by Matt Lincoln
“Don’t come up too fast,” Meg advised. “You won’t be very deep, so you don’t really have to worry about the bends, but still. Best to be careful. Jace and Lex, I’ll drop you two off first. I’d recommend waiting about ten minutes before you board. That should give Rachel and Marshal Graham enough time to get into position as well.”
I nodded, pulling up my sleeve to check on the waterproof watch I was wearing. It glowed faintly green when I pressed the button on the side.
“Are we ready?” Meg asked.
I looked around the group. We’d all shifted into “GO” mode, faces serious and determined, all hints of fear hidden inside, where they would sharpen our reflexes but not get in the way.
Rachel nodded, tucking away the last strand of her blond hair beneath the hood attached to her wetsuit. “We’re ready. Let’s go.”
Meg scooped up the radio, raising it to her mouth. “Moving out. Over.”
“Heard,” Linda replied. “Over and out.” I knew that her boat floated close to ours, but I could barely make it out other than the impression of movement on top of the water. If I squinted, I could maybe spot the dark forms of Linda, Cal, and Ramirez, but it might have also been my brain filling in things that weren’t there.
Meg eased the boat into gear, leaving it in the lowest gear where the engine would be quietest. I stood at the railing beside Lex, holding on tightly as my center of gravity shifted awkwardly with the bulk of the tank on my shoulders. I could still see the yacht lights in the distance, still in the same position, looming over the water like some kind of palace atop a mountain.
“Three, two, one,” I heard Meg murmur, but I thought it was more for her benefit than ours. With that, we started to move, cruising slowly and carefully toward the yacht.
I held my breath as if that small sound would somehow give us away. All our lights were off, leaving us in a darkness so profound that I could barely make out Lex beside me or the shape of my hand when I held it in front of my face. The only glow came from the lights on Meg’s console, which cast a glow across her intense features.
I firmly kept my eyes on the yacht, searching for shapes moving on the deck or watchful sentries on the upper reaches. But at least from this distance, it all seemed quiet. I wasn’t sure I liked that. Was Ward all alone on that huge boat? Was it possible to crew something like that with just one person? Probably, since it didn’t have sails to raise and lower, but surely, he would have had time to gather people around him for security. There was a tense feeling in my gut, telling me something was wrong.
“Be on guard,” I said to the others. “I don’t like this.”
Rachel cracked her knuckles one by one, the pop of each ominous in the quiet. “I’m about to make this man regret every decision he’s ever made.”
“Agreed,” I said and put my hand out. The others looked at me in confusion, and I gave my hand a shake, trying to get them to put their arms in like we were a high school basketball team before a game. I’d never had any luck getting this to take off, but dammit, I was going to try.
Rachel rolled her eyes, but a small smile lit her lips, and she put her hand in. Graham and Lex followed suit, though the marshal had a very confused look on her face and also seemed to think that I was missing a few marbles. Obviously, we couldn’t cheer, but we raised our hands up and threw them down, breaking contact at the bottom. It did as I’d hoped—lightened the mood, reminded us that we were a unit.
After that, we just had to wait for Meg to get close enough. A few minutes later, she killed the engine, and we floated in the quiet night. The yacht didn’t seem that much closer, but it was hard to tell through the dark. Meg stepped out of the cabin, ducking her head to get through the doorway.
“This is about as close as I think we can get,” she informed us. “Any further, and we risk early detection.”
“You two take the top,” Rachel said, looking at Lex and me. “Marshal Graham and I will go below deck. Radio if you get in trouble.”
“You too,” I said, my heart in my throat as I looked off the back of the boat at the black water.
Meg checked over our straps one last time. She helped Lex first, and then her fingers seemed to linger over the buckles securing the tank to my chest. I could smell the faintest whiff of her citrus shampoo, the top of her head right by my nose, and the wind blew a few strands of her hair across my face, tickling my cheeks.
“I…” she said and hesitated, looking up at my face. There was just enough moonlight to illuminate her brown eyes, turning them almost silver. She swallowed.
“For luck,” she said, and then she kissed me, stretching up on her toes to reach my lips. It startled me, and I stiffened for just a second before I relaxed into it, my hands resting lightly on her waist.
Someone cleared their throat behind us, and Meg broke away, eyes slanting down to the ground, embarrassed. I let my hands linger on her hips for a moment longer before I let go and adjusted the goggles on top of my head, turning to the others. Lex smirked at me and pursed her lips in a silent wolf whistle, and I resisted the urge to push her off the back of the boat.
“Ready?” I asked her instead, and she got a hold of her expression, forcing it back to seriousness as she nodded. “Then let’s do this.”
25
Before we entered the water, Meg tied us together with a length of rope secured to both our belts to make sure we didn’t lose each other in the darkness below the waves. I fixed the goggles over my eyes and then slipped the long flippers onto my feet and went first, carefully climbing down the ladder with my unwieldy footwear.
The water was shockingly cold where it filled the gap between my foot and the flipper, even though I was wearing socks made of the same material as the wetsuit. The chill soaked through my calves next, though it was an oddly removed sort of chill with the protection of the suit. I reached the last rung of the ladder and pushed off as gently as possible with only the smallest splash. I drifted until the rope went taut, and then I spun around to wait for Lex.
She climbed down a little hesitantly, flinching as the cold water hit her, and she had to take a moment at the bottom before she let go of the ladder and joined me. The waves slapped at us, making it difficult to slot the mouthpiece in between my teeth. I could feel the pull of the ocean’s depths far below my gently kicking feet, tugging at something within my stomach, and I didn’t like having that much space beneath me.
I looked at Lex and gave her a questioning thumbs up, which she returned, and then I raised my hand to wave at the boat. Already, I felt like I could barely see it, other than the soft glint of the moon off parts of the white deck. I detected movement as someone waved back at me.
I spun slowly in the water until I was facing the yacht, the only light for miles around, and I tried to lock its position in my head as best I could, hoping that wouldn’t all fly out the window as soon as I was below the surface. I took a deep breath on reflex, tasting the metal of the tank, and then I submerged, the water wrapping around my head like overly eager fingers.
It was pitch black down there. I could feel the current of the water, already trying to pull me in a direction I didn’t want to go, and I could feel the gentle tug of the rope tethering Lex and me together, but those sensations meant nothing to me without the visuals to go along with them. I heard the dim drone of the engine as Meg started up the boat again and pulled away from us, and I felt its wake pushing against us as it went. But it all seemed so distant and far away, almost unimportant. Ward’s yacht was a vague smear of dull light somewhere up ahead of us, and relief flooded through me when I realized that I could still see it and use it to navigate.
I tugged on the rope once and waited for Lex’s reply before I pointed my body toward the yacht and began to swim, the flippers turning each kick into a powerful fishlike stroke. I angled us down more, just to make sure our shadows would be invisible when we neared the yacht, and then there was nothing to do but try to keep us headed in a straight line, fighting against t
he current constantly trying to push us to the side.
It was odd, breathing with the tank. I could feel the pressure of the water all around me, and so I had to fight against my instincts every time I had to take a breath. I kept trying to hold it, even though that was exactly what Meg had told us not to do. I could feel the soft rubber of the mouthpiece between my teeth and around my lips, but I still thought I was going to get a lungful of water each time I sucked in more air. I didn’t like it. My heart pounded in my ears so hard I was sure my eardrums were about to burst, and the chill of the water had gotten into my bones even through the wetsuit.
I tried to keep us going in at a straight angle, drifting neither deeper nor closer to the surface, but it was a hard thing to judge, especially in the darkness. I kept most of my focus on the smear of the yacht’s lights, trying to keep us headed right toward them, though I frequently had to readjust our course.
How long had we been swimming? Had it been ages or mere minutes? Time had disappeared, stolen away by the pressure and the dark. Were Rachel and Graham in the water yet? Was the yacht even getting any closer? I couldn’t tell. What if we were just swimming in place, making no progress, mere feet from where Meg had dropped us off?
No, I couldn’t think like that. We were moving. We would be at the yacht before we knew it. I just hoped it would be before we grew too tired for the assault. Already, I could feel an ache deep within my legs, a counterpart to the greater ache within my lungs. Just a little further, I told myself. Just a little further.
I don’t know how many times I told myself that mantra. Each time turned out to be a lie as the swim stretched on and on, and again, that worry crept in that we weren’t making any progress. It grew harder and harder to push aside. I tried to focus on other things, like where Lex was in relation to me. I hated not being able to see her, not knowing exactly where she was, having to rely on the occasional tug on the rope binding us to be sure that she was still with me. Whenever there was too much space between each tug, I became convinced that something had cut the rope, and she was adrift, swimming away from me because she couldn’t see me. But then the gentle jerk would come again, and my stomach would settle until the next long bout of stillness.
And then, quite suddenly, it seemed, the lights of the yacht were right above us, a soft, golden smear atop the water. I stopped swimming, carefully reorienting my body, so my head was pointed toward the surface, though I made sure I remained a few feet down. The rope between Lex and me grew slack, and her arm bumped mine, almost giving me a heart attack at the sudden contact after so long without it. I grabbed her hand so we’d stay close together and then checked the time, the little green glow of my watch weak within the dark water. Rachel had said to wait ten minutes to give her and Graham time to get into position as well.
First things first, we needed to find somewhere to climb aboard. I looked left and right along the length of the boat, but there was no way to tell where we were in relation to any access points. I strained my ears, hoping to hear the sound of voices up on the deck, but there was nothing but the thrum of my own heartbeat, the lap of the water, and the hum of the yacht’s idle engine. This close to the hull, that buzz was like a physical force against my chest, rattling my bones.
I released Lex’s hand, picked a direction, and started to swim again, my kicks slow in an effort to remain unseen. I didn’t know how I would spot a ladder or any way to climb up onto the deck through the darkness, but I kept my eyes peeled, anyway. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, I risked turning my flashlight on to its lowest setting, hoping that the outward bow of the hull would block the sight from anyone looking down at the water. The beam didn’t illuminate much and didn’t travel far before the blackness swallowed it up again, but it was enough to make sure that I didn’t bump right into the hull.
A few minutes after that, the light finally fell on the silver glint of a ladder, its bottom rung just barely brushing the water. I kicked a little faster until I was close enough to reach up and wrap my fingers around the rung, the air frigid on my exposed fingers. I turned off the flashlight as Lex swam up to me, bumping into my legs before she righted herself and grabbed the ladder, too. I checked the time. Two minutes to go.
They were the longest two minutes of my life. Every time I looked at my watch, I expected those two minutes to have passed, but it was always less than five seconds from when I’d last looked, and frustration grew in my stomach. Maybe we should just go. Surely, two minutes wouldn’t make that much of a difference. No. I forced myself to remain calm. Rachel had said to wait. I tilted my head back, trying to see if I could spot anybody roaming the deck up above us, but the curve of the hull blocked my view. We would just have to go in blind.
Finally, finally, two minutes passed. I looked at Lex, crowding in close and touching her arm to get her attention. I didn’t know if she could see me as I pointed to my chest and then up the ladder, indicating that I would go first. She tapped my arm twice, and I took that as agreement. Then she let go of the ladder, giving me more room to work.
I put both hands on the bottom rung and carefully pulled myself up until my head broke the surface, trying to make as little splash as possible. The usually warm air was freezing against my wet skin, and I shivered, the water shaking around me. I paused and listened, searching for signs of movement up above, but I didn’t catch anything.
I reached for the next rung and pulled myself up, water dripping off me to splash back down into the ocean, terribly loud to my ears. I paused to listen again and then ascended another rung, hanging half in and half out of the water as droplets ran off my body. The oxygen tank, free of the buoyant saltwater, pulled at my back, trying to drag me back down again. I spat out the mouthpiece, tasting the fresh crispness of real air with relief, and then tugged the goggles free from my face, letting them dangle around my neck. I was sure I had red indents all around my eyes. I pulled one leg up, but the long flipper got caught on the bottom of the rung, and I floundered, trying to force it free. It finally came up with a tremendous splash, and I froze, pressing myself into the ladder, listening for any sound of someone coming to investigate.
Ten seconds passed, and I figured it would be safe to move again. I reached down and pulled both flippers off my feet, holding them in my hand as I climbed up the rest of the ladder. I paused right at the top and poked my head up and over, peering onto the yacht. We were at the ship’s stern, by a much larger version of the seating berth of the boat Meg was driving. The lights coming through the windows blinded me after so long in the dark, and I squinted, waiting for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I saw a single shadow of a person leaning against the left-hand railing, their back to me.
My breath caught, certain the sentry was about to turn around and spot the top half of my head where it poked up over the edge, but the person simply shifted their weight to the other foot and continued staring out over the water.
I undid the rope on my belt and lowered it silently into the water so Lex could gather it up and put it away, and then I slid my flippers onto the deck and to the side, out of the way. My socked feet gripped the metal rungs, the slight rubber sole making sure I didn’t slip as I climbed up and onto the deck, water dripping from my legs the entire way. I crouched there for a second, aware of the way the light glinted off the metal of my tank, hoping no one would spot it before I had a chance to take care of this sentry.
Leaning forward to counteract the oxygen tank’s weight, I stepped down onto the yacht’s deck and crept toward the sentry, taking stock of my assets. It would take too long to fumble the guns free from the dry bag, but I had a utility knife on my belt that I slipped free, the grip a comforting weight in my hand.
I kept my center of gravity low and my shadow well out of reach of the lights coming from within the yacht, rising only when I was within striking distance of the sentry. I lashed out with the hilt of the knife, catching the sentry right in the temple, my other hand reaching out to clamp over their mouth, making sur
e they didn’t cry out. I felt rough stubble against my hand as the man mumbled something into my fingers and then went boneless, and I caught him as he fell, easing him soundlessly to the ground.
Lex’s head poked over the side of the boat as she clambered carefully up the ladder, and I could hear the gentle splash of the water running off her body to hit the ocean below. I held a finger to my lips, and Lex nodded as she shed her scuba gear. We looked around for a place to stash the tanks out of sight. Lex lifted up the seat of one of the molded plastic benches, and there was just enough space on top of the coiled ropes to lay the tanks flat and close the lid again. Hopefully, no one would look in there for a while.
I shucked the wetsuit down to my waist again, tying the sleeves off. I would have loved to take it off since it made my joints feel stiff and inflexible, but I figured there wasn’t time for that endeavor, and we might need to take another dip in the drink before the night was over.
I opened the dry bag and passed Lex her gun, hooking the radio to the wetsuit’s belt before making sure that my own weapon was dry and ready to use. Then I looked around the yacht. I couldn’t see much of it from where we stood. Two wide slices of deck looped around either side of the center cabin—more like a mansion—leading toward the front of the boat, and we stood before a glass wall with a sliding door leading into the interior of the yacht. There was at least one upper level, and I could see several lights glowing inside, though I couldn’t spot any shadows moving around them.
I slipped closer to Lex.
“Ready?” I whispered.
She checked over her gun one last time and then nodded. The light from inside the yacht barely illuminated her face but for one shining spot over her cheekbone and the whites of her tense eyes. I took a deep breath, preparing to enter the unknown, and then I crept for the sliding glass door, hoping that Rachel and Graham were getting ready to do the same on the other side of the boat.
