Kirk Russell - Shell Games

There were footsteps, muffled voices, more than a few, the chain rattling, and Marquez put the hood on, cinched it. The door swung noisily and he heard Spanish, orders given for the men to go up on deck and then the door closing. A fist crashed into one side of his face, stunning him, almost causing him to drop the knife. A hand slid under the hood and gripped his throat and held his head pressed against the wall while his shirt was torn open and a blade touched him, sliced skin and cut his pants open. And Marquez held himself still as Kline’s hand remained tight under his neck, long finger pressing up under the jaw, pushing him tight against the wall, Kline’s weight resting on his thighs, his face close by, the blade low on Marquez’s gut and stinging. But he kept repeat-ing to himself, he’ll want you to see, and then the blade poked at the hood. It cut through fabric near his eye and dipped into his cheek and Marquez barely reacted. Then he heard the hood fabric cut as the knife sliced through it and Kline’s breath was on his face and the knife back at his gut.

“Look at me. This is your death.”

And he saw the colorless skin, looked into Kline’s eyes so near his and said, “Not yet, Kline, don’t do it, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

When Kline hesitated Marquez brought up his right hand with the knife in a slashing move, catching part of his throat, punching the blade in and ripping forward as Kline recoiled, blood flowing down his neck. Kline lunged forward, trying to stab Marquez in the chest. The blade sliced skin as it went past and then Marquez drove him sideways, fought him, punching hard at him, grabbed the wrist with the knife, got the blade free pounding the wrist against the wall. And Kline still fought him. Blood pumped from his neck, and Marquez hammered his face with a fist until he stopped struggling. Then he reached for Kline’s knife and held the blade at his throat.

“Where is she?”

Kline’s eyes closed. His face grew very pale and Marquez lifted his weight from his chest, moved a knee off him, reached and shook Kline’s face. When he did Kline went for him, fingers hook-ing to dig out his eyes, clawing at him, tearing into his cheek and Marquez drove the blade forward and down, hands gripping tightly, leaning into it, all his weight on it. He drove the hilt into Kline’s chest and heard the blade scraping on the metal floor underneath before snapping off. He watched him spasm once and go still.

Then came gunfire and men yelling, stun grenades going off, screaming, more quick bursts of gunfire, and he pushed the door open to a gangway filled with smoke.

He ripped the last of the duct tape off, wiped blood from his hands and then raised them as an FBI team held shotguns on him. He made them understand who he was. He was ordered to wait on the top deck, yelled at to go up now, but he refused. They didn’t have Petersen, hadn’t found Davies, and there was fighting below deck.

“We’ve got a warden on board, kidnapped.”

“Get the fuck up the ladder.”

“I’ll stay with you.”

He fell behind them, went cabin to cabin, bullets whanging off the corridor walls as he advanced behind the fighting. Now there was a much deeper, deafening, metal-rending blast and the boat shuddered. He swung the door of an empty cabin, swung another and another, moved on as emergency lighting came on and the main lights died. He stepped over bodies, stair-stepped down another level and pushed a cabin door against the body blocking it. He heard more yelling now, men clambering up the stairs.

“Taking on water,” someone yelled. “Taking on water fast! Everyone out, let’s go, let’s go.”

Marquez kept pushing, throwing his shoulder into it, sliding the body blocking the door out of the way. Then he saw her. A chain held her to the metal frame of a bed and near her was Davies slumped with his back against the wall, dead, his shirt soaked in blood. He felt for her pulse, then checked Davies’s pockets for a key, found nothing and looked at the bodies at the door. He rolled one over and saw it was Bailey, the other Molina, and realized Davies had fought them. He didn’t find a key on either of them. The boat groaned as it listed, he had to get her out of there. He hammered at the bed with the stock of a gun, and began to break the bed apart, then lifted her over his shoulder, dragging a piece of metal hanging off the chain still attached to her arm.

337The narrow gangway was empty. A single emergency light emitted a red glow near the stairs, and he worked his way toward them, a cabin door banging open behind him as the boat shifted further. He heard a staccato rip of gunfire, feet clanging on the metal stairs below, more yelling, terse hard orders given, a bullhorn, someone yelling in Spanish, couldn’t make out what they were saying. He climbed the stairs, calling ahead, identifying himself, “Marquez. Fish and Game,” and finally found help. A call was made to get a helicopter to get her to a hospital. With the SWAT team he got her into a basket and Marquez gripped her hand, touched her face. He watched her rise into the sky.

As they completed the arrests the Coast Guard arrived to help clear the boat, which was listing further to port. The fear wasn’t that it would sink, but that more explosives would detonate. Marquez got off with the last group onto a Coast Guard boat. He borrowed a phone and called Katherine and after that he let go. Where Kline had cut him low on his abdomen was only a flesh wound but it had bled plenty and stung. He needed to get a bandage. He sat down and let a medic help him, looking back at the listing vessel as he did, registering the name Bosporus and spotting the Marlin now crossing toward them.

Douglas told him later that nine were arrested, four Mexican nationals and five carrying multiple passports, two that were wanted in Europe, America, and Mexico for murder and drug trafficking. Alvarez and Cairo recovered the Fountain drifting in the south bay and brought it back to its berth in San Rafael. His truck had been towed, but he located it that afternoon.

The FBI had lost two agents. Another died at San Francisco General late in the day. Marquez saw Douglas sitting with senior FBI personnel in the lobby when he came back to check on Petersen that night. Douglas’s face was ashen, his eyes downcast, but Marquez caught a faint nod as he walked by and after he’d passed the group he waited out of earshot before going to the elevators. He saw faces turn his direction and Douglas rose and walked stiffly from the group toward him, offering his hand as he got close.

“The boat isn’t going to sink; they stabilized it,” Douglas said. “There was another charge and if it had gone off, the boat would have sunk in minutes, taking everybody with it. Several people here would like to meet you.”

“I’d like to get back on board the Bosporus tomorrow.”

“I’ll get you on. You want to get to that abalone.”

“Yeah.”

“Let me introduce you here.”

“I’m going up the elevator first. I’ll sit down with you after I come back down.” He put a hand on Douglas’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about the agents who were killed.”

“We’ve got two in surgery.”

“How are they doing?”

“We don’t know yet.”

Petersen was conscious and saw him come in. Stuart was at her bedside dabbing her forehead with a sponge a nurse had left him. She brought her hand up to push the sponge away, and he saw she was very pale, her eyes too bright, Stuart explaining quietly that she had a high fever, the result of a blood infection. They’d pumped her full of antibiotics and were confident she’d be okay in a few days, but the real loss was in her heart and Marquez could see the sad emptiness in her eyes. He’d already been told that what Davies had reported was correct. She’d miscarried in her third day of captivity. He talked to her now, took her hand, tried to make her smile. When she spoke the thoughts were in fragments, the effort at forming sentences evident, and a nurse returned and asked that Marquez leave soon. Keeler had told him earlier this afternoon that a doctor had said she wouldn’t have made it another forty-eight hours without antibiotics.