CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The downpour delayed first light by a half hour.
Twenty minutes after that Val heard the throb of an aero engine. Kellerman
switched out the lights and pulled back the corner of a drape to peer up at the
morning sky.
They hadn’t traded more than a couple of dozen words
in the last hour. Kellerman kept his distance, knowing a bullet would cover the
ground between them a lot faster than Val could. He opened the briefcase and
checked the treasury bills, but refused to be drawn by Val’s questions and in
turn seemed little interested in asking any of him.
Val had weighed the pros and cons of asking if he
could check the trunk for Angie and decided against it. Kellerman was a stone
killer and wouldn’t think twice about putting a bullet in her. She was safer
left where she was.
All he could do was sit and wait. The slimmest of
chances, and he would pound Kellerman’s head to a bloody pulp with his bare
fists. So far no chance had come his way.
The engine noise grew in volume.
“I see it,” Kellerman announced. “He’ll be here soon.”
Val could hear the plane banking in a circle above the
Jacksons’s house. Then it reduced power as the pilot feathered the props for a
landing. Would the pilot leave his plane and come up to the house, or it nobody
showed, simply take off again?
Kellerman checked both guns and took up position at
the window.
Nothing happened for what seemed like a very long
time. It was probably only minutes, Val imagined. The pilot must be expecting
Lausaux to come to him.
Kellerman started to check his watch repeatedly. He
strode across to the side window and moved the drape aside a minute amount.
“What the hell’s keeping him? Didn’t he see Lausaux’s
Jeep out front?”
As if in reply, there was a shot from outside and the
window crashed in around Kellerman. He ducked down and shook shards of glass
from his hair.
“What the hell is he playing at?” Kellerman whispered,
not quite to himself.
“Lausaux, you double-crossing bastard. Show yourself,”
a voice hollered from outside.
Kellerman looked across at Val. There was confusion in
his face. “Who the hell is that?”
“Gilett, one of Moncoeur’s FRAPH buddies. He’s
Lausaux’s partner. Donny had nothing to do with any of it.”
Color drained from Kellerman’s face. He wiped a trace
of blood from his temple with the beck of his hand.
“What does he mean about Lausaux double-crossing him?”
“I guess Lausaux didn’t tell Gilett that he had
brought the payoff forward by twenty-four hours.”
There was a fusillade of shots and windows on three
sides of the room disintegrated. Kellerman raised the revolver and blindly
returned fire. He loosed off
four
rounds.
Once the reverberations of the firing died away,
Gilett called out to the house. “You shouldn’t have exploded the car, Lausaux.
The newsrooms had the story on the air before the fire fighters were through
putting out the flames.”
“I wouldn’t waste many more rounds like that,” Val
cautioned Kellerman. “From the direction of the shots, there are at least three
of them and your ammunition is limited.”
“Shut up! I’m trying to think.”
“Maybe you should try talking. Tell them Lausaux’s
dead and offer them the money. It’s what they’re here for; otherwise they would
have doused the walls of the house with aviation gas by now.”
Kellerman looked at Val as though he had suggested the
unthinkable. He picked empty shells from the revolver’s cylinder and, his hands
shaking, he reloaded with loose rounds from his pocket.
Val counted each one Kellerman inserted. One empty
chamber.
“Talk to them,” he urged.
“No way. I’m a dead man the moment I open my mouth.”
“I expect they’re still pissed at you for
expropriating the Tonton Macoute retirement fund?”
“What do you know?” Kellerman spat back him. “It it
was just that, don’t you think I’d toss Gilett the briefcase?”
“Then what the hell is it?”
Another burst of semi-automatic gunfire raked the
house. Gilett and his companions would know that they could shoot all day and
the chances of it being reported were practically zero. Gunfire in the wetlands
was far from an unusual occurrence, and the local inhabitants knew better than
to go poking their noses in the business of strangers.
“There’s a cell phone in the car,” Val said. “Gilett
shot up the only phone in the house last time he was here.”
“Be my guest. Take a walk outside and fetch it.”
That was one offer Val had no intention of accepting.
“What makes you think Gilett have it in for you?”
Kellerman didn’t answer he was staring the door. “Give
me a hand with the dresser.”
Together they lifted the heavy dresser across,
blocking the door. Val was marched into the kitchen at gunpoint and made to
upend the kitchen table and wedge it against the back door. Kellerman had Val
pull the kitchen blinds. They returned to the living room. Kellerman took up
position next to one window. Val stood at the other.
“How long before Gilett starts to wonder why Lausaux
isn’t shouting back at him?” Val asked.
“Not long.”
“Then let me talk with him first. I’ll toss the
briefcase out and explain that Lausaux’s dead. We can lower his body through a
window if he wants proof. He’ll take the money and leave.”
“It wouldn’t work. Once he gets his hands on the
money, there’s nothing preventing him setting fire to the house.”
Kellerman’s assessment was spot on, Val conceded. But
there had to be something they could do. Angie was in desperate need of medical
attention. He racked his brains for a solution. Tell him that MacLean shot
Lausaux, and the explosion destroyed the payoff? No, Gilett would never buy it.
What were they doing here if they hadn’t collected?
“Give me one of the guns, at least,” Val said. If they
decide to come at the house from two directions at the same time, you’re
finished.”
“No way. You would shoot me in the back first chance
you had.”
“What chance would I have on my own? Besides, I’m a
law enforcement officer. It’s my sworn duty to protect you, no matter how much
I may dislike it. If they knew there were two of us inside, they won’t be in
any hurry to rush us.”
Kellerman cocked the revolver and pointed it at Val.
“And if I were to put a hole in you now, I would have one less problem to deal
with.”
Gilett stuck his head out from behind a tree. “You
have three minutes, Lausaux. Then we’re coming in.”
A trickle of sweat broke free from Kellerman’s
hairline and trickled down his temple. “Okay, talk to them. But one word about
me and you’re gator bait. If I didn’t shoot you first, they’d kill you to get
at me. Either way, you would be signing your own death warrant.”
Val picked up a table lamp and used it to knock out a
section of glass. The rain had finally eased off. He ripped down one side of
the drapes and edged his head as close to the window frame as possible and
shouted, “Gilett. It’s Val Bosanquet here.”
There was no response for twenty seconds. Then Gillett
yelled back at him. “I remember you, Mister Chiefman. Where’s Lausaux?”
“He doesn’t feel like talking right now. He’s asked me
to negotiate.”
“There’s nothing to negotiate. I want the money and I
want Lausaux. You get in the way of that, then that’s your bad luck.”
“I’m a cop, Gilett. You’d be stupid to kill a cop.”
“I’m already a fugitive wanted on three counts of
murder, Mister Chiefman. One more isn’t going to change things.”
“What about the men with you? Are they prepared to
risk the chair as well?”
A bullet whacked into the outside edge of the window
frame. A long splinter of wood split off and landed at Val’s feet.
“There’s your answer, Mister Chiefman. I should have
killed you when I had the chance. My boys aren’t going to allow me to make the
same mistake twice. The three minutes start from now.”
“
Come
one step closer and I begin burning Treasury Bills.”
“Let Lausaux speak. I want to hear his voice.”
Val waited a few moments, then shouted, “He says he
doesn’t want to talk.”
“We think he’s hurt bad or maybe dead, Mister
Chiefman. From where I’m standing there’s an awful lot of blood on the back
seat of the Jeep. You’re in there all by yourself.”
“You think so. Just watch this.”
Val signaled to Kellerman. “Throw me a gun. Take the
clip out if you have to, but do as I say,” he said, keeping his voice down to a
whisper.
Kellerman pressed the release button and removed the
magazine. He pulled back the slide and ejected the bullet from the chamber. He
pocketed the magazine and the spare round, then tossed the empty gun to Val.
Val caught it one handed. “Now, let them see two guns
at once. Okay.”
They each displayed a weapon at their respective
windows, and then quickly withdrew them before Gilett caught on that both the
hands holding them were white.
“That proof enough?” Val yelled out. “Lausaux caught a
bullet in the throat. He’s okay, but he’s not talking too good.”
“So there’s two of you. You have two minutes; then
we’re coming in.”
“Say goodbye to the money.”
There was no reply from the semi-circle of live oaks.
“Any more bright ideas?” Kellerman demanded. “With two
of them to give covering fire, the third should be able to make it to the Jeep.
Then the steps. Once he’s under the house, we’re finished.”
Val didn’t much like the idea of Kellerman firing at
the Jeep, or of hot rounds coming up at them through the floorboards.
“You’re going have to trust me and hand over the
magazine. There’s no other way. Two against three, we just might make it.”
Kellerman took the magazine from his pocket. He rubbed
his thumb along the black metal as he deliberated.
“Make your blasted mind up,” Val said. “There isn’t
much time.”
“Okay. You can have the revolver. Throw me the
Beretta.”
Val tossed it across the room. Kellerman caught it
neatly and inserted the clip. He pulled back the slide.
“Quick, give me the revolver,” Val hissed.
The priest released the hammer with his thumb and
lobbed the gun across the room.
What was left of the glass in the windows came in
around them as the Haitians opened up. For a split second Val seriously
considered putting a bullet in Kellerman, but put wistful thinking aside and
peeked his head around the edge of the window frame.
Two of the Haitians broke from the shelter of the oaks
and started a crouching run towards the Wagoneer, their handguns held rigidly
in front of them, blasting rounds wildly at the house. Their feet splashing and
skidding on the rain-soaked ground, slowed their charge. Gilett had elected to
remain behind his oak, presumably because of his earlier wounds.
Val realized the Haitian had handed them the
advantage. Gilett could only keep one of them pinned down at a time. He stepped
in front of the window and took careful aim at the man in front. The bullet
struck him in the center of his chest and dropped him. Momentum bulldozed his
face into the ground, pushing up a little ridge of mud.
Val shifted his attention to the second man. He fired
two quick shots, and missed with both. A bullet fired in reply plucked at the
sleeve of his jacket. He resisted the impulse to
take cover, steadied his aim and fired once again. His target took
a bullet in the thigh. It wasn’t enough to stop him. He kept coming on,
hobbling drunkenly like a racehorse which has shattered a leg mid-race. Val’s
final round caught him in the side of the head.
The odds had swung to their favor, but the defenders
were reduced to one gun. Val looked across the room. Kellerman was leaning
against the dresser, his forehead drenched in blood. He started to buckle.
Val stepped over Lausaux’s body and moved quickly
across the room to catch hold of Kellerman and lay him down on the couch. A
bullet had clipped the priest high on the temple, the thick sticky blood made
it appear worse than it was. The wound was a little more than a graze, a
two-inch swath of silver hair shaved from his scalp. It wasn’t life
threatening, but he would have one hell of a headache when he came to.
Gilett stopped firing and the sudden silence was
overwhelming.
Val slipped the Beretta from Kellerman’s fingers. He
checked the magazine. Three rounds left, plus the one in Kellerman’s trouser
pocket. He had no time to hunt for it now.
“Good shooting, Mister Chiefman,” Gilett yelled out.
But you’ve been holding out on me. It’s been Kellerman the whole time. How is
the bastard? I think I managed to nick him.”