The Last Family (52 page)

“Yes,” the voice said. “We’re due south of your position, picking up Mr. Greer and someone else.”

“Careful, that’s Kurt Steiner. He’s dangerous.”

“Paul,” Laura said. “What about Martin?”

“Daddy?” It was Reb.

“Yeah, son?”

“What about Biscuit? He okay?”

Paul looked through the windshield at the bird in the cage sitting by the open hatch near the bow. The creature was puffed up against the chilling rain.

“I’m bringing him home, like I said.”

Paul laid the cane against the seat and disengaged the autopilot, swinging the boat around and closing the throttle a bit. He removed the Mae West, which was exerting pressure on the shoulder, reset the autopilot to 180 degrees, and went to get the bird. He walked over to the cage, reached down, and lifted it to eye level. He looked in at the gray bird, admiring the orange circles on its cheeks, which covered the ear canals.

“You ain’t just a bird,” he said, repeating what his son had said.

He saw something reflected in the small water-smeared mirror in the cage and remembered something his uncle had told him when he was learning to hunt mule deer.
Never approach a deer you’ve shot if the eyes are closed—if he’s dead, the eyes will be open. Martin’s eyes … were closed!

He was aware of the hollow crack as something heavy hit the side of his head.

Martin decided the chest wound was fatal—he was blowing blood bubbles with every breath. If he was right, he had minutes, maybe as much as an hour, left. The bullet had passed through the lung. The important thing for the moment was that the old heart was still beating. He looked at the destroyed hand and decided he wouldn’t need it again, anyway.

Martin struggled through the aft cabin and went out onto the deck with the folding knife he’d used to cut Laura’s clothes away. The rain had almost stopped. He stood still when he heard Paul on the radio, and then the boat was turning to the south.

When Paul went to the bow, Martin moved into the cockpit and there, leaning against the seat, was the cane that Paul had killed him with. It seemed only right that the heavy cane which Paul had used to shoot him should also be the instrument by which Paul died. He laid the knife aside and moved to crush Paul’s skull.

He hit Paul in the head with his own gun cane just above the ruined eye socket and watched as the agent fell over the side of the boat, still holding the birdcage in his hand, the bird within flapping about wildly.

“You lose!” Martin screamed into the darkness, and then laughed a long, staccato bark.

Confident Paul would drown, Martin went back to the cockpit. With the detonator missing, the bomb was useless. So he would ram the boat and sink them all. He laughed out loud when he saw the detonator
and
the battery where Paul had placed them.
Fool didn’t toss it!
He replaced the battery, using his left hand. The cover plate was gone, and the battery dangled by the wires like a pendulum, but the green ready light let him know it was live. Paul had changed course, heading back to the boat. Martin left the autopilot engaged. When he could see their eyes, he would set it off. His own vision was starting to blur, to tunnel on him.

“Sir,” a voice came over the radio. “You’re headed
right for us. You should see us in a couple of minutes when you break out of the rain. ETA approximately two minutes.”

Martin smiled, pressed the button down, and maintained pressure on it as he began watching for the chase boat.

Paul broke the surface and began treading water with no idea which way he should swim. At first he assumed Martin would turn and run him down, but Martin was piloting the
Shadowfax
toward the
Cheetah
. And there was nothing Paul could do to stop him. Nothing he could do for his family or himself. He would die, too. He couldn’t move his left arm at all. He had never been much of a distance swimmer in his physical prime, but with his shoulder shattered he knew he couldn’t stay up long. His bad leg was already cramping, and the right side of his head felt as if it were going to explode. He would die right here in the shadow of a bridge where cars were whizzing past. He saw something white bobbing in the chop a few feet away, and he swam over to find out what it was. It was the birdcage, held out of the water a few inches by the Styrofoam packed inside.

He took a deep breath, rolled over on his back, placed the birdcage on his chest and floated there, waiting for the end.

58

R
AINEY
L
EE WAS FEELING A BLEND OF BOILING FURY AND ORGASMIC
excitement. He was certain now that God wanted to let him have his revenge, because there he was flying out onto the lake when he should have been shackled on the pier.

The ensign seemed competent but frightened. Fine, he decided, that would help motivate him. He knew that the young man couldn’t see Doris’s spirit, but there she was floating over the transom of the boat, her hair and clothes unaffected by the earthly wind and rain, her eyes scanning the horizon. He knew she was looking for the sailboat but so far wasn’t able to communicate its location. She seemed to be waiting. Maybe until they were closer. Maybe
he
had to do more before she could help him. It was his quest. His family couldn’t be reunited until Martin’s blood had been shed, the atonement made complete. He knew that, and he was prepared to do whatever he could to make it happen.

Everywhere he looked, his vision was blocked by an impenetrable wall of rain. He could barely see the bow of the forty-foot-long racer. The fuel gauges read between three-quarters and full, but he had no idea how long the boat could run at almost full throttle. He was dimly aware that he had fired on a policeman and escaped, but that didn’t matter; the policeman had merely been another obstacle to overcome. He had not fired on Captain Mullin to kill him, but he could have done so with ease. He would do what he had to do, and lives lost on the fringe of his quest were of no consequence, including that of the young ensign. If he tried anything, Rainey would kill him.

“Sir, we’re lost,” the ensign said. “We have to turn back.”

Rainey allowed the words to filter into his mind. He looked at the dark screen on the dash. “That’s radar,” Rainey said.

“Yes. It’s no good for looking for the
Cheetah
. It’s invisible to this one.”

The young man was trying to foil Rainey’s search. “Use it to locate the sailboat,” he said.

“I don’t know how it works,” he answered.

Rainey cocked the pistol and placed it behind the boy’s ear. “Figure it out,” he said. “Do I need to count to five?”

The ensign flipped a switch, and the blackened radar screen became an unblinking green eye that looked everywhere and saw everything. The shore was a slightly curving line, the bridge a straight one.

“They’re either behind the bridge or against it, being masked,” he said.

“Go to the bridge,” Rainey said. “When you get close, if they’re using it for masking we should be able to pick them up.”

Within ten minutes they had closed on the bridge, and a blip lit up green as the sweep passed through it.

“What’s that?” Rainey asked, tapping the screen with the barrel of the .357. “Son, I’d bet your life it’s the sailboat.”

Then there was another return beside the first one.

“I don’t know. There’s two. Can’t be the
Cheetah.”
He looked at it for a few seconds longer. “It moved east and then west, slowly. Then it sped up along a north-south line. Could be a false return.”

“A false return? What do they teach you these days?” he said. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face. It’s the sailboat, and the other’s a helicopter,” he said, laughing out loud. “Aim for the first one, son. They’re waiting for us.”

Rainey moved back so that the rain lashed his face, and he stretched out his arms and screamed into the fury, “Thank you, God,” he yelled, “for delivering my enemies!”

59

T
HE
C
HEETAH
HAD LOCATED
W
OODY BY THE AUTO BEACON
. T
HEY
had taken him on board, planning to let the helicopter evacuate him. The navigator had removed the tape from his mouth and had cleared out his eyes and ears as best he could and given him morphine—for his broken hands. They had to wait for the family to hit the water, and they’d send Woody along with them to safety.

Minutes after securing Woody they picked up the signal as Laura, Reb, and Brooks hit the water. They called for the chopper to come in and evacuate Woody as they made for the signals being sent by the transmitters in the Mae Wests.

Thorne and Kurt had been in a Mexican standoff for ten long minutes when the boat found them. Thorne, still in his life vest, had been holding his pistol on Kurt to keep him at bay. Kurt was armed with a folding knife, sure
Martin would corne back for him. The dark-green boat materialized beside him, startling him. Instinctively, he reached for the grenade on his belt.

The side door on the
Cheetah
opened. The navigator and Laura reached down and helped Thorne climb inside.

“Move it!” Thorne yelled at Kurt from the clamshell door.

“Fuck you!” Kurt yelled back. The rain had stopped, and Kurt heard the giant Sikorsky approaching low and from the south. He had to do something fast. He pulled the grenade free, held it up over his head, and pulled the pin while he kicked to remain above the surface.

Thorne fired twice as Kurt reared his arm back for the toss, and once as the arm came forward. The first two bullets went high, splashing ten yards behind his head.

Then he loosed the grenade, aiming for the open door.

Thorne’s next shot hit Steiner full in the neck. He slipped under the dark surface without giving up so much as a bubble.

The grenade had been high. It hit the door’s edge and bounced along the sloping roof, exploding as it rolled off the stem.

When the grenade went off, the pilot shouted, “What the fuck was that?” A red light on the console began flashing.

“Grenade,” Thorne said.

“Props are damaged,” the navigator said. He lifted his microphone. “Duster One, this is
Cheetah
, do you read?”

“Affirmative,
Cheetah
. We’re right behind you.”

“We’re dead in the water. Need you to evacuate four souls, and we’ll need a surface tow as soon as you can arrange it.”

“Roger that.”

The navigator looked at the screen. “Sir,” he said. “We got a blip. The Cigarette is closing on us at sixty-nine knots.”

“Duster One, we’re ready when you are.”

“Prepare your souls for a ride in the basket. Be advised we have the
Shadowfax
at zero-zero-one degrees and a quarter mile and eight knots steady. Be advised a second vessel is closing from zero-ninety.”

Then the chopper was above them, the basket already hanging below its open door, two white helmets visible.

“Cheetah
, this is
Shadowfax.”
A voice came in over the receiver speakers.

“Please identify,” the pilot said.

But Laura and Thorne knew the voice. “It’s Martin,” she said, fear filling her eyes.

“Cheetah, Cheetah
, this is
Shadowfax
. Bang, you’re dead.”

Then, as they watched in horror, the sailboat appeared out from the curtain of rain like a ghost ship making a beeline for their bow.

60

M
ARTIN DROPPED THE TRANSCEIVER TO THE FLOOR OF THE COCKPIT
. The rain stopped suddenly, and the lake to the south opened up to him. He reached down to the console and turned on the tape player. The large speakers that were mounted on the deck, designed for people’s entertainment while they sailed or sunbathed, filled the air with an orchestral rendition of “Danny Boy.” In the distance the giant Sikorsky was hovering. Below it, in the circle of spotlight, there was a strange craft, a speedboat. The chopper was raising its basket. Inside was a prone body, which Martin assumed was Woody Poole’s, and the boy, Reb, was seated in there as well.

His heart soared and he checked to make sure the engine was operating at maximum power. Then he laughed and squeezed the detonator. He could arrive before the cot was back in the belly of the helicopter. Maybe he could take out the boat
and
the helicopter! If it
remained anywhere near where it was, it was as good as down in flames. The boy and Woody might be killed even if they managed to swing away to run for it.

Martin felt the button, knowing that when he let go, the Semtex would turn the lake for a hundred yards around into vapor. As he watched, an orange-and-white Cigarette boat broke from the curtain of rain and turned to intercept him. He stared in disbelief as the boat closed. He saw someone in a white uniform fling himself off the side and into the spray.

“Fuck you!” he yelled. The boat was moving at a seemingly impossible speed. It was a bluff. No two-hundred-dollar-a-month swabbie would ram him. He laughed, and blood ran from his open mouth.

As the Cigarette boat closed, he realized that the pilot was Rainey Lee, and that he was screaming something Martin couldn’t make out, though he imagined what the gist of it would be.

As Rainey corrected the long boat’s course to slam into the side of the
Shadowfax
, Martin released the button and closed his eyes for the short wait, cursing his luck.

61

T
HE HELICOPTER PILOT REACTED TO THE IMPENDING COLLISION BY
rolling off and flying south with Woody and Reb swinging in the basket under the Sikorsky. Laura, certain Reb would be safe, turned and watched. It was at that moment that the Cigarette boat burst from the wall of rain and aimed directly for the sailboat. She saw the racing boat close the distance between itself and the
Shadowfax
. It slammed into the sailboat slightly in front of the cockpit, the impact rolling the sailboat a few feet up on its side—the larger vessel was impaled. As she watched in horror, there was a white flash followed almost at once by a deafening, superheated blast wave that pitched the
Cheetah’s
bow high into the air. She felt as if she’d had her ears slapped, and her eyes watered from the impact. The brilliant white ball turned red as it rose into the sky, leaving a floor of white vapor. Above them the chopper tilted crazily back and forth and then straightened as the
shock wave passed. Then Reb and Woody disappeared into the chopper. Finally Laura was pulled up into the helicopter and took her son into her arms. Both of them were crying.