Gamma Blade - Tim Stevens Page 0,59

tested them for weight. Turned to Estrada.

She gripped his shoulder, briefly. “Goddamn it, Venn. Good luck.”

Venn began to row into the vast, engulfing darkness.

*

The other boat drew near at a little beyond the halfway mark. Venn realized he’d been rowing too fast, and had gotten there too soon.

He slowed.

The kid’s white face was the first detail he noted. The white face, and the black, wide eyes.

As the boats passed, Venn stared at both the kid, and the man holding him.

The kid didn’t meet his gaze.

The man stared into his eyes, hard, like he was challenging him.

And suddenly Venn had had enough.

He’d assumed there’d be a sizable welcoming committee on the boat he was rowing toward. But he also assumed they wouldn’t kill him then and there.

Rather, they’d deliver him to Brull on the mainland. And that afforded a window of opportunity, between capture and handover, during which Venn could assess the situation and come up with a plan. One which would allow him both to take down Brull, and escape.

But now, seeing the young boy with his dull, blank expression, and the hard-faced mobster who was escorting him, Venn had enough.

He waited till he’d rowed just past the other boat, till their ends were five feet apart.

Then he let go of the right-hand oar and pulled out his Beretta and shot the shaven-headed man through the head.

The guy tipped over without so much as a scream, plunging into the water with a splash that almost, but not quite, drowned out the crack of the shot across the surface.

The tilting of the boat threw the boy sideways and into the water, though the rowboat righted itself.

Venn lunged, grabbing at the kid, seizing a limb - arm or leg, he didn’t know - and hauling so that the wriggling, dripping child emerged from the water and Venn managed to haul him over the rim of the rowboat and fling him to floor and lie over him.

He said, “Hector, my name’s Joe. I’m a friend, okay? I’m gonna get you back to your mom and dad. Just stay down there, you understand me?”

The boy’s one visible eye, white and terrified, seemed to understand.

Venn put the Beretta within reach and grasped the oars and began to haul ass, turning the rowboat back toward the Sea Stealer.

Chapter 34

Elon yelled through the speakerphone: “He’s shot Rico, he’s shot Rico. Venn has the kid and he’s heading back to the Sea Stealer.”

“Son of a bitch.” Brull slammed his fist into the cabin wall. “Shoot him. Shoot them both. Kill him and the kid.”

Through the speakers, Brull heard the hammer of gunfire. He heard it live as well, far fainter, carried across the surface of the sea.

“Dammit,” Elon snarled. “He’s just out of range.”

“Then close in,” shouted Brull.

“We’re turning and heading after him,” Elon said. “But he’ll get close to the Sea Stealer before we’re in range. They may have guns on board.”

“Okay,” said Brull. “I’m coming.”

“Boss, you think that’s wise?” Elon broke off to call to one of the men with him. He came back: “You need to stay out of this.”

“The hell with that.” Brull signaled to the skipper of the ship, indicated he wanted him to head toward the mainland. “This asshole has dissed me for the last time.”

Brull reached into his coat pocket and drew his gun. A Heckler & Koch, precision German engineering. With a full magazine, and a spare in his pocket.

Venn and the snot-nosed kid were history.

Chapter 35

John Purkiss had, in the last hour, obtained a new set of clothes to replace his hospital pajamas (courtesy of the contents of a dumpster next to a residential block), had picked the pocket of a slightly tipsy middle-aged man who was taking a stroll with his equally merry wife along the promenade, stealing the man’s wallet (though he’d return it by mail in due course, with the contents fully reimbursed), and had procured a speedboat from an all-night rental firm.

He’d listened in on the bug he’d planted in Estrada’s station wagon, and had followed Venn’s and Estrada’s movements to the docks and beyond, watching them boarding the boat, the Sea Stealer.

And, after a discreet delay, he’d taken off after them.

Now, he saw the scene ahead. The two rowboats approaching one another, like beetles crawling across the twig of the horizon. A sudden flash, followed by the delayed report of a gunshot across the water. Splashing, churning of water, and then one of the boats turning and heading back where it had come from,