“Patty,” Mike said, spinning towards the heavyset one, “what are you waiting for, man? Go find out who that is and bring him here. I wanna get outta here, pronto.” The big man moved surprising quickly, up the steel rungs welded to the side of the barge, and disappeared into the night.
A strange silence of apprehensive waiting fell over them. The lapping of water against the hull and their own
breathing were the only sounds: no screams, no gunshots, no voice calling for Truman and nothing from Mike’s man.
“Who is that out there?” Beth whispered.
“I don’t know,” Truman hissed back.
“Shad dap!” Cockroach-face pushed the side of Truman’s face with his hand and shot an evil look in Beth’s
direction. “You too!” he demanded.
Beth was surprised with herself: she was afraid, but lucid and alert. It wasn’t like last time when she had cowered, fearful any expression other than total submission might be read in her eyes, angering him that he would hurt her again. Not now. She knew that, with the slightest opening, the slightest opportunity, she would act. There’d be no hesitation, but she
wasn’t suicidal either – not yet, that might come later, but surrender would not. Truman’s hand found her foot and squeezed it tightly. Their eyes met and a short nod from him confirmed that his will to fight was as unwavering as her own. She nodded back.
“Where are we going?” Truman braved to ask.
“Where I’m going is none of your damn business, but where you’re going is ten miles out to sea. I wanna see if you can swim wit your hands and legs tied. And Scarface, don’t forget: I told you to keep your fucking yap shut.” The obese, black-bearded pervert who had played with his dick while Mike raped her appeared on the deck of the barge, heaving his bulk along the barge’s narrow deck with a gun in his hand, close behind a tall, strikingly handsome man with a thin moustache who wore a white shirt and sports jacket. The stranger was smiling broadly, quite peculiar for a person in his predicament.
“Truman! Hello!” he called merrily. His body flinched and a grunt erupted from him, as the slob behind him jabbed a revolver into his kidney. Truman’s reaction was as strange as the new arrival’s smile: he began mumbling, ‘You stupid fuck! Asshole! Idiot’ and other expletives, staring rigidly at the good-looking, cherry man. She nudged him, but his fixation rendered him unreachable. With both Cockroach and Mike occupied appraising the man, she leaned towards Truman to the limit of her daring. “Psst,” she hissed but an inch from his ear. Nothing. He just sat there muttering. A slight cock of her head brought her a bit closer, but she couldn’t tear free his attention and dared not move further. ‘You son-of-a-bitch, what the hell?’ and other hypnotic mumblings were all she got for her efforts. She studied Truman’s face for a clue, but he was captivated totally by the broad shouldered man descending the ladder. Who could this be?
“Patty, start the boat,” Mike snarled, the moment they were aboard. “I wanna get outta here.” He glanced only
briefly in the direction of the fat one as he went towards the wheelhouse; his attention was more absorbed by the new arrival.
“Who else is out there, asshole?” Mike asked, as the man turned to face his captor. He didn’t answer, simply gazed calmly from the barrel of Mike’s tommy gun to his face. Beth was impressed with his bearing: no panic, just smooth control. She watched his eyes: they were steady, and moved from Mike with disregard to scan the scene about him. “I’m talking to you, asshole!” Mike menaced. “Who else is out there?” The engine roared to life. “All right Patty, up on the barge and get us untied; let’s go,” he said. The disgusting hog obediently waddled the width of the deck and ascended the barge. “So, who else is wit’cha, I asked,” Mike demanded of the man.
“I came alone,” he answered. “What’s going on here? Who are you?”
“I’m the man with the gun, motherfucker. Who are you and what the fuck are you doing here?”
“It’s personal.”
“Personal? Doug,” he called, “show ‘Personal’ here your knife.” Cockroach-face jumped from his work on
Truman’s ankles and began waving his knife in the man’s face. “Now get over in the corner there before Doug takes your eyes out,” Mike ordered. “You’ll talk to me later about your personal problems; oh yeah man, will you ever!”
Skinny backed the newcomer into the corner, made him squat and tied his hands to the rail above his head. “Lookie, what Personal has in his jacket pocket: business cards,” he said, displaying a small packet. He removed one and waved it in the man’s face, then poked it in his shirt pocket. “Case I gotta call `ya one’a these days,” he sneered.
“Gimme those,” Mike said, snatching the packet from his hand. “The Nicaraguan Embassy, huh? Oh yeah, Pretty-
boy, we’re gonna talk, we’re gonna talk plenty. Okay, that’s it guys, we’re outta here. Untie us and get down here Patty, let’s go.”
Cockroach-face returned to his work on Truman’s ankles. The sight of the tattoo was chilling, yet Beth eyed the bony bastard carefully. She wasn’t yet tied. This might be it: her only chance. The fat man was up there struggling with the heavy rope, Skinny’s knife lay on the deck as he worked on Truman’s ankles and Mike stared out to the harbor, the gun dangling from his hand. It was unlikely that she could grab the knife, stab the skinny ass and still have time to reach Mike before he shot her, but there did exist a razor-thin chance. There was tingling in her fingertips and scalp. Just let the little weasel glance away then; go on, do it!
All eyes turned upwards towards a loud thump from the barge.
“Police, everybody freeze!” A man kneeling beside the limp bulk of Patty aimed a pistol with both hands directly at Mike. An angel from heaven sent to their rescue!
“Edgar! Thank God!” the man squatted in the corner cried out. Her sentiment, exactly! But no! In an avalanche of new horror, the realization dropped into her stomach like an exploding bomb: five hundred eighty-seven kilos of cocaine were in the hold. The next twenty years of life would be spent in prison. It was a fate to be relished only slightly more than being shot with a tommy gun or raped and thrown tied hand and foot into the ocean. Nevertheless, seeing Mike Henderson and Cockroach-face humbled was a delight.
“You’re a cop?” Truman asked with incredulity of the man squatted across the deck while struggling to loosen the bindings on his wrists. The squatting man too fought to free himself, twisting his head upwards to bite at his knots and offered no answer, stopping his chewing only to smile broadly in Truman’s direction then resumed working the rope with his teeth. Mike did as the policeman ordered and Beth watched with satisfaction as the tommy gun and pistol splashed into the water and as both men grudgingly assumed a spread-eagle position on the deck. Visions of the hard life awaiting her behind bars were interrupted when the fat man on the barge crawled to the top of the ladder, reached over and grabbed the policeman by the hair. He jerked to free himself from the grip, lost his balance and fell from near the top of the ladder with a thud.
His gun skittered across the deck.
Mike Henderson grabbed it up.
Cockroach-face sprang to dive onto the fallen form of the policeman. The twisted knife was suddenly in his hand.
The policeman elbowed him off and began to find his footing, but not quickly enough.
“Edgar!” the man in the corner shouted, furiously tearing at his bindings.
The policeman turned towards the sound of his name. At the same moment, the stiletto flashed in an arc behind him.
It struck his back with the reverberation of a kettledrum, and sank in to the hilt. He pitched forward onto the deck, tearing with his fingers at his shirt and jacket and making a sound that should have been inhuman.
Cockroach-face giggled. He stepped over the writhing figure, pulled the bloodied knife from the policeman’s back and raised it for another plunge. In the corner, the big man, wailing like a wounded animal, ripped his hands free and dove at Cockroach but the knife flashed forward as a bayonet to sink deeply into his arm.
“No, Doug!” Mike shouted. “Don’t kill that one,” Cockroach-face was laughing and dodging the big man’s futile
kicks at his knife. “Not yet. First, I want him to tell me all about this ‘personal’ business. “Here, the little pig should have just the thing.” He bent over the thrashing body, flipped up the hem of his colorful jacket and removed a pair of handcuffs from a holder at his waist. “Here,” he said, handing them to Cockroach. “Hook him on to the rail over there where he was: the fucker won’t untie these. Back up, you son-of-a-bitch,” he ordered while aiming his gun at his forehead. Bristling with rage, the man withdrew and was handcuffed to the rail.
Mike returned to the policeman and rolled him onto his side to reach into the pockets of his jacket. When the
policeman’s back turned towards Beth, the thick glaze of blood saturating the jacket came into view. She pulled her hand to cover her mouth in horror. Mike opened the chamarra and, from an inside pocket, extracted a black notebook, which promptly slipped through his bloody hands and dropped to the deck. He picked it up and began to flip the pages, snorting in disgust as he read. “Looka what this faggot wrote!” He was poking a red-stained finger at a notation. “‘Interview with Mike Scumbag!’” The pages flipped, then he came to an envelope tucked inside and extracted it. “Dougie,” he said, “pick that faggot’s head up so he can see me. See this ya lying little prick?” he shouted to the policeman, waving the envelope in his face. He tore it open, crinkled the paper inside into a ball and threw it overboard. “There, asshole! Now ya ain’t got nutting on me!” He then hurled the black book into the poor man’s face with the force of a baseball pitcher. “Who’s the scumbag now?” he screamed. “Kill the cocksucker, Dougie!”
Cockroach was straddled over the officer’s body, and lifted his head by the hair. He pulled the knife blade across his throat, slicing his neck practically through from one side to the other. The entire lower part of his neck and body fell away from the upheld head. Blood pumped dark arcs from severed arteries. The windpipe gurgled. Satisfied with his work, the maniac dropped the head into the spreading puddle of blood, with a dull thump.
Beth fought nausea and the instinctive urge to curl into a ball and weep. Alert! She must remain alert!
“Hey Patty, turn us loose here, huh, before someone else shows up!” Mike ordered of his man yet on the barge.
Beth shuddered at the horror awaiting them all, watching as Mike gaped at the convulsing body. Could she remain brave through to her end? Next to her, Truman had flipped forward onto his stomach in a struggle to free himself and lay there clearing his throat. “Fijase la palanca roja, maje. Espera mi manda,” he spoke abruptly at conversational volume.
The Spanish had been so rapid-fire that Beth hadn’t understood. What had he said? Was there something she should do?
Mike whirled, striking the side of Truman’s head with the gun. She held her breath as he stood over Truman and pressed the muzzle of his gun to the side of his head. What? What was it he had said?
“Get back over there where you belong, Scarface,” Mike growled.
Her breath wouldn’t move. This was it, she knew it! Truman’s eyes had betrayed him: he had no intention to ‘get back over there where he belonged.’ Mike saw it too. He reacted, and in an instant, the cold gun barrel had been transferred from Truman to her cheek. There was the odor of metal, oil, Mike’s sweat and his raspy breathing by her ear.
“Move!”
Truman didn’t – he just stared! Was he going to let her be shot? Mike clicked back the hammer and she grimaced, waiting. Truman’s tension dissipated, he wriggled in his bindings and returned to sit beside her. Her breath escaped in a blast as the gun was withdrawn.
“Any more spic-talk outta you,” he said, “and I’m gonna let Doug have some fun with the lady’s face. Understand?”
Truman nodded dully.
“Hey man, I feel like shit,” the fat man said as he dropped the mooring line from up on the barge onto the deck.
“That cock-sucker hit me hard. I’m feeling dizzy, weird.”
“Yeah, okay,” Mike answered, looking up to him. “I’ll give you a hand getting down. Keep an eye on them, Doug!”
he commanded, moving towards the stern. Maybe now! She glanced to Truman, then tensed – ready.
Cockroach saw the intent in her eye. “Come on, sweetheart,” he mocked, “want your face rearranged?” The knife
sliced the air. On the barge, the fat man, unsteady from the blow, was having difficulty negotiating the ladder. His feet seemed unable to find the rungs. Mike leaned from the stern, grasped a rung in one hand and with his other reached up to
guide the fat man’s foot. “Here,” he barked, “put your weight here. For chrissake, waz’a matter wit ‘cha, can’t you feel the damn rung? It’s right under your big fat foot.”
There was a moment, maybe a half-second after slicing the air with his knife in which Skinny had appeared slightly off-balance with his weight thrown to one side. Maybe, just maybe, she could head-butt him at that moment if she could just get him to do that again. She glared defiantly at him, taunting him with her lower lip stuck out. She readied to tell him to go fuck himself, when suddenly from her side Truman spoke.
“Empuja la palanca roja por atras, ya !” he hissed. She spun her head to look in Truman’s eyes. In that same instant, she was tumbled onto her back as the boat surged to full power and leaped away from the barge, roaring
uncontrollably into the harbor. Her last sight of Mike was of him cartwheeling over the stern. Cockroach, Truman and she slid in a tumble towards the stern.
Beth leapt to her feet. Truman didn’t exist; nor did anyone save weasel-man upon whom she focused with burning
intensity. The skinny monster had skidded onto a coil of rope and lay there grabbing wildly at a wound in his thigh where his own knife must have stabbed him. She mounted his back and with both hands grabbed a thick wad of greasy hair. She lifted his head high, as he had done to her in the hold – and to the policeman too – and slammed it facedown onto the deck. Once!
Up again, she heaved his head, removing a wad of hair with the force and slammed it to the deck. Twice! The wormy slime struggled to free himself. No way! Her grip was like iron: again, she lifted and slammed. This time there was a satisfying CRACK when his cockroach face encountered the deck.
“You fucker!” she screamed.
Slime-ball twisted onto his back, freeing an arm. In a bloodied hand: the knife.
It flashed towards her.
He was no match for a fury such as hers. With an intensity of speed unknown to her, her hand snatched his wrist from the air. “No chance!” she hissed. The arm was pulled close and clamped with both hands before she gnashed her teeth into the meaty flesh at the base of his thumb. With every force available to her – she bit.
Deep.
Blood flowed into her mouth. He screamed, wiggled to release himself from the vise-like clamp of her legs and
tried to claw at her face. She pushed that hand away and sank her teeth deeper still, twisting her head from side to side. The knife fell free. She released the arm and spat blood at him. Balling her fist, she slugged his skinny beak of a nose while his free arm pushed against her and he squirmed to escape. He wasn’t going anywhere! Beth pulled her legs tighter and hit him again. Her punch didn’t have enough to it. The hateful face continued to leer! With a hammer, she could smash the cockroach into nothingness. Again, she slugged his nose, drawing blood this time. That was better. She lifted her arm high to pummel it again, but someone from behind had grabbed her arm.
“Let go of me!”
Tears of frustration filled her eyes. It was the stranger, pulling her off the animal. Didn’t he understand? She needed to crush, to obliterate, to eliminate the slime. Somehow, however, the man forced himself between her wild rage and weasel-man. Keeping her behind his back, he leaned his broad shoulder into the scum’s stomach and shoved with his palm against his chest, trying to force the skinny bastard overboard. Beth lashed her arms over the bigger man’s shoulders and around his back, straining to reach her adversary’s flesh. Couldn’t the man let her get at him once more, just once? She screamed her hatred, stretching her grasp towards the worm, fists and clawing fingernails flailing the air futilely. Fighting to stay aboard, the monster tried desperately to maintain his grip on the rail with hands at either side of his hips and his toes
hooked under the low gunwale, as the larger man heaved his entire weight against him, forcing him out over rushing water and beyond Beth’s reach. She saw her chance. Resting her hand against the large man’s shoulder for balance, she swung back her foot and with her full force delivered a powerful kick into the ‘V’ of her enemy’s widely opened crotch. His scream was heard above the roar of the engine then cut short as he disappeared into the frothy water, almost taking the other man with him.
She locked eyes for a moment with the tall man then, in synchronized motion, they turned to look aft into the foam of the wake at the figure thrashing there, then forward again, still in unison, to see Truman emerge from the door of the wheelhouse. He rushed to her and held her but, noticing the other man bent over the body of the policeman, Truman’s face pulled into an angry grimace. He was like a different person, glaring with such venom that she felt he wanted to tear the man limb from limb and spoke with a voice that was frightening when he asked: “What have you done THIS TIME, Raul?”
Raul? He called the man Raul.
She curiously studied his features.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Truman helplessly watched the brutal murder of the policeman, his hands and feet bound, unable to do anything but recoil in horror. It was a vivid wake-up call to the fact that if he didn’t do something, however desperate, soon, real soon, Beth could be the next to be sliced in half before his eyes – after being raped. He didn’t doubt for a moment that that was exactly what was in store for them. There wasn’t much time; with the engine running and only one mooring line remaining, they would soon be underway. He looked around for something, something. Just aft of where Raul was handcuffed, on the starboard rail, was the after throttle. It was the red lever among a cluster of others that controlled the winches. Its use was to adjust speed during trolling operations, while busy with nets and booms; he’d used it to maneuver alongside the barge and remembered clearly that it was still engaged. If Raul could stretch out, maybe with his foot he could reach it, the boat would then leap forward and knock both men to the deck – hopefully. Beth still wasn’t tied, maybe she could do something too; get the skinny shit’s knife or Mike’s gun even. It was more than desperate; it was likely suicidal, but what else was there? Did Beth have the courage and willingness to kill? Could Raul be trusted? Had he changed, becoming his cousin again, or was he still a mindless puppet that would order rockets fired upon his own family? Maybe he came to steal the cocaine, or probably something more cowardly, like fetch him back to Nicaragua to stand trial for the La Palma bombing, but he had no choice other than to trust him.
Mike stood transfixed over the body of the policeman, watching it quiver in post-mortem convulsions while the
cockroach tattooed murderer leaned over the rail, washing blood from his hands and knife. Truman’s pleading stare desperately sought and finally captured Raul’s attention. They had but a moment, while Mike and the other were distracted.
With his chin, lips, brows and flashes of his eyes, Truman indicated the throttle. He saw Raul fix his eyes upon the cluster of levers, but his gaze returned to Truman with an expression of incomprehension. Truman was again under the watchful eye of Mike when Raul mouthed the word, ‘what?’ There was another moment when Mike turned again to his ghoulish pleasure over the corpse. Truman used it to stretch his head sideways and extended his tongue to point at the lever. Raul swung his eyes again to the controls, but he obviously didn’t understand. Truman would have to risk it. He cleared his throat twice in succession and saw Raul’s penetrating gaze fix upon him.
“The red lever! Wait for my signal!” He spoke the words rapidly in Spanish, then clenched his teeth knowing what was to come. It came. A stunning blow from Mike’s gun struck the side of his head. Then, because he was stunned and unable to move quickly enough to satisfy him, Beth was threatened with mutilation. Had it been worth it? Had Raul heard and understand? If an opportunity presented itself could he be counted on? Truman didn’t know and couldn’t pull his gaze from the stomach-churning scene of Mike’s desecration of the dead, cursing and kicking the body.
Then miraculously, it looked as though a chance might come: Mike went aft, grumbling instructions up to the fat
bastard still aboard the barge, and it almost looked as though he intended to climb the ladder and offer aid. The chance was slim. They would probably all be killed, but to die while fighting is a far better choice than as victims of deranged brutality.
He glanced at Beth to advise her to be alert for an opening, if he could only make one. There was no reason to doubt that she was up to it: her eyes were fixed cat-like on the knife-wielding little prick. He was instantly alarmed with the realization of what he was watching: practically imperceptibly, her body was tensing – she was preparing to throw herself, unarmed,
against a knife-wielding maniac! She WAS a warrior, but, he couldn’t let her do it, she’d die for sure. Before he could act to intervene, the maniac, too, saw her readiness, and turned on her. The knife came out before him, and he advanced on her.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he taunted, “want your pretty face rearranged?”
A shiver raced up Truman’s spine as the knife menaced scant inches from her flesh. Yet, there was no retreat in her eyes. But, it was too soon to act! Aft, frustrated at the fat man’s inability to negotiate the steel rungs of the ladder, Mike ambled closer to the stern and looked up to him, grumbling profanity. Not yet, not yet, Beth, please, he mentally begged.
She seemed to want to provoke the man with her lip stuck out defiantly, like an angry little girl. Mike stepped up onto the stern rail, and with one hand grasped a rung of ladder, while with the other he reached above and guided the fat man’s feet, cursing as he did so. It was a gift from heaven. He acted without hesitation: “Push the red lever all the way back, NOW!” he shouted in Spanish. The skinny one turned towards him with his knife and swung back his arm to slash at him while behind him, Raul reached the limit of his handcuff, extended his leg and, with the toe of a mud-caked shoe, shoved the throttle with such force that it buckled and wrapped around its end limit.
“Say good-bye, spic,” Cockroach hissed as his arm swung.
The movement was never completed. Below decks, the mighty 671-T Detroit surged to full power and a great froth
of water erupted from behind. The skinny devil was propelled sideways and tumbled aft, while Truman minimized his skid by lying on his back with palms to the deck and the soles of his shoes pressed flat. Frantically pumping his feet against the deck, he slid himself towards Raul. “Raul,” he commanded, wriggling close. “My feet! Untie them, quick!” He lay on his back and raised his feet to where Raul’s manacled hands could reached them. “Hurry!” A knot came loose and one foot dropped to the deck. He jerked the other free from Raul’s efforts and sprang towards the throttle to slacken it. He pulled and heaved at it, but the control remained bent over its stop and refused to come free. The boat was hurtling headlong into a narrow and cluttered channel. He lifted his hands behind his back to within Raul’s reach. “Hands!” he shouted. On the after deck, Michael Henderson was gone. Beth sat atop the skinny maniac, slamming his face onto the deck.
His hands came free.
The policeman’s right front pocket yielded a set of keys. Truman slapped them into Raul’s hand while racing into the wheelhouse. “Get her off before she kills him!” he shouted over his shoulder. Ahead, only moments away, at the end of a fire-damaged pier, loomed a cluster of pilings. He spun the wheel to the left a bit too rapidly and the boat slipped sideways, continuing it’s rush towards destruction. He rotated it right and caught a good bite of water just in time, missing the pilings by a mere hair’s breadth. With an exhalation of pent up fear, he guided the boat towards the channel, secured the wheel with a line and reduced throttle.
Now there was Raul to deal with, and the body of the poor unfortunate policeman. Truman had been beyond
understanding or reason when, in the midst of Beth being captured, threatened with rape and murder, Raul materialized from out of the darkness. At first sight of him, Truman felt he was hallucinating. Where the hell had he come from, and why?
Yes, why? That was the important question. Now that immediate danger was past, Raul’s objective, whatever that might be, would revert to its original design. Truman lifted the old chronometer from its enclosure at the top of the chart table, released the false panel below it and removed the pistol hidden within. With the gun jammed into his waistband, he hastened towards the rear deck where he encountered a struggle. Raul was heaving against the skinny man in an attempt to shove him over board while he clung to the rail with tenacity, in spite of the fact that his body was literally out over the water. Meanwhile, Beth was a wild woman, ferociously clawing and punching to get to the man. She steadied herself against Raul and unleashed a kick that caught the skinny one right in the nuts. He yelped, lost his grip and went overboard with a splash.
They had escaped with their lives! “Beth,” he called, hurrying to her, “are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” she responded, leaning her head against his chest and becoming encircled in his arms. She leaned back in his embrace and studied a trickle of blood on his cheek, then turned to look at Raul kneeling over the body of the policeman. He was weeping as he closed the man’s eyelids, and his voice choked with grief and fury when he cried out, looking up to them: “He’s dead! Edgar’s dead!”
“See what have you done, this time, Raul?” Truman whipped the pistol from his waistband. “You murdering son-
of-a-bitch! Lucia was my whole life!” The words escaped from between clenched teeth as a hiss. “You! You killed her, fried her alive with your traitorous Sandinista rockets. And my children too. Now this poor man!” His mouth drawn into a tight line, he cocked the hammer and advanced. His arm shot up automatically, elbow locked. Looking over the sight of the pistol, he focused on the eyes of the one responsible for Lucia’s, the babies’ and so many others’ deaths. Yet, the malevolent beast he had so long fanaticized killing wasn’t there: it was Raul, his cousin, his own blood. He couldn’t. The gradually increasing pressure of his finger upon the trigger had reached the firing point. One tiny micro-moment before the gun discharged, he flicked the barrel left. Raul was struck by the shock wave and burning grains of gunpowder, but the bullet passed harmlessly to bury itself in the deck.
“No, Truman! Please, no!” Beth pleaded, pulling on his arm.
He looked into her eyes, said nothing, and allowed her to lower his arm. “My cousin Raul,” he said with a wave.
Raul, his mouth in a grimace, ignored Truman, returning his attention to the body and reverently crossing the arms over its chest.
“That Raul?” Beth’s eyes widened in astonishment.
“The same,” he pronounced grimly. “Beth, Raul; Raul, this is Beth.” Raul merely lifted his tear-stained eyes
momentarily from the body. Not a word passed his lips. “Raul, get your ass up in the wheelhouse,” Truman commanded.
Nothing: he may as well have spoken to the corpse. “The wheelhouse,” he repeated. “Move it.”
“This man,” Raul said with his hands laid atop those of the dead man, “was pure to the core, good, honest, and my most loyal friend for many, many years. He died trying to save all of o