Target Response by William W. Johnstone, J. A. Johnstone Read Free Book Online Page B

unfolded, moving aft.
    Ojo the steersman sat slumped against the stern’s square-edged transom, dead hand still clutching the tiller. A .44 slug had taken him above the eyes, blowing off the top of his skull. His head was tilted back over the top of the stern board, shattered cranium oozing blood and brain matter into dark waters.
    Kilroy pried open the steersman’s fingers, unwinding them from the handle of the tiller. He elbowed the corpse to one side, careful not to upset the boat.
    The bow was snagged in a knotted tangle of mangrove roots, its progress temporarily halted. The motor idled, sputtering, laying down a plume of blue-gray exhaust that mixed and merged with the green mist.
    Kilroy made quite a sight. His shirt was in rags, and his baggy pants were in little better condition. Strapped across his upper body was a shoulder harness with a holstered .44 under his left arm. He still retained his sheath knife and canteen.
    From head to toe his body was covered with a coating of stinking black mud, protection against the hordes of omnipresent swarming insects. Without it they would have eaten him alive or driven him mad.
    As it was he was perhaps not at the moment what could have been called entirely sane.
    The mud pack also provided good camouflage. Only the whites of his eyes, his teeth bared in a snarl, of which he was unaware, and the palms of his hands and undersides of his fingers broke the dark uniformity of his mud-daubed form.
    Using Rasheed’s pole, he pushed off from the mangrove roots, freeing the boat’s snagged bow. He steered it into the middle of the channel.
    The throttle was already set low; Kilroy left it alone, fearing to throttle down any farther lest the motor stall and he be unable to restart it. He pushed the tiller handle downward, causing the engine to tilt forward and raise the driveshaft and propeller clear of the water.
    The boat now drifted forward, drawn solely by the sluggish current. The two shots with which he had downed the boatmen had sounded with thunderous crashings.
    In their aftermath, the cries and howls of the swamp had become muted and stilled. Even the ferocious whirring and buzzing of the insect swarms had temporarily subsided to a hush.
    Kilroy listened for the answering call of man-made sounds: gunshots, shouts, or boat motors. Anything that would indicate the nearness of other boatmen searching for him. No such noises were to be heard.
    It seemed he had slipped pursuit for the moment.
    He turned out the steersman’s pockets but found nothing of value. He hoisted the body over the side, easing it into the black water.
    The corpse bobbed around, rolling so that it floated facedown, its shattered skull upturned. An arm got snagged on a mangrove root.
    The drifting boat began to pull away and presently left the cadaver far behind. Kilroy took note of the two assault rifles on board and eagerly examined them. They were dirtier than he liked but nonetheless in decent working order. With them he also found a canvas ammo bag filled with spare magazines.
    Kilroy thrilled to rising exultation. Armed with this much firepower, he’d raise merry hell breaking the ring with which the opposition had encircled him.
    Careful to avoid disturbing the balance of the low-sided boat, Kilroy moved forward.
    Rasheed the spotter lay faceup with his back on the bottom of the boat and his long legs tangled up in the bow. His eyes were open; they’d rolled back in the sockets so only the whites showed. His mouth gaped open. Flies were already buzzing around inside it. They really flocked to the hole that the .44 slug had punched through his chest.
    Kilroy hooked his hands under the dead man’s arms, hoisting him up and draping his upper body across the port gunwale. He drew the panga from its sheath, holding it up to the torchlight and eyeing it. The long blade was a well-tempered piece of steel with a keen edge. He could put it to good use should the occasion arise. He decided to keep it, and