As the thought took shape in her mind, she heard Kevonne and Pang start to laugh. The crane operator had taken a new approach. The crane itself had dipped down between two stacks of containers, each half a dozen high, and now it swung. Tori took a step back in surprise as the top four in the pile nearest the edge toppled off the deck and into the water.
“That’s it,” Gabe said. “No time for precision.”
Even so, Tori kept glancing at the western horizon and then at the work in progress, silently urging Miguel and the others on the Antoinette to hurry. Sunset seemed to be approaching much faster than they could build their bridge. Dusk would come too soon.
Once again, her fate had been taken out of her hands, and Tori hated it. She stood on the edge of the freighter’s deck, washed in golden, late afternoon sunlight, and stared back the way they had come, at the opposite side of the deck. Darkness yawned in the space between freighter and lopsided schooner, and Tori watched intently, waiting for the moment when those long, hideous fingers would come up from the shadows and the creatures would slither onto the deck.
At sunset, they would come.
~53~
Josh opened his eyes, unsure at first what had woken him. He’d been out for a few minutes, maybe longer. Not asleep, but unconscious. That didn’t bode well. With Angie’s help he had torn up his shirt and bound the gunshot wound in his shoulder, but whenever he moved he paid for it with searing pain that brought beads of sweat out on his forehead.
Now he looked down, saw that blood had soaked through the shirt, but when he touched the cloth with his good hand it felt tacky, like it had begun to dry. The bleeding seemed to have slowed or stopped. He might not die from the gunshot after all—the bullet had passed all the way through, and that was a plus—but infection could still get him.
Off to his left, in the dimming light inside the wheelhouse, someone shifted. He glanced over and saw Angie unclip a heavy duty emergency flashlight from the charger where it was mounted near the portside door. She moved casually, but with purpose, walking toward Suarez, who sat by the wheel, watching the progress Miguel and the others were making with the crane.
Suarez sensed her coming and turned, starting to frown, perhaps to chastise her. A flicker of alarm crossed his features as Angie came in too close and his hand began to move toward the gun in his waistband.
Angie struck him with the heavy flashlight, right across the bridge of his nose. Suarez let out a grunt as blood gushed from his nostrils. Angie kept moving, driving him into the control panel and the wheel. She let the flashlight drop from her grip and it shattered as it hit the ground, and then they were grappling together, both of them reaching for his gun. Angie got it first, pulling it out, raising the barrel, but Suarez slapped it out of her hand and it skittered across the floor toward the back of the wheelhouse.
They went down, grunting, hands tangled in hair or closing around throats.
“Stupid, woman. What the hell you think you—“
“I don’t want to die, you asshole!” Angie screamed in Suarez’s face.
He tried to reason with her as they continued grappling. Suarez slipped her grasp and crawled toward the gun, but Angie grabbed him by the belt and drove her fist into his crotch. With a cry of pain, Suarez doubled up. Angie tried to get past him, but despite his pain he got his fingers wrapped in her hair again and grabbed her arm, pulling her back.
Josh forced himself to stand, sliding up the wall. Pain set off fireworks in his head and he swayed, breathing through his teeth, nearly collapsing again. Then he staggered across the wheelhouse to the two chairs that were affixed to the floor in front of the wheel. He snatched the PLB from the console, but his left arm hung useless and he could not slide it from its leather holster.
As Angie and Suarez fought, he set the PLB back on the console, rested his hand on it, and managed to slip it out of the holster. He flipped open the face plate, blinking back the pain, and pressed the two blue buttons there simultaneously, holding them down until the little gadget issued a long beep.
“You can stop, now,” he said.
Suarez and Angie had barely noticed him moving, but now they dragged themselves away from each other, scratched and bloody and wearing foolish expressions. Then Angie grinned.
“You set it off?” she asked.
Josh nodded, staring at Suarez. “No point in shooting anyone, now, Mr. Suarez. The signal is sent. My people will follow the beacon. They’ll be coming.”
Suarez seemed to deflate. He knelt on the floor, looking somehow much older than he had before, and then slumped back to sit, legs sprawled in front of him, as though in surrender.
Then he looked up at Josh and said, “Thank God.”
~54~
A helicopter, Rachael Voss thought. The ship that the FBI gave Ed Turcotte’s Counter Terrorism squad had its own helicopter. Voss wasn’t generally the jealous type, but she couldn’t help envying that, thinking about all the cases she’d worked where it would’ve been handy to have her own helicopter.
Turcotte had caught up with her little cluster of Coast Guard, ICE, and FBI boats forty-five minutes ago, and in the time since then he had managed to talk to the commanders of every vessel except for hers. It had been Voss’s case from the beginning, her command, but Turcotte wanted to send her a message, let her know that she wasn’t at the helm anymore. Counter Terrorism had taken over. It didn’t matter that nobody had a single shred of evidence that Viscaya’s operations had supported or aided terrorism within or outside the United States. They wanted the bust—wanted to make a big splash on the news about a terrorist cell operating out of Miami, and how Homeland Security was keeping America safe—and they would take it.
Voss might have been able to hold them off longer, but with Josh out of contact for so long, Chauncey and DelRosso couldn’t argue anymore. They’d put it down as her fuckup, her op, and if Special Agent Joshua Hart turned up dead, that would be on her as well.
Rachael’s heart felt cracked in half. Maybe they were all right; maybe she had lost perspective, and Ed Turcotte taking over this case was the only way to salvage anything out of it—arrests, smuggled guns, any tiny victory for the FBI, and maybe, if they were lucky, Josh’s life.
He’s not dead, Voss told herself. Insisted to herself.
But so much time had passed, even she had stopped believing it.
Her cell phone trilled. She glanced down at the screen and saw that it was Turcotte himself calling. Out there on his ship--a loan from the goddamned military, with its shiny black helicopter--he had finally deigned to speak with her, just to tell her she could fuck off and go home now if she wanted, that she was relieved of command.
Pavarotti came up from below, hustling, feet pounding the steps. “Rachael!”
She sighed. How many times did she have to tell him?
Her cell phone kept ringing. She punched TALK, raised it to her ear. “This is Voss.”
As she did, Pavarotti grabbed her arm, spun her around. She would have screamed at him, maybe decked him, but then she saw the smile on his face, the light dancing in his eyes. They’d only had sex the one time, but right then she thought maybe seconds were in order.
“Rachael, it’s Ed Turcotte,” the voice said in her ear. Presumptuous with her first name, the asshole. “Your squad has done all you can. We’re going to take it from here. I’ll want you to stick around in a support capacity. Here’s the plan—“
“Actually, Ed, there’s a new plan,” she said, grinning at Pavarotti. “Special Agent Hart just set off his beacon. We’ve got the tracking system set up, and we’re heading out. Feel free to follow along.”
She gestured to Pavarotti, pointed toward the wheelhouse, and he set off running. He’d get them moving, tracing the beacon.
“Hang on a second, Rachael,” Turcotte said, sounding all pissy. “It isn’t for you to say—“
“You can have the bust, Ed. I couldn’t give a shit. You can say they’re Martian jihadists for all I care. I just
want my partner back safe. Now, we’re the ones set up to track the beacon, so unless you’re going to order us to stand down while we’ve got an agent in deep cover signaling us to come get his ass out of danger, not to mention a boatload of suspects in a two year investigation waiting for you to arrest them, I’d like to get going. Maybe you’ll even get to play with your helicopter.”
Turcotte didn’t reply for a second, and Voss feared he had hung up on her. When he did speak, his voice was low and even.
“By all means, lead the way.”
~55~
Tori twisted her ankle jumping from the freighter’s deck. The drop couldn’t have been more than ten feet, but she had to leap straight out to reach the makeshift bridge created by the haphazardly placed containers. She landed badly, tipping to the right, and let momentum carry her forward, fresh sparks of fear erupting in her mind. How close was the edge? She spread out her hands, slowed her slide, and came to rest face down on the warm metal roof of a freshly painted container, chest heaving.
Her right hand hung out over the edge, fifteen feet above the water.
With a strangled cry, she brought her hand in and rolled onto her back. A loud clang sounded as Gabe landed a few feet back, stumbling onto all fours. He stood immediately, grimacing as his knees popped. Dark circles had formed under his eyes and his expression had gone slack.
“Tori!” he snapped.
“I know!”
She flipped over, scrambled to her feet, and started moving. The metal rang with every footfall, echoing inside the container. Gabe kept pace just a few steps behind, his heavier tread thunderous. He was breathing hard, and she imagined she could feel his breath on the back of her neck.
Ahead, Pang and Kevonne had already jumped to the next container. A glance at them made Tori gasp. It had taken more than two hours for Miguel to finish laying the containers down for this rudimentary bridge. Some of the metal boxes were tilted, and others were separated by gaps that might well be too wide for them to jump. But they were out of time, now, and it would have to do.
Twilight had come.
On the western horizon, the sun shimmered just above the water. To her right, the sides of the containers above the water were still washed with a warm, golden light, but the waves—splashing higher now—had gone dark.
Tori wouldn’t even look to her left. She knew better. On the eastern side of that makeshift metal walkway, the creatures had started to crawl up out of the water, clinging to the sides of the containers in the indigo gloom. Their singing had grown louder.
Up on the deck of the Antoinette, silhouettes shouted down at them to hurry, to run, and she wanted to scream back at them and tell them how totally unhelpful they were. With the spray from the sea, the smooth metal of the container was slippery, and she moved as fast as she could. A wrong step now would slide her right off into the water and she wouldn’t let that happen; she had to stay in control. Looking at the sinking sun terrified her almost as much as the thought of glimpsing the sickly things lurking just out of reach of the daylight to her left, but she could not afford to run.
The first gap was only a few feet, and she and Gabe both cleared it with ease, slipping a little, but then hurrying on. When Tori came to the end of the second container, she paused, hands fluttering up to clutch the sides of her head, glancing around as she tried to figure out how to cross. The next container slanted down, away from them. The gap here must have been four or five feet.
“Just jump!” Gabe said.
Tori glanced down to the left. White, translucent fingers clutched at the edge of the next container, down in the shadows just above the water.
“I’ll side right down,” she said.
“Good! It’ll be faster!” Gabe snapped. “Go, or let me by!”
She knew he meant it. What got her moving, though, was the sight of Kevonne and Pang up ahead, nearly to the end of the container she was about to jump onto. It slanted down toward the water, coming within half a dozen feet of the waves—and whatever lurked beneath them. But the next container was a good four feet higher, and the one after that—though angled badly—even higher. Miguel had started dumping whole stacks of them overboard closer to the Antoinette, so the containers were like a jumble of huge stones, providing several possible paths to the ship. As she watched, Pang jumped up, grabbed the edge of the higher containers, and hauled himself on top of it.
“Tori, the sun!” Gabe shouted.
She backed up seven paces, took a breath, stared down at her feet a second—and saw that twilight had truly arrived. The gloom had begun to gather, making everything in her perception vague and golden.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, suddenly sure they would not make it.
Tori ran and leaped, pulling her feet up, and landed on the next container, sliding down it much faster than she’d expected. Her heart pounded as she slid to the left and she put a hand down, trying to stop her slide, twisting around. Her legs were out in front of her, and she kept them straight as she collided with the next container, the impact ringing out over the waves.
The opening between the two containers might only have been twenty inches or so, but she was only six feet above the water. Frantic, she scrambled back up a little ways, pulling her legs away, staring at the darkness of that narrow gap as she jumped to her feet.
Kevonne and Pang had been here moments ago. They would reach the Antoinette first. Tori wanted to be with them. She wanted to be safe, locked in her quarters, surrounded by metal. A prison cell would do, at this point. She ran two steps and jumped up, grabbed hold of the top of the next container as she had seen Pang do, and pulled herself up. For a second she didn’t think she had the strength, but panic gave her a boost and she dragged herself onto the container’s roof. Still only ten feet off the water, but better.
Until she heard Pang shout just ahead, and the people up on the deck of the Antoinette screaming frantically down at them, and then the shriek of a voice that barely sounded human. Tori faltered, staring straight ahead, where Pang now stood alone at the edge of a container.
“Kevonne!” he shouted, stalking back and forth, jittery, gazing into the water. “Jesus, Kevonne!”
As Tori hurried toward him, Pang glanced at her, then at the setting sun. He shook his head, stepped back, and leaped to the next container. Only one more to go beyond that, and he would be at the ship. The crew of the Antoinette was lowering a lifeboat on its cables. If they could reach it, the crew would haul them up to safety.
Gabe pounded along behind her; she could feel the tremors in the metal beneath her feet. Tori raced after Pang, but he had become almost a silhouette himself. She glanced at the horizon and saw that the sun had begun to melt into water, gliding down over the edge of the world.
“No, please,” she whispered, her chest aching with a thousand regrets.
Biting her lip, she kept on. The sirens’ voices grew louder, the song rising. Tori slipped, threw her arms out, steadied herself, and reached the next gap. The containers had landed at odd angles. She went to the right corner, took a breath, and jumped up. Her foot slipped and her shin cracked against the edge of the container’s roof, but momentum carried her forward and she regained her feet in seconds.
“Out of the way!” Gabe shouted.
Tori twisted around to see him jumping. She stepped back as he landed, fell, and spilled off to the side, his left leg shooting out into space. Into darkness.
Long, sickly white fingers wrapped around his ankle, suckers sinking into the flesh. Gabe’s eyes went wide as he screamed and tried to pull his leg from its grasp. The thing held on, its head rising just above the edge of the container. The last dim glow of daylight made its hand and face steam and blister and its song went silent. But it did not let go.
“Get off!” Gabe shouted, as it dragged him nearer the edge. He looked up, eyes wide, and stared at Tori. “Help me!”
“Pang!” she cried. “Pang, come back!”
But she knew Pang would not come back,
not with the sun vanishing on the horizon. Knowing she should be running, saving herself, Tori grabbed Gabe’s outstretched hand and braced herself, giving him something to hang on to, some leverage. “Pull!” she screamed.
Gabe’s face had gone red with pain and effort, but he couldn’t free himself. Tori knew she didn’t have the strength, and neither did he. One of the guns she’d had on the lifeboat had been lost when she’d landed in the water, but she reached behind her and tugged out the other. Holding Gabe’s wrist with one hand, she pointed at the creature’s oil-black eyes and pulled the trigger, expecting a kick. Nothing happened.
Swearing, she cast the gun aside, realizing it had been fouled with sea water when she’d had to swim for the trawler. But Gabe hadn’t gone under the water. She needed the small pistol whose handle even now jutted from Gabe’s rear waistband.
She threw herself on top of him, heard the thump of his forehead against metal and his grunt of pain and surprise. Then she snatched the gun from his belt, thumbed the safety, and took aim. The creature opened its jaw impossibly wide, darted hundreds of tiny fangs toward her hand, toward the gun.
Tori put a bullet through its throat, then a second through its head.
Creamy ichor, laced with red, burst out the back of its skull, and it slipped off of Gabe, detaching from his flesh and the container. The suckers pulled away from metal with a disgusting, wet smacking, but where the fingers had wrapped around Gabe’s leg, they pulled skin away with them. Gabe let out a roar of pain even as he dragged his leg in and staggered to his feet.
“Thanks,” he said, throwing an arm around her, limping as they hustled toward the last container.
The Ocean Dark Page 28