When I Wake

by Rachel Lee

  “Thank you for finding it.”

  He wanted to tell her it was just dumb luck, but then he decided it didn’t really matter anyway, because she didn’t really give a damn about him or how he had found it. All she was interested in was the mask.

  And if they survived this mess, she’d take the mask and vanish from his life as if she’d never been.

  He tested the possibility, sort of like testing a sore tooth, and found it made him ache a little. Oh, well, people had walked out of his life before.

  The minutes were creeping by rather slowly, and he had to force himself to pay attention to the sounds from above rather than allowing himself to be lulled by the boat’s rocking . . . or distracted by Veronica’s hand on his knee.

  It would be so easy, so easy, to while away the next hour by making love to her. But he couldn’t afford to do that for a lot of reasons. First, he didn’t especially care to have the guard overhear them and get his jollies from it. Secondly, it would distract him from important things that might develop over the next hour. And finally . . . finally, he didn’t think he dared to let Veronica get that close again. What had happened to them before . . . that had been intoxicating. Too intoxicating and too intimate. He wasn’t prepared to risk it again, because each time it was as if she sank little hooks deeper into him. He could still tear away without mortal damage, but not if he let those hooks get much deeper.

  He glanced at his watch again. Fifteen more minutes. Veronica had been sleeping restlessly for a little time now, soft little snores escaping her every now and then. The guard above hadn’t moved in a while. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have heard him talk into the radio around one, and he wondered if the man was on an hourly schedule. It might be best to wait until shortly after two before trying to go over the side.

  But he figured one thing for sure. The man must be getting awfully tired. Emilio’s thugs didn’t have the earmarks of highly trained personnel, the kind who could go for two days straight without sleeping if necessary. And most ordinary people were getting pretty drowsy by two in the morning.

  He wasn’t a man who prayed often, but he found himself praying that the guard was helping himself to the bottle. Why not? The man must be wondering why he’d been set to guard three people who couldn’t possibly have anywhere to go in the midst of all this water in a boat that was hopelessly fouled. Why would the man even think that nipping into the bottle would cause him any trouble?

  At two, he heard the guard talking again, probably radioing to someone on the Conchita. At about the same time, Tam came aft to the cabin.

  “Ready?” he asked in a whisper.

  “Not yet. The guard just radioed in. Let’s wait a few.”

  Veronica stirred, her hand slipping from his knee, and he felt the lack of her touch deep within him.

  “Dugan?”

  Reaching out, he grabbed her hand. “Shh,” he said, hoping she could hear him.

  “Dugan?”

  Squinting in the darkness, he found her face and silenced her by the simple expedient of kissing her. It nearly killed him when he felt her go soft beneath his lips. Soft and inviting. And it was hard, so hard to back away.

  But he made himself do it, and she sat up, a shadow in the dark cabin. This was no good, he thought. She couldn’t see well enough to understand anything he might say. But he needed his night vision.

  “Christ,” he muttered. Not knowing what else to do, he leaned over to her and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close and putting his mouth right by her ear. “Quiet. Don’t do anything.”

  Apparently she got most of it, because she nodded.

  “Wait,” he said.

  She nodded again.

  They waited. Another fifteen minutes passed by with nerve-shrieking slowness, but finally Dugan admitted he couldn’t wait any longer. If they waited too long, the guard would need to report in again, and someone on the boat would get nervous if he didn’t.

  “Go look,” he told Tam.

  Tam nodded and slipped away silently. They had agreed he would check the guard first because he had an excuse to go on deck: his whiskey.

  Then, leading Veronica by the hand, Dugan followed, waiting at the foot of the ladder. Three endless minutes later, Tam’s shadow appeared above.

  “He’s asleep.”

  Dugan turned to Veronica and signed with his hands that she was to stay right there. She nodded understanding. Then he pointed to her ears, and imitated putting her hearing aids in her waterproof pouch. Again she nodded.

  Thank God, he thought, for starshine, magnified by the reflections off the water, or they’d be sunk, with Veronica unable to hear. As it was, she could just make out his gestures.

  Then he climbed the ladder. Moments later, he went swiftly and silently over the side, leaving Tam sitting on the bench not too far from the guard, the bottle in his hands as if he was just there for a drink.

  The water was warm, as the water always was there, but still chilly by comparison to his body. The first few seconds as it seeped into his wet suit were uncomfortable, but then the layer of water between him and his rubber skin became the same temperature as his body. By then he’d already struck out toward the Conchita, which was brightly lighted enough to be an easy beacon.

  At least the raft was black. Had it been yellow, he’d have had a serious problem on his hands because with all the light from Emilio’s yacht, it would have been too obvious as he dragged it back to the Mandolin.

  Five minutes later, he was cutting the line that tied it to the Conchita and dragging it back toward his own boat. If anyone was guarding Emilio’s deck, he hadn’t done anything to make himself obvious. Thank God. Thank God. Prayerful words kept running through his mind in time with the beating of his heart.

  Dragging the raft through the water was more difficult than simply swimming over to the yacht. The waves weren’t bad, but the chop kept trying to pull the towline out of his hands. And the raft, light as it was on the surface, was still heavy, and still resisted his forward pull every time that meant mounting another wave.

  Ten minutes to get back. Everything was still quiet. He towed the raft to the stern of his boat, as far from the yacht as he could get it.

  Tam leaned over the side, taking the line attached to the raft and tying it to the stern cleat. Then Tam passed him an underwater light. Holding his breath, Dugan submerged to rescue the mask from its hiding place.

  Veronica felt as if she were going to crawl out of her skin. She couldn’t hear a thing because she’d followed Dugan’s direction to put her hearing aids in their waterproof pouch, which was attached to her belt. She knew he was right to tell her to do that. It would be all too easy to ruin them in the splash from a wave once they were in the raft.

  If they ever got into the raft. If they got away.

  Horrifying possibilities kept creeping into her mind, kept sending icy tendrils of fear along her scalp and spine. Nothing in her life had prepared her for that night, and being cut off because of her hearing scared her even more.

  She wouldn’t know if something went wrong. She wouldn’t be able to hear if someone tried to give her a warning. Every single inadequacy, real and imagined, began to hammer at her, undermining her.

  But what choice did she have? she kept asking herself. What other options were there? Emilio had threatened her father, had threatened her and Dugan. And if she had doubted his intentions even a little, those doubts were answered by the guard on deck.

  Nervous, she climbed up the ladder a little to look out. The guard was still dozing, and Tam was still sitting on the bench. Where was Dugan? Had he brought the raft back yet?

  Then she felt, rather than heard, a thud in the hull of the boat. Oh, God, what now?

  She didn’t have long to wonder, though. The bump woke the guard, who jumped to his feet. Tam stayed sitting on the bench, and she could see him making placating gestures with his hands, and he seemed to be talking. She ducked back down the ladder, afraid the guard m
ight see her, then peered cautiously over the lip of the hatch.

  Tam and the guard were looking toward the stern of the boat, away from her. Something was going on, and she didn’t like the look of it. Tam’s gestures were becoming more rapid, as if he was arguing. God, she wished she could hear.

  Worrying that Tam might need some help, she climbed up the ladder into the cockpit, bumping the radio on her way.

  Tam jerked around, staring at her in horror. The guard turned, too, and grabbed his gun.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  Through the water, Dugan could hear muffled sounds. His heart went into overdrive as he struggled to tie the bag holding the mask to one of the straps around the inflated tubes of the black raft. After what seemed like an eternity, he managed it.

  Then with a kick of his powerful legs, he surfaced beside the boat. He could hear shouting, and, more chillingly, he could hear the radio crackling quietly, and a voice, which identified itself as the Coast Guard station in Key West, asking what the problem was.

  Kicking, he pushed himself around to the rear of the boat and saw Tam struggling with the guard. There was a shout from the direction of the Conchita, and he knew the seconds were numbered. With another powerful kick of his legs, he launched himself far enough out of the water that he was able to grab a stern cleat and pull himself onto the boat.

  Chaos reigned. In an instant his eye took it all in. Tam was fighting with the guard; there was a flash of steel, probably the guard’s knife. Veronica had picked up a boat hook and was crossing the deck toward the struggling men. And the voice on the radio kept asking for information.

  The struggling men suddenly moved, staggering toward the port side near the raft, then, with a yowl of pain, Tam staggered, gripping his side, and went overboard.

  Dugan heard no splash, realized Tam must have fallen into the raft. The guard, apparently oblivious to anyone else, was struggling with the line tied to the stern cleat.

  Veronica raced forward at the same time Dugan did, the boat hook aimed at the guard. The guard saw her coming, jumped to the side, and the boat hook slid past him. Veronica, at full tilt, came up hard against the gunwale and lost the boat hook over the side.

  Which left Dugan, who was unarmed except for the small diving knife he carried. The guard was waving a much larger knife, a knife that Dugan noticed was darkly stained. Tam’s blood.

  To his left, he could hear shouts from the Conchita. The night brightened as more lights came on aboard the yacht. Any minute now, he thought, and there would be gunfire. Or the launch would head toward them. Time was running out.

  In that instant, as if he were somehow lifted out of himself, he felt an immense infusion of power, felt a narrowing of focus that cut out everything except the knife and the man before him. He didn’t have the time for the circle, feint, and parry of a knife fight. Tam must have managed to get rid of the guy’s gun, but that wouldn’t matter at all if the man from the yacht had time to get there.

  He had one move, maybe two. If he couldn’t get rid of this guard in one or two moves, they were screwed.

  But he didn’t feel the fear, didn’t even feel the tension. He had gone beyond that. All he could think was that this was his last chance to save Veronica.

  As if his body belonged to someone else, he felt himself lunge forward, felt his left hand latch onto the man’s right forearm, turning the knife away. As if his hand belonged to someone else, he felt his own diving knife sink home in the guard’s side as if layers of skin, muscle, and bone were made out of soft butter.

  He saw the guard’s eyes widen, saw the man begin to collapse. As he did so, the guard pulled his right hand around, unwittingly pointing his own knife at himself. Whether he fell on it, Dugan didn’t wait to see.

  Crossing the deck in two strides, he grabbed Veronica. She’d apparently gotten the wind knocked from her and was gasping it back into her lungs. He lifted her, tucking her into his side, glancing back at the yacht. Men were climbing into the launch. Their time was up.

  “We’ve got to go into the water,” he told Veronica, pointing at the yacht.

  She nodded.

  “Ready?”

  “Tam?”

  “He fell into the raft.”

  She nodded again and he guided her to the side.

  The raft was gone. The line had come loose from the stern cleat.

  Chapter 22

  The raft was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished off the stern of the Mandolin into the night as if it had never been.

  Veronica felt Dugan squeeze her fingers. She looked at him, wishing she could hear something. Anything. All she knew was that Emilio’s men were going to be there in a few minutes, and they had nowhere to go.

  “In the water,” Dugan said. She could read his lips, though she couldn’t hear his voice at all. He was enunciating very carefully, though.

  “They . . . kill us,” he said.

  She nodded. “They’ll kill us. Yes.”

  He said something else, but his gestures indicated they were about to go over the side. She nodded, kicking off her useless deck shoes, hoping that her T-shirt and shorts wouldn’t drag her down. She had a fleeting thought of her ears, of how she wasn’t supposed to get water in them, but ignored it. It didn’t matter now.

  He pulled a life jacket out of the stern locker and helped her put it on.

  “What about you?” she demanded. He just shook his head.

  Then, holding hands, they jumped off the stern of the boat. It was cold, but not that cold. For an instant she panicked because it was so dark and she couldn’t see anything. Where was up? Down?

  But Dugan’s hand never let go of hers, and a second later she popped to the surface. She looked at him, but he was looking past her toward the yacht. Without a word, he tucked her hand into the belt at the waist of his wet suit, a webbed belt that sometimes held diving weights, but tonight held only a knife sheath.

  Then he started swimming away from the Mandolin. She understood that she was supposed to hang on to him so they wouldn’t get separated. Kicking her feet and stroking with her free arm, she helped as much as she could. And little by little, they moved away from the light cast by the yacht into the darkness of an endless sea.

  She heard the launch motor start up, and it surprised her that she could hear it so well. It was the water, she realized. It was as if the water transmitted sounds through her body.

  Then she heard something else. A bigger, deeper motor.

  She tugged on Dugan’s belt sharply, once, twice. He stopped swimming and turned to face her, treading water.

  “Do you hear it?” she asked. “There’s a big boat coming.”

  He scanned the sea in every direction, but all he could see was the brightly lighted Conchita and the smaller shadow of the Mandolin in the distance.

  He looked at her, hoping she could read him in the dimness. “Are you sure?”

  But apparently she couldn’t, because she merely pointed in the general direction from which they had come.

  Another boat, he thought. It was possible. But would it be useful? The odds that they would even be spotted in the darkness on the water was so slim it hurt even to contemplate it. They had to find the raft, both because Tam might well be bleeding to death, and because they needed a way to stay afloat. He’d passed on a life jacket for himself because it would have slowed their escape. But he honestly didn’t know how long he was going to be able to tread water. And even so, the chances that two people bobbing in the sea would be discovered even in daylight were slim to none. So they had to stay near the Mandolin. She had sent out a distress call—why Tam or Veronica had done that, he didn’t know—but it had been sent and the Coast Guard would be looking for them at first light.

  But Tam . . .

  He turned, trying to see the raft, knowing the chances were small. The blackness of the raft that had been a blessing when he was snatching it was now a curse. It was invisible out there, bobbing on the waves. It might only be twenty
yards away, but they’d never see it.

  Facing Veronica, he said as clearly as he could, “We’ve got to find Tam.”

  She nodded. Maybe she understood. Maybe all she’d read was Tam’s name and had filled in the blanks.

  But now he heard it, too, the sound of a boat’s engine. A large boat. His heart leapt as he wondered if there might have been a Coast Guard cutter in the vicinity that was now responding to the distress call.

  “Do you hear it?” Veronica asked. “Do you?”

  He nodded. A wave slapped him in the face just then, and he had to spit brine out of his mouth. The water was getting choppier, he thought.

  Suddenly Veronica pointed. He turned and felt his heart slam as he saw a large, dark boat emerging from the night, headed straight toward the Conchita. Veronica raised her hand, as if she were going to shout and wave, but Dugan grabbed it, shaking his head vehemently.

  It was no Coast Guard cutter. It was somebody’s yacht, and it was running without lights. Like a pirate.

  Oh, Jesus, he thought, what now?

  The unknown vessel began slowing down, and a short time later it was pulled up alongside the Conchita. More of Emilio’s henchmen?

  Then, across the water, he heard shouting. It didn’t sound pleasant. A gun was fired. Another. A short time later, the Conchita hefted anchor and sailed away into the night, followed by the dark boat. The Mandolin was left behind.

  All too soon, Dugan and Veronica were alone in the vast expanse of an empty sea.

  Veronica’s ears sometimes rang. Usually she heard almost nothing at all, but occasionally her ears would begin to chirp, almost like a telephone. So when she first heard the sound, she thought it must be her ears ringing.

  It was a faint sound, a very high-pitched squeal that lasted only a second or two then stopped. It might be nothing at all. But then again . . .

  It was almost beyond the range of her hearing, the sound. Up in the frequencies where she hadn’t lost her hearing, but almost beyond them. And entirely too regular.

  That was what got to her finally, the regularity. The sounds in her ears, when she had them, didn’t keep time. They came randomly. This was like . . . She tried to think of a comparison. She knew she had heard something like it before, but she wasn’t sure what it was.