by Lyle Howard
Four minutes...
A very wise person once said that the eyes were the windows to the soul. Never was that statement more accurate than now. Face to faces, soul to souls, Cal gazed into their eyes and saw the sheer panic that haunted their thoughts. He held the advantage.
They whispered to each other, unaware that Cal couldn’t have understood a word they were saying if they had been using megaphones. They were urging one another to do something about their situation. They wouldn’t stop arguing ... a good sign ... a sign of weakness.
The one in the center, a short man with close cropped hair, said something to Cal. The bartender didn’t flinch. The goon looked at his partners and repeated his declaration, only more forcefully this time. Cal remained rock steady, both guns leveled and trigger fingers itching. He couldn’t let this go on forever. The time for his concerto’s finale was drawing ominously near...
They seemingly came out of thin air. A chorus of bullets whistled past Cal’s ears in deadly harmony. But something was very wrong. Every instinct in his body was suddenly telling him to hit the floor. The five assassins, mouths wordlessly agape in shock, were riddled by gunfire and he hadn’t even fired a single shot!
He dove to the carpeting, landing on his side, facing the men who planned on killing him. Each one of them in various stages of death, each of them gruesomely writhing in pain. Blood was spraying everywhere! It was horrible, but Cal couldn’t look away for fear of getting hit by an errant shot. Hundreds of red gore blossoms sprouted from Von Robles’ men. Front, back, head, legs ... it didn’t matter, it was a man-made weed that overwhelmed them in a matter of seconds. With their neural impulses short-circuiting, the killers collapsed in five separate smoking, lifeless heaps.
Cal never loosened his grip on the pair of Walthers. As he heard the footsteps padding closer to him, he prepared to roll and fire. Getting closer ... running ... closer ... slowing down ... closer ... turn and...
“Whoa,” the Latin-looking young man begged, as he held up his hands defenselessly. “I’m all out of ammo, baby!”
The first thing Cal noticed was the cluster of hand grenades tied to the interloper’s belt loops. The second was his thick moustache and brooding eyes. Still unsure of his allegiance, Cal kept his pistols trained on the stranger’s forehead. “Who are you?”
The Columbian offered his arm as a way for Cal to pull himself to his feet. In fairly good English he offered his name. “Oscar ... Oscar Hidalgo ... and you?”
Cal never lowered his guard. “How did you get here?”
The Columbian winced. “Okay, no chit-chat then.”
Cal pointed one pistol at each of the stranger’s eyes. “I’ll ask you again, how did you get here?”
Hidalgo motioned with a nod of his head. “My boat, baby... we were just...”
Mackey looked at the Columbian skeptically. The Nocturne had once again performed its objective admirably, reeling in another fresh catch of smugglers.
“Checking out the ship?”
Hidalgo tried not to look guilty, but failed miserably. “Yeah, that’s right ... we were checking out the ship,” he said, using his hands expressively, “but then all hell broke loose!”
Cal lowered his guns and chuckled. “Pal, you picked the wrong people to rob, but I’m damned glad you showed up when you did.”
The Columbian didn’t have to be reminded that he and his comrade had made a tragic mistake. Their greed had proven to be their downfall. “They already killed my partner Alberto!”
Cal slipped the pistols into his waistband and hoisted the submachine gun from around his neck. “I know. Here. This was his…” he said, handing it over as a gesture of good faith. “It’s just about empty too.”
Hidalgo nodded. “I was there ... at the far end of the hallway when he was killed. I saw you trying to help him.”
Cal pouted. “I’m afraid I was too late.”
The Columbian examined his friend’s gun, wiped a red smear off of it with his fingertips and let the weapon fall uselessly to the ground. Feeling the slickness of the blood on his fingers, his eyes narrowed viciously. “What the hell is going on here?”
Cal looked down at his watch. “There’s no time for explanations!”
Hidalgo stood firm. “Try me!”
Cal couldn’t hide his frustration. “Look, even if I had the time to explain, you’d never believe me! You’ve gotta believe me! This ship is a death trap, run by a bastard who’s already killed countless people just like you! Now, I’ve rigged enough barrels of fuel oil down below to blow this yacht to shrapnel, but time is running out!”
The tone of Cal’s voice could have convinced a nun to do a striptease. Without hesitation, the Columbian started moving in one direction and Cal took off in the other.
Mackey stopped. “Where are you going?”
Hidalgo waved toward the bow. “To my boat. Follow me ... we can use it to get away!”
Cal shook his head. “Uh-uh ... there’s a helicopter on the stern. I can have us out of here before she blows, but we’ve gotta move fast!”
Hidalgo looked at Cal as though he had just pickpocketed the Columbian’s green card. “Are you crazy? I’m not leaving my boat here!”
Cal tapped on his watch. “You don’t have a choice!”
With both hands on his hips, the Columbian stood his ground defiantly. “That Thunderboat cost me nearly two hundred thousand dollars, man! She’s the fastest thing there is on the water! I’m not just going to fly away while it gets blown up!”
Worry shone all over Cal’s face. “You’ll never make it!”
Hidalgo ran back to Cal and held out his hand. “Well, I’m going to give it one helluva try!”
Cal wrapped both his hands around the Columbian’s. “You’ve got three minutes to get as far away from here as you can.”
The Columbian looked puzzled. “Then why the hell are we still standing here?”
Three minutes...
Caught up by the fierce wind, the tarpaulin flapped violently as the three of them scrambled to unfasten each buckle. In flashing increments of its jet-black form, the helicopter was eventually revealed. Even standing still, the streamlined machine looked fast and powerful.
“Look at this thing,” Mackey Senior said, admiring it like a work of fine art. “You ever seen one that looks this sleek?”
Geiger kicked the cover out of his way as he took a quick lap around the helicopter. “It doesn’t have,” he said, circling his finger, “one of those tail rotors!”
Becky Abrams walked over to see what the deputy was referring to. “Doesn’t it need one of those thingees to fly?”
Artie shrugged. “How the hell would I know?”
Ernie stepped forward. “Well, I ain’t ever seen a helicopter without one before.”
The loose tarpaulin blew across the deck, the straps and buckles whipping about like the arms on a punch drunk octopus. With quicker reflexes then she knew she truly possessed, Becky dodged the cover and watched it blow over the side. The ocean looked endlessly deep and foreboding as Becky turned to watch the vengeful tarp get carried away on the waves. Nowhere on the horizon was there a patch of land in sight. What if this helicopter was incapable of flight? She wondered how far could she swim before the sharks tore her to shreds. A strong hand touched her shoulder.
“It’s gonna be okay. Cal will get us out of here.”
She shook her head mournfully, salty tears falling into the uncaring sea. “Cal again.”
Geiger did his best to sound confident even though the intensity of the gunfight they had all overheard had shaken his conviction. “You’ve never seen...”
She turned around and pushed him away. “Stop it!”
“What?”
She stormed over to the helicopter and began pounding on its door hysterically. “No one’s coming to save us! We’re all going to die here ... just like poor Allen did! They’re going to drain our blood and toss what’s left of us into the ocean!”
G
eiger grabbed her by the wrists and spun her around. “We’re not gonna die!”
Her face was flushed and her eyes were puffy. “I don’t want to die...”
Artie wiped her cheeks dry with his fingers. His manner was as comforting as it could be under the circumstances. “I won’t let anything happen...”
“Look at all of these instruments!” Ernie shouted from the far side of the machine.
The deputy tried to reassure Becky with one last valiant smile before joining the old man.
“You ever seen anything this complicated? It looks like the inside of a space ship!”
Geiger leaned into the cockpit to make sure that the keys he had seen before were still inside. They were. “Seen the inside of many space ships, have you, Ernie?”
Mackey Senior was just about to volley a sarcastic reply when his words were cruelly interrupted by a shriek of terror from the girl...
Raimund, Von Robles’ colossus, had appeared out of nowhere and was holding Becky Abrams captive with one of the tree trunks he called his arms. The young girl squirmed in the giant’s grasp, but the fight was one-sided—like an adult brutalizing a defenseless infant. Geiger made a move to help, but Raimund countered by pulling a knife that could only be described as fitting for a person of his towering stature. The deputy guessed the dagger to be a minimum of a foot and a half in length, double-edged, and honed to razor sharpness. Weaving back and forth with nervous energy, the blade gleamed like a mirror in the giant’s hand...
Three minutes...
Cal pressed the button for the elevator figuring that there couldn’t be anyone else between him and the surface, and the lift would probably be the quickest way up. He checked his guns while he waited ... one or two shots left in each. No time to scavenge through the dead for another weapon. He slipped both Walthers back into his waistband. The “up” arrow hadn’t lit yet. He pressed the button even harder. Nothing ... either it wasn’t working, or someone had pressed the emergency stop! Damn! He would have to haul ass if he was going to make it!
Two minutes...
Becky’s face was turning flushed red as Raimund lifted her off the ground by the scruff of her neck.
Geiger raised his hands, trying to calm the behemoth. This was the time to throw common sense overboard and let your police training take over. “Nice and easy, big fella,” he implored as he motioned toward the deck. “Put her down ... NOW!”
Raimund pressed the knife against the girl’s throat until a trickle of blood stained the edge of the blade.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” the deputy begged. “Let her go.”
Raimund lowered his arm until it was wrapped around Becky’s waist, still holding the knife to the pulsing skin that covered her carotid artery.
Geiger tried to step closer, but his movement only served to tighten the arm around Abram’s waist. The air huffed out of Becky’s lungs as she struggled to loosen the vise crushing her spine. “He’s crushing me to death,” she shrieked. “Do something!”
Raimund bellowed something in his native tongue and motioned for the deputy and the old man to back away from the helicopter.
“Step back,” Geiger instructed Ernie, “we’re gonna do whatever this asshole says, as long as he’s still got the girl!”
Raimund was carrying Abrams around in front of him like a stuffed animal—the young girl’s legs flailing helplessly whenever the giant made a move.
The pain was unbearable, even for a woman in the peak of condition, but Rebecca Abrams’ only exercise in the past five years was reaching into her purse to pull out a charge card. With the certainty of a head-on collision, she heard something crack in her chest. Breathing suddenly became harder and she could taste the terrible flavor of blood in her saliva. Fragile ribs had been snapped like dried twigs, and something inside had been ruptured. “Help me,” Abrams pleaded, her words cut short by a bubble of blood popping between her lips.
“Becky!”
Ernie had to turn his head away. He had already seen enough death in the past few hours to last a thousand people a lifetime.
Raimund noticed the blood droplets on the deck and shook his head indifferently. He began to laugh as he bounced the young girl up and down, squeezed her tighter and tighter, until the blood gushed from her mouth. The monster was enjoying himself! He was pleased to no end by his own sickening display of his viciousness and strength.
Every time Geiger took a step closer, Raimund would taunt him with the huge knife, threatening to stab the young girl in various places.
“Becky!”
Abrams’ eyes were now barely able to stay open and her extremities had lost their feeling ... she could fight no more. “Forget about me,” she coughed, trying unsuccessfully to choke off the blood, “just save yourself and Ernie!”
Geiger looked around for something ... anything to fight with. Barehanded, the giant would tear him apart limb from limb. “Don’t talk like that, Becky!” Geiger yelled. “We’re all getting out of here together!”
Rebecca seemed to smile ... not as the way she wanted to be remembered, but because she saw someone else in the distance ... someone that returned her smile with one of his own. It was a cunning grin that hid a fury which burned hotter than the sun overhead. It was someone that she didn’t recognize, only someone that she had heard rumors of, but someone that she was more than grateful to see...
“Out of my way, Artie!”
Mackey had both guns trained on the big man.
Geiger spun around at the welcomed sound of the familiar voice. “Cal, you son-of-a-bitch! I knew you’d make it!”
Staggering to a safe vantage point behind the security of the helicopter, the old peeked his head around to watch. Thirty years and a hundred cases of booze earlier and it might have been him swaggering up to save the day. Only now, seeing the determination and fearlessness spread across the bartender’s face, did the realization sink in of what a joke he had become.
Cal slowly moved past the deputy. “You and dad get into the chopper!”
“I’m not leaving the girl behind,” Geiger protested.
Cal waved one of the guns toward the helicopter as he inched closer. “I’ll take care of the girl. I need you to warm up the chopper. Now!”
The old man swallowed hard and cautiously inched his way down the length of the helicopter. Opening the passenger’s side, he hopped into the back seat and held out his hand to the deputy. “Come on, you heard him!”
Geiger glanced hesitantly at Cal and then to Becky. It seemed like he should be doing something more. “I don’t know the first thing about...”
Cal walked slowly past him. “Both of you, just get inside and find the battery switch, the fuel selector switch and the boost pumps, flip them all on and then just crank her up!”
Reluctantly, Geiger ran around to the far side of the helicopter and did as he was told. Within seconds of climbing into the cockpit, the five huge blades were beginning to spin above Cal’s head. The machine screamed to life with a high pitched whine that was nearly deafening when one stood as close to the engines as Cal and Raimund were.
Another Mexican standoff...
The torrential down draft coming off the blades made it nearly impossible for Cal to stand in a fixed spot as Von Robles’ trusted bodyguard began circling him like a sumo wrestler.
Inside the cockpit, Artie scanned the confusing cluster of switches and gauges, hoping to hell that Cal knew his stuff.
“Why doesn’t he let go of the girl?” Ernie muttered under his breath as Geiger moved over to the passenger’s seat.
The deputy pressed his outraged face against the window. “The bastard knows Cal won’t try anything while he’s still got her.”
Cal’s father had already bitten all of his dirty fingernails down to the nub. “There’s gotta be something we can do to help!”
Artie’s hand was poised over the door handle. “Yeah ... cross your fingers and pray!”
One Minute...
Some f
ifty feet below the confrontation taking place on deck, the warm blue flame slithered closer to its incendiary date with destiny. With the entire crew dead or dying, there was no one left to stop it. Mindless to its apocalyptic power, the burning fuse never wavered in its duty as it crawled over pipes and snaked its way around wooden crates.
In less than one minute, this unwitting harbinger of total destruction would climb its final four feet up the side of a blue steel barrel, ignite the contents within, and start a chain reaction of such magnitude that debris from the Nocturne would be scattered and untraceable over a mile-wide swatch of the Caribbean...
One Minute...
It all happened so fast...
“I can’t just sit here and watch this!”
Geiger reached back for the old man to keep still. “I’m sure your son knows what he’s doing, Ernie. He’s not going to take any foolish chances.”
The old man looked down at his hands and tried to steady them. If Helen was looking down on him now, what would she think? He was cowering like a step-child, a mere shell of the man she had fallen in love with and committed her disease-shortened life to. What would he be able to say to her if they ever met again? How would he be able to look her in the eye and tell her that his world had crumbled once she had been taken away from him? She had always thought that he was the strong-willed one. How wrong she had turned out to be!
Cal never took his aim off of Raimund as the giant continued to circle. It was a waiting game, both men looking for just the right opening ... only one aware that time was a dwindling commodity in the rules.
