Free Crimson Waters by James Axler Page B

bolt-action longblaster slung butt-down, as if he didn’t plan on shooting it in a hurry.
    He was also remarkably tall, at least six and a half feet. It made no difference to Jak. He slithered over the rail, making no more noise than the sentry’s shadow falling on the smooth-stoned deck planks. He took the big knife from his teeth, then gathering himself, he sprang.
    Jak slammed against the man’s back, the protruding shoulder blades gouging him in the chest, the rifle butt of the longblaster cracking hard against the outside of his right knee. Ignoring the jab of pain, Jak pulled the man’s head back and stabbed the big bowie knife through the right side of the man’s throat, just forward enough to clear the spine. Then he punched outward with ferocious force.
    The man’s body’s convulsed. A great sheet of blood shot out of the ruptured throat, arterial spray from the severed carotid jutting into the air like ink from a frightened squid. Jak heard a great gurgle as the man tried to scream in terror and agony.
    But no cry came out. The blade had violated the airway as well as ripping through the cartilage of the Adam’s apple. Instead, the sound turned to a hideous bubbling wheeze as blood sloshed into lungs and belly.
    Jak continued to cling. Spasms racked the man’s body as if he were getting repeatedly kicked by a horse. They didn’t last long.
    The sentry dropped abruptly, as if his bones had dissolved within his gangly body. Prepared, Jak got his feet under him and braced when they hit the deck. The man’s deadweight was considerable. He let the man down easy, still making no sound louder than the blood splatting on the deck.
    The Sea Wasp would die of blood loss to the brain long before he could drown in his own gore. Jak’s throat slash turned the target off almost as quickly as beheading him would’ve done. Like any true hunter, Jak made it a point of pride to grant his prey the quickest, cleanest death possible.
    He rose to a crouch, shaking blood from the back of his left hand. Slipping a leaf-bladed throwing knife from his lightweight vest, he turned toward the square back of the yacht’s cabin. Faint light showed amber through the polarized glass. Engine rumbles vibrated up through his bare soles. Muted conversation and mellow chuckles sounded from inside the structure.
    He wasn’t particularly surprised by the strong odor of ganja smoke from the pilothouse. Silver-Eye ran a tight ship, but his pirates were only human. If his sentries were terrorized into staying straight, that was probably as much as the stone-hearted boss could ask.
    Jak slipped forward, cat-footing on bare feet.
    A door opened in the starboard side of the low, rakishly streamlined cabin. A head with thick dreads poked out in a cloud of marijuana smoke. He looked aft and saw the white ghost not fifteen feet away. He opened his mouth to scream.
    Jak’s right hand whipped forward. The throwing knife glittered in a dull arc to socket itself in the prominent Adam’s apple. The open mouth emitted a strangled gurgle that died in a rush of blood. The pirate fell.
    A horn commenced to wail from the pilothouse. Yellow light silhouetted the cabin as the Browning in the bow opened up in a thunderous stutter.
    * * *
    T HOUGH THE .30- CALIBER BURST was clearly fired randomly, and raked the waterfront a good forty yards to the west, J.B. ducked instinctively behind the pile of stout casks at the corner of a warehouse.
    Behind him Mildred uttered a soft moan. “I hope Jak’s all right.”
    He grinned but said nothing. Of course the kid was all right; he had more lives than a cat and was harder to hit than a swallow chasing flies through twilight. Saying that was just her way of letting go of tension.
    Holding his fedora in his left hand, J.B. poked his head above one of the barrels that smelled strongly of whiskey, of all things. He saw the machine gun swinging his way. The pirate crouching behind the splinter shield, with only his legs