Rain and trickling mud had made the bluff slick. Shaw descended slowly, testing each toehold before daring to move his hand down to the next spot that offered a grip. The sheer face was only twenty feet high, but it might have been a thousand for the caution Shaw had to give it. Slipping and busting his leg or worse on the beach would be the same as painting a fluorescent target on himself.
He reached the shore and dropped to crouch in the crook of the cliff wall. Water trickled from the crags above, giving thicker shape to the rain. The shooter, if he hadn’t moved, would be fifteen long paces to Shaw’s right. Hargreaves another twenty yards to the left, on the far side of the beached speedboat.
The two combatants at a standoff. Neither, Shaw thought, aware that he was crashing the party. He glided along the projections and hollows of the cliff face as though listening closely to the island’s whispered secrets.
He saw the man’s legs first. Extending from an especially deep shadow, toes of his boots almost straight up toward the sky. Shaw held very still. One of the legs turned an inch. The man was seated upright. Mostly upright. Slumped against the vertical wall. Arms down at his sides, loose. Left hand empty.
Shaw covered the last five yards in a rush. He pressed the muzzle of the Browning hard against the man’s temple, forcing the head to one side, as he clamped his other hand down on the man’s right forearm. A Colt pistol fell from the killer’s loose fingers.
It was the other hitter, the snaky one with the eyeglasses. The left side of his neck and his shoulder so coated that the tinny blood smell wafted strong through the rain. His glasses were askew from the force of Shaw’s gun against his head.
The killer’s eyes turned to him, slowly, peering over the black frames.
“Hey,” he breathed. “Look at you.”
His lip curled up, maybe attempting a smile. The last of his air rasped out. His chest shuddered for an instant and then was still.
From the distance, past the boat and wherever Hargreaves hid on the shore, came the low drone of someone speaking through a bullhorn. The tac team, clearing the house and estate grounds.
Splashes. Against the glitter on the rolling waves, Shaw saw Hargreaves duck behind the body of the speedboat. A moment later the bowline fell limp to the beach and the boat began to slide backward into deeper water. Pulled by Hargreaves on his knees.
Shaw unslung the rifle from his shoulder. The glistening hull of the boat was the brightest thing in view. It turned, tugged by Hargreaves’s unseen hand, until the bow pointed parallel to the shore. The boat tilted to port to show Shaw a portion of its white belly. Hargreaves, climbing aboard on the far side, his weight making the small boat list.
Shaw raised the rifle as the boat came back to center. Hargreaves now a ghostly gray shape just ahead of the outboard engine. An easy shot. The sniper rifle’s supreme accuracy would counter the night and the boat’s slow rise and fall on the waves. Shaw used the scope, breathing easy. Plenty of time to put the crosshairs right where he wanted them.
The speedboat’s engine started with a buzzsaw roar. An instant of life before Shaw’s .300 round hit it, shattering the plastic hood and half the works within. Shaw heard Hargreaves’s cry of alarm as metal fragments and gasoline sprayed over the cockpit.
With the motor’s abrupt silence, the island seemed even quieter than before. Even the rain had lessened.
“Toss the gun,” Shaw shouted.
Hargreaves stood dazedly in the boat. A scarecrow figure, his suit torn and stained, shirt loose and transparent with wet. Fresh cuts on his forehead and cheek welled up, the blood caught immediately by raindrops and racing to drip from his brow and chin.
“Do it,” Hargreaves called. More at the island than at Shaw, who remained cloaked in darkness.
The boat receded slightly with each wave, floating out toward the channel. Toward the great swells that rolled from the north. Without its engine and forward momentum, the little boat would be swamped within minutes. Its foam-and-fiberglass construction might not allow it to sink completely, but it would be hardly better than a floating log as it was borne out to sea. Along with anyone still clinging to it.
Hargreaves, apparently resigned to the fact that Shaw wasn’t going to kill him outright, turned to look out at the horizon. There was nothing to see. Any islands in the distance, shrouded in rain clouds and night, might as well be another continent. Only the merciless straits awaited.
“Come on!” he yelled. The boat rose on an upsurge and settled again, another few feet farther from land.
Shaw waited. He believed that Hargreaves would accept a bullet. He was morbidly curious whether the covert spook could face a slower death.
A long moment passed. Hargreaves stepped onto the boat’s rail and into the water. He swam and splashed his way to shore. His hands were empty.
From far up the beach, Shaw saw the glittering dots of flashlights. And a police launch, thundering at half throttle, coming from the same direction. He walked away from the cliff, the rifle trained on Hargreaves, who offered no resistance other than a look of hatred. The blood trickling from his face gave him a demon’s visage.
“Fucking coward,” he said to Shaw.
The beam of a searchlight on the police launch pierced the night. The light swept past them, reversed, pinned them like dragonflies to a corkboard.
“Every man his own courage,” said Shaw.