by Dana Mentink
Thrilled as she was at their possible escape, she wondered what Del Young’s fate would be if he truly could not remember where The Red Lady and Mary were holed up.
Jett put his hand on the throttle. “Hope the rain will mask the sound.”
In the distance they heard a loud crack. Thunder? Or a gunshot? Jett hurried to loose the lines from the cleats.
Sarah moved to the stern, set the engine to start and tugged the starter cord. The engine warbled to life with a sound that was more beautiful to her ears than a symphony. Freedom. It was so close she could taste it. The channel glittered, distant and serene, waiting to receive them.
The engine powered up and chugged the little boat along.
No sign of pursuit. They were going to make it. She almost laughed out loud in her relief.
As they moved away from the dock, the sound of helicopter blades broke the silence.
The chopper flew into view, low over the water, sending salty spray into the air. Inside the craft, he thought she made out Ellsworth’s silver hair in the rear. Though Young was not safe with Ellsworth, at least he too had escaped Beretta’s clutches.
Jett steered toward the ocean, and with every foot between them and the dock, Sarah’s spirits rose. She felt like shouting with joy. The ordeal was over. Beretta’s men would not dare take action once they cleared the harbor. Though five of the islands were uninhabited national park land, they would be plenty visible in the Santa Barbara Channel. Beretta would not linger there. At least, she did not think he would. He was ruthless, but she did not think he was stupid.
The helicopter was almost over them now, the rotor action whipping the spray into her eyes, blinding her. So they would make an escape, too. Would Ellsworth elude punishment for abducting three people? Marco and her sisters would use the full resources of the agency to help the police bring him to justice. For now, that would have to do. Her thoughts were cut short when a series of holes suddenly appeared in the windshield of the chopper. At first she could not understand what had happened.
She didn’t hear the shots, but suddenly another string of bullets peppered holes into the metal front and sides of the chopper.
“Jett,” she screamed.
“Get down.” He pulled her to her knees to the bottom of the boat.
In shock, she watched the helicopter plunge toward them.
* * *
Jett jerked the motorboat throttle hard to port and the vessel responded. He dared not risk a look behind at the chopper as it dropped out of the sky, deadly rotors slicing the air with the force of a stun grenade. The cove echoed with the shriek of the chopper’s protesting engine, and wind from the churning blades buffeted the waves.
The thing was falling right on top of them.
One blade smashed down inches from the gunwale. Sarah screamed. He wanted to yell for her to hunker down in the bottom of the boat, but he was struggling with the movement, willing the motorboat to outrun the helicopter blades that would surely cut them to ribbons or crush them to death.
Another blade ripped into the stern, inches from where he was standing. The metal on metal sounded like a human cry as sparks flew from the impact. An airborne piece of hot metal burned through his shirt and onto his bicep, but he did not let go of the throttle. The boat bucked and swayed due to the whirling crash currents, taking on water. Pieces of shattered glass thundered down into the bottom of the motorboat. Sarah pitched forward, clinging to the side.
“Faster,” she screamed.
Another hunk of metal spiraled through the air before it splashed into the ocean, blinding him with spray. He pushed the boat as fast as the engine could handle.
Inch by inch he pulled away from the epicenter of the wreck. One yard, then two. Sweating and breathing hard, he finally risked a look back.
The chopper was on its side in about fifteen feet of water, what was left of the blades still straining to do their job as the craft began to settle to the bottom. The bullets had punched through the front window and probably killed the pilot. Water sucked in through the splintered glass, speeding the chopper on its way to the bottom of the cove. The fate of those in the backseat was uncertain, but he saw no signs of movement.
Uneasily he scanned the cliff tops. In the dark, it was impossible to tell where the shooter was holed up, nor did he want to take the time to find out.
He pulled her to the stern. “Keep going toward the channel. Get help from whoever you can.”
She opened her mouth to answer, but he was already climbing onto the gunwale, preparing to dive.
Her eyes were wide, lashes flecked with water. They shone, marvelous in the moonlight and for a moment he wished he could stop everything and just soak in the sight of her.
“You’re going to try and get them out?” she said, mouth agape.
“Yeah. Not that they deserve it.”
Her lips quirked into a smile. “I thought Mrs. Grossman was the exception.”
He rubbed a hand across his face. “I did, too. Keep your head down.”
“Jett—” she started.
“Yeah?”
“I’ll pull the boat up as close as I can to help with the victims.”
“No,” he snapped as firmly as he could manage. “The shooters are coming back. Get out. Get help. Please.”
Her expression didn’t change. It was serene somehow, and suffused with something. Could it be pride in him? No, he didn’t think so, but it was a delicious notion for the second he entertained it.
“Jett,” she said, “we’re going to do this together.”
“No, we’re not.” Was he really having this argument with a helicopter wreck in the background and armed shooters combing the island?
She just smiled at him. “Normal women would head for the channel, you know,” he snapped, realizing he was once again going to lose.
“Who said I was a normal woman?”
He could think of nothing to reply to that.
“Dive, Mr. Navy Man,” she said sweetly. “They’re running out of air.”
Marco often said the Gallagher sisters would have made great combat soldiers. Jett figured Marco was wrong on that count. If Sarah was representative of the whole clan, they’d be discharged for disobeying orders in a flash. He dived, grumbling to himself all the way down. He imagined Sarah laughing at him from the surface.
FOURTEEN
Fortunately, the lights from the helicopter were still operating and the soft glow showed Jett the way through the turbulence. He kicked hard through the swirling water and made it to the cockpit, peering through the ruined glass. There was no sign of the pilot. He’d probably not had time in the course of their hurried departure to fasten himself in and the impact of the crash had ejected his body into the ocean. Unlikely he’d filed a flight plan. Poor guy. Jett hoped it had been quick and painless.
Jett figured since the chopper hadn’t even cleared the cliffs before it was shot down, there would likely be no attention from the coast guard or the harbor patrol, either. They were on their own, like they had been since the start of this whole surreal situation.
He swam to the body of the aircraft, tugging on the door. It would not budge due to the pressure of the water. Leveraging himself on a landing skid, he tried to heave the door open. Through the glass, he could make out Ellsworth and Young. Ellsworth sat in his chair, looking calm and composed as the water began to fill the interior, as if he was waiting for instructions. Young lolled in his seat, eyes closed and his head slumped forward onto his chest.
Jett’s lungs were burning. It was nothing near the excruciating dive training he’d received in EOD school. At least no one was whacking at him the way his instructors used to do to gauge his level of calm in the water. He returned to the cockpit window and started to kick out the shattered glass. He’d made a sizable hole
when his ears started to ring and his vision blurred.
Not now, he hissed, but the fuzziness remained, and he knew he didn’t have much time.
He used to be able to hold his breath underwater for more than three minutes. Thanks to his head injury, he’d lost his edge, along with his dignity and more of his confidence than he’d like to admit. Maybe he was weakened due to exhaustion.
He thought about Marco’s favorite saying—I don’t stop when I’m tired. I stop when I’m done.
The memory fueled his strength, and he kicked out again, widening the hole until the dizziness almost overwhelmed him. Frustration churning in his gut, he kicked up to the surface, sucking in a breath, hoping his vision would clear.
Sarah spotted him immediately.
“What’s the status?” she called.
After a moment to suck in some oxygen, he gasped out what he knew, using the time to try to get his system back online. The dizziness was subsiding, and he thought his vision was clearing.
“I’m gonna go back down in a sec...” His words trailed off when she jumped into the water with him.
“What are you doing?”
“I anchored the boat.” She shook the hair out of her eyes, splattering him in the process. “I’m helping you since you can’t bring them both up at once.”
“No way, Sarah. You are not going down there.”
She smiled, face unbearably lovely and mischievous in the sliver of moonlight. “Haven’t we established by now that you aren’t the boss of me?” She left him there, mouth open, and kicked away down into the water.
Pulling in another deep breath and hoping his body would cooperate, he trailed her down.
The rest of the cockpit window came away easily, and they swam past the pilot’s seat and surfaced in the cabin air pocket. The water level had risen. It was nearly to the unconscious Young’s head, a precious eighteen inches of oxygen keeping them from drowning. Ellsworth was standing on his seat now, head close to the ceiling, eyeing them.
“What’s happened?” he demanded.
“Beretta’s men shot you down,” Jett explained. “Your pilot is dead.”
“How do I get out of here?”
Obviously he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over his pilot’s death. “You’re going to swim out the cockpit window and up to the surface. We’ve got the boat ready.”
“I don’t know how to swim.”
Jett sighed. A guy who owned his own island didn’t take the time to learn to swim? “Then I’ll tow you.”
Ellsworth cocked his head again in that birdlike manner, wary. “And why would you do that?”
He didn’t know how to answer for a moment. “Something to do with an old lady and dog kibble,” he said finally. He turned to Sarah, who was checking Young for a pulse.
“He’s alive.” She unfastened his harness and crooked her arm around his neck. “I’ll cover his nose and mouth and get to the surface as fast as I can.”
He debated. Was it better for him to accompany Ellsworth, who might panic and fight, or Young, who was a dead weight? At the rate the cabin was filling, he didn’t have time to get Ellsworth to the boat and return for Young. It would have to work.
He gave Sarah a stern look. “All right, but if it becomes too much, get yourself to the surface and leave Young to me.”
She nodded.
“Okay,” he said to Ellsworth. “You’re going to take a deep breath and hold it. You can grab onto my shirt and I’ll guide you.”
He could see the muscles knotting in Ellsworth’s throat. “I do not think I can do that.”
Jett’s patience was ebbing low. “If you want to live, you don’t have a choice.”
Sarah was already swimming past him, towing the inert Del Young along. He gave her a nod with more assurance than he felt. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“You’d better be,” she said, in a tone that reminded him of Marco. She took a breath and disappeared with her patient under the water.
He turned back to Ellsworth. The water had risen another few inches, and his head was jammed against the metal side in the precious pocket of air. His mouth was pinched, the skin of his face an unnatural pallor, as if he was carved from a piece of white stone.
“I...” He swallowed convulsively. “There is something wrong. With my body.”
Jett looked for signs of outward trauma, but he saw none. Didn’t matter anyway. The top of the triage list was to prevent the guy from drowning—everything else would have to wait.
“We’ll check you over after we get out of here.”
Ellsworth wasn’t listening. “My heart is pounding and there is a tension in my stomach. I feel light-headed.”
Jett looked on incredulously as the water crept up his chin. “Mr. Ellsworth, that’s called fear.”
“Fear.” Ellsworth cocked his head.
“Yes, fear. You must have felt it before.”
“Only once, three months ago,” he said faintly. “But I did not know it was fear.”
The guy was certifiable.
“What should I do?” He turned gray eyes on Jett, searching for some answer to a problem that was way beyond Jett’s ability to fix.
What did a person do with fear? What did Jett do with his?
“You beat it down,” Jett said. “You’re gonna shove it back, hold your breath, and I’m going to get you out of here.”
Ellsworth seemed to be considering Jett’s words, but there was no more time for talk since there were only six inches of air remaining.
He took Ellsworth’s arm. “Deep breath and here we go.” With a hard tug, he forced Ellsworth off the chair and into the water. The man’s hands clamped around Jett’s arm. He propelled them to the cockpit and out the shattered window.
The going was slow after that. Ellsworth did not have the instinct to help kick, and he was a dead weight. Jett finally maneuvered himself behind Ellsworth and grabbed him around the neck, swimming on his back as hard as he could. Lights sparked in his field of vision. Ellsworth’s fingers clawed into his arms and the distance to the surface seemed interminable. The ringing started up in his head now, louder, overwhelming his senses. He felt his muscles numbing, as if they were slowly icing over, his limbs growing heavy.
You can do this, Jett, he told himself. Mental toughness. Don’t stop until you’re done.
He kicked with all his might. There were no more than eight feet left to the surface, but he began to lose ground, drifting back, victim of an irreversible pull that was sucking him down toward the wreck, toward his death.
“No,” he cried out in his mind. Desperately he tried to kick harder, to pull through the water with his free arm. His chest burned and his limbs moved in slow motion. He would succeed; he would overcome this small distance between life and death.
But his body began to close in on itself, his vision narrowing down into two tiny pinpricks and then blinking off into darkness.
* * *
Sarah pulled and shoved Del Young into the motorboat. She sat on her knees, panting, muscles trembling from the effort. Forcing herself into motion, she checked her victim’s vitals. He was breathing. Her spirits lifted until she felt his pulse die away under her fingers.
Lacing her palms together, she began compressions, fighting against her shivering to keep a steady rhythm.
“Come on, Mr. Young,” she hissed. “Don’t quit on me now.”
All the while she was performing the compressions she kept glancing toward the water, waiting to see Jett and Ellsworth make it to the surface.
After a full cycle she checked Young’s pulse. There it was, the tiny flutter of motion that marked the presence of the most divine gift. His heart continued to beat, and he breathed in shallow gusts.
She rolled him on his side, wishing she h
ad a blanket to put over him. Peering over the bow, she scanned for the shadows of Jett and Ellsworth, but she saw nothing.
How long had it been? She’d lost track of time in the arduous journey with Young in tow and the seemingly endless CPR. She leaned over the side of the bobbing motorboat, staring until her eyes burned. Surely they should have resurfaced by now. A moment more, she’d give them a moment more.
The seconds ticked away and still no sign of them. Bubbles rose to the surface as the helicopter settled deeper into ruin. Had Jett turned back for some reason? Or Ellsworth panicked and fought him?
She was scrambling over the side to dive in again when a figure rose, thrashing and gulping air.
“Help me,” Ellsworth said, voice high with panic.
She grabbed his clothes and pulled. He surged over the side and into the bottom of the boat, water streaming off his suit jacket. Gasping, he got to his knees, hands braced against the bottom.
“Where’s Jett?”
He didn’t answer, wiping at the rivulets pouring from his hair.
“Where’s Jett?” she snapped, gripping his arm and forcing him to look at her.
“I don’t know.” He peered around him. “We need to get back to land.”
“We’ve got to get Jett.”
Ellsworth blinked at her. “If he isn’t here by now, he’s probably drowned. There’s no sense looking for him.” He scanned the boat as if he was trying to figure out how to raise the anchor.
“But he rescued you,” she said, staring in utter disbelief. “And you’d leave him to die?”
Ellsworth turned a distracted gaze on her. “Who?” he said.
Who? Ellsworth stared at her with the bland, innocent expression of a child. How had his heart become so warped that he could feel no compassion, no concern even for the man who’d risked his life to save him?
“Mr. Ellsworth,” she said, “while you’re down on your knees, why don’t you pray to God to restore your soul?”
An odd expression crossed his face. “You are so like my Mary,” he said. “So very much like her.”