Crystal Blue (Buck Reilly Adventure Series Book 3), John Cunningham [top fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

its side, and slammed straight into the transom of an old Grand Banks motor yacht.

WHOOSH!

The fireball blew me onto my back and the stars in the sky swirled like pinwheels.

“Yeah, mothefucka!” Boom-Boom yelled.

Our boat slowed to a stop. I pulled my knees together and lay in the fetal position. Warm water ran down my chest—were we sinking? It was sticky—

No, it was blood. Mine.

Diego appeared above me and pressed down on my shoulder, his expression serious.

I heard the gears click and we started forward. There was talking, but I couldn’t understand what was being said.

WHAP-WHAP-WHAP!

A new roar of gunfire sounded and Diego fell on top of me. I tried to push myself up, but my left arm felt dead, as if I’d slept on it for a week. The puddle of blood on the deck was big, and the sound of stereo machine gun fire sounded from both sides of the boat.

My eyes focused on Thedford, who was no longer wearing a shirt—he was bent over, pressing down on Diego’s blood-soaked form.

Our boat swerved from side to side. Boom-Boom was peering over the dash and looking like a homeboy in a Cadillac. The jet skis raced after us, bouncing in our wake and unable to get off a clean shot. The boat swerved to the left and I rolled over, smashing my face on the AK-47.

I tried to reach for the gun, but my arm wouldn’t respond—and the effort sent electric shocks through my body.

I heard a sound—a large bird flew over us—

A bird?

I heard another roar—engines. A second dark shape swooped over us.

A roar blotted out the boat and the jet skis that had initially headed to the West End to cut us off. My eyes fluttered and my vision came into focus.

Boom-Boom was bleeding from the forehead. He was on the edge of the driver’s seat, his arm wrapped through the steering wheel, bouncing in rhythm with the waves.

Was our driver conscious?

I squirmed forward, past Diego, where Thedford pressed down on his wound. He was saying something but I couldn’t make it out.

“Boom-Boom, you okay?” I said.

He didn’t budge. A wave of nausea surged over me.

Now on my knees, I looked over the dash—we were headed straight toward Sandy Spit, not seventy yards away.

I tried to swing my left arm, but agony tore through me. I grabbed the wheel with my right hand—thirty yards—

Boom-Boom’s other arm was wrapped through the wheel’s spoke.

WHAP-WHAP-WHAP!

Machine gun fire blew out the rest of our windshield.

The wind caught in my lungs as the gray boulders at the southwestern end of the island came into sharp focus. I kicked Boom-Boom loose, spun the wheel with my right hand, and the boat went up on its side before slamming back down—

WHAP-WHAP!

Our engines took a few rounds, sputtered, and cut out.

Shit!

WHAP-WHAP-WHAP-WHAP!

A cloud suddenly covering the moon distracted me from the approach of the jet ski assassins. Not a cloud—it was a plane.

A box tumbled out of the plane and hit the jet ski, which flipped. It wasn’t the Beast—looked like…

Like a Cessna Caravan with floats.

The plane flew low over us. In the moonlight, I thought I saw a bald head and familiar face with a big smile.

The sound of singular machine gun fire shattered the momentary quiet, and the muzzle flash now extended up toward another black silhouette that swooped down.

Another, larger item flew out of the plane and nailed the other jet ski, which sent the driver flying.

The second plane continued over us—the Beast!

A grunt from the deck caught my attention.

“That one of my bales?”

Boom-Boom, with blood on his face and a clean groove cut down the length of his scalp, gave me a weak smile.

It was so bizarre I couldn’t help laughing. It cost me spasms of dizziness and pain, but I couldn’t stop.

“Thou shalt not fear the terror by night,” John Thedford said. “Not with you crazy bastards around!”

Boom-Boom groaned. “That Psalm Ninety-one, brudda?”

“Modified version.”

“One of Hellfire’s favorites,” Boom-Boom said.

I collapsed against the driver’s seat, which was slippery with blood, Boom-Boom’s and mine.

What now? The boat was shot to hell, I was bleeding out, Diego and Boom-Boom weren’t much better—

I peered through the splintered windshield toward Sandy Spit.

Out of the darkness came a seaplane. It idled slowly toward us, silent on the surf like ghost ship, its lone propeller whistling like a turbocharged weed whacker.

My vision blurred again and I slipped down in the seat.

The plane, if it was real, pulled right up to our bow. Moonlight lit the pilot’s face. He looked familiar, and at first he smiled but then his face turned serious. Another guy hung off the wing strut. Short but stocky, he shook a fist in the air—

In my last spark of semi-clarity, the pilot’s face I imagined on the seaplane before us popped into my head.

Jimmy Buffett?

Then all went black.

JOHN THEDFORD INSISTED ON staying with us at the hospital, so the concert was postponed until we were stabilized and released the next day. Even the media couldn’t change his mind. The delay and the shootout aboard the yacht and in Soper’s Hole only increased the excitement. By show time, the crowd at Foxy’s outnumbered even the wildest projections. The celebrities, be they singers, actors, politicians, judges, writers, athletes, scientists, or intellectuals, were all in top form. The television cameras ate them up, every single one, and their personal statements and support for John and Crystal’s vision was broadcast on major networks worldwide.

From the side of the stage, we were as close to being a part of the show as anyone could be without actually being celebrity guests. Crystal had not only insisted we all be here, she’d had a series of padded chaise longues erected where we could convalesce, have our intravenous medicines attended to, suck on a few painkillers—the kind with nutmeg sprinkled on top—and doze between performances.

Boom-Boom and Diego enjoyed their new status. By agreement with multiple law enforcement agencies they couldn’t be shown on the air, which