“Cambio de planes,” Vasquez muttered, giving news of the change of plans to his people onshore, bounty hunters or worse. “Cerdo americano—”
Rakkim launched himself up the last couple of rungs, slammed Vasquez’s head against the wheel. The radiophone fell to the floor as the captain slumped against the com. Rakkim heard the sound of a shotgun being racked, and grabbed the dazed Vasquez.
“Please, señor,” said Hector, pointing the barrel of a sawed-off pump at Rakkim. “Be so kind as to move aside.”
Rakkim held Vasquez closer. A friendly embrace.
“Señor.” Hector’s eyes were the color of mop water. “Por favor.”
Vasquez struggled but Rakkim held him tight. With no one at the wheel, the Esmeralda lurched through the waves, rolling from one side to the other.
“Rakkim?” called Leo.
Hector’s gaze didn’t waver at the interruption. He raised the sawed-off slightly, considering a head shot.
Rakkim pushed Vasquez aside, kicked the shotgun as Hector fired. Splinters from the roof of the wheelhouse drifted down. Ears ringing, Rakkim grabbed the sawed-off, clubbed Hector over the head with it.
“What blew up?” shouted Leo. “Are we on fire?”
“Go sit down, kid.” Rakkim watched Hector fall to the floor, then grabbed Vasquez, pushed him against the wheel. He jabbed the sawed-off against the back of the captain’s fat neck. Hector’s blood dripped off the barrel. “North by northwest, verdad?”
A knot the size of a robin’s egg had formed on Vasquez’s forehead. He blinked as he stood at the wheel, knees shaking.
“Verdad?” repeated Rakkim.
“Verdad.”
“Capitán!” Luis’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Qué pasa?”
“Nada,” said Vasquez. “Nada, vato.” He switched off the intercom.
“You’re a disappointment, Alejandro,” said Rakkim, quickly binding Hector’s wrists and ankles.
“Please, don’t kill me,” said Vasquez. “Business…this is what the business has become.” He breathed heavily, as though he had run a long race and was nearing the finish line. “The Texas Rangers pay hard money for illegals, and my boat needs work…so much work. What is a man to do?”
“A man’s supposed to abide by his word, motherfucker,” said Rakkim.
For the next hour Vasquez steered the boat as best he could, the storm gaining strength behind them while Luis kept busy coaxing the engine back to life. Once Leo poked his head up, saw the situation, and scuttled back below. The Esmeralda rode high on the peaks of the waves, then crashed down into the troughs, repeating the process over and over. Hector lay hog-tied in the corner, blood crusting his face. He rolled from side to side as the boat skidded over the waves, watching Rakkim with fiery eyes. The radiophone blinked constantly with incoming calls that Rakkim didn’t answer.
The boat listed hard to port, timbers groaning as the bottom scraped along a sandbar. Water poured over the gunwales before Vasquez righted it. The captain threw the Esmeralda into reverse, the engines smoking as he finally broke free. “Señor, we get stuck here, the storm will tear us to pieces!”
Rakkim could see the lights of Corpus Christi in the distance. Close enough. “Tell Luis to ready the inflatable.”
Vasquez did as he was told.
Rakkim pointed the sawed-off at the radio/sonar unit, stopped when he saw the agonized look on Vasquez’s face. Had the man begged, made excuses, Rakkim would have blasted it apart. As it was…his pained silence was more persuasive. Rakkim opened the unit up with his knife, cut through the wiring harness, and slit the motherboard. The system could be easily fixed when Vasquez returned to Laguna Madre, but he wouldn’t be able to communicate with anyone until then.
“G-gracias,” whispered Vasquez.
Hector spit on Rakkim’s boots. “Puto!”
Rakkim tossed the sawed-off over the side and slid down onto the deck. Slung his small, waterproof sack across one shoulder. He saw Luis and Leo struggling to keep the inflatable from sailing into the wind, the two of them drenched and frightened. The wind made it impossible to talk, so Rakkim simply pushed Leo onto the raft and launched it over the side. They hit the water hard, skidding over the surface, the inflatable tumbling end over end. Twice Rakkim had to grab Leo to prevent him being pulled under, the kid gasping and screaming, swallowing water. It was no big deal. Just a matter of hanging on until the wind and waves drove them to shore. You just had to keep your mouth shut and remember to breathe. Which seemed to be more than Leo could manage. Rakkim hooked one arm around the kid, kept a grip on the inflatable with the other, and let Mother Nature take care of the rest.
Ten minutes later Rakkim felt sand underfoot and let the inflatable go, dragging Leo to shore. Leo was unable to walk, kept coughing up seawater, doubled over. Rakkim slung him over one shoulder and walked higher onto the dunes. Dropped him off behind a huge chunk of driftwood, the flotsam providing some shelter from the wind.
“I almost drowned,” sputtered Leo.
“You didn’t.” Rakkim walked back toward the water and stood there, catching the full force of the storm, smiling as he struggled to stay on his feet. Sand stung his face, burned his eyes, and his clothes flapped around him so hard it hurt, but he didn’t care. He was back in the Belt.
Leo crawled over on his hands and knees. “We got to get out of here!”
Rakkim pulled Leo to his feet. “Spread your arms out,” shouted Rakkim, leaning forward into the wind, searching for the balance point. “There…right there.” He leaned at a forty-five-degree angle, held in place by the wind.
Leo hesitated, tried it. Almost was blown backward…tried it again. And again. Until he succeeded.
The two of them stayed there, a couple of scarecrows on the shore, hair beating against their faces. Leo howled into the wind, still nervous, but laughing at his own distorted voice. Probably figuring vectors and parabolas at the same time, trying to decide what scientific journal was worthy of his research.
Rakkim reveled in the power of the storm. In the distance he could see the Esmeralda chugging toward the open sea. Vasquez had left his running lights off, but Rakkim’s night vision had been amped up, just like the rest of him. Vasquez pressed on, trying to avoid running directly into the storm, wisely choosing an oblique path back south into more familiar waters. Making good progress too, the boat a dim speck among the high waves. Rakkim waved, though no one on the boat could see him, even if they were looking. Vaya con Dios, Alejandro.
Vasquez’s plan worked fine until the boat ran aground. Like the captain had said, with all the hurricanes, the seabed changed from month to month, sandbars appearing and disappearing overnight. A fisherman needed sonar and a marine echo-location system to know where he was going, and Rakkim had taken care of that. He hadn’t meant to sink the boat. He just wanted to make sure that Vasquez didn’t alert his contacts on the mainland. Not that Rakkim’s intentions mattered now.
Leo kept laughing, arms outstretched, unaware of what was going on around him.
Rakkim saw the boat shudder as the waves boiled around it. He couldn’t hear the engine, but knew Vasquez was trying to rock it free—full-throttle forward, then reverse. It wasn’t working. The boat seesawed, seemed to be suspended for a moment, then a forty-foot wave crashed down, buried it under tons of water. Rakkim waited. Waited…When the waves rolled away, the Esmeralda was gone. Torn apart or sucked under and out to sea. Rakkim wondered if Hector had had time to curse him again before he died. Wondered if Luis had died in the engine compartment, down in the dark, trying to coax a little more power out of the ancient diesel. In a week or two Vasquez’s captain’s cap might wash ashore someplace. Maybe some little girl would pick it up, put it on her head, the oversize hat falling around her ears while she capered on the sand. Until her parents told her to take the filthy thing off. No telling what she might catch just by touching it.
“What is it?” said Leo, squinting. “What are you looking at?”
“You look upset.” Leo sniffed, hitched up his jeans, posing. “This isn’t so bad, really.” He shivered, watching Rakkim out of the corner of his eye, trying to gauge his reaction. “It’s actually…kind of fun.”
The idiot actually believed he could pass in the Belt with a drawl and a lazy walk. He had no idea. Rakkim stared out to sea. “The fun’s just beginning, kid.”
Chapter 11
Moseby heard Derek fart, groan in his sleep as he rolled over. Moseby waited, listening to Derek and Chase snoring softly on either side of him in the tiny mining shack. Even sleeping they clutched their weapons, locally made assault rifles with speed clips and top-of-the-line Chinese night-vision scopes. The two young hillbillies were still better company than Gravenholtz and the raiders who had packed the Chinese helicopter on the five-hour flight from New Orleans to the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. The raiders were foul-mouthed drunks who delighted in shooting cattle while the chopper skimmed along at two hundred miles an hour, laughing as the locals dove for cover. Gravenholtz paid his men no attention, watching Moseby the whole way, the red hairs on his arms waving in the draft.
Gravenholtz had assigned Derek and Chase to be his guides around the mountain camp, but they didn’t take him anywhere he wanted to go. They were his guards, accompanying him night and day, steering him away from exploring the tunnels honeycombing the mountain. Instead they took him on long walks through the foothills—they shot squirrels with their sidearms gunslinger-style, pelted each other with pinecones, their accents so heavy he could barely understand them at first. Easy duty for them, but Moseby spent the days cataloging the men who roamed the camp, learning their gaits and their speech patterns, memorizing the narrow paths and valleys, making a mental map of the immediate area. He had been invisible before, he would be invisible again.
Three days he had been stuck here waiting for the Colonel to return. Gravenholtz had plucked him from his home, racing back here as though they didn’t have a moment to lose. but the Colonel was gone when they arrived, called away to quell some uprising in his rugged domain. Moseby had tried calling Annabelle, but the phone was dead. No signal of any kind on the mountain, took a certain kind of secure phone to call in or out, and access to those was strictly forbidden to all but the select few.
Nothing to do but wait, said Gravenholtz, refusing Moseby’s request. Jeeter will keep your wife and that sweetmeat daughter occupied, you don’t have to worry about them being bored without you. Do you good to get away from her anyway. Clean country air and honest work. Might do her some good too. Gravenholtz’s tongue flicked out. That wife of yours got restless eyes. First time she spied me I thought she was going to suck the clothes right off me. No offense. I just got that effect on the ladies.
No offense, Moseby had said. Promising himself again that once this was over, he was going to forget Christ’s stricture to turn the other cheek. Time enough to ask forgiveness once the redhead had been taught a lesson in manners.
Derek rolled over again, the cot creaking. Pine needles drifted across the corrugated tin roof, the wind rushing past.
Moseby rolled out of bed, rolled out so smoothly that the cot didn’t make a sound. He grabbed Derek’s camouflage jacket, glided toward the half-open rear window. The first night the two guards had set up a motion detector, but Moseby had taken care of that. Three times that first night he had flicked pebbles onto the floor, setting off the alarm, rousing Derek and Chase while Moseby yawned and asked what was going on. After that third interruption, Derek had turned off the motion detector, kicked it across the shack.
Moseby listened at the window, then hooked his fingers on the top of the frame and pivoted himself out through the narrow opening. He shivered in the cold mountain air, started walking, shoulders hunched, head bent slightly. He missed the warm breeze off the Gulf, the heavy, perfumed air of magnolia and hibiscus. Most of all he missed his wife and daughter. He missed home. He sometimes wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t met Annabelle on his sixth mission into the Belt. Would he have stayed a shadow warrior, sworn to duty, bound to nothing and no one other than the Fedayeen? All he was certain of was that the moment he met her, there had never been any doubt of what he would do.
Clouds drifted across the crescent moon. It was the time of Salat-ul-Isha, the final prayer of the day. Moseby had converted to Christianity, not just with his mouth, but with his heart—still, even after all these years in the Belt, he wondered if he would ever not hear the call to prayer echo inside his skull five times a day. Ah, well, there were worse things. He nodded at three miners passing a bottle around a campfire, and kept walking. Men were arriving and leaving the mountain every day—miners and soldiers, tradesmen and truckers. No one noticed Moseby.
Violating his Fedayeen oath was a capital crime, but Moseby had willingly taken the risk. It was Annabelle he was worried about. She was considered as guilty as he was. Moseby had covered his tracks well, living quietly, moving every few years…until he woke one night with a knife at his throat while Annabelle slept beside him. A young shadow warrior stared down at him in the darkness. Young, but good. Very good. Better than Moseby. Annabelle had moaned in her sleep, turned over, and Moseby had been oddly comforted by her heat, the softness of her skin beside him. He asked the young warrior to kill him quickly, but spare her life. The young warrior hesitated…nodded. He had asked the young warrior his name. Rakkim Epps. Moseby offered Rakkim his blessing and closed his eyes, waiting to die. A few moments later he opened his eyes, the knife still at his throat. What is it? Moseby asked. Rakkim brushed his hand across Moseby’s eyes, closed them. Moseby waited for the blade. When he opened his eyes again, Rakkim was gone. Moseby never saw him again.
Moseby heard voices in the distance. Cheering and raucous laughter. He slipped through the trees, heading toward the voices, not making a sound. A ghost. Twice he almost stepped on chipmunks who didn’t hear him until the last moment. He wasn’t alone in the woods, though, there were other men hurrying in the same direction, loud men charging through the brush, rifles slung over their shoulders as they called out to each other. This was new terrain for Moseby. The trees thinned out, became stony ground. Torches danced atop the next ridge and the sounds were louder now. Moseby moved nimbly over the boulders, leaping from one to the other in his haste, leaving the other men behind.
Small searchlights ringed a deep cleft in the mountain, cast shadows across the natural arena below. Men huddled around burn barrels, drinking and smoking, cheering as they watched the action. Most of them were locals, or soldiers, but there were about a dozen—all of them taking the best spots—with their hair buzzed distinctively short, whitewalls around their ears, hard men. Raiders, that’s what Derek had called them, when Moseby pointed them out. They’s Gravenholtz’s boys, Derek said, voice lowered. You best not mess with them. Moseby eased his way through the crowd to get a better look, avoiding the Raiders. The crowd smelled of sweat and coal and sour beer, foul smells, like a dirty copper penny. He stepped back in surprise, then forward again. Gravenholtz was at the bottom of the cleft, but the redhead was too busy to notice Moseby.
Gravenholtz and another man squared off below, both of them bare-chested in the cold air. Gravenholtz’s torso was tautly muscled, his skin a pale, freckled fish-belly white. The other man was skinnier, his body covered in bruises, eyes blackened, his dirty-blond hair matted—he moved easily across the rocks in a half-crouch, sidestepping, never taking his eyes off Gravenholtz.
The blond was Fedayeen. A shadow warrior, just like Moseby. No one else moved like that across rough terrain. No one else held their hands just so…loose, fingers slightly curled, ready to strike or grasp. Moseby looked pleased. He had no idea how the shadow warrior had been injured, or how many men it had taken to do the job, but one-on-one? Gravenholtz had no idea what he was in for.
Catcalls from the crowd on the rim above, whoops and hollers. The shadow warrior dodged a hurled beer can with a slight turn of
his head, not even acknowledging the missile. Gravenholtz closed in, agile himself, more agile than Moseby had suspected, slowly cutting the ring in half.
Gravenholtz threw a punch. The shadow warrior countered, hit him with a solid right just under the heart. Should have shattered Gravenholtz’s floating ribs and disabled him, but the redhead just moved in, smiling. A flurry of punches from Gravenholtz. The shadow warrior barely dodged, countered again with a right and a left to no effect. Gravenholtz backed him into a cul-de-sac, but the shadow warrior scampered away. Circled behind him. Launched a roundhouse kick that caught Gravenholtz on the side of the head, sent him sprawling. The shadow warrior rushed in to finish the job, but the redhead was too quick, tripped him, punched him as the shadow warrior scooted away. It was a glancing blow, but the shadow warrior grunted in pain, bit his lips shut.
The crowd whistled. Stamped their feet. One of Gravenholtz’s Raiders, a scrawny killer with a broken nose, danced a jig on the rim of the amphitheater, bared his ass to the shadow warrior to a chorus of laughter.
The shadow warrior clutched his side where he had been hit, breathing hard. He moved slightly slower now, and Moseby could see bumps on his rib cage and collarbone where bones had been broken and healed unevenly. Moseby wondered how long the man had been imprisoned here. How many bouts he had fought against the redhead, because clearly they had faced each other before.
Gravenholtz advanced, moving lightly on his feet. His left ear was bleeding from the shadow warrior’s kick, but it didn’t seem to bother him.
The shadow warrior weaved in the torchlight, made a move that was distinctly Fedayeen—a shoulder feint that was in fact a genuine killing attack, “faking the feint,” it was called. Fools the skilled opponent, and the unskilled is dead already, that’s what their instructor had taught them. Not tonight. Gravenholtz caught the shadow warrior with an uppercut that sprayed teeth on the rocks.
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