Without remorse - Tom Clancy [174]
Kelly could hear the laughter over the FM circuit. 'Roger, copy that, Springer, I will pass that along to my crew. Thank you, sir, for the advice. Over.'
The crew on the forty-one-foot boat was howling after a long eight hours of patrol, and doing very little. Oreza was letting a young seaman handle the wheel, leaning on the wheelhouse bulkhead and sipping his own coffee as he played with the radio mike.
'You know, Springer, I don't take that sort of guff off many guys. Over.'
'A good sailor respects his betters, Coast Guard. Hey, is it true your boats have wheels on the bottom? Over.'
'Ooooooo,' observed a new apprentice.
'Ah, that's a negative, Springer. We take the training wheels off after the Navy pukes leave the shipyard. We don't like it when you ladies get seasick just from looking at them. Over!'
Kelly chuckled and altered course to port to stay well clear of the small cutter. 'Nice to know that our country's waterways are in such capable hands, Coast Guard, 'specially with a weekend coming up.'
'Careful, Springer, or I'll hit you for a safety inspection!'
'My federal tax money at work?'
'I hate to see it wasted.'
'Well, Coast Guard, just wanted to make sure y'all were awake.'
'Roger and thank you very much, sir. We were dozing a little. Nice to know we have real pros like you out here to keep us on our toes.'
'Fair winds, Portagee.'
'And to you, Kelly. Out.' The radio frequency returned to the usual static.
And that took care of that, Kelly thought. It wouldn't do to have him come alongside for a chat. Not just now. Kelly secured the radio and went below. The eastern horizon was pink-orange now, another ten minutes or so until the sun made its appearance.
'What was that all about?' Billy asked.
Kelly poured himself another cup of coffee and checked the autopilot. It was warm enough now that he removed his shirt. The scars on his back from the shotgun blast could hardly have been more clear, even in the dim light of a breaking dawn. There was a remarkable long silence, punctuated by a deep intake of breath.
'You're ...'
This time Kelly turned, looking down at the naked man chained to the deck. 'That's right.'
'I killed you,' Billy objected. He'd never gotten the word. Henry hadn't passed it along, deeming it to be irrelevant to his operation.
'Think so?' Kelly asked, looking forward again. One of the diesels was running a little warmer than the other, and he made a note to check the cooling system after his other business was done. Otherwise the boat was behaving as docilely as ever, rocking gently on the almost invisible swells, moving along at a steady twenty knots, the bow pitched up at about fifteen degrees on an efficient planing angle. On the step, as Kelly called it. He stretched again, flexing muscles, letting Billy see the scars and what lay under them.
'So that's what it's about... she told us all about you before we snuffed her.'
Kelly scanned the instrument panel, then checked the chart as he approached the Bay Bridge. Soon he'd cross over to the eastern side of the channel. He was now checking the boat's clock - he thought of it as a chronometer - at least once a minute.
'Pam was a great little fuck. Right up to the end,' Billy said, taunting his captor, filling the silence with his own malignant words, finding a sort of courage there. 'Not real smart, though. Not real smart.'
Just past the Bay Bridge, Kelly disengaged the autopilot and turned the wheel ten degrees to port. There was no morning traffic to speak of, but he looked carefully anyway before initiating the maneuver. A pair of running lights just on the horizon announced the approach of a merchant ship, probably twelve thousand yards off. Kelly could have flipped on the radar to check, but in these weather conditions it just would have been a waste of electricity.