Free Tortugas Rising by Benjamin Wallace Page A

What the hell were you thinking?” Steve surveyed the quiet coastline of a nearby island.
    “You’re going to give me crap for this? You have a boatload of masked gunmen after you and I’m the one that made an error in judgment?”
    Steve glared at his friend, “You’re going to get us kicked off the island.”
    “It’s your island, Steve. Didn’t you see the paperwork? Without your money these islands would still be underwater.”
    “It’s not my money.”
    Paul met his friend’s gaze. “Oh, shut up you crybaby. There are a lot worse problems to have than being so rich. I’ll give you an example: being chased by gunmen in a boat!”
    “Two boats,” Katherine’s voice pulled them from their argument. The pair stared behind them fearing that the boat they had left behind had caught up. There was nothing there.
    “Out front!”
    They spun in time to see bursts of gunfire from the front of the boat. Katherine dropped and pulled Steve to the floor. Paul fell into the water as the unmanned wheel spun free.
    The jet-boat spun wide and struck the beach of a nearby island. The engine was stuck at full throttle. Water streamed from the back of the craft as the water-jet engine forced the nose of the boat into the sand. Steve and Katherine were thrown forward in the deck seating. Steve leapt to his feet, found Katherine’s arm, and steadied her. He could not see Paul.
    “Paul?” Steve scanned the water.
    His search was answered with gunfire. The boat’s fiberglass hull splintered as it was raked with bullets. Bennett grabbed Katherine and pulled her onto the beach.
    “Where’s Paul?” He yelled over the shots.
    She was shaken and did not respond.
    “Run!” The voice was faint but Steve heard Paul yell the warning as the gunmen’s boat beached up shore from their location.
    Grabbing Katherine by the hand, he led them over the shoreline and into the island.
     
    # # #
     
    The water was warm but the sudden impact with the ocean had shocked Paul. He floated under the channel for only a moment before he swam for the surface.
    The Sea-Doo was beached; its engine screamed as it tried to drive the boat further onto the sand; the back end swayed back and forth in the shallow water.
    The black craft that had opened fire was turning towards the land. He grasped at the small of his back and retrieved the gun. Miraculously, it had not come dislodged in the fall.
    Fire opened from the attacker’s boat. Fiberglass splinters floated around him. Kicking furiously he drew the slide and aimed for the closest gunman. As instructed in his weekend class, he took a breath, exhaled half of it and stopped. He relaxed, stopped moving, and quickly sank to the bottom. They had never covered firing from a floating position. He resurfaced quickly, fired a blind shot and yelled to Steve to run.
    Wiping the seawater from his eyes, he watched as Steve and his new girl ran over the breaker and toward the center of the island. Men clad in black leapt from the boat and pursued the couple. None of them seemed to be concerned or aware of him floating in the channel.
    Paul realized that they might not have seen him, and if they hadn’t found the water taxi, they might not have realized they were chasing more than two people.
    “I have an edge,” Paul whispered to himself. Land was close and he began to kick. He moved closer to the enemy boat. He didn’t know much about taking on a host of armed gunmen garbed in black, but he had seen in countless movies that the element of surprise was a powerful one. It had always worked for Michael Myers. He approached the hull of the boat.
    Sand filled his hands as he began to crawl through the shallow water. It was quicker this way and the fact that he could now stand and fire would certainly be another advantage.
    The black boat’s hull shielded him on his right. There was nothing but clumsily gouged footprints ahead of him. Open water was on his left. He guessed that there was a guard around the