Free Payback by Keith Douglass Page A

fifty feet and moved away from the tower. After a hundred yards he surfaced to get his bearings, angled more to the southeast, and began stroking for the shore.
    Twice he came to the surface from his familiar fifteen feet, and adjusted his course to hit the point. It was easy to see from the water, being just up a ways from the Goleta campground where there were a dozen beach fires blazing brightly.
    He stopped just offshore and checked the landing area. His Explorer was where he had left it. Nobody seemed to be around it. No one on the beach. He swam the rest of the way, walked out of the water, pulled off his fins, and carried them.
    A man surged out of some shadows to his left straight at Murdock, swinging a baseball bat. Murdock spotted him at once and threw his swim fins at the man, knocking the bat out of his hands. Murdock pulled his KA-BAR, and was about to challenge him when he saw a second man come from directly in front of him with a knife. He ducked the charge, threw up his left arm, and felt the knife hit it, but the blade didn’t cut through. He whirled and found a third man charging toward him.
    Murdock grabbed the speargun and fired for his legs. The steel ten-inch dart dug into the man’s right thigh and put him down. Murdock swung around and caught the man with the knife bearing in again. Murdock’s knife came up and sliced the attacker’s bare arm. Then he spun around and slashedagain, drawing blood across the man’s chest. The attacker screamed and ran into the darkness.
    The man with the baseball bat knelt on the ground holding his right wrist.
    â€œBastard, you broke my wrist,” he shrilled. Then he stood, holding his wrist, and ran toward the street. Murdock moved up to the man with the spear in his thigh. The man held up both hands.
    â€œNo more,” he said. “Christ, but that hurts. Damn speargun? You some kind of one-man army?”
    â€œSomething like that. Right now you’ve got a date with the local sheriff.”
    â€œHell, no, take me to the hospital, I’m bleeding.”
    â€œYou’ll bleed more if you give me any trouble. Get in the rig and shut your face.”
    The man with the dart in his leg looked at Murdock’s stern expression and the KA-BAR knife he waved around. He nodded and crawled in the Explorer.
    Fifteen minutes later at the Sheriff’s Department headquarters, Murdock, two detectives, and the sheriff questioned the man.
    â€œThree of you came after me,” Murdock said. “Why?”
    â€œHell, we figured you’d have a wallet and some cash and maybe steal your car. We needed some loot to make a score.”
    â€œYou waited for me when there were twenty guys in the campground you could have rolled. I don’t buy it.”
    The sheriff moved up. “Your ID shows you’re J. J. Martin. Look, Martin, we can get you to the hospital just as soon as you tell us who hired you to beat up Murdock. We found the brand-new hundred-dollar bill hidden in your wallet. A bum like you couldn’t hold on to a C note for ten minutes. Who hired you?”
    â€œJust waiting for this dude to come back to his—”
    One of the deputies slapped Martin with his open hand and knocked him off his chair. He wailed in pain. They sat him back on the chair.
    Sheriff Kirkendol grinned. “Did you like that, J. J.? We’ve got lots more where that came from. Now. Nice and slow. Who paid you the hundred clams to beat up on the diver coming out of the water on Goleta Point?”
    J. J. looked at the sheriff, then at the big deputy, who was opening his fist and closing it.
    â€œAw, hell, not worth getting beat up for. Don’t know a name. Some guy in The Pelican, that dark little bar on Fourth Street. He paid us a hundred each to find this diver and smash him up. Never saw the guy before.”
    â€œWould you recognize him if you saw him again?”
    â€œOh, hell, no. He had a hat on pulled down low and