He pointed at the forklift driver, who again didn’t notice, “Not to him,” Carl said, then moved his finger to the fisherman, “To him. I tell him to vatch bag and I pay.” He walked to the fisherman, who looked way, way up at Carl.
“That’s not who I would have picked,” I said to Hondo.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...” Hondo said.
The fisherman nodded, put his rod down, zigzagged his way around several pallets of fertilizer to us, and held out his hand.
Pretty Boy winked as I put the bag in his hand, then he went back through the stacks to the rod, put the bag down by his leg, nodded to Carl and resumed fishing. The forklift moved near him and picked up a six-foot high pallet of fertilizer. Pretty Boy was obscured for several seconds before the driver backed the load to the far end of the pile. Carl watched to make sure the bag was still with the fisherman. It was.
Carl barked at Frank to go on board and get Landman and the others, but Meadows wasn’t going to do it. He stood his ground with his fists clenched.
Bond said in a tired voice, “Frank, go ahead. Let’s get this over with.” Frank looked at her, then unclenched his hands and boarded. He started to untie them but Carl said, “No, leave them tied.” Frank shot Carl a look, but that was all, then he followed Landman and the women up the gangplank and onto the dock.
At the same time, the forklift was bringing a pallet of fertilizer from the far back to the front. I saw Carl watch it, then I saw the change in his eyes. I thought, Uh-oh.
Carl roared a command in Russian and every eye on the Bad Guy’s team got big and round.
Carl raced toward the fisherman.
Bond’s mouth opened and she looked at the forklift. The two henchmen drew Berettas with each hand and aimed at Landman and the women.
The forklift driver gunned his machine and turned toward the two gunmen by the yacht.
The men working by the stacked fertilizer pulled Tech-nines and Mac-tens from thin air and started blazing away.
The fisherman dropped his rod, picked up the bag and backpedaled as fast as he could between the pallets, yelling, “Hey, hey, hey!”
Automatic and semi-automatic fire sent splinters flying from the docks and puffs of grainy fertilizer exploding from the sacks of fertilizer. Bond dropped to the dock and covered her head as Frank screamed, “Bond! Bond!”
Hondo fired what sounded like a hundred fast rounds from his Glocks right by my ear and knocked the two gunmen down. Me, I pulled my puny six shot revolver and ran toward Landman.
Bob Landman may have been a pretend hero in the movies, but there was real bravery in him, too. When the shooting started, he yelled for the women to run and he deliberately dropped behind them to keep his body between them and the Russian shooters. I raced by the women and behind Landman to shield him and cut his ropes with my pocketknife. The shooting had started to fall off after Hondo knocked the two men down, but as I glanced at them and pushed Landman ahead of me, I saw the Russians rise.
I emptied my pistol at them and saw shirts jump with every shot. Hondo emptied both weapons. The Maravilla guys on the stack of fertilizer tossed their empty weapons aside and came forward with fists and knives. Hondo said, “Vests!”
I felt a bullet zipp by my face as one of the Russians fired. I pulled the trigger and heard the click. I yelled at Hondo, “Now you say ‘Vests’!”
I glanced around and saw Carl catch the fisherman, and Pretty Boy tried to fight him, but Rakes simply ripped the bag from his hand, then grabbed Pretty Boy by an arm and his crotch and swung him like a hammer-thrower, sending him sailing over the top of the stack of fertilizer. Pretty Boy yelled, “I can’t swim!” right before we heard the splash.
The forklift driver, Cuarenta, leaned out the driver’s side to fire a Tech-nine around the stacked pallet as he drove toward the Russians. Cuarenta’s bullets plunked into the yacht but not many rounds were finding their mark. It drew the Russians’ attention away from me and Landman, though, and they concentrated their fire on the forklift.
I saw a round hit Cuarenta in the shoulder and another one caught the side of his head. He went limp and the forklift veered as his hand fell off the wheel. The forklift knocked a cleat into the air, crashed into the gang-plank and bounced off the dock and into the yacht at a crazy angle, trailing a stream of golden liquid from a ruptured fuel tank and spilling the sacks of fertilizer on the deck as the forklift careened on its side to land on top of them. A flying fifty-pound bag of ammonium nitrate knocked out Frank as he rushed toward Bond.
The momentum of the colliding forklift moved the boat away from the dock and the single rusted cleat gave way and dropped into the water, still attached to the line from the yacht.
Movement among the pallets caught my eye and I swung my attention that way in time to see Hondo and Carl facing each other.
A bullet tugged at my shirt and I saw the Russians aiming at me. Landman was beside me and I pushed him, “Run!” I said. I turned back.
Behind the Russians, on the yacht, I saw Cuarenta get to his knees, bloody head and all, and take his time with the Tech-nine. There was a flat sounding shot, one Russian’s hair flew up on the back of his head, and he fell face down. The other turned and the Tech-nine clicked. The Russian raised his pistol and it clicked. Cuarenta jumped at the Russian and they went down in a heap on the dock, rolling and slugging and kicking.
Frank staggered to his feet, still yelling for Bond.
I shouted at Landman “Get the women behind that big warehouse,” then ran toward Hondo as the other Maravillas went to help Cuarenta and Pretty Boy.
I heard Carl as I raced to the pallets.
Carl said, “You vish to try Carl, hah? Carl break you like stick of shit.”