There were a cluster of people standing and kneeling around a prone form. Cabrillo's heart felt like it had stopped in his chest. There were no Argentine gunmen here, just passengers, and with a sickening dread he knew who was down.
He raced from his cover position. A woman yelled when she saw him running toward them, a pistol dangling from his hand. Others turned, but Juan ignored them. He burst into the circle of people.
Max Hanley lay flat on his back, blood coating half his face and forming a black puddle on the polished wooden deck. Juan scooped up his head and pressed his fingers against his friend's neck in the vain search for a pulse. Surprisingly, it was there, and strong.
Max, he called. Max, can you hear me? He looked up at the crowd staring down on them. What happened?
He was shot, and the gunmen grabbed some woman and took off downstairs.
Cabrillo used his coattail to wipe away the blood and saw a long oozing trench along Hanley's temple. The bullet had grazed him. Max probably had a concussion and would certainly need stitches, but chances were he would be fine.
Juan got to his feet. Please look after him.
He raced back down the stairs again, anger and adrenaline making him reckless. The Argentines had approached the Belle from the port side, so he raced across the ship and descended another flight of steps to the main deck.
In front of him was the entry door where just hours ago he and Max had boarded the stern-wheeler. It was open, and through it he could see the dark silhouette of a man. He shouted, and when the man turned and confirmed he was wearing a ski mask, Cabrillo fired a double tap to the torso. The man fell back, his head hitting something with an empty thud, and then he splashed into the water.
Marine engines roared an instant later. Juan ran to the open door to see the back of the cigarette boat pulling away, a rooster tail of white water forming in its wake as it gained speed. He raised his pistol in a two-handed combat grip but held his fire. It was too dark to see anything but shapes, and he couldn't risk hitting Tamara.
He doubled over, breathing hard, and fought to control his emotions.
He'd failed. There was no other way to look at it. He had failed, and now Tamara Wright was going to pay for it. He turned away in disgust with himself, and, out of stupid testosterone-fueled anger, punched a decorative mirror hanging on a nearby wall. His reflection went crazy in the shattered glass, and his knuckles came away bloody.
Juan took another couple of deep breaths to compose himself and start his brain thinking rationally again. The list of favors he would need to call on to get him and Max out of this mess was going to be monstrous.
For now, though, the important thing was Max. He felt his phone vibrate as he rushed back up the stairs, but he ignored it. That it had amazingly survived its dunking was a fact of so little importance that it never entered Cabrillo's mind. The feel of the ship had changed, and the seaman in him told him the Belle's captain had slowed so they could turn back for Vicksburg, where every cop on duty would be waiting.
It was going to take some fast talking to keep himself out of prison. The shootings would eventually be proven justified, but there was still the fake ID, the unregistered guns, and the fact that he and Max had lied to customs to get into the country in the first place. This was why Juan preferred to work in the Third World. There, a judicious bribe in the right hands bought your freedom. Here, it tacked another couple of years to your sentence.
Up on deck, people were still clustered around Max, but Juan could see that his friend was sitting upright. The blood had been cleared from his face, and a man was holding a bar towel to the side of his head.
I'm sorry, he said when Juan squatted down at his side. I went to pull Tamara behind me, and the guy just opened fire. One went wide, but the second . . . He pointed to his head. I went down like a sack of potatoes. They get her?
I got one of them, but, yeah, they got her.
Damn.
That's putting it mildly. Juan's phone vibrated again. This time he pulled it out to check who was calling. This can't be good.
Langston, you've got lousy timing, he said to the veteran CIA agent.
You're not going to believe what happened about two hours ago.
Juan had put it together when the gunmen stormed the ship, and said, Argentina just announced that they're annexing the Antarctic Peninsula, and China has already recognized their sovereignty.
How could you . . . ? Overholt's voice trailed off in incredulity.
And I can guarantee that when this comes up at the UN tomorrow, the Chinese will use their veto power as permanent members of the Security Council to kill any resolutions condemning the annexation.
They've already announced they would. How did you know?
That's going to take a little explaining, but first I think I'm going to need a favor. Do you happen to know anybody in the Vicksburg Ph.D.? Cabrillo asked this as the ship's purser showed up with two goons from the engine room carrying wrenches the size of baseball bats.
A second later, he was facedown on the deck, with one goon sitting on his back while the second gorilla pinned his legs. The purser was holding the Glock like a tarantula in one hand and had Cabrillo's cell in the other. Juan hadn't bothered putting up a fight. He could have taken out all three, but he had Max to consider.
He just wished Overholt had answered him, otherwise this was going to be a long night.
The Silent Sea
Chapter EIGHTEEN
IN TOTAL, THEY LOST EIGHTEEN PRECIOUS HOURS. MAX spent most of these under guard at the River Region Medical Center, where his head was scanned and stitched up. Juan was the guest of the Warren County Sheriff's Department. They kept him up all night in a windowless interrogation room, where detectives and uniformed cops grilled him relentlessly.
It took them two hours to determine that his identification was bogus. Had Cabrillo expected any kind of background check, he could have brought papers that would prove legit no matter how hard the authorities studied them. But he hadn't expected this kind of trouble, so his identity was breachable. Once they learned he wasn't William Duffy of Englewood, California the name on his second set of papers the questions came harder and faster.
And while his story about a woman being abducted off the Natchez Belle had been confirmed by other passengers and the crew, the police seemed more interested in the hows and whys of his and Max's presence to try to thwart the attack.
There was nothing Juan could say to convince them that he wasn't part of the plot. And when the rushed ballistic report came back proving that the dead John Doe wearing a ski mask who'd been fished from the river had been killed by the gun the crew took from him, murder-one charges were threatened. They delighted in pointing out that Mississippi was a death-penalty state.
The FBI arrived at around nine the following morning, and for an hour, while jurisdiction was established, Cabrillo was left alone. Just for the fun of it, he pretended to pass out. Four cops, who'd been watching through the two-way mirror, rushed in. The last thing they wanted was for their prisoner to escape justice by dying on them.
It was around two-thirty, by his estimate his watch had been taken upon his arrest when two gray men in matching gray suits showed up. The cops and FBI agents, who were arrayed against Cabrillo like a pack of dogs slobbering over a fresh bone, looked nervous. They were told by the gray men that this was a matter for the Department of Homeland Security.
The salivating looks evaporated. Their bone was being taken by an even bigger dog.
Juan's cuffs were removed and replaced by a pair the Homeland agents had brought. Then he was given his belongings, including his suitcase from the Belle, and escorted outside. The bright sunlight felt wonderful after so many hours under the nauseating glow of fluorescent lights. They led him wordlessly to a black Crown Victoria that screamed government vehicle. One of them opened the rear door. Max was sitting in the back bench seat, half his head swaddled in bandages and tape.