Jason Frost - The cutthroat

Less than five feet away from Rhino, a large man had Angel in a crushing full nelson, trying to force her head forward until the neck snapped. Rhino watched without interfering, playing with the rubber band around his wrist. Angel's chin was grinding into her chest and her arms were pinned helplessly. Still Rhino didn't move the three steps to help her.

But then, she didn't need help. Suddenly she snapped her heel back into her attacker's kneecap, loosening but not breaking his grip. She snapped her heel back again. And again. The final time, his kneecap was shattered permanently and it gave way under him. He released his grip on Angel. She rolled out from under him into a front handspring that any gymnast would envy. When she was upright again, she had her balisong knife in hand. She whipped the handles around until the blade reflected the dull orange of the sky. While her attacker struggled to regain his balance, she darted behind him, grabbed a handful of hair, tugged his head backward, and dug her knife into his throat. She dragged the blade in a semicircle across his neck, blood misting her hand.

Rhino shook with laughter and applauded. Eric couldn't hear what he was saying, but whatever it was, Angel ignored him. Then Rhino glanced over his shoulder and met Eric's gaze. He straightened up immediately, pointing his delicate hands in their direction. Angel ran toward them.

"There!" he shouted, dragging his.38 out of his belt and thrusting it in their direction. He squeezed off two shots. The first blew up the door jamb next to Tracy. The second whistled between them, tearing through one of the sails before disappearing out to sea.

"This way," Tracy said, leading Eric to where she'd last seen their canoe. He crouched low and followed her toward the stern. Another shot kicked up a few splinters of deck wood six inches from his left foot. They ducked around a mast.

The canoe lay abandoned, their weapons gone. The backpacks lay open and ravaged, some of their stuff still scattered around for examination.

Two more bullets whizzed by. One pinged off the aluminum railing. The other poked another hole in their canoe's hull.

"You sure this will still float? "Tracy asked as she grabbed one end.

Eric grabbed the other end and they hefted it up. "It'll float. I built air pockets into the bow and stern. It may take on a lot of water, but it'll float. Ready?"

"Yeah."

"One, two." They swung the canoe in a lullaby arc. "Three!" With a groan they tossed the canoe over the rail.

"We did it!" Tracy cheered, leaning over the rail. "It's floating."

They heard Angel's footsteps running behind them. They turned, saw the knife clutched in her hand.

A shot cracked through the sound of battle. The bullet pounded into Tracy's hip, shoving her over the rail in a screaming somersault.

Eric spun, his arrow already drawn to his cheek, and fired hastily at Rhino's lumpy body. But Rhino moved faster than Eric thought possible for him, flopping to the deck as the arrow rocketed over his shoulder. Eric didn't wait for another chance. He dropped the bow, grabbed the two paddles, one of the half-filled backpacks, and jumped over the side of the ship.

The orange-tinted ocean flooded through the arrow and bullet holes until the canoe looked like a bowl half filled with tomato soup. Eric kept paddling, gritting his teeth against the jagged pain in his chest. Fresh blood sopped the jersey bandages and dripped like icing down his flat hard stomach, winding along the corrugated muscles.

"What the hell was that all about?" Tracy asked.

Eric dug the paddle into the water, muscled the canoe ahead another few feet. "A setup."

"Yeah, but who was doing the setting?" Tracy was leaning on her left side, her legs stretched out and submerged in the cold water. Her right hand pressed a swath of her jersey sweat shirt against her bloody hip; the left hand bailed water with the Campbell's soup can.

The bullet had chomped through the hip and out the back of her thigh. Eric didn't like the nasty way it was looking, but there was nothing to do about it right now. They had to get to safety first. He could see the pain twisting through her, but she made no complaint. She nibbled her lip and bailed water. After a few minutes of silence, she sighed. "God, I'm tired of being wet."

Eric laughed.

Another explosion drowned his laughter.

They looked back at the two ships, watched a tower of flames spit high into the air along the Home Run's mast. The sails flapped in the breeze like fiery wings.

The Centurion had managed to free itself from the burning ship and was now backing away, its sails puffed with wind. The bow of the ship raged with fire, but Angel was directing several crew members as they battled the flames with buckets of water they hauled up from over the side. Someone was hosing the mainsail with a fire extinguisher, smothering the few flames that licked the edges there.

Two rowboats from the Home Run were splashing through the ocean, curving to the left, away from their abandoned ship. Three people sat in one, a single person in the other. Behind them a rubber life raft floated aimlessly with two of their comrades, each sprouting arrows from their backs. The rest of the bodies were unaccounted for.

One of the bodies on the rubber raft hung over the side, with head and arm dangling in the water as if trying to see something down deep. As Eric and Tracy watched, something tugged at the body once, then again, finally yanking it over the side and under the surface. The water boiled blood to mark the spot, then was calm. The body never reappeared.

Eric and Tracy didn't talk about it. Eric merely paddled the canoe in an arc that swung in the opposite direction.

"Where are they going?" Tracy asked, nodding at the two escaping dinghies.

"Looks like they're heading toward that building."

"Over there," she pointed. "There's a ship waiting behind that Transcontinental Insurance Building." As their canoe slid forward, they could see more of the ship, before hidden by the two protruding stories of the otherwise submerged building. The two surviving row-boats splashed energetically toward the ship, waving a greeting to the crew on board. "You were right, Eric. It was a setup. They wanted to sink The Centurion."

"They came damn close. And us with it."

"Wonder why they didn't attack with their ship too?" Tracy asked.

Eric shook his head. "No way. That's a Wellington 63 over there. Nice maxicruiser with NACA air-foil sections and a terrific aft cabin. The high sail area/displacement and sail area/wetted area ratios make it pretty fast. The sail area is nineteen hundred square feet and if it's got any fuel, it's got a two hundred ten horsepower Caterpillar diesel coupled to a variable pitch, three-bladed Hundested prop. But The Centurion is a seventy-three-foot staysail schooner with-"

"Stop it!" Tracy hollered and threw a canful of water into Eric's face. She threw the can too, but the string attaching it to the thwart snapped it back before it hit him. The sudden physical effort made Tracy wince with pain, but she kept her eyes boring into Eric's. He stared back, his face dripping with water, his expression merely surprise.

"I'm tired of feeling so goddamned helpless, Eric. Before all this I was an artist, a damn sketch artist for trials, but at least I was respected. I knew my way around the business like a professional." She shifted her hip so she could see him better. "But the kind of things you need to know here, I wasn't prepared for. What plants to eat, how to find drinking water, how to make weapons out of fingernail clippings. Christ, I feel like a baby. And you make it worse."

"Tracy, I didn't-"

"Wait," she interrupted, holding up her hand. "I'm not complaining. Not really. Considering the reality of the kind of world we now live in, that we may live in for the rest of our lives, I'm damned lucky to be with you. But you're damn lucky to be with me too, buster. I'm pretty smart, fairly athletic, and a lot sexier than you're likely to find for a long time. It's just that I get a little frustrated sometimes by the way you seem to know so much. How come you always know everything?"