FOURTEEN

Maria was gauging the distance they’d have to run when she heard her husband scream, and the faint hope she’d been nursing in her heart—that Frank would appear, suddenly, magically, jump in to somehow save the day—shriveled then and died within her.

She blinked away tears.

“Mom?” Will was looking up at her. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” she lied. “What I do know is we have to get out of here. Now.”

“It’s too far.”

“It’s the only chance we have,” she said, turning again to look toward the Jeep. It was parked down the beach away from the bungalows, on an unpaved access drive that skirted the compound before joining up with the main road. It was barely visible from their vantage point, and entirely invisible, she hoped, from the bungalows behind them.

They’d rented it first thing day before yesterday, on arrival in Boqueron. It, and the attached fishing trailer she’d insisted on getting. Which, assuming they reached the Jeep safely, was going to make driving it a hell of a lot more difficult.

Why did I make Frank get that stupid thing, she thought. He’d told her the odds were they wouldn’t get out to the bay, not with all the diving they were going to do, but she’d insisted, and he’d given in, no, not given in, that wasn’t the way their relationship worked, he’d done it for her, and damned if he wouldn’t have found a way, even with all that diving, to get out into the ocean at least once before they left here for London and the job that was going to mean he came home to her and Will every night. No more sleeping in bed alone, no more renting DVDs to watch by herself, no more dealing with Will’s friends and friends’ parents, and after-school activities like her divorced friends did, no more—

“Mom.” Will tugged on her sleeve, and pointed.

Two of the men in black were beginning to walk down toward the beach, poking at fallen bodies, peering around rocks, clearly looking for survivors.

They had to go now, she realized, or not at all.

“I’m going to count to three,” Maria said. “Then we’re going to run to that Jeep, okay?”

Will was suddenly crying.

“What about Dad?”

Maria forced herself to lie again. “Dad’ll be okay. You have to do what I tell you, honey. Promise?”

He nodded. “Promise.”

“Good.” She took a second look back at the approaching men—who hadn’t turned their way yet, thank God—and began to count, her voice quivering, barely audible to her own ears.

She ran on two, dragging Will along with her.

Finger on the trigger of his AK-47, Quentin Glass stepped quickly around the corner of the main bungalow, prepared to shoot at anything that moved.

Nothing did.

He lowered his gun. Just bodies and blood, plenty of each. Including Morrie Shusheim’s two men, one of them burned black on the lower half of his body and still smoking. Glass shook his head. Shusheim had said he was giving them his best men, and he’d definitely charged them for such, but seeing these two, dead like this, he had to wonder. He’d have to talk to Howard, see if they should make a stink about not getting their money’s worth.

On the other hand, there was Lincoln, lying still on the ground, and Lincoln was as good as they came. Glass bent and checked the man’s pulse—still alive, but down for the count, apparently. If Castle had handled him so easily, perhaps they didn’t have a case. Something to consider, afterward.

John Saint came up behind him, wearing a frown.

“Where the hell . . .” Saint shook his head. “He was right here a second ago.”

“Ran off, most likely,” Glass replied. “No sign of his wife and kid yet?”

Again, Saint shook his head.

It was a mystery all right. Where had the man gone? The main point here was to kill him, not his relatives; it was all well and good that they’d taken care of the family members, but he could not go back to Howard and Livia and tell them their primary target had escaped.

He stepped out onto the blood-stained patio and surveyed the compound. Bodies, bodies, and more bodies. Bodies on the volleyball court, bodies on the dunes, Dante and Spoon down on the beach, searching for survivors, and—

Ah.

Two people running away. A woman and a boy.

“John,” he said, tapping Saint on the shoulder.

The man turned to see where he was pointing, just as Castle’s wife and son reached a parked vehicle—a Jeep— that had been hidden behind an outcrop of jungle.

The sound of the engine starting up reached their ears.

Simultaneously, the two of them raised their weapons and broke into a jog.

He was moving in the shadows.

There weren’t many, this time of morning, so he had to move slowly, much slower than he would have liked, but Castle hadn’t heard gunfire for almost a minute now, which he hoped was a good sign. He hoped it meant that Maria and Will, at least, had gotten away, that someone would live past this awful day. Maybe, after he killed every one of these attackers, after he found out who they were and why they’d done this thing, he would be able to join them someplace safe. Maybe.

Part of him didn’t want to.

Because this was all his fault. He knew that for a fact, simple process of elimination—no one hired assassins to go after, say, a dentist because their fillings broke.

Castle almost laughed out loud at the thought. What was it Tommy had wanted Will to do—that’s right, get his molars sealed. Maybe this was all because the seal on some other kid’s molars went bad, the kid’s mom freaked out, hired somebody to take it out on Tommy.

He pictured that mom then, a soccer mom, in her minivan, pulling up to some deserted street corner, and a guy in a black T-shirt strolling over to her window, and her taking out her checkbook, asking who should she make it out to. . . .

No. Castle bit his lip hard, forced himself to concentrate.

He couldn’t afford to lose it now.

Everything depended on him. They were all alone here— deliberately isolated from the town and everyone in it. The only people who even knew they were here right now were Mr. and Mrs. Gutierrez, who were coming back this afternoon to cook tonight’s dinner, but that wasn’t for—he looked at his watch—a couple hours yet, at the earliest.

The Rolex. Jimmy Weeks. Shit, he’d never called him. Imagine if he had. Imagine if Weeks were here now. The two of them together again . . . that would have been something. Just like in Khafji.

Footsteps sounded. Castle peered around the corner and saw two men running away from him, down toward the beach. He heard a car start up and tracked the sound in that same direction.

“Maria,” he whispered, hope filling his heart as he recognized his wife and son.

He broke from the shadows, sprinting after the two men in black, raising the shotgun and sighting down the barrel even as he ran, noting that something about one of the attackers—the younger one—seemed somehow familiar. If the man would just turn his head so Castle could get a look at him full on, he could—

Someone ran into him from behind. The impact stunned him—his weapon flew from his hands, and he hit the ground hard with his chest, managing to turn just enough at the last second to catch the ground with part of his shoulder, too, so that he could use the momentum to roll to his feet.

As he turned to face his attacker, he heard the gunfire begin.

Maria slammed the gas pedal down, and the Jeep shot forward.

In the passenger mirror, she saw four men chasing them—the two who’d been searching the beach, and two others, including the younger one who’d been looking for her and Will before. Not good. All had their weapons out, and pointed straight at the Jeep. Worse.

“Down!” she yelled, pressing Will under the dashboard as the clang of metal on metal—bullets striking somewhere on the Jeep, or the trailer, she hoped to God nowhere critical— filled the air.

Maria looked up again just in time to see Frank Sr.’s bright red pickup, parked half on, half off the road, looming directly in front of them.

She spun the wheel hard to the left. The Jeep struck a fallen log—she bounced up and down on the seat. Will’s head clipped the underside of the dashboard.

The trailer fishtailed behind them, slamming into the pickup with a resounding clang. At that second, she realized just how hard it was going to be to maneuver down these little roads with it attached; it was going to be like trying to run while carrying a sack of cement, but she didn’t have any choice in the matter. She had to reach Boqueron. There were people there, though she wasn’t exactly sure what ordinary people could do to help; she needed the army. No, what she needed were the Marines, and thinking that, she thought of Frank, but thinking of Frank was not something she could afford to do at this second—she would lose it—so she shut down her mind entirely.

And glanced in the rearview mirror, where she saw something that made her blood run cold.

Frank Sr.’s pickup, rounding the corner behind them. Two of the black-clad men in the cab, the other two riding in the truck bed behind them, rifles out and pointed right at them.

They were gaining.

“Mom?” Will asked from the floor. “Where are we going?”

“Hang on, honey.” She put the pedal to the floor. “Mom’s going to find help.”

Glass turned in his seat and passed his spare magazines through the window, placing them carefully in Dante’s outstretched hands. The truck was bouncing up and down like a jackhammer; he made sure not to let go until the man had a firm grip. The last thing they could afford right now was to lose ammunition. Dante and Spoon had gone through every magazine they’d brought already, and Castle was still somewhere out there, loose, apparently with weapons of his own.

John Saint, in the driver’s seat, apparently shared his concern.

“Find Castle!” he shouted to Cutter, who had come up alongside them, running full out in an attempt to leap into the truck bed.

The man nodded and dropped back.

Glass looked at his watch. Twenty-five minutes since they’d landed on the island, fifteen since they’d begun the operation. The schedule called for them to be back aboard the boats and out of range by one P.M. Not only were they running out of ammo, he thought, they were running out of time.

It was the man he’d knocked out with the shotgun before. Back for seconds. He didn’t have time.

“Get the fuck out of my way, and I’ll let you live,” Castle said.

The man sneered and drew a knife. He circled, holding the weapon at his side, his eyes giving away nothing.

Not a complete amateur, then, Castle thought.

Right then he heard the Jeep roaring off. Go, honey, he urged silently, risking a glance in its direction. At that moment his dad’s pickup truck came to life and started after it.

Shit. He really didn’t have time for this.

The man lunged. Frank stepped back out of range, barely avoiding the blade.

“You better pay attention, Frankie. Otherwise . . .” The man smiled and waved the blade again.

He called me Frankie, Castle thought; at that second, the last, tiny shred of doubt in his head about whom the attack was directed at and why vanished.

My family, he thought, and as the man came at him again, something inside him snapped.

Instead of lunging back, out of the way, Castle lunged forward, turning to the side.

He grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted. He heard bone crack, and thought: Mom.

The man screamed.

Castle kneed him in the groin. The man gasped, and Castle kneed him again, in the solar plexus this time, and again, he heard the satisfying crack of bone.

Dad.

The man fell to the ground. Castle scooped up the knife he’d dropped and brought it to the side of the man’s throat. Pressed.

Donal.

A drop of blood appeared. Seeing it, Castle blinked and came back to his senses.

What was he doing?

His head snapped around. The two vehicles—Maria’s Jeep and his dad’s pickup—were barely visible on the main road. He scanned the compound, and his eyes fell on Donal’s body and the motorcycle lying next to it.

He sprinted toward the bike, scooping up a revolver as he ran.

The second she saw the sign—BOQUERON, 2 KM—Maria smiled.

We’re going to make it, she thought. Two kilometers, that wasn’t much more than a mile. The truck was gaining, the truck was close, but the road was too narrow for them to try to pass, and the trailer too big for them to shoot around or over with any kind of accuracy.

And there was a police station in Boqueron. She’d only just remembered it—a little building, not much more than a hut, really, right at the start of the little commercial strip as you first came into town, Maria would find a way to get Will and herself into that building, among whatever officers were there, even if she had to drive the Jeep right through the front door to do it.

She looked up the road. Off to her left was the ocean, and coming up, just ahead, the pier—De Soto Pier. God, had it only been yesterday when Frank and Will were diving off it? She’d thought that was dangerous, ha-ha; Will could do as much diving as he wanted from now on as far as she was concerned, and she reached down to touch her son’s hair as the road curved to the right at the pier entrance, a long, sweeping curve sharp enough, she suddenly realized, to give the men behind them a clear view of the Jeep.

She ducked, just as glass shattered, and the cab filled with the sound of metal on metal, the thud-thud-thud of bullets hitting upholstery, a muffled explosion from outside the Jeep, and a horrendous screeching sound, metal scraping on pavement—

All at once, she lost control of the vehicle.

The tires, she thought. Oh, God. They’d shot out the tires.

She slammed on the brakes as the Jeep started to roll.

Donal must have been crazy when he rented this cycle.

For one thing, it was a monster. They didn’t make them like this anymore, and for good reason—the bike was too big for most people to handle. Castle, who’d driven almost every class of bike and ATV that had ever been built, was having trouble keeping it on the road. Which was a whole nother problem, the road, potholes the size of garbage can lids; he needed to concentrate 100 percent on the surface in front of him, which was just not possible because he needed to keep an eye on the road ahead as well, an eye out for the truck chasing his wife and son, and for the gunmen in it.

And then there were Will and Maria, who were really all he could think about at the moment.

The smile on his son’s face as he broke the water after the free ascent yesterday. As he gave Frank that stupid T-shirt. The look in Maria’s eyes as they’d made love on the beach last night. As she handed him that cup of coffee this morning . . .

As she’d raised up on her toes to kiss him that day he’d left for Kuwait, her bangs hanging down over her forehead, her eyes misting over with tears.

“You’re my hero, Frank Castle,” she’d said.

He heard her voice in his head now, over and over again, as he gunned the cycle forward.

Glass smiled as John Saint backed the truck down the road.

The Jeep and trailer had rolled over at least six times. So much for Castle’s wife and son. The thing they had to do now, the thing John was, in fact, doing, was get turned around and hustle back to the compound. Hopefully, Cutter had at least found Castle by now, if not taken care of him. He wished again that John had stayed back on this mission; if he had been here alone, in charge, Glass would have split their forces differently, would have had Dante or Spoon or maybe even both of them stay back with Cutter to take care of their primary target, and he would have finished off the woman and child himself.

But, of course, after what had happened to T.J., no way were Dante and Spoon leaving John exposed. They were probably under direct orders from Howard not to do that, in fact.

Glass sighed. Well. They’d just have to make do. At least there was plenty of ammunition left for Castle, since it hadn’t taken more than half a clip to take out the Jeep and its passengers.

He looked at the vehicle again. It had come to rest directly at the end of the pier, blocking the way out onto it; he wondered if he should send Dante or Spoon to make sure that neither mother nor child had survived when a head popped up from behind the overturned vehicle. The woman’s head.

A second later, both she and the boy were running out onto the pier, waving their arms, screaming for help.

“For God’s sake.” Glass shook his head in disgust. He stuck his head out the window and turned back to Dante. “Go get them, will you?”

“No. Hold on.” John Saint stopped the pickup, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I got a better idea.”

“John.” Glass shook his head. “We really don’t have time. Let’s just—”

“Hey, we’re low on ammo, right?” Saint said, turning them so they were pointing directly at the wreck.

“Yes, but—”

“So I’m gonna save us a few rounds,” Saint said, and he gunned the vehicle forward.

Just in the nick of time, Glass realized what he was intending to do, and he put his hands on the dashboard, bracing for impact.

“Help!” Maria screamed. “Help us!”

She ran, eyes scanning the pier wildly, searching for any signs of life, anyone at all. How was it possible that the entire dock, which only yesterday had been alive with tourists and natives, musicians and street vendors, was now completely and totally deserted?

Even the bait shop was closed—she remembered coming here five years ago, for the last reunion; it had been open at six in the morning, every morning. Why—

A huge crash came from behind her.

She turned around and saw the pickup pulling back from the Jeep, getting set to ram it a second time.

“Mom.”

Maria stopped in her tracks. Will was pointing to the end of the dock, the cut on his head where he’d struck it on the window frame as they’d climbed out of the Jeep still bleeding. Surviving that accident had been a miracle.

But now, it seemed, they needed another.

She looked where Will was pointing—to the ramp at the very end of the pier, the one that led down to the refueling dock—and her heart leapt.

The launch Frank Sr. had pointed out yesterday, the one he’d intended the boys to use for their dive, was still moored there.

“Run, baby,” she said, grabbing her son’s hand. “Run as fast as you can.”

They rammed the Jeep a second time—Glass heard Dante curse out loud behind him, heard something slam into the roof of the cab, and smiled, probably the man’s head, or some other body part—and then suddenly the way to the pier was clear.

Halfway down the long wooden dock, he saw Castle’s wife and kid, running toward the end of the pier. Correction. You couldn’t exactly call what they were doing running, it was more like a series of controlled stumbles.

He turned to John Saint, who was smiling.

“Cake,” Howard’s son said, and dropped the pickup into gear.

Will tripped. Maria caught him even as he was falling, helped him stay on his feet.

“Come on,” she said. “We can do it.”

Her son nodded, and started running again.

All at once, she felt the pier beneath them vibrate, and she turned.

The truck was coming.

She faced forward again and stumbled herself. Now it was Will’s turn to help her rise.

She’d thought, prayed, hoped against hope, that their pursuers would stop and come after them on foot, thinking that the pier couldn’t hold the big pickup’s weight, which of course it could, she’d seen a big tractor trailer on it yesterday, resupplying the refreshment stand. Where the hell was that trailer now?

The vibrations grew stronger.

What kind of monsters would do this? she thought. Kill innocent people, innocent children, what possible reason—

She choked out a sob.

The entrance to the ramp was so close. A hundred feet away. They could do it. They had to do it.

Will stumbled again. Again, she caught him, put her arm around his shoulder, and drew him close.

He looked up at her, chest heaving, gasping for air, and said: “Mom?”

“I’m right here, baby,” she said, tears starting to fall. “I’m right here with you. Always.”

The roar of the pickup filled her ears.