The chief engineer’s eyes filled with deep, almost childlike regret, but he let go of Josh’s throat and took a step back. Then another. He retreated to the door and stood there, arms crossed, his stare making silent promises of pain yet to come.
Gabe strode over to the Coke machine, tapped the button, and brought Josh a fresh can. Maybe the guy was actually trying to behave rationally, but Josh thought these two were just a natural good cop/bad cop team. He and his partner, Rachael Voss, had played the game a thousand times. With Boggs and Gabe, though, it wasn’t a game; it was who they were.
“Who are you?” the captain asked.
Josh opened the Coke, took a sip, happy to have it. He held the can up to his swollen face, not worried about letting them see his pain. Pretending to be a tough guy wouldn’t get him anywhere, and the cold metal soothed him.
“FBI.”
Gabe took a deep breath, then nodded. He seemed troubled, and Josh knew he wasn’t the only source of the captain’s problems.
“I figured as much,” Gabe said.
“Can I ask you a question, Captain?”
“Go ahead.”
“How did you know?”
“You said you had a reference from Jorge Guarino,” the captain said. “That you served time with him, shared a cell. I guess that worked when you applied for the job with Viscaya, but the higher-ups don’t pay much attention to who hires on in the lower ranks. Apparently they didn’t know Jorge didn’t speak a damn word of English.”
Josh took a breath as that sank in. “I’m guessing Jorge spoke Portuguese?”
Gabe Rio nodded. The picture became clear. Miguel had suspected something, and had tried speaking Portuguese to him while they were out checking on the Mariposa. When Josh didn’t understand, he knew the Jorge Guarino connection had been a deception.
“You done with your questions now?” Gabe asked.
“I do have one more.”
“Get it over with.”
At the door, Hank Boggs curled his lip and rolled his eyes. If Gabe Rio had seen him make that face, Josh had a feeling Boggs would’ve regretted it.
“It’s just that I’ve been thinking,” Josh went on, holding the cold Coke can against his face again, trying to numb the swollen flesh. “Whoever hit the Mariposa—”
“Devils, according to the man you found on the boat.”
Josh stared at the captain. “You don’t believe that.”
Gabe sat down in the chair across from him, settled in, comfortably in command of the room and the situation. “No. I don’t.”
“So someone stormed that boat in force, killed the crew. But if they had time to stash the guns on that island, they knew they were being followed, knew an attack was coming. Why give them that kind of advance warning? Nothing about this makes sense.”
Gabe’s eyes were dark, blank. “Was there a question in there?”
“Just wondering if you have any idea who else is out here after those guns.”
“You really think I’m going to have that conversation with you?” the captain replied. It didn’t matter. Josh could see the answer in the way he narrowed his eyes, in the set of his shoulders. And it had been clear, out on the Mariposa with Miguel and Dwyer, that none of them had a clue what was going on.
“Guess not,” Josh said, taking a sip of his Coke. The metal wasn’t as cool now, but it hadn’t done much to numb his face anyway. “So what now? You think they’re still there? ’Cause I’m figuring whoever killed your friends on that fishing boat is probably long gone with the guns by now.”
Gabe leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “Let’s talk about you, Agent …?”
“Just Josh is fine.”
The captain nodded, smiling bitterly. “Right. Undercover. How could I forget? So, Josh, you’ve got people waiting, boats, but so far they’re not on our radar. I’ll keep looking, and I’m sure they’ll float into view sooner or later. What I’m wondering is which it will be. What’s the status of your backup?”
“On their way,” Josh said, keeping his eyes hard, trying to match the cold, cruel gaze of Gabriel Rio.
“Bullshit. They wouldn’t move until they were sure we had the guns. Until you called them on your satellite phone to tell them. You haven’t done that yet because we don’t have the guns. And from what I know, leaving an agent out here alone isn’t the way you people operate, so I’m guessing you’ve got something other than the sat-phone for them to track us by. Some kind of homing signal. So where is it?”
“You give the FBI too much credit,” Josh said.
Gabe smiled. “I don’t think so.”
The captain stood, turned to Boggs, and bowed his head, gesturing toward Josh with a courtly flourish of his hand.
“Chief Boggs, you may proceed.”
Josh shot out of the chair, charging at the chief engineer. He whipped the Coke can at Boggs’s face, brown liquid arcing across the room, splashing the man’s T-shirt as he raised his hands to defend himself. Gabe cursed in Spanish, something about his mother, but Josh’s focus wasn’t on the captain. Boggs was the one standing between him and the door.
The engineer darted his head to one side and the Coke can sailed past his face, grazing his ear. And then, finally, Boggs started switching from defense to offense. He shifted his body, pivoted his hips, and got ready to swing a fist. But Josh had bought himself the moment he needed. He lowered his head and drove a shoulder into Boggs’s chest, pistoning his legs, putting all of his weight behind the hit. Boggs slammed against the door with a grunt and a loud thump that had to be his skull bouncing off metal.
As Boggs tried to get a grip on his head or throat, Josh drove one knee up, crushing his balls. The little scream that came out of Boggs’s mouth gave him no pleasure; it was just the mark of a job well done. He kept his shoulder down, kept his face buried, hidden from Boggs’s hands as the engineer tried to grasp him, then attempted to shove him away. He ought to have been pummeling Josh by now, but Boggs’s entire body needed time to reset after the knee between his legs. Josh had counted on that.
Boggs tried pushing away from the door, wanting to get Josh away from him, to give himself space to fight. Josh dug in, drove himself forward again, and this time when Boggs hit the door, Josh started throwing punches to his gut, rapid-fire, half a dozen blows to the solar plexus.
Unable to breathe, the big man went down. Josh moved aside to let him fall, heard Boggs starting to retch, knew the smell of vomit would follow in a moment, and reached out to grab the door handle.
Seven seconds, maybe eight. Too long.
Metal glinted in his peripheral vision. Josh barely registered it before he felt the gun barrel strike his skull. He staggered sideways into the wall, knocking down an old framed movie poster: Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. His vision blurred and he felt all the strength go out of him as he slid to the floor. He tasted blood on his lips a second before feeling the warmth of it trickling down his face from where Gabe had hit him with the gun.
Josh blinked, his vision clearing.
Gabe Rio had a world-weary wisdom and a relaxed air that made him an easy man to work for, and to respect — or would have, if he hadn’t been a smuggler of guns and drugs. Tonight all of that amiable nature had been stripped away.
The captain aimed the pistol from five feet away, smart enough to know that a pistol was a ranged weapon, that if he got too close it could be used against him. The dark hole in the barrel seemed to wink at Josh, as though imminent death were some kind of joke.
On the floor by the door, Hank Boggs moaned, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. The puddle of vomit in front of him had already begun to reek. His eyes were closed and he breathed through his clenched teeth.