the heavy weight slid off, the rope slackened.
“Where the fuck are they?” said the man at the wheel, raising his voice over the storm.
“Radio them,” El Rojo replied. “Tell them to turn on the lights and move in.”
Someone moaned, close by. Jack. “It hurts,” he said, but not loudly. “It hurts.”
Double hull. That meant an airspace, didn’t it? Eddie reached one hand below the waterline, felt for the bottom plug. Why not? The sea was his friend, and the alternative was being part of Gaucho’s therapy.
He found the plug. It had a metal-ring handle, snapped tight to the hull. He unsnapped it, pulled. Nothing happened. He tried rotating it, first one way, then another. The ring turned, counterclockwise, releasing tension in the rubber plug, shrinking its volume. It popped out. Eddie let it go.
A wave tossed the boat up again, and he saw the round hole in the stern. Then came the fall into the trough, and the hole sank from view.
“Lights at two o’clock,” shouted Paz.
“Those?” said another. “So far?”
“Steer,” said El Rojo.
“It hurts,” said Jack, close by.
Eddie lay slumped over the transom, waiting for the hull space to fill with water, waiting for the boat to turn heavy and sluggish, to go down. But the boat didn’t turn heavy and sluggish; it pounded on, into the waves. Why? Some time passed before Eddie figured it out, time that took them farther out. It was simple: forward motion kept water from entering the hole. Forward motion would have to be stopped.
Eddie felt for the fuel hose under his chest, ran his hand along it to the coupling with the starboard engine, saw that a second hose connected the starboard engine to the port. The sole feeder of fuel was the hose that ran from the tank, under his chest, to the starboard engine. Eddie reached for the coupling, unsnapped it, and hung the hose over the stern.
The engines roared on. Maybe he had miscalculated, maybe there were factors he knew nothing about. He pushed himself up on hands and knees, and had his hand on the clamps that fastened the starboard engine to the hull, when both engines coughed and died.
There was a moment of quiet. Then sound poured in: the sea, the wind, raised voices from the cockpit. Eddie turned, saw a wave looming over the bow, saw El Rojo, Paz, Julio, and the olive-skinned men, all gazing at the engines, saw Jack sitting doubled up, his back to the hull, saw that the other end of the rope around his neck was tied to a cleat.
The front slope of the wave raised the boat high; the back slope crashed it down. This time cold water swept over the transom, and the stern swung heavily in the wash.
El Rojo said: “Julio.”
Julio made his way to the stern.
“We’re sinking,” cried a man in the cockpit.
“Silence,” said El Rojo.
Water ran across the deck. Julio slipped in it as he reached the stern. He rose, kicked Eddie out of the way, examined the engines.
“The fucking hose,” he said. He looked down at Eddie. The boat rose, fell, crashed, settled lower in the water. “I can’t swim,” Julio yelled to no one in particular. He seized the hose.
Eddie got to his feet. “Anyone can learn to swim,” he said. He lifted up the fuel tank, raised it high over his head, and heaved it overboard. One corner of it caught Julio on the shoulder. He lost his balance, slipped again on the watery deck, now ankle-deep, and fell backward over the transom, sinking out of sight in the black water.
The men in the cockpit froze. El Rojo was the first to move. He reached into his pocket, was still reaching when the boat swung sideways and yawed until the sea slopped over the edge, knocking everyone down.
The boat slowly righted itself; much lower in the water now. Half crawling, half sliding across the flooded deck, which reeked of gasoline, Eddie made his way to the cleat where the noose was tied. Paz arrived first.
Paz unfastened the rope, jerked it hard, cutting off Eddie’s air. But Eddie got his hands on it too, gathered his legs beneath him, and sprang over the side.
Paz was strong enough to keep his hold on the rope but not strong enough to stay on board. He fell in after Eddie. The rope loosened around Eddie’s neck.
They went down together, tangled in rope. Ten, or fifteen, or twenty feet below, the water was almost calm, and not particularly cold. Eddie had no fear of it at all. He felt tugging around his neck, reached out and wrapped his arms around Paz. Paz wriggled, struggled, gouged, but couldn’t get away, couldn’t go up. When the wriggling, struggling, and gouging stopped, Eddie released Paz and kicked his way up to the surface, alone.
He broke through on a rising wave, striking his head on something. The backpack. He slipped the noose off his neck and swam toward it. He was a stroke or two away when it went under.
As the wave carried Eddie higher, the moon shone through a break in the clouds. Eddie looked around. In the southwest he saw the lights of
El Rojo’s eyes, silver in the moonlight, fastened on Eddie. “You will never be safe.” Then he turned and started swimming toward
Eddie dipped into a trough. When he rose again El Rojo was out of sight, but Jack was much closer. Eddie swam to him, touched him.
“You all right?”
Jack nodded. The dressing had slipped off his neck, revealing the black stitches across his skin.
Eddie pointed toward the lights of Saint Amour. “It’s nothing, Jack, just a training swim. We’ll be fine.”
“Never.”
The wind whipped off the top of a wave and flung it in their faces. Jack gasped, choked, went under for a moment, came up coughing.
“Let’s go,” Eddie said.
“Sharks are down there.”
“They won’t bother us.”
“They can smell blood, Eddie. For miles and miles.”
“We’ll be fine. Come on.”
To set an example, Eddie turned toward Saint Amour, stretched out, swam. He found his rhythm at once, easy and powerful, slashing through the spikes, climbing the crests, sliding down into the troughs. The ocean might have been rough, but all he felt was its support. He could swim to Saint Amour, or much farther if he had to; as though all those years in the pool had been just for this. Eddie swam, kicking, pushing great handfuls of water aside, riding high, barely breathing; swimming his best. After a while, he stopped to make sure Jack was keeping up. He couldn’t see him.
“Jack?” he shouted over the wind.
No reply.
He swam back, out to sea, pausing once or twice to call, “Jack? Jack?” and heard no answer. He found him among the litter left behind by the speedboat, not swimming.
“Jack. For Christ’s sake.”
“It’s too far.”
“It’s not.”
“The sharks will get me anyway.”
“Swim, Jack. Like in the pool. You were the best.”
“That was a long time ago. I blew it.”
“You didn’t blow it.”
“Then how come we’re here?”
A wave broke over Jack’s head, left him coughing.
“Swim, Jack.”
