The Lost Island

23

As the gaff hook sank deeper, the trickle of blood became a rivulet.

“You hurt her,” said Gideon, “I’ll never speak another word, I swear.”

“Shut up,” Amy told him again. Her eyes were clear, her jaw set. Gideon had never met a person less afraid of death.

“You’ll never find the treasure,” he said.

“Do it,” Linda urged her husband. “When he sees her all over the deck, he’ll talk.”

They were working themselves up, and Gideon believed they really might do it. But maybe he could use their craziness against them.

“It’s worth over a billion dollars,” he said. “You hurt her, you’ll never get it.”

That stopped Cordray cold. “A billion dollars? Of…what?”

“Five tons of gold. Coins. Bars. Crosses encrusted with jewels, reliquaries, ecclesiastical treasure.”

The pair was transfixed.

“You kill my wife, kiss it good-bye. You’ll just have to kill me, too, because I swear to God, I’ll never talk after that.”

“Five tons? Buried on the cay?”

“Take out the hook and promise not to hurt her, and I’ll tell you where it is.”

A hesitation. And then Cordray withdrew the hook a few inches from her flesh. “Start talking.”

“I can’t think with that damn hook so close. Take it away.”

“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” said Cordray.

He seemed a little less irrational than his wife. And the question gave Gideon another idea.

“All right. I wasn’t telling you the whole truth. We already found it.”

This had the both of them openmouthed. Amy turned to look at him. “Mark—” she began.

“Some of the treasure’s right here on the boat,” he added.

“You dug it up?”

“There’s way too much, we had to leave almost all of it. We have to bring a bigger boat. But we took as much as we could. I’ll make you a deal: let us go and you can have it. Take the boat, take everything. Just let us go ashore.”

“Where is it?” cried Linda.

“In the galley. Hidden in cupboards behind the food supplies. Bars of gold, crates of doubloons.”

He glanced at Amy, who was staring quizzically at him. Slowly and deliberately, he moved his eyes to the gaff hook in Cordray’s hand, its long, razor-sharp tip gleaming.

“Jesus Christ, go look,” said Cordray to his wife.

But she was already on her way, pushing past them on the narrow deck, into the pilothouse and down the companionway to the galley. The lights were still on from the previous search and Gideon could see, through the pilothouse windows, her climbing on the dining table and opening the cupboards, pulling and tossing foodstuffs out of the cabinet.

Cordray was distracted. He kept looking in the window. “Is it there?” he shouted.

“Give me a fucking chance.” More stuff came flying out of the cabinet. Now even the two naked pirates were staring in the windows.

Gideon could now see Linda trying to get through the wood panels in the back of the cabinet. She got off the table, grabbed a kitchen knife out of the drawer, climbed back up and began stabbing and prying at the wood. Meanwhile, Cordray watched her eagerly, his eyes fixed on the window. The gaff hook was in his right hand, forgotten, the hook pointing inward toward his own belly.

Now or never…

Gideon lunged forward, checking Cordray’s upper arm and body with his shoulder, a sharp, hard blow. The check did exactly what he hoped — thrust the gaff hook deep into Cordray’s abdomen.

With a piercing scream he fell back, instinctively trying to pull back on the hook and tearing himself more in the process, blood spurting over the deck. In an instant Amy exploded into action. With one deft move she twisted around, raised her tied hands and hooked them over the bloody, protruding edge of the gaff hook, slicing off the plastic bonds. She then fell upon Cordray, grabbing the end of the hook.

At the same time, there was a crash in the galley as the woman jumped down from the table, scrambling up the companionway, gun drawn. The two pirates, taken off guard, scrambled backward, raising their guns but unable to fire into the tangle of people.

“Don’t move or I pull this hook,” Amy said, her voice remarkably calm. “Drop your weapons or I’ll gut him.”

“No!” screamed Cordray. “Manuel, Paco, no se mueven!”

The two pirates froze.

Following Amy’s lead, Gideon sliced off his own ties and advanced on the men. They stepped back, guns leveled.

“Baja las armas!” Amy cried, starting to pull the hook.

“Baja!” cried Cordray. “You too, Linda! Oh, Christ, the blood, look at the blood!”

After a hesitation, the men tossed their guns on the deck. Gideon picked them up and backed away, keeping Pirate and Mustache covered.

“You too,” Gideon said, pointing a gun at Linda, who was in the door of the pilothouse, frozen, staring at the hook in her husband’s belly. “Or Amy pulls.”

She dropped her gun.

“Oh, my God!” shrieked Cordray. “I’m bleeding to death!”

Amy let go of the end of the hook and backed up, snatching a proffered gun from Gideon. She pointed it at the two pirates. “En el agua. In the water.”

The naked men needed no further encouragement. They dove into the water and began swimming as fast as they could back to the Horizonte.

She gestured at the wife. “Put your husband in the launch and get out of here.”

“Yes. Yes.” Linda was trembling all over. Cordray was moaning, holding his stomach with blood-soaked hands, the hook still inside. She tried to help him up, but he couldn’t rise. He was sobbing.

“Look at all this blood,” he moaned. “God, it hurts…Please, get me to a hospital—”

“Get in the launch now,” said Amy, firing the gun into the air.

Gideon took Cordray by the arm and hauled him up, helping him to the stern, while he screamed piteously, the wife stumbling along, through the stern gate, onto the platform, and into the launch.

He pointed his gun at them. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

The wife started the engine, Cordray lying in the bottom of the boat, doubled up, gasping. They moved away into the darkness, toward the Horizonte. Gideon could see the two pirates now climbing over the side, into the boat.

“We’re still within small-arms range,” said Amy. “Go cut the anchor rope. We’d better get out of here.”

Gideon went forward. He could see the two pirates, and two other crewmen, helping Cordray and his wife onto the Horizonte. And then one of the crew went to the foredeck, where he pulled a piece of canvas off what Gideon had assumed to be storage crates or equipment — exposing a large mounted gun.