DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten (the Charlie Fox crime thriller series) (32 page)

He stopped dead despite my urging. I saw his eyes widen, horrified.

That, I thought, told me all I needed to know.

Then I flicked my eyes to Sullivan and discovered that Jimmy’s reaction told me nothing at all.

Sullivan was dead.

Definitely, irrefutably, absolutely, dead. I didn’t have to press two fingers into the empty pulse point at his throat to confirm it, which was a good thing.

His throat had been sliced wide open. Ear to ear. Plenty wide enough for his head to flop back rather than forwards, despite the overhang of chin and nose. The pose made the wound gape. It left all the muscle and tendons that normally held his head upright exposed and on show. In a brief glance I saw blood and froth and bisected trachea and ruin.

Whoever had killed him had taken full advantage of his immobility, like a staked goat. That one, I knew, was on me.

There might have been a touch of grandstanding going on. They might have grasped his hair and yanked his head up and back to tighten all the vessels and sinews. To make for an easier cut. Either way, he couldn’t help but see it coming, poor bastard.

Or they might simply have propped him like that afterwards, on full gory display to put the fear of God into whoever found him.

From the way Jimmy O’Day lurched sideways, gurgling in this throat as the vomit rose, I’d say the tactic worked pretty well.

“Not over the side,” I said sharply when he would have groped for the railing at the edge of the deck.

I hauled him back into the cabin instead. Maybe the few gulps of fresh air he’d managed to force down had fortified his stomach because he fought back the rising tide. But his whole body convulsed, one hand braced against the corner wall to support rubbery knees. Below him, seeping across the floor, Sullivan’s blood swilled with the gentle lapping movement of the ship.

I remembered back to the first dead body I’d ever encountered. That had been cut up too—almost disembowelled—but unlike this one it had not been a fresh kill.

Jimmy O’Day’s reaction, judged by my own experience, was entirely normal.

I glanced at Blake Dyer and Tom O’Day. Blake’s complexion had taken on a greenish tinge but he was holding it together. Jimmy’s father was coping better. He’d been shocked by the sight of Hobson’s body but the man had been, if not a friend then at least a trusted employee. And Tom O’Day had seen service in the navy, under fire. I guessed when it came to mutilated corpses this was not his first time out.

After a few seconds O’Day said with quiet intensity, “Who did this?”

I shrugged. “We have a ship full of suspects. These are not exactly nice people we’re dealing with.”

“And we are?” Blake Dyer’s face screwed up a little and his voice was hollow. “If they saw the note they might have thought he’d betrayed them.”

I looked at him for a moment, reminded myself that strictly speaking I was no longer in his employ, with all the social niceties that entailed. “It’s possible,” I agreed.

His mouth tightened but he nodded as if thanking me for not soft-soaping him.

“What now?”

I didn’t answer right away. Now we were in the light I could take a good look at Jimmy O’Day—what I could see of him with his back towards me. His hand where it leaned on the wall up by his shoulder was bloodied around the fingers but no more than that. He was wearing a dark dinner suit, so any dried spatter elsewhere might not show.

So far, so inconclusive.

But then I looked at Sullivan again. The hole in his throat was horrific. At first glance it looked as though the killing stroke had been delivered with brutal efficiency as well as effectiveness. It was hard to look closer. I edged in, as if the wound might really turn into the ragged mouth it resembled and snap at me.

I looked beyond the obvious and saw the less obvious.

I sidestepped Sullivan’s body and reached for Jimmy O’Day’s shoulder, spinning him away from the wall. There was spittle hanging from his lips, but despite the contortions he had not actually thrown up. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth slowly. His eyes flicked from me to his father, his godfather, and back again. Anywhere but at the corpse.

No point in pussyfooting around . . .

“What did you do with the knife?” I demanded.

“No way,” Jimmy said, not even troubling to sound surprised. “No way—it wasn’t me. I didn’t do this.”

I got the feeling it was not me he was trying to convince.

I said nothing, just let go of him and turned away. By the faces of the two men opposite they were not entirely convinced by his performance either, but Tom O’Day put up a token protest. “You can’t suspect Jimmy—not of something like this.”

His son scowled as if to disabuse him, hearing the slur as well as the endorsement.

“Even amateurs can secure a prisoner so he can’t get loose without a hell of a lot more signs of it,” I said. “And these people are not amateurs.”

Tom O’Day shrugged, irritation in his face. “Jimmy’s just a kid,” he said, sending an angry flush across his twenty-something son’s face. “They knew he wasn’t a threat to them. Besides, takes skill to cut a man’s throat.”

“There are hesitation marks,” I said. “Whoever did this, he took a couple of runs at it. So he probably wasn’t a professional.”

Or not one who’d had cause to kill before, up close and very personal.

“Even so—” Tom O’Day began.

I held up a weary hand. “We’ll deal with this later,” I said. “Right now, we have other things to worry about.” I took a last look at Sullivan, bled out in the chair we’d tied him to. The chair
I’d
tied him to. “Let’s move.”

We moved back out onto the deck, pulling the door closed behind us. Once again I led the way with Tom O’Day right behind me. The layout of the boat was solidifying in my head now, but it was nice to have a second opinion.

Blake Dyer was bringing up the rear, with Jimmy in front of him. Tom O’Day might not believe his son was capable of murder, but I wanted the lad where at least one other person could keep an eye on him.

I kept telling myself that surely there had to be far easier and less elaborate circumstances around the home where Jimmy could have arranged a suitable “accident” for his father. Going to all this trouble seemed overkill. Unless there was some other game at play. A game I was unaware of.

And until I knew what that might be I was reluctant to risk my hand. Or the rest of us, either.

We reached the exterior staircase that led to the lower deck. Tom O’Day started to guide us down when I heard footsteps below and grabbed his arm. He scurried back up and the four of us crouched near the top, peering down.

Two of the hijackers appeared on the lower deck. Both were carrying nylon bags, the kind you’d use for a weekend trip. But whatever was in them looked heavier than just a change of clothes.

At that moment, the
Miss Francis
was jostled by a small wave or maybe we crossed over the wake of another vessel. Her bow dipped suddenly.

Jimmy, leaning over the top of the stairs, staggered and almost lost his balance. He reached for the railing in automatic response to prevent himself falling. As he did so the metal strap of his watch clinked audibly against it. A tiny noise, but the pitch was higher than the natural sounds of the river and the boat, making it stand out.

I swore silently, glaring at Jimmy. He flushed.

Below us, one of the men stopped and turned, hand straying to the MP5 on the strap over his shoulder.

“What was that?”

“What?” asked his companion, further ahead. “You getting jumpy, man?”

“I heard something.”

There was a short laugh. “You
is
getting jumpy,” the second man said. “Case you hadn’t noticed, bro, we’re working to a schedule here.”

The first man hesitated, almost turned away and then stopped again. “You go on ahead. I’ll check it out.”

I shuffled back from the head of the stairs as fast and quiet as I could manage, indicated to the others to do the same. I shot a hard stare in Jimmy’s direction but he was avoiding my gaze.

“Restaurant,” I whispered in Tom O’Day’s ear. “I’ll meet you there.”

He nodded and the three of them scurried away along the side deck.

The man with the bag, meanwhile, had started to climb the staircase, his movements cautious. I edged back behind the nearest bulkhead, gripping the Maglite. If he turned in my direction once he got to the top of the stairs I’d risk tackling him. If not . . . well, I’d play that one by ear.

The man reached the top step, body tense. He paused there a moment, listening, but heard nothing that alarmed him.

Then from further forward there came the faint sound of a door closing. The man spun in that direction, the MP5 already off its shoulder strap and in his hand. I cursed under my breath. I just knew without being told that it was bloody Jimmy, being careless again.

Carefully, the hijacker put down the nylon bag and took a firmer grip on his gun. He started to move along the side deck away from me, focused on the sound that had alerted him. Unwilling to be weighed down in a possible fight, he left the bag where it was.

The temptation of that proved too much.

As soon as he was out of sight I slipped out from concealment, crossed the deck in a few quick strides and squatted by the bag. All the time, I was checking that nobody was creeping up on me, or that the second man wasn’t on his way up the stairs.

If there were spare weapons in the bag, it was a risk worth taking. I slid the zip open quietly, looked inside, and froze.

There were no guns. That would have been better.

Instead, the bag was packed with blocks of off-white material, soft and pliable, the consistency of modelling clay. The blocks were about the size of a house brick but half the thickness. I didn’t need to pick them up to know what they were. I’d handled enough C-4 plastic explosive to recognise it instantly by sight.

And from my experience there was enough in that bag to send the
Miss Francis
and all aboard her straight to the bottom of the Mississippi without any trouble at all.

I reached into the bag and searched the dark corners, just in case the hijackers had been foolish enough to carry the detonators in there as well. Sadly, they were not.

Ah well, I can dream.

C-4 is relatively stable as far as explosive goes. You can’t set it off by shooting at it or burning it—in fact I’d actually come across some squaddies who used it for instant campfire fuel. It was pretty effective provided you avoided inhaling the fumes while you cooked your food.

Footsteps sounded along the side deck, coming back in my direction. I grabbed the handles of the bag and rose, turning fast to build up momentum. Then I let go and sent the whole lot winging out into the gloom. I even thought I heard a distant splash as it landed in the river.

Let’s just hope it sinks.

Still, even if they turned around now, the chances of locating a small black bag, floating somewhere in the night, were negligible.

I snatched up the Maglite and ran along the deck in the opposite direction. Almost as soon as I did so, I realised my mistake. This way led towards the stern. There were cabins I might be able to hide in, but nothing that offered an escape route to the rest of the boat. The other man was still on the deck below, so they’d know I hadn’t gone that way.

It would not, I judged, take them long to find me.

Shit.

The footsteps reached the area at the top of the stairs and paused. It would only take him a moment to overcome his disbelief at the disappearance of the bag, another to act.

I glanced at the railing. The only way was over the side but I didn’t fancy my chances in the river, not to mention leaving Blake Dyer and the O’Days to their own devices. Still, there were times when you didn’t have the luxury of choice.

I climbed up onto the railing, almost losing my grip because of the Maglite. I briefly considered stuffing it into my belt, but it had stretched too loose to hold the flashlight secure. I wavered for a second, then threw the Maglite after the bag of explosives.

Sorry, skipper.

With both hands free, I managed to reach the edge of the deck above. I got a firm grip on it and jumped, swinging my legs up and hooking one foot onto the deck as well. All the time I expected to hear a shout from beneath me. Or maybe he’d go straight for a shot.

Neither came—yet.

With a grunt of effort I heaved myself upwards. I got one hand onto the bottom railing, then another. The railings were damp with salt and hard to grip. My hand slipped, scraping my forearm raw on the edge of the deck. I gritted my teeth and stretched again. The assault courses I’d tackled regularly in the army seemed a long time ago.