opened the door to the outside and set off a loud wailing alarm.
Ramsingh bent, pulled off his shoes and took off across the sand.
“ Shit,” Broxton said, grabbing at his own shoes, then he ran toward the sea, chasing after the prime minister.
“ Can you swim?” Ramsingh asked, standing in wet sand at the water’s edge. Sweat glistened on the prime minister’s forehead and his silver hair gleamed in the moonlight. It was quiet, the only noise other than their labored breathing was the gentle sound of the lapping surf.
“ Sure,” Broxton said, and Ramsingh pulled off his shirt and grinned. “We never give up,” he said. His lips were tight. His eyes looked like he’d seen the very fires of hell. He was tense. He was rock hard and Broxton was impressed with the old man’s full chest as he took in the scars left by the heart surgery. The man was battle weary, battle scarred and battle tough, and Broxton knew that his first impression of the man was way wrong as Ramsingh turned and loped into the black sea.
“ There’s gotta be a better way,” Broxton said under his breath, wading into the water. Maybe if they just swam out a little way and floated, just beyond pistol range, till they gave up and left, but Ramsingh was swimming like he’d been born to the water, striking out toward the sailboats anchored almost a quarter mile away.
“ There they are,” Lawman said, his smooth drawl up an octave. He was a big man, big, excited and deadly, and he was less than a hundred feet away. Broxton wanted to strike out after Ramsingh, but he was frozen in place. He felt the sea swirl around his legs as the sand seemed to be pulling his feet down under. He was like a tree, planted in place, his sunken feet as solid as any root system.
There were two of them. The second one had to be Undertaker. He was masked. Fear, mingled with the cold, sent icy tingles rippling over Broxton’s skin. He had never known real fear, never been under fire, never been in an accident, had barely ever fired a gun. His stomach cramped. His bowels felt like they were going to cut loose. He couldn’t move.
Undertaker probably had a gun, he thought. Then gunfire answered the thought, shocking the quiet night. In an instant he realized he was in no danger. Undertaker was shooting out toward where the prime minister was swimming, and he remembered what he’d heard earlier. Leave the bodyguard alive. The electric tingling vanished. The queasy stomach calmed and his bowels clamped closed.
He felt like he was having an out of body experience as he studied his pursuers. He inhaled the sweet night air and pulled a foot out of the sucking sand and moved backwards, toward the deeper water. Then he pulled out the other one. One step back, two, three, he kept easing away from the enemy, all the while watching them, as they were bathed in the overhead light that framed them as they stood just outside the doorway.
Lawman was wide in the shoulders and lean in the waist, like a quarterback. Although the overhead light cast harsh shadows, he could see that the man was shit handsome, a lady killer, big, tough and good looking. Undertaker was wearing a black ski mask and Broxton shuddered at the terrorist look. “Oh, shit,” he moaned as the masked man pointed the gun toward him. But lightning fast Lawman snatched it from his hand, sending a scream curdling from Undertaker that raised the hair on the back of Broxton’s neck.
Part of him screamed, turn away, swim for it, but he couldn’t. He was once again planted in place, feet being sucked into the swirling sand below, but this time it was more curiosity than fear that kept him rooted to the spot.
Lawman crouched low, presenting as small a target as possible. Just in case I have a gun, too, Broxton thought. Then the big man clasped his left hand around his right wrist, holding the weapon in his right hand. He was assuming the classic shooter’s position and one word shot through Broxton. Cop. Lawman aimed both his body and the gun out into the dark where Broxton imagined Ramsingh might be, but he didn’t fire, probably because he couldn’t see the prime minister. A cop for sure. He held his gun like a cop and he held his fire like a cop. Like his name, Lawman.
The big man stepped out of the crouch and waved to him with his right hand, the gun hanging loosely on his trigger finger, telling him it was over for now. Telling him they were safe, for now. Safe from them, but not safe from the dark sea. Broxton couldn’t help himself, he waved back. He didn’t want to follow the prime minister blindly into the dark ocean, but he didn’t want to face those men either. He wondered why they spared him, why they wanted him alive, but when the man in the mask showed him the middle finger of his left hand, he decided he didn’t want to stay around and find out. So he turned back around, and like a dolphin he slipped into the cool, dark water and started out after Ramsingh.
Chapter Fourteen
Earl knew better than to waste ammunition firing at things he couldn’t see. He stood out of his crouch, letting the pistol hang off of his trigger finger and waved to the bodyguard. To his surprise he waved back. The man had balls. Most men he’d known would be swimming away to beat the band, but this one was cool, standing there in water up to his chest, watching him, burning everything into his memory.
And here he was, standing under the lights, like a rookie out of the academy. The bodyguard was getting a good look and all Earl saw was shadow. Better to kill him now, but the woman said to leave him alive and that’s what he was going to do, although he felt that one day he’d regret it.
The night was quiet again and Earl listened for the sounds of sirens, high pitched voices or running feet. He heard nothing except the gentle surf. He looked out into the dark and saw nothing except the lapping waves, reflecting the moonlight.
“ Let’s move out of the light,” he said, and he moved a few feet away from the doorway. After a few seconds his eyes started to get used to the dark. There were several boats at anchor, but his more immediate concern was the four thatched hut restaurants lining the ocean less than a hundred yards off to his right. He kept his eyes on the tropical buildings, looking for movement. But if they had people in them, they were minding their own business.
“ We have to get him,” the man next to him said. Earl didn’t know him, but when he came flying into that kitchen shouting, ‘Undertaker, Undertaker’ at the top of his lungs, Earl figured that he’d met his backup. And after the man allowed Earl to snatch the gun from his hand, Earl knew that he’d met a coward.
“ Can you swim?” Earl asked, turning to the man in the ski mask that Dani had dubbed the Undertaker.
“ No.”
“ Well I can and I’m here to tell you that I’m not going after them. It’s a big ocean and even with the moonlight we’d never see them out there. We won’t get them tonight.”
“ We have to,” he wailed.
“ He’s right, Kevin,” Dani Street said, stepping through the doorway and instantly moving out of the light.
“ We can’t let them get away.” Kevin was holding his right hand with his left and now Earl could see why. He’d broken the man’s finger when he snatched the gun away.
“ Hurt much?” Earl said. The index finger on his right hand was swollen, already black and bent at an odd angle.
“ Hurts, like a bitch, you asshole.”
“ He woulda shot the bodyguard if I hadn’t grabbed his gun,” Earl said. He felt sand fleas biting into the fleshy part of his ankles. They’d gotten through his socks. He resisted scratching. He didn’t want to look at all vulnerable to her.
“ Really,” she said. Then she pointed her index and middle finger at him, thumb up, turning her hand into a child’s gun. Earl got the message and shot him once, straight to the heart. Clean, small entry, no exit wound. Earl saw the man’s eyes go wide in disbelief, then he sank to the ground, dead before he hit the sand.
Earl looked around to see if anyone had heard the gunshot, but the night still remained quiet. Now that he could see them, he worried about the anchored boats, but they were pretty far out, and even if they did hear, what were they going to do? What could they do?
“ He was stupid. I told him to leave Broxton alone, but like a hyena chasing a wounded animal, he just couldn’t help himself,” she said, as Earl continued to scour the dark for signs of life. But all remained quiet.
“ Better this way,” he said.
