbled like cotton balls on my sandpaper tongue.
“Fine and fine.” May smiled.
“Okay, May.” The doctor looming over me made a shooing motion. “Out with you. No need to excite our patient. We’ll have her out of here in no time—if you’ll let us be.”
“Humph.” May toddled away. I slipped back into never-never land.
***
What a nice dream. Duncan kissed me. One of those deep, lingering numbers that make my knees go weak, not arthritic. He bent to kiss my breast. Not good. His lips felt like ice.
I awoke with a start and stared into the face of a white-on-white nurse—pasty skin, gray hair, white uniform. Her cold metal stethoscope pressed against my chest.
Why don’t they ever let you sleep in hospitals? Uh-oh, why was I in the hospital?
It started to come back. I scanned my field of vision for added clues. Duncan rose from a bedside chair to take my hand. “Hi.”
I squinted to make his smile swim into clearer focus.
“How are you feeling?”
I felt grouchy and anxious despite his devilish grin. “What the hell happened?”
“You got shot and you have a concussion. The doctors say you’ll be fine but they kept you for observation because of the knock on your head. Ross and May fared better—not a scratch. Your aunt’s wrists and ankles are a little irritated from being tied up. She’ll probably outlive us all.”
“What happened to that guy in the cabin with May? I don’t remember a thing after I tackled him. How did Ross take him down?”
“He didn’t.” Duncan laughed. “May did. They tied her hands in front of her. Didn’t think a pipsqueak eighty-year-old could do much damage. She hopped around the cabin, found a compact fire extinguisher, and hid it under a blanket. She planned to foam the bastard. Blind him with a high-pressure nozzle in the face.
“Then you dropped in—so to spea
k—and snagged the kidnapper in the fishnet. Since you had the guy’s head pinned securely to the ground, May stuck the nozzle right in his ear and pulled the trigger. Might as well have shot him with a .22 caliber. He died instantly. But the explosion jackknifed his body and drove your head into a cabin beam.”
“Dammit, I can’t believe it. All three guys on the kidnap boat are dead?”
“No. The driver—the fellow Ross shot—lived,” said Duncan. “The FBI arrived about the time May extinguished the last fellow, picked the wounded captain out of the brink and medevaced him to a hospital. Weaver hopes he’ll talk, though he may not know much. He was one of Bo Quigley’s disciples. He never communicated with anyone in Spirit Lake.”
“What about Bo Quigley and his bioterrorism plans?”
“I can answer that.” The new voice came from the door to my room. General Irvine looked tired but pleased.
“Homeland Security raided Quigley’s camp in Montana. He’s done for and the genie’s back in the bottle—at least this time around. All the stolen research has been secured. The lab making the bioterrorism cocktails was destroyed and the workers are in jail.”
“Is Weaver okay?”
The general walked over to a small table and set down a vase of roses. “Yes. She sends her thanks. You have mine, too. She’s busy with some mop-up details or she’d be here.”
Duncan chimed in. “Your idea for a website warning gave Weaver ample time to set up her own ambush. The FBI bagged four homegrown terrorists in the Arnolds Park skirmish. All dead.”
The general nodded. “Too bad her only hope of nailing Kyle and Hamilton rests with the guy your cousin hospitalized, plus any evidence they inadvertently left behind.”
“You’re kidding.” My head pounded. “She can’t put Kyle or Hamilton at Arnolds Park? There’s no proof one or both of them were behind this?”
Duncan put a hand on my shoulder, trying to pin me to the bed. “Calm down.”
My eyes pleaded with the general. “I know this is Hamilton’s scheme. He hired those thugs. Kyle wouldn’t have the contacts, the know-how. Can’t Weaver trace payments… or phone calls?”
