Ghost Ship

The second goon fired a couple shots.

He swung knifeman round, using him as a human shield.

The bullets took him in the chest.

By the third shot, the man stopped moving.

He retrieved the Russian built Makarov semiautomatic handgun from where it sat in the slight groove in his lower back.

Without thinking, he returned fire — sending two shots in immediate procession at the shooter. It wasn’t a conscious decision. He didn’t concentrate. Or aim. Or even think. He just did. The muscle memory in his arms took over.

In a split second it was all over.

The shooter had two neat bullet wounds to the forehead. Similar to the ones he’d seen on the poor woman in the rowboat earlier.

He turned to the third man — the boss.

But the boss — realizing that they were losing the battle — had already stepped out of the building, and yelled, “Polizia! Polizia! He’s up here!”

He didn’t wait for them.

Instead he stepped out onto the stone pathway that hugged the point of the medieval harbor and kept running.

He reached the end of the trail and stopped. It was a ledge overlooking the sea, some fifty feet below. He glanced up at the medieval castle rampart. If he was a sniper that’s where he would have positioned himself. And if the sniper was still there, he’d just entered into the man’s sights.

He turned to face the polizia who yelled at him to stop.

Their weapons were drawn now.

He frowned. End of the road. He was breathing heavy from the fighting and the running. His wrist hurt from where he’d grabbed the knife, and then killed two people with expert and merciless proficiency.

What sort of man am I?

His eyes darted from the polizia, to the medieval rampart, and then over the edge.

It was about a fifty-foot drop to the sea below.

White water formed where the otherwise gentle swell had collided with the rocky shore. It was dark and difficult to see whether the water was deep or shallow. In all likelihood, the place was riddled with sharp rocks that would slice him to pieces as soon as he struck them. If he survived the jump, it would be difficult for anyone to track him.

He contemplated jumping, but didn’t even know if he’d survive the impact. Worse yet, he didn’t even know if he was capable of swimming. If he’d learned to swim, chances were that the muscle memory, like those that allowed him to disassemble a handgun, would kick in once he hit the water. Of course, none of that would matter if he’d never taken the opportunity to learn to swim as a child. Everyone learned to swim? He suddenly felt uncertain about that fact.

Am I the sort of person willing to risk everything on luck?

He didn’t think so. Not with those type of odds. Better to take his chance with the police and a murder trial than almost certain suicide. He turned, ready to give himself up to the polizia, raising his hands upward in submission.

And the sniper began firing at him.

Presented with an impossible choice, the man accepted his fate, turned toward the ledge — and jumped.

Chapter Five

The free fall seemed longer than he expected.

He waited for his back to burn with the pain of bullets ripping through his skin. He dropped feet first all the way to the black water below.

The water jarred him, like landing on concrete from a great height. The surface-tension broke, and he dipped into the deep water below.

His entire body stung with the pain of the impact.

His feet hurt and chest throbbed — but he was alive, and that was all that mattered.

He opened his eyes.

The saltwater stung at his eyes, but he could make out the hazy blur of light coming from the surface — nothing more — but it was enough. He kicked with his legs and swam with his arms, all the time promising himself that he wouldn’t stop until he reached the surface and was able to take a breath.

After what was probably only a few seconds, his head broached the surface.

He took a couple quick, deep breaths.

Before his ears filled with the rat-a-tat-tat sound of machine gun fire. The surface nearby became sprayed with bullets, sending small jets of water shooting upward.

He took one more quick gulp of air and dived downward. He reached a depth of eight or nine feet and began to swim horizontally outward, into deep water. Bullets whizzed past him — their velocity immediately stunted by the friction of the water.

He held his breath and swam as long as he could. When his chest burned so hard that another second would have forced him to take a breath underwater, he finally allowed himself to surface with a gasp.

He glanced around.

He’d probably swum fifty or more yards out.

The towering rocky peak that formed the point to the natural harbor now formed a sinister shadow, where it had blocked the moonlight from reaching him. The water was dark and his head made only the smallest streak on the landscape, allowing him to blend in with the swell coming off the harbor’s point.