The Bishop's Pawn (Cotton Malone #13)(79)

Ahead I spotted a high barbed-wire fence with a gate leading out.

Padlocked.

To my right, a metal door opened from the side of the building and a man emerged. Probably an employee working on the Pirates ride. I found my wallet and held it up like a cop would, displaying credentials.

“Malone, from Human Resources,” I said, as I brushed past. Then I stopped, reached back, and grabbed the inside handle.

“Where are you going?” he asked me.

“To fire someone.”

I closed the door.

Outside I’d noticed that there was no way to get inside without a key card passing through an electronic reader. I could only hope that the guy I’d just bamboozled wouldn’t open it for Oliver and Jansen.

I stood inside a lighted, air-conditioned room that held a long metal table with chairs around it. On the wall hung a schematic of the building showing the waterways that wound through the interior carrying visitors on their way through Disney’s version of the 18th-century Caribbean. A whiteboard seemed to be for work assignments. I made a quick survey, spotted where I was currently standing, and plotted a route through the building to the nearest exit—which, to my delight, seemed outside the park’s fence.

Perfect.

I heard the door lever behind me being turned.

I rushed to the other exit and left.

The corridor beyond was dimly lined with a series of closed metal doors. From behind them I heard the murmur of a familiar song. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me. I was apparently behind the scenes, in the attraction’s maintenance corridors, a quick way to get from one place to another without anyone knowing the better.

I hustled forward.

Rumblings came from the other side of the doors, which sounded like cannon fire, and kept repeating. The door I’d entered from behind me opened. Jansen appeared. He held a gun. I darted for the next door, yanked it open, and lunged through.

More cannon fire thundered.

A shot rang out.

The bullet pinged off the door as it slammed shut on its spring-loaded hinges. A short walkway led onto a galleon, complete with sails, masts, and rigging. The music rang louder. The source of the explosions became clear: cannons on the ship “firing” on the visitors’ boats passing by on the water below. More cannons returned fire, in a mock battle, from a fortress on the other side of the dark, cavernous space, each blast accompanied by a burst of flame. Explosions from beneath the water tossed geysers upward, creating cannonball breaches. Cool air simulated a brisk ocean breeze. A robotic captain on the ship led the assault, shouting threats while brandishing a sword. More animatronic figures created the illusion of an anxious crew. I looked around and could see there was no escape off the galleon. I moved to the railing and glanced over the side.

Only water below.

The door behind me opened.

I darted right and hid behind a cabin that rose from the deck. I peeked around the side and saw Jansen creeping across the walkway and onto the ship, gun in hand. I waited until he was on the deck then pounced, kicking the gun from his grasp. He whirled and cocked his right arm back, but before he could land a fist I planted my head into his chest. We hit the deck hard and rolled toward a row of animatronic crewmen who faced toward the water. Electrical cables snaked a path across the deck, out of sight to anyone not on the galleon, and I wondered about the voltage.

We rolled, tight in each other’s grasp.

I shoved Jansen off me.

He sprang to his feet.

More cannons fired.

I stood.

He egged me on, motioning toward himself with his upstretched fingers. “That all you got, Malone?”

He stood near the rail, beside the ship’s captain who was ordering the cannons to be fired at will toward the boats below. I decided to oblige Jansen and rushed toward him, burying my shoulder into his chest and wrapping my arms around him like a linebacker leveling a quarterback.

Momentum drove us forward and over the rail.

We fell.

The cannons extended out from the hull, readying themselves for another round. We plunged downward. Jansen led the way and his right rib cage slammed into one of the protruding barrels.

Then it “fired.”

Which was not all sound effects. Real flames erupted from the barrel’s end, probably thanks to propane.

Jansen screamed.

His body shielded me from the few seconds of heat, but I caught a little singe to my arms. We rebounded off and splashed into the water. My grip on Jansen released. The water was cold and only chest-deep. Jansen came to his feet and lunged for me, slipping his arm around my neck from behind in a lock vise. A boat passed by a few feet away, loaded with visitors.

The pressure increased.

He was strangling the breath out of me.

I jabbed my right elbow into his side, the one that had struck the cannon, hoping some damage had been done.

And it had.

He winced in pain.

His grip released enough for me to break his hold and shove him away. But Jansen knew how to handle himself. He pushed off the concrete bottom of the waterway and launched himself at me. I had twenty-plus years on him in age, but the guy could fight. The people in the boat were mesmerized by what was happening.

Cameras flashed.

To them we were an exciting live-action part of the show.

Jansen tried to swing a fist my way but I stopped the jab and planted one of my own, which only seemed to enrage him. I had already felt metal rails beneath the water, surely a track that guided the boats on a designated path through the attraction. Here it veered close to the galleon for the cannon attack, then swerved to the far side toward the fake fort.