Deal with the Dead (25 page)

“I’m certain that you have it,” Rhodes said, disregarding the last. He reached into his pocket, then came out with his hand in a fist. He made a tossing motion toward Deal, as if ridding himself of something vile. As his fingers uncurled, something silver flashed in the dim light of the study.

Deal leaned back instinctively and threw up his own hand to ward off whatever it was—knife, dagger, tiny weapon from the miniature martial arts parade…

The glittering thing slapped against his palm and his hand closed around it in reflex. He knew what it was now, didn’t have to look, didn’t have to check in his pocket to see what might be gone.
The key,
he told himself. The goddamned key.

“I only want what’s mine,” Rhodes was saying. Deal noticed that Kaia Jesperson had swung her slender legs to the floor and now leaned forward, listening intently.

Her pajama top had loosened, presenting him with views of flesh vee’d by black silk that only made the moment that much more difficult to comprehend. He had opened his mouth to say something, though he wasn’t sure what it was going to be. What happened next made the issue moot.

Chapter Thirty-three

The window behind the
couch exploded in a shower of fragments, at the same instant that the arm of the sofa, where Kaia had been resting moments before, erupted in a flurry of stuffing. The slug, flattened as it ripped through the heavy frame of the sofa, bit into Rhodes’ desk, blasting the photo of Deal and his parents into smithereens. The three of them were still staring at one another in shock as the echo of the shot rolled across the grounds outside.

“Get down,” Deal cried, diving toward the couch. He caught Kaia Jesperson by the shoulders and took her to the tiled floor as another shot came through the shattered window, this one blasting a gouge of plaster from the opposite wall.

“The lights,” Deal called as he twisted around looking for Rhodes. Feather stuffing and plaster dust swirled in the air of the study, a surreal tropical snowstorm.

Rhodes, who was on his hands and knees behind the corner of the desk, yanked at the dangling lamp cord. The thing flew off the desktop, its glass shade splintering. There was a bluish pop as the bulb blew apart, and in the next moment the room was in darkness.

Another shot sounded outside, this one striking the outer wall of the house. Large-caliber slugs, Deal reasoned, as the sound of impact reverberated through the room. Hollow points that would pierce a body cleanly, come out the backside transformed to the size of a plate, pushing everything it met right out of the way.

“You all right?” he asked Kaia.

“For the moment,” she said. If she was trembling, he couldn’t tell it.

“Rhodes?”

“All right,” the hurried reply.

There was a fourth shot from outside and a section of books exploded into confetti on the shelf above them. Another shot sounded then, this from a different weapon. Another and another, and then a sharp cry.

“That’s Frank,” Rhodes called. He was starting up from behind the desk when a fusillade of fire blew through the window, tearing the book-shelves to shreds.

“Maybe not,” Rhodes cried, diving back to the floor beside them.

There were more cries from what seemed to be the front of the house. Small-arms fire there, booming in the hallway, and the crashing of glass. More shouts and cries, then the sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway.

“Boss?” The unmistakable sound of Basil’s deep voice.

“We’re here,” Rhodes called. “Keep your head down.”

Basil came through the doorway in a duck walk, his bulky form outlined in the moonlight that drifted through the shattered window. “Three of them at the front. I took them out, I’m pretty sure.”

“Is Frank in the back?”

“Out there somewhere.” Basil nodded, glancing toward the window.

Several smaller-caliber shots erupted on the grounds once again, followed by a longer period of silence this time. “That’s him,” Basil pronounced. “That takes care of our sniper.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Deal said.

“We’ve got to move,” Rhodes said. “No telling how many there are.”

“Those fucking Turks,” Basil growled.

“Turks?” Deal asked.

“Follow me,” Rhodes called. He was already scrambling back around the desk. “Lend a hand, Basil.”

The big man followed after his boss, leaving Deal and Kaia to scramble in their wake.

“Watch the glass,” Deal said.

“If that’s the worst thing that happens…”she muttered, scooting past him.

Deal found himself nodding, though he knew she couldn’t see him.

He heard a grunt from around the big desk, the sound of stone grinding on stone, the creak of unoiled hinges. There was a deep
thunk
as something fell back, and Deal felt a gust of dank air sweep over him.

By the time he made it around the desk, scattering glass shards heedlessly with his palms, he’d understood. Basil crouched above the port that had opened in the library floor, his fingers curled under the heavy lid. Rhodes had already disappeared into the passage, and Basil was assisting Kaia as she backed down the dark steps.

“Get a move on,” Basil said to Deal. Something heavy was battering at the front door of the house now. Shrieks of wood, more shattering glass.

Deal struggled over the upturned lid and ducked through the passage where Kaia had disappeared just as the front door gave way with a crash. He found himself staggering backward down a narrow, rough-hewn stairwell, moving by touch alone, clawing at the sides of the passage to keep from pitching over. He heard the passageway door slam closed above him, and suddenly the clamor from the front of the house was silent, just the sound of a bolt sliding home, followed by the scuffing sounds of Basil’s footsteps above him and the harsh rasping of the big man’s breath.

“Keep moving,” Basil called. “I don’t want to trip over your ass.”

“Just take it easy,” Deal said.

“Here!” He heard Kaia’s voice out of the darkness in front of him, felt her hand at his chest take a fistful of shirt.

He was at the bottom of the steps, he realized, and felt her pulling him along down a gently sloping passageway. He stumbled momentarily, threw up his hands, felt warm flesh beneath her flapping pajamas.

“Richard’s gone ahead,” she told him as he steadied himself. “The passage leads to the docks. Hurry now.”

She was off then, and Deal followed wordlessly, his fingers tracing the damp contours of the passage to keep himself from falling, urged on by the steady panting of Basil at his back. Though the flow of air had lessened, there was still a steady breeze that suggested Kaia was right.

The passage was cut through the same soft coral as that underlying the Terrell estate, he realized, as fragments fell away beneath his touch, and sandy grime drifted down into his hair.

Billions and billions of sea creatures had laid down their lives to save his: that’s what Deal found himself thinking as he scurried along. Running for his life, and musing on the wonders of oolite.

“Careful.” He heard Kaia from up ahead, felt her hand at his shoulder. “We’re near the entrance, now.”

“Let me past,” Basil said quietly. “I’m the one with a gun.”

Deal was in no position to argue. He stepped aside, pressing his back against the rough wall of the passageway as Basil pushed his way on by.

Deal’s eyes had adjusted to near cave-fish level by now. He saw Kaia beside him, her pajamas reknotted firmly, and beyond her the vague glow that filtered in through the opening to the passage, a cleft in the rock shrouded by hanging ferns and tendrils of underbrush.

Rhodes stood just inside the mouth of the passage, where the shadows kept him hidden. Deal crept quietly up to join him along with Basil, Kaia just behind. Rhodes turned, his eyes widening as if to question the quality of the silence outside: the slightest lapping of waves at the reef-protected shore, the rustle of the breeze through the fronds, the distant pulse of tree frogs and insects from the land above.

“Could be they’re all up at the house,” Basil said quietly.

Rhodes nodded. “Only one way to find out,” he said, edging toward the entrance to the passage.

“Is that our only weapon?” Deal asked, nodding at the automatic pistol that Basil had slung by a strap at his shoulder.

Rhodes turned his hand over without comment, displaying a small-caliber pistol in his palm. Deal nodded. He was left with his hands, then, and he supposed there was some appropriateness in that. He’d made a life using his hands. Might as well try and save it with them.

Basil had his pistol ready as he pushed quietly through the fronds. He hesitated, surveying the shoreline near the dock, then finally motioned to Rhodes. “Nobody on the dock,” he said. “Not that I can see, anyway.”

“We’ll try to make it to the boat,” Rhodes said to Deal and Kaia. “If there’s shooting, take cover here.”

Deal nodded, sticking close on Rhodes’ steps as they moved out over the rocky shore. He turned to offer a hand to Kaia, but she was moving nimbly, even though her feet were bare.

Basil moved quickly across the rocky shingle of beach to a set of steps carved into the incline leading to the dark finger of dock. He glanced out over the deserted planks to his left, then back in the other direction, toward the house.

Deal heard the thudding of footsteps across the darkened swath of lawn then, and saw the big man tense, raising his weapon to fire. “Get down,” Deal whispered, spinning toward Kaia. She dropped into a crouch near the embankment.

Rhodes came up toward the embankment with his pistol braced, flanking Basil by a dozen yards or so. Deal stared out into the darkness, wondering what he was supposed to do. Throw a few rocks? Call out assurances to the men with the guns?

As it turned out, he was able to manage something. The fact that he hadn’t moved for cover yet gave him an angle on the man running toward them that the others didn’t have. “Don’t shoot,” he cried as he saw who it was.

Rhodes glanced back at him in puzzlement, but Basil never wavered. He had his weapon homed in on the direction of the sounds, ready to fire.

“It’s your brother,” Deal called, lunging for Basil’s arm. “It’s Frank.”

Basil jerked his arm away from Deal’s grasp. “You better hope it is,” he growled.

Another moment or two and the familiar silhouette was outlined against the starlit sky, clear enough for Basil’s reassurance. “Well, goddamn,” he said. He glanced at Deal, then stood up to call, “It’s us, little brother!”

Frank went sprawling for cover, his gun hand braced in reflex.

“Cut the shit,” Basil called again.

“Sonofabitch,” Frank said, scrambling to his knees.

They were all up the embankment then, joining him at the place where the dock spliced onto land.

“I thought I was history—” Frank began.

“You still could be,” Basil observed.

“What’s going on up there?” Rhodes cut in.

Frank shook his head. “They’re tearing through the house. I’m not sure how many, six or eight of them. I saw a couple lying by the front door.”

“Babescu’s men?” Rhodes asked.

Frank nodded. “There’s a boat put in by the caretaker’s place, the next cove around. Thirty-footer maybe, like one of those cutters the Bahamian cops use. Can’t be that many left, whoever they are.”

“You got the one with the rifle, that was shooting into the house?” Basil asked.

Frank nodded. “Sonofabitch sitting in a tree,” he said. “Shot him right up his ass.”

Basil grunted something that sounded like approval. Rhodes’ attention was still on the distant house. “They’ll be down here soon enough,” he said. “As soon as they realize we’re gone.”

Basil looked at his boss. “You want to wait, see if we can take them?”

Frank shook his head. “We’re a little short on firepower.”

Rhodes glanced at Kaia, then back at Basil. “We have the faster boat, don’t we?”

“They got a Bahamian police cutter?” Basil shrugged. “If we can beat them to the open water, we ought to be all right.”

“Then we’re out of here,” Rhodes said. And in the next moment they were all pounding down the dock.

***

Deal stood near the rear of the boat, listening with mixed emotions as the big engines of the Cigarette kicked into life. Plenty of power there, all right…but a roar like that would carry easily back to the house, no matter what was going on inside. He glanced toward the front of the cockpit of the boat, past Basil, who was working intently at the controls, to where Kaia stood at the opposite rail. Rhodes was beside her, his arm around her shoulders, saying something in her ear. Whatever it was, Deal hoped it was reassuring. He could use a bit of reassuring himself.

Frank, meantime, had untied the last of the lines and jumped down into the cockpit even as Basil was swinging them away from the dock. “You trying to leave me, big brother?” Frank called as he hit the deck and rolled.

“You want to hang around till you see the whites of their eyes?” Basil gunned the engines then, making conversation all but impossible as they hurtled down a moonlit channel marked by stone breakwaters on either side.

Less than a hundred yards out, the breakwaters fell away behind them, and Basil cut the engines abruptly. “What’s wrong?” Kaia called from her place at the rail They were still making headway, but compared to that initial burst of speed, they might as well have been crawling.

“The reefs,” Deal told her as he made his way forward. “We’ll have to pick our way out to deep water from here.” He didn’t know how far it was, nor how tricky this particular set of shallows might be, but the grim possibilities were many: they could shear off their props on a rocky outcrop, run aground on a sandbar where they’d be sitting ducks, or simply tear out the bottom of the boat and sink.

Over the rumbling near-idle of the Cigarette, came a distant echo of other engines, these of a slightly higher pitch.

“Fucking Turks,” Basil muttered, glancing over his shoulder.

“We can’t use the spotlight to check the reefs,” Rhodes said. “They’ll home right in on us.”

“You have a hand-held?” Deal asked the big man behind the wheel.

Basil glanced at him. “You’re the ‘red-right-returning’ guy, right?”

“Come on, Basil,” Deal said as the sound of the distant engines grew. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

Basil rummaged inside a compartment on the console and came up with a rubber-coated marine flashlight. Deal reached for it and snapped it on. Nothing you’d want to mount a search-and-rescue mission with, he thought, but it would be a hell of a lot harder to spot at a distance. In any case, it would have to do.

Deal kicked off his leather-soled shoes, then pulled himself up over the low windshield onto the glossy foredeck of the slow-moving Cigarette. He made his way out to the prow in a hurried duckwalk and flattened himself on the deck, dangling his chin over as far as he dared. When he was steadied, he snapped on the light and angled the beam down toward the water.

Directly in front of them, the water held a satisfying dark-green cast. Ditto to the left. On the right, however, the color was trending toward a silty white. He made a frantic motion with his left hand and felt Basil swing the boat around accordingly. It would work, he thought. He could get them out to deep water this way, given enough time.