Page 23 of Wired Courage

Jake shook his head behind Pim Wat’s back, narrowing his eyes and mouthing “No.” Igor must have seen because he grabbed Jake’s hair and yanked his head back to hold him immobile.

Thankfully, Connor shook his head.

The ninjas and Igor plunged Jake under again. He began his count, but the burn in his chest was immediate. His body was starved for oxygen.Not good.

Overhead, through the water, he heard voices arguing. He couldn’t make out the words.Was Connor giving in?Anxiety made Jake aware of the growing heat in his lungs, of the way his extremities were beginning to twitch and tremble.Eighty-nine alligator, ninety alligator, ninety-one alligator . . .

His head was yanked out of the water. A fist rammed into his solar plexus, blasting out his remaining air. He didn’t have time to breathe again before he was thrust under once more. His body went into shock from the pain and loss of air, and his solar plexus expanded in a reflexive gasp. Water filled his throat and lungs with liquid fire.

Something no one tells you is that drowning really hurts. Ocean water, river water, pool water, toilet water—it all burns like acid going down, then smothers you like a fucking anvil on your chest.

But he wasn’t going to die like this, drowned like a rat in a tub by these assholes. No way.

Jake got his bound feet underneath him and heaved up with all of his remaining strength, throwing his body backward.

The ninjas couldn’t quite hold him—that’s what happened when a two-hundred-pound, six-foot-two man fought for his life against a couple of hundred-and fifty-pounders. Jake got his face clear and tried to suck a breath, but his lungs were too full of water for it to work. Igor threw himself bodily on top of Jake’s head, and down he went again.

Red spots. Roiling water. Blows and pain. The roar of his laboring heart.

Memories lit his brain in lightning flashes:running with his sisters in a wheat field toward the sound of the ice cream truck. Happiness.

Dropping in a parachute over Cambodia—the rush, a sense of wonder at the beauty of the world.

Sophie’s face, her eyes closed, her lips parting for his kiss.

BLACK.

Chapter Eighteen

Day Twenty-Six

Dawn was barely a pewter glimmer on the silky black ocean when Sophie woke. She fixed herself a cup of strong tea, ate a tasteless but necessary protein bar, and went topside.

She reassembled the satellite phone and checked for messages:nothing.

“Damn thatspawn of a two-headed goat!” McDonald was likely in a bureaucratic meeting discussing her phone call. The CIA didn’t move quickly on something like this.

Sophie had charged the electric motor on the boat’s battery, but she still had to decide whether to try to swim to shore and leave the vessel safely anchored on the atoll, or try to get the Chris-Craft all the way to the coast on the electric motor’s charge.

She had a judgment call to make, but first, she’d contact Nam and check in. “Home Base, this is Pearl. Any news?”

The radio crackled. She called again, but Nam did not respond.

Had the island fortress been discovered? Or was Nam just away from the radio, doing his usual morning routine?

No way to know. And now she had to decide.

Sophie assembled her backpack of supplies first, to assess how much she’d need to move through the water if she chose that route.

The backpack was significant—at least thirty pounds of camping equipment and water. Staring at it, Sophie sat back on her heels, still torn. That damn electric motor was sure to give out before it was able to get the heavy speedboat to shore, and she was too familiar with the hazards of this ocean to feel comfortable just jumping in with a backpack and a pair of swim fins.

Was there anything she’d overlooked? What if the Chris-Craft had some kind of emergency inflatable? Or even a blow-up mattress she could use for more flotation?

Sophie began a serious search of the boat, going through every cupboard and bulkhead—and sure enough, in a far forward hatch she hadn’t noticed before, Sophie found a small, tightly rolled rubber dinghy. Less than six feet in length, with a flimsy collapsible paddle, the inflatable was not built for anything but a worst-case scenario.It was perfect.

Sophie unrolled it and discovered an emergency kit, complete with a water reclamation device, flares, a first aid kit, and an emergency beacon. “That makes me feel better,” she said aloud, missing Ginger again with a sharp pang. And Jake? Connor? Her heart thudded with anxiety. Sweat broke out on her hands. “They’re probably fine. Everything is fine. All you have to do is this, right now, Sophie—getting Momi back is the priority,” she told herself aloud.

She hooked up the pump she uncovered beneath the inflatable, and soon she had the tiny, bright yellow craft blown up.

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