Page 82 of The 9th Man

They dove.

Almost immediately Luke lost sight of her in the dark water. What little light the moon offered was swallowed just a few feet down. So fine was the silt bottom that the water had turned to an impenetrable murk. His outstretched hands touched mud. He started kicking toward what he hoped was the inlet. In the absolute darkness there seemed to be no up or down, left or right.

Just forward.

He stopped swimming and listened. The V-hull was headed his way. He rolled onto his back in time to see it pass overhead.

Spotlights pierced the water from above.

The boat moved on.

He kept going and did his best to focus on keeping hold of the bottom rather than on what else might be down there. Jillian was right to be concerned about gators. This was their home. The burning in his lungs became unbearable.

He kicked off the bottom.

When his head broke the surface he snatched a lungful of air, took a quick bearing on the inlet, and dove again. He repeated this pattern, crawl-swimming along the bottom, surfacing for another gulp of oxygen, submerging again. On his third breach he caught a glint of light off to his right. The V-hull was circling, its spotlight reflecting off the surface.

A rifle cracked.

“Bubbles. There,” somebody shouted off in the distance.

A pair of rifles opened fire. The water’s surface boiled with rounds.

Jillian.

He had to do something. So he shouted, “Hey, over here.”

And waved his arms.

The spotlight swung around and pinned him in its beam.

The V-hull turned and headed in his direction. He ducked under with a pike dive and paddled hard for the bottom. He heard a string of muffled rifle cracks. Like tiny javelins, bullets appeared on either side of him. He felt a sting to his right calf. He turned left and kicked harder. The pitch and volume of the boat’s prop filled his ears. More gunfire came, increasing to a crescendo before abruptly stopping.

The boat sped away.

Was Jillian returning the favor?

Drawing them away?

After two more surface-breathe-dive repetitions he felt his belly scrape sand. He crawled forward until he was half out of the water and looked left.

The boat had come ashore fifty yards away. One of Talley’s men was wrapping the bowline around a mangrove root. Two more hopped from the bow and the three disappeared into the trees.

He lay still in the dark.

Unseen.

He was about to head out when something caught his attention. Ten feet away. The black form of a gator resting on the sand, just out of the water. Thankfully the reptile paid him no attention, hopefully resting with a full stomach.

He rose ever so slowly and crept away.

38

LUKE REALIZED HE HELD AN ADVANTAGE OF SOUND OVER THE MENfrom the boat. Or so he hoped. Talley’s men were moving together, or at least they would be for a while, so their passage through the foliage would be noisy. Hard not to be in this thick mess. Plus, they’d be in a hurry. Talley would want quick results. He and Jillian could wait them out. Hopefully she was thinking the same. So he advanced with exaggerated slowness, picking his way inland, the idea to follow the general course of the inlet.

“Hold it right there,” a voice said from behind.

He froze.

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