No Safe Place (Joe Hunter Thrillers Book 11) (26 page)

The distant pop of a handgun was barely decipherable over the roaring of the labouring outboard motor, and the pirogue’s noisy progress over the lake.
I was pushing the boat too hard, but I could live with a burned out motor: I couldn’t live with the knowledge I’d arrived too late to help Rink, Cole or even Andrew Clayton.

I was standing to the rear of the boat, forcing extra effort from the engine, my legs braced, trying to ride as best I could the bouncing and shuddering of the boat as it dipped and fell in the water. Scanning ahead, I’d no real idea which of the lights in view belonged to the safe house where we’d originally intended hiding Cole and his father. The gunshot should have given me a clue, but the acoustics played havoc with my hearing. I squeezed my eyelids tight, then blinked, shaking my head. Tried to pierce the dancing horizon with my gaze.

Another gunshot rang out.

This time I spotted a corresponding flash, and I yanked on the motor to send me in a tight curve to the left – I’d almost overshot the gunfight, streaking initially too far to the north. I swore under my breath as I almost pitched from the boat, fought for balance, then nudged some more power from the throttle. As it was, I still felt as if I was only crawling across the lake.

What the hell was going on? How many guns had Royce brought to the fight with him? Had they ambushed Rink and the others outside, or waited until they’d entered the cabin? What about my friend and charges: were any of them hurt? They were all questions for later. The important thing right then was getting to the opposite shore as rapidly as possible.

Bryony was on her way. And for the briefest of moments I thought I heard the distant squall of sirens, and hoped it was cops she’d called in as back up. The sirens could have been miles away, and before the cops could arrive anything might happen. Gunfights could be fatal in a matter of split seconds.

The western edge of Lake Tarpon was shallow, and as I pushed for the shore, it became choked with long reeds, floating twigs and thick with silt. A normal keeled boat would have struggled, becoming mired in the entangling reeds, but the flat-bottomed pirogue was designed by fisherman working on the bayous and easily contended with it. Nevertheless, I had to pull the motor out of the water as I drew nearer shore, as the reeds began to entangle the screws. I allowed the boat to coast in, and was still a dozen feet out from dry land when I scrambled forward and jumped overboard. Bad idea. My feet sank deep in the mud, and I almost went face down in the filth I’d stirred up. Fighting at the cloying muck, swiping aside reeds, I pushed for the shore, gasping in effort with every step won. Only once I was on dry land, my feet settled under me, did I draw my SIG out of my waistband. After the scuffle with Clayton, and its unceremonious dumping on the lawn when he overturned the picnic table, I’d stripped, cleaned and oiled my gun, before reassembling and reloading it: I knew it was good to go. But I still gave it a once over having floundered about in the water, even as I ran at a crouch through a snarl of low bushes towards a stand of hard-packed dirt masquerading as a parking lot.

There was nobody in sight, but I heard rushed voices debating something from a few hundred paces to my left. A stand of trees made it impossible to see the cabin I suspected nestled at the rear of the trees.

I began to move for the trees but pushing through them would prove too noisy. Changing trajectory, I headed instead for the parking area. As my feet found the hard-pack, I moved more stealthily, edging along the lot with the trees as cover, until I got a look down a narrow trail dug from the earth by the wheels of vehicles coming and going over the years. It was a secondary route to the cabin, one where boats could be brought down to the lakeside on trailers. I moved down it, listening keenly, still unsure of the scene I’d find, or the number of enemies.

What the hell had happened? And to what extent did Royce Benson want revenge where he’d bring an armed gang to a shootout where a little child was involved? His own boy, if he had any sense of responsibility. I took it he’d no intention of snatching Cole as his own, and was more interested in putting down the last of those he felt had wronged him all those years ago, even if Cole was in the firing line. Suddenly I hated the man with a passion.

The cops were still a good way off, the distant warble of sirens barely reaching my ears from somewhere across the lake. They’d headed directly for the cabin on the other side of the water, and would be even longer in arriving here. I had mixed feelings; at least with the late arrival of the cavalry it gave me an opportunity to get on with what was required.

As I reached the end of the trail, the woods to either side opened up, and in the dimness of the sunset I made out the peeked roof of a fishing lodge even larger than the one I’d come from. It sat in an open spread of ground, bordered again on the far side by trees. The lawn was patchy, and partly cluttered by boats in dry-dock, sheeted up against the elements. A separate building down at the lakeside appeared to be a boatshed. My Audi was drawn up alongside the house, but there was nobody in it, and nobody nearby. A van was parked so close it nudged the Audi’s crumpled rear fender. The van’s doors were wide open. Another vehicle, some kind of pickup truck, was further back and its doors were open too, showing the speed at which its occupants had decamped.

There’d been no gunfire since I was still out on the lake. But the lack of a fight was more worrying than if guns still crackled and popped. It could mean I was already too late to help.

The house was in darkness and wasn’t under attack.

I sprinted across the patchwork lawn, and sequestered myself alongside the van. I dipped a look in an open door and found nobody inside. Next, I duck walked to my Audi. The rear bumper was badly crumpled, showing that the van had shunted it the last few feet to its final resting place. There was a gouge in the paintwork of the roof where a bullet had struck it a glancing blow. Briefly piecing together what had happened, I thought that our switcheroo with the cars had been spotted back at the other cabin, and the gang lying in wait to ambush us had followed Rink and our wards as he’d driven away, leaving behind the trio to deal with me. On approach to this place, Rink must have spotted the tail, but only once on the way down to the house. The van had rammed him, while those in the pickup had jumped out shooting. I was only glad there was no presence of blood to show they’d been hit before Rink and the others got out. They didn’t have time to get inside the house, and with no safe place to hide had gone the only way available. I ran for the corner of the house, and looked across more parched grass to where the beached boats stood. Somebody crouched alongside them.

There was enough ambient light to make out the figure of a man, holding a pistol, and to tell it was nobody I recognised. I doubted it was a well-meaning neighbour who’d come to help, which left only one thing: he was an enemy. There wasn’t another person to be seen from where I stood, so I walked out determinedly. I’d approached two thirds of the way before the gunman was aware of my presence, and he turned and looked back at me. He had no idea who I was, and had no hope of making out my features, or even the gun I held at my waistline.

‘Where the fuck are they?’ he whispered, mistaking me for one of his pals.

‘You tell me,’ I said, and fired.

My bullet took him in the thigh, and he squealed like a stuck pig, as he collapsed on the ground, drawing up his knee into his arms. He’d dropped his weapon. I kicked it aside, even as I reached down and snagged a fistful of his hair. I stuck the barrel of my SIG under his jaw.

‘Didn’t you fucking hear me?’ I demanded.

He was a man in his thirties, skinny to a point of emaciation, with teardrop tattoos dripping from the corner of his right eye. Prison tats, I thought, from Zephyrhills Correctional Institute maybe, where he’d made Royce Benson’s acquaintance. It was all supposition, and didn’t matter one bit.

‘What the fuck, man?’ he cried, and real tears joined the stylized ones on his cheeks. ‘You shot me, man!’

‘Want me to shoot you again,
man
? How many of you are there?’ I gave his hair an extra twist, forcing his chin tighter against the barrel of my SIG.

‘Two, man! There’s only two more of us. Royce and Bean. Fuck, man, I thought you was Bean.’ He continued to grapple with his tormented leg, and I allowed him to wallow in his pain a moment.

‘Where are they?’ I asked.

He was too busy crying to answer.

Releasing his hair, I slapped aside his hands, and forced my thumb on to the wound in his leg. ‘You have to keep pressure on if you want the bleeding to stop,’ I said, and nastily ground my thumb tip deep into the pulped flesh. The guy squealed again, and I almost felt sorry for him. Threatening him wouldn’t give me answers quickly enough, so good old fashioned torture was on the cards. ‘Where are your friends?’ I demanded to know, and dug in harder.

Through his bleats of agony, he stabbed a finger towards lakeside. In hindsight, he didn’t have to, because as he was gesticulating frantically another gun fired and through cracks between the planks I saw the flash light up the interior of the boathouse.

Who was inside, friend or foe?

I snatched up the crying man’s gun, checked it out. It was a revolver, with all six rounds still in their chambers. He hadn’t fired, or he’d reloaded it. Whatever, I couldn’t allow him to rejoin the fight. I clubbed him on the skull with the gun. It didn’t knock him out, but gave him another painful wound to keep his mind distracted. He lay there mewling in abstract dejection as I trotted away, keeping the boats between the action and me.

Another shot rang from the boathouse, and there was a thunder roll of feet on a boardwalk.

Rushing forward, I aimed for a gap between two upturned rowboats, looking for a way to the far side of the boathouse. I was galvanised by the yelp of terror from a small boy, and let caution slip as I bolted now for the gap.

In my haste I stumbled over the legs of a man propped in the deep well of shadows against the upturned keel of the first rowboat. I skidded, going down on one knee before I could right myself, and snapped my attention on him. For the second time in less than half an hour a gun was pointed directly at my face.

‘Thank your stars I’m not top of my game, right now. I almost ventilated your skull, Hunter,’ said Rink as he lowered his sidearm.

My friend tried to express humour in his words, but he was too pained for them to sound sincere. His face gleamed slick with sweat in the gloom. Fearing the worst I leaned towards him, trying to see where he was hit. He pawed my hand aside.

‘I took one in the side. Hurts like a bastard when I try to stand, but I ain’t dead yet.’ He straightened where he sat, but hissed in pain.

‘Take it easy, Rink,’ I admonished him, ‘you’re not helping yourself by trying to get up.’

‘Ain’t gonna sit here on my ass when the fighting’s not done,’ he said. ‘There’s some punk-ass creeping round back there with a hawgleg…’

‘I got him,’ I said, taking it he was referring to the crying man. I was surprised he hadn’t heard our interaction seeing as it had gone down only a handful of yards away. Then again, bullet wounds, and the ensuing shock could play havoc on the senses. I bet that Rink’s internal voice had been yelling in anger and frustration and blocked out everything else. That or he’d sunk into momentary unconsciousness. I was only glad he’d enough of his wits about him not to pull the trigger when I blundered over him in the dark. ‘There are two more of the arseholes out there. What happened, Rink?’

‘Got the drop on us,’ he explained breathlessly. ‘Royce rammed the car; another coupla punks came out of a pickup shooting. I got Clayton and the boy to cover, but only at the expense of my own ass.’

He hadn’t literally been shot in the backside. I could see now where he pressed his left hand over a wound in his side, an inch above his hip. His shirt and the top of his jeans were sodden with blood.

‘Through and through?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Not my day, brother,’ he said, meaning the bullet was lodged somewhere inside him.

‘Shit.’

‘Don’t worry about me. You gotta go save the kid.’

‘Did you get any of them?’ I asked.

‘Man, don’t go rubbing salt in my wounds, Joe.’ His face pulled up into a grimace. I preferred to see that than him sinking into the calm resolution of oncoming death. If he was bleeding inside, hopefully it wasn’t from torn arteries or he was finished. I hoped the fact he was in pain meant he wasn’t succumbing quickly to an internal bleed. He stared at me a second or two too long, and I feared he was losing it, but then he said, ‘How’d you get here anyway?’

I was soaked, and muddy, and bits of broken reeds had adhered to my jacket. From the look of things it was fair to think I’d swam across the lake. ‘Tell you later,’ I promised.

A shout snapped out from down near the boathouse, initiating another volley of bullets.

‘Help me up, brother,’ said Rink, grabbing at my shoulder.

‘Stay down,’ I commanded. ‘You’re going to bleed out if you try to move.’

‘I can still shoot. Give you cover. Help me over there.’ He nodded to the keel of the next boat along. From there he would have a line on the back end of the boathouse. And covering fire would be helpful.

‘OK, but that’s as far as you go. Got it?’

‘OK, Mom,’ he said, and twisted his mouth in the parody of a grin. I grasped his bent arm, and used it to drag him the few feet to the other boat. He tried to help, but his legs disobeyed him, scraping feebly at the earth. I didn’t want to imagine what damage had been done to his insides, and if his spine had been hit by the tumbling bullet…

No. I couldn’t allow myself to think the worst. It was only shock, his nervous system rebelling against the trauma.

‘Here.’ I passed him the liberated revolver. He tucked the gun down by his right thigh as a back-up weapon, needing one hand to compress his wound. Then he wormed around to a better position: he bit down on the agony even the smallest of movements set off within him.

I forced him a smile of concern.

‘Go on, git outta here,’ he growled.

Giving him a quick squeeze of his shoulder, I told him I’d be back.

‘Make sure you bring Cole with ya,’ he said, and it was the motivation I required to leave my injured friend’s side. I slipped around the keel of the rowboat, scanning both sides of the boathouse. From my position I couldn’t tell where Royce or his buddy, Bean, were, but one of them must have been in the nearby woods because that’s where Clayton was shooting. As far as I knew Clayton had little experience with firearms, and I could only assume Rink had passed him a gun, or he’d found one in the boathouse. Whatever, he had little hope of contending with two gunmen on opposite sides of the building, while trying to keep Cole out of harm’s way.

Coming to a snap decision, I ran across the lawn to the stand of trees. My hope was that in the dark, and with no idea I’d escaped the trap set for me at the other cabin, Royce or his pal would think I was their tattooed buddy rushing to help. Thankfully I didn’t get shot, so my ploy must have worked.

The woodland had been abandoned to nature. In the gloom the branches were a snarl of tugging and scraping barbs that pulled at my clothing and hair. I almost took out an eye on a broken twig that speared the bridge of my nose. Underfoot the coarse grass was matted, and the earth spongy. It made moving both difficult and noisy, but I persevered. I forged through the woods towards the lakeside.

‘Hart!’ came a harsh whisper from a few yards to my left. ‘Get back to the goddamn house. You’re supposed to be stopping them running back that way.’

I stood still, peering at the shape crouching a few feet into the trees. There was no way of knowing who had spoken, but my guess was that Royce would be closer to the action.

‘Bean?’ I whispered, to disarm him, as I began creeping forward. He’d no way of knowing I was there, and hearing his own name would only enforce the notion I was his tattooed pal, Hart.

‘Royce will tear you a new one if those fuckers get away,’ Bean warned, but I was glad to note his attention was back on the boathouse. He was kneeling, holding a pistol with both hands. It wasn’t aimed at any target, just ready for if he spotted movement.

I could have executed him on the spot. Moved in on him, put my gun to his skull, and spread his brains like compost in the grass.

As much as I was tempted, I didn’t blow out his brains. The cops were coming, and even though I was trying to save an endangered child, my every move would come under deep scrutiny.

But I had to put the gunman out of commission, and in a way he couldn’t continue the fight, even if he was left alive after it.

I shoved away my gun as I crossed the last few feet.

He glanced back at me at the most opportune moment...but only for me. Even in the dark my build registered, and he knew I wasn’t skinny Hart. He began to turn, to bring round his gun. But my fast jab connected solidly with the side of his jaw. He began to sag, but wasn’t unconscious. He jerked spasmodically, and again tried to bring his gun to bear. When questioned later, I could therefore claim I was fighting for my life. Grabbing both his hands so I had control of the gun, I yanked him off balance and he fell on his side. I continued the twist on his gun, and it rotated out of his grasp, his index finger misaligned on his right hand when it was caught in the trigger guard and wrenched out of its socket. A mere dislocation would slow but not stop him. I threw his gun behind me into the woods, and then rained blows to his head and neck.

Bean was totally overwhelmed, but I wasn’t finished. I grabbed his right arm, pulled it straight with my right arm, and dropped my elbow sharply down on his. His arm broke. In case he was ambidextrous, I flattened him face down on the trampled grass, reached across and hoisted his left arm in the air. I folded his hand over the wrist until the metacarpals could withstand the force no longer and began to crackle and pop. With both arms so severely damaged, Bean would have to be some kind of kickboxing expert to rejoin the battle, but even then he wouldn’t be throwing kicks any time soon. I hoofed him between the legs, to ensure he stayed down, and gave him an extra stamp to the liver just for the hell of it. His punishment was deserving of a bastard threatening the life of a child.

Bean, Hart, Lonnie, Mike and the nameless knifeman, all of them were scumbags in my estimation, and had gotten off lightly. The worst of them was still out there, though, and he was the real target. The fact that I’d heard no gunfire lately wasn’t lost on me. Leaving Bean moaning in agony, I drew my SIG and headed for the boathouse.