“Listen, you little tosser,” McCarter snarled. “The people on that ship shot at me and nearly shot a close friend.”
Reasoner coughed. Red droplets spattered and disappeared on the heavy wool of McCarter’s coat. “Oh, fuck me…”
McCarter pushed Reasoner’s face into the puddle of blood forming on the crumpled blotter. He applied his full weight to Reasoner’s neck, and the official kicked at the smooth concrete floor.
“My neck!” Reasoner sputtered. “You’re breaking my bloody neck!”
McCarter sighed and leaned back, letting Reasoner sit up again. “You were a whiny bitch back at the regiment. How long does it take to grow a pair?”
Reasoner reached for a drawer, then heard the snick of a safety. He froze and looked down the nearly half-inch diameter black hole of a muzzle. “I’m getting a box of tissues for my face, you right bastard!”
McCarter nodded, his aim unwavering. “Go ahead and get the box. If you touch anything else, though…”
“You’ll kill me?” Reasoner asked.
McCarter smiled. “I’m a better shot than that. I’ll just make you wish you were dead, and still leave you able to write the answers I want.”
Reasoner saw McCarter shake his head behind the big square slide of the pistol leveled at him. He set his box of tissues on the desktop, pointing out to the SAS man the .357 Magnum revolver resting in the top drawer. The dockman’s eyes narrowed. “Were you born a bastard, or did you take lessons?”
“I’m a natural, but that doesn’t mean I don’t keep training. The amateur trains until he gets it right. The true professional trains until he never gets it wrong,” McCarter answered. “Nice Maggie. Hand it over by the barrel.”
Reasoner set the revolver on the desktop and sighed. “Okay. A ship called the Kobiyashi came in the other day.”
“Japanese registry?” McCarter asked.
“Mix of Asians and Hispanics on the crew. Liberian registry, as usual,” Reasoner replied. He pressed a wad of tissues to his upper lip and it soaked immediately through and through.
“Where was its last stop?” McCarter inquired.
“Since when did you start taking to plastic pistols?” Reasoner interrupted. He was trying to stall and regain his composure. “Isn’t that the new Glock?”
McCarter glared at Reasoner. The 9 mm hole in the business end of the pistol glared at the official with only slightly less intensity and intimidation. After a long, uncomfortable moment, McCarter spoke up. “You like eating through a straw?”
“A straw?”
“Liquid nourishment. Actually, you wouldn’t taste it without a tongue, since they’d stick the tube through your nose and straight into your stomach.”
“So like I was saying. The Kobiyashi was just out of Panama,” Reasoner replied. “Came across the canal. Before that they were in the Pacific.”
McCarter frowned. “Any idea where?”
“Up in the armpit between Baja, Mexico, and the mainland,” Reasoner said. He wiped more of his blood off his chin. “Why?”
“I’m writing a book,” McCarter answered.
Reasoner nodded. “Then I’ll keep the words short and easy for you to spell.”
A thunderbolt went off in Reasoner’s right ear, hot flames licking at his eyes. The official screamed and covered his head. Hot stickiness filled the inside of his head and when he opened his left eye, he saw a wisp of smoke rise from the barrel of McCarter’s pistol.
“Sorry. Underestimated the muzzle-flash,” McCarter replied. It sounded as if he was trying to speak through a pillow. Reasoner reached up and found that his right ear was still there, burned and tender from the nearby muzzle-flash that clamped his right eye shut, but he came away with fresh blood.
“What…”
“I think I blew the eardrum. Sorry, mate,” McCarter answered.
Reasoner shuddered. “You’re insane.”
“I just don’t have any patience for smugglers,” McCarter responded. “Or the bastards who make it easy for them.”
“Listen…” Reasoner began.
“You were kicked out of the regiment for selling off our equipment,” McCarter said. “Your lawyer kept you from becoming some bloke’s boyfriend in prison, but if it were up to me, you’d be lucky to take a long drop off a short rope.”
“I didn’t sell to the Provos,” Reasoner answered. “And it was old gear…back stock.”
McCarter was unmoved. “What berth?”
“They’re setting sail in five minutes. You’ll never catch them,” Reasoner replied.
“Leave it to me,” McCarter said. “What berth?”
“Thirteen,” Reasoner answered.
“Close your eyes, Chris,” McCarter ordered.
The official closed his good eye. “You’re not going to shoot me, are you?”
Silence.
It took Reasoner nearly five minutes for him to get up the courage to see if McCarter was still there.
MCCARTER KNEW that he was going to be cutting it close. Not only was he armed with only a pair of pistols that weren’t ones he was familiar with, and Reasoner’s .357 Magnum revolver, but he was all alone. A takedown of a ship would need at least two more people, as Able Team had proved several times. He’d have preferred to have all four of his Phoenix Force teammates on hand to throw in against the smugglers on the Kobiyashi.
It would have to do. The Phoenix Force leader didn’t want to lose track of the boat. Already the sailors were undoing the moorings. The bow’s rope, big and fat, was being hauled up over the railing while two sailors unwound the stern cable. Crewmen jogged up the gangplank.
“All aboard!” came the call from the deck.
It was now or never.
One more thing slowed the Phoenix Force leader. There was a possibility that the entire crew on the ship wasn’t implicated in the transport of a team of assassins. McCarter was audacious and ruthless, but he wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer and when he fought, he fought against those he knew were killers and had deadly intent. He’d fall back to the handguns as a means of last resort, which meant that he was even further behind the curve.
“Hey! We’re casting off,” a Filipino sailor called to him. The round-faced seaman was stocky, his shoulders betraying a burly strength. “You can’t come aboard.”
“Official business, no time for a chin-wag,” McCarter said as he barely slowed, sidestepping the Filipino.
The stocky sailor grabbed McCarter’s arm and pulled open his jacket to reveal a revolver. The former SAS commando pivoted and broke the Filipino’s nose with the point of his elbow, then plucked the revolver from the man’s waistband. “I told you, no time to talk, mate.”
A second sailor rushed up, but instead of helping out his stunned shipmate, he reached for his own weapon. McCarter sighed and pistol-whipped the man across the jaw with the barrel of the Filipino’s revolver, twisting the newcomer’s handgun out of his grasp. A sweep of his feet across the man’s ankles, and the Briton dumped the man to the ground. With a quick flip, he had a revolver in each fist.
“Anyone else want to slow me down?” McCarter growled.
The other sailors who were handling the moorings looked at the armed man, dressed in black and packing a brace of handguns after three quick strikes. They