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Mitchell heard a box crunch near him. He swung into the dark and felt the handle connect. Something fell backward. He heard something to his right. He swung again. He heard a crack and felt a spray of blood hit his face and open mouth. He spat it out.

Something grabbed his ankle. Mitchell brought his foot up and slammed down on a hand. He could feel the bones crunch under his heel. He felt around and grabbed the bucket.

Mitchell slid around the back wall, periodically jabbing the ax handle into the darkness. He felt it connect again. Something clicked behind him. He stopped for a moment and then realized it was the back exit. Mitchell bolted through it and almost dropped the ax. There was a police car in back of the store.

Mitchell froze until he heard footsteps behind him. He shoved the door closed. Fists slammed against it from the other side. Mitch picked up the ax and slammed it into the middle of the door just below waist height. He ignored the cop car as he tried to shut the door.

The ax lodged in a wedge-shaped gash. Mitch pushed down on the end of the handle until it hit the ground. Hands behind the door found the release and pushed the door open. The ax slid backward a few inches and then came to a stop when it hit the metal railing that lined the walkway behind the door.

Mitch looked over at the second cop car. It had to have been empty. Nobody was trying to kill him. He hopped over the railing and landed on the hood. He had the impulse to slash the tires but decided it wasn’t worth losing time.

Mitchell took his bucket and ran back toward his boat. He could still hear the dispatchers and police officers on the scanner talking but nothing about the store. He considered that a good thing. But he was nervous that he hadn’t seen the two cops anywhere inside the store.

Mitchell ran two more blocks and found his boat where he left it. He threw his stolen booty into it and kicked off from the canal. He gave the engine a start and headed back to the marina.

On the way back, he realized that in fact he had seen the cops. He understood why his nut kick hadn’t had any effect. The stocky greeter was one of the cops. When Mitch kicked him in the testicles, he probably kicked him where he had his gun hidden. The other cop was probably disguised as one of the stock clerks, most likely the Hispanic one who kept coming.

He felt good about narrowly averting a close call with the cops and also for not doing permanent damage to the man’s balls. No matter how sore Mitchell’s throat felt, he knew he couldn’t blame the man for trying to kill him. What did make Mitchell upset was the fact that if the cops were waiting for him to show up, how come none of them had any kind of protective gear like a gasmask on them?

For sure if they did, Mitchell would be in custody or dead right now. But if they still weren’t taking him seriously, he was even more worried about surrendering.

For all the effort he just went through and the bruises on his neck and rest of his body, Mitchell was glad he was going to take some extra steps to protect himself when he surrendered. The crazy James Bond shit Mitch had planned probably wouldn’t work and would only get him killed, but at least he wouldn’t go down easily if all hell broke loose.

42

Mitchell brought his johnboat in back of the Highlander and tied it to the dive platform. He looked around the marina. The lights had gone off in the super-yacht he’d seen earlier. Other than the lights from fixtures on the docks, the only other light came from a small building at the front of the marina. In an upscale marina like this one, he could be certain there was a guard sitting inside in front of a bank of screens that showed different camera angles from around the harbor. It was also a certainty that he would make periodic rounds.

Mitchell debated whether or not to change the boat lettering while he was in the marina. The last thing he wanted to do was try to cut off the lock on the main cabin. The sound might not carry all the way to the guard, but he might hear it when he walked his rounds. Thinking of the truck stop the night before, Mitchell had the added risk of there being people asleep on any of the boats around the marina. When he worked at a marina, he met several colorful characters who lived on their boats and yachts year-round.

The lettering could wait until he was safely away from there. He used the Wi-Fi network to look at a Google map of the area to figure out where he wanted to take the boat. Thirty minutes north of him the Intracoastal ran into a bay with a bunch of small islands like the one he had been on. He could take the boat up there and park it behind one of the islands that night and change the name and registration numbers.

Before he took the boat out of the marina, assuming he could get to the key, he needed to look for a GPS antenna. On a boat that cost over $300,000, it was a given the owner would install a security system that would tell him if it had been moved more than fifteen feet from where it was berthed.

On most boats, it would be mounted to the canopy. The Highlander didn’t have one. It was just an open cockpit. Mitchell climbed under the covering and searched around under the inside of the sides of the boats. He couldn’t find anything that felt like a unit, but he found two cables that ran from the cabin to the back of the boat under one of the locked covers.

One of them was probably the antenna for the alarm system. The other was probably an electric cable control for the back hatches. He pulled on them both. One of them let out several feet of slack. That was most likely the GPS cable. Installers tended to roll the slack up into coils and zip-tie them inside of a well in case the owner wants to move the unit. Mitchell cut the cable and looked at the cross section. It looked like what he thought it should. Before leaving the harbor, he’d do another pass through the interior and take a look at the electrical system.

With the alarm system out of the way, Mitchell was ready to cut the lock. He gathered all the gear from the johnboat. He set the flashlight he was using on the floor and put a metal grinding disk in the angle grinder. To keep the lock from flopping around, he taped it to the hatch.

He plugged the extension cord into the grinder and then poked his head out from the covering to see if anyone was near. The dock was empty on either side. He couldn’t do anything about the security cameras, so he just went for it. Mitchell leaned out over the edge and plugged the cord into the outlet on the pylon nearest the cockpit.

He ducked back down and pulled the covering back in place. With any luck, nobody would notice the sound. With slightly less luck, they wouldn’t know where the sound came from. Worse-case scenario: He could hop into his johnboat and go find another island.

He’d seen an angle grinder used to cut a lock but had never tried it himself. Mitchell gripped the grinder and held it over the lock. He was about to find out real quick if observing was the same as doing.

He turned the grinder on and touched the spinning disk to the lock. The cockpit was filled with an earsplitting sound while his legs were showered with sparks. Mitchell squinted as they bounced into his face. He cursed himself for not getting eye protection or earmuffs.

After a few seconds of abuse, the lock gave up and fell open. The small space under the cover was filled with the smell of burnt metal. Mitchell’s ears were ringing but he could still hear the sounds of dispatchers in his earbud as they responded to the latest crisis he caused at the Super Center.

Mitchell grabbed the lock and then jerked his hand away from the heat. Dumb move, he told himself. He used the edge of the jacket he had taken off to pull the lock away. Mitchell opened the hatch on the cabin and shined his flashlight inside.

On his left he could see a panel of green lights that showed the systems that had power. He flashed the light around and saw a sink, the head, and the U-shaped couch at the front that also served as a bed.