by Nick Thacker
When Joey was ready and Frey had poured us all a round, I aimed the Wassamassaw toward the horizon and put it on autopilot. I set our speed at thirteen knots, hoping to get a good distance out into open water before we really opened her up.
I wouldn’t have guessed there was a massive storm brewing. I didn’t necessarily have an eye for the weather, but it still seemed like a beautiful, perfectly calm night. I wondered how many other vessels were heading directly into the mouth of the category 5 hurricane at this very moment, unknowingly.
As I joined Frey and Joey on the deck, drink in hand, I sipped the cocktail — a poorly made whiskey smash — and looked around.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I asked, to know one in particular.
“Sure is, boss. Can’t believe we’re out here again on business. I’d sure love to just sail sometime.”
“You got that right. I promise we will, too. Nice and long trip, you, me, and…”
I stopped myself before I said her name.
“I know.”
I nodded. “I know.”
I wasn’t sure what I could possibly say next that wouldn’t seem insensitive, and saying nothing at all felt wrong as well, so I was thankful that my phone starting ringing right at that time. I pulled it out of my pocket, wondering how long we’d have before my cell service ran out, and answered.
“Hello?”
‘Dixon?’ the voice on the other end asked.
“Yeah,” I said, gruffly. I already had a feeling I knew who I was talking to. “What’s up?”
‘What’s your location?’
“What’s my — who the hell is this?”
‘Dixon, we need to know where you are. Right now.’
I took a deep breath. Frey and Joey were staring at me, but I walked toward the steep set of stairs that led to the upper deck and ascended them. “I don’t have to tell you anything. You one of the grunts I met up in Charleston?”
No answer.
“That’s what I thought. Why the hell are you calling me? And why in the world do you think I’m going to just broadcast my location? It’s not like —”
‘We’ve been tracking your boat, Dixon,’ the voice said. ‘We just want verification that you’re on it. Doesn’t matter anyway.’
“And why not?” I asked.
‘We’re calling you off.’
I frowned. “Excuse me?”
‘You heard me, Dixon. We’re calling you off. You’re no longer needed. I appreciate you coming all the way up here, but —”
“Bullshit,” I said. “You’re not calling anything off. I know what this is all about, and you’re not backing down. You want this guy taken out.”
‘Dixon, I’m warning you —’
“You just don’t need me to do it anymore. Why is that?” I strained to understand, forced my mind to crunch the limited data I had into something that resembled a solution. The variables were all there, all the pieces of the story. They just needed to be rearranged into something coherent.
And the first place to start was with what had changed.
“It’s the weather, isn’t it?” I asked. “You’re speeding things up, and since Elizondo’s ship has been rerouted slightly to stay in front of it, you don’t think you need me any more.”
Another pause, this one longer. ‘We have a — an asset — nearby. Yes.’
So they’ve got someone closer to Elizondo now, and they’re speeding things up as well. I felt my face squeezing together as I tried to figure out what it meant. If I wasn’t the guy who was going to kill Elizondo, then that meant someone else was.
And it meant that Elizondo’s guys would be coming after me after these new guys got to him.
Shit.
“No,” I said.
‘I — I’m sorry? Dixon, this isn’t a —’
“Yeah,” I said. “I know. ‘Not a democracy,’ or whatever you were about to say. ‘Not up for discussion,’ but let me tell you something: I agree. This is not a democracy, and it’s not up for discussion. But it’s my call. You call your dogs off Elizondo or I’m going to —”
The phone’s connection terminated.
I yelled a curse. I wasn’t sure if the disconnection had been due to the caller hanging up on me or the fact that we were well out from the shoreline by now, but it didn’t matter.
I’m screwed.
I ran back to the stairs, only to find Joey and Frey looking up at me.
“What’s up?” Joey asked.
“We’re hosed. They’re sending in another guy.”
“Another guy for what?”
“To nab Elizondo.”
“But how can —”
He stopped as he realized the same thing I’d realized while on the phone.
“They’ve got someone capable of doing the job who’s closer to him now,” Joey said. “Because he changed his course to beat the storm.”
I nodded.
“Well, that really messes with our plan.”
Frey, to his credit, didn’t speak. But he seemed even more nervous now, and the drink in his hand apparently wasn’t helping.
“What do you want to do?” Joey asked.
I shook my head. “Shit, I don’t know,” I said. “They’re not just going to believe that we’re backing down. That means they’re probably preparing for us to get involved, even if we’ll get there after their guy’s finished the job.”
“So, we need more guns,” Joey said.
“And more guys.”
“Right. But we don’t know any. And even if we did, we’d completely miss our shot if had to go back in to get them.”
“Right.”
“And we don’t have time to go back and find more guns. We’ve got what we’ve got.”
I nodded.
Frey was rocking back and forth on his heels, looking around at the boat and the sea surrounding it.
“Frey,” I said. “You all right?”
He looked at me, wide-eyed as ever, and nodded slowly. “Y — yeah, I guess. Crazy. Just crazy.”
“What is?”
“It’s — you guys — it’s all real. I had a feeling you guys were in on something. I mean, I’d always had my suspicions, but…”
“Frey,” I said, waiting for him to look up at me again. “Listen to me. You’re in this with us, now. I don’t want you getting killed any more than I don’t want me getting killed. That means we need to work together, which means you need to do exactly what we tell you to do.”
He nodded.
“Good. You ever shot a gun?”
He nodded.
“Well, that’s good news. Here’s the thing: I don’t want you shooting any guns. You’re here to provide support, like steering our little getaway vehicle when it comes time to —”
The sound of gunfire ripped through my head, and before I could even look up to see where it had come from, Joey was moving.
20
“GET DOWN!” HE YELLED. “MOVE inside, now!”
I jumped down the steps and whirled left, into the main cabin. A flurry of shots ricocheted off something on my boat, but a few rounds landed in the wall next to my head.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I screamed. I just had her cleaned and fixed up!
I caught a glimpse of the shooter as I dove to the carpeted floor, between Joey and Frey. A speedboat, long and thin, cutting through the water about a quarter-mile out. I hadn’t noticed that the wind had picked up, and the gentle lapping of waves against the Wassamassaw’s hull had grown in volume, preventing me from hearing of the boat’s approach.
They were still a long way out, which meant that their first set of rounds was nothing but a lucky shot. Any luckier, actually, and one would have landed in the back of my skull.
But they’re only getting closer.
The second stream of bullets soared toward us, but either landed short in the water or flew over the boat. I heard no sounds of impact, and I figured the guy shooting had been off-target thanks to the same waves t
hat made it impossible to hear them.
The boat’s engine roared into my consciousness next. It was loud, far louder than I thought it should have been if it was simply creeping closer to us at a normal speed.
Which was when I realized that it was certainly not creeping toward us at all.
It was barreling toward us, and it wasn’t slowing down.
“They’re going to hit, Dixon,” Frey said.
“I can see that.” I turned to Joey, still laying on the floor next to me. “You have a piece?”
He didn’t, but he was closest to the case I’d brought along. There was another small armory in my room belowdecks, but I wasn’t about to run out and get shot at.
Joey crawled over to the couch and grabbed the case. It was unlocked already, so he opened the lid and extracted two 9mm handguns. There was a third inside, but I was glad he hadn’t offered one to Frey.
I grabbed the pistol and checked it, knowing already that it was loaded but going through the motions anyway out of habit. Joey did the same, and when I felt ready, I popped up and onto my knees.
I fired off three quick shots, only one of which landed anywhere near the boat.
Thankfully, however, the man who had been standing and firing at us ducked out of the way instinctively.
“Now’s our chance,” I yelled. “Keep him down.”
“What about if they hit us?” Joey asked, still aiming toward the boat, waiting for the man to try to rise up again.
“It’s a suicide mission if they do,” I replied. We’re bigger. We go down, they definitely go down.”
I didn’t wait for his response. I ducked and ran out the door again, heading for the stairs at the stern of the Wassamassaw. I could hear the engine of the other boat, still right on target, still threatening to collide. They hadn’t slowed down.
Joey fired, two shots, but I’d already reached the set of stairs that led to the engine deck and the door to the cabins down below. It would have been faster to just run through the main living and dining room to the spiral staircase, but I wanted to try to stay behind the railing and out of sight as much as possible. I pushed the door open and ran down the hallway to the master suite at the end, my bedroom oasis on the seas.
It was a fantastic room, completely consuming the bow of the ship, with wide, stretching windows scattered around the front of it, just above the waterline. A king bed sat in the center of the room, with enough room on the sides of it to walk easily to the closet or restroom on either side.
A small office — just a computer and a desk bolted to the wall — had been installed at the back of the room by the previous owner, where I was now standing. No door separated it from the master bedroom, but a spiral staircase stood next to the desk, leading up into the bridge.
I loved how spacious the room felt, yet I also loved that the entire bridge and captain’s quarters, including the office, could be completely shut off from the rest of the boat. It made for a secure space with enough room to move around comfortably. I’d never shopped for a yacht before, so I had little to compare it to, but I assumed I had gotten a hell of a deal out of it, and I had no complaints about the layout.
The gun safe I was aiming for was in the corner of the small closet, almost completely taking up the space inside. I wasn’t much of a ‘closet’ guy, so I figured a hidden gun safe would be a better thing to have in there than clothes, anyway.
I reached the closet in two strides, but before I could swing the sliding door open I felt the Wassamassaw lurch sideways in the water. I nearly lost my balance, but I reached out and pushed against the wall for leverage.
I heard the roar of the speedboat’s engine, then the crack of a few rounds being fired, and immediately afterward the deep thuds of the bullets landing inside my boat.
They buzzed us, I thought. They’d turned at the last second, not wanting to risk the chance that they would be worse off from a collision, but they’d taken the opportunity to get a couple great shots right where it would hurt me the most.
The fuel tank.
I knew we wouldn’t be able to take any more shots like that, and I also knew that I needed to check the engine cabinet to ensure that nothing major had been damaged. The twin Caterpillar Supercharged 650HP diesel engines sat side-by-side, beautiful to even someone like me who knew next to nothing about them.
A few bullet holes wouldn’t sink the boat, but a few bullet holes to a fuel line or tank would certainly, after a while, put us dead in the water. We couldn’t risk that, and I was hardly a boat mechanic — there would be little I could do from here to fix anything broken.
That meant only one thing: we needed to fight back. I could hear Joey’s pistol, firing at the speedboat that was now heading away from us, but I knew it would never be enough. We needed more firepower if we had any hope of winning this battle.
That was why I was down here in the first place.
I swung the closet door open and began unlocking the safe.
With a click, the lock disengaged and the heavy door fell open a few inches. I pulled it open farther and reached inside, already knowing where and what I was reaching for.
My hands closed around the weapon and I pulled it out of the safe. I left the safe open for the time being, and quickly turned and walked back out of the room.
As I left the room, my mind went blank, then fired up again with a singular focus on my mission. It was like a computer that had been completely reformatted and booted up into a mode that allowed for only one program to run.
Kill the bad guys.
It was a cheesy program, I had to admit, but it was the thing that was going to hopefully keep me alive. Men I’d served with called it different things, but it was essentially a massive boost of adrenaline followed by a animal-like focus on nothing but survival. I’d developed the skill long ago in the service, honed it for years afterward, and still relied on it to this day.
As a bartender it wasn’t so useful. But for my moonlighting gig — it was critical.
21
“YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING,” Joey said. “You bought an AR15?”
I nodded, checking the magazine and balancing the weapon on my shoulder, preparing for the speedboat’s inevitable return.
“When?”
“Couple weeks ago,” I answered. “Felt like it was time to upgrade the arsenal.”
Joey whistled. “Well, I’d say that was a good investment,” he said.
Frey was his typical wide-eyed self, and he hadn’t moved from the carpeted floor. Joey and I were standing at the doorway that led out of the room to the main deck, and I looked down at our third passenger to see if he’d been shot.
He looked back up at me. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just a little tense.”
“Well, that’s allowed,” I said. “Why don’t you head down below, away from the mess up here?”
He shook his head. “I’ll stay close to the bridge. Just like you said, if you need someone to steer, I can handle that.”
I nodded. “Thanks — I’m hoping we won’t need a quick getaway this time. We can’t outrun that thing, and if they make another pass and take some potshots at us again like they did before, we’re probably going to have some real trouble on our hands, and steering won’t help us at all.”
“Still,” Frey said, “I feel better at least seeing it coming.”
I nodded, completely understanding. If I was going to die in a blaze of glory, I at least wanted to stare it down. “I respect that, Frey,” I said. “Stay out of the way, then. I don’t want to step on you.”
He shifted, sliding backwards on the carpet until he was in the center of the room, then he stood up and walked over to one of the chairs. He sat down in it, peering out from behind me, trying to see the boat.
The speedboat had almost finished its wide arc and was now preparing to bear down on us once again. I nudged Joey with my elbow. “Ready?”
He nodded, not taking his eyes off the enemy craft. “Gonna have to be, I guess.”
>
“Yep,” I said.
The boat was coming straight at us again, and this time the shooter was standing on the back, his foot up against the seat in front of him for balance. It wouldn’t do much if the boat hit a wave, but unfortunately it looked like the ocean was currently on their side. The sea stretched, long and flat, the distance between our two vessels growing smaller by the second.
“Get ready,” I said.
The man fired, the shots fell wide.
“Not yet.”
He fired again, and I heard one of the bullets land above my head, smashing into the doorframe.
“Shit,” Joey said. “That was close.”
“Hold,” I said. “Three more seconds.”
The three seconds ticked off like we were in slow motion. I saw every detail of the boat — the man driving, the man preparing to shoot at us, the engine behind it all, roaring and heaving them through the water. The boat grew bigger, and I could then make out the mens’ faces. Both were unrecognizable, but they had a menacing, ‘I’ve-been-here-before’ look to them. They were stiff, but still relaxed, perfectly poised for fighting. They were prepared.
Hired guns, I thought.
The three seconds were up, and I knew our window had arrived.
“Now!” I yelled.
All three weapons — my AR15, Joey’s 9mm, and the man’s pistol — all erupted in gunfire at once. I was too committed to duck, and apparently all of us felt the same. Joey let off two shots, while my three-round burst sounded three times in quick succession. Eleven rounds from us, total, to the man’s three.
One of the bullets zinged past my elbow, searing the top layer of flesh on my lower arm, and pounded the wall behind me. Joey was still standing.
The boat was still coming.
I suddenly saw what had happened. Their shooter was reloading, scrambling around for another magazine. His teammate, however, was hunched over in his seat.
The driver’s seat. One of the bullets we’d fired must have hit the mark, killing their captain.
