His fingers scraped the sleek hull of a speedboat, a pair of potent engines peeking out from beneath the cover. No room for hesitation at this point.
In rapid fashion McCracken stripped off the yellow cover and unfastened the bolts that held the speedboat on the ramp. He noted it was called the Sting and gave it a little shove where the likeness of a bumblebee was painted to get it started down.
“Hey, what are you doing!” The shout came from the direction of the causeway and was followed by trampling feet.
Blaine vaulted over the boat’s side and hit the cold, carpeted deck just as the Sting smacked the water.
“Over there! Over there!”
It drifted into the bay as bullets began streaking at him. They shattered the boat’s windshield and covered Blaine with glass while he rested faceup under the dash toying with the starter wires. He twisted the proper two together and the boat coughed, then roared to life with the fury of a rocket ship. Blaine glanced behind him and saw why.
The Sting was equipped with twin 220 horsepower engines, which made for incredible power. Blaine gunned them for all they could give. The boat’s nose lifted off the water, and it tore off into the bay like a horse free of the corral at long last. When he finally raised himself fully up, satisfied that he was out of the bullets’ range, the speedometer was flirting with the seventy-mile-per-hour mark. The din of enemy fire had all but subsided. The men would be waiting for reinforcements. No matter. Unless they had a boat to equal the Sting, Blaine had just bid them farewell.
He looked around to get his bearings. He knew this was an inlet of Narragansett Bay, knew that reasonable civilization would be found by dawn by simply following it. For the first time since landing in Newport, he relaxed. He was still freezing, and his teeth chattered madly. The bay was free of other boat traffic, but he did his best to avoid numerous floating ice chunks. Traveling at eighty now, he neared the end of the inlet and switched on the Sting’s running lights.
His ears registered the distant whirl and passed it off at first to the racing of the Sting’s twin engines in the open waters. When it intensified, his eyes swept about him just as the spotlight caught his boat in its beam.
A helicopter! A goddamn fucking helicopter!
Good old Wells certainly didn’t give up easy.
The helicopter raced over him with a man perched precariously on the edge firing down with a machine gun. Blaine swung the Sting around in a narrow arc and headed back for the inlet. The chopper compensated with a wider swing and gave chase.
The boat’s speed had topped ninety, when the helicopter roared overhead again. Blaine swung the wheel hard to the right to steer out of the inlet once more. The chopper lagged a bit. It rose a little to aid its maneuverability, though this would make it even harder for the machine gunner to find his mark. But even if the helicopter did nothing more than contain the Sting, that was good enough. Wells probably had an entire army on the way.
The Sting leaped through the water, and Blaine had to grip the wheel as tightly as he could just to control the boat. The frigid wind whipped into his face, and when his tongue tried to wet his lips, he realized he had lost feeling in them as well.
The chopper’s gunner sprayed the craft randomly, containment his goal, but his aim nonetheless right on the mark. The dashboard exploded in splinters and the Sting danced wildly for an instant when Blaine recoiled to avoid being hit by the pieces. Something sliced into his shoulder, a bullet graze or hunk of debris; he didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. The cold numbed it quickly, which made the warm flow of blood slipping out an even stranger sensation than at normal temperatures.
McCracken had turned the boat back into the inlet, when the chopper passed overhead again. The gunner’s spray of bullets was a bit off this time, but one lucky burst found the fuel tanks and punctured them. The sharp smell of gasoline poured into Blaine’s nostrils and he watched the yellowish liquid spill up to the deck from below. In seconds he’d be floating dead in the water, a sitting duck for the gunner in the helicopter. Another swim was unthinkable; he’d never survive it, especially now, with a wounded shoulder.
What did that leave him with?
The Sting still rode the waters gracefully, as if unaware of its mortal wound. The spill of the chopper’s spotlight caught its shattered dashboard, and something red caught Blaine’s eye. He grasped for it and touched metal under the steering wheel. He yanked it free and saw it was an emergency kit complete with flare gun. He undid the latch with one hand while he controlled the Sting with the other.
The flare gun fit neatly into its slot. Beneath it lay a single flare. Fired properly into a vulnerable area, it was as good as a hand grenade.
McCracken could take no chances. He pulled the flare from its slot and held it low on the deck to soak up some of the gasoline. This would increase its explosive properties.
The chopper roared overhead again, unleashing more rounds at the boat, which had begun to lose speed and sputter.
McCracken popped the flare gun open and slid the flare home, snapped it shut, and tested the trigger. He would get only one shot. It would have to be good. The Sting’s engine sputtered, caught, then sputtered again. As its speed faded, Blaine aimed it toward the ice-crusted shore. The slowing boat made a more welcome target for the chopper, which came in slower, sensing the kill.
McCracken played with the wheel. He darted left and right to put up a good front, the flare gun grasped tightly in his right hand.
He didn’t raise it until the machine-gun fire raged dangerously close and the helicopter loomed straight overhead. At that point it took barely a second for him to bring the gun up and aim it, even less for him to press the trigger.
The flare sped out toward the chopper with a pop.
The half-darkness of the approaching dawn was shattered by the fireball, a single orange sphere that belched black smoke and coughed steel. Only the Sting’s last burst of speed saved him from the killing shower of shrapnel and debris. The engine lasted until he was wading distance from shore and conked out at the same moment the chopper’s smoking carcass hit the water to start its slow sink.
Blaine hurled himself over the Sting’s side and patted it like a loyal pet. He was in waist-deep water and moved toward the shore, above which stood a huge mansion converted into condo units. The climb up was steep, handholds available but difficult to manage with the ice.
Just as the sun’s first light found the bay, McCracken pushed himself over the edge and found himself staring at a hot tub bubbling away with two couples starting the morning, or ending the night, inside.
Blaine started toward them, fatigues heavy with water already starting to freeze. He was shivering, but he knew a smile had forced itself out on the face he could barely feel.
“Care to join the party?” asked one of the women in the tub, obviously drunk. All the inhabitants had allowed their drinks to float away from them on the steaming water.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Blaine said, plunging in with all his clothes on.
“Were you in that plane that just crashed on the water?” one of the men asked.
“What plane?” McCracken returned, and then he tucked his head under the water.
The female occupants of the hot tub took turns telling Blaine where he had ended up. This was the Manor House, they explained, the most exclusive condo complex of the exclusive Bonniecrest Village. They had bought their unit for $200,000 and already it was worth twice that. Wasn’t that something, they wanted to know.