Sarah's nightgown billowed in the breeze.
'We're unarmed,' Sam lied.
'Don't mess with me, Chase. I'll kill her and then the two of you.'
Sam recognized the ugly voice of Rafe Black.
Sam believed him. In his right hand Sam had the 10mm SIG-Sauer and in his left he had Ranken's. 38.
'Hands on your heads,' Black screamed, the knife still furrowing the skin of Sarah's neck.
Sam rose and dived out of the plane into the frigid ocean and disappeared under the sea.
On his way down he put the guns in his belt and used the long, numbing descent to decide exactly how he would get to them.
As he stopped his downward movement into the depths, he turned head up, probably eight feet below the surface, reached down, and slipped off his Top-Siders and crammed them, toe first, into his pants. The pain of the contortion in his bad leg was intense and nearly unbearable. Next he got Eugene's coat off as he was coasting up. Before he broke the surface, he swam for what he believed to be the back of the Zodiac. Glancing up toward the surface, he thought he saw a shadow, but wasn't sure.
Worried about disorientation, he forced himself to remain calm and to take four good strokes. Then he rolled and put his hand in the general direction he thought to be up. He felt the bottom of a boat; he sensed with his fingertips a commotion inside the hull.
Holding his fingers over his head, he bounced along the bottom until the bottom disappeared. He hoped it was the stern. Expecting a gun in his face, he brought his 10mm up and gently broke the surface.
The light shone from the back of the boat. His first glimpse was a split second of hunched-over men below the big man. All were well-illuminated. Sarah remained in front of them, a silhouette.
The big guy was screaming threats, looking around in front and to the side.
'Burial at sea,' Sam muttered as he shot.
CHAPTER 35
For a moment Haley was shocked and couldn't comprehend what Sam was planning- only that he'd disappeared into the ocean. In a second she realized that he would attack.
The man with the knife screamed that he was going to cut Sarah. Blood began oozing from her neck.
'Where'd he go?' one of the other men shouted when Sam disappeared.
'He's trying to escape,' another said.
'Be careful,' the leader shouted.
The men were nearly submerging one of the pontoons, trying to peer over the side. Then a loud bang rang out. Haley saw the man's forehead burst open, spewing its contents all over Sarah. Rafe Black crumpled, leaving Sarah teetering and calling to Haley for help.
More shots. A great rush of air came from the boat's pontoon collar.
Sarah was reaching out into thin air for the airplane. They were drifting apart. Then Sarah and the boat tilted to the side, submerging a pontoon completely.
'We're going under,' one man shouted as they rolled over the side and into the freezing water.
Sarah fell and the sight of her white nightgown billowing around her as she went under frightened Haley.
Sarah popped to the surface, screaming in pain.
The scene was chaos-all wild struggling, crying, and splashing.
As Haley removed her shoes to dive in after Sarah, she heard a loud voice from the water, in front of her and to the side.
'Haley, start the plane.'
It was Sam, but he couldn't mean it. How could she leave Sarah?
Most of the men were trying to get back into the sinking Zodiac, but one had spotted Sam and had come after him.
When the man reached him, Sam pushed him underwater, moving away. The man came back up and at him, fighting hard and amazingly resilient. He actually got above Sam and shoved him down. Sam went down willingly, deeper than the man expected, then came up the man's pants, quickly disabling the man. Sam could have detached the testicles from their plumbing, but he elected against permanently maiming him.
Sam could hear the screaming even underwater.
When Sam let go, the man was much more interested in swimming in the other direction.
Sam moved toward Sarah.
Even in pain Sarah could swim a little and remained at the surface, floundering next to him.
Then she disappeared. He felt around and found her. He pulled her up, weary, wondering if he could make it.
'I'm trying. I hurt, so tired,' Sarah whispered.
'Lie on your back,' he said, and she did. 'Don't struggle, it makes you colder.' Sam knew that struggle circulated the blood and the body acted as a radiator, hence movement equaled lower core temperatures in the body. Her body went limp in the water. 'Put your hands on my shoulders.' She did that. Instinctively she put her legs to either side of his torso and he began doing the breaststroke, using his healthiest limbs to propel them through the water toward the plane, which had drifted away. As he moved, he could tell Sarah was drifting off; he wasn't sure he could keep her at the surface and breathing.
He heard the amphibian's engine try to start. Haley tried it again and again, but it didn't catch.
'Haley,' he called out.
'Yeah,' she shouted from a distance.
'Come here, fast.'
She kicked the starter twice more before the engine caught. Then she was near them in seconds.
To locate Sam and Sarah she had flicked on the landing light, illuminating a swath at least one hundred yards or more in length. She could see the three men, two appeared headed for a point to her right and the third headed directly at the plane. Sam and Sarah were close by, swimming toward her, Sarah on her back pushed by Sam on his belly. She killed the lights and gunned the throttle, then came up beside them.
Now she flicked on the cockpit lights, giving the area around the hull a soft glow, allowing her to see.
Sarah was floundering and nearly incoherent. Putting a ladder over the side, Haley climbed down and tried to help Sarah up. Sarah was going into shock, from hypothermia probably, and Haley couldn't lift her the couple of feet up and in the plane.
Suddenly it occurred to her that Sam had disappeared.
She had been so intent on Sarah that she didn't see one of the men right near the ladder.
He had a gun pointed at her gut.
'Drop her and help me,' the man said.
Sam was ten feet away and swimming toward the man from behind.
'I said let her go.'
'I can't, she'll die,' Haley said. 'And if you kill me, I can't help you, anyway.'
The man's gun hand was shaking. His lips were blue. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The safety. As if telegraphing the thought, the man glanced at the gun. Then the gun boomed. Missed.
Sam grabbed the gun and swung it down.
They began to struggle.
'Paddle, Haley.'
She knew he was afraid of this man getting to the plane. Desperate, she pulled Sarah up on the edge of the plane, draping her body and putting her hands on the seat where Sarah could grip. Grabbing a paddle, Haley pulled on each stroke trying to move the plane away. She hoped the plane was moving fast enough. Haley could hardly think with Sarah's terrible groaning in her ear and Sarah about to fall back in.
Sam and the man had disappeared. Pain squeezed Haley's heart as she imagined that Sam might die.
'Hold on, Sarah,' she said through gritted teeth.
