Distracted, Ryker was unprepared for the uppercut to his jaw. Aldern squeezed out from underneath and clambered to his feet. Ryker was up, too, and edged back, both of them crouched down and at the ready to attack or defend. Aldern’s knife lay a couple of feet from him. Both of their guns lay somewhere on the upper deck. Ryker didn’t dare take his eyes off Aldern for a second, but somewhere above he could still hear the circling helicopter.
‘So?’ Ryker said.
Aldern glared but said nothing as a dribble of blood wormed down his chin from his lip.
‘Back from the dead,’ Ryker said as his brain put together the pieces of this man’s deception. ‘Do your wife and son even know?’
Still nothing from Aldern. But then his eyes flicked to Ryker’s right. Gerardo. A bang as he kicked open the doors. Ryker glanced over his shoulder to see him brandishing a heavy-duty carbine.
Movement to the right. The helicopter swooped into view. Ryker spotted the glint on the open deck. A gunner. Then another glint in the sea. A speedboat approaching.
For what seemed like several beats, but was probably not even a quarter of a second, Ryker’s eyes met Aldern’s. His ex-colleague smiled.
Then all hell broke loose.
Gerardo opened fire first, but within an instant there were booming gunshots coming from two other directions. The helicopter, the boat. Ryker didn’t even know who was aiming for whom, but he had no choice but to dive for cover by the side of the plush, cream leather bench. Bullets raked the yacht all around him. Wood and plastic splinters flew through the air.
Gerardo’s burst of fire was short-lived as a series of bullets thwacked into his midriff. His body pulsed with each hit before he collapsed in a pool of his own blood.
The carbine was a few yards from Ryker. He went to crawl that way but a bullet splatted into the wooden deck right by Ryker’s arm and sent a two-inch wooden splinter deep into his wrist.
He slid back into his corner, grimacing in pain, hunkering down to avoid the barrage of gunfire and debris. He yanked the wood out as he stared across to the other side of the deck where Aldern was similarly hunkered. But then Aldern looked up, at the helicopter, nodded and jumped to his feet.
A fresh wave of bullets smacked into the yacht – from the boat – aiming for Aldern as he dashed for the opposite side of the yacht. He took a bullet in the shoulder a moment before he hurled himself up and over the side and into the water.
Then came a moment of serene calm. An eerie ceasefire, at least on deck. It didn’t last long, and when it was broken the shooting was no longer toward the yacht. The gunmen in the boat and on the helicopter were firing at each other.
Staying as low as he could, Ryker edged forward. Above the gunfire, the sound of the helicopter bobbing up and down, twisting left and right, filled Ryker’s ears. He grabbed for Gerardo’s weapon. The strap was caught under his body. Ryker yanked and the body jostled and the strap came free.
Ryker spun around, laying almost flat on his back as he raised the weapon up.
He was pointing it at thin air.
No sign of the helicopter. In fact, the sound of its rotors was dying down by the second.
Then the gunfire stopped altogether as Ryker moved into a crouch. The helicopter’s din quickly faded. He cautiously moved out into the open. Pointed the gun out at the boat that was all of ten yards from him and closing in. Four people were on board. Ryker recognized three of them. The only one he didn’t know was the driver.
‘You can put that gun down,’ Yasmin shouted out.
Either side of her were the two men she’d had at home with her earlier. Both of them were holding assault rifles. Both of the guns were trained on Ryker.
He glanced up and behind him. The helicopter was steadily flying up and away. He could only assume Aldern had somehow gotten safely back on board.
He faced Yasmin as the boat edged even closer.
‘Put the gun down,’ she said again. ‘You really don’t have much choice.’
She wasn’t quite right about that. Two against one were far from the worst odds Ryker had ever faced, yet something about this bizarre situation told him he should play along.
He lowered the weapon and moved toward them.