by Rachel Lee
Dugan pulled her close. Now that they were alone with nothing for miles around them, he shouted to be heard.
“We have to get back to the boat,” he yelled.
“Tam.”
“We can’t find him from here. We’re too low in the water. We need lights.”
She nodded slowly. But then something clicked in her mind. “I hear the raft.”
“What?”
“I hear the raft!”
Even in the dimness of the starlight, she could see the disbelief on his face. She was deaf. Why would he believe her?
“I hear something electronic, switching on and off,” she told him. “Strobing. I recognize the sound.”
“But how can you hear it? I don’t hear anything except the waves.”
“I can’t hear the waves, Dugan. The electronic sound is all I can hear except when you shout.”
“But . . .”
She shook her head impatiently. “Listen to me. I’ve lost the whole middle range of my hearing. All the usual day-to-day sounds are pretty much gone unless they’re really loud. But I didn’t lose my upper range. The really high sounds.”
He nodded slowly. And finally he shouted, “But the raft wouldn’t be making any sound.”
“Unless Tam turned on the emergency beacon.”
She saw realization dawn in his face. “Where?” he demanded.
She pointed to her left, somewhere behind the Mandolin, which was still drifting helplessly. “That way.”
He nodded, tucking her hand through his belt again, and began swimming in that direction. Waves slapped her in the face repeatedly, and she realized that she could feel a storm building somewhere. The knowledge hummed in her, as if the sea were transmitting a message. They had to find Tam before the water became too rough. Before the storm arrived.
After a short eternity, Dugan stopped swimming, catching his breath. Veronica took the opportunity to listen. The sound was still there, the only thing she could hear. A whine, repetitious. Louder.
“We’re closer,” she said. “Dugan, we’re closer.” She pointed in the general direction she heard the sound from.
He nodded, still gulping air, and peered in that direction. He spoke, but she didn’t hear him.
She was concentrating on the sound, annoyed when a wave would slap her in the head and drown it. But little by little, she focused in on it, narrowing the direction down.
And then she saw the faint light. It was blinking off the water vapor that covered the sea like a blanket, casting the faintest of haloes. “There,” she said, excitement welling in her. “There. The light. You can barely see it!”
Seconds ticked by while he stared into the night, trying to see it. Then he nodded and turned to her with a big smile. He spoke, but she still couldn’t hear him.
“Louder,” she said. “Shout at me.”
“Can you swim to the boat?”
She looked back over her shoulder. It wasn’t far. Maybe a hundred feet. “Yes. But what about the raft?”
He pointed at her, then pointed toward the Mandolin. Then he pointed at himself and pointed toward the dimly strobing halo of light.
“But . . .” Fear filled her. “Dugan, you could get lost out there! I can’t let you go alone.”
“You have to. I can’t pull you both!”
The justice of his words hit her hard. She could swim, but not nearly as well as he, and the paddling she’d been doing for the last half hour had left her feeling drained already. She didn’t have a wet suit, either, and even though the water temperature was probably eighty degrees, it was sapping her body heat, and she was beginning to feel cold. She would only hinder him.
He caught her chin with one hand, while with the other he continued to tread water. “Turn on all the lights.”
“Okay.”
“If anybody but the Coast Guard comes, jump overboard.”
“Yes.”
He was shouting, and she could hear the strain in his voice. He had to get Tam, she understood that. But, oh, God, she didn’t want to lose Dugan.
Then he kissed her. It wasn’t much of a kiss, when he was trying to keep his head above water, but it touched her to her very toes.
Then, with a little wave, he swam away into the darkness toward the faint, pulsating halo of light. Veronica stared after him, aching and afraid. If Dugan never came back . . .
But she couldn’t allow herself to think about that. Instead, trying to force some energy into muscles that were beginning to feel rubbery, she reminded herself that a shark might find her at any minute. Then she started swimming toward the dark shadow of the Mandolin.
But thinking about sharks had been exactly the wrong thing to do, because it reminded her that a shark might find Dugan as well. Almost without realizing it, she began to pray harder than she had ever prayed in her life.
She was able to climb the ladder on the starboard side, a ladder that was permanently attached to the boat. But when she hit the deck at last, she collapsed, exhausted, feeling like she couldn’t move another inch.
Then she saw the body. She had completely forgotten that the guard was still lying on the deck on the port side. A feeling of instinctive revulsion filled her, forcing her to her feet. Trapped on a disabled boat with a dead body. Her skin started crawling.
But she had to turn on the lights for Dugan. Forcing herself to ignore the guard, she turned on all the running lights and the cockpit lights, and even some of the lights down below, opening curtains so the glow could reach out the portholes.
Then, reluctant to remain below where she was completely cut off, she returned to the deck and tried to ignore the dark shape of the dead guard.
If he was dead. That thought seemed to clutch her throat and squeeze it. Staring at the man, she froze and tried to think what to do. She didn’t want to touch him. She didn’t want him there. But what if he wasn’t dead and needed help? Could she just leave him there bleeding?
Remembering Dugan’s Glock, which he had hidden once again in the galley drawer, she went down to get it. She had no idea if the safety was on or off, or if it was even loaded. She just had to hope that it would fool someone if necessary.
When she came back above, shock hit her like an icy fist. There was another shadow on deck. A man was standing there. A man she had seen before.
Luis Gallegos saw the gun in her hand, and raised his own.
“Don’t shoot,” he said.
But Veronica couldn’t hear him. Her hearing aids were still in the pouch hanging from her belt. With her trembling left hand, she opened the bag and pulled one of them out. She fumbled around, and finally got it into her ear. Then she put the gun in her other hand, pulled out the other aid, and pushed it into place.
The night was suddenly alive again. She could hear the keening of the wind, loud in her hearing aids, could hear the slap of the rising waves against the boat.
“Sit down,” she told Luis. “What are you doing here?”
He said something, but she could only make out a few words. Finally, she nodded toward the guard. “Is he dead?”
Luis nodded. He was keeping his hands where she could see them, looking as frightened as she felt.
And there she stood, with her back to the radio, which she could now hear was on. She must have bumped the switches when she came up earlier, and the sound must have been what startled the guard and gotten Tam into all the trouble.
A wave of crushing despair washed over her as she realized she might have cost Tam his life because of her disability. And with that wave of despair came more self-doubt. Who was she to think she could hold a man at gunpoint when she didn’t even know if the gun would shoot if she pulled the trigger?
And now, because of her, Dugan was out there swimming across the darkened sea, looking for his friend who might be dying.
No. She couldn’t afford to think this way. Absolutely not. She’d messed up. She’d bumped the radio and turned on the distress signal. It was an accident.
But
in her heart of hearts, she couldn’t quite forgive herself.
The minutes crept by. The Glock was growing heavy in her hand, even though it was plastic. Luis kept trying to talk to her, and she kept telling him to shut up. She couldn’t understand enough of what he said, and right now she didn’t want to expend the effort of trying. God, she wished she could use the radio, talk to the Coast Guard, tell them what was happening.
When Dugan came back. If Dugan came back . . . The wind was picking up, and the sea was growing rougher, and he was out there in it.
And she was terrified for him.
Chasing a moving target was never easy, and the raft was a moving target, being carried by the choppy seas. When he paused to get his breath, Dugan looked up and saw that the stars were vanishing in the west, erased as if by a giant hand. A storm was coming in. Time was getting short.
But it was much easier to see the pale, flashing glow of the beacon. Much easier. He was getting closer. He glanced behind him and could still make out the lights aboard the Mandolin. With the beacon on the raft going, and the Mandolin sending its automated distress call, the Coast Guard should arrive shortly after dawn. Maybe.
He couldn’t afford to think about the alternatives.
His muscles were still fatigued, tired of the seemingly endless swimming they’d been doing, but his breathing rate had steadied and slowed. He drew some deep breaths and began to swim toward the faint beacon on the raft, a beacon that would be far easier to see from above.
Thank God Tam had been conscious enough to start it. He just hoped Tam hadn’t bled to death.
How long he had been swimming, Dugan had no idea. There was still no light on the eastern horizon, so it hadn’t been as long as it felt. How far away was dawn? He had no idea. It was like being trapped in the darkness with no idea when he might escape. And oddly, he was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic, as if the darkness and the sea were closing in on him. God, he was stupid to have swum out here alone at night.
At one point, he lost the beacon. For an instant, panic started to rise in him, but he battled it down. He had only the lights of the Mandolin behind him to give him a sense of direction, and the Mandolin was drifting, too.
His chest squeezed, and he wondered if Veronica was okay. He should have waited to make sure she was able to board the ketch. Hell, there were a lot of things he should have done differently. He was no superhero, and tonight had proved it.
Then he caught the faint flicker again and struck out once more, forcing his arms and legs to propel him as if he were doing the hundred meters for the Olympics. Only an Olympic swimming pool didn’t have waves like this that insisted on slapping him in the face and throwing him around like a cork.
But the light was getting brighter. Then, finally, he thought he glimpsed the raft, a dark, nonreflective shape against the starlight-sprinkled waves. A jolt of adrenaline rushed through him, renewing his strength.
Minutes later, just as his muscles were beginning to turn into burnt rubber, his head bumped something hard. Dropping his legs, he lifted his head from the water and saw the raft inches away. Before it could escape again, he latched on to one of the side straps and clung for dear life.
“Tam? Tam?”
No answer. Gasping for air, Dugan waited to catch his breath, waited for one last trickle of strength to return to his limbs. Then, gracelessly, he heaved himself up into the raft.
Tam was there. Unconscious. Breathing shallowly. A sticky pool of wetness testified that he was still bleeding. With hands, more than eyes, Dugan searched his body and found the seeping wound in Tam’s side. Unable to do anything else, he ripped Tam’s T-shirt off of him, and juryrigged a pressure bandage, hoping to stop the bleeding.
There was nothing else he could do. Ten minutes later, as recovered as he would get, he picked up the paddle.
He wondered if he would be able to do it. The lights of the Mandolin were a long way away. And if it started to rain . . .
But thinking about it wouldn’t help. He dug the blade of the oar into the restless sea, and started paddling.
The storm struck before dawn. Bringing tall waves and battering winds, it swept in over the water like the hurricane of centuries ago, buffeting the helpless Mandolin, spinning it like a cork in a whirlpool. Lightning forked down from the sky, and Veronica could feel her hair standing on end.
Luis grew violently seasick, and finally wound up huddled on the deck, clinging to the edge of the bench, no longer a threat.
And Veronica grew strangely unafraid, at least for herself. The power of the storm seemed to hum through her, filling her with wild power that made her feel almost invincible. She looked at the cowering Luis and felt pity for him.
But then she looked out to sea, and in the flickers of brilliant lightning, she saw the waves. Dugan was out there. What rose in her then was not fear but anger. Reaching out with both hands, as if she wanted to grasp the lightning bolts, she raised her voice and shouted into the storm.
“He’s mine!”
She could barely hear herself over the shriek of the wind in her hearing aids, but she felt the shout rise from the pit of her stomach, a roar that was lost in a crack of thunder. A wave caught the Mandolin, tossing it to one side, nearly knocking her out of the captain’s chair. She ignored it. Inside, in a dark, still place in her soul, she willed the storm to spare Dugan. But the storm only seemed to shriek louder.
And the night seemed to be endless.
Mexican standoff, Veronica thought. Her eyes were gritty as she sat in the captain’s chair in the cockpit, facing backwards, trying to keep the gun trained on Luis. The man was sitting on the stern bench, his hands long since fallen helplessly to his lap, looking as exhausted as she felt.
The body still lay on the deck between them.
The pink streamers of dawn were making their appearance in the east, lightening the world enough that she could see the fading storm. Fear was chasing along her nerve endings, fear that Dugan hadn’t survived the storm, fear that she and Luis would be stuck out here on a disabled boat.
The wind was humming in her hearing aids, sometimes shrieking. The battering of the waves against the hull was loud, too, a constant background noise that drowned any other sounds. In effect, even with her hearing aids, she was deaf.
Luis looked as if he were sleeping. Taking a chance, Veronica left the cockpit and looked around. All of a sudden, her breath locked in her throat. There, a small speck in the sky, was a helicopter. Watching it approach, Veronica’s eyes clouded with tears. Rescue was at hand, but what about Dugan?
The helicopter approached swiftly, and not five minutes later it was hovering over her, a man leaning out the door looking down at her. She waved, forgetting she had a gun in her hand.
A few seconds later, the helicopter lifted abruptly and flew away. That’s when she noticed she was still holding the Glock. God, they must think she was a madwoman.
Then, her hopes sinking, she turned and saw that Luis was awake, staring after the chopper with as much dismay and longing as she was feeling.
They’d come back, she told herself. They had to. Even if she had waved a gun. Exhausted, almost hopeless, she returned to the cockpit and sat, watching Luis, wondering if somewhere along the way she had gone crazy.
When the cutter finally pulled alongside the Mandolin, Veronica found herself staring down the barrels of rifles from the ship’s deck above her. A loudspeaker was booming something she couldn’t understand. Her mind groggy with fatigue, it took her a minute to realize why they were pointing those rifles at her.
She tossed the Glock down onto the deck and put up her hands.
Twenty minutes later, she and Luis were aboard the cutter, sitting in a small gray cabin and being questioned by two men in uniform. She couldn’t understand them, couldn’t understand what Luis was saying, and she was past caring. Where was Dugan?
But finally their attention focused on her, and she could ignore them no longer. Drawing herself up as stra
ight as she could despite her fatigue, she looked one of the men in the eye. For the first time she spoke the words without any sense of shame or embarrassment.
“I’m deaf,” she said. “If you want me to understand you, you need to talk slowly and clearly so I can read your lips. Did you find the raft?”
The two men exchanged looks. Then one of them said, speaking almost too slowly, “What raft?”
So she told them. Without giving them a chance to ask any questions, she let the whole story tumble out of her, everything about her expedition, Emilio Zaragosa, the strange boat that had come in the night and driven Emilio away, about the guard who had stabbed Tam, and how Tam had drifted away on the raft and Dugan had swum out into the night sea to find it.
And when she was done, she put her head down on the table and began to cry.
They asked her questions, when she stopped crying. Some she understood, and others she didn’t, but she wasn’t prepared to give any ground. When she couldn’t understand, she made them write it down.
It seemed like hours later before the questions began to run out, before they stopped covering the same ground over and over. It probably wasn’t that long, but it seemed to Veronica to be an eternity. Her heart was beating painfully out of fear for Dugan, and her hopes for his safety were growing dimmer by the minute.
Needing to distract herself, she turned to Luis. “How did you get on my boat?”
He spoke, but she couldn’t understand his words. They tumbled too rapidly over his lips, and his accent made them even harder to follow. Finally, she shoved a pad over to him and said, “Write it down.”
He wrote.
“Some unknown man wants the mask you were looking for. He made me tell him where you and Emilio were, and he made me come with him when he came to face Emilio. Then he made me get off his boat and onto yours. I don’t know why.”
One of the Coast Guard officers took the pad and scanned it. There was a hurried conversation, then one of the men left the room.