'No, señor! You must run! Get to your feet!' Kendrick felt his arms being pulled out of their sockets and his face being repeatedly, harshly slapped. 'You will come with me or you will die, and I will not die with you! I have loved ones in El Descanso—’
'What?' shouted Evan, saying nothing, agreeing to nothing, but answering everything as part of the mists cleared. His shoulder on fire, the blood drenching his shirt, he rose and lurched for the steps, somehow in the far reaches of his mind remembering the Colt .45 he had taken from the Mafioso, ripping it out of his back pocket, tearing the stretched cloth to remove the weapon too large for its recess. I'm with you!' he cried out to Emilio.
'I know,' replied the Mexican, slowing his pace and turning around. 'Who pulled you up the steps, señor?… You are hurt and the path is dark so I must use the linterna—the flashlight.'
Suddenly the earth exploded, shaking the ground with the impact of a block-sized meteor, smashing windows throughout the big house on top of the hill and sending fire up into the night sky. The generator's fuel tank erupted into the heavens as the two fugitives raced down the path, Kendrick staggering, trying desperately to focus on the wavering beam of light ahead, his knee and ankle searing in pain.
Shots. Gunfire! Bullets snapped above them, around them, digging up the earth in front of them. Emilio switched off the torch and grabbed Evan's hand. 'It is not much longer now. I know the way and I will not let go of you.'
'If we ever get away from here, you're going to have the biggest fishing boat in El Descanso!'
'No, señor, I will move my family to the hills. These men will come after me, after my nifios.'
'How about a ranch?' The moon abruptly emerged from beyond the rushing, low-flying clouds, revealing the island's dock barely two hundred feet away. The gunfire had ceased; it started up again, but again the earth seemingly blew apart, an isolated galactic mass in frenzy. 'It happened!' shouted Kendrick as they neared the base of the dock.
'Señor?' cried the Mexican, terrified at the ear-shattering, unexpected detonation, panicked by the ball of smoke and the branches of fire that rose beyond the house on the hill. This island will go into the sea! What happened?'
'The second tank blew! I couldn't predict, I could only hope.'
A single gunshot. From the dock. Emilio was hit! He doubled over grabbing his upper thigh as the blood spread through his trousers. A man with a rifle moved out of the moonlit shadows fifty feet away, raising a hand-held intercom to his face. Evan crouched, his whole body now a festering boil, and raised his left hand to steady his right and the Colt automatic. He fired twice, one or both of his shots hitting the target. The guard reeled, dropping both the rifle and the radio; he fell on the thick wood planks and was still.
'Come on, amigo!' cried Kendrick, gripping Emilio's shoulder.
'I cannot travel I have no leg!'
'Well, I'm not going to die with you, you bastard! I've got a couple of loved ones, too, over there. Get off your ass or swim back to El Descanso and your niños!'
‘¿Como?' shouted the Mexican furiously as he struggled to rise.
That's better. Get angry! We've both got a lot to be angry about.' His arm around Emilio's waist, his barely functioning shoulder and legs supporting the Mexican, the two men walked out on the dark dock. The big boat on the right!' yelled Evan, grateful that the moon had gone back behind the clouds. 'You know about boats, amigo?'
'I am a fisherman!'
'Boats like this?' asked Kendrick, propelling Emilio over the side on to the deck, laying the .45 on the gunwale.
'You don't catch fish on these boats, you catch turistas.'
'There's another definition—’
'Es igua!… Still, I have run many boats. I can try… The other boats, señor! They will come out and find us for they are much faster than this beautiful one.'
'Could any of them make it to the mainland?'
'Never. They cannot take heavy swells, and burn fuel too quickly. Thirty, forty kilometres and they must come back. This is the barca for us.'
'Give me your Sterno!' yelled Evan, hearing shouts up on the main path. The Mexican yanked the small tin out of his right pocket as Kendrick removed his two and prised up the lids with the carving knife. 'Open yours, if you can!'
'I have. Here, señor. I go up to the bridge.'
'Can you make it?'
'I have to… El Descanso.'
'Oh, Christ! A key! For the engine?
'In these private docks it is customary to leave the key on board in case storms or heavy winds make it necessary to move—’
'Suppose they didn't?'
'All fishermen go out with many drunken captains. There are panels to open and wires to cross. Get the lines, señor!'
'Two ranches,' said Evan as Emilio hobbled to the bridge ladder.
Kendrick turned, grabbing the Colt automatic from the gunwale and digging out the solid fuel of the Sterno with his fingers. He ran down the dock throwing handfuls over the canvas of each huge speedboat, heaving each empty can into each boat. At the last boat he reached into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of matches, crouching in pain and frantically striking one after another on the wooden planks of the dock and lobbing them into the globs of scattered jelly until the flames leaped up from all the coverings. At each speedboat he fired the automatic into the hulls near the water lines, the powerful weapon blowing large holes in whatever the light alloy was that permitted the boats their excessive speed.
Emilio had done it! The deep-throated roar of the fishing yacht's engines broke through the water… Shouts! Men were racing down the steep path from the manor house on the hill, the fires beyond it now a steady glow.
'Señor! Quickly… the lines!'
The ropes on the pylons! Kendrick ran to the thick pole on the right and struggled with the knotted line; it pulled free and slipped into the water. He lurched, barely able to stay on his feet, and reached the second pylon, yanking in panic until it, too, came loose.
'Stop them! Kill them!' It was the frenzied voice of Crayton Grinell, chairman of the board of a government within the government. Men swarmed on to the base of the island dock, their weapons suddenly on open fire, the fusillades shattering. Evan dived off the pier and into the stern of the yacht as Emilio swung the boat to the left, engines at full power, and curved out of the cove into the darkness of the sea.
A third and final immense detonation burst over the hill beyond the manor house. The distant night sky became a yellow cloud, then jagged streaks of white and red intruded; the last tank had blown apart. The island of the murderous government within a government was immobilized, isolated, incommunicado. No one could leave. They had done it!
'Señor!' screamed Emilio from the bridge.
'What?' yelled Kendrick, rolling on the deck, trying but unable to rise, his body jolting everywhere in torment, the blood from his wound forming bulges of floating liquid inside his shirt.
'You must come up here!'
'I can't!'
'You must! I am shot. The pecho—the chest!'
'It's your leg!'
'No!… From the dock. I am falling, señor. I cannot handle the wheel.'
'Hold on!' Evan yanked his shirt out of his trousers; pools of blood poured on to the deck. He crawled over to the shellacked ladder and, calling upon reservoirs of strength he could not believe existed, pulled himself up rung by rung to the bridge. He breached the upper deck and looked over at the Mexican. Emilio was holding on to the wheel, but his body had sunk below the bridge's windows. Kendrick grabbed the railing and got to his feet, barely able to steady himself. He lurched over to the wheel, appalled by the darkness and the swell of the waves that rocked the boat. Emilio fell to the floor, his hand springing away from the circular rudder. 'What can I do?' yelled Evan.
'The… radio,' choked the Mexican. 'I haul nets and I am not a captain, but I have heard them in bad weather… There is a channel for urgencia, numero diedseis!'