Walking down the dock, houseboats on either side of him, Devlin in the lead, Randall went to tip toes, twisted his head a little to the right, and saw half of the target home’s second level was an open-air deck that faced the water.
Devlin made a right-ninety then transitioned from the dock to the gangplank to push a button before knocking on the door a moment later.
Randall moseyed to the end of the parallel decking boards and stopped at a curved ladder, its lower half out of view under the water. He looked right to see the stern of a twenty-five-foot bright red powerboat moored to the target home’s foundation.
She rapped on the door again.
He made his way back to her but stayed on the dock behind her. “There’s a speeder over there. That’s how they could’ve gotten here without us seeing them.” He swayed left. “I’ve got movement inside.”
The door opened a second later.
A six-one, broad-shouldered man in his late twenties filled the archway. His brows formed a ‘V,’ and his dark eyes were narrow slits. His attention darted from one visitor to the other. “What do you want?”
Recalling the description Faith had relayed to her—via the houseboat’s owner—about the men renting the place, Devlin squinted at the tan-skinned man with a close-cropped beard and squared-off jaw. Looks like him. “Tom McGantry?”
“Who’s asking?”
Opting to keep her hands near her waistline, near her pistol, Devlin ditched her usual display of credentials and eased back the right lapel of her navy-blue blazer to reveal her gold-colored badge, a five-pointed star inside a circle. “United States Marshals Service. We’d like to talk to you about a string of robberies that have taken place over the last year.”
Randall noted a slight twitch in the man’s right eye but conceded it might have been due to a ray of sunshine that had emerged from somewhere inside the house to light up that side of the man’s face.
“You got a warrant?”
Randall: Most people don’t normally ask that...unless they’ve had dealings with the law.
Devlin shook her head. “We don’t need one if you invite us in.”
“I’m not accepting callers at the moment.” He swung the door toward her.
“The name Dryden Barnes ring any bells?”
Now out of the sunlight, the homeowner hesitated.
Seeing movement out of the corner of his left eye, Randall saw the man twitch again, Gotcha, before he cranked his head to the left, toward the movement he had noticed.
The powerboat’s stern heaved toward the house.
“Never heard of him.” The big man slammed the door.
“He’s lying, Jessica.”
“Don’t need a genie to figure that one out.” Devlin drew her stainless-steel 1911 Colt 45, one of three identical pistols, the other two belonging to her sister and father. She tried the doorknob. “We’re locked out.”
Randall darted to the end of the dock.
The boat rumbled to life and surged forward.
He drew his Walther. “I got one making a run for open water.”
Devlin backed up and kicked the door twice before firing three shots next to the black knob and putting her boot to the door again.
The barrier flew inward.
She raced into the living room, gun up, and aimed at the fleeing McGantry. “Freeze! Don’t move!”
On her twelve o’clock, facing away from her, his hands hoisting a duffle bag onto his back, McGantry made a sharp left and bolted for a pair of patio doors.
Cutting across the living room on an angle, while holstering her weapon, Devlin navigated around a coffee table, bean bag chair, and an end table before sinking her right foot into a sofa cushion and leaping over the furniture.
McGantry saw her coming and lifted his left arm to shield his face.
*******
Outside, clearing three feet of water, Randall jumped off the dock and landed on the home’s two-foot frontage of weathered boards, the toe of his shoe sending a potted plant into the ‘drink’ with a splash.
The boat slowed, its driver looking back at the house.
The deputy marshal raised his gun. “Stop right there.”
Following another glance at the structure, the driver faced forward and jammed the throttle toward the bow.
The watercraft sped away, ducking behind the cover of the building.
Randall ran ahead, pulling up near one of three white columns supporting the open-air deck above, before he lined up the PPQ45’s sights with the escapee. His focus shifted to the landscape beyond his target. Seeing more homes, and people mulling around, he lowered his weapon and cursed under his breath.
Now more than a hundred yards away, the boat made a wide left and zoomed toward open water.
*******
Devlin ducked under the roundhouse right then sunk her left fist into the right side of McGantry’s rib cage.
The man moaned and took a half step to his left before swinging his right arm back toward her.
She dipped under the strike.
The big man immediately brought a balled left fist down onto the middle of the hunched-over agent’s back.
Pain radiated out from her torso in all directions, as she dropped to hands and knees.
He reared back his right foot and kicked her in her left side.
Bellowing, she rolled onto her back while holding her right hand to her rib cage.
McGantry hurdled her.
Devlin threw up her left arm and caught his trailing foot.
Stumbling, he took longer strides to try to regain his balance, his momentum carrying him toward the patio doors.
*******
Out on the deck, his gun pointed at a downward angle, Randall squinted at the speedboat while waffling over whether to take the two-hundred-yard shot now that the craft had cleared innocent bystanders.
The patio doors burst open, the glass in one shattering, the pane in the other spider webbing, as that door banged into the siding.
McGantry staggered a few paces then face planted onto the rough wooden boards.
Randall pivoted his body, and his forty-five, clockwise toward his two o’clock.
The man got to his feet.
“Hands! Show me your hands!”
Spotting the red speck on the horizon, his shoulders slumping, McGantry let go of the bag. In the next instant, he turned his attention toward Randall and balled both hands.
The deputy marshal noticed and touched the Walther’s trigger. “Give me a reason...any reason at all.”
Devlin charged through the patio archway.
Observing the look on her face, one he had never seen before, he lowered his gun.
Deep creases in her forehead, her eyebrows coming together to form a unibrow, the marshal jumped into the air and drove her right boot into the back of McGantry’s right knee.
The man’s leg buckled, and his upper body arched backward, as his right knee thumped down onto the hard surface.
Devlin delivered a right elbow to the back of his head.
He sprawled onto the decking.
On his port side, she planted her right knee in his lower back.
He screamed, threw a backward left elbow, catching her on the outside of her left thigh.
Grunting at the onset of a charley horse, she thrust her right hand into his crotch from behind, got a handful of clothing and body parts, then squeezed and twisted.
McGantry bellowed.
Randall grimaced, recoiling a bit, before shaking off the empathetic pain and springing forward to help his fellow agent.
The fight leaving him, McGantry let his forehead fall onto the deck.
Randall buried a knee into the man’s neck and held out a pair of handcuffs.
Devlin wrenched her suspect’s hands to the small of his back, accepted her partner’s offering, and affixed the manacles. She stood up, only to grimace and bend over in the next moment while holding her left side.
Rising to his feet, subconsciously moving his free hand to cover himself, “I pity your husband when,” Randall looked up to locate the escaping boat on the horizon before whipping his head left and right, “when you come home in a bad mood.” He ran away from her, jumped onto the long dock, then jumped to the deck of the adjacent houseboat.
Still making faces, Devlin righted herself and stretched her back muscles before massaging her left thigh. She hauled out her cell phone, tapped the screen a few times, then studied her handiwork lying at her feet, huffing a moment later. “Prima donna, my as—”
A female voice: “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
“This is United States Marshal Jessica Devlin.” She gave the houseboat’s address. “I need you to send a police officer to this location to collect a prisoner and...”
A motor revved.
“...hold him for...”
A boat lumbered from around the adjacent home and pulled up alongside Devlin.
She faced the man at the helm. “...me.”
Randall: “Are you taking a break, or do you want a piece of the action?”
Her lips curling up at his words, words akin to the ones she had said to him, earlier, after he had almost been run down by a truck, Devlin turned her attention back to her call. “I’ll be back later to question him.” She clicked off, stowed her phone, and retrieved from her pocket a pair of interlocking black plastic rings. “Give me a hand with this guy, will you?”
The deputy marshal helped her lug the prisoner toward one of the pillars where the two marshals wrapped the man’s legs around the vertical support and secured his ankles with the restraints.
Devlin: “That’ll keep him until the police show up.”
Randall got behind the controls of the white, fifteen-foot pleasure craft. “Let’s go.”
She joined him, standing on his left.
“Hang on.” He ran the throttle forward, and the commandeered boat surged ahead.
∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞
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