“Nicely done, Lester,” another said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Fender, I need that fifth canister,” Whitaker said.
“When we’re at the rendezvous, Colonel,” Fender said.
Keeping the light off, I groped my way forward as if reading Braille, feeling the walls of cattails to either side of me and almost tripping over the major’s body. A powerful outboard engine fired to life. Then another.
“Use the electrics!” the colonel said.
“Sorry, Colonel,” Hobbes said. “Fender and I are going for distance, not stealth. Come with us. Leave that raft for the others.”
“I’m right behind you,” Whitaker said.
The first raft roared off, and through the rain I could tell they were not far ahead of me. It sounded like Whitaker was stowing and strapping gear, and he was doing it with no discernible light source.
Night-vision goggles, I thought, and in my stocking feet I carefully stepped free of the reeds and onto a sand bar with an inch of tidal water on it.
The colonel grunted with effort. I heard the raft slide.
He grunted again, and I heard the raft slide a second time, gritty, like coarse sandpaper on soft wood.
Whitaker couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen yards from me, by the sound of it. So I eased into a crouch, raised my gun and flashlight, and whistled softly.
Then I flipped on the Maglite, trying to shine it right in his goggles.
Chapter
103
Colonel Whitaker cried out in surprise and pain. He threw up his arms to shield the goggles from magnifying my already powerful light.
I charged into point-blank range then, still shining the beam on him as he cringed, tore off the goggles, and threw them down.
“I can’t see,” he said, bent over and rubbing at his eyes. “Christ, I’m blind!”
“Jeb Whitaker,” I said, taking another step closer. “Get on the ground, hands behind your head.”
“I said I’m blind!”
“I don’t care,” I said. “You are under arrest for murder, treason, and—”
Whitaker uncoiled from his position so fast I never got off a shot. He spun spiral and low toward me and delivered the knife hard and underhand.
I saw the Ka-Bar knife coming but couldn’t move quick enough to keep the blade from being buried deep in my right thigh. I howled in agony. My light and gun came off Whitaker long enough for him to continue his attack.
Two strides and he was on me. He grabbed my right hand, my pistol hand, and twisted it so hard, the gun dropped from my fingers.
The back-to-back shocks—being stabbed and then having my wrist nearly broken—were almost too much, and for a moment I thought I’d succumb. But before the Marine colonel could snatch my light from me, I swung the butt end of the flashlight hard at his head.
I connected.
Whitaker lurched and let go of my numb hand.
I kept after him with my good left hand, raising the flashlight to chop at him. The colonel dodged the blow and punched me so hard in the face I saw stars. Whitaker grabbed me by the straps on my bulletproof vest and punched me again in the face.
“You’re not stopping me, Cross,” he said, punching me a third and fourth time, breaking my nose. “Nothing’s stopping me from fumigating the bugs in DC that have destroyed this great country.”
My legs buckled. I sagged and began to swoon, heading toward darkness.