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“I’m going to cut the anchor lines. The boat will fall off and start to drift that way.” I pointed towards the gulf. “On my signal, start the engine, ki
ck it in gear, and steer for that channel marker.”
“What about Doyle?”
I patted the rifle. “I’m going to sink his boat. That gives us time to get away. The Coast Guard can come back for him later—he won’t get far in this storm. He’ll have to hole up on the island.”
The wind was rising as I moved forward, and I was lashed by the first hard drops of a rain squall. The taut steel wires of the rigging were squealing. I crouched low, squinting against the wind and rain, and slid forward to the anchor lines.
The lines ran out onto a roller on the bowsprit. But I didn’t need to crawl out that far. The lines came up through a metal fitting in the deck. I just had to get that far and cut them there.
I crawled along the deck, rifle in one hand and knife in the other. A sudden blast of thunder almost made me jump overboard. At the inflatable, the man with the mask came up for air again and Doyle said something to him. The man in the water raised a hand, said something, and then went under again.
I got to the two anchor ropes. The first line was holding all the boat’s weight at the moment. I pulled carefully and eased the boat ahead, just enough to get two turns around a cleat. That way the boat would not lurch and give me away when I cut the first line.
I cut it. I reached for the second line. The man in the water was climbing into the inflatable. Holding the end in my hand, I cut the second line. I reached for the first and untied it, dropping both lines over the side.
The boat rolled immediately and fell off before the wind. Doyle looked up as the anchor line went slack. And then things started to go wrong.
“Now, Nancy!” I yelled. But nothing happened.
I turned back to Doyle, raising the rifle. But with no anchor to hold it, the sailboat had drifted in a half-circle and now the cabin roof was between me and the inflatable. I couldn’t see over it.
“Nancy, start the engine!” I shouted again and scrambled over the top of the cabin.
A shot went past my ear with that flat popping noise you can never mistake for anything else once you’ve heard it. I hit the deck, inched around the mast, and looked.
The inflatable was fifty feet away and coming in at top speed. Doyle was crouched in the bow, a Glock in his hand. He snapped off another shot and the mast beside me gave a hollow bonging sound.
I had only seconds. I brought up the assault rifle, pulled back the bolt, and squeezed the trigger. I had aimed low, and the water in front of the inflatable boat churned with my shots before they started to connect.
Then the shots hit home into the rubber airbags of the boat. With a sudden lurch, the little boat folded in half and went quickly under, just as I ran out of rounds in my clip. Doyle was thrown forward and disappeared into the water.
I ran for the cockpit. Nancy was grimly grinding away at the starter.
“It’s not working,” she said, tense but not panicked.
“Doyle must have disabled the engine,” I said, diving through the companionway. I handed up another of those damn Glocks that Doyle had so many of. “Watch for them,” I told Nancy. “Shoot if you have to.”
She gaped at me, but I was already into the engine. With a heavy sea rising, the reefs and mangroves on one side and Doyle on the other, I didn’t want to spend one more minute without an engine if I could avoid it.
I found the problem quickly. Somebody—presumably Doyle—had removed the wire that ran from the solenoid to the glow plug. A quick security measure: with the wire pulled the engine might start eventually—if the batteries were strong enough to keep it turning over for a good five minutes.
I connected the wire, and jerked my hand back reflexively as I heard a sharp pop. But the sound had come from above. It was followed by three more.
I pulled myself out of the engine compartment so quickly I banged my head, right on the tender spot where Doyle had whacked me. Cursing, rubbing the spot with my hand, I stumbled on deck.
Nancy stood at the rail looking down into the water. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and turned a pale green face toward me. “I—he tried to come on board. So—” And she turned away and threw up over the side of the boat.
I would have liked to comfort her, but there wasn’t time. The boat was drifting towards the mangroves. One small, innocent-looking mangrove root can drive a hole through any boat ever built, up to and including a destroyer.
I jumped instead for the controls and hit the starter. I held my breath, but the motor turned over and caught. I rammed it into forward and turned the boat out the channel.
Nancy was still leaning over the rail. She’d held up well, but to shoot somebody at point-blank range had taken her to her limit. There had been three of them in the boat, but I assumed it was Doyle she had shot. It had taken a powerful swimmer to overtake the boat in these seas.
And now he was dead. I couldn’t feel bad. I knew Doyle would be turning up in my nightmares for quite a while. The power of his presence, the incredible strength of the man, and that guileless smile as he beat the tar out of me would haunt me.
