'Have the guys on the truck's ass call me.'
It wasn't a minute until Sam's phone rang. It was nearly dark.
'They're headed down Wall Street toward the water.'
'I'm Jack. I'll be with you as fast as I can.'
'Roger that, you with Whalen?'
'No. Whalen sent me to assist.'
'We're doing fine.'
'Talk to Whalen. I just follow orders.' Sam stayed on the line and moved through traffic as fast as he could.
'Hey, Jack. You're not gonna believe this. They just drove onto State Street down to the new construction at the ferry terminal, crashed the barricades, and then went plunging into the river.'
'I believe it.'
'What do we do?'
'Watch me.'
Sam drove up to the smashed barricades, then followed the course of the truck on foot, stopping at the end. The truck was a bit downstream, sixty or seventy feet out from the pier-sinking fast. A boat was coming up the river. Taking off his shoes and overcoat, Sam dived in and felt the full force of 50 degree Fahrenheit water. The shock was so great it was a clamp on his chest and it stung his face and put an ache in his bones. When he surfaced, he swam hard to ward the truck. Just as he arrived, the truck went under with a large burst of bubbles. He descended and could see noth ing in the murk. When he surfaced, he found a trail of scuba bubbles headed downstream. Swimming just ahead of the bubbles, he dived and swam down hard. The boat was ap proaching. After dropping, perhaps twenty feet, he hit bodies. One of them erupted in a flurry of activity, grabbing for his throat. To even the odds, he reached about the person's head and grabbed for the regulator hose, ripping it from the diver's mouth. Sam's foe made for the surface and Sam fol lowed, but not before he yanked on the regulator hose. It broke free in an incredible stream of bubbles. Just as he broke the surface, Sam saw the gun. The man was ten feet away and coughing badly. As the first shot went wild, Sam went under. The boat propellers screamed. If the shooter hadn't been half drowned, Sam knew he would be dead. Swimming toward the man, but deep, he made a guess as to his exact location. When he came up, he was behind and to the left. With two strokes he managed to grab the gun.
As he fought for the gun, Sam saw the boat and two people being pulled over the gunwales.
The man who fought him was strong and determined. Grappling, they went under. Both of Sam's hands were on the gun. It went off, but the bullet bit no flesh. Sam flipped head down and frog-kicked toward the bottom. He sensed his adversary yearning for the surface and kicked harder. When he felt the man start to weaken, Sam increased his de termination and told himself he would swim to hell. Above, the boat props wound up and the boat went screaming away. Sam's lungs began to burn and he felt woozy from the cold and the lack of oxygen. Thoughts became jumbled. They rolled under the water, and up became almost indistinguish able from down. Finally the man released and was gone. Sam had the gun. He started up and suddenly realized his lethargy. It was hard to kick. Shoving the gun in his pants, he tried to swim. His arms were rubber. With great effort he thought his way through each stroke. When at last he took a breath of air, he was too weary to lift the gun. It didn't matter; the man was nowhere to be seen. Sam took great gasps of air, trying to recover, trying to survive the cold. He turned and the man appeared facedown. Grabbing the man by the hair, he lifted his face, rolled him over, and breathed into his lungs.
The shore was far off. There were large boats passing, but none close enough. He tried to pull the unconscious man to ward shore, but it was too much. Sam could barely move his arms and feet. He knew to be still and not to thrash. He bobbed and breathed and then made gentle strokes. Someone was swimming toward him. They were trying to help but obviously didn't know how. Soon his rescuer was sputtering.
'Lie on your back,' Sam said. 'Put your legs around my waist.' The man did it. 'Now you do the backstroke.' When the man complied, Sam did the breaststroke and they moved together, with Sam on his stomach and the man on his back, held together by the man's legs. It wasn't clear who was sav ing whom, but they made steady progress toward the dock. Another couple of men jumped in and helped them the last fifty feet to the ladder, where there were several hands to help them up. Sam lay on the dock, staring at the sky, wondering whose body was floating in the river, but knowing in his gut it wasn't Devan Gaudet's.
Sam sat down for just a moment to escape the frenetic phone calls of the last few hours. Resting was not, however, what it was cracked up to be. It was all too easy to sink back into the gloom he felt over Anna, when he wasn't obsessed with Gaudet and Benoit. Anna remained in a coma, no real changes.
Jill had come to New York, to their temporary offices, and had moved from her table over to his and he welcomed the company.
Harry lay in the middle of Sam's table, looking generally depressed despite their reunion.
'I swear, if I wanna know what you're thinking, all I have to do is look at Harry.'
For the first time he noticed Jill watching him.
'I found out today that when Anna recovers, we won't have a baby. How do you think about anything, even saving the lives of millions, when you find out your baby died? I know it was a fetus, but to me, in my mind, it was a baby that I was ready to welcome into the world. I guess I was already planning trips to the zoo and wondering what it would be like to be a regular person with an identity and a child in a stroller. It's like I've been holding her on my knee. For some reason I thought it was a girl. Isn't that insane?' Sam got up from his desk, feeling that he was going to weep.
'I'll be back. I have to use the restroom.'
He had lost Bud, and now this. After about fifteen minutes he called his mother.
'As we feared, we have lost our baby.'
'It is a great loss for all of us. I am sorry that now is not a time for you to make your peace with this.'
'No, it isn't. I don't know if I can go on.'
'I wish your grandfather were here.'
'What would he say?'
'Catching his mind is like trying to take a handful of wind. I'm afraid I don't know. Besides, words were different when he said them.'
'That is so true.'
'There might be another child, but the other can never make up for the loss of the one. We love the one, even though it was a soul that we never knew. Perhaps our love is both our pain and our consolation. When next you come home, we will express our love for this one. I will think about that and I will put flowers at Universe Rock and tell this child of my love.'
'I will too.'
It took thirty minutes before he felt ready to go back. He knew that Jill would say nothing. She understood him. In order to enable himself to function, he imagined how many children might die if he didn't get Gaudet; he imagined then- parents and their trips to the zoo. It was sobering and it allowed him to give himself permission to put off grieving. It was even more effective than the other emotion that he felt-anger and the desire for revenge.
There was nothing to do but swing back into action on all fronts. Grogg and the government people were still trying to pry something out of Gaudet's laptop or get into his main server. Now that Gaudet had driven a truck off a pier and damaged the pier, the cops were looking for him. They would have had a better chance finding Jimmy Hoffa. The Feds were examining every helicopter in the pertinent cities, looking for atomizer equipment.
'You remember that new program for homeland security, where we screen the incoming passengers on the interna tional flights?' Jill asked. It was a kindness that she went on with business as usual.
'Uh-huh.'
'I think we've got something.'
'Great. What is it?'
'Well, we struck out on the rental-car front.'
'Too bad. It was a guess. So where are you now?'
'We performed a query on flight reservations, national and international, using a certain mileage-plus number.'
