tall man standing, while the coils of his snake body writhed behind him.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Billy Ray,’ Ray replied, ‘and I owe you big for what you did to my wife.’
‘Wife?’ The expression on the joker-ace’s face went puzzled. ‘I don’t—’ He suddenly caught sight of the Angel beside Ray. ‘She’s your wife?’
‘That’s right,’ Ray said in a flat voice.
‘I remember,’ the Infamous Black Tongue said. ‘It was in Kazakhstan, on the battlefield. Neither of us were in our right minds then.’
‘Whatever—’ Ray said, and the Angel took his arm, stopping him before he could move.
‘He’s right, Billy,’ the Angel said. ‘It’s what you’ve been telling me all this time.’
‘I am sorry for what happened,’ IBT said.
‘As am I,’ the Angel replied. ‘But there’s no time for apologies now. What’s happening on the bridge?’
‘We made a deal with the man who calls himself Witness. A million dollars to take us to refuge in Cuba. But it was all a trap – he just wanted the money and people he could sell into servitude. He plans to scuttle the ship once we’re out to sea, take off the ones he thinks would be useful, and let the old and infirm drown.’
‘Where’s the Witness?’ Ray asked.
‘On the bridge. He has Olena.’ IBT looked desperate. ‘We have to rescue her, but he has guns.’
For the first time Ray noticed that blood was oozing out of several segments of IBT’s colorful banded serpent body.
‘You’ve been shot,’ Ray said.
IBT shook his head. ‘That’s not important. He has Olena. We must rescue her.’
‘All right. Calm down,’ Ray said as he saw the desperate look return to the joker’s face. ‘Let’s see. There’s five of them—’
IBT shook his head. ‘Three. He sent out three men to guard the refugees in the hold—’
‘We took care of them,’ Ray said.
‘—and then two sentries to patrol the deck,’ IBT said, then added with some satisfaction, ‘and I took care of them.’
‘Okay,’ Ray said. He didn’t ask for details. ‘Uh, you didn’t run into a tall, pale, skinny guy in a dark suit, did you? Probably wearing a patch over one eye.’
‘No,’ IBT said.
‘Good. He’s one of us.’
IBT nodded.
‘All right,’ Ray said. ‘Time to take the bridge.’
It took only moments to arrange the ambush. IBT led them to a place of concealment where they had a decent view of the control room through the front windows shielding the bridge deck. The windows were already shot out, shattered in IBT’s original hopeless assault. They could see six people in the dim light of the chamber. Two were thugs with guns, one was Olena, the other two were the captain of the Schröder and his mate, who was steering the ship. The last—
‘It’s him,’ the Angel said.
It was the Witness. Ray had encountered him first during the mission on which he’d met the Midnight Angel. He knew that this Witness and the Angel had a history between them, but she’d never revealed the extent of it and he’d never asked her. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘no sense in putting this off.’ He looked at IBT. ‘Get in place. Move when you hear the shots.’
‘Give me three minutes,’ IBT said.
‘You got it,’ Ray said, and the Tongue slithered off into the darkness.
‘You don’t want to do this,’ the Angel said.
‘Kill these guys?’ Ray shrugged. ‘Not particularly.’
‘No.’ The Angel smiled. ‘You’re not cold-blooded. Hot-blooded, yes. But you can’t kill from ambush.’
‘There’s always a first time,’ Ray said.
‘Not if there’s another way.’
‘I told you. All you had to do is get me here. I would take care of the rest.’
‘I love you,’ the Angel said.
Ray smiled. ‘That’s good to hear.’
‘I know.’ She bowed her head. ‘Save me from evil, Lord,’ she prayed for the first time in months, ‘and heal this warrior’s heart.’
Her wings appeared and she shot up into the sky. She was above the sight line from the bridge in a second, a reverse meteor burning through the sky. In her hands, Ray saw, was her flaming sword. She flew above the bridge, cut her way through the roof, and dropped down on top of them. The sword cut two swaths through the air, left and right, and the barrels of the guns dropped, severed in two. She broke her grip on the sword’s hilt and it disappeared, going wherever the hell it went when she didn’t need it. Then she used her fists on them. They didn’t stand a chance.
‘You!’ the Witness said.
‘Me,’ the Angel agreed, and advanced on him.
He backed away, saying, ‘Not again, not again!’
‘Hmm,’ Ray said, and fired two shots into the air.
IBT burst through the door and threw a couple of loops of his body around the Witness.
‘The serpent!’ the Witness screamed. ‘Oh, God, not the serpent! Save me, oh, God, save me!’
IBT started to squeeze and the Witness screamed like a little girl.
Next to Ray, Maximillian Klingensmith appeared from out of the shadows.
‘Where you been?’ Ray asked.
‘Hiding from that snake guy,’ he said. ‘Everything under control?’
‘I guess so,’ Ray said.
But, no, Ray realized. Their troubles were far from over.
He stood in what remained of the bridge, with the Angel, Olena, IBT, and the Schröder’s captain and mate. The Witness, who’d fainted dead away when the IBT had grabbed him, was tied up with his surviving men in the hold. The Schröder was still steaming upriver, being chased by more launches and followed on the road running alongside the river by a line of screaming police cars, their sirens wailing in the night.
‘Now what?’ Olena said miserably. ‘Our last hope is gone. Cuba was our last haven. What can we do now? We can’t let them be taken to Rathlin. That’s a prison sentence, a virtual death sentence.’
They all exchanged glances.
‘Well,’ Ray said, ‘far be it from me to encourage illegal behavior, but I think your best chance is to run for it.’
‘What?’ Olena said.
Ray shrugged. ‘Find someplace, run the ship aground, and leg it. Some of the refugees will probably be caught, but you can hardly have a more emotionally heart-touching revelation of their plight. The publicity will be killer. In the meantime, many will get away. It’s a big country. I’m sure there’s people out there willing to help, one way or another.’
‘But you, you say this? You represent the government.’
Ray sighed. ‘I’ve represented the government for forty years, and if it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the government isn’t always right. The right thing for them in this case was to help your people, not turn their backs on them.’