The water was cold. Not Bering Strait cold. Not even California cold. But it took my breath away, although that may have been due to the impact. I shot down and down, and for a moment I thought I might hit bottom. Then I slowed and stopped and found myself in stasis, floating like a lab experiment in formaldehyde, deep under the ocean surface.
First thing I did was lose my jacket that had become tangled around my head. I thrashed it off and pushed away from it and swam for the surface. The water stung my eyes so I couldn’t see a thing and I had no idea how deep I was, but I kept kicking and stroking, hoping that buoyancy had pointed me in the right direction. My lungs burned and I felt bile rising in my throat. I came to the conclusion that I was going to gag and take on water and then my lungs were going to fill and I would be done.
I didn’t believe the first gasp of air. I gulped a second greedily, as if someone might take it from me. Then a wash of water was shoved down my throat and I reconsidered if I had reached the surface at all. I coughed and spluttered and spat. Then I opened my eyes. A great steel hull loomed above, pulsing through the water and sending waves crashing across me.
The downside was that I had jumped from the front of the ship. That meant I was going to bear the full impact of the wake. The upside was it pushed me away from the vessel. I rode the wake away from the hull and as I watched the ship power on through the water, I pulled off the tie that was choking at my throat. I ripped the top button from my shirt and took a couple breaths, and then I set about doing what I was down there to do.
The lights from the decks above only shone out so far, so my search was based more on sound and dumb luck. I looked for a man thrashing in the water and hoped that Frederick hadn’t already given up and sunk. I didn’t spot anything in the breaking wake. I called his name but heard nothing. Then I got the idea that like leaves tossed in a river, given we had hit the water at the same place, we would follow the same approximate path away from the ship. It wasn’t an exact theory but it gave me something to work with. I began stroking in the direction the ship was leaving. Frederick had hit the water around seven or eight seconds before I had. He would be behind me, if he wasn’t below me.
By the time the wake of the ship leveled out, I was just about done. The ship was gone. I could see the amphitheater at the stern mocking me as it drifted off into the night. I kept my eye on the water and called Frederick’s name again and again but my calls got increasingly weak.
I thought what I hit was a shark. I nearly had a coronary. I flapped like I was a drowning man myself and turned and saw the body floating right by me. Frederick Connors was facing the sky, like a kid in a pool, floating on a summer’s night, taking in the stars. But Frederick’s eyes were closed. I pulled him to me and slapped his face.
“Fred!” I yelled. “Fred!”
I coughed up some water but got no such response from Frederick. Perhaps he didn’t respond to Fred. But I figured he would have cut me some slack, given the circumstances. I pulled him around in the water so I could slip in underneath him and rest his head on my shoulder. Then I checked his air passage for obstructions. There were none. He was just full of water.
CPR was going to be tough. For starters, I didn’t have a lot air myself. But my bigger issue was having nothing to push against. I decided to try the mouth-to-mouth first. I came out from under him and tipped his head on my shoulder like I was going to give his furry face a passionate kiss. I pinched his nose, pulled his chin down, put my mouth to his, and blew hard. I took another gulp of air and went in again. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep it up for long. I could tread water all night if I had to, but I couldn’t do it while puffing everything I had into Frederick. I gave it another minute or two. I wasn’t sure how long it was. Time was as fluid as the ocean around me.
I cursed the stupid man and why he got on a damned ship in the first place. And I cursed myself and why I hadn’t seen Guy X earlier and why I hadn’t picked up on what he was about to do. I spat salt water and told Frederick to hold on. I told him I’d give it one last try. I breathed in as deep as I could, and I pulled him in and I blew hard. I blew until I was about to pass out, and then I fell away from him, spent.
Frederick spat water into my face. Then he tried to sit up and fell below the water again. I dived in under him and dragged him back up. I got in behind him again and wrapped my arm around his shoulder so he couldn’t hurt me. Then he threw up. I pushed his head to the side so he didn’t swallow it, and hoped that sharks weren’t fans of human vomit.
Then he started thrashing. The panic was setting in. I held him tight so he couldn’t get hold of me and drag me down with him.
“Fred,” I yelled. “It’s okay. It’s Miami. I’ve got you.”
He didn’t seem to buy it. He kept splashing water like he was trying to attract all the ocean beasties.
“Fred, I’ve got you. You’re floating. I’ve got you.”
It took him a while to get it, but eventually he stopped flapping. Still, I could feel his tension.
“Who, what?”
“It’s okay, Fred, I’ve got you.”
“I fell off. I fell off.”
“It’s okay, Fred.”
“The water. The ocean.”
“It’s okay, Fred. I’ve got you.”
“Where’s the ship!”
Now he started panicking again. Flailing his arms, trying to kick so he could get on his stomach and grab me. I wasn’t going to let that happen. The moment he turned was the moment we both went to meet my long-lost relative Davy Jones. So I strained hard against his panic and held him tight. Keeping us both above water was hard work, and I knew if he didn’t quit it soon then I would run out of energy and I would have to let him go.
“Fred, it’s okay. It’s Miami Jones. I’ve got you. Now stop kicking or I’m going to break your arm.”
“Miami?”
“Yes.”
“The ship.”
“Yes, you came off the ship. But I’ve got you.”
“I don’t swim.”
“Don’t worry. I’m a great swimmer. I swam the English Channel.”
“You did?”
I hadn’t even been to England, let alone swum there. It just came to me as a big body of water that someone could actually swim. Swimming the Atlantic seemed unbelievable.
“Yes,” I lied. “Now relax. You’re going to wear us both out.”
“Where’s the ship?”
“It’s stopping.”
“Where is it?”
I turned in the water so he could see the lights of the ship. I had to admit, they looked a long way away. And I had no knowledge that it was stopping. I assumed Danielle would sound the alarm or yell man overboard! or whatever, but I imagined a big boat like that took a whole lot of stopping.
“It’s going away,” said Frederick.
“No, it’s not. It takes a while to stop, that’s all. They’ll be back soon.”
“You promise?”
“I do. They know we went over. So just relax. We can float here for a while. This is the Bahamas, after all.”
I didn’t tell him that although the water was warm—probably around seventy-two degrees—it was a long way short of the ninety-eight point six that our bodies preferred. We could develop hypothermia. Not fast, not like in the Arctic. Not Titanic fast. But it could happen.
But it wouldn’t. I would run out of energy from keeping two bodies afloat before hypothermia became a problem. I hoped Danielle was fast in raising the alarm. I hoped the ship stopped quicker than it looked like it would. I hoped the Marlins would make the playoffs. I hoped the sun wouldn’t explode in a supernova, taking the measly Earth with it. I started to enjoy the taste of salt water and the burning sensation it made in my throat. It was a new normal. The ship didn’t come back.
I heard the engine but made nothing of it. It was just noise. It could have been some guy mowing his lawn, or a small plane taking off from somewhere. I thought I saw a flash of light, like a ligh
thouse, and I wondered if we had floated into Jupiter Inlet. I felt confident about making the shore from the Loxahatchee River. Then the sound of the lawn mower stopped, and I heard my mother.
“Miami,” she said. “Miami Jones.”
Which was strange because my mother didn’t often use my last name when calling me, and because I hadn’t been called Miami by anyone until I was at University of Miami. And my mother had been dead four years by then. So why was she calling me Miami?
Water broke across my face, and I spluttered and heard the call again.
“Miami!”
I felt good. I probably shouldn’t have. I was probably closer to dead than I realized. But the moment I realized that my mother wasn’t calling was the moment I realized I was safe. Because I knew that voice. I knew that it was a voice that had never failed to save me from myself. It was the voice of an angel, sent down from wherever angels hang out while waiting to save lost souls like me. It washed over me like the water, and told me that everything was okay.
I wrapped my arm around Frederick and called out.
“Here!” I said.
I didn’t sound very loud to me. I wasn’t sure I heard it myself. I called again but my throat had nothing left. No sound. So I started kicking. I wasn’t trying to swim anywhere. I just wanted to make noise.
“You hear that?”
“There, that way.”
A beam of light shot across my face.
“There!”
I heard the lawn mower again and realized it was a boat, and I saw the bulbous form of a rescue tender pull up alongside me. A pair of hands dropped down and pulled Frederick away from me. They lifted him up into the boat and then came back for me. I was dragged from the water and across the gunwale of the tender and dumped onto the deck of the boat. Frederick lay beside me, eyes closed.
“No, there’s a pulse, and he’s breathing.”
“He’s breathing?”
“I think he’s just passed out.”
Then Danielle dropped in beside me.
“Say something,” she said.
I hacked a dry cough.
“I knew you’d come.”
I saw her lips quiver, and a teardrop fell from her eye onto my cheek.
Chapter Sixteen
I was dying for a beer. My throat was so dry I thought I’d eaten the Sahara. But the woman in the infirmary made me drink water and offered me a lozenge. I lay on a gurney with Danielle on one side and Frederick Connors in a gurney on the other. He was lying back all quiet and contemplative. He was pale and his manicured beard looked like sea debris, but he looked alive.
The door to the infirmary flew open and Army rushed in. He looked at me and then at Frederick.
“Mr. Connors, are you all right?”
“Alive,” Frederick whispered.
Army looked at me. “There is something seriously wrong with you.”
“It says that on my medical record.”
“You jumped off a cruise ship.”
“You make it sound more than it was.”
“What it was was insane and reckless.”
I nodded. It was. The man spoke the truth.
“And one of the most selfless acts I’ve ever seen.”
“Not that selfless. He’s my client. If he dies I won’t get paid.”
Army shook his head. “Oh, boy. You really are something. Listen, next time you see someone fall overboard—”
“He didn’t fall.”
“He didn’t?”
“No.”
“Then how did he end up in the ocean?”
“He was pushed.”
Army grimaced. He knew what that meant. Someone falling overboard was their own stupid fault and a minor PR and legal headache. Someone being pushed was a major PR and liability nightmare.
“I was pushed?” I barely heard Frederick say.
“Yep.”
“By who?” he asked.
I looked at Army.
He shook his head. “Don’t say it.”
“Guy X,” I said.
“Dang. You saw this?”
“I did. You should have him on video. He was on the forward deck. I think he followed Fred there.”
“It’s Frederick,” said Frederick.
I smiled. Some people were Freds and some people were Fredericks.
“We’ll get into it,” said Army. “We’re still looking over the video from before.” He turned to the doctor or nurse or whatever she was. “Will you keep them here?”
“No reason,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll both be more comfortable in their own cabins.”
Army said, “Mr. Connors, I’ll have a wheelchair here in a moment to take you back to your suite. If you want anything, anything at all, just pick up the phone and cabin services will provide whatever you require, compliments of the cruise line.”
Then Army turned to me. “Miami?”
“You just try wheeling me out of here.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“But the anything you want phone thing sounds cool.”
“Absolutely. Just name it.”
“I’d kill for a beer.”
“They’ll be in your suite when you get there. But on the way, would you mind?”
I didn’t mind. One of the crew brought me a tracksuit that fit just right but looked like something women wear in New York City. They bagged my tux, or what was left of it and promised to clean and deliver it back to my suite.
After I was dressed, Army led me and Danielle back to the security control office. I had spent more time there than I had in our palatial suite.
“Porter,” said Army. “Bring up the video.”
A crew member at the video console tapped her keyboard. “This is Mrs. Connors leaving her suite,” she said. “Then she goes down to deck five.”
“We saw this,” I said.
“Then she crosses over to the port-side passageway and makes her way to the spa foyer.”
We watched the screen as Anastasia entered the foyer area in front of the spa, and then the angle changed and another camera showed her duck into what looked like the spa.
“I checked the spa,” Danielle said. “The staff said no one had come in.”
“She didn’t go into the spa proper. That door leads into a bathroom facility that can also be accessed via the spa.”
“She went all that way to use the toilet?” I asked.
“I can’t say what she did in there, but a few minutes later, here she is.”
We saw Anastasia walk out of the bathroom and retrace her steps out of the foyer.
“Where does she go?”
“I can show you, but basically she just returns to her suite.”
“That’s weird,” Danielle said.
Army said, “Okay, let’s move on to the forward deck. I want any vision of Mr. Connors going overboard.”
“Let’s see.” Porter pulled up a shot of the forward deck. It looked across toward the starboard side. “Fast forward to the time,” she said. She did that, and we saw me walked out onto the deck with Danielle behind. Then our little friends from Cleveland appeared. I looked at Army. He looked at me.
“Really? You don’t know them?” he said.
“On my word.”
We saw the brief interaction with the boys from Ohio and then I turned and ran across the deck and under the view of the camera.
“We need the view from the other side,” said Army.
She brought the new angle up. It showed a man with his hand in the air, trying to get cell phone coverage on the high seas.
“His phone should just connect to the ship’s satellite system,” said Porter.
Then there was movement in the shadows.
“There,” I said.
A man moved along the gunwale.
“He’s not looking at the camera,” said Danielle.
The man bent down, grabbed Frederick’s legs, and tossed him over the edge.
“Certainly not an accident,�
� said Porter. Army grunted.
Then the man slipped back into the shadows and the video showed me run into frame and vault over the side.
“That was you?” asked Porter as she paused the video.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Awesome. You saved that dude’s life.”
I shrugged.
Army said, “Can we see the guy who did it leaving?”
Porter tapped away and brought up another angle inside the port-side corridor or passageway or whatever they called it. We saw Army step out of the bar. He moved back to the spa foyer, and then stepped back to the port-side corridor.
“The guy should be right in front of you,” said Danielle.
“I didn’t see anyone come through that door,” said Army.
And no one did come through. Army spun in place when Danielle came rushing out of the starboard corridor. He met her in front of the spa. She was clearly telling him what I had just done. He shook his head, which I thought was a reasonable response, and then Danielle led him back down the corridor and out onto the deck.
“Watch that other door,” said Army.
We watched. We saw nothing. Guy X didn’t come out.
“Did he stay on the deck?” I asked.
“Couldn’t have,” said Army. “We went right over to that side of the deck to look at where you went over. Then I called it in.”
“And we logged the GPS coordinates so we knew where they went over,” said Porter.
“I was right there,” said Army. “I would have seen him. There’s shadow there, but there’s nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go—” He looked at his crew member behind the console.
She said, “The crew passageway.” She began tapping again.
“There’s an unmarked hatch on that side, for crew use only,” said Army. “It leads down to the crew deck and I-95.”
“Is there a camera there?” I asked,
Porter kept tapping. “There is. On the inside of the hatch, looking down the stairs.” She stopped tapping and a new image appeared on screen. It was green in color, like the stairs weren’t well lit. We saw nothing for a moment, then a flare of white at the bottom of the shot.
“That’s the door opening,” she said.
Cruise Control Page 10
