The windows around the Palestrina’s helm shattered into a thousand lacerating slivers. Slashed into Pallaton’s armored back. Shredded Tahereh’s right forearm and hand. The two wooden uprights supporting the hardtop tore away. The cabin roof collapsed on the right side. Shockwaves from the blast concussed his chest harder than a mule kick. His ears rang. The boat careered to the left. Everyone dived for cover on deck in a baling wire scrum.
After only a moment’s quiet, Chalk was not ready to bet the farm they’d heard the full extent of the welcome salute. He peeked above the cockpit coaming. What he saw amazed him; an old Hobbit standing up to his knees out in the middle of the water. Standing on nothing. Chalk knew from the charts it was more than twenty feet deep there. Not a sandbar, rock, or shoal to prop the old guy up. That was weird enough. Worse still, when the wizened little man spied Chalk, he started blazing away with a shotgun.
Chalk quickly sussed the old bastard was not loading buckshot. He was blasting out pumpkin balls, big hunks of copper-hued lead the same diameter as his chokeless shotgun’s bore. The heavy loads bashed through the Palestrina’s sides bringing razor-sharp splinters of marine plywood in with them. Though the lead was flying wide of the meat, Chalk caught needles of wood in his face. He lay back down on the deck to yank them out. Blood ran into his eyes from gashes in his forehead. And still, this relentless old water troll banged away!
Pallaton’s body armor took most of the glass slivers resulting from the big gun’s discharge. He quickly wrapped Tahereh’s arm with QuikClot gauze. Staunched the blood flow. She cursed like a sailor. In Farsi. Any profane artistry she possessed in that language was lost on Chalk.
His face cleared of lumber, Chalk risked another look over the coaming. He glanced aft where he figured the gnome would lie given the Palestrina’s forward track. The homicidal dwarf had stopped shooting. Out of ammo? No flesh and blood target? Not hardly. Now, instead of standing knee-deep in the drink, the killer codger stood on top of the water. Balancing on the surface. Gimbaling his knees and hips in a lewd burlesque movement as wake from the Palestrina rolled under his feet. A cracker Messiah out for a stroll on troubled waters. Chalk was riveted.
Until the geezer spotted Chalk again and opened up. Chalk registered that the offending shotgun’s magazine tube, with its dead-serious extender stretching beyond the end of the muzzle, was loaded with double-ought buckshot shells after the pumpkin balls for subsequent target practice at a distance. Chalk respected this bloody-minded coot; would’ve liked to go drinking with him if he weren’t so hell-bent on Chalk’s demolition.
Grudging respect and the Jesus shoes notwithstanding, Chalk got sick of the damn hobgoblin. Their keen-eyed attacker did not give Chalk a moment free of suppressing fire to pop up and draw a bead of his own. Chalk’s only option was to huck three M-67 fragmentation grenades astern in quick succession. He held onto each grenade longer than he usually liked to, then lobbed them hard and high. He was hoping for an air-burst. Wanted to put a discouraging amount of shrapnel in the oldster’s hide.
Chalk heard two blasts and a thump. He figured the thump was a grenade that’d gone off underwater. Killed some fish with any luck. Chalk was now a fury thirsting for death of any kind. He glanced back. The seas were clear of little old farts with guns. From that direction, at least.
Then someone else opened up with a shotgun from the other side. Chalk hit the deck again. He caught a glimpse of the shoreline before he dropped behind the gunwale. Using the auxiliary steering tiller on the starboard side of the boat, he blindly adjusted Palestrina’s course by guestimation.
A gunshot. Another pumpkin ball flew aboard. The slug twanged through one of the cables attached to the boat’s rudder. Then it punched a hole in the engine box and made things in there run rough. The exhaust stack spewed black smoke, thick and choking. The good news was that the following breeze wrapped the dark pall around them like a cloak as they raced for shore. The shooter’s aim wandered away. Distance and the smokescreen gave Chalk’s team a moment’s respite. They needed it. There were bad-ass ghouls haunting these waters, and they really wanted Chalk dead.
CHAPTER 57
The shooting started later than Ben expected. With the first report, he was momentarily transported from worries about his mother back to the Persian Gulf. Maybe it was the sand on which he lay. That, and the roar and muzzle flash of big guns, and the crackling pop of smaller arms. It all signaled the start of a fresh waiting game. Searching for a target of opportunity through the scope. Wondering who among his friends still lived, who were hurt. Who were dead. He prayed that in the adrenal rush of battle, the Councilmen would obey his seemingly bizarre order that Chalk be granted safe passage into the hotel. One impulsive thought of revenge, plus a few ounces of trigger pressure, and Ben’s entire plan would fail.
CHAPTER 58
The engine of Hiram Harris’s boat caught fire. Chalk, Tahereh, and Pallaton had to hustle all the way to the bow to avoid the flames. The fuel tank was badly holed by all the shooting. Leaking gas contributed to the conflagration. It was not so much a boat that grounded on the beach as a fire ship sporting three human figureheads. They jumped for it into three feet of water, and frantically splashed ashore. Chalk was pleasantly surprised that all three of them made it to the beach alive.
They ran hard until they hit the first row of dunes. Small ones. Little cover to offer. It was better than the Omaha beach they’d just crossed. They threw themselves down. Caught their breath. Some Islander ahead and to the left kept them down with sporadic harassing shotgun fire.
When the air-to-fuel mixture in the gas tank became right, the Palestrina exploded. Black smoke and orange flames leapt into the air. Burning debris, some of it much larger than a breadbox, rained down around them. They were pinned on the dune in the firelight.
“Up and over!” Chalk yelled.
They dashed up the sand and rolled into the trough between the first line of dunes and the next. The loom of the flames was dimmer there. They gained a shadowed shelter.
Now Chalk was impressed. The Islanders had put up a hell of a fight. He heard more gunnery to the north. More cussing from Slagget. O’Malley was quiet now. Not a good sign. Slagget had some mopping up of his own to do. Chalk had one goal tonight: murder every bumpkin who dared come at him. After that they could haul the gold in peace.
Chalk checked in with his troops. “Tahereh?”
She looked at him, eyes glazed from pain. Pallaton had swathed her hand as best he could, but she was at least a pint low.
Pallaton asked Chalk, “Hit of morphine for her?”
“Hell no! I want her wide awake, pissed off, and shooting straight.”
Chalk knew Tahereh would cope. He suspected she was just glad not to be put down like a dog. That dressing would have to suffice until they choppered her to a safe trauma hospital. There, the doctors would have security clearances that let them treat black ops gunshot wounds without reporting to the local police. There were entire surgical suites in D.C. area clinics reserved for operatives from Right Way Moving & Storage, and like organizations.
Tahereh said, “Still have one good hand.” She pulled her pistol from its holster, and waved it like she meant business.
“That’s my girl. Pallaton?”
A quick assessment, the back of Pallaton’s head was bloody from collecting a glass menagerie. Fortunately, his flack vest had a high collar. His neck had been protected. They could pick the slivers out of his scalp later. As with Tahereh’s maiming, Chalk hoped Pallaton’s injury would make him meaner.