The sound of someone talking reached their ears. Josiah reached out, touched Harry, and the two deputies drew their revolvers. They hadn’t run into illegals who were willing to fight or kill like they’d heard about, but there was no reason to take chances. This high up along the Florida east coast, most likely they were Haitians—rich Haitians if they could afford one of those rubber boats—and most likely they were Haitians who had tried to land at another time and been caught. Usually they got up this high along the Florida coast on their second or third attempt to land in America. Josiah moved along the edge of the beach, using the perimeter of dune plants to shade his approach, blending with the dune behind; whereas if he skipped across the white sands, even in the darkness the movement would have been detected.
Two men were pulling the rubber craft farther inland. Another two lay in the bottom of the raft. Probably sea sick, Josiah guessed. He saw the small engine mounted on the rear of the rubber craft. If those four rode this thing ashore then they had to have been dropped off shore by a bigger ship. Another tidbit to pass to Janet, who would notify the Coast Guard up in Jacksonville.
Josiah crouched, watching the two men and listening to them grunt as they pulled the raft away from the clutching suction of waves rolling back out to sea. The conversation was clear, but he couldn’t understand a word of it. Josiah had heard enough Spanish and Haitian Creole to recognize it when he heard it, but this language didn’t sound like either of those. He shook his head,
concentrating on the two men talking, trying to figure out what nationality they were.
Harry startled him, reaching out to touch Josiah on the shoulder. “Man, I thought you stayed back there to cover me. Scared the living shit out of me,” he whispered, the wind carrying their words up the dunes and away from the ears of the two men leaning against the sides of the rubber craft.
“What in the hell are they speaking?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered back.
The two men stood and tossed the lines back into the raft. The two deputies watched, knowing they had the edge on the refugees, but Josiah liked to wait long enough to assess a situation before he barged into something. Even at Maude’s, he’d watch two men bashing each other’s heads in with their fists for a while before separating them. Better to have them too tired to fight back when he did step in. That philosophy had done him well during his fifteen years of law enforcement and three sheriffs.
The two men lifted the other two out of the raft and half carried, half walked them to the edge of the beach about forty yards from Josiah and Harry. A flash of lightning lit up the sky for a moment, causing Josiah to cringe, expecting one of the refugees to spot them and shout a warning to the others.
“They gonna see us.”
“Well, they going to see us anyway eventually.”
The two men returned to the raft and pulled two weapons out of the back.
“Shit! These ain’t yore normal run-of-the-mill illegals.”
The slight sound of Harry slipping off his safety reached Josiah’s ears. Using his thumb, he flicked off his own. Those were automatics, and here he and Harry were stuck with a couple of light .38s. This wasn’t going to be a pretty sight!
“Harry, stay here and cover me. I’m gonna move closer to the two laying down. When I arrest them, you shout out at the two with weapons to drop their guns.”
“Oh, man . . . oh, man, I don’t like that idea,” Harry said, Josiah detecting a tremble in the voice.
“I don’t either.” He glanced around them and saw a small rise near the edge of the dune. “Get behind that in case they start shooting.”
“I’ve got a better idea. I’ll go arrest those two who look dead and you stay here and arrest those two with the automatic rifles.”
Josiah couldn’t see the incredulous look on his partner’s face, but he could imagine it.
“Well, we gotta do something before they discover us.”
“Why don’t we sneak back to the car and wait for reinforcements?”
Josiah shook his head. “Naw, man. I’m just as nervous as you. We’re gonna arrest them.”
“You gonna arrest them? Jesus, Josiah. They got guns bigger than ours.”
“Yeah, well, our balls are bigger.”
“Right now, mine don’t feel bigger. I think I see another car up there at lover’s lane. Why don’t we go check that out and call in reinforcements while we’re doing that?”
“Those ain’t Haitians out there, Harry. You know and I know what they are. If we don’t do something, they gonna be spread all over America before we can stop them.”
“Yeah, and if we do, we could be spread all over this beach. That’s a
real
gun the tall one near the boat is holding.”
Josiah rose off his haunches and creeped to the right, closing the distance with the illegals. They were either terrorists or drug runners, and his money was on terrorists. Druggies would at least have some dope on them, and it’s the dope they would have hauled out of that boat first. Human life was inexpensive when it came to transporting drugs. But whatever or whoever they were mattered little right now. What mattered was they were in his county and his responsibility. What had the old sheriff who’d
retired twenty years before told him? “Shoot first and clean your pistol later.”
There was more the man had said between his quick breaths on the oxygen bottle, such as “Lie, lie, lie, because, boy, it don’t matter what you did and how right you were to do it, they still gonna come after you because deep inside, right here”—the old man had weakly punched his chest—“We Americans don’t really trust the government. We may trust our sheriffs, but we don’t really trust those who wear civilian clothes.”
Josiah glanced back at Harry. He could barely make out his partner’s head and shoulders visible above the slight rise. He wished he had brought his walkie-talkie with him. One reason they seldom carried them was that Janet had a habit of broadcasting at the most inopportune times. If he had it, he might be able to reach Janet, and if he could reach her, she could hurry the backup along. Maybe Harry was right. He stopped. Maybe they should retreat to the cruiser, wait for backup, and then take on these four. If they did that, they ran the risk the four would disappear before backup arrived. Plus, the element of surprise they had now would be gone.
He crouched, leaned forward on one knee, and held the pistol—which felt awfully small—with both hands. He licked his dry lips. Damn, it wasn’t as if this was something they did every day in Summer Haven, Florida.
“Put your hands up! You’re under arrest!” Harry shouted.
“Damn, Harry!” Josiah muttered softly. “I’m going to kill you, if they don’t.”
The two men near the raft stopped, stood straight, searching in the direction from where Harry’s shout had originated. Then suddenly the two shouted something in a language Josiah didn’t recognize and began firing wildly with their automatic rifles. One of them charged in Harry’s direction. The other followed.
Josiah knees felt like rubber. He moved the pistol to the left, aiming for the one in front, the barrel tracking the running figure a few inches in front. He pulled the
trigger. The crack of the gunshot echoed off the sand dune behind him. The man tumbled forward, his arms outstretched, sending the automatic rifle spinning into the air. It was only then that Josiah realized he had been repeatedly shouting
“Shit!”
at the top of his voice.
The second man stopped firing and dove toward the beach. One shot came from Harry’s direction. The bullet hit the man as he fell, causing him to throw his hands up. The weapon sailed out of the man’s hands and landed half in the surf. The man Josiah had shot lay motionless on the sand. The two men dragged to the edge of the beach never moved.
Josiah, crouching, ran to the right, his gun in his left hand, digging with his right hand in his back pocket for the plastic strips used for makeshift handcuffs. They had the familiar metal cuffs, but the jingle they made when they were trying to roust sex-starved teenagers from lovers’ lane spoiled the fun of the moment when they tapped on the open window of a parked car. He kept his eyes on the two wounded men outstretched between the boat and where Harry crouched. Josiah glanced out to sea, expecting to see white running lights of the ship that had dropped these four, but fog, rain, and darkness obscured anything farther out than about a hundred feet from the ocean edge. Josiah dropped to his knees. He was about ten feet to the side of the two men dragged from the boat. Another flash of lightning lit up the beach, and when the following thunder dissipated, Josiah heard moans coming from the two men. One of them lifted a hand and threw it across his face. Josiah nodded. He’d be sick as a dog too if he had ridden through that rough water to shore. The man lifted his head and turned it in Josiah’s direction.
He could hear the heaving as the man vomited.
Seems these four had plans that did not involve staying on the beach long. He glanced back toward the top of the dune. What if someone was supposed to meet them here? Shit! He and Harry were going to be caught between two groups if that happened. Seeing no one coming over the top of the dunes, he turned his attention back to the two
men. The rain slowed for moment, and as if in tempo with several heavy gusts, it came back with renewed intensity. The strong gusts off the sea drowned out the noise of the two in front of him. It took a few seconds for his night vision to readjust. In that flash of lightning, he hadn’t seen a weapon with the two men, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have one.
Josiah glanced back toward where Harry should have been, but in the darkness he couldn’t see his partner. Harry may be the cautious type and may even have been right in wanting them to retreat back up the dune and call for reinforcements. Damn it! No doubt about it, his partner had been right. Josiah wished he had listened to the younger man this time. He took a deep breath. A brief perverse thought of his wife looking down on his bullet-ridden body passed through his mind.
He stood, spread his legs, and gripped the pistol with both hands. One of the men sat up, his head turning back and forth, no doubt searching for his other two comrades. He aimed his pistol at the man. The other remained motionless, too ill to offer resistance. Well, if the gunplay didn’t tell them they were here, it was time for him to let them know.
“Stop where you are! Raise your hands!”
He heard the sound of running feet from behind him. That’d be Harry. He stepped out and held up his hand, failing to realize that Harry couldn’t see the sign to stop in the dark.
“Stop, Harry!” Josiah shouted.
A ripple of bullets tore up the beach as they worked their way in the direction of his partner. The man who had managed to sit up was shooting. The bullets raced out to sea, never coming near Harry. Josiah ran several steps to the right, kicked the gun, knocking it out of the man’s hand and onto the beach several feet away. Harry ran up beside him and pointed his gun past Josiah at the man, who began vomiting.
Josiah reached out with his shoe and turned the man’s face to the side so he wouldn’t drown in his own vomit.
“Sick assholes, aren’t they?”
Josiah nodded. “I can’t imagine anyone trying to sail ashore in this mess. I’m surprised they made it.”
“Kind of glad they did,” Harry said, his body practically dancing as the flood of adrenalin eased. “Man oh man, did we do well or not?” He waved his pistol in the air. “Did you see that, Josiah? One shot. That’s all I fired was one shot. And, you—you only fired one shot. Four of these assholes—who are they, anyway?—and we took out an armed gang with automatic rifles, grenades, and—”
“What grenades? There ain’t no grenades.” Josiah reached up and with the back of his hand wiped the rain from his forehead. “Let’s get cuffs on these buggers, and then you hightail it back up the dune and tell Janet to notify our CIS friends to get their butts down here right now. Tonight! If we’re going to get soaked wrapping up this little episode, I want as many people as possible wet with me.”
“You got it, boss,” Harry said, pulling out a few of the plastic handcuffs from his back pocket.
Josiah realized he’d dropped his somewhere, but he stood at the feet of the two men, his gun trained on them, keeping an eye on the one he figured was dead—
you could never tell when they were faking.
A wail from behind him nearly caused him to shoot. He turned quickly, corkscrewing downward to a crouching position. One of the men he and Harry had shot wasn’t dead. They should have checked those two. Josiah noticed that the weapons of the men were nowhere to be seen, and he rightly assumed that Harry had detoured by them to throw the weapons out of their reach. He had also assumed, wrongly, that Harry had checked them to see if they were alive.
He ran toward the second man. The one Harry had shot. The wounded man was moaning facedown in his own blood and vomit. He was alive, but Josiah wasn’t sure where Harry’s bullet had hit him. From the amount of movement and the complaining noises the man was making, it wasn’t life threatening.
Josiah rolled the wounded man over, holstered his pistol, and pinned the man’s hands behind him. He might be wounded, but he wasn’t sure how badly. Josiah detoured a few feet around the man; out of range of any high jinks the asshole might try, and ran toward the other one, whom he had shot. He put two fingers on the man’s neck, moving it around searching for a pulse, unable to find one. “Dead,” he said to himself, whipping out one of Harry’s plastic handcuffs. He wasn’t the county mortician. Let them confirm it. Josiah quickly tied the hands of the dead man behind the body.
“I called Janet!” Harry shouted from down the beach where he was running toward Josiah.
A few seconds later, Harry stood over Josiah. “They’ll be here any moment,” Harry said through deep breaths. “Man oh man, I can’t believe you made me run all the way to the car. Here,” he said, holding a walkie-talkie out for Josiah. “I ain’t going back up that dune for some time.”
This time several flashes of lightning crisscrossed overhead. They walked back to where the other two men lay. One had his hands tied behind his back, but the other’s hands were crossed over his chest.