by John Avery
Jason put his eye to the scope and tracked his target. The boat bounded on the water making it a difficult shot. He controlled his breathing and slowly squeezed the trigger.
POP!
The man flipped backward over the outboard and the boat veered hard left. One of the remaining three quickly took the tiller, but instead of turning about and running, he cranked the throttle and keep right on coming. The other two men continued to fire off round after round.
Jason saw no choice but to waste all three of them, and he knew that if he hit the driver last this time, the boat would stay on course a fraction longer, giving both of them easier shots.
“You take the two on the right,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Aaron held his breath, adrenaline coursing through his veins. The little boat seemed huge now, as muzzles flashed and bullets zipped by, tearing into the fiberglass and teak trim mere inches from his and Jason’s heads.
“Steady,” Jason said, taking aim again. “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”
Aaron sighted in on his targets, and through the scope he could see that the man nearest him had a large tattoo covering most of his face. He breathed deeply and between heartbeats squeezed the trigger.
POPOPOPOP!
The two men on the right side of the boat cartwheeled into the water just as Jason put a bullet between the eyes of their friend. The empty boat’s motor stalled and it drifted to a stop, leaving nothing but an eerie silence.
* * *
“Well done,” Jason said, raising a high-five.
Aaron was in shock, and hardly in the mood to celebrate, but he managed to five Jason back. “Oh my God,” he said, still buzzing with adrenaline. “I thought they’d never quit!” He ran his hand through his long hair, and then touched his finger to one of several bullet holes within easy reach.
“Just another night in the Caribbean,” Jason said.
“Uh — yeah,” Aaron said, wiping the sweat from his brow. He looked out across the water to make sure the pirates were truly gone. “Will there be more?”
“Most likely,” Jason said. “But we’re ready for them, right?” He patted the stock of his rifle.
“Right…” Aaron said, feigning confidence. Maybe this trip wasn’t such a good idea after all, he thought.
He found it a little unnerving that Jason was so comfortable using his sniper rifle to kill human beings, and suddenly he couldn’t wait till they made it to San Diego.
“I should have hired you on years ago,” Jason said. “You really know how to handle a rifle.”
Aaron paused, looking down at his weapon. “I saved my mother’s life with a gun very similar to this,” he said sadly.
“Is that a fact,” Jason said.
“Two years ago, back in the States.”
“Where’s your mother now?”
“She was killed in a hit-and-run. I almost died myself, but I was thrown clear before the car exploded. All I really remember is lying on a gurney talking to a detective before going to the hospital.”
Jason suddenly felt a little uneasy, but he didn’t know why. “Put the rifles back where you found them, will you? I’m going back to bed.”
Aaron nodded and Jason went below.
Aaron took out the tattered business card he carried in his pocket. The faded lettering read:
DETECTIVE JAMES HARNESS
3rd Precinct
* * *
Brandy was in bed, clutching her blanket tightly under her chin.
Jason sat next to her. She’d been crying.
“All I could hear was that damn outboard motor coming closer and closer,” she said. “Then the shots. I thought for sure we’d all be killed.”
“It’s over now,” Jason said. “We’ll be in San Diego before you know it.”
She looked into his eyes. “I don’t like sailing anymore,” she said. “Let’s turn around and go back to Grand Cayman. We’re safer there. We’re at home there. I just want to make love and eat cheeseburgers and drink beer.”
Jason leaned over and gave her a hug and a lingering kiss. “Brandy,” he said softly. “If you knew me at all, you’d know that’s not going to happen.”
* * *
Aaron gathered up the rifles and started for the stairs leading down to the midships cabin.
Suddenly something fearfully grotesque, brutally heavy, and soaking wet leaped on his back, sending him crashing to the deck. The side of his face hit the teak planking hard, nearly knocking him unconscious. The rifles clattered some distance away.
Dazed, and spitting blood, Aaron fought back blindly, but like a wild beast protecting its young, the man was viscous and powerful, and he quickly had Aaron in a hold that would surely break his neck. Aaron struggled desperately, his breath long since gone. Blue faced, eyes bulging, he managed to free one arm and retrieve his survival knife, and with no conscious thought he flipped it open and struck madly at his attacker’s leg, driving the blade to the bone. The man cried out in pain, losing his hold on Aaron’s neck. Aaron gasped for air and yanked his knife free, and then with everything he had he turned and drove it hard into his attacker’s abdomen. Blood gushed over the knife as the man’s shoulders jerked forward and his jaw opened wide; then his full weight fell upon Aaron, pinning him to the deck. With a last great effort, Aaron squeezed out from under him, freeing his knife. He crawled a few feet away, where he lay panting on the deck, exhausted, soaked to the skin with sweat, seawater, and blood. And then he passed out.
* * *
When Aaron came to, he felt like he’d been trod upon by an angry bull elephant. He felt sick, rolling over on his side to retch.
He glanced at the body lying nearby and was shocked to see that it was the pirate with the tattoo. It was patterned after a tropical flower, and covered the man’s face, giving him a strange, hybrid appearance. The man’s eyes were closed, but he wore the surprised, open mouthed look of a man unprepared to die.
In addition to the knife wounds, the man was bleeding profusely from an apparent bullet wound to his shoulder. Aaron’s aim with the rifle had been good, but not good enough to kill.
How could he have fought so ferociously with an open gunshot wound? How could he swim that far?
He saw an empty sheath tied around the man’s waist with a leather thong, and knew he had dodged a big one. The man’s knife had no doubt gone to the bottom when he went swimming.
To his horror, Aaron thought he saw the man’s chest slowly heave. He looked again. Oh, my dear God, he thought. The ugly son-of-a-bitch isn’t dead.
Panic swelled in Aaron’s heart. He had witnessed death before, but it had always been quick, and final — never an interminable lingering between life and death. He grasped the sticky handle of his survival knife tightly — ready to spring upon the man if he so much as flinched; but then he heard a low gurgling deep in the man’s chest, and he knew that wouldn’t be happening.
But the man wouldn’t die.
I could stab him again, Aaron thought desperately. Through the heart this time. O-or I could shoot him in the head. Certainly that would put an end to his misery.
He glanced over at the assault rifle, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
So he waited… hearing nothing but the gurgle of the man’s breathing, and the heavy, unsteady rhythm of his own beating heart.
Time slowed and the rising sun grew hotter. Aaron continued to look on in dazed confusion as the man’s chest slowly rose and fell. His eyelids became too heavy to open, and he slipped back into unconsciousness.
* * *
When Aaron came to again, he tried not to look, but he knew the man with the tattoo would still be there.
The gurgling had stopped, and the man lay motionless.
Maybe he’s finally dead, Aaron told himself. Maybe it’s just a body now.
Suddenly the eyes opened, and in them such an extreme look of fright, that although the body remained still, for a moment Aaron thought all remaining life energ
y had gathered in them in a desperate attempt to flee the confines of the flesh, and rise up to the heavens, escaping the dreadful terror of an earthly death.
Aaron shuddered, wanting desperately to run away, but he couldn’t move, nailed to the decking by the horror in a dying man’s eyes.
And still the man lived.
* * *
Just then Jason Beckham came up from below decks. He took one look at Aaron, and the pirate, and then picked up the assault rifle and put a bullet through the man’s tattooed forehead.
“Fucking hell, are you all right?” he said, kneeling next to Aaron. “Where the fuck did he come from?”
Aaron just lay there staring at the dead man. You were trying to kill me, right? What else could I could do? What else could I possibly do?
“Here, let’s get you hosed off and back to bed,” Jason said. “You look like you’ve gone fifteen with the devil himself.” He helped Aaron to his feet and then showed him downstairs to his cabin.
Wednesday
The Panama Canal
Chapter 29
PHOOOOOOOOOOT!
Aaron awoke in his cabin to the sound of a ship’s horn. He checked his phone. 9:00 a.m. Wednesday. He had slept for 26 hours.
He leaned over and drew back the curtain and looked out the window. All he could see was a wall of white steel. A cruise ship was passing them on their starboard side. The ship’s name was Neau Islander.
At first Aaron thought Jason had foundered into a shipping lane, a dangerous thing to do with a boat the size of the Cayman Jewel. But another look revealed the truth: after cruising 600 or 700 miles due south, they had, at long last, made it to the Panama Canal.
From his cabin window the locks looked huge. Aaron felt like an ant riding a leaf down a storm drain.
He rose and showered, and as he pulled on his jeans he heard a knock on his cabin door. He quickly added a T-shirt, then answered the door.
It was Brandy.
“I heard the shower,” she said. “I thought you’d never wake up. Would you care for a little company?”
Aaron wasn’t sure what she meant by that. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said. “Jason may need our help.”
“Oh, relax. He’ll be busy navigating the Gatun locks for hours. If he needs anything, his canal agent is with him.”
“But what if he catches us? Here in my room, I mean. That would not be good.”
“He won’t,” Brandy said, stepping into Aaron’s cabin. “He told me not to disturb him until we reach Lake Gatun. He won’t be expecting me until then. Besides, we’re just talking, right?”
She looked at Aaron with her head turned slightly to the side. Then, to Aaron’s surprise, she closed the cabin door and slowly unzipped a little purse, dumping the contents on the bed: a cut-off drinking straw, a razor blade, a small mirror, and a gram of cocaine.
A foil-wrapped condom fell out as well. “Oops,” Brandy said, smiling coyly as she returned it to the purse. “I don’t think we’ll be needing that.”
Aaron watched wide-eyed as Brandy unfolded the packet of coke and poured a small portion of the powder onto the mirror, and then she used the blade to chop it finely, and with one deft stroke, smoothed it into a perfect, white line.
“I used to do the heavy stuff,” she said. “You know, morphine, heroin. But after OD’ing twice, I learned my lesson. Needles scare the hell out of me now. And don’t get me started about crack. It’s way too addictive.” She left out the part about crack-cocaine being viewed as a ghetto drug, with the powdered version for the affluent, and that at this stage in her life she felt a kinship with the latter.
She offered the straw to Aaron. “Would you like to go first?”
“Oh, you go right ahead,” Aaron said. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be joining her. His experience with morphine as a pain killer was not all that wonderful, and he wasn’t sure he’d fare any better using cocaine. Besides, even if he did try it, he needed to watch and learn first, so as not to appear foolish and inexperienced in front of Brandy.
She picked up the straw, and with her index finger over one nostril, she did the entire line in one quick easy motion. She tilted her head back and repeatedly sniffed and pinched her nostrils until every last grain of powder was gone.
“I never told anyone this,” she confessed. “But I always wished I’d been born a blonde.”
“No kidding,” Aaron said, surprised at her sudden candor. “I love your red hair.”
Brandy smiled. “Why, thank you, Aaron. What a nice thing to say.”
She drew another perfect line on the mirror and handed the straw to Aaron. “Okay, big boy,” she said. “Your turn.”
Aaron hesitated, and then took the straw from her, feeling enormous pressure to perform. He leaned over and following Brandy’s example did the line in one quick snort. The powder burned slightly, but it was nothing compared to the Jack Daniels he had coughed up through his nose that night in the van before the infamous bank robbery two years earlier. The frightful memories of that morning in the Community Plaza Bank came rushing up to his consciousness, but he quickly shoved them back down into the dark abyss where they belonged.
Brandy offered him another line, but although the sensation was most certainly pleasant, he declined. Better see what happens to me first, he thought wisely.
Brandy finished off the rest of the packet on her own.
* * *
“You don’t talk much sometimes,” she said as she repacked the little purse.
“I don’t always have something to say,” Aaron said.
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
Aaron adjusted his position on the bed. “Of course I do, Brandy. I’m not blind. Your hair, your eyes, your —”
He stopped mid-sentence when, out of the blue, Brandy crossed her arms in front of her and pulled off her top. He took in a quick breath and his eyes went wide. Brandy looked really good in black underwear.
“We can’t do this, Brandy,” he insisted. “You’re with Jason, and he’s my friend. Doesn’t that matter to you?”
“Well, of course it does, silly,” she said, dispatching what was left of her clothing. “Trust me. He won’t mind.”
“But I’ve never —”
Brandy pressed her finger to his lips. Her touch was soft and her skin smelled sweet and wonderful. The intoxicating cocktail of perfume, cocaine, adrenaline, and hormones heated him to his core, burning away any fragments of resistance he once had, leaving him weak.
Brandy knew she had him. She reached in and pulled his T-shirt off over his head and shoved him back onto his pillow.
She unbuttoned his jeans and as Aaron started to close his eyes, something outside caught his attention and his heart leaped. He sat up and checked the window. They were clear of the locks!
“Get dressed,” he said, sitting up. “We’re through the first locks. We’re on Lake Gatun.”
Brandy sat up with her hands covering her breasts. “What? Already? But we were just getting started.”
“There’s no time,” Aaron said. He crawled off the bed and buttoned his pants and pulled on his shirt.
“Please don’t do this,” Brandy said innocently. “I can be quick.”
“I’m really sorry, Brandy,” Aaron said. “But Jason will be looking for you.” He handed Brandy her sandals.
Dazed and embarrassed, Brandy dressed and then checked herself in the mirror. She had never been snubbed by a man before, and she didn’t like the way it felt. Not one bit. Was she losing her sexuality? Did she cross some kind of line at twenty-seven? Had Aaron really wanted her? Or did she just imagine it all?
She made a few quick adjustments to her makeup, then gave herself a kiss in the mirror and told herself, I’m smart enough to know when I’ve been insulted… but I’m sexy enough not to care!
As she stepped out of Aaron’s cabin, she gave him a look that said, You missed your chance, Mister. You were about to go where most men only dream of going!
Chapter 30
Aaron watched Brandy leave, his crotch aching from the thought of what they had almost done. I guess that mystery’s going to remain a mystery, he thought sadly. Exhausted, yet still buzzing from the cocaine, he threw back a couple of shots of Jack Daniels and lay down on his bed, and it wasn’t long before he fell asleep again.
* * *
“Wake up you useless sod!” a man’s voice boomed.
Aaron started and opened his eyes, frightened and confused. Where the hell am I? he thought, glancing around in wide-eyed panic. In the dim light he could make out what looked like the corroded bars of a cell door in a medieval dungeon.
The man hammered hard on the bars with what sounded like a wooden club, shattering Aaron’s eardrums. “You walk at noon!” the man bellowed with the power of five men combined. Then, without another word, the man’s heavy footsteps receded into the distance.
Perspiration stood in hot beads upon Aaron’s forehead as ice water surged through his veins. He looked down at himself and found that he was dressed in some sort of tattered robe, woven from a coarse serge. His feet were bare and crusted with filth.
The smell of human waste hung heavily in the air, and he could see that he was indeed in some sort of dungeon. The walls were of heavy, stacked stone, glistening with moisture, and polished from centuries of human agony. Bolted to one of them was the bunk on which he sat, a wrought-iron platform supported by two heavy chains. A woven-straw mat served as his only bedding.
Above the bunk a small window was cut high into the wall. Aaron quickly determined that even if he could reach it, which he could not, it would be too narrow for him to pass through.
A thin shaft of sunlight angled down across the dank space, illuminating a small patch on the floor, revealing a swarm of roaches feeding on a scrap of something disgusting.
Aaron stood up from his bunk, but the pavers underfoot were treacherous with slime, and in the gloom he tripped on the torn hem of his robe and fell hard to the stone floor.
