by Adam Carter
Thompson broke the surface thirty seconds later, gunfire striking the water immediately. She could see a boat now, a speedboat circling her. It wasn’t the definitive trademark make of the one she had used, she noted uselessly, but a speedboat was a speedboat and there was no chance of her out-swimming it.
Yanking the radio from her arm she all but screamed down the line. “Thompson! I’m under fire, in the river next to the big explosion. For God’s sake send someone to ...”
More gunfire, and a pain lanced through her leg, the shock forcing her to drop the radio, which went tumbling away beneath her, lost in the river’s murkiness forever. She felt a numbing cold shooting up her leg, could see an ugly cloud forming about her limb, although everything was red and yellow in the light of the flames. Her mind began to panic, but she refused to go into shock. She started paddling once more, looking around frantically, trying to locate the shore.
The speedboat rushed past her, and she was caught in its wake, being tossed by a wave, going under for several moments. She came up spluttering, but the speedboat was circling her. Perhaps it was trying to make a whirlpool to suck her down, perhaps it was just toying with her; either way the shooting had stopped. Thompson fought to retain her senses, again trying to see the direction of the shore, but she was becoming so turned around by the circling boat it was all she could do to tread water and keep her head afloat.
Something struck her on the back of the head, hard, and she went under, the rapids pushing her down, water filling her lungs as a huge shape passed by overhead. She knew the boat had rammed her, and as her eyes began to dim she forced herself to stay conscious. If she did not break the surface in moments she would be dead; she could worry about her attackers once she was breathing again.
But being forced underwater had an adverse effect on her ability to comprehend direction and the more she fought to swim, the more she was certain she was headed in the wrong direction. The sky was dark; the only light was coming from the flames and she didn’t want to head for them.
Yet that was the one place the boat likely wasn’t going to go.
Pushing herself for all she was worth, Thompson swam for the bright light. Her face broke the surface and she gasped in precious air, her chest tightening as at the same time it attempted to expel the water it had taken in. She grabbed hold of a wooden strut of the flaming pier, looking about her as she hung on for dear life. She could see a rowboat about ten metres from her, and now noted it contained two men. One was handling the steering, the other was dropping his two pistols and was now hefting a rifle. Her plan was falling apart: they didn’t have to come to the pier to get her. By making for the bright light she had just made herself the biggest target on the river.
Suddenly something landed in the boat. Thomson figured she must have been hallucinating, knew she was on the verge of passing out anyway, because it looked like someone had just dropped from the sky. It was dark, the flickering flames weren’t helping her vision any, and the heat upon her face was intense. Her brain was awash with confusion already born of oxygen starvation and her skin was blistering where she hung onto the pier, knowing to let go would be to drift away and die.
She watched then as the descending angel attacked, his fist slamming into the gunman’s face and sending him over the side. Her saviour grabbed the boat’s driver by the shoulder and hefted him into the air, literally throwing him ten metres into the sky. Thompson didn’t see or hear him land, what with the noise of the flames all about her.
She felt her mind ebbing, her fingers numbing, and a strange and blissful emptiness was filling her being. Her injured leg had entirely frozen now, and she was vaguely aware of the lashing waves continually covering her, enticing her from the pier like a siren. She could feel nothing with her fingers, but her eyes, still marginally working even over the heat and intense illumination of the flames, were screaming at her that she had let go of the pier.
Thompson felt herself falling. Her head went under the river for the final time, and it was as though she had dropped from an aeroplane, spreading her body and waiting for the parachute to unfold.
Something pierced her arm, something else her shoulder. She could see very little, could understand even less, but her body was suddenly a mass of tiny attacks, with a peculiar weight pushing her in the small of her back. She broke the surface once more and immediately the tiny attacks ceased and she heard a roar as something shot past her. The next thing she knew something had snaked out to grab her by the collar and she was hoisted into the air and dumped unceremoniously into the speedboat. She rolled onto her stomach, lifting herself on shaky elbows as she hacked up copious amounts of filthy water. Her breathing was laboured, her heart racing, her body frozen. She looked up to see a tall man in a trench coat steering the boat around so they could place as much distance from the pier as possible. She did not have to have him turn around so she could see his face to know it was set with an almost permanent scowl of everything living.
“Thanks for the save, Baronaire,” she said, her body wracked with another fit of coughing in that instant. She fell onto her backside and noticed her leg was still bleeding freely from the gunshot wound. Unzipping her shiny black diving suit, she shrugged out of the wet material and drawing a knife tore off a few strips, with which she made a tourniquet. Thompson was far from a doctor, but every officer in her division undertook basic survival skill training, and having grown up on a military base Thompson had learned more than her fair share of survival skills.
Beneath the wetsuit she had been wearing only a black vest and underwear, and she looked at her bare limbs with a frown. There were tiny marks all down her arms. They weren’t enough to pierce the skin and draw blood, but there were marks nevertheless which would fade soon enough. She thought back to her experience in the river, wondering what had happened. It was as though dozens of small animals had bitten her, holding her steady as something else, or a mass of something else, forced her to the surface.
“You OK?” she asked when she realised her backup had yet to say a word. “You’re a bit quiet, even for you.”
He glanced her way then, and she could see he was far from impressed. “I’m sure you had a reason for such a stupid action, but I’m not the one you’re going to have to explain it to.”
“Worked, didn’t it? And I knew you’d come through for me, Baronaire. You always come through.”
“I hate rivers,” he grumped. “I don’t even know why, I just ... If I never have to cross another river I’ll be a happy man.”
“Fear of rivers, well that’s one I wouldn’t have put you down for.” She rose unsteadily, one hand upon the edge of the boat. Testing her leg, she decided she’d be fine so long as she didn’t put too much weight on it. “We heading straight back?”
“Unless you fancy enjoying the moonlight.” By his tone she gathered the correct answer wouldn’t be yes.
Hobbling, she forced herself to use the wounded leg, which was at last starting to have some feeling. Numbness was good for ignoring the pain, but she preferred not to have her body so unresponsive. If she had a problem with her body she needed the pain to tell her just what it was. After all, that was what pain was for. She ambled closer to where Baronaire stood, and leaned against the side of the boat. “Seriously though, thanks for coming by. How’d you get here so fast?”
“Does it matter?”
“I don’t know how far my mind was gone back there, but I was seeing some pretty weird things.”
“You can’t just be grateful you’re alive?”
She got the impression he was angry, and it wasn’t just because he had been forced onto the river. Charles Baronaire did not like revealing anything about himself, and she was beginning to believe he was annoyed that he had done just that. All Thompson could think, however, was that he didn’t like to admit his weaknesses.
“The bullet went straight through,” she said, if only to make conversation. “Lucky me.”
He glanced to her leg, and the
re was an odd glint to his eyes. In her time on the force Detective Thompson had seen some pretty foul things from some pretty foul people, and she had seen that look before. It was hunger. She shuddered at the thought of Baronaire being one of those weirdoes who got off on cutting his lovers.
She shook her head. Oxygen starvation really was getting to her if she was having such terrible thoughts about not only a colleague but the man who had just saved her life.
The boat shuddered and Thompson almost fell overboard. She looked to Baronaire; then heard something ping off the side of the boat again. Turning her head, she could see another speedboat heading straight for them. There was a man standing on its back, taking pot-shots at them. Thompson watched as the barrel flashed once more and she ducked lest it tear through her head.
“I’m steering here,” Baronaire told her. “You want to start shooting back?”
“With what?”
Then she remembered the rifle and her eyes searched frantically until she found it. There were no other weapons in the boat – they had all gone overboard with its previous occupants – but she had used a rifle many times before and set its barrel on the side of the boat to steady it. She crouched, making herself a smaller target, while at the same time steadying her arm: especially with her wounded leg.
She fired once, her shot blowing out one of the enemy boat’s lights. The driver panicked, turning the boat, but unfortunately he turned it in the direction which made sure Thompson could no longer see it very well. Perhaps taking out the lights wasn’t such a good idea after all.
She drew the gun about and fired again, her shot slamming through the side of the boat. The gunman on the other boat cracked off a shot and she felt it whiz past her ear. Unperturbed, knowing panic would get them both killed, Thompson followed the passage of the boat, compensated for the rise and fall of both vehicles on the waves, led her target, and squeezed the trigger.
The gunman span away, an arc of blood exploding from his face.
“Gun it!” Thompson told Baronaire, and he poured on as much speed as he could. But the engine was spluttering and Thompson feared they were out of juice.
“I think we took a hit,” Baronaire said. Thompson leaned over the side of the boat and could see a hole through the side. Fuel was gushing out, and she knew they had been fortunate to have lasted this long. She noted Baronaire was veering for the shore, and looked back to see two more speedboats heading their way.
“How many boats do these guys have?” she muttered.
“You tell me,” Baronaire said icily. “It’s your case, you should have found out this sort of thing beforehand.”
It was a fair enough scolding, and Thompson bit her lip.
The boat finally coughed its last and they still had yet to make it to the shore. “Go limp,” Baronaire told her. She had no idea what he meant, but noticed their boat wasn’t slowing any. With the last of their fuel had Baronaire put them on a crash course with the shore, and Thompson stared wide eyed as the ground came to meet them. Baronaire grabbed her and held her tightly in his arms. He stood there with legs parted, waiting, Thompson curled in his arms like a frightened girl a fire-fighter had just rescued from a blaze. He did not move at all, and as the dirt and sand and broken wood rushed in to meet them Thompson buried her face in his shoulder.
And suddenly they were flying. She held more tightly, her fingers digging into his shirt beneath his coat. There was an impact, and then nothing.
“You can open your eyes now.”
She did so. They were standing on the wood of the shoreline, and the impact had been Baronaire’s feet slamming into the slats. Beneath she could see the waves slapping the shore, the broken speedboat lying in pieces all about. Her eyes widened at the distance they must have leaped, and she turned them upon her companion, staring into his stony visage.
“Why aren’t we dead?” she gasped.
“You sure find some dumb things to complain about.”
“You want to put me down yet?”
“With that bum leg?”
Gunfire pinged off the wood about their feet and Thompson could see the two speedboats coming back around. There were also men running towards them from the direction of the burning pier, and she clasped Baronaire tightly. “Just go!”
Baronaire ran, seemingly unperturbed by her weight. He turned from the water, leaping through a low window of a warehouse on the docks. Most of the buildings here were empty, which was why Thompson’s target had chosen it as his place to do business that night. They landed in upon a dark, damp floor, the wind creaking the fragile wood and blasting in upon them. Dressed only in the lower half of her wetsuit and tight black vest, soaked through by the spray of water, Thompson was freezing.
Baronaire ran quickly with her in his arms, ducking low girders and passing through doorways as though he could see perfectly well.
Behind her light exploded as the men followed with torches.
“If we can make it to the front of the warehouse we should be all right,” she whispered to Baronaire.
“No, they’ll be covering that. But these old buildings are connected, and the tunnel should still be here with any luck.”
“How do you even know that?”
“It was a precaution during the war. Not many people know about it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” He set her down and began searching the floor, moving aside large wooden girders as though they were matchsticks. Thompson figured they were rotten and likely easy to move, but she was still impressed by his strength. A moment later she was also impressed with his vision as he crouched, brushing at the dust with his hand. “Found it.”
“I don’t see it.”
“Good. That means our pursuers won’t either.” He raised a trapdoor and peered down. “You won’t be able to see, but you don’t have to. Just crawl on your hands and knees and follow the tunnel. When it comes to the end it means there’s a hatch above you. With any luck it’ll be free of debris. If not, turn the corner and try the next hatch. Wherever you come up, they won’t be surrounding that building.”
“What?” Thompson asked. “What about you? You’re coming with me.”
But Baronaire shook his head. “I need to draw these guys off. With torches, they’ll find this hatch easily, especially now it’s uncovered. I need to hide it, then make sure they don’t realise you’re headed away from this place.”
“If you stay here they’ll kill you.”
A tight smile came to his face. “Doubtful. But thanks for caring.”
“Wait, no, I ... You’re not making me go in there without you.”
Baronaire took her hands in his and seemed about to say something. They heard shouts coming from nearby and he said instead, “Don’t have a whole lot of choice.” He picked her up effortlessly and placed her gently down the hole. For someone with such obvious strength he could sometimes have the hands of the most studious lover.
“Good luck,” he said and closed the trapdoor. Thompson’s final view of his face was one of relief that she was safe, and hope that she would remain so. Thompson sat within that dark tunnel for several moments as she listened to the wood being piled atop the trapdoor. She heard another shout, gunfire, and more shouting. Her every sense was screaming at her to get back up there, to help him; but she couldn’t even if she thought it was a good idea. She would not move all that rubble by herself, not from down here.
And so she followed Baronaire’s instructions and began to crawl. She could see nothing in the pitch, and several times her hands and knees scraped against jutting pieces of wood and stone. Her fingers brushed against something sticky and she felt a rat crawl across her leg before vanishing. She had never had a revulsion of rats and found the creature almost hypnotising, as though it was an ally in this madness. Certainly it was better than the men outside and if the rat knew the way she was perfectly happy to follow it. Her wound was crying out to her, but she gritted her teeth through all this adversity and continued.
At last
she came to an ending, and turned upon her back to feel around the ceiling with her hands. Just as Baronaire had predicted, she felt the seams of a trapdoor and pushed. It did not give, and she pushed harder. A small spattering of light filtered through and she gave one final almighty shove and the trapdoor opened. Bringing herself back to a sitting position, Thompson crawled out of the hole and found herself in another building entirely. It was still formed of wood and was some form of dockside warehouse, or possibly just a part of the wharf; it was difficult to tell when not all the walls were still standing.
She could see no sign of anyone about her at all.
Crawling as quietly as she could, Thompson faced the building in which she had lost Baronaire. She could hear shouting, the crackling of fire and the sporadic screaming of guns. One side of the building suddenly exploded outwards as a man’s body came crashing through. Thompson crouched fifty metres from the scene, but even from this distance she could see it wasn’t Baronaire. Indeed she believed she could see her partner struggling with several men still within the building.
Wishing she had a firearm, Thompson looked about for something she could use, some way she could help; then a second man broke through the wall, flung as though charged by a rhinoceros. The wall began to crumble then, the strain of the two great holes in its rotting wood becoming too much to bear. She could see dancing forms in the firelight, did not know where the fire had started. Baronaire was holding someone over his head in both hands and Thompson’s eyes widened at the possibility that he still had a chance.
Then she watched as someone shot him through the chest and Baronaire went down. He was scrabbling for his feet at once, but the hood shot him where he lay. The hoods were laughing now, and Thompson felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was too far away; even if she someone managed to get to Baronaire’s side she would not be able to help him.
Baronaire grabbed a supporting strut of the building and tugged, hard, and the floor above them came crashing down on all their heads. She heard men’s laughter turn to screams and watched a great cloud of dust and wood rise into the air.
