The tanker came to rest at the very top of the door, pushed there by the streams of bubbles still rising from deeper in the hold. The added force of buoyancy was just enough to crack the door open a fraction of an inch. Air gushed through the opening, forced through by the tremendous pressure. The heavy door was pushed farther back on its hinges. The truck rolled again in the surge of air and suddenly it was scraping across the threshold. It hung suspended, half in and half out of the plummeting ferry, gripped tight by the heavy door.
Mercer held his face pressed tight to the top of the cab, taking shallow sips of air, allowing Tisa the lion’s share of the few remaining breaths. They’d been in the water ten minutes, not nearly enough for the cold to affect them, but still both trembled as if suffering hypothermia.
“Mercer. I-” A wave forced water down Tisa’s throat. She spat and gagged to clear her lungs. “I want you to know-”
Like a cork from a shaken bottle of champagne, the pressure of air in the big tank wouldn’t be held any longer. Shoving aside the door the ten-ton truck popped free and rocketed toward the surface amid a fountain of bubbles.
The motion was so violent that Mercer’s last breath left his mouth half filled with foul water. His lungs burned and he felt the muscles of his diaphragm convulsing to draw air. Tisa couldn’t be faring any better, he thought, as the truck spiraled upward.
From a depth of sixty feet, the trip to the surface took just seconds. The tanker exploded from under the waves like a breaching whale, slamming back to the sea with a splash that nearly capsized a nearby lifeboat. Several survivors struggling in the water were almost crushed when the heavy vehicle spun to find its equilibrium.
Mercer was thrown into the windshield when the tanker broached, shattering the glass and what felt like his skull. He kicked free from the cab, reached back for Tisa and dragged her through the opening. Holding her limp body in one arm, he stroked for the surface, his lungs screaming.
He surfaced next to the bobbing truck and sucked in great drafts of air. Crisscrossing searchlights mounted on a dozen lifeboats cut the dark night. The only sounds were boat motors and pleas for help. The sea was littered with the dead and dying.
The front half of the tanker was underwater, allowing Mercer to wedge himself into the rear wheel well. Tisa wasn’t breathing. He held her to his chest and was able to pinch off her nostrils and begin to breathe air into her lungs.
Tears mingled with the salt water stinging his eyes. “Come on, come on,” he called softly, his mouth inches from hers, his senses alert for the slightest sign of life. He continued CPR, trying to massage her chest to keep her heart going. His precarious position on the tanker made his efforts extremely awkward. He gently blew more air into her body, feeling her lungs expand with each cycle. Tisa remained inert.
And then she coughed up a mouthful of bile and water. Mercer didn’t care that he took most of it in his face. Tisa coughed again, a deep retching that seemed to rip the delicate tissues in her chest. Mercer turned her in his arms so it was easier for her to clear her lungs, all the while rubbing her back and murmuring reassurances.
It took her several minutes to regain her breath enough to speak, and even then Mercer urged her to stay quiet. In that time a dozen stranded passengers had floundered their way to the tottering truck, clinging to precarious handholds wherever they could find them. One man tried to climb the tank, but Mercer reached out a hand to prevent him from upsetting the vehicle’s delicate balance.
He wasn’t paying attention to the boat that approached the tanker. From his position it was just a murky outline behind a dazzling searchlight. As it neared, a few people struck off from the tanker to climb aboard the rescue craft.
Mercer watched absently as the strongest swimmer reached what he thought was a lifeboat and made a grab for the gunwale. A shadowy figure in the craft lofted something high over his head and brought it down with a sickening crunch that carried all the way to the tanker truck.
What the…?
Another man looped an arm over the boat’s low transom. He too was struck over the head. He screamed shrilly but his shout was cut off with another savage blow. A searchlight beam swept the lifeboat and Mercer saw that it wasn’t one of the boats from the ferry. This was a sleek white powerboat, about thirty feet long. Its European styling reminded Mercer of the large motor yacht he’d seen tracking the ferry. That’s how Donny had made his escape, a launch from the big yacht. And now he had returned. Why?
The answer was obvious — to make sure that he and Tisa were dead.
“Tisa, we have to get away,” he whispered urgently. “Your brother’s back.”
She peered into the darkness. The area around the speedboat was becoming chaotic; the crew aboard were whacking at those struggling in the water as though they were marauding pirates bent on plunder. Though the light was bad, and Tisa near-drowned, she recognized the lithe form of her brother standing in the speedboat’s bow. Behind him, Donny Randall smacked at people like an Arctic hunter cracking the skulls of baby seals.
She turned back to Mercer, barely able to see his features in the darkness. “I’m sorry,” she said, and touched his cheek. “This is the only way. He won’t hurt me.”
“What are you-?”
“Luc,” Tisa shouted. “I’m here. Please. I love you.” She pushed away from the tanker and began swimming before Mercer could stop her. “I’m here, Luc. It’s Tisa.” She paused in the water, looking back at him. Her face was a pale oval hovering just above the black water. “Oh my God! Leper Alma, Mercer. Watch for Leper Alma.”
The speedboat knifed across to where she struggled, deliberately running over two survivors clinging to a single life jacket. The craft circled around, and when it reached Tisa, Donny Randall lifted her from the water as easily as a kitten. From where he clutched the tanker truck, Mercer watched horrified as she fell into the waiting arms of her brother.
In the few moments the speedboat had idled, it had attracted dozens of swimmers brave enough, or desperate enough, to chance getting aboard. Donny and another crewman armed themselves with oars once again, but despite their best efforts they were becoming overwhelmed by the press of struggling humanity. Tisa spoke a few words to her brother. Luc ordered the boat’s driver to get them back to the yacht before they were swamped.
Mercer watched it all, unable to believe what he was seeing. Tisa had willingly sacrificed herself to save him. She’d gone to convince her brother that she alone had survived and he was dead in the hold of the ferry. He had no idea what Luc would do to her. She hadn’t told him much about her brother — he felt deliberately — but the impression he had was that their problems went far, far beyond the ideological split within their Order.
He didn’t know what to think, what to do. He was at a complete loss. Even maintaining his grip on the tanker truck didn’t seem worth the effort. He’d barely found her and now she was gone.
Someone knocked into him, bringing him back to his situation. It was a boy of about eight, wide-eyed and frightened, his skinny shoulders nearly slipping through his life jacket. Mercer grabbed the boy and held him close. The child hugged him fiercely, crying in Greek, calling out for his mother in such a clear voice that Mercer felt his heart’s ache deepen further.
In moments two dozen other swimmers were clustered around the tanker and it fell on Mercer to distribute them around the truck to keep the rig from upending. Soon overloaded lifeboats had rafted alongside and the truck became the center of the survivors’ universe. Men gave up their spaces in the boats for women and children while ship’s officers gave their spots to tourists.
Two hours later a ferry from Santorini reached the floating atoll of boats to take on those left alive and commence the grim task of collecting the corpses. Many people would later recall how terrorists in a speedboat had clubbed survivors in the water and kidnapped a young woman, though no one could give an accurate description of the men or their vessel or how they’d escaped. Nor could anyone describe the American who’d miraculously popped up from the depths in the tanker truck to organize the rescue effort and save countless lives.
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
The dream diverged from reality at the same place for the last three nights. Holding tightly to each other against the truck, Tisa and Mercer waited in the dark for Donny and Luc Nguyen to give up
