FIFTEEN

Kilbane pointed to the twenty-foot runabout, the little brother to the larger Regal cruiser.

“Get in,” he said.

Shaw looked at them. “Early for a fishing trip.”

The three enforcers spread out, blocking the width of the dock.

“You’re relieved of duty, Shaw,” said Kilbane. “We’ll take you to the mainland and drop you off. Your things will be sent to you.”

“Bullshit.”

“You’ll get your money. But you’re leaving the island. Now.”

“I’m done when Rohner says so. Until then piss off.”

“Get in the boat.”

Shaw didn’t move.

“Fine,” said Kilbane. He removed something from his belt and flicked his wrist. A steel alloy tactical baton snapped to full length. Castelli took out his own baton, and Pollan, the female member of their team, unholstered an evil-looking Taser pistol. The underlings held the weapons loosely at their sides. Waiting for orders. Or letting Kilbane have a literal first crack.

Shaw took half a second to review his options. The list wasn’t long. Jump in the water and swim away, in which case Kilbane and the rest would be there when he came ashore, wet and cold and tired. Rush past them up the dock or try to board the cruiser behind him and get whipped over the head by a baton or zapped into oblivion before he made it three steps. They were ready for him to rabbit. They’d been ready since before Shaw arrived. They had the air of people happy to see a wait of uncertain length come to an end.

Or he could fight. They were ready for that, too. Two of them at least as large as Shaw, and Pollan was no twig either. She had the same excited expression as Kilbane. Even discounting her stun gun, those tactical batons could break a skull or an arm as readily as a hammer against a chopstick.

Surrendering and boarding the boat could be suicide. There were a lot of miles and a lot of water between Briar Bay and the mainland. All too easy to get lost forever.

“You were warned,” Kilbane said. His tiny smile still fixed in place, as if the internal program that controlled his face had become stuck in a loop. “You can comply and still be able to walk and talk when we put you ashore, or you can spend a month in the hospital after we dump what’s left of you on Neptune Beach. But you’re leaving here tonight. For good.”

The three took slow steps forward. Shaw drifted back, along the length of the moored cruiser. No one was in a hurry. Shaw would run out of dock soon enough.

“It’s late,” Kilbane said. “Let’s get to it.”

Shaw saw Rangi before they did. Emerging from behind the cabin of the cruiser, one foot on the cowling, launching himself into the four-foot drop to the dock. Castelli, closer to the boat, caught the motion in the corner of his eye as Rangi jumped. Too late.

It was a study in inelastic collision. Three hundred fifty pounds of momentum against two hundred pounds standing static. And unprepared. Rangi hit Castelli square on his right side. A huge huff of impact as Castelli flew like he’d been fired from a cannon, across and off the remaining six feet of dock. He hit the water with an ungainly splash.

Pollan had sprung away from the surprise attack like a startled cat. She looked at Rangi and raised the Taser.

Shaw took one big step forward and drove his elbow into the side of Pollan’s head. He’d never fought a woman before; he reflexively pulled the blow. A little. Pollan grunted and collapsed as though her strings had been cut. The stun gun skittered across the planks and into the water, chasing Castelli.

Kilbane tensed, ready to lash his baton at the first person who came near.

“This isn’t your fight, Sua,” he said to Rangi while still watching Shaw. Rangi, for his part, had half an eye on Castelli, who coughed and sputtered in the water. The security thug probably wouldn’t drown, but it wasn’t a sure thing. Rangi had knocked the wind out of his lungs even before Castelli had swallowed half the strait.

“Can’t let you cripple the man,” Rangi said. “You want to fight now, go ahead.”

Shaw and Kilbane looked at each other. The odds had shifted dramatically in the space of five seconds. Shaw smiled.

“Here’s my counteroffer,” he said to Kilbane. “I’m going to kick your ass. You can use your fists, in which case I might leave you able to report to work tomorrow. Or”—he pointed to the baton—“you can keep the stick, but then it’s open season. I’ll take it away from you and use it myself. A month in the hospital, you said. That sounds fair.”

Kilbane looked at him, then glanced at Pollan, who was beginning to stir. “I don’t need them. Or this.”

Shaw whistled softly. “Prove it.”

Kilbane spun the baton in his hand and jabbed its tip into the wooden planks, collapsing the baton’s length back into the handle. He pocketed the weapon. He walked to an open area of the dock, away from his fallen partner and from Rangi, to remove his suit jacket. The preparations seemed to restore his confidence.

He stepped forward with his hands up, crouching, bobbing slightly. His balance good and his shoulders loose.

Shaw recognized game. Kilbane feinted and threw a heavy right hand. Shaw slipped and moved to the side. Kilbane kicked at Shaw’s knee, and Shaw pivoted, the security man’s foot missing him by an inch. Kilbane was faster than he looked. Shaw moved one way and then the other, never pausing in front of the larger man. The dock was long enough for him to dodge all night. Kilbane knew it, too. Shaw flicked a jab that Kilbane slipped. He moved, feinted. It would be too easy to break his hands on Kilbane’s hard skull.

“Come on, you shit,” Kilbane said, breath huffing out of his nose. “Fight.”

He came swinging. A battering ram, little finesse but enough power to flatten Shaw against the side of the boat if he caught him. Shaw slapped Kilbane hard across the cheek with his left palm and spun away from the knee that had been aimed to rupture his kidney.

Kilbane was fast. Shaw was lightning. He ducked a huge, infuriated haymaker to coil low and explode out, sinking a savage hook into Kilbane’s exposed ribs. The blow made a thud like a sandbag being dropped.

Nothing hurts quite like a shot to the liver. The pain is delayed for a moment, then comes on like a crosstown express, paralytic and sickening. In those two seconds, Kilbane turned, and Shaw hit him twice more, one flickering right to raise Kilbane’s head and a harder left to the soft side of the throat. Kilbane fell to his hands and knees. Then he slowly curled into fetal position, maybe an involuntary response to the agony in his vitals.

“He’s gonna die,” Rangi said, with the same tone as if reporting the time.

“Not today,” said Shaw.

Kilbane lunged up onto his knees. Fists balled as if still in the fight. A herculean effort that Shaw applauded by backhanding him across the temple. This time the security chief stayed down.

“Motherfuck.” Rangi frowned.

As if on cue, Castelli shambled up the dock. Looking like an oversize rat that had become trapped in a washer on spin cycle.

“How ’bout you?” Shaw said to him. “I’m up for the hat trick tonight.”

Castelli stopped and raised his hands exhaustedly. “Hey, man. I didn’t want this.”

“Sure.” Shaw picked up Kilbane’s suit jacket and pocketed the tactical baton.

“What now?” Castelli said. Pollan was sitting up. Maybe not certain where she was just yet.

“Now you go away. And stay away. Tonight was sparring for fun. Next time I’ll hurt you and make it permanent. Understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Say it.”

“I’ll stay away.”

Shaw looked at Kilbane. The man’s shirt had come untucked, and two buttons had torn off. A damp patch darkened his trousers on the left thigh. Involuntary voiding of the bladder.

Undignified. The kind of humiliation that could break a man’s spirit. Or make him insane with rage.

“Convince your boss,” Shaw said to Castelli, tossing him Kilbane’s suit coat.

Rangi motioned for Shaw to climb aboard the cruiser. Shaw followed the big man into the cabin.

The boat was nicely if indifferently appointed. This was not a home like Hollis Brant’s, with books and mementos and half-finished projects lying about. The cruiser was like a themed room at a bed-and-breakfast—Nautical Getaway. A rack in the minuscule galley held a row of coffee mugs in a shade of teal that precisely matched the carpet. The frame around a mirror had little anchors painted on it.

Outside, Castelli was helping Pollan to her feet. Rangi closed the cabin door.

“You make a lot of trouble,” he said.

“That wasn’t my doing.”

“You coulda gone along with them and called Mr. Rohner later. Instead you forced Kilbane to nut up in front of his people. Way I see it, that’s on you.”

“But you chose to step in anyway.”

Rangi grimaced. He wore canvas sweatpants and a green T-shirt that had words in what Shaw guessed were Samoan, over a bright yellow sun. His feet were bare. Shaw could have used either the pants or the T-shirt as a blanket.

“Those staff quarters aren’t Plaza suites,” Shaw said. “More elbow room here on the boat?”

Rangi nodded. “And privacy.”

“So why didn’t you let Kilbane and the terror twins smash my bones to oatmeal?”

“Because Mr. Rohner wouldn’t like it. Or me asleep next door and letting it happen. I’m supposed to help keep the peace.”

“So’s Kilbane. And Anders. This family has more protection than most monarchies.”

“Kilbane.” Rangi said it in the same way someone might say cockroach. “He creeps around Greta.”

“I saw Greta this morning, while Anders was giving me the tour. You and she going together?”

Rangi’s morose expression brightened a lumen or two. “Yeah. I’d crush Kilbane’s head myself, but . . .” He shrugged.

“So when he came after me tonight, you hoped I would knock him down a peg. Without creating a problem for whatever HR department you all share at Droma.”

“Might be.”

“And if I lost . . . no harm, no foul.”

“I didn’t think you’d lose. Not without the others backing him up. Kilbane’s a mean shit and he spends a lot of time working the iron, but you got that look I seen on other guys in the Army. Spec Ops, yeah?”

“Yeah. Rangers. What was home for you?” Shaw asked.

“7th Transportation Group. Me and half my high-school class in Pago Pago enlisted at the same time. About the only jobs around, you know?”

“That’s what got me to sign, too. Three hots and a cot. Ten years later I couldn’t remember what it was like to be a civilian. Shit, I’m still figuring that part out.”

“I did six,” Rangi said. “They taught me to drive trucks and boats and everything else. It made sense to keep driving once I was out. People like a chauffeur with some size. Makes them feel high-status.”

“And now you’re here.”

“It’s a good gig. Don’t fuck it up for me, man.”

Shaw nodded. “I wouldn’t. Even if I didn’t owe you for the assist. Thanks.” He glanced around the cabin. “You brought the boat in this morning, right?”

“The Vóllmond.”

“How’s that?”

“Vóllmond. That’s her name. ‘Full Moon,’ in German.”

“Got it. Do you know what was in the black crates you brought to the island?”

“Kitchen equipment,” Rangi said. “Mr. Anders had them ordered for this week.”

“Where’d you pick them up?”

“A freight company delivered them to the marina. What this about?”

“My job. I’m the facilities manager. Crates are in the facility.”

Rangi glowered. “You already see what curiosity got you, dude. Now go and let me crash.”

Shaw walked out of the cabin and stepped down to the dock. Against the far lights of the estate, three figures made their way up the hill from the shore, their shadows trailing far behind. Castelli and Pollan and Kilbane. Moving slow and careful, like children walking with bare feet on sharp gravel.

“You were just sparring, huh?” Rangi said.

Shaw smiled grimly. “I spread the bullshit a little thick. Might give them second thoughts about trying again.”

“It might.” Rangi shook his head. “Were me, I wouldn’t go to sleep till the door was locked, you know? Locked and barricaded and one hand on my baseball bat.”