“I need to tell you something.”
“I love you, David.”
He shook his head.
“I’m so, so sorry. I love you too… I didn’t mean to ruin your life…”
“You didn’t ruin anything. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
He coughed, blood trickling from his lips and oozing down his chin.
“Listen. I want you to know…I’m sorry about the baby. Our baby.”
She recoiled, shock written across her face.
“How did you know-”
“There’s no time. I found out. That’s the important thing.”
“Oh, David. She…I lost her. She died while I was giving birth…” The tears fell from her face, collecting in a small pool, mingling with the dark stain spreading on his chest.
“No.”
“Yes, David. I…I’m sorry.”
He shook his head and increased his grip, surprising her.
“No. She didn’t die.”
The words slammed into her. She looked around wildly, her expression uncomprehending.
“How do you…what do you mean, she didn’t die? I saw her. I buried her. Hannah.”
He shook her arm with his remaining strength, forcing her eyes back to his.
“She’s alive. I’m sorry. I had to protect her. It wasn’t safe.”
“You…how…”
“I found out, and I had the doctor switch Hannah for a newborn that died the day before. The underage mother was going to put it up for adoption…”
Another racking cough finished with a grimace. He didn’t have much time.
“I wanted to tell you a hundred times since you came back. But I…I couldn’t. I was afraid…I was afraid I’d lose you again…and it still wasn’t safe…Grigenko…”
Her expression froze.
“You stole my baby…? You let me live for two years believing she was dead?” The dawning horror in her eyes was worse than anything she could have said, any condemnation or expression of hate.
“I had to. You’d never be safe, no matter what you believed. You can’t outrun your past. And she’s my daughter, too. I did what was best. For her. Not for you, or for me. For her, to keep her safe,” he said, his voice trailing off towards the end. His eyes began fluttering.
She was losing him.
“No. No, you can’t die. Where is she? What did you do with my baby?” she screamed, grabbing his wetsuit and shaking him. His head lolled, and then he croaked at her.
“What? What did you say? David. Don’t die. Where is she?”
With the last of his life, his lips quivered, trying to shape a word. She leaned close to him, putting her ear beside his mouth.
“Where, David? Where?”
His breath wheezed and gurgled. He drew one final lungful of air and clamped his eyes shut from the effort of staying alive, trying to make amends for having done the unforgivable.
“Ohhh…mah…haaah…”
The last of the breath departed him as a groan, and then he shuddered and lay still, his eyes, having opened on the last syllable, stared lifelessly at the ceiling above him.
“No. No no no no no. Damn you, David. Damn you…”
She pounded on his chest with her fists, over and over again, drumming home each exclamation, then fell against him, sobbing, anguish shuddering through her body, a combination of love and hate battling for dominance.
Flames licked at the rear of the command deck and the enclosed area filled with black smoke, the fire now raging out of control below. Fire engines screeched to a halt on the wharf, and she vaguely heard screams in French as the firemen directed their hoses at the ship.
She looked up at the smoke. Her daughter was alive. David’s final gift had been to give her back her life. But in doing so, condemning his memory to eternal damnation.
Jet reached over and closed his eyelids, then rose and staggered to the bridge. A radio crackled near the throttles, and she heard Grigenko’s distinctive voice.
“Change of plans. Tell the jet to file a flight plan for Omaha, in the United States. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Have the pilots ready to depart when I arrive. And get our man in the United States to send someone to this Nebraska place to meet me when I get there. Do you understand?”
But how?
How had Grigenko learned that her daughter was there?
Jet looked around, eyes stinging from the haze, and saw a glow from the com room. She moved towards the door and peered in. A laptop computer screen flickered in the dark, running on its battery. She approached it and saw cables going from the hard disk to a much larger box. A decryption engine.
Moving closer, she peered at the screen and saw lines of code. She scrolled down and read, taking in the data. It had to be David’s laptop, stolen from his apartment. The data on it had been instrumental in Grigenko finding her.
But apparently David also kept other information on it.
Like his plans to kidnap Hannah.
The floor began to collapse and flames shot through a rent twenty feet away. She committed the name and address on the screen to memory, then ran to where David’s FN P90 lay on the floor near where he’d fallen. She scooped it up, moved to David and freed his backpack, pausing to slide the weapon inside before pulling the straps over her shoulders.
A sharp crack sounded from the deck as more of it collapsed — she wheeled around and darted to the bridge. The side door was wedged shut, and she pried at it with both hands, forcing it open with a creak. She stepped out and looked over the rail, then without hesitation threw herself headlong into the night air, her body describing an arc as she narrowly cleared the structure below and sliced into the water, her entry hardly causing a splash.
Chapter 33
The massive bulk of the ship’s hull hid Jet’s dive from view. When she came to the surface, the blazing fury of the fire illuminated the night, the reflection an eerie dance of light on the harbor’s ripples.
Jet pulled with smooth strokes to the front mooring rope, a hundred yards from where the stern of the yacht was backed up to the dock, moored Mediterranean style with the bow pointed at the harbor mouth. When she got to the line, she felt David’s scuba tank and bag bobbing just below the waves. She slid off the backpack before cranking the air valve open and clearing the regulator with an abrupt blast. Glancing at the wharf, she fastened the harness around her chest and clipped the backpack to it, tugging to make sure it was secure.
She slipped the strap of the mask over her head and took one final look back at the dock as David’s now useless dive bag sank into the depths. Samuel was standing near the water, watching the boat burn with the rest of the partygoers, draped in a blanket and looking dazed. One of the crew must have found him in time. She allowed herself a grim smile, then pulled the mask into place and pushed off towards the harbor entrance.
Her boots slowed her, but she was able to make the hundred and fifty yards to the rocks at the marina mouth using only her arms for propulsion. The surge from the sea rose and fell, waves pounding against the breakwater, and in the dark, she could just make out the waiting jet ski tied to an ancient iron ring in the sea wall.
She pulled herself astride it and jettisoned the scuba gear before pulling the backpack on and jabbing the starter button with her thumb. The powerful engine roared to life, and she unclipped the shore line and then opened the throttle wide, the jet ski’s slim frame leaping forward in a surge.
