Impact

75

From his shooting perch behind a boulder, Harry Burr watched the boat disappear among the islands. He shoved the gun into his belt and leaned on the rock, his head pounding. He could feel the blood still trickling down from his ear and scalp. Feeling the growing lump on the side of his head, an ungovernable rage took hold, so powerful it caused stars to pop up in his field of vision. Two bitches had fucked up everything, smacked him on the head, taken his dinghy. They saw him and they could identify him. The stars swarmed about and he felt the almost physical pressure of anger behind his forehead, a humming sound, like a cloud of bees trying to escape.

It was him or them. If he didn't catch up to them and kill them, he would go down. It was as simple as that. If they got to shore, he'd be finished.

He ejected the empty magazine from his piece and reloaded it with loose rounds he carried in his pocket, smacking it back into place. He had very little time. But all was not lost. He still had the other dinghy and a more seaworthy boat--along with an ace in the hole: the father.

Ignoring the pounding in his head, Burr jogged down the strand and into the woods. He pulled the dinghy out of the bushes, retrieved the hidden oars, tossed them in, and dragged the skiff down the beach. Shoving off, he rowed toward where he'd anchored the Halcyon. The Halcyon was not a fast boat but he guessed it would be faster than the Marea II, which was, after all, just a fishing boat, not a yacht.

He pulled with the current, and as he did so, he noticed how dark it had become and how much the wind had risen. Even in the protected waters of the islands, whitecaps were forming, the sound of the wind moaning in the spruce trees. He could hear the distant thunder of surf on the windward islands, a mile off.

He crossed the channel and came around the edge of the adjacent island, the Halcyon coming into view. He could see the dark form of the fisherman, both hands shackled tightly to the stern rail.

He bumped up against the gunwale and climbed aboard, cleating off the dinghy. "Look sharp, Straw, we got business to take care of."

"You touch my daughter and I'll kill you," he said in a low voice. "I'll search you out--"

"Yeah, yeah." He went straight to the VHF radio, turned it on to channel 16. If there was one thing he had to do, it was stop the girl from calling the Coast Guard.