Dana Stabenow - Dead in the Water

"I want to help," he said, his face stubborn.

"You want to what?"

He gave the pale imitation of a grin, but it was a grin nevertheless. " 'Not by abstention from actions does a man gain freedom, and not by mere renunciation does he attain perfection.' Lead on, MacDuff."

She swore once, and gave in. "Is Harry on the bridge?"

"He was the last time I looked."

"Where's Ned?"

"Picking up the deck."

"Okay. I'm taking this boat hook up the ladder after Harry. Can you distract Ned long enough for me to do it? Then the two of us can take him on."

The scared look was back but he said stoutly, "No problem." He rose to his feet.

"Andy!" He paused in the act of turning the corner of the cabin and looked back at her inquiringly. "Be careful, dammit. No heroics, no trying to take him yourself.

These guys are playing for keeps. They've already killed bibtwice. Once they find out you're in the know, they'll try to kill you, too."

His grin flashed and a measure of his youthful cockiness returned. "I love you, too, Kate. Even if you are a heathen and an atheist." He disappeared around the corner of the cabin before her tired mind could formulate a retort. A moment later she heard his voice. "Hey, Ned.

Something in the fo'c'sle I think you should see."

Kate could hear the bad temper in Ned's responding growl.

"No," Andy said, far too cheerfully to still be mourning Kate, "this I think you've got to see for yourself."

"It's show time," Kate muttered. "Move your ass, Shugak." As Ned was so fond of saying. She went up the ladder and slithered onto the catwalk. There was only the catwalk beneath her and the bulkhead of the cabin's second story on her right; the rest was open sky, and Kate had never felt so exposed or so vulnerable. Every time the Avilda creaked, every time the boat hook scraped against something, every time her wet clothing caught on something else and she had to pull it free, she started and froze in place and had to talk herself forward. After about a year of this she reached the portside door of the bridge.

She didn't stop to think or plan or calculate the odds; she was too far gone for that. In one smooth motion she swung the door open and, boat hook held in a loose grip in both hands in front of her, darted inside.

The bridge was empty.

So was the chart room.

She dropped like a stone to the floor of the bridge and swore helplessly and uselessly. "God damn it."

She propelled herself crablike through the opposite door and back out onto the catwalk, where she crouched, flattened up against the bulkhead and tried to think of what the hell to do next.

There was a yell from the forward deck and her head snapped around, straining anxiously to see what had happened.

The worst possible sight met her eyes. Andy in one hand, the baseball bat in the other, Ned emerged from the fo'c'sle door. Andy's face was bleeding profusely and one of his arms was bent up behind his back in a remorseless grip whose force showed clearly on his agonized face. "Harry! I got the kid! Get the bitch!"

There was a shout aft in reply, followed by the sudden pounding of rapidly moving feet. Kate took one last look at Andy's bruised and battered face and gathered herself to tackle Harry as he went by beneath her.

A miracle occurred. Ned, attention divided between hanging on to Andy and calling for backup, tripped over the raised edge of the hold and lost his balance. He dropped the bat, which clattered down to the deck and rolled out of reach. He dropped Andy, who fell to his hands and knees, his head hanging, blood dripping from it to the deck. Ned waved his arms to catch his balance.

It didn't work. The hatch cover, which Andy had apparently caught Ned in the act of replacing over the hold when Andy called him to the fo'c'sle, lay over only one corner of the opening.

Into the hold Ned went, headfirst, in a swan dive that would have earned him ten points in any Olympic competition. The hold was only half full, but it was only half full of salt water and tanner crab, and he disappeared beneath a scrabbling layer of long, spiny legs and claws.

His head reappeared immediately, spitting, coughing, his arms reaching frantically for purchase that wasn't there.

"Help! Harry! Help me! Harry!"

Kate surged to her feet. "Andy! Andy! Close the hold!

Close the hold!"

Andy, still on his hands and knees, shook his head, once, twice, and just as Kate, despairing, had decided he was too dazed to hear her or understand what she was saying, he crawled forward. He laid hands on the hatch cover, a metal lid six feet square that probably weighed more than he did. Kate could hear him grunting from where she crouched. He was a fearful sight, his face twisted into a snarl of strain, covered in congealing blood. For one awful second that seemed to last a year the hatch cover resisted, and then the Avilda, as if she knew, took a steep slide down an unexpected swell, Newton kicked in and the hatch cover slid over the hold with a resounding clang.

As the last light disappeared Ned's voice rose to a shriek, until the Avilda's hull seemed to vibrate from the sound. "Harry! Ouch shit get away from me goddam mother, fucking sonofabitch I'll kill you You cocksucking little bastard HARRY GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

Unhearing, uncaring, Andy collapsed forward on the hatch cover and Jay there. The running footsteps had ceased at Ned's first yell for help but the slide of wet leather against a slippery deck alerted Kate. She tore her attention from the forward deck and peered cautiously over the catwalk. Harry was crouched against the railing, a pistol in his hand, sighting carefully around the corner of the cabin. Terrified, Kate grabbed instinctively for the boat hook with both hands and thrust it hook first over the side of the catwalk.

Just when she could have used a nice gale-force breeze to make some covering noise in the rigging, the wind died. She must have made some sound, because Gault whipped around and looked up, in the same motion raising the gun. There was a loud bang, a smack and a whine of a bullet hitting and ricocheting off metal, Gault's savage curse, another shot and another as Kate crouched back out of range. She thought of Andy, all smiles and ideals, all energy and enthusiasm, all blood and silence on the forward deck, and she hurled herself forward, boat hook in hand, and thrust blindly before her into the shower of bullets.

The hook struck something and caught. There was a flat, heavy tug, like a large halibut on a line, and a kind of a gurgle. Grimly, sickly determined, Kate sawed back and forth on the pole. There was a hideous grunting sound, a clang of something metallic falling. And then silence.

Kate released a long, shuddering breath, and looked over the side of the catwalk.

The boat hook had caught Harry Gault beneath his chin, the hook penetrating up through his jaw. He stared at her, eyes wide and surprised. His mouth was slack and through his open lips she could see the bloodstained hook had penetrated the roof of his mouth.

She was afraid she was going to vomit. There was a step behind her and she felt a surge of relief. "Andy?

Are you okay?"

She turned and looked straight into Seth Skinner's mild, slightly mad gray eyes.

Her mouth opened and closed. At last she said, her voice weak, "But you're in the freezer."

His mouth twisted into something that might have been a grin. I was. Harry let me out." The grin widened. "Your turn, Katie."

He raised the monkey wrench over his head. Kate wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn't. She wanted to move, to run, but she couldn't do that either. All she could do was lay there, too exhausted to flee, too numb for fear, and watch Seth Skinner kill her.

And then Andy Pence came around the corner of the bridge with an avenging rage in his blue eyes and a feral scream ripping out of his throat and the Louisville Slugger in his hands. He brought that baseball bat down across the back of Seth Skinner's head and Seth Skinner's eyes rolled up and he went limp and he dropped the monkey wrench and he fell, heavily, across Kate's prone, unresisting body.