“Ach, Mr. Reeve, I had to say something. I was shite-scared, I admit it.”
“It’s okay, Kenneth. I knew Jay would find out about them.”
“What?”
“He was expecting a trap, and you handed him one. He wasn’t so ready for another. Come on.”
“Where?”
“Back to the boat.”
Creech managed to let out a yip of relief. They waded into the water and were halfway to the boat when there was a roar from the island. Jiminez had come back to check on his friend. Now he was sprinting towards the body, yelling something in Spanish at the top of his voice.
“Hurry!” Reeve urged. As if Creech needed telling. They grabbed for the side of the larger boat and hauled themselves in, Creech finding an energy he hadn’t used in years. There was a sudden explosion behind them, and Reeve turned his head to see smoke rising into the sky, and earth raining down all around.
“Looks like someone stumbled on one of my surprises.”
He’d run trip wires across both paths. The explosive charges were big enough to take out two, maybe three men if they were close enough together. Only one explosion though; the other party had stopped short of the trip wire. They must have heard the scream and turned back towards the beach. They were starting to appear. Two ran straight to the water’s edge, firing as they ran.
Creech started the engine. It was still warm and started quickly. Reeve dealt with the anchor by slicing the rope with a single hack of his dagger.
“Let’s go!” he yelled.
They went, the motorboat trailing after them. When they were out of the range of bullets, Reeve ordered Creech to cut the engine. Creech had to be told twice; even then he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Why?”
“Because I want to watch.” Reeve had a backpack of his own, and took from it a small pair of powerful binoculars. Jay seemed to be talking to his men as they stood around the cooling body. From the looks on their faces, Reeve knew he had scored an important victory. They didn’t look angry or set on revenge; they looked horrified. Doubts would now start to enter their minds. There were four of them, including the Hispanic-looking youth who’d run onto the beach first. Four. Which meant the explosive had been tripped by a unit of the remaining five men. The Hispanic had recovered a little and was yelling at Jay, waving his arms at him accusingly. Tears were streaming down his face.
Reeve moved the binoculars and saw the survivors of his little group come staggering down onto the beach. There were only two of them, both spattered with blood and badly wounded. One man had a branch sticking out of his leg; the other looked to have lost an ear. They were the only two to emerge.
Reeve took a moment to slip his boots back on before putting the binoculars back to his eyes. Jay was standing on the beach, his own binoculars trained on Reeve.
And he was smiling.
The smile seemed to anger the Hispanic youth still further. He turned Jay around so they were face to face. Reeve saw what the young man, so close to Jay, could not. He saw Jay’s hand go to the holster, saw him ease the gun out. Saw him take a step back, raising his gun hand, and blow a hole in the young man’s forehead. Then Jay turned around again, so he was looking towards Reeve.
Reeve got the message.
“What’re they doing?” Creech said. “Shooting each other?”
“Getting rid of excess baggage,” Reeve corrected him grimly.
Through the binoculars, he watched Jay order the two uninjured men remaining to open one of the cases. The two others, the ones injured in the blast, were huddled together, seated on the sand. Jay looked towards them, but wasn’t about to offer any comfort. He was more intent on the metal case. Then Reeve saw why, and saw, too, why Jay had been happy Reeve and Creech had stuck around.
A grenade launcher.
“Oh, shit,” he said.
“What is it?” Creech came to the side to see. “What are they doing?”
“Get us out of here,” Reeve said quietly. His voice fell away as he saw the contents of the other cases.
Two small dinghies, gas-inflatable, and the paddles to go with them.
Creech was at the wheel. The beach faced the South Uist coastline, and Creech was headed there in as straight a line as he could navigate.
“Can they hit us at this distance?” Creech yelled.
“Depends what model of launcher they’ve got. Knowing Jay, it’ll be a good one.”
Reeve could do little but watch. It wouldn’t help, but he wished he’d brought the dead man’s Cobray with him. The success of his own “trap” had led him to underestimate Jay. The bastard wasn’t stupid.
“Proper planning,” Reeve muttered. Jay had taken charge of the grenade launcher. He was crouched by the water’s edge, one knee on the sand, his eye busy at the sight’s crosshairs.
“Here it comes,” Reeve said, watching the wisp of smoke as the first grenade was launched. It flew past the boat and hit the water a hundred yards ahead.
“That answers your question,” Reeve told Creech, who was now steering wildly, serpentining the boat and throwing Reeve about.
A second grenade came over, landing short of their boat but hitting the motorboat full on. There was an explosion, wood and metal rising into the sky above a pall of black smoke.
Creech let out a shriek. Reeve thought he was panicking, until he saw the jagged point of wood protruding from his shoulder. Reeve went to help him, but the boat started circling. He had to get them out of range. He pulled the splinter out of Creech’s shoulder with no ceremony, then pushed Creech aside and gripped the wheel tight, setting them back on course.
Another grenade just reached the boat, hitting it aft and blowing a hole in the wooden structure. Water started pouring in.
“Can you swim?” Reeve asked Creech, who nodded, his teeth gritted against the pain. “Even with one arm?”
“I’ll be all right. How far are we from land?”
Reeve looked up. The answer was less than half a mile. He took his boots off again and put them in his backpack, zipping it tight. It was waterproof, and didn’t weigh very much. As a last resort, he would ditch it and trust to his dagger, which was in its scabbard attached to his leg.
“Come on then,” he told Creech, “let’s go for a swim.”
They swam away from the sinking boat. Creech couldn’t help but look back at it, watching the hull tip, seeing barnacles and wood that was in dire need of repainting.
They swam together. Reeve couldn’t see, but he guessed Jay would be setting out in the dinghies by now, bringing his two remaining men with him. Reeve had taken seven men out of the game.
But at a price.
They were swimming across the current, which made half a mile seem like three times that. Creech grew quickly exhausted, and Reeve had to help him. This is great, he thought, just what I need. Lying in a foxhole all night, and now a half-mile swim pulling an injured man with me.
Meantime, Jay would be paddling, not straining himself. The odds were turning against Reeve all the time.
He eventually pulled Creech ashore. Creech wanted to lie down and rest, but Reeve hauled him to his feet and slapped his face a couple of times.
“You’ve got to get out of here!” he yelled. Creech’s leg wound, the slice the Chicano had given him, had opened up again. They were six or seven miles shy of the nearest village, but Reeve knew there was a croft to the south, maybe three miles distant. “Keep to the coast,” he told Creech. “Don’t try crossing the hills. Okay?”
He waited till Creech had nodded. The man made to stumble away, but Reeve grabbed his arm. “Kenneth, I’m sorry I got you into this.”
Creech shrugged free and started to walk. Reeve watched him go, trying to feel something for him. But the soldier had taken over. Creech was a casualty; that didn’t mean you had time for flowers and sympathy. It was sink or swim. Really, Reeve shouldn’t even have helped him ashore. He should have conserved his own energy, which was what he did now. He took off his wet clothes and wrung them out, then lay them out to dry. They wouldn’t have time to get really dry, but the wind might help. The things in his backpack were almost completely dry, which was good fortune. He trained the binoculars on the din-ghies. There were two men in the front one, only one in the second. The man with Jay looked grim with a large black beard, the man paddling alone looked American Indian. Reeve scanned the boats for armaments: pistols and submachine guns; no rocket launchers that he could see. Nothing heavy. But there was something on Jay’s lap… He’d thought at first it was a transmitter, but saw now that it was a cassette player.