World Will Fall

3. Overboard

3

Overboard

As the police shouted to each other about heading back to SWAT HQ, I heard a giant pop and crackle. Rat-a-tat-tat like a firecracker on Chinese New Year. But not machine-gun fire. Something else. The smell of smoke. The coughing and shouting of men around me. I jumped to my feet and caught the tail end of some kind of flash bomb on the other boat. It seemed to have stunned every single SWAT team member, my captors included.

I knew exactly what Philippe had done. Like the drone request in the desert that time. He’d snuck the stun bomb on board, out of sight between his hands and the back of his head. A Vasquez party piece.

I couldn’t see much on the boat across from us because of the smoke engulfing the deck. It was a mess of arms and legs and rifle butts and shouting. A couple of shots cracked off against the underneath of the bridge and a SWAT teamer spilled out overboard. Another one followed soon after. Breathing in and out again, I saw my chance and spun around, pushing the nearest guy off the rear of the boat. Another came at me, fit enough to fight, but unable to focus behind the sight of his rifle. I threw him to the ground and disarmed him. Swung the rifle like a baseball bat and zonked another one out cold with the butt. I sensed a looming rifle barrel out of the corner of my eye. A driver stood at the wheel of the boat, with two more SWAT members to deal with. One held a gun on me while he blinked tears out of his red-raw eyes. The other tried to get a fix on Philippe across the water as the men thrown overboard swam for shore, struggling in their heavy body armour. No time or thought given to life jackets.

The SWAT guy with the gun to my head told me to get on my knees. I dropped down, wondering whether he’d pull the trigger right here and now. After all, you heard stories on the news of cops shooting suspects all the time. I saw Philippe take down his last opponent over on the other boat. The spare SWAT member on my side took a potshot, but Philippe was too fast out of the way. He dropped low and stayed there, hidden by a flat cloud of smoke wisping off deck.

“We need to get out of here,” shouted the driver.

“Do it,” said the guy with the gun to my head.

The driver accelerated away from the bridge. The spare SWAT man pulled out a pair of handcuffs. He brought my left arm around my back, ready to snap a cuff on around the first wrist. Out of nowhere, Inge’s grey speedboat slammed into us side on, throwing both SWAT guys off balance. Inge jumped over onto the deck of our boat. She threw one guy over her shoulder and pushed the other’s gun away as it fired, the bullet hitting the driver in the back of the shoulder. He slumped forward onto the wheel, sending us into a dizzying spin. Inge lost her footing and fell over.

The SWAT guy with the rifle didn’t know who to shoot first. He plumped for little old me, flat on my back from the spin. I kicked out one of his knees before he could shoot, booting the rifle out of his hands as I got back up. But his teammate got to me before I could deliver the knock-out blow. He grabbed me by the jumper and swung a fist. I ducked the first and the second. The other SWAT guy joined in. Suddenly I was blocking and ducking both.

Inge punched one of the cops in the back. As he turned in pain, she punched him again in the gut, forearmed him in the chin and brought the tip of her elbow up under his nose. Rapid-fire stuff, his nose exploding a deep red. She booted him off deck. Fighting a headlock from the remaining SWAT guy, I reached behind me and yanked his ski mask down over his eyes, then jammed an elbow into his ribs a good couple of times. He was a big unit though. The biggest and hardest of the lot. He stumbled back out of elbow range and ripped off the ski mask, revealing a shock of platinum-blonde hair and a face that was all jaw. He unclipped the holster on his belt and whipped out a pistol. But he couldn’t get an aim due to the churning foam circles the boat was making over and over in the water.

Inge snatched the gun from him and reversed it. I knocked it out of her grip into the water. She palmed me off in the nose, causing my eyes to water. The big blonde guy swung out at me, again going for the weaker one first. I blocked it and twisted his arm. He cried out in agony. Inge struck him in the gut. I punched him in the kidney. But the size of him; he wasn’t for going down. He shook me off and staggered away. Seems me and Inge both had the same idea. We stepped forward as a pair and martial-arts kicked him in the chest, once, twice and bang! Number three put him down, his head bouncing off the deck. Out cold.

Before I could make another move, Inge drew a knife from her belt. We spun and we spun, me trying to stay away from that serrated blade. Then I saw Philippe coming our way, behind the wheel of the other police boat, picking up speed. I waited for the right moment, dodged past Inge’s swishing knife and made the jump, four feet over the water. I bumped and slid onto the other police boat. Philippe gave it full throttle and we sped away from the scene into the open river. I hauled myself up, jelly-legged from the spin. I looked at my tie, cut off an inch beneath the knot by Inge’s blade.

The b***h wasn’t done yet, though. She’d taken the wheel of the other police boat and was on our tail.

“Hey, what do we do about your girlfriend?” I asked.

“Hand me that rifle,” Philippe said, pointing to an abandoned weapon on deck. I scooped it up and tossed it over.

Catching the rifle in his free hand, Philippe spun the wheel, turning the boat around one-eighty. He opened fire on Inge’s boat coming the other way. He riddled the side of the boat with bullets, also catching the engine at the back, but missing Inge. We turned again for another pass, but no need. Her engine smoked and caught fire, spreading across deck in a couple of seconds. The boat veered off to the left and smashed into a high stretch of riverbank wall. We cruised past. There was no sign of Inge.