Flood Rising (A Jenna Flood Thriller) (13 page)

27

3:26 a.m.

There really wasn’t time to explain, but Jenna knew she had to give Mercy something to support her leap of faith.

“We have to get to the other side of the canal,” Jenna said. “Best way to do that is to drive into it, and swim for it.”

“
Best
way?” Mercy countered. “I can think of a lot of better—”

“Mercy, we have to do this.
Now
.”

To her credit, Mercy didn’t balk. She cranked the wheel to the right and punched the gas pedal. The engine revved, and the front end of the car dropped with a violent crunch. The surge carried the vehicle forward, scraping across the edge of the bank until gravity took over. The car tilted down and plunged into the water below.

On any other day, Jenna might have been disoriented by the chaotic upheaval, but after everything she had gone through, the splashdown was about as exciting as a cheap, carnival kiddie ride. Her only reaction to the tepid water rushing in through the open window was to hold the phone above her head to keep it dry. Noah’s journal was going to get soaked. She had mixed feelings about that. There might still be a few more answers within its pages, but she wasn’t sure she could handle any more revelations about her past. And Noah’s answers seemed to lead only to more questions.

With the water level rising up around her, she stuck her head and upper body out the window and pushed off, swimming free as the car settled further down the sloping bank.

“Jenna?”

“I’m here,” she called, and she swam toward the sound of Mercy’s voice. The only light was a murky glow rising from the bottom of the canal: the car’s headlights shining into the muddy water. “Swim for the other side.”

She tried not to think about what else might be in the water. There were a lot of things in the ‘Glades that could kill a person, ranging from alligators and snakes to microscopic bacteria and viruses carried by mosquitoes. The canal was only about as wide as a two lane road and took all of ten seconds to cross, but getting out was a little trickier. The earthen bank slipped out from under her, dropping her back into the water. On her third attempt, her fingers wrapped around a tuft of Sawgrass. She used it to haul herself onto dry land, ignoring the dull pain caused by the plant’s serrated leaves, which tore into her skin. As soon as she reached the top of the bank, she located Mercy and helped her climb over the slick bank.

“Come on,” she urged, eyeing the rising light across the canal. Their pursuers were closing in. She didn’t think they would attempt to follow. With the drone keeping watch, they could afford the long detour required to reach the other side of the canal. Still, she wasn’t going to underestimate them.

Jenna had chosen this spot for the crossing for a very specific reason—a road intersected the canal here. Even without a car, a road was critical to her plan. She searched the darkness until she found the turn off, and then beckoned Mercy to follow.

Her goal lay a mile away, a fifteen minute walk at a brisk pace, but Jenna wasn’t sure they had fifteen minutes. So she ran. At first, the pain of her many superficial injuries, compounded by the gnawing emptiness in her gut and the throbbing pain of a persistent headache, made the run feel like an exercise in self-torture. But the situation’s urgency got her through the first few steps, and after that, she settled into an almost mindless rhythm, dissociated from the pain. Mercy kept up, and after a few minutes, Jenna stopped looking back.

The road led through a wooded area, deepening the darkness, but also providing some concealment from the drone still buzzing above. Not that they needed to hide. Jenna’s plan relied more on what they would do once they reached their destination and less on concealment.

She slowed to a trot and checked their progress with the GPS dot on the map. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and the phone display was painfully bright. She cupped a hand over it to shield the light, both from her own eyes and from the drone, and she squinted at the map.

“We’re almost there,” she announced. “There’s a turn-off just ahead.”

“A turn-off to what?” Mercy asked. There was a hint of irritation in her voice. She had followed Jenna this far without question or complaint, but seemed to be reaching her limit for acts of blind faith.

Jenna stalled a few moments longer until the promised turn-off appeared. There was a gate across the drive, a metal beam designed to block vehicle access. No one in their right mind would be traipsing around out here on foot after business hours. As if to emphasize this fact, a low throaty roar—like the sound of someone trying to start a chainsaw—issued from the darkness. Jenna could make out the silhouette of a large sign, just off to the side of the road, and although she couldn’t make out the words or pictures painted on it, she knew that it held the answer to Mercy’s question.

“Gator Station,” she said, clambering over the gate.

“As in ‘alligator?’” Mercy had heard the unseen creature’s bellow and her annoyance deepened.

“It’s one of those tourist places,” Jenna said. “Don’t worry. Gators are usually timid. They’ll run away from us.”

“So now you’re an expert on alligators?” Mercy stood, unmoving, on the other side of the gate.

Jenna did not consider herself an expert, but you couldn’t get through the Florida public school system without doing at least one or two reports on the apex reptilian predator. “They’ll leave us alone if we stay on the road.”

She hoped that was true. The place was a tourist park after all, and while that didn’t necessarily mean that the creatures were domesticated, she was pretty sure that there would be safety measures in place to prevent the animals from having free run of the park.

Mercy gave a sigh and was just starting to climb over the gate when a different noise disrupted the quiet. The sharp zipping sound came from behind Mercy and passed by Jenna’s head, making her flinch. It was followed by a soft, muffled cough.

She spun away from the gate. There was not a doubt in her mind that someone had just shot at them, someone close by, using a suppressed weapon. The noise repeated as Mercy dropped down next to her. The round pinged off the gate.

“Run!”

Mercy needed no further urging. They both sprinted into the alligator park. Over the sound of their footsteps, it was impossible to tell whether more shots followed.

As she ran, Noah’s old advice replayed in Jenna’s head—
run toward a gun
—and she felt anger supersede her impulse for self-preservation. Part of it was the memory of the man that she now knew was not her father, not in the sense that mattered. But mostly it was anger at having to flee. Again. She was tired of running. She wanted to turn and fight.

To do so would be suicidal, she knew. One or more of the men hunting her had followed on foot.

They probably have night vision goggles
, Jenna thought,
just like Noah and his team had used
.

Don’t think about that
, she told herself.
Focus on surviving. You can’t fight if you’re dead
.

Her hand found the pistol still tucked in her waistband. It had been immersed during the swim in the canal and she wondered if it would still fire. Probably, but until she could see a target, there was no point in wasting bullets.

A square silhouette rose up out of the darkness and then another. She had seen the buildings on the map. Gator Station. Trying to reconcile what she was seeing—what she could barely see—with her mental map, while running from a gunman, was a lot more difficult than she had anticipated. She recalled that there was a path around the buildings toward an enormous pond, which the satellite photograph revealed was brimming with alligators.

She veered in that direction, barely able to make out the path until she was right on top of it. The phone had a built in light that could be used as a camera flash or a flashlight, but using it would be a dead giveaway—literally—even if the men hunting her didn’t have night vision. And if they did…

If they did, then maybe there was a way to level the playing field. Without slowing, she took out the phone and turned it on. The screen display flared brightly, but she held it close to her body, hiding its illumination until she could activate the camera.

She stopped, turned and with the phone held high in her left hand, she thumbed the camera button.

Even though she wasn’t looking directly at it, the flash seemed to light up the world. The path and the trees appeared before her, and right in the center of the scene was a tall figure, caught in mid-stride, a pistol in one hand and a futuristic looking goggle covering one of his eyes. The image vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and when the darkness returned, it seemed even blacker than before.

There was an odd scuffling sound behind her and a snarled curse. Amplified by the night vision device, the flash must have seemed as bright as an atomic bomb blast. Blinding the man, however, was only the first part of Jenna’s plan. She aimed the pistol at the spot where the man had been, thumbed off the safety, and pulled the trigger.

28

3:41 a.m.

The report was deafening. The pistol bucked wildly in her hand, and she almost dropped it. In her haste, she had forgotten about bracing against the recoil. It seemed unlikely that the shot had found its mark, but the show of resistance might give the killer a moment’s pause.

“A little warning next time,” Mercy said.

“Sorry.” Jenna could barely hear Mercy over the ringing in her ears, and she didn’t know if her muttered apology was audible. Yet, she also knew that if another opportunity presented itself, she wouldn’t waste time keeping Mercy in the loop.

She turned back, using the phone’s screen to briefly illuminate the way ahead. The path continued alongside a building and split, with one branch leading to a small wooden grandstand and the other turning onto a long wooden platform that extended out over the alligator pond. Jenna found Mercy’s arm and pointed her toward the latter. As Mercy charged out onto the platform, Jenna ducked into the seating area and faced the path again.

She stood in a textbook Weaver’s stance, the pistol gripped firmly in her right hand and braced with her left. She waited for the man to make his approach. The lingering effects of the loud report faded with each passing second. When she held her breath, she could make out the sound of Mercy’s footsteps on the platform and the more guttural noise of alligators bellowing in the pond.

She let out her breath slowly, quietly, and drew in another.

There was soft squishing sound, the noise of wet shoes on the path. The sound repeated, louder and closer. She homed in on the noise like a bat using sonar to pinpoint a mosquito.

“Jenna?”

Jenna gasped at the sound of Mercy’s voice, a low hiss from the darkness, and pointed the gun away. She had almost pulled the trigger, almost shot her friend.

Even as the horrifying image of Mercy, dead at her own hands, flashed through her mind, Jenna heard the squishing sound again, closer still, much closer than Mercy’s voice had been. The man was there, right in front of her.

She brought the pistol up again and fired. This time, the gun barely moved. The bright muzzle flash illuminated the man for just an instant, and Jenna saw the surprise on his face as he jerked back, surrounded by red mist. She fired again and saw him go down.

In the stillness that followed, she felt the same rush she had experienced after her battle with Raul, a sense of power and victory. She had fought back. She had killed. And now she knew that she could do it again.

She kept the gun at the ready, but risked dropping her left hand to the pocket where she had stashed the phone. In the screen’s glow, she could see the unmoving form. He lay on his back beside the wooden railing where the paths diverged. A ragged wound on the man’s left cheek dribbled blood. The rest of his face was obscured by something that looked like a small camcorder. The lens end extended out from his right eye. The apparatus, which she assumed was his night vision device, was held in place by a web of straps that encircled his head.

She approached tentatively and knelt beside him. She laid the gun on the ground, freeing her hand, and then grasped the monocular. The straps were tight, and her first attempt to pull it loose caused the man’s head to tilt back and forth, a grim reminder that she was looting a corpse, but it also revealed a chin strap, secured with a plastic buckle. The strap was damp with warm blood. She fought back her revulsion and squeezed the clasp until it popped free. The head harness came away, and the monocular fell to the ground with a muted thump.

As she reached for it, a hand shot up and grasped her shirt front. The attack was so unexpected that the man—not quite so dead as he appeared—got his other hand up before she could move. In an instant, both his hands were around her throat.

She clutched at the gripping hands, trying to break the chokehold, even as she threw herself back. Both actions, fueled by a cold spike of adrenaline that raced through her nervous system, were in vain. The man’s grip was like iron, his body an anchor that held her fast. The momentary failure snapped her out of panic mode. She had the skills to escape, but they were useless if she let the primitive part of her brain take over.

She willed herself to stop fighting the choking hands. To let go. Hands free, she clapped her cupped palms against either side of the man’s head. The action elicited a howl of rage, but the man’s grip tightened. Jenna felt her thoughts go fuzzy. She struck him again, feeling the solid contact of her punches against the man’s face, the hard unyielding skull just below the surface.

This isn’t working
, she thought, almost frantic, and she knew why. The animal brain was still telling her to oppose strength with strength, but that was a battle she could not win. This man, injured though he was, was stronger, heavier and unlike Raul, he had almost certainly received formal combat training.
You know how to get out of this
.

She did. She threw her right arm up, and felt the immediate pressure as her collar bone squeezed the grasping hand even tighter. Then, she rolled to the right. The man’s hand, pinched tight by her upraised arm, was forced to bend at the wrist and his grip faltered. She was free.

Almost free.

As she gasped for breath, it occurred to Jenna a moment too late that she ought to follow up with a counter-attack. She drove out with her elbow, but the man twisted away. She landed only a glancing blow that deflected off his rib cage. Then her elbow struck the ground. The impact sent an electric jolt through her arm from shoulder to fingertips.

Then he was on her, driving his full weight into her like a football lineman charging into the scrimmage. She tried to twist away, but she was too slow by a heartbeat. He slammed into her, driving her back into the wooden rail with such force that Jenna heard something snap. The breath was driven from her lungs, and an almost paralyzing pain radiated from the point of impact. But the noise had not been the sound of her bones breaking. It was the rail.

The crack of splintering wood, the shriek of nails being torn out of two-by-fours and an underlying chorus of bestial hisses from just a few feet below, merged to form a discordant symphony. Restless alligators thrashed through the water before her, crowding together in anticipation of a meal. Then, with a stomach churning lurch, the rail gave way and she fell.