Very slowly, to keep from sloshing water around, I raised my right hand above the surface. The increased weight of my arm, as it rose out of the water, began to flex my fins and I sank deeper. My hand reached the brace and I grabbed it.
Dangling from the brace with my arm fully extended, I slowly reached up with my other hand and took hold of it. Now I could pull myself up to eye level with the porthole. What I saw was like something from a cheap porn movie.
Mayhew Bourgeau was lying on a bed, his arms and legs tied to all four corners. He was naked, as far as I could tell. A woman, with her back to me and her hair tied in a ponytail, was kneeling between Mayhew’s legs. It was pretty obvious what she was doing.
Then the buzzing started again, and Mayhew’s body jerked convulsively. The blonde stood and clapped her hands, as Mayhew arched his back, lifting himself off the bed, for a moment.
The sight startled me, as the buzzing ceased, and Mayhew bounced back down onto the thin mattress with a thump. I lost my grip on the slime-coated brace and fell into the water.
Above my head, I heard a man’s voice, with a British accent. “What was that splash?”
Another light came on behind me. I spun around and clearly saw the face of Yvette Pence, staring right at me through another porthole in the starboard hull.
Submerging immediately, I dove for the bottom, flattening my arms at my sides. Tilting my head parallel to the bottom, streamlining my body, I began to take long, powerful kicks toward the bow.
“I was spotted,” I said quietly, though it was doubtful anyone on the boat could hear me.
“What do you want me to do?” Brayden’s voice came back.
“Hang tight. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
All around me, I heard stomping feet and a clattering noise, like someone was kicking pots and pans around. I continued, ignoring the noise, knowing that the water accentuated them, and it was probably someone walking softly and dropping a spoon.
“Is it the English bloke and his ladies?” Brayden asked, his voice hushed but excited.
“I heard him, yeah. And I got a good look at his wife’s face. It’s definitely them.”
Exiting the gap between the hulls, I swam a beeline toward where the anchor line dropped into the inky black water ahead of me. Suddenly there were two popping sounds, and twin jets of air bubbles stabbed through the water beside me.
“They’re shooting, Jesse!”
Brayden had given up all pretense of stealth, my name, and most likely his location.
There were two more pops, and something tugged at the breathing tube connected to my mask. Suddenly, water flooded in around my face. A bullet had nicked the breathing tube.
Holding my breath, I kicked hard, pulling the mask off. Distance is the friend of the trained rifleman, not the untrained pistol shooter.
When I couldn’t go any farther, I rolled onto my back, heading up at an angle, while I exhaled, intending to break the surface for only a second to get a breath of life-giving air. I felt another tug, low on my right side, just as my face breached the surface.
Above me, silhouetted in the moonlight, was Haywood, a gun in her hand and a twisted smile on her face.
I froze.
Time seemed to slow.
I clearly heard Clive Pence shout, “Kill him!”
My right hand was already in the pocket, pulling out my Sig. I brought my other hand up, grasping it in a two-handed grip. Haywood’s gun was just coming up again. I had her beat, and my finger began to tighten on the trigger.
There was a sickening thunk, and Haywood’s eyes went wide as a fine red mist fell away behind her.
A sudden boom split the night air like a thunderclap.
The pain in my side was still more of an irritation, kind of like a fire ant bite, but I knew that I’d been shot, and the pain would worsen.
Frozen on the surface, I watched her drop the handgun into the water. She stared down at me for a moment, eyes already glassing over in death, then she slowly toppled forward and into the water and the Reaper’s cold embrace.
There was a second boom, which I suddenly realized was from my own rifle. Brayden had shot Haywood in the abdomen, probably turning half her internal organs into mush, and killing her instantly.
The second rifle shot was immediately followed by a deafening explosion, and the night suddenly turned into daylight. A bright flame rose up and out from the starboard side of the catamaran, then an even larger explosion smashed the air. It felt like the tail of a blue whale smacking me in the face, pushing me under.
A whoosh of flames and super-heated air plowed from under the belly of the cat and the whole thing lifted out of the water. An underwater concussion wave hit me, floating just below the surface, and my mind went blank.
A splash caught Brayden’s attention, followed by a man’s shout. A moment later he watched in horror as someone ran to the front of the catamaran and began shooting down into the water.
Brayden tore off the night vision goggles and opened Jesse’s gun case. He had some experience shooting a rifle, and Jesse had said that his was zeroed for five hundred meters and a novice could hit a squirrel. He shouldered the weapon and peered through the powerful scope.
From five hundred meters, only a portion of the catamaran’s pilothouse was visible through the powerful scope. Brayden moved the muzzle around until he found the person who was shooting down at Jesse. It looked like a woman. He kept the scope on her as best he could as his boat moved slightly.
The woman fired twice more before Brayden could center the crosshairs. He moved them to the center of her body and held his breath. He’d never shot a human and had never intentionally harmed a woman in any way. But he couldn’t let her shoot his friend. Her head jerked to the right slightly, then she looked down and smiled.
Across the water, Brayden clearly heard the voice of a man shout, “Kill him!”
The woman’s smile wasn’t one of mirth. Brayden fully believed he was looking at the face of a demon. And the man’s shout meant Jesse was still alive.
The woman raised the pistol again. It was obvious that Jesse had surfaced for some reason and now she was about to kill him. Brayden squeezed the trigger and the big rifle kicked him like a rabid ’roo.
When he looked through the scope again, the woman was gone. But someone else was running forward on the deck. A man with what looked like a shotgun.
When Brayden fired the second shot from the rifle, instead of the man going down, there was a small flash behind him. The bullet had missed the man but hit a propane tank mounted to the side rail. The boat exploded with two blasts, less than a second apart.
Brayden dropped the rifle to the deck and quickly untied the anchor line, before moving back to the rear seat to start the engine. Looking at the giant fireball in horror, he figured that anyone on board was now either dead or dying. With any luck, Jesse would be alive, shielded from the explosion by the water, at least to some degree.
Racing toward the burning boat, he spotted two people floating just ahead of it. He slowed his boat, angling toward the first one, while scanning the burning wreckage for any sign of danger.
Shifting to neutral, Brayden scrambled forward as his boat came alongside the first body. He could now see that it was Jesse, floating face up in the water.
He glanced over at the woman he’d shot, and froze. She was floating just beyond Jesse’s inert body, much closer to the now-burning wreck. Her tank top was bunched up around her shoulders, the flames blistering the exposed skin there. Just below the surface he could see a jagged exit wound in her back. Bits of flesh hung from around it by threads. The hole in her back was bigger than a tennis ball. Even in the darkness, Brayden could see blood swirling in the water around the woman, and he retched.
Tearing his eyes from the corpse, Brayden knelt to grab Jesse. The man moaned as Brayden tried t
o pull him aboard—but he was too big, and his equipment, snagging the rail, was too bulky. Thinking quickly, Brayden felt around and released the straps holding the weight belt and rebreather in place and let them drop away.
The boat was burning furiously now, and Brayden had to work quickly. It was no time to be gentle. He turned Jesse so that he was facing away from the boat, then squatted low and reached under his arms, clasping his hands around the man’s chest. Heaving with all his might, Brayden used his legs to propel them both up and back.
Jesse landed on top of him in the boat, and Brayden had to push him off. The big man grunted as he toppled onto the deck, and Brayden scrambled for the tiller.
Reversing the engine, he powered his little boat backward, away from the inferno, then clicked it into forward and threw the tiller over, spinning the boat around, and accelerating away.
Once clear of the debris, Brayden slowed and took the engine out of gear. Scrambling over the middle bench, he found Jesse not only alive but awake, struggling to get upright.
“Lie still, mate.”
Jesse looked up at him for a moment, eyes blinking in confusion. Then they glassed over, and he collapsed back onto the deck.
Brayden checked him over, at least as much as he could do with the wetsuit on. He was still breathing. If he’d been shot, it would probably be a good idea to keep the tight-fitting neoprene suit in place. Propping a fender behind Jesse’s head, Brayden turned him slightly and made him as comfortable as he could.
Moving back to his spot, Brayden put the night vision goggles on, adjusted them, and pointed the boat’s bow on a reverse course of two hundred and twenty degrees. He started to twist the throttle, but stopped, remembering the wrecked hull of Mark’s and Cindy’s boat, which they’d nearly hit.
Reaching over the middle bench seat, he found Jesse’s GPS and quickly pulled up the waypoint he’d added, showing the location of the wreck.
In seconds, the boat was planing at full speed, Brayden leaning low and holding onto the starboard rail, as he drove.
The ride was smooth, but it still took more than fifteen precious minutes. When he arrived at the marina, Brayden pointed his boat straight toward Eastwind, Cory and Lea’s trawler yacht.
Any boat moving at full speed past the marina and through the mooring field would draw attention. And everyone knew that he and Jesse were out on the water. Lights started coming on.
Cory came out of Eastwind’s side pilothouse hatch as Brayden finally slowed the boat.
“Jesse’s hurt!” Brayden shouted.
Cory moved quickly aft. “Bring him to the swim platform. What happened?”
Brayden turned the boat, then killed the engine once he was sure it was moving toward Eastwind’s stern. “I think he mighta been shot.”
Cory turned, flung the aft hatch open, and yelled inside. “Lea! Bring my bag up.”
Moving to the transom door, Cory opened it and stepped out onto the wide swim platform, just as Brayden’s boat bumped it.
“Grab his shoulders,” Brayden said, bending to lift Jesse’s legs at the knees.
Together they managed to get Jesse onto the platform, then they lifted the big man, and carried him through the transom door.
Lea arrived, tossing a black bag onto a chair. She turned and swept everything off the small dinette table with a clatter.
Brayden and Cory lifted Jesse onto the table and Cory went to work, pulling a stethoscope from the pocket of the bag lying next to him.
“Get me some lights, Lea,” Cory said, pulling the zipper down the front of Jesse’s wetsuit.
He listened for a heartbeat, as Brayden helplessly stood aside and waited.
“Heartbeats slow.” Cory moved the stethoscope lower and listened to his breathing. “Respiration is clear, but shallow. I think he’s in shock.”
The bright cockpit lights came on, and Cory immediately saw the entry wound, high on Jesse’s hip. Blood was pulsing from it.
“Brayden,” Cory said, “there’s pouches of QuikClot in my bag, get two and tear them open. Be ready when I cut away his wetsuit.”
As Brayden searched through the bag, he heard a boat engine start. He found the pouches and tore the first one open with his teeth.
Cory used a pair of scissors to cut Jesse’s wetsuit from the zippered top, toward where he’d been shot. With each snip of the scissors, the wetsuit peeled open, and the bleeding became more intense.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t try to get his wetsuit off,” Cory said, as his scissors reached the wound. Blood now pulsed out of it.
Cory continued cutting past the bullet hole, then ripped the neoprene open, exposing the small puncture in Jesse’s side. The blood was flowing freely now. Cory took the pouch from Brayden and dumped it over and into the wound. The bleeding stopped almost instantly.
Gently, Cory rolled Jesse onto his side, checking his back for an exit wound. The gristly image of the huge hole in the woman’s back came quickly to Brayden’s mind.
“No exit,” Cory said, rolling him back. “We have to get him to shore, so I can get the bullet out and try to fix any damage done on the inside.”
“We can use one of the paddle boards for a litter,” Lea said, scrambling up the ladder to the flybridge.
David and Carmen arrived on their dinghy, and Carmen jumped to the swim platform, holding the inflatable so David could step over.
“Holy shit,” David said, upon seeing Jesse stretched out on the table.
Carmen handed David the lines and moved quickly through the transom door. “I’m an LPN, Cory,” she said, coming quickly to the doctor’s side, “but I only worked for a few months in a retirement home.”
“Thanks, I’ll need you,” Cory said, reaching up to get the paddle board his wife was handing down. “But we have to get him on solid ground. He has a bullet in his abdomen and I’ll have to go in.”
Positioning the board next to Jesse, David and Brayden gently rolled him onto his side, so Cory could slide it under. Rolling him back, they shifted him onto the center.
“We’ll lay him across David’s dinghy,” Lea said. “Brayden, your boat has drifted away.”
Brayden ignored his boat until they had the makeshift litter on the dinghy, with Cory and David aboard. As David’s little motor sputtered away, Brayden dove headlong into the water and swam to his boat. He returned to Eastwind to pick up Lea and Carmen, then he chased after the dinghy, now almost to the beach beside the marina.
Macie and Kat were waiting on the sand, Bill and Finn standing beside them, and helped pull Brayden’s boat up onto shore.
“What happened?” Macie asked, going to Brayden.
“Jesse was shot.”
“Oh my God!” Kat cried out, as she rushed toward where the dinghy was approaching the shore.
The men pulled the inflatable up. “Bring him to the store,” Cory ordered, grabbing his medical bag, and racing ahead. “I need to scrub.”
Kat ran alongside the men as they hurriedly carried Jesse toward the building. “What happened?” she asked.
“It was the people Jesse thought it was,” Brayden said. “He got close, underwater, and positively IDed them.”
“You weren’t gonna get close,” Kat said, tears already running down her cheeks. “You both said!”
“We also found Mark’s and Cindy’s boat,” Brayden said, as he and David carried Jesse up the steps. “It was burned to the waterline. Their bodies are still aboard.”
“Oh no,” Kat said, stopping at the door.
Carmen pushed past her and Finn, then turned. “Wait here.” She then closed the door behind her.
Finn nudged Kat’s hand, whining softly.
An hour later, Carmen and Cory came out and the others gathered around them. “He’s stable,” Cory said. “But he’s lost quite a bit of blood. He really needs to get
to a hospital.”
“Can’t someone give him a transfusion here?” Macie asked.
“No microscope,” Cory said. “No way of knowing his blood type.”
“Would that be on his military dog tags?” Kat asked.
Cory turned to her and nodded, “Yeah, it should be.”
“Give me the keys to his boat,” she said. “His dog tags fell on the floor earlier tonight. I know exactly where they are.”
Cory went inside and returned a moment later, handing Kat the keys. She took them and ran for the docks, Finn chasing after her as if he knew his master needed their help. They returned a moment later, and Kat handed Cory a long chain with a pair of military dog tags, each in a black rubber case.
Cory examined the tags. “Okay, he’s B-positive. That’s kind of rare. I’m A-positive, not a match. Anyone know their blood type?”
“I’m A-positive, too,” Carmen said.
Looking around the group, everyone shook their head, some muttering that they had no idea what type blood they were.
“It has to be the same?” Kat asked.
“No,” Carmen replied. “Any B type or O type can be used.”
“I’m O-positive,” Kat said. “I know because I used to give blood all the time.”
Cory reached for the door. “He needs you, Kat. Come on, let’s get started.”
A sense of movement woke me. Or perhaps I was dreaming. Or I was dead. The last thing I remembered was seeing Haywood’s guts exploding out from her back and the catamaran exploding.
My eyes slowly opened. It was dark. As my eyes focused, I recognized the overhead and trim work of my cabin. To my right were the three portholes in Salty Dog’s stern. Through them, I could see the moon near the horizon. It was nearly dawn. And I was alive.
When I felt the sheet over me move, my eyes darted to my left. Kat was lowering herself onto the bunk beside me. She was naked. I tried to move, but she stopped me.
“Be quiet and rest,” she whispered. “You lost blood and need to be kept warm.”
Rising Force Page 20