With Vòng and Kuan a few feet behind them, Riley and Selena walked together around the side of the pool. The tall Australian leaned into her and lowered his voice. “Ever heard of tombstoning?”
She kept her head facing forward and her voice down when she made her reply. “If you mean cliff jumping then you must be out of your mind. We’re forty metres above the sea and we haven’t the faintest idea how deep the water is in the cove below us.”
“You’re right, we don’t have the faintest idea how deep it is, but I have more than a faint idea about what happens when a nine mil bullet tears into your back at twelve hundred feet a second.”
“Jesus, Riley… what have we got ourselves into?”
“Life’s an adventure, Lena.”
“Right, but tombstoning is for numbnuts.”
“Hey! I tombstone back on Oz all the time.”
“Your point?”
He smiled and turned to her as they reached the edge of the pool. It was littered with empty champagne bottles and ashtrays. “We’re going to need that journal though.”
“That’s far enough,” Kuan said. He was still holding the journal in one hand, and a cocktail glass in the other. Behind him, dozens of revellers looked on curiously as the execution of the two foreigners unfolded right before their eyes.
“You can’t do this, Kuan!” Selena said.
“I can, and I will.” He turned calmly to Vòng. “Kill them both.”
Without letting another second pass, Riley charged forward into the pool and sprinted along the diving board. He bounced off the board and flew through the air toward Kuan. Vòng raised the gun and fired at him but the bullets missed and vanished in the night.
The party-goers gasped as Riley crashed to earth on top of Kuan and punched him hard in the face, knocking him into a daze. He snatched his gun and pulled him up over his body to use a human shield.
Seeing no clear shot, Vòng hesitated for just enough time to allow Selena to snatch up an empty champagne bottle and belt it around the back of the commando’s skull. He fell forward onto his knees and then crashed out at the side of the pool.
Riley tore the journal from Kuan’s hand. He heard more gasps and then some macabre cheers from the crowd, and glanced up to see two or three more goons sprinting toward them from the direction of the villa. They were holding submachine guns and began firing wildly in their direction.
“We’re out of here!” he said, and ran over to Selena at the side of the infinity pool.
“What do I do?”
“Stand straight and keep rigid with your feet together. If you turn in the air you’ll have time to come back to position. Don’t hold your nose when you hit the water — blow air out through it when you make contact with the surface.”
“Got it.”
He breathed out as he looked down at the black water. “The pool gives us a bit of an overhang so that’s a lucky break.”
“What if there are rocks?”
“The usual method would be to hit them really hard, break your legs and then die painfully in the sea.”
“Got it.”
The men were closer now, sprinting around the pool decking and firing at them. Their bullets ripped into the varnished wooden deck and kicked up a shower of sharp splinters.
“Now or never, mate,” he said with a wink.
“Should we hold hands?”
“Pointless. We’ll be pulled part a second after we jump, which is on three…”
“One,” she said, but then he pushed her off and leaped into the air behind her. A second later they were immersed in the spray of the immense waterfalls.
He spun around and saw a dazed Kuan run up to the edge of the pool and looked down, gun in hand, but the darkness of the night had already swallowed them.
He spun back and straightened up for the entry but saw Selena had timed it wrong, and was going to hit the surface on her back. Better than her front, he thought, but it was going to hurt like hell.
He drilled down into the darkness of the water and for a second the universe was silent. He floated in the black as if he was in outer space, and then he swam as fast as he could to the surface.
He gasped for air as he wiped the water from his eyes. He scanned the horizon for Selena and then he saw her, drifting on the surface and knocked out colder than an ice cube.
“Oh no…”
He fought against the violent swell of the tide in the small cove and made his way over to her. He flipped her over and held her out of the sea as he was treading water and thinking about what to do next. It was a hell of a swim around the cliffs to get out of the cove, and he knew Kuan and his men would be after them like shot out of a gun.
And then, on the horizon was Charlie Valentine and he was steering their little boat toward them. “Thank fuck for that!” he called out. “Lena — we’re saved!”
But she was still out cold as he and Charlie manoeuvred her into the boat.
“What the hell?” Charlie said.
“Get us out of here Charlie!” Riley yelled, and leaned over Selena to give her the kiss of life.
She started coughing just as Charlie opened the throttle and steered the boat out of the cove. “Is she okay?”
Selena leaned over and heaved seawater out of her lungs and mouth, gasping wildly for fresh air. “Oh God that hurts…”
“She’s going to be fine,” Riley said, rubbing her back.
They got out into the open water and headed for Ko Samui around the north coast of the island.
“Kuan’s men!” Selena cried out.
“Three boatloads of the bastards,” Riley said. “And they’ve got automatic weapons.”
“And what was that?” Selena asked, seeing a puff of smoke on the other boat.
The response was an enormous grenade explosion a few feet off their starboard bow that sprayed them with sea water and nearly tipped their boat over.
Riley turned desperate eyes up to Charlie. “If we don’t get out of here right now, we’re dead meat.”
Charlie got the message and turned the boat into the island. His plan was to hug the coast and make their silhouette less visible. It was all he could think of to give them more time and then maybe they could get back to the safety of Ko Samui.
They pulled into another cove farther around the northern coast of the island and watched with relief as Kuan and his men ripped past them. Waiting until the coast was clear Charlie turned the boat and made the decision to sail north again.
A few tense minutes passed until they all reached the conclusion they had hoodwinked Kuan and it would be plain-sailing back to the larger island, but then they heard another popping sound and turned to see Kuan was once again on their tail. He had turned and was now tearing south toward them, and the second grenade was even closer. It traced over their heads and blasted the water in front of them creating a massive trough which they ploughed into like a tractor crashing into a ditch.
Propelled forward, all three of them were nearly flung out of the tiny boat but they held on as Charlie pulled them out of it and increased speed in a vain attempt to escape their pursuers.
“Shit, Riley!” Charlie said. “They outnumber us, they outgun us and they’re faster than us. We’re properly fucked this time.”
As Kuan raced toward them, Riley and Selena shared an anxious glance.
“Pom might have a point,” he said. “We can’t out run them.”
Selena looked scared. “What the hell are we going to do, Riley?”
“That is a bloody good question, mate,” he said, and for once, he was fresh out of ideas.
Charlie was now pushing the boat to its max and knew there was nothing left in the tiny outboard motor. “Whatever we come up with it needs to be fast because we’ve got about sixty seconds before Kuan gets here.”