DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten (the Charlie Fox crime thriller series) (38 page)

He brought a hand up abruptly. I stilled, kept my eyes moving just in case this was a blind. Nothing popped.

I edged forwards. Just around the next corner a pair of legs had come into view. They were stretched out, one foot twitching slightly, almost a quiver. Sean nodded to me. I stepped out and went wide of the guy on the floor, circling fast so it must have seemed that we suddenly appeared on both sides of him. I kept the M16 up into my shoulder and ready all the way, slipping my trigger finger inside the guard. He didn’t react.

The man was slumped against the side of the superstructure, hands clasped loosely to a wound in the side of his chest. He was wearing body armour but the wound was high, close to his armpit, circumventing the vest. Either an accurate strike or a lucky one. He’d pulled off his balaclava and was using it to staunch the blood. It was not proving effective.

I nudged his discarded MP5K further out of reach with my foot. The man’s eyes flicked to the weapon as I did so, but he made no moves to reach for it. I guessed he didn’t have the energy or knew he’d be wasting what little time he had left. Blood had seeped out onto the deck alongside him. It surrounded his mouth and nose as if he’d been eating raw flesh.

Sean went down on one knee alongside him, looked dispassionately at the wound.

“Knife,” he said to me. “Must have nicked his lung, I think.”

I remembered the deft way Castille had handled a blade, the speed with which he’d plunged it into Blake Dyer as he’d made his escape. At least he was leaving us a trail of bodies to follow, even if it did seem a brutal way to tidy away the possible loose ends.

The wounded man’s eyes were on me, resigned and almost incurious.

“Well, Castille did say he had a plan of his own,” I told him.

“You recognise him?” Sean asked.

I nodded. It was the fair-haired man with the New Jersey accent. The one who’d delivered Ysabeau van Zant to her execution. I watched his chest flutter with each flooded breath as the blood flowed into his damaged lung, constricting his chest and slowly suffocating him from the inside out. I thought of Blake Dyer and couldn’t find much sympathy.

New Jersey’s lips began to move, blood frothing into his mouth as he tried to speak. “Weren’t expecting . . . him to double-cross us,” he said at last, little more than a whisper.

“His type always do,” Sean said bluntly. “How does Castille plan to get away?”

New Jersey half shook his head, though I wasn’t sure what he was trying to deny. Then his eyes flicked to the side, out towards the darkened waters of the Mississippi. I followed his gaze.

“By boat? What boat? How will he call it in?”

New Jersey was gasping now, his voice drowned by the river and the blood. “Signal.”

“Signal?” I repeated, frustration leaching through. “What signal?”

“You’ll know,” New Jersey whispered. His eyelids had begun to droop, one slow blink after another, the gaps narrowing until his eyes were more shut than open.

“We’re losing him,” Sean muttered.

I thought of Blake Dyer again, my erstwhile principal, dying in the arms of his friend on the deck above. I thought, too, of the unlucky Sullivan, whose neck had been slashed wide open while he’d been tied to a chair in that tiny cabin.

I leaned in closer. “It wasn’t me who cut Sullivan’s throat,” I said. “Are you going to let Castille get away with killing your own crew?”

New Jersey’s eyes opened again, a monumental effort that clearly cost him to maintain. He gave another half shake of his head and just for a moment he looked as if he was about to say something important. Then he sighed, closed his eyes again, and died.

“So much for a bloody deathbed confession,” I said, rising.

Sean shot me an almost reproachful glance as he got to his feet.

We were more or less at the centre section of the boat, where stairs led to the upper deck. Lots of possible escape routes.

Sean jerked his head, indicating I should take the starboard side while he went to port. Then he turned away without a word. I shrugged and followed his order. My eyes were not only on the deck now, but also ranging out across the dark, misty water.

I moved further aft, careful after the discovery of the man from New Jersey. The fact it was a knife wound disturbed me. I’d been cut before, still had the scars to prove it—it was not an experience I wanted to repeat. The noise level increased as I neared the huge wooden paddlewheel which threshed at the water behind us to propel the
Miss Francis
forwards into the night. The deck came to a dead-end.

I found nothing, retracing my steps. As I cleared the superstructure I saw a figure move into view from the direction Sean had taken. I brought the M16 up out of habit, relaxed a fraction when I recognised his familiar figure.

I opened my mouth to ask if he had found anything, then shut it again as I realised something was very wrong. Sean was moving too stiff, too upright. And he was no longer armed.

I tightened the gun into my shoulder, but knew I was too late. Another figure, a man, side-stepped quickly out from behind the superstructure and into line directly behind Sean, using him for cover.

I didn’t need to see the gun to know he had one at Sean’s back. Or a knife. No other way to keep him still. I kept the M16 up but had no clear shot.

Sean stared straight at me. I could read nothing in his eyes, nothing in his face. No hint of how he wanted me to react.

“Put down your weapon,
chérie
,” Castille said. “If you want your friend to live.”

“That’s not how it works,” I said. “I put down my weapon and you’ll kill the pair of us.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed. “But if you do not then he will die for sure. Are you willing to take that risk?”

I kept my eyes on Sean’s. He stared back blankly. I tried to put all my emotion—everything I felt for him—into my face, knowing Castille could not see it, trying to keep it all away from my voice.

But I remembered Sean’s doubt and prayed he’d realise I was bluffing. He must know I couldn’t back down—for both our sakes.

But when I looked for trust I didn’t find it. Only a coldness that reached right inside my chest and froze my heart.

I almost faltered, almost followed Castille’s order just to take away the sudden shaft of pain.

Almost.

I tightened my grip on the M16, rolled my shoulders a little to try and take the tension out of my arms.

“Why should I trust someone who murders his allies as easily as his enemies?” I asked. I was aware I was playing for time in the hope Sean would make a move of his own. He did not.

“Those who are loyal to me have nothing to fear,” Castille said.

“Ah, so what did the guy from New Jersey do to incur your wrath?” I demanded. “As far as I could tell he played his part. He delivered Ysabeau van Zant to you like a sacrificial lamb.”

There was a pause. I knew Castille had heard the acid note in my voice, the bitterness, and I felt rather than saw him smile.

“Ah . . . you saw me deal with that woman and now you think I am a monster who kills for pleasure, with no reason?”

“There’s no ‘think’ about it.”

“
She
was the monster,” he said. “She sold her soul and did not like it when the devil came to collect.”

“You still murdered the pair of them.”

Castille was stubborn, if nothing else. “If that is what you believe, so be it. But standing here arguing about what I did or did not do is not going to get us anywhere,
chérie
.” His voice hardened. “Last chance. Put down the gun.”

My eyes flicked to Sean’s again, willing him to understand, to pick up a message that once he would have done without a flicker.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I—”

The burst of gunfire came suddenly enough to make me flinch. I leapt forwards, focus narrowing onto my target, aware of Sean falling away. And inside my head began a terrible screaming that went on and on until it became an all-encompassing howl of rage and despair.

My own finger tightened around the trigger, came within a fraction of firing.

Then I realised Sean had bucked out from Castille’s grasp, not dropped lifelessly away. That even now he was rolling back to his feet, crouched and tense.

That it was Castille himself who had fallen back against the superstructure. As he slid slowly sideways and down he left a dirty red smear across the glossy paintwork.

I heard footsteps and spun, keeping the gun up. There was another man approaching cautiously along the far side of the deck. This time I had no problem recognising him.

Vic Morton. He held the M16 still at firing position as he came on. His eyes flicked from Castille’s body across the pair of us. He stopped a couple of metres away and relaxed.

“Lucky I stopped by, eh?” he said cheerfully.

“Yeah,” Sean said slowly, straightening. He barely glanced in my direction. “Thanks, Vic.”

I leaned over Castille. Morton’s burst had caught him in the side, spun him around and stitched across his chest, tearing up his heart and lungs. His eyes were already sightless and the blood flow had begun to dwindle. I’d been expecting to find him with a knife but saw instead a compact MP5K resting slackly in the man’s hands. I picked it out and slung the strap over my shoulder.

“No sweat,” Morton said. He grinned, buzzing—on a combat high. I’d seen it before and never liked it much. I trusted it even less.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, aware of a roughness in my voice.

“Saving your arse, Fox,” he shot back. “Can’t afford to hesitate in the field.”

I clenched my teeth until the enamel crunched. “I didn’t,” I said. “I had no clear shot.”

Morton didn’t immediately reply to that one. The upward flicker of his eyebrow spoke volumes, though. His eyes went to Sean again, then he shrugged. “Well . . . good job one of us had, eh?”

There was too much I wanted to say to that. Back when we’d been training together Morton’s weapons skill had always been middle-ground—a solid performance rather than sparkling. I knew that was why he’d aimed for centre mass when only a head-shot would have guaranteed a clean kill. Besides anything else, if Castille had been wearing body armour all Morton would have done would be to piss him off.

And Sean would be the one lying there dead.

There was no point in arguing. Not now—probably not ever. I knew if I said anything Morton would point to the dead man’s body as proof of an effective strategy. If Sean couldn’t work it out for himself how close it had been, there was no point in me doing it for him.

“The skipper’s OK—back in charge,” Morton said. “He’s heading back for the dock as fast as this old tub will motor.”

Sean peered out into the darkness that surrounded us. The fog showed no signs of thinning but occasionally the glow of New Orleans lights gleamed through in patches, creating a spooky haze like distant fires. “Does he know where the hell we are?”

Morton shrugged again. “Probably,” he said. “He just yelled at me to get off his bridge and let him navigate his own bloody ship—or words to that effect.” This last was directed at me with a sly glance, as if my delicate female constitution wouldn’t take the weight of heavier expletives.

“Did he at least give you an ETA?” I asked.

Morton shook his head. “And if you’re prepared to go back up there and ask him yourself, you’re a braver man than I am, Gunga Din.”

Kipling actually wrote that it was “a
better
man” but I didn’t bother to correct Morton’s misquote. I turned away. “We need to keep moving,” I said to Sean. “We don’t know how many of these guys are left, or—”

I was about to mention that we also still didn’t know how Castille had been intending to call in his extraction team. But at that moment there was a huge dull crack of sound from somewhere deep beneath us, following by a rumbling boom that echoed out across the water.

The
Miss Francis
gave a lurch as if she’d struck an underwater obstruction. We staggered to keep our footing, had to grab for the nearest fixed object. A giant shiver passed through the entire ship. She began to lean to starboard, slowly veering over to that side.

“Shit,” I muttered. “The bastard blew the bottom out of her.”

“Stay sharp,” Sean said. “We may have company. Because if that wasn’t a bloody big signal, I don’t know what is.”

The skipper abandoned all ideas of getting the
Miss Francis
back to her berth and drove her straight for the nearest piece of shoreline as fast as he could push the wounded hull. It seemed to be a hell of a long way in the dark and murky distance.

Castille’s charges had been placed aft somewhere back near the engine room on the starboard side. The only good thing was that losing half his C-4 mean he hadn’t been able to instantly sink her. So, although the
Miss Francis
was listing heavily and dragging her arse in the water like a giant drogue ’chute, the paddle steamer struggled on. The giant paddlewheel itself threshed the river behind us into froth with an out-of-balance, edgy vibration. I knew it was stupid to assign emotions to an object, but it almost felt like fury.