The Bishop's Pawn (Cotton Malone #13)(40)

“I was wondering,” I said. “How about I contribute twenty dollars to your gas and you give us a lift across to the other side?”

He gave me a cautionary look.

“It’s not a problem,” I said, adding a chuckle. “We’re not on the run or anything. We just need a lift.”

“That your girlfriend?” he asked.

Explaining would be far too complicated, so I lied. “She’s mine, though sometimes she doesn’t see it that way.”

He grinned. “I’ve got one of those, too.”

I fished out a still-damp twenty from my wallet and handed it over. Then I returned to Coleen and told her we had a ride. We gathered up the files and quickly stuffed them back into the waterproof case.

We climbed aboard the boat with the case and our driver revved the outboard, backing away from the ramp. Behind, in the park, headlights cut a swath through the growing darkness. I glanced back and saw a car come to a stop near the concrete ramp. But it wasn’t towing any boat. The door opened and Jansen emerged.

“Malone,” Coleen said.

I turned and followed her pointing finger toward the far shore, where another car had arrived.

Two men stood waiting.

Seems like I would have learned what being bait felt like, but once again we’d stepped right into their trap.

Then the driver leaped from the boat.

“Get down,” I yelled to her, realizing what was coming.

The men on both sides of the channel drew their weapons and fired our way. We dove to the deck. Bullets ricocheted and tumbled past, leaving a whirring sound in their wake. I belly-crawled forward and seized the helm, whipping the wheel hard right, increasing the throttle, and heading toward open ocean that lay about five hundred yards to the east.

More shots came our way.

But none of the rounds found us.

The outboard was now fully revved, the bow planing as we skipped across the narrow inlet. We were far enough away now that the shooters were not a threat. A sloping jumble of boulders to our right extended a hundred-plus yards from the beach out into open ocean, the jetty blocking the currents into the inlet and providing a relatively safe harbor west of the park. A few fishermen were standing atop it. We motored past the jetty’s end into open ocean.

“That was way too easy,” she said.

And I agreed.

“They knew we were there,” she said. “Why not just take us?”

The answer to that question appeared off our starboard bow. The boat from earlier, the one the two guys in the inflatable had returned to, had shifted position and was now much closer to the jetty. In the scant few rays of light left I saw the inflatable tied at its side and men climbing down into it.

“They made a deal,” I said.

The idea had been to get us out here, with the coin and the files, leaving us to Valdez’s men. Tom Oliver had apparently determined that was the quickest and easiest way to solve his problem. How the deal had been made so fast after Valdez’s attack on Oliver’s house was hard to say. But it clearly had. And we’d been maneuvered into stealing a boat and coming right to them.

The inflatable swung away from the larger vessel and headed our way.

“We need to get out of here,” Coleen said.

I swung the wheel left and vectored north, paralleling the coast of Palm Beach Shores. High-rise apartments and condominiums lined the way, lights dotting the buildings up many stories. Beaching the boat and making a run for it seemed the smart play, but we’d never make it to shore before the inflatable overtook us.

At least I had Oliver’s gun.

I glanced back.

The gap was closing between us and the inflatable.

A crack rang out.

Rifle fire from the inflatable.

“Stay down,” I yelled to Coleen.

Another pop and the windscreen to my left shattered.

That was close.

And a lucky shot from a pitching boat to another pitching boat in near darkness.

Running no longer seemed the right move.

“Take the wheel,” I told Coleen.

She grabbed hold.

“Slow the throttle,” I said.

“For what?”

“Do it.”

I’d tried maybe seventy-five court-martials. My job always was to represent my client and obtain the best result possible. Sometimes that was for the military. Sometimes that was for the accused. That was the thing about JAG. You worked both sides. When representing the accused, most of my colleagues took winning to mean “how much punishment can I avoid,” since nearly every defendant was guilty of something. I never cared for that concession. I wanted an acquittal. A not guilty. An “I’m sorry, we made a mistake and should have never charged your client in the first place.”

That’s what I liked to hear.

So I learned to take a stand.

And stick with it.

I read once that nothing takes the place of persistence. Damn right. Not talent. I know a lot of lousy lawyers with talent. Not brilliance. Hell, unrewarded genius was almost the norm. Not education, since the world was full of smart derelicts.

Nope.

Persistence wins.

And like Einstein said, You have to learn the rules of the game, then you have to play better than everyone else.

So let’s play.

Our boat slowed.

I found the coin in my pocket.