Andrew Gross - The Dark Tide

No, Karen, no…

Don’t think of them. Please… That would mean this is it. Don’t give in.

Then the denial inside her slowly relaxing, her mind wandering amid her last futile throes to an image that even in her greatest fear surprised her: an island, palms bending in the breeze, someone on the white sand, in a baseball cap, stepping toward her.

Waving.

Karen stepped toward him. Oh, God…

Just as the hand that pinned her under the dark water suddenly seemed to release.

HAUCK STAGGERED UP out of the grasses over the dune, his leg exploding in agony.

From thirty yards away, he spotted the man kneeling above her in the water, pressing her face down. Someone else-Dietz, he was certain-standing a few yards back on the beach, seemingly amused by things.

“Karen!”

He stepped forward, steadying his gun with two hands in a shooter’s position, just as the man kneeling over Karen looked up.

The first shot hit him in the shoulder, jerking him backward in surprise. The second and the third thudded solidly into his print beach shirt, spewing red. The man toppled into the water and didn’t move.

Karen rolled over and put a hand up in the soft tide.

“Karen!”

Hauck took a step toward her and at the same time spun on Dietz, who was scrambling along the sand, drawing his weapon. The bright moon had illuminated the first guy on the water, but it was dark. Dietz was like a shadow on the move. Hauck squeezed off a shot. It missed him. The next struck him in the knee as he tried to make a run toward the jetty. He pulled up, hobbling like a colt that had broken its leg.

Hauck ran, labored, toward Karen.

Slowly, she rolled over in the shallow surf, gagging, coughing up water. She pushed herself up on her elbows and knees. In horror, she stared at Cates’s wide-eyed shape-next to her, faceup in the water, and backed away as if it were something vile. She turned to Hauck, tears and disbelief in her wet eyes.

But Dietz had moved into position behind her, placing her directly in Hauck’s line of sight. He had his gun aimed at Hauck, momentarily shielded behind Karen.

“Let her go,” Hauck said. He kept stepping forward. “Let her go, Dietz. There’s no way out.” He steadied his gun at Dietz’s chest. “You might imagine just how much I’d relish doing this.”

“You better be good.” Dietz chuckled. “You miss, Lieutenant, the next one goes in her.”

“I am good.” Hauck nodded.

Hauck took a step toward him. More of a stagger in the sand. It was then he realized that his knees were growing weak and that his strength was waning. He had lost a lot of blood.

“No reason to die here, Dietz,” he said. “We all know it was Lennick who was behind the hits. You’ve got someone to roll on, Dietz. Why die for him? You can cut a deal.”

“Why…?” Dietz circled behind Karen, keeping her in his line of sight. He shrugged. “Guess it’s just my nature, Lieutenant.”

Using her as a screen, he fired.

A bright streak whizzed just over Hauck’s shoulder, the heat burning him. His wounded leg buckled as he staggered back. He winced, his arm lowering, exposed.

Seeing an advantage, Dietz stepped forward ready to fire again.

“No…!” Karen screamed, lunging out of the water to stop him. “No!”

Dietz shifted his gun to her.

Hauck hollered, “Dietz!”

He fired. The round caught Dietz squarely in the forehead. The killer’s arm jerked as his own gun went off in the air. He fell back onto the sand, inert, landing like a snow angel, arms and legs spread wide. A trickle of blood oozed from the dime-size hole in his forehead into the lapping surf.

Karen turned, her face wet, glistening. For a moment Hauck just stood there, breathing heavily, two hands wrapped around the gun.

“You didn’t leave,” she said, shaking her head.

“Never,” he said, with a labored smile. Then he dropped to his knees.

“Ty!”

Karen pushed herself up and ran over to him. Dark blood leaked from his side into his hand. Shouts emanated from behind them, flashlights raking over the beach.

Exhausted, Karen hugged him, wrapping her arms around him, a sob of laughter and relief snaking through her tears of fear and exhaustion. She started to cry.

“It’s over, Ty, it’s over,” she said, wiping the blood off his face, tears flooding her eyes.

“No,” he said, “it’s not over.” He collapsed into her, sucking back his pain against her shoulder. “There’s one last stop.”

The call came in just as Saul Lennick settled down for a late meal in his kitchen at his house on Deerfield Road.

Ida, the housekeeper, had heated up a pain du champignon meat loaf before she left. Lennick poured himself a glass of day-old Conseillante. Mimi was on the phone upstairs, going over donors for this season’s Red Cross Ball.

He caught his face in the reflection from the window that overlooked Mimi’s gardens. It had been close. A few days later, he didn’t know what might have happened. But he had tidied it all up. Things had worked out pretty well.

Charles was dead, and with him the fear that anything might fall on Lennick. The heavy losses and the violations of the loans, those would be pinned on Charles. The poor fool had simply fled in fear. The cop was dead. Hodges, another loose end, would be dealt with the same way that very night. The old geezer in Pensacola, what did it matter what he went on about now? Dietz and Cates, as soon as he got the call, they would be rich men and out of the country. Out of anyone’s sight.

Yes, Lennick had done things he never thought himself capable of. Things his grandchildren would never know. That was what his career was all about. There were always trade-offs, losses. Sometimes you just had to do things to preserve your capital, right? It had come close to all tumbling down. But now he was safe, his reputation unimpeachable, his network intact. In the morning there was money to be made. That was how you did it-you simply turned the page.

You forgot your losses of the day before.

At the sound of the phone, Lennick flipped it open, the caller ID both lifting him and making him sad at the same time. He washed down a bite of food with a sip of claret.

“Is it done?”

The voice on the other end made his heart stop.

Not just stop-shatter. Lennick’s eyes bulged at the sight of the flashing lights outside.

“Yes, Saul, it’s done,” Karen said, calling from Dietz’s phone. “Now it’s completely done.”

THREE GREENWICH BLUE-AND-WHITE police cars were pulled up in the courtyard of Lennick’s stately Normandy that bordered the wooded expanse of the Greenwich Country Club.

Karen leaned against one, wrapped in a blanket, her clothes still wet. With a surge of satisfaction running through her, she handed Dietz’s phone back to Hauck. “Thank you, Ty.”

Carl Fitzpatrick himself had gone inside-as Hauck was under the care of a med tech-and the chief and two uniformed patrolmen pulled Lennick out of the house, his wrists bound in cuffs.

The banker’s wife, dressed in just a night robe, ran out after him, frantic. “Why are they doing this, Saul? What’s going on? What are they talking about-murder?”

“Call Tom!” Lennick shouted back over his shoulder as they led him onto the brick circle to one of the waiting cars. His eyes met Hauck’s and cast him a contemptuous glare. “I’ll be home tomorrow,” he reassured his wife, almost mockingly.

His gaze fell upon Karen. She shivered despite the blanket but didn’t break her gaze. Her eyes contained the hint of a wordless, satisfied smile.

As if she were saying, He won, Saul. With a nod. He won.

They pushed Lennick into one of the cars. Karen came over to Hauck. Exhausted, she rested her head against his weakened arm.