Going Dark(29)

“No. Nobody. Why? What are you scared of?”

Flynn searched Thorn’s face. A kid who lived among professional liars. Deceitfulness was his tradecraft, his art. “I can’t tell you anything.”

“Why?”

“If they found out, they’d kill us both.”

That’s all Thorn needed to hear. He reached out and fastened a hand on Flynn’s jaw and cranked his head around so they were facing eye to eye. “Then you and I need to get the hell out of here now.”

Flynn’s right hand flashed up, whacked Thorn’s arm away. “You can’t bully me.”

“Get up, we’re going. I’ve got my push pole. We don’t need the engine. I can pole us back. We’re getting the hell out of here right now.”

“Go ahead, leave. I’m not going anywhere.”

Thorn stood up. “Come on, kid. Right now, no arguments.”

“I’m not a kid. I’m not your little boy. Don’t talk to me like that.” Flynn rose. His face darkening, mouth tightened to a snarl.

He didn’t see it coming. He couldn’t have because Thorn didn’t see it himself. An impulsive move. He swiveled his right hip and shoulder, loaded up, and slammed his fist into Flynn’s solar plexus, knocking out the wind, squeezing shut the young man’s eyes.

Flynn hacked up a yellow clot of spittle, his knees sagged, and Thorn stepped close, grabbed him, one arm around the back, fingers digging into his armpit. Holding Flynn upright while the kid gagged, he shouldered him toward the cove. Thirty yards, maybe forty, not far.

A quick plan forming. Lay him out on the beach, swim to the skiff, and slash the netting away from the lower unit. A minute or two to free it, then load Flynn aboard and pole back the way Thorn had come.

He hadn’t intended to hit him so hard, just render him cooperative. It was the same gut punch he’d used in a few late-night scuffles, a first-strike, breath-stealing blow that more than once had short-circuited a slugfest and allowed Thorn to walk safely out the barroom door.

But damned if he was going to hit the kid again. The shock of what he’d done was buzzing darkly in Thorn’s head. In one rash act, he’d destroyed whatever flimsy bond they had. But there didn’t seem to be any other way.

Struggling to keep Flynn upright, Thorn ducked into the woods, headed down the path, staggering under Flynn’s weight. The kid was deceptively heavy. A rangy, rawboned build like Thorn’s.

He pushed through the last branches and stepped onto the beach. Stopped short, staring at what someone had done. His skiff had been cut loose from the netting and was beached well up on the sand. The outboard housing was gone, ignition wires slashed. His push pole lay in the sand, broken in half.

An impossible feat. Two inches thick, a composite of fiberglass and graphite. Leaning his whole weight into it, Thorn could flex it a few degrees like a vaulting pole, but the thing was indestructible. He’d never seen one shattered, never heard of its happening.

While he was registering the bewildering sight, a hand clamped on his right shoulder, a grip so powerful it deadened his flesh and sent a bolt of pain into the shoulder joint. The hand spun him around, and Thorn tripped, Flynn breaking loose from his grasp and falling away, and in that flash Thorn caught the blur of a hand as it chopped the side of his neck and saw Prince’s placid face as the big man’s blow turned the dazzling summer morning to darkness.





TWELVE





“WELL, AREN’T YOU THE RESOURCEFUL one, tracking me down.”

Thorn was inside the barracks tent, lying on a cot in the dusky light. He looked up through an electric haze at the outline of Cameron Prince.

Dazed, his throat parched, Thorn tried to sit up, but a swirl of sickness rose in his gut, and he lay back.

“What were you doing at my house? It wasn’t the cistern you were interested in.”

“Let me put it this way. I was simply evaluating the location.”

“For what?”

“Its strategic value. I’d heard about it, but I needed to see for myself.”

“What kind of strategic value?”

“I’ve said enough. Now you need to answer my questions. Flynn tells me no one else knows you’re here. Is that true?” Prince held his right hand up to a slab of sunlight filtering through a mesh window and snipped at a fingernail with a pair of silver clippers.

“Where is he, where’s Flynn?” The words raw in Thorn’s throat.

“Is that true? Yes or no. Does anyone know where you are?”

“No.”

“Okay. That makes things easier. And don’t worry. Flynn’s fine. He’s being looked after. But that wasn’t very fatherly of you, assaulting your own boy. You’re quite the hooligan.”