Nobody’s Hero (Ben Koenig #2)

Chapter 121

Koenig didn’t so much as wake as begin sensing pain. He was alive. He didn’t understand why. He didn’t understand how . The last thing he remembered was drowning. He should be dead. But he wasn’t. He was on a boat. He could feel the rocking motion. Hear the grumble of an idling engine. Water lapping against the hull. Which seemed unlikely. Whose boat was it? And how had he gotten on board? He certainly hadn’t clambered on under his own steam. He’d been steam free. Still was. His armpits felt bruised, which meant he’d been hauled on board.

He opened his eyes. He had binocular vision, dark around the edges. Blurry. A sure sign he’d been unconscious. He waited for them to clear, then took stock. The boat was modern but kinda old-fashioned at the same time. It smelled of the sea and of gasoline. The deck was wooden, polished but stained with blood. His blood. There were no seats. The interior had been stripped bare. Like cargo space had trumped comfort. He was sitting on the deck, his back against the cabin door. Where the wheelhouse would have been in a boat with an inboard engine. Someone stood at the stern end of the boat. A tall man. He was wearing a vest and baggy shorts. Looked like a lake bum. He had his back to Koenig. He was fiddling with a pair of outboard engines. Adjusting them. Koenig was about to shout his thanks but didn’t. His brain fog cleared. The only boat anywhere near where he’d landed was the NorseBoat.

Logically, the man with his back to him was Jakob Tas. Which was nonsensical. They’d never met, but they were kind of sworn enemies. Tas must have known Koenig was there to kill him. He’d saved his life anyway. Perhaps he was a nice man after all. Misunderstood.

Then he remembered Tas had shot Carlyle. She wasn’t on the boat. Seemed Tas had only fished out the living. Koenig screwed his eyes shut. He’d lost men and women before, but this felt worse. Carlyle had sacrificed her freedom when she disappeared, and now she’d sacrificed her life. It didn’t seem fair. He was supposed to be the diversion.

Koenig wasn’t restrained. He looked at his legs and understood why. He’d felt a bone snap when he landed in the water, but he had no idea how serious his injuries were. His right fibula, the smaller of the two shinbones, had exploded through his skin. A burst fracture, when bones break in multiple directions. Happens in severe falls. Which sounded about right. It was sticking out of his shin at ninety degrees. Looked like a chopstick in rice. His legs and ankles were swollen and purple. They looked broken. They felt broken. But bad sprains looked like that too. Hard to tell. Now he could see his injuries, the pain kicked in. The real pain. It flowed into his legs like electricity. Pulsating. Stabbing. Searing. A marine drill instructor had once told him that pain was weakness leaving the body. Koenig sucked in a mouthful of warm desert air and buttoned it down. Tried to act like a marine.

The next surprise was that Tas had treated the burst fracture. As best he could, given what was to hand. His right leg had a torniquet. Above the knee. It had stemmed the blood loss. Tas had used Koenig’s belt.

The third surprise was that he was naked. Not down-to-his-shorts naked. Butt naked. Splinters-in-his-ass naked. Hope-Draper-wasn’t-watching naked.

Koenig cleared his throat and only half stifled a groan of pain. ‘I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t flattered, Jakob.’