Time pirate 6, p.22
Time Pirate 6, page 22
“See those poles?” she replied as she took one hand from the wheel and pointed.
I didn’t see the poles so much as the bright ribbons that fluttered in the breeze. It was another collection of totems like the ones near the village, and they were just as good as a lighthouse for our purposes.
The front of the boat scraped over what felt like pebbles, and then it finally got stuck in sand. We were only a couple of feet from shore by then, so Inessa turned the engine off, and after we grabbed our gear, we hopped over the side and splashed ashore.
“This trail follows the shore,” she said. “It turns inland just before the dacha and joins the trail we took to the ridge. But I’m sure we could find an easier way to get back there if we stay on the beach.”
I nodded and let the brunette take the lead as we started to jog along the trail. My muscles were sore from my time in the water, and I could already feel my nose starting to stuff up, but I told myself there’d be time to deal with all that once we’d saved Alva and made it off the island.
We didn’t encounter anyone until we were closer to the dacha, and by then we could see the lights and hear the shouts from the guards. There was a small contingent of locals gathered on the trail, which included the man with the dog we’d seen earlier. The handful of people, mostly older citizens, were quietly whispering to each other when we ran up, though they stopped when they heard our footsteps approaching.
“Privet,” Inessa greeted them while I nodded.
“Privet,” a few of the people mumbled.
“What’s happening?” I asked in Russian.
“We thought we heard shouting and gunshots,” Inessa added.
“We’re not sure,” the man with the dog said and then squinted at me. “We came out here to look… Are you alright?”
“Me?” I asked and pointed at myself while I tried to come up with a reason for why I was soaking wet.
“My poor love,” Inessa sighed as she looped her arm through mine. “We were so startled that he tripped and fell in a creek.”
Most of the people seemed happy about that, probably because my cheeks turned red from embarrassment.
“What are you doing out here?” an elderly woman with white hair asked.
“Looking at the stars,” I said in Russian.
“Most of those stargazing tours are on the other side,” the woman pointed out.
“We’re doing the official tour tomorrow,” Inessa replied. “We were supposed to stay in town tonight, but… it was just so beautiful. Until we heard the gunshots.”
“Should we call someone?” I asked because it seemed like the thing to say even though the last thing I wanted to deal with was the local police.
“Nyet.” The man with the dog shook his head. “The owners will deal with it.”
“The owners…” Inessa said and then trailed off as she glanced toward the dacha.
“You should head back to town,” the old woman suggested. “Besides, you’ll want to get warm after you fell in the water.”
It didn’t look like the small group was going to break up anytime soon, at least not while we were there, so after another glance in the direction of the lights, we nodded politely to the gathered locals and then started to head back toward the main road.
“Now what?” I whispered when we reached the trail to the top of the ridge. “I’m not sure I can make that climb tonight.”
“We’ll take the road to the dacha,” Inessa said. “How fast can you move?”
“Fast enough,” I assured her.
We started to jog again, and once we were back on the dirt road, we actually made good time. As soon as we made it around the edge of the hill, we could see the dacha easily enough. It was still brightly lit, and it looked like every light in the place had been turned on. People were still shouting, though it was only periodically now, and a couple of the boats were just starting to return to the dock.
No one had noticed us yet because most of the goons were still positioned on the back lawn, but there were a couple of guys on the front lawn. So we darted into the shadows along the foot of the ridge and inched between the trees as we scanned the faces of everyone we could see.
“I don’t see him,” I whispered when we stopped beneath a tall larch.
“Maybe he’s still inside,” Inessa suggested.
“So… we need to get back inside and out again without being seen,” I sighed.
“I wish we hadn’t left the cloaks behind,” Inessa grumbled.
“What else do we have?” I asked. “There must be some gadget that would get us past those guards.”
Inessa frowned, but she opened her pack and started to pick through the items. While she went through her tools, I kept an eye on the guards. It looked like the place was in disarray, which seemed like a strange reaction for a group of soldiers that had been so well trained. But maybe someone had caught up to the boat and realized Val wasn’t on it. Even if they didn’t know where Val was exactly, they’d probably believe he was dead, which might explain the pandemonium. If Val was dead, then his men were open targets for the other disciples now competing to fill Oleg’s shoes.
“Maybe--” Inessa started to say.
“Shit!” I hissed and then pointed to three figures that had just stepped out of the house.
Two of the men were Val’s goons, but it was the man in the middle that had my attention. It was the Good Guy agent, Alva, but instead of carrying a gun like the others, he had his hands behind his back, where they’d apparently been tied together. Alva was struggling to break free, but the men dragged him past the two guys on the front door and around the side of the house. They were just a few feet from us, and I could hear the guards telling Alva there was only one way to deal with enemies of their clan.
“Frankie…” Inessa gasped.
“I’m on it.”
Chapter 13
“I don’t understand!” Alva protested in Russian.
“We know you work for the Good Guys,” one of the guards replied. “And we know how to deal with your kind.”
“What are you talking about?” Alva demanded in a frantic voice.
But the guards were done talking as they pushed Alva to his knees. The Good Guy was still struggling against his bonds, and he shook his head as Val’s goons started to raise their guns.
“Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Alva cried out. “Who are the Good Guys? I was just here to see the island…”
“Shut up!” one of the guards shouted and slammed his rifle into Alva’s back.
The force of the blow knocked Alva’s chest into the ground, which stifled a moan-slash-sob that escaped his lips.
The other guard raised his rifle, but I was already on the move. I’d managed to use the shadows to get a few feet closer while they threatened Alva, and once I ran out of darkness, I bolted from the trees and ran straight at the two men. I was coming in from the side from their point of view, so neither one noticed me at first. It wasn’t until one of them heard me sprinting across the grass that the one who’d hit Alva in the back looked in my direction.
It was too late by then, and I threw myself the last two feet while the guy was still swinging his gun toward me. I slammed into him so hard I heard the air leave his lungs with an audible hiss that sounded like a deflating tire.
The guy had a tight grip on his gun, though, and he managed to keep hold of it even as he crashed into the ground. I wrapped my hands around the weapon as well and tried to tug it loose, but the guy growled and spat in my face.
“Svoloch!” the other guy shouted.
I caught the glint of light reflecting off metal out of the corner of my eye and realized the second guard was probably about to fire at me. So, I pulled the weapon to my chest as I rolled away from the first guard.
My plan was to put the goon between me and his fellow Bad Guy, but I only made it as far as my side. The guy I was fighting knew what I was trying to do, and he grunted as he tried to pull us back the other way. We were both on our sides and face to face on the grass, with our hands wrapped around the rifle trapped between us.
We were so damn close, I could smell something fishy on the guy’s breath and see the old pockmarks on his skin from his teenage acne. He started to cough up another loogy, so I slammed my head into his nose. A moment later, I felt something warm splatter against my face, but the guy was still clinging to the gun.
And then I heard a grunt from somewhere in front of me, and I realized Goon Number Two hadn’t opened fire yet. I wanted to believe that was because I was too close to his buddy, but I didn’t think these guys cared enough about each other to worry about details like that.
So, I opened one eye and raised my head enough to peer over Fish-breath’s shoulder. I grinned when I saw Alva had managed to knock the other guy to the ground, but the Good Guy’s hands were still tied behind his back with what I could now see was a pair of plastic cuffs. Alva was trying to get himself back to his feet, but the other bastard was faster.
“Son of a…” I muttered and then let go of the gun long enough to slam the edge of my palm of my hand into Fish-breath’s throat.
Fish-breath gurgled, but I didn’t give him time to retaliate. I slammed my fist into the same spot, and the gurgle turned into a wet gasp. The guy was still clinging to the gun, though, so I grabbed the sides of his head and slammed his head hard against the ground until his grip loosened.
It only took a matter of seconds, and I managed to jerk the weapon free and point it at the second guy before he realized what was happening. The goon, who was scooting across the grass on his butt, had just aimed the gun at Alva, when I opened fire.
The first bullet slammed into the guy’s back, and I quickly discovered he wasn’t wearing a vest, because a plume of blood sprayed through the air and turned the grass a dull red color. The impact spun the guy around, so when I fired the second shot, it caught him high in the chest near the heart.
Fish-breath had recovered enough that he tried to reach for the gun at that moment, so I slammed the butt into his head, right between the eyes. There was a crunching sound as a dent appeared in the guy’s forehead, and then his eyes took on the dull look of death.
“Come on,” I urged as I ran over to Alva.
I pulled the man to his feet, and we started to run back toward the trees. The two guards out front, though, had finally decided to investigate, and I heard bullets dig into a tree just to my left as we dove into the shadows. More bullets followed us into the trees, and Alva and I flattened ourselves against the ground as bullets dug into the wood.
“Frankie!” Inessa hissed, and a moment later, a shadowy figure snaked across the ground toward us.
“Inessa!” Alva gasped when he recognized her.
“Alva,” she said and squeezed his shoulder.
“Maybe we can hold off on the greetings for now,” I said.
“I have a knife,” Inessa said and opened her pack.
“Thanks,” Alva replied.
While Inessa started to cut through Alva’s restraint, I sat up long enough to check on the goons. The two from the front door had ducked behind the woodpile while they shouted at the other guards. Most of them were still down by the docks, but I knew they wouldn’t stay there for long.
“We need to get off the island,” I said.
“Then we need a boat,” Alva grunted as his hands were freed, and he quickly rubbed them together to restore circulation.
“We have one,” Inessa replied.
“If we can get back to it,” I said. “It might be easier to take one of these.”
“Ummm…” Alva muttered as more bullets rattled the leaves over our heads.
“The ones by the dock are starting to move this way,” I said. “So if we can get to the docks, we can grab one of the boats.”
“There’s a lot of people between us and the docks,” Alva noted.
“Frankie can handle it,” Inessa replied.
“Let’s stick with the treeline for now,” I said. “See how close we can get.”
Inessa and Alva both nodded, so I motioned for them to start moving through the trees. Once they were on the move, I stood up and leaned far enough around the tree I was behind to fire at the two guards behind the log pile. I could see bits of wood fly into the air, and the goons who were in the middle of the lawn suddenly dropped to the ground and started to crawl for cover. A moment later, more bullets sent tufts of dirt and grass into the air near the guys on the ground, and I realized Inessa was providing her own covering fire for me.
I darted after her and Alva, but the guys behind the log pile were quick to react. I didn’t think they could actually see me, but bullets shook the trees behind me as I tried to catch up to the Good Guys.
More gunfire erupted from somewhere just ahead of me, but the goons who’d survived Inessa’s attack now had a target. They returned fire with a vengeance, and the whole strip of trees seemed to shake with their fury.
“Down!” Alva hissed.
I was sure he was talking to Inessa, but I dropped into a low crouch as bullets shredded the leaves over my head. An owl suddenly took wing and flew off toward the town, but the rest of the night creatures had gone silent.
“Inessa?” I called out quietly.
“We’re okay,” she replied.
I could just see her outline as she leaned away from the tree, and a moment later, I saw Alva’s shape as well. Both were squatting behind an old tree with a very thick trunk, though I could hear bullets digging into the wood from several feet away.
“Maybe we should go back,” Alva commented.
“We’ll be easy targets on the road or the ridgeline,” I pointed out. “Trust me, we just need to get to one of the boats.”
“He’s right,” Inessa agreed.
“You two keep moving,” I said. “The trees will get you close to the water. I’ll catch up with you there.”
I saw Inessa’s shadow nod, and then there was a faint shuffling sound as the Good Guys started to crawl between the trees. I positioned myself on one knee and opened fire to cover the sound of their movement, and I was met with a burst of gunfire from the Bad Guys.
Before I ducked behind another tree, I thought I counted four rifles firing at me. That didn’t mean there weren’t more goons out there somewhere, but those were the four I had to worry about right now.
Two were the goons behind the log pile, one had found a spot behind an overturned canoe near the side of the house, and one was using the body of another goon as his hiding spot. The guy behind the body was the closest to me and probably the easiest to hit, so I figured I’d take him out first. Once he was down, I’d have a good line on the guys behind the log pile, and then I’d have to deal with the guy behind the canoe, all without getting shot myself.
“Right,” I muttered and took a deep breath.
I crept through the trees as quietly as I could until I was directly across from the guy behind the body. The shooter was down on his stomach, so there wasn’t much to see when he wasn’t firing his weapon, which he had propped up on the dead guy who was unfortunately wearing body armor. I needed the guy to lift his head, so I decided to use the oldest trick in the book.
I felt around on the ground near me until I found a small rock, which I tossed a couple of feet away.
The rock landed in the middle of a shrub and startled a small creature of some kind. The shrub rattled as the rock hit it, and then the whole thing shook as the small thing squeaked and took off into the trees.
As I’d hoped, the goons started to fire in that direction, and the one behind the body lifted his head enough to see where he was firing. I now had a clear shot at the side of his head, and I carefully lined up my own target. Two seconds later, I pulled the trigger, and before the guy could duck, I saw his head explode in a bloody mess. Blood and bone sprayed across the lawn, and one of the guys hidden behind the log pile started to curse.
I had to roll to the side as another burst of gunfire raked the trees, and I found myself crawling through the shrubs to make sure they couldn’t see me. The guys were getting smarter with their shots, and they were aiming lower now, so I knew I’d have to finish them off quickly if we were going to make it out of here.
My army crawl had brought me in line with the guys behind the firewood, though, and I grinned as I inched forward again. The guys were still firing blindly toward the spot where I’d been until one of them finally raised his hand. The two guys stopped firing and peered over the top of the wood to see if they could see me.
I took out the guy closest to me first, and then hit the second guy before he had time to turn around. They both crumpled to the ground in a pile of limbs, and it was hard to tell which arms and legs went with which body.
That just left the guy behind the canoe, who hadn’t fired a shot in over a minute. I was hoping that meant he was out of ammo, but when I started to move again, the bastard opened fire. I actually heard a bullet whiz by my head, and I plastered myself against the ground until someone near the shoreline started to fire. I figured it was Inessa because I heard a couple of shouts from the dock. But it was enough to distract the guy behind the canoe, so I hustled to the edge of the tree line again and checked for any sign of the guy.
He had decided to change his position, and the holes in the side of the canoe made it obvious why. Another burst of gunfire came from the edge of the trees near the shore, and the guy quickly crab-walked his way toward the woodpile where I’d just taken out the other two goons. He was plastered against the side of the house in some vain hope that he wouldn’t be as obvious despite the bright lights, but there was no hiding once you were on the lawn.
Inessa stopped shooting, and the guy started to sprint for the log pile. He was dead ahead now, and I pulled the trigger without even aiming. My first bullets hit the house, but the next few shots hit the guy, first in the chest and shoulder, and then finally the head.
A bright red spot appeared on the wall behind him as he dropped like a sack of rocks.
With the four on the side lawn taken care of, that just left whoever was near the docks. I risked a quick look from the edge of the trees and saw there were three guys defending the docks. Inessa and Alva seemed to be somewhere near the shore, but they hadn’t made it to the boats yet. The three guys who were left had the Good Guys pinned down in the trees while they hid behind a retaining wall made of concrete.
