The Whole Truth

CHAPTER 97

“TAKE HER OUT OF HERE NOW. And bury her in the excavation pit for the orphanage,” Creel instructed the two men who held the body bag between them. “Put her in a box. I’ll arrange everything at the construction site. I’ll tell them it’s a time capsule. Where’s Royce?” he asked Caesar.

“Around here somewhere.”

One of the men said, “Do you want us to kill her first, Mr. Creel?”

“No, I want her to wake up and realize she’s been buried alive. They say there’s no greater fear in humankind. I want her to feel that horror.”

The body bag was loaded on the launch and the men set off.

Caesar said to Creel, “What now?”

“Now you disappear. Until the next time.”

“I don’t think so.”

They slowly turned. Shaw was standing there pointing a gun at them.

Creel flinched as he saw who it was, but then quickly recovered. “They call you Shaw, don’t they?” Shaw said nothing. “I know of your connection to this matter so I doubt money will induce you to go away.” Shaw still said nothing. “So it seems that we’re at an impasse,” Creel concluded.

He pointed his gun at Creel’s head. “I don’t see it that way.”

“Mr. Creel?”

The captain was staring fearfully at them from the steps leading to the top deck.

Shaw took his gaze off the two men just for an instant. It was still too long.

The shot fired by Caesar burned a crease along the side of his head.

Shaw instantly rolled to his left and placed four compact shots of return fire.

Creel had already taken up hiding behind the bar area while Caesar was seeking higher ground to get a better shooting angle. Shaw sent those plans awry when he nailed the man in the foot. Caesar emptied his clip at Shaw. A moment later while Shaw was lining up his killing shot, his gun jammed.

Caesar dragged himself up the stairs with Shaw right behind. The two giants squared off on the top deck. After a few jabs to test the other’s defenses, Caesar landed a shot to Shaw’s injured but numbed arm and got a blow to the gut for his troubles. He next tried a headlong charge and his superior weight carried Shaw off his feet and the two men flew against the bridge console. Caesar grabbed hold of Shaw’s shirt, nearly ripping it off. Shaw tried to take out the man’s legs, but Caesar, showing considerable agility for a man his size and despite the wound in his foot, jumped out of reach and then attacked.

He gripped Shaw around the neck and started to squeeze. Shaw got a hand in under Caesar’s chin and tried to lever his head back. But Caesar ducked under Shaw’s grasp, spun behind him, and got him in a chokehold.

Shaw tried to break Caesar’s grip but quickly realized that even if he’d been at full strength, Caesar was too powerful. His eyes started to bulge out and his knees buckled.

Caesar, obviously sensing victory, said, “First your lady and now you. Nice little pair. She died without making a sound when I pumped the round in her brain.” He tightened his grip. “And I can see the same silent exit for you, asshole.”

At the man’s words, Shaw’s mind went entirely blank, and then with a scream he broke Caesar’s grip from around his throat. He bent the man’s arm back so far and with such violence that he wrenched it completely from its socket.

“You,” Shaw said.

Caesar dropped to his knees, vomiting from the pain. Shaw smashed him in the face with one of his size fourteens, toppling the man onto his back.

“Are.”

A knife flashed in Caesar’s good hand, but only for a second before Shaw tore it free with a strength born of rage.

He plunged the blade straight into the man’s gut and then slowly walked it up Caesar’s torso, cleaving flesh and bone along the route until he stopped at the man’s throat. Caesar was just about to die when Shaw pulled his pistol, cleared the jam, cycled in a fresh round, took aim, and fired it into the man’s forehead.

“Dead,” Shaw finished.