by Jack Du Brul
Luc held up his hands. “No. We must save her. Help me to get her out of here.”
Mercer hooked the corner of the basket under the edge of the shipping container and threw three coils of the wire line around Luc’s chest. Luc didn’t understand; perhaps he even thought Mercer was going to save him too. Mercer didn’t take his eyes off the madman as he spiraled his hand over his head, a universal sign to take up slack on a cable.
The pilot heaved back on his controls, tightening the wire around Luc’s chest until he could not scream. Mercer’s face was an inhuman mask as he repeated the gesture.
The chopper heaved again. The coils sliced into Luc Nguyen’s chest, and as they cut through to his spine and snapped his backbone the recoil sent his legs skittering across the deck like a crab. He flopped sideways, trying to reach out for the severed limbs as they came to rest a few feet away.
His eyes swiveled to Mercer. “At least you won’t have her.” And he was dead.
Those words drained everything from Mercer. He could barely see through the tears as he freed the safety basket from under the container. “Hold on,” he cried. “Hold on.”
Tisa was alive, but barely. She’d taken three rounds, two in the abdomen and one in the chest that leaked frothy blood. A lung shot. “Mercer?” Her voice came as a soft whisper.
“I’m here, darling. Hold on.”
She was so deeply in shock she hardly reacted as he rolled her into the litter. Mercer placed himself over her, keeping his weight off her body, and felt the stretcher lift from the Petromax Angel.
The wave bore down on the ship in an unchecked rampage, a wall of water stretching across the breadth of the sea. True to his word Seamus Rourke had gotten the ship turned so she faced the wave that towered over the ship. She started to scale the front of the tsunami as the Seahawk began to winch Mercer and Tisa from the deck. The litter remained rooted as angry black water foamed around the ship’s bows and covered the deck.
Mercer and Tisa were soaked and the litter began to skid toward the stern. An instant before it slammed into the NewtSuit garage, it flew up and off the deck, lifting clear of the watery frenzy.
The Angel rose ever higher, her inclinometer pegged at ninety degrees as the wave’s momentum kept her pinned to the wall of water. And then her bow reached the crest, cleaving a fat wedge from the wave’s apex, and she vanished into the trough, dropping as fast as a runaway roller coaster. She should have been driven straight under the surface when she reached the bottom. Or at least snapped in two. But the Angel buried her prow deep, then fought her way back. Her deck had been scoured clean. The garage, the control van, and the cranes had all been torn away. Not a single piece of glass, from her windscreen to her smallest porthole, was left intact. But she fought it off, pouring water off her deck as though she were a surfacing submarine. The next wave was half the size of the first and she met it almost contemptuously. The ship was safe.
Tisa kept her eyes open as they were winched into the helicopter, a smile on her lips as she stared up at Mercer. “Hold on,” he kept repeating, although his words were lost in the noise of the rotors and the wind that buffeted the stretcher.
When they reached the chopper, strong hands hauled the basket into the cargo hold and the side door was slammed closed. The PJ helped Mercer out and then cut away Tisa’s shirt and assessed her wounds.
“How is she?” Mercer shouted.
The PJ continued to work as if he hadn’t heard.
“I said how is she?”
A minute passed before the man slumped away from her. His arms were bloody to the elbows. “There’s nothing I can do.”
Mercer shoved him aside and knelt next to Tisa. He took her hand. It was cold, much colder than anything he’d ever felt.
“Mercer?” He put his ear close to her mouth. “Mercer, what time is it?”
That’s when he finally understood. Her request was a plea, an attempt to find her place in a future she’d always known. She’d lived at a lonely crossroads between the past and inevitability. She’d been denied the promise of the unknown, the sense of wonder each new day could bring because she knew somewhere how it would end.
He’d worn the TAG Heuer for almost two decades. It was almost a part of him. He unsnapped it and fit its steel band over her wrist. “You tell me,” he sobbed gently.
She touched the watch and smiled up at him again. “It’s my time.”
“I know.”
“I wish…”
“So do I.”
“Say it once,” said Tisa. “We will never be able to experience it, but please at least let me hear it.”
Mercer couldn’t see her through his tears. “I love you, Tisa.”
She never heard. She was already gone.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-f7178f-b7b4-cc4d-bdaa-85ac-7e45-ad38d6
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 24.10.2012
Created using: calibre 0.9.3, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Jack Du Brul
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