Kirstie looked past him at the cruiser expanding with a roar of diesel engines. “You won’t even get to the reef.”
“Hey, show a little faith.” That smile again. “I’ve got a way of making them back off.”
He withdrew the Beretta from his waistband.
Leaning over the safety rail for a better view, training the binoculars on the runabout, Moore saw the pistol come up fast.
Instinctively she pulled back, a split second late.
The bullet caught her left arm below the elbow, shattering her radius and ulna.
Pain walloped her, knocked her reeling to the deck of the bridge.
Blur of action to her right. Pice seizing his Winchester.
What came out of her mouth was one long unpunctuated cry of distress: “No don’t you’ll hit the hostage!”
“Warning shot,” Pice snapped. He poked the gun barrel past the windshield and squeezed off a round, aiming high.
The rifle’s report cracked like a stinging hand clap over the water. Reflexively Kirstie ducked.
A strong hand closed over her shoulder and wrenched her roughly off the thwart. Jack thrust her in front of him and screamed.
“Shoot me now, you assholes!” Frenzied exhilaration shredded his voice. “Come on, shoot me now!"
He pistoned out his arm, the Beretta pointed like an accusing finger, and fired again.
Lovejoy was on his way across the bridge to help his partner when the venturi windshield exploded in a cloud of shards.
Pice shielded his face with his arm. Lovejoy, caught off balance, had no chance to protect himself. Crumbs of glass chewed through his face like rodent teeth.
“Jesus.”
He stumbled, blinking blood out of his eyes. For a heart-stopping moment he thought he had been blinded. No. Cuts scored his forehead and cheeks; blood had dampened his eyes only as it spattered.
At the steering console, Pice fired a second warning shot.
Lovejoy ran a handkerchief over his face and crouched beside Moore. He tore off the sleeve of her jacket, then removed his necktie and wound it around her arm at the elbow, making a tourniquet.
“This no-account mother’s gonna kill us both,” Moore said with a twitchy attempt at a smile.
“No chance. We’ve got him on the run.”
At least, he hoped they did.
The reef wavered on the horizon, a crooked line against a brassy smear of sun.
Jack had hoped the sportfisher would cut her speed, giving him time to find some narrow channel between the rocks.
No such luck. The cruiser was hard astern, bearing down on him like a runaway train.
Well, there was an alternate way of crossing the reef.
He gunned the motor, pushing the runabout to full throttle. The bow lifted. The boat bounced crazily, skimming the water and shooting up fans of spray, as the Yamaha outboard shrilled.
“Some fun, huh?” he asked Kirstie with a bark of laughter.
Her eyes, wide and strangely vacant, stared out from behind a foam-drenched net of hair.
Clutching her closer, ignoring her feeble moan of protest, Jack fired another shot at the sportfisher’s bridge.
The third bullet blasted a smoking hole in the control console, showering Pice with sparks.
“You okay?” Lovejoy yelled.
“Bastard missed me. Knocked out my oil gauges, is all.”
Lovejoy finished knotting the tourniquet in place. “Lie still,” he told Moore.
“Like hell.” She fumbled her. 38 out of her shoulder holster with her good hand. “Where I grew up, a flesh wound is about as serious as a paper cut. We’ve got to give Pice some protection.”
“All right, cover him from here-but stay down. I’ll try to draw Jack’s fire.”
He swung onto the ladder and descended to the weather deck, awash in spray. A sliding door admitted him to the galley. Lurching from handhold to handhold, he advanced to the main cabin, where a companionway ladder lowered him to the forward stateroom.
V-berths were built into the bulkheads. He stood on a berth and opened the overhead hatch, then hauled himself up onto the foredeck. On elbows and knees he wriggled to the stem of the prow.
The runabout was fifty feet away, a speeding arrowhead on a feathery shaft of wake, launched at the red bull’s-eye of the sun.
Lovejoy fired a round well wide of the mark, simply hoping to get Jack’s attention and prevent another shot at the bridge.
Jack heard the bullet whiz past and caught a glimpse of the man prone on the foredeck, intermittently visible as the sportfisher’s bow lifted and plunged.
The reef was less than a minute ahead. He could afford no further distractions.
Next time the bow swung down, he would take the fucker out.
The cruiser’s bow rose on a swell, then dipped as the wave passed. For an instant the gunman bobbed into view, a perfect target.
Jack pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
The Beretta was empty, the sixteen-round clip finally exhausted.
“Shit.” Jack pitched the gun overboard.
It didn’t matter anyway. If he cleared the reef, the sportfisher couldn’t follow. Either she would be forced into a hopelessly time-consuming detour, or she would founder on the rocks.
The Black Caesar shook with the twin diesels’ vibrations. Glass shards clinging to the windshield frame shivered and fell like melting icicles.
Moore saw the reef and yelled a warning to Pice. “Coral ahead!”
“I know it.” The captain’s voice was calm. “He’s trying to wreck us.”
“Won’t he wreck himself, too?”
“He doesn’t think so. He’s got a daredevil stunt in mind.”
“What have you got in mind?”
Pice showed her a grim smile. “Just hang onto that rail when I tell you to. And tell your partner to get below deck.”
The reef was close now. Thirty seconds.
Jack scanned the line of rocks and saw a short stretch of coral flatter than the main line of the ridge. He jerked the throttle arm sideways, aiming for that spot.
A lightweight craft running at top speed on a rough sea was capable of hydroplaning over a reef, skimming the jagged outcrops without being caught and torn.
It could be done. He’d heard stories of such maneuvers while hanging around boatyards in the Keys many summers ago.
The trick was in the timing. You had to catch a wave, ride it like a surfer, let the rolling carpet of water sweep you over the rocks to safety on the other side.
Ten seconds.
Jack, be nimble…
“Peter! Get below!”
Lovejoy heard Moore’s shout in the same moment when the reef appeared out of a whirl of spray, dead ahead.
He scrambled away from the stem and dropped down the hatch.
Through the bulkheads, the big diesels howled like tortured beasts. He gripped the companionway ladder, lacing his fingers between the treads.
What the hell was Pice up to? He seemed to be trying to get them all killed.
Five seconds.
Jack released Kirstie and pushed her into the bow. He nudged the throttle stick to the right, correcting for a few degrees of leeward drift.
Jack, be quick…
“Hang on!” Pice shouted.
Moore grabbed the safety rail with her good hand.
The reef was terrifyingly close. No way they could stop in time. She braced for impact.
Pice rammed the paired throttles into neutral and spun the wheel to starboard.
Lovejoy heard the sudden drop in engine noise, felt the boat’s shuddering turn. In the main cabin, something tipped over with a crash.
He tightened his grip on the ladder, knuckles squeezed white.
Silently he prayed.
Two seconds.
Jack, jump over…
One second.