Water

by William Esmont

  Hines cast a skeptical glance at the emergency suits and electronics heaped on a narrow table in the center of the radio room. “I don’t know about this.”

  Dr. Cain was busy inspecting the instruction sheet from one of the suit packages. He held up a hand. “Hold on, Marlon. This may actually work.” He turned the paper over and scanned the backside. “We’ll have to make some adjustments, of course. Breathing… sealing against leaks… that sort of stuff.”

  “We’ve got oxygen tanks and fire-fighting masks,” Chris said. “Plenty of both.” He picked up a pair of small black boxes with wires dangling from them. “And wireless radios.”

  Hines stared at the doctor expectantly. “Well?”

  Dr. Cain returned the suit instructions to the table. A tentative smile creased his mouth. “I can’t make any promises until we make a full prototype, but it’s worth a try.”

  “Okay,” Hines said in a clipped, authoritative voice. “How long?”

  “A few hours on the outside,” the doctor answered. “It shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “Make it happen,” Hines said. “You’ve got whatever resources you need.”

  Dr. Cain nodded. “Will do.”

  Hines fished a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. His attention shifted to Chris. “Who do you propose we should send?”

  Chris had already been thinking of that, and he had his answer ready. “I don’t think we have a choice. I’ll go. And I’ll take Ben with me.”

  Hines bobbed his head. “I don’t like it, but I agree with you. Brief Ben and figure out what you need to make this happen.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “And Chris?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be careful.”

  “Always.”

  Eighteen

  Isla Perpetua

  Jack yelped in anger and surprise as the barrel of an assault rifle stabbed into his back just above his right kidney. He turned and scowled at the man wielding the gun.

  In response, the soldier repeated the action, making direct contact in a blow that almost sent Jack to his knees. “I said, keep moving!”

  Jack bit back the urge to lash out, knowing full well it would only invite more pain for him and the others. Despite the nauseating waves of agony radiating across his back, he picked up his pace.

  They marched in a loose group through a stand of palm trees and across an oil-stained concrete parking lot riddled with cracks, finally coming to a stop in the long shadow of a towering metal Quonset hut. Sheets of rust streaked the building like dirty orange paint. A faded placard bolted to the wall between a nondescript man-sized door and a dented and scarred rolling service door warned in English and Spanish that only authorized personnel were allowed inside. Nick pulled open the smaller door and entered.

  “I swear,” Jeremy whispered, “I don’t know what’s going on here. These aren’t my people.”

  Jack still didn’t believe him. His anger at Jeremy’s treachery was constrained only by the guns pointed in his direction.

  “Quiet!” one of their captors shouted, raising his rifle and aiming at Jeremy’s face. “This is the last time I tell you.”

  Jeremy glared at the man but fell silent.

  Nick emerged from the building, offering no indication as to what had transpired inside. The question was answered when the raucous clatter of a poorly tuned diesel motor broke the preternatural silence of the jungle. Jack turned to face the parking lot just as a tan, mud-splattered Hummer turned in from a side road. The truck lurched to a stop a few yards away, and the engine fell silent.

  Jack looked at Megan and was heartened by the defiance burning in her eyes. She wasn’t yet ready to give up.

  The driver’s side door creaked open, and a man climbed from the truck. Jack couldn’t help but notice that their captors, Nick included, stood a little straighter in the man’s presence. Nick, Jack decided, was not the ultimate boss.

  Standing an inch or two shorter than Jack, the new arrival had shoulder-length black hair and a bland, oval face. The hint of a salt-and-pepper beard dusted his jaw. Like the other men, he wore camouflage from head to toe, but his uniform appeared to be of a more modern vintage. A chrome revolver with a barrel nearly as long as Jack’s forearm dangled from a holster on his right hip. Jack took a deep breath of anticipation.

  No one said a word as the newcomer sauntered over. The Hummer’s motor ticked loudly as it cooled.

  “Good job, Nick,” the man said. “Real good.” His gaze traveled up and down Megan’s body, and he licked his lips, a gesture that made Jack’s blood boil.

  “I thought you’d be happy,” Nick said. His overbearing bravado from earlier was gone, replaced with an unmistakable deference.

  Jeremy coughed into his hand and, with a sidelong glance in Jack’s direction, took a step forward. “Excuse me,” he said. “We don’t want any trouble here, mister. We’re just looking for my people—”

  The man swiveled his head like a cat tracking a mouse. “It’s Purdue. Mr. Purdue to you. And did I say you could speak?”

  Jeremy shrank back under the man’s withering gaze. He opened his mouth but no words came out. His fists opened and closed, the ropy muscles of his forearms leaping into sharp relief under his tattooed skin.

  Jack stole a furtive glance at Megan. She was shaking her head, clearly alarmed at what was unfolding.

  “Jeremy, buddy,” Jack said, eyeing Purdue’s pistol. “Ease up, big guy. This isn’t the time—”

  But Jeremy ignored the warning. “Look,” he said to Purdue. “We came a long way.” He gestured at the armed men. “All we want—”

  In the time it took Jack to blink, Purdue had drawn his gun and jammed the barrel against Jeremy’s forehead.

  Jeremy froze. His eyes grew wide. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed whatever he had been about to say next.

  “You should listen to your friend, here,” Purdue said, eyeing Jack with a malicious grin that made Jack’s testicles try to crawl up into his stomach. “He’s a wise man. Now, on your knees!”

  When Jeremy shook his head, Purdue lowered his weapon and fired a round into Jeremy’s foot. Jack jumped at the gunshot. Jeremy collapsed, writhing and moaning as he cradled his destroyed foot. Bright red blood jetted from his wound, soaking into the concrete and turning it brown. The smell of fresh shit and copper filled the air.

  Purdue pointed the gun at Jeremy’s face. His lips twisted into a sneer. “Now, that’s more like it.”

  Jack held his breath as tendrils of smoke wafted lazily from the barrel of Purdue’s gun. Any sudden movement, he knew, could invite the same fate on him or Megan.

  Purdue stepped on Jeremy’s shattered foot with his combat boot, grinding it against the unyielding surface of the concrete. Bones crackled like twigs. Tendons popped. A new round of screaming tore loose from Jeremy’s throat, and he thrashed like a trapped animal.

  After what seemed an eternity, Purdue lifted his foot. Leather creaked as he hooked his fingers under his belt and hiked his pants up. Jack dared not make a move, not even to breathe.

  Purdue holstered his gun and turned to Nick. “Lock ’em up for now.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nick said.

  With a last uninterested glance at the carnage he had wrought, Purdue retreated to his truck. The vehicle roared to life, its powerful diesel motor tearing apart the stillness of the afternoon like a bomb in a crowded marketplace. As the Hummer raced away, Jack finally allowed himself to breathe.

  “Let’s go,” Nick said. He gestured at Jeremy, who was curled into a ball and sobbing. “Get your friend.” When neither Jack nor Megan made a move, Nick raised his gun. “You’d best move fast. I don’t like to ask twice.”

  Jack went to Jeremy’s side. With Megan’s assistance, he lifted Jeremy to his feet. All of his doubts about Jeremy’s trustworthiness were gone.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Jack said as they hobbled deeper into the jungle. “I’m so sorry.”

  Nineteen


  RB-M #1

  Near the Dixie Sunrise Oil Platform

  “This is bullshit,” Ben said, his voice a muffled grumble behind his full-face scuba mask. “I’m sweating my ass off in here.”

  Chris nodded. He pulled a strip of pre-torn duct tape from the railing of the RB-M and motioned for Ben to raise his arms. Ben complied, and Chris planted the tape on the zippered seam of Ben’s neon-orange survival suit, running his fingers carefully along the seam to make sure he had a good seal. “This’ll have to do.”

  “Can I put my arms down now?” Ben asked.

  Chris held up a finger and indicated for Ben to spin. Ben turned in a slow circle.

  “Okay,” Chris said. “Now for our hands.”

  The men took turns wrapping tape around the cuffs where their sleeves joined with the bulky neoprene gloves. By the time they finished, Chris was light-headed from the heat. He looked over his shoulder at the towering bulk of the Dixie Sunrise. His thoughts churned. He could think of a million other places he’d rather be.

  Once dressed, they spent several long minutes alternating between surveying the decks of the Dixie Sunrise with powerful binoculars and hailing the radio room on a variety of frequencies. No one answered.

  “I’m going to try the flares,” Ben announced. He hung his binoculars on a wall hook and opened a cabinet in the starboard bulkhead.

  Chris gave him a nod of approval. “I’ll be out in a second. I just want to make one more pass with the radio.”

  After grabbing a handful of flares and a flare-gun from the bulkhead compartment, Ben opened the wheelhouse door and stepped outside. Chris hurriedly skipped through the radio frequencies on the dial until he was almost back to where he had started.

  A throaty pop and a whooshing sound startled him. Through the front window, Chris watched as an emergency flare arced high overhead. The flare reached its apogee, seemed to hang for a second, then began the long, slow descent to the surface of the sea. Ben loaded another into the gun and fired again.

  Chris left the wheelhouse and set about dropping the sea anchor that would maintain the RB-M’s position while they investigated the platform. Sweat pooled in his neoprene boots as he worked. By the time he was done, Ben had given up on the flares. No one on the Dixie was responding.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Chris said, moving to the stern. He grabbed the line connecting the RB-M to the Zodiac and started hauling the smaller boat closer.

  Strapped into the Zodiac were six gallons of bleach. Their plan was as low-tech as it was ingenious. Safe inside their makeshift biohazard suits, they would travel to the Dixie Sunrise in the Zodiac. Once there, they would board and perform their investigation. When they were done, they would douse their suits with bleach, scrub clean, and then return to the RB-M.

  At least, that was the theory. Chris and Dr. Cain had wrestled over the fine points of the plan for almost an hour, struggling with how to eliminate the possibility of carrying traces of infection from the Zodiac. They came to a reluctant agreement only after Hines interceded and suggested they abandon the boat. Chris still didn’t like the idea of discarding a perfectly good boat, but he didn’t see any other way.

  “This is going to suck, isn’t it?” Ben grumbled, joining him.

  Chris nodded solemnly. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  They reached the main deck of the Dixie Sunrise ten minutes later. Pausing at the top of the stairwell, Chris glanced over the railing at the Zodiac, which was tied to the landing platform a hundred feet below. From that height, the craft looked a million miles away, which in a way, it was. They were alone, in a hostile environment, with no backup.

  His radio crackled. “Hey. You okay?”

  “Uh-huh,” Chris replied, returning his attention to the task at hand. “This place is creeping me the fuck out.”

  Ben gave a nervous laugh. “You too, huh?”

  Chris shook off his fear and sucked in a lungful of stale air. “You ready?”

  Ben didn’t respond.

  “Ben?” Chris turned to find Ben fiddling with his suit.

  “Sorry,” Ben said sheepishly, looking up and meeting Chris’s eyes. “My regulator was making a funny noise.”

  A twinge of fear exploded in Chris’ gut. “Is it–”

  Ben gave him a dismissive wave. “No. It’s okay now. I’m all good.”

  Chris relaxed. “Good. That’s the last thing we need.”

  With Ben in tow, he strode across the deck to doorway leading to the interior. Chris tapped the stock of his gun once against the door and listened for a response. All he heard was the steady hiss and whoosh of his own breath mixing with the flat, stale air from the bulky tank strapped to his back.

  He opened the door, revealing a pitch-dark interior. Chris turned on his flashlight and stepped inside. He ran his hand along the wall near the door, fumbling for a light switch, and found it right away. After several flicks, he gave up. “Looks like the power’s out,” he whispered.

  “Great,” Ben said. “This gets better every minute.”

  “Never a dull moment,” Chris replied. “You could be back on the Gulf Star fixing those toilets on three right now, you know.”

  “No way.” Ben laughed. “I’ll take this over swimming in shit any day.”

  Chris grinned. He knew Ben derived an enormous sense of pleasure from his unofficial job as platform plumber. It was steady work, and while not glamorous, it was never boring.

  After a quick search of the room turned up nothing, they moved deeper into the interior. Acting on Dr. Cain’s instructions, they headed for the sick bay first.

  “How many people did the doc say were living here?” Ben asked.

  “Twenty-three,” Chris answered, the words coming in quick gasps as he ascended a steep, narrow staircase. He held up his hand and stopped. “Hold on a sec.”

  “Sure.” Ben said.

  Once Chris had caught his breath, he resumed his ascent. They reached the medical center a minute later.

  Chris tried the door, but the lever refused to move. “It’s locked.”

  “Let me try,” Ben said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and squeezing in beside Chris. Grunting and cursing, Ben wrestled with the lever, all to no effect. The door wouldn’t budge.

  “Well, shit,” Ben said, panting from the exertion.

  Chris rubbed the neoprene hood covering his head, trying in vain to scratch an itch that had been growing since he’d first suited up. “Stand back.”

  Ben moved aside. Chris took aim and slammed the stock of his gun against the door lever. The sound of breaking metal was deafening in the enclosed space of the stairwell. The lever held. Chris hit it again. Just when Chris thought his idea wasn’t going to work, the door lever broke free and fell to the floor with a clang. He kicked the remains of the lever aside.

  “Good job,” Ben said.

  After the exertion of banging on the door, Chris was roasting inside his suit. Sweat in his eyes doubled his vision. He shook his head to clear his sight.

  “You okay?” Ben asked.

  Chris took deep breaths to calm his racing heart. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.” He sucked in a lungful of stale bottled oxygen and waited for his pulse to return to normal. “This isn’t going to be pretty, you know,” Chris said.

  Ben rolled his head on his neck. “Is it ever?”

  “Good point,” Chris said, hooking his finger in the hole where the door lever used to be. He pulled the door open, and Ben shone his flashlight into the room beyond.

  “Oh, my God,” Chris said when the beam crossed over the first body. He put his hand to his mouth. “Oh, my God!”

  Twenty

  Isla Perpetua

  “In!” Nick growled, motioning with his rifle at the open double doors of a rusted steel shipping container.

  The soldiers clustered behind him watched with expressions of tired boredom, their weapons dangling from their shoulders. Their sense of urgency was all but gone since Jack and Jeremy had already b
een locked away in makeshift cells.

  Claustrophobia gripped Megan as she regarded the open maw of the metal box. The stygian darkness of the interior sent a spike of fear through her. Her shoulders tensed. “Why can’t I be with Jack?”

  Nick blew out a frustrated breath. “Because I said so. Now shut up and get inside!”

  Filled with trepidation, Megan took a step forward. She stopped for a heartbeat as she crossed over the threshold marking the line between freedom and prison.

  Nick pressed his gun between her shoulder blades, slowly at first then with increasing pressure. “That’s a good girl. Keep going.”

  Shadows enveloped her as she moved deeper into the container. The doors groaned when Nick’s men swung them closed behind her. Darkness consumed her in one vicious gulp. Megan’s heart raced out of control. Blood rushed in her ears like a raging river, drowning out all sound, all attempt at rational thought. Blind panic wrapped its arms around her and squeezed the breath from her lungs. An involuntary shudder racked her body. She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself tightly. She opened her eyes as wide as possible, attempting to see where nothing could be seen. Tiny white and purple stars exploded across her vision, minuscule pinpricks of light fabricated by her brain as it struggled to adapt to the dark.

  After a flurry of panicked breaths, Megan’s heart rate finally slowed to normal. Her breathing stabilized, taking a giant step back from the razor-sharp precipice of hyperventilation. She was able to hear again. She turned and groped through the darkness toward where she thought the doorway was, reaching out blindly until her fingertips brushed against the sun-warmed steel wall. Keeping constant contact, Megan traced her way along the wall, searching for the corner and constructing a crude mental map of her prison as she went. Five feet. Six feet. She reached the point where the metal turned ninety degrees to her left. She turned and continued tracing, heading deeper into the heart of the unknown.

  A curse tore loose from her lips as her shin cracked painfully against a solid mass directly in her path. She reached into the dark and probed the object. Her fingers traced the outline of some sort of machine—all angles and sharp edges. Dried grease crumbled under her touch. Unable to figure out what she had found, she edged around the machine and continued her exploration, reaching the next corner ten paces later. This is good. I can deal with this.