Red Tide (Billy Knight Thrillers 2)

“I thought you were dead,” he said.

“I still might be,” I said. “Help me with Anna.”

He ripped a large chunk of the white gown she was wrapped in and made a pad of it, winding another strip around to hold it in place. I watched him work. There was strange mad light in his eyes, like he wasn’t sure what to do but wanted to do it at top speed.

“You saved my life.” I nodded at Anna. “Both our lives.”

He looked up at me, eyes burning. “It was good shooting., eh? Real fucking great, wasn’t I?”

“The best I ever saw. Thanks.”

He looked at Cappy. He looked at the two guards, one motionless and one still struggling with the hole in his guts. Nicky pulled the pistol from his waistband and looked at it for a minute. Then he threw it as hard as he could, over the rail and into the deep waters of the Gulf Stream.

“Filthy fucking thing,” he said.

Chapter Thirty

They took me to Jackson Memorial Hospital, I guess because it was an airlift. Or maybe they weren’t sure I could pay for all the work I was going to take, and Jackson is where they take you if you can’t pay. I didn’t look like the kind of guy who pays cash for a new Bentley. Or even a pair of tube socks. My clothes were battered, ripped and stained with blood. So was I.

I was going to take a lot of work. They all agreed on that. The X-ray technician clucked and shook her head and hurried away to get the doctor. The doctor hissed and called for a couple more doctors. The three doctors went into a huddle over the X-rays and kept looking at me sideways.

It came down to five broken ribs and a broken arm, with a whole lot of assorted tissue damage and subdural hematoma over two-thirds of my body. One lung was punctured, they were very optimistic about the liver damage and the tendons in my arm, but there was a toxic residue in my blood none of them could figure out—except for one intern from Jamaica who didn’t say anything, but made an extra wide circle around my bed when he had to go past.

They wouldn’t let me go with Anna and I couldn’t move that far by myself. So Nicky went with her and shuttled back and forth with progress reports: she’s lost a lot of blood but seems okay; they can’t identify the sedative she’s been given but it seems like some kind of organic compound; and finally that she had opened an eye for a couple of seconds.

I drifted in and out of sleep with the painkillers they dripped into me. I woke up when they taped my ribs and again when they put the cast on my arm. I slept through most of the stitches.

And then much later I woke up again knowing I was not alone. The painkillers had lost their edge and I felt like I’d been through a threshing machine. A circle of cold eyes stared down at me, not doctors.

Two of them wore Coast Guard uniforms. The others were wearing the kind of suits you wear if you’re a politician and you think you’re going to make the six o’clock news.

There must have been something really strong in my IV after all. I had the damnedest time figuring out what they were saying, until finally it occurred to me that I was being grilled. A couple of the suits were from INS, and the rest were local and federal law enforcement.

They were on me like hyenas onto bad meat. I saw Deacon at the back of the pack, leaning against the wall and cleaning his fingernails with a large buck knife.

I tried to concentrate on what the hyenas were saying, but they all had a speech they had to make, and they couldn’t decide who was more important, so it was tough going for a while.

It seemed to come down to this: they were considering charging me with a number of things, including piracy, murder, felonious assault, hijacking, and fifty-nine separate violations of INS code. That was the first time I’d heard the number of Haitians they’d managed to save. The longer they talked, the lower that number seemed.

In the end they stood around and took turns making threats, and when I didn’t say anything they looked at each other for a minute and then left, assuring me I hadn’t heard the end of it and it was a very serious matter.

Then they were gone and only Deacon was left. He put away the buck knife and gave me a short smile. “How you feeling, buddy?” he said.

“My left toe feels great,” I told him. “Thanks for coming to my hanging.”

“A real pleasure. Haven’t seen that many agencies show that much cooperation my whole career. Inspiring. You got a real talent.” He moved over and stood close the bed. “They sent them back, you know. The people they fished out of the water.”

“Back to Haiti?”

He nodded. “That’s right. Priority mail, on the first cutter that got to the scene.”

I closed my eyes. I wasn’t dumb enough to expect a parade and instant citizenship for the refugees, but it seemed like I’d been through an awful lot just to keep things the same. I said so.

“Life isn’t perfect, Billy. And alive is better than dead any old time. Most of ’em probably try again.”

“That’s very encouraging,” I said.

“Well, hell, buddy. You got the bad guy, and that’s a big step forward.”