The Terror of Living (13 page)

    Those two bullets had been meant to kill him. Perfect, well- placed head shots, but the unexpected had happened, a slight drift of the boat as the ferry wake had come under it.

    There was a pause, a strange silence, waves running along the hull, the almost imperceptible rocking of the boat as the ocean lifted and then gave it back. Hunt leaned over the edge of the gunwale and looked into the darkness. Nothing moved, and for a second he thought it was all over. He carried the small Browning. It had been there all the time, since he'd returned from the mountains. He held it now and looked in the direction he thought the shots had come from.

    Muzzle fire lit in five short bursts, and by the time he dropped his head, the bullets were already slamming into the side of the boat.
Thwok-tbwok-tkwok,
like river stones breaching the water from a high bridge, fast and silent. A couple of rounds missed, just inches over the gunwale, and went whistling off over his starboard side. Hunt heard a boat's engine start, something powerful, something with some speed behind it. By the time he reached the cockpit, bullets were boiling across the bow of the Bayliner.

    The boat sat there stiff as a corpse on a table, Hunt too scared to rise up and push the throttle forward. With his head ducked, Hunt wedged the muzzle of the Browning into the back pocket of his jeans and grabbed a cotton towel from the side compartment, below the cockpit. He could hear the other boat coming on, the fall and surge of the propeller as it gripped the waves.

    He lit the towel with his lighter and lay blowing the flame as another surge of bullets broke over the boat. Fiberglass dust fell everywhere and bit into Hunt's lungs. He felt the cockpit glass fall in a thousand little pieces, crystals of it everywhere and all through his hair. He shook to get them off and blew again into the rising flame of the towel. When the fibers caught and he could see the cotton begin to bend and take the flame, he stuffed the unlit end into the spare gas barrel. He rose and threw the barrel over his port side. He heard the splash but did not turn to see if the towel remained lit. A volley of bullets cut across the cockpit.

    A sudden sliver of pain in his calf dropped him to his knees. Something sparked and he could smell the plastic odor of electricity and rubber. He groaned, knew he was hurt, but didn't have time to care. He took a quick look back over the port side at the floating barrel beside him. It was still lit, flame playing at the opening.

    Fear gave him courage. He reached up to grab the throttle and pushed it forward; the engines surged to life, the boat lifting up out of the water with the speed. Two seconds later, he could see behind him the giant fireball of fuel spreading into the sky and the dark cloud of a gas fire blotting out the moon and stars. The gasoline spread along the water and for a minute he watched the flames and the lick of the smoke as it rose.

    THE EXPLOSION LIT ON THE NIGHT WATER, AND GRADY, who had been moving fast, slowed the boat and raised a hand to shield his eyes. He swore under his breath. "Now what?" he said, looking out on the fire as it rose red, then black into the night, the reflection swept along with the current of the water. The light had fried his retinas, as if he had sat staring into a campfire and then looked away, only to see that night surrounded him, dark and hard as a wall.

    Grady brought the throttle down and slowed the boat to a near stop. He heard the rush of the flames as they fed on the night air, and the lap of the water against his hull. Nothing else. One of the bullets must have hit the fuel line, perhaps a spark igniting it all? He thought he'd seen Hunt falter a bit, taking a bullet. Grady raised the scope to his eye and looked into the fire, but the light was everywhere and too much for the night vision.

    He eased the throttle forward and circled his boat once through the smoke. Smell of seawater and gasoline, the odor running all through him, over the cockpit and up into his nostrils, where he took it down into his throat and swallowed it whole. No debris. Not one thing. Just a burning lake of flame on the water. He cursed again and raised the scope, running the night vision out onto the surrounding water. A white trail of engine froth a mile off.

    THE DRAW OF HIS WAKE LAY BEHIND HUNT IN A WHITE trail. Depending on how far behind him the other boat was, he knew it would not be difficult to follow him. The gas explosion had only given him time. He opened up the throttle-the engines roaring behind him-and looked on ahead, with the boat bouncing recklessly from port to starboard as it bit into the chop before him. He heard the Vietnamese girl inside the cabin let out a muffled scream. In that moment he didn't care: they needed to get away and he was trying his best to get them there. The glass that had fallen along the bow now clattered back with the wind and fell all around him. He was standing with his knees bent, taking the chop as it came, trying to anticipate the fall and rise of the water he was running across.

    Behind him the white track of the boat spread out until it was lost in the grays and blacks of the night. The motors blared behind him. The wind came full on through the broken cockpit window and whipped him hard in the face and made his eyes water. He'd dropped the Browning somewhere, and from time to time he felt it skitter along the cockpit floor and hit his foot. When he bent into the wind and turned to look behind him, he could see nothing but the white boat wake and the night stretched out dark as wine on the distant water, a horizon of fire where the gas can had gone up. Even this was fading, as if he were rounding the edge of the earth and it were going up over the curve.

    Hunt slowed the engine and let it drift in neutral. There was a growing pain in his calf, and he knew something was wrong; he felt the blood and the swelling calf filling up the confines of his jeans. He didn't look down, didn't want to. For fear, or perhaps just out of necessity, he didn't take his eyes off the water behind him, and he listened and waited for whoever was chasing after him.

    He could hear the soft gurgle of his engine belt and then, in the distance, the slap of a boat taking waves fast and jarring with the movement. He heard the air wallop under the boat, the smacking sound of the water as it came. In the night, he couldn't tell in which direction the boat was running, but he could see nearly a quarter mile off where his own wake lay and hoped it was not anywhere close.

    From Hunt's port side, a searchlight blazed on, and he saw the water in the night and the green of the ocean and how the light sank into it and then disappeared. He knew by the height of the searchlight that one of the big sixty-foot Coast Guard cutters had been attracted by the explosion. He knew that they would have radar, that he was already a blip on their screen. He knew, too, that if needed, he could outrun them.

    The captain of the cutter came on the loudspeaker, the light searching the water, but as Hunt watched he became aware it was not him they were looking for. Still night out there and the amplified, almost mechanical voice of the captain playing on the water, Hunt placed his hands on the metal frame of the windshield and watched as the Coast Guard's tower light scanned the darkness. He turned his engines off completely and listened: the deep thrumming of the cutter's engines, and something else, too, a gurgling of horsepower out there, water lapping at the sides of his boat, and his pursuer shrouded somewhere in the darkness.

    The searchlight passed across the surface of the water. A half mile off, Hunt saw the other boat come into focus and be taken up in the light, a midnight blue sixteen-footer with twin engines. The cutter turned, training a steady beam of light now on Hunt's pursuer. As the cutter came on, Hunt watched the small boat rise up out of the water, propelled forward on two powerful motors, light chasing after it, froth spraying in the air, and then the huge bow of the cutter came into view as the searchlight followed. There was the sound of the machine gun again from the smaller boat and the look of sparks flying along the cutter's metal hull.

    From the compartment to the right of the throttle, Hunt raised the binoculars and sighted the smaller boat. With one hand on the wheel, the man raised the gun and fired on the cutter, the machine gun bucking wildly in his hand and the bullets spraying everywhere.

    Twice the smaller boat circled the cutter, the bullets reaching up toward the light, trying to take it, trying to leave all of them in darkness once again. On the second turn, Hunt could see the man clearly, the thin white skin, with the pale pink around the eyes and the dark, blood-filled bags beneath. He knew him, recognized him from the docks, from their conversation.

    Grady charged the cutter and let out a muzzle burst. There was the clatter of bullets ricocheting on the cutter's metal hull. The searchlight went up in a shower of sparks, and Hunt could hear Grady's smaller boat passing through the ensuing darkness, the noise of the boat's engines falling as the cutter came between him and Grady, chasing after Grady. Still, Hunt could hear the sound of the loudspeaker and then gunshots, different from the ones that had sounded before, pistol fire from the cutter, without the reckless sweep of the automatic. In the darkness there was no clear target, and Hunt knew Grady would get away.

    Hunt waited, listening as the two boats moved off. When he was sure they had moved far enough away, Hunt started his engine. The Bayliner gurgled to a start and the smell of exhaust came to his nose and tainted the air. Grady had the Coast Guard's attention for now. The muffled sound of pistol fire came across the water, pulled on the wind like distant thunder. Hunt listened for return fire from the machine gun but didn't hear anything more than the water at the sides of his boat. It was as still and calm as it had been before. He breathed deeply, the taste of the air on his tongue, rich ocean air, saline and vegetal. Cold north wind funneled down out of Canada. Hunt opened up the throttle again and sped toward land.

BY LAND

    FROM WHERE HE LAY ON THE COUCH IN THE LIVING room, Eddie heard the kitchen phone ring. By the end of the first ring, he could hear the pulse of the phone upstairs, the two phones off by a half second. He knew then that it had not gone as he thought it would and that Hunt was alive.

    For a moment he lay there on the couch and listened to the muffled sound of Nora's voice. From beneath the cushion where his head rested, he removed the.22 and disengaged the safety. He wore a pair of Hunt's sweats and an old T-shirt he had been given. With the pistol in his hand he went up the stairs until he could see the light escaping beneath the door. He waited a moment on the stairs, feeling the soft imprint of the gun in his hand.

    After a half second, he went to the door and rapped lightly. The pistol he put to the left of the doorframe, and with it hidden, he opened the door. Nora turned to look up at him from the bed, her eyes playing over him for just a second before looking away. She had pulled the phone to her, and the line lay all along the floor and climbed the bed to where she sat. He stood looking down at her from the doorway, the gun held out beyond the frame in the hallway. He didn't want to use it, but he would. It seemed unreal to him that this was what it had come to. He didn't know what Hunt had told her already, but he could hear his voice on the other end of the line and it sounded rushed and a little frantic but not altogether out of control. Eddie looked for any sign of recognition in Nora's face. Again, he hoped to find nothing.

    "Eddie is here," Nora said, and looked up at him. "No. I'll put it together, but the truck?" She went to look out the window, and Eddie knew she was looking at the horse trailer and he knew exactly what Hunt was thinking.

    "Does he want to speak to me?" Eddie asked. He was still waiting at the door, his hand growing tired from holding the gun, and then as he lowered it to rest against the outside frame, he heard the butt skip a moment along the wall. Nora was still at the window, listening to Hunt. "Let me talk to him, Nora."

    Nora turned to look at Eddie, but when she asked Hunt, her face showed no indication that Hunt cared to speak to him. "Give me the phone, Nora." Eddie felt his hand tighten on the grip, and he was careful to raise his finger from the trigger and place it along the guard. Nora gave him a look and turned back to the window. "Okay," she said. "Okay. Yes, I think I can do that." And then she was saying good-bye and putting the phone back in the cradle of the receiver.

    "Why didn't he want to talk to me?"

    Nora turned and in the same moment began to move across the room. "He said something went wrong. He said someone tried to kill him. It was not the Coast Guard, or the DEA, but someone with an M-16 or something big, shooting up the boat. He says he still has the package, but he's hurt. I could hear it in his voice. He wouldn't tell me a thing about it." Nora drew up next to Eddie and she stood looking up at him, his chin just at the height of her nose and cheekbones. "I could tell something was wrong. His voice was strained in a way I've never heard before." Eddie brought his arm around and he hugged her close in the doorframe and brought the gun up until his arm was played back and the.22 rested safely behind him.

    "He'll be fine," Eddie said. "He'll be just fine."

    THOUGH THE COAST GUARD HAD STOPPED SHOOTING, Grady turned wide, throwing the boat up on its starboard side and hitting the throttle. Close behind, he could see how the cutter ate up the trail of his wake. He saw the green and red beacon lights and the aura of white light produced by the internal cabins. He didn't know where Hunt was; for the moment he didn't care. All he could think about was getting away. In his smaller boat he was certainly faster, but he was sure there would be inflatable Zodiacs and, if he didn't reach the shore soon enough, a helicopter. The lights of a small community lay ahead of him. He had no way of knowing whether the water he was riding through was Canadian or American, and he pushed the boat faster, standing in front of the wheel and feeling the spent shell casings bobble and roll against his feet. There was the hollow metal sound as the casings rolled back with the boat, and when he looked around he could see them all there, building into a small mound against the aft deck.