Impact

85

Burr stood in the pilothouse, swiveling the spotlight around, peering into the storm. The beam stabbed into the raging murk, showing nothing but boiling water and rocks. Where were they? Had they drifted out of the lee? He fiddled with the dials of the radar, trying to tune in a coherent image beyond the limited range of the light, but all he could get was static.

A bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating the towering rocks on his right. The roar of surf was almost deafening and the water around him was webbed with spindrift, the sea heaving.

"Son of a bitch!" Burr pulled down the VHF mike and pressed transmit. "Where are you?"

No answer.

"Respond or he's dead!"

Still no answer. Was it a trap? He hollered into the VHF, "I got the gun at his head and the next one's for him!"

With a sudden roar the boat surged forward, throwing Burr off balance. He seized the passenger seat and arrested his fall, trying to pull himself up as the boat accelerated. "What the hell are you doing?" he cried, struggling to brace himself and get the gun back over on the fisherman. He stared through the pilothouse windows: the son of a bitch was accelerating the boat straight for the reef, a wall of rock rising from a hell of boiling surf, rain streaming from its ramparts.

"No!" He lunged for the wheel with his left hand while bringing the gun up with his right and firing it almost point-blank at Straw. But the fisherman anticipated the move and jerked the wheel, causing the boat to careen sideways, throwing him off balance. The shot went wide and Burr fell hard, crashing through the flimsy wheel house door to end up sprawled in the rear cockpit.

"Motherfucker!" He struggled to rise, grasping the gunwale railing and pulling himself up into the teeth of the storm. The boat had swung ninety degrees and was still tilting to one side, coming broadside to the sea. Straw jerked the wheel back again, trying to keep Burr off balance. But he seized the rail and hauled himself to his feet despite the tilting deck, bucking and heaving, and braced himself while bringing the gun up and aiming it into the pilothouse at Straw. He was about to fire when he heard a new sound--a full-throated roar of an engine--and turned to see a terrifying sight. A boat suddenly materialized out of the storm, bulling straight at him at full speed, gleaming steel keel splitting the black sea, throwing water to either side. And standing in the forepeak, gripping the rails, like a figurehead from hell, was the girl. He scrambled backward, trying desperately to get out of the way, but at that very moment Straw threw the Halcyon into reverse, guaranteeing a collision and throwing him sideways again. Off-balance, one arm wrapped around the rail, Burr could do nothing but point the weapon and unload it, pulling the trigger one, two, three, four times--

With a deafening crash of pulverized fiberglass, the bow slammed into the gunwale, bursting through it and riding up on the deck; Burr made one final effort to throw himself out of the way but he still didn't have his footing on the bucking deck. The bow struck him square in the chest with a massive bone-crunching blow. It felt like his rib cage had been shoved into his spinal cord and he hurtled through the air, plummeted into the raging waters, sinking helplessly down into the black, cold, crushing depths.