If it didn’t seem that every muscle in his body was screaming in pain, McCaleb might have smiled. He had Tafero. He was helplessly hogtied on the bed but he was playing his captor. Tafero was second-guessing his own plan.
“Who else has copies?” Tafero asked.
McCaleb didn’t answer. He started thinking that he had been wrong about the boat’s movement. Too much time had gone by. There was no one else onboard.
Tafero rapped the tape hard on the back of McCaleb’s head.
“I said who else has copies?”
There was a new note in the tone of his voice. One part confidence had been removed and replaced with one equal part fear that there was a flaw in his perfect plan.
“Fuck you,” McCaleb said. “You do what you have to do with me. Either way, you’ll be finding out who’s got copies soon enough.”
Tafero pushed down on his legs and leaned over him. McCaleb could feel his breath close to his ear.
“Listen to me, you fucking -”
There was a sudden loud crash from behind McCaleb.
“Don’t fucking move!” a voice called.
In the same instant Tafero stood up and let go of McCaleb’s legs. The sudden release of pressure coupled with the jarring noise made McCaleb startle and involuntarily flex his muscles at once. He heard the zipping sound of snap cuffs clicking in several places of his bindings. In chain reaction, the cuff around his neck pulled tight and locked. He tried to raise his legs but it was too late, the cuff was set. It was biting into his neck. He had no air. He opened his mouth but not a sound came out.
Chapter 43
Harry Bosch stood in the doorway of the boat’s downstairs cabin and pointed his gun at Rudy Tafero. His eyes widened as he took in the whole room. Terry McCaleb was naked on the bed, his arms and legs bound behind him. Bosch saw that several snap cuffs had been linked together and used to bind his wrists and ankles while a leader ran from his ankles and under his wrists to a loop around his neck. He couldn’t see McCaleb’s face but saw the plastic was digging tightly into his neck and the skin was a dark rouge. He was strangling.
“Turn around,” he yelled at Tafero. “Get back against the wall.”
“He needs help, Bosch. You -”
“I said get back against the fucking wall! Now!”
He raised the gun to Tafero’s chest level to drive home the order. Tafero raised his hands and started turning to the wall.
“Okay, okay, I’m turning around.”
As soon as Tafero had turned Bosch moved quickly into the room and shoved the big man up against the wall. He glanced at McCaleb. He could see his face now. It was getting redder. His eyes were opened and bugged. His mouth was opened in a desperate but fruitless bid for air.
Bosch pushed the barrel of his gun into Tafero’s back and reached his other hand around him to check for a weapon. He pulled a handgun out of Tafero’s belt and then stepped back. He looked at McCaleb again and knew he didn’t have any time. The problem was controlling Tafero and getting to McCaleb to cut him free. He suddenly knew what needed to be done. He stepped back and brought his hands together so that the guns were side by side. He raised them over his head and brought the butts of both guns down violently into the back of Tafero’s head. The big man pitched forward, going face-first into the wood-paneled wall and then dropping to the floor motionless.
Bosch turned and dropped both guns onto the bed and quickly pulled out his keys.
“Hold on, hold on, hold on.”
His fingers scrabbling, he pulled the blade out of the penknife attached to the key chain. He reached to the plastic cuff embedded around McCaleb’s neck but couldn’t get his fingers underneath it. He shoved McCaleb onto his side and quickly worked his fingers under the cuff at the front of his neck. He slipped the blade in and sliced through the cuff, the point of the knife just nicking the skin beneath it.
A horrible sound came from McCaleb’s throat as he gulped air into his lungs and tried to speak at the same time. The words were unintelligible, lost in the instinctive urgency for oxygen intake.
“Shut up and breathe!” Bosch yelled. “Just breathe!”
There came an interior rattling sound with each breath McCaleb took. Bosch saw a vibrant red line running the circumference of his neck. He gently touched McCaleb’s neck, wanting to feel for possible damage to the trachea or larynx or the arteries. McCaleb roughly turned his head on the mattress and tried to move away.
“Just… cut me loose.”
The words made him cough violently into the mattress, his whole body shaking from the trauma.
Bosch used the knife to cut his hands free and then his ankles. He saw red ligature marks on both sets of limbs. He pulled all the snap cuffs away and threw them on the floor. He looked around and saw the sweatpants and shirt on the floor. He picked them up and threw them onto the bed. McCaleb was slowly turning back to face him, his face still red.
“You… you… saved…”
“Don’t talk.”
There was a groan from the floor and Bosch saw Tafero start moving as he began to regain consciousness. Bosch stepped over and stood straddling him. He took his handcuffs off his belt, bent down and then violently pulled Tafero’s arms behind his back to cuff him. While he worked he talked to McCaleb.
“Hey, you want to take this guy out, tie him to the anchor and drop him over the side, it’d be fine by me. I wouldn’t even blink about it.”
McCaleb didn’t respond. He was pulling himself into a sitting position. Finished with the cuffing process, Bosch straightened up and looked down at Tafero, who had now opened his eyes.
“Stay still, shithead. And get used to those cuffs. You are under arrest for murder, attempted murder and general conspiracy to be an asshole. I think you know your rights but do yourself a favor and don’t say a word until I get the card out and read it to you.”
The moment he was done speaking Bosch became aware of a creaking sound coming from the hallway. In that second he realized someone had used his words as cover to get close to the doorway.
Things seemed to drop into a slow-motion sense of clarity. Bosch instinctively brought his left hand up to his hip but realized his gun was not there. He had left it on the bed. He started to turn to the bed but saw McCaleb sitting up, still naked, and already pointing one of the guns at the doorway.
Bosch’s eyes followed the aim of the gun to the door. A man was swinging into the opening in a crouched position, two hands on a pistol. He was taking aim at Bosch. There was a shot and wood splintered from the doorjamb. The gunman flinched and squinted his eyes. He recovered and started to level the aim of his gun. There was another shot and another and then another. The noise was deafening in the confines of the wood-paneled room. Bosch watched one bullet hit the wall and two hit the gunman in the chest, throwing him backward into the hallway wall. He sank to the floor but was still visible from the bedroom.
“No!” Tafero shouted from the floor. “Jesse, no!”
The wounded gunman was still moving but having difficulty with motor controls. With one hand he awkwardly raised the gun again and made a pathetic attempt to aim it once more at Bosch.
There was another shot and Bosch saw the gunman’s cheek explode with blood. His head snapped back against the wall behind him and he became still.
“No!” Tafero cried out again.
And then there was silence.
Bosch looked at the bed. McCaleb still held the gun aimed at the door. A cloud of blue gunpowder smoke was rising into the center of the room. The air smelled acrid and burned.
Bosch picked his gun up off the bed and went out to the hallway. He squatted down next to the gunman but didn’t need to touch him to know he was dead. During the shooting he had thought he recognized him as Tafero’s
