DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten (the Charlie Fox crime thriller series) (30 page)

If it was revenge he was after, why had he waited so long to take it?

“What do you want?” van Zant demanded, her manner haughty.

Castille spread those delicate hands. “As if you have to ask,
chérie
.”

“Do not forget that it was
I
who came to you. Of my own free will. To make amends.”

“And you thought that would be all—that your debt to me would be cancelled because you issued a simple invitation?”

“Hardly simple. The boy had to be forced to return.”

“But how could he refuse a command from his patron?” Castille said. “I’m sure you were very . . . persuasive.”

“I was never his patron,” van Zant said, snap to her voice. “The boy had talent. I merely . . . took an interest in his career.”

“You covered up for him because it suited your own purposes,
chérie
. You did not want Leon’s murderer brought to trial for fear of what else might be uncovered. So you attempted to bury your own sins along with his.”

“And now they have risen,” van Zant said, her tone fatalistic. She shrugged, as if unconcerned. “I played my part.”

Castille shook his head. “You should have been the one to tell me about the helicopter, the change of plan. Instead, I had to find out another way.”

“There wasn’t time. It was a last-minute rearrangement.”

“But clearly there
was
time,
chérie
. I made the time.”

“And you failed,” she said, her voice cool. “Perhaps it’s fate, Castille. A sign that you should let this go. Leon is dead. Nothing you can do will bring him back. It was a long time ago.”

“To me it was yesterday.”

“So this is how you remember your brother and forget your sorrow?” she scoffed, encompassing the men surrounding her with a flick of her hand. “By robbery?”

“Who said anything about robbery?” Castille said calmly. He looked around him. “All this—it’s a distraction. I am here for you.”

For the first time the fear showed in Ysabeau van Zant’s face. She took an almost involuntary step backwards, started to bring her hands up. The man from New Jersey shifted slightly behind her. She sensed him and stopped. Castille recognised the man’s move for what it was—capitulation.

He smiled, stepped in close to van Zant. Of the two of them he was the shorter but he still dominated. He reached up, stroked her face with those soft-looking hands. She flinched at his first touch, forced herself to remain impassive at his second. I could almost see her quivering with the effort it took not to break and run.

An echo of remembered panic shivered through my belly.

Do it anyway
, I willed her, filled with foreboding.
Run. Go over. Even a cold river at night has to offer a better chance than this . . .

Castille’s hand drifted down the side of her long white neck, his eyes on her skin as if enthralled. His men stood and watched. I could almost feel them holding their breath.

It reminded me suddenly of another group of men watching violence about to be done to another woman—to me. Their faces were professionally blank, but even so I expected to see a faint feral excitement come off them like a heat haze in the hot damp air. Instead I caught a hint of shame.

Ysabeau van Zant let Castille caress her, as if she thought humiliation might be her only punishment.

“Such a pity,” he murmured at last.

The realisation jumped in her eyes. She sucked in a breath either to beg or to scream. I never found out which. At last, she started to turn, to run. As she did so, Castille’s hand snaked around her windpipe and tightened into a claw. The illusion that his hands were soft and delicate evaporated in that moment. He brought up his other hand, grasped her as if he wanted nothing better than to squeeze her head off her body. I saw his knuckles tighten, whiten. One of his men shuffled his feet. Castille turned his head slightly and stared. The man stilled.

For a moment I considered levering myself over the edge of the railing and dropping down to the deck below. The thought did not last more than a moment. It would have been a useless, futile effort. There were half a dozen armed men down there. Any one of them could slot me before I got both feet flat on the deck. I cursed again that Sullivan’s weapon went over the side when I tackled him.

But the fact remained that I was unarmed and Ysabeau van Zant was going to die as a result.

There was nothing I could do for her now except be a witness, however much that sickened me.

And that meant staying alive.

Ysabeau van Zant began to choke, her eyes bulging as her face engorged. She staggered, tried to pull backwards, her fingers clutching at his hands, but could not break his grip. She stretched for his face, but could do no more than grab at the empty air in front of his chin. He didn’t even bother to lean back away from her, knowing he was out of reach.

Stupid.
Going for the hands was stupid. The elbows were far more vulnerable. A downward blow would have unlocked his arms, bringing his body within striking distance. If there was too much sheer muscle to overcome, her next option should have been an upward punch to the back of the elbow joint. Break the arm and the hand is useless.

Legs are longer than arms. She should have been kicking out, aiming for the instep, shin, kneecap or groin. Twisting sideways to bring her knees into play, or those spike heels.

I shifted restlessly against the deck, my own hands and feet twitching in automatic response. Silently, I raged against the woman allowing herself to die so easily in front of me, for so little effort. For so little trouble to her attacker. I knew it was unfair, but I couldn’t help it.

Ysabeau van Zant’s breath was a desperate gurgle now, body sagging as her legs gave out. She no longer clawed at Castille’s hands but was almost petting him as her own muscles slackened and her struggles grew weaker.

It takes very little time to be strangled. Back when I taught self-defence, escaping from strangleholds had been one of the most important lessons—and the most basic. By allowing herself to be killed so pointlessly, so easily, all I felt for Ysabeau van Zant was a dark abiding anger. My fists were clenched so tight I was sure I’d drawn my own blood.

Under my breath I murmured, “Damn the pair of you.”

It took a few moments longer before her body ceased to support its own weight and went limp. Castille gave her neck a final shake like a dog with a dead toy. He let go and was already turning to the man from New Jersey even as her body hit the deck.

From behind me I felt a tug on my belt, a low warning: “Charlie.”

Castille stilled, head turning in my direction. I froze. He began to walk in my direction, his Cuban heels making a precise click as he approached. His head was cocked to the side, listening above the tap of his own footsteps.

New Jersey was staring after him as if he’d lost his mind. “What the hell is it?”

Castille held up a peremptory hand, fingers in a careless twist to silence him. I was sharply reminded of what I’d just seen that hand do, of what this man was capable of.

Another tug on my belt, more insistent this time, the whisper more urgent: “Charlie!”

Castille’s head jerked as if in direct response. He moved a little further, a little faster, sliding his feet now to muffle the sound.

I daren’t make a noise. Instead I reached behind me and dug my fingers hard into the hand that held onto me, aiming for two pressure points to release the grip. I couldn’t tell if it was Blake Dyer or Tom O’Day, but I hoped they’d get the message that moving was far more dangerous than staying precisely where I was. For a moment I thought he was going to be stubborn, then the hand released abruptly and pulled back.

Below me, the man called Castille was less than a couple of metres away. He looked around him, eyes narrowed. He even stared up at the row of deck lights that obscured me from view. I held my breath as he squinted directly into the beam, sure he must be able to see me clearly.

“Castille!” New Jersey said sharply. “What the fuck is going on with you?”

Castille didn’t answer right away. He continued to stare at the light for another long few seconds. On the other side of it, I continued to stare back at him. Eventually, he turned away, strolled back to where the men were clustered around Ysabeau van Zant’s body. Castille pulled out a white linen handkerchief, fastidiously wiped his hands on it.

“See that she is weighted down before you put her over the side,” he said.

New Jersey glanced at the crumpled form on the deck. “Is that the end of it?”

Castille paused. “No, but it is a start.”

They moved away. I let my breath out slow and shaky.

A hand latched onto my belt again, yanked me back through the railing and flipped me over. The move was rough, careless. I was expecting to see Blake Dyer or Tom O’Day looming over me, annoyed with my pinch-grip and getting their revenge.

Instead I found myself staring straight up the barrel of an assault rifle.

“Up!”

The man on the other end of the M16 was dressed like the other hijackers, in black from boots to balaclava. He pressed the muzzle of the gun into the centre of my chest, grating against my sternum, and gave it a jerk.

“Come on, move,” he ordered.

I let my eyes widen, my peripheral vision reaching out. Dyer and O’Day were nowhere to be seen.
Good.
No point in them hanging around when I refused to listen to their warnings of approaching danger. I was glad to see they possessed a little survival instinct.

Playing for time, I let my face screw up in a show of fear. “OK, OK. Please, don’t hurt me!” At the same time I brought both hands up with my fingers spread as if in surrender.

The man shifted his stance a little, relaxed. He lifted the muzzle out of my chest and didn’t seem to notice that my hands were now within a few inches of the weapon.

Even so, I knew trying anything was going to be incredibly chancy.

Until two things happened. The first was that he reached for his radio mic with his left hand. The action made him alter his grip on the M16 to account for the change in balance.

The second was that the cabin door directly behind him opened and Blake Dyer stepped out, his golf club raised at shoulder height like a samurai sword.

The masked man’s reflexes were excellent. He caught the movement and began to twist instantly, ducking his knees as he did so.

I don’t know where Dyer had intended to strike him—or even if he’d thought it that far through. But as the man turned the total power of the golf club hit him full across the throat. Dyer was at maximum extension, unwinding his best drive.

The club face met the man’s neck with almost perfect precision. Had it landed across the top of his spine it probably would have broken his neck. As it was, I heard his larynx collapse with an audible soft pop.

The man started to collapse forward onto me, gasping. I twisted sideways as the muzzle of the M16 rammed down into the deck, just avoiding being skewered, and levered my feet up into his pelvis as his body flopped. From there it was a straightforward judo manoeuvre. A swift upward jerk of my legs and he was flipped out over the railing. I tried to keep a grip on the M16 as he went but his arm was wrapped up in the strap and it tore from my grasp.

He dropped soundlessly into the water two decks below. By the time he landed there was nobody to hear the splash.

I rolled over and stared down into the dark water that slipped past the hull of the
Miss Francis
. If the body surfaced I didn’t see it.

I looked up again to find Blake Dyer trying to wrestle a lifebelt free from its rack on the cabin wall.

“Leave it,” I said.

“We can’t just let him drown,” Dyer said, still struggling to untangle the line that was wrapped around the belt.

I opened my mouth to tell him that drowning was the least of the guy’s worries, but Tom O’Day stepped in, put a staying hand on Dyer’s arm. “He’s gone, Blake,” he said quietly. “Let him go.”

For a moment it was like Dyer hadn’t heard, then he slumped against the rack.

“Oh God, I never meant . . .”

“I know, old friend,” O’Day said. “You did what you had to do.”

Dyer glanced at me, his face pale with anguish. “You wouldn’t move,” he muttered. “You told us to warn you, but you wouldn’t move. If you had—”

“Then the guys on the deck below would have shot all of us,” I said. “There was nothing I could do about that.”

Dyer shook his head like he didn’t believe me, or didn’t want to. I got to my feet. O’Day handed me the Maglite he’d been safeguarding. I picked up the golf club Blake Dyer had abandoned, offered it back to him.

Dyer shook his head again, more vehemently this time. “No,” he said. “I don’t think I can . . . not again. Not after . . .”