Chalk quizzed, “What do you see? About two o’clock.”
Without his night vision goggles, Slagget was steering blind. He bore vaguely east, confident he would not ram anything solid in the middle of Tangier Sound, for the next few moments at least. They waited for Clynch’s answer. It came soon enough.
Worry hollowed Clynch’s voice. “I got a big-ass inflatable boat. Color is dark. Could be tactical matte black. Six, seven, eight guys in it. It’s tucked in tight to the shoreline. In the reeds. Pertinent negative: no fishing poles in sight.”
Chalk was profoundly pissed. “What the hell are they doing out here?”
Clynch said, “They’re watching us. Damn! They’re all watching us with NVGs! Oh boy!” Clynch narrated like he was calling a ballgame. “Now it’s all assholes and elbows over there! They’ve got weapons, and they don’t care who sees them! They’re coming right for us!”
Chalk rasped out again. “Beat to quarters, boys.”
Clynch snatched up his submachine gun.
Slagget had to ask. “Maynard, who are they?”
With an unholy rage in his face, Chalk cocked his H&K MP-5K submachine gun. Slagget could barely understand Chalk as he roared out the answer they all dreaded. “My clients!”
As if to mock Chalk, the stormy sky lightened, laying Chalk’s team bare in plain sight. The black inflatable bore down fast. There was a flicker of tiny lights at its bow. Muzzle flashes. Wood splinters flew off the skiff’s gunwale where Chalk’s hand had rested an instant before. Though the bullets were hitting home, the buzz of machine gun fire barely reached them through the weather. The three men of Right Way Moving and Storage returned fire. Loosed from such an unstable platform, their rounds flew wild.
Lucky long shots from the clients kept falling aboard the rolling skiff, blasting up a hail of painful splinters. Slagget ran the small outboard engine up to full throttle, but managed only a slight increase in speed. The black inflatable would be on them in less than a minute.
When it looked like the two boats would be slugging it out yardarm to yardarm, Chalk caught a break. A localized squall swept in and hit them with terrible force. It kicked up a microburst of wind complete with waterspout. Chalk thought he was bound for Oz until the squall dropped a heavy curtain of chilling rain. For a moment, the inflatable disappeared in the silvery gray dimness of sheeting torrents.
Chalk took advantage of the natural screen. Threw a hastily emptied gear bag into the water. Slagget caught on. More jetsam followed. They had to leave a debris field behind as though they had foundered with all hands. Even if their pursuers didn’t ultimately buy the ruse, curiosity would slow them down.
Chalk grabbed the outboard, shoved the tiller over to the left, veering the skiff precariously to the right. Away from their former track. He prayed the enemy would not have the patience or smarts to stop their engine to listen for the racket of an old Evinrude in retreat.
Now, rain and spray were definitely filling the skiff faster than the stern drain could void it. Several large-caliber bullet holes had stitched the waterline, so even more of the Chesapeake flowed aboard through them. They were three men in a tub, and it was sinking.
Chalk turned to order Clynch to help bail. Clynch was slumped over in the bottom of the boat. Rain-thinned blood streamed through fingers as he clutched a wound in his gut.
CHAPTER 27
The weather deteriorated into a froth. Low fisted storm clouds uncurled claws of rain to rake the water. Gusting flaws whipped spume off the wave crests. Miss Dotsy’s gearbox threatened to fail at any moment. With Ellis’s coaxing, it somehow continued to turn. His outboard skiff was in tow astern for possible use as a lifeboat. Ben’s ribs throbbed. He had taken ten ibuprofen at his house to little effect.
Ellis said, “So, Charlene called you a picaroon.”
Ben checked the gear he’d collected at the saltbox. “Yes she did. A goddamn picaroon if I remember right.”
“And a picaroon is what you Smith Island folks call a pirate.”
Hell of a time for this, thought Ben. “We both know that.”
“So that was high praise from an old-timer like her.”
Ben did not look up from his work. “Depends on who you ask.”
Ellis said, “You deny they’re your people?”
“That was a long time ago. We’ve changed.” Ben did not need a moral dialectic at this particular moment.
Ellis continued. “You went off to war. You did what you had to there.”
“My duty to my country.” Was Ellis trying to annoy him?
Ellis glared at Ben. “You kidding me? A war’s been brought home to you, Ben. It’s here. It’s touching people you know. Killing them. And I’m not even talking about the concept of justifiable self-defense. There’s legal precedent for that at least, Mr. Peacetime Civilian Man.”
Ben gave a noncommittal, “I hear you.”
Ellis would not let up. “I’m not sure you do. Ben, I’m not telling you to kill. Face it, your back’s up against the wall. I am warning you as a friend that killing is in your blood. I’m only saying this so you don’t surprise yourself and get all crippled up with guilt when it happens.”
Ellis rounded Miss Dotsy up into the wind one mile south of the Point No Point Lighthouse. He baited Ben. “Look, if you don’t think this a righteous stalk, we can still call the police on this and stand tall before the Man.” Ellis balanced heading and throttle to hold Miss Dotsy in position.
Ben said, “And get everybody killed? Absolutely not. Who better to handle this than us? And Christ, Ellis, we already have blood on our hands. Police’d ask too damn many questions we can’t answer without picking up serious jail time.” Ben spat into his mask and rubbed. He pulled on an old set of U.S. Divers Rocket fins. “No. I got LuAnna into this. If she’s in there, I’ll get her out.”
He had been wearing his wetsuit for most of the last twenty-four hours. No longer a protective sheath, it now felt like a half-molted eel skin from which he could never fully twist free.
Ellis said, “You don’t even know for sure she’s there. Or who’s with her if she is.”
Ignoring Ellis, Ben checked the large mesh bag full of home fumigation bombs. Smith Island’s healthy population of feral cats sometimes led to flea infestations. One pesticide bomb per house was the usual prescription. For some reason, the wizened clerk at Rookie’s dry goods store hadn’t batted an eye when Ben put two entire cases on account. Ben wondered again if everyone knew something he didn’t. Maybe fatigue really was making him paranoid. While under way, Ben taped the bombs together in four bundles of six cans each.
He also had a waterproof first aid kit, and a deflated life vest with a fresh CO2 cartridge in its mechanism to blow it up in an instant. Given Chalk’s treatment of the Harrises, he did not expect LuAnna to be ready to swim laps in the bay.
Ben looped a canvas sling over his shoulder. It was tethered by ten feet of line to the mesh bag. Ben said, “So we’re all straight on this?”
“Squared away. Yo, Ben?”
Ben stopped, poised on the gunwale, about to roll into the water. “What?”
“Know what it costs a Smith Islander to get his ears pierced?”
“What!”
“Buccaneer.” Ellis smirked. “Don’t you drown, ya bad-ass picaroon.”
More bewildered by Ellis’s pun than amused, Ben tossed the bag in the Chesapeake and followed after it feet first.
The water was cold, and now Ben was exhausted, starved, enduring a rack of fractured ribs, and dragging a bulky bag in tow. For this swim, he would not have the refuge of a SCUBA diver’s depth to protect him from the bashing heave of the waves. He planned to let the wind and making tide carry him up the bay to the lighthouse. His main exertion would be to steer a course. His wrist compass and watch would help him dead reckon the way.