Wasting no time, he sprayed the whole area, hoping the bullets wouldn’t catch him on the rebound. He got lucky, as you could with a barrage, splitting open the face of a man who peered over the catwalk’s rail.
The rest nosed their barrels down at them, popping off single rounds, frugal with their firepower. Parceling out your ammo might be smart, Jimmy realized, because he had no idea how many rounds were left in the Kalashnikov’s magazine. And those pop-pop-pops were keeping him and Cal clinging to the links for cover, which made for a hellishly slow descent.
“Keep moving,” Jimmy urged, unleashing another round while the whup-whup-whups formed a bizarre contrapuntal response to the pop-pop-pops.
From the catwalk, one of the gunmen nailed Cal with a round that tore into his left triceps, leaving inches of flesh to dangle grotesquely. Looked like bait in the hands of a dolphin trainer.
Now the young marksman, grimacing even more, was forced to wrap his arm around each link as if he held them in a series of headlocks. In that awkward manner, he kept sliding down to the loading area, which seemed a lot safer than remaining open targets on the chain, though there was no telling when someone might come out that door to the deck.
Guess we’ll find out, thought Jimmy, as Cal’s feet touched down.
He spilled aside to make room for the boat racer, who jumped from six feet up, landing as the door swung open with a blaze of bullets. The fusillade would have sliced both Cal and him in half if they hadn’t found themselves in the corner of the loading area, far to the left of the closest shooter, who couldn’t see them.
Behind their precautionary fire, the two terrorists emerged from the doorway looking satisfied by what they’d found. Jimmy felt pretty good himself, spraying back in the next instant, catching the nearest one in the chest. He fell away nicely, clearing a path to the other’s back, which Jimmy quickly targeted.
“Which boat is yours?’ Cal asked, pointing to the cabin cruiser and Sexy Streak.
“The fast one,” Jimmy said. “But we’re blowing that oil line first.”
“Yeah? Well, you can blow me,” Cal responded. “I’m getting the fuck out of here.”
“No you’re not,” Jimmy said, running over to Sexy Streak for the bag of explosives and three bungee cords. “You strap them on that oil line and I’ll shoot the shit out of anyone trying to stop us.”
Cal pointed Jimmy’s own pistol at him. “We’re leaving now!”
Jimmy rued not taking back his gun. “You got the keys to the boat? I don’t think so. And neither do I. I stashed them, and I’m not saying where till you get the fuck in the water and do the deed.”
Cal fired. Not at Jimmy but over the boat racer’s shoulder, taking out the deck’s three security cameras in three shots.
“Good man,” Jimmy said.
“Fuck off.”
Jimmy tossed Cal a life preserver and pulled a beer cooler from the boat. His lucky one; he hoped filling it with dynamite wouldn’t mess with the mojo. Then he told Jimmy to hand over the pistol. “You’re going to want me to cover you.”
Cal swore again, but handed it over. Then he threw on the PFD and dropped into the water.
“Goddamn that hurts,” he said as salt water soaked into the raw wounds on his leg and arm.
Jimmy handed him the lucky beer cooler, top snug as a manhole cover. “The lighter’s in there, too. Fuse will give us five minutes, max. Keep that shit dry. Go!”
Cal swore again and pushed off, trailing blood from his arm and leg, but keeping the cooler high and dry. He made fast time to the pipe that rose from the water between the giant pontoons that kept the rig afloat.
A minute later he was stringing one of the bungee cords around the oil line. That was when Jimmy spotted a dorsal fin surfacing about ten feet behind Cal. Didn’t look like Flipper, either. Tail reached almost to the deck below Jimmy. A real moral dilemma for him: Should he tell Cal now or wait until he had that fuse burning? The greater good of the Gulf was at stake. Killing those ISIS madmen, too.
Jimmy had no choice but to take the high moral ground: silence. But he did suggest to Cal that he hurry up.
“I’m not exactly taking comp time out here,” Cal fired back.
Damn dorsal was moving forward. Cal might see it.
Oh, no. Swishing its tail back and forth, making Jimmy think about the way he’d rev Sexy Streak’s engines before shooting across the starting line of a race.
Cal cinched the second cord.
“I wouldn’t bother with the last one,” called Jimmy, trying to keep his voice even, which was a challenge because dorsal fin number two had just shown up. Another tail swisher, no less, but only about half the size.
“I’d already planned to forget about that,” Cal snarled without looking back. Good. He might have seen something upsetting.
But what the hell are you gonna do? Jimmy asked himself. He couldn’t just let Cal get munched up like a big ol’ chew toy.
He came up with a plan. It was a little better than Let them eat him. But not by much.
Cal slid the last of the dynamite under the bungees and reached for the lighter. Which necessitated looking at the cooler. The frightening fins lurked feet way.
“You son-of-a-bitch. You never said shit about—”
“I got your back.” Liar, liar. “Light that sucker.”
Cal lit the fuse and started swimming toward the deck on the other side. The first shark, the monster, perhaps seeing lunch slipping away, started after him. A second later he bumped Cal from behind; a shark’s way, Jimmy figured, of testing the tenderness of his meal.
Jimmy fired into its back and head, then the smaller shark’s tail. And just that fast he’d emptied the AK’s magazine. Four piddly rounds, no more effective than jabbing pushpins into elephants.
Jimmy pulled out his pistol as he raced around the deck to where Cal was heading, wishing like hell he had the Southeast Regional shooting champ’s eye. But he didn’t need Cal’s expertise to pump three quick shots into junior’s back, which finally drew some serious blood as it surged up alongside Jaws. The big beast responded by taking a savage bite out of his smaller brethren, setting up a titanic thrashing as Cal virtually catapulted himself out of the water.
“I want to kill you, Jimmy.”
“Get in line, but you’re gonna have to be patient ’cause it’s a long one.”
Beginning with Piccolo.
Both guys raced to the boats amid the furious splashing from the sharks’ thrashing tails and heaving bodies. But the fuse was still sparking like the Fourth as it neared the dynamite.
Jimmy started the engines. Then he swore aloud. He’d forgotten to save a stick of destruction for the boat ISIS had hijacked.
He gave the pistol to Cal, yelling, “Shoot up the dashboard on that thing.” Pointing to the larger boat.
And that might have worked but the door to the deck swung open again, sending Cal to Sexy Streak’s deck and Jimmy to the throttle.
Cal rose to his knees and picked off one of the bearded men bursting onto the loading area, and a second who’d spotted the fiery fuse and started running in its direction. But killing those two used up the last of his bullets, leaving three other men free to sprint to the cabin cruiser. An instant later the big boat’s engine roared to life.
Jimmy forced the throttle forward and raced out into the Gulf, adding up the ISIS body count. At least seven: six by gunshot, plus the skinner Jimmy had knifed in the back.
Sexy Streak was up to 70 mph in a handful of pounding heartbeats. Five choppers now circled above them. The only thing blazing up there were camera lenses reflecting the sun.