Coffee moved his arm around his human shield and sunk the long knife into the belly of the huge dog, then jumped back as it howled, snapping at the knife protruding from its belly. He dropped Eddie and ran. His one chance was to make it to the sea before the dog realized he’d taken flight.
He charged up the dune, slipped and scrambled on all fours for a foothold, got it, grabbed a breath, pushed himself back onto his feet and then he was on top of it. The sea was visible, despite the rain, and he longed for it as he went down the steep side. He slipped again in the wet sand and went down on his back, feet first. He pushed off against the dune when he hit bottom, like a sprinter in the starting blocks, and shot out for the sea.
The rain stopped as quickly as it had started, but the sand was mush sluicing between his toes. His lungs screamed. His heart was pumping like a locomotive gone crazy. His legs burned like they’d been stabbed with a branding iron. Every muscle in his body said, slow down, but the chill charging up his back said, run faster.
And he ran faster, because he heard it behind him as it howled into the night. Then it was silent and he knew that it was coming for him. Halfway, the sea, so close and so far. He stepped on a shell or small rock. It dug into the tender part of his foot, but he kept running, grabbing air with lungs and loose fists as he pumped his arms. He heard the dark rumbling breath of the beast behind as his feet slapped water and he dove forward, sliding into the turbulent waves and safety.
The big dog howled. He heard it easily above the crashing sea, but he couldn’t risk a look, all his effort had to be spent getting back to the dinghy. He took long even strokes, making slow headway against the tide. He was tired, but he was in his element now.
He rolled his head out from the water with every other stroke and glanced at the heavens, using the stars to keep himself swimming in the right direction. He flipped over onto his back after a few minutes, to float, to rest and to think for a few seconds. The kayak he’d used to get back and forth to his dinghy was on the beach. Going back for it was out of the question. He studied the sky and watched the moving clouds cover the stars, then release them, as the winds aloft pushed them from the sea, to be caught by the mountains inland.
Then he looked to the shore and smiled in relief. The dog was gone. But he wasn’t surprised. She knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t be coming back. She was probably behind the dunes taking care of the bodies. She wouldn’t want any police.
He took a few easy breaths, made sure he had his heart rate under control, then rolled over and swam out against the tide. He saw the gray dinghy five minutes later and he swam toward it with renewed effort. The rubber boat was anchored above a sandbar only twenty feet below the surface and far enough away from the shore so that it wasn’t visible in the dark.
He was tired when he reached it. He wanted rest, but he had a lot left to do before sunup. He said a silent prayer, then propelled himself up out of the water, with a strong kick, and into the boat.
He pulled off the wet jeans and tee shirt and thought about pulling off the boxer shorts, but the thought of riding around naked in the ocean made him shiver.
He thought about the men on the beach and wondered if the one he’d used as a shield was dead. He hoped so, because even a man like that should not have to die at the hands of one like her. She had a way of keeping them alive till the very last. Very bad, he thought.
Thirty minutes later he closed on his boat. It was anchored three miles south of Palma and as far out as four hundred feet of chain would let him anchor. He pushed the kill switch on the Evinrude and was coasting toward it when the first bullet ricocheted through the night and sizzled through the inflatable boat.
The second bullet whizzed over his head as he went over the side. He was a powerful swimmer and he struck out away from the boat, toward the open sea, the last place they’d expect him to go.
A flashlight beam hit the water.
“ See him, Tom?” The voice was high pitched and whiny. Coffee pictured a skinny man in his early twenties, with a scraggly beard and long hair.
“ I think I got him, Itchy.” Coffee wondered what kind of name Itchy was. “Yeah, I think I got him,” Tom repeated. Tom had a deep bass voice and Coffee pictured a big man. Big and not too bright. He’d fired the gun before he had a clear target.
“ We gotta get the body,” Itchy said.
“ I know.” Tom moved the flashlight back and forth across the water. Coffee went under when it came his way and did the breast stroke toward the boat, coming up quiet and close, two more silent strokes and he was underneath the bow. They could look till dawn with that flashlight and never find him.
“ Check the rubber boat,” Itchy said and Tom moved the light to the dinghy.
“ He’s gone,” Tom said.
“ Makes no difference if you got him or not, he’s dead. No one could swim to shore from here,” Itchy said.
Wrong, Coffee thought, any good swimmer could make it.
“ But we got no proof,” Tom said. “No proof, we don’t get the other half.”
“ So we make ourselves a little bonus. He’s got a lotta neat stuff below and I bet if we look, we’ll find a stash. Guy with a boat like this. Gotta have a stash. Even if he don’t, we can get a pretty penny for the CDs all by themselves.”
“ But we’re supposed to sink the boat and not take anything.”
“ I won’t tell if you don’t,” Itchy said.
“ Fine by me.” Tom turned off the light.
“ Okay,” Itchy said.
Coffee saw a glowing cigarette fly over the side. Then he heard the men clamor down the companionway and go below. He swam along the side of his boat, a forty-five foot sloop, to the aft end. They hadn’t even brought up the swim ladder. He had to push aside their dinghy, a small red Zodiac, to get at the ladder.
He climbed silently aboard, listening to the men rifle through his things below. He was going to have to kill them. Funny, he thought, he’d managed to get through his whole life without killing anybody and tonight he had killed two men, was responsible for the death of a third and was about to kill two more. Listening to the men tear the boat apart firmed his resolve. He moved through the cockpit without making a sound, but it wouldn’t have made any difference, because they’d found the stereo and the lonely sounds of Billie Holiday started drifting out over the waves.
“ How about some rock and roll?” the one named Itchy yelled out. For a few seconds silence reigned. Then Bob Dylan’s scratchy, raspy voice filled the night.
They had the volume cranked up full blast. He didn’t think the speakers would take it for very long, but it didn’t matter. He stepped through the cockpit, walking softly on the deck to the mast, where he unhooked the main halyard. He held the line firmly in hand and moved back to the cockpit. The other end of it was wrapped around the starboard side power winch.
Then he eased up the port side cockpit cushion and took out the flare gun, broke the barrel, loaded it and snapped it closed. With the gun in hand, he poked his head into the cockpit.
“ We’re rich,” Tom said, his bass voice booming from the front cabin.
“ How much?” Itchy passed by the galley toward the cabin. Coffee got a glimpse of his back. He was tall and big boned, with a close cropped military style haircut, not at all like he’d imagined. He resisted an urge to go in after them, but the quarters were too close, the outcome too unpredictable. So he sat above and behind the hatch, ignoring the cold, as he tied a bowline in the halyard and fed the line back through it, making a sliding loop, and waited.
He didn’t have to wait long. A big man with long black hair lumbered through the companionway and went to the aft part of the boat, toward the tethered Zodiac. He didn’t turn around. When Itchy’s close cropped head came through, Coffee slipped the bowline noose over it, jerked the rope around his neck, then stepped on the deck button, activating the power winch. Itchy’s scream was cut off with a gag as he shot upward.