instantly by mushrooming fireballs of orange and black that spewed high into the air, mixed with fragments of wood and fiberglass.
Brigid’s lips compressed in a grim smile of satisfaction as Billy-boy’s pirate fleet was thoroughly deep-sixed. Distantly, she heard Domi’s high-pitched, forceful voice issuing orders to the team.
She saw Porpoise squeezing his bulk between a pair of palm trees, heading for the rear of the house. As Brigid followed him, long legs pumping, Shaster stepped into view, snapping up a pistol and squeezing off a hasty shot in her general direction. The bullet fanned cool air on her right cheek.
Raising the S&W, she worked the double-action trigger. The .38-caliber bullet took the man in the left leg, blowing away the kneecap in a welter of crimson and cartilage. Howling, Shaster pitched forward, dropping his pistol so he could claw at his maimed leg.
Brigid leaped over him, aware of explosions blazing orange from all points around the compound. The roof of the house erupted in a column of flame, and debris rained down, splashing into the pool. Thick smoke reeking of chemicals swirled, stung her eyes, burning the soft tissue of her throat and biting at her nostrils. A multitude of voices cried out in pain and terror.
Coughing, half-blinded by the haze, Brigid didn’t see Porpoise until he loomed up behind her. Before she could lift the pistol, she felt herself imprisoned by a pair of arms that hugged her close in an agonizingly tight embrace. Lifting her from her feet, Porpoise shook her savagely from side-to-side and the revolver slipped from her fingers, clattering to the deck.
Billy-boy’s hoarse voice, strained by exertion and smoke inhalation, whispered, “You’re still my hostage, doll-baby. Tell these bastards to hold their fire and call off the attack.”
Brigid lowered her head, then reared back, slamming the crown of her head into Porpoise’s face. He cried out, stumbled backward and slipped off the curb. Still clutching Brigid, he plunged into the pool.
Fighting free of the dazed man’s grasp, Brigid twisted to face the sputtering Porpoise. Blood streamed from his flattened nose and split lips. Baring red-filmed teeth, he lunged for her, thick fingers tangling in her hair.
He shoved her beneath the surface. She struggled frantically and he pulled her to him, tightly pressing her face against his belly, intending to smother her in his flab, as well as drown her in the water.
Brigid fought, fingernails raking across the fabric of the man’s robe. She tore it open and clawed at his flesh. Billy-boy Porpoise’s grip did not relax and with a surge of comingled horror and self-disgust, she realized all the man had to do was stand patiently for a couple of minutes and she would die a humiliating death.
Locking the muscles of her throat, lungs burning, Brigid opened her mouth as wide as she could and sank her teeth deep into a roll of Porpoise’s belly fat. Despite the thunder of her pulse in her ears and the muffling effect of the water, she distinctly heard the man voice a high-pitched squeal much like the sounds emitted by his namesake.
Fingers groping over the juncture of his thighs, Brigid found and seized his testicles while she continued chewing through Porpoise’s lower belly. Releasing his grip on her head, Porpoise kicked and flailed, screaming in pain.
Hovering on the fringes of unconsciousness due to lack of oxygen, Brigid shoved herself away, her head breaking the crimson-tinged surface of the pool. She spit out a mouthful of Porpoise and even over her strangulated gasps, she heard Billy-boy shrieking, “You bitch! You fucking bitch!”
He stroked toward her, water roiling and splashing in his wake, congested face contorted in a mask of homicidal rage. Brigid backed away, drinking in air, dragging her hair out of her eyes. Porpoise looped the robe’s belt over Brigid’s head and cinched it tight around her throat.
She managed to slide a hand between makeshift garrote and her neck, but as she strained against it and felt Porpoise’s strength, she knew she was spent. She swung her free hand, knotted into a fist, against Billy-boy’s chin, rocking his head back on his shoulders. But the pain of the blow was negligible compared to that of the wound she had inflicted on him with her teeth.
Through foggy eyes, Brigid glimpsed a bare-chested and scarlet-streaked Kane appear on the pool’s deck. Face as expressionless as if it were carved from stone, he extended his right arm and squeezed off a single shot with the S&W revolver.
Porpoise’s body jiggled and he half turned toward Kane, eyes widening in reproachful amazement. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and Kane shot him again, this time through the center of the chest. He coughed blood, and the pressure around Brigid’s neck fell away.
Slowly, Billy-boy Porpoise sank beneath the surface, crimson strings stretching out from various parts of his body.
Massaging her throat, Brigid stared at Kane and demanded, “What kept you?”
Kane shrugged, gesturing with the revolver toward a Manta skimming low over the burning roof of the house. “Luck. The good kind.”
KANE STOOD on the beach, smoking a self-congratulatory cigar. The Gulf of Mexico stretched away, as calm as a mirror, until the heat haze on the horizon melded it with the cloudless blue sky. He stared at the flotsam littering the sea and washing up on the shoreline. A few bodies floated amid the wreckage of the marina.
The Manta piloted by Edwards had virtually pulverized the fleet of Billy-boy Porpoise. The only seaworthy craft left were a couple of dinghies. He watched the gulls winging over the floating debris, diving down to pick up whatever offal caught their eye. Behind him, smoke boiled from many of the buildings in the compound.
Carefully, Kane rolled his shoulders, wincing at the scrape of the raw abrasions against his T-shirt. The analgesics he had taken from the medical kit blunted the sharp edges of the pain, even that in his head.
Although he had subdued Blister McQuade, he hadn’t killed him. So far, the man hadn’t been identified among those of Porpoise’s staff who had been rounded up. Kane wasn’t particularly concerned about Blister being on the loose—he had plenty of enemies on the hoof, and compared to most of them, McQuade barely rated as a nuisance, much less a genuine threat.
At the sound of feet crunching on the sand, he turned quickly, reaching for the revolver tucked into the waistband of his pants. Grant, Domi, Brigid and Edwards approached him. A patch of liquid bandage shone dully on Brigid’s right cheek, covering the abrasion inflicted by Porpoise’s rings.
“All of this before lunch,” Grant rumbled, gesturing expansively toward the smoke rising into the sky. “What do we do before supper?”
“Go home,” Brigid said curtly. She was attired in jeans, a military-gray T-shirt and low-heeled boots. “I’ve about had my fill of the Sunshine State.”
Kane touched the lump on the top of his head and winced. “Me, too. Kind of a shame about how everything turned out. I know you had hopes of cutting a deal, Baptiste.”
“Billy-boy should’ve believed you,” Domi stated. “Fat bastard brought this on himself.”
“What about the people here?” Edwards asked. “What should we do with them?”
Domi cast the big shaved-headed ex-Mag a cold stare. “Let ’em go. Not their fault Porpoise was an asshole.”
“True,” Grant agreed. “But they’re not exactly victims, either. They benefited from Porpoise’s marauding.”
Edwards nodded, wiping at the sweat pebbling his brow. “We can’t leave them to pick up the pieces themselves. They’ll just try to take over Coral Cove.”
Kane exhaled a stream of smoke. “Then we’ll post CAT Alpha here, under your command, for a couple of days. Just to make sure everybody behaves.”
Edwards looked as if he were on the verge of voicing an objection, then nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Brigid sighed, running fingers through her tangled mane of hair. “Why is it that so many of the deals we broker are ultimately decided at the barrel