John Avery - Black Cobra

“I should have hired you on years ago,” Jason said. “You really know how to handle a rifle.”

Aaron paused, looking down at his weapon. “I saved my mother’s life with a gun very similar to this,” he said sadly.

“Is that a fact,” Jason said.

“Two years ago, back in the States.”

“Where’s your mother now?”

“She was killed in a hit-and-run. I almost died myself, but I was thrown clear before the car exploded. All I really remember is lying on a gurney talking to a detective before going to the hospital.”

Jason suddenly felt a little uneasy, but he didn’t know why. “Put the rifles back where you found them, will you? I’m going back to bed.”

Aaron nodded and Jason went below.

Aaron took out the tattered business card he carried in his pocket. The faded lettering read:

DETECTIVE JAMES HARNESS

3rd Precinct

Brandy was in bed, clutching her blanket tightly under her chin.

Jason sat next to her. She’d been crying.

“All I could hear was that damn outboard motor coming closer and closer,” she said. “Then the shots. I thought for sure we’d all be killed.”

“It’s over now,” Jason said. “We’ll be in San Diego before you know it.”

She looked into his eyes. “I don’t like sailing anymore,” she said. “Let’s turn around and go back to Grand Cayman. We’re safer there. We’re at home there. I just want to make love and eat cheeseburgers and drink beer.”

Jason leaned over and gave her a hug and a lingering kiss. “Brandy,” he said softly. “If you knew me at all, you’d know that’s not going to happen.”

Aaron gathered up the rifles and started for the stairs leading down to the midships cabin.

Suddenly something fearfully grotesque, brutally heavy, and soaking wet leaped on his back, sending him crashing to the deck. The side of his face hit the teak planking hard, nearly knocking him unconscious. The rifles clattered some distance away.

Dazed, and spitting blood, Aaron fought back blindly, but like a wild beast protecting its young, the man was viscous and powerful, and he quickly had Aaron in a hold that would surely break his neck. Aaron struggled desperately, his breath long since gone. Blue faced, eyes bulging, he managed to free one arm and retrieve his survival knife, and with no conscious thought he flipped it open and struck madly at his attacker’s leg, driving the blade to the bone. The man cried out in pain, losing his hold on Aaron’s neck. Aaron gasped for air and yanked his knife free, and then with everything he had he turned and drove it hard into his attacker’s abdomen. Blood gushed over the knife as the man’s shoulders jerked forward and his jaw opened wide; then his full weight fell upon Aaron, pinning him to the deck. With a last great effort, Aaron squeezed out from under him, freeing his knife. He crawled a few feet away, where he lay panting on the deck, exhausted, soaked to the skin with sweat, seawater, and blood. And then he passed out.

When Aaron came to, he felt like he’d been trod upon by an angry bull elephant. He felt sick, rolling over on his side to retch.

He glanced at the body lying nearby and was shocked to see that it was the pirate with the tattoo. It was patterned after a tropical flower, and covered the man’s face, giving him a strange, hybrid appearance. The man’s eyes were closed, but he wore the surprised, open mouthed look of a man unprepared to die.

In addition to the knife wounds, the man was bleeding profusely from an apparent bullet wound to his shoulder. Aaron’s aim with the rifle had been good, but not good enough to kill.

How could he have fought so ferociously with an open gunshot wound? How could he swim that far?

He saw an empty sheath tied around the man’s waist with a leather thong, and knew he had dodged a big one. The man’s knife had no doubt gone to the bottom when he went swimming.

To his horror, Aaron thought he saw the man’s chest slowly heave. He looked again. Oh, my dear God , he thought. The ugly son-of-a-bitch isn’t dead.

Panic swelled in Aaron’s heart. He had witnessed death before, but it had always been quick, and final — never an interminable lingering between life and death. He grasped the sticky handle of his survival knife tightly — ready to spring upon the man if he so much as flinched; but then he heard a low gurgling deep in the man’s chest, and he knew that wouldn’t be happening.

But the man wouldn’t die .

I could stab him again, Aaron thought desperately. Through the heart this time. O-or I could shoot him in the head. Certainly that would put an end to his misery.

He glanced over at the assault rifle, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

So he waited… hearing nothing but the gurgle of the man’s breathing, and the heavy, unsteady rhythm of his own beating heart.

Time slowed and the rising sun grew hotter. Aaron continued to look on in dazed confusion as the man’s chest slowly rose and fell. His eyelids became too heavy to open, and he slipped back into unconsciousness.

When Aaron came to again, he tried not to look, but he knew the man with the tattoo would still be there.

The gurgling had stopped, and the man lay motionless.

Maybe he’s finally dead , Aaron told himself. Maybe it’s just a body now.

Suddenly the eyes opened, and in them such an extreme look of fright, that although the body remained still, for a moment Aaron thought all remaining life energy had gathered in them in a desperate attempt to flee the confines of the flesh, and rise up to the heavens, escaping the dreadful terror of an earthly death.

Aaron shuddered, wanting desperately to run away, but he couldn’t move, nailed to the decking by the horror in a dying man’s eyes.

And still the man lived .

Just then Jason Beckham came up from below decks. He took one look at Aaron, and the pirate, and then picked up the assault rifle and put a bullet through the man’s tattooed forehead.

“Fucking hell, are you all right?” he said, kneeling next to Aaron. “Where the fuck did he come from?”

Aaron just lay there staring at the dead man. You were trying to kill me, right? What else could I could do ? What else could I possibly do ?

“Here, let’s get you hosed off and back to bed,” Jason said. “You look like you’ve gone fifteen with the devil himself.” He helped Aaron to his feet and then showed him downstairs to his cabin.

PHOOOOOOOOOOT!

Aaron awoke in his cabin to the sound of a ship’s horn. He checked his phone. 9:00 a.m. Wednesday . He had slept for 26 hours.

He leaned over and drew back the curtain and looked out the window. All he could see was a wall of white steel. A cruise ship was passing them on their starboard side. The ship’s name was Neau Islander.

At first Aaron thought Jason had foundered into a shipping lane, a dangerous thing to do with a boat the size of the Cayman Jewel . But another look revealed the truth: after cruising 600 or 700 miles due south, they had, at long last, made it to the Panama Canal.

From his cabin window the locks looked huge. Aaron felt like an ant riding a leaf down a storm drain.

He rose and showered, and as he pulled on his jeans he heard a knock on his cabin door. He quickly added a T-shirt, then answered the door.

It was Brandy.

“I heard the shower,” she said. “I thought you’d never wake up. Would you care for a little company?”