Page 10

CHAPTER 9

I PICKED MY pants up off the floor and peeked through one of the cabin portholes. Kira was right next to me, pulling on her shorts and top.

About fifty yards out, a Zodiac boat was heading straight for us. Four men aboard.

Kira reached over and grabbed a pair of binoculars.

“Assassins?” I asked. “Don’t tell me they followed us all the way out here.”

Kira pressed the binoculars up against the porthole. She stared for a few seconds. “Nope,” she said. “But almost as bad. Pirates. Local operators. Probably out for cash or drugs.”

I grabbed the binoculars and took a look. The intruders were only about thirty yards away now. They were all scraggly and lean. Wide-eyed. They looked wired and dangerous.

Kira headed out onto the deck. What the hell was she doing? I scrambled up after her. She waved her hands crossways over her head. “No money! No drugs!” she shouted.

I picked up the cue. “No money! No drugs!”

The boat was about twenty yards away now, and closing fast. The engine sounded like an angry hornet.

“No money! No drugs!” Could they even hear us? Did it matter?

I saw the guy at the front of the boat reach down. He came up with a rifle in his hands. He tucked the stock under his armpit and aimed. I grabbed Kira and pulled her down. A blast of bullets hit the hull and rail.

We squirmed across the deck and tumbled down the cabin stairs. I could hear the buzz getting closer.

“Stay low!” I shouted. Kira flattened herself on the floor. Another volley of bullets hit the boat.

I picked up the blanket we just made love on and tossed it aside. I opened the hatch to the large hold underneath. I pulled up a small tank with a hose attached. The end of the hose had a fixture that looked like the barrel of a blunderbuss.

I waved the device at Kira. “You know what this is?” I read about it in one of the stories about my ancestor.

Kira lifted her head and nodded. “Solid choice.”

I climbed up the stairs to the deck, carrying the tank in one hand and the hose in the other. The Zodiac was almost on us. The guy in the back cut the engine and pulled up broadside about ten feet off. One of the others leaned out with a grappling hook and reached for the rail.

I set the tank on the deck and pulled the release. “No money! No drugs!” I shouted again, waving the nozzle. All four of them looked at me like I was crazy—as if I were trying to scare them off with a vacuum cleaner.

“No money. No drugs,” one of them repeated with a heavy accent. Maybe Haitian. And then, with a menacing sneer, “Pretty boat. Pretty lady.”

At that point, he had his hand on the rail and one foot on the deck. My adrenaline was pumping. Now or never. I gripped the wide end of the device and pressed the button on the collar.

A blinding sheet of flame shot out of the barrel. It blasted the boarder and upended the Zodiac. The weapon bucked in my hand. It was like holding onto a fire hose—except it was throwing fire. I could feel the hot blowback on my face and arms. I squinted and kept the pressure on. For a few seconds, all I could see were flames and black smoke. When I let go of the button, a final puff belched out of the barrel.

Then, total silence.

It was over that fast.

Kira ran up behind me and looked over the rail. “Holy shit.”

All that was left of the rubber Zodiac was a dark, oily scum on the surface of the water. As for the four men, there was nothing left at all.

My temples were throbbing. I felt sick to my stomach. I dropped the weapon on the deck.

Kira leaned over the rail and shook her head. “Bad day to be a pirate.”