The Last Family

52

Martin had cut the mooring unes and piloted through the walls of flame out into the chop, the Shadowfax pitching violently in the swells as it entered the lake. He had set a course for the causeway bridge and in a few minutes drew up alongside it. Then he had set the boat’s autopilot to hold a course parallel to the twin spans, figuring that the bridge would mask the craft’s silhouette from radar detection. The wind was steady from the southwest with gusts to forty knots. The boat listed hard to stern as the rudder worked to maintain the heading toward the north shore some twenty-five miles distant.

Kurt had placed the scuba tanks, masks, and flippers on the deck behind the rear mast. He had also placed a pound of plastique against the gas tank and equipped it with a remote detonator. There were two remote triggers with an effective range of one mile; they were operated by depressing a button and then releasing the pressure, at which point there was a detonation. The Semtex would convert the boat into confetti, the water for a hundred yards into a vapor cloud. They had used far less on the hulls of the three vessels in the harbor and the boathouses Martin had wanted neutralized. Kurt thought about how he had lain in wait under a pier and had overtaken the Coast Guard diver and killed him silently beneath the murky surface, before taking his place.

So far the plan, hastily put together, was working like a charm. Martin was a true professional, he thought. He could think on the fly, and with less information than people with all the time and field intelligence in the world.

Reid, propped against the wall in the bedroom, heard someone moving in the hallway and placed the gun at his side, out of sight. He was too dizzy to stand and was lying there still naked, wet, and bleeding. He watched as a silhouetted figure filled the open door.

“You’d be who?”

“Reid… Reid Dietrich.”

“Please, I know your name isn’t Dietrich. What is it, really?”

Reid closed his eyes for a few seconds and opened them. “George Spivey.”

“Spivey? Oh, yes. That was your setup on the pier?”

“I planned to have you there.”

Martin laughed. “A nice practice exercise.”

“I underestimated you.”

“So, tell me-you turned Lallo. You had something on him?”

Reid nodded.

“His business partners were his weak spot. He didn’t need that. It was the excitement. I liked him, but because of his disloyalty he died like a pig, squealing in the dark.”

“And you won’t?”

“I’m short on time, so I’ll get to the meat of the matter. You’re a professional. I’m a professional. I won. You lost. Stakes we play for are death.”

“Aren’t you curious? About my mission? Who sent me?”

“Hell, son, you were supposed to kill me. Am I wrong? Like Woody. Why didn’t you join them on the dock? Prior engagement?”

George Spivey nodded.

“Okay, George. Who sent you in?”

George Spivey shook his head, pain filling his eyes.

“Well, George Spivey, in my day the word ‘professional’ meant something. That Woody-now he’s a professional. Him, I had to outflank.”

George Spivey managed to smile.

“Nice boat, George. Solid, seaworthy. Yours or theirs?”

“Rich uncle.”

“Confiscated by the DEA.” He smiled. “I’m gonna blow it up anyway. Your head must hurt. Kurt’s excitable, he thought he’d probably killed you. Frankly, I didn’t expect to find you so alert.”

“My head feels like an asshole that’s had a cherry bomb go off in it.”

Martin laughed again. “Very descriptive. You should have been a comedian. Laughing in the face of impossible odds is an admirable trait.”

Spivey nodded.

“Kurt had to neutralize you because I couldn’t have so dangerous an adversary walking about while I was tidying up and getting under sail.” There was a note of sarcasm in the word “dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Wait until you see what’s coming next.”

“I’m terrified,” he said flatly. “What are you, shadow man, CIA? Dark angel?”

“How did you know I wasn’t Reid Dietrich?”

“It’s elementary, my dear Watson. The Reid Dietrich living in Atlanta was seventy-five years old. His son, the one whose identity you absorbed, was killed in a car accident in college. The company you supposedly own consists of a girl with a telephone in a depressing building in Fort Lauderdale. If the phone rings, she says the name of the company. If anyone asks for you, she says she’ll take a message. Very large woman by the name of Trudy Winters.”

Reid tried to clear his eyes-his vision was blurred and he couldn’t hear out of his right ear. “Very impressive.” He readied the pistol, which was wedged between his leg and the wall. He could hit Martin, but he didn’t know where Kurt Steiner was.

Martin moved to the dresser and sat on the edge. “Whose voice do you answer to?”

“I’m freelance.”

“The CIA paying your expenses?”

“Pick any initials. They all want a piece of you.”

“DEA?”

Spivey turned his head away.

“Very good. I underestimated them. What am I worth dead to Masterson?”

“Not Masterson. Robertson. Seven-fifty.”

Martin stood and glowered down at his adversary. “Time is growing short. Where do you want it?”

Martin pulled out his Browning. 380 and slowly screwed on the silencer. “Been too much loud noise around here tonight. Hate to alarm the children prematurely. You’re a pro. Pick it-heads or hearts.”

“Listen, Fletcher. There’s no reason to kill me. I’ve lost the game because I didn’t know how good you were, didn’t believe it. But you are. Let me go. I can’t hurt you now.”

“What about Laura and the children?”

“The spoils of the battle. I’ll do something else as a show of good faith. T.C.”

“What about him? He’s paying you to take me out.”

“He expanded the hit.”

“Yes?”

“He wanted me to take Masterson out.”

“T.C. wants Masterson snuffed!” Martin laughed as he removed the magazine, checked it, then pulled the receiver back and peered inside as if checking for grime in the breech. He locked it, returned the magazine, and released the catch feeding the chamber. “That’s rich!” he said. “Do you think he’d pay me on that contract?”

“Let me go and I’ll do T.C. Robertson for free.”

“I would love to but I just can’t. Wouldn’t be fair to the other people who’ve lost to me.”

Reid swung the Glock up and aimed it at Martin’s chest.

“How about you lose,” he said as he pulled the trigger. There was a dry snap.

Martin smiled, his eyes coldly pleased. “Oh, George. And we were becoming so close. I’m afraid you’re typical of the kids today. No loyalty. No honesty.” Martin blew air through his lips and inhaled slowly. “Try again.”

George Spivey cleared the round with difficulty as Martin watched with a look approaching boredom. The heavy nine-millimeter round fell to the floor, and he pulled the trigger again. Another dry click.

“Wet ammo? Like a bad dream, isn’t it? No bullets, removed firing pin? Perhaps it happened when I was searching the boat and found your little cubbyhole. And the phony identifications. I guessed Spivey’s was the real driver’s license because that picture was the least flattering.” Martin aimed the pistol at Reid’s chest. “I know you were just doing your job. And I know you’re as harmless as a Christmas-tree ornament. But I don’t see where it is in my best interest to leave you sliding about on the floor like a seal. I might trip over you.”

Reid closed his eyes, then opened them to meet Martin’s, and nodded.

The sharp pop of the silenced pistol filled the small room, the shell casing bounced off the low ceiling, hit the paneled wall, and clic-clattered across the bureau. Reid’s pistol, still clenched in his fist, tipped onto the floor. There was a small black hole in Reid’s chest, which slowly filled with blood. The dark liquid bubbled out and ran in a thin line around his ribs and began swelling onto the carpet. Reid’s eyes reflected the shock of his new situation, and then the lids closed halfway down and locked.

“How soon it all comes to an end.” Martin dropped the gun to the side of his leg, put a hand to his chest, and looked down at George Spivey. “It’s so like poetry,” Martin said. He stepped into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and used a wet washcloth to wipe the splatters of Spivey’s blood from his face. Then he turned out the light and closed the door gently.

Laura… it’s Marty,” he sang as he pressed the lever knob on the V berth’s door. “I think we should talk now. How are those delightful children of yours? I’ve been thinking about you all for such a long time.”

“I’ve got a gun, Fletcher!” Her voice was solid, determined.

“Oh, please don’t shoot me through the door.” He tapped again, harder.

He heard the dry click of the Glock and smiled. “I hope it isn’t one of those guns from inside the bed. Reid had terrible luck with his. I think they must be of faulty manufacture. I can kick the door in, but I’d rather not destroy such a nice piece of wood. So you just come out.” He sat down on the couch. “Take your time, within reason… Waiting makes it better in the end.”

Thirty seconds passed before the door was unlocked and the knob, a brass lever, made a quarter turn. The door opened slowly and Laura stepped out, closing the door behind her-her body forming a protective shield. There was the sound of its being locked again from the inside. She stood defiantly erect, her arms crossed over her breasts, her chin up.

He patted the couch cushion. “Please, Laura, join me. Let’s catch up.”

She looked around and saw her purse on the coffee table by Martin’s foot. She had tucked her. 38 into it before they’d left the house.

“What did you do to Woody?”

“He’s worked so hard, I thought he deserved a nap. He is a feisty bastard.”

“And Reid?”

“This is the life, Laura,” he said. “The open seas-something really exciting about this, don’t you think? Brings out the swashbuckler in a man.”

“We didn’t do anything to you, Martin.”

“That’s true, Laura. But your ex-husband did.”

“Your problem’s with Paul, not us.”

“How do you like my new face?”

She looked at him, studying the features. He looked like a man of forty-two or so. Nothing unusual or attractive about the face. The eyes were like the eyes of something dead, or something that had never quite been alive. He was well-built, muscles tense under the skin like spring steel. He was grinding his jaws between speech, and he seemed steady and fidgety at the same time. Speed.

“You look different.”

“Better?”

“Fishing for a compliment?”

“Fishing. Interesting choice of words.”

“What are you planning to do with us?”

“Sit down and we’ll discuss it.” He patted the couch again.

Laura swallowed and forced herself to sit beside this creature. He put his hand on her leg and smiled, revealing a set of perfect teeth. She willed herself to allow his touch. His hand was as hard and cold as marble. Bloodless.

“Last time I did this, you tried to slap me.”

“I didn’t know what you were then.”

“Very good. Honesty. I admire that… in my fucks.” The last word hung between them, leaving something fetid in the air, like a creature long dead and visited by parasites.

He moved his hand to the point where her legs came together-resting on the ridge between them. She shivered involuntarily but made no move to resist. Let him have me if it helps Reb. I can take it. I can take anything for Reb. God, keep him behind that door.

“Why don’t you slip out of these?” he said.

“But, Martin, I don’t think you-”

The sudden slap across her mouth brought white light to her mind, a dull ache to her lips.

There was blood on her hand when she moved it from her mouth. She could feel the lip starting to swell. But instead of frightening her, the strike set her resolve. She knew that if she could, she would kill him as easily as she wiped paint from a brush.

His fingers tightened around her arms. “Rather I fuck Erin? Or the boy, maybe? I don’t mind young and tight, and gender is irrelevant. I’m doing you a favor. I’m offering you what I promised you years ago. Now, take ’em off, or I’ll take ’em off my way.” He pulled a folding knife from his pocket, opened it with a practiced flick of his wrist, and slipped the blade underneath her sweater, stopping at the neck. He pulled the knife, and the material parted under the blade silently, leaving her bra exposed to his view. “If you can satisfy me, maybe I’ll leave the kids alone.”

He doesn’t know Erin is gone.

“Promise?”

“No,” he said. “But I’ll consider it.”

Laura stood and removed what had been the V neck like a coat. Then he reached over with the knife and slid it under her bra, between her breasts, and pulled gently; the apparatus fell away, exposing her breasts.

He moved toward her and took one of her nipples between his fingers. He pinched it hard and let it go. Then he stabbed the knife into the beam behind the couch. He moved back and watched.

“The pants,” he said.

Laura closed her eyes briefly, steeled herself, and then removed her slacks and then her panties. Slowly, deliberately, playing for time. They’re coming. I know they are. Then she sat beside him, closed her eyes as he pressed her shoulders against the cushions, opened her legs. She waited for him to get it over with. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. He placed his cold hand over her vagina, manipulating the clitoris with a deft and delicate touch. As the finger moved inside her, she prayed she could stay dry as the only form of protest left to her. The idea of giving him any lubrication made her furious, but despite her revulsion, fear, and anger, her body defied her as his finger became slippery with her juices.

“You like this, don’t you?”

She bit her lip and tasted the new blood that came to her tongue. No, no, no. “Yes.” Kill me now.

“Can I fuck you? Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she said. God help me. Revulsion threatened to turn to vomit. She felt full of bile and fought the urge to throw up the way a child will-by lying very still, willing it away.

“Beg.”

“Please, Martin. Please…” You bastard.

“What?”

“Please…” She knew what he wanted to hear, and she forced herself to lip the words like a curse from the depths of her soul. “Please, fuck me.” She clenched her eyes and waited for him to take her, but he didn’t move. Then he stopped massaging her and removed his finger slowly.

He stood and, instead of taking down his pants, wrenched the knife from the beam, folded it loudly, and slipped it into his pocket.

She looked up and realized that he was not sexually aroused at all. Speed. Can’t get it up. She had to fight to make sure her overwhelming relief didn’t manifest itself with laughter. Her eyes must have asked the question, though.

“You don’t do anything for me. You’re too old.” He walked across to the kitchen. “I couldn’t help but notice Reb has your ass.”

She reached for her purse, grabbed it up, and knew from the heft that the gun wasn’t there.

He said, “I’m disappointed in you. Go back into your hole, Laura. Tell the children I’ll be coming for them soon. Tell them if they’re really good, I’ll share them with Kurt.”

Laura was crying as she pulled her jeans back on, wrapped herself in a lap blanket that had been folded over the back of the couch. As she slipped back into her jeans, she saw something on the floor. It was a curved, lens-shaped piece of the wineglass. She reached down as if she were cuffing her jeans and cupped the glass in her hand. She straightened and looked at Martin.

Get him close. “If you touch my children,” she said, “I’ll kill you.”

Martin laughed and walked over to stand in front of her. “You’ll what?”

She moved her hand through the air between them and struck at his exposed throat with the shard of glass, coming down and across as hard as she could. He pitched his shoulders back and tucked his chin reflexively. The glass opened a line across his face from the right ear to his nose. She had the impression that the lens-shaped blade had broken all the way through his cheek, glass against teeth. He punched her hard, and she hit the wall and slid down it, collapsing onto the floor. She looked up to see the line open and blood find an escape route and pour down his face in a bright sheet. Missed the artery.

“You fuckin’ bitch!” he growled as he gripped the wound. “You have any idea what I went through for this face?” Then he looked at the blood on his hand and laughed, pitching his head back. The sound filled the cabin. She could see teeth as the cut opened like some horrible second mouth. “You’re going to get me excited if you keep this shit up. Go back in there.” He walked to the sink, wet a dish towel, and pressed it against his cheek to stem the flow.

She stood and tapped at the door. “Reb, open up. Quickly.”

If Thorne doesn’t come… before I’ll let that demon touch my baby I’ll… do whatever I have to do.

Did he hurt you, Mama?” Reb asked. She fumbled in Erin’s suitcase and pulled out a knit shirt. She turned her back and put it on.

“No, baby. I hurt him, though.” She held up the hand showing the piece of glass, smeared with his blood.

“I’ll kill him if he hurt you.”

“Kill him?”

“With this.” Reb held up a metal file.

Laura sat back down on the bed and put her arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay, buddy,” she said. “They’ll come soon. Thorne will come.”

“ ’Less he got killed in those bombs.”

“I’m sure he didn’t. Besides, there are other people watching out for us, a lot of people. They’ll come. You’ll see.” She tried to project some confidence but wasn’t sure she had managed it.

“Sure,” he said. She picked up the disbelief in his small voice. It saddened her, made her realize how slim their hope of survival really was.

“Reb,” she started. “We have to look around in here for anything we can use to fight him. Just until help comes.”

“Like what?”

“Like a flare gun, anything.” She opened the closet and started pulling things out. “Check under the bed-in the cabinets.”

“The flare gun is in the cockpit,” he said. “Under the seat. I think.”

“Anything.”

“So, like something I’d get in trouble for having normally?”

“Exactly,” she said. “A weapon-something…”

“I got ya,” he said. “Like I’ll know it when I see it?”

“Exactly. Like something we can use. Like the file. Screwdriver, anything.”

He opened the cabinets under the bed and looked in to see if he could find anything he shouldn’t have. “Know what?” he said.

“What?”

“Your mind is the best weapon there is.”

Laura was startled. Reb made perfect sense. My mind. A weapon. Let’s see, now. She looked around the room and finally at the lamp. An idea started to form. What was it Reid had said about the lights? The lamp cord. I’ve made lamps before. It’s simple… What can I make with a lamp?”

“No weapons,” Reb said, closing the cabinet. He opened the last drawer. “Some liquor and… you could use a bottle to hit him,” Reb said. “It burns like the man does at the restaurant with those bananas.”

Flambe. Bananas Foster.

“Matches?”

“Nope,” he said sadly as the vision of a flaming Martin dissipated.

Laura looked at the vent in the wall. “Reb, is the AC on?”

Reb reached up and felt the vent in the wall. “Yes,” he said.

“Okay, I have an idea,” she said. “This is what we’ll do.”

What was it Reid told Thorne about the power?