The Last Family (51 page)

“What?” Thorne said. “You nuts?”

“Thorne, I don’t need you now. Take him and go. Follow in the
Cheetah
and make sure Martin doesn’t get away if it goes wrong. Please?”

Thorne shook his head. “No. I’m staying until we drop the hammer on these assholes. You just want to have all the fun.”

The policeman looked at his watch. “I don’t have to be home for two hours yet,” he said. “Let’s put this franchise out of business.”

“Okay, then,” Paul said. “I’ll go in from the V berth. Wait two minutes, or until you hear the first shot, and then come in. Thorne, the aft cabin. Ted, you come in through the cockpit. We have to take them by surprise, before they can think to set the bomb off.”

“Good luck, Paul,” Thorne said.

“I don’t need luck,” he said. “I got looks.”

Paul went back to the V berth and opened the hatch. He tossed the cane down onto the bed. Then he followed it in. He looked around. The bird was in the cage on the dresser. He smiled at Reb’s attempt at drownproofing the caged bird. But there was probably no way to save the bird, he decided.
Can’t let it go—it can’t fly with clipped wings, and it sure as hell can’t swim
. He took the cage’s handle and, using his cane tip, placed it up onto the deck in the rain.

“friggin’ two-dollar bird,” he whispered.

He looked at what Laura had been doing before he’d interrupted, and once again smiled. She had peeled the end of the looted lamp cord, wrapped the frayed copper ends around the knob, and plugged it back into the outlet. She had planned to fry Martin. The cord, with its off on switch, would fire up the door. She had a flowerpot filled with water, which he imagined she had planned to pour under the door when Martin came. Whoever opened the door could have been electrocuted. Paul imagined the circuit was on a ground-fault interrupter, which would break the current before any harm was
done. So the effort would have failed, but he was damned proud of her ingenuity. He was sorry that he’d never get to tell her how proud he was of her, how much he loved her, and how deeply sorry he was that he had destroyed their happiness. Maybe she’d know anyway.

Then, as he was ready to move to the door, the knob lever turned. “Open the door, Laura,” Martin said.

Paul walked over, held the gun up, unlocked and opened it. He wouldn’t have recognized Martin, but he was delighted at the pure shock that was painted across the new face. He wondered fleetingly what had happened to Martin that had required a field stitching. Paul had the drop on Martin. His hands were at his side, empty.

“Paul!” he said.

“Surprised, asshole? You invited me.”

Paul held the cocked Colt against Martin’s head while he patted him down with the left. He removed the electronic trigger from Martin’s pocket and used his teeth to open it. Then he pulled the nine-volt battery out, dropped the device to the floor, and smashed it flat with his heel.

“Where’s your little pal?”

Martin shrugged. “Kurt? You know how hard it is to keep up with the help.”

“Where’s Reid?”

“You mean Mr. Spivey?”

Paul nodded.

“About now I imagine he’s telling some convoluted tale to St. Peter. So T.C. really
didn’t
tell you about Reid, did he?”

“That shouldn’t matter to you, Martin.”

“No.” He smiled. “But the question is why he didn’t warn the others. Might have got at me sooner, don’t you imagine? Didn’t warn
you
that your days were at an end, either, did he?” Martin laughed, pleased with himself. “He never liked you, you know,” he said softly. “Politics at its most lethal. You gonna kill him for it? No, you aren’t a killer, are you? I never have figured out what
you are … besides lucky. You should have died in Miami.”

Paul peered over Martin’s shoulder into the empty lounge, the galley, and the darkened hallway.

“Where’s the little family? Upstairs? Gone? And I thought they were enjoying the cruise.” He laughed, and Paul saw that there was no fear in his eyes. He looked happy, even excited. Paul knew the time had come to shoot him, but his trigger finger remained at rest.

“Okay, Paul, what’s next?”

An alarm went off inside Paul’s head.
He isn’t worried. The bomb. There’s another triggering device with … Where’s Steiner?
Paul’s answer came by way of a flash from the darkened hallway. Then he was falling backward, shot. It was almost as though he had simply lost his balance, except for the pressure in his upper chest.

As he lay on his back beside the bed, he heard the rattle of Ted’s machine gun fill the lounge and the answering bark of another machine gun, unsilenced, deafening. He lifted his head and looked at the doorway where Martin had been. The pain wasn’t there yet, but his left shoulder was shattered, useless. He tried to get up, but he was like a flipped turtle. Then the pain found a path through the natural defenses, and it was blinding. Paul flailed at the bed, reaching for the cane, but it was beyond his fingers somewhere.

There was a pitched battle being waged on the boat, and he couldn’t move. He cursed and reached deep down inside himself for the strength he needed. Maybe Martin thought he was dead. He raised up again to look for his Colt, but it was gone. Either in Martin’s hand or it had fallen into the lounge. He tried to steady his thoughts, concentrate, but the pain was searing his mind, filling him with panic. Unbidden, a memory was flowing back. Something that had been lost to him for six years.

He was remembering something he had not supposed he could ever recall—something the doctors assured him was lost forever to the trauma. He remembered the dock in Miami, seeing the doors of the shipping container opening, and he remembered seeing
the dark faces of the men behind brown sacks of sand. He saw the surprise on the Colombians’ faces that they were alive, that the bomb had not gone off when the doors opened, the trip wire had failed. He remembered them bringing up their guns as Barnett or Hill pulled him back and both took position in front of him to protect him with their own bodies. He saw, over their shoulders, the flashes from the Mac-10s. And he saw, as he fell backward, a slow, silent ballet of blood and brains turning and falling through the air above him as he fell.

Paul lay there on his back against the carpeted floor with his mouth open, needing to cry but knowing there wasn’t time, fighting his way back from the then to the now. Those two boys in Miami had sacrificed their lives for his, and no one but he had seen it. They could have stayed safely on the side, but he had been in the line of fire. Had they known they were trading their lives for his?

Was that why I kept seeing them?

57

K
URT
S
TEINER HAD BEEN COMING DOWN THE HALL WHEN HE’D SEEN
Masterson holding the gun on Martin. He had drawn his own gun, taken hasty aim at Masterson, and had dropped him. Then Martin had picked up the agent’s Colt just as a fusillade of bullets, fired at a downward angle from the cockpit, had ripped up the room around them. Martin had emptied the Colt and made it to the counter, picked up the Uzi he’d taken from the agent on the pier, and returned the fire, sending thirty nine-millimeter rounds through the wall and ceiling, trying to hit the man in the cockpit. Then he had reloaded and emptied it, leaving the air in the galley thick with cordite smoke.

Kurt ran back toward the aft cabin immediately, where the Uzi was lying on the bed alongside the detonator. He made it to the bed just as the door opened, leaped across it, lifting the Uzi as he fell behind the bed.
Thorne Greer aimed his pistol into the room and began firing rapidly. Kurt waited for the agent to empty his magazine, then came up and returned fire, hosing the doorway. After the gun was empty, he realized that Thorne had moved away before he had fired. Kurt could see through the swirling cloud of smoke that the door, filled with holes and quill-like splinters, was rocking gently like a flag in the breeze. He tossed the empty Uzi onto the floor, took out his pistol, and put the detonator in his top pocket. He also took a fragmentary grenade from the open panel in the bed frame, just in case, pushing the lever into his web belt to secure it.

Kurt followed the extended gun hand. He went out onto the deck and swept it from side to side, ready to shoot at the agent. He saw a shoe, which he took for Thorne’s, lying on its side beside the rail. “Gone over,” he said. “Chickenshit.” He looked around the mast to the starboard side to make sure; it was clear. Then he peered back around at the port side and it, too, was deserted. He saw that Woody was gone and registered without emotion the fact that they had discovered the trip wire. He moved toward the open cockpit and, certain the bow deck was clear, stepped up and aimed his gun inside. The policeman on the floor had been a casualty of Martin’s Uzi. He had taken uncounted hits in the chest and head.

“All clear, Martin!” he yelled into the galley.

Martin appeared. “Where’s your detonator?” he asked.

“Here,” Kurt said, touching the breast pocket with the barrel of the pistol.

“Give it to me.” Martin held out his hand. “We’re going back.”

“What?”

“The family can’t be far behind us. Same boat that dropped the team off. We’ll locate it and we’ll take it out with the Semtex. Send ’em to the bottom.”

Kurt reached into his pocket and took out the device. As he was holding it out to Martin, he was aware of something large descending on him from above.

•   •   •

Thorne had climbed twenty feet up the foremast, where he had clung on tightly, keeping himself as covered by the structure as he could. Luckily Kurt hadn’t bothered to look up. When Thorne saw Martin reaching for the detonator, he had dropped. At the last split second of the fall Kurt had turned his head up, but he had only had time to look surprised before Thorne landed his feet squarely on his shoulders. Thorne had the gun in his fist and was braced for the hit, so he was able to fire at Martin before he stopped sliding on the wet deck. He tried to stand but couldn’t because his ankle gave when he put weight on it. His fingers confirmed the bone was pressing skin out from the inside. He wanted to vomit.

Kurt was stunned, the breath knocked out of him, Thorne assumed. But he was quick enough to get out of the line of fire. Thorne hoped that he had at least broken one of Kurt’s collarbones. Kurt had lost his SIG Sauer pistol, and Thorne picked it up and hurled it back over his shoulder into the water. He fired another few rounds at the galley door.

Thorne didn’t know what to do next. He assumed Paul was dead—how could he not be? He couldn’t walk, but he found he could lift himself upright and stand, balanced on the good leg. At least he could kill one of them, maybe.

Kurt, who had circled the cockpit, came at him from behind on the fly. Thorne turned, and when he put weight on the shattered leg, he started down, but he pushed hard against the deck with the good leg as Kurt hit him. The motion was just enough to allow him to change his attacker’s balance, and the two of them pitched off, their legs hitting the rail hard and turning them on their axis as they sailed out into the darkness.

Martin was going to backtrack. Not to help Kurt, but to go after the family. They would be on the boat that had transported Paul’s team. They’d be following, waiting for Paul’s victory like wide-eyed groupies.

He went down into the galley to make sure Paul was
really out of the picture. Between the adrenaline and the speed coursing through his system, he felt invincible.

Paul had managed to drag himself across the room, leaving a wide smear of fresh blood. Martin saw that his enemy was breathing and had a cane clenched in his hand. Martin exhaled loudly. “Paul, Paul,” he said. “No vest can stop KTW, you of all people should know
that.”
He laughed. “You’re lung shot, I believe.”

Paul opened his eye slowly and focused it on Martin, who was grinding his teeth.

“You are something! But what on earth made you think
you
could take me? Couldn’t even squeeze the trigger when you had me. Had to listen to me jabber. Paul, you don’t
do
that. You take the shot.”

Paul exhaled. “You’re right, Marty. Never listen to a man you intend to kill.”

“You’ve learned too late, but you’ve learned.” He took the boot knife from his leg sheath. “Now I’m going to prick you with this. You’ll go fast, if not completely painlessly. Then I’m going to sail back until I can see the boat that brought you. I’ll set the course, jump into the lake, and make sure your family meets you upstairs. There’s enough Semtex against the fuel tanks to take out anything within a few hundred yards. But I’ll be far closer, Paul. If they escape for some reason, I’ll be there, like a shark. I see a head bobbing, and pow.” He held up the blade and admired it.

From where Martin was seated, the cane seemed to come from the side of Paul’s right leg like a cobra rising from a basket. He saw the hole in the center of the tip and held out his right hand to ward off the inevitable. The heavy bullet passed through the hand, exploding the ceramic knife, and struck him dead in his chest, knocking him against the wall. He sat down with a look of complete disbelief in his eyes. Paul watched as Martin closed his eyes and his head dropped, chin against his chest, and he was still. Martin’s thumb was the only digit on the knife hand that hadn’t been destroyed outright by the heavy lead slug.

“You
shouldn’t have taken time to talk, you egotistical fuck.”

Paul went up through the galley’s open door, picking up the Colt and putting it into the holster. He stepped out into the rain and looked up at the mast, letting the water run over his face. He ignored the searing pain in his shoulder. He fought the urge to offer a primal scream into the heavens. He had saved his family, and he, Paul Masterson, had slain the monster. Then he removed the battery from the detonator and put the two parts of the device in a molded cup holder on the dash.

He lifted Woody Poole’s radio and spoke into it. “This is Masterson,
Cheetah, do
you copy?”