by Kirk Russell
Davies climbed from the rear compartment and Marquez glanced at the rearview mirror. Good chance the FBI would pick him up or already had. Douglas would call, no question about that, and now he felt a cold gun muzzle press against his neck.
“Stakes are high, Lieutenant.” They crossed lower Marin on the freeway and then drove through San Rafael and came up alongside a cop at a stoplight. Davies slouched back behind the passenger seat, his profile hidden by the tinted windows. “If you do the wrong thing, you’ll get the cop killed,” he said. “Take your hands off the wheel and you’ll make your wife a widow.”
“My hands are on the wheel, but I thought we were on the same side.” They drove to Loch Lomond Marina, turned in, and were alone. “I need to turn around and line up the boat hitch. I’ve got to get out.”
Marquez had a way he angled the Explorer, a way he liked to line up on the fence and another boat that had never been moved in the time he’d rented here. He purposefully missed this time, knew the trailer ball and boat hitch wouldn’t be near enough to hook the boat trailer up.
“It’s a life or death situation, Lieutenant, and I’ve got to bring you to him and we need your boat for that.”
“I’m always missing with the hitch,” Marquez said.
Davies’s voice was low and very quiet. His face had been darkened with camouflage paint and he pointed the gun at Mar-quez’s chest.
“There isn’t enough time for this shit. Hook it up.”
Marquez backed up, got out and attached the trailer hitch, then backed the boat trailer down until the Fountain floated. He did it all slowly and knew the FBI had his position from the tele-locator. He got on board with Davies now, though the Explorer still idled, its muffler coughing as it caught water.
“Back up slowly,” Davies said, and got on the boat behind him. “Keep the speed at twenty-five as we clear the channel. You can figure his people are watching.”
Marquez went with it, hoping Davies was taking him straight to the boat. He looked at the Explorer sitting on the ramp with the driver’s door open, headlights on and the engine running, and backed the boat around. They came under the San Rafael Bridge and out into the open bay, veering right of Angel Island through Raccoon Strait, and above the engines he asked, “Out the Gate?”
“No, and cut your speed. Go under the Bay Bridge.”
They crossed past the San Francisco waterfront, under the Bay Bridge, and down past China Basin. They headed toward boats docked offshore in a row in the channel. He saw an old transport vessel, maybe a hundred and twenty feet in length flying a Turkish flag, and saw the crescent moon on the flag.
“You try anything and he’ll kill her,” Davies said. “If the Feds came in with you, he’d kill her first. You understand, Lieutenant. It had to be like this. You want to call them this is the last chance. Go ahead if you want, but if they take us down before you get aboard, you won’t get her back. He gave me until dawn to bring you and I said I’d do it. He wants you and you want her back, but you’ll be on your own in there.”
Marquez climbed up the ladder with Davies aiming at him from where the Fountain idled below, a second man above him, a small light guiding him. He could drop off the rungs and into the water without hitting the Fountain. More than likely he could avoid getting shot, swim away, and come back with the Feds. The boat wouldn’t be leaving, but what about Petersen, what if they killed her in the time it took? And the Feds would be coming any-way. He looked down again. Davies was on the ladder now, the low throb of the Fountain engine gone silent.
As Marquez reached the top of the ladder, hands as big as his own grabbed him, dragged him over the last rungs, pushed him chest-down on the deck, and a man squatted near his head with a gun. He heard Davies’s shoes clatter up the metal rungs, giving directions to the men and being ignored. They jerked Marquez to his feet, covered his head with a burlap sack, and he heard the hollow echo of their boots as he was led down a passageway and made to climb down a ladder before his wrists were bound behind him with duct tape.
“I’m with you, Lieutenant,” and Davies from behind him slid something metal into his hands. “Switchblade,” Davies whispered. “Grip it and cover it.”
A walk-in freezer door in the galley swung open and a heavy boot caught him from behind, low on his back. A rifle butt chopped at his shoulder and he stumbled forward into the compartment, bounced off the back wall and fell sideways. They ran duct tape around his ankles and left him, the door shutting, a chain rattling, a lock clicking loudly.
He uncurled his fingers from around the knife, turned it slowly in his hand, opened it and sawed through the thick layers of tape on his wrists. He pulled the hood off and reached down under his ankles and made a clean cut that didn’t show from above. He tried the door, pushed gently against the chain on the other side and could only open it an inch. He slit the plastic wrap on a package of frozen meat, pulled the telelocator from his shoe and shoved it into the package. Then he sat down against the back wall and waited, marking the time, hours passing as his fingers worked the burlap hood, knowing he’d have to put it back on, knowing he’d have to wait until the last moment, past all fear, past pain if he was stabbed first. He’d have to keep his head when the hood came off. He’d have to face everything, gamble and wait. His breath was shallow and every noise he heard was Kline coming down the corridor. He’d have to lie still, then struggle, let him start before bringing the blade up. He thought, if Kline leaves the hood on, I’ve lost.
There were footsteps, muffled voices, more than a few, the chain rattling, and Marquez put the hood on, cinched it. The door swung noisily and he heard Spanish, orders given for the men to go up on deck and then the door closing. A fist crashed into one side of his face, stunning him, almost causing him to drop the knife. A hand slid under the hood and gripped his throat and held his head pressed against the wall while his shirt was torn open and a blade touched him, sliced skin and cut his pants open. And Marquez held himself still as Kline’s hand remained tight under his neck, long finger pressing up under the jaw, pushing him tight against the wall, Kline’s weight resting on his thighs, his face close by, the blade low on Marquez’s gut and stinging. But he kept repeat-ing to himself, he’ll want you to see, and then the blade poked at the hood. It cut through fabric near his eye and dipped into his cheek and Marquez barely reacted. Then he heard the hood fabric cut as the knife sliced through it and Kline’s breath was on his face and the knife back at his gut.
“Look at me. This is your death.”
And he saw the colorless skin, looked into Kline’s eyes so near his and said, “Not yet, Kline, don’t do it, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
When Kline hesitated Marquez brought up his right hand with the knife in a slashing move, catching part of his throat, punching the blade in and ripping forward as Kline recoiled, blood flowing down his neck. Kline lunged forward, trying to stab Marquez in the chest. The blade sliced skin as it went past and then Marquez drove him sideways, fought him, punching hard at him, grabbed the wrist with the knife, got the blade free pounding the wrist against the wall. And Kline still fought him. Blood pumped from his neck, and Marquez hammered his face with a fist until he stopped struggling. Then he reached for Kline’s knife and held the blade at his throat.
“Where is she?”
Kline’s eyes closed. His face grew very pale and Marquez lifted his weight from his chest, moved a knee off him, reached and shook Kline’s face. When he did Kline went for him, fingers hook-ing to dig out his eyes, clawing at him, tearing into his cheek and Marquez drove the blade forward and down, hands gripping tightly, leaning into it, all his weight on it. He drove the hilt into Kline’s chest and heard the blade scraping on the metal floor underneath before snapping off. He watched him spasm once and go still.
Then came gunfire and men yelling, stun grenades going off, screaming, more quick bursts of gunfire, and he pushed the door open to a gangway filled with smoke.
He ripped the last of the duct tape off, wi
ped blood from his hands and then raised them as an FBI team held shotguns on him. He made them understand who he was. He was ordered to wait on the top deck, yelled at to go up now, but he refused. They didn’t have Petersen, hadn’t found Davies, and there was fighting below deck.
“We’ve got a warden on board, kidnapped.”
“Get the fuck up the ladder.”
“I’ll stay with you.”
He fell behind them, went cabin to cabin, bullets whanging off the corridor walls as he advanced behind the fighting. Now there was a much deeper, deafening, metal-rending blast and the boat shuddered. He swung the door of an empty cabin, swung another and another, moved on as emergency lighting came on and the main lights died. He stepped over bodies, stair-stepped down another level and pushed a cabin door against the body blocking it. He heard more yelling now, men clambering up the stairs.
“Taking on water,” someone yelled. “Taking on water fast! Everyone out, let’s go, let’s go.”
Marquez kept pushing, throwing his shoulder into it, sliding the body blocking the door out of the way. Then he saw her. A chain held her to the metal frame of a bed and near her was Davies slumped with his back against the wall, dead, his shirt soaked in blood. He felt for her pulse, then checked Davies’s pockets for a key, found nothing and looked at the bodies at the door. He rolled one over and saw it was Bailey, the other Molina, and realized Davies had fought them. He didn’t find a key on either of them. The boat groaned as it listed, he had to get her out of there. He hammered at the bed with the stock of a gun, and began to break the bed apart, then lifted her over his shoulder, dragging a piece of metal hanging off the chain still attached to her arm.
337The narrow gangway was empty. A single emergency light emitted a red glow near the stairs, and he worked his way toward them, a cabin door banging open behind him as the boat shifted further. He heard a staccato rip of gunfire, feet clanging on the metal stairs below, more yelling, terse hard orders given, a bullhorn, someone yelling in Spanish, couldn’t make out what they were saying. He climbed the stairs, calling ahead, identifying himself, “Marquez. Fish and Game,” and finally found help. A call was made to get a helicopter to get her to a hospital. With the SWAT team he got her into a basket and Marquez gripped her hand, touched her face. He watched her rise into the sky.
As they completed the arrests the Coast Guard arrived to help clear the boat, which was listing further to port. The fear wasn’t that it would sink, but that more explosives would detonate. Marquez got off with the last group onto a Coast Guard boat. He borrowed a phone and called Katherine and after that he let go. Where Kline had cut him low on his abdomen was only a flesh wound but it had bled plenty and stung. He needed to get a bandage. He sat down and let a medic help him, looking back at the listing vessel as he did, registering the name Bosporus and spotting the Marlin now crossing toward them.
Douglas told him later that nine were arrested, four Mexican nationals and five carrying multiple passports, two that were wanted in Europe, America, and Mexico for murder and drug trafficking. Alvarez and Cairo recovered the Fountain drifting in the south bay and brought it back to its berth in San Rafael. His truck had been towed, but he located it that afternoon.
The FBI had lost two agents. Another died at San Francisco General late in the day. Marquez saw Douglas sitting with senior FBI personnel in the lobby when he came back to check on Petersen that night. Douglas’s face was ashen, his eyes downcast, but Marquez caught a faint nod as he walked by and after he’d passed the group he waited out of earshot before going to the elevators. He saw faces turn his direction and Douglas rose and walked stiffly from the group toward him, offering his hand as he got close.
“The boat isn’t going to sink; they stabilized it,” Douglas said. “There was another charge and if it had gone off, the boat would have sunk in minutes, taking everybody with it. Several people here would like to meet you.”
“I’d like to get back on board the Bosporus tomorrow.”
“I’ll get you on. You want to get to that abalone.”
“Yeah.”
“Let me introduce you here.”
“I’m going up the elevator first. I’ll sit down with you after I come back down.” He put a hand on Douglas’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about the agents who were killed.”
“We’ve got two in surgery.”
“How are they doing?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Petersen was conscious and saw him come in. Stuart was at her bedside dabbing her forehead with a sponge a nurse had left him. She brought her hand up to push the sponge away, and he saw she was very pale, her eyes too bright, Stuart explaining quietly that she had a high fever, the result of a blood infection. They’d pumped her full of antibiotics and were confident she’d be okay in a few days, but the real loss was in her heart and Marquez could see the sad emptiness in her eyes. He’d already been told that what Davies had reported was correct. She’d miscarried in her third day of captivity. He talked to her now, took her hand, tried to make her smile. When she spoke the thoughts were in fragments, the effort at forming sentences evident, and a nurse returned and asked that Marquez leave soon. Keeler had told him earlier this afternoon that a doctor had said she wouldn’t have made it another forty-eight hours without antibiotics.
“You were hard to find,” he said, and leaned over her. She tried to smile and he touched her face. “I’ll check in tomorrow.”
“I’m really tired, John,” she said, and then as he turned to go, she added, “He saved me, John. All the way along he had them fooled.”
“Marquez saved you,” Stuart cut in, but Marquez understood. He turned back and leaned to hear her last sentence, saw tears flood her eyes. “Don’t let them wreck his name,” she whispered.
40
Marquez caught a ride out to the Bosporus the next morning from the Marlin. Douglas was already aboard, wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a T-shirt that read FBI in black letters across the back, a casualness of dress Marquez had never seen in him. Douglas’s face bore the marks of the emotional ride of the last day and they were both quiet and stood on the main deck looking at the San Francisco skyline before going below to the cold storage where the abalone was. There had to be five thousand.
“What happens to it?” Douglas asked.
“We hand it off to charities. Why don’t you take a couple home? Tenderize them, pound them, and then cut them into steaks. You’ll find out what this is all about.”
“I might take you up on that.”
He knew what Douglas had on his mind and waited for it now, heard him clear his throat and suggest they go to the walk-in where Marquez had fought with Kline. They climbed back to that level and followed the narrow passageway through the galley with Douglas talking as he walked in front.
“You finally got him, Marquez.” Douglas opened the door of the walk-in and Marquez saw the arcing blood splatter dried on the walls, the dark, almost black pool of blood at their feet. “Life or death,” Douglas said, and Marquez knew where Douglas was going. “We recovered the telelocator in case you’re wondering.”
“Keep it. I don’t want to lose another one.”
Marquez stared at the pooled blood, his blood mixed with Kline’s. He waited.
“Did you really keep the hood on until he was holding a knife on you?”
“Yes.”
“How’d you keep yourself still?”
“I knew I had to.”
“Man, that’s unreal, that’s just unreal.” He could hear the edge in Douglas’s voice, Douglas working him. “How’s it making you feel looking at this now?”
Marquez looked at the blood and thought of his friends in Mexico and silently told them it was done. He knew where Douglas was going and shrugged, not giving away much yet.
Douglas asked, “So you struggled with him and you managed to get control of his knife?”
“We wrestled.”
“Rolled around on the floor?”
�
��Something like that.”
“Was he losing strength from blood loss?”
“He was going to,” and they looked at each other. “He might have even bled out.”
“They’re telling me the neck wounds weren’t fatal. They were bad but not fatal.”
“Is that right?”
“That’s what they’re saying. The other one was definitely fatal. You wrestled and what happened? You get on top of him and all of a sudden you’ve got the knife in your hand?”
Marquez pointed at the floor where the struggle had left long streaks of blood, smeared by a knee, a shoe, an elbow. There were stainless shelves on either side with frozen food products sitting on them, bloody handprints on those where he’d stood as he got up off Kline’s body.
“Yeah, I was able to pin him down.”
“Was he still struggling?” Marquez looked at him and nodded. “But you had the upper hand by then. You must have seen how he was bleeding.”
“Sure.”
“And what were you thinking, or do you remember? Did you realize those wounds weren’t fatal?”
“He made one more attempt, tried for my eyes.”
“So you made sure.”
Marquez stood silent with emotion sweeping through him, all the inner promises he’d made to the dead, all the years wondering and knowing Kline was out there still. Yeah, he’d driven the blade through Kline’s heart and he’d known what he was doing, which was the question Douglas was asking. He’d pushed down until he felt the tip of the blade slide off a rib and snap on the metal floor. He’d crossed Davies’s abyss.
“You’re asking if I had a choice,” Marquez said. The Feds had anticipated capturing Kline. Douglas had counted on questioning him.
“Maybe I am, but I don’t want an answer. Or maybe you don’t remember. Basically, you were defending yourself, trying to save your life.” Douglas paused. “You’re going to get asked a lot of questions this afternoon, but I can understand the actual moment being a little hazy. They say the knife went in and then was pushed through with great force and the tip snapped on the floor decking after it exited his body. The ribcage was compressed enough by force to allow the knife to go all the way through him. You sliced a rib almost in half and buried the knife hilt in his chest, but then you’re a big man. Still, you’re going to get questioned about it.” Marquez felt Douglas’s hand on his back. “Let’s go back up top.”
