Ocean Burning (17 page)

“You know what, fuck this,” Rigger said with characteristic elegance. “I’m done.”

“Stay with me, baby,” Carmen said. “Don’t leave me now.”

I snorted. It must have been audible; they both looked at me.

“You two?” I said.

“Together since the start,” Carmen said.

“Sure, since the start of this job. You believe a word she says?” I asked Rigger.

He said nothing.

“She was with me five years ago, Rigger. Know what happened? She played me. She played Ben Hawking. She played Carlos. Then she played me again. See a pattern developing?”

“Shut up,” Carmen said to me. To Rigger: “Don’t listen to him. We have something special.”

“Yeah,” he said, “about a half-million in cash.”

Rigger went stone-faced.

“Don’t be like that,” she said.

“Maybe you love me, maybe you don’t. Here’s the thing: I’m not sure which would be worse.” He laughed. “I’d rather never know. But what I do want is my half.”

The pleading look on Carmen’s face dissolved, turned cold again. “Half?” she said slowly.

“Half. Two of us left. You do the math.”

“I set this whole thing up. I get—”

The mouth of the shotgun suddenly swung around and pointed her way. That shut her up.

“Half,” he said again, and backed away from both of us, down the port side to the stern, the shotgun never wavering. She stared at him. So did I. Then he vanished around the bulkhead and down the stairs.

My watch blinked at me.
82:21.

I had to do something, but of course that’s what Carmen was waiting for. On the other hand, she was trapped, forced to cover me instead of going after Rigger. She tore her gaze away from the stern and focused it on me. He look was reptilian in nature. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I realized she was deciding whether or not to shoot me right then and there.

My blood ran cold.

Then she smiled, and leveled the barrel of the gun right between my eyes.

Now or never.

I snapped my leg out and swept it from right to left as hard and fast as I could. It caught Carmen right in the back of the knees, and they started to buckle just as she pulled the trigger. The revolver roared at me, and something tapped me on the left side of the head.

I waited to die.

Nothing happened, except that Carmen stumbled.

She took a step to catch her balance, had to take another one unexpectedly, tangled her own feet, and tipped over backwards. Her hands never let go of the gun’s grip—not for a second. That didn’t leave anything to catch herself with, other than her head.

It cracked onto the deck, and the gun skittered away towards the bow. She lay between me and the gun, and I had to make a decision.

No time.

Something hot and sticky dribbled down my forehead. I raised my left hand to wipe it away, and it came back red. I’d been shot after all, and the wound was bleeding right into my eyes.

I wiped them. When my vision cleared, Carmen had pulled herself more than halfway to the gun.

No time!

I turned and ran down the side of the boat. I reached the stern, and dodged sideways around the bulkhead just as another shot rang out behind me. I looked over my shoulder, started down the stairs—

—and ran right into Rigger’s massive, barrel chest. He put the hand from his good arm right in the center of my torso, and gave what looked for all the world like a casual shrug.

It felt like being hit with a cannonball. I flew backwards up the stairs and across the deck, my legs pinwheeling. The engine housing caught me in the back, and I bounced off.

My back screamed at me, and something felt twisted inside.

“Don’t do it,” I muttered to Rigger.

“Don’t do what? You can have her for all I care.”

“Don’t leave.”

He laughed out loud, pushed me again. I sprawled across deck.

“Yes, don’t leave,” Carmen said, coming out from behind the corner. “We can still work it out, baby.” The gun hung loosely by her side.

Rigger still had his shotgun.

“The only reason I think you’d want me to stay,” he said, “is that you never planned to give me my cut of the money. Did you?”

He studied her face, then nodded to himself.

“No, I didn’t think so. These boys have it right. Everyone around you gets burned. See this?”

He traced the smooth canyon of a scar down the side of his face.

“I’ve already been burned. And once was enough.”

“Rigger, please, don’t leave me here with them,” Carmen said. Her lips puckered in fear, and a single tear emerged from the corner of her eye and ran down one cheek.

Rigger laughed again. “You’re a hell of a woman,” he said. “With one of them locked up, and you with the gun? I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

Carmen petted the revolver’s hammer, sizing Rigger up.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “You hired me for a reason.”

He slung a heavy-looking backpack over one shoulder, checked his grip on the shotgun, then started to climb backwards over the rail onto the raft. He moved slowly, carefully. He was very aware, I thought, of the fins slicing the water behind him. He felt with one toe, found the plastic bottom of the raft, and bounced down into it.

“Half the money’s still down below. I’ve got supplies too, enough to make it across the island. I won’t spend one more minute with you. I want to live.”

“Just shoot me then,” Carmen said.

“Never killed a woman. Don’t really want to. But push me…” He raised the shotgun barrel, leaned down, and tugged hard on the cord attached to the little engine. It sputtered, then caught and came to life.

“Shoot her, Rigger,” I yelled over the engine.

Carmen raised the revolved, pointed it at me.

“Shoot her,” I said again.

“Naw.” Rigger grinned at me. “Good luck with that one.”

“Don’t leave me here with her alive,” I said. “I’m warning you.”

He looked puzzled for a second, then his face cleared. He brushed off my words. “You warning me. That’s a good one, mate.” He let the shotgun drop into his lap. The throttle twisted under his meaty hand, the Kodiak shot away from the stern.

It got about fifteen feet, and then something tugged on it. The raft began to slow down. Rigger, as I’d known he would, twisted the throttle harder, then harder still.

Something gave an audible pop, and the craft blazed away from us like an arrow from a bow, as though a rubber band connecting us had just been cut.

And indeed, it was nearly that.

I knew exactly what the sound was. Back on the island, just before we left, I’d scrounged a hot coal from the fire and found a piece of nylon cord. On my knees, bent over the boat, I’d melted the end of the rope to the plug, the one used to deflate the raft. It was the same rope I’d tied securely to the
Purple
just before climbing aboard. I’d been adamant with Ben: no one was going to leave in the raft except for us.

And no one would. Rigger had just pulled his own plug.

He made it another ten yards before the sides started to collapse. I could see him twisting at the throttle, desperately pulling at the throttle arm, trying to turn back.

“What did you do?” Carmen said, and hit me across the back of the head with the butt her gun. I wiped blood out of my eyes again. Scalp wounds gush.

Somehow, Rigger got the Kodiak pointed back towards us. I had an excellent view of his face. He looked determined. He knew something had been done to the raft, but was confident he would survive it. After all, he’d survived everything else in his life up until this point. I wondered how many other people like Carlos and his brother had made the mistake of working with Rigger.

The raft chugged towards us, and for a brief second I thought he might make it. Twenty yards away, he gunned the engine. It was one too many times. The raft had no air left in it, and the bow folded under a wave. Seawater crashed in, and what air remained squirted out the plug hole under its weight.

Rigger’s face transformed into something horrible. It had always been disfigured, but this time it had nothing to do with the scar. It was knowledge in his eyes, pure and simple. He had a sudden, clear, and uncompromising vision of what was about to happen to him. He could see it coming.

So could I.

The weight of the engine dragged the entire boat down under him. In seconds, it was gone. Rigger floated for a moment, then swam for the boat. He pulled himself through the water with one arm, slapping at the waves, going as fast as he could. The heavy looking pack still strapped to his back threatened to drag him down.

He was fifteen yards away.

A thought popped into my head, one of those tiny pieces of information you pick up working on the ocean: A group of sharks is called a shiver.

He was ten yards away.

Then five yards.

He didn’t make it.

The shiver of sharks ripped through his flesh like wet tissue paper, already in a blood frenzy because of Carlos. They tore at his legs and his arms, putting those razor sharp teeth to good use. His screams filled the air.

“What did you do?” Carmen said again.

“What’s good for the goose, and all that,” I said, and looked at my watch.

86:31.

“Let’s get this over with,” Carmen said.

“Ben’s already dead?”

“Actually, I was thinking of shooting you together. Now get down below.”

The stairs had never seemed longer. I took my time, clock be damned. At the bottom of the staircase I scanned the room, but the galley was abandoned.

“Rear compartment,” Carmen said behind me. I could feel the sight of the gun, an icy laser, trained on my back. “Go ahead, open it up.”

The door had a chair wedged underneath the knob. I pulled it free and swung the door open.

“Frank,” Ben croaked.

“Jesus,” I said.

They’d roughed him up, asked him a few questions the hard way. The very hard way, from the looks of it. His whole head was black and blue. One eye had swollen shut completely, and the other looked to be getting there. Worst of all was his ankle. Someone had used it to practice punting; it jutted out at an angle that was all wrong.

“Rigger,” he said, answering the question I hadn’t asked. He’d caught me staring at the bloody mess at the bottom of his leg.

“He won’t be a problem any more,” I said, and looked at him knowingly. “He took the raft.”

“That was him? I heard the screams. Shit.” All his words came out mushy. Take repeated blows to the face and your own teeth tear up your cheeks and gums. The
Federales
had done something similar to my head the first time Carmen got her claws into me.

It must have hurt like hell, but right then he smiled.

“Enough happy reunion,” Carmen said. “Get him out here.”

I caught Ben under the arms, propped his weight against me. Together, we hobbled out into the galley and collapsed onto the couch.

“Perfect. Now. Where’s the cap?”

“Excuse me?” I tried to sound sincere.

“No more games. There’s a hell of a lot you don’t know about me.”

“I’ll say,” Ben groaned, clutching the ankle.

“And I know what a distributor cap is, Frank.”

“It’s already back in place,” I said. “We were planning to make a quick get away after we got the drop on you.”

“Great. Then I think we’re done here.” She caressed the butt of the revolver lovingly.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ben said.

“You’re right, honey, I don’t. I want to, though. No denying that.”

Her beautiful dead eyes stared right back at him, and I could feel Ben start to squirm next to me, the weight of their gaze leaning on him.

“The thing is, honey, I don’t have a use for you anymore. Your part has been played. Frank on the other hand…”

I resisted the urge to say, what about Frank?

“I may be beautiful and smart, but boats are a little outside my…comfort zone. I had three good men to help me with that at the beginning of the plan. Now it appears there is an opening. What do you say, Frank?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Sure you do. We had some good times together, didn’t we? Let’s kill this piece of fluff,” she gestured to Ben with the gun barrel, “and split the cash. There’s hell of a lot of money in here.” She reached down, hefted the black duffel.

“If Rigger didn’t take it all,” I said.

“That man was a lot of things, but he always came at you head on. Deception was never his strong suit.”

The bag looked heavy in her hand. Hell, I’d felt it, but watching her flex her arm muscle to keep it airborne gave me goosebumps. The weight of money. I’d never had so much money that it could be measured in pounds.

“How much?” I said.

“A lot.”

I stared at her, could feel Ben staring at me.

“Come on,” she said. “Once he’s dead, we can toss it all over the bed. Haven’t you every wanted to fuck a girl on top of six hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”

She touched my hair again. Gently. With tenderness. Then she kissed me. Some part of the raw anger, the hatred, evaporated away inside me. I was surprised at myself, that all those raw emotions could drain away in her presence, but that wasn’t what sickened me.

The sickening part was: it wasn’t her. Carmen looked gorgeous. I wanted her. Some part of me wanted to be with her again. But the gush of hate inside me couldn’t be shut off by mere good looks. That’s wasn’t it.

It was the money. A hell of a lot of money.

“Frank, don’t.” Ben must have seen something in my face, because looked scared. I glanced at my watch:
88:01
. Decision time.

“Have a drink, Frank.” Carmen reached around the kitchen counter, pulled out a bottle of scotch, tossed it to me. I caught it without thinking.

“I’m trying to quit,” I said.

She laughed. “You never could hold your liquor.”

The amber liquid winked at me. I wanted to get drunk and be rich. Ben just stared at me, pleading. He knew I was considering it.

88:32.

“That’s what it is,” Carmen said. “Something seemed different about you these last few hours, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Now I’ve got it—you’re sober. That’s what it is.”