Page 115 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

That was a member of his family, and he’d failed him.

He knew a moment’s grief.

Then he thought:fuck, I’ve got to course correct.

Boyle shoved Remy down into the bow of the boat, and Tenny could no longer see him. In different circumstances, he would have pulled his gun, or his knife, but right now, he was playing by different rules. He was having to keep Remy alive; that was the priority, and his own safety, though no one had told him as much, was secondary.

“Hey, boss man,” he said, voice light, but curious. He scratched at his wig for effect, a comical parody of bafflement. “I thought we were gonna give the kid back.”

Boyle didn’t spare him so much as a glance. “Tie up the boat. Get to your post,” he ordered.

The boat was already tied up, but Tenny put a few extra knots in the rope, just to make untying the thing trickier when the time came. Then he moved a few paces down the dock and peered out at the water.

It was black as spilled oil in the darkness, dotted here and there with clumps of duckweed. The wakes of the boats had rippled and faded so that the surface wavered only a little, now, settling.

Tenny was an excellent swimmer, because he was excellent at so many things. He’d executed a hit on a yacht, once. It had been anchored out in the Med, and his supportteam had dropped him a quarter mile out, so he could approach unnoticed.

The shore was much closer here…but sight of that black, wild swamp water sent a shudder through him. There were beasts in that water.

“Twelve o’clock!” someone shouted, and Tenny heard the faint-but-growing sound of an approaching boat.

Unsteady footfalls on the boards beside Tenny heralded Fallon’s arrival, and Tenny sent him a sharp look. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

Fallon was as wild-eyed and winded as a horse fresh off the track. Sweat poured off his face in quantities that were going to leave him dangerously dehydrated. “I’m getting the fuck out of here while I can,” he hissed back.

Tenny gripped his wrist before he could turn and walk off; he dug his fingertips into the nerves beneath the skin so that Fallon gasped, and tried to twist away. Another pinch froze him in place with a whimper. “Theonlyway you’re getting out of here is if Remy is safely delivered to his mother. Otherwise, you’re dead.”

“Fallon!” Boyle shouted.

The hum of the approaching boat drew closer.

“Go down there to meet him when he gets here.”

Fallon muttered a curse, and when Tenny let him go, he walked down to the far end of the dock.

Tenny checked – Remy was still down in the bottom of the boat, with Boyle’s boot still on his hip – and then did as subtle a survey of the others as he could.

There were twenty-two, including the crews in the boats.

He’d been outnumbered before – the storming of the Beaumont Building leaped immediately to mind – but not out in the open like this. The stairwell, with its corners and landings, had provided cover. Now, he stood fully-exposed on a dock, aclear target for anyone, and the boy he needed to rescue was on a boat.

Bollocks.

The drone of the oncoming motor became a roar, and a light appeared across the water, a speck that quickly blossomed into a beacon.

When the boat finally drew into sight, it was clearly Mercy behind the wheel, the other seats empty.

Tenny held his breath. He knew that Alex and Reese and Gray were belly-down in the bottom of the boat, wearing flak vests and heavily armed. But they wouldn’t stop Mercy from taking a bullet if someone shot him right now. He was a big target, white shirt glowing in the dark, and only growing bigger as he got closer, closer, closer…and finally slowed into a big, arcing turn when the men in the other two boats leveled guns on him and ordered him to stop.

He stood up, and showed his empty palms to their flashlights, his grin wide, and pleased, and terrifying.

“Howdy, boys,” he called. “Let’s do the damn thing.”

~*~

In truth, Harlan hadn’t expected him to come. At least not alone, anyway. He had men stationed on the dock, in the boats, and even on the near shoreline, hiding in the brush with rifles, prepared for all sorts of trickery.

But here was Mercy, alone, piloting a boat, holding up his empty hands, his broad chest covered in nothing but soft white cotton, without the bulk of a bulletproof vest beneath.

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