Tortugas Rising (15 page)

Savage had kicked open the rear door and had been the target of Paul’s first shot. Pain ripped through his body when he threw himself out of harm’s way and landed on his wounded arm.

He’d been shot before. He’d been shot more than once. He had been shot by professionals – soldiers, bodyguards, law enforcement; but never by a pretender like Paul Nelson. His chest ached from taking the deer slug in the vest, but his arm screamed in shame.

The firing had stopped and he kicked the door open again. The balcony was empty. Bennett and the girl were disappearing behind the corner of the hotel.

Savage sent four men after Nelson. Through gritted teeth, he reminded them that he must be taken alive. This is why he chose to pursue Bennett himself – if he caught Paul it would be all but impossible not to shoot him.

Two guards joined him as he set out after the overnight billionaire. He radioed the rest of the patrol. With the charade over and the L.S.A. partners enjoying their party, his men were now free to patrol Master Key. They were no longer a simple security force. They were a nation’s military branch.

And, once Bennett was back under control, he would finally be able to deal with the ship of fools that had caused him so much grief for so long.

A squad was already heading to the armory. He glanced at his watch. They should be arriving about the same time as the dredge. That should make things more efficient.

He signaled his men and they followed Bennett and the girl.

# # #

Steve panted. He was certain now that he had never been so tired. His legs ached and he wondered how they still responded. He was slowing Katherine down and he could see it.

She was fit, thin, and had only been chased and shot at half as much as he had that day. She kept pace with him as she led the flight.

He recognized the path; she was taking them back to the boats. There was no other choice and he cursed the islands again. Into the water, out of the water, into the water, over, under, around and through the water. He felt as if he were drowning from his lack of options.

They reached the docks without encountering a patrol; Steve constantly looked over his shoulder. He blindly fired a round every time he caught a glimpse of their pursuers. It was often.

Savage chased but did not fire. The group of security guards closed quickly. Savage yelled after him.

“We just want to talk Steve.”

They kept running. The docks were abandoned. The security boats were gone. Steve guessed that they were out dealing with the environmentalists.

Katherine ran ahead of him. Steve dropped to one knee and leveled the gun at the path. As soon as Savage stuck his head around the corner, Steve fired three quick shots.

Katherine all but dove into one of the jet-boats and fired the engine. She pulled alongside of Steve.

Two more shots kept their heads down, and Steve somehow found it in his legs to leap from the dock into the boat.

Katherine gunned the throttle and cut the wheel. She had no idea where to point the boat except away. The coast was too far. Even Fort Jefferson at Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas National Park could prove difficult to reach in the little jet-boat.

Their only chance was to get lost in the islands again. There were over four hundred. Surely they could find a safe place to hold up and think of a plan.

Steve landed hard on his feet and almost continued over the side. He dropped to his knees and stopped himself with his chest against the gunwale.

“Go,” he wheezed trying to get air back in his lungs.

The bow of the boat planed out of the water, and pointed to safety. Steve peered over the stern to see Savage and his men sitting on the dock of the bay.

The crimson scar had finally faded and Steve thought he saw the man smile; it was a crooked grin that caught the moonlight and reflected a horrifying light.

The impact was sudden and, once again, Steve found himself in the water.

# # #

The hotel elevator reached ground level, and the doors opened. Green Day’s Welcome to Paradise invaded the quiet casino. Paul peered around the door into the casino. It was impossible to see past a row of slot machines. Though the casino was void of gamblers or staff, the lights of the machines made it hard to detect any movement.

With a deep breath he stepped into the elevator lobby and waved for Brittany to follow.

“Where’s the front door?”

She pointed and they began to run.

Shouts soon followed. Four guards had burst from the stairwell door. Paul fired three shots and hit a slot machine, a roulette wheel and the floor in front of him.

A burst of machine gun fire ripped back across the empty casino. Chips and cards flew into the air. The last few rounds chipped away at the ornate ceiling as the sergeant knocked the barrel into the air.

“Alive.” The sergeant barked, letting go of the barrel.

Brittany and Paul dropped to the ground.

Paul whispered, “You lead the way.”

Brittany started crawling. Paul froze as he watched her crawl toward the front door.

“Baxter is a nutcase but he sure can hire people,” he said to himself and scrambled on all fours so he would not lose sight of the girl.

He enjoyed the view until they reached the lobby. Brittany stood and burst through the doors into the warm night air. The humidity hit her hard in face. The guard hit harder. She fell to her side, but caught herself on the spiral column.

As one guard ran to subdue the girl, a second swung at Paul as he came through the door.

Paul wasn’t looking where he was going. He ran too close to the guard for the punch to be effective. The guard’s arm wrapped around Paul’s neck. The brute locked his arm and began to squeeze.

Paul gasped for air as his face was crushed against the guard’s chest.

Brittany’s attacker turned to assist with Paul.

The guard struck the gun from Paul’s hand, “I’ve got him. Get her.”

Brittany was back on her feet, a purple bruise already forming on her cheek. She struck at the guard. There wasn’t much behind the punch, and if she had landed it she would have most likely snapped her own wrist; but it startled the guard and he was forced to fall back into a defensive position.

Paul spun. Now the guard’s forearm was across his throat.

The guard chuckled, “You dumb shit.”

Paul tried to respond, but the grip on his throat prevented the words from coming out and air from getting in. His head felt like it was going through the loop of a roller coaster. Light faded. His vision narrowed. He reached up and tried to punch the guard. The angle was wrong. The strikes were light slaps.

The guard laughed, “Good night, princess.”

Paul’s hands found the guards ears. He pulled.

The guard screamed and he twisted his head to lessen Paul’s leverage. He pulled tighter against Paul’s throat.

Paul pulled forward until the guard’s chin was on top of his head. Paul let go of the ears, grabbed the guard by the back of neck and dropped.

The impact sent pain through Paul’s tail bone and his head into the guard’s chin.

The guard fell to the ground. Blood streamed from his mouth. Paul rolled onto his stomach and tried to regain his focus. The world blurred. He wheezed.

Brittany flailed at the second guard. An assault of limbs targeted his head and groin, each one deflected with a natural ease. His training was impossible for her to penetrate. He blocked kick after kick and an array of unpredictable punches.

However, his defensive stance did not block bullets.

Paul was beside her before the man dropped.

“You killed him.”

“One shot, too. I’m getting better at this.”

Paul grabbed two clips from the fallen guard that matched the H&K in his hand. He fired several shots through the door to keep their pursuers behind cover.

They crossed the wide path in front of the casino, and tried to lose their pursuers in the maze of meandering walkways that ran across the island.

They took the path’s tributaries without a destination in mind. Paul’s legs ached; years of sitting on the couch had kept him free from gym-related injuries but did nothing to condition him for a wild weekend running gunfight. A half mile later a cramp had slowed him to a hobble.

“Run,” Brittany said softly.

There had been no sign of their pursuers, but she was not about to stop running until they were safe.

“I can’t run. I’ve never liked running.”

“We don’t have a lot of options,” she said; she was wrong.

The path ended in front of a wide swatch of pavement that extended as far as they could see in both directions.

The test ring had been built on Master Key to fulfill the residents’ love of expensive cars. Once operational, they would give driving lessons to the public for a price. A racing school was already in talks to open a branch of their school on the island.

They followed the track east for a tenth of a mile and found the answer to Paul Nelson’s leg cramps. It wasn’t pretty. It was yellow. A VW Beetle convertible sat poised on the racetrack ready to impress absolutely no one with its performance.

“What the hell?” Paul threw up his hands.

“They were doing a magazine shoot of convertibles.”

“And this is what they brought? I’m canceling my subscription.”

“It beats running.”

“Not by much.”

The keys were in the ignition. Paul dropped in behind the wheel.

“This is just going to take us in a circle,” Brittany said as she climbed in beside him.

“We’ll take it to the end and run from there.”

He turned the key and the engine purred.

“Aww. What a cute sound.” Paul punched the dash.

“I like it.”

He put the Beetle in gear. Paul planned to drive in the dark. The car, however, decided it knew best, and washed the track with its halogens.

“Stupid car.”

He mashed the gas and the Beetle responded – slowly. Drawn by the headlights, the guards scrambled onto the track.

Paul cranked the wheel and tried to run the group down. They scattered into the bushes as the Beetle hummed by onto the footpath.

“What happened to the plan with the track?” Brittany grasped the dash and dug in with her nails.

“It really wasn’t much of a plan.”

Paul fought the little car to keep it on the path. The twists and turns came suddenly, thrashing the pair about. The fact that he had not let off the accelerator made the turns that much quicker.

They found the main artery of the island and turned west. The path had been designed for foot traffic and electric carts, and afforded little in terms of width.

One of these carts soon crossed their path. Paul swerved to avoid it. Partially out of reflex, partially out of a fear of crippling the car.

They collided. Paul clipped the front wheel with his side of the car and turned the cart over. He chuckled.

A moment later they flew by another golf cart.

“If all we have to contend with is golf carts – I could get used to this car.”

A jarring impact pulled them back into their seats and the roar of a powerful engine preceded another jolt from behind.

Paul adjusted the tiny rearview mirror. A convertible Camaro charged at them and mashed the rear end of the Beetle closer to the front.

“Hey, he didn’t have to turn his lights on. And where did he get a Camaro?”

“From the shoot?”

“No fair, I didn’t see that one.”

“What difference does it make? Just outrun them.”

“Outrun them?” Another crash forced Paul to make a dramatic steering correction. “That car is easily twice as powerful and, like, a thousand times cooler than this one. We’re not outrunning anyone.”

A fourth crash was quickly followed by a fifth.

“What do we do?”

Paul turned on the high beams and tried to read the road ahead. “We use this crappy car’s crappy size.”

He jerked the wheel violently and caught a side path. The Camaro followed.

Paul fought the wheel on the narrow cart path and somehow managed to toss Brittany the gun. It hit her lap and fell to the floor.

“Shoot!”

Every time she tried to grab the gun from the floor the violent shaking would drive her hands back to the dash.

Paul took another hard turn and found himself in the island’s shopping district.

Designed like a mountain ski village, the paths did not get much wider. The buildings were set close to one another; small side streets branched off in every direction. The front wheel drive and lack of power allowed Paul to turn down the alleyways and drives without a squirrelly back end. Paul had his edge.