Devil's Harbor (27 page)

Still, he'd be damned if he was going into this thing with nothing up his sleeve.

*   *   *

Midnight.

Finn and Linda stood in the wheelhouse, peering into the darkness, waiting for Cutts to appear. Linda chain-smoked. Finn sipped a cup of coffee. He thought about how it had all begun when he and Diego had found the floater in the water on the northern side of the isthmus.
No, that's not right,
he thought. It had begun before that, when they'd intercepted
La Catrina,
again just a mile or so offshore on the leeward side; when he'd shot and killed Rafael Aparici
ó
n Perez. Now here he was at Two Harbors again, coming in from the ocean side, closing the circle.

Linda had set up a rope ladder on the
Belle
's lee side, ready to be thrown over. Just then, Finn saw something moving toward them from the harbor.

“There,” he said.

Linda stepped out of the wheelhouse and flashed the spotlight three times. The approaching boat replied with three flashes. Finn felt a tension in his neck. Two minutes later, the boat came under the
Belle
's lee, and Linda switched on the masthead light. Finn went out on deck, grabbed the line that someone on the other boat flung over the bow rail, and attached it to a cleat. He did the same with a line that came over the stern. Then he dropped the rope ladder over the side to the boat below.

“God damn,” he said.

The boat was one of the sleekest cigarette boats he'd ever seen—a millionaire's toy. Its long bow jutted out aggressively from a luxurious-looking cockpit in cream trim. Whatever was in the engine bay was growling angrily, as if traveling at less than fifty knots was an insult. It was a beautiful, luxury version of his own beloved Midnight Express Interceptor.

He saw only Serpil in the cockpit, holding a spotlight and dressed in a thick pea coat with the collar up. No sign of Lucy. No sign of Cutts.

“Get that light out of my face,” shouted Finn.

Serpil dipped his light.

“Where's the girl?” shouted Finn.

Serpil pointed at the forward hatch. “She's in here, nice and dry. You have the product?” he shouted back.

Finn wanted to see the girl alive. And he wanted to know why he was talking to this guy and not the Irishman.

“Where's Cutts?” he said.

“He got sick, had to go back to the hospital,” shouted Serpil.

Finn scanned the boat again. Something wasn't right. “Show me the girl,” he said.

Serpil hesitated before he shouted, “Where is Linda?”

It was a good question. Finn glanced back at the wheelhouse and saw her walking toward him.

“It's Serpil. He says he has Lucy below. He says Cutts is in the hospital. He wants—”

Lacerating pain seared through his thigh before he could finish his sentence. He looked down, saw the needle in Linda's hand, her thumb all the way down on the plunger. He looked up, saw tears streaming down her face.

“Goddammit, Linda!” he said.

“I'm sorry, Finn. He said if I didn't…” She dropped the syringe to the ground, ran to the rail, and waved at Serpil. Then she turned and stared back at Finn.

Finn reached for the handgun in the small of his back, black rage snaking its way through his bloodstream along with the drug. He saw the top of the rope ladder tauten and then Serpil appeared over the side and stepped onto the deck. The smug look disappeared from his face the moment he saw the gun in Finn's hand.

“He has a gun!” shouted Serpil.

“I didn't know, I swear!” shouted Linda.

Finn raised the pistol, the barrel wavering unsteadily between Linda and Serpil, his eyes seeing double. Whatever had been in the syringe was affecting him already: his arm felt heavy and his aim was completely off. He yelled at Linda to move out of the way, then fired off his clip.

Every round went high.

The empty pistol fell from his hand and clattered across the metal deck. Finn charged Serpil. He threw a right hook, but missed.

Serpil laughed, toying with Finn now. “You know why propofol is my favorite sedative?” he said.

Finn swung again, a left hook this time, but all he caught was air. He felt like every punch he threw was in slow motion. He started edging toward the fish hold, where he'd left the AR-15.

“It's so
fast,
” said Serpil. “Forty seconds and the patient's yours.”

Finn turned unsteadily toward Linda and saw her standing at the rail, staring at him.

“Help me,” he said.

She sobbed and turned her head away.

His vision blurred. His mind darkened.

Forty seconds,
he thought. He had no time to get to the rifle, let alone use it. He turned and lunged one last time at Serpil, who laughed and stepped easily out of the way. Finn let the momentum carry him across the deck. He kept going all the way to the starboard rail.

He threw himself over and fell into the cold black sea.

*   *   *

The water temperature shocked him awake. He couldn't see a thing, but he knew instinctively he had to find cover. He dived deep, did a tuck turn, and swam under the hull.

He swam with big sweeps of his arms, kicking hard with his legs. He scraped the backs of his hands against the
Belle
's barnacled hull. He was trying to make it all the way under her to the other side, but he had come up short. He felt the involuntary panic that kicks in when the body can't get the air it wants.
Keep going,
he thought. He pushed off the hull with both legs and forced himself on.

At last he made it to the bow and broke through the surface. He'd swum some fifty feet underwater, fully clothed, in the dark, with a powerful hypnotic pumping through his bloodstream. He felt dizzy. He gasped for air. Then he heard steps on the deck above and saw a beam of light trailing along the
Pacific Belle
's waterline. Serpil, sweeping the handheld spotlight around the hull. Finn took a deep breath and dived, hauling himself under the hull again, pulling himself along the barnacles like an upside-down rock climber reaching for holds, the barnacles cutting the flesh in his hands.

He got to the deepest part of the hull and started counting, “one Mississippi, two Mississippi,” determined to wait ninety seconds underwater, in the cold and dark, long enough to convince Serpil he'd drowned. He got to ninety and made his way back to the surface, his lungs burning. He was shivering, almost out of control. He was on the verge of blacking out. Moving at all demanded great effort. When he could take it no more, he found his way back to the surface and broke through for the second time. He tried to breathe quietly, but his lungs gulped loudly for air, like after intense exercise. It took everything he had to quiet his breathing. He kept scanning for signs of movement from the deck high above his head. He couldn't see any spotlight, and he couldn't hear any voices.

A moment later, he heard the growl of the cigarette boat's engine and saw her bow appear around the
Belle
's stern, the spotlight shining from the console. Serpil was circling the
Belle,
looking for him. Finn dived deep. He held on to the
Belle
's keel with numb hands and started counting. When he got to thirty, he heard the muffled sound of the
Belle
's diesel engine starting up. He broke his count and made his way back to the surface. He heard the windlass grinding and saw the anchor chain going up. The hull started moving forward. They were leaving, he thought. He had to move
now
—if the hull didn't crush him, the
Belle
's blades would slice him to pieces. Climbing back aboard wasn't possible—the
Belle
's sides were sheer. He couldn't see the cigarette boat. The hull kept moving forward, bringing her propeller ever closer to his legs. He knew that once the anchor was off the bottom, Linda would kick the boat into gear and the blades would start turning. He kicked hard against the hull and swam into the darkness.

He took ten strokes, stopped, and turned, utterly exhausted. He was shocked to see how far the
Belle
had traveled away from him in such a short time—he'd never make it back to her. The propofol had muddled his mind. He had no idea in which direction the island lay. He swallowed water. His body started to shake uncontrollably.

Then he saw the lone figure of a girl on the stern deck, silhouetted against the light spilling out of the wheelhouse. Lucy or Navidad, he couldn't tell. He shouted feebly. He used all his strength to wave an arm. He didn't know whether the kid could see or hear him across the night-covered sea. She didn't wave back. But a moment later, he saw her step forward, out of the light. Then he saw something fly off the
Belle
's stern and into her wake.

Finn swam toward it. His body was at the very edge of failure. He'd fought for his life, fought the propofol for several long minutes, fought the cold, but he felt himself succumbing now. He didn't think he was going to make it. He imagined the very worst. He imagined himself drowning, then being found floating in the channel, two stumps where his legs had been. He reached the spot where he thought he'd seen the object splash into the sea and found nothing but more water. He stopped swimming. Water washed over his head. He had barely enough strength left to keep his mouth above the waterline.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a flash of orange behind a wave. His heart leaped. With one last effort, he splashed on, swallowing water, until he reached the life preserver that he had shown Navidad how to throw to someone in the water. He clambered on, hung his arms over the sides, and wedged himself in so that he'd remain afloat when he passed out, which he knew he was about to do. He watched the
Pacific Belle
's navigation lights dim and then go out completely. He resisted wave after wave of drowsiness until he had no resistance left.

*   *   *

He woke with his teeth chattering and could not stop them no matter how willfully he tried to clench his jaw. The effort it took to move his arms shocked him. Movements he would normally make unconsciously demanded his complete attention. After what he perceived as hours but could only have been seconds, he finally managed to lift his hands, which he could no longer feel, out of the water. His fingertips were blue, which surprised him, since he no longer actually felt the cold. When he felt compelled to peel off his clothes, he remembered learning during his navy training of a symptom of hypothermia called “paradoxical undressing”—his brain was trying to convince him that his body was overheating.

He was grateful, at least, to still be in the life preserver. He stared at his blue fingertips. He knew the color meant he was hypothermic. Soon he'd lose his motor skills, then his memory; his pulse and breathing would slow down, his organs would begin to fail, and then he would die. His navy training had been meticulous about the details.

He kept staring at his fingertips until it registered on him that he could actually
see
his fingertips. It was dawn, which meant he'd been in the water for six and a half hours. He looked up and saw the slate-dark sea stretching away before him, and a curtain of darkness dropping to the horizon. But the sky directly above him was purple-gray. He realized he was facing southwest. He turned around, his movements clumsy, until he was facing east and saw first light spilling over the hilltops and brown-gray cliffs of Santa Catalina Island. He didn't recognize the stretch of coast, but he knew it could only be Catalina. The current had obviously carried him south from Two Harbors. He was no more than half a mile from land. He wanted to scream with joy, but his throat was too swollen from the salt. He began paddling toward the island. His progress was excruciatingly slow. His arms felt as though they had sandbags lashed to them, and his legs dangling underwater below the ring made him the least seaworthy vessel he could imagine. He stopped paddling and, with great effort, shifted his position so that his torso lay atop the ring, as though he were on a boogie board. That way, his legs were free to kick behind him.

Through salt-dried eyes, Finn noted the spot where the cliffs fell away into a little bay. He'd never seen it before, but he was willing to gamble that there was a beach within it, or someplace shallow where he could get out of the water. He looked at the coast south of his position (he could only go with the current) and saw no other option. It had to be the little bay. He started kicking and paddling toward it. If the exercise was insufficient to reverse the hypothermia, at least he felt that it was impeding its progress. The effort got his circulation going. The sun was rising and the world was getting warmer.

He'd been paddling for ten minutes when he felt his leg brush against something. His heart skipped a beat. He peered into the water immediately around him until his eyes adjusted to see through its surface. He saw giant, dark leaves swaying in the dark green water a few feet below and realized he'd swum into a kelp forest.

He started to paddle again, putting everything he could into it, trying to stay focused on the little bay between the cliffs ahead and not what lay beneath him. A few feet in front of him, a school of inch-long silverside fish leaped as one from the water and stippled its surface. Then he heard another splash to his left. He turned to look, but whatever had broken through was already gone, leaving behind a little patch of foam. He redoubled his efforts.

The island was closer now, its crumbling palisades looming high. He was almost at the edge of the long shadows they cast as the sun rose beyond them. He fluttered his legs hard and kept paddling.

When he was no more than a hundred feet from the mouth of the little bay, a large gray fin broke through the surface some twenty feet to his right. Finn felt a rush of nausea. His vision tunneled and he felt the urge to urinate. The fin slowly cruised around him. Then he heard another splash to his right. He turned his head and saw another fin. Sharks corralling him. His heart beat like a kettledrum.