Critical Space ak-5

by Greg Rucka

  "Then I hope you can swim well," he told me.

  I stripped to my shorts, then dove over the side of the boat and into the water, feeling its warmth surround me. It was an easy swim, but I pushed it. The exercise and the sensation of the water were welcome and liberating, and as I swam I finally felt that the last of the Viagra had been driven from my system. I was breathing hard when I reached the beach.

  Outside the house, I climbed one of the mahogany trees and used it to jump to the roof. I didn't think Oxford would be lying in wait – I knew I'd winged him, and he was obligated to tend to himself before finishing with me – but I wanted to be careful. At the overhang outside of Alena's room I lowered myself onto the veranda, walking carefully, feeling the broken glass beneath my bare feet. I stepped inside, made a quick search of the closets and the bureau, looking for anything incriminating that might come back to haunt Alena or myself. From her bedroom I moved to the bathroom, then to my room. Everything was clean.

  I headed to the basement, to the hard room, and punched in the code to open the weapons locker. Even with the P7 and the Neostead removed, there was still a substantial amount of hardware, including some explosives – some plastique with blasting caps and kitchen timers, and a couple of grenades. Another safe was set inside the locker, at the back, and I keyed the combination. Inside was a short stack of documents, extra identities that Alena had worked up over the years, as well as the paperwork for Alena's various accounts worldwide, including the trust she'd established to finance all of the credit cards she used in her different aliases. I took everything from the safe, including the money, which I estimated at almost a quarter of a million in mixed currency. I left the safe and the locker open, grabbed the explosives.

  I hadn't used explosives since I'd been in the Army, and I took my time with them, working carefully. I used one of the blocks of plastique for the work space by the basement door. The explosion would destroy the electronics, make it impossible to salvage any useful information from them.

  I set the timers for thirty minutes, checked my watch, set them running.

  Outside of the hard room there was a small gas generator that Alena had kept in case the power went down, and by it stood two five-gallon jerry cans of gasoline. I took the cans with me as I went up the stairs.

  On the ground floor I found Chris where she had fallen. The heat had already started working on her body, and a cloud of flies had found her. I passed her without stopping, moved into the kitchen, and grabbed a handful of plastic trash bags from beneath the sink. I loaded all of the papers I'd grabbed from the hard room inside, triple-bagged them, and then squeezed the air out. Then I sealed the bag with duct tape, and then I duct-taped the bag to my stomach. It was going to hurt later and it would cost me some skin, but it was the best I could think of; I was going to have to swim back to The Lutra, and I didn't want to lose anything halfway there.

  I took a book of matches from the drawer by the sink, where Alena had kept candles and flashlights. Then I went back to Chris's body and started going through her pockets.

  She had some loose cash, a couple of receipts, and a pack of chewing gum. In the book-bag I found her wallet and passport, as well as a selection of pens, two more notepads, and a Macintosh laptop. The other pad, the one she'd used to take her notes, was on the floor by her right hand. I dropped it in the book-bag, then moved everything into the center of the room.

  I took one of the jerry cans to the top of the stairs, opened it, and backed down again, splashing as I went. I splashed the contents of the second can throughout the living room, pouring it on the book-bag, the shelves, the furniture.

  The smell of the gasoline followed me outside when I stepped out onto the porch. I checked my watch and saw that I had twenty-three minutes before the plastique went off, perhaps thirty before Jerry left me behind.

  That gave me at least ten minutes to try and find Miata, and it turned out I only needed three of them. I found him under the porch, curled up, nervous and watchful, and when I crouched and offered my hand, his ears flattened back against his broad head for a moment before he began creeping forward. When he came out I gave him a good scratch behind the ears, using my other hand to stroke his coat, checking his body for wounds.

  "She's okay," I told him. "Wait here."

  I went back to the porch, opened the book of matches, and used one to light the rest. Then I tossed the book into the living room, turned my back to the sudden heat. Miata followed me down to the water without prodding, but when I started to wade in, he hesitated. I kept going another couple of yards, until the water was at my chest, then turned.

  He was looking at me from the beach. Beyond him, I could see the fire in the house beginning to spread. It would destroy the evidence of the lives there, and the plastique, when it detonated, would bury the hard room. There would be questions, there would be a mystery, and Chris Havel's body would be discovered. Perhaps she would be mistaken for the woman who had lived there, for the woman she had made infamous.

  "Come on," I called. "I know you can swim, come on."

  Miata took a couple of steps to the water, the waves splashing his paws, then skittered back onto the beach.

  "I can't carry you. It's too far."

  He dared the water again, backed off again. I looked at my watch. The plastique would go off in sixteen minutes. The Lutra would leave in twenty. Coming in had been easier, I'd been working with the tide, but swimming back would take longer, and I couldn't wait.

  I backed away, the water now at my neck, the waves occasionally splashing over my head. Miata paced back and forth on the sand, looking after me, and then he turned and ran back toward the house, where the fire was beginning to lick out of the windows. I could hear the sound of the flames over the ocean. I checked my watch a last time and swore. I started back to the beach, had my feet on the sand again, when Miata reemerged from the woods, running hard. He hit the water without breaking stride, splashing his way to me, and I turned and started swimming.

  ***

  I made it back to The Lutra with under three minutes to spare, grabbing the rope ladder that was dangling over the side. Jerry reached out a hand to help me up, but I waved him off, looking back for Miata.

  The dog was clearly struggling, perhaps thirty feet back. I pushed off the side of the ship and swam toward him. The Doberman is a strong breed, but the swim had been hard on him, and he was fighting to keep his head above the water. I took his forepaws and pulled them onto my shoulders, and the extra sixty pounds of dog threatened to drown me then and there. I got a hand around his middle, kicking hard, and started swimming on my back. My muscles began to burn the way the house had gone up, and when Miata, reasonably frightened, struggled on me, I got a mouthful of water.

  Then I bumped into the side of the boat, and Jerry was holding onto the ladder with one hand, reaching down to assist me. I manhandled Miata onto my shoulder, pushed him up to where Jerry could grab him. As soon as the dog was on the deck, I followed.

  Back on the shore, the fire glowed on the hilltop. A muffled concussion rolled out to us across the water as the plastique detonated. Flame guttered up, higher than the main blaze. Then the fire settled again.

  The ship vibrated once more as Jerry started the engines, and we pulled away from Bequia. I sat on the deck, catching my breath, Miata's head on my lap, watching as the fire faded below the horizon. Part Three

  Chapter 1

  It took five days from the burn in Bequia to reach New York City.

  The Lutra had returned me to St. Vincent, waiting in the harbor until I had collected Alena and Bridgett, and we had set off again that night for Miami. Jerry and Carrie had taken another ten grand for the trip, and I suppose they were giving us a discount rate because we had been so good for business. Their fee had included a handling of all requisite paperwork, with the promise that when we reached Florida, it would be as registered members of the crew.

  Alena had been conscious when we boarded in Kingstown, still g
roggy from the narcotic, and suffering a fair amount of pain. Bennet had provided her with a brace for her leg and a set of crutches. I told her about Havel's death, and Bridgett watched her like a hawk for a reaction.

  "I did not know her," Alena said. "I'm sorry."

  To which Bridgett had spun on a heel and marched off to find a berth of her own. I'd used some nail polish remover provided by Carrie to get the duct tape off my skin, and I tried to present Alena with the documents, but by that time she was already fading fast. Bennet had given her some Percodan to help with the pain as the local on her leg wore off, and the last thing she did before falling asleep was to hand me the bottle and ask me to throw the pills overboard.

  I left her and went to find a bed of my own, only to discover that Bridgett and I were sharing a room. She was already in her bunk when I arrived, and she waited until I'd folded my bed down and gotten the blanket over me before speaking.

  "She'd hired me, you know that?" Bridgett said softly. "Two weeks after you'd vanished, Havel came to my office and hired me to find you. Someone had told her that you'd made contact, Natalie or Dale or Corry, I don't know which, and she was certain you were with Drama and she was certain I could lead her to you both."

  "She was right."

  She rolled in the bunk, and I heard her feet bumping against the bulkhead. My bed was too small for me; I could only imagine how uncomfortable Bridgett was.

  "All she talked about was what a great book it was going to be. She was so excited. It took me over three months to track you down, I went port by fucking port, and Havel was with me the entire time, and she never got discouraged, she never got disappointed. She just kept talking about what a great fucking book it was going to be."

  Over the throbbing of the engines, I could hear the water lapping against the hull.

  "And all along," Bridgett said, "we were just playing into that motherfucker's hands, we were just doing what he wanted us to do."

  "Don't," I said.

  "I'll feel guilty if I want to."

  "If you hadn't brought her to Bequia, he'd have gotten her there some other way. His initial plan never included you, it was always Chris and Alena and me."

  "If I hadn't found you…"

  "Then maybe all of us would be dead instead of just her."

  She moved in her bunk again, rolling, and I turned my head to see that she was staring at me, one hand beneath her cheek, her knees up against her chest. "It doesn't seem a fair trade."

  "It isn't."

  "You were willing to die for…" She made a gesture with her free hand, indicating the rough direction where Alena was sleeping.

  "Bridgett, no bodyguard wants to take a bullet. That's a myth. No one in their right mind would catch a shot for someone else."

  "But you'd do it."

  "I'd do it. I'd do it for anyone who hired me. It's my choice, not theirs. It's what people pay me for."

  "Chris should have hired you instead of me," Bridgett said.

  The ship rocked on a swell, creaking softly. For a long time, there was nothing but the sounds of the boat and the water.

  "That doctor," Bridgett said.

  "Yeah?"

  "He says she's never going to walk right again."

  "Oh."

  She moved in her bunk, and when she spoke again, her voice was more diffused, coming at me off the wall, indirect.

  "It's still not a fair trade," she said.

  ***

  There was only one snag during the voyage to Miami, when The Lutra put in at Cockburn Harbour in South Caicos for refueling. We were almost three days out from St. Vincent, and I'd been spending my waking hours with Alena and Miata. Bridgett gave us a wide berth. We still shared a cabin, but after the conversation that first night aboard, she hadn't uttered more than five words to me, and her silence seemed alternately hostile and sullen.

  I actually hadn't expected to see much of Cockburn Harbour, since there was no immediate reason to leave the ship. The waterfront looked pleasant enough, though a little run-down, with a couple of empty warehouses skirting the edges of the harbor. Carrie mentioned in passing that the major industry had once been salt; she couldn't tell me what it was now, and seemed surprised when I asked.

  We docked early in the morning, and Jerry went ashore immediately to arrange for refueling. After he left, Alena and I went on deck and tried to do the morning yoga routine, but it was difficult for each of us to relax; there was no question she was in constant pain, and I was more concerned with her well-being than my own. Add to that Bridgett's scornful look when she emerged, and it made finding the right state of mind nearly impossible.

  Alena and I were still sitting on deck when Jerry returned, and he didn't look happy. Without a word to us he went below, and then, after only two minutes, came up again and headed our way.

  "I'm afraid we're going to be delayed," he told us. "Albert says he cannot give us the fuel, it'll tap his stores. He asks that we wait until he has restocked."

  "How long a wait?" I asked.

  "Six, perhaps seven days."

  Alena sucked a sharp breath. "That will not work."

  "There is nothing I can do about it, Giselle."

  "This man, Albert, you do business with him often?"

  "Regularly."

  "The kind of business you do with me?"

  "Not exactly the same. But he has an idea the kind of things Carrie and I do to provide an income."

  Alena looked at me, shook her head slightly. I understood. A week's delay would be more than enough time for Oxford to catch up with us, no matter how big a lead we might have on him at the moment. A confrontation with him on The Lutra, especially given the state Alena was in, could only end badly.

  "Is there any other way to get the fuel?" I asked.

  "The problem is the paperwork," Jerry said. "With the papers for the three of you, I need to keep my manifests appropriately doctored. We burned a lot of fuel racing from Bequia, and if I get called to explain that, it could be tied into whatever you left behind. This must remain off the books. Albert is the man I use for that."

  "Does he have fuel now?" Alena asked.

  Jerry grunted an affirmative. "He tells me he's already sold it to someone else, one of the other yachts in the harbor."

  Alena looked at me again, then reached for her crutches. I watched as she got herself back to her feet, struggling with her wounded leg. It took her almost twenty seconds to stand, and once she did, she settled the crutches beneath her arms.

  "Where is Albert?" she asked Jerry.

  "He has an office in one of the abandoned warehouses near the edge of town," he said. "But you won't have any luck convincing him. I tried, I offered him twice what I normally pay him. He's not selling."

  "Which warehouse?"

  Jerry pointed out one of the less-abused structures near the edge of the harbor. "That one, with the green paint. His office is in the back."

  "Be ready to leave once we're refueled," Alena said, and she began making her way to the gangplank.

  Albert's office was behind a thin wooden door with a frosted glass panel set in it. The window once had the word "manager" stenciled on the glass, but at some point the glass had cracked and the "m" was distorted, and a shard where the second "a" had been painted was missing. It hadn't been more than a half a mile walk from The Lutra to the warehouse, but when we reached the door, Alena was perspiring and breathing hard. After taking a moment to catch her breath, she nodded at me.

  I knocked on the door, and when a man inside said to come in, I opened it.

  Albert was older than I'd thought he would be, maybe in his mid-sixties, white, but with the leather skin that comes from living years under a strong sun. His hair was more white than gray, his face lined like someone had worked him rather viciously in clay before bringing him to life. The office was as weathered as he, and when he came around his rickety particleboard desk to greet us, I heard the furniture creak. When he smiled at us, I saw that he was missing two incisor
s, and had a third capped in gold.

  "Something I can do for you?" His accent was something between South London and North Jamaica.

  "Are you Albert?" Alena asked.

  He nodded, smiled again, looking from Alena to me.

  "Jerry needs his ship refueled."

  Maybe it was because she was on crutches, or maybe it was sexist, but Albert directed his response to me. "I already told Jerry, I can't help. Fuel I've got is spoken for, that's the way it is."

  "Where is it?"

  He glanced at her. "Why?"

  "Do you refuel from a boat, do you use a truck, how do you do it?"

  "A truck," he said, looking at Alena curiously. "But as I said, it's spoken for."

  "You will move the truck to the dock and refuel The Lutra."

  Albert laughed.

  I saw it coming, saw the shift of weight indicating that she was going into motion, but by then, she already had.

  Alena moved her weight almost entirely to the left crutch and swept the right one up sharply in between Albert's legs. The blow struck him squarely in the testicles, and it crumpled him forward, and he lost his balance. As swiftly as she'd struck, she pulled the crutch free and jabbed again, this time higher, hitting Albert just beneath the collarbone. He didn't have much air left, but what he had came out in a gurgle, and he fell back against the desk. The particleboard tore beneath him as he rode it onto the floor.

  She lowered the crutch and covered the distance to Albert with one move, set the tip of the right crutch against his body again, resting it just above his stomach.

  Albert's eyes were wide, bulging almost comically, and he wheezed in short spurts.

  "If I push down, you will die," Alena told him.

  Albert's expression indicated that he absolutely believed her.

  "To live, you will do the following – you will get the keys to the truck. You will drive myself and my companion to The Lutra. You will refuel The Lutra. You will never mention us to anyone, ever. Do you understand?"