enough wind to shift the heavy vessel the way he had seen it move.
He cursed when he saw the woman cop’s head for a split second before it vanished below the transom. He could shoot through the fiberglass, and he might hit her, but he didn’t want to make any more holes in the hull. The rifle could even go through into the water and sink it. He could see a thin film of gasoline on the water, where it was leaking from the damaged motor. Probably a fuel line was ruptured.
As he watched, the woman stood, ran the length of the boat, and jumped onto the shore. He was wondering why she’d been on board, when the boat, and the gasoline he’d seen in the water, erupted in flame, light gray smoke billowing from his beloved boat. Fury seized him, and he stood, aiming at where she’d gone off into the brush.
Seeing sudden movement in the shadows, he swung the gun and saw the other cop in camo-aiming straight at him. Leland put the scope’s crosshairs on him, but the cop’s rifle went off a split second before his did, and Leland felt a punch in his left arm so hard, his shot went wide because of it.
He fell to the ground. His wounded arm was useless, and he crawled backward into the shadows, leaking blood.
He could smell his boat burning, and that infuriated him, more even than the sound of the cop that had shot him laughing over across the inlet. The woman cop had managed to flush him out so the man could fire, and Leland cursed his luck. He looked at his wounded arm, and was worried a lot by what he saw. It looked as if someone had scooped most of the meat off of his biceps; the shattered arm bone was visible in the ruined meat. Blood flowed down his limp arm. He wanted to howl, but he didn’t dare give that woman cop another shot at him.
From across the water, he heard the woman laughing melodiously. He fought the urge to howl in rage.
It began to rain, hardly more than a sprinkle. There were only two of them left, and they were going to die soon. He knew he should go back to first camo cop, get his belt, and make the bleeding stop, before he got swimmy-headed.
88
Luckily Larry Bond was a smoker. Alexa had borrowed his lighter and, crawling from the trees, slipped to the bank; using the boat for cover, she pulled herself on board. The rear of the boat had been slowly filling with gasoline since the bullet hit its motor. She opened the caps to the gas tanks and, using her knife, cut the sleeves from her shirt and stuffed them into the opening of the closest gas tank. When she was ready to light the first sleeve, she moved into view for a split second, hoping Leland would see her, and that he didn’t see Bond. For this to work, Bond had to see Leland before he had a chance to fire at her.
Bracing to run, she lit the gas-soaked sleeve. It burst into flame. She ran the length of the boat, jumped to shore, and raced into the shadows, diving to the ground. Bond’s thundering shot told her that Leland had shown himself. She was fairly sure there had been two shots, close together, but the second could have been an echo of the first.
Alexa crawled to Bond’s position on her belly, just as the first gas tank erupted, engulfing the vessel in flames. The second tank exploded seconds later. The boat became an inferno, black smoke choking the air in the channel, blowing into the tree line across the water. Bond dropped to the ground and roared his laughter into the skies.
“I hit him,” Bond said.
“Solid?”
“Good enough to have him thinking about it. We need to move while we have a smoke-screen cover.”
Bond laughed again and Alexa joined him.
“Even if it wasn’t a killing shot, the more angry he is, the more likely it is he’ll make another mistake.”
Even badly wounded, Alexa imagined Leland Ticholet would still be an extremely dangerous adversary.
They rushed to Manseur, who had managed to stand to lean against a tree, blood dripping from his mouth and jaw. With Bond at his side, Manseur’s good arm over his friend’s shoulder to support himself, Manseur managed to walk toward the cabin. Bond carried his 30–06 in his left hand, his right holding Manseur’s belt to keep the injured man balanced.
Alexa carried her shotgun, gripping the stock, finger beside the trigger guard. Manseur’s shotgun remained propped against the tree he’d been beside when he’d been shot.
“What’ll we do now, Agent Keen?” Bond asked. “Burn the cabin?”
“I’m thinking,” Alexa answered. And she was.
89
Leland Ticholet worked his way back toward the cabin. He wasn’t frightened, but he was losing a lot of blood. He wasn’t thinking about the fact that he needed medical attention. With his boat gone, all Leland could think about was punishing the people responsible.
He couldn’t let the cops take the other boat and get away. He had to make sure they didn’t get to it.
He was sure he had killed the short cop. He was sure of it because he’d shot him in the head twice. The other cop with the rifle and the woman cop with the shotgun were all that stood between him and returning to life as usual. If they hadn’t come here, everything would have been fine.
He was feeling a little dizzy, and he knew he had to stop the bleeding. He removed his boxer shorts and twisted them into a tight rope. Using his teeth and his good hand, he tied a knot in the end and slipped the loop up his arm above the wound. By turning a stick he’d picked up, he tightened the tourniquet until the blood flow slowed. He pinned the stick between his arm and his side so could pick up the rifle. He slipped five of the large bullets between his teeth and walked slowly toward the cabin, totally focused.
90
Alexa and Bond agreed that they couldn’t wait for Leland to make the next move. They didn’t really know much about Leland and what drove him. Bond said Leland thought more like an animal that could only plan in the short term, and react to situations as they came, than a person. Alexa thought he was very possibly clinically insane, which as long as he was alone out here and unthreatened wasn’t a big deal. He lacked social skills, might even be marginally retarded. Whatever the reality was, he was no ordinary criminal, and Alexa and Bond knew they couldn’t trust him to do what most people would in similar circumstances.
Leland might or might not know other cops were coming and that his time was running out. Neither of them believed he would cut and run. Unless he was so seriously wounded that he was lying in the brush dying, Leland would try to resolve the immediate problem. He’d come for them or wait in hiding for them to move into his field of fire. Either way, Alexa didn’t think he would wait long, given his wound.
Alexa stayed with Manseur, watching Larry Bond as he started his wide circle around the rear of the cabin. She was twenty feet from the edge of the dock, kneeling beside Manseur, who slumped, eyes closed, with his back against a tree. Bond moved silently, a man who hunted deer by stalking them, and his camouflage helped him melt into the foliage. One second he was there, the next gone.
Alexa turned her radio up until it squealed and backed off until it was quiet. She wouldn’t call Bond, but he would be able to call her when he found Leland, or got to Kennedy.
She hoped Leland was dead, but despite Bond’s confidence in his shot, she couldn’t relax. Leland was a large and powerful man, and he had Kennedy’s rifle. If he was drawing a bead on her at that moment, she wouldn’t ever know it. Given the speed of a. 270 round, you’d never hear the shot that got you.
Alexa thought about Kennedy, who was likely dead, the young deputy lying lifeless on the dock, the dead kidnapper in the cabin, and the shot-up briefcase full of bonds. The missing diary pages also entered her thoughts,
