O’Davis started his
Rogue
on the third try, then nosed us around, putting the bow just off the stern of the big trawler. I had to remind him to keep the RPM down. The fuel was flowing freely now, but once I shut it off I didn’t want any change of speed to make them suspicious.
My plan was simple. We would go charging right at them. I was counting on them to open fire. Then O’Davis would veer away from the trawler when I flipped off the fuel valve. Their fire would explain our sudden change of course. When we were as close as possible to the trawler, the Irishman and I would tumble unseen into the water. Their eyes, very naturally, would follow the boat as it continued on its course. The boat would run for almost two minutes on the fuel in the line. Then it would stop. They might think we were hit. Or they might think we had stopped to regroup. Whatever they thought, they wouldn’t be expecting us to slip up over the stern.
We were about four hundred yards off, heading straight for their stern, when the windshield exploded. Wood began splintering on the deck. Their weapons were brief darts of flame in the distance.
“So far so good, Yank—if the buggers don’t kill us before we get there.”
O’Davis held fast to our course, running toward them like a kamikaze pilot. They must have thought we were crazy. And maybe we were.
Staying low, I ducked down into the engine hatch.
“Ready, Westy?”
“An Irishman’s born ready!”
We were about seventy-five yards from the trawler when I jammed the fuel valve off—but it seemed one hell of a lot closer. The drug runners suffered no shortage of automatic firepower. They were working us over with about a half-dozen light weapons that sounded like M-16s. The Irishman’s
Rogue
was being carved into splinters.
“Hope yer right about them concentratin’ on the boat, MacMorgan!”
“Just in case—it’s been interesting knowing you, O’Davis.”
“Been a real treat fer me too, ya big ugly brute!”
The Irishman threw the wheel half to starboard and lashed it at my order. And when the stern swung, we let the momentum throw us off the starboard side—the side away from the trawler.
I didn’t carry a big breath of air with me. I wanted to sink. And I did. I wanted to stay down just as long as I could. And I had told O’Davis to do the same. They would be watching the cruiser, following it with their guns.
I hoped.
From ten feet down, the surface of the sea was moon-bright, stars slightly out of focus. I felt something brush the back of me and realized it was the Irishman swimming toward the top. I grabbed his arm and held him. When his squirming told me he needed air, I drifted upward with him.
The searchlight aboard the trawler still held the little white cruiser in its beam. It was angling away from us at a respectable twenty knots. They had brought up more firepower, emptying round after round into the wooden hull.
There was no time to waste. Taking care not to splash with our fins, we set out for the trawler as fast as we could possibly go. We lifted and fell with every swell. Stars threw trembling paths before us. The sound of men yelling pierced the staccato gunfire.
As long as they didn’t start engines and run for it, and as long as the salt water didn’t render the old Thompsons useless, we were in good shape.
We were only about twenty yards from the stern of the trawler when we heard the
Rogue’s
engines sputter and then die. Someone yelled something, and then the gunfire stopped, too.
I could hear the metallic fluttering of a halyard against the masthead and the wash of waves against the hull of the trawler. Their voices were clear now. More Jamaican voices.
“What you figure they doin’, mon?”
“Goddamn if I know!”
“They dead, mon. Nobody live through that shit.”
The fourth voice I recognized. It was Cribbs. He couldn’t hide the fear. “Don’ be so sure, mon. Goddamn cops. Shot the shit outta Benji and Marley an’ that other nigger.”
“Who you callin’ nigger, nigger! You’re the crazy fool who led them cops out here!”
“Gotta get them engines started, mon. Gotta get the hell away from Georgetown!”
“You don’ hear good, nigger? I tell you, mon, the engine she busted. Woody down there workin’ on her now. We leave Georgetown—soon as them rusty bastards get fixed.”
“Got to think o’ somethin’, mon,” Onard Cribbs insisted. “Killin’ two Yankee drug runners one thing, mon. Killin’ them two cops on tha’ boat som’pin’ else. Maybe I’m gonna get back on tha’ speedboat—”
“The hell you say, mon. Anybody use that speedboat, we use it! You the crazy one who brung the cops back here.”
“Didn’ know, mon. Hear me, I didn’ know! Yankee drug runners fall for it too easy. They musta been in on it.”
“Shit, mon, you just stupid, that what you are!”
They argued on and on. The Jamaican drug runners were finding that their sweet scheme had suddenly gone very damn sour indeed. They had somehow tricked the two Americans into believing the mother ship and the heroin suppliers were manned by two separate factions. All the Americans had done was finance the whole operation—and their own deaths.
I listened closely, hoping they would make some mention of the kidnapped boy.
But they never did.
The transom of the trawler loomed high above us. In large block letters the name on the stern read,
“Hotcake
—Kingston, Jamaica.”
The Irishman and I found handholds on the exhaust pipes which protruded from the waterline. The boat heaved and rolled in the wash of sea. It stank of oil and rotten fish. O’Davis motioned for me to lean close, and he whispered in my ear, “I’m gettin’ the feelin’ they don’t know nothin’ about the James lad.”
“Yeah. Me too. Maybe we’d better just wait for the Cayman police to get here.”
“It’s still gonna be messy, Yank. Very messy. They think they’ve killed us. Jammed inta a bit of a corner, they are. I suspect they’ll try to stand and fight it out.”
I nodded and said nothing, knowing O’Davis was right. Whatever happened, we would be right in the middle. I felt disgusted with myself. This was becoming more and more of a scorched-earth mission. Still, if they had the boy, I had chosen the only reasonable plan of action. And now we would have to live with it. Or die with it.
“It was my idea,” I whispered. “No sense in letting your Cayman police force drop into an ambush. We’d better get them softened up. I’ll go first.”
“Thought ye would never offer,” the Irishman said and grinned.
There was a coil of line hanging down from the port cleat. I slipped my fins off and belted them to the small of my back. With the Thompson slung over my shoulder, I pulled myself up to the stern rail and peered over. Five men clustered on the bow point beneath the spotlight, still watching O’Davis’ cruiser in the distance. I could see the glare of Onard Cribbs’ shaved head.
Closer to me, on the stern deck, I could hear a voice. The engine hatch was open. Someone was below, cursing softly to himself. It was Woodie, the guy working on the diesels. I pulled the Randall knife from its scabbard and climbed onto the deck, hiding myself as best I could behind the draping nets. When I was sure the other men were still busy with their arguing, I moved across the expanse of deck. The engine hold was brightly lighted with a mechanic’s lamp. A wooden ladder with five rungs ended in an oily bilge slick. The Jamaican had his back to me, crouched over one of the fuel pumps. He was a small wiry man with hair in Rastafarian braids. He was trying to piece the fuel pump back together. I poised over the hold, took a deep breath, then dropped down on top of him, cracking him as hard as I could on the nape of the neck with my elbow.
He never knew what hit him. He collapsed with a low-pitched
whoof
and fell still upon the engine.
I checked the side of his neck with two fingers. The jugular was still pumping blood, strong and steady. There was electrician’s tape in the tool box. I taped his hands, legs, and mouth, then climbed back to the transom and summoned the Irishman.
Just as O’Davis got over the transom, one of the Jamaicans decided to come aft to check and see how Woodie was doing. We dove for cover behind nets on opposite sides of the deck. The Jamaican stood scratching his head, perplexed to find the engine hatch closed. Then, from the pile of net which hid the Irishman, came a strange warbling whistle. The Jamaican heard it. He hesitated for a moment, then decided to investigate.
That’s just what O’Davis wanted him to do.
When the Jamaican poked his head around the net, O’Davis was waiting and ready. I could see them both clearly. The Jamaican’s face described bewilderment and then alarm.
But he never got a chance to call out. The Irishman had his fist drawn back, like a pitcher ready to release a fast ball. He hit him square on the point of beard which hid his chin. The Jamaican backpedaled across the deck mechanically, already knocked cold.
I caught him before he fell.
“Things will be gettin’ tougher now, Yank,” O’Davis whispered, flexing the knuckles of his right hand.
“There are five more up there. At least five. Could be somebody down in the cabin, but I doubt it.”
“If we take ’em by surprise, we might not have ta fire a shot.”
“I’m all for that.”
Westy opened the engine hatch, and I lifted the dead weight of the second Jamaican into the hold. I used the rest of the electrician’s tape to gag and bind him.
O’Davis was standing at the bulkhead of the wheelhouse, submachine gun ready, watching the other Jamaicans. Their arguing had given way to plain fear. And they were nervous. Very nervous.
“What the hell takin’ daht Woodie so long?”
“Don’ know, mon. Sent Switch ta check on him. Hey dah, Switch! What goin’ on back dah, mon?”
And that’s when O’Davis made the mistake of trying to imitate the Rastafarian he had coldcocked.
But it was a chance he had to take. We needed just a little more time to position ourselves.
“Engine doin’ fine, mon!” O’Davis called back in a muted voice.
Unfortunately it sounded like just what it was: an Irishman doing a bad impression of a Jamaican. It didn’t fool anyone—least of all the five men waiting on the bow of the trawler. They exchanged knowing glances, then came charging toward the stern, their M-16s vectoring.
14
For a few seconds, it was like one very, very deadly game of tag.
They came running down the starboard side of the wheelhouse while we hustled forward along the port side. They weren’t the least bit reluctant to fire. Slugs exploded into the deck behind us like dogs at our heels.
There was no doubt what they would do when they found the stern deck empty: split up and surround the wheelhouse. And we couldn’t afford to let them succeed, because, if they got us in a cross fire we were both dead.
In midstride, I put one foot on the port railing and threw myself up on top of the cabin, I heard the Irishman land heavily behind me.
“You take the stern; I’ll cover the bow!”
“Thanks!”
When two of the Jamaicans came sliding around the corner, I let them have it.
Thankfully, the old Thompson still worked. Shell casings clattered onto the fiberglass roof as I held the trigger down, sweeping a spray of .45 caliber slugs across them, the sound of the submachine gun ringing in my ears, the wooden handgrip wet beneath my palm.
The two of them jolted back across the deck as if they were being electrocuted. Their weapons flew from their hands, and their eyes showed glazed surprise.
One of them tumbled backward over the railing, splashing into the moon-soft water.
The other collapsed spread-eagled upon a coil of anchor line, limp as a rag doll, his eyes showing neither surprise nor wonder now.
They were as empty as all death. . . .
The Irishman had yet to fire a shot. He stretched out in prone position behind an orange life raft with a woven rope bottom. The searchlight was still on, throwing a smoky beam across the turquoise water.
Using both hands, I swung the lamp around, illuminating the stern deck in stark white light.
The other three Jamaicans weren’t quite as gung-ho now. They were hiding somewhere beneath us in the cabin or wheelhouse, waiting for us to make the next move.
And my swinging the spotlight around had been move enough. It was a stupid thing for me to do. It told them where we were. At first, I didn’t know where the shots were coming from. But then an ellipse of explosions perforated the roof planking.
They were shooting
up
at us. For them, it was a random but deadly ace in the hole. We had nowhere to go; no flybridge on which to take refuge. And if we tried to jump down to the deck, the Jamaicans would sure as hell have the windows covered, ready and waiting.