Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 86450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
What prepared me is who my father is, and the small fact that very early he taught me a rule about being outnumbered.
The rule is don’t be there to have those odds realized.
I take it all in and get my analytical mind spinning. One man is six feet in front of me. Another eight feet to his left and looking at his phone screen. The one who caught me on the bluff is ten feet to the right, his gun holstered. The other men are at the van. The dock edge is four feet behind me and the water below is a twelve-foot drop into frigid, inky blackness.
The odds are not good, but they’re better than waiting for the bullet to my brain. I lash out with my leg, kicking one man to the anterior portion of his knee, causing it to buckle with an accompanying scream of pain.
I’m running before he hits the wooden boards of the deck.
Two long strides, Russian men swearing behind me, and I launch into the darkness, executing a clean dive into the water at full speed.
The cold debilitates me instantly, every single nerve ending in my body firing into a million points of pain. For the first few seconds under the surface, I literally cannot think what I should do.
Luckily, my training kicks in and I know I have to stay under as long as possible. I kick to swim deeper, ditching the camera looped around my neck. My first instinct is to move under the dock, but I dismiss it, kicking farther into the deep.
I hear vague pops of sound from above and while I can’t see anything, I know they’re shooting at me.
Please don’t hit me.
Please don’t hit me.
I kick my legs hard, sweeping my arms in wide pushing arcs to propel me farther.
My lungs are burning, I’m getting dizzy, but I keep myself under the water. I’m weighed down by my tactical pants. My boots are the heaviest.
And in fact, there comes the realization that they’re dragging me down, and I need to get to the surface before I black out.
It’s a Herculean effort, but I angle up and kick hard. I see nothing but black all around and have no clue how far down I am. I kick and kick and kick and then I’m sucking in cold air.
Even as I’m gasping, taking in the precious oxygen, I spin myself around toward the dock.
All the men stand at the end and peer into the darkness, and I realize with so much relief I almost start crying that they can’t see me.
I also realize… the current is pulling me farther away and my legs are like rubber trying to tread water.
I shed my jacket and work on my boots next. I keep going under every time I have to tug on the laces because I can’t kick to stay up. After several attempts, I get them both off and the relief to my numb muscles is immediate.
One of the men now has a flashlight, sweeping the water, but it can’t reach out this far. They’re shouting at each other.
“She has to come up.”
“She came up under the dock.”
“She did not come up under the dock. I was watching.”
“Get the boat.”
“Get the boat, get the boat—”
“We don’t have time. We need to go.”
Yes, please just fucking go.
I’m alone. I’m freezing. I cannot feel my fingers. I’m being pulled into open water in the dark.
I think about my father.
Not in any specific way. Just a flicker. The way he sits at the kitchen table with his coffee in the mornings now, alone, and I think I’m sorry I’m about to do this to you.
And then I hear it.
An engine, but it’s not coming from the boat at the dock.
It’s behind me… out in the channel. It sounds small and there are no lights.
I turn in circles in the water, small waves lapping at my chin. I can’t see anything.
It could be a fisherman.
It could be the Coast Guard.
It could be more Russians called in to look for me, and because I’m an analyst, I have to admit it’s the most likely answer.
And then the engine cuts and it’s nothing but silence except for the slap of waves against my face and my own ragged breathing.
I can’t see anything in the dark out there. I don’t know if the boat is twenty feet from me or eighty. I don’t know if whoever is on it is reaching for a radio or a rifle or nothing at all.
Please be a fisherman.
Please, please be a fisherman.
CHAPTER 2
Finn
The Quartermaster is doing what she was built to do, which is run quiet on a moonless night with a hold full of contraband.
Marcus has her at five knots, engines barely a murmur so as not to draw attention. I’ve navigated the Salish Sea a million times, both in real life and in my dreams. It’s a marginal body of water between British Columbia and Washington state wherein you’ll find the Strait of Georgia, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound and an intricate web of connecting channels and waterways.