Hour Game

Battle. However, there was a deputy at the end of Sylvia's driveway just to make sure their private meal wouldn't be interrupted.

Sylvia played with the bracelet on her left wrist. 'Where do you think he is?'

King shrugged. 'Either a thousand miles away or ten feet, it's hard to say.'

'He crushed Jean Robinson's skull, you know. And the windpipe of that police officer at the courthouse too. And he stabbed Chip Bailey so hard the knife blade hit the man's spinal cord! Not to mention what he did to Sally Wainwright and all those other peopleand almost killing you.'

'And yet he didn't kill Tommy Robinson.'

'You think that excuses what he's done?' she said sharply.

He looked at her over the rim of his wineglass. 'No.' He rose and picked up the bottle of wine he'd brought. 'This vintage is best drunk outside.' He was tired of talking about Eddie. He was sick of it actually.

They walked down the steps to Sylvia's small dock.

'When did you put up the gazebo?' he asked.

'Last year. I like to sit and just look.'

'You've got a nice spot to do it, although you ought to think about putting in a boat slip.'

'I get seasick. And I'm not that good a swimmer.'

'I'd be proud to teach you.'

They sat and drank the wine.

'I'll get you out on my boat. It's actually a very safe lake,' King said after a while.

'You're sure about that?'

'Absolutely.'

The man alternated between swimming just below the surface for fifty feet and then coming up shallow, only his face out of the water, and taking a breath before heading back under. He came up one last time, treading water and looking around. It was just as he'd thought: they hadn't secured the dock. Why would they think of that? They were only the police.

Eddie swam the short distance to the dock with methodical strokes. In his black wet suit he was pretty much invisible. He reached the swim ladder, eased himself out of the water and then stopped, listening. He made a detailed sweep of the surrounding area before continuing up and onto the dock, then pulling up the watertight pouch that was tied to his foot. He took his gun out of the pouch and checked his watch. He'd have to move fast. It wasn't like he could make a quiet exit, although there were rumbles of thunder in the distance. He'd heard on his radio that a major storm was heading in: high winds, rain and lots of lightning and thunder. He couldn't have asked for a better night. The natural elements were always his friend, it seemed. That was good, because he didn't have any others.

He went to the storage shed, worked the combo on the lock, opened the door and went in. He grabbed the gear he'd need, hit the switch on the electric lift and hurried back out, the lift remote in hand.

The Formula FasTech was lowering into the water. Before he'd been caught, he'd had the foresight to make sure it was completely ready to roll. The dealer who'd sold it to his father had said it was one of the fastest boats- if not the fastest-on the lake. Well, depending on how things went, he might just need every knot it could produce.

He climbed into the cockpit. When the boat was fully in the water, he hit the stop button on the lift remote. All became silent again. He wouldn't turn on his running lights until he was well out onto the water, if even then. It was fortunate for him that no one else in his family was really much of a boater. There'd be no one coming down to the dock at this hour of the night. Lucky for them. He was in a killing mood, family or not. He couldn't seem to help himself now.

He waited, waited. There it was, the enormous crack of thunder as the storm began its barrage. He fired the twin Mercs almost simultaneously, and a thousand horsepower instantly lit up under him. He hit the captain's switch, which sent most of the engines' noise under the water. He eased back on the throttle, and the boat edged out of its slip. He turned the bow to the cove's opening, nudged the throttle forward and did about ten knots heading away from the house. He felt the hull trembling a bit under him, as though the Mercs were angry he wasn't pushing them harder, getting up on plane, blasting all comers away. He patted the dash. That will come later, I promise.

Once he hit an open channel, he went to half-speed and the FasTech immediately leaped to thirty-five knots, the Mercs still not entirely happy but getting there. He eyed the colorful GPS screen in the center of his dash and made his heading to the southeast at 150 degrees. There were no other boats on the water, and he knew the lake intimately. The channels were well marked with lighted buoys: red buoys blinking even numbers upriver and green buoys blinking odd numbers downriver. Shoals were marked in startling white light. He knew where they all were anyway. The only trouble one could get into was in the coves where low spots weren't always marked and the land jutted out randomly. However, his father had purchased a radar add-on for the FasTech, so he wasn't worried about running aground, even in the coves. Thanks, Dad, I owe you, you son of a bitch.

He kept his running lights off and upped his speed to fifty knots. He alternated between looking over the bow and glancing at the GPS. The Mercs were now fairly content; at least the hull had stopped trembling. He was up on plane and running smooth, though the storm was really blowing in now. He turned on his VHF radio and listened to the weather report. All small craft were being ordered off the water. People were being told to batten down the hatches. It was going to be a damn fine corker of a storm.

Thank you, Jesus. He'd have the whole show to himself. He changed course when he hit the main channel and pointed his bow to the southwest now, 220 degrees on the compass. It was not all that far by water really. It was far longer by car, which was why he'd taken the boat. And anyway, the cops were watching all the roads. However, there was only one police boat on the water, and it only worked weekends when the lake was most crowded. There'd be no one out here to give him trouble tonight.

He stood at the wheel and let the wind whip across his face and lift his hair. As the breeze kicked up, so did the chop; edges of frothing white outlined the tops of the dark waves now. However, the FasTech ate through the two-footers and kept right on plowing. Eddie looked at the ominous sky. He'd always loved the outdoors. Riding horses, playing soldier, camping under the wide, wide sky, painting breathtaking sunrises, hunting and fishing, coming to understand how one thing worked with another, fed off each other.

It was all coming to an end, though. He understood quite clearly that this would be his last ride. Surprising how fast it had come. He was very strong and healthy, and yet his life expectancy had topped out at age forty. Yet when it was done, he would have accomplished everything he'd set out to do. How many people could claim that? He'd lived his life exactly on his terms, not his father's or his mother's or anyone else's. His alone.

It was a lie he told himself every day.

He opened the cooler and pulled out the single beer he'd put in there before he'd been arrested. He hadn't known then that he'd need the boat, only that he might.

The beer was warm, of course, all the ice long since melted. But it tasted so good. He held up the metal against his face and rammed the throttle to full forward. The Mercs woke up from their wimpy cruising speed, and the boat screamed to seventy nautical miles per hour and then beyond. The hills that rose up from the man-made lake flew past him; the thousands of trees dotting their skin were silent sentinels to his last hurrah. The Charge of Eddie Lee Battle and His Trusty Light Brigade. God, was he in his element.

'Into the breach once more,' he screamed to the dark, flashing skies as the rain started to pour. He licked the drops off his face. 'A man's greatest virtue is the courage of one against all. When it seems darkest, then there shall be light, if only from the pulse of one beating heart,' he proclaimed, quoting the purple prose of some long- dead Civil War-era writer who'd probably never shouldered a musket in his life. As if on cue the sky was suddenly lit by a billion-candlepower stab of lightning and the thunder roared as the storm began to unleash itself.

The scream of the Mercs matched Mother Nature decibel for decibel. The wake behind him was enormous, but the ride was smooth, so damn smooth, high up on plane as he was. Almost three-quarters of the thirty-five- foot boat was out of the water, blowing right through three-footers now. He was a frigging jet. Nobody could catch him.

Nobody!