The Pardon

Chapter 55

A determined Esteban stepped quietly down the staircase, beneath Rebecca’s dangling corpse. He’d left the flashlight on the top step, pointing into the stairwell. He needed light, but he didn’t want to reveal his whereabouts by being its source. In the eerie yellow glow, his tall, lean body cast a lengthy shadow into the living room. His movements were quiet as a snake’s. The gun felt warm in his hand. His heart actually beat at a normal pace-just another day at work for an experienced killer. He could either wait for Jack to come out of hiding, or he could go and get him. The choice was easy. Esteban loved flushing his quarry out of the bush.

Behind the staircase, at the end of the long. Dark hallway, the heat in the tiny bathroom was nearly suffocating Jack. Sweat poured from his body. The bulletproof vest cloaked him like a winter parka, but he didn’t dare take it off. It had saved his life once already-though a constant sharp pain told him the blow from the bullet had probably cracked a rib. He drew shallow breaths to minimize the pain. But pain was the least of his problems. He had no gun, no flashlight, and no contact to the outside world. He’d lost everything in the tumble down the stairs, and the gunshot had destroyed Kimmell’s transmitter. Surprise was his only weapon. He stood perfectly still, hiding behind the open bathroom door with his back against the wall. He listened carefully for his stalker and accepted the brutal fact that only one of them would walk out of the house.

Leading with his gun, Esteban crept down the hall behind the stairway, one slow and silent step at a time. The fuzzy light from the stairwell grew dimmer with each step, but this was familiar territory. He had walked the entire house several times before Jack’s arrival. He knew that just a few feet ahead, just beyond the faint glow from the flashlight, there was a bedroom on the right and a bathroom straight ahead. He moved closer to the wall and stopped just five feet away from the open bathroom door.

Jack was in total darkness, but his eyes were adjusting. From behind the open door he peered with one eye through the vertical crack at the hinges. There was light in the living room at the other end of the hall, but the hallway itself was barely illuminated. Jack’s night vision improved with each passing second. Finally, he could see Esteban-a black silhouette with a gun in its hand.

Jack could feel his hands shaking and his heart pumping even more furiously. He could taste his own blood from a cut on his lip. The shadow slowly inched closer. He couldn’t see his eyes or the features of his face. But there was enough light in the background to know he was right there. He was staring into the face of the enemy-but the enemy was a shadow. He wondered whether Esteban-or whoever he was-could see him, whether he was toying with him, knowing that his prey was unarmed and defenseless. Jack would find out in a moment. Esteban had two doors from which to choose-the bedroom or the bathroom. Jack held his breath and waited.

Go into the bedroom, he prayed.

Time stood still. Then Esteban moved-just a few inches. He was coming closer. He’d chosen the bathroom.

Jack could hear Esteban breathing. Jack’s own lungs were about to explode, but he didn’t dare take a breath. He was frozen against the wall. The open door was in his face. Esteban was at the threshold. His hand had crossed the imaginary plane. Another step and he’d be inside.

Suddenly, Jack pushed against the door with all his might, slamming it shut Esteban cried out. His wrist was caught in the door, and his hand with the gun was in the bathroom. A shot roared in the pitch-dark bathroom, shattering the mirror. Another shot exploded the basin. Esteban was firing wildly. Jack put all his weight behind one last shove, and then he heard the sound of metal crashing on ceramic tile. The gun was on the floor. And Esteban was pinned.

Still braced against the door, Jack groped with one foot in the darkness, searching for the gun. He found it. His foot was right on it He heard a piercing sound above his head, like a nail puncturing wood. Another piercing sound, and Jack cried out with pain as the point of Esteban’s switchblade passed through the door and punctured his forearm. Jack dove to the floor and grabbed the gun, expecting Esteban to come crashing through. He pointed and shot twice in the darkness. But no one fell. Through his terror, he registered the sound of footsteps in the hall. Esteban was running. Jack opened the door and fired another quick shot, but his target had already turned the corner.

Jack dashed from the bathroom and followed in Esteban’s footsteps. He heard a crash in the kitchen. The killer was escaping. Jack sprinted to the kitchen just as the back door slammed shut, then ran out to the porch. He looked left, then right. He saw a man dressed in black running down the sidewalk toward Duval Street. Jack knew Esteban would disappear forever if he made it back to the madness at Fantasy Fest. Jack’s ribs were sore from the gunshot, his forearm had a puncture wound, and he was bleeding badly from the forehead, but his fall hadn’t broken any bones in his legs. So he tucked the gun into his belt and began sprinting.

He was running faster than he had ever run, despite the vest, and he was gaining ground. As they drew closer to Duval, they started passing peacocks, tin men, and drunks who’d spilled over from the crowded street festival. Rock music rumbled in the night. A sudden burst of firecrackers drew piercing screams and a round of laughter.

“Hey, watch it!” a woman dressed as Cleopatra shouted, but Esteban plowed through her like she didn’t exist, then plunged into the safety of a shoulder-to-shoulder parade of costumes on Duval. Jack followed right behind, trying desperately to keep his target in sight as he weaved his way through the heaving mass. He could hardly breathe. All at once the sea of beads and feathers and painted faces swallowed him up, and when he broke free Esteban was gone.

“You stupid jerk!” he heard someone shout. He looked ahead in time to see Esteban dashing through the middle of a long and twisted Chinese dragon, ripping it right in half. Esteban wasn’t just trying to vanish in the crowd, Jack realized. He was going somewhere specific. He was headed north, toward the marina off Mallory Square. Jack had a sudden flash. A boat! Esteban was going to escape by boat Jack hesitated only a second-just long enough to think of Cindy. Then he darted in the same direction, bumping into the Beatles and Napoleon, pushing aside Gumby and Marilyn Monroe.

Esteban was untying a sleek racing boat from its mooring just as Jack reached the long wooden pier at the end of Duval. The triple outboard engines cranked with a deafening blast. Jack stopped short, pulled out his gun, and took aim. A clown screamed and the crowd scattered, since Jack’s gun looked too real, even for Fantasy Pest. A caveman suddenly turned hero and whacked the pistol from Jack’s hand with a quick sweep of his club.

“No!” Jack shouted as his weapon skidded across the dock and plunked into the marina.

Esteban’s boat drifted away from the dock, slowly at first, until it was clear of the other boats. Instinctively, Jack sprinted ahead and leaped from the dock to the covered bow of the boat just as Esteban hit the throttle. The powerful engines roared, and the bow rose from the water, knocking Jack off balance as he landed. He scrambled to his feet on the wet fiberglass as the boat cut through the darkness.

Realizing that Jack was aboard, Esteban kept one hand on the steering wheel and with the other slashed at his unwanted passenger with a long fishing gaff. The engine noise grew deafening as the needlelike boat shot from forty, to sixty, then seventy miles per hour, bouncing violently on the waves. Jack fell to his knees as the hull slammed through a big whitecap. With a quick jerk of the wheel, Esteban shifted the boat to the right and Jack tumbled across the bow. In a split second he was overboard, head over heels, bouncing like a skipping stone across the waves at seventy miles per hour.

He emerged dizzy and coughing up salt water. He was trying to swim when his foot hit bottom. In less than ninety seconds the speeding cigarette boat had taken them nearly a mile offshore, where they’d reached a coral reef. He could stand flat-footed with his head above water. He cursed as he stood in the middle of a zipper of white foam that was Esteban’s wake, forced to watch as the boat grew smaller in the distance. Then he froze as he saw that Esteban was turning around. He was coming back-at full throttle, headed right at him.

The bastard is going to flatten me.

Jack dove beneath the surface and pressed himself against the reef. He cut his hands and knees on sharp coral that projected like huge fingers and fans from the floor, but it saved his life. He held fast as the boat zipped overhead. The churning propeller missed him by less than a foot. He emerged for air, saw the boat coming back for another pass, and went under again. This time, though, the boat approached more slowly. Esteban wanted to check his work. After two years of waiting, he had to see the blood.

“Are you fish food, Swyteck?” he called into the darkness. He was nearly certain he’d cut the miserable lawyer in half. He’d felt the thud. But the water was so shallow it was possible the boat had hit bottom rather than pay dirt. He looked left, then right, searching intently as the boat slowly arrived at the spot where he’d last seen his prey.

Jack clung to the reef, struggling to stay underwater. But he desperately needed air. The boat was right overhead, puttering at no-wake speed. A few seconds passed, and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He broke the surface and grabbed onto the diving platform on the back of the boat He looked up. Esteban hadn’t seen or heard him. The triple engines still rumbled loudly, even at a slow speed. Carefully, Jack pulled himself onto the platform and peered up over the stern. Esteban was studying the waves, longing to see little pieces of floating flesh.

Jack moved silently across the diving platform, toward the outboard engines. He was after the fuel lines. Without them, Esteban might get another mile from shore, but then he’d be stranded at sea. Jack reached for them and tried to muffle his cry as he scorched his hand on the hot engine block-but Esteban heard the stifled groan.

“Die!” he screamed, bringing the gaff down like an axe across Jack’s back.

Jack cried out in pain, but he grabbed the gaff and pulled as he tumbled into the water, taking Esteban with him. They plunged into just three feet of sea water, both hitting the jagged coral bottom simultaneously. Esteban emerged first, thrashing like a marlin on the end of a line as he struggled to hold Jack underwater. Jack tumbled over the coral, trying to find his footing so he could get his head above water. But Esteban’s powerful fingers found Jack’s throat before he could plant his feet. Jack kicked and swung with his fists, but the resistance of the water made his blows ineffective. His nostrils burned as he sucked in more salt water. He gasped for air but drew only the sea into his lungs.

He reached frantically on the shallow bottom for a rock to use as a weapon. There were none. But there was the coral that projected from the bottom like a fossilized forest. It was hard and sharp, and it cut like a knife. He groped and found a formation that felt like the stubby antler of a young buck. He grabbed it, snapped it off, and swung it up toward Esteban’s head. It hit something. Jack was blinded by the churning foam, but he sensed the penetration upon impact. He jabbed again, and finally the death grip around his throat loosened somewhat. He broke free and shot to the surface, coughing as he emerged.

Jack spit out the last of the salt water just in time to see Esteban, less than fifteen feet away, once again raising the gaff, which had floated back into his grasp. As he lifted it overhead, Jack could see the blood pouring from his throat.

“You bastard!” Esteban cried out. “You fucking bastard!” His arm shot forward in an attempt to impale, but Jack jinked to his left and grabbed the gaff’s wooden shaft. By now, Esteban’s eyes were glassy and his grip insecure. The loss of blood was taking its toll, but Esteban was still coming at him.

“No more!” Jack called out fiercely.

He drove forward, shattering the Cuban’s teeth with the blunt end of the gaff and pushing it into his throat The force of the movement jerked Esteban’s body backward, then headfirst under the waves as Jack leaned forward and maintained steady pressure on the pole. Only after a full minute, when the bubbles had stopped floating to the surface, did he unclench his hands and swim toward the boat.

Once aboard, he watched intently, still unwilling to believe that the fight was over. He sat for ten minutes, staring at the spot where Esteban had gone under, half expecting him to rise again like the mechanical shark in Jaws. But this was real life, where people paid for their actions. The full moon hung like a big bright hole in the darkness. A shooting star appeared briefly on the horizon, and the gentle lapping of the waves against the hull reminded Jack that even this drama had done nothing to disturb nature’s rhythms.

He heard a flutter behind him and looked up. A Coast Guard helicopter was approaching from shore. Jack sat perfectly still as the warm, gentle current washed across the reef and dispersed the dark, crimson cloud of Esteban’s blood. It was ironic, he thought. Hundreds, maybe thousands of oppressed refugees had fled Cuba in little rafts and inner tubes, only to be caught in the Gulf Stream and lost somewhere in the Atlantic. Finally, one of the oppressors was on his way to the bottom. And with God’s grace, the sea would never give him up.

Jack looked up as the pontoon helicopter hovered directly overhead, then came to rest on the surface. The glass bubble around the cockpit glistened in the moonlight, but he could see his father inside. Jack waved to let him know he was all right, and the governor opened the glass door and waved back.

“She’s okay,” his father shouted over the noise of whirling blades. “Cindy’s okay!”

Jack heard the words, but couldn’t assimilate them. She can’t be alive. He’d seen her with his own eyes. Seen her hanging there. The part of his soul where she’d resided had been ripped out of him. Still, he wanted to believe. Oh, how he wanted to believe. . He looked at his father intently, allowing himself some small measure of hope.

“She is definitely okay,” Harry said, seeing the confusion on his son’s face. “I just saw her. I just held her in my arms.”

The governor threw him a line, but Jack was too stunned to move. Slowly, the realization sank in. Cindy was alive. His father was with him. And the danger was behind them. He reached for the lifeline and swam toward the helicopter. The swirling wind from the chopper blades blew water in his face, but he didn’t mind. All the cuts and scrapes, the bruises-even his cracked rib-were glorious reminders that he was alive-alive with something to live for.

That much was obvious from the face that greeted him. As he looked up, Jack saw tears of joy in his proud father’s eyes.