Michael Prescott: Deadly Pursuit

The reef was less than a minute ahead. He could afford no further distractions.

Next time the bow swung down, he would take the fucker out.

The cruiser’s bow rose on a swell, then dipped as the wave passed. For an instant the gunman bobbed into view, a perfect target.

Jack pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

The Beretta was empty, the sixteen-round clip finally exhausted.

“Shit.” Jack pitched the gun overboard.

It didn’t matter anyway. If he cleared the reef, the sportfisher couldn’t follow. Either she would be forced into a hopelessly time-consuming detour, or she would founder on the rocks.

The Black Caesar shook with the twin diesels’ vibrations. Glass shards clinging to the windshield frame shivered and fell like melting icicles.

Moore saw the reef and yelled a warning to Pice. “Coral ahead!”

“I know it.” The captain’s voice was calm. “He’s trying to wreck us.”

“Won’t he wreck himself, too?”

“He doesn’t think so. He’s got a daredevil stunt in mind.”

“What have you got in mind?”

Pice showed her a grim smile. “Just hang onto that rail when I tell you to. And tell your partner to get below deck.”

The reef was close now. Thirty seconds.

Jack scanned the line of rocks and saw a short stretch of coral flatter than the main line of the ridge. He jerked the throttle arm sideways, aiming for that spot.

A lightweight craft running at top speed on a rough sea was capable of hydroplaning over a reef, skimming the jagged outcrops without being caught and torn.

It could be done. He’d heard stories of such maneuvers while hanging around boatyards in the Keys many summers ago.

The trick was in the timing. You had to catch a wave, ride it like a surfer, let the rolling carpet of water sweep you over the rocks to safety on the other side.

Ten seconds.

Jack, be nimble…

“Peter! Get below!”

Lovejoy heard Moore’s shout in the same moment when the reef appeared out of a whirl of spray, dead ahead.

He scrambled away from the stem and dropped down the hatch.

Through the bulkheads, the big diesels howled like tortured beasts. He gripped the companionway ladder, lacing his fingers between the treads.

What the hell was Pice up to? He seemed to be trying to get them all killed.

Five seconds.

Jack released Kirstie and pushed her into the bow. He nudged the throttle stick to the right, correcting for a few degrees of leeward drift.

Jack, be quick…

“Hang on!” Pice shouted.

Moore grabbed the safety rail with her good hand.

The reef was terrifyingly close. No way they could stop in time. She braced for impact.

Pice rammed the paired throttles into neutral and spun the wheel to starboard.

Lovejoy heard the sudden drop in engine noise, felt the boat’s shuddering turn. In the main cabin, something tipped over with a crash.

He tightened his grip on the ladder, knuckles squeezed white.

Silently he prayed.

Two seconds.

Jack, jump over…

One second.

… the candlestick.

The runabout reached the reef on a crest of surging water and rose, propelled by momentum, lifted on the blanket of spray thrown up by the rocks and rising higher, higher, sailing over the reef in a graceful slow-motion curve.

Somewhere Kirstie was screaming. Jack ignored her. He had done it. He was flying. Flying.

The boat’s nose tipped down.

The reef flew up.

He had time to realize he hadn’t cleared the rocks Crack-up.

The runabout slammed headfirst into the coral ridge and blew apart in a hail of shattered floorboards and hissing Hypalon tubes.

Moore clung to the handrail as the Black Caesar heeled to starboard, scraping the reef on the port side.

Dimly she was aware that Jack’s boat had broken up.

She hoped Mrs. Gardner was all right.

No more victims. Please.

The force of the collision catapulted Kirstie out of the runabout. Her world turned somersaults, reef and sky exchanging places, and then the reef was behind her, water rushing up in a kaleidoscopic glitter, cold shock of immersion, and she floundered, gasping, fists slapping the green swells.

Around her bobbed scraps of the runabout, pushed by the wind. Inflation compartments, their seams burst, shriveled slowly like punctured balloons. Splintered driftwood scraped the rocks. The severed stern slowly foundered, buoyancy chambers deflating, the weight of the outboard motor bolted to the transom dragging it down.

On the far side of the reef, the Black Caesar hove to. The brawny figure on the bridge was Captain Pice, pointing at her, while beside him a woman in a dark suit jacket shouted for someone named Peter.

It all seemed distant, unreal, an out-of-body experience. Perhaps she hadn’t survived the crash, after all. Perhaps she’d died with Jack.

Jack…

Had he died?

And if not-where was he?

Sudden urgency stabbed through her unnatural calm. She turned, scanning the water, and abruptly a huge dark shape filled her field of vision.

Jack rising up, mouth twisted in a snarl, hands reaching out like an animal’s claws.

Kirstie almost found the strength to scream, and then those hands closed off her throat, fingers squeezing, and she was plunged under the waves.

In his mind, Jack was eighteen again, alone with Meredith Turner in the swimming pavilion, holding her underwater, drowning her, drowning the bitch.

“Fuck you, Meredith,” he rasped as her blond hair fanned and rippled, graceful as a sea anemone. “Fuck you.”

Something tugged his right leg.

What the hell?

Another tug, and he was yanked below the surface.

Through the crystalline water he saw a taut cable extending from his foot to the submerging mass of the runabout’s stern.

The mooring line. He must have gotten tangled in it when he tumbled free of the boat. One end was cleated to the transom; as the stern descended, the rope was pulling him along.

If he released his hold on Kirstie, he might be able to free himself.

Yes, he might. But he would not try.

We die together, Meredith. I’ll never let you go.

Sinking deeper. Sunlight fading. The need for air a searing ache in her lungs.

She pummeled Jack, battering his shoulders, delivering weak blows to his head.

No use. His hands still wrapped her neck, a python’s coils, constricting tighter, tighter.

In desperation she raked her ragged nails across his chest, clawing his shirt to tatters.

Buttons popped loose. His vest pocket flapped open. Something compact and shiny spilled out and cartwheeled slowly through the water.

A knife. His Swiss Army knife.

She seized it. Fumbled the spear blade out of its slot.

Instantly the choking pressure on her neck was gone. Jack grabbed her knife hand, held the blade at bay. It glittered between them, silvery in the dimming light.

She struggled to break free of his grip. Impossible. His fingers were iron bars, unyielding.

Slowly he pushed her hand back, driving the knife toward her own throat.

He meant to savage her with the blade, kill her with the same knife that had ripped open Steve’s belly in the swamp.

Steve…

Probably dead by now. Or dying, alone in the dark. Because of this man in the water with her, this predator, this venomous snake.

Fury made her strong.

She stiffened her arm, stopping the blade only inches from her neck, and with a final wrenching effort she forced the knife forward, overpowering Jack as he fought to hold her back, and thrust the needle-sharp point into the soft skin below his jaw.

Blood erupted in a black spume. He released her arm, twisted free of the knife, and she stabbed again, gouging his face-again, slicing through his lips-again, grooving a horizontal slash across his forehead-again and again, her arm swinging wildly, while his hands flailed in a useless attempt at self-defense.