Текст книги "Black River"

Автор книги: Tom Lowe

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

SEVENTY-NINE

All heads began to turn. The guests were looking toward the bow, chuckling, and some pointing, the sailboat rocking slightly moving through the inky current. “Now that’s a great performance,” said a twenty-something actor to his friend, winking and gesturing toward a naked blonde woman slowly walking across the bowsprit, the wind billowing her long hair, the river beneath her, the woman’s bare breasts pointing in the direction that America II was sailing.

O’Brien approached the bodyguard, the man using his thick index finger to push the tiny earpiece deeper into his ear canal. O’Brien stepped up to him and shouted, “She may be a jumper! She didn’t get the part and is overcome with depression.”

“Not on my watch!” He took off, running down the ship’s deck toward the bow. O’Brien could see two other guards doing the same thing. He waited a few seconds, opened the wooden door near the wheelhouse and entered. O’Brien remembered the video footage from the newscast when the reporter and camera crew, led by Sheldon, walked through the interior of the ship. Low-wattage lamps designed to mimic flickering candlelight, giving the illusion of shadows dancing over the wooden floor and roughhewn walls, lighted the hallways.

He heard the muffled voice of the man before he saw him. Past the galley, past the crew’s quarters, further into the bowels of the ship. The man said, “If she jumps, somebody’s got to go after her. There’s no way in hell that we’re gonna have a suicide tonight. You need me up there?”

A long pause. The man listening. O’Brien removed his shoes, walking in his socks down the hallway. Then the man was back on the radio. “When you grab her, take her to the guest’s quarters. Give her the Gettysburg cabin. Maybe she’ll sleep it off until we get back to Jacksonville.”

O’Brien turned the corner, the man’s back to him. Wide shoulders. Big hands. Ears that protruded slightly from his skull.

The wood floor creaked.

O’Brien saw the man reach into his coat, reaching for his sidearm. The man turned, trying to level the pistol.

O’Brien was faster. He stepped to within three feet of the bodyguard, a hard right fist connecting directly to the man’s left jaw. The impact sounded deceivingly subtle, as if someone had cracked an egg on the lip of a cast-iron frying pan. The sound of bones splintering. Muscles dislocating. Lower teeth uprooting. The man fell where he stood. O’Brien reached in, removing the gun. It was a 9mm Beretta.

He walked farther down the hall, stopping to listen. Could barely hear the calypso beat, like steel drums in the distance. As he rounded another hall, he saw the closed door. Above the door was a hand-carved sign that read: Captain’s Quarters – Private. O’Brien placed his hand on the brass doorknob and slowly turned. Locked. He could see light coming from the large, antiquated keyhole. He knelt down, looked into the keyhole. There was no sign of James Fairmont. Could he be standing near the door? Anywhere in the room outside of the tunnel vision through the keyhole?

Frank Sheldon was there. Sitting behind an antique French desk, an opulent chandelier above him, and someone below him. The brunette in the small black dress that O’Brien had spotted on deck, Sheldon had whispered in her ear. She was now on her knees giving Sheldon oral sex as he sipped whiskey from a leaden crystal glass while staring at something.

It was the painting of the woman. Hanging on Sheldon’s wall. Next to it in shadow boxes lit with small direct lamps, was the diamond and what appeared to be the Civil War contract. O’Brien bent one of the two prongs on the small cocktail fork and slid it into the keyhole. He slowly rotated the fork. Stopped, feeling for the metal. Then he twisted the fork to the right, felt the metal move. O’Brien stood, one hand on the doorknob, the other holding the Beretta. He dropped the fork into his pocket and pulled out his phone, pressing the video record button, quietly stepping inside the cabin.

The woman’s back was turned toward O’Brien. Sheldon had his eyes closed. It appeared that no one else was in the spacious cabin adorned with Civil War memorabilia. O’Brien recorded the sex for twenty seconds, Sheldon’s groans, the woman’s sloppy murmurs. And then O’Brien said, “I spotted Mrs. Sheldon only once. She was deep into conversation with the art director for Back River. I don’t think the young lady here is part of Mrs. Sheldon’s decoration plan.”

Sheldon pushed the woman away, quickly pulling up his pants. He started to reach for a drawer on the desk. “Don’t!” O’Brien said. “You open the drawer and you won’t live out your maiden voyage. He turned to the woman, red lipstick smeared. Eyes wide. She stared at O’Brien’s gun. He said, “Go stand in the closet over there. Shut the door and don’t say a word. Can you do that?”

She nodded, eyes watering. She stepped quickly across the cabin and shut herself inside the closet.

Sheldon stared at O’Brien, unbelieving. Muscles knotted on both sides of his lower jaw. “Who the hell are you? How’d you get in here?”

O’Brien saw Sheldon’s cell phone on the desk. “Where’s Fairmont?”

“Gone.”

“Where?”

“On deck.”

“So you finished your transaction.”

Silence.

“I asked you a question.”

“Yes.”

“What’d you buy?”

Sheldon hesitated, glancing at the diamond under glass and the old document. “The stuff you see under the glass.”

“Describe them.”

“What? Why?”

“Do it!”

“The fuckin’ diamond and the Civil War contract between England and the Confederacy. You won’t make it off this yacht alive, asshole.”

“Oh, I will make it out.” He gestured at his phone. The quality of high-definition video that these phones record is stunning…and, the audio, amazing fidelity. It can even pick up grunts and groans across the room. Right now, Sheldon your little rendezvous was uploaded and living in a hidden spot on the cloud. To keep it forever in the cloud, and out of the media, or the eyes of Mrs. Sheldon, you will give up some toys. The first one is the painting on the wall. It was stolen. You bought stolen goods.”

“That’s news to me because—”

“Shut up. It was stolen. The diamond you bought was stolen. As was the Civil War contract. Sheldon, you’re like a fat cat pawnbroker. Buying stolen things that were never for sale by the real owners.”

“I’ll return them.”

“Yes, you will, but I’ll do it for you. With the exception of the painting. I have your number. I’ll text you the return address. The owner is Laura Jordan. You had her husband, Jack, killed.”

“No! No, I didn’t. It was James Fairmont. It was his idea after Jack reached out to the British consulate, trying to find someone to quietly return the contract and diamond to the Royal Family. Fairmont set up a bidding war. He said I’d won. He planned the whole thing. I’m just a buyer, and investor.”

O’Brien stepped closer to Sheldon. Sheldon backed away, holding up his pants, staring at the Beretta. He looked at O’Brien. “I’ll pay you. Five million. Destroy the video and just go away. Tell me where to deposit the money.”

“You’re fly’s open.” When Sheldon looked down at his zipper, O’Brien hit him on the jaw with the pistol grip. Sheldon fell back into his leather chair, eyes rolling. Out cold.

O’Brien opened the shadow box. He reached in and removed the diamond. Never in his life had he seen such a striking gem. Under the small, intense lights, it radiated splendor, colors off the chart of the rainbow, fireworks that seemed trapped inside the time capsule history, cut and carats that was the Koh-i-Noor, the Mountain of Light.

He lifted out a large Ziploc bag from his coat pocket, unfolded the bag, dropping the diamond inside. Then he gently placed the old contract in the bag, sealing and putting it in his coat pocket.

He looked up at the painting on the wall, looked into the intelligent and beautiful eyes of Angelina Hopkins. “And there you are,” he whispered. “We’ll get you home.”

EIGHTY

O’Brien stepped over to the wall and removed the painting, turning it around to see what was on the back. It was there on the center of the back canvas, in neat handwriting.

‘To Angelina Hopkins, my wife and the center of my life.

Dearest Angelina, I had this painting commissioned from the photograph that I so treasure of We shall display the painting prominently in our home for all to see…as your beautiful face is always displayed privately in my heart.’

Your loving husband, Henry.

In smaller handwriting, in the bottom left side corner was something else. It read:

“We are a nation of brothers who, together, must always be united to stop the threat of all others. To that end, what is left of the treasury, the Confederate gold, can be used to ensure our Constitution is never sold. Perhaps it’s nothing more than the spoils of a tragic war, but the treasure sits on the river floor. It may be found not treasure treafar from where the diamond and precious life was far lost. But to unlock the potential good the gold may one day deliver, from the hand of God our benevolent giver – those who seek it must dive and enter into the dark and dangerous waters, the heart of a black river.”

O’Brien placed the painting back on the wall. The Confederate gold. He stared at the enigmatic face of Angelina Hopkins. He thought of Kim. Where are you? He glanced down at his phone, a text message arriving. It was from Dave. He wrote: Kim’s car is in the marina lot. There are torn Confederate rose petals under the wipers, around the base of the car. I fear she’s been taken. Call immediately.

O’Brien felt an adrenaline rush. The brake lights. Silas Jackson. O’Brien was so absorbed in thought, he didn’t hear the slight creak in the wood floor. He did see the reflection move across the glass in the shadow box. He turned around just as James Fairmont looked him directly in the eye, trying to plunge a hypodermic needle into O’Brien’s neck.

The needle entered his shoulder, embedding in a bone, Fairmont pressing the syringe with his thumb. His sea-green eyes arrogant, superior. Some of the content entered O’Brien before the needle snapped in two pieces, the remaining chemical yellow liquid squirting across Frank Sheldon’s unconscious face. O’Brien reached for the pistol.

Fairmont charged, connecting a hard punch into O’Brien’s stomach. He pushed O’Brien against the wall, shattering the glass shadow boxes. His left fist caught O’Brien above the eyebrow, ripping skin, blood flowing. O’Brien brought his elbow down hard on the crown of Fairmont’s head. The blow dazed him. O’Brien reached for the Beretta just as the woman bolted from the closet. She ran, slipping. Fairmont turned, grabbing the woman by her wrist and hurling her in front of him. She screamed, urine flowing down her legs onto the polished wood floor.

Fairmont grinned at O’Brien and said, “There’s enough in you to put you out, maybe a coma from which you will never awake. Sleep well, Sean O’Brien.” He pulled the woman with him, backing out of the captain’s quarters and running down the hall.

O’Brien felt nauseous. Head pounding. He glanced down at his phone, re-read the text and hit Dave’s number. Dave said, “I don’t like finding pieces of a Confederate rose around Kim’s car.”

“She’s been kidnapped. I think it was Silas Jackson. I saw a pickup truck at the far end of the lot. One of the brake lights wasn’t working. That day I tailed Jackson from the courthouse to his hideout on the forest, his left brake light was out. It’s him, Dave. It has to be.”

“Where are you now?”

“Sheldon’s schooner. On the river. I found the diamond, the Civil War contract and the painting. And I found James Fairmont, or he found me. He blindsided me. Hit me with a syringe. The needle snapped. But some of whatever he was packing got in my bloodstream.”

“Where’s Fairmont?”

“He used a girl as a body shield to exit. Frank Sheldon’s out cold in his private cabin.”

“Sean, I’m calling 911. You’ll need to be air-lifted off that damn boat.”

“No. The man who killed your best friend and five other people is on this yacht. He can’t escape unless he goes overboard. I’ll find him.”

“If whatever poison is in your bloodstream slows you down, causes you to miss a beat…Fairmont will have the upper hand. He will kill you.”

“I’m more concerned about Kim. It’s my fault that Jackson has her.”

“No, it’s not, Sean. I’ll call the sheriff’s office.”

“Don’t. It’s too much cavalry. Silas Jackson won’t be taken alive. He’ll kill Kim, or use her as a hostage in a shootout.”

“Do you have a better suggestion? We don’t have time to—”

“I’ll find her.” O’Brien disconnected. He removed the plastic bag from his jacket, opened it, dropping his phone inside. “In the cloud,” he said, glancing down at Sheldon, slumped in the leather chair, his chest rising and falling.

O’Brien reached for a handful of Kleenex from a box on the desk. He held the tissue to his head, stopping the flow of blood. He gripped the Beretta in his other hand and stepped out into the flickering light in the hallway. He walked quietly back down the passage, not sure whether the guard was still unconscious.

The guard was there, slumped up against the wall, his breathing slow and steady. The woman who’d tried to flee from the cabin was there too. She was lying on her back next to the guard. But she was not breathing. Her head cocked at an abnormal angle, as if someone might twist the head of a doll, the dead woman’s eyes open, the flicking shadows drifting across her confused and lipstick smeared face.

O’Brien stepped around her body, stopping the blood flow from the cut above his eyebrow. He opened the door to the party on the deck, the guests dancing and singing as the band played Bob Marley’s Redemption Song.

EIGHTY-ONE

O’Brien knew he had very little time before Frank Sheldon’s bodyguards began their search of the schooner. Considering the rich and famous on board, the posse would have to be subtle as the men questioned powerful people and probed every nook and cranny of the sailing ship. O’Brien blended in with the crowd. He had no idea what his face looked like. At this point, many of the revelers were in some form of inebriation. None seemed to notice.

He couldn’t find James Fairmont anywhere on deck. Maybe he was hiding somewhere below deck in any of the cabins. Where would he go? Where could he go? Life raft. O’Brien remembered the two dinghies on the yacht’s stern. He ran to the railing and looked over the side. The light of a full moon reflected across the river. But there was no sign of a twelve-foot rubber dinghy on the surface.

O’Brien went to the other side of the yacht. One of the dinghies was just coming around the stern, a man rowing. Fairmont. O’Brien looked at the river’s surface, trying to read the current. He felt for the direction the wind was blowing. The dinghy was now almost fifty feet away from the schooner. O’Brien grabbed a rope from one of the masts, hoisted himself up to the railing and dove headfirst into the river.

“Oh my god!” shouted a raven-haired actress in a short white dress. “Did you see that? He jumped off the fucking boat!”

“Where?” said a tall music composer with a gray goatee.

“There!” She pointed and a dozen guests ran to the side of the yacht and looked down at the river. “He’s swimming to that life raft. Holy shit!” The actress smiled, her mouth wet from champagne.

“Maybe it’s a stunt,” said an actor wearing a white fedora. “Frank Sheldon knows how to put on a party.”

“If it is, it’d make a great scene,” said an angular stuntman. “Who the hell is that guy?”

A former Special Forces’ guard ran up to the edge. He pulled a 9mm from his waistband. The actor wearing the fedora said, “Wait a damn minute! This is no stunt! Don’t shoot! Dude, call the damn Coast Guard.”

The bodyguard ignored him. Finger on the trigger.

“At ease!” Shouted a senior ranking bodyguard running up. He had a granite jaw and the body of a heavyweight boxer. “The order comes from Mr. Sheldon. We don’t know who’s who out there.”

O’Brien swam hard. He could feel the pain from the piece of syringe needle still in his bone, his head pounding. Within thirty seconds he’d caught the raft. He grabbed the rubber pontoon.

James Fairmont raised the wooden paddle and brought it down hard, as if he was trying to split a log with an ax. O’Brien released his hands, just dodging the heavy blow. When the paddle bounced off the rubber, O’Brien grabbed it, pulling hard. It caught Fairmont off balance. He fell headfirst into the river.

The current pushed hard against O’Brien’s body. The dinghy moved further away, catching the surface current, moving quickly downriver. There was no sign of Fairmont. Maybe he drowned. Then he remembered what Alistair Hornsby had said: “James Fairmont was the kind of recruit who swam the English Channel just to prove he had a little more than the rest. O’Brien felt his muscles tightening. The contents of the syringe moving through his bloodstream. And then, from under the shimmer of the moonlight across the river, Fairmont rose up, a silhouette in the moonlight. He was less than four feet away.

And then he was on top of O’Brien. Almost like there was no physical movement. O’Brien felt the man’s hands around his throat. Fairmont used his thumbs to press into O’Brien’s trachea. He pulled the hands from his throat, swinging a hard right toward his attacker’s face. There was no connection.

“I’m over here, Sean O’Brien. Things a little distorted, are they? It’ll only get bloody worse. I’ll put you out of your misery, no different than drowning a few kittens.”

O’Brien reached for the Beretta, pulling it from the small of his back. He aimed at Fairmont’s chest and pulled the trigger. Nothing. He dropped the gun, waiting for Fairmont to make a move. O’Brien saw the moonlight turn blood red for a second. He knew the drug was causing the hallucination. Think. Stay sharp.

O’Brien felt Fairmont’s hands on his shoulders, pushing him down. Under the water. The red moonlight gone, the current in O’Brien’s face. He reached for Fairmont’s hands, twisting hard, breaking the vice-like grip. O’Brien swam for the surface. He breathed deeply, looking to the left. The right. Turning around. No sign of Fairmont.

From O’Brien’s back, Fairmont attacked. He wrapped one arm around O’Brien’s neck, putting him into a powerful headlock. He pulled O’Brien down, under the surface, ratcheting the grip tighter, attempting to snap O’Brien’s neck. They dropped further below the surface. O’Brien’s lungs seared. His muscles like lead. He bit hard into Fairmont’s forearm, the taste of blood in the dark water. The grip was released for a second. It was enough time for O’Brien to push his thumb into one of Fairmont’s eye sockets. O’Brien shot to the surface, sucking in the cool night air.

Fairmont popped up a few feet from him. He charged. Raising his clenched fist. O’Brien grabbed Fairmont’s wrist, holding. Then he brought his knee up hard, catching Fairmont between his legs. O’Brien clamped his right hand around Fairmont’s throat, squeezing. He saw dreadlocks grow from Fairmont’s head, the tentacles of hair went in the river water. The tentacles turned to black snakes, mouths gaping, snapping. O’Brien held his grip, squeezing harder.

Then Fairmont stopped fighting. O’Brien stared at his face, one eye bloody, the life drained from the other eye. O’Brien released him, the body floating upright with the current for twenty feet before slowly sinking under the dark surface.

O’Brien shook his head. Had he killed him? Was he really dead? Was it some hallucination? He didn’t know. He tread water. He could see a mist building across the river. The moon coming out from behind a cloud.

He looked around, trying to find the schooner. There it was, in the distance, the three masts visible in the night sky. The masts looked like three crosses, the cross in the center the tallest. And then something moved between each mast. It moved like a pendulum, swinging back and forth. A man hanging from a rope, a boat anchor hooked through his shoulder. He kicked and cried for his mother, hands tied behind his back, his feet just above the surface of the river. O’Brien watched as flaming red eyes circled the dying soldier. The massive gator launched from the water, its jaws clamping on the man’s legs, the sound of cannons and gunfire booming across the river.

A mist rose from the surface, cloaking the man’s body. Then the fog enveloped the schooner, as it drifted into oblivion. O’Brien thought he heard the band playing Marley’s Redemption Song, the singer’s voice far away. Old Pirates, yes, they rob I…Sold I to the merchant ships…minutes after they took me from the bottomless pit…’

O’Brien wasn’t sure which way was closest to the river bank. His arms felt like they were weighted down. Legs encased in cement. Swim. Where? What direction? A movement of light caught his eye. Cutting through the fog, a soft light swung back and forth, as if someone was holding a lamp on the river’s edge. O’Brien swam slowly toward the light. It seemed so far away. The mist rose around him, the sound of frogs in the night. The old river smelled of fish, wet moss and sulfur.

His head went under the surface. Water in his mouth. O’Brien pushed back to the surface. He was drained, the drug now fully in his system. He wasn’t sure if the light was real. But there was no other direction to go. In the fog, it all appeared the same. He looked up at the moon and stars, he thought of Kim. He felt a kick of adrenaline somewhere in his heart.

He tried to swim on his back, looking over his shoulder for the light.

There it was. Closer. Was it real?

A noise. Something splashing. Another noise. O’Brien stopped swimming for a few seconds, listening. The noise again.

Alligators. Probably coming off the riverbank and heading straight for him. O’Brien tried to look through the mist, to see the knotty heads, the red eyes under the bright moon. His heart raced. He thought blood was seeping out of the palms of his hands. His guts burned.

Something moved. A long object. Very near.

A man’s hand shot through the steam off the water. Then, there was Joe Billie’s face, as if he was looking from a cloud. O’Brien felt himself being lifted up and out of the river, set gently into the canoe. The canoe headed toward the moving lamp. And darkness settled over O’Brien like a blanket thicker than the swirling fog.