At Any Cost (28 page)

Trying to decide whether he should start with the top floor or the bottom, he heard the male voices he had been expecting. Tom froze, listening to determine which direction it was emanating from. He gripped the powerful MP-5 in his hands and proceeded soundlessly upstairs.

Inside the stairwell, he rose on his tiptoes to scan the scene. The voices might have been from the television. A man was lying on the sofa with his eyes closed, apparently asleep. Tom lifted his foot and quietly placed it on the next step, aware of every muscle contracting, every breath that sounded like the sawing wind in his own ears. Standing motionless on the top step, he took in a plush white and purple room that reminded him of a nightclub. Glossy tables, a wet bar that was lit from underneath, plush white sofas.

“Khalid!” Someone shouted from beyond the wet bar.

Tom dove behind the sectional sofa. The man on the sofa sat up, blinking sleepily. “Yes, I am here.” He looked around, like he'd sensed Tom's presence, his smell, or the swirl of the air or the way the boat shifted, slightly, when Tom landed.

Tom willed himself to be as small as possible, to keep his heart from pounding so hard.

“What is happening in here? Are you asleep?”

“No, I was praying.”

“Where is Aziz? I paged him on the radio but he did not answer. He is useless.”

“I will check.”

“The plan is good. If everyone would just adhere to the plan we would have no problems.”

“We will have no problems, Faisal.”

“Find Aziz. Tonight there can be no surprises or mistakes.”

Tom heard one man walking toward the stairs, but one stayed. He felt his footsteps on the floor approaching him in his hiding spot, and then a gasp. “Who are—”

Tom's actions were instantaneous. He lifted the weapon and fired a silent shot into his head. Tom shot up and grabbed the man's shirt before he fell back with a thud. Tom eased him down and then began to drag his body toward a closet door.

From the back deck: “Faisal! Come quick!” So young Khalid had no doubt discovered the blood puddle on the polished wood flooring.

Tom shut the closet door as the younger man appeared. His eyes grew wide when he saw Tom and he reached to his side, as if to grab a gun, and realized, too late, that he did not have it with him. Tom shot but missed, the bullet whizzing by the guy's head to lodge behind him in the wall. He was a blur as he ran back downstairs, screaming. Tom shot again and he fell, a black-red mark appearing on the wall in front of him. Tom could hear a disturbance from upstairs. Someone calling, “What is happening?”

Tom did not want to risk going back onto the deck to drop the body overboard; he sensed the people upstairs would be looking over the upper deck, curious about the shouting. Instead, he dragged the leaden body through the salon to a bathroom. He placed him on the floor of the shower, closed the door, and listened.

They were coming. It sounded like a stampede of a hundred people, but he knew it could not be more than twenty or so. Tom gripped the small device in his pocket and hurried toward them. He heard the
thwap
of a silenced weapon before he saw the people holding the weapons. Tom tossed the flash-bang grenade and shut his eyes.

In the small, enclosed area, the percussion was devastating. Tom swayed on his feet, momentarily blinded. Regaining his equilibrium, he vaulted himself up the staircase and began to yell, “Fallon! Fallon!”

He knew they were behind him, dazed and blind for the moment, but they would recover and come for him; he had seconds to find Fallon. They knew where Fallon was, and they might kill her just to spite him, so he moved quickly. A man suddenly jumped on Tom's back, strong hands squeezing his throat. Tom jammed the barrel of the gun backward into the man's face. His grip loosened slightly but Tom bashed him repeatedly until he fell away with an anguished moan.

Panic erupted down below decks. He heard them yelling. Then splashing. Were they jumping ship? Into freezing water? The flash-bang would stun anyone with the noise and blinding flash, but it wasn't deadly. He carefully moved to the stairwell, then crept down, and he felt a massive wall of heat advancing like a wave. Then he realized the back half of the ship was on fire.

Tom ran to the bow of the ship and took the staircase upstairs to the very top level. “Fallon! Are you here?” There was a Jet Ski and a kayak and a small Boston Whaler but no place where she might be hidden.

He ran back to the second level, screaming her name. He heard no reply. Frantically he flung open doors, searching every crevice he could find. That left only the two bottom floors. He again used the front stairs to run down. He bypassed the floor with the fancy club furniture and plunged into the dark hallway. As he landed on the bottom step, he felt cold water and realized he was up to his ankles in seawater. The fire was causing the boat to sink. And it was burning hot and fast. Even down here, thick black smoke burned his eyes and his throat. He resisted reaching for a light because he didn't want to spark another fire. He found the small penlight he kept in his pocket and struggled to see in the weak illumination. The beam only reached two feet in front of him and with the restricted beam the room seemed not very big. He trudged in the darkness deeper into the bowels of the ship, the water rising to his calves. It was sloshing up high against the walls.

“Fallon!” Using his left hand to keep the beam in front of him, he ran his hand along the walls, looking for a door. The fiberglass and sheetrock were hot, burning rapidly. His heart was pounding; his throat felt like it was closing up. Smoke curled into his eyes, irritated his lungs.

His foot struck something and he realized he'd walked into a wall. There was an enclosed square room in the center of the room. Flashing the beam onto it, he saw an engraved silver plaque: ENGINE ROOM.

Desperately he pushed against the door but it would not open. It was flat; there was no handle. “Fallon, if you're in there, stay away from the door.” He lifted his weapon and fired at the lock. Pushing against the water, which wet him to the knee, the door finally opened. A giant wall of hissing heat burned his eyes. Hissing and crackling blood orange and black flames were consuming what had been the back wall of the ship.

In the center of the room, only feet from the conflagration, Fallon was tied to a chair, blindfolded and gagged. His soul transformed at the sight of her. He wanted to fall to his knees and give thanks to a God he had not believed in since September 11, 2001 that she was alive. He trudged through the rising water to her and ripped off the blindfold. Dazed, she looked up at him with wide, blinking, terrified eyes. But in the next second, she recognized him. Amazement and love and hope blazed out at him in that instant. Tom worked at the gag and finally got it loose. She was crying, her whole body shaking. “You came,” she gasped over the noise.

Tom used the bloody knife to cut the heavy nautical rope at her wrists and ankles. She was wiggling, trying to get away from the fire, but her squirming prevented him from getting a clean cut.

“Stay still,” he yelled, grabbing her ankle.

Finally he sliced through, tossing away the ropes. Fallon stood up on legs as fragile as a newborn foal's. She collapsed against him as if she had no stamina of her own. She was hurt, almost helpless. Nothing he could do about it now though but be the muscle for her.

The thick black smoke was becoming overwhelming. He grabbed the blindfold. “Breathe through this,” he instructed. He placed it over her mouth and nose. “Good girl.”

He scooped her up in a fireman's carry and waded through the freezing water back to the door. The engine room had been waterproofed and had held back a deluge, but when he entered the hallway again, the bottom floor of the boat was submerged. He could not carry her to the stairs; he would drown. “Hold on to me,” he said and placed her gently in the water.

She clung to his back as he led the way through the black and watery chamber. He gripped the handrail of the stairs; it was hot. Fallon wrapped her legs and arms around him, and he carried her up. The rear of the boat was underwater. He could no longer see the place he boarded or the place the two bodies had been discarded.

Tom hurried with Fallon to the front steps. The fire was bad on the starboard side. The sound of it was terrifying: chewing everything in its path, the crisping and popping, the roar that drowned out everything else.

Keeping himself focused on the only objective, he kept to the port and climbed up to the bow of the ship. The water was quickly rising, and even in the cold, open air the smoke was horrendous. Fallon was coughing, gasping for air.

She leaned over as if she was heaving, and Tom saw a bloody mark on her neck. Gently he lifted her hair and saw a deep red slice into her tender magnolia skin. She would need stitches.

“They were telling me how they would behead me,” she said with dazed simplicity.

Tom stuffed it down. He'd deal with it later. Right now he had to get Fallon off this sinking ship.

At the edge of his blurred vision he saw something white in the water. He blinked, thinking it was moonlight throwing shapes on the waves, but then realized there was no moonlight tonight; it was snowing. It was the edge of the Zodiac creating a slight wave as it floated near the yacht. It had gone in crazy circles since he let it go.

Tom would have to jump in the water, swim to the Zodiac, and pull himself inside, then steer it close to the ship so Fallon could make her way into it. That fire looming behind her looked ferocious, but he had no choice.

“What is that?”

“It's our way out of here. Stay here. I will—”

“No. We're going together.”

There was no arguing with Fallon. He nodded. “We jump, swim, and I'll get you into the Zodiac. Do not let go of my hand.”

She looked sick, but she nodded.

Tom walked with her to the edge of the boat, which was now almost entirely on its starboard side, rocking and heaving in the choppy waves. The black water swirled and heaved, terribly rugged. Meanwhile, they were tottering perilously high on the side of the ship. Tom could detect the craft already starting to descend into the sea, and once it really began to sink, it would create a powerful draft, sucking them and the Zodiac down with it.

“On the count of three.” He gripped her hand. “One. Two. Three.”

The icy shock of the water left him breathless, blindsighted. It was barely above freezing, and the air was even colder; snow still fell. He felt that peculiar sense that there was no bottom beneath his feet, and he struggled to swim up while holding Fallon's frozen hand. He had to move quickly, even as his cramping limbs ached from the sudden penetrating cold. Fallon's teeth chattered loudly and her hair was instantly frozen. Her skin had paled to a translucent, sickly white. Holding her with one arm, he reached for the Zodiac. Grasping it with his shaking arm felt like a miraculous victory. But they were far from safe. Once the ship went down, they were going to get dragged down too. They had to get far away, fast. Fallon hung onto him and then flung one leg over the rim. She was numb too; her limbs weren't working. Her foot barely caught the edge of the boat, then fell back into the water.

“One more time,” Tom said. Holding on to the Zodiac with one arm, he awkwardly pushed Fallon up, trying to get her top half inside and let gravity do the rest. To his great relief, she tumbled inside. She crawled toward the edge and held her arm out for him as if to help. God, she never stopped caring, did she? She was so weak, he would have yanked her back into the water. Tom flung his left leg over the ledge and launched himself inside. He grabbed the steering wheel and pointed it toward the shore.

It suddenly became a thousand times darker, and Tom realized that the yacht had sunk; the fire was extinguished in the waves. He felt the pull of the massive form in the water, the vacuum created by the displaced ship, but the Zodiac was far enough away that it wouldn't get dragged into the vortex. He listened for voices, for cries for help that would go unanswered as the terrorists drowned, but there was nothing. The wind and waves covered a multitude of sins.

Fallon was no longer shaking. Very bad sign. Tom positioned her in front of him so he could steer the boat and share his body heat. “We're almost there,” he said into her ear. They weren't. They were at least twenty minutes from shore. He hoped she didn't glance at the GPS; he'd be busted.

He was so cold. He had never been so cold in his life. He could not feel his feet or his hands or ears or nose but he was more worried about Fallon. She had begun to shake a little bit again, which was good.

Finally, they entered the safety of the small harbor, where the wind eased up a little bit. The high, splashing, freezing, splattering waves were gone, replaced by calm water, snow, and total blackness.

Tom steered the boat to the pier and cut the engine. He stood up on shaking legs and placed one wet boot-clad foot on the pier, holding the boat in place so Fallon could get out. He held her waist and helped her step out of the unsteady rocking boat to the pier. She swayed dangerously. Not good. In one swift movement, Tom scooped her up. With her body sagging against his, he carried her to the truck. She leaned against while he opened the door; she simply had no stamina of her own at all. Tom, alarmed, gently placed her in inside with the heater blasting at her like jet engines. She was deathly pale. He began to rip the thin lace bodice of her pretty lace.

“What are you doing?” she asked between clenched, chattering teeth.

“I have some blankets,” he said. “You're going to freeze if you stay in those clothes.”

He threw the sodden dress onto the floorboard, followed by her underwear. Her skin was ice cold and white as alabaster. He gently wrapped her naked body in warm fleece blankets. He wanted to hold her, give her his heat, but he didn't want to wet the blankets that were keeping her alive.