Coldwater Revenge, James Ross [books for 9th graders txt] 📗

overhead and kept his gun at the back of Tom’s head. “How long will it take to get to the island?”

“Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. If we don’t miss it.”

Hassad’s eyes widened and the end of his pistol found Tom’s neck. “Make sure that we don’t.”

Tom removed a hand from the wheel and waved it at the curtain of snow that surrounded them. “Then you let me know if I miss a turn.”

Pocket Island wasn’t large, maybe a half mile long and a quarter wide. It would be easy to miss in weather like this, except for the windbreak effect of the bluff that rose seventy feet above the waterline. When wind and wave began to subside, cut off by the bulk of the not yet visible island, Tom eased back on the throttle. “We’re close. I’ll look for a place to bring us in.”

“No,” said Hassad. “I want you to take us to the cove on the other side of the island”

“That’s not going to be easy. There’ll be some nasty water outside this lee. Worse than what we just came through. The church boat Susan’s coming in isn’t big enough to make it to the other side in this weather. I don’t know that we’re big enough.”

Hassad shoved the barrel of his pistol hard against Tom’s head. “Do as I say.”

Tom swung the wheel to port and followed the compass south. Pieces of island drifted in and out of view fifty yards to the starboard. As they neared the end of the island, six foot waves began to crash against the bow.

“This is going to get worse in a minute. We can still pull in here.”

Hassad shook his head.

Tom pressed the throttle and eased the boat out of the lee. Wind and water seized the thirty-foot craft and spun it like a top. Hassad shouted. But Tom’s entire attention was on trying to keep the boat from keeling over while it completed a series of counter-clockwise pirouettes. When the waves split the bow, he held the boat against a wall of water that swept from the west like a phalanx of barbarian horsemen. “Hang on!” he shouted. “I’m opening it up. We’ll swamp if I don’t bust through this!”

Three yards of bow rose halfway to vertical and the rest slid into the trough. Two tons of boat pitched like a toy in a bathtub. Hassad’s mouth contorted and the sound that came out of it blew like a cork from a bottle. “Go!”

Tom slammed the throttle. Hassad lurched into the well of the cuddy, somehow retaining a grip on his gun. The thirty-foot craft rode the hills of water like a rocking horse. Twice it spun in gut emptying circles. Each time Tom fought to hold the wheel and bring the bow to face the oncoming waves. Hassad crouched in the well of the cuddy, his gun tracing zig zags in the direction of Tom’s torso.

Twenty white knuckle minutes later, Tom spun the wheel to starboard and pushed the throttle toward the deck. A half-pipe of water corkscrewed over the transom and hurled the boat sideways through the mouth of Pocket Cove.

They were in.

CHAPTER 30

Two snow-wet Dobermans drifted silently from the woods and stood over Tom as he secured the bow and stern lines to the seawall at the back of the cove. The dogs looked at Hassad and nowhere else. He shouted something to them in a language that Tom did not understand, and the dogs leapt to the deck, baring large, slavering teeth.

“They can swim,” said Hassad. He pressed his gun to the back of Tom’s head and marched him toward a switchback of stone steps that led to the top of the bluff. From there, a beaten path led to a glass and concrete structure perched on a rocky precipice overlooking the water.

Several winters in a row, a teenage Joe Morgan and friends had broken into the bluff top house that was Pocket Island’s only structure and its only winter occupant other than the colossal beech and pine trees that surrounded the island to the water’s edge. Tom had never been inside. But from his brother’s long-ago description he assumed that the interior was similar to the Falling Water House that its famous architect had built a decade earlier. Joe had described built-in, patterned concrete everything, spectacular views, unbreakable furniture and a cleverly hidden liquor cabinet.

But Hassad did not turn on a light when they got inside. All Tom could see was a large open space broken by a freestanding fireplace and surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass. Hassad put a hand on the back of Tom’s head and shoved him toward a darkened stairwell. “Move!” he hissed.

A spider web at the top of the stairway caught Tom’s face. He raised a hand to brush it away, and Hassad brought his pistol down on top of Tom’s head. “Hands down!” Tom tumbled the length of the steps. Head, hands, shoulder and knees collided with concrete at the bottom. Hassad’s outline loomed above.

Clink. Something landed at Tom’s feet. “Pick it up,” Hassad ordered.

Tom’s fingers found a piece of flat, serrated metal the size of his thumb. A door key. He tried to picture it a weapon.

“Turn around, find the keyhole and open the door.”

If Hassad was going to kill him, this was an opportune time and place. But the moment provided no choice other than obedience, and no strategy other than watchful waiting.

* * *

Joe strained to see through the veil of snow. Somewhere behind it, a faceless parka held a gun to Tommy’s head—if he was still alive. The Coldwater patrol boat was gone. A call to Johnsen would bring another boat, as well as choppers, guns and overwhelming manpower. But a decade of zoo-keeping Coldwater’s menagerie of small-time criminals, had taught Joe what punks do when cornered. They panic; and the killers among them kill. It would not take an army to save Tom. But that is what Johnsen would