They were taking on a terrifying amount of fire now, in spite of the damage Jules had done to Dan’s boat. It spoke volumes for the benefit of simply having more fingers on triggers than the other guy. Dan was handing them some serious fucking grief, and it pissed Pete off mightily. He hadn’t been allowed to enjoy a single day as the master of Greg Norman’s super-yacht before some skanky barefoot shit-eater in a Carrot Top fright wig came along and ruined everything by poking holes in his beautiful new boat with a ridiculous amount of automatic gunfire. He had no idea how Dan had come to be out here – probably he’d just loaded up and headed out looking for targets of opportunity as soon as his tiny peabrain had realised that the federales and the USN were desaparecidos permanentemente. Frankly, Pete couldn’t have given a shit. He’d happily have had Dan along as a sidekick, had they been able to berth unmolested at Acapulco, and so long as Dan agreed to a rigid schedule of foot-powder treatments. But this – he emerged onto a forward deck and immediately ducked beneath a couple of rounds from something heavy and unpleasant, a.45 most likely – this was bullshit, a total liberty, and tantamount to taking the fucking piss.
He kept low and swapped out the mag that Jules had been using. The sun was in the last stage of a long dive in the west, which gave him a momentary advantage as the go-fast sped out of the yacht’s long shadow. He saw half of Dan’s crew suddenly throw their hands up to shade their eyes from the burnt-orange brilliance of the sun’s rays. This was it. Slowly and with infinitely more calm than he actually felt, Pete Holder stood up, knees bent slightly to allow him to adjust to the movement of the deck. He took careful aim and squeezed off an entire clip in four discrete bursts, forcing himself to drop the iron sight back on the cockpit after each salvo.
‘Excuse me, Daniel,’ he said to himself. ‘But cheeky little fuckers sometimes need a good smack on the arse.’
The effect of taking the time to aim properly rather than just banging away was devastating. The first round stitched up Shoeless Dan, raking a line of fire up his fat belly, punching him backwards out of the boat. The last that Pete saw of him was a pair of blackened, swollen feet as they spun up and over the side. The next two bursts cut down all of the remaining men, bar one, who had the presence of mind to duck out of sight. The yacht climbed up a small wave while he was hiding, but Pete bent loose at the knees, keeping the gun sight on the cockpit of the cigarette boat the whole time. His stomach clenched tightly, and he could feel his anus puckering in fear, but he maintained the stance, even as a couple of rounds strayed up from the battle at the stern of the ship.
‘Come on,’ he whispered, ‘just pop your ugly mug up and…’
He’d fired before making any conscious decision to do so. The last surviving Mexican in Shoeless Dan’s boat suddenly leapt up and tried to snap off a couple of shots while grabbing the steering wheel and spooling up the engines. It was a hopeless, desperate thing to do, and it killed him. Pete sent at least half-a-dozen rounds down-range, and while only three intersected the target, they hit him in the back of the neck, tearing through bone and meat with enough force to sever the head. The body was jerked upright and tossed over the side. The head appeared to drop to the floor of the boat.
Nausea and revulsion boiled up inside him, but Pete sucked in a mouthful of air. It reeked of smoke and gunpowder, which didn’t really help, but there was nothing for it. He had to push on. He turned to run for the stern, just in time to see a line of white smoke snake out from the deck above him.
‘Eat the worm, motherfuckers!’ It was Fifi, yelling from somewhere up on the pool deck.
His eyes instinctively followed the path of the rocket down through the air and into the side of the second go-fast boat, which blew apart as the warhead speared into her, just above the water-line behind the cabin area. Pete ducked as debris and shrapnel flew out from the point of impact with enough speed to kill anyone who happened to be in the way. Unfortunately, that described his situation precisely. His old knees weren’t as quick or as flexible as they’d once been, and a fist-sized chunk of red-hot steel neatly took off the top third of his head.
Pete staggered back a few steps before his knees buckled underneath him and he fell to the deck, vaguely aware in his last moments of life that he had, after all, been fucked by the fickle finger of fate.
‘Bugger…’ he croaked with his last breath.
The disinfectant stung, but it was the least of Jules’s myriad hurts. She seemed to exist within a tornado of pain, of dull aches, and sharp, shooting agonies of bruised muscle and tortured bone. Apart from Mr Lee, who was smiling as he dabbed at the deep cut on her cheek, they had all taken damage during the fight with Shoeless Dan’s mob. Fifi had one arm in a sling and was limping from a flesh wound to her thigh.
The Chinaman finished up by gently pressing a thick bandage in place high on her wounded cheek and handing her a couple of blue capsules. The small pharmacy on the yacht had given up a treasure trove of sedatives and balms. ‘For the pain, Miss Julianne,’ he explained.
‘Thanks, Lee,’ she replied in a dry, cracked voice. Jules popped her pills and washed them down with a mouthful of gin and tonic, prepared for her by Fifi. ‘Would it be churlish, at this point, to remind everyone that a couple of hours ago Pete had Shoeless Dan tagged as a reliable chap and potential crew-mate?’
Fifi sniffed and shook her head. ‘He was always a fucking softie, was Pete. I loved him so much.’ Her face crumpled and she let herself go, releasing a high-pitched keening sound that turned into a series of wails and sobs.
‘It would be ungracious and beneath a lady of your breeding, Miss Julianne,’ said Lee, whose own face was a mask, carved from ancient teak.
Darkness had fallen outside, or a sort of darkness. It glowed with a noticeable red hue thrown off by the energy wave, which was now eighty nautical miles to their north, but still visible. The three survivors had bathed and changed after cleaning up the worst of the damage and bloodshed. While they were at it, they’d got rid of the remains of the former crew members too. It hadn’t been such a bad job, all things considered, compared to washing away the carnage of battle.
They’d wrapped Pete’s body in a blanket and stored him in one of the galley’s huge freezer units. He had once told Jules that if he ever bought it, he’d want his ashes scattered at an awesome surf break somewhere. Wouldn’t matter which one. Mavericks, Pipe, Margaret River… they were all good. Just as long as it was pumping when he took his last ride.
They had gathered in the upper salon, one of the magnificent yacht’s cosier, less formal spaces. A couple of olive-green two-seater lounges, hugely overstuffed and obscenely comfortable, sat around two sides of a giant brown ottoman. A pair of white single-seaters took up another side, where floor-to-ceiling bi-fold windows offered an expansive view of the sea far below. Jules had bathed and showered for two hours, to rid herself of the stink of the man she’d killed and the irrational guilt she felt at living when Pete hadn’t. A couple of hundred dollars’ worth of French toiletries had helped a little with the former, although she still felt as if some corruption had worked its way under her skin. And she knew she was going to be down about Pete for weeks. It was harsh, but she was more affected by his death than by the weird shit happening to the north.